Pelican Ed 4 Vol 83

VOL 83 EDITION 4

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Contents

03

BREAKFAST IS THE NEW DINNER I’ve finally buckled and appointed Yvonne ‘Pelican Food-Writer’. In her first official column she takes a look at Perth’s best and blurst breakfasts by

Y v onne B uresch

12

18

MRNY FOR

REBUILDING

P R E S I D E N T

THE TITANIC

Pelican prepares for the hellish

We’ve designed a scale model of Australia’s Titanic II so that Clive Palmer doesn’t have to! No Waynes Allowed

nightmare of Guild Elections by officially

supporting

the

only

worthwhile candidate: Marnie Allen by

b

RICHARD FERGUSON

22

y

P

E

L

I

C

A

N

24

POKÉ FACE Tony

Montana

high-rolling trader his b y

INSIDE 05 ED/PREZ 06 SPORTS SCIENCE: CRAIG THOMSON 14 HIGH-BRIDGE: MARIJUANA LAWS 16 UNSINKABLE: WHY CRUISE IS A TITANIC FAILURE 20 FAIR TRADE?

in

house

once

life

of

lived a

Mandurah. of

cards

the

Pokémon fell

Then down

J akub

dammer

26 DATING W/ MARNIE: DON’T DO PORN

POLITICS

MUSIC

FILM

BOOKS

ARTS

07 ZEITGEIST: EU

34 REVIEWS

38 REVIEWS

27 HY-BREEDING: THE SUPERIOR GENOME IS MIXED!

08 LISA SCAFFIDI: QUEEN OF PERTH

30 frosty’s favourites: pelican’s top ten albums for winter

37 a very literate year: books becoming films at the end of culture

40 evernight: Claudia Gray

44 REVIEW: wa ballet

28 JOCK JAM: WTF IS SLAMBALL? 29 WHAT’S HAPPENING? 46 HOWL

10 nineties nostalgia: Why Hillary is cooler than ever before

32 REVIEWS

42 Visual Novels 43 Stefen’s: The sci-fi Bookstore

45 Percival goes to shaun tan

Pelican vol 83 edition 4

The Hybrid

04

Contributors

CREDITS Josh Chiat // Editor Wayne Chandra // Design Alex Pond // Advertising Kate Prendergast // Cover Art Camden Watts// Art Director Alice Mepham // Film Editor Alex Griffin // Music Editor Lachlan Keeley // Arts Editor Yvonne Buresch // Books Editor Richard Ferguson // Politics Editor

Illustrators//

Sub-Editors //

Lauren Croser (Photography)

Yvonne Buresch

Matthew Goss

Simon Donnes

Grace McKie

Richard Ferguson

Deblina Mittra

Alex Griffin

Jo Ormiston

Lachlan Keeley

Alice Palmer

Alice Mepham

Arti Pillai

Lizzy Plus

Kate Prendergast

Gideon Sacks

Yashi Renoir Ena Tulic Camden Watts Wenny Yeo

Contributors// Marnie Allen

Zev Levi

Yvonne Buresch

Patrick Marlborough

Josh Chiat

Alice Mepham

Kevin Chiat

Deblina Mittra

Melissa Coci

Eunice Ong

What is this Kate creature? So the aliens asked when they abducted her.

Jakub Dammer

Lizzy Plus

Following their series of rigorous and entirely superfluous experiments (most

Simon Donnes

Tom Reynolds

of which involved dress-robes), they discovered how from an unprepossessing

Richard Ferguson

Gideon Sacks

bundle her cells happened to multiply – presumably of their own audacious

Alex Griffin

James Spinks

accord. Some cells specialised, others mooched about, many had no

Julian Hilton

Mark Tilly

particular inclination to live. Most mutated. Perhaps this indwelling molecular

Ben Johnston

Isaac Trichilo

corruption does something to explain Kate’s incorruptible fascination

Zoe Kilbourn

Connor Weightman

for all things slightly strange. Take for example the ethereal, black-laced

Alexandra Leonzini

Kate Prendergast

luminescence of Arthur Rackham’s illustrations, from which she derives her greatest artistic inspiration. However it must be said that there is nothing that affords her more wrenchingly euphoric relief than Oscar Wilde’s glib

The views expressed within are not the opinions of the UWA Student Guild or Pelican editorial staff, but of the individual writers and artists. And sometimes not even them.

We take no responsibility for any perceived offence caused by one of our writers. If you wish to contact us you can send an email to pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au.

declaration: “All art is Quite Useless”.

If you haven’t heard already, the new VC has suspended undergraduate orientation camps, pending a review. I know plenty of people who’ve made many friends on camps, and I’ve always felt that University should be a collection of memories, something to look back on when you’re working 50 hour weeks auditing companies that can’t even keep their petty cash receipts in order.

Prezitorial Welcome to another issue of Pelican!

It’s been an exciting month for me, and also highly unproductive as I spent a lot of time writing responses to journalists. When I wasn’t doing that, I was on the couch in my office in the foetal position.

Lessons I’ve learnt this month: 1.

Someone will always be upset, no matter what course of action you take, and they’ll probably yell at you,

2.

Journalists are really unfriendly,

Having said that, the alleged behaviour is very concerning, so this will be a good opportunity to make some positive changes to the running of camps. We’ve been working with the University over the last few months to negotiate changes to the way camps are run, and we’ll continue this process in coming months.

I’d like to stress that revenue from the Student Services and Amenities Fee is not used to fund the Student Guild O-Camp.

This fee has been another source of agony, given everyone seems to have an opinion on it, and no matter what their opinion is, people seem to assume I disagree with them. The fee was created under federal government legislation, the HESA Act Amendment (2010), which means we have limited capacity to stop it being levied, but I don’t

Now I’m not gonna place any blame on the journalists. Despite the fact that no one from Pelican was contacted for permission, or notified that the piece was being butchered and reheated, it was, apparently, fair use under s42 of the Australian Copyright Act (1968). As long as they were reporting on ‘news’, or whatever iteration of ‘news’ The West Australian claims to produce.

editorial OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET Shalom, Like many of you over the last few weeks, I spent a few frantic days monitoring the situation with The West Australian. For those of you who aren’t aware, and many of you aren’t, I spent a number of days bemused by the use in one of their editions of a Pelican article from 1999. That’s right, from thirteen years ago.

Rather than the publication itself, the most irksome experience was contacting The West to make a complaint. Previously beholden to the Australian Press Council, Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media pulled all of their productions out of the Council due to new rules that would have bound companies to actually abide by Council regulations. How sad. Now The West’s complaints department consists of one person, the “People’s Editor”, who is on the company payroll and who interprets law and fact in whichever way is favourable to their employers.

While Messrs Steytler and Mcginty and Ms Edwards are all on an independent “Seven West Media Press Council” that deals with issues “quicker and more locally”, there is no illusion that all of them are pretty retired right now.

Bob Cronin, editor-in-chief of WAN, in reference to the recent Finkelstein report into newspapers insists that, “a news media visibly living up to its own standards and enforcing its own high ideals

support it, we will campaign against it, and we have also been in discussions with the University about it. (Note: This is a personal opinion held by Slurms, and does not reflect the opinions of all on Guild Council – Ed).

It can be really expensive being a student, particularly if you have a lot of textbooks to buy. So we’ve created a new online textbook exchange that you can use for free to buy and sell textbooks. Once you’ve found a book to buy (or a person to sell to), you can arrange a time and place to meet them on campus, saving on postage and handling too.

Finally, don’t forget that we have met with the University, and they’ve told us that you can get special consideration if issues with LMS or Echo have affected your ability to complete an assessment. Awesome!

Regards,

Mckenzie

is likely to increase rather than undermine public confidence and acceptance.”

I don’t know much about Mr Cronin and Mr Stokes’ high ideals, but it’s nice to see that they disappear when it’s late and their monkeys can’t work out how to fill a little white space.

NOW ENOUGH OF THAT I’ve been told by one lecturer here that my editorials are becoming pure ‘tude and that I need to tone it down a bit (THANKS FOR READING TAUEL). Right now I’ll just say that this edition is The Hybrid: A mesh of truth and fiction, science and religion, blinding knowledge and jaw-dropping stupidity. Check out the wonderful centrefold of Clive Palmer’s actual designs for the Titanic II and you’ll know what I’m talking about – we sell posters on request.

Shalom,

Josh (xoxo)

Editorials

Everybody likes to have a go at UWA students, despite the fact that (or maybe because of the fact) we’re so awesome.

05

3.

Wilkommen. This edition Zeitgeist answers the question ‘Has Greece doomed the European Union’ with an uber-efficient “nein!”

Tom Reynolds (@tsareynolds)

It’s not true to say the Germans are a humourless people.

It’s just that their idea of a good LOL is abysmal. The Germans insisted on very strict rules for nations using the Euro but never actually enforced them. The general outline of these rules being that all members should maintain a reasonable ratio of debt to the size of their economy and not go too crazy on their annual budget deficits. Basically everyone had to handle their public finances like the stability-obsessed Germans. The punchline to Germany’s ongoing joke being that nobody ever bothered to point out to the Greeks, Irish, Italians, Spanish or Portuguese that there was a corrupt elephant in the room lying about his balance sheet. That’s German humour for you. Terrible.

The EU was initiated as a noble-minded treaty intended to forge peace through the economic interdependency of France and Germany. Not a bad idea, considering their bitter centuries of occupying and slaughtering the rest of Europe to claim the title of Most Fly Empire Ever.

Overwhelmed with a shared sense of magnanimity they decided that they would even let some of the less suspect European countries join their deepening friendship, so it seems appropriate that the crisis in Europe now combines both a lack of money and idealism.

There are 27 members of the EU and 17 of them use the Euro as their national currency, the glittery wunder-dollar that is administered by the European Central Bank located in Frankfurt, the financial capital of Germany. The ECB is essentially a German Bank, given Germany has the largest and most dynamic economy in the Union and that the Deutsche Bundesbank owns the largest share of the ECB’s capital stock. This position of economic strength gave the Germans considerable sway over establishing the rules and regulations governing the ECB and the Euro currency. Several countries using the Euro (the “Eurozone” nations) were exposed as owing massive debts during the Global Financial Crisis and promptly crapped themselves, economically speaking.

So the EU is in some pretty deep financial shit at the moment. Or rather, certain members of the Eurozone are up to varying points of their neck in public debt – coupled with economies that are shrinking faster than an Eskimo’s scrotum in winter. Take for example the most dramatic of these debtors, the Greeks.

Well known for their sunshine, British tourists and tax evasion, the Greeks were accredited as members of the Eurozone in 2001. With barely enough time to blink the Greeks began breaking every rule the Germans had insisted on. I heard one EU official say that although everyone was aware of this massive corruption, no Eurocrat felt empowered to say anything because of “political correctness”; the sort of assessment that would leave Howard Sattler frothing at the mouth.

Fast forward several years’ worth of corruption and dodgy accounting, and introduce a major economic crisis and voila! Greece, the scrappy, goat-ridden Mediterranean appendage of Europe, is making international news as the world asks if they will default on their loan repayments, leave the eurozone, be expelled by the Germans and/or pull out of the EU altogether.

The Guardian recently cited the cost of Greek secession at up to a trillion dollars. The European Union was specifically designed as a building without exits, a twisted logic intended to ensure all the members enforced the rules or risk statutory penalties rather than grabbing the cash and doing a runner. Greece is exciting and important because it may be the country that sets the precedent in how members are expelled, suspended, withdrawn, secede, or otherwise reverse the intentionally irreversible ‘ever deepening’ relationship of the European Union.

As exciting as Greece is, its financial situation is more like a fun day at the beach with a slight summer breeze compared to the winter-force storms on the Iberian peninsula, and the tsunami-style disaster threatening to overwhelm Italy. Italy’s the world’s seventh largest economy and the EU’s fourth – fun fact: it also has more millionaires than France, Spain or Switzerland. Italy’s condition is so severe that they’ve already replaced their elected President (that leg humping muppet Berlusconi) with an appointed technocrat responsible for introducing harsh austerity measures and calming bond markets, which have threatened to surge several times and roll the entire economy over like it’s The Poseidon Adventure. The collapse of the Greek economy will be a difficult challenge; the collapse of Italy would pose an existential threat to the Eurozone. Even Spain threatens to knock a hole in the bottom of the boat too big for Germany to patch over.

In Greece there is a lot of anger about austerity measures, about government corruption and middle class hunger (as they say, every revolution is only two meals away). But, surprisingly, the majority of Greeks want to stay in the EU and continue to use the Euro. Even when asked about defaulting on payments the majority still hope to stay close to the warm teat of Franco-German friendship.

And who can blame them? Life has been good in the EU. Of course twenty years of high unemployment, slow economic growth and exports-inhibiting currency appreciation will be the payment due for the stability and market access of remaining in the Eurozone. Europe can afford to expel Greece, but Greece literally cannot afford to leave Europe.

Either way, it’s not Greece that threatens to submerge the Euro but the collective actions of Dublin, Lisbon, Madrid and, most importantly, Rome.

07

Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist

Politics

08

COLONEL SCAFFIDI: A Conversation with Perth’s Sister Leader

Illustrations by Grace McKie

Richard Ferguson

Richard Ferguson had a wee chat with Perth’s Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi to discuss her plans for this city of ours and her views on a range of topics from the student brain drain to the City Link Project.

Lisa, how do you assess the progress of the City Link Project? Are you pleased so far?

What is the City Council doing to try and avert the “brain drain” of domestic students to cities like Melbourne and Sydney? And is this problem overstated?

Yeah, look, I think the progress is going well.

I was at the Perth Arena yesterday on a tour of that new facility and the updates that I’m getting are the railway works are on schedule.

Once we’ve seen the tunnels and the rail-lines recreated, the development on the top will happen rather quickly. So in the next couple of years, we’ll see those new buildings springing up. It was always scheduled to be completed by 2018. You know, Rome wasn’t built in a day and I think we’re seeing great progress on a site that is going to realise many new hectares of land or capacity for our capital city at a time that it needs it.

Yes, very much so. I do believe it is overstated.

I think this happens in any country where students want to spread their wings a bit and live away from home. So, it’s to be expected.

However, we’re finding that when you look at the statistics from the Perth Education Study we’re finding that we have a great diversity of international students studying here and it’s all balancing out in the end. And the students that go away often come home and they’ve had a great experience. It’s just life in a growing city and we’ll never stop that happening completely, but we’re seeing it lessen as Perth becomes a more vibrant and creative city.

Politics

09 What is your approach to the City Council’s relationships with the other branches of government, especially the State Government?

Well, I’ve been able to work with both sides of politics as Lord Mayor. I’m very focused on being an apolitical Lord Mayor. I’m not pro one party or the other. I’m all about working on what’s best for the city and what’s best for the key stakeholders in the city and that is what drives me each and every day. We’ve proven that now after working under the Carpenter Government and now the Barnett Government and I think that you’ll see that both sides have grabbed the same vision to support the link and to support the waterfront as they know that Perth needs to grow, that we need this capacity to enable businesses and other opportunities to flourish at this time in our city. It’s a very important part of our evolution as a key national city, but also as a global city.

You have been a keen advocate of Perth events such as PIAF and the Perth Fashion Festival. How integral is the creative arts to your vision of Perth’s future?

Oh these particular elements that you raise go to the very core of what I stand for. I’m all about leading our young people into the future.

Our creative sector is just as important as our mining sector and obviously the mining sector gets the focus because we’re talking big bucks and it’s really supporting the national economy and doing great things. But we’ve got to look at all the elements of a city to make it vibrant and make it whole and I’m all for supporting the creativity of the young people but I’m also very focused on talking up things like our primary production. Even our agriculture and how Australia needs to focus on all aspects of its being, not just the obvious and more lucrative ones. So, we really need to talk up many topics and that’s one of the fun parts of being Lord Mayor. I think being more politically free than the party-affiliated elected officials; I can talk about a wider range of topics

You have talked in the past about the need to decrease car congestion in the CBD. What is the City Council doing to improve public transport and to encourage citizens to avoid using their cars?

Look, I smile because car congestion in the CBD doesn’t emanate from the CBD, it emanates from the outer suburbs which I have no jurisdiction over. We need to convince people to use their cars more smartly and work with other tiers of government, particularly state, to build more park-and-rides and encouraging in other ways. The City of Perth can continue to build more car parks but that is not going to serve our city well to accommodate cars on the road. You also see so many singular drivers in the cars. There is not enough car-pooling.

And I read on my Facebook all the time, “well, I need to pick up my kids from school” and that’s true for so many people. But perhaps we need to adjust our lifestyles so that we don’t drive on the days that we’re not picking the kids up from school or seeing if they can share.

And we need to be more neighbourly and make sure we’re working smarter, not harder, when it comes to car congestion on the roads because it isn’t helping anyone get to work on any given day.

Illustration by Yashi Renoir

10 Politics

the

future2016

SOMETHING’S GONE HORRIBLY RIGHT WITH YOUR WIFE, BILL Kat Gillespie One of the greatest things about the phenomenon of Tumblr is its obsession with the 1990s.

Even greater is that these blogs aren’t simply fixated on a few broad, sweeping trends of the decade. Inexplicably, in creating their teen angst manifestos, bored fourteen year-old bloggers go deeper than Twin Peaks and Courtney Love. To be a real 1990s kid, you need to be into everything 1990s – even politics. Somehow, this warped logic has spawned my favourite recent internet phenomenon: Hillary Clinton appreciation.

From blog posts dedicated entirely to Hillary’s 90s fashion statements (hello, scrunchies), to the Texts from Hillary meme, to being frequently referenced on Parks and Recreation, the Secretary of State has suddenly become a thing.

Hillary is the Meryl Streep of American politics – a token female spokesperson for a middle aged, middle class generation of white Americans.

However, she hasn’t always been the popular choice. In fact, both her hairstyles and policies have historically polarised the public. Yet thanks to a series of recent successes as Secretary of State and the efforts of fan-girling bloggers, she has become cool. A Hillary Clinton biopic starring Ms Streep will be a horribly predictable, and probably inevitable, occurrence in the future.

My main issue with all of this recent recognition is that Hillary Clinton has always been pretty awesome and surely deserved to enter the zeitgeist a bit earlier. Way before her dubious fashion choices of the past became retrospectively ironic and edgy Hillary was a politically active student, successful lawyer and a powerful First Lady who was frequently labelled as a ‘Lady Macbeth’ due to her heavy involvement in Bill Clinton’s presidency and campaigns. A negative comparison surely, but still indicative of the fact that ‘co-President’ Hillary was just as strong willed as her husband was – perhaps even more so.

The first First Lady to hold a postgraduate degree and have her own career prior to coming to the White House, Hillary was the policy wonk wife of

trendy and likeable Bill, the President who was playing saxophone solos on talk shows years before Obama dropped the mic on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Rather than being held back or overshadowed by it, Hillary capitalised upon the success of her husband’s presidency as well as the Lewinsky scandal that engulfed its second term. It takes a certain kind of wisdom and fortitude to stay in a marriage so thoroughly torn apart by both the media and your husband’s womanising ways, but in sticking with the partnership Hillary managed to make an extremely shrewd political move that somehow didn’t come across as cynical.

Fast forward to 2012 and Hillary is one of the most powerful women in the world on quite different terms – her own. After becoming a New York Senator in 2001, and using the skills she’d honed in the White House, Hillary went on to serve on five senate committees. From there came a failed Presidential bid followed by an appointment to Secretary of State by her former rival. The apparently amicable relationship between Clinton and Obama is well documented – since 2009; the media has tried and failed to construct a tense power sharing battle between them. Despite these efforts, it appears that one doesn’t exist. Even as Obama’s support wavers, Hillary and her pantsuits have taken the high road.

Given she has made a career out of smashing glass ceilings, speculation over a Hillary Clinton 2016 Presidential bid doesn’t seem at all misplaced – even despite her apparent wish to leave politics

next year. Assuming Mitt Romney loses in November, at the end of Obama’s second term the Democrats will have no other options with star power as great as hers. One option, Andrew Cuomo, the New York Governor and a good friend of Hillary’s, would seem unlikely to compete with her in a primary.

As Secretary of State, Hillary has managed to do the impossible in re-vamping the fairly decrepit foreign policy image of the United States and in doing so has become enormously popular. Additionally, if her potential Republican opponents feature the likes of Rick Santorum, Hillary’s gender could help her enormously in creating a contrast between Republican conservative values and the image of a powerful, successful woman. Overlooking the fact she has the alternative of a well-deserved retirement, Hillary is a perfect and progressive choice – a logical successor to the first African American President.

Whether Hillary fulfils my feminist wet dreams is yet to be seen, but meanwhile she continues to save the world and have her portrait adorn Leslie Knope’s desk. I’m glad that we’re celebrating Hillary, I only wish we could have embraced her sooner.

11

to

Politics

BACK

WELCOME TO MRNY ’13: A Message from Mrny

12

Politics

My name is Mrny and I’m running to become Guild Princess. I’ve spent this year as Botany Appreciation Society President and I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. We’ve discovered 56 different varieties of sunflowers, run the most successful Botany Ball of all time, and fought hard for botany to get as much publicity as the other sciences. As President, I’ve been very involved in the Guild. I’ve sat on both the Guild Electoral Reform Committee and the Guild Catering Committee. Those committee members were kind enough to drop the sexual harassment charges against me. This experience will prove important when I become Princess.

For too long, the other parties on campus have been wasting your time, from trying to get you involved in Guild events to trying to speak for you in times of crisis. I understand that the average UWA student is just too busy for the Guild. It is about time we stopped pretending that the Guild is about you.

Next year, the Guild will be about Mrny.

Illustration by Jo Ormiston, find her work at www.ohjo.co.uk

I promise to work every day to ensure that this UWA Student Guild will be working hard to provide me with the very best that UWA can offer me. From catering to partying to learning, I want to ensure that students get exactly what I want from student life. With my faithful team beside me, I believe I can provide the best UWA Mrny Guild that this country has ever seen.

GUILD REFORM Mrny is shocked at what the Guild has become. This once proud institution has devolved into a bureaucrat’s

R

F d r a ich

n o s u erg

1. ABOLISH GUILD COUNCIL The Guild Council has been over-run by hacks who don’t understand their own policies or their consequences for everyone else! Under Mrny, all the powers of this body will go to her and Guild Council meetings will be replaced with consultations with her personal mystic, Lucien Koates.

Lucien is a German exchange student studying botany at UWA. With both his expert tea-leaf reading skills and his latent psychic abilities, he will be able to make clearer predictions about the effect of guild policies on Mrny’s well-being than any student politician could. Using the powers of Lucien Koates, we can see through the politics of Guild Council and look clearly into a bright and Mrny tomorrow.

2. REPLACE THE GUILD STAFF Currently, a bunch of callous bureaucrats with no understanding of Mrny’s needs and no respect for her authority run the Guild. However all will be replaced by an army of Mrny loyalists. They will be led by the Guild’s new Managing Director Dr Ongus Fearchoir.

Dr Fearchoir is an expert botanist who has just the tools to prune the Guild bush to Mrny’s pleasure. Despite salacious rumours, Mrny Headquarters denies Dr Fearchoir’s involvement in the Liberal Party, Nazi Party or the Roman Mrny Church. He is an independent figure who thinks that politics and the Guild shouldn’t mix. It confuses Mrny too much.

3. REFORM PELICAN Finally, Mrny will use her Princessorial powers to reform that disgusting rag known as The Pelican.

This 42nd Street filth has been a thorn in Mrny’s precious rose of a guild for many years and other guild hacks have been too scared to tackle it.

From Mrny’s victory onwards, The Pelican will transform from a magazine to a simple zine.

Gone will be all those big confusing words like “zeitgeist” and “howl” that hurt our dear Mrny’s brain. Mrny 13 Artistic Director Alice Palmer, majoring in botany, will take over The Pelican and create a zine in the image of Mrny. In fact, each page of the Pelican will be an image of Mrny, created by Palmer’s art genius. At last, we will have a guild publication that Mrny can be proud of.

MRNY’S CATERING VISION Our opponents go on about the need for independent food on campus and Mrny agrees.

Food has the same rights as everyone else and should be set free from this campus once and for all!

1. MRNY HEALTH SPAS Each of the so-called “guild cafes” will be renovated into a Mrny Health Spa, equipped with weights, treadmills and giant posters of Mrny to encourage you all to get fitter! With Mrny’s help, every student can reach the level.

2. ALL THE VITAMINS From now on, the Guild will be replacing our cuisine line with a wide and delicious range of Mrny Plus vitamins, with the cost completely subsidised by the Guild. Catering staff will be replaced by vitamin dispenser machines located at every building on campus so that business and botany students alike can access the necessary vitamins needed to make them strong and powerful for their Guild Princess. We will ensure that the vitamin dispensers provide the very best for Mrny’s people, with super discounts for botany students and any man that Mrny takes a fancy to. Mrny’s opponents will have to pay the highest price at the RocketVitamin stall they so annoyingly demanded.

3. COMMON WEIGH-IN HOUR As for common guild rituals like the common lunch hour, they will be replaced by the common weigh-in hour where students can regularly check their fitness levels and compare their weight journey with that of Princess Mrny’s. Anyone who plans to lose more weight than Mrny will be forced to pay a Mrny Services fee just for pissing Mrny off.

By improving the well-being for her fellow students, Mrny hopes we can all work better for her well-being.

MRNY’S EDUCATION FUTURE Mrny understands the struggles of the everyday student with those pesky exams and rascally lectures. Whilst Mrny has never personally stepped foot out of Botany Lab 4; she is sure from the conversations she hears on the beginning of LMS lectures that the “outsiders”, as she playfully calls them, are as worried about the way that education at UWA has gone down-hill in recent years. Mrny promises to use her powers as Guild Princess to ensure that the educators at UWA submit to her royal will and follow her Five Year Plan for an improvement in student experiences in terms of education.

1. BOTANY IS BACK Botany is considered, for want of a better word, a bit of a weed in the UWA scientific garden. Since time began, the humble botanists have been trimming the mighty academic bush that is our university without any help or thanks. No more, Mrny declares! From now on, Botany will become the number one priority of the UWA Student

Guild. Firstly, all SSAF fee money will be diverted from camps and the like to fund Mrny’s honours studies in the history of the development of the fungus growing in the Women’s Department Common Room. Secondly, we will fight hard to ensure that all lectures, tutorials and exams will be online for botany units so that Mrny does not need to leave the comfort of her Guild throne. As a result of our focus on botany, all other units will be largely ignored so that the “outsiders” feel the pain that botany students felt for so many years – Mrny asks you to consider it like an academic Live Below the Line.

2. GUILD HISTORY Mrny feels that the Guild should be involved in every aspect of student life from the End-ofSemester Extravaganza (botany students only) to the unbearable pressure of study. Mrny hopes to add your study pains will the great, new, compulsory online unit GUIL 6769: Guild History.

In this new unit, students will learn a revised history of the Guild, starting from when Princess Mrny personally fought for desegregation during the Sixties. This unit will also be engrained into the fabric of all other courses, with each lecture opening with the Guild Anthem, ‘Oh Flower of Mrny’. Students who fail this unit will be expelled from the university and forced into Princess Mrny’s infamous and deadly gulag, known only to us mortals as ECU. 3. THE STUDENT SURVEY Like any guild politician, there is nothing that Mrny loves more than a survey. In recent years surveys have a been great way for the Guild to make themselves look active without the problems of actually doing things. Mrny has always loved a good distraction and she promises to make 2013 the year of the survey.

Every tutorial will begin with a compulsory survey so Mrny can get the thoughts of her beloved subjects.

The weekly survey we promise will have a particular theme from your thoughts of the Kama Sutra positions Mrny should use to pleasure her First Lady Alice Mepham to your opinions on how superior Botany is to any subject from a range from ‘very superior’ to ‘ban all other heathen subjects’. By actually collecting your opinions, it will be so much easier for Princess Mrny to disregard them for the dissenting drivel they are.

The Mrny revolution is about to sweep through the Guild Village and nothing can stop it. With your support we can end the reign of those dogooders and create a university fit for a Guild Princess. Of course, we could tell you about many more of her policies but Mrny plans to make them up – she figures it has worked for Matt Mackenzie so far. With her faithful team of mystics, artists and malevolent botanists by her side, the Mrny infestation will just keep growing and growing.

Be on the right side of history. Vote Mrny at this year’s guild election.

Politics

Therefore, Mrny ’13 will free the independent food and replace it with a strict exercise and vitamin regime that will help Mrny become big and strong. It’ll be great for all of you guys too, as Mrny thinks none of you are attractive enough right now.

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paradise where “rules” and “values” stand in the way of Mrny’s plans for a strong and powerful Guild. Therefore, Mrny will sack every single member of the Guild and replace them with her members of her own elite team. By stopping the waste and booting out the gimps, we can provide a streamlined and effective service that can satisfy Mrny’s every need!

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The High-Bridge Gideon Sacks

Illustrations by Grace McKie

Blowing Smoke into Dutch Windmills Party drug laws, specifically those regarding marijuana restriction, present issues that can divide people across intense ideological lines. I recently came back from a student exchange program in the Netherlands. Having left as the implementation of stringency laws hit the Netherlands and arriving home to harsher penalties here, I have found myself in the middle of this complex debate.

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The Netherlands is internationally renowned for its tolerance regarding drug use and laws that seem to preach the message that if you aren’t harming anyone through your actions why the hell should we care – a very Dutch attitude. For me personally, living in such a place was absolutely liberating, and I could smell the freedom in the air, literally.

Every time I came back to the Netherlands after traveling elsewhere in Europe, the smell of marijuana circulating in the streets made me feel at home – not because I’m a pothead, but rather because of the liberty I felt knowing that I could use the substance if I desired. This idea was emancipating. It felt like a weight I was previously unaware of had been lifted from my back.

This purely emotional idea about personal freedom may short sighted and it is important to examine the impact Cannabis laws have on society. My personal experience travelling in Amsterdam has caused me to hesitate on my pro-freedom stance. Although Amsterdam is a beautiful city with a great music scene and cultural vibe, it has turned into a tacky, gentrified whore of a city, with plenty of sin for all who desire it.

British and American tourists flock there uncontrollably for some “legal” weed and you will probably hear more English than Dutch. The streets are crowded with stoned tourists and junkies from every corner of the western world, and you need to watch yourself so you don’t get mugged by Russian immigrants – there’s a real animalistic vibe.

Amsterdam has essentially inherited all of the worlds drug problems simply because the people there are ultra tolerant. Drug culture is so entrenched in Amsterdam that people are often defined by their drug of choice. For example cocaine – because of its price – is more of a yuppy drug, whereas ecstasy is for less well off Amsterdammers. Drug tourism is a problem in the Netherlands and particularly Amsterdam, as having hundreds of stoned tourists roaming the street is both dangerous and seriously annoying.

While I was living in Maastricht – the southern-most city in the Netherlands – there was a province-wide ban on foreigners going to coffee shops and buying weed. However, the laws allowed Germans and Belgians access to the coffee shops, as they both border very closely with Maastricht.

The aim of this policy was to prevent the annoyance of drug tourism and nighttime disturbance. This is likely to be a big blow for the Dutch tourism industry, especially for Amsterdam where the policy will be implemented in January 2013. The mayor of Amsterdam has strongly opposed these soon to be introduced laws for obvious economic reasons and it will be interesting to see how the change will effect the Amsterdam we know today.

Coming Home Coming back to Perth was a strange experience.

Although we live in one of the most laid back cities on earth, people still care about the way you choose to live your life. Recently implemented marijuana policy reflects this contradiction.

As of last year, Western Australia has declared war on marijuana, implementing much stricter policy compared to the Gallop Government’s partial decriminalisation. The amount of marijuana allowed to be carried legally was decreased, items used to smoke marijuana such as bongs were outlawed and penalties are much harsher.

It is suspected that these laws are an answer to the increase of meth-amphetamine use in WA; undoubtedly a serious problem, but one wonders if targeting marijuana is a valid solution. The Barnett Government claims that after lenient laws were implemented by the Gallop Government cannabis use increased. However, the data that they used for these studies was faulty as they included phone surveys, and it is well known that these are an inaccurate measure of such a statistic. After excluding these phone surveys, the opposite result reveals itself. If these figures are applied, in Western Australia leniency has either decreased the state’s usage, or a causal link can’t truly be established.

In the end, both stringency and leniency can pose problems. In the case of the Netherlands, being the only country in the world that has such an extreme acceptance of cannabis has had negative impacts on their society.

I don’t think this would occur in Western Australia, largely because of our isolation. And anyway, Australia has Byron Bay for all the drug tourists.

I have found it frustrating that the laws have changed based on faulty statistics and misguided actions under the illusion of combating meth-amphetamine use. That, or maybe I just miss the sweet grassy smell that I now associate with freedom.

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My personal experience travelling in Amsterdam has caused me to hesitate on my pro-freedom stance. Although Amsterdam is a beautiful city with a great music scene and cultural vibe, it has turned into a tacky, gentrified whore of a city...

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Set SAIL FOR FAIL Simon Donnes takes time out of his depressing schedule to say what the students won’t about the University Dramatic Society’s most recent performance.

But, when ambition fails, that is when true loss is beheld. Some would say it is better to have tried and failed than not tried at all, but in the case of Cruise, I very much believe otherwise.

At its root, almost all of its problems stem from four words: Original script and score.

Musicals, as with most forms of entertainment, typically have an overarching narrative, theme or plot guiding their course along the stormy seas of storytelling. Not Cruise. A central theme, symbol, idea – hell, even a character, a musical motif or a fucking costume style would have sufficed. Instead, we have nothing to tie this bath of butchered epithets and wasted potential together.

Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t a great deal of talent to be squandered – between the ambiguous ‘lead’ roles who failed time and time again to harmonise or dance, and the horrible excuse for direction, blocking and stagecraft there isn’t much to call talent amongst the big names up in lights. This is where Cruise somewhat ironically shines – its musicians are excellent and it has a great supporting cast, who at least bring something interesting onto stage the few times they’re allowed to show their faces.

Illustration by Kate Prendergast

UDS’s Cruise is single-handedly the worst example of entertainment that I have borne witness to, and possibly the worst example of entertainment period. Set, where else, but a theatre in Crawley pretending to be out on the high seas, Cruise is a laundry list of how to make the shittiest, most mind bogglingly bad musical possible.

I am now six screwdrivers deep, trying to fend off the post traumatic stress and keep the flashbacks at bay. I can only attempt to encapsulate the sheer awfulness I witnessed – know that I consider myself a restrained and thoughtful reviewer, and that it was probably much worse than how I describe.

Capitalism beats a concept into our soft, semiskulled brains from an infant age: ambition is good. It’s what made Edison steal research and findings from Tesla, what made Hitler try to take over Europe, and what made me join the ranks of Pelican.

This adds weight to the whisper that has found its way to my ear (by whispered I mean flat out told to me and by found its way to me I mean by the politics editor) that the best roles are traded in return for sexual favours. While this may not strictly be true, it seems that there must exist some form of nepotism in casting.

Almost every lead character felt off. It’s not that they would have suited each other’s roles better, but rather the token “poor” of the show, the supporting cast, who were thrown all but one scene, would have embodied the horrible, one dimensional, bland and uninteresting characters better.

Which leads me to the second issue at the root of the production: Direction by Committee.

Did that last word send shivers down your spine? It fucking should have. For the life of me I cannot conjure up a situation from history when a committee has done something better than an individual could have. For

The direction feels like a “team effort” precisely because there appears to have been no driving force providing actual direction.

Every scene is a proverbial iceberg (how they tried to wedge in a Titanic likeness – even the 3D re-release was more interesting than this) that stands surrounded by its peers yet is utterly alone. To compensate for this stark modularity of scenes, the all-knowing

In all fairness, my standards are likely too high. I don’t consider myself a theatre snob, but am I if issues like having 25+ scenes in the first hour-long act, having characters so one dimensional they deserve to be (but tragically are not) parodies, and the lack of any real “whole cast” numbers aside from the opening title, frustrate me?

Fuck no, it means I have standards. I don’t think there is any shame in expecting quality at any level. Without it, we cannot expect to get better. Then again, I’m writing an angry drunken article for Pelican, what do I know? I just want three hours of my life back.

The Hybrid

committee saw fit to put a blackout and pointless set changes between every single one of them. One experiences more blackouts in Cruise than in Fukoshima province, Japan.

I’m sure it’s not entirely their fault, they could have been too busy “group directing” the lead girl backstage to actually direct her.

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that matter, I can’t think of any examples from history when a committee hasn’t made everything about the current situation amazingly worse. The treaty of Versailles was done by committee. Apartheid was probably done by committee. Tony Abbot was made head of the Opposition by committee.

Food

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Breakfast is the

New Dinner Yvonne ‘Broadbutt’ Buresch

Going out for breakfast is very much a Perth thing. Even in Sydney, where sweeping black glass apartments with comically tiny galley kitchens perch above city street corners, breakfast is not as much of a “thing” as it is here. Breakfast in Perth is almost a tourist attraction in its own right – if you have people over from interstate, take them out for breakfast.

Illustration by Wenny Yeo

BEACHES Beaches in Cottesloe is a landmark café, with landmark bad service. The beachside location is unbeatable, as are the house-made baked beans, but the waitresses wearing denim shorts with thongs and sunglasses while serving are a bit much to take. Luckily, to make up for this, breakfast time at Beaches coincides with the daily adorable puppy convention that takes place on the grass outside.

JOHN STREET CAFÉ Down the road and around the corner from Beaches the John Street Café has a similar problem. It’s a gorgeous place to sit in the sea breeze and envy the leafy houses across the road, though they regress you to childhood by buttering your toast for you. The big breakfast with coffee and juice at $28 is quite good value (relatively speaking) even if the poached eggs often come out waterlogged, making your bacon slick and your pre-buttered toast soggy.

EURO PATISSERIE Euro Patisserie in South Perth is not as fancy as John Street but it does a large cooked breakfast with coffee for $10. It’s not a bad place to sit if you go outside. The tables overlook a large

expanse of grass and picturesque buildings belonging to Wesley College, which are really quite pretty to look at once you get over the creep-factor of eating breakfast while watching a boys’ school.

The big breakfast is mostly cheap stuff: frozen hash browns, fried eggs, mushrooms and toast, with a wedge of tomato and a few sheets of bacon. It’s cheap stuff and it actually is cheap, unlike a lot of the stuff around now.

CANTINA There seems to be a disturbing faux cocina povera trend at the moment, where the former food of the poor is now the chosen cuisine of the fashion-conscious rich. You can get a tin of sardines and a piece of bread for a couple of bucks from Coles but the pride of Cantina’s menu at the moment is grilled local sardines with ciabatta for $16. Not that many years ago you’d be laughed out of town for serving sardines at that price; they’re the kind of fish you used as bait.

This is not exactly a new trend – Little Saigon in Highgate has been serving Vietnamese food to people who don’t want to dirty themselves with the stained carpets and plastic flowers of

SAYERS Sayers in Leederville is at the top of the Death Row List for most Perth foodies – that is, the place you would go for your last breakfast on Earth (if you were actually allowed to go outside the prison).

Their rosti is a thing of legend: a gorgeous golden brown confection of potato, spring onion and happiness. It looks like a mille feuille with a satisfying crunch on the top and a wonderful lip-smacking smoothness in the middle. It comes with perfectly poached eggs and lemon-scented spinach gently wilted in the pan.

The line for a table is ridiculously long at weekends but manageable on weekdays if you go during the magic time between breakfast and lunch. Beware; they sometimes refuse to let you order anything between 11.30am and midday while they change over from the breakfast menu to lunch.

DUENDE If you can’t get a table at Sayers or you just really can’t be bothered waiting, go across the road to Duende. Known mostly for being a nighttime tapas joint, Duende does a really decent breakfast without (most of) the wank factor of Sayers. If you sit outside you can observe the comings and goings of the beautiful people at Sayers anyway.

The coffee is consistently good with no excess acidity or bitterness, good nut-brown crema and is served in a decent sized cup at the right temperature. It’s amazing how few places tick all of those boxes all of the time.

My favourite Duende breakfast is the salmon with corn fritters.

The corn fritters are piping hot and crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside with whole corn kernels appearing every now and then like nuggets of juicy gold. The salmon is served cool, not fridge-cold, with asparagus and a salad of baby sprouts. It’s not so big that you feel like you’ll never eat again (a side effect of some big breakfasts around the place) but large enough to be satisfying.

Don’t be sucked in to going to Chapels and getting the kim chi pancakes. They sound amazing, I know, but they really aren’t.

They’re squidgy where they’re supposed to be crunchy and crunchy where they’re supposed to be soft.

They specialise in tea and their coffee is mediocre – Guild quality at Rocketfuel prices.

If you go there without a booking and aren’t casually wearing pearls on a strip of rawhide or a handbag which is understatedly expensive (but in a very obvious way), you will almost certainly get one of the dud tables with a crooked leg out the back next to the bins, or along the bench facing the wall. Go to Mrs S instead. Get the cornbread.

MRS S Another “in” café which is the darling of foodie websites like Urbanspoon, Mrs S is one of those weird places that is incredibly busy during its niche time of breakfast but really snoozy at basically any other time. The chatter from other tables ricochets off the hard painted walls and the lack of sound-absorbing soft furnishings can make it quite deafening. In the afternoon it stays at a low hum but the lunch menu is in play, which means (alas!) no cornbread.

There used to be a blog called thisiswhyyourefat.com subtitled “where dreams become heart attacks.” It featured things like burgers which used doughnuts instead of buns and various things wrapped in cookie dough and bacon and fried and then rolled in sugar. It was run by a couple and I used to wonder if their love of over-the-top food brought them together, until I found out the guy was convicted of domestic violence charges against his co-blogger and girlfriend.

Thisiswhyyourefat.com isn’t online anymore – it’s hard to run a popular blog from jail.

The “Granny’s Cornbread” at Mrs S reminded me of that blog. A doorstop comprising two slices of cornbread stacked on one another with poached egg and bacon on top and smothered in maple syrup, it was too much even for someone like me who once ate most of a chocolate mousse cake in one sitting and regularly has three lunches. The combination of a full cup of maple syrup and the superfine texture of the cornbread produces a kind of tooth-achingly sweet sponge cake with bacon on top – tasty, but not something you necessarily want to eat more than a few bites of.

Food

The attraction of Vietnamese food for most people is that it’s all about the flavour. In Hanoi you can crouch on a ridiculously tiny stool on the side of a sweaty exhaust-fume cloud posing as a street in the sweltering heat and have the most incredible soup known to man, phÔ so delicious it tears a hole in the space-time continuum and your watch stops until you finish eating. It costs about two dollars.

CHAPELS ON WHATLEY Maylands is a suburb with a schizophrenic tendency to be super nice in some parts and as dodgy as a plumber’s fingernails in others. Luckily, Chapels is in a nice bit near the train station, close to other popular breakfast spots.

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the Northbridge eateries for years. For about a three hundred percent mark-up you can sup on the delights of the South East from a table with a real tablecloth and silverware and be served by wait-staff who aren’t surly.

The menus are pieces of paper attached to the insides of those Little Golden books with wooden pegs.

You know the ones, The Little Train that Could and that sort of thing. It is pretty cutesy but it’s kind of a Mrs S trademark, so I couldn’t really NOT mention it.

CANVAS: THE FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE CAFÉ I went to the Shaun Tan exhibition with some friends recently and found myself in that pose so familiar to gallerists and art enthusiasts: arms folded, head cocked to one side, finger stroking chin thoughtfully as I looked at a painting. On occasions such as these it is difficult to think of something witty and insightful to say, so I just said what was on my mind as an intelligent and educated appreciator of art who had engaged in deep consideration of the pieces before me: “I think I have brain stuck in my teeth.”

Having decided against going to Wild Poppy’s because (a) we were tired and (b) it’s on the other side of Freo, we had a late breakfast at the Arts Centre instead. It’s called Canvas but I’m not sure anyone will know what you mean if you call it that. Their menus look good, in regards to both content and the actual physical menu. Bits of paper are clipped to canvas boards with sculptural quantities of paint on them. I felt bad about smudging one of them but it was unavoidable, really.

I had the Tunisian lambs’ brains shakshuka. I ordered it partly out of curiosity and partly on the off chance I’d get to explain to someone what I was eating – an old lady at a nearby table helpfully asking me what my delicious-looking food was and responding with the requisite horror when I replied. They are like meatballs made of mousse, but not a particularly flavourful meat; like chicken breast, maybe.

They came in a red sauce laced with caraway seeds and some bread and olives on the side.

I don’t know if I would recommend brain to you so much as just not discourage you. Maybe get it with fetta or chorizo instead.

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T H E WA R O N

FAIRTRADE Simon Donnes

I’m just a simple Olive picker As the sun lazily raised its head over the horizon, I was already hard at work as a labourer amongst the olive trees. That last part is quite far from the truth – olive picking is not very hard, but the company I kept made it feel as though my lot in life was far worse than it really is. Ironically, by people trying to make me think my life is even better than it is.

In the rag-tag ex-special forces team assembled to pick the olives from their grove, resided a couple that were the very personification of the ‘New Age’. Twenty-something and vegetarian, their ironic $300 Wayfarers and perfected pouts of nonchalance were unassuming enough, but nary a phrase could be heard that was not brimming with mentions of rights, equality, white entitlement and privilege. For ten hours I had the glory of Fair Trade dribbled into my ear. So I decided to do some digging.

Fair Trade Fax Fair trade is everywhere. Once a novelty item in the coffee isle next to the wildly overpriced cat-shit blend, there is now everything from Fair trade flowers to footballs. It’s a quickly growing industry. In 2010, retail sales broke the $150 million mark in Australia, up 300% from the previous year. Still, Fair trade makes up less than 1% of all international trade.

To become Fair Trade certified, producers must meet the exacting standards of their export, while providing proper training for employees, correct book keeping and the opportunity for union formation. They also must refrain from planting Genetically Modified crops (they ‘reduce biodiversity’), using slaves, causing excess pollution and so on. In essence, Fair Trade attempts to transplant First world production luxuries into the Third world.

The problem with all this lets-not-exploit-theworkers-in-the-third-world shtick is that it just doesn’t get the same results. Decry child labour all you want – those Victorian chimneys weren’t going to sweep themselves. Enterprising pundits know this. Unfortunately, they’re becoming a minority in the pie-in-the-sky Newly Sincere world we find ourselves in.

With this in mind, here are number of suggestions to the people of our age who will stand and fight the smug and the yuppie in order to get their coffee both a little bit cheaper and a little bit tastier.

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21 What better platform to spread a message with?

It’s not like there’s many other sources of news around, and once their readership are done with their moral panic, they might just realise they hate progress, change and equity as much as you do. Support has just grown exponentially.

Fire-Bombing Fremantle That over used metaphor earlier about big guns? Not a metaphor. The layabouts of the state are drawn to Fremantle like a filthy leftist Mecca. Their oasis of culture mars an otherwise beautiful landscape of mining operations, that FIFO monument we call a city and the black heart of bile that is the Pelican office. Fremantle has for too long been a slight against the fair trade despising, free thinkers of the world, and must be cleaned with fire. Garden Island Naval base should have some phosphorus shell cannon rounds around somewhere.

Unfortunately, burning Fremantle leaves a horrible stench of crispy hippy (interestingly they taste a little like bacon), and much like the revolting peasants one can’t help but be a little perturbed by it. The bulk of the opposition removed, it’s time to move in for the kill.

Running the Show Like picking blind children or Clive Palmer as a subject for parody, stomping in progressive skulls will have almost seemed too easy. By this time many will have flocked to the cause, bearing witness to the light and vowing to stamp out all manifestations of smug, self-righteous opponents.

Winning power was the easy part – now comes a long period of re-reform. Rights must be taken away, clean energy innovations must be scrapped, fair trade goods must have obscene tariffs placed on them and the Prius must be outlawed. Those enemies of the state with enough sense to have left the country, while those that remain will be forced to wear armbands identifying them to all.

The alternative is, of course, fixing Africa. Fuck.That.

Illustrations by Matthew Goss

Pagan Ritualistic Slaughter Lead with the big guns is the name of the game.

My own experiences up close and personal with those damn dirty hippies left me wanting to rip a cow apart and feast on its insides – I’m sure you’ve all felt the same. Why do it in private like the days of old? If you throw in some drunken O-camp styled antics PerthNow and The West will run a feature article on you.

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Jakub Dammer The Rise and Fall

I didn’t get it at first but I played along.

“Go Pikachu! Thundershock!” I would yell. Easy. I knew the attacks and no one questioned my sincerity. Soon enough I got into it for real. Ash was on his way to Indigo Plateau and I was by his side.

While playtime was fun, there was an underlying dissatisfaction with this kind of emulation. These imaginary battles did not reveal supremacy amongst PokéTrainers. They required collective deception which egos and misunderstandings could easily break apart.

We needed more.

As far back as I could remember I always wanted to be a PokéMaster.

Ok, that’s not strictly true. What is true is that for a good six months, all anyone wanted to be was a PokéMaster.

Like many, I got a yarn. I tasted life, and it was a mouthful...

Mandurah Days The year was 1999. Bardot and 5ive were blaring out of car radios tuned to 97.3 CoastFM, bringing an American pop sensibility to the sunny suburbs of Mandurah. The previous year I’d moved from Kambalda so I guess Mandurah folk seemed pretty townie to me.

Mine was a migrant family, so both parents worked and I went to daycare. Dad would drop me off in the morning before school because he had a long commute. This made for a sporadic viewing pattern of Cheez TV, though I never watched enough to stay in touch with each new trend.

Illustrated by Wenny Yeo

After one set of school holidays, I returned to school and knew immediately I was out of the loop.

It was the beginning of Pokémon.

The First Hit (it was super effective) Playtime now consisted of emulating battles using hula-hoops as faux PokéBalls. Friends debated which Pokémon would win over another and how rare they were. It was part of the collective consciousness, and I needed in.

One Friday, my friend Gavin told me about Pokémon cards. By Monday, if you didn’t have a binder filled with Pokémon cards you were in a crowd surrounding someone who did. This was it: a way to be judged as a PokéTrainer, a way to throw forth a metaphorical PokéBall and taste glory.

Pocket money was $10 a month, paid on the month. Pokémon booster packs were $7. Times were tough, but what could I do? The second I got that month’s loot I was holding $3 dollars change and a booster pack.

The idea was to collect the cards and, if you got duplicates, trade. I was still trading to compete, to play the game, to win battles. Gavin said, “Who cares about battling? No one battles.” Gavin was a good friend. I should have listened.

My first booster pack contained a Nidoking.

The playground treated it as a rare and exotic thing, no one had seen it before. I traded my rare holographic Nidoking for an Arcanine, a Growlith and a fire energy card. As I sat in the car going home I realised I’d made a mistake. “No one battles,” Gavin’s words echoed in my head.

From now on, it would be collecting.

The Second Booster My second booster pack: This time, Zapdos. Being a once bitten, twice shy kinda guy this Pokemon was not leaving my hands quickly.

By this point, trading had become fiendish. Kids couldn’t wait to get to school and trade cards.

Most of it was small time; a Bellsprout for a Weedle type stuff. Every once in a while you saw a Blastoise change hands.

The teachers hated it; they said it distracted us from school work, but what could they do? They

told us from the get-go it wasn’t allowed at school, but that pushed trading to the toilets and the oval.

They tried to regulate it; set up Friday trading meetings in the library. What a joke. It was the Wild West out there. Pikachu’s high exposure on TV meant that Year Twos and Threes got ripped off by Year Fives and Sixes for their Dragonites and Polywraths. Cold blooded.

Back then there was a monthly barbeque for WA’s Slovak community. On one such meeting I thought I’d take my cards just in case. There was one other kid there, a Perth kid. I didn’t know him well, but like me he was a Slovak: we were birds of a feather. He saw my cards and said straight up, “You bring that Zapdos next month, I’ll give you an offer you can’t refuse.”

I was excited. I waited one long, long month.

The Zapdos Trade Back in Mandurah trading was still going strong.

Friends had spoken of getting killer trades with out of town kids. I never did that. I knew what it was like to lose a Nidoking for an Arcanine.

A month later I brought my cards. I wasn’t sure he’d remember, but I had nothing to lose. The kid was there, he hadn’t forgotten. He had a stack of Pokémon cards the size of a fist. He split his deck, handing one half to me. He was right. I couldn’t refuse. “Are you sure?” He said he was sure, because he did not have a Zapdos.

I looked at my Zapdos one last time and gave it to him. We were called over by our parents to eat.

We ate. We played soccer. We drank apple juice.

I was a million miles away, contemplating cards I now had.

Driving back to Mandurah was a blur. These were cards like nothing anyone had seen. There were Pokémon from the 151 Catch ‘Em All posters, never before seen in card form. I was holding an Aerodactyl!

The next day was a Monday and news of my trade spread quickly. By Nine a.m. I had Charizard, Venusaur and Blastoise in my deck. At recess, I had a 20 strong crowd of traders around me and each person I traded with got their own subsequent crowds. It was dizzying.

Half an hour before lunch Shaun (one of many who’d traded with me earlier) was looking through his deck in class instead of doing maths. “Jakub!” he angrily whispered across the room. “They’re fake!”

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POKÉFACE of a PokéMaster That Damn Slovak I had noticed the purplish edges instead of the classic royal blue that was found on most Pokémon cards, but I’d thought nothing of it. They seemed to be covered in a kind of plastic, but again, the kid I got them from assured me they were fine. As quickly as the flock had come in the morning, the word got out about the fakes and they came flocking back at lunchtime.

Look, the way I saw it I was still sitting on a goldmine. I happily traded back with whoever wanted to. By day’s end I was still in possession of a Blastoise and some incredibly rare Pokémon.

Whether or not they were actually fakes was a mystery to me. I figured “they are as fake as you think they are” and you know, a lot of kids were happy with that.

The next day, the fervor had died down and kids were still trading with me. By Friday I was an established mover and shaker. Everyone knew what I had and might have been suspicious, but still definitely curious. My best friend James had been beside me through this whole thing. He was the first person I told about the Zapdos trade. He had been doing deals on the side for me.

The Friday trading meeting was over. It was a market of plenty, largely thanks to my exotic imports from Perth. James came up to me.

“Jakub, a guy wants to trade a Taurus and a Nidorino for some of your cards.” I was keen for the trade, but equally keen to do things by the book. “Look, don’t worry, give me your cards, I’ll do the trade in the boys’ toilets.”

I was still reluctant but I wanted to bring him in, so I obliged.

Five minutes later, Heather came up to me.

“Jakub, James was caught by Mr. Stevens in the boys toilets. Your cards were confiscated and you won’t be getting them back.”

Make Way For The Bad Guy The Year Seven teachers were hard-line. They had warned if any student was found trading during school hours they would take their cards and divide them up amongst the lucky dip prizes for charity. And that’s exactly what they did.

A week passed and news had spread far. The occasional Ratatat or energy card would be given to me out of sympathy. Gavin told me to just ask for my cards back, but I was very respectful of authority as a ten year old. I had no idea the finality of the confiscation could be questioned.

After school I went round and apologised. They were understanding and said they’d give me back what they still had, but a lot of it had been given away in the lucky dip. I took what I could get and I left. My parents started talking about moving to Perth, so I figured it was all coming to an end anyway.

Critical Hit Time passed. I went to a new daycare. I brought my Pokémon cards, against the warnings of the people in charge. I had my remaining rares in one plastic sleeve. One day I got home and opened my binder to find them gone. I knew who did it but couldn’t prove anything and anyway the cards were currency among children, not adults.

Two weeks later I was in Perth. I was sad to leave Mandurah. I had good friends and we had gone through a lot, but by moving to Perth I could clean my slate. Jungle and Fossil cards were released soon after I arrived in Perth but I didn’t bat an eyelash.

For a brief moment, I was a PokéMaster. On a lonely Sunday afternoon, should you drive down to Mandurah and chat with the locals, they may speak of a kid they once knew during their Pokémon card days. And if you do, you should ask to see their cards. They may just have one with a strange purple edge.

Clive Palmer’s

TITANIC II

From the tubby messiah that gave you the CIA-Greens Affair and the 2012 Gold Coast Freedom of Speech campaign comes the nautical world’s latest wonder

2.

5.

1.

4.

7.

3.

1.

Hull of boat protected by unbreakable double chin.

2.

After Clive Palmer’s Football Federation of Australia licence was revoked he vowed to set up his rival Australian Soccer League. The #1 team the Clive Palmer Plutocrats play here on a triangular pitch, with the only goal at the Plutocrats’ scoring end.

3.

A team of lawyers and Fijian holiday brokers discuss business. They travel the world searching for a jurisdiction where they can write-off the Mining Tax with Company Travel Expenditure.

4.

“The boat will be unsinkable…of course it will sink if you put a hole in it” – Clive Palmer

5.

Chinese migrant workers work round the clock fuelling the old coal boilers, or as Clive calls it: The Exhibition Room.

6.

Anti-CIA Ninja Assassins hone their skills on Wayne Swan. If the real one can’t be lynched in time a dummy will suffice, though Clive struggles, he wittily claims, “to see the difference between the two”.

7.

Finally, Clive has unveiled plans for stage II of the process: A working replica of The Hindenburg to follow the Titanic on its journeys.

Illustration by Camden Watts

6.

Dating With Marnie

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DATING WITH MARNIE ALLEN

MISADVENTURES IN PORN:

A cautionary tale It was a dark and stormy night. A group of wide-eyed youths huddled around a Jacuzzi with a camcorder and a boom pole, anticipating the final instalment of their creative endeavour. This project was their brainchild. Glory and riches and bright futures lay before them upon its completion and distribution.

The actors in the final scene composed themselves as the director of photography called action. The young lady in the centre of the shot lowered the machete she was lovingly sharpening and stroked her faux beard. She rose from the Jacuzzi as trickles of chlorinated aqua trickled down the robust, leopard-print clad thighs of her cross dressing husband seated beside her. The lady planted her small hands across the nape of his neck and vigorously forced his mouth towards her crotch, smearing his shimmering pink lipstick all over her sopping wet checked shirt.

As the young man exaggeratedly threw back his head before beginning his implied fellating of her imaginary package, something stopped the lady in her tracks and she froze, unable to continue. She raised her head and took in the scene before her...

An up and coming filmmaker wearing some kind of bizarre bandanna, adjusting the settings on his camera...A promising future economist and musician readjusting his fake breasts inside a hot pink brazier that fit him just a little too well...A talented artist set to study painting in a Florentine academy leaning against the wall in an eastern European tracksuit, her pretty dark hair slicked back into sleazy oblivion; a pencil moustache and beard masking her feminine cheekbones...A clean-cut fair-haired beauty nearing the completion of a triple major wearing tight grey jeans with a bulging pair of socks stuffed beneath the zipper...A disappointing lover, but nonetheless useful scapegoat, and raging cinephile sitting beneath her, wringing water out of the ivory folds of his lacy dress.

Suddenly, the young woman panicked.

She clambered out of the Jacuzzi and awkwardly muttered an apology as she paced out of the room and into a nearby bathroom. She slammed the door behind

her, kicked over a wash basket and slammed her fists onto the edge of the sink. She caught her breath, raised her head and stared into the mirror at her unrecognizable face before smearing the chocolate brown beard across her mouth.

What have I done? She thought. She didn’t know whether it was the two litres of milk that was erotically poured down her friend’s chest while he attempted to replicate Botticelli’s birth of Venus in a clam shell pool. Maybe it was her other friend, wielding a spatula as a BDSM object, planting it upon a pair of male buttocks tightly encased in a black Lycra miniskirt. Either way, shit got weird.

I divulge this little tale to you, dear readers, because I care about you. That was me in the Jacuzzi, my gender bending friends, each of us unknowingly littering our future prospects with every second that we plunged further into the depths of low budget amateur satirical soft core pornography. We were playing with matches, and boy did we get burned.

Group therapy sessions were needed, psycho-stimulants were purchased, hearts and dreams were broken. What started as a promising debut into the world of adult film left us scarred, rattled and filled to the brim with self doubt.

As our recovery period expires and we settle back into normal existence, the memory of our brief flirtation with pornography will burn into our souls for all of eternity, guiding us through sexual crossroads and erotic encounters. Let this tale help you too. Let our pain and confusion assist you in times of need.

Let this be your mantra, your philosophy, that tattoo on your bicep that you will eventually regret: Don’t Make Porn with Friends.

Yours truly, MRNY PS: I’m running for guild president. If I win I might leak some footage. Go back to Page 12 for further details.

Illustrated by Jo Ormiston (www.ohjo.co.uk), Header Illustration by Ena Tulic

The Hybrid

Hy-Breeding

Before encountering my current boyfriend – who is, incidentally, a halfie – I was blissfully unaware of hybrids. Whenever I unknowingly spotted a Eurasian (half white, half yellow) I believed they were a particularly pretty Asian, or a familiarlooking white. I thought said halfie boyfriend was some tanned Islander guy, for fuck’s sake. Ever since, my awareness of hybrids has vastly increased.

The halfie boyfriend once told me that once as a child, when his mother took him and his sister out, someone made a remark to his mum about the appearance of her wards, wrongly assuming she was a foreign maid looing after a pair of white children. Sounds kind of funny, but I think that would’ve cut pretty deep. It’s like saying, ‘those children are too white to be yours.’

On the other hand, a good friend of mine often makes remarks about her halfie cousins in tones of mild jealousy. They are, incidentally, the result of mail-order brides – a derisive phrase often used to mock, but in this case a running joke in their family done in good humour. These halfies are described as having flawless skin that tans without burning, yet achieves a pale milkywhite in Winter. They are relatively tall and have prominent, high cheekbones, big eyes (none of that slanty shit), and a magical ability to not retain unnecessary fat. It appears that hybrids simply obtain the best of both races in terms of genetics – pro-tip: to create offspring to the best of your genetic capabilities, pick the partner who appears most opposite to you, and get mating. It’s not particularly difficult.

Allow me a broad, sweeping statement: Asians generally love hybrids, particularly those of the Eurasian variety. They are usually held in highesteem within Asian countries – featured in advertisements and beauty pageants. Eurasians look yellow enough for other Asians to relate to, whilst appearing white enough to stand a chance against other white competitors in global beauty contests. Apparently, Asians also like dating halfies, regarding them as trophy handbags. They are considered ‘Asian enough’ to be accepted by conservative families, but being of a lighter

“

...someone made a remark to his mum about the appearance of her wards, wrongly assuming she was a foreign maid looing after a pair of white children... It’s like saying, ‘those children are too white to be yours.’

complexion, they are elite – the remnants of colonialist whiteprivilege continue to pervade the Asian concept of beauty.

When a Eurasian is in a largely Asian society, everyone assumes they are 100% white. In a Caucasian-dominant society, they are seen as either some form of white or completely Asian.

Such is the burden the interracial child must bear – not feeling like they truly belong…However, why is this even an issue? It’s just skin-colour, nothing more! (Oh, and a possibility of superior genetics.)

Benefits of being a Hybrid Being a mixture of two races allows these unicorns of the human race to assimilate with both groups: if they like Anime or soya-sauce, it’s not because they’re trying to be Asian. If they are pale, it’s not from trying to be white – it’s genetic.

Hybrids are clearly the way of the future: The result of the very opposite of inbreeding, the offspring of interracials acquire heterosis – more commonly known as ‘hybrid vigour’. This, my lowly pure-blood peers, means hybrid offspring have improved or increased biological qualities due to contrasting genetic contributions from their parents. Basically, halfies are superior spawn: they look hot and are practically immortal, without even trying.

Interracial procreation also reduces the chances of genetically-carried weaknesses and diseases, reducing the harmful effects of inbreeding. I suppose this also vastly reduces the likelihood of ‘accidental’ incest. The result? Better-looking demon-spawn without anomalies like eight legs and webbed feet…unless you hail from Westeros, where evidently, the products of incest are beautiful children with luscious golden locks,

”

or piercing violet eyes and platinum-blonde hair. I’d consider fucking my own brother too if that was the result.

Some research claims that being attracted to a person who looks vastly different from you is an evolutionary trait to prevent inbreeding. It facilitates the best chance of producing good-quality offspring! Observe pedigree dogs to understand the benefits of genetic diversity: Spaniels with brains too big for their skulls and boxers that suffer from epilepsy are amongst the litany of health problems created by incest. They also look fucking demented.

Despite being perfectly capable of raising normal and healthy (healthier?) children, interracial couples are sometimes judged because of pre-conceived notions about ‘non-traditional’ relationships. Some people are just too stupid narrow-minded to appreciate and value the genius of interracial breeding!

All things said, there is an increased acceptance and occurrence of interracial relationships and offspring. Life is short – if your love-interest is of a different ‘race’ or culture, don’t let that factor confuse you! For the sake of your unborn children, just do it, and watch your offspring reap the genetic benefits of robust health and good looks! Hell, if everyone followed this formula, there would be less-obvious racial differences within society, we will have beautiful children with less health problems, and everything will be rainbows and unicorns. In the words of Bob Marley, ‘Until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes, me say war.’

Illustration by Grace McKie

Interracial couples and their children face stigma simply for dating someone who is of a different skin colour to them. Although the theory of ‘race’ has essentially been disproved, people maintain pre-conceived notions and stereotypes about ‘non-traditional’ relationships: mail-order brides, last-resort wives, nymphos like black guys...For the purposes of this article, I use ‘interracial’ to describe couples who have significantly different coloured skin or features, and (in a non-derogatory way – because I actually love them) ‘halfie’ or ‘hybrid’ when referring to the offspring of such a union.

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Eunice Ong takes a look at how old stigmas and genetic benefits effect the children of interracial marriages

The Hybrid

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The Pelican Introduction to the Wide World of Slamball!

Isaac Trichilo

After scouring YouTube for Slamball videos, I found myself having traumatic flashbacks to the hours of my childhood spent on the trampoline. For the most part, I recall a complete and utter disregard for the woven safety patch that warned against any of the following: shoes, more than two people, somersaults, smoking, pregnancy or high blood pressure. In fact, our family gatherings were reminiscent of a bouncy Lord of the Flies.

Each boozed-up uncle would meticulously size up his children, looking for the razor sharp teeth and untrimmed nails of a feral cat, and the irrepressible tenacity of a dog chasing cars at a roundabout (neighbourhood pets may have been thrown into the ring to appease bloodthirsty grandmothers). Fifteen boys and girls, ranging from six to sixteen, from four different families were thrown onto the largest trampoline model, sixteen feet in diameter and completely surrounded by a six-foot-high netted cage.

Illustration by Kate Prendergast

To start things off, the majority of kids were wearing footwear, and we aren’t talking sandals, thongs or soft and cuddly ugg boots.

Unfortunately, I’m referring to seven year-old girls stomping cunts’ heads in with steel-capped boots, pre-pubescent teens going through a goth phase and wearing knee high leather tooth chippers, absolutely covered in metal spikes, and finally ditzy, cake-faced princesses with heels that could pierce knee caps.

It was an intricate and delicately choreographed free-for-all of powerful double bouncer attacks from above, running Matrix kicks off the cage walls, and backflip bombies from the shoulders of taller children. As the weaker competitors were slowly picked off due to knockouts, broken limbs, or the occasional fatality, they were branded by their respective uncles with disfiguring cigarette burns to the face. Inevitably two barely breathing, bruised and battered warriors remained. At this point cricket stumps (the closest substitute for samurai swords) were thrown into the arena, as a Kill Bill ‘fight to the death’ scene was created.

Now the entire clan had surrounded the arena to shout insults and threats at the two malnourished

ragamuffins. As a semi-conscious boy flew backwards through the air to become awkwardly lodged between the springs, a victor was crowned.

She would jump high and free as the pathetic losers showered her in a downpour of their own dislodged teeth. While the children hobbled inside to numb the pain with a potent combination of ice cream cake and The SpongeBob Movie, the heavily pregnant, chain-smoking aunts, and the balding, hypertensive uncles would make their own way on to the trampoline for a classic game of ‘crack the egg’.

This bizarre, haunting and possibly fabricated nostalgia is the only thing I could fathom that even comes close to the wackiness of the Frankenstein creation that is Slamball. A clear, summative description of the game would be Space Jam if it was animated by crack addicts; a demented basketball in which Bugs Bunny and his Looney Tunes pals jump around and beat the crap out of each other, just like a regular cartoon.

The sport is every ten year-old kid’s dream.

It actually aired on Cartoon Network and is sponsored by Gatorade (coloured sugar water).

Slamball is the attention-seeking, inbred child of basketball, American football, ice hockey and gymnastics. Now, I’m no sportologist, but as far as I can tell the only elements of the game they harvested from hockey and football were the horrible brutality and the stylish uniforms.

The sport was envisioned as a ‘real life video game,’ and stars a proverbial who’s who of failed or injury ridden former NFL players. Ironically, the brain damage that repeated concussions have caused these roid-raging maniacs has left them without the fine motor skills to use gaming controllers. The sport contained so many cocky, disturbingly muscular players that producers of the show honestly wanted to change it to be more like pro wrestling, adding soap opera scripting to the players’ lives for redneck appeal.

Of course, safety issues have placed doubts over the legitimacy of the sport; players are literally spinning and flipping above the ring and it was only a matter of time before a player was head-butted in the genitals. There are even rumours surrounding Slamball deaths, yet I’m beginning to believe these were formulated by the creators themselves to entice extreme sportloving, jump out of a helicopter to snowboard down an erupting volcano type people (their target audience).

Despite my abundant and malicious list of criticisms, Slamball looks insanely amusing, and may be something preposterous enough to help me kick that pesky ice addiction. Unfortunately WA is the flatulent, fossilised and infuriatingly humdrum centre of the world and we here would be lucky to get the censored video game based on the sport.

WA Medical Students Orchestra Our vision of this orchestra is to combine our passion for music with medicine, to provide music opportunities for medical students, to showcase our talents and to promote wellbeing.

We have an amazing repertoire and enthusiastic conductors and would love to see as many students involved as possible. This year our final concert is on September 22, and all money raised will go towards Telethon.

If anyone is interested please email us at medicalstudentsorchestra@gmail.com and we’ll email you an application form. There are no auditions, everyone is welcome.

The Western Australian Medical Students’ Society

Music Students’ Society presents 4 amazing concerts in Semester 2, featuring Performance and Composition Students studying at UWA. Romantic Music: Thursday 16th August Contemporary Music: Thursday 13th September Soloist Concert: Thursday 4th October Composition Concert: Thursday 25th October.

All concerts begin at 730pm and are held in the Callaway Auditorium at the School of Music UWA. Tickets are free for MSS members or $10 for nonmembers and are available at the door.

Cheers Thea Rossen Music Students’ Society President 2012

The Western Australian Medical Students’ Society is very excited to announce the Red Party Fashion and Arts Launch Night!

The Launch Night marks the beginning of our month-long HIV/AIDS awareness campaign.

Artistic entries are going to incorporate an HIV/ AIDS theme and the colour red. The Red Party team urges everybody to come down, appreciate the talent on show and join us in the fight against HIV/AIDS!

Rainer Werner Fassbinder/Hannah Schygulla

UWA Film Society ‘Bringing back the intermission!’

Where: Perth City Farm Exhibition Space, East Perth When: 6pm-10pm Thursday August 9th Entry: Gold coin donation Why: To raise awareness of HIV/AIDS

The Perth Undergraduate Choral Society The Perth Undergraduate Choral Society (PUCS) just performed an amazing rock/pop concert to a full house, singing Bohemian Rhapsody, Hallelujah, Fix You and even Somebody I Used to Know!

Now, we’re looking for more singers to sing in our next concert slated for early November!

We’re a non-audition choir, and everyone from seasoned singers to bathroom crooners is more than welcome!

But don’t take our word for it, join our rehearsals and see what the fuss is all about! Every Monday from July 30, G5 in Music (Tunley LT), 7pm-9pm.

Presenting a new season of films. The Film Society screen films weekly, free, Fox-Lect.Theatre, 6pm. Currently there is a retrospective running entitled “Actor’s Directors”, inclusive of works by Cassavetes. Bergman. Fassbinder.

Truffaut. Wong Kar-wai. Tarkovsky. Chaplan.

Renoir. Kurosawa. Henning Carlsen, Lev Kulidzhanov, Teshigahara and Herzog.

With Australian supplements by Bruce Beresford, Ted Kotcheff and Fred Schepisi. Bringing together seminal directors from China, Germany, Japan, France, America, Sweden, The Soviet Union, Denmark, and Australia. Visit webpage/fb for details and screenings, announced weekly: https://www.facebook.com/uwafilmsociety

UWA Photography Club ‘Want to be an exhibiting photographer? Only got $10? Then we want you... to enter UWA Photography’s disposable camera competition!

Rules: (1) no processing and no fancy gear contact us for a cheap disposable camera or buy your own; (2) register your interest with George (20774698@student.uwa.edu.au) or Isobel (20388578@student.uwa.edu.au); (3) get creative / ‘modify’ (get reckless) with your camera; (4) submit a small print before the 7th of August; and (5) revel in your new found fame at our exhibition. For more info - http://www.facebook. com/UWAPhotographyClub’

National Young Writer’s Month: Collaborative Story National Young Writer’s Month kicks off online on June 1.

The first collaborative story will appear at nywm.com.au, submit your contribution in the comments.

Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre Young Writer in Residence Applications close Tuesday 31 July, 5.00pm Three positions are available for the week of Sun 18 Nov – Tue 27 Nov 2012.

Three Young Writers, up to the age of twenty-five years, will be selected for a 10-day residency at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, Greenmount. The residents will receive a salary of $650 and be given writing space and time to concentrate on, develop or complete a work in progress.

The writer will also be invited to participate in Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Writers’ Centre activities.

The Selection Committee will be looking for a talented young writers able to show application to the craft of writing. It is expected that the writers will have some published material in the print, visual or broadcast media. Ideally, applicants should be working towards achieving their first major full-length publication. Applicants may conduct a

workshop at the Centre during their residency.

Please find the application form and more information at http://www.kspf.iinet.net.au/writer_ res_info.html.

What’s Happening

Happening

Music students’ society

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What’s

Music

30

Pelican’s Guide to

Winter Albums Alex Griffin that could make Kony weep. Mingus x5 is perfect for winter for the following reasons: all of them.

It’s like hanging out with a log fire that pours you drinks. To rattle a few off would be so cursory it would be an affront to the man’s legacy, but heck, you asked; ‘Theme For Lester Young’ is here in its finest iteration, played and recorded with a fierce, swooning delicacy, and if his version of ‘Mood Indigo’ doesn’t slay you, you’re a nonce.

ENNIO MORRICONE VERGOGNA SCHIFOSI OST Heck, this’ll make you feel so irrepressible that pretending you’ve seen the movie won’t even register as deceit on your moral compass.

ANGELO BADALAMENTI TWIN PEAKS SOUNDTRACK

So, semester break is approaching; two months in which to chatter teeth and progressively drink away everything you’ve learnt so far this year. Here’s a brief smattering of some listening material the Pelican recommends for winter, whether it’s for curling up with or freezing to death to.

Illustrations by Arti Pillai

THE SHANGRI-LAS MYRMIDONS OF MELODRAMA Ah, to hell with the Ronettes; The Shangri-Las were always where it was at. Sure, their tough-gal pose was mostly a calculated move to distinguish them from the more cookie-cutter girl gruppes going ‘round, but they brought it on the mic (Q: is he tall?

A: well... I have to look up). ‘Out in the Streets’ and co. are some of the boldest and most expansive songs in the whole pop canon, railing against disposability, full of earworms that are bound to come up whenever you feel aflutter.

Coupled with those strange, intuitive harmonies, the debate should be settled, but the gorgeous, sprawling arrangements (feat. flute, seagulls, motorbikes) cement these songs as intensely personal and overblown at the same time in a fashion pretty unmatched by anything ever. All in all, if it’s forbiddingly dreadful outside and you’re seeking some drama, it’s a far better option than getting into the whiskey and chocolates and slashing through Grey’s Anatomy (when it happens, you’ll know).

Diane plz. Dats a dam fin cup of cofee. Th ppl in twen peeks r the best most decunt u fin anywer. N I b th one to tell u it. Wen we find killa bob? Wanna kissy Audry horny but I me an FBI man. Gud man.

Alby plz dnt hit sherff. Sherff u hit alby y u do dat.

Best u fin anywhar I sez. Diane plz I got shot by man and th music playd. She rapt in plastic. Fire walky. O we fnd bob. Leelan plz dnt kill bt u did.

Wan tak her 2 da forst. O no I am bob. Coopy plz.

Im cold n hurty.

- Speshal agunt dolan cooper

AL GREEN THE BELLE ALBUM

CHARLES MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS

“Just, melt, melt, melt like ice….” – yes sir!

Here in the Pelican office, we all love Mingus. And it’s not because Josh was brought up at the knees of township jazz, or because Richard has a thing for black guys, or because Lizzy was born in 1947.

It’s because he plays the bass like a steel panther who is a hundred feet tall, and writes melodies

GZA/GENIUS LIQUID SWORDS I mean we could talk about rizza-dizza-izzle all day and rattle off 6000 beats that all snap clip and rumble like the very rhythms of life itself but Liquid

Music Reviews

32

Jason Mraz

Daniel Johnston & Friends

R. Stevie Moore & Ariel Pink

Love Is A Four Letter Word

Space Ducks

Ku Klux Glam

Atlantic

Hi, How Are You?

Self-released

“If Dan Bejar transparently used his wares to try bone bony chicks who take veganism as a sign of sincerity. I only mention Dan because I think the last song starts out kinda like the way Kaputt sounds. I’m not sure if that’s true; it’s so crap I can’t physically listen again to find out.” – Josh Chiat

Space Ducks is the glorious multi-media return of the kooky manic-depressive lo-fi genius Daniel Johnston. Known for his melody driven home-made albums such as Yip-Jump Music and Hi, How Are You? Johnston is a cult musician, tortured soul, and truly original mind. Space Ducks is his first release since 2009’s Is and Always Was, and marks a return to his lo-fi roots.

BREAKING (BAD) NEWS|||RSM imploding femmos with his CoSmIc InTrAnSiGeNcE- but heck→downtime &making 34342140 albums a year&&heartss \\\\\THE REMIX NO ONE ASKED FOR///// = “Round and Round ft.

IceCreamTruck and A$AP ROCKY” *not guarante- CarmenIs ComignRSTMAP2012.mp4 $0.99 iTunes HVNG FN W RSM ON STAGE. Therein, b:het- Get ringtones to SACRED SNOW RSM @ AZLYRICS.COM-

“Sorry Dan.”- Everyone

“I think of Jason Mraz’s website much the same way a small child might think of his predicament while being flung from the balcony of Pelican by the Music editor during a jamming session of his new band ‘Man Fisto’ (San Cisco covers in the style of an abbatoir –Ed.) Namely, it has a very prominent Instagram feed, a series of backgrounds featuring the least interesting hills ever discovered, and an album stream that will likely lead to kidney failure as you attempt to drink away the memory of it. I hated every fucking second.” – Simon Donnes

“Man, it’s like Jewel and Barry Goldwater got reeeal nice and soapy in a kiddie pool and started rimming eachother. Six weeks later, Jason Mraz was born (5’11, shaggy hair, fedora, no soul), thinking to himself: “awh shit: Earth! Isn’t this a nice place. I like 2 sing! We are all friends.” Henceforth he proceeded to extol the virtues of wearing a fedora and living simply amongst beautiful women, surfboards and corn – after all, there are two sides to every coin, and they’re both good. My only explanation for Mraz’ purpose is that he is a motivational speaker for people who entered dissociative, sunken states after inhaling too much secondhand weed smoke at Ben Harper concerts. They can no longer respond to encouraging words, let alone any form of aural stimuli, unless there’s a vague reggae rhythm and some black guy singing a smooth harmony. Thank god there is Jason Mraz to encourage these poor people, massaging messages of love, hope and understanding into their addled, shell-shocked brains. I hope that is true, because if it isn’t, then this is merely music for people whom every struggle in the world (gender equality, poverty, war, postmodernism, history) has been made completely irrelevant, aside from the daily battle to be a complacent, eager, empty jerk. I used to have this recurring dream where I methodically dismantled recording studios and pissed on djembes. Finally makes sense.” – Alex Griffin “I quite like it. Love IS a four letter word!” – Rick “I agree with Rick!” – Senator

Pelican Community

0.0

Palpatine

Santorum

Firstly, it is important to note that Space Ducks is not an album, as such. It is a mix of iPad game, comic book, and album – loosely telling the story of the ‘Space Ducks’ through Daniel’s iconic visual and melodic dementedness. It is typical of Daniel’s playfulness that in order to hear the songs on Space Ducks, you must first unlock them within the game (or stream them for free as I did, if you are a CHEATER/too poor to own an iPad).

Daniel Johnston’s last few albums, particularly Is and Always Was, suffered from overproduction. Space Ducks has a warmer, lo-fi sound, but it’s the songs on Space Ducks that sent tingles straight to my balls. The seven tracks of Johnston’s that appear on this album are all surreal, whimsical and damaged; imperfect, as they should be. The opening title track is the deranged theme song to a manic Saturday morning kids show that never was. The darkness and acerbic humour that lurks in Johnston’s song writing is still present, songs such as ‘American Dream’ digging up old themes of paranoia and broken heartedness.

“GETTAGEGUDDAGEEGWEBDEBAUHHHHHGettysburg” , land of plenty airy scream [http:// rsteviemoore.bandcamp.com].

“I WAS THINKING ABOUT RUNNING FOR SENATE!” “this affirmation is the progressive purification of pop towards its truth through the subtraction of genre. Compare this with that pop music which, instead of taking-part in the progressive purification of itself towards its truth, synthesizes singular procedures of truth thus diminishing their transformative power” -wanna get high -sure. (bubbling sound) u been gankin on the trim -i kno aye i gotta flip it – hows da mixing man – aw pretty good *&~KKG~&*– WOLF LYF GOLF LIL B WANG TANG [!got a pat on my bottom! Got a pat on my bottom!] -bridging the gap between piss-soaked elevator-rape-jazz and a pressing absent need to urinateOne of the Californian girls, you see; I faltered.

Blundered. Another, behind. Father the famous one, I reside, in Brooklyn, (hide). @mªˆ§¢@(`à! m*Ä Ðªˆ :y z p(ŠtÕAÑUÐ=$Ð=J”œ ¢E :/

The remainder of the songs are from Johnston-influenced artists like Eleanor Friedberger and Fruit Bats. They add to the experience, and don’t leave you wondering when the next Johnston track will play.

The entire album comes as a sort of… video game. It’s clear that Daniel Johnston is still full of Yips and Jumps.

:)

Patrick Marlborough

Niffirg Xela

7.0

Me: RSTEVIEWHATISNEWWAVE? RSM: GLACIAL SYNTHS HAVE YOU UNDERSTOOD ME RSM (thinking): I gotta get a deep fried friend house! Gwabba Gwabba!

!.?

33

Music Reviews

The hybrid

Santigold

Sigur Rós

Rank & File

The Avalanches

Master of My Make Believe

Valtari

Rank & File [EP]

Since I Left You

Universal

EMI

Self-released

Modular (Originally Released 2001)

With her debut album, Santogold, Santigold stood apart as an artist who refused to simply churn out cheap pop-by-numbers.

Rather, she genuinely aspired to expand the boundaries of what could land on the radio, and often succeeded. Master of My Make Believe, her second album, further explores the limits that pop extends to, and pushes past them. The overall sound of Make Believe is much more influenced by club styles than her previous work, but if you loved her hits in 2008 (‘L.E.S Artistes’, et.

Al), then you are going to adore this album.

Considering the cinematic thrall of this record, it’s not at all surprising that Sigur Ros has been so involved with motion pictures and soundtracks over the years.

Valtari, their sixth album, is a film for your ears, and one well worth experiencing.

The plot Valtari charts out is gentle, broken, and never self-indulgent for an album so sweeping and ambitious. Relying on a core of strings, piano and subtle electronic textures, the band employs a brilliant arrangement of sound effects and production manipulations to set scenes, introduce and develop characters, and articulate an introspective, coherent mood.

Since the day Vikings began singing war hymns between all that pillaging and helmet-donning, musicians have felt inclined towards promoting political messages in their music. Luminaries like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie made their names on rallying the masses with their protest songs, and even Ted Nugent (in his own moronic, I have guitars for arms way) delved into the blending of politics and music. The Balcatta-based “Rock/ Metal mixed freestyle Aussie Hip Hop” group Rank and File follow in this tradition.

Reprazentin’ the WA Branch of the Maritime Union of Australia, Rank and File’s debut EP reflects on their passion for the struggle of blue collar workers, particularly those working in the maritime industry (Chris Cain references abound - Ed.)

Cutting things up and pasting them back together to create something ‘new’ is such a staple of modern music production that the technique no longer raises the proverbial eyebrow. Years before the sensory overload of sample fetishists like Girl Talk managed to (inexplicably) ca$h in on the ADD generation, some dudes from Melbourne got so good at ctrl-c-ctrl-v-ing that they made a record that still stands alone at the top of the Hybrid pile.

‘Disparate Youth’, ‘The Keepers’ and ‘God from the Machine’ are the big successes here. They stand out as anthems for our generation. Santigold sings about the shit we all deal with, but at the same time, sends out a message of independence and perseverance. Despite using a strange palette of dubstep, eerie choir vocals and addictive pitched bass lines, her songs are consummately accessible. However, what really makes these songs is the strength of her vocals, comparable to Lykke Li’s in uniqueness and style.

There are flops, though, a few too many for this to be a true classic (‘Go!’, ‘Freak Like Me’ and ‘Look at These Hoes’). Despite their personality and humour, they are poorly written and Santigold’s vocals are too weak to compensate. Despite being amusing at first, these songs are eminently skippable and weigh the record down. The rest of the album is an always-interesting mix of pop intertwined with afro beats, DnB, jungle grooves and reggae shuffles. Santigold interweaves a sound so luxurious, unique and intricate that it’s fucking amazing.

When it’s firing, dis shit is gold.

Valtari translates into ‘steamroller’, which ties neatly with the band’s description of their work as “like an avalanche in slow motion”. The sense of story conjured by the music lends the listener the experience that celluloid provides, of magical fulfilment and transfiguration. There’s the comfort of dreaming through a waking nightmare; as if numbness was slow-dancing. Valtari threads specific motifs throughout the tracks, providing a sense of ordered nostalgia in a chaotic, confronting life. The high point, ‘Varúð’ is indicative of the harmony of texture and delivery Valtari achieves, as raw restraint paints blemishes of beauty with strings and vocals.

This record is sung in Icelandic; however, not speaking the language is beneficial, as it enables one to rely on the pure humanity of universal expression. I am encouraged by this album; Sigur Ros have found a novel way to tap into the collective international soul and unify humanity through a unique perspective on a human experience. They depict the journey of revisiting the familiar to find old truths, welcoming you home as they do it.

However, some tracks do manage to shine through. ‘United We Stand’ is a very tightly produced track with a good flow, and ‘Hard on the Streets’ delivers a subtle, but real expression of a hard-lived life on the streets from a distinctively Aussie perspective. Though there is some promise here, Rank and File need to keep at it and hone their craft and the depth of their message. They exude passion and commitment, but for now, their songs aren’t doing much but waving the Eureka flag.

Russell Schlink

Lauren Croser

7.5

While the essence of Rank and File is pure and true to their roots (they have got the market cornered on sincerity), the heavy, thinly disguised messages of their songs can be overbearing at times. In addition, the low production values of the metalriffage beats make the EP quite a chore to get through in one sitting.

Zev Levi

8.5

5.0

The Avalanches began life as a very nineties group – kinda hip-hop, but they all played instruments and sang – who had a thing for using odd vinyl samples (cf. youtube footage of them on Recovery). By the time they got around to making an album, they’d decided they liked playing with vinyl so much that they threw the instruments out the window and decided to make their record entirely out of samples – three-and-a-half thousand of them, apparently.

The result continues to defy classification.

Since I Left You is an upbeat wonder of innumerable origins and destinations, remaining a massive commercial and critical success, and a cultural watershed. The songs flow unceasingly into one another, forming an hour-long journey of unabridged joy, but it’s possible to pick out personal high points. ‘Since I Left You’ is an immediate, immaculate mood-lifter. ‘Two Hearts in 3/4 Time’ is as deliciously gooey as the name suggests, and warped single ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ might just be the strangest song ever to become a hit; hit though, it certainly became.

It was an impossible record to follow up and, so far, the Avalanches have sidestepped this problem by not trying to. Talk of a sophomore release resurfaces every couple years, but for now, it remains their lone, patchwork albatross.

Connor Weightman

Film Reviews

34

Iron Sky

Declaration of War

Director Timo Vuorensola

Director Tim Burton

Director Valérie Donzelli

Starring Julia Dietze, Götz Otto, Christopher Kirby, Udo Kier

Walking into Iron Sky, I found myself worried at what could be another Hobo with a Shotgun – sold on a goofy idea and a big name from yesteryear (Iron Sky features Udo Kier, best known for his role as Yuri in the Command and Conquer: Red Alert video games) but ultimately failing to deliver anything of substance. Thankfully, Iron Sky does right almost everything Hobo did wrong.

The long and short of the concept is: Nazis on the Moon. If that seems like it would be too outlandish to try as a straight-faced Hollywood action film, you’d be correct. Not only is Iron Sky a rich, dark comedy, but it is the first in a new style of participatory cinema. Individuals contributed donations towards the budget along with creative input and roles as extras. The credits feature messages of thanks to every single contributor, making for a rather special credits roll.

The filmic style is fairly consistent, but somewhat safe ground. The costumes are great, the CGI is up to scratch and the acting, for the most part is the right level of overacting and theatrics – this is a film about Space Nazis. Götz Otto really hams it up and Udo Kier holds command of every scene he’s in.

The pacing is sometimes slugged down by one really obvious Nazi joke too many that fail to come through on delivery. For the most part, it’s quite clever and has enough subtle references for fans of the Third Reich to salivate over.

Simon Donnes

Dark Shadows

7.5

Starring Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, HelenaBonham Carter

Starring Valérie Donzelli, Jerémie Elkaïm, César Desseix

I never thought I’d be describing a film about an ill child as incredibly heart-warming. However, that’s just what Declaration of War (France’s official submission for the 2012 Academy Awards), is.

Based on the real life experiences of director Valerie Donzelli (who plays Juliette) and writer/co-star Jeremie Elkaim (who plays Romeo) it follows the couple as they fall in love, give birth to a child and consequently have their newfound happiness shattered when they discover their son, Adam, has a brain tumour.

There are elements of Declaration of War that would send the movie straight to DVD if an American or Australian director had made it. But, with that French je ne sais quoi it excels. There’s impromptu duets sung in taxis, fainting in corridors and characters named after those star cross’d lovers yet it all works together to produce a piece of cinema that is life-affirming, gripping and light-hearted all at the same time.

The film in told in flashback, with the first scene showing the eight-year-old Adam (played by Donzelli and Elkaim’s real-life son) waiting for a check-up. With the element of suspense erased, the audience is able to focus on the couple and how they deal with their son’s illness. One particular scene involving the couple voicing their fears over their son’s surgery the next day makes the film worth seeing all on its own.

For me, what truly made the film enjoyable was the ease in which I could empathise with its characters.

As clichéd as it sounds, the film really does make you feel like you are one of the couple’s close friends, experiencing the highs and lows with them. The clinical scenes were also shot in a real, working hospital and the hospital staff is a mixture of actors and professional health-care workers. The soundtrack and wanderlust-inducing shots of Paris compliment the story beautifully to produce a charming film that is well worth your dollar.

Melissa Coci

8.5

I realise that ‘Burton bashing’ is the new pastime of many self-professed cinephiles, but it’s always with a degree of bad conscience that I sink my critical teeth into his work. After all, this is the man who bought me my childhood favourites Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands and who provided Johnny Depp with his greatest role to date in Ed Wood. Sadly however, the old adage is true, you really are only as good as your last game, and boy has the fall from grace for Burton been particularly unkind.

His latest offering Dark Shadows may not be as chaotically kitsch or saccharine as Alice in Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but its complacent mediocrity renders it just as frustrating. Based on the cult television show of the same name, Dark Shadows follows the plight of Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) who is cursed, laid to rest for two hundred years and unceremoniously sprung from his coffin 200 years later in 1972. Undead but highly ambitious, he returns to his now dilapidated family home in the hopes of restoring the Collins estate to its former glory.

The result is a disjointed blend of comedy and melodrama. Quite obviously, Burton’s eccentricity is dated and the decision to delve into the increasingly saturated vampire market is a testament to this. The visuals are slick, and the supporting cast (Johnny Lee Miller and Chloe Mortez in particular) put in the occasional scene-stealing performance, but the unevenness of Burton’s latest project only serves to indicate just how creatively adrift the director has become over recent years.

Dark Shadows won’t please Burton fans. Sure, it might gratify his detractors, but it feels like we’re flogging a dead horse here. The derivative and artificial Burton is here to stay and you can be sure as hell that he’ll be dragging Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter along for the ride.

Alice Mepham

4.0

Film Reviews

35

The Avengers

Men in Black 3

Director Joss Whedon

Director Barry Sonnenfeld

Starring Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston

Starring Will Smith, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Jermaine Clement

To steal a Colbert bit, The Avengers: great movie or greatest movie?

The Avengers is the culmination of Marvel Studios’ five-year project to recreate the shared universe found in the pages of Marvel Comics on the big screen. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow, all in one film.

Let’s put my cards on the table here, I’m genetically predisposed to love this film. I’m an obsessive fan of superheroes and writer/director Joss Whedon. I may have devoted years of my life to examining how the shared universe of Marvel brought to screen operates.

Now this is the story all about how, My life got flipped, turned upside down.

So I’d like to take a minute, just sit right back and tell you how I became one of the Men in Black.

Back 1997 I was made a recruit By a group of mysterious men in suits.

I was chilling out maxing, relaxing all cool Then I was saving the world from alien rule When some extra-terrestrials who were up to no good, Started disturbing my intergalactic neighbourhood.

Got in one huge fight with my man agent K

Is the film perfect? No, I think the opening relies too much on technobabble and to understand Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) motivation you really need to have seen Thor. But The Avengers gave me everything I could’ve wanted from this film and more.

Frank the Pug, Dr Laurel and we saved the day.

Whedon accomplishes the seemingly impossible job of balancing out the cast. Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) snark works in the film, rather than drowning everything else out like in Iron Man 2. Black Widow (Scarlett Johanssen) goes from afterthought in Iron Man 2, to a hard-as-nails superspy who best embodies the central themes of the film. And Hulk, well between Whedon and Ruffalo, they’ve finally gotten Hulk right.

But I thought “Nah forget it, the fans will be back”

The final battle captures the feeling of reading superhero action comics better than any other superhero film. I came out of The Avengers feeling like I’d seen a geek classic, up there with films like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Basically, I’m saying see this film (though based on the box-office takings, the rules of probability suggest you already have.)

Much like this rap, this nostalgia trip is disappointing at best.

Kevin Chiat

9.0

Now in 2012, we have the same fear That some alien folks are coming back here If anything, I could say that this plot was wack

We pulled tired jokes together, more than most can take, And degraded Josh Brolin, “Your acting can be greater.”

Hardly any Tommy Lee and we were finally there, A ham-fisted film without an ounce of flair.

Frank the Pug doesn’t even feature!

Alice Mepham

4.0

JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI Director David Gelb Starring Jiro, some other Japanese people.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a documentary about an 85 year-old Japanese man who runs a ten seat sushi restaurant under a train station in Tokyo. This unlikely nook has three Michelin stars, the highest accolade a restaurant can have. The uncannily turtle-like Jiro is not a glitz and glam celebrity chef (though he does have an adorable bro crush on fellow tri-Micheliner Joel Robuchon). His success stems instead from his almost inhuman work ethic.

A sushi chef since his teens, Jiro is a master craftsman.

The camera work is intensely personal. Slowmo pieces capture the balletic dance of his hands as he expertly sculpts the rice and fish into beautiful sushi. He deftly paints a lick of sauce onto the top edge of the fish with the back of a wooden spoon, and places it on the piece of polished obsidian which serves as a plate. The sushi gracefully bends slightly downward and outward, relaxing as though it just got into a warm bath.

Food writing is riddled with clichés about “gem-like sushi” but this film is almost pornographic. Aptly, those involved behind the scenes in sushi are also a little dodgy. Fujita the fish dealer has a greasy Elvis haircut and he examines the prospective tuna by digging his fingers into their flesh, inspecting their colour and texture under bright torchlight.

The scenes in the fish market culminate in an amazing tribal song and dance, African drum music used to highlight the strangeness of the ritual stages in the fish sales. The score generally is a bit heavy on the Glass and actually lifts an entire piece from The Hours. This might be distracting for some.

Pro tip: go to an early evening screening so there’ll be enough time to get sushi after you leave.

Yvonne Buresch

9.0

buy sell search swap textbooks texchange.

texchange.guild.uwa.edu.au

Alice Mepham

When Films Go Formal:

Illustration by Camden Watts

2012 is shaping up to be a literate year; though not that anyone’s actually reading. No, this is literature the way that every English student dreading reading Shakespeare wants it: through the joyous medium of film.

It seems that almost every second week Hollywood is coughing up some form of cinematic adaptation. In this past month alone, Water Salle’s audacious attempt to adapt Kerouac’s classic On The Road debuted at the Cannes Film Festival (to an almost unanimous critical panning), Michael Winterbottom took his unique spin on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles in Trishna and some sadistic executives decided it would be a good idea to unleash a completely unwarranted adaptation of What To Expect When You’re Expecting upon an ironically unsuspecting public (it’s as if Battleship wasn’t punishment enough for our sins).

On top of this of course, the teaser trailer to Baz Luhrmann’s much anticipated The Great Gatsby went viral as Frankie girls Australia wide creamed their collective panties at this kitsch sneak-peak.

So what’s the winning formula? Why should one film fail while another succeeds? The material is right there in front of you, your demographic has already been established, all it really needs is a little cinematic tweaking. How then can it be so colossally cocked up, you may be inclined to ask? At the end of the day it all comes down to approach, (or in the case of Salles,

staying the fuck away from a book with no discernable narrative and a rapacious gang of beat fan boys/girls frothing at the bit to cut you down for having the pluck to tackle the culturally sacred). Traditionally you could advocate for two dominant methodologies: skillful abridgment vs. imaginative revisioning.

Is skillful abridgement the greatest way a director can pay tribute to their source text? Yes and no. True enough, book adaptations can often fail by being too faithful. To put it bluntly, your original readership can be absolute cunts sometimes. They’ll complain that it didn’t bring anything new to the franchise.

Of course, you could always say that it’s offering up something new by relaying the story to those who wouldn’t have otherwise encountered the book, but, let’s face it, they’re probably too busy shipping their favourite pair on fanfiction to care much for that sort of rationalisation. Undeniably though, it’s a fairly safe choice. I’m not just talking stylistically here either.

Best-selling property such as Harry Potter and The Hunger Games have taken this direction to both commercial success and critical plaudits. If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it, right?

On the flipside, though, is the failure of adaptation a lack of imagination when it comes to refashioning your literary material? Very often yes. Sometimes when you take the straightforward path superficiality ensues. Again, take The Hunger Games. It hits all the expected plot points from a novel that offers a direct cinematic blueprint, yet sometimes it feels thinnedout, and as a result it can only deal glancingly with key relationships from the book. On the other hand are films like Jaws. There, Spielberg takes a relatively

trashy pulp novel and fleshes it out completely; going far beyond the limited material he is drawing from. Of course sometimes it doesn’t fucking matter, because the writer’s so unbelievably inept that no cinematic formula known to man could possibly save you (cf.

Battlefield Earth).

Now, I’m not here to advocate one way or another.

Being forever indifferent, I’m going to take the easy road and hedge my bets by placing a foot firmly in each camp. Hey, I Loved the Coens’ forthright take on McCarthy in No Country For Old Men as much I as I have always adored Ford-Coppola’s bold revisioning of Conrad in Apocalypse Now. Let’s just hope that whichever course our beloved studios decide to take in the future they don’t do it half-baked. (How we are still making Dr. Seuss films after the horror that was The Cat in the Hat is beyond me.)

At the very least, we can all sleep safe in the knowledge that The Hobbit is in Peter Jackson’s hands, even if it only just counters the night-sweats induced by the realisation that Baz will do everything in his power to destroy Fitzgerald for you. HAPPY TIMES!

Do your homework: A brief list of the Best and da Worst cinematic adaptatons.

The Best: Jurassic Park, The Maltese Falcon, All Quiet on the Western Front, Blade Runner, The Big Sleep, The Shining.

The Worst Animal Farm, The Scarlet letter, The Time Machine, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Prince Caspian, The Human Stain

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37

From From Tolkien Tolkien to to Twilight Twilight

Film

When Films Go Formal:

Books

Stonemouth

Coltrane: Story of a Sound

Iain Banks

38

BEST BIT: Despite the problems, the plot is compelling enough keep you interested.

6.5/10 Stonemouth is the third time I’ve read basically the same Iain Banks novel, and unfortunately the law of diminishing returns has set in in a big way. All the same themes and plot elements that were in The Crow Road and then kind of less in The Steep Approach to Garbadale are still here, but like any copy of a copy, a lot of detail and clarity are lost.

WORST BIT: All the usual Iain Banks twitches are here, just in a depressingly perfunctory form.

Once again, we have a first person narrative telling the story of a middle class kid in Scotland, with Banks’ left-wing perspective sneaking in alongside a slightly adolescent focus on sex and drugs and a murder mystery/mysterious past to uncover. The only problem is that Banks seems to be feeling a bit sick of the formula, and the novel feels a little shallow and half-hearted compared to his earlier works.

by Ben Johnston:

Stonemouth isn’t bad; the plot is a page-turner and the ending is nicely understated, but it’s hard to recommend it when there are better books by the same author.

learning to love literary fiction, but mostly he’s here for the spaceships.

READ IT WITH: A wee dram o’ whiskey, me ole tam o’ shanter.

The Missing Shade of Blue Jennie Erdal

7/10 The Missing Shade of Blue has all the ingredients of a painfully elitist work of littérature: A French Intellectual/David Hume translator who grew up in an ancient Parisian bookstore; a philosopher/feather collector who utters less of his own words than those of Socrates, Henry James and Wittgenstein; and a Distinguished Painter who treats her own artistic progress like a golden ladybug under a microscope. Despite these ingredients the book ends up fun, natural and unaffected.

One thing for certain is that Erdal knows how to shape a character, which is my only guess as to how she dodges ostentation in such potentially ostentatious waters. Erdal gets you so involved in the character’s lives and relationships that you hardly notice they’re all drinking wine and talking about Sartre.

The pacing is great and the wit and humour is plentiful. It is a good one for anyone excited about the academic world, but more excited about people, their passions and their flaws.

READ IT WITH: Your pinkie finger poking up in the air.

Ben Ratliff

BEST BIT: Excerpts from Coltrane’s live interviews and correspondences.

6/10 This book depicts exactly what y’all been thinkin’ as you read these Peli-pages; reviewers can’t write. Ratliff is an acclaimed jazz critic of nearly two decades who has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone and Granta – so he is pretty good at finding faults.

His latest release is both observant and critical of Coltrane’s work, especially of his earlier recordings, to the point of breaking dogma. At least it’s a change from most biographies where the author just blows sunshine out of the artist’s ass.

In the introduction he explains that it is not a usual biography with dates and facts but rather an exploration of Coltrane’s ‘sound’. However, there is rarely any mention of Coltrane’s sound in the pages and when there is, it’s brief and general.

There aren’t enough juicy stories to attract the laymen and not enough detail in explanations of Coltrane’s concepts and style to appeal to musicians so it sits awkwardly as a rather long chronological review of Coltrane’s discography.

READ IT WITH: A Love Supreme’ spinning on your turntable.

WORST BIT: There is very little mention of this ‘sound’ referred to in the title..

by Lizzy Plus: a real cool cat who is hep to the journos who jizz on the jazz.

Capital BEST BIT:

John Lanchester

An impressive page or two where a broken-down philosopher describes the joy of making fishing flies.

BEST BIT: Topical.

6.5/10 John Lanchester is fascinated by money and the people who make it, and Capital is his fictionalised cross-section of pre-GFC commerce.

WORST BIT: The French bits (for anyone who doesn’t have a French-English dictionary handy).

by James Spinks : an avid reader and struggling fiction writer.

Old favourites include Chekhov and Hemingway.

On the shelf Capital is an intimidating work, yet this hefty volume is surprisingly unambitious. Lanchester’s journalism has been in every respectable English periodical from the Telegraph to the Times, and this work feels a little like an illustrative companion to his economic writing. Here, he’s covered too much ground too thinly. Roger Yount is an indifferent investment banker; Zbigniew is a cold, driven economic migrant; Smitty is a self-involved Banksy carbon-copy.

All his characters ring true but none are particularly compelling.

Lanchester writes with confidence and ease, and is at his best when analysing corporate culture and the development of London suburbia. However, his misappropriation of novelistic techniques causes the kind of discomfort felt when encountering a “Dear Reader”. Slipping awkwardly in and out of omniscience is a serious authorial crime, and Lanchester is a repeat offender.

READ IT WITH: Indignation.

WORST BIT: Will date quickly.

by Zoe Kilbourn: studies second year law/music. She’s sorry for party rocking.

Lindsey Hilsum

BEST BIT:

3/10

The Libyan Revolution and its preceding civil war was a staple of any news junkie’s diet in 2011 and Lindsey Hilsum has created a Happy Meal-esque account that is quick and easy to digest.

While it is hard to fault Hilsum’s account – it is certainly authoritative – the narrative is lacking. It is easy to lay blame on the fact that the revolution is still ongoing, but the text reads more like an elongated news report than a book. Very little analysis is given about the conflict by Hilsum and little in this book is new to those with knowledge of the Libyan situation. One would certainly lend to this to someone with little knowledge of this important conflict but Hilsum isn’t saying anything new.

READ IT WITH: BBC World News on in the background.

Gemma Malley

The heart-breaking accounts of the Gaddafi regime’s victims.

7/10

The aforementioned Hilsum is International Editor of the UK’s Channel 4 News and the text will certainly stand as an authoritative account of the conflict. The first-hand accounts of Gaddafi’s allies and foes bring a personal touch to a distant conflict and the piece is research-heavy.

Books

The Killables BEST BIT: Attempting to give scientific grounding to the plot device by quoting a Wikipedia article.

Quotes in the blurb claim that Gemma Malley’s previous work is “poignant, thought-provoking and chilling.” Sadly, her latest book The Killables is anything but.

WORST BIT: The lack of analysis or new information in the text.

by Richard Ferguson: the Political Editor of Pelican Magazine.

Malley’s depiction of the future is so bland and vague that if it weren’t for the brief references to the setting of postapocalyptic London it could’ve been anywhere. Whilst locales such as “The City” with its monitoring apparatus known as “The System” are presumably meant to come across as utilitarian and sterile, it just reeked of lazy world building and an unimaginative writing style.

The characters don’t do themselves any favours either. The heroine, Evie, is either being neurotic about shallow issues and lame plot twists you could see coming 20 pages earlier, or being angsty about which dark, brooding, boy she wants in the obligatory love triangle scenario that seems to be mandatory for any book aimed at people under the age of 25.

Oh, the plot? People who show signs of evil are exterminated.

Just go watch Equilibrium, it’s the same thing really.

WORST BIT: A potentially entertaining climax lost to Evie whining that her boyfriend is mad at her.

by Mark Tilly: hates interesting concepts ruined by poor writing and bad characterisation.

READ IT WITH: Equilibrium playing in the background. Put down the book and watch that instead.

Waltzing Matilda Dennis O’Keefe

3/10 Look, I don’t want to be mean, but I expected something else.

Waltzing Matilda is a fascinating song. It’s Australia’s “unofficial anthem” but it’s a suicide narrative. The words “waltzing matilda” don’t inherently mean anything to anyone, yet they rouse Antipodean heartstrings like nothing else.

Despite promises, the why of the song’s modern prominence doesn’t get a look in. Rather, it’s a historical narrative of Australia in the late 1800s and the possible circumstances that inspired the song’s formation.

BEST BIT: A public poem battle between Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson is strangely entertaining.

WORST BIT: The presumptive writing style really grates.

Even so, Waltzing Matilda (the book) is not well written. The structure is frustratingly nonsensical. A lot of research clearly went into it, but as an unfortunate result it includes a lot of information, which has little relevance to anything and probably should’ve been edited out.

The author’s tone is at turns overly speculative, far too imaginative about the emotional state of historical characters, and annoyingly affirmative about Australian self-perceptions and archetypes. In short, don’t bother with this book unless you really, really have a hankering for scrambled colonial romanticism.

READ IT WITH: A billy o’ tea & yer best Aussie flag handkerchief.

by Connor Weightman: was once photographed holding an Australian flag, but he swears it was all irony.

The Capture of The Earl of Glencrae Stephanie Laurens

BEST BIT: The hero. Hot damn.

8.5/10 I’m not someone who generally reads historical romances. I love the idea of a Regency romance but I find there are usually three big things that annoy me. (1) They are slow (2) the heroines are annoyingly delicate/meek/completely unlike me and (3) they are about as historically accurate as Braveheart.

Thankfully, The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae exceeded my highest expectations and is a brilliant example of genre romance.

Slow? Not when the heroine is kidnapped on page 13. Weak female? She made it her mission to seduce her soon-to-be kidnapper on page one, before joining him on his mission to best those who threaten his clan! Historically inaccurate? Not… entirely. Only a little. If this would annoy you, don’t read it.

If you can’t stomach overtly flowery language, don’t read it.

If, however, you’d enjoy a casual romp with a 6’4” Scottish highlander with excellent manner, morals, and muscles, read away.

READ IT WITH: A smile on your face, a nice cup of tea, and all cynicism locked in a box, hidden in the garden.

WORST BIT: Playing hard and fast with Scottish history. While it does a great job of propelling the plot, it makes my insides cry a little.

by Alexandra Leonzini: a straightedge vegan Music/Arts student who enjoys Woody Allen, opera, and 18th and 19th century erotic literature.

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Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution

Books

40

GOOD, BAD AND SHADES OF GRAY Claudia Gray (real name Amy Vincent) has been “a disc jockey, a lawyer, a journalist and an extremely bad waitress.” Nowadays she’s the author of the best-selling Evernight series of vampire boarding school romance novels beloved by teenage girls worldwide. Pelican’s Deblina Mittra finds out what she has to say about Twilight, Homer’s Odyssey and writing about sex for teenagers.

We often hear that it’s very hard to get published as a young writer. Was your manuscript ever rejected or did you have an easier time of it?

I had an embarrassingly easy time of it. I was very, very naïve about things. The further I get on I realise how lucky I was. Before I was actually done with Evernight, my US publisher had called my agent and said “We’re looking for something paranormal. We don’t have anything, do you?”

Why do you use a pseudonym?

I thought it would be fun. When I was a little kid and I heard that people write under names that aren’t theirs I thought the first chance I had, I’d do that.

Illustration by Deblina Mittra

How do you feel about being compared to Stephenie Meyer in your book blurbs?

be overkill, so I weaned myself off other vampire media while writing this. I mean, I’ve been watching Vampire Diaries because I can’t resist that, but that’s really been the only thing that got in.

Fiction goes through phases and trends – how long will the supernatural romance trend be around?

I don’t think it’s ever going to vanish. Whether it’s going to be as popular in two years or five years, your guess is as good as mine. I don’t think we’re swinging back to very realistic gory fiction.

You see a lot more fantasy elements in adult and mainstream books than you used to. The Time Traveller’s Wife: absolutely mainstream literary book, huge success – it’s a book about a time traveller! Could you see that in the 1980s being marketed as mainstream fiction? It absolutely wouldn’t have been.

Sometimes I do wish they’d pick something else!

But I do understand why they’d pick that. I mean, Stephenie Meyer created a whole new generation of vampire fans and God [I] love her for it! I am grateful for that.

It’s possible that what’s going to happen is not so much that supernatural romance will go away, but some of the elements of supernatural romance may come to be considered as completely mainstream.

In what ways do you differentiate yourself from her work?

Where do you see the genre progressing from here? How has it evolved from earlier, gorier representations?

I haven’t read enough Stephenie Meyer to give you a really comprehensive take on that. I’ve read Twilight but I didn’t read any further because I was working on my own stuff. It was kind of getting to

I’m always very wary to predict trends and things.

Nobody was calling them vampires way back then.

I don’t think it’s going to go away. I don’t think it will ever totally vanish even though it’s riding the crest of popularity right now. The mini-crest begins with Twilight and the even bigger crest begins with Anne Rice in the 70s. You could find vampire and ghost novels in the 50s and the 60s.

Really ever since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, scifi and fantasy have had a grip on our imaginations.

What was it that inspired you to become a writer?

I think if you really want to be a writer, you know this your whole life. It’s not some moment where you go, “I know! I’ll do this!” I always knew that I was very interested in telling stories.

And you started writing in high school?

I started writing even before that, but I didn’t get to really showing people anything I’d written until I was in my twenties.

Are your family or friends big fans of your books? Do you rope them into proofreading?

I have very supportive family and friends. I have friends I go to who are my readers, who give me feedback.

I think it’s very easy to fall into the trap of showing everybody your work and listening to everyone’s opinions, and nobody agrees. I think you pick your readers and stick with them.

Books

41 Do you ever write people you know into your novels?

No. I don’t know any vampires!

I know there are people who do this. I just don’t.

It’s very far afield from normal life, what I do. Also, I feel like if I wrote about someone I knew that would be very weird for me – I’d feel constrained. I feel like your characters write themselves. It’s best if you just write them out and find out.

What was your own high school experience like?

I went to a very small school. My graduating class was 28 people, 12 of whom I knew from kindergarten. It was literally around the corner from my house, I could hear the bell ring from my house.

What is it about high school that holds our attention as a society? Is it nostalgia?

I don’t think it’s nostalgia. How many people do you know who are like “Ooh I want to go back to high school!” Aren’t those people kind of scary? I really believe that being happy in high school is one of the worst things that could happen to a person.

Seriously, they never get over it. If I knew why that experience has such a powerful hold on us for forever, I’d make zillions. I’d quit being a writer and be a therapist.

Do we just wish we could do it over again?

Maybe. I think as we get older we get more of a thicker skin, you have a different sense of perspective and you wish you could go back and deal with those problems.

Is supernatural romance about a desire to inject something exciting into the ordinary course of life?

Not really. I think the fantasy element embodies a lot of fears we deal with at that age: falling in love,

getting more responsibility. They’re difficult issues to look at head on when you’re a teenager. You can write very good stories where the supernatural becomes an element or an engine of that fear, because it’s symbolic – that’s why it’s powerful.

A lot of people feel that fantasy writers get too attached to their characters. Should Harry have died? Should there have been a battle between Edward and Jacob in Twilight? As a writer, do you think those are acts of cowardice?

The teenagers in Evernight are openly sexual. Is it hard to write about sex for a teenage audience?

Have you ever felt pressured by parents or publishers to censor yourself?

Pretty sure I’m not going to say that to anybody about their book! Even if I did think it, I wouldn’t say it.

No. I tend to write not-that-explicitly, simply because I think what’s sexiest is suggestion. When you look back at old movies, when they couldn’t show a lot, it was about the suspense of the scene.

A lot of those are much sexier than movies where they show you everything.

It works better than being explicit. The same thing that one person finds sexy another person may not find sexy at all, and a third person may think is hilarious.

What ideas do you have for future work? Are you comfortable in this genre?

A lot of people ask if I’m going to write for adults or whether I’m going to keep writing YA. I hope it’s not either/or, I hope I can do both. Right now I’m finishing the first book of a witchcraft-based trilogy called Spellcaster.

What advice do you have for someone getting published? How to write to get published?

I feel like it’s a mistake to write without any thought of getting published, without any thought of whether anybody else is going to be interested in what you have to say. On the other hand, if you’re trying only to write what you think will interest other people without any thought to what will interest you, that’s also a recipe for failure. I think you have to really find what passion you have that’s shared.

I’ll still kill somebody if I need to, but I follow the story. I can’t even imagine a story where Harry dies at the end. “Oh I had to die, sorry guys.” Just no!

Anybody who ends a book like that needs a boot to the head!

Do you think all characters deserve a happy ending?

Deserve is a funny word. Not everybody gets one.

You have to obey what happens in the story. I’ve read many books, more “literary” books, where I feel like something horrible happened at the end just because [the author] had some idea in their head that it was more realistic. Sometimes it seems to come out of nowhere, like they thought it was more literary.

You know which book drove me crazy? Everybody loves this book but I don’t – [Charles Frazier’s] Cold Mountain. It’s re-telling The Odyssey, right?

What happens at the end of The Odyssey? Odysseus gets home to Penelope and they have sex in the big bed that he made with his own hands and it’s wonderful. In Cold Mountain he gets home…and he just kills her. I mean, really?! That’s where you decided to deviate? I had to go through 900 pages of this book.

I felt like it was because we have this idea that something dour is more creative or courageous, and I don’t think that’s true.

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Books

CRIPPLED GIRLS AND CRYING BOYS:

HOW I DISCOVERED VISUAL NOVELS Esteban Valeiho At the crossroads of video games and literature lies a small hybrid genre known as the Visual Novel. They feature about the level of interactivity of an R.L Stine ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’, but have the depth of layering which a soundtrack, visuals and animation allow.

leaves out key moments of characterisation and plot development for many of the narrative arcs.

The sexual content is not a glorified, objectified presentation like an animated porno, but rather is far more realistic – it can bring a relationship closer, screw everything up, or just be awkward as hell.

They’re too different to be called just “books” or just “games” but media fans from both camps are quick to either accept it or palm it off onto the other. They’ve been very popular in Japan for some time (they made up 70% of all PC game releases back in 2006) but have made little traction in the West.

Those defining factors that make it a visual novel are for the most part stellar. The music is a lovely mostly-piano composition that seems able to capture the very essence of characters in its tunes.

The visuals are an interesting hybrid of real-world imagery, filters and hand drawn environments.

What really stands out is the quality of animation for a free-ware product made on no budget – the precious few seconds that exist are truly breathtaking.

One need only Google “katawa shoujo feels” or “katawa shoujo depression” to uncover a smorgasbord of others who have suffered the post-game-slump. There is something almost unnaturally powerful about the way words are spun and stories sown by the writers. Hisao can, in each potential relationship, have the story end well, badly, bitter-sweetly or even with his death. Regardless of ending the story can leave such a presence in one’s mind. It’s a feeling both wondrous and horrific, and really can’t be done justice with words.

The interactive choice aspect can be less than amazing at times, with the writers being forced to rail-road Hiaso into a situation regardless of choice. On the other hand, a lovely touch is that

I loved every minute of Katawa Shoujo. There’s only one way to find out if you will too.

I’d known about Visual Novels for a while, with the name of one being thrown around every so often on one of my internet hangouts, the despicable 4chan. That name was Katawa Shoujo.

It’s not that it (whatever it was) didn’t appeal, it’s just that I had other things to do. Then, one rainy day last week I incidentally had nothing to do. Knowing absolutely nothing about it, its development cycle or visual novels as a genre, I plunged deep into its midst.

On the surface, there were no redeeming factors to Katawa Shoujo. It is an eroge styled visual novel made by people on 4chan, with a title that translates to Cripple Girls. It may surprise you to find that against all odds, this freeware fauxJapanese visual novel about young, beautiful women with disabilities and made by people from a place collectively called “the asshole of the internet” is a work of art.

Some of my friends to whom I recommended Katawa Shoujo had initial issues with the characters possessing disabilities. One has no arms, another no legs, one is blind, one is deaf, and one has large burn scars. The player’s character/narrator, Hisao, suffers from Arrhythmia. But it’s not really about the disabilities. Each of the girls has learnt to get by in everyday life to the point that most don’t even notice. Hisao coming to terms with his own disability is a far more important aspect of the narrative.

Being an eroge, sexual content is present. There is the option to disable adult content (no, you are not the first to make that joke) but doing so

some choices have very little meaning, others much, but that most of them don’t reveal their true consequences until sometime later. Given the concept for the game started over five years ago with the posting of a single image online, I find it particularity fitting.

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Books

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT STEFEN Yvonne Buresch

Stefen’s Books used to be Fantastic Planet, owned by UWA Creative Writing tutor Stephen Dedman. A tiny overcrowded sci-fi bookshop tucked down the side of Shafto Lane between Murray and Hay Street, it was kind of like those things in Doctor Who that you never notice unless you look at them directly. That’s all changed now as a different Stefen – Stefen Brazulaitis – has taken over.

Stefen has put his personal stamp on the place, literally. He IS the brand: a stylised cartoon of his face is the shop’s logo and he’s banking the success of his little shop on the reputation he has created for himself during his twenty-odd years in the industry.

While the explosion of internet book sales has been dubbed by some as the death warrant for small independent bookshops like his own, Stefen disagrees. As one of the first specialist customer service managers during his time at Borders, Stefen trained others in the art of bookselling – something that you can’t teach a website. When I asked him what his thoughts were on the future of bookshops in the age of the internet he replied:

“I think there is a future in it because I think there’s a future in people, I think there’s a future in human contact. As convenient as the internet is and as useful as e-readers are, there is still a point at which we like to interact with other human beings – we like to shop, we like to browse, we like to get stuff.

I think there is something intrinsic in us where if you feel you need a present, or if you want to reward yourself for having done well, or you want to placate yourself for having endured something unpleasant, just pressing a button on a computer doesn’t quite give you the feeling of having given yourself something.

Being able to go and get an object (particularly an object you really like) and being able to do that in a place where the people you interact with are there to facilitate that, who are all about you having a really good time, all about you getting something cool, all about you being happy, makes you feel better.

Bookstores are going to have to do what the internet can’t do, and that’s to just be people.”

Good service is not a new concept to Stefen. A winner of the Australian Bookseller + Publisher Bookseller of the Year Award, he used to be a five star waiter, though a severe dairy allergy prevented him from following his original dream of becoming a chef.

Now a regular reviewer and columnist for Australian Bookseller + Publisher Magazine, Stefen’s reviews sometimes appear on the blurbs of novels by big name sci-fi authors. He considers himself privileged to have witnessed the career arcs of some now very successful authors, and remembers receiving a copy of an early Sara Douglass novel in a huge brown box full of packaging…and a plastic rose.

Though he says “As an avid reader my favourite book is ‘the next one’ ” he recommends the new books by Will Elliot and Scott Sigler as ones to look out for. Next time you’re in the city look out for a little bookshop in Shafto Lane with a goateed man on the sign next to the door, with the words MURDER MONSTERS MYSTERY MAGIC MACHINES above the front window. You don’t have to ask for Stefen because he’s always there, but ask him to recommend you something, or just have a good old chat about books.

Stefen’s Books

Photos by Lauren Croser

Shop 8 Shafto Lane (between Murray St. & Hay St.)

Monday – Thursday: 10.00am – 6.00pm Friday: 10.00am – 8.00pm Saturday: 9.30am – 5.00pm Sunday: 11.00am – 5.00pm

Ph: 9481 8393 Facebook.com/stefensbooks

Arts Reviews

44

DIAMONDS WA BALLET His Majesty’s Theatre 11/5/2011

“Diamonds” is an ensemble of six small ballets celebrating WA Ballet’s 60th anniversary season that showcased the brilliance of the dancers as well as the diversity in choreography and artistic direction that the company and their collaborators has to offer.

Beginning the evening was Petr Zuska’s comical reworking of the classical ballet Maria’s Dream. The piece featured four bashful male dancers in suits bumbling about a lake while admiring a female swan dancing on the water. The piece, while technically flawless, took a turn towards sexual ambiguity and represented homosexuality in a comedic rather than romantic fashion. The final scene during which the male dancers bourréed across the stage revealing their bare derrieres was rather silly and unnecessary, considering the previously awkward treatment of homosexuality. The audience would have been more challenged through boldness rather than irrelevant, shock value nudity.

The second piece, Fishy, was an intense pas de deux between a swimming man and a mermaid-like female, with sleek, sexually charged movements that were seamlessly matched with Peter Schindler’s composition

featuring organs and saxophone. The costumes and lighting were outstanding in this piece.

The final ballet of the first act, Jeu de cartes, was a mischievous, light-hearted crowdpleaser representing a poker game. The piece, which was originally choreographed in 1937

by George Balanchine and set to a Stravinsky composition, rested heavily on concept and execution of technique and became quite dull to watch. The staccato movements and theatrical expressions were interesting at best but the piece quickly became repetitive and irrelevant.

The second act opened with Barry Moreland’s 1985 version of Vaslav Nijinsky’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. This piece displayed a perfect balance of lightness and precision with elongation and weighted movements.

The female nymphs’ contorted port de bras and long chiffon gowns resembled a Grecian artwork. The second last piece for the evening was the much-anticipated take on the Dying Swan, a piece choreographed by Michel Fokine for Anna Pavlova in 1905. Yu Takayama was breathtakingly beautiful as the fragile swan, her breathy, whimsical movements spiralling into a fluttering pandemonium of miniscule battement and wild port de bras.

The audience appeared to be completely engulfed by the ephemeral beauty of the piece.

The hype was certainly warranted; it was ballet stripped back to its beautiful, intangible core.

Closing the performance was John Cranko’s Poème de l’extase which was choreographed by John Cranko in 1970 for a 51 year old Margot Fonteyn. Jayne Smeulders was in her element as The Lady; not getting lost in the rich colours and textures of the set and costumes. This piece had an air of decadence and liberation with powerful use of the space; however the tragic and passionate undertones were perhaps lost at points in the frantic audacity of the piece.

Ensemble performances often struggle to maintain consistency as a collective and while Diamonds was certainly demonstrative of the technical and theatrical capacities of the company, the potential of the dancers and the individual ballets were diluted by the agenda and parameters of the overall performance.

MARNIE ALLEN

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Arts

46 Howl

UWA HEATS HELD WEEKS 2,3,4 SEMESTER 2 STATE FINALS HELD IN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER NATIONAL FINAL HELD IN SEPTEMBER IN ADELAIDE Previous winners include Jebediah, Eskimo Joe, The Vines, Grinspoon, The Vasco Era and Runner

$8000 NATIONAL PRIZE 5 full days recording at the prestigious Chapel Lane Entertainment Studios 5 nights luxury accomodation “The Manse Guest House” $1,000 cash to get the band to Adelaide

ENTER ONLINE AT GUILD.UWA.EDU.AU/NCBC