2016 Edition 7

FARRAGO EDITION SEVEN • 2016

ELECTIONS • TRASH • CORRUPTION

4AM

BY DARBY HUDSON I feel something special and beautiful in the darkness as I ghost along between sunset and sunrise. Not a ‘horror’ or ‘bewitching hour’, nothing harmful. Just a strange world - a sort of lost home – a place buried deep and dark, yet to be washed-up and surfaced by some uncanny tide. People asleep at maximum REM. Not much synapse activity, analysis or over-thinking as everyone dreams along to the tune of their own secret. Static on the car radio. Another ‘Take a Power Nap Now’ sign fades by. I can actually feel the stillness of ‘non-thinking’ across the land like undisturbed dust in a beam of sunlight of an abandoned house - or the perfect ring of a singing wine glass. The non-energy of human brain activity in the dark psycho-sphere – the electrical power-grid of thousands of brains shut-down. My hair bristles as a storm calmly pulses in front of me.

CONTENTS PAGE 11 PAGE 60

PAGE 39 PAGE 49 4 • NEWS IN BRIEF 5 • CALENDAR 7 • THE EXPLAINER: SOMETHING IS APPROSHING 8 • FOSSIL FREE FORUM 9 • FAILING GRADE • NOT GR8 M8: Go8 10 • PAID IN EXPERIENCE 11 • BEER NOT BOOKS: THE UNCO-OPERATIVE BOOKSHOP 14 • OB REPORTS 17 • UMSU ELECTION BREAKDOWN 19 • TURN OUT FOR WHAT? 20• COUNSEL IN COUPLETS 21 • UNDERGRADUALISMS (COMIC) 23 • THE REVOLUTION WILL BE COMPUTERISED 24 • CHANGE IN THE NEW CLIMATE 25 • DON’T LET YOUR DREAMS BE DREAMS 27 • THE FEMININE CRITIQUE: DIVERSITY PART 1 29 • OUR ZONES OF SUFFERING 30 • FOR & AGAINST: STUDENT ELECTIONS 31 • WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE TICKLISH? 32 • RIO & EVIE (COMIC) 35 • MATCHA DO ABOUT NOTHING?

36 • HIDING IN PAID SIGHT 38 • ONE OF US: CULT REVIEWS – FREAKS AND TWEAKS 39 • IN DEFENCE OF THE FANGIRL 40 • HOW NOT TO BE A DICK THIS PARALYMPICS 42 • WALL OF BROS 43• THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS 44 • GHIBLI’S MOVING PICTURES 46 • MIND YOUR HEAD 47 • BUTTON MASHING: OVER AND OVER AND OVER 48 • SATURDAY AFTERNOON 49 • COOL KIDS ON THE BLOCK 50 • LATE NIGHT HAZE 52 • LIKE LIKES TO LIKE LIKE 55 • TRASH MANSION 56 • BREAKING IN AND OUT OF LIVES • THE DOOR 57 • EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH 59 • NOTES FROM THE WEIRD SIDE: THE GHOST HORSES 60 • LOSING SENSE 62 • ADVANCE 63 • LITTLE DEATH 64 • FLASH FICTION: OUT OF THIS WORLD FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 1

THE FARRAGO TEAM

EDITORS

Danielle Bagnato Sebastian Dodds Baya Ou Yang Caleb Triscari

SUBEDITORS

Bori Ahn Ayche Allouche Alexandra Alvaro Natalie Amiel Jordyn Butler Cara Chiang Ben Clark Jess Comer Gareth Cox-Martin Nicole de Souza Simone Eckardt Simon Farley Jessica Flatters Hayley Franklin Amie Green Ashleigh Hastings Paloma Herrera Emma Hollis Annabelle Jarrett Audrey Kang Rose Kennedy Jack Kilbride Eliza Lennon Jack Francis Musgrave Jeremy Nadel Kathleen O’Neill Emily Paesler Jesse Paris-Jourdan Alanah Parkin Evelyn Parsonage Elena Piakis Finbar Piper Ed Pitt Lara Porczak Lotte Ward Jenny Van Veldhuisen Dzenana Vucic Matthew Wojczys Jessica Xu Yan Zhuang

COLUMNISTS CONTRIBUTORS

2 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

Alexandra Alvaro Ben Volchok Cam Doig Cara Chiang Christian Slattery Claire Miller Cormac O’Brien Kirkby Daena Teng Danielle Scrimshaw Darby Hudson Duncan Wallace Erin Thomas Gabrielle Capes Hania Syed Hayley Franklin Jack Francis Musgrave Jeremy Nadel Jesse Paris-Jourdan Jessica Tsintsi Kangli Hu Martin Ditmann Mary Ntalianis Mindi Suter Monique O’Rafferty Paloma Herrera Raphael Canty Reilly Sullivan Sheri Lohardjo Simone Eckardt Sonny Thomas Stephanie Choo Steven Nicholas Tawney Bevilacqua Trung Le Ven Bolchok Yasmin Jarkan

GRAPHICS CONTRIBUTORS Edie M Bush James Callaghan Lynley Eavis Amie Green Tiffany Y Goh Adam Joshua Fan Taliza Ho Anwyn Hocking Carolyn Huane Lucy Hunter Jasmin Isobe Emma Jensen Kerry Jiang Tzeyi Koay Han Li Mabel Loui Eloyse McCall Lilly McLean Sam Nelson Dominic Shi Jie On Katia Pellicciotta Anais Poussin Kathy Audrey Sarpi Ella Shi Bonnie Smith Ellen YG Son Sophie Sun Aisha Trambas Jialin Yang Reimena Yee

Ben Clark (Online) Gabriel Filippa Thiashya Jayasekera Kerry Jiang James Macaronas Nick Parkinson Adriane Reardon Eliza Shallard Felicity Sleeman (Online) Lotte Ward Xavier Warne

WEB OFFICERS

Sorcha Hennessy Lucie Greene Allen Gu Kim Le

SOCIAL MEDIA

Jack Fryer Ilsa Harun Monique O’Rafferty Lachy Simpson

COVER

Edie M Bush

FINE PRINT Farrago is the student magazine of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU), produced by the Media Department. Farrago is published by the General Secretary of UMSU, James Bashford. The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of UMSU, the printers or the editors. Farrago is printed by Printgraphics, care of the superlative Nigel Quirk. All writing and artwork remains the property of the creators. This collection is © Farrago and Farrago reserves the right to republish material in any format.

ARTWORK BY KERRY JIANG

EDITORIAL I

t’s that goddamn time of the year again.

The coloured T-shirts are out. The flyers are flapping. The painful sound of ‘Do you have a few moments to listen to me talk at you about your Lord and Saviour Student Elections?’ is ringing around campus. If you’ve been here a while, you’ll have your own strategies for dealing with the onslaught. If you’re still new to the place, welcome to the UMSU student elections – our very own slice of democracy.

What’s an UMSU, you say? Well, UMSU is the University of Melbourne Student Union. You’re officially a member because you pay the SSAF (Student Services and Amenities Fee). That means you have the right to vote in these elections. UMSU provide a whole bunch of great stuff to students. From free breakfasts, to student advocacy, to ensuring the University doesn’t fuck us all over too much – UMSU has something for everyone. Even this magazine you’re holding and reading (thanks for picking it up, by the way!) is UMSU. We know this week can seem like hell. We know it’s not fun. But it’s important. If you don’t vote, you’re opting out of having your voice heard by the students who want to run the union. You’re saying ‘nah, I’m good’ to one of the few things you can do that will have a measurable impact on how you’re represented. Sometimes, as a student, it can feel like the system doesn’t work for you. That can’t change if you don’t vote. That won’t change if you don’t try to find out what the people running for office/council/committee/board stand for.

Obviously, we’re a little biased in saying all this. We’ve been on the other side of this whole thing. We’ve been the shirtwearers; the flyer-flingers. We ran for the Media Office last year because we really believed that we could represent students and provide a platform for them to have their many and varied voices heard. We like to think we’ve largely succeeded in that this year. It has been a privilege.

Please, go out and vote. Find someone you can believe in and who will best represent you, then vote for them. Help this democracy thing work properly. It’s still going to be a tough week, even after you vote. But you’ll have helped a worthy cause.

And in the meantime, while you make up your mind, sit down and have a read of this magazine. Take a moment or two to check out the really great stuff we put together to help you through the week. Stuff like an in-depth investigative report on the Co-op book shop’s corruption and mismanagement (page 12), a passionate piece about the ethics of Australia’s offshore detention policy from Cam Doig (page 28), or instructions for ‘How Not To Be A Dick These Paralympics’ from Jack Francis Musgrave (page 48). If that’s not your style: all good, you can have a read of Tawney Bevilacqua’s psychedelic trip into ‘Trash Mansion’ (page 55), which serves as the inspiration for Edie M Bush’s luscious front cover, or Danielle Scrimshaw’s tale of retail tedium in ‘Employee Of The Month’ (page 57).

We hope this magazine can be your life raft in the sea of student politics. Wade through the trash and hopefully you’ll find something to treasure. Good luck out there; we’ll see you around.

Don’t be afraid to speak up, Danielle Sebastian, Baya and Caleb.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY EDIE M BUSH

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 3

CAMPUS

NEWS IN BRIEF UWA TRANSPARENCY

The University of Western Australia has become one of the first universities to publish additional information on the median ATAR scores of students who entered courses in the previous year.

THE FUTURE OF THE ATAR

BIG BROTHER It has been revealed that the University of Melbourne is using the Uniwireless network to track the location of students and staff.

Those who are logged into the Uniwireless network are recorded anonymously.

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

A National Day of Action was held on 24 August.

Organised by the National Union of Students, the nationwide rallies were organised to protest the proposed funding cuts to higher education.

REFUGEE ENROLMENTS

The University of Melbourne Student Union is currently seeking legal advice on whether the University can carry out this tracking without seeking explicit permission first.

Research has found that the number of students from refugee backgrounds in Australia has more than doubled in the past few years with Western Sydney University taking the highest count.

CADMUS: THE SEQUEL

THE TOP 100

TEACHING THRESHOLD

The anti-plagiarism software Cadmus is being trialled at the University of Sydney. The software, as reported in Farrago, was developed by University of Melbourne alumni.

Six Australian universities have been ranked in the top 100 universities worldwide, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

State Minister for Education James Merlino has proposed a state-wide minimum ATAR entry into teaching courses.

Similar admission models have been implemented in New South Wales.

The University of Melbourne has commissioned a working group to look into the future of the ATAR to determine alternate methods of student admissions.

STUDENT PRECINCT The University of Melbourne has commenced recruitment for a Student Precinct Online Co-Creation Community.

The project will aim to gather a large range of student input to find out the optimal student precinct environment.

The recruitment period has commenced and the Online Community will be launched soon thereafter.

If you would like to find out more, email the project team at student-precinct@ unimelb.edu.au

4 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

The University of Melbourne was ranked at #40, followed by the University of Queensland (#55), the Australian National University (#77), Monash University (#79), the University of Sydney (#82) and the University of Western Australia (#96).

SPECIAL CONSIDERATION Special consideration policies at the University of Melbourne have come under fire following an UMSU Advocacy report.

The University will be establishing a working group to solve the issues.

CLUBS CARNIVAL

The UMSU Clubs Carnival was on 25 August. 40 clubs and societies were hosted on South Lawn, ranging from faculty and course clubs to general interest societies.

BREADTH

The University of Melbourne is looking into the future of breadth in undergraduate degrees.

Student focus groups have been run to determine what role breadth plays in undergraduate degrees.

NOTRE DAMN A story by The Australian has reported that staff at the University of Notre Dame are obliged to teach against abortion and in-vitro fertilisation for people in same-sex relationships.

FREE SPEECH

METRO STATION

The National Tertiary Education Union is concerned that the University of Melbourne is watering down its policy which permits academics to freely express opinions.

The University of Melbourne has run a campaign to have the new Metro station named ‘Parkville’. Other popular names include ‘Grattan’, ‘Doherty’ and ‘University’.

UMSU GENERAL ELECTION 5-9 September is the University of Melbourne Student Union General Elections.

All students enrolled at the University of Melbourne are permitted to vote in the elections. The positions that are up for grabs include President, General Secretary, Clubs & Societies Officers and Women’s Officers.

Visit the Election Guide after page 16 for more information on candidates and voting locations.

UMSU

PERFORATED FOR YOUR PLEASURE

OCTOBER CALENDAR WEEK NINE

WEEK TEN

WEEK ELEVEN

WEEK TWELVE

MONDAY 19 SEPT.

MONDAY 3

MONDAY 10

MONDAY 17

TUESDAY 20 SEPT.

TUESDAY 4

TUESDAY 11

TUESDAY 18

12-2pm: Disabilties – Neurodiversity Collective 1pm: Women of Colour Collective 1pm: Bands, Bevs & BBQ 2pm: Basement Comedy 5:30pm: Environment – Play With Your Food

12-2pm: Disabilties – Neurodiversity Collective 12-2pm: Creative Arts – Life Drawing, Arts Law 1pm: Women of Colour Collective 1pm: Bands, Bevs & BBQ 5:30pm: Environment – Play With Your Food

12-2pm: Disabilties – Neurodiversity Collective 1pm: Women of Colour Collective 1pm: Bands, Bevs & BBQ 5:30pm: Environment – Play With Your Food

12-2pm: Disabilties – Neurodiversity Collective 12-2pm: Creative Arts – Botanic Drawing, Arts Law 1pm: Women of Colour Collective 1pm: Bands, Bevs & BBQ 5:30pm: Environment – Play With Your Food

WEDNESDAY 21 SEPT.

WEDNESDAY 5

WEDNESDAY 12

WEDNESDAY 19

12pm: Women’s Collective 1pm: Queer Lunch, Queer Space 7pm: Activities – Prosh Trivia, Grand Buffet Hall

12pm: Women’s Collective 1pm: Queer Lunch, Queer Space

12pm: Women’s Collective 1pm: Queer Lunch, Queer Space

12pm: Women’s Collective 1pm: Queer Lunch, Queer Space

THURSDAY 22 SEPT.

THURSDAY 6

THURSDAY 13

THURSDAY 20

1pm: Disabilities Collective 1-3pm: Creative Arts Collective, Arts Lab 8pm: Queer – Pride Ball

1-3pm: Creative Arts Collective, Arts Lab 5pm: Queer Girl Movie Night

1pm: Disabilities Collective 1-3pm: Creative Arts Collective, Arts Lab

1pm: Disabilities Collective 1-3pm: Creative Arts Collective, Arts Lab 5pm: Queer Girl Movie Night

FRIDAY 23 SEPT.

FRIDAY 7

FRIDAY 14

FRIDAY 21

6-9pm: Creative Arts – Melbourne University Film Festival

Activities: Oktoberfest!

ARTWORK BY AMIE GREEN

FOR MORE INFO VISIT UMSU.UNIMELB.EDU.AU

FARRAGO FARRAGO2016 2016• EDITION • EDITIONSEVEN SEVEN• 5• 5

mixcloud.com/radiofodder

radiofodder2016@gmail.com

radiofodder.com

6:00PM Spectrum

6:00PM Sexless in the City

@radio_fodder

/radiofodder

A show run by the Economics Student Society of Australia HOSTED BY: Tom Crowley

7:00PM Nominal Interest

Spinnin’ the freshest tunes that’ll get you grooving, jiving and vibing.

HOSTED BY: Ethan & Venkat

HOSTED BY: Sonny & Oli

Fun, laughter, unprofessionalism, celebrites & personal secrets.

HOSTED BY: Billie, Kit & Trung

Featuring music from Bandcamp sadboy ditties to ya boi’s fire Soundcloud.

5:00PM Local Produce

They’ll take you to musio-spatiotemporo-physical transcendence.

HOSTED BY: Aiden & Callum

5:00PM Snags ’n Satellites

7:00PM Jazz & Other Sounds

The meditating sounds of jazz, funk, fusion and soul.

HOSTED BY: Thomas McIntire

Audio sketches wedged between witty banter & crab noises.

HOSTED BY: Jacob, James & Ben

4:00PM Mudcrabs Radio

A Jewish-themed discussion and comedy show.

HOSTED BY: Jacob Sacher

4:00PM Schmoozin’

6:00PM Pinky Rings

Nothing better than a couple of pasty white boys chatting about rap.

HOSTED BY: Max and Campbell

Mapping sonic astral bodies by bumping naughty tunes.

HOSTED BY: Sebastian Hughes

3:00PM Bastronomy

Music charts with a sociological twist.

HOSTED BY: Barbara, Geoffrey, Ashley & Signe

2:00PM Socbites (Monthly)

5:00PM The Magoos

Showcasing progressive Japanese music from the ’70s to today.

HOSTED BY: Brad Knight

2:00PM Japanese Bathhouse

Dodgy panel management, dodgy song choices & dodgy vibes.

HOSTED BY: Tosh Blakley

12:00PM The Apartment

A weekly update with the creative arts at Unimelb.

HOSTED BY: Harriet & Guy

11:00AM Creative Arts News

A comedy game show with three contestants from three faculties.

HOSTED BY: Anokhi Somaia

10:00AM Faculty Feuds

Wednesday

A premier sports program to satisfy all your sporting needs.

HOSTED BY: Aaron & Jack

The late night banter at a sleepover – games, bitchiness & throwback music.

HOSTED BY: Trent & Monique

1:00PM Snappy Hour

4:00PM Colour Contest

A wild selection of local releases and international oddities each week.

HOSTED BY: Charlie Lempriere

Featuring everything about East Asian culture.

HOSTED BY: Yusang & Kexin

12:00PM Melb Mulberry

2:00PM Time For K-Pop

Fall deeep into the rabbit hole of the Korean music industry.

HOSTED BY: Nicole de Souza

Brought to you by the UMSU Queer Department.

HOSTED BY: Frances Connors

11:00AM Queerly Beloved

1:00PM Shindig!

One hour dedicated to music from the ’60s – think soul, folk and rock.

HOSTED BY: Holly, Finbar & Leah

Brought to you by the UMSU Disabilities Department.

HOSTED BY: Christian & Jess

10:00AM Network Disabled

12:00PM PhD

Probably Heavily in Debt brings you interviews with antisocial academics.

HOSTED BY: Finbar Piper

Tuesday

Monday

RADIO

HOSTED BY: Cassandra Lutzko

Exploring themes in metal & sometimes featuring a fellow metalhead.

5:00PM Heavy Metal Hour

RADIO FODDER now playing at the Farmers Market every Wednesday from10AM - 2PM, Concrete Lawns.

PARTY

LISTENING PARTY LISTENING

Over-analysis of Pop Culture using critical & literary theory.

HOSTED BY: Tiffany & Eveleen

6:00PM Pop Culture Disorder

Tune in each week for fifteen minutes of phantasmagorical fun.

HOSTED BY: James Macaronas

4:00PM The Mr Ghost Show

Introducing dancers, artists and awesome vibes each week.

HOSTED BY: Luke Lu

3:00PM Cypher Session

It’s like Farrago but you can listen to it. Farradio.

HOSTED BY: Jesse Paris-Jourdan

3:00PM Farradio

There’ll be insights, comedy, interviews, music & to quote Oliver, “more”.

HOSTED BY: Danny Glattstein

1:00PM Curiosity

Brought to you by the UMSU Indigenous Department.

HOSTED BY: Emily & Wunambi

Your weekly fix of pop culture, news, reviews and discussion.

HOSTED BY: Felicity & Jess

11:00AM Spoiler Alert

Friday

12:00PM Biggest Blackest Show

9:00AM The Democrat

Deconstructing the current state of democracy from around the world.

HOSTED BY: Julie Carli

Thursday

FODDER

CAMPUS

SOMETHING IS APPROSHING CLAIRE MILLER EXPLAINS THE ANNUAL SHENANIGANS BEHIND PROSH WEEK

I

n my first year at uni I saw mobs of mimes, gawked at strange wooden statues exhibited on South Lawn and heard whispers of all night scavenger hunts. Unbeknownst to me, all these events were part of Prosh Week. The wonders and shenanigans of Prosh will take place this year from 19-23 September in Week Nine.

But what is Prosh? Prosh is a competition between various big and small teams composed of students who tend to be part of various clubs and societies on campus. Well-known big teams include Eng Donkeys, Pscience, Arts Spoons and MUSKI Huskies.

Heavy Metal Warriors – who were last year’s winners – are an example of a smaller team. Students are able to get involved with teams through joining Facebook groups and attending information sessions.

For Cassie Cooke, one of this year’s team captains for Psience, Prosh is an intense and fulfilling week.

“Prosh is a week of ‘organised shenanigans’ where you meet some of the most amazing people and do things you would never think you would do,” Cooke stated.

The origins of Prosh are as elusive as the bodies of the students who participate in nude runs during the week. Farrago has previously reported that Prosh is believed to be a shortening of procession, in which various clubs and societies would parade around the University of Melbourne. An alternative theory is that Prosh is a slurred pronunciation of “posh” which related to how students would dress up in formal attire for the numerous balls and events which took place at the University during September.

Whatever the initial origins, the event is now a week-long team event known for its outlandish activities.

Students are encouraged to participate in a range of activities including billycart racing, boat races on the South Lawn moat and various pub crawls where students can attain their Bachelor or Masters of Inebriation. This is something Farrago has long documented. In back editions of this publication one can find mentions of the Engineering Society’s “furious ferrous phallus” and the “Redmond Barry Stair Climb”. Also recorded is the storming of the Bourke Street Myer store in 1971 by 500 students dressed in tuxedos and pyjamas, demanding fair

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CALEB TRISCARI

treatment of teddy bears. More recently Alex Fielden – or Captain Goodtimes as he is known to his Arts Spoons teammates – counts constructing an eight-metre version of Mount Rushmore and placing it on South Lawn as one of his most memorable moments.

“Prosh Week, to put it simply, is my favourite week at uni throughout the year” Fielden said enthusiastically.

Despite the culture of pushing boundaries and extreme activities, several interviewees stressed the supportive nature among students and organisers. Tessa Pietsch, a second year Arts student who will compete for Pscience, stresses the lack of coercion among participants.

“No-one is going to push you to do something you’re not comfortable with,” she said.

Piestch believes there is a sense of belonging and community gained from being involved in Prosh.

“I love the inter-team rivalries, the pub nights, the friendships that last far longer than the short week that is Prosh,” she said.

Despite the affirmations of students who have participated in Prosh, the weeklong festivities and events have been subject to criticisms. In 2004, the traditional scavenger hunt – which is a Prosh tradition – was subject to intense scrutiny from local media.

The Age reported that the list asked students to locate midget, fat or amputee pornography as well as participate in activities which then Students’ Council chairman Paul Donegan found appalling.

“Some of the things that went on were straight-out sexist, racist and offensive,” Donegan stated. Then Queer Officer Tracey Boyd expressed her disdain and disgust at the non-tolerant and narrowminded nature of the scavenger hunt.

“It was only available to those who were Caucasian, fully-abled, male and heterosexual or those tolerating of discriminatory attitudes,” she said.

Although this year’s six student judges have been unavailable for comment on specifics of the activities planned for Prosh Week 2016 – given the event’s riotous, raucous and controversial nature – students can expect to see shenanigans and the bare realities of Prosh this year.

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 7

CAMPUS

FOSSIL FREE FORUM PALOMA HERRERA AND THE UNIVERSITY’S SUSTAINED INVESTMENTS

G

lobal warming has been called the most critical moral issue of our time. In March this year the University of Melbourne released its Sustainability Charter 2016-2020. This included a commitment to “implement investment strategies consistent with the University’s commitment to sustainability and its financial and legal responsibilities”. On 8 August students were invited to have their say on how they believe the University is addressing its environmental impact, primarily through its continued engagement with corporations attached to the fossil fuel industry.

The University has been continually called upon by groups of students to divest entirely from the fossil fuel industry, with the matter becoming increasingly contentious among the student population over recent years.

Hosted by Maxine McKew, former politician and journalist, the discussion covered ways in which the University can contribute to the global goal to limit global warming to below two degrees.

A member of the sustainability executive at the University encouraged students to have a “holistic understanding” of the University’s placement of investments. Currently the University’s investments and indirect investments in companies connected to fossil fuel is a relatively low 4.08 per cent of total University portfolio funds, though amounting to a significant total of $78 million. This number has remained between three per cent and five per cent for the last five years.

“Time is running out to keep global warming levels below the safe 1.5 degree limit and anything less than full divestment within five years is an antiquated gamble that holds people and our environment hostage,” said student and member of Fossil Free MU, Lucy Turton, in a statement following the forum. Pacific islands, the communities who populate them and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will all disappear if a 1.5 degree limit is not achieved.

The University outlined in its statement for the forum that it “has been taking a broad approach by addressing all interactions with the fossil fuel industry, rather than treating investments as a standalone issue”.

Speaker Matt Clare, a member of Fossil Free MU and Juris Doctor student, promulgated the effects that global warming would have on the disadvantaged nations of the world. As the number of environmental refugees grows, Clare cited his commitment to Fossil Free MU being in response to a larger global issue.

8 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

“It’s a moral issue, and we need to take moral action”, Clare said, to applause from the primarily pro-divestment audience.

In response to Clare’s speech, the crowd held up orange sheets of paper to show their support of divestment action by the University. “I think as students we’re here to learn new skills for the future, and to contribute to making the world a better place.

It’s important to think about what kind of world we want to be shaping and by investing in fossil fuels, the University is fuelling the creation of a dangerous, inequitable and disastrous future,” Turton said.

Following the speakers, the public audience put questions forth.

One question came from Harry Jennings, who asked the panel if it was hypocritical for the University to divest from tobacco when approximately 150,000 deaths are caused each year as a result of global change, which is significantly impacted by the fossil fuel industry. Previously the University had been among the first to divest entirely from tobacco and, similarly, South African goods and services to boycott apartheid.

Professor Cameron Hepburn, an alumnus of the University of Melbourne and current Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Oxford joined the discussion via a prerecorded video-link. Hepburn stated that though students have become understandably inclined to distance themselves from the damage caused by fossil fuel industries, he urged the student community to focus on the “research, teaching and outreach” at the University, calling divestment a “question of practicality”.

Hepburn discouraged immediate divestment from all companies, stating that by continuing engagement with companies who have clear divestment plans, others will be encouraged to create similar divestment goals, which will stabilise emissions by 2050, a contention echoed by the following speaker Dr Leeora Black.

Black encouraged the student community to focus on the area where it can have the biggest impact, namely in teaching and encouraging environmental sustainability. Black stated the University must not “rest on its laurels and should apply its talents to climate mitigation”. However, pro-divestment students continue to call for more urgent and immediate action to be taken. “Engagement with fossil fuel companies is only going to stall active leadership on climate change, undermining any other efforts,” said Turton.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MABEL LOUI

CAMPUS

FAILING GRADE

JESSICA TSINTSI ON THE POTENTIAL END OF THE ATAR

O

n 1 August, the Australian National University (ANU) announced that it will be the first university in Australia to assess all students’ applications with a variety of criteria rather than solely by Year 12 ATAR results.

According to Vice-Chancellor Brian Schmidt, ANU will also consider students’ extra-curricular activities and community contributions during their time at high school.

ANU will implement these changes from 2018 and keep them for the next six years.

UMSU Education (Academic) Officer Paul Sakkal has weighed in on the debate. When asked if he would support the University of Melbourne judging its applicants by their extra-curricular activities and community contributions, he expressed that, “ANU’s decision is definitely an interesting one. ATAR acting as the sole factor in admission certainly has its issues but it’s important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’s undoubtedly an issue we as a university cohort need to have a robust discussion about and we welcome the establishment of a working group looking at the issue within ACCC”.

“It is fantastic,” Lucy, a second-year student at the University of Melbourne, told Farrago. Lucy moved to Melbourne when she was in Year 12 but the challenges of her senior year of high school almost turned her study life upside down.

NOT GR8 M8: Go8

MARY NTALIANIS ON FLAGGING SUPPORT FOR FLAGSHIPS

I

n the last budget, the Turnbull Coalition introduced a plan to partially deregulate university courses. This would involve introducing uncapped course fees for a number of degrees offered in universities around Australia.

These ‘flagship courses’, proposed in the Government’s Driving Innovation, Fairness and Excellence in Australian Higher Education paper, could make up 20 per cent of total university courses and their cost would be uncapped. This means that a university could charge as much as they like for these flagship courses. The government plans to begin uncapping fees from 2018.

Universities Australia has cited a concern that deregulated flagship courses will create a system where disadvantaged students are locked out.

Additionally, many universities have expressed concern that flagship courses would impact poorly on students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, Indigenous backgrounds and rural areas.

Sue Elliot, Deputy Provost of the University of Melbourne, said, “Perceptions in the community reveal the high value placed on a university education but not the corresponding desire to pay higher taxes for this education.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIALIN YANG

“You know, it was a totally new system and new environment,” she said.

“I was the typical top student in my previous school in Queensland but when I moved to Melbourne, I fell far behind.”

Lucy tried to centre her life on studying but could not endure the monotony. She took up volunteering and other non-academic pastimes. Lucy says she would have appreciated the opportunity to have these pursuits recognised.

However, not all students are as keen on the idea. Vicki is a Year 12 student at Buckley Park College and has dreamed of getting into ANU for a long time. She fears that having to juggle all her subjects with volunteering and extracurricular obligations will make the nightmare year even more stressful.

“Our Office will be heavily involved in the discussions surrounding this issue and we’re keen to explore whether or not this reform is suitable to our university; there’s a lot to like about the idea of admitting students based on their extra-curriculum and community contributions, as well as altering the admissions system to give more weight to equity and socio-economic issues,” said Sakkal.

“In short, the voting public and the Government do not prioritise funding of universities.”

However, Elliot has expressed that “The University of Melbourne remains open to exploring options such as partial deregulation but without further detail on this proposal, is unable to comment on its implications for universities and students”.

UMSU Education (Public) Officers, Akira Boardman and Dominic Cernaz, have said “UMSU Education remains against deregulation, whatever the form”.

“UMSU as a student union believes in universal tertiary education, as education is a right that should be accessible to everybody.”

When asked about concerns regarding the creation of a twotiered system, UMSU Education expressed concerns about equity, “Some courses will have fees dramatically increase, so obviously, some students who feel they won’t be able to afford the high costs won’t enrol. This will contribute to a growing class division in Australia.”

“What’s important to also consider is how partial deregulation would fit within broader changes. For example, if the lowering of the HECS repayment threshold is adopted alongside partial deregulation and other concerning measures, it would contribute to the growing feeling that university is only accessible to the rich.”

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 9

CAMPUS

PAID IN EXPERIENCE

O

ALEXANDRA ALVARO AND SHERI LOHARDJO LOOK INTO THE LEGALITY OF USING STUDENTS FOR GRUNT WORK

n 31 July at midday, an anonymous post is made to ‘The University of Melbourne Confessions’ Facebook page.

“Anon yo,” it reads. “I’ve got a juicy situation and I’m looking for legal advice. Any law students, or anybody involved with the student union, your time to shine.”

Usually, the page is a platform for eliciting cheap laughs from fellow students but flippant tone aside, this 770-word diatribe seems to uncover something more serious than is obvious from the outset.

The writer of the post attends the Melbourne Business School (MBS) and is currently undertaking a Master of Management (Marketing), where they are enrolled in a core subject called Marketing Research. It’s “boring, typical foundation subject shit,” the student says.

For their major assessment, students have received a brief from NostraData, a marketing insight company that will be overseeing the semester-long project and supplying industry advice in an effort by the University to provide students with realworld experience. Or, as the student describes, treating them as “minimum wage survey monkeys without the minimum wage”.

“These guys are straight up getting fee-paying students to do the dirty work for them”, they write.

Teams of students are permitted to contact pharmaceutical companies (from a list supplied by NostraData) to obtain qualitative data, which they will then analyse and present back to the company. Each research team is expected to conduct three phone interviews, based on a list of discussion topics outlined in the brief.

Given the subject costs $3,820 for local students (even more for international students), it would be alarming to think that graduates are being roped into doing low-level work they would otherwise be paid to do in order to complete a unit. Secondly, it is not clear whether or not an employer-employee relationship exists here.

Deputy Head of Marketing at the MBS, Professor Simon Bell, says that the student’s attitude represents “the height of conceit”.

He maintains that the company concedes a whole lot for no guaranteed benefit, whilst the students gain an “incredible learning experience” and a deeper understanding of the data collection process.

10 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

“The company has to do all the work setting up these things, to get insight from an insignificant number of interviews and then sit through presentation after presentation, riddled with errors, to maybe get some insight that’s valuable to them,” Bell said.

Subject coordinator, Associate Professor Jill Lei, said that the project was created with learning objectives in mind, further diminishing the significance of the findings to NostraData.

This seems to conflict with the information NostraData Director Mike De Gama presents in his pitch.

“The insights that you’re able to deliver are actually really important to the strategic direction they take with their own pharmacy banners,” he can be heard saying to the cohort in the seminar recording.

Lei and Bell both mentioned that it is unreasonable to compare the benefits to the company to those of the student.

“Do we really want to wind it back and say ‘sorry, a consulting project is now defunct because a company tangentially benefitted from what you said?’” Bell asked. “That would be an incredibly sad thing for The University of Melbourne, that has been criticised for being too ‘ivory tower’.”

This is the second year in a row that NostraData has helped coordinate a live project at the University. Contrary to accusations made in the comments of the post, Lei stated that there is no deal that has been struck between the company and the University.

The student told Farrago they are hoping to ensure NostraData is more transparent in their interactions with students.

“I can definitely see how the research of students isn’t very useable at their professional level but then, since we’re paying for the privilege of doing it, that seems a little moot,” they said. “If the research is useless, don’t dangle the carrot in front of us and tell us what big boys we are for handling such an important task.”

Tom Crowley, UMSU Education (Academic) Officer, said that the subject sits “conveniently within a grey area”.

“There’s a difference between genuinely learning in a work environment and simply doing outsourced grunt work for a company’s private benefit,” he said. “I think this subject falls clearly in the second category.”

The student has been referred to UMSU’s Legal Division which is currently inundated with cases. Crowley sits on the Academic Programs Committee as an UMSU representative and intends to bring up the matter at their next sitting on 26 August.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIALIN YANG

CAMPUS

BEER NOT BOOKS:

THE UNCO-OPERATIVE BOOKSHOP A REPORT BY MARTIN DITMANN, JEREMY NADEL, JESSE PARIS-JOURDAN AND DUNCAN WALLACE

I

n 1958, two students at the University of Sydney, Malcolm Broun and John Sharwood, set up the University Co-operative Bookshop, a student association that bought, swapped and sold books at low prices, operating out of a garage.

Now known as the Co-op, the organisation is one of Australia’s largest co-operatives in terms of members – there are almost two million of them – as well as one of Australia’s largest booksellers.

Co-operatives are different from investor-owned corporations.

For one thing, they are supposed to be democratically controlled by their members rather than accountable to investor-owners.

But the Co-op has been taken out of its members’ control.

The company bars students from joining its board of directors, doesn’t give members adequate notice of general meetings and misleads members about their rights under the Co-operatives National Law. A Farrago investigation has revealed that the Co-op has come under the control of a corporate clique, moving further and further away from the principles of the co-operative movement.

In 2004, Ben Hollenstein and Stephen Coles were students at the University of Sydney. Like many students today, they were frustrated with the University Co-operative Bookshop, its high prices for textbooks and delays in deliveries to students. So they took a closer look at the company.

What they found was troubling. The original charter of the 1950s was slipping away as revenue dropped, administration costs rose and payments to board directors became increasingly large.

There was also a lack of student representation on the board.

“The Department of Fair Trading stipulates that all members of a co-operative have the right to stand as director but the [Co-op] Rules dictate that directors must have a minimum of five years’ experience at a large company and/or a university degree. It’s like a farmer’s co-operative without farmers,” Hollenstein told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2004.

Hollenstein and Coles presented the board of the Co-op with a petition for a special general meeting (SGM), at which they intended to argue for two positions on the board to be set aside for students. The board at the time, headed by chairman Alister Runge, rejected the petition.

In February of the same year, the co-operative scheduled its annual general meeting in Hobart, despite the fact that only two per cent of its members lived in Tasmania. The two students suspected the location was chosen to keep them off the board. At the meeting, which only 35 members out of a million attended, the board decided to increase the number of members needed to call an SGM from 200 to 1,000 people.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TZEYI KOAY

Hollenstein and Coles alleged that the board had circumvented democracy by making the meeting inaccessible to most students.

If so, the trick had worked and the co-operative would do so again – the very next month, the board scheduled another general meeting in Hobart. The aim of this SGM, which cost members $100,000, was once again to increase the number of members needed to call an SGM, this time from 1,000 to 10,000 people.

“Insisting on 10,000 signatures on a petition will make it impossible for anyone to force a special general meeting. It’s a ploy to block democracy, not save costs,” said Hollenstein.

This time, Hollenstein and Coles actually flew to Tasmania with a handful of supporters. The meeting opened at 3:00 pm, but was adjourned shortly afterwards, just as the students entered the room.

“As soon as Benny opened the door into the room we heard the chairman, Alister Runge, declare the meeting closed,” said Coles.

“How can they pass 10 resolutions, verify the minutes of past meetings, take discussion from the floor and vote in 60 seconds?

It epitomises the problems with the Co-op.”

Runge admitted the meeting was short – “less than 10 minutes” – but told The Sydney Morning Herald that the students had “refused” to participate. Hollenstein and Coles made a complaint to the Department of Fair Trading but in the end nothing came of it.

In October last year, during a Senate hearing into co-operatives, Senator Nick Xenophon asked Peter Knock, then CEO of the Co-op, about the barriers students face getting elected to the board of directors.

“Anybody can apply to be a director,” Knock said. “Anybody can put their hand up – and you have to be a member to be a director as well.”

The Co-op’s Rules tell a different story. To qualify to be a director, members need to have both graduated from a tertiary institution and “participated in the management and/or direction of a medium to large size business over not less than five years”.

Farrago asked Thorsten Wichtendahl, the current CEO of the Co-op, why the company bars students from the board.

“There are postgrad business students that I think would qualify, technically,” said Wichtendahl.

When pressed on the fact that the average student or active Coop member would not qualify, he said, “Quite frankly, I wouldn’t want to be reporting to a 21-year-old, first-year uni student. I take my guidance, strategic direction, coaching and mentoring from our board of directors – experienced company directors.”

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 11

Farrago also asked Wichtendahl about the way the Co-op gives notice of general meetings. Under the Co-operatives National Law, co-operatives need to give notice of an upcoming general meeting in writing.

“We publish it in major newspapers, we publish it on our website and our email campaigns,” said Wichtendahl.

But Farrago’s investigation has revealed that the Co-op does not email notices to members. When asked to provide evidence that they email notice multiple times, the Co-op never responded.

The Co-operatives National Law states that publishing notices in a newspaper may be enough but only if member whereabouts are unknown. However, most of the Co-op’s members provide their email and physical addresses when they sign up.

On 30 October 2011, Wichtendahl tweeted, “Time to shut down unions for good! #qantas” – a strange sentiment from someone now heading a co-operative, a business structure whose history is linked with the union movement.

“I’m not here to discuss my personal views on unions,” Wichtendahl said when we asked him about this tweet.

“I think the member statistics of most unions are declining and that speaks for itself.”

The afternoon of Wichtendahl’s interview, he deleted this tweet from his Twitter, along with six others. Another tweet said, “Burning issue for boards should be lack of productivity growth, not exec remuneration & gender diversity. Wake up, world has moved on!” (12 October 2012).

The Co-op effectively bars students from its board, seems to guard against their attendance at general meetings and does not engage with them democratically. Farrago asked Wichtendahl how the organisation is accountable to its members.

“We have plenty of feedback mechanisms for members to provide their voice,” Wichtendahl told us. “My personal email address is published on the website. People are welcome to contact me any time… I believe we are very accessible.”

Yet Farrago contacted the organisation in January this year to ask to see its constitution and most recent financial report.

Co-operatives are legally obliged to provide these documents to members on request.

But it took more than two months for the Co-op to complete the request, after six emails and over ten phone calls. And the constitution they sent was out of date.

Surprisingly, the Co-op does not include student welfare in its Rules’ objectives. The Rules do not mention the word “student”.

Yet according to the company’s website, the Co-op gives all profits back to students. The “We Support” page lists five ways it gives back.

However, three of the examples – “Involvement in Orientation Week”, “Advertising in student and university publications” and “Hosting and attending book launches” – seem to be euphemisms for advertising.

When Wichtendahl was asked about the other two – “Provision of scholarships and book bursaries to universities” and “Donations to support a range of events organised by student societies” – he revealed that these also come with a price tag.

“The university might give us a special deal on a property to let us operate from a store at more favourable terms – or not charge us a commercial rent, as some other universities do,” he said.

“And in return we agree to make a five or 10 grand scholarship available… or whatever cause is dear to the university’s heart.”

Some people in the co-operative sector, who did not wish to be named, told Farrago they do not see the Co-op as being representative of co-operatives, given its “lack of positive engagement with its members”.

The co-operative form of business was developed in the 1840s by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, who saw a need for a type of organisation that was responsive to the community.

They developed the Rochdale Principles, legislated for under Australian co-operatives law. Summarising these principles, the International Co-operative Alliance defines a co-operative as “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democraticallycontrolled enterprise”.

12 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

Research by Farrago suggests that the University Co-operative Bookshop started to drift away from these ideals in the early 1990s. Since then, the board of directors has been wracked by factional disputes.

An article in The Canberra Times in 1993 reported that in the previous two years, several long-serving directors with backgrounds in publishing and academia had been displaced by accountants, who argued for high directors’ fees and different rules for the election of the board. In a scathing letter of resignation, Canberra academic Maurice Dunlevy said the board had “lost the plot” and called for oversight from the Registrar of Co-operatives.

Four years later, the National Retail Manager was sacked after directors on the board hired private investigators who observed him talking to a former director. In what became a huge dispute, one faction of the board demanded the dismissal of four of the eight directors. One of these was Alister Runge – the chairman of the board seven years later when Hollenstein and Coles launched their attempt to improve student participation. Although Runge has since retired from the board, several of the directors remain from 2004.

Another incident surrounding the brief tenure and swift dismissal of acting general manager Frank Romanin in the early 2000s prompted an inquiry by Magistrate Elwyn Edgar Ernest Elms (a glorious name) for the Department of Fair Trading. Elms’ report criticised the co-operative and recommended that an administrator be appointed. Again, no oversight was provided.

The co-operative seems to have kept a low profile until 2013, when it unveiled an “omni-channel rebrand” with a new logo, colour scheme and website. “University” and “Bookshop” were dropped from its name.

“It’s becoming a lot more commercialised, but again, still keeping the heart of the co-operative in place,” Co-op Chief Marketing Officer Greg Smith told Marketing magazine.

Wichtendahl told Farrago, “Over the last five years that I’ve been with the business, we have diversified into other product categories. When I started we made well over 90 per cent of our annual sales from textbooks. Now that figure is under 60 per cent. We have introduced memorabilia and apparel… basically everything students spend money on, we want to be able to sell”.

There has also been a focus on more than just students.

Marketing reported a “wish to re-engage alumni” and the broader community.

“The Co-op effectively bars students from its board, seems to guard against their attendance at general meetings and does not engage with them democratically.”

But the corporatisation of the Co-op has come at the expense of student access to textbooks – supposedly the Co-op’s raison d’être. An academic at the University of Melbourne Law School, who wished to remain anonymous, has had problems with the Coop under-ordering textbooks. Half the books they asked the Co-op to make available simply were not.

“I am continuing the fight but, again, your firm representation to the Co-op regarding the need for prompt supply of the book will be very helpful in getting the message across (not just for this subject but for the others too where I understand this has been a problem)”, the lecturer implored students in an email.

In the 2015 Senate hearing into co-operatives, CEO Peter Knock spoke about why the organisation felt an evolution in their business model was necessary. Senator Nick Xenophon asked about an old bookshop at Adelaide University, which had been run by the student union.

Knock: The problem was their business model just sold textbooks. That was how they operated for some years. While they were still profitable, just, they got to the point where they could not fund it any more. The student union said, “We can invest our $2 million there or invest it in fast food.”

Xenophon: So it was a case of beer not books?

Knock: Correct. That is not unusual, as far as uni students go.

CAMPUS

What are the next steps? First, the Co-op has registered a list of business names, from “Cobroadband” to “Co-op Insurance”. It’s unclear what the plans with these names are. But it’s possible the Co-op will seek to get even further away from its bookshop roots.

There is also the question of demutualisation. Given the dominance of business people on the board, corporate branding, democratic limitations and the fact that most students don’t really distinguish it from a company, we wondered whether becoming investor-owned was the next step.

“I believe that over the past 58 years there were C-level executives in the company that have certainly explored this as an option,” said Wichtendahl.

“Personally I don’t have the appetite for it… we have the luxury of not having shareholders that want a dividend… but having said that… never say never.”

Wichtendahl says the current board is “very business-minded”.

Among others, the board consists of Mounir Kiwan, Dianne Yerbury and Hilal Yassine, whose brother, Talal Yassine, is company Secretary. These four have connections to a number of boards and committees – at Macquarie University, Medina Capital, Crescent Wealth and the Arab-Australia Dialogue, for example.

The Co-op’s financial report from 2014–15 revealed that the 12 directors on the board and “specified executives” received a total remuneration of $1,940,760.

But despite the perks, they’re arguably not doing a great job.

The Co-op’s financial accounts show that the organisation suffered $3 million in losses in 2014. The losses increased to $4 million last year. The plan to to expand sales by diversifying products seems to be working – revenue increased from $114.3 million in 2014 to $124 million in 2015.

But the increased focus on expanding revenue isn’t actually achieving much. Gross profit on product sales was $31 million in 2015, only slightly up on the $30 million profit the previous year.

Administration expenses grew more than any other expense the Co-op incurred – they were up more than $800,000 in 2015 from the previous year.

‘discount’, other online bookshops were cheaper. If it’s been at least two years since you first joined, you’re entitled to have your membership cancelled and your fee refunded. This was $20 if I recall correctly, but the fee now is $25.”

The deal became popular, with around 200 upvotes from bargain-hunters.

“Didnt [sic] even take 5 minutes, cheers OP!” read one comment.

Eventually, the Co-op took notice. Someone from the organisation went into damage control and started replying to comments. “Don’t forget that you actually do get some quite good deals as long as you are a member,” they commented.

But bargain-hunters are ruthless and not to be dissuaded.

Sometime between April and July 2015, the Co-op changed the terms and conditions on the application for membership.

The old terms and conditions stated that after being a member for two years, you could request to have the company repurchase your shares. The terms and conditions now say, “Shares in the Cooperative are non-transferable and non-refundable”.

The new application for membership invites people to join the Co-op using language that misleads about the real rights of membership on the matter of shares. The application is inconsistent with the Co-op’s Rules, which allow for repayment and transfer of share capital, and misleading in its assertion of statutory rights to repayment. You could go as far as to say that it tricks people into making their share capital a donation to the co-operative.

But if you signed up as a member of the Co-op before 2015, you should still be able to get your shares back. And just to be sure, Farrago checked with the CEO. “I would think that we would do the right thing and honour any refund requests that we come across,” he said.

It’s time the Co-op became accountable to its members. The first step would be putting a greater emphasis on engaging students democratically, starting with opening up the board of directors to students. At least one spot on the board should be set aside for students, so that students can have some say over the organisation that is supposed to exist for their benefit.

No dividend and no obligation to repay capital must be a corporate manager’s wet dream. But the Co-op is still supposed to be accountable – to its members, who own shares.

On 12 April last year, somebody with the username Piangi posted a deal on Ozbargain.com.au.

“Get Your $20 Co­-Op Bookshop Membership Cancelled & Fee Refunded,” the post title read.

“Finished uni and no longer need to buy textbooks from the Co-op? Even when I was at uni, I found that even with the Co­op

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TZEYI KOAY

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 13

PRESIDENT

TYSON HOLLOWAY-CLARKE This last month has been very busy in the UMSU offices. We have a lot more information in respect to the Student Precinct, we are actively looking at a wide number of ammended University policies and how they impact students, we have been working with the University on developing better strategies in response to sexual violence in our community and great coordination in respect to training. In that vein, in September a significant number of students will be asked to contribute to a Universities Australia survey on sexual assault and harassment. Distributed by the University, this information will be crucial in both understanding the issues at hand and holding our wider community to account. On a different note, the former UniStore space has been allocated to UMSU and we intend on making that space a dedicated volunteering office. Keep your eyes peeled for the changes coming hopefully through September.

GENERAL SECRETARY

ACTIVITIES

JAMES BASHFORD It’s election time at UMSU, so let’s talk about democracy for a moment. Elections can be annoying, sure, but they are vital component of ensuring the transparency and accountability of our Union. The point of an election is it should be you, the students, not a small and insular clique that determines the direction of our Union. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that elections are a bad thing or something to be avoided.

Elections are the ultimate meritocracy. The “merits” of those vying to be our student representatives shouldn’t be determined by a self-appointed elite, but by those we represent: you. So read the candidate statements in Farrago, compare the pitches of the different groups and candidates, engage in election week and do it all with a critical eye. Make an informed choice and don’t let the spin and buzzwords throw you.

Bring it on.

MEGAN POLLOCK & ITSI WEINSTOCK Morning! Hope you’ve all been hanging out for more Activities news! We’ve been super busy working hard to bring you more! We guess the one everyone has been looking forward to the mostest is Oktoberfest! Coming up soon your humble Activities Officers will be bringing to your campus the biggest and best event of the entire year! Unlimited German alcohol, fancy dress, German food, live music and endless fun! Make sure you keep an eye out for tickets to this one because they will go fast! Check the Activities Facebook. Hope to see more of you at the events! Also Trivia. Bands. BBQs. Comedy. Pub Nights.

Email: activities@union.unimelb.edu.au Facebook: Facebook.com/UMSUActivities

BURNLEY

ERANTHOS BERETTA

CLUBS & SOCIETIES

The growing season is just around the corner and it’s time to start planning your veggie patches and feeding your pot plants! Hot tip for this month; when a plant is in a pot, it doesn’t have access to the nutrients it would normally have in the soil so get some good controlled release fertiliser to feed your favourite leafy friends. In campus news, to celebrate the Olympics and multiculturalism we teamed up with ASRC catering, staff and students to have an international food day where every crumb was gobbled up for a good cause. Our campus is currently under review and the BSA has been representing students to make sure our feedback is heard and fighting for better services and amenities on campus. With elections upon us we will also be making sure that we have continued student representation for the years to come.

RYAN DAVEY & YASMINE LUU If you wanna be my Clubster, you gotta fill in them grants (gotta fill in them grants) Make it all compliant, don’t be a smart ass, If you wanna be my Clubster, you have got to give All of the receipts, cause that’s the way it is…

What do you think about that now you know how I feel, Say you can handle the application, are you for real?

Committee won’t be hasty, they’ll take their time, If you really bug them; then they’ll say goodbye.

Email: clubs@union.unimelb.edu.au

14 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

UMSU

CREATIVE ARTS JOSH LYNZAAT & JEAN TONG

Art art art art art art art BOTANIC DRAWING art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art CREATIVE ARTS COLLECTIVE THURS 1-3PM art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art LIFE DRAWING art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art MUFFEST art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art THEATRE AWARDS CELEBRATION art art art art art art art CHECK OUR WEBSITE art art art art art Facebook: facebook.com/umsuartsdepartment/ Email: arts@union.unimelb.edu.au

DISABILITIES JESS KAPUSCINSKI-EVANS & CHRISTIAN TSOUTSOUVAS

We had our talk with sculptor and VCA student Sam Petersen two days ago and that went well. There was a bigger than expected turnout and students got to play with plasticine and jars at the end. Our stall at the winter festival was successful as all of our USBs were given away and lots of students talked to us about department activities in general. We have a joint panel event coming up next Wednesday as part of Environment Week 2016, which will be about the cross-over between sustainable and accessible housing. Our Auslan classes have started and Anxiety Support Group is still running every Monday at 2pm with solid attendance each week.

Facebook: facebook.com/umsu.disabilities/ Email: disabilities@union.unimelb.edu.au

EDU (ACADEMIC) TOM CROWLEY & PAUL SAKKAL Hey all. We’ve recently rolled out our Flex-Ap Student Survey in partnership with the GSA and Chancellery. We’re aiming to gauge students’ feelings in relation to an array of issues that have arisen in the various Flex-Ap work streams.

By understanding how you feel towards these changes, we’ll be able to better represent students’ interests when discussing the changes with the University. To complete the survey, head to the UMSU Education Facebook page and click on the SurveyMonkey link. We’ll be presenting the results of the Survey at a Flex-Ap forum scheduled for the first week of September, which will be investigating the role of technology in University teaching and learning. All students are invited to the forum, details of which will also be posted on our Facebook page.

EDU (PUBLIC)

AKIRA BOARDMAN & DOMINIC CERNAZ Keep the Quality! #keepthequality KEEP THE QUALITY! What is Keep the Quality?

Well, it’s the new campaign we’ve started in the Education Public department to fight the changes the University of Melbourne is trying to implement. Basically, we want to raise awareness amongst students of previous changes that have gone on around the University, as well as the potential new changes. Some of which are really concerning. There was even an article in The Age (12/8) which outlined how the University tracks your movement around campus. It’s really messed up and the University Administration think they can get away with it. We’re out and about talking to students, so come and find out more information.We also have an upcoming National Day of Action to protest the Federal Government attacks on 24 August. To find out more visit the UMSU Education Public website.

Also, like our Facebook page: www.facebook.com.au/keepthequality

ENVIRONMENT ANISA ROGERS & ZACHARY POWER

There is lots happening in the Environment space on campus as Environment Week is upon us. Whether you are an aspiring climate scientist, an activist and bit of both, or someone that loves great food – we guarantee there will be something for you. Workshops, forums, parties and more, we would love to see you at one of our events! We will also be launching a short climate themed film competition very soon, so if filmmaking’s your thing or something you would like to try out, keep on our Facebook page! As always, please get in touch for all things Enviro!

Facebook: facebook.com/umsuenviro/ Email: environment@union.unimelb.edu.au

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 15

INDIGENOUS

QUEER

EMILY KAYTE JAMES & WUNAMBI CONNOR The Indigenous Department is full steam ahead this semester. We’ve already had three social events so far, including Welcome Back Dinner and Drinks, Ten Pin Bowling and a Movie Night. The Biggest Blackest Radio Show is cruising along after a slow start. If you’d like to be involved, please get in touch, we’re always looking to talk to exciting people on air. In addition to this, all of our Under Bunjil editors are coming out of hibernation and keen to return to being stressed and staring at our computer screen while Volume Four comes together. Submissions for Under Bunjil close in Week Six and we’re really excited to read and take a look at all our submissions. So far we’ve received an amazing collection of poetry, artwork and essays. As always follow us on our social media platforms to stay informed!

Facebook and Instagram: @Umsu_Indigenous Email: Indigenous@union.unimelb.edu.au

FRANCES CONNORS & LOTUS YE There’s a lot to be excited for this semester at the Queer Department. Besides our new Queer People of Colour Collective (Thursdays 1-2 pm, Training Room 2), Pride Ball is happening on the 22nd of September! Pride Ball is open to all LGBT+ people plus allies to celebrate their queerness. You can find out more on our FB page at UMSU Queer.

Facebook: facebook.com/UMSUQueer/ Email: queer@union.unimelb.edu.au

VCA VAN RUDD We at the VCA are gearing up for another student protest on August 24th against the Turnbull government’s attacks on higher education. There’ll be a musical act and some free food for students. The annual VCA Proud visual art exhibition is also starting August 25th with VCASA’s contribution to a Social Justice and Gender and Sexual Equality prize. And planning is under way for the VCA Spoken Word event occurring in October for VCA and Melbourne Uni students.

WELFARE

SARAH XIA & YAN ZHUANG Semester Two has been a fantastic time for the UMSU Welfare Department! We’ve continued our free breakfasts and our new free Zumba sessions are running weekly on Mondays. It’s been lovely to see lots of new and returning faces to our regular events in Semester 2. We’ve had a really rewarding year as your Welfare Officers and we look forward to collaborating with other UMSU Departments later this semester. Please feel free to join our Facebook group for the People of Colour Collective and ‘like’ UMSU Welfare on Facebook!

People of Colour Collective: https://www.facebook.com/groups/umsupoc Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UMSUwelfare Email: welfare@union.unimelb.edu.au

WOMEN’S

ADRIANA MELLS

16 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

Hey everyone! We’re having a wonderful time here in the Women’s department.

Women in Higher Education Week was a lot of fun and thanks to everyone who came along. Now we’re looking ahead to the release of Judy’s Punch which is set for week 10, we have a fantastic team of subeditors and graphic designers and we’re just so damn excited. We are also going ahead with the Safety on Campus campaign, alongside the work on sexual assault guide. The Women of Colour Collective and the People of Colour Collective are hosting Anti-Racism Workshops which will start in week 6. Our regular events are continuing as usual, with Women of Colour Collective, Women’s Collective and Queer Girl Movie Night. See you all in the Women’s Room!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/umsuwomens/ Email: womens@union.unimelb.edu.au

UMSU

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COMMENTARY

#dicksoutforharambe

TURN OUT FOR WHAT? YASMIN JARKAN ON THE ISSUES WITH CURRENT DEMOCRACY

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lank ballots, orders for halal snack packs and illustrations of male genitalia. Looking at the pile of informal votes, my heart sank. Our democratic political system had been taken for granted.

My job as a scrutineer for the 2016 Australian Federal Election was simple: watch the Australian Electoral Commission officials and make sure their distribution of votes was fair and precise. My initial excitement soon faded to pessimism. I began to question whether, in Australia and around the world, the traditional Greek ‘dēmoskratia’ (power of the people) had slowly diminished. Why do people now recoil at the thought of voting?

Many Australians are so disillusioned by our political system that they feel it is necessary to forfeit their greatest democratic right, which suggests that our system of representation is flawed and broken. The grim reality is the Australian people have witnessed far more chaos than progress in the last couple of years. It is difficult for people to feel as though their vote matters when the party they voted for cannot even establish a united and cohesive front, as evidenced by the leadership spills from both the Labor and Liberal Parties. Many people believe that both major parties have become too centrist, making it difficult to differentiate the parties and heightening the belief that a similar political outcome will be achieved regardless of how a vote is cast.

Australians have listened to countless political gaffes and watched as ambitious politicians place their own agendas in front of their electorate’s interests, and consequently switched off. I witnessed this apathy first hand on election day. I watched as people rolled their eyes at candidates handing out ‘how-to-vote’ cards, frustrated at the length of lines and eager to get this political burden over and done with. This degree of voter indifference stems from people feeling betrayed, something a true democracy should never allow.

Yet, despite their justified frustration with our political system, I still believe the Australian people should not forsake the privilege of voting. Universal suffrage is a fundamental pillar of any democracy, which many people abroad are not afforded.

Historically, the first democracies restricted the vote to wealthy men who owned property. Whilst our politicians still largely fit this mould (*cough* Malcolm Turnbull), the Australian political system has far greater diversity thanks to compulsory voting.

Australia has one of the highest voter turnout rates in the world,

ARTWORK BY JAMES CALLAGHAN

with 94 per cent of eligible voters voting at the last federal election. Whilst it may seem controversial to enforce compulsory voting in a democratic nation, I firmly believe that this is the only way the people are truly represented by their legislatures.

Conversely, optional voting systems are far less representative.

For instance, only 54 per cent of Americans voted in the 2012 US Presidential Election. High proportions of the American community are simply not represented by their representatives.

Consequently, we see the rise of ‘outsider’ candidates like Donald Trump. Initially, I thought Trump running for President was a joke and that the US had gone completely mad. But why does Trump have such a following? It’s quite simple. Trump supporters are frustrated with American politics and see their vote as a means to challenge the political establishment. Political instability seems inevitable regardless of the election outcome, which will further fuel voter apathy and lead to citizens withdrawing from their civic duties.

And what’s worse? In US elections, certain demographics are intentionally made to feel disenfranchised. A Hart Research poll conducted immediately after the 2012 Presidential Election reported that 22 per cent of African Americans waited 30 minutes or more to vote, compared to just nine per cent of White voters. When certain groups in society feel that their vote is not equally weighted, they can easily become disenfranchised, which threatens the ability of democracies to represent the whole population.

Despite all my concerns, Australia still has one of the best democracies in the world. Casting my first vote in the 2016 Federal Election made me feel empowered, knowing that I actually had some say in the operation of our country. Many people around the world don’t have access to such a right, often oppressed under authoritarian and destructive regimes. Now, more than ever, we need to recognise the power behind our vote and use it to ensure power falls into the right hands.

University of Melbourne students will soon have the opportunity to exercise that right. UMSU student elections will be held from 5-9 September, providing you with immense power to select a representative on your behalf. So resist the temptation to deface your ballots this September and embrace your democratic right to vote!

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 19

COLUMN NICK PARKINSON PRESENTS

COUNSEL IN COUPLETS A COLUMN OF POETIC PROBLEM-SOLVING

FROM: A DEAR NICK, I’M WRITING AN ADVICE COLUMN FOR MY UNI’S MAGAZINE BUT NO ONE IS SENDING IN QUESTIONS. WHAT CAN I DO TO AVOID MAKING UP QUESTIONS UNDER VARIOUS UNCONVINCING PSEUDONYMS? CHEERS! Wow! What a familiar sounding predicament you pose, Do you answer those questions in couplets or prose?

A, are you sure you’re not me, Posing as some random somebody?

The first thing you should do, Nick-like phantom, Is advertise for queries from your ‘fandom’.

Plead on Facebook or in person for qualms to be sent in, Another’s misfortune’s for you a big win.

Ask and ask, beg and beg, For the problems your friends hide in their heads.

Bribe and threat, promise and bait, As without questions you’re in stalemate.

If you still cannot find a single taker, Then you’ll have to be your own question-maker.

Make do with what you have, that’s key advice, Reflect on when you’ve needed help: that will suffice.

It’s rare to get fortune served on a silver platter – That’s why they say it takes ‘mind over matter’.

So take what you’ve got and run with it far, Move on old chap: accept things as they are.

Indeed, of all the counsellors, you’re your best one, Deep down you know what needs to be done.

So concoct a problem you’d want fixed If you were a student down in the pits.

Take questions if they come but most of all get writing, Even if it’s on a problem of your own devising, Because your editor’s sick of you handing things in late!

P.S. Please submit questions for edition eight.

DEVELOPED A WOE THAT WON’T LET YOU GO? SEND IT TO FARRAGOMEDIA2016@GMAIL.COM 20 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

ARTWORK BY LUCY HUNTER

COLUMN

COMIC BY XAVIER WARNE

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COMMENTARY

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE COMPUTERISED RAPHAEL CANTY DECODES THE RISING POPULARITY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

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elcome to the infotronics age. We now all have computers in our pockets more powerful than those used by NASA to put man on the moon. Our phones, watches, TVs and homes are becoming smarter than ever before; aware of us and what we want before we are. They are processing an unprecedented amount of information and making ever more complex decisions for the purpose of making our lives easier.

Talented, fresh faces are being presented with more opportunities than ever before to innovate. For example, tiny start-ups are taking regular objects like doorbells and padlocks and turning them into smart tools for a modern life, complete with their own mobile apps. Finding financial support through crowdfunding, these small companies are achieving great success in so many varied areas of the booming modern tech industry.

It is through the power of programming that these innovations have occurred and coding is now being called the literacy of the 21st Century. Such is the appeal and accessibility of learning how to create the technology of tomorrow, many young people are taking the initiative to educate themselves in programming in order to start their own tech empires. Taj Pabari, a schoolboy from Queensland has done just that, starting his own company, Fiftysix, which sells DIY tablet-building kits to teach others about tech. At just 16 years old, he is not even old enough to run his company, yet has already carved out a bright future in the thriving technology market.

As awareness and interest in programming have grown, prompted by the success of people like Taj, so too have enrolment numbers in the University of Melbourne’s introductory Computer Science (CS) subject Foundations of Computing (COMP10001).

From a mere 286 students in 2014, to 455 in 2015 and 613 in 2016, students taking the subject have more than tripled in just two years. Coordinator and Lecturer Professor Tim Baldwin says “the growth has been very exciting, as has the growth in the number of students going on to further CS studies.”

Baldwin believes this increase is due to a number of factors: “increasing awareness of the importance of computation in all sciences… popularisation of the field and a growing realisation that CS isn’t the exclusive domain of uber-geeks; more and more sophisticated development tools, lowering the bar to entry to develop apps; growing awareness of the incredible potential of CS in the start-up space; and the realisation that the local IT industry is bursting at the seams with jobs of all varieties.”

Proving Baldwin’s point that not all CS students are ‘nerds’, first year B-Sci student Rebecca Vincent took the subject in semester one of 2016 to test the waters.

“I chose to study COMP10001 mainly due to pure curiosity.

I simply wanted to know what makes computers tick, and how different programs and computer games are created”, she says.

“At the moment, I do not plan on taking any more computer science-related subjects in the future. However, I am glad that

ARTWORK BY ELOYSE McCALL

I took the subject because I learnt new things, and it challenged me greatly. I ended up achieving and producing things that I previously thought I did not have the capabilities to.”

Vincent notes some difficulty experienced in adapting to the kinds of creative problem-solving required in the subject but says she has no regrets taking it and recommends it to others.

“If you have any interest in computer science at all, no matter how big or small your interest is and if you have good timemanagement skills and diligence, as this subject really calls for it, then I encourage you to take this subject.”

With the realisation that programming is now equally as relevant to life in the modern world as subjects like Geography, Biology and English, the face of Computer Science education is changing. President Barack Obama appealed to students in 2014, telling students not to “just play on your phone but to program it.”

This also made the point of programming being a creative and constructive pursuit as opposed to its dull, solitary stereotype.

Steve Jobs once called the area a “liberal art” that “teaches you how to think”, an opinion many CS advocates like American not-for-profit, code.org, are harnessing in an attempt to have programming taught in every primary and secondary school.

Australia’s Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb concurs, saying that Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM subjects) are important for the future, stating that 75 per cent of the fastest growing occupations now require STEM skills and knowledge.

“If the digital economy is an arena, then the skills you need to play include computer programming and coding.”

Professor Baldwin also agrees, “it’s critical that students get the ‘right’ exposure to CS early on, in terms of learning about computational thinking and learning real coding, to learn about the incredible potential and scope for creativity that comes from basic coding skills.”

Indeed, there has been a response to these calls, with the government’s National Innovation and Science agenda placing an emphasis on the ‘ideas boom’. The program provides $1.1 billion in incentives to encourage innovation, a portion dedicated to teaching STEM in schools and funding programming activities for students. The primary school curriculum has recently been updated to include ‘Digital Technologies’ from K-10, targeting ‘computational thinking’ but stops short of teaching coding.

With many passionate people campaigning for better CS education, it is clear that this issue will continue to develop in the coming years.

So why should you get into the booming field of Computer Science? According to Baldwin, “You can get so far with so little but the deeper you delve into CS the more challenging and rewarding it gets. There is an incredible wealth of cool data sources to play around with and develop genuinely useful apps or unearth truly novel insights and what it is possible to achieve on a commodity device using public tools is phenomenal.”

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 23

COMMENTARY

CHANGE IN THE NEW CLIMATE CHRISTIAN SLATTERY LOOKS AT THE GREATEST BARRIER FACING THE NEW PARLIAMENT

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hether or not it is acknowledged as such, climate change will be a central issue confronting the new parliament. As global temperatures continue to rise, extreme weather events like bushfires and floods will continue to become more common.

Last summer, the Great Barrier Reef suffered its worst ever coral bleaching event. Almost a quarter of the Reef is now dead, with corals in the northern section suffering the worst mortality rates.

Such is the scale of this extinction that scientists and activists who have visited the reef to document its decline have commented on the horrendous stench of rotting coral.

You might think that this crisis would have ignited a serious discussion during the election campaign about the best ways of protecting one of the world’s most spectacular natural wonders.

However, you would be wrong.

Instead, and despite the overwhelming support from the public for stronger action on climate change, the commitments by the major parties sounded a death knell for the Reef, consigning it to a (warm) watery grave.

So what hope can we have that the new parliament will take the necessary steps to protect the Reef by curbing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions? Looking at the likely formation of the new Senate, any feeling of optimism is misplaced.

Malcolm Turnbull’s slim minority government will need to negotiate with a crossbench Senate that now includes Pauline Hanson, Derryn Hinch and Jacqui Lambie. Of these crossbenchers, Pauline Hanson has stated that she is “not sold” on climate change, while fellow One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts is a self-identified “climate sceptic”. Jacquie Lambie has made it clear that although she supports greater investment in renewable energy, she would not endorse a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme. At this stage, Derryn Hinch’s position remains unknown.

Of course, these new senators add to the existing voices of climate change denial in the Senate, spearheaded by Family First’s Bob Day and the Liberal Democrat Party’s David Leyonhjelm.

“But wait,” I hear you cry, “what about the Greens?”

Perhaps surprisingly, despite a massive effort to win several inner-city Melbourne seats, the Greens’ national vote in the Senate remained static. As a result of the success of other minor parties, the Greens have one fewer Senate seat than before the election. This leaves the party in a weaker position than when they negotiated with the Labor Party to introduce the carbon pricing mechanism in 2010.

One party that has picked up some of the Greens’ votes is the Nick Xenophon Team. The NXT support an emissions trading scheme and a move towards 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030.

However, not only are these policies unlikely to be supported by a Coalition controlled lower house, they would also fail to meet the targets recommended by the independent Climate Change Authority.

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Given these circumstances, action on climate change in the form of effective legislation appears unlikely. As a result, it is necessary to look to alternative mechanisms outside the parliament to safeguard the climate.

One option that will be available to the new government is the legal authority to revoke the approval of Adani’s Carmichael coal mine. This power is vested in the Commonwealth Environment Minister under section 145 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

Admittedly, the relevant Minister at the time, Greg Hunt, approved the mine on two previous occasions. The second approval occurred as a result of a legal challenge by a local environment group to the first approval. The group successfully argued in the Federal Court that the Minister had failed to consider the impacts of the mine on two endangered species, the Yakka skink and the Ornamental snake.

But what is the mine’s influence on climate change?

If it is constructed, the Carmichael coal mine will be one of the largest mines in the world. The planned open-pit excavation extends over 128 km2, which is over twice the area of Sydney Harbour. The mine will release at least 4.49 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere, making it extremely difficult to avoid a perilous two degree temperature rise. It is worth noting that as a signatory to the Paris Agreement, Australia has expressed in-principle support for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.

There is no question that allowing the mine to be constructed would be another nail in the coffin for the Great Barrier Reef. If the new government does not revoke its approval of the mine, this would constitute a grave intergenerational theft; the government would be complicit in denying future generations the chance to enjoy one of Earth’s most magnificent natural wonders.

Worryingly, Bob Katter has confirmed that his support of the minority government would be contingent upon the construction of a railway line to the Galilee Basin. This railway would pave the way for more mines like Carmichael, blowing any chance that we still have of avoiding significant global warming.

Clearly, we sit at a cross-road. But there is still time to act.

The Coalition cannot use the diverse parliament as an excuse for deferring difficult climate legislation. Newly-minted Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will hold the power to unilaterally revoke the approval of the Carmichael coal mine.

The Australian Government has a responsibility to shield its citizens from the dangers of climate change. There is no doubt that the revocation of the Carmichael mine approval would send a clear message to the community that Australia takes these responsibilities seriously. In the interests of present and future generations, the power to revoke the mine’s approval is one that must be exercised.

ARTWORK BY HAN LI

COMMENTARY

DON’T LET YOUR DREAMS BE DREAMS SIMONE ECKARDT LEFT WRITING THIS ARTICLE TO THE LAST MINUTE

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would do anything to avoid studying. On one occasion I was so disinterested in my essay, I decided to click through random Wikipedia articles. I ended up wasting an hour skimming pages on minefields in Croatia, blind mole rats and a comic book series called Cowboy Ninja Viking.

Everyone procrastinates at some point – even Leonardo Da Vinci was threatened with funding cuts from the Duke of Milan after putting off painting The Last Supper. We university students, however, are most likely to engage in avoidance behaviour. This was confirmed in a 2007 study by Piers Steel from the University of Calgary, who reported that 80 to 95 per cent of college students procrastinate.

This is hardly surprising. As an Arts student with only 12 contact hours a week, why wouldn’t I binge watch the entire series of Parks and Recreation when I have so much free time available?

Surely next week’s readings can wait until after I’ve finished planning my outfit for Saturday and responded to the meme I’ve just been tagged in on Facebook?

In my experience, procrastination can go one of two ways. The nervous energy accompanying the last-minute panic of finishing an assignment can sometimes prompt a rush of creativity.

This is what happened when I attempted to complete my first ever university essay on the morning it was due, which, quite remarkably, scored me an H1. I would soon learn, however, that this isn’t the best way to go about assessment. Later on in the semester, I received a plagiarism warning for a different essay. It turned out that in my rush to meet the deadline, I had forgotten to properly cite various paragraphs. Safe to say, I’ve never done that again.

The answer to why we procrastinate might lie in the result of our evolution as a species. The brain developed under conditions when survival mostly depended on dealing with our immediate surroundings. Our actions are therefore driven by a ‘pleasure principle’ which describes the urge to seek instant gratification and enjoyment without delay. When this fulfilment isn’t met, our psychological response is anxiety or tension. In the modern age, this desire is further fuelled by the immediacy of social media, which feeds these wants and needs with its instant connectedness.

Associate Professor Tim Pychyl of Carelton University, Canada, has found that procrastinators recognise the temporal harm in

ARTWORK BY SOPHIE SUN

their actions. This manifests in the feelings of guilt experienced while watching Netflix when one should be starting a 2000-word essay. Despite this, procrastinators are unable to overcome the emotional urge toward distraction – i.e. continuing watching Netflix in their stressed state. Mood and emotion therefore play a dominant role in the behaviour.

So how can you overcome these tendencies and beat unproductive behaviour? You could opt for extreme measures like that of novelist Herman Melville, who supposedly had his wife chain him to his desk until he’d finished Moby Dick.

A more sensible approach might be to break an essay into smaller parts to work on each day, so that the prospect of completion is more tangible. Getting into the habit of completing your work first thing in the morning could also help. This is because you are most mentally capable of undertaking high cognitive tasks in the first two hours after you wake up, according to behavioural scientist, Dan Ariely.

Another strategy to counter temptation is to block access to distracting social media sites by downloading an app like SelfControl, for example. Consider that the average Facebook visit is 17 minutes long and 24 per cent of Australians check their social media profile more than five times a day. If you cut out time wasted on these sites, you’ll literally get back hours.

Most importantly though, don’t be so hard on yourself when you do dawdle. As proven by Pychyl after surveying 119 college students, those who forgave themselves after procrastinating on their first exam were less likely to put off studying for the second.

I’ll leave you with the story of Colonel Johann Rall, German commander of the Hessian Troops at Trenton during the American Revolutionary War. In the midst of a card game, a local loyalist slipped him a note warning that Washington’s forces were approaching. Preoccupied with his game however, the Colonel put the note in his pocket and continued playing. Early the next morning, Washington’s soldiers captured most of the Hessian forces and Rall was killed, with the note found unopened in his jacket.

Don’t be like Rall – get started on that assignment before it catches up with you!

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 25

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COLUMN

THE FEMININE CRITIQUE: DIVERSITY PART 1

ADRIANE REARDON CONSIDERS WHITE FEMINISM AND DIVERSITY WITH UMSU REPRESENTATIVES LOTUS YE AND JESS EVANS, AND DR JESSICA CROFTS

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s a White, able-bodied, heterosexual western woman, I am the most privileged form of woman that is to benefit from the feminist movement. This privilege has distracted me from one of the most important issues lacking in feminism today: diversity.

Since the hashtag #solidarityisforwhitewomen went viral in 2013, there have been continuous concerns surrounding the marginalisation of diverse women at the hands of mainstream White feminists. The hashtag was created by Black feminist scholar, Mikki Kendall, in order to highlight the marginalisation of female diversity from mainstream, liberal feminist campaigns.

The more I write about feminist issues, the more I question whether or not feminism is capable of representing and uniting women of colour, ability, sexuality and culture.

Lotus Ye, a Queer Officer at the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU), refuses to identify as a feminist because they feel misrepresented. Ye, who identifies as non-binary, explains that mainstream feminist campaigns fail to recognise intersectional difference within the queer community.

“I’ve become really disillusioned by mainstream feminist campaigns because they don’t embrace diversity,” says Ye. “I’m not White and I’m not straight. I face a lot of challenges that White women do not.”

Ye’s views on feminism touch on Kimberle Crenshaw’s 1989 theory on intersectionality, which studies the overlap, or intersection, of discrimination in the forms of gender, race, class, ability or sexual difference.

“Feminism is very divided,” Ye says. “You find that heterosexual feminists don’t always align with lesbian feminists and then cisgender lesbian feminists don’t align well with the trans community.”

The lack of unification amongst feminists is not a contemporary issue. The splintering of feminist groups has existed since the first wave of feminism.

According to Dr Jessica Crofts, a Research Fellow at the Youth Research Centre, the historic roots of ‘Three Wave’ feminism has actually divided women between generations.

For those not sure about the three waves of feminism, here is a crash course: the first wave signifies the suffragette movement from the 19th and early 20th Centuries, the second wave dates to the 1960s and focuses on reproductive rights and sexual freedoms, whereas the third wave focuses on queer theory and diversity since the 1990s to present day.

“The wave metaphor assigns generations into antagonistic categories,” Dr Crofts says. “It excludes women who do not fit the particular model of feminism attributed to the waves.”

ARTWORK BY ELOYSE McCALL

Although the ‘wave’ metaphor is used to identify stages in feminism, the categories have hindered voices of women that don’t fit the archetype of the cisgender, straight White woman.

“It perpetuates the backlash against feminism through harmful generation conflict,” Dr Crofts explains.

As internet rallies and social media protests dominate contemporary feminism, feminist advocates like Emma Watson, Taylor Swift and Lena Dunham are criticised for misrepresenting women of different sexual orientations, socio-economic status and race. Issues surrounding the lack of diverse representation of women in the UN Women’s He For She campaign, HBO’s television show Girls and pop video clips have labelled Watson, Dunham and Swift, amongst others, as ignorant of cultural appropriation and intersectional difference.

According to Ye, White feminism has fractured opportunities for reunification amongst feminist groups.

“Describing feminism as a ‘movement’ suggests there is cohesiveness among all women,” says Ye. “Feminism was never a ‘movement’ because there was never a shared goal.”

Not only are the rights of the Queer community underrepresented in feminism but women with disabilities are also discouraged because of their intersectional differences.

Jess Evans, one of two UMSU Disability Officers, says that her greatest motivation to remain in student advocacy is to prioritise the needs of disabled women. She is more than aware of the lack of disabled representation in mainstream feminist campaigns.

“You might be disabled, queer and a woman,” Evans says.

“These levels of disadvantage add complexity to people’s identity, which is vital to learn in order to unify feminists.”

Unlike Ye, Evans identifies as a feminist and although feminism marginalises the voices of diverse women, she denies feminism is anti-intersectional, remaining hopeful about the progress that can be made.

“In the ’60s, women of disability were at a huge disadvantage because the matters of able-bodied women came first,” Evans says. “Now is a time for feminists to be an ally and focus on the disadvantages women of disability face.”

To be a feminist ally encourages solidarity between White women and women of diversity. To do this, it is up to the feminist to understand their own privilege before attempting to advocate on behalf of the other.

I remain the most privileged type of woman to benefit from feminism. However, I can be slightly less ignorant in realising that I need to sit back and encourage the voices of women of diverse gender, colour and ability to be heard first.

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 27

OUR ZONES OF SUFFERING

CAM DOIG ON KEEPING OUR GUILT OFFSHORE

Content warning: discussions of sexual assault, child abuse and violence.

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f you close one eye and squint at the Indian Ocean, you might see a policy working exactly as designed. No flood of leaky boats, no drownings. And if you raise a hand to shield your eyes from the glare of Manus and Nauru, you might see the sun glinting off the glassy waters of our integral, sovereign border. We’ve done it.

But what have we done? Have we reduced the number of people fleeing Myanmar, Sri Lanka or Vietnam? Or have we just told them not to bleed on our doorstep?

Have we made drownings in our seas disappear, like magic? Or have we exchanged them like bloody coins for 28 boat turnbacks in the last three years, for torture and persecution elsewhere?

Have we used our considerable resources to shelter the brave and the needy, who have seen and suffered things that most Australians will never need to? Or are we spending $1.2 billion a year to deport and sexually abuse children so that refugees don’t come here?

We are a long, long way past establishing whether or not the offshore processing regime does amount to torture, a war of sexual violence against women and a slow process of soulscarring degradation. So we need to start asking why the people responsible for this program are sitting in Parliament House instead of The Hague.

This partly comes down to collective responsibility. We must own our actions. Responsible adults tell this to children who lie.

Own it. You did this. Your actions are not visited on you by some malicious spirit. Similarly, we need to own our zones of suffering on Nauru and Papua New Guinea. We can’t ship people to other countries, fund and run their detention centres, then pass the buck to those countries when something goes wrong. We can’t have it both ways. This is on us.

How direct is our responsibility, though? The average Melbourne student, staff member or worker – are we responsible?

Well, let’s take Wilson Security. Our parking fees fund Wilson.

Our fees fund our university, which funds Wilson. They’re hiring campus guards right now. So some of Wilson’s employees run our carparks and keep our campus safe. Other Wilson employees

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assault children, stalk whistleblowers, spy on elected senators and run a “modern Stanford prison experiment” on Nauru, according to former Wilson guards and detainees. They run security on Manus too. So if your parking money and your uni fees are funding crimes against humanity and child abuse, you are responsible.

Then there’s the election. In 2016, the one major party proposing to end offshore detention received 9.9 per cent of the national vote and only one lower house seat. In 2019, everybody should flock to any anti-offshore party, instead of defaulting to the traditional parties or making protest votes for xenophobic independents. Members and supporters attempting to steer their parties towards more humane policies certainly deserve credit.

Yet we can all try to steer our state away from violence through all means available, including at the ballot box. That’s a pretty direct responsibility, too.

And electoral politics is far from ideal, far from a recipe for authentic civic engagement. Voters increasingly feel that theirs is a purely formal right to choose the least-worst option and young people feel this acutely. Refugee policy was the most important issue for 17 to 25-year-olds in this election. So, the ABC noted, bipartisan contempt for refugees is part of the reason that “young people might feel disconnected from this campaign. On the issue where they most want to see change, the major parties are in agreement…”

But this groundswell of youthful disgust with institutionalised cruelty is also empowering and has more outlets than just voting every three years. There are always movements pushing for more participatory, relevant and responsive politics. The Whistleblowers Activists and Citizens Alliance, for instance, have recently blockaded Wilson’s carparks to publicise the company’s human rights abuses and have encouraged major retail centres like Melbourne Central to break ties with these mercenary thugs.

University of Melbourne students are responsible for doing the same – ending our university’s material support for brutal, political violence. (For more info, like the “Boycott Wilson” Facebook page, or email boycottwilsononcampus@gmail.com).

COMMENTARY

Social movements like this assume that exploitation and oppression are structural, while most individual people are creative, sociable, cooperative and empathetic. Political delegation allows such people to condone utterly brutal deeds. Most supporters of the major parties end up accepting deeds being done in their name, which they could never personally do.

Most of us would not have hit Reza Barati in the head with a nail-spiked plank, dropped a rock on his head, then kicked him in the head until he died. We would not have waited 30 hours, while Hamid Khazaei suffered three heart attacks and brain death, before taking him to the hospital. We wouldn’t have driven Hodan Yasin and Omid Masoumali to light their skin on fire, screaming.

But we voted in the government that organised these deaths and the others which will doubtless come.

Ordinary people don’t commit violence comfortably, with their own hands. Some do but they’re a minority. Politicians, when they’re not unabashedly proud of their brutal dominance like Dutton, Morrison and Abbott, are insulated from or wilfully ignorant of the concrete effects of their policies. Foot soldiers, implementing the degradation and bullying, justify their actions with doublethink, trust in their superiors and commitment to an abstract idea. Often horrified by the consequences, these people sacrifice their careers and livelihood in the most heartening cases, ripping themselves away from the system of dehumanisation.

Taxpayers, voters and citizens are mostly good people in their daily lives. They are murderers in their delegated choices.

This illustrates a broader tendency. People say things online that they would never say to the same person in real life – ask any woman. People act in traffic like they would never act in a queue at the post office. And people accept conduct by their state – their deeply, proudly racist settler-colony – that they would never be willing to personally perpetrate. Mediating entities or submission to authority can numb the morality demanded by the immediacy of human interaction.

Australians are preoccupied with the abstract – the inviolate integrity of the state’s body, the drownings averted, sacrosanct “on-water matters”, strength, resolve – and not with the practical.

What if we judged this policy based on the practical? What if we closed our ears to the dog-whistles and propaganda and we told everyone in this country exactly what those abstractions mean?

Strong border security means paying smugglers, using our navy

ARTWORK BY AISHA TRAMBAS

to strand humans out at sea, and sending them back to torture and prison.

Regional resettlement means denying refugees’ legal right to asylum, spending $55 million sending five humans to Cambodia, or dumping humans in Nauru or Manus, where violence from locals leaves them too scared to leave their prison.

Offshore processing means psychological torture, revictimising humans who have fled wars and exposing to abuse children who are not yet old enough to have done any wrong. It means grinding humans into the dirt.

We are responsible for our navy, our tax money, our corporations, our political elite. What would an ethical exercise of that responsibility look like? It would involve searing excoriation of the criminal fear-mongers who inflict rape and violence upon other members of our species, and of the corporations who profit from this persecution. It would involve communication, sharing, and advocacy by people lucky enough not to be forcibly displaced from their homes – most Australians.

Our widespread silence makes a mockery of detainees starving themselves, sewing their lips together, and protesting with unimaginable resilience and temerity inside the torture camps built with our tax money. We need to rise on both sides of the sea, both sides of the fence, to condemn offshore processing and turn our rage towards the politicians who remain proud of perpetrating it. All the pragmatic arguments have been made – that refugees contribute economically and don’t sponge, that people arriving by boat are overwhelmingly refugees, that the Australian state is breaking the law and refugees are not. They should continue to be made.

But July’s vote reaffirmed bipartisan support for intolerance and cynical, underhanded violence. In answer, we need more than acquiescence and disgusted aversion. “All over the place,” Noam Chomsky observed, “from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume”. We must resist this pressure and take all available actions to tear the major parties away from this policy, as we tear votes away from those parties. We should speak out, write, boycott, protest, lobby, call out bullshit and propose real alternatives. Because it would be nice to look out at our oceans and know that those glassy blue seas were not the sites of crimes, behind razor wire, perpetrated in our name.

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 29

COLUMN

FOR & AGAINST STUDENT ELECTIONS

BY MINDI SUTER

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hat sounds cooler to you: Holding massive fuck-off rallies where you join forces with other university students to oppose deregulation or paying $100,000 for an undergrad degree? Blocking police from getting into Union House while protecting draft dodgers, or innocent people randomly being shipped off to the Vietnam War? Fighting for quality access to legal, welfare and social services, or not being able to afford the basic services needed to enjoy life as a student? If you prefer the second option in each scenario you’re a garbage person and this argument is not for you. But for everyone else, how exciting is the idea that students can shape and change wider politics? That all begins with a politically engaged student body and that needs active and prominent student politics. So I’m arguing for more student politics because if we don’t have it we’re screwed. As a student in 2016 it can be easy to be skeptical of how effective student politics is; our quality of education has been driven down, it costs an arm and a leg to buy text books or live close to uni, we are less likely to get a job (or a house) after study than our parents and that isn’t even tackling further issues like global warming, the further displacement of refugees and the growth of Islamophobia across the globe. Everything can seem a little hopeless, so it’s no wonder that some people may be annoyed with the influx of coloured t-shirts and randoms you’ve never met smiling a lot and telling you how great they’d be in the student union come election week. But student politics actually has the potential to be really powerful, especially when more people are involved. When students take up key political questions they have actively aided in preventing fee hikes and deregulation, contributed to massive anti-war movements and protected the quality of students’ lives in the past. Elections are increasingly based around services (and don’t get me wrong I’m for more snags and bevs all the time) but having strong politics on campus is also important, not to mention very necessary/inspiring. So to all those feeling cynical about upcoming student elections I say soak up every tiny miniscule opportunity of democracy we have, get active and get political because student politics is important not only for the offices in Union House but for every single student.

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BY STEVEN NICOLAS

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very year for a few weeks in the middle of Semester Two, the campus becomes a battleground. Party lines are drawn, colourful T-shirts are made and best friends become mortal enemies. No, this isn’t a mass Pokemon GO! Meet up (sick 2016 reference), it is in fact the incredibly low-stakes, yet still highlyintrusive world of student politics. And it’s here to make you late for your tute.

I voted once. Once. I thought that by voting, that whenever I said to a campaigner “I’ve already voted” while giving them a smile and a thumbs up, I was doing my bit. They even thanked me for voting, how nice of them. I hadn’t even voted in a Federal Election at this point but if this was what the democratic process was like, then sign me up!

Then it happened next year. Wait, what? I… already voted. I voted for the guy, with the hair. What happened to hair-guy? Was he impeached? Did I miss Hair-Gate? No! None of that happened, we just get to vote again! And again! Student politics is something most of us will never participate in but are regularly nuisanced by, like when there’s a convention on and some cosplayer on the train bumps you with their comically large styrofoam sword.

Cosplayers. You see, the worst thing about cosplay is all the yelling. It’s like, you don’t even speak Japane – nevermind I’m getting off topic. My bad.

But really, isn’t student politics just one of the many essential parts of the uni experience? Like really boring classes, losing touch with friends and the ominous spectre that is the reality of life after uni, it’s easy to see the negatives of election season.

You just have to make your own fun. Personally, I like to sit on South Lawn with a friend and play a game I call ‘Thanks, But No Thanks’. The rules are simple: you each pick a person handing out fliers or trying to talk to people (they can be from the same party if you want) and watch them for three minutes. For every person that straight up ignores them, you earn a point! Bonus points are awarded if the person appears to say “I’ve already voted” and a Golden Snitch-esque victory occurs if the campaigner tries to talk to a person that is themselves campaigning. My high-score is 57 and I am reigning world champion.

ARTWORK BY KATIA PELLICCIOTTA

THIASHYA JAYASEKERA PRESENTS A COLUMN ABOUT THE BIG QUESTIONS IN SCIENCE

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hy do we laugh when we’re tickled? One thing’s for sure, it’s not because we find it funny.

The lightest brush of a feather against your toes or the approach of wiggling fingers to your armpits can send you into hysterics. And not the fun kind. The fit of laughter which erupts from an episode of tickling is far from voluntary.

It may seem like an inconsequential behaviour, yet scientists have puzzled over this silly, almost inexplicable physical tic for centuries. But tickling is far from insignificant. It has an important social function, is hypothesised to be part of a defence mechanism and perhaps helps us along our journey of selfdiscovery. It’s intrinsic to who we are.

For nearly a century, it was common belief that humour and tickling went hand in hand. It was thought that a good mood was a necessary prerequisite for a successful tickling bout. However, this theory – called the DarwinHecker hypothesis – has since been debunked. Studies conducted to test the Darwin-Hecker hypothesis have consistently shown that techniques to improve humour (such as watching stand-up comedy clips), do not affect someone’s susceptibility to tickling. So why do we laugh?

Functional MRI studies show that both tickling and laughing stimulate the same area of the brain, the rolandic operculum – which controls our facial movement, vocal and emotional reactions. However, tickling also stimulates the hypothalamus – the part of the brain responsible for regulating our ‘fight or flight’ response and fires when we anticipate pain.

Because of this, some scientists believe that tickling is a means of teaching self-defence and that the laughter that follows is a natural sign of submission to an attacker. It’s not just fun and games – when you laugh, you effectively dispel a potentially tense situation and the unpleasant tickling episode ends. It’s no coincidence that our most ticklish parts are also the most vulnerable – the soles of your feet, armpits and neck. “When you tickle someone, you actually stimulate the unmyelinated nerve fibres that cause pain,” says Dr. Alan Hirsch, founder of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. As your amicable attacker approaches you, with threatening fingers and arms outstretched, your instinct is to draw your arms close and squirm to escape. So maybe tickling is simply a primal, somewhat gentle means of teaching someone how to defend themselves.

Amongst all the laughter and giggling, the tickle attack remains inoffensive and (relatively) painless. As Robert R. Provine – a neuroscientist and a prominent figure in the tickling discourse – writes, “tickling attacks are the most benign form of human conflict”.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, tickling also plays a role in forging relationships. Take, for example, a parent fondly eliciting a giggle from a child. Or a middle-schooler flirting with bae on the playground. So whether it’s a parent and a child – or two potential romantic partners – tickling seems to have an inherently social function. As Provine aptly puts it, “If you think the social component [of tickling] is not important, try tickling a stranger”.

If you’ve ever tickled a child it’s probably gone somewhat like this. You tickle them – they laugh. You tickle them more – they shriek. You tickle them even more – they wail. You stop. It’s a near-primal dialogue between adult and child, a strange neurologically charged interaction – establishing close bonds, along with a lesson in self-defence.

It’s not unique to humans. This little tickle tango occurs in chimpanzees as well. Rats too, let out a cheeky giggle when tickled. It’s a mammalian thing.

The social aspect of tickling is made all the more evident because you can’t really tickle yourself. In short, that’s because your brain knows what’s coming and so it suppresses your tickle response. Knowing this, placing your hands on top of your tickler’s will cause your brain to protect you from the unpleasant tickling sensation that follows.

The question of why we can’t tickle ourselves leads to bigger questions of consciousness and self-awareness. Provine suggests that tickling is intrinsic to recognising our sense of self and forms the neurological basis for the separation of self from the other. When a baby feels a featherlight touch at the sole of their foot, they recognise something that is noticeably foreign – and following from that, what isn’t foreign. There’s themself too.

This seemingly mundane, yet curious behaviour seems to be at the very heart of who we are as conscious beings and as social animals.

ARTWORK BY REIMENA YEE

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 31

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COLUMN

COMIC BY KERRY JIANG

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 33

COMMENTARY

MATCHA DO ABOUT NOTHING? HANIA SYED TASTES AN EMERGING TREND

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ou may have noticed a new name popping up on menus across Melbourne. It is usually listed just below the familiar cappuccinos, lattes and long blacks: matcha. It might be tempting to dismiss this alternative as yet another food fad but if you’re sick of the jitteriness caused by coffee or just want a break from the taste, matcha may be the answer to all your sleep-deprived student prayers.

Matcha has long been a part of Japan’s tea culture, and is the basis of the traditional tea ceremony. It is essentially groundup tea leaves, from plants that have been sheltered from direct sunlight to slow down growth. This helps boost chlorophyll levels and leads to a darker shade of green – a process that also gives matcha its slightly bitter, grassy taste. In fact, it is also prepared differently to other teas, with special bowls and whisks being used in tea ceremonies to ensure a smooth, foamy beverage without any clumps. Normally, you’ll find matcha in the form of lattes, as the milk tones the taste down a little.

The drink’s recent popularity, particularly in Melbourne, can be explained by our obsession with clean eating and exploring other culture’s cuisines. Matcha ticks all these boxes: it has high levels of amino acids and antioxidants which will keep you glowing from within, is culturally significant in traditional Japanese tea practises, and is of course highly Instagrammable, especially if cute latte art is involved.

But most importantly, matcha packs a decent dose of caffeine that has different effects than our usual short blacks and CocaColas. Coffee tends to quickly raise your blood sugar levels, making you feel more alert in the short term but eventually leads to a caffeine crash. Some people may also feel jittery, anxious or experience heart palpitations.

The caffeine in matcha, however, affects you in a completely different way, providing a focused and concentrated sort of energy. The drink is rich in L-Theanine, an amino acid that offsets the negative effects of caffeine while providing a calm sense of focus and increased memory. This means that the energising effect of matcha can last up to six hours, saving you from the painful mid-afternoon crash that coffee binges often result in.

ARTWORK BY CAROLYN HUANE

You might also notice clearer skin or a faster metabolism, which are all welcome perks during your busiest times of semester.

In fact, the drink’s energising properties are so legendary that samurai were known to chug down a matcha or two before battle.

So, the next time you go into battle (i.e. an 8am tute) you’d be wise to follow in their footsteps and have a nourishing matcha latte beforehand that’ll actually allow you to focus on the task at hand rather than your increased heart rate. Today, Chinese Daoists and Japanese Zen Buddhists also drink matcha for similar purposes, as it allows them to strike the balance between meditative relaxation and mental alertness.

Although this drink is on the menu of many respectable cafes now, not all matchas are created equal. Due to its naturally strong, grassy taste, some cafes will serve it in a highly diluted form or with tonnes of sugar or ice cream. For your dose of matcha, you can turn to Little Rogue on Drewery Lane, one of the first places known for popularising matcha lattes in Melbourne. Their smooth and rich latte stays true to its original flavour and you can even watch it being whisked to foamy perfection. If this is not enough for you and you want to totally immerse yourself in matcha, head to Matcha Mylkbar in St Kilda, where it is included in many of the menu items. However, if you’re more worried about your Instagram feed, head to Eden’s Backyard in Carlton for matcha lattes with adorable bear art. For a more local avenue, try the University’s Tsubu or Castro’s Kiosk for a brew.

If you’re feeling brave after being spurred on by the spirit of the legendary matcha-chugging samurai, try making your own at home. Supermarkets and pharmacies will sell matcha powder in their health food section and T2 has all the equipment you need (at exorbitant prices, mind you). Of course, the internet is always a great place to buy obscure things but make sure to check you’re buying a good grade of matcha that isn’t artificially enhanced.

So, next time you know you have a long day ahead of you, try starting it with a warm bowl of matcha or a creamy latte to keep you blissfully chugging along through your tutes, lectures and study sessions.

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 35

HIDING IN PAID SIGHT DAENA TENG DISCUSSES PAYING FOR COVERAGE

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icture this: A media ecosystem so rife with corruption that audiences cannot distinguish truth from bias. Editors of major mastheads are the puppets of large corporations and political parties own almost every news channel. The pillars of journalistic ethics have collapsed.

While this may sound like a bleak dystopian future of journalism, it is in fact the current state of the Indian press, as portrayed in Umesh Aggarwal’s Brokering News. The documentary exposes the extent of corruption within the Indian media landscape, blaming this on the illicit, yet common practice of paying for news by politicians and business moguls. During major elections, demand for news space skyrockets. For the bargain sum of 15 lakh rupees ($30,000 USD), politicians can buy 10 days of general news coverage. If they’re feeling particularly thrifty, a handsome 25 lakh rupees ($50,000 USD) will grant them seven days of exclusive coverage.

The infiltration of political and corporate forces into mainstream media is not isolated to this context. Recently, The Atlantic was castigated for a sponsored piece on the Church of Scientology, in which they unabashedly promoted the controversial institution and then censored the negative comments of disgruntled readers. In Australia, as part of a printing deal between Fairfax and China Daily, news about China in Fairfax’s major mastheads is framed positively, with critics labelling the content as Chinese propaganda. As native advertising overlaps with certain elements of the practice of paid news, many are alarmed about its rising prominence.

Compared to the straightforward nature of traditional advertising, Frederic Filloux, board member of the Global Editors Network, claims native advertising contains editorial content that is produced by professional journalists.

“The message is much more dense and thorough,” he says. “It is to be blended in with the editorial content of websites. Advertising

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has always aimed to be blended as seamlessly as possible within editorial.”

This is precisely my main concern with native advertising. The fact that it is cohesive with other content on websites makes it difficult for some people to recognise when they are reading paid articles. This ambiguity is disconcerting.

Emily Day, editor of independent craft beer magazine Froth shares my concerns.

“It irks me when you read a piece and see that it’s sponsored,” she says. “I don’t like it when you can’t tell what’s journalism and what’s marketing. I like ads to be very clearly ads, I like to know the author’s motivations.”

Froth has strictly no native advertising, a choice Ms Day stands by.

“It was my revulsion of reading that kind of writing,” she explains. “I wanted to make something people would want to read because they’d know our reviews aren’t paid for or biased.

Indirectly or directly, native advertising is a tool used by companies to promote their brands. Such content is almost always positive. This kind of PR speak bores Day. “It’s so bland, being positive all the time,” she grimaced. “I’ve made Froth to promote the industry but every now and then I’ll write a review and say, ‘This beer is terrible’.”

“When people drink beer, they’ll have a bad one, they’ll have a good one. When they see that reflected in Froth, they’re more likely to trust us.”

Although she’s talking about beer, this applies to many things.

When I’m flipping through a magazine, alarm bells start ringing inside my head whenever I read a glowing review of a certain product or service. I’ve become almost nostalgic for a time when writers did not double as salespeople. As journalism and advertising become increasingly merged, it is harder for content to remain unbiased.

COMMENTARY

According to Filloux, rapidly falling journalist numbers alongside the boom of the corporate communications sphere is a growing concern.

“There is indeed a danger with native advertising in that it’s very easy to be tempted not to sufficiently distinguish it as paid content,” Filloux warns. “It’s much easier to taint native content than it is to taint a simple banner ad. Some publications very deliberately blur the boundaries.”

Risks and dangers considered, the proliferation of native advertising points to the overwhelming need for it.

“It would be preferable not to use native advertising but it’s so hard as a publisher to say no,” Day says. “I’ve just had a big brewer ask me to write articles about them and I thought, ‘Oh my god, you’ve got so much money but I have to say no’,” she laughs.

While Froth is able to sustain itself without native ads, this isn’t the case for many online publications. “Getting money out of journalism is one of the hardest things,” Day recognises.

It’s true. Traditional online ads no longer sufficiently fund journalism. Not only is the value of these ads plummeting but they are also becoming increasingly ineffective. Average clickthrough rates are a dismal 0.2 per cent. The use of ad-blockers is also more prevalent. A 2016 report by PageFair stated that there has been a 90 per cent global growth in mobile ad-blocker usage since last year.

Though conventional online advertising is evidently failing, Filloux is confident that native advertising is part of the solution.

“It is a viable means of supporting quality journalism,” he emphasises. “It’s a great way to bring money back to the media ecosystem.”

Filloux isn’t the only one who recognises this. Numerous leading titles, such as The New York Times and the BBC, have already adopted native advertising and native advertising expenditure is expected to rise to $US21 billion by 2018.

ARTWORK BY ANWYN HOCKING

BuzzFeed’s successful revenue model is entirely based on native advertising and with native advertising already generating 50 per cent of their total revenue, Australia’s Junkee Media plans to move towards a similar model and abandon display ads.

Native advertising should neither be seen as the coup de grâce of quality journalism, nor as the miraculous solution to the woes of the media industry.

“It’s simply part of the toolbox,” insists Filloux. “It is not a magic bullet.”

But according to Filloux, the way a company uses native advertising is a measure of their ethical principles and of how highly they value their readers’ trust.

“If you are a media organisation with high standards, you will do your best to notify your readers of paid advertising,” reasons Filloux. “If companies are already questionable in terms of ethics, native advertising will just reinforce the legitimate suspicions readers have.”

In this sense, native advertising will simply bring to light the pre-existing habits of media organisations. If they uphold standards of journalistic ethics, they can produce native content that readers find relevant and insightful. As long as we still receive the standards of quality we’ve always expected from the publications we read, and as long as paid articles are clearly signposted, native advertising can be ethical.

“It all boils down to the integrity of the journalists and publisher,” Filloux summarises.

“Those who are going to succeed at native advertising will be careful to use it in a very prudent fashion.

“It’s not native advertising itself that’s at stake here, it’s the way in which we use it,” he concludes. “At the end of the day, it’s like everything else. It’s how you are using it that matters.”

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 37

COLUMN LOTTE WARD PRESENTS

ONE OF US: CULT REVIEWS FREAKS AND TWEAKS: MORAL CENSORSHIP IN PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD

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n 1929, film met sound for the very first time. In 1934, the Motion Picture Production Code, a series of “moral guidelines” regulating and censoring sexual, profane or anti-establishment content, was strictly implemented in Hollywood. The five years between constituted a brief honeymoon period during which filmmakers were able to depict a whole manner of unsightly and ungodly situations for the audience to both see and hear.

Films produced during this period, called ‘Pre-Code Hollywood’, were often full of sex, violence, blasphemy and other things deemed morally untenable by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), such as Black people with speaking roles and women doing whatever they liked (see Baby Face, 1933).

One such film, produced and distributed during the Pre-Code era but thereafter heavily censored, was Tod Browning’s Freaks, from which this column takes its title (now one of those tropes so often reproduced and parodied; so prevalent in pop culture that we often forget it has an origin).

The MPAA’s primary problem with Freaks, which was re-cut to two-thirds of its original runtime to appease the network after calamitous test-screenings but remained extremely controversial, was not that it had sexual content (which it did) or was gratuitously violent (which it was) – but that it so defiantly rebuked established standards of physical and moral conformity.

The full, uncensored version of Freaks, charged (amongst other things) with causing a poor, god-fearing young woman at a test screening to miscarry, is near impossible to find. It possibly doesn’t exist anywhere on a single reel (bits and pieces of cut scenes can be found on the internet), although it’s rumoured that a prestigious American film school has a copy in its archives.

Unfortunately for this columnist, the surviving 64-minute print must suffice for discussion.

Freaks takes place entirely within the distorted reality behind the scenes of a circus. Its central drama concerns beautiful trapeze artist Cleopatra’s seduction of one of the sideshow performers, a dwarf named Hans, already engaged to Frieda (played by his real-life sister; they and two other siblings performed at the time under the name ‘The Dancing Dolls’), with the intent of murdering him for his large inheritance. The sideshow performers, who have “a code of ethics” among themselves, welcome her trustingly into their troupe but on discovering her deception, plan and execute horrific revenge.

“Believe it or not,” the opening scroll reads, “in ancient times, anything that deviated from the normal was considered… representative of evil.” Clearly, the makers of this film were unduly optimistic about what distinguished the “ancient” past from the 1930s.

The moral of Freaks is a simple one, and one repeated in hundreds of films since. ‘It’s what’s on the inside that counts’ – or ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, or ‘being different doesn’t make you inferior’ – but it was foreign to the Hollywood of the ’30s, at least insofar as it involved suggesting that “slimy freaks” could have the moral high ground over ‘normal’ human beings (particularly beautiful ones).

Venus, the naïve and beautiful seal wrangler, and Phroso the clown are notable exceptions to Browning’s apparent rule that in this film, the “freaks” are the “decent folk” and require

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protection from the “barbs of normal people”. Venus and Phroso (the unlikely romance between whom constitutes a fair chunk of secondary plot) chat to the sideshow performers as to anyone, enjoy their company, defend them from the film’s antagonists and – their primary function, I would assume – act as an authenticating force for ’30s audiences. These two fairly average, good-hearted, beautiful people esteem these “freaks” – and so might you! Put simply, as in the opening scroll, “but for the accident of birth, you might be even as they are”. Venus and Phroso, when Cleopatra and her co-conspirator and lover, Hercules’ plot is exposed, align themselves with the freaks over “their own kind”.

The original script reads that Venus “hadn’t known there was a thing in the world as low as Hercules,” but once she realises what the two have been plotting “she knows that Cleo is even lower”.

Not once is it alluded to that Venus might have counted any of the sideshow performers among these “low” things.

Throughout the tragic and violent goings-on are some genuinely funny moments, not at the expense of the sideshow performers but to their credit, giving the impression that Browning really did want to convince audiences of their full humanity rather than simply capitalise on shock value. Conjoined twins Daisy and Violet, being called out by Daisy’s stuttering fiancé for flirting with Phroso the clown, start to walk off.

“Oh no you don’t!” The fiancé tells Daisy, “She’s gonna stay right here!”

“No, she isn’t,” quips Violet. “I’ve got to go.”

There are scenes strewn throughout the film, not crucial to the plot, that exist simply as an illustration of the performers’ lives; the bearded woman gives birth to a baby and her friends gather around in congratulations; the conjoined twins each find love and quarrel with the other’s husband; the “human torso”, who has neither arms nor legs, rolls and lights a cigarette using only his mouth while he jokes with another performer. This film devotes almost a third of its time to subplots intended simply to humanise its characters.

Freaks is certainly not an easy film to forget, a characteristic shared by many films of cult status. It’s certainly disturbing (although hilariously, a New York Times review at the time called the final reveal, in which we see that Cleopatra has herself become a “freak”, her limbs gone, extremities flattened to fins, an eye missing, her torso tarred and feathered and her only capacity to quack like a duck)1, was called “profoundly anti-climactic”. But its primary claim to a cult legacy is the detail it affords the lives of people so often (literally) sidelined, gasped at or reviled. A slight squint through the tragedy and horror of Freaks plainly reveals its true message: real freaks come in all kinds of packaging.

1 The scene depicting the actual violence done to Cleopatra was, of course, censored following test screenings, as was a notorious scene in which the sideshow performers castrate Hercules. After the climax in which the freaks catch Cleopatra trying to poison Hans, they each produce a weapon; the last image before a fade to black is her scream as they surround her. As it happens, the disturbing image of Cleopatra as the duck-woman is perhaps more effective without the explanatory scene and the lack of gruesome violence done by the performers onscreen was probably more likely to paint them in a positive light.

ARTWORK BY AISHA TRAMBAS

COMMENTARY

IN DEFENCE OF THE FANGIRL MONIQUE O’RAFFERTY IS PROUD OF HER PASSION

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crowd of fans slapping glitter on each other’s faces, scarfing endless bags of McDonald’s and chatting excitedly from mouths prepped to recount the lyrics to every song. These were the only things separating me from The 1975. Well, that and 10 hours of waiting on harsh pavement while icy winds snaked around our nervous bodies. It wasn’t an option. Lining up was something I was always going to do, something I’ve always done.

Ten hours during the day was nothing, try almost contracting pneumonia overnight while you endure 14 hours of endless winds on Sydney Harbour waiting for Justin Bieber to take the stage. For most people, this is dedication bordering on insanity. For fans, it’s a tradition and rite of passage ingrained in fan culture.

According to some, fandom is a bunch of screaming girls wrapped up in a state of hysteria over celebrities. As a selfprofessed serial fan, I can tell you that it is so much more than that. It’s important to free the term ‘fangirl’ from the negative connotations that surround it. I stand in defence of all of the tears, laughter and squeals that come with the ‘fangirl’ label.

The first stereotype I would like to quash is that fans don’t truly value an artist’s body of work – that they live in a world fuelled by image and superficiality. A fan’s physical, mental and emotional attachments are not shallow or empty. One of the first concerts I went to was a One Direction (R.I.P) concert back in 2012. I went alone because none of my friends would be caught dead there.

I cried the whole way there because I was so scared. It was at a time in my life where my social anxiety was at its worst. I didn’t go because I thought it would be ‘cool’, or because I thought they were pretty, (I was sitting at the back so I couldn’t see shit anyway). I went because I valued their music and I wanted to support them in any way and I ended up making a ton of friends that I still talk to. It’s very easy for us to dismiss fans as passive with no real opinion or purpose, despite the fact that they are the reason an artist has a career.

Fans are by no means passive, they have genuine passion. Being able to access such heightened emotions through something as simple as music, books or film is such a real and valid source of happiness that gets taken for granted. You don’t settle for things like relationships or friendships, so why compromise someone’s ability to feel such pure happiness and joy, for mediocre feelings

ARTWORK BY LUCY HUNTER

of indifference because you don’t believe it is ‘cool’? All too often I question my participation and validity as a fan because of a silly offhand comment by friends or online bullies. If someone can find a positive outlet that can help them going through hardship, it shouldn’t matter if it is considered ‘cool’ or not.

Fandom is an intangible belonging that can only be described as a sense of family; a warm, intensely happy bubble of love that feels like home. There was a point in my first year of university, after moving to a state where I knew no one. Terrible things were happening in my life. I watched a close friend spiral down a hole I was so desperately trying to escape from, knowing I couldn’t save them, because I couldn’t even save myself. Music, and the wonderful community of likeminded people that came with it, showed me a type of support I couldn’t find elsewhere. It was this kaleidoscope of ephemeral experiences that eventually angled me in the right direction.

“It’s very easy for us to dismiss fans as passive with no real opinion or purpose, despite the fact that they are the reason an artist has a career.”

Fandom isn’t just a word to me. It’s getting chosen out of a crowd of 42,000 people to meet Taylor Swift because you’re lit up like a Christmas tree and dancing like a maniac. Its running red lights when you hear your favourite band’s song on the radio for the first time. It’s when the Channel 9 reporter sees you twerking your arse off to the Friends theme song and gives you closer seats at a concert. It shapes your whole life; you learn the ins and outs of the entertainment and management industry, how to book tickets, budget and travel. It’s a collection of diverse personalities all brought together because of one common interest. This is for anyone that has been bullied, laughed at, ridiculed or abused in any way, shape or form, for being a fan of something. This is for you, for doing something not because its ‘cool’ but because it makes you fucking happy.

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HOW NOT TO BE A DICK THIS PARALYMPICS JACK FRANCIS MUSGRAVE AND THE GLORY OF THE PARALYMPICS

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omewhere, in the passing of time between when I am writing this and its publication, the Olympics have come and gone. I’m not sure entirely sure what’s happened. I’m assuming two or three people have died. Hopefully Yuki Ota has won the men’s foil. Australia will be middle of the table and America is being smug. Most importantly though, we are days away from one of the greatest and most underappreciated sporting events in the world: the Paralympics.

The Paralympics is one of those things that everyone loves the idea of but no one actually watches. I’m not saying that everyone who doesn’t watch the Paralympics is evil, because it’s not like anyone’s avoiding them. Most people just haven’t been exposed to the glory of the Paralympic Games. It’s not an Olympic afterthought. It’s an aweinspiring display of what humanity is capable of.

But with that lack of exposure comes misinformation, confusion, your uncle yelling that it isn’t fair because that one guy has all his limbs. Yet there’s never been a better time to change that. Channel 7 has vowed to give an immense Paralympic broadcast, with 14 hours a day, multi-channel coverage.

Watching the Paralympics can be a confusing experience and the topic of disability can be awkward, so it can sometimes feel hard to ask questions about it. So hopefully, I’ve pre-empted a few of them for you before you leave angry YouTube comments about the unfairness of someone competing who deserves to be there. What started as a form of sports rehabilitation for wheelchair users has transformed into an elite international competition with one guiding principle: it’s for all impairments, from the minor to the major.

Isn’t It Easy To Get Into The Paralympics?

It varies from event to event. It’s going to be easier to get into Boccia than it is Athletics. You hear really compelling stories about people suffering accidents and attending the Paralympics two years later but there are a lot of factors in play. Prior to becoming disabled, you might have been an avid tennis player. After becoming a wheelchair user, you’re able to continue by playing Wheelchair Tennis, where your racquet skills are already up there and all you need to learn is the wheelchair movement. Some paraathletes have been training from childhood.

Para-sport isn’t easy. It’s not as though there are only 12 Wheelchair Basketball players in the country and those people also

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make up our national team. The National Wheelchair Basketball League currently has a six-team fixture (which doesn’t even take into account local state leagues or individual recreation centres running the sport for rehab). It’s important to remember that the people you’re watching are Elite Athletes, just like our Olympians.

They go to the Australian Institute of Sport. They compete in nationals and earn selection points. They train and train and train.

They also aren’t necessarily good people. The entire Russian 2016 Paralympic team has been banned due to systematic doping. Spain once fielded a team for intellectual disabled basketball where not a single member was actually intellectually disabled. For the life of me, I will never be able to forget Oscar Pistorius.

Being impaired isn’t a “Get Into The Paralympics Free” card.

Classification, or, Please Send Help I Can’t Keep Up, Why So Many Events?

Easily the most confusing part of the Paralympics is the sheer amount of different events there are for the individual sports. This can be alienating when you have another men’s 100m freestyle that at first glance seems identical to the one you just witnessed. This all comes down to one reason: Classification.

Classification is the way that the Paralympics achieves representation for all impairments while maintaining competitive fairness. In each sport discipline, the governing bodies create multiple events based on the severity and impact an impairment has. Then, due to the fact that it would be an organisational nightmare to give each individual impairment have its own event, discretion and careful thought is used to determine which impairments are equivalent in their effects to create fair competition. This is why a single event can have so many different impairments represented without it being unfair.

The best way to look at classification in the hopes (but not certainty, classification is a huge grey area that most people still have difficulty with) to understand it, is to take a look at Paralympic Athletics. Athletics is a prime example as it offers events for all of the major categories of impairment: Intellectual, Physical and Visual. Each sub-event within these disciplines has a relevant classification code that corresponds to the event that the athlete competes in. Visual impairment races are represented under the code T/F 11-13, corresponding to the level of sight loss from total (T/F 11) to 6/60 (T/F 13). Physical impairment is covered from T/F 31 to 57, covering limb loss, mobility inhibition, wheelchair use,

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limb deficiency and so many more. This same process is undertaken in every single sport. Not always to the same degree of detail (some sports only have four total classifications) but that’s the guiding principle. It’s important to remember that everyone has some form of impairment. It may be invisible, it may be more minor and it may not necessarily drastically impede on day-to-day life. But all impairments impede on sporting ability in some way or another.

This is just a way of making the playing ground more even. And just because they can run faster than you doesn’t mean they aren’t latently disadvantaged against you. Never forget this.

I Just Saw That Person In A Wheelchair Stand Up And I Feel Angry About It It’s an understandable reaction. You’re watching Wheelchair Fencing, or Basketball, or Tennis and after a win, the athlete screams and gets out of their chair, as though God saw their win and decided to perform an on-the-spot miracle. While the Australian Government loves our gold medals, they aren’t quite up to offering life-changing surgery as incentive.

Being a wheelchair user is not always a prerequisite for participating in wheelchair sports. This sounds like complete nonsense but there’s good reason for it. In some wheelchair sports, the wheelchair acts as an equaliser.

Say I have a foot amputation. In day-to-day life, a prosthetic is ample enough for me. But when I want to play tennis competitively, I’m inherently disadvantaged. In a wheelchair, against another person in a wheelchair, my lower-body impairment is no longer in play, leaving us on an equal playing field.

Of course there are still classifications in sports where this occurs.

In Wheelchair Fencing, if you’ve got an impaired lower body but perfect upper body, you will not be put into a class with someone who has an impaired upper body.

Whether or not this occurs is entirely at the discretion of the international governing body of the sport itself. Wheelchair Basketball operates on a points-system, where various impairments are graded by severity from classifications 1.0 to 4.5 and the five players on court cannot exceed a total of 14 points. However, in Wheelchair Rugby, competitors must be a wheelchair user in dayto-day life. If you’re watching something and are unsure, have a quick check of the classification rules. Always remember: if they’re competing in the Paralympics, they’ve been confirmed to be there.

You can’t just sit in a wheelchair and rock up on the day.

ARTWORK BY AMIE GREEN

What Are the Best Sports?

All of them. It’s hard for me to pick out a few choice events and say “these are all you need to see” because I genuinely feel as though there’s fun to be had in any Paralympic event. For the most part, picking a sport because it’s the only thing on and you can’t be bothered moving from the couch (i.e. The Olympic Way) and just seeing where it takes you can expose you to things you had never thought you’d be seeing, let alone enjoying. I’ve chosen a few of my favourites to get the chair rolling.

Wheelchair Rugby Death on wheels. Thought rugby was tough? Wait till you see some guy get rammed and flipped in what is apparently a totally legal move, to which you’ll probably mutter something like “is that even safe?” before ceasing to care. This Mad Max outtake’s original name was, honest to God, Murderball. Teams are comprised of 12 athletes, four on the court at any time and in order to score a try a player must be holding the ball and have both wheels pass fully over the end line. What follows is a, fluid, free-flowing and unrepentantly aggressive spectacle. Australia is very good at it. Your mum may stand behind you and tut under her breath about someone getting hurt but it’s so worth it.

Goalball One of the few Paralympic-only sports available, Goalball is a sport designed to be played by the visually impaired. On court, each team has three players guard one goal, which is the length of about one-and-a-half soccer goals. However, everyone is totally blind. So, the ball is hollowed and filled with chimes. Each team takes turns attacking, while the defending team must protect their goals by keeping track of the ball using only auditory stimulus.

Wheelchair Fencing Even without my little (read: a lot) fencing nerd bias, Wheelchair Fencing is an absolute joy to watch. Explosive, aggressive, technical, beautiful. Before you get it into your head that this is jousting, the wheelchairs do not move. Opponents are locked into a metal frame, keeping each other within “lunging” (or, the upper body equivalent of) distance with each other. By being so close, what we see is a form of sword fighting a lot closer to the movies and less likely to piss off medieval re-enactors on the internet. Constant parries and clashing of steel. Don’t let the scoring system let this pass you by.

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COMMENTARY

WALL OF BROS MARY NTALIANIS ON METAL’S BARRIER TO ENTRY

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he headliner is about to come on. The crowd lurches forward, every person in the mosh is getting pushed forward by the people behind them. Shorter than most of the crowd, I’m just getting shoved to the floor.

The guy behind me is definitely one of the grosser ones in the crowd. You know the type. Metalhead, hasn’t showered in a week, hasn’t washed his hair in a year. He reaches over my head and thrusts his stinking armpits into my face. Has yet to be introduced to the concept of deodorant, I add to my mental list.

I shoot him a look that I hope he would interpret as ‘respect-other-people-please’, although I’m sure it looks more like ‘exhausted-and-mad’ with a healthy dose of sweat running down my chin. Not that I am even in his field of vision considering his six-foot-something frame compared to my five-foot-three.

The band comes on. Someone yells to open up the pit.

The guy behind me shoves into me harder and a crowd surfer is lifted up on top of me. I slip in the puddle of beer I’m standing in and the side of my head goes straight into the cold, hard, metallic barrier.

I give up. Holding my breath, I duck under smelly guy’s arm and push against the crowd until I’m expelled into the empty space between the back of the mosh and the door.

When I finally look up, an underpaid female bartender is offering me a glass of water and a look of empathy.

Hanging back is nowhere near as fun as being in the front row. But with a sore forehead, I decide to observe the band from the safety of the back of the room. Even if it is behind the wall of very tall, very big man-children. One guy is literally hanging from the ceiling. Have you ever heard of a wall of death? It’s when a bunch of guys wearing band shirts and shoes duct taped to their feet run towards each other, knocking the weaker participants to the floor. Darwinism at its best.

I’m not actually trying to talk anyone out of enjoying heavy metal. Believe me, I love listening to metal and attending gigs. Moshing can be the best fun you’ll ever have when the crowd is looking out for each other and everyone is respected.

It’s just at that moment, I didn’t particularly envision my death as being a result of stage diving head injuries, music festival dehydration or being crushed by a group of smelly men in a mosh pit.

Let me start at the beginning. I first got introduced to heavy metal by a guy I dated in high school. At first I thought it was awful. The gigs were 90 per cent male. The girls were all either hanging back, safely out of the mosh

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or getting crushed, pushed and pressed up against by a hundred and something people inside the mosh.

But eventually I came around. The music was good.

Moshing could be fun. Almost all the guys I met at gigs were considerate, respectful and happy to help me up every time I got knocked to the floor (which was pretty often).

Convincing my friends to give heavy metal a go was a bigger challenge than I first imagined. The biggest hurdle to getting my female friends to come to live heavy metal shows was that the vast majority of people at these gigs are men.

When I tried to bring along female friends, this fact acted as a huge deterrent. The crowd was just way too intimidating.

Jumping into a mosh full of hypermasculine guys goes against the basic instincts of most people, especially teenage girls.

Because in the collective imagination of male musicians and fans in the heavy metal scene, women are still confined to the side of the stage. They are there only to play the role of the ‘groupie’ and give blowjobs to band members. Never on stage. Never the guitarist. And definitely never the drummer.

This wasn’t the only issue though. Speak to any group of girls that love live music and you’ll hear a collection of war stories. Of being felt up in the middle of a mosh. Of black eyes from tall guys elbowing them in the face. Of torn shirts, beer poured down chests and getting crushed by some 100 kilo idiot who thought it was a good idea to stage dive.

I have to stress that not all these experiences are genderspecific. In fact, most women don’t want to be treated differently from anyone else in a mosh pit.

But the fact remains that every single person, regardless of their gender or ability, should be treated respectfully at every live music event. Every person deserves to be there.

And no one deserves to be groped or assaulted in the mosh.

Even the bands playing these gigs are starting to speak out against intolerable and dangerous behaviour. At a recent live show, Georgia Maq, the lead singer of the all-girl Melbourne trio Camp Cope, called out the rough behaviour in their mosh pit. “Chill out” she told a group of men to the cheers of the crowd.

After an incident at one of their live shows earlier this year, vocalist of Melbourne metal band High Tension, Karina Utomo said, “The pit is not an area to be opportunistic or an open invitation to violate”.

“A love for metal/aggressive music is NOT exclusive to men,” she wrote. “We can’t believe this shit is still happening”.

Neither can I.

ARTWORK BY SAM NELSON

COMMENTARY

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS TRUNG LE DISCOVERS HE’S NOT THE ONLY GAYSIAN IN THE ROOM

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o a demographically niche tween in 2006, Hannah Montana was singlehandedly the most groundbreaking show for representation. Because of a lack of role models actually like me on TV, I found myself clinging to loud, White women. Poor diversity means that a child of Billy Ray Cyrus can be considered a radical character in a market saturated with straight, White men. The sitcom revolves around a regular all-American girl, Miley, who is secretly an international pop sensation. It is renowned for its humour, heart and casting of a 31-year-old man to play Miley’s teen brother. I resonated with the show because I too was balancing two conflicting polar identities. On the show, Miley would always say “I’m Hannah Montana” and in this article, I’m saying “I’m gay and Asian”.

Gay Asians (popularised as ‘Gaysians’) fall under the sociological umbrella of intersectionality. The oversimplified definition, if you aren’t aware, is: being two or more minorities. For example, a woman of colour does not have the same experience as a White woman or a male person of colour. She is at the ‘intersection’ and therefore has a unique perspective on the world. Growing up, there was only one other person in my life that wore the same ethnic queer shoes. We’ll call him Quan.

I met Quan in Year Seven – just when I was getting pubes but still sleeping in my parents’ bed. He had this bubbly, genuine excitement for life which is usually repressed in straight men because enjoying things means you enjoy sucking dick. Our natural flamboyancy meant that we became fast and thick friends. We would spend lunch after lunch shovelling greasy café barbeque sausages down our throats before getting a seat in the library for “studying” (gossiping about the straights). Being Gaysian was never a topic of discussion though. We didn’t have the understanding or maturity but it felt right knowing I had a friend that was the same. He even went to go see Hannah Montana: The Movie with me when nobody else would.

We walked into the Highpoint shopping centre cinema, which was teaming with nine-year-old White girls and their weirdly attractive dads. Two cackling gay Asian teens should have felt alien and uncomfortable – but we didn’t. I loved it for the pseudo representation/borderline country music. I think Quan just liked it because we got to spend time together.

As with most teenage friendships, sausage induced acne and jealousy started to emerge. It was 2012, which meant that the rise of Glee suddenly made being diverse trendy. I couldn’t help but feel threatened by him. We were incredibly similar demographically but Quan was the skinnier, smarter and therefore more liked one. My ugly personality couldn’t handle the idea of competing with him. Our friendship went

ARTWORK BY REIMENA YEE

from sausage to sour when he accidentally snobbed me on the 408 bus. My ego took this as an act of war – our very own insecure Hiroshima bomb – so I started stonewalling him. He asked to meet in the hallway during lunch to talk about everything that went down. Being the hurt 16-yearold drama queen, I showed up, told him to turn around and bolted straight in the opposite direction like a Looney Toons character. I thought I was running away from the competition but I was actually running away from the first real friend I had.

We didn’t talk for a year and a half. I graduated, got into my dream course, dated cute boys and finally started living the life I was waiting for in high school. Quan on the other hand got lost in the new shift, got swept up into a pyramid scheme and ended up choosing a university path reluctantly. I thought that I would enjoy the tables turning but I felt nothing but regret. I hated playing the race card or being the only friend who constantly had to come out. I hated being too Asian for White gay people and too gay for straight Asian people. I hated the fact that my immigrant mum had sacrificed everything for me but I could never give her the family she wanted or be able to tell her that because my Vietnamese was bad. And most of all, I hated not having someone who was going through all the same things to talk about it with. Not even a blonde Miley Cyrus could help.

Almost three years after that fight, I ran into him at a mutual friend’s party. At this point, we were adults and cordial but not actual friends who could talk. Like most places, we were the only Gaysians in the room. I couldn’t help but remember the cinema, the movie and how it used to be so different. My two dollar Aldi wine was chugging my throat and we were coming face to face. I told him about this guy I was dating with an ugly Instagram and he just instantly got it. We fell right back into place like a 2010 Miley Cyrus taking her wig off on the silver screen. I didn’t properly apologise then, so I’ll do it now. I’m sorry that I took time away from us. That I wasn’t there for help and support. That I hurt you. I’m a lucky Gaysian to have you – so for the rest of your life, you’ve got me.

No matter where you are, school or work, when you’re an incredibly niche minority, you will get this recurring, lonely feeling of being the only one, even if you’re with your friends and family. But I promise you that there will be other people like you. At least one who you can share and gossip with. They might not be a sausage eating best friend. But you will have someone that understands the absolute core of your identities that not everyone can experience. You might not have a Taylor Swift squad but sometimes, just Quan is enough. So hold on to them. In the meantime, there’s always Hannah Montana reruns.

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GHIBLI’S MOVING PICTURES REILLY SULLIVAN CELEBRATES 30 YEARS OF MIYAZAKI’S PRODUCTIONS

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ugust 2016 marks 30 years since the release of powerhouse Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli’s inaugural feature film, Laputa: Castle In The Sky (1986). A whimsical tale of airships and floating kingdoms, its success provided the newlyfounded Studio Ghibli a platform to create some of Japan’s most beloved characters and tales. With the twin releases of My Neighbour Totoro and the much darker Grave of the Fireflies in 1988, the studio positioned itself as the foremost animation house from Japan – albeit with subtle western accents in the architecture, locations and stories of its features.

It begins with the studio’s name: Ghibli, an Italian word that co-founder Hayao Miyazaki borrowed from a World War II aircraft. Despite this flagrant link to war, the studio has always expressed deep pacifist sentiments, which are woven throughout its entire filmography and extends to its business decisions and public image.

The moment when Studio Ghibli found widespread acclaim and popularity outside of Japan was arguably with the release of Spirited Away in 2001, receiving the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature as well as becoming the highest grossing film in Japanese history. Ghibli features are a slow burn – following release in Japan, they usually screen at film festivals across the globe and are later dubbed and distributed in overseas territories.

The studio has produced 21 feature-length films over the past three decades until 2014, when there was an announcement of an indefinite hiatus in the wake of Miyazaki’s retirement. Studio producer Toshio Suzuki elaborated, “I guess you could say Ghibli is still open but not operating.

We’re not really sure about what to produce next. Thinking about the state the world is in, it’s difficult to say what we should make”.

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In terms of creative output and universal popularity, Ghibli is often seen as Japan’s answer to its North American distributor Disney and whilst the two share many traits – most notably box office success and critical acclaim – they are also unalike. This isn’t to say Disney and Ghibli aren’t mutual admirers of each other’s work, as Ghibli’s most famous character, Totoro, has a brief cameo in Pixar’s Toy Story 3 (2010).

Much of the emotion of a modern animated film is left to animators to mimic human responses – part of the success of Pixar films has been built on the advanced technology used to create increasingly lifelike facial reactions. For Ghibli, its universal animation style, abandoned only for My Neighbours the Yamadas (1999), isn’t advanced technology at all. The backdrops are usually simple hand-drawn affairs and the character designs can be recycled by substituting different hair colours or outfits.

The emotion of a Ghibli film lies in the journey of its characters.

Where Disney resolves most of its plots neatly with minimal damage to the characters, Ghibli’s endings can be painful and the plot twists permanent. When Kiki loses the ability to speak to her cat Jiji in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), she never regains it.

When the tanuki raccoons lose their habitat to urban expansion in Pom Poko (1994), the ending reveals a few remaining tanuki inhabiting a golf course.

The fundamental difference between Studio Ghibli and Disney is, beyond the language and animation styles, the heart of Ghibli features. Disney operates and owns different animation studios, either under the Walt Disney Animation Studios umbrella or through a separate entity such as Pixar. Conversely, Ghibli is strictly an in-house studio, employing a small team of animators to craft its films with a distinct disregard, especially among their

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earlier films, for commercial marketability outside Japan. The heartbreaking Grave of the Fireflies (1988) or even the nostalgic but at times painful Only Yesterday (1991) contain themes that are far too mature for Pixar to touch. Compared to Pixar, Ghibli operates with far less commercial pressures and limitations which inevitably arise when closely attached to a major corporation.

This independence enables Ghibli to penetrate much deeper than its rivals, often touching on man’s impact on the planet, the melancholy nature of childhood and perhaps most consistently, the horrors of war. Whilst the sanctimonious environmental message of films such as Wall-E (2009) seems to contrast Disney’s own environmental track record, Ghibli has mostly avoided such contradictions. Disney has previously faced numerous child labour and sweatshop allegations – in 2011, it was alleged that factories producing merchandise for Pixar’s Cars (2006) in China were violating labour laws and employing workers as young as fourteen.

The idea of children, Disney’s target demographic, working illegally to fuel its wasteful merchandising practises inevitably darkens the warmth of its features. Ghibli’s unique position that is unattached to major Hollywood corporations allows it a particular sincerity in its storytelling, untarnished by the realities of major studios.

Of course, even the most illustrious institutions have their dark spots – Pixar has Cars 2 (2011), Scorsese has New York, New York (1977), even Britney Spears has Britney Jean (2013). For Ghibli, it was 2004’s Tales From Earthsea, which scored a low 40 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes whilst their other offerings consistently scored in the high 90s, even the coveted 100 per cent. Critically, it has been the studio’s only major faux pas – although recent offering The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2014), whilst critically acclaimed, fared poorly at the box office. Still, the studio’s final production before the hiatus, When Marnie Was There (2014), drew an Academy Award nomination and current ‘It Girl’ Hailee Steinfeld for the English dub.

Before enjoying a Ghibli film, one must decide whether to watch it in its native Japanese with the aid of subtitles or view the English dub, substituting in voices as varied as Christian Bale, Lucy Liu and Anne Hathaway. The English dubs of Ghibli films often use Disney Channel actors for the voices, although they have previously employed stars as varied as American Horror Story

ARTWORK BY TIFFANY Y GOH

favourite Kathy Bates, Sofia Coppola muse Kirsten Dunst and even über A-lister Cate Blanchett.

This past December, I ventured to the sleepy town of Mitaka in suburban Tokyo – home of the greatest collection of artefacts commemorating the studio, aptly titled the Studio Ghibli Museum. And whilst the global popularity of its characters would surely warrant a much larger site à la Disneyland, the museum is decidedly tasteful. Carefully designed by Miyazaki, it displays early sketches and reels of films and allows visitors to screen one of four special short movies made on film and unable to be seen anywhere else in the world. The museum doesn’t allow guests to take photographs inside and it is located on a small site within a leafy park. On the day of my visit, the museum screened Koro’s Big Walk (2002), a short film about an adventurous dog that spends a day running through a typical Japanese suburb. It was beautifully made, had an optimal running time and was enjoyable for both the small children and middle-aged adults in attendance.

It was pure Ghibli magic.

Overall, the museum had a dignified air, fitting for a studio whose founder famously refused to accept his aforementioned Academy Award for Spirited Away as a protest to the US invasion of Iraq. Perhaps part of the magic of Ghibli and indeed what makes the indefinite hiatus so concerning, is the studio’s protectiveness of its films – including its strict no editing rules for international releases. A Studio Ghibli producer reportedly sent Harvey Weinstein (legendary producer of Miramax, a production company that was owned by Disney at the time) a katana, as a way of telling him not to cut any scenes in the English release of Princess Mononoke (1997).

In essence, Ghibli is the real deal – box office success second to well-crafted and animated stories that are closer to contemporary art than a children’s feature film. Whilst crafting a new Disney film likely involves a boardroom meeting of men in suits on maximising marketing opportunities, conceptualising a new Ghibli feature is a far more organic exercise. The indie cred of Ghibli cannot be understated. Whether the ambiguous nature of the hiatus is a brief lull or a dignified end, the characters, stories and legacy of Studio Ghibli will ensure its continued popularity and appeal for all new generations.

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MIND YOUR HEAD

STEPHANIE CHOO WRAPS HER HEAD AROUND CONCUSSIONS

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oncussion sufferers will tell you that it’s a no brainer to avoid brain injury. However, how does someone prevent one – or multiple – concussions occurring? Unfortunately, little is known about concussions or their potential chronic effects which make prevention and treatment difficult.

A concussion ocurs when a blow to the head causes the brain to shake inside the skull. They’re categorised as concussion or sub-concussion; the difference being that the former involves unconsciousness. The presentation of a concussion’s multiple symptoms vary depending on the magnitude and direction of impact and the areas of the brain injured. Breanna Downes-Smith, a University of Melbourne student and equestrian rider, suffered a severe concussion when her head collided with a wooden pole. Her experience was “pretty awful… almost drunkenness”.

Downes-Smith’s symptoms included “loss of motor control, dizziness… confusion and loss of vision”.

However, in some cases the symptoms are subtler. Variation of symptoms makes identification of concussion difficult. Daniel Costello, sideline assessor of concussions for the University of Melbourne Blacks Football Team, cites that the Sports Concussion Assessment Tool Third Edition (SCAT3 tool) is utilised within the club and internationally. It’s a set of cognitive and physical tests which assess the extent of concussion. However, according to Costello, concussion diagnosis is still a largely subjective call.

What’s clear is that multiple concussions generally have greater detrimental consequences than a single concussion. A study of 11-18 year old patients revealed those who sustained multiple concussions within a year had prolonged post-concussion symptoms. This implies that cumulative concussions within a short timeframe would have injurious consequences. Dr Sandy Shultz, neuroscientist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, states that experts are still unsure about how long the brain is vulnerable to successive trauma after a concussion.

Scientific controversy surrounds how repeated concussions over a lifetime affect the brain. The debatable condition, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), is postulated to be a neurodegenerative condition resulting from the cumulative effect of multiple head traumas, such as concussions. CTE results in cerebral damage, leading to motor control problems and dementia diseases like Parkinson’s. Unfortunately, CTE can only be diagnosed post-mortem. Of those who have suffered repetitive concussions throughout life, not all have been diagnosed with CTE on autopsy. This questions CTE’s validity as a medical disorder.

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So the problem remains; correlation between repetitive concussions and neurodegeneration does not mean causation.

However it’s a potentially dangerous correlation that we need to avoid.

You may believe that helmets are an excellent method of preventing concussion and that the lack of them in sport is pure ethical misconduct. Sadly, helmets aren’t that helpful. “If you’re talking about blunt force trauma to the skull, helmets might help.

If you’re talking about forces that cause the brain to move in the skull, whether or not there is a helmet or not, the brain will still move within the skull,” according to Dr Shultz. In addition, helmets may provide players a false sense of security, encouraging reckless behaviour and increasing the likelihood of sustaining a concussion. The International Rugby Board has cited this to be the main motive of why Rugby Union helmet design is restricted to be soft and have a low density.

Alternatively, enforcing “Return to Play” policies when concussion occurs could reduce further damage. Currently, many sports in Australia follow the guidelines of the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and the Australian Medical Association’s (AMA) Concussion in Sport Position Statement which include the SCAT3 tool. It generally advises that patients don’t play after a concussion and while symptoms persist. Adults have to wait at least 24 hours before resuming play; for children and adolescents it’s at least 48 hours. If symptoms persist for more than 10 days, further medical attention is necessary. These guidelines also include a progression of activity performed for patients during their recovery, which ranges from no activity to return to full game play. But given the uncertainty of concussion’s effects, these measures may be insufficient. “If in doubt, sit them out”: the mantra of the AIS and AMA is the safest bet.

How can we know more about the effects of repetitive concussion; the black hole of medical science? A larger financial investment in sport medical research to investigate concussions methodically and intelligently is necessary. As a country of avid sports people and fans, we need to be informed about the actual effects of repetitive concussions and effective prevention. Given the confusion about concussions, we need to be careful of head trauma. Should a concussion occur, it’s best to rest longer than the AIS and AMA’s recommendations. After all, what have you got to lose?

So exercise caution, rest and please mind your head.

ARTWORK BY BONNIE SMITH

COLUMN

GABRIEL FILIPPA PRESENTS

BUTTON MASHING OVER AND OVER AND OVER

BUTTON MASHING IS A COLUMN ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS, VIDEO GAMES AND GROWING UP IN A DIGITAL WORLD

I

’m an addict.

The first time I tried MDMA I filled my nose with so much powder I ended up at the Monash Medical Centre in Clayton. I snorted it off keys, credit cards and CDs. When my cousin told me she couldn’t build a mountain of it in front of me I swore at her and told her to call her friends, family – fucking anyone.

I lost a couple of years to marijuana. 19–22, I suppose. I smoked so much I thought The Matrix was for real. I smoke tobacco.

I drink too much. Alcohol, yes. But also Coke, Solo, Pepsi – whatever I can get my hands on. I end up at the dentist, staring up at the light in those cheap sunglasses making all kinds of promises to myself.

Somewhere in that decaying tooth lies the answer to all my compulsions.

As a kid, I collected Batman toys. I never opened them, just left them all in their boxes. All these budding superheroes were stuck in cardboard prisons. They were not out in the world, travelling, kissing girls or building their fortunes but locked in a kind of somnolent reverie reminiscent of the doped-up version of myself 12 years later.

Later, once acne hit, I was addicted to Roaccutane – a drug originally used to treat skin cancers. I started ordering it from overseas and double dropping. I’m a self-medicating specialist. It’s a profession that’s had lingering effects. I get sunburnt easily and sometimes my kidneys hurt. My skin is great.

Now I’m a 27-year-old-man obsessed with Magic the Gathering.

I stand in games stores and ask questions about items behind the counter – booster packs, limited edition placemats, card sleeves.

I look into my wallet and sweat and rub my nose and ask about prices. I make deals. But the one obsession that links the child with his Batman to the man with his cards is video games.

It’s a reverent experience.

I sit cross-legged in front of my machines and study their contours. I load discs using white tissues so there’s no human contact. I switch on the PS3 and listen to the subdued strings

ARTWORK BY EMMA JENSEN

pre-empting my online artistry. I scroll the menus as shapes manifest along the screen like translucent umbilical cords. I feel like I was born in this electric womb, destined to forever return to the yoke of my greatest triumphs. Like the time I took on Tartarus in the control room of Halo 2. That perfect lap in Burnout. The time I butchered Allies in Stranglethorn Vale.

When people tell me bad news, or managers call me into their office, or someone’s telling me I’ve upset them – I’m pulling at my beard thinking about Dark Souls. I’m thinking about those little red triangles that appear when you spot someone on Battlefield.

I’m thinking about how the PlayStation controller’s joystick feels like my dog’s nose.

When I’m told to get off my phone I’m thinking about the times I’ve been up all night, struggling to sleep. When I lay in bed contorted and anxious and unhappy until it lights up. It distracts me. Shows me the world. Puts the pinprick of my existence into perspective. It talks to me. For as long as I want it to. About news, politics or plants. It saved me in Venice. In Seville. In Bangkok.

Sometimes it shows me pictures of girls.

My heart settles. I leave the Valium on the shelf. I fall asleep sorting through decks on my Hearthstone App. Because gaming is my tumultuous love affair. I scream in equal parts joy and pain. Phones, glasses and controllers get flung across the room. I sweat, shake and swear. Later on, I’ll lie on the bed and smile, apologising profusely over the headset. Sometimes I’ll stay up until 4am, sorting through problems. Or I’ll stagger around the room in my underwear begging resolve. Rethinking the relationship. Wondering whether it’s all worth it.

But then I remember the good times. I remember that gaming is an addiction that’s never put me in hospital. It’s comforted me before operations or after bad breakups. It is my great narcotic.

For the treatment of anxiety or existential weariness.

It’s a picture of my brother and I, strolling through a graveyard off Nepean Highway, laughing and swearing, throwing PokéBalls at an Ivysaur that’s just appeared behind someone’s tombstone.

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 47

CREATIVE

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

BY CORMAC O’BRIEN KIRKBY

Sit in a backyard cement sea and drink a beer

think about how bad it is to drink beer

and all the other people I’ve seen drunk

the same thing and how bad it looked.

Why name a beer after a suburb?

Maybe it’s the toast of the town

though I’ve been to Carlton

and nobody drinks it there.

The cement sea can move without warning.

Possibly my surface is

cracked like the jagged tongues snaking

under my seat though.

Sea sits outside my window,

grinds with my teeth.

Land laid in the forty’s, colonized shitty grass

mosaic concrete at the feet of the valley.

Valleys don’t stay still they turn

they mush rock and mud within

a water table I think.

So the sea turns too.

It rises and bubbles beneath

the concrete, punctuating each bubble with a beat or crack in the surface a fractured crescendo that punctures

and though I feel it turn and see the cracks maybe it all comes up from the bubbles in my beer.

48 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

ARTWORK BY ELLEN YG SON

CREATIVE

COOL KIDS ON THE BLOCK

BY GABRIELLE CAPES Music videos are my generation’s moon landing Glassy eyed in front of TV screens Munching on cinnamon crunch Cereal and turning the volume up on Cruddy speakers TV rots your brain and sugars rots your teeth and Don’t sit so close you’ll get square eyes What’s the 4-1-1?

Rhinestones spell ‘sexy’ on my butt Earrings double as basketball hoops Major bling!

Don’t sit so close you’ll get square eyes Checkout chicks steal side eyes at the store TV Where it’s all smooth sailing down Queens of the screen sing from stolen cars Kissing kings of rap with diamond rings and Bound by gold chains Cha-Ching!

Don’t sit so close you’ll get square eyes Daydreaming during class and Trapped in our beds at night Hatching plans of pop stardom Amongst the stars on the boulevard That’s one small step for man Don’t sit so close you’ll get square eyes “Ya mother wants to watch the morning news” But I want my MTV

ARTWORK BY ADAM JOSHUA FAN

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 49

LATE NIGHT HAZE FEATURING BARO, DUNE RATS, NUTRITION AND NICHOLAS GALEA

BY SONNY THOMAS

50 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

CREATIVE

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 51

LIKE LIKES TO LIKE LIKE

BY KANGLI HU

W

hen he was a kid and people asked him what he wanted to be he’d say I don’t know. When he was older and people asked him the same he said a father, after which people would laugh at him and tell him to use condoms. When people berated him for not knowing how to cook, how to clean the house, how to change the cat litter, how he was already twenty and didn’t help his parents with anything, he’d shrug and blink and look away.

He liked certain things in his own way. When he said he liked to go on his computer and read sports news about people he’d never be and awards he’d never accomplish and open ten articles at once to read their opening paragraphs and close them again, he understood this wasn’t the like of passion or love but of habit.

There are many forms of like: like is the word preceding a simile and like is the feeling preceding love.

He liked to listen to the same songs over and over and over, until after perhaps a year or two or three they got old and he never listened to them again. He liked love songs and sad songs. He liked ‘Just The Way You Are’, ‘Breathless’, ‘Chasing Cars’. It reminded him of the girls he liked in high school and never talked to.

Sometimes he liked to listen to piano songs. He didn’t like violins because they were loud and blared hard against his earphones. The songs he liked were stuff by Beethoven and Chopin and Mozart and Pachelbel, not that he knew what any of them did, because he’d never learnt piano. In fact, he liked most piano theme songs from famous movies, with composers with long German names with five unpronounceable immemorable syllables.

He didn’t like going to the movies too much. He’d been before, with a friend, his only real good friend, and he liked going there because the cinema was always warm and the girls dressed in very little clothing, which was nice to look at out the side of his eye but otherwise he didn’t like the experience much. The cinema sounds were violent and the images bright; he always had a headache afterward.

His first time at a movie was probably when he was ten or so.

He’d liked it then, it was a nice superhero movie with lots of action and flying and fireballs. He’d wanted to be a superhero for a few weeks afterward but like every other dream that had soon faded.

That time he’d gone with another friend, a childhood friend from primary school, who now liked to go to parties and drink lots of

5252• FARRAGO • FARRAGO2016 2016• EDITION • EDITIONSEVEN SEVEN

alcohol. He didn’t really talk to him anymore. The last time they’d met they said nothing much to each other, just sat on the bench waiting for a bus that never came and kicked their shoes and commented politely on how shiny they were – yes, they’re very shiny – where’d you get them? – I can’t remember, some cheap store in the city – okay – and then the friend had left and they’d never seen each other again.

He didn’t like texting much at all. He texted sometimes, he supposed, and it was far better than speaking on the phone, after which he was usually red and hot and uncomfortable and stared off into the distance for a few minutes as his heart rate receded again. He usually just rejected calls outright.

He had once liked to read. He read a lot in primary school, a few books a day, detective fiction and mystery and fantasy and horror.

He even had a brave foray into teenage romance, which he’d read with a tingling neck while watching out for exciting dangerous words like sex and breasts and penis. He said in his Year 6 graduation he wanted to be a writer, and then he’d searched up some advice online about how to become one. Someone had written that to write fantasy you needed to first read Lord of the Rings and so he had, clenching his teeth and struggling through the whole of it and never really liking writing again. He’d tried again in university, taking one subject about writing, but none of the books he was ordered to read were interesting. Some of them he couldn’t even understand the first sentence.

After that he’d dropped out of uni. Uni was hard, and very different to high school, and he had the same amount of homework but could never bring himself to do it. He also never found any friends in uni either. His favourite part about it was coming home on the train in the last carriage in a lonely corner listening to the same twenty songs. He didn’t understand when people said uni was the best time of their life, although he hadn’t understood it about high school either. He supposed he couldn’t ever remember a best time of his life.

He’d felt free for a little while after uni, free to chase his dreams, except it turned out he didn’t have too many dreams to chase. He decided to try chess for a while, and at 10pm read up on famous chess grandmasters who’d broken records and posted genius IQs and revolutionised the game. When he went to sleep

CREATIVE CREATIVE

his head was always buzzing with information and hopes about how he’d be greater than all of them and he couldn’t fall asleep until around 2 am each night, and then he’d wake up and stare at his red eyes in the mirror and fail to muster up any motivation to play chess. Eventually he grew disillusioned with his progress and quit that too.

Now he played computer games. He liked them, but what he liked most was that if he got bored with one he could always switch to another. He was playing some game he’d downloaded which was about killing people and it was especially fun because there were real people on his team and real people on the other team. He typed into the computer:

his pocket and taking them out, slouching down and sitting up but none of it ended up helping him ask her out. He wished he could do that again but it had happened in real life.

go kill this kid

Fuck blue noob just lost us the game He had 29 deaths, thats the most ive ever seen Im actually gonna go break into ur house and fuck u up the ass Blue We know where u lvie Just kill urself blue

No one responded, so he went in alone, except he didn’t end up killing his target and got killed. It didn’t matter too much; he could always respawn. He liked that about computer games. You could always redo things, redo levels, redo moves, redo ideas, recreate situations. You couldn’t do that in life so easily. Someone typed back.

What teh fuck r u doing He’d once tried to ask a girl in high school out, a girl he knew because they both stayed in the library all the time. She wore glasses and was a little fat and he didn’t think she was too pretty and that was why he thought she would definitely say yes to him, except he never ended up saying the words.

Fuckign blue just lost us the game wtf why would u try solo their whole tema lategame Blue what the fuck were u doing Answer us He remembered his heart threatening to rupture his chest that day as he watched a bead of sweat fall down her long skinny nose. He remembered opening his mouth several times and closing it again, crossing his arms and uncrossing them again, putting hands in

ARTWORK ARTWORKBYBYLILLY LILLYMcLEAN McLEAN

Hes got like 20 hrs played no fucking wonder LMFAO This game also had some professional players. It turned out they were mostly the same age as he was, so he had a real shot of making this. Probably that was why he’d failed to become a chess grandmaster. His dreams were too ambitious. This game, this was more in his reach.

He closed the game and shut down his computer and slammed the screen down, almost breaking it, and went to have a shower. He had a good computer. Rather expensive. His parents had bought it for him for his birthday. They’d bought him the newest phone, too, with a plan that allowed for a lot of free data and texting and calls, except he told them he didn’t need one but they’d insisted and given it to him anyway and now he let it sit there and looked at it about once every day. He was never really addicted to his phone. He didn’t understand people who were. Games on a phone were far more primitive than games on a computer.

He stared at his red eyes and the mirror and decided not to have a shower and just go sleep. He did that a lot. He stopped feeling uncomfortable or disgusting about not showering a long time ago. He’d probably dream about the game and wake up tomorrow feeling uninspired again. Life was a chore, he’d long ago discovered, getting dressed, washing hands, eating meals, playing games, taking naps, day after day.

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 53

54 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

CREATIVE

TRASH MANSION

BY TAWNEY BEVILACQUA

S

haggy carpet grown as long as neglected grass. Blow-up couches inflating and deflating as often as I inhale and exhale.

Walls made of fish tanks. Lavish chandeliers dripping with melting gold. Tequila bottle mosaics for windows. Shrines to Dick Smith in most corners. To enter into Trash Mansion is to enter into the cult of the weird.

The apparent ‘leader’ of the Mansion is a giant creature.

When I first lay eyes on her she’s either sitting or standing, it’s indistinguishable to all, atop the bar. The gun that gushes home-brewed ginger beer is feeding directly from a bathtub out the back and it’s become an extension of her own arm; own fingers. She accommodates no one as the crowd below use every ounce of concentration they can muster, just to aim their cups in the firing line of the stream. The scene surrounding is one of total debauchery. There’s nudity and sweat; hysterics and tears; flashing lights and glitter.

I find my fingers curled around a stained and chipped mug that reads ‘World’s Best Boss’. It’s full to the brim so I slurp the contents, acting mostly from instinct and residual knowledge of how I would normally react. The liquid inside tastes of star anise, it leaves a hot imprint that melts my brain. I place it on the handrail and I linger on the spiralling staircase for what feels like an eternity. It’s like a treadmill that I didn’t ask to ride on. At the top I reach a new height of absurdity. Bedrooms with no doors, each one a glimpse into the unreal.

There is a couple riding their own insane wave of ecstasy, plus a concoction of other illicit substances. They’re in an exclusive club devoid of reality. Adorned in a medieval take on leopard-print fur suits, the heavy chains they drag look like some form of archaic torture device, or a prop employed by Stanley Kubrick. The chains are suddenly discarded, both intuitively know to do this it seems.

My presence does not pierce their concentration as they rip off their clothing and set each other’s pubic hair alight. It’s done with the utmost sensuality. The smell of sweat and burnt hair fills the room, as pungent as an incense stick. The experience is intensely climactic, yet I tear myself away from the hypnotising sexuality that reverberates out of the couple’s orgasms.

ARTWORK BY TZEYI KOAY

I continue down what could only be described as a hallway in the real world. I notice just how many beings are surrounding.

They line the walls and spray a constant stream of glitter through the corridor. A man that has mounted himself on the ceiling is screaming, “New Zealand is a conspiracy!” I hear this repeated as many as forty times before the hallway patrons notice too, and it is then that it becomes a chant, or even a mantra. Suddenly everyone in my line of vision is convincingly shouting, “New Zealand is a conspiracy!” It’s all a haze of noise and I question whether I am comfortable, with no conclusion reached. There’s a unity in the insanity and a beauty in the absurdity.

The balcony that I find myself splayed onto is a serene haven amongst the chaos. The water feature in the middle spurts out an ever-changing substance which the guests use to drink, bathe, or urinate in. The flow of the liquid defines the movements of all around me. They seem unconscious as to the effect this fountain is holding over them. When the intensity of the flow peaks so too do the cackles and oscillations of the crowd. As the stream settles, the space opens and nature intermingles with the beasts of the Mansion. I see a snake charming the man that used the bathroom before me and an owl rolling a cigarette from my pouch of tobacco.

I enter the garden with a pounding in my head and I become aware that it’s an external beat, which I have been oblivious to during my entire trip through Trash Mansion. I believe it’s been the soundtrack to all of the events that have taken place but my mind is not a trustworthy source of validation. As soon as I start to listen there’s a familiarity in the sounds, I feel as if I can predict the next move of the instrumentalist. There’s a comradeship with the music, it knows it’s as lost as I am, we understand each other.

I find the root of the sound and the beauty overwhelms me as the sun rises and falls several times whilst the tune plays out, the way it wants to. It unravels in wave-like patterns, demanding to be sifted through, glued together, and almost understood. It dances with me as I fall in love over and over again.

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 55

CREATIVE

BREAKING IN AND OUT OF LIVES

BY DARBY HUDSON

Before my wealthy grandparents died, they allowed their nine grandchildren to mark items they’d like with their names on yellow post-it notes.

When I finally arrived everything had been coveted.

After their deaths, I broke into their house and stole an antique wall clock from the kitchen.

That was six years ago.

It has only just started ticking tonight.

THE DOOR

BY DARBY HUDSON I enter the room, then the room enters me.

And I disappear.

56 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

ARTWORK BY JASMINE ISOBE

CREATIVE CREATIVE

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH

BY DANIELLE SCRIMSHAW

P

atricia was just about to ask if he had a Rewards Card when the man pulled out a gun. She froze and stared at him, her mind racing through the drills and hypothetical situations they had covered in training. Wondering if this would be her chance to prove herself worthy as employee of the month, Patty felt a fierce determination.

“Would you like a bag or have you brought your own?” she asked the gunman.

He shoved a worn green recycle bag at her. Opening the till, she began to load bundles of twenties and tens into the bag, packing in neat piles to make full use of the space. Customers never brought enough bags.

Patty held up two fifty-dollar notes, “I’m sorry, sir, but we just did a pick-up.”

He jerked the gun at her. “What the fuck does that mean?”

She smiled. “It means that we sent most of the money to the office. Would you like to get cash out at the self-checkout?”

The man looked around nervously. No one seemed to realise what was happening. The customers were too concerned with there being no express lane open and the employees weren’t getting paid enough to care.

“I don’t want to use those machines, I want to be served by a human,” cried a man lingering around the express lane with a trolley full of groceries. The gunman turned back to Patty and nudged the weapon at her. Again. “Open the next till.”

“All right.” She glanced at the elderly couple queuing behind him and apologised. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Not quite hearing what she said, they both smiled at Patty and made a comment about the lovely weather outside and what a shame it was that she was inside on a day like this. Patty smiled thinly at them and turned around.

As she opened the next till, a woman heaved her basket onto the conveyer belt. “Is this register open?”

“No, sorry, I’m just getting cash out for the gentleman behind me.” Patty gestured to the man pointing a gun to the back of her head.

“But the light’s on,” the woman protested.

“Oh, it must have been left on from the last person.” Patty switched the light off but the woman had already begun loading her shopping onto the belt, saying, “Now, don’t make the bags too heavy.” She tossed away the ‘Closed’ sign to make room for a dozen cans of dog food.

The gunman was growing more irritated and anxious as he watched. Any moment he expected someone to realise what was going on and call the cops but nobody seemed to be doing anything. Even the sight of the gun had failed to elicit any kind of response.

The elderly woman beside him was smiling in his direction.

Hesitantly, he turned to her.

“Can you believe I only came in here for one thing?” She beamed and gestured to the basket in front of her on the conveyor belt. She began explaining the purpose of each item,

ARTWORK BY LUCY HUNTER

relating it to what she was cooking her husband for dinner or the reason why cans of sliced beetroot would always remind her of her first boyfriend back in 1957.

The gunman excused himself, striding over to the next register. He pointed the gun at Patty’s face, distracting her from the lady with the dog food.

“Oh, sorry, sir,” Patty said. She opened the till and continued loading the green bag with cash, throwing in the bags of silver coins for good measure.

“I’m sorry, I’ll just be a moment,” she said to the dog food lady, who muttered something about cashiers not knowing how to do their jobs in response.

“I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously,” the man said.

Patty gasped and dropped the bundle of fives she was counting.

“Excuse me, sir, but I take my job very seriously.”

He pressed the muzzle of the gun to her forehead. “How about your life?”

She knocked the gun away. “I don’t see how my personal life has anything to do with this.”

“Why aren’t I being served?” the dog food lady said, pushing the gunman aside. “I want to talk to the manager.”

A disgruntled Patty called the manager for a service 65.

The gunman, sensing the failure of the situation, snatched the green bag from Patty and made to run outside.

“Wait, sir, do you need a receipt?” Patty asked.

He faltered. “What?”

Patty sighed. “The docket?”

He ignored her and left the store, just as the manager came to Patty’s register. The manager, Chip, watched the back of the gunman, then turned to Patty and shook his head. “Patricia, you didn’t even wish that man a good day.”

“He was a bandit, sir.”

“Did you at least enter him into our free raffle?”

“He seemed in a hurry, sir.”

Chip scowled and shook his head at her. “Be more attentive, next time. It is absolutely paramount that we provide the upmost in customer service. I think you’re spending too much time with Gilligan. If you both put as much effort into your separate work and less time distracting each other, these things wouldn’t happen.”

Patty frowned and nodded. Not that she’d stop talking to Gilligan. He gave her free cheese samples and held the store record for most trolleys carted in a trolley collection – no man she had ever met had such control.

Once he was sure that she’d take customer service more seriously, Chip brushed the dust off his suit, turned around, and began walking back to his office. He didn’t seem to hear the dog food lady’s loud complaints as he strode away and avoided her eye.

Patricia turned back to her customers, grinning so widely her face hurt.

FARRAGO FARRAGO2016 2016• EDITION • EDITIONSEVEN SEVEN• 57 • 57

58 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

COLUMN

JAMES MACARONAS PRESENTS

NOTES FROM THE WEIRD SIDE NUMBER 230: THE GHOST HORSES

Y

ou won’t find the city of Ihara on a map. On old maps, perhaps, but so many of those were burned. Cordoned off from the rest of the Aomori Prefecture, Ihara waits on the northern coast of Honshu, Japan’s largest island. But – although isolated, although alone – Ihara is far from abandoned. It is a ghost town, in perhaps the truest sense.

It is September, 1984. The colours of autumn breathe through the prefecture. And everyone is in Ihara to see its most celebrated resident – Kenji Akiyama. An illusionist held in the highest regard by audiences both in Japan and overseas, Akiyama has well and truly made a name for himself in the last ten years. Having only just finished a season of performances in Las Vegas, Kenji has returned to his hometown for a one-night-only performance of what he calls his “greatest illusion”. This is no small feat for a magician who has previously transformed Tokyo’s Shibuya crossing into a labyrinth without end, levitated a mountain in the Mojave and, of course, pulled a rabbit out of the Dutch ambassador’s hat. Expectations are high, even if the crowd is small – only a few hundred. In the years to come, they give their word to never speak of what transpired. However, from the smallest waves in the ocean of information that washes over the world today, we can establish a picture of what occurred.

A disappearing act. Akiyama, alone on stage, drapes the palest of silks over his slight frame. One moment passes. Then another.

Then – the sound of thunder. The silk falls to the stage and Akiyama is nowhere to be seen. The audience applauds, but not with the full verve of appreciation. After all – the disappearing is only half the trick. They wait. And wait. Minutes pass. Hours – two before someone calls the emergency services. Four before men in dark suits and darker glasses arrive. Six before the audience are allowed to leave. Eight before the authorities decide on an explanation. Kenji Akiyama has vanished.

But that’s only the half of it.

It is September, 1986. Akiyama’s disappearance is old news.

No leads, no developments – case closed. People tend to forget that which they cannot explain. Life in Ihara goes on. Until Nao Kimura, aging owner of the theatre where Akiyama’s last illusion was staged, sees a ghost. A ghost horse, to be precise. She will go on to tell the local newspaper that it looked like “melted glass” and that its eyes gleamed with “the heat of the sun”. Few believe her and she dies some months later. In December, however, the executors of her last wishes visit the theatre. Later, they too claim to have seen the ghost horse. Fleeing to gather witnesses, they return to find three of the creatures “hovering about the auditorium”. Of the six witnesses, four are dead by February.

Once more, men in dark suits and darker glasses arrive in Ihara.

ARTWORK BY ELLA SHI

It is October, 1998. Miles away, children are cloaked in pale silks, pretending to be ghosts. Nobody in Ihara need pretend. The number of ghost horses has gorwn and grown – three, ten, twenty, sixty. A hundred. To lock eyes with one of the wraiths is a death sentence. Doctors liken it to a kind of cancer. By 1998, of course, the city has been evacuated. Abandoned, yes, but not empty. The ghost horses tread down silent streets, eyes shining into open doorways. Translucent veins glisten against cold dawns and long manes bristle like forgotten life at the bottom of the sea.

It is October, 2008. Ihara has been taken off the map. Residents have been moved on to cities across Japan, warned in no uncertain terms that talk of their former home is a breach of particular laws that carry particular punishments. The United Nations will go on to criticise these tactics as heavy-handed but, in Japan’s defense, offshore observation of Ihara reveals that the number of ghost horses has continued to grow exponentially.

Two hundred, three hundred – they show no sign of stopping.

Ihara can contain them but not for much longer. Will they spread through all of Aomori? Tests show they are immune to conventional weapons. A nuclear option is proposed in 2010 but vetoed a year later in the wake of events at Fukushima. Slowly but surely the number of ghost horses multiplies. Nearby towns are evacuated.

It is November, 2014. The flood of ghost horses has slowed but not stopped. The situation is more than just a state secret – agencies are operating internationally to ensure no one finds out.

Questions are asked about Kenji Akiyama – after all, this began in the place where he disappeared. Scientists and magicians are brought in. Where did Akiyama learn his trade? How did he accomplish his illusions? Many are asking if they were illusions at all.

It is November, 2015. Ghost horses have been seen wading out toward Hokkaido, gleaming figures almost invisible against the sea spray, eyes spectral against each nightfall. Spilling from the empty theatre. While humanity faces up to its own socio-political terrors, a quiet apocalypse illuminates a city you won’t find on any map.

Then again, come tomorrow, you may not need such things.

Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.

– Cutter (Michael Caine), The Prestige

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 59

LOSING SENSE

BY CARA CHIANG

1. Sky in my cup

I

dipped the end of my brush in blue paint before dropping it straight into the water jar, colouring it blue. I painted the sky in my cup instead of on my canvas. When I came to, I had a wide view of the floor and the forgotten typewriter under my bed. I grabbed it and put in some paper.

Today, I was supposed to start painting the commissioned piece, though like every other time, it would probably have ended up another self-expressionist abstract. The only thing I do well these days. I ended up fainting before I even started. Things don’t happen the way they do in our heads but I’ve been told we must try to imagine the perfect ending anyway.

2. Narcissism on Jupiter

M

y paints have dried up. I need to buy some turpentine. These things slip in my mind. You see, it tends to remember what it wants to remember, leaving the important realities of everyday life second and third place to conundrums it will never be able to solve alone. Is there life on Jupiter? Are we so narcissistic as to think that humans are alone, the living centre of the ever-expanding universe? I’m no astronomer; perhaps I’m just misguided in my focus.

3. White paint on white paint

I

believe that the canvas was not always white. It was grey before, or yellow. White light reflects a calculated kaleidoscope of all colours in the spectrum. Does the canvas already contain everything we need? Is that what Malevich and Rauschenberg were saying with their famous all-white paintings? They’re trying to show us something we don’t usually see, a conclusion we have to arrive at by thinking our strange existence through.

4. Pearl rabbit

I

wonder what it would feel like to pull a rabbit from a hat in a room full of people who have never seen the illusion. Maybe that’s what makes a good painting – an illusory veneer holding something real, something unpolished, something you need to dig deep for, like pearls in blackened rivers.

60 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

CREATIVE 5. Silent ocean

I

s it possible that I am losing my hearing? I went to the ocean to try and meditate but I couldn’t hear the waves. These days I hear the ocean only in my sleep. Yesterday, I woke up and saw black dots awakening before me; maybe I should try painting those instead? My ears won’t stop ringing. Some people say extreme silence and stillness can result in tinnitus but there is no stillness in tinnitus. There is only a constant motion, a feeling of being underwater – no surface.

6. Lightning over South China Sea

I

feel like a balloon floating over the South China Sea. Just a little lightning and I could pop. I feel like a door unhinged, wind unlocking what never needed to be unlocked. I hear white noise when under the blankets, past midnight with the lights off.

Sometimes, I want to be made of braille. Blind to myself. Touched by everybody that does not understand. Remembered by those who do.

7. Rife with speculation

I

got absorbed in a painting today. There was this blue and orange painting that made me think of ear fluid emptying out of a canal, leaving a vacuous, soundless wake. Everything I see reminds me of what I fear is happening to me. Going to the doctor tomorrow morning. I can do nothing but wait and pray in earnest.

I can barely paint; everything that comes out is too grey, too distanced from my previous stabs at colour and life. My new style lacks confidence; it is rife with speculation. Can we be confident in our speculation?

8. Cambodian girl can hear

H

earing planes overhead, I would always imagine the pilots staring straight, every starry sky and pink sunset alive in their heads and the endless rainbow of people, people, people that shuttle between various roads, rivers and fallen leaves.

I saw the doctor and he confirmed my suspicions. In a few weeks’ time, I am expected to lose 80 per cent of my hearing. To where? Does a little girl in Cambodia get her hearing back as I lose mine?

9. Newborn bird is a masterpiece

M

aybe God planned it for some greater good? Keep me more isolated, more creative, so I can develop the style I was created to paint, the masterpieces that have been evading me all life. It seems cruel, a girl with ears who does not hear; maybe it’s all in ‘the perfect plan’. For now… I feel like a newborn bird falling out of sync with the flock, breaths measured out in thoughts that disable me. But perhaps I’ll lift off when I catch enough wind; I’ll know where I’m going when I get there.

ARTWORK BY ANAIS POUSSIN

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 61

ADVANCE

BY HAYLEY FRANKLIN As I drive to you high beams burning under halogen haloes I can’t help thinking a kangaroo will jump out and kill me

And I wonder if you’d realise or just think I’m late ‘Cause I haven’t told you yet but I think I found God today, at the bottom of my fourth tea (he said he’d been expecting me I washed him down the sink)

The roos stand aside and watch me float past saluting my ascent into the musky blue

I drive through the gates bump in a pothole slide to a halt

Standing there with a torch in a crumpled white shirt pre-heated embrace

You’ve been expecting me

6262• FARRAGO • FARRAGO2016 2016• EDITION • EDITIONSEVEN SEVEN

CREATIVE CREATIVE

LITTLE DEATH

BY HAYLEY FRANKLIN I lounge on the road in rubber puddles cushioned by bitumen knowing my last breath will be petrol, blood and road-trip Minties watching the clouds part – who will clean this fresh mess? a kookaburra cries you arrive just in time to join me

ARTWORK BY DOMINIC SHI JIE ON

FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN • 63

COLUMN

ELIZA SHALLARD PRESENTS

FLASH FICTION

WHEN EVERY STORY IS 100 WORDS, EVERY WORD COUNTS PROMPT 7 – OUT OF THIS WORLD – E.T. IS A-CALLIN’ STARGAZING

BY ELIZA SHALLARD

“N

o! You have to make up a story.”

“Stars are giant balls of gas Rae, they’re just burning.”

“That red one. That’s a planet run by highly intelligent fish people.”

Clarke hummed nonchalantly as she grabbed Rae’s hand from above them, staring up at the star.

“It’s red because of the red oceans, like earth looks blue. And there’s a little fish girl pointing at our planet saying to her boneheaded fish girlfriend that the pretty blue planet has blue water.”

“That’s Betelgeuse actually. The star.”

“Okay you know too much about astronomy to play this game.”

Clarke just grinned.

YOUR ALIEN THING

INVADERS

BY ERIN THOMAS

I

am afraid.

They have arrived.

We were warned that this day would come.

The day when we learnt we were no longer alone.

They have sent their spaceships into our orbit.

They have stepped onto our soil.

Their appearance is alien and strange.

Domed heads and a single gleaming orange eye.

They are ruthless, emotionless and cold.

I have heard they have destroyed one planet already.

Will this one be next?

Their voices are harsh and tinny as they speak their first words.

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” I am afraid.

THE FINAL FRONTIER

BY VEN BOLCHOK

“S

pace. The final frontier. The final frontier? Whoa.

Whoa. Hold on there. Space? We’ve fucking smashed space. Space is a frontier no more. Who the fuck thought it’d be a good idea to start mining clay on Mars? We’ve fucked that up now. Been and gone. Not a frontier. Nope, there’s bigger and better frontiers, much more final than space. Time, for example. We’ve not done time yet. That’s a good frontier. Why don’t we conquer time? Yeah. Or death. Death’s a good frontier. Nice and final. Death. The final frontier...”

Bella gripped the knife. Space could go fuck itself.

64 • FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION SEVEN

BY BEN VOLCHOK

“H

ey, so, like if you were an alien right, what do you reckon like your thing would be?”

“Thing...?”

“Yeah, like, you know, aliens have a thing.”

“You mean like...?”

“Yeah.”

“Um... I dunno.”

“Come on, just think of something.”

“I dunno.”

“Five legs.”

“Nah.” “Scrotum but all over you.”

“Nah.” “Come onnnn.”

“Well, what’s yours?”

“I reckon it’d be hilarious if I could like have like really wobbly arms.” “...Wobbly arms.”

“Like really really wobbly arms.”

“That’s a good one...”

“Yeah. How about you?”

“Um... okay. What if... I only had two eyes?” “...Um.” “What?”

“Gross...”

“I’m sorry.” “...Ugh.”

NEXT EDITION’S PROMPT – CLICHÉ DESTORYER: KILL A CLICHE. KILL IT WITH FIRE Submit your 100-word Flash Fiction response to farragomedia2016@gmail.com Due 18 SEPTEMBER, 11:59pm ARTWORK BY EDIE M BUSH

NO TRASH. JUST TREASURE.

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