On Dit Magazine: Volume 78, Issue 12

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STUDENT LIFE, OPIN LAIDE ION, P ADE OLI

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78

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CULTURE.

What do all these people have in common?

None of them submitted their course reviews to the SRC

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indigenous issues Taking AIME looking forward / looking back Higher, higher education anxieties the idiot box Television ain't what it used to be ending it

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Good death?

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culture Chillwave, mumblecore, socially-progressive theatre

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serious literature Memorable openers

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our columnists Procrasti Nation & juvenile mullets

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welcome to the future Say howdy to student media 2011

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With thanks to: Writers: Joel Dignam, Sam Deere, Dennis Coleman, Lavinia EmmettGrey, Michael Norris, Seb Tonkin, Walter Marsh, Noby Leong, Daniel Brookes, Anna Tallis, Lachlan Jardine, Maureen Robinson, Alexandra Easling, Elizabeth Flux, Alexander Gordon-Smith, James Gould, Mary Campbell, Lisa Catt, Angus Chisholm, John Eldridge, Richard Ensor, Dave Harden, Sarah Bown, Lachlan Jardine, Priscilla Chai, Emmanuel Njuguna, ‘Bobby’ Hai Yang, Jesse Jon Doyle, John Dexter, Juan Legaspi, Kikonde Mwatela, Kim Dowling, Anders Wotzke, George Ujvary, Melanie Smart, Paris Dean, Lewis Dowell, Tomas Macura, Ben Revi, Rory Kennett-Lister, Emma Marie Jones, Stamatina Hasiotis, Kate Olsson, Patrick McCabe, Christopher Arblaster, Hayden Tronnolone, Joel Philp, Kiara Emily Bacon, Margaret Lloyd, Jessica

Clements, Rebecca McEwen, Athena Taylor, Dylan Woolcock, Matthew Agius, Jonathan Brown, Gemma Parker, Jacquie Lee, Fletcher O’Leary, Dominic Mugavin, Brendan De Paor-Moore, Harry Laughland, Peach Howey-Lenixxh, Jiminy Krikkit, Sarah Borg, James McCann, Timothy McCarthy, Nicholas Miller, Holly Ritson, Nick Schaedel, Tristan Adams, Georgia Goldsworthy, Ben Reichstein, Louis Rankin, Fruzsi Kenez, Benjamin Madden, Gemma Beale, Sophie Miller.

Photographers: Vera Ada, Christopher Arblaster, Mathew McDermott, Steph Lyall, Haley Kohn, Robert Fletcher, Alexandra Baldock, Angus Chisholm, Hugh Langlands-Bell, Will Ockenden, Jonathan Vdk, John Goodridge, Andre Castellucci, Craig Cullum, George Ujvary, Fruzsi

Kenez, Jesse Doyle, Luke Byrne, Emily-Jane Robinson, Jonathan W, Julius Ross, Jake Bellucci, Takver, Timothy McCarthy.

Illustrators: Nayana Rathmalgoda, Katie Barber, Margaret Lloyd, Daniel Brookes, Lillian Katsapis, Chloe Langford, Chris Harding, Chloe McGregor, Louise Vodic, Ian Houghton, Mike Kline, Yoda Navarrete, Riley O’Keeffe, Matthew Agius, Alexandra Weiland, Madeleine Karutz.

Copy Editing / Distribution / Other: Nicholas Perry, Thom Diment, Georgina Falster, Holly Ritson, Chris McMichael, Joel Irwin, Ryan Paine, Stefan Laszcuk, Jane Wallace.

major apologies if we have omitted anyone or misspelt names. We do our best.

Editors: Connor O'Brien, Myriam Robin, Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo Cover image: Madeleine Karutz Incidental photograph page 35: Vera Ada October 18, 2010.

Want to contribute... in 2011?

Email: ondit@adelaide.edu.au ondit.com.au facebook.com/onditmagazine Twitter: @OnDitMagazine

Editorial 1

Myriam

Today, On Dit competes with every magazine and newspaper online, perhaps to a greater degree than ever before. It was in this environment that Connor, Mateo and I decided sometime in 2009 that On Dit had to focus on original reporting and local issues to have any hope of remaining relevant.

Reporting isn’t something that comes naturally to most of us. ‘Journalism’ is something done by ‘journalists’, and many of us feel we can only write/rant about what we care about: art, music, television, politics. This is almost the opposite of reporting. Reporting is about finding the angle, the interesting story, in something you don’t know much about to begin with.

It’s about finding facts, interviewing, and distilling information. It’s about metaphor and narrative, but also about research.

Many of our writers this year submitted pieces only to be told by us to go out and talk to more people, or to spend more time establishing the facts. It must have annoyed the hell out of them, but often they were happier with the result in the end. Ultimately, reporting is about the reader, about giving them something

new and interesting to read, something they wouldn’t have read elsewhere. In a student publication, it’s what stops it becoming a collection of blog posts.

I hope On Dit continues to cover new, original and local issues, striving eternally for higher standards of journalism. As a writer, it can be very rewarding, and offers you the chance to try something you probably haven’t before. However, for our readers, and for On Dit’s future, it is absolutely essential. Through saying they’re writing for On Dit, writers can open doors and gain interviews that would otherwise be beyond them.

It is this that On Dit offers students. It gives student journalists a door, an opening to demand answers and shed light on issues. If we stop using this power, we might as well lose it.

We’ve had an amazing year. It’s been a lot of fun.

Once I get past that though, I suspect I’ll especially cherish the stories we’ve broken. On international student issues, the learning hub, and educational standards at our university. I’ll remember the oftignored issues we highlighted, such as homelessness, the work of local artistic entrepreneurs, and local politics. I’ll remember how these stories weren’t ones covered by The New Yorker, Frankie or The Australian, and how students at the University of Adelaide got to tell the world about them. I’ll think of that and smile. In a post-VSU world, for no pay, our writers this year spent time doing the hard yards. They wrote with new insight, they got the scoops. For that, they have my respect. I hope you’re as proud of them as I am.

Yours, Myriam

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Editorial 2

Mateo

It can be a disconcerting thought, but it proved a strong incentive to do as well as we could with our allotted 12 issues.

My favourite piece of flotsam we found when cleaning out the On Dit office last summer was a piece of card inscribed with the faded words, ‘On Dit: comes clean with its readers, admits faults and promises to try harder’. We wrote it on our whiteboard, and now I’m writing it here. Another slogan! Throughout our tenure, a mixture of our own complacency and failures to communicate properly has seen us alienate rather a few possible contributors. To all those who we have not owned up to, or overly censured, or poorly edited, we apologise.

The closest the three of us came to an articulated idea of what we wanted from On Dit in 2010 is that it should be broadly appealing and fun to read. Ideally, any person, student or not, should be able to pick up a copy of not just On Dit, but any magazine, and find something to relate to. We also weren’t interested in discriminating among contributors, so we cast our nets as wide as our puny arms could manage, and over a couple of exhausting days in early January staged meetings with applicants.

Though that was itself an immensely satisfying process, the steady stream of readers interested in contributing through the whole year has been especially gratifying. There are so many wildly talented people at the University of Adelaide eager to engage in social, cultural or political conversations that I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve sheepishly copy-edited the work of a writer far more capable than me. It’s a shame that we weren’t able to accommodate as many as we’d have liked. It’s hard to break out of self-administered comfort zones.

The sense of ownership over something as venerable as this magazine creates envy and ego. We’ve had to remind ourselves more than once that we don’t actually own On Dit, and that our particular ideas for content and layout are likely to be built on next year.

But I digress. I’ve made editing On Dit seem like a chore or a process of excruciating martyrdom. Actually, it was one of the great experiences of all our lives, and regardless of whether we ever edit again, it’s been a riot. Salut, On Dit. Read you next year.

All magazine editors should have the words ‘no pain, no gain’ branded into their skin. It is a tired aphorism of no real depth or intrinsic worth, but Lawdy, is it true. They have become the four words that Myriam, Connor and I live our editorial lives by.

Cheers, Mateo

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Editorial 3

Connor

Sometimes, when you’re toiling away on a magazine or a short story collection or that super incisive blog post that will finally get you the Mad Hitz You Deserve™, you can begin to feel a little lonely. In order to be creative, you need a wealth of ‘me time’ – Virginia Woolf’s whole ‘room of one’s own’ notion comes into play here – but being alone for too long can lead you to feel a kind of strange and painful distance between yourself and the world. It’s what leads artists to cut off their ears and writers to endlessly question their self-worth and/or worry about leaving the world floundering in the deepest depths of obscurity. Fun times, indeed.

The point I’m trying to make is that, all things considered, there’s nothing more important to creative practice than nourishing a good old sense of community. Over the course of the year, we’ve recognised that On Dit isn’t just a magazine, but a hub, putting writers in contact with artists, reporters in contact with editors, musos in contact with activists. Perhaps most importantly, On Dit works to put writers in touch with engaged readers who actually seem to give a shit. That’s brilliant.

A fortnight ago, I visited Newcastle for This is Not Art and the National Young Writers’ Festival.

Alongside national publications like Voiceworks and The Lifted Brow, the NYWF takes on the role of pulling Australia’s disparate young creative community together. It’s a skill-share and a piss-up, but it’s also an opportunity to think critically about how to push our culture further, and create a social climate conducive to new ways of thinking.

What really hit me at NYWF was just how strong the student media network is, how vital student mags are to the cultural life of the country. Year upon year, the same lazy, unimaginative gadflies criticise student papers as inherently left-wing, agenda-driven exercises. Truth is, student magazines provide some of the most exciting opportunities for interesting people to come together to create and explore, ask questions and propose solutions.

There’s been a lot of that happening this year, all over the country.

Next year, we’re passing the baton to a new bunch of editors for the 79th annual lap around the tracks.

That’s over three quarters of a century of bringing interesting people together, and providing an avenue for creativity and cultural criticism. On Dit is about sharing ideas and removing that sense of distance between creative thinkers and the world.

It’s about making people feel a lot less lonely slaving away in that room of their own, and about creating a network for people who give a shit.

Here’s to 2011. Go you good thing.

O'Brien out!

Connor

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There is a collusion out there that we buy into in the education space, that says, 'Hey, that kid’s not going to succeed, or get through year 12, or go to Uni, or behave themselves, because they are Indigenous.' We challenge that notion.

- Josh Manning Bancroft, 25-year-old CEO of the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience

A inside look at the Australian indigenous mentoring scheme

Words, Lisa Catt.

We all had one: the teacher who broke through the monotony of high school and the apathy of glazedover stares; who, during your years of hormone-raging and school-hating, general teenage angst, was the much needed source of inspiration that saw you stay beyond recess.

Mine was a man named Mr Thackeray. It was the year of 1967. I was a reckless schoolgirl who, despite my unruly antics and tough façade, was full of potential. Mr Thackeray saw this and believed in me - he everything changed… hang on. Wait. That’s To Sir with Love.

Anyway, not to let a great analogy slide, Mr Thackeray is the teacher we all look back upon as the ‘cool’ relatable one who motivated us and provided a refreshing break from all the other naggy, unenthused teachers whose names we, true to our wily rebellious ways, would bitterly scrawl on the toilet door after class.

Jack Manning Bancroft, the 25-year old CEO of the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME), has created the modern-day reproduction of this teacher. He has brought together a group of young and enthusiastic people who are committed to

making a difference to the lives of students in desperate need of inspiration, creating an initiative that has been working to close the education gap between non-indigenous and indigenous students.

Improving high school retention and completion rates lies at the core of ending the disparity. This was asserted in the report by The Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Australian Direction in Indigenous Education 20052008, which went on to explain: Most Indigenous students, regardless of their completion year, leave school poorly prepared relative to their non-Indigenous counterparts. These outcomes limit the post-school options and life choices of Indigenous students, perpetuating intergenerational cycles of social and economic disadvantage.

The AIME team recognises this and since 2005, has directly tackled such problem areas. Through partnering university students with indigenous high school students for weekly one-hour sessions that run over 17 weeks, AIME mentoring specifically focuses on engaging and inspiring indigenous students in order to improve the rates of Year 10 comple-

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tion, Year 12 completion, and university admission amongst mentees.

AIME draws on Dr Chris Sarra’s concept of 'smashing the collusion'. As Manning Bancroft explains, “There is a collusion out there that we buy into in the education space, that kids, teachers, parents, and the community buy into, that says, 'Hey, that kid’s not going to succeed, or get through year 12, or go to Uni, or behave themselves, because they are Indigenous.'”

“We challenge that notion, and challenge the kids because for us at AIME, Indigenous means success, and the kids we see everyday – the way they respond to this raising of the bar, and the way the mentors believe in them show us that this is possible.”

Education and the Indigenous population has forever been an area of great tribulation in Australia.

While the government has made efforts over recent years in improving the representation of Indigenous people, progress has been slow and challenging.

As pointed out by Manning Bancroft, however: “I think it really depends on what sort of education you are talking about. In terms of Indigenous people succeeding in Western Education systems, it's been a big challenge – but Aboriginal people are part of the oldest surviving culture in the world. The skill set it has taken to pass knowledge and messages on orally over 60,000 years to ensure survival is education at its finest.”

Enter AIME mentoring: with currently 1,000 indigenous students taking part in the AIME mentoring program – Manning Bancroft hopes to see this number rise to 6,000 by 2020 – the future is full of promise.

“We've found a way with AIME to help the kids walk in both worlds. They can be proud and encouraged to embrace their identity and culture, whilst also tackling the challenge of a mainstream education

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and using it improve their lives. The kids at AIME are made to feel empowered by education, not dictated to.”

Herein lies the key to their success; the unique peer-to-peer approach strives to create a learning environment that mentees find comfortable – epitomised by the mentors donning a hoodie when visiting students.

Lavinia Emmett-Grey, former Adelaide University Union (AUU) President and strong advocate of AIME, commented, “The reason why it is so successful is because it is student-run and student-initiated. It takes on an active approach… creating a social network.”

And the figures are undeniable. It was reported in The Australian last month that in 2009, ‘the AIME years 10 to 11 progression rate was 81 per cent, compared with the NSW rate for indigenous students of 59 per cent. The AIME Year 12 completion rate was an impressive 73 per cent.’

Success has equated to growth. Previously operating only within New South Wales, this year the AIME program expanded into Victoria and Queensland, with universities such as Monash University, Queensland University of Technology, RMIT University, and Southern Cross University all becoming partners of AIME. To speak of the program’s great success and positive reception is not to say its roll out has been easy.

As Manning Bancroft remarks: “I think if you are trying to change something, anything, it means that you are asking something or someone to move from their current state of being. In essence that's an incredibly challenging act. With this in mind, it's natural for people to be hesitant about AIME, especially when Indigenous people have been let down by so many programs in the past. We recognise this and take it in our stride. “ So, now that we are all aware of the AIME pro-

gram’s excellence, we reach the question that has been looming over this whole article – why has the University of Adelaide not jumped on board?

There was an attempt – and a considerable one at that, lasting through 2008 and 2009. Emmett-Grey, AUU President at the time, headed the bid; first contacting AIME in 2008 after hearing it was accepting expressions of interest. It was not until the following year – when AIME became serious about its national expansion – that Manning Bancroft met with the University of Adelaide Vice-Chancellor, James McWha, along with close to 20 other Vice-Chancellors from across the country.

But the bid failed. I bet you already know why.

When breaking down the finances, it costs AIME $2,000 to support an Indigenous student for a year and thus, it costs a University $200,000 per year to become a partner with AIME. “This means that AIME can engage at least 100 University mentors to work one on one with at least 100 local Indigenous high school students and improve their chances of getting through Year 10, Year 12 and University,” Manning Bancroft computes.

Martyn Evans, the director of Community Engagement at the University of Adelaide, reasons the “harsh reality” of the failed bid: “It would have been nice to do… the concept is worthwhile. But it was very expensive for what the University’s students would acquire from it. There are obviously priorities as to how we spend limited resources. The benefit to the University and its students would have been limited in proportion to cost we were looking at facing.”

But with 450 students expressing serious interest in the 100 available mentoring spaces at the University of Sydney this year, one has to wonder whether this cost-benefit analysis was carried out accurately.

Were intangibles, such as the sense of reward that comes with actively helping others in the community,

factored into the equation?

Furthermore, with indigenous students accounting for only 0.75% of the total student cohort the University of Adelaide (2.7% of Australia’s total population), and the University looking to expand its recruitment pool to include more lower SES students, one would think improving indigenous high school completion rates and thus, total admissions would be considered somewhat of a priority to the University.

To the University’s credit – and not to undermine the great work being carried out by Roger Thomas to increase indigenous enrolment through other means – there have been “alternative mentoring schemes” implemented since the AIME bid failed. For example, the ‘First Steps’ program, which involves prospective students attending lectures and tutorials to get a feel for it, being mentored along the way, this year only accepted Indigenous students. Furthermore, delineating the University’s recent work with the Refugee Association in setting up an on-campus homework club for secondary school students, and the prospect of broadening such initiatives into the Northern suburbs, Mr Evans believes this has “allowed us to get the same or similar benefit to students and community at a lower cost.”

While these schemes are undoubtedly valuable, questions are raised over whether they can be referred to as a true alternative to AIME, given how comprehensive and effective it has been in other states.

The University has not closed the book on AIME program – the standstill is simply a matter of cost management. So, given the significant access and equity grants now available under the Labor government, the nature of economies of scale, and Manning Bancroft’s open arms, AIME mentoring and the University of Adelaide may be able to pick up where they left off in the not too distant future. 

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Where to find your live music fix

Words, Seb Tonkin.

For all the talk of record stores in On Dit this year (for which I am definitely at least a teensy bit responsible), it’s perhaps easy to forget that the only real music is live music. Adelaide’s a small place, and we all get cranky sometimes when touring artists pass us by (you are tearing me apart, Liz Harris). But it’s a comfort to know that the musicians in our little town are just as dedicated as those anywhere else, and that on almost any weekend they’ll be hawking their creative wares. You won’t even need to venture outside the safe haven bounded by our cardinal terraces.

I don’t pretend to know about all the live music that happens each week. There is, however, a vibrant, fuzzily-defined and incestuous post-psych-folkrock-twee-gaze (let’s just say ‘indie rock’) scene which has provided me with near-weekly entertainment in my legal years. And with the summer holidays and the free time they offer fast approaching (along with the Coopers Alive local music series), I thought it was worth providing a bit of a guide to the venues where this music lives. Also, to how their respective toilets compare (Men’s rooms only – I’m not a weirdo).

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The Jade Monkey Quietly unassuming on Twin Street just off Rundle Mall, the Jade Monkey is owned and run by Zac Coligan of local band The Sea Thieves. It’s a lovely little bar: a homely world of curtained christmas lights and soft chairs and mysterious recesses in the ceiling. It really is one of the ‘nicest’ places to see local bands, as well as the occasional interstate tour. Good sound, welcoming crowds, and great atmosphere. The bathroom at the Jade Monkey is, as far as I know, the only place in Adelaide where you dry your hands on paper picnic napkins. Or attempt to, anyway. :( Jive Hindley Street’s Jive is perhaps best known these days for the club night ‘Gosh!’, but it also frequently hosts gigs that wrap up just before the clubbers pour in. Jive is on the larger side of CBD venues. Local bands might play their album launches here, but most of the focus goes to acts from further afield – from Cloud Control to Kaki King. Sound-wise, Jive’s PA is occasionally really quite loud. And while I steadfastly

believe that most of the time there is no such thing as ‘unnecessarily loud’, Megan Washington, it turns out, has a maximum acceptable volume. On the plus side, it means that you don’t need to feel guilty about hitting the bathroom during a set – the band will remain perfectly audible.

The Ed Castle Another place where decent gigs can be hidden, the Ed Castle on Currie Street is also popular for its nights of DJs and questionable pop-punk. A smaller venue than Jive, it usually caters to correspondingly smaller bands (though it’s still a frequent destination on national tours). I’ve seen the Ed Castle’s band room packed, and I’ve seen it host only a nervous gaggle of the band’s friends and family – which is nice too. If all else fails, you and your fellow music nerds can compete at naming the hundreds of musicians in the portraits which line the walls (keep an eye out for sole local reps Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire!). Bring a jacket though – I swear those toilets are actually refrigerated.

The Metro Slightly further from Adelaide’s almost-one-dimensional strip of nightlife, the Metro lies on Grote Street, approximately opposite the Central Market.

While mostly a pub, it has perhaps accidentally become one of the centres of a vibrant local scene.

In particular, the ‘No One Wants To Play With Me’ series has seen an awful lot of drunken camaraderie as members of Adelaide bands play solo, one after another, late into the night. Perhaps unusually for a venue of its size, the Metro has also seen some fantastic overseas bands like the Vivian Girls and Thee Oh Sees play gigs (both of which are among the most enjoyable concerts I’ve been to, period). But beware: when nature calls, the route to the bathrooms at the Metro is entirely unpredictable. Will you be able to walk straight in from the band room? Will you have to clamber over potted shrubbery that definitely wasn’t there before? Or, heaven forbid, will you have to walk all the way through the bar? You won’t know until you try.

The Grace Emily The Grace Emily Hotel, down the west end of Waymouth Street, also hosts small gigs by local artists and lesser-known touring acts. It distinguishes itself from some of the others through intimacy – a low stage, cosy layout, and homely decor combine to make it one of the more welcoming venues in Adelaide. This is a place where it’s entirely acceptable to sit down on the carpet in front of the stage, and where conversation with musicians just seems to happen. You’ll make friends. Cuddly Icelandic troll friends like Svavar Knútur. The toilets are under the stairs. Like Harry Potter, or something.

Format Oh Format, you so kick-ass. Tucked away on Peel St off Hindley, the Format space, by day, is a sweet zine shop, gallery, and newfangled record store (see issue 78.9). Sometimes, at night, it’s also one of the best live venues in town. Format’s basement regularly hosts lineups of some of the most interesting music in Adelaide. Since, unlike the venues above, Format’s not a commercial venture, some of these acts are a little more fringe – noise, drone, psychedelia – but you can also get your Adelaide ‘indie’ fix there too (as well as the mysterious, booty-shake-inducing DJ SEX PEST, if you’re lucky). Drinks are cheap, friends are free, and toilets are unisex. Don your skinniest jeans and boldly ‘go’ where both man and woman have ‘gone’ before.

In the end, I can’t help but echo the sentiment that Walter Marsh expressed way back in issue one. When bands as accomplished as Batrider, The Keepsakes, The Honey Pies, Box Elder and Steering By Stars (to name but a few) are playing in the CBD nearly every weekend, you owe it to yourself to check them out at least once. It’ll often be free, and will only very rarely cost you anything more than a tenner. Music fans: when your last exam finishes, fire up your Facebook, do a bit of searching, and then go out and see some freaking bands. 

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Higher education anxieties

Words, Ben Madden. Illustration, Alexandra Weiland.

During August of 2008, in the middle of my Honours course, I began the process of applying to various universities in the United Kingdom to do my PhD there. Last October, I commenced my doctorate at York with a partial tuition waver, generous living stipend and a job on the editorial team of an academic journal. Success, as measured by anyone’s standards.

I can imagine, though, how crushing it would be to fall short in this process. For the record, I was rejected by one University, and another at which I was offered a place was unable to offer funding. The sheer effort involved in piecing together an application, coupled with the strong chance that it will be unsuccessful, is enough to shake anyone’s karmic view of the universe.

Karma, perhaps, is the wrong concept to invoke here. Karma implies that we get what we deserve, and I defy anyone to even define “deserving” or “undeserving” in the context of academia today. Hard work is not solely a viable criterion – we all know savants who manage to breeze through university at the top of the class with a minimum of effort. That, to be honest, is the state that I aspire to, though it isn’t often something I achieve. On the other hand, should we consider the earnest strivers (with whom we’re all acquainted) more deserving? That doesn’t quite seem

just either. The process of applying to study overseas throws all of these questions into sharp relief; even more so in the absence of any clear idea of what kind of competition one faces. I find myself somewhere between these two extremes; talent has often enough compensated for my indolence, but I can’t help but wonder where that talent might lead if the indolence were eradicated.

Ambivalences of this kind have no place in any application for postgraduate study. Applications for funding are, on the whole, particularly brutal.

Academic merit on its own is never enough. Instead, funding bodies are in search of global future leaders.

Because, as we all know – and you must toe this line at any cost – the adventure of insight that is a University education is only worthwhile if it allows you to “contribute to humanity”, in a manner circumscribed by the left-liberal ideology that animates the admissions process, the funding bodies, and the institution as a whole. The document I ended up submitting was earnest, factual, and ultimately insufficient; it didn’t win me any funding. What is more, it seemed to systematically sidestep every aspect of my personality that makes me recognisable to myself.

Why should this matter? Well, I suspect that most of us who go on to achieve academic success of any

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Student life: a reflection

Words, Paris Dean.

kind are motivated by the same deep-seated quest for something resembling parental approval. This may seem like a sweeping conclusion to arrive at based on scant evidence, but it’s hardly a novel thought. I think this something common to all human accomplishments; they arise from a sense of psychological necessity. The greater the accomplishment, I imagine, the deeper the need that animates it.

If only our institutions of higher learning were prepared to do more than pay lip service to their commitment to self-expression and self-development, then the imbrications of personal history and ambition would not be such a taboo topic. And then, finally, we might move beyond the liberal fantasy that blind commitment to mankind should motivate all of our actions, and strip away much of the hypocrisy and self-promotion that mar academia today.

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I will soon be saying goodbye to the ivory towers, toffs and wonks of Adelaide University. Initially, the giant buildings, nonsensical layout and bizarre governance of our revered institution overwhelmed me. By around the middle of my time here – familiar with the floor plan and sitting on various University boards and committees – I had convinced myself that I understood its operations. I am very thankful for some of the experiences I have had, from my time as an Adelaide University Union Board Director, Student Representative Council President and my time in the student wing of the ALP. It is only on my way out however, that I realise I have no idea how it operates.

During the half a decade I have been at University, there have of course been some significant changes: - Recognising the failure of students to adequately provide food and beverage outlets, the University has graciously taken over the role of failing to provide adequate food and beverage outlets.

- The consultations for a-proposal-to-potentially-draft-a-report-into-the-heritage-implications-of- considering-the-demolition-of-UnionHall seem to be on in earnest.

- The inexplicable monstrosity that was Hughes Plaza appears to have been meticulously converted into a construction project; and we can have no doubt that once the powers that be have

come to a decision on what it will be, there’s every chance it could be worth the wait. At least they’re filling in that weird pit in the middle of it, I guess.

But a focus on the macro-level University governance doesn’t do justice to the personal experiences I have had in these hallowed halls. There are experiences within the miasma that stand out for particular mention: I especially recall the transition between what now appears to have been the sunny, green fields of the humanities faculty into the dank halls of the law school. From a place where people read Ayn Rand and David Marr in the hallways to a place that literally has a subscription to “BOSS” magazine. I will fondly recall the day I googled “Taib Mahmud” (after whom the umbrella-peppered concrete wasteland out the front of the law school is now named) and discovered that he was a highly controversial figure facing allegations of nepotism and dubious personal enrichment, as well as persistent criticism from environmental and anti-corruption campaigners (Wikipedia lists his alias as “the last white rajah”).

And of course, I will never forget my time in student politics. I am told nothing can be done about this. The editors asked me what advice I would give to new or early year students. I can’t think of anything

particularly inspiring or profound to say, but for what it’s worth, I have tried to distill the practical lessons I have learned through my experiences here: Never assume that there’s a reason things are so.

Decisions at our University are often highly contested, inexplicable and occasionally very poor. Many of the most important decisions have been made with negligible input from students. It doesn’t have to be so. Find out what committee made it and pester them.

If there is a student representative on it, find out who they are and pester them.

Secondly, don’t hate student representatives. It’s highly fashionable to heap scorn upon your unpaid (and occasionally hard working) student representatives. I’m not pretending they’re all doing the right thing, but very few are doing the wrong thing on purpose. If you think they’re doing something atrocious, run for office and wipe them out, otherwise use them – that’s what they’re there for.

Finally, don’t be mediocre. It seems to be a trend that students enter our Uni as unashamedly ideological radicals and then mellow into middle of the road dullards. Many then spend their time pompously chastising newer manifestations of their former selves, priding themselves on the maturity of their own political mediocrity. There’s nothing particularly intelligent about this; it makes for uninspiring politics and poor conversation. 

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Television as high culture

Words, Angus Chisholm.

I remember when I was a kid I would read those annual Top 10 Of Everything books that compiled reams of useless shit in handy, ranked list form. I remember one particular list, which I studied with incredulity, which ranked the longest movies ever made. As I recall, the longest was something ridiculous like 70 hours long that boggled my tiny, undeveloped mind.

I turned the page quietly frustrated at the idiotic notion of a 70-hour movie. It just seemed like such a piss-take. How could I take anything else the book said seriously?

Well, it seems the joke was on me. I first realised that I’d seen a movie about 60 hours long when I finished watching “-30-”, the final episode of the fifth and final season of David Simon’s The Wire. Sure, it was nominally a TV series but as a whole it worked so beautifully, and told such riveting stories, and was so technically accomplished with writing and acting that surpassed most international cinema that to merely classify it as a ‘TV show’ seemed stingy. The reality is that it was better than most movies and literature, a sprawling 60-hour epic where each episode played out like the chapter of a novel. It made me see that television series, so often derided, could prove intellectually as well as aesthetically fulfilling.

The Wire is the high watermark of an era of excellent TV shows that started in the late ‘90s with Oz and The Sopranos and has continued to this day. This golden age of American television has its genesis in the advent of original programming on basic cable television. Prior to this, American television had a

reputation for being a bit crap. For every genius show like The Simpsons and Seinfeld there would be a series of mawkish dramas and forgettable sitcoms that the passage of time has, thankfully, completely wiped from the memory.

HBO’s (Home Box Office) original programming came along and was a breath of fresh air. Because it wasn’t on network television and came as part of a premium cable service, HBO didn’t have to worry about tailoring their programming to escape the attention of network censors. Thus adult themes and flowery language became the norm, and the audience’s intelligence was never insulted. Other cable networks launched their own original programming and there’s now a broad selection of engaging and compelling shows – comedy and drama – clogging up video recorders in America or, for those of us on the other side of the world, torrent programs on our computers.

The Wire represents the very best but it’s not the be all and end all. Among the other most popular or critically acclaimed cable TV dramas of the past decade are The Sopranos (also of HBO), the TV phenomenon about a New Jersey mob boss and his struggles dealing with his family and with his Family. From one of The Soprano’s writers, Matthew Weiner, is AMC’s Mad Men about advertising men in New York in the 1960s. Also on AMC is Breaking Bad, about a mild mannered chemistry teacher who turns to cooking and dealing crystal meth to pay for his cancer treatment. Another extremely popular show is

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Dexter, whose popularity is surely based on its central conceit - a serial killer who only kills other serial killers and Bad People - and the strength of its lead performance by Michael C. Hall.

What is interesting about the latter three of these shows is the central theme that is common to all of them: that of living a double life and keeping it secret.

In Mad Men, the lead character, Don Draper, has stolen his identity from the real Don Draper after a mix-up in the Korean War when the real Don Draper is killed and Don Draper as we know him – real name Dick Whitman – is confused for Don Draper and he doesn’t correct the mistake, out of a desire to leave his miserable real life behind. In Breaking Bad, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Walter White struggles gamely to keep his drug-making lifestyle secret from his wife and in Dexter, the same from his family and colleagues (incidentally, he works in forensics for the Miami police department).

What to make of this eminent fascination with the contrast between a man’s public persona and his private life? The same themes have been prevalent throughout the history of literature, presumably because they mine a rich seam of compelling dramatic tension. In terms of television, with the exception of Mad Men, the best modern programs seem fixated on violent criminality. In literature it also deals with criminality but also sexuality (or a combination of

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both). These secrets and double lives as themes have been tools used for dramatic purposes (Humbert Humbert’s outward facade of European sophistication and respectability contrasted with his innermost hidden sexual desires in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita; Dorian Gray’s horrible portrait which he keeps hidden in his attic in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray) but also comedy and satire (‘bunburying’ – the very practice of living a double life, in The Importance of Being Earnest, also by Wilde – which was later interpreted to be an analogy for concealing his own sexuality). There are countless examples where this theme is central of peripheral in literary history. It seems obvious that an author’s inspiration is drawn from their own secrets, secrets many of us all bear in reality, and then heightened for the purposes of telling a compelling story. Without wanting to lapse into cliché, it’s a theme that many of us can relate with to varying extents, another reason why it’s so prevalent in the history of literature, and so popular today.

In our own lives, we can be prone to the suspicion that it is our secrets, the things about our character that we don’t want to share with other people and not our most outward behaviour that comes to define us.

One of the most memorable scenes in Mad Men is when Don shares with his wife, Betty, the truth about his past. It’s a moment which is beautifully acted by

Jon Hamm, whose trauma at having to share the past which he had hoped would never catch up with him is written all over his face and in his physical reactions.

What’s interesting about the double lives lead by these characters in these TV shows is that on the surface they’re made to seem alluring. Draper, through his duplicitous actions, is now a brilliantly dressed, successful and revered figure in advertising.

Walter White realises that his intelligence serves him so well in the criminal world that he starts to embrace the lifestyle and the power it affords, regardless of the cancer threat. Dexter is more troubled but his actions nevertheless play on the enduring popular appeal of vigilantism.

It’s not really that simple as all the characters are plagued inwardly by the amorality of their actions and the personal toll it takes on them as well as those closest to them (typically the put-upon wives and children of all of these characters). However that these shows will also toy with the idea of how exhilarating a secret life can be, and how much of an awakening they can provide, is also to their credit.

The American cable TV storytelling revolution of the past decade is responsible for these themes being explored in depth today. The increased creative freedom afforded to the show-runner (the individual in charge of a given TV show, more akin to the role of a film writer-director than the actual director of a

TV episode) and the lower threshold for adult content which can be shown on these networks has allowed for a sophisticated exploration of the apparent amorality often involved in leading these lives.

These shows aren’t perfect. Dexter in particular is especially weak beyond its leading man and has some serious problems with an often facile narrative. But generally, one can’t argue with the success, whether popular or critical, of programmes like this which rely strongly on this theme whose relevance is timeless.

As far as conceiving and launching a successful TV show in 2010 goes, maybe that’s the secret. 

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For the suffering, what exactly constitutes a "good death"?

Words, Sam Deere. Illustration, Connor O'Brien.

Death is a touchy subject for most people. The concept of total oblivion – quite rightly – frightens the shit out of us. If you’re of a slightly less secular persuasion than myself, death connotes everlasting happiness and an awesome set of wings. However, there’s also the possibility of eternal damnation to wrap your head around. A primal place in the human psyche tells us that death is scary; our survival instincts tell us to avoid it at all costs – even in conversation – lest we remind ourselves of our own mortality.

But what if your life was blighted by disease?

What if every waking moment was agony? What if your body was slowly devouring itself, consumed by multiplying cancer cells, or paralysed by nervous system shutdown? What if the things that made life worth living – interaction with family and friends, creative expression, personal autonomy, dignity – were stripped from you? Perhaps you’d want the end to come a little sooner.

The word euthanasia literally means ‘good death’, but since we’re not in Ancient Greece anymore, the word is better understood as the process of ending someone’s life in an attempt to alleviate his or her suffering. To some, it is the most humane option for people who have lost all quality of life and no longer wish to live. To others, it represents a violation of the sanctity of life, an unfair imposition on doctors, an untenable risk to people in very vulnerable situations, and a failure to properly care for those in pain.

Voluntary euthanasia (VE) is a subject that raises significant ethical questions. Moreover, for those who wish to see it legalised, it throws up plenty of thorny technical questions about how to implement it correctly. VE is legal in a number of jurisdictions: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland have all had state-sanctioned euthanasia for several years. Recently, the US states of Oregon, Washington and Montana also joined in. Efforts to legalise VE in Australia have been underway since the late 1970s, and support grows every year. This year, there are at least four parliaments debating the prospect.

Although a Western Australian Bill was recently (and fairly emphatically) defeated, there is one currently before the Tasmanian parliament that has a reasonable prospect of success.

At a Federal level, Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown will seek to repeal a law that prevents Territory governments from making their own decisions about euthanasia. Euthanasia was legalised in the Northern Territory in 1995, but in 1996, Liberal backbencher Kevin Andrews used Federal government powers to overrule the Territory legislation. Euthanasia would not be automatically legal if Brown’s Bill is successful, but it gives the choice back to Territorians.

However, most relevant to you, dear reader, is a pro-VE bill that is now before the South Australian parliament. Given that a similar bill last year was defeated by the slimmest of margins, SA might soon be

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the only place in Australia where a terminal patient can legally choose to die.

In September, Labor MP Steph Key and Greens MLC Mark Parnell teamed up to introduce identical bills into their respective houses of parliament. The proposed legislation would give a terminally ill or chronically suffering patient the right to request that life-prolonging treatment be stopped, or for a doctor to administer a lethal dose of drugs.

Headlines allude to controversy, to debate, to confrontation. However, public resistance to the bill has been muted at best. Angry punters splashed the requisite amount of bile across AdelaideNow, but overall the general public have barely batted an eyelid. South Australians, it appears, are relatively comfortable with the idea of legalised voluntary euthanasia.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Last year, a Newspoll showed that roughly 85% of Australians think a physician should be able to administer a lethal dose of drugs to a suffering patient who requests it.

Interestingly, there was almost no difference between different age groups, and additionally, a recent survey commissioned by euthanasia advocacy group Exit International showed that nearly 75% of doctors were also in favour of legalisation.

The name most synonymous with euthanasia in Australia is Dr Philip Nitschke, Exit International’s founder. Nitschke has been a passionate advocate for VE; he was instrumental in having it legalised in the NT, and assisted four patients to end their lives before the law was overturned. He now divides his time between advocacy and providing information for

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those who wish to take their own lives as painlessly as possible.

When I asked if we’d soon see uniform VE legislation across Australia, Nitschke replied, “I think we probably will. My prediction is that we’ll see, probably South Australia or one of the other states bring in legislation fairly soon. That’s going to put a lot of pressure on the other states. All of these new models have got residency requirements – you have to be a resident [of the state] for some time; you can’t just jump on a plane and fly to Adelaide. That’s going to make people in other states somewhat envious, and I think you’ll see immense pressure for those states to follow suit.”

Steph Key shares Nitschke’s optimism, and says that her bill is likely to pass, in spite of the conservative swing experienced in the March state election..

“You can never be totally confident, but in the discussions that I’ve had with members of the House of Assembly it looks like we have the support.”

The road to this particular bill is littered with the wreckage of previous failed attempts. Its drafters have taken heed. There are numerous safeguards, and a lengthy approval process once a patient makes a request. The attending physician must explain and offer all possible forms of treatment (in particular, palliative care). The doctor must then determine that the patient has no prospect of recovery, and a second doctor, who is a specialist in the patient’s condition, must provide the same opinion. If there is any question about mental incapacity or family duress influencing the decision, then a psychiatrist must also

weigh in. Assuming the attending physicians agree, a witness signs off on the request. The case is then referred to a euthanasia review board – if the board approves the request, it may proceed. Nobody with an interest in the patient’s estate can be involved in proceedings, and anyone who abuses the process faces 20 years in jail.

Opponents argue that safeguards cannot possibly offer enough protection. The first line of argument is that emotionally persuasive but logically questionable rhetorical device – the slippery slope argument. Once we make it okay to kill the terminally ill, where does it stop? What about the profoundly disabled, those with debilitating mental illness, or the long-term depressed? What about those who are killed without actually asking for it?

Margaret Tighe, founder of Right To Life Australia, explains her position: “Once we accept that principle, that someone’s life is no longer worthy to be lived, it’s very, very dangerous. It places at risk those in the community who are most vulnerable…

You only have to look at countries where it has been practiced, particularly the Netherlands… where there has been a gradual increase in the numbers of patients having their lives ended, and an increase in the categories of killable patients.”

Anne Hirsch, Secretary of the South Australian Voluntary Euthanasia Society (SAVES) counters this, arguing that organisations such as Right To Life Australia misrepresent the statistics. Hirsch says that patients may have their lives shortened because of large doses of pain relief. “That’s considered good medical

practice in Australia – but those are the cases that they count as being ‘involuntary euthanasia.’” While no safeguards are totally foolproof, Hirsch notes that the Key/Parnell bill won’t make it any less illegal to kill someone against their will. “You have yet to invent a law that cannot be broken. We have red traffic lights and people drive through them every day… If you look at extensive research done by the medical profession, involuntary euthanasia happens far more frequently [in Australia] than in the Netherlands, but nobody takes any notice of that.”

Pain relief resulting in death (through morphine overdose) provides doctors with an interesting ethical loophole – the principle of ‘double effect’. The stated intention is pain relief; death is just a side effect (albeit a predictable one). Double effect is a jarring principle because it asks us to judge an action on its underlying intention, rather than its consequences.

However, is a patient’s death truly incidental if the doctor knows they’re causing it?

Obviously, those who argue against euthanasia aren’t deaf to the pleas of suffering patients. It’s not about denying care; it’s about considering the alternatives. For the most part, this alternative is palliative care – care designed to alleviate pain and suffering during the final phases of a terminal illness.

This could be at a residential care facility, or in the patient’s own home. Right-to-life advocates say that modern medicine can relieve suffering amazingly well, and if all patients had access to a well-managed and properly funded palliative care program, nobody would be asking to die.

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Dr Yvonne Luxford, the President of Palliative Care Australia, doesn’t take a position on VE, but feels that we need to be more open to talking about death. She wants people to draw up advanced care plans, and appointing substitute decision makers, so that they are in control of their own deaths. “Palliative Care Australia neither supports nor opposes voluntary euthanasia… We’re not entering into an adversarial discussion with the proponents of voluntary euthanasia. [However], we want to make it really clear that voluntary euthanasia is not part of palliative care, and make sure, that people are aware that people die with dignity while receiving palliative care.”

Despite being at pains to separate the two ideas, Luxford concedes that palliative care and VE could complement each other. “Voluntary euthanasia shouldn’t be the only choice that people are thinking of. I’m even reticent to use the word choice, because it makes it seem like it’s a one or the other thing, which it’s certainly not.” Politicking aside, the two disciplines aren’t diametrically opposed. Palliative care is a viable, effective and dignified end-of-life solution, but it cannot always alleviate suffering sufficiently.

Steph Key recognises the need for an expansive approach; Key told me that she is currently drafting legislation designed to greatly expand end-of-life choices, including better access to palliative care, advance and anticipatory directives, medical powers of attorney, and a formal register for organ and tissue donation. She hopes that this will put people in control of their own deaths.

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At time of print, the Key/Parnell bills were yet to go to Committee, a process that can take weeks, particularly for controversial legislation. Soon, however, the slow wheels of parliamentary bureaucracy will begin to turn, and both Houses will vote. The outcome is by no means assured. However, the tide of public opinion suggests that, if not this time, then soon. If it passes, we’ll be asked to think very differently about what happens to our elderly relatives, our parents, our friends and ourselves if life gets the better of our bodies.

Some will always see a life as sacrosanct, irrespective of how much the person living it suffers. However, it seems most of us want the power to make that terrifying choice. Perhaps the best way to move the debate forward is to follow Yvonne Luxford’s advice, to actually talk about death more often, and confront our mortality instead of denying it. Still, whether or not our parliament decides to legalise VE, I know what’s going in my advance directive. 

Summer playlist, 2010/11

Words, Louis Rankin & Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo.

Chillwave? Dreamwave? Glo-fi? Huh? If you’ve been following the world of indie over the last year and a bit, then these terms are probably familiar with you. If not, then you are probably confused right now. These labels themselves are pretty loose and interchangeable, with a lot of the artists involved not hugely fond of them (Ernest Green, who records under the name Washed Out, has called the label “a running joke”, and himself prefers to “call it dream pop”). By most accounts, the term ‘chillwave’, which has gained the most popularity when describing this music, was actually coined by a blogger writing for Hipster Runoff, who has subsequently jokingly claimed all credit while actually making some serious points about the influence that culture and music blogs like his own now have. Personally, I’m not a massive fan of labels when it comes to music (mathcore? Seriously?) but they just make shit easier.

Chillwave is about being ten years old again. Think warm, fuzzy synths, hazy lyrics and slow basslines, perfect for swaying to. It’s unashamedly happy music to relax to and reminisce about old memories. It’s a summer house party, it’s being on the beach at night or it’s home time on the last day of school before the

summer holidays. It’s music that makes us remember the time before phone bills, rent and exams. The thick, faded, ‘80s-tinged sound is perhaps another reason chillwave resonates so much, with many of us being children of the era.

So who are the artists to check out? Washed Out is probably the most well known of the chillwave artists, along with Toro Y Moi, Neon Indian – bizarrely cited by Joe Jonas as a favourite – and Memory Tapes.

They’ve all had some mainstream press coverage – the Wall Street Journal wrote about the chillwave phenomenon earlier this year. Memory Tapes toured Australia as part of the recent Parklife Festival and Washed Out is one of the headliners for the upcoming Meredith Music Festival. Toro Y Moi (whose real name is apparently Chazwick Bundick) will be at the Playground Weekender Festival in February. Brothertiger, unouomedude and Com Truise are also worth a look, with most of their releases available for free on Bandcamp (which is probably the best place to start browsing). Collarbones is an Adelaide/Sydney based duo, who share similarities with many chillwave artists, and compose their music on laptops. I could list another twenty artists to check out, but then you’d

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miss the fun of discovering them yourself, so get searching!

Another genre often compared to chillwave – strangely when you consider their geographical disparities – and likely to make some eyes roll is dubstep, the offshoot of UK garage music that first began being bandied about in 2006 or so. Musically, dubstep is characterised by what Allmusic calls “tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns [with particular emphasis on snare drums], clipped samples, and occasional vocals”. Beginning at London club night Forward> and gaining quick approval from the musical underground, thanks in large part to the huge popularity of pirate radio station Rinse FM, dubstep has quickly grown into one of the UK’s dominant forms of electronic music. I think that the two genres are often compared with one another because they are rooted so firmly in a specific time and place. All of the aesthetics of chillwave are meant to evoke, as Louis said, a nostalgic yearning for childhood summers.

Dubstep evokes the polar opposite, cold dark nights in dense urban environments. It is really a testament to the genres that they have such emotive power with often-indistinct vocals. The snatches of voices, often female, heard in dubstep in particular are meant to

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resemble the peculiar loneliness that only comes with big city anonymity.

But both genres are morphing and evolving – yes, just like Pokémon. Chillwave was the logical extension of a dreamy pop music made popular by modern bands like Beach House, and arguably grew to resemble the nascent genre witch house (which I will not describe in any more detail, because even I think it’s just a little too pretentious). Dubstep, however, is undergoing the more sustained evolution to a sound lazily and inevitably called ‘post-dubstep’ (somehow, Pitchfork is to blame for this). Post-dubstep exploits the ambience and negative space inherent in the compositions and stretches them out. This type of music is conflated more readily with hip-hop and various other forms of electronic music.

The point of all this wank? To convince you that we know more about music than you? Not quite.

It’s actually pretty amazing to be around for transitions like these. They remind us of the great historic changes to music. Of course, dubstep going postal will not be remembered in quite the same way as Dylan going electric, but there’s a real splendour in witnessing this state of flux, because it’ll create something beautiful. Call it musical mitosis.  (Right from top: Neon Indian, Memory Tapes).

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Our lo-fi film industry

Words, Walter Marsh. Illustration, Connor O'Brien.

‘Mumblecore’ is a strange and confusing sect of modern film. The term refers to a loosely connected gaggle of no-budget American films made in the mid-2000s, all with an abundance of stuttered semiimprovised dialogue, haphazardly shot scenes and endearing lo-fi soundtracks. Most if not all spun tales of hipsters, navel gazers and nerds as they meander through their mid-twenties in a post-college rut, bumping in and out of relationships as they go.

The man to thank – or slap – for the movement would have to be Andrew Bujalski, an American director behind two of its best known (though still pretty much unheard of) examples in Funny Ha Ha (2002) and Mutual Appreciation (2005). Both films perfectly embody the spirit the genre, with non-professional actors drawn from the director’s friends, a near total absence of plot, cute if bewilderingly vague characters, and scenes consisting wholly of stilted, loosely scripted conversations.

Mutual Appreciation especially is where Bujalski ‘hit his stride’ with a black and white filmed story of struggling musician-cum-aimless bum Alan as he relocates to Brooklyn to form a new band (how novel!), reconnect with his old pal Lawrence (played

by Bujalski himself) and his girlfriend Ellie and avoid having to get a job as best he can. Sounds pretty dull and pedestrian, right? Well it is but it isn’t. Like all films of its kind it has many endearing qualities, with some amusing and pertinent riffs of dialogue and beguiling performances from the non-actor stars, with the difficulties facing a hungry Brooklyn muso aptly portrayed by Justin Rice, himself a hungry Brooklyn muso better known as the singer in twee-rock band Bishop Allen.

So for a brief period between 2006 and 2007 this awkward portmanteau was all the rage, with the New York Times calling it the ‘sole significant American indie film scene in 20 years’, whatever that means.

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Even Rolling Stone Australia had a feature on it. But why you ask, am I befouling the cool and hip pages of On Dit with the likes of Bujalski if such mainstream giants cottoned on to the story a whopping two years ago?

Back in February a little local film that ticked all those boxes found itself being screened to a cheering audience of friends and curious punters. Directed by sometimes musician and local renaissance man Stephen Banham and produced by Nigel Koop (otherwise known as elusive lo-fi video and sound wizard 'Home For The Def') the somewhat ambitiously titled Adelaide tells the interweaving stories of three young men wiling away their better years in our fair city searching with laidback desperation for love, fame and direction.

Like the mumblecore titles of yesteryear, the film is a patchwork of awkward little vignettes, which are both a little jarring and resonant in their honesty and lack of polish. In the first ten minutes Banham treats us to a close up of his character Mick, the benignly depressed and unlucky in love protagonist, vomiting into a glass after a one night stand before lingering for just a little too long on his naked trek from bed to bathroom to beyond dispose of the aforementioned puke. The film isn’t all full frontal nudity from the director however, as it shifts focus with humour and insight to the efforts of fictitious local rock band Harvard Blue as they struggle to get their shit together in and out of the rehearsal room despite four vastly different personalities. Then there are the amusingly constant references to legendary Adelaide band No Through Road (led by Banham’s brother, Matt), with

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their 2007 single ‘Crush This Town’ frequently heard in glorious Nokia ‘monophone’ as one character’s ringtone.

To paint this as some kind of cinematic masterpiece would be misleading. It’s not. Many of the film’s actors are often cheesy or robotic, the lighting in night time scenes is unremittingly woeful and the attempts to edit shots of Adelaide Airport and Rocket Bar to resemble Melbourne establishments as the band briefly tour fall apart under the slightest scrutiny. But you know what? That’s kind of the point, and it’s something both Banham and Bujalski embrace. In an interview with SBS in 2007 Bujalski stated there was something missing from conventional films’ portrayal of relationships, that the in-between parts of life were under-represented. The awkward, poorly lit and stilted conversations are rarely if ever shown in such depth on the big screen, and much of Adelaide's best moments lie in those fleeting seconds of indecision before leaning in to kiss a stranger, finding yourself dismissed as another junkie by paramedics when suffering from crippling gastro in a public toilet and the seven seconds of silence with a drinking buddy when you realise with terror that you might have literally nothing left to talk about.

Mumble on guys, mumble on. 

The power of socially progressive theatre

Words, Gemma Beale. Photographs, Edwin Kemp-Attrill.

Overwhelming, unexpected, inspired and inspiring: these are the words that come to mind as I sit and try to condense ActNow Theatre for Social Change’s four day conference RightAct into approximately one thousand words, but seeing as that would err more toward vague wankery than informative article I best give it another shot.

In 2007 Edwin Kemp-Attrill and “a couple of mates” got together and decided to start ActNow, their own youth-led theatre company. It began as you’d expect something run by talented and enthusiastic 17-year-olds to begin – in bursts of enthusiasm that mostly took the form of politically motivated street performances. Some of you might remember a whole bunch of people dressed in orange jumpsuits protesting David Hicks’ imprisonment outside Womadelaide a couple of years back? Yep, that was them.

I hope I’m not out of line in suggesting that after a (near) sold-out run of Ibsen’s ‘An Enemy of The People’ over August of this year, ActNow, like its creators, has matured. This maturity was clearly evident at their annual conference, RightAct. As in previous years, RightAct ’10 featured a 3-day theatre workshop for those interested in the hands-on experience.

The workshop included classes on writing, directing and performing political theatre and culminated in a performance on the final night of the conference.

For those of us who can’t act or couldn’t attend the workshop classes, RightAct ’10 also featured three wonderful nights of free performances and panel discussions, each night with a different theatre-related

focus.

The panels included Adelaide theatre heavyweights like Anne Thompson of Flinders Drama Centre, PJ Rose of No Strings Attached as well as leftleaning politicians like Tammy Frank (formerly Jennings) and Kelly Vincent and a whole bunch of other interesting articulate people who you’ve probably never heard of, or you would have been there. And therein lies the problem not with RightAct as such but with Adelaide’s theatre scene: there is a strong sense of preaching to the converted, and as such it often seems that only those who are already involved actually attend. This is such an amazing shame because the panel discussions discussed topics outside the traditional realms of theatre and were the most interesting and thought-provoking I’ve witnessed for quite some time (sorry, Uni!).

A combination of heated arguments and personal bias made the first night’s panel on women and theatre my favourite, not only because I’m a gender studies kind of girl, but also because you saw the theatre community become a microcosm of wider social ills. An argument about Vitalstatistix’s recent move from a female only company to one that also incorporates men was so very closely aligned with the old ‘can men really be feminists?’ debate it was unnerving. The somewhat outspoken Catherine Fitzgerald argued that since there was still such a clear and inequitable gendered divide within theatre industry, men should “get their own company” while Jennifer Greer-Holmes (Vitalstatistix’s new director) seemed

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to argue that the inclusion of like-minded men was a necessary step toward equity. These arguments are made all the more interesting not only because everyone is so personally and emotionally involved but because, in the case of Vitalstatistix at least, the desire to stay true to the original goal is counterbalanced by a desire to change with the community, to reform and of course, to continue to be an economically viable organisation.

You couldn’t get through the weekend without someone mentioning arts funding, or the lack thereof. And here we saw the old ‘poetry vs. push pin’ debate rear its ugly head; how should limited arts funding be allocated? Should large ‘professional’ theatre companies be preferred to smaller companies with a clearer community focus? Is one inherently better than the other? Unsurprisingly it’d be better if there was just more money for everyone but ‘marketability’ (ridiculous word that it is) tends to outweigh more idealistic concepts of what art should aspire to be.

Not to mention that there’s a pretty prominent idea floating around at the moment that theatre is a little redundant, that anything done on stage could be done on screen. Nothing negated that idea more for me than seeing a performance of Expect Respect.

Expect Respect was designed as an educational piece for high schools by ActNow in conjunction with the

South Australian Legal Services Commission, as a response to the changes to sexual assault and rape law in 2008. The first half of the performance is essentially a scene between two teen characters, one male and one female, that is repeated a few times. Each time, the male becomes incrementally more aggressive in his pursuit of the female. After each scene the audience is asked a series of questions designed to make them articulate what’s going wrong, and a lawyer that is present at every performance also explains the legal implications. It does a brilliant job of demonstrating where this line that you’re not supposed to cross is by dissecting the verbal and body language of those involved. However, the second half of the performance was the more effective piece, for me anyway. Set over the course of a house party a couple (Mark and Annie) both release, in snippets, to friends, enough information for them to work out Mark has/is sexually assaulting Annie. Every time the friends awkwardly shrug it off and as a result Annie goes home with Mark and is raped again. The scene is then repeated again, this time however audience members have to say ‘stop’ when a friend shrugs it off, they then have to replace that character and “do it better, or... less worse” before returning to their seats. Knowing it’s wrong, knowing you have to say something, knowing you need to stop it, is shamefully counterbalanced by a desire to stay in your seat be-

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cause everyone’s going to watch you and it’s going to be embarrassing and surprising. But that’s the beauty of it; it was such an accurate reflection of how you feel when you have to tell a friend that they’re fucking up.

The final panel of the weekend took on what is for most of the people involved, the big question facing groups like ActNow and other groups that want to initiate social change. What do you do when people think joining a cause on Facebook or buying the Mount Franklin water bottle with the pink lid is actually useful? You have to create something no one’s seen, something that really makes the political personal. It’s not going to be easy but it shouldn’t be, and if ActNow’s anything to go by there is still hope. Three years in, they’re hosting events that get the old industry leaders talking to the barely-graduates, crossing mediums and specialties. How do you increase attendance and maintain it? Keep trying; keep telling your friends, your family, boys you like at parties what’s going on. Get them to come along to a performance. As far as activism goes it’s a pretty gentle first step. It’s not like you’re asking them to join the monkey wrench gang or anything.

The big question of the weekend however was undoubtedly can theatre companies like ActNow really affect social change? I think the answer is yes. It used to be that theatre was society’s mirror, but as Geordie Brookman, the Associate Director of the SA State

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Theatre Company has pointed out, “TV is society’s mirror now, so theatre has to be a cracked mirror”. It has the ability to take reality and distort it by ignoring or subverting power structures, it can be more confronting than television or film not only because you can touch it but because you’re not used to it. Theatre can be, as with ‘An Enemy of The People’, an old play that’s still unerringly relevant. It can be confrontational, like people on the street with tied hands and bags over their heads or it can be subtle, like making a classic male character female. Maybe theatre can’t reach one thousand people in an instant but when it’s done right it is more poignant than a viral video and more effective than a pre-written letter. It has the potential to make you actively change what you are doing. 

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Auspicious literary beginnings

Words, Gemma Parker. Facing illustration, Madeleine Karutz.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

So opens Jane Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813. This sentence is one of the most regularly quoted lines of any English novel ever published, and perhaps the most famous opening line of all time.

There are more ways to open a novel than there are ways to skin a cat, as they say. Our benevolent overlord Google reckons that approximately 129 million books have been published over the course of history. The only unit of measurement to describe the amount of opening sentences that have therefore been written is a fuckload. Most opening lines are entirely forgettable, but others can go on to become as famous, if not more so, than the body of work therein.

Opening lines can surprise, can intrigue, can antagonise, patronise, irritate or frustrate readers. The first line is the bait that hooks the reader. No matter what your preconception of a novel or an author, if the first line intrigues you, you will read on. Furthermore, some first lines are truly remarkable in the way that they establish the tone of the following narrative. This is where the idea of a ‘famous’ first line comes from. A great opening line distills the nature of the novel. They encompass, both prospectively and retrospectively, the style and character of the novel. Famous first lines can be found on t-shirts, in

advertisements, used as book and song titles, as band and blog addresses. You probably know more of them than you even realise.

Like Pride and Prejudice, many classic novels open with a statement about the nature of humanity, or some kind of universal truth. Dickens and Tolstoy regularly employed this technique. Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina with the oft-cited: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Charles Dickens opens A Tale of Two Cities with this now classic, poetic line: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Modern novelists tend to use other techniques, especially if the novel is a first-person narrative. J. D Salinger opens up The Catcher in the Rye with an immediately hostile tone that indicates that the narrator is uncomfortable with both traditional narrative and the audience to whom he is relating his story: If you really want to hear about it, the first

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thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

One of the great things about this particular opening is that it is impossible to now contemplate this sentence leading to any narrative other than the one it does. The same is true of Sylvia Plath’s opening to The Bell Jar. It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.

Of course the narrator goes on to have a breakdown!

How could she not, with all that queer heat, the electrocutions and her lack of knowledge about what she was doing in New York?

Other famous first lines are less about the character of the narrator, and more about the nature of the subsequent narrative. Gabriel Garcia Marquez begins One Hundred Years of Solitude with an elusive, loaded and of course now very famous opening sentence.

I personally think that this is the most captivating first line that I have ever read: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

In contrast, Italo Calvino begins If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller with a sentence that will either intrigue you, or make you roll your eyes. He begins: You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveller.

There are also many famous opening lines that contain so little information that they seem unlikely candidates for fame. However, on closer inspection they

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reveal just enough to imply that there is much more to come. In short, they arouse the readers’ curiosity and hint at what is to follow. Such as: All this happened, more or less.

- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five It was love at first sight.

– Joseph Heller, Catch-22 Howard Roark laughed.

- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead.

Call me Ishmael.

– Herman Melville, Moby Dick.

In A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway remarks that to be a great writer, “all you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.”

While Hemingway is my greatest literary crush of all time and I’ve often been guilty of quoting him without due context, I really think that this particular observation hits the nail on the head. Famous opening lines are not just about conveying information, or about arousing our curiosity. They are about truth: truth as defined by the author, within the context of the novel. This can be a universal, objective truth. It can be a specific reference to the truth of the following narrative, or the relationship between the narrator and truth telling.

Jane Austen’s classic opening to Pride and Prejudice is a truly complex meditation on what we perceive as truth. She begins with the technique of a ‘universally accepted truth’, but phrases in such a way as to imply that it is less of an objective truth and more of a convenient one. This in turn exposes the attitudes and convictions of the society she is depicting.

She mocks the idea of the universal in order to place her story in time and space. Furthermore, the ‘truth’ she describes: “that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” outlines the plot to follow. It’s beautiful stuff, ladies and gentleman. There’s a reason she’s famous, and it’s not just for her opening sentences. 

&

It was a dark

stormy night...

CallmeIshmael Howard Roark laughed

All this happened, more or less.

It was the best of times

/

It was the worst of times

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs

(un)pop culture

With your host, Elizabeth Tien An Flux

I am going to start a small country. It shall be called “Procrasti Nation” and its capital shall be located within the “State of Flux”. Too self indulgent? It’s cool. Anyone who disagrees shall be forced to endure three hours with that charity collection agent you just walked past on the street.

You have a Boost; he has a stare laden with grave judgement. You will spend this time locked in a windowless room so as to remove all weatherrelated topics from the conversation pool. You will also be stripped of all your change, bar the exact amount you will need to catch the train home.

Awkwardness vs. inconvenience: GO. On the topic of transportation, all modes of travel shall be via trains of thought. Of course, each one shall be different, but with a typical example being as follows: the first carriage contains Harry Potter and Professor Moody. CONSTANT VIGILANCE. Except, this time it is mistakenly pronounced “viligance”. So, the next carriage contains “Village Ants”. They are sweeping up, living in cottages and wearing aprons. One of them is cooking soup in a giant cauldron in the centre of the main square. Within the train carriage. Naturally they need a leader, so one carriage along, they are holding an election. Who is in charge of ants anyway? Do ants have queens? Bees do, right?

This is evident in the next carriage, where the Queen Bee is about to embark on her mating flight (I hear they tear the male’s wings off afterwards.

Logical.) She has a humanoid, familiar face, and in the final carriage she has morphed into Regina George, and, along with the other ‘Mean Girls’,

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they sit around chatting about how truly strange it is that a bee’s self-defence mechanism automatically results in its death. Purpose: defeated. The Spice Girls run behind the train, desperately singing ‘Wannabe’. There is no carriage for them.

Scattered throughout all this are commuters, all of whom look mildly frightened.

There is really no need for them to be afraid though, as from the age of five, all citizens will be trained in self defence. Of course, being nonviolent in nature, this will not be judo or karate, but rather the time-honoured pastime of passive aggression. Classes are every Wednesday at 8pm.

Young Timmy arrives at ten past, out of breath and apologising.

“It’s alright Timmy, you haven’t missed anything,” says the instructor in a tone often reserved for small children. “We have all been sitting here waiting until it was convenient for you.”

“I really am very sorry”, explains Timmy, “but I was being tailgated, and so had to drive here at 40km/h. I knew that you would understand. Oh, I would assume my ex-girlfriend sends her regards by the way. I hear she loved the flowers you sent on the day we broke up.”

Timmy graduates with honours.

Anyway, you’re all welcome to join me. Unless of course you get caught in the Emma Jones-defined sieve of dystopian douchebaggery seen overleaf. Seriously, all fanny packs will be confiscated at the border, and anything Twilight or (my own personal hate) reality television related will be immediately fast-tracked to a sewage treatment facility. So, unless “you” refers to Stephanie Meyer, in which case by “there” I am envisaging a cell built out of real literature…hopefully see you there!

NB: by Professor Moody, I do of course mean Bartemius Crouch Junior, played to great effect

by David Tennant. He is Scottish, and so is golf.

I think. Mothers wave handkerchiefs as another train of thought takes off from the platform.

(Editor’s note: the most widely accepted account of the history of golf is that it did originate in Scotland)

me & my utopia From the visions of Emma Marie Jones

Aside from a world in which Curtis Stone, celebrity chef, does not exist, ‘utopia’ is a difficult term to define. Obviously, it’s subjective. Some want world peace; others want a mansion with its own McDonald’s, à la Richie Rich. (I’m a member of the latter camp.)

Most people, when describing their perfect world, are in the habit of adding things to the world that already exists. These people are idiots.

The world is already full of awesome things, like Snack chocolate and lolcats and connector pens.

The easiest way to create a feasible utopia is to rid the world of things that are shit.

There are lots of things that are shit. Big things, like racism and poverty, are shit. But those things are difficult to get rid of. Worse things, like Jersey Shore and Windows Vista, are just too persistent for anyone other than Peter Venkman to even attempt to eradicate. Instead, I propose the slightly more practical elimination of the innumerable small things that annoy the crap out of me. Just a few of which are listed self-indulgently below.

Infomercials. Oh, how I dream of a world where one could turn on the television at 11am and not be visually raped by oiled fitnessy types trying to sell one an Ab Circle Pro. EFTPOS Minimums. These usually result in the pointless purchase of chewing gum that desiccates in the bottom of my handbag. Also, ATMs should cater for people who only have $19.95 in their bank accounts. Just saying.

Hybrid words. Bromance. Shoegasm. Fugly.

Movember. Brangelina. Chillax. Get the picture?

Twilight. I’m just putting it out there—I’d

rather be a Weasley than a sparkling douche.

Reality TV. The world would be an infinitely better place without televised weight loss and televised talent competitions that are, ironically, sans any appreciable talent. If you enjoy watching a cravat-wearing critic sampling the fruits of kitchen kindergarten, you can get out of my house. You’re not in my house? In this special circumstance, I will invite you over, just so that I can order you out again.

Juvenile mullets. I feel that a six-year-old is much too young to be business in the front, party in the back.

People who say ‘what can I do you for?’ Like most languages, English has a standard word order. Prepositions generally precede their subjects.

Also, you sound like an illiterate tool.

Tights as pants. I’ll confess right here, I’m a reformed offender. But I’ve changed my ways. I own like twelve pairs of jeans now.

Overpriced condiments. McDonald’s—are you serious? That tiny ketchup sachet cannot be worth the same amount as an ice cream cone. (Finance tip: fries dipped in soft serve are oddly tasty and far better value.)

Frangipani stickers. Has anybody done a study on the correlation between frangipani stickers and road rage? Can bad taste be a cause of death?

(Please?)

Fanny packs. Buy a goddamn backpack, people.

Really.

Okay, if you’ve made it to this point without thinking, ‘but that’s me!’ and being ridiculously offended, I like you, and I think we’re cool. If I’m mistaken, and we’re not cool, perhaps you should take some tips on passive aggression from Miss Elizabeth Flux (see previous page), and send me an anonymous note with menacing undertones.

On Dit readers, if you take one lesson from my incessant ramblings this year, let it be this one: the best thing to do with annoying things is to ridicule them, thereby proving that mockery is the finest form of entertainment. No, wait. Let it be this one: tights, no matter how pant-like, are not pants.

Never ever are they pants. Trust me—I know.

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Why are we no longer turning to the CBD for our entertainment fix?

Words, Sophie Miller. Illustration, Madeleine Karutz.

For young and old alike, going to the cinema on a Saturday night has been the thing to do for generations. People would dress up to the nines and go and see the newest films. The romance of it all is intoxicating and it’s why the cinema has drawn so many people in over the years. It is the easiest form of escapism we can imagine. However, in the past ten years, the class of the cinema has slowly faded away in our fair city.

When I was a kid there were plenty of places to watch a film in the heart of Adelaide. There was the Academy Cinema, the Greater Union on Hindley Street, IMAX, and the Regent. The cinemas of old in the CBD were things of beauty. Who could forget the grand piano and chandelier in the Regent Cinema and the plush carpet and large balcony in the Academy? All of these cinemas tried to hold on, but for various reasons didn’t make it and had to shut their doors.

The only places left in the CBD are the Palace and the Nova, both on Rundle Street. The other option, The Mercury, isn’t a conventional cinema. It still does a lot of its trade in short-release and independent films, but I suggest you keep an eye on their website.

They often have mega cheap daytime specials showing classic films and they have some more funky stuff like the street artist Banksy’s Exit through the Gift Shop.

Ploys are being used to draw crowds back to city cinemas. Once upon a time, the Palace was all about the arthouse movie. Now you can see Ironman, Harry Potter and every other mainstream Western franchise.

In the middle of the year, they screened so-bad-it’sgood cult classic The Room, which, by virtue of its hilarious lack of self-awareness, encourages audience participation such as the throwing of spoons and plates at the screen at opportune moments. These 10:30pm screenings on Saturday nights at the Palace became the talk of the town. It showed us that city cinemas still possess the ability to become a central point of congregation and activity – they just needed to offer an alternative experience not readily found in suburban theatres.

To see a film in suburban Adelaide on non-discount nights it’s now $19 for an adult to see a film.

That’s ridiculous. For a family to go to the cinema now costs genuinely a lot of money. On my recent trips to the cinema, the theatres were barely a quarter full. The Palace Nova has tried to revive flagging attendances and bring in crowds with a deal on Monday nights. Tickets bought before 4pm are $6 and after 4pm they are only $7. However, because they are a smaller venue, the choice of films on offer is much more modest. Tuesday nights are generally the cheap nights in suburbia and boy do they get full, which certainly reinforces the point that people don’t want to pay a lot of money to see a film. And they certainly aren’t willing to add parking into the cost of the experience.

There are the obvious drawbacks of going to the movies in the city. It’s busy, it’s further away, seating is allocated, and you have to PAY for parking, which suburbia defies. I see at least four films a month, and

43

probably only once every two or three months will I go to the city to do it.

But, the thought that one day people will never leave home to watch a film together is so upsetting, because it flies in the face of cinema-going being a fundamentally social event. In the US, you can watch a film via live streaming at your house and other friends can watch the same stream from their own homes. Via- X-box live you can chat during the movie at the same time. Why would you ever leave your home?

Adelaideans love film. Just go to the Adelaide film festival every year. The state Labor government has been very financially supportive of young filmmakers, but by the same token don’t they want youth of Adelaide enjoying the culture of film? There has to be a better way to entice people to the Nova. Urban cinemas are struggling to attract people through their doors, and are turning to more unconventional pricing methods. Perhaps the Adelaide City Council should look into free parking or other measures to entice people watching films in the city again. The Nova does its best now with more mainstream films and allocated seating to make profit but maybe next time you go to the movies, go straight after Uni and walk there or carpool. Because how horrible is the thought that our CBD could have no cinemas at all? I would be embarrassed if that was a reality. 

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Historical Records On Dit has, quite rightly, lamented the demise this year of several inner-city record stores ('Day at the Museum', On Dit 78.11). B#Sharp Records (where I finally tracked down Freedom's Get Up and Dance 12") and Big Star Records (where I saw Weezer perform their single ‘The Good Life’ in a ludicrously overcrowded basement) were the big casualties. Market Bazaar has evidently dodged a bullet by downsizing and shifting location – although the building has been demolished.

Whippersnappers, the trend ain’t new. Blue Beat Records also recently took its final gasp. It was the one place that bothered to find me Calypso @ Dirty Jims, a Trinidadian documentary film. And remember Verandah Music, on Rundle Street? The place had a great smell about it. Usually it was full of tattooed folk and girls with sharp things protruding threateningly.

There wasn’t a metal/hard rock/punk band not represented by its t-shirt rack, and shelves heaved with VHS concerts authorised and otherwise. Here, in an astounded flap, I bought two copies of the elusive-asfuck Beck 10” A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight on Fingerpaint. For a while Verandah had an upstairs room so dusty it seemed you shouldn’t even be in there.

Music nerds are guiltier than most of fetishising, right? Everything is fair game, from picks and setlists to signed lithographs and decadent boxed sets. There were troves of this stuff hidden all over town, and before eBay the thrill was in the hunt as much as the

find. Which record nook would yield the best treasure on any given trip?

Hidden below Gawler Place was the cavernous Andromeda, a haven of used vinyl and other rock detritus. It had existed in some form or other since the mid-‘70s and had amassed decades’ worth of t-shirts, badges and whatnot. I scored an historic Big Day Out 1992 poster. It was slightly overpriced, but hey, they had a KISS pinball machine! (And a small shrine to the proprietor’s hero, Kylie Minogue.)

Elsewhere on Rundle, I curiously fondled a new release titled Chocolate and Cheese and wondered what the hell “indie” meant anyway. I didn’t buy it on account of a CD costing six weeks’ pocket money, but it all looked pretty weird and drug fuelled, which, I later learned, it is. I think that particular subterranean den is a salon or pet store now.

Central Station wasn’t usually my scene but I’d duck in anyway. Ditto Thrashgrindgrunge over on Light Square. It was a tiny cache of mostly underground wax, tapes, and ‘zines, the kinds with scary hand-drawn and photocopied sleeves. It was the spiritual home of Blood Sucking Freaks. Interesting records too, fresh from the US - I nabbed a 12” compilation from Washington State featuring Fitz of Depression and an embryonic Neutral Milk Hotel. You’d find similar stuff on Austin Street in an obscure corner store I can’t even remember the name of.

Bigger places were also worth visiting. The Muses on Charles Street had CD-singles upstairs and classical down the back. Although mostly mainstream, there was always good breadth of stock and the red ‘IMPORT’ stickers made interesting stuff, like my Siamese Singles box set, easy to spot. The Virgin Megastore had three floors of music to peruse! And yes, there was vinyl in the basement.

After lunch I’d stalk into Bank Street Records, with its penchant for British punk and new wave, and its record-obsessed nutbag regulars slobbering

hideously over their latest finds. On this hallowed ground I discovered bootlegs. See, for decades before P2P and MP3 and CD-R, European copyright laws allowed labels like Italy’s seminal KTS to manufa – ahhhh, forget it.

The point (if any) is that all those places have gone, and romanticising the past is normal. Your parents probably remember hanging around Record Factory on North Terrace or Umbrella Records on Frome, and today’s tweens will probably pine for the good ol’ days of torrents and iPods while their offspring have Bat Out of Hell VII ultrasonically beamed at their auditory cortexes. Okay, that’s an exaggeration – no one listens to Meatloaf.

I can only speculate at why these haunts had to close their doors; I make no claims of understanding local market forces, retail economics, parallel import implications, commercial lease costs, global currency exchange or other such things. JB Hi-Fi must have been a factor because its prices are so much lower. Its arrival some years ago made it tough to keep supporting little guys. And Australians pay exorbitant amounts for music anyway!

In the United States a new release CD costs about US$11. Looked at our dollar recently? AU$19.99 is suddenly a blatant rip-off. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that digital distribution must also be a factor. Fortunately, legal downloading continues to grow strongly – it’s heartening that most of us want to pay artists we like.

But the digital distribution model has separated consumers who value only sound from those who value physical articles. Savvy labels and artists are keen to tap both sides of this fluid market boundary.

So perhaps, as devoted music fans in 2010, crumbly oldies and young buggers alike should embrace what might ultimately be a unique period of choice.

- Luke Eygenraam

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You may be aware that just across North Terrace lies Australia’s first community radio station – Radio Adelaide. You may also know that for six hours each week (11pm–1am on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights) it belongs to the students of this university. Adelaide University Student Radio has been around since 1975, and shows no signs of stopping just yet.

We’ll be directing it next year (we're in the process of making up personalised chairs), and we’d like to get it some more exposure. That means more promotion, both on Radio Adelaide and on campus. We want to be involved in more events, like the highly successful crashing of the UniBar a few weeks back.

We’d also like to tie in more with some of the other student groups and clubs at the university. But Student Radio needs more than just an enterprising directorial team (that’s us). It needs content to be directed. That’s you.

Student Radio prides itself on a diverse range of programming. Right now, we have shows about music, politics, art, comedy, and soccer. If you’ve got impeccable taste in interesting music, if you like to nerd out about a particular thing, or if you’ve got a passionate fire that only radio broadcast can satisfy, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re accepting applications for those who want to host our music and general interest program Midnight Static, as well as group applications, for those who want to pitch us a show (we're willing to consider anything and everything – surprise us). Even if you

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don't necessarily want to present a program, we also need producers to help with some of the no-lessimportant behind-the-scenes things – podcasting, blogging, and working at events, to name a few. If you think you’ve got something to offer that we haven’t even thought of, that’s cool too. Drop us an email.

If successful, you’ll undergo training over summer, where you’ll learn the technical skills necessary to produce radio, and the presentation skills needed to make it worth listening to. As soon as term begins, you’re on the air. Applications close on Wednesday, November 24 at 5pm.

What do you have to gain from taking part in Student Radio? You’ll learn amazing new skills, you’ll make a bunch of new friends (and/or romantic partners), and you’ll be a part of the rich fabric that is community broadcasting. Plus, it’s heaps of fun.

So don't delay, grab yourself a form from our website - we want to work with you to make 2011 another successful year for Student Radio.

Application forms are available from www.studentradio.com.au/applications.

Got any questions about the process, or want to find out more? Just drop us an email, at hello@studentradio.com.au

Casey Briggs, Seb Tonkin, Timothy Molineux Student Radio Directors 2011

Urban Dictionary.com, disseminator of highbrow, considered, cultural wealth, defines an “editor” as “a stuck up asshole”, with the plural, “editors” as “a bunch of stuck up assholes”. With that lofty standard to live up to, we, your humble 2011 On Dit editors, extend the proverbial hand of comradeship to you, the discerning Adelaide University student body.

Though we are most certainly a bunch, we hesitate to refer to ourselves as haughty anuses – at least without giving you the opportunity to form your own opinion. (At the risk that this short introduction has already led you to an unfavourable conclusion, we implore you to read on). Thus, to prepare both yourselves, and us, for the handover from beloved 2010 On Dit wunderkinds Connor, Mateo, and Myriam, we wish to outline our plans for the forthcoming year.

2010 has seen a return to a journalistic focus for our institution’s time-honoured magazine, with considered opinions, research and impeccable grammar applied to a variety of local, national and international issues; we will maintain this standard in 2011. In addition, we will attempt to bring an indepth analysis of campus culture and current events, as well as turning our eye to the greater Adelaide scene. You can look forward to regular music pages highlighting noteworthy Adelaide bands, albums and gigs, ‘Degrees of Knowledge’ (an insider critique of various Adelaide Uni degrees), recommendations on cheap Adelaide eateries, ‘How To’ guides, a section for campus poetry, regular columns to enlighten and amuse, as well as the long awaited return of Vox

Pop. And for those partial to an interactive magazine, procrastination or not concentrating in lectures, hold your collective breath for the games page.

Though our prodigious egos might try to convince us we can do this all by ourselves, our superegos (and the fact that we regularly misspell our own names) have informed us that without your help, all this will come to nothing. So, we ask for those interested to consider contributing to On Dit 2011. If you write, draw, photograph or paint and want to help maintain the high standards of On Dit, get in touch. Alternatively, if you’re the armchair critic type, head online, look at our mock-up, and criticise the shit out of it.

Double points if you do both.

What to do next…

Check out our mock-up – ondit2011.tumblr.com – and let us know what you think in the comments. We think it looks rad – cut us down to size.

Write, draw, or create something, fool. Send samples to samuel.deere@student.adelaide.edu.au.

Peace, love and awesome to you all, Elizabeth, Rory and Sam On Dit eds-to-be, 2011

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