On Dit 80.10 by On Dit

ON DIT

80.10

VOL. 80 ISSUE 10

ON DIT

CONTENTS

featured contributors

letters

president(s)

vox pop

art

re: education

i married a lizard

more art

hackerspace

even more art

speaking without words

those russian girls

spaces, places

how to: suck at gigs

how to: fail a date

columns

stuff you like

creative

retrospective

diversions

Editors: Galen Cuthbertson, Seb Tonkin & Emma Jones. Front cover artwork by Mike Stanford; inside front cover and back cover by Chloe McGregor; inside back cover comic by George Stamatescu and Orlando Mee. On Dit is a publication of the Adelaide University Union. Published 27/8/2012.

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(miscellany)

NB. By the time you read this editorial, my banter re Tony Abbott and the Armstrongs will be week-old news. I guess you, reading this now, know a lot more than me, writing this a week ago, which is actually now. The space/ time continuum envelops us and this editorial in her impenetrable folds of doona and prevents us from getting out of bed on time. Otherwise we’d be able to reach each other and this editorial would make more sense. Ah, Election Week. Fond memories of last year: five nonstop days of gastrointestinal instability, terror and aggressive waving of flyers in the faces of strangers screaming ‘VOTE SEB EMMA AND GALEN FOR ON DIT!’ while my eyes looked in two different directions. Well, by the time you’re reading this, the nightmare is over. There are bums in seats for the 2013 AUU Board and SRC, and even this old gal On Dit will have found herself in new, capable hands. Whose hands they are will be determined in the week between my writing this and your reading it. I guess that means you know something I don’t know. The power of democracy. Shazam. The magical powers of politics have been manifesting themselves in other ways of late. Like Tony Abbott’s sudden, inexplicable inability to read important documents pertaining to the grilling he was about to receive on live national television. Shazam. Put this man on the Iron Throne. No wait. Even Joffrey would make a preferable PM to dear old Abs. At least a Lannister pays his debts, or spays his pets or whatever. Tony Abbott probably hasn’t read those documents either.

I bet he did read NBC’s accidental coverage of Neil Young’s death, though. I can imagine it went something like this. NBC: Oh Neil Young died. I mean Neil Armstrong. Or was it Lance Armstrong? One of them died, one of them cheated and one of them is still alive and hasn’t done anything worthy of media attention for a while. Rats, what a mix-up. Abs: Yeah boi, some other media outlet fucked up worse than I did so I can go back to kissing babies and visiting bakeries and acting like a character out of Modern Family. The power of democracy! Shazam! Anyway, I can offer you, dear reader, a 93.2 per cent chance that we have not misprinted the names of any deaths, astronaut, musician or otherwise. What you will instead discover in these pages is far more enlightening. Check out Restless Dance Theatre’s most recent production, Howling Like a Wolf, which deals with the ins and outs of non-verbal communication and disability. Brush up on your conspiratorial theory (+ reptilians!). Put your feelers into the current climate of the Humanities and Social Sciences department and keep them there if you don’t like it and want to change it. And don’t forget to attempt our crossword, which makes the butchery of the English language fun, or as fun as a crossword is anyway. Love you guys, Em (and Seb and Galen)

FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS Oshadha Aluthwala (putin vs. pussy, p28; column, p39)

Shadi is a witch masquerading as a medical student. She spends her time admiring kittens (she has a black cat of her own), and comparing people to animals that they remind her of. She is an anglophile and dreams that Matt Smith will one day laugh at one of her jokes. She claims that she is the largeoverbearing-Aunt archetype of her group of friends. She’s in unrequited love with a crumbling city in England and wishes the world were more like A. A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood.

Ben Nielsen

(howling like wolves, p24) Ben is currently in his third year of a Bachelor of Music and Media. He is often described as an old woman; with a ‘poncy’ writing style, penchant for morning television, and an increasing obsession with patting his cat Rosie. Ben is passionate about the arts, environment, and Nigella Lawson.

Genevieve Novak

(how to: not get a second date, p36) Genevieve is a self-commentating, compulsive shopping, tea-reliant, arachnophobic second year writing major with lots of clothes and an embarrassing chick-lit collection. She is an enthusiastic pizza consumer and lecture skipper. She still enjoys talking Harry Potter theories. She likes the annual Net-A-Porter sale, dog shaming, New York, and people who find her as funny as she finds herself. She is fluent in champagnese.

The On Dit editors would like to thank the following darlings for their help with Issue 10... Sam and Amy, for the ‘Black Death’ and the ‘Alien Jizz’. Ben, for saying the word ‘gauze’. The Store because Eggs Benedict. Pix, for letting Seb hang around. 1964 and the Beatles, and also that corgi who only answers to its owner’s poor imitation thereof.

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(miscellany)

CORRESPONDENCE PAGE

(miscellany)

Dear On Dit, I’m compelled to question some of the assertions made in the article Chick Lit on the subject of female author recognition. I’m not satisfied with the argument made for the ‘Stella Prize’ for women authors. In response to Jennifer Byrne’s criticism of the concept, the author writes, ‘Admittedly, the fact that we need an entirely different prize in this country for women authors to achieve formal recognition of their work is not ideal—but we do…’ and accuses her of being ‘naïve and defensive’. There’s no reasonable address of what Byrne had to say; are the judges of the Miles Franklin literary awards biased towards male authors? Because if they’re not, there’s no reason to have another award ceremony for authors who didn’t write the most acclaimed books, based on their sex. This is an important question that’s just ignored. I’m a girl, and I’m feminist. By that I mean that I believe in an ideal world where people aren’t judged or treated based on sex alone, where ‘gender roles’ are voluntarily adopted, not expected, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female beyond immediate biological practicalities. And I regard attitudes that make gender distinctions to be culturally damaging sexism, whether ‘affirmative action’ or insulting stereotypes. So I’m doubtful from the outset of whether or not there’s a ‘need’ for an award for local women authors. If women aren’t getting the same critical attention as men, there’s probably a deeper issue that won’t be addressed by giving women a separate award. If anything, such an award would just allow this state of affairs to continue indefinitely. And arguably there is a state of affairs. Women aren’t getting as many literary awards as men. The most important question here should be why. I’d like to bring up another important point absent from this

article: female writers are associated with a unique kind of rubbish prose. The very worst of popular fiction by women holds a special place in the public consciousness. We’re all familiar with the empty, sentimental ‘feminine tosh’ V. S. Naipul was talking about, and clearly for some people it’s the beginning and end of their familiarity with female written work, eclipsing all the great works that have come from our historically under-represented sex. Therefore I think that if we’re going to discriminate to draw attention to the best of female writers, we should also address the disturbing number of inimitably ‘chicky’ works and challenge female authors to rise above these popularly accepted, culturally deplorable conventions. The third possibility besides biased judgement or women writing fewer of the significant titles in any given year, is that really good novels written by women get less attention somehow. I wouldn’t think that the average reader judges whether or not to read a book based solely on the sex of the author, but maybe it’s a marketing thing. It’s worth looking into before taking measures like special female awards. What is this, a sport where men have a clear physical advantage, forcing us to have our own league? I say, stick to literary awards that don’t genderdiscriminate. If women are featured less to a statistically significant extent, look at why they’re not getting the same attention. If there’s no clear bias, let it be. And if there is, change it or boycott it and come up with a fairly-judged literary award. But not one that treats the female novelist like a protected species. Sincerely, Hannah Proeve

Bursting to opine on something that’s in the magazine (or should be)? On Dit accepts your emails at ondit@adelaide.edu.au. Or get all social-media on our facebook page: facebook.com/onditmagazine.

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Dear Editors, I was reading one of your latest articles, ‘Cut the Crap,’ recently when I came across something that mentioned my own piece of toilet graffiti. This piece was a lyric from Bliss N Eso, and it read, ‘nothing stands between you and the pursuit of your vision.’ ‘Mcgoogle-smurf’ says that students are more concerned with arguing over said Bliss N Eso lyrics ‘than they are over great philosophers.’ Said quote/lyric is something that I practically live by; something that inspires me daily to get up out of bed and work extra hard to move towards my goals (which, incase you’re assuming that makes me selfish and individualistic, involve myself and other international projects.) I thought, amongst the negativity, it was something empowering and positive to splash across the door. No, it was not written by a great philosopher, but a hip hop artist from Sydney. A simple Google search shows it is derived from the song, The Sea is Rising, which questions and addresses global warming, the ethics of war, the shooting of people based on religion, pollution of the environment and the government. The lyric, in context, can be translated to mean that they refuse to be controlled by the political situation they are born into and pose the simple question: why. Indeed, the song is entirely political. The author of this article says, ‘let’s start talking’

about contemporary politics, and write about what lately inspired us. The song I quoted is entirely political, and is something that inspired me. It frustrates me that lyrics are immediately deemed trivial and ‘lowbrow’ because they weren’t created by a philosopher, or on face value aren’t concerned with politics and are therefore considered unworthy of discussion and looked down on. Earlier in the article the question is posed: ‘Are we all now enemies of each other based on the opinions we hold about bands?’ I would like to pose that question again, especially when the few sentences earlier trivialise lyrics-on-a-toiletdoor, stating that students enjoyed ‘quoting mediocre musicians’ (sounds slightly opinionated to me.) I’m all for us beginning to discuss more of these issues that affect us on a daily basis, and becoming more politically active, but keep in mind that it’s not everyone’s ‘thing.’ We’re all at university studying a different degree, with strengths and weaknesses and interests in a variety of fields. Music is one of them. I don’t think one should discount the importance of a message simply because it is in the form of a lyric from hip hop. Let’s look at the feeling it inspires, and remember that. We should be happy that a popular hip hop band from our country are discussing politics in their songs. Sincerely, Amelia

Dear On Dit, I just wanted to express my absolute love for the article by Tom Sheldrick!! (pg. 18, 80.9) I couldn’t stop laughing when I read it (more like the couple of times that I read it). It’d be really great to read more of him during my short exchange in Adelaide! Greets,

down 2 wikipedian 4 videochat 5 muggle 7 takeaway 8 lifecasting 9 dirty martini 10 mansion tax 15 photobomb 19 soul patch 20 3dprinting 21 meatspace 22 vajazzle 25 dogfood 26 ripped 27 genius 29 lookism across 1 tweeps 4 vote 6 hackathon 7 threequel 11 ethical hacker 12 e-cigarette 13 datenight 14 grouphug 16 hattip 17 guilty pleasure 18 lolz 21 mood disorder 23 mwahahaha 24 grrrl 28 e-learning 30 inbox 31 micropig 32 douche 33 gaydar 34 ridic 35 mini-me

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word: contrails

TARGEDOKU

(see diversions on pg. 46)

ANSWERS

Philine Zambon

(miscellany)

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STATE OF THE UNION

The proposal includes a requirement that every undergraduate student study at least nine units worth of ‘broadening’ electives from outside their field of study. That is, a science student might choose to study some economics as a broadening elective, or an arts student might choose to take on geology. Some degrees will be exempt from these elective requirements, particularly those that are accredited by professional bodies (such as Medicine and Law).

Photo: Chris Arblaster

(on-campus)

This is a small step in the direction that the University of Melbourne took a few years ago. They removed almost all of the undergraduate degrees, and now require all students to enroll in a generalist degree before they can specialize at postgraduate level. Most staff at the University of Adelaide do not believe this model would work here, but do see merit in the idea of encouraging students to study a diverse range of subjects. They think it will lead to more wellrounded graduates with greater job prospects. However, a number of staff at the University are concerned that introducing broadening electives means that students will not be adequately prepared for a PhD by the end of their bachelor degree. Academic Board will be making a decision on this very soon, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the idea.

with CASEY BRIGGS, auu president. In my role in the AUU, I attend a lot of University meetings. One of the most important committees I sit on is the University’s Academic Board. This is the committee that makes the final call on all the big academic decisions. That includes the creation and deletion of degrees, reviews of schools and programs, and program restructures. This year, the Academic Board has been busy. They’ve been looking at changing or removing Honours programs from the University (see the Student Representative Column in Issue 9 for more details), they’ve reviewed some programs, and they’ve been considering a model for the introduction of compulsory broadening electives to (almost) all degrees at the University. The University has already decided to have some sort of broadening of education. That decision was made last year. What’s up for debate now is the model.

Finally, here’s a quick note for postgraduate students. A couple of weeks ago we held a postgrad lunch in conjunction with the University of Adelaide Club and the SRC. Postgraduates are often overlooked when we talk about campus culture, as they tend to spend their days working away in offices. They also often have family and other commitments that prevent them from getting involved in clubs, sports and other social activities at uni. We want to build a network of postgraduate students that will run social activities, and give students the chance to raise issues relating to their study directly with the SRC Postgraduate Officer. If you’d like to be a part of this or participate in forums, please drop me a line. Casey Briggs President, Adelaide University Union Email: casey.briggs@adelaide.edu.au Twitter: @CaseyBriggs

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STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE COLUMN

decision to have three hour ‘lecture-seminars’ were all things that came up, and so much more.

Photo: Shaylee Leach

This isn’t the place for me to preach on the value of humanities and social sciences but instead provide a reminder to all the students who are reading this: TELL ME WHAT’S HAPPENING IN YOUR COURSE! Especially first years. A lot of you will assume that the things that happen are how they always went – that’s not true a lot of the time. If you’re struggling with a particular format of learning or there’s something that’s interfering with your education, feel free to share it with me! I can’t help solve a problem unless I know there’s a problem in the first place. My contact details are listed below: use them. Aside from that, things are more or less as normal in the world of student activism. By the time this edition goes to print student elections will have come and gone. For those of you who voted, thank you for taking part in the future of your campus. However annoying the campaigners may seem we are involved because we care deeply about campus culture and the welfare of all students. Congratulations to all who won, and commiserations to those who didn’t, but thank you all for taking part.

with IDRIS MARTIN, src president.

But those of us on the SRC right now aren’t quite ready to give up – we still have until December 1!

There seems to be a trend in the country to make cuts to Humanities and Social Sciences. If you look at the University of Sydney or LaTrobe University, it seems to be getting real.

Bearing that in mind, look out for a campaign on student housing, a campaign on printing costs, a student forum with the Vice-Chancellor (hopefully) on the strategic plan and more opportunities to tell your representatives what you would change about your university.

At our own University, we started to feel the burn when tutorials in HumSS were cut. Fortunately, the University reversed that decision and things weren’t quite as bad as they once were. That said, they weren’t quite as good as they could have been. The SRC and the Humanities and Social Sciences Association (HASSA) recently held a forum on the State of Humanities. It was great to see such a large turnout for the event and there was one very obvious lesson from the forum: students are not happy with what they’ve got. Overcrowded classes, lecturers deciding not to give lectures but play documentaries instead and the

Idris Martin President, Student Representative Council Email: srcpresident@auu.org.au Twitter: @IdrisMartin

(on-campus)

VOX POP

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(on-campus)

Liam, Chemical Engineering 4th year

Rhys, Architecture 5th year

Lucinda, Law/Arts 1st year

Not really. I like the one about George Bush stealing the election from Al Gore though - we can all see how that presidency turned out. 2. I wouldn’t be a very good chemical engineer if I didn’t. 3. Of course! I’ll be voting for Casey, Stella, and Holly to take over your jobs. 4. When the crowd isn’t excited enough! 5. As a chemical engineer it’s pretty bad for my job prospects – but it depends what you think of uranium really. 6. A 3D model of you, Seb. (Ed: naww)

I’m skeptical of those things – especially those people who think George Bush did 9/11. 2. Just seemed like the right thing to do. I’m regretting not taking a gap year though. 3. Nope. Not at all. Not interested. 4. Couples that insist on hugging the entire time. 5. Kinda seems like a bit of a bummer. Seems like less and less goes on here every day. 6. Well, I guess you don’t need 3D for banknotes – so coins, I guess?

I don’t really – but I do believe Julian Assange is being targeted by the US government. 2. Mostly for career – but also for the uni life. And the pub life. 3. Yes. 4. Drunk girls in the moshpit. I went to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and someone punched me! 5. You’re only entitled to an informed decision... so no comment. 6. Movies. No wait, that wouldn’t work. A chair.

In which On Dit asks six Sunday students the following questions... 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Do you believe in any conspiracies? Why did you decide to study at University? Will you be voting in the student elections? What’s your pet hate at gigs? What do you think of the shelving of the Olympic Dam expansion? If you had a 3D printer, what would you print?

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(on-campus)

Kate, Mathematical Science 2nd year

Kaustubh, Accounting & Finance Masters

Georgia, Chemical Engineering 2nd year

Not really. Those moon landing people are terrible – the guy just died yesterday! 2. Lack of other options. TAFE wouldn’t have got me where I want to go. 3. Yes. My candidate friend will probably bully me into it. 4. Girls who wear high heels in the moshpit. You’ve got to expect people to hit you - you can’t sook if it happens! 5. There’s no real right/wrong answer. It’ll diminish jobs, but destroy less land. Pros and cons. 6. Lego - it’s expensive otherwise.

No view, really. The media projects what they want to. 2. It was a good course. 3. Yes. 4. When people act inappropriately - but it’s not hard, just move away. 5. Don’t really know – I only arrived six weeks ago. 6. The Adelaide Oval Redevelopment! Excited about the Ashes series in 2013 – England and Australia again. (Ed: Who are you supporting?) Cricket. ;)

Margaret and David are secretly a couple. That gets me up in the morning. 2. I do not know. I had no other options. 3. Probably not, unless I get bullied into it. 4. When people take their shirts off. Just awkward. 5. No comment. Call it a conflict of interest, since I want to work there. 6. A burrito.

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(a picture)

chloe mcgregor

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(miscellany)

SOUL SEARCHING

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words: ben reichstein

(on-campus)

IN THE HUMANITIES

On Tuesday the 21st of August, around fifty students gathered in the Napier building for a forum on the Humanities and Social Sciences. The forum isn’t in response to any specific development or new idea: its premise was a surprisingly vague series of rhetorical questions. Why should we have humanities departments? Why should society have Arts degrees? If people don’t respect Arts degrees should we care?

Despite this students who attended were passionate, opinionated and often angry. The Arts degree and its cousins (mutations) have been diminishing in respect for some time. What was once the centrepiece of a university education is now known in jokes as a ‘Bachelor of Attendance’. While there was a wide diversity of views a few key themes were clearly heard: •

Humanities and Social Sciences is a ‘DIY degree’—you have no

•

progression between courses, no formal guidance as to what combination of courses to take. One day you tick the boxes and you graduate without having experienced an increased learning curve in at least two years and without having had the opportunity to develop any idea for longer than a semester. The group never forms a cohort. As a result of the structure outlined in the point above you take courses in a random order in lectures scattered across the university. Whenever Medicine, Engineering, Law or Geology have a space in their lecture theatre, you get squeezed in so you’re never located in a physical humanities space. Standards are not high. It’s very hard to fail an Arts subject if you hand in all the work. Courses refer to theorists you’re never obliged to read or understand.

•

Most importantly, the Humanities are not well funded. Without a big budget you can’t afford to hire many specialists and can’t offer diverse courses. You can’t offer depth—you can only give people a vague sampling of the areas they’re interested in.

Unfortunately, the national trend is to exacerbate this last problem acutely. Across the country humanities departments have had cuts proposed, some small and sneaky, some big and dramatic. In Sydney students and staff demonstrated against the proposed redundancy of around 100 staff. Ongoing student action, in co-operation with the local branch of the National Tertiary Education Union has pressured the university into having the number of redundancies, yet these remain major changes. Right now La Trobe students are resisting an attempt by the university to slash

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(on-campus)

37 staff out of their humanities department. The students occupied the University and, as this article is being written, protested the university’s open day forcing the Vice Chancellor to flee through a legit secret tunnel. And of course, in Adelaide, the University backed down on its plans to cut a tute from every semester in Humanities in the face of student pressure. Why are these cuts coming now? Society is far more affluent than it has ever been and Universities are enrolling more and more students. The logic of deregulation and commodification has taken the imperative out of funding degrees without easily definable results. The Humanities and Social Sciences are in essence public goods. The study of human society should make us more humane—more understanding of the world beyond our own heads and more ready to unpack

assumptions. You don’t need to do an Arts degree to learn about history or gender or politics but you do need people studying these things to produce the books, do the research and ask the questions. Students aren’t the only ones bearing the burden of this logic. Lecturers are increasingly made to perform mindless administrative tasks. Even worse, tutors are now widely employed on one-semester contracts and paid on hourly rates based only on formal teaching time and a small concession for marking time. Insecure and financially precarious, it’s hard for even the best to devote to their work what they’d like to. One former tutor told me tutors are ‘treated like crap’. Academics have said less than kind things too. In a lot of ways I’ve loved my Arts degree. But it’s remained disjointed and sloppy in a way that even the best lecturers can’t fix. The logic of the free

market isn’t going to give us more diversity in our Arts courses or better feed-back on assessment. The logic of the free market isn’t going to give the Humanities and Social Sciences big enough budgets to have small classes or a building which houses all their lectures. Only by talking with your fellow students and your academics, organising into groups and standing up for positions can these trends be reversed. ◊ The next forum on the Humanities and Social Sciences will be held at 6pm on Tuesday 4th September in Napier G03. EduFactory! A conference on the neo-liberalisation of education will be held at ANU on the 29th of September till the 1st of October. Visit edufactoryblog. wordpress.com.

HANDLING CONSPIRACIES PAGE

(off-campus)

words: justin mcarthur art: ann nguyen-hoang There is a certain truth that lies behind every conspiracy theory. In hiding, in the darkness, the Reptilians are coming. Through the Presidential bloodlines of the United States of America, through the monarchies of Europe, through the multinational corporations that rule our world, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids control every element of human political power. Barack Obama is one, and Queen Elizabeth is another. They come from Alpha Draconis, they live deep in the Earth, and they have ruled since ancient times. These are the claims of conspiracy scholar David Icke, his defining lesson, his life’s work – once a professional goalkeeper for UK football team Hereford United, sports presenter for BBC television programmes Newsnight, Grandstand, and Breakfast Time, and one of four leaders of the UK Green Party, he now travels the world to inform us all of the Reptilian threat. As a part of his current book tour, which will end in London’s Wembley Arena, David Icke has presented his message to audiences in Australia, Croatia, the Netherlands, and the United States, including a 2000-strong crowd for an eight-hour lecture in New York last November (reported to have made him around US$100,000). Yet the most recent news articles focus on his wife, Pamela, who began to undertake a divorce from him in 2008, claiming that he believes she is one of the Reptilians. So why would anyone believe such

a thing? What makes someone go from having a ‘respectable’ career to devoting their whole life to a series of beliefs that sound zany and outlandish? ‘There are so many examples of serpent, dragon and reptilian mythology throughout the world that one can no longer assume it’s merely a coincidence. How could such a large number of ancient cultures, separated by vast oceans, all have similar tales and beliefs of reptilian entities?’ This is a quote from ‘Mindseye Mike’, narrator of a 22-part series on YouTube entitled ‘PLAUSIBLE POINTS FOR THE REPTILIAN CASE’, who, despite his irritating use of caps lock, makes some fairly decent points. Divine reptiles are, indeed, the stuff of legend – ancient Zulu, Tutsi, Hutu, Egyptian, Islamic, Incan, Australian Aboriginal, Norse, Slavic, Greek, Roman, Buddhist, Hindu, Inuit, Old Germanic, Hebrew, Mayan, West African, Dahomey, Sumerian, Mithran, Gnostic, Japanese and Sioux texts all refer to lizards, dragons, snakes and/or serpents in their respective religious mythologies. I know this because Mindseye just showed me seventeen minutes of examples, all to a groovy hiphop soundtrack, in PLAUSIBLE POINTS #2 and #3. But a key factor in Icke’s (and, indeed, Mindseye’s) understanding of the world is the idea that, because ancient societies each independently came to the idea of lizards having some significance, lizards rule the Earth. This argument is commonly identified as a logical and cognitive flaw known as ‘confirmation bias’ – namely, the tendency to look for information that affirms one’s theory, rather than that which opposes it. I

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could make a very similar list about the significance of divine canines in all of these mythologies – wolves, in particular, are found in almost all of the same mythologies, and yet there is no theory (apart from, perhaps, a rather persuasive claim by The Baha Men) that claims that the world has let the metaphysical, omniscient, omnipotent dogs out. To answer Mindseye’s question, I would simply agree – I’d never claim that this were ‘merely a coincidence’. Rather, I’d propose that these mythologies derive from a combination of about three factors: the presence of ordinary reptilian creatures, the existence of ordinary human fear, and the exertion of wonderful, extraordinary human imagination. ‘The Thule Society, which was well known by Adolf Hitler, reported much about Tibetan myths of openings into the Earth. There is even a theory that Hitler ordered an expedition for such an opening in Antarctica, based on a speech of Admiral Donitz in front of a German submarine in 1944, when he claimed, “the German submarine fleet is proud of having built an invisible fortification for the Führer, anywhere in the world”.’ I’m going to stick

with Mindseye Mike henceforth, I think. He makes some very clear and well thought out points. But seriously, there’s a reason I’m not reading from video #22; this is into his eighth PLAUSIBLE POINTS video, and he’s already beginning to make a bit less sense. It does give me a good opportunity, however, to bring up Occam’s razor. In determining the best theory to understand a situation, notes John Punch, ‘entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity’; in other words, as a general and broad sweeping rule, the best theory is the one that

fits best with one’s existing knowledge and makes sense of the most things, while simultaneously not requiring a great number of new things to need explaining. In this case, I’m unsure of the facts, but I believe it to be far more likely that Donitz claimed an invisible dominion because he wanted the

(off-campus)

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(off-campus) Nazis to seem powerful, than because

the Earth is hollow, a reptilian race called ‘the Reptilians’ live within it, and the Nazis somehow not only communicated with but actively worked with the Reptilians in order to defend Hitler during World War II (using the massive hole in the centre of Antarctica, knowledge of the books of Jules Verne and of Tibetan mystical lore, and submarines that operated on 1940s technology). I know, I’m pretty outspoken here, but hear me out – I think that Donitz may have just been ‘being a Nazi’. ‘Decide for yourself, make up your own mind, work out your own truth because that’s really what things boil down to and that’s what we’re trying to get out, is what your own personal truth in this world is. Find that, and hold that dear, and just keep that going. Whatever that truth is, keep that going.’

Here, we’re returning to Mindseye’s early work. Back in the very first video in his PLAUSIBLE POINTS series, he seemed to be attempting some sort of very sensible subjectivist and/ or relativist claim about the nature of the human experience, albeit one that equated ‘deciding for yourself’ to ‘working out your own truth’. In terms of flaws, it’s rather a good one; one often seems to find the work of Rene Descartes, famous for the phrase ‘cogito ergo sum’ (‘I think, therefore I am’), corrupted to make similar claims, and even then, it’s often by some of the world’s greatest philosophers. Here, following on from Descartes, Mindseye could well begin by making a rather valid point. ‘I can only see things through my own eyes’, he might say, ‘and therefore I cannot know anything about the nature of the world that I experience – in this context, truth is entirely “personal”’. This argument, which is really just a rephrasing of his own, is certainly no ‘Antarctic Nazis’. Yet I can still refute it, and therefore will. Notably, it seems apparent that, though I can only see things through my own eyes, and therefore I cannot trust my eyes to be correct in objectively observing a butterfly, I can at least trust that my eyes are perceiving a series of colours and shapes that, to me, seems to represent a butterfly. To put it another way, although I cannot trust that butterflies exist objectively, I can believe (until I receive evidence to the contrary) that the world I interact with can not only be usefully understood when I have the belief that butterflies exist, but also contains no evidence to

the contrary, and therefore I, as a flawed subject, believe it. I can, gently and delicately, stroke something light and silky, while at the same time seeing rounded trapezoids that I would describe as ‘wing-like’; I can feel vibrations upon my finger while I see little legs upon me, each vibration matching the movement I see. These things are best explained by the simple theory of ‘butterflies’. There is a clear problem with extending this idea to lizardmen – namely, that there are much better ways of explaining the phenomena that bring about belief in their existence. Returning to Occam’s razor – we have a history of discussing lizards because people and lizards live near each other. Donitz claimed that Germany was incredibly and overwhelmingly powerful because he was a Nazi, and that was their whole schtick. We have governments that make bad decisions because people are odd and strange and silly and ignorant and lustful and so forth. And this, I’d argue, is a reason for hope. Yes, governments sometimes have odd people, strange people, people that do dangerous and wrong things, even great evils (like, for example, the Nazis). But those people are also fundamentally human, with a capacity for good things and for bad. They are wonderful, flawed, fallacious, sensational, extraordinary, imaginative people. And hopefully, if we don’t believe that politicians are un-toppleable lizards, we keep the belief that we can change their minds about the things that they are wrong about. ◊ David Icke can be seen at Wembley Arena, on October 27th, 2012, for £35-£55.

art: alexandra stjepovic

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HACKER SPACE words and photos: seb tonkin

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Hackerspace, in Adelaide, means cannons, robots, cosmic rays, and video games that just won’t stop electrocuting you. My interest in Hackerspace Adelaide was sparked when the hipster choir I’m a member of had a winter-themed concert and a guy named Pix brought a makeshift air cannon to the concert and fired it during a song, producing a shower of fake snow and an unexpectedly loud bang. ‘Hackerspace,’ he’d said, with a shrug. ‘Hackerspaces’ (like ‘hipsters’, ‘lolcats’, or ‘synergy’) almost definitely existed before we came up with a word for them. They share little with the Hollywood idea of ‘hacking’ as cyber-crime – boiled down, a hackerspace is just a place where people get together and work on (usually technical) projects for personal interest. However, that pretty self-evident ‘idea’ has blossomed into an organised, worldwide movement. The ‘hacker hostels’ in San Francisco’s Silicon Valley recently made the front page of the New York Times, and other major hackerspaces, like

NYCResistor, regularly get world-wide attention. Pix, full name Steven Pickles, describes himself as the ‘chief invigorator’ of Hackerspace Adelaide. He’s worked for visual effects studio Rising Sun, and first discovered the hackerspace model when he was living in Berlin. Recently incorporated (‘it’s easier to deal with other organisations since we are a “thing” now,’ says Pix), Hackerspace Adelaide is still searching for funding and, despite its name, a permanent space. For now, they (a motley collection of programmers and engineers and hobbyists and clever types) meet every second Wednesday and Saturday in the basement of the Format gallery/venue/zineshop/‘space’ on Peel St. When I visited, there were maybe a dozen people gathered around long wooden tables, surrounded by nests of wires and whirring devices, and loomed over by papier-maché sculptures and

neon dogs. Temporary as it is, the location seems fitting – Format is a hotbed of people Doing Things Themselves for not much money, which is something Pix knows a little bit about from his time working with artists in Europe. If there’s something that defines the hackerspace ethos, it’s maybe that initiative – seeing a problem, a gap, or an idea, and solving, filling, or realising it with the resources that you have, together.

Lighting Up In terms of what Hackerspace Adelaide actually does, a case study may prove instructive. You probably know the Rundle Lantern, if not by name – it’s that huge array of light-up panels above Hungry Jack’s. Hackerspace Adelaide heard from artists who had attempted to submit animations and interactive projects for the Rundle Lantern but had hit institutional roadblocks. The question, for

Hackerspace, was obvious – ‘how about we just make our own?’ The miniature Peel St lantern was born – a grid of coloured lights to hang in one of the large upstairs windows, that anyone could use to display artwork or projects. The lantern seemed like an ideal PAGE group project – with design, 20 programming, and soldering to be (off-campus) done. So much soldering – ‘12 hour sessions of people intoxicating themselves on solder fumes’ – that the group at times had difficulty breathing in the basement. ‘The circuit boards were fabbed in my backyard in something that looked like an episode of Breaking Bad,’ Pix says, ‘and for that reason, they didn’t work very well.’ Jerryrigged boards meant the lantern was flickering, and parts were inexplicably dying. ‘Basically,’ Pix says, ‘it was falling apart faster than we could repair it.’ As the weeks went on, the struggle became disheartening. ‘There were two options,’ says Pix. ‘Burn it, in a ceremony, using fire, or

get it working. We were going to douse it in petrol and randomly stroke it with the contacts from a car battery – which would light it up first electrically, and then inevitably in an incendiary kind of way.’ Fortunately for Format’s insurance premiums, the lantern made it to a precarious state of functionality for exactly one night, and the ritual sacrifice was called off. A sturdier version, with factory-made circuitry, is currently progressing slowly.

The Projects On any given night though, people tend to help each other out with smaller individual projects. I make the rounds and check out the attendees. One, an Adelaide uni student named Mark Jessop, is working on RF transmitters for the balloons he helps send into near space (above airplanes, but below satellites). Another, Simon Loffler, is working on a hexapod – a miniature six-legged robot – that

The infamous Peel St Lantern.

was 3D-printable (more on that later). ‘There are a few six-legged robot designs online,’ he says, with an absurd nonchalance, like it’s no big deal. Robert Hart (of e-waste disposal company Aspitech) has brought in something he prepared earlier – a two-layer array of Geiger tubes and electronics that detects cosmic rays. Basically, subatomic particles from outer space, that have travelled unthinkable distances at unthinkable speeds, just happen to intersect with Robert’s machine in the Format basement, and light up a little panel for a split-second. While the device itself is simple, and superficially unremarkable-looking, what it does is awe-inspiring. Collaboration runs deeper and wider than simply helping each other out at meetings though. ‘The most common dismissal you hear at an art festival,’ Pix says, ‘is “oh yeah, I’ve seen this done before.” When you’re doing that

Robert’s cosmic ray detector.

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3D printer 3D printing.

stuff, you’re competing for novelty, in a way, against all of the people on the internet in the entire world.’ In contrast, Hackerspace is built on reappropriation and development. ‘Cover versions’, as Pix calls them, are common. One of their current projects falls into this category – a PAGE computer-controlled whiteboard 22 marker inspired by a spray-can (off-campus) built by the Graffiti Research Lab in Brooklyn.

by size and the amount of printing filament (similar to the plastic sticks that hot glue guns use) you’ve got on hand. ‘It’s the very beginnings of matter transfer,’ says Pix. ‘You can design something here, and it can be on the other side of the planet in however long it takes to print.’ It’s not hard to imagine this becoming really disruptive technology – imagine a world in which you could pirate physical objects, as well as music and movies.

both of them, almost continuously. The Hackerspace wiki report puts it kind of matter-of-factly: ‘In some cases it was impossible for the player to use their fingers to press the button due to the zapping; the player could only bash the buttons with their fist.’ Live and learn, I guess, but sometimes the Hackerspace guys do seem a lot like mad scientists.

They seem to exist somewhere There’s also a strong open between a DIY punk collective source culture running through the What’s really cool about and a room of open source Adelaide Hackerspace – supporting RepRap, though, is just how it programmers. The things they the use of software that is free and intends to spread 3D printing. make are sometimes clunkier, modifiable, created and improved RepRap is this: an open-source and less functional. Sometimes by people all over the world. ‘If 3D printer design that’s mostly purpose doesn’t come into the something’s open-source,’ Pix says, comprised of parts that you can equation until after the technical ‘it means you can get in and play print on a 3D printer. Think work is done. But the value is in the with it yourself, make it your own about that for a second. With one process, as well as the product. Pix thing.’ He admits that sometimes printer, you can build another. goes back to the choir where we the programs are clunkier and Because it’s open-source, you can met – ‘Choir has a built-in social less functional (particularly in redesign it – improve it. Pix puts dynamic, like a lot of activities, comparison to some of the software it well: ‘Everyone who’s got one because it’s inherently a group thing. the hackerspacers With hacking use in their dayand electronics in Hackerspace is a way of shoehorning social jobs), ‘but there’s general, it’s so easy something nice dynamic into something that doesn’t necessarily need to just read what about it. It gives have to read it. But once you do that, the scope just increases. It you everything a warm on the internet fuzzy glow when in your room. motivates you; you work in collaboration.’ it’s an open-source Hackerspace is a project.’ way of shoehorning can potentially prototype the social dynamic into something New Print next version of it.’ Hackerspace that doesn’t necessarily need it. But Adelaide’s RepRap is right now once you do that, the scope just Open source also comes into being used to print out a slightly increases. It motivates you; you what Pix seems most excited about newer revision of itself, as well work in collaboration.’ tonight – Hackerspace Adelaide’s as miscellaneous trinkets (like 3D printer. You might have heard Collaborative, sure, but it’s the geared heart on the first page of these – videos have been making not always clear that they have a of this article – which actually the rounds lately of people using plan, or even that they need one. turns), and maybe, one day, large, expensive machines to print They’re applying for grants now, Simon’s hexapod. out things like wrenches. Until but they’ve managed to exist recently, those large, expensive for a long time without. Pix told Shocking Stuff machines were the extent of it, me what he said recently when mostly used by large companies for Not all of Hackerspace’s applying for an entrepreneurial rapid prototyping of new products projects are so significant, or so master class: ‘My business is and designs. In 2005, that began to successful. Last year, they covered Hackerspace. We don’t make change, when Dr Adrian Bowyer, a project by Eddo Stern called the money; we make awesomeness.’ ◊ a mechanical engineering lecturer Tekken Torture Tournament – a at the University of Bath, began a Playstation 2 rigged up to deliver project called RepRap. The goal: painful electric shocks when the You can find out more about bring 3D printing to the masses. players of a fighting game took Hackerspace Adelaide at This is interesting, potentially damage. Unfortunately, as it hackerspace-adelaide.org. significant stuff. If you’ve got a 3D turned out, the system was flawed. au, and the broader movement printer, you can physically create any Instead of only shocking the player at hackerspaces.org. plastic object you want, limited only who’d been hit, the game shocked

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chloe mcgregor

HOWLING LIKE WOLVES words: ben nielsen photos: as captioned PAGE

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On Dit’s Ben Nielsen speaks with Zoe Barry, director of Restless Dance Theatre’s latest production, about ability, communication and organised chaos.

I like to think I’m reasonably okay at communication. I can have a conversation without committing social suicide, and I can easily perceive what others are trying to say. As advances in technology make it even easier to communicate, I wonder whether we have taken the ability to do so for granted. Communication doesn’t come quite so easily to some. Howling Like a Wolf is Restless Dance Theatre’s latest production, and is an exploration of non-verbal communication, expression and perception. As Restless Dance’s website puts it, ‘through researching the history of scientific exploration into non-verbal communication, from the classical philosophers, French neurologists of the mid 19th Century and Darwinism through to the pop psychologists of the 1960s, the dancers are exploring how this information is used to assist us in connecting with or manipulating others.’ The Adelaide-based company is a leader in its industry, working with young disabled and able-bodied people. A quote from the company’s website sums up their role simply: ‘a place where dance is used as a mode of expression which allows people to speak eloquently to everyone’. It has been a long journey from inception to the stage, but director Zoe Barry is confident that Howling Like a Wolf will ‘blow people’s minds’.

Barry is a celebrated cellist and composer, but this time she exercises her creativity as director. I had the opportunity to sit down with her to chat about the upcoming season, and her directorial debut. ‘I have been working on the show for two years now and it has been all encompassing. In the past I have always collaborated with the director, helping them and responding to their vision. There are generally very clear limitations imposed, but Howling Like a Wolf has come from the lack of imposed limitations.’ The show was created very organically, through discussion and personal experience. The performers and collaborators contributed equally to the project, and Barry channelled their efforts into the homogenous final piece. The eighteen-member cast was chosen over a two-year period, and are members of the Restless Youth Ensemble, and other South Australian disability companies No Strings Attached, Tutti and Company@. The personal contributions and experiences of the performers played a huge role in the show. Barry explains that many of the performers have struggled with social interaction, and constantly face difficulties and prejudices in how others perceive them, ‘leading to a greater level of analysis and insight’

of the issue. The title itself came about from an exercise Barry ran with the performers one day. Company@ performer Eleni Androutsis was asked to express the emotion of love. Eleni struck a pose of a wolf howling, because, she said, she had once seen a Valentine’s Day card with an image of two wolves howling at the moon. It’s a good example of how non-verbal communication truly is ‘organised chaos we take for granted’. The strongest inspiration for the show was the photographic work of Nineteenth Century French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne. Duchenne was a pioneer of electrophysiology, using electrodes to manipulate the facial expressions of his patients. The performers responded strongly to the confronting but beautiful imagery, which provided a ‘dark undertone’ to the production. Howling Like a Wolf has been a truly collaborative effort, the performers creating a vocabulary of movement from which final sequences were crafted. The intense, heightened world of social interaction and non-verbal communication has been assisted by Adelaide designer Geoff Cobham (of Barrio fame) and a score written by Jed Palmer, inspired by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne used electrodes to manipulate the facial expressions of his patients. The performers responded beautifully to his workâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; PAGE

Photo: Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne

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‘HOWLING LIKE A WOLF is a good example of how non-verbal communication truly is organised chaos we take for granted... it’s proof that the disability arts sector is alive and thriving’ PAGE

Photo: Sam Oster

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It’s not something that is heavily publicised, but Restless Dance Theatre is proof that the disability arts sector is alive and thriving. Zoe Barry has spent many years contributing to the industry, and can testify as much.

works I have seen have all involved performers with disabilities – Restless Dance Theatre, Geelongbased Back To Back Theatre, DV8 (London) and Ballet C de la B (Belgium). It’s simple; the work is just more interesting.’

‘I am passionate about great theatre and dance, and the best

Theatre is making a great contribution to the elimination of

negative stereotypes surrounding disability. A show of such raw, humanistic character confirms that everyone is capable of full participation in everyday life. Stereotypes spawn from regarding a group as ‘the other’, but in fact no-one is the same, each possessing varied qualities, skills and capabilities.

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Restless Dance Theatre is a company that celebrates differences, allowing young people with a disability to create beautiful, thought-provoking performances and to access training and mentoring. Longstanding member Rachel High says Restless just ‘brings out what’s inside, what truly makes you feel whole’.

From the previews I’ve seen of Howling Like a Wolf, I would say it is definitely worth going to see. There is something profoundly fascinating about the company’s portrayal of reading, analysing and misinterpreting human expression. It is theatre like nothing I have witnessed before. ◊

Howling Like A Wolf is no longer showing, but check out Restless Dance Theatre’s website for more information about their performance ethic and upcoming shows: www.restlessdance.org

PUTIN VS. PUSSY PAGE

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words: oshadha aluthwala art: lou vojvodic February eleventh, 2012. It’s a crisp, cold morning in Moscow, Russia. The sky is overcast, and the streets surrounding the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, a large white building with golden domed turrets, are almost deserted. In the late afternoon, five women in brightly coloured leggings, dresses, and balaclavas enter the cathedral. They reach the altar, cross themselves, and begin to perform a musical number entitled ‘Virgin Mary, Put Putin Away’. They sing about how they believe God is shit; that Mary, mother of God, should become a feminist and send Putin away; and how they believe the Orthodox Church of Moscow is corrupt in supporting such a ruler. They also sing of recent anti-gay legislation and the sexism that is still prevalent in their country. Their performance is loud and bold. Mid-performance, church security officials physically escort them out of the building, while a nun dressed in green and white attempts to prevent filming and photography. Churchgoers observe the procession in shock, unsure what to make of the unfolding events. Eleven days later, after a video of the proceedings is uploaded online, three of the group members are arrested and accused of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. There is a trial in late July, where these women are sentenced to two years in prison for their actions.

Who are Pussy Riot? These women are Pussy Riot, a Russian anonymous feminist punk band. Formed in Moscow in 2011, the group’s identity is shrouded in mystery. Using

pseudonyms and never showing their faces, these women perform songs about Russia in peculiar and unnerving ways. The church performance, though the most publicised of their performances, is not the first instance in which they have pushed the boundaries of propriety: Pussy Riot have once staged a performance on the roof of a luxury automobile store, with some members discharging fire extinguishers into the air, whilst others simulated masturbation in the store windows. They have approximately 30 members, of whom 15 sing, and others provide technical support. Now worldfamous for their actions against Putin, their identities are being investigated by Russian authorities, in the hopes that they may be prosecuted along with their bandmates.

Who is Putin? Vladimir Putin is one of the weirdest men in politics. He was once a member of the KGB (one of the most feared and hated espionage organisations in the world). He insists on maintaining a ‘macho’ image in the public eye: flying military jets, tranquilizing tigers, and taking dangerous treks through the wilderness, amongst other things. Hilary Clinton once called him soulless, to which he famously responded with ‘a head of state should at least have a head’, and claimed that international relations should be built not with emotion, but on the basis of the fundamental interests of those states involved. Some people love him because he brought stability back to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union; wages tripled,

unemployment rates and poverty halved, the Russian economy grew, and his policy regarding energy has made Russia somewhat of an energy superpower. He has been attributed to having ‘pulled Russia out of chaos’ by former Soviet leader Michael Gorbichev, and polls have shown that he has never been below 65% in popularity levels during his presidency. Some people hate him because he takes a lot of power into his own hands. In 2000, he issued a decree that stated that the seven federal districts (consisting of the 89 federal subjects of Russia) were to be overseen by representatives chosen by himself to support national governmental proceedings. The circumstances behind his return to presidency were clearly predetermined by former president Mendelev and himself (they switched roles, so that Putin could have another term as president), and his system of government is very centrally orientated, acting as a ‘sovereign democracy’ (an oxymoron, really), negatively impacting on international relations. Some of his politics are deemed to be homophobic (such as the blanket ban on ‘gay propaganda’) and sexist (regarding his ideas on abortions). Traditional Russian religions other than Christianity have been somewhat ignored; the religion that Putin himself follows is given preference to be taught in schools. This is perhaps why his current assumption of presidency had the support of the Russian Orthodox Church, against which the members of Pussy Riot were arrested for protesting.

The Reaction:

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Though the Russian reaction to the arrest and trial of the three women, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevitch, was not particularly strong (with 44 per cent of Russians believing in the trial and its fairness, and 17 per cent of Russians opposed to it), international outrage has been expressed across many different demographics. Feminists around the world are outraged at the treatment of these women; Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill fame has stated, ‘as a feminist artist, how could you not feel anger? When their rights are taken away, all of our rights are taken away.’ International personalities such as Stephen Fry, Madonna, Yoko Ono and Sting, among others, have expressed their discontent, particularly with the disproportionate length of their pre-trial period and sentence when compared to the ‘crime’ committed. Amnesty International has claimed that their treatment is a ‘bitter blow for freedom of expression’, and has deemed them prisoners of conscience. A protest was held outside the courthouse where the Pussy Riot members were sentenced, where one supporter was taken and beaten by the police. ‘Copycat’ Pussy Riot groups have formed around the world, with a German

group being faced with a 3-year prison sentence for their actions in support of the original group. One Russian artist has sewn his lips together in protest of the verdict. Some responses have been less supportive; a Serbian group is suing Pussy Riot for emotional disturbance, and the Russian Orthodox Church, though claiming to have forgiven the women for their actions, support their current treatment and the sentence for their ‘sacrilegious’ actions.

What’s weird about this? Aside from what Putin seeks to gain by jailing these women, the Church and their own personal vendetta, and the issues that people have with feministic injustice, what it comes down to is this: People were arrested merely for being suspected of being involved in the peaceful protest that happened at the cathedral (the fact that they were is irrelevant). They were held in custody for a very lengthy pre-trial period, and sentenced to two years of jail for something that has nothing to do with religious hatred (the women themselves have issued an apology to anyone whom they had offended with their words about Christianity, and maintain

that their point was to draw attention to Putin’s politics and his connection to the Church). One of them nearly fainted from hunger because the prison that they were being held in did not serve vegan food. Two of the women were kept away from their young children for an unnecessary period of time. They were then sentenced to two years in prison just for being ‘offensive’. It is quite clear to everyone involved that this verdict was political, and that the ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred’ claim was merely a ruse to suppress those who express opinions so wildly different from those of the government in power. No matter their motives, no matter what they said, these women have experienced an injustice. The Russian government has exposed their defects to the entire world, and one can only hope that the worldwide reaction to their treatment of Pussy Riot will result in these defects being mended. ◊

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ON FINDING

A PLACE IN THE

UNIVERSE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO

LOOSE MY CABOOSE

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words: stella crawford photos: sam young If you could fashion a world out of nothing but dust and the labour of a few fairly-compensated men and women, what would you build? What space would you make?

Worlds of Our Own It’s like this: for the greater proportion of each of our days, we sit and stand and study in worlds that are not ours. There’s no room to be choosy. Around the Uni, competition for something as simple as a table can be tough. Sure, there’s the common room, in which you might find someone you know, or that corner of the Hub you check past on your breaks. Those are small places that you’ve carved out for yourself. As students, though, making conscious choices about space is a rare thing. One of the few we actually get to make is where we go for coffee. More so than lunch-eries or food courts, cafés live and die by their space. Cafés are the places you go, not because they’re functional or particularly close by, or because their cappuccinos are unrecognisably superior to your standard fare. No, you go there because you like the space. I can still remember arguing with friends over the definition

of ‘power’ once1. I’ve since learnt not to argue definitions with Arts students, but bear with me. Back then, I really thought ‘power is space’ was a definition it was possible to convince them to buy into. It wasn’t. But you know, shoddy definition or not, I still think that power is space (or at least, fundamentally connected to it). Power is having space to talk, to sleep, to piss in private. Space in which to keep warm. It’s possible, though (it has been said before), that power is just money. Coffee shops start up all the time. Mostly, they go bust. Each of them, though, represents a hilariously futile attempt to control our surroundings. Followed by, of course, the depressing realisation that what actually changes our environment is money. But whatever power is or isn’t, it’s strange that small decisions made daily about coffee can collectively create what we might call our community. The few cafés that survive are all incredibly exciting. Why? Because even the dreariest of them represent a place that a lot of people are willing to go to, daily. That people are willing to financially support, 1. Over a cappuccino made by a good barista, who, so far as we could tell, worked Tues/Thurs.

simply to ensure the continuance of that space. So what decides which of them survive? Our recommendations, of course!

The Loose Caboose We say things like this: there’s a café I like, it’s just opened in the Bowden Train Station building. It’s called the Loose Caboose. It’s in a heritage listed building, and it’s quite beautiful. It was a large building originally, and they’ve built more onto it. There’s an admittedly weird junction between the concrete addition and the polished floors of the old segment but it seems to work (in a Grand Designs sort of way). The double-breasted window panels of the old part open on to the station platform itself, and heavy wooden tables draw your eye inside, into the relative darkness. The project is about invigorating an old space, and making our public transport system an attraction in itself. Compare this with previous attempts to revitalise train stations: they built a little convenience store at Woodville Train Station a few years back, and it remained open for all of three months. If a project like this is a success when it engages

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community, then Loose Caboose is a winner. Will Bowden Train Station suddenly be the place to be? Possibly.

Space Commodity Actually, it’s almost certain to be: because there’s that interesting fad about new cafés and restaurants right now. You’ve probably read some of those articles around on the internet. They’re always about the newest place, just discovered, slightly off the beaten track. The Loose Caboose is all of those things, and it’ll get its share of the press. It’ll do roaring trade for a while. So what do I want to say about this coffee-shop that hasn’t already been said? I don’t want to just recommend this particular one to you; despite the nice brew and the very ‘vintage’ location, it’s just one more space. It took a lot of money to build, and if it succeeds, it will

be at the cost of some other little coffee shop somewhere, hidden in some less desirable location with a less desirable space. Is this a good thing? The little just-gone-bust shop was almost certainly contributing less to our collective developedworld than this new place. Perhaps someone will build something nicer in that now-empty husk and that will force something else ‘out of business’ and so on and so forth until the what we have is some kind of coffee-topia. Or perhaps what we actually have is a cycle of rise and fall of shops, and all we’re doing with this space-finding and new-space fixation is ensuring the short term nature of all of these projects; speeding the doom of the places we claim to love?

Loyalty Rules To put it simply, is it good or bad that we’re all willing to be running round town, feeding money into as many new projects as we can,

but we’re not cool to go back week after week so those people actually survive? It’s like music: anything that hits the peak of the popularity curve will inevitably decline faster and further than those that never quite made it. So if we really care about our spaces, perhaps we’d do better to be loyal to one, rather than periodically dedicated to the newest, prettiest space of them all. Imagine this: it’s Saturday brunch-time, and you’ve arranged to meet an old (we’re talking highschool-era here) friend in a little caff. You sit at the table that, after a while2, you’ve come to habitually occupy. Amongst the differences swollen ever-larger between you, this has become the thing you share. A great café is more than a neutral space, or a nice space with good coffee. But it grows into that slowly, and you’ve got to give it time. ◊ 2. You’ve been here before, eaten through half the menu, you know the drill.

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DON’T BE A GIG JERK words: amy sincock art: rohan cheong PAGE

I love live music. I love excitement when a tour is announced, learning the support act’s music, the anticipation on the day and most of all, the gig itself. Everyone is there for the music and maybe a few beers, and the atmosphere is always buzzing. Then the main band starts and you get lost in talented musicians recreating your favourite songs on stage for you. It’s a beautiful thing.

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What I don’t love about gigs are the jerks that are invariably are attracted by all the joy and beer. After watching the brilliant Snakadaktal at the Gov recently, I thought that some

people might not realise that they are Gig Jerks. Maybe these poor souls are just blissfully unaware of concert etiquette. ‘Concettiquette’, if you will. So in the interest of saving them from themselves and my own passive-aggressive glares, I have come up with an arguably fool-proof list of ways to avoid being a Gig Jerk.

they were always going to be first. If you’ve already waited months to see your favourite bands, you can wait a few more hours. Stop yelling at them to hurry up. It makes the rest of us feel awkward, especially when they start to notice you. Politely clap when it’s required, even if they are hopeless.

Supporting Act

Drinking Buddies

First of all, the supporting artists. These guys are playing to a crowd that is going to probably be much bigger than what they’re used to. Give them a go! You might have got to the gig super early to run to the front and gather that barrier position, but

Having a cheeky drink at a gig is one of the greatest mid-week sessions you can have. But the Gig Jerk will take this to new levels. Getting smashed at a gig is your choice, and if you want to pay $50 for a ticket

and not remember anything, then power to you. That makes you a bit confused and a possible drink ticket in my eyes, but not a Gig Jerk. What makes you a jerk is when you start to impact on other people’s enjoyment with your antics. Your mates might find it hilarious that you’ve climbed up on someone else’s shoulders and are hollering the lyrics with the power and dedication of a foghorn, but the person you toppled down on doesn’t. The people dodging your flailing limbs don’t. The person whose back is now covered in your beer really doesn’t. Maybe just keep those hilarious moves for your incredibly cool piss-up house parties.

Not the Time to Chat The Gig Jerk is a very social person. He or she has many friends and they all like to go to gigs together. D’aww. What makes them different to other gig-goers, though, is that they have difficulty judging appropriate times to catch up on the goss. Times that are appropriate for chatting: on the way to the gig,

during the breaks between songs, at the back or in the beer garden when bands are playing. Times that are inappropriate for chatting: when the band is talking to the audience, quiet songs, when your friend rocks up right in the middle of the song. Seriously, stop. Not only do I not care about your trifling affairs, but you’re killing the atmosphere and it is more than embarrassing when the band has to actually stop and ask people to quieten down.

Stop These As Well, Plz There are only a few more little things that would make every gig experience better for everyone, so if we could all agree to avoid these behaviours, it would be lovely. Don’t spend the whole gig taking pictures on your phone, or waving it like a lighter. Apart from the fact that you won’t be able to tell which blur is which band a day later and any recording will just be crashes and buzzing, no-one behind you paid money for a ticket to watch the show

through your tiny screen. We can get that experience via the wonder of Youtube. Don’t wait for the first song to start before pushing your way to the front. And in the same way, if you’re on the barrier, don’t think you can just leave for a drink and come back. You’re in it for the long haul if you want that spot to remain yours. Don’t wait for the one song that’s been popular on the radio lately, run to the mosh, go crazy, and then head home. Rude. And there we are. If I’m honest, it’s hard to avoid all of these, all the time. I’m sure there are more, and I’m probably guilty of many. But please, if you’re going to a gig soon, enjoy the shit out of it without ruining someone else’s buzz. Who knows, you might even get a butt graze of appreciation. ◊

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(off-campus)

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HOW TO: NOT GET A SECOND DATE

words: genevieve novak art: madeleine karutz

(off-campus)

You’re on a first date. Your hair is co-operating. The wine list is short enough that you can order the cheapest glass of champagne and call it coincidence. He’s pretty funny, but not so funny that you don’t look funnier than him, which would take a serious toll on your confidence. He hasn’t yelled at the waitress or made a fart joke. It’s going well. You might start looking for a wedding dress as soon as next week. But then it crumbles. He lets slip that he prefers apple pie to banoffee, or he reveals that he’s actually an engineer. He cares for neither N*Sync’s reunion or who won MasterChef. It hits you like a bad smell in a windowless room: you have no future with this man. But your mother raised you better than to storm out of there, and there’s crème brûlée on the menu. Plus, if you have any mutual friends and word gets out that you threw your wine in his face for not recognising a Mean Girls quote, you’re going to be painted as some kind of crazed bitch. You need my help. 1. Get into an educated debate over Ravenclaw vs Slytherin. If he

tries to make a case for Hufflepuff, screw politeness and just leave. 2. Express your concern for Katie Holmes’ safety now that she has publicly shamed both Tom Cruise and Scientology. No but seriously, we should all talk about this. 3. Stop mid-make out to correct his kissing technique. ‘More tongue! More tongue! More tongue! WETTER.’ 4. Ask personal questions. ‘When was the last time you got tested? Have you ever had an STD? Which one? How did you get it? When did you get it? Why weren’t you wearing a condom? Was it itchy? Why does Vanessa from Clinic 275 have such cold hands?’ 5. Let him know early on that you can’t date someone whose politics oppose your own. So, Team Edward or Team Jacob? 6. Excuse yourself to the bathroom, and on the way there, text him saying ‘miss you already!’ Come back and be graphic. 7. Upfront, explain that you are looking for a friend with benefits. Wait, wait, listen: you may think this

will encourage him to see you as this cool, unique, casual girl who he will definitely fall in love with, but you are not Natalie Portman (unless you are. Hi Natalie, thanks for reading!), and it will probably just make him uncomfortable. You won’t get a second date, but you will probably be expected to put out. 8. Correct his grammar. Whether or not it was wrong in the first place is irrelevant. 9. Talk about your period in detail. This is particularly effective if you’re not opposed to sharing food and you want to steal something off his plate. The more explicit you are, the less hungry he’ll be. 10. Fish for compliments. If he bites and showers you with them, reconsider your never-wantto-see-him-again policy. Never underestimate someone who fawns over you. Voila! If you’ve tried all of these suggestions and you still get a cutesy text from him two days later, you may have to consider the fact that you are a goddess who is impossible to dislike. If that’s the case, I hate you and let’s never be friends. ◊

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(off-campus)

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(columns)

THIS MUCH STRESS MICHELLE BAGSTER gets into the zone. My year was just given a 1000 word essay on professional and personal development. One of the topics of choice was ‘Causes and consequences of stress, and methods for reducing that stress.’ I won’t lie, I am supremely tempted to hand in a one-sentence report stating ‘students should write fewer 1000 word essays in order to be less stressed.’ But I get that stress is a big deal, so I gave it a little thought, especially my ‘methods for reducing that stress.’ See, I’m not one of those people who glides over their problems like some kind of elegant swan glides over a glassy river at sunset, or whatever a swan glides over. I’m more like a cat that accidentally falls into a swimming pool and desperately tries to paddle back to the edge while her owner films her frantic struggle to put on YouTube later. I get cranky and snappy, and have been known to yell ‘Go away!’ and slam my bedroom door even when I’m the only one home. So it might not surprise you to learn that my coping strategies are pretty violent.

The Bamix This is the best kitchen appliance ever. It’s basically a sword with a pair of rotating blades at the end that can slowly gouge holes in whatever unfortunate victim you have before you. I’m rediscovering the delights of

hummus, banana smoothies, mashed potatoes… not because they’re my favourite foods in the world, just because I can grin gleefully whilst pulverising various fruits and vegetables. It’s incredibly hard to get angsty over 1000 word essays whilst reducing a small family of strawberries to a paste. For extra points, give them names.

The Punching Bag I desperately need my own one of these. I didn’t know I was the kind of person who particularly liked hitting things, until I was at a gym a little while ago and thought ‘well, I might as well try the punching bag.’ There was an aggressive Pink song on the radio, and as I threw the first few punches, I got into The Zone. I was probably doing it all wrong, but I had a rhythm going, and something about that sensation of landing a punch is incredibly satisfying. When I stopped for water, I realised I had been going for a whole hour, and I had no homicidal thoughts whatsoever. I figured this is so much better than my ordinary hill climb as exercise, because that tends to make me more stressed. Not only do I not punch anything, but my left shoe squeaks like one of those arthritic clockwork dog toys.

The Chewing Gum My jaw muscles are probably more toned than they need to be and I never get a complaint from the dentist, because every time I feel stressed I grab a stick of gum. It’s therapeutic -- like clenching your teeth, but repeatedly. My current indulgence is those ‘Dessert Delight’ flavours they sell at Blackeby’s off of Rundle. Sure they’re expensive, but I like to imagine that I’m slowly chewing up anything that’s bugging me, and it’s that much more pleasant when ‘what’s bugging me’ tastes like apple pie. So those are my coping strategies. I’m sure they don’t work for everyone. I call them fun; you might call them psychopathic. And if you’re my mum, you might call them ‘never tell people you do this.’ But when it comes to stress, it’s all about finding what works for you. Anyway, that’s almost 600 words. My essay is more than halfway there. I’m just not sure that I’ve met all the marking criteria yet. ◊

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MIDNIGHT MUSINGS BEING GREEN OSHADHA ALUTHWALA doesn’t look like a blobfish. I used to think I was decent-looking. You know: my face wasn’t oddly misshapen; my features were symmetrical; I didn’t look like a blobfish (Note: do not Google this while eating, well, anything). My looks weren’t of any real concern to me. There wasn’t anything about them that bothered me enough to make me feel like I had to change. At least, that was the case, until one of my good guy friends made a remark about how ‘being brown detracts points’. Of course, he did concede that this was just his personal preference. He was sure that there were people out there that found brown skin sexy, he just wasn’t one of them. When I pointed out that his remarks were mildly xenophobic, he just wrote them off as being his ‘type’. The more I tried to convince him otherwise, the more he insisted that ‘you can’t help whom you find beautiful’. For a while, he had me convinced. I’d walk around the city and every time I’d see myself in a mirror, I’d think, what was that brown stuff that was caking my face? Why was it there? I couldn’t see the good things anymore. No Angelina Jolie lips, no long eyelashes. Just, brown. I couldn’t see past it at all. I would have continued to think this way had I not witnessed a spectacular turn of events in my friend Patricia’s life. Patricia was a girl I’d known from high school. She was tall, thin, beautiful, and Caucasian. She was one of those girls that claimed that she would never date

anyone who was not white. I would always protest that that notion was racist, to which she would simply say that she ‘could befriend people from other ethnic backgrounds’ but that she ‘did not find other races attractive from a romantic perspective’. Interracial dating simply wasn’t done in her family. However, after a recent introduction to one of my tall, handsome, chivalrous Asian friends, she’s had a change of heart. It probably helps that he looks a bit like Takeshi Kaneshiro (Google him whenever you’d like). I couldn’t be more proud of her for letting go of her racist ideas. That’s what they were, racist. These ideas, passed down from generation to generation, are so deeply ingrained into society that they aren’t thought of as being so, but, racist they most certainly are. Beauty is a perception. Nobody is born with perceptions. Nobody is born with any idea of what they will be sexually attracted to. To be sure, modern psychological research has proven that personality is accounted for equally by genetic and environmental factors. However, beauty, at least in part, is still thought of as something that is learnt. Societal acceptance still plays a large role in accepting someone’s beauty. What your parents prefer will definitely affect what you prefer, looks wise. I haven’t given up hope entirely. There are people out there who believe that if a person is beautiful they are beautiful, regardless of their ethnicity. Patricia is proof that some inherent xenophobic ideas can be altered. My guy friend who initially made that statement has conceded that people around him heavily influence his ideas. He has also subsequently hit on one of my hot Sri Lankan friends. There’s hope for him yet, maybe. In an ideal world, love should not have anything to do with looks. However, it is important to note that finding someone attractive has a big part to play in relationships. However, allowing xenophobia to contribute to this is just plain stupid; it limits a person’s chances of finding love! There are amazing people out there that you could be losing out on, if you don’t look past your societal norms for attractiveness. For those people out there still trying to battle this romance racism, I will pass on the immortal words of someone very wise. ‘It ain’t easy being green,’ he said. Gotta love that Kermit. He knew what he was on about. ◊

(columns)

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STUFF YOU LIKE

(miscellany)

back left litz: stella crawford likes this. Given as it’s not possible to tacitly agree to skip past the bit where I try to recommend a blog for being really well written in words that are far less fluent and meaningful than the words of the blog itself, suffice to say this: Each of us, regardless of how well read and informed we ideally present ourselves as, engages with only a minute proportion of the content available on a daily basis. Most of you are, currently, missing out on a really good blog. Go read this blog: www.backleftlitz.tumblr.com

the james mccann orchestra demo: ben reichstein likes this. This is the best. I would pay real money for this and I rarely do that for music. James McCann is exactly like every other slacker-cum-‘creative’ in Adelaide superimposed on one another playing gigs, doing stand-up comedy, cranking out a street press (it’s Spur) and wearing filthy sweaters. He is also, apparently a recording genius. The three original compositions are surreal freak-folk vignettes, the best being ‘Easter’. The covers are fun synth-heavy sound collages that manage to mock their source material just enough while still making them sound great. James is either going to have an emotional breakdown because of his own esoteric, self-defeating aesthetic criteria or burn out and end up as a charming but incompetent bank teller. Either way, long after everyone who knew him is dead this won’t be remembered as a minor ‘local’ classic but it totally should be. Download it at www.soundcloud. com/james-mccann/sets/thejames-mccann-orchestra

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(miscellany)

hangovers: koby fittock likes this.

ifttt.com: galen cuthbertson likes this.

academic transcript fees: tom sheldrick likes these.

Sunday hangovers are the perfect excuse to take a day off from almost everything. The worse you feel, the better you know your night was, and (memory permitting) the better stories you have. It’s a celebration of your amazing weekend.

When I was little, I wanted to be a cyborg. I wanted to be a cyborg really badly. I was weird and weak and lonely, and I loved the idea that, one day, all my imperfections could just be engineered away. I didn’t have much in the way of athletic ability, but always I thought ‘when I’ve got penguins as butlers and I’m living on a platform in space, nobody will care about football’.

$10 for an official academic transcript is such GREAT value! When you consider that the University charges about $1000 per course for Australian citizens and $22k-$58k annually for International Students, you realise that it’s a steal!

Plus, hangovers make everything more challenging, therefore making it feel like you’ve achieved more. You had a cup of tea with your three best friends, maintained a conversation and didn’t vomit? Congratulations! You managed to do the grocery shopping without screaming at a loud child? Are you superman?!

But you know what? It turns out penguins shit explosively, and dry-cleaning miniature tuxedos is expensive. Also a lot of people really care about football. So I did away with childish things. Until IFTTT. IFTTT is short for ‘if this then that’. It’s a website designed to help you automate everything digital. And to me, it’s a graspable, relatable chance to automate my life. I can auto-text a friend when the Dow Jones drops and it’s raining in Paris (at the same time). I can auto-save Instagram favourites and auto-post my Youtube favourites to Tumblr. www.ifttt.com

Australian citizens also pay a compulsory $263 Student Services and Amenities Fee, so the University has really done us a favour by offering the CRAZY discount of four printouts for $20 and then $2 per transcript thereafter (in the same transaction). Surely they’re LOSING money every time they provide us with an official record of our results!

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(creative)

THE

CASE by michael thomas.

The overhead fan spun around in lazy circles, throwing dim shadows across the unlit room. A half empty glass of cheap scotch sat in front of me, and half a bottle sat just as comfortably inside of me. It was a quiet morning, with the exception of the traffic noise you grow immune to after spending too long near the bitumen artery of a big city.

And the bloke with the lawnmower. Fuck that guy. ‘Hey, have you finished that thermo assignment yet? Wait, are you drinking??’ My thoughts interrupted, I turned my head to the source of the noise. It belonged to a man, an empty promise over 6 foot, well built, and with an undefinable air of hostility about him. He had been coming around for a little over two years now, but I still couldn’t figure him out. What does he want? What makes him tick? I never trust people I can’t decipher. It was still a good question, but I wasn’t about to give away my hand that easily. I grunted ‘Mi Goreng’ to throw him off, and also as it was everything I had eaten the previous day. The man looked confused, and I could tell he wanted to ask more questions. One thing I did know about him though; he wasn’t dumb. He knew he’d get nothing more out of me. With an air of resignation he sighed and departed. The visits were getting more and more frequent, and I knew I’d have to solve this case before I myself wound up on the wrong side of 50. I dragged myself upright, and noticed that most of the remaining scotch had disappeared. Further inspection revealed my five dollar bottle of Shiraz was also empty. This mystery keeps throwing up new angles, and my head was starting to spin trying to keep them all on the same shape. I wasn’t getting any answers in the office, which inevitably resulted in the need to spread the wings and dig through the trash till I found another convoluted metaphor. I remembered back in the day when I used to leave my door unlocked when I went out. Those days were long gone now, and the trusting, optimistic young man also gone with them. Stopping only to grab my favourite coat and second favourite fedora, I firmly closed and locked the door behind me. Ever since the car-parking case a year or two back, I didn’t trust automobiles. Besides, you notice a lot more things on foot. News travels about as fast as water through the Torrens in this town (that is to say, pretty slow. Unless it has just rained, then it moves reasonably quickly and the metaphor breaks down a little), so I figured if I wanted answers the best place to go would be the source. I felt uneasy upon reaching a familiar bridge. The bridge itself is a mystery, nobody knows how it got there, and nobody cares. There’s a plaque at one end, claiming it was donated. Somewhere out there is a joker with a weird sense of humour. No-one just donates a bridge. However, the reason I always get uneasy crossing it isn’t its dubious origins, but the fact that it is as narrow as the law and as exposed as a broad down Hindley Street on a Saturday night. If someone

wanted to bump me off, this would be the perfect place to do it. I tried to raise myself to a higher state of alertness, but something was wrong. My vision was starting to get a bit blurry, and physics was misbehaving. Too late, I realised someone must have slipped me a Mickey Finn. Thinking back, it could only have been the man in my office from earlier. A distraction, a sleight of hand, and the result would be inevitable. Although how did he know I would drink it all? Wait, was that where the second half of it went? Fortunately, one doesn’t get as far into the game as I have without preparation, and I had been doggedly training myself to resist most forms of drugs over the years. I figured if I could quickly find a safe place to hide, I could rest until my body cleared the dope from my system, and I could start thinking properly again. I half ran, half crawled to some place calling itself a hub. By this point my mind was in shambles, if what I saw was anything to go on. Random shapes and colours assaulted my senses; some chairs appeared to be huge, yet still too small for their corresponding tables. It looked like coloured pathways lay on the ground, and my mind nearly shut itself down there and then from the distorted geometry. Through some incredible willpower I located a bean bag pile and passed out for eleven hours. Groggily, I awoke to a familiar sight. The man, who I’d creatively dubbed ‘Man’, was staring at me, a look of what appeared to be pity on his mug. ‘So, I guess you’re here to kill me, now that your drugs have made me defenceless’ I stated. ‘What? Drugs? Kill You? You drunk a bottle of scotch, a bottle of wine, and at least a dozen of my beers, then ran here! I’ve been trying to call you for almost half a day now.’ I was expecting him to say a lot of things, but not that. Also, I had forgotten about the beers. ‘Presumably you haven’t done the thermo refrigeration assignment then?’ Man continued. I’d had some cold cases in my day, but none that compared to the refrigeration one. I shook my head sadly. ‘Well I have, and if you promise to stop acting so weird I’ll let you see it.’ I decided to play along with whatever game he was working. After filling out some obligatory paperwork, I allowed myself to be led home. It seemed that whatever Man wanted, maybe knocking me off wasn’t it. Or perhaps he just didn’t want as many witnesses. I knew I’d have to keep an eye on him regardless, but for now I just wanted to lie down. ◊

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(creative)

RETROSPECTIVE

Election notices from Volume 32, Issue 8, 1964. We hope Mr. Mike South got elected, and Mr. C.J. Brooks got what was coming to him.

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From the sinninâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sixties.

(miscellany)

The sixties were an interesting time for On Dit - political, artistic, and often inexplicable. Only 32 years old, too. Here are some choice selections from 1964 and 1965.

We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know, either. From Volume 32, Issue 9, 1964.

On Dit drunkenly visited The Beatles on their Adelaide stop, in Volume 32, Issue 7, 1964.

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(miscellany)

Hard-hitting investigation in Volume 33, Issue 4, 1965.

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DIVERSIONS

(answers on page 5)

(miscellany)

CRYSTAL BOLLOCKS

with psychic psusan

Aries: You will start having premonitions about the past. Others may try to convince you that these are ‘memories’, but you know better.

Libra: Be prepared to hold your ground despite being clearly in the wrong when questioned on matters you know nothing about. Don’t forget to mention the boats.

Taurus: Seriously, watch out for Gotye. He is watching out for you.

Scorpio: You’re bald. Your friend isn’t. Make meth? I think so! Also you have advanced lung cancer.

Gemini: Be careful restoring renaissance frescoes this week. If in doubt, consult an expert or a book. Or just Google Jesus’ face. It’s pretty famous.

Sagittarius: ‘I’m risking everything to be with you,’ you whisper, as you click a dodgy download link for your favourite TV show.

Cancer: Fact: you eat 28 spiders in your lifetime. Always 28. If you are about to die and you have only eaten three, then 25 spiders arrive at once.

Capricorn: Imagine if Adele and Taylor Swift dated and then broke up. That album? Your next fortnight.

Leo: You start a band called 999 Megabytes. You don’t get a gig. Virgo: You’ll totally understand how sharks feel about Shark Week when a bunch of people you never speak to wish you Happy Birthday on Facebook.

Aquarius: Stop going to events listed as ‘pants optional’. I mean it. Pisces: Don’t let other people influence your future. That’s what a vague and arbitrary set of cosmic indicators is for.

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). Hint: CIA poison.

N A

R C

N C

I S

all of these words have been added to the oxford english dictionary. use the definition clues to find the words.

RIDICTIONARY CROSSWORD

Across 1. pl. n.: a person’s followers on the social networking site Twitter. (6) 4. v. [new sense]: dismiss or reject someone or something as unsatisfactory. (4) 6. n.: an event, typically lasting several days, in which a large number of people meet to engage in collaborative computer programming. (9) 7. n.: the third film, book, event, etc. in a series. (9) 11. n.: a person who hacks into a computer network in order to test or evaluate its security, rather than with malicious or criminal intent. (7, 6) 12. n.: another term for electric cigarette. (1, 9) 13. n.: a prearranged occasion on which an established couple, esp. one with children, go for a night out together. (4, 5) 14. n.: a number of people in an embrace, typically to provide support or express solidarity. (5, 3) 16. n.: (in online contexts) used as an acknowledgement that someone has brought a piece of information to the writer’s attention, or provided the inspiration for a piece of writing. (3, 3) 17. n.: something, such as a film, television programme or piece of music, that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard. (6, 8) 18. pl. n.: fun, laughter or amusement. (4) 21. n.: a psychological disorder characterised by the elevation or lowering of a person’s mood, such as depression or bipolar disorder. (4, 8) 23. exclamation: used to represent laughter,

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(miscellany)

15 16 17

21 22 23

26 27

31 32

esp. manic or cackling laughter such as that uttered by a villainous character in a cartoon. (9) 24. n.: a young woman regarded as independent and strong or aggressive, especially in her attitude to men or in her sexuality. (5) 28. n.: learning conducted via electronic media, typically online. (1, 8) 30. v.: send a private message or email to someone, typically another member of a social networking site. (5) 31. n.: a pig of a very small, docile, hairless variety, sometimes kept as a pet. (5, 3) 32. n. [new sense]: an obnoxious or contemptible person. Also douchey, adj. (6) 33. n.: a homosexual person’s ability to identify another homosexual by interpreting subtle signals conveyed by their appearance, interests, etc. (6) 34. adj.: ridiculous (abbrev.). (5) 35. n.: a person closely resembling a smaller or younger version of another. (4, 2) Down 2. n.: a person who contributes to the collaboratively written online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, esp. on a regular basis. (10) 4. n.: a face-to-face conversation held over the internet by means of webcams and dedicated software. (5, 4) 5. n.: in the fiction of J. K. Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers. Extended uses: a person who lacks particular skills, or who is regarded as inferior in some way. (6) 7. n. [new sense]: a key fact, point, or idea

to be remembered, typically one emerging from a discussion or meeting. (8) 8. n.: the practice of broadcasting a continuous live flow of video material on the internet which documents one’s day-today activities. (11) 9. n.: a cocktail made with gin (or vodka), dry vermouth, and a small amount of olive brine, typically garnished with a green olive. (3, 7) 10. n.: a tax levied on residential properties worth more than a certain amount. (7, 3) 15. v.: spoil a photograph of a person or thing by suddenly appearing in the camera’s field of view as the picture is taken. (9) 19. n.: a small tuft of facial hair directly below a man’s lower lip. (4, 5) 20. n.: a process for making a physical object from a three-dimensional digital model, typically by laying down many successive thin layers of a material. (2, 8) 21. n.: the physical world, as opposed to virtual. (9) 22. v.: adorn the pubic area of a woman with crystals, glitter, or other decoration. (10) 25. v. [new sense, chiefly computing]: use of a product or service so as to test it before it is made available to customers. (3, 4) 26. adj. [new sense]: having well-defined or well-developed muscles, muscular. (6) 27. adj. [new sense]: very clever or ingenious. 29. n.: prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of appearance. (7)