Vertigo Edition 3

ISSUE THREE // 2011

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VERTIGO

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ROADTEST: UTS ELEVATOR POWERPOINTS / PLASTIC SURGERY AT 17 / INTERVIEW WITH A MASTERCHEF

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EDITORS

LUCIEN ALPERSTEIN JAMES BOURNE CARLA EFSTRATIOU GEMMA KACZEREPA AVA NIRUI DANIEL PIOTROWSKI ANNA WATANABE JUSTIN WOLFERS

ART DIRECTORS

KIERAN BOYD DANIEL CONIFER MANDA DIAZ MARCUS HIGGINS KATHERINE HOROWITZ RHYS JONES ALEXANDRA MOXON ASHLEIGH STEEL SAMUEL WEBSTER

5.

Editorial

JAMES BOURNE

LUCIEN ALPERSTEIN

THE FEATURE: TITTY-TITTY BANG-BANG ANONYMOUS

MEGAN MANNING IRIT POLLAK

CONTRIBUTORS

Letters To The Editors

ROADTEST: ELEVATOR ELECTRICITY

6.

8.

4.

SPEAKING FOOD AND FAMILY WITH THE FORMER MASTERCHEF CONTESTANT

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FEATURE INTERVIEW: ALVIN QUAH GEMMA KACZEREPA + ANNA WATANABE

A RANT ABOUT FEELING DISENFRANCHISED

I WAS OLD BEFORE IT WAS COOL

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ANNA WATANABE

NOW WITH 40% MORE DEFAMATION

13.

DEFAMER

JAMES BOURNE

PRESENTING SAMUEL WEBSTER AND ASHLEIGH STEEL

ADVERTISING

SHOULD BABIES BE LEASHED? ONLY ONE OF ANNA AND JUSTIN THINKS SO.

STEPHANIE KING

WITH THANKS TO NEHA MADHOK ET. AL SPOT PRESS PTY LTD, MARRICKVILLE

SHOWCASE

16.

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TRIVIAL DISPUTES

VERTIGO’S AFRICA CORRESPONDANT HAS SENT BACK A STORY FROM KENYA

21.

OUT OF AFRICA

ALIX VANNY

RHYS JONES TAKES HIS MUM TO THE MARDI GRAS

COVER IMAGE

24.

ASHLEIGH STEEL

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A GAYE OLD TIME FOOD AND FASHION

GEMMA + CARLA + ANNA

LUCIEN TAKES ONE FOR THE TEAM AND DRINKS HIS OWN BEER

Vertigo and its entire contents are protected by copyright. Vertigo will retain reprint rights, contributors retain all other rights for resale and republication. No material may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the copyright holders. Vertigo would like to show it’s respect and

29.

FEATURE REVIEW: HOME BREW 30. REVIEWS ALLIE, JUSTIN, + AVA

acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land, the Gadigal and Guring-gai people of Eora Nation, upon whose ancestral lands the university now stands. More than 500 Indigenous Nations shared

32.

PLACES TO GO IF...

this land for over 40,000 years before invasion. We express our solidarity and continued commitment to working with Indigenous peoples, in Australia

and around the world, in their ongoing struggle for land rights, self determination, sovereignty, and the recognition and compensation for past injustices.

Vertigo is published by the UTS STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION Printed by SPOTPRESS PTY LTD, MARRICKVILLE Email us at advertising@utsvertigo.com for enquires

33.

Sport

34.

S.A Reports

36.

Exhibition Showcase

DAN CONIFER + MARCUS HIGGINS NEHA MADHOK + TIM ROYLETT

ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

soapbox

Vertigo reserves the right to edit letters for design and sense-making purposes.

Have your say on our Facebook page (Vertigo) or email us at editorial@utsvertigo.com

hate mail of the week DEAR FUCKWITS

VAJAZZLING: UNCOOL

Dear fuckwits, I found your caricature of mature age students on page 6 of your bullshit publication [“Awkward University Moments: An Etiquette Guide”, edition 2] a fascinating look at how younger UTS students perceive us old farts.

In the same spirit of fraternity and objective discourse, allow me then to enlighten your staff -- as I am sure you douchebags have never thought this through -- with the opposite perspective.

We’re old. Hahah, we get it. We have not seen or heard whatever the hell’s captivated the radio, YouTube or the ADD-afflicted student body this particular afternoon. We are more than aware that jobs and other responsibilities like children make us incredibly fucking lame. You have all done a splendid job pointing this out with your demeanour and quiet comments during orientation.

Yep, look at the old lady in a class full of 18-year-olds.

Hilarious.

I’m sure you all need to be told that it’s rather difficult to be a mature-age student, even without your bullshit attitudes. Mommy and daddy aren’t paying for our time here. For us, this is not a four-year pass to run up someone else’s credit card bill and drink ourselves retarded. (The benefit, however, is that we’re the ones that own our degrees when we graduate, not our parents.)

Since that piece of paper is paid for out of pocket, we take our time here a little more seriously. Yeah, we’re gonna wanna ackshully, like, learn stuff. We ask a lot of questions, show up to office hours, talk in class a lot. And I’m sorry if all this disrupts your hangover but in addition to uni, we have to worry about putting food on the table and finding a way to pay for our kid’s glasses, so we like to make the most out of class time.

So thank you again for sharing your opinion of us old bags. It sure has reinforced my belief that you are all a waste of time.

Dear Vertigo, I have to say I was particularly disappointed after reading the article about vajazzling in your last issue.

While there was a bunch of decent information about different ideas about vajazzling, there were a few key ideas that I found ridiculous.

The article described vajazzling as “the newest form of social activism”. The fact that some women feel the need to further the beautifying process by sparkling up their vulva’s to please male partners represents the age-old scenario of woman-please-man-by-looking-good and cannot even remotely be considered “social activism”. Rather it is another example of social subjugation.

Likewise I find it appalling that the woman interviewed could only change the un-equal power dynamics in her relationship with her “manly man” by vajazzling-up. Surely this represents a huge issue in society where the only way women can gain equality in a relationship is through radical beautification methods.

I have often heard women saying they feel empowered by beautifying themselves. But just because you feel positive reinforcement because you are trying to make yourself look good does not equate to women’s equality. It equates to “femininity” (in a society that wants women to look and act in “feminine” ways) to looking “good”.

The article finished saying that “having a disco ball crotch is a choice which all women have the freedom to make” which may be true at the moment, but i’m sure in the 40’s people said the same thing about women shaving their legs. Now if you can’t be bothered with the daily hair removal routine you are called a dyke, freak, stared at or yelled at. Lets hope vajazzling doesn’t become another mandatory routine women have to participate in to be accepted in society.

Name withheld

WE WANT A LETTERS PAGE:

Cecilia Vagg

To whom it may concern,

Send the editors your most profanity-littered, offensive and printable-in-a-student-magazine hate mail.

The best hate mail submission will receive an exclusive Vertigo calico bag inscribed with ‘Vertigo: Get Fucked’ .

No death threats.

The UTS student handbook said I could send letters to Vertigo and because I’m so old-fashioned, I like sending letters - even to a person I know in Brazil, when MSN and Facebook are more socially acceptable means of communication for people in my age group (18-20).

Anyway, where is the ‘letter to the editor’ part of the publication, whereby people can bitch/whine about the useless little things in life?

And I’m sure many people say this about Vertigo, but it’s an awesome read.

Rachael Smith

. 04 .

ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

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EDITORIAL

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Welcome, Vertigoers, to this, your third Vertigo for 2011.

And what a momentous Vertigo it is.

In many ways, it’s the first Vertigo of the year: the first published under a State Coalition Government, the first to feature a gag about Muammar Al-Gaddafi, and the first edition not to feature an editorial that makes light of our university’s unique architectural make-up.

What I’ll concede, however, is that this isn’t the first week of uni. If you’re anything like me, your body will be having violent, almost allergic reactions to the rigours of tertiary study. With the early mornings, late nights, questionable food choices and the all-too frequent and close encounters with fellow users of public transport, my body has decided to match my emotional decline and all but break down. I’ll be imaginative and term my affliction Mid-Semester Syndrome, or MSS. Let’s hope it catches on - the acronym, not the illness.

One thing that isn’t in decline, however, is the quality of Vertigo. So just how does this magazine remain so fresh, I’m hoping you’re asking for the sake of my next paragraph?

Well, readers, Vertigo is much like a once famous brand of tinned fish: it is the ideas we’ve rejected that make our magazine the best. Here are few of the articles relegated to the hypothetical Vertigo Trash Can rather than the pages that follow: -An exclusive interview with Princess-To-Be, Kate Middleton, about the implications of the North African Political crisis on the price of petrol in Australia; -A frame-by-frame review of recently discovered footage of former Premier Nathan Rees eating a pickled onion; and -In depth coverage of the Scrabble game my neighbour played last month, including how she managed to land the word ‘xylophone’ on a triple word score for a total of 72 points.

While none of those are in this edition, we do have all the regulars you’re developing either an affection for or a desire to avoid. Also, Alix Vanny tackles African exploitation, Lucien roadtests the full extent to which he can exploit his rights as an elevator-using student, and Anna and Gemma exploit their editorial privileges to have a chat with former Masterchef, All-Round-Nice-Guy and Mutual Crush, Alvin Quah.As always, we also tackle the tough issues: should we be leashing babies? Should you take your mother to the Mardi Gras? And, of course, breasts.

That’s right guys, Vertigo has boldly gone where no magazine has gone before, and published a feature on boobs. Actually, come to think of it, Ralph has done a few boob features, as have Zoo, Penthouse, Cosmo, Playboy and TV Week. In any case, we’re also writing about them, and that’s a good thing, right?

I’ll let you decide.

So settle in, avoid having to read a textbook or listen to a lecturer, and be mildly amused, informed and titillated by everything that Issue 3 has to offer. But I can’t guarantee that it will help you overcome your MSS.

JAMES BOURNE editorial@utsvertigo.com

. 05 .

ISSUE ISSUETHREE ONE VERTIGO VERTIGO

ROADTEST: ALTERNATE USES FOR ELEVATOR POWER POINTS A large proportion of the lifts at UTS contain power sockets. Time idle is time wasted and in the interest of being productive we took to the lift. This road test is by no means exhaustive but Lucien Alperstein sure had a stab.

SHAVING

OFFICE SPACE

Maintaining your face is often a last-minute effort to impress someone: a date, a tutor during a presentation, an interviewer for that job you want. But when you’re too busy to shave at home, don’t be afraid to take advantage of those lifts with power points AND a mirror.

Design and architecture students are often found whinging in Pausa Café about having nowhere to work in the DAB building. It takes little more than a milk crate and either a pair of knees or a small folding table to have a chair and desk. Plug in your computer and you’re on your way!

Pros: Highly practical: an electric razor is compact and many UTS lifts have mirrors.

Cons: It’s rude to leave a pile of hair in the lift.

You might slip when the lift stops or starts and end up with a patch missing from your head or brow.

Pros: No rent payments.

Can shave before meetings and presentations.

Cons: Loud lift-passengers making your phone calls unprofessional.

Complaints of taking up too much space.

Variable internet connection.

Unpleasant feeling of vertigo while staring at the screen as the lift goes up and down.

PLAYING NINTENDO 64

COOKING

There’s nothing quite like four twenty-somethings squashed together cross-legged on the lift floor staring solemnly into a little screen twiddling their thumbs.

Hungry? Yes you are! Eat, there’s always time to eat.

Especially when you’ve brought your handy-dandy microwave oven into the lift with you.

Pros: Uh, you’re playing Mario Kart!

Exercises your thumbs Make friends. Lots of friends.

Pleasant feeling of vertigo while playing simulates real driving experience.

Pros: Eat between classes Make friends by offering food

Cons: Must bring double adapter for TV and Nintendo.

Controller hogs.

Cons: Limited to horrible food such as sausage rolls and instant noodles due to time constraints.

Kettle and microwave both fire and electrical hazards.

. o6 .

MA ALE & FEMAL LE DIIABETIC VOLU UNT TEER RS REQUIRED STUDY TO EVALUATE THE SAFETY, TOLERABILITY AND EFFECTS OF A NEW DRUG IN DIABETIC PATIENTS WITH SLOW STOMACH EMPTYING.

People with diabetes commonly experience slow stomach emptying (a condition called ‘gastroparesis’).

Slow stomach emptying can cause: • Nausea and vomiting • Bloating and feeling excessively full after a meal • Belly visibly larger • Loss of appetite • Abdominal pain or discomfort GSK is currently developing a new drug to treat delayed stomach emptying in people with diabetes.

You may be eligible to participate if you: • Have Type I or II Diabetes Mellitus • Are male or female, between 18-80 (inclusive) • Have a minimum 3 month history of slow stomach emptying • Have any of the symptoms listed in the description You are NOT eligible to participate if: • You have a gastric pacemaker • Your diabetes is poorly controlled • If (females) you are pregnant • You are diagnosed with chronic liver disease

Our trial participants are reimbursed for their time, travel costs and inconvenience

More information CALL 1800 475 475 volunteers.4.trials@gsk.com Or visit www.gsk.com.au/mru

Prince of Wales Hospital Level 10, Parkes Building East High St. Randwick, NSW 2031

This study has been approved by Bellberry HREC, Ref no: 2010-12-828 and operates within Australian & International guidelines for medical research MOT114479 Print Version 2, 16 February, 2011

ADVOCACY SERVICE DO YOU NEED HELP WITH...

EXCLUSION AND ACADEMIC CAUTION - Have you been excluded?

- Have you been put on academic caution?

KNOWING YOUR RIGHTS - Pick up an Information Sheet from the Students’

STUDENT ADMINISTRATION

ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT

- Problems with Faculty or Student Centre administration?

- Plagiarism - Formal or Faculty Exams and Essays

TENANCY PROBLEMS OR GENERAL LEGAL PROBLEMS

ASSESSMENT REVIEWS APPEAL

- If we can’t help we can refer you to someone who can

- Do you want to review an assessment item or request a resubmission or a remarking?

- Do you want to appeal your final

. 07 .

F E A T U R E D F E A T U R E

boob job at 17

When you think of cosmetic surgery, you don’t often associate it with people under the age of 20.

But chances are at least a few people in your packed lecture hall have had it. Vertigo contributor and UTS student, Busty Juggs (not her real name), explains what it’s like to get breast implants at 17.

AT 17, I wasn’t considered responsible enough to drink.

I wasn’t even old enough to vote. But in Australia, 17 is old enough to get breast implants. All it takes is a few thousand dollars and a signature from an adult guardian.

There were a lot of people who told me I was far too young to make such a permanent alteration to my body.

Disapproval and condescending opinions permeated from them in judgmental waves.

There’s this stereotype that has women who opt for implants labeled as trashy airheads looking to trade sex for money and their own reality TV show on the Playboy channel. I’m not one of those women.

I grew up with a chest flatter than a wall. Getting ready

to go out with my friends, I would always notice the other girls filled out their dresses – I didn’t and I envied them.

The first time I told my friends about my intention to get implants was during the summer high school finished. I don’t think anyone took me seriously. I had Googled the pros, cons, success stories and surgical catastrophes and discovered a lot could go wrong. But even after reading stories of women who spent weeks in excruciating pain, it hardly deterred me. After all, I wasn’t going to get them done by a graduate surgeon in a dodgy back alley.

After having The Conversation with my parents, my mother drove me to one of the most reputable private cosmetic clinics in Sydney. Pulled into a private room, I was asked to undress by one of their nurses. The nurse stripped me down to my underwear so she could gauge the size of my hips. I found her stare intimidatingly direct.

“Are you planning to make a living off these?” she asked.

“are you planning on making a living out of these?”

I was amused and horrified by the question in equal parts. Did she really just ask me if I was going to make a living off my body? What sort of girl did she take me for?

I guess they really do get a lot of girls come in looking at getting ahead in a job that involves pleather, tassels and a pole. Not that I am one to judge.

“The augmented look is very popular,” she continued.

“Think Victoria Beckham.”

I always thought that Victoria Beckham looked like she had a couple of water balloons shoved under her skin.

“I want them to look completely natural,” I told her.

From there it happened so fast – I booked in a surgery date three weeks after my initial consultation. We decided on my new size – D – and I opted to get the implants inserted under the muscle.

While I was warned this more painful option would extend recovery time by a week, I thought it beat getting them planted above the muscle and visibly rippling at an inconvenient time. Which I’m told actually happens.

I signed a mountain of paperwork: waivers and a confirmation I had no sexually transmitted diseases or infections. And when the day of my surgery came around, I was surprisingly calm. It was like any other day except I had an 11am appointment with a cosmetic surgeon.

Arriving at the clinic, Dr K. pulled out a marker and started scrawling thick, angry lines all over my chest, just like one of those reality surgery shows. To my untrained eye it all looked like one confusing mess. Could my surgeon really operate based on those rough markings?

“Are you worried?” he asked me. Working in such intimate proximity, he probably noticed my tension. He explained what each of the different markings meant.

A broken line was meant he was going to lift the skin. I think. I tuned out.

The anaesthetist half-heartedly tried to distract me. He asked me what I was planning to study at university. I knew he wasn’t really listening to I word I said so I let my attention drift to the eerie, monotonous rhythm of machines. I thought about the actual surgery. Should I be nervous? * I WOKE up in agony. In my post-surgery delirium, I was convinced that a large truck had crashed into the operating theatre and buried me under a tonne of cement. The pressure on my chest was phenomenal.

I spent two weeks in bed, pumping a regular cocktail of muscle relaxants, sleeping tablets and painkillers into my system. It hurt to walk. I couldn’t lift my arms above my head. I couldn’t even lift the icepacks off my chest.

Sometimes I could feel the implants shift under my skin.

The bandages itched constantly and the bruising had me looking like a victim of domestic violence. I hated daytime television and I desperately wanted to wash my hair. But all I could do was wait for my body to heal.

I woke up one morning and felt fantastic. I had to dress

conservatively in the middle of summer to hide the bandages but that was just a small inconvenience – I was just dying to get out of bed and catch up with my friends.

I had two weeks in bed to work out how to best break the news to the ones who didn’t know.

I thought I had it all under control.

“You actually paid someone to cut you open with a scalpel and shove you full of plastic?! What the hell happened to you?”

Ouch. Hearing that from my best friend of five years was like a slap in the face.

She wasn’t a fan of cosmetic surgery. I had discussed my intention to get them done with her, but hadn’t actually told her about my date with Dr K. Was I supposed to call them and tell them something like that over the phone? I couldn’t even begin to imagine how a conversation like that would go.

I’d only feel comfortable talking about it in person.

Eventually, I managed to convince her I was exactly the same girl she had grown up with - the same girl plus some serious cleavage.

The majority of my friends were really cool about it.

Most cracked jokes and wanted to know how big the scars were and what they felt like. But after a few bad reactions from people I had known for years, I worried about how some new friends would react.

I remember right at the start of university, one of the guys came out with some strong opinions about how cosmetic surgery was wrong. In his exact words: “I would lose all respect for someone if they had cosmetic surgery.”

Oh boy. I forbade anyone from ever telling this guy.

Ever. Believe it or not, he’s one of my best mates now, and yes – he knows. He got over it. I wasn’t the one who told him. The I-know-what-you-did-last-summer conversation was an awkward, drunken revelation on his part – “Yeah but they’re fake!”

He had apparently known for some time and, after the realisation that not all girls with implants are trashy bimbos, revised his opinion on cosmetic surgery. We laugh about it now.

Breast implants are more common than people think.

A lot of girls opt for subtle surgeries, so you would never even notice them. In 2008, over 300,000 women, including teenagers, underwent breast augmentation in the United States.

I’ve never regretted it. Not once. Even during those two weeks of excruciating pain. I would make the same decision today - or at 38.

The result? Probably a little too perfect to be real. But I’m not complaining – to the casual observer they’re really convincing. I’m not a different person because of them. I’m not working at Hooters and I don’t have my own reality TV show on the Playboy channel. I’m just a regular teenager living a regular teenage life – albeit with slightly bigger breasts.

ALVIN QUAH YOU’D RECOGNIZE THOSE GLASSES ANYWHERE! ALVIN QUAH WAS A FINALIST IN THE 2010 SERIES OF MASTERCHEF AND IS NOW AN AMBASSADOR FOR MALAYSIAN FOOD AND CULTURE IN BOTH SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE. ALVIN CAUGHT UP WITH ANNA WATANABE AND GEMMA KACZEREPA OVER BRUNCH TO TALK FOOD AND FAMILY.

. 10 .

I hear you’re working on a TV show?

I am, I am. The gist of the show is me travelling through South East Asia and cooking with street stalls and cooking with chefs in 5 star hotels. I think there is an extreme need for more multicultural cuisine aside from Thai and Vietnamese. I don’t hate them - I love them. But I actually think that because the Australian palate is so adventurous that we’re actually ready for more. Vietnamese is great. Thai is great. But not a lot of people know about Malaysia- or its food, or its people.

And if it does come out, I want it to come out sort of naturally. You don’t say, “This is a caramelised pork belly dish that I made, P.S. I’m gay.” You know, it’s just ridiculous! [Laughs]. But I think there are nicer ways to “announce” your sexual preferences without “announcing it”.

How did your family react to your coming out?

Mum did the whole, “I’ve always known, for goodness’ sake, why didn’t you tell me? There were years of confusion, you could have saved me quite a lot!” Dad didn’t actually take it quite well, but Dad’s good now. You know, fathers are Do you identify more with your Malaysian roots always a little bit funny. And, you know, because there are or Australian culture and how has that influenced only two of us in the family – my sister and myself – I’m your cooking? the son and stuff like that so in the Asian culture it’s sort I think I’m in a very unique position. I came here when of, “Oh my God, he’s not going to procreate. God forbid!”

I was 19, 20. And what was great about it was I had my Do you get recognised in the street a lot?

Malaysian roots, but because of the length of time I’ve Strangely enough I do! And I do have a myriad of disguises.

I’ve got a hat-thing, I wear contacts, been in Australia, I’ve now got stuff like that. And when I do the some Australian culture as well. disguise thing, I can escape most of the I always joke – even back on the parents, but I cannot escape the kids! show – that with my food, eight out of This kid came up to me and asks, “Are ten times I could guarantee the taste. you from Masterchef?” I said, “No, I’m But nine out of ten times I cannot not.” This poor kid – my partner said guarantee the presentation. It always to me, “Stop saying that, you’re going looks like slop on a plate. It’s Asian food! to make them cry one day!” –And you It’s like, “For God’s sake, it looks should have seen their face it was [pulls like slop, but I promise you, just eat a forlorn face and laughs]. So I said it. It will be good.” I think a lot of the “No! No! No! I am! Don’t cry! It’s ok, Caucasian people tend to want to I am.” [Laughs again] So he was fine. have an artwork on a plate. And it’s true that, visually, if it’s stimulating, THE TOUGH QUESTIONS: you want to eat it. You don’t want Who would winMasterChef out to get through that hurdle of, you know, “Oh, it doesn’t look good but I’ll give it a go.” You of George, Gary and Matt? want to say, “Wow! That looks good, I want to eat it.” Ha! Oh that’s really hard to say because Gary’s food What do you think about “fusion” foods? Do you tastes really good. George’s food always looks good. And think that some chefs are taking the concept too far? Matt, you know what? I can’t tell with Matt because Matt I think there’s a fine line between “fusion” and “confusion”. hasn’t really cooked on the show. He’s really good with And I think if you do it well, it’ll be done really well. But if the palate. So if there were a taste test, Matt would win. you do it wrong it’s just, “Oh God! What are you doing?!” If it were a test based on presentation, George would I like combining my Malaysian roots with what I’ve learnt win. And if it was based on taste, I think Gary would. and accumulated in Australia but, you know, at some point What do you normally have for breakfast? you’ve got to go, “Oh, that’s confusion, that’s not fusion.” On the weekdays, it’s just toast. Toast and jam. Raspberry.

So I do love fusion food but it has to be done really well. It’s very routine. But weekends I either do congee or Was it a conscious decision to “come out” cau tom, which is a great rice soup thing from Thailand, onMasterChef as late into the season as you did? which I’m absolutely addicted to. Or I do Donna Hay’s No, it wasn’t actually. On MasterChef there was maple bacon. Oh! It’s brilliant. I just serve it with no need to hide, no need to be all professional and toast and scrambled eggs if I’m adventurous enough. not be a bit more flamboyant, like I was. I’m kind of What would you like to see leaked on Wikileaks? naturally more extroverted and flamboyant anyway but Oh! That’s a good question! You know that chef Miguel I think Masterchef brought the best and worst out of Meastro – I’d like to see his habitual habits leaked- for all the my flamboyant side [laughs]. So it wasn’t a conscious wrong reasons. I actually think he’s got quite an interesting decision. In fact, I never wanted to hide it, but at the same life. You know him from his cooking, but I want to see his time I didn’t want to run around and say, “I’m gay, I’m gay, daily routine leaked. It’s more like a private fantasy [laughs]. ok at me”, because I don’t think it’s anyone’s business.

ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

I WAS OLD BEFORE IT WAS COOL ALL YOU CATS AND CHICKS: TAKE OFF YOUR RAY BAN COGS, STOP STEALING GREAT AUNT MAUDE’S CORNY DRAPE, EVEN IF IT IS AMERICAN APPAREL. BUST YOUR CONK WHILE Anna Watanabe GIVES THE MODERN-DAY HIPSTER AN EVIL HISTORY LESSON. Hello, my name is Anna Watanabe and although I’m 20 years old, I’m an old woman. My turn-ons include late night tea and digestive biscuits, Tupperware and old BBC comedy series’.

I regularly dissuade friends from going clubbing for the pub/a cafe/someone’s lounge, instead. And my favourite daydream is of making fresh dairy products, from the milk of my pet Jersey Cow, in my Leura home, once I’ve retired.

I’m old, yes, but a Hipster I am not. I was old and bitter on the inside while they were still putting electric blue highlights through their Emo-black hair.

I wear clothes from years gone-by, not because I’m being ironic, but because I haven’t changed dress sizes since 2004.

I don’t listen to contemporary music, not because I’m ‘over’ the commercial music scene, but because I’m musically retarded. So why am I so emphatic that my premature aging not be associated with Hipster culture?

Hipsters lack direction.

Unlike the counter-cultural movements of previous years, Hipsters aren’t questioning and challenging the status quo of older generations; they’re too busy attacking their peers’ underwhelming supply of Moleskines.

And instead of creating a culture of their own, modern-day Hipsters have taken to copying and merging forgotten fads and threads.

So being an old lady, there are two things I do best: bake biscuits with sultanas – not chocolate chips – and history.

And through the awesome power of history I will reveal some lesser-known truths of the Hipsto-Ironicus. fact1: HIPSTERS ARE NOT ORIGINAL The term ‘hipster’, and the original Hipster movement, originated in 1940’s US Jazz and “Beat” culture. Jazz encouraged the collaboration of white and black musicians, seeing the birth of Jazz slang from which ‘hipster’ is derived.

The first printed “dictionary” listing ‘hipster’ was published with a Jazz album. Harry ‘the Hipster‘ Gibson’s Boogie Woogie In Blue (1944) had a short glossary entitled: “For Characters Who Don’t Dig Jive Talk”, which defines ‘hipster’ as: “characters who like hot jazz.”

A more objective definition comes from the root of the word: hip.

Hip (adj.): to be sophisticated; currently fashionable.

He’s a hip guy. Check out that hard moustache he’s got. fact 2: HORN-RIMMED FRAMES BROUGHT GLASSES INTO THE MAINSTREAM Horn-rimmed glasses have become the calling card of the

hipster and the catalyst of way too many memes.

But even though these glasses are oozing with fringe culture, they were actually the first type of frames to be considered fashionable. And the look was coined by the most mainstream of people – a movie star.

Harold Lloyd was an American silent film comic, popular in the early 20th Century and, according to the American Optometric Association, is “The Man Who Polarized Eyeglasses in America.”

Lloyd began using the frames (without lenses, may I add) from 1916 as a prop for his character and they soon became the actor’s trademark.

Until Lloyd’s ‘The Glass Character’, American literature had characterised glasses-wearers as nerdy, socially awkward people – the exact image modern Hipsters seem to want to emulate. But following the success of ‘The Glass Character’ sales of horn-rimmed glasses soared and a new discourse was born. fact 3: HIPSTERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SELF-HATING MEMBERS OF THE WHITE MIDDLE-CLASS Not only have modern-day Hipsters copied an entire movement, they’ve also adopted the most annoying characteristic of said movement: stealing other people’s cultures.

In his blog Stuff White People Like Christian Lander identifies “Being an expert on YOUR culture” as one of the ‘stuffs’ liked by White People: “It is generally acceptable for a white person to learn a few terms in a language spoken primary by non-whites (such as Chinese, Tagalog or Portuguese). They can then use these phrases to order certain ‘more authentic’ dishes in restaurants.”

While the modern Hipster generally fancies themselves an aficionado of Asian customs (well, foods) the original Hipster tried to emulate the Negro way of life, including their language. There is even some debate as to whether “hip” stems from the West African word “hepi”, “to open one’s eyes”.

Sociologist, Norman Mailer, wrote that 1940’s hipsters “with a middle-class background attempt to put down their whiteness and adopt what they believe is the carefree, spontaneous, cool life style of Negro hipsters,” (1957).

Sounds frighteningly familiar, no?

The ‘H-Word’ can be a wounding descriptive noun these days - those who ‘are’ never admit to being one; and those who aren’t have sufficiently channeled their hatred into memes and ironically anti-Hipster-irony vlogs. So for the offence, no-doubt caused, I apologize.

I know what you’re thinking: “Anna, bitching about how unoriginal and mainstream Hipster-ism is, is the most Hipster thing you could possibly do.” To which I say, Dear Reader: I’m old, I’m tired and I’m right.

. 12 .

Defamer ISSUE VERTIGO ISSUETHREE ONE VERTIGO

the

THE SECTION OF THIS MAGAZINE THAT’S DELIBERATELY LIGHT

Scientists Use Charlie Sheen’s Blood In Tiger Surgery Transfusion kills endangered catNews, Page 5

Free Royal Wedding Photo

Just ask the happy couple to stand still for a second.

Defamer Asks: Who Is Barry O’Farrell?

Seriously. We need to write an essay about him.

Door-opening Speed Towers Over Competition Anna Watanabe The World’s Only UTS Correspondent and Former State Labor MP A new motor has been installed in the automatic glass door connecting the UTS Tower building to the Harris St. overpass, allowing it to open in record time.

Clocking a speed of 27.55 seconds, the door has become the fastest opening automatic door in the Sydney CBD. Industrial engineer, Sloan Dawes, headed the team of specialized designers and engineers to create the super

The King Of Kings Of Africa channelling the King Of Pop

EXCLUSIVE: Gaddafi declares: “I’m Just a Pop Icon” Fernando Fernandez North African Music Editor and Former Coconut Farmer Embattled Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi, has passed off his latest attempts to wipe out dissidents as simply a part of his “pop star image”.

In his most concerning outburst to date, the man many believed to be a 69 year-old despot has revealed that he is simply Libya’s most decorated recording artist.

“I am quite disappointed with the UN

high-speed motor.

“It’s a two-way process. First the door must detect movement quickly, and then react just as fast,” said Dawes.

“The 27.55 seconds is the time is takes to walk from two meters away plus the waiting time until the door opens completely, ”she said.

Work on the door began in early 2011 after staff and students complained that the original automatic door was too slow.

While no official times were recorded, Ms. Dawes estimates that it took up to 40 seconds to open.

“We’ve reduced waiting time by over 30 per-cent, so, naturally, we’re thrilled.”

Science student, Ian Patent, says he uses the door up to 5 or 6 times a day and is thrilled that the speed has improved so markedly.

“Well at first it was just great to have a door there because walking all the way around the side of the Tower was a pain.

But it was such a slow opening door – I hated it,” he said.

“Now, I just walk straight through. I hardly notice coming to a complete stop anymore because it’s just such short

Resolution against Libya,” said the man known for a long time as The Absolute Ruler Of All Libyans. “I’m not an abusive autocrat- I’m just a pop star whose antics are misunderstood.”

Gaddafi pointed to his idiosyncratic costume choices as clear proof of his carefully garnered pop-star image, describing the outfit he wore on his last American trip as “an homage to the fashion of a mid-period Michael Jackson, with a dash of Jean-Paul Gaultier and a sprinkling of Busta Rhymes.”

He’s also called himself the “Master of Reinventing Oneself”.

“I mean, I spell my name at least 14 different ways,” said the Colonel.

“I’ve also been known throughout my recording career as the King of Kings of Africa, the Brotherly Leader and Guide Of The Revolution, and even The Guide To The First Of September Great Revolution Of The Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. I’m like Madonna, Prince and Puff Daddy rolled into one.”

He went on to describe his indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians as “all a part of [his] act.”

“If Lady Gaga can dress up in a meat dress or be transported into award ceremonies in an egg, why can’t Gaddafi assault the citizens of his own country?” he said, speaking of himself in the classical third person manner usually reserved for musicians and murderous

dictators. “I mean, Britney shaved her head and Michael Jackson dangled his child from a balcony. I think I’m entitled to treat Libyans to a series of bloody and senseless attacks if they attempt to discredit me.”

The only thing missing, it seems, is actual music composed by the tyrant.

“We haven’t heard a single track of Gaddafi’s,” admitted Pitchfork Editor Shane Smythe.

“He’s either an international pop star who’s lost all sense of perspective and fallen under the musical radar, or a clinically diagnosed schizophrenic,” he continued. “And while I’m not qualified to say which he is, I can confirm that we don’t own any of his albums- and that if he had albums, we would definitely own them.”

. 13 .

INSIDE Police Now Using Lemon Pepper Spray Criminals rendered ‘delicious’- Crime, Page 24 Facebook Guest That Responded ‘Maybe’ Actually Attends Party Party host ‘extremely surprised’- Out and About, Page 96 Australian Film Described As ‘Bleak and Depressing’ Director: “All Australians can relate personally to drug addiction, abject poverty and teenage pregnancy.”- Film, Page 40

POLITICALdefamer Government Has A Bone To Pick With Clichés Decision Puts Final Nail In The Cliché Coffin Kieran Boyd The Sharpest Tool In The Shed In response to decreased creativity from the nation’s youth, the Gillard Government has placed a cap for the use of clichés in Australia, with plans to publicly ban their use early next year.

Laying down the law and order was no piece of cake though; in the eleventh hour, the Opposition leader delivered the icing on the cake, claiming that this edict takes the cake for half-baked governmental measures, thus proving you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

In the meantime, Australians will struggle with the change. The Gillard Government has encouraged all Australians to minimise their cliché use during this waiting period, and to employ as few mannerisms, proverbs

and idioms as possible. Hopefully clichés will no longer be used once they are removed from the modern vernacular indefinitely- and before their use results in a jail term.

To make the best of a bad bargain, we might as well get our ears wet and dive right into the thick of things. Here’s some food for thought.

Without a doubt, the corporate workplace will soon turn a corner, with all workers finally singing from the same hymn book, although whole companies will need to fight the tide – the leopard does not change his spots.

Old habits die hard, but school students must grit their teeth and bite the bullet in this literary about-face.

And while it may help literacy levels, some are claiming that it is “too little too late”. As a nation, we’re going to

make the best of a bad situation and move forward.

Furthermore, it’s a whole new ball game for sports announcers, players and coaches, who talk a good game but don’t always step up to the plate and give 110% creatively when push comes to shove.

The silver lining is that this up-andcoming change will separate the men from the boys in the literary world, helping to weed out the dead wood, leaving many vampire-fiction novelists high and dry and out of house and home.

At the end of the day, everything happens for a reason, and the fact of the matter is that thinking outside the box is a win-win situation for all involved.

Quite frankly, all’s well that ends well.

Nobody Wins A Seat In Parliament Kieran Boyd State Political Reporter and Competitive Omelette Eater Independent candidate Glenn Nobody has rocked the State Election by winning his inner-city seat.

The latest Member of Parliament for the seat of Drummoyne has overcome candidates from the major parties in a shock turnaround, having enjoyed a huge swell in support in the week before the election.

Whilst the man of the moment has made himself unavailable for questioning, it seems as though everybody would prefer if Nobody was New South Wales Premier following the election.

Taking to the streets, one Concord resident commented, “Nobody is truly fit to run this area. For my family and me, the choice is simple: it’s Nobody, or nobody.”

Another stated: “It seems to me that Nobody has serious potential to solve the State’s problems.”

Australia’s leading election expert, A picture of Nobody.

Antony Green, said he was always confident of an upset in the electorate.

“Nobody can really fix up the messes left by previous leaders,” he said. “Despite this, Nobody should be concerned about the results in his electorate.”

As part of his advertising campaign, the Independent put forward the slogan “If Nobody wins, we all win.”

Locals showed confidence in his election promise that “Nobody will help families, Nobody will fix the schools and Nobody will make a real difference.”

As a local fan put bluntly, “Nobody gives a fuck.”

defamerCULTURE Student Embarrassed By Auto-Correct Function Manda Diaz Recent iPhone Convert and Member of the iPhone Master Race

fricking spell check, lmao.”

Willis replied several minutes later with “Lol, wtf???”

“I was pretty confused,” she tells Defamer. “If it was a come-on, it was a pretty An accounting student emcrude one. barrassed himself yesterday “I was a bit offended by the when he made accidental sexual advances toward a pla- ranga comment too,” Willis continues. “My hair is strawtonic female friend via sms. berry blonde.”

Thomas Porter has owned The conflict was resolved an iPhone for almost a year when Porter abandoned texbut the phone’s autocorrect ting in favour of calling his continues to baffle him. friend to explain the issue.

“Dictionary makes everyThe two will now make the thing sound suss,” he says. “I trip to Officeworks together, can’t figure out how to turn with talk that Porter it off.” might even splash out on a The faux-pas occurred yesterday afternoon when Porter new calculator.

This was not the first time texted friend Jess Willis about his mundane plans for Porter has inadvertently created controversy through the weekend. failing to proofread his tex“What I meant to say was tual correspondence.

‘Probs need to go to OfficeIn December, he sent a works for pens’,” he explains.

Christmas message to his “But it came out as ‘Probe grandmother that turned need your orifice for penis’.” into an insensitive comment In his haste to correct about Auschwitz. The two himself, Porter wrote “I have not spoken since. mean man fucking ranga ho” instead of “I mean pens,

DEFAMERSUDOKU RATING: EASY

This smelly douchebag will happily listen to you darkest fears for the $3.30 flag-fall.

Taxi Drivers Embrace Amateur Psychology Market Kate Horowitz

Transport Reporter and 5-Time Tour de France Spectator

In a bid to diversify their services, Sydney cab drivers are slowly moving into the field of amateur psychology.

The NSW Taxi Drivers Association has decided to actively invest in a service they’ve unwittingly provided for years.

“We’ve found that patrons are looking for cheaper alternatives to counsellors,” said Ricky McQuaid, Chairman of the NSWTDA, “and we’re finding they’re really exploiting many of our drivers’ desire for substantial human contact.”

Politics student Rebecca Swain is one such person.

She says that besides the price, her general experience with cab drivers counsellors has also been better than with trained psychologists.

“I find that cab drivers don’t put you down with condescending terminology, or waste time talking about how qualified they are,” said Swain.

“I’ve never been diagnosed with ‘projecting’ or ‘exhibiting a cognitive distortion of a reverse of the attributional bias’ in a taxi. The drivers just tell you to chill out before starting on an anecdote about the state of bus lanes.

It’s strangely comforting,” she added.

“And, unlike clinical psychologists, they’ll keep talking to you once the meter’s stopped.”

Taxi driver, Jono Stevenson, says he’s really embracing the idea.

“Once they get over my poor general hygiene, I think the fact that my life story is generally more depressing than theirs can be kind of comforting,” he says. “The fact that I can speak their language helps too. Not many doctors would know about Tina and Snooki, PDAs and terms like ‘golden showers’- you know, critical shared knowledge like that can build trust.”

Stevenson said that his services weren’t as valuable as those of other cab drivers, however.

“I’ve had passengers walk out once they’ve discovered that I have a working understanding of English,” the former arts student admitted.

“A lot of people are looking for someone just to nod enthusiastically- not in agreement, but to pretend they understand what the passenger’s whinging about.”

Chairman McQuaid was quick to add, however, that there was one other key difference between taxi and traditional services.

“Unlike trained psychologists, you will be charged a fee for throwing up in a taxi driver’s office.”

S H O W C A S E

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ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

SAMUEL

WEBSTER

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Taking inspiration from Rafael Bonachela’s LANDforms for the Sydney Dance Company, Samuel Webster has combined his visual poetry and photography taken during the choreographic process into a mixed-media book for publication.

Your work on Protogenos inhabits two mediums often kept separate. How do you find them to complement each other?

Ultimately, whether a photograph or a poem sits in front of you, the response is usually a singular trigger, and then a complex structure that brings that trigger to life. In a photo it may be shape, or light, whereas a poem might bring you a thought. There is a similarity in the way one views both photography and poetry in that both are limited in their expression, but incredibly open to intense deconstruction. The visuality of the poetry in Protogenos works to mimic the focus on shape in the photography.

How did your collaboration with the Sydney Dance Company come about?

Rafael and I approached each other with a certain simultaneity. I had launched my online magazine, Mood of Monk, and he was on the other end, reading. When I heard that he liked my writing, I asked for an interview and he countered with an idea. The idea was to give me access to the studios while he choreographed a new piece, LANDforms. While I was in the studio, I took photos first of all, then the poetry flowed naturally. It’s hard to see a beautiful lift and not consider why we, as human beings, have lost our love for ascension.

Could you describe to us a little about LANDforms?

What sort of production should we expect?

The beauty of Rafael’s work lies in the fact that whatever words I might put to you as a ‘description of LANDforms’ it remains subjective, and not prescriptive. In a lot of ways, watching Rafael work has caused me to redefine my concept of art – I now believe that art is a medium so rich in substance that it allows for multiplicity of meaning. This said, I can’t speak for LANDforms with any official definition, because it is purely the work of Rafael Bonachela. As general as it may sound, it is best just to understand that you will see astounding finesse and beautiful abstraction: the rest is up to you.

JUSTIN WOLFERS For more information on Protogenos, check out the video on our website, or you can visit Sam’s website at http://www.samuelwebster.com/portfolio/writing/protogenos/.

. 17 .

S H O W C A S E

‘Maps’, illustration, felt tip pen, 2010

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ISSUE THREET VERTIGO

ASHLEIGH

STEEL

.....................................................................................................................

YOU’RE MY TYPE ......................................................................................................................

Based in Sydney’s ever so inspiring suburbs of the Inner West, enthusiastic Designer Ashleigh Steele has been creating, imagining, doodling and inventing ever since she popped out of her mum 21 years ago. She is currently finishing up her Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication at UTS, while working part time as a Signwriter, freelance Graphic Designer/Illustrator and creator of her own zones and cards.

Through her honest, raw illustration and design work Ashleigh seeks to highlight the value of incorporating handmade elements and processes into the practice of contemporary visual communication in an age where computer-aided design has arguably resulted in a loss of distinctiveness and connection between the viewer and the work. To see the evidence of the human hand, complete with all its quirks and imperfections, is to her, something beautiful to be rejoiced and celebrated.

This obsession with the handmade lead Ashleigh to further explore a variety of traditional, ‘lo-fi’ processes including film photography.

Ashleigh currently works with Fivepointfive, the in-house design studio for Sydney radio station, FBi 94.5FM and has completed an Internship at Eskimo Design. In 2010 she received a Highly Commended in the UTS Toynbee Wilson Typography Prize.

See more of her work at: http://ashdesignsthings.blogspot.com

‘Flowers’, photography (400 ISO film), 2010

‘2010 Annual Report on the Things, Events and Everyday Occurrences That Happen But Don’t Matter’, brochure, 2010

19

‘A Handmade Life’, photography, ice, 2010

ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

TRIVIAL DISPUTES They come in all shapes and sizes: from a simple wrist restraint to a cleverly disguised fluffy bunny backpack.

But is it okay to leash your children? Or will it cause them irreperable harm? Anna Watanabe and Justin Wolfers battle it out.

LEASH BABIES FOR:

AGAINST:

Anna Watanabe

Justin Wolfers

I have a confession to make. I was a leash baby.

From when I could walk until about 3 and a half, my mum used a leash on me, and can I tell you something? I think the woman is a genius.

So, ladies and gentlemen of “Team Justin”: don’t think your stares are unnoticed; that your sneers and patronising asides are lost in the sea of inner city noises. We know you’re there. And we know what you’re thinking: “Look at that poor kid on a leash. I’d never do that to my child.”

Oh really? Wouldn’t you? Would you risk turning your physically able child into a fatty by pushing them in a pram all day? Would you prefer to hold their hand constantly, decreasing your own ability to perform tasks by half? Would you rather put them in a backpack, leaving your head and neck open to toy cars, chewed, unwanted and lovingly handed-back foods and any other offensive attack their fiendish little minds can come up with?

Or would you use a leash? There is nothing more pragmatic (and hilarious) than a child on a leash. Just think: stopping your child from putting that, albeit appetizing, worm in their mouth is but a firm yank away; you have the choice to hang onto your sugar-filled toddler at the Easter Show, if you want; and if you want to go to the pub, you can tie them to the pole outside.

KIDDING!!

So why judge? It’s not embarrassing for the child. They crap their pants multiple times a day – they have no concept of dignity.

And it has no long-term impact on the toddler. As far as I’m concerned, besides being of below average height and above average argumentativeness, I am perfectly normal, and leashes and restraints do not feature in my sexual fantasies.

Pink princess dresses and frilly socks on the other hand…

You don’t need to be much of a psychoanalyst to see the clear and crushing emotional trauma that our dear Anna has experienced as a result of her maltreatment.

Her incessant panting, overly enthusiastic giggles, and the excited way she poses for photos are all examples of the Oedipal switch she experienced at age two upon finally being let off her leash in her local municipal park.

Everything was skewed from the outset. She identified with her brother and sister dogs frolicking around chasing tennis balls. Look at them go! The sheer abandon with which they run, using all four legs.

Subsequently she mistook her mother’s maternal instinct for murderous intent, for threatening to tie her up again if she won’t stop crawling and start walking.

Mother cries: “It’s demeaning to see you on all fours!”

Heather the heavenly school teacher looks on, and sighs. She receives Anna’s deep-seated need for maternal care, and the Electra complex that ensues is messy because Heather is just some woman in a park.

It’s hardly a complex matter though. Just because children don’t really develop decision-making skills until 10-16, doesn’t mean you should prevent them from trying. Have a little care for your child. It’s the sort of foresightless parenting that winds you up paying bail to get your quasi-hoodlum offspring out of juvenile prison, and being told on the way home: “I can’t help it that I thought robbing the consummately surveilled and guarded jewellery store was a good idea, you raised me to not think for myself.”

Then you say: “No, Anna, I raised you to be loving and caring!”

“Hardly! You just dragged me around under the premise of safety when you were actually preventing me from learning the core skills I need to live in this society!”

“You make an interesting point Anna. I guess I’d never considered that my role as a parent was to educate you, not tether you.”

“Waaa, I want Heather.”

“Who’s Heather?”

Anna Watanabe is a former leash baby who fights for the rights of parents to leash, guilt and excessively tutor their children to become doctors and/or lawyers.

Justin Wolfers is a regular person that believes prevention is better than the cure. i.e., while you’re still studying: condoms.

Next issue: walruses. Would you elect one for premier? We debate their parliamentary credentials.

. 20 .

Out of Africa Vertigo contributor Alix Vanny trades the urban jungle of Broadway for a Kenyan orphanage to tell us the story of those less fortunate than us.

It’s 4.15AM and there’s a hive of activity behind the lime green gate of the Destined Children’s Home as I approach. The children, bleary-eyed, push down their ugali – a traditional African rice dish. Grace, 7, scrubs her school sandals furiously in a small bucket of cold water, sitting barefoot in her blue uniform.

As the sun begins to rise roosters crow and donkeys pull carts of produce across the dirt and gravel. The gate rattles and in glides a tall Kenyan woman.

“Sasa!”

The children come running from all directions, “Sasa mama!”

Esther Wairimu Mbugua is a Kenyan woman in her 50s. On February 5 last year, she and her husband Peter sold everything they owned and gave up their newly renovated house to start up an orphanage. The Destined Children’s Centre (DCC) in Regen, Nairobi is the home of 27 Kenyan children and it is funded and fully provided for by Esther and her family. In order to accommodate all the children Esther moved into a single room shop up

the road and gave her home to the orphans.

Chattering excitedly in Swahili, Esther begins to assess each child, making sure their uniforms are intact, school lunches are packed and the washing has been done.

“I am a tailor -- how can you go to school in these shorts?” she exclaims. “There are rips and tears all over!”

Meanwhile Esther’s own children Godwin, 5, and Gloria, 4, have been prepared for school and sent on the matatu to nearby Kikuyu. Finding the money for school fees, transport and food is often a struggle and it doesn’t stop there. Not only does Esther fully fund and run DCC out of her pocket, but she is a volunteer for the District Children’s Office who assist in the rescue of children who have been abused or are not safe in their current homes.

“Alix we must go,” she whispers to me hurriedly. “Two young girls have been raped and we must take them to the police and then the hospital.”

Waiting outside is a plain white vehicle, our taxi for the day. Peering out from the window is ten-year-old Nancy,

ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

the victim of rape at the hands of her father.

The drive to Nairobi Women’s Hospital is long and silent. I hand Nancy a small cake in the shape of a love heart for which she’s very grateful. There are eight of us in the car which of course only seats five but this is not uncommon in Kenya. People pile into all sorts of vehicles and often you will have grown men sitting on your lap for a whole journey.

The wait at the hospital is long and Nancy whispers in my ear that she’s scared. Not long after we arrive the second victim arrives. She’s a tiny girl with a beautiful face and she is wearing a pastel coloured gown. She looks like a princess.

“This is Hannah, she is eight years old and was raped by two grown men as she walked home from school with two other children. They were held in an abandoned house over five hours before being released,” Esther tells me. The young child looks up at me with her big, brown

eyes before climbing up to sit on my lap. Her curly hair has been braided tightly and eventually she lets out a small smile. She touches my skin and my hair with her tiny fingers, fascination filling her eyes.

“I trust in God that he will provide me with the finances to keep me working for the children. I send all my children to school with money from my own pocket,” says Esther. “Then today I will pay the taxi and the hospital fees for these children who will come back and live with us at the orphanage.”

Hannah clings to me for the rest of the seven-hour wait, refusing to let go even as we return home to DCC. The DCC, Esther’s old home and now the home to the orphaned children, is a simple brick house with three bedrooms for the children to share. Only two hundred metres away is Esther’s new home. It isn’t hard to find things in the four-by-two metre room she lives in with her husband, Peter and kids.

ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

The room fits two single beds, one for Esther and Peter and the other for Godwin and Gloria. A scarlet curtain separates this room from the shop front where Esther does her sewing and alterations, which is the source of her income to support not only her own family but the family at DCC. Suitcases of clothes are stacked in the right hand corner under the window and as you enter there is immediately a small portable stovetop where all the cooking is done. There are no washing facilities, no running water and no refrigeration. Esther washes herself and her children around the back under a cold tap.

“All my staff, my workers are volunteers. I cannot afford to pay anyone to be employed so these people work for me and for the children for free,” Esther says.

Jane is a Masai girl from Namarok and in addition to the other volunteers, Pastor Joshua and Anne, shifts are taken to watch the children and assist in household

duties such as cooking and washing.

“I love it here, I just love children and I love being able to care for the children,” says Jane as she chops firewood in preparation for cooking 50 kilograms of beans on the open fire.

The children in the home each have their own tragic story. Many are orphans as the results of HIV/AIDS and others have lost their parents during the 2007 political unrest in which thousands were killed.

The Destined Children’s Home is a beautiful place to be. The sadness of the stories behind the children is overpowered by their toothy grins; high pitched giggles and their gentleness and appreciation towards everything and anything. The rewarding experience of helping put a smile on these children’s faces is a lifelong memory.

“Goodbye Aunty Alix, when you get home to Australia, tell your parents you love them.”

MIDDLE-AGED MEN DRESSED IN LYCRA, GLITTER, GLAM AND A WHOLE LOTTA GROGGY UNDERAGERS. AND YOUR 60-YEAR-OLD MOTHER. RHYS JONES TOOK HIS TO MARDI GRAS ’09 AND LIVED TO TELL US THE SHORT-LIVED TALE.

I took my Mum to Mardi Gras... for 17 minutes “Now, are you sure you want to go? It’s going to be pretty busy and perhaps a tad messy,” I understate dramatically to my 60-year-old mother.

“Of course I’m sure!” She’s almost offended I asked.

“I can’t be in Sydney during the Mardi Gras and not go. What would I tell my gay friends?!”

It’s March 7, 2009, the day of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and my mother, coincidentally named Gaye, is coming to the end of her month long stay in Australia.

She’s drunk countless bottles of wine, eaten at many of Sydney’s best mid-tier restaurants, travelled to the Hunter Valley and Fraser Island, taken in not only the zoo, but also two Sydney aquariums and entertained most of my friends with her jovial ways and all round ‘goodeggedness’; all in all, an extremely action packed holiday.

But one thing remains, something she was adamant about upon arrival 28 days ago: “I must see the Mardi Gras!”

I hadn’t watched the parade since 2007, when I was fortunate enough to watch it from a balcony on Flinders Street - it was one of the most enjoyable nights I’ve ever had in Sydney. However my experiences at street level prior to that year, whilst anecdotally rewarding, have really blurred into a mishmash of dystopian photographic memory slides of the audience - the presentation of which would probably flow as follows: vomiting teenagers, strong lesbians fighting similarly built Maori men in Taylor Square, heavy-handed policemen and women arresting overzealous blow-ins from Cronulla, a rotund woman with angel wings urinating in the gutter on Bourke Street and dreadful PVC outfits worn halfassed by male audience members. There was definitely a hairy nurse and a cat (wo)man or two. Not exactly champagne trannies; more like Passion Pop. If I were better able to assist Mum in fully comprehending the shear horror of my memories, perhaps she’d have backed down. My recount of these

now blurred images only seemed to increase her drive to get a taste of the party.

“Who knows?” she cheerily countered. “2009 might be different!”

Back then I lived at the start of Paddington, so the walk to Oxford Street and then Flinders was exceedingly short. Within five minutes we were amongst the ‘happy’ revellers, hundreds upon hundreds of them. Sydneysiders and tourists alike; party pigs in party mud, rolling around in their self made detritus; drunken buffoons mixed with parents holding their young children up to look at the next float filled with plush drag queens and transgender S&M mistresses. A little girl, around ten years old, sits on a float holding a sign saying, ‘My Dad’s gay and I don’t care’. The man holding her hand wears tiny leather shorts and a studded leather hat. He sure is, I think to myself, as I imagine him dropping her at school in similar garb.

Whilst I, at 188cm in height, manage to witness a fair amount, my mother at 157cm is restricted to the midriffs of the voyeuristic throng crammed three deep onto the crash barriers.

I alarmingly watch on, as my mother’s rosy enthusiasm for the occasion seems to drain from her warm face.

“There are so many people!” She observes. No shit, Sherlock, I think.

“I told you it’d be hectic,” I reply smugly.

“Maybe I can get on your shoulders?” Mother requests, straight-faced.

“That would be beyond weird...” I start, horrified at the prospect of my mother’s vagina sitting that close to my adult head. I notice her smile and realise she’s winding me up, the cheeky old mare that she is.

“All these people, and the rubbish... let’s go home,” she suggests. “I’ve got a bottle of sav blanc in the fridge that we can share.”

The answer was simple.

“It would be my pleasure.”

. 24 .

ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

. 25 .

FOOD

words: Gemma Kaczerepa & anna watanabe

Thai, Japanese, Italian, French- been there, done that, and eaten the food in the process. Sydney’s a massive melting pot of interesting cuisines that are still begging to be discovered, so here’s Vertigo’s guide to some of the more obscure restaurants hiding throughout the city.

Uighur

Polish

Uighur food is an intriguing combination of Chinese, Russian, Mongolian, Pakistani and Indian flavours. It’s the original fusion food! Food here varies from Asian style pickles, to what they call “pancakes” - which covers all manner of naan-styled breads, Chinese savoury pancakes and dumplings - to a whole lot of lamb! The tawa kewap (pictured) is broiled lamb served on thick bread, which is swimming in a lamb broth. You can even buy a whole roast lamb for $450 if you’re super hungry.

It may just be my Eastern European roots talking here, but this is comfort food at its absolute best. Pork lard with apples, onions, pickles and bread? Fried crumbed Camembert cheese with cranberry sauce? As well as these artery-blocking culinary wonders, there’s also the pieorogi (pictured) – traditional Polish dumplings served boiled or fried and filled with mushrooms, meat, cheese and other downright delicious and potentially deadly things.

Uighur Cuisine 1/8 Dixon Street, Sydney Mains: Under $15

African

Le Kilimanjaro 280 King Street, Newtown Mains: $12-13.50 Not many people are familiar with African cuisine, outside of the usual Moroccan tagine (rhyme unintentional). But here they serve up an array of African curries and stews (pictured), as well as cous cous dishes and lightly spiced African flatbreads. The best part is that the waiters are dressed in traditional garb and all the food is served on rustic wooden plates, giving the restaurant a distinctly authentic feel, and a bit of kitsch appeal. (I swear that was an accident.)

Other cuisines you need to try: Balkan – Balkan Oven Burek, Shop 2, 1-3 King Street, Rockdale Burmese – Bagan Burmese Restaurant, Shop 4, 41 The Boulevarde, Strathfield Chilean – La Paula, Unit 1, 9 Barbara Street, Fairfield Czech – Doma Bohemian Beer Café, 29 Orwell Street, Potts Point Iraqi - Aldhiaffah Al-Iraqi Restaurant, 13 The Crescent, Fairfield

Na Zdrowie 161 Glebe Point Road, Glebe Mains: $15.90-27.90

Sri Lankan

Kammadhenu 171 King Street, Newtown Mains: $11.90-16.90 Give a little love to India’s weedy, lesser-known younger brother – its cuisine is equally as delish’ and a lot more interesting. Sri Lankan food does share some similarities with Indian but it’s not as heavy and much of it revolves around seafood. It’s a little spicier and more out there than your average ‘home diner’ but well worth trying out.

Goodbye boring butter chicken and stale samosas, hello enticing egg hoppers (pictured) and fiery fish head curry!

Macanese – Café de Macau, 761 George Street, Haymarket Peruvian – La Parrillada, 470 Parramatta Road, Petersham Scandinavian – Gourmet Viking, 33 Enmore Road, Newtown Swiss – The Eiger Swiss Restaurant, 552 Parramatta Road, Petersham

words: carla Efstratiou

FASHION

We know uni is all about rolling out of bed hungover and stumbling into 9am lectures. Everyone does it, some just do it better than others. Carla Efstratiou traverses the corridors of UTS to discover these rare creatures.

Ethan Tuxford in Bon Marche

Usually, if I see people wearing trackies to uni I set up a two meter quarantine zone around them so they don’t spread whatever illness they’re invariably holding. These trackies are an exception. They’re from H&M which gives them an international flair and they’ve got the whole boho poo catcher crotch going on. OH! And our model obviously has brilliant taste in literature.

Thanhtu Nguyen in building 2

Don’t you just want to eat her?! This outfit is so adorable, Thanhtu looks like a stick of fairy floss. The beauty of this outfit is it can be transformed from uni to work, day to night, slutty to sophisticated.

Talent.

Desmond Hoo in building 2

This guy is the definition of cool. Even how he’s sitting is cool.

Just chilling in all his denim on denim glory. With the amount of pretty boys walking around UTS donning manicured fringes and try-hard Chuck Bass suits, it’s so refreshing to see a guy who can retain his masculinity whilst still looking hot to trot.

Unnamed girl in building 2

When I came across this girl, I was so transfixed by the colour combinations of this outfit that she needed no introduction. Fine, I just forgot to ask her name. All inept journalist jokes aside, pairing stripes, florals and embroidered stockings would ordinarily look like five-year-old fairy vomit. That’s why, when someone can actually pull it off, it’s exciting.

YOUR STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION Student Representative Council | Academic Advocacy & Advice | Peer Tutoring | Clubs Collective & Departments | Second hand text books | Clubs | Food Co-op | Vertigo

SUPPORT YOUR COMMUNITY, SUPPORT YOURSELF. www.sa.uts.edu.au | (02) 9514 1155 | Level 3, Tower Building

ISSUE TWO VERTIGO

BREWING YOUR OWN ALCOHOL .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. .....................

FEATURED REVIEW

Words: Lucien Alperstein (who, like Vertigo, encourages responsible drinking)

Funds a bit scant this weekend? Don’t feel like any of that mainstream top shelf shit at the local Dan Murphy’s?

Put aside a couple of weeks (and yeast) to create something truly magical. A real sensory delight.

A friend shoved a home-brew beer he’d made in my face almost six months ago, now, and that was the night I was bitten by the brewing bug. I questioned why he’d poured what looked like a Little Creatures Pale Ale into his own slender longneck bottle and he looked at the beer, now back at me, now back at the beer, now back to me. I watched his face turn from pleased to confused to indignant.

“I brewed it myself.”

The clouds cleared, a great music rang out from inside the house –pizza had arrived – and the stars multiplied tenfold around this man. He raised the bottom of the elongated bottle to the dark heavens and proceeded to down the rest of his cold, delicious, eighty-five cent Little Creatures Pale Ale replica.

So are you squandering too much money on booze?

Sorry, stupid question. Want to stop squandering so much money on alcohol, but not stop drinking? Want to expand your culinary expertise? Time to get familiar with the process of fermentation.

People seem to have as many horror stories and unwarranted fears about home brewing as they do about hitchhiking. Idiots! Fools! The lot of them! It’s legal, it’s extremely easy, it’s delicious and it’s cheap. People confuse the distillation of alcohol, which is something your grandfather does in his shed, with fermentation.

Distilling is illegal.

To brew a 23-litre batch of beer you’ll need about $25 plus a fermenter, which is a big plastic tub with a tap at the bottom. (Mention the idea of home brewing and several of your friends will bring over their dads’ old fermenters). You’ll also need to buy wort, essentially a beer concentrate, and some form of sugar and yeast.

Brewing beer is a strange mix of artistic license and scientific rigour. As long as you sterilize your fermenter you can essentially throw any combination of things in there. Our friend alcohol is produced by yeast, a living organism, which in a process called fermentation eats sugar and excretes alcohol. The reaction looks like this: C6H12O6 + yeast CO2 + C2H5OH The whole process of fermenting takes about a week, after which you can bottle your brew. A little more sugar goes into the bottles and the yeast eats that too. Because the gas can’t escape this time it dissolves in the beer and would you look at that, you’ve got your fizz!

There are some things you should know: it’s not all sunshine, drunkenness and hangovers. There’s waiting.

Once bottled, your beer needs three months to start tasting awesome. Instead of spending your Fridays’ enjoying a quiet drink or a rowdy ten you might find yourself sitting on brewing forums chatting to fifty-fouryear-olds about seasonal yeasts, strains of hops and mead recipes that have their alcohol content measured not in percentages but in terms of how many bottles it takes to drink before you can’t walk.

Coffee Liqueur Recipe 250mL double-shot long black, hot 1 cup raw sugar 2 cups decent vodka (you can swap half a cup of vodka for half a cup of brandy) half a vanilla bean, split lengthwise Dissolve sugar into coffee. Add vanilla bean. Let cool and add vodka. Pour into a bottle and seal. Leave for a month and strain into a new bottle, removing the vanilla bean. You can drink it after the first month but from about three months onward it becomes a piece of art that dances around your mouth.

. 29 .

REVIEWS MUSIC

THEATRE

Ava Nirui

OFF! First Four EPs

Justin Wolfers

Julius Caesar New Theatre // 16 March – 9 April 2011

Because I am a sadistic anarchist jerk, listening to OFF!’s debut album filled me with a certain visceral euphoric tetchiness, making me want to violently shit on Margaret Thatcher’s doormat, as well as involuntarily penetrate my skin with unsterilised safety pins. The American Punk fusion fourpiece, OFF!, founded by petulant Blag Flag frontman Keith Morris, provides a vivid re-imagination of the late 70s/early 80s hardcore scene, drawing influences from genre-iconic bands such as Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendancies and D.O.A. In just under 18 minutes, First Four EPs flawlessly captures consistent raw, breathy vocals from Morris, chewy punk riffs and a charmingly furious grime sensibility. The fast paced opening track, ‘Black Thoughts’, is rife with old-school power chords and typically irate lyrics, introducing the obvious garage-rock aesthetic, which is channelled throughout the record. As the album progresses, the style becomes more heavily inspired by outrageous classic early 80s punk, with the use of spoken word vocals and Steve Macdonald’s intricate baselines in tracks including ‘Now I’m Pissed’ and ‘Jeffrey Lee Pierce’. ‘Panic Attack’ draws heavy influences from 70s neo-punk groups such as Sex Pistols and The Damned, infused with repetitive static yells and a violent bass/drum overlay. Highlights of the record include livid nihilistic tracks ‘Fuck People’ and ‘Full of Shit’, which critique the selfish human condition through howling furious profanities at the listener. Let me warn you, this album is not for the weak-hearted. OFF! are not nu-wave faux-intellectual pseudo-anarchists. They are authentic 70s riotous punk dropkicks who don’t give a fuck about your problems. Understand?

Unfortunately this play is like the first pancake of the batch. However hard it might try, and whatever strategies you might employ, it just ends up being a bit flat and undercooked. The main problem is inconsistency. It’s like director Anthony Skuze had his bland pancake on his plate, was unsatisfied, and overcompensated with grandiose surrealist motifs to try and liven things up. I am thinking in pancake terms, about an over-rich berry compote on the side, or in theatrical terms about pouring a vial of blood on a knife to signify a murder, which is interesting and effective in itself, but is lost in the context of the realist old-school stabbing scenes that punctuate the rest of the play. It just confuses everything.

Julius Caesar is full of rich and poignant and quotable Shakespearian flourishes and each one of these comes up floury. Like when Caesar is killed - “Et tu Brute?” - and spits blood and starts to collapse - “Then… Fall… Caesar…” - I was hooked. But then, inexplicably, in the middle him falling, he decides that no, I will not fall, I will stop falling, I will look up at the audience in this funny kneeling position, I will turn over, I will dramatically sort of quietly lie down on my back. I am not sure if I am dying or not. I am not sure if I am engaging in a realistic depiction here. I am not sure if the stove is fully heated yet. The period is also problematic.

It is certainly a modernisation in terms of costuming, although sometimes togas are involved. They wear western dress and they speak like the BBC and there is Armenian chanting. Are you buttermilk? Are you maple? Are you blueberry? Please specify on the packaging.

That is not to say the play doesn’t have redeeming features. Cassius’ (Kurt Phelan) performance is engaging and effective, while Brutus’ (Shameer Birges) delivery is strong and he and Caesar (Mark Langham) glue the batter together ably. It is hard to reconcile Marc Antony’s (Petr Vackar) incredible stage presence - ladies, if you go to theatre for eye candy ignore the rating and witness this guy’s chest - with his unconfident delivery, but unfortunately the soothsayer (Diana McLean) - “Bewarrrre the ides of Marrrrrch” - is completely ineffective. Nothing she said was eerie or frightening or compelling. It’s a pity because I really like the New Theatre, I really like Julius Caesar, and I really like pancakes, but there comes a point where everybody needs to just quietly say to the waiter-

. 30 .

ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

ART

LIFESTYLE

Justin Wolfers

Allie Moxon

Crossroads: Contemporary Russian Photography

Australian Centre for Photography // 18 March – 30 April 2011

Midget Jelly Wrestling The Scary Canary // 469 Kent Street, Sydney

Landscapes that slide off into the Siberian abyss.

Intertwined babies’ skulls and some inexplicable Hebrew.

The kind of family portraits that do not age. The struggle between political anger and consumerism to find traction with the youth. Eerie, almost supernatural collages of past images reprinted on bromoil.

This showcase of five of Russia’s most well renowned contemporary photographers is a sumptuous experience.

It’s skill and deftness is that it is well varied between portraits and landscapes, between the real and surreal, between vibrant and stark, and between simple shots and intricate collages. Alexander Gronsky’s landscapes are the immediate visual standout, ranging from vast open seas to snowy riversides to thick brush. They chill your breath and give you that thousand-yard Siberian stare. In contrast to these expanses, the portraits by Oleg Videnin are very simple, but effective, and their composition allows them to belong to any time period. The lady is crying on the balcony. A boy is playing dressups in a field.

While these pieces are beautiful in their simplicity, the following three rooms bring the exhibition into the contemporary sphere through more experimental approaches. The most abrasive is Sergey Bratkov’s work, which amaglamates photos and photo-documents surrounding the 2010 Moscow demonstrations and combines them into a blood red banner that is close in shape to being a swastika. He titles the work Neither War nor Peace, which is apt both for symbolic and aesthetic reasons, the photographs neither appealing nor offputting in their disarray. Andrey Polushkin’s work is strange and perplexing, unsettling in its bromoil tones and concerned with juxtaposing separate images into collages that appear uncertain and unresolved. Where Polushkin is ambiguous, Gregory Maoifis is strong and clear. His photographs are rich in symbolism and his whole exhibit has a rich sense of history behind it.

Perhaps the characteristic that makes it most attractive however is the absurdity of his compositions – bears in beds, bears watching ballet, tiny monkeys with dumbells.

They remind the viewer that these photographs are of far off places but the situations and the emotions are very close to home.

“So I was at this midget wrestling match last night” is something of an unusual conversation starter. People look at you strangely - especially when you try to explain to them that the whole experience was upsetting purely because the leprechaun lost.

No, I wasn’t stoned. I was at The Scary Canary.

If downing a couple of beers while watching midgets dressed as leprechauns and sailors trade blows is your thing, keep an eye on the local backpacker bar, The Scary Canary. They host the occasional boxing match and won’t draw any lines when it comes to keeping their patrons entertained.

It was a little tough to get a view inside the inflatable boxing ring, but well worth the push through the crowds to watch the pandemonium unfold. The midgets (armed with boxing gloves that dwarfed their own torsos) quickly discovered it was much more practical to throw the oversized boxing gloves at each other. Within minutes they had turned on the referee, proceeding to suggestively pin her to the ground.

Anything goes.

The sailor even managed to incorporate wrestling moves into his performance, although I don’t think the leprechaun was particularly impressed.

And just in case watching diminutive men in uniform pack punches wasn’t enough of a crowd-pleaser, two scantily clad backpackers were thrown into the mix to relieve the referee. It was hard to tell whether they were putting more effort into taking the midgets out, or keeping their bikinis on throughout the entire spectacle.

Watching the midgets in action at the bar was far more entertaining than the match itself. Seriously. They had double the sex drive, triple the alcohol tolerance and were more than happy to exploit their novelty if it meant they could attempt to wrap their arms around a girl - or three.

As long as you didn’t catch them on their way to the bar, the midgets obliged to photo requests and were happy to grind against the bar’s patrons on the dance floor.

“They could drink any of us under the table,” says Aneliese Hynes, The Scary Canary’s Promotions Manager.

“They really love it. It’s been said that this sort of thing is exploiting them, but these guys have so much fun.”

. 31 .

PLACES TO GO...

If You’re Feeling Lucky

“I know what you’re thinking, punk, you’re thinking “Did they publish four issues of Vertigo or only three? Now, to tell you the truth, I forgot myself, in all this excitement. But being as this is a page of Vertigo, the most powerful magazine in the world and it will blow your socks clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?”

Anna Watanabe does.

Eat // Sushi Roulette at Wagaya Level 1, 78 – 86 Harbour St., Harbourside So you think you like sushi, huh? Well let’s spice things up a bit. Wagaya’s Sushi Roulette places six pieces of salmon sushi on a plate, one with a mother load of wasabi hidden underneath the sashimi. The same principles of Russian Roulette apply, but with significantly less blood.

DRINK // Tiki Night at Zeta Bar; The Hilton Hotel, George St., Sydney In this case, when I say ‘lucky’ I mean, “Lucky I can trust the bartender, because I have no idea what this is.” Grant Collins, head barman at the Hilton Hotel’s Zeta Bar is infamous for his deconstructed cocktails and molecularly mixed drinks. Zeta Bar’s upcoming Tiki Night (every Friday from 5pm) features classic cocktails served as sorbets, in coconuts and frozen in liquid nitrogen as “little puffs of alcoholic air.”

SEE // Crab Racing at Friend in Hand Pub, 58 Cowper St., Glebe Going to the doggies is a little low brow and horse races are so cliché. So place your bets on a Hermit Crab instead! The races kick off from 8pm every Wednesday night and are the pub’s main event with ‘standing room only’ and people going mad.

DO // Back to the 90’s Singles Party at Greenwood Hotel, 36 Blue St., North Sydney Organised by dating service, RSVP, the 90’s Singles Party is sure to get you lucky is the true sense of the word. All those drunk, lonely singles will think you look ‘all that and a bag of chips’ in your colourful, mid-rift tops and baggy faded jeans.

wUTS HAPPENING A SCARY CRUISE There’s no doubt about it: law students are pretty terrifying. Many possess a frightening tendency to casually refer to the Trade Practices Act or the Administrative Appeals Tribunal when chatting with mere “laypeople”. So it’s quite apt the law kids’ annual booze-cruise around Sydney Harbour falls on Friday the 13th of May (Friday the 13th being the theme). wUTS Happening understands there will be a horrifying amount of free booze, that many attendees will be whinging about how hard Torts is and that Judge Judy will not be in attendance.

Law Students Society Cruise, Friday the 13th of May, tix from the LSS. ANOTHER CRUISE, JUST PACKED WITH SLOSHED ENGINEERS INSTEAD OF LAWYERS

Alright, wUTS Happening knows everything’s still pretty “cruisy” at this time of semester, but it’s a little ridiculous how little originality UTS societies have when it comes to start-of-year events. Yep, the other extremely large UTS club, the Engineering Society, is also hijacking a boat for a night and taking off around Sydney Harbour.

The theme is ‘going as your favourite childhood cartoon character’, so naturally wUTS Happening is anticipating lots of engineering students dressed up as Powerpuff Girls.

EngSoc cruise, 8th of April, tix from the Union desk

SHORT PLAY NIGHTS Things aren’t so cruisy at UTS’s new theatre-soc, Backstage.

They’ve knuckled down and have organised a couple of short play nights on the 20th and 21st of April. For more information add ‘Backstage UTS’ on Facebook.

ISSUE THREE VERTIGO

SP RT

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

A GOOD DEFENCE: SPORT STARS

Are we too harsh on our sports stars? Vertigo’s resident expert, Dan Conifer, thinks we are.

Last month it looked like the NRL was to be hit by yet another controversy; yet another ‘night club incident’.

“Jonathan Thurston could be in strife again following a late night drinking session,” read the story. So what was it? Two footy players flicking beer at each other in a pub.

Yep, stop the press, beer-flicking. The club’s CEO was asked if they would be punished. The NRL boss got quizzed about a possible investigation. It was nothing short of surreal.

If this story shows anything, it’s that the religion of sporting celebrity in Australia has managed to move from the sublime to the ridiculous. We now expect way too much of our sportsmen and women. Quite frankly, we put them on pedestals they were never meant to be on.

Because we are obsessed with the celebrity of sport stars, and because we choose to see them as ‘role-models’, the media does too. The result: blowing the mistakes of sportspeople entirely out of proportion.

Case in point: Sydney Roosters star Todd Carney was on the front page of The Sunday Telegraph a few weeks ago for blowing a Blood Alcohol Concentration of 0.052 the morning after a night out.

Just a week after, Benji Marshall was on the front of The Sun Herald for an assault he was allegedly involved in. My question to you is this: when was the last time you saw a common assault in a metropolitan newspaper?

Etymologists believe this man invented the word 'soccer'.

“SOCCER” Football Fan and Amateur Historian Marcus Higgins has a rant.

Some fans prefer the live experience and smell of freshly cut grass, and others destroy their sleeping patterns in order to watch the final minutes of matches, which shall forever be remembered as “not very good.”

For as long as the very concept of time has existed, so too has imaginatively named World Game- ‘football’. For every Big Bang, species extinction and French Revolution, you can guarantee that there have been eleven men or women, a football, and some goal posts nearby.

But footballer and footballers are no strangers to adversity.

1314 marked the great English Football Ban, which allowed citizens to focus entirely on archery training and starving to death. Despite the ban, football survived.

Benji Marshall: Now flicking both passes and beer

We need to see sportsmen for what most of them are - average blokes. Sorry to break it to you, but that’s what they are- albeit average blokes who have a lot of money, a lot of women chasing them, and a lot of spare time on their hands.

Average blokes pee on fences after getting on the drink, but their employer doesn’t fine them $5000 for it. Average young blokes take recreational drugs in their own time – but don’t get strangers telling them what horrible human beings they are. Some average guys even cheat on their partners – but they’re not forced into being counselled about it.

Admire them for the hard work they have put in to play in the NRL or the AFL, beating off the tens of thousands who play the games at an amateur level. Admire their skill and ability. Admire their leadership on the field.

Just don’t think they are any different from you or me, and don’t hold them to a higher moral standard than you would a mate, someone on the street, or even yourself.

The 21st Century has seen several players become hell bent on turning football into a new diving discipline. Despite the divers, football is surviving.

What is clear is that football fans are a hardy bunch. With the intelligence twice that of a person who can be described as ‘not entirely stupid’, and the bravery of many a Wizard of Oz lion, The Fan is not someone to cross.

Yet they do have a single weakness; a verbal Kryptonite that The Fan flinches and trembles at the very utterance of.

“Soccer.”

Where the word originated is debatable, but many reputable etymologists believe that the word came into being after a Ukrainian pensioner attempted to exploit a ‘Triple Word Score’ in Scrabble and subsequently defined his made up word as “what real fans call football.”

Inexplicably, the word “soccer” has since become the American brand name for true football, with the popular sport formally known as American Hand-Egg being given the title of American ‘Football’ to ease the nerves of the easily confused American public.

And while this disgusting word has also made its way into the Australian vernacular, officials acted eventually by changing the name of the governing body of football in Australia to Football Federation Australia in 2005.

However, in much the same way that Lionel Messi dribbles through a team’s defence, those that persist in using the S-Word will continue slip through and create havoc and emotional scarring for football fans.

So let’s all understand that “football” is its name, and remember that if you do call it “soccer”, you are only feeding the scorn of football lovers and the false hopes of those who dream of competitive sock folding.

. 33 .

SA REPORTS Fund our Future

Neha Madhok, SA President Over the past couple of weeks, you’ve probably seen a heap of posters and fliers around campus saying, ‘Fund our Future’. And if you were lucky, you might have even had someone come into your class and briefly speak to you about the campaign, before your lecture or seminar started.

The point of the ‘Fund our Future’ campaign was to raise awareness about the fact that the Federal Government is running a review into higher education and how universities are funded. As Tim, our EVP, has also outlined, there’s a fair bit of debate about this process and our campaign has focused on addressing that.

Part of the ‘Fund our Future’ campaign was to have a National Day of Action. Given that the campaign was coordinated by the National Union of Students (NUS), events around the issue of quality education and the price of HECS HELP were held right around the country at the same time. When you have such a widespread campaign that is run by, and with, thousands of students around Australia, you’re likely to get a lot more attention than if it’s just a little something run at one campus.

At UTS we managed to get over 500 students along to our BBQ and cheque-signing event, where students signed novelty-sized cheques addressed to the Base Funding Review. These will be sent to the Review in order to draw attention to the fact that students do care about their education and that we are also concerned about how much we’re paying for it. This, of course, isn’t the only thing we’ll be doing: along with the thousands of cheques collected nationally, the UTS Students’ Association will also be putting in a submission to the Review, stating our stance on the issue. If you’d like to be involved in the process, you are welcome to contact me and find out how – you can even write a submission of your own!

Contact me…

By phoning (02) 9514 1155 By emailing sapresident2011@uts.edu.au By coming into the SA office: Level 3, UTS Tower building 1 Broadway Campus NSW 2007

BFR or SFA?

Tim Roylett, SA Education Vice President There are a lot of acronyms floating around out there in the world of tertiary education. HECS, HELP, CSP, SSAF and BFR, amongst others - you wouldn’t be blamed for lumping them all into that big pile of “don’t know”.

Recently, however, the government has commissioned a review into higher education funding which could affect each and every one of you. This Base Funding Review, or BFR (not to be confused with the BFG – it’s big, but we’re not sure if it’s friendly), looks at how your education will be funded- be it out of your pocket, or out of the Government’s.

The problem lies therein, however. We’re talking about your wallet, heaving under the strain of student life. In Australia we already pay more in fees than many other OECD countries. So, as students, should we be forced to foot the bill? It can all be summed up in one word: no!

We are already seeing widespread cost cutting in universities across the country. Even at UTS, we’ve seen the casualisation of teaching staff, the reduction of face-to-face contact hours (especially in arts and social sciences), and we’ve seen the swelling of tutorial sizes to bursting point.

I feel there must be a balance between student contributions, government funding and quality of teaching and learning. We are already at our limits when it comes to fees. Many of us can’t afford to pick up the costs to provide ourselves, and our cohort, with greater quality.

This is where we, at the UTS Students’ Association, along with the National Union of Students, have been workingpushing Government to Fund Our Future. We’re asking them to listen to us, the students, and urging them to step up to the plate and promise more funding towards a high quality education - an education system to rival our OECD cousins.

It is still yet to be seen if the review will deliver greater quality to our education without lightening our wallets. Will we receive the funding we need? Or will it all amount to SFA? Whichever way it is, we’ll be talking to students, making submissions to government and fighting to ensure you receive your right to a quality education.

. 34 .

QUEER COLLECTIVE Be forewarned Vertigo reader: I’m about to dazzle you with the excitement that is the UTS Queer Collective for 2011.

So what exactly is the UTS Queer Collective, I hear you ask? We’re a group of UTS students here to support other queer students at our university.

Whether you’re lesbian, bisexual, gay or trans*, whether you’re questioning your sexuality or identify as queer, then we’re here for you.

But what do we do? Have fun of course! We have regular meetings at noon on Thursdays, where you can see what’s been happening, have a laugh and chat with your fellow queer students, and be surrounded by people like yourself.

We meet in the Queer Space, which is an autonomous room next to the Secondhand Bookshop. Autonomous means that this room is only for the use of queer students so if you just want to hang out some place quiet or read the latest queer-friendly magazine or book, it’s all there at your disposal.

Apart from our weekly meetings, we have regular outings planned for the year. Already we’ve had our welcome dinner, which was a smashing success, and adding to this is a planned monthly gathering, games days, karaoke nights, movie nights and, my personal favourite, a Eurovision night. I’m sure there’s something there to interest you!

So check out the brand-spanking-new UTS Queer website at www. queeratuts.com! Visit our forums, take a look around and chat to your fellow queers.

Hope to see you all at the next meeting!

Kristina Zrim Want to talk to an elected representative of the Collective? Then you need a Queer Officer. You can contact me via the contact form on the website or email shapesuts@gmail.com

ENVIRO COLLECTIVE NEWS

Clean activist fun in one of the world’s dirtiest coal ports The UTS Enviro Collective met up with hundreds of other people for one of the most pleasurable protests on the activist calendar.

Anybody who’s paid a visit to Newcastle may have noticed the massive coal port. It’s hard to miss the queue of ships lining up along the horizon, but it is easy to ignore the consequences of what they’re exporting. The terminal loads up 113 million tonnes of coal per year, which will someday grow up to become three times that weight in carbon dioxide! As far as gnarly fossil fuels go, coal is by far the worst, and it needs to be phased out to make room for carbon-neutral renewable energy.

Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal and the Newcastle coal port is the nation’s largest. Once a year people take kayaks, dinghies and floaties out on the water to prevent the ships from exporting this dirty fuel for a whole day, as part of the annual harbour blockade. We had bands, food, speeches and the whole harbour to ourselves, as people successfully prevented the coal ships from entering the port.

While the PM’s carbon tax announcement is fantastic news, any serious target will meet with ardent disapproval from the coal lobby.

We all need to stand up and advocate this transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy if, as students, we want to inherit a world that is clean and safe to live in. Join the clean energy evolution.

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MAKE YOUR OWN WORKSHEETS ONLINE @ WWW.ATOZTEACHERSTUFF.COM

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DESIGN NEEDS LESS MERCENARIES AND MORE GUERRILLAS – AN EXHIBITION Small format.indd 1

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Exploring the relationship between social responsibility and business success, a group of UTS design students have playfully subverted advertising messages in an exhibition of poster prints.

Design Needs Less Mercenaries and More Guerrillas calls for designers to show greater awareness and responsibility in understanding the organisations they work for and the messages they create.

The exhibition, which opened on Thursday 7 April at Fraser Studios, comes out of a series of student workshops led by Jonathan Barnbrook, UK designer and Adbusters regular, in which students tried their hands at graphic activism.

One of the students, Tegan Hendel said: “I came to the conclusion that designers like Barnbrook, who encourage the world to think for itself are necessary – but this doesn’t mean a designer can’t choose to be ethically aware and responsible while still pursuing beautiful design and commercial success.”

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While questioning the ethics and quality of well-known brands these students also shine the spotlight onto their own practice: acknowledging the role of visual communicators in the proliferation of corporate messages.

As part of the project the students also got hands-on experience using an offset printing press at the Big Fag Press, a Sydney-based artist-run printing collective.

Said student Ashleigh Steel: “I’m such a big fan of everything DIY, so I found it very interesting to be part of the entire process of offset printing. Sometimes with design I feel so separate from my creations, but the Big Fag Press really allowed me to be up close and personal with the work, directly participating in the process of its output.”

The A1 limited edition poster, Design Needs Less Mercenaries and More Guerrillas is available for purchase through design@utsvertigo.com

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