Run, Rabbit Issue 1

run, rabbit

creativity, compassion, craft, culture and community.

The

seedling issue

#1

FREE (to a good home)

But girl's bellies and apricots, Roach in a shaded stream, Horses, ducks in flight at dawn, All these are a dream.

It is forbidden to dream again; We maim our joys or hide them: Horses are made of chromium steel And little fat men shall ride them.

Extract from ‘A little poem’ George Orwell, 1936

WELCOME

Run, Rabbit Issue 1 Seedling

Editor Anna Angel

Contributors Megan Greaney, Sonya Harris, Stephen Lehane Smith, Dominique Belle Tam, Jack Vening, Nick Wiggins thanks to graphics fairy, vintage printable and karen's whimsy for use of images. cover image adapted from the april 16, 1938 issue of the saturday evening post, illustrated by J. C. Leyendecker.

www.runrabbitmagazine.com

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hen I was little, everything seemed fantastical. We kept illegal pet rabbits, pretending they were ‘long-eared guinea pigs’, and engaged in postal correspondence with fairies who wrote in a tiny version of my Mum’s hand. Run, Rabbit is for anyone holding on to a childlike sense of wonder, hoping their own (possibly hypothetical) children will have the chance to do the same. It’s for the insanely creative and the creatively insane. So, it’s not much, but here’s a little contribution I hope brings a tiny bit of the fantastic back into your day, makes you think or smile.

Welcome to the ‘seedling’ issue. Inside you’ll find stories of everyday folk doing what they love and following what they believe, inspiration and ideas, new fiction, and a touch of silliness. From this humble beginning, I hope Run, Rabbit will continue to grow, with your feedback and support.

Love, Anna x

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Inside

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66

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48

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contributors

Dominique Belle, 22, is an avid blogger, movie enthusiast and self-proclaimed bookworm. She is a collector by nature; be it words, images, clothing or experiences.

She embraces these elements of her life like a warm blanket, resulting in her unnatural obsession with Harry Potter, John Hughes movies, Skins, Misfits and Rupert Grint. You will see her all over the Internet but most of the time you will find her listening to Ed Sheeran, coffee in hand, immersed in a book.

Megan is a recent university graduate and beginning her career as a journalist. At the moment she divides her time between work as a PR Consultant, freelance projects and her own creative writing.

Jack Vening grew up in Canberra and moved to Brisbane to study writing at QUT. He mainly writes short stories but once he wrote a play for the purpose of meeting actresses. If you are an actress or know of any actresses, Jack can be reached at his awful blog which he wouldn't read if he wasn't forced to, strongdeadanimal.blogspot.com

Sonya Harris is a postgraduate QUT student specialising in journalism and public relations. She is endlessly inspired by culture, creativity and cuteoverload.com. Sonya likes playing dress ups, wearing too much makeup and undergoing retail therapy on a regular basis.

Her (unpaid) work experience history includes CLEO, Cosmopolitan, Madison, Mercedes Fashion Festival, Brisbane Festival and more. www.theswirlandswing.blogspot. com | Twitter: Sonya_Harris | sonyakateharris@gmail.com

Stephen Lehane Smith, 21, is a Brisbane whale watching enthusiast who blogs at www.1001waystodiealone.tumblr. com.

LETTERS

To the makers of Snuggie,

Dear Citizens of Earth in 2012, Let me drop some knowledge. The world is not about to end. Even if Earth can’t support human life much longer, I think we had a pretty good go of it, don’t you?

To be perfectly honest, the calender only stopped at 2012 because I didn’t realise kids today would be too damn lazy to pick up where I left off. Now I know better. If you want yearly projections done properly, do them yourself!

Don’t retire and leave your life’s work to some douche who draws stick figures on company time and proposes an age of acid house and waffles.

I ordered your Leopard Microplush online for the low, low price of $19.99 plus postage and handling, and all I can say is ‘wow’! I have since bought plaid designs for my three corgis and a Dora the Explorer design for my young daughter. I noticed the material is highly flammable, so just stopped seating my family by the fireplace. I have also saved a considerable amount on linen!

Do you have any advice on how to get a toddler to take off their Snuggie on wash days and for church or school?

My daughter is generally very happy with her Snuggie but I am finding the odour hard to deal with in the summer months.

Cathy, I got your message from Kate - it was pretty nice, I guess. Thanks for thinking of me. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to send one back. I’ve got Justin Bieber working on a number under the working title of ‘Luv 4 U 4Eva’, but you know what his schedule’s like. Maybe one day we can get a duet recorded by the Biebz and the Bush?

Hope you’re keeping well and not still holding that vindication stuff against me. I’ve been on an anger management program and my sponsor says I’m doing really well.

Ps. Watch out for that asteroid, though.

Cheers from your biggest fan, and hoping to hear back from you soon.

Best,

Mayan Predictor

Wanda

Heathcliff.

make do

the

pharmacy

in the backyard

T

hey say cleanliness is next to godliness, but once again, they’re wrong. It’s much better getting your hands dirty. Developing a green thumb means fresh, dirt cheap food with a miniscule carbon footprint, and access to some of Mother Nature’s greatest remedies in your own backyard. Consider planting these varieties for a bumper crop of natural miracles (or at least, natural medicines) and save yourself a trip to the doctor.

TEA TREE

CHAMOMILE

LAVENDER

IT IS: A flower in the daisy family, dried or harvested fresh.

IT IS: A versatile and aromatic shrub.

IT’S GOOD FOR: Tea tree is a powerful antiseptic useful for burns, bites, wounds, and skin conditions. It can be used internally to stave off infection or chewed to alleviate headaches.

IT’S GOOD FOR: Harvesting the flower heads for tea can help to alleviate insomnia, anxiety and stomach upsets, and provide a general sense of calm.

IT’S GOOD FOR: Aside from making your garden smell amazing, lavender provides simple aromatherapy to aid in relaxation. Place a bunch under your pillow, or infuse a few flower heads in boiling water for a deep sleep.

ALOE VERA

Echinacea

DANDELION

IT IS: A perennial with spiky leaves, believed in ancient times to hold the key to youth and healing.

IT IS: A perennial herb, somewhat of a health ‘buzz’ word in recent years.

IT’S GOOD FOR: The gel inside freshly cut aloe vera is wonderfully soothing on sunburnt skin, bites and cuts. It can also be infused into a wellbeing tonic.

IT’S GOOD FOR: Fighting off colds and flus. It gives the immune system a natural boost.

IT IS: A perennial with jagged leaves and a single yellow flower that turns into the puffballs we all love to make wishes over.

IT IS: An evergreen shrub, and a staple of traditional Aboriginal medicine.

IT’S GOOD FOR: The roots are sometimes eaten for liver health, or the leaves infused into a tea to aid allergies and as a diuretic.

For information on common herbs with medicinal properties and their uses, visit www.herbsarespecial.com.au or ask at your local nursery.

creativity

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Creative state of mind

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By Megan Greaney

hat do we do, us university graduates? Us creatives, specifically.

When we are not content to settle into jobs that are anything less than our ideal career, but achieving that ideal is not always simple.

Should we just take something – something perhaps remotely related, because it’s all we can find at the time – for the sake of ‘entering the workforce’? Or do we hold out and keep searching for the dream?

The thing is, we have a certain ambition; not just to make money or move as high up the corporate ladder as we can. We want to be challenged, we want to use our minds and use our creativity, and copywriting for a Government department just doesn’t seem to cut it. Does the need for money, the pressure to secure a “nine-to-five” outweigh our inherent need to express ourselves and to achieve what we have worked long into the night, studying and writing essays and compiling reference lists for? What happens when we reach a point where we actually yearn to write another essay – though we

“Does the pressure to secure a ‘nine-to-five’ outweigh our inherent need to express ourselves?”

once swore, cross-eyed and crampedfingered before our computers, that we’d never write another – just so we can use our minds properly again? It doesn’t seem right to waste the years of endless study and stress by settling into a fall-back job where our creative license is restricted.

But perhaps we’re being selfish. I shouldn’t generalise – maybe I’m just being selfish.

Maybe the current affairs programs are right about narcissistic Gen-Y types who expect too much too soon. Perhaps I am just being dramatic, because taking a job doesn’t necessarily mean I’m turning my back on my ambitions for good. And maybe we all need to accept the inevitable, that we must start at the bottom and work to where we want to be. But when it comes down to it, it’s a lot harder than that. Our visions of grandeur sustained us throughout university, so are we supposed to just give them up now?

Don’t we have the right to pursue exactly what we want? The truth is, I am scared of settling into any old job in case I become so ensconced that I stop striving for my ultimate goal and the desire to achieve my dream will dim and eventually switch off.

“Even though we would love to take off around the world pursuing our dreams single-mindedly ... we don’t have it in us.”

So then what do we do? The truth is we don’t know, so we go about the same things because life goes on and we have rent to pay and even though we would love to give up everything and take off around the world pursuing our dreams single-mindedly like we have read about, we don’t have it in us. To me, it seems like things would be easier if I was in university again – even though, while I was studying, my every waking moment seemed consumed with research and referencing and thesis statements and it seemed like I barely ventured beyond the library walls or my kitchen table – at least I was doing something I wanted to do.

And it was worthy because I was taking in knowledge and using my mind and following my passion.

Afterwards, we have to find something else that allows us to do the same and it’s a little trickier.

So we just keep on doing what we love in any way we can. We have to. Writers start blogs and diaries and novels they may never finish or articles they may never submit, or just write their thoughts erratically in an old notebook, on a napkin or computer screen. And artists will create things and musicians will sing and play instruments and dancers will dance and actors will read monologues while they make their lunch because it’s what we all need to do.

We can’t help it. Creative expression, whatever form it might take, is how we get our thrill. And we love it.

We will make it, you know. We will achieve our dreams and live our passions but if we haven’t yet, they must still be part of our lives. We cannot lose them.

We must never settle – even if we do have to get a nine-to-five or keep our old part-time job for purely economic reasons, our passions must still be part of our lives. Our minds, our creativity, must not go unused. And as long as we can still write, and photograph, and draw, and dance, and sing, and act, and create, we need never worry about getting to do what we really want.

Because we’re already doing it.

people

KAMINA

the vegan If you think limp greens and soggy tofu when you hear the words ‘vegan food’, you need to book yourself into one of Kamina Wust’s classes. She shows everyday folk how to make simple, delicious fare without being a slave to the recipe book.

What is it you do?

I teach cooking, make vegan cakes for special occasions and consult for businesses who want to provide vegan food, or individuals who want to learn more about vegan eating.

What inspires you?

I’m inspired by what I have in my cupboard – my philosophy is to teach people to cook with what’s on hand and according to what looks and tastes good to them, rather than be constrained by recipes, which generally prevent people from truly learning to cook. I love seeing people’s enthusiasm grow as they realise the kitchen is not a mystery and it’s easy to cook beautiful, nutritious food without the security blanket of written instructions.

Have you always been interested in food?

To say that I’ve always been interested in food is a bit of an understatement.

My mum often says that when I was a toddler I looked like a beach ball with hands and feet. Fortunately the weight dropped off as I got older but my interest in food didn’t. I love cooking it, eating it, talking about it, looking at pictures of it.

How long have you been running classes for?

I’ve been teaching for about six months now. I never planned to become a vegan coach; my mum just asked if I could help her out with some cooking when she was running a nutrition course and it was so well-received that I realised ‘hey, I should be doing more

of this’. I didn’t realise how little people know about vegan cooking and how much they want to learn.

You were born vegan. Has it always been important to you?

My parents were always clear with me about why we were vegan. When I was little, I understood it on the simple level that we love animals and don’t like to eat them, and I have always had a strong affinity with animals. So from a very young age, I was happy to be a vegan. I certainly never resented the fact that certain foods were off-limits because I understood the reasons for it. My parents always told me that I could choose not to be a vegan when I got older if I wanted to, and when I was about 13 I decided that I really wanted to commit to it and make it a lifelong thing for my own reasons - not just because I was raised that way.

Why are you passionate about veganism?

Most people like animals and abhor animal cruelty, so why do we fool ourselves that it’s okay to hurt and eat them? The livestock industry is killing our planet. Meat and dairy products are killing us; the consumption of these foods is behind many so-called ‘diseases of affluence’, whereas a healthy vegan diet has been shown to lead to longer life and better health. Because so many resources are used to grow plants to feed to livestock (when we could feed more people if the plants were eaten directly by humans) there are strong arguments linking the overconsumption of animal products in developed countries to the inaccessibility of food in developing countries.

That’s sickening. Plus, vegans tend to have way more varied diets that meateaters, and our food doesn’t make us feel like crap, physically or emotionally.

What do you say to people who don't think vegan food can be healthy and delicious?

Or that it's too hard to cook vegan?

I know vegan food can be healthy because my familt and I are all very healthy, and I had the privilege of being raised by Australia’s foremost expert in vegan nutrition. I know vegan food can be delicious; anyone who thinks otherwise has been eating bad cooking.

You need to come to one of my classes or at least come over to my place for dinner.

And I know that it’s possible to cook dinner in 20 minutes or less every night of the week, because my mum did it for years. We’re big believers in simplicity. So vegan food is accessible to everyone, even people who are short on time or not confident in the kitchen.

Every class I teach is based on that philosophy.

“I know vegan food can be delicious; anyone who thinks otherwise has been eating bad cooking”

flat-out crazy. These days I randomly meet new vegans in all kinds of settings, even very mainstream ones – ballet class, at church and even once in the carpark of a McDonald’s (no joke).

What are the main changes you've seen in your lifetime in the way veganism is perceIved?

When I was a little kid, there were hardly any vegans and they were all really alternative; some of them were

People actually know what the word means now, whereas through my childhood I had to constantly explain the concept to people who’d never heard of it before. Twenty years ago it was difficult enough to get soy milk at the supermarket, let alone in your latte, whereas this is now a standard at any café.

We are still perceived as radical and annoying by a lot of people, but many others accept it as totally normal and are happy to chat about it or even cook me a vegan meal without batting an eyelid. These days, everybody seems to have a friend who has a friend who’s a vegan.

Do you think people will continue to become more accepting of veganism?

I think we’re close to reaching critical mass; I’d happily put money on veganism exploding in the next decade or so and becoming totally ordinary.

The likes of Bill Clinton are following a vegan diet now – can you get much more mainstream than a former US President? In Western society people are becoming much more aware of the ethics of what we consume and food is a major part of that – more and more intelligent people are switching to veganism. It’s the next big thing.

www.kaminathevegan.com

make do

Kamina's epic chocolate pumpkin cake Here's a treat to get you started in the kitchen. It's simply divine, and will impress the pants off your guests.

1 1/2 cups plain flour 1 tsp bi-carb soda ¾ cup cocoa powder 1 cup sugar Pinch salt Approximately 1 cup pumpkin flesh – don’t stress about getting the quantity exact ¾ cup vegetable oil 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar 1 tbsp vanilla extract Approximately 1 cup water

Remove the skin and seeds from the pumpkin and cut into small chunks (aim for roughly 2cm cubes).

Add to a saucepan of boiling water and let them simmer until they are break-apart-when-you-pokethem-with-a-fork soft. Drain and mash with a potato masher.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and spray a small 18cm-ish cake tin.

In a blender or food processor, blend the pumpkin mash with the oil until very smooth, and set aside until you need it. This step is optional but will give the best results. If you don’t have a blender, just mash the pumpkin as smoothly as you can by hand.

In a large bowl, sift (yes, sift) together the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda. Then mix through the sugar and salt. Fold through the pumpkin, oil and all other wet ingredients EXCEPT the water. The mixture will be too dry, so now add enough water to give it a

smooth, stirrable consistency – I’m betting this will be around a cup, but it will vary depending on how big your piece of pumpkin was and how well you bothered to measure the dry ingredients.

Pour into the greased pan and bake for at least 30 minutes, until the top has cracked and is springy to touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. If the cake has been in the oven for 30 minutes and seems cooked on the outside, but is still wet inside, turn the oven down to about 150 until it’s done.

As it’s a very moist cake, it’s fine if there is a touch of sticky chocolate crumb on the skewer when it comes out, but you don’t want to see goo.

Let cool and top with chocolate frosting.

Alternatively, you can sprinkle chopped chocolate all over the surface of the cake BEFORE it goes in the oven. The cake will come out with a melted chocolate topping that is best eaten warm from the oven.

make do

old wives’ tales revisited

By Anna Angel These often misleading pearls of wisdom, passed down through the generations, have become part of our culture. Watching television won’t give you square eyes, and carrots can’t curl your hair, but we all live with just a hint of hope or fear. Why? Because so many of the seemingly-unbelievable tips and tales are based in truth. In the land of wives’ tales, bicarbonate soda is king.

This cheap, natural powder always seemed too sensible and grown-up for me to add to my shopping list, alongside the noodles and budget alcohol, but it’s been a cleaning and hygiene staple for centuries. So, I bought my first box. Forgive me for being a bit slow on the soda uptake - am I the only person alive who didn’t know you could get a coffee stain off a cup or burnt food off a tray in a few seconds with this stuff? After that revelation turned out to be overwhelmingly true, I decided to road test some of bicarb soda fanatics’ more dubious ‘miracle’ claims.

Deoderant

Face scrub

Odour eater

The overwhelming stink of generic antiperspirant sprays makes me gag, and crystal sticks are no match for my body's natural stream of sticky wetness. I’d heard good things about the armpit-freshening ability of bi-carb soda so was keen to try this one. I would be its ultimate Sweaty Betty challenge. You just dust it under your pits and go along your business. I used it in lieu of my regular roll on for a few days and it worked surprisingly well in the sweltering Brisbane heat. But not that well. This would be a great natural alternative for a cold climate or light sweater.

The back of most ‘natural’ face scrubs resembles the shopping list of a nuclear scientist. It ain’t pretty. Yeah, bi-carb in any form doesn’t smell fantastic - a bit salty, a bit sour. But mixed with a bit of warm water to make a thick, grainy paste, it makes for a damn fine face scrub. It leaves your skin soft, and not just from the exfoliation. In fact, if the idea of rubbing this stuff on your face doesn’t appeal, you can add a few teaspoons to your bath for soft and clean skin. You could safely use this as a weekly scrub to replace whatever expensive mountain glacier, exotic clay, sea salt concoction you’ve been buying.

Grade: Pass, 8/10

You already know I'm smellier than blue vein cheese at the end of the day, but here's the clincher: my feet are even worse. You can buy powders and sprays to make shoes smell less like something crawled in there and died, but where's the fun in that? I heard bi-carb sprinkled in a pair and left for a few days will absorb any odours. That turned out to be true. What I don't advise is leaving it for a few hours, putting the shoes back on, sweating, and ultimately creating a sticky bi-carb coating on the sole of your favourite flats. Patience is key, here.

Grade: Plausible, 5/10

Grade: Pass, 7/10

Fabric softener

stain remover

Fire extinguisher

While some people swear by bi-carb as a washing detergent, I don’t think I’m willing to go that far. I did add a cup to my wash instead of my usual fabric softener. It’s supposed to work in the same magical, unexplained softening way as it does on your skin.

How do you do it, bi-carb?! How?

Apparently this works in many different ways. Got a surface stain, caked on food or coffee cup browned from too much espresso? Sprinkle some on to the stain, then rub with a wet cloth. If you’ve spilt that espresso on your top you’re going to need to mix it with some water to create a paste and rub it into the stain before adding it to your wash. If that stain’s on canvas, you’re better off rubbing bi-carb on dry and using some elbow grease. I tried this on one of those enviro bags that never get reused and are therefore horrible for the environment, and it worked a treat. Carpet stains are best treated with a bi-carb/water paste left for a few hours and rubbed off with a cloth.

Grade: Pass, 9/10

I have to say, out of all the claims - including shampoo - I was most sceptical about this one. Apparently, if you create a small kitchen fire (the kind that killed about a dozen of your sleep-deprived childhood Sims) you can just douse it with bi-carb soda and it won’t burn your house down.

I don’t know why water wouldn’t do in most situations, but if say, it’s an electrical fire, this may be a neat little trick.

I only tested it with a small flame because I don’t have a death wish, but it still needed an awful lot of bi-carb to extinguish. You need to completely cover the area in the stuff, so if you’re doing serious fire fighting, you’d better make sure you’ve got a big box handy.

Grade: Plausible, 4/10

I think it worked. But then again, I’ve never really known why clothes need to be softened, or what terrible evil would occur if I left them to their abrasive ways. Can anyone tell me? I don’t want to risk it.

Grade: Plausible, 3/10

how to make whitening toothpaste Most whitening pastes contain some form of bicarbonate soda. It makes sense to just cut out the middleman. But doesn’t it taste awful, does it chip away at tooth enamel, is it safe? The answer is: yes, but if you like salty foods you’ll be okay. It is abrasive, so (as I learnt the hard way) you’re better off mixing it into a watery liquid than brushing it on with a wet toothbrush as some suggest. Otherwise it burns the gums and scratches the teeth; I felt like my mouth was on fire, and not in a minty-fresh way. As a weekly whitening formula, it’s completely safe and actually left my teeth whiter after a fortnight. It can also be mixed with water as an impromptu mouthwash, for those who already have pearly whites.

Grade: Pass, 7/10

(cheap & cheerful)

bath bombs

you will need: 1 1/2 cups trusty bi-carb soda 1 cup of your favourite herbal tea Essential oil (eg. lavender) Food colouring 1/2 cup of citric acid powder Craft moulds (get creative with the shape) 4 teaspoon of oil (any) Gloves

1. Mix the citric acid and bi-carb soda together, then add the herbal tea mix. Set aside half a cup of the mixture.

2. Combine about six drops each of food colouring and essential oil and one teaspoon of oil together in a separate bowl until desired smell and colour is achieved.

3. Pour into bowl with the half a cup of dry mix and stir quickly so it doesn’t start to fizz. Mix with your fingertips until it clumps.

4. Transfer quickly into a mould, and press firmly. Leave for at least a day, two if possible.

5. Repeat until all the mixture is used up. This will make four bombs.

culture

public health: they don’t do it like they used to

If pizza is a vegetable, I’m a potted plant. Where once the public were cautioned to eat both green or yellow vegetables, red vegies, fruits as well as grains, dairy and protein daily, now a serve of pizza constitutes a serve of vegies (and all vegetables are made equal). Having a look back, the US of A nutritional standards sure seem to have changed.

Any Government take on nutrition is bound to be hilarious: “Feed your kids dairy. Or fish. God, please don’t eat the fish! Actually, do”. Enjoy these helpful public service announcements with a grain of salt.

1. ‘For Health ... eat some food from each group ... every day!’ 1941-45.

Office for Emergency Management. Office of War Information. Domestic Operations Branch. U.S. National Archives.

2. ‘Save the products of the land. Eat more fish- they feed themselves.’ 1917 -19. U.S. Food Administration. Educational Division. Advertising Section. U.S. National Archives.

3. ‘WANNA KEEP ‘EM HEALTHY? OVERCOOKING DESTROYS VITAMINS!’ 194145. Office for Emergency Management. Office of War Information. Domestic Operations Branch. U.S. National Archives.

4. ‘SURE WE’LL SHARE THE MEAT.’ 1941-45. Office for Emergency Management. Office of War Information. Domestic Operations Branch. U.S. National Archives.

5. ‘Every child needs a good school lunch’. 1941-45. Office for Emergency Management. Office of War Information. Domestic Operations Branch. U.S. National Archives.

6.’Sugar Save It’. U.S. Food Administration. Educational Division. Advertising Section. U.S. National Archives.

7. ‘Eat More Cottage Cheese ... You’ll Need Less Meat’. 1917-19. U.S. Food Administration. Educational Division. Advertising Section. U.S. National Archives.

8. ‘Know your onions. Make all the food go all the way. Food is ammunition.

Don’t waste it.’ 1941-45. Office for Emergency Management. Office of War Information. Domestic Operations Branch. U.S. National Archives.

8. ‘Sow the seeds of Victory! Plant and raise your own vegetables ... Every Garden a Munition Plant.’ 1918. U.S. Food Administration. Educational Division. Advertising Section. U.S. National Archives.

9. ‘Use Leftovers ... mark of a Good Cook. Study Your “Army Cook” for Recipes - Ideas’. 1941-45. Office for Emergency Management. Office of War Information. Domestic Operations Branch. U.S. National Archives.

essay

21 candles

By Sonya Harris

I

n terms of significant birthdays, I’ve had the sweet sixteenth and inebriated eighteenth. However, this year I reached my twenty-first birthday. As the “smile lines” under my eyes seem to relentlessly deepen, I feel like I’m getting wiser every day.

In the spirit of my coming of age, I’ve compiled a brief memoir based on some of the things I have learnt throughout the course of my existence so far. This can be used as a guide to life for those likely to make the same mistakes I have, if such people exist.

F

irstly, avoid the consumption of illicit substances. The unsettling anti-drug posters at your local train station advising this are not the phony by-products of nerds on a quest to stop you from having more fun than them. When I was sixteen and stupider, my “friends” convinced me to tag along to a twelve hour lock-in rave in the depths of hell (a woop-woop suburb in Sydney infested with profane graffiti and potential muggers). I left the house dressed like a walking glow stick, and topped off my outrageous outfit with a couple of eccies.

Prior to reaching our destination, we scoffed a few chocolate bars at the train station, as carefree kids unconcerned about calories do. Once we were imprisoned inside the rave,

my body did not react well to the combination of violent strobe lights, brain-blasting bass and other walking glow sticks, not to mention the happy pills. Consequently, I regurgitated what looked like an unusual case of oral diarrhoea all over an innocent Asian girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I spent the rest of the rave hiding from her in the first aid room. On a constructive note, the drug-riddled people I witnessed in there did an effective job of putting me off consuming illegal substances again. For a while, anyway.

Don’t overdo the booze, either, drunkie!

It truly does make you do very silly things, as you may or may not have realised. One year ago, I smuggled a bottle of wine into a venue before a Death Cab gig and decided to have a pre-party in the ladies bathrooms with my gal-pals. Afterwards, a burly female bouncer noticed the rim of the bottle poking out of my bag, clutched my arm viciously and dragged me outside. She snarled: “You’re lucky we don’t have you arrested! Don’t ever come back!”

Her furious words did not deter me. I channelled Nancy Drew, and circled the block in search of the most efficient way to get back in. I then channelled the kids in The Magical Faraway Tree and climbed over a wrought iron, sharply pronged fence into what I thought was the venue. Sadly, I found myself jailed inside a square-metre radius surrounded by another wrought iron, sharply pronged fence. To this day, I don’t know what on earth the purpose of the cage-like space was. That’s when I began to hear the band playing in the distance.

“HELLLP!!! SOMEONNNE!!!GETMEOU TOFHERRRE!!!” I desperately shrieked, attempting to throw myself over the dangerous fence. In doing so, my chin landed and burst on a sharp prong.

Drowning in blood, I started bawling hysterically and frantically wailing to the soft ballads I could hear in the distance. Eventually someone with a chair came to my rescue. I escaped the small space, and triumphantly hurried back to the venue entrance in the hope of getting a second chance.

“Please, sir, please, let me in sir…

I’ll do anything! Let me in, sir. LETMEINNN!!!” I cried, violently batting my tear-drenched lashes. However, when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a taxi window, I realised that my appearance had not been doing me any favours. My face was concealed under a mask of non-waterproof mascara, and thanks to my fence injury, I had developed two chins, both bearing beards of blood. It didn’t help that I was wearing a strange wig. Why, you ask?

Forced to hide the horrifying result, I acquired the best wig I could find in a speedy amount of time. Embarrassingly, it had a significantly dissimilar consistency to my original long, blonde, straight hair – i.e., dark, curly and thicker than the mane of an arctic animal. Go to a reputable hairdresser, or you risk looking like a member of the circus.

A

K

few weeks prior, I was the victim of a peroxide attack by a terrorist disguised as a hairdresser. Not only was the formula she concocted potent enough to create a nuclear bomb, but after slapping it on my mousy regrowth, she forgot to rinse it off in time. My delicate blonde locks could not handle such a powerful blow of chemicals, and eighty per cent of them were severed. I was left with some long, straggly wisps, which resembled the hairstyle of a balding, elderly man.

eep your hands gripped tightly to your wallet. Shoplifting is terrible karma. Your guilty conscience will ruin you and the consequences will be dire. After teen-angsty flick Thirteen was released, and I was aptly thirteenyears-old, it seemed that navel piercings, panda eye makeup and five finger discounts were all the rage. I committed my first real criminal offense when I walked into a store, and left it wearing a brand new pair of shoes. Afterwards, I felt so awful that I regretfully

confessed to my mother. For some snaky reason, she reported my crime to the Christian college I was attending.

As a punishment, I had to pay regular lunchtime visits to the school pastor for praying sessions, in the hope that God wouldn’t send me to hell for my sin.

D

on’t even borrow others’ possessions if you can’t guarantee they will be returned in perfect condition, or returned at all. Over the years, my younger sister has refused to share her clothes with me in the fear I would destroy them. Last New Year’s Eve, I convinced her to lend me a skirt for a party, reassuring her that it was on safe legs. I did not foresee that I would take the skirt swimming in the host’s pool. I especially did not foresee that I would be stripped of it during the process by a fellow swimmer, and then become unable to find it. I walked home half naked in my American Apparel leotard – think Lady Gaga in drowned rat form.

Alas, the walk entailed a few busy main streets.

The experience was humiliating, but miraculously scored my companion and I a taxi on the busiest night of the year.

To my despair, my sister has vowed never to lend me clothing again. By the way, if you’re worried about your possessions going missing, be extremely wary of shared laundries (especially if you live on-campus). In other words, don’t dump your dirties in a washing machine and bail while they get clean.

From my experience, knicker thieves do exist, and it’s not pleasant to return to a clean load devoid of your precious lingerie.

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espect for others, especially your elders, is a valuable trait. I learnt early on that locking the mean babysitter out of the house on a wintery night is not funny, even if you’re only five-years-old. Besides, baby-sitters can teach you all kinds of things, like not to conduct dangerous prank phone calls – even if they let you. Our favourite activity with a friendlier baby-sitter was the orchestration of numerous prank phone calls. One night we decided to take up the role of OzLotto employees.

“Hiyaaa! This is Mary calling from OzLotto with a verrry exciting message for you! Congratulations - you are the lucky winner of our twenty million dollar lotto draw! Please visit your local news agency with your winning ticket to collect your prize!” Sadly, it turned out that we left our message on the voicemail of a paraplegic lady who actually arranged for a taxi to transport her to her local news agency to collect her “winnings” the following morning. Upon discovering that she was not, in fact, a winner, she phoned the police, had the

message traced to our landline and we had to endure a serious lecture from the boys in blue.

surfaces. My mother had to buy a new stove when I accidently left the flour container on the hot plate during a cake baking attempt.

G

et along with your dear neighbours, too. It’s discourteous to write them hate mail, egg their house windows, fling ice-cream at their cars and leave burning rubbish on their doorstep for no reason at all. Also, Harriet the Spy role-play games aren’t going to win you friends around the ‘hood, especially if you’re stealing mail and monitoring other children with binoculars. These kinds of things make it really awkward for your parents when they’re mowing the front lawn or collecting the mail.

No-one likes, or likes to be, the irresponsible owner of the street’s preteen hoodlums.

In fact, try to make life easier for your parents. Listen to Mum when she tells you not to put the spoon in the microwave. In fact, don’t even go near the microwave – apparently it will give you cancer. Remember, the kitchen is a danger zone! Plastic does melt on hot

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on’t hand out your mobile number to the strangers you come across during life’s journeys. Even though at 4:00am on a Saturday night you may feel sorry for the friendless Indian taxi driver driving you and your drunken posse home from a bar, you won’t feel sorry for him when he’s calling you every morning at 4:00am.

And if you’re underage, you should be tucked into bed at 4:00am, not befriending foreign taxi drivers. But if you’re a rebellious kind of kid, ensure you leave the house with high quality faux identification. Otherwise, you’ll only gain entrance into strip clubs that exude an unfamiliar odour and are infested with men your Dad’s age.

They’re not nice places.

U

pon reflection of the past twenty one years, there is a plethora of mortifying stories I can bring to the table. Strangely enough, these stories slap a smile on my dial. As the saying goes, “someday you’ll look back and laugh”. And I do. But as the hit single once declared: Everybody’s got to Learn Sometime.

Despite the fact I was lacking in the common sense department to begin with, my behaviour has significantly improved as years have passed.

I’m going to happily dedicate my adult time to quitting smoking, applying wrinkle-prevention serums and researching anti-aging secrets. In the meantime, dear reader, behave yourself (in moderation), treat others as you wish to be treated, and take caution. Don’t forget, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And wiser. Good luck!

culture

well documented

our pick of documentaries for rainy day learning.

sports the king of kong by seth gordon

nature planet earth

By Alastair Fothergill

This is a classic story along the lines of David vs. Goliath; the big bad against the little guy. There never was a better villain than long-standing Donkey Kong champion Billy Mitchell - he’s even got a moustache. So when teacher Steve Wiebe takes him on and attempts to break his record in time for the 2007 Guinness World Records, you can’t help but cheer him on.

Be warned, this BBC series may take a few sittings to get through, spanning 11 episodes. But, it’s the most expensive nature documentary ever produced, and boy does it show.

Emotions run high in this arcade fairytale, both between Wiebe and Mitchell, and his wife. It’s a tale of justice and the triumph of will. Oh, and it’s hilarious. You just can’t make this stuff up, nor would you want to. Donkey Kong has never looked so good.

In glorious detail and brilliant colour, we see parts of our planet we’ve never before been invited to peep; curiosities, caves, and the daily lives of Earth’s creatures, all narrated by David Attenborough. It has the power to make you feel insignificant, then the next moment you’ll catch yourself comparing your family unit to that of the snow leopard. Ultimately, it is a record of the devastating effects of global warming on our planet and every creature that calls it home.

religion the most hated family in america BY louis theroux Could you talk rationally to the people behind America’s most controversial religious group, Westbro Baptist Church? Could you attempt to understand their point of view; ask them why they believe ‘God hates fags’, etc.? Louis Theroux did in 2007.

Theroux is awkward but earnest, asking the simplest questions to gently the uncover the truth. The Phelps remain frustratingly set in their conviction and it can make for painful viewing. A follow-up four years later shows the foundations of the church shaking under pressure, but the resolution at the core remains.

music gimme shelter BY the maysles brothers

animal rights earthlings DIRECTED BY Shaun Monson

HUMAN INterest The up series BY michael apted

What started as any other rock documentary spiralled into darker territory almost as unexpectedly as the era it was shot in. This 1970 offering seamlessly captures the end of the 1960s dream.

This 2005 animal rights doco is not one to watch over dinner. It is confronting and appalling, and ultimately, everything it needs to be.

They say everyone changes. Life doesn’t always go to plan, but it goes on. In this piece, Apted tracks fourteen British children from the age of seven. The episodes span 49 years and you literally watch these characters grow up.

Footage of The Rolling Stones on tour is interspersed with shots from their tragic concert at the Altamont, California. It is harrowing to watch the band confront the incidents, shaking their heads at the senseless waste of human life.

Gimme Shelter provides a look into the culture of the Hells Angels as much as that of The Rolling Stones, and highlights the decay of a perfect moment in time.

Voiced by Joaquin Phoenix, this film explores the link between humans and all other life on our planet, be it animal or plant life.

It uncovers the daily practices of big industries - namely those in food production - with complete disregard for our planet and the life that calls it home.

These are not the worst case scenario shock scenes. This is everyday life, and that’s what makes it powerful and important viewing.

The subjects were deliberately chosen to represent various socioeconomic backgrounds in Britain at the time, with the assumption that it would dictate the children’s futures. While it is an interesting study in this regard, what you get is so much more than that alone.

The series is still going, with an update expected this year.

4

community

demolishing Brisbane

By Anna Angel They came for you in the middle of the night. It was undignified, unexpected. It was 1982 and you were not. You were from another time; they had no place for you. You were jazz and first kisses. They wanted now, bright and shiny.

There may be young Brisbanites who put on their finery and head to ‘Cloudland’ in Fortitude Valley never knowing you were its namesake.

Not everyone has forgotten. My mother remembers twirling in your ballroom. Others recall dalliances with soldiers and watching music evolve before their eyes.

Buddy Holly to Midnight Oil. You had a rocky start. You were Luna Park in 1940, but after your majestic ballroom was built - complete with arched entrance and railway to deliver patrons - you were abandoned. Two years later you were a miliary hub. You came into your own after the war, becoming known as Cloudland Ballroom. Now you’re another apartment block. Now you’re gone. Gone like the Regent Cinema is gone. Gone like much of this city’s history. To be replaced by something infinitely smaller in our hearts.

“Sign says: honeymoon to rent, Cloudland into dreamland turns.

The sun comes up and we all learn those wheels must turn” Extracts from ‘Dream World’ by Midnight Oil Images: State Library of Queensland, John Oxley Library

COmmunity

muggles sporting broomsticks

By Anna Angel

How disappointing to discover on your 11th birthday that your admission letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been lost in the mail by a uncharacteristically dim-witted owl. If you’ve felt cheated ever since, there is one aspect of J. K. Rowling’s fantasy world you can indulge in as a muggle: Quidditch. Teams are growing all across the world, as fans take up their broomsticks and reclaim the game from the ground up.

The version of ‘muggle Quidditch’ that’s swept Potter fans the world over was originally devised by a student from Middlebury College in Vermont. Xander Manshel asked, ‘how do you recreate a magic game without magic?’ What he came up with was founded on three core principles of creativity, competition and community. The International Quidditch Association promotes literacy, positive social change and aims to fight community health problems. As a sport it’s growing with remarkable speed, gaining a strong audience following, and some serious credibility.

Now there’s over 300 teams from the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and of course, the UK. Australia doesn’t have any teams in the Quidditch World Cup -- yet. But there are some promising contenders forming. If there’s not a team near you, or at your school, why not start one up? The International Quidditch Association has put out a handbook detailing all the nitty gritty bits of putting a team together. That’s the boring part. Got some interested mates ready to go their hardest? Play on.

Sometimes described as a cross between rugby, dodge ball, and tag, Quidditch is a co-ed contact sport with seven players per side. Each player must have a broomstick between his or her legs at all times.

Players are divided into four separate positions. You have the chasers. These three players advance across the field with the quaffle (a volleyball) which they try to get into the goal hoops.

Each goal is worth ten points. Both teams have a keeper, whose job it is to block the goal hoops.

Still with me? Good.

Two players on each side are beaters. These guys attempt to control the flow of the game by knocking out opposing players with one of three bludgers (dodge balls). Knocked out players must immediately return to their team’s goal hoops before they can resume play.

Each team has the seeker. The Harry Potter character, who tries to catch the snitch. The snitch is a tennis ball in a yellow sock, tucked into the waistband of a designated snitch runner. The runner doesn’t belong to a team, so doesn’t need a broomstick, and can use any means to avoid capture. This includes physical contact, trickery or hiding within an agreed ‘snitch perimeter’ - which can be quite a distance from the playing pitch. The team whose seeker catches the snitch gets thirty points, and the game ends. If there is a tie when the snitch is caught, the game will continue into overtime.

Neat, huh?

For all the rules and information visit www.internationalquidditch.org or search for the Australian Quidditch Association on Facebook.

COMMUNITY

après moi, le deluge When is a house a home? Is it never more apparent than when floodwaters are climbing the walls and you find yourself packing your bags?

One year on from last January’s floods, the effects of the disaster are still being felt by many across Queensland. The river is quiet again, but many families and businesses - ‘floodies’ - are still doing it tough, trying to settle into new lives, away from the spaces they once called their own.

When Jai Sparks of Brisbane band The Strums was finally able to return to his flood-ravished home, he put his devastation at having to leave it all behind into song. Nick Wiggins was there to capture the recording of their debut track, Oh River.

“hold my hand, we’ll watch this water rise” Extract from The Strums’ Oh River

www.noflashphotography.wordpress.com www.facebook.com/thestrums

culture

history on the

bookshelf Is it as rewarding to collect e-books on your iPad or Kindle as it is to slide a new volume into a bookshelf and hear it groan under the weight of centuries of knowledge?

Stephen Smith doesn’t think so.

Sometimes my books speak to me.

I don’t mean they tell me stories, or that when I open their covers I find myself in another world, which, admittedly does happen.

I mean their covers -- the distinctive bindings; author names in big billboardhigh letters, or small, delicate black; the sparse or over-done cover-art, and the names that go with their covers. It’s the foreplay to reading, the delicious tango of the male peacock displaying his feathers.

Recently, with an obvious need to procrastinate, I organised my some 400 books via chronology, à la Edward’s music collection in Twilight. Now they run from the sleek black-cover Penguin Classics and hardcover editions of classics like Dante’s Divine Comedy, to the red-spined vintage series with Proust and Hemingway.

The ol’ middle section is a more crude deep-space black, those damn ‘50s to ‘80s where my science fiction and horror concentrates. Right in the middle so it looks like I’m reeaaaallllyyy into Stephen King.

The last decade is surprisingly full, and much more diverse in cover design, because they haven’t all been appropriated by Penguin and Random House.

Read from left-to-right, it’s a pretty neat visual representation of the progression of the novel -- or at least, my idea of the novel -- and when I look at it, I think there’s poetry in history and other lame stuff like that.

At www.1001waystodiealone.tumblr.com, Stephen is reading his way through cannonised literature at an alarming rate.

culture

art and ethics on a wim

By Anna Angel Since the opening of David Walsh’s museum of eccentric art and art-adjacent installations formally known as Mona, the Australian art world has been confronted by that most uncomfortable of questions - what is art? Is it a machine that replicates the human digestive system, or the skin off a man’s back?

According to Belgian conceptual artist Wim Delvoye, anything can be art if someone will buy it. Sounds simple enough, but Delvoye takes that assertion and runs with it, to the limits of taste and ethical integrity. His work has been banned en masse and the focus of much heated debate, not because it is offensive, but because it isn’t deemed to be art by some curators. Naturally, the controversial Delvoye has featured heavily in Mona’s permanent collection. An exhibit of over 100 of his works will be on display at Mona until April 2. ‘Tattooed Tim’, whose back Delvoye inked and has since sold to a collector (upon his death) will be providing guided tours.

Where is the line? Tattooing is an art, or a craft depending on your point of view.

But what about tattooing live, sedated pigs? That’s what got Delvoye banned from working in Belgium, after the courts ruled it to be against animal welfare laws. In 2004 he relocated himself to China, along with his ‘Art Farm’, where the pigs live, are tattooed, grow (or, as Delvoye puts it, the canvas expands and grows in value) and die.

But does that make the Art Farm okay?

I don’t think so. But, is it art? That’s a harder question to answer.

Leo Tolstoy once said that art must create an emotional link between artist and audience on some level. Sculptor Constantin Brancusi believed art was made to disturb. I think he would have liked Delvoye. The truth of the matter is that good art often pushes boundaries and polarises critics. Whether something is Some will be stuffed, some will be profound or simply going for shock value skinned. The process, and the end is in the eye of the beholder. Walsh’s result, understandably makes many peo- entire collection is testament to that. ple very uncomfortable. There’s no denying there are worse (legal) examples of It’s not all shocking, smelly or morally animal abuse and mistreatment on any ambiguous, either. Some of it is just modern factory farm. Delvoye himself is plain aesthetically pleasing. a vegetarian.

But then, I think we can agree, beauty does not make art, and art is not always beautiful.

Delvoye’s work includes installations of saws posing as fine china, jewellery, Gothic x-rays turned into stained glass, and tyres cut into delicate patterns. Then there’s, ‘Cloaca’, his series of manufactured digestive systems, one of which Walsh commissioned especially for Mona.

Love him or hate him, think he’s a fraud or a genius of the contradictory. His work gets people debating its artistic merit, and maybe, just maybe, that’s where its merit lies. www.wimdelvoye.be

fiction

by jack vening

A

burnt sugar

t sunset on that last evening before the ship was to set off, there were clouds of swallows shifting over the city like schools of brown fish moving in sea currents. Me and Daisy watched from the top deck the clouds and the dark shapes lacing through them, which were hawks and kestrels and rocks slung up from boys standing on the rooftops, and dark shapes dropping down, which were the swallows. The kids would have been some of the only people not coming to the party.

Daisy was pretty in her green gown with her hair tied up, looking like something out of a story, looking more grown up than when I’d last seen her, but not so much that you wouldn’t recognize her. The first thing I did when I saw her was recognize her.

As we watched the birds I told her how they reminded me of the big groups of men I’d seen in town who would find time in the afternoons to fight each other, for no other reason than to see who was best at it. Men have been doing that since before time started, I guess. Afterwards there would be men lying on the ground where they’d fallen like the swallows and like the swallows city workers with

brooms and hats would come after the sunset and sweep them away into the gutter and hose the roads of blood and feathers and they’d be left to wake with the morning if they hadn’t been taken by the cats in the night.

She wasn’t interested – she’d been in Paris the past seven months and was a woman now. She had learnt how men worked, and while I told her she nodded once and slowly wandered away to where her mother and her stepfather, whose name was Willard, were standing down the deck. I told myself I didn’t care, and I whispered to the birds, ‘We don’t care, do we?’

The ship had taken a long time to build and it was already very famous. Everywhere there were foreign dignitaries and men from the newspapers, townspeople, children catching gulls on the decks and gluing their wings shut with paint stolen from the hold. There were performers and women with the corner of their dresses hitched up to their garters. A man led a line of these girls, sweet-faced young women with most of themselves on show, in laps of the deck, handing out fliers, before settling into the bar for the night.

Willard, who owned the company that built the ship, pointed at the clouds of swallows with a thick finger and said, ‘They’ll follow us out to sea. We’re going to burn sugar in the furnaces tonight – it’ll look just like the engines are going but we won’t move. It’ll be a hoot, and the birds will follow us for days for the smell of it, you’ll see.’

His eyes were twinkling with gin cocktails. ‘You’ll have to tell me about it,’ I said. ‘I don’t think Daisy wants me coming.’

He nodded. ‘And how do you feel about that?’

‘Hollow,’ I said. ‘And sleepy. But I haven’t eaten much today.’

He nodded again and then led me inside to where the bar and the gin cocktails were.

Daisy had already filled the cabin with her things. Parasols, hats, books from France and the academy. In all the cabins there were gilded frames for pictures and Daisy had filled hers with photos from her travels. There were her friends, there was a building I imagined was probably the Eiffel tower, all in black and white (this was a long time ago). When I came in from the bar Daisy was sitting on the bed but as soon as she saw me she stepped into the ensuite to busy herself with lady powders.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’m having a drink with your step-father.

Would you like to come have a drink with us?’

‘How long will it take?’ she called, her voice high and light like a whistle, or a bell, either one.

I didn’t know how long. For some reason looking at all the photos she’d put up I felt so sad. I’m not sure why. In the photos she looked terrifically happy, and like someone who wouldn’t like me very much.

‘Do you love me?’ I said.

‘What?’

‘I said, do you love me?’

‘Have you not eaten much today?’

I took one of the pictures out of its frame and behind it there was the stock image the frame came with, which was two young children, a little boy and a little girl, riding on their father’s back. They were all smiling, there were leaves all over the ground, it was autumn, and it just made me sadder.

‘There’s a mandarin in my bag,’ Daisy said, but I had already wandered back out to the party, where they’d started burning sugar-smoke out of the stacks.

I sat at the bar with Willard and drank and it came on in a rush, hungry as I was. I wanted to ask him about getting a job at his firm, I wanted to ask where Daisy got off, but it was loud. It was only eight and already the room was warmed through with the bodies of a thousand squealing people.

Men wearing loincloths and skirts came in and fanned the room down and the electrical lighting flickered faintly from the effort of lighting everyone’s face.

Willard chatted to old acquaintances and waltzed with young ladies, ate olives off the small of a serving girl’s back, posed for photos, which took a long time to do in those days. This was a long time ago.

When we did get a moment alone I found I was too thirsty to speak and we settled into a silence thick in the heat of the room. I was dizzy and we were both at least medium drunk.

‘Just look at them,’ he finally said. He was staring across the room to where the hitch-skirted girls lounged along the back wall, dressed in red and black, drinking wine, sometimes led away by men to rooms and returning thirty minutes later.

‘Just look at them all. Back before all this, of course, they would just have to give it to you, if you were strong enough. You know?’

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure I knew much.

‘There wasn’t anything they could say,’ he went on. ‘But somewhere along there they tricked us, the clever little foxes, into thinking it was a product. A product! Do you know what I mean? Do you understand me?’

He coughed and afterwards hiccupped. A man brought him a new gin cocktail and he slowly ran the cold rim of it under the creases in his forehead.

‘My wife hates it, of course. The product, my product, rather. And why shouldn’t she? Really it’s just slime, and humans are taught to fear slime in all its forms from when they’re very young children. But the reality is that the human body produces nothing but slime, one way or another.

And those girls know it, the clever bloody rabbits. That’s why they know we’ll pay.’

He didn’t seem finished, but just then he was swamped by reporters and photographers. A boy, abseiling down the rear of the ship to pry off one of its huge, glittering letters, had tumbled into the dark water and was lost. They wanted Willard to respond to safety issues, calls of criminal negligence, fraud, embezzlement, and while he began fighting them off with his stool I got up and went across the floor and I took one of those girls by the arm and I led her out and I found an empty cabin and I shut the door and I locked it.

‘I’ve waited so long for you,’ the girl said. ‘So terribly, terribly long.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well.’

She was a robot, of course. They all were in those days, with the Spanish flu so near and the church being how it was and tin being so awfully cheap and abundant.

‘I’ve waited so long for you,’ she said again. Her voice came from a spring wound up inside her and it sounded hollow and far away, like the echoes of a bucket dropped down a well.

She watched me with her pretty glass eyes as I undressed and afterwards watched me stand at the window looking out into the night. Rainclouds had bunched in from the ocean, all soaked up and dark with sea water, and they were wringing themselves out over the city.

Nothing had really happened between us – the girl was poorly calibrated and too hot to touch. I burnt my finger tips badly when I tried to stroke her face and I now rested them in ice water propped up on the windowsill.

‘When will I see you again, that was wonderful,’ she said, sounding a whistle which signalled that if I put two more cents in, she would hold me from behind and whisper into my ear as the sea breeze played across us. Outside there was panic as the rain swept guests inside to the bar where the sounds of fighting were getting louder.

Shots were being fired, and the decks ran red and purple as the gulls were washed clean and flapped happily out of their captors’ hands.

I suddenly thought about the men who would be hosing down the streets right now, having their jobs done for them by the rain, and I opened the window further and leaned out and peered upwards and, of course, there were the swallows, perched in great bunches along the rims of the smoke-stacks, like metal-filings clinging onto a magnet.

More than I expected, least ten thousand of them, still and quiet, so tired they were sleeping through the storm.

A bell rang. It was nine pm, and I looked again out to the city. There, as the wind spat the rain onto my chest, I thought I could see the birds of prey, dark and swampish in the wet, perched like gargoyles all across the rooftops. And the boys too, resting on their haunches with rocks piled at their feet, watching to see what the swallows would do next.

fiction

the budget traveller’s guide to Puerto Rico

by stephen smith

R

um — on ice. Twenty-five cents. It comes in paper cups that sag at the bottom. It’s a home brew. The light illuminates floating sediments. There are twigs and leaves. It was made in a bathtub. Not a clean one.

Let’s ignore that. Billy does. Billy sips his rum. He ignores the twigs and sediments. He ignores the heat and bad lighting.

Puerto Rico; sun, rum, tourists — Billy hopes there’s a story in there somewhere. It’s raining and the trees outside perambulate like ripped and torn beer labels. Billy smiles and takes another sip and fights down the nausea.

Billy finishes his second rum. He pays his bill and leaves.

The rain has slackened and the sun is peeking through the unenlightened clouds. He walks down the footpath. It’s slashed and torn.

A vision of Puerto Rico: men sit on porches smoking cigars; the sun sets red, and rises pink; the sky is cloudless, the sky is blue; Spanish words fill the air; sand is everywhere; the tourists are sunburnt but beautiful, and influential.

Most stories have a start and an end. This has neither.

For me, it started with my cat. It started for Billy with an offer and a plane trip. The cat was alive and then dead.

I never saw it dead. A car hit it. A person in a car hit it. I didn’t feel much — I’m not a cat person — but I wanted to do something. A gesture.

A beach. This is where my two characters will meet.

Expectation is everything. I’m surprised when Billy ignores my cat. My cat is white. It’s chasing the shadows of birds over the lightening sand. It will never catch those shadows. It’s not supposed to.

Billy watches the horizon. The clouds are orange hills. He sighs. ‘Puerto Rico.’ He sighs again. He slips into thoughts of memories.

‘A cigarette?’ I make my cat say.

Billy continues looking at the sunset. The words are already forming in his mind: A beautiful sunset welcomed me to Puerto Rico; something so similar yet so different

from anything I have seen before. And, as the sun set, the moon hung behind me, rising to the sound of drums and dancing.

Billy smiles. The rum turns in his stomach. The waves lap at the sand. Salt air hits his nostrils.

I know a lost cause when I see one. I make the cat disappear. I dissipate the clouds. I’m sorry about this. This was supposed to be beautiful. A tribute. Call it inexperience. I’m beating myself up inside.

Billy starts to make his way to the party he was never meant to attend. I step away from the page — this page — and take a deep breath. I stop writing. I recollect myself; watch Billy walk along the brick pavement, one hand trailing along the metal fence surrounding the beach. The beer is warm but I take a sip anyway. I know I can save this. I can make this good. Bear with me.

I try to conjure up an image of the party, the names, faces and conversations. All I get is the vague impressions in Billy’s mind, a mind I thought I knew.

Billy flips out a cigar he bought from a vendor at the airport. He lights it, chews the end. He shields his eyes with his hand. The thin fabric of his pants makes a soft whistling noise when they rub together.

The moon rises, the moon sets, the moon does all sorts of things. I don’t control the moon. The moon rises and Billy nods to it, as if to an acquaintance.

He turns into an ill-lit back-alley and I lose sight of him.

His balding head emerges from the other end a few moments later. His hands are cupped in front of his mouth and a thin flame flickers. One of the hands retracts into a pocket. He ruffles his hair and plays with his shirt.

The building is red-brick. All the rooms have lights on.

Billy is greeted by a man. The man says, ‘Hello.’ ‘Hi there, I’m from Esquire.’ The man looks at Billy. Billy rubs his nose. ‘I’m here to do the story.’ The man says something to Billy and lets him in. The party is well-populated and the people there are well dressed. Billy watches a tall woman dance with a shorter man. She says something to Billy and he smiles. Billy talks to people. He eats the food passed around by waiters and drinks the free champagne. He goes to the bathroom.

I know an opportunity when I see one. Billy washes his hands in the green porcelain. He practises his smile in the mirror. He flinches when my cat jumps up onto the bench.

‘Jesus. How’d you get in here?’ He watches himself in the mirror. ‘Beat it.’ He pushes my cat off the porcelain. My cat jumps back up. ‘Meow.’

My cat lies around Billy’s arm, on the counter, his belly facing upwards. ‘What?’ Billy’s forehead wrinkles. He moves his hand to push the cat off again. ‘I wouldn’t do that, boy.’

The cat rears up and hisses. Its nails stand out. Billy runs his right hand through his failing hair. ‘The shit is this?’ He backs into the sliding door and moves it open with a flailing hand. He goes back into the party. I leave the cat and follow Billy out the open door. The tap is still running.

I watch him make his way through the party as I lean on the door. I tap my finger against my leg. I go back into the bathroom but the cat it is gone. There is a white hair on the bench. I turn off the tap. ‘Who are you?’ says a woman in a blue dress. ‘Nobody,’ I say. ‘Nobody at all.’ Two men in dark blue shirts escort me outside.

Billy is crying in one of the backstreets. Harsh sobs.

‘Hey’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘Who am I? Who are you? You’re different than I expected.’ ‘What is that supposed to mean? Who the hell are you?’ ‘Nobody. Sorry about the cat incident. I didn’t know he was like that. These are the things we need to learn.’ ‘The things we need to learn? What is this shit?

I don’t need this, I don’t. This country is...What the hell is wrong with you people.’ ‘See you,’ I say. He turns his head to look back at me every few steps, until he turns the corner. He rubs his eyes. One of his contacts falls out.

The wood houses smell of rain. Mould grows underneath the windowsills. Fire lights up a procession of dancers. A homeless man moves closer to the fires. He passes along the side of the main street, watching the dancers.

Police move the homeless man from his sleep. Meat is cooking. His stomach tumbles and the taste of rum rises in his throat. He makes his way to the beach and watches the moon. It is the same moon he has seen a thousand times before. The wind is strong, cool, salty, tastes like the Caribbean. He Shivers. He follows the cobblestone pathway to his hotel. Sand is in his mouth and clothes. He takes the elevator up to his room. The twelfth floor button’s light needs replacing.

He takes his other contact out. Gets undressed and brushes his teeth. He sleeps naked. His last thoughts are of the beautiful sunset he saw. And the words of his article speak in his mind.

Billy’s story began with a plane. It was the five o’clock to Puerto Rico. Economy class. The magazine paid for everything. The story: nothing, just money, a free flight, accommodation and a license to right anything, ‘just keep it positive.’ Things are looking up for Billy.

silly

rejected pitches to the publishers of the ‘For Dummies’ series Schrödinger’s Cat Thought Experiment and It’s Implications for Modern Quantum Mechanics For Dummies

De-lousing For Dummies

Party Rocking For Dummies

Life, The Universe and Everything For Dummies

Pig Latin For Ummiesday

Overthrowing a Communist Regime For Dummies

Getting a ‘For Dummies’ Book Published For Dummies

Lemonparty.org For Dummies

Running the Australian Federal Opposition For Dummies Fearmongering For Dummies Successful Drug Smuggling in Indonesia For Dummies

Insurance Fraud For Dummies

Air Guitar Chords for Nickelback’s ‘Here and Now’ For Dummies

culture

the doctor is in by anna angel When I was fourteen, I memorized the words to Dr. Seuss’ One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish. Yes, I was probably too old for such behaviour, but such is the power of the good doctor on the overactive imagination. When I was seventeen, I read and reread Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for the first time I could remember. It was wonderful; the rhyming structures so simple and playful, the prose rolling off the tongue like a bowling ball down a hill. Has there ever been a style of literature so attuned to the creative minds of the young as the purely nonsensical absurd writings of these two? Will there ever be again?

Children’s literature is too often dismissed as simple-minded, easy, unimportant. But if we’re to uphold literacy as a society, and pass the joy of reading onto our children, we’d best give them something damn good to read. Fairytales are too negative, sexist and outdated. There’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Harry Potter, sure. But why not start their literary journey at the weirdest juncture? Oh, the Places You’ll Go, perhaps, or Horton Hears a Who! Take your niece, daughter, or the kid next door you sometimes baby-sit, Through the Looking-Glass. Go on, it’ll open up your imagination, too.

“One fish

two fish red fish

blue fish.

old fish Black fish

blue fish

new fish.”

Dr. Seuss (not a doctor, and born Theodor Seuss Geisel) began his career writing (often political) humour and illustrating advertising campaigns. It’s no secret that political events and wars influenced some of his most well known children’s works, too. It was Geisel who said children can spot a story’s moral a mile away, but that doesn’t mean his rhymes didn’t contain allegory of sorts. There’s tales of acceptance - of yourself and others - patience, rejecting materialism and promoting environmentalism. How are all these boring undercurrents hidden? In literary nonsense. Same, too, with Carroll’s 1865 well-known fantastical Wonderland adventure, and his lesser known poetic works The Hunting of the Snark and The Jabberwock.

Geisel worked mostly in anapestic tetrameter - a rhyming structure of two soft beats and one stressed beat. Carroll (born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) played with conventional structure, visual trickery and a literary freedom unusual for the time. What may seem inane or cheap word play to an uninterested adult mind can invite other or younger readers to fill in the blanks, throw assumptions out the window, and leap headfirst into a world completely dissimilar to the one we physically inhabit. That, at least, is worth passing on.

make do

brighten your day

how to

BY DOMINIQUE BELLE tam

Drink copious amounts of tea Tea has become a staple within my household, whether during examination periods or just to go with the desserts my sister tends to bake on a regular basis. Tea is, and continues to be, the most consumed drink in the world (after water). In addition to being a relaxant, studies suggest the consumption of green and black tea can have strong positive effects on the body. Tea consumption can prevent ageing, allergies, arthritis, cancer, cholesterol, and heart disease, as well as improving bone strength and aiding weight loss.

Drink up!

Put your favourite song on repeat

Chow down on fruit

I seem to have become one of those people on the bus with their music too loud who looks like they are about to jump up and dance at any moment. In addition to this eccentricity, I become so enamoured (some might say obsessed) with particular songs. I will put them on repeat for days, just for my own enjoyment. I’ve discovered my behaviour (obsessive as it may be) is not uncommon. Music has an innate ability to bring back memories – good or bad.

It has become a universal language, understood and enjoyed by individuals from all walks of life. Music can affect the mind and the body in profound ways. Music therapy is a growing field of health care where patients use music to heal. Listening to music can provide relaxation and stress management, so put on your favourite song; you know I will be!

I have to admit, I am fruit obsessed. I will have fruit cravings throughout the day and will often stop whatever I am doing at the time to go and buy my fix.

Fruits and vegetables are the most important parts of our diets (and no, I’m not just saying this because I’m vegetarian). Naturally, they make you feel terrific, as they contain vitamins and minerals that keep your immune system healthy. Maybe our parents and teachers had the right idea when they said, “eat these and you’ll grow up big and strong”.

Watch a classic movie I am a complete sucker for any film that came from the mind of romance extraordinaire, John Hughes. The creator of Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club knows the way to a woman’s heart. Romance may not be your thing but you can never go wrong with a classic Disney movie.

Re-live your childhood, if only for one night.

Visit a place where you can clear your mind Stress can be overwhelming at times and often physical escape feels like the only way out. Changing your environment can do a world of good for your emotional psyche. There is a growing amount of evidence to suggest depression, stress and anxiety can be partially attributed to our society’s alienation from nature. Ecotherapy improves mental health through being actively outdoors, in a green environment. A study was conducted to look at the benefits of “outdoor exercise” on depression. The participants were asked to walk for 30 minutes in a park and the same in a shopping centre. Over 70 per cent reported decreased feelings of depression and were less tense after walking in the park. Everyone’s place of relaxation will be different – it could be an art gallery, the beach or even just the park down the end of your street.

Wherever that place may be, leave your laptop and get amongst it.

Cook your favourite meal We can become so concerned with our health that our fridges overflow with products plastered with the words ‘reduced salt’, ‘99 per cent fat free’ and ‘zero sugar’. Granted, being healthy is important, but not at the expense of our favourite meals. For just one night, shed those inhabitations and enjoy the one culinary indulgence that leaves you with feelings of pure happiness.

Have a Mexican Fiesta This speaks for itself, really. Everything is great when you’re sporting a fake (or real) moustache and a poncho, and drinking tequila. If ever you’re having a bad week, call up a group of friends, make some burritos and dance around the room. It will make your troubles disappear, I swear.

Do something nice for another person

Make a ridiculous joke An introvert by nature, social situations both intrigue and terrify me. The best remedy I have found to cure this is to tell a ridiculous joke to break the ice. A personal favourite of mine was the handiwork of a friend who asked, “Do you like to read in the dark?” This was subsequently followed by fits of uncontrollable laughter between the both of us. Whatever your lame poison, they will always break tension and are a surefire way to turn the day into a positive.

This may seem a tad ambiguous, but that’s the beauty of it. Whether it’s a big sweeping gesture or something relatively small, doing something nice for someone else will have its rewards.

Take for example Juan Mann’s ‘Free Hugs’ campaign. This became one man’s solo mission to reach out and hug strangers, just to brighten up their lives; a gesture that was so simple, yet so highly effective. Personally I am a strong believer in karma. If positive vibes or actions are placed out into the universe, that same positivity will return tenfold. So perhaps think about letting that person go ahead of you in the bus line, smile or comment on a stranger’s dress. It may sound cliché, but it’s the little things that will make all the difference. And you’ll be surprised how good it makes you feel to make others feel good.

compassion

how much is that doggie in the (browser) window?

By Anna Angel

H

ow much is that doggie in the window? The one with the waggly tail. How much? Over 200, 000. That’s the number of unwanted cats and dogs put down each year in Australia due to pet overpopulation. Ninety-six per cent of stray and surrendered cats and kittens have to be put down by struggling shelters, and some sixty per cent of dogs. That’s the true cost of designer breed pets, pet stores and puppy mills. So what can we do about it? Adopt or foster.

For a long time this meant heading to your local rescue or pound and picking the first ball of fur to melt your heart. Organisations like the RSPCA always try to ensure animals go home with suitable owners, but the heartbreaking reality of shelters and the intense cuteness of these abandoned animals can definitely lead to shotgun decisions. Pets are for life, and that can be a hard concept to grasp with heartstrings tugging. Enter the internet used for a greater good than lolcatz. Search for animals in need that suit your needs, put your hand up to help out, or get to know a prospective new member of your brood all without leaving home.

A great place to start for anyone considering a new addition to their family is Pet Rescue. This website is an amalgamation of a number of different shelters and rescues across the country. Best of all, you can search by pet size, sex, species and location, so you know you’re going to find your match.

Similarly, the RSPCA’s online adoption service is categorised into lifestyle from active breeds needing a lot of exercise, to shy animals in need of a bit of extra love. Like all good adoption programs, there is a fee and background check for prospective owners. They need to know you, your house and your situation provide the best fit for animals that have often already been through so much.

On a more grassroots level, a number of smaller rescues have popped up online in recent years. There’s Furry Friends Animal Rescue in Queensland, which buys healthy animals on the ‘put to sleep’ list at the pound, fosters and eventually adopts them to a forever home. If you’ve got extra room in your heart or backyard, consider fostering to give an unwanted pet a second chance to find their true home.

If you’ve got a chicken coop (or are willing to construct one) why not adopt ex-battery farm hens? These hens often aren’t pretty but the reward is in watching them discover life for the first time, regain their feathers and their spirit. One online program worth checking out is Homes for Hens. If you’re more of a dog-lover you can read up on adopting ex-racing greyhounds - they make truly wonderful companions. Or what about retired race horses? They need love, too. There’s even shelters specialising in rehoming guinea pigs.

So if you ever thought the chances of meeting the love of your life online was slim, think again.

community

“I used to exist.

Now I’ve got a life.”

- John, MadCap employee

Anyone who’s lived with mental illness knows how difficult daily life can become. Yep, that’s one in five of us. Social inclusion and opportunities to participate in creative activities - and even financial and job security - are all factors found to improve mental health.

Yet more than three quarters of the 360,000 people of working age in Australia diagnosed with a severe mental illness are out of the labour force. What about those who want to take positive steps but find opportunities - for employment, or even basic social interaction - are limited? Enter MadCap Cafe.

They employ a mixture of people at their cafes across Victoria, including ‘trainees’ who gradually transition to meaningful employment and often, to a greater quality of life.

Trainees work through a supportive program at a pace that suits them, (re)learning the skills and gaining the confidence needed to participate in the workforce and in life.

MapCap is an initiative of community organisation Ermha, which focuses on building a brighter future for those experiencing severe mental illness by getting them back in the driver’s seat of their lives.

The enterprise is modelled on ‘what we can do, not what we can’t’. It’s not a coffee shop that works towards social inclusion, it exists solely to give members of the community opportunities. They also make great coffee.

If you’re in the neighbourhood, pay a visit to MadCap at Westfield Geelong, Fountain Gate or Dandenong Plaza.

Information and applications for transitional employment: www.madcapcafe.org Ph: 03 9706 7388

Silly

the greatest

dad jokes of all time

“Son, did you hear about the fire at the circus?”

“No.” “Should I put the kettle on?”

“If you think it will suit you.”

“I knew a lady who had no nose.”

“How did she smell?”

“Terrible!”

“Hi, is your daughter around?”

“No, she’s more of an oblong shape.”

“It was in tents.”

*Son struggling with a jar* “Can I give you a hand?”

“Yes, please.” *Starts slow clap*

“Son, have you seen my piecost?”

“What’s a piecost?”

“Around $3.50.”

“Dad, I’m hungry!”

“Yesterday I saw a man stealing my front gate.

“Nice to meet you, Hungry.

I’m Dad.” “Dad, I’m serious.”

“I thought you were Hungry?”

But I didn’t want to say anything in case he took a fence.”

“Are you kidding me?!”

“No ... I’m Dad.”

More hilarity at www.dadsbadjokes.com, or at your parent’s place.

make do

An upcycler’s guide to the universe Put that down! That’s not rubbish! There’s nothing more satisfying than taking something useless and giving it new life. Use your imagination and practically anything can be reinvented. Here are just a few ideas to get your cogs turning: Old rags and fabric = shopping totes, bows or linings for customising bags, shirts or dresses.

Unused tea cups = pots for plants and herbs, candle holders, wall decorations, pin cushions Old knit sweaters = beanies, gloves, scarves, tea cosies, hot water bottle covers Glass bottles = vases, mosaic art, vessels for infusing flavoured vodka (the possibilities!)

Piles of old magazines = glued together in a crate to form a reading chair with a cushion top or table with a glass top

Run, Rabbit wants YOU! Submissions for Issue 2 are now open!

Whether you’re good with words, pictures, design, the interwebz, craft, cooking, or simply have ideas floating around your noggin looking for a home, we’d love to hear from you.

The theme is ‘life, the universe and everything’, so think philosophy, religion, the little things that make life special, outer space, universal truth, travel, the stages of life, aliens fighting cowboys, what it all means to be human, the end of the world as we know it. You don’t have to stick to the theme; think of it as a springboard.

Pitches are accepted until March 31st 2012, and general submissions of art, non-fiction and short fiction are accepted until April 30th 2012.

Email any submissions or queries to editor@runrabbitmagazine. com, or visit www.runrabbitmagazine.com.

Get on board, and together we can make Run,Rabbit bigger and better.

www.runrabbitmagazine.com @runrabbitzine www.facebook.com/runrabbitmagazine