Pelican Volume 90 Edition 6 - Disobey

UWA REALLY STOP US 08 CAN FROM JUMPING THE MOAT? KONG: A STATE 14 HONG OF DEFIANCE PELICAN’S CLASS OF 2019 26 GETS UNDRESSED Booladarlung I Edition 6 I Volume 90. I October 2019 I EST. 1929

DISOBEY

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The UWA Student Guild wants to complete our collection (back to 1930) because there are gaps. If you, or your parents, or even your grandparents have copies stashed away – before you throw them away, please consider donating them to the Guild Archive!

Please contact the Guild Archivist, Melissa Hetherington for further information. melissa.hetherington@guild.uwa.edu.au +61 6488 2832 2

PRES SOPHI SUSI

ITORIAL TORIAL TORIAL

Dear reader I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what to put into my last prezitorial.

I think what I want to say is thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to represent you, thank you to all of you who engaged with the Guild to let me know what you think, and thank you for the roller coaster of the year. The reason that I got involved in the Guild several years ago is because I wanted our University to be a better place, and with that same goal it has been an honour to represent you this year. With a new student app, raising the profile of student welfare at the university, new outlets in the Ref, the deal with IGA, lecture capture, a refreshed and fairer assessment policy and everything in between, it’s fair to say 2019 has been a jam-packed year for me and the team.

I’m sure 2020 will be just as big, and I want to take this opportunity to wish Bre Shannahan and her team all the best for next year. Being a student rep is difficult, intense, and often thankless work, and I am extremely excited to see them taking up the torch soon.

I also thought I’d leave you with three lessons I’ve learnt and relearnt this year as President: Be kind to yourself, and to others.

Be ambitious, back yourself and don’t be afraid to set yourself big goals.

Take care of your friends, and don’t forget your roots.

All the best for your next adventure, whatever it is.

The first time I saw a copy of Pelican, I knew I wanted to be the Editor one day. I remember walking into the shady tent on a sweltering O-Day, met with plastic cups of Woolworths brand lemon soft-drink and cute little pot plants, I was handed a copy by someone I thought was too cool to be talking to me. From there I wrote for nearly every edition I have been at Uni for. I was absolutely smitten. The first time I ever saw my name in print, I don’t think I could have been happier.

Pelican is nothing without those who contribute to it. I want to thank every single contributor who has written for us this year, to think I helped someone feel the same way I did putting their name in print makes me feel whole.

And there is of course, our sub editors.

A thousand thank-yous for your hard work and dedication to this little magazine. And it would kill me to not thank my feathered friend, Susie. Who knew a conversation comparing our Doc Martens one writer’s night would turn into this? Thank you for your patience, hard work and endless love.

I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to make this editorial perfect, but if it’s one thing I’ve learnt this year is that you sometimes have to learn to be happy with what is. And with the end of my final editorial, I shall reverseparallel park the creative car that is this magazine, turn off the ignition and hand the keys over to a group of people who hopefully understand how special it is to be a part of something with immense creative freedom. Thank you for allowing me to lead something that I will always love, and, of course- thank you for reading.

Sophie

Conrad

In the beginning we joked how heading this big bird would become us. And it’s true - as editors, we live and bleed Pelican in every waking (and dreaming) moment. But little did I know that working for this publication, with all its incredible people would be the highlight of my University experience.

Pelican is more than just a magazine.

It’s a meeting place. A platform where a cacophony of unique voices convene and are brought together as one. The greatest privileges of being an Editor this year was being at the heart of this powerful whirlwind of voices, this eternal lifeforce. I had the immensely enriching pleasure of reading the impassioned ideals, enraged opinions and raw reflections from students all over the world. Many sleepless nights, tears of laughter and sorrow were shed over the many voices this magazine holds. It is a gathering of dialogues, a conversation continuing for 90 years strong, that refuses to be quiet. Thank you everyone who joined us along the ride. It has been so wondrously gratifying to be able to draw together and disseminate the treasures, the ever-growing talents of the‘19 feathered flock. There are many more to thank; The Guild, especially Jenny, Tony and Conrad. Our stellar Subeditor team.The matriarch embodied – Sophie. Our patient and creative design wizard, Xander. You all amaze. I am eternally grateful.

Final words: LONG LIVE THE PRINTED PELICAN! Never stop flipping the bird and giving ‘em hell. Don’t let Pelican ever become pusher of toxic conformity - always disobey, and most importantly – in this age of online infobesity, defend the print! Fiercely! To the final feather!

It’s the keeper of the soul, a rare and precious gem. It’s where we rebel best.

Infinite love and serenity, Susie

HEAD EDITORS:

CONTRIBUTORS:

SOPHIE MINISSALE SUSANNAH CHARKEY

AVA CADEE, X

X = Words, O = Art ELOISE SKOSS, X PATRICK GUNASEKERA, X

SUB EDITORS:

GEORGE SAMIOS, X

ARTS: AIMEE DODDS & STIRLING KAIN

JACK LOGAN, X

CAMPUS NEWS: CAMERON CARR

ARJUN BHUGRA, X

DIVERSITY: ELIZA HUSTON & ELANOR LEMAN FASHION: MAJA MARIC & SAMUEL WORLEY

JENNIFER CALZONE, X COURTNEY WITHERS, X

CHRISTINE CHEN, X ZOE CASTLEDON, X IZZY YUEN, X

FILM: THOMAS TANG & DOMINIC KWACZYNSKI

ASHA COUCH, X

LIFESTYLE: AVA CADEE & ELOISE SKOSS

RIVA-JEAN LANDER, X

LITERATURE: ASHA COUCH

& LAURENT SHERVINGTON

TORKEL TENNBERG, X

MUSIC: PATRICK ROSO & ELLA FOX-MARTENS

SAM BEARD, X JORDAN SORESI, X IZABELA BARAKOVSKA, X

POLITICS: JACOB MITCHELL

KASEY GARRATT, X

SCIENCE: ZOE CASTLEDEN

& LACHLAN MACRAE

BAYLEY HORNE, X

TECHNOLOGY AND GAMING: BAYLEY HORNE

JOSHUA WONG, X

JAMES DOW, X LACHLAN SEVERENTY, X MIA PAGE, O MERLIN HOSKINS, X TALIEHSA HARRIS, X AMY PAPASERGIO, X

WANT TO JOIN THE PELICAN TEAM? DROP US A LINE AT THE CONTACT DETAILS BELOW!

STEPHANIE MASON, O DAC, O SHANNON GREY, X ELLA WYLYNKO, O

pelicanmagazine.com.au/ fb.com/PelicanMagazine @pelicanmagazine pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au The views expressed within this magazine are not the opinions of the UWA Student Guild or Pelican Editorial Staff but of the individual artists and writers.

COVER, EDITORIAL AND BACKPAGE PHOTOGRAPHY: STEPHANIE MASON, @ STEPHANIELLAURA DESIGNER XANDER SINCLAIR

The Pelican team acknowledges that the UWA Campus is located on the lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation who are the original storytellers and custodians of their land.

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CONTENTS 3 Editorials and Presitorial 4 Contributor and Subeditor List

FEATURES 6 Aunts in Agony Ava Cadee and Eloise Skoss

Art by Pauline Wong 10 Whoever Got a Good Story by Following the Rules?

Courtney Withers 26- 31 Class of Pelican 2019: UNDRESSED 33 By-Law BreakERs? An Interview with a MoatJumper Jordan Soresi 36 To Disobey or Not to Disobey Kasey Garratt LIFESTYLE 8 Can UWA Really Stop Us From Jumping the Moat?

Jennifer Calzone 13 Why Minimalism Is The New Black Arjun Bhugra 49 Five Ways to Disobey in Everyday Life Amy Papasergio DIVERSITY 46 abortions for fun and profit Merlin Hoskins FASHION 18 The Man in the Dress Has Feelings Too Patrick Gunasekera TECHNOLOGY AND GAMING 37 2K20 Won’t Stop Promoting Gambling to Kids Bayley Horne

LITERATURE 20 chapter zero Shannon Grey 20 A Dissonant Requiem Izzy Yuen 21 Geenunginy Bo Asha Couch 32 The Contortionists Tale of Normality Torkel Tennberg 48 The Tailor Taliehsa Harris ART 22 Concrete Rules: Words with Robert Cook Riva-Jean Lander 24 He Yunchang and the art of dissent Sam Beard 50 Boaring Intuitions #4 Comic by DAC MUSIC 34 26 Beats from Perth Streets: Interview with Jaycee Izabela Barakovska FILM 12 PSYCHO: Hitchcock, Hollywood and That Shower Scene Jack Logan POLITICS 14 Hong Kong: A State of Defiance Christine Chen 38 The Catastrophic Catalonian Clusterf@#k of Democracy James Dow 42 The Year of the Meteor Lachlan Severenty

40 Disobeying the Game Joshua Wong

Art by Mia Page

45 Chanboys Anonymous George Samios

SCIENCE 16 The Body Snatchers: When Medicine Met Crime Zoe Castledon

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AUNTS IN AGONY Eloise Skoss and Ava Cadee

Dear Aunts in Agony,

Dear Aunts in Agony,

I am currently on exchange in France, and struggling to make meaningful connections with other people while I am here. I have made some friends, but I was really hoping that this would be a magical time for me where I would meet some handsome French man who would sweep me off my feet, and with whom I would have a passionate love affair until I return home at the end of the semester. I have tried really hard to make this happen, I have hung around at bars that the locals frequent, I have tried approaching people at uni, I have even tried, God forbid, using Tinder. What am I doing wrong?

I am worried about my friend. He and I have been close for years, since High School, but lately I’ve been noticing that we are drifting apart. We hardly see each other anymore, and every time I text him to hang out, he always has some reason he is too busy, like going to debates, or getting coffee with freshers for some reason. He hangs out with this new crowd now, I always see them sitting together in the Circle at Reid library, or on Oak Lawn eating lunch together.

They have started dressing the same, and they always comment on each other’s profile pictures- I changed my profile pic the other day and the only person who commented was my Grandma asking me when I was next going to visit her! I am worried that my friend thinks I am too uncool to be seen around anymore, and I am sad for the end of a decade-long friendship.

Miserably.

French Disconnection

What do I do?

Regards, Bonjour French,

Dejected and Rejected

Firstly, I am incredibly envious of you being in France, how exquisite darling! Secondly, you’re in France, why are you staking the success of your semester abroad on the presence of a man? It sounds like what you’re looking for is a kind of French version of the Lizzie McGuire Movie, where you get mistaken for your celebrity doppelganger and ride around Paris on the back of a Vespa, while your best friend who is in love with you covers for your absence in class. Yeah that might sound wonderful, but remember how Pablo turns out in the end, as a jealous, manipulative arsehole hellbent on publicly humiliating both Lizzie and Isabella? MEN AIN’T SHIT, and French men are no different, albeit they mansplain in a much sexier accent. Why don’t you try to look around you more, and live in the present, enjoying the experience you are having, with the friends you have made, and if something happens along the way, take it as a bonus.

En grande agonie,

Your Aunts

Hello Dejected, Thank you for reaching out. I understand that you are feeling rejected and cast aside, and it is okay to feel sad about your situation. It seems to me that your friend has fallen in with the wrong crowd, perhaps by accident, or perhaps because they are trying to figure out who they are, and are searching for meaning and purpose in all the wrong places. Even if you do try to see him now, chances are he will be trying to evangelise to you about his newfound cause, and he will be a shell of the friend you once knew. Nobody can help your friend escape, except for himself. All you can do is be there for him if he eventually sees the light and wishes to return to normal life. I would give it a few more weeks, then he might come running back to you. If he doesn’t, he may well be lost to you forever. Find some new friends, write for Pelican.

In total agony,

Your aunts.

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FACT: Due to low numbers, compulsory voting in Guild Elections for 2021.

Art by Pauline Wong // @pauline.wong.10

Dear Aunts in Agony I met Tim in my first year engineering tute. We kicked it off straight away and now we can spend hours in the tav just chatting a way and having a laugh. To be perfectly honest we reckon we are just about the funniest blokes ever and all our mates seem to agree.

We always feel so much better after a sesh and good giggle about our latest tinder adventures and craft beer discoveries. We’re starting to think it’s time the whole world deserves to hear our hilarious thoughts and now we want to start a podcast! What can we do to make sure we are the next Serial?

Thank you muchly Poderick McPoddy

Hi Poderick If I’m being completely honest with you too - it sounds to me that what you need is not a new podcast, but a therapist. A therapist can help you to achieve everything you and Tim have dreamed of without continuing to perpetuate the oversaturation of ‘funny white dudes’ in the current podcast market. You can pay someone to listen to you, validate you and help you express your feelings in a helpful and empowering way. Once you’ve found a healthy way to express your emotions, that podcast itch will probably disappear!

Leave Sarah Koenig and Hamish and Andy to keep doing what they do best!

In Auditory Agony,

Your Aunts.

FACT: Guild Council for 2020 to be renamed All-Star Council.

7

CAN UWA REALLY STOP US FROM JUMPING THE MOAT?

Signs? What signs? These signs. Tackily blu-tacked to the pillars of Reid in the hopes of safeguarding the precious moat:

An Investigation by Jennifer Calzone

It was around this time last year when this very meme cut through my newsfeed’s Guild profile pictures, Pelican articles and bad Auspol to grab my attention.

This left me with just one question: What part of UWA by-laws prohibits any person from jumping into or over the Reid Library moat? Fast forward eleven months.

UWA Memes for Reid Library Teens struck again, but this time, much stronger.

After giving the page well-deserved “Haha react” (see above), a thought occurred to me; what does it actually say in the UWA By-laws about moat jumping behaviour?

I had hoped an eager Law or Politics student may have had the answer. But 123 comments later, no evidence presented itself. I then begun to peruse the UWA Bylaws myself, but to no avail. In a desperate attempt to fast-track the investigation, I went straight to the source, messaging the admin to see if they had any intel.

The investigation was dormant no longer. The people needed answers. An insatiable desire for the truth reignited inside me and burned stronger than Ararat Kebabs (may they rest in peace). I found what I was looking for.

8

The answer to this mystery could be found in The University of Western Australia Lands By-Laws: Part 5 – Conduct of Persons on the Lands where Clause 5.8 states: FACT: Democracy is dead. StuPols killed it.

“No person shall— (d) enter, remain or be in or upon any pond or ornamental water; (e) enter or walk on or over any part of the Lands which is enclosed, whether temporarily or otherwise, and on or near which there is affixed a notice prohibiting entry; on the Lands unless such act is done by a person as a requirement of such person’s employment with the University…”

What we have here, is the fact that (d) states that you cannot jump the moat if you are ‘in or upon’ it at any time. Hence, if you fall short, and land in the water, you are violating the by-laws. However, if you succeed, and never actually touch the water, you are not.

Part (e) alludes to a fixed notice prohibiting entry, which could be technically counted as the aforementioned laminated signage poorly pinned to the pillars of Reid. However, the reason for prohibiting entry is because the by-laws, which is part (d). This is a circular argument: the by-laws say that you have to abide by the notice prohibiting entry which states its reasoning as the by-laws? I don’t think so. So, our first answer is: You can’t jump the moat if you miss - but you can if you never actually enter the water.

So, the athletes among us can rest easy. But this still leaves semi-confident moat-jumpers with that question of seeding doubt – what happens if I fail my moat jump, do I violate the by-laws, and engage in misconduct?

The answer can be found in Part 9 – Penalties and Proceedings:

“9.1 A person who breaches any of these by-laws is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $100.

9.5 If a student breaches these by-laws that breach is misconduct for the purposes of Statute No. 17 of the Statutes of the University and the Vice-Chancellor may direct that the student be dealt with in accordance with that Statute.”

Therefore, according to 9.1, the worst that can happen is you cop a $100 fine. If you’re willing to sacrifice your social standing for one week and bring food from home, then this is a risk worth taking. And so, our second answer: If you’ve got a spare $100, you’re good to go.

Now to address Clause 9.5. With the help of Statute 17, the Rules and Regulations of UWA, and our trusty laminated sign, I was able to conclude that it’s probably a University Librarian who will deal with the misconduct.

(a) fine the student in accordance with the provisions of the Library Rules; (b) suspend the student’s borrowing privileges in accordance with the provisions of the Library Rules; (c) suspend the student for a period not exceeding seven calendar days from any of the student’s rights and privileges in relation to the Library; (d) exclude the student for a period not exceeding seven calendar days from the Library premises; and …

(2) The University Librarian must within ten University working days— (a) provide the student concerned with written notification of any penalty imposed under this clause and, except for which a specific penalty is prescribed in the Library Rules, of the student’s rights of appeal…“

Let’s break this down. Firstly, you can just talk your way out of this situation in an interview. But even if you somehow mess that up 1 (a) says the student may be fined. After following the Library Rules to the library website, I found no such fine for moat-jumping. If however, they do fine you, it won’t exceed $60 as this is the standard they set for all their other fines.

Our third answer: If you’ve got a spare $60, you’re good to go.

1 (b), (c) and (d) basically say you could get banned from the library for a week or not be allowed to borrow books and to be honest, who does that anyway? Our fourth answer: Commit to walking to BJ Library for a week, or just study at home.

Lastly, clause 2 says you can just appeal the decision.

This is your last line of defence, as UWA’s bureaucratic bull rears its ugly head once again. So, our fifth and final answer: Appeal the decision and let UWA’s bureaucratic processes buy you more than enough time to work this out/graduate.

In conclusion, you’ve got options baby! There’s strength in numbers. Unless those numbers are the clause numbers of the UWA By-Laws and its subsidiary documents. We have the power. Disobey. Jump the moat. Pay a $100 fine. That is the maximum price of eternal glory.

They can’t stop us all.

This led me to a handy page called ‘Powers of the University Librarian: Regulations for student conduct and discipline’ which states:

“8.(1) If the University Librarian determines…that a student has committed an act of misconduct in or in relation to the library he or she may do one or more of the following —

FACT: Graduation ceremonies this year will include fireworks at Winthrop.

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WHOEVER GOT A GOOD STORY You always have the choice to follow the rules. But where does that get you? It gets you a story that is straightforward and one dimensional. Footage that isn’t close enough to the action. An irrelevant interview because you weren’t allowed to interview your first choice.

As a budding journalism student, have I only just come to realise the saying ‘rules are made to be broken.’ But why place such strict rules on the media, when stories are made to be heard? And why do we feel this innate human conscious telling us not do something, when it is beneficial for a story?

I think this subconscious awareness of always doing the right thing and always following every rule to a tee, has to come from somewhere or someone. We learnt in primary school to sit up straight, line up in two lines outside after recess, have the correct handwriting style, don’t hold the pencil like that, refer to the recommended reading list and well, you get the idea.

We are brought up with strict codes of behaviour and conventions of just about everything, that our creativity and individuality are compromised in the process.

I remember being told in Year 6 by my class teacher that I was doing well in all the areas of study, but she had only one comment to make to my parents, something that has stuck with me ever since. She said that, “I didn’t take enough risks.” That was literally a column on the academic marking rubric. Risk taking.

And apparently, I didn’t do enough of it.

Perhaps journalism wasn’t the right choice for someone who liked to play things safe.

How could little Year 6 Courtney comprehend this kind of comment, when I’d been so used to doing everything exactly the way it was taught? And besides, what kind of risks was I supposed to be taking in Year 6 anyway? I mean sure, I was taking a risk every recess and lunch playing four square with my buddies (my god, that game was competitive), but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the type of risk my teacher was referring to.

BY FOLLOWING THE RULES?

Courtney Withers

Maybe I used that comment as fuel, or maybe I’m reading into things too far, but I’ve always wanted to be a Journalist. I’ve always been a storyteller and have 10

FACT: Wanted: Cure for a growing deadly disease affecting 80% of UWA students – ‘political apathy’.

liked writing and expressing my thoughts. Although journalism has a formulaic approach to the writing, I still enjoy the process. But, I certainly didn’t realise the expectation that is put on journalists to take risks and disobey.

Like I said, that ‘risk’ comment kind of weirdly stuck with me throughout high school and into my adolescence.

I FOUND MYSELF ASKING, “AM I THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX? IS THIS IDEA ORIGINAL ENOUGH? AM I TAKING A RISK BY DOING THIS? AND WILL IT PAY OFF?”.

These kinds of questions did provide some interesting benefits with my schoolwork and my process of thinking creatively. I guess that’s why I thought it was a good idea to write and perform a rap during my original solo performance in Year 12 Drama, about the creation of Starbucks drinks. But, that is definitely a story for another time!

Moving into my current degree in Journalism, I found myself asking the same kinds of questions. Is this story good enough? Does it break the rules a little bit, to bring light to something more important? Is it actually beneficial to disobey the rules?

I find myself asking these questions because fundamentally, any good journalist should. Quite recently I was completing a Journalism Video assignment. I’d planned my whole story, written the script and had finalised all of the details. I emailed the owner of the premises to just double check if it was all good to whip out my fancy Sony camera to film my piece, expecting to hear quite a straightforward response. I checked my email, and to my annoyance, they just said “no”.

They said “No private filming or photography on their land, as it wasn’t something they could facilitate.”

All of my sleuthing and Nancy Drew skills were thrown out the window and I needed to find an alternative fast.

I found myself in a bit of a ‘Catch 22’ situation. On one hand, sure, I could drop the story completely, and find something less interesting but more attainable, or I could go ahead with the story and film very sneakily.

The Year 6 comment echoed around in my mind and to my surprise, I decided to go with the latter. I would surely be getting an A+ for risk taking on this metaphorical rubric.

I filmed the content on my phone using an attached microphone and tried to blend into the crowd, without looking completely like story hungry journalist. If that isn’t the plot of some spy/mystery/whodunnit kind of story, then I don’t know what is!

The monologue of a dramatic detective voiceover played in my head, “She searched the room for any prying eyes or camouflaged workers, before holding up

her phone sneakily to capture the footage…”.

Having always been told to follow the rules and stand in line, I couldn’t believe that I was about to go against something someone had told me directly not to do. But, it would make for an interesting story and bring to light something that was certainly in the public interest.

I guess this whole ordeal got me thinking about why I felt the pressure to get a good story, by means of breaking the rules. Is there a prevalent expectation that journalists should go above and beyond normal reporting procedures, because stories that disobey are more often than not, more entertaining and appealing?

Sometimes, disobeying or going against something that innately feels wrong to be doing, can be quite difficult and taxing. I remember going to the District Court last semester to find a case for a court report assessment and landed upon one that was quite emotional. With permission, I took notes in the back of the courtroom and began to plan out the story in my head.

In my scrambling of note taking, I didn’t notice that the mother of the man on trial had sat next to me and was waiting in anticipation to hear the outcome. The judge read out the verdict and sentenced the man to however many years in jail, to which the lady next to me burst out in tears. Only then did I realise the connection of this lady to the case and I immediately felt so rude for writing notes right in front of her.

Although I had sought permission from the judge to take notes of the case, I felt as if I had disobeyed a sort of emotional or unwritten rule.

I learnt an important lesson that day, that disobeying something isn’t as simple as doing something someone told you not to do. It can also be something that is implied or generally expected. I certainly wouldn’t have been taking such visible notes in front of this lady, if I had realised who she was. But that’s just the way things work. Unfortunately, you can’t please everyone, and in the midst of disobeying, sometimes we can neglect human emotion.

I’m still figuring my place in this confusing world and how the words I write can affect other people.

I’m entering a profession where, yes, sometimes you actually have to break the rules. Whether it’s filming something sneakily when someone said not to, trespassing on private land to gain footage of something that’s in the public’s interest, or publishing something that could potentially be seen as defamatory. I’ve accepted that this is something I might have to do.

A journalist needs to take risks, so I’ve now come to realise, but they need to be in light of finding out something important. Sure you can ‘piss’ someone off here and there, or potentially go to jail if shield laws don’t work to protect you, but who wants to read something that isn’t interesting or important?

And anyway, whoever got a good story by following the rules?

FACT: All Pelican Writers get an assured ticket to heaven.

11

PSYCHO HITCHCOCK, HOLLYWOOD AND THAT SHOWER SCENE Jack Logan

The year was 1959, and renowned British director Alfred Hitchcock was entering the fourth decade of his critically and commercially successful career, having just released North by Northwest to widespread acclaim and attained celebrity status after multiple seasons as host of his show Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

At this point in his career, Hitchcock had become known for the same enigmatic thrillers that resembled his latest release, counting high-tension films like Dial M for Murder and Rear Window among his more celebrated works. Disobeying suggestions that the aging director should retire while he was ahead, Hitchcock decided that 1959 would be a turning point in his career, producing his best work yet: Psycho.

Though the rights to Robert Bloch’s novel of the same name were personally acquired by Hitchcock for a mere $9 500, the project ran into trouble before shooting had even begun. Long-time partners at Paramount Pictures flatly refused to produce the film, declaring the source material a “repulsive” work that would be impossible to film. Hitchcock would ultimately never make another film with Paramount and defied the studio system by choosing to finance the film personally. Determined to keep costs down, all bets were now off: in dire need of a crew, Hitchcock brought onboard some familiar faces from Alfred Hitchcock Presents to run production on a shoestring budget. He forfeited his usual quarter-million director’s fee and hired leading lady Janet Leigh for a quarter of her usual salary. Though colour films had become the norm over the last two decades, it remained an expensive procedure, and the Psycho crew opted to save money by shooting in black-and-white.

Having braved the confines of the studio system and securing a budget under a million dollars, Hitchcock next faced opposition from the Production Code, which had enforced the content of every American film since the 1930s. Psycho, unprecedented as it was in its depiction of violence and sexuality, quickly put the director at odds with Hollywood censors. He had flagrantly disobeyed convention by opening the film with a depiction of two lovers engaged in an affair.

While Hitchcock’s depiction of the then-taboo practice of unmarried sexual relationships was considered unusual, other objections were plainly ridiculous: Psycho has the dubious distinction of being the first film to depict a toilet flushing. Hitchcock overruled all objections to his controversial scenes, paving the way for the abolition of the restrictive Production Code only eight years later.

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Psycho’s most controversial element, however, was one that ran the risk of alienating the audience entirely, but ultimately was what earned the film its place in cinema history. After spending the first act depicting the escape of one-time thief Marion Crane, portrayed

by Leigh, Hitchcock suddenly killed her off, less than halfway through the film, in a shockingly violent manner. Swiping the apparent centrepiece of the film off the table was always going to be controversial, and the director ensured it would be done in a way audiences would never forget, with the famous shower scene. Lasting three minutes, the scene took almost a week to shoot, involving over seventy different shots to complete. Through frequent, alternating closeup shots, the audience experiences Marion’s pain as the attack unfolds, the now iconic screeching of the violins heralding her doom. This crescendo of sound, part of a larger original work by Bernard Herrmann appropriately titled “The Murder”, almost never made it into the movie, with Hitchcock originally intending the victim’s screams to be the only sound that appeared in the sequence. However, he was enamoured by Herrmann’s piece upon first hearing it that he not only included it in the scene but he instantly doubled the man’s salary. As the killer leaves the scene of the crime and the dying Crane slips into a pool of blood and running water, the music slows and deepens, creating a dull groan that accompanies the victim’s dying breaths.

Blood circles the vortex of the shower drain, which transitions into the dead eye of poor Marion Crane: gazing at their beloved protagonist, audiences were shocked, and utterly clueless as to what would happen next. The scene is lit in such a way that, though we clearly observe Marion’s killer, their figure is silhouetted to conceal their identity; Hitchcock’s background, after all, was in thrillers, and he understands that audiences would appreciate a good mystery as much as he did.

The shower scene cemented Psycho’s status as an instant classic that defied Hollywood norms and ushered in the modern horror genre. Bret Easton Ellis, who would later create the similarly iconic American Psycho, remarked that “Murder was now going to be an acceptable part of entertainment” and indeed much of the slasher film subgenre owes its success to the daring of Psycho, with film franchises such as Halloween and Scream focusing on mysterious, knife-wielding figures that prey on beautiful young women resembling Marion Crane. And what of Janet Leigh, the Hollywood starlet who portrayed the ill-fated character? The role earned her a Golden Globe and made her a household name, but she never took a shower again, opting only to take baths. She would later remark that only upon seeing the film did she realise “how vulnerable and defenceless one is.”

FACT: Guild candidates policies promise to end poverty, cure cancer and restore eyesight to the blind.

WHY

MINIMALISM

IS THE NEW BLACK Arjun Bhugra

You must have heard the word ‘minimalism’ being thrown a lot lately. With well-known figures like YouTuber Matt D’Avella, Japanese organising consultant Marie Kondo and author Fumio Sasaki all endorsing the practice, the term has found itself rather in vogue.

When we think of minimalism, our minds tend to drift towards imagining completely unfurnished rooms with bare, white walls. We tend to sometimes associate minimalism with deprivation. Contrary to this misconception, minimalism liberates more than deprives. For this reason, it has taken the world by storm.

For those of you that are yet trying to understand how there’s a link between minimalism and liberation, think of minimalism more as ‘essentialism’. This means you’re living intentionally with only what you truly need.

Minimalism follows a different interpretation for each person since every individual has their own unique desires. Minimalism stays true to 80/20 rule, also known as The Pareto Principle. This means 20 per cent of your clothes account for 80 per cent of your everyday wear.

As such, just stick to having a fifth the cupboard size and simplify your life by getting rid of the rest of the clutter.

After realising that I was becoming a hoarder, I decided that minimalism might be worth a try. As such, over the past few months I decided to break away from owning stuff and adopt some minimalism living into my life.

Preparing to embark on this new adventure, I emptied out all my cupboards, discarded all the junk that lay in drawers and narrowed down my clothes from over hundred articles of clothing to about thirty five pieces.

From this insane process, I have learnt some lessons that Marie Kondo would absolutely endorse Cleaning my room has never been easier: What used to be a nightmare at one point in time is now simpler than ever. With so much clutter in my room, I didn’t know where to start and seeing so much junk often made me postpone cleaning to a later date, which not surprisingly never really happened.

Decisional fatigue is at an all-time low. Since I’m only sticking with the clothes I have always loved, not only has laundry become, but selecting clothes has become a breeze. Seeing as though the only clothes in my cupboard are those that I genuinely love, I’m quick to put together sartorial masterpieces without fearing if I made the wrong choice for myself. I’m also able to direct my time towards things that really matter, allowing me to realise that the time I used to spend worrying about how I looked was quite wasteful.

I feel less stressed. I used to be really stressed thinking about coming back home and being greeted by all the clutter in my room. Now, I return from Uni with a sense of liberation knowing I’m coming back to a room that is tidy and low-maintenance.

I find myself being more environmentally conscious.

Living more minimally has made me more conscious of my carbon footprint. I’m no longer swayed by the aggressive gust of consumerism and my dependence on materialism. When I go out, I think hard about whether the item is really going to add value to my life. I consider if buying these items will encourage fast fashion or consumerism, most of which is responsible for escalated carbon emissions.

So far, my minimalism journey has been exhilarating to say the least. I can certainly say that my life has become much simpler since adopting the practice. It’s allowed me to have less dependence on being validated by material items and kept my surroundings clutterfree, thereby improving both my physical and mental wellbeing.

If you do decide to give the practice a go, remember however that minimalism is more of a path to getting one’s life back on track to achieve clarity, rather than a destination. Minimalism is there to aid you in achieving your goals, without having background noise pull you back.

FACT: Xander (the designer of this magazine) has hidden a penis somewhere.

If you find it you win a years supply of pints at the tav.

13

HONG KONG: A STATE OF DEFIANCE Torn between its past as a British colony and its future as a Chinese city, Hong Kong affirms its own identity by way of protest and defiance.

Christine Chen

In the summer of 1994, the Communist Party of China erected a giant clock in the centre of Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Measuring sixteen metres tall and ten metres wide, the oversized timepiece counted down the time until, as it loudly proclaimed on the front, “the Chinese Government resumes the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong”. For China, colonial Hong Kong was a sore and constant reminder of its Century of Humiliation and defeat by Imperial forces during the First Opium War – taking Hong Kong back was to be a moment of pride and justice served. For the United Kingdom, Hong Kong was an embodiment of Western ideals and free markets – handing it back meant renouncing the last remaining bastion of a once illustrious empire.

For the citizens of Hong Kong, however, with interests that were neither fully aligned with China nor Britain, the upcoming handover to China was to be a moment of uncertainty and trepidation, particularly after what had transpired five years prior in the very location China’s conspicuous countdown clock now stood: in 1989, millions of pro-democracy Chinese students and supporters occupied Tiananmen Square in what became part of the largest protest movement in China’s modern history. Their calls for reform were silenced when China’s People’s Liberation Army indiscriminately opened fire on civilian protestors. In the aftermath of Tiananmen Square, over 400 Chinese activists fled the country through Hong Kong to escape arrest. Residents of Hong Kong also pressed Beijing for stronger guarantees of their political freedoms during handover negotiations. Eventually, a SinoBritish Joint Declaration and Basic Law was drafted, with China promising not to change Hong Kong’s way of life – under a fifty-year guarantee of “one country, two systems”, Hong Kong would be allowed to retain its capitalist system, independent judicial powers, free press, and its political freedoms of expression, free speech and assembly.

14

FACT: The Guild Council can’t stop climate change.

“PROTESTORS BECAME EMBOLDENED BY THE TASTE OF THEIR COLLECTIVE POWER. THEY REALISED THAT A TRULY FREE AND DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM WOULD NOT COME EASILY TO THEM – IT WOULD HAVE TO BE FOUGHT FOR AND DEFENDED CONSTANTLY”

The transfer of sovereignty from the United Kingdom to China formally occurred on the midnight of July 1, 1997 with a glamorous ceremony and display of fireworks, attended by a myriad of international guests.

Less than a day into Chinese rule, as the People’s Liberation Army crossed over the old colonial border into Hong Kong and Beijing’s new viceroy took over the Governor’s residence, pro-democracy politicians gathered on the balcony of the Legislative Council to protest China’s abolition of Hong Kong’s elected assembly. And so, a shaky status quo was established – Hong Kong would act as a cosmopolitan and commercial hub for China, and China would turn a blind eye to Hong Kong’s occasional bouts of protest and dissent.

To the surprise of many, bracing for the worst, the status quo held for the first few years. Yet, with President Xi Jinping consolidating more power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, Beijing’s instances of encroachment and interference into Hong Kong’s affairs have become more pronounced in recent times; the demarcation between mainland China and Hong Kong created from “one country, two systems” has diminished considerably. Prominent dissidents that were once tolerated have now seemingly vanished from the city, controversial political groups have been banned, journalists expelled, and many of Hong Kong’s largest and most influential corporations have been absorbed by Beijing.

In response, Hong Kongers’ predilection of taking to the streets has slowly become more frequent, militant and aggressive in nature. When a decision was made in 2014 by China’s Standing Committee to change the nomination process of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive to allow citizens to elect a leader themselves, the people were not impressed, as only pre-screened, committee-vetted candidates would be eligible to run: a failed attempt at granting universal suffrage.

This gave rise to the Umbrella Movement – the largest display of resistance to the Communist Party since the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations. But while the demonstrations in 1989 resulted in the violent suppression of protestors, the demonstrations in 2014 remarkably resulted in the exact opposite: Beijing decided against violence, opting instead for 不妥协， 不流血 (“no bloodshed, but no concessions”). Moreover, protestors became emboldened by the taste of their collective power. They realised that a truly free and democratic system would not come easily to them – it would have to be fought for and defended constantly.

The realisation galvanised unity between generations, factions and outlooks. It is therefore unsurprising that when an extradition bill that threatened to expose residents to China’s opaque legal system was proposed in March of 2019, that a new wave of protests would break out. A broad cross-section of society, including pop stars, students, academics and civil servants, joined to not only protest the bill and defend their livelihoods, but to uphold Hong Kong’s unique identity as being distinct from mainland China. Over two million of the city’s population of seven million have taken part, despite escalating crackdowns by police.

The power of protests is often intangible, or unable to be seen in the moment – the effects can be dispersed and catalytic. Since the handover in 1997, the lonely cries of frustration and the acts of resistance of a few have slowly, but surely, manifested into a wider movement championing democracy, selfdetermination and political freedom. In the process, the movement has redefined the identity of Hong Kong. Stuck between its past as a British colony and future as a Chinese city, with the guarantee of “one country, two systems” set to expire in 2047 the democratic fervour of Hong Kongers will only intensify.

Protests have become its instrument of leverage and something that Beijing cannot ignore for much longer.

不妥协，不流血 “no bloodshed, but no concessions”

FACT: Guild President for 2021 will be decided via a rose ceremony.

15

THIS MAN IN A DRESS HAS FEELINGS TOO Patrick Gunasekera

Cw: homophobia, heterosexism, hateful language Gay cunt. Cocksucker. Soft fuck. “Soft fuck” actually happened last weekend; I’d clumsily allowed all my loyalty cards to fall out of my wallet yet again and was scrambling to pick them up off the road when I heard someone approaching. Thinking they might help me pick up the rest of my many scattered cards, I was surprised to hear an ominous laugh coming from their direction, followed by, “Soft fuck,” spoken in a manner very much not associated with giving someone a nice compliment. What can I say? It was the first time in months I’d gone out wearing nail polish, of course something like this was going to happen. Especially when I was also wearing dangly earrings and a floral shirt and, um, glitter.

WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES SOMEONE NOISILY DECLARE, “MEN AREN’T SUPPOSED TO WEAR WOMEN’S CLOTHES!” AS THEY PASS ME ON A BICYCLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY? Or ask “Are these for you?” as I’m paying for new earrings at a swanky boutique literally just after asking the person working there to open the jewellery cabinet so I could try different pairs out in the mirror for a decent amount of time before verbally telling them I’ve decided on the one that best suits my skin colour (yes, Karen, I’m pretty sure these are for me)? There’s a lot of misconceptions out there about femme guys like me, many of which manifest as fear and disgust. The way such beliefs can intersect with our lives looks very different depending on where we live and what other marginalisations affect our lives and how we can and can’t move through the world.

For me, gender nonconformity in the way I dress has been a big part of my life since I came out as queer at fourteen. My go-to looks back then were short flared skirts, wide-webbed fishnets, dark lipstick, and one very beloved lime green wig. I remember being met with hostility on the streets as soon as I started 16

expressing myself like this, even at that young age. I had people shout things from their cars and invade my personal space threateningly when I was on my own. I remember a lot of tension at home as I started to find joy in exploring niche aesthetics like space grunge and however you’d describe trying to look like Amanda Palmer (yes, a problematic fave as I’m now aware). I remember my dad telling me to tone it down all through my teenage years, and Amma getting very upset as I tried to introduce her to my most cherished lipsticks. Lipstick was my favourite then. I remember fighting with my parents for weeks about wanting to wear lipstick to a family friend’s wedding. I remember not being allowed to go to my brother’s high school graduation because I wanted to wear lipstick to the ceremony. I remember the guys around me asking, “What’s up with the skirt?” or just, “What the fuck?” But I also remember a lot of my peers being incredible allies, standing up for me against rude comments and celebrating my happiness when I sported a look I felt really great in.

Today, I’m actually a lot less comfortable with who I am, and I dress very differently because of this. Coming out meant being able to live my life more authentically without holding anything back, but it also meant getting up close and personal with the most noxious sides of homophobia which crept into all areas of my life. Around two years ago, I stopped wearing femme clothing and revamped my wardrobe with the ugliest collar shirts and shorts I’ve ever owned. I forgot how to express myself, I felt horribly self-conscious and uncomfortable when I tried dipping my toes back into something like wearing short shorts or a chunky necklace. I got into the awful habit of putting myself back in the closet whenever I entered new spaces, attempting to introduce myself as a straight man and refrain from candidly discussing anything mildly LGBTIQA+ related. It was a really rough time of not knowing who I am because I wouldn’t allow myself to just be him. And the truth is, I’m still recovering from this and working out who I am and what I actually like to wear.

FACT: UWA is set to secede from WA in 2020.

However, there’s also been a lot of wins over the past couple of years which I should mention too. Last year I got my first piercings done, my earlobes, and it was one of the best things I’ve done with my adulthood so far; consensually putting my body through pain for the sole purpose of celebrating my queerness and gender nonconformity. And I came out to myself as actually not attracted to women at the start of this year, which was a huge milestone I’d been hopelessly afraid of for ages. These both made way for me to start being visibly queer more often again.

But then, gender nonconformity in my young adulthood looks quite different to what it did as a teen. For example, I have more control over what I can wear in my own home and with my own chosen family, and without my parents around I am my own sole provider of permission to live however the fuck I want. Most curiously, I’m surrounded by people who are also working through this time of life in their own ways, people often interacting with my queer visibility with hope and with shame. A lot of fellow queer people of colour and/or queer people of faith have disclosed in recent times that seeing me embracing queerness while also embracing culture and faith has kept them going when they saw no light ahead. Knowing I’ve helped multiple people in dark times from afar just by being visibly queer has given me so much to live for; it’s an astonishing way to fulfil purpose for others, and for myself.

Another side of being visible looks like straight men treating me differently when I’m wearing something femme. Sometimes this comes from not knowing what to say or how to respond if they haven’t seen me dress that way before, but more often than not it comes from those men still working things out with their own sexuality or gender. It can be hard to know how to respond; sometimes I can see hope in their eyes when we’re talking with each other, other times they’ll do many double-takes and find awkward excuses to talk to me and I’ll feel kind of exploited. I know it’s important to set standards of pride and confidence in one’s sexuality and gender expression, but I don’t want these men to only be seeking such qualities through me. But also, it’s a super personal thing for them, and I don’t think they realise I notice it pretty much every time they behave like this around me.

And then, there’s the other gender conforming people who treat me differently when I’m wearing something femme. This will usually be cis women who’ve never had to deal with femmephobia in the ways someone male assigned at birth has. It’ll start with the compliments, gleaming assertions of how much they love my earrings and how I’m such a great dresser.

And then there will be questions about whether I make my own clothes, or whether I know the gay people they know who also live in my suburb when it had nothing to do with the previous conversation (ffs). But it’s the compliments that are the most overwhelming.

It’ll literally happen every day I wear something super femme like a playsuit or a dress. No one ever compliments my favourite shorts or my favourite print

socks anymore. It feels like people only care about how I’ve dressed when I’m being fabulous. It feels like when I wear femme clothes, it’s no longer for myself as much as it is for the gender conforming cis women lapping at me like puppies. This happened a lot during Fringe this year, which was just after I’d come out to myself as gay. I was going out at night in really colourful clothes and bumping into blocks of colleagues at a time. Fervent compliments were getting thrown at me from every direction, and no one ever asked me how I was getting home that night, if I’d had to deal with any homophobic shitheads on the streets of Northbridge already. The most devastating parts of only being seen for my glamour is when things start to flare up with a number of my disabilities while I’m out, and I need to engage with the space I’m in from a chair or from my back on the floor. It’s as predictable as turning a light off at the switch. These gender conforming people who were basking in my company suddenly turn their backs and stop talking to me, leaving me isolated and vulnerable as soon as I needed to be the crip again.

The emotional energy involved with dealing with questioning men and gender conforming cis women is insurmountable. Additionally, there’s the way people look at me in public. Sometimes it’s repeated concerned looks, sometimes it’s people immediately looking away after the first accidental glimpse of such a beast, and sometimes it’s long stares from searching eyes, seeing me as a freak or a long-suppressed desire instead of the sensitive, breathing human before them.

And then there’s the internalised shame. That I should dress “normally” to stop the people around me from feeling uncomfortable. That I can’t be a man if I dress like a sissy. Sissy. This word is a lead weight in my chest I haul around with me whenever I step outside looking like a not quite acceptable queer person, whenever I’m that queer person in a room, the only man wearing makeup or a dress. I feel like I draw so much heavy attention to myself. I don’t know if there will ever possibly be a time in my life where I could put myself through this more than I currently do.

I wrote in my diary once that sometime, I will be fearless every day. I wrote this because I believed courage was all I needed to be able to wear what I want to, whenever I want to. I know now that it’s so much more complex than just being courageous. I burn out easily and need to take breaks and go back to passing as straight for a bit. I’m also dealing with being visibly disabled and a brown man with a beard and a young person. I’m also dealing with sexual shame around being gay, and working out how to be a confidently ethically non-monogamous and sexual person without fear of appearing “too queer”. I hope that in the future, the people and spaces I engage with regularly make less of a deal about something so personal and draining for me. I hope I will be able to express myself really honestly and openly and to the as yet undiscovered full extents of my queerness. I hope to never be the only femme man in a room again. I know I’m already doing a lot of work to make this possible. I hope I will not always feel like the only one doing the work.

FACT: There will never be another Geoffrey Bolton.

17

THE BODYSNATCHERS:

WHEN MEDICINE MET CRIME Zoe Castleden

BODIES BECAME COMMODITIES. THE NUMBER OF MEDICAL SCHOOLS GREW OVER DECADES, INCREASING DEMAND. GRAVEROBBING WENT FROM A CRIME OF OPPORTUNITY TO A LUCRATIVE CAREER FOR THOSE WILLING.

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It was the 18th century; the age of enlightenment. Science and rationality were in vogue. The first modern hospitals, secular and scientifically minded, were founded.

Alongside them, the first medical schools.

But these schools had a problem.

As with today’s medical schools, there was only one way to give medical students the hands-on experience needed to qualify them as surgeons. They needed cadavers.

The average person was not going to generously donate their body to science. Anatomical dissections in those days were run as lectures open to the public, and the body denied a conventional funeral. Dissection was seen as a dishonourable end, a fate worse than death. Executed criminals were the official source of cadavers for educational purposes – to the point where capital punishment and anatomical dissection became synonymous. Family and friends of the condemned criminals would riot at executions to prevent the cadaver from being taken by anatomists. Dissections were part education and part spectacle, where the morbidly curious could see the gory insides of convicted criminals.

FACT: If you say Contiki three times in front of a mirror a second-year marketing major will appear.

Still, supply from the executed could not meet the demand from medical schools. Students, slyly encouraged by teachers, would steal bodies from fresh gravesites to practice on. As demand for cadavers grew, the practice of graverobbing was taken up by criminals. One cadaver suitable for dissection was worth around two guineas - two week’s wages as a servant.

Bodies became commodities. The number of medical schools grew over decades, increasing demand.

Graverobbing went from a crime of opportunity to a lucrative career for those willing.

THE ANATOMISTS CALLED THEM “RESURRECTIONISTS”.

THE PUBLIC CALLED THEM “BODYSNATCHERS”.

The practice was illegal, but bodysnatching was treated more as an open secret than a heinous crime. The rich bought iron grates, known as “mortsafes”, to cover their graves; the poor simply hoped their loved ones wouldn’t be the ones disinterred. Although the general public grew to hate resurrectionists and subsequently be distrustful of anatomists, body-snatching was seen by the authorities as a means to a greater good, a sacrifice to ensure that surgeons were properly trained. A body wasn’t considered anyone’s property. At a time when stealing a loaf of bread could get you sent to Australia, a body-snatcher might get a public whipping.

The public were correct in their distrust. Concerns about surgeons disrespecting the dead were not helped by stories of anatomists treating the dead with insensitivity.

Female cadavers were mocked and groped by lecturers. A medical student dropped a human leg down a chimney into a pot of soup.

By the early 19th century, resurrectionists had grown bolder, and some graduated to murdering healthy individuals for the value of their corpse. People grew to avoid medical schools at night, lest they be murdered by medical students for study material. The most famous body-snatching murderers were William Burke and William Hare.

Hare was a landlord; when one of his tenants died suddenly in 1827, still owing four pounds rent, Burke suggested they sell his body to a local anatomist to cover the cost.

They sold the man’s cadaver to a local anatomist for seven pounds and ten shillings – 500 pounds in today’s money. Burke and Hare went on to kill sixteen people over the next ten months.

The Burke and Hare murders helped change the opinion of the authorities on resurrectionists. In 1832, the Anatomy Act passed through parliament. This act didn’t prevent the sale of bodies, but it did assist in ending the practice by providing anatomists with alternate means of obtaining cadavers. You could now (family willing) donate your body to science. Given the public’s distaste for resurrectionists, this act may seem like such an act would have gotten mass support.

However, the act also allowed for anatomists to access “unclaimed corpses”: those who died in hospitals, prisons, and workhouses.

The act, like the resurrectionists that preceded it, structurally targeted the poor.

We can look back at the age of resurrectionists as a fun little period when medical science was still on its training wheels, struggling to establish itself and manage its resources. However, the exploitation of the poor and oppressed – and their bodies - extends into the present. Earlier this year, the American Biological Resource Centre was sued by families whose

deceased loved ones had been resold without their consent. The Centre made itself an attractive option for low-income families, offering services such as cremation for free in exchange for donation of the body. One man involved in the lawsuit, Jim Stauffer, believed his mother’s body was being used in Alzheimer’s research. Biological Resource Centre sold it to the military for use in blast testing.

The dead body remains a controversial thing, positioned at the intersection of science, religion, tradition, and emotion.

Knowledge was gained through the dissection of disinterred bodies.

Gray’s Anatomy (not that one) a seminal text in medical science, is based on the bodies of the poor who died in workhouses. It’s easy to get caught up in the concept of us all supporting the greater good, but we need to remember that the load is nearly never spread evenly.

Scientific progress should not rely on exploitation. Anyone who wants to should be allowed to rest in peace.

Illustration of resurrectionists John Holmes and Peter Williams at work, whipped for stealing dead bodies (1887).

FACT: The Guild won’t protect you from the gamma rays.

19

CHAPTER ZERO

A DISSONANT REQUIEM

the air is heavy with rain that is yet to fall

Bells toll to tell the time

watch

Low and slow

as my eyes take shape on a stranger’s face

Grey plumes roll by, a silent suffocant

and my scent lingers in places I have never been

They fall, one by one

keep

Like dominoes

Shannon Grey

Izzy Yuen

my name scrawled on the inside cover of the book you

The ground rumbles in dissent

just can’t seem to throw away

Swallowing cities whole

don’t

Seas scrape skies

reach for something

Down we go, with salty spray

you are not yet ready to hold

Drowning in siren song

the nature you couldn’t break from

A silent chorus

meant

Sharpen your tongue behind closed lips

your selflessness

Pen poised at the table, inkless

was just selfishness

An agreement, unsigned

to me

Unkept

chapters should not be written

Bated breath till the day it draws its last

for people who only need a verse

A breath of pollution

understand

A breath of pain

that I could write you pretty

Till at last, we do too

but I much prefer you raw.

One by one Like dominoes A scheduled mourning A date of death A funeral march A distant requiem

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Asha Couch

It is a constant effort to remind myself that perspective is everything.

I perceive this space to be a place; even the neutrality of nature is intentionally created, curated and instated in this soil.

hacking (down) trees, I can’t help but Keep in mind They are the same; person versus planet.

I think we must have

Stories nestled amongst the leaves of these trees,

(stolen for ourselves) hearts of granite

entwined like painted vines;

Clawed / pried / carved

remembered and recited and retold,

from the heart of this

both new and old;

land that we have starved;

perpetuated / patched up / matched up to make (up) meaning.

shaped into place, tailored to our inorganic tastes, i try to Keep in mind

Nainya kataitch All around me this organic orchestra hums apian conductor keeping time.

We have fallen out of rhythm; out of time / out of space into (the emptiness of) Cultivated Place.

Keep in mind I have been taught to

Karnya.

walk in time to this city’s quickened pulse, (dabakan koorliny) hooked on a diet of caffeine and coal and convenience and Keep in mind that we are an uninvited audience looking at our phones eating up time spent on mindlessness Never mind the

NOONGAR GLOSSARY Geenunginy Bo - the place for looking a long way traditional name for Kings Park (Kaartdijin Noongar) Nainya kataitch - listen to me (Bindon and Chadwick 365) Dabakan koorliny - walk slowly (Kaartdijin Noongar)

peacock/ing plumes of

Kal-luk-ngar - burnt (Bindon and Chadwick 299)

smoke that we exhale

Karnya - shame (Kaartdijin Noongar)

(kal-luk-ngar / stale / blackened) Hacking (up) lungs and 21

CONCRETE RULES: WORDS WITH ROBERT COOK Interview by Riva-Jean Lander Robert Cook is the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA)’s Curator of 20th Century Arts. He curated AGWA’s most recent exhibition, Perth Brutal: Dreaming in Concrete, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of the AGWA building. Architecture student Riva-Jean Lander interviewed Robert about this exhibition.

RJ L: Could you briefly describe the history to the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the spaces it has inhabited and how the current building has changed over time?

RC: The Gallery was established as a public institution in 1895, and had its first dedicated building in 1908. In its early days it was connected, around the Old Gaol , to the Museum and Library on the corner of Beaufort Street and James Street. As the 20th Century rolled on the Gallery started to feel constricted by the lack of space to show (and store) works, and the type of experience it could give visitors. Under the leadership of Frank Norton (Director from 1958-1976), the Gallery started to reconsider reframe its role to reflect this, wanting to present contemporary practice and applied arts and design, that would break the divide between arts and audiences and to thereby be a more integral part of the community and people’s everyday lives. The Gallery believed only a new space could allow them to function in this way. Hence the push for the structure that ended up being finished in 1979.

RJ L: What inspired the design of the current AGWA building?

RC: Well, the push to be modern for one. Whatever design was determined had to express a sense of being at the leading edge of design thinking. The other in my mind is that the design was fed by the decades of feeling incredibly cramped by the buildings in the Beaufort Street complex. So the new building had to be light and open. In terms of this openness, Norton had travelled extensively to research the building and famously came back with the idea of wanting to move away from using rectangular spaces, because it limited the ways works located close to ninety degree corners could be viewed. He also believed that a modular internal screen set up would allow spaces to be continually refigured and provide people many ways to meander through the space. These ideas were discussed with the architect, the Polish born Charles Sierakowski, who arrived in Perth in 1973 to work for the Public Works Department of Western Australia. He had significant international experience, in London and Accra in particular, that shaped his approach to the building. But above all Siearakowski was committed 22

to dealing with how the space needed to function as a gallery. He made a building without ego if you will; it was about staging the experience of space to feel and think about art. While very bold, it therefore has a humility not usually acknowledged.

RJ L: What factors were considered in choosing the final architectural design?

RC: Well all of the above in away. But obviously, Sierakowski’s choice of the hexagon form is key here. It is basically a cutting off the corners of a square, and it allowed the best use of space. So that became locked in place very early, as soon as 1974 in fact. The design also had to accommodate all the functions of the gallery, and place them on a predetermined site. That meant dealing with the change in level from James Street to Roe Street, and some of the design’s elements fitted around that.

RJ L: How does the AGWA building fit into the Perth Cultural Centre, and in Perth in a broader sense?

RC: For several years it was the Cultural Centre! Its completion was acknowledged as the first whiff of reality for the planning for the area. Giveb that it set the colour tone for the Centre aesthetically especially as it ties in with the paving of the area. Still, it was never meant to just stand alone. It was meant to have various gardens around it, and so I imagine it best with those around it. Once the Library was built and the TAFE, it became part of a diagonal trio of building the sliced through the prior grid street structure. The building also reaches out to various threads of Perth Brutalist architecture that includes structures like the Concert Hall and East Perth Train Station and Hale School Memorial Hall RJ L: How does the space utilised for an exhibition influence how you curate the exhibition?

RC: It absolutely defines it, especially since exhibitions are about encounters in real time in real the world. The space shapes all the angles and vistas and pathways from this work to that. It is also fascinating in this regard working with the 120-degree angles of this building!

FACT: The contributors in this edition are worried about their future job prospects.

Western Australian Art Gallery concept sketch c1971

RJ L: What kinds of considerations are necessary in designing an enduring gallery space?

RC: For a public collecting gallery, there are all the various security, storage, air conditioning and public access requirements to take care of. Because that’s the platform of the gallery each one of those elements should be refined in such a way as to add to the experience. When thinking about the AGWA building Norton considered visitor comfort to be foremost; he didn’t want them to find the space a drain. All lighting, all windows all materials should enable the viewer to feel good, connected to art and the cultural at large and the site itself, with its various layers of histories.

Fritz Kos Art Gallery of Western Australia 1979 State Library of Western Australia Sourced from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with the permission of the Library Board of Western Australia (224274PD)

RJ L: In your opinion, what are the essential elements in creating a vibrant cultural community?

RC: I think having the occasion to engage with layered experiences across different types of expression: music, to publishing to experiment arts to historical material, to libraries. Above all there needs to be opportunity to be surprised by something you hadn’t planned on seeing or feeling, something that you wouldn’t have thought about putting in your search engine before.

RJ L: Could you discuss the research involved in curating the exhibition Perth Brutal: Dreaming in Concrete?

RC: t was a lot of sifting through plans, archives and various institutional records. It also involved talking with people who had worked at this space and the old building such as curator, installers and education staff.

I also chatted to several of the men who worked on the building for the engineering and design sides. It also involved a lot of considered walking through the Gallery and its surrounds, to figure it out, I guess!

Western Australian Art Gallery concept sketch c1971

You can find out more about the exhibition at https:// artgallery.wa.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/perthbrutal-dreaming-concrete.

FACT: 101 postal votes in Guild Elections missed the deadline due to Aus Post delays.

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HE YUNCHANG AND THE ART OF DISSENT Sam Beard Grinning incessantly, hand poised to one side as a lit cigarette slowly burns between his fingers, He Yunchang begins to explain his extreme endurance performances to a group of nineteen arts students from the University of Western Australia. We have gathered in the living room of his studio in Caochangdi.

A network of rectilinear houses, project spaces and studios, Caochangdi is located in the Chaoyang District of northeast Beijing. Having zigzagged through the labyrinth of alleyways to He Yunchang’ studio, we are welcomed by his charmingly playful demeanour. As an artist, He is equal parts cryptic and spiritual.

He Yungchang chuckles and then proceeds to take a long drag of his cigarette. ‘When I was a child, I was cowardly. I was afraid of the dark, for instance,’ he recalled, upon a moment’s more reflection, ‘then I realised I had a special ability. I would heal very quickly after experiencing an injury. I realised that this healing ability was a special power that I should use in some way.’ He has employed this healing ability in his extreme and excruciating performances. Like the ritual endurance actions He references in his work, transcendence is found through pain.

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Born in the mountainous Yunnan province in Southwest China, He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Yunnan Arts University in 1991. Upon graduation, He Yunchang’s creative direction began to shift. He soon became a key figure in the challenging avant-garde performance scene of Beijing. Central to his performance work is the self-imposition of extreme states of physical pain. Such endurance performances emerged in China in the late 1980s and 1990s, which curator and critic Gao Minglu suggests was born out of the rupture induced by the cultural revolution.

He Yunchang’s work ‘One Metre of Democracy’ (2010) was not only an act of endurance for himself, but for the audience also. It was staged and documented on the 99th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution and Wuchang uprising, which resulted in the demise of the Quing Dynasty and establishment of the Republic of China. For this performance, He asked twenty-five friends to vote within a democratic framework whether or not he should have a one metre incision cut into his body, from his collar bone to below his knee, by a surgeon. Three people chose not to vote at all, ten people voted against the act, while the twelve who

FACT: Pelican explored the large animal building and did not find giraffes but can verify aliens exist.

remained voted in favour. The audience’s emotional endurance was pushed to the limits as they watched the act unfold before their eyes. Without the numbing aid of an anaesthetic, He Yunchang’s performance conjures questions about the suffering people experience in China’s contemporary materialistic society.

He Yunchang’s body is his method of expression and his physical material, undertaking acts that push the boundaries of his mental and physical strength. He has stood at the centre of Niagara Falls, cast his body in concrete for twenty-four hours before being carved out of it again, wrestled one hundred strangers, spent one hour staring at one thousand watts of light and carried a rock for one hundred and twelve days around the perimeter of Britain. This kind of work has roots in shamanic rituals and Daoist philosophy.

Like many of the artists that we met during our travels across China, He Yunchang does not consider the aim of his work being to change the political landscape of China. To remain defiant under such conditions is an art in itself. This resilience is analogising in He’s performances.

The work of artists like He Yunchang provide an important insight into the social, cultural and political environment within China. While there seems to be a lack of nuanced understanding of the trade wars,

protests and disputed territories that dominate discussions of China, art resolutely provides a more critical window into the state of things. The sculptures of Ai Song are an inspiring example. Ai’s Castle (2011), a large barbed wire rendition of Tiananmen, alludes to totalitarianism through its contrast of material and subject.

A recent documentary by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation followed the prolific political cartoonist and artist Badiucao as he negotiated the precarious political environment of Chinese censorship. In 2018, an exhibition of Badiucao’s work was cancelled in Hong Kong due to ‘safety concerns’. In August this year, the National Gallery of Victoria declined a request by Badiucao, and Chinese dissident and Cantopop singer Denise Ho to host a talk about democracy and Hong Kong, also citing ‘safety concerns’. The NGV is currently presenting a dual exhibition of ancient terracotta warriors alongside new work by contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang.

Such talks and work, like that of He Yunchang, has the potential to be conduits for more culturally nuanced discussions, building deeper understandings of the issues of our time. While political uncertainty, trade wars and protests continue, it seems timely to turn to artists for a clearer and more critical vision of the state of affairs.

Acknowledgements: This article is indebted to Dr Darren Jorgensen and Tami Xiang of the University of Western Australia for coordinating the Contemporary Art and Tradition in China abroad unit. I would also like to thank Tami Xiang and Zhang Fang for their translation of the interview with He Yunchang. This article was aided by the resources available through Judith Neilson Projects.

FACT: In 1987 a seagull named Colin Gull was elected to Guild Council.

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PELICAN’S CLASS OF 2019:

UNDRESSED

PATRICK ‘REVERSE-RACIST’ GUNASEKERA

SAMUEL ‘SEND IT’ WORLEY

Studying: Architecture. But at Notre Dame though. I don’t even go here.

I contributed to Pelican by being one half of the fashion team. The other being Maja, who I really can’t compete with.

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Flopping around aimlessly, trying to find some sense of direction.

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Being given the opportunity to do an ode to 30 years of Dragon Ball Z.

Sophie or Susie?

Come on, are we really gonna do this? It’s too hard to pick.

Susie was the first person I submitted a piece to, and with Sophie there’s the Woodlands P.S. connection... as well as a mutual love of BROCKHAMPTON. The best food on campus is: Not on campus but the little Italian joint, Lambretta Cucina, on Hampden Road.

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?

Giraffes. For sure.

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? A garage so UCAS can have their own on-campus clubhouse. Pretty please.

What rule/s do you always disobey?

I always fill the popcorn box up a little more than you’re supposed to.

were super supportive of everything I wanted to write about. Big love to all of you.

I contributed to Pelican by: Submitting articles and arts reviews on touchy subjects like being disabled AND awesome (what?!)

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Probably crying in a theatre post-show My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Meeting a bunch of gorgeous editors and sub-editors who

STIRLING ‘WOULD STAB FOR A SOFT SERVE’ KAIN

MAJA ‘NO CHASER’ MARIC

Studying: linguistics, sometimes.

I contributed to Pelican by upholding the fashion section’s reputation with my daily sick threads When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: banana bread and video editing Sophie or Susie? I love both of my peliparents equally

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Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?: the answer is pelicans, clearly What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? Aldi, solely for the knoppers What rule/s do you always disobey? everything my optometrist told me about putting in contacts

Sophie or Susie: Why choose?

They’re both angels.

What rule/s do you always disobey: I like using really long sentences in my writing, even though I was usually told off for it in school and made to believe other people weren’t going to take me seriously if I used too many words in one sentence to talk about the things I wanted to say, even though there is, in fact, a real knack to it which you can get pretty creative and cogent with if you wanted to.

Studying: Art History and History I contributed to Pelican by: being half of the Arts Editorial team When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: writing essays in a sequin cowboy hat and unicorn slippers, because God knows that’s the only way my gay ass will ever get anything done My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: teaching Jacob the names of his fellow sub-

editors about 6 months into the gig, sorry to call you out Jacob ur cool really Sophie or Susie? Sophie once said she preferred Chi Cho Gelato to Whisk Creamery, so definitely Susie The best food on campus is: do you think I have enough money to buy food on campus?????

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo? [generic answer about Guild Candidates being animals haha] What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? Whisk Creamery What rule/s do you always disobey? Various social mandates regarding how much and when I can eat soft serve ice-cream; overthrowing these will be my number one priority when The Revolution comes.

LAURENT ‘LARRY BIRD’ SHERVINGTON

BAYLEY ‘TIKTOK IS THE NEW VINE’ HORNE

The best food on campus is: Trade secret. Nice try.

Sophie or Susie?: [redacted for the safety of all involved]

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo? Freshers haw haw

The best food on campus is: Leftover pasta I made from the night before. The Tav’s lunch deal is good but it’s got nothing on that.

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? More acronyms tbh, brb I g2g Studying: Nxt year PhD in Film and Cultural Analysis aka UWA won’t allow me leave please this a cry for help

What rule/s do you always disobey? One time I did 1.5 spacing instead of double.

Studying: Psychology (no I can’t read your mind).

I contributed to Pelican by: Writing and editing technology and gaming articles and fooling everyone into thinking I knew what I was doing.

I contributed to Pelican by: editing the Literature section.

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Fighting Deleuzians and attempting to check out every book from Reid library.

CAMERON ‘CENTRIST’ CARR

ELLA ‘HOT CHOCOLATE’ FOX-MARTENS

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo? Julie Bishop

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?: My dog. Please somebody take him, he’s been barking since 6am.

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA?

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA?: Functional toilets in Reid.

A non partisan electoral process, or Grill’d What rule/s do you always disobey? [REDACTED]

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: preparing for a quarter life crisis and concerned it’s already happened My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: free pizza and freer discussions Sophie or Susie? Josh Cahill

What rule/s do you always disobey? I never twist Oreos, I eat them whole.

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Sitting as a group and writing Pelican Facts in the office. That was honestly one of my favourite memories at UWA so far.

Sophie or Susie? S(u)phie?

That’s a new atomic element folks.

I contributed to Pelican by : Campus News Sub Editor

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? IKEA. Need I say more?

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Watching way too much basketball for it to be healthy.

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Forcing Eamonn to describe how Ayn Rand would write a sex scene.

Studying: Media and Communications, French Studies

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?: Remember that show Meerkat Manor?

Let’s do that at UWA.

Studying: Nothing that will result in gainful employment.

What rule do you always disobey?: Sandals and socks, baby. Sandals and socks.

I contributed to Pelican by: sending Patrick jokes so he doesn’t go crazy When I’m not contributing to the Pelican I am: hawking pyramid schemes. Use my code for 20% off SkinnyTea! Sophie or Susie?: I believe in bipartisan leadership.

The best food on campus is: Anything I didn’t have to buy myself.

The best food on campus is Greek Streats

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Studying: Pop Healh I contributed to Pelican by editing the Lifestyle section, writing agony aunts, and being late When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: currently in NYC babyyy My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Sophie and Susie subsidising Ava’s tinder gold subscription in the name of investigative journalism Sophie or Susie? Chocolate or cheese?

ELOISE ‘BAD DATES OF UWA’ SKOSS

TOM ‘HUMAN-DISASTER’ TANG

The best food on campus is: the lunch I have brought from home Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo? BNOCs What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? The Dalai Lama

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo? Llamas What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? A replica of the Trevi Fountain from Rome What rule/s do you always disobey? Our deadlines

What rule/s do you always disobey? Pelican Deadlines

Studying: Masters in Marketing I contributed to Pelican by being their Film Editor for 2019 When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: rewatching When Harry Met Sally for the 38th time.

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Representing Pelican at Cinefest 2019 Sophie or Susie?: Don’t make me pick between my mums.

The best food on campus is Reid Library muffins

AVA ‘OVERCAFFEINEATED AND UNDERRATED’ CADEE

JULIET ‘HOT & SWEATY’ KERRELL-VAUGHAN

Studying: Microbiology and public health I contributed to Pelican by: writing the occasional lifestyle piece for Ava. My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Some of the Aunts in Agony pieces that have gone to print, they’re my favorite part of the Pelican and I’m always left giggling Sophie or Susie? Sophie The best food on campus is: the hot cheese stuffed sausages from Reid cafe, kind of like a homemade chicko roll. Your fingers will be left wet from the grease but worth it if you’ve had a tough day and need some food therapy.

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Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?: I love kangaroos because my mum always points them out at home when they’re gracing in the wetlands back home. She immigrated from the UK in early 2000’s but still is in awe everytime she sees kangaroos.

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA?: a rollerblading rink to UWA, that only plays Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. A fun way to get a boost of endorphins without enduring the UWA gym, and the perfect first date for those campus Tinder matches.

What rule/s do you always disobey?: waiting ten minutes after you eat to go swimming so you don’t get cramps.

Studying: Political Science and International Relations I contributed to Pelican by: Running one half of the mish mash lifestyle portfolio and consistently running late When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Keeping a wellmaintained dream journal and interpretive dancing in the shower My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Trying to put together a conceptual edition with Agony Aunts by using creative movement… fell over a lot

Sophie or Susie? The secret, underappreciated third editor of Pelican - Susphie (she doesn’t get out much) The best food on campus is: A vegan lentil pie from the Science Library cafe enjoy with a side of people watching Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?: Skinny skater boys...my favourite animal What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA?: A skate park to attract more skinny skater boys What rule/s do you always disobey?: Drinking red wine in the summer and rose in the winter - what kind of monster would dare?!

LACHIE

‘ГЕРОЙ СОВЕТСКОГО СОЮЗА’

MACRAE

Studying: Conservation Biology and Physics I contributed to Pelican by: Writing sciencey things for other people When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Stressing about writing sciencey things for other people My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Actually submitting something on time for once Sophie or Susie? Can I choose both?

The best food on campus is: Matilda Bay Pharmacy

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and x. What would complete the campus zoo? Let x=an unknown and z=the complete campus zoo. Analytically, this can be represented as z=x+ peacocks+ducks+rabbits.

Rearranging for x we get x=z-peacocks-ducks-rabbits.

From this, we can see that x=Northern white rhinocerous.

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? Feudalism What rule/s do you always disobey? The Geneva Convention

AIMEE “WHO NEEDS A BELLY BUTTON” DODDS Studying: Joint Honours in Art History & English I contributed to Pelican by Writing pretentious things about Art When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Dabbling in the occult

The best food on campus is Those blueberry muffins in Quobba Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?

We have rabbits?

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? Woolies What rule/s do you always disobey?

The one where socks and birks aren’t ironic and/or cool anymore

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Walking up to various box offices and getting to say I “work” for a magazine Sophie or Susie?

Sophie’s pants & Susie’s hats

JACOB ‘GOUGH WHITLAM BUILT MODERN AUSTRALIA’ MITCHELL The best food on campus is: A myth… If anyone is eyeing up sure fire way to secure themselves the Guild Presidency & ensuing Rhodes/ Gates scholarship I would strongly recommend running on a “Make UWA food edible again” platform.

Studying: Political Science and International Relations I contributed to Pelican by: Proving the existence of the Claremont campus – and editing politics contributions When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Probably wearing a jumper and mourning the collapse of the global centre-left My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: This will come across as incredibly trite, but all of it.

Sophie or Susie?

Do you know what happened to the last person who answered that question?

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?

Guys, you’re ignoring the most important member of the UWA menagerie… The fine swine, the Notorious P.I.G., Macca.

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? Proper representation for students. And maybe somewhere that does a decent soy chai.

What rule/s do you always disobey?

Not mixing Bircks and socks, my feet get real’ cold.

ELANOR “ROSE LALONDE” LEMAN Studying: Honours in English and Cultural Studies I contributed to Pelican by: Being a Diversity Subeditor When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Procrastinating on my dissertation My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Assembling this nude last minute out of nothing but common household items Sophie or Susie? You’re both lovely shush The best food on campus is: Delicious free pizza from the Pelican contributors’ nights

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo? More rabbits What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? A Dominos, to counterbalance the Subway What rule/s do you always disobey? Gender

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TONY “NOT MY REAL NAME” LI

Studying: Honours in Applied Mathematics, aka mathematics for traitors.

I contributed to Pelican by Being the unofficial photographer for contributor nights, Occasionally an article or two followed with lots of references trying to convince you that I’m a credible source of information.

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Crying over my maths assignments, photographing campus wildlife (most importantly, cute lorikeet couples), finding materials to

write more articles about, and trying to stay alive.

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Watching the brainstorm process to scramble this list of questions. (Pelican prom hasn’t happened yet otherwise it surely will be) Sophie or Susie?

Tell me the scenario then I’ll let you know.

(Please assure me it isn’t a trolley problem, that would just be depressingly unfortunate) The best food on campus is: Tav pizza when I’m in pizza mood, otherwise Chinese Canton perhaps.

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?

Did I mention lorikeets?

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? Sleeping pods for sure What rule/s do you always disobey?

Rule 20 of the internet: “Never take anything seriously”, as according to TvTropes: Rules of the Internet[Retrieved 12/09/2019].

SAM “TRANSWA” BEARD Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo? Kangaroos that can jump the moat.

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? Nick Cave for a guest lecture.

What rule/s do you always disobey? Parking restrictions apparently...

Studying: Art History I contributed to Pelican by: contributing quite rarely.

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: doing my readings like a good student.

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Learning that there was a hard deadline, as well as the soft deadline.

Sophie or Susie? I have no favourites The best food on campus is: the new Kebab store. Best felafel kebab of all time.

MIKE ‘STOP TALKING ABOUT POLITICS’ ANDERSON

PATRICK “BLOODY” ROSO

Studying: How to juggle multiple conflicting and overlapping deadlines without going completely batshit crazy.

I contributed to Pelican by: Filling your music section with interviews, interviews and more interviews.

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: In the fetal position, crying myself to sleep.

Sophie or Susie? Porque no las dos?

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The best food on campus is: Actually not on campus. Take a walk up to Broadway shops and duck in to Singapore Hawker Foods, it’s wedged between Arat Kebabs and the new dumplings place. Try the Cantonese beef noodles, with chill. Best ten bucks you’ll ever spend.

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?: Pelicans!

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA?: Forget IGA, how about a little bit of extra funding for Pelican?

What rule do you always disobey?: That one about not consuming food or drink on the train. Nobody’s stopped me yet!

Studying: Political Science and Employment Relations I contributed to Pelican by: Writing political articles and one article for diversity.

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Running a Guild Department and neglecting my studies.

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: My psephology ban being temporarily lifted Sophie or Susie?: Suphie

The best food on campus is: Tav Chicken Nuggies Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?: Guild Hacks (we’re animals I’m sorry) What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA?: A giant bouncy castle Rules of order. What rule/s do you always disobey?:

DA ‘THE COMIC MACHINE’ C

Studying: Philosophy and Law I contributed to Pelican by: Crappy drawings and edgy questions.

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Attempting to read visual novels in Japanese before getting frustrated and giving up after 10 minutes.

(Why does Kanji exist?)

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Not getting censored.

Sophie or Susie?: Well, if it wasn’t for Susie I wouldn’t be here.

ZOE ‘SAFETY’ CASTLEDEN Studying: Chemistry I contributed to Pelican by: Writing about science, trying to get other people to write about science, emailing lecturers to try to get people to write about science, etc.

When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: Crying over seek. com.au searches My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: That time we got all our science print submissions in on time. Right guys?

The best food on campus is: I would love to know if there’s better value for money than the footlong sub of the day.

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?: I would say pig but apparently we have that too.

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA?: Anything that sells Iced Coffee for $2.

What rule/s do you always disobey?: YoU wOuLdNt DoWnLoAd A cAr!

Sophie or Susie? Please don’t make me choose. We’d be here all week.

The best food on campus is: Dumpster diving outside UniClub Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo?: Someone caught plagiarising chained on Oak lawn for us to throw tomatoes at What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA?: A Boatshed Market What rule/s do you always disobey? Several festival entry guidelines

PAULINE ‘THE MODEST ARTIST’ WONG Studying: Dentistry I contributed to Pelican by: Being the resident cartoonist When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: (too much to list here) My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: Being the resident cartoonist The best food on campus is worth your money Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo? Campus zookeepers

ELIZA ‘FEATHER RUFFLER’ HUSTON Studying: Graduated with honours in English and Cultural Studies.

I contributed to Pelican by (perhaps ironically) being a ‘diversity’ sub-editor. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ When I’m not contributing to Pelican I am: stressing about my career and climate change, watching music videos, or shamefully playing Minecraft as a 22 year old adult.

My favourite memory from Pelican 2019: covering the Bettina Arndt presentation with the team, or writing about hip hop protest songs for HOPE!

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? The campus zoo What rule/s do you always disobey? Completing all the survey questions

Sophie or Susie? I love both of them, but Sophie has incredible taste in music so I’m going to go with Sophie.

The best food on campus is at Quobba! I’m obsessed with the vegetarian curry puffs and the soups.

Peacocks, ducks, rabbits and X. What would complete the campus zoo? Macca the pig.

What happened to Macca? I loved feeding him fruit in the morning but I reckon that he needs to be more integrated into the social aspect of UWA. He’s a pretty sociable piggy.

What should the Guild bring to UWA instead of IGA? An Ararat’s food truck.

What rule/s do you always disobey? Nice try, FBI. Not today, CIA!

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THE CONTORTIONISTS TALE OF NORMALITY

(PART 309 OF 12)

Torkel Tennberg

ALIEN Now before I begin I must state that this is an honest call for help, a desperate rally into the dark, not some experimental poem or a work of fiction, no. This is a story, as true as they come.

You see, dear readers, here in Australia, particularly in country Western Australia, we have many peculiar customs. For instance, we have an entirely unique word in our state: “jaffle”, which is used to name a very specific type of toasted sandwich.

I think it might be called a “toastie” in other parts of the world. The sandwich is made by using one of those portable sandwich makers, (not unlike a waffle iron, but not at all a panini press) which when used will grill and clamp the sandwich closed like a delicious little savoury parcel. No one knows why we call it so, or how/ when we even began doing so, and most of us good old folk here in West Australia don’t even realise that we are the only ones using the word “jaffle”.

Anyway, that is another topic entirely, what I would really like to discuss is more so focused on an individual who partly conforms into one of these Aussie “customs”.

Travelling down the suburban, country cul-de-sacs of Australia, you might find the mildly amusing sight of a middle-aged man, lazily hosing down his front lawn, with a beer in hand. On this particular afternoon, I was out driving with my old buddy, and together we witnessed the single most thought-provoking scene that I have ever glanced.

What we drove by was perhaps the most ordinary house, situated right in the middle of its street, completely forgettable in almost every way. I could not even go back there and point it out to you if I tried. Right there on the porch sat a man on a wooden bench, he was not unlike any of the other Aussie men before him or after him. In his hand he held a hose, spitting fresh water in front of him, and onto his overly green lawn, by his side was an open beer, but not just any bloody beer, a very specific brand of non-alcoholic beer. Interesting. It was at this point that my friend noticed something which I had not, my driving companion is no fool, and he knows his grass. As an avid golfer and tournament winner, he swiftly noticed that the deranged, sober man, was, in fact, watering his AstroTurf excuse of a front lawn.

We were shocked and shaken, to say the least, our laughter died fast, as it faded from joyous amusement, to anxious concern.

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FACT: The Subway dogs only get minimum wage.

BY-LAW BREAKERS? AN INTERVIEW WITH A MOAT-JUMPER Jordan Soresi

“ALL THE SIGNS WENT UP THE WEEK AFTER I JUMPED.” As you wander through the Reid verandah, looking in vain for a spare table, signs plastered to pillars warn students not to jump the “moat”.

The moat, an affectionate term for the picturesque pond surrounding the library, separates it from the Great Court’s sea of lawn. The water glistens with sunlight and ripples with the movement of ducks, virtually beckoning you to make the leap to the other side where the grass is, quite literally, greener.

By way of the latter, no one may bring an animal onto the University, or organise, arrange, advertise or participate in a picnic, fete or public speaking, without a permit, as per by-laws 5.14 and 5.15 respectively. One would be forgiven for questioning the relevance of others. For example, the need for an express prohibition on the carrying or discharge of firearms, or setting off of “any fire balloon” under by-law 5.9, appears to be over-stated.

I ask whether the University has a culture of moat-jumping, or whether it is merely a quirky obsession.

Adam C* is one of the small pool of people anonymously recorded to have jumped the moat. He chuckles as he recalls the occasion.

With regard to moat-jumping, the Reid warnings advert to by-law 5.8(d). It states that, “No person shall enter, remain or be in or upon any pond or ornamental water”. Interestingly, this makes no reference whatsoever to clearing a body of water. It would thus only apply, and add insult to injury, to those who attempt but fail to actually clear the moat. However, the University Code of Conduct does compel students to take “reasonable care of their safety and health”, which would presumably – although not explicitly – capture successful jumpers.

To an extent, the moat does command the interest of UWA students. A quick – and highly unscientific – survey of moat jumpers’ videos posted to YouTube reflects this sentiment. In the caption of his successful attempt, LeNinja Nahin wrote, “My friend Joel and I, decided to Jump [sic] the moat that surrounds part of the library at UWA before he leaves for China”. A second user, Nick Valentini, described his successful jump as a “rite of passage at my university”. The general lack of awareness of its unlawfulness might indicate that defying authority is not the primary motivator of moat-jumping. Maybe it is the combination of a small amount of risk and the very real possibility of success that pushes people over the edge.

“All the signs went up the week after I jumped.”

Evidently, his jump was momentous enough to spur the University to action. However, Adam says that at the time of jumping, he had not been aware of the Code of Conduct, or the more tailored University By-Laws, that prohibited such behaviour.

Despite this, they do exist. Lands By-Laws enacted and overseen by a series of university entities, like the Senate, Executive and Vice-Chancellor, are extensive, comprising nine parts and two schedules. Of particular note is Part 5 – Conduct of Persons on the Lands, which is a series of at times, common sense, and others, nonsensical, prohibitions. By way of the former, by-law 5.1 provides that “No person shall spit upon any path… building or erection”, while by-law 5.2 is a prohibition on littering.

Adam made the jump to best his friend, who had unsuccessfully attempted it first and “got a bit wet… up to his knees”.

According to Adam, who was “confident [he] was gonna land properly… when you’re doing it, it’s so much further than you think”.

Even he fell, rolled and scraped his leg. Regardless, he says that he felt “pretty proud…[because he]… managed to do the thing that’s on everyone’s bucket lists”.

He adds that, “It’s a great feeling… sure, you know, not everyone gets to see it but you know inside that you’ve done it. Feels good.”

He is reticent to put words in other people’s mouths and instead says conservatively that, “lots of people probably want to do it”.

“I think it’s the risk of getting wet… but if you do manage to jump it… it’s a bit of a thrill.”

Whatever the impetus, the fact is that ‘sticking it to the man’ has always proved to be a good source of solidarity, of bringing people together. At university, too, where studying can be difficult, and juggling life’s demands even more so, jumping a moat is really no different. *A pseudonym has been used at the request of the interviewee to protect his identity.

FACT: The Subway dogs only get minimum wage but it’s still more than the Editors.

33

26 BEATS FROM

PERTH STREETS Interview with Jaycee by Izabela Barakovska Disobeying formulaic conventions, is a risky thing to do – but it’s exactly what Perth born and raised artist, Jaycee, has done.

The singer-songwriter hasn’t done too badly out of this. His first break came when Triple J Unearthed ran his single Time to go for two consecutive weeks, before taking the stage at GTM Bunbury 2019.

Jaycee recently announced a project where he’ll put out a new single and music video every Monday, for six months.

As someone who can’t keep up with my weekly to-do list, I was both confused and impressed. I needed to find out more, so I reached out to Jaycee.

IB: Tell us about this project?

J: #OneSongOneDream is a project where I’m releasing a new song accompanied by a music video, every week for six months straight!

IB: Over to you Jaycee - could you introduce yourself and your sound to Pelican?

J: I’m passionate about making music and being able to impact the world in a positive way through sound.

My sound is versatile, I don’t think I have a set sound. At the end of the day I’m a creative artist, there are no boundaries on the music I create. Currently I make hip-hop, R&B, pop, trap music , but in the future, I see myself making rock and jazz songs 34

The idea came organically. I was creating so much music that it got to a point where we didn’t know what to do with it. We noticed the singles I was releasing were getting way better reactions and engagement. I went to the team and discussed the idea of releasing a new single every week instead. It’s a great strategy that a few artists have done before and seen a lot of success with, but we wanted to take it up a notch and do something no one has done before.

Others have done this before, but no one’s done it with a music video. I gave Andrew from JustPlay Media a call and we discussed the idea of this project.

It was a perfect fit for us, we both understand that to get what you want it takes serious hard work, and we both respect one another creatively in our respective fields.

We’re playing big with this!

IB: How long have you been interested in music?

I remember being young in the back seat of the car when the radio was playing; as I was listening to songs, I was picturing how the song could have been done differently.

J: I was seven at the time, I thought that’s what everyone did but when I look back on it now it all makes sense. I was born to make music. I got a guitar when I was 10 and began practising.

Around late high school as the fire for music started to burn, I had no choice but to build a studio in my spare room and to trial and error with beats and songs.

FACT: No one actually finishes their degree until they visit the Ave.

IB: What do you think is the biggest factor that influences success in the music industry?

IB: Who inspires you?

J: Lots of people do but I think the most important thing is being inspired by yourself. You can’t depend on people to feel good about yourself, you need to practice self-love. I’m inspired by how far I’ve come, how I’m a better person than I was yesterday and the hard work I’ve put in.

My mum, dad and my friends are inspirations for me. Some high-profile people that are inspirations for me are Will Smith, Russ, Kanye, The Rock and just anyone else who is being their best version.

J: Everyone is on a visibility versus ability grind. Many artists make a few good songs and then realise they don’t have any more ideas.

On the other hand, you have artists like me, who can do this forever because this is what we are. Creating music is what we were born to do.

Exposure is a huge component to this; you could blow up tomorrow with only two songs if you get the right exposure.

Creating your own exposure and connections is the difficult part but that’s where the true leverage and longevity as an artist is.

The mental side is huge factor too. Being patient with the process. Everyone’s journey is different. Believing in yourself and being authentic is key.

IB: What’s working with Andrew like?

J: Everything is so natural and organic. We first worked together last year on a few music videos. #OneSongOneDream has been a walk in the park in terms of creative execution between us.

We both understand how to flow with one another, we have like-minded creative ideas and visions. I owe a lot to Andrew. I guarantee he will be the next biggest videographer in Australia.

IB: What kind of legacy do you want to have?

J: Look I’m not into playing small. I want to have the biggest legacy possible. I want to do it for Australia, go down as one of the greats and be an inspiration to the world and the youth. I want my music to inspire millions.

FACT: The Inner Circle in Reid Library was named after the dating App.

35

TO DISOBEY OR NOT TO DISOBEY Kasey Garratt

I haven’t disobeyed much in my life.

Exactly. Like. That.

I’ve always been the goody-two shoes; the responsible one; the one who does exactly what her parents want her to do. And when I reflect on my life, all I see is boring. I graduated high school. I took a gap year and I worked the whole time. I went to University without even knowing exactly what I wanted to study or even do with my life. And now, I am in my final semester, and still do not have a single idea about what I am going to do next. All I wish, is that just once, I could have disobeyed.

And to some extent, I have tried to live this life. I went to university because I thought it was the right thing to do for me. And sure, maybe it will help me find a job next year. But also, maybe it won’t. That’s the shitty thing about it all, isn’t it? You never really know what’s around the corner. Of course, I want to meet someone special and settle down with them, a beautiful house and maybe a kid or two. But marriage, kids, even that someone special really isn’t the be all and end all.

Disobeyed my parents. Societal norms. My own goddamn expectations. The boundaries that society has placed on us as individuals.

When writing this article, I ask myself, “why haven’t I disobeyed?” And the truth is, I really don’t know.

Perhaps I just always thought I was never good enough to do anything but follow the rules. Maybe I was just lazy, and couldn’t really be bothered. I think what really happened is that I got stuck. Stuck in the familiarity and routine of my life, my very own restrictive comfort zone. I’ve become too comfortable, too complacent and this means that I don’t really want to break the rules anyway. In a way, I have also been too scared.

I’ve been too scared of falling short, of failing, of being rejected, being laughed at, being criticised.

Throughout my twenty-one years of being on this Earth, I have been told what the “picture perfect” life is meant to look like. To have a ‘good’ education, and then move into a cushy, stable job, where you (possibly) climb up the corporate ladder. Meet a gorgeous individual, date them for a couple of years, marry them after three, and then have two kids three years after that. Oh! And don’t forget the perfect house in the perfect suburbs with a perfect white picket fence, a perfect garden, and a dog running around. That’s the way life is supposed to go.

So maybe it is about time I disobeyed. Next year could be my year. The year where I finally stop talking about it, and actually do it. Live my life a little, travel, and get out of this bubble that I am stuck in. This bubble where I compare myself to others, and to their lives. Where I continuously believe that I am not good enough, that I’m not pretty enough, not skinny enough. That I don’t fit into the norm I created for myself. The norm that society helped to cultivate.

Well, you know what? Fuck the norm. It’s a whole load of horse crap. It is a box that we are told from very early on that we need to conform to. And you may think, “it’s 2019, there isn’t such a thing anymore”. Well, just look at the news and the world around you, people still obey and are being forced to obey what is seen as “the norm”. It is suffocating and it is time for us to rebel.

I need to stop being so afraid of what will happen if I break the rules. They are there to be broken, to be tested and challenged. I don’t need to completely live in my comfort zone, nothing exciting ever happens in someone’s comfort zone. It is time for me to change, to no longer conform to the box I have been assigned. I am who I am, and I want to do what I want to do. Love who I want to love. And if that means my parents will be disappointed in me. Then, good.

At least I have for once in my goddamn boring life, broken the rules.

36

FACT: SSAF fees increased to pay for VIP student car park.

2K20 WON’T STOP PROMOTING GAMBLING TO KIDS Bayley Horne It seems like they will never learn.

2KGames, the makers of hit basketball game franchise NBA2K, have come under criticism for years now about their use of ‘lootboxes’ and other ‘pay-to-win’ mechanics littered throughout their games. The response from the community has never been positive, constantly asking them to remove or tone-down the blatant push for microtransactions in these games. This issue exists outside of the sports game genre but it is by far the worst for it. The FIFA series has been known to make over $500 million each year from their ‘Ultimate Team’ game mode alone, often innovating in that game mode alone to the detriment of other segments of the game.

It is also hard to shake the feeling that they are exploiting the minds of children to make money. After all, these games typically have a younger audience which does not mesh with the profit model EA and 2KGames are chasing after.

EA has always maintained the notion that opening packs to gain new players on your squad is not gambling (even though you need money to buy them and it is completely random as to who you will get).

But even this justification cannot be used in 2K20 (the most recent installation into the franchise), where they have made the baffling decision to put an actual slot machine into their game.

That is right, a slot machine is used to demonstrate the random nature of gaining players in the MyTeam mode; a mode heavily inspired by FIFA’s Ultimate Team. In a now deleted video from the official Youtube page for the company, prominent gaming Youtubers were shown to be promoting MyTeam by using a slot machine with almost comical levels of excitement and joy.

Using internet personalities whose audiences hover around the ages of twelve to eighteen to then endorse gambling is the opposite of the right thing to do. Did I also mention they also put a pachinko machine in the game, a form of gambling popular in Japan? Fuck this.

Some might be shocked to learn that the game is rated G in Australia despite this imagery, but there has been a response. PEGI, the board in charge of rating games in Europe, made the decision not to slap the game with a gambling warning as you cannot buy the tokens used for the slot machine a pachinko board with real money. As they can only be gained from playing the game and the player is not wagering anything, PEGI decided against increasing the rating.

However, PEGI also stated that they “are very aware that it may get too close for comfort for some people” and this is an important thing for them to state as well. We are becoming more aware as a society of the dangers people, especially children, face in media. The internet for all its good things has many disturbing corners made specifically to trap children and exploit them to varying degrees. But a game like 2K20, while the slot machines don’t use buyable currency, still has a slot machine in it. The desensitisation of gambling through ‘lootbox’ mechanics does affect the players judgments about spending real money elsewhere in the game.

Adults are not immune; they are susceptible too (but children are more likely to be influenced by it).

But 2K20 has too much power over the industry, because as much as I want to boycott the game for doing something like this, I am probably going to buy it myself. I have friends who I play with online all the time, and to not own 2K20 would take me out of that group.

EA’s basketball series NBA Live is so much worse 2K has an effective monopoly on the market. I hate it, but I like basketball games too much to not buy it. I know it does not help, but it is the situation many gamers are also in. All we can do is hold 2KGames to account, similar to the Star Wars Battlefront II fiasco a few years back. We need to show them that this is unacceptable.

Video games are already being wrongly blamed for increased gun violence around the world, we do not need them to also cause children to become gambling addicts.

FACT: 69% of students only read this edition for the nudes. We’re looking at you dude.

37

THE CATASTROPHIC CATALONIAN

OF DEMOCRACY FROM A GUY WHO WAS THERE James Dow

It’s a struggle that goes back for a number of years.

The question of whether or not the autonomous community of Catalonia should become the Independent Republic of Catalonia and secede from the Republic of Spain entirely. The Catalan Independence movement took off in a political sense in the early ’20s, and the divide between the powers of Madrid and Barcelona grew during the Spanish Civil War, when the fascist Generalissimo Franco seized power, fighting a war against the socialist republicans, who formed the government of Catalonia at the time.

38

Ever since then the independence games have been played by Catalonia on and off following the restoration of democracy after Franco’s rule, to the vague annoyance of the rest of the Spanish population.

It’s somewhat of a joke to see the media coverage of the President of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont making bold announcements of independence, and it was even better when he announced an independence referendum on the 1st of October, given that the last attempt at a referendum in 2014 led to large riots and widespread arrests of the region’s top government officials.

FACT: The Vice-Chancellor respectfully declined Pelican’s invitation to join them on the front cover.

SO NATURALLY, THAT’S WHEN I BOOKED MY HOLIDAY TO CATALONIA. I should mention that I had spent the previous nine months before the referendum took place living in Spain, in the region of La Mancha, which is reasonably close to Madrid. I would visit Madrid quite regularly, and as a consequence, I was subjected to a lot of anti-independence sentiments in the lead up to the referendum. I watched large protests and demonstrations in the middle of the city with Spanish flags waving everywhere, and any news coverage of the event would refer to the upcoming vote as “El referéndum ilegal”. So I came into the city of Barcelona and the campaigning for the vote expecting a bit of a fun spectacle, being heavily influenced by the propaganda of the region. But honestly, I wasn’t expecting to enter the craziest world I have ever been subject to.

I stayed with my Taiwanese exchange friend and his host family, in the middle of the city. His family were vigorous defenders of the independence campaign, so much so that I was too fearful to voice my own hesitations. I witnessed my temporary Catalonian host brother screaming at his mother and throw a mug at her for using his colonialist Spanish name instead of his true Catalan name. The family was annoyed at me for having to speak Spanish to me instead of their usual Catalan because my school in rural central Spain hadn’t bothered to teach me the rural dialect.

On the night before the election was due to take place, many pro-independence people were out in the streets doing everything they could to ensure the vote took place. It was common knowledge that the central powers of Madrid had called in the national guard (La Guardia Civil) in order to prevent the vote that was declared illegal from taking place. I accompanied my somewhat hesitant Taiwanese friend, who had his own reservations about the referendum, with his host brother and some friends, to a school near his house. They were removing the doors of any entrance to the voting booth, so that the police wouldn’t have any entrance to block off and prevent people from entering, which I helped them briefly to do (because who doesn’t want to be a revolutionary little shit sometimes).

Admittedly the election itself was too much of a process for me to handle, so I stayed home most of that day, but the media coverage and social media stories

from Catalonian mates was enough to paint a good picture. There was plenty of violence of course, locals throwing rocks at La Guardia Civil for blocking their access to the voting places, and the hard crackdown response of those same guards. The local Catalonian police (Los Mossos d’Esquadra), doing everything they could to keep access to polling locations open and free, including getting into conflicts with their Madrid based counterparts.

I SAW INSTAGRAM STORIES OF PEOPLE GOING FROM ONE POLLING BOOTH TO ANOTHER, VOTING MULTIPLE TIMES. One of the people that I had known showed his mother lifting his two-year-old sister up to the ballot box to drop her piece of paper in the box, to the cheers of surrounding polling officials and spectators. No doubt if I, a non-voting citizen, turned up to cast my ballot I would have been allowed.

In the end,

THE COUNT WAS ANNOUNCED AT 92 PER CENT IN FAVOUR OF INDEPENDENCE, WHICH IS A SUSPICIOUS NUMBER IN ITSELF GIVEN THAT NO REFERENDUM HAS EVER HAD A RESULT THAT UNANIMOUS, and opinion polls before the election showed that proindependence opinions were only marginally ahead just before the election. Turnout sat at around 44 per cent, meaning only the most passionate independence supporters bothered to show up, as almost no Catalan “remainers” would bother risking an assault by the cops to vote in a referendum they would likely lose anyway.

What happened after the vote? It went as well as to be expected, the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy invoked “Article 155”, temporarily removing Catalonia’s right to Autonomous government, and called a snap election in which the largest party ended up being Ciudadanos (Citizens), who were the most vocal remain party. Many arrests were handed out for high ranking Catalonian ministers, and the former President of the region fled to Belgium to avoid a prison sentence for treason, a country in which he still resides.

You’d think a region that loves bullfighting so much would know that if you mess with the bull, you get the horns.

FACT: The Guild Ball’s theme, Harry Potter, was chosen to add some magic into Conrad’s love life.

39

DISOBEYING

THE GAME

Joshua Wong

We say that ‘cheaters never prosper’ – but technically, they do. After all, if you cheat at a game and win, you’ve still won the game. Granted, you might not be as skilled as your rivals at whatever it was you were supposed to do, but you have proven your ingenuity by devising an entirely different way of doing it.

Whoever came up with the saying was probably just not very good at that.

Of course, people aren’t ready for such a dangerous idea – at least, not where sports are concerned.

According to the International Fair Play Committee (yes, that is a thing) disobeying rules destroys all the respect, integrity and fairness of a sport. It also tends to ruin the fun of it for everyone else involved too. Therefore, any athlete caught cheating can expect to face some serious consequences.

Thankfully, in the world of videogames, cheating is not viewed so dimly. On the contrary, cheating in videogames is rampant and can be incredibly rewarding.

Whether we are inputting cheat codes, hacking games or exploiting technical weaknesses in their 40

programming, gamers are all guilty of having disobeyed the game’s wishes (with the exception of some morally-upstanding examples like Waluigi who, of course, never cheats). Despite videogames typically imposing more rules than sports, cheating is now part of the lifeblood of gaming and it can involve just as much fun and skill as playing by the rules.

telling my friends about it at school) was uncovering as many secrets as possible with cheat codes.

So, what of us gamers then? Are we untrustworthy charlatans who would cheat on our examinations as surely as we would input the Super Password in Crash Bandicoot? Well, no. You see, cheating takes on an entirely different meaning when applied to videogames. Yes, we are certainly breaking the rules and disobeying the game, but our intention is not to deceive anyone or gain undeserved advantages. We cheat because we have curiosities that must be satisfied.

As early as the 1980s, developers would program these codes into their games during the playtesting process - often to quickly access specific levels or change certain conditions. These codes were removed from games prior to release, but increasingly, either accidentally or deliberately, they would be left in. With the correct series of button presses on a controller, players could accomplish anything from unlocking additional content, to making their character totally invincible! The ubiquitous example is ‘up, up, down, down, left, right, left right, B, A, start’, otherwise known as the ‘Konami Code’. Famously, this code would reward the player with an additional 30 lives when entered at the title screen of Contra.

Firstly, we might want to discover hidden secrets that developers have left behind in their games, or experiment with existing rules. If I think back to my childhood, one of the most exciting things about playing a videogame (other than

Of course, it is virtually impossible to just happen upon a correct cheat code. Fortunately, there were plenty of books, magazines and websites published that collected and listed known cheat codes for a particular game (does anyone else remember

FACT: Engineering students caught using 3D printers to create life-size females said it was to solve gender imbalance.

cheat planet dot com?). These were great fun to pass around between friends.

Cheat codes were once a staple of the medium. Sadly, they are increasingly hard to find in games today. And the reason for that is simple; online multiplayer. Cheating against your friends, siblings or a computer-controlled player is harmless enough. Just look at Screencheat, a game that you must cheat at to win (though, not to be pedantic, is it cheating if the game expects you to do it?). But to developers, cheating against innocent strangers is a far greater crime.

Which is fair enough if you think about it. The commercial success of games like Overwatch or Splatoon depends heavily on their online experiences being fun and of a high quality. And (again, like Waluigi) we hate playing games if every other player is cheating. So, if developers were to allow cheating, no one would want to buy (much less play) these sorts of games. In this case, to allow cheating is just not good for business. But that is not enough to

stop technologically-savvy gamers from cheating by hacking or illicitly tampering with online games.

Companies are forced to invest considerable time and resources into software that can police servers and maintain fairness. And the consequences facing professional players who are caught cheating can be just as dire (i.e. careerending) as athletes who dope.

Secondly, we might also cheat at a game to deepen our understanding of how it was put together and come up with completely new ways to play it. Technical weaknesses in programming can cause glitches that allow players to skip large sections of games. These shortcuts are almost always unintentional on the part of developers, so you could argue that using them would be disobeying the game.

Speedrunners (players who attempt to finish games in the fastest time possible) will rely on their familiarity with a game to develop new techniques of playing it that save time. But they also rely heavily on glitches to set their speed records.

Spyro: Enter The Dragonfly, which

usually takes 10 hours to finish, can be finished in just over one minute this way.

Speedrunners passionately maintain that discovering and causing glitches takes skill, and that they contribute to the collective knowledge of gaming communities by posting their attempts online.

There are many ways in which gamers can break the rules and disobey the game. But we do not use them to deceive or because we desperately need to gain an unfair advantage. The very nature of videogames is that they are constructed, like artwork. And with artwork, you often need a magnifying glass to appreciate the finer details.

The history of cheating in videogames is not one dominated by scandal and disrespect, but one of wide-eyed discovery. We seem to have forgotten that in the noise and bright lights of online gaming, it never hurts to disobey the game every now and again!

“CHEATING IS NOW PART OF THE LIFEBLOOD OF GAMING AND IT CAN INVOLVE JUST AS MUCH FUN AND SKILL AS PLAYING BY THE RULES.�

FACT: All male engineering students are dressed by their Mums.

41

YEAR OF METEORS Lachlan Serventy

Nothing is more anarchic than power. Power does what it wants. - Pier Paolo Pasolini On the 1st of January 1994, a quarter of a century ago, the United States of America – under Bill Clinton, Mexico - under Carlos Salinas (remember that name, he’ll be back later), and Canada – under Kim Campbell, kicked off one of the biggest trade agreements in history. The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, signified the binding economic cooperation of three “developed” nations. As an econs student, 01-011994 is a massively interesting day. Now, twenty-five years later, NAFTA still stands, despite the less than harmonious opinions of some contemporary world leaders. Times have changed though, baby. What else would you expect from something so big? Things could never be the same.

That’s part of why, across the Mexican southern state of Chiapas, on the day NAFTA came into effect, 1000s of masked Mexicans – some armed with guns, most armed with sticks and farming equipment – stormed dozens of villages and towns. In San Cristóbal de las Casas, the heartland of Chiapas, a masked man with a machine gun in one hand and a walkie talkie in the other stood in the town square, interacting with what media was there and periodically giving orders through the walkie talkie. The foreign visitors, obviously agitated, slowly started to demand information from the militants - “ARE YOU GOING TO LET US GO?”, “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?”. Pretty gutsy thing to do to a bunch of angry Mexicans with guns. Eventually, this got to the guy with the machine gun. Losing his cool with the somewhat entitled attitude of the 42

tourists, he said, “The road to Palenque (the gateway to the party city of Cancun) is closed. We have taken Ocosingo. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a revolution”. By the 12th of January, when an official ceasefire was announced, the militants had been driven into the Lacandon Jungle and roughly 300 people were dead. For the militants however, who called themselves Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional or The Zapatista Army of Liberation, this was just the beginning. They were international news. Even Carlos Salinas, the president, was forced to address the conflict and not just sweep it under the rug. Most of the Mexican establishment attacked them with racist, vitriolic propaganda. This tiny, ramshackle group of Indigenous Mexicans had done something most would’ve thought impossible prior to that day. They got everyone’s attention.

Most of Latin American history is very, very bloody.

Especially in the 20th century almost every Central and South American country had some kind of nationwide conflict. From the narco-backed coups in Panama, Bolivia and, to an extent, Colombia, to the violent and enduring communist guerilla wars in Colombia, El Salvador and Nicaragua, war became an unexceptional, but horrific fact of life for many Latin Americans. Mexico was no different. From 1964-1982 the establishment (and somewhat oxymoronically named) political party The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) engaged in what came to be known as the Dirty War (not the only Latin Dirty War, at around the

FACT: Guild marketing created “Love Letters at UWA” in a bid to increase student experience.

Art by Mia Page // @miapageart same time Isabel Peron ran her own very, very Dirty War in Argentina handing out “annihilation decrees” against left-wing activists). During this time the PRI engaged in around 1,200 “disappearances”, engaged in extrajudicial executions and, in a watershed moment, killed up to 400 civilian protesters ten days before the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in the Tlatelolco Massacre.

Around this time, Rafael Guillén was eleven years old.

He grew up and got a degree in philosophy, became a Maoist and eventually, twenty-two years later, still remembering the actions the government took against civilians, students and Indigenous groups in the sixties, ended up in a town square in San Cristobal holding a machine gun and a walkie talkie. He had a different name now. The soldiers he was in charge of called him Subcomandante Marcos. And he was angry.

Back when Guillén had just become a professor with a very leftie point of view about things, it’s thought that he met some folks involved with the National Liberation Forces (FLN). These guys were pretty hardcore about things. See, the FLN started back in 1969, only a year after the Tlatelolco Massacre. They were a group of university students that decided they wanted to institute a socialist people’s republic in Mexico. In 1972, they set up their first guerilla camp in the Lacandona Jungle. About the same time, the local peasants, known as Campesinos, started to voice their dissatisfaction with the way the Mexican Government dealt with Campesino issues. They started to form community and political groups. This was met at almost every turn with violent military repression. The landowners, who controlled the livelihoods of many of the Campesinos, started forming paramilitary groups – with the backing of the government – to further snuff out Campesino efforts. By the eighties, assassinations and disappearances of Campesinos became par for the course. The FLN, having set up right in the center of a state which was heavily populated with Campesinos, started reaching out to, and partnering with Campesino groups. Now the FLN looked very different from the mostly urban uni students they’d

started out as. With a fresh crop of city militants and a growing indigenous contingent, the FLN decided to rebrand. They became EZLN. Rafael Guillén was right in the middle of all this. In the early eighties he’d decided that revolution was the only way for the indigenous Campesinos to have any chance of having their voice heard and their rights won. So in the eighties, about eleven years before NAFTA kicked in, Guillén went into the mountains in Chiapas, which were mostly populated by Indigenous Mayan peasants who farmed on communal plots of land. His intent was to whip up a proletarian uprising, as was the Maoist way. However, upon arrival, this middle-class professor found that this was not the Chiapanec way. For generations the Campesinos had worked the land themselves, each working to provide the community. The land was not property, it WAS the community. Guillén, despite his self-conscious feeling of conspicuous anomalousness, stayed in Chiapas, learning to integrate himself into these communities. In time, he became a bridge between the radical politics of the urban universities and the traditional symbiosis and culture of the Mayan Campesinos. This made him the perfect voice for the revolutionaries. So when January 1st, 1994 rolled around, the Zapatistas (and the media) put him on the main stage.

So, you might be wondering, why was January 1st chosen? Why did a group of very rural, very poor Indigenous Mexican farmers, with no great connection to the high-powered world of international trade, care about a tri-lateral trade deal between the biggest North American countries? There are no Bloomberg Terminals in the Lacandona. Well, you see, NAFTA involved a lot of “economic liberalisation” in Mexico. The Mayan people depended on a series of land farming systems called “ejidos”. These were plots of land leased off wealthy landowners, with the lease legally protected and guaranteed by the Mexican government. As long as the Indigenous farmers continued to work the land they had a legal claim to the land. The landowner had limited rights to the land and couldn’t sell it as long

FACT: The business school is the only place on campus you can get an eggs benedict.

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of poor farmers, Indigenous activists, and a middle-class philosophy professor with a megaphone barricading themselves inside post offices, town halls and police stations. There was no bloodlust or nationalistic, exclusionary fervour tainting this revolution. Merely a sense of injustice and a feeling of community solidarity as necessary to remedy this injustice. The EZLN had no leader. Rafael Guillén was their spokesperson, and Indigenous activists like the young woman known as Comandanta Ramona played leadership roles.

There was a sharing of these roles. The Zapatista was disinterested in power, seeing it as a manifestation of the ‘postcolonial gaze’ that led to their marginalisation.

This, instead, was a revolution for all.

Art by Mia Page // @miapageart

as the “ejidatarios” worked it every year. Carlos Salinas, however, decided that in order to modernise the country and globalise the economy, the ejidos needed to be abolished, freeing them up to be privatised and sold by the landowners. Rightly enough, the ejidatarios weren’t too happy about this. They’d farmed maize on these plots of land for generations. It was the source of community wellbeing and livelihood in many villages.

This is hardly the only qualm the EZLN had with the PRI, but it can be viewed as the main catalysts for 1994. So, they decided to send a message on the very of the introduction of the very thing they viewed as being responsible for this destruction of their way of life. Salinas wanted his presidency to be the one that brought Mexico into the global economy and turned Mexico into a developed nation, marginal communities be damned. And NAFTA was the biggest step in that direction. Why not ruin his big globalist party?

And here, we return to where we started. NAFTA. January 1st, 1994. The effect of the EZLN’s actions that day and in the years since cannot be overstated. In fact, it is arguable that the second Zapatista uprising a year later, in response to actions taken by Salinas’ successor Ernesto Zedillo, was where the EZLN came into its maturity. However, none of that would have happened without a flashpoint. So that day, the day when up to 3,000 Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolab’al and Ch’ol took, by armed force, civic centres in multiple towns and villages from the Guatemalan border through to the north of Chiapas, is our first meteor. The first Zapatista flash through the Mexican air that resonated throughout the world. Even though all the Zapatista stronghold towns would be lost by the end of the first fortnight of 1994 the significance is not dampened. 100,000 Mexican citizens gathered in Mexico City to protest the government’s attempts to annihilate the rebels. The Mexican spirit of revolution was reignited by a handful

This is what makes the Zapatista different from the other revolutionaries of the post-WWII period. This is why the EZLN was labelled “the first postmodern revolutionaries”. In the twenty-five years since the 1994 uprising, the EZLN has seen international recognition, triumph, persecution, and tragedy. After the widespread show of solidarity with the EZLN, many in the Mexican Establishment and even in the PRI stepped out in support of diplomatic and considerate dialogue with the Zapatistas. Carlos Salinas’ handpicked successor Luis Donaldo Colosio gave a speech in front of the Monumento a la Revolución - a clearly intentional symbolic choice by Colosio – speaking in favour of indigenous communities, and against government corruption. (Unsurprisingly, seventeen days after this speech, during a campaign rally, Colosio succumbed to an ailment that affects many radical politicians in developing nations. He was assassinated with a .38 calibre handgun.) Perhaps the first big institutional victory for the Zapatistas was the 2001 amendment to the Mexican constitution which recognised Indigenous peoples and their rights. It is clear that, while important, this was not enough but still, it can be easily be argued that the EZLN was one of the biggest contributing factors to the decision to implement this amendment.

This is a victorious revolution. A revolution that can act as a humanist example of change through action.

Not every revolutionary cause needs guns, or military force, or guerilla camps in jungles. However, the lessons of community solidarity, of revolution not as stepping-stone to power but to equality, of shared and considerate leadership, and of the necessity of thinking of the future, not only your own, but of those you act as trustee for. twenty-five years later the Zapatista community still exists, engaged in perpetual activism. One can hope that the example they give, and especially the example Subcommandante Marcos/ Rafael Guillén gives to those of us who are involved in university life, is one that will be followed increasingly by revolutionaries and radicals in tropical jungles and on university campuses alike. After all, this is a revolution for everyone.

Thanks to Oscar Arteaga and Mihalis Mentinis 44

FACT: You can get special consideration if you were too distracted reading Pelican’s naked edition to finish your assignment.

CHANBOYS ANONYMOUS George Samios

Who would have thought the axis of evil on the internet lies at the centre of a bunch of anime message boards? It sounds funny, but in reality, it is not. 8chan and 4chan are largely responsible for some of the most horrific attacks on culture, individuals, and in some of the most unspeakably evil cases, the loss of innocent lives.

To the outside world, these boards are cesspools for the most wretched scum and villainy that walk the face of the earth. But to some people, these boards are their community.

Why do I say this? Because I once thought I was a part of it.

I HATE MYSELF FOR EVEN ACKNOWLEDGING IT, BUT I WAS ONCE A “CHANBOY”.

I WAS A LONELY AND SAD LITTLE TEENAGER AND 4CHAN SUCCEEDED IN SUCKING MY TYPE IN LIKE A MOTH TO A FLAME.

And yes, I will admit that a big part of why I browsed was because I liked the memes. These were not your grandparent’s memes; I liked them edgy.

Sure, there are memes on Facebook and Instagram, but it’s anxietyinducing when family, friends and acquaintances can spot your every move.

But when you are on 4chan, hoo boy, you did not need to worry about a damn thing. You were anonymous! Not a name to your face and not a care in the world!

Post something cringey and get attacked in replies by hundreds of your other anonymous friends? It did not matter! This was not Reddit, and your reputation is the same as everybody else’s.

But with the liberation of an anonymous world allowed more than just freedom of expression.

The idea of a group of ‘supposedly’ intelligent outcasts finding refuge on this grungy anime chatroom was disturbingly appealing for me at the time. And why would it not be?

It spawned hate speech, cyberbullying attacks and repugnant internet culture that spread like a virus towards every corner of the web that still lingers today.

On every other social media platform, you are burdened with seeing others having social lives, and the cold darkness of 4chan was the antithesis of that. We were sad, but at least we were all sad together. And unfortunately, there is a lot of comfort in that feeling.

I need to clarify though, I never posted on these boards. I lurked, like thousands of others, never posting, never replying, but always lurking, observing what the newest topic of conversation was. But while I tried to remain in the confines of the meme space or the boards that

were relevant to my interests, the dark side of 4chan would always show through.

At first, I brushed it off, telling myself it was just one bad message, or one bad person, or one bad thread. But after I was exposed to such a potent degree of racism, sexism and general hatred, I stopped browsing and cut myself off for good. It was almost as if simply browsing through the website made me complicit in everything that went on there.

While this does sound like a very generic tale of “good person goes to bad place but realises its bad so leaves and is good again”, I feel awful that a website responsible for such disgusting crimes was such a large part of my late adolescence.

However, I know I am not the only one. To me, 4chan was not a place to spread an alt-right manifesto, or abuse a virtual art piece, or post offensive memes. It was just a place where I felt like I belonged because I thought everyone was like me. And that is the scariest thing, because I shudder to think what I would have become if I had stayed.

So here is to hoping that all the sad little teenagers of the world can find a new online community. One that fosters kindness, positivity and respect for others. But I fear that is a long time coming.

FACT: There is a campus ghost who sucks your GPA out if you fall asleep on campus.

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ABORTIONS FOR FUN AND PROFIT Merlin Hoskins

Cw: pregnancy terminations, abortion, trauma, childbirth I wasn’t that far along; the baby was only the size of a pea when he was sucked out of me like a redshirt out an air lock. The smell of popcorn had already begun to turn my stomach like a brick in a washing machine which was particularly unfortunate, given the barrage of spicy meetings that had captured my interest at the time. It had a defined head, kidneys, and a tail.

Something that, had I come across it in a video game, I would’ve wanted to adopt and put in a tank with colourful aquarium rocks. My abortion was $600.

XXX You will have the thought one day, ‘what if I’m pregnant?’ Your period has never been regular, and you are bitterly jealous of people able to pin it down to the day. One day, one of your boyfriends will be eating popcorn and the buttery smell will hang rancid and sour in your nose. You will brush away the thought, and push it down, down away from the light. You will smile past the pangs of disgust.

It will be two weeks before you decide to confront these feelings properly. They will brew inside of you next to the baby and when you lay your hand across the skin there you can feel them growing and choking you. You will feel like you cannot – must not – tell your partners. The baby is impermanent – is not alive, and if you can figure things out, it never will be. Its ghastly twin, the rock of guilt and shame and horror, leaves a stain on you.

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You tell a close friend and you don’t think about the phantom memory of his lips on yours. You spend half an hour at the pharmacy trying to buy a pregnancy test. Your card doesn’t work, you’ve been meaning to go to the bank about it but somehow that vague plan never seems to end up coalescing. The pharmacy staff look at you with pity as you struggle to spend $3.99.

Eventually, they let you type in your credit card number like you’re buying it online. You fight back tears and thank them and run off to hide in the bathrooms.

You are not good at taking urine tests. You hate pissing on your hands. You dip the end of the test into the middle of your stream, the way the instructions say to and then you put it down on its box for the gutwrenching span of three minutes. You check Reddit, read about other people’s disintegrating relationships, you put a sundae together to find out what Riverdale character you are. You are Veronica Lodge.

You pick you the test and there is no doubt that there are two, two thin pink lines. Not even faint.

Unequivocally positive. You weep, and your throat burns, and your lungs ache and the bathrooms slowly clear out. You message your friend and you watch your tears drip down the surface of your phone. You put the test in the box, wash your hands, and try to surreptitiously throw it in the bin, but you miss and must shamefully pick it up off the floor and put it in yourself.

FACT: If you disprove your lecturer’s research you automatically receive an HD.

At your doctor’s appointment the next day, you take another test, and he confirms it for you. This medical version of a pregnancy test looks a little like a loading bar. That’s fun. The results are not. They too are unmistakably positive. You spent hours last night googling iterations of ‘abortion clinics perth’ and ‘abortion prices australia.’ There is precious little information online. Only one place has its prices listed and for medical abortions they start from $440 - and that one, you think, is private. Since you got kicked out, you haven’t had private health insurance.

In order to be deemed eligible for an abortion, you have to be declared of sound mind and have a referral from a doctor. Within twenty minutes you have received both. Your doctor gives you the number of a small, secluded clinic and tells you to call them. You look them up online. They were one of the places whose website you’d skimmed over. You will need someone who can drive to take you to the appointment, because you will not be allowed to afterwards.

That is the point where you break publicly. Where, between hacking sobs, you tell your partners that you are pregnant, and you are sorry, and you will deal with it. Before this, you would have said that they were two men who would’ve supported you through this, whatever the cost. Now, staring down the barrel, you are scared – terrified that either one would want you to keep it, would be furious at the fact that you had even considered killing their child. They hold your hands, and they tell you everything will be okay.

And it will.

You are not having a medical abortion, the kind where you take pills that magically kill the baby. The kind you are having is a surgical abortion. You cannot eat or drink eight hours before your appointment, or drive for a day afterwards. You must wear a skirt and bring a change of panties. Like a suspicious drug deal, you must bring $580 in cash for the procedure, and $11 for the IUD they will be kind enough to insert afterwards.

You learn later that this is so your details cannot be tracked, so that people cannot find you and hurt you once they have learned that you are a heinous child murderer.

In between now and your appointment, you daydream of little boys with dark eyes and angelic golden curls, and little girls with long brunette tresses and eyes of winter sky blue. You talk to your boys, your partners, your other halves. What if? White picket fences, and your child’s first steps and words and the first time they lob a plastic child-safe brick at your head. Looking down into your child’s crib as they grip your index finger with the unprecedented strength that belongs solely to newborns. You cannot - must not - indulge

these idyllic fantasies. You know that raising a child is more than that, that it is long, hard, and never-ceasing work. You are not foolish enough to pretend otherwise.

You are lucky that your personal circumstances make this choice so easy.

It is 8 o’clock on a Friday morning when you arrive at the clinic, holding the hands of both of your boyfriends, and trying not to wince every time the receptionist misgenders you. There are posters on the walls that caution you to ignore the protesters. You are ushered in by a terse professional who lies you down on an examination table for a sonogram. Your baby is due in mid-March next year. Autumn. A season of change, and of death. Symbolic. The nurse doesn’t tell you what the sex is, and you do not ask. She asks you if you are certain you are doing the right thing. Yes, you say. But not without a pause.

You meet with an anaesthesiologist who runs through how your sedation will work. He tells you to try not to walk far, otherwise you may faint and have to be schlepped out of the Coles lolly aisle over someone’s shoulder. You would really like a drink. A rum and coke, Sailor Jerry’s and LA Ice. You are taken to a small room where you get changed into the robes you need and then you are brought to an operating room. The lights are bright and disorienting and medical specialist talk overhead. There is a sharpness in your arm and soon after, the black overtakes you.

It is past ten when you wake up in recovery. You are shuffled and herded out of a back door. As you lean on a boyfriend while the other walks a little ahead, to make sure the two old ladies he saw out the front don’t harass you. You spend most of the day sliding in and out of consciousness. Your cervix hurts and aches for weeks afterwards, and you bleed heavy and sticky and constantly.

XXX I tell people that having an abortion was fun. That I can’t wait for my next one. That I get my next one free because of a two for one deal. I frame it with a manic smile so that they shut up as soon as possible.

This morning, I read an article about an Ohio State Representative who seeks to make childbirth mandatory. Mandatory.

FACT: To all Guild Election Candidates: don’t worry Kim Beazley never won a student election either.

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THE TAILOR Taliesha Harris

The woman stood steadfast on her plinth whilst the tailor hemmed her dress; black, flecked with gold. His talented gaze slid over her body in search of a starting point. He pinched and pulled the lush fabric, securing into place with a tiny pin the destiny of this candidate for change.

Whilst admiring herself in the elaborate mirror, the tailor’s bright smile made his customer laugh. The words that spilled from his heart as he worked set the room in a joyous mood. Through the bay window adorned with Easter decorations and ornamental plants, two carefully placed mannequins displayed the tailor’s immaculate work. Like an intruder perched in a tree, I watched this dynamic scene unfold in the Perth Tailoring Company.

Whether unaware of my presence or simply uncaring, his customers continued their play of fancy and the tailor attended with savage artistry. When they left, he looked at me and smiled. In that moment, I knew he had known no greater joy than in how his life was unfolding. His beaming smile reached beyond his eyes, almost as if his happiness came from a sacred place that only God could know; perhaps not even God could take it from him. This happiness put a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes; in that moment, I too felt the beam of this artist’s soul.

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This scene, already torturous in beauty, was blessed with a small boy of about six or seven. He bounded into the Perth Tailoring Co. and was received by the man; I would later learn that the boy was his nephew.

The boy left with a prize of five dollars for lollies and, unbeknownst to him, the far more precious commodity of love.

Affection spilled from the shop walls and I felt compelled to look away. The day was blessed with a nostalgic glow and the smell of Winter’s breath clung to the heritage brick walls of Trinity Arcade. This day was too delightful for me to be inside, so I coveted one of the laneway tables that was sitting just ripe and waiting for a laptop-toting, coffee aficionado like myself.

Yes, it was true that my biology study was lacking and a lab report was due in three days, but sometimes the beauty of life catches me. Lest my bones should ache, I stop to write it down. I stop to write so these moments cannot be lost in the sea of my memories, never to be recovered until perhaps the day I die. Until then, I sit and admire the radiant scene of hope, displayed for the world to enjoy at the Perth Tailoring Co.

FACT: Campus parking crisis to remain unsolved until you learn to love Transperth.

FIVE WAYS TO DISOBEY IN EVERYDAY LIFE Amy Papasergio

When’s the last time you regressed back to your childish ways and disobeyed the unfair rules of society? We have all been there, myself included. You may think it’s the little devil on your shoulder guiding you astray, but you know deep down inside a little mischief is the right thing to do sometimes. So here are the ways many of us disobey in our everyday lives, after all – rules are made to be broken.

1. UNIVERSITY LECTURES

2. THE GROCERY STORE

Maybe it’s a pesky 8 am lecture or a rude 12 pm one. To force yourself out of the comfy warm bed you may set one alarm, or maybe like me, 10 separate alarms five minutes apart. No matter how many alarms you set, no one can resist the allure of cutting a lecture.

The grocery store is the perfect environment to get away with a little bit of disobedience without anyone batting an eyelid. Maybe you eat a couple of grapes from the bunch before taking them to the counter. Maybe you like weighing your more expensive vegies as brown onions. Or maybe you like the excitement of the ageold classic of riding the shopping trolley around the store. Your boring shopping trip for the necessary chips, chocolates and noodles doesn’t have to be so. After all, which Uni student can really afford anything else? I don’t see anyone.

Nope.

I mean is it really worth going? Even if you do turn up, surely there are way more important things to be doing; online shopping, Instagram, snapchat or scrolling through Facebook pages such as This Cat is Chonky or Empire of Boofin Fatass Woofers. Go digging into that huge meal you just bought from campus kebabs in your break instead. Screw it. Use your laptop as a table.

4. GOOD OL’ GOODIES

5. A REFRESHING DIP

So, you are staying in a hotel for the night? Well here is the time to stock up. Everything you need is within your grasp. Sugar, tea, coffee, milk, those cute little shampoos and soaps. We all love them. Closer to Uni? Well you are in luck if it’s Open day or Club carnival, it’s raining pens and tote bags on those days.

Otherwise there are always those various fancy colleges which always have a few freebies to give away for someone wanting a tour. Maybe visit one of your friends that stay there, nobody will notice a few pieces of fruit disappearing from the dining hall.

Whether you are graduating this year and want to go out with a bang or simply an eager fresher looking a for a little taste of the thug life, well do we have the thing for you.

Please don’t go breaking any UWA by-laws, and if you do please don’t refer to this article.

3. FREE SAMPLES Everyone loves a free sample; my personal favourite is a cheeky iced tea taster from T2.

But is it truly a free sample, or free samples? We all love a sneaky detour to get what you desperately crave in the city, from snacks and drinks, to lotions, makeup and perfume from your favourite cosmetics store. Hotspots include the Fremantle markets, with the various food stalls always supplying little bites to try. Maybe your one of those people, unsure of what flavour they want at an ice-cream store, who really can’t wait to just sample every single one.

Now where to go on your grand tour? Why not the Kugel fountain (the ball of water) near computer science, the library moat filled to the brim with ducks, the Koi pond in Social Sciences or the big rectangle of water in front of Winthrop Hall? If you are really lucky, you might even spot the turtle in the Sunken Gardens.

However, nobody said anything about lightly touching the luscious bodies of water around our lovely University. Just don’t go for a swim, you’re a Uni student not a duck.

FACT: Macca, the campus pig, is still on Contiki He’ll be back soon kids. Any day now.

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Comic by DAC 50

THE HISTORY OF THE NAKED PELICAN

Susie Charkey To all those bewildered, perplexed and repulsed by the nudity contained within the pages of this edition. In 1929 a unique student magazine was born and sometime during 1972, in an act of grotesque disobedience, the editor exposed themselves. In print. (Can you imagine the horror-struck academics – ‘But how dare they!’) Since then it has been a much esteemed and cherished tradition for Pelican contributors to pose in the state of undress for the year’s final issue. Thus, the naked edition is an embodiment of disobedience, defiance and the motto of this very publication; “flipping the bird since ‘29”. It is student rebellion at its finest. Compliments of some dirty archive digging (with thanks to Melissa) here are the best of the naked Pelican throughout the ages.

The crème de la crème of student insolence. May this tasteful tradition endure the tests of time. Enjoy!

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