On Dit Issue 79.4

Adelaide University Student Magazine

Vol. 79 / Issue 4 Featuring:

Contents Letters, FEATURED CONTRIBS, ANSWERS

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Vox POP

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Degrees of Knowledge: ECONOMICS

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HOW TO: PUB CRAWL

10

AlcoholiSM

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FAIRTRADE CAMPUS

19

TEACH FOR AUSTRALIA

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SKINHEADS

22

ADELAIDE TUNNELS

26

ARK Music FACTORY

30

OUTSIDER ART

32

LOCAL BAND FEUD: JATM VS FAKE TAN

38

Square meals

40

COOKING: Pizza

41

COLUMNS

43

Diversions

47

State Of The Union

48

Go to www.ondit.com.au if you’re not a square, or become our friend: www.facebook.com/onditmagazine Editors: Sam Deere, Elizabeth Flux & Rory Kennett-Lister Cover illustration by Rogan Tinsely On Dit is an affiliate of the Adelaide University Union Published 2/5/2011

Volume 79, Issue 4

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EDITORIAL Sam

Rory

Elizabeth

Unless the rock you’re living under comes with decent insulation, you’ll have noticed that summer is over. And as the weather gets colder, and darker, so too does On Dit. Hopefully you come to this fine magazine after an extended Easter break, refreshed, and unduly optimistic about the future. Sadly, most of the people involved in this issue’s production didn’t make it outside to bask in the last vestiges of autumnal sunshine. Instead, they hunkered down; working only by the dim light of their computer screens, they wrote of alcoholism, depravity, infighting and madness.

But don’t despair. While the subjects are weighty, the writing is full of levity. Like lead balloons full of helium. Sure, you’ve got lead poisoning, but at least your voice is hilarious.

So, take the edge off the winter chill. As the days close in and we trade beers on the porch for increased cases of Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD — probably the most insensitive acronym available for a depressive illness, nice going DSM-IV nomenclature team), make for somewhere warm, and let us get you in the mood for dark days ahead.

Best, Sam (and Elizabeth and Rory) 2

On Dit Magazine

Contributors Writers Emma Jones (“Outsider Art”, page 32) When Emma Jones was a little kid, she wrote a story about a train called Pardon and illustrated it with traced pictures of Thomas the Tank Engine. This illustrious accomplishment marked the beginning of a writing career destined for success, which has not really progressed much since. Emma’s most notable achievements since Pardon include becoming a crazy cat lady, starting the longest Arts Degree ever (reppin’ the department of English since 2007) and moving out of her parents’ house to subsist on a diet of Mi Goreng and cake. Emma blogs at www.wordsarefornerds.wordpress.com.

Louis Rankin (“SKINHEADS”, page 22) Louis is again a first year student, studying economics, after completing an International Studies degree. He likes music, a lot, especially Drake. He also likes nice clothing and beatnik culture. You can read more of his regular music writing on www.hearplugs.net

Artist Billy Horn (“How To: Pub Crawl”, page 10; Columnist illustrations, page 44) Billy likes studying towards his media/arts double degree in the Barr Smith Reading Room where he enjoys seeing confused and embarrassed people attempt to exit through the fake-door window thing. His last internet purchase was a retro Manute Bol singlet, the last thing he photographed was a frying pan with green and pink glitter sprinkled over an emulsion of oil and water, and the last assignment he submitted was late.

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Letters Hey guys, Would like to commend Rhia Rainbow on her fantastic piece [Parenting 101, On Dit 79.3]… After having a shitty start to my day courtesy of my crazy, somewhat psychopathic 4 year old son I found myself practically wetting myself with laughter… The simple truth written in words that would make any young mother feel more confident of her ability as a parent and make any wrinkled up old prude spit her coffee all over her 17 year old daughter who was saying she might be knocked up because her pill had failed and she was keeping it because Rhia said it was her right…. I also know the

simple horrors and following pleasures of contraception gone wrong as this is how at 19 I ended up pregnant…

And am now at almost 24 trying to balance being a first year Animal Science student with a 4 year old and another one on the way…

Thank you Rhia for being so brutally honest and funny all in one go…. And a BIG FUCK YOU! to the next old fart who questions my parenting methods in a crowded shopping centre when my child is chucking a tanty…

Cheers, Rachelle

Hey guys,

I think this magazine actually beats ordinary magazines. Seriously.

Amelia

Apology Issue 79.3’s Local Band Bio (on the Hawks of Alba) was missing a byline; the piece was written by the lovely Walter Marsh

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On Dit Magazine

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Targedoku

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9 Letter word: Exploding

P D N E L O X G I

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Crypt-O-Clue 1.

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Penis Supply Disc Tablet Posh

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Quiz Dmitri Medvedev Helvetica Samuel Johnson Belgian Six

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Gaius i Two Rio de Janerio Vodka and sunrise

P O L E

No peeking until you’ve done the diversions on page 46

Answers

Vox POP

AFSANA

HARRY

Sean

Medicine

Philosophy (honours)

Maths (M. Phil)

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Yeah, it’s different. Although I hate how difficult it is for people to pronounce. So I shorten it to Affy…which over the phone sounds like “Assy”.

Titus. Sounds strong, powerful and full of win.

Yes. I’m not saying there should be a set percentage or quota. But for those who prove themselves physically fit and strong enough, why should they be denied their dream?

To Kill a Mockingbird, in high school.

Roll on it.

4.

5.

Yes. Laticia.

Yes, if that’s what they want to do.

The Cat in the Hat. I would freeze myself, wait 500 years till we’ve found an alien planet, then unfreeze and visit it.

On Dit Magazine

5.

Yeah.

Sean’s a unisex name.

Sure *shrugs*.

Pick a Dr. Seuss book — he’s a doctor isn’t he?

I’d buy a bunch of canonical ‘intellectual books’ so that I could adequately answer question 4.

We asked our panel of randomly selected students: 1.

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5.

Do you like your name?

If you were of the opposite gender, what would you be called?

Should women be allowed to serve on the front line?

What’s the most intellectual book you’ve ever read?

If you won a million dollars, what’s the first thing you’d do with it?

Chien

Richard

DOM

B. Medicine/B. Surgery

Int. Studies/Arts

Science

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1.

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Nooo…… I’m not too fond of mine. I think it sounds like a guy’s name.

Never thought about this…

Maybe um, Jason?

I don’t see why not, if they’re capable and willing to do it. Equal opportunities!

Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner.

Spend it as I see fit and make paper planes out of the rest.

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It’s alright, not many people have it. My mum got fined because she didn’t name me for two months.

I’ll ask my mum; get back to you in three months.

Yep, if they’re up to the job.

Five Essays on Liberty by Isaiah Berlin.

I’d probably spend it all on travel.

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3.

4.

5.

Yes. The name Hayley popped into my head...

Of course. There are certain positions in the Army you can’t get into without having served on the front line.

And equality ‘n shit.

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

I’m really poor right now, so probably food. Then a drum kit.

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Degrees of Knowledge

ECONOMICS Words: Elise Vincent

I want

to start by debunking a few common myths about

economics:

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3.

It is not finance.

It is not accounting.

It is not commerce.

I am currently in my third year of a double Economics/ Arts degree. I don’t know what a dividend is and I’m pretty hazy about bonds. Despite a certain blip in my GPA — a first year subject called International Financial Institutions and Markets — my lack of understanding about all things business and finance is not (yet) to my detriment.

I first studied economics in France, which is a country not particularly well known for its support of classical “don’t-you-touch-my-markets” economics. In spite of my learnt disdain for most things French, I probably gained at least one thing from their archaic education system: a realisation that economics isn’t intrinsically evil.

So I enrolled in an Arts/Economics degree at Adelaide, 8

only to have my new found approval of this field partially destroyed. Economics does not always foster the warm and friendly atmosphere that the humanities might. In first year Macroeconomics, my lecturer conducted a quick survey regarding unemployment benefits.

A distressing number of people raised their hands in support of the abolition of such benefits.

Studying economics involves microeconomics, macroeconomics and econometrics as your core subjects, scattered with electives which vary from game theory (the only cool thing economics has going for it) to financial economics (awful). In first year you meet the supply and demand model. Drawing this model is pretty much all you will do in first year. If you’re dedicated enough to read the text book you will learn that, actually, this model is simplified and based upon the assumption that you are holding constant a lot of variables — prices of all other goods, income, government spending, interest rates, net exports, foreign exchange rates, money supply, investment, wages — and your answer is also dependant on whether or not we are talking about the short-term, medium-term, or long-term. You also realise that you

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An insider’s look at something you don’t study

haven’t really learnt very much, and anticipate spending the next three to four years trying to keep this a secret.

Then you enter second year. On the one hand, second year is a vast improvement, as most of the commerce students who shared all your first year core subjects (who, incidentally, were most of the idiots who didn’t think social welfare should exist) are culled. On the other hand, this is the point at which it becomes evident just how much maths is involved in economics, and how unclear this fact was made to everyone who enrolled.

Lecturers like to tell you economics is intuitive. It’s not.

It is a common skill amongst economists to be able to take a concept you thought you understood extremely well, and then throw in some equations that supposedly represent said concept, until the initial theory is more or less incomprehensible and you’re left with an equation that has twice as many subscripts as it does variables (economics struggles a bit with nomenclature). They will then build upon your confusion, by taking the Year 12 maths you also thought you had a pretty solid handle on (think basic differentiation and hypothesis testing),

and somehow transform it into something you hardly recognise and certainly can’t use. Studying economics involves a curious mixture of satisfaction and shame at relearning concepts at 20, which you had never struggled with at 16.

I haven’t made this very clear, but I actually do really like studying economics. Aside from my general interest in the material, my enjoyment probably has a lot to do with the fact I have never had any overly negative experiences with lecturers or tutors. Lecturers all seem to know how MyUni works and how to record lectures, which is a huge bonus. Tutors are usually exhaustedlooking Honours students who — despite this — are helpful and organised. If you consistently do the tute questions, it’s not hard to do extremely well.

My parting words of wisdom are this: for anyone currently hating first year Microeconomics, don’t fret, it gets significantly better, and for those of you who look scornfully at the girl in your humanities tute who says she studies economics, please be nice — she’s probably ok. O

Volume 79, Issue 4

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How To

PUB CRAWL

Words: Joel Parsons / Illustrations: Billy Horn

The largest pub crawl ever was

held in this country, so it is unsurprising that the pub crawl remains popular in terti-

ary institutions across the nation.

The principles in

the following guide are distilled from careful observation and

ethnographic studies of literally ones of pub crawls.

Tee Off The first step is navigating the t-shirt issue. Feign disgust at not only the mediocrity of the crawl’s punning title, but also its apparent recycling; “Flinders marine biology totally used ‘getting tanked’ back in 07”. Feign disappointment at the choice of venues. Feign more disgust at the design of the t-shirt; gawk at the use of lurid colours such as nuclear yellow and sewage-processing-plant green. Buy the t-shirt anyway, or alternatively, hold off until it inexplicably sells out within two days. If you are female you might sexccessorise; cut off the sleeves and convert a men’s large t-shirt into a micro mini pub crawl dress. If male, get drunk quickly and everyone will think you look amazing. Remember, if you attend several of these events during your university career, you will eventually acquire a space bag full of hideous t-shirts that you will never wear in public again!

Risk Assessment Check the Facebook event before the pub crawl and sur-

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vey the impending social landscape. For instance, consider who might be fun to see drunk. Perhaps that girl who unnecessarily wears a pantsuit to your commerce lectures, or that timid converse–clad engineering guy will go bonkers when hearing “Bonkers”, after a few subsidised vodka and red cordials. Consider these individuals, along with other factors, such as the expense of the evening, failing to secure a sewage-processing-plant green t-shirt, meeting fellow classmates, having to put on pants, possible hook ups, having to use your red multitrip, the possibility of removing pants, in the calculus of whether to actually attend. Often the grim possibility of sitting at home actually doing that assignment will tip the calculus in favour of the crawl, providing the impetus for shit-facery and self-vomit-on.

Starting Line You will likely start at Unibar. Enter via On Dit Lane, or Unibooks stairwell. Do not traverse the cloisters courtyard. Depending on their degree of restraint, your fellow pub-crawlers may already be at the expulsion stage, and

On Dit Magazine

you wouldn’t want your parade rained on before it has begun, when walking underneath the Unibar balcony.

Text that person who said they were coming and admonish them for leaving you standing friendless near the pool table for entire minutes.

Slow and Steady ...does not win the race. Proceed to the first woeful venue. Mix it up. Get the drink special accessible via the wearing of the sewerage-processing-plant green shirt, and pay $13 for 60c worth of coke with a splash of engine-cleaner. Break the seal, and repeat. Note though, the restrooms at many preferred pub crawl establishments, both in the toilet bowl and its general vicinity, harbor more nasty liquids than a kiddy pool at a bogan’s Australia Day barbeque. When dancing, blithely jaunt about as the long hair of some ginger fresher whips around and dips in your glass of special beverage, which is now sloshing about and adding to the general stickiness of the floor. When you notice the numbers of your crawling comrades dwindling, move on. Do use the joke of trying to read the list of venues printed on the back of your own t-shirt, as if you’re a dog chasing its own tail.

Allow the night to play out like a debauched pick-a-path

novel. Deviate from the standard narrative; stop off at a cocktail bar before going to the next fetid tavern.

But remember safety in numbers. You can only terrorise the general public safely as a hoard. If you, and say a couple other crawlers attend the Cranker in your sewerage-processing-plant green t-shirts, don’t expect a warm reception of friendly hooliganism. Don’t forget the scheduled pit stop at the bakery or fast food outlet. Under fluorescent lights and hunched over grubby Formica tables, you can take a break from alcoholic contaminants with a nice McFat burger meal. Upsize.

The Finish Line Options abound regarding what to do at the conclusion of the night. Do some “work” in the 24-hour computer suite. Stay up all night and catch the first train out of town. Catch the dingy after-midnight service (Saturdays only). Pay $73 for a cab back to Hallet Cove and talk in a drunken slur to the taxi driver on the topic of the supermarket petrol/milk conspiracy. Lose your phone and post the corresponding Facebook status. No one can erase the highs of screaming the lyrics “to the basement, to the basement people” when descending into the London Tav or Mansions, followed by alcohol infused energy drinks and questionable D-floor hookups. O

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Science!

We all like sex. It feels good.

Just as well really, because it sits at the centre of the very complex, and, at times, very frustrating process of sexual reproduction. Let us take a moment to consider all that goes in to the creation of the next generation: Finding a partner; courting; sexual competition; partner selection; performance; longevity; satisfaction; relationships; break-ups; contraception; conception; pregnancy; birth and child rearing. It seems like half our lives are spent on this one task.

kind to nobly photosynthesise, with their (metaphorical) heads held high in lofty morality, as they put out Fibonacci-spiralled fronds, adorned with fractal leaves.

Ferns — that is the big plants we see (part of their life cycle called sporophytes) — don’t have sex. Instead they put out spores that grow up to be little, hermaphroditic sex organs. It is these plants, called gametophytes, that engage in that most sordid business. Once they’ve done the nasty and the egg has been fertilised, a new fern sporophyte grows out of the gametophyte. Weird and wonderful to us - commonplace in certain circles.

There’s got to be a better way. And perhaps there is...

What do other animals do? What about invertebrates, what about plants?

Take ferns for example. They seem to have it all worked out. They eschew the whole business of sexual reproduction...actually, not quite. They delegate, but more on that later.

Allow me, if you will, to make a modest proposal: that we take a long hard look at how refined we may be if we were to reproduce as ferns do. Please refer to Figure 1, as I describe how your descendents, the sexually liberated Homo pteridophytus, may live.

[If you don’t know your arse from your elbow, biologically speaking, you may want to check Box 1 before going further]

Ferns avoid getting grubby in the gutter, leaving their

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On Dit Magazine

Science!

A: The adult of the species (a diploid sporophyte) has an androgynous form, and lives in peace and harmony, aloof from the squabbles which emanate from sexual reproduction.

B: When the time to reproduce arrives, spore buds (sporangia) sprout on the underside of her frond-arms, and release their contents.

C: These spores are produced by meiosis, and are therefore haploid, like our sperm and eggs (our gametes). Yet this is not when sex occurs.

H: The baby sporophyte then grows right out of the gametophyte, doing away with the whole birth business.

So I hope you can see that this new way of life has its advantages. We may miss out on sex. It may take some time to get used to seeing fields of genitalia cross-fertilising through the day. But think of all the time you’ll save…for more important stuff, like the interwebs. We can but dream. O

D: Instead the spores sprout and grow by mitosis into sexual organs, called gametophytes.

E: The gametophytes carry both male and female genitalia. However, self-fertilisation is prevented because the sexual organs on the one gametophyte do not mature in unison.

F: The male sexual organs (antheridia) release motile sperm. That’s right, both human and ferns, and our whimsical Homo pteridophytus, all have little swimmers.

Bet you didn’t know plants did that!

G: They swim up the archegonium and fertilise the egg.

At this point a diploid zygote is formed.

Volume 79, Issue 4

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AlcoholiSM Do you have a drinking problem?

Words: Rhia Rainbow / Illustrations: Madeleine Karutz

When you first enrol at Adelaide Uni, it isn’t mentioned in the course outline that drinking alcohol is a prerequisite.

One diligently attends O-week with the impression that they are going to receive some sort of “orientation” to the subjects that they’re required to do in order to comply with course requirements. After the typical useful lectures

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On Dit Magazine

Volume 79, Issue 4

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“Why You Shouldn’t Plagiarise” and “Harvard Vs. Chicago: How Do You Choose?” you realise that orientation week is a joke, and you never attend an orientation lecture again. You step out onto the Barr-Smith lawns and find yourself confronted with an onslaught of behaviour that cannot possibly be an accurate representation of our student body. Unfortunately, it probably is. Not only are people binge drinking everywhere you turn, but we’re also surrounded by advertising for alcoholic drinks and parties. Of course the engineering students are making marvellous examples of their inability to control their alcohol intake while simultaneously inviting you to their pub-crawl. I think that we can all agree that the only good thing about O-Week is Rainbow Fear.

would seem that at the helm of every ‘University related’ event is an element of drunkenness and debauchery. It’s not shocking that a great number of University students find themselves casualties to the bombardment of alcoholic influence. By the time that the mid-semester break arrives, most students will have perfected their drinking ‘style’, which (from what I can tell) most commonly involves a beer bong, two-for-one drink specials and an anonymous stranger. The question is, at what point does social drinking become pathological? It’s naïve to assume that every problem drinker could neatly fit into a stereotypical definition. If you have concerns that you’re on the road to alcoholism, then you could consult a trained physician. Or take this quiz with little to no medical basis whatsoever:

But the drinking culture doesn’t just stop at O-week. It

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Do you find yourself riddled with withdrawal symptoms after a period of sobriety?

These vary from person to person, typically manifesting as sleep disturbances, anxiety, tremor and downright moodiness. Alcohol withdrawal is actually the only withdrawal syndrome that can be fatal.

Do you feel that you are unable to enjoy yourself without a drink in your hand and five more under your belt?

Do you often find yourself reaching for a delicious breakfast drink first thing in the morning?

Do you often feel guilty or remorseful about your alcohol intake, or the depraved activities that you partake in while under the influence?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, as I suspect that a great proportion of the student body would, then you might need to think about cutting down on the booze. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, and a vast majority of people will require some sort of outside help. These days there are a number of options available,

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but how do you choose? It’s hardly as simple as deciding between the Harvard and the Vancouver referencing system (as obviously the Harvard style prevails triumphant).

As far as I’m concerned, all difficult decisions can be made easier with the aid of a multiple-choice quiz. Don’t worry, there are only three questions.

You are having a bad day, you…

Have a quiet drink and a talk with a friend Drink a six pack alone at home in your underwear Distract yourself from your worries by heading out to a crowded party

(2 points) (4 points) (3 points)

You blame your excessive drinking on…

Your overwhelming withdrawal symptoms Your desire to be social and popular Your deep seated inner angst

(4 points) (3 points) (2 points)

It’s 4am, you are…

Passed out naked in a stranger’s bed after a drunken night in town Passed out naked in your own bed after a drunken night alone Trying to fit in as many shots of tequila as you can before Red Square closes at 7am.

On Dit Magazine

(2 points) (4 points) (3 points)

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (6 – 8 points) If the three question multiple-choice quiz is any sort of indication as to your psychological stability, then you are using drinking as a crutch to balance your emotional life.

For this reason, cognitive behaviour therapy may be of use in getting to the root of your problems and in helping you to moderate your intake. Cognitive behaviour therapy is based on the idea that feelings and behaviours are caused by thoughts, rather than external events or situations. It has been used in the treatment of both alcohol and drug dependence with high levels of success.

If you choose to undertake cognitive behaviour therapy, you will work together with a therapist to identify the thoughts, feelings and circumstances surrounding you before and after you decide to drink excessively. This aims to provide some insight into the reasons for problem drinking, and identify situations within which it may be difficult to abstain. The long-term goal is to develop coping mechanisms for these stressful events that don’t involve hitting the bottle.

Alcoholics Anonymous (9 – 12 points) You are a social creature, and thrive on social interaction as an excuse for alcohol intake and ridiculous behaviour. For this reason, you are likely to benefit from the group dynamic from which Alcoholics Anonymous operates. AA has over 18,000 members within Australia, and more than 2 million members worldwide. It works through members telling stories about their past experiences, how it affected their lives and how their lives are now as a result of abstinence from alcohol. The AA program incorporates the Twelve Steps to recovery for members, beginning with step one; “We admitted that we are powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable” and ending with step twelve; “Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all of our affairs”.

AA has been criticised because of its disease approach to problem drinking, indicating that the only way to ‘cure’ the disease is complete abstinence. For this reason, AA probably isn’t the treatment method of choice for individuals seeking to simply cut down on their alcohol intake. It’s also a non-professional association, meaning that there is no input from health professionals such as doctors, counsellors or psychologists. That said, all members and team leaders are recovering alcoholics themselves, so may very well have greater insight into alcoholism than a doctor in the Eastern suburbs.

While AA claims not to be a religious association, welcoming “members of all religions, agnostics and atheists

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alike”, a major component of the twelve-step program is an emphasis on God. See steps five, six and seven…

5.

Admitted to god, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs 6. Were entirely ready to have god remove all these defects of character 7. Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings SO if you find the concept of humbly asking God to remove your shortcomings a little bit off, then perhaps AA isn’t for you. That said, it’s proven, over the years, to be a good way of using community involvement to stay off the grog.

Pharmacological (Drug) Therapy (13 – 16 points) You are prone to withdrawal symptoms and not particularly interested in sharing your feelings in a group environment (if ever). Pharmacological therapy may very well be for you, if only to calm down your tremor and irritability. There are two different drugs out there that are designed to act on certain receptors in your brain to decrease your likelihood of relapse. These can be incredibly effective if you follow instructions and see your prescribing doctor regularly.

tive reaction to alcohol. By blocking the pathway of alcohol breakdown, Disulfiram induces the symptoms of a severe hangover within 5 to 10 minutes of drinking alcohol. In other words, taking Disulfiram is very much a form of aversion therapy, hence its historical lack of compliance. There is no tolerance to Disulfiram, with the effects of the drug actually increasing in strength the longer that it is taken.

Both drugs used in alcohol dependence carry with them a number of side effects, and so it is very important to discuss these potential effects with your doctor prior to beginning any drug treatment.

So, there are a number of ways in which you can combat your excessive alcohol use if you feel that it’s about that time. Not surprisingly, any treatment works best when combined with other recovery efforts, so a combination of methods is usually recommended. Do what works for you and if need be, seek help from a professional (rather than relying on an inconclusive multiple-choice quiz, for example). My 1962 edition of the Modern Medical Counsellor also states that “divine aid obtained through prayer has conquered alcoholism in many cases”, so perhaps that’s an avenue that should be considered. O

Drug Number One: Acamprosate Acamprosate, also known by the brand name Campral, is used to stabilize the chemical balance in the brain that is usually disrupted by alcoholism. It is believed to block overactive receptors, mimicking the effects of alcohol on the brain without exerting a toxic effect. Therefore, Acamprosate’s main effect is the prevention of withdrawal symptoms. While this is useful, it hardly gets to the root of the problem and does little to address the reasons why you are drinking or potential triggers for a binge. That said, being free from withdrawal means that your life will be less preoccupied by your need to drink and it will decrease your likelihood of relapse.

Drug Number Two: Disulfiram The less commonly used Disulfiram, also known by the brand name Antabuse, works by inducing a hypersensi-

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A

final word

While we’re hoping you’ve enjoyed the article, we point out that it’s not meant as an authoritative guide to kicking your alcoholism. If you, or someone you know has a drinking problem, seek professional advice: Adelaide University Education and Welfare Office (Student Care) http://www.auu.org.au/site/page.cfm?u=69 8303 5430 Alcohol and Drug Information Services www.dassa.sa.gov.au 1300 13 1340

On Dit Magazine

Fair SHAKE OF THE COFFEE CUP, Mate What does being a Fair Trade university actually mean?

Words: Bec Taylor

Well, Fair trade is a strategy for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Its purpose is to create opportunities for producers and workers who have been economically disadvantaged or marginalized by the conventional trading system. You might have seen the official FAIRTRADE label on products such as tea, coffee, sugar, chocolate and cotton. This certification is based on the Fairtrade principles, which guarantee producers a minimum price for their goods, and also a Fairtrade premium. The premium allows for investment in economic, social and environmental improvements including education and healthcare projects, organic certification and farm improvements. As a result of this standard workers’ rights and human rights are met, and as such, many workers find themselves in better conditions in a Fairtrade situation. Additionally, producers get a price for their produce that is closer to its real value.

It’s so simple, but unfortunately not something we can rely on conventional trade to deliver.

A Fair Trade University will show support for the Fairtrade principles and try to incorporate them into its purchasing, starting with minimum requirements. The

AUU, SRC and University Council have all shown support for this, and a steering committee (SC) is being set up — this completes steps one and two! The SC will be comprised of representatives from all over the University, where targets will be set, tasks will be given, and we will figure out how to achieve the rest of the goals.

Fairtrade products need to be made readily available at reasonable prices at as many on-campus outlets as possible. At the moment, Fairtrade Coffee is sold in Mayo, Briefs and the Staff Club as the default option, and as an option in the Backstage Cafe.

In Australia at the moment, coffee, tea, sugar sachets and chocolate would be the items we are aiming to swap where possible. Thanks, Cadbury for putting Fairtrade chocolate in our cafes and vending machines!

The next part will be a fun challenge, getting 50% of uni kitchenettes and staffrooms to have FT products available. Then, we have to maintain this, apply for accreditation (hopefully by the end of the year!) and further increase our consumption and stocking of Fairtrade products — such as sports balls and cotton t-shirts — on campus.

For more info and to try some Fairtrade treats and have a chat, come along to the Fair Trade and Social Justice Expo on the 11th of May, on the Barr Smith Lawns. O

Bec Taylor is the co-convenor of the Adelaide University Fairtrade Collective. To get in touch, email her at fairtrade.au@gmail.com

Volume 79, Issue 4

Picture: Jennie Faber / www.flickr.com/photos/jenniewoo

Did you know that Adelaide Uni is now officially on its way to becoming a Fair Trade University? ‘Big deal’ I hear you say. Well, it actually is a big deal. Getting the University Council to support this took a lot of effort, basically because they are very slow at trusting and making decisions (kind of like Ents, those cantankerous tree-men from Lord of the Rings). I believe I hear you now saying, ‘What is a Fair Trade University?’ and perhaps ‘What is Fair trade?’

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a sentimental education Words: John Eldrige / Illustrations: Chris Harding I attended what could euphemistically be termed a ‘rough’ high school. Once, a kid set another kid on fire.

Talk about a heated dispute, hey? Hey? One of the most popular lunchtime games involved a competitive throwing of rocks at one’s friends. A cousin of mine was suspended for ‘disrupting class’ after throwing an egg into a teacher’s face. No leniency was afforded him for having used a free range egg . Like I say - it was rough.

It was no fecund field of learning, either. Most students’ parents had themselves attended disadvantaged schools. Though they wanted to see their children make the most of their schooling, many had difficulty fostering enthusiasm for subjects of which they had little knowledge or understanding.

The students themselves were generally wracked with self-doubt when it came to educational matters. To a student from a family in which nobody has ever set foot on a university campus, it seems the height of audacity to aspire to a degree. The consequences of all this were very visible. Many of the students with whom I started year 8 failed to stay the course and graduate. Few graduates went on to university.

Schools like mine exist all across Australia. They can be found wherever 20

one finds socioeconomic disadvantage. Their problems are many and complex. To teach Politics to students from households in which no adult reads a newspaper or watches the news is a challenge, as is teaching English to pupils whose homes contain no books. Remedies are proposed by all and sundry. Some blame the state and federal governments, alleging an underfunding of education, and call for an injection of public cash. Others blame the teachers’ unions, citing unaccountability and a resistance to change, and call for tests, performance metrics, new powers for principals. Others call for a response as broad as the problem - one that engages with the families of students and seeks to foment cultural and behavioural change. These are probably all, to differing extents, meritorious critiques.

What helped me get to university, however, was my Year 9 homeroom teacher.

Every morning, through twenty-minute impromptu lessons to our class about anything from the mechanics of refrigeration, Winston Churchill’s ability as a raconteur, or the way bacteria ‘work’, he changed the way that I, at least, treated schooling and education. Truthfully, he was no master educator. He had no special knack for the selection of apposite material: he once encouraged me to read a four hundred page book about heavy metal poisoning on the premise it would be interesting. (I read it. Hypothesis fail). What he did have was enthusiasm, creativity, a passion for learning, and a genuine belief that his students were capable of being taught. He insisted we might any of us go on to great things: to perform surgeries, write books.

From my experience comes my conviction that the plan for our disadvantaged schools, whatever form that plan may take, must involve putting more teachers like this in

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schools . This is where you come in. You could be this sort of teacher. You could do it with the help of Teach For Australia.

simply trying to get passionate and capable people into teaching. It seeks to complement and not displace other projects.

It works like this. A high-achieving graduate from a non-education degree applies to Teach For Australia, a not-for-profit organisation funded largely by the federal government. Successful applicants study an intensive, six-week, live-in course at a residential college of the University of Melbourne. At the end of the six weeks, they take up a two-year salaried teaching position at a disadvantaged high school, where they teach for an equivalent of four days a week. In their remaining fifth of time, TFA associates continue the study they began in the six-week intensive: all progress towards a University of Melbourne Graduate Diploma of Teaching, which they’ll earn after two years.

It should be pointed out, though, that TFA hopes to contribute to broad educational reform through a network of engaged alumni. TFA is supported by corporate giants such as McKinsey and Company, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, and Google, and pathways exist between the TFA program and graduate positions in some of their partner organisations. It is hoped that those TFA associates who choose to leave teaching after two years and go on to secure positions of leadership in other fields will bring an interest in educational equity and reform to the corridors of power .

The program has its critics. Many question whether a graduate could be prepared for a classroom in six weeks.

Though obviously such a training pace isn’t for the faint of heart, TFA associates have coped well in their positions. Those from past cohorts have taken up positions as heads of departments, created student magazines and student representative bodies, organised overseas trips for their classes, and introduced new subjects to their host schools.

Others argue that programs like TFA are bandaid solutions. To these critics, no program that places, at most, around one hundred graduates a year can seriously make a dent in educational disadvantage. They see anything that draws focus away from reforming the fundamentals of the education system as a threat to substantive change. I appreciate this concern, but argue that TFA is not aspiring to be a panacea for education’s ills nor a substitute for the reform of existing structures. It is

If you think being the sort of teacher I described is something you’d like to do, either as a twoyear detour on the way to a different career, or as a long term vocation, TFA might be for you.

You could give someone a fighting chance at harnessing their abilities and finding a career they’re passionate about. And you’re already forewarned to avoid books about heavy metal poisoning, so you’re ahead of the pack.

Go for it. O

For information see www.teachforaustralia.org

Volume 79, Issue 4

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Subculture spotlight:

Words: Louis Rankin / Illustration: Annie Rudduck Skinheads in their purest form are long dead — reflecting the steady decline of standardised subcultures. In fact, many people might not even regard skinheads as a subculture at all: in many people’s minds they’ve become inextricably linked to racism and far-right politics. But it wasn’t until the late 70s and early 80s, during the second wave of the skinhead movement, that this linkage occurred. Britain in this period shares many similarities to Britain of today, with many of the same issues causing debate. These days, unemployment, lack

22

of opportunity, poor education and rising living costs continue to plague the average working class Brit. These problems are escalated further by tensions with minority groups, all of which share striking similarities to the late 70s and early 80s. The one significant difference is the lack of an equivalent subculture today, perhaps only worsening the alienation felt by many in the working class.

Skinheads can be traced back to the Mods of the late

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Volume 79, Issue 4

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Picture: BrotherMagneto / www.flickr.com/photos/brothermagneto/

24

50s and 60s. The Mods were a popular subculture based around slick suits and modified mopeds. By the mid 60s the Mod subculture was in decline, with many of the working-class Mods evolving into skinheads. Being a “skin” was about taking pride in yourself, and your working class roots. There were undoubtedly elements that targeted South Asian migrants, but politics wasn’t the main underlying factor in being a skin; maintaining the dress code and attending Ska clubs were far more important. Their most instantly recognisable trait — and the origin of their name — was their shaved heads. Stylistically, many skins dressed in a manner not dissimilar to some of the trends of today. Slacks, worn short, were popular originally and in the second wave, rolled-up jeans. Both were worn to emphasize the wearers’ socks and shoes.

Brogues and loafers were the shoes of choice for the original skinheads. It wasn’t until the second wave that they begun wearing their now iconic — and most commonly associated attributes — Dr. Martens boots. Polo t-shirts or gingham shirts worn with cardigans or sweater vests, and overcoats or parkas over the top were essential parts of the skinhead dress code.

The original skins were interested in black culture and mostly listened to Ska. The black Caribbean immigrants of the 50s and 60s had generally moved to working class areas; their

resilience in tough economic times endeared them to white skinheads. White and black skinheads would dance alongside one another at Ska clubs. When the subculture entered its second-wave revival in the mid- to late 70s, many skins became interested in the punk rock movement. They soon crafted their own unique take on punk — ‘Oi!’ — with a frenetic, high-energy sound. Ska remained popular, and bands like The Specials gained nationwide success.

It was during this second wave that the skinhead movement began to change. The late 70s and early 80s saw drastic changes in the lifestyle of the working class Brit.

Unemployment continued to rise, as many of the industries that traditionally provided employment closed, or moved offshore. Many people were left jobless, disenfranchised and angry with the government. It was here that the real schism amongst skinheads first appeared.

There were those that stayed apolitical and continued to dress the same and listen to Ska music — some became socialists — but it was the camp that turned to the far right that have been associated with skinhead culture since.

Blaming migrants for taking their jobs, many began a campaign of violence, in particular against South Asian migrants. The far-right National Front was able to recruit skinhead members and increase its following and power.

Utilizing their tough new recruits, they quickly gained a fearsome reputation for intimidation and violence. The British media were quick to capitalise on the potential news value, sensationalising the issue and portraying skinheads as the vicious foot soldiers of the National Front. The Thatcher Government became genuinely

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concerned that they were losing their conservative support base to the National Front. As a result, Margaret Thatcher famously took a tougher stance on immigration and in doing so was able to regain much of her following. Combined with infighting, the Falklands war and an eventual decrease in unemployment, the National Front lost most of its support. Far-right politics strayed out of the British public’s mind and the skinhead subculture branched out again into obscurity. Regardless, in its brief period in the limelight it had provided a model for other far-right groups throughout the world, many of who adopted some of the skinhead characteristics – albeit often nothing more than the shaved head.

Switch to Britain 2011, things are not dissimilar to the early 80s. Unemployment rose rapidly in the immediate wake of the GFC, continuing to remain relatively high today. Tensions with minorities and perceived integration problems have become hotly debated topics in the broader community. Whilst the National Front has long since fallen into oblivion, other far-right groups have risen to take its place. The British National Party, which emerged from the splintering of the National Front, has gained huge publicity in recent years. Based on a platform of anti-immigration, they’ve harnessed some support amongst the wider public. In an attempt to broaden their appeal they’ve moved away from their traditionally anti-Semitic stance. Fanning the fears that many people have towards Islamic extremism, they’ve instead made Muslims one of their major targets.

They’re closely linked to the English Defence League, a street-level group formed against what they describe as the ‘Islamifcation’ of British society. They’ve shown a propensity for violence, and clashed with police and

Anti-fascist demonstrators in street protests they’ve held in the past year.

Is Britain again facing a shift to the right amongst the working class and even the broader populace? Yes. In a recent poll of the British public, 48% said they would consider voting for a party that would “tackle immigration and Islamic extremism providing it steer clear of violence”. Prime Minister David Cameron’s argued in a speech in February that “multiculturalism has failed” and that Brits needed a “stronger national identity”. Perhaps Prime Minister Cameron is simply taking a similar approach to that of Thatcher — he’s proven to be an opportunistic political operator after all. Far more worrying is the possibility that prejudice toward minorities is so ingrained that it’s become almost unquestioned. Many believe the media is being generally more sympathetic towards anti-Muslim sentiment than it was to groups like the National Front. This only helps to stoke these sentiments and further legitimise them.

The hijacking of the skinhead subculture by the far right in the 70s and 80s is similar to what is occurring with groups like the English Defence League today. Many of the skinheads recruited to the National Front were disaffected young men, near identical to those in the EDL. Similarly tough economic conditions and a lack of opportunity for the working class plagued Britain both then and now. Perhaps the saddest thing to come out of all of it is the destruction of what was otherwise a generally positive subculture. The principles of pride in one’s appearance, a strong interest in music and the feeling of belonging could perhaps address some of the problems that lower socioeconomic groups face today. O

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Tunnels & Testicles On Dit makes a Freudian trip Words: Galen Cuthbertson / Illustration: Alexandra Weiland

My heart’s skipping beats like an old CD player. This is nuts. I shouldn’t even be trying this. My palms knees are weak. My arms are heavy. It’s a lot like that Eminem song. God I hate Eminem.

I nod to the security guard. He nods back. Actually, ‘nod’ isn’t really the right word: mostly he just looks at me. With hard, black eyes as small and sharp as nails.

They’re pain-bringing eyes. He looks like he could hurt me. He looks like he wants to hurt me. Certainly, he looks like he’s killed people before. I bet he was in ‘Nam. There are no rules in ‘Nam. He looks like a man who doesn’t have rules.

I keep walking. He’s going to stop me. Any moment, I’ll feel it: a hard, firm hand on my shoulder, angry and 26

are sweaty.

My

abrupt. Maybe he won’t even bother with that; maybe he’ll just kill me from behind. I keep walking. I can see the elevator. I hit the button. The door opens. I step in. I turn and – Let’s back up a bit. I should explain. I’m trying to get into the tunnels. The secret tunnels, under Adelaide. I’m wearing a suit, because you can get away with more if you’re wearing a suit. People trust people in suits. True story.

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But anyway. Where was I? The tunnels. That’s right. If you’ve lived in Adelaide long enough, you’ve probably heard some variation on the ‘secret tunnel’ legend. But in case you hadn’t heard, I’ll fill you in.

Adelaide has secret tunnels. Under the city. All across the city. And they’re big — large enough to fit a car, a truck, three elephants abreast. An aeroplane, even. Well, a small aeroplane. Don’t be stupid; it would have to be small.

They were built during the war, criss-crossing Adelaide and connecting all the old government buildings – along with a few major banks. They’re obviously closed to the public because, well, they are secret.

What’s down there? Who knows? Maybe all the socks I’ve ever lost? Gold bullion? The American Dream? The philosopher’s stone, guarded by dragons? The tunnels are secret, so I can’t say for sure. But they’re there. We all know that.

So that’s the story. Secret tunnels under Adelaide. Only here’s the thing about secrets: they’re secret. By definition, not many people know them. If everybody knows a secret, it stops being a secret, and starts being a fact.

Or a fiction.

And when it comes to the ‘secret’ tunnels under Adelaide, most of us know about them. So are there ‘secret’ tunnels? No. At best, there are well-known tunnels.

At worst, there are just mythical ones.

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But the interesting thing isn’t whether or not the tunnels exist. The real questions are: why are we so keen to believe it? What makes the tunnel myth so popular? Here are my theories.

Theory #1: A Jealous Rage If you’ve read any Freud, you’ve probably heard his term: the narcissism of minor tunnel myths. It’s in Civilisation and its Discontents. It’s after the bit about his mum. So yeah, basically the epilogue.

To illustrate the point, Freud tells us a little story. There are two villages: village A and village B. They’re pretty close to each other and truthfully, village A and village B are almost identical, except all the villagers in village A hate all the villagers in village B, and vice versa.

Rationally, this hatred makes no sense. And so, to justify their anger and jealousy, the villagers in village A create stories and myths to distinguish themselves from village B. And frankly, they should: village B is full of jerks. Fucking village B. Sure, they’ve got cooler clothes than us.

And sure, the people there are sexier, and they have more water. And a better music scene. And they stole our Grand Prix. And they’ve got fantastic tourism ads with an attractively bohemian woman pushing around a large ball of coloured string. But we’re so much better than those wankers. Why? Well. Um. We’ve got secret tunnels under our village. Yeah! Totally! I bet they don’t have that.

Theory #2: Labyrinths and Lusty Women Now lately, Hollywood has introduced audiences to a new method in storytelling: stealing from dead authors.

It’s a good system, allowing living writers to ‘be creative’ without, well, ‘being creative’.

Think about it. O Brother Where Art Thou? is The Odyssey. 10 Things I Hate About You is The Taming of the Shrew. And The Lion King is Hamlet... maybe.

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Well, Adelaide’s tunnel myth is the same. It’s a modern retelling of an old Greek myth: the story of the labyrinth.

The setting is Crete, Ancient Greece. Every year, the Athenians pay a tribute: seven youths and seven maidens. Basically the mythical equivalent of taxes, or council rates.

Sent into an impossibly complex, artful maze — the labyrinth, escape from which was impossible — the youths and maidens were hunted and devoured by a dark and ancient beast which roamed within: the Minotaur. This beast had the head of a bull and the body of a man. But if you ask me, the Minotaur was just misunderstood. I’m sure he did some pretty awesome stuff for Crete in his day: decriminalising homosexuality, recognising aboriginal land rights, maybe lowering the voting age. Really socially progressive stuff (like our best-ever Premier, Donald Dunstan loved to do). He just loved devouring youths and maidens, that’s all. The Minotaur, not Don. Enter our hero, Theseus. He offered himself as one of the yearly tribute and, before being sent into the labyrinth, was exhibited to King Minos of Crete. For the record, I’m playing the role of Theseus.

Now, by all accounts, our hero Theseus was pretty sexy: deep voice, laser-cut abs, bottomless eyes — that sort of thing. The daughter of the King, Ariadne, noticed how sexy Theseus was and things got pretty lusty.

Theseus, however, being manly and all, had to go into the Labyrinth. But Ariadne was worried, so, to help keep her new boy-toy alive, Ariadne gave him a ball of string. Because you know, when you’re fighting mythical beasts, a ball of string is way more useful than, say, a bitchin’ sword.

Dutifully, hot-stuff-Theseus went in, killed the Minotaur, and came back out. Then, he and Ariadne had I-justkilled-a-man-beast-combo sex (like I-just-won-the-lotto sex, but better). Theseus — who, it turns out, is quite the heartbreaker — then waited till Ariadne fell asleep, and left. I like to think he left a note. Maybe even a poem, or some flowers. At least gave her string back.

You know, to thank her for the lovely evening.

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Investigation: TUNNELS

Theory #3: ‘Tunnel’ Envy If you ask me, there’s a certain sexiness about tunnels.

When I was young, tunnels held a simultaneous fascination and terror — a fear of the unknown. They were mysterious, and complex. But now, having explored them, I understand the adventurous enjoyment they bring. When you enter, there’s always a sharp intake of breath; a gasp at their secret pleasure, their intimate delights.

Let’s face it: tunnels are a lot like the female anatomy.

Sigmund Freud once postulated the existence of some ‘penis envy’ that women have, but the whole idea always seemed, to me, to be blatantly sexist. If women have penis envy, then, concomitantly, surely men have vagina envy; ‘tunnel’ envy, if you will. And frankly, I think we might.

I mean, sure, having a penis is swell. It’s fun. I’m a man, and I’m a fan. But sometimes, I do notice some disadvantages. For one, genitals that hang out can be problematic: I live in constant fear of stray tennis balls or similar wreaking pain upon my sensitives. Also, arousal is a lot harder to hide. So maybe I’d be better off having a tunnel rather than a tower, but I just can’t afford the op.

Now, Adelaide’s got a lot of churches, and with churches comes repressed sexuality. Adelaide’s well known as the home of a well-ensconced Old Boy’s Club, and conservative misogyny always entails a little psychological dysfunction. The towers they build above ground — the skyscrapers and column-shaped monuments — are clearly phallic symbols. And maybe, just maybe, Adelaide’s tunnel myth is a way for envious, psychologically-dysfunctional men to play out their desire for a vagina. Maybe, if they’d had a ball of string to hand, they could have saved all the hassle of tunnel digging and simply macraméd themselves a vagina.

lights up. The security guard is looking at me. He’s got a thick neck and thicker shoulders, like a three-headed dog guarding the entrance to hell, but with one head; the resemblance is uncanny.

I’m standing here today, and I can say with conviction: I’ve been into the tunnels... the few that are still accessible. And they’re real, for the most part. Some aren’t really ‘tunnels’: the ones under the Medina Grand, for example, don’t really go anywhere. But some are, and do.

The problem is, they’re not exciting. The myth is exciting because it’s mysterious. The idea of secret tunnels under our sleepy city, of untold secrets, of passages — it’s exciting. It’s sufficiently vague that we can imagine whatever we want down there.

But the truth isn’t vague. It’s well-established, boring, and banal. The ‘tunnels’ are just old passages; long-forgotten pieces that were left behind as Adelaide developed. There’s no gold bullion. There’s no missing sock, and no philosopher’s stone. And no elephants, from what I saw.

So here’s an idea: let’s get over it. Let’s all just move on with our lives, and accept that, as much as we’d love to be ‘Radelaide’, we’re mostly just ‘Adelaide’. *** Cut to a scene under the Adelaide CBD. A small aeroplane lands in a tunnel. An aged but spritely Don Dunstan disembarks from the plane and then climbs aboard his bejewelled elephant, Mitzy.

He talks into his phone. “So, you let him under the Medina?”

He listens. “Excellent. And that’s all he saw? Perfect.”

He hangs up.

Theory #4: You Can’t Handle...

(The Truth)

“Up, Mitzy. Take me to the Bullion Cave.”

O

I hit the ‘basement’ button in the elevator. The button Volume 79, Issue 4

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ARK Music Fuckery: Humiliate Yourself Famous Words: Sujini Ramamurthy / Illustration: Daniel Purvis

Perhaps the most infamous day of 2011 day, with Sunday coming afterwards.

to date, was a

Friday. That is, it was

Friday’s notoriety, of course, was all thanks to Rebecca Black who taught us of the limitless possibilities offered by the predecessor to the weekend. Dubbed a “whole new level of bad” by Time.com, her track Friday was initially derided for its vacuous lyrics and equally woeful video, following its online release. Friday elicited a vitriolic response; comments such as “I hope you cut yourself, and you’ll get an eating disorder so you’ll look pretty”, were amongst the barrage of hatred directed at Black on the YouTube page for her video. Paradoxically, however, it was the track’s inherent deplorability that propelled Black toward legitimate profitability. Everyone hated Rebecca Black’s song, yet everyone knew who she was. She’s music’s Nero, and people are buying her song. Forty-three thousand “copies” of Friday have been sold on iTunes, the track entered the Billboard 100 at 72, and eventually climbed to 58, and the official video has had over 110 million views.

So where has this person, who has made over $26,000 by giving us a tutorial on the weekly sequence of days, emerged from? While I’d like to imagine that she is some sort of human-shrew hybrid engineered in a test tube by Lockheed-Martin as a weapon of war and accidentally unleashed onto the world, the true answer is 30

a day after

Thursday but

before

Satur-

far more sinister: Black is a product of the ARK Music Factory. *** ARK Music Factory is demon waste collected from the sewers of Hades or, as it is otherwise known, “a record label” based in LA founded by Patrice Wilson and producer/composer Clarence Jay. Its very name conjures up the image of an assembly line manufacturing cyborgs that look like mini-prostitutes and sound like mini-hyenas. However, according to their website, Ark’s main objective is “to discover future number 1 artists and produce the next outstanding star,” and they do this essentially by making vanity music videos for tweens and teens at the expense of wealthy parents (who pay approximately $2,000 to $4,000 per video), Kids with ambitions of pop stardom work with songwriters, music video producers and Auto-Tune machines to produce what is substantively no more than a flashier, obscenely expensive version of those customised storybooks one could get as a child. You know, where the wizard’s apprentice looking for the magic ice cream has the same name as you. (I always found it disturbing to read about a gender ambiguous white kid with red hair called

On Dit Magazine

“Sujini.”)

her into a viral hit and enormous cyber punch line. Why, then, do we refuse to liken Black to Kylie? Is it because we do not wish to admit a disturbing truth: that pop is fake, nameless, and stands on a worm eaten edifice, rotten to the core that is every day hurtling toward a perilous void? But, we must. We must admit that “Friday” is no more senseless than any of Ri Ri or Gaga’s last top ten singles. And we have become the obtuse consumers who drink up this toxic runoff with delight.

ARK music factory purport to manufacture pop stars, but one wonders if they are doing any more than preying on untalented children and their doting parents to create clumsy tunes and videos with substandard production values that can be uploaded to Youtube. And yet, these second-rate popettes are gaining extraordinary levels of notoriety and this is translating into actual profits. Profits, no doubt, initially inconceivable to ARK producers, who never guarantee success to their prepubescent “clients.” So, if you can’t be the next Beiber or Willow Smith, you can still become famous, your dreams can still come true, albeit in the most humiliating way possible. We’ve probably all watched fugly gaptoothed Jenna Rose singling vapidly about “My-hideousdiamante-studded-Jeans” about sixty times, and know the awkward, autistic text of “Friday” off by heart. So what does this tell us about the pop music? And what does it tell us about us, the consumers?

One ought not to be shocked by the ascent of Rebecca Black or ARK music factory. The Internet thrives on idiocy, which is why an abhorrent and poorly produced music video featuring a horse-faced female teen singing nonsensically about her crush on an equally equine male teen, or a flamboyant rant into a camera directed at a suburban rapist, will always prove more popular than a masterpiece by Arcade Fire. And accordingly, shameless businesses like ARK music will continue to amuse, horrify, fascinate and profit from us. O

ARK’s brand of Fordist pop is not novel. From the Monkees to the 90s brainchild of producers Robert Clivillés and David Cole, C+C Music Factory, to the infamous creation of the Stock, Aiken and Waterman factory, Rick Astley, manufactured pop is all too familiar. What is Rebecca Black, but Astley writ large? The naive wannabe singer’s meaningless quickie pop song has turned

Sujini Ramamurthy chronicles the seedy underbelly of the Interwebz on her Student Radio show ‘A Series of Tubes’ with Joel Parsons on Radio Adelaide 101.5FM, Thursdays at 11:30PM

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OUTSIDER ART

Does madness beget creativity, or does creativity inspire madness?

Words: Emma Jones

I freaked the shit out the other day when I picked up a trashy magazine and saw a picture of Lady Gaga with pointy things in her face. Actually, I freak the shit out most times I see a picture of Lady Gaga. Seriously, that woman looks like the evil spawn of Jocelyn Wildenstein and a pterodactyl. If nothing else, she’s living proof that some of the most popular (which, please note, does not mean ‘best’) artists are total nut jobs.

The idea of being a nut job and being prodigiously creative did not begin, however, with Lady Gaga. Thank fuck. I’m pretty sure it didn’t begin with outsider art either, but the innate creativity of the crazy was first recognised as having critical value by those who formed the initial art brut collective, which was something of an outsider art appreciation society.

Outsider Art 101 If you, like me, are an art virgin, this section is for you.

If you know your shit, you can skip to the next section for one of two reasons: either you already know it all, in which case reading this would be a waste of your time, or I really don’t know it at all, in which case reading this will cause you to needlessly mock me. Or you can just read it and laugh self-importantly at my artistic inferiority. At any rate, this is not an article on my ditz complex (what an article that would be). It’s about outsider art, and I am going to give you a whirlwind introduction to the concept.

First things first: the term and its coinage. The term ‘outsider art’ is an English label created by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as a synonym for the much more arty-sounding ‘art brut’ (‘raw’ or ‘rough’ art), a French label created by the much more arty-sounding Jean 32

Dubuffet. Essentially, ‘art brut’ and ‘outsider art’ are the same thing: art created outside the realm of ‘official’ culture, mostly by patients in insane asylums.

Dubuffet was arguably the forefather of the ironic rejection of pretentious culture that is happening within the hipster uprising today. Dubuffet formed the Compagnie de l’Art Brut in 1948, along with a group of other artists (notably including André Breton, the writer of the Surrealist Manifesto), in an attempt to escape the influx of cultural art, which was, as he put it, “the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade”. Ouch. Dubuffet argued — get your Moleskine ready, here comes the hipster bit — that mainstream culture swallowed up every new artistic development, effectively removing its influence and smothering any sign of individual expression. Before this problem was tackled by the Cubist, Dadaist, Surrealist and Futurist movements of the 20th Century, Dubuffet solved the issue with the notion of Art Brut: here was art that was immune to culture. The art could not be absorbed by mainstream culture, because the artists were unable to be placed within it. Genius.

Michel Thevoz, curator of the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne, has said that “outsider art consists of works produced by people who for various reasons have not been culturally indoctrinated or socially conditioned… these people have produced, from the depths of their own personalities and for themselves and no one else, works of outstanding originality”. Rawvision.com beautifully describes this kind of art as “art produced by those who do not know its name”. Ironically, many of the early modernist art movements (or ‘isms’) I mentioned earlier based their manifestos around trying to assimilate the raw power of outsider art. Outsider artists were uneducated in artistic culture, while all the cool kids were

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Adolf Wölfli, “Irren-Anstalt Band-Hain”, 1910

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A series of cats painted by Louis Wain, showing the progression of his schizophrenia trying to unlearn it.

The term ‘outsider art’ has been so constantly misused that its meaning has changed to match. Once totally synonymous with Dubuffet’s ‘art brut’, ‘outsider art’ now reluctantly stretches to include self-taught and ‘Naïve’ artists. These artists, in trying to emulate the style of the outsider artists, show themselves as fully aware of accepted artistic techniques, and consequently remain within the mainstream artistic culture which outsider art snubs.

notation, which at first seemed decorative, but ended up developing into a real composition which Wölfli famously played on a paper trumpet.

“

So we’ve got the terminology down, which is useful if you find and wish to impress a sexy arty type at a bar.

But that sexy arty type is probably going to expect you to know a little more than wanky, badly pronounced French, so let’s move on to some of the movement’s most famous peeps.

Adolf Wölfli In 1921, amid a growing critical interest in the art produced by inmates of insane asylums, a Dr. Walter Morgenthaler (best name ever) published his book, Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Patient as an Artist). The book was about one of Dr. Morgenthaler’s patients, Adolf Wölfli (seriously, German names rule), whose psychotic episodes seemed to be calmed by drawing. Wölfli, before being orphaned at the tender age of 10, was physically and sexually abused as a child.

After a childhood spent in foster homes, he joined the army, but his military career was short-lived: he was arrested for attempting child molestation and consequently sent in 1895 to the Waldau Clinic in Bern, Switzerland, where he spent the remainder of his life. Wölfli suffered from hallucinations and violent psychotic episodes, and was kept in isolation.

Wölfli’s images were lavishly detailed, somehow at once both childish and ominous, innocent and intense.

As a symptom of horror vacui, or fear of empty space (another good term to drop while trying to impress your arty amour), Wölfli would work to the edges of each page and would fill every empty space with two small holes. He called the shapes drawn around these holes his ‘birds’. His images also featured peculiar musical

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Before his death in 1930, Wölfli completed a semiautobiographical epic of 45 volumes. I’m serious — this thing was huge. It had over 25,000 pages and included over 1,600 illustrations. The epic took on the form of a narrative, told both visually and verbally, in which

“ Art and mental illness have gone hand-in-hand for centuries. Many artists, particularly novelists and playwrights, are better known for their mental illnesses than their work. ”

Wölfli as protagonist begins as a child and progresses to Knight Adolf, Emperor Adolf and finally (and somewhat ridiculously) St. Adolf II. Wölfli’s work is now on display at the Museum of the Waldau Clinic in Bern.

Louis Wain Louis Wain, an English artist best known for his drawings of cats, is the artist most often used to exemplify visible changes in artistic style due to progressive mental illness. A struggling freelance artist, Wain discovered that cats were his thing when, in an attempt to entertain his dying wife during her illness, he taught their cat Peter tricks such as wearing spectacles and pretending to read. He often sketched the cat, and later attributed the foundation of his career to Peter.

Wain eventually became famous for his comical and often satirical drawings of anthropomorphic cats. Wain’s sophisticated felines were fashionably dressed and often

On Dit Magazine

depicted playing musical instruments, smoking, serving tea, fishing and attending the opera. At the height of his career, Wain was chairman of the National Cat Club in 1898 and 1911. This is a club of whose existence I was not aware until now, and which I fully intend to join.

After a period spent in New York City, Wain’s popularity and mental health both began to decline, and rapidly.

He became hostile towards his previously adored sisters, claiming that flickering cinema screens had “robbed the electricity from their brains” and locking himself away in his room for extended periods of time, writing gibberish.

Admitting defeat, his sisters admitted him to Springfield Medical Hospital in Tooting (British place names ftw) in 1924, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Ironically, it is widely speculated that Wain’s schizophrenia was aggravated by toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection contracted from cats.

A year later, Wain’s incarceration was widely publicised, which led to appeals from public figures, including the prime minister and H. G. Wells (who once infamously stated that “English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves”). Wain was transferred to a more pleasant hospital – one with an in-house collection of cats – and he spent the rest of his life there in peace, continuing to draw cats despite his increasing state of delusion. Still highly popular today, Louis Wain’s art is regarded as collectible but is sadly often forged. It is on display on my bedroom wall in Laserjet colour printouts. Legit.

One of the most interesting things about Wain’s work— aside from the fact that cats with top hats, monocles and pipes are supremely rad—is that you can literally see the deterioration of his mental health from painting to painting. The cats start off cute and fluffy, looking like something you’d see on a ceramic plate at your grandma’s house, or gracing the pages of Frankie magazine in a not-quite-ironic-yet-undeniably-successful attempt at haute kitsch. Many critics of Wain’s art (and there are many, many critics of Wain’s art) suggest that Wain’s crazy is first visible in paintings where the cats are posing before damask wallpaper. The cats progress to kaleidoscopic cacophonies of shapes and colour that

barely resemble cats at all and look more like Magic Eye pictures. Some would argue that the strange shapes and colours are simply a natural progression of style, influenced by the heavily patterned damask papering the walls of the house in which Wain grew up. Psssh. I mean, seriously. I’m no expert on art and I don’t know a thing about psychology, but all you have to do is look at this art and see that there’s something going on, some realm of creativity that Wain has access to that we just can’t touch. The face of the cat is hidden behind busy explosions of colours and curlicues, and it jumps out at you suddenly, eerily. Don’t quote me on this, because you’ll look like a dickhead for it, but there’s very little doubt in my mind that Wain still thought he was drawing the same old feline chaps he’d been drawing before.

The way he saw them, the way he interpreted them was just different. Which, conveniently, brings me to my next point. Article-structure 5/5!

Creativity: innate or insane?

Art and mental illness have gone hand-in-hand for centuries. Many artists, particularly novelists and playwrights, are better known for their mental illnesses than their work. In 2001, the term “the Sylvia Plath effect” was coined by psychologist James C. Kaufman, in reference to the phenomenon that creative writers, especially female poets, are more susceptible to mental instability than other people. (This phenomenon has been found to be consistent with psychological studies.)

Conversely, it has been shown that art therapy can improve mental and physical symptoms such as pain and anxiety. It is used widely to aid and treat patients suffering everything from bipolar disorder to terminal cancer. Arttherapyblog.com defines art therapy as “a form of expressive therapy that uses the creative process of making art to improve a person’s physical, mental and emotional well-being”. Professional art-therapists are trained to interpret the underlying messages in art produced by patients. Art therapy is extremely popular for treatment and interpretation of eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorders following sexual and physical abuse. People are continually surprised that patients who have suffered mental trauma are capable

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of producing something telling and beautiful. But why shouldn’t they? Those whose brains work differently from ours see the world a different way than we do – they see things that we cannot see, and they can show us these things through art. And boy, do we lap it up.

Don’t even pretend that there’s not something about insanity that fascinates you. I know you’ve watched The Shining and Gothika with bated breath. I know you tense up when your bus goes past Glenside, and you’ve probably smoked something you shouldn’t have and followed it up with an injudicious visit to the abandoned Julia Farr centre. You walk past a crazy soliloquising bum in the mall and even though you feel sorry for the poor cad you just want to stare. And don’t even get me started on Charlie Sheen. (Tiger’s blood? Oh, please.)

This fascination with those who have gone a little loco might seem perverse, but might actually be somewhat beneficial to them — hey, we’re buying their art, aren’t we? (Or maybe we’re just printing it off the internet, but at least they’re still getting recognised, man.)

We are left with quite a conundrum: are creative types often insane — or are insane types often creative? Is insanity a danger of having a creative nature, or creativity a boon of being insane? Does art help fix mental illness, or does mental illness manifest in art? Fuck it, all this thinking about creativity is driving me insane. Like I’ve said before, I’m not an art major, or a psychology major.

But I do appreciate things that are beautiful, and I do appreciate anthropomorphic cats. O

SIX OTHER OUTSIDER ARTISTS...

...you should definitely paper your walls with (and some facts about them) Eugene von Bruenchenhein spent most of his life working in a commercial bakery. After his death in 1983, his stockpile of art was discovered, including thousands of drawings and paintings, bizarre floral ceramic works, miniature furniture, towers made of gilded chicken bones, many poems and written works and a number of photographs of his wife, Marie, in exotic costumes.

His apocalyptic finger paintings were believed to be in reaction to the discovery of the hydrogen bomb in 1954.

He had also left messages to himself all over the house, some in pencil, some on handmade plaques, including “Create and be recognized!” and a plaque naming him as “Eugene von Bruenchenhein – Freelance Artist, Poet and Sculptor, Inovator [sic], Arrow Maker and Plant Man, Bone Artifacts Constructor, Photographer and Architect, Philosopher”. Phew.

Alex Marshall suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of nineteen, effectively destroying his aspirations as a musician and artist. Marshall had to relearn all of his artistic skills, and works produced after his injury reflect an internal state of chaos with smeared pigments and grotesque figures.

Homer Simpson was first discovered by Astrid Weller (a yellow Isabella Rosselini) when her car was wrecked by Homer’s inadvertently-created yet awesome piece of art made out of a failed DIY barbeque pit and a bunch of wet cement. Simpson followed up his successful debut with a number of critical failures before truly outdoing himself with a Christo-inspired flood of his hometown.

Simpson and his son blocked Springfield’s sewer drains

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with doormats, equipped the zoo animals with snorkel masks and unleashed the fire hydrants to create the “Grand Canals of Springfield”, a truly memorable work.

Henryk Zarski was thought by the staff at the Special Institution for Children in Zduny to have no skills or interests, where he was diagnosed as severely mentally retarded. Zarski was released from the institution in 1989 to work on a farm, but voluntarily returned to the only place he had come to regard as home. Zarski’s works have been displayed at exhibitions of Psychiatric Art in Europe and London.

Johann Hauser was hospitalised at the age of seventeen, having been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was encouraged to draw by the celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Leo Navratil, founder of the Artists’ House at the psychiatric hospital in Gugging, Austria. Hauser typically drew in coloured pencil and much of his work is unashamedly sexual in content. Navratil claimed that Hauser’s drawings changed with his mental state; in manic phases, his drawings were large, colourful and complex, whilst in depressive states his drawings were darker and more abstract.

David Shrigley is not strictly an authentic outsider artist, but his popular work exhibits many of the genre’s characteristics. Shrigley’s subject matter ranges from the mundane to the bizarre to the violent and disturbing. His deliberate choice of limited style has a comical effect, as genuine outsider artists have no choice but to produce art this way. His website is well worth checking out.

On Dit Magazine

Eugene von Bruenchenhein loved taking photos of his wife. This is one of the few where she’s wearing clothing

Volume 79, Issue 4

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Scene it all before Adelaide bands get nasty: Words: Seb Tonkin

In the red

corner:

In the blue corner:

JIMMY AND THE MIRRORS.

FAKE TAN.

Members: James, Banjo, Kaurna, Carlo Facebook ‘likes’: 956 Collective weight: >250kg, almost certainly.

Members: Tom, Ryan, Vincent, Tom Facebook ‘likes’: 240 Collective weight: <250kg, probably.

Fake Tan

formed last year as a three-piece, and were probably the first band

I ever saw where every member was I was. They played a few shows at classy places like the Exeter, released one lot of songs as a burnt CD and their second lot of songs in the confusing and understandably rare cassette-tape-with-download-code format. They do that whole lo-fi surfy slacker fifties doo-wop pop thing. Songs about girls and going to the drivein and going to the supermarket and going to the school fair, delivered without all that unnecessary focus given to

younger than

38

On Dit Magazine

“

trifling matters like ‘being good at their instruments’, ‘singing nicely’ or ‘recording things properly’. That’s a good thing (I’m not kidding). What Fake Tan (I think deliberately) lack in polish they make up for in heart.

Seeing them live with the volume turned up and a longneck in one hand, it’s hard not to get caught up in the good-time party vibes. The songs have a definite ramshackle catchiness to them too (I keep finding myself absentmindedly humming ‘I Won’t Flirt’ in inappropriate contexts). They probably won’t find themselves touring overseas any time soon, but they’re a good example of a band that seem like they’re genuinely in it for the fun, and have no expectations beyond that.

So anyway, way back in June when Fake Tan had played just a couple of shows, Richard Ensor and Sam ‘One Of The On Dit Editors’ Deere interviewed them on Radio Adelaide’s the Range. After the usual small-talk (‘How old ARE you guys?’) the conversation turned meta and Richard asked them if they considered themselves part of the Adelaide ‘scene’. The almost immediate response from one of the members (hard to tell which): ‘If Jimmy and the Mirrors are in a scene, we’re not in that.’ A second later: ‘If they’re in a club, we want to get out of that club.’ Fighting words.

For those of you unaware, Jimmy and the Mirrors are another Adelaide pop band, and are basically as close to the opposite of Fake Tan as you’ll get in that category.

They also sing fun songs about girls. But they’re older, more experienced, more successful. They’re good at their instruments and it shows. They record in recording studios, and have music videos with special effects. Last year, they got a freaking grant. They’ve played shows in more than five different places (some of them far away) and regularly pack out the Ed Castle back home. And I don’t think it’s undeserved – the guys obviously have an ear for a good pop song and the skills and work ethic to realise them. So why the hate from Fake Tan, a band they’d never had any contact with at all?

I’ll be honest – as someone who’s probably closer to the ‘Fake Tan’ side of the Adelaide fence, it’s not uncommon to hear criticism. I think, clichéd as it sounds, there’s a perception around that success is inversely proportional to authenticity, or something. That a band with drink specials on their Rocket Bar gig posters is inherently less worthwhile than a band playing the Format basement for no money. Obviously, there isn’t a whole lot of merit in that (just like Fake Tan, there’s no evidence to suggest that Jimmy and the Mirrors are making anything but the music that they want to make). But I think that that’s the feeling that underlies a lot of the less ‘successful’ local scene. That said, it’s understandable that resentment builds. Adelaide’s a small place with a limited stockpile of ‘success’, and the subjective nature of popular music taste is such that the most popular bands with the money and ‘fame’ aren’t necessarily the most groundbreaking or hard-working ones. Fake Tan’s Ryan gave a

“ clearly excited by the possibility of sparking a Biggie-Tupac style feud in Adelaide, the presenters egged them on a little ”

slightly more considered statement a couple weeks later in an interview on Underdale Facepalm: ‘We just used the example of Jimmy and the Mirrors to say what we are trying to avoid; over-done, over-budgeted, boring songs.’ Which is fair enough – each to his own, horses for courses, there’s no accounting for taste, and all that (I’m not going to go out and buy JATM’s album any time soon either).

Anyway, clearly excited by the possibility of sparking a Biggie-Tupac style feud in Adelaide, Richard and Sam got Jimmy from JATM on their radio show in October.

After being egged on a little, Jimmy said (about Fake Tan): ‘They’re wasting their time. Absolutely wasting their time. I dunno what they do, whether they clean toilets, or whether they, y’know, work in a library or something. They should stay doing that, because they’re definitely not gonna make it in music.’ Then he made a crack about punching them, or something. Like Fake Tan, he definitely had tongue firmly planted in cheek, but you could hear the hurt in his voice (maybe).

Then, two months later, Fake Tan noticed the second interview and posted a facebook status which I won’t repeat (it featured the words ‘Jimbo’, ‘ass’, ‘open’, and ‘mother’). Damn. Following that, nothing really happened (despite everything, we still live in Adelaide). Fake Tan opened for Wavves at Rocket Bar, which is a big deal for the whole lo-fi surfy slacker fifties doo-wop pop thing. Jimmy and the Mirrors played a set at Parklife, which is a big deal for pretty much anyone. So it goes.

In the end, what you had was two bands trading verbal blows that totally missed one other: one that couldn’t give a stuff about success, and one that was successful enough to not give a stuff. Even though both parties were definitely at least half joking, the whole ‘saga’ illustrated that those age-old mainstream-alternative divides exist in Adelaide like they do everywhere else.

It was nice to get some (any) dialogue happening, for a little while.

What we want to see: a re-ignition, mostly. Things have been quiet on the Fakey and the Mirrors feud front for a few months, which is a shame. It’d be good to hear a diss track or two. Guys, if you’re reading this: folks like me, we’re not here to take sides. We just want to watch the sparks fly. We just want to see something interesting. Please? O

Volume 79, Issue 4

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Square meals Delicious food at student prices, reviewed by a gal who’s fond of webcomics, and a guy who’d like to write them

Words: Gemma Beale / Additional Dumpling Consumption: George Stamatescu

DUMPLING, [duhmp-ling] noun - a small savoury of dough that may be boiled, fried, or steamed.

ball

me, it might have been all the starch (and MSG?) I’d just ingested. Then a friend mentioned a new Korean Dumpling place just off Hindley, which was “so much better”.

Promising, I thought, better get George involved.

I, like you and/or one of your friends, have frequented China Town’s Dumpling King more times than health professionals would recommend. And for a while there I was right up on that bandwagon; so many dumplings, so cheap ($7.80! For pretty much everything!). Not to mention the delicious chilli sauce, shallot pancakes and free tea. But, after my 7th or 8th visit I started to look around: the tea was weak and tepid, the (vegetarian) dumplings were bland and the chilli sauce had seafood in it. Suffice it to say I jumped right off that heavily patronised bandwagon and decided to seek out a dumpling outlet that was similarly priced but more delicious and generally appealing.

The obvious first choice was Noodle Dumpling on Gouger St. It manages to stay afloat so close to its powerful competitor, Dumpling King, so I crossed my fingers — only to quickly uncross them. The food and prices were almost identical, as was the general ambiance. Noodle’s menus did however have a few amusing chinese-english mistranslations, if you like to giggle at people who write incorrectly in their second or third language — which I do, sometimes.

I was beginning to lose enthusiasm; it might have been the fact that 2/2 dumpling places had failed to excite 40

Mandoo (on Bank St) was immediately more impressive: cleaner, fancier, friendlier and as George continued to point out, “so pretty”. Unfortunately however, Mandoo’s prices were marginally higher. At $9.99 a plate, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But it wasn’t just price, it was also quantity — we only got eight small dumplings.

So it is for this reason — despite the fact that Mandoo’s dumplings were (slightly) more flavourful — that I have to hang my head and admit that if you’ve got a hankering for a bucket-load of dumplings (and need some change from a Ten for the bus home) Dumpling King is the place for you — in spite of the harsh lighting and watery tea, in spite of your better judgement, and in spite of recommended dietary requirements. O

P.S - There a number of other items on Mandoo’s menu that looked more culturally accurate, filling and generally appetising (as with the other two dumpling vendors).

As such this review does not compare the overall quality of each restaurant, just the dumplings.

P.P.S. if you really want to save some dollars go to your local Asian grocer and steam them yourself, you can buy kilos at a time! Kilos!

On Dit Magazine

Picture: vovchychko / www.flickr.com/photos/ schneelocke

Dumplings

Homemade Pizza 4 Steps Only!

Words: Dawei Deng

INGREDIENTS:

Love cooking at home? Have a limited budget every month and can’t dine out every day?

• • • • • •

Well, you can make your own pizza at home. Just 4 steps! Couldn’t be easier.

Preparation time: 15mins Cooking time: 10-12mins

1.

3.

First, preheat oven to 220C. Place pizza base on a slightly greased pizza-baking tray

2.

1 pizza base Shredded Mozzarella 10 medium shelled and de-veined prawns Canned artichokes Sundried (or fresh) tomatoes Pieces of salami, ham and/or turkey

Grease the pizza base with a little olive oil...

Add artichokes, salami, ham, turkey, prawns, sundried (or fresh) tomatoes to base and sprinkle shredded mozzarella cheese over them.

4.

...and spread tomato paste on top

Put the tray into oven and bake for 1012 mins until base is crisp and golden.

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Contribute To ys it sa n D fe an O l i m to my a er ting ven m i ca ribu ly g ain” f l t f O on ina g ag “C s f nin ha ea m

Have you been impressed by the sheer genius of the magazine and want to get involved so that some of its residual amazingness can sprinkle over you like fairydust from Tinkerbell’s wings? Or are you horrified, tearing your hair out in disbelief as you spot yet another mistake, or skim over an article you have no interest in?

THEN CONTRIBUTE! We’re looking for writers, painters, illustrators, photographers and those partial to lugging boxes of On Dits around Adelaide in the name of greater distribution.

head to www.ondit.com.au/contribute for more info

A letter to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Picture: Diamond Geezer / www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer

Not sure I’m happy about this...

Words: Jimmy Meegan Dear Mr Cameron, It is with some regret I find myself writing this letter, but ultimately, I think something really needs to be said and done. You see, I’m an Australian citizen, Mr Cameron. I share a few things with you: I speak English, I like cricket and I get burnt easily in the sun. So why do I have to wait in line for 45 minutes at Heathrow Airport whilst European citizens get to cruise right in like they’ve been your mates longer than us Aussies?

It just doesn’t seem fair (dinkum), Mr Cameron. There I am, in line with all the other “non-Europeans” or “foreign aliens” as you like to call us, whilst every man and his dog from Europe strolls right in with their flashy European identity cards. Meanwhile I’m stuck in a huge line of people who barely speak English and when I get up to the border guard he asks what is my purpose for entering the lands of Her Majesty the Queen. This was closely followed by ‘How do you intend to finance your stay in Great Britain?’ As I was about to answer, a widowed Romanian lady carrying two children and a sign saying “NO JOB PROSPECTS” walked straight through the line for “EU Nationals.”

To be clear, I’ve got nothing against widowed Romanians. And I’ve got nothing against the European Union.

But how quickly can you really get over something like a World War? I mean, this was a WORLD War! And

now you let Germans into your country faster than they invaded Poland. I know they say to forgive and forget, but it seems like you’ve forgiven your enemies and forgotten about your mates. We’re your mates, Mr Cameron. So what if we’re from the other side of the world?

So what if we’re not part of the EU? And so what if, following the fall of British Singapore during World War II, our foreign policy shifted to a more North American focus? We’re still your mates.

Look, something really needs to be done about all this.

Currently British Airports have two lines to enter the UK: one being reserved for EU Nationals; the other being for non-EU Nationals. I propose a third line reserved for Australian citizens. There aren’t too many of us, Mr Cameron, so you would only need one border guard working at any one time. Maybe two when the Ashes are on. And if the Canadians complain, then tell them to take that stupid maple leaf off their flag and replace it with a Union Jack.

I hope you seriously consider my proposal, Mr Cameron.

It would be a great gesture of friendship. Just like it’s a great gesture of friendship for us to continue making episodes of Neighbours, nobody in Australia actually watches it. This could be a new era of Australian-British relations.

Sincerely, Jimmy Meegan

Volume 79, Issue 4

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Vitamin L Words: Michelle Bagster

In one of my very first tutorials one of the poor students in my class was asked to explain what a vitamin is. I’m pretty sure the guy had a rough idea, but he shrugged in a “really don’t care” kind of way, that got misinterpreted (as not caring often is) as a lack of knowledge or an inability to phrase that knowledge.

The tutor prompted him; “If a little old lady with a walking frame on your bus said ‘You’re a med student, tell me what a vitamin is,’ what would you say?”

If it were me I’d be inclined to make something up for the little old lady’s benefit; “A vitamin is a little beetle in your food that you swallow and it builds up your insides in a beetley kind of way. Now let me pleeeasse enjoy my bus ride in peace.

I already gave you my seat.” Or, if she was demanding; “There! I stole your walking frame!! You can’t do anything without that!

How’s that for a vitamin? Huh? Need a bit more Vitamin Walking Frame in your life!?”

(You know I’m kidding, right? Even if she was one of those old people on busses who demands your seat and forces you to stand, I probably wouldn’t take the frame. Unless it was made of sugar. In that case, she wants it stolen.)

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Imagine if there was a way to make a love supplement!

(I hope nobody reads obscenities into this; it says more about you than me that you came to that conclusion, you cassowary).

Think about it — it’s something organic that your body needs in little amounts, but cannot synthesise itself.

If there was some way to get it in powdered form, or encased in a gel capsule, how happy would we be? We could forget about Nintendo and adorable Japanese monsters — life would be set!! Here is how I would advertise this, and you need to imagine those ads for lemon detox in the Body and Soul section of the Sunday Mail (I know you know the ones): Tired of being plagued by the constant reminders that dad never gave you the affection you craved, and the fact that you were set adrift in the world without any love? Wish you could get over it? Buy VITAMIN L! Sick of wasting time hanging around the bar counter waiting for that mysterious someone to finally come along and sweep you off your feet? Rather be forwarding your career or doing something productive? Buy VITAMIN L! Too busy to spend time with your kids? Worrying that making up for it with expensive toys and clothes won’t cut it for their long-term mental wellbeing? Buy VITAMIN L!

The tutor eventually told us all that a vitamin is an organic compound that your body doesn’t need much of, but it can’t synthesise itself. We all nodded in an attentive kind of way, but if everyone else was like me, we were all probably just wiling away the hours before we could go home and play Pokémon black on the D.S. I don’t have a D.S., but I imagine what it might be like if I did; generally the world is much sunnier.

This stuff sells itself! Of course, love already has a natural strawberry flavour, but this could be enhanced with artificial flavours and made into chewy tablet form for the kiddies. (A bit like those multi tablets shaped like robots mum gave me when I was little that I was “only supposed to have one a day of.” One packet a day, maybe. )

The whole charade got me wondering whether you can eat love. Or consume it in tablet form to supplement your diet.

As the inventor, I could retire on the royalties these (outrageously expensive) tablets create and spend the rest of my days giggly with artificial happiness. O

On Dit Magazine

Argue ably Words: Adam Marley

I’ve been arguing a lot recently. Well no, that’s not exactly true, I’m always arguing. I’ve NOTICED myself arguing a lot recently. Friendly, intelligent, meaningful and topical arguments, mind you. Still, it’s been brought to my attention that my arguments are usually very biased, accusatory and cynical, and that this (according to my more impartial, reasoned and forgiving friends) makes me dismissive and consequently, much less convincing or likeable. Of this I am fully aware. In the first, while I like to consider myself a generally affable person, I don’t particularly care if I’m liked. Likewise, convincing people of the validity or supremacy of my particular viewpoint doesn’t even feature on my list of agendas when arguing.

A snapshot of what does feature: arguing because I feel the point deserves to be argued, or simply because it CAN be argued; because I want to stimulate discussion, or at the very least thought; or just for funsies (it’s extra fun when people get agitated). Why such an undecidedly mixed combination of shallowness and profundity?

Because while I’m interested in some things, I am very much apathetic toward mostly everything. The more pertinent question then is WHY don’t I care? Is it begging the question to answer with ‘because I don’t see the point’? I’m sure my well-reasoned friends have some impartial insights into why that might be, but they’ll have to explain them to YOU because they’re busy telling ME why I SHOULD care. And no, it’s not that I don’t feel I can make a difference, I’m fairly optimistic I could. If I cared to.

It did get me wondering though, could my mental toolset be better equipped? (It most assuredly could.)

If I were more well read, particularly in philosophy, my arguments would better approach the calibre of my friends’ – that is, be more convincing and poignant. Which if nothing else (as I’ve stated I care about little else) would lead to a more productive discourse.

It follows that the more well read, the more practised somebody is at arguing (like anything), the more effective their argument will be. Which leads us to academia – the professional students, the most highly regarded

minds, pens and tongues. Surely those that devote their lives to the written word and intellectual debate are the best equipped to be convincing?

For the most part, they are. But is that a good thing? Does it feel healthy to have people that have always lived outside the world (above it perhaps) to be convincing those that live within? Dictating from their Ivory Towers to the lowly masses (I want to emphasise that word – masses). I must admit, I’m a little concerned. Not without merit either; one could reasonably propose that a major ingredient in our recent (current) economic woes is academic hubris – a too foolhardy reliance upon models and theorems.

(Other ingredients being human nature and advanced telecommunications – this never would’ve happened in the 30’s. Wait... never mind.) Annoyingly people don’t fit into models nicely, and I think the thinkers may have forgotten this little tidbit.

Don’t let me (or my disdain) be misconstrued – I have a healthy respect for the paper-publishers and policy writers, the minds more brilliant than my own solving the mysteries of our universe and deciding how I should live. And despite being a practically minded individual, I myself enjoy theorizing and predicting; a love of learning for learning’s sake is why I’m at university.

Nevertheless, my healthy respect is married to healthy scepticism. O

Volume 79, Issue 4

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46

On Dit Magazine

Diversions Answers on page 6

AWKWORD

Crypt-o-Clues

“Panties”

1.

What it means: Underpants worn by women and girls

2.

3.

What it sounds like it means: Girl’s underpants, but such underpants viewed through the square, oversized glasses of a paedophile as his eyes peep above the windowsill, appendage firmly in hand.

4.

5.

Don’t snipe! It’s very rude to shoot that at me. (5) You’re flexible so give it to someone. (6) A part of my spine won’t work. Did you scratch it? (4) Is it able to swallow? Write the answer down here. (6) It’s far too swanky in that silly shop. (4)

Reason it’s awkward: The suffix “-ies” creates mental links with things like “bunnies” and “teddies”. Given the connections between these and young girls, once the association with all things “cutesy” is made, the reasonable thinker remembers underpants, comes perilously close to a compromised mental image — pink ribbons an all — is left feeling both defiled by the English language and a violator of the innocent.

Triviarama 1.

2.

Who is the President of Russia?

What popular font borrows its name from the Latin name for Switzerland?

3. Who wrote the first English dictionary?

4. What nationality is Agatha Christie’s fictional character, Hercule Poirot?

5. How many siblings does Ronald Weasley have?

6. What was Julius Caesar’s first name?

7. How is the square root of -1 commonly represented?

8. How many times did Buffy die in the seven seasons of the series?

9. Where are the 2016 Olympics being held?

10. What are the ingredients of a Vodka Sunrise?

Targedoku

Find as many words as you can using the letters on the Sudoku grid (including a 9 letter word). Words must be four letters or more and include the highlighted letter. Use the letters to solve the Sudoku (normal Sudoku rules apply)

E

X

P P

D

P

O

G

G

D

E

N

L

O

G

X

X E

N G

G D

L

L

E

E N

Volume 79, Issue 4

I

47

State Of The Union Words of wisdom from your benevolent union president Words: Raff Piccolo

So we are back from the two week ‘break.’ I hope you took the opportunity to recharge your batteries, and also to catch up on any of the work you may have missed, and on those areas where you didn’t pay as much attention as you should have.

There are only five weeks to go until exams and then the semester is over. However let us not get too far ahead of ourselves. Although it’s nice to know that a well deserved break is not too far away, it’s important to stay focussed. Hopefully you have learnt some important things from the first seven weeks of uni for the year.

I am not talking about actual course material or content, but rather those other skills such as time management, prioritisation, goal setting and social life-study balance.

If you did, well done! Everything should then be running smoothly for you, and so perhaps there is no reason for you to read on. However if you are like the rest of us (well intended, however forever imperfect) students, do not panic.

Now is the opportunity to tweak your routine slightly, so as to make the next five weeks more productive and enjoyable. Look back to the start of the semester and think about where you would have liked to have been now, had you lived in that more or less unattainable perfect world. So where did we fall short?

Perhaps you spent a little too much time enjoying the sunshine on the Barr Smith Lawns, or wandering through Rundle Mall with friends between lessons. Alternatively, like so many others, maybe you had put time aside to go study. You even went to the library...but then found some else to do. Such as procrastinating. Either way, what’s done is done. Let’s move on.

We do not need to perform a massive overhaul this late in semester; it would most likely be detrimental to

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you. Let’s just make incremental changes. Set yourself a couple of deadlines for the work ahead. Simple things.

Plan it out. This could involve setting aside a whole day for study, or scheduling small portions of study for every day. Go with whatever works for you. But also do not forget to include some time for yourself, work, family and friends. As I have always said, you need balance, and a chance to re-energise Without these, you will never get anything done at uni, or in life in general.

So unless you are one of the few students who was able to maintain that perfect study/work/life balance, make a small change now as it will have huge benefits in the end. It will allow you to better prepare for the dreaded exams and end of semester assignments and will place you in better stead to not repeat the same mistakes again next semester.

Or at least be better placed to deal with them second time around. O

Need to get in touch with Raff? w: auu.org.au e: auupresident@auu.org.au f: facebook.com/raff.piccolo

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