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EDITORS’ NOTE S
FROM THE PRESIDENT I’m sitting at the airport writing an editorial that is, once again, probably weeks late (sorry Kat and Lucy). I’m sitting at the departure gate, in the crowded, back-to-back rows of black plastic seats, hunting for a power point pre-departure to charge my devices for peak plane email times, when a man manages to manspread into my seat while sitting behind me. Until this day I was not aware that this was even a thing – a man who felt the space so much his own that he felt the need to not only take up his seat and the one next to him, but to also lean back, arms over his head, and push me out of mine too. The wildest fantasies, dreams and desires of Lizzy O’Shea at this moment? No more manspreaders. While this is annoying, I’m pretty clear on the fact that having to perch on the side of my seat on the bus so that some dude can occupy more space is not the biggest issue in the world. The UWA Student Guild Women’s Department has been really active this year in addressing large and small issues that effect women both on and off campus. This has included starting up Women of Colour and Queer Women Collectives, and developing a ‘UWA At Night’ interactive campus map that highlights well-lit pathways and car parks, which is up on the Guild website. If would like to get more involved with the Women’s Department’s campaigns and discussions, or have you any feedback about areas on campus that you think are poorly lit and unsafe, email womens@guild.uwa.edu.au! Lizzy
FROM THE EDITORS I’m writing this editorial from an exotic location - the State Library of New South Wales, in central Sydney. I dig libraries, and this is a particularly good one. Fast wifi, an unauthorised biography of Tony Abbott on prominent display next to my desk, perched next to Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity. Earlier today I had a coffee and croissant in some inner city yuppie cafe, and later on I’ll probably go and stare out at the harbour and pretend I’m Josie in Looking for Alibrandi. Everyone in this library is very clean looking, and the wooden desks hint at the kind of contemporary Swedish design you can’t buy at Ikea. Sydney is a fantasy city, and it’s good to be here. I actually feel wealthier and more successful in its presence. You’re probably reading this from Perth although I extend hearty greetings to any international or interstate Pelican fans. Perth is great, but to put things tactfully, it’s the kind of place that lends itself to daydreaming. Not of a better life, but maybe of a different one, every once in awhile. And that’s the vibe of this issue. We’ve got parody fanfiction, kinky sex, and Japanese rap gang adventures. Plus plenty of UWA ‘facts’ that I personally wish were true. Thank you for reading our second last issue of the year. I hope it lives up to some of your milder student press fantasies. See you next month! Kat
I have a friend who, towards the end of each month, when I inevitably ponder the question of what I’ll write my editorial about for the next issue, never fails to remind me, ‘Lucy, you can always write about that dream you had. You know the one I mean.’ Usually we share a knowing glance, maybe a chuckle, and then I dismiss the idea. I think to myself, ‘talk about my dreams? In print? I’m a writer! How embarrassment!’ But time moves on and things change. I was going to write something about guild elections, but honestly, I’m too scared to put it in print. It’s the second last issue of 2015, and I’m about thirty seconds from giving up. So here we are. I’m telling you about my dream. I’m on the Matilda Bay Foreshore, and my friends Hamish and Mini are there. I’m not sure if they were there in the original instance of the dream, or just at the retelling; these occasions are blurred together in my memory. It’s broad daylight, and this guy I used to date is there. I’m not sure what we were all doing on the foreshore, presumably having a kebab, as we’re wont to do. All of a sudden, my former beau grabs my breasts. Before I can smack him away, my boobs are stretching, elongating, like dough going through a pasta maker. Once they reach about a metre, a metre and a half maybe, the guy holds these weird fleshy bands and starts to use them like a lasso, spinning me round in the air. Once he’s built up some momentum, he lets me go, throwing me out into the Swan River. I sink. This is when I wake up. What do you think it means? Let me know, pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au. Lucy 3
Contributors PELICAN IS UWA’S STUDENT MAGAZINE, SINCE 1929
Editors Lucy Ballantyne Kat Gillespie Section Editors Politics Brad Griffin Film Holly Munt Music Hugh Manning Literature Kate Prendergast Arts Emily Purvis Lifestyle Hayden Dalziel Contributors Prema Arasu* Jade BatesPatrick Bendall* Danyon BurgeHarriet Campbell* Josh Chiat* Kevin Chiat* Miriam Crandell*James Enderby* Tristan Fidler*Caitlin Frunks*Julian Grant* Gabby Loo*Harry Manson* Pema Monaghan*Richard Moore* Bella Morris* Cameron Moyses* Kate Oatley* Georgia Oman* Leah Roberts* Thomas Rossiter* Bridget Rumball* Jasmine Ruscoe* Thomas Rydll* Aakanksha SharmaEd Smith* Rae Twiss* Michael Trown*Laura Wells-
Cover Hayden Dalziel Design Kate Hoolahan Advertising Chelsea Hayes chelsea.hayes@guild.uwa.edu.au The University of Western Australia acknowledges that its campus is situated on Noongar land, and that Noongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land, and continue to practise their values, languages, beliefs and knowledge. The views expressed within are not the opinions of the UWA Student Guild or Pelican editorial staff, but of the individual writers and artists. Getting involved with Pelican is easy! Perhaps too easy. Like us on Facebook, email us at pelican@ guild.uwa.edu.au, or drop by the office (it’s right next to the Ref!) Visit us at pelicanmagazine.com.au
*Words -Art
offer applies to large pizzas only
Art by Catherina Pagani
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IS S U E 7: FANTA SY REGUL ARS SOCIAL PAGES............................................................. 6 CALENDAR.................................................................. 23 MATILDA BAY MUSINGS WITH TRISTAN FIDLER . . ...... 36 RETRO PELI................................................................. 46
FE ATURE S VALE GEOFFREY BOLTON . . ......................................... 8 TOKEN GAME OF THRONES ARTICLE........................ 10 DON’T KINK SHAME ME, BRO . . .................................. 11 BEER WORLD . . ............................................................ 12 THE DEATH OF YOUR CHILDHOOD DREAMS........... 13 JOINING A JAPANESE RAP GANG . . ............................. 14 THAT FANFIC YOU LIKE ............................................ 15 SPOOKY HALLOWEEN................................................ 16 THE QUIET PERSON IN YOUR TUTE.......................... 17
SPE C IAL GUILD E LE CTI ON S LIFT- OUT GUILD POLITICS AS A FRESHER................................. 18 COLD HARD ELECTION FACTS .................................. 19 25 DAYS OF GUILD ELECTIONS: THE EXPERIENCE.... 20
SO YOU WANT TO EDIT PELICAN? . . ............................. 21
SE CTIONS FILM........................................................................... 24 POLITICS. . .................................................................. 28 MUSIC .. ....................................................................... 31 LITERATURE. . ............................................................. 37 ARTS........................................................................... 40 LIFEST YLE.................................................................. 42
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SOCIAL PAGES Send tips to pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au
Some Nice Thoughts with Mark Brandon With mid-sems cluttering your timetable and assignments piling up as you desperately funnel all your free time into study, it’s easy to be swept away by the surging tide of stress. When this happens, it’s hard to imagine a world in which you aren’t burned out and tired; that better world seems like the memory of a dream. But you don’t need to use your imagination. You don’t need to give in to stress. You’ve had good times in the past, when you’ve felt alive
and ready to meet the world head-on, and those times will come again. So, if you’re feeling downbeat, if your sleep is erratic and your head feels like it’s stuffed with wool, if you can’t wait for the semester to be over so you can finally relax, remember that life is a cycle and the good times will come again. If you hold onto that thought, it might just be enough to buoy you over those stressful tides. It’s worth a shot.
Club Spotlight AUSTRALIAN YOUTH CLIMATE COALITION (AYCC) AT UWA with President, Callum Nevill
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So, what is AYCC UWA? To be honest, I’m not quite sure even though I have been president for the last year or so, but I’ll do my best to explain.
AYCC UWA has run a couple of successful events this year including drinks at the Tav, a movie night, and a quiz night with some of the other enviro clubs on campus.
AYCC UWA is the UWA branch of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, an organisation that attempts to raise awareness about climate change, and mobilise Australian young people to take action against it.
If you want to join us, please do. We are always looking for new members. Membership is free because I was told I’m not allowed to charge for it, and we’re pretty much all graduating next year, so you never know, you might even become president. You know you want to.
UWA FACT The head of UWA’s School of Music voted for Ricki-Lee Coulter
JOB VACANCY Pelican needs new editors for 2016! Any UWA student with an interest in media is encouraged to apply. Benefits of editing Pelican include:
• Enough money to buy yourself at least one coffee per month
• Your name on a plaque • An 86 year long history of journalistic integrity, yours for the ruining
• Near endless opportunities to piss off guild politicians
• Guaranteed stream of angry letters from old people • A large(ly apathetic) student readership It’s actually a pretty good time. Full details about how to apply on page 21.
BLIND ITE MS
Se n d y o u r
tips to peli
can@guil d .uwa .edu .a u Which guil d politician was filmed donations asking for for their ti cket at the party confe state Libera rence? l This campu s personali ty is an actu after being al blind ite hit in the fa m ce at Ibiza Which STA R candidate made repe with friend ated conta s of the Pe ct lican edito the skinny rs to try an on the Peli d g c et an guild elections c overage?
THE FRESHER DIARY · PART SEVEN In which we ask an anonymous UWA fresher to diarise their experience as a shit-scared first year. DIARRRAAAAAY! Omg so much has been happening, diary, I’m so excited to tell you. So, ages ago I got a facebook message from this guy my brother is friends with asking if he could ‘meet me to talk about something’. I was like, weird. But then I was like, omg he’s totally going to come out and ask to be my GBF. It’s finally happening. So I went and got a chai from Rocket Fuel the next day and he came and met me on Oak Lawn. It was a bit fucked tbh, he was all like, ‘do you know who I am?’, and I was like, no……… Then he took this big gulp of his smoothie and was like, ‘I’m a FacSoc president.’ I’m pretty sure my brother gave a girl FacSoc once, my parents were hell pissed about it. Anyway, whatever, the point is: he asked me to run with Launch in guild elections!!!!! I’m not stupid, diary, obvo I said yes - hella good career move!!!!!!!!!
Basically all I had to do to campaign was wear red to uni. Dad was heaps angry about it - kept saying something about trots? I was like dad, keep Stella my show pony out of this! They kind of told us to like, lecture bash our classes and I was like lol, fuck that shit. I was kind of bummed when I didn’t win, diary. It was hell hard on my brother when he had to go and speak about what had happened at the Young Liberals conference. Mathias Cormann was hell pissed at him. It’s cool though, dad said he’d cover his exchange expenses so he can go and live it down in Europe. EURO TRIP BITCHES!!! Bryony, haha such a loose unit, she got so drunk at the after party. When she realised she’d lost she punched a wall. Tbh I don’t think she was actually running for any positions? She just likes to rub up against strangers. Things got hell awks with the Shenton boy though, hey. He was running with the loony party and he said some crazy stuff, like that he believed in the equality of all peoples. He yelled at me on the booth once, and it was like, totally wack, and then he cried. It kind of like, hurt me, to see him that bummed, hey. Omg diary, I really care about him. What am I going to do? Can I tell him? Gotta go - having sushi at the Quarter! FUCKEN YUM!!!! G xxxxxxxx
UWA FACT If you say ‘Bob Hawke’ three times over a jug of Swan Draught, it turns into Coopers
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Vale Geoffrey Curgenven Bolton (November 5, 1931-September 4, 2015) Public Intellectual, Historian and Pelican Editor 1948-1950 Words by Josh Chiat
The picture that adorns almost every obituary of Geoffrey Bolton fits his description as the wise old man of West Australian history. Bald with a long beard, his genial stare is the image of a nurturer and teacher, a kindly servant of WA’s vaunted past. Before all that Geoffrey Bolton was the precocious, fresh-faced sixteen-year-old who became the youngest ever Pelican Editor. In 2015, at the time of his sudden death, he was Western Australia’s most famous historian. Bolton undertook an undergraduate degree in Arts at UWA before receiving both an Honours and a Masters in history, writing a biography of Alexander Forrest and a history of the Kimberly Pastoral District respectively. In 1953 he moved to Oxford’s Balliol College where he completed a PhD on the Irish Act of Union. Bolton returned to Australia in 1956, first as a research fellow at ANU and lecturer at Monash before returning to UWA in 1966. By that time his theses had received publication and his nascent career as an historian of note was taking shape. It was while working as a lecturer and tutor at UWA that he conceived what is still his most notorious work, A Fine Country to Starve In. Released in 1972, his book on the political and social circumstances that surrounded the depression in Western Australia and the secessionist movement in the early 1930s remains arguably his crowning achievement. Significantly, it pioneered the use of oral histories to elevate non-official voices to the centre of historical research in WA. It remains a marginally controversial work, and received middling reviews at the time of its release. In particular younger class theorists disagreed with Bolton’s belief that class conflict was not as significant a motivator of Western Australian society in the 1930s as anti-Eastern parochialism. His theory that Perth was a society based around the formation of consensus has also been criticised over time. Bolton himself partially regretted the writing style of the work. Its reliance on irony made it unpalatable to readers who couldn’t interpret his humour.
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However, A Fine Country to Starve In also proved the best example of his light, ironic prose, a style which made him popular and allowed him to translate the density of WA’s history to the masses. Perhaps the best example of this is his sparkling description of Premier James Mitchell in 1932. Describing the year in a Shakespearean flourish as “the winter of Western Australia’s discontent” he wrote: “The once-optimistic Mitchell was reduced to a harassed mendicant who seemed to spend half his time on the train commuting between Perth and Canberra to haggle for funds from the Commonwealth.” Bolton left UWA in 1973 to be an inaugural professor at Murdoch University, an institution he helped establish. He cemented his status as one of Australia’s top historians as editor of the four volume Oxford History of Australia series. While he wrote the book covering the period from 1942-1988, it was the curation of work by emerging historians Stuart McIntyre and Beverly Kingston in the series that may have proved his greatest contribution to the set. Bolton worked at the University of Queensland and ECU late in his academic career, retiring in the 1990s before becoming Chancellor of Murdoch from 2002-2006. He continued to make appearances as one of Australia’s top public intellectuals and publish new books. His final work, a biography of GovernorGeneral, politician and historian Sir Paul Hasluck was released by UWA Press late last year. Bolton in Pelican That Bolton deeply wanted to write is evidenced by the sharpness of his participation in the Pelican. Arriving at university barely past his sixteenth birthday, he was already a staff reporter by the second edition of 1948. Ambitious, deliberate and precocious, by June he had somehow manoeuvred his way to the position of assistant editor, from which he became a public and abrasive figure, using his column inches to take aim at student politicians of every description. His chief opponents were the self-serious members of the University Labor Club, who opposed his ramblings by critiquing his use of inexact language to describe the clientelism and pedantry of their group. Bolton’s response invoked the language of Pelican founder Griff Richards – as a student of history Bolton
UWA FACT UWA Student Guild’s Design Officer Kate Hoolahan was responsible for the redesigned moonman at the 2015 MTV VMAs
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had taken it upon himself to read magazines from 1931 – in suggesting that his opponents take a less serious approach to his use of metaphor and irony to cover the student political process, an arena that dear god still needs 100% more levity today. In September of that year editor Athol Thomas graduated after the second trimester - back in the 1940s there were three periods, rather than two. Thomas himself passed in 2012 following a battle with Parkinson’s Disease, leaving Bolton to take his place. At the age of sixteen a vacuum had allowed Bolton to take on his first editorial role. At the time the Pelican was in a state of near constant disarray. Hopelessly underfunded, struggling for writing staff and still sold to students by the copy, the Pelicans of the era were almost uniformly bad. They also have the now odious distinction of having been illustrated by a young Rolf Harris. Over the course of 1949 and 1950 Bolton courted controversy as editor, largely in an attempt to stimulate interest in the newspaper. One of these attempts was an editorial on May 5th 1950 expressing open support for the Communist Party Dissolution Act.
and developing a layer of worldly-wise cynicism”, Bolton used the Belch persona to break the shackles imposed by the style of student journalism at the time. Through the Belch persona Bolton even parodied his own obsession with the theme of “student apathy”. As editor he was also involved in the famous M. Jean Leps prank. Publicising a talk by a fictional visual artist that was attended and admired by 450 people, including numerous humanities staffmembers, Bolton published the “scoop” in Pelican three days later that it was in fact a college hoax. The prank is one of the brightest memories of UWA for those still alive from the time. Bolton died as both a towering name and a modest man who will be indelibly linked with the history of Western Australia. Regardless of his teething problems as Pelican editor he provided a new direction for a struggling publication, and began to develop the writing style that would win him both admiration and criticism in his later career. Geoffrey, Pelican cries for you.
“Well we did that and then I thought it went too far and changed my mind”, Bolton said in an oral history taken in 1994. “In fact what may have shocked me into changing my mind was the unwillingness of the Young Libs to give a hearing to the people that they didn’t agree with.” Another editorial from 1949, titled “The Boong”, which sought to ironise the plight of the Indigenous community in the north similarly missed its mark. More commonly the young Bolton took aim at the disease of “student apathy”, giving his editorials a self-serious air. While his editorship often displayed his teenage immaturity, expressing opinions he wouldn’t touch in his later life, his precocious spirit also re-introduced humour to the newspaper after a long period under the strict auspices of an editorial policy going back to the Sruss-Sruss scandal that marked the start of Prosh in 1931. His best work was probably as the pseudonymous Sir Toby Belch. Parodying university life by writing “the serious aims of life are getting drunk, getting engaged, getting through exams, UWA FACT Guild pasta is not of this world, maybe this universe
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A Song of Tinfoil and Conspiracies Words by Sam Montgomery Art by Hayden Dalziel Warning: potential Game of Thrones spoilers ahead Game of Thrones has finally caught up with where the books left off. As you may be aware, the show finished with some pretty serious cliff-hangers: is good ol’ Jon Snow still among the living? Is Arya blind? Where the feck is Daenerys Targaryen? The incredibly long period between the last book from A Song of Ice and Fire, the series on which the show is based, A Dance with Dragons (2011) and The Winds of Winter (forthcoming) has resulted in a huge number of absurd fan theories. So that all you show-watching plebs can catch up before Season 6/The Winds of Winter kicks off, I will do my best to summarize just some of the madness. Put on your tinfoil hats and dismiss all sense of logic. I’ll start with the most popular and widely accepted fan theory, R+L=J. The basic gist is that Jon Snow is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark (sister to good ol’ Ned), and trueborn heir to the Iron Throne. Rhaegar Targaryen married Elia of Dorne, but it was a political marriage, and his great love was Lyanna Stark of Winterfell. The pair fell in love, and ran off together to the Tower of Joy in the Red Mountains of Dorne. Lyanna got knocked up by Rhaegar, who then had to go fight (and die) in Robert’s Rebellion. Ol’ mate Ned Stark discovers Lyanna’s location and comes to rescue her with his seven best men, fighting the three greatest Kingsguard members, which ends in only Ned and Howland Reed coming out alive. Ned finds his sister with a newborn babe, and promises not to reveal to his best mate Rob (who loves killing Targaryens) who the parents are before she up and dies. Ned then pops back home to Winterfel with a baby and a story that he knocked up some peasant gal. Throughout the series, evidence of this theory is hinted at in fairly obvious passages, such as Ned thinking of his children but not mentioning Jon, as well as some more subtle ones, like Daenerys dreaming of a blue rose (Lyanna’s fave flower) protruding from a wall of ice (Jon at the wall, duh). If you feel like wasting an afternoon, I implore you to google away. The second and most ridiculous (but possibly my favourite) fan theory concerns everyone’s love-to-hate villain Roose Bolton. This theory is titled: Bolt-on! Apply directly to forehead. The theory speculates that Roose Bolton is actually immortal, flaying people whole and wearing their skin to assume their identity. How did he become immortal? It’s theorised that the Bolton line began when a human married an Other (leader of the wights in the north), and had a child (ie. Roose 1.0). The Boltons are an ancient house like the Starks, who were often warring with each other— but never in the series is a Bolton ancestor named. Boltons were known to have worn the skins of their enemies as cloaks, even having a few Stark skins back at the Dreadfort. The Faceless Men (Arya’s magic assassin cult) wear the faces of other people using blood magic to disguise themselves,—and is it that much of a stretch for Roose to know this too? Which brings us to Ramsey, Roose’s bastard son. Why would Roose tolerate such an awful/evil person for so long, especially one who has been killing his trueborn sons? In A Dance with Dragons, it’s mentioned that Ramsey has Roose’s eyes, so 10
the theory declares that Roose is planning on flaying Ramsey and assuming his identity as he ages. What a bloody great piece of tinfoil. The third theory I lay at your disbelieving feet again concerns parentage of a major character, but this one is called D+D=T. George R.R. Martin is a big fan of applying existing mythology and history to his stories— the War of Five Kings is (loosely) based on the War of the Roses, and King’s Landing has 7 gates, the same as the ancient Greek city of Thebes. Thebes is famous for being home to Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother (incest is very big in Game of Thrones). There is only one clear candidate for the role of Oedipus in our tale, the loveable Tyrion Lannister. He was disowned by his father from birth, universally hated, and kills his father: all acts performed by Oedipus. There are further similarities between the two, such as a waddling gait (Oedipus literally means swollen foot), and saving their city but still being universally loathed. The main problem is that Tyrion’s mother Joanna is dead, but that’s because (shock horror) SHE’S NOT HIS REAL MUMMA! This theory (rather eloquently) postulates that Tyrion is an early example of surrogate pregnancy. His real parents (seriously) are Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo. Daenerys’ child Rhaego is described as monstrous and twisted, and as having a tail, both of which have also been used to describe Tyrion as a child. Now, you may be wondering how Tyrion’s mother could be Daenerys when he is older than her. Well, that’s where you are ignoring the most obvious solution: Tyrion Lannister is Daenerys’ unborn foetus, sent back in time into his mother’s womb (I am not making this shit up). Mirri Maz Duur and Quaithe are magical and talk about reversals of time to Daenerys, and tell her something must go back before she can go forward. Daenerys just gives birth to Joanna’s stillborn foetus many years later, confirmed by Mirri Maz Duur when she tells Daenerys that her baby ‘stunk of corruption’ and ‘flesh fell apart as if he had been dead for years’. Honourable mentions go to the theories that Benjen Stark isn’t dead but is really Daario Naharis and Euron Crow’s Eye, or that Howland Reed is secretly the High Septon, or that Mance Rayder is secretly Rhaegar Targaryen. It just goes on, and on, and on. If you really want to dive in, I would put aside about a week and go to Westeros.org and check out the forums and wiki. Just remember: you know nothing.
UWA FACT The baristas at Guild Cafe are talking about you
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Don’t Kink Shame Me, Bro Words by Blorgin McBlork, a pseudonymphomaniac who gets off on creating aliases Art by Hayden Dalziel So, with the theme of this Pelican edition being ‘fantasy’, I thought I would have a peek at some sexual fantasies around the world. If you are incredibly vanilla like me, you have possibly accidentally come across some hardcore furry porn and thought ‘hey now, what’s all that about then?’. Well, I have been doing some investigative journalism and have found all the answers, so buckle your seatbelts because I’m going to be taking you on the journey of your life. This article is mostly made up of facts I found on Wikipedia and should not be mistaken for real journalism [we like his honesty! - eds]. How do sexual fantasies start? Well, sexologist John Money coined the phrase ‘lovemaps’, which are described as an individual’s personal blueprint for what they see as the ideal erotic situation. It supposedly forms after birth, and manifests in full after puberty. So the idea is a child who may accidentally get a bit goaty while getting a spanking as a child could then go on to develop a fetish for it in adulthood. This explanation, of course, is giving out some strong Freud vibes - and Freud has been found to be mostly a nut butt. I have tried to confirm the validity of lovemaps on the internet, but have mostly found articles of people talking about their love of maps. So we’re all just going to have to trust that what John Money is saying is legit (sorry). So, the next question: are fetishes a problem? Technically, almost all people have fetishes, as they’re defined rather loosely - essentially as having the sexyhots for anything that is not a sex organ. This includes body parts such as abs, legs, feet, etc etc etc. Fetishes only become an ‘official’ problem when they impact upon normal sexual and/or social functioning, and where arousal is impossible without the aid of your fetish (aka if you can’t please your woman without first sticking breadsticks up your butt). What are some fetishes trending in 2015? Well, there is of course diaper fetishism, in which a person likes wearing nappies to get happy. Those that wear the nappies may do so because they derive sexual enjoyment from being humiliated. These folk may also dabble in ‘wetting’ and ‘messing’, aka peeing and pooping your nappy respectively (I mean, I guess if you’re gonna wet yourself during foreplay, doing it while wearing a nappy is kinda practical?) Note that diaper fetishism should not be conflated with paedophilia, as diaper fetishism is often engaged in by (consenting) adults. Also, not that anybody asked, but the Japanese word for this is oshime omorashi, literally ‘to wet one’s self in a diaper’. Another cool fetish is, of course, that burning in your loins to be with a fellow furry. Contrary to popular belief, furry fans generally
claim that the sexual side of the furry fandom is over-emphasised, and that media representations are often inaccurate. While 37% of furries state that sexual attraction is an important part of the furry fandom, a further 38% were ambivalent, and 24% said it had little or nothing to do with their day to day furry life. So it’s not all about the sex, and indeed 38% of furries surveyed said their interest in the subculture was predominantly a way of socialising with others of similar interests. Approximately 76% of furries surveyed also claimed to be in a relationship with another furry. That being said, about 1 in 6 claim to also have some sort of interest in zoophilia (sexual attraction to animals), and the same amount of male furries watch furry porn almost exclusively. So, take those ‘facts’ how you want (keeping in mind that I did no actual fact checking whatsoever). In 2k15, there really are a plethora of kinks to explore. There’s symphorophilia - being turned on by accidents or major disasters. There’s tripsolagnia - being turned on by someone shampooing your hair, which is totally relatable. Animal roleplay (especially ‘pony play’) is another hot choice, where you can neigh into your lover’s ear, or sit on your lover and whip them. You can even go so far as to assume the role of another animal 24/7, although I don’t know how these people can afford to do this and still have a day job (again, animal roleplay is actually not connected to zoophilia). And lastly, there’s mummification, which is getting off on being wrapped up in materials (e.g. cling wrap) and having someone do saucy things to you. Is it considered a faux pas to use Homebrand cling wrap? So, what can we conclude from all of this? Well, I’m not really sure. I guess if you have a kink, you make sure you have consent, and it’s not causing psychological damage or serious physical pain to you/ others, then go nuts! You do you. I’m not here to judge, I’m just here to document what I see (and cannot unsee).
UWA FACT If you continue to talk about it, I’ll put you in a halal microwave
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FEATURE
Words by Kate Oatley
Beer adverts are undoubtedly some of the best in the media world. They stick in your brain for weeks, and pop up again years later to haunt you. The aim of adverts, obviously, is to sell as much product as possible. However, the fact is, beer is just beer – it is cheap, it gets you drunk. It tastes nice, for some - but it is hardly the most exciting product, in itself, to sell. As media advertisers globally have long since figured out, the only way to sell a product like beer is to appeal to the consumer, not the product. This means creating the hugest, most unrealistic, and most entertaining advert possible. Take Carlton Draught, for example: it may be ten years ago now, but this brand’s ‘Really Big Ad’ advertising campaign, where hundreds of colour coordinated singing people run in a field to take the shape of a huge person drinking a beer, is one of the best - and will not be forgotten anytime soon. As an advert, the ‘Really Big Ad’ does everything it needs to – it has a ‘wow’ factor from the sheer size of the advert, it makes you laugh, it stimulates your senses, and ultimately, it makes you want to go and get a beer right now. There is only one way an advertisement can achieve their aim of immediate need: welcome to the world of emotional advertising. Beer advertisers are the kings of emotional advertising, appealing to the feelings they know the audience want to feel, and probably are not feeling while they watch TV. Think of the sounds you hear on a beer advert: cold beer pouring, bubbles popping, and people sighing after taking a drink. Think of the music they play during the adverts, and the scenery they use – even the lighting. Every element of a beer advert directly aims to heighten emotions like happiness, excitement, anticipation, and satisfaction in their target audience. Furthermore, the primary target audience of beer adverts is men, and however much they like to deny it, they are a very emotionally driven bunch. Studies have shown that men really dislike being controlled, but in the real world, men and women alike are controlled every day – that is just how reality works. For beer advertisers who want to make men happy, however, reality just will not cut it. Instead, adverts create a world that is completely uncontrolled, idiotic, fun, and outlandish, and associate it specifically with the drinking of one brand of beer. So, do advertisers think that if they create a fantasy world that makes their audience happy, that the consumers will buy the product thinking that what happens in the advert will become a reality? Once this may have been true, and for other groups – 12
children and teenagers, for example – it still is to the extent that consumers buy the product expecting it to deliver everything the advert promised and fulfil all their expectations and desires. But do beer adverts have the same effect on fully-grown adults? Not so much. Advertisers do indeed appeal to the outlandish fantasies of men, and turn them into reality. Take, for example, another Carlton Draught advert made around 2006, where four sheds are shown joined together at the ends of four houses, and with the touch of a button the collective shed transforms from an ordinary garden shed into a pub for the respective male owners of each of the ‘separate’ four sheds meet up, play pool, and drink beer. Carlton Draught plays on the fantasies of men to be transported from their mundane world, where they are fixing up household items, into a world of fun and relaxation – the pub. The idea is to associate the fantasy and subsequent good vibes with Carlton Draught beer, to make the brand more appealing and make the audience want a beer. Clearly, advertisers are not idiots – they know how to manipulate audience emotions to sell beer, but they do not think that the audience will actually believe that the fantasy world they create to play on those emotions actually exists. If they wanted to do this, they would not be making adverts where a disembodied tongue crawls out of the owner’s mouth and across town to a party to grab a beer from a bath and traipse on back to its sleeping owner. The point of beer advertising is not to create a world that consumers actually think could exist: the point is to create an image that makes people happy, and transports them from the boring world of reality to an awesome beer-filled pub-shed. The point is to sell beer.
UWA FACT Found at ECOMS Ball: Jack London jacket size 38, silver bracelet, your dignity
FEATURE
Final Fantasies Words by Georgia Oman Art by Gabby Loo The day I turned eleven was the day that my biggest fantasy was crushed for good. It started out well enough. It was a school day, unfortunately, but I was allowed to open my presents after breakfast, and had the promise of cake to sustain me throughout the rest of the day. To be honest, the prospect of school had ceased to bother me in recent weeks, as I was quietly confident that I wouldn’t be attending for very much longer. I continued to make my rounds of the four-square court and the canteen, but with the slightly condescending air of someone moving on to bigger and better things. As the day of my eleventh birthday wore on, however, and no barn owl swooped through the window of my year six classroom with an envelope strapped to its leg, it became pretty clear that I would not be offered a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As an eleven-year-old, I knew that Hogwarts wasn’t real. I knew that Harry Potter was a fictional creation, and I knew that fantastical objects like flying broomsticks, magic wands, and cats didn’t really exist outside the pages of books. That didn’t stop me from counting down the minutes until it was my birthday in England (Perth was seven hours ahead, after all), or vainly hoping that my own personal Hedwig was simply caught in an updraft somewhere. My disappointment didn’t stem from the fact that I actually thought I’d be heading off to Diagon Alley to buy my school supplies instead of Wooldridges, but because it finally extinguished the little spark of hope I’d kept locked in a tiny room inside my head. The hope that maybe, just maybe, there was an infinitesimal chance of it happening. Before
turning eleven, it had been possible to believe that this chance, however minute, still existed. When it became clear that the only way I would be attending Hogwarts was as a mature-aged student, it became time to let the fantasy go. It isn’t always an easy process, but over the course of our lives this tiny room in our heads is continually emptied out and refilled as our illusions are shattered and new, comforting fictions woven to replace them. Childhoods are repeatedly rocked by these sudden comprehensions – a few short months in 1998 were particularly traumatic, as I was dealt the consecutive, devastating blows that not only would pouring jelly crystals into the bathtub not create a delicious, gigantic dessert, but that Geri Halliwell’s shock departure from the Spice Girls scuttled any dreams I had of becoming the future sixth member. More manageable, perhaps, but no less disappointing, are those fantasies you gradually come to realise are impossible on your own. I can’t remember exactly when I grasped the fact that leather-pants-wearing Ricky Martin, singer of my six-yearold self ’s favourite song, ‘She Bangs’, would not in fact be my husband when I grew up, but grasp it I did. Losing the possibility that a fantasy might come true, no matter how ridiculous or however faint the possibility may have been to begin with, can be a difficult thing for some people to deal with. It’s why fans of popular books get so touchy when their beloved characters are adapted for the screen to be played by actors who look nothing like what they imagined – the only way the producers of Fifty Shades of Grey could have pleased everyone was if they replaced all the cinema screens across the world with giant mirrors and encouraged the audience to have an orgy. There’s a reason why the phrase ‘never meet your heroes’ is such an enduring one; it’s like pulling back the curtain at the end of the Wizard of Oz to find a small man inside, pulling levers and speaking into a microphone. Nobody actually wants to meet Leonardo DiCaprio, the proud owner of a harem of Victoria’s Secret models. They want to meet Jack from Titanic, or Romeo from that crazy dream Baz Luhrmann had. Crushing one fantasy, as with ants, only leaves room for more to swarm. It’s the reason why boy bands have multiple members; not only do they cater to the widest spectrum of teenage fantasies possible, but you have a fall-back system in which affections can be transferred in the likely event of one of them having a girlfriend and/or severe drug habit. It doesn’t mean it won’t hurt at the time, but hopefully the extinguishing of hope and possibility it represents will fade in time. Although my dream of going to Hogwarts may not have come true, of course I got over it. What I couldn’t get over was being constantly relegated to Hufflepuff in the online sorting-hat game, when I was clearly Gryffindor material. I’m still recovering from that blow.
UWA FACT Reid Library PSA: the year twelves are coming
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FEATURE
My Fantasy Life, or How I Became the Fourth Member of a Japanese Rap Gang Words and Art by Caitlin Frunks
So I was supposed to start writing this article earlier this afternoon, but I got invited to join tea ceremony club. This is just one of many unexpected situations I now find myself in on almost a daily basis. As of six weeks ago, I have joined the ranks of many Australian expats that now call Japan home. This is mostly due to UWA’s (no, probably my own) inability to produce employable graduates, but for the time being, I would happily take my job here as an assistant English teacher over any job actually relevant to my major. Living here still feels like a fantasy, and I am unsure at what point it will fade into reality. It’s not the type of fantasy that has me walking around bemused at every mundane suburban feature just because it is ‘so Japan’ (although my camera roll may reveal that to be a lie) but a much more perplexing type of fantasy that I have been struggling to articulate. I work full time, I walk the same route to school every day, I go grocery shopping... I have a routine! Fantasies don’t have routine! But then occasionally I find myself in a situation that I would most certainly deem fantastical. The most remarkable of these moments was when I realized I was the fourth member of a veritable Japanese rap gang. A few weeks ago I was sitting innocently in Himeji piazza when this guy walked up to me and said “Hey, cool tattoos! I have tattoos too! I’m Kazuma, nice to meet you!”[1] He showed me his tattoos and then introduced me to his friends, Suma and Max. Next thing I know I am in a minivan, driving to a destination unknown to me, with three men I have met less than half an hour ago. My intuition told me they were trustworthy guys, but that didn’t stop me from cursing my stupidity for placing myself in a potentially very dangerous situation. Thankfully, they turned out to be ace. That afternoon, they introduced me to what is now my favourite place in Himeji, an amazing park with some abandoned miniature Disney castles. Then we went to Kazuma-san’s house, and they taught me how to make homemade gyoza. The three of them make up what I have affectionately dubbed my rap gang. It’s not just a term of endearment though - last week we were driving around in Kazuma-san’s white minivan and taking turns to freestyle rap over short 30-second instrumental samples. It’s legitimate: we are an actual rap gang. I told my friend about it and they exclaimed “I didn’t know you could rap!” Well, I didn’t know I could either, but anything is possible after a couple of cans of premium malt and a toke from Kazuma-san’s honey bear bong 14
(an item I have come to believe is the Japanese equivalent of the powerade bong, but kawaii as fuck). However, I think there is true potential in our friendship. They have been the greatest assets to my language acquisition, because they teach me local slang and other useable phrases, such as “I can circular-breathe”[2]. Of course, I definitely add some kawaii factor to the rap gang, and maybe this was what they had in mind when they initially approached me. They are sweet boys and they continue to surprise me. Last time I got into the car with Kazuma-san his first words to me were “Caitlin-san are you wearing Chanel No.8?” What the hell! I was actually wearing Chanel Mademoiselle, but he correctly identified the brand and it blew my mind. It struck me then that this is not your average rap gang. Perhaps my own presence in the group should have been the first indicator, but I got too caught up in the excitement of it all to realise. So here I am in Japan, living a fantasy life. It was never my dream to be the fourth member of a Japanese rap gang, so maybe that’s why it feels all the more unreal. Whether we are cruising around in Kazuma’s van, or sitting at his house spinning vinyl, it just feels right: like this gang was always supposed to have an Australian female counterpart. They make Japan feel like home for me. [1] Before I moved to Japan a lot of people tried to tell me about all the issues I would face due to having visible tattoos. I’m well aware of the stigma of tattoos here having connotation to criminal activity, but aside from being barred to enter some hot springs, having tattoos here has made me more friends than problems! From old ladies on the street to trendy retail assistants, everybody has gotta stop and tell me my tatts are kawaii. [2] Max-san is a didgeridoo virtuoso!
UWA FACT You’re doing better than you think :~)
FEATURE
That Fanfic You Like Words by Prema Arasu Art by Hayden Dalziel Hi, my name is Harry James Potter, I’m nineteen and have ravenblack hair that falls messily over my emerald-green eyes and I wear Ray-Ban prescription glasses. On my first day of tutorials I was wearing black skinny jeans from Dangerfield, red converse and an Adventure Time t-shirt with a flannel over it. I sat down next to a boy with platinum blond hair and an OBEY jumper. Instead of drinking guild coffee like everyone else, he had a takeaway cup from Tenth State. He had flawless white skin and eyes like crystal orbs of stormy sky. “Hey,” he said. “I’m Draco.” “Hey,” I replied shyly. Draco and I found that we had a lot in common. We both loved Panic! at the Disco (and agreed that A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out was their best album) and had both signed up for EMAS on O-day. The unit coordinator, Professor Snape, gave us our allocations for the semester’s group project. To my surprise, I was paired with Draco! “Let’s book a study room in lawbry,” he said flirtatiously. I got his number and added him to Snapchat then left to meet my friends at the Tav. As I was walking across James Oval, a Frisbee nearly hit me on the head but I skilfully caught it with my lightning-fast reflexes. A tall boy with tanned, muscular arms jogged up to me. “Nice catch,” he smiled. “You should join our Ultimate Frisbee team. By the way, I’m Oliver Wood.” “I’m not really into sports,” I replied. “I’m kind of an introvert actually.” Oliver looked dejected but I had to go. I was used to people not really getting me because sometimes I liked to stay home and read books. I’ve always been kind of an outsider and would rather read or write poetry than play sport. My best friends Ron, who I went to Scotch with, and Hermione who was dux of PLC, are both bisexual and in an open relationship. Hermione is the president of Bi The Way and is doing a B. Phil. I met them at the Tav and we got a jug of cider. “Oh your god!” I said because I’m an atheist. “I just met the hottest guy!” “Did you add him on Facebook?” Ron asked, running a hand through his pink, purple and aqua ombre hair. He had recently gotten ear gauges and looked hot AF. I smiled mysteriously. “I’ll tell you all the details after I meet him tomorrow.” Then Numb by Linkin Park started playing on the speakers and we all got up onto the tables to dance. Ron and Hermione started making out and I made out with Ron with tongues for a while. Then I felt someone grinding against me from behind. I turned around. “Professor Snape!” I gasped. He grabbed my hips and thrust into them sexily and then we made out for the rest of the song while grinding. He had a tongue ring and I could feel it when he expertly caressed my lips. “I find you mysteriously attractive, Potter,” he whispered into my ear and I blushed shyly. Then the song ended and I went home.
I planned to re-read my favourite John Green novel, The Fault in Our Stars, but my ex-girlfriend Cho Chang was sitting on my bed waiting for me. “Cho what are you doing here!” I gasp. “We broke up last week!” “I know but I still love you Harry-senpai,” she stared at me with passionate longing in her cinnamon-brown eyes. “I was hoping we could be friends with benefits.” “But I thought you liked Cedric,” I replied. “Yeah but he died.” said Cho. “Oh yeah,” I remembered. So then we hooked up on my bed and I fingered her and she came three times. “OH CEDRIC!” she screamed in ecstasy. I stopped in shock. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?” I asked her sympathetically. “Yes,” she cried, and ran out of the room! The next day I took the 950 to uni and the lawbry was mostly empty aside from a group of basic bitches on the ground floor. I was wearing black Doc Martens and ripped jeans and a vintage Nirvana t-shirt and leather wrist bands that I got from Etsy. Draco and I were alone in the study room and he played music like Panic! at the Disco and Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance from his Macbook. His whole outfit was from Culture Kings and he looked sexy AF. We didn’t do any of our project and skipped our lecture because we’re both really rebellious. “It’s okay, I’m going to drop out of the unit anyway,” I told Draco. “Omfg me too!” he said. “I just wanted to hang out with you because you’re the hottest guy I’ve ever met.” He blushed shyly. Before I could respond, one of the librarians walked past the study room unexpectedly. He had black hair and double snakebite piercings. “Hey cutie, I’m Tom Riddle.” He winked at me suggestively. “Hey,” I replied. Draco didn’t say anything but he looked at me jealously. “Harry… there’s something I have to tell you. I’m a vampire!!!” said Draco. A single glistening sapphire tear ran down his angular cheekbone. I gasped. “I still like you Draco.” “Really?” he asked, and when I nodded, he pushed me against a wall passionately and kissed me on the mouth and I felt his tongue slide against mine. I put my hand up his shirt and felt his rock-hard abs. I could feel him getting hard and he took off my shirt and put his hand down my pants sexily. “OH DRACO!!!” I screamed, while having an orgasm. Then Tom walked past again and stared at us. “Haven’t you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door?”
UWA FACT Law Ball is sold out! If you missed out, you can trade in your clerkship acceptance letter for a ticket
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Art by Michael Trown 16
UWA FACT The Hackett Drive carpark is set to close to accommodate overflow of food trucks from Oak Lawn
FEATURE
Things That Person In Your Tutorial Who Hasn’t Said Anything All Semester and Has Instead Sat Silently While Staring at Nothing in Particular Might Be Thinking About Getting a Thermomix The delicate difference between a flat white and a latte The soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld Dank memes Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci’s onscreen chemistry Hash browns Jo and Laurie’s relationship in Little Women. The Frasier closing credits music. The elements of an effective flatlay Pegging The situation in Chechnya Rafael Nadal Mum’s chicken parma Tauel Harper’s chest hair Actuarial science Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s unlikely but perfect love story Pitching an article to Vice Buying a ticket to Burning Man Lauren Conrad’s fashion line Pieter Bruegel’s genre paintings Investing in Spanx Season 3 of 30 Rock Terrence Howard Lighting up in the Sunken Gardens later on William Carlos Williams Bon Iver’s bald patch A summer house in Dunsborough Starting a podcast The last ever episode of Rove when Powderfinger performed live Sea turtles Soufflés Jamie Oliver’s new recipe book, Every Day Superfood What Diane Keaton’s kitchen probably looks like Fellini’s 8 1/2 Finally submitting to Pelican How much guilt one should feel re: enjoying Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris Sweet potato chips Those fancy glass KeepCups Just giving up and doing the JD
UWA boy I met in Guild cafe while re-stocking Pelicans - callBieber’s me UWA FACT Coming soon fromFACT UWACute Communications department: BIEB1001 Studies in Justin Tears at 2015 VMAs
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GUILD ELECTIONS
Je Ne Regrette Rien Adventures of a fresher in guild politics Words by Harriet Campbell I am going to start this by confessing something that I’ve spent three long years trying to pretend never happened. I once ran for OGC (Ordinary Guild Councillor for all you sensible people who never got involved in student politics) in the UWA Student Guild elections. Not only did I commit this act of obscene betrayal against the glorious apathy of my youth, but I doublewhammied by running for the right-leaning Liberty (now Launch). When I think back on that ‘party’ experience now, a few things jump to mind. Like how nothing to do with Guild Elections is a party (even where there’s alcohol), and how every now and then I get an uncomfortable cramping sensation that is my ovaries remembering being in the same room as Luke Ellery. So... why? A valid question. One that I ask myself whenever I have an intense or disturbing flashback to that time. Well, I was young, and an idealist. I was (am) ambitious. And I was very, very flattered. Because not only did the lefty—ish STAR gang approach me to run, but so did my more ideologically inclined Libertarians in blue (now red). Now, I have never needed another person to validate me, or so I thought. But when you’re treated like some sort of prize, who the parties have ‘fought over’, it’s hard not to get a swollen head. Before you know it, you have grandiose visions of yourself at a lectern with the Australian flag rippling behind you and a benevolent smile on your newly federally elected face. And sadly for me, I let that vision convince me that I wanted a place in guild politics. This is how it works: Step 1 – find a fresher with an ego. Step 2 – Feed it. And the presidential hopefuls did just that. I remember those meetings so well. Priya Brown of STAR fame took me to the Hackett café first. She was keen, and I was added to the Facebook group then and there! If only I wasn’t lazy and disinterested, I would’ve screen-shotted the lot and handed them over to Pelican. Alas, I didn’t care enough, and for whatever reason removed myself when I decided I wasn’t starry eyed. Then Ben Watson of Liberty/Launch took me to Science Café. Things were promising for Liberty. This was 2012 - they were incumbent. They wanted Subway. They hated the National Union of Students (NUS). I liked the sound of that. They were nearly all neo-conservative, union bashing young libs, but I didn’t know that part yet. STAR got wind that I was to defect. They kicked it into gear and the man-myth-legend/STAR’s presidential candidate for that year Cam Barnes took me to the wall alongside Oak Lawn. It was a strange experience. I actually believed him when he talked about his visions for the guild. He believed in himself.
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He was the first person who didn’t postulate. He cared. And the cleverer part of me, the part that went into hiding not long after I played with the idea of running for Guild, knew he would win that election. But the stupider, more idealistic part of me made a decision based on the party’s policy and not electability, and there I was, three weeks later, losing an election I should never have run in and feeling bitter, and tired, and ashamed. Bitter, because losing is for losers and I had never been one of those before. Tired, because rebuffing Matt McKenzie for days on end is exhausting work. And ashamed, because I had become that person who I now pity: standing on Oak Lawn, smiling absurdly at passers by, and trying to sell them a vision they just don’t care to see. I sold my soul to guild politics and I learned a lot. When I say I regret it, it’s because it’s a sure-fire conversation starter and the Guild is an easy beast to deride. But I learned. I honed my skills in seeing through people’s bullshit and I grew a new skin. I learned that young labor sucks, but young liberals blow. I kept one foot outside the door and thank god, because if I’d gone balls deep I just might have ended up as that heinous overbearing Guild person that we all know who keeps their political ambitions on steady simmer while enjoying the circle-jerk. I learned that I hate guild politics. I learned the absurdity of the cruelty that the candidates inflict upon one another. I learned the pointlessness of the angst and I realised that I hate selfpromoting. It took me this long to look back and acknowledge I took something from the experience, and that’s because for so long I could only view it with disdain, disbelief and mild revulsion. I couch my experience now knowing my naivety set me up for a fall. Now, I view the guild circus with equal parts irritation and interest. I revel in my experience and am glad that there are people who care about something at this uni. I appreciate (some of ) the people, just not the process. I’m glad for the relationships I formed on both sides of the (very low) fence. I’m even glad I was hated – it was a great learning experience. I admire that Guild Politics really does it for some. I respect people who involve themselves ‘for the right reasons’. I, however, am just not one of them. I hope they all learn something and mostly – I hope they all stay out of my way.
UWA FACT BPhil Ball afters were hosted by GT Fridays
GUILD ELECTIONS
How Soon is Now? Pelican finds out just how long it takes guild elections candidates to send all those Facebook messages Words by Nick Morlet Art by Kate Prendergast Finally, the malarkey of the 2015 guild elections is in the past. But many of us are left wondering: where did all those Guild Normies get the time? All those hours spent sending unsolicited Facebook messages asking for votes. What could they have been doing otherwise? Wonder no longer: here is the, um, somewhat definitive and absolutely rigorous breakdown of just how long candidates spent on this year’s campaign.
Data was collected from a couple hacks from each major ticket (not Left Action - I don’t have any of them on facey), assuming those little messages they send you asking for your vote average out to about 115 words each, and a candidate mean typing speed of 40 WPM. I found a rough average of 4.5 hours was spent per normie per week talking Guild during the fortnight following ballot draw. Extrapolating out, that means in the time they spent campaigning, the 161 candidates in the 2015 UWA Student Guild elections could have:
UWA FACT Hot engineering student? Missed out on vacwork? RocketFuel is hiring!
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GUILD ELECTIONS
DAY 1: Godlike jawlines “I felt tired, so I went to get a blended iced green tea from the Ref, but the machine had been turned off for the day. It was a bummer. I could tell they’d just switched it off as well, and like if I’d pushed it a bit more they would have switched it back on, but I didn’t have time to argue the toss because I was kind of concerned that my friend was going to faint in the presence of Charlie Viska’s godlike jawline if left unsupervised. So I went back to the Sue Boyd Room, where the clapping and chanting was as deafening as ever.” DAY 3: Cheese dreams Last night, I ate so much triple cream brie that I wished for death, and after, I experienced my very first cheese dream. DAY 4: Poetry “guild politics is a life vicariously lived it is Tom Beyer and Liam Staltari pushing themselves to the cold glass screen of the 7:30 report and whispering as if to a lover or absent father why not me? -Chad “no need to keep me anonymous” Bensky” DAY 7: Alienating our audience “But isn’t this photo amazing? I feel like I’m in the helicopter as it flies over Britney Spears’ backyard. Like I’m sitting across from Miley Cyrus while she takes hits from a bong. This photo would make TMZ proud. This is Journalism, people. This tiny, grainy, really rubbish photo is just one example of the lengths UWA students will go to in the name of transparency, and piss-taking.” DAY 10: Deep, lonely sarcasm “I like to think Beyer sees himself as a Frank Underwood figure; a lone wolf navigating the tumultuous political landscape that is Guild Elections 2015 . We can only suspect he’s now plotting his revenge on Sahil for his abandonment of STAR at the last minute. This is big news to anyone who is interested!” DAY 14: If it wasn’t already obvious, we’ve been at this university since like 2011 “I lived the coffee wars. I endured cries of “It’s such a long drive to Rocketfuel!” and “burnt!” and “THIS BARISTA DOESN’T EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH!” I watched on as a new corporate coffee overlord was installed on campus, its suave red and black branding adorning every takeaway cup. Its baristas pasty white, their accents distinctly western 20
suburbs. “Machiatto”, they’d slur seductively. “Sorry, no smoothies today, we’ve run out of ice cream.”” DAY 16: We’re practically Laura Tingle “As I was walking to my preferred campus lavatory, I saw the most seriously dope dog. I approached the owner, and asked if I could say hello, and he warned me that she does have a tendency to bite, and also remarked that I was ‘very intelligent for asking first’. ‘I know, I’m very clever,’ I responded. The dog’s name was Millie, and she was a poodle, though quite large for a poodle I noticed. She had just recently been groomed. If you’re reading this, Millie, I love you.” DAY 17: The Uranus 2016 Campaign “I would really like to win but mostly I just hope all the teams have a really fun time. Vote 1 Stephen McGrath Guild Man Candidate. Think with ur head! Vote with Uranus!” DAY 18: [REDACTED] [REDACTED] DAY 20: The Blackstone Law Ball “Every single guest looked incredibly beautiful. Most of the women present had seen the inside of Circles in Subiaco earlier that day. On the other hand, I wore a dress I bought for a themed party when I was 16. I would best describe it as ‘adequate.’” DAY 22: Remembering that none of this matters that much at all “Day 22 of guild elections, and I’m still not really sure what is going on. I honestly cannot name one STAR policy platform, despite the fact that there are green bits of paper everywhere. Possibly, we’re just supposed to vote for them because they smile a lot. The only Launch policy that comes to mind is the $10 jug thing, which, depending on who you talk to, might not even be legal under the Tav’s liquor licence.” DAY 24: Using the power of metaphor to reflect upon the election campaign that was “The more we scratched at the puffy scab that is the 2015 UWA Student Guild Election, the more it bled. And most of the time I kind of wished we’d just put a Band-Aid on it in the first place and walked away.”
DAY 25: Number crunching “Last night a couple of very hard working guild staff stayed in their office well into the night to bring us the news that Maddie Mulholland would be the 103rd UWA Student Guild President. As expected, the office bearer positions were a STAR clean sweep. And it was a landslide – Maddie won with a whopping 2170 out of 3514 votes, and margins across the board were similar. For comparison, last year 2015 president Lizzy O’Shea won with 2055 out of 3849 votes – and that was pretty exceptional. What is really amazing is that Launch’s presidential candidate Rhys Tucker came through with 737 votes. Last year, Liberty’s presidential candidate Millie Dacre came second to O’Shea with 1129 votes. The difference between how many students came out to vote this year versus last year is almost exactly the difference between Dacre and Tucker’s votes. Call me Antony Green.” BONUS: Facebook comments from our many fans Can we vote for that sign? It strikes quite a commanding figure. (1 like) can’t wait til all these pissants with such mighty opinions of themselves because they thrive in their tiny little cosplay of democracy get chewed up and spat out by non-ironic non-conciliatory non-toothlessbecause-mum-and-dad-pay-big-money-tothe-uni IRL media scrutiny (6 likes) But the question on all our lips is - Who are the lizard people?!?!? (13 likes) I would say something constructive, but I can’t get the image of elections climaxing out of my head (1 like) Fucking hell (5 likes) It was endearing not snide. Check your facts! (3 likes) When will Emma Norton know who I am and subsequently love me (7 likes) Way to create a shit storm, Pelican! This is ground breaking!! (5 likes) Much like getting your shoes vomited on, guild elections somehow ordinarily manage to be both vicariously and collaterally horrible at the same time. But you guys have actually made it entertaining, which is a noble first. (10 likes) the long road to being a BNOC just got a little shorter (6 likes)
UWA FACT Complete this poll. What’s worse during common lunch hour: EMAS, or noise from Guild Village construction?
DO YOU WANT TO EDIT
IN 2016? Pelican editors are appointed by the Guild and tasked with compiling eight print issues, plus additional web content, over the course of the academic year. Candidates must have been Guild members for the last two years (or for as long as they’ve been at UWA) and not have run in Guild elections over the same period. In the last few years, it has become conventional to edit Pelican as a duo. The focus of this year’s applications will be on your vision for managing Pelican across print and web. The introduction of a website in 2015 has fundamentally changed the way the editorship operates. Your application will be expected to demonstrate how you intend to protect the rich legacy and maintain the quality of Pelican ’s print run, while complementing it with a strong web presence. Your application should demonstrate: •
A comprehensive and detailed plan as to how you will divide labour across both Pelican’s web and print platforms
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A strong vision for the design, content, and feel of the magazine
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How different viewpoints will be sought and represented
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Time management and deadline planning
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Creative flair and a desire to innovate
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Relevant experience in writing, editing, coordinating and art direction
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A vision as to how you will manage the day-to-day running of the magazine alongside coordinating the social life of the Pelican community
Your application must consist of: •
A CV including references, due October 17th 2015
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A physical portfolio outlining in detail your vision for Pelican in 2016, as well as physical design mock-ups, due October 23rd 2015
How to submit: •
Email your CV to Alex Pond at creative@guild.uwa.edu.au, CC pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au
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Drop your physical portfolio and design mock-ups to the Design Office, first floor Guild Admin, Guild Village.
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Art by Danyon Burge FEATURE
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UWA FACT No, no, no… it’s G and T Fridays, and it’s held in the Pelican office
Art by Gabby Loo
UWA FACT Nobody was murdered in Winthrop Hall. No one.
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FILM
FILM REVIEWS film follows illustrator Will Henry, played by the beautiful Jemaine Clement, dealing with parenthood, heartbreak and loneliness, following his wife (Stephanie Allyne), leaving him.
PEOPLE, PLACES, THINGS Director: James C. Strouse Starring: Jemaine Clement, Regina Hall, Jessica Williams People, Places, Things is a new “New Yorky” film from New York, I Love You director James C Strouse. And it succeeds terrifically at being “New Yorky”. The
It’s a small film; its ambitions are quaint and it follows a plotline that unfortunately leaves very little room for movement. But if you saw the trailer and seriously expected to feel anything but life-affirming pleasantries, then it’s your own fault and you’re silly. Beneath the lovely illustrations, fairly solid acting and the often-fantastic lines, the film does feel a little banal at times, but never enough to bore. Some sincere moments feel lame, and the perfectly ok cinematography makes the city seem a little clichéd, hitting on that idealized, I-want-to-move-and-be-acreative-in-New-York familiarity. For a film that uses a literal classroom to explain the creator/audience relationship when interpreting a story, and directly talks about selective omission to make a story richer for the audience, People, Places, Things oddly leaves no element omitted at all.
out really well. This time, he’s hit the gym and beefed the fuck up to play Billy Hope, an out-of-luck boxer whose violent sociopathic tendencies win him the title of light heavyweight champion of the world, but also end up costing the life of his doting wife (Rachel McAdams).
SOUTHPAW Director: Antoine Fuqua Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams, 50 Cent, Forest Whittaker Admittedly, I was excited for Southpaw. Jake Gyllenhaal transformed himself drastically for the role, and the last time he did that for Nightcrawler, it turned
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With an atrocious script, Southpaw wastes no time checking off every sports movie cliché at a speed that feels more like parody than a movie gunning for Oscar nominations Wife dies? Check. Guy trains in a run-down gym in the bad part of town? Check. Mentors a young, at-risk teen who reminds him of himself? Check. That kid ends up dying unexpectedly? Check. Final fight serves not only as protagonist’s narrative endgoal, but also as thematic closure for their internal development? Checkity-check. Throughout the course of the film, Hope’s daughter becomes less and less connected to her father as she learns that the man she idolises is nothing
UWA FACT Elmar’s is just a sausage sizzle
For these generic criticisms however, its merits are rich as well, just hard to pin down. The post-separation troubles Will endures, including the way his hour and a half commute away from school affects his ability to be a good father, are often presented in realistically unromantic ways; despite its small scale and familiar scenes, the whole film engages you like a popcorn blockbuster; and I laughed a lot! The guy in the seat in front also rubbed against his partner at crucial moments and tried to get a cheeky kiss near the end. Plus, I’ve made many snarky comments despite the fact I have never been to New York, and… I can’t actually list that many “New Yorky” movies that present it quite as polished as this anyway… so go figure. Maybe it is that nice. Basically, it’s really good if you like New York, or Rom-Coms that don’t have Jennifer Aniston-y people in it. Don’t expect to remember it forever though. 3.5/5 Julian Grant
more than a physical manifestation of primitive masculine rage. Antoine Fuqua’s previous work indicates a preoccupation with extreme violence and aggression, and that is very much on show in this film. But right at the start of the third act as the ‘big fight’ is coming up, Hope’s daughter does a complete U-turn and starts rooting for him. A much better movie would have abandoned any sympathy for Hope. What results in Southpaw is a film that says ‘Don’t worry guys! Violence is the answer! Just so long as you, y’know, don’t get too carried away with it.’ 2.5/5 Cameron Moyses
FILM
embedded in a film that is just a blast to watch.
DOPE Director: Rick Famuyiwa Starring: Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori, Kiersey Clemons, Zoë Kravitz and A$AP Rocky Dope, one of the breakout hits of this year’s Sundance is (to go for the obvious) a dope ass film. Writer-director Rick Famuyiwa has been making films for over 10 years, but Dope has so much energy and inventiveness that if I didn’t know better I would have put money on the film coming from a young buck straight out of film school. It’s exciting and inventive, with some really important political points
Newcomer Shameik Moore plays Malcolm, a black geek obsessed with 90s hip-hop. Malcolm and his friends, the 14% African Jib (Tony Revolori) and lesbian Diggy (Kiersey Clemons), play in a punk band and are into ‘white people shit’ like Donald Glover and TV on the Radio. These facts make them outcasts in their underprivileged and primarily African-American school. An encounter with the charming but manipulative drug dealer Dom (A$AP Rocky) leads to Malcolm finding himself in the possession of a backpack full of Molly, and the straight A student trying to find a way to dispose of the illicit substance. Moore owns the screen as Malcolm, ‘an outcast in a society of outcasts’, giving one of the most engrossing debut performances I have seen in a long time. Revolori and Clemons also do excellent work as Malcolm’s best friends, while A$AP Rocky and supermodel Chanel Iman’s strong performances convey the magnetic personalities and controlling undercurrents of their characters.
is unfortunately a frustrating exercise, not dissimilar to Stock’s experience, photographing the elusive star. Dane DeHaan’s visual resemblance to James Dean is marginal at best (as is clearest when the characters view the actual Dean in the photos) so it’s to his credit that this doesn’t detract in the slightest from his performance. With his soft vocal mannerisms and awkward vulnerability, DeHaan constructs and carries the film through its otherwise languid lapses.
LIFE Director: Anton Corbijn Starring: Dane DeHaan, Robert Pattinson, Joel Edgerton, Ben Kingsley Australian screenwriter Luke Davies’ (2006’s Candy) decision to centre Life on the shooting of Dennis Stock’s image-cementing photos of James Dean for Life suggests a premise that sidesteps the lack of focus and specificity that mark many such biopics. Life (the film, as well as that other deal for that matter)
In contrast, Pattinson feels wasted here; the photographer/deadbeat dad he portrays is as lacking in fatherly qualities as his characterisation is in substance. Little more than an over-determined foil to DeHaan’s James Dean, Stock doesn’t dance or want to “go for a ride on [Dean’s] ‘sicle” (an awkward nod to the actor’s ambiguous sexuality), he follows the schedules Jimmy avoids until the end, he’s uncomfortable on farms, his camera’s anything but another appendage and he looks to the future he sees Dean (who yearns
Utilising both classic hip hop needle drops and new songs from executive producer Pharrell Williams, Dope’s soundtrack helps immerse you in the world of the film, while Famuyiwa incorporates social media and tech in a way that feels current and relevant. If there’s a weakness in the film, it’s pacing. Dope loses some of its propulsiveness halfway through, while also losing Zoë Kravtiz’s love interest for large portions of its running time, and it takes the film a while to get back into the same rhythm. There’s a total mic-drop moment toward the end of the film, when Malcolm is describing himself, where the film should end, but it continues on for five more minutes to wrap up the love story. Despite these minor reservations, Dope is one of the best times I’ve had at the cinema this year. Like Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block, it’s a really exciting and funny film, with a lot of big ideas about race and identity beneath the surface. As I said, Dope is just fucking dope. 4/5 Kevin Chiat
for the past) as representing. This dialectic between Jimmy’s nature and the self-consciousness of Stock who can’t help but “stand in his own way” is often laboured. That between what the James Dean represents and who he actually was is decidedly less so, but they do both bear fruit, especially in memorable scenes evoking the spectre of Dean’s mother, teaching him how to play. As a respected photographer prior to venturing into film, Anton Corbijn, seems wholly suited to this subject, and yet whilst there’s plenty of the potential of James Dean’s all-too-brief three-film career, there’s only a scant glimpse of the brilliance. 3/5 Holly Munt
UWA FACT If I were running a guild election ticket, my colour would be chartreuse
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FILM
Not a Colour Wasted Words by Holly Munt Art by Danyon Burge
Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky stated in 1966 that “on the screen colour imposes itself on you… In real life the line that separates unawareness of colour from the moment when you start to notice it is quite imperceptible.” The problem of much colour cinema is its failure to consider what exactly its use of colour expresses. Used unthinkingly colour can be little more than a distraction; consider Michael Powell’s advice to Scorsese that in colour, the bright red boxing gloves would detract from Raging Bull’s fight scenes, or what the atmosphere of Psycho’s famous shower scene would have suffered had the blood on the floor of the bath been of the same shade. No one would suggest these films would actually benefit from being in colour. Likewise it would be hard to argue that in monochrome, these films would not lose much of their essence. Greed (1924) Hand colouring dates as far as 1895 with such works as Méliès’ adventure films or Loie Fuller-inspired serpentine dances all the more fantastical for the lack of realistic colour. By the beginning of the 1910s, toning and tinting had become as commonplace as music and developed its own psychology and language, and by 1920, an estimated 80-90% of films used tinting. As late as 1924, Erich von Stroheim’s
Greed employed the Handschiegl handstencilling process to painstakingly colour individual scenes to a subtler end than most contemporary colouring. The opening title reads “Gold, gold, gold, gold / Bright and yellow, hard and cold,” and Stroheim imbues almost every actual and symbolic instance of the metal, including nuggets, a bedspread, gold coins, a birdcage and a large gold tooth, with the same obsessive repetition of these opening lines. Over black-and-white, the remarkably golden gold serves as a leitmotif for the characters’ avarice and in combination with the film’s fantasy sequences, serves to emphasise the corrupted nature of the couples’ minds. The Dante Quartet (1987) The Dante Quartet is perhaps the greatest of Brakhage’s attempts, in a modernist sense, to reduce cinema to its essential elements, removing traits borrowed from other arts, including theatre, literature and even music. Like Tarkovsky and Antonioni, he saw himself working in a tradition of European modernism; an obvious comparison is Jackson Pollock and abstract expressionism. The idea of filmmaker as painter is perhaps most apt for Brakhage whose experiments in film often saw him apply pigment directly to film stock, literally painting film (in this, his version of Dante, Fred Camper states, “figures can be glimpsed through paint as if through flames”). The complexity of Brakhage’s colours and other distortions to each frame meant he had to surrender to total frame discontinuity, in doing so, creating colour abstractions of unsurpassed beauty and spirituality. Written on the Wind (1957) On colour in Written on the Wind, Douglas Sirk recalled, “I used deep-focus lenses which have the effect of giving a harshness to the objects and a kind of enamelled, hard surface to the colours, I wanted this to bring out the inner violence, the energy of the characters which is all inside them and can’t break through.” It’s hard to more succinctly define the brilliance of colour in many 50s and 60s melodramas. Whilst utilising certain of the deeply entrenched rules of Technicolor colour consultant Natalie
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M. Kalmus’ (whose tacit role involved suppressing unnatural uses of colour), such as the conventional colour coding of red for Dorothy Malone’s promiscuous character, he subverted others. For example, by rendering Lauren Bacall in the same blue light as the background (like a polar bear in the snow was Kalmus’ metaphor), the mise en scène articulates her own suppressed emotions, smothered by colour as by society. Sirk and cinematographer Russell Metty go even further in defying the rules in their rejection of the uniformity of white light and the ideology of realism it accompanies; in one stunning scene an unlit room is awash in the electric blue and black of artificial night to the point of shadows. Received like most “women’s pictures” as banal and unimportant until their reappraisal, following the endorsement of Cashiers du Cinéma dude-bros, queer auteurs Rainer Werner Fassbinder, John Waters and Todd Haynes and 70s feminists and psychoanalysts; it’s worth considering the way that historically many of the most colourful films, as well as Old Hollywood spectacle in general, have been devalued for being women-oriented (it’s for this reason, many colour films or sequences made when they were primarily used for lavish fashion or musicals are now lost). Suspiria (1977) With the introduction of Eastman Color prints, which while far less cumbersome, lacked the colour range of Technicolor’s old prints, Technicolor completely discontinued its heavy three-strip camera in 1955 and its US dye-transfer plant in 1974, virtually ending the classic ‘Technicolor look’. With his Giallo Suspiria, Italian horror director Dario Argento, shooting in Eastmancolor, used the Italian dyetransfer plant to as best as possible recreate this look. Cinematographer Luciano Tovoli was asked to study Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a childhood favourite of Argento’s. Whilst Disney’s beautiful Technicolor palette had an effect of comfort and reassurance, Suspiria subverts this referent, its startling ornamental décor and vibrant primary colours render everything with a nightmarish sense of unreality and serve as both a symbolic and dramatically expressive reminder of the presence of evil and witchery.
UWA FACT The water from the filtered water fountains makes you smarter
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POLITIC S
A World of DifferenceS Words by Leah Roberts, Pelican‘s European Correspondent
As I sit by my window in Amsterdam overlooking a canal a world away from Australia, there is an issue that surrounds and binds my home continent and the continent of Europe in which I currently reside together. Both Europe and Australia are both dealing with a stream of refugees fleeing their countries from places like Syria. Since living in Amsterdam for the past month, I have talked to people from all around the world about this issue - and they have all agreed about the severity of it. However, it is intriguing to note the different approaches taken and the language used across the world. Last week, my friend from Singapore travelled to Vienna at the same time leaders from across Europe were meeting to discuss the refugee crisis in Europe. Angela Merkel and other leaders reached the usual kind of broad, multilateral consensus that something must be done to help those in need. This was, however, in stark contrast to the Australian government, which seems to have adopted a “if I can’t see the problem, it doesn’t exist” approach. Asylum seekers have been a main election issue in Australia for many years. Successive governments have fallen and taken on power on the issue of “stopping the boats”. Little of the talk in the mainstream media and especially in government circles has concerned those on the boats and how the government can help them. Before leaving Australia, a boat sank off the coast of Italy, and the Navy rescued them. In Australia, the UN has reported that we turn back boats that aren’t seaworthy with hundreds of people on board. Furthermore, journalists aren’t given access to our immigration centers. The cost for a visa to Nauru is $8,000. Still, the stories are getting out, and it was recently reported that guards at the center used wire to tie up an 8 year-old boy. Additionally, medical workers could face prison terms for
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reporting emotional, physical or sexual abuse of children to the authorities. When I told my European friends, they were shocked. They could not believe that Australia, whom they all believed was a progressive country, could act in such a way to vulnerable people. Old Europe on the other hand has been extremely progressive on the issue, though not been without tension. Europe accepted 431,000 refugees in 2013, and in 2014 that number jumped to 626,000. Australia’s highest amount for that period was 12,000. Many governments, though still granting asylum far in excess of Australia’s own meager totals, are allegedly witnessing the rise of far-right political parties – or so the Australian media seems to say. The reality is that those parties really do not represent more than an estranged splinter of European society. There will always be that fringe of negativity in the media, but the overwhelming majority of articles I have seen are focusing on the horror of the humanitarian crisis on Europe’s borders, and not whether they are “illegal” arrivals or not. This is the biggest difference that I’ve seen between Europe and Australia. In Europe, they are never referred to as being “illegal”. Europeans generally understand why they are fleeing from their homes, especially in Syria and other areas of the Middle East. Many comments from Australians online reflect the claim that refugees arriving here are “shopping for the best pick”. That kind of language doesn’t exist here. That’s not to say that Europe is perfect. The policy in the European Union is that once a refugee is registered as a refugee, they must seek asylum in the country in which they were registered – not that great if you wound up in Moldova. Additionally, this places the most strain on nations such as Italy, Greece and Spain, which are the main points of entry for refugees. Hungary in particular has a large problem. In Budapest, as you surely read recently, the railways are full of refugees making their way to Austria and beyond. A friend of mine travelled there last week and said she was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. The European leaders are working fervently to figure out a way to give asylum to all of these displaced people, and working out a regional solution. After seeing, talking, reading and hearing things over here, I have been overwhelmed with the different attitudes in all facets of society. It’s an incredible juxtaposition with the Australian climate. I can only hope that Australia remembers its obligation under the 1951 Convention for Refugees and takes a humanitarian approach in trying to devise a global solution. Although there is no panacea to resolve this, the privileged nations of the world owe a debt to aid those in need.
UWA FACT You should write for Pelican!
POLITIC S
Dark Twisted Political Fantasies Words by Thomas Rossiter Politicians often have a tenuous grip on reality, whether through their firm belief in their own importance, or as a result of the daily confidence-building circle-jerk they surround themselves with. Fantasy is the myth they weave around themselves, and unfortunately many actually come to believe their own PR bullshit. Examples of this phenomenon are usually restrained to terribly dysfunctional countries; North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, Grecian president Prokopis Pavlopoulis, Donald Trump, and obviously, our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. A man with the political instincts of a shark caught on a drumline, Abbott can only thrash about as he bleeds to death. Our Prime Minister has always fancied himself as something of a force in politics. I guess we were all a little worried when we learnt our new Prime Minister was a beach-going, hard-cycling man’s man, and certainly once the onion-biting started, no fears were abated. But few could guess at the depths of his madness. Really, Abbott thinks of himself as a strong leader; he believes that when he speaks the nation will move. It happened with the 2014 budget, and with his re-institution of knighthoods. The administration’s complete surprise that their requests are not immediately followed has been entertaining, though luckily our Labor party is now doing their level best to accommodate them. It must be hard to be a global leader of a democratic nation; no death squads, and uppity journalists making fun of you all the time. I can see why someone would become jealous of a leader that seemingly has it all, and perhaps try and imitate them. For Abbott, Putin seems to be the object of admiration. Unfortunately, as regular watchers of late-night 80s action films know, there can only be one, a disagreement that would eventually precipitate Abbott’s now infamous promise to ‘shirtfront’ Putin at a G20 conference. It’s hard to understand why Abbott would want to do this to someone so lovable. They are, after all, almost the same person. Abbott is only trying to communicate in the method he himself would best understand: brute force. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then we have clear proof that my Abbott/Putin Slashfic has some basis in reality. Putin censors his media with the wave of a hand, so Abbott tries it too. Q&A will move to the news division, or there will be consequences. Dire consequences. But the similarities just won’t stop there. They both have an increased focus on border security, awarding greater power to paramilitary organisations. Also, they share a general love of bare-chestedness, a mutual dislike of homosexuality, and a love for coal and oil based energy. Both men firmly believe in their personal power and masculinity, but really, only one has the ex-KGB assassination chops to back it up. For me at least, this will they/won’t they dynamic ensures
that political summits are packed with the kind of dramatic tension that makes them so captivating. Perhaps most damaging to this administration is not Abbott’s belief in his own sense of power and masculinity, but seeing this so often proven to be completely untrue. Watching the man unable to control his own party, (his cabinet has recently become something of an Australian-built submarine, that is to say leaky) his policies are laughable and often laughed at, he is snubbed by foreign leaders on a semi-regular basis and seems to be generally regarded as, at best, a man slightly too ‘blokey’ for political office. On top of that, The New York Times recently published an editorial wherein Abbott’s border protection policies were referred to as ‘brutal’. Whilst we all enjoy listening to our local pub loudmouth decry wind power and cry out for the reintroduction of conscription or whatever else has most recently captured his ‘if only they elected people with common sense’ mindset, most would be mortified if this man acquired some actual political power. Luckily, Abbott’s is steadily diminishing. Really, more than anything, we should pity Tony Abbott. Or we should, if all of his mistakes had made much change in the two-party preferred poll. Abbott combines the arrogance and pandering to the super-rich of a Donald Trump with the dead-eyed stare and incompetence of another Donald Trump. But beneath all the pomp and spin, all that remains are the desperate eyes of a man outside of his time, and promoted beyond his level of competence. Like Canute, Abbott has ordered more than he can feasibly control, the tides of public opinion continue to swell against him, and he just stands there, ankles soaked.
It must be hard to be a global leader of a democratic nation; no death squads, and uppity journalists making fun of you all the time. I can see why someone would become jealous of a leader that seemingly has it all, and perhaps try and imitate them. For Abbott, Putin seems to be the object of admiration.
UWA FACT As much as we’d like to think so, Pelican editors are not well-connected enough to leak your articles to anyone
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POLITIC S
The B is Silent Words by Jasmine Ruscoe Art by Laura Wells Unless you’ve been living under a rock these last few months, you’ve probably heard of the marriage equality debate. At least, you’ve probably heard of the “gay marriage” debate. Sure, I hear you say, I’ve heard of it - and? Well, pretending for a moment that I don’t care what you think about the issue itself, I’d like to draw your attention to the difference between these two terms, and to what the evolving discourse of the debate means for the LGBT+ community. First, there was a switch – particularly, but not exclusively, on the side of the advocates - from talking about “gay marriage” to talking about “same sex marriage.” This was done partly to escape the negative connotations of ideas such as the ‘gay agenda’ and ‘gay lifestyle,’ on which the opposition to marriage equality heavily relies. It also serves, however, to recognise that not all same-sex attracted people are gay. But wait, I hear you say; I thought that’s what gay meant! Well, first of all, while some people do use it as a blanket term, some women are uncomfortable with or do not identify with the term ‘gay’. These days, the terminology tends to reflect personal preference, but historically, the use of the term ‘lesbian’ reflects a wider recognition of the intersectional impact of homophobia and sexism that homosexual women face, but that homosexual men do not. On top of this consideration, the shift from “gay” to “same sex” marriage is inclusive of people who are not exclusively same-sex attracted; for example, the oftignored ‘B’ of the now well-known LGBT+ acronym. The B stands for “bisexual”, which, at its most basic level, refers to somebody who is attracted to both men and women. For those of you who can handle venturing beyond the gender binary, ‘bisexuality’ is usually used to refer to either attraction to your own gender and another gender, or to your own gender and other genders. This leads to various accusations from both the hetero- and homosexual communities, including that bisexuals are “greedy”, that they lack commitment, that they should “pick a side”, and that they are driven by a desire for attention, rather than by biological impulse or honest identification. These perceptions are reinforced by the oversexualisation and trivialisation of bisexuality in popular media, such as with the common, usually minor and usually objectified, female character who “had a lesbian phase during college.” Some shows – for example, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and even the notoriously progressive Orange is the New Black - feature main characters (Willow and Piper respectively) who have significant on-screen romantic and sexual relationships with both males and females, but who are never identified as bisexual. Representation, or lack thereof, such as this perpetuates the idea that bisexuality is not real, but rather, a phase or a situational switch between heteroand homosexual attraction. This is called ‘bisexual erasure’, and it has plagued the marriage equality debate and the wider LGBT+ movement for years. 30
Bisexuals are often excluded from queer advocacy and pride spaces on the grounds that they are faking it, or that they are “straight-passing.” This, in the marriage context, means that they could be in a heterosexual relationship and therefore could get married under Australia’s current law if they wanted to, and that therefore, their complaints are invalid. To biphobic marriage equality activists: whatever happened to “love is love”? To marriage equality opponents: whatever happened to the sanctity of marriage? Do you realise you’re breaking up marriages that already exist? That’s right: under Australian law, if you enter into a heterosexual marriage, and then one of you wishes to legally change your gender, you must dissolve the marriage. Living as a member of the gender with which you identify is a vital criterion for legally recognised change. Because marriage in Australia is defined as being “between a man and a woman,” this means that the transgender person would either have to transition and make their marriage invalid, or else continue to be recognised as their gender assigned at birth, which can cause psychological issues such as dysphoria. The “between a man and a woman” clause also excludes intersex, agender and other nonbinary people from being able to legally marry, or maintain their existing marriage if they wish to legally change their gender. Considerations such as this led to the second major shift in discourse, from “same sex marriage” to “marriage equality,” which is where we are today. Marriage equality activists wish for the law to allow marriage “between two consenting adults” of any sexual orientation, and of any gender. This recognises that the quest for marriage equality is not just for the G, but also for the L, the B, and the T, fighting to be able to marry - and stay married.
UWA FACT Why didn’t they rename the Science Café ‘Barry’s’? Missed opportunity
POLITIC S
The Fantasy of Western Adventurism Interventionism Words by Brad Griffin Art by Sam Gerard For as long as the sovereignty of the modern nation-state has existed (defined formally by Westphalia in 1648), that sovereignty has been violated. For the most part, it was European nations violating the sovereignty of other European nations, but as the centuries wore on and the full power of European industrialization was brought to bear on the rest of the world, this intervention spread outward like a plague, alongside imperialism. Perhaps the most famous example of this Western intervention was the Eight Nation Alliance in 1900, which saw the USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Japan put down a popular nationalist rebellion in China. It was a bloody result, with the right of other nations to continually interfere with China’s internal affairs violently reaffirmed. Much has changed in the last century, and the entitled Western idea of interventionism has been somewhat augmented by post1945 ideas of liberalism, democracy, and above all, a fervent belief in free market capitalism. The UN has been instrumental in helping to organize multinational coalitions that, with a plethora of mandates and mission statements, seek broadly to end violence and institute democracy in the nations of choice. Largely, these UN missions fail. The UN’s mission in the Congo is a prime example of Western interest in an issue, an initial peacekeeping stage, a spiraling militarization, followed by a loss of ambition and ultimate rejection of the original cause. Though the 1960 – 64 conflict was eventually resolved, mostly with African peacekeeping forces, the UN and wider Western response to the Rwandan Genocide was the truly disastrous epitome of Western apathy in response. A token force of originally only 400 Belgians, no mandate with respect to stopping ethnic killings, and no equipment heavy enough to face regular soldiers. Over 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and some Hutu were murdered in just over 100 days.
foreign life than a domestic vote. Political expediency is the name of the game. So, do we let the world bleed instead? Is it simply not up to the West to devote any of its significant wealth or military firepower to stop tyrants abroad? No. The West has an immense moral debt to pay to the peoples of the world that it exploited in centuries passed. However, the West and the UN in general should be building the capacity of African nations, and the African Union in particular to respond to their own crises in a regional manner. Essentially, the age of the West projecting its power far beyond its borders is gradually coming to a close. From violently asserting their authority in the 19th century, to a vague sense of duty to ‘help’ in the latter part of the 20th, to directionless interventionism so far in the 21st century, perhaps it is time for the leaders of the West to hang up their hats and decide that they have done enough damage for now. Give the former colonies of the world the respect to agree to solutions in their own regions and in their own time, without a vaunted Western sense of modesty to guide hasty and poorly constructed peace initiatives and then pull out when they become politically unfeasible. We’ve seen successful operations in Africa to support this theory. Yes, there are going to be teething problems, but the UN needs to provide less imposed-peace, and more resources to help nations sort out their own peace plans – ones that are designed by and work for them. For all of the West’s self-proclaimed enlightenment, after all the slaughter of the Somme, and Stalingrad, and Syria, we still don’t seem to realize that peace can never be delivered by the edge of a bayonet.
Multilaterally, the West has proved ineffectual at best and disastrous at worst. Unilaterally, the case is the same. I need not discuss the immense US failures in Vietnam, or the shambled intervention in Somalia in the 1990s. However, the US is better at pulling together multinational coalitions than the UN. The current coalition fighting IS in the Middle East has not been mandated by the UN. This means that there is no legal grounding for the presence of any country on the ground, or in the airspace over Iraq or Syria, including Australia. No grounding at all apart from a Western Crusader mentality. Flip the Red Cross colors around and you’ll see the real mission. Critically, UN operations only happen if the interests of the permanent members of the Security Council (the UK, USA, Russia, China and France) are concerned. Otherwise, it faces veto or apathy. The main problem with Western interventionism is that the electorate’s heart is never really in it. The US will crusade into a hundred different nations, cause trouble, and then leave when the electorate can no longer stomach it. Do not make the mistake of thinking that US policy makers care more about a UWA FACT By 2050, there will be no lawn on Oak Lawn, only woodchips
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birdsong Words by Nathan Shaw
Birds. We like ‘em. Given chief roles in allegory, icy poles and student magazines, our flappy friends fly tagged and laden with human perceptions of freedom, peace and paradise. Flightless ones, eh, whatever. In marriage with this credentialed ornithoappropriation, the songs of birds find themselves installed in the vast human fugue - no doubt a bewildering backdrop for the questioning wood duck bystander. Feathered flourishes are instrumental in Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux, Janequin’s Le Chant des Oiseaux, Handel’s The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and a suite of other Classical and Romantic compositions. Come the 20th century, and everyone’s hankering for recorded birdsong. Respighi kicks off the chorus with the undeniable banger The Pines of Rome, which sonically portraits a few pine trees, the long-serving pals of birds. With the public jumping out of their skin for more birdworks, it was time for electronic musicians to give a squawk. Freaky German-Jamaican potheads Supersempfft get on board, lending out the union of birds and beats. From the ‘70s onwards, we find the music domain rippling with a jungle of zany, soothing and charming birdcalls. The tropic trope prevails, and producers worldwide strive to lure sonic tourists into their fantastic, lush, euphonious and shatteringly familiar wonderparks.
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Take an hour’s stroll through Soundcloud and you’ll probably stumble into someone’s shitty plastic diorama, where lofty birdsong has been contorted and reduced to a sawtooth LFO acting on the pitch of a high OSC, harbouring a ton of realtime depth and rate manipulation. A digital clipping of wings on the adored, limitless kite. If you’re anything like me, you’re a fair chance to fucking love it. The deviation has been made, from the devoted ornamentation of arctic birdlife in Rautavara’s Cantus Arcticus, a work removed still from the decoration of nature that spills from taonga poro, didgeridoos, turnduns and other traditional aerophones, or the depersonalised, tributing practice of musique conrète. But this doesn’t preclude it from similar levels of inspiration. Fantasy lets us shed the tethers of the reciprocation of reality, find worlds where there are none, has us synthesize place, performance and pigeons. It sets me down each evening among the gulls of Galápagos, the toucans of the Caribbean, the raggiana of Papua and the bulbuls of the Persian Gulf. Gargantuan, exquisite, uncapturable realms of life projected through solo2 Beats by Dre wireless headphones. It’s spring break at the School of Biomusic, the sun wavers low, and the flamingo on my beach towel is an unholy sort of pink.
UWA FACT The 2015 Graduate Sexual Satisfaction Survey ranks UWA no. 4 in the country (the horndogs over at Notre Dame rank no. 1)
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The Wonderful World of Wizard Rock Words by Bridget Rumball Art by Hayden Dalziel Words by Holly Munt If you haven’t yet heard the term ‘fandom’, you’ve most likely been living under a rock. Used in both on- and off-line contexts, fandom is kind of the millennial term for a fanclub - a group of people that flock together through a mutual adoration of something. The birth of the ‘fandom’ may be a logical step forward from our generation’s love of obsession (see Tumblr, Netflix); yet its modern metamorphosis has come with some… interesting caveats. Fans nowadays have access to internet, enabling them to plaster their fantasies across a million online communities in a seemingly endless variety of forms. Music is no exception - bands that use music as a fan outlet are relatively commonplace, particularly within fantasy fandoms. This Pelican correspondent set out on a fantastical quest to investigate three of the biggest fandom-related musical genres- just so you don’t have to. 1) Pottercore, or: I have no idea what the hell is going on!? The first genre I encountered was Pottercore, which is exactly what it sounds like: hardcore, packed full of Harry Potter references. If that’s something that piques your interest, there’s a Perth Pottercore band out there somewhere whose 2009 perthbands.com forum post states that ‘Wizards hats are a must, muggles need not apply.’ Internationally, most popular of these acts is Massacre on Privet Drive, the screamo group responsible for such hits as ‘Fluffy The Three Headed Brutalizer’. As a general rule, if you can’t read the metal band’s logo, you’ve gone too far down the rabbit hole, and holy shit, MoPD is no exception. I wish that I could talk about their musicianship and lyricism like in a standard review, but unfortunately I’ve got nothing. I literally couldn’t understand a thing besides the kinda disturbing Emma Watson samples that were mixed in amongst guttural screaming, rendering MoPD the less offensive Cannibal Corpse of the Pottercore world. You can only hope that this shit is satirical, because that’s the only way to justify how bizarre it is. 2) Wizard rock, or: alt-rock’s most magical nightmare Next, we move onto arguably the biggest musical genre in the Harry Potter fandom. Wizard rock is the relatively toned down alternative cousin of Pottercore - think acoustic guitars and harmonised vocals. When asked who founded the genre, most wizard rock aficionados point towards Harry and the Potters, a Massachusetts-based group with a passion for both Harry Potter and original band names. They boast a massive cult following, so I asked myself; how bad could something be if so many people love it? Alas, like similar cult sensations The Room and Sharknado, the answer is pretty bad. Upon first listen of ‘I Am A Wizard’ from Harry and the Potters’ eponymous debut album, the only real musical
reference that I could compare it with would be a very poorly mixed, bedroom demo of a 90s Britpop band, whose lead singer has higher ambitions than vocal talent. Fan favourite ‘Save Ginny Weasley’ was no better, offering up some lyrical masterpieces such as ‘We’ve got to save Ginny Weasley from the Basilisk/It’s been freaking out all the kids’. Watch out Damon Albarn- we’ve got a new razor-sharp lyricist on the prowl. 3) Middle-Earth music, or; every rock band’s secret indulgence Finally, one of the most well-known fantasy fandom genres is MiddleEarth music; an offshoot dedicated solely to the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Most of these bands are heavy metal based (a recurring subgenre of choice when channeling musical wizardry), and have a larger reach than Pottercore/wizard rock. Surprisingly, quite a few modern rock acts have listed Middle Earth as an influence - Rush’s ‘Rivendell’ and Pink Floyd’s ‘The Gnome’, along with most of the songs on Led Zeppelin IV, include subtle references. But if we’re focusing purely on blatant musical homages that aren’t to do with the late Christopher Lee and his heavy metal career, Finnish group Battlelore are the most popular go-tos. Their fifth album ranked 26th on the Finnish music charts (not exactly a hard task) and to be honest their songs aren’t bad; it’s just the sheer fucking nerd factor that is mind-blowing. Everything that Battlelore does seems to conform to the ‘fantasy nerd’ stereotype- performing in full Elvish dress and often singing in Tolkien’s invented language of Quenya. To put it lightly, the LotR fandom is pretty ride or die in terms of dedication to its source material. The universe of fandom-centric music is ever-expanding and I’m sure that eventually it will produce a gem, or at least something palatable. Pottercore, Wizard Rock and Elven inspired metal are by no means the end of the phenomenon, and if this brief summary hasn’t deadened your curiosity, feel free to delve deeper. If it’s a form of fantasy media with sufficient inertia, there’s probably a band singing about it. Very badly.
UWA FACT Say you’ll remember me, standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset, babe
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MUSIC REVIEWS The Weeknd – Beauty Behind The Madness (Republic Records/ XO) In the video for ‘I Can’t Feel My Face’, the bonafide summer #banger from the Weeknd, Abel Tesfaye is set on fire after his performance in a discotheque. It’s a heavy-handed metaphor: the Weeknd has broken through after Trilogy, and this Max Martin produced track is proof. But in many ways this represents the creative stagnation, lyrically if not musically, that stops the Beauty Behind The Madness from being a great album. The Weeknd’s production has moved notably towards pop, but alongside lyrics that border self-parody. The lush, Kanye-produced ‘Tell Your Friends’ is the kind of song you initially dismiss, then find yourself listening to on repeat four days later. But then there’s lyrics like ‘Everybody fucking, everybody fucking/pussy on the house, everybody fucking’. I’m not sure if I’ve just grown tired of the Weeknd’s schtick, but much of Beauty Behind The Madness feels rote, right down to the album’s title, an endless repackaging of the album’s themes, which amount to ‘I’m sad and do drugs because I’m sad and I’m very removed from the world and I fuck bitches’. Having ‘made it’, Tesfaye is no longer confined to his native Toronto (a sentiment he seems fond of expressing), but this robs the Weeknd of the claustrophobia, the perturbation, that pervaded (and made) his previous work. And while you could somewhat optimistically say that the misogyny in his earlier work was offset somewhat by the mutual debasement of both parties, here it is increasingly uncomfortable. I mean, ‘I’m just tryna get you out the friend zone/’cause you look even better than the photos’ conjures an interesting mental image of Abel’s famous hair covered by a huge fucking fedora. The fact that this couplet appears on ‘The Hills’, one of the album’s high points, speaks volumes. Thomas Rydll 7/10 Ought - Sun Coming Down (Constellation) Compared to last year’s inspiringly emotive More Than Any Other Day, Sun 34
Coming Down is a dusky and gnarly affair. It’s far less wr-ought with the type of (very good) dramatic post-rock introspection that songs like ‘Forgiveness’ and ‘Habit’ had in spades - this album embraces those dry observations about pedestrian life and molds them into a fast-breathing, frenetic life form that’s exciting just to watch doing its thing. These songs are erratic, with instruments constantly flying in all sorts of directions, each with its own knowing determination. Frontman Tim Beeler’s conversations with himself are so wordy and unpredictable in tone that it seems like the rest of the band are having fun just trying to keep up with every turn he takes, curling around and colouring his unique imagery wherever it feels right. But Beeler definitely knows the way - always looking dead ahead, sing-speaking with so much assurance you can trust he knows what he’s talking about well before the words have settled with you. Capturing the forever s-ought-after synergy that underlies this total looseness is where Sun Coming Down’s real success lies. The album’s centrepiece is ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’ which is simply the best krautrock song this side of Stereolab. An armada of gravelly little guitars all ride their own little rollercoasters around a sombre, patient bassline, alternately exploding apart in disagreement and falling back into total harmony between bars. Around it all is Beeler dishing out an array of words so enthralling that you can feel the light coming down over your shoulders as he’s right there asking you about it in that creepy, yet wise voice - “What is that sensation?” 9.5/10 Harry Manson FIDLAR – Too (Mom + Pop Music) Suburban white boys feel angst and write predictable album while maintaining enough hipster hype to deal weed on the side. 5/10 after railing some dexies Rae Twiss Dianas – Dianas (Independent) At last, a Dianas LP! With their dual/dueling vocals, weightless rhythm section and indelible hooks, Last.fm would probs drop
UWA FACT Much of UWA’s most prolific toilet graffiti was written by William Gibson
MUSIC
names like their American peers Grass Widow and the sadly nowfor-realz defunct Erase Errata. But this is maybe one of Perth’s few truly incomparable bands; there’s a languor and directness that’s like Anne Sexton by way of Gerard Manley Hopkins and the stop-hitting-yourself confessionalism of Liz Phair, the empty feeling at the bottom of a Slowdive song. The more you try and pin it down, the further their genius fans out. ‘Favourite Places’ bends through all the kinds of loneliness that comes from relationships, rather than the lack of them, and it’s probably the best thing that’s happened in WA since Prix D’Amour was demolished. ‘Mars One’ relates space opening up like being launched headlong into it, while ‘One Day’ blasts uncertainly into the ether. This record is proof that Caitlin Moloney is not only an insanely gifted songwriter, but one of the most melodic and three-dimensional guitarists around, opening up crannies and channels like she’s rerouting the town’s water supply around a mountain. For a record that dwells on the space between people, it’s one that forms a nook inside yourself almost instantly. And that space just grows. 8.5/10 Alex Griffin Battles - La Di Da Di (Warp/Dim Mak Records) Battles look like a bunch of dads. Like the much much much better dads of Foals. The fact that Foals were ever considered good math rock (or even good at all) evades me. Fuck Foals. Battles debuted in 2012 with the exceedingly colourful and fun ‘Gloss Drop’. An accessible, pop flavoured album with a collection of delightful featured vocalists. The band had managed to make a danceable candy pop math rock album without sacrificing the batshit crazy riffs, intricate rhythms and off kilter beats which defined them. Come September of 2015 and Battles are set to release their third full length album, La Di Da Di. This time they have taken a more electronic approach to production, packing the 12 tracks with synths, samples, bleeps and bloops. Battles’ fetish for loop pedals is given its usual thorough airing, but combined with the jittery electronics that dominate this album they wear a little thin. Opener ‘The Yabba’ starts slow and promising, but as the looped guitar and synths relentlessly drill into your ear drums, the whole thing becomes rather monotonous, and this is an issue that many of the tracks on La Di Da Di share. There’s a delicate line between groovy repetition and monotony here, and Battles seem to find themselves on the wrong side of it a little too often. Danceable numbers such as ‘Summer Simmer’, ‘Non Violence’, ‘Dot Com’ and ‘Flora > Fauna’ all showcase Battles’ talent for
writing math pop classics, but songs like ‘Cacio e Pepe’, ‘FF Bada’ and ‘Tricentennial’ become relentlessly familiar after a couple of listens. La Di Da Di is an interesting step for Battles sonically, and it’s great to see that the band aren’t interested in cloning their previous successes, but the pop influence and vocals that made Gloss Drop so enjoyable are sorely missed. 6/10 James Enderby Foals - What Went Down It’s pretty hard to deny that one of the most hyped albums of 2015 has been Foals’ What Went Down. The Oxford indie rockers announced the album’s release in June, and music outlets haven’t been able to stop circlejerking since. And for good reason. Foals’ first three albums have a) enjoyed insane critical acclaim, and b) collectively demonstrated a fascinating progressive change in sound, from the subversive indie of Antidotes to the more mature, stadium-bent Total Life Forever and Holy Fire. It’s just expected that everything Foals puts out is going to be at least better than average, right? Well, you can rest easy. What Went Down almost lives up to the hype. It’s a continuation of Yannis Philippakis and Co’s steady growth from a tiny garage indie band into a festival-headlining act; tracks such as ‘What Went Down’, ‘Birch Tree’ and lead single ‘Mountain at My Gates’ seem to be created just to be effortlessly belted to thousands in outdoor amphitheatres. Standout track ‘Albatross’ is dotted with thumping drums, cymbal crashes and arpeggiated guitars that hurdle towards a thundering climax of sound, tailormade for Glastonbury mud stomping. However, Foals’ increasing focus on stadium bangers comes at a cost. Some of What Went Down veers towards losing the distinctiveness that defined the group’s music. ‘Snake Oil’ is the most prominent of these: with a Royal Blood-esque bassline and fuzzy guitar, it comes off as too obviously rock for a band known for its indie roots. Luckily, these straightup-and-down tracks are the exception, rather than the rule, proving musical circlejerkers nearly right. In Foals we trust. 8/10 Bridget Rumball
UWA FACT The loud-speaker announcements at Student Central are made by a woman named Gladys, who lives in the building
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MATILDA BAY MUSINGS #7 - The Real Thing – ‘You To Me Are Everything’ (1976) with Tristan Fidler Sunshine over the water is a fantasy. I mean, it’s real, obviously, but the sight of it produces a fantasy in the mind’s eye of lazy, summer days. Much like a selection from 1080 6IX AM does. A forgotten sound emerging under a layer of static that convinces you further of its aged quality. Complex human experience synthesised into a cheesy three minute hook-laden confection. Paring back all that dullness and minutiae into a short burst of magic. A beautiful spring day, and we were sitting indoors for a meeting. Outside the window, Matilda Bay waited. Hours before, I’d watched the sun rise at 6.30am, way too early, but that’s the gift you receive when you wake up too early or you’re up before you ever expected to be up. The comfort of sleep is exchanged for the feeling of a strange new horizon. You steal a moment with the world before you head into the office, before you head into a lecture, before you have to give yourself over. If you can swing it, being somewhere a little bit early allows you such a sight. It’s another fantasy: imagine if life was like this all the time.
pumped out the rolled-down windows of the car, and he danced away in the street in the dead of night, twisting all the way back to his hotel. After that, that song, ‘You To Me Are Everything’ was touched with reminders of when fantasy intrudes into reality and a night opens up with surprise, just of good people dancing freely over a song that lays everything on its object of affection with melancholic, whole-hearted devotion: “So, now you’ve got the best of me, c’mon, and take
Imagine that. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, it’s all a matter of balance. If I’d listened to The Real Thing’s ‘You To Me Are Everything’ all the time, maybe its mid-1970s R’n’B effect would be dulled, regulated to being just another oldie. Sometimes a song you’ve heard forever only makes itself felt in the right circumstances, and then your relationship with it is forever changed. That song, ‘You To Me Are Everything’, was always a cheesy standard, the type someone once told me could unite a cruise-ship of party-goers into a guilt-free, celebratory frenzy. For me, it was wrapped up in a magical night when we were driving with a new acquaintance that my friends and I had just met, a great man named Costa. He was hearing the Mix CD of soft serve I was playing in the car and laughed, “This is taking me back!” When we dropped him off to his hotel, ‘The Real Thing’ came on, and this great man named Costa confused it for Barry White. It didn’t matter that he got it wrong. He let the music move him as it 36
UWA FACT Delta Goodrem is the VC’s second cousin
the rest of me, oh baby.” As the workaday world shuffles along, the echoes of such a tune over such a sight like Matilda Bay, of a patchwork fantasy of a party-boat grooving along in the waves, all your friends, old and new unabashedly submitting to the sing-along, to the stupid moves, to the everything. Well, it relieves as much as it hurts that life is not like this all the time. But when it is, when it is… words cannot express how much it means to me. Oh baby.
LITERATURE
BOOK REVIEWS Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck Brett Morgen with Richard Bienstock
Tower of Thorns: A Blackthorn & Grim Novel Juliet Marillier
This is the accompanying coffee-table book to the most recent Kurt Cobain biopic of the same title, and that a film about Cobain has spawned a coffee-table book should tell you all you need to know about it. But just in case you’re inclined to spend fifty bucks on a Nirvana conversation piece, let’s look closer.
In a genre that largely concerns itself with sweeping epics and grandiose gestures, it’s nice to read a fantasy novel that is CHILL. Set in medieval Ireland, Tower of Thorns storytelling is grounded in a sort of low-key historical realism, and its fantasy is familiar more from its nearness to the fairy stories of childhood than the dragons and sorcery of modern epics.
Montage Of Heck, though it was a portrait of the myth rather than the man, was glorious. Lavishly animated and assembled with intimate words from Cobain’s closest, it did exactly what it set out to do: paint a victim as a martyr, a sad sensitive jesus-man as the godchild walking. It was an assault of image, sound and trigger. It’s a powerful film. And a lie, yeah. But powerful nonetheless. Cobain: Montage Of Heck, Based On The Acclaimed Documentary Film on the other hand, well. Straight off the bat you suspect that last sentence was part of the cover before the film was even released. Further suspicion comes in the form of the promotional blurb: “… It is the ultimate book for fans of Nirvana, whose popularity continues to endure, and of Kurt, who remains a fascinating icon of popular culture…” It appears the PR department never heard of either Nirvana or Cobain, raising further questions, but more importantly let’s recall that Kurt Cobain’s diaries were published in 2002. But no, this selfrighteous spin-off is the ultimate book. Yeah, I see it, sure. Let that set the tone. Cobain: Montage Of Heck is a wreck, a mismatched assembly of stills from the film interspaced with the interviews Morgen took – verbatim. Every clumsy word, edited with a heavy-hand into vague comprehension with plenty of ‘he [Kurt]’s and [explanatory fill-in]s. Worst of all, it pulls down the curtains on the film to a sad man with a crippling drug addiction, shuddering through their loved ones’ words with deliberate ignorance and manipulation. Take the man off a cross and he’s just a corpse. This book is a cadaver at best. Best bit: The introduction by Morgen. Acknowledgement of Tobi Vail’s part of Cobain’s life, absent from the film Worst bit: High-res images of warped foetuses care of the artist. Interviews with Cobain’s first girlfriend Tracy Marander, who deserved better 0.5/5
Much of its charm comes from the strength of the series’ titular characters Blackthorn and Grim, who, after escaping from prison together in the first novel, have established themselves as platonic life partners. Blackthorn is a tough-as-nails Wise Woman and paranormal troubleshooter, an 8th century Dean Winchester who is tasked with freeing a small fiefdom from the curse laid down by a creature that screams in a nearby tower. Grim is her self-appointed protector, handling all the nitty-gritty cooking/cleaning/occasional violence of the job whilst she uses her book-learnin’. Both these characters are characterised wonderfully, and given distinctive narrative voices by Marillier, and the strength of their platonic (OR IS IT???) relationship is one of the most rewarding parts of the novel, although the OR IS IT??? is, perhaps, a bit overdone. Unfortunately, getting to the point where the story of these two protagonists really grips you is a big of a hard slog. The first half of this novel really feels like a bit of a non-event, and though it was ultimately rewarding I feel like I may not have made it to the engrossing second half had this review not obligated me. I suppose this is just the flipside to the Marillier’s aforementioned wonderful low-key quality - it would be foolish of me to expect her to provide the best of both worlds - but it diminishes the complete experience of the novel. Tower of Thorns comes highly recommended - just keep in mind that the thrills don’t kick in immediately. Best Bit: Grim, he’s a hell cool guy Worst Bit: Pacing! 7.5/10 Hugh Manning is going to go tackle his Save The Children box now
Blindsided Michael Lynagh with Mark Eglinton Unlike the voluminous tomes ceremonially churned out by former Australian cricket captains, Ex-Australian Rugby Union captain and record point-scorer Michael Lynagh’s autobiography forgoes the detail of many sporting memoirs to focus almost entirely on its subject’s psychology. Blindsided is unusual in a few ways. Firstly, while its first two-thirds are rote pop-psychology and self-reflection, the last third covers Lynagh’s recovery from a major stroke he suffered at 48. Indeed, much of the impetus for the book is Lynagh’s commendable desire to raise awareness for stroke victims, with a three page guide to the illness closing the book. Secondly, while most of the book is written in Lynagh’s voice, interviews with Lynagh’s friends, family, teammates, coaches, opponents and even his doctor are interspersed throughout. Lynagh’s narration is common-place, and though the interviews add depth, some of the interviewees, like Alan Jones and Nick Farr-Jones, are more engaging than Lynagh himself. Thirdly, the memoir seems to be more concerned with presenting the personality of its subject rather than a chronology of his playing career. Lynagh’s long ruminations on the anxiety caused by his burden as the Wallaby kicker are a case-in-point. Lynagh’s departure from chronology leads to some bizarre editorial choices. For example, the 1984 Grand Slam Tour is almost entirely absent from Blindsided, despite being Lynagh’s coming-out party as a national team star. It might be that ghostwriter Mark Eglinton isn’t entirely suited to compile a book that largely focuses on sport. He started out as a heavy-metal reviewer at The Quietus, which he parlayed into a career as a ghostwriter for Metallica’s James Hetfield among others. As Lynagh notes, Eglinton isn’t a rugby journalist, and Blindsided seems to have lost some grip on that context. The result is a memoir that will be of interest to fans, but unlikely to enter the canon of great sports literature. Best bit: Lynagh’s lucid commentary on both his anxiety and his stroke Worst bit: The horror of reading anything in Alan Jones’ voice 3/5 stars
Richard Moore is easily moved by dead rockstars
Josh Chiat has the body of a scrum-half with the pace of a prop, a lethal combination
UWA FACT Don’t worry, Guild Election candidates. Kim Beazley never won a student election either #inspo
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LITERATURE
Fantasising About Diversity Words and Art by Miriam Crandell When I heard the theme for this month’s Pelican issue I must admit I got a little (read: very) excited, because fantasy is kind of my special interest. My ideas ranged from writing about Why Hufflepuff is the Best Hogwarts House, to letting loose to the world that really cringey but brilliant Eleventh Doctor/Rory slash fanfic I wrote in 2012. In the end I decided to be realistic and write something that would appeal to a wider audience than just myself – which is the lack of diversity in entertainment media and why the Young Adult fantasy genre in particular has no excuses for Writing Everyone As White. Lately on Tumblr (and I assume the wider internet) there’s been a movement towards interpreting some of the Harry Potter characters as non-white – most commonly, Harry as part South Asian and Hermione as black. And it’s not just fan artists playing with the designs once or twice as a fresh idea – many draw them as non-white all the time now. There’s even a Zine featuring characters both described in the books or imagined by fans as non-white (see pocharrypotterzine.tumblr.com). What the Harry Potter fandom has found is that in some ways ‘racebending’ Harry and Hermione just makes so much sense (Hermione’s ‘bushy’ hair!) and in other ways it breaks down racial typecasting. It’s great that people are taking it into their own hands to remedy the lack of diversity by reinterpreting old favourites, but it’d be even greater for media to have more diversity in the first place. Diversity should be present in all media, and I really don’t think there are any excuses for excluding minority identities from existing in narratives and consistently representing heroes as white/cisgender/straight/able-bodied. Sure, people love to cite reasons like ‘historical accuracy’ for pasty casts of characters, which itself is quite the cultural construction (read: bullshit), but there’s one genre of fiction that I think is free from all the lame excuses for exclusivity. That genre is fantasy.
from the Diversity In YA website, fantasy has great potential for ‘Gay Without the Gay Angst.’ To use the example of queerness, while narratives where characters face discrimination and come to terms with their identity (or not) are significant, it can be demoralising if this is the only frame queerness is presented in. Though all genres should do this anyway, fantasy is in the perfect position to have narratives with central queer characters without the conflict being about their queerness. It’s refreshing and validating to read a book about two Asian girls who fall in love during a quest to save their kingdom, without struggling against discrimination and internalised homophobia. (The book exists and it’s called Huntress by Malinda Lo. You’re welcome.) Instead of making queerness a struggle, books like Huntress make it a positive identity. The potential for framing minority statuses in a positive light is why it’s important for Young Adult fantasy in particular to be diverse. Fantasy is often understood as a form of escapism, where readers can imagine themselves into their favourite fantasy worlds. But, to steal another article title (this time from Huffington Post), ‘It’s Hard to Be What You Can’t See.’ For kids and teens to see someone like them represented as a hero sends the message that they have the potential to be heroes too. The first African American woman in space, Mae Jemison, was inspired as a child by Lieutenant Uhura, a black female character in the Star Trek series. Not only is it important for minority youth to see themselves reflected in media, but for all kids and teens to learn how to relate to and empathise with people who are different to themselves. Through fantasy fiction, we might just be able to imagine a better, more diverse world into existence.
Now, I know that people whine about supposed ‘historical accuracy’, especially when it comes to ‘medieval’ fantasy. But didn’t anyone get the memo? Hint: it’s in the name. The whole point of fantasy is to construct an altered version of reality – whether this is by changing some fundamental truth in our world (think the existence of magic in Harry Potter) or by constructing a totally new one (think Middle Earth). Unfortunately, the majority of fantasy fiction reproduces oppressive real world hierarchies and social norms when it comes to world building. Yet as a genre that goes out of its way to imagine a world different to our own, there’s no valid reason not to have more diverse characters. How is it any more ‘accurate’ to have dragons in fantasy than to have a black lesbian protagonist? By not needing to conform to reality, fantasy offers the potential to imagine a world that is better than our own. This provides the prospect of including oppressed groups without portraying them as oppressed in the fantasy world. To steal an article title 38
UWA FACT Brenda Walker would like to have you over for book club and nibbly bits
LITERATURE
My Hugo Must Be Acknowledged Words by Thomas Rossiter Art by Aakanksha Sharma The Hugo and Nebula awards for Sci-Fi and Fantasy are held annually, open to the public and decided upon by popular vote. Past winners include Heinlein, Phillip K. Dick, Frank Herbert and Ursula K. Le Guin. Basically, the biggest of the big names. But over the past three years, a voting bloc has emerged. Calling themselves the “Sad Puppies,” these fans caused an uproar when they proclaimed their desire to reclaim the Hugos from what they view as the “literary elite.” The Puppies argue that recent winners, such as 2014’s Best Novel winner, Ancillary Justice (in this, Anne Leckie’s main character cannot differentiate between genders, and defaults to the feminine as a result, resulting in a deconstruction of gender and personal identity as the novel continues) have been the benefit of “tokenism” and “affirmative action,” such that the genre has become dominated by ‘Social Justice Warriors.’ One of the founding members of this movement, Brad Torgersen, even couches his criticism in terms of a class divide: ‘[On the Sad Puppies movement] it was a chance for the field’s betters to hear from the peasants. For the proles to shout at the bosses. For the taste-makers and the dwellers-behind-curtains to have their cages rattled.’ Reading more of Torgensen’s blog, it’s easy to see that he thinks of himself as a ‘working class everyman standing up for what’s right’ (his website banner even says “Brad Torgensen Blue Collar Spec Fic”). Despite its prestige, the Hugo votes are drawn from a small pool, as a voter must have a paid membership to WorldCon (the event at which the Hugos are announced). The total number of Hugo nomination votes didn’t quite reach two thousand, and as such, a small number of determined voters were easily able to ensure that the books they chose were nominated. Some of these chosen authors, including Marko Kloos and Annie Bellet, withdrew their names from the running after learning that their nominations were the result of the Puppies’ voting bloc. When accused of manipulation, Puppy supporters were quick to point out that authors already habitually campaign for votes . After all, the Hugos have always been a test of popularity (Orson Scott Card was great at the canvassing routine). They claimed to merely be organising fans whose voices are usually unheard. In this, they were successful: this year, the Puppy nominees swept the board; of 90 nominations, 70 were Puppyapproved candidates.
maleness aside, the Puppies’ cause was not helped by its alliance with the self-described Libertarian and probable crazy person Vox Day. Day set up an allied group, under the name “Rabid Puppies,” which, whilst similar, quickly distinguished themselves from their Sad Puppy brethren through their use of much harsher invective language and general troll-like behaviour. Day mobilised his Rabid Puppy supporters, ensuring that many of the Hugo nominations went to texts that his publishing house, Castalia House, were printing. It was George R. R. Martin who drew major fan attention to this, urging people to not vote for, as he called them, ‘assholes.’ Martin went on to describe this year’s ballot as ‘the weakest Hugo ballot in recent memory, thanks to the Puppy slates.’ Many wondered if these fans and authors are motivated by bitterness, and many others blame the ‘SJWs’ or liberal elite for their own failure to ever receive a Hugo. One of the leaders of the movement, Larry Correia, suggested and had his own name placed on the ‘Puppyapproved’ nomination list. A move which can be called opportunistic, at best. This controversy led to the largest number of votes ever received by the awards committee (just over five thousand). Not one of the Puppies’ nominees received an award. Many of the categories were resolved with “No Award” where there was no alternative to a Puppy-approved candidate. The Puppies have on numerous occasions stated that their goal is to make the Hugos as democratic as possible, so their anger now that their nominees have lost seems hypocritical to say the least. It’s hard not to feel schadenfreude at their total defeat. Unfortunately, plans have already been placed by Puppy organisers to do the same thing at next year’s Hugos. For me, the most upsetting part of this whole situation is the way that their actions have edged out fan-favourite authors and replaced them with members of their own movement. It enrages me that they can’t understand or won’t even try to read novels because of their supposed politics. Combine that with the fact most of the authors these people seem to have a problem with are women or people of color, and we begin to see a disturbing, but if we’re honest not wholly unexpected, trend.
Disturbing links to the Gamergate movement, and near total whiteUWA FACT When Subway opens, the Ref will be renamed Matt McKenzie Hall
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ARTS
Comin’ Down the Mountain Interview by Pema Monaghan
PM: So how do you fit in at Paper Mountain? CB: I have been a studio artist at Paper Mountain since early 2014, I am now also a Creative Associate/Volunteers Coordinator. So I contribute to the running of our beloved Paper Mountain! PM: Can you explain the ethos of Paper Mountain? Does it operate as a sort of collective? CB: Paper Mountain is an artist run initiative, this means that it is run completely by artists for artists. We focus on providing an exhibition space that is affordable and can accommodate the work of emerging artists, or works from more established artists that might not fit into a commercial gallery context. Paper Mountain is a multi disciplinary space, meaning we have a range of creative people working in the studios and The Common Room (which is a membership based co-working space). All sorts of events happen at Paper Mountain - exhibitions, performances, workshops, poetry reading, book launches, just about anything creative really! Paper Mountain is not a collective as such, but definitely we are a community based on mutual support and sharing. PM: Do the artists working at Paper Mountain share their work with one another? CB: Yes, the studios and Common Room are big open spaces so we are always seeing what each other do and this environment definitely encourages conversation and feedback.
CB: Community is very important to me and my art practice. I am interested in collective production and how art, craft and the internet (in particular social media) can be used to connect people in meaningful ways. Meaningful connection I identify as; engagement, presence, empathy and intimacy. I want to stimulate discussion about the ways the Internet is changing our perception and concern for privacy and intimacy. In particular, what are we prepared to give for connection to each other via the commodification of our personal data. I think these are the kind of issues that need to be dealt with through community dialogue. I value community because connection with others and engagement with the world, I believe, lead to individual happiness and empowerment. PM: Much of your work involves embroidery, which has traditionally been considered a “women’s craft” rather than a high art form. Second-wave feminist artists often utilised such forms to challenge established hierarchies, do you see yourself as part of this tradition? CB: Definitely, for my last project #RT_ samplr, I chose to use cross-stitch because it is a familiar unintimidating craft. I wanted people to feel like they could contribute to an art project without necessarily identifying themselves as an artist. I was also using Twitter a social media platform often associated with banal and egocentric postings, with the view to subvert its intended use.
#RT_samplr participants were invited to choose a tweet from the social network Twitter and turn it into a cross-stitch sampler. This could be completed at home or in workshops and forums. The completed samplers were photographed and taken back into Twitter by tweeting the images back to the original tweeter, thus creating a kind of manual re-tweet. During forums and workshops various topical issues relating to internet communication and connectivity such as privacy and social connection/separation were discussed. Participants contributed their thoughts and feelings with each other while stitching their chosen tweet, slowing down the immediacy of instant messaging. PM: Is your art political? CB: Yes, I am a believer in “the personal is political” sentiment. PM: You’ve recently come back from an artist’s residency at the Taipei Artist Village (TAV). What were you working on there? CB: In Taipei I worked on the #RT_samplr project. There was an exhibition and a book produced for the project while I was there. Taipei was an amazing experience, there is some really great things happening in the arts there! I highly recommend visiting Taipei! I also had a lot of interest and participation in #RT_samplr. I don’t think the project would be as successful as it has been without the amazing people in Taipei who joined the project or the staff at TAV who supported the workshops, exhibition and book release.
We have also started to meet monthly for a kind of Show & Tell session so that everyone including our volunteer team has the opportunity to share what they are doing and get peer support and feedback. PM: Collaboration is a key element in your work, what is it about community that you value? 40
UWA FACT We miss Bjorn Lomborg. Give him back, Flinders University
Photo by Pema Monaghan
Paper Mountain is a gallery and artist-run initiative that operates out of Northbridge. Pelican sent Pema Monaghan along to their annual art auction, where she had a bunch of fun and talked to Creative Associate Claire Bushby a bit about her work and process.
Arts Reviews
ARTS
ELISE BLUMANN: AN ÉMIGRÉ ARTIST IN PERTH, 1938-1948 (EXHIBITION) Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery Review by Gabby Loo It had been a long day when I decided to take a stroll through Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, and oblivious me was not cluedin to the fact that these paintings depicted our very own city. I was only craving some fine art, ya know? Naturally, my weary eyes wanted to ease into the exhibition with a viewing of The Sunny South West (1930). This short film primed me with a solid feel for the context of Elise Blumann’s works, and the archived documentation of old-timey Perth hit a soft spot. German born artist, Elise Blumann (1897-1990), escaped the rise of Nazi Germany in 1937 to find refuge in Nedlands, WA where she envisioned the Western Australian landscape through fresh European eyes. The Dr Harold Schenberg Art Centre glorifies Blumann’s most enigmatic paintings of vibrancy and ever enduring Australian sun with frames that act to complement the artworks, contributing to their raw and poignant aesthetic. Blumann’s works contain a dramatic modernist flare gained first hand from German Expressionists, Kathe Kollwitz and Max Liebermann.
On the Swan, Morning Sun (1945) was a painting that particularly stood out. The transition from Blumann’s earlier works of nostalgic painterly portraits to intense abstractions of Perth’s atmosphere demonstrates her awareness as an avantgarde Germanic painter in a conservative city, unexposed to Modernist ideas. Blumann’s bold liquid brush strokes envision the feel of the glistening riverside, the Darling Ranges, the melaleuca trees. She soaks in Perth’s natural realm and unforgivingly reinvents it with emotion. Towards the end of my visit, it clicked how fitting the exhibition title is. Sometimes it takes a foreign interpretation, or in this case, a European artistic spark to grow your appreciation for all of these Western Australian characteristics that really are timelessly alluring.
BETWEEN SOLAR SYSTEMS (THEATRE) The Blue Room Theatre Review by Dan Werndly Between Solar Systems, a production devised and directed by Scott McArdle, is a foray into science-fiction on stage that delivers hard-hitting polythematic concepts. At its heart, the play is a coming of age story, in which the protagonist sheds familial binds and comes to realise that his infallible guardian and parent, Vi, is not perfect. The title says it all: Vincent is caught between safety and innocence, the comfort of his childhood, and his desire to break away and form his own identity. Struggling to come to terms with this fact, Vi and the world she has created begin to fall apart, begin to ‘reach catastrophic failure’. He comes to realise that the people who care for him are just trying to keep a sinking ship afloat. This realisation leads to his metamorphosis; a literal transition of identity from Vincent to William.
adulthood.The scenography is versatile, and although it doesn’t change at all throughout the play it serves as a canvas for the impressive projective displays. Vi is only ever seen through computer screens, and this integration of multimedia is pulled off with aplomb.
Seemingly unimportant pieces of information revealed in the first ten minutes reveal the arch of the story, but only towards the end of the play do the puzzle pieces all fall into place. At 75 minutes long the action has to be efficient, and everything that’s included in the play conveys some message or reveals more about the relationship between a mother and son on the brink of
Put simply, Between Solar Systems looks science fiction, without being gaudy or over the top. It’s an example of what a science-fiction play can be if the focus is removed from the futuristic special effects and placed instead on dramatic effect. It creates a reality that we can relate to without being scared away, something we can act out and engage with.
The sound production occasionally felt disjointed from the action. When Vi was absent a light song would play, and for me this detracted from what was taking place on stage; breaking a sense of reality that the rest of the play maintained. The soundscapes produced for off-stage events were great though, creating a deeper setting beyond that which we could see.
UWA FACT They serve normal guild food in the University Club. The academics are just too pissed to notice
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LIFE ST YLE
LUCKY CHAN’S LAUNDRY AND NOODLEBAR 311 William St, Northbridge Review by Prema Arasu The extremely average and uninspired fare of The Moon Café has been the only late-night option in Northbridge for far, far too long. From the team behind The Classroom and Cocktail Gastronomy, Lucky Chan’s is open from noon until 2am and serves a variety of food which I can only describe as Modern Australian Asian Fusion, which has certainly become a cuisine in its own right. The décor is on point with a grungy laundromat hiding three levels including a rooftop bar. Expect to see a line on Friday and Saturday nights. Don’t expect anything traditional: Lucky Chan’s attitude towards food, and indeed its entire business model, is entirely postmodern. Sadly this means I can never take my grandma there because she’d have a heart attack. Lucky Chan’s dishes are far more than a clumsy assortment of ingredients that white people call “Asian”. Cantonese, Japanese, Szechuan and Southeast Asian elements are brought together harmoniously (for the most part) in a variety of shared plates, noodle bowls and desserts.
The menu features bao with miso glazed lamb, satay tofu and enoki. The buttermilk ramen chicken bao with sriracha mayo ($7ea) is especially good. There’s also a decent choice of vegetarian and gluten free options. The Shoyu ramen ($14.90) has all the right elements – egg, nori, fishcake with the little pink swirl. Noodle game is strong but the soup lacks the depth of flavour required for the perfect bowl of ramen. The bar menu includes sake and Japanese whiskies, and Asahi “Super Dry” ($10.50) is on tap. They stock my personal choice of cider, Kirin Fuji Apple ($16). The Lychee Mojito Bubble Tea ($18) is made with Havana Club 3-year-old rum and comes in a plastic bubble tea cup with fruit pearls and an oversized straw. It’s deliciously fresh and kitsch. Food – 3.5/5 Bar – 4/5 Ambience – 5/5
LIFE ST YLE
Binge Watching: Television and Escapism Words by Patrick Bendall Art by Aakanksha Sharma Watching television doesn’t mean what it used to. With faster internet speeds and new methods of distribution, watching TV can be lying in bed with a laptop watching a season, watching a show on your phone on a long train trip or catching up on a web only animated series. We have become curators of our viewing. It’s probably still a generational thing, but today people are turning away from commercial saturated television and watching whole seasons of shows at a time. It’s a new Golden Age of television. Shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad and companies like HBO and Netflix have popularised a form of narrative told over whole seasons and created a mode of distribution that has allowed for a flourishing of creativity with increased exploration of non-mainstream ideas. Netflix head of content Ted Sarandos sums it up well: “…binge-watching fundamentally changes the basic unit of cinematic storytelling from the episode (30 to 60 minutes) or film (90 to 180 minutes) to the season, which can run well into the hundreds of minutes. And storytellers aren’t just adjusting to this; they’re increasingly catering to it, telling longer and longer stories.” Ever since Twin Peaks (David Lynch, 1990), directors and writers have been exploring the potential of television for the length of time in which they engage their audiences. Nowadays, thanks to streaming services and online distribution platforms, the volume of shows created means more untried shows are produced than ever before. Cable companies are treating whole seasons as pilots for a project. Television shows are permeating pop culture more than ever before. Three years ago, I was surprised to hear a lecturer talking about Game of Thrones; now it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t heard of Walter White. ***
we spend longer with a television character than a film character, often the connections seem more personal. *** Escapism is the tendency to seek distraction, to move above the realm of the day-to-day. We all have to take downtime and get away from whatever it is that takes up the majority of our days; it’s good for creativity and sanity. But overindulging in any form of escapism can make it harder to enact change in the rest of our lives. This is the paradox created by our current generation of television watchers. In some ways we have become more active in exerting control over what we watch and when we watch it, but in many ways we have become more passive. Netflix is set up for watching multiple episodes at a time; one episode leads into another and we have to intervene to shut it off. Facebook autoplays videos, then counts views at the three second mark. These days even YouTube autoloads its suggested content. Companies create algorithms that will suggest shows based on our preferences, so we don’t have to go through the laborious task of deciding what to watch. Even though in some ways this ‘Golden Age’ has given us more choice and control, it also comes with an element of increased passiveness. The desire to escape reality is not new. People have been escaping into stories since time immemorial. Shows such as The Wire have been compared to the works of Charles Dickens, who published most of his stories in serialised columns before they appeared as novels. Dickens stories were filled with minor characters and were meant to be popular entertainment, yet they didn’t stop the Victorians from getting on with the Industrial Revolution. The desire to escape is perfectly normal, but we each have to navigate a balance, between mindful, active watching and mind numbing content consumption. It is an essential part of living now.
I’m watching a show called Bored to Death with Jason Schwartzman at the moment. It’s an entertaining comedy probably not the greatest show ever created, but something about it seems to fit the zeitgeist. I’m a big Wes Anderson fan, and Schwartzman is just brilliant as Jonathan Ames, a struggling novelist with a dependence on white wine and a penchant for selfdeprecating musings (“I’m not good with anger, I go straight to depression”). While I’ve been watching it, two of my housemates have been discussing The Wire, a show widely described to be one of the catalysts for our current “Golden Age” of television. Talking about a TV series is fashionable, and discovering that someone else watches your favourite niche sketch comedy has become a real indicator of personality. Having good taste in TV, whatever that may be, is a valued quality. Why is it so much easier to watch four 30 minute episodes than it is to sit and watch a movie? Shows are broken down into a digestible format, appropriate for our short-attention spanned public. People watch whole seasons over short periods of time, and the content creators have recognised this as a valid business strategy. Big shows get massive audiences to rival major movies, and because 43
LIFE ST YLE
Do I Make Children Cry? The Varying Degrees of Despair Induced By Perth Buskers Words by Bella Morris Art by Laura Wells The enormous power of the busker to influence one’s mood became apparent to me on a Thursday afternoon in March. I was sitting sipping a badly made iced coffee and staring across the cultural centre. In front of the once-fountain-now-imitationlake, and in the shadow of that terrifying statue, stood a man in a motorcycle helmet, thrusting jerkily. He was requesting money in exchange for this act. He wasn’t getting any. He gesticulated wildly at passersby, his case empty save for tencent pieces. People would glance and then look quickly away. There was a man lugging a large camera (a tourist perhaps) and dragging a small girl by the hand. He brought the girl up to the man in the helmet (who by this time, I had decided, was trying to imitate a robot) and pointed, smiling. Robot man pointed his pot belly at her, in a friendly gesture, and she burst into tears. I burst into tears. The tourist picked up his daughter and carried her away, screaming, photo opportunity ruined. Robot man stood, taken aback for a moment, before returning to his jerky thrusts, if a little less enthusiastically. I had a wild thought about his family: I wondered if those ten-cent coins were his - people don’t pay for this. Can he pay his rent? Can he feel the animosity of passersby? Is his helmet filled with the suffocating fog of failure? Can he pay his rent? How awful! How awful to be the man in the street making children cry! Are there buskers out there, in this vast booming metropolis, who do any better? Take the sound manipulator man, for example, who takes his stage about three metres away. Under the cloak of night he beeps grotesquely on his sound manipulation machine. Helmeted and shiny upon his pedestal, he’s the nighttime, coked-up, deckedout reflection of robot man’s jaded daylight desaturation. Those who can bear to be near his hideous, mechanical drone seem to toss their coins in the hope that he’ll stop screeching. This audacity is indeed more lucrative than Robot Man’s subdued (some might say resigned) gyrations. For these two mechanical men, the helmets provide a semblance
of protection from the waves of sneering hatred - but what of the others? Those who bravely don’t hide their faces? Case in point, what of the throngs of microphoned starlets with pre-recorded accompaniments and pre-written banter, orated loudly to a cheering crowd of no one. Watch their bewildered eyes dart around - there’s no one to make contact with, how can an artist relate? There’s no hope for authenticity when you’re repeating empty thank yous rehearsed in front of your bedroom mirror to audiences who rush past wincing. We may never know exactly to whom these buskers are busking, probably to anyone who’ll listen, their faces contorted with naked desperation. “I’m going to sing some Norah Jones now. Thank you so much.” The singstars armed with acoustic guitars are usually less invasive with their misery. A lot of the time I don’t even think they know where they are. They seem to have strummed themselves into some kind of stupor; moaning and wheezing out their strangled Jeff Buckley covers. “Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah” - as if some combination of low-grade weed and the sheer force of repetition will bring them to enlightenment. The dreadlocks that hang from their pasty scalps certainly aren’t helping anybody. Sometimes when they remember where they are and that they’ve been there a while, they switch to ‘Yesterday’. Then you have the understudies of this motley crew; smaller, shorter and prepubescent. What of them? What of the boy standing outside of Target, recorder perched at the ready to wheeze and wail for loose change, rung one on the ladder to stardom. He has fantasies of the orchestral pit, and maybe later in his career breaking out of the more traditional constraints of classical music, and moving into the avant-garde. But he’s tone-deaf. And what of the girl standing across from him, outside the commonwealth bank? Violin at the ready for another day of virtuosic glory to ever-growing impromptu crowds, the malevolent shadow of her mother behind her, as she dreams of a simpler life as a dental assistant. Children never fail to induce despair. They remind you of the future. So have we arrived at a point where all buskers can only be seen to be joy-sucking, migraine-causing scourges on society? Yes, but for one instance. There once stood a man outside the old post office building in Forrest Chase. He had a feather in his hat, and a flute at his lips. His case wasn’t fuller than the other buskers, he wasn’t drawing a crowd, but he was dancing a jig and playing in tune. He had a nice jawline. He played without affectation or expectation. He played without heavy sound gear and a painstakingly made sign with his name and photograph on it. He didn’t sell CDs. He didn’t talk. He made my day.
44 UWA FACT A number of prominent Australian breakfast radio personalities matriculated from the UWA Law School
LIFE ST YLE
Apartments and Pelicans: Character Profiles Words by Ed Smith
GERALD PRESTON ACCOUNTANT LVL 4 Strength
5
Dexterity
8
Constitution
6
Intelligence
8
Wisdom
6
Charisma
4
Appearance
6
Perception
5 (+1)
Stamina
5
COMPLETED MAJOR QUESTS PRIMARY SCHOOL HIGH SCHOOL DRIVER’S LICENCE B.COM UNPAID INTERNSHIP
ARMOR CLASS 5 (+1)
Maths
5 (+1)
Small Talk
2
DEFENSIVE CLASS 3
Cycling
3
MYOB
5
ALIGNMENT: LAWFUL NEUTRAL
Driving
4
ABILITIES AND SPELLS TAX TIME: DURING MAY AND JUNE TASKS CAN BE COMPLETED AT 1.2X REGULAR SPEED EQUIPMENT CALCULATOR OF MATHS (MATHS +1) BICYCLE HELMET (AC+1) LINT ROLLER (SINGLE USE, +1 APPEARANCE) ADJUSTABLE BELT (PLAYER CAN EQUIP PANTS) PRESCRIPTION GLASSES (PERCEPTION +1)
JEMIMA GRIFFITHS UNEMPLOYED LVL 7 Strength
5
Dexterity
8
Constitution
9
Intelligence
6
Wisdom
7
Charisma
5
Appearance
4
Perception
4
Stamina
6
ARMOR CLASS 3
Procrastination
9
Cooking
5
DEFENSIVE CLASS 5
Bullshitting
4
Patience
3
ALIGNMENT: CHAOTIC NEUTRAL
Untangling Cords
4
ABILITIES AND SPELLS IRON CONSTITUTION: EXTRA DEFENC ROLL AGAINST FOOD POISONING. NETFLIX BINGE: PLAYER CAN FORGO SLEEP WHILE WATCHING TV.
COMPLETED MAJOR QUESTS PRIMARY SCHOOL HIGH SCHOOL B.A DAVID ATTENBOROUGH MARATHON
EQUIPMENT BROKEN TV REMOTE EMPTY GOON BAG (LET’S PLAYER SLEEP IN ANY LOCATION) SUNGLASSES (+1 DEFENCE AGAINST SUNLIGHT) EXPIRED DOMINOS VOUCHER UGG BOOTS (+1 DEFENSE AGAINST COLD)
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RETRO PELI Pelican pays tribute to Geoffrey Bolton for his student press legacy. From 1950, this is the last guild elections Bolton covered as editor.
FEATURE
‘Flames to dust/lovers to friends/why do all good things come to an end?’ – Nelly Furtado Can you believe it? It’s time to say goodbye to Pelican 2015. We started with the firsts issue and, um, we’re finishing with the LAST issue. We tried, but the theme tank has run well and truly dry. This one’s all about finiteness, finality, and, most importantly, the friends (and enemies) we made along the way. The LAST issue is your LAST opportunity to contribute to the 86th volume of Pelican. It’s also your LAST chance to get involved in one of Pelican’s longest running and most disgusting traditions. If you contributed to Pelican this year, you are encouraged to take a naked pic to be featured in our much-feared naked contributor spread. Don’t you dare make it sexy - we want your weird pale body as awkwardly and/or hilariously positioned as possible. You can bare as many or as few naughty bits as you please. If we all try really hard, we can make it into the West’s Inside Cover. Come and have a farewell beer with us any time this month. We’re always in the office (above the Ref), usually watching Vines or reading Gawker. Skip your class and hang out with the Pelican team. Some of us are alright, no matter what you heard. You can also get in touch via pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au, or follow us on Instagram and Twitter (@pelicanmagazine).
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