Pelican Edition 2, Volume 85 by UWA Student Guild

Ed iti o n 2 Vo lu me 85

Powe r / Glor y

PELICAN

Available from Guild Cafes and the Co-op

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CONTENTS

Picture by Jessica Cockerill

REGULARS 5 what’s up on campus 6 credits 7 editorials 9 advice corner 46 where’s pelly

FEATURES 10 pyramids 12 beards 13 apathy 14 hillsong 15 goon 16 shakes 17 fools 18 sleep 19 turbo-folk

SECTIONS 19 politics 24 film 28 music 33 books 36 culture 40 arts

NEED HELP? 3

the uwa student guild student assist office can help with financial, academic and welfare issues I www.guild.uwa.edu.au/support

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WHAT’S UP ON CAMPUS UNIVERSITY DRAMATIC SOCIETY (UDS) “MacArthur’s Markers” is an original musical comedy presented by the University Dramatic Society (UDS) with book and lyrics by Cal Silberstein and Thomas Owen and music by WAAPA based composer Jackson Griggs. The musical runs at UWA’s Dolphin Theatre from the 28th of April through to the 3rd of May. Tickets available now from ticketsWA.com]. UWA FRENCH CLUB UWA French Club’s French Film Festival movie screening is on next Sunday 23 March. Come and join us for wine, cheese and a screening of Populaire. Tickets are $20 for UWA French Club members or $22 for non UWA French Club members. You can purchase tickets online: http://www.trybooking.com/ENHU UWA WRITERS CLUB The University Writer’s Club supports and promotes creative writing at UWA. We hold weekly meetings Thursdays from 4PM6PM in Social Sciences Room 2.16 . Whether

you love to read, write, want some friendly peer review or a splash of inspiration then come along. Contact us at https://www. facebook.com/universitywritersclub or universitywritersclub@gmail.com for more info UWA LINGUISTICS SOCIETY What would we do without language? The UWA Linguistics Society is for all language lovers. Come and play word games, follow our series “ULS Talks TED” and participate in our exciting linguistic projects around campus! You can also follow news and events at our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ uwalinguisticssociety UWA PAW (UWA People for Animal Welfare) Are you passionate about animals? Then you need to join the pride of UWA PAW!! We stand for animal welfare and rights and support ethical treatment of animals of all species, shapes and sizes! Through our fun events such as veganfriendly BBQ’s, public lectures, movie nights, quiz nights & e-letters (and more!), we facilitate education and awareness of animal

rights, ethics and welfare issues at the same time as supporting community animal welfare organisations through fundraisers. If you think you belong, join us at https://www. facebook.com/groups/131830273672010/ and grab a membership for only $5 at any of our upcoming events! ARTS UNION PRESENTS: MOCK PARLIAMENT. If you want to see a spectacle that will make the real parliamentary question time look tame and respectful then this event is probably for you. Come along and sit with Labor, the Liberals, a minor party or just spectate and heckle from the sidelines. All welcome, food and drink provided. 7pm 26th March in the old economics conference room. For more details check out the facebook event or email artsunioneducation@gmail.com UWA AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL The UWA Amnesty International group meet fortnightly on the Reid Lawn (or Reid café if it’s raining) at 1-2pm on Tuesdays. If you’re interested in human rights in Australia and internationally, do come and join us. Find out more at https://www.facebook.com/AmnestyUWA

ALUMNI ANNUAL FUND GRANTS NOW OPEN! Grants of up to $30,000 are available for innovative projects or activities that aim to enhance the UWA student experience. Apply today at www.uwa.edu.au/aafgrants 5

CONTRIBUTORS CONTENTS IMAGE Jessica Cockerill CONTRIBUTORS IMAGE Tamara Jennings DESIGN Kate “Oops, We Did It Again (but seriously, sorry Kate, you’re amazing)” Hoolahan ADVERTISING Alex “Raise the Roof” Pond Karrie “Bring the Noise” McClelland EDITORS Wade “Don’t Believe the Hype” McCagh Zoe “Ghostface” Kilbourn SECTION EDITORS Arts: Lauren “Fringe Binger” Wiszniewski ★ ☺ Books: Elisa “Catch you on the Flipside” Thompson ☺ Culture: Lucy “Never Mind the Buzzcuts” Ballantyne ☺ Film: Matthew “Extra Salsa” Green ☺ Music: Simon “Donney Brown” Donnes ☺ Politics: Hamish “Thank God You’re Here” Hobbs CONTRIBUTORS Simon “Firm Grip” Beaton ☺ Darcie “M-M-Ace of Base” Boelen ☺ Josh “The Longest Draft” Chiat ☺ Jessica “I Dressed as a Shark” Cockerill ★ Benjamin “More than Stare Menacingly” Crocker ☺ Liam “Jus Playin (as Austro-Hungary)” Dixon ☺ Chloe “I’ve Become So Numb” Durand ☺

Emily “Cosmopolitico” Foyster ☺ Ayeesha “M-M-Mate” Frederickson ★ Molly “Goon Hoon” Harris ☺ Tom “a la Modafinil” Hutchinson ☺ Cameron “Under(milk)wood” James ☺ Tamara “Let’s Have a Kiki’s Delivery Service” Jennings ★ Luke “Sex Appeal Estate” Kolbusz ☺ Ante “Seksi Businessman” Malenica ☺ Hugh “Paid tha Cost to Hear Rick Ross” Manning ☺ Pema “Verity Softly” Monaghan ☺ Richard “Performance Punxiety” Moore ★ Nick “Feeling Miyazaki, Punk” Morlet ☺ Eunice “Who got tha Punk” Ong ☺ Kate “Beard Sister” Prendergast ★ ☺ Sandra “Mrs. Turner” Raub ☺ Mason “Dungry” Rothwell ☺ Tom “Duke Nukem” Rossiter ☺ Anna “Slashing the Prices” Saxon ☺ Philip “B” Sharpe ☺ Caz “Cooler than Parents” Stafford ☺ Josh “For Your Self-Health” Toh ☺ Nicholas “G Spotify” Thompson ☺ Camden “Watts Up On Campus” Watts ★ Daniel “Fresher [Censored]” Werndly ☺ Kenneth “Lover of my Soul” Woo ☺ Natasha “Festivals for the Restayalls” Woodcock ☺

Picture by Tamara Jennings

COVER IMAGE Kate Prendergast

★ = artwork ☺ = writing SUBEDITORS Adelia Croser, Julianne de Souza, our lovely section eds SPECIAL THANKS Rahana Bell, Gabrielle Clarke, Lauren Croser, Natasha Dilini, Emma Elliott, Samuel Fraser, Kat Gillespie, Morgan Goodman, Blake Howieson, Theophilus Lim, Alice McCullough, Jesse Parmar, Harry Sanderson, Dennis Venning

POWER TO THE PEOPLE AND THE PELICAN! Are you powerfully glorious? Gloriously powerful? Modestly meek? Then come talk to us! You can get in contact with Pelican through our Facebook page, our email address at pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au, or you can come and find us in the Pelican office, located on the 1st Floor of the Guild Building. We’re on the hunt for writers, artists, and anything in between to fill these pages and get their voices heard on the streets. Like us on Facebook for more information and look out for our next Writers Night in the Guild Council Meeting Room – we have pizza!

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed within are not the views of the UWA Student Guild of the Pelican editorial staff.

For advertising enquiries, contact alex.pond@guild.uwa.edu.au

offer applies to large pizzas only

PREZITORIAL

Who has power and glory? Heroes. What has heroes? DOTA 2. Now, we can’t all be a Roman or Greek hero, but we can all play DOTA. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” We all have a talent or power, and we shouldn’t be so naïve as to give up that power because we haven’t realised it yet. My attempts to become a professional DOTA 2 player, win one million dollars and become the most powerful nerd in history is going to take time. But one must “never go backward. Attempt, and do it with all your might. Determination is power.” And if there is one thing you need to become the best in both DOTA and life, it is determination. Whether you are playing with Russians and the only Russian word you understand is cyka, or whether you are a 5th year in a group project with freshers and have to do all the work, determination will bring you power and glory. But determination alone will not get you to TI4: team work and sacrifice are the other ingredients in the recipes for success. Sometimes it is the work of those who have to sacrifice last hits and gold to allow the hard carry to be effective or those who play the hard support so the mid player can receive all the kills. Without the help of others, it becomes so much more difficult for us to succeed and sometimes we need to help others to succeed at the expense of ourselves. Doing so with valour is the sign of a real hero.

WADITORIAL

Power and Glory are two mighty evocative words. My mind races with Bruce Springsteen and Kanye West songs, Jacques Louis David and Rubens paintings, religious iconography, skyscrapers, celestial bodies, apex predators. But my mind also thinks of a shelf in my parent’s home, laden with the trophies of my sporting youth. In particular, I think of the prime position occupied by the six consecutive tee ball championships I won between the ages of 7 and 12. I certainly don’t list the fact that I’m essentially the Michael Jordan of tee ball on my resume. But every time I walk through the door and glimpse the cheap plastic figure on top of my first trophy, I am instantly transported back to those Friday nights under harsh floodlighting. I remember the shy, timid boy who’d field fly balls with his legs because he was terrified of actually trying to catch the ball. I remember being encouraged by my coaches and teammates, slowing growing more confident, striving for perfection on every play, recklessly throwing myself at ground balls and bases. To this day, I remember the first time I hit a home run, a low line drive that kept in the park, the ball coming to the plate the same time I did, a mad dive, a hand on the plate before the catcher’s glove could connect. I had never felt so powerful in my life up to that point, it was like nothing could have stopped me in that moment. Power and glory are inherently fleeting. Our wonderful contributors have examined both concepts from multiple perspectives, coming up with some intriguing ideas and observations. I know that in the scheme of things, youth sports championships are probably the lowest rung of the glory ladder. But despite growing older and reaching more mature and respectable milestones, these trophies remind me of that journey from feeble nervousness to self-confidence and the power that comes with it. The games were irrelevant, the scores meaningless. Those trophies are worthless to anyone but me. But we all begin somewhere, and the glory remains with me, undying and pure.

ZOETORIAL

One of the enduring benefits of studying at UWA is access to the Reid. The other day, exploiting my new borrowing status as a technical “honours student”, I picked up a battered book by Wade Davis, subtitled “he Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie”. After the posthumous apparition in 1980 of Clairvius Narcisse - who, after Davis’ research project, could safely be called the first verified zombie - Davis was invited to isolate a “zombie toxin”. This involved extensive negotiations, travel, underhand exchanges of money, and exploration into the societal significance of zombification. His results and their ethics have been disputed - but he did it. He showed that the zombie, that campy nightmare vision of the Hollywood West, could both be physically possible and spiritually justified. Ethnobotany, friends, is not the same field of flower studies that currently attracts a grand total of 15 UWA botany majors. It’s the study of plants as they’re used by traditional and often isolated cultures, and a renewed burst of life of the discipline in the later twentieth century lead to studies of herbal medicines, psychotropics, and traditional party drugs in the back alleys of the world’s rainforests and desert plains. It involves a lot of fieldwork, funding, secret dealings with bokors, and self-trialling noxious and numinous potions. It’s kinda niche. How do you wind up with a dubious position as National Geographic’s in-house “explorer” and taking on a healthily funded academic position with graverobbing and tripping balls as unofficial requirements? For Davis, it was through a single casual undergraduate course. An anthropology major at, admittedly, Harvard, he took a crazy broadening unit and got sucked into a life split between laboratory analysis and loa possession. The longer I spend at university, the more disillusioned I become with tertiary education, the Group of Eight, and course cuts. Maybe you are, too. What makes it all worthwhile, though, are those tiny windows of opportunity that lead to something bigger than a piece of paper or making the top 100. Make sure that if you find one, you treasure it - and hopefully write about it in Pelican. And use the libraries while you can, ya doofus!

PELICAN ADVICE CORNER Ceud mìle fàilte! I am Máel Coluim mac Cináeda, known to history as Malcolm the Destroyer, King of Scots, the honour of all the West. Slain in battle in 1034, I remain tethered to this realm in the form of the most venerated and noble swine until I can once again take human form and reign over an independent Alba. Due to my highlander brethren abandoning their reverence for pork in the 19th Century, I have chosen to inhabit this conquered dominion of New Perth where I am rightfully worshipped as a King by the local inhabitants. I am known in the native tongue as ‘Macca’ and reside in my court with the hostage children of local gentry. I spend my days roaming the grounds of my estate, eating bright coloured delicacies left out by my servants and bathing in the peaty mud of Crawley. Dear Macca, I went to an all-boys private school, so I don’t have much experience with the ladies. There’s this really cute girl in my PSYC1101 tutorial but I have no idea how to even start a conversation. How can I win her over and possess her heart? ‘Undergrad for Cutie’, Claremont

a classy private school and they move together in packs, so its hard to meet people and make friends. I’m beginning to think that maybe all this stress isn’t worth a degree in Astronomy. Please guide me! Stargazer, Dalkeith Ack my wee childe, I remember the early years of my reign as being similarly filled with doubt and dread, surround by unfriendly kingdoms and threatening hordes completely surrounding me. It is important that you engage in an early show of strength to prove your worth and earn the respect of these foreign peoples. Might I suggest you follow tradition and engage in a customary crech ríg and launch a raid on their territories to show your strength and valour. In my first year, I invaded Bernicia and delivered a mighty blow to the Northumbrians. Bide your time for now, and scout out their heartland. From what I’ve observed in my time here, the young imposters typically occupy the areas around the village of the Guild, first sieging the foodstore known as the Ref, before eventually overwhelming the local tavern. I would venture in to that place, bolster your courage with a pint or three and leap forward to claim one of the altar-benches. Then sit back

and enjoy as the various lords come to pay homage to you and seek a place in your court. Dear Macca, I’m an Arts student, so I’ve only got 10 hours of class every week. But I tell my folks who pay for everything that I’m here every day so they won’t make me get a job. What’s the best way to spend a day around campus? I arise every day at dawn for breakfast, usually the finest horse muesli to keep my haunches strong and limber in case a battle breaks out, as well as some local delicacies like Weetbix or carrots, depending on what is in season. I take my walk around the grounds at 8am, on the lookout for particularly succulent patches of grass and the pristine mud of the new day in which to roll in. I spend the morning receiving various nobleman and courtiers on official business, before the midday parading of the hostage children around Crawley and Nedlands to enhance my prestige and repress any revolutionary zeal in the masses. I retire to my private apartments in the afternoon, engaging in the gentlemanly arts, such as painting and poetry, all the while being fed food scrapes from my servants and the occasional Crayola.

Though I care not for the foul cries and beastly whines that constitutes ‘music’ in this realm, the way into a fair maiden’s heart is with song, my dear lad. When I was a wee flaith roaming around the isle and I came across a comely lass, I would charm her with a verse or two of my own composition. Use your next tutorial presentation to unleash some mighty prose like such; Far niver gowden sun luiks doon, Sae derk’s the gairden booer¬ Bit derker yet’s the hairt o man Far skaith an sorra cooer. Aim straight and strike true, and in no time you’ll be fighting off the lady-folk like the Monks of St. Ninian’s fighting off the Viking hordes. Dear Macca, I just moved to Perth from a rural town and I find the city and UWA really intimidating. Everyone here seems to come from

by Anna Saxon It all starts with an ad on Seek. ‘DO you like MONEY!?! Are YOU a UNI STUDENT who’s just FINISHED EXAMS?!!? DO YOU want to work for an INNOVATIVE MARKETING TEAM, improve your interpersonal skills, and get REAL ON THE FIELD EXPERIENCE?!!!?! Then do we have the job for you!’. You are a uni student! You have finished exams! You do like money! This sounds like the perfect job for you. So you spruce up your resume, send it off and what do you know? Within 24 hours they’ve called, saying that you’ve been shortlisted for an interview. You rock up to the office, and everything is abstract and fluro. Nobody is over 25, there’s a picture of Michael Jordan on the wall and the TV is playing Rage - it’s like a dream come true. You’re invited into a side room by someone with a sexy irish accent who immediately tells you there are dozens of paid travel opportunities that you look just right for. He might have said something about ‘contract’ and ‘entirely commission’ and ‘self employed’ but you didn’t hear him because you were too busy eating all the complimentary muffins. It’s all over in minutes, but hey, this is sales! You head out ‘into the field’ in a shiny new mercedes and it looks like some kind of yogurt ad - everyone is young and attractive and shiny and laughing all the time. So you run back to the office and sign the 15-page contract. Congratulations, you are now an independent contractor. Wait, what? Oh yeah, this marketing company isn’t your employer. Actually, you have a contract with the AppCo Group. Who are they? Who cares! You’re going to make a million dollars in your first year!

Now that you’ve got your name-tag though, things start to get a little weird. There are hushed conversations about all the people who have ‘just quit’ which go silent when a team leader passes by. There is a strange ritual like meeting, where everyone gets in a semicircle, chants, and rings some kind of bell. You’re told that broken products, testers and even the promotional bags come out of your pay, plus fuel money for whoever drives you to the middle of nowhere. When you complain about not having made a sale in a few hours people frantically signal you to shush, before you’re taken aside by a team leader and reprimanded for ‘negging out’. It’s becoming a little too Paris 1940 for your tastes, and you can’t tell who’s part of the Resistance and who’s a Nazi. So you’re being paid less than minimum wage, selling a faulty product 12 hours a day to people who can’t afford it, with co-workers who may or may not be spying on you, having to spend extended periods of time in places like Balga being spat at (not an exaggeration, this happened to me once) - and yet, somehow this is all your fault because you’re ‘self employed’. How the hell did you end up in this mess? Welcome to AppCo. Previously known as - I shit you not - the Cobra Group of Companies (before they changed it in 2002 after a flurry of law suits, hmmmm), AppCo is a direct sales and marketing conglomerate started by Our Illustrious Leader Chris Niarchos in 1987. And by conglomerate I mean pyramid scheme, although you could be forgiven for believing it was some kind of money-worshipping cult. AppCo is a multi-billion dollar worldwide people factory. If you’ve got a product/ company/charity that needs a human commercial, AppCo is your go-to guy. Targeting students, young backpackers and immigrants, small marketing companies with

just enough distance from Big Daddy Chris to make it seem legit offer easy money, quick promotions and a jet-setting Bondesque lifestyle to pretty young people with nothing to lose. Prominent in every continent, these guys represent companies in banking sectors, energy, insurance, media, sports, telecommunications, security and the big moneymaker, charity. If you’ve ever been cornered on the Perth traino overpass by a cute Columbian backpacker trying to get you to sign up for UNICEF, you’ve been AppCo’d. Just a few of the charities AppCo represents here in WA are UNICEF, WWF, Greenpeace, Canteen Australia, Mission Australia, Medecins sans frontiers, Surf Lifesaving Australia, RSPCA, World Vision, and WSPA. What that means is that if you are approached on the street by anyone claiming to be fundraising for any of the above, there is an overwhelming possibility that the desperation in their eyes isn’t for the starving children in Africa, but for themselves and their starving housemates. After all, if someone signs up and then cancels their donations, the contractor loses half their pay retroactively. I didn’t work in charity, but I was still screwed over. When you work entirely on commission, and each sale is worth less than minimum wage, it doesn’t take long to understand why everyone is staying hours overtime, chugging energy drinks like they’re water, and tossing a few pills back every now and then. One week, after working 4 full days, including a Saturday, starting at 8am and finishing at 6pm, I made a whopping $25 - sorry, $20, because I had to chip in for petrol. I literally would have made more money at Macca’s - and at least there I would have got a McFlurry or something. There’s also the fact that AppCo ‘off the record’ sales training exists in a grey area the size of a small planet. Little did they know I have a blog, so I’m never off the record.

“Always pitch black people. They always buy because they’re greedy as fuck and total suckers” “ Asians like to haggle so just hide one of the bottles and pretend to throw it in for free at the end. And if they ask, you have no idea where the stuff was made. Make sure you pull off the Made in China sticker” “Old people are perfect because they’ve got nothing else to do but talk to you. If they’re on a pension, don’t worry about it, just say the deal is a pensioners discount. So what if they can’t afford groceries?” “If they use the fact that they’re on welfare as an excuse, push harder” I actually had a couple max out a credit card buying my product, then walk away arguing how they were going to last the weekend without baby formula. On one particularly memorable morning I was asked by a woman for a refund, not because the product was a total rip off, but because one of our guys had sold it to her daughter with Down Syndrome the day before. Wacky fun. Of course some of these sort of sales are mistakes, because a lot of the contractors don’t speak the best English. Many of them are on working visas and are being sponsored by the company for their Permanent Residency - they literally can’t quit or they will be deported. Nice one Cobra. Cobra/AppCo have actually been sued several times for wrongful termination and malpractice you name it, someone has accused them of it. A lot of the time they shell out, not because they admit their wrong-doing, but because Chris and his super yachts can spare a hundred thou or so, no sweat. AppCo is like a jealous boyfriend who doesn’t want you to have any male friends, won’t let you drive their car, and controls the credit cards, all because ‘he loves you so much’. They don’t want you to have a second job, they don’t want you to have free time, they don’t want you to focus on anything but AppCo. And, you know what, the people who drink the Kool-Aid may be manic and money-crazy, but they seem to have some level of job satisfaction.

A select few do manage to make some money out of direct sales - it’s not impossible, a pyramid has to have its pointy end - but the strain it puts on your finances, social life, even physical and mental health is astronomical. I found out that one of the leaders on my team had risen to the rank of co-owner the previous year, had a mental breakdown, and went to Ireland for 3 months. When he got back, they’d dropped him back to square one. One day after making no sales (and thus literally paying them to work), I was accused of not being ‘fully devoted to the company’. AppCo demanded to know how low I was going to grovel to keep my job. So I walked out the door and never looked back. In retrospect, I can laugh at the insanity that was

those 3 months - at least I was a student being fully supported by both my family and the government. But I have read heart breaking forum posts about people in developing countries like India and Thailand who devoted themselves to AppCo and were left with nothing. Clearly some people make AppCo work for them, and the money made for charity is put to good use, but you’ve got to ask how ethical can these guys be when collection involves overworking and underpaying their contractors to manipulate the public. I couldn’t hack it, so learn from my mistakes. Do a little googling before you sign your life away to a money-making cult who don’t even have fun orgies on the weekends. It’s genuinely not worth your time.

Picture by Jessica Cockerill

Here are some choice nuggets:

THE RISE AND FALL (AND RISE AGAIN) OF THE MONARCH BEARD ‘There it hangs, full and flowing, across the throat and down the breast, with the obvious intention of softening the keenness of the advancing blast, sheltering in its hay the orifice and tubes of breathing...’ (Andrew Wynter, 1860) Western culture is gripped at the moment in a Beard Movement. Since the hipster began ironically flourishing his anti-corporate, sombrebrambled, ‘natural woodsman’ look in the middle of the naughties in a kind of hirsute semaphore, the beard has gradually spread from the cultural fringe to triumph as the alternative face of a new masculinity. Yet it is hardly the First Beard Movement. Like all fashions, it is a case of déjà vu. Let’s roll back history’s carpet for a moment and return to the mid-Victorian period. For almost a century up until the 1850’s, the beard was an extrusion which said nothing about its bearer but a disregard for convention and a general lassitude towards squalor. No civilized gentlemen went unshaven, and no goodly woman was inclined to blush at a pair of mutton-chops. The bearded man was to be found only in the class of ‘cranks and artists’— dirty intellects and labour ‘radicals’, too busy fomenting their rank and crackpot ideas — secret ballot! Hah! — to concern themselves with matters of basic hygiene and respectability. With such unfavourable associations, the beard had no truck with fashion. Whilst the beard’s northern pygmy, the moustache, was common in the army (and would later become mandatory, with fake moustaches issued to the still-developing), it too was largely frowned upon. The Bank of England went so far as to forbid its clerks from wearing moustaches — but only ‘during business hours’. It was from the germs of war that the beard sprung, with imperial pride its fertilizer. In 1853, Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula (hi, history), and the British Parliament was raring to weigh into the conflict. And yet they were uneasy. It had been a long time since the Napoleonic Wars. Industrialization had created a burgeoning middle class, accustomed to wealth, luxury and selfish principle. Parliament feared that the red-blooded Englishman had contracted anaemia.

Often when dominant masculinity is seen to be in peril, its domain of reassertion is not that of culture, but of the supposedly ‘primal’ domain of biology. Such was—and perhaps is now— the case with the beard. In Victorian England, the beard’s early connotations of the scruffy savage were reworked into those of abundant masculinity, of testosterone’s largesse. With peacetime advocates scorned as milksops, belligerence was the order of the day. The beard represented this uncontainable virility, facially bursting forth.

and Kelly gangs. Although he may be bound to an office job, wilting in a thin cotton shirt, today’s beard-wearer implies that he is always ready strike out into nature, resilient, fearless, perhaps to snare rabbits or track the last elusive thylacine, or to fill his strong lungs with the smell of eucalypt, red dust, brown-river tannin and pine. He knows wilderness intimately; he keeps it on his face. ‘It’s not a beard, it’s an animal I’ve trained to sit very still’ said Bill Bailey.

During and after Crimea, there was much ‘social agitation’ for the beard, making its clamour in periodicals, books and pamphlets (‘The Beard! Why Do We Cut it Off?’). There were arguments for its practicality, its medical benefits (a ‘filter’ for the smog-heavy miasmas of London) and the virtues of its natural heritage. There was even a religious argument. ‘Man had been produced in God’s image,’ explains historian Jacob Middleton. ‘To shave was therefore to defile his image’

The ‘back-to-nature’ theory corresponds— as in the Victorian Era— with an increasingly uncertain gender order. Under the specious logic of binaries, the beard is a paradox. It is both a signifier of the patriarch as well as a cosmetic piece, necessitating jojoba oil, ongoing topiary efforts, and the careful drinking of milk. As the beard coincided with the rise of ‘sporting culture’ in Victorian England, so too the today’s beard is entangled with the exploding-muscle ideal. Some men are paying thousands for facial hair transplants to get that full, luscious look.

Yet the most effective argument was that which cast slurs of effeminacy against the clean-shaven. Insinuations were made of their ‘desire to imitate the soft, round beauty of the lips and chin, which constitute, no doubt, the most delicate enchantment of the fairer sex’. Like savagery anointed, the ‘monarch beard’ enjoyed a full, fecund, fifty year reign. Yet early into the new century, it again fell to into disrepute. Cast down, it skulked in straggled wisps on the throats of beggars; unseemly, unkempt; a pestilence-filled shrubbery. The beard’s demise was mirrored in contemporary literature, such as Burroughs’ Tarzan, whose hero ‘had seen pictures in his books of men with great masses of hair upon lip and cheek and chin, but, nevertheless...was afraid. Almost daily he whetted his keen knife and scraped and whittled at his young beard to eradicate this degrading emblem of apehood.’ So the beard had another century’s sleep. In 2005, it was resurrected by the indie-Jesus hipster, with Movember a probable herald. For Australian men, beards are harnessed to colonial, outback myths of gruff stockmen

The beard is just one indication of how the body and its accoutrements are read as the expression of one’s identity. Whereas in the Victorian period, this expression was thought to be ‘automatic’, post-modern identity is seen as an arrangement, autonomous: a choice.

Picture by Kate Prendergast

by Kate Prendergast

(A)PATHETIC Apathy can be a survival mechanism and a source of power. Apathy, if used with finesse, can give you the upper hand in interpersonal conflict. It says to others, “I have nothing to lose because I simply don’t care”, and, as many a super hero movie will have told you, a person who doesn’t care about anything is capable of everything, or something like that. Either way, if someone has the wherewithal to hurt you even to their own detriment, tread very carefully. My Mother calls the this scorched earth tactic, a strategy eponymous of the Russian Scorched Earth policy employed by Stalin during World War Two involving the destruction of Russian resources so no one else could use them. It was Stalin’s way of showing power by showing he didn’t care: the Man of Steel was just crazy enough, justapathetic enough to go to extremes for power and glory. Apathy is an interesting approach to life because of how wholly counterintuitive it seems to be. Every generation thinks that they invented apathy and despondency, from navel-gazing Greek philosophers to our current post-grunge generation, fed on a steady diet of Coke Zero, Daria and social media. Our approach to apathy is quite certainly fed by the notion that we are

at the same time incredibly deserving and important but also incapable of real change or power. Deciding not to care is a misplaced attempt at withdrawing from a world where compassion seems like a lost cause at best, and at worst, a weakness. Like Stalin ordering the granaries to be burnt and the earth to be salted, we administer donkey votes and blindsided remarks about how things just aren’t our problem. It’s pathetic to not be apathetic. Now, my World War Two history is shaky (It’s been three years since WACE after all), but I’m quite certain that in the end Russia did not do as swimmingly as Stalin would have hoped. Just as Stalin’s apathy didn’t exactly work out, what is our apathy really doing for us? Well, Tony Abbott has been elected and social inequality exists in every branch of society. We still fight with our loved ones; we still care despite all our better judgement. It is incredibly easy to be seduced by the notion that not caring will free up a lot of time in your life for better things: self improvement, crazy amounts of sex, partying, general ego masturbation. In short we’re starstruck by the notion that apathy will give us power over people, that those who running around caring about mortal, political or emotional things are somehow constrained by a lower level of thought. If only they, we, had the power of apathy. I’ve been openly decried for caring about activism, feminism, racial and queer politics. Don’t I know that I can never affect real change? Don’t I know that it’s simply uncool and unsexy to care this much, to take up this much space? Apathy is sleek and unobtrusive, like minimalist furniture or a little black dress. Caring is unwieldy and daggy, like big hair and patterned trousers. During one of a friend’s many relationship summit meetings, her boyfriend brought up the fact that she should stop caring so much about social issues - not because her values and ideas were in opposition to his, but that, despite all her caring and effort, she was never going to change anything on a real level (according to him). It’s best to quit while you’re ahead and just resign yourself to a life of ignoring the uncomfortable elephant in the room, right?

Pictures by Lauren Wiszniewski

by Chloe Durand

It seems that our generation’s apathy is an extension of our privilege. Quite a few of us have it just good enough that if we commit ourselves to being uninvolved with people and politics, we have the illusion of happiness and fairness across the board. It is simply not our problem: we don’t want to give up our preconceived notions of power and mystique by giving up our apathy. If we start letting people know we care then we let them know we have something to lose. For many, this seems emotionally untenable. Like Stalin and the Scorched Earth, like two lovers with commitment fears, like a post adolescent youth confronted with unfair realities about the world, we are afraid that if we meet turn to meet our enemies head on, we will lose something. Freedom, happiness, ignorance. The unsightly reality about the power of apathy however, is that the world is in constant motion. Time stops for no one and we are no exception. Apathy won’t win us any victories in the long run and, believe me, the war is raging out there today as it did in Russia in the forties. Whether you care or not.

GOD, GLITTER CANNONS, AND EDM A certain Christian song, “Shout to the Lord”, is sung constantly in churches across the world on any given Sunday. Not many people realise that this song came from Australia, springing out of a church on the outskirts of Sydney. Over the past 30 years, this church has grown to become one of the most powerful and influential Christian bodies in the world. I am, of course, talking about Hillsong. Mega-churches are not uncommon, almost every nation has one or two, but what is remarkable about Hillsong Church is that it could flourish in Australia: in a nation where, in 2011, a third of the country’s census religious affiliations were either no religion or not stated. At a time when many church denominations are in decline, we have a church that is bucking the trend and amassing a formidable global empire. I have to begin with a disclaimer. I am a Christian, I do believe in all that churchy stuff, and I have attended Hillsong Church in Sydney and the annual Hillsong Conference. I don’t want to look into the whole theological debate about prosperity gospel or church scandals. What I am interested in, however, is thinking about the astronomical success of the Church. How did Hillsong achieve such incredible success and power? I think I have identified it and narrowed it down to two aspects. One aspect of the church that I will argue contributed significantly to their rise is the music they play. The Hillsong name is synonymous with music. Scholars like Professor Kelman of Stanford (yes, there are people who study Hillsong) say that the music Hillsong produces is the key to their success across the world. A bit of history is needed here: before Hillsong exploded onto the world scene, Christian music comprised of entrenched songs that were sung over and over. This changed when Darlene Zschech wrote “Shout to the Lord”. According to Kelman, the impact of this song cannot be overstated. It broke the entrenchment of traditional songs and turned Hillsong into a global music phenomenon the envy of secular music artists around the world. To date they have released about 40 albums, each of them easily topping the iTunes Australia charts. Most recently is the White

Album, an ambitious album of remixes, combining traditional Christian music with light EDM. What I find fascinating is how a significant number of the songs (especially those published under the band UNITED) blur the line between secular and Christian. I have conducted a small experiment, letting non-Christian friends listen to some of the songs without telling them the band name and origin. Results seem to show that if I did not tell them what the song was, they would all say it sounds indie and really nice. Once I tell them it’s a church song, they make a face and go “Oh…”. It’s stated by Joel Houston, the head pastor of Hillsong America, “Our prayer is that at least one [song]…might...connect with someone new, or with someone different in a new way”. Music has a way of influencing the way we think, and no doubt Hillsong knows this. The second aspect is through its conferences. Hillsong Conferences are some of the biggest events I have ever attended: five days of singing, preaching and listening, held yearly at the Allphones Arena in Sydney. It attracts a Sermon on the Mountload of people from across the world. I have attended several of these conferences and I can say that they are both amazing and scary at the same time. You spend your time growing up with a small church back home and it’s terrifying to have all that shattered when you go to a conference and see the sheer amount of power this megachurch wields. Hillsong Church is essentially the Oprah Winfrey of Churches, and the Hillsong Conference is their annual Oprah’s Favourite Stuff of the Year episode. Churches across the world seek to emulate the style and substance of Hillsong Church. If a Pastor is seeking to boost the sales of his latest Christian book, all he

needs to do is get invited to speak during one of the three Hillsong Conferences (held in Sydney, London and New York) and his book will enjoy a comfortable tenure on top ten bestseller lists across the world. If you’re a Christian band looking to increase the sales of your albums, just become the guest worship artist during the Conference and your album sales will shoot through the roof. I have nothing against Hillsong Church and the Conference.I will still go to the 2014 Conference this year and I still enjoy listening to their music, but I cannot help but feel a sense of unease and morbid fascination at how this empire works. It is a well-oiled machine that possesses unmatched influence across the world in multiple spheres, and that’s terrifying for someone who is naturally suspicious of powerful organisations being able to influence churches and governments. But hey! Praise God!

Picture by Kate Prendergast

by Kenneth Woo

GOON, GLORIOUS GOON by Molly Harris What could be worse than having a bank balance of $8.95 due to being such a devoted university student who spends days staring into the abyss of a computer screen rather than working the ideal nine-to-five job? That’s right, not being able to afford to get monumentally inebriated at any moment you like because of that miniscule bank balance which lingers over the weekend like an unwanted guest. This is where our good old friend goon comes in. Also known as the classier ‘boxed wine’, or ‘cask wine’, our polished pillow pal has quickly become an icon for Australian students. The goon bag, in all its glory, might be known to some as merely an emergency flotation device, or maybe an oversized sculpture attempting to swallow Cottesloe beach whole, or perhaps branded as purely a date rapist’s aide, but we bright university students see so much more to our bag-in-a-box buddy. Not only is the goon bag profoundly inexpensive but it contains more litres of alcohol than an entire season of Geordie Shore. With thirty standard drinks for ten bucks, one goon bag has the capacity to last a whole night. While getting you absolutely sloshed to the point of irreparable organ damage, the goon bag is also generously providing you with the opportunity to re-evaluate your life choices for multiple subsequent weeks. Goon is without a doubt the most economic beverage of them all, so who cares about the possible bile-like aftertaste when there is a glistening bubble filled with warmth and contentment in the palm of your hands?

in your own chicken noodle spew, wondering how you could possibly make the next few hours of oblivion that tiny bit more bearable, when suddenly you have an epiphany – why not make use of this inflatable contraption? So, you walk over to the darkest corner you can find, blow up your goon bag, snuggle your face into its smooth, nurturing surface and have the most peaceful two hours sleep of your life. Until you wake up at six in the morning in a trailer smelling of last week’s vegetable lasagne, with no shoes and a nipple piercing.

PASS OUT IN YOUR CHICKEN NOODLE SPEW Nonetheless, these wild situations are what goon is all about. Goon gives us the ability to go places we never dreamed were possible, and to make the memories, friends, and brain damage that last a lifetime. Thanks to the enormity of the goon bag, one is able to share their drink with everyone at the party and still wake up on their step-cousin’s couch with chocolate stuck in their belly button and lipstick on their toes. Offering someone a sip of your goon makes for both a great conversation starter and a classic icebreaker. What’s more, it sets you up for many remarkable friendships based on both fine taste in booze and fantastic memories.

Not only does the goon bag help us to make friends, but it also provides us with hours of non-stop drunken entertainment. Drinking games such as ‘goon of fortune’ (more commonly known as, ‘Oi bro, how sick would it be if we pegged it to the washing line?’) offer a great cure for party boredom and an opportunity to get downright wasted around a Hills Hoist. ‘Slap the goon!’ is another illogical Australian favourite, where everyone involved must hit the goon bag for no apparent reason before talking a drink. Goon games can make us feel so tragically yet effortlessly on top of the world, are one hundred percent more fun than drinking games involving vodka, and can bring crowds of people together in celebration of one magnificent space-sack. No matter where you’re from or what you do, goon has the ability to create the most unforgettable moments – and piles of puke – that one has ever encountered. This fabulous drink plainly exemplifies that, at the end of the day, there truly is no higher glory than the power to give one a hangover before they even get drunk. More importantly, there is no higher glory than being able to provide with students the memories, the unity, and the liver damage that lasts a lifetime. So goon, we thank you, for simply being the most alcoholic, portable, low-cost, glorious alien womb that we’ve ever known. Cheers! *Examples may or may not be based on real life events.

It is, of course, the notion of placing alcohol in a bubble that makes goon so uniquely magnificent. Its flexibility and voluptuous characteristics are what makes bagged wine so outstanding. Through purchasing goon, you have the ability to carry your beverage with you at any place, and at any time. Who cares if ten dollars for a rum and coke seems too pricey? Simply grab the next curvaceous female you see and persuade her to store your goon bag down her bra. Who cares if you’re not allowed to take alcohol into a festival? Simply shove that sack down your pants and you’re ready to go.* Not to mention that even after your goon bag is empty its reassuring malleability still comes in handy. Imagine you are just about to pass out

SHAKING WITH POWER by Simon Beaton

We’ve all been there. For me, it must be twice a week. I’m meeting someone new. I put my right arm out to shake hands; theirs does the same, but somehow it doesn’t work. They grab too early or I haven’t extended my arm far enough, and I am left half-dangling with only my fingers in the grip as my thumb sadly though sensuously massages the back of theirs. After an awkward withdrawal I am left feeling uncomfortable and oddly powerless. It seems quite common in our society to place emphasis on how people shake. Its as simple as thinking back on the comments I’ve heard others make. From an approving “He’s got a firm shake” to an expression of disbelief (“She nearly broke my hand”), it seems there is an implied sense of what a handshake says about someone.

MANIPULATE MY FLACCID HAND Why? These people have only just met - why should they be advantaged or disadvantaged already? Allan & Barbara Pease, pop-experts in body language, give a little direction. They explain the handshake as a cultural custom, going as far back as Ancient Rome, where an “arm grab” was a way of establishing trust by proving that neither person was hiding a dagger up their sleeve – this apparently being the popular place to conceal weapons at the time. After a bit of reading on the modern handshake, however, it seems that this dagger has become metaphorical as the handshake shifts, often unconsciously, into a war for dominance between people. I thought about their theory and could relate fairly well. I certainly have met people who have attempted to wrench my arm off completely during what I thought

was a friendly meeting. There you go: it was instead whether intentional or not, done to intimidate. Meanwhile, my regular clumsy handshake is introducing me as a person of weak character through the ease with which others can manipulate my flaccid hand. The grip is not the only factor with potential for psychological analysis. Another angle at work is, quite literally, the angle at which the hands meet. I once walked into an interview room and remember the head honcho of the entire organisation standing there. He already had his arm extended ready to shake, with the palm of his hand facing the ground, encouraging me to extend my hand, palm facing up, to meet his. As a real change to my character I managed to get a firm proper handshake, but nonetheless I couldn’t help but feel as though he still came off the bigger man. His hand had symbolically tackled my hand to the floor, maintaining its position on top and turning the soft flesh of my palm into the equivalent of the belly of a puppy rolling onto its back. Maybe this psychological hostility goes back further. Reportedly, in the ape days the back of the palm signalled aggression, concealing the rock held in the fist. Even in modern times it can still convey aggression, such as when that backhand is used to slap me in the face. I suppose this also explains why my awkward fish-like shake feels so belittling. By only grabbing a small part of the other person’s hand I allow them to twist and manipulate my hand every time. The key therefore lies in equality. To get a strong handshake, not only is it important to have a tight fit between hands but to also get both hands as close to a vertical position, suggesting an equal distribution of power and leaving both shakers feeling stoked. Problems still exist; I mean, are you really expected to have an impromptu arm wrestle with that dominating head honcho when you engage in a handshake, fighting and twisting just to have your hand on top of his? Of course not! Why do that when you can be much more sneaky in countering his

mind games. Now, I know my background in handshakes is shaky at best, but I’ve learnt a lot in this last week, and I’ve actually tried this a few times with outstanding results. If the alpha male is trying to one-up you by having his arm already facing down, all you need to do is step towards his hand while you reach for his, which will covertly correct his grip to a more vertical position. Equality for all!

SENSUOUSLY MASSAGES I realise that it may all sound a little ridiculous to be analysing something so simple as shaking hands to such an extent. A cynical person could argue that a handshake is just a handshake and nothing more. Now that is a perfectly reasonable argument, and one that I was half holding myself. Until, that is, I stumbled upon a comment by Hedwig Lewis, the author of Body Language. Lewis countered that even if originally the handshake was not unspoken warfare, the importance and speculation that our society has placed upon it has created the effect that it now does suggest status and personality through the illusion of people believing that it does, like a Frankenstein’s monster built by our own society. In whichever case, we must understand the implications of handshaking and, whether we enjoy it or not, abide by the common assumptions to work towards equality. Having overthought every angle of the handshake way too much, I think the only thing left for me to do is to pretend I’m confident, knuckle down, and shake a little more.

FOOL’S GLORY “Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.” – Bruce Lee I have a friend who spent two years in the Singapore Army. He’s a friendly, charming guy who is enthusiastic about art and cooking. I thought I knew him – and then I saw him ruthlessly murder a gingerbread house with his kendo sword. I have another friend who practices Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I know she can fight better than any of our male friends, but she doesn’t have to prove it. Despite the fact that Western styles of fighting such as fencing and boxing are complex and require many years of training, martial arts still seem more impressive and powerful. When you watch Rocky you don’t think of him as being on the same level as Ip Man. There is something about martial arts that is awe-inspiring and demands respect, something that goes beyond physical strength or speed or guts. It’s the reason why the Marines use martial arts, why Christopher Nolan’s Batman practices Keysi, why MMA is becoming increasingly more popular than WWE, and why the Israeli government developed the art of Krav Maga in the 1930s. So what is the secret ingredient? What is the key to unlocking your true potential? How can you tap into your pool of hidden talents? By forgetting everything Western society has taught you, young grasshopper. Martial arts goes beyond the superficial goals of fame and fortune, the purpose being discovery of the self and mastery of the chosen art. It requires diligence and patience and selflessness, concepts which can be quite alien to some people in Western society. Traditional Western cultures value things like individuality, success, glory and competitiveness. Discipleship is not something many Western cultures are familiar with. Discipleship is about adhering to the teachings of somebody else, about learning from someone, and it’s one of the crucial elements of martial arts. It’s not something you can fake or attempt without proper training. Discipleship involves throwing your own desires out the window, ignoring your ego, and surrendering everything to complete dedication. Like when Aang forsakes his emotions to achieve the Avatar state in The Last Airbender. The show, not the movie.

Speaking of movies, martial arts films are becoming increasingly popular in Western society because Western audiences are fascinated and terrified by what they showcase. A great martial arts film will employ real martial artists rather than professional actors, because it is easier to teach a martial artist to act than it is to teach an actor how to perform a martial art. A good example is The Raid, a 2011 film by Gareth Evans in which all the main actors were sourced from Indonesia, and were trained in the Indonesian martial art of pencak silat. Not to mention the actors coordinated their own stunts. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival opening night and made fifteen million dollars in the global box office – four million of that was in North America alone. Not to mention that an American remake is in the works. When thinking about martial arts, it’s not about glory and power. It’s only about power, but not a power to wield over another. It’s a silent force, and it doesn’t need a big shiny belt or trophies to prove its worth. Martial arts is all about having strength, and having the wisdom to know when to use it – or more importantly, when not to use it. In our culture, having power is about using it at every possible moment. I have had encounters with lollipop ladies, umpires and school prefects who think they are better than their peers because they’ve got a whistle or a badge. A highkick to the throat would sort that out. The key word here is arts. Wrestling is a sport. Kung fu is an art. Like a painted work of art, you can’t

expect to create a masterpiece without practice. And like art, there are so many different styles of martial arts. Muay Thai, “the art of eight limbs”, from Thailand. Kapu Ku’ialua, the Hawaiian style designed to break bones. Ninjitsu from Japan, which values trickery and strategy as much as it does physical fighting. Each of these styles and countless others rely on years of dedication to perfect the art. And despite the fact there are karate classes being held at every sports centre in the nation, it’s not a power that you can buy. This isn’t normal for us. There’s not much that money can’t buy in our world, but no credit card will ever help you to master martial arts unless you can forget what Western culture teaches, and realise that real power doesn’t come from glory. Power and glory are two very, very different things in the world of Martial Arts.

BRUCE LEE AT THE MARTIAL ARTS EXHIBITION

Picture by Ayeesha Fredericksen

by Darcie Boelen

WHO NEEDS SLEEP WHEN YOU HAVE DRUGS? I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. It’s 3am and I’ve been trying to get to sleep for hours. My body still seems to think it’s the middle of the day - I’ve tried counting sheep, laying perfectly still, but none of it’s working at all. I read somewhere that if you really can’t sleep it’s better to get up and do something until you feel sleepy again. I decide to do one better: it’s already 3am, I might as well not sleep tonight. I get out of bed slowly to not wake my girlfriend, collect up the supplies I’ll need for the night (books, laptop etc.) and take 200mg of modafinil. The drug will take about an hour to kick in and then I won’t need to sleep for another 8 or 9. It occurs to me as I’m downing the bitter pill that maybe messing with my brain like this is why I can’t sleep in the first place. Oh well - I set up in the living room and watch Parks and Recreation for the next 6 hours. I don’t feel jittery like I do when I drink coffee, just energised and wide awake. I won’t crash later on if I keep taking it every 8 hours until my next sleep. Another dose at about 10am, maybe a half dose at 3pm if I’m feeling particularly drowsy. Then a regular night’s sleep and my body is back in cycle. I’ve done this several times before; I’m used to making food quietly so I won’t wake my housemates (sandwiches are the best) or creaking my bedroom door open as quietly as possible so I can grab something I’ve forgotten. But while I’ve found spending the entire night up, active and wide awake is habit forming, the drug itself isn’t addictive. Modafinil is a memory-improving and moodbrightening psychostimulant. While its key use is staying awake, it’s also been shown in clinical studies to temporarily improve working memory, pattern recognition and mood. It’s often referred to on the internet as a ‘nootropic’, a class of drugs and foods that enhance your intelligence. When I take modafinil I can study for longer, work is easier, and I don’t feel lethargic all day. Something that useful has got to be illegal, right? Modafinil is currently prescribed for the treatment of narcolepsy, shift work sleep disorder, and sleep apnea, but experiments

have shown effectiveness in treating depression, ADHD, and a range of other conditions. In Australia it is a schedule 4 drug, meaning it has low potential for abuse but requires a prescription. As you can imagine, it is illegal to buy or import it without that prescription. I buy it on the internet using Bitcoin and I won’t tell you where. Google is your friend. Its side effects include nausea, headaches, anxiety, and, in a small number of cases, more dangerous stuff. I find I occasionally get the runs if I take large doses. That said, I’ve taken a lot of modafinil and it’s easily changed my life for the better. I often feel crippled by lethargy during the day, and a small dose in the morning does wonders for my productivity. Its effects vary from person to person; I don’t feel any smarter or more social on the drug, but there are plenty of people on the internet that claim it has that effect on them. Dosage is important too - some people respond well to lower doses and others have to take quite a lot. One of the most interesting things about modafinil is that we don’t really know how it

works. Despite extensive research into the interaction of modafinil with a large number of neurotransmitter systems, precisely how it makes you happy and less sleepy remains unclear. Like most drugs, the pharmaceutical industry stumbled onto modafinil - it wasn’t crafted out of an abstract idea of the effects they wanted. This is largely because we don’t understand sleep. It’s strange to think that we spend a third of our lives in an altered consciousness and we don’t quite know why. There’s a lot of debate in the scientific community but all we really know for sure is that you can’t function without it. Miss a nights sleep and you’ll find yourself hungry, irritable, and unable to concentrate. Miss a lot of sleep and your immune system is weakened and you become susceptible to colds and other infections. Some of these things can be temporarily avoided with drugs like modafinil but forgoing sleep for long periods of time has been proven to be damaging for the body and mind. So stay safe and don’t fuck with your brain. At least not too much anyway.

Picture by Jessica Cockerill

by Tom Hutchinson

TURBO-FOLK: Milosevic meets Pitbull by Ante Malenica Once again there is unrest in the Eastern Europe. Putin is sick of one-on-one judo and he’s decided to begin posturing in Ukraine’s ethnically Russian Crimea region. The possible economic and diplomatic consequences of Russia’s behavior are clear: further military action will prompt sanctions from the West and the unrest in Kiev will worsen. But that’s not as interesting as horrible music, is it? The East’s tumultuous history tells us that the cultural repercussions of such aggression can be much more damaging. Yugoslavia’s collapse through the 90s left the remaining member states with corruption, mutual hatred, and a genre of music that can best be described as the cultural equivalent of Cheez Whiz: Turbo-Folk. With song titles like Neko Ce Mi Nocas Napraviti Sina (Tonight, Someone Will Give Me A Son) and Seksi Businessman (you can probably figure that one out), TF’s lyrics are built on a foundation of hyperactive kitsch lacking any semblance of self-awareness. Originally developed in the 1980s, TF gained relevance in the former socialist state when members of the Serbian mafia began funding and augmenting the traditional Yugoslav folk music that was deemed too hokey and embarrassing for state support. Traditional instruments like accordions and clarinets were re-appropriated in the rhythm sections for some of the most offensive electronic drumbeats in history. Naturally, the mafia lords injected their own corrupted Hollywood fantasies into the lyrics and video-clips. A successful TF club-banger was incomplete without a scantily clad female vocalist, clumsy references to expensive alcohol, and more wrap-around shades than any video-clip should be subjected to.

was televised on state television and, typical of TF style, the gauche ceremony awarded Ceca the title of “Mother of Serbia”, which would probably make an international war criminal the “Father of Serbia”. Ceca would accompany platoons as they marched through occupied regions of Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina singing the praises of military victories to the soundtrack of TF laid over helicopter rotors and AK-47 fire. Decades after the war, TF has slowly lost its Serbian nationalistic sheen and adopted a more Pan-Balkan focus without sacrificing any of its silicone glamour. It’s not uncommon in a TF song for a man, desperately trying to convince us he’s a DJ, to spend a great deal of the song listing former Yugoslavian member states, presumably as ‘allies in partying down’, something has allowed TF to gain traction in places once thought impossible. While this seems to be fostering a convivial atmosphere among old enemies, it’s not quite so simple. Division along religious and nationalistic lines still exists. From personal experience I know that while younger Croats and Bosnians consume TF simply on face value, many older Croats and Bosnians resent the influence of former enemies. TF can inject uniquely Serbian/Montenegrin dialects and accents

into regions with their own unique, albeit fledgling, dialects and accents. This might not seem that damaging to an Australian citizen living in a very stable, homogenous region of the world, but identity through language is incredibly important to someone in the Croatian hinterland surrounded by dozens of other dialects. Who’d have thought that bad music could be so politically contentious? But personally, I believe the most damaging consequence of TF is its ability to paint the entirety of the Balkans with the same brush, dipped in gold body paint. After the war, TF remains as one of the region’s few cultural exports and as a result the Balkans will find it difficult to shed its label as a typical Eastern European cultural backwater. Great strides have been made in fields like health, infrastructure and tourism. But it’s very difficult to convince the world that these improvements have been made when TF stands as one of only a few contemporary representations of the region. As for the future of TF, it’s very difficult to predict where it’s going to go next. But a little mystery isn’t always a bad thing. In the immortal musings of TF star, Sandra Afrika, from her hit song, Tonight, Someone Will Give Me A Son: “Who is it going to be? / I won’t know till morning comes…”

But TF’s embarrassing aesthetic presence pales in comparison to the role it played during the myriad Yugoslav conflicts of the 1990s. TF allowed the invading Yugoslav (Serbian/Montenegrin) forces to legitimize their military action in the neighboring states more easily. When the most famous TF star, Ceca, married paramilitary leader, warcriminal, and regular ol’ criminal Željko “Arkan” Ražnatovic, the atrocities became serialized as an easily digestible soap opera. The wedding

YOUR INTERNET FUTURE [CENSORED] by Daniel Werndly

Trying to define the internet is like trying to rhyme a word with orange. It’s impossible. Like the Miley Cyrus hit song that has reached over 130 million views on YouTube, it can’t be tamed. In its most primal form, the internet is an information sharing service, an ethereal link between ourselves and everyone else on the planet. As anyone in a healthy relationship will tell you, communication is key, so what happens when some of what you’re trying to say gets left out of the message? With the Trans-Pacific Partnership creeping ever closer and the even more recently proposed amendments to the Australian Intellectual Rights and Copyright Laws by the Australian AttorneyGeneral, George Brandis, we might just find out what our future with the internet looks like. Trans-Pacific Partnership The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed free trade agreement between the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Although a free trade agreement seems like a beneficial decision for the international economy, the TPP carries with it some seriously overweight baggage; any signatory countries will have to amend their Intellectual Property acts to include or consist of the Intellectual Property section of the TPP agreement. Although the TPP aims to take steps to enforce digital ownership rights, some of the choices made in constructing its digital rights section are, to put it plainly, ridiculous. A prime example of this is Article 4.1 in which rights holders may “authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works, performances, and phonograms, in any manner or form, permanent or temporary (including temporary storage in electronic form).” This may seem fair enough, except that computers rely on copying and storing media in a temporary format to actually present it for observation. Without this function, you wouldn’t be able to watch YouTube videos, look at photographs on facebook, or listen to internet radio, and most of these services would become illegal. Another red flag is the inclusion

of geographical indicators which would effectively allow government agencies to store the location of an internet user in order to see whether they were infringing a local copyright. Australian Copyright Laws George Brandis is looking to amend Australian law to take a harsher stance against internet pirates and Internet Service Providers (ISP). A probable section for reform is section 101 of the Australian Copyright Act, which states that a body that authorises the infringement of policy without the rights holder’s consent is also liable for infringement. In the old legislation this was a grey area; “the extent (if any) of the person’s power to prevent the doing of the act” had to be taken into account, allowing ISPs to continue servicing consumers. That will no longer be the case, as rights holders ”will have explicit powers to provide for third-party injunctions against ISPs, which will ultimately require ISPs to ‘take down’ websites”. Brandis also said that “the government will be providing ‘legal incentive’ for an ISP to co-operate”. This scheme would mimic a trial that was meant to take place last year but was abandoned due to public disapproval and iiNet pulling out of the trial. The scheme also requires ISPs to block websites that potentially host copyrighted material and for graduated messages to be sent to individual copyright infringers by their ISP - which not only requires a blacklist of certain websites, but also the recording of an individual’s virtual presence. Not only does the blacklist system not function, as seen in the United Kingdom’s opt-out internet filter, but the potential for misuse of this system far outweighs the positives gained from its implementation. As more of our world moves online, virtual privacy is beginning to become as important as personal privacy. The problem with the new legislations is that it shapes the world into an increasingly ‘1984-esque’ surveillance state. A major flaw is that a handful of people at best would be charged with initially deciding what sorts of websites are banned

from the Australian internet. Personal influences such as race, religion or political stance will have a detrimental impact on the information that is accessible by every Australian citizen. Accompanied by this is the fact that it is the government who will be controlling the censorship, allowing them to block anti-governmental websites and shaping public opinion simply by removing every negative comment made about them. The same can be done by content generators if they wish, as they could flag every negative review as an infringement of copyright and have the information removed from the website or simply have the website disallowed. Perhaps the greatest violation of virtual privacy is the recording and storage of a consumer’s virtual and also geographical location. All these raise serious concerns about not only a local citizen’s freedom of expression, but freedom of expression on a global scale. It also makes countries like Australia, New Zealand and the United States, who have traditionally been ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘champions of democracy’, the suppressors of their own people’s voices. I know that this doesn’t greatly impact the lives of most people as it simply stands as another way of protecting the law by discouraging ‘illegal’ actions, but for some people it poses a serious risk to their safety. I have come to realise that these legislations have an impact beyond my mundane experience and I have to wonder, ‘what happens to the people who do have something to hide?’ The recording and tracking of their online presence could spell an end to the privacy an online account provides in terms of social repercussions for your opinions or an end to the safety provided by a witness protection program. This legislation is aimed at governing the actions of the everyday people, but when such a broad spectrum of laws are being discussed, it is imperative to consider the impact it will have on every member of society, including the extraordinary. These statutes just don’t do that.

UKRAINE OR: How I learned to stop worrying and kick the bear when he’s down Ukraine is a canary in the geo-political coal mine. Over the last thousand years, it has had a habit of being swallowed up alternately by Poland, Germany, or Russia. Its occasional appearances on the map illustrate only the moments of historical weakness of these powers. Given these influences, it is not strange to see divisions of culture and allegiance within it. In many ways, it is really two countries thrust into one; one looking west, seeking to join the EU, and the other looking east, to Russia. The unfortunate fact of the current conflict, however, is that it is not purely domestically seeded, but international in scope. An often overlooked fact in Ukraine’s unrest is that it represents not simply a popular uprising, but a culmination of coordinated foreign intervention. This was best shown in the recent release of a phone conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. The popular media, as always, focused on the most banal element of the story, the ‘fuck the EU’ gaffe. What is far more interesting and sinister however was the discussion uncovered in which the two diplomats seem to decide who will succeed the political leadership in Ukraine. “I don’t think Klitsch should go into the government…I don’t think it’s a good idea……We want to keep the moderate democrats together…I think Yats is the guy with the experience… what he needs is Klitch and Tok on the outside… I think you reaching out to them helps with the personality management among the three” Arseniy ‘Yats’ Yatsenyuk has since taken power as interim prime minister. Let us not mince words; this has all of the hallmarks of a coup d’état. The previous government may have been deeply flawed, but it was democratically elected. These leaks suggest what has long been suspected, that the US is capitalizing on popular uprisings and using them to push

for the installation of regimes pliable to US interests. In the context of Ukraine this interventionism is not a new phenomenon. In December 2013, Nuland stated that 5 billion US dollars had been spent funding the opposition in Ukraine. The ‘Orange revolution’ of 2004 grew on a bedrock of donor support by US interests, with organisations such as the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and USAid leading the charge, a politically bipartisan spectrum of support. The reason for this interest becomes more apparent when viewing the priorities of the selected leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. This new leader’s first actions were to immediately ask for emergency loans from the US, EU and IMF, effectively binding Ukraine to international, and particularly US, influence. These loans provide an ongoing justification for intervention in Ukraine’s domestic policy. The IMF has a long history of interventionism; typically requiring countries to cut spending on education and health, to devalue of national currencies and to privatise of national assets in order to remain eligible for continued support. Interventionism in Ukraine may be representative of a much greater American strategy of division and encirclement. In October 13 2007 retired US General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Europe during the Kosovo War, gave a speech to the Commonwealth Club outlining his shock at the new US strategy post 9-11. In it, he states that he was told in the Pentagon in the months following the World Trade Centre attacks that: “We are going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years, we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran…. We learned that we can use our military in the Middle East and the

Russians won’t stop us… We’ve got about five years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes Syria, Iran, Iraq before the next superpower comes to challenge us.” The list here is ominous to look at seven years after his statements. The steady elimination of the client regimes has coincided with the continued NATO creep into Eastern Europe; despite the USSoviet agreement with Gorbachev that the US would not take advantage of Russia’s weakened post USSR position to exploit its allies. This seems to suggest that the US has realised its hyper-power status is coming to an end, and is in a mad rush to ensure it has stacked the geo-political deck as much in its favour as possible before its next rival reaches the table. What the US may not count on is the level of political provocation that results from this kind of interventionism. One of the most unfortunate aspects of the Ukraine crisis is the unnecessary creation of yet another flashpoint between the two most heavily armed nuclear powers in the world, with no valid justification beyond petty political gaming. No matter what happens, however, you can be assured that our TVs will tell us it was Russia’s fault all along.

Picture by Camden Watts

by Philip Sharpe

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB. by Tom Rossiter

No matter how you pronounce it, nuclear power is probably one of humanity’s best ideas for a sustainable energy source. The future’s big, almost 7 billion people live on earth, we’re filling up, and we’ll need electricity to continue. Unfortunately, that also means there are fewer places we can ‘safely’ leave radioactive waste, or giant, smoking craters. Nuclear power is one of the greenest sources of energy, except, of course when it isn’t. The disasters at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima proved this pretty effectively. No one died in the actual disaster of Fukushima, but the expected eventual death toll from radiation and cancerous growths is expected to fall between 0 to 1000 people. The problem with nuclear meltdowns isn’t the initial bang, but the horrific consequences. But hey, there’s a mass of Uranium still in Chernobyl that turns anything that comes near it to stone, so that’s pretty cool, and all thanks to nuclear power. The story of mankind is one of a people looking to destroy each other with increasingly large phallic substitutes. And thanks to nuclear power, mankind might finally have crafted the largest and most dangerous pretend-penis of them all. The ethics of nuclear weapons have been debated for nearly a century now, but ethical issues become pretty convoluted if you think the ends justify the means. Technically, Robert Oppenheimer saved lives. Total deaths from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki stand at almost 200,000 people. Without nukes however, the Allies would have had to invade Japan to force an unconditional surrender. In the battle of Okinawa alone, 280,000 people died, so you can imagine the kinds of casualties resulting from such an invasion. In 1944 the US military printed 500,000 purple hearts in anticipation of this conflict, and those are just for the soldiers of one side, who come back wounded, let alone the

other side’s casualties and the dead US soldiers. Use of nuclear weapons has saved lives, albeit mainly American lives, but I don’t think we can hold that against them. The other reason nuclear weapons stopped death is because, without them, the USSR and the US would’ve almost definitely had a full-on war. Neither side could risk definite apocalypse, so they just couldn’t have an old fashioned ground war. Nukes stopped war, but in the same way that cutting off my hands might stop me from stabbing a man. But like me, desperately trying to attack a man with a knife in my mouth, the US and USSR were restrained to much less effective forms of combat, fighting proxy wars through their allies in Korea and Vietnam.

SPIDERMAN MAKES UP FOR ONE OR TWO TRAGEDIES We’re in supervillain ethical territory here, but we do have a net gain in lives. It’s not all good news though: nuclear power is the sole reason anyone cares about North Korea and Iran. Were it not for their nuclear capabilities, no one in the international community would look bat an eyelid at their human rights abuses. But since the world has become a place where one madman could start an apocalypse, we have to care about all of our mad men, particularly those in charge of nuclear stockpiles. But it’s not all doom and gloom in an apocalypse, let’s not forget that the disaster of Chernobyl, whilst terrible for the people, caused a huge increase in plant and animal life. At least we can be comforted by the knowledge that animal life will continue to thrive over our dead bodies.

Much like this argument, use of nuclear power is an incredibly polarising issue. Opponents of nuclear energy have very valid concerns over the proper use of nuclear power and disposal of nuclear waste. These concerns are voiced to nuclear power advocates, who, like the tumours they cause, can’t be contained, they grow and grow until disaster strikes, then they leave, but you have to check back every six months just in case they come back. And it’s just so hard to hate a technology that gave birth to so much of our culture, entire genres of comic books emerged from our invention of nuclear power; surely Spiderman makes up for one or two tragedies? And if he doesn’t, well, we’ll just have to be content with a technology that protects us and provides for us, it might not be perfect, but it’s the best penis-substitute we’ve come up with in a very long time.

DEATH OR GLORY, JUST ANOTHER STORY The History and Elements of The Prison Sports Film by Josh Chiat The prison sports film is an avenue through which the down-trodden of society can get back at the abusive powerful of our state institutions. All these films working from George Orwell’s edict that sport is war minus shooting, a team of captives - be it POWs, occupied labourers or prisoners - are energised by the cruelty of their captors to accept a challenge to defeat them, symbolically, on the sports field. It would be incorrect to call these films a genre; in reality they are all the same movie. While the idea of a vengeful, mistreated caste of men getting back at their torturers may seem like an obvious idea for an inspirational story, none of these films (including both versions of The Longest Yard, The Mean Machine and Escape to Victory) could have been conceived without the infamous “Death Match” of 1942, or the mythology it inspired. The Death Match, Kickoff A team of FC Dynamo Kyiv veterans, playing as IK Start, beat a Nazi Wehrmacht team named Flakelf in occupied Kiev, despite orders to lie down and do a job, only to be shot immediately after for having the temerity to defeat their rulers. This story had so much mileage that even keen critics considered the immediate murder of the Dynamo XI common knowledge, despite this not being at all true. The Death Match was actually played in good spirits. The idea that the Nazis wanted to prove their superiority through sports was also a fallacious one. They were never as obsessed with sporting glory as Mussolini’s Italy or Videla’s Argentina. The main objective of games like the death match was as propaganda to liquidate Soviet identity from the Ukrainians by allowing them to openly display Ukrainian nationalism at public events. Only one of these 150 + matches came to be remembered. Start, after rampaging through a string of Hungarian and Polish army servicemen teams, beat Flakelf 5-0 on August 6. The rematch, scheduled for

three days later, ended 5-3. The Dynamo professionals may have taken this match less seriously – the most famous incident being when the Start centre-half dribbled through the entire German team, past the goalkeeper, stopped the ball on the line and hoofed it back to halfway. And like that they ran out comfortable winners. No struggle, no demonic Nazis, no deaths or arrests. At least not straight away, anyway. Six Start players were arrested a couple weeks later, probably for their connections to the NKVD (their former club Dynamo was managed by the secret police). Four players were eventually killed in custody, though this happened almost 6 months later following a civil disobedience incident in a Ukrainian labour camp. An article subsequently run in Izvestia in 1943, by Lev Kassil, condensed this entire period into 90 digestible, Nazi-hating minutes. His piece was probably purely patriotic in motivation, written in the midst of the hellfire of the 300-day siege of Leningrad. The Death Match, on screen In the late 50s and early 60s, the Death Match became a central pillar of the Soviet grand narrative of “The Great Patriotic War”. The first film to cover this event was Tretiy Taym (The Third Time). Directed by Yevgeny Karelov, a Russian director of patriotic war films, the 1962 film was seen by millions of people and repositioned its footballing protagonists as ready-made Soviet War Heroes. With the tale revived in the late 50s, Tretiy Taym and the films that follow it have popularised many of the inaccurate aspects of the legend that later became inoperable elements of the prison sports drama. From this point on, every antagonist would be a stone cold Nazi. Don’t believe me? The main villains in Robert Aldrich’s dark comedy The Longest Yard, set in the American Deep South, are called Rudolph Hazen and Wilhelm Knauer. Fuckin’ Wilhelm. There must be like two people with that name in all of Georgia. The prison guards

are racist, brutish and ultra-violent. Admittedly, the US prison system is known for all of these attributes. The Longest Yard, in its hard labour scenes, has as many similarities to Cool Hand Luke as it does to any Eastern sports film. The idea, however, that the guards are looking to bury, embarrass and submit their captive opponents through violent and conniving means goes back to the myths surrounding the Death Match. As Nate Scarboro puts it himself in the film, “He’s giving us the chance to be free for a few hours, to try and be men again, so he can destroy us.” In Two Half Times in Hell (the best of the prison-sports selection) and The Longest Yard, the game is treated not just as vengeance, but also as an escape for the prisoners from their crippling forced labour. One of the most memorable shots in Zoltan Fabri’s 1962 Hungarian account is a two minute long first-person take from the perspective of a prisoner carrying a log down a steep incline. The leader of the Hungarians, a famous footballer named Dio, only accepts the game against the Germans for the promise of no work hours and increased food rations for his players. In The Longest Yard, Paul Crewe accepts the warden’s challenge for a game only after being treated to the harshness of the “hotbox”, described by one prisoner in holocaustic terms as “the oven”. The centrality of a single superstar player who bears all of the markers of a national hero is almost ubiquitous, with only the ludicrous cameo-fest of John Huston’s Escape to Victory deviating by chucking Pele and Ossie Ardiles into Michael Caine’s Allied XI. In Two Half Times..., the famous player Onadi (Dio) is defined almost entirely by his footballing identity. He wears his old jersey, the letters MTF emblazoned on the front, a reference to the Budapest team MTK, reviled due to its traditionally Jewish (and later secret police) patronage. It also draws a lineage between wartime and post-war football. The victory against the Germans on camera is a small, fictional revenge for Hungary’s real-life loss to West Germany in the 1954 World Cup Final,

All of these films are obsessed with an honour system rooted in nationalism. The Longest Yard’s Paul Crewe’s internal battle is to redeem his status as an American hero. His crime as far as the other convicts are concerned is not the routine dangerous driving charge that landed him in jail, but the matchfixing allegations that ended his career several years earlier. “Shaving points off of a football game, man, that’s unAmerican.” His redemption comes when he defies Warden Hazen: threatened with a longer stay behind bars unless he gives the guards a 21-point spread, Crewe elects to fight back and win the game instead. He stops being the whitecollar, piss-away prima donna athlete and comes to represent the blue-collar anti-authoritarian American hero. Another pre-occupation is of the importance of individualistic players like goalkeepers to the cause/result. In Tretiy Taym, the goalkeeper, electing not to throw the game, saves a late penalty and sends it up the other end for a goal. In an almost identical scene in Escape, Sylvester Stallone’s Sergeant Hatch does the same. In a dead giveaway of the form’s Soviet roots, these players all fulfil the Stalinist Stakhanovite ideal, exceptional individuals leading their country to glory. Suffice to say that Lev Kassil wrote a book and musical on the ideal of the Stakhanovite sportsman in 1936. Its name: The Goalkeeper. Comparisons can also be drawn to the indomitable Soviet keeper Lev Yashin, nicknamed the ‘Black Spider’, and considered by many to be the greatest of all time; another example of individual brilliance being co-opted for the greater good of the team.

Extra Time What connects these films most of all is that they are obsessed with giving sports a range of meaning beyond the ordinary. They all seem to seem to make the same argument: that freedom, and life itself, are small prices to pay for immortality. This brings us back full circle to the Death Match. Unless you are a Ukrainian on the anti-Russian side of the revolutionary divide, there is little value in explaining that the Ukrainians took the field not as heroes, but as leisure-seekers. For the rest of us the allure of the underdog story is too great, its cultural multiplication too diverse, our hatred of the evil Nazis too ingrained to ever want it to end another way. A new film based on a flimsy account of The Death Match by the Hollywood schlock biographer Andy Dougan is being rumoured for some time in the near future, yet another dissemination of the lie of sporting immortality.

Escape to Victory is an appropriate case to finish on here. Though camp and poorly cast, it perhaps comes closest to capturing the true emotions of prison and wartime sports. The players don’t escape because they have a chance to win the game. Pele returns from injury to place a famous bicycle kick into the top corner. Stallone saves a penalty. The Paris crowd storms the pitch (a variation on the climax of Two Half Times in Hell), and carries its Allied heroes off to safety. The joy is not in winning the match – they don’t even win, it ends 4-4 – but what takes primacy is the ecstasy that leisure provides. While the propagandistic aspects of the Nazi presentation of sports don’t disappear in Huston’s portrayal, the Deus Ex Machina ending implies that the game itself breaks the prisoners’ chains.

Picture by Ayeesha Fredericksen

with Dio’s playing style baring uncanny resemblance to the deep-lying MTK & Hungary forward Nandor Hidegkuti.

FILM REVIEWS quality. Unfortunately, The Monuments Men maintains this alarming trend.

The Monuments Men Director: George Clooney Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray Making the transition from acting to directing has been done many times before. Some manage it with aplomb, while others take time to develop the requisite skills to become a truly great director. George Clooney’s career as a director started rather positively with two really well-made films, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and the Oscarnominated Good Night, and Good Luck (with noms for Best Picture, Director and Lead Actor). However, while his follow-ups, Leatherheads and Ides of March, were competent films, they were fundamentally bereft of any lasting

Cuban Fury Director: James Griffiths Starring: Nick Frost, Rashida Jones, Chris O’Dowd, Olivia Colman These days, it’s tough to make a romcom that isn’t instantly forgettable, or just downright awful. Studios churn out bland, inoffensive dross for cinemagoers to kill time on dates, so it’s hardly a surprise that most of these movies aren’t exactly intellectually nourishing or even (sometimes) at all entertaining. Romcoms are often so plainflavoured they have to have some kind of half-baked premise or quirk that helps them stick out in a mediocre crowd (see 50 First Dates). This is where Cuban Fury comes in, in all its saucy glory. Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, The

Realising the damage that World War II is causing to some of the world’s most important artwork, Frank Stokes (Clooney, in a somewhat narcissistic piece of self-casting) puts together a team of art historians and museum directors to attempt to stop the Nazis from stealing and destroying some vital pieces. His team includes Matt Damon (MAAATTT DAAAAMON!), Bill Murray, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin, and Hugh Bonneville. Clearly, it’s just Clooney & co. getting drunk in Europe. This is a technically well-made film. Clooney is an adept director with a very subtle and traditional method, able to compose scenes and develop wonderful flow therein. The acting is fine, and in some instances quite enjoyable (Bill Murray and John Goodman in particular), with everyone clearly having a blast making the film. But all these points reinforce Clooney’s ability to make a technically sound film that fails to become anything more than the sum of its parts. World’s End) plays Bruce. When Bruce was a boy, he was a champion salsa dancer, but after bullies brutally humiliate him, he quits, vowing never to don sequins again. All this changes when Bruce’s engineering firm hires beautiful new manager Julia, played by Rashida Jones (Parks & Rec, all-round lovely human being). However, Bruce is challenged in his affections for Julia by his utter shithead of a co-worker Drew (Chris O’Dowd). After discovering Julia has a similar pasión for salsa, Bruce resolves to get back into the groove, and enrols in a class with his former teacher (and alcoholic) Ron Parfait, Deadwood’s Ian McShane. So far so generic. I was really expecting a lot from this movie: it’s got a great cast, a funny premise, and who doesn’t love a bit of salsa? But in the end I came out of the cinema thinking, “Meh, it’s ok”. And that’s all it is, just ok. It’s not nearly as funny as it ought to be; there are only a handful of laugh-out-loud moments, and there really isn’t much at stake throughout the movie.

Clearly, this film must have had one hell of a script. Seriously, it seems that if they shot straight off the script, the film would have been at least three hours long. However, the pacing is all off, suggesting that the film was really poorly edited. Too many important elements are missing, including necessary exposition of character backgrounds, villains that actually do more than just stare menacingly, and a much greater need to focus on the art itself. In the end, the film plays as a very oldfashioned interpretation of modern-day war films. It’s as if Clooney had a movie marathon taking in Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, and Inglourious Basterds, before deciding to create and combine his own watered-down interpretations of each. In the end, The Monuments Men is a very safe film, and may be safer to watch on DVD. 2.5/5 Benjamin Crocker

That said, there are plenty of plus points. The close focus on the ins and outs of salsa dancing makes it more than a mere quirky premise. Frost, Jones, O’Dowd and Olivia Colman (who plays Bruce’s sister) all took intensive training to prepare themselves; the fancy footwork is real! Nick Frost handles his first lead role with ease. He’s incredibly likeable, and might just be the best physical comedian out there. The best lines go to O’Dowd, who plays the bastard surprisingly well, and also Kayvan Novak, chews the scenery as a gay Persian dancer in Bruce’s class. There’s also a great blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo for fans of the Cornetto Trilogy. I guess you can’t really expect too much of romcoms. After all, they’re designed to tick all the boxes and provide a sappy ending, hopefully with a couple of laughs along the way. Cuban Fury tries its best to break the mould, but doesn’t quite succeed. 3/5 Greenman

The Wind Rises Director: Hayao Miyazaki Starring: Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishijima Hayao Miyazaki is a dealer in the flighty, weightless aspect of childhood. A cofounder of the celebrated animation firm Studio Ghibli, his latest and supposedly last movie is The Wind Rises. Miyazaki has already retired once before, with magnum opus Spirited Away marking his return to the industry. The Wind Rises centres on the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the real-life aeronautical engineer as he (literally) builds the pre-WWII Japanese airforce from ground-up with colleague Honjo, all the while pursuing a romance with Naoko, who is slowly dying of tuberculosis.

Tracks Director: John Curran Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver, Emma Booth Adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name, Tracks is the story of Robyn Davidson, an Australian woman who walks from Alice Springs to the West coast in the 1970s. Accompanied by four camels and a dog, 25-year-old Davidson (portrayed by Mia Wasikowska) sets out on a solo journey that takes almost 9 months. She crosses deadly deserts, encounters remote Aboriginal communities, and survives against all odds. I cannot remember the last time I was so captivated by a true story. Wasikowska thrives in the role of a thick-skinned

Naoko is a charming but tragic character, a symbol of Jiro’s fixation on perfection and purity. Jiro’s brilliance doesn’t just take centre stage: the film is almost obsessed with Jiro’s obsession, to the point that his attitudes and impressions inform every aspect of the film, from the historical perspective to the overall aesthetic. While not as fantastically imaginative as some his other films, limited as it is by setting and scope, Miyazaki finds space for his signature flights of fancy in the lucid dream sequences of Jiro. Wondrous flying machines soar through artful skyboxes, providing audiences of all ages the beautiful sequences Ghibli is known for. And as always Studio Ghibli’s integration of computer graphics with traditional animation is seamless and does much to heighten the already breathtaking visuals. As is too often the case with Studio Ghibli, however, the ending is too abrupt, cutting off unexpectedly. While acceptable with child-orientated releases like Ponyo, here the ending’s suddenness is more keenly felt; the viewer is left high and dry with their impressions of the film, without an effective

conclusion to provide much-needed closure. In addition, Miyazaki compresses the events of several years often into a few passing images: this can be jarring for the viewer, especially one familiar with the historical basis of the film. Controversy arose when American audiences caught wind of the film’s subject matter. In the US canon Mitsubishi A6M fighters, or ‘zeroes’, are to WWII films what the Indians are to Westerners - the ruthless, menacing presence on the horizon that cast a shadow over the film’s proceedings. Despite its vague pacifist stance - so says Jiro’s mother: “Fighting is never justified”, Jiro: “I know” - the film’s reluctance to portray the various warcrimes and wrongdoings of Japan at that time drew the ire of critics in the US, South Korea and even Japan. Nevertheless, Miyazaki is Japanese animation’s sole universally celebrated auteur, and so his retirement (however dubious) can only be a loss to anime and the broader film industry. The Wind Rises is his fitting swansong. 4/5 Nick Morlet

young woman living in a time and place that shows little respect for her gender. She is both engaging and easy to empathise with – a difficult feat for a character who wants nothing more than to escape other people. Adam Driver of Girls fame provides a love interest and brilliant contrast to Wasikowska as the self-assured and talkative Rick Smolan, a photographer hired to document Davidson’s trek. Driver is at once adorable and irritating, sensitive and disconnected, and he shines in an already stellar cast.

Robyn Davidson’s love for nomadic societies is somewhat lost in translation from novel to movie. However, her concern with the situation of our indigenous population and their fading culture is still represented; Davidson bonds with rural communities and travels through sacred land with an old fella, careful to respect traditional customs. Her observation of their mistreatment in a time that saw supposedly landmark changes in policy and attitude is particularly striking, given the parallels we can still observe today, forty years on.

Cinematographer Mandy Walker provides us with sprawling, breathtaking shots of the Australian landscape (anyone who has seen Baz Luhrmann’s Australia may be familiar with her work). The imagery filled me with a swelling sense of national pride and wonder that I usually only feel when flying home from a long stint overseas. Seemingly endless white sandscapes, barren red deserts and harsh brown shrubbery are well utilised to instil a sense of huge spaces and beauty in isolation.

Tracks is an inspiring story in and of itself, and this film adaptation has largely done it justice. Excellent performances and beautiful cinematography and score combine to provide a moving film experience. Lovers of Australiana and the survivalist genre should not miss it. 4.5/5 Elisa Thompson

PRIMUS SUCKS, AND SO DOES SPOTIFY! by Nick Thompson The music industry is succumbing to its own ignorance like a 12-year old in a Meshuggah circle pit. No one’s buying music and all attempts to rectify the situation have only served to worsen it. Like Erebos to Geras, peer-to-peer networking has fathered, fostered, and fulfilled ‘The Pirate’, a being so cowardly and reprehensibly vile that not even Spotify can stop them. And it shouldn’t. Streaming services like Spotify don’t resolve the primary issue of artist revenue, which means using them is practically piracy in itself. It’s issues like this which demonstrate why this bloated and stagnant industry needs to change really quickly or die. Whenever I hear some PR tool declare so confidently, “Service X is the future of music distribution!”, I just laugh, find a quiet space, and dream of paper cutting them into tiny pieces. Like global warming, there is no quick fix or magic bullet. Sure, we can pump sulphuric acid into the atmosphere and shove Spotify, Pandora, and Google Play down everyone’s throat, but that’ll inevitably kill everyone back home. These are account-based services, requiring the hurdle of a sign up before purchase, which I don’t remember having to do to buy an overpriced CD from JB. There’s also a heavy reliance on listener numbers to create revenue, otherwise you’re left making 12 cents a month from the future of the industry just so unknowns can stay that way. “But it’s so convenient!” I hear the marketing department cry with that jaded tone to their voice - but convenience isn’t the problem. Instead of taking inspiration from other industries struck by hard times, the powerhouses of the music world have tried to cement what’s worked for decades and adapt it to a new age. Too much emphasis is put on selling the music, even when presented with so many alternatives. Live shows, backstage passes, meet and greets, ninja gigs, behind the scenes docos, signed merch

and memorabilia, all cast aside in favour of barely viable record sales. Where music took a tab of LSD to help it focus, other industries diversified into sobriety. Game of Thrones is still raking it in through TV ratings, but the hordes of rabid fans buying certified shirts, hats, mugs, and swords, or going to see their favourite actor in panels at cons, following them on Twitter, and liking their backstage Instagram certainly help. A far more effective way to look at the situation is that no one wants to buy the music, but they really want to support the artist. Some people are willing to have Cthulhu rupture from their pancreas to help support their favourite band, but music has become so devalued by radio, pirate sites, and Youtube that buying the album is meaningless, like that fan’s now ruptured pancreas. Trent Reznor, aka Nine Inch Nails, preaches this, once telling

... CTHULHU RUPTURE FROM THEIR PANCREAS up-and-comers on the NIN forums to release music for free or never be heard. This is where the industry needs to step the fuck up and accept that music itself has no monetary value, but is infinitely valuable. Through music, a label can sell things that are impossible to pirate, provide experiences that can never be replicated. Unfortunately, incompetence, averseness to change, and terrible judgement mean that this just isn’t happening. Thankfully, there are still innovators amongst the flaccid bulges of distributors we call ‘higher ups’. Amanda Fucking Palmer crowdfunded an album to be performed in people’s homes, thus involving the fans in the process and making them feel like they mattered,

which in turn has spurred her rabid cult following to keep supporting her. Zoë Keating has been vocal in the past about her reliance on Soundcloud, iTunes and Bandcamp (all kneel before its holy glow) for ~60% of her revenue, but most of her work has branched away from her as the focus, now involving composition for movies, television, and collaborations with others. Animals as Leaders have capitalised on their music’s technicality by frequently holding clinics in shops and universities to share their knowledge to beholders of their preternatural fingertips, for a price of course. All three of the above schemes rely heavily on fan dedication to seek their content out, and I think this is what we’ll see more of in the future. While the big machine will keep cranking out hit song after hit song, lesser-known artists and niche labels will aim directly at who they want to appeal to: the fans. They might do this through holding regular Q&As, secret competitions, or any number of subversively profitable events, but they’ll want to ensure the core experience isn’t corrupted by ads, sign-ups, or stupid country restrictions. If this means supporting piracy, fantastic! They’re incorporating what’s already happening into their marketing instead of going against it. And if the multi-millions labels can’t adapt? Then fuck ‘em; they were just a blight on artistic freedom anyway.

FROM THE RITZ TO THE TUMBLR: Arctic Monkeys and the Mainstream by Sandra Rawrs “Is world domination the fifth or sixth fret?” - Alex Turner, 2005 Little did he know it would be 8 years later in first position with ‘Do I Wanna Know?’, which not only made AM the Arctic Monkeys’ fifth consecutive studio album to reach number one but also propelled them to a Lana Del Reyesque level of Tumblr fame and recognition. Where once the Arctic Monkeys were a successful niche rock band, they have now been hailed as the return of rock ‘n roll into mainstream music. Before AM, everybody objectively recognized that the band knew how to play their instruments, but the mainstream didn’t really ‘get’ their music. Since AM, however, the British music magazine NME has once again dubbed the Arctic Monkeys the ‘voice of a generation’ and has awarded the record its oh-so-desired 5 star rating. Ever since they abandoned mainstream rock after their NME 5 star hit debut Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not in 2006, the band has experimented with different sounds on each consecutive record, like the chorus effect on its successor Favourite Worst Nightmare, for example.

GUITAR RIFFS AND DIGESTIBLE HEARTBREAK Every band tries to bring something new to the table with each record, walking a fine line between reinvention and audience alienation. The fact that each record has debuted at number one so far shows that the Arctic Monkeys have mastered each one. In my opinion, their two most successful records have something in common: they are lyrically simple.

Lyrically, their most criticized record Humbug is the opposite of simple and heavily experiments with metaphor, with its most straight forward (and successful) song being ‘Cornerstone’. Naturally, ‘Cornerstone’ was the straight-up pop song on the record.The conclusions we can draw from this are obvious. I maintain to this day that Humbug was and is their best record and should have bestowed upon the Arctic Monkeys the recognition that came with AM. Where Tumblr fans now melt to the adoration expressed in AM’s ‘Arabella’, Humbug’s ‘Fire and the Thud’ should have broken those hearts. Where Tumblr fans admire the effects in AM’s ‘Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?’, where is the admiration for Humbug’s ‘Dance Little Liar’? It wasn’t AM that revealed the Arctic Monkeys as fully-fledged artists. It was Humbug. And to this day, Humbug remains a forgotten classic. AM merely reinforced how well this band can manipulate music and made this ability accessible to the mainstream scene. I can’t wait to have my children envy me because I got to watch the Arctic Monkeys rise to fame, and while I am happy for the band every time I see a gif of the ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ music video reblogged next to the wise moments of a couple of Skins characters, I also grieve a little over what this means for the Arctic Monkeys. In order to fully understand my grief, we need to back peddle a little to Humbug’s successor Suck It And See, whose light guitar riffs and digestible heartbreak I have always viewed as the apology for Humbug. The first single that followed Suck It And See, ‘R U Mine?’, landed them back in the limelight, and in an interview, Alex Turner called this single “the best move we have made in a long time”. This is where the idea for AM was born.

to their teenage days where they rebelled against the status quo with tracks like their single ‘Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?’.. When it comes to art, success is difficult to measure, and very often we hear the phrase that a musician can only be as good as his or her audience. If we accept the truth in that phrase, then the musician is at fault for not moving his audience and the Arctic Monkeys are correct in stretching the success of ‘R U Mine?’ as widely as they can. I believe however that Humbug proves this phrase outdated and I am grieving for the fact that a record like Humbug may not occur again.

REBLOGGED NEXT TO A COUPLE OF SKINS CHARACTERS It worked similarly in the Triple J top 100, where Queens Of the Stone Age ranked quite low considering how good a record …Like Clockwork was. There is a general lack of appreciation for nonobvious music. And I wouldn’t mind that, since I too love (adore!) bands like Haim for example, if it didn’t mean the slow annihilation of modern day poetry. Sometimes I fantasize about the Arctic Monkeys listening to their Humbug supporters or someone someday taking the microphone at an award show to let the Arctic Monkeys know they are more than AM. And then, that someone, could ask the venue to send him the invoice for the microphone before he drops it.

Furthermore, the band has made it very clear that AM didn’t end this idea yet. I believe I can understand why it has become so important for the Arctic Monkeys to be recognized as opposed

POWER / GLORY MUSIC REVIEWS St. Vincent St. Vincent Republic Annie Clark, the fleshand-blood woman behind St. Vincent, has pushed her own boundaries to the breaking point in her fourth studio album. The self-titled St. Vincent is industrial, catchy, acidic and progressive all at once. Beginning with the almost dystopian ‘Rattlesnake’, St. Vincent shows she’s honed her unique style – a darkly catchy guitar riff is complemented by paranoid lyrics (‘Am I the only one in the only world?’ she lilts to a corrosive bass line). St. Vincent is at her best in ‘Digital Witness’, which portrays the culture surrounding social media with a glossy sheen but a hollow core. Balancing her guitar and some jazzy touches with the perfect amount of restraint and trimmed edges, Clark evokes a sound that reflects the superficial message she’s trying to paint. The following track ‘I Prefer Your Love’ is one of the few more emotionally available songs on the record, taking its time to work its magic – there’s nothing rushed as her charged vocals draw you in. Ultimately, St. Vincent is a record showcasing Clark at her best, but unfortunately not at her most available – the grungy prog rock is catchy but might leave you cold. 8/10 - Mason Rothwell

Real Estate Atlas Domino Records Real Estate aren’t just another average indie-rock band, and Atlas proves this. The record starts with Had to Hear, sounding like standard Real Estate, but with lead singer Martin Courtney no longer gracing us with his lyrical illustrations of summer and youth by turning rather introspective. Courtney being 28, recently married with a kid on the way is trying to comprehend the future, and using Atlas as an outlet. Throughout the album, themes of passing time and an unclear future haunt Courtney, especially in one of the most engaging tracks on the album, Crime, where he digs into his “crippling anxiety.” You would think the beautiful, summery melodies that lead guitarist Matt Mondanile provides would then sound almost misleading whilst being tangled with Courtney’s melancholy lyrics, but they don’t. The Bends is a key example; likewise in Talking Backwards, as Courtney’s words about relationship hesitations blend flawlessly into the music. Throughout the entire album, Mondanile’s guitar and Courtney’s vocals interweave into one big picture of the contemplative New Jersey summer where this sound and angst originated. The brilliance of Real Estates lighthearted summer sound is especially evident in the instrumental, April’s Song, as Real Estate take a more ‘surf-rock’ turn back to their earlier albums, whilst still suiting the new, absorbing style they have now developed. Go into your backyard, grab some ciders, lay by the pool, play Atlas, and feel the summer love with 38 minutes of indierock gold. 4.5/5 - Luke Kolbusz Rick Ross Mastermind Maybach Music Group When Lorde sang last year of “Crystal, Maybachs, diamonds on your timepiece”, she might as well have

explicitly namedropped Rick Ross and his luscious, grandiose Maybach Music Group However, the disapproval of white middle class teens worldwide doesn’t seem to have slowed down the Florida rapper on Mastermind, his sixth studio album. Here Ross covers a fairly typical list of topics: dealing coke, white girls, religion, poverty and opulence, and in terms of lyricism there is nothing special going on here, though interesting to note are Ross’s continuing efforts to shrug off revelations about his past as a correctional officer in ‘Rich is Gangsta’. Mention must also be made of other aspects of Ross’s flow and delivery: his flow is very consistent throughout this album, and his voice is deep and rich and fucking sexy and it just reaches deep into me and strokes my insides. His voice exudes such effortless confidence that his bravado rings truer than that of many other MCs: it’s really easy to believe Ross when he tells us about the superiority of his cars, bitches, houses and rhymes. On first listen, ‘Nobody’ feat. French Montana & Diddy was one of the album’s highlights, but whilst a strong track in context, it rings a little empty when compared to the 1997 Notorious B.I.G. song it samples, ‘You’re Nobody Til Somebody Kills You’. Other than this, the lead singles, ‘The Devil Is A Lie’ feat. Jay-Z and ‘War Ready’ feat. Young Jeezy are both solid tracks, but the true standout here is the Kanye-produced ‘Sanctified’. It starts with a soaring gospel introduction/ chorus which drops into a minimalist piano/soaring strings/pounding beats number which sits somewhere between Mercy and Runaway and features verses from Big Sean and Kanye. Rick Ross isn’t about to reinvent the game anytime soon, but on Mastermind he produces grand, enjoyable Maybach Music. In the face of questions about his authenticity and all that Lorde shit he keeps galloping onwards like some kinda tremendous, exuberant rap horse. 7/10 – Hugh Manning

Major Lazer Apocalypse Soon (EP) Secretly Canadian For a few years now, Diplo’s Major Lazer project has been providing us with guilty dancefloor pleasures of variable quality. In his latest EP, Apocalypse Soon, Diplo seems to have granted his collaborators free reign with the thematic content and so loses sight somewhat of his original Dancehall-Riddim revivalist thing; by instead going for a record with the highest concentration of individual clubber hits, the EP loses much of its cohesion and becomes more of a standard EDM release. The EP flys out of the gate with Aerosol Can, featuring a bouncy singalong chorus and a tic-toc beat that’ll knock around inside your head for days; however, the song is hampered by a bland, repetitive structure and Pharrel’s lobotomized drawl. I suppose the major question is: how many songs are feet-against-the-wall, sweatdrippy dancable? Only a few. But while not all of them are instant banger hits, this is still an EP you wouldn’t laze around to. S’ound Bang’ ft. Mike Montano is a frantic romp through a calypso wonderland, which, despite shallow vocals and a sickly-sweet palette, has fanfare samples and “mashuptheplace”s aplenty to set you jiggling. ‘Come On To Me’ ft. Sean Paul is a seductive d-floor filler with some phat jungle drums and a central horn sample that only gets mildly annoying. Of the songs, though, an unfortunate majority are lazy grabs at the so-stupid-it’sstupid excellence of the previous player Free The Universe: these tracks ape Free the Universe’s inflated crescendos and overwrought 4-pon-de-floor beats but lack the loving homage and genre revisionism Major Lazer is beloved for. The latter two songs sound like eating tea leaves and soap, with flat, strenuous beats and nasty, unappealing vocals. Like

with most Major Lazer releases, however, you tend to forget about the nuances when you’re daggerin’ your missus on the d-floor lika viagra’d bonobo with social anxiety issues. 6.5/10 - Nicholas Morlet Black Lips Underneath the Rainbow Vice Records I jumped at the chance to review this album because it supposedly fell under the genre of ‘punk rock’. Instead I was treated to a bunch of tracks that felt recycled, inspired by various different genres and eras - none of which sounded vaguely like punk rock. Life is full of disappointments. Definitely not an album I would listen to by choice, I found myself skipping through the tracks in a bid to sample everything in as little time as possible. The first track had a western feel to it, with simplistic verses. It sounded a bit trance-like and hazy. Some subtle use of brass. Second track sounded like chilledout Baby Bee. Third track sounded like James Bond and had a Lounge feel. Most of these tracks weren’t catchy, and felt like they were imitating different wellknown tunes. Fifth track sounded like surf-rock crossed with Rocky Horror. Sixth sounded like Beatles crossed with Grease. Eight track was probably the weirdest – it slowed down when new instruments entered. The eleventh track tried to be punk and failed. Absolute rubbish CD, 2/10 would not tap. 2/10 – Eunice Ong

fuelled evening and couldn’t distinguish between whether I was extremely tired or that I was actually hungover and on the verge of going down struggle town. I opened my window and began listening to Beck whilst lying upside down on my bed looking at the overcast sky outside and feeling the cool morning breeze on my skin. The overall setting of the weather and the comfort of the position I was in went perfectly accompanied by Beck’s latest work – it just chilled me out completely to a Zen-like state. The whole album is filled with beautiful acoustic guitars, piano, light drums and even violins. It carries with it a slight orchestra vibe, but one which doesn’t overpower Beck’s soft vocals in any way. There wasn’t one song that was below average, but it was hard to pick out a track that blew your mind away completely. Yet this isn’t a downfall, as this is one of those albums where you can listen to the complete track listing in its entirety and not feel the need to skip a song – which is something that one does not often find in albums. Morning Phase is completely different in style compared to his last album of six years ago, Modern Guilt. The 2014 album is very mellow and downbeat, yet it doesn’t leave you feeling disappointed in a melancholic sense. Instead, it keeps you blissfully at ease through the totality of the album. It just further proves what a truly versatile and dynamic artist Beck is and will most likely continue to be in his future musical endeavors. 7.5/10 -Natasha Woodcock

Beck Morning Phase Capitol Records When I took a moment to listen to the latest Beck album Morning Phase, I had just arrived home after a tequila-

THE POWER TO DESTROY by Natasha Woodcock I had just come back to Perth from the bitter cold darkness of a Norwegian winter and was preparing myself to bathe in sun - and, more importantly, immerse myself in the music festival season. The festival season starts in the spring, a time where everything is blossoming and growing happily. Then summertime suddenly sneaks in, and for some things the happiness and blossoming just keeps , like the arts festivals, which have all received outstanding reviews. There are also the less fortunate in summertime which shrivel up and die if they are not provided with some tender loving care. Unfortunately, the music festival industry has slowly been succumbing to the heat from the wrath of the councils, the communities, and the promoters, such as the infamous AJ Maddah. Let’s begin with Maddah, whose name has continually appeared in magazines, newspapers, and the radio over this past summer. I don’t see there is anything wrong for a person in a powerful position to use social media as a weapon of choice, except that Mr Maddah tweets his voice to a new unprofessional level. Trying to connect with the social media generation, he ends up further disconnecting himself from us in the way he voices his opinions. His attitude is reminscent of a whiny teenager resorting to tweeting angry outbursts without remorse. During this festival season, the most devastating cancellation at Big Day Out was blur, who publicly voiced that they had many problems with the organisers. Instead of AJ remaining cool, calm, and collected, he lashed out, announcing via Twitter to blur fans that all the organisers did was

“kiss their asses”. As Big Day Out began to face its death in Perth, new problems arose nationally for the upcoming Soundwave. Within weeks before the festival began, many bands pulled out from the line-up, including Newsted, Hardcore Superstar, and Megadeth. As I read the endless threads of tweets, a pattern began to emerge: the majority of these were pulling out after having disagreements with organisers regarding set times. To which, of course, AJ responded with an assuarnce that the promoters had offered everyone the best they could. It seems AJ is tweeting himself further and further into the deep end. How can so many bands have problems with organisers? It doesn’t add up. The most heartbreaking conclusion to all these problems and mayhem is that Perth has now lost two beloved and iconic festivals, Big Day Out and Soundwave. The councils are just as much to blame as promoters are, and Maddah openly admits to butting heads with our Claremont council. As much as I disagree with many of AJ’s opinions and choice of words about the festivals, make no mistake - the Claremont council is no ally either. As everyone would know, the council has been less welcoming for the festivals than Kanye West would be to Taylor Swift. Over the past few years, the council has been making a lot of noise about the unforgiving ‘noise’ of music festivals. I’m baffled that one council can have so much power that they can move a festival to another showground, and even force it to move out of the state completely. The Claremont council were not remotely sad to see both festivals vanish from our calendars, even though they’ve been running

so long that they’re engrained in our culture. Nowadays the RAS Showgrounds have a pitiful event calendar and the grounds are a wasteland of empty space and disused food stalls. Even community councils, like the Fremantle Inner City Residents Association (FICRA), are getting on the anti-festival bandwaggon. Recently, Sunset Events proposed a new venue at Arthur’s Head. This area of Arthur’s Head is at this moment not being used for anything in particular, so the good event lovers at Sunset planned to transform the space into a venue for music, artists and pub-goers. For many, especially local musicians and artists trying to make a break, this sounds like an incredible initiative. However, FICRA are pushing back against the creative tides and are protesting the idea, stating concerns over ‘loud’ music and larger crowds at Freo which they believe could engender anti-social behaviour. FICRA’s actions fly in the face of the Fremantle tradition of exposing WA’s local musicians’ and artists’ talent. If FICRA win this debate, it could be another potential venue that promotes music and the arts to be washed out to sea and to never return back to our shores. All these before mentioned people have incredible influential power in regards to the festival industry, but instead of wanting to enhance the music industry for the greater good of Australians (in particular the people of Perth!), they’re breaking the hearts of all music lovers. If this pattern of council and promoter wrath continues, we could be seeing the advent of the FIFO Music Fans, leaving Perth as a soundless city.

5 POWERFUL, GLORIOUS MUST-READS FROM THE AUTHORS OF PERTH WRITERS FESTIVAL by Elisa Thompson Longbourn by Jo Baker If you told me a few weeks ago that I’d be recommending a veritable spin-off of Pride and Prejudice I’d have scoffed in your face. Jane Austen’s prose is perfection, and rewriting her stories is sacrilege – isn’t it? I’m no longer convinced. Longbourn runs along the same timeline as Elizabeth and Mr Darcy’s tumultuous love story, but follows the lives of their servants. In conversation with Murdoch University lecturer Olivia Murphy, Baker revealed a keen concern about what happens behind the scenes of Austen’s novels and – perhaps more importantly – points to the historical issues which remain unaddressed in the stories we know so well. She challenges us to think about the realities of a world with no antibiotics, no plumbing, and no electricity, as the brunt of these inconveniences are felt by those in service. Longbourn forces us to put aside many of our romantic notions about a time that was rife with civil unrest and food riots. Did anyone question the military presence of George Wickham’s regiment in Meryton during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars? Me neither. Baker has gone to extraordinary lengths to preserve the narrative of Austen’s novel (to the extent that Longbourn and Pride and Prejudice may be read side by side), while presenting us with added dimensions and fascinating insight into the realities of a time that is often forgotten in favour of dashing gentlemen and lavish balls. Big Brother by Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver of We Need to Talk About Kevin fame, delivers yet another novel that pulls no punches in dealing with a delicate subject that is increasingly relevant to Western societies: obesity. Big Brother is about Pandora, whose life is dictated by complicated relationships

and different (and sometimes conflicting) forms of love; she lives with her health-nut husband and his two children, and when her older brother comes to stay she finds that he has gained a huge amount of weight. Shriver is not afraid to get dark, but this novel does not just descend into the depressing details of a medical condition. Instead, it explores familial drama with care, compassion, and even the dry wit that is so characteristic of her writing and personality. This is an honest and powerful portrayal of a sister whose love may be the only thing that can save her brother from himself. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton Eleanor Catton – despite her relatively young age – is a decidedly intelligent and well-read author. Her latest novel, The Luminaries, is a reflection of this. Many of the characters in this text are linked to different zodiac signs, and interact with each other according to the movements of their stars. Five points for ingenuity – five more for pulling off such a convoluted literary technique. We begin with Walter Moody, a prospector who travels to New Zealand in 1866 in search of his fortune. After a chance meeting with twelve local men, we are drawn into a complex mystery and interwoven stories of prostitution, opium addiction, vengeance, violence and death. This is not a weighty book (unless you’re referring to its physical size). There are no huge philosophical questions or lifechanging themes – just a well-constructed narrative and characters that remain interesting in spite of their archetypal foundations. Catton melds history with intrigue and fresh characterisation to create a unique and gripping novel. Damned If I Do by Phillip Nitschke Of all the sessions I attended at Perth Writer’s festival this year, Philip Nitschke’s most enthralled me. A leading Australian

advocate for voluntary euthanasia (he was present at and created the machine which administered the first lethal injection on our shores), Nitschke is a brutally honest realist with a wonderful sense of humour. His memoir, Damned If I Do, is a reflection of this intriguing man in print. Recalling hilarious, touching and fascinating stories of his youth – from student activist to advocate for Aboriginal land rights – Nitschke leads us to the present, and his links with voluntary euthanasia. His brusque style is confronting (death, he reminds us, is generally ignored in Western society; bodies are carted away to be buried before we have time to come to terms with them), and he makes no excuses for his controversial belief that the right to die is fundamental for controlling how one lives. This is often a difficult read, but it’s worth it. Mamang by Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project Mamang is the most recent publication from the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project. It is the story of a young Noongar man who journeys inside a whale, singing along to its steady heartbeat. The story is accompanied by beautiful pictures, and available on their website is a recording of it in English and in Noongar: a beautiful, lyrical language that is a joy to listen to, even if the meaning is somewhat lost on those who don’t speak it. My recommendation is not just for this book. Rather, it’s for the movement; an initiative to maintain the language, culture, and stories of the Noongar people. As such, it’s my hope that you invest in reading or listening to the stories of their Dreamtime. They remind us of the inextricable link that Aboriginal people have to the Australian landscape, which extends further into the past than most of us can even comprehend. These stories deserve our respect and attention, and the preservation of Aboriginal languages and culture should be in the interest of everyone who inhabits what was their land, long before it was ours.

BOOK REVIEWS Farmageddon: The True Costs of Cheap Meat — Philip Lymbery with Isabel Oakeshott Feel free to unscrew that jaded grimace: Farmageddon doesn’t have an agenda in shovelling moralistic, vegan-touting ideological fare down your craw. Its purpose is to throw a light upon the enormous face and insidious facts of factory farming; an industry which has seen agriculture go from working with nature to dystopically pillaging it for all it’s worth. Balancing the personal with the political, Lymbery—current CEO for charity organization Compassion in World Farming— occupies the role of an investigative journalist on the hunt for truth. With reader in tow, he travels to megadairies in California, fisheries in Peru, and chicken farms in England to see how the industry is impacting livestock, farmers, communities and the environment. The journey is as disturbing as it is edifying. Even if you don’t give a flying donkey whether the chicken in your burger first saw sunlight when you later vomited it up on the pavement, Lymbery makes it very clear that the implications of intensive farming don’t just extend to livestock. Intensive farming exudes toxins in every other aspect of environment and society too. Consulting with farmers, vets, scientists and academics, the evidence he presents is substantive and compelling. He explores how excessive pesticide use, monocultures, and vegetation-clearing are devastating natural wildlife populations (queue Plight of the Bumblebee), as well as poisoning communities and destroying livelihoods. The tightly-packed conditions make the farms breeding-grounds for disease too, with excessive anti-biotic treatments giving rise to strains of super-virus’ medical science has simply run out of ways of combating. As is obligatory in all environmental doomsdays books, the final chapter offers a strategy-pack so we can avoid (or mitigate) the looming ecological, health and food crises tied to intensive farming. Eyes wide open, we are asked to rethink the relationship between industry, consumer and nature. Reading this book made me look down at my steak the other night and wonder: if it could speak, what stories would it tell? Or, looking up at my hungry

face, whether it wished it did carry the disease to end humanity. 4/5

Best Bit: Finishing it, thank Christ, I have a stack of sick books to read and I’m glad to get back to them.

Best Bit: Lymbery’s success in counter-poising expert-journalist thoroughness with animal-welfare grit. Also, his oft-expressed love of birds.

Worst Bit: Loki, fuck that guy.

Worst Bit: Ghastly images of parasite-ridden fish, chickens roosting on other chickens’ carcasses, and anti-biotics being pumped into the swollen udders of cows. Kate Prendergast went snorkelling recently and saw an octopus. An octopus! The Gospel of Loki - Joanne M. Harris The Gospel of Loki is a contemporary take on the story of the Norse trickster god Loki written by British author Joanne M. Harris (of Chocolat fame). It takes significant poetic license in narrating Loki’s life, from pure chaos of his birth to his death at the hands of Heimdall at Ragnarök, and it’s a goddamn mess the whole way through. Loki narrates the story from a first person perspective and this wouldn’t be a problem if he wasn’t the most irritating protagonist in the history of first person narrative. Harris somehow dumbs the witty trickster of Norse mythology down to an emotionally confused modern 14 year old who says shit like “well, duh” and constantly refers to himself as “Yours Truly” and “Your Humble Narrator”. Harris gives this Loki almost no emotional depth, and the character’s motivations seem perpetually confused and in flux, with his opinions of others, especially Odin (his ‘bloodbrother’ in this story) constantly changing for seemingly no reason. This Loki is less nuanced than his counterpart in the recent Thor/Avengers films and they’re big budget, explosion heavy Hollywood blockbusters. When you consider the quality of the current crop of Adult Fantasy authors, weak shit like this just isn’t going to fly. At its heart, this is an attempt to transform an ages-old story into something hip and modern and it just doesn’t work. The other characters are even less fleshed out than Loki, the jokes are weak, the emotional moments are unsatisfying, the prose is clumsy and on the whole it is an utterly charmless piece of work. 0/5

Hugh Manning is going to go and read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell to cleanse his soul Inside Out – Will Elliott Will Elliott’s novel has an interesting enough premise. Inside Out centres on Denton, a dim-witted loser permanently down on his luck. After meeting the seductively pretty Sister Sarah, Denton joins an obviously fake quasi-religious cult (the Sect of Bliss), led by shithead/messiah Mason. Mason gets wind that Denton stands to inherit a large fortune, and hatches a plan to trick him into signing it all over to the Sect, before killing him. The novel gets meta when the little people living inside Denton’s head realise something is up. That’s right, the people in his head. These ‘characters’ include Mr. Scott, head of the Logic Department, DM (the Dream Master), and Len, the Lord of Nightmares. Realising the threat to Denton’s fortune/life, they band together to snap him out of it, all the while trying to contain his frustrated libido, embodied by the unhinged Wetpatch. Subtlety is not Elliott’s strong suit. For something set in two planes of reality (the Inside & Outside of Denton’s mind), it’s a little ironic that Inside Out basically has zero subtext. Nothing is as clever as the writer thinks it is, and after 350-odd pages it all comes off as a bit childish. Elliott has maybe the most simplistic grasp of psychoanalysis I’ve ever come across. Too often, he seems overly preoccupied with making fun of people in cults (another unintended irony: the author’s holier-than-thou attitude to organised religion), so much so that you wonder if he’s been burned by Scientologists or something. Most of the time I was reading I genuinely wondered if it was a children’s book. To put it another way, if this is what passes for adult postmodern fiction, then we must be in some sort of trouble. In short, Inside Out doesn’t provide much of a challenge or even any entertainment. Don’t bother. 1/5 Best Bit: Not sure there was one, sorry.

Worst Bits: The persistent mockery of the religiously-inclined. Matt Green is a happy chappy. Productivity Ninja — Graham Allcott I usually eschew self-help books – Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People is probably the only self-help book I would recommend. Even before picking up this book, its title screamed pretentiousness. A productivity ninja!? Last I heard, ninjas are extinct, and there’s a reason why they’ve stayed that way. They failed to survive, so why would I want to be one? With that gripe out of the way, let’s get into the review proper. The author has a stereotypical impression of ninjas, evident in his description of the traits a productivity ninja should possess: unorthodoxy, ruthlessness, Zen-like calm, mindfulness, and stealth to name a few. An unnecessarily large portion of the book is devoted to explaining each trait, with the author linking productivity to them. After a while, you get fed up with his longwindedness and quickly skip to the next chapter to see if there’s any saving grace in this book. Good news, the aforementioned saving grace was found. In the chapter of Attention Management, the author teaches quite succinctly how to manage attention spans, depending on the time of day, and according to the levels of attention that (he postulates) exist. With helpful tips on how to sort tasks into the various levels of attention needed, I found this chapter to be the most useful. A hundred pages are then devoted to an acronym: CORD. Capture and Collect, Organise, Review and Do. The majority of it was intuitive and frankly, common sense. However, the points were well organised (well, he’s a productivity ninja, isn’t he?), though elaborated to the point of excess. Overall, this is a decent book for someone looking for a well explained (albeit long-winded) and incredibly intuitive way to approach productivity and doing more with less. 2.5/5 Best Bit: The part where the author grabbed my attention by explaining how to manage my attention, which was the only bit that helped. Worst Bit: The first chapter describing a Westerner’s impression of a ninja. Japan ought to be incensed.

Joel Toh thinks that the word “self-help” is paradoxical and that its usage should cease immediately. The Intern – Gabrielle Tozer This book disappointed me. I wanted a clichéd chick lit story to laugh and cringe at, but ultimately get sucked into. On that front it delivered, however, I also wanted to finish the novel with a positive outlook on life whilst patiently waiting for all my problems to resolve themselves. Instead, the ending left me feeling as if I’ve already failed at life. The somewhat annoying but lovable heroine, Josie, is a seventeen year old fresher who dreams of being a journalist. As part of her University degree, she lands an internship at glossy women’s magazine Sash. However, this is to Josie’s dismay, as she wanted a serious newspaper. Josie’s a teen-movie style Ugly Duckling (but sans glasses and ponytail) and therefore initially fears the glamazons of Sash. As well as competing against two other interns, she’s also lusting after a guy with a hot girlfriend gets pashed by a pop star, and her mum’s having a slight meltdown. Josie’s life is suddenly full of drama. In stereotypical chick lit style, Josie blossoms from nerd-girl into a beautiful and intelligent Swan. She scores an amazing job, is aceing uni, and gets the guy; overall just setting herself up for a perfect life shortly after turning 18. That’s where this story loses me. Finishing this novel was like finishing one of those glossy magazines – all of a sudden you feel completely inadequate by comparison. The author is a former “journalist” for multiple women’s mags, so she had the formula for this mastered. In reality, at age 18, no one has it all, but this book makes you think it’s possible, but just not possible for you. If you secretly like women’s mags then you’ll enjoy this book – just don’t be surprised when it leaves you reaching for the chocolate and ice-cream faster than you can say “Devil Wears Prada rip-off”. 2/5 Best Bit: It’s an incredibly easy read with a dramafilled ending to every chapter (except the last one, unfortunately). Worst Bit: The novel feels like a shameless

advertisement for women’s magazines – it’s even praised by the editors of Dolly and Cosmopolitan. Emily Foyster did actually break out the chocolate and ice-cream after finishing this. Romany and Tom – Caroline Stafford So Ben Watt is a musician, writer, DJ, and a pretty cool guy, but in Romany and Tom we find out his parents were way cooler. Romany and Tom is the biography of the relationship between his parents: Romany and Tom Watt. They were both famous in their primes, however Ben Watt tells us of their softer side: his memoir traces their old age and slowly and delicately teases out memories from his childhood about the famous pair. Romany, his mother, was a classically trained actress, writer and broadcaster – running a showbiz column in the sixties and seventies after her first marriage. Tom Watt was a jazz-musician from Glasgow who rose to fame in the late fifties with his own orchestra at the Paris Theatre in the West End. Ben’s story covers what happened after their combined fortunes ran out; a life of drinking and debauchery and an arguable neglect for their youngest son. What runs true and strong throughout the book are the love and appreciation both Ben Watt and the parental Watts have for each other. While still humble, Watt’s shows that his parents were incredibly proud of each of his successes, even after their glory days. In reverse, some of the most touching moments were Watt trying to arrange care for his parents in their senility. It’s the tenderness of moments like these contrasted with the outrageous antics of his parents in their younger days, all filtered with Ben Watt’s tart humour that make the book not just another tribute to the once-famous, but actually tolerable. 3/5 Best Bits: Finding out that cringe-worthy family moments happen to celebrities too. Worst Bits: Not getting gritty enough (do you really want to hear all of your family’s dirty secrets?) Caroline Stafford is not the daughter of anyone interesting at all.

NINTENDO by Cameron James

Nintendo isn’t in great shape. As of now, the Wii-U has only sold about 5.8 million units after being on the market for 13 months. Dwindling sales forced Nintendo to revise its financial forecasts for the end of the fiscal year and drastically alter their initial prediction of moving 9 million more Wii-U units to a paltry 2.3 million. In perspective, Sony’s PlayStation 4 console has been on store shelves for only 4 months, and has managed to sell 5.3 million units. Overall, it’s estimated that Nintendo lost 1.2 billion dollars since the launch of the Wii-U. The Wii did phenomenally well and is the bestselling console in history, but the consumer base that Nintendo tried to tap into again with the Wii-U moved onto other outlets. The Wii hit store shelves at a time before smartphone gaming became the norm, and its nifty gameplay mechanic and easy “casual” vibe meant anyone could pick it up. Nintendo hit an untapped market. But now, this same target audience of kids, elderly and “casual” gamers has shifted interests. These same people are wondering: “Why get the latest Nintendo doo-hickey when you can get an iPad that does so much more stuff”? And so the possibility of Nintendo radically changing direction and entering the smartphone realm is being ‘seriously considered’. Nintendo is already capable of making fantastic mobile technology, from the Gameboy in 1989 all the way to the 3DS in 2011. Nintendo created this paradigm of gaming-on-the-go and has continued to lead the charge in this field. As a dedicated gaming device with no other functions, it’s insane to consider how well it continues to dominate and turn profits. And say whatever you want about the Wii-U gamepad, it too is a great piece of tech. In short, Nintendo are already experts at developing mobile hardware, so this ‘smartphone’ direction already makes sense from the outset. The mobile games industry is huge. By the end of 2014, the overall revenue for the mobile gaming industry is predicted to be pushing 40 billion dollars. And it’s growing; by 2017, it’s forecasted to be hitting the 100 billion dollar mark. However, while mobile gaming is massive, the general public

is completely unaware of its ecosystem. Can anyone here, for example, name any prominent mobile developers? I can only think of Rovio (Angry Birds) and PopCap (Plants vs. Zombies), and I’m a guy who writes about this shit. By entering the fray, Nintendo could shift public attention towards the Smartphone gaming industry. In the surging sea of mobile games flooding the App store by the thousands, Nintendo could operate as the much-needed beacon many could rely on in order to receive assured, quality games. Not to mention that a big name like Nintendo would have grounds to charge extra for their software. Games usually run for about $3 on the App store; any higher than that is a quick way to isolate yourself from consumers and immediately lose your place amongst the mass clamoring for public awareness on ‘Top 10 of the Week’ charts. Even a big developer like Ubisoft, who occasionally churn out a mobile game, couldn’t realistically expect consumers to spend more the $7 on one of their games. But Nintendo? They could easily charge upwards of $20 for what many consider to be a premium title. Nintendo games would work perfectly on mobile. I mean, obviously, something like

Starfox or Super Mario Bros. would work really well with touch inputs, but it’s bigger than that. We are already moving towards an age where mobile technology will exceed current console hardware. The reason we have consoles is because we need their beefy processing power to run the games, but eventually, it would just make much more sense to stream the games through the Internet or through a mobile device connected to the TV. Again, Nintendo has an advantage here because the Wii-U already has this streaming capability with the gamepad. Imagine a Nintendo-branded smartphone or Tablet that could download premium Nintendo games and stream them directly to a TV without the need for wires or a console. That’s the future we’re heading towards. Nintendo needs to do something. The company won’t survive in its current state. Either blow off the Wii-U as a failed experiment and re-launch with something else, quit the console game altogether and become a publisher for third-party software, or take a gamble and run with smartphones. Nevertheless, I’m hopeful that this is just a rough patch in the grand sweeping history of a great company. Soon the Big N will return back into its former glory.

IT’S A FRINGE WORLD AFTER ALL by Lauren Wiszniewski Amber Hasler, 2014 Fringe Director, is a goddess on the Perth cultural scene. Her first year running the show, Amber has had great ideas that came to life and made Fringe 201, a year to remember with over 450 shows in over 60 venues around the city, including the newly installed Pleasure Gardens and Midlandia. Many amazing artists having started on a Fringe platform, notably including Tim Minchin and Meow Meow,with Fringe giving them an opportunity to show off their talents and build a relationship with their audience. What is the most exciting aspect of Fringe? The most exciting aspect of Fringe from where I’m sitting is watching Perth audiences with this festival that really anyone can engage with. There is something for everyone, and that is really lovely to have as a festival. From someone with young children to couples through to grandparents who can come along and experience something really unique as part of the festival. And I think it is also really exciting for Fringe to allow these pop-up venues to infiltrate an urban space and really bring so much joy and activation and laughter to these really, really beautiful and sometimes unutilised public spaces. What is the best piece of advice that you can offer someone who is thinking of going to Fringe?

Why were you attracted to the idea of directing Fringe? What has your vision for 2014 been? I worked with Marcus Canning, the previous director, since Fringe’s conception in the associate direction role. And I feel very privileged to help cultivate and build this festival with an amazing team of people. Me becoming the director now is kind of enhanced by having that relationship and knowing the power of what it can do and the happiness and activation it can do to a place I love. Perth is a special city and deserves a marvellous, marvellous Fringe. And so to me it was all about sustaining the work the first two Fringe festivals have established and it has been a very successful festival since the pilot season in 2011. Each year, the audience grows bigger, there are more ticket sales and the program grows larger, and I think a really important part of my job as first year of director is to make sure we are surprising and delighting people with their Fringe experience. All those things people love and hang out for throughout the year are all still here, but there are also some added things on the list. How important do you think it is to have events such as Fringe happening in Perth? Really important, absolutely. There is a saying that a city hasn’t reached it’s full potential

until it has a Fringe festival and you look at amazing cities around the world. Edinburgh, being the largest festival in the world… Their festival is amazing and the thing it does to that city - it brings it to life for a really long time. It’s very good, Adelaide, our next door neighbour, has the second largest Fringe festival in the world, and although we don’t strive to be a megaFringe, we feel like it is a really important part of people living in their city and having access world-class entertainment from around the world, but also from their own backyard. We have immense talent here and it is wonderful that Fringe gives them an opportunity to show off their skills and their talents as well as their work. How inclusive is Fringe of all ages? It’s very inclusive and very much how we think of the festival is that anyone able to come along and engage with fringe events - it’s really how we do things. We make sure there is lots of quality and fun, free entertainment for families. It’s really amazing in the cultural centre with the mermaids and the children and the families are so happy and they’re out in the evening, in Northbridge, in the city enjoying some amazing performance and they spend the night. They come along and see shows and that’s really great. I think that is a huge motto for us - making sure there is something for everyone.

I would always start with the program. The printed program is your main tool for navigating Fringe. All of the shows are listed there and it is a great opportunity to look at the pictures and read the information and find what you like. Circle things and start planning your Fringe adventure. This year we’re very glad to offer a more friendly and welcoming information through our box offices, there is always someone there who is happy to find the perfect show for you. We also have some tags we are using such as date night, and mate night and nanna night - something great to bring your grandparents to. So have a look at the programs but don’t be afraid to take a risk.

FRINGE REVIEWS Chest of Wonders presents: La Maison Derrière The Chest of Wonders had a lot of chests, but not so much wonder. Touted as a vintage era ‘freak-show’, this variety hour had a lot going for it - freaks, geeks, beauties, boobs, basically everything that Fringe holds dear. Alas, 90 minutes of lackluster strip tease MC’d by an aggressive, incomprehensible, pseudo-lesbian ringmaster was just too much even for a Fringe audience. While individual performances were fun and flirty, the long stretches of amateur dance with only a lame gimmick to make them freaky-deaky (the Bearded Lady’s furry nipple stickers were simply not up to scratch) just dragged. And that was without the disaster that was the stage management. I can’t decide which was more awkward - when the sensuous ‘voodoo queen’ broke character while perched on a knife to ask where the fuck the drill bit she was supposed to be swallowing was, or when the ringmaster gave the audience a five minute lecture on the shark cull in a mangled unidentifiable accent. Hot, half-naked mess. Anna Saxon All the Single Lad(ie)s All the Single Lad(ie)s is a show that promises to question gender expectations, radical feminists, double standards and pop stars. While it may be challenging something, the show unfortunately became jarring and odd when the two simultaneous plots failed to inform one another. The host, a drag queen “lecturer”, schools the audience in gender as theory, but his “lessons” are clunky and underdeveloped, and there is a hint at misandry. The parallel plot is also gaping, with a terribly obvious message (subtle was not in the memo). It was disappointing to see such an awkward representation of gender in a show that was meant to distort such two-dimensional perceptions. The only saving grace was the female lead Verity Softly, who held the show together with convincing acting in an otherwise unconvincing show. Pema Monaghan Yana Alana: Between the Cracks Between the Cracks by Yana Alana was the best thing I’ve ever seen.

‘World famous cabaret provocateur’ Yana Alana runs this one-woman show, and it is difficult to find fault in her impossibly slick performance. The show opens as Alana emerges from the back of the Spielgeltent, (spoiler alert) completely naked and painted blue. It was as good as it sounds. The nudity would be gimmicky if it hadn’t been totally outshone by Alana’s nigh-on-perfect vocal. Part Liza; part Bette; entirely amazing. Alana swung from topic to topic with lighthearted breeziness, singing about all things from anal sex to loss and abandonment. At times she was political, but she was maybe the only artist at Fringe to mention the shark cull in a way that wasn’t irritating, just utterly captivating. Her song about saying the-hardest-word (‘Tony Abbott can’t say it… Gina Rhinehart can’t say it’) was probably her most serious statement, but set to the tune of an upbeat ditty. It kept everyone smiling. Just when you think Alana has ended with a bang on ‘Life is A One Woman Show’ (which I now listen to daily), the lights lower and she sings the real closer: a stirring ballad. ‘There’s a crack in everything… that’s how the light gets in’, she sings, and that sums it up. Between the Cracks is all about finding light in darkness, accepting flaws and approaching all people and all things with non-judgment and openness. Everything about it is infectious: I have never left a show so elated. I saw it twice. Lucy Ballantyne The Silo Tantric and entrancing, The Silo draws on the struggle against impassable obstacles to create a beautiful and relatable piece of truly Australian theatre. Set in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia, the onewoman story-telling piece, produced and performed by Pippa Bainbridge, took place in a small rural town desiccated by drought. The story comes through the perspective of a young girl who lives on one such farm but takes a retrospective view, as the element of time is skewed and malleable. In this way, the play explores the disappearance of a young girl and the impact that one child can

have on an entire community. The overall presentation was engaging and thoughtprovoking. However, it lacked the certain energy that separates a good storyteller from a great one. The setting of a disused train and industrial production warehouse (in good ol’ Midlandia) mimicked the state of the community in the play and became a character in its own right. The soundscape complimented the setting and captured an eerie, ethereal quality that felt true. Bainbridge deals with some heavy thematic material in a way that doesn’t push people away from the topic but draws them in closer to the issue. A depressive feeling of “how?” encompasses every aspect of the piece: how do these people make a living, how do they keep going day to day, how did it get like this? The play, although at times unsettling, prompted the right questions in the audience, which along with its great use of mixed media, left a lasting impression. Dan Werndly David Quirk: Shaking hands with danger You know that kid in the back of class who thinks he’s the funniest person in the world but actually isn’t? David Quirk is that kid. Quirk spends his time making jokes - some amusing in a potty-humour way, others just plain crude. Starting off with a song/ stripping routine and a black leather jacket, Quirk opens himself up to the audience and makes confession after confession. He focuses mainly on his past girlfriend, and the events that led up to the day that changed everything. Having cheated on his girlfriend in Finland, his show revolves around making a decision on whether what happens in Finland stays in Finland. Sold as a show for those who have ever cheated, thought of cheating on, or been cheated on, Shaking Hands with Danger is full of tense emotion and uncomfortable silences. Classified as a ‘world performer’, Quirk never really reaches his full potential and leaves the audience unsatisfied. Lauren Wiszniewski Big Boys Don’t Dance Much like Corbin Bleu’s character Chad in Highschool Musical 2, Ash Searle believed

that ‘he don’t dance’, while his brother Brad, here played by the sassy Ryan Evans ‘knows he can! OH!’. Only instead of an impromptu musical baseball scene, Big Boys Don’t Dance involved a lot more topless Dance Dance Revolution. Sticking to their show’s tagline, “Sweat, charm and rippling six-packs”, the South African duo used a very shaky narrative premise to put on what was actually a super fun performance. Attempting to reclaim dancing in the name of masculinity, the brothers performed world-class dance routines that were energetic, sexy, and screaming with testosterone. Usually I’d be the first one to criticize a show using a badly made ‘men’s rights activist’ PowerPoint as a set, but I got what these guys were trying to say. Dancing doesn’t have to be seen as effeminate - it takes a ‘real’ man to stand on his tiptoes for two minutes straight. To be fair, I have a weakness for South African accents (don’t judge me), but this shit was fresh, with stomping, grunting, krumping and physical throwing with some dancing thrown in. Ash Searle was actually a top three finalist for South Africa’s ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, so obviously he has the skills. However, it was the great comedic timing and lighthearted banter between the brothers that really sold this show (the

audience of slightly tipsy upper middle class soccer mums freaking loved it). The all-male re-enactment of Dirty Dancing’s classic finale number - mid-air catch and all - got a standing ovation. A duo to check out next year with a show that was on point, and en pointe.

duo connected with the audience and pulled them into the time vortex. A comedic ‘selfdiscovery’ venture that discussed the issue of morality for the sake of morality in a way that is relatable, the production company showed real imaginative potential. Sure to become a steady fixture on the scene, Slow Loris is here to stay.

Anna Saxon

Dan Werndly

Slumber Party Time Travel

The Old Maid and the Thief

Prom is probably the most prominent event on a person’s social calendar ever. It is after all the last hurrah of high school before the real world steps in to take the reins and you become cynical and disillusioned. Written, produced and performed by Marnie Allen (2013 Pelican editor) and Ella Bennett as part of a Slow Loris Production, Slumber Party Time Travel explored ‘what happens after prom’ in a whimsical but fundamentally relatable way. SPTT opens with a short film detailing how their intrepid adventures through time are possible, including a rat that has absorbed a suffragette’s spirit. The play ends before we find out whether they make it home, echoing the ambiguity and uncertainty that we all feel about our future. By making use of the intimate performance space and multimedia, the

Competing desires, heart-racing passion and twisted morals, The Old Maid and the Thief was treachery at its best. Based on Gian Carlo Menotti’s radio opera, director Kathryn Osborne made her opera debut at Perth Town Hall with Fringe’s first English Opera. Adapting a script originally meant for radio can be difficult, but she did it by adding her own unique spin to the piece. The cast selected were excellent, with a wide acting range that meant that the audience were enthralled from start to finish. Set design was also on point with beautiful wallpaper echoed in room décor giving a pompous edge to the appearances of the main characters. An opera for a different crowd, The Old Maid and The Thief was a show worth seeing and one that will be remembered. Lauren Wiszniewski

PELICAN AT THE PERTH INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (AS YOU LIKE IT) It’s Valentine’s Day. I’m watching a group of flustered Russian puppeteers pump up an enormous inflatable erection. The whole experience is about as romantic as John Cusak’s Titanic-themed marionette performance in Being John Malkovich. The Dmitry Krymov Laboratory have pulled together the kind of frenetic physical comedy Pirandello might’ve giggled about while huffing nangs. The premise: A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s production within a production, the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, gets its own airing as a modern production (naturally, within a production). A group of players, loosely analogous to Shakespeare’s Bottom and friends, uses grotesque four-metre puppets to represent doomed lovers. These puppets also represent all the doomed lovers’ basic bodily functions. Because the puppets have been very poorly reconstructed post-flight from Moscow, it takes about fifteen minutes for Pyramus to offer Thisbe a bouquet (Act One). As aloof and over-intellectualised as the concept may seem, the theatre was abuzz with genuine response. The play is enormously successful because it goes to the heart of what’s funniest about AMND - deliberately godawful stagecraft. A fountain rushed in from front of house spills over the outer seats, an unlucky audience member has to hold a very unhappy dog for an uncomfortably long time, and the reader of the prologue breaks his nose within the first half hour. Every stutter, mouthful of sawdust and mobile phone that goes off is matched with unexpected Schumann and mad circus skillz. It’s two seconds from completely falling apart, and it’s excellent. Zoe Kilbourn

AN ILIAD

LUDOVICO EINAUDI

Denis O’Hare is one of my row neighbours’ favourite crime show character actors, typecast as the mentally defective janitor who everyone thinks did it, but didn’t, or the maintenance man who turns out to be a psychopathic mastermind (thanks, Margaret!).

Surrounded by a full Perth Concert Hall in rapturous applause and almost universal standing ovation, I realised that I had become a monster. It’s rare for an art music concert to move audiences mired in cultural cringe, capitalised “Good Taste”, and mining town hyperformality to respond with genuine enthusiasm, and here was a small ensemble causing firmly Anglo-Saxon Aussies to call out “Ludovico!”s and “Bravo!”s and “Grazie!”s across a packed hall.

Tonight, he’s the ancient bard who sung the Iliad for a year in Gaul (in Alexandria, he began to notice a few empty seats). Since then, the Immortal Poet has taken a turn for the worst. Frankly, knocking back spirits in his slouch hat and fading overcoat, he’s Bukowski-level beat. He opens with a Greek invocation to the Muses, and slowly slips out of declamation into bar patter and Jersey gesticulations. Assisted by a Muse (a speechless cellist-percussionist), hobo Homer walks us through a smaller snapshot, fittingly in medias res, of the Iliad: the story of Hector and the death of Patroclus. It’s as engaging as you’d hope a one-man show about mass bloodshed and capricious gods would be. O’Hare embodies each speaker with the immediate fullness and humour of a master storyteller. Agamemnon drawls like a New York mob boss; Achilles has a Mediterranean accent and the diction of a weightlifter; Hermes is as fabulous as the fashion house he shares his name with. The audience pandering can get a little grating, though. O’Hare falls a little too heavily on Humphrey Bogart noir tropes, and the third time you’ve seen him take a swig of whiskey and hold his head in his hands is one time too many. Zoe Kilbourn

Here’s the thing: I was bored. Einaudi is clearly an extremely gifted pianist - every little lilt, every over-octave expanse and subtle dynamic change and tremolo and phrase was handled deftly and sensitively. Musically, though, he’s got very little to say. It’s classical pop without any of the energy and verve of someone like Michael Torke or the stark Baroque weight of Michael Nyman. It feels like Savage Garden moved into film composition. There’s a solo piano piece heavily reminiscent of “You Raise Me Up”. Einaudi is kinda like every immensely talented high school pianist who insists on playing the Love Theme from Twilight every time she enters a room with a keyboard. Thank God for an encore piece styled like Eno era Talking Heads. The ensemble itself cohesed flawlessly - five extremely competent multiinstrumentalists performing from memory, electronics, and the most virtuosic tambourine playing I have ever heard. What really resonated with the concert hall, though, was how immersive the entire concert was. Lighting constantly flickered, pulsed, dimmed and changed colour all through a seamless performance (no speech, very brief pauses for recovery, not applause). The concert was no less than cinematic, which I suppose is the most fitting thing for music that is essentially intended as soundtrack. Zoe Kilbourn

PUBLIC ENEMY Legendary pioneers of politically and socially conscious rap, Public Enemy remain one of the most important acts in the history of music. More than a quarter century on from 1988’s seminal It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, the hard hitting, rapid fire verses of Chuck D remain as powerful today as they were all those years ago. Combined with the group’s other MC, the flamboyant and utterly unique Flavor Flav, Public Enemy formed a unique dynamic that has never been replicated as successfully, combining infectious beats and grooves with unrelenting socio-political commentary. Its music you can party and dance too, but loaded with some of the sharpest and intellectual commentaries found in popular music history. Public Enemy have toured Australia several times in recent years, and its evident from their performance at PIAF this year that they still have the same passion and energy for their work as they did in their hayday. Chuck and Flav both performed hit after hit for close to two hours, each spraying verses with a tenacity that made a mockery of their advancing ages. Accompanied by a talented band and the impressive DJ Lord, Public Enemy provided an electric performance that fully engaged the crowd and provided one of the more memorable highlights from the Chevron Festival Gardens this year. Wade McCagh BETWEEN THE DESERT AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA The night was set to be an exceptional concert of new music at the Perth Concert Hall forming part of the Perth International Arts Festival: an evening of music composed for games, capped off with the commissioned Symphony for Perth. WASO was on top form as usual for the first half, highlighting the most exceptional and beautiful music from a broad range of games. It was refreshing to see music that is so accessible being performed to such a high quality.

The second half featured the much anticipated symphony commissioned for Perth. Composer Tod Machover sought to do something different with this work, something uniquely Perth. The first movement took the form of a soundscape. Prior to the première of this work, the public were asked to submit sounds they felt reflected the city. The second movement revealed the most beautiful aspects of the overall work. Students from various primary schools around Perth and surrounding districts submitted small snippets of music, composed using graphic notation software where students would literally paint sounds into a program. Machover stitched these parts together to make a complete movement. With Machover’s talent, the sounds of Kings Park, the bustle of Murray St Mall and Mitchell Freeway at 4pm filled the concert hall. The third movement, a kind of orchestral improvisation, stretched the talents of WASO and indeed even the ears of the audience, possibly going a little too far. The fourth movement and coda brought this interesting work to a close. The night, however, felt unsatisfying. For all the talent of WASO, it felt as though Machover sacrificed creativity for accessibility. The symphony, as a piece of new music, felt too safe, failing to stretch any boundaries. It was a nice concert, but just nice. Blake Howieson THE BASICS When I was fourteen, I fell in love with The Basics. Their matching suits made them the ultimate in non-threatening boys and their pretty-much-unknown status made them obscure enough to be cool, but “mainstream” (ugh) enough to be unintimidating (Wally de Backer aka. Goyte). After finally seeing them live at the Perth Festival, I now know that this is a love I can carry with me steadfastly into the future. If they were too old for me then, they’re definitely too old for me now, sporting

slight beer bellies and some decidedly dad-like dance moves. But The Basics’ 60s revival vibe isn’t tacky or boring, it’s unashamed and unpretentious. Their set was so tight I couldn’t believe it. Harmonies were superb, particularly during their cover of Australian folk song ‘Hey Rain’, and the between-song banter was even better. Watching The Basics was like watching a really, really, really, really, exceptionally good pub band, and the patrons surrounding me, ranging in age from about 40 onwards, revelled as such. I really should have revisited my teenage CD collection sooner. Lucy Ballantyne DAWN UPSHAW, ELGAR AND GRIEG ACO As a student of popular culture, I know that high brow, low brow: it’s all the same, darling. Luckily for me, this means I was only mildly horrified to have accidentally walked into the corporate function before the world-class Australian Chamber Orchestra’s first show in Perth. I felt no shame in ogling Janet Holmes A Court while I downed the free Vasse Felix shiraz (onya Janet), nor did it worry me to have only engaged the waiter in conversation as the only other person there on minimum wage. Ostentatious beginnings did not set the tone for the remainder of the evening. The ACO live up to their hype; they play with a vivacity and liveliness that is contagious. As to be expected, Grieg’s baroque-inspired Holberg Suite was a crowd favourite, and Elgar’s introduction and allegro were suitably rousing. The ACO have a youthful energy that is unparalleled. Yet the show remained about the Australian Premiere of Grammy winner Maria Schneider’s ‘Winter Morning Walks’, a piece commissioned for American soprano Dawn Upshaw and the ACO. The simplicity of the lyricism (taken from the poems of Ted Kooser) has the power to quietly move. I shed a little tear. I wonder if Janet did too? Lucy Ballantyne

ARTS REVIEWS MIES JULIE Director: Yaël Farber Providing a stunning opening to this year’s Perth International Arts Festival was Yaël Farber’s award winning production of Mies Julie, an adaptation of August Strindberg’s 1888 play. A brutal and devastating production, Farber has transposed Strindberg’s original 19thcentury Sweden and its rigid class system with the arid planes of a homestead in the Karoo region in modern day South Africa. This setting amplifies the original work’s themes of the tension between class, sex, lust and the battle of the sexes and fully utilises the tensions of a post-apartheid nation struggling to come to grips with its identity. The play is contained entirely in the cramped kitchen of the homestead and takes place on the night of Freedom Day. The recently unengaged

TRAMPOLINE DREAMS Every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from the 12 March to the 12 of April, six productions will be happening as part of the inaugural Independent Theatre Festival. Hot on the heels of Fringe and PIAF, Perth’s cultural scene will continue to sizzle, giving you a better alternative to spending your Friday night at Amplifier Bar. Shane Adamczak, a founding member of independent company Weeping Spoon Productions, is taking part with his imaginative show Trampoline, showing at the Subiaco Arts Centre from the Wednesday 2nd to Saturday 5th of April. Trampoline is a show about a world where fiction and reality are all mixed up and dreams take precedence. What began as a blog called, ‘Matt’s Dream Journal’, soon became a show, with Adamczak developing characters and a storyline that he fell in love with. Described by Adamczak as “basically a love story about

Julie, daughter of the absent owner of the destitute Veenen Plaas (Weeping Farm) homestead dances provocatively around the kitchen, seemingly with the sole intention of tormenting John, a servant on the farm. What follows is an intense battle of wills as each character tries to dominate the other, underscored by the uneasy spectre of the anniversary of the end of apartheid and the strong sexual tension between them. The production is anchored by two incredible performances by Bongile Mantsai as John and Hilda Cronje as Julie. The physicality both bring to their performances elevates the script and creates a captivating dialogue as they both wrestle for power. Thoko Ntshinga’s Christine, an elderly servant and John’s mother, provides a wonderful counterbalance to the relentless brutality of the lead actors with her poignant reflections on life as a black woman in South Africa;

two very outsider characters,” the show is about a dreamer, Matt, who finds it hard to interact in the real world, and Kelly, an enabler, a panic mixie dream girl who is a bit out there. Despite labelling Kelly a manic pixie dream girl, Adamczak is careful to make her into a real character rather than an ornament, making sure her story was just as important a part of the play as Matt’s was. Having previously performed the show in October at the Blue Room, the group is back together and more ready than ever. Besides from a few tweaks to the script, the piece is virtually unchanged yet more rehearsed and more well formed than before. “It’s the same cast, the same director and the same stage manager because the team was just so strong but really the thing about doing it again is getting it out there into a new demographic at the Subiaco Arts Centre,” Adamczak says. Adamczak knows what he is talking about, having

her fingers are so worn from working that when she tried to vote, she has no fingerprints to prove her identity. Farber’s production is a bold and startling work, complemented by brilliant stage design by Patrick Curtis and a haunting soundscape accompanying the play. The claustrophobia of the cramped kitchen only adds to the building pressure as tension builds, and the use of traditional Xhosa music provided an evocative and unsettling background to the play’s action. Mies Julie was an absolute tour de force and provided an incredible opening to PIAF in 2014. Wade McCagh

recently lived and performed in Montreal, and the Perth and Adelaide Fringe Festivals. In his own words he goes where the work is but insists that the independent theatre scene in Perth consists of a community who help one another out and make sure that everybody does well. This year he has a few projects lined up, with Trampoline and his recently toured Fringe Show Vicious Circles being his main priorities. However he is also looking into doing some web series and TV. Excited about the future and making something new, Adamzcak has a dream and he’s sticking at it and that dream isn’t the one he once had that involves a baby being taken out of a person and put into Megan Gale so a happy ending for all. Lauren Wiszniewski

A RARE SPECIMEN I saw Sir David Attenborough at the airport last year and I wanted to say hello. But he looked really old and tired, and unless I’m related to them, I don’t like to bother old people. He’s eighty-seven – if you’ve never had a lengthy conversation with an eighty-seven-year-old, you might not realise how old that actually is. He was born in the 1920s. We’re almost in the 2020s. That’s old. He’s not as tall as I had imagined, only as tall as me, and he dresses like an old man with a hat and scarf. I was too intimidated to say anything or make myself known to him, because as a fan, I am acutely aware of his achievements. He has been involved in natural history programs and documentaries for over sixty years. He has used technology to aid him as he forged a career based on his passion for animals and nature. He was working at BBC2 when they switched to colour, the first channel to do so in Britain. Advances in transportation made it easier than ever for international travel and allowed for Attenborough to see more of the world than any naturalist before him, and the fact he is still travelling is impressive. I doubt I’ll be able to do anything when I’m eighty-seven. Attenborough has seen the world change drastically over the course of his career, and the challenges have been plenty. He has not once stood down or given in, not when countless ecosystems were lost as a result of population growth and economic demands, or when television changed over and over and over again – literally. He is the only person to have won BAFTAs for television programs in all eras of television – black and white, colour, HD and 3D. Attenborough has never admitted defeat and it seems so strange to think that anybody else could possibly fill such shoes, especially when he has hardly even left a footprint. His first documentary The Pattern of Animals aired in 1953. He was a part of the first crew to film the Komodo dragon

in 1957. He was stuck beneath a Land Rover in Africa after being attacked by a rhinoceros. Planet Earth was released in 2006, costing sixteen million pounds and one of the first BBC projects and indeed first documentaries to be filmed in high definition. He has also been chased by a cassowary, something you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy. He has two degrees – one in natural sciences, and the other in social anthropology. He is the perfect amalgamation of art and science, and proof that a degree in anthropology might actually come in handy. Perhaps the most impressive thing is that he does all this in the name of science and knowledge, and with such enthusiasm and passion that as a viewer, you can’t help but get excited about lizards and invertebrates and petals. His travels and discoveries and documentation of the natural world would be impressive enough, but the way he shares this knowledge with the world is astounding. And the amount of people he does share it with is astounding, too – the TV premiere of his latest documentary series, Rise of the Animals, clocked in two million viewers in the UK. Rise of Animals travels back through history to explore the evolutionary advances of our species. David takes you around the globe to look at fossils,

skeletons of giant prehistoric creatures, marsupials and small Chinese babies. It’s a fascinating insight into evolution and how we are the way we are – that we were given our hearing from rodents, our thumbs from monkeys, our colour-vision from birds and our lungs from amphibians, our wombs from weird furry dinosaurs. You begin to understand that you’re sort of related to the tiger in a roundabout way, and you suddenly feel closer to the rats, with whom we share eardrums. Upon watching this mind-blowing documentary, I was reminded of something quite extraordinary, and not just about the genetic build of the platypus. I was reminded that David Attenborough wields enormous power. He could do anything he wanted and get away with it. So many of us would be utterly corrupt with that sort of power. But he only bothers himself with doing the things he loves most: researching and exploring. Through all this he is a nice and unassuming old man, a man whose brain took millions and millions of years to perfect. He is of one of our species, but he is more than that. David Attenborough might just be the best-evolved person I have ever encountered, the epitome of the human population. This is why I hesitated to bother him at the airport - I’ve got a long way to go before I get on his level.

Picture by Jessica Cockerill.

by Darcie Boelen

SAMPLING THE GREATEST APHRODISIAC: Lessons in Diplomacy by Liam Dixon

Every time a country ferments into revolution or is conquered, my favorite piece of news that reliably comes out of the monstrous and horrifying events that unfold is about the president/autocrat/ great leader’s residence. I have never failed to laugh/cry about the ridiculous shit they have bought with the literal blood of their people.

is not, and out of 7 players, 6 must lose and one of them is probably you. Playing at war is a material lesson in the realities for generals and armies, and amidst the jokes about history you are aware that the reality for WW1 generals was not all that different to pushing these pieces around a map. For each victory, defeat or stalemate there would have been thousands of losses to both sides.

In the case of the Ukraine, this included a replica Spanish Galleon, ostrich-laden gardens and a golf course surrounding an ostentatious marble columned mansion. Allegedly there’s no accounting for taste, but I wouldn’t be surprised if accounting for this palace would run into the billions. I have always wondered: what would it be like to wield the kind of power that can purchase these digs? How reliably will power corrupt, and why does it corrupt your sense of interior design as well as your sense of justice?

For me, Diplomacy always has a dark and serious undercurrent. The casualness of the alliances, betrayal and side-changing is a brutal illustration of the realities of Machiavellian realpolitik that has been engaged in throughout history. Diplomacy shows you side of yourself that might emerge in a desperate power-play, and let’s just say that in the 60-year history of the game it has developed a unique reputation for ending friendships among people who take it too seriously and end up unable to trust each other.

I only wondered these things until, one day, I got a chance to taste the feeling of real power - the power to crush the dreams of my friends and enemies and mount a pile of their corpses to plant a gilded flag at the summit. This was the day I first played Diplomacy. Diplomacy, now in its 60th anniversary year, is a strategic board game, whose fans include Henry Kissinger and allegedly JFK. It initially resembles Risk, but in practice is very different. No dice, simple rules, Diplomacy is all about talking to the other players, who might have previously been your friends. The tools at your command are negotiation, second-guessing, bluffing, manipulation, bribes, ideological or historical appeals, and eventually threatening your enemies and allies to support you or give up their territory. The day will not go to someone who is good at rules; it will go to the best politician. War is just politics by other means and cannons simply the last argument of kings. It’s not all glory and Roman Triumphs. Diplomacy is zero-sum, even if the fun

Diplomacy isn’t necessarily going to make you a monster either. In my games, we have an embarrassing tendency to wear an item of national garb of the European power we play, and even bring European snacks and drinks. It’s funny... there appears to be something disturbingly satisfying about sipping frozen vodka, steaming tea or some Perrier while you steamroll the cardboard Balkans once more. It’s silly, undoubtedly, but also a huge amount of fun. Of course, Diplomacy isn’t the only route to getting a taste of fictional power. The gaming world is filled with PC, board and video games designed for this very purpose. Among my favourites have been the Tropico series, which place you as autocrat of your very own banana republic and the Civilization series, which simulate the rise and fall of world empires. Though, you might have to turn to The Sims to build that dream dictatorial palace.

CULTURE REVIEWS

HOUSE OF CARDS, SEASON TWO House of Cards chronicles the doings of Frank Underwood, the ‘House Majority Whip’ in the US House of Representatives, who, after being betrayed by a broken promise of a promotion, decides to manipulate and backstab those around him in order to climb upwards in rank. His methods are cruel and calculated, and he will stop at nothing for power. Think Mean Girls, but with US politicians instead of girls in high school. It’s awesome.

Watching Frank Underwood navigate his way from a lowly middleman to the top of the food chain is an extremely compelling experience. Kevin Spacey plays his role perfectly, dominating every scene he’s in with a sinister and commanding presence, occasionally smashing the fourth wall with confidence like a sledgehammer, delivering a soliloquy and letting us glimpse at his dark, twisted, obsessive mind. The show itself lacks thematic depth, instead focusing on the story without conveying any prescriptive meaning or message to the audience. Still, it’s a rollicking good time and one I’d recommend. Season 2 loses the momentum that the first season started and that gripped its audience. Without spoiling too much, Frank is relegated into solving various issues cropping up around him which threaten his position, rather than carefully pulling the strings of those around him to get ahead. It just isn’t as engrossing. This causes Season 2 to dimensions and a design that would melt even the coldest heart, it’s hard to believe that such an emoji would also have almost limitless versatility and function.

SMILING POO EMOJI It is always a strange surprise when a new facet of social media emerges that actually serves to simplify our lives. Advertisements inundate us with messages of products we desperately need to help us through this overcomplicated digital life and smartphone apps promise to help us reach goals we didn’t even know we needed so desperately to fulfill. However, upon discovering the Smiling Poo emoji on my iPhone keyboard, I was pleasantly surprised to find just how much I had to gain from this cheerful faeces. With stellar on-screen

The greatest asset of this emoji is its flexibility - it can be applied to almost any message you need to send. I was woken up from sleep at three in the morning to nine texts from a friend - he’d broken up with his girlfriend and was in need of some consoling. Torn between the desire to comfort my friend and get some much-needed fourteen hours of shut-eye, I impulsively replied with Smiling Poo Emoji no less than nine times before falling back to my pillow. A success! I’d sent my friend an articulate message detailing my advice and sympathy, as well as managed to continue dreaming about being a surgeon at Seattle Grace Hospital. He’s still single and I’m still tired, but I did get to make out with McDreamy before waking up again. Another situation surprised me still – weeks later, I’d received the number of a very cute boy who had been flirting with me, and after

feel slow at times. While a less engaging overarching narrative takes place, the show breaks it up throughout the season with multiple subplots. Some of these only last a couple of episodes before they end, and some are definitely more interesting than others, but it keeps the story chugging along at a decent pace without letting it become stale and boring. It is admirable how willing the show producers were to throw out what made the show work so well and stride boldly forth into unchartered territory. Sets, plot elements and even characters were discarded to create this jarring transition between both seasons. Perhaps when the show completes its entire run and we can look at it as a holistic entity rather than separated by seasons, we will be able to appreciate the significance of this season and how it operates as important step to Frank’s journey. But for now, I’m pretty excited for Season 3. Cameron James parting with certain plans to meet up again I decided to seal the deal with a text message. Flushed with the confidence of a successful romantic encounter and thinking back on my previous dilemma, I sent him approximately six Smiling Poo emojis. It conveyed everything I needed to – it told him I was interested without being overly committal and also let him know I had a good sense of humour and an appreciation of irony. He’s still cute and I’m still single, but it totally worked at the time; I’m sure of it. Being the socially aware 21st-century man I am, I consulted with my friends regarding their own experiences with the Smiling Poo emoji and was pleased to discover tales of births, condolences, and oncology appointments all made easier to talk about thanks to the digital poop. This emoji’s utility and charm make it a sure winner with staying power – this isn’t going to be an easy one to flush. Five stars. Mason Rothwell

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