Pelican Volume 82 Edition 3 Butterflies and Tornadoes

PELICAN

Edition 3 Volume 82

butterflies & tornadoes

BC+YUNWG647 CRICOS Provider Code 00126G

Win from Win your from smartphone! your smartphone!

Search for “QR App”

Search for Search for “Barcode Scanner” “Barcode Scanner”

Like Pelican? Then like us on Facebook as well! Use your phone to Visit Visit scan this barcode or search Pelican Magazine. http://reader.kaywa.com http://reader.kaywa.com

spotl.guild.uwa.edu.au spotl.guild.uwa.edu.au

TO CONTACT PELICAN Visit first floor Guild Building P: 6488 2284 E: pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au

TO ADVERTISE IN PELICAN Please contact Alex Pond P: 6488 2211 F: 6488 1041 E: membership@guild.uwa.edu.au

12

Naomi talks to Karley about her influential blog, Slutever

17

Smoking ban on campus: Daniel Pillar ponders the consequences

20

Trapped Willy: Sarah Dunstan examines the horror that is orcas in captivity

36

Jeff Goldblum explains chaos theory to Patrick

regular stuff

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

butterflies and tornadoes

12 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24 25 27 28

slutever interview write off: a journalist’s perspective sacksual healing origins love like a vole uwa smoking ban logical fallacies bitches be crazy captive willy this book will change yo’ lyf find the butterfly fuck you scalpers faster pussycat. kill! kill! charles zentai gaddafi: demo-crazy

music

30 architecture in helsinki interview 31 aus hip hop 32 gig reviews 33 no hype, just criticism 34 reviews

film

39

8-bit needs R18+: Our new Games section tackles the issue of an R18+ rating system in Aus.

35 reviews 36 festivoramalodeon

games

39

media cause, media effect

books

40 reviews 42 nabakov’s first love

44

Sex poems: Sarah Dunstan talks sex poetry with Dosh Luckwell

arts

44 sex poems 45 reviews

contents

Search for “QR App”

03

regular

04

Credits Editors // Koko Wozniak & Patrick Marlborough Design // Wayne Chandra & Bec Kohn Advertising // Alex Pond Cover Art // Lola Lin Arts Editor // Sarah Dunstan Books Editor // Ben Sacks Film Editor // Callum J Twigger Games Editor // Daniel Yacoub Music Editor // Josh Chiat Politics Editor // Thomas Adolph

Sub-editors // Kiya Alimoradian, Mark Birchall, Josh Chiat, Ed Fearis, Richard Ferguson, Elizabeth Howard, Lachlan Keeley Sarah Motherwell, Ben Sacks, Gideon Sacks Elisa Thompson

Contributors // Thomas Adolph, Kiya Alimoradian, Luke Bartlett, Ella Bennett, Josh Chiat, Kevin Chiat, Jakub

Dammer, Kaitlin Dubrawski, Sarah Dunstan, Berkay Erkan, Ed Fearis, Richard Ferguson, Katherine Gillespie, Alex Hargreaves, Jackson Hart, Lara Hentrich, Kate Hilgendorf, Elizabeth Howard, Alison Inglis, Charlotte Jones, Lachlan Keeley, Zoe Kilbourn, Hannah Lyles, Bill Marlo, Naomi Munford, Liz Newell, Kate Nye-Butler, Michael O’Brien, Lewis Peaty, Daniel Pillar, Kaitlyn Plyley, Ben Sacks, Gideon Sacks, Giles Tuffin, Callum J Twigger, Dan Yacoub

Illustrators // Tom Adolph, Evelyn Froend, Jackson Harvey, Megan Higgins, Samantha Leung, Lola Lin, Emily O’Keefe, Evan Pearce, Elisa Thompson, Ena Tulic, Camden Watts

Lola Lin

WHAT’S ON CAMPUS?

Lola Lin is a bookish girl, in her mid-twenties, who likes to occasionally draw pictures.

She has a simple yearning innocence for beauty. If you have a good dumpling recipe, or would like discuss illustration possibilities she can be contacted via lola_lin@iinet.net.au.

UWA Atheist & Skeptic Society Does homeopathy work? Do gods exist?

What does science tell us about the universe and popular mythology? Join us to discuss these things and more.

When? Monday 11AM–1PM in Reid Library Café; Thursday 1PM–3PM in the Tav; talktorials Thursday 3PM–4PM in Weatherburn Lecture Theatre.

More info: www.uass.asn.au. Like us: www.facebook.com/uwaass.

BALI FITNESS RETREATS – SPECIAL DISCOUNTS ON JULY RETREATS

Get fit and relax in Bali for 5 nights/6 days. Includes accommodation, food, daily fitness sessions, jungle treks, volcano climb, yoga, pilates, spa and massage sessions, plus more.

Fitness Retreat: July 3 Pilates Plus Retreat: July 10 SPECIAL STUDENT DISCOUNT (includes friends and family): SAVE $200 Final cost: $1350 BRING A FRIEND AND RECEIVE ANOTHER $100 DISCOUNT EACH. Help give a child an education by bringing as many school shoes as possible to donate to the local village schools.

Contact: sharingbali.com.au or ljsharp@fl.net.au

NATIONAL YOUNG WRITERS’ MONTH Are you under 25? Are you a writer, or dreaming of being a writer? Get ready for National Young Writers’ Month, Express Media’s exciting new initiative to encourage young Australians to get writing. NYWM kicks off on June 1, incorporating youth-led activities both online and offline. There will also be writers’ workshops in May, to get you ready for NYWM in June.

For more info, contact Kaitlyn Plyley (kaitlynplyley@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter @NYWM_wa, and check out expressmedia.org.au

ed +Pres

05

Editorials Presitorial Koko Wozniak

Patrick Marlborough

El Presidente, Tom Antoniazzi

When I was five, I wasn’t very happy. My parents decided that one day, my sister and I could skip school to go visit Adventure World. The night before it happened, I remembered feeling excited and rebellious. I barely slept through the night and a tingly sensation ran up and down my leg. It was only the next morning that I realised that the “tingly” sensation was due to bacteria in my bloodstream – I had septicaemia. It all became clear when I tried getting out of bed the next morning, and instead tumbled to the ground weeping from pain.

I was 14 when I first listened to Bob Dylan. A friend in high school leant me the Ultimate Collection CDs. I took them and at the time, I thought little of it. It took a bout of insomnia to make me sit and listen to the songs. I might not have realised it that first night as the great shift that began within me was subtle, but I was forever changed – forever absorbed by the music of a man I had never met.

Koktrick: Tom, write your damn Prezitorial! The theme is ‘Butterflies and Tornadoes’.

My sister got angry at me. As I lay in the hospital wing, weak from infection, she looked at me coldly.

“Why you do this to me, gurl. I wanted fun timez and instead, you so sick that without this IV drip, you would be dead within the next 24 hours. I’m outta ‘ere,” she said. Without human contact, I withered away into a humanless lump, devoid of emotion. I really wanted to go to Adventure World, but I sacrificed my own desires and my family no longer wanted me. I was so depressed that I didn’t even want to play Playstation with the boy in the next bed over.

With this context in mind, it shouldn’t surprise you that when I heard about Tonka the wombat’s depression, I could really empathise. Throughout history we have asked: What if a butterfly could cause a tornado? But what potential outcomes result when a natural disaster like Cyclone Yasi hits Queensland?

Tonka the wombat loved the crowds that visited Billabong Sanctuary at which he was the star. He loved the hugs and kisses, and as someone who has held a wombat at Caversham Wildlife Park, I know that I would have loved the voluptuous Tonka as well.

But then Yasi changed everything. Tonka lost 20% of his body weight. In the same way that my sister abandoned me in hospital, Tonka felt abandoned by tourists.

Hugs are important. Learn from my story and Tonka’s. In Pelican, we value good friendship and intimacy. Patrick and I actually hug every 20 minutes to keep each from falling into the pits of depression.

Come visit us today.

My addiction was all consuming. I loved the fact that Dylan had curly hair like myself and I soon began dressing like him, imitating him, singing like him, reading the books he read – Rimbaud, Kerouac, Ginsberg – listening to the music he loved – Guthrie, Hank Williams, Leadbelly – and learning each and every one of his songs on my guitars. The earth-shattering, perception-altering moment, which has forever affected my views on life and love, came when I first listened to the album Highway 61 Revisited.

The feeling of inspiration I felt when first hearing ‘Desolation Row’ was like nothing since. That album shaped my identity. It is still the high-water mark of discovery for me.

Tom: What the fuck does that mean?

Koktrick: It means The Butterfly Effect you moron – you know, that theory Jeff Goldblum uses to pick up chicks in Jurassic Park?

Tom: I fucking love that movie.

Koktrick: Damn right!

-------------------------------------------------------------I still didn’t know what the Butterfly Effect was.

So I decided to do some research. First stop, YouTube.

I quickly discovered that Ashton Kutcher had starred (sic) in a movie called The Butterfly Effect in 2004.

From what I could tell, it’s about some guy who reads his journal, gets a headache and travels back in time so he can save his high school sweetheart from an inevitable death. Unfortunately, he kills another man in order to save her. Fortunately, he can travel back in time again to escape from prison.

TAKE THAT, FATE. What does The Butterfly Effect tell us? Nothing, except that Ashton Kutcher has fallen from the dizzying heights he achieved with standout performances in Dude, Where’s My Car? and No Strings Attached.

I often think about Dylan in 1965 sitting in the studio with Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper just before they started recording ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. How strange to think that if a young Jewish boy from Minnesota had not plucked up the nerve to hitchhike to New York in 1960, I would not be the same person I am today. I wonder also, if Dylan thought about Woody Guthrie and wondered what kind of person he would have become if Woody had died young in the fire which burnt down his childhood home.

It’s not surprising that Ashton Kutcher dropped out of university to pursue a career in modelling. It is surprising, however, that he has two toes FUSED TOGETHER on his left foot. Nobody’s perfect, so follow in Ashton’s footsteps and consider a career in modelling.

The decisions of such men – far off on the hazy edge of another world – have directly affected the decisions I make today. Strange to think that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings – or in this case the blowing of a harmonica – can form a tornado in the soul of a young man some 40 years later.

Make sure you take the time this semester to get involved with the Guild, clubs, faculty societies and volunteering. Indeed, a small flap of your beautiful wings could create a destructive tornado of fun and learning. Maybe you’ll even become as successful as Ashton Kutcher, with a sea of adoring fans and a hot mum wife.

It’s a funny old world.

LOL jokes, you just got PUNK’D.

So have we gained a better understanding of Butterflies and Tornadoes? Perhaps not, but I’m certain that the time spent reading this editorial has stalled you for three minutes and prevented you from being run over by a bus at 4.58pm on Stirling Highway. That’s right. Ashton Kutcher just changed your life – if he hasn’t done so already.

roadtest

06

ROAD TEST: Moving back in with your parents ----------------------------------------

Elizabeth Howard ----------------------------------------

Objective

to make use of a different room, things can get tricky. You may need to purchase new furniture items or subtly shift some items around the house into your new pad – lamps tend to go unnoticed but bookshelves are tricky.

To relocate from X, fabulous central location, to Y, less-fabulous hills location, approximately 35 kilometres from the CBD, whilst keeping social life and dignity intact.

Test Procedure 1.

4.

Take the leap. Whatever the reason – housemates moving on, erratic landlord, or Centrelink letting you down – the sooner you relocate (and readjust) the better. You can start scoring those long-forgotten home-cooked meals and saving your pennies for the next shared abode.

2.

Pack. Clothes and essential personal items are placed into storage receptacles – plastic bags and cardboard boxes – and transported from X to Y.

3.

Secure your space. Generally, unless it’s been turned into a storage area, your old room will be ready and waiting for you. From there it’s just a matter of unpacking. If you need

Assimilation. Forget your filthy share house habits and prepare to revive some basic pleasantries.

This is imperative if you don’t plan on paying board. It might be a bit of a shock to your parent/s to have to house and feed an adult again especially if you have been out of home for more than six months, and they may demand a level of interaction that is beyond your current capabilities. Easy fixes include doing your own washing, helping out with dinner and regaling them with low vulnerability tales of university life.

Baseline Data Previous research highlights the precariousness of this event. If the test procedure is followed dutifully, your time spent back with the folks

bad luck dating

should be relatively easygoing. The real risk lies in the intangible results: maintaining dignity, a healthy social life and your sanity. Your Mum forgetting to knock just one too many times has the potential to push even the tamest 20-something to the brink of domesticity and when you live beyond the realms of the geocentric taxi system it can be difficult to maintain your cool.

Results Eleven days in, things aren’t so bad but there is certainly ‘room’ for improvement. Firstly, I don’t remember having access to this much food!

The entire food pyramid could be stocked 19 times over by my Mother’s shopping efforts. However, this has enticed uncharacteristic gorging and an unsettling yearning for the simplicity of Mi Goreng. My tiny room is comfortable enough but instead of the rude techno-blearing flat mates upstairs, my neighbours are two younger brothers that are still prone to quasi-violent toy-related disputes.

He told me he worked with autistic kids, but it’s hard to believe that he wasn’t a special needs kid himself . You might think I’m being too harsh but it’s really not defamation if it’s true. The date was so god damn uncomfortable even by my standards – and I’ve dated a holocaust denier.

Conclusion With all the money saved on convenient cultural excursions I’m sure I’ll be back in civilisation in no time. In the meantime, as much as I hesitate to admit it, being back in the judgementfree clutches of family and the cool, smog-free air of the hills may be just what I need to get things back on track.

If things get too comfy, though, I will be in a dystopian state of no return. In conclusion, when it comes to moving back in with the parents, temporary is key.

Editor’s Mailbox

anonymous During my time as a singleton I will admit that I’ve dabbled in the odd internet date or two. None was of course worse than a guy that I would only like to refer to as “fuck! You are so dumb you should be extinct” – but let’s call him Larry for short. Firstly, Larry’s internet picture lied, and it wasn’t even a little white lie either. It would be a lie that you would directly go to hell for, pass go, without collecting $200. To make things worse, he was ridiculously tall, very uncoordinated and bald. Some might even say – “some” being me – that he resembled a baby giant or even a giant baby. He was very difficult to interact with and didn’t get social cues.

At first, I tried hiding my disinterest, but unfortunately when you have such long limbs as giant baby did, it’s very hard to stop someone from trying to play footsie without kicking them. I guess that’s where my subtlety failed. Did I forget to mention that he also had this weird saying he just added in randomly in sentences? “What are you like?” he’d ask. To which I would respond appropriately and then he would ask me that question again. And I would ask him “in reference to what?” – music, movie, brown paper bags tied up with string? Then he told me that was his “thing”.

Kinda like how people say, “cool”. Kinda – like – stupid if you ask me. I was so close to answering that “what I would like is to leave you, you dumb fuck!” But I felt that would have been a tad rude.

I have smuggled a small desk into my room for study but am missing a bookcase (absolutely essential to any Arts student) and my clothes have nowhere to go but a makeshift “floordrobe”. Dignity is intact but improvements must be made in the social outings department – no longer a three-minute walk from the hip local, I have been licking my suburb-induced wounds at home most evenings.

that must have been difficult to write.

Congratulations on the ccc article Hello, I’m writing this email to send my congratulations to Patrick Marlborough for the best article I have ever read in the Pelican.

I have been reading the Pelican since my first year at uni in 2008 and they’re always enjoyable, but this article was utterly brilliant.

I rarely read pieces, in the media in general not just the Pelican, which are as intelligent, articulate, compelling and moving as this article. Patrick you should be immensely proud of your ability as a writer of opinion, and of your strength in writing an article that definitely needed to be written.

I am by no means an expert, but I have taken an interest in the workings of the CCC after a unit at uni (I am now in my final year of journalism at ECU) and I genuinely fear for the powers that this organisation stands to gain in the next few years. You have explained the horrible reality of what the CCC does so thoughtfully and I cannot praise you enough for being so honest and open about a story

I felt so sorry for your Dad when he was acquitted because, as you said, it just pointed out the ridiculousness of the entire saga. It was absolutely fascinating to read your account of your father’s trial and I implore you to keep writing things like this. You obviously have a huge degree of talent as a writer and I could not let this article go without at least trying to say well done.

Patrick, you’re a credit to the Pelican and to your family. Thank you for such an amazing piece of writing.

I can’t wait to read your next piece.

Sophie Hawkins ..................................................................

Positive feedback !?!

Hi Pelican, Just wanted to congratulate you on a terrific edition. Patrick Marlborough’s piece on the CCC was freakin scary, but terrifically written.

The pieces on street art, acid, and Japanese maids were all brilliant, exactly the sort of kooky, interesting stuff that’s expected of a student paper. Keep it up.

Cheers, Stephen

BECOMING A LEPIDOPTERIST Otto von Oppenheim’s guide to becoming a butterfly/moth collector

WHAT YOU WILL NEED: A butterfly net, a killing jar, a spreading board, insect pins, a display case and an elephant rifle (for the larger specimens).

THE NET – the lepidopterist’s best friend: The net is your most precious tool. My net (Berty) has saved me more times than I can remember.

Although my net is made of electrified barbed wire, your amateur net is most likely made of cotton or some sort of synthetic material. Approach the butterfly slowly. Move with it until you are in range.

If you strike from beneath, slowly lift the net until it surrounds the beast, and then gently twist the handle so the captured insect cannot escape. If you strike from above – swinging the net downwards – use similar caution. Make sure you lift the net (like a tent) so the butterfly has room to move. Then slide a container under the net and manoeuvre the beast inside.

KNOW YOUR BEAST – the importance of identification This can be the difference between losing an eye and losing your life. You do not want to confuse the ‘Mongolian Swamp Moth’ with the ‘Peruvian Anthrax Moth’. I suggest you buy my book Otto von Oppenheim’s Lepidoptera Identification Book ($39.95) which has over 300,000 species. If my book proves too large, then I may suggest the Audubon guide, which has a mere 600 species but is perfect for beginners.

It can be difficult for an amateur to spot the difference between a moth and a butterfly. Moths tend to have thicker, furrier bodies, are active at night, have dull colours, and spread their wings flat when they land. They have feathery antennae. They are ‘the ugly ones.’ Butterflies have smoother bodies, are active during the day and dress to impress. They have club-like antennae. They are also very cunning.

NOTE: KILLING THE RARE ONES Some butterflies, such as the ‘Mussolini Monarch’, are very rare. This means that you should definitely capture and kill them before anyone else does. The rarer the butterfly the better it is to kill it, as you are in some small way aiding Darwinists the world over.

THE RELAXING (i.e. KILLING) JAR: There are countless ways to kill a butterfly. Now that I have every species neatly mounted, I see little need to be merciful with them. This is why I now use my elephant gun. You, however, are starting a collection

and need to take more care. You need a ‘killing jar’.

You can make one by putting cotton balls soaked in rubbing alcohol or ethyl acetate into a glass jar. Ethyl acetate works quicker and is thus, less fun (it should also be used with caution). You may want to stun your butterfly by pinching the thorax. This ensures less of a struggle and will help you keep all your fingers (some bite). Don’t leave the beast in the jar for too long – no one wants a soggy specimen! Use forceps to get it out.

Before spreading the butterfly you must ‘relax’ it.

Place a damp rag inside an airtight plastic container.

Set the butterfly inside and cover it with 2 to 3 damp paper towels. Close the lid. This is your ‘relaxing chamber’. The beast should soften in 2 to 3 days. It will then be ready to spread.

SPREAD ‘EM! – using a spreading board You will need a spreading board and insect pins.

If you are poor, use the lid of a shoe box and some tacks. Insert a pin/tack through the right side of the beast’s thorax. Be careful! They are delicate and some spit lava/shoot venomous barbs. Pinching the thorax allows you to spread the wings so as you can pin it.

Place the butterfly on the groove in the spreading board. Press the wings down (gently) so they spread out flat, then put a strip of paper over each, pinning the ends of said paper to the board. The drying process may take two weeks (!) – I suggest you use this time to kill more butterflies.

When it has dried, remove the paper strips but leave the pin in the thorax. It will help you with the mounting!

MOUNT THE BEAST – so many exciting positions!

Victory is yours! You may now mount your conquest! I suggest trying to catch two of each so you can display both sides of the wings – as well as strike fear in other beasts. Find the scientific name like the Ottola megamothstus – and note when/where you caught the beast. Write the information on a small label underneath. I enjoy writing a small description of the hunt: “cornered me against a rock wall, attempted to take my ear, but I skewered it with a throwing knife.” Each hunt is an adventure, but make sure it is the butterfly that ends up slowly being asphyxiated by rubbing alcohol and not you!

gan Higgins Illustrated by Me

To catch a wild butterfly requires strength, determination and courage. They are ferocious beasts. I have been a collector since the age of three and have at least one of each specimen on display in my manor in Hamburg. You, I take it, are an amateur collector about to begin the great adventure that is butterfly collecting. The alluring call of the Lepidoptera (the insect family that butterflies and moths belong to) has driven many to madness – but the satisfaction of capturing the eternal beauty of the beasts is like no other. I shall be your guide on this great journey.

how to

07

...

With this rudimentary guide you can now set out to becoming a famous lepidopterist, like me. Your renown shall spread farther than the Monarch’s migration patterns. This is truly the greatest hobby and the sport of kings. I wish you luck on this great journey, and hope we meet somewhere in the hills of Monarchoon – hunting the great Porpoise Finned Butterfly of Bulgaria.

Until then, happy netting!

Otto von Oppenheim: Lepidopterist

devil’s advocate THE FALSE ECONOMY OF NUCLEAR POWER -------------------------------------------

And Now, We Are Pleased To Announce The Nuclear Renaissance®!

NEW*! Nuclear power is a magical and revolutionary device that will provide us with a clean and reliable energy source, fulfilling our energy requirements until renewable technologies are economical and proven! Soon, other countries will grow greener than plutonium as they witness the unbridled [safe] majesty and [controlled] power of nukes! Welcome to the manifesto of the future!

NUCLEAR POWER IS MORE ECONOMICAL! Marvel at energy too cheap to meter!

Nuclear reactors cost billions of dollars to construct and hundreds of millions to decommission as well as operating costs and the costs of waste disposal.

This requires decades of use for a profit to be made. Add in common schedule overruns and the occasional accident and cost projections explode. The Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Canada began construction in 1981 with an estimated cost of CDN$7.4 billion. Twelve years later it was finished at a cost of CDN$14.5 billion. We have seen in recent decades that there has been little interest in investment with an industry of such drawn-out returns and most projects have required significant government funding to go ahead.

Furthermore, the exponential growth of powerdemand that ensured these long-term returns is slowing as individuals and societies take steps to limit their energy consumption, The Future of Conventional Nuclear Power Advisory Panel

Jackson Hart -------------------------------------------

observed as early as 1984 that “without significant changes in the technology, management, and level of public acceptance, nuclear power in the United States is unlikely to be expanded in this century beyond the reactors already under construction.’’ No new nuclear plant built in the US since 1977.

High profile accidents lead t more stringent safety provisions that reduce profit. In the words of University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Nancy Folder, ‘‘the stronger regulation and improved safety features for nuclear reactors called for in the wake of the Japanese disaster will almost certainly require costly provisions that may price it out of the market’’. The fabled ‘nuclear renaissance’ can occur in such a climate.

NUCLEAR POWER IS MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY! Did you know that a coal power plant emits more radiation than a nuclear one? Real environmentalists support nuclear power!

It is true that coal ash is radioactive and can deliver higher doses of radiation to individuals living nearby the coal plant, as compared to a nuclear reactor. In fact, eating a single banana results in a higher dose than a year’s exposure in either case. However this is a misleading fact for three reasons.

Firstly, this only applies during normal circumstances. No one would make the argument that humans are infallible and accidents will happen.

New and better technologies can only evolve as a reaction to inadequacies and ‘lessons learnt’. There is always something better, faster and safer and this will

never mean the end of mishaps. As for the nuclear industry mishaps, within ten minutes, the Chernobyl reactor meltdown released more radiation than all the 50,000 coal plants in their 200 years of existence.

Secondly, the six-year operational life of nuclear fuel is but a blip on its existence. The nuclear industry includes the four stages of mining, enrichment, generation and disposal. Uranium mining causes similar environmental damage to coal mining and uses a large amount of water; the Roxby Downs mine in South Australia uses up to 150,000 cubic metres of water a day. Added to this is the spent nuclear fuel produced, the tailings at uranium mines and the accidents as mentioned in the first section.

Nuclear waste disposal deserves a section unto itself.

The short answer is that there is no waste disposal strategy. We don’t know what to do with the tens of thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste we have stored in hundreds of locations around the world.

This point cannot be overstated. There have been many suggestions of course, however no one seems to want it on their own turf. Obama has recently cancelled the plans for the Yucca Mountain waste depository leaving the country without a method to store its 50,000 ton radioactive nuisance.

If there’s one thing the Americans have it is time.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that spent fuel will be safe to interact with the environment in 10,000 years. Let us put that into perspective. Our entire recorded history has taken place in less than half of that time. To assume responsibility over such a ridiculous timeline is the utmost example of arrogance and lack of foresight.

Cockroaches can handle 15 times more radiation than humans.

The more complex the animal, the less radiation it can take.

Illustration by CamdenWatts

devil’s advocate

08

Nuclear power’s economic gains are privatised, while its risks are socialised

We cannot hope to imagine how our nations, borders and governments might have changed in that time or even if our civilisation will exist.

Thirdly, this argument assumes a dichotomy of decision between coal and nuclear power. Coal power certainly shares many of the negative aspects of nuclear power (except the ability to remove a city from the face of the earth for decades) however many of those opposed to nuclear power are equally opposed to fossil fuels.

Nuclear power is not an alternative to them.

NUCLEAR POWER IS SAFER! Nuclear power is responsible for a fraction of the deaths of the oil and gas industries!

Nuclear proponents like to quote the thousands of deaths coal power causes every year. As stated above, comparing nuclear power to coal power in this manner only proves that fossil fuels are in severe need of replacing and not that nuclear power should replace it. It must stand on its own merits.

How can the World Nuclear Organisation say that the total number of deaths caused by Chernobyl is 47+ (sly dogs aren’t they) when the World Health Organisation and International Atomic Energy Agency puts it at 4000, Greenpeace at 100,000, a publication in 2010 by several scientists at 985,000 and a paper by Dr Rosalie Bertell at one to two million?

In the words of the Union Of Concerned Scientists, “nuclear power’s economic gains are privatised, while its risks are socialised.”

This is an extremely important point. Reactor operators cannot be accountable for the totality of harm caused by accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima as there is simply no way of accurately measuring the often long-term effects. Investors reap reward for success; the people suffer the consequences of failure. The Nuclear Industry is able to dismiss all but the most immediate and obvious of casualties i.e. those struck down instantaneously in the reactor itself. How many people have and will die from Chernobyl? We will never know for sure. It was more than 47. A better question would be how many lives have been permanently damaged through forced relocation and sickness. The figure from the former alone is 350,400. Coal power’s record no longer looks so intimidating.

In playing down the effects of nuclear accidents, authorities tend to compare radiation dosage to routine medical procedures. This is misleading and potentially dangerous information. Radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the

distance from the radiation source. That is, it grows exponentially weaker as you move away from the source. Radiation levels in areas around a leak are worked out in this manner. What they don’t take into account is the possibility of breathing in a radioactive particle. If this happens the distance from the source of radiation now (to you) is essentially zero – or, one micron. You are now subject to an “internal emitter”. A distance of one micron results in an exposure one trillion times more than if the source was one metre away. A millionth of a gram of inhaled plutonium will severely irradiate surrounding cells and can often cause cancer years or decades later. A single reactor with 250 kilograms of plutonium is enough to potentially kill everyone on the planet.

Comparisons to controlled medical scans are meaningless.

NUCLEAR POWER IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE! The highway to the future is paved with depleted uranium! Join the Radiolution!

In 1992, the nuclear research and development budget in the US was $192 million. In 2001, it was $92 million. Some experts estimate we have already passed peak Uranium production. The most conservative estimates give us one hundred years of current uranium usage. Nuclear power will never be more than a stopgap measure.

Renewable energy will become “economical and proven”. Many renewable sources have been reliably producing power for decades.

While renewable energies continue to improve in efficiency, nuclear plants continue to collect radioactive waste, public alienation and the occasional disaster.

At least we’re okay in Perth! Except for the US nuclear submarines that we harbour, of course. An 80-kilometre exclusion zone around Fremantle would be… all of Perth.

So as a supporter of nuclear power you must ask yourself: Are you willing to have a nuclear reactor in your suburb? Would you bury your share of nuclear waste in your backyard for your great grandchildren to watch over? Would you look a child in the eye with no arms or knees born years after Chernobyl and tell them it’s all for the best?

Or would you prefer a wind turbine spoiling your view?

SAY YES TO THE FUTURE, TODAY! This article is dedicated to the emergency workers who are risking horrendous death in the Fukushima plant.

Fifty Years later -------------- Alison Inglis -------------“Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a story from somewhere of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government.”

Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty International, uttered these words in 1961. Fifty years has seen numerous challenges and successes to human rights, but fifty years later the truth of those words remains.

In late 2010, 23 Bahraini opposition activists were imprisoned for, among other offences, “inciting people to overthrow and change the political system”. 2011 saw the eruption of anti-government protests across the Middle East. In February, journalists and human rights workers in Cairo were arrested.

Conflict, violence and unrest have all been common themes in the past few months, but the plight of these people has certainly not been forgotten. The Bahraini opposition activists, who were facing the possibility of the death penalty, were freed in late February. Those activists and journalists who were detained in Cairo were released after 5,000 Australian Amnesty International activists called for their release. Hosni Mubarak stood down as Egyptian president after enormous pressure from the Egyptian people in January and February of this year.

These success stories show that activism is not futile; when we see human dignity trampled we should be motivated to challenge the violation of human rights. Where people stand together in peaceful protest, brutal regimes which have lasted for decades can falter, and the rights of the oppressed and the vulnerable will be vindicated.

The encouragement that we can find from celebrating our successes will be necessary in the coming months and years, as those that seek to have their human rights recognised and respected continue to face opposition from their governments. Despite the success that Egypt has seen this year, the right to protest and strike has been threatened by the drafting of a law which will make protests illegal in certain circumstances. As those living under oppressive regimes around the world gain confidence to protest, governments throw political activists in jail; in recent weeks eleven Azerbaijani activists have been imprisoned and protests have been violently suppressed. Those campaigning to end discrimination against women in Iran face harsh sentences, including the death penalty.

As Amnesty International celebrates 50 years of activism, we cannot dwell too long on the successes of the past without considering the work that still needs to be done.

As students, we shouldn’t tolerate intolerance and we certainly shouldn’t let the voices of these bold protesters go unnoticed. There are petitions to be signed, letters to be written and political leaders to be lobbied.

If you feel outraged when you see people imprisoned for peacefully protesting, join Amnesty UWA and use your outrage to push for change with other student activists on campus. Email us at amnesty.uwa@gmail.com, or look us up on Facebook.

Amnesty international

09 09

Illustration by Evelyn Froend

evil eye

10

EVIL EYE: POLITICS WTF? In Feature this edition, Thomas Adolph examines crises afflicting both major parties – and the race to get the house in order.

The oldest adage in Australian politics is ‘vote Labor if you have a heart, Liberal if you have a brain’. Labor has a strong tradition of progressive policymaking – the trade-off has always been their overspending. The Liberals are better with your money – yet they’re often mired by zealous conservatism and run by nutters. Right now, Australia is getting the worst of both worlds with none of the payoff.

With each of the majors enduring a minor identity crisis, neither is living up to their own hype. Pollies of every stripe will be asking themselves: with colleagues like these, who needs enemies?

Since coming to the party leadership in 2009, Tony Abbott has pushed a spend-less envelope.

Against the backdrop of a first term Labor Government who seemingly couldn’t spend enough, it was an appealing strategy. To some extent, it still looks like wisdom. There have been vague glimmers – on paid parental leave, youth allowance, indigenous issues. But Abbott has never showed real enthusiasm for anything other than jogging and rubbishing Labor. Most of the policy his party puts out is old Howard material or originates from his front bench. In the absence of substantive policy, an Opposition must offer stability.

With Hockey breaking party lines on tax compensation cuts and Turnbull emerging from his exile in Communications this is something the party struggles to project.

Getting your numbers right is no less important in Opposition – especially if you hope to continue trading on your economic credentials.

In the post-election scrum, the Liberal Party’s economic worksheet was aired with the rest of the dirty laundry. It exposed a number of embarrassing mistakes, amounting to a

miscalculation of over $10 billion. Though some of it can be written off as a difference in economic modelling, the sheer scale of the stuffup is cause for concern. Since 2010 the Liberal Party has either blocked or intended to block, every revenue-raising effort made by the Gillard Government. Yet they continue to include the profits in their own proposals, never accounting for the difference or proposing their own. For example, their election budget included large sums generated by Medibank Private, despite their plans to sell it early in the term. They opposed the Government’s flood levy on the basis that the “funds could be found within the existing budget”, but based their decision on flawed estimates; shadow treasury had knocked off expenses twice for double the recoup.

Means testing private health insurance would

The Government has at least been responsible enough (if not necessarily wise) to invent or increase taxes to cover their expenditure. The Liberals will not and most of the shortfalls are sitting unsolved on the Party ledgers.

be worth $2 billion over the next four years if the Government were able to do it. Changes to military superannuation is worth another few hundred million – there’s even a dental scheme weighing down the Budget to the tune of $3 billion, first drafted by Tony Abbott as health minister – which the Government would love to axe. No such luck. The Liberals have even backed a cut to the company tax rate while knocking the schemes that were meant to pay for it. In a very real sense, Tony Abbott is a wrecker – or more properly, a blocker – and it does him no good in the polls. Is this a hangover from four

boom terms in power? The party still seems to expect an endless high-yield cash flow and has failed to properly account for their income.

The Government has at least been responsible enough (if not necessarily wise) to invent or increase taxes to cover their expenditure. The Liberals will not and most of the shortfalls are sitting unsolved on the Party ledgers.

Opposition isn’t normally this hard. It’s of enormous benefit politically to sit behind a wall of appealing rhetoric and let the incumbents get tangled up in policy detail. The Labor party was criticised during the early Howard years for behaving like a government in waiting. Their permanent state of outrage at being kicked out of office was grating to many voters; their constant projection of alternative policy platforms was presumptuous. Now, it’s an expected norm.

The minority power sharing arrangement puts the Liberal Party on permanent notice as a substitute regime. They have had to answer to and produce alternative workings for a full canvas of Government policy without the benefit of a public service. It is the kind of work they should only have to do during an election campaign. The party has been held under for the mistakes of the previous class and until recently couldn’t capitalise on their financial achievements. It’s true that this is a new generation of Liberal leadership. The party has been bled of its economic heavyweights – Costello and Howard of course, but also Minchin and Fahey. Abbott was Heath Minister and left little behind him that stuck. Hockey and Dutton held subordinate or advisory financial roles in the early terms.

These are not the big guns the party rolled out to win four elections. Though they did some damage to Labor at the 2010 ballot, it’s likely

that as much was done by Labor itself. The punchline is that you can’t expect a clean slate and keep piggybacking on the record of your predecessors. If you buy into of Newspoll trends (and all politicians do), the Liberals have got a short time to get their shit together; they could very well be the next Government.

If the murder scene left in the wake of the NSW election is any indicator, the Labor brand is in trouble too. Though its leaders are putting on a brave face, no one can realistically deny the federal implications of a shift in the Labor heartland. It has sparked calls for a serious shakeup in the way Labor does business – a root and branch reform of corridor power-broking, the role of factions and of the unions. Kevin Rudd has publicly lashed the forces responsible for his downfall, citing factional power as the defining trait in Labor’s shortcomings. Party elder John Faulkner conceded the need for a fundamental reevaluation of Labor’s internal practices, though he knows such reviews can get ugly. The party has failed to learn its’ lesson, electing John Robertson, a union heavyweight, as their new NSW Party leader.

Robertson was at the heart of the electricity wars that saw off former Premier Morris Iemma. Paul Keating describes him as having “dead men hanging around his neck”, and being personally responsible for some

25 Labor parliamentarians losing their seats. The smart money says Robertson will never be Premier – in fact if there is another Labor Premier in NSW in the next decade, I’ll eat my hat.

The Prime Minister has insisted that she and Barry O’Farrell can cooperate to juggle party and state interests. Between Oakshott, Windsor, the Greens, three Liberal Premiers, and the rogue Prime Minister on her front bench, there aren’t many people left in politics whose interests Julia Gillard is not juggling. A comprehensive Party re-structure, as well as carbon-pricing, the mining tax, the national curriculum changes, broadband, GST review and a sour budget is likely to be more than the public will swallow. On top of this minor rebellion, Gillard is saddled with an unpopular tax courtesy of the Greens. In an uncharacteristically vicious display, the Prime Minister vented her frustration at her allies in response the Greens’ failure to understand the realities of rulership she said, “We happily leave to the Greens being a party of protest with no tradition of striking the balance required to deliver major reform”. Greens Party Leader Bob Brown has responded with veiled threats, warning the Prime Minister that she should be more careful what she implies – “ it may come back to bite you,” The Greens take the balance of power in the Senate from July,

making them (at least until the next election) the most powerful force in Australian politics.

Tony Abbott complains that this Government is “spending too much, taxing too much and wasting too much…Quite possibly, it’s the worst national government in Australian history”. Let’s not get carried away. The Japanese crisis alone will knock about $2 billion off the top of the budget. Plus we’re managing several natural disasters of our own. To dial back the spending is undoubtedly the right thing to do; Swan’s next Budget may end up looking more like a Liberal one than either side will ever admit.

Will the Government live up to its’ promise of budget surplus by 2013? Maybe. But it’s more likely to be 50 bucks than 50 billion. NSW has proven that the most sensible thing a politician can do is appear sensible.

For Labor, that means getting a muzzle on their internal rumblings. And probably Rudd for good measure. Equally, the Liberal Party cannot expect to surf the Carbon Tax all the way into office. They have displayed an astonishing lack of tact by allowing their leader to go live in front of offensive banners at a rally of Alan Jones listeners. Somewhere behind the scenes, party strategists are desperately begging Abbott to take a leaf from the O’Farrell playbook: get vague on policy, big on discipline and try to keep a straight face. In all probability, that will be enough.

evil eye

11

butterflies

12

Pelican gets slutty with …

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

Naomi Munford

Karley Sciortino is a sometimes writer (Dazed and Confused, Platform, Vice) and, more importantly, author of one of the best blogs in the entire blogosphere: Slutever.

Detailing Karley’s life as a squatter in London, her recreational drug use and her sexual adventures, Slutever is kind of like an uncensored mash-up of Skins and Sex and the City.

Karley takes an honest, and at times confronting, look at what sex is in the 21st century. Discussing subjects that are still somewhat of a taboo in ‘modern-culture’, Slutever should be a staple on every woman’s reading list. I’m not trying to go all ‘Oprah’s favourite things’ on you, but seriously ladies (and gents!) do yourself a favour and read this blog!

I recently got the chance to interview Karley under the guise of writing this article for Pelican. Really, I totes just wanted a Skype date with my idol.

Here’s what she had to say.

This issue of Pelican is about chaos theory, like about how one small event can result in something big. What events led up to the formation of Slutever?

I went to London in 2004 as an exchange student. I was only meant to be there for six months, but ended up loving London so much that I stayed for six years. It was strange because it was such a fleeting decision to do a semester abroad, but it had such a drastic impact on my life. I started writing the blog in the summer of 2007, but I didn’t really get serious about it until 2009. When I created the blog I was living in a squatted, disused hostel in south London with 12 other people, all in our early 20s. It was the sort of house where it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to come home to a living room full of naked people on DMT performing masturbation rituals, or a homeless Romanian family baking bread in the kitchen. Like literally, both of those things happened. So I started writing the blog, intending mainly to create a written record of all the weird and extreme things that went on in the house. At the beginning the only people who read it were the people I lived with.

Your life as a squatter was a big part of the blog in the beginning, especially your time at the squat dubbed "Squallyoaks", the coverage of which makes it seem so glamorous and fun.

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

Soon after I moved I met a group of artists who were squatting in this gigantic mall in south London. The building was insane – it had a gym, a church, and a nightclub in it. I would go over to visit and be totally overwhelmed. Their living room was a gym and they had made makeshift furniture out of the old exercise equipment. One girl turned the girls locker room into her bedroom. The way they lived was so weird and exciting to me. So when I dropped out of university in 2005, I didn’t have much money and couldn’t afford to pay rent. My friend Matthew Stone – one of the squatters – offered me a place in their house. They had moved to a new place by then – an abandoned lift factory, also in South London. It was three floors and there were about 10 people living there including me. My bedroom was the factory stairwell platform.

You sometimes write for publications like Dazed for which you interviewed Courtney Love – what has been a career highlight so far?

She was really amazing! Very smart, and she talks a lot, which is always helpful in an interview. I was with her for about five hours and I think I only asked about two questions. In terms of highlights, I recently interviewed Bruce la Bruce for my blog. He’s one of my favourite film directors, so that was really exciting. But in general, really just writing my blog is what I’m most excited about. I like writing for magazines and it’s how I make money, but I like that on my blog I can do whatever I want – like interview a trannie about blow jobs or ask my mom for dating advice. I like to have total control.

You often blog about sex and topics that are still somewhat taboo in mainstream writing, such as female masturbation and porn. I know for me personally that I use your blog as somewhat as a Sex Bible. Why did you start blogging about sex and what inspires you to approach the topic in such an uncensored way?

Thanks so much! I guess I’ve just always been very sexual and don’t think sex is a topic that should be tip-toed around. Sex is a big deal – one of the biggest deals actually – and we should be able to talk about it openly so that we all understand what’s going on, and aren’t confused or afraid of our sexual desires, or sexual experiences. Sex is really weird and complicated, which I think is something that isn’t really taught to us growing up. So talking realistically about sex helps us to understand what we want and don’t want, and makes us realise that we’re not all freaks.

There are 11,250 sex related sudden deaths in the US annually, on par with hepatitis C, brain cancer and food poisoning.

And I understand that some sexual behaviour could be deemed morally wrong, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less valid or interesting to me.

Are any ‘taboos’ too taboo for you?

Hmm... Incest is something which I find interesting and sort of hot in a Dreamers-style way, but it's hard to write about that without sounding gross and insane.

Yeah, I know what you mean, I wrote about incest for my last Pelican article and a couple of my friends told me it was too much and that they couldn’t finish it. But I think there’s something attractive about incest – or maybe I’ve just read Flowers in the Attic too many times. Have you faced any negative repercussions as a result of things you've posted?

Recently, I posted an interview with a guy called Dragon who has a fetish for having sex with obese women, and from what he said he seemed like he could potentially be quite abusive, but in a role-play sense. People seemed to be pretty shocked and offended by that post, and I considered taking it down because I obviously do not want to promote abuse! However, I left it up in the end because I do think it's fascinating in the same way that I find most sexual behaviours / interactions fascinating. And I understand that some sexual behaviour could be deemed morally wrong, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less valid or interesting to me. I think the interview with him is still interesting, even if it just makes you go “yuck, that person is gross and sex should not be conduced in that way.”

You're quite vocal about your dislike about Cosmo and other women’s magazines and their approach to sex. What do you think is wrong about the way in which society and these magazines represent sex to women?

I just think [that] most of the time magazines like Cosmo represent sex in a way that emphasises the man's pleasure.

There was an article in Cosmo recently teaching girls the sex positions that make us appear skinniest to our partners during

sex. It's like, how are we meant to cum if we're worrying about looking thin! They write these insane articles teaching women ways to trick men into liking them – how to "bag a man". But our pleasure is equally as important and healthy relationships are founded on respect for both parties. Sex has no rules, and relationships are weird and hard and everyone is different. I think that should be acknowledged.

Totally! But often girls who enjoy sex are called sluts. It’s like Lil Kim says in the Christina Aguilera song: “If the guy have three girls then he the man, he can either give her some head or sex her raw, but if the girl do the same then she’s the whore”. You called your blog Slutever; do you consider yourself to be a slut? How do you feel about that word?

Well I've definitely gone through slutty phases, but as I get older I'm realising that sex just isn't as enjoyable unless you care about the person you are doing it with. So now, no. But in the past, yeah. I think in general the word ‘slut’ is negative, so calling someone a slut is not cool. But somehow it's less offensive when you call yourself a slut than when you're inflicting it as an insult on someone else.

Finally, who’s your top crush at the moment? Mine's Kanye West ever since I had this sex dream about him, I think I'm just really attracted to his confidence.

Yeah, confidence is so key! I’d still have to say my top crush is Hamilton Morris. I’ve been blogging about my mega crush on him for about a year. He's so hot it kind of makes me want to puke. I also really like the wheelchair kid from Glee. I’ve had sex dreams about him too, which I think probably instigated the crush.

Cute.

You can (and should) read more about Karley’s adventures at slutever.org!

Sudden death during intercourse is more common with a prostitute.

tornadoes

13

butterflies

14

Write-Off Still Incomplete Lessons of an Amateur and a Journalist ----------------------------------------------------------------

“Shit money for hard hours in a dying industry.” She smiled sardonically. “You want that?”

She didn’t mean it as a negative. I don’t think she could spell it out letter by letter if you asked her, but we knew there was some way out. A hope, nebulous but tangible, if only by reference to the double negative that there wasn’t not hope.

Sam was a journalist for a big publication.

Sam wasn’t her name, but she’s staying anonymous. Big publications are good employers but feral enemies. The occasion was a Career Opportunities in Media Day, held in the old wing of the Art Gallery for Communication students who check their email too often.

I became acquainted with her in the wake of the magnetised career hacks that had phalanxed her after her talk on investigative journalism. Radiohead were right – ambition makes you look pretty ugly. Sam got shitty real quick. Most of the career hacks were women – attractive women – which meant

Callum J Twigger

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

they’d probably get a TV screen to put their face on and a healthy pay check to sweeten its passage.

Sam caught them by the tongue trying to namedrop and resume-bomb, so she clarified: she had nothing to do with employment, work experience, or job placement; she was only there for advice on writing and interview technique. The revelation went off like a hand grenade. In a couple of moments, it was just me, her and a couple of Murdoch students.

I thanked her for sparing me more time than I deserved and opened with what seemed like a sound point.

“What was it like starting out, as a print journalist?”

“Tough, as I said. It kinda hurts.”

“For me? Well, for you–” She looks at my name tag. “Callum, right?”

“Yeah.” My response came out flat. Sam paused for a moment, realising what I was after.

“You’re a guy. You’re going to have to try.

You’re going to have to try hard. And you’re not going to get paid for a long time.”

“I’m a nerd. Perseverance and audacity.”

“You look like you do alright,” she chided.

“It’s got me this far.” I counter-asserted.

She sighed, not in frustration, more out of acceptance. “Talent? A lot of people have talent. Talent’s not the catcher.” She compiled her thoughts and continued. “There’s not much money in paper any more. There’s cash in Public Relations. If you’re pretty, you go on TV. Sometimes if you’re not, you get on too. But that makes you lucky and telling

Illustration by Jackson Harvey

someone to get lucky is crap advice. So is telling someone they’re pretty” I laughed.

“Online? Online there’s potential. I just don’t know how much. I don’t know if it’ll pick up the slack from dropping sales. Maybe not now. In a decade though, we’ll be chewing gristle in printed news.”

That was the cruel truth I knew.

Journalism is changing; more precisely, print, paid pad & paper journalism is dying.

News lives on the internet now. News moves at the speed of light. Most journalism students are caught in the classical school, trying to push a 20th century career into the 21st. It’s not that the internet is a hard place to live as a writer. It’s the opposite – a free market for information. And not that it’s a threat to writing or the professional art thereof. It’s just that it’s free.

Google has singed the daily newspaper and the nightly news. Readers Digest got burnt up. So did Ralph, at the other end of the readership, and a hundred forgettable weeklies in between the two. Every major publisher – NewsCorp, Fairfax, CML – has gone online. Facing the illusory choice between freedom of access or obsolescence, each has gone free, at least, in part. It’s a career in an industry that’s thriving but increasingly free.

The chief editors (through no human fault) don’t altogether understand it yet, but they’re at it – slowly, with varying marks of success.

And as they try to put the pieces into place, journalism, as an industry, has gotten tighter. You don’t get paid when what you’re making doesn’t have a price. Journalists don’t have the choice; they’ve got to get onto the internet. But getting money out of the internet?

These are peripheral issues to a journalism student, years short of being in a position to affect any kind of change. But what is

[Journalism is] an escape for a postgraduate who’s scared of offices and a sucker for trying to emulate the characters in books and films that talk about doing good for the world.

The origins of Sacksuality ----------------

important is the fact that an industry that never paid much now has to pay even less.

“I spent my first year out of uni in Karratha covering strip-clubs, lawn bowls and miners.

I think I got about…” Sam poured herself a glass of orange juice from a pitcher, preoccupied in a moment of arithmetic.

Resolving the sums, she continued. “$35,000, accommodation paid for, plus one ticket up there and another one back. Taxback on fuel.

Course, I didn’t have to. You don’t have to do anything.” The Murdoch students started to murmur. Sam sipped at her opaque orange juice. “But you won’t get anywhere. And you don’t have the luxury of choosing much else for a first gig I love it though. Hey. Seriously.

Fuck doing anything else. I tell stories for a living,” she added.

I agreed, but felt compelled to clarify. “I wish I could’ve stomached a career as a lawyer” went the interjection.

Sam squinted back sceptically. “Really?”

“Yeah. Do the hours, get the job. Show up. Talk shit about justice; practise the maintenance of its opposite, abuse the mandate of my education. Make a lot.” I told her.

Folding some documents into her bag, Sam reapplied her lipstick in the reflection of a photograph frame on the wall. “True. But you’d be an arsehole.”

Journalism in the 21st century is a hard game for a student to play. There’s no money.

Brutal competition – tooth, nail, claw and shit for a place in a shrinking register of full-time positions. The viable alternatives comprise of an undergrowth of part-time

jobs, unpaid internships, paid freelance gigs, online placements nobody’s after, and online successes no one thought possible.

It’s a mess of an industry, but a beautiful one.

There aren’t many careers left that give a man or woman the opportunity to do something genuinely decent – to cauterise corruption, lies, and human indecency. Bad things happen when good journalists do nothing.

Freedom is the absence of all guarantees; journalism offers freedom, independence, opportunity, poverty – not in that order – in equal shades of likelihood. It’s an escape for a postgraduate who’s scared of offices and a sucker for trying to emulate the characters in books and films that talk about doing good for the world.

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

Day One It was my first day of primary school. As a recent immigrant from South Africa, I hadn’t made any friends yet and was looking for a way to make a good impression. I had a funny accent, two dorky brothers and had missed out on the first year of schooling so I couldn’t read.

I needed a way in.

An avenue to acceptance soon presented itself – there was no school uniform! I could wear cool clothes and fit in. My six-year-old brain considered which of my hand-me-downs from cousins and grandma-knitted sweaters constituted the “coolest clothes” I owned. I opened my clothes drawer, and I knew. And so it happened that I turned up to my first day of school dressed as Batman.

“There’s enough opportunity out there. Start a blog at least. Email the local papers. They always need writers. Good luck any rate.

What the hell, I’ll say it: you need it. Anyone who wants to get into journalism needs it.”

I may not have realised it at the time, but my life has largely been defined by that moment – I’ve been awesome ever since.

Sam hitched her bag, smiled, and made her way to the door, getting about six steps before the Murdoch students grabbed her for a second grilling. She left decent advice. It’s all stuff I’d say to any other student looking to start up as a journalist. Know you’re not going to make money, know that you won’t for a long time. Get used to emulating outfits through op-shop purchases. Know that you’re going to pass through the next half a decade pouring Brand Name vodka into empty Evian bottles and sneaking it into clubs; hell, get used to sneaking into clubs, period. Get used to walking home for the $30 that would be going into a taxi. Get used to scavenging. You’ll get published. And eventually, you’ll get paid for it too.

Growing up, catch and kiss was one of the staples of the school playground. Girls would chase the boys around with their objective being to catch a boy and kiss him on the cheek or lips.

Catch and Kiss

But if you think about it, the game is deeply flawed. It’s easy enough for the girls – they have clearly defined parameters of success – but boys can’t be sure if they’re winning, losing or just being chased. The introduction of a cooties variable makes the game more complex still.

Now I’ve never played games to lose, and letting the other player win sounds a lot like losing.

In hindsight, I may have run farther and faster than necessary; I might have gone too far in drawing a hood over my face for protection; and perhaps I shouldn’t have elbowed that girl in the jaw when she cornered me on the slide.

I now realise that I probably wasn’t the catch and kiss champion I thought I was. The problem is I can’t change the way I play – despite my best efforts, I always seem to end up running.

In a 2007 study, Fijian girls exposed to Western images of beauty were 60% more likely to develop issues with eating habits.

tornadoes

15

Love Like A Vole Kaitlin Dubrawski searches for A love potion

In the grasslands of Canada, two prairie voles meet. Unlike most other rodent species, the voles approach each other without hostility – they are wired to love. Without hesitation they engage in simple, primordial sex which, from this time onwards, sees them tied to each other by a strong, unbreakable bond. But what is it that causes such strong attraction, such avid and secure love? And is it possible for us to harness this secret for our own ‘lusty’ whims?

The concept of love potions has fascinated humans for centuries. Literature and mythology are filled with individuals mixing concoctions to win over the one they desire. From Aphrodite to Tristan and Isolde, Cleopatra to Ron Weasley, there is something fascinating and thrilling in the thought that we could control one of the ultimate pillars of life – the myriad of emotions we call love.

Googling “love potions” brings up an endless stream of love recipes and spells, and although quite obviously rubbish, it emphasises how strongly this dream continues to capture the imagination.

It seems that, even today, people pursue the broth that will give them this ultimate control.

And perhaps the idea isn’t completely insane.

Perhaps there is some truth in the concept of “love chemistry”. For the first time it seems science may be one step closer to creating a real “love potion”. But before we all go looking for the secret, it is worth considering how this will influence relationships and where this power may lead.

It is the common, monogamous prairie vole that has given us our insight into love chemistry.

Unlike the majority of promiscuous mammals (rodents), the prairie vole is one of the few animals in nature that forms monogamous relationships

Illustration by Camden Watts

butterflies

16

– a difference that first caused researchers to delve deeper into their behaviour. As underground dwellers, they rely heavily on their sense of smell, and their first encounter with a sexual mate causes pheromonal release that initiates a rapid and complex hormonal cascade. Amongst the myriad of hormones produced during sex is oxytocin, the substance believed to be implicated in relationship building. Monogamous animals, including the common prairie vole, have been found to have an enormous number of oxytocin receptors in their brains. The release of oxytocin during sexual activity causes an explosion of neural firing that causes these animals to associate a particular partner with pleasure. Non-monogamous animals do not have these same receptors and, as a result, do not associate sex and sexual pleasure with a particular mate. This is the main difference between these two types of creatures – while both find sex pleasurable, only the monogamous animal has the added stimulatory effects of oxytocin that causes it to bond with a specific partner.

The word ‘oxytocin’ probably doesn’t conjure up romantic ideals for many. Produced in the hypothalamus (brain), oxytocin is most famous for its role in initiating labour and beginning the milk let-down reflex in new mothers. Yet recent studies have found that oxytocin may also have widespread implications for relationships playing a key role in adult pair bonding. Susan Carter, a scientist at the University of Chicago who published the earliest data on the significance of oxytocin in vole pair-bonding, refers to oxytocin as “a hormone associated with emotional safety and security”, with the ability to “down-regulate stress and encourage positive social behaviour”. During the course of a normal relationship, oxytocin is released during close physical contact such as kissing, hugging, massage and sex. Although the mechanisms are poorly understood, oxytocin has been found to increase trust and confidence amongst people, including complete strangers.

The ultimate question is then, can oxytocin cause people to fall in love? While studies are still being conducted, preliminary evidence suggests that oxytocin can, indeed, have some influence over our relationships, with one of the main factors being an increase in trust between individuals. One study in Nature (2005) involved individuals

playing a game in which they were given money to invest. One group was sprayed with oxytocin, the other acted as a control. Researchers found that those exposed to the hormone were twice as likely to risk all of their money with strangers and had invested 17% more than their control counterparts. Extending this to the spectrum of dating and relationships, oxytocin has the potential to cause people to lose their inhibitions, become more confident and ultimately “fall in love” faster.

With such evidence emerging it was only a matter of time before someone invented an oxytocin spray. Liquid Trust was the first commercially available oxytocin spray in the world and promised to enhance relationships.

Imagine spraying oxytocin before a first date, to give yourself that bit of extra attractiveness; innocuous enough perhaps, but isn’t this thought just a little bit scary? Will the future of dating see the casual spray of oxytocin instead of perfume?

Is the administration of oxytocin in some ways removing our power of autonomy and free will by causing attraction where perhaps none would have existed? It generates some important questions, not only about the way that we view and handle love, but also other relationships in our life. Oxytocin has the potential to benefit those suffering from social deficits or disorders (i.e. autism), but could it not also be misused – by con men, for example – to enhance trust amongst strangers and further exploit them for money?

Should there be bans against its commercial use?

Which ever way you look at it, oxytocin remains a fascinating hormone with enormous social potential. With no reputable studies having been performed on Liquid Trust, its authenticity is somewhat dubious and, being a keen medical student, I was interested to try it out. Sadly, the waiting time for delivery was past the article deadline which, in retrospect, was a blessing in disguise. If we look at fiction, most attempts to control love are fraught with danger and misunderstanding, resulting in unhappiness, embarrassment and the occasional suicide.

Perhaps we should be taking heed of these ageold warnings and, like our friends the voles, sticking with good old fashioned biological attraction.

Illustration by Lola Lin Smells affect vaginal blood flow also. A study in Chicago discovered that the smell of cologne, cherry and barbeque meat actually decreased vaginal blood flow. Cucumber and candy smells increased blood flow by 13%.

tornadoes

17

Lucky strike for non-smokers Daniel Pillar blows some smoke over the complete campus-smoking ban set to come in to effect in 2012

Non-smokers were undoubtedly happy to hear that from next year there will be complete ban on smoking on campus. No doubt you all received the email from Safety and Health that the move has been made to “… support and promote a healthy environment for staff, students and visitors to our campuses.” But is a blanket ban a smart move for this institution to make?

I have consulted with UWA Health, staff and some UWA students, in an attempt to bring their respective arguments some justice.

The obvious driver towards tougher restrictions on smoking is the health benefits. Non-smokers – some more verbal than others – are understandably irritated when they catch a lungful that a nearby smoker has generously donated to the immediate vicinity. UWA Safety and Health have reported receiving many emails in support of the ban on the day of the announcement, and at present, 349 students (and counting) “like” the announcement on the UWA Students’ Facebook page.

In comments, Shannon argued that “no non-smoker should have to go out of their way to avoid smoke,” which summarises the blanket ban in a nutshell. “About time” was a call echoed by more students.

But this article wasn’t intended to rag on smokers and many comments were posted from smokers and non-smokers alike who do not think this ban will be effective. Ana, a smoker, wrote “there are many inconsiderate smokers who litter and smoke around inappropriate areas, but I’m not one of those and I feel unfairly discriminated against, [as I] actively try not to inconvenience others.” Anette, a non-smoker, suggested that at UWA, “smokers usually practise good smoking etiquette. They have a puff outside of buildings, where it does not inconvenience non-smokers much.” It’s clear that there are two sides to the coin, and while some respect the smokers’ efforts to stay out of the way, others feel they aren’t doing enough.

While smoking surveys on UWA students have not been recently conducted, research has shown that compared to the general population, Australians working or studying tertiary education smoke proportionately less than the average Australian. National figures suggest that 4% of university attendees smoke, far below the general population figure. But is it the duty of nonsmokers to put pressure on smokers to quit? One

smoker suggested that we should “live and let live” and that these bans are nothing more than an inconvenience that won’t stop him smoking. Many comments cited ‘”tress relief after lectures” as being a reason to smoke on campus. To a non-smoker, the pull of nicotine addiction can be extremely hard to comprehend; as one smoker put it, if they could quit, then they would have done so already.

So why move to a blanket ban from the current situation? One argument suggests that by removing smoking from the university altogether there is no confusion about designated non-/smoking zones. But to what extent will it be enforced? Current smoke-free areas, such as the Reid library entrance corridor and areas outside the ALVA entrance are often smoked in regardless of the “smoke free zone” signs. And with no designated “smoking areas” nearby, smokers will undoubtedly be tempted to light up regardless.

Without ‘smoking police’ around campus, will it be up to the non-smokers to tell the smokers to move along? While some people are very happy to share their views – political, social or otherwise – I don’t think that someone enjoying a cigarette will be likely to take a hike just because a colleague or voicey first-year tells them to.

UWA has come to the decision to support the ban from 2012 along with the other three big universities, following dialogue between the respective ViceChancellors, anti-smoking group ASH, and public health professors. All will provide support to help smokers kick the habit and a progressive change from the existing policies rather than a draconian ‘one strike and you’re out’ policy will likely be implemented.

However, negotiations on changes to the university bylaws will take place as “A UWA Working Party oversees the educative, support and compliance components of introducing this change.” Whether or not this will result in fines for people who light up on campus is merely speculation, but many students have suggested this may be the only solution to what they see as a threat to their health. Curtin has suggested a $100 fine for students lighting up on their campus from next year. It has been suggested that energy drinks or alcohol can be just as dangerous as passive smoke, but as one student put it, “if someone is drinking an energy drink when I walk past I don’t accidentally drink it, but I might inhale their

illustration

by Saman tha Leun g

second hand smoke.”

UWA Health have announced that “smoke free campus” signs will be placed on campus maps, signposts and directories, to ensure that visitors and those that are newer to campus will clearly see the no-smoking policy. While it has been suggested that this might be difficult to comprehend, complete smoking bans such as the one at Subiaco Oval have been implemented successfully, which shows that they can be successful on a large scale. A final notable point is that this ban will extend to all UWA property – including all campuses, Currie Hall and other university-owned student housing. All of the residential colleges have banned smoking on their premises for some time, with the exception of St Catherine’s and Trinity who have small, distant smoking areas for guests.

In summary, this debate is quite contentious and will likely continue even after the implementation of the smoking ban next year. While the ban will undoubtedly be an inconvenience for people continuing to smoke, it will be interesting to see whether or not it will encourage them to quit. On the upside, it will be clear that there is no such thing as a smoking area on UWA property, and confusion about where you can and cannot smoke will be eliminated.

What will be undeniably interesting is how UWA chooses to implement and enforce this ban. However, it seems that the majority of students support this move for a healthier campus and that the influence of tobacco companies is drawing ever closer to its end.

Oestrogen may play a role in addiction. It is suggested that if females want to quit smoking, it is best to do so in the second part of the menstrual cycle when higher rates of progesterone may dampen the pleasure received from smoking.

butterflies

18

Global Warming and Pirates: An Exploration of Logical Fallacies ---------------------------------------------------------------------Rising global temperatures have a near-perfect positive correlation with a decreasing number of pirates. To further confirm this dreadfully concerning hypothesis, it was discovered that temperature changes were least pronounced around Somalia, where today’s small number of remaining pirates are concentrated. Now before you go and don your best boots and set off for the high seas and a life of crime, fear not my friends, for this relationship is merely an example (and an overtly ridiculous one at that) of the correlation implies causation fallacy.

This particular example – commonly cited by science teachers to warn their students against making erroneous assumptions – was in fact contrived by a crew of rascally rapscallions known as Pastafarians.

These are the very scallywags behind International Talk like a Pirate Day (September 19) – a legitimate religious holiday for Pastafarians. Pastifarianism is a parodic religion, perpetuating such beliefs as the worship of the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’ (who accidentally, and drunkenly, created the universe).

Apart from being a mildly amusing anecdote, Pastafarianism critiques the idea of intelligent design.

Intelligent design can also be seen

Charlotte Jones

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

as an extension of the ideas of philosopher Bertrand Russell, who suggested that the burden of proof of unfalsifiable claims (of which religious theories are an example) should fall to the maker of the claim, rather than to its audience. Russell’s example is that if he insists that the sun is orbited in an elliptical pattern by a china teapot too miniscule to be seen by any telescope, thereby preventing falsifiability, we can all acknowledge the nonsensical nature of his claim.

He goes on to note that “If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist.”

A slightly different type of logical fallacy is known as the ‘Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy’. This is based on our tendency to make patterns and meanings where often non existed. Some examples of this include finding subliminal messages in songs played backwards and ‘secret codes’ hidden within literary texts or bodies of work. Michael Drosnin published a book entitled The Bible Code (1997), in which he applied “skip codes” to parts of the Bible and apparently uncovered uncanny prophesies of various major events, including the Kennedy assassinations. Not surprisingly, Drosnin’s “mathematical analysis” of the Bible used suspiciously broad criteria – basically skipping different combinations of letters until he uncovered something that could be morphed into meaningful messages and/or prophesies. Apart from its obvious ludicrousness, debunking Drosnin’s claims is fairly unproblematic, with unfulfilled “prophesies” such as the apocalypse of 2006 and the fact that he suggests said codes were placed in the Bible by extraterrestrial life. Sadly, there is an alarmingly large audience for such completely absurd and unfounded claims, with both The Bible Code and its sequel, The Bible Code II, becoming bestsellers.

e arc Pe van yE nb ratio Illust

Many other common misconceptions arise not necessarily from logical fallacies but simply from misrepresentations and poor assumptions.

A theory known in pop culture as “The Infinite Monkey Theorem” usually goes something along the lines of “A monkey randomly typing at a typewriter will, given enough time, inevitably type the works of

Shakespeare or some other recognisable text”. This is, of course, prone to literal interpretation, which is quite a distortion of the actual mathematical theory, which is meant to illustrate the probability that a random number generator constantly generating numbers for an infinite amount of time will eventually producing meaningful strings of numbers.

Such misconceptions and logical fallacies are by no means limited to amusing theories and facetious religions. They have been manifested in very serious and detrimental ways, with examples rife in science and popular culture alike. In the 1950s, renowned psychiatrist Dr David Cameron conducted a study aiming to cure schizophrenia and other mental disorders using “beneficial brainwashing”. This process essentially relied on the assumption that one could completely reprogram a person’s brain by first wiping it clean. Cameron had quite some success in the first part of the process; patients were treated to sizeable doses of LSD and aggressive electroshock therapy, effectively wiping their memories clean and destroying a significant portion of their brain function. The next step was to “reprogram” patients’ minds (slightly more problematic) by implementing his method of “psychic driving”. This involved restraining patients inside a “sensory deprivation chamber” within which they listened to spoken recordings engineered to rebuild their minds and personalities. It must be noted that at the time, Cameron’s research was certainly not disregarded as the folly of an eccentric scientist; he boasted publicly of his findings and was published in a major psychiatric journal. In 1957 he was even given funding by the CIA (albeit rather illegally) to develop a method of brainwashing they hoped would be of use to them. This of course never eventuated.

Given modern medicine’s understanding of how the brain works, it’s easy to retrospectively dismiss experiments such as Dr Cameron’s psychic driving as grotesque relics of past scientific thought.

Unfortunately, however, it is likely that we will never be free from making ludicrous assumptions and extrapolations with very minimal logical backing, That’s just the way we are. Sometimes it’s far easier to laugh and say that pirates must be divine beings responsible for the maintenance of global climate than to investigate the cause and potential solutions for really complex problems.

Crazy Bitches ---------------------- Elisa Thompson ----------------------

Illustration by Elisa Thompson

Bitches be crazy. Nobody can deny it. I’m a bitch, and I’m confident a number of my male friends would be happy to attest to my craziness. I’m not saying that guys aren’t – believe me, they’re nuts too – but there is a special brand of insanity that seems almost exclusive to women. I’m talking of course about the everything-is-totally-fine-ok-nowI’m-fucking-pissed phenomenon. For a subject matter so personal, there is only one method of research available for a serious investigative journalist like myself. I need to find some ladehs.

Bitch Number 1 (BN1) had been seeing an ex for a while – a boy who lived just down the street. He was always nice and attentive but not ready to be too serious with their relationship.

This happens, but it’s often hard to see through a haze of crazy. One afternoon, BN1 found a bunch of flowers on her doorstep. At first she was thrilled (bitches love flowers) but then she looked closer. They were store bought, a few slightly wilted and wrapped in cheap-looking paper. She felt an inexplicable rage build within her, and she found herself storming down the road towards her ex’s house. At the letterbox she stopped, and shoved the bouquet inside.

“You can have your shitty flowers back!” she thought, and as she walked home, “Yeah! That’ll teach him!” Only half an hour later she dashed outside with the intention of retrieving the blooms (“What was I thinking? How could that have seemed like a good idea?”), and was met by her ex. He was holding the flowers. “Why were these in my letter box?” he asked her, and she, being a 20-year-old, fully functional, 100% logical, crazy bitch did the only thing she could think of. She said she didn’t know.

Bitch Number 2 (BN2) was out with her boyfriend’s mates at a pool hall. She’d never been good at the game and usually found herself either hitting the ball awkwardly so it wobbled feebly over the table, or missing it completely. Eager to not make a fool of herself, BN2 stood casually by the bar most of the night, sipping prettily at a beer and ignoring the only other girl present. This girl was Lola and

BN2 had a sneaky suspicion Lola had a thing for her boyfriend. It was therefore with much reluctance that she was roped into a game with Lola. The boys, all taking a break from their own games, stood around the table to watch as Lola begin to beat her at pool. Finally, BN2 was lining up for a shot when her boyfriend handed her the cue stabiliser. “Try this,” he said with a kind smile. Naturally, she was furious.

She thrust the cue into his hands, hissed, “Why don’t you play then!” and stormed off to the bar. A moment later he joined her and asked her what was wrong. “I don’t need a handicap,” she huffed. He stared blankly at her. “It’s a cue stabiliser. You use it to make the longer shots,” he said. “Oh,” was her reply. She thought he’d given her the retard-aid.

Bitch Number 3 (BN3) had a boyfriend who was a compulsive flirter. There was one girl in particular who she decided he spent too much time with. The girl was his best friend from high school and they were always incredibly affectionate towards each other. One evening, BN3 was in Fremantle with a friend when she spotted her boyfriend emerging from a restaurant. Behind him was the best friend.

BN3’s mind was suddenly filled with every suspicion she’d developed over the past couple of months. Here it was – undeniable proof of his infidelity. She was across the road and in front of the pair in a flash. “You! What are you doing?” she said, with her finger on her boyfriend’s chest, and then without giving him time to reply, “I knew it! I knew that something was going on! And you lied to me so easily, you absolute arse!” She had now attracted the attention of the patrons of the restaurant and of those nearby. She received a few, “You go girl!”s, and this spurred her on further. She turned to

tornadoes

19

the “best friend”. “Don’t trust him!” she said to her, waving her arms manically, “don’t ever trust what he says to you! He is a liar and a pig and don’t you think he’ll treat you any better than me! Once a cheater, always a cheater!” For a moment there was silence. The three looked from one to the other. BN3 breathed heavily and the witnesses looked on in awe. It was at this time that a good-looking boy emerged from the restaurant, slipped his arm around the waist of the best friend and asked, “What’s all the yelling about?” It was her new flame – the one BN3’s boyfriend had just met over dinner for the first time. Woops.

When I began writing this article I did so with the intention of ending the way I’d started – with my hypothesis that bitches be crazy. But after talking to so many girls I find myself re-thinking the statement. When I look at these examples, as well as the many others I could not include here, I find that there are always reasons for our wrath (convoluted and unfounded as they may seem). We are never inexplicably angry, though it may look that way sometimes.

So guys, if you like a girl, pay attention. It’s likely at some point in your life you’ll have heard some version of, “well if you don’t know what’s wrong, I’m not going to tell you”. It’s an illogical and almost impossible statement to be faced with, so you are forgiven for feeling perplexed.

But consider this: double brownie points if you take the time to figure it out! Don’t give up on us, because believe it or not, there is a direct correlation between how crazy a girl acts towards you and how crazy she is about you.

Fact.

Trust me, I’m the craziest of them all.

In 1997, after receiving anonymous death threats against her and her daughter, Pauline Hanson recorded a 12-minute “death” video that was to be screened to her supporters in the event of her assassination. The video urged One Nation members to “not let my passing distract you for even a moment.” Don’t worry, Pauline, we wouldn’t care.

butterflies

20

Murky Tanks The Dead and Damaged Orcas Behind The Scenes at SeaWorld ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sarah Dunstan

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

Female orcas in captivity are impregnated when they are still preteens.

Fast Facts: The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society notes that out of 59 pregnancies in captivity since 1969, only 23 calves (38%) have survived.

In the wild, female orcas may live to 80 years of age, and males to 60 years of age.

The longest a captive orca has ever lived is approximately 40 years.

Some have suggested that captive orcas who are Atlantic/Pacific hybrids, or transient/resident hybrids, act strangely because they are the result of a union that would not occur naturally in the wild.

An orca in the wild will not give birth until she is around 14 years of age, while female orcas in captivity have given birth as young as six years old. Furthermore, breeding programs in captivity ensure that fertile female orcas are bred as much as possible, leading to devastating complications. The eldest female Orca in captivity, Corky II, has had many miscarriages and out of her successful pregnancies, no calf has survived longer than a month. The deaths of the calves has been attributed to Corky’s young age, her lack of experience raising calves, genetic mutations of unknown causes, and rather horrifyingly, small enclosures that did not allow Corky enough room to present her mammaries to calves to nurse them.

In June 2010, a SeaWorld orca named Taima (b. 1989 in captivity) died giving birth to a stillborn calf. Laboring for 24 hours, her official cause of death was “uterine prolapse,” a condition where stretching of ligaments that support the pelvic organs causes the organs to drop down. The condition was most likely

caused by breeding far too young and far too often – Taima had already given birth to three calves before the stillborn, beginning when she was just eight years old.

Perhaps what is most disturbing about Taima’s death is that her own mother, Gudrun, an orca caught off the coast of Iceland in 1976, died after the birth of her final stillborn calf, who had to be pulled out of her womb artificially with a crane and chains after 20 hours (Gudrun made a “horrible screeching sound” and died in pain four days later). Taima also had a younger sister, Nyar, who was born to Gudrun suffering from severe, debilitating mental and physical disabilities unseen in the wild. Gudrun tried repeatedly to drown Nyar to put her out of her pain (before Nyar died at the age of two) and because Taima was born in captivity, she thought that the way to raise a calf was to try to drown it, as she’d seen her mother do to her younger sister. As a result, when Taima’s three surviving calves were born, they had to be taken away from their mother, who was both very young and was a danger to their health and safety, having no role-model as she would in the wild.

21

tornadoes

Baby orcas, born in captivity to mothers old and young, are more likely to die during or after birth.

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society notes that out of 59 pregnancies in captivity since 1969, only 23 calves (38%) have survived. As most deaths of calves and miscarriages are of unknown causes, it cannot be said whether this low survival rate is directly attributable to captivity. However, despite the fact that in the wild female orcas in the same family commonly assist each-other with childbirth and sometimes rearing, orcas born in captivity often have to be hand-reared by trainers – by virtue of the fact that their mothers were also hand-reared by trainers.

Both male and female orcas in captivity have severely shortened lifespans.

In the wild, female orcas may live to 80 years of age, and males to 60 years of age. The longest a captive orca has ever lived is approximately 40 years, and many orcas in the 15–20 age bracket die, often of unknown causes or unexpected, sudden illnesses like infections. When aquariums and water parks began capturing orcas in the early 1960s, it was very common for orcas to die within days of capture.

Wanda, the first orca captured for public display, lasted just two days, while Moby Doll, whose embalmed body is still displayed, died three months after being harpooned and shot off the coast of British Columbia.

While capture is no longer as barbaric, many orcas in captivity, particularly SeaWorld in the US, die by the age of 15. Even if you do live to 40 years of age, your life is unlikely to be a fulfilling one.

(Tastelessly?) nicknamed ‘Lolita’, a female orca named Tokitae is currently being held in a small tank at the Miami Seaquarium. ‘Lolita’ is quite large for a female, and although review measures have determined that she is both healthy and receiving adequate nutrition from the Seaquarium, different animal rights groups have claimed that the tank is illegally small. Caught when she was very young in 1970, she still uses calls unique to her pod. Sadly, these fall on deaf ears – Lolita lives in solitary confinement, and when she was captured, four other orcas died, including a female who drowned in a net trying to reach her calf.

Some gritty facts behind the aquatic playgrounds in the vein of The Little Mermaid, André and Free Willy.

Science still cannot explain significant physiological and behavioral differences between captive and wild orcas.

In the wild, dorsal fin collapse is a condition caused by a lack of collagen and occurs in around 5% of males. In captivity, almost all captive males, and some captive females have floppy, curled over dorsal fins, and why this is so has not been determined. A collapsed dorsal fin is exhibited by Tilikum, a male orca who has sired over a dozen calves with different female orcas, leading Motley Crue member Tommy Lee to describe him as the “Chief Sperm Bank” in an angry letter to the president of SeaWorld. That’s not where Tilikum’s anomalies end. Indeed, Tilikum has been involved in the deaths of three humans since 1991, including two trainers, and a disturbed man who jumped into his pool. Regardless of whether Tilikum intended to kill any of these people (debate centres around the fact that Tilikum brought the unwelcome guest in his enclosure to the surface draped over his back, making distress calls, and the fact that he could have mistaken his trainer’s ponytail for a fish), the fact remains that captive orcas can act unusually aggressively towards each other and humans; mothers attacking their own children is particularly alarming. Some have suggested that captive orcas who are Atlantic/Pacific hybrids, or transient/resident hybrids, act strangely because they are the result of a union that would not occur naturally in the wild, although SeaWorld maintains that IVF programs actually ensure “a healthy genetic mix” and eliminates the stress of moving orcas from tank to tank, or from different parks all over the US and the world.

Orcas don’t exhibit purely abnormal behavior in captivity. Tragically, even natural behavior can prove fatal. During a live performance in 1989, a dominant female at SeaWorld named Kandu V tried to scrape her teeth against Corky II, as a way of asserting her dominance. Unfortunately for Kandu, she missed and slammed straight into a wall of the tank, rupturing an artery in her jaw. As the tank filled with blood, the audience was quickly ushered out – but it was too late. Eleven-month-old calf Orkid was at his mother’s side as she bled to death fot over 45 minutes.

Orkid was later essentially adopted by Corky II, who had been unable to achieve a viable pregnancy, perhaps displaying a faint glimmer of hope for the disrupted lifestyles and life cycles of captive orcas.

The killer whale, or orca, is the fastest of all the whale species and among the swiftest of all marine animals with a capable swimming speed of 35 miles per hour. Only tuna, marlin, sailfish, and swordfish are faster.

butterflies

22

This Book Will Change Your Life!

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

Richard Ferguson

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

Books change lives. So says Oprah.

Those little bundles of tree remains have had more influence on me than my family, friends and teachers combined. Except for when they actually gave me the book. From The Complete Works of William Blake to Pregnancy and Fitness, they have taken me from a life as an illiterate boy of the Glaswegian slums to a mighty man of the Australian intellectual elite. Not a big difference in the two but still, books of all sorts have moulded me in each chapter of my novel-like existence. Here are just some of the masterpieces that shaped my life.

1.

3.

Barney’s Beach Adventure – The Guys Who Made Barney the Dinosaur The novel that started it all.

This account of an imaginary dinosaur’s journey to the beach continues to enthral all ages and is responsible for my own development as a child. It is fair to say this book was the source of most of my primary skills. I suspect that Barney and the Backyard Gang helped many others in the same way.

I learnt how to interact with the physical environment through the squishy beach-ball on the front cover. I learnt to spell complicated words such as, “super-de-douper.” I learnt how to love through my profound connection to Baby Bop. This tale did not just change my life. It gave me life.

2.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis.

Think of this not as a children’s novel, but as an overwhelming manifesto of faith for our times.

illustration by Emily O’Keefe.

The tale concerns Jesus in lion-form as he encourages the use of child soldiers and displays an unhealthy hatred of all things wintery. As a man struggling with an increasingly secular world, the novel changed my way of perceiving faith. It convinced me that aggression and war were the best way to rid the world of evil rather than the forgiveness nonsense I was being taught at school. For example, in their Bible, Jesus politely asks the Devil to go away. In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, he mauls the bitch to death. Take that, sinners!

The Audacity of Hope – US President Barack Obama Some books change your life for all the wrong reasons.

They lead you into a land of deceit where financial credit is abundant, all instances of foreign intervention are diplomatic and Republicans are amusing sideshow freaks at the circus. This book originally changed me into a screeching fan-girl who waited with, indeed, hope for the arrival of that wellread, super-calm and rather sexy messiah known as Senator Barack Obama. However, the force of current events taught me that what I considered a modern shining knight was actually just another arrogant arsehole. The world of books seemed to reveal a place of fantasy and exaggeration rather than a source of gospel truths.

This work taught me that eternal lesson – never give yourself to a book. They will just crease the pages of your heart.

4.

Doctor Who: The Encyclopaedia – Gary Russell The universe can be fully explained in one wee book.

I spent most of my life ignorant of basic facts like that the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental and the murderous Daleks are weakened by attacks to their eye-stalk. This marvellous collection of knowledge showed me a galaxy of time and space that was hidden from me by normal encyclopaedias.

While the other kids on the block were raving about the workings of mobile phones, I already knew that were actually the Master’s hypnotic devices. Science has an important part to play in the book world and the secrets of Gallifrey helped me better understand my world. By the way, that world turned out to be a Cybermen recruitment camp.

5.

A Murder is Announced – Agatha Christie A book can inspire you to keep fighting in the face of adversity.

Just as Miss Marple fights the forces of evil, I am fighting Disney’s attempt to defile Miss Marple like a common whore. You may know this character as the wise old woman who solves murder mysteries in fancy English mansions. Disney wishes to re-paint her as a sexy American spy played by Jennifer Garner. This book taught me that the villain will ultimately fail in the end. I, like the frumpy Miss Marple, will not stop until Disney goes back to rubbish cartoons and Jennifer Garner goes back to rubbish comedies with her rubbish husband, Ben Affleck.

Miss Marple will stay a sexless pensioner, damn it!

6.

Twilight – Stephanie Meyer The power of the novel can achieve anything. It can even make you gay.

Twilight was probably a catalyst for long-running tensions but it stays as the excuse I gave to my mother.

As a boy with only female friends, I was forced to read this piece in order to remain relevant in their world.

I approached the task objectively, thinking I might find the chick hot and shit. However, I soon realised that I understood dear Bella’s feelings for boys. In fact, I fancied these boys more than she did. My love of the male species was revealed to me like the world of vampires is revealed to Bella.

I’m Team Edward by the way. Jacob would crush a small man like me.

7.

1001 Books to Read Before you Die – Peter Boxall The list-book of all list-books. This list-book inspired this list of books.

Surprisingly, the above works do not appear in this volume but academics cannot see past their silly standards. Like quality and social significance. This list-book still assists one in gaining an idea of how a list of books should work. From naming the book to naming the author, it taught me how to organise books in a list. That lesson is apparent in this very list of books.

Inspired by a list-book comprising of a list of books nonetheless.

Pneumono­ultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a lung disease caused by the inhalation of volcanic silicon dust, is longest word recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Illustrated by Camden Watts

butterflies

24

Fuck You Scalpers: Solutions to the 21st Century Dilemma

Michael O’Brien explains how the tiny actions of wankers is changing how the world approaches events & ticketing Those who enjoyed a certain ‘tearing’ sound in Inglorious Basterds a little too much may be disappointed to find out that this is not an article about the 18th Century Native-American practice of removing a person’s scalp from their dead body. When I refer to the modern ‘scalper’ I am of course talking about those evil individuals whom purchase gigantic quantities of tickets in order to resell their tickets at a hefty profit.

The purpose of scalping your victim in Native-American history was to provide a portable trophy demonstrating your own prowess as a warrior. The purpose of scalping your victim online today is to privately undermine them financially by exploiting a flawed ticketing system and an event’s sell-out capacity in order to obtain a market share of the commodities. Whereas Native-Americans became known for sewing several of their enemies’ scalps together to create a delightful form of head-dress, today’s scalpers are known for using their financial scalps to fund a vast network of profit-making allowing infiltration of the seemingly exclusive season ticket holders and special presale markets.

For two decades now in the United States, there has been a digital infrastructure in place that encourages and aids these dickheads to excel and profit from hardship. StubHub.com (now owned by Ebay) has lead the global expansion of online ticket brokering and become the primary platform upon which large-scale price fraud occurs.

StubHub differs from its contemporaries, Ebay and Craigslist (US equivalent of Gumtree), principally in the way that it

functions like a stock market where the ticket trade is highly regulated and the company guarantees each transaction. However, whereas Ebay charges an upfront flat price per listing by the seller, Stubhub takes a 25% commission on the final ticket price upon sale. The website makes an average of $265 per transaction and deals with thousands each day. This of course means that StubHub has an invested interest allowing their sellers to post tickets at any price they so choose, no matter how ridiculous.

This issue came to a head recently in New York, when dance-punk stars LCD Soundsystem sold out their final ever gig – also their only ever appearance at Madison Square Garden (MSG) – in a matter of minutes when the tickets went on sale in February. To explain the context, the giddy anticipation surrounding LCD’s swan-song performance had reached biblical proportions in the weeks after the show’s announcement. A reasonably large die-hard fan base genuinely wanted to say goodbye in style to a band who were controversially bowing out at their peak. When LCD booked the 20,000 capacity MSG for their final show, even their most favourable critics observed that they would find it near impossible to sell-out the venue due to the natural limits imposed by the band’s confrontingly satirical, no-pretension, nobullshit, do-it-yourself attitude.

Understanding the event’s significance, the music-savvy scalping community saw the opportunity and invested big. Within an hour of the Ticketmaster website crashing due to an onslaught of transactions, tickets previously worth USD$47 were appearing in their thousands on StubHub for anywhere between USD$1300 – $3500.

In desperation, a few disillusioned fans were able to take advantage of the relative bargains appearing on Craigslist for around $300 – $400.

Two days later, on February 11, James Murphy (front man behind LCD) made a compellingly amusing personal rant on his website about how he had come up with a solution to “deflate the market for those scalping scumfucks” in order to honour their fans’ “strange relationship with our band”. Murphy’s generous solution was to announce a further four LCD farewell shows to be played on consecutive nights leading up to the Saturday night MSG gig. These gigs, held at a smaller 3,000 capacity venue using anti-scalping ticketing methods, would

give punters ample opportunity to get front-row position without spending $2000 on StubHub. It was a successful, yet unsustainable, solution to Murphy’s desire to reduce the profiteering from the sale of MSG tickets.

In recent years we have seen the development of a series of anti-scalper ticket selling methods, which mostly require the purchaser to provide significant identification details and link them permanently to the purchased ticket. Intricately designed ticket systems have been proven to work very successfully but their onerous requirements make them suited best for those largerthan-life festival events such as Glastonbury, Benicassim or Burning Man. Such events have a long history of ticketing issues, and have only adopted new methods after years of sustained protest from fans. For smaller every-day events, the way of the future seems to be the new ‘paperless’ ticketing systems being adopted by many entertainment companies around the world. This VIP door-list type approach to admission is very successful provided punters are willing to register themselves on the venues’ website upon purchase.

Whilst the illegality of scalping tickets in the immediate vicinity of venues has been universally accepted for many years, other trading methods have not by-andlarge been declared illegal. Under the New York State anti-scalping legislation (in the case of LCD) an online ticket broker is allowed to charge 20% more than the original value of the ticket but cannot exceed this price.

Instead of leading the way by promoting fairness for the honest punter by enforcing individual State limits on ticket mark-ups, StubHub has unfortunately dropped the ball on their responsibility by claiming that it is up to the seller to obey their respective local laws.

For those out there like me, who strongly support the live performance industry (both arts and sporting) and who believe that scalping is a slightly more civilised exercise of highway robbery, now is the time for the introduction of more comprehensive anti-scalping legislation. Such laws would need to enforce reasonable limits on ticket mark-ups through sanctions on the leading online ticket-resale corporations who are allowing a USD$12 billion industry to flourish based entirely upon a scheme of human exploitation. On a lighter note, I leave you with James Murphy’s final address to “scalping scumfucks”: “’It’s legal’” is what people say when they don’t have ethics.

The law is there to set the limit of what is punishable (aka where the state needs to intervene) but we are supposed to have ethics, and that should be the primary guiding force in our actions, you fucking fuck. And to everyone else: thank you. You rule. Don’t let the shitbags win. “ Brilliant.

Front man James Murphy off as part of metal band Pony in the lateabove 80s. 1979, lcd soundsystem’s james murphy was started once in a legal dispute with the band death from who shared his record label’s name

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Lachlan Keeley gets arrogant

Dead animals being, well, dead, is, on the other hand, one of the worst things ever. Let me fill you in. I don’t like to see dead animals, even if they’re vermin. The sight of a deceased pigeon lying on the side of the road sometimes fills me with nausea. So I try not to think about it.

That’s not to say that I don’t understand the fact that things need to die – in fact, I’m okay with the whole circle-of-life thing (though I admittedly don’t philosophise about it particularly often). As a child, a crippled bat appeared in our garden and I was allowed to adopt it. I fed it water mixed with sugar and it hung upside down from a stick jammed through the sides of a cardboard box. The bat had a broken wing that was in all likelihood irreparable and after a few days we took it to a vet. Whoever heard of providing medical attention for a bat? The bat was not returned to us; someone probably took it out the back and squashed it with their foot. I assume it was the way it would have wanted to go.

But, enough about fish. Let us move onto the main course of this article: that being the movie Milo & Otis. If you had a normal childhood, it is likely that you may have watched this jolly little adventure film at least once – maybe even a few times. Milo & Otis was originally a Japanese film titled A Kitten’s Story, and for its Western release it was revamped, redubbed and reedited, the end result of which being a completely different movie designed specifically for children. This is not the important part. What is important, though, is that after the film was released to Western audiences, rumours emerged accusing the directors of, amongst numerous other acts of cruelty, murdering upwards of 20 kittens throughout the production of their film. The scene in which Milo the kitten is nearly torn apart by a group of seagulls and then falls off a really, really tall cliff into the goddamn ocean may have fuelled some of these rumours – for understandable reasons.

Naturally, the production company insisted very sincerely that “the animals used were filmed under strict supervision with the utmost care for their safety and well-being” – which is a very convoluted way of avoiding having to say that “some animals I understand that there’s a species barrier, yet I may have been harmed”. Unfortunately, for anyone never find myself openly concerned about it. A with even the slightest concern about animal childhood friend, who is probably now a heroin welfare, investigations concerning whether or not addict, would stay on a farm when he was living animals were actually harmed during the making of with his father. He told me how he and his sister Milo & Otis have atrophied away into nothing. The would stick fireworks up the arses of feral cats and last definitive statement about the allegations came set them off. This was complete bullshit, but I felt from the American Humane Society in about 1990, very concerned at the time. How did they catch and provided no real closure. To quote: “We have the cats? Where did they get the fireworks? These attempted to investigate this through our contacts in questions didn’t actually matter. I was just worried Europe who normally have information on movies about the cats, even though they were filthy pests. throughout the world. They had also heard the Those poor vermin! And yet, I gain satisfaction rumour, but were unable to verify it as being true. from murdering cockroaches. I would be a terrible We have tried through humane people in Japan, and vegetarian. Jonathan Safran Foer, in his book Eating through another Japanese producer to determine Animals (which is not so much about eating animals if these rumours are true or not but everything has as it is about eating led to a dead end.” I’d like shit), relays a story to resist the temptation about Franz Kafka I liked Milo & Otis a lot as a kid, but now to label it a Kafkaesque visiting an aquarium.

I can’t remove the image of drowned cats situation, but these things Kafka stared through away from the light-hearted children’s happen, sometimes. the wall of a fish tank

adventure. So I don’t think about it at all.

at the animals trapped inside and murmured “Now I can at last look at you in peace, I don’t eat you anymore.” Kafka’s sensitivity may be admirable but to me it just seems ridiculous. Who cares about fish? If his empathy was directed towards a “higher” species, I might be able to understand him. But I don’t – that’s the species barrier! And I probably never will.

The subtitle on the poster says it all, really:

“Milo is one lucky cat.

He’s got nine lives and a best friend.”

Convenient, no?

It is unlikely that we’ll ever really know whether or not a bunch of kittens were thrown into the ocean

so a couple of guys could get the lighting just right, but it probably did. I liked Milo & Otis a lot as a kid, but now I can’t remove the image of drowned cats away from the light-hearted children’s adventure. So I don’t think about it at all. Just like the bat oozing squashed brain out of its ear. Just like the feral cat eviscerated by a firework. Just like the species barrier.

To quote Calvin & Hobbes: “...nature is ruthless and our existence is very fragile, temporary, and precious. But to go on with your daily affairs, you can’t really think about that...which is probably why everyone takes the world for granted and why we act so thoughtlessly. It’s very confusing. I suppose it will all make sense when we grow up.”

Dead animals are terrible things. ...except for Knut the polar bear. That shit is fucking hilarious.

Illustrated by Camden Watts

The act of eating dead animals is, in all likelihood, one of the best things ever.

Approximately 24 cat skins make a coat.

tornadoes

25

S A L E

RRP $50.00 Sale $24.95

Member

$19.95 RRP $59.95 Sale $35.95

Member

$32.95

RRP $34.95 Sale $16.95

Member

$15.26

RRP $24.95 Sale $9.95

Member

$8.96

RRP $24.95 Sale $9.95

Member

$8.96

Members save more in-store and online.

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

tornadoes

27

THE CURIOUS CASE OF

CHARLES ZENTAI

------------ Ed Fearis examines our local Nazi war criminal ------------

The suburb of Willeton is a content one.

Vibrant South and South-East Asian communities bring colour to the area, the river runs peacefully nearby and local teenagers loiter happily at the Southland Boulevarde Shopping Centre. However, behind this comfortable exterior, something – or more accurately, somebody sinister lurks. For Willeton is where Charles Zentai, the world’s seventh most wanted Nazi war criminal, lives.

Charles Zentai is an 89–year–old who is accused of war crimes in Hungary arising from the antiSemitic murder of 18–year–old Péter Balázs in November 1944. According to reports, Mr Balázs was not wearing his yellow star on the train, a crime punishable by death at the time. Mr Zentai, a member of the Hungarian army, allegedly took him to an army barracks, beat him to death and threw his body into the Danube. After the war, the Hungarian government set about charging and convicting those who’d persecuted or killed Jewish people. Two of Mr Zentai’s comrades, Bela Mader and Lajos Nagy were convicted in relation to the murder of Mr Balázs. It was during Mr Nagy’s trial that Mr Zentai’s name was forwarded as a third man involved in the crime.

On July 13, 2004, “Operation: Last Chance”, a project which aims to track down and prosecute the last remaining Nazi war criminals before they die, was launched by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Hungary. Material collected by Mr Balázs’s family was put to the Wiesenthal Centre, prompting the Hungarian authorities to formally request the extradition of Mr Zentai in April 2005. On July 8, 2005, Mr Zentai was arrested by the Australian Federal Police to await an extradition hearing.

It was here that the cracks in the case first started emerging. For Mr Zentai was not, and has not, been charged with any crime in Hungary.

While Mr Zentai was at first willing to travel to Hungary to submit to questioning (which was the substance of the extradition request), various circumstances, including his age and ill health, have caused him to change his mind. However, he has repeatedly confirmed his willingness to be questioned by Hungarian authorities in Australia,

a procedure which is provided for under local criminal procedure laws and the AustraliaHungary extradition treaty. New information has also been revealed which throws doubt on the strength of the case against Mr Zentai. A Sydney man who was at the Budapest barracks in 1944 has provided a statement saying he remembers Mr Mader and Mr Nagy being involved in the murder, but not Mr Zentai. Also, testimony by Mr Zentai’s military commander which was used at a trial in Budapest in 1948 blames a fellow soldier for the third role in Mr Balázs’s murder.

What has followed is a series of court battles in the Magistrates, Federal and High Courts. On one side is the Commonwealth Government, pursuing Mr Zentai with quite marked zeal and resolve; on the other, Mr Zentai and his family, supported in a pro bono capacity by various prominent WA lawyers, including UWA law faculty members Peter Johnston and John Fiocco, and incoming Governor, Malcolm McCusker.

On November 12, 2009 the Commonwealth Government gave the final approval for Mr Zentai’s extradition to Hungary. However, on July 2, 2010, McKerracher J of the Federal Court ruled that the Commonwealth Government did not have the “jurisdiction” to order Mr Zentai’s extradition as he was only being returned to face questioning and they had not properly taken into account a range of other factors, including Mr Zentai’s poor health.

Perhaps this latter consideration mentioned by the court is less convincing. As Dr Zuroff of the Wiesenthal Centre has commented: “Part of the problem in [cases dealing with the extradition of alleged war criminals] is that the judges only see the elderly defendant before them and not the battered corpse of the victim.” The determination of the Commonwealth Government in this case has continued to surprised a number of legal commentators. In January 2011, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor lodged an appeal against McKerracher J’s decision (a case which is to be heard on May 16–17 2011) despite the very strong wording of the decision and implicit criticism of the Government’s handling of the case. Then in March, the Government denied Mr Zentai’s lawyers access to the legal advice it

received on whether to prosecute him, claiming legal professional privilege. A previous claim of privilege over the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecution’s advice was rejected last year

by McKerracher J, who accused the Government of being unfair in the way it edited documents released to Mr Zentai.

It is at this point that the broader context of the case probably needs to be considered. As the last surviving Nazi war criminals reach their final years, frustration growing that many of them will be left unaccountable for their crimes. Further, Australia has long had an invidious history of tracking down and prosecuting war criminals.

Dr Zuroff has noted that Australia is believed to have admitted at least several hundred Nazi war criminals after WWII but remains the only major Western country which has failed to take successful legal action against a single one. In the Wiesenthal Centre’s 2010 Annual Report, Australia received a “F-2” mark for investigating and prosecuting Nazi war criminals, indicating a country “whose efforts (or lack thereof) have resulted in complete failure during the period under review, primarily due to the absence of political will to proceed and/or a lack of the requisite resources and/or expertise.”

In the end, Charles Zentai may be guilty of the war crimes of which he is accused; or he may not.

However, in seeking to establish justice we must be sure not to compromise the very principles of the rule of law that we are allegedly seeking to uphold.

The 1966 TV film They Saved Hitler’s Brain is a cult classic. Scientists save Hitler’s brain hoping that someday they shall revive him, as well as the Third Reich. Flash forward to the 60s and a kidnapped scientist is forced to keep Hitler’s brain alive in what is one of the most hilarious B-Movies ever made.

butterflies

28

Muammar Gaddafi: Striving for Demo-crazy ------------------------------------------------------------------

Ella Bennett

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

‘Crazy’ is a safe word. When we encounter something beyond our mental jurisdiction, it’s crazy. We don’t understand how or why, but as long as we can compartmentalise it as beyond rational thought, then we might deal with this crazy as we would the arrival of a protean alien: shut it down. Crazy is a threat. When one man with 37 different spellings of his name, blames the current civil war in Libya on terrorists spiking the country’s Nescafe with hallucinogens, and rationalises “so, the beheaded must fight!”, how can we not to think of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as anything but crazy? We can’t logically process his mindset. We can’t tell when he’s being sarcastic, sincere or simply incoherent. He is a mess of contradiction – a chaotic figure for anyone trying to understand whether he should be pitied or supported, assassinated or exiled. To his people, who he refers to as “people of turbans and long beards”, Gaddafi announced, “it is the Libyan people’s responsibility to liquidate such scums who are distorting Libya’s image abroad.”

That scum: just Gaddafi himself.

Occasionally when we can understand his long-winded rants, what the Colonel says is simultaneously emotionally charged and nonsensical; he goes from “we planted these trees and watered them with our blood” to referring to himself as “mystery, revolution and resistance…not a normal person who can be poisoned,” ending with “we can victory!” This is a man who is sometime referred to in North Africa as the “King of Kings”, whose dream is to unite all African nations into a United States, but speaks with a forked tongue; his ideals tend to greatly transgress democracy, diplomacy and freedom.

Libyans are subject to three years in jail for discussing national politics with a foreigner. Libyan state TV programming includes reruns of executions of dissenters and speeches Gaddafi has made to no one to be broadcast.

According to Gaddafi’s brain, he is merely “a figurehead [leader], a representative figure just like Queen Elizabeth.”

(She takes a break from tea sipping and glove-wearing only to unleash mercenary death squads on her own people, too.) Supposedly Gaddafi has no power to relinquish – he handed power back to the Libyan people in 1977, under the formation of a Jamahiriya. This is a sort of municipally controlled government, where councils control small districts.

In the West, this political system is commonly referred to as a “military dictatorship.” Gaddafi’s title is the “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution”, despite the fact the “revolution” was back in 1969, when Crown Prince Sayyid Hasa ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi and his papa King Idris were told to beat

Illustration by Ena Tulic

Gaddafi by all means has shown to be a great father...When his son Hannibal was arrested in Switzerland during the G8 Summit, Gaddafi responded as any doting father would, calling for the dissolution of Switzerland as a country and to divide the land between Italy, Germany and France.

it. Once Libya was his, the Colonel kept trying to merge with other Arabic countries, like a sexcrazed teen. He would put his Libya anywhere: in Morocco, Chad, Egypt, and literally any country that would have him. In 1971, Gaddafi offered to merge Libya with Sudan, but Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry turned down that offer. Nimeiry said of Gaddafi: “He has a split personality – both parts evil.”

because of the oil reserves he controls. To some extent, Gaddafi has tried to get on with the West, getting rid of all nuclear weapons and assisting Italy with its immigration overflow (Italy is also Libya’s biggest oil importer at 25%.) Two years before 9/11, Libya pledged commitment to fighting Al-Qaeda and post 9/11, Gaddafi made one of the first and firmest denunciations of the Al-Qaeda bombers by any Muslim leader.

He still has fingers (investments) in Liberia, Mali, Madagascar and South Africa, though neighbouring Algeria dislikes Gaddafi meddling in what is supposedly its sphere of influence. In Southern Mali he has invested heavily, supporting agriculture and water projects, as well as a US$100 million government building named after himself, despite Libya not sharing a border with Mali.

Touaregs, the Saharan-indigenous people from predominantly Mali and Niger, form the mercenary Gaddafi forces in the present civil war. Exiled from their countries, Gaddafi is the only head of state that has supported their fight for cultural recognition in the Sahara. Even so, Gaddafi has a mixed reputation amongst Touaregs. Under his protection in Libya they are safe from persecution, yet in the 80’s he called their language “poison” and his actions have been criticised for preventing any real political progress between the Touaregs and the Mali and Niger governments. As it is, a lot of Gaddafi’s billions are spent buying support from these African countries; his generous hands greasy with the oil that few other Libyans see benefit from – a third of his country’s population lives below the poverty line. His investments don’t stop in Africa, either. He supported the IRA and the Red Army Fraction in Ireland and Germany respectively, he has attempted to revolutionise both Australian Aboriginals and Maoris with his ideology in Green Book, reviewed as “largely incoherent”.

How can he condemn Al-Qae’da but unleash death squads on his own citizens? Crazy just doesn’t cut it, having become a blanket term for anything we don’t understand. Anyone can be crazy, seeing as human nature doesn’t necessarily allow for normalcy. Take teen haircut Justin Bieber, who in a recent interview with Vanity Fair said of himself, “I’m crazy. I’m nuts…Just the way my brain works…I’m not normal.” Bieber made over $100 million last year, has his own line of nail polish, and girls flock to his sugar-tone pop. The Colonel, however, has billions stashed away in various foreign banks, established his own AlGaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, and paid 200 Italian models to form an audience for a “speech” he gave about how in a decade or so, all of Europe will be Muslim. (Each model received a free Qur’an!) Bieber is rookie crazy. He’s never tried to camp on Donald Trump’s lawn, or woken up midway through cosmetic surgery to declare everyone should break for hamburgers. Gaddafi’s notable insanities makes it entirely probable that he has an active council that works to find new and innovative ways to make him appear permanently abstruse. The guy’s thought processes double almost like the blueprints for a theme park full of poorly maintained roller coasters.

In 2003, after Libya’s long period of heavy UN economic and diplomatic sanctions, the Colonel reassessed his position in the field of international relations, and scaled back his revolutionary insanity to mere eccentric statesmanship. He sent Moussa Koussa, up until last month Libya’s foreign minister, to convince Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy, Silvio Berlusconi, Gordon Brown and George W. Bush that Gaddafi was at least tolerable, not least

Over the course of his four-decade rule, he has accumulated a wide variety of eccentric and often contradictory statements. His pals read like the A-list of insane dictators, including Slobodan Milosevic, the dude behind Operation Horseshoe, or “large-scale ethnic cleansing against Albanians in Kosovo”, and Idi Amin, former Ugandan despot, to whom Gaddafi’s daughter was briefly married to.

(Before divorcing him and going on to form part of the defence team for Saddam Hussein’s post-Iraq war trial.) Gaddafi by all means has shown to be a great father, paying for his sons to hire Mariah

Carey, Usher and Beyonce to sing at private shows on the island of St Barts. When his son Hannibal was arrested in Switzerland during the G8 Summit, Gaddafi responded as any doting father would, calling for the dissolution of Switzerland as a country and to divide the land between Italy, Germany and France. He defended the actions of Somalian pirates, saying, “It is a response to greedy Western nations who invade and exploit Somalia’s water resources illegally. It is not a piracy, it is selfdefence...If they [Western nations] do not want to live with us fairly, it is our planet and they can go to other planet.” Gaddafi is a keen astronomer, which is why he was able to inform us about Other Planet.

Dictators hold on to power simply because that is what they always do. Since 1969, the Colonel’s identity has been as Libya’s “revolutionary guide” – he could not quit his job so much as he would have to quit his entire mentality. Like one of those films where a cowboy goes to a retirement home and gets horrifically bored, Gaddafi runs at one speed: buying influence and patronage throughout Africa without appearing to have a political agenda. He’s on autopilot, like Britney Spears’ most recent musical offering. Femme Fatale is not a bad album, but it’s predictable Britney now; her energy is gone, but she couldn’t quit pop if she tried. Gaddafi is firmly cemented in dictator lore as much as Spears will continue to spit hits for 16-year-olds to get drunk to. Neither Britney nor Gaddafi are particularly after the money – Spears only ever wears denim cut-offs, Gaddafi always looks cheap and chic in knotted Africa-print sheets, and both favour sunglasses that do not flatter their face shape, raising the age-old question: could they possibly share the same permanently high stylist?

He’s the bent nail of the African Union workbox.

But as long as he continues to live,* he will show no mercy towards our centres for reasoning. He will continue to write heartfelt letters to “the son of Africa” [Obama], full of grammatical errors, because he is accustomed to his own nonsensical process. Our option is what Donald Trump firmly told Gaddafi when he tried to bring his airconditioned tent to his New Jersey property: “you cannot stay here.” *Correct at time of writing

Rhinoplasty (plastic nose surgery) has a long-standing history. Indian physician Sushruta (born around 800 BCE) reconstructed noses by cutting a strip of skin off the forehead, creating a “forehead flap” that was then inverted vertically to replace nasal tissue. It looked pretty gross.

tornadoes

29

interviews

30

BENDING A MOMENT WITH CAMERON BIRD ------------

Architecture in Helsinki

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

Perth, Europe and the US – it’s all in a month’s work for Melbourne five-piece Architecture in Helsinki. Liz Newell spoke to frontman Cameron Bird about their new album and a ridiculously long tour.

Pelican robs Cameron Bird of his sleep-in.

I suspect it has something to do with our interview being scheduled for 10:45am, but seriously, that’s 7:45am WA time, and I manage. All the same, it takes Bird, the reluctant frontman of Melbourne five-piece Architecture in Helsinki, a while to warm up to the conversation. This requires a lengthy sleepin probably has something to do with AIH’s impending tour, beginning the week after I speak to him with about 20 dates in Europe.

The tour comes in support of their fourth studio album, Moment Bends, out this month, the band’s first since 2007’s Places Like This.

From Europe, AIH will play nine dates in Oz – including Bunbury’s Groovin’ The Moo – before heading to the US to see out the remainder. But that, Bird is quick to point out, is just the beginning.

“Those are just the announced dates,” he says, laughing, as if AIH couldn’t possibly accept less than 100 tour dates a year. “I love playing live and we all love playing live,” he adds. “It’s just that way of... It makes your songs feel real in a way that they don’t when you’ve recorded them.

You can listen to a recorded song and get excited about it, but when you feel it being performed live and see peoples’ reactions to it, it’s kind of like what you do it for.”

But over two months on the road?

“It’s pretty strange but you learn to cope with it.

It’s a very different life because you don’t spend longer than a day in any one place and you’re constantly moving. It’s a pretty strange lifestyle.

When we started playing music, we never imagined that we would ever do a tour like that and be in a band that would play overseas.

[Fame] is just something that’s kind of happened for us over the years, and you just kind of forget how weird it is at times.”

In spite of Bird’s modesty, fame didn’t “just happen” for the group. Having toured with

acts including alt-rock superstars Death Cab for Cutie and opened for the likes of Belle & Sebastian and The Presets, Architecture in Helsinki (who got their name from randomly arranged newspaper clippings) found success with their second album, 2005’s In Case We Die. The album garnered the group three ARIA nominations and landed their song ‘It’s 5’ in the 56th slot in 2006’s Hottest 100.

After some line-up changes and another album, Bird says the band took the time to explore their songs and music alone, without the interference of producers and engineers.

First single ‘Contact High’, currently doing the rounds on Triple J, marks a departure from the band’s easily identifiable super-alt-pop sound, complete with synthesisers, crazy time signatures and trippy music videos. But it’s still certifiable. “[With Moment Bends] we spent a lot more time making the songs,” Bird explains. “We spent a lot more time perfecting the arrangements and the recordings and the vocal sounds and – you know – it was just a completely different beast.”

As a unit, Bird reveals that the group – now comprising of Gus Franklin, Jamie Mildren, Sam Perry and Kellie Sutherland – is in an excellent place.

“[Places Like This] we recorded and tried to capture our live energy, and recorded in a studio with an engineer, which we’d never done before and I don’t think we’d ever do again. It just didn’t really suit the way that we work and the way that we write. It makes much more sense to us to have our own space and be working on our own pluck.”

Having spent four weeks on PLT and two years on Moment Bends, it would be fair to assume this year’s album is AIH’s best yet – a sentiment Bird shares with enthusiasm.

“I feel like it’s our strongest record by a mile,” he says. “I’m really happy with the way the songs came out.”

“Our dynamic’s actually never been better, which is really great considering the amount of time we spend together. Everyone knows their role in the band and their place in the band, and we’ve just got a really great thing at the moment.

It’s good. We’re pretty holistic, you know? You’ve gotta acknowledge all the little bits and pieces that make up the wellbeing of the band and make sure that everyone’s happy.”

Fans certainly will be.

Architecture in Helsinki will be playing at The Capitol on May 15. Tickets are available through Moshtix.

interview

31

AUS HIP HOP: TRUMP THE AESTHETICS ------------ Jakub Dammer ------------

Like what yo’ see? Then look up ‘Jakub Dammer Photography’ on Facebook fo’ more!

It is St Patrick’s Day and I’m at the Newport Hotel for 2011’s first Mixtape Thursday. At the request of MC Trooth, I came down as a photographer for the hip hop zine: Wordplay Magazine. “It should be pretty big, it’s St Pat’s day after all!” He predicted through our Facebook dialogue.

I arrive at nine pm thinking I’m late but the place is still not cranking. As the night progressed there were more hip hop acts but the crowd remained fairly small. There was a beat box battle but one of the contestants did not rock up and so a crowd member had to step up instead. The final act was MC Tektonic, who has a release soon to be available from “all good” JB Hi Fi’s. Unbeknownst to me I was standing stage-side next to him the whole night.

At one point in the night, a drunken hip hop head tapped me on the shoulder, “Oi Man! Get a photo of me and Tektonic! Fuck Yeah man TEKTONIC!” I happily obliged and once he had left Tektonic, I had a chuckle about it.

Throughout the night, looking at the hyper-energetic performances despite the fluctuating crowd densities, I struggled to remember when I’d seen something so…punk.

“This how Hip Hop is Supposed to Sound” – Funkoars (feat. Masta Ace) The crowd humored every call back segment as if they were twice as big. Occasionally, a pair of high-heels, toting hair extensions would stagger over to the stage and giggle to her friends at the “wiggas”, but these unfortunate human beings were the exception not the rule. Mixtape Thursday was not cool. Saying you’re an Australian MC is not

going to get you laid. And neither the fans nor the performers give a damn. Their belief in and love of hip hop as a means of expression is sincere and untainted by a culture of cool high on aesthetics.

If I told you that MC Trooth was a rapper from the old skool era you’d nod and say you’d probably recognise him if you heard him. If I told you he was an emerging Australian MC, you’d probably cringe at the name (I know I did). But if you can trump the aesthetics, MC Trooth openly raps about how he tried giving up hip hop (“30 years old, what the fuck am I doing”) but ultimately sticks with it. He knows what you think of him and does it anyway.

Black Poet is an Aboriginal WAMi award winning MC. His set included incessant call back segments and shout outs to the recently deceased Nate Dogg.

Reading that probably prompted numerous smirks and eye-rolls. But trump the aesthetics and you will find rhymes about his heritage and clever references to Paul Kelly and Rolf Harris.

This is individuality Hipsterdom only promises.

These two artists have pushed through the cultural cringe to find an identity that is constructive, sincere, defiant and Australian. And it’s only going to get better as more people see Aus Hip Hop as a legitimate cultural entity. MC Rezide of Perth’s The Brow Horn Orchestra raps “My whole damn life I was a character being played by an actor”.

Think about that line. That is a line written by an Australian MC. “Reckless with Rap ‘til they had to respect us” – Hilltop Hoods

Of course, nothing is perfect. Some lines are derivative, some are dull and some artists rely too heavily on the culture established by their American counterparts. But these are all emerging artists in an emerging scene. They represent an emerging genre of music and it’s a wave that will not recede.

The elephant in the room here is the Hilltop Hoods. What they have achieved is nothing short of historical. There were Aus hip hop acts before, but none had found a similar level of mainstream success and turned a whole generation of music appreciators onto Aus hip hop. They did it with original and witty lines (“I lose it every time I put it down: like car keys” – Circuit Breaker) that veered away from the popular gangster culture. But listen to their earlier albums and you will find angry, violent lyrics that no one swimming through the mainstream could vibe to.

As a hip hop head myself, I used to try and defend Aus hip hop. I have recently given up on this endeavor. Aus Hip Hop can defend itself. There are a lot of terrible Aus hip hop artists out there, but this is true for every genre. Consider how The Ramones must’ve sounded to folks still tokin’ on Hendrix or Bowie. I’m not suffering Wolfmother Syndrome either (cool when they were small, but lame now they’re big), I personally can’t wait until the mainstream embraces Aus hip hop. I just hope that when it does blow up, Aus hip hop’s detractors will stick by their guns instead of revealing themselves to simply being high on The Cool.

Gig reviews

32

The Trolling Crusade Daniel Pillar rolls with Fintroll

Trolling. An interesting verb, defined by the urban dictionary as “antagonising people on the internet”. However, in early April, this writer was lucky enough to have this word redefined in two hours at Capitol. This was the first time that Finnish folk-metal outfit Finntroll graced the shores of Australia with their presence – and what a night it was.

After Claim the Throne got the crowd going, Finntroll hit the stage around 10pm and satiated the crowd with trolling tunes until late in the evening. Their touring metal sextet included your usual dark metal elements, such as fast guitars, heavy bass and screaming vocals; but the inclusion of a drummer aliased ‘Beast Dominator’ and a keyboard playing medieval melodies sets them apart from your everyday Static-X or Killswitch.

Those familiar with Japanese Maximum the Hormone will notice a parallel with the fast pace of their music.

As you’d imagine, the combination of these elements created something unique yet easy to enjoy, and the band members themselves were extremely entertaining throughout the set (just in case the music wasn’t alternative enough).

The string section thrashed their hair to the extent that their faces were rarely visible, and aforementioned ‘Beast Dominator’ on the drums played ridiculous rhythms at an amazing pace yet barely flinched as though he didn’t even need to try. The rest of the band also produced stellar performances, in a set that showcased folk metal exactly how it should be.

Their set itself included many of their most popular tunes, from their latest efforts to the band’s first ever song, Midnattens widunder. The Nattfödd album was also heavily featured, which the crowd loved. Although all of their lyrics are in Swedish, I have been advised that many of their musical tales revolve around the Troll-King “Rivfader”, who spends his time fighting priests.

Something different, hey!

If you’ve read this far but still can’t imagine what Finntroll sounded like, imagine the kind of music you’d expect if you were an orc rushing in to Helms Deep, or if the 300 movie was based on trolls rather than Spartans. And if that still doesn’t do it for you, their amazing live performance was extremely true to their recordings. So hit them up on YouTube and I guarantee you’ll be impressed.

Unfortunately after the show, I wasn’t able to meet the band as the promoter said that they were either exhausted, drunk or both after their Perth show concluded an epic five-day tour of Australia. Finntroll have an unrelenting tour schedule, especially in their native Europe where they recently played 24 shows in the same number of days. What this means for you is that if extreme folk metal with a twist is your thing, then I’m sure you’ll be just as happy in the crowd as the weird old lady who was dressed up as a witch, chanting things in a circle around the mosh pit.

And she seemed pretty amazed with Finntroll’s performance, as was I.

Boys who like girls who like girls who like boys: Tim and Jean ------------ Callum Twigger -----------Girls like boys in bands.

It’s a charisma thing. Boys who stand on stage and make stuff resonant in harmony must tweak some peculiar evolutionary tail-end. And whatever it is that makes this the case, Tim & Jean possess.

Playing recycled power-pop puree, the duo had no small measure of success last Saturday at Amplifier, titillating their mostly-female audience with a smooth set from their first album that was well-executed and professional, if more than a little derivative.

The duo are mere whippersnappers, being two

years younger than spring chicken yours truly, but they are most certainly a talented little outfit.

Though they’ve but a single full-length album (Like What) to mine for material, they smashed through openers ‘Veronika’ and ‘Like What?’.

‘Afrika’ was another standout.

my review-writing formalities, but Tim & Jean finished up triumphantly; to rapturous applause.

It was certainly a good gig, and if the band can generate more innovative new material, they’ll make a worthy addition to Perth’s live music pantheon.

Tim & Jean are powered principally by synth, and the veterans at Amplifier made sure nothing was lost in live translation; their sound was crisp and sharp without being grating. It made ‘Souls’ a pleasure to nod to.

Tim & Jean don’t do anything new. Their performance didn’t either. But like their first album, it showed a great deal of promise, and was a pleasure to be exposed to. A packed room of women squealing in adulation agree with me.

I got a bit distracted by a member of the audience after this point, and had to suspend some of

NO HYPE, ---------------------------

JUST CRITICISM

Josh Chiat hypes Ermine Coat

indie music scene is winning in all sorts of ways right now. Just check Spaceship News and you’ll find out that there isn’t one bad musician in town.

That thing on the Pelican office door that looks like a suggestion box, isn’t actually a suggestion box. Located about halfway between our artwork of Kanye West and Dinosaur Porn, the box is clearly marked “Pictures of Spiderman”.

Of course, we know most of you can’t read and decide otherwise.

That is why we go to Uni, to learn.

While no pictures of Spiderman have been dropped in there lately (move your fat ass Peter Parker), we recently received the home-made LP, LP, by mysterious local artist Ermine Coat. It came packaged in a cardboard printed, taped-up photo collage cover and a chickenscrawled note which read: This is my debut LP, I was wondering if you could review it for your magazine.

My sister says it’s “lonely sounding”.

Given the growing market for Lonely Sounding music recently, I can’t wait to be the dude that creates the hype for this guy. How should I do it? I know, I’ll just stick a review in for Pelican’s thousands of loyal and receptive readers. They spread the word over the internet, it hits tumblr, facebook and twitter within the day and within a week he’s got an interview with Pitchfork Media and a crashing website. A+: Underground genius releases basement classic (Guided By Voices, Pavement comparisons etc. etc.) Wait, an A- probably, an A+ might seem a little insincere.

Still, maybe that’s not enough. Suppose I found some way to paste my ugly personal voice all over one whole page of lavish praise for the artist, comparing the album to the first time I saw a shooting star or something about saving Perth’s floundering rock scene. Of course, that would be lying, because Perth’s

Or maybe I should just totally trash the guy, its working for Vee. As I’m writing, Ermine Coat has roughly 30 followers on his facebook artist page. Vee (in just three days) has amassed over 350, which is pretty huge by Perth standards. Her method of choice: self-hype through youtube videos. Surely this begs the question, if Vee can generate a pseudo-career by encouraging so much hatred, why can’t anybody else with more talent. The thing is, Ermine Coat has had a live performance up for months that struggles to make the view counts that Vee does in five minutes (and that Rebecca Black does in a second.)

Contrary to popular belief, the fun in listening to Vee’s music is not in how bad the music is.

It’s actually in how anybody can point out what’s wrong with it.

You don’t need to be a musician or a critic to recognise the tinny production, horrific lyrics, shocking phrasing and song structure in ‘Party Girl’, or the new hit ‘Mix CD’. This makes her an easy target for parody, ridicule and for local music reviewers and DJs who are unwilling to criticise “serious artists”. While it’s easy to attack Vee, most local music press refuse to say a bad word about any artist that can competently wield two guitars and churn out a ‘Last Nite’ Re-dux. Anyway, it’s easier to just reprint the promotional material that you’ve been given than to critically analyse an artist.

It’s not a locally centred problem. NME, the number one music mag and taste-maker in Britain, spent years in the early 2000s hyping bands that you’ve never heard of and never will again in a search for the new Rolling Stones. I don’t want that. When I hype someone, I want it to be remembered. I want it to feed my ego. I want people to look at my name when I’m dead, and say, “that guy knew what was cool before anybody else.” If I can’t get “RnB Jesus” written on my tombstone, I sure as hell wouldn’t mind “Hipster GodKing.”

The key, I suppose, is knowing how to hype. In the

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

internet age, one critic (or better yet musician) can turn thousands of people onto an artist at once by referring their followers to a Tumblr full of free music, or a soundcloud gathering heat. This works far better than any cover photo ever could. Last year Pitchfork Media fostered the ground swell of indie support for teenage shock-rappers Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All and RnB deconstructionist How To Dress Well through continuous features and reviews. Just over a month ago former internet hype-rapper Drake turned the world onto the enigmatic RnB singer The Weeknd (reviewed in this edition of the Pelican) when he posted lyrics to the song ‘House of Balloons’ on his blog, October’s Very Own, all of this done without any background on the artist aside from their names and songs.

With Ermine Coat I’m left with one of those cases.

With no promotional material to work with I’m forced to form my own critical opinion about the work. So maybe I should just be honest. Here’s the plug:

man Ermine Coat is the Lo-Fi Indie Rock oneGriffin.

Alex tor band of previous Pelican contribu m albu le While it’s a trek listening to the who ugh thro e min to straight through due to the need n Griffi , rtion layers of unwanted fuzz and disto dies. melo ar guit n pays impressive attention to clea e nois the een Occasionally finding room in betw e mbl rese t Coa to harmonise guitar parts, Ermine er pell Pro l early Guided By Voices who, unti consisting broke in 1992, also had a small fanbase onal pers s ard’ primary of frontman Robert Poll rd’s reco the friends. Unimaginatively titled LP, are ch whi biggest weaknesses are the vocals, occasionally mumbled unintelligibly, obscuring the ngsteen’ Spri ce witty lyrics (such as in closer ‘Bru of m drea which cleverly ironises the hipster several from n meeting famous people.) Still, draw ks trac er new the EPs recorded over the last year, the and ft show Griffin’s burgeoning song-cra ing this a increasing strength of his melodies, mak LP. t debu reasonable if significantly flawed

C+ Well, at least I tried.

You can find Ermine Coat’s music at their Tumblr, which is QRL linked in the corner of the page.

music

33

34

music

music reviews The Weeknd

Elbow

House of Balloons

This is not Rebecca Black. When Abel Tesfaye, the singer of mysterious Bedroom RnB group The Weeknd, sings “fun, fun, fun, fun” (borrowed from Siouxsie and the Banshees’ ‘Happy House’ on the title track) he means it in the sleaziest, most sarcastic way. While The Weeknd covers all of the generic topics of RnB—Sex, drugs, booze, parties—they avoid glorifying them by amending the lyric’s hedonism with devastating counterpoints, most obviously in ‘The Party and The After-Party’, where Tesfaye’s self-deprecating humour comes to the fore (“Got a new girl/Call her Rudolf/She’ll probably OD before I show her to MaMa”). On ‘Wicked Games’, Tesfaye proves that the word “fuck” can still be unsettling in a post-Cee-Lo world (“Just let me motherfuckin’ love you”.)

The other obvious story of this album is the Weeknd’s marriage of indie and RnB. They’re closely related to Drake, who was responsible for breaking The Weeknd on his twitter feed; they both employ samples and synths to create spacious, atmospheric RnB. “What You Need” takes the James Blake and Burial technique of speeding up vocal samples, while “The Party and the After-Party” pits Tesfaye’s player up against Victoria Legrand’s ice-woman persona, sampled from Beach House’s ‘Master of None’.

Still, The Weeknd take as many cues from modern RnB like The-Dream and R.Kelly just as much. In fact, the most endlessly replayable track is also the most conventional.

‘The Morning’ is a slow jam of slowing building dynamics and countrified guitar parts in a traditional verse-chorus-verse structure that will stay in your mind long after you’ve stopped thinking about its indie crossover appeal and hedonism.

A-

Build a Rocket Boys!

Elbow are a quintessential one word name, slightly under the radar alternative rock band. Hailing from Manchester, the five piece have been playing together since 1990. It was only in 2008 that their commercial success began to equate with critical acclaim, upon the release of The Seldom Seen Kid - a slick and mature album with rightful mainstream appeal, that won them the Mercury Prize.

Build a Rocket Boys! is the follow up, and it is an immaculately produced, atmospheric record.

Vocalist Guy Garvey sings about coming of age and growing up with sincerity and attention to detail. Album highlights such as ‘With Love’ and ‘Lippy Kids’ will bring to mind the English childhood you never had – a childhood with a pretty intense string section. There is a choir on backing vocals for several tracks as well, though it manages to avoid Coldplay-style melodramatics.

This is an album made by a band with very little angst, yet a lot of musical talent. Elbow seem comfortable to make music out of enjoyment rather than the need to prove something. This makes for a beautiful listening experience, if a sometimes unexciting one. It is pretty hard to rock out to this album, although sometimes possible to dance to it in an ironic hipster type fashion.

Elbow gained attention last time around with mass-appeal melodies, but Rocket Boys! strikes a balance between these and their more raw early work. This should appeal to hardcore fans, but is also a great introduction for newcomers.

A-

Katherine Gillespie

Josh Chiat House of Balloons is available for free from The Weeknd’s website.

Mink Mussel Creek

Chris Brown

Mink Mussel Manticore

F.A.M.E.

This is just confusing. The album art of F.A.M.E. (either ‘forgiving all my enemies’ or ‘fans are my everything’) does everything to make Brown look like some kind of street thug crossed with a gangsta. Perhaps he’s decided to get bad, I thought.

He apologized to Rihanna via webcam from his personal bowling alley, and now he’s going to get his. Really, though, his music hasn’t hardened one bit.

Prior to the whole face assault, he was all non-threatening harmonies and bow ties, and this is exactly what he has continued to push. His vocals continue to flutter over girls he should have kissed (‘Should’ve Kissed You), girls he used to be in love with but isn’t anymore (‘She Ain’t You’), and making girls wet the bed, on the Ludacris-featurin’ ‘Wet the Bed,’ which made me feel a bit violated for having listened to it. Occasionally, he reminds us how much money he has.

There’s nothing about not carin’ or loitering in places where loitering is forbidden; it’s Chris Brown just as before; digestible, catchy, or sometimes just disgusting. His public persona hasn’t changed his music. Even Justin Bieber shows up to share their toned wailing on standing next to girls (‘Next 2 You’).

Then there’s the club bangers – just as many as you’d expect--including something nice with Lil’ Wayne and Busta Rhymes. It was simultaneously better and worse than I could have anticipated.

Ella Bennett

C+

Those who have had the pleasure of listening to Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker or Pond’s Frond since their 2010 releases may be getting a sense of the sonic groundswell currently taking place within certain circles of bands in Perth. In truth however, Perth’s most exciting new music is coming from just one circle. This group of friends has evolved from its Charles street party jam origins during 2006, to 2011’s laundry list of top-shelf groups – namely Mink Mussel Creek (MMC), Pond, Taco Leg & Tame Impala. Unfortunately, due to the democratic way these bands share members, they often find themselves reduced by critics to ‘Tame Impala sideprojects’; when arguably the reverse is more truthful.

MMC are an impressive psychedelic rock/jam group whose notorious recordingrelated legal troubles have resulted in a 3-year wait for their debut record. Mink Mussel Manticore starts off boldly, with the beautifully constructed epic ‘They Dated Steadily’, before taking you on a mind bending journey into the eccentric psyches of MMC’s Nick Allbrook and co.

Naming the very best tracks on this record is a pointless exercise, when the music presented here seems to meld into one seamless blob so effectively. In true Allbrook style, lyrics like “Hands Off The Mannequin, Charlie” reveal a quirky sense of humour hiding within experimentally tinged but precise riffs, jangles & wails. Even more remarkable is that the record comes packaged as an uber-21st Century USB wristband, with a complimentary live album and video. It was worth the wait, this is the best local release of 2011!

A

Michael O’Brien

The Waifs

Rise Against

Temptation

Endgame

Punching octave riffs, angry politically charged lyrics and some of the most melodic sing-along choruses in hardcore punk, let alone rock in general. It’s business as usual for the Chicago punk torchbearers Rise Against. Six studio albums in, and although their call to arms war cry is now a more polished final product, the message is still there: “If it’s fucked, fix it”. Rise Against have been slowly fine tuning their original hardcore punk sound into a more accessible ‘memo for the masses’, served with a side of screamed vocals and large walls of guitar.

Musically, this rarely differentiates from any other Rise Against album, however Endgame tackles more controversial issues. ‘Make It Stop (Septembers Children)’, delivers its anti-homophobia message over a more subdued musical layout with lyrics like “And too much blood has flown from the wrist /Of children shamed for those they chose to kiss”. First single ‘Help Is On The Way’ is the most obvious in its political motives, being critical of the American government’s response to both Hurricane Katrina and the BP Oil Spill, “We were told just to sit tight /Cause somebody will soon arrive”.

Rise Against are not known for progressive elements, but that’s one of their strongest points. Endgame is Rise Against at their best, where the bass interludes compliment the loud riffs, and the vocals are perfectly overlayed on driving drums. And you wanna change somethin’!

Luke Bartlett

music

35

Temptation comes almost four years after the acclaimed Sun Dirt Water. Although it doesn’t sound as good as its predecessor, or as the four year turnaround would suggest it should, a new Waifs album still means more Waifs tunes.

Sun Dirt Water had kick. Songs like ‘Pony’ showed a sort of assertiveness that was, well, sexy.

Temptation is more passive. The songs do not demand your attention in the same way. Add to this hints at domesticity (in ‘Somedays’) and unromantic relationships (in ‘Falling’) and you get an album that appears to be made as a weekend household cleaning soundtrack. This may sound like a criticism (and it sort of is) but it can be to an album’s credit if it can just be played in the background.

Thankfully, not all of Temptation is in this category. Guitarist Josh Cunningham takes lead vocals on ‘Moses & The Lamb’, a bluesy seven minute number dealing with retribution and salvation that will leave many toes tapping. ‘Temptation’ comes towards the end of the album and is another bluesy number that moves with John Wayne’s swagger and hints at the sexiness found in Sun Dirt Water. Considering it is the title track, one can’t help but wish the whole album was more like this.

Temptation is for Waifs fans only. Those after a more laidback album will also not be disappointed. The uninitiated should go for Sun Dirt Water or the live album A Brief History...

B-

Jakub Dammer

B+

Seekae + Dome

overall unity between songs.

The album opens with ‘Go’, an atmospheric blend of guitar riffs and programmed glitch sounds that almost sounds like HEALTH minus the rolling drums. Second track ‘3’ should be an instant favourite, throwing the listener into the album’s first bass-heavy beat, fuelled by slowly rising electronic harmonies and undeniably catchy melodies.

Seekae recently toured with UK duo Mount Kimbie on their Australia tour in March, and listeners will no doubt notice influences in sound and structure on + Dome, especially in the tracks ‘Reset Head’ and ‘Two’. The glitchy ‘Yodal’ is the album’s heaviest track, a bassy off-beat head-bopper that will leave you craving a second play. Single ‘Blood Bank’ is also a standout, its chopped and looped vocals building what could very well be the catchiest melody on the album.

A perfect mix of progressive ambience and knee-deep bass, + Dome is an impressive release that pulls styles from a range of genres. Best played from start to finish, the creative sounds and flow of this album will remain in the head long after it is heard.

Kiya Alimoradian

Yuck

Sydney electronica group Seekae have been a popular name in Australia’s experimental music scene ever since featuring on Triple J Unearthed and the 2008 release of their debut album The Sound of Trees Falling on People.

Their meticulously crafted, second LP + Dome is generally more ambient than their previous work, using slower build-ups and generating more of an

A

Yuck

To put it bluntly, Yuck’s self-titled debut LP is a tribute album. Its whims and charms are heavily rooted in 90s alternative and indie rock, with the UK group combining a plethora of different variations of styles from this era to create a warm and inviting sound.

The band does not, however, merely replicate, it recreates – Yuck’s presence is unique in the sense that they forge an identity without comprising themselves. While revivalism is currently the trend these days, Yuck manages to poke its nose out in front of its contemporaries despite the fact that it adheres to this ‘revivalism’ just as much any other record.

There’s the Built to Spill melodicisms of ‘Shook Down’, the mid-era Sonic Youth dissonance of ‘Operation’ and even the slow-burning closer ‘Rubber’’s Yo La Tengo inspired fuzz and Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream-era escapism. Yuck really is a testament to the quality of indie rock in the 90s.Though there may seem to be a vast disparity in the styles that they are covering, Yuck blend it all together into a cohesive and engaging record; the songs shift in tempo from up-beat pop songs to lazy summer tunes, all while retaining a consistent edge.

Though it may never live up to its influences, Yuck channels the liveliness and youthful jubilance of the 90s indie rock scene, and does it well. It’s hard to proclaim ‘masterpiece’ when you’re talking about revivalism, but rest assured that Yuck is doing everything right.

Berkay Erkan

B+

film

36

Howl Starring James Franco, David Strathairn & Jon Hamm Directed by Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman Whether you end up loving or loathing Howl will likely come down to whether its considerable departure from traditional cinematic techniques and narrative and its chaotic use of animation sequences, will prevent you from embracing a film which ambitiously celebrates the beauty of ideas.

The film follows a series of events surrounding the publication of the 1956 poem “Howl”, Allen Ginsberg’s revolutionary, passionate and provocative manifestation of the 1950s Beat Generation imagination. The poem’s content is heavily invested in visualisations of nihilistic drug taking, non-conformity, political activism and homoeroticism, written in the form of an uncontrollable rant tearing a gaping hole in traditional poetic norms.

Howl’s centrepiece is the landmark obscenity trial where a San Francisco court ruled that Ginsberg’s work was not obscene, effectively redefining what constitutes poetry. Where the film could lose people is its extremely multilayered presentation, which pits an insightful interview with Ginsberg (played brilliantly

by James Franco) up against dramatisations of Ginsberg’s life, his impassioned readings of poem excerpts, and psychedelic animation sequences.

Franco provides a near perfect imitation of Ginsberg’s tormented, nervous and rebelliously creative personality. His portrayal facilitates both an understanding of Ginsberg as a purposeful, self-controlled artist and also an insight into the act of creativity itself and its source in a disillusioned generation.

The most interesting result of Howl is how it sits in some middle ground between a documentary and a biopic. The focus isn’t actually on Ginsberg’s entire life but rather on the ideas invested in his works. Epstein and Friedman’s direction here seeks to re-establish both the cultural importance of the trial and what the words used in “Howl” felt like at the time of its creation. In doing so , they bring the poem back to life for the new generation.

This is not a casual affair. But if you enjoy James Franco, Beat literature or a full-on visual assault you should love this film.

B+ Michael O’Brien

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never Starring Justin Bieber Directed by someone you don’t give a shit about Justin Bieber: Never Say Never is a biopic of its namesake, the Canadian YouTube star turned international teen-idol. It briefly chronicles Justin’s beginnings and his everyday life inbetween segments from his US tour.

It’s basically a 90-minute music video broken up with baby-photos, and a series of creepy football-huddle prayer sessions. I believe these were introduced to reassure the Christian parents in the audience after the segment where he fondles one of his fans on stage (“It’s kind of a tradition at each show!”).

Beebz himself is a precocious little snot, but he’s no more annoying than any other celebrity. He’s also nowhere near as impressive as other famous pop stars – Michael Jackson being an obvious comparison.

The film makes a big deal of the way that social networking enabled his rise, however it’s clear that without the support of his mentor, Usher, and his elite maintenance team, J Beezy would trundle off the rails pretty quick. Justin’s voice coach apparently has a hell of a time just getting him to shut up between concerts to avoid destroying his voice. Justin’s inability to be quiet even ends up jeopardising his climactic sold-out show at the Madison Square Garden.

The obvious truth is that this movie was not designed to be appreciated by a 22-year-old male. Even if what you’re after is a cinematic train-wreck, this is not your movie – go rent Manos: The Hands of Fate. Never Say Never is completely boring for anyone who isn’t a 13-year-old girl. If you are a thirteen year old girl, go see it, IT’S THE BEST MOVIE EVERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and it’s in 3D.

A+/F- depending on your age/soundness of mind.

Lewis Peaty

Sucker Punch

Brighton Rock

Directed by Zack Snyder

Directed by Rowan Joffe

Starring Emily Browning, John Hamm & Oscar Isaac

Starring Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, Helen Mirren

Sucker Punch is the latest slo-mo fuelled film from 300 and Watchmen director Zack Snyder. The film follows Babydoll (Browning) and her skimpily clothed friends as they attempt to escape from a mental asylum and an imminent lobotomy.

Graham Greene’s short and sharp novels seem made for film adaption, and Brighton Rock is no exception. This is in fact its second film appearance, now at the hands of Rowan Joffe.

Joffe (the man responsible for The American and the screenwriter for 28 Weeks Later) has taken liberties with his source material – most notably, the setting has been pushed forward by over 20 years.

Snyder is an interesting visual director but has yet to direct any material that is truly ‘his own’ – spending the last decade in the realm of adaptation and remake. Sucker Punch seemed like a high concept action film with a semi-original bent. A real-time anime that would successfully merge Western and Eastern cinematic tropes into an exciting action flick. This, sadly, was not the result.

Sucker Punch devolves into a bland clusterfuck. The cinematography and slo-mo is visually pleasing at first, but the appeal is lost as Snyder’s clever visual tricks become indulgent and irrelevant. The characters’ outfits are often more interesting than the characters. It’s easy to imagine a Lucasesque scenario where the actors are standing in a room of green-screens reacting to invisible demons. Ultimately, everyone and everything comes off as homage; sorely wanting for that promised ‘originality’.

The film felt like a video game. Not necessarily a bad thing. The visual cues and fast paced action were usually enjoyable, if just from a geek/nerd perspective. It was just strange to see a film have a narrative arch reminiscent of a third person shooter. Require an item – fight a miniboss – get item – progress to next level. Like the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time, this pattern soon became tedious, burdensome and ultimately puzzling.

The major flaw in Sucker Punch is that it was too tame. It had little blood and a comically awkward censorship of the “fucker” in motherfucker. The films/comics/anime/ games that Sucker Punch aspired to be like (Kill Bill, Samurai Champloo, Lone Wolf and Cub etc) have one recurring feature: balls.

Sucker Punch, with its hyper masculine sense of girlpower, did not.

C+ Patrick Marlborough

Consequently, some of the kitsch Brighton charm of the book has been lost; the hack tabloid competitions and fanatical gambling of the 1930s have been replaced by Mod-Rocker tensions of the 60s. What we get instead of Greene’s detached and sardonic character study is a darker (and slightly more formulaic) British thriller: a feature-length Wire in the Blood or Spooks.

As a mobster pursues an affiliate of a rival gang, a Brighton pavement photographer takes an incriminating photograph and gives naïve onlooker Rose (Andrea Riseborough) the stub. Up-and-coming Pinkie Brown (Sam Riley) is assigned to woo the girl and destroy the evidence (an arduous task, considering his overpowering Catholic guilt and, as Greene puts it, “stifling virginity”).

Things get messy when it turns out that Rose has a “memory for faces” and when her boss, Ida Arnold (Helen Mirren), decides to do some detective work on behalf of her murdered friend.

Joffe has pulled together a solid take on the traditional Hitchcockian thriller in the mould of Polanski’s recent The Ghost Writer, with a hammy visual style and score to match. After an unfortunately rash opening, everything moves fairly smoothly, with some beautifully shot action sequences. The cast –which includes John Hurt – is excellent although it would have been more fun to see Ida Arnolds as Greene’s overweight spiritualist than as Mirren’s shrewd and elegant manager.

Brighton Rock makes some sophisticated viewing, and even if it’s a little more superficial than the novel it’s based on, it’s classy and efficient – which is probably what Greene was trying to achieve anyway.

B+ Zoe Kilbourn

film

37

Never Let Me Go

SCRE4M

The Tempest

Thor

Directed by Mark Romanek

Directed by Wes Craven

Directed by Julie Taymor

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Starring David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox

Starring Helen Mirren, Russel Brand and Felicity Jones

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman & Tom Middleton

Love them or loathe them, horror films are an elementary aspect of youth culture. So even with the days of white-knuckled sleepovers well behind me it is satisfying to see that director Wes Craven has latched on to the idea that youth culture just ain’t what it used to be – and adjusted the Scream franchise accordingly in another bloody encounter with Ghostface Killer.

“Normally I’d watch Helen Mirren in anything, even if she was just putting out the laundry or reading the phone book. But, given the roteness of her line readings here, it might have been better if the phone book rather than Shakespeare was her text.”

I got given a neat set of 3D glasses before the preview screening of Thor. About half way through the film, I took them off for a couple of minutes. What I saw was incredible.

The narrative remained filled-out, multidimensional. Believable. Of course, the screen became a complete blur.

Starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield & Kiera Knightley What the fuck?

It’s hard to avoid mouthing this question repeatedly during a screening of Never Let Me Go. If you missed the premise, it’s a film about organ harvesting based on a famous book by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Ok. Cool.

Organ harvesting that takes place in Britain during an alternative 20th century almost identical to our own.

Alright. I can buy it if – AlternoBritain cracks open teenagers like walnuts to scoop out and distribute their insides to punters like dollops of icecream.

What the fuck?

Britain, 1952. Civilized. Democratic. Except that AlternoBritain discovers cloning in 1952.

And AlternoBritish society leaps with no debate (the film’s mention of the issue spans a single line, “no-one wants to go back to the bad days”) into state-sponsored humanharvesting. Which makes complete historical sense* in a period where it was illegal to have an abortion because a foetus was a person.

What the fuck?

Don’t worry. The film doesn’t really bother talking about it much either. That’s kind of the MAJOR PROBLEM. What the fuck?

And get this: in a society where cloning and organ harvesting are ubiquitous apparently, they can’t grow organs in jars. What the fuck?

Look, don’t ask Never Let Me Go for answers.

It’s too busy masturbating its contrivances.

Which is a shame, because Kiera Knightly, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield give pretty good performances while edging around the carcass that is this film’s premise.

Ultimately, Never Let Me Go makes no attempt at building a coherent framework for its otherwise passable narrative to move around in. It makes no effort to coerce the viewer into suspending their disbelief rather, it seems to desperately hope the viewer isn’t paying attention to the holes that exist therein.

Avoid if you like science fiction. Or history.

Or coherent internal logic.

E+ Callum Twigger *NO. IT DOESN’T. IT MAKES NO SENSE.

The fourth instalment is meant to be aligned with the values and practices of ‘the social network generation’. Where the horror films of yesteryear exploited landlines and the television set, Scre4m features a myriad of “cell phones”, videorecording devices, plasma screens and web interaction. The result is ‘Horror 2.0’ and it shakes things up just enough to keep the fear alive.

Set 10 years after Scream 3, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is attempting to recover from the trauma of her violent past and, to do so, is on tour to promote her autobiography.

When the tour heads to Woodsboro she must visit her hometown (conveniently enough this coincides with the anniversary of the killings) and reconnect with the Sheriff (David Arquette), Gale ‘Weathers’ Riley (Courteney Cox) and a new family member. Before you can say “boo” that classic voice of terror is rasping down the line again promising more murders, challenging Sidney’s hopes for a new lease on life.

Plot debacles aside, performances by the original cast members are bland at best, with the exception of Sidney’s opportunistic publicist played by Alison Brie of Community.

Dialogue and characterisation are clichéd but as one teen character asserts: “the unexpected is the new cliché”. It is this element of selfreflexiveness that keeps Scre4m out of the ‘spoof ’ category and accessible to the most squeamish film buffs. Humorous and sinisterly entertaining, Scre4m compares well with its predecessors.

C+ Elizabeth Howard

“One is reminded of the ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ joke about one of the robots staging an all-furniture ‘Hamlet’ – it’s the sort of switcheroo that smacks more of desperation than of creativity and redefinition.”

“These gifted actors sometimes seem to be saying the words as someone with a chainsaw cuts firewood in the next room.”

“It’s unimaginatively staged and poorly acted by everyone involved, especially Russell Brand, who has never seemed so lost.” “...like a pompous production of Mamma Mia, without the Abba songs.”

“A fragmented and almost incomprehensible mess, garishly over-scored, full of embarrassingly bad special effects and a great tragic-comedy romance never given the chance to simply stretch its cumbersome limbs.”

“No amount of gimmicky effects, splendid Hawaiian locations, bombastic music or high-calibre actors can distract from how consistently dull this Tempest is.”

“You expect Nicolas Cage to pop up from behind a sand dune on a Harley brandishing a rocket launcher.”

“LOST for arseholes.”

CLachlan Keeley

But that didn’t detract from the fact that Kenneth Brannagh has turned Marvel’s Thor into a powerful, character-based comic book movie that has set a high standard for 2011’s superhero films.

Thor is the saga of the Viking entities of Asgard, which the film reveals as extraterrestrials that earthlings have elevated to deity status. Applying the Clarke-ian logic that magic is just science that hasn’t been explained yet, the titular Thor is a champion amongst the Asgardians – an arrogant warmonger whose father and king Odin fears will compromise intergalactic peace.

After Thor launches a crypto-fascist assault on Asgard’s rivals, the Jotuns, Odin exiles his son to our soggy fourth rock from the sun to teach the whelp some manners while revoking his techno-magical powers. Enter New Mexico, Natalie Portman, S.H.I.E.L.D and a lot of angst while Thor learns about being human and his brother Loki learns about the cruelties of hereditary monarchism.

Thor soars when the story sticks to the heavens, in the politics of Asgard and Jotunheim, and the personal dynamics within the Viking pantheon’s royal family.

Brannagh lifts the source material to border Shakespearean grandeur with Thor as a tragic hero and his brother, Loki, a heroic tragic.

Indeed, Loki is probably the most compelling villain Marvel has put on screen yet. The scenes between the two and their father Odin crackle with tension, and it’s what sets the film apart from pulpier superhero dross.

But the earthbound scenes are rushed, and though they pave solid fundamentals with serviceable characters and decent sets, they shackle the film, holding it gaspingly short of classic status.

In conclusion? Better than Iron Man but below Spider Man 2. Thor is a memorable addition to the genre and a damn good start to the superhero season.

B+ Callum Twigger

38

FILM

FESTIVORAMALODEON Film for the discerning eyeball

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

Callum Twigger & Patrick Malborough ------------------------------------------

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

Why was there no save feature in the Jurassic Park game on NES? I uh suppose er that it um was to uh make the game more challenging. You could always uh play The Lost World games on PC or uh Playstation 1.

Have you considered going into the veloci-raptor proofing business?

Although uh I er presume uh that you are joking, the uh paranoia that I er uh suffer from as a result uh of the Jurassic Park franchise uh has lead me to uh have huge electri-uh-fied fences all around my uh house.

Sam uh Neil actually uh has a shotgun in every uh room in his er house uh for the same er reason.

Jeff Goldblum explains chaos theory to Pelican.

Patrick Marlborough suppresses his fangasm as he asks Jeff Goldblum for a threesome Jeff Goldblum (actor/chaos theorist) and I have been close friends for some time. At the Pelican meeting it became apparent that not enough writers knew who he was. I asked them to come up with a question each and I would post these to Jeff as part of our monthly correspondence. This is how he replied.

Geoff or Jeff?

Well uh Jeoff Can we watch Jurassic Park together?

I uh er uh well um to be honest I uh would be uh happy to.

Why did you do Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World?

Well uh um well money for one thing. I er…y’see I enjoy working with Steve and uh Julianne Moore is uh er a beautiful and talented uh woman.

How many times did you do the water drop scene in Jurassic Park (1)?

I uh purposefully er uh stuffed that uh scene uh up as much [pause] as possible just so uh I could touch Laura uh er Dern’s smooth, smooth hands.

What do you think of people who haven’t seen Jurassic Park?

They uh must er be uh sad uh individuals who had uh quite a er dull child-uh-hood. I uh weep uh for them.

You were wrongly reported dead in 2009. Were you satisfied with the response from your fans?

Well uh one loyalist um built me ah…hold on… sorry I had to stare blankly into nothing for a while…um er a fan built a giant Goldblum head out of recycled sunglasses. It was uh very uh well uh um…nice.

Would you have a threesome with Patrick and his girlfriend Meg? Well uh I er uh know um…how er well hung Patrick is so uh it might get…but you know I er uh am uh pretty liberal so uh yeah I think we’d have uh er some uh fun.

Are you a Team Zissou Intern?

Yes. Unfortunately Jeff couldn’t answer the rest of our questions. He and one of our writers left for a mysterious island full of fantastical beasts. What could go wrong?

Spanish Film Festival Spanish is the third most spoken language in the world. Unsurprisingly, a lot of films are made in Spanish. And a hell of a lot of them are really fucking good. Continuing Paradiso’s foreign festival run is the 15th Australian Spanish Film Festival, to be held in the middle of May. The festival features 36 films including Venice Film Festival winner The Last Circus. Details are skimpy at the moment, but the Festival is coming out West for the first time this year.

Stay tuned.

When: May 25 – 29th Where: Cinema Paradiso, Northbridge Website: spanishfilmfestival.com/

games

39

Media Cause, Media Effect ------------------ Dan Yacoub -------------------

The ongoing debate for an R18+ rating for videogames in Australia is something that seems to rise and fall on the agenda almost cyclically. This is probably because nobody really cares until a heavy-hitting title such as Grand Theft Auto or Left 4 Dead are either banned entirely or horrifically trimmed to meet our archaic censorship laws.

The Classification Board is a statutory body established by the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act in 1995. This act states that “adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want,” but this is apparently not explicit enough as we still don’t have an R18+ rating for games. Games that would usually fall within this category are “refused classification”.

The bulk of the argument against an R18+ rating is the supposed link between violent games and violent behaviour.

Videogames are interactive, which is allegedly more detrimental than watching a film with the same content.

The idea that interactivity is more dangerous than one’s own imagination and fantasy is, of course, beyond ridiculous.

According to the Australian government we are all sponges and drones without consciousness until we have played a violent videogame.

The idea that videogames with explicit content have an effect on young people is supported by the group, Young Media Australia. The group’s president, Elizabeth Handsley, has said that these games “can increase a person’s tendency to be violent or to solve conflict with violence. Secondly, it can increase people’s acceptance of violence and make them more tolerant to violence”. This is a tautology.

little traction with my constituents who are more concerned with real-life issues than home entertainment in imaginary worlds”. Because treating adults like children is an imaginary problem. Atkinson even had the audacity to call every developed nation who did have an R18+ classification for games as “many gathering swine going over the cliff ”. Wars have been waged for less. Thankfully his successor, John Rau, has thusfar had a much more open mind toward such things and may even elicit some change.

These changes do not come soon enough for fans of Mortal Kombat however, with the most recent instalment of the franchise being refused classification last month. To be fair, the previews and trailers give the impression that the developers snorted their weight in coke and went balls-tothe-wall with the gore. But can an ultra-violent game really be that dangerous? Media effects studies have been inconclusive at best. The science just doesn’t support the conservatism.

Let’s say we give in and continue to flog that dead horse. Let’s step in the shoes of Atkinson and pretend that vidya games are the devil. What in tarnation would compel us to allow these damned games to be entertainin’ our good people?!

Curtin University professor Tama Leaver had this to say: 1.

The majority of video game players in Australia are adults and thus deserve the right to decide for themselves what games they’ll play.

2.

Banning video games increases their notoriety, making them more appealing to kids and teenagers, meaning that they are far more likely to download them illegally or purchase them in or from another country.

3.

Part of the argument against the R18+ category seems to be a presumption that Australia’s current ratings system for film, tv, etc., isn’t effective. If the ratings system is broken, focus on fixing that, not blanket bans on whole sections of a medium!

4.

There is no substantial evidence that violent video games cause violent behaviour. (There are small-scale studies which see some increase in violent thoughts (not actions: thoughts), but there are an equal number of studies that show no correlation. A lot more research and study here would help! Personally, I’m reminded that at the beginning of the twentieth century books were being banned for corrupting the moral fibre of society; in the 1950s and 60s rock music had similar charges levelled against it!

5.

Interactive doesn’t equal addictive, nor does it dull the critical senses of players. If someone can’t distinguish between games and everyday life, the there’s a lot more to worry about than the games.

There’s a lot more to worry about than games, indeed, Professor Leaver. Well thanks for reading folks. This writer has to hop on his magic dragon and fly into the sunset with his natural-20-in-charisma harem now. Then I’m off to burn my parent’s house in righteous fire, because an imp told me to.

Why we are so quick to blame the media these kids are consuming while their parents fight to the death with knives in the kitchen downstairs is beyond me. What’s more is that the kind of parents that would allow their kids to rape and pillage in a videogame are the same people who are against the R18+ rating. There are dozens of surveys out there that ask parents their opinions on the classification laws. Most of them support the R18+ rating. The ones that don’t, when questioned why, respond that they don’t want to have to guard their kids against the R18+ material. Which is THEIR JOB AS GUARDIANS. This aside, refusing games classification is actually making the job of the parent harder. Many game developers actually modify their products slightly for Australia so that they just scrape in with an MA15+ rating. If the higher rating was available, those games would be illegal for children to buy and parents would be more aware of the content.

The average age of Australian gamers is 30+, most of whom have been playing games for about 11 years. That means that they were adults when they started. Despite this, we are the only English speaking country – one of the only developed countries – to not have an R18+ rating. But for anything to change within this flagging old corpse of a censorship body all of the State and Territory Censorship Ministers (usually Attorney-General) have to agree on the amendment. Michael Atkinson, South Australian AttorneyGeneral since before time in memorial, actively blocked the discussion of an R18+ games classification right up until his retirement in 2010. Atkinson stated that “this issue has Illustrattion by Camden Watts

Books

40

What Pelican read this month c-

Dave McCraig does a fine job on colours, his work being particularly effective on the fight scenes where Nemesis’ all-white costume is covered in the blood of slain cops.

Unfortunately unlike Millar’s best work, Nemesis is a shallow read. Nemesis revels in blood and guts. The conflict between Nemesis and Morrow feels stock standard, only really highlighted by twists seemingly added for shock value. Morrow is a generic lead with not much to distinguish him from the “good cop” archetype. When the main characters are introduced as Player One and Player Two, it’s probably not worth expecting in-depth characterisation.

Nemesis Writer: Mark Millar Artist: by Steve McNiven Nemesis asks: “What if Batman was the bad guy?” The eponymous supervillain engages in criminal activity with the same efficiency and style Batman brings to crime fighting.

Nemesis arrives in Washington D.C. and targets Blake Morrow, the city’s top cop.

Explosions and hyper-violence ensue.

McNiven’s artwork is Nemesis’s highlight.

He excels at portraying the large-scale visuals asked of him by Millar. His fight scenes are exciting and kinetic, giving Nemesis the action blockbuster look the creative team were obviously looking for.

B+

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After Steve Hockensmith In the wake of the awesomeness that was the UWA Guild’s Humans vs. Zombies, the undead have been in my brain (no pun intended) recently. Thankfully, Pelican /had just the thing – Steve Hockensmith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After. While sadly light on the Nerf gun action, it proved to be a highly entertaining and enjoyable read, with the wit of a Jane

For the most part, Nemesis is missing the political content that elevated Millar’s work on The Ultimates. The ending and sequel hook implies some commentary on the obscenely rich in the wake of economic collapse. Perhaps in future volumes this idea will be better explored.

If you’re looking for a comic that replicates the experience of an overblown Hollywood action film, then Nemesis is up your alley.

Alternatively, you could wait for the film adaptation directed by Tony Scott of Top Gun fame. A pretty (violent) but emotionally hollow read.

Kevin Chiat

b+

The Tiger’s Wife Téa Obreht Téa Obreht has received much praise for her debut novel The Tiger’s Wife. The 26-year-old Serbian writer has created a novel with a fascinating puzzle of stories interwoven within it. While the point doesn’t always seem clear, hidden as it is amongst metaphors and a whole lot of emotional distress, it definitely has its great literature moments.

Set in the Balkans following years of devastating war, The Tiger’s Wife tells the story of a young female doctor who begins a

Austen social commentary being coupled with some truly remarkable ninja-zombie showdowns.

In the final instalment of the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies trilogy, the dashing Mr Darcy is bitten by a dreadful, which is... well, dreadful. With a cure rumoured to exist in London, Elizabeth, along with the more enigmatic Bennets, will stop at nothing to obtain it and save her beloved Darcy’s life. Facing moral conundrums, Lady Catherine de Bourgh and her creepy-ass daughter Anne – and of course the unmentionables – Lizzie must turn temptress and seduce the cure away from its creator, Sir Angus MacFarquhar. With plenty of action in store, Hockensmith’s wonderful writing style and largerthan-print characters (supported by the delightful illustrations of Patrick Arrasmith) juxtapose nicely, creating a sequel filled with everything from ninjas and gore to suspense, intrigue, heart, and, of course, brains.

Whether you’re looking for an actionpacked, fast-paced read, or suffering from the post-Humans vs. Zombies blues, I recommend picking up a copy of this book – it’s a no-brainer (yes, pun intended).

Lara Hentrich

C

journey inoculating impoverished children.

Threaded throughout the novel are stories of her grandfather’s experiences as a child and a young man. With her grandfather’s recent passing, these stories become more relevant to Natalia’s life and her travels. She revisits characters from her grandfather’s past as she begins to come to terms with his death by understanding the importance of his stories.

I found the novel an interesting read and it had some great literary devices, which included mini-stories that ran parallel throughout the text. However, I found that because of this it sometimes lacked continuity and felt muddled. The narrative tied together nicely in the end, with certain ideas repeated throughout the novel becoming more relevant towards the conclusion. However, it did drag on a bit, and there were some parts that weren’t really important to the story. All in all, I did quite enjoy the novel, even if I did find some aspects dull. If you enjoy novels that make you think, then I would definitely recommend it.

Alex Hargreaves

beautiful but obscure phrases like “Orange juice and autumn leaves should taste the same, valentines and blood,” and Australianisms such as “he couldn’t pull a slimy stick out of a dogs bottom” that make me cringe.

Like most Australian writers, Goldbloom seems to think it is obligatory for her to incorporate ethereal ramblings about the landscape into her stories. Her use of the country within her work ranges from the beautiful to the boring.

You Lose These and Other Stories

Goldie Goldbloom

Goldie Goldbloom’s collection is one of Fremantle Press’s latest offerings, but departs quite quickly from the southern suburbs of Perth. Most of her stories traverse complicated layers of desire and feminine identity in a variety of settings.

One story explores queer culture within Orthodox Judaism, while another features a Rabbi who sleeps with schoolgirls.

It is difficult to locate Goldbloom within a narrative tradition that includes many contemporaries. Her writing contains

However, her characters are compelling – if frustratingly innocent at times – and are composed with a tongue-in-cheek self awareness, like the Rabbi’s wife blaming suicide bombers for unrest in the Middle East – “You’d never catch Jews blowing themselves up in restaurants. Such a waste of food.”

While this book wasn’t my cup of tea, I agreed with the author’s note at the back of the collection; despite having gone out of vogue, short stories should still be read and published, particularly those that deal with queasier subjects. This collection may not appeal to a particularly wide audience, so read it only if you don’t mind trawling through the banal to be rewarded with a startling phrase or two.

Kate Nye-Butler

books

41

B+

Batavia Peter FitzSimons Batavia is best described by one word: swashbuckling. Complete with stories of mutiny, murder, betrayal, gin and plenty of syphilis, the book is an unashamed Boy’s Own adventure with goodies and baddies, heroism and treachery, and, of course, the odd fair maiden. This is the true story of the shipwrecking of the Dutch East India Company’s proud flagship Batavia and it will appeal to anyone who liked Pirates of the Caribbean.

coast in 1629. Whilst a small group set off on a staggering 3000 kilometre trip to Jakarta in a nine-metre long boat, a mutiny amongst the remaining survivors saw babystrangling, civilian massacres and sexual slavery. This fantastic tale is well told by FitzSimons, who uses detail well to allow us a look into the brutal world of 17th century life on the high seas.

FtizSimons describes himself as a storyteller rather than a historian. Thus although he sticks closely to the known facts, he is happy to fill in the blanks when details are scarce to make the book more accessible.

While most of these made-up details are entirely plausible, Fitzsimons isn’t averse to some tub-thumping poetic license.

Hence, if a character’s surname is “more manly-sounding” than his first, or if “miles” has a better “old-world feel” than its Dutch equivalent, in they go. FitzSimons is completely up-front about this and for the people this book is targeted at it really makes no difference. This is unashamedly History-Lite, but it is enjoyable and done well.

Giles Tuffin

Counter Attack Mark Abernethy Mark Abernethy’s protagonist, Alan “Mac” McQueen, back for his fourth adventure in Counter Attack, is apparently Australia’s answer to James Bond – in occupation, if not in style. Brazen, cynical, casually racist but oh-so-brave, Mac is initially working for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service at an office job in Brisbane. Soon he is sent to Singapore to oversee an operation to persuade a Chinese spy to defect. But when this goes horribly wrong he finds himself engulfed in a web of violence, corruption and conspiracy – and this one goes right to the top.

Each story in this collection has at its heart a life-changing moment and they’re not always the obvious moments. Some are fiction and some are creative non-fiction, but every single one resonates like an epiphany. They’re quirky, often hilarious and always compelling; this reviewer was moved to tears quite a few times.

Although written in nearly 30 different voices, the collection is arranged so coherently that each story flows naturally into the next. One story ends with a Korean woman escaping her war and the next story begins with a young Australian soldier returning home from Kabul. The landscapes and the voices change, but the sentiment follows through.

The Kid on the Karaoke Stage & Other Stories Edited by Georgia Richter The Kid on the Karaoke Stage & Other Stories is an anthology of short stories from new and emerging Western Australian writers. They include the 2009 “Best Young Novelist of the Year” Alice Nelson, and several luminaries from Perth literary/arts journal dotdotdash.

This is one of the best books I’ve read of any genre and that’s coming from someone who normally avoids short story collections. I had the idea in my head that such books

Carrying a cargo of fabulous treasure and riches, the Batavia had the misfortune to hit the Abrolhos Islands off the West Australian

B

A+

Despite bearing most of the hallmarks of your standard spy-thriller fare, Counter Attack has a distinctly Aussie flavour to it: heavy drinking, plenty of standing up to suits and characters named Sandy Beech.

Of course, there are passages that make you gag: “ ‘Where from?’ said Mac, as she opened a steel box. ‘Gladstone,’ she said, holding a bottle to the light. ‘Oh yeah?’

Mac rolled his eyes at the mention of a rival town from his childhood. ‘Fagstone?’ ‘And you’d be from...let me guess: Frockhampton, right?’ ” Overall, however, the novel is well written.

Abernethy has been favourably compared to Robert Ludlam and Tom Clancy, and the praise is apt. The plot, while unsurprising, is solid enough to keep the pages turning.

Abernethy also cleverly constructs plotlines and locations using a blend of fact and fiction, even if the characterisation leaves a lot to be desired.

Abernethy does not stray far from his triedand-tested formula in Counter Attack, but why should he? This is a solid novel, not overly ambitious, but certainly worth a read if this is your genre.

Ed Fearis

were the refuge of experimental literary tossers – what an articulate friend termed “art-fuckery”. But not anymore.

A-

Palo Alto

James Franco Actor, artist, Oscar host, Allen Ginsberg – is there anything that James Franco hasn’t been?

With the release of Palo Alto he can now add author to that list. A book of intertwining short stories set in the area where he grew up, Palo Alto – which is part of Franco’s English PhD program at Yale University – is an interesting examination of the thoughts and lives of suburban teens in the 1990s.

Franco had his first major role in Judd Appotow’s brilliant teenage dramed, Freaks & Geeks. Palo Alto brought that show to mind in that it dissects the minutia of high school ennui with actual authenticity. Each ‘portrait’ is in first person, usually recounting an event – the common occurrences being

I’m not going to say, “go out and buy this book because you’d be supporting Western Australian literature”, although that is a fair reason to do so. Go out and buy this book because it is exquisitely beautiful.

(Oh, and this may or may not influence you, but there’s not a trace of Tim Winton in the collection.)

Kaitlyn Plyley

sexual deviancy, drug abuse, and car accidents. Franco has a distinct voice for each character that helps the reader as the novel jumps from teen to teen. He easily moves from male to female perspective, and if anything, his female story-arks leave a stronger impression. Franco references John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row at one stage in the book. The influence is certainly clear; the tight prose and wry (if slightly dark) humour conjures up a 1990s vision of Steinbeck’s classic novella.

This book will be relatable for anyone who grew up as an average middle-class kid in the 90s. There are nice details that ground the reader in the era. A babysitter watching a child playing a game with an “elf dressed in green who has a fairy friend and ocarina” instantly drags you back to days spent in the living room playing Zelda: Ocarina of Time on N64. Franco cleverly plays on the inertia of life and relationships prior to the instant communication revolution of the 21st century. His characters are usually tragic.

There is that lingering sense of hopelessness that falls upon someone when they are just ‘average’. It can be confronting at times and some readers may see characters as too unlikable, but Palo Alto creates a biting portrait of frustrated youth.

This book is perfect for readers in our age group. Franco is an interesting artist and this is yet another ballsy endeavour on his part.

Not a classic, but it has a distinct voice and unique focus.

Patrick Marlborough

books

42

Nabokov’s First Love ------------------------------------------------------------ Hannah Lyles ------------------------------------------------------------

“They chose me, not I them.”

– Vladimir Nabokov, 1963 (when asked why he chose to study butterflies)

On Discovering a Butterfly I found it and I named it, being versed in taxonomic Latin; thus became godfather to an insect and its first describer – and I want no other fame.

Illustration by Camden Watts

Wide open on its pin (though fast asleep), and safe from creeping relatives and rust, in the secluded stronghold where we keep type specimens it will transcend its dust.

Dark pictures, thrones, the stones that pilgrims kiss, poems that take a thousand years to die but ape the immortality of this red label on a little butterfly.

– Vladimir Nabokov

There is a man in a room somewhere in Russia, or perhaps somewhere in Arizona or Utah. He sits on a wooden chair at a desk.

There are papers and books everywhere. He is studying something – evolution on paper – words on the printed page which try to explain a whole field of life. It is hot and stuffy in the room and the hoards of books around him makes the heat feel more oppressive.

His eyes lazily move towards the window, they hunger for a patch of emptiness – or at least a space of something other than wood, red carpet and journal articles. His eyes become transfixed on a spot on the window glass.

Then, a burst of colour explodes directly behind the clear spot. Rhomboids and diamonds of blue, green and burnt orange move across the glass. The shapes tumble left and right, their movement irregular.

A butterfly comes into full view. It is a beautiful insect, so fragile, and yet such a force of nature. The man’s pupils move with a gravitational force towards the creature. His whole being is grabbed by intense desire; he must name it, document it and celebrate this discovery. He snaps his eyes away like a man who knows that if he continues staring at the object of his desire the world may think him mad. He pushes the chair back, takes one big step to the right, grabs his green butterfly net and leaves the room. He is suddenly at peace with the world; he knows what his purpose is. ***

Vladimir Nabokov (1899 – 1977) is most famously known as being the author of books such as Speak, Memory, Pale Fire and the controversial Lolita. Lolita is about a man’s love for a young teenage girl, and was banned in many countries when it was published.

However, what is not so widely known about Nabokov is that he was an enthusiastic lepidopterist – he studied butterflies.

Nabokov was seven years old when he discovered butterflies in the Russian countryside. The first was a brightly patterned swallowtail captured by his family’s townhouse janitor and kept in a wardrobe overnight. Unfortunately for Nabokov, it later escaped. His parents were a great influence on his interest in butterflies.

His father, Vladimir Dmitri, had a collection of old butterflies from his childhood in their country house, while his mother, Elena, was a keen collector of Russian boletic mushrooms. These eccentric interests and enthusiasm for nature definitely influenced Nabokov.

Nabokov was serious from the start. Within a month, Nabokov had captured 20 samples of common butterfly species and was developing an appreciation for precision that he would later find severely lacking in others. He resented people he met growing up – especially teachers – who showed a disregard for his interest and failed to recognise his passion.

His findings were published in numerous scientific journals. In 1945, he developed a hypothesis for the evolution of his most studied butterflies, the Polyommatus blues. He believed that the butterflies had migrated in a series of waves from the Asia to the New World over millions of years.

This has just recently been proved correct; many scientists and biological professors around the world are stunned by his insight.

Over the course of his life, he befriended a number of prominent scientists, and worked in the laboratories of the Museum

Have you tried...

Ben Sacks uncovers 10 of the stranger ways writers find inspiration for their work. of Comparative Zoology in Harvard and at the Museum of Natural History in New York. He named eight species of butterflies and had seven named for him. His pursuit of butterflies would become his most intense pleasure along with writing; it would affect his powers of observation and imagination.

As I read parts of Nabokov’s memoir, Speak, Memory, and several of his letters to friends and scientists, I couldn’t help but think that his butterfly interest was almost an obsession with beauty. Nabokov wanted to preserve their existence, and he immortalised his love by naming and documenting them.

Humbert, the protagonist in Lolita, shares a similarly intense passion – he immortalises his love by naming Lolita, Lo, Lola, nymphet – he is obsessed with names to describe her “species”. He sees her as a far superior specimen to most of her age group. She is something special to Humbert, an exemplar of youthful beauty. He captures Lolita in his story, and Nabokov similarly captures the butterfly through his “story” – his documentation. Allusions to butterflies are present throughout Lolita, and Humbert even compares Lolita to a butterfly. The inside cover of the 1958 edition of Lolita is filled with drawings of butterflies by Nabokov.

Humbert also shares Nabokov’s acute sense of observation and their views of the world pay great attention to detail. Their love comes so naturally to them, but they are misunderstood by society: “How can no one else see the beauty I do?” they wonder.

Indeed at the beginning of Lolita, Humbert says, “she stands unrecognised by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power”.

These frustrations are shared between the two “artists”.

Their obsessions are almost sick: Humbert’s fornication with a young girl and – to a lesser extent – Nabokov slowly killing butterflies to preserve their beauty. In Speak, Memory, he recounts the procedure where

the butterfly is captured and its beauty is forced out upon the page: “The soaking, ice-cold absorbent cotton pressed to the insect’s lemurian head; the subsiding spasms of its body; the satisfying crackle produced by the pin penetrating the hard crust of its thorax; the careful insertion of the point of the pin in the corkbottomed groove of the spreading board; the symmetrical adjustment of the thick, strongveined wings under neatly affixed strips of semi-transparent paper.”

It must be said, however, that there was a useful side to Nabokov’s interest in butterflies and his research, unlike Humbert’s desire for Lolita. Whilst Humbert calls himself a madman a number of times throughout the novel, it seems unfair to label Nabokov in the same way. After all, Humbert’s relationship is illicit and taboo, while the study of butterflies is not. At the same time there is something slightly perverse in certain similarities of personality. Of course writers inject themselves into their characters; this is inevitable. I think that Humbert is a creation born from the darker sides of Nabokov’s psyche, where the imagination lies deep within the brain. I could not ignore the connections.

Then came more connections. As I hunted down Nabokov’s books and biographical literature, I encountered butterflies wherever I looked. Whether it was in a magazine on a table in a café, the covers of countless books in Borders, or shop fronts down William Street, I saw butterflies everywhere. I started seeing them as beautiful creatures with an ancient past and enormous weight in the order of nature. To me, they are no longer just insects. Nabokov has taught me how to see and follow the connections I make between literature and the world. Like he says, sometimes you don’t have to search for them, they come to you.

1. Hanging upside down: Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, would dangle upside down from a pair of “gravity boots” when stuck on plot points.

2. Lying down: Numerous authors have employed this technique, but none with the gusto of Truman Capote. He described himself as “a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down.”

3. Smelling rotten fruit: The 18th century German poet, Friedrich von Schiller, kept rotten apples under the lid of his desk. When searching for the right word he would open the desk, inhale deeply and let the smell guide him.

4. Complete isolation: A common source of motivation, but taken to an extreme by Schiller’s great contemporary, Goethe, who claimed that he couldn’t write a line if there was another person anywhere in the same house.

5. 50 cups of coffee per day: This admirable attempt to beat fatigue kept Balzac at his writing desk 16 hours a day and once allowed him to write 45 out of 48 hours.

Unsurprisingly, he died of caffeine poisoning aged 51.

6. Writing on your lover’s back: Voltaire famously practised this, although sources are unclear as to whether he did so before, during or after the main performance.

7. Lying in an open coffin: as practised by the much-maligned poet Dame Edith Sitwell.

Why no one thought to seal the coffin is an open question.

8. Getting sick: TS Eliot thought he wrote best when afflicted by a head cold, while Alexander Dumas relied on his frequent indigestion to wake him and get him to his writing desk.

9. Grooming your pet: French author Colette used to begin her day’s writing by picking fleas from her cat. And then eating them. No, not really.

10. Writing with your nose: Aldous Huxley’s friends claim that he ‘’often wrote with his nose.” Huxley (who was almost blind) claimed, ‘’a little nose writing will result in a perceptible temporary improvement of defective vision.’’

books

43

arts

44

Word art ain’t what it used to be Sarah Dunstan interviews sex God, Dosh Luckwell about his upcoming spoken word piece, Sex Poems

Congratulations and much excitement on the upcoming launch of your debut album, Sex Poems. What was the high point, and the low point, of making this album?

The high point would have been finishing the album. After recording it, in which we insanely did 12 musos in 5 days, we did a lot of re-mixing, dropped two songs, and quite recently changed the track order. So yes, to be able to finally sit and listen to the album knowing how far it has come even in the last month or so has been really satisfying. There was never really a low point, as the shit seemed to hit the fan fairly regularly!

Honestly though, the whole experience has been pretty amazing. Everyone involved has gone beyond my expectations and I’ve come out with some great new friends.

You call to mind Peaches at her tenderest, with a touch of Lene Lovich. Who are your biggest influences musically, and why?

I just googled Lene Lovich, she is off the chain!

To be honest, my biggest influences are pretty generic musicians such as Bowie, Waits, PJ Harvey, Howlin’ Wolf etc. Why? Bowie for his persona, Waits for his words, PJ for her balls, and the Wolf for saying it how it is. A lot of my friends are musicians and I also find they are pretty influential on a day to day basis.

Who is your idol?

Billy … just kidding. It would have to be Vee at the moment. I can’t stop watching her film clips, I am a little bit obsessed.

Vast ranges of musical genres are given a nod to with your poems. Does the style or mood of the music, or the musicians you are working with, influence the topic you dabble with in that particular song. Or rather, is

it the other way around, and do the words come first?

to get across in regard to sex and sexuality it’s that we should always be open to surprise.

Of the nine tracks on the album eight were already written word wise, so the music genre decision came second. I had ideas for what sort of music I’d need for each poem and so set about finding the different sort of musicians I’d need to do it. The album is fairly multi-genre music wise, but I guess the spoken voice acts to pull it all together. The only track in which we made the music before the poem was ‘Big Girl Porn Music’. I had this cheesy bass riff stuck in my head for months which I had named ‘Big Girl Porn Bass’ because I used to imagine a large woman booty dancing to it – don’t ask me why… Anyway, I asked The Brow Horn if they’d be up for working on the song even though I only had a title and a bass line. I then made a really cheesy mock version of what ended up to be the final music on Garageband, gave it to them and they translated it into this funky groove. And so we recorded it. By this point I had one or two days left of recording so, like any essay, I wrote the whole thing the night before. I knew it had to be really dirty so I started with heaps of food innuendos. The finished product is really tapped, however all of the people who I’ve shown the album to so far have said it’s the best track! I guess I have uni to thank; the art of the all-nighter is indeed an excellent thing.

You’re writing your honours dissertation in anthropology on pornography. Do you think porn is art?

A lot of people argue that spoken word art is all about storytelling. So what’s your story?

In this case, sex, sexuality, desire, femininity/ masculinity, and power. I guess they are themes rather than stories… My poems are more like erotic snapshots rather than full erotic scenes.

For me it’s about presenting a moment in time, ‘a brief encounter’. I like to distort bodies in my writing. I’ve translated people I’ve slept with into scorpions, sirens, wolves, and spiders, but not always... I guess my “story” is varied, and at times fairly mythic. I guess if there’s anything that I’d like

Ah, this question… to be honest I am avoiding this porn/erotic debate like the plague in my thesis, but here is my uneducated personal opinion on the matter: I see the majority of “mainstream” (yes a dubious term for porn) video porn to be much like mainstream TV in that it is mass produced, works on strong convention, and is less concerned with being ‘artistic’ than with being consumed.

But like TV there is an ‘art’ to it, it is embedded with meaning and creative decisions are always being made. From show to show, porn to porn, ‘artiness’ waxes and wanes. There is definitely some ‘art porn’ out there which is still very much hardcore sex; the best of which is being made by female pornographers at the moment. Petra Joy is a good example – she indeed labels her work as ‘art-core’. Courtney Trouble is also pretty cool. My thesis is more about the construction of bodies in porn. I’m looking at the role of homophobia in the construction of straight porn; the way in which is disembodies men and, perhaps, the implicit role it may play in the subjugation of women.

Finally, after Sex Poems is over and the curtain falls, what next?

To be honest, I will probably spend the rest of the night getting fairly intimate with a bottle of scotch.

Dosh Luckwell will launch SEX POEMS Thurs 19 May 2011 8pm – Midnight $10 presale / $15 door

WHAT’S ON IN PERTH

The Winter Journey

--------- Sarah Dunstan ---------

State Theatre Centre

Franz Schubert’s The Winter Journey is hardly the most accessible of compositions. Translating it to English from the original German and making a hairy little man (who might resemble a troglodyte on a good day) screech it out while he creeps about on a set designed to look like a kitchen does not make it any less confusing.

That’s not to suggest that this adaptation of Schubert’s song cycle is bad.

Far from it! There are lots of interesting things constantly happening on stage all at once and Schubert’s compositions still retain their beauty behind the occasionally awkwardly phrased translations. There’s spastic dancing (in the vein of the horse-people from Equus, if you’d like a reference point), a man cooking vegetables, green snow, ear-splitting noises that cause physical pain, people yelling “MY HEART!”, Absolut Vodka, a record player, more fake snow, a piano, a radiator, and, most importantly – a hairy little man who sings things.

All of the music is played by a man who sits at a piano in the corner of the room, while the three characters present on stage interact with each other, mostly through movement. For the most part, the performance is dialogue-free –sparing one monologue right at the end which tries to explain the story behind why the characters are where they are and who they are – but it really doesn’t mesh together very well. It’s more likely your enjoyment will come from either the music or the bizarre interpretative dancing.

All of the action only takes place in the one location, which seems to be the interior kitchenette of an outback house. This set is meticulously detailed, however, and one of the characters constantly interacts with the equipment in the kitchen; he slices vegetables and cooks them (live on stage!), he fiddles around with his record player, he downs glass after glass of vodka and then falls over next to the sink (which has running water).

All in all, The Winter Journey is an enjoyable and frequently confusing performance piece. That it took place in the New Sexy Exciting Underground Theatre, with its flashing disco lights and paved indoor courtyards and below-sea-level-ness, left us feeling like we were finally entering into the secret world of Perth-thespians. Or something like that.

Lachlan Keeley

B-

Theatre An Evening Wasted Lazy Susan’s @ Brisbane Hotel, May 25–28, at 7pm An Evening Wasted celebrates the songs of Tom Lehrer.

Created specifically for cabaret audiences, it is a dynamic cross between stand up and musical comedy.

The show has been crafted to please both devotees and newcomers, and takes its cues from Mr Lehrer’s own sly, subversive sensibilities. There are four performers – two of which are UWA students, Izaak Lim and Nick Maclaine – who sing the madcap numbers and an emcee (Andrew Williams) who delivers Mr Lehrer’s razor sharp patter, roaming the stage between numbers with a hand held mic. This is a must-see! Book through Bocs.

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

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Black Swan Theatre Company) Monday 9 May – Sunday 22 May, State Theatre Centre Africa (Perth Theatre Company) Wednesday 4 May – Saturday 7 May, State Theatre Centre

ART Hatched @ PICA 39 artists born during the Cold War. Highlights from Perth include an inquisitorial piece using lost things by Claire Krouzecky and pieces from Stephen Genovese and Rebecca Orchard (Central Institute of Technology), and Jacob Ogden Smith (Curtin University). UWA graduates Michal Wojtowicz and Andrew Wood also have installations featured. Personal favourite by Amy Thornett either does everything or nothing for the viewer. A beautiful exhibition somewhat marred by questionable pop art that could have been taken further, although to do so would perhaps be to collapse in on itself. Giant corrected bank notes are the exception.

POETRY Cottonmouth On the first Thursday of each month at 459 Bar beneath the Rosemount Hotel, North Perth. See also http://cottonmouth.org.au Perth Poetry Club Features artists at The Moon Cafe on Saturday afternoons. Includes live readings and zine launches.

May 7: John Mateer, May 14: Paul Harrison, May 21: Derek Fenton and Gary De Piazzi, May 28: Maitland Schnaars with Alan Boyd Artspace Gallery The Gallery (on Hampden Road, Nedlands) is planning an exhibition for which Perth Poetry Club has invited artists to illustrate a piece of poetry, prose or song lyrics, as well as a Saturday morning gathering and reading of poets. Email gallery@artspace.net.au to request more information or entry forms.

arts

45

howl

46

HOWL # 11 Jeff Goldblum and the hunt for the Uneven Butterfly of Monarchoon.

“Well um y’know you can’t expect every-ah-one to know who you are.” He sat back on his black leather lounge chair. I had been talking to him for three hours. The entire room was black. His clothes were all black leather – even his socks. I was in awe. I was interviewing Jeff Goldblum of The Fly fame.

thin and bent out like a large bird’s. This was the great lepidopterist – Otto von Oppenheim.

An hour earlier we had discussed a trip to the island of Monarchoon where Jeff was meeting with famed lepidopterist Otto von Oppenheim. It was to be a great adventure, claimed Jeff, and one that would help prepare him for his new role as a man who is turned into a butterfly. I agreed. It was my first step into the pit of hell.

“I uh well need to learn from them. See how they live.”

Said Jeff.

DAY 1

Jeff flew us to Monarchoon in his private helicopter. The island was a Siamese twin – two islands had fused together millennia ago but now mirrored each other perfectly; a valley on one side was the same as that on the other. I was filled with fear as I gazed into the madness of the jungle.

Jeff seemed serene.

“Velcome gentleman!” came a voice from the undergrowth. The jungle was speaking. Or so I thought until a strange man emerged from behind a fern. His appearance was like no other. His moustache was thick and Victorian, but curled only on the left side. Following on from the curl, there appeared a scar that ran from cheek to brow, interrupted only by a leather eye-patch. He was dressed as a German gentleman from the 1890s, but his enormous girth meant that his vest and shirt buttons were stretched almost to the point of popping. He had slung over his shoulder a giant elephant rifle and a back pack on which many jars and nets were tied. His legs were disturbingly

“Ah you have bought a friend!” He bowed to me. “Vell you are both in ze right place if it is butterflies you are after.”

“Monarchoon has the greatest collection of butterflies in the vorld. As ve travel deeper into ze jungle ve shall see ze beasts that vill defy ze limits of your imagination!” he yelled.

“The deeper the better,” said Jeff.

DAY 4 The last two days have been marvellous. We walked through the “monarch woods” where the butterflies’ orange created the feeling of a perpetual autumn. Jeff sat and contemplated, concentrating on all their miniscule movements and social interactions. Oppenheim can name every specimen, taking particular delight in pointing out the “beasts” which he himself discovered: “Ziss is ze rare Mammoth Moth. You may observe zat its antennae sit on its chin – as opposed to the head – and protrude like two great tusks. It is also covered in a thick vinter coat.”

Such wonders I have never seen. Oppenheim did not seem as amazed, stating that we were on the fringe of even greater wonders.

Day 11 The butterflies are becoming increasingly bizarre.

One was covered in advertisements and another played Chaplin’s short films on its wings. Jeff spends hours examining each creature. His imitations have become uncanny, if a tad frightening. I fear he is being consumed. Nights are spent at the camp fire where Jeff sleeps in a cocoon he built. Otto sits up cleaning his rifle. I am frightened.

Day 23 I have not written in almost a fortnight. Jeff disappeared. I awoke one night to find his cocoon empty.

Otto was sitting on a stump sharpening a large hunting knife.

“Otto where is Jeff?” I asked.

“I am afraid Mr Goldblum has become vun of zem.”

“Who?” “Ze beasts! He is just anozer specimen. Vun to be caught, killed, dried, and mounted.” I noticed his net and now realised that it was not of cotton but of electrified razor wire.

“You are mad. Jeff is just acting. You can’t kill him.”

“How,” he interrupted, “do you think I lost zis eye? Dis island is a part of me. Ze beasts fascinated me...I had

Illustrated by Megan Higgins

to...catch zem all. It vas during a hunt that vun came at me – it took zis very eye.” He lifted his knife up to his right eye – the one not covered by the patch – and to my horror began tapping it. It chimed the sound of metal on glass. “Your friend Jeff is now an accessory. I think he has joined ze ‘uneven vun’ in its quest to kill me. But ve shall strike ze first blow!”

We have been hunting the “uneven one” since.

Day 27 Madness.

Oppenheim finally discovered the uneven one. The hunt was gruelling. We entered a glade in the forest.

There, perched delicately on a flower, was a white butterfly with one dot on its right wing. I walked past it thinking it was just an average cabbage moth. Oppenheim did not.

“Evil beast! It iz ye who tore mein eye from mein head!

Zis is your end! From Hell’s heart I stab at zee!”

The butterfly sat still. Oppenheim swung his gigantic rifle so that the muzzle was an inch from the butterfly.

It did not react.

“Are you sure this is it Otto? This is the mighty ‘uneven one’ that we have doggedly tracked for days?”

“Oh yes, I’m quite sure.”

The gun shot was deafening. The butterfly was completely obliterated. “Zat is zat zen,” said Otto.

But it wasn’t. Next thing there was an almighty wind.

I heard the flapping of millions of wings and a voice rising above the madness.

“AVENGE THE QUEEN! SEND THIS INTRUDER TO HELL!” It was Jeff! He had glued wings to his back and was running towards us followed by an ocean of butterflies.

Otto swung around and began blindly firing. But it was too late. The swarm enveloped Oppenheim. Soon the “beasts” dispersed. All that remained was his glass eye.

“But Jeff,” I asked, “how?”

“Well,” he said, “uh life...life finds a way.”

Jeff flew me home. He now lives with the butterflies of Monarchoon teaching them about chaos theory.

HOMEWORK: Pelican wants you to design a butterfly! Cut out the butterfly on page 23 and send it to our office; or email it to us at pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au.

v week 9-15

may

Search ‘V Week’ or ‘Guild Volunteering Hub’ on Facebook

FAST EASY AFFORDABLE WIRELESS

refer a friend and you’ll both receive a * month’s credit FREE The more you refer, the more you can save. If you’re a vividwireless customer on a month-to-month or fixed term plan, log into my account/refer- a-friend to find out more and tell your friends to go to vividwireless.com.au/friends

*Offer excludes pre-paid plans. There are no limits upon the number of referrals that existing customers can make, however the credit only applies once per new joining customer. Credit applies when the referred customer first activates a new device and remains a customer for more than 21 days. If a month-to-month or fixed term plan is subsequently cancelled, any remaining Offer credit will be forfeited. This Refer a Friend Rewards Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other special or staff and partner plan. Not redeemable for cash or pre-paid vouchers. Friends and family considering the Offer should check coverage at vividwireless.com.au/coverage before they sign up. Coverage depends on your location and selected device. Full terms and conditions at vividwireless.com.au/terms. We reserve the right to withdraw this Offer at any time.©2011 vividwireless Pty Ltd (65 137 696 461).

VIV0024/PM