Pelican Volume 82 Edition 2 Villains and Visionaries

PELICAN

Edition 2 Volume 82

villains & visionaries

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12

Do you need Dianetics? Lachlan Keeley is told YES

8

We welcome fresher Richard Ferguson to the Pelican family! (and bffl Colonel Gadaffi)

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34 Mark Birchall talks to Dexter author, Jeff Lindsay

villains and visionaries 12 13 14 16 17 18 18 20 22 23 24 25 26 28 29 30

the heart of dianetics villains and visionaries of transperth the trial pt 1 anatomy of evil villain’s guide to world domination electric pelican acid test murder house gone fishing pro wrestling pelican guess who game it’s a fucking politician why ponies are evil maid to get laid looking for keatings king koopers harry potter

music

31 oh mercy interview 32 reviews 34 short stack interview

Ella Bennet goes life aquatic & examines the issue of over-fishing

39

04 the word from the mountain 06 regular columns 10 evil eye: the kingslayer 46 howl

OMGZ!!! Bradie Webb interview!!!

26

Callum J Twigger gets kinky at a Japanese Maid Bar

film

35 festivoramalodeon 36 reviews 38 australian cinema: razerback

books

39 jeff lindsary interview 40 ben sex gets hot and heavy 41 scifi feature 42 reviews

arts

44 reviews

CONTENTS

03

REGULAR

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CREDITS Editors // Koko Wozniak & Patrick Marlborough Design // Wayne Chandra, Bec Kohn & Su-Anne Lee Advertising // Alex Pond Cover Art // Austen Mengler Arts Editor // Sarah Dunstan Books Editor // Ben Sacks Film Editor // Callum J Twigger Music Editor // Josh Chiat Politics Editor // Thomas Adolph

Sub-editors // Kiya Alimoradian, Mark Birchall, Ed Fearis, Richard Ferguson*, Mat Hannaford, Amelia Herriman, Ben Sacks, Gideon Sacks, Elisa Thompson, Elise Young

Contributors // Thomas Adolph, Kiya Alimoradian, Ella Bennett, Mark Birchall, Liam Blackford, Josh Chiat, Kevin

Chiat, Zach Doherty, Sarah Dunstan, Ed Fearis, Richard Ferguson, Rachel Fuller, Mary Gilloly, Alex Hargreaves, Kate Hilgendorf, Elizabeth Howard, Lachlan Keeley, Alexander Kennedy, Zoe Kilbourn, Jessica Kretzmann, Samantha Leung Bill Marlo, Ellen McGuckin, Robert Mead, Deblina Mittra, Michael O’Brien, Daniel Pillar, Ben Sacks, Gideon Sacks, Andrew Sutton, Giles Tuffin, Callum J Twigger, Claire E Twigger

Illustrators // Tom Adolph, Evelyn Froend, James Hale, Megan Higgins, Evelyn McNamara, Robert Mead, Austen Mengler, Evan Pearce, Elisa Thompson, Ena Tulic, Camden Watts, Crazy Scientologist Man

Austen Mengler

WHAT’S ON CAMPUS?

Austen is a professional illustrator who (in our opinion) has a frightfully keen eye for detail. Austen can illustrate anything, but is particularly skilled at horror inspired undead imagery and sci-fi/fantasy. He has also created a graphic novel. Definitely check out his nightmare Sesame Street drawings and much more on his Deviant Art page: http://lordnetsua.deviantart.com/

Marxism Conference

Run over four days, the conference features over 70 sessions and international guest speakers. Topics include radical history, women’s and LGBTI liberation, imperialism and the Middle East, socialist theory, the global economic crisis and workers’ struggles today.

When: 21 – 24 April Where: Melbourne, Australia More info: marxismconference.org

Equal Love Rally for Equal Marriage Rights

SIFE UWA Carbon Future Challenge 2011 Between March 21 and April 10, reduce your carbon footprint as much as possible and win a pool of prizes worth over $2,000. We have a new video competition, so that you can share your experience with the world. Winner will receive the latest Sony Bloggie Camera! Head over to http://carbonfutures.biz.uwa.edu.au/ to register!

Things have gone awry at Coolsville High! Can the newly formed Mystery Inc. catch the Frumious Bandersnatch?

The pantomime is audience interactive and M-rated. Scooby-Doo Origins will be performed April 14 – 16 in the Dolphin Theatre at 7pm. Tickets $10 Guild / $12 non-Guild.

Come and take a stand against homophobia at the Rally for Same Sex Marriage Rights! This is the first event kicking off another big year of action in 2011. Let’s turn the pressure up and demand full marriage rights ALL THE WAY! Where: Forrest Place, Murray St Mall Perth.

When: Saturday 19th March 1pm.

More info: equallove.info

PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH april 13 PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH woo raising money for charity PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH PROSH

Koko Wozniak – Visionary?

Villainously Visionary -

My mother screeches every time I talk on my mobile.

I’ve managed to tune her words out; after all, our brains don’t notice things that are no longer novel – an evolutionary adaption that lets us spend more time directing our attention to the ever-changing environment. In the same way that the first chord in a rock concert sounds louder than everything that follows, my mother – like a character in a film that flicks ten photographs per second – cowers over me, her mouth jaggedly saying words that I’ve heard before that when loosely translated to English, squeal, “don’t wait for the studies to come out to show that mobile phone use causes brain cancer.”

Your President, Tom Antoniazzi.

History has taught us that we don’t always know what’s good for us. The Marlboro Man’s lungs grew lumpy with deadly tumours, while the Radium Girls’ bones grew brittle and sickly. History forms the basis behind my mother’s relentless nagging: don’t press the phone against your ear, wear headphones. It sounds reasonable.

Until now. A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease published findings that in mice genetically prone to developing beta-amyloid plaques, a signature sign of Alzheimer’s disease, daily two-hour sessions of mobile phone radiation exposure led to a lowered prevalence of cognitive disruptions, compared to controls.

I’m not advocating that we all start wearing mobile headbands, pinned to our foreheads, but what may be “villainous” at one point, may soon be found to be “visionary” and indeed, beneficial in the long-term. Like with most things, it’s best to be sceptical. Clearly, mobiles do disrupt our brain chemistry and I’m not a mouse.

So no matter how irritating my mother is, I’ll follow her baseless advice, and wear a hands-free headset.

Up in the sky, look!

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s the Guild!

Fellow citizens of UWA, welcome to the second edition of Pelican – your student newspaper bringing newsflashes from around the globe since 1931.

This edition’s theme brings to mind my favourite superhero story – SuperGuild. In the endless reaches of the universe, there once existed a planet full of student organisations that burned like a shining star in the distant heavens.

There, civilisation was far advanced and it brought forth a race of student organisations whose representation and services were developed to the absolute peak of perfection. But there came a day when the Federal Government’s VSU legislation threatened to destroy this world forever.

One of the planet’s leading students, sensing the approach of doom, placed their infant child in a small rocket ship and sent it hurtling in the direction of UWA just as the world exploded.

The students of UWA adopted the child and soon discovered that it possessed amazing powers! Faster student advice than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a fresher’s naivety, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound (allegedly, never been asked to demonstrate).

For nearly 100 years, SuperGuild has assumed the disguise of the UWA Guild of Undergraduates and used its amazing powers in a never-ending battle for truth and justice: •

Patrick Marlborough – Villain?

Super-speed: The ability to raise almost $150 000 for charity in a single day. That’s right; PROSH is coming on 13 April! Get involved.

•

Sometimes I wonder if I’m a villain. Everyone is prone to dark thoughts. I remember watching Dirty Harry and wondering if I would enjoy hijacking a school bus as much as the manic villain on the screen seemed to be enjoying himself. To each his own I say.

Super-hearing: The ability to hear students’ concerns where no other human can. Did you know that the Guild is your welfare organisation on campus? Drop in to the Student Centre in Guild Village for academic and financial assistance, or advice on anything else you encounter during your time at UWA.

•

Super-vision: The ability to see hundreds of miles away – SuperGuild is a visionary! Our newest endeavour is the Guild Volunteering Hub, which offers you a range of volunteering opportunities. Drop in to see Ellie at the Hub, located across from UniPrint. Keep an eye out for other new initiatives throughout the year, including Humans vs Zombies and Teach4Students!

My notoriously ‘dark’ sense of humour may now be pitch black. This occurred to me when I was procrastinating on Facebook one night, and suddenly found myself reading all these death notices for “Knut”. In my dyslexic speed-reading I originally read “R.I.P. Kunt” popping up on everyone’s wall. “I loved you Knut, may angels guide you to a peaceful sleep” etc. There were so many mourners for this Knut fellow.

A local do-gooder perhaps? No. I discovered that Knut was a famous Polar Bear from the Berlin zoo, who had been rejected by his mother at birth and raised by a caring keeper (also dead). He was a national icon (Nazis + Polar Bears, not bad) and became one of the most visited zoo animals in history. 700 people were watching when Knut began walking in circles, moaning, wobbling, and finally toppling into the lake of his enclosure – his white bulk just bobbing on the surface.

700 people, mainly children, watched the beloved Knut die.

I must have laughed for an hour. I am not entirely sure why, as I am an animal lover.

But an atavistic chord was struck in me when Knut died. The idea of a celebrity polar bear in Berlin bent me in half. The stunned zoo-keepers hurriedly trying to distract everyone. The parents and their kids: “Mummy is that?” “Yeah, it’s a dead polar bear, let’s go see the Tigers.” The scenario was so absurd in my head, stranger than fiction, bizarre to the point that I was mad it wasn’t in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. I hadn’t laughed that hard in years.

Maybe this makes me a villain. But maybe Knut was. His keepers said that his strange celebrity upbringing resulted in psychotic tendencies – mauling other bears, and even imitating his audience. A polar bear Charlie Sheen. Villainy is a hard thing to quantify, but I’d find it hard to disagree with you if you said that my four hours of giggling at the death of a polar bear made me a prick.

To each his own.

(ed’s note: read out loud in old timey radio voice)

Above all, however, SuperGuild has super-strength because of the kind citizens of UWA who have nurtured this special child for so long. Show your support for SuperGuild by becoming a Gold Guild Citizen today!

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Our inbox is feeling very lonely and unloved! Have anything to say about Pelican? Without feedback, we will be forced send funds to “reputable” banana plantations and print a single A4 page with QR codes linking you to bestiality forums. Unclench us from Mojibtsu’s iron fist; send an email to pelican@guild. uwa.edu.au.

ED +PRES

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HOW TO

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Other Universities:

Villains or Visionaries?

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Let me preface this article by saying I am in no way anti-UWA. As a fourth year student I have enjoyed many-a-unit on offer at this fine institution. However, this article might still strike you as confronting.

“Other universities, what is this?” you ask. “My slightly superior TER got me into this Group of 8 Campus and I will have nothing to do with these inferior sorts.” Well, contrary to popular belief, some of these ‘subpar’ campuses can actually help us gain quite an advantage at our home institution. Read on.

One of the first ‘uses’ of educational institutions is through direct-toemployment or novelty courses. Many short courses, held in empty buildings at super-TAFE campuses, can train you in things such as non-burntcoffee making, cocktails mixology and bar operations. These courses of course extend beyond hospitality, but if you’re struggling to get a part time position while studying, it could certainly be worth considering.

Then we come to courses that can actually be credited towards your degree at UWA. At the time of

Bad luck dating Anonymous

Illustration by Lola Lin

Daniel Pillar

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writing, I have just completed an third external unit, via a certain online university’s service. These units have not only been easy (and cheap) but have greatly extended my hands-on experience in my field (Communications), and could do the same for you. Too often we hear “I’m an [insert faculty] student, but I’ve never actually done any [insert major] -ing because I’ve been too busy writing about [insert degree] theory.” The ironic thing is that even though these units are administered entirely via a screen, many assignments actually have something to do with what you would do in the workplace. Then, a well-written assignment can perhaps be used as a portfolio piece, rather than showing a prospective employer an essay about post-modernism.

So why don’t more students actually take advantage of these options?

Well, UWA is critical about students undertaking external studies. Some faculties disallow online units “because you don’t get face to face contact with a tutor.” While this is of course a factor, many students these days prefer online content, with a huge number of students preferring

I consider myself to be one of those people that would never hyperventilate or lose their cool in an odd situation.

If I were in a zombie apocalypse-type situation, I think I would survive – or at least maim a few zombies before my eventual demise – instead of just waiting to be bent over and fucked like a little bitch. But sometimes you find yourself in a situation so bizarre that your normally well-tuned sense of logic and reasoning goes out the window. You end up questioning if this is actually happening and going to the toilet to hyperventilate in peace. It’s like what would happen if you ever met your favourite celebrity, or if you’re a cheap

Lectopia to attending in person.

Also, UWA are themselves offering a select few courses through Open Universities, perhaps hinting that they also are gravitating in this direction.

But perhaps it should be considered that by taking units elsewhere, your home faculty misses out on however many hundred dollars per six credit points you complete externally.

Fiscally, that argument makes perfect sense, but as students it is in our best interest to get the academic experience best suited to us. And mixing with those who scored a lower TER isn’t a concern as it’s all through the interwebs.

But if once again seeing those sub80/70/60 TER students from high school isn’t an issue for you, you can still consider external units over the summer (or during semester if you dare). This last case of external study has perhaps been a well-kept secret.

There are certain ‘unit equivalents’ of particularly difficult compulsory units with far lower exam weightings on offer at the Curtin University of New Technology (they shortened the name after thousands of chairs were branded with that acronym,

prostitute and you find yourself under a sports car. What happened in your life?

How did you get here?

This was possibly the worst date I’ve ever been on. During the whole date – which lasted about one and a half hours – he only asked me two questions: Where are you from? And what do you do you do? The rest of the date consisted of him telling me how rich he was; how may properties he owned (one in Romania; who the fuck buys a house in Romania?); and how the Russians, the Romanians and the Japanese are cruel races. Then he started listing all the countries he’d ever been to – every single one. I felt like I was

so says the rumour). Again, policies about doing external units will differ depending on the faculty (and depend on how many majors you take) but generally, if you are allowed to take “optional” units from within the university, one must ask what the problem would be with taking units externally, especially if they will be beneficial to your future career.

Perhaps just don’t push it too far – you will probably have just as little luck as I did when applying to do “Beverage Appreciation” – an ECU hospitality unit for 6 business credit points.

Anyway, perhaps the ability to take advantage of external student policies makes other universities less villainous than we thought. It will undoubtedly be interesting to see what UWA’s answer to online study will be, as to whether additional courses or units will be made available online. One thing is for certain, however: Study is more accessible now than ever and the ability to learn a huge range of things without the barrier of distance – or institutional regulations – can only benefit the students.

on a game show with Andrew O’Keefe. It was so bad that in order to make it clear that I never wanted to see him again, I ended up trying to make it as awkward as possible by not filling in the moments of silence with my delightful conversation.

At one point we actually didn’t speak for 10 minutes. And the fucktard didn’t have the decency to – oh, I don’t know – ask me a question or two. Did I also mention that his mum makes his bed? If you think I’m fabricating this, dear reader, I’m not.

You might say that this date was even worse than the Holocaust. Oh! Wait!

That’s right! He didn’t even believe the Holocaust actually happened!

Pelican Road Tests

Street Art --------------------------

Rachel Fuller

The targets: Statues in the Perth CBD The materials: Second hand t-shirts spray-painted with, “I heart pelican” The mission: Under the cover of darkness, while all Perth citizens are sleeping soundly in their beds, make your way into the CBD and clothe all the statues in garments bearing our wise and profound message.

The Heroes: Your roving reporter aka Agent Double D and her trusty sidekick, Cat Man, dedicated to the pursuit of journalistic excellence!

Everyone seems to love interactive art and public performance. You only need to look at the popularity of exhibitions such as Cottesloe’s ‘Sculpture by the Sea’ or the viral internet phenomenon of the Lying Down Game to see what I’m talking about. Whether it’s guerrilla knitting, stencilling, graffiti or flash mobs, the newest form of outsider art is all about creating a public spectacle.

We are in an age where broadcasting your ideas to the public has never been easier; are we embracing a modern form of creative expression or simply encouraging highly publicised shenanigans? We decided to hit the streets with a secret mission to find out.

The day preceding the mission: We hit up a total of three Good Sammy’s stores to buy men’s t-shirts in bulk and kindly explained to the elderly sales lady that yes, I was aware that the shirts were not the appropriate size for me. Next stop was Bunning’s Warehouse for a can of spray paint alluringly labelled “volcano orange”.

The day of the mission, 11.42pm: We begin to run into trouble at our first target. The statue is too tall for us to dress – a problem that we should have easily foreseen. However, your heroes triumph over this folly by investing in some handy duct tape and strapping a t-shirt around the statue’s mid-section.

12.25am: Midway through our mission we are suddenly stunned by the bright headlights of an oncoming vehicle. The City of Perth council workers are approaching! After slowing down for an investigatory drive-by, they decide that we are not causing enough trouble for them to warrant setting aside their McDonald’s burgers and getting out of their vehicle. Phew, that was a close escape!

12.37am: Only now do we begin to realise just how long Adelaide and St Georges Terrace are, and how many darn statues there are along them. We are also beginning to regret the decision to refuel with diuretic energy drinks purchased from the all-night convenience store.

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12.39am: In the absence of facilities, your heroes relieve themselves in a partially concealed alley. Hide your shame heroes, hide your shame.

12.46am: All the statues in the CBD are sporting their dashing new garments and your heroes now have a new found appreciation for how difficult it is to dress a lump of bronze. We decide to bestow one of our leftover t-shirts on Eliza, a lady who is a popular target for the creative whims of the general public.

However, by the time we arrive at Riverside Drive, we begin to feel sufficiently drained and the Swan River looks particularly cold.

12.53am: The decision to leave Eliza in the pretty purple dress she had donned for Mardi Gras was unanimous. Your heroes’ energy levels have started to fade.

1.01am: Needing to find some alternative targets for our last few t-shirts, we arrive at the deserted UWA campus and find some sufficiently deserving statues to dress. We also meet a particularly friendly security guard who doesn’t seem at all concerned at our afterhour exploits. After all, he’s probably seen much more hardcore stuff.

1.28am: It may have taken us nearly all night but it’s now time for Double D and Cat Man to go to bed.

However tired we may feel, we are also overwhelmed by great pride and we congratulate ourselves on changing the world for the better. This is definitely not the last you will see of Double D and Cat Man. The day after: Did my secret mission serve to enlighten the public or was it merely a flight of fancy?

First of all let me say that Perth people are real party poopers! By midday, only a few of the CBD statues remained clothed. Apparently our message simply wasn’t appreciated, or perhaps the public just didn’t share my artistic vision. Either way, the midweek night time activities had taken their toll on me. The morning after the mission, I began my day with a sleep-in followed by a nanna nap. It seems that creating public art takes a level of dedication and stamina that far outreaches my own.

It is also evident that to create a successful artistic statement you need to create something a little more permanent than T-shirts on statues because there are people in this world who just refuse to see the funny side of things. Finally, embrace the cultural movement which sees us publishing our every thought or idea. Share your creative whims with the world because you just don’t know when you will come up with pure genius. Double D and Cat Man over and out!

ROAD TESTING

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DEVIL’S ADVOCATE

THE MIDDLE EAST UPRISINGS ARE BAD NEWS FOR US ALL -------------------------------------------

The international community seems to be suffering from another bout of the revolutionary flu. This time around, the Middle East and North Africa are ablaze with people power as the authoritarian regimes face an unlikely band of veteran activists, disgruntled students and the unemployed. These freedom fighters have many things to be angered about, such as abject poverty and political repression. As for the strongmen in charge of these regimes, the word “insane” is not inappropriate. Take everyone’s favourite, rambling, umbrella-carrying tyrant, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi for instance.

This is a region where the only shard of stability has been maintained by these governments. In a region that is threatened by a wave of Islamic fundamentalists who work to destroy secular government and view the West as devils, these governments have been on the front-line helping us to defeat them. These are regimes that control 83% of oil reserves needed to fuel the Western economies.

For all we can see, these regimes seem destined to be followed by very similar regimes anyway. Gaddafi and the Islamic Government of Iran came on the back of young revolutionaries themselves. We may cheer the revolutionary spirit of protestors but a tyrannical ghost may be merely waiting to haunt the world all over again.

With the exception of Colonel Gaddafi and Ayatollah Khamenei, the leaders facing revolt have supported the USA for many years. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in particular had a relationship with America stretching back to the Carter Administration. Of course, Secretary Clinton and President Obama abandoned Mubarak when under pressure during the Egyptian Revolution. Saving face is not on the minds of most people at the moment, but the US is the reason a number of these regimes have stayed as long as they have. To turn around and abandon them raises questions about whom they shall abandon next and the legitimacy of US support for any emerging leader, whatever their quality. Trust is important and acting tough towards staunch allies will inevitably

RICHARD FERGUSON

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hurt the US in a world where democracy simply doesn’t exist in most nations.

These regimes have kept many of us safe in our beds for the past few decades. The Mubarak regime is an example of how Western security has been maintained despite controversial methods. US diplomats described the involvement of Omar Suleiman, Egyptian intelligence chief, with America as “the most successful component of the [Egypt] relationship”. He was directly involved in the Clinton and Bush Administration’s rendition program, where suspected terrorists where outsourced by the US to nations that came under less scrutiny for their interrogation techniques. For all its malignant practices, rendition has led to the capture of several AlQaeda veterans, such as co-founder Mamdouh Mahmud Salim. However, the Obama Administration decided to let him go in favour of media pressure after cable outlets like CNN decided that years of complex foreign policy should be changed overnight because it was not fitting in with the general pro-revolution themes of their broadcasts. A good PR move at the time, but ignoring the long-term benefits of keeping Suleiman shows that these revolutions are being approached by Western governments with too much interest in CNN coverage and not enough on recent security results.

Middle East financially. During the Egyptian protests the struggling nation lost nearly US $1 billion a day. The tourism industry, which constitutes 5% of Egypt’s national income, is being slowly starved. Revolutions may be caused by economic circumstances but the rapid change has left this nation in a worse economic position than it started with. One wonders whether the intended ideals of the protests can be upheld when the leaders are blamed for a worsening economy. Financial matters may not be the sexiest component of the revolutions but this drastic shift in the Middle East will only hurt the pocketbooks of vulnerable workers across the globe.

A distressing argument against these revolutions is that they rarely help the masses live better or freer lives. The Middle East has experienced a similar phenomenon to the current one in recent decades. In 1977, a youth resistance began to swell against the US-endorsed Shah of Iran. America believed that their candidate would protect the region’s stability better than anything produced by a democratic process. Following the Iranian Revolution, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was exiled in 1979 and Iran was seized by a brutish theocratic regime.

Today’s revolutionaries may be secular but if they do not find proper structures and leaders soon, it is possible to see radical groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood taking control.

A distressing argument against these revolutions is that they rarely help the masses live better or freer lives.

The economy is usually at the back of the media’s mind during grand spectacles such as a revolution, but the pain of the recent unrest in the Middle East shall show its true colours as an abyss to the well-earned funds of ordinary working people. Oil prices are at $102 at the time of writing and they are sure to get higher, putting more strain on Western households that are facing inflation all round.

This revolution could get less support from politicians as rises at the gas pump lead to falls in their approval ratings. The unrest is of course hurting the people of the

Current situations also show how revolution is a dangerous path for the majority of people. Colonel Gaddafi has made it clear that he will try his best to destroy Eastern Libya since it fell to democratic rebels in early March. Some dictators have strong backing from sections of the internal society and civil war is more likely than a quick revolution, which merely extends bloodshed and slows any chance of democratic reform. The Middle East is facing a socio-political shift of cosmic proportions.

We can only hope history does not repeat itself.

Illustration by CamdenWatts

DEVIL’S ADVOCATE

08

NORTH KOREA, IRAN, SINGAPORE AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A COMMON THREAD

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“What says the law? You will not kill. How does it say it? By killing!” – Victor Hugo Can you imagine knowing, sometimes for years in advance, the day and time that you would die? Torture is legally defined as an extreme physical and mental assault on an individual; doesn’t the death penalty sound like a legalised form of torture? Men and women throughout history have called on governments to stop what is really the last state sanctioned method of murder. We worry about the ways in which states provide health care and fix roads, yet over 95 countries accepted the judicial death sentence in 2009. Its use denies any possibility of rehabilitation or margin for error, often failing to take into account the mental state of the victim and in many ways, continues the very violence of culture that it claims to be working against.

KATE HILGENDORF

The first death penalty laws were established in 18th century BCE Babylon where executions were carried out by crucifixion, drowning, beating to death and impalement. Although states have graduated from guillotines to lethal injections, infliction of the death penalty violates the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

So what must a person do to receive a death sentence? This largely depends on the legal system in which you live. In America, where 35 states still use the death penalty, a person convicted of first-degree murder who is unsuccessful in their appeal would be looking at a lethal injection.

----------------------------------------In Singapore, both nationals and non-nationals can receive the death sentence for lesser crimes. In 2003, Australian Van Tuong Nguyen was sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle 396.2 grams of heroin into the country. He was hanged in 2005, despite calls from the Australian Government and the Vatican.

In Afghanistan in 2006, Abdul Rahman was threatened with the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity (known as apostasy) whilst outside Afghanistan. Following increasing international pressure and condemnation, he was released under the guise of insanity and granted asylum in Italy.

No one is excusing the villains who commit the crimes. Ultimately, however, in the words of Sister Helen Prejan, “if we believe that murder is wrong and not admissible in our

society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well.”

Amnesty International UWA has its first event for 2011 coming on March 29! We will be screening an amazing film, My Tehran for Sale, and holding a raffle. Tickets are $3 for financial Amnesty International UWA members and $5 for everyone else. Email us at amnesty.uwa@gmail.com to purchase tickets.

We are a group of student activists who work passionately to promote and protect human rights. If you would like to get involved and meet up with likeminded people on campus, send us an email or find us on facebook.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

09

Catalogue Out Now full of Member Savings

Become a Co-op Bookshop Member today

Just $20 for a lifetime of savings in-store and online at

www.coop-bookshop.com.au Find your text list and order online with FREE postage

The Co-op Bookshop University of Western Australia – Crawley Campus The Guild Village Hackett Drive (Hackett Entry 2), Crawley WA 6009 Ph: (08) 6488 2069 Fax: (08) 6488 1007 Email: uwa@coop-bookshop.com.au University Co-operative Bookshop Ltd

DINNER FOR LESS! Head to Greco’s Restaurant on Broadway for a $20 Mid Week Special (every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday).

Normal price normally priced at $25 but show them your student card and get to choose from Chef's pasta of the day, Grilled Barramundi or Veal Parmigiana and get a glass of house wine, a Portuguese beer or a soft drink for just $20.

LUNCH: Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 12pm - 3pm www.grecos.com.au

DINNER: Tuesday - Sunday from 5pm.

Students can also get 10% discount off the total bill anytime (not valid on the $20 Mid Week Special).

Illustration by Evelyn Froend

evil eye

10

The KINGSLAYER ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Climate change policy has caused the demise of two Australian party leaders in the last three years. In feature this issue, Thomas Adolph examines the great Carbon Tax Debate and the possibility that it will claim a third.

If a ‘back flip’ in politics is a complete reversal of one’s position, Prime Minister Julia Gillard is positively acrobatic. Since 2007, her position on climate policy has changed from: 1) ‘against’ Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) + ‘against’ Carbon Tax (CT); to 2) ‘for’ ETS + ‘against’ CT; to 3) ‘for’ ETS or CT; to 4) Back to position #2;

THOMAS ADOLPH

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is: has 40% approval become a deadly number to haunt Labor leaders forever?

Kevin Rudd introduced an ETS proposal in 2009; it was rejected in quick succession by the Greens (who wanted lower emissions targets) and by the Coalition. A leadership challenge by Tony Abbott turfed the progressive (and cooperative) Malcolm Turnbull, winding the whole process back to square one. Reluctant to face another uphill struggle, Kevin Rudd was talked into dumping the ETS by his deputy leader, Julia Gillard. She insisted that it was an economic nightmare, politically sticky and wouldn’t help him at the polls (see position 1). She was right in one sense, but already too late – in Australian politics, even talking about climate change is toxic. In March 2009, the ABC ran the headline, “Rudd’s approval hits record high.” In

far less drastic measures reduce global output by several times the amount produced by Australia’s entire economy annually.

and now 5) ‘for’ ETS and CT. It was roughly at position #4/2 that she looked straight into a television camera and said: “there will be no Carbon Tax under a government I lead.” Yikes.

Yet in that moment she had no reason to doubt her own words – time and harsh political reality have made her a liar. Held hostage by her agreements with the Greens, Prime Minister Gillard is now forced to sell a tax she doesn’t like, to a population that likes it less. Labor’s strategy will be to wait out the outrage.

Just as Australia forgave Howard for “no GST: never, ever,” the PM will hope we get bored and lose interest. It’s a good plan. The greatest uncertainty in the growing debate is whether Julia Gillard will survive to see the policy played out. With her approval rating in the tank, speculation has begun as to whether the same “faceless men” who installed her might not knife another bad performer. The question

March 2010 they ran “Rudd’s approval hits record low.” Walking away from this commitment cost him one million supporters in a fortnight. Knowing that, Julia Gillard won’t mind being called a liar – it’s better than being out of a job.

In a cap-and-trade system (ETS), the government sets a target for the total national output of carbon – the “cap”. They then issue permits for each tonne under that target, which companies will buy based on their current output – the “trade” element. This allows the market to regulate the price; as the targets come down, the demand and the cost of the licenses goes up. It also ensures that carbon reduction occurs where it is least costly. A market-based mechanism is also the approach the rest of the world is likely to take – if you believe the world will ever get round to it. In that scenario, an ETS would put Australia in an international market.

A Carbon Tax would isolate us from it. With a Carbon Tax, the Government applies a flat cost on carbon – they’re basically crossing their fingers and hoping that a $20–30 per tonne cost will bring emissions down to the targeted level. It’s less predictable, harder to calibrate and has no market mechanism for absorbing the initial shock of a new cost.

No one in Government (or anywhere really) is arguing that CT > ETS, yet that’s what we’re getting.

The strange reality of democracy is that close results between moderate parties often produce Governments run by minority interests. The Greens are deeply invested in the Carbon Tax – in fact, they’re credited with its revival. If there’s any method behind what industry leaders have called their “economic madness”, they aren’t sharing it. Tony Abbott has taunted the Prime Minister that Bob Brown runs her Government. Certainly, the alliance with the Greens has dragged the ALP further Left than would have otherwise been their habit; they’ve entertained bills relating to gay marriage, euthanasia and the CT could only have originated from Christine Milne (Greens Deputy Leader). The Greens probably prefer a Tax option because it presents a permanent incentive to change – in fact, it sets the ideal amount of carbon production to zero. In a cap-and-trade, the demand for permits will decrease as the economy becomes greener; this decreases cost pressure. Essentially, an ETS rewards the economy for changing its habits, where a CT simply punishes at a constant rate. Julia Gillard claims never to take notice of polls, which frankly is a bigger whopper than anything she has said on policy. It is clear that she knows that her record downturn in approval can be laid at the feet of the Greens. Julia Gillard has distanced herself from the Greens, describing their views as “extreme” and their insistence on a CT as a “roadblock”. She has been stonewalled by Brown in the MPCCC and is forced to come at an ETS by way of an ‘interim price”. In making such statements, she is hoping to offload some of the public hostility over the Tax at the Greens’ expense.

THE EVIL EYE’S CLIMATE CHANGE FAQ 1) WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

Gillard has every reason to worry – she doesn’t have a million supporters to spare.

The term “Carbon Tax Lie” has crept into the parlance of even the most straight-faced political commentators and the polls suggest it is doing serious damage. On the back of their pledge to cull the tax at first opportunity, the Libs are enjoying a whopping 8% twoparty preferred lead. Unfortunately for Tony, he’s still rusted on in the high 30s as preferred PM. Both leaders now lag considerably behind their predecessors as the public’s preferred party candidates. Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull apparently look better with the benefit of hindsight – Tony and Julia will both be conscious that they are still on the benches, waiting to tag back in. Rudd’s cheeky recent comment may be telling: “I’m more likely to become the Captain of the Broncos than Labor Leader.”

It’s exactly what Julia Gillard said before knifing him for his job.

Tony Abbott has warned that Australians will be “taxed for being taxed”, paying more in GST, duties and rates as a result of carbonrelated price hikes. Julia Gillard described this as getting into “silly territory”, but strictly speaking, it’s true. All those taxes are imposed at the end of a transaction based on total cost. For example, building an office would cost more as a result of increased material, transport, furnishing and construction expenses. When the total cost of the finished home comes down, you pay GST, stamp duty, rates, etc. based on that inflated cost.

More simply, the average household will pay a difference of $300 P/A for power and 6.5 cents per litre of fuel under a CT; plus $28 more GST P/A, and 16 cents per average tank of fuel. Applying this kind of increase across every business in the country means we can reasonably expect come kind of price impact on every consumable good.

On the industry front, it could be more serious. Since most internationally competitive companies are producing identical products to their competitors, a price rise isn’t a way to increase profits – it’s a way to alienate consumers. On the one hand, we are taxing companies for choosing high emissions systems. This is an impetus to go green. Conversely, we are taxing companies for choosing to trade from Australia – an impetus to go elsewhere. Up to $5 billion raised by the tax will need to go towards compensating “emissions-intensive tradeexposed activities” – a mouthful you will

encounter more as the debate ramps up.

It is the key area on which the Greens and ALP will butt heads: heavy polluters whose shareholders will abandon ship if the Tax cost is too problematic. In order to keep them here, paying tax, the Government offers compensation for the increased cost of trading. This compensation will be phased out at a rate of %1.3 P/A until the ETS kicks in.

The remaining $5–6 billion will go to income tax cuts, aimed at alleviating household cost pressures. This translates into roughly $1500 P/A for lower-middle income households.

The tax’s threshold may strand a large swathe on middle income earners with inflated costs, no compensation and the same tax as always. How much of this they remember in 18 months will determine the outcome of the next election.

In a nutshell, Julia Gillard is a fixer. She salvaged the Mineral Resources Rent Tax by lowering the rate and lifting the pickup point. She basically watered it down. Her preference will be to do the same with the CT she’s saddled with, offsetting costs with tax cuts and exemptions. But the Greens will fight her every step, on the basis that cost impetus is the only language industry understands. If the polls go much further south, the Prime Minister will feel pressure to dump the tax.

She would never go for that of course; she’s on thin ice after only one back-flip. As we know, these polls are incredibly fickle – a good reason not to use them as a basis for assassinating prime ministers, or indeed, opposition leaders.

The world is getting hotter. There are earthquakes, floods, wildfires and tsunamis every second weekend these days, but unless you subscribe to the 2012 Armageddon viewpoint, there is no great rush to price carbon in Australia. Australians are per capita one of the world’s heaviest polluters.

That said, we contribute roughly 1% of the total global output. China and India’s far less drastic measures reduce global output by several times the amount produced by Australia’s entire economy annually. We can afford to make the transition incrementally, meaning there is no need for a Carbon Tax. Since ETS is the only system the US is even willing to talk about, it will almost certainly be the system the international community chooses. An ETS would be a bloody struggle for Gillard, but it’s a better system and she actually believes in it. The carbon tax will be a costly, complex and unnecessary detour.

The Federal Government wants to reduce the amount of pollution produced in Australia. They intend to tax carbon emissions by the tonne, making high-carbon products more expensive. You (the consumer) will choose cheaper (greener) products, and industry will change its practices/technology for greener alternatives.

2) WON’T THE TAX MAKE SHIT I WANT MORE EXPENSIVE? Yes, the cost of changing technologies will be filtered down through all levels of industry, whether you’re buying a piece of fruit – increased fuel, transport, refrigeration and initial sales cost – or building a new house – increased material, furnishing, transport, construction and rates costs. In fact, any Tax you pay at the end of a transaction (like GST, capital gains and stamp duty) will be increased by the Carbon Tax. But most of the money the Government makes taxing pollution will go back to lower middle income earners to cover the increase in prices.

3) WILL THE CARBON TAX MAKE AUSTRALIA LESS INTERNATIONALLY COMPETITIVE? Yes, for now. The Tax will only exist until an ETS can be negotiated. The Government is hedging its bets that the rest of the world will eventually price carbon too. If Australia has phased in an ETS by that time, we will, in fact, be ahead of the game. If not, we will essentially have made our own goods more expensive for no reason.

4) WHY A CARBON TAX? The Labor Party has wanted an ETS since 2007. The first one was rejected by the Greens, revised, and then rejected by Tony Abbott. They gave up on it for a while.

Since the election, the Prime Minister has pushed for another ETS, but the Greens won’t go for it. Their compromise is to impose a Carbon Tax until an ETS can be phased in. They’re talking 2015-ish; they’re being optimistic. If an international price on carbon eventuates, most countries will need to bring in an ETS (or equivalent), by which time Australia will (theoretically) already have adjusted its industry practices.

5) WHY DO THE GREENS WANT A CARBON TAX AND NOT AN ETS? Good question.

evil eye

11

THE HEART OF DIANETICS ---------------------------

LACHLAN KEELEY

I am not Charles Marlow – you know, from all those stories about boats and stuff by that Polish guy – but I am here to spin you a cautionary tale about a dangerous thing some people from the Pelican did.

Originally this article was supposed to involve some sort of interview with the members of the Perth branch of Scientology (the offices of which are somehow located right in the middle of the City next door to Good Sammy’s, to be specific).

However, in all likelihood, it would have been a horribly dry and boring article that would have revealed nothing new or interesting about a subject that has been beaten to death in recent years. So instead, this article will actually be about how fucking stupid Dianetics is.

The sign offering “FREE PERSONALITY TESTS” cemented our decision to go through with crossing the threshold. Many times before I had contemplated entering the building, if not for the uncannily nondescript corridor leading downward just beyond the doorway. This emptiness always seemed to signify something ominous. That this time there was a couple coming up the stairs (and trying very hard not to giggle) helped, too.

We gathered ourselves before the gateway and were greeted by an atrophied Russian (probably) lady wearing a prince valiant haircut and a long-sleeved black shirt promoting some kind of Scientologyrelated seminar. It was difficult to understand her accent, but she managed to guide us down the staircase. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of Dianetics. It was very quiet there.

The place was literally overflowing with Hubbardrelated paraphernalia. One corner of the room housed a literal tower of Dianetics tomes, all of which were shrink-wrapped to prevent prying fingers and eyes from exploiting the esoterica contained within (probably). That, or they just didn’t sell very well.

Our Russian (probably) friend directed us to a desk resembling a private-ballot voting booth and we each took a place at our own little cubicles. The only thing on my desk was a piece of paper asking “ARE YOU CURIOUS ABOUT YOURSELF?” in big blue letters.

There was no pen. The Russian (probably) lady had disappeared and I sat there feeling extremely confused

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until she suddenly reappeared with a cheap little orange thing that resembled a pen. She then sat back down at her computer and ignored us.

A shower of questions streamed out of the paper.

They were mostly ridiculous.

One asked: “Is your life a constant struggle for survival?”

Another: “Do you often sing or whistle just for fun?”

And another: “Do you tend to eat slowly” It dawned on us that we probably weren’t the target audience.

After completing the test and sitting around awkwardly, wondering how long the process was actually going to take, we finally managed to distract our Russian (probably) friend away from her computer and convinced her that we were, in fact, finished. She expressed a slight concern over the fact that she didn’t actually know how to process the results through the computer and decided to call two of her associates from the main building to help her. We continued to sit around awkwardly.

Her two friends arrived. They were both dressed in exactly the same way: excessively starched blue shirts and spotless black dress pants. They fiddled around with the computer and finally managed to spew out a graph of our personalities. We were then called into separate rooms so as to be informed about how terrible our lives were (in gratuitous detail, naturally).

I was confronted by a man named Rich or Richard or some other variant of Dick. He was the most intense person I had ever encountered. He also seemed to be deliberately bipolar, relentlessly leaping back and forth between describing how much he wanted to help me and then lacerating me for how bad I was at being a human being. He told me that “my cloak” was torn. I mumbled something about how bad I felt about this (my poor cloak!) and then he stared at me with something resembling contempt.

Suddenly the Russian (probably) put her shrivelled head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt — “It’s Moose and Squirrel, dollink!”

(I promise there will be no more terrible jokes about

her unidentifiable nationality.)

My overbearing pal then encouraged me to be more like the Black Eyed Peas. This was perhaps the most disturbing part of the entire expedition.

After he finished a rant about how much he despised everything that wasn’t Dianetics – “You won’t find answers in psychology. You won’t find answers in science! You definitely won’t find answers in psychiatry!” – I finally managed to convince him that I would certainly “check out Dianetics, yes, okay, I’m gonna go now okay bye haha yes I’ll probably come back,” and escaped back into the waiting area. Unfortunately, one of our group was still being interviewed so myself and my other compatriot were forced to enjoy some horrible instant coffee.

While we waited, Richard seemed to be staring at me through the glassy panel – staring with that wide and immense stare – embracing, condemning, loathing all psychiatry. I seemed to hear the whispered cry, “The cloak! Your cloak!”

After the third member of our triumvirate accidentally revealed that he didn’t actually have any money to spend on Dianetic therapy, he was released back to us – though not without having being confronted with the reality of his death spiral (with a poorly-crafted illustration!). We gathered ourselves around the coffee machine and prepared for a hasty, enthusiastic evacuation.

As we spiralled towards the door – back to the real world and our linear time plans – the three Dianeticeers advanced towards us, grasping Hubbard novels in their cruel hands and wretched grins upon their glistening visages. One of us had made the foolish mistake of voicing interest (albeit insincerely) in purchasing some of their wares. “He wants to buy the boook!” whispered the Russian, as she came closer and closer, sweat streaming down her forehead.

We ran.

Outside, we stood apart, indistinct and silent.

Nobody moved for a time. “We have all been confronted by our death spirals,” said one of us suddenly. A black bank of clouds now barred the sky and the tranquil road leading to the uttermost ends of Perth flowed somber under an overcast sky. We decided to get sushi.

CHICK COREA, KIRSTIE ALLEY, KATE CEBRANO, JULIETTE LEWIS, BECK HANSEN AND NANCY CARTWRIGHT ARE ALL SCIENTOLOGISTS. VISIT THE PERTH CENTRE TODAY TO JOIN UP!

Illustrations by Crazy Scientologist Man (no seriously, we're not joking)

VILLIANS

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VILLAINS AND VISIONARIES OF

Illustration by Emily O'Keeffe

We are not in the adult entertainment industry

Say no to PDA on the PTA!

As two girls without a license forced onto the nightmare of Perth’s public transport system, we have experienced the “tough”, the enthusiastic, the confused and the downright lewd villains of Perth buses. So there we were, cheerfully making our way to UWA’s awesome O-Day Festival, sitting innocently, when up gets a moustached male with dark glasses, who slides into the seat behind us. Carrying on blithely, we took no notice of this 30-something stranger leering at us from behind. Then, lo and behold, said creep decides to speak to us: “Excuse me girls, have either of you ever considered working in the adult film industry?”

Well, it’s not your every day average random that accosts two young girls and tries to introduce them to the life of moral degradation and unethical behaviour that is pornography. But yes, these two freshers attending UWA were secretly aspiring to be underage pornography stars. The student image is just practise for the role-playing. But seriously, what kind of sad, deadbeat loser approaches adolescents on buses with that kind of proposition? Well, here we have Exhibit A in the museum of public transport villains.

Jessica Kretzmann and Alex Hargreaves

The Devil I was on my way to the last day of a summer intensive unit, which began at 8am sharp. If you were so much as five minutes late, you would cop a 1,000word essay in order to pass the unit. So there I am running down to the bus stop at about 7am, a few minutes before the scheduled departure time, when the bus begins pulling away. The bus driver notices my desperate signaling, but with a toss of the head, which I could only interpret as maniacal laughter, he sped past me like a bat out of hell. I was given the penalty essay and now know that the Devil exists. He is in the employ of Transperth.

I am on a Transperth bus back from the airport one day, chillin' like a villain, when on hops a lesbian couple, morbidly obese and butch as the Sundance kid. They park themselves at the front of the bus, in the section where the seats face the opposite way. I'm definitely pro-LGBT rights and I don’t have a problem with overweight people but what I did have a problem with was when they decided to take their PDA to a frightening new level. It started off slow: whispered sweet nothings here, a bit of playful touching there. Before I knew it, one was on the other’s lap, fondling and leaving love bites with gay abandon. At the front of the bus. In full view. Of children. For around 20 minutes. I understand that they probably hadn't seen each other in a while and were keen to get re-acquainted, but for the love of God people, save it for the bedroom.

Alexander Kenny

David vs the Goliath of Transperth Once upon a time, on the way home from a night out in the City, I bore witness to a God among men – a man of the people and a visionary in the truest sense of the word. In the space of two train stops, this slightly dishevelled and highly unbalanced Titan managed to hit on multiple groups of attractive women, get into an argument with the security guards over eligibility for concession fares and exhibit some of his finest dance moves. Then he was off into the night like an oracle of things to come. To some he may be ‘that drunk guy on the train’, but to me he was David vs the Goliath of Transperth bureaucracy; a Casanova, a disciple of Dionysus and a purveyor of fine dance moves. He believed in a utopia that the world was not yet ready for.

Zach Doherty

Zach Doherty

THE REASON PEOPLE DRIVE ON THE LEFT IN BRITAIN (AND CONSEQUENTLY AUSTRALIA) IS BECAUSE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES PEOPLE WALKED OR RODE THEIR HORSE ON THE LEFT TO ENSURE THAT THEIR PROTECTIVE SWORD ARM (OL' RIGHTIE) WAS BETWEEN THEM AND THE PERSON PASSING THEM.

VISIONARIES

13

VILLAINS

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THE TRIAL PT 1 HAVE THE CRIME & CORRUPTION COMMISSION READ KAFKA? ------------------- PATRICK MARLBOROUGH PONDERS HALF A DECADE OF PHONE TAPS AND BREAKDOWNS -------------------

I spent my childhood surrounded by politicians. Parliament House was almost a home away from home. As a kid I witnessed backstage dramas that most journalists would pay a limb for. The friendships and factionalism, the fools and the foolhardy, New Labor and Old Labor, Union bosses and a strong hatred of Howard and Co. I was made up of these things. It never seemed strange to me. That was until my Dad, Norm Marlborough, resigned after being accused of corruption by the Crime and Corruption Commission in 2006. It was immediate – the news vans and journo-hacks set up camp outside our house as I returned from school.

The CCC pulled me out of the rabbit hole of politics, and then dragged my entire family into the Inferno – a six-year ride which came to an end with my dad being found innocent of all charges, on March 1 this year.

People have a skewed idea of the ‘Lobbyist Saga’. They imagine Brian Burke stroking a furless cat, paying my father to do his bidding. The truth is that my father was never charged with corruption. He never received any bribe, nor would it be in his character to accept one. The CCC operates uniquely.

They tap your phones for three years and construct a narrative that is then reproduced by the press, who then brand it into the public’s consciousness. The first editorial in The West read something like ‘Marlborough Takes $5000 Bribe.’ The $5000 came from David McKenzie who owned the Smiths

Beach Development; the money was given in exchange for five tickets to an ALP fundraising dinner and receipted legally. However, The West Australian, following the CCC’s line of questioning ran headlines that accused my father of accepting bribes. Within a week, the CCC took him to trial. The line of questioning was dropped; the CCC never charged Dad of bribery. Neither they nor The West Australian raised the “missing” $5,000 again. But the damage was done. The headlines killed my father’s career and he resigned immediately, a broken man. Considering how long the CCC had been monitoring my family, it is impossible that they would not have known that my father did not accept a bribe. They had used public outrage to manoeuvre him out of office. This was just the beginning.

My father’s resignation shocked me. Dad worked 18-hour days – even before he was a Minister – and was insanely popular in his electorate (Peel). He was the archetypal Old Labor man: self educated, working class, origins in the Union movements and charismatic to the point where it was a hindrance. Dad was the only state politician to consistently increase their seat margin with each election. His boisterous persona and wry sense of humour always seemed, in my opinion, to contrast the meekness of his colleagues (McGowen, Carpenter). Even three years into his retirement, Dad still received calls from people in his old electorate who needed help. His absence was something I resented when I was young but grew to understand as I got older. After he resigned from a political career that spanned 21 years, he looked as though his ghost had gone with his career – I’d never seen Dad look empty.

The CCC’s public hearings moved from allegations of corruption to an examination of the influence of lobbyists, namely Dad’s close friend, Brian Burke. They claimed that Dad had agreed to help Burke appoint Beryle Morgan to a Government committee. A political impossibility, as a Cabinet Minister couldn’t do this solo. The media did its best to paint Burkey as a Don Corlione archetype who played Dad like a pawn. Burkey was a bad person to be friends with under the

Carpenter/McGinty state Labor party, but he had also been my Dad’s best friend since the late 1960s – the best man at my folks’ wedding.

Suddenly, Burke was a manipulative monolith controlling state politics, his vice-like grip on my father’s balls. This was the narrative the CCC had constructed and the media peddled. I don’t think Burke successfully manipulated my father on any level – as has been proven – but I wouldn’t discount him as a manipulative person. McGinty had started the CCC and hated Burke. Dad was caught in the middle of a 30-year political feud between two Catholic school boys who never lost their superiority complexes. The CCC was becoming increasingly vague as to why Dad was in Court at all. In the end, he was charged not with corruption but with a strange offense that he committed during the actual trial: misleading the CCC. The ongoing allegations and trials were drawn out and unpredictable, and slowly dissolved my father’s sanity and that of my family. It is odd to watch a parent deteriorate in front of you. Dad’s rolly-polly laughter and Chiffleyesque mannerisms faded. He looked like an old Elvis, broken and sitting in our lounge watching TV. His mood swings (once fairly predictable) became erratic. He still possessed that self-deprecatory humour, but it now seemed to have an element of self harm in it.

I was filled with loathing for the foggy figure of the CCC. With his silver-streaked hair and obsessive impulses, Dad became a domestic Captain Ahab. “I need chickens!” he declared.

We spent tens of thousands of dollars on mental health care for my father – to say he went mad is to put it simply. At the age of 16, I struggled to deal with my Dad’s horrifying transformation. If it wasn’t for my mother and her family I think he’d have killed himself.

The CCC haunted me. Discovering that they had been ‘bugging’ our house for the past three years was akin to discovering a ghost under my bed. Julian Grill’s son once came home to find an ‘agent’ in their house planting ‘bugs’. He kicked him out. Their powers of surveillance stem from their origins as a body designed to find corruption in the Police Force (this has been recently compromised

though Burke and Grill warned him against it. I too had doubts. The public never look favourably on a politician, especially when they only recognise them from sensational headlines and talkback bile. “I’ve always trusted the people,” said Dad, “they kept me in public life for 35 years. I trust the system.” I was too cynical to understand this and mistook it for naivety.

The CCC haunted me.

Discovering that they had been ‘bugging’ our house for the past three years was akin to discovering a ghost under my bed. by the two working together to bust Bikie gangs). The broad legislation, brought in by Jim McGinty, meant that the CCC became a dragnet – their powers turning to public officials, politicians and private citizens.

They can gain approval to tap your phone, secretly film you and bug your house by convincing a judge (in secret) that there was a possibility of a crime warranting a five-year jail term, or more. It is horrible to think that when I was 15, my late night confessions of love to girls were being monitored by some bureaucrat. Once you know you are being taped, you live in a world of paranoia. My parents, together for over 40 years, could no longer have personal conversations in their own house. The right to privacy is perhaps the most sacred right of a citizen in a democratic country and the CCC took that away from me. To this day, I still have the feeling of being ‘haunted’, that my phones are bugged and that any correspondence is being read by an invisible figure. It is not a feeling you recover from, and I doubt I ever will.

The CCC takes advantage of the psychological pressure. The public trial is the worst part of it. The CCC orchestrates an onslaught of bullshit from “journalists” and the corresponding public outrage makes the possibility of a fair trial by jury slim. They withheld information vital to my father’s defence and only released it the day before his trial. Out of thousands of hours of phone recordings, they take three to five minute snippets and lend little context to them.

Snippets such as my dad saying “it’s a done deal” to Brian Burke seemed shocking when played selectively but lost all meaning when given context. Then there are the smaller gestures. The CCC would only call on us during Holiday seasons – the week before Christmas or Good Friday – arriving early in the morning dressed like the M.I.B. The absurdity of the legal process and their bullying tactics leave you feeling hopeless.

Dad finally had his trial in 2009 – after three years of it looming like the sword of Damocles.

Dad insisted on going in front of a jury even

Dad suffered a final humiliation when he was kept in a holding cell during the trial.

He had to have a ‘full body search’ and sat with (alleged) petty thieves, pub brawlers and vandals.

Ingham and Lynch led the CCC inquiry into Smiths Beach. Both had once received serious scrutiny from Malcolm McCusker QC, the Parliamentary Inspector who oversaw the CCC’s conduct. McCusker’s criticisms of the CCC make an interesting read, but he found himself on the receiving end of the CCC’s resentment (as well as Jim McGinty’s).

Ingham and Lynch reminded me of Chico and Harpo Marx – their behaviour in court was marked by short tempers and comical hypocrisy. Dad’s lawyer, Phillip Dunn, pointed out that during McCusker’s enquiry into the CCC Lynch had claimed that he had no recollection of events that had occurred on 17 occasions. Lynch then challenged the court to remember what they had said yesterday. The irony was not lost on anyone as the CCC had charged Dad with lying to them after failing to “recall” a phone conversation he’d had over a year ago.

The trial seemed too short to me and the jury looked bored – one nodded off intermittently.

They decided that Dad was not-guilty of intending to appoint Beryle Morgan to a Government committee. They did, however, find him guilty of lying about whether or not Brian Burke demanded that he do so – a somewhat contradictory decision that was acknowledged as such by Chief Justice Martin.

We accepted the decision. After what felt like a six-year trial, my family was happy to be rid of the looming spectre of the CCC. My Dad’s health and career were destroyed. The electricity was gone from his eyes.

Dad was uncertain but the CCC’s failures to charge Grill or “nail” Burke, as well as encouragement from the CCC’s critics in the legal community, convinced him to appeal

the decision. On March 1, 2011, my Dad and Mum went to court for the final time, with Malcolm McCusker QC as their lawyer. In the space of two minutes, Dad was found innocent by the full bench of the Supreme Court.

“I bet you’re glad that’s over!” was the friendly consensus of most people. In reality, any ending was going to be unsatisfying. The experience was a prolonged trauma. Franz Kafka could not have envisioned it in a vivid nightmare. Like Josef K. of The Trial, Dad was never guilty of anything, so the declaration of his innocence really put the pointlessness of the entire saga into perspective. My view of the CCC is now this: They spent over 50 million dollars on the ‘Lobbyist’ trials which have all resulted in nothing. They destroyed my father’s life and have shown no sympathy.

To me, the CCC appears as a tool forged by a paranoid ALP to purge the party of the Old Right. It is a Government eater – Carpenter and McGinty let it loose like a wild animal and seemed surprised when it toppled their pithy regime. Barnett obviously recognised this, and has been trying to keep a safe distance.

The CCC was the Claudius of my teens. Now it epitomises bureaucratic inefficiency while subverting core democratic values. It revealed to us our fair weather friends and tested those who love us. I don’t expect a muffin basket with an apology card signed by the CCC, the media, ex-colleagues, or my Nanna to arrive anytime soon. The CCC crippled my parents financially and emotionally, and has dictated an uncomfortable retirement. They have left me paranoid and bitter. Trying to fit the whole experience into two pages has made me ill. I need a fucking novel.

END NOTE: Old Dad is not completely gone.

If you ever go to the Kwinana Christmas Carols, you can witness his electorate bullying him on stage to perform his cult version of “the brown cow song”.

VISIONARIES

15

The Anatomy of Evil What’s wrong with your face?

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In Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Grey, the protagonist’s face stays eternally youthful and pure while his portrait changes to reflect how each act impacts on his soul. As Dorian slips further into vice and crime, each sin is displayed as a disfigurement, or as a sign of ageing. When Dorian dies and takes the form of his portrait, his depraved actions have so disfigured his body that the police can only identify him by the rings on his fingers.

Wilde may have used the portrait’s appearance as a metaphor for Dorian’s degeneration, but it is also indicative of a long-running belief that you can judge a person’s character based on their physical appearance. Dorian’s handsome, youthful visage helped him avoid suspicion, and good looks have similarly helped criminals such as Ted Bundy gain the trust of their victims and the sympathy of the courtroom. Even so, on some deeply intuitive level we still persist with the idea that good-looking people are more likely to be truthful, intelligent and good-natured. By

Illustration by Camden Watts

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Ben Sacks --------------------------------------

the same token, we believe that there are some physical markers that just scream “evil”.

Admittedly, a lot of this is tongue-in-cheek. The addition of a Hitler moustache makes anyone an instant pantomime villain. The “Mirror, Mirror” episode of Star Trek: The Original Series established a goatee as the most instantly recognisable – and easily parodied – physical marker of evil of the past 50 years. Other physical markers of villainy include a diabolical laugh, deliberate and sinister enunciation, relentless leering, hand-rubbing and the wearing of black capes. Facial expressions also help, with a constant sneer and manic glee being personal favourites. These melodramatic portrayals of villainous characters are products of the stage and screen, where they are useful in allowing an audience to easily identify and follow the story.

criminology. Cesare Lombroso’s seminal book, Criminal Man, presented “scientific evidence” to the effect that certain features indicated particular types of criminal: non-whites were atavistic; murderers have prominent jaws; a lopsided grin indicates a propensity for violence; whereas poisoners have “a fawning smile”.

Prosecutors used these arguments as “evidence” against accused criminals until the 1930s.

Sometimes, however, we use the same principle in the real world. There were 68 films made between 1960 and 2006 featuring an “evil albino” character, but this reflects attitudes towards albinism around the world. Albinos are still considered “creepy” in the West, while many traditional societies around the world consider albinos to be cursed, or practicing witchcraft.

Red-headedness is another example: medieval folk associated red hair with hot-headedness, beastly sexual desire and moral degeneration.

The idea that redheads are inferior and dangerous has been rife ever since: in the last 10 years the UK has seen a 20-year-old stabbed for “being ginger”; a former Equality Minister calling another parliamentarian “a ginger rodent”; and a major supermarket printing Christmas cards with an image of a red-headed child sitting Santa Claus’ lap, and the words: “Santa loves all kids. Even ginger ones”. Ho, ho, ho indeed!

The 20th century saw these ideas gradually dismissed as Lombroso’s work was subject to thorough statistical studies. There was an attempt to link body type to criminality in the 1940s, but this was, again, largely discredited with rigorous statistical investigation. The only robust correlations between physical appearance and criminality seemed easily explained by lifestyle, education and nutrition.

However, physiognomy is by no means dead. A recent paper used ice hockey players’ disciplinary records to argue that male aggressiveness could be predicted by considering the ratio between the width of the face and its height. This correlation is explained by the effect that a higher level of testosterone has on men’s facial structures.

Moreover, ‘Ugly Criminals’, a 2006 study by Naci Mocan and Erdal Tekin, determined that there was a significant correlation between ugliness and the likelihood someone would end up in jail for robbery, drug dealing and assault. Having controlled for socio-economic status, the authors determined that unattractive people faced two handicaps. Firstly, they were less likely to get a job because of their ugliness, providing a direct incentive toward criminal activity. Secondly, women who were unattractive at high school were less likely to develop “human capital” – the collection of skills, knowledge and personality attributes needed to perform a job – and hence more likely to turn to crime.

Given the obvious link between red hair and evil, it is perhaps unsurprising that human beings have devised intricate theories devoted to judging a person’s character from their external appearance, especially the face. The ancient Greeks gave us the “science” of physiognomy, where different facial elements were linked to personality traits. For example, curved eyebrows signified friendliness, while close-set eyes indicated an untrustworthy soul. Physiognomy largely fell out of favour until the 19th century, when it was rebranded as a science and used in

It seems then that there may indeed be a link between how we look and how “evil” we are, or at least how likely we are to commit a crime. But it would be a mistake to think that it is these physical attributes that cause criminal behaviour.

Instead, our attitudes towards these physical markers places people in a position where they are more likely to turn away from the straight and narrow. As with beauty, the creation of evil is – at least to some degree – in the eye of the beholder.

Less attractive tropical guppies have been shown to have “better” sperm. Apparently the more “attractive” and flamboyant fish invest too much in their appearance at the expense of their sperm.

Illustration by Camden Watts

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A Villain’s Guide to World Domination Is Australia’s political system really all that stable?

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Villainy is, at its core, a profession. Similar to becoming an engineer, doctor or lawyer one must train for years in their chosen discipline to become adept at it. However, unlike a doctor or lawyer, there are no undergraduate degrees or TAFE courses that can aid you in becoming a villain.

Personally, I have been called a bastard many, many times throughout the course of my life (mainly by women for some reason). So I sympathise with ostracised villains everywhere, and thought I would take time out of my busy schedule of knitting and abusing telemarketers to provide them with some advice.

All first-class villains thirst for power, it’s in their nature.

World domination is a common goal that many of us pursue, but are unsure of how to achieve it. It may sound challenging, but it is easier than you think. Thanks to Australia’s vague constitution it is possible -with a bit of luck and a pinch of merciless violence – to gain complete control of the armed forces and the government.

This all began when the Australian constitution was being drawn up in the 1890s. The Australian system of government was based mainly on the British ‘Westminster’ system and so many of the system’s conventions were already known and understood. Thus, many of these conventions are left out completely or are not explicitly stated in the Australian constitution.

For example, in reality, the Prime Minister is the Head of Government, however the Prime Minister is not mentioned in the constitution at all. Most of the powers of executive government are, in fact, held by the Governor-General. He or she selects the federal cabinet, can refuse to pass laws and has supreme control over the military. The GovernorGeneral can also shut down parliament for up to a year on a

Mark Birchall --------------------------------------

whim, leaving you plenty of time to send politicians to hard labour camps (something which should be done regardless of whether anybody is taking over Australia). This means that the Governor-General theoretically controls the armed forces, the government and the legislature. And that is why if you want to usurp power, it is a good position to hold.

Some other tips for achieving supreme control of Australia include creating your own paramilitary force. This may also seem like a challenge, but allow me to put things in perspective. The left-wing pressure group GetUp! has some 300,000 + members. In contrast, the Australian Defence Force has 100,000 members (including the caterers, clerks and obese reservists). If you can sign up one in every 70 people to your cause, you would have a group three times the size of the Australian Defence Force at your disposal.

This in turn is not a hard thing to do; millions of people follow and support social media celebrities on YouTube or Twitter. Charlie Sheen recently got 900,000 followers in the space of a day on Twitter. If you could pull that off you’d have nine people for every one in the Australian Defence Force.

So now that you’ve raised this massive force of supporters (preferably by posting a video of a cat playing a guitar on the internet) what are you supposed to do with them?

Intimidate the government.

When the KKK was at the height of its popularity in the early 20th century, its members were in excess of four million people. Obviously this was much larger than the US military at the time, and so the US government had to appease the KKK. If a government can put up with four million racists, then they can put up with a few hundred thousand bogans. It is at this point that you may want to consider naming your organisation something fairly

passive, such as the “Barbeque and Kittens Appreciation Movement”. This will surely throw ASIO off your scent and you won’t have to do much more given their blatant incompetency. Just make sure you don’t mention the words ‘Refugees’, ‘illegal fishing’ or ‘tax evasion,’ as these are the few areas that ASIO does operate in when they aren’t busy using their only office computer to play Solitaire.

So now all you need to do is befriend the Governor-General (unlikely, as Quentin Bryce has no friends) or assume a role of political significance. Becoming the Prime Minister allows you to select the new Governor-General so appoint a friend who is in on your plan or get appointed yourself.

This hopefully won’t be too hard, given that you have 300,000 volunteers to mobilise for political campaigning.

Furthermore most politicians have the charisma of a glass of milk, and thus anybody ‘normal’ who can annunciate is a shoe-in to win the next federal election.

Once this is achieved, two things can happen. You can either blunder and have your ‘popular uprising’ crushed, or you can use violence and intimidation to ruthlessly exterminate any resistance and assume the position of Supreme Ruler of Australia. In the case of the latter you can then get down to important business such as returning Tasmania to its status as a penal colony, or preparing to invade New Zealand (use of napalm is authorised).

You may be wondering: ‘But what about people power?

Surely Australians everywhere would rise up and unite against such evil!” Well, you’d be wrong. Political climate is always an important factor in such ‘revolutions’ and in Australia the climate is almost perfect. Shut your eyes for a moment and try to picture somebody picking up a gun and fighting to defend Tony Abbott, or Julia Gillard.

Exactly. That’s never going to happen.

Saddam Hussein’s favourite food in prison was Doritos sprinkled with a little bit of water.

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THE ELECTRIC PELICAN ACID TEST ----------------------------------------------------------------------

I am sitting on the grass eating fruit salad that tastes like cardboard. My friends and I pass the container around and I watch as a trickle of juice escapes the mouth of one girl. She laughs.

“Am I eating fruit?” I ask, and the people around me nod. I squint at my plastic fork – three prongs?

Four prongs? Five? – spearing a colourful object.

“But am I actually eating fruit?”

They nod a little slower this time.

ELISA THOMPSON

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In this senseless moment we find the question that is central to the LSD debate. Since its discovery by Swiss chemist, Albert Hofmann, in 1938 there has been much discussion and experimentation as to the intellectual and inspirational properties of the drug. So what does acid really do? Does it turn us into philosophers or fools? Artists or amateurs? Villains or visionaries?

LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is a semi-synthetic psychedelic drug that causes altered psychological and sensory perception, commonly known as a “trip”. Official research of the drug began in the US in the 1950’s by the CIA. LSD was administered to CIA employees, military personal, various professionals, mentally ill patients, and members of the general public. One such experiment had an artist drawing nine different portraits, over the course of eight hours after ingesting the drug. The first drawing, 20 minutes in, shows that he is virtually unaffected. After 85 minutes and a second dose, the pictures become erratic, and the artist is described as “euphoric”, saying, “I can see you clearly, so clearly. This... you... it’s all ... I’m having a little trouble controlling this pencil. It seems to want to keep going.” Over the course of the next hour the drawings vary from fundamentally bad, to completely indecipherable. However, in the next two hours the artist produces two mixed-medium pieces that look truly inspired. The artist seemed somewhat confused for a while, but suddenly found clarity, claiming, “This will be the best drawing. Like the first one, only better. If I’m not careful I’ll lose control of my movements, but I won’t, because I know. I know. I know. I know. I know…” The final drawing, when the drug had almost worn off, is a fairly accurate portrait, but one which is undeniably lacklustre, especially in contrast with some of the others that preceded it.

Illustration by Evelyn McNamara

LSD became the drug of choice for many involved in the counterculture of the 1960s, and as a result, was made illegal in 1968 in the US. The dangers which warrant this illegality are said not to lie with overdose or physical aftereffects, as is the case with most other drugs (there have been no recorded incidences of LSD overdose and it has no long-term affect on the human body or mind), but rather with people’s warped perception of the world when they are under the influence of it. Users have reported a greater belief in their physical abilities, resulting in ill-conceived and dangerous endeavours or, at the other side of the spectrum, heightened anxiety and irrational fears.

However, most users and researchers conclude that a “bad trip” usually results from the taker being in a bad state of mind before ingesting the drug, or not being prepared for the effect it has. Furthermore, a person’s physical makeup has an effect on the kind of trip they experience, as do other factors like personal education. Perhaps stand-up comedian Bill Hicks was onto something – albeit something rather brutal and harsh – when he said, “always that same LSD story, you’ve all seen it. ‘Young man on acid thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. What a tragedy.’ What a dick! Fuck him, he’s an idiot. If he thought he could fly, why didn’t he take off on the ground first?

Check it out. You don’t see ducks lined up to catch elevators to fly south— they fly from the ground, ya moron. Quit ruining it for everybody.”

There are a number of famous artists, writers, musicians, and other creative types who swear – or swore – by the use of LSD as a means for heightening creativity. Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Janis Joplin and Ken Kesey all used the drug. Some were even active advocates for it. Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, was adamant about the mind-opening potential of LSD and said that, “I believe that with the advent of acid, we discovered a new way to think, and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in your

MURDER IN SUBURBIA ---------------------- MARY GILLOOLY ----------------------

mind.” Other advocates even include medical professionals. The most famous and influential of these may be the psychologist and writer Timothy Leary, who is responsible for the phrase, “turn on, tune in, drop out.” He believed that LSD held great potential in the field of psychology and therapy. In his biography he claimed to have administered LSD to 300 of his peers and students, and 75% reported having positive life experiences as a result that were both educational and revealing. Even seemingly non-radical professionals such as Nobel Prize Winner Kary Mullis (who invented PCR; a method of copying DNA) cite LSD as an influence upon their work. Mullis once said, “would I have invented PCR if I hadn’t taken LSD? I seriously doubt it. I could sit on a DNA molecule and watch the polymers go by. I learnt that partly on psychedelic drugs.”

In the dawn light July 13,1992, Cariad Anderson-Slater was dropped off by a taxi at a house in the northern suburb of Woodlands. She was never seen again. Her disappearance a total mystery, until now.

20 minutes in.

But when push comes to shove, there is only so much information you can gain from “experts” you’ve never met. My own experiences and those of the people around me are always just as, if not more profound, than those which we find on Wikipedia…

Hours later, as the fruit digests inside me, I find myself in a mosh pit. The crowd moves rhythmically around me to the swirling sounds of Empire of the Sun. I feel like I’m swimming in a sea of limbs. On stage dancers dressed as colourful creatures insult my distorted vision. My stomach clenches and unclenches with the falseness of my reality and of our perceptions. Someone familiar sneaks into my view.

In the early hours of the morning I lie in the foetal position across two chairs on a bus. I look at my hand. I trace the lines and pinch the flesh and I laugh. I laugh and laugh before I am aware of my friend’s eyes on me. There is another hand touching my shoulder (when did she put that there?) and suddenly I am crying. I am sobbing because tonight he looked at me the way he looks at everyone else and I realised that he will never love me again; that perhaps he never loved me at all.

2 hours 32 minutes in.

4 hours 25 minutes in.

In bed I can’t sleep, though my body aches with fatigue. I can still feel the effects of my drug ebbing away inside me when I notice something else. There are words forming inside my head. They pulse and flow through the caverns of my brain, overlapping in a mass of nonsensical gibberish. I do not understand.

Cariad Anderson-Slater and her husband David were friends with Ronald Pennington, a Korean War veteran who resided in the Rosewood Avenue property. On the eve of Cariad’s disappearance, the couple paid a visit to Pennington. After they returned home, a fight ensued and Cariad made her escape to the house. A taxi dropped her at the house and the driver watched her go to the door of the house. Pennington claims this never happened…

The frozen cold case was thawed and reopened after the discovery of bones during the long awaited demolition of the Murder House.

It is certain that they are indeed the remains of the missing Cariad.

Thus, a never before seen flurry of activity invaded the quiet suburb that is Woodlands – a close-knit community which prides itself on having residents that know everybody else’s business, at all times.

This was certainly a shock to the community system.

The now 81-year-old Mr Pennington was arrested after the discovery and on February 24, an extradition order was granted by the Hobart Magistrates Court. He has been charged with the willful murder of Cariad. Pennington denies any involvement in Mrs Anderson-Slater’s death, and no doubt the whole truth and nothing but the truth will only be known after his trial.

In the morning the words have re-arranged themselves in my recovering mind. I find that I am left not just with a poem, but with an epiphany. I will move on.

So maybe taking LSD was not the best experience I’ve ever had, but perhaps it is also not the Long Slow Death it is claimed to be. Rather, it may be the removal from reality that appropriates a greater understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

Taking acid may, in the eyes of our greater society, make me a villain, but the vision it granted me was nothing I could have achieved alone.

They always called it the Murder House. Gruesome stories passed down by older siblings told of stabbings, ghosts and supernatural beings, which littered the playground that was my impressionable mind. There certainly was something ominous about the place; a corner double unit nestled amongst cavernous gums coupled with a “for sale” sign always staying longer than the residents themselves. It wasn’t your typical haunted house; there were with no gargoyles or graveyard out the back. In fact, if it weren’t for the vicious rumours, it would’ve faded into the background of northern suburbia. Many a time have I walked past the Murder House. I would often try and catch a glimpse of the seemingly non-existent inhabitants, always full of curiosity, lusting for hidden secrets.

There was always so much to know.

.

8 hours in.

I walked past it yesterday afternoon. All activity has ceased and the Murder House is nothing but a Murder Lot. The hordes of Police, forensics, reporters and neighbours swarming for information like bees have disappeared back into their hives. But what will happen now? Will another house be built, or will it remain vacant? Will vicious rumours and stories of ghosts, stabbings and supernatural beings fade away into suburban obscurity?

There is always so much to know.

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GONE: FISHIN’ THE INSATIABLE QUEST FOR OMEGA-3S ----------------------------------------------------------------------

ELLA BENNETT

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At the Ueno zoo in Tokyo, you can see a fossa. From Madagascar, they’re an incredibly rare predatory mammal, similar to a mongoose, and they’re listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as an endangered species. They romp around their re-created natural habitat without threat whilst tourists and small children admire them.

Take a 15-minute train ride from the zoo and you’ll arrive at the Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest in the world. There, every day you can see tonnes of frozen Bluefin tuna, listed by the IUCN as critically endangered, being sold for around $240,000 per fish. It’s a disparate reality.

A fossa is small, furry and has a cat-like face. It is one of millions of incredibly diverse land creatures that evolved over billions of years – an adorable creature that would not be amiss in a Disney film wearing a scarf. So too has this lengthy evolution occurred in the ocean, however the scaly, sharptoothed visage of tuna, marlin, sea bass and sharks seem to do less to stir compassion for their continued survival. Where land mammals at least have an acknowledged status as endangered, fish do not. It has taken us as humans just 50 years to deplete stocks of large predatory fish by over 90% of their pre-industrial fishing numbers, and we’re still at it. The also critically endangered – and far from cuddly and heart-warming – Black Rhinoceros is at least it’s off the menus of some of the world’s most highly regarded restaurants, unlike the unfortunate Bluefin tuna. Something is greatly amiss here: Why do our oceans remain in such peril?

explosives are hurled into the ocean and the resulting dead fish are skimmed off the top. This, along with bottom-trawler nets, cause significant, irreparable damage to coral reefs and seagrass beds, which are known habitats for the 500 or so marine species of South East Asia: the most diverse marine area in the world. Just as with climate change, there are sceptics – scientists that refuse to believe that the number of fish left in the ocean can be measured effectively. There exists a wealth of information on the impact we have on the ocean – it is considerable. About 70% of the world’s population relies on the ocean, not only as an important food source, but also to sustain their economy through fishing and tourism. Larger commercial operations and trawlers have depleted fish stocks, cutting traditional small-scale line fishermen out of business. Whether the numbers are correct or not, we depend on the ocean enough that we ought to consider how we’re treating it.

But wait! What else is going wrong?

Many commercial fishing operations still incur a significant by-catch of other marine life. The tuna industry, labelled ‘dolphin friendly’, uses Fish Aggregation Devices (man-made objects to attract fish to elaborate nets) that also attracts juvenile tuna, turtles, sharks, seals and dolphins. Seagulls and albatross are affected by automated offshore long-line fishing. As stocks of larger fish deplete, algae grows, sea worms populate the ocean floor, and the same ocean we swim in – and ride bicycles into off a jetty – become infested with jellyfish.

Government regulations in the US and Australia do help maintain reasonable fishing practices, but the reason these fish are caught in large numbers is because we maintain a demand for them. Choosing to eat fish that are less at risk makes the greatest impact on which fish are caught. Unfortunately, Australia, Canada and the US are the only correctly identifying what kind of fish you’re countries with formidable authorities to manage eating is not as straightforward as reading the marine life. Only 3% of the world’s oceans are sign. Biologists estimate that somewhere between marine protected environments; over half of that 500,000 and 5 million ocean species are yet to 3% are within Australian waters. The EU, upon be discovered and named – but it is likely we’re receiving a recommended limit that 10–15, 000 eating them already, caught and marketed under tonnes of Bluefin tuna be fished every year, set the similar species names. Sharks, a slow-growing, latequota at 29,500 tonnes. The EU also does little to maturing and long-living species (making them nothing to enforce these limits, though, and the highly vulnerable to fishing pressures) can be found actual catch is nearer to 61,000 tonnes. The waters in fish and chip shops as Flake. ‘Light’ tuna offered around Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines in cans is often Yellowfin tuna. Yellowfin is already are rife with illegal being fished to make fishing practices The scaly, sharp-toothed visage of tuna, marlin, up for the decrease including blast in Bluefin; you can sea bass and sharks seem to do less to stir fishing, in which buy ‘light’ tuna for

compassion for their continued survival.

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FUN FACT: Between 500,000 and five million ocean species are yet to be discovered; it’s likely that we’ve already started eating them.

around a dollar a can. When fishermen exhausted one type of fish, new names were invented to make other fish more appealing: Patagonian toothfish became Chilean or Australian sea bass, whilst Slimehead became Orange Roughy or Deep Sea Perch. Both these are now also endangered.

The idea of creating our own fish sources – farming them – began in Australia about 6000BCE when the Gunditjmara people raised eels in an old volcano pit.

Modern-day efforts to regulate fish stocks with a high commercial value – such as Atlantic or Tasmanian salmon, and Barramundi through aquaculture – however, are still largely dependent on wild-caught fish to grow; 1kg of farmed salmon needs 5kg of sardines to grow, as well as various chemical treatments. There are exceptions: Well-maintained sustainably run fish farms produce oysters, scallops, mussels and abalone, and some salmon fisheries are beginning to augment the diets of the normally carnivorous fish with a greater plant component.

Buying fish from overseas dramatically increases the likelihood that it is unsustainable. We are fortunate to reside in a state where the fishing laws are stringent in addition to being well monitored. Still, some of the most popular Australian fish, such as snapper and swordfish, are listed on the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s Red List: they are overfished both in Australia and New Zealand. Most tinned tuna available is imported; they can consist of skipjack, big-eye and albacore varieties, all of which incur significant by-catch, whether net or line caught, and they are all under threat. Under no circumstances must we eat them: camel isn’t great for dogs, but it’s fine for humans!

Even George W Bush acknowledged the overfishing problem: it would be embarrassing if you didn’t.

If our current catch rates are not lessened, the extinction of many large predatory fish is anticipated in 2048. Within our lifetime we could be recalling to small children the tastes of tuna, cod, and snapper, whilst the small children (not so small that they are yet to develop a sense of reasoning) will question our collective short-sighted-ness. It is clear to us now that Javan tigers could have been less ruthlessly hunted and poisoned, and that China’s river dolphin habitat should have been respected; both animals are now extinct. We have not just the opportunity but also the responsibility to prevent this happening again with marine creatures.

It’s somewhat inexplicable why we hold such a double standard when it comes to the existence of certain animals and where our sense of duty is when confronted with the very real possibility that we will eat the ocean clean of its diversity. Sometimes, it is difficult to see the reason for something when it does not bring us money or make us thin; but it is possible that we can see the ocean for more than a potential delectable buffet and as a billiondollar industry. As humans, we owe our amazing development (slinkies, hovercrafts, the 2008 film Be Kind Rewind) to ingenuity, virtue, and a moral compass to do what is good – most of the time. Stare at the comically bulbous expression of the sunfish, or the simple grin of a whale shark, or even some deadbeat’s dolphin shorts, and perhaps feel inclined to exercise that great human potential for compassion and responsibility.

A GUIDE TO A SUSTAINABLE FISH DIET! The Marine Stewardship Council has an oval blue logo; certified MSC fisheries provide you with seafood that will still exist in fifty years. It might cost more, but you’re not just paying for fish. You’re also paying for that smug sense of self-satisfaction you get when you have done the right thing. If you see no oval blue stickers: – Try to avoid slow-growing and late maturing species such as shark and snapper, orange roughy, cods and gropers.

– Atlantic/Tasmanian salmon and Barramundi is generally farmed ineffectively, however wild Australian salmon (different to Tasmanian) retain reasonable stocks.

– Smaller fish are generally a better option as they replenish their stocks much faster than younger fish: try sardines, mackerel, herring, bream, mullet and whiting, as long as they are WA caught.

– Farmed oysters, scallops and mussels are okay, as well as cephalopods squid, cuttlefish and octopus. Like crab? Mud and Blue Swimmer varieties are fine.

– Imported canned salmon and sardines from Canada/ Alaska come from generally well-managed fisheries.

– Avoid imported prawns and shellfish at all costs; not only are they poorly regulated (especially when from Thailand) but are quite often grown in polluted waterways.

A more comprehensive guide can be found at www.sustainableseafood.org.au

THE ANGLERFISH LIVE IN A SPARSELY POPULATED AREA 1200–1600 FEET BELOW THE SURFACE OF THE WATER. SUPPOSEDLY TO GET MORE NUTRIENTS, MALE ANGLERFISH FUSE WITH FEMALES UNTIL ONLY THE TESTICLES REMAIN.

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Heel: The Artistry of Pro Wrestling Villainy Illustration by Ena Tluic

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Kevin Chiat

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There are very few jobs where your success is measured by how hated you are.

Politicians, journalists and lawyers may be hated but this is an unwanted consequence of their job. There is only one profession where being hated is encouraged and the sound of a jeering crowd is the mark of a job well done: the professional wrestling villain, the heel.

Professional wrestling has a long inglorious history of exploiting the prejudices of its audience. Pro wrestling has traditionally been seen as an entertainment form for the lowest common denominator, and wrestling promoters have been all too willing to conform to this expectation. Far too often, pro wrestling has fallen back on sexist and xenophobic stereotypes to create heels.

La Résistance were two French-Canadians by the name of Rene Dupree and Sylvain Grenier who would enter the arena waving French flags and criticising US policies. The WWE was piggybacking on the growing anti-French sentiment in America in the lead-up to the Iraq War. La Résistance was part of the cultural milieu that led to French fries being renamed freedom fries.

The genre conventions in pro wrestling set up that every match must have a hero, and a villain, someone to be booed and someone to be cheered.

The good guy is known as the “babyface” and the baddy is the “heel”.

Going back to Gorgeous George in the 1950s, homophobia has been an easy source of cheap heat in pro wrestling. Gorgeous George would spray perfume on his opponents as he entered the ring, infuriating audiences with his effeminate act. In more recent years there has been no easier way to draw the disdain of the audience than to show a heel to be a (potential) homosexual.

There’s little artistry in playing upon the audience’s prejudices to garner heat from the audience. It is far more impressive if a heel is able to create boos and jeers through believing himself to be morally superior to the audience.

The most effective heels threaten the audience.

Not on a physical level; they threaten on an emotional or instinctual level. They represent something degenerate, something which the audience is afraid of. The heel challenges the audience because they represent something different and that scares the audience.

One of the all time classic feuds was between Ric ‘The Nature Boy’ Flair and Ricky ‘The Dragon’ Steamboat, over the World Heavyweight Championship. Flair, the heel, was a “Stylin’, profilin’, limousine riding, jet flying, kissstealing, wheelin’ n’ dealin’ son of a gun!” By comparison, Steamboat was a humble family man. At one match, Steamboat was accompanied to the ring by his family; Flair was accompanied by six women.

To the audience, Flair represented the worst of rock star excess. He boasted about how every night he had a different beautiful woman ready to “climb Space Mountain”. Flair lived the sort of glamourous life the audience dreamed about.

This envy of Flair, along with his reputation as ‘The Dirtiest Player in the Game’, led to him being the most successful heel of the 80s. Flair’s success was so great that he’s talked of as one of, if not the greatest, professional wrestlers of all time.

There has never been a major gay babyface in any wrestling promotion. Even the slightest hint of homosexuality brings out jeers from the predominately straight male, wrestling audience. Homosexual characters seem destined to play the role of villain in pro wrestling, most likely because their existence highlights the homoeroticism inherent in two men in underwear play-fighting.

Futurama wonderfully got at the heart of why so many heels in wrestling are evil foreigners.

In Futurama, instead of pro wrestling they have Ultimate Robot Fighting. One of the robots is a fighter named ‘The Foreigner,’ who taunts the crowd with cries of, “I am not from here! I have my own customs! Look at my crazy passport!”

Foreigners are different, different is scary.

Xenophobia is an easy way to get heat from the crowd. There’s a long standing history of evil foreigners: America haters whose aim is to get the crowd chanting “USA, USA” in retaliation.

A highpoint in xenophobic heels came when the tag team La Résistance was introduced into the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment).

The best heel in modern pro wrestling is CM Punk. He calls himself the ‘Straight Edge Saviour’ and (really) lives according to the Straight Edge lifestyle. Straight Edge is a lifestyle from hardcore punk circles, where practitioners abstain from drugs and alcohol. Punk insults the audience for choosing to live the world through a haze of drugs and booze whilst he has the strength to remain sober. As his catchphrase goes, he is CM Punk and he is better than you.

Punk, a babyface, held up as a good example for kids. That changed when he targeted popular high-flyer and unrepentant drug abuser Jeff Hardy. The two men feuded over the right to be WWE Champion. This created a wonderful moral dissonance, the drug addict was loved and the sober example was hated. Punk was seen as a killjoy: the sanctimonious puritan who thought himself better than others. Ironically, Punk was proven right; Hardy left the WWE after losing to Punk and shortly afterwards actually relapsed and is facing criminal charges for drug trafficking.

Exploiting the audience’s prejudices is too easy.

However, when you’re a heel because you’re the success the audience desperately wishes to be but never can be, like Ric Flair, or because you shine a light on their own moral failings, like CM Punk, that’s when playing the villain reaches true artistry.

Names will appear on our facebook page

VILLIANS

24

IT’S A BIRD! IT’S A PLANE! OH GREAT IT’S A FUCKING POLITICIAN… ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Comparing super villains with politicians shouldn’t be too great a poll fuelled leap when you consider their many commonalities.

What other two species tend to overpopulate the news (in super villains’ own sensational universes at least), have a penchant for odd choice of dress and just refuse to die? I’d like to think our ‘Australian made, Australian owned’ variety holds a special place in our hearts. After all, our major party leaders are leading the field in demonstrating how to bring ridicule upon oneself by turning an election into an experiment in name calling. Therefore, they should be most adept at taking up the villainous mantle. While at it, why not add a few sound effects in there, followed by some mad origin stories when trawling through the train wrecks of political news coverage. So to all our villainous politicians out there, cheers to you for providing an excuse for an article.

Sam Leung

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Firstly to our irrepressible Transport Minister, Troy Buswell, and his super villain reincarnation, the Green Goblin. If only for the reason he can travel in style on his extra special goblin glider, with the added benefit of not having to adhere to any speed laws. At least now we won’t have to hear about him apologising. Buswell does seem comic in having the unfortunate luck of causing his own political death again and again, and yet he continues to make miraculous ‘returns’ to parliament under many different guises – Deputy Opposition leader, Opposition leader, Treasurer, Transport Minister etc. Seriously people, he practically has regenerative abilities. In Spiderman, the Green Goblin is given a dramatic end when his own glider knifes him. Transport really does seem to be an issue for these two. Although we might find ourselves short a few journalists if Buswell actually morphs into the Green Goblin, I’m sure there are only so many chair-sniffing scandals a super villain can take.

Casting calls to play Julia Gillard would probably run with most of the red-headed super villainesses

whipping out their best Orrrstralian accents to play our beloved (although perhaps not so recently) PM. The likes of Red Sonja, Black Widow, X-Men’s insane Jean Grey and Poison Ivy, might be kind enough to grace our more substantial shores. Poison Ivy would have to be my first choice, her kiss of death and revival being very useful in knocking off your predecessors and later bringing them back to ‘help out’. As a super villainess obsessed with protecting nature, Ms Gillard would probably find the mad plant powers of Poison Ivy incredibly helpful in combating climate change – at the very least she could use them to strangle her opponents of the Carbon Tax. Tony Abbott’s super villain counterpart would have extreme (read: extremely unnecessary) shows of manliness and physicality and a rather unhealthy desire for removing clothing. I’m afraid it will have to be the Hulk, albeit without the calming Bruce Banner influence. Having super villains and super heroes with split personalities is such fun. Perhaps when Tony Abbott back flips on his next issue he can do it in costume?

Illustration by Emily O’Keefe

The origins stories of super villains generally involve some kind of tragic yet colourful transformation that turns an ordinary law abiding citizen into a crazed psychopath obsessed with wreaking havoc. The political equivalent of this is a rock star/environmental activist that joins the Australian Labour Party (ALP), losing all your professed values. If you haven’t guessed it, it’s Peter Garrett. Unfortunately in this scenario, the ALP will have to be the equivalent of a vat of toxic chemicals (very bad for the environment by the way) because our previous Minister for the Environment/ Environment Protection’s counterpart is the Joker.

Slightly extreme with the allusion, but joining the ALP has seen a maniacal turn around in Garrett’s views I imagine that the Joker could appreciate the irony in someone singing about beds burning then going into politics and actually having it happen.

So to conclude, my reinvention of Australian politics, I think I’ll have Julia Gillard aka Poison Ivy and Tony ‘the Hulk’ Abbott wipe each other out in a vicious and ridiculous end to what has been a loss of respectability in politics. Troy Buswell can be booted and ‘rebooted’ and Peter Garrett, well hopefully he won’t need to put out any ‘fires’ in the Education department. But to all our politicians out there: “Why so serious?”

[Disclaimer: Please don’t quote any super villain attributes included in this article, but try and untangle the extremely convoluted Wikipedia web pages for yourselves.]

During his brief stint as wartime PM, giant pussy Robert Menzies allegedly planned to sacrifice the Northern half of Australia to the invading Japanese.

The plan was called the ‘Northern Line’. What a great man.

25

VISIONARIES

PONIES: SATAN’S STEED Sarah Dunstan exposes horses and their shoes as the real black cats of the world.

1.

The My Little Pony franchise launched by Mattel in 1981 is definitely responsible for a generation of depressed, self-harming boys and girls ill-equipped for life on Earth. What kind of message is being sent to the little viewers of My Little Pony Tales (1992), where the ponies run ice-cream parlour businesses, attend dance class, roller-skate and hold talent contests, amongst other seminal activities in human life? I grew up thinking that a society of nonbipedal, hooven people could manufacture bags because the ponies on the VHS wore them. By 2000, thousands of the now tweenage “MLP” generation had sunk into pits of despair, waiting for the day when they finally could be mintgreen, rainbow-maned and have a picture of a candy-cane stamped on their bum.

9.

Just because champion racehorse Phar Lap had an enormous heart (weighing 6.2kg) does not mean he was a kind pony. On the contrary, all I see is arrogance when I look into that glass case in the museum. Just as Cleopatra melodramatically professed to kill herself with an asp, I strongly suspect Phar Lap procured the arsenic and poisoned himself, in style.

5. Black Swan (2010) showed the world the extremely

2.

Socrates’ wife’s name was Xanthippe, which means “blonde horse”. Regardless of her long face, fair hair and exposed gums, she was enough of a whiner that “Xanthippe” is now a term used to describe a person who is nagging and scolding, particularly a wife. Socrates held her in high enough regard that he compared her directly to a horse, saying that life with her had left him unafraid of anything, for nothing could be worse: It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: “None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me,” he says; “the horse for me to own must show some spirit” in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case.

– Symposium 17-19 [= 2.10]

3.

Black Moon (1975), directed by Louis Malle, is a fantasia in the vein of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, except with a large brown unicorn that rudely interrupts the young female protagonist’s attempt to rip out patches of daisies, and has a voice like Germaine Greer, which is fitting because apparently the movie is about Women’s Lib. The unicorn in Black Moon is actually entirely responsible for giving Western ‘feminism’ a bad name, particularly the bit where s/he is breastfed by a teenage girl, who breastfeeds an elderly woman.

perilous, short life you live when you can’t decide whether you want to be a woman or a swan. There is a reason why carousels give you a choice between a swan sleigh or a pony to ride on.

6.

Ponyta and Rapidash are both horse-like Pokémon.

They are also fire-type. In the same way that My Little Pony caused children to hide their pain and turn to Wicca, these Pokémon caused children to express their emotion through the lighting of matches in bush land. And let’s be honest, that “horn” in the centre of Rapidash’s forehead is equivalent to the head “antenna” belonging to a certain green Teletubbie with a name starting with ‘Di – ’

10.

For every pretty pony you see there is a neglected runt in the shadows. Take for example the astoundingly beautiful white winged horse Pegasus, who in myth emerged from the dead body of Medusa, along with his minging twin brother, Chrysaor, a winged boar.

11.

Daniel Radcliffe performing nude in the play Equus made people go to the theatre for all the wrong reasons, à la people drooling while performance artists pull out vaginal scrolls. At least the play itself puts a creative spin on the well-known truth that horses make people sexual deviants – the serial killer David Birnie once worked in a stable before being fired for getting naked.

12.

To summarise the nexus between Generation Y, the post-modern and ponies, I quote from Tumblr:

7.

As much as My Little Pony, Bella Sara, The Last Unicorn and good Jewel the Unicorn in the Narnia series try to sugarcoat it, horses are dangerous, and can kill things.

Feral horses, in addition to being scary enough to give you alopecia, are responsible for the destruction of the environment all around the world, like the brumbies of rural Australia. On an even more serious note, a brain-damage inducing kick to the head is one of the worst parts of Bryce Courtenay’s Jessica, and even actors are not immune to tragic horse-riding accidents.

Every month when I get my period and realise I am not pregnant, I feel really accomplished with myself. I can almost see baby angels riding baby unicorns and coming down from the heavens above carrying bottles of Dom Pérignon to congratulate me on protected sex well done.

– Tamburina.

8.

Black Beauty was banned in South Africa for being too violent, too sad, and having a title that was offensive in the context.

An Australian study looking into animal-caused deaths between 2000 and 2006 found that 40 out of the 128 deaths were attributed to horses.

Illustration by Elisa Thompson

4.

Ponies in music are exclusively sorrowful beings – ‘Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed’

by Silver Jews is just the beginning of it. ‘Sad Pony Guerilla Girl’ by Xiu Xiu has a number of interpretations, but a literal reading of the nine months lyrics reveals the tale of a child molested in a small car by a married man while being forced to dress in clothing of the opposite sex; she is told to be quiet and that she is “stupid because I am your girl”. The Unicorns famously lamented the setbacks of being the last living unicorn on earth in ‘I Was Born (A Unicorn)’ just a few years before all members of New Young Pony Club were trialled for crimes against humanity in the form of ‘Ice-Cream’. The Department of Health confirmed that Zoloft prescriptions spiked in March 1991, like the birth rate 9-months after a blackout. The same month Darryl Braithwaite released ‘The Horses’.

VILLIANS

26

MAID TO GET LAID CALLUM J TWIGGER EXPLORES A JAPANESE MAID BAR

I’m greeted by a young Japanese woman, dolled out in pink cheeks and half-inch eyelashes. She looks my age or not much younger, is about a foot shorter than me, in a black skirt, white apron and lace headpiece with matching elbow-length gloves. Her legs are in garters drawn to the midthigh; above which two plump rings of flesh are contained barely shy of her panty. She’s as shocked by me as I’m of her.

Illustration by Camden Watts

By now it’s obvious. Pissed and stranded by Tokyo’s midnight train curfew, I’d been scavenging for a bar to pass the witching hours in before the city’s public transport restarted at 5am. Taking the first opportunity (a small side-door illuminated by blue fairy lights two minutes walk from the station), of all Japan’s strange and beautiful sub-cultures, I’d walked into a Maid bar.

Parallel to its more exposed cousin, the Maid café, a Maid bar is a place Japanese men go to burn spare change and feel special. Like a sexual fastfood chain – all sugar and spice – and apparently nothing too serious.

I blither a mangled apology in Japanese.

The Maid shakes her head and then, counter-insisting, she smiles, beckons in repeatedly. By now, notified through the cold draught of the open door, every single drinker

(universally male) has turned to greet the idiot Westerner. I want to evaporate. But a couple of smiles break out of the assembly, spontaneously evolve into laughter, then short snippets of English.

I’ve been invited in.

Avoiding eye contact, I discharge another blast of butchered Japanese in the vain hope it’ll service both an excuse and an apology. But the barflies seem honestly welcoming.

Two of the closest patrons even make the effort to compliment me in English. It’s a sleazy commentary serve as some apparent myths about Westerners and Japanese women, but a welcoming banter nonetheless. It’s better than being called a faggot. I miss Australia.

The Maid who opened the door, in clear, slow English, tells me her name is Suki and that I explicitly am quite welcome at Bar Eden. Already Suki is insisting that the cover charge (about 10 dollars) has been waived. Guiltily, I grin like a loser, murmur something more about embarrassment, this time not bothering to cloak it in bad Japanese.

Shuffling in a slightly pigeon-toed walk (knees pointed inwards), she takes my hand (which had remained, limp in shock, half-raised from the elbow) and leads me to the small bar.

Apparently, a seat at the counter is worth much more than a spot in one of the booths behind me; literally, the chart on the wall points the difference out to the yen value. After a small fuss and several bend-overs that left her modesty pretty compromised, Suki primly unfolds a damp towel in my open hand and gives me a full greeting, pouting her lips and folding her arms, like a rabbit or fluffy animal.

Damp towels before a meal are customary in Japanese restaurants; young women in

complicated lingerie distributing them aren’t.

I wave a free hand, apologising, fumbling for my wallet to quickly counter what I assume are spiralling debts. Another Maid, done out in the same black dress/white apron outfit as Suki (it’s clear that this is the uniform) exclaims sharply in Japanese. To my right, a short guy in a brown jacket and white cap gets hold of my shoulder and announces with a hoarse chortle that my seat charge has been ignored as well, before congratulating me: I’ve earned a pint of Guinness for audacity.

My face spells the shock to him before my Japanese can, but he’s already laughing, dismissing the concern. After a moment of brow-furrowing, he introduces himself. His name is Akihiro; he’s a computer engineer in a moderately successful position at a moderately successful firm.

I warble something back about being a journalist, or wanting to be a journalist, or trying to be a journalist and frame it as the basis for an enquiry on my part into the Maid phenomenon.

Akihiro was obliging.

“This is Otaku. Nerd culture,” he says. He speaks pretty solid English.

Punctuated by rhythmic sipping from a silver can of Asahi, he tells me he doesn’t have time to bother with the awkward social waltz that precipitates a relationship. Akihiro is a 12-hour-a-day salary man.

He’s not forced against his will to work more hours than he sleeps, but it’s the only way to sustain any prospect of advancement in Japan’s glacial economy, he says.

“Maid bars and Maid culture, they’re sincere,” Akihiro compounds.

The girls?

“Mostly uni students who wouldn’t be earning a third as much otherwise. They’re our friends,” Akihiro says emphatically. “We help them financially. They help us socially, they’re smart, they’re (he pauses for a moment, searches for the word) sexy and they fill the holes we’ve been forced to make in our lives,” he finishes, sucking out the last of his beer and gesturing in reflex motion for another one.

I take the moment to order some thoughts, my dumb gaze met with broad, obliging smiles from the Maids at the bar. Attentive to an almost pre-emptive degree, they flutter between the punters like black and white bees, waggling their arses, giggling over the small compliments tossed to them, sustaining chatter as needed.

Japan’s sexuality can seem peculiar to a foreigner.

Animated porn (hentai) has a presence in almost all DVD stores. It’s explicit, with a tendency to explore unsavoury avenues; at the deep end, it covers material that would be met with plain disgust in the Western world. Hentai isn’t shy, showing women of dubious maturity having graphic sex, or exploring themes of female domination and exploitation.

Maid bars are an appendage of a sexual culture that does champion elements alien to Western sexuality, but I’m struck by what seems to be the cleanliness of the bar. It looks like the patrons seem to come here just for the conversation. I assume (in an assumption founded on the exposed underwear of the Maids) it’s not always wholesome conversation, but hell, for a den of vice, it’s pretty sanitised.

I try to return conversation with Akihiro, but one of the Maids has become conspicuously attentive, staring at me, from just short of my line of sight.

I hadn’t been paying attention (more out of the sedative fear of committing a stupid faux pas in the face of such hospitality than humility), but already she’s poured me a third glass of Guinness. Not wanting to be rude (and concerned that my luck had finally expired and my tab had begun) I turn to face the poor girl and burble out another cocktail of mispronounced Japanese. She grins, and replies, “osaki o tanoshimi kudasai.”

Being absolutely blind to the appropriate response, I return, “thank you, this is all rather splendid,” and grin back like a complete idiot.

“She likes you, boy.”

The interjection comes from three chairs down, out of a barrel of a man completely out of proportion with the tiny stool supporting him.

“She’s got eyes for you, my friend,” he murmurs in deep basso, one eyebrow hoisting itself above the other in amusement. In my gut, something snaps. It’s all too obvious. I look from the maid to the patron back to the maid, and it’s all there in neon.

This bar is one of those bars.

Sex is on tap.

I panic. Of course I’m welcome. They’re lathering me up. They think I’m a loaded Westerner. This guy is Yakuza. I’m having the hustle put on me. Terrified, I flap to a blank page in my notebook, scribble out the hiragana YA-KU (got the KU symbol wrong way round, scratch it out, start again) YA-KU-ZA, shadow it with a big arrow, and flick the open page over to Akihiro, arrow facing the man.

Akihiro explodes in laughter. Again.

“Nami?” Akihiro shakes his head. “Yakuza?”

“Hell no.” Akihiro thinks it’s hilarious. Composing himself, he adds, “Nami has a daughter, man. He’s soft.

Flabby. Go say hey. He’s otaku.”

Culpably folding away my notebook, it does seem a bit stupid. He doesn’t really have any Yakuza trademarks, aside from being Japanese, and a man.

He actually kind of resembles a drunk walrus.

Guiltily, I shift down to the seat next to Nami, introduce myself in wavering English, adding that I’m a brother-nerd, an Otaku.

As the case with Akihiro, the confession of my geekdom unlocks conversation with Nami, and in seconds flat we’re running the nerd gauntlet, namedropping Nintendo’s back catalogue and making shrill imitations of eight-bit gameboy soundtracks.

“Otaku! Yeah, I’m otaku,” Nami bellows.

“I am proud of it. I’m proud of this” Nami gestures up and down his body with large, hammy hands. The Maids giggle. Perhaps this is a regular performance.

“You know cosplay?” He continues.

Cosplay, short for costumed role-play, is a type of live-action role-playing, with the players costuming and playing. Simple enough. I tell him I dressed up once as a Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil. I don’t clarify it was only for a friend’s birthday.

Nami slaps my back, and waves down another Guinness.

“Japan should be proud of cosplay. The Maids cosplay. They are sexy, right? Cute, eh? They’re our friends.” Nami slides an iPhone from his pocket, brings up the photo app, before thrusting it all into my face.

Shown is a four- or five-year-old girl dressed up in the Saturday morning cartoon equivalent of what Suki and the Eden Maids have as their uniform.

“My daughter? She cosplay. We role-play together.

There are games for all ages.”

I shrug in return. This kind of cross-cultural comparison is way beyond my qualifications as a 20-year-old law school dropout who can’t even speak the language of the culture he’s trying to critique. But I feel tense and self-conscious, like I’ve been missing something that’s been staring me down for the past half an hour, since I entered the bar.

Nami continues nonetheless.

“I used to be married,” he reflects. “Now I’m single.

But I have girlfriend [sic], she’s Maid, from this bar. Eigheen-years-old,” Nami claims triumphantly, summoning another series of photos, this time of a girl, an Eden Maid, in nothing but underwear. “And me? I’m 43.”

Euphemism is an art in Japan (porn magazines are comfort books) and as I survey jpegs of this young girl spread-eagled on his phone in not much more than lacy tissues-paper and shoelaces, I began to suspect Nami was talking about a Maid from the bar who he’d hired as a prostitute.

It’s not unknown for Maids to take patrons, who lavish them with gifts that span from perfume to cars. Nami was a CEO, or so he claimed, and so the possibility that this young woman had taken to his bed in return for (in the spirit of euphemism) sponsorship was not entirely beyond contemplation.

It was at this that I couldn’t help but feel alienated.

Man to man, Nami and Akihiro were good men. But man to woman, in attitude and approach, it seemed that something hadn’t quite aligned. An element of Bar Eden wasn’t right. A basic organ of the malefemale relationship dynamic was missing.

I thank them and take my leave “You gonna ask her on a date?” Nami splurts after me. I look at the Maid who’d paid attention earlier, and was still standing to on the other side of the date.

I ask her her name.

“Mina,” she replies.

“Are you with any of these guys?”

“They are my friends,” she returns.

“But are you…” I trail off into implication. Her eyes widen, as she understands.

“No. No. Barrier. There is a barrier.” Mina flails her gloved arms, simulating a wall between her and the drinkers. “No. I do not love them.”

At this, I thank Akihiro, Nami, and the Maids, pull my coat back on and depart. All of a sudden, a cab home is looking pretty cheap.

IN JAPANESE ‘SEX’ IS TRANSLATED AS ‘RELATIONSHIP IN FLESH’

VISIONARIES

27

28

VILLIANS

WHERE DID ALL THE KEATINGS GO? THE SURVIVAL OF AUSTRALIA’S MURRAY-DARLING BASIN: VISIONARY ISSUE! VILLAINOUS RESPONSE? ----------------------------------------------------------------

Australian politics has had a frustrating and tumultuous history of consultation, bickering and indecision. In dealing with important issues such as water control, climate change and immigration, our nation’s leaders reveal a defeatist tendency for petty bickering and a general lack of visionary courage and conviction. I am not arguing for some return to universal bipartisanship on all issues; such an expectation would be foolishly unrealistic.

What I am asking here is: Are things, like the 24-hour news-cycle, to blame for our current visionary vacuum? Has our 21st century preoccupation with political-correctness and our obsession with Jesus-like morality standards made character and larrikinism dangerous commodities for the average parliamentarian?

Managing Australia’s delicate water resources has proved far too difficult for any leadership team. Indeed, the first government inquiry into the management of the Murray-Darling Basin was a Royal Commission set up in 1902 after drought affected the region. The importance of water control in our country cannot be overstated. The majority of our vast continent’s farming land is semi-arid and has been transformed into farmland by a maze of irrigation canals diverting water from our major river systems.

Illustration by Evan Pearce

Little progress has been made more than 100 years later.

The public outcries against the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s (MDBA) 2010 report from river-adjacent rural hot-spots was followed by days of hesitation and retreat by the Gillard Labor Government. Why? I

MICHAEL O’BRIEN -------------------------------------------------------------

seriously have no idea. On June 26, 2009, then-Water Minister Penny Wong announced the introduction of the independent MDBA and revealed to the press that: “We know… we [Labor] are facing an enormous challenge. A challenge of decades of mismanagement; decades of political argument.” Has Australia’s origin as a Westminster parliamentary system relegated us to the degrading situation where own Water Minister, Tony Burke, stares blankly into the camera without revealing his own ideas for the future of the Murray-Darling, just in case his ambition is interpreted as a challenge to Gillard’s authority? Visionary politicians are naturally idiosyncratic; they have their own passions, eccentric quirks, and their individual brilliance is sourced from their ability to lead their party colleagues in a traditionally unpopular direction.

The ALP were well aware that the MDBA’s report was due in 2010 and yet for unknown reasons, between June 2009 and the release of the MDBA’s report in October 2010, they lost their clout to take control of the water issue, as well as losing Mr Rudd. The swell of protest in regional areas needed to be countered with a carefully structured policy initiative with a foreseeable solution to our water crisis. Instead, it was countered

by Labor leaders insisting that a process of MDBAled consultation with the irrigation and agricultural communities should begin now. You don’t have to be a genius to realise that approaching Murray-dependent agricultural communities for their objective thoughts on the Authority’s recommendations for an allocation reduction was a mistake.

man; Why didn’t the Labor cabinet just let him do his thing and tell the people of Australia how it is? Perhaps Labor feared that Burke’s involvement in the regional consultations might compromise Labor’s popularity among the ‘Australian heartland’ demographic. The crazy thing is that every single member of parliament, even those in opposition (The Libs originally legislated for the Basin Authority after all), knows exactly how unsustainable our current allocation system is, and yet in the end, Labor’s policy making process will come down to a painfully protracted and visionless process of consultation, reassessment, and ultimately, compromise.

As Labor continues its pre-occupation with softedged consultation and perpetual compromise, the party slides unconsciously to the right of the political spectrum, alienating part of its voting base that desperately wants to see action on environmental sustainability issues. This alienated voting base wishes to see both of Tony Burke’s eyes fixated on the water issue, leading the charge instead of having one eye fixated on a lacklustre leadership team. Are Mr Burke’s idiosyncratic qualities being withheld from public exposure by the possibility of a ministerial promotion if Gillard looks favourably on Mr Burke’s self-restraint? The discouragement of strong leadership is like a cancer spreading through our political system and I am undecided on how to abrogate our tolerance of this embarrassingly indecisive and self-conscious leadership style.

Writer and political activist Tariq Ali at the Perth Writers Festival contrasted the current trend towards Labor unfortunately began to politicise the water issue compromise-focused, symbolic political leadership once again by questioning the science behind the in the US with the simplified, but more realistic, MDBA report and subsequently, Gillard announced policy action of emerging political leaders in the a parliamentary inquiry into the recommendations. democracies of the Middle East. He made the point That’s right, an enquiry into the original enquiry. that no matter which position Obama’s Democrats Eventually, this lead to the resignation of Chairman took on issues such as healthcare, the Palestine-Israeli Mike Taylor in December 2010 who felt that he conflict, or the decision to bail out Wall Street’s banks, could no longer perform his assigned task under the they would have Water Act, free Has our 21st century pre-occupation with politicalfaced enormous from political correctness and our obsession with Jesus-like morality resistance and pressures. The standards made character and larrikinism dangerous scenes at the protest regardless. commodities for the average parliamentarian?

Griffith, NSW Such watershed community issues require “consultation” meeting in October 2010 got pretty a leader with innovative and visionary political ugly. Ironically, Tony Burke was not present to shield noose to speak with conviction and harness the MDBA Chairman Mike Taylor from the verbal public’s attention in a manner which compels an excrement splattered his way. Since this time, Tony understanding of the issue as a larger-than-life reform.

Burke has largely attempted to distance himself from With the basin’s survival, the question becomes: the recommendations of the authority created by his Which political maverick can we rely on to lead their colleague, Penny Wong, by monotonously citing that colleagues in a traditionally unpopular or controversial his involvement might compromise its independence. direction? I honestly don’t see visionaries floating In all honesty, Tony Burke actually seems like a great around anywhere at the moment!

Burke is theINSTEAD first Member of Parliament toON use PAPER, an iPad during Question Time in the House of Representatives answering OF USING NOTES BURKE USED AN IPAD DURING QUESTION TIMEwhen IN THE HOUSE questions in parliament.

Traditionally, in Question Time, ministers use notes on pieces of paper as an aide-mémoire in responding OF REPRESENTATIVES. HE WAS THE FIRST MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT TO DO SO.

Nerd rage: We all have our personal villains and gripes with the gaming industry. Whether it’s a particular game, fan base or the gaming companies themselves, us gamers always have something to rage on. Here’s my list of pet hates and the villains who symbolise these evils.

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ANDREW SUTTON

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CALL OF DU

For its repetitiv e gaming, Call of Duty gets the title of Bowser. This gu y has been running th e same tricks sin ce day one. Ever consid ered not kidnap ping a Princess this tim e?

MOTION CONTROL

Illustration by Robert Mead

Although the Nintendo Wii gets credit for pushing gaming into more accessible territory, but motion control often leads to gameplay less enjoyable than a Nickelback concert. Waggle motion is no longer exclusive to the Wii either, with both Sony and Microsoft following suit. Nothing hurts me more than watching distinguished game designers ‘boogie down’ at E3 to another motion controlled dancing game.

Such titles are the shameless shovel ware of this generation, bought on mass by clueless mothers looking for the most wholesome looking game for their little one. Motion control is responsible for some truly useless and shocking games.

I’m giving this one the title of Waluigi, useless and disliked. He will never star in his own game.

CAPCOM Any Street Fighter or Resident Evil fan would be aware of the evils Capcom have been capable of over the last few years. The company renowned for its hardcore fan-base continues to rip-off fans by charging more for content already made (Resident Evil 5 multiplayer anyone?)

Several characters have been found hiding in the coding of the recently released crossover fighter Marvel vs Capcom 3. Jill Valentine, Frank West, Shuma-Gorath and Doctor Octopus are but a few destined to hit the roster in the near future. No

TY

I know this gam e is loved across the globe, but come on! Each new ed ition gets prettier grap hics and some m ore combat knives.

That’s about it.

I feel sorry for its dedi cated fans that ke ep paying 100 buck s (wait, sorry, 12 0 bucks) for the sa me virtual shoo ting safari. If Infinity Ward/Treyarch can make this much money with such little effort something ’s amiss.

D IZZ AR

doubt these traces of code will have to be paid for by pissed off players at a later date. Capcom go so far as to charge gamers for alternate costumes, milking fighting junkies of their already pitiful salaries.

Capcom are industry leaders in hitting fans harder for content essential to the final product. Giving the option to pay for extra characters upsets the balance in what is a very competitive field of gaming.

For this, they earn the title of Wario, the rotund money-grabbing fiend who is probably a paedophile.

I can picture him in the CEO chair of Capcom now, rolling in his impractical piles of gold. Bastard.

PIKACHU

ains Anyone who m in rm this electric ve ars be os in Smash Br ce an bl m striking rese g in m am to Stalin. Sp a t B down is no and respected tactic u yo will not gain ve friends. You ha d. been warne

HALO FANS

Halo. A good game. The single player has been a little underwhelming since the series’ debut, but the multiplayer can be orgasmic.

The franchise has only grown in popularity as it has aged resulting in an undying league of fanboys. Such lust for the Master Chief justifies purchasing the special edition of consecutive Halo titles so they can receive an arthritic figurine with their copy of the game.

Hell, I know guys who bought the Halo Xbox 360 despite already having a fully functional console already. Many say Master Chief is the height of cool when it comes to gaming icons.

I’ve got to disagree with the fanboys here and say he really isn’t. Master Chief represents all that is bland and stagnant in modern gaming characterisation, yet he is adored by gamers worldwide. I must be missing something here.

Ironically, these devout fans get the title of the Covenant, the deluded religious extremists with a soft spot for purple decor. Don’t tell them that their great journey will end in galactic annihilation; they’re too far-gone.

Much like the fan boys that won’t back down on their armour clad hero. Seriously, settle down guys…

GAMES

29

THE VISIONS OF JK ROWLING ---------------------------------------------------------------------

We, the “Generation Hexers”, have

Ed Fearis

------------------------------------------------------------------

Race Relations

Religion

Class

Ignoring the (at times, overt) Christian themes and allegories in the series, calls in the US for the books to be banned from schools have resulted in legal challenges on the grounds that Wicca is a government-recognised religion and that to allow the books to be held in public schools violates the separation of church and state.

Of course, this reasoning would logically result in the banning of texts such as The Wizard of Oz, Macbeth and (somewhat ironically for the Christian cause) the Narnia series. In one campaign in Massachusetts, Pastor Ron Barker pulled the books from the parish school’s shelves, pointing out that his actions were no different from protecting children with a peanut allergy: “What I did is start a spiritual peanut butter ban on Harry Potter.”

Replace “Muggles” with the N-word and suddenly the whole series, and particularly the seventh book, makes a lot more sense. Hence, parallels to the Holocaust and other genocides and apartheid regimes are easy to draw.

Indeed, Voldemort’s persecution of Muggle-borns and half-bloods draws chilling comparisons with some of the charts that the Nazis used to show what constituted Aryan or Jewish blood. But Rowling’s ideology cannot simply be described as anti-racist, for as strongly as she condemns racially-motivated violence, Harry Potter remains a classic work of fantasy. And fantasy is a literary genre intent on the order of classification and categorisation, of blood lines and inheritances (the most obvious other examples are Tolkien and CS Lewis).

Though we’re meant to abhor Voldemort’s obsession with “pure” blood lines, paternal bloodlines as pure as a Scotch College school boy’s are crucial to fulfilling Harry’s destiny as saviour of the magical community.

journeyed through our adolescence with Harry Potter. We gasped when Professor Quirrell unravelled his turban to reveal a two-faced head, we squirmed at the awkwardness of the Yuletide Ball and we cried as Dobby lay dying in Harry’s arms.

The release of the seventh book was over two years ago, but it is still too soon to dust off and press our dress robes for the final instalment of the films. So now is an opportune time to sit back, ponder on the series as a whole, and work out what JK Rowling was actually trying to say.

Illustration by Elisa Thompson

VILLIANS

30

While JK Rowling may like to claim she has written progressive novels in which multiculturalism and equality are celebrated, the reality is rather more intricate. For instance, Harry can be likened to a trust-fund kid, whose success at Hogwarts is largely attributable to the gifts his friends and relatives lavish upon him. The school itself has been described as a throwback to a conservative, patriarchal, bygone Britain. Also, bear in mind that magical ability is something you are born into, not something you can achieve. This then renders Dumbledore’s maxim, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities”, somewhat hypocritical, as the school that he runs values inborn gifts above all else.

Society/Politics

Harry Potter has been labelled the first fictional hero of the anti-globalist, anti-capitalist, “Seattle” generation.

In this way, the series can be read as a strident critique of consumer society and a world of bureaucratised government. JK Rowling’s portrayal of the Ministry of Magic is particularly effective; combining the elements of the functions of government, the structure of government and the bureaucrats who run the show to depict an institution run by self-interested wizards and witches bent on increasing and protecting their power, often to the detriment of the public at large. In contrast, Hogwarts, is at best unruly, and at times even anarchic.

Heck, Dumbledore practically awards bonus points for breaking school rules.

Joanne was sitting on a dreary train from Manchester to London, wondering what to do with her empty, aimless life. Suddenly it hit her: “I know! I’ll give myself to the Dark Lord. And in return, he will give me absurd wealth and power over the weak and pitiful!” And he did!

Sexuality

JK Rowling’s outing of Dumbledore in an interview after the seventh book had been released predictably caused uproar among conservative and Christian groups. For example, Bill O’Reilly joined in the political fray by questioning if the revelation was part of a “gay agenda” to indoctrinate children. Other Christian commentators were more cheerful about the news, viewing it as vindication of their long-running crusade that the series was the Devil anyway. The opposing view is that by dubbing someone so respected, so talented and so kind as someone who just happens to be homosexual, JK Rowling is reinforcing the idea that a person’s sexuality is not something they should be ashamed. Of course, a revelation that Neville grows up to be a paedophile, or that Hagrid has been luring students into his hut at odd hours for years (wait, hang on...), may change the course of the debate somewhat. Still, it is probably best to leave the last word on the issue to the writer herself: “[For fuck’s sake] do I think a gay person can be a moral compass? I think it’s ludicrous that we are asking that question in the 21st century.”

So what was JK Rowling trying to get at through the series? I actually think her point can be reduced to one about the shared human condition. None of us will ever get our Apparition license, none of us will ever play Quidditch, none of us have a hope in hell with a Veela and none of us will ever get to see the “Weird Sisters” live.

While magic is indeed might, the sobering reality is that we are, in fact, all Muggles. And we should get over it.

DO YOU SEE YOUR FUTURE IN THE BUBBLES YOUR URINE MAKES WHEN IT CONTACTS WATER? DISGUSTINGLY, THIS FORM OF DIVINATION IS KNOWN AS UROMANCY. GET INTO IT.

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OH MERCY :

FROM THE BEDROOM TO THE STUDIO Josh Chiat talks to Alexander Gow from Oh Mercy, about their new album, Great Barrier Grief.

You guys are named after a Bob Dylan album. Is there a particular influence that he has had on your music?

Bob Dylan is one of my (and everyone else who’s ever tried to write a songs) favourite songwriters. I constantly listen to him, I admire him a lot and to be half as good as him would be reason to celebrate.

Musically, though, I don’t think we’re much like him, but maybe we’re more like Dylan than ABBA are.

Dylan’s wordplay is something that really interested me and I wouldn’t say that I do it in a similar way but him and Leonard Cohen and those guys are...they’re basically all I listen to, so the sounds come out in one way or another.

About the songs, the new album, Great Barrier Grief, has just been released. How is it different to your first?

The first album was recorded in a bedroom in Collingwood, and the second one in a studio in Santa Monica. On the first one we needed to use as many audio tricks as possible and layer things until we could fool people into thinking it wasn’t made in a bedroom. On the second album, we had the resources of a studio and all the instruments to play in it, and could focus on taking those layers away and having a simple approach to recording.

You worked with producer Mitchell Froom over in The States. What effect did he have on your music?

Mitchell helped with the idea of simplifying the arrangements. He was interested in a lot of 60s RnB music and we discussed how we liked the simplicity of the arrangements with four or five musicians playing on every song. When you turn it to a certain volume, it hits you in a really unique way. When you simplify arrangements, it’s almost harder than layering things, because every instrument almost has a spotlight on it.

You had a lot of critical acclaim from the first album, including getting nominated for the AMP

and winning the Red Bull Prize. Has that affected your music at all?

If you’re asking me if I felt any pressure, I didn’t feel any pressure. All the things – like the Red Bull Award – gave me a vote of confidence that I was on the right path, and just concentrated on developing as a writer – tried to better myself. We used funding off the prize to launch recording but I don’t write and record thinking about what other people are going to think and I guess that one day that may be to my detriment.

At the moment it seems to be doing okay.

A couple of years ago you were touring Australia in a van. Do you still do that?

We still do; we’ve never made the trip to Perth in a van. We still tour the East Coast in our van Pauline,

Oh Mercy

Great Barrier Grief Following 2009’s AMP-nominated debut, Privileged Woes, Oh Mercy’s second LP, Great Barrier Grief ,steps away from the subtle funkiness of their debut, introducing a more monotone sound aided by a significant deepening in front man Alexander Gow’s vocals.

The result is pleasant from start to finish, with guitar melodies flowing from song to song and the lyrical quirkiness fans would have come to expect from Oh Mercy. Great Barrier Grief focuses on familiar themes; a collection of failed love songs spiked with the occasional “you’re the girl of my dreams” call out. The songs are well positioned on the album, creating a flow that holds itself all the way through.

Great Barrier Grief opens with ‘Stay Please Stay’, an upbeat singalong that ultimately lacks the groove of Privileged Woes’ opener ‘Lay Everything on Me’. Gow’s lyricism is great on this opening track, lyrics like “what can I do with a love that gathers dust in a busy room?” contrasting well with its happily poppy melody.

Highlights on the album include ‘Tenderness’ and ‘What You Do’, a delightful track sporting the catchiest lyrics on the album (“I taste your produce / I climbed your tree / I worked your orchard of blueberries”).

While it lacks some of the fun of their earlier work, Great Barrier Grief is a solid release. This is quality easy-listening and it will have you singing along in no time.

B

Kiya Alimoradian

which is a Hyax. That’s something that I get great enjoyment from. We’re all squashed up against one another and we get on each other’s nerves and make each other laugh and it’s really testy. It’s a really unique experience.

And now you’ve been touring America in the last year. How is that different to Australian touring?

A lot bigger. You can go from one city to the next. You can travel for four hours and play to an incredible amount of people, whereas if you go four hours north of Melbourne, you play to about 20. We haven’t done the traditional touring thing yet. Being my first time there, I was wide-eyed. It was more like a holiday than touring.

You guys said previously that you were happy to self-release, what made you change your mind and go with a major?

We self-funded the second record and wrote and recorded it independently, which was really important for me because it meant that we had no interference.

We then took it to different major labels to see if they were interested in releasing. We took it to EMI, but it’s not a traditional deal and we have a lot of room to move in distributing our record. The most important thing is that it allows the record to reach a few more hands, which I’m really appreciative of.

Lastly, we’ve talked about distribution, but what about airplay? How important has Triple J been for Oh Mercy?

Triple J’s support has been the only reason that I’ve been able to make a career out of music. Their support means that we can tour nationally; people know our songs, and know who we are. Without that I think I’d be working as a butcher, or something. I couldn’t have kept making my music without them.

Oh Mercy are playing the Amplifier Bar, Perth on April 30 and Mojo’s in Freo on May 1.

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music

music reviews Isolated City

Let England Shake

Various Artists (WattHz) Once known for its DnB production talent and with some of the most noted venues in the southern hemisphere (Ambar, Villa – look them up!), the latest chapter in Perth’s bass music history has been the story of dubstep. Dubstep in Perth goes at least as far back as 2007 when Someone Say Dubstep??

(R.I.P) brought amazing acts like The Bug to Perth.

In fact, Perth’s sound has now crossed-over into London’s – check out Kito, a producer from Claremont, who is signed to Skream’s Disfigured Dubz label.

There are now regular nights across Perth run by different production stables, each with their own take on Dubstep, reflecting that the once singular Perth sound has now splintered into many. In 2011, WattHz has made the evolution from promoter to record label. Isolated City is its first release; a compilation of some of Perth’s choice wobbles.

So much is great here and unfortunately not all of it can be mentioned. Highlight ‘Puppet Master’ by Snowbros pits a sinister, heaving melody against a lethal drop, and Sibalance’s ‘Reflux’ invokes Joker’s purple city-hopper sound. It’s a well-worn formula, but definitely a great track.

No dubstep collection would be complete without bass wobbles. A-Step’s ‘Warning’ chucks around filthy synth growls against your standard 140bpm skank, and ‘Damaged’

by Proximity Effect wins by riding its own momentum on staggering, metallic bass.

Unfortunately, for a style of music that is constantly mutates in London, this collection can sound outdated in places. Overall, however, the quality on show here is consistent and excellent, showcasing a great range of styles and techniques, portending bright things for dubstep in Perth.

B

PJ Harvey

Recorded in a 19th century church, Harvey’s eighth album delves into the convoluted relationship between war, place and an individual’s sense of belonging to what has come before. Harvey’s wicked tongue weaves masterful war poetry through masses of reverb, acoustic guitar and folksy percussion. Among it all, Harvey stands out with a voice like a haunting cherub.

It’s a pleasure to hear that so much thought has gone into the lyrics. The real stellar track is ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’, which juxtaposes harrowing lyrics about soldiers that fell “like lumps of meat” with a hook-laden folk-pop that forces you to tap your feet. Here, Harvey’s melodies are just as, if not more, potent than her lyrics.

In fact, lyrics aside, Let England Shake is probably Harvey’s most listenable record with the exception of ‘All and Everything’, which overuses the word “death” to such an extent that it’s almost infantile.

It would be easy to shrug off Let England Shake as another war protest album, but Harvey is merely an observer to the action. For example, the ethereal ‘Hanging in the Wire’ and Middle-Eastern flavoured ‘England’ present you with illusions of seeing a real, nightmarish war-torn landscape. That’s also the difference between Harvey and most of modern music’s blander protest singers. On Let England Shake, she doesn’t tell you what’s wrong with the world, she lets you see it for yourself.

A

Koko Wozniak

Liam Blackford

Angles

Fading Parade

The Strokes

Papercuts

From Ariel Pink to Beach House, over the past five years there has been an unprecedented level of nostalgia-inspired, washed-out, lo-fi indie-pop. Fading Parade, Jason Quever’s one-man-band, Papercuts’, debut on Sub Pop (fourth LP overall), sticks to the dream-pop formula with a record of subtle, but deeply melodic songs about romantic angst.

Papercuts’ sound is an intriguing mix of Phil Spector wall of sound atmospherics and 80s indie folk. Many of these songs will probably sound very familiar to you, like a washed-out memory emerging from your parents’ dust-covered record collection. Album highlights include the beautiful guitar melodies in ‘Do You Really Want To Know’, the dreamy chorus of ‘Do What You Will’, and the gorgeous indie-pop of ‘Chills’.

There is no doubting that Quever is a supremely gifted musician, record connoisseur and songwriter. Musically accomplished, Papercuts are often thrown into the same ‘gentle-band’ basket as Beach House and Grizzly Bear. Where Fading Parade falls short is that while Beach House and Grizzly Bear are known for their hair-raising vocalists, Quever infuses his complex arrangements with heavy reverb, softening his vocals to such an extent that he seems to be breathing his lyrics. As if separated from Quever by a gigantic wall, the detached vocals makes his instrumentally brilliant songs feel underwhelming to all but the most diligent listener. Imagine Beach House without Victoria Legrand! Moreover, Fading Parade’s ten tracks are so repetitive that they don’t reward repeated listens in the same way as Teen Dream did in 2010 or Veckatimest did in 2009.

Michael O’Brien

B-

It’s been a long time between drinks for New Yorkers, The Strokes, once dubbed the saviours of (pop) rock’n’roll during the garage rock revival movement in the early 2000s. After a five year recording break, The Strokes’ comeback album sees little change in musical direction from their previous releases, but maintains the band’s growing experimental feel.

The title, Angles, sums up the song-writing style that Julian Casablancas and Co. have adopted. They approach The Strokes formula from different angles, putting new spins on their trademark garage sound. Seemingly more pop-oriented than earlier albums, Angles can be described as well produced garage rock. Seemingly more pop-oriented than earlier albums, Angles can be described as well produced garage rock; first single ‘Under Cover of Darkness’ sees a welcome return to Is This It-era Strokes. In other places, however, there’s the electro-pop sound of ‘Games’ (which would almost sound like an Ou Est Le Swimming Pool track if not for Casablancas’ howling self-loathing voice) and the fuzzy post-punk of ‘Call Me Back’.

While it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see The Strokes release anything as startling and culturally significant as Is This It ever again, with the release of this album, it’s obvious that The Strokes will never stray too far from their genre-defining sound. Still, they have managed to stay just original enough to ensure that this doesn’t sound like a re-heated collection of tracks from 2006’s freezer.

B-

Luke Bartlett

Who You Are Jessie J

Hello Anxiety Guineafowl Guineafowl began as a one-man project with a laptop recorded three-track demo. He roped together a few mates from Sydney Uni to film a cute and rather impressive, minimal budget film clip for the single ‘Botanist’. A few other mates joined him on stage at gigs, at which he handed out burnt demo CDs with his own scratchy handwriting on them.

A year passed, and Guineafowl gained increasing intention on radio, culminating in this studio EP, which heralds a band ready to carve their niche in the crowded indie rock market. It’s likable, but the greatest disappointment of the EP is that maybe it’s only that. Though the odd instrumental flourish grabs your attention – the reverbladen riffs of ‘In Our Circles’ or the disoriented synths of ‘Little Fingers’ – the song structures are essentially poppy, and the lyrics often come across as contrived (“We don’t want your revolution / We just want your electrocution”) and self-consciously quirky. The frivolity peaks in upbeat number ‘My Lonely Arms’, which sounds like The Grates with male vocals.

Nevertheless, there’s evident talent here, and with any luck, by the next record Guineafowl will have shed their attempts to be kooky and will create something genuinely exceptional. In the meantime, ‘Botanist’ is the perfect song to accompany an afternoon lying on top of a hill, watching the clouds sail by.

B-

Katherine Dellar

In the Who You Are booklet, Jessica Cornish is dressed in scant clothing in an attempt to portray her as a strong, sexually powerful woman, which of course means a white, British Rihanna. However, while Rihanna can run the gamut of masculine and feminine sexuality in the space of a couple of bars (e.g. ‘Rude Boy’), Jessie J’s music would’ve been considered sexually timid in the 50s, contradicting her promotional image.

While I don’t think that the crotch should be the default setting for all pop-stars, normally that mode of performance reveals deeper layers of emotions, with more sincerity than its girl-pop alternative; canned love ballads with lines like “love is a shield / keeps us concealed” (‘Casualty of Love’).

Unsurprisingly, the best things here reveal some form of sexuality. ‘Abracadabra’ is a good rewrite of ‘Teenage Dream’ and ‘Do It like a Dude’ is a girl-as-boy role-play powered by a pulsing, distorted guitar squall. However good these are, they stand alone among a set of songs virtually devoid of personality.

Jessie J’s musical asexuality seems closely related to her romanticist view of music’s past innocence. On mega-hit ‘Price Tag’, Cornish wails unrestrained about a time when “music made us all unite” on an over-polished 60s pop template, serving only to (further) corporatise the Woodstock legacy. Additionally, apart from ‘Abracadabra’ and ‘Do It Like A Dude’, her producers don’t understand the construction of the retro music Cornish favours, creating tinny pastiches of old musical genres that are simultaneously garish and under-produced.

D+

Still, she’s well connected and has a broad enough vocal range to sound almost unique. Get ‘Abracadabra’ and ‘Do It like a Dude’ for the production and wait until she has found an image that she can match in her music.

Josh Chiat

Going Out In Style Dropkick Murphys If you’ve never heard of the Dropkick Murphys, they are effectively St Patrick’s Day in band form; rollicking Celtic punk Irishmen singing at the top of their lungs. But after 15 years, how do you keep Celtic punk fresh? With a concept album, lad, that’s how.

Going Out In Style tells the tale of Cornelius Larkin, a fictional character whose experiences are based on the collective stories of the band members. As opposed to something like The Black Parade, the Murphys inject some real heart and soul into the album, making it fun to listen to. The opening trio of songs, including first single ‘Going Out In Style’, are a relentless onslaught of drums, gang vocals and mandolins.

Learning from their previous mistake of rarely stopping to breathe on their other albums, Going Out In Style has great mid-tempo tracks like ‘Cruel’. To add to the quality, there are a few guest appearances from NOFX and Living End members, not to mention Bruce Springsteen on ‘Peg O’ My Heart’ before the album closes with a raucous cover of traditional Irish song ‘The Irish Rover’.

Plain and simple, if you’re not a fan of Celtic music, you probably won’t like this. But if you’re a fan, or even undecided, it’s worth checking out, because you’re in for one hell of a ride either way.

Adam Heap

A-

The King is Dead The Decemberists I kick myself for starting by talking about Dylan, but this album comes off as The Decemberists’ John Wesley Harding. “Hey, let’s slow down a bit.

The last album was pretty full on, a big concept, a lot of ideas...let’s chill with friends and get our folk on.” The friendly atmosphere of the recording session comes through in each song. It’s a musical sabbatical – the recording studio in the charming house in the woods.

The vintage country aesthetic departs from the intensity of 2007’s Crane Wife, but makes the music more accessible. The fiddle work, the slide guitars, and the rhythmic acoustic guitars compliment the heavy lyrical style of Colin Meloy. It is the simple ballad songs ‘January Hymn’ and ‘June Hymn’ that stand out – there is an extra level of sincerity that some of the anthems lack (‘Rox in the Box’). I also appreciate the Woody Guthrie guitar lead-ins (that point once again to Dylan).

I love Americana, but here is where I find fault. This album is a musical homage, but the raw intensity of the old folk and country musicians who inspired the style is lost in the very ‘neat’ delivery of The Decemberists. A delivery I usually like, but seems dull here.

With its folk overtones, literary and historical allusions, and laid-back atmosphere, The King is Dead seemed like a pair of boots custom made to fit. Instead, I felt a strange disconnect from this collection of ballads and anthems.

Patrick Marlborough

B

music

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BAT C(O)UNTRY ------------------------------------------ KEVIN CHIAT ------------------------------------------

Kevin Chiat suppresses his fangasm and chats to hawtie Bradie Webb from controversial Australian band Short Stack about maturity, music and crazy fans following the release of their new single ‘Heartbreak Made Me A Killer’.

Your new album, This Is Bat Country, deals with darker themes and really different sounds to your first record. Do you feel that the new album reflects the maturing of Short Stack?

Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of people don’t realise that we were 18 when the first album was written and all the photos were taken…our image and our sound was from a strictly teenage point of view. Now that we’re all slowly becoming men, I think our sound and image naturally matures with that, so I think this is more of a case of what the actual Short Stack will sound like in the years to come.

Do you think Short Stack has left behind some of the publicity stunts that were around when you guys first came out, like the wearing of cock socks in public?

I would have to agree if someone criticised us for that, mainly because I just don’t want to be known as a gimmick band. We want to be known as musicians and we thought we might cut back on a few of the gimmicks and the competitions and really concentrate on the music. But, a lot of bands do that and they find that no one cares about them because they’re not unique.

Speaking of the fans you have a really passionate – some would say cult-like – fanbase. For example, your fans sometimes use your surnames as theirs on Facebook. Does that adulation ever concern you?

I might be a little ignorant, but I just thought it was a coincidence that there seems to be thousands and

thousands of Webbs that like my band. It’s kind of cool and I don’t think I’ve even been scared for any minute, but I think it’s awesome and it’s kind of interesting. It kind of is a cult fan base that’s stuck with us through everything we’ve done; they help us out with everything.

We wouldn’t be where we are without them.

After Andy Clemmenson’s scandal last year [Short Stack’s bassist posted a plagiarised review of Kanye West’s album on the Channel V website], Channel V’s presenters joked about banning you guys from their channel and some of your fans spammed the V Facebook page. One threatened to burn down their building.

I think, when you’re out there and a lot of people can be related to you, you start to realise that there’s some people who say nasty things on the internet. And I don’t think any day we will be held responsible. It’s silly; I think people say silly things. It actually died after a few days that I was aware of. You know, shit happens. I hope that girl doesn’t burn down the V building.

Of course, as well as your very large fanbase, Short Stack has almost an anti-fanbase. Is this something the band is concious of and does the fact that you have ‘haters’ bother you?

I think when we first started out...I look at Rebecca Black just starting out on the internet. Whether I think it’s a terrible song or not, I think hate comes from when you’re successful ;a lot of people are going to like it and possibly more so are going to hate it at first. Mainly because people don’t like change. They like to think that their favourite bands are the best bands and when a new

one comes along it changes everything. So I think we really don’t have that much hate anymore – it was all due to the first album. Now we have an awesome fanbase and everyone respects us a little more.

It’s interesting, you guys are one of the few Australian bands who get little to no support from Triple J. Is this something which bothers you?

Not at all, I think Triple J is awesome. I always get their Hottest 100, awesome CDs and stuff. I like the angle they go for, the unsigned kind of thing, the Unearthed thing. We were actually on that when we weren’t signed.

You know, that actually got us a little bit of help in building our first fan base. I guess you could say Triple J helped us out a bit there. I think you either choose to be in Australia, be grounded and pursue the Triple J path, which is perfectly fine and can be incredibly successful.

You can also do something else, go further and go international, and develop your band even more so. I think you have to choose as a band which path you’re going to take and I think they’re equally important.

Lastly, do you see yourselves as villains or visionaries?

I don’t think you can call us villains, I’ve never heard us get called villains. I guess we try something different, like I said, we do have big plans. I don’t necessarily think we’re going to reinvent the genre or anything but, I think we will do big things, I guess whether it’s motivational, I can’t think of any. You’ve have to dream big, I guess.

Short Stack are playing April 15 at Burswood Dome, supporting Good Charlotte.

GTM Groovin’ The Moo returns to Bunbury this year following its massive 2010 West Australian debut. Groovin’ The Moo’s appeal isn’t hard to see. It gets you out of city and sets you off on a road-trip down south with your closest mates to catch some of the best live music available in Australia. Once again, GTM aren’t just riding on the country aesthetic: This year’s line-up sees the return of indie-darlings Darwin Deez and The Wombats to Australia, along with new-wavers The Drums and Brighton’s Kid’s Choir Hip-Hoppers The Go! Team, who just released the incredible Rolling Blackouts (really, check it out).

Once again there’s a strong Australian line-up, led by indie ravers Cut Copy, experimentalists Architecture in Helsinki and one-man band Gotye. You can add to that The Holidays, The Jezabels, Bliss n Eso, mash-up genius Sampology and a host of others. It’s in winter, so if you’re looking for the coolest festival to hit up this year, it’s probably this one. Every student needs to go on roadtrips.

Where:

How much:

Hay Park Fields, Parade Road, Bunbury

$100 + BF

Who’s playing:

Cut Copy, The Wombats, The Drums, Architecture In Helsinki, Bliss N Eso, Darwin Deez, Gotye, The Go! Team and more

When: May 14

FILM

35

FESTIVORAMALODEON FILM FOR THE DISCERNING EYEBALL

------------------------------------------

Callum Twigger & Samantha Leung ------------------------------------------

This year, Pelican has turned its small, marble-like eyes to focus on Perth’s festival film scene; Festivoramalodeon was what resulted. A quasi-regular peep at what’s showing where and how you can get there.

An Australian production shot for the most part in Sydney, Griff the Invisible received a lot of love running the international film circuit, screening around the globe to supremely impressed audiences.

“It opened at Berlin [Film Festival] and it’s moved on through Toronto to Glasgow. It’s premiered in Australia at Adelaide. Across the board, though, Griff ’s reception has been fantastic,” Toby adds.

Toby has a meaty resume in his own right having recently worked with Bell Shakespeare Company on their production of Much Ado About Nothing. He’s also written a couple of plays, acted in many more and done stints in film and television. The Australian film industry can be a cruel world for a post-grad to navigate, but Toby insists it’s a much more fertile place for a serious career than it used to be.

An interview with Actor/Writer Toby Schmitz on Griff the Invisible.

Festivoramalodeon snatched some time last week with Toby Schmitz, an ex-UWA student who’s worked his way up through the local film industry to star alongside True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten and Maeve Dermody in Griff the Invisible, an idiosyncratically Australian take on the superhero genre.

“It’s a film about legitimising differences. It’s okay to be weird. Stick by what drives you, even if it’s at odds with the universe,” Toby says animatedly, his enthusiasm practically leaking out of the phone. He’s in the car with the film’s producer on the way to the Sydney premiere, and keen to fill in the back-story as to what forces shaped this unlikely new champion of Australian festival film.

Created by writer-director Leon Ford (Youtube short films The Mechanicals, Glitch; be impressed), Griff the Invisible is a fresh premise in the increasingly stagnant Superhero genre, following the earthly tribulations of miserable office drone Griff, who sheds his softserve daytime persona after dark to fight crime as a vigilante.

Toby, who plays office jerk (and Griff ’s nemesis) Tony, identifies personally with Griff ’s struggle. “I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t feel like the universe was conspiring against them at some point or another in their life”, he reflects.

“Everything has a camera on it these days, and with digital film-making programs like Final Cut, there hasn’t really been a better opportunity for young filmmakers to take their first steps,” Toby says.

At that, a voice giving clipped instructions makes its way past Toby down the line it’s clear they’ve arrived at the premiere and our time is up.

“If you love arts; film industry, and local cinema, you’ll be able to get your film out there”, Toby leaves as his penultimate remark, before concluding with a chuckle “Sure, you’ll probably end up being broke for a very long time but such is the curse of the artist”.

At this, your humble correspondent wept in the face of pure truth.

When: Opens on Thursday, March 17 Where: All Good Cinemas

Alliance Festival

Francaise

Film

French film is what we’d all be watching if Napoleon’s cavalry had their way on a soggy Belgian battlefield 200 years ago. Courtesy of the Alliance Francaise Film Festival, France’s foremost cultural event in Australia, us antipodean Anglophones have a chance to see what filmmakers from that other (formerly) great colonial European power have been up to for the past few years.

Opening with Francois Ozon’s quirky comedy Postiche, the Festival will be screening a definitive checklist of current French cinema; mixing blockbusters, festival darlings and underground hits. Notable films include Franke Richard’s pulp horror, The Pack (La Muete), romcom The Age of Reason (L’age de raison), and drama Angele and Tony (Angele et Tony), which stars the regal Clotilde Hesme, the Festival’s current patron. In total, Alliance Francaise serves up 40 plus films, bridging every taste and fancy, cementing it as a headline event for the Perth festival film calendar.

Film screenings bounce between the regular Luna venues, so look to the Festival’s website for the word on the when and the where.

Tickets for uni students cost no more than a jug of beer at the Tav – which is a low price for haute culture. If you speak French, this is a chance to use it. If you don’t, then this is a chance to see how good the people who do are at making wicked movies.

When: March 23rd – April 10th Where: Cinema Paradiso & Luna SX Website: frenchfilmfestival.org/Perth.aspx

FILM

36

The Hall Pass

Rango

Wasted on the Young

Certified Copy

Directed by Peter Farrelly & Bobby Farrelly Starring Owen Wilson & Jason Sudeikis

Directed by Gore Verbinski

Directed by Ben C Lucas

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami

Starring the voices of Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Bill Nighy & Ray Winston

Starring Alex Russel, Oliver Ackland, Adelaide Clemes

Starring Juliette Binoche & William Shimell

Rango is an animated film in the style of Shrek or Monsters Inc. and is Verbinski’s first film since the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. The film is an unabashed Western with all the expectable plot aides: high noon shoot-outs, swinging saloon doors and ride-outs into the sunset. Consequently, the plot is predictable but this doesn’t detract from the movie.

Ben C Lucas has auteurism down pat. He’s written and directed a sleek, brooding and beautiful film that, though not diverging much from a conventional revenge tragedy, is visually unique enough to mark him as a significant young director. And he got Paramount to foot the bill.

This is a decidedly European film that demands audience engagement and large dollops of patience. Think ‘arthouse’ meets ‘batshit bizarre’ and throw a bit of maudlin marriage philosophy into the mix.

It seems the selling point of new comedy flick The Hall Pass is that it was directed by the guys who directed There’s Something About Mary. Given this, I presume forgiveness for hoping that at the very least I’d enjoy sitting in a comfortable air-conditioned cinema for an hour and a half to escape the Perth heat wave. Unfortunately, The Hall Pass met my humble expectations and provided very little else.

Rick (Wilson) and Fred (Sudeikis) are best friends who, at the onset of middle age, begin to feel trapped in their marriages. Following the advice of a well meaning friend, Rick and Fred’s wives decide to issue them a hall pass granting them one week off marriage, in the hopes of reinvigorating their unions.

Predictably, a week of shenanigans ensues.

From the get-go, this film didn’t sit right.

Firstly, Wilson plays a married father of three and the idea of Wilson being responsible for small children, even as a fictional character, would make anyone uncomfortable.

Following this, The Hall Pass is stuck in a genre identity crisis: light-hearted comedy conflicts with the urgency of Rick and Fred’s attempts to save their marriages. We’re also bombarded throughout with crudeness and smut (for those who don’t know the meaning of the term “fake chow”, prepare to be enlightened). Overall, it feels like the writers couldn’t decide what genre they wanted the film to be, which is very unsatisfying for the viewer.

There were one or two good laughs, but you’ve probably already seen them if you’ve watched the trailer. Even for Wilson fans, I’d suggest saving the cost of a movie ticket and waiting until the DVD is in the discount basket at JB.

Rango (Johnny Depp) is the unlikely hero of the film: a friendless chameleon who believes himself destined to be an actor. Finding himself in Dirt, a desert town dying because its only water source mysteriously runs dry, Rango is happily thrust into the role of Sheriff. With the help of Beans (Isla Fisher), he proceeds to unite the locals and lead them on the usual madcap adventure to find the missing water and save the town.

On the way, he encounters airborne moles, a giant rattlesnake with a gun for a tail and walking cacti. Like most decent animated kid’s movies, Rango is pretty entertaining for an adult audience. Depp’s character in particular is endlessly amusing and there are plenty of other comic moments (like a wealth of Hunter S Thompson references) that keep you chortling.

The animation and graphics are superb; every detail has been laboured over.

The physical traits of each character and scene have been so considered and sharply defined that it makes Rango a pleasure to watch. Similarly, the actors’ voices are hard to fault, which is unsurprising considering the film’s veteran cast.

Consequently, Rango is definitely worth a good look.

B Giles Tuffin

D+ Rachel Fuller

Wasted on the Young is straight forward: rich and popular step-brother Zack (Alex Russel) takes advantage of public-schooled nerd Darren (Oliver Ackland) and his love interest, Xandrie (Adelaide Clemens), sparking intrigue, violence, and an exploration of martyrdom. Drugs, parties, technology and a swimming team are involved. Parents and police are absent.

Although the titular Oscar Wilde reference is more than a little hackneyed, this ultrastylised film does play out a little like a Wilde work (more Salome than An Ideal Husband, methinks) because the emphasis is on the beauty of its unreality. The film is set within its own “bubble” (I quote), a parallel universe where money is no object, adults don’t exist and cliques equal class.

Location is vague (kudos to Lucas on his reinterpretation of Edith Cowan University) and time is flexible. Guns and drugs come from nowhere. These people are not of our world, right down to their Heathers kidult cores.

Which leads to one of the movie’s flaws: dialogue can be awkward. Listen and you’ll hear how each sentence centres on a careful hipster word (“bro”, “smashed”, etc.). Dropping in a colloquial “ay” does not a natural sentence make. Yet the film is good. It’s held together by a series of unconventional segues (e.g. the ‘17’ in Xandrie’s Facebook information melts into a house number) over a throbbing dubstep score. Lucas also successfully borrows text effects from films like LOL to clean up any jarring from an SMS-heavy script.

Wasted on the Young is a tense, solidly acted and very well made film that certainly deserves a watch.

B+ Zoe Kilbourn

In Certified Copy, writer James Miller (William Shimmel) and an unnamed Frenchwoman (Juliette Binoche) start off as strangers talking about art and philosophy, before moving on to more intimate details of family life and marriage.

After being mistaken for a married couple, Miller and his nameless muse continue to act like one, with the woman continuing to bring up Miller’s shortcomings as a husband and father over the years.

At this point there’s a palpable sense of confusion as to what’s really going on.

Didn’t they just meet each other? Have they been married for fifteen years? If so, why the apparent pretence in their relationship?

The film remains determinedly evasive about these plot details. Juliette Binoche’s performance is what carries this film forward (she won the Best Actress award in Cannes for this role). Opera singer William Shimmel, however, leaves much to be desired in his debut. At best, he is adequate and at worst, his lacklustre performance is cringe-worthy.

Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami is acclaimed for making thought-provoking movies and it is refreshing to see a movie without predictable dialogue and plot.

However, this movie lurches so far in the other direction that it risks losing audience interest by being deliberately obscure.

By the end of the movie, you’re left not really knowing what happened (because really, nothing much did happen) and not all that curious to find out more.

This film has potential to be interesting and engaging, but it drifts off into unremarkable and banal observations about identity and marriage.

CDeblina Mittra

FILM

37

Biutuful

The Rite

Griff The Invisible

The Mechanic

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Directed by Michael Hafstrom

Directed by Leon Ford

Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, Colin O’Donoghue, Alice Braga

Starring Ryan Kwanten, Maeve Dermody, Patrick Brammall & Toby Schmitz

Starring Jason Stratham, Ben Foster and Donald Sutherland.

The Rite is an exorcism movie.

If comedy is vicarious suffering, Griff the Invisible is a brilliant comedy. The eponymous Griff (Ryan Kwanten)’s reality is the broken window through which Leon Ford’s film shows the audience the daily grind of its hero; sometimes an office worker, sometimes a vigilante in the comic-book mould, Griff can’t connect the confidence of his masked alterego to the realities of his office workplace.

Starring Javier Bardem Biutiful depicts a harsh and detached, yet intriguing, narrative of a man’s attempts for redemption in the face of his rapidly degenerating health due to terminal illness. Iñárritu has cleverly cast Bardem as Uxbal, the tragic hero who is struggling to comprehend the inevitability of his untimely death.

Typically, Iñárritu utilises a fragmented, multilayered narrative. However, Biutiful follows a circular motion, beginning and ending with a mysterious dream-like scene set in a tundra landscape ridden with snow while Uxbal converses with an unidentified man perhaps to symbolise acquiescence to his own death.

The film is set in Barcelona, which is arguably one of the most photogenic cities in the world. Iñárritu, however, has distorted this image by exposing the city as an ugly and decrepit (hence the ironic title perhaps?) with a distinct organised crime niche exploiting the poverty stricken immigrants (mostly of African, Chinese and Eastern European descent) of which Uxbal is involved.

Much of the film is concerned with what seems to be an endless run of tragic events occurring as a consequence of illegal and uncensored activities. This leads to a crescendo of disparity and sorrow within the human condition of Barcelona’s lowest social class. Despite his best intentions, Uxbal’s actions seem to only make matters worse, with the consequences being fatal for a number of his clients.

At a length of 148 minutes, the film begins to drag as the impact of more confronting scenes are numbed by arduous scenes capturing Uxbal’s declining health. In conclusion, the film is effective in its somewhat harrowing exposure of the huge discrepancies between Barcelona’s socioeconomic classes and the lack of awareness regarding the fragility of the human condition.

A young, European-American seminary student (think The Exorcist) joins an older British demon hunter (think The Exorcist) while wrestling with his doubt (think The Exorcist) and the guilt he feels over a dead parent (“Dimi, WHY did you LEAVE me?”).

Reluctantly involved in his first exorcism (The Exorcist), that of a young girl (The Exorcist), he finds the incubus-in-question’s power over him grow stronger, until he too believes he might be possessed (The Exorcist).

So, although the scriptwriters made a clear and conscious effort to shake off restrictive clichés – at one point bluntly asking whether we expected “rotating heads and pea soup” – it’s obviously indebted to forerunners of the genre (read The Exorcist). It’s not quite as formulaic as I’ve made it out to be; The Rite certainly has a lot of charm, particularly in the opening half. There’s a clever little set-up: sceptic Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue) escapes his oppressive family business via the seminary – because it’s the only other accepted Kovak career.

The film can be funny, and occasionally gets a laugh from language barriers and interrogation methods. Anthony Hopkins is a lot of fun and his role requires him to make Jack-Nicholson-in-The-Shining leaps of personality. And O’Donoghue is, if not a spectacular actor, very attractive.

The Rite can be disturbing, too – this is a good thing. Although exorcism scenes lack the originality and panache of, say, The Exorcist, Hafstrom’s use of focus and dream sequences are used very effectively, as in the opening sequence, where the audience has to fight to understand what’s happening (and it’s quite alarming when you do).

But the script sags under the somewhat rigid schematics of the genre and characters consequently lack depth. An example being when Michael’s disbelief is drawn out beyond any reasonable mark, culminating in this reaction to a spontaneous and very localised frog-plague: “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Rent it instead.

AClare E Twigger

C Zoe Kilburn

Ford mostly succeeds in holding the audience’s sympathy for his hapless protagonist, but sometimes he’s asking for more sympathy than Griff deserves. Griff ’s love interest Melody (Maeve Dermody) is drawn to him by his imagination and social ineptitude, but her affection perhaps stems from a fetishisation of apparent autism rather than Griff ’s appeal as an individual.

Frustrating as they may be, these are moreoften-than-not the characters’ flaws, not the film’s, and (fleshed out by a sharp script) Griff the Invisible is a good film. Griff the Invisible works because it is, like most great comedies, funny and painful. Ford uses the thematic proximity of comedy and tragedy like a road map and takes the audience on detours each way: Griff ’s small victories over office asshole Tony (Toby Schmitz) are hilarious, Tony’s responses cruel and tortuous; the same is true of Griff ’s ongoing battle with the reality of his life. Pardon me, reality: period.

Griff the Invisible is stylish, well shot and paced appropriately. It’s clear Ford strained against his budget; some action scenes aren’t as tight as they ought to be and the special effects are only passable. But for audacity and entertainment value, Griff the Invisible is a triumph for contemporary film in Australia.

Directed by Simon West British buff-man Jason Stratham plays his typical post Guy Richie-era role of the no funny business assassin in this year’s bloody action flick, The Mechanic.

The film is a remake of a 1972 film of the same name. It follows Bishop (Stratham), a strong silent assassin, whose life of whacking South American drug dealers and retreating to his bitchin’ lakeside apartment is turned upside down when he’s ordered to assassinate his friend and mentor Harry (Donald Sutherland). Harry allegedly sold a number of Bishop’s assassin buddies down the river.

Bishop then takes on the role of training Harry’s short-fused vagabond son Steve (Ben Foster) through a series of incredibly brutal action pastiches. But in a twist of fate, obvious after about 10 minutes of screen-time, Bishop realises his mentor’s death was a set up and he and his newly trained side kick begin taking revenge in a classic 1980s big boss kind of way.

There’s not a lot to say about this film, other than that it follows an uninspired action film plot with a really irritating techno-rock infused soundtrack. It does offer the full buffet of amazing violent death sequences, including (but not limited to) an obese cult leader being choked to death on a video camera, a bodyguard bursting open after a fall from a hotel rooftop and – best of all – a seriously badass harpooning.

All in all, the film takes itself too seriously and is so familiar that your ticket money could be better spend on hiring out 80s action classics to watch at home instead.

C

B+

Robert Mead

Callum J Twigger

AUSTRALIA CINEMAS

38

BAD BOY BUBBY

------------------------ Cult Film From ‘Stralya’ -----------------------LACHLAN KEELEY

“GOD BE A USELESS CUNT.” So sayeth the titular character of Rolf De Heer’s incredible 1995 feature, Bad Boy Bubby, one of the greatest and most blasphemous and just generally bizarre films to have ever come out of Australia.

While one might get pleasure out of extolling the secular humanistic philosophy promoted in the film and link it to other works in a similar vein – such as a play by some Irish guy in which a character angrily labels God a bastard since he doesn’t actually seem to exist ¬– I will instead take the dearly beloved alternative route of Mr. Frost and stick to describing just how great this film is (which is very great): when the protagonist’s most beloved pastime is strangling people with gladwrap, you just know it’s a good movie.

But firstly, let us talk about Mr. De Heer, who just happens to be one of Australia’s greatest living directors, even though he is Dutch! Isn’t that great? Although not as ridiculously prolific as Bruce Beresford, De Heer has still managed an impressive – and for the most part consistently watchable – oeuvre. Perhaps some of you were forced to watch The Tracker in high school? Disregard your teenage prejudices and ignore the fact that most of the characters are ridiculous strawmen (our heads full of nothing, etc).

It’s still a damned good movie and one of De Heer’s career highpoints. That it can be appreciated as an allegorical work at the same time as being a narrative drama places it in the same vein as Jim Jarmusch’s 1995 masterpiece Dead Man – a film which should be required viewing for anyone interested in anything (ever). Ah, enough! I fear that my praises are transmogrifying into platitudes, so we shall return to the topic at hand: Bad Boy Bubby.

But alas! There must be discussion of Australian Culture, since it is Important that we are Patriotic and Eat Vegemite and are Rosy Cheeked, etc, etc.

And this movie has patriotism, or some variant thereof, in spades – or shovels, as it may be.

However, before describing this, I feel it may be necessary to elaborate upon what Bad Boy Bubby is actually about.

The main character, Bubby – played brilliantly by Nicholas Hope, who you may know from the ABC series Changi and also, uh, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid – is a 35-year old man who has been convinced by his mother that everything outside is contaminated with poisonous gas and has therefore never left the basement that he and his mother call home. Said mother takes very good

care of him (if you know what I mean). One day his father returns home and Bubby – driven to a jealous rage by his mother rekindling a more than platonic relationship with said father – strangles them both with a roll of gladwrap. He then leaves the basement and emerges into the wonderful world of Australia.

Are you with me so far? Good.

Anyway, the first thing that Bubby encounters is a wonderful slice of Australian culture! That being a ute-full of beer-swilling bogans who proceed to call him a poofter bastard and then try to run him over.

And it only gets better from there! Bubby is a very strange man, the only way he is able to communicate is by reciting things that he has heard from someone else. This leads to a lot of wacky situations in which he recites lecherous things his father has said to his mother about her mammaries, or simply just calls people “poofter bastards.”

Bubby goes walkabout. He runs into a band that let him sing for them and a woman whose fundamentalist parents disapprove of him. This woman’s mother provides one of the film’s best quotes: “If God had wanted us to be fat, he’d just made us all the same way, wouldn’t he? But he didn’t! God doesn’t like fat people! Fat people are an abomination in his eyes!” Bubby gets sent to jail and is sodomised by another prisoner. He goes to a church and meets an organ player who looks like Werner Herzog. This organ player proves to be a strident atheist who then gives an extremely passionate soliloquy about it being the duty of humanity to think God out of existence.

This is one of the film’s more down-to-earth scenes.

But here is the best reason to like Bad Boy Bubby: De Heer decided to employ thirty-one different cinematographers to photograph the film. How many other movies have thirty-one photographers? That’s right. Even if you find all the sodomy, incest and blasphemy to be tasteless, Bad Boy Bubby is still worth watching if simply just to witness the glorious clash between all of these competing camera styles.

Thirty-one!

Rolf De Heer’s film Ten Canoes (2006) is actually my favourite Australian film. It is a collaborative effort between De Heer and the Raminging people, narrated by David Gulpilil. It is a great example of how the cinematic medium perfectly compliments Indigenous story telling – Patrick.

SERIALISING A SERIAL KILLER ------------------------ interview with jeff lindsay ------------------------

Since the first novel was released in 2004, the Dexter series has achieved massive popularity and spawned an award winning TV show by the same name. Author Jeff Lindsay sat down with Pelican’s Mark Birchall to discuss his latest novel, Dexter is Delicious.

How did you first come up with the idea for Dexter?

I was asked by a civic group to give a talk about why you should read at least half of a book once in your life. I was sitting in the head table, looking at the crowd of insurance salesmen and realtors and bail bondsmen. They were all smiling really phony at each other and passing out cards and talking with food in their mouths; and the idea just popped into my head, that....serial murder isn’t always a bad thing. So, I started writing the idea down and I kind of went home with the outline for the first book.

Our theme for Pelican this edition is ‘Villains and Visionaries’. Do you see Dexter as a villain?

Not really; not in the classical, Shakespeare tradition of, “Therefore will I a villain be?” You know? He thinks he’s a monster and he probably is. But he has a few socially redeeming features, like if he kills somebody now and then at least he brings doughnuts to work.

Despite the dark subject matter of the books, they can also be very funny. How important do you think the use of humour is to the books?

To the books I think it’s very important; I think it’s what sets them apart. To me, it’s something that makes the character a little bit more palatable too.

You write Dexter in first person. How do you get into his character and do you see parts of him in yourself?

There are a lot of parts that overlap, not the homicidal parts but you know… it’s like if you’re a character in a long running TV show. You show up to work, you take a deep breath and assume the character. Originally it took a lot of research and a lot of talking to psychologists, cops, and one or two psychopaths. And eventually it became something I could put on.

There have been a couple of recent murders, one in the US and one in Norway, where the perpetrators have cited Dexter as someone they connect with.

Do you fear that Dexter will be politicised?

It could be. My daughter is a big Harry Potter fan, she’s read all the books and seen all the movies and she still hasn’t developed magical powers. Books and movies can’t make you something you’re not.

People who say, “Dexter was an inspiration to me” were going to kill anyway and if they choose to do it thinking they were being Dexter, it was that or thinking they were the Purple Avenger. The books

can’t do it. It’s just stupid.

Your latest novel, Dexter is Delicious, involves cannibalism. Did you have to do any research for that aspect?

It’s very disturbing, but it’s really easy to find anything you want to know about cannibalism on the internet. There are cannibal chat rooms, or if you, Google “human flesh recipe” you’ll get a few million hits, with recipes and tips on how to properly bleed out the corpse and so on. So yes, it was dark. It’s not always fun.

Dexter doesn’t get along well with adults, though he does have a rapport with children. Why do you think that is?

I think there’s sort of an honest, predatory feeling that most kids have before we learned to control it.

That appeals to Dexter and before you learn all the rules of how you’re supposed to behave, you’re just open about it and behave the way you want. It’s a lot easier for a sociopath to relate to. I don’t suggest all psychopaths are like that, but one of his quirks is that he really does like and appreciate children.

You also were writing partners with your wife [Hillary Hemmingway], do you still write together?

She still helps me out an awful lot and I help her out on her projects, but we haven’t officially done something that both our names are on for a while.

It’s not that common either for both the husband

and wife to write. I think what we have is really special; there’s never competition or resentment. For years she was getting all of the attention, just because of her name, and we would work on something together and it would be all about her. There have been times when she’s making the money and I’m staying at home watching the kids, and at the moment it’s the other way around – it may go back again. People don’t want Dexter forever, I’m sure.

You’re here for the Perth Writers Festival, so do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Learn to arc weld [Laughs]. It’s important to have a skill that pays well enough that you can do it at your own pace, at your own hours, so that you can write at your own pace, at your own hours. The rent comes first, that’s just a basic law of life. You have to be prepared for the fact that making a living as a writer and being a writer are two different things.

Jeff Lindsay, thanks very much for sitting down with Pelican.

It was a great pleasure, thanks.

JEFF LINDSAY

39

BOOKS

40

A HOT AND HEAVY WEEKEND Ben Sacks -----------------------------------------------------------------indulges in the Perth Writers Festival

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Elton John once said that you can’t be a sex symbol sitting at a piano.

Often – far too often – the same thing could be said about reading books.

For most people, books are to movies, music and television what the piano is to an electric guitar: stimulating and sometimes charming– but never sexy.

The Perth Writers Festival, which ran from the March 3–7 this year on the UWA grounds, is a bold attempt to topple this perception. Walking around the campus I was greeted by hundreds of second-hand books piled alluringly in displays between the University Club and the Octagon. Like paperback sirens, they fluttered their pages at the crowd, inviting all-comers to thumb through their worn contents. By Monday afternoon, most of them had been whisked away and ravaged by their new owners.

The R-rated fun didn’t stop there. Pelican was lucky enough to get its hands on three press passes and we took full advantage of a star-studded literary line-up that included a Pulitzer Prize winner, multiple Miles Franklin Award winners, an Australian of the Year and a Booker prize nominee. Jeff Lindsay, author of the Dexter series of novels (did you know they made a TV series based on his books?) even found the time to give our very own Mark Birchall a tell-all interview. The press passes were also used to gain access to evening nibbles and drinks with the festival organisers, authors and dignitaries. That’s hot.

At any one time there were three or four panels or author interviews running concurrently, usually in the Octagon, University Club, Dolphin Lecture Theatre and the Festival tent. At least two of these concurrent events were free to the public and entry to the paid events ranged from $12.50 to $35 (slightly less for students). This was in addition to the litany of slightly dearer “how to” writing workshops running through the course of the weekend. Whether you wanted the cheap thrills of fantasy, the visceral cut and thrust of politics or the sophisticated titillation of literary fiction, there was something for everyone. It really was the literary equivalent of walking through Amsterdam’s De Wallen red-light district.

Each of the interviews and panels went for around 45 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of audience questioning. Of the events I attended, Tim Flannery, Andrew O’Hagan, Phillip Adams and Tariq Ali were the most impressive speakers, while discussions on “the future of print”, “this is Australia” and “twisted tales” slid easily into the “excellent” category. Question time was always fun, with a mix of the inevitable (“How do you start writing?”), the fan-boyish (“What was going through your mind when you wrote this part of your book?”) and the question that isn’t a question at all (“This is my opinion. Comment.”). Overall, the audiences certainly came to the party and contributed to a generally relaxed and inquisitive vibe. The mood was entirely different, however, at events with political

Illustration by Evan Pearce

figures and topics. Passions burned and blood boiled up like sangria in the blazing sun when Tariq Ali or Anthony Loewenstein were involved.

It’s worth noting that amidst all this fooling around, there were a number of family activities on offer. These “family day” events included animated films, story telling seminars and workshops with children’s authors.

My younger cousins especially enjoyed the craft activities, although at times I was forced to shield them from the seductive waves radiating from the authors signing books at the nearby festival tent.

Ah, the book signings. Any notion that books couldn’t set the pulse racing was instantly dispelled by a trip to the tent. Grown men and women (including at least one UWA lecturer) formed a giggling gaggle as they lined up nervously to meet their favourite authors. Much heavy breathing, twirling of hair and shameless flirting ensued. For me, there was also the awkwardness of seeing a few writers that I have given poor reviews to during my time at Pelican. I can only compare it to the feeling of seeing a jilted lover and intently avoiding her gaze.

All in all there was more sex than you could shake a large stick at, with three examples in particular lingering on in my ardour-addled brain. Firstly, radio broadcaster and political columnist Phillip Adams boasted that he had slept with Janette Howard (which he later qualified to say he had fallen asleep next to her on a plane). Then there was Andrew O’Hagan’s voice: a mellifluous Scottish brogue that left housewives drooling as he defended the narrative integrity of Marylin Monroe’s dog Maf or explored the meaning of “Westerness”. Finally, the collective exhaling of breath and satisfied “ooo” that followed Kim Scott’s reading from his latest book sounded like… well, you know.

As I left the Octagon after Andrew O’Hagan’s epic closing address on “The West”, I was steadfastly convinced that books are in fact sexy. In fact, they are deeply sexy in a way that most television shows, movies and music will never be. Reading and writing are to these things what a romantic getaway is to a romp at a cheap motel. We’re talking sex without the shame, intellectual lovemaking that means something.

It’s beautiful, man. My only regret from the Writers Festival was that I didn’t see more UWA students enjoying what is a great opportunity to learn, to experience, and to let yourself go and have some fun.

So when the Festival returns in 2012, do yourself a favour and partake in what is one of the best – and sexiest – events that Perth has to offer.

TEN VISIONARY WORKS OF SCIENCE FICTION -----------------------------------------

KEVIN CHIAT ----------------------------------------

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) One of the first novels to deal with artificial life. Shelley explores the dangers of scientific hubris as the eloquent, horrific Creature wreaks havoc on the life of the creator who abandoned him.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895) A gentleman inventor creates a time machine and goes into the far future. He discovers that humanity has split off into two races, the Eloi and the Morlocks. This split is representative of working conditions in Victorian England.

‘The Call of Cthulhu’ in Weird Tales

by H.P. Lovecraft (1928) The birth of Cosmic Horror.

Lovecraft’s Elder Gods and Cosmic Monstrosities remind us of the meaninglessness of human existence, leaving those who have seen them insane in the membrane.

Although be warned, Lovecraft is a little bit racist.

I, Robot by Issac Asimov (1950) Asimov introduced The Three Laws of Robotics: Don’t harm humans, obey all orders from humans except when being told to harm humans and protect themselves as long as this doesn’t contravene the first two laws. Essentially all of Asimov’s I, Robot stories are about problems caused by loopholes in the laws.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (1961) A young man is brought back from Mars, where Martians brought him up. He has a very different viewpoint on life. It’s all very 60s; talking about religion, consumerism and free love.

You need to read it to grok it.

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (1962) A defining work in the Alternate History sub-genre. The Nazis win World War Two and much of the United States is occupied by the Japanese. Dick follows the lives

of the people living under these totalitarian regimes and questions the nature of our reality.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974) Young men and women are conscripted to fight in an endless interstellar war. No one has any idea how the war started or why it’s being fought. Due to time-dilation caused by travelling in deep space, the young recruits find life on Earth continuing without them and society becoming unrecognisable. Pretty much the Vietnam War in Space.

Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo (1982) A Manga classic and one of the first to crossover to a Western audience.

Otomo creates a cyberpunk dystopia where street gangs run wild on the streets of Neo-Tokyo and the world is filled with body-horror, rebellion and evil governments. A story haunted by the spectre of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a SF take on post-war Japan.

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson (2003) The first of Gibson’s most recent cycle of books. Rather than writing about the near-future, Gibson writes about right now. He highlights that the modern day – with our portable communication devices, all pervasive brands and cool hunters – is as strange and compelling as any SF future.

Neuromancer William Gibson

“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system.”

Few Science Fiction novels have proven to be as visionary as William Gibson’s Neuromancer. The novel coined the term “cyberspace” and is recognised as the start of the Cyberpunk movement, a key influence on hacker culture. Gibson’s first novel was released in 1984 and won the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

From the first sentence, where Gibson vividly describes the polluted sky of the near-future it was clear that Neuromancer represented something new and exciting in the world of SF literature.

Neuromancer follows Case, a former Console Cowboy. He was a thief; a hacker who specialised in stealing information from the mega-corporations that dominate the world. When a deal went sour, Case was attacked by gangsters who poisoned him and took away his ability to plug into the matrix (yes, the Wachowskis stole that).

Now confined to the “meat” world, Case is a low-level drug dealer and criminal in the Chiba district of Japan and is desperate to be able to reenter cyberspace. Compared to cyberspace, the physical world for Case is a “prison of his own flesh”. Case is hunted down by a mysterious man called Armitage and offered a way back into cyberspace. Case has to help Armitage with a heist concerning the artificial intelligence programs Wintermute and Neuromancer. Case is helped by Molly Millions, a mercenary who has modified her body into a living weapon.

Gibson is a master at world-building, creating a detailed future where corporations are all powerful, branding is everywhere and terrorists commit acts just for the media exposure. Case is an engaging lead, described by many as the SF version of Raymond Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe.

Gibson’s matrix predates the modern internet and his vision of a global computer network is scarily accurate. Neuromancer served as an inspiration to the hacker subculture, which built the modern internet as we know it. As we put more and more of our identity online, Gibson’s vision of a cyberworld where digital echoes of the user are left in the matrix, is incredibly relevant to our modern society.

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KEVIN CHIAT ----------------------------------------

We3 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (2004) Visually innovative and emotionally heartbreaking, Morrison and Quitely’s graphic novel is a breathtakingly good piece of SF. It’s the story of three animals turned into living weapons: a dog, a cat and a rabbit. They are on the run and searching for home. If you don’t get misty-eyed reading We3, please arrange an appointment with your GP. You may be missing a heart.

Illustration by James Hale

BOOKS

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What Pelican read this month a-

Morning Glories Volume One Writer: Nick Spencer Artist: Joe Eisma Publisher: Image Comics Morning Glories is one of the most hyped new comic series of recent years and deservedly so.

Written by rising comics star Nick Spencer and illustrated by Joe Eisma, it is a strange and exciting mix of mystery and teen drama.

Casey, Hunter, Jade, Zoe, Ike and Jun are accepted into the Morning Glory Academy, the most prestigious boarding school in America.

Upon their arrival, they’re greeted by the mysterious and sinister Miss Daramount. There are

a

strange and terrible things going on at Morning Glory Academy. The new arrivals discover secret societies, human experimentation, monsters and psychotic roommates.

Spencer weaves an intricate plot, with story threads developing in the near future as well as 15th century Spain. The dialogue is witty but still sounds like it’s coming from the mouths of teenagers. Jade’s super-emo diary entry is one of my favourite jokes in the series, demonstrating perfectly how overwrought teen angst can be. However, there are moments that send the comic into horror territory. The characters conform to teen-fiction archetypes – Ike comes off as a slimier version of Gossip Girl’s Chuck Bass – but there’s room for character development in future volumes.

Eisma’s art is clean and attractive, with a nice balance between realistic and cartoony art styles. Eisma’s visual storytelling is very clear and easy to follow; perfect for a book that has potential to attract new audiences to comics.

Morning Glories is one of the most exciting new series to launch in comics in years. Its mix of pop, horror, sci-fi, mystery, teen drama and a cliffhanger ending has me eagerly anticipating the next volume.

Kevin Chiat

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The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Siddhartha Mukherjee Roughly one third of women, and half of men, will develop cancer in their lifetime.

Despite its prevalence, relatively few people can explain what cancer actually is or make sense of the hysteria surrounding the public hunt for carcinogens. The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by American oncologist, cancer researcher and science writer Siddhartha Mukherjee, represents an attempt to correct this deficit and to

are young, or just below menopausal age, this is a book that could affect how you approach pregnancy and how you approach you.

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Fitness is an issue at the back of many pregnant women’s minds. My own mother has spent her life punishing me for destroying her figure. Ms Baker presents her tips in order to prevent another generation of children suffering at the hands of flabby-tummied women who despise them. From push-ups to stretches, Baker can help a baby-maker look like a goddess.

Pregnancy and Fitness Cherry Baker Once a generation, a book changes the world.

From The Communist Manifesto to The Female Eunuch, these works transfigure our perception of ourselves and our world. Pregnancy and Fitness by modern prophet Cherry Baker is one such text.

Through the power of prose and photography, Baker studies the plight of the female through pregnancy. Her words of wisdom resonate as she explores how this creature copes with creating life itself. Whether you

Do not be fooled though, Pregnancy and Fitness is not just a self-help guide. Suspense is maintained as the stomach grows and grows beyond human control. The reader empathises with this character. Together you will laugh, cry and – for some readers – push humans out of your lady areas. As for those with erotica on their minds, let’s just say the models grow in areas other than their stomachs.

If you want a heart-warming and hilarious tale that embodies the human condition, read Pregnancy and Fitness. It’s also good if you want to keep fit while you’re pregnant.

Richard Ferguson

The Sentry Robert Crais If you’re a Robert Crais fan then you’ll already be familiar with his Cole/Pike novels. If not, then brace yourself for a classic crime novel filled with ex-cops, gang warfare and someone who’s not your everyday psychopath in his series’ fourteenth book, The Sentry.

Set in Los Angeles, The Sentry tells the story of two refugees from New Orleans building a life again after Hurricane Katrina. All is not as it seems, however, when Joe Pike stumbles across Dru Rayne and her Uncle and becomes

understand where cancer has come from and where it is headed.

Mukherjee does not assume any particular expertise on the part of his reader. Indeed, one of the greatest strengths of the book is the way in which he is able to explain some of the basic mechanisms of cancer and its genesis without making the exercise feel like a lesson in molecular biology. His examination of cancer’s history from both societal and medical perspectives will be of interest to those with a scientific background, and he provides a sound (if occasionally overlong) education in the dynamics of cancer medicine and research up to the present day. Where the book really comes into its own, however, is when Mukherjee discusses his own patients and clinical experiences. These stories make for emotionally draining reading but they imbue a gravitas that makes the book hard to forget.

It is also nice to see that although Mukherjee doesn’t assume prior scientific knowledge, he doesn’t make the mistake of treating the reader as unintelligent; this is a book that should be read in small sections, properly digested and thought about. A thought-provoking and highly recommended read.

Ellen McGuckin

tangled up in a web of lies, betrayal and a whole lot of missing money. As Pike’s feelings for Dru blossom, her past returns to haunt her, bringing with it federal agents, American gangsters and a good dose of violence.

Not familiar with the other Joe Pike novels myself, I was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which I could understand the storyline and the characters. The characterisation and plot progression was well developed and I particularly liked the way in which the story was told from multiple characters’ perspectives. However, while the book was fast-paced and suspense-filled, it lacked a certain sparkle that would have made it hard to put down. It tended to be a little dull, relying too much on the action scenes instead of a strong storyline.

As it was, I did have to push myself to get into the story.

If you’re like me, and not really a fan of crime fiction, then The Sentry is pretty average.

However, if you are inclined towards mystery, suspense and gun-fighting then I heartily recommend it. You’ll probably love it.

Alex Hargreaves

B+

Love Virtually Daniel Glattauer Daniel Glattauer’s novel approaches the nature of a love story from a different perspective – online. Considering the love story is one of the most hackneyed, overworked and abused genres, he does a decent job of it. Love Virtually is a funny, captivating and fast-paced novel about a love affair conducted entirely by email.

Emmi contacts researcher Leo due to a typo in an email address. At first cautious and formal, they slip into cosier conversations. “Regards” and “Best Wishes” soon make way for

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Political Awakenings: Conversations with History Harry Kreisler If the willingness of Pelican contributors to review a book gives any indication of its quality then Political Awakenings: Conversations with History is definitely worth a read. There was quite an argument over who got to do this review!

Kreisler is the host of Conversations with History (available on YouTube) in which he interviews “distinguished men and women” to bring their ideas to a larger audience. Political Awakenings is a transcript of 20 selected interviews that Kreisler conducted with people

“Kisses, Emmi” and “Night Night” and “Love, Leo”. Soon, not a day goes by without a flurry of emails between Leo and Emmi. Though Glattauer provides nothing but the text of the emails, you sense the erotic tension building.

The two begin opening up about their private lives and it seems inevitable that they must meet. However, the fact remains that Emmi is married – “happily married” – with two kids to boot. What’s more, the actual meeting in person keeps getting put off. Although plenty of opportunities present themselves, it seems the prospect of a face-to-face meeting unsettles them. Will their love, so strong and bold online, survive the test of a real-life encounter?

Glattauer takes a long, hard look at online relationships to examine what the connection between two strangers online really means.

Does marriage have a place online? Or is your inbox simply a refuge from domestic duties, a means of fantasy and escape? What does it mean to cheat with someone you’ve never met? A thoughtful and well-written novel, Love Virtually manages to create a “love story” free from trite observations, and does so humorously.

Deblina Mittra

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Bumper: The Life & Times of Frank ‘Bumper’ Farrell

By Larry Writer Whoever discouraged judging books by covers would be disappointed by Bumper: The Life and Times of Frank ‘Bumper’ Farrell. Marketed in vintage poster font as “the sprawling saga of a legendary Australian character”, it’s obviously a piece of the inane patriotic pulp we all know and loathe.

Frank Farrell – “lawman, sportsman, larrikin, legend” – made his name through rugby league and the police force, brutally transcending the rules of both. The biography

who he considers to have made “a difference in our ever-changing world”.

The interviewees – including Noam Chomsky, Ron Dellums and Jane Mayer – explore the factors that motivated and shaped their political opinions, and the experiences that profoundly shaped their personal outlook.

Kreisler begins each interview by asking each of his guests where they were raised and how their parents influenced their ideas about the world. Consequently, a strong sense of the importance of a supportive and encouraging family in achieving success resonates. Some common themes include a distrust of the American Government, failings of foreign policy, social activism, criticism of military affairs and the ongoing search for truth.

These interviews are very inspiring, particularly for those of us who feel motivated towards making changes in our world. However, the interviews that resonated strongest with me were those in which you were left with a sense of the person, separate from their ideas. It was through these interviews that I felt a strong sense that we are all capable of great accomplishments.

I highly recommend reading this book and hope that you can take away as much as I did from it.

Rachel Fuller

c+

Give Me Your Heart Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates may or may not be too prolific for her own good. This is her 20th collection of short stories. Some of them are worth reading.

‘Strip Poker’ – which I believe to be the highlight of the bunch – is an extremely good example of suspense. Oates plays her cards very well here, employing a clever parallelism: The dissipation of the narrator’s teenage innocence and her gradual realisation of her dangerous situation is juxtaposed with a crash course in how to bluff in poker, and her sudden need to be able to bluff in real life to

covers his impressive career, and involves several street fights, Tilly Devine’s birthday party, and Ita Buttrose’s stalker. There’s something very comic about a committed family man who prays every morning before chewing off ears and terrorising the pimps and gangs of inner Sydney, but Bumper is essentially a dreary take on the D.O.A larrikin archetype.

Readers with an interest in rugby league and the history of King’s Cross may get a kick out of Bumper, but most of the information is superficial. The writer relies on vague descriptive passages rather than recounting specific events. He will waste paragraphs on the camaraderie of rugby, the drinking habits of 1930s Sydney, and the approach of war – all clichéd, cloying, and unsourced. Bumper hence reads more like a family memoir than a real biography – a collection of anecdotes that are probably more meaningful if you were there.

The sad thing is that the life of this flawed and fascinating man could have been a very interesting study. With a wider scope, a little more consideration, and much less reliance on Australian narrative conventions, Bumper could have been a significant work instead of the trash it is.

Zoe Kilbourn

escape her leering companions.

Oates’ habit of favouring quantity over quality means that some of her shorter stories are not as great as ‘Strip Poker’. The title story is an especially irritating (though admittedly mysterious) rant dominated by unnecessary punctuation devices. These devices feature in many other Oates novels – Zombie especially – but unlike Zombie, this tale doesn’t really go anywhere.

‘Split/Brain’ is an odd stream-of-consciousness experiment concerning fatalism that could, again, benefit greatly from being expanded. ‘Bleed’ – one of the stronger stories in the collection – also utilises this intense stream-of-consciousness style, and tells the story of a teenager who rescues a mysterious bleeding girl from the side of the road. She turns against him, causing his mind to spiral out of control as he begins to believe that he was the one who originally attacked her.

To conclude: Some of these stories are really, really good, but Oates really needs to work on refining these ones rather than creating a whole hydra-head of weaker tales to supplement them.

Lachlan Keeley

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Sarah Dunstan’s PIAF Wrap up Theatre

Donka: A Letter To Chekhov A dream-like, Commedia Dell’Arte-esque whorl of striking visual motifs, including an oversized chandelier made from removable, destructible ice discs and a mime’s version of an ice rink. Other highlights include the (mixed gender) cast of characters wearing mismatched vintage wedding gowns and an acrobat’s ‘death’ by a vertical piece of red silk ribbon. A dually wisened and child-like retreat into an equally historic and imaginary town of characters that live on the corners of your mind.

Out of Context: For Pina Distinct personalities of each performer permeate this tribute to the German Tanztheatre ‘dance-theatre’. Described as indulgent in some reviews, Out of Context ran for nearly two hours without interval, but this time was used efficiently to develop story without storyline, swinging between highly abstract, Genesisthemed genome movements to discotheque renditions. A very slow wind-down in which the performers put their ‘lay clothes’ back on and return to their curious spots could have been quicker, but considering that performer Melanie Lornoff looked like she’d just given birth – or been tortured with electric shocks – at the end of the very energetic performance, this slow-down was well deserved.

Becks Music Season

Joanna Newsom, March 2 Ms Newsom once described her harp as her limb, or wheelchair, and this unusual relationship showed in a beautiful performance. With her flowing, wheat-coloured mane with absolutely no layering and gorgeously unfashionable strapless green gown, it was totally unsurprising when she introduced her host of accompanists with names like ‘Lucian McGuinness’ and ‘Mirabay’. Indeed, Newsom should have been also attended by fawns, spotted hares and bluebirds as she glided between instruments. A rearrangement of ‘Peach, Plum, Pear’ was strangely jaded compared to crystalline performances of ‘Baby Birch’, ‘In California’ and ‘ ‘81’ which were far richer than the recorded versions. Newsom’s otherworldly stage presence was complemented by an earthy, friendly demeanor whereby she seemed to answer any question posed to her by the close audience, be it quietly chirped or thundered out in the most vicariously embarrassing dialect of Boganese.

Particularly golden was the way Newsom seemed to weave personal histories into her performance – gladly, the lyrics of ‘Peach, Plum, Pear’ were changed to “I was blue and unwell”.

Os Mutantes, March 6

The faded psychedelia was fun, enhanced by some awesome “flautistry”.

The best songs of the first album, like ‘Panis et Circenses’ left until the encore. The band were kind and charming to the audience, to the extend of singing some verses in English and claiming that Perthians were special to them “because we look up at the same constellations”.

Appalling Behaviour Written and Performed by Stephen House

Having once had 200 Euros stolen from me at a youth hostel in Paris, I considered myself to have had enough exposure to the underbelly of Paris for the time being.

So it was with slightly sweaty palms that I ventured there once more, and viewed AWGIE winner Stephen House’s newest offering (both written and acted by him), Appalling Behaviour at the Blue Room Theatre.

As alluded, Appalling Behaviour is set in Paris and follows a homeless English-speaking man over a 48 hour period in the underbelly of Paris as the “pretty Paris people” skate around him. Police, prostitutes, alcohol and drugs are all intertwined in the man’s life as he slips deeper into the Parisian morass. House in fact lived this role himself, substantially residing on the streets of Paris for a month while researching and writing the play. Indeed, he has been researching homelessness for some time and has spent time on the streets of Sydney, Dublin, New York, Chicago, New Delhi, Melbourne and Adelaide.

House gives a powerful performance that is both confronting and raw. The beauty of a venue like the Blue Room is its intimacy, which allowed the character to personally interrogate us with his ramblings as we sat uncomfortably gripping our glasses of red wine. The dialogue, delivered in poetic verse, is engaging and strikingly honest and the seedy characters of Paris are richly constructed.

Appalling Behaviour is about the discomfort we feel when we encounter the homeless and their seemingly asocial behaviour.

More than this though, it is about the desire of the homeless to be recognised, included and valued. Homelessness is an issue that is a headline one day and forgotten the next. Go and see the play and let’s see if we can arrest this cycle of attention.

Appalling Behaviour is showing at the Blue Room Theatre until 9 April. Tickets are $15 for students.

Ed Fearis

B+

was revived. I am very sad to say that Trust, a collaboration between German playwright Falk Richter and Dutch choreographer Anouk van Dijk, took me straight back to square one.

Trust promised so much: an exploration of contemporary, highly relevant issues such as hyper-capitalism; sensitivity to the modern human condition and a fine balance between humour and rage, but evoked little more than a headache and an uncomfortable state of perplexity.

Trust His Majesty’s Theatre I was surprised and somewhat frustrated this summer to find the 2011 Perth International Arts Festival theatre program dominated by physical theatre productions. Yet after seeing Out of Context – For Pina earlier on in the Festival, my faith in the performance mode

A less-than-full house filtered in and immediately laid eyes upon a textured, multilayered set. The performers were already pacing about on stage giving the sense of lives undisturbed. Then the techno music began.

The composer, Malte Beckenbach, played live and fit well amongst the other characters, but the volume and style of music was extremely hindering. Rather than enhancing the stage action it eclipsed it and I felt like I was in an underground German nightclub. There were other practical issues such as the subtitles being located too high above the stage making

it impossible for the audience to read all of the text and watch the performers. About a third of the text was being recited in English but even then it was more like shouting without an identifiable purpose. The text itself was repetitive and failed to significantly link the grand narrative –the global financial crisis – to the various micro narratives developing between the characters, some more interesting than others.

The performers themselves displayed immense talents as actors and contemporary dancers.

Their movements were rhythmic, fluid and almost crazed, effectively communicating the inner turmoil created by the harsh realities of global life. The synergy of the group was the strongest element of the production.

In spite of this Trust missed the philosophical mark proffering nothing more than “it doesn’t matter” and left the issue of whether we can trust others or ourselves unsatisfactorily open.

Elizabeth Howard

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Squizzing in Perth Square eyes?

Craigie Tales – craigietales.com.au From 1994 to 2009, the ‘Craigie Walls’ were a safe canvas for street artists and writers. Now that the walls have been destroyed, a website has been set up with a gallery examining this unique conclave of street art in the northern suburbs of Perth and exposing some of the stories behind it – “Most of the time I had just jumped into bed from being out all night still reeking like booze trying to get some sleep on a nice Sunday morning and my phone would ring and it would always be fucking Trevor telling me to get my arse up to Craigie as he wanted me to chalk up his and Hobos outlines.”

Hole in the Wall Gallery, Fremantle – holeinthewallgallery.tumblr.com Keep up with the Joneses, Smiths and Browns with this new gallery.

Round eyes

The Knife’s Edge by Jin Shan, Kan Xuan, Li Ming, Li Yongbin, Morgan Wong Wing-Fat, Wang Qingsong and Zhao Yao Fremantle Arts Centre, 26 March – 15 May “Transformative” video work by six contemporary artists from Beijing.

Shadow Cast Shadows, by Gian Manik Venn Gallery, 16 Queen Street Perth (NEW!) 2 – 30 April Sculpture and performance combine to reflect both the artists’ self and the object.

Wish, presented by Night Train The Blue Room Theatre, 29 March – 16 April Read the coming of age tale Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy? An adaptation of Goldsworthy’s novel, Wish: A Biologically Engineered Love Story, that examines the culture of hearing and the culture of ‘not hearing’.

Hatched Year 12 Perspectives 2010

Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, 16 April – 5 June

Art Gallery of Western Australia, until 18 July

Emerging graduate artists from around Australia, featuring the Dr Harold Schenberg (see: UWA Art Gallery) Prize.

Some of the most talented artists from last year’s batch of Year 12s show off their wares. This year it is particularly impressive, featuring pastel glazed tiling,

outer space installations and paper things that aren’t quite hearts and aren’t quite foetuses.

The Duchess of Malfi Dolphin Theatre, UWA, May 24 –May 28, at 8pm Students enrolled in ‘Avant-Garde Theatre and Performance’ in English and Cultural Studies will present John Webster’s exciting and bloody revenge tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi. Tickets will be $15 full and $10 concession. A large cast will perform this play of secret liaisons, incestuous longings, and a battle of wits between a vengeful malcontent, a proud Duchess, and her brothers.

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HOWL

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HOWL # 10 – THE LAST KING OF BLANK Bill Marlo interviews Grand Glorious Leader Mojibtsu It’s a common misconception that Pelican gets its money from the Student Guild. They give us enough for cigars and whiskey, sure, but most of our printing funds come from Mojiland, a small Blankfrican nation ruled by the Grand Glorious Supreme General Leader Prime-President Mojibtsu. Pelican HQ receives emails frequently from Mojibtsu asking us to send him money in return for valuable shares in Mojiland’s thriving “Banana Plantations”. It is on these shares that Pelican is actually printed. We are very grateful for Mojibtsu’s support and so it was with excitement that I flew to Mojiland after receiving this email from General Gobukai, Mojibtsu’s right hand man:

Dear Friends,

In return for a simple donation of $3000 the great Mojibtsu has decided that you may publish a piece on his greatness in your esteemed Newspaper.

General Gobukai, Minister for Defence

The 14-hour flight only seemed long due to the fact that it took 72 hours and involved two planes, one motorcycle crash, and a camel. The Glorious Mojibtsu International Air Field is less of an international airport and more of a field with an old barn that has been semirepaired. Inside a tall man in his mid-40s stood holding a sign that read: “PELICAN MAN MARLO?” I gave him an exhausted nod. I was the only passenger. At this he came towards me with a bright white smile and his hand outstretched:

“Pleasure to meet you Mr Bill and Marlo, I am General Gobukai, Minister for Tourism.”

“Oh good yeah...the General right? Aren’t you Minister for Defence?”

He gave a strange laugh, “you are funny comrade. That was last week.”

Gobukai ushered me into a long black limousine that was idling on the air strip. He spoke rapidly of “insurgents” and the “rapidly shifting expectations of the people” and how Mojibtsu was the only one trying to save the country. We drove down a long dirt road in the sweltering heat. “I am taking you to the factories” Gobukai kept saying, never to me, but out to someone deep within himself. “This is one of our finest cities,” said Gobukai. All I could see were shacks built of recycled refuse and litter. A shanty town. The miserable poor lined the streets and ran by the limousine, pounding on its tinted windows. “They are a prosperous people here, their toilet functions perfectly and they bathe weekly. It is a peaceful and affluent area. I was not as lucky as to be born into this luxury. I am from the slums.”

“I see. No crime here then?” We drove past three men beating on a woman who was carrying a

grimy loaf of bread.

“You’d put that on record?”

“Crime?” Gobukai laughed, “there is no crime in Mojiland!”

Gobukai didn’t answer.

“What was the electoral margin?”

I found Gobukai’s laughter unsettling. It continued as we drove down a side path into a lush forest. Ah, I thought, these must be where they grow all the bananas. I am probably too stupid to recognise a banana tree when I see one, but I presume these lush palms grew some kind of exotic fruit. So why not bananas?

We drove into a large shed and exited the limo. “Welcome to the factory!” said Gobukai. I saw no bananas. Rather, there was a metal table that ran the length of the room that was lined with workers going about various tasks.

“Gobukai,” I said, “where are the bananas?”

He laughed. “Oh yes these bananas are our greatest export. Pure, uncut, heroin stuffed into banana peels.”

It was elaborate. Gobukai ensured me that the heroin was of the highest grade, and that it kept Mojiland’s economy afloat. “Everyone is involved in the banana trade!” he laughed, “why, it pays for your paper!” Indeed.

I approached a worker so as to enquire about the conditions I had witnessed thus far. What was it like to serve under Mojibtsu?

“Mojibtsu is a tyrant. I was a professor of astrophysics for 12 years. I am here after I jokingly criticised Mojibtsu in a status update. They work us until we bleed. I am definitely not grateful to be Mojibtsu’s unworthy slave citizen. The heroin is poorly cut, but is distributed amongst the populace to keep them confused. I’d love Mojibtsu’s government to be removed and a democratic government restored.”

Suddenly Gobukai has grabbed me firmly by the shoulders and started dragging me towards the limo.

“Friend Marlo, why do you talk to such fools? They will only tell lies. He is a known banana junky.”

We were now driving to the palace. I would finally get to meet the man himself, Mojibtsu. He was not benevolent, but a horrible brute. Mojibtsu definitely wasn’t the kindly God that I imagined when reading his emails.

“Gobukai, who ran against Mojibtsu at last year’s elections?”

“Only traitors. Nobody voted for them. The Peace and Democracy party is known to be run by paedophiles and Zionists.”

“100% of voters voted for Mojibtsu. With a margin of error of 10%. So probably 110% of people voted for him.”

“Is Mojibtsu popular with the international community?”

Gobukai laughed, “of course. We received arms and training from George Bush Sr, and military support from his son George W. Bush. All regimes support us in our struggle against traitors. Your lady Prime Minister Mrs Kevin shook my hand! We are all friends.”

“I see.”

I waited in the press conference room for three hours.

There was no other journalist besides a man from the Mojiland Times, who held up both hands to wave at me and gave a strange open mouth smile. He had no teeth or thumbs.

Gobukai entered. “I am Press Secretary Gobukai. Grand Glorious Leader President Mojibtsu will answer one question from each of you.”

man.

“Where is Mojibtsu?” said the toothless

“Everywhere.” Said Gobukai. “Mr Marlo?”

“Um...what does Mr Mojibtsu have to say about allegations that he has maintained a regime for 30 years by profiting from his people’s poverty, by distributing heroin internationally, and by giving only fear, and taking the right to a fair and open electoral process?”

Gobuakai quickly ducked behind the curtains he had appeared from. I could hear him repeating my question to someone as well as the muffled reply. Gobukai re-entered the room.

“Mojibtsu answers that his wisdom is absolute and power infinite, and that the line of questioning is that of the Zionist-homosexual elite alliance who are working against his Grand Plan.”

“That’s fair enough.” I said.

At least the bananas were delicious.

what’s on at the tavern Ah, the Guild Tavern. With its Fabulous Ambience, Olde-Worlde Charm and Convenient Location, it’s no wonder The Tav is a favourite watering hole for many a student. More than just a place to imbibe a soothing Ale, The Tav also plays host to a kaleidoscopic array of events. In addition to the two we’ve highlighted below, Don’t Forget Bands in the Tav on Friday Afternoons from 4PM. For all the Tavern info, check www.guild.uwa.edu.au/home/tavern

Super Tav Trivia University is all about learning things that will be valuable when you get a job, but what if there was a way to profit from your so-called “useless” knowledge as well? Well, forget your what-ifs, mister, because there is, and it’s called Super Tav Trivia. Put your hours of mindless pop-culture consumption to work for you, and get yourself in the running for a cavalcade of prizes. Best of all, it’s free to play.

WHEN: Tuesday 3, 10 and 17 May, 1PM WHERE: The Tav

film Fest The National Campus Film Fest is coming to UWA again. If you’ve ever looked at a movie screen and thought “Could I?”, then just imagine that the Film Fest was looking back, whispering “Yes, you could”, but in a way that felt lifeaffirming, not creepy. We aren’t looking for Scorsese, we’re looking for original, creative films made by people with any level of film-making experience.

WHEN: Get your films in by Tuesday 3 May, then come to the screening on Tuesday 24 May at 1PM WHERE: The Tav

POW

ACTION! FILM action!

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