Pelican Edition 6 Volume 83 by UWA Student Guild

VOL 83 EDITION 6

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Contents

I S

EVERYTHING P I X E L A T E D

One avid gamer frowns at the prospect of the WiiU and finds comfort in the 8bits of his past b y

blair

hurley

THEARBITRARY

how to become

SEXUAL PERSONALITY QUIZ

a truth wizard

You have to fill a Pinada but you have no money: What do you do and what does it say about your sex life?

What do the smallest signs tell you about a person’s emotions? How can you become a real life Ron Weasley?

b y

M A R N I E

A L L E N b y

Z ev

L evi

EATING FLUFFY Don’t knock the Vietnamese unitl you’ve

tried

it.

Last

month

swallowed whale, this time round we

find

ourselves

Vietnam

tasting dog: Would Not Recommend by

INSIDE 05 ED/PREZ 12 GOOD PAEDOPHILES?: CAN WE BUILD A SUPPORT SYSTEM? 20 THE WAR AGAINST F’ASIAN

yvonne buresch

22 MORAL PANIC: HONESTY VS POLITENESS

POLITICS

MUSIC

FILM

BOOKS

ARTS

07 ZEITGEIST

34 REVIEWS

38 REVIEWS

24 ACIDS AND BASES: CAUSTIC WRITING

08 SUPERPAC-MAN: THE NEW GAME FOR ALL THE KIDS

28 expensive shit: the politics of zef

44 HOW TO BECOME A GAMER GURL: THE TWISTED FAME OF THE MODERN LET’S PLAYER

26 SPORTS SCIENCE: DRONES OVER RIO

10 LABOR GIRLS: JACKING LENA DUNHAM’S LEGACY

46 HOWL: UWA IN THE YEAR 2062

29 NEW WAR INTERVIEW 30 REVIEWS 32 I’M A BELIEBER

40 TEN CHILDREN’S BOOKS THAT STAND THE TEST OF TIME

Pelican vol 83 edition 6

The Acid Test

Contributors

CREDITS

WENNY YEO Wenny or as her friends call her, Pooh Bear, is a UWA Arts student from the One Hundred Acre Wood. Wenny enjoys collecting jars of honey and having whimsical adventures with an array of woodland animals. Anyone wishing to contact Wenny about her work can reach her at wennythepooh@gmail.com or through her best friend, Christopher Robin. (Richard get off my computer. If you would actually like to contact Wenny for art please do so at weikneeyeo@gmail.com)

Josh Chiat// Editor Alex Pond// Advertising Tersia Elliott// Advertising Jo Ormiston // Design Wenny Yeo// Cover (Line Art) Camden Watts// Cover (Colouring) Alice Mepham// Film Editor Alex Griffin// Music Editor Lachlan Keeley//Arts Editor Yvonne Buresch// Books Editor Richard Ferguson// Politics Editor

Illustrators//

Sub-Editors //

Matthew Goss

Yvonne Buresch

Grace McKie

Simon Donnes

Jo Ormiston

Richard Ferguson

Alice Palmer

Alex Griffin

Kate Prendergast

Lachlan Keeley

Yashi Renoir

Alice Mepham

Ena Tulic

Lizzy Plus

Camden Watts

Kate Prendergast

Wenny Yeo

Letter to the editor Dear Editor, The other day we were all herded out of the Reid Library to the hideous whooping of sirens and the harsh commands of a recorded voice.

Contributors// Marnie Allen

Dylan Henderson

Yvonne Buresch

Blair Hurley

Josh Chiat

Zoe Kilbourn

Kevin Chiat

Zev Levi

Fay Clarke

Patrick Marlborough

Melissa Coci

Sean McEwan

Rosscoe Conradie

Keaton McSweeney

Lauren Croser

Alice Mepham

Simon Donnes

Eunice Ong

Sarah Dunstan

Tom Reynolds

Richard Ferguson

Jesse Rutigliano

Kat Gillespie

Camden Watts

Alex Griffin

Connor Weightman

The views expressed within are not the opinions of the UWA Student Guild or Pelican editorial staff, but of the individual writers and artists. And sometimes not even them. We take no responsibility for any perceived offence caused by one of our writers. If you wish to contact us you can send an email to pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au.

Why have these periodic drills in the library? Are we likely to be bombed by the Germans, suffer an earthquake, be impacted by a terrorist-controlled jumbo jet? I think not. It looks almost as if those in charge of things, whoever they are, like the simple spectacle of all those people obeying them, (a bit like the rallies at Nurenburg [sic]). Great, but why do they not volunteer to be marshals on those frequent weekend cycling, marathon, firework and other obedience fests which so clog our public space from time to time in the city? Why in fact interrupt our valuable study time? Perhaps the simple truth is, because they can. Because we have all become so compliant of our mastersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; whims. Peter Gilet

Dear Peter, Why are you not complaining about the price of food on campus? I pay four dollars and my coffee still tastes like rubber. The truth is that capitalism has failed to provide us with tastier morsels. We will be better off with the socialists in charge. Carn the Socialist Alternative! From this day forward I rename Pelican the Pravda. Join me comrades. Ed.

Slurms McKenzie was unfortunately too tired to submit his Prezitorial after being forced to party for 24 hours straight, subsisting on nothing but Rocketfuel coffee. By next edition there will be a new incumbent Guild President, and Slurms will only have two more editions left to party hard. The Guild will be a cold, lonely place without this majestic man, so make sure to be there for his swansong: The Guild Ball, October 26 featuring Slurms, The Original Party Worm. Party on Election winners. Party on.

likely wasn’t the one who dealt it. You know this because you are a TRUTH WIZARD, and you can read microexpressions (Go to Page 18). The girl’s opposite end continues to pollute the crowd. The armrests on your chair feel like hand cuffs, you cannot escape. Everybody knows she should leave the room, but always you must be polite. Why? Because society dictates? Perhaps you should skip the crowd, be your own person. YOU WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS POLLUTION (Go to Page 22).

EDITORIAL You are at a small lecture. You cannot hear the lecturer over the sound of stubby fingers bashing away at unyielding keyboards. SHUTUP! You say, but politeness overcomes you. Always you must be polite. PFTUHJJGYGFFFTFFTFTFTTT The beautiful girl next to you has just farted, loudly. Or maybe it was the overweight sixth year Leisure Rep gripping a kebab, clearly attending this class to stalk out prey. No it isn’t him, he has raised his eyes and nose in disgust just briefly and, contrary to the saying, he who smelt it most

You have just noticed that your lecturer is talking. Was she talking this whole time? Certainly not as loudly as everyone types and farts. She is talking about repudiation, and remedies, and the breach of contracts, and wait – you think she just stopped to sing a phrase of Hall and Oates’ ‘Rich Girl’. Impossible. Still, it makes you consider the pleasing qualities of pop: secretly you are a Bieber fan, and ‘Baby’ is the one song that moves you (Go to Page 32). You would never let the other men know though, and anyway they can’t tell your secret shame: THEY ARE NOT TRUTH WIZARDS. You’re now so lost that you’ve decided to hate. Hate everything. The only option you have is to turn your mid-semester paper into a vile spew of ACIDIC HATE-SPEECH that borders on libel

towards the opinions of former CJ Mason of the HIGH COURT OF ARSE (Go to Page 24). You stare into space only to find that you’re eyes are locked on your friend Zoe’s laptop. She has abandoned study to torrent every ZEF SONG IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD (Go to Page 28). The university is oblivious to expensive shit being stolen through their internet. They are oblivious to most things. They are oblivious to the need for both tutorials and lectures. In 50 years they will probably feed their information to you through a super-computer, or a straw, or the ghost of Steve Jobs courtesy of the fine folk at the Apple Corporation (Go to Page 46). There is a half-time break in the class. You decide to abandon study to sit in the Pelican Office. The naysayers were right – you should never have gotten into Law on a TER that low. It is time recognise your ignorance, give up and do the most ignoble act known to man: Apply to become the editor of Pelican Magazine (Go to Page 25).

Josh (xoxo)

Editorials

PrezItorial

Dating With Marnie

Dating With

THE ARBITRARY SEXUAL PERSONALITY QUIZ

Marnie Allen What kind of a lover are you? Find out from our resident dating expert Marnie Allen. You find a smoking pipe still damp from an older gentleman’s saliva after hosting a murder mystery party. Which orifice do you insert it into? a) Navel b) Urethra c) Mouth d) Someone else’s mouth You have to fill a piñata for a friend’s birthday party, but you don’t have much money. Do you: a) b) c) d)

Fill it with unwrapped gummy lollies and be ridiculed by your friends for all of eternity Throw the piñata out and tell your friends it was stolen Fill it with pegs Fill it with rice

Which of the following is your favourite canapé?

You unlock a door with a key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. In this dimension you find another key that unlocks a door to another dimension. This dimension is a dimension of substantial shadow and sounds.

You are loitering in the cultural centre in Northbridge when a struggling musician friend of yours starts walking purposefully towards you with what looks like a stack of the latest edition of his Zine. Do you:

WHAT DO YOU DO?

a) b) c) d)

a) Weep b) Watch YouPorn on your iPad c) Return to the original dimension d) Aggressively masturbate

a) Devils on Horseback b) Angels on Horseback c) Vegan Devils on Horseback d) Pringles

What’s your dad like? a) Putin b) Swarthy c) Erudite d) Ladzy

ANSWERS:

MOSTLY B: The Cinephile:

MOSTLY A:

Illustrations by Jo Ormiston (www.ohjo.co.uk) and Ena Tulic

The Anna-Nicole: Beneath the sticky folds of excess skin spilling over your abdomen, you lay as still as a mouse, chewing your bottom lip as your eyes roll to the back of their sockets. You angle your neck away from the goiter swinging from above you like a pendulum, as the ancient body gently thrusts itself forward and back, forward and back. As you patiently endure the geriatric lovemaking an image pops in to your head, reminding you why you allow your body to be invaded by a withering, liver-spotted penis. There it is. You, ensconced with Cartier and Tiffany jewels, strolling down the Champs-Elysees with a platinum American Express card between your fingers. Your gold digging isn’t subtle and you don’t really care. You hope to build a replica of Prix D’Amour and fill it with various tasteful nudes of yourself sprawled out on a chaise lounge, and hire a Hispanic lawnmower named Hector who you will engage in sexual trysts with behind a hedge shaped like a porpoise. Shame on you! We want pre-nupt.

Tenderness and mutual pleasure are two concepts that are lost on a lover who has allowed adult film’s dynamics to seep into their repertoire of sexual moves. Vulva-slapping, facials, Eiffel-towers, triple penetration…your sexual expectations are forever tainted by a desire to replicate the entirety of Pirates 2: Stagnatti’s Revenge. If you’ve gone so far as to wax your delicates and get a fantasy tan then perhaps you ought to consider a more sustainable approach to your sexual practices. On the other hand, if you have constructed your lovemaking habits and expectations around Hollywood rom-coms then you are equally as much of a douchebag as porn addicts with anal fixations. Expecting to achieve an orgasm via your partner blowing a flower around your body is a fool’s errand, as is using steaming hot stewed fruit encased in pastry as an alternative to a woman’s vagina. MOSTLY C: The Accountant: You believe that the primary function of sexual intercourse is to make babies. Any

Drop to the ground and pretend to convulse Reluctantly pay $17 to see the Modern Masters exhibition (you are confident that your friend cannot afford to get in) Enthusiastically offer to assist your friend with Zine distribution Take a copy and eat it right in front of him

other sexual activity should not deviate in its course to reach orgasm in the most efficient, hygienic manner possible. If you had your wicked way, you would skip any semblance of foreplay and keep the entire ordeal under four minutes, so as not to impinge upon your time alphabetising your spice cabinet. MOSTLY D: The Root-For-Numbers: For people like yourself, the rewarding aspect of sex is found not in pleasure and intimacy, but in the anecdotes of your sexual exploits that you divulge to your peers and anyone else who cares to listen. You’ve probably got a homemade porno on your phone that you whip out in lectures or at work, and you are currently in the process of ‘getting shredded for Stereo’. Every weekend you scour the seedy underbelly of Northbridge for vulnerable sexual partners that you plan to pump-and-dump for another well-publicized notch on your bedpost. You perhaps cry in the shower wearing cut-offs and the likelihood of you joining a fundamentalist cult is higher than most.

Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist: Arctic Express Tom Reynolds (@tsareynolds) The Arctic: it’s big, it’s cold, and it’s largely barren. A lot like my last date. The Arctic represents about 6% of the Earth’s surface, or 14.5 million square kilometres – whoa! In summer the temperature doesn’t rise above 10 degrees and there’s only 4.5 million people living in the entire region. The largest city in the Arctic is about twice the size of Joondalup and half as nice to live in (it’s a dilapidated Soviet-era mining centre). Imagine living in the Joondalup of Siberia, that’s something to send a chill down your spine. The Arctic is also the most rapidly warming region of the globe. While this fact may mean sad times for the polar bears, it also implies new opportunities (and risks) for the nations bordering the Arctic, and by extension international relations. Thanks to global warming the coastal waters of the Arctic are now increasingly ice-free in summer. For the first time in human history it’s possible for commercial shipping to move around the pole, cutting a fortnight off the delivery times between Europe and China. Along with the polar bears, Egypt looks like it’s going to be a major loser from climate change. The Suez Canal earned Egypt about $5 billion last year. As global trade continues to expand an increasing proportion of it will be shifting through the waters of the Arctic nations. With access to any major shipping route comes leverage through providing and withholding protection, extortion, and blockades. So who are these near-future Ice Warriors? The countries that officially intersect with the Arctic Circle are Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark (via its Greenland and Faroe Islands territories), Canada, America and Russia. Most shipping will move through Russian and Canadian territory. All of these nations belong to the Arctic Council

and in addition China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, the UK (and by extension the EU) are also involved. China’s President recently lobbied the Swedes and Icelanders to upgrade China’s status from observer to member. Meanwhile South Korea and Japan are both expanding their ownership of ice-breaking cargo ships, and Russia has begun upgrading its present fleet. There’s more to the defrosting of the world’s refrigerator than the potential for your IKEA furniture to arrive a little quicker – something that has the Clive Palmers and Gina Rineharts of the far north licking their lips with a quivering anticipation: a veritable commodities boom. While the tundra disappears with the polar bears and humpback whales epic quantities of natural gas and crude oil, and caches of iron, nickel, gold and zinc are becoming accessible. Greenland has already begun processing an exponential number of exploration licenses over the past few years, with Russia and Canada also expanding their mineral and petrochemical operations in the Arctic. There are also opportunities for increased agriculture and forestry. Consider for example the poor plight of Greenland, the self-governing colony of Denmark. Despite being six times the size of Germany it has one “forest” and currently produces an annual haul of about 100 tonnes of potatoes. Already climate change has expanded the country’s growing seasons by an additional three weeks allowing apples, strawberries, cabbage and carrots to be grown for the first time ever. I can only imagine what it must be like to live in a country where the introduction of cabbage growing merits reference in your nation’s Wikipedia page. As long as you don’t stare too long into the saddened eyes of the Arctic fox, the Caribou, the lemming or the

golden eagle as they prepare to disappear over the horizon with the retreating sea ice, things seem pretty hunky dory. Increased global trade, increased mining, increased agriculture and the potential to one day introduce the sweet tangy flavour of the pineapple to the Inuit people all sound pretty positive. So positive in fact that the countries like Russia, Canada, China and America want as much of the goodness for themselves as possible. 2007 was the first time the North West Passage in Canada was ice-free, a preamble to the defrosting of the arctic’s maritime passages. It was the year Russia switched off its gas supplies to Europe to enforce price-hikes, and it was also the same year Russia planted a titanium flag at the bottom of the ocean over the north pole. All these manoeuvres act as a preamble to the future direction of international relations over the Arctic. With money comes power, and all power generates politics. However, the opportunities of the north are also the thing that will constrain the nature of future conflicts. Economic development north of the Arctic Circle will be dependant on exporting commodities and shipping – both of which rely on stability to flourish. Billions of dollars in shipping fees is only valuable if people trust in the safety of their IKEA tables and Nike shoes. So while we toast a new era of relatively benign economic development for the people living in the Joondalups of Siberia and the potato-growers of Greenland, lets hope this new wealth can also fund a few more spots in the zoos of the world for our polar bears.

Politics

T H E D U M M Y’S G U I D E T O

THE SUPER PACS K at Gi l l espi e In the grand tradition of all groups of people giving themselves the title ‘committee’, political action committees are way less useful and democratic than they sound. Like the parents’ committee at a primary school, political action committees wield undue power and influence through the money and social standing of their members – as well as, presumably, through having the best bake sale recipes. Any organisation that campaigns for or against a political candidate is a PAC. While in Australia such groups don’t exist in any hugely threatening form, they have long played a role in American politics. Law changes in 2010 leading to the emergence of so-called federal ‘super PACS’ or ‘independent expenditure only committees’ mean that the strings of this year’s

presidential contest are being pulled by the most terrifying puppeteer of all: faceless corporate America. Super PACs are able to raise unlimited funds from corporations, unions and individuals and then spend these funds to either support or advocate against a certain candidate. Just as the head of the parental committee always believes their child to be more gifted than the other children, the super PAC, Restore Our Future, thinks that Mitt Romney possesses a lot more promise than that sassy Obama kid. It raises millions of dollars to create television advertisements that say so. Donations can remain anonymous for several months, and the only catch is that the money raised isn’t directly contributed to the favoured candidate or party’s personal campaign. Of course, when they

share the same agenda, the idea that super PACs don’t coordinate with the candidates they are supporting is often difficult to believe. Restore Our Future, for example, is headed by two of Romney’s former aides. The first effects of super PACs were seen in 2010’s mid-term elections, when the Republican party were quick to take advantage of funding from the deep pockets of businesses and wealthy individuals. This worked out pretty well, although the concessions made in order to obtain access to said deep pockets remain unclear. The Democrats have since caught on, prompting a fund raising race between the pro-Obama, Priorities USA Action and Romney’s Restore Our Future. Super PACs have changed the game for political campaigning. The majority of campaign advertisements are no longer

”

produced by candidates themselves, but rather emerge from these various shady and anonymously funded organisations. It is an apparent requirement that they have confusing or disturbing names, which usually sound like they were spat out of an overly zealous propaganda machine. (I’m looking at you, Faith Family Freedom Fund and Committee for a New Start in the Right Direction.) The names of other groups are so vague in their rhetoric that they appear impossible to disagree with. It is hard to deny support to a committee that calls itself Parents for a Brighter Future, or Citizens for Prosperity and Good Government. Most people are pretty big fans of prosperity. The best kind of PAC is a parody PAC. Some have rightly found humour in the absurd super PAC mentality and have created their own satirical committees: Americans for More Rhombus, Dogs Against Romney and Stephen Colbert’s Americans For a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow. The aims of such groups are usually to draw attention to the ridiculousness of super PACs and the advertisements they produce, but some want to outlaw them altogether – America’s Super PAC For The Permanent Elimination of America’s Super PACs aims to fight the way in which federal candidates are supported by unlimited funds, and the potential for corruption. It aims to do this by enlisting a “high number of people” to compete with the “high number of dollars” possessed by the more powerful, corporate sponsored super PACs. While they come across as a democratic threat, democracy is actually the justification for Super PACS. Citizens United

v Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court case which gave birth to super PACS by ruling that government cannot prohibit independent spending by corporations and unions for political purposes, cited the First Amendment. So, super PACs are symbols of two very American things – money and free speech. Yet, even allowing for the supposed independence of super PACs from politicians, the ability of millionaires and corporations to influence the political system so profoundly and anonymously makes it hard for the voice of the average American to be heard. Rather than presenting the voting public with more information to make an informed choice, or allowing the average voter to have more sway by making their own monetary campaign contributions, super PACs are simply an avenue for a wealthy elite to buy votes and influence.

Of course, money will always influence elections. From Nixon to Obama, presidential hopefuls have manipulated funding rules in various ways. Aside from the anonymity they provide to donors, perhaps super PACs are the fairest avenue for the inevitable fundraising competition between candidates. It is uncertain whether they are here to stay – polls show a lack of support by Americans for super PACs. Although it remains unclear whether they dislike the corruption, or simply hate watching terrible advertisements all the time. Whether or not laws change in the future, it seems that this year’s election result will be bought.

Politics

It is an apparent requirement that they have confusing or disturbing names, which usually sound like they were spat out of an overly zealous propaganda machine. (I’m looking at you, Faith Family Freedom Fund and Committee for a New Start in the Right Direction.)

“

Politics

With his impending court case coming up for public nudity and drunkenness, our Politics Editor Richard Ferguson asked us to reprint the details of his most recent scrapbook in order to prove to the courts that he was indeed insane at the time of his arrest. This file contains evidence of one of his favourite pastimes: Bugging the Managing Director of the ABC. Dear Mr. Head of the ABC, I have noticed lately that the comedy shows on the ABC are not very good. I would like to change this situation by proposing to you a brand new programme that is sure to be loved by critics and will probably get more viewers than Laid or Randling. Introducing, Labor Girls. Girls: Australia is based on the popular US series created by Lena Dunham. The series follows four girls as they trek through life, love and work in the hip town of Brooklyn. Our version shall be tailored to Australian audiences with the girls living in the equally hip town of Canberra. Playing the foursome will be a team of great Australian comic actresses: Julia Gillard, Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong and Nicola Roxon. We will follow the group from the arrival of world-weary Tanya in Canberra through to the party of the year, the Parliamentary-Press Midwinter Ball. Throughout, we follow the troubles of main character Julia as her parents (played by Bob Carr and Jenny Macklin) threaten to withdraw the parliamentary support that lets Julia and her pals to live their “groovy lifestyle”. To be clear, the characters of Labor Girls will have different names than their US counterparts or else Lena Dunham will sue me.

Illustrations by Yashi Renoir

Here are some character bios for you to look over, so you can get a sense of the show and how brilliant it is: JULIA: Julia is a tough, sarcastic and smart Prime Minister who acts as the main protagonist of the series. Based on the Hannah character from the US show, Julia is the rock of the group and sassy guide through the world of Labor Girls. We join Julia at a time of crisis,

with her parents pulling their political support and her chances of finding a new career at the UN looking slim. Not to mention, her gay ex-boyfriend Kevin making her life miserable. Julia is a girl who is struggling against the odds in her quest for success. NICOLA: Nicola is the straight-laced, responsible best friend of Julia. Based on Marnie of the US series, Nicola serves as the moral conscience of the gang. A successful Attorney-General with a seemingly great boyfriend, Nicola is secretly deeply unhappy with her lot. Her boyfriend Peter Garrett is sweet but can’t really cut it in the House of Reps or the bedroom and she longs to live a wild lifestyle like Julia and Tanya. Nicola will have to decide if she can finally let it loose, even if it means breaking Peter’s heart. TANYA: Tanya is the enigmatic sex-bomb of our group. After a long time away from the girls, Tanya finally returns home to Canberra and brings trouble in her wake. Based on Jessa from the US series, adds a hint of mystery to this seemingly normal group of Labor girls. While working part-time as a Health Minister, she finds herself entangled with her older, sexy Department Secretary despite knowing she may lose her job over it. She is also a point of conflict between Julia and Nicola, with Nicola disapproving of Tanya’s wild ways. PENNY: Penny is the baby of the gang. Based on Shoshanna from the US series, Penny is awfully naive but certainly has her heart in the right place. She manages to find friends in Julia, Nicola and Tanya, though they mock her romantic view of the world. However, she holds a painful secret- she is only a senator and has yet to lose her House of Representatives virginity. We follow Penny as

she tries to break her MP hymen with the help of a host of colourful characters from frat-boy powerbroker Stephen Smith to sulky hipster Anthony Albanese. Labor Girls not only has a great story and cast, but one of the best production teams in the country. Our award-wining director, Bill Shorten is the man behind such great Australian dramas as Mark Latham and the Temple of Doom and No Country for Kim Beazley. We are also lucky to be joined by ALP Faceless Men #1, #2 and #3 in the roles of executive producers. With this team, I know that we can produce a brilliant production that will break Australian audience records! All we need from you is the green light, help with promotion and $12 million to cover carbon tax costs. Labor Girls is a once-in-a-lifetime production that will change the face of Australian television and inform an entire generation about what life in Canberra is really like. With your much-appreciated help, the Labor Girls cast and crew can get to work faster than a Senates Estimates Committee. Please consider our proposal and enjoy the script excerpt I have attached to this letter. This may possibly be the greatest television show in ABC history. Perhaps even greater than Collectors.

Yours faithfully, Richard Ferguson

JULIA sits with her parents BOB and JENNY. They are having a meal but the food on the table has hardly been touched. BOB and JENNY are too nervous to eat and Julia is too busy talking bullshit. JULIA: So, I have this really good idea for this carbon policy I want to introduce. It’s like a community policy forum but not really as its online. It’s kind of abstract thing like a Dali painting but it’s not a painting, it’s like a forum... JENNY coughs, a gesture to BOB to end JULIA’s rant and bring up the fact that they are about to pull their support. BOB turns to speak but seems uncomfortable. BOB: Well, it sounds like you’re doing really well. Julia, your mother and I are very proud of what you’re doing. So proud that we think it may be time for one final push. JULIA: (startled) What is a final pusJENNY: Your father and I will no longer be giving you parliamentary support. BOB: Did you have to say it that harshly, Jenny? JULIA interrupts, clearly upset at her parents’ revelation JULIA: You can’t pull your support. I haven’t even announced my Disability Insurance policy. JENNY: No, you have a committee report that you keep telling us will turn into a disability insurance policy. JULIA: You can’t do this. All of my friends are getting support from their parents. JENNY: The costs weigh up, Julia. We can’t afford to support your groovy lifestyle anymore. JULIA: But you can’t! Do you know how lucky you are to have me as Prime Minister? BOB and JENNY simply look at each other. Their faces drowning in despair. JULIA: I could be a dictator or even worse, like sleep with my secretaries all the time. Do you know what happens to leaders that lose support? My friend Muammar lost support from his parents. He was found in a drainpipe and shot. BOB: We are sympathetic to that. JENNY: You have been Prime Minister for two years now and what have you done? You need to get a nice job at the UN, you need to start a memoir, you need to... JULIA: I am your only child! JENNY: No more parli-fucking-mentary support. BOB: We can talk about this tomorrow, JuJULIA interrupts once again as she starts gathering her things to leave. JULIA: Well, maybe I don’t want to see you tomorrow. I have a primary school to visit, then I have a thing with the Prime Minister of Japan and the rest of the time I will be working. Trying to become who I am. JULIA rises to leave but JENNY grabs her arm. JENNY: Why do you have to be like this, you spoiled little brat? JULIA: BECAUSE. I THINK I MAY BE THE GREATEST PRIME MINISTER OF MY GENERATION! Jenny and Bob look at her, confused. JULIA rushes out of the restaurant. Cut to titles

Politics

Int. Sizzler, Canberra, Night

LABOR GIRLS: EPISODE 1, SCENE 1

The Acid Test

Good Paedophiles

Illustrations by Camden Watts Illustrations by Grace Mckie

Anonymous

My American friend Walter wears goggles when he barbecues over a pit fire. Walter has a cousin who was born with a penis and is now a woman. As this is more uncommon to some parts of society than others, Walter’s entire family is publically and openly judged and condemned. Walter’s a supportive guy who doesn’t let it get to him. He listens and learns and is cool and is extremely dorky. He’s a good guy and a good friend, even though I cut his hair once and his face dropped off his head when he realised that that was my debut in hairdressing. Four months ago, Walter was arrested by the FBI for possession of child pornography.

Before you found that out, you knew Walter for a paragraph. I knew him for years. But we are all Shakespearean characters. I learned that years before. For some reason, I eagerly related to the jealous regret of Othello and the bigoted innocence of Antonio, but could not follow, for the life of me, how people who gave charity could be racist. Then, in the patronising derision of a sweet teenager, the penny dropped; we are all Shakespearean characters. We all subconsciously declare, butchering ‘ol Groucho, “These are my principles, and at other times, I have others.” Our mutual friends, when informing me of Walter’s arrest, spoke with subdued excitement.

Their eyes wide with the gossip they were spewing in the name of news. He had, in the course of a newspaper article, morphed into a circus freak. There was no shame in their shocked appal, which, within microseconds, was transfigured into the blood-sport of swapping stories about strange experiences with him. Our friends became the young dickheads that, not content with seeing something caged and ashamed at a zoo, felt the need to poke it with a stick. So smart, sweet Walter was a paedophile and our kind, good-natured friends were treating him like a psychopath. Walter is charged with one count of possession of child pornography.

I asked everybody within earshot, ‘what’s wrong with being sexually attracted to children?’ Not surprisingly, several people launched into lectures about the inability of minors to grasp ‘informed consent’. I very quickly get tired of answers to unasked questions that are almost identical to mine. ‘Right, but what’s wrong with being sexually attracted to children?’ I interrupted as many times as was necessary for my conversation partners to realise that I understand that sex with kids is abuse.

There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to children. Say that out loud. I dare you.

‘They might act on their impulses.’ Yeah. Ok. Not exactly grounds for arresting, jailing, fining or even entering the house of any citizen. People aren’t prosecuted for kleptomania, they’re prosecuted for theft. Next? ‘They could encourage others to think the same way.’ Either the world is full of idiots or they all just gravitate towards me. Planning a crime is, itself, a crime and therefore solid grounds to prosecute a citizen. What’s wrong with being sexually attracted to children? As usual, the FBI’s voice was the only helpful source to be found. “The FBI remains committed to protecting children from exploitation. The market for child pornography creates demand for the production of images, and every photo and video is a record of abuse.”

Obviously, the sexual abuse of children should be abhorred and punished with harsh and unmanageable penalties. I can understand that, as it is nearly impossible to apprehend the perpetrators of such heinous crimes (often being committed in foreign jurisdictions and posted on the internet), that persecuting the consumers of the records of the crimes indirectly dissuades the criminals from making them in the first place. The annoying thing is that I can also understand that one guy, alone in his house at night, indulges in an obsession that torments him day and night. One that, throughout his entire life, he denies and ignores and pretends not to feel. In no way am I condoning child molestation, but I feel for the person cursed with an addiction, for which no support system exists, and who never touched anyone inappropriately. Treatment for paedophilia is centred around preventing criminals from re-offending via chemical/ physical castration and understanding the abuse. Though research suggests that the attraction never wanes, treatment and a desire to change has shown that urges become noncompulsive and infrequent. But who on Earth would seek treatment if the world didn’t already know their secret? A vocal social majority oppose treatment altogether (preferring to treat abusers solely as criminals and treat outed paedophiles as abusers), while it is still a form of social exile in the eyes of those who encourage it. The child pornography laws should stand, because doing nothing to deter the abuse is a terrible idea. But the social stigma attached to attraction should be separated from the (deserved) loathing attached to perpetration. Paedophiles in schools is a bad idea, but only because it provides the temptation and setting for a criminal desire with no legal outlet. There should be Attraction Anonymous meetings and community support and a hotline to call to help deal with the urge to act on a dangerous desire. Walter committed a crime in the throes of an obsession with no other outlet. How do I treat him now? I treat him like the guy who wears goggles when he barbecues.

The Acid Test

Nothing is harmful about coeval (same-age) sexual attraction; the harm is in rape. Nothing is harmful about nationalism; the harm is in violence. Only when an internal feeling is externalised, to the danger of others, is a wrong done and a crime committed.

The maximum sentence for which is ten years jail time and a fine of US$250,000. Assuming his guilt, what has he done? He has possessed videos and images of children performing explicit acts. The obvious question to me was, ‘how do I treat him now?’

your

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in The Tav .. Tuesdays 1PM for 1 30 start

Week 6 –Tuesday 4 September Week 7 –Tuesday 11 September Week 8 –Tuesday 18 September free to play & loads of prizes teams of 4

STOP BILLY! THERE ARE EASIER WAYS TO GET YOUR WRITING IN THE PELICAN!

Are you like Billy? Do you long to publish your writing but find yourself stuffing it into birds instead? It’ll never get out that way! Why not come down to a Pelican Magazine Writers’ Night. There are two more for this year, on:

september 5 & October 1

in the Guild Council Room.

Illustrations by Kate Prendergast

16 The Acid Test

The Acid Test by Yvonne Buresch

When I was in Vietnam the year before last, I went to a dog restaurant and ate some dog. This is especially hilarious considering I had gotten very defensive and insisted that Vietnamese people do not eat dog at a dinner with my boyfriend’s family a few months previously. I should explain – my mother is Vietnamese. I went on a group tour run by Intrepid, a company which sells itself on delivering an “authentic” experience immersive in the local culture. I don’t know exactly how authentic you can possibly be with fifteen sweaty whiteys all taking photos, but we had a Vietnamese guide, which apparently was a lucky break. There was another tour guide working for them who was Australian and had managed to live in Vietnam for nearly seven years while accumulating no more than twenty words of Vietnamese. This to me is pretty much on par with people who boast about not having read a book since high school, so I was quite happy with my guide. It was my first time in ‘Nam and explosive diarrhoea aside, it was quite a pleasant trip. The option to go to a dog restaurant came up on the last day and I hadn’t really given it much thought until then. Having grown up eating bowls of chicken hearts for dinner the prospect of people eating Fluffy nearby hadn’t taken up the same amount of brain space as it obviously had for my fellow tourists. After much discussion among the group several of us determined to go with our guide to taste dog meat that afternoon while the others, I dunno, lay inert under ceiling fans and wished they were dead or something.

Being pretty near the top of its food chain (apart from humans, lol) I didn’t really expect dog to taste good, but once the idea of trying it took hold of my brain there was no way of shaking it. I’m not going to say I tried it for the principle, to say “Oh look how open-minded I am” or “I’m so adventurous!” I just really couldn’t think of a good enough reason not to. Curiosity got the better of me. The dog restaurant was like most good restaurants in Vietnam in that it didn’t really have much in the way of doors, or walls on more than two sides or chairs more than a foot off the ground. There were no white people there except for us, which would be taken as a good sign by my fellow food writer Eunice Ong (see her article on Fake Asian or “F’Asian” food on page 20). It was explained to us by our tour guide that dog meat was not an everyday staple. It was believed to have special fortuitous powers and was eaten by those wanting to end a streak of bad luck. I hoped fervently for this to be true, and immediately so, seeing as I did not get along with my eating companions. The only other people from the group to come along were two girls who I would have picked (if asked earlier) as the least likely to go along. One had spent the entire trip refusing to eat anything except Western food, obviously not realising that food poisoning comes from the environmental conditions and preparation, rather than some inherent defect in just being noodles. The other was a vegetarian who obviously hadn’t read the trip advice before packing

since she wore low cut dresses and thongs everywhere and complained about the heat when asked to cover up to go into temples. She sat on a turtle statue at the Pavilion of Scholars in Hanoi. That’s like taking a shit on the street in the Vatican. Anyway, she chopsticked a piece of dog meat and touched it to her tongue, and screamed theatrically and loudly. Then she got shitfaced on rice wine and accidentally showed her boobs to half the people in the restaurant. The other girl was ok, apart from her nearconstant giggling throughout. Dog is bitter and very tough. Do not recommend. If you’re like me and have to try something if you’ve decided that you want to try it, this won’t be enough to deter you. In the last issue of this fine publication Patrick Marlborough described eating whale in Japan. I wondered if he’d actually wanted to eat whale, or if he just really liked offending people. When I asked him he said, “I’ve read Moby Dick too many times not to.” I think it should be remembered that sometimes which animals are designated ‘OK to eat’ is pretty arbitrary, as is the whole fuss over which parts. Frankly, fish eyeballs are delicious.

Eating Fluffy

The Acid Test

Contempt

Disgust

Lip (only on one side of face) is pulled

Upper lip raised, nose wrinkled

upward and tightened

Anger

Lips pursed, eyebrows drawn down and together, eyelids tighten

How to become a DIY Truth wizard

Happiness

Lip-corners raised, Cheeks pulled up,

Illustrations by Kate Prendergast

eyebrows lowered, eyelids tightened

Fear

Lips stretched horizontally, eyebrows raised and pulled together, upper

eyelids raised, lower eyelids tensed

Surprise

Sadness

Lip-corners pulled down, upper

Jaw dropped, eyelids and eyebrows raised

eyelids drooped, eyes unfocussed.

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“Yeah, I know, but there’s only one girl here that I would actually consider going for.”

The aforementioned microexpressions are the result of contradicting orders from voluntary and involuntary facial control signals. They are the standard facial expressions associated with emotions, unrelated to culture or race, that appear for less than a half-second as an initial reaction, before culture and consciousness form a person’s wilful response. This means, essentially, that the person with open eyes cannot be deceived. Regardless of how we consciously act and react, our faces give away our true feelings to anyone that knows what to look for.

Shocked by his egocentrism and impressed by his rejection of an easy lay, I was filled with a desire to discredit his self-assured knowledge of others’ feelings.

NOTHING MORE THAN FEELINGS

“How can you tell she’s into you?” Go on, prove it. “Her, just … everything. Her pupils and her swaying and her legs … everything.” Back up. What?

ZEV LEVI

Socially, the ability to recognise emotions in others is essential. Being directly related to one’s social skills, mental health and negotiation talent, the poor bastard who can’t detect a mood is often directed to professional medical treatment. A psychologist named Paul Ekman proved in the 60s that specific facial expressions of emotion are universal and subconscious. This is explained by contemporary neuroanatomical research, stating that voluntary and involuntary facial expressions are controlled by two different parts of the brain (pyramidal and extrapyramidal for those keen to look it up), which require two separate brain-face pathways. With that in mind, imagine there are wizards who not only identify emotions accurately, but perceive them when they are hidden. These mystics can read the silent face of a stranger and determine exactly how she feels. As with all magic, it is a science to the initiated, able to see through the soul of the deceptive and pierce the armour of the unfamiliar externalities to ascertain truth. Hold your cards close as you may, the magicians eyes can penetrate them. John, it turns out, is just such a magician. Those wishing to become one of these ‘Truth Wizards’ (the term Ekman conferred upon

Establish a baseline. Ask simple and easy questions to gauge your target’s natural body language,

Watch the target’s mouth and eyes for inconsistencies in verbal and facial messages, and;

Keep in mind that microexpressions betray emotion only, and not the emotion’s cause.

Reading microexpressions is the elixir of interpersonal interaction; on average, we are lied to 200 times a day, with about 75% of these lies remaining undetected by commonfolk. Real-time honest feedback allows a person to tailor their message favourably or prepare for a reaction before the reactor has even had a conscious thought. The experienced sorcerers make near-psychic predictions of human behaviour. And, for those who are wondering, ain’t no such thang as a muggle – the magic can be taught. Before you start chanting ‘Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley’ in your bathrobe, be warned. Re: point three – Microexpressions betray what a person feels, not why they feel it. Don’t confuse fear with guilt, or shame with guilt either. Secondly, training takes time and natural aptitude so don’t get a divorce over a misplaced eyebrow. Thirdly, you cannot turn it off. The spell wrenches open your eyes and forces you to notice what your father thinks of your mother, and what your boyfriend thinks of you. Truth is not for the faint-hearted. There are many free training videos and articles online, but you can find the bare basics on page 18 for those whose interest extends no further than the cubicle. To watch a fantastical version of Ekman’s life and work, check out the American television series Lie To Me. Alternatively, hit on John. He may not care that you want his beef, but at least he’ll know for sure.

The Acid Test

people able to detect deception at least 80% of the time) best heed the elder’s instructions;

“I don’t know if you already know this, but she totally wants your beef.” I was at a party. The only type of party I seem to attend, these days, are ones where I already know everyone there. When the same group of people regularly gather and get drunk, it all seems a little incestuous. And by ‘seems a little,’ I mean ‘is completely.’ Being married, and therefore irrelevant in the familial quest for inebriated love, I saw a lady-friend of mine talking to John and later decided to compliment him while painting myself as insightful by stating a hunch as if it were a fact – hence the beef statement.

The Acid Test

The War Against F’Asian, Eunice Ong Having moved to Australia from Singapore, I often miss the variety of cheap yet amazing food that can be found there, which is (if I dare say so) essentially the food capital of the Asian world. However, after about a decade of living in Perth, I have slowly discovered and built up a small collection of ‘good Asian places’ to eat at. Thanks to mining, it costs about five times more than in Singapore, but there is real Asian food out there if one knows where to look.

Illustration by Camden Watts

I am fond of the opportunity to have a range of flavours in the space of a single meal. Good, authentic Asian food can be identified by the wide variety of ingredients and flavours in a single dish. Upon consumption, you can tell the flavour comes from the ingredients and spices in the dish, which taste fresh, rather than additives like sugar, salt, and a litany of bottled sauces. F’Asian (Fake Asian), however, refers to inauthentic Asian food. Yes, it’s a word. F’Asian is when you go to a shopping centre and choose the pre-cooked dishes from a canteen-style baine marie, which usually consists of ‘staples’ like a greasy deep fried sweet and sour pork smothered in a sickly-sweet fluorescent sauce with some oily, single-coloured bland chicken. The chicken is smothered in so much sauce that you don’t even taste the chicken, and perhaps there’s some blackcoloured flesh which is actually beef. It tastes all right, but I can feel the sugar and sodium oozing through the buds of my tongue, all the way down into my kidneys. You would not see this being served in an Asian country. Recently, there have been claims that Asian food is the healthiest in the world, but don’t go to one of these F’Asian places and delude yourself that you’re therefore

‘eating healthily’. What I’ve just described is essentially the Asian equivalent of Macca’s. When people say, ‘We had Asian food – at Han’s Café!’ I just want to bash my head on my desk. Han’s Café is a league below mere F’Asian. It is more expensive due to its ‘restaurant’ setting, yet arguably tastes worse. It has a bland, sickening and cheap taste, even when compared to the precooked food in Reid Café. Granted, I’ve been told that the Northbridge Han’s is somewhat decent, but that’s probably because of the huge number of other Asian places they have to compete with. So essentially the further away from Northbridge you are, the worse the food in the local Han’s Café tastes. I am stumped as to why it is the most well-known ‘Asian’ eatery amongst my friends; are people oblivious to gulfs in food quality once it is from a culture they weren’t raised in? Pro-tip: If the number of non-Asian patrons outweigh the number of Asians, it’s probably F’Asian. If you find an Asian restaurant on UrbanSpoon with good ratings, it’s probably F’Asian – Asians never write food reviews because they are too busy taking photos of food or eating said food, and recommendations travel by wordof-mouth.

Another thing people do that makes me want to scream is when people go to an Asian food place for a meal and each order an entire dish (that is intended to be shared) for themselves. No, that is not how you enjoy Asian food – I think I would die of boredom if I had to eat a whole bowl of chicken to myself. There are instances where you’re meant to buy a separate meal each and you know this is so because it comes with rice or noodles. If you have to order rice separately, you should probably be trying about 4 different dishes with it. And there aren’t many places in Perth that you can be satisfied doing so. For those of you after the places that can: allow me to present to you My Elitist List of Amazing Non-F’Asian Places to Eat in Perth.

‘Chinese’ and South-East Asian Singapore Tucker (International Food Court near Wembley Hotel) The won ton noodles are as legitimate as it gets in Perth. They taste like the ones I consume for $3 in some sweaty hawker-centre in Singapore, but being Australia, the serving size is about twice as large. The noodles are actually saucy rather than soupy, with soup served in a separate bowl

The Acid Test

21 as it should be, as opposed to that ersatz meal from Han’s Café, where they refused my request of ‘dry noodles’ and served the noodles drenched in soup. While you’re there, try the dim sum place next door for some epic Asian bingeeating. Lido ‘Vietnamese’ Restaurant (Northbridge) The service here is so quick. The place looks a bit trashy but the food is delicious. Not strictly just Vietnamese food – I am usually suspicious of ‘fusion’ food places, but this place did not disappoint. Their diced garlic veal was so bursting with flavour, I almost didn’t feel guilty for eating a baby cow. They do a decent fried icecream, but what truly stands out is their cendol – it’s a cold, coconut-milky, sweet drink mix with jelly and beans. It’s basically bubble-tea on steroids. Words cannot explain how amazing it is. Viet Hoa ‘Vietnamese’ Restaurant (Northbridge) Once again, not strictly Vietnamese food to be honest. Winner, for acceding to my requests of ‘dry won ton noodles with soup separately, please!’ And the won tons were oh-so-fresh; probably the best I’ve ever had outside of Singapore. Their soup didn’t leave a greasy coat of oil in my throat when I drank it. They also serve a delicious roast duck dish, where the skin is rich and crispy, drenched in a foodgasmic sauce that isn’t sickly-sweet. The servings are generous, but the food tasted so delicious I didn’t feel sick after eating it all, just really, really full. Serenade Palace Chinese Restaurant (Warwick) Under the cinema, next to Dome. They serve regular meals at night but from 11am-2pm, it’s Yum Cha, i.e. ‘dim sum’ (or to white people, ‘dim sim’). Literally everything you pick off the trays tastes amazing. They’ve got the regulars like BBQ pork buns, dumplings and so on, but also try the ‘phoenix claws’ (euphemism for chicken legs). I dare you. I DOUBLE DARE YOU. They do really good desserts too, killer mango pudding, and sago pudding. [If you wish to avoid the trek

North, there’s also ‘Dragon Seafood’ on James St., which tastes just as good.]

Japanese Zensaki (Barrack St.) When people go for Japanese food, they think ‘sushi’, by which they really mean maki rolls, which is as boring as Japanese food gets. Unless you’re in a rush, you do not go to a Japanese restaurant and get sushi rolls! They have a variety of noodle meals but also an amazing sashimi platter and unagi dish (eel), which is so fish-oil rich and tasty. It must have crack in it; there is no other way to describe the tirade of flavour that assaults your mouth. That sounds wrong, sure. Until you’ve tried it, then you’ll know what I mean.

Yoshiya (Pier St./Wellington St.) The interior design of this restaurant is so pretty – full of wooden furniture, there’s even a section with a traditional set-up of cushions and a low table. I recommend their fried tofu – a combination of crisp and soft, drenched in a delicious, thin sauce…people who don’t even like tofu enjoy this dish! And their teriyaki chicken has this slightly crispy layer despite being smothered in a slightly-sweet sauce. They claim their green tea ice-cream is homemade, and it tastes divine – it isn’t sickly-sweet, and somehow tastes refreshing despite being creamy – served with sweet beans, which perfectly complement the flavour of the ice-cream. Again a bit pricey, but it’s a good deal if you buy from their set lunch menu.

Thai Dusit Thai (Northbridge) A bit pricey but the interior is classy and you definitely get what you pay for. Thai food is

meant to taste like this. I tried their tom yum soup – the flavour (and lack of the tell-tale sickening feeling) leads me to believe it was probably made from scratch, and not from a jar of paste. Their pineapple rice is packed with flavour and the best I’ve ever eaten – plus they serve it in a pineapple! Definitely one of those places where you go as a group, order several dishes and share them amongst each other, so you get to try as many things as possible without breaking the bank. Lotus Thai (Wanneroo Rd./Church St.) A hidden gem in the most unlikely of places, they serve a fine range of curries made with quality ingredients, and Thai salads that burst with flavour – whoever thinks salads are boring and not real food should try a Thai salad. Lotus Thai does amazing desserts – Kluay Buad She (banana cooked in coconut milk and sago) and Kao Niew Mamaung (sticky rice with ice cream or mango). Despite being sweet dishes, they don’t leave me feeling sick and diabetic. You’re welcome.

Shit on a Train

Is it Normal to Let Someone Just Shit on the Train? Rosscoe Conradie Imagine for a second that you are standing in a grotesquely overpopulated sardine can of a train coach packed to the near unbreathable brim (if you have ever used any Transperth “service” you should have a perfect reference point). You’re nestled warmly in the armpit cradle of the businessman ahead, who holds onto the railing above as a silent act of protest towards the stabilising potential of the small oriental lady on his right. An old woman who could probably reminisce back to the Jurassic period sits proudly enthroned on one of the priority seats near to you. All of a sudden an extremely loud and soul-shaking sound, like a bullet from a gun, erupts through the coach, followed by an audible hiss and light speed stench of earl grey, stewed prunes and musky faeces. The old woman gives a wry smile of satisfaction then shifts comfortably back into her seat. There is no doubt of the culprit. The man sitting closest to her in a deep and sudden coma is a dead giveaway. The air is unbearable, nauseating, suffocating – yet nobody says a thing. Not even the slightest hint of reaction except for a small boy who starts gasping between tears that he feels his lungs collapsing. He is quickly reprimanded by his mother for being inconsiderate. The train then goes on in relative silence, providing a perfect representation of the miracle of social norms within our modern and highly advanced society.

Let us, just for a moment, entertain the notion that the above situation does not occur in such a restrained and orderly fashion. That one good, honest and courageous passenger decides they will not stay silent whilst their sense of smell is horrifically brutalised, and so retaliates to the senior’s flatulent communication by letting off an equally audible rectal explosion in her direction. This could lead to another passenger responding in the same way, and another, and another, creating a methane chain so destructive that the entire human race is torn apart and reduced down to mere molecular ash. Although it probably wouldn’t be an unwise move to prepare for such a pandemic, in most instances it probably wouldn’t work that way. So why then do we make such a big deal of it? Why do we feel we cannot reprimand the perpetrator for their lack of decency and respect towards the dangers of climate change? If we were to just sporadically demolish moral boundaries, ethics, religious protocol, consequence and a rather common morbid fear of public spotlight would it immediately lead to primal chaos and civil deterioration? A common take on the subject usually follows suite with a certain William Golding novel about a group of cast-away adolescent schoolboys on a tropical island. Ultimately a struggle for power leads to chaos and eventually a “new” decorum. And so the status quo is perpetuated…

An important fact that we often fail to grasp is that our social boundaries and limitations had first to be determined before they could be created. And we were the ones to create them. We established laws, consequences and limitations for ourselves to govern ourselves; to create a feeling of safety and control in our everyday lives. While we might silently whinge into our sleeves about the control and suppression of social boundaries, a protest for radical change in social protocol has not yet come about because, in truth, we don’t want them to change. We are creatures of both habit and conformity, and they cater to us by making our lives comfortable, unchanging and consistent. No one yells at that old goose on the train. Not because they are afraid she might secretly be a martial arts expert and give them one hell of an ass whooping, but simply because it would take too much time and effort, choosing rather to embrace the stench than resist it. Of course, there is no reason life has to be this way. The decision lies with you, so what will it be? Embrace the norm, or fight against it?

What the Duck? Did you know the Guild is the campus partner for HERE&NOW12, the survey of new work by early career artists working in Western Australia currently showing at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery until 6 October 2012? For more info lwgallery.uwa.edu.au or facebook.com/lwgallery

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The Acid Test

Acids and Bases: How Caustic is your Writing? Simon Donnes Pick up a student magazine, blog or other dumping ground of words of your choice. Flick through some pages and get a general feel for it. Chances are it’s mostly filled with cold, jaded cynicism, old men in young bodies complaining about the kids of today and the good honest life of yesteryear – a tongue in their cheek and a moleskine keeping their Macbook company on the desk. If you’re lucky you might find some obscure Eastern Bloc post-interpretive EP being touted as the best thing since #swaggie, but that’s neither here nor there.

Illustrations by www.ohjo.co.uk

For the written word, Acid, bile and hatred is the new black. “New” in as much as Black ever got old. Being cynical is in – it’s easy, it’s funny and the readership drink it right up. Why provide constructive criticism or try to adopt a neutral platform when straw man arguments and unedited spewing from the gall bladder are both easier to write and more entertaining anyway? There isn’t much incentive – not only are these writers competing with each other, but also with every youtube video about cats, every obnoxious meme posted on facebook and every brainfart transmitted over twitter for the very limited attention span of the end user. A study was conducted about twitter in 2010 by analytics service Sysomos: The average tweet “lasts” for one hour. Analysis of over 1.2 Billion tweets showed that 92% of all feedback would happen in that first hour, after which, it was dead in the water. The issue here is that this metaphorical body of H2O is a raging torrent of information. Every other tweet in existence makes it their personal mission to push the tweets that started trends into the bedrock. This is similar to the sort of competition the modern writer (many of

whom have their every thought catalogued on the social network) is faced with.

love stories and D.H. Lawrence is rolling in his grave for cumming too early.

The most successful commentators in this climate will be those who can turn their nose on the stupid, vapid and dull in the easiest way possible – with the caustic tongue of the rank cynic. In some ways, the cynic as a persona feels like an elicited response to a world without the time for gimmick-less writing.

Likewise the par for the course two weapon carry limit to the modern day tacti-cool action shooter was made big by the original Halo, at a time when every Doomguy and Marathon Man were storing all their weapons in hammer space. Today any Beefy McLargeHands of a main character worth his weight in Russian Terrorists from Outer Space follows the same two gun rule, and throws some jelly on the screen for good measure. Both the gaming and literature (sic) examples show that the easiest options often provide the greatest dividends.

As with all things, from gangbang pornography to doomsday cult flyers in the local paper (more linked than you might expect), a critical mass is reached – a point at which one simply cannot fit any more in. The world of hack writing is going to reach a critical mass sooner or later. When it does happen, the general series of events goes something like this: All the time, while a style reigns supreme, offshoots and variations are being made by a bunch of different parties. Much like biological mutations these attempts to woo the interest/money/sexual favour of whatever audience they’re after is either negligible or downright hindering. Whether the reigning champ is kicked off his stool or merely has an eager heir to the throne is up for contention, but eventually one of these mutations will take over the spot of top dog. We can see this in forms as diverse as books to video games. From the rotting pit of incest and lice known as fanfiction arose the Mum’s-first-fucknovel Fifty Shades of Grey, originally a Twilight knockoff without so much as the names being changed. In the original fan-fic, Bella wanted Edward, the sparkly business executive who was a little rough around the bedposts. Then the vampirism made way simply for rote, gaudy entrylevel BDSM. The bedposts were moved only slightly; the money is no longer in half-baked supernatural

It is the same with acidic writing. It almost became a sign of good fashion to sound off Kony2012 as a blank stare of false compassion in our modern generation. It is far easier to walk into a theatre of amateur players and mark out their numerous flaws over the muted howls of those saying “well at least they gave it a go”. I have been guilty of both, though I’m not certain I feel in any way remorseful for my critical views. While a small chorus of booboys hound me for my rank cynicism, they fail to knock the ever-rising numbers beside my facebook statuses’ LIKE button. Is there even a high road? What are the alternatives to acid and bile? So far, there hasn’t really been one. Inoffensive middle of the road journalism is more a relic of the old media than a contender, and New Sincerity is plain antithetical to humour. Acid, hatred and cynicism are easy to make humorous. The desire to be funny is a fairly core social aspiration – it builds relationships and security relatively easily compared to building them through respect, reflection and general seriousness.

Do you Dream of Greater Things? Become the Pelican Editor for 2013! Pelican editors are appointed by the UWA Student Guild and are required to put out eight editions of the student paper in 2013. You can get as creative as you want with it; here are some key objectives that you might like to consider: •

Getting students to pick up the magazine

•

Representing a variety of different viewpoints

•

Painting a picture of campus life in 2013

•

Getting people involved with Pelican

•

Your vision for the design of Pelican

•

Creating an intelligent, funny and readable final product

Editing Pelican can be done as a solo job or as a duo. If you intend to apply with a partner, please present strategies for how you will divide/share the workload and how you will handle creative differences.

A Candidate Must:

Your application must consist of

•

Have been a Guild member for two years (or as long as they have been at UWA)

•

Not have run in Guild Elections in the last two years

A CV, to be emailed to Jenny, HR Officer at jenny.ophel@guild.uwa.edu.au by 5pm Thursday, October 25th 2012, and;

•

A physical application containing a portfolio of all relevant work, your vision for the magazine and, optionally, mock-ups of design for the magazine. To be handed into the Memberships and Communications Office by 5pm Monday, October 29th 2012

Things that should be adressed in your application:

•

An evident passion for student press and writing, and what they stand for

•

Creative flair

•

A strong vision for the content and design of your magazine

•

Ideas about ways to get writers involved retained and motivated

•

Demonstrated time management skills and strategies for meeting deadlines

•

Experience in writing, editing, art direction and co-ordination skills

For more information contact Alex Pond, Memberships & Communications Manager at alex.pond@guild.uwa.edu.au, or pop by the Memberships and Communications Office, first floor of Guild Hall.

Sports Science

PELICAN

Sports Science

Cost of a Gold Medal: $40000000, Cost of a drone: $4030000

With drones legal participants in Olympics, Mitt Romney will now be able to enter, not just his horse Rafalca.

DRONES OVER RIO Chip Johnson

Israeli autonomous drones built with Zionism chips, programmed right of return.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s won an Olympic medal without actually being, physically, in competition: The men’s marathon in 1964 (Tokyo, though of course you know that it is after all a well known story) was thrown into disrepute when the Irish Silver Medalist Jim Hogan turned out to in fact be an Ethiopian runner that had failed to qualify for his own country.

Illustration by Alice Palmer

With the real Jim Hogan bed-ridden by a nasty bout of alcoholism, the Irish Olympic Committee’s suspicious replacement runner saw himself stripped of his medal – a popular decision at the time, as it elevated home crowd favourite Kokichi Tsuburaya into the Bronze Medal position. Meanwhile, oblivious to the technicalities of cheating, the Irish continue to speak of the day when Adamu Alebachew, The Bhoy of the Glen, took home Silver in Tokyo.

IOC have long struggled to take heed of the changing ways of the world, until now. Jacques Rogge has, according to our sources, been milling over an application largely forced by suspected conspiratorial Zionists to, in the spirit of modern warfare, allow countries to enter unmanned drones in the modern pentathlon at the next Olympic Games. This would allow operators, a long way from competition, to take home medals for their countries.

SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?

B-B-BUT, THE SPIRIT OF FAIR COMPETITION…

Well now, we here at Pelican have stumbled across some interesting classified information in the last few hours regarding the status of the modern pentathlon for the Rio summer games in 2016. While some sports are shifted in and out in bizarre displays of organisational fickleness, other sports are melded constantly in an attempt to modernise them. In this regard the modern pentathlon has been incredibly slow to catch up.

Baron Pierre De Coubertin’s biggest swindle was fooling the world that the Olympic Games were always about peace, love and brotherhood. In reality they are, as they were in ancient times, a dogfight between a fratty douchebags to display military strength and economic wastefulness. The core components of the international struggle are power and vanity.

Originally created by the sexist, aristocratic, deserting asshole Baron Pierre De Coubertin for inclusion at the first Olympics, the modern pentathlon was designed to test competitors in five disciplines that simulated the nature of modern warfare: Fencing, swimming, equestrian, shooting and running. De Coubertin was a highminded wimp who consistently backed out of wars that he, as an aristocrat, would have been forcefully shot out of a cannon to attend just fifty years earlier – If he’d ever actually been in a war, the modern pentathlon would offer most of its points for avoiding dysentery. Much like De Coubertin, the pussies at the

While many countries may not have the money for drones, they’ll just need to compete using human beings in the meantime. While this may appear to be unfair, it should be noted that a Gold Medal won is a Gold Medal won for all of a nation – it is simply right that those nations with the money to afford Olympic medals should be those receiving them. While it’s all well and good seeing countries like Kazakhstan and Lithuania walking out onto podiums draped in Gold, across the board Olympic medals are generally a straight pay-off for the wealth that a country is prepared to put behind their teams. Great Britain began to dominate cycling only after pouring millions into dedicated MI6 plots that stole Australian coaches and forced them

into coaching labour camps, China’s secret service did the same for their swimmers. A Saudi Prince actually won a Bronze in London 2012 performing equestrian, a sport in which participation is basically determined by your family’s wealth. The theory is that if you have the money – use it – if you don’t, tough luck.

ALL HAIL THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL The biggest change that will occur is the unprecedented power that this will give Israel in the sporting world. Israelis may not be good at sports – their historic Olympic Gold Medal tally is one, and that was in a sailing class that no longer exists, having been declared boring by the IOC back in 2005 – but they are absolutely brilliant at producing dangerous weapons. With the ability to apply their drones to Olympic competition, the Israelis would potentially take home at least one Gold every games, with the rest of the world still playing technological catch-up. In all likelihood, the first ‘drone’ athletes to compete with the Israelis, aside from the Americans whose affinity for unsanctioned attacks on Pakistani athletes is likely to draw the attention of the adjudicators, will be countries with naturalised Israeli drones (of which Australia is among them). There is always the risk however, if Israeli companies made the mistake of sending its best drones overseas, that the new sentient autonomous drones would just claim right of return and compete for Israel anyway.

What’s UWANIME

WA Medical Students Orchestra

UWAnime’s Quiz Night is here! Date: Saturday, 22nd September Time: Starts 7pm Place: UWA Tavern Tickets cost $10 per person /$64 per table (8 people).

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

E-mail bookings to uwanime@gmail.com Include a name and the number of tickets to purchase/tables to book. To purchase tickets, drop by the UWAnime clubroom (Level 2 Cameron Hall). Tickets can be bought at the door. However, if you pay before the night, you will receive a raffle ticket for the chance to win some (more) prizes! For more information, visit: www.uwanime.org.

We have an amazing repertoire and enthusiastic conductors and would love to see as many students involved as possible. This year our final concert is on September 22, and all money raised will go towards Telethon. If you’d like to buy a ticket and support a worthy cause please email us at medicalstudentsorchestra@gmail.com

SIFE UWA reSHOE is the newest project by Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) UWA. It is a not-forprofit, microfinance project which addresses environmental, economic and social issues. We will be: 1.

UWA Pantomime Society Presents: Prince Charming vs. The World Prince Charming has rescued Snow White from her glass coffin, woken her with a kiss, and ridden off into the sunset with her beside him. But Snow isn’t the only one with an evil stepmother, and this Queen isn’t happy about all the attention Charming’s new squeeze is getting from the media. She must find a way to separate them for good, and knows a certain group of dwarfs who aren’t too happy that Snow has been taken away from them... 6th-8th September, 7:30pm, Dolphin Theatre. For bookings/info: email uwapanto@gmail.com

PERTH UNDERGROUND CHORAL SOCIETY The Perth Undergraduate Choral Society (PUCS) is looking for singers to sing in our next concert on November 4th for the Fremantle Festival. We’re performing the beautiful Fauré Requiem and selected pieces by Joseph and Michael Haydn at St. Patrick’s Basilica. We’re a non-audition choir, and everyone from seasoned singers to bathroom crooners are more than welcome! But don’t take our word for it, join our rehearsals and see what the fuss is all about! It’s not too late to join! Every Monday, G5 in Music (Tunley LT), 7pm-9pm. www.pucs.org.au

REDUCING Australian landfill- shoes can take up to1000 years to break down in landfill. reSHOE encourages people to donate their old shoes rather than throwing them away.

Providing EMPLOYMENT to people with disabilities in Perth- through the sorting process of the collected shoes. This will allow them to participate in the workforce and encourage positive social interaction with student volunteers.

Using MICROFINANCE to create a stable source of INCOME for locals in developing countries- the shoes will be used to help locals in developing countries establish small shoe vending businesses, providing opportunities to earn a stable source of income.

Providing CHEAP FOOTWEAR to those who desperately need it- reSHOE will provide an affordable way for people in developing countries to protect their feet and prevent foot infections.

Get involved! BBQ Launch: Oak Lawn, 3rd of September, 12-2pm. Exchange your old shoes for a sausage sizzle! reSHOE Fortnight: Shoe collection will occur across the university campus for the next two weeks. www.facebook.com/reshoe.sifeuwa

ROBOGALS “Robogals” is all about joining the men’s playground in high heels and red lipstick. Look out for our upcoming “Women in Engineering Afternoon Tea” with BCG, where you can mingle with fellow students and get first hand advice on how to succeed in engineering using your feminine touch from the professionals. Otherwise, join us inspire young girls to pursue engineering by volunteering in our “Robotics Workshops” that we run all through out the year. Contact geetika@ robogals.org.au for more details.

OXFAM UWA Do you want to Do It In A Dress? What’s something a little crazy you can do in a dress? Run 21km? Throw a school dress party? Wear nothing but a school dress for 7 days straight? Choose something that scares you.  Do It In A Dress kicks off on August 1st! In 2012, more than 1000 people from all over the world will wear a school dress to give girls and women in Sierra Leone, access to education.  We’re doing it. Will you? For more information head to www.doitinadress.com

The Language Market The Language Market is a multi-lingual club aimed at developing language skills and cultural exchange. Our two goals are to help international students better integrate into Australian society and to help local students become more international in their outlook. We pair local students learning a second (or third!) language with international students who want to improve their English. Our mentors help guide study pairs, providing resources and advice to help with learning. As a society we support students to work together and build long-term friendships through engagement with foreign cultures.

Happening

The UWA Photography Club is having an exhibition opening night for our disposable camera and film based photography competition. The event will take place at 7-9PM on Friday the 7th of September, at SSCI:G210 near Oak Lawn. Entry only requires a gold coin donation and there will be cheap snacks and drinks. Fantastic local photographers Jarrad Seng and Natalie Blom will be judging the entries and winners will be announced on the night. It’s a great opportunity to meet and mingle with other people interested in photography or to get some professional advice from our judges.

What’s Happening

UWA PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB

Music

16 28

XP€N$IV SHIT: DIE ANTWOORD AND THE POLITICS OF ZEF

Illustrations by www.ohjo.co.uk

Zoe Kilbourn White musicians have always had an uneasy relationship with hip hop. They’re rarely convincing, and when they are, they’re often justifying their work with a hard-luck, ragsto-riches narrative. Eminem (via Slim Shady) was a widely popular exception to the rule; the Beastie Boys produced high quality work, but starting from a frat-boy background; and Snow and Vanilla Ice were critically unsupported aberrations. Mike Skinner (The Streets) justified his work with the claim “Everything is Borrowed”. Afrikaner rap-rave crew Die Antwoord have had unusual underground success, messing with disenfranchised white identity in mind-melting ways no Aussie battler (or Ozi Batla) has yet matched. MCs Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er, along with DJ Hi-Tek, shot to internet fame after their 2009 videos went viral. They sold out US shows; ‘Enter the Ninja’ garnered over 11 million YouTube views. They’ve since released two albums, and recently dropped the single

‘XP€N$IV $H1T’. In the ‘Beat Boy’ promo video, Zefside, Ninja explained that ‘Die Antwoord’ means “the answer”. The answer to what? “Whatever, man. Fuck.” Using scratches sparingly and avoiding samples altogether, Die Antwoord eschew hip hop staples in favour of trashy Europop. Hi-Tek’s techno-rave beats, teamed with club banger choruses, can make even the screechy grime of Lady Sovereign seem subtle. ‘Enter the Ninja’, one of their earliest hits, borrows from Dance Dance Revolution; ‘I Fink U Freeky’ resurrects the early-00s reggaeton of Daddy Yankee. But amongst the visceral vulgarity and their “fuck-you-in-the-face” remixes (a typically Die Antwoord term) lies some of the most powerfully original lyricism and style in contemporary hip hop. Their work treads the line between the asinine and the avant-garde: they split with Interscope to maintain their artistic integrity, but that same ‘integrity’ involved the prominent use of ‘faggot’ in ‘Fok Julle Naaiers’.

One particularly striking element of Die Antwoord is their use of Zef style, and their elevation of South African street culture to an international level. Zef is a deliberately tacky approach to “Street”. It’s a self-consciously cheap take on post-modernism. Using the analogy of a tacked-up leather coat, Jones explained that Zef is about “stuck-together stuff”. Die Antwoord’s music is all about sticking stuff together: Eurodance, hip hop, Mike Tyson. Zef isn’t the ugg boots of boganity – Zef is ugg boots duct-taped together using sneakers and the off-cuts of a battered faux-fur jacket. Although it’s unfair to suggest Die Antwoord aren’t “real”, the Zef Life was chosen very deliberately. Ninja is the latest incarnation of Watkin Tudor Jones, a 37-year-old prestigious public school graduate who has been a part of South Africa’s hip hop scene since the early 90s. Jones’ fan network, prior to Die Antwoord, was based predominantly on live performances; he has had several relatively brief stints with rap crews, adopting widely divergent personas for years at a time. He has performed solo as neo-

Jones’ early work, where it can be found, is articulate, elegant, and cool in the traditional sense. Max Normal’s Songs from the Mall is 40 minutes of down-tempo percussion, prominent upright bass and lounge lizard bravado (“if you hear some other cat kicking my rhymes…”). ‘You Talk Too Loud’, a meditation on mutability, includes an appeal for “consideration” to fellow moviegoers; ‘Punch My Teeth Out’ samples Tchaikovsky. Jones satirised his own sophisticated detachment as a suited motivational speaker in MaxNormal.TV, using PowerPoints and patronising “How to…” raps. Yolandi Visser was his personal assistant. Jones, having experimented with comics, toys, and Microsoft Office presentations, is a very visual artist. Die Antwoord have raised Zef culture into the international consciousness, and are just as comfortable referencing Keith Haring, Roger Ballen, and Jane Alexander as they are Pokemon, Playboy, and Ask a Ninja. “We don’t rap for blind people,’ Ninja told Nylon TV. “Though blind people can get into our stuff, it’s quite good music also.” Jones has often been labelled a satirist, but it remains unclear how much of Die Antwoord is really a joke. It appears from interviews and that permanent “Pretty Wise” tattoo, that being in Die Antwoord requires complete immersion. The lines get particularly blurry where his daughter Sixteen Jones and collaborator DJ Solarize are concerned; what a casual viewer might think is an extension of the pretence

Die Antwoord’s faux-naïf detachment from reality becomes particularly problematic where race is concerned. The immediate criticism levelled against any white hiphopper is their conflation of white privilege with an overwhelmingly African American medium; a white hip-hopper old enough to have experienced Apartheid will have far more racial baggage than usual. Die Antwoord’s approach is to downplay these big ideological issues. Despite this, race haunts Die Antwoord, and they know it. In November last year, Die Antwoord released a homemade video, Faggot, to explain the unconventional ending of the ‘Fok Julle Naaiers’ video (a fantasy on Mike Tyson’s “I’ll fuck you till you love me” outburst). In character as always, Ninja explains that Americans are “heavy sensitive about the use of certain words”. In his heavily warped view of South African race politics, Ninja assures us that “a white guy will say to a black guy, ‘Yo, wassup my nigga?’ and no one freaks out or anything… that’s why they say South Africa’s a Rainbow Nation.” Ninja, who has often stressed the need to ‘increase the peace’, cites the “pay-off line Simunye” (“we are one”) as indicative of

Despite emerging from disparate origins, New War have quickly become one of Australia’s most powerful rock bands. Drawing from dub, punk and goth, the four-piece play emotionally and politically charged dance-punk with hypnotic, immersive grooves that are as possible to dance to as they are to hack doors open with.

WORLDWIDE WAR Alex Griffin chats to one of Melbourne’s finest, New War’s Chris Pugmire, about arts, history, and a world without guitars

Though the band is based in Melbourne, singer Chris Pugmire and bassist Melissa Lock are products of the 90s Seattle DIY scene – the thriving hotbed of punk, feminism and ingenuity that gave birth to bands like Le Tigre and The Gossip, and Nirvana before them. Unsurprisingly, having relocated, Pugmire is dismissive of what money and outside attention can do to a thriving arts scene. “It’s the people who make a place; it’s all about making music with the people you like to make music with. By the time the dotcom boom there had finished, they’d ripped the soul out of it. Now there [are] boring cafes and art galleries selling art that nobody can afford... Poor people always make the best art.” Take that, 96fm. The shift to Melbourne has been productive, to say the least. Their debut record has quickly garnered rave reviews, and New War are regarded as a must-see amongst

this widespread tolerance. This is undermined a little by the next 15 seconds of footage, in which he makes two well-endowed Evil Boy toys cock-fight. It is one thing for an enlightened audience to overlook racism in favour of the bigger cultural picture, but Die Antwoord is a case of enlightened performers taking hipster racism to a professional level. Ninja has never demonstrated much tact, but lines like “I am a fuckin’ coloured cause I am a fuckin’ coloured if I want to be a coloured. My inner coloured just wants to be discovered” (‘Fish Paste’) require not only suspension of disbelief but also of good taste. Their post-ironic racism is becoming more prominent too: their latest album promo referenced Alexander’s ‘Butcher Boys’, a sculptural comment on Apartheid, and ‘XP€N$IV $H1T’ shares its name with one of activist and icon Fela Kuti’s albums. Now, coopting landmark works of protest art is fine, but reappropriating them into an artistic stance that includes blatant racism towards their creators is infinitely more troubling. Jones has found a source of controversy and is deliberately exploiting it. Perhaps this is a sign of the fall of Die Antwoord – a monstrous Jones experiment which has developed a will of its own. In spite of their outrageously materialist Zef aesthetics, Die Antwoord don’t appear to be about profit. Jones has taken authorial death to heart: all his previous work, which has garnered much interest on YouTube, has been left to dissipate, slowly destroyed by time and a fickle public. Probably, when Jones decides that Die Antwoord isn’t serving him artistically, he’ll abandon it. As Max Normal put it: “If I decide that I need a new host / Somebody’s pretty little shell is going to get a new ghost.”

Melburnians. Where Pugmire’s work in Seattle with Shoplifting was more strident, New War is a subtler, more focused animal, tackling big social and personal issues in a more complex way. “I’m spending a lot more time on lyrics. I’m a lot more influenced by what is going on in the world, and I’ve been reading a lot of history. In music, you don’t often hear about the harder, more complicated things, and that’s something I try to address.” New War are distinctive for not playing with a guitarist, but what others might view as a limitation Pugmire revels in, citing his desire to “do something different. We didn’t want to play with another guitar player. People still tend to think that Jesse [Shepherd, synthesizer] is playing a guitar from the sounds he’s making, though.” That desire to avoid the path welltrodden and investigate something more difficult to pin down might well be the secret to the success of the distinctive, powerful racket that New War produce. You can experience New War at the inaugural This Is Nowhere festival, coming up on the 14th of August at the Somerville Auditorium at UWA.

Music

turns out to be very, very real. Die Antwoord are funny, but they aren’t a stock-standard comic rap outfit: Yolandi and Ninja use these hyperbolic, borderline ridiculous personae as a legitimate artistic medium, and produce a legitimate audience response. They provoke fan art and discussion from hipsters; they can make “a million little motherfuckers jump” at Coachella. Tracks like ‘Fatty Boom Boom’ and ‘Rich Bitch’ aren’t about a punchline. These tracks are about the act, the album, the art. There is a limit, though, where a listener can feel their shtick is inauthentic and dangerous.

29 17

beat Max Normal, in the follow-up “corporate hip hop project” MaxNormal.TV, and in the multimedia storytelling crew the Constructus Corporation. Yolandi Visser is a relatively recent collaborator and the mother of his child; it’s unclear whether a single DJ Hi-Tek exists at all.

Music Reviews

Ariel Pink Mature Themes

Passion Pit Gossamer

Van She

Animal Collective

Idea of Happiness

Centipede HZ

Modular / Universal

Domino Let me begin by declaring that I’m a big Animal Collective fan. Moreover, I’m not the kind to jump into a negative diatribe for the sake of being contrarian. So please reader, believe me when I say, that what follows really hurts me as much as it’s going to hurt any AC faithful out there.

4AD

Columbia Records

Who is Ariel Pink? If you hear him tell it on Mature Themes, he’s a nympho, a schizo, 5ft 4in, and he knows where to find the bogan shemales hopped up on meth. Though he’s been placed in the strange position of being simultaneously overtheorised and underappreciated – due to the impenetrable but influential nature of his first tape-damaged acidfried eight records – he remains one the most talented, difficult songwriters we have, mashing 80s TV themes, yacht-rock and the pop canon into fascinating, innovative shapes.

Gossamer is Passion Pit’s second album, coming after the release of Manners in 2009. Fronted by Michael Angelakos, Passion Pit became swiftly known for their bright electro-pop sound and addictive hits like ‘Sleepyhead’ – which, as I was informed by Pelican’s Zoe Kilbourn, can make strong women cry on treadmills.

Four years ago, Sydney four-piece Van She released what many described as one of the best albums of 2008: their debut record V. After remixing the likes of Ladyhawke and Gypsy and the Cat, the shoe-gazing foursome have set their sights on the Caribbean with their sophomore album Idea of Happiness.

This record is glitter encrusted misery. It’s a weirdly uncomfortable insight into Michael’s personal life for the past few years, sparing neither his sojourn in a mental institution nor his relationship complications with his fiancée. Thankfully, instead of a being horribly grim and downright depressing album, it’s enthusiastic, upbeat and oddly cheerful, which leaves a partially confused but mostly unaffected listener satisfied.

Dispensing with the synth-heavy 80s pop sound synonymous with their name, a quick glance of the track list reveals an album centered around tropical influences, most evident in ‘Calypso’, ‘Jamaica’, and ‘Coconuts’. It’s a new vibe for Van She who, like Cut Copy and Pnau before them, are evidently pursuing a new direction toward a more developed, mature, and ultimately more accessible sound. This unfortunately comes at the expense of originality and inventiveness, which means less ‘Cat and the Eye’ and more short-lived summer anthems (I don’t know why they released this album in winter either).

If the critical fawning over 2010’s Before Today was the world catching up with Pink, Mature Themes is Pink catching up on himself and delivering something worthy of his wit and his weirdness. As his first album recorded in a studio with a band, Before Today hedged its bets between the grit of his early material and the polish offered by microphones more expensive than a bag of weed. Mature Themes peels more grit away than its predecessor to great effect, revealing the complex, gliding machinery of some of his finest, strangest songs. ‘Only In My Dreams’ tweaks The Byrds into a daze, and ‘Kinski Assassin’ turns Ray Manzarek into something not bullshit – that’s chops. The title track is a glorious, hopeful ode to self-hate and foreplay, half-doo wop and half Human League. He’s not toning himself down to lease anyone though, and that is where the record drags; whether that means relating the details of his schnitzel habits (‘Schnitzel Boogie’) or losing himself in a proggy k-hole (‘Early Birds of Babylon’). But hey, Ariel Pink will never make a perfect album, and expecting one would be pointless; dude is too far baked for that. What he’ll never run out of is himself, and Mature Themes is more proof he’s the best.

Alex Griffin

7.5

The album is not only a refreshingly (sometimes disturbingly) honest piece of work though; it’s also a great collection of songs. The first three tracks of the album are fantastically catchy, while the second half of the album is an open love letter to Michael’s fiancé, which is awkwardly sweet. ‘Constant Conversations’ – a strange mix of electro-pop and RnB which Angelakos still manages to pull off – is a highlight, as is the closer ‘Where We Belong’, which is not only a gorgeous song by itself, but also features a bizarre purring effect which is eerily soothing and worth checking out. The only let downs on Gossamer are ‘Mirrored Sea’ and ‘Cry like A Ghost’. These back-to-back tracks are genuinely irritating. I tried to re-listen to them to make sure I wasn’t slandering two good songs in this review but I couldn’t stand to listen to them all the way through. Avoid. However, if you enjoy the guilty pleasure of reading someone else’s diary, you’ll love this album.

Lauren Croser

7.0

What’s great about Idea of Happiness as an album though is that it’s just that – an album, something more than simply a collection of singles, transitions and fillers. There aren’t any weak tracks or filler here – even the transition pieces ‘Radio Waves I’ and ‘Radio Waves II’ serve as integral parts of a cohesive body, providing a welcome respite from vocally driven tracks such as Sarah – the latter reminiscent of Gypsy and the Cat. As an album best listened to from start to finish with a mojito in hand, you’ll find yourself humming riffs from every track long before you complain about how their new stuff isn’t like their old stuff. It’s not quite on par with In Ghost Colours or Gilgamesh, but it’s not far off.

Dylan Henderson

7.5

Centipede hurts; it really does. And no, repeat listens don’t reveal any underlying genius. If anything, it highlights just how much 2009’s critical darling, Merriweather Post Pavilion, was a stylistic outlier for the group. Their latest is more aligned to previous offerings such as Strawberry Jam or Feels. Now, this in itself isn’t a slight – AC’s back catalogue pre-MPP is pretty damn impressive. However, where earlier albums excelled by emphasizing emotion and viscera over hooks, the attempted return on Centipede HZ feels weak and rather shallow. The progressions are lazy, and by returning the vocals closer towards the front of the mix it seems as though group almost wants to draw attention to their bullshit tendencies. Lead single, ‘Today’s Supernatural’ is one of the few exceptions. That is, the melodies genuinely work. Almost everything else – the worst offenders being ‘Honeycomb’ and ‘Monkey Riches’ – feels deliberately obtuse. We get it guys, you’re just bros jamming, but do your fans a favour and go a little easier on the pretension plz. I know mine is going to be an unpopular view amongst most. Inevitably when we hype something up for so long it’s hard to back-pedal and revise our premature praise. But fuck it; I would equate the sonic experience of Centipede HZ to being the final segment in a human centipede sequence. That’s right listener, there’s a lot of unbearable shit coming your way.

Alice Mepham

3.0

Music Reviews

The Acid Test

Oh Mercy

The Go-Betweens

Dan Deacon

Deep Heat

Quiet Heart: Best Of

America

EMI

Domino

Ok, first things first: Melbourne’s Oh Mercy are a great band. Go see ‘em live when they pass through and they’ll repay your 15 clams with a highly enjoyable evening of solid Aussie pop-rock, served up with a lovin’ spoonful of good vibrations and some priceless banter courtesy of frontman/band leader Alexander Gow. Hell, even Paul Kelly likes them, judging by the glowing foreword he gave to last year’s cruelly underrated Great Barrier Grief.

Reviewing “best-of” collections always comes with a bit more difficulty than your regular release, and it probably doesn’t help if you, the reviewer, are only familiar with a small portion of their back-catalogue. Extra questions must be asked. Does it adequately represent the “best” of that artist’s material? Will it satisfy hardcore fans? How about newbies? My answers, for those playing at home, are I Don’t Really Know, I Have No Idea and Maybe.

America, Dan Deacon’s sixth record, finds him exploring his conflicting feelings towards his homeland. Split into two parts of roughly equal length, Side A quickly moves away from the abrasive start of ‘Guildford Avenue Bridge’ to find Deacon in familiar territory: an energetic blend of synthesizers and distorted vocals, best demonstrated with opening single (and second track) ‘True Thrush’.

HOW TO LISTEN TO WING

It’s been a long three years since 2009’s Bromst, and to hear those driving tribal drums alongside his hipster Alvin and the Chipmunks singing again is enough to instantly bring a smile. But Deacon isn’t done there. Side B of the album belongs to the title track: split into four parts titled Is A Monster, The Great American Desert, Rail, and Manifest, he slows the pace down and it becomes a road trip across the USA. Reportedly influenced by the Occupy Wall Street movement and all that jam, Deacon finds himself in love with the place that his country could be and hating what it so often is.

5. Are doors and windows locked?

Broadening his musical palette and applying his recent experience in film scores, he incorporates woodwinds and strings (while keeping the marimbas and xylophones of Bromst) throughout the suite that recalls post-rock at its best. It sounds grand in ways that you wouldn’t expect possible from the artist that was behind ‘Drinking Out of Cups’ less than a decade ago. America is brilliant; it’s alternately beautiful and danceable, and it needs to be listened to.

11. Ceremonial jewellery is applied – put on the gauze headcoat! The platinum cummerbund! The blinding thorn! May the circle remain unbroken (WINGBLINGS)

Unfortunately, great band or not, Paul Kelly or not, Oh Mercy’s third record Deep Heat is a huge misstep. Evidently a knee jerk reaction to the criticisms levelled at Great Barrier Grief, Gow and co. have apparently decided to abandon everything that made that record (and 2009’s Privileged Woes) enjoyable records, and instead elected to stuff Deep Heat with a veritable smorgasbord of disagreeable tripe; we’re talking sneered vocals, tired, unappealing lyrics and a healthy dose of dodgy whiteboy funk. And that’s just the first couple of tracks. In fact, the whole thing reeks of 80s shitstorm era Bob Dylan complete with dodgy reggae excursion. God help us. As such, this is a frustrating move from Oh Mercy, who have long appeared to be on the verge of producing some truly amazing music. This release seems unlikely to impress the solid fanbase they’ve built up over the last couple of years, and it’s hard to see Deep Heat’s bland 80’s funkrock gaining the band a tonne of new fans, especially considering the Triple J crowd’s current obsession with catchy, air-headed indie-pop. Honestly, it’s difficult to imagine this album catching on in any musical climate. Disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some great moments here: I love every second of ‘Part Company’, while ‘Cattle and Cane’ is a much-touted piece that actually lives up to its reputation. Almost everything else is superbly arranged and only a couple of the eighteen tracks are really skip-worthy. However, a lot of songs seem to reach for great heights only to be let down by something which stops them getting all the way there, be it a lyric that could be phrased a lot better, a constricting AABB rhyming pattern, a narrative which is too vague and lacking concrete reference points, or one which seems just a bit too obvious. I feel like I’ve missed something with the Go-Betweens. Maybe I needed to have been born a few years earlier, or I need to understand more about the musical context they emerged from to really get them. The eighties are not my forte. But they might be yours. Is this the best starting point? I wonder.

Connor Weightman

7.0

Sean McEwan

9.0

Wing The Sound of Music & The Prayer Self-released, 2003

1. Invite over friends and/or workmates 2. Mix a good stiff drink or batch thereof to share 4 revelry 3. Prepare a stirfry or gluten free pasta 4. Maybe put on some lip gloss or a fitted shirt 6. Go back and reapply hair gels. Do it! 7. Wing is coming! Look sharp come on she’s coming! 8. Friends arrive relax, with board game and relevant talking – maybe some Wing-related humour (WINGZINGS) 9. Everyone puts their name into a box and in the order they are drawn they tell a story about how Wing has done a thing (WINGTHINGS) 10. Consulting the bloodlines, elect a leader to operate the CD deck (WINGKING)

12. Couple up with the person to your left and perform the holy act of flight (WINGSWINGS) 13. Hose down the linoleum floor 14. Maybe give Wing a ring first so she can sing to you or a loved one on a birthday or similarly important event (WINGRING) 15. Are you ready it’s important that you’ve done all of this!!! 16. Listen to Wing (WINGSINGS)

Alex Griffin Keaton McSweeney

3.0

Music

I’M A BELIEBER Tom Riddle I’m thinking of a singer. From humble beginnings, this singer quickly became one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) celebrities in the world, after catching his first real break with a win in a talent contest. Singing a style of music usually reserved for AfricanAmericans, his star quickly ascended to the point that hysterical fans caused near-riots at some of his early appearances. This singer is polarizing in his popularity; critics are quick to point out any fresh failing, or how the legions of teenage female fans who obsess over his every move represent the next step along the slippery slope of the complete moral decay of society. Others just call him overrated or poke fun at his physique. You’re thinking of Justin Bieber. I’m thinking of Frank Sinatra. Ol’ Blue Eyes and the Beebs have more in common than you’d think. Neither came from a showbiz family, but were scouted early and quickly had hordes of screaming girls following them. Sinatra frequently faced criticism for being declared unfit for combat service in World War Two, while Bieber is often called out for looking just a bit effeminate. Both made strides into business – Sinatra founded his own record company in the early 50s, while Bieber has a string of investments to his name. Only one writes his own songs – and that’s JB. Maybe by dismissing commercial music out of hand, you’re not being as clever as you think. Maybe, you’d see that maybe Nicki Minaj isn’t the worst thing to happen to music in a long time.

Illustration by Matthew Goss

“Pop songs are only about shallow things” Criticising pop songs for being primarily concerned with broadly drawn common experiences (partying, a lost love, etc.) is a lot like complaining about a fire being hot. Popular music is going to appeal to as many people as possible using easily relatable tropes. This isn’t so much a criticism as it is a description of the genre. While we’re at it, just because something is broad and formulaic doesn’t mean it is meaningless or without merit – Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’ and its accompanying video somehow manages to speak on partying AND how doing lots of drugs sucks/is awesome AND how often we can mistake a relationship as a way out of a downward spiral when it’s an essential part of the spiral itself. Fuck. Yeah. “Pop stars don’t write their own music, and it’s all formulaic anyway” Marvin Gaye used a team of songwriters to assist him in creating What’s Going Onto be one of the best albums of all time. Songwriting teams like the Corporation and Hozier-Dolland-Hozier

were behind some of the greatest pop groups of all time with a string of Motown acts. Hell, Elvis didn’t write any of his own stuff. It’s never been a prerequisite of good music that it be written and performed by the same people, or to have broken new ground. However, it is a good way for someone to dismiss anything they don’t like by insisting that there’s an enshrined principle that demands artists write and innovate to be “authentic”. Pop songs often use things like simple chord progressions and verse/chorus/verse because these are tried-and-true methods that have proven to be easy on the ear and don’t require any significant investment in time to appreciate. Accusations of formula are largely irrelevant; if you cook to a recipe, it doesn’t mean your food will taste exactly like someone else who cooked to the same recipe. The focus on pop isn’t on the recipe, but who cooks it and how. RedOne and Dr Luke might be “behind” a great number of the biggest hits but this doesn’t really take away from their songwriting chops in any way, shape or form. The popularity of many internet covers (or say, Triple J’s Like A Version, blurgghhh – ED), and the acceptance of rearrangements over originals, suggests that much of what people dislike about the song is tied up in the idea of “pop” itself, or at least what they think it is, rather than the underlying song structure. “No Stars Ever” Denigrating Chris Brown’s music based on his woman-beating isn’t so much the devastating critique of his album some think it is; rather, it’s a refusal to engage with his music in the first place. We have never judged our celebrities’ art based on their behaviour, heinous though it may be. Maybe we should. But then we’d have to do that consistently across the board. John Lennon was a total cunt who beat his wife. Where was the outcry on social media when a convicted sex offender was brought back from the dead to appear at Coachella via hologram? Talk about a trigger warning. On the flipside, Frank Ocean gets Album of the Year for the achingly beautiful revelation of bisexuality he posted earlier this year on tumblr. Notable squirrel-harmer Mark E. Smith is worshipped as a God. Music either exists in a vacuum or it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, we must judge the sins of all equally, and not just do it when it suits us. “This isn’t real music” Hating pop music is like hating fast food. People can claim that their tastes have evolved beyond it; good on them for being pretentious fucks. I fucking love pop music. It doesn’t HAVE to

necessarily say something profound about the world – it’s meant to be well-crafted and enjoyable. Pop is fun. Remember fun? When your brow wasn’t so furrowed over what it all meant that you could take a chance on ABBA? Fun is what all those people you think you’re better than are having when they go to a nightclub to dance to Lil’ Wayne. You think we don’t know that “Almost drowned in the pussy, so I swam to the butt” is a bit of a dumb line? To quote TISM: “Give me a pop-song, mate. Give me a fucking pop-song.”

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Film Reviews

Your Sister’s Sister

Bernie

Director Lynn Shelton

Director Richard Linklater

Starring Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mark Duplass

Starring Jack Black, Sherley MacLaine, Mathew McConaughey

I must admit that going into Your Sister’s Sister I wasn’t expecting much. Hell, given American indie cinema’s twee tendencies I would have been happy to leave the screening with my faith in humanity still intact. As it happens, my anxiety was rather premature. In fact, I’m happy to report that it’s one of the pleasant surprises in what has been a lacklustre year for independent films.

We are going through a drought. It’s that time of the year when films dry up, and we are left with a murky swill of Hollywood remakes, turgid comedies, and block-busters too weak to be considered for the summer season. For the avid cinema-goer, these months are hell. But Bernie, the latest collaboration between director Richard Linklater (School of Rock) and tenacious actor Jack Black, offers respite from the desert of staggered releases.

Your Sister’s Sister centres on Jack (Mark Duplass) who in the film’s opening scenes delivers a hostile eulogy at his brother’s wake. Alarmed Iris (Emily Blunt), Jack’s best friend and his late brother’s girlfriend, offers him a getaway at her family’s isolated holiday cabin. Upon arriving Jack learns that he is not alone. Iris’s recently single half-sister, Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), is also trying to “heal” at the island retreat. Relations are initially frosty, but are melted considerably over a shared bottle of tequila and some ‘horizontal refreshment’, with the morning after made even more awkward by Iris’ spontaneous presence.

Bernie (Black) is a small town mortician who is absolutely adored by everyone in his small Texas community. He sings like an angel (at funerals and at church), is generous, “lovingly queer” and is – most importantly – devoted to everyone but himself. That is, until he spies Marjorie Nugent (MacLaine) at her sister’s funeral – the crotchety old witch hated by everyone. Bernie takes it upon himself to become her friend, but finds himself straddling the line between lover and slave. Their relationship leads Bernie to commit an act that both himself and the town refuse to accept as possible.

Naturally, the situation escalates to near farcical melodrama, although it is thankfully handled with a keen self-awareness, even if the conclusion it arrives at is rather implausible. Whilst all three players put in solid performances, Duplass steals the show. His unconventional charm is not only amusing; it also helps ground the film at moments that might otherwise test the viewer’s patience. Moreover, you come to appreciate just how well all of this works with the knowledge that the film was shot in less than twelve days, on what must have been a miniscule budget. Your Sister’s Sister is a good indie palate cleanser in a winter buffet of superheroes and explosions.

Alice Mepham

7.0

Bernie is based on a true story, and perhaps the most interesting element of the film was Linklater’s casting of real townsfolk who were friends with the eponymous lead. Presented as a quasi-documentary, the real people seamlessly blend in amongst the performances of Black, Maclaine and McConaughey. Black’s performance is perfect. People give Jack Black a lot of guff, but they forget what a versatile actor he is. Here he is somewhat reserved yet suitably quirk, perfectly pulling off the real-life Ned Flanders act. MacLaine is similarly good as the dreadful Marjorie, managing to scrape together some sympathy for a pretty awful character, while McConaughey gets some laughs as the ego-driven District Attorney. Bernie is as quaint, charming, and ultimately dark as its moustachioed hero. Compared to the other dreck currently showing, Bernie is well worth your time and money.

Patrick Marlborough

7.5

The Bourne Legacy Director Tony Gilroy Starring Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton

The first half of the film is nearly undecipherable without knowledge of the previous three films, with the names “Blackbriar” and “Treadstone” being thrown back and forth, and several existing characters brought in with little or no introduction. Seeing as this movie will mostly attract fans of the previous films, I guess it isn’t really a problem. Without giving you too much of a spoiler, the inclusion of the main female character (played by the lovely chocolate-eyed Rachel Weisz) and some of her actions in the second half are very GURL POWERR and smack a bit too much of the studio trying to pander to female audience members whose boyfriends dragged them along. There is a science-y token attempt at being a “clever thriller” but the plot revolves around the action scenes, not the other way around. It’s a shame because that’s what really set the first three Bourne films apart from other action movies. It seemed to end halfway up the narrative arc, which is either sloppy writing, a nod to an upcoming sequel, or both. I actually only figured out the movie was ending because they used the same Moby song which ended The Bourne Identity. Though if you want to see it just for the action sequences, do: the high production values are still there. In the same way Quantum of Solace let down the Daniel Craig Bond film that came before it, The Bourne Legacy sullies the names of its ancestors. Also, Shane Jacobsen is in it.

Yvonne Buresch

6.0

Film Reviews

Holy Motors

Total Recall

Bully

Director Leos Carax

Director Len Wiseman

Director Lee Hirsch

Starring Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue

Starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston

The screening finished with a collective noise from the audience; half incredulous sigh, half nervous giggle. As people streamed out into Leederville, a girl asks above the chatter “what the fuck did I just watch?” It’s a fair question. There’s so much that could be said about Holy Motors. So much. As it is, I can’t think of a way to describe even the basics of the plot without selling it short, and I always think it’s better to go in without knowing much anyway. Especially in this case. This is all I’ll tell you: There is a dude (Lavant), he gets driven around in a limo, and he “acts”. Kind of. You’ll just have to take it from me that this is one of the most interesting films of recent memory. Convention is toyed with, used and abused. It is surreal. It is an English Major’s wet dream. The performances are all stellar, particularly Lavant, who I really do not have enough superlatives to describe. The pacing of the film never lets up, and there is hardly a scene that doesn’t bring some new surprise with it. There are some absurd moments of true shock and awe – I don’t think I can overstate this. The scene with Eva Mendes, well… I have said enough. You should be on the way to the cinema now. I promise that even if you don’t like Holy Motors as much as I, you will at least have a lot to talk about afterwards. You just have to see it. Oh my, you really do.

Connor Weightman

10.0

I would not go so far as to say that this is a shot for shot remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, but if you have seen the original this will feel familiar. Total Recall (2012), takes the core concept from Total Recall (1990), (“Are these really my memories? Better kill everything”), and transplants it into a new speculative future with peripheral narrative tweaks. Mars colony has been replaced with a giant elevator that transports workers from ‘The Colony’ (Australia) to the only other habitable part of the world, the ‘United Federation of Britain’ (Western Europe) and is the focus of the anti-colonial struggle that motivates the action. Total Recall is a solid sci-fi action thriller that will entertain you and won’t feel too long. Colin Farrell is a convincing hero but Kate Beckinsale is a bit too evil to be believable. There will be some moments that feel cheap and some that make no sense whatsoever. At one point I realised that the only reason a particular ‘old comrade’ type character existed was so that he could appear, rescue the hero and then promptly die without uttering a line. You will be left wondering why the evil guys don’t just use their ridiculous resources to solve their problems rather than enact evil schemes, but at the end of the day, this movie isn’t about making sense, its about kicking ass. Some notes for fans of the original ; (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Mars is not involved. The three-breasted whore receives a cursory salute. There is no rag tag mutant militia. The special effects are much better but less entertaining. It is not as gore filled or as memorable as the original.

Camden Watts

7.0

Bully is a slickly produced, emotionally engaging study of the deeply ingrained bullying culture in American schools. Released by The Weinstein Company in the US, Bully faced a ratings battle when the MPAA rated the film R for violence and bad language. This would ban the intended audience of the film (high school students) from seeing it. Which is a pity, considering that they’re likely to get the most out of the film, despite its flaws. Bully focuses on the experiences of five school students throughout the school year. Their experiences are shadowed by a series of bullying-driven suicides. Of the five stories, Alex Libby’s is the most engrossing: A 12 year-old kid who’s just accepted the constant physical and mental bullying he’s endured, going so far to try to justify the behaviour of the bullies as acts of friendship. The other stories deal with other aspects of bullying (like the town-wide harassment recently out 15 year old Kelsey faces) but the film would’ve been more engaging had it cut down to focus on only a few cases. Bully’s biggest issue is that it never tries to explore the mindset of the bully. No bullies are interviewed and we never get a clear understanding of what motivates someone to bully another. It’s all very Manichean, the white-hat victims and the black-hat bullies. There’s also a slickness to the film, (especially the ending) which feels Invisible Children-esque in its attempt to foster some sort of social movement against bullying. Bully makes important points about the systematic failure of the American education system to deal with bullying. It’s worth seeing (especially for schoolkids), but there’s an element of nuance missing from the documentary which holds it back.

Kevin Chiat

6.5

Books

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Books

Albert of Adelaide BEST BIT:

Grace McCleen

Howard L. Anderson

The Land of Decoration

Contains platypus.

4/10 Albert is a Platypus. We join the action with Albert having escaped from Adelaide Zoo and walking into the desert, thereby beginning the plot of a haphazard western/bushranger story... with Australian fauna...written by an American. It sounds awesome, I know. But once you get over the whole RUNNING AWAY FROM ADELAIDE? LOL ADELAIDE SUCKS LOL part of the story (that I suspect wasn’t even an intentional joke) there are problems. The supposedly free-wheeling “yarn” of a plot quickly closes in on itself, and the energy the story begins with dissipates. There is nothing really intricate here plot-wise, nothing that keeps the reader guessing, when the genre/style is just crying out for a few more threads. Character development is minimal at best, and the author seems to work on a mostly tell-don’t-show basis in this regard. At least the general narrative is easy to follow – the book’s one saving grace, other than the anthropomorphisms – although the dialogue is dull and clichéd. Also there are no female characters. At all. This is never explained.

8/10 WORST BIT:

No echidnas.

by Connor Weightman: honestly doesn’t like writing bad things about what other people have written.

This is the first novel from Dr Ironmonger who apparently is a world authority on leeches and flatworms. Perhaps you should let that put you off. However, in saying that the premise of this novel is quite unique. Maximilian Ponder has spent the last thirty years shut away in his study, attempting to record every memory he has ever had in a notebook he calls “The Catalogue”. The novel follows his best friend and confidante, Adam Last as he is confronted by Ponder’s death. What follows is Last trying to understand what would drive a man to undertake such a project. The book is interspersed with excerpts from the “The Catalogue” and plenty of philosophical wonderings. The Notable Brain would suit readers who have ever contemplated becoming a recluse but would like some more information first. READ IT WITH: An assignment that you are looking to procrastinate from. Suddenly it is a ‘can’t-put-it-down’ read!

One day after a particularly nasty schoolyard threat, Judith scatters cotton wool on the Land of Decoration and prays for snowfall so heavy she won’t have to go to school on Monday – and it does snow. Convinced she’s performed a miracle, Judith continues to use the Land of Decoration to enact the word of “God” – whose voice she begins to hear inside her head, only “God” doesn’t tell her exactly what you’d expect – setting off a whole chain of ever more cataclysmic events.

WORST BIT: There isn’t really a ‘worst bit’, the whole thing is pretty great.

by Fay Clarke: is a book nerd, caffeine junkie and perpetual arts student who will probably never leave Uni.

Time Warped BEST BIT:

BEST BIT: Claudia Hammond

J.W. Ironmonger

6/10

She takes solace in her bedroom, working on the “Land of Decoration”: a model of the new, perfect world that she expects will come to be after the Armageddon, fashioned from old soft drink wrappers and assorted items of rubbish she finds on the ground.

READ IT WITH: The Bible – if you’re super keen to decipher the religious allegory used throughout the novel.

READ IT WITH: Monotreme fan-club paraphernalia.

The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder

Judith is 11 years old and growing up within a fundamentalist Christian sect. This has made her isolated and introverted, and, as she’s unable to relate to any of her classmates, a target of increasingly vicious bullying.

BEST BIT: Following Judith’s unsentimental and incredibly affecting narration as she calmly explains the impending Armageddon. Also her manic dreams and conversations with “God”.

The flashbacks to life in Nairobi and the connection to Dictator Idi Amin. Very smartly done.

WORST BIT: The novel as a whole is quite boring and tedious to get through.

by Melissa Coci: is a 25-year-old pharmacist who is looking to turn her back on drugs and become a journalist.

4/10 Have you ever wondered why time seems to get faster and faster the older you get? And do you want this same example listed in different ways a hundred billion times? Well then, Claudia Hammond’s Time Warped is the book for you! To be fair this is not a book that I would generally be interested in, seeing as my relationship with time, at least these days has a more wafting sort of feel to it. I’m sure if you were studying neuropsychology or some such, some of the data that Hammond gives would be quite fascinating. Indeed while some of the anecdotes and case studies she talks about are interesting – one in particular about a Frenchman spending several months in a cave was good – her lecture style of writing means that when she comes down to the brass tacks of why time plays tricks on your mind and what causes it etc., unless you have a invested interest or understanding, it comes across as quite dry and tedious. READ IT WITH: Muted footage of a lecture in progress. It’s just like the real thing!

The Frenchman’s body clock altered by almost 24 hours without him realising.

WORST BIT: Isn’t it odd. When you’re on holiday time flies, but when you’re at work it slows??

by Mark Tilly : was told by the press release to quote that this book costs $32.99. Amazing!

BEST BIT:

Ryan O’Neill

Michael Palin

5/10 What I thought might be an equally quaint response to Stephen Fry’s The Liar turned out to be a disappointingly bland dalliance with popular fiction. Keith Mabbut, a failed journalist, is offered an impressive assignment: penning the biography of an elusive environmentalist. Dirty laundry is aired and cupboards are bereft of their skeletons. Michael Palin peaked in Python. Now, he’s less comic provocateur than chummy national figurehead, churning out the sort of travelogues that nicely suit the timeslot after Antiques Roadshow. The Truth, set largely in developing countries, is a fictional extension of his travel writing. Mabbut is less an innocent abroad than a stick-in-the-mud Englishman trying to catch a break. Palin’s prose is serviceable – correct, but lacklustre. Dialogue veers towards the offensively twee. He uses platitudes as a crutch, reverting to the dreary fiction v. fact debate and obvious reflections on ‘truth’. Mabbut’s musings on ‘the real India’ are downright uninspired. The Truth is the kind of book the Sunday Times would call ‘laugh out loud’, which means you, you bright young thing, probably won’t.

Arse, the post-modernist theatrical experiment.

WORST BIT:

Reference to sex as “perkily poking”.

by Zoe Kilbourn: studies second year law/music. Call her, maybe.

4.5/10 This debut collection of short stories by English lecturer Ryan O’Neill is riddled with sections of fastidious originality and occasional injections of satirical prose. Though the author takes us to China, Africa and parts of Europe, you don’t get a feeling of moving from your reading chair. There is less enthusiasm for content than there is for keeping the reader guessing as to what interesting – and I would say fatuous – formatting and page structuring will come up next. The author asks you to do a crossword, fill in the blanks, decipher phonologically written sentences and to sit through lectures on how to write short stories. As you’ve probably guessed I didn’t like this book, maybe my reading it during exams didn’t help. It is however an undoubtedly fresh take on the short story and I would indeed recommend it to young adults who haven’t read much literature and are looking for an easy to assimilate, mentally un-taxing page turner. READ IT WITH: A time-machine.

Books

The Weight of a Human Heart

BEST BIT: The last page – you’ll immediately want to pick up some Martin Amis or Saul Bellow to refresh the mind.

WORST BIT:

The first page.

by Jesse Rutigliano: Thinks that judging a book by its cover is incredibly efficient.

READ IT WITH: Tea.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

BEST BIT:

With a background in television writing (she wrote for Arrested Development!) Semple delivers an intriguing plot, great character premises and wonderful dialogue. Unfortunately, the first hundred pages hold no plot development and the last hundred pages hold nothing else. The middle hundred, however, are quite a good read. Portrayed as a collection of hand-written notes, emails and faxes, a 15 year old Seattle genius constructs the story of the lead-up to, and disappearance of, her mother. Unexpectedly, the final chapters dispense with the format, becoming a glorified diary of the pursuit of the absent parent. I found three difficulties with this book: 1) Thought-provoking imagery is introduced subtly and eloquently, only to be explicitly explained, 2) Characters have sporadic and random bursts of uncharacteristic novelistic prose, and 3) The correspondence format allows plot developments to be stated rather than woven through the story. Dealing with issues of mental health, family, creativity, religion, failure, and gender, I would have titled it, ‘projected realities and casual racism’ or ‘we’re all fucking insane.’ READ IT WITH: A dimmed sense of truth.

BEST BIT:

Dorothy Hewett

Maria Semple

6/10

Wild Card: An Autobiography

Semple’s ability to recreate the humorous insanity of everyday conversation.

WORST BIT: A major plot development is literally ignored by the rest of the plot.

by Zev Levi: plans on becoming an extravagantly overqualified musician.

Oak Lawn sex.

9/10 Dorothy Hewett taught my mother first year English. Mum doesn’t remember anything about the class aside from her lecturer’s ripped stockings, which she is still outraged about. The poet, playwright and academic, of course, got up to much more at UWA: Communist Party hell-raising, late-night liaisons on Oak Lawn, and co-founding UDS (she’s indirectly responsible for Cruise). Hewett takes a whimsically poetic approach to her re-released autobiography. She captures perfectly idealistic youthful bohemianism and the airlessness of old farming family life. Wild Card draws its strengths from Hewett’s shrewdly witty phrasing (her matriarchal great-grandmother is “shadow minister of the family finances”) and an oddly astute sense of melodrama (her mother’s lover “kept dusty acid drops in his pocket and loved her romantically”). Hewett is most concerned with pinning down memories: time awkwardly lurches where necessary, and colours and objects appear abruptly and vividly (a dead cat, a pewter mug “blessed by the lips of Ned Kelly”). The coursing anecdotes are dizzying, but beautifully rendered.

WORST BIT: The Class of ’43 partied harder than you will.

by Zoe Kilbourn: Studies second year law/music. She finks u freeky.

The Truth

Books

Sarah Dunstan

My favourite book in my primary school’s library was called Björnar. It was extremely musty smelling and covered in a thick plastic jacket that had taken many meltings in front of a gas heater. Björnar was a little boy living in Sweden in the 1970s. As adorable a little squirt as Björnar was, I have no desire to revisit his perpetually tangerine-wearing family and their adventures “eating cream cakes and fizzy drinks” at his birthday party.

Illustration by Wenny Yeo

However, some childhood books pass the test of time. While eating Clag paste may have lost its relevance, the imaginative kernel and the life lessons contained in many childrens books is timeless. Here are eleven really good ones.

Clive Eats Alligators (1985) Alison Lester Rosie is a cowgirl who lives in the desert with her milk bar running family. Celeste is an elegant ballerina who is the envy of all small girls, sleeping on a heart-shaped bed with a pink duvet. Frank is bespectacled and sensible, and Clive just

loves crocodiles. This book – part of a series – oozes simplicity and oh-so-coveted mid nineties charm with Lester’s familiar jelly bean inspired decorative frames (check out her other famous book The Magic Beach for some more gorgeous illustration). The best part is that the whole series is all about celebrating the individual quirks of kids. A sad reminder that maybe you were a better person in pre-primary when you wore camel-toe inducing leggings tucked into farm boots and wanted to be a tree that had been hit by lightning when you grew up.

Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present (1962) Charlotte Zoltow, illustrated by Maurice Sendak This little gem is illustrated by the recently passed Maurice, author of Where the Wild Things Are (and the Neofreudian In The Night Kitchen, in which a boy goes to a magical land of milk and loses his underwear). Rabbit and the Lovely Present is like Aesop’s Fables crossed with a mid 20th century Alice in Wonderland. But set in American settler times. A warm mushy Swiss

roll of jam and picnic check twee, this one lasts because its about loving somebody and being unable to quantify it. Attic of the Wind (1966) Dorris Lund, illustrated by Ati Forberg I’ll admit, I never read this one when I was a squirt. But I discovered it online at Kirsten’s adorable and thought-provoking website Marginamia (marginamia.blogspot.com.au). Kirsten’s daughter Nona Plum lost her favourite books in a terrible library chute mix-up and this beautifully illustrated little number was purchased in compensation.

Strega Nona (1975) Tomie de Paola The adventures of Strega Nona the friendly old witch, and her goofy friend Big Anthony, are chronicled by de Paola in a whole series of books. Just about everyone in these books are fugly, but you just have to adore them. De Paola’s distinctively clunky illustrations really lend themselves to the parable-like nature of the

Both are so absolutely brilliant I don’t even think I can explain them. Aside from perhaps in a couple of excerpts: The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.  She whips a pistol from her knickers. She aims it at the creature’s head  And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead. -‘Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf’ “D’you mean that that’s an ant?” it said. “Of course!” cried Roy. “Aunt Dorothy! This ant is over eight-three.” The creature smiled. Its tummy rumbled. It licked its starving lips and mumbled, “A giant ant! By gosh, a winner! At last I’ll get a decent dinner!” -‘The Ant-eater’ The English Roses (2003) Madonna I don’t care what the high-brow snobs of the childrens book world say – Madge’s partCinderella, part-Kabbalah fable is a cracker. Sure, the illustrations by Jeffrey Fulvimari look like they belong on limited edition lipglosses from The Body Shop, but the candy-pop, surreal appeal of the London these schoolgirls live in is timeless. Another book I’d recommend that is written by Madonna: SEX (1992).

The Gift of the Magi (1906) O. Henry This isn’t technically a childrens book, but rather a very popular Christmas-time short story. However, in the whirlpool of retail craziness that we live in, the twist at the end of it regarding young couple Jim and Della is probably just as relevant to children as to adults. Along with Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, this turn-of-the-century nugget of gold is available in a range of beautifully presented gift editions that blanche out the cholera and syphilis but not the cherished messages.

Happy Birthday! A Book of Birthday Celebrations (1988) Elizabeth Laird and Satomi Ichikawa This one is probably difficult to find, given that my mum got it for me in 1992 when the State Library was having a garage sale to get rid of all their childrens books. However, I’d highly recommend it if you like to obsessively recall zodiac signs, birth flowers and birth stones as

The Illustrated Mum (1999) Jacqueline Wilson Other good ones from Jacqui that are good to read as an adult include Double Act, Vicky Angel, Lola Rose, Dustbin Baby and the Tracy Beaker series. Her books are full of proper grit. The foster children are no ethereally frozen little match girls and in The Illustrated Mum, there’s no wicked fairy godmother but a mentally ill mother covered in tattoos. Dolphin’s account of her mother painting her whole body in toxic white paint in a manic episode is heartbreaking.

The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek (1978) Jenny Wagner Forget any of that Shutter Island trash, this book deals incredibly with psychological boundaries and questions of identity. No joke; there is a scene where the bunyip meets another bunyip, who appears as nothing but floating eyes in a sea of black, in a very similar way to how the demon Pazuzu/Captain Howdy appears in frames in The Exorcist. A truly fantastic horror-thriller, what’s even better is that it is set in the Australian bush, and for me its visuality invokes Emu Export – yellowy and ruddish and a bit scratchy.

The Velveteen Rabbit (1922) Margery Williams “Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

Books

it contains two hand-painted wheels with all of this information on it (information I guarantee will make you popular and get you a boyfriend). This book is very quaint, featuring everything from how to make your own punch and serve it in a basket carved from a melon, to birthday celebrations in the Edwardian period, all with beautiful illustrations by Ichikawa. It also features an illustrated version of ‘The Lamb’ by William Blake, which is something that you’d hope won’t be forgotten by too many people in the next generation.

Strega Nona stories. As a child it instills a valuable principle that carries through to adulthood: Don’t underestimate the power of little old ladies. Revolting Rhymes (1982) and Dirty Beasts (1983) Roald Dahl

Arts

High Quality,

not Hi-Def Blair Hurley

I must’ve suffered a brain haemorrhage recently, because I’ve lapsed back into playing old video games instead of feeding myself. But let me tell you – it’s not all bad. The launch date of the Wii U is soon to be upon us, and I think, given the NES binge I’ve been on, I might have a few words of caution for the would-be discerning gamer. I say this as a huge fan of Nintendo, whatever their crypto-capitalist (if not overtly profiteering) ways, and if I could be considered some sort of authority on games (which I shouldn’t), then heed my words that given the recent bout of boring rereleases Nintendo have executed, you’re probably better off waiting to see if anything good will be released on the Wii U. This is the first suggestion I have to offer, you could call it the weak argument of this piece.

Illustration by Camden Watts

The second piece of advice, the strong argument I have to proffer up pushes the same logic to its furthest extent: in the long run, you’re probably better off buying an old game console and buying some of the really good games that were released for that platform. Both arguments are basically simple empiricism (‘go with what you know’), so they’re not radical or impressive claims, but that’s not the point. The point of both arguments, probably more so the stronger than the weaker, are that there are some freaking awesome games out there that are really cheap, and that you’ve probably never heard about before. I’ll step into this slowly. With the release of Spec Ops: The Line, we’ve seen yet another big-budget game directed at delivering cinematic spectacles and special effects. While The Line touts the role of ‘ethical choices’ in its gameplay, promising compelling ‘story-telling’, ‘stunning visuals’ and an all-round ‘immersive, gripping experience’, I would honestly have

you all go back and play GoldenEye 007. One of Hyper Magazine’s main editors gave The Line 10/10, comparing the game’s story to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, lauding it for its ability to (apparently) convey the impression that the choices the player was making were real. The Hyper article then goes on to claim that The Line is the kind of game Modern Warfare 3 should’ve been. This is all laughable. There is nothing more comparable to being driven insane by sheer desperation than GoldenEye’s multiplayer. The Line suffers from debilitatingly bland gameplay, and fails to render anything as immersive as this single N64 title. Goldeneye pushes you to the edge. With a proper controller, all that sets you apart from Player 1 and Player 3 is your own brute skill. I’ve sat in on GE matches that lasted for hours, where players have bargained with each other over weapon spawns, rules for certain rooms and alliances between each other. A three-onone match can sometimes deteriorate into a bloody free-for-all, forcing you to gamble between staking out and camping, or going all-out. The person who pulls the short straw before the match and gets the crap, worn out controller saves their strategies for when they’re rotated a better one, becoming the master of proximity mines. Stand-offs result in shock losses when it’s revealed the victor managed to hide the fact they found some body armour. The ethical choices you make in this game are real – the stories you create playing GoldenEye become folk legends. GoldenEye is dirt cheap on eBay. A N64 console isn’t, but for the money you might’ve spent on Spec Ops: The Line alone, you could’ve bought both and then some. There’s a risk that the Wii U is going to suffer from the same problems as The Line (and Skyrim and Zelda: Skyward Sword): way too much hype and commercialism, and not enough concern for the art form that video games are meant to be. A good example of what I’d really like Nintendo to avoid is

I urge you to go out and find out the titles you’ve missed on all of the older platforms, and watch the Wii U like a hawk, refusing to get sucked into fanboy/fangirl-ism. Not all new games released now are bad, but a lot of them will be. For example, Spelunky is a brilliant new game that has received some proper attention, but it’s almost impossible to find amongst the thousands of FPS games on every platform.

In place of NSMBU I’d recommend that you get a copy of the homebrew NES title Battle Kid, which is set to have a sequel released sometime this year. Battle Kid can only be bought in actual NES cartridge form, requiring an actual NES to play, and was programmed by one person in the only way it is possible to make a NES game: a mixture of low level C and assembly language. It expands on Mega Man and Metroid and it’s freaking tough as nails, but it’s worth a hundred New Super Mario Bros.

Arts

New Super Mario Bros. U – a game that breaks absolutely no new ground whatsoever.

Arts

Simon Donnes Presents

(or “How to make money off the internet and manipulate people”) If you’re at all interested in video games and you have an internet connection you have probably noticed the concept of the “Let’s Play” grow from a small niche, to a trend, to the monolith that it is today. The Grammar Nazi’s worst nightmare, the “Let’s Play” or “LP” is a video of someone else playing a video game. Sounds riveting, doesn’t it? For those in the dark LP’s emerged more or less from the Something Awful forums in 2006, where old favourites, limited releases and niche titles were played and relayed to the community. Due to the community size, quality, and the relative lack of a diversifying mainstream, these videos were largely pretty good, and the occasional video featured much in the way of interesting trivia or humorous hijinks. A huge archive, creatively dubbed “The Let’s Play Archive” was made, and life was good.

Illustrations by www.ohjo.co.uk

Then, as it often does, the lowest common denominator fucked everything up. Instead of the focus being on the gameplay, the focus was now drawn onto the player. Not the viewer but the person playing the game. So not only are LPs videos of games you are not playing, they also feature heavily the people who are not you playing them. LPs have become not a staging platform for gameplay videos, but a launchpad into internet stardom. Ijustine, Tobuscus, Minecraftchic, Pewdiepie – some of these names might seem familiar. They’re the resident kings and queens of the LP community, and sterling examples of marketing genius disguised as moronic casualness. Sure, there exists a counter-trend to satirise the sheer failure and ineptitude of the modern Let’sPlayer, but the fight against a tangible cultural reflection on the increasingly casual player oriented & mass marketed gaming industry is a losing one. More commonly than ever the LP video is being marketed through the stereotype that women are incompetent gamers, or that they are basically just not very intelligent. Unfortunately

the proliferation of willing ‘Gamer Gurls’ in the scene tends to disseminate this theory to a greater extent than it is true (that is, not really at all). These players control so much of the market that it is difficult to tell whether they are being exploited by their audience or if it’s the other way around. But Simon, I hear you ask, how can I get in on this, become a Youtube celebrity and make money playing video games? I’ve boiled the makings of a successful Let’s-Player into four key components. 1) Skill is no object. Go watch Ijustine play Portal2. Put down Pelican and go search it up on Youtube. You will hate me for it, but you need to understand just how bad these people are at the games they play. It is mindboggling how someone legally considered a responsible adult is incapable of solving what is perhaps the simplest puzzle game ever made. Being good at video games is actually largely antithetical to being a successful Let’s-Player. It creates less opportunity for you to be loud, obnoxious, whiny and generally retarded – both the bread and butter of your existence as an LP’er, and the main reason for your cult following. 2) Show some fan service. If you are a female who has not yet been caught in a tragic fire that killed your parents: Congratulations. You are, in the eyes of the Youtube community, a 10/10 hottie. Or at least, you will be after 5 kilos of makeup and a buttload of work in AfterEffects. Cleavage pulls in views like it’s going out of style – but remember that you have to strike a balance between slutty and innocent, a point that leads us to... 3) Build and maintain a standing army of white knights. Also known as “suckers”, white knights will

defend you, your videos, your astrological sign and your menstrual blood as God’s gift to the Earth, in the misguided hope that you will have sex with them. They will make up about half of your viewers, and it is important to give them a little bit of innuendo or the like in order to keep them from moving on to other targets of their culturally out-dated fantasies. As with guard dogs though, keep them at a distance – if you ever actually, for example, reveal your breasts on a livestream, expect many to move on, citing your “corruption” (liberated female sexuality is to white knights as large qualities of unshielded radium are to the general populace). 4) Champion the great unwashed. Your target audience is not the sort of gamer whose all time favourites include Planescape Torment and Deus Ex. Think more Call of Duty #25 and Skyrim. This lower-end is where the money is in modern LPing for a reason; it’s the biggest market by a long shot. Instead of challenging their worldview, embrace and validate it. Proclaim that Minecraft is art, Skyrim a breath taking experience, and Battlefield “epic”. This will not only strengthen the bond you have with your huge target demographic, but will also incite the rage of the old-school, basementdwelling gamer caste from the 70s and 80s. This is the other half of your demographic. They, in their own communities, will spread your link like wild fire and, as they watch your videos and rage at your plebeian tastes, your view count will rise even higher. Just follow these four easy steps and congratulations! You are now King of the Morons and another part of the wider community that panders to the lowest common denominator.

Arts

46 Howl

LIFE IS NOISE & MATILDA BAY - REDBACK BEER PRESENT

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SUNDAY OCTOBER 14TH

UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

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