Et 40.9

[et] empire times vol. 40 issue 9 FREE!

Editorial

2

Letters to the Editor

4

Sex Ed With Mistress M

6

Emma Sachsse

Dear Davo

7

Global Issues

Agnik Sarkar

8

Stepping Out Of Our Cosmic Backyard

Lauren Fuge

9

A New Language: Why Governments Should Speak Social Media

Abdullah Alajlan

10

My Ghost (A True Story)

Eshantha Ariyadasa

11

The Subtext of Tony Abbott’s Man-Filled Cabinet

Aneta Peretko

12

Interactive Art: Are Gamers Artists?

Tamara Babij

14

Baking Bad

Leisha Mugford

15

Microfiction Competition Winners

16

That Time Old Adage: “It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know”

Sarah Gates

18

Caffeine: A Love Story

Emma Sachsse

20

Girl Crush

Holly Richter

22

Labels

David Evans

24

Subverting a Subculture

Dorian Bašić

26

Automation Appreciation

Will Parry

29

Sexism Against Men Is Also a Thing

Miranda Richardson

30

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Adriana Allman

32

Crossword

34

Film Spotlight

Dorian Bašić

35

Film Reviews

Annie Robinson, Georgia Brass, Katerina Bryant

36

Theatre Review

Sarah Gates

38

Art Review

Charles Chiam Chuang Chao

40

Game Reviews

Tamara Babij, Adam Rau

41

Music Reviews

Elizabeth Daw, Holly Richter

42

Restaurant Review

Lauris Buckley, Robbie Peschel

43

Book Reviews

Simon Collinson

44

Poetry

Nikki Klindzic, Jack McEntee, David Schell

45

Fiction

Sean Letford

47

Editors: Sarah Gates, Simon Collinson, and Preesan Pillay Huge thanks to Madeleine Karutz and Elaine Cheng for the front and back covers Empire Times is a free publication of the Flinders University Student Association Visit us at facebook.com/empiretimesmag or fusa.edu.au/Common/ContentWM.aspx?CID=33 Empire Times does not support any political party or the election of any person to a Commonwealth, State, or Territory parliament or local government body. All views expressed by contributors belong to them alone.

[et]

Contents

[ editorial ]

J

ust a few days after the election, Christopher Pyne announced that one of his first acts as Education Minister would be to wind back student services and amenities fees.

As we’ve said before, this kind of extra-curricular activity is what makes uni such a great place to learn – rather than just somewhere to go for your 11 contact hours a week.

As Pyne said himself,

The very next day, Tony Abbott announced that the new government was too busy to worry about student fees and that they had “no plans for change in this area at this time.” This – perhaps as close as we’ll come to an admission that the Coalition intends to leave the SSAF untouched – was a semi-public rebuke to Pyne, and an interestingly rapid public backflip. Of course, it was also a welcome reprieve for everyone working to make campuses better, more interesting, and more supportive places. But why did it happen?

Being involved in student politics provided a good training ground, as it involved getting people to do things that they otherwise wouldn’t do. It is also very personally vindictive, so it gives you very thick skin.

Because we went through so much together, the friends I made then were friends I ended up with for life.

As much as the NUS might like to believe that their quick and forceful response to the initial announcement was what encouraged the Prime Minister to reverse the statement, it seems much more likely to have been Warren Truss, the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Nationals. After all, the services funded by the SSAF – health care, social clubs, academic advocacy, employment assistance, accommodation matching, counselling, etc – are perhaps most valuable to rural students and others who have to move in order to study.

We think every student should have the chance to have a university experience as fulfilling as Christopher Pyne’s.

So let’s take this moment to celebrate a small victory in our battle to make universities more supportive, more educational, and more interesting places to be.

Love, Simon, Sarah, and Preesan

Ironically, Christopher Pyne was heavily involved in campus culture during his time at uni, as he told me [Simon] when I interviewed him in 2011 for The Jurist, the magazine of the Flinders Law Students’ Association: I generally found university to be a great learning time, with only about 11 contact hours a week. I was a member of the Union Board, Student Council, and the Young Liberals, and in my final year I was elected President of the Young Liberals. I would attend ski trips and also went to an ALSA conference.1

[2]

You can read the rest of the interview here: http://www.flsa.org. au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2013/02/201102.pdf

1

THANK YOU! It’s the second to last issue for the year! Thanks to all the people who submitted during crunch time of uni. We appreciate every single word and image. It was a hard one, but our fantastic contributors pulled together to fill these 52 pages. Thanks especially to the people who sent articles and photography at last minute request, and to the people who wrote more than one piece.

If you want to be one of those people who writes for very grateful editors, join our Facebook group for contributors: https://www.facebook.com/groups/134074086783799/.

If you’d like to join us for issue ten, drop us a line at empire.times@flinders.edu.au. Check out our Facebook page: facebook.com/empiretimesmag.

Artists/Photographers

Sub-Editors

Charles Chiam Chuang Chao Elaine Cheng Jack McEntee Madeleine Karutz

Alice James (Fiction) Aneta Peretko (Law/Policy) Annie Robinson (Film) Elizabeth Daw (Music) Katerina Bryant (Features) Nathan Erdely (Crossword)

Columnists

Agnik Sarkar Dorian Bašić Emma Sachsse

Writers

Adam Rau Adriana Allman Charles Chiam Chuang Chao David Schell Eshantha Ariyadasa Georgia Brass Holly Richter Jack McEntee Lauren Fuge

Lauris Buckley Leisha Mugford Miranda Richardson Nikki Klindzic Robbie Peschel Sean Letford Tamara Babij Will Parry

[3]

[ letters to the editors ] Flinders One Goes Fairtrade Dear Empire Times There’s been a skirmish going on in ET for a while about Flinders One, but Flinders students should hear when they do something commendable.

There once was a café called Wholefoods Where unethical coffee was sold to us Now they’ve switched to Fairtrade So the farmers get paid “Latte please, with sugar and social justice” The coffee at Flinders has been a big issue for a long time. With no Fairtrade options on campus, Flinders students have had nowhere to get a caffeine fix that didn’t support exploitation of poor farmers and workers in the developing world.

This year alone over 450 student petitioners, Student Council, Activate and loads of clubs have collectively supported Flinders Fair Trade Society’s push to make Flinders a Fairtrade Accredited university. And it’s working.

In response, Flinders One recently made a huge announcement: Wholefoods will now use Fairtrade coffee! For anyone into good coffee with a good conscience, this is huge news.

Wholefoods will have new Organic, Fairtrade certified coffee, new machines, and more barista training from Grinders, a highly awarded supplier to campuses across Australia. Plus, the coffee will be the same price as everywhere else on campus. Honestly, why go anywhere else?

This is serious stuff: Flinders One outlets sell hundreds of thousands of coffees per year. But if we switch to 100% Fairtrade, that huge buying power can be harnessed into supporting sustainable development. Hundreds of thousands of purchases adding up to give farmers a fair go instead of exploiting them and entrenching unethical

Want to have your opinion heard? Have a complaint to air? Or maybe your friends and family are sick of your tireless flattery? Whether it’s about Flinders, politics, your best friend’s dropkick partner, or a new fad, we want to hear from you - and publish you on this page. This is your opportunity to vent and say what you need to say!

Shoot an email to empire.times@flinders.edu.au and we’ll probably publish it — with your name or anonymously, it’s up to you!

Correction: In issue 8, a line from Tut Tut’s article “Goodbye Mr Rudd?” was inadvertently altered during production, and Leon Cermak’s name was misspelt. We regret the errors.

and illegal practices like child slavery. Our campus’s coffee fix can and should add up to a poverty fix too.

It also makes economic sense: Macquarie’s coffee sales increased 20% after Fairtrade was introduced. And with Flinders Wholefoods’ coffee price staying the same, tight student budgets won’t be affected.

Flinders One should be congratulated on responding to the huge student movement for 100% Fairtrade in good faith, and taking a great first step towards this goal. They did their research and went out of their way to renegotiate contracts to make this happen, and all because students asked for it.

There’s still a very long way to go to get Flinders’ ethical cred up to scratch. The real test will come when the rest of Flinders One’s coffee contracts come up for negotiation next year. But for now, let’s celebrate a step in the right direction.

Make your dollar count by choosing Wholefoods for Fairtrade coffee over non-Fairtrade coffee elsewhere.

Make your voice count by continuing to ask for Fairtrade.

And come to the Wholefoods Fairtrade launch event – See posters or Flinders Fair Trade Society’s Facebook page for details.

Sincerely Will Menzies Left-Wing Bias?

Dear Editors, May I draw your attention to some remarks made in your editorial. [Eds: This is a reference to issue 8, which was the politics issue.]

In the first line of the second paragraph you wrote: “ As we write, Murdoch’s media spouts endless promotions for Tony Abbott and his party”.

In the first line of the fourth paragraph you also wrote: “we hope that the following pages are somewhat balanced in political views expressed, as this was certainly our aim”.

In view of the cover used for ET 40.8, and the number of left-of-center articles, does this not represent bias and endless promotion of Left-wing thinking? If so, why? Or, why not?

Regards, Tut Tut

[ contributor spotlight ] Lauris Buckley

Robbie Peschel

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m studying a law and behavioural science double degree of which I’m in my second year. I’ve lived in Adelaide for seven years after emigrating here from the UK; you might still get a hint of an accent if you listen carefully. I often cook up a big roast dinner for my housemates so we can pretend like we’re civil adults.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m a second year law student also completing a Arts degree in politics and American studies. I also am a cook by trade. I also like long walks on the beach.

What is the first thing you would do if today was your last day?

Get all my family together so we can eat, laugh and most importantly, make fun of each other.

What’s your vision of a perfect world?

One where we knew exactly what our government was doing and why.

If you could have dinner with any five people, living or dead, who would they be and why?

George Orwell – his books give my the shivers.

Bob Marley – who wouldn’t want Bob Marley at their dinner party?

Nigella Lawson – I’d let her do all the cooking.

The Winchester brothers – just in case a demon paid our dinner party a visit.

Best/Worst Flinders moment?

I once looked for a car parking spot for so long I cried and drive home instead.

What is the first thing you would do if today was your last day?

Have a bbq with my closest.

What’s your vision of a perfect world?

World peace I guess? Why can’t we all just get along.

If you could have dinner with any five people, living or dead, who would they be and why?

Bill Clinton, he just is the most shrewd politician. Heston Blumenthal the chef for his amazing creativity and insight.

Ricky Gervais for his sharp, biting wit. F. Scott Fitzgerald a favourite author. Paul Keating, former prime minister.

Best/Worst Flinders moment?

One morning, after missing out on a cup of my usual coffee because of a late night doing set readings for a topic that was on next morning, I asked a question and got told in front of entire room that “I would have known the answer” if I had done the set readings.

When I grow up, I want to: Retire early and spend my life travelling every corner of the world.

When I grow up, I want to: See absolutely everything there is to see in the entire world.

[5]

Sex Ed With Mistress M: What is Slut Shaming?

I

t’s a fucking joke, that’s what it is. The fact that women’s sexuality is still seen as something to be feared and denigrate; not only by men, but also by other women. Well, that makes me more ashamed than I can say. Throughout history there has been a double standard when it comes to sexuality – sexually active men are called studs, while sexually active women are called sluts, harlots, whores, floozies, nymphos, tramps, prossies, hussies, and hookers.

A few weeks ago I didn’t even know that the phrase “slut shaming” existed, let alone that it had a hashtag. And then Miley Cyrus performed at some awards show and it seemed like the entire interwebs had a simultaneous conniption about her being too provocative. I watched the video and, quite frankly, I did not find it sexy; the whole tongue thing was just too weird. But I digress. The real issue was the outpouring of rage over the fact that a pop singer had acted in a sexually provocative way. Really?

I didn’t get it, so I started to investigate and somehow in my travels I came across #slutshaming. It sickened me. In this day and age I want to believe we have the right to enjoy and express our sexuality without fear of condemnation. But we don’t; society still wants to own our sexuality and control it. And when we call another human being a slut, we are buying into that bullshit.

I used to joke about the number of men I had slept with and say “I have disclosed the number to my gay friends, and I am happy to announce that they say the number of men I have slept with does not make me a slut, it makes me an honorary gay man.” I was claiming my sexuality as my own, but as a woman I was still at risk of being called a slut. And I have been.

Slut shaming has been around for a long time – as long as men have wanted to control our sexuality. Movies, books and history are full of cautionary tales about what will happen to “bad girls:” they will get eaten by monsters, preyed on by vampires, or cast out from society.

[6]

Rape victims have often felt the hideous hypocrisy of accusations that having been sexually active before their rape somehow meant they were “asking for it.” Some just dressed the wrong way, according to the judge and jury. SlutWalk was a hugely popular and well-publicised phenomenon, but did it manage to reclaim the word slut or change misogynistic old farts’ minds about how women should dress?

Anyway, back to that disgusting song about date rape that Miley was dancing to. Who cares what Miley was doing for publicity and to “kill off” Hannah Montana. Let’s just take a look at ourselves and decide we will not participate in slut shaming. I don’t care if a 17-year-old girl in Ireland gave a head job at a music festival or why, I care that social media thought the guy was a hero and she was a slut. That girl’s life is forever tainted by a poorly thought out thing she did in a poorly thought out place. His is not.

We don’t know why she did it; was she off her head or was she being an empowered sexual woman? Either way, we, the community, made sure that she would be vilified and judged and punished in perpetuity for one sexual act.

Love yourself, touch yourself, and be good to each other.

Yours,

Mistress M

Davo y h t o r o D r a De Dear Davo, ve no idea what ha I t bu s, ek we x si in ng I’m graduati to do with my life. Help!

Regards, Paddle Up The Creek Without a

Dear Dorothy has gone on vaca. So her brother Davo is here to help!

Dear Creeky, Maaaaate. In six weeks you’ll be free! Get ya’ self on the dole and chuck down a few tinnies. You’ve earned a break and there’ll be plenty of time down the track to sort out your career.

Your mate, Davo

Dear Davo, money! It’s so I’m a student! I have no rd food most fo af en ev t n’ ca I at th d ba days. What should I do?

Advice needed,

Dear Davo, I have anatidaephobia, but my course is only offered at Flinders. I don’t know what to do!

Quacking Mad

Dirt Poor

Dear Quacko, Mate, I think you’ve jus Your mate,

t made that up.

Davo

Dear Dirty,

g lf on the dole! Failin u should get ya’ se Yo le? e do fre e a th ve on ha ’ Are ya . They em fancy FUSA folks th off u m Yo bu . n ter ca es u m that yo the se Wednesdays during t os m ’ on ya kie on ea p br po Aussie . Just rious faculty BBQs va to ng alo tag o can als the wiser. snag, no one will be sunnies and grab a Your mate, Davo

[7]

A Mirror to the World Words by Agnik Sarkar

O

n the cusp of the new millennium, the esteemed former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared: “More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.” The problem we are faced with today is that the beneficial operations of the UN are hampered by countries which reject these shared ambitions in favour of national agendas.

Built with optimistic aspirations of “saving successive generations from the scourge of war,” the United Nations has, for 68 years, sought to promote global peace. Whilst this aspiration is admirable, whether this endeavour has borne fruit is entirely debatable. Indeed, certain constituent bodies of the UN have proven to be more of a hindrance than help.

The UN Security Council, often mistakenly perceived as the “brain” of the operation, is given the weighty honour of identifying and reacting to threats to peace worldwide.

Too often, however, this process is hijacked by the whims of its frequently self-interested and rarely cooperative member states. This is especially true of the nations with a permanent seat at the hallowed table: France, Britain, China, Russia, and the United States. In addition, there are ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.

The system of permanent members represents a dated power structure: the “victors” of the Second World War. It is one that fails to accurately reflect the current global balance of power and influence. The power of these five members to veto any motions, even if carried by the other fourteen, is its signature defect.

Take Russia and the US, for instance, both of which are unashamed in their blatant abuse of their veto powers.

Russia (formerly the USSR) has cast more veto votes than any other nation, at more than 130, greater than the tallies of Great Britain and the US combined. Over the years, even the mere diplomatic denouncement of states like Iran – and, most recently, Syria – has been blocked by Russia for its own ends, often in partnership with China.

Their 1999 decision to veto the authorisation of military force against Yugoslav forces in Kosovo stands as a notable black mark in their diplomatic history.

[8]

The self-righteous US government is also guilty of obstructive behaviour aimed at guarding its own interests.

The US has exercised its veto 83 times since the UN’s inception; 43 times to prevent official condemnation of Israel’s oppression of Palestine. For a state that champions its record in global cooperation, it has done much to foster doubts about its commitment to international peace efforts.

These cases raise a number of crucial questions: is it practical or even ethical to delegate ultimate power to respond to international instability to five “anointed” countries? Does the failure of the Security Council to successfully condemn the actions of culpable nations absolve the United Nations of further responsibility to act? What is the modern, functional importance of a body intended to democratically reflect the views of all states, when it anachronistically privileges a very few?

There are few simple answers to these questions, and none that can be postulated without commitment to reform by all states. As is usual in our imperfect world, it is unlikely that those already corrupted by the heady scent of power will relinquish it so easily.

Despite its flaws, the UN’s record of achievement is not completely barren. The organisation has successfully played midwife to the births of Timor Leste, Kosovo, and South Sudan. Furthermore, numerous studies underline the UN’s vital role in preserving a modicum of civility during times of turmoil. A joint Swedish-American study most recently highlighted a monthly death rate of less than two in armed conflicts graced with UN presence, compared to 106 in those without. We must therefore applaud its past successes while continuing to underline its faults.

For decades, there has been a veritable cacophony of negative opinion and calls for reform aimed squarely at the UN. Given their sustained penchant for inaction and paralysis, the world could do with a few more voices to add to the din.

STEPPING OUT OF OUR COSMIC BACKYARD > WORDS BY LAUREN FUGE

I

t’s official: after 36 years of shooting through the solar system, Voyager 1 has become the first manmade spacecraft to enter interstellar space. Scientists determined that it actually reached the solar system’s edge in August last year, but because of a broken instrument, we’ve only just recently been able to confirm it.

become electrically charged. Plasma is ejected by ancient, dying stars, so interstellar space is like a charged celestial graveyard. Since plasma is much denser in interstellar space than in the heliosphere, measuring the density is key to figuring out where our solar system ends.

But Voyager 1’s instrument for measuring plasma density failed in 1980, so scientists have had to get creative.

“It is an incredible event, to send the first human object into interstellar space,” says Donald Gurnett of the University of Iowa, the lead researcher. “It’s not quite the moon landing, but we are where the solar wind ends.”

An answer to this problem arrived just recently, like a gift.

In March 2012, a powerful solar eruption sent a solar storm sweeping out across the planets. When it reached Voyager 1, thirteen months later in April 2013, it made the plasma around the spacecraft vibrate like a violin string.

Another instrument picked this up, and the data told scientists that Voyager 1 is now bathed in plasma forty times denser than in the heliosphere.

Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 by NASA, along with its twin, Voyager 2. We didn’t have much first-hand data about the solar system at that time, so the two space probes were originally designed to take a “Grand Tour” of the planets, giving scientists their first close-up look at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. They took advantage of a rare planetary alignment—not in any mystical sense, but because they could use the planets’ gravity to fling themselves through the solar system, pinballing from world to world. This dance amongst the planets accelerated the spacecraft to huge speeds. Right now, Voyager 1 is travelling at over 62,000 kilometres per hour.

The duo completed their first mission in 1989, but ended up being so successful and sturdy that they sped on towards the edge of the solar system. Voyager 1 is currently over 19 billion kilometres from the sun, which is equal to over 120 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, far beyond even the orbit of Pluto. Since 2004, it’s been in a kind of cosmic purgatory: a halfway space between the safety of our home star and the immensity of interstellar space.

The solar system is encased in bubble called the heliosphere, which is a huge sphere of charged particles and magnetic fields from the Sun. It’s basically the extent of our Sun’s influence: beyond its shores are the vast depths of the celestial seas. It’s completely new territory, so scientists didn’t quite know where the heliosphere would end and where interstellar space would begin, but now we have evidence that the spacecraft has broken free.

This matches up with other data that tells us that on August 25th, 2012, the spacecraft experienced a drop in solar particles surrounding it and a big increase in galactic cosmic rays—both of which are also indicators of interstellar space.

“Now that we have new, key data, we believe this is mankind’s historic leap into interstellar space,” says Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at CalTech. “We can now answer the question we’ve all been asking: Are we there yet? Yes, we are.”

Humankind is on the frontier of interstellar space, and our ambassador is a spacecraft that weighs less than a car.

It’s so robust that its instruments are predicted to last until 2025, nearly fifty years after its launch—a testament to 1970s technology. In that time, we’ll hopefully learn a lot about deep space.

After that, who knows? In 40,000 years, the spacecraft will pass within 1.6 light years of the star Gliese 445, but with no power (and hence no emissions) it seems unlikely that it will ever be picked up by another civilisation, if they exist. But just in case, Voyager 1 carries a ‘Golden Record’ with sounds from Earth, like a cosmic mix tape from 1977 to the distant future.

Good luck, our little cosmic pioneer. Don’t forget to write home.

Interstellar space isn’t as empty as you might think. It’s filled with plasma, which is a gas whose atoms have had electrons ripped away by heat or energy, so they’ve

[9]

A New Language: Why Government Should Speak Social Media W

e live in the era of telecommunications. Over the past 30 years, many new forms of information and communication technology have been introduced.

Businesses and governments are now in a state of transition towards online services, and social media applications or “next generation internet applications” are the most effective way to reach business audiences.

In this article I will highlight the importance of online platforms, especially social media applications.

Allowing users to share and interact with online content and to connect with like-minded people are the main features of social media applications. However, the power of social media lies in its interactivity and its ability to amplify the reach of content – an ability which can quickly become a pitfall. Consequently, it is essential to be aware of the basic rules for using social media.

To communicate effectively in the social media world, you need to understand the rules of the road. People want to have a say, to be engaged and involved in the process, to share personal interactions with others, to be listened to, to help shape what they find useful, to connect with others engaged in similar activities, and to be part of the project.

These are the core elements of social media applications; however, some organisations – mainly governments – cannot implement all of them. This puts them in a difficult situation when it comes to reaching their audience.

Reaching the users of government services should be the number one priority for any government, as they need to evaluate and rate the services they provide, see if they are spending money appropriately, and, of course, reach voters during election campaigns.

[10]

Our conversation is no longer a one-way broadcast, something sent to a passive audience. Social media is at least a two-way conversation, and often a multidimensional one. Social media engages everyone involved, encouraging contributions and reactions from anyone who is interested.

“Encourage” is the key word here; social media solicits an interaction, either positive and negative, by making it easy to contribute. By inviting participation, social media also promotes an exchange of information between you and your audience, and among audience members.

Creating a quick and simple collaborative platform requires that information be organised and easily distributed.

Accessing information on the internet only takes a click.

Social media thrives on connections, both within its own web vehicles and through links to other sites, resources, people, and automatic feeds. People can even create their own personalised site of connections.

The fundamental characteristic of social media is the creation of a community: a fellowship and relationship with others who share common attitudes, interests, and goals (such as friendship, profession, politics, or interests). Communities form quickly and communicate effectively. Communities build members’ goodwill towards the hosting organisation and each other. While these communities are only virtual, with members seldom meeting each other in person, they are no less robust than the physical communities in which we live, and in many ways more robust by virtue of the simple fact that barriers are removed.

Clearly, government organisations (including universities) should work to use the enormous power of social media effectively – in order to deliver better services, build communities, and gather valuable information.

Words by Abdullah Alajlan FUSA International Officer

Ghost “My” Ghost (A true story)

Words by Eshantha Ariyadasa

I

think that many of us believe in ghosts, even though we probably haven’t had any experiences of them.

Before you begin to read, decide which group you belong to: the group that believes in ghosts, or the group that doesn’t.

I recently purchased two acres of land. The block had a big, eighty-year-old house standing in the middle, with not a single neighbour to be seen. My aim was to establish a school of languages and sports, which has always been my childhood dream. While the refurbishments were in progress, I lived on my own in one of the thirteen rooms of this gigantic house.

One night I was suddenly woken, feeling water being sprinkled over my face. I felt myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’t. Most of my face and much of my chest was already wet. “Oh My God!” I thought, as I became aware that more water was steadily spreading drop by drop – like a miniature shower. I opened my eyes and peered through the mosquito net. What I saw made my entire body sweat with terror.

Someone was standing beside my bed! He was black.

I could see him clearly in the shaft of moonlight falling through the open window. He was holding a bowl, and was using his fingers to flick water over me. The door was closed, but the window was open to the blessedly cool night breeze. However, this window was strongly framed with an iron grille. How did he get into my room, I wondered?

My heart began to pound.

No matter how strong and efficient I was as a karate practitioner in those days, no instructor had ever taught me how to fight against an opponent who could get to my bedside when all the doors and windows were locked.

He stood there, never stopping his play with the bowl.

He continued to flick water all over me. What was most unbearable was the smell. It was disgusting. I couldn’t stop myself. I screamed. I cried. I yelled at the top of my voice, but no meaningful words would come. Inwardly I prayed. I pleaded. I begged, but he didn’t listen. In that moment I knew he was a ghost.

I suddenly remembered what a local villager had once told me when we discussed my renovation plans: that the

former owner had never wanted to see any alterations to “his” home.

That’s it! I thought. This thing at my bedside must have been the soul of that dead man. Oh God! I began to shiver in fear. What might he do next? Could these be the last few moments of my life?

I decided I had to fight him. I took a deep breath, concentrated all my power into my right leg – something I was good at, something which had downed many opponents during karate tournaments – and let fly with a round house kick across his belly.

It went right through, him, but it worked. He vanished as the mosquito net ripped from its hook in the wooden ceiling and tangled around my leg then me as I crashed to the floor.

I untangled myself and stood. There was no person or “thing” there. Whatever it was, it had vanished, leaving behind my wet face and chest and the sickening smell of the water.

It took me hours to get myself and the bed sheets cleaned up. Before switching the light off, I looked up at the ceiling above the bed where I had been “visited.” The evil-smelling water was still dripping through the slats in the ceiling.

I began to think, and then I had an idea. I turned the light off, and there – streaming through the window – came the moonlight. Against the wall over my former bed was a menacing shadow of what could easily have been a man flicking one hand. I could picture that same shadow on a mosquito net, too. It began to make a little sense.

I fetched a broom from the kitchen. Standing near the dripping slats, I gave the ceiling a strong thump. Instantly, I heard the squeal of a frightened cat and the patter of tiny paws fleeing.

I began to laugh. My “ghost” was only the shadow of a tree! As to the cat peeing over my head? The drips had come through the mosquito net, which turned them into a sprinkle.

People who encounter ghosts are rare, but in many ways I think my experience was just as rare.

[11]

The Subtext of Tony Abbott’s Man-Filled Cabinet W

hen Prime Minister Abbott released details of his new Cabinet, it was a 19-strong group consisting of Julie Bishop and 18 dudes, who were announced as the most qualified people for the job. Twitter exploded, as it tends to, and a list of things that contain more women than Abbott’s Cabinet quickly went viral (such welcome comparisons as the Cabinets of Iran and Afghanistan were included). Abbott stated his disappointment at this turn of events, which implied that it was somehow out of his control, that some force beyond his power had picked his Cabinet.

It’s hard to say whether he was wrong or not.

It would have been inappropriate to promote an unqualified woman to the Cabinet for the sole purpose of bulking up the numbers, but it can’t be true that of all the people qualified for a Cabinet position, all but one happen to be male. On the other hand, the pool of female Liberal politicians is a lot smaller than the pool of male Liberal politicians. It seems somehow unlikely that this is the case because women are not qualified for the job, or even that they don’t want the job. On the contrary, women now outnumber men among university graduates and make up significant parts of the workforce, even in traditionally male-dominated areas like science and mathematics, and they’re ramping it up in politics too.

With that in mind, it’s easy to think equality of opportunity has been met. And that, rather than equality of outcome, has been the prevalent logic for decades in any debate about inequality – be it gender, race, or class.

When I applied for my first job in the infamously nepotistic legal industry, I didn’t feel disadvantaged as a woman.

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Words by Aneta Peretko

I was more worried about my lack of connections than my lack of maleness, which is a separate issue in its own right, to be sure. I got that job, and found two other women and one other man were starting with me, and I didn’t think about gender. But when I attended the first meeting, and saw that there was one woman in a senior role alongside seven men, I did think about it. The achievement, as it were, of equality of opportunity didn’t explain the make-up of that room, nor does it explain the make-up of Abbott’s Cabinet.

Identifying Julie Bishop as the only woman in the Cabinet is only half of the story, and the other half was Abbott’s defence – all the women who are “knocking on the door of the Cabinet.” The females who are just a sliver away from seniority, who will attain it any minute now; that represents progress, or so the argument goes.

But of all these women knocking at the door, only one was chosen, and that looks less like progress and more like stagnation, particularly as Bishop seems to have been the “token” woman of the Liberal Party since the Howard era. Where women are more plentiful than ever before and more visible in the workforce, there is a stubborn dearth of them at the top. Not just in Australia, but all over the world. The overwhelming majority of CEOs of top companies are male, as are COOs, CFOs, and directors. The overwhelming majority of heads of state or government are male too, as are other senior officials, including judges and Cabinet-level appointments in Australia.

The debate about women, particularly in the workforce and in politics, tapered off when some prominent exceptions came to light – Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel,

Dilma Rousseff. Naming one well-known and influential woman in Australian history is easy (Gillard? Rinehart?

Bryce?). But naming even five is hard.

The debate has also tapered off as it has become less and less of an issue in entry-level positions. Entering the workforce in the early stages of my career, I didn’t think much about it. I enter with men and women of similar levels of achievement, with the same qualifications. But at some point in our trajectory, the statistical reality and likelihood is that one of the men in my cohort will become a CEO – and I won’t.

There’s a better explanation for this than that other commonly-cited statistical reality: that women pause their careers to have children. If that were the explanation, women who returned to work would continue on the path of equality and perhaps be older when they achieve seniority, but achieve it consistently nonetheless. Needless to say, they don’t.

The thing that really gets in the way of equality of opportunity is the lack of equality of outcome. The gap between our desire and belief in an equal society, and a reality that persistently demonstrates the opposite, is the most demoralising factor, and the most powerful barrier to women entering senior positions. If men are so much

more powerful than women, they live in a different sphere.

Equality of opportunity doesn’t matter there. The proof is in the start of this article. More women are graduating from universities then men, but less of them are ending up in positions of power. The myth has been debunked that performance is tied to training and qualifications, and there’s nothing to suggest women are somehow less personable or charismatic in the interview process.

Whatever is driving the stagnating role of women in power, its effect is to undermine the egalitarian values that define Australia. The unknowable upper hand is preventing an equality of outcome that could create true equality of opportunity, and that lingering inequality is bad for everyone in society.

Some women argue that they don’t want to be tokens.

They want to earn their success on merit, and not be promoted just because they are women. But how can they, when the odds are stacked against them from the very first moment of opportunity – the first time they see just one female on a platform of 19 people ruling the country.

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Interactive Art: Are Gamers Artists?

Words by Tamara Babij

M

ovies have been a long established art form for well over a century; but when it comes to the ever growing in popularity of games, they are still contended as an art form in modern society. Video games are still relatively young and the medium is only now coming into its own, despite opinion that video games are inherently inferior.

Movies are a great way to tell a linear story from someone else’s point of view. The director has control of every nuance of every scene, taking the viewer on a carefully scripted journey through the plot. Games, on the other hand, transport the player into a whole new world through the eyes and actions of the character. They live and breathe each decision almost as if they were their own. Where a movie can run for up to three hours, fully exploring a game can last well over hundred hours.

Much like books and movies, video games can be used to tell a story; however the added element of interactivity can make the player feel like part of the story, rather than simply watching as the story unfolds. This interactivity can provide a level of immersion and investment in the experience that, arguably, cannot be provided by other forms of media. However, some argue that it is the “interaction from the player” that nullifies the art, as if all art must be controlled by the creator.

Perhaps the strongest example of the interaction in games is the Mass Effect trilogy, developed by Bioware. Through the series, one could cultivate a crew, choosing different people and aliens, and make decisions that made a huge impact on the universe you play in. The relationships were also defined by what was said and actions you took, creating relationships which feel very real. Unlike in movies, where the viewer may or may not care about a character being presented, Mass Effect forces the player to weigh up good traits, make sacrifices, and shape their

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own crew. Another thing Mass Effect achieved was a choice based system which was heavily reliant on role play. This meant that the story was dynamic and adaptive, differing with the way each person intended to play. Unlike film, the player participates and co-creates the art.

In the cinema we see people make decisions, whether they are understood or not. However games they can force you to make that decision. In Spec Ops: The Line, developed by Yager Development, the player must make decisions on the premise that what they are doing is right, allowing the player to not just see but experience how far people could go in the belief they are right. The game evokes powerful feelings of regret, pride and shame about the decisions a player will make as part of the story.

Yet somehow gaming is considered inferior to simply watching what a director intended to show you about people put in bad situations making bad decisions.

I was able to personally experience the creators’ art. I may not have played through the way they would have, but they provided a medium for me to experience their creation in my own way. While it can be argued that the distinction between video games being accepted as an art form or not is trivial, the powerful emotional experience of a well-made game is something that should be promoted and encouraged for everyone to experience.

Through all of this, I am still told video games are mindless and that they can never be art. But art is the creation of something that inspires and expresses the artist, whether appreciated by others or not. Games are put together by teams, they have writers, developers, animators, writers and a host of other jobs. It is a true collaboration of the human mind. Players live and breathe a tailored experience of what they made. Consequentially, you are part of the creation of art. That saved file is your experience, your reaction, your experience, the character you created.

Baking Bad Words by Leisha Mugford

S

ix months without a donut. No seriously people. I want a donut. It’s been six months since I last ate a donut, bread, pasta, burgers, a chicken parmy or a real pizza. I know what you’re thinking, why would anybody voluntarily give up pizza? They wouldn’t. Six months ago I was diagnosed with Coeliac Disease, an autoimmune disease that means my body cannot process gluten – a protein which is found in wheat, rye, barley and oats.

A diagnosis of Coeliac Disease has been both one of the best and worst things to happen in my life. It explained years of stomach aches, headaches, mystery illnesses, a low immune system and more. But at the same time, it has made every moment of my life harder. When you have Coeliac Disease, you can’t just grab a handful when someone passes around the bowl of chips, or buy a sausage at the campus sausage sizzle, or go to a friend’s place for dinner like everybody else does. Instead, you need to make sure that there is absolutely no gluten in any of the products that you are eating, and that everything that goes into your mouth is made in a sterile environment – separate knives, chopping boards, gloves, pans and so on.

Accidentally ingesting gluten is one of the worst things that can happen to me. It means saying no to all of my commitments for about 24 hours. Being “glutened” can mean having to call in sick for work, cancel plans with friends, miss classes… All to spend a day of quality time with my bathroom. I have to say, before I started getting sick, I was a much more reliable person. But now, I fear that my employers feel like they should never have hired me, and my friends find me too much trouble to have a meal with. But the thing that makes me feel the most ridiculous is when I accidentally “gluten” myself.

Sure, when other people cross-contaminate my food it’s frustrating, but it’s so incredibly frustrating to know that the reason you are spending the day in the bathroom looking like you’re seven months pregnant is because you messed up!

On campus, finding food to eat is actually quite hard.

Sure, the whole foods store does make some gluten free products. But when they sell out of the one gluten free quiche and one gluten free pasty before 11, and you’re not a fan of thai green curry, there really isn’t much in the way of on campus food for people with Coeliac Disease.

Once you get tired of sushi and the few items in the refectory that are actually okay for you to eat there really isn’t anything. And when your boyfriend tells you about how he went up to McHughs for a pie and donut for lunch and just how delicious it was…. Seriously, I never cared much for donuts. But what I wouldn’t give for a donut right now!

I shouldn’t complain – some people certainly have it worse. But even as I’m writing this I feel awful thanks to somehow managing to “gluten” myself in the last 24 hours. I get so tired of feeling awful constantly, and I find it to be a moment to celebrate if I make it even a week without getting sick. But I know that I need to face this head on as a life challenge. It’s only been six months. I will be okay and I will learn to manage this disease. Life will go on and things will get better. And you never know, maybe one day they will make yummy gluten free donuts.

As a Coeliac, it makes me nervous to eat food that someone else has prepared. Whether it be the well meaning friend or family member who doesn’t properly check product labels (no seriously, gluten hides in the weirdest things – like corn flour! Who would think corn flour would contain wheat?), or the restaurant that doesn’t realise that using the same chopping board and knifes to prepare my food as they would use to cut your side of garlic bread will actually have serious consequences for me. More than 10 milligrams of gluten is enough to make me sick – enough to cause effects like diarrhoea, vomiting, headaches, muscle aches, bloating, mouth ulcers, and more, for at least 24 hours. More long term, Coeliac Disease can cause complications in terms of malnutrition, anaemia, lactose intolerance, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, infertility, diabetes, and more.

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ET Microfiction Comp Winners 1st

Pillar of Dust

by Lauren Fuge

T

he town of Nooranbul got their first angel at the end of March, years after the big cities. On the Sunday of its arrival, the townspeople gathered outside the town hall under the welcome banner the primary school made. Nooranbul was too small for a church.

leather jacket for wings so black they were simply voids.

The bike’s engine idled. The angel surveyed the clustered crowd, blinking its many, long-lashed eyes.

‘Jesus, it’s hot. Who’s buying me a beer?’

The angel roared in late afternoon on a Harley V-Rod, impossibly shiny in the red dust. Holes were sliced in its

2nd (tie) Refill

By Ashley Akari

T

here are ten new souls on 32nd street. Ten downy heads and furry tongues like scarlet geranium petals licking about the edges of her heart. Let Robert scoff; she will keep them swaddled in a baby blanket in the frilly cot by her bed. If the darkness frightens them she will be there to gather them up in her arms.

Poor, motherless creatures butting blindly the sodden

cardboard box. Her wrinkled lips seal each kitten with a kiss.

Robby, my dear!

The tears are running down her cheeks.

There is so much love it breaks my heart!

2nd (tie) Time Shift

S

By Nathan Erdely

he opens her mouth to say something. The words come out of her eyes, bleeding droplets of blood: ‘James, me kill to have you did why?’

‘Sarah sorry so am I.’ I said, moving backwards. The bones returned to their skeleton structure. The bullet went back into its gun. The blood poured back into Sarah’s body which was walking backwards holding a gun.

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Sarah and I are sitting opposite one another on a dining room table. The clock strikes 8 and I have a terrible headache. Sarah looks up at and says ‘Did you say something, James?’

‘No.’ I reply.

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That Time Old Adage: Words by Sarah Gates

F

ew would argue, in today’s climate, that this old adage is not true. For many people, it is a time where casual and graduate jobs are few and far between.

It is a time where you cannot get a job without work experience, and you can’t get work experience without prior work experience. Confused? So am I. It seems like luck, merit, and persistence play equal parts in getting most positions; all of which are far outweighed by your networking abilities, or who you know.

Going into high school, a female friend of mine concocted a plan to become popular. She happened to know two attractive boys, family friends who just happened to be going to the same school. So she organised events around the three of them, to attract other charismatic and good looking people. And did it work? Yes. Was I awed by the genius of her plan? Yes. But that was high school. In university, I expected to find it completely different. People would be drawn together out of similar interests and compatible personalities. There would be no more hanging out with particular people because they’re just “part of the group” or happen to be in every single class. Whilst there is more friendliness and less bitching, networking has become even more important.

Networking is certainly not a new concept. According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, the term “networking” has had this meaning since at least 1940. But networking appears to have taken on a new importance in the modern age. Once upon a time, people would work for the same company all their lives. They would start at the bottom and climb the ladder, one rung and then another, rinse and repeat. But the workplace has changed and employees now jump from employer to employer.

Casual, contracted, or short-term positions are becoming the norm, and employees are becoming more valuable for their personal connections than years of service. More freelancing. More outsourcing. Or at least, this is how it seems to a university student, observing the working

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world with increasing concern. This is especially evident in the arts industry. Music. Writing. Acting. Art. It’s all in the networking. Jobs for freelance writers, for example, go to those who are known to the editor.

Even my casual, low skilled job at The Beachouse is incestuous. If you went to St Peter’s Glenelg Primary School (and are under the age of nineteen), you pretty much automatically get the job. If you have a sibling already working there, you get the job. If you know the owner, you get the job.

A lot of people complain about this state of affairs and, of course, there are some issues. It often privileges the already privileged. But now that I’m at university and surrounded by other undergraduate students, familial connections seem less common and networking is a way to distinguish myself from others who are just as educated, and probably more capable. Networking forces people to go after what they want and put themself out there, introducing themselves to others who they perceive to be more advance, more intelligent, more creative, just more. It’s difficult to walk up to someone you admire and ask questions. Of course, there’s also the easy type of networking, with others at the same level as you and those just a few steps behind. This is also important. For, as the saying goes, “be nice to people on your way up, because you’ll meet them again on your way down.”

There is a danger in focussing one’s attention and talents on networking: self promotion. People who can’t stop promoting themselves, even when inappropriate or tiresome. And people who forget that hard work and talent also play a part. It’s an easy trap to fall into. I have taken to going to a lot of writing events and telling people that I meet about my great passions – writing and theatre.

Unfortunately, I haven’t actually had the time to start my new novel. I don’t even work on it. Instead, I focus my time on learning and networking, which is not the most

“It’s Not What You Know, It’s WHO You Know” effective way to attain success. Sometimes, reading a book or practising your craft is better than meeting a professional or sending a tweet.

Social media is a big part of networking. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many other websites aim to help professionals maintain and grow their personal networks.

One’s online presence is deemed, by some, an indicator of one’s actual network. This is evident in the existence and success of Klout.com, which boasts over 400 million users, roughly 200 terabytes of data processed every day, and more than 200,000 businesses using the site. This handy website measures the “influence” you have over several social networks and the data on sites such as Bing and Wikipedia. It then gives you a Klout Score between 1 and 100, based on this algorithm. For example, Justin Bieber is up around the 100 mark and I would be quite reasonably low, not being one for posting and having not yet worked out Twitter. This social media analytics tool is already being used by some companies to hire employees, as just another box to be checked.

I am sceptical of this method. It undervalues the essence of networking: human interaction. It’s still who you know, not who you added on Twitter and retweeted that one time.

That is not to say that social media isn’t useful, because it really, really is. It can help you keep track of where people are working and what they want; and it allows for easy communication. But personally and genuinely connecting with people is key and often even fun, once you get the hang of it. As an Empire Times editor, that’s been one of the biggest perks of the job. We’ve been able to meet and chat with some really awesome people. Some that I admired from afar, and some that I would never have known if not for this opportunity, but that I am now sure I will be seeing again and again in the working world.

a colleague. Share information, instead of clutching it to your chest. Although you’ll have more competition this way, you’ll also have more opportunities when people start shooting inside information your way. Volunteer. Take a real interest in what people are doing and what they’d like to be doing. Follow up on new acquaintances. Help other people out, without seeing how you might cash in your favours. Be fearless in introducing yourself and talking to people. As you meet new people, don’t forget to tend to the old ones. Relationships are like plants, they must be fed and watered to prosper.

I read some good advice once; that if you walked into a room where people like and trust you, those people will probably want to work with you. But if you can form actual friendships which aren’t abused, then people will go out of their way to help you succeed and achieve happiness.

So maybe that’s the real point here. Be kind, friendly, and passionate with everyone you meet, and be open to meeting new people. Forming human relationships has always been important to our humanity and progress. It’s just that now, it’s a business model on which there are countless seminars and self help books.

So get out from behind the desk or computer. Go to conferences, meetings, lectures, social events, lunch with

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CaffeinE: A Love storY I

spent fifteen years of my life living in St Kilda. During that time, I became your stereotypical Melburnian in many ways: I wear lots of black, I think of myself as a “creative” (but hate being called a hipster, because that’s too mainstream), and I love my coffee. I mean, I really love my coffee.

I would cross the river, to sip at a short black from Mario’s in Fitzroy. Then I would go back again to Dr Jekyll’s in St Kilda for a café latte. I would have in-depth conversations with my friends about where the best coffee really was served and which baristas were the best. I have followed great baristas when they moved from one café to another, only to be disappointed when the new café’s beans were not up to scratch.

And then two years ago I moved to Adelaide. Everyone, including my mum, thought I was being a pretentious wanker about the coffee here. Everywhere I went, it was lacklustre, mediocre, or crap. Forget ordering short blacks; that was now an impossibility – they would invariably be burnt and bitter. I occasionally found drinkable lattes on Rundle St when they hadn’t, by some miracle, burnt the milk. Basically, I was crying myself to sleep each night, and I was able to sleep because I hadn’t had any decent coffee!

And then I found the Coffee Branch on Leigh Street in the city and Bar 9 on Glen Osmond Road. The coffee at both of these places is exceptional. And by that, I mean it is consistently exceptional. I love the coffee at these places, and it brings a warm glow to my heart and a smile to my face every time. However, unfortunately, I am not the only person who appreciates good coffee and they are ridiculously busy, all the time. Apparently, just because most of Adelaide drinks mediocre coffee, it doesn’t mean they like it. It seems that there are many Adelaideans who really love their coffee too: I am not alone.

In fact, there seem to be just as many passionate coffee drinkers here as in Melbourne and when I voice my bitter complaints about yet another bitter short black or burnt milk latte, I am given suggestions about where I might find yet another establishment that will possibly offer up the holy grail of excellent coffee.

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So the question remains, if Adelaideans are just as passionate about their coffee and those businesses that serve great coffee are making money hand over fist (Bar 9 has now opened up a second café in the city after having had to expand its premises three times to accommodate its customers), where do other businesses get off complaining that they aren’t making money, there aren’t enough customers, or worse, saying that they can’t afford the better beans or to pay for better baristas? Adelaide, you have the right to good coffee and finally you seem to be getting it. In limited release.

As a student I don’t have a lot of money. Coffee is my one luxury these days. It should never contain burnt milk, a mouldy flavour, or be watery or bitter. It should be a joy to drink; it should make my morning, every morning.

Words by Emma Sachsse, Coffee Tragic.

[Editor’s note: My favourite coffee shop is Red Berry Espresso, on L’Estrange Street, just off Greenhill Road.

They roast their own beans every week and make the best coffee I think I’ve ever tasted. – Simon]

Q: Why did the hipster burn his mouth?

A: Because he drank his coffee before it was cool.

Photograph by Jack McEntee

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h s u r C Girl

is really not n io at is al xu se y wh g; in The Miley th k in your knickers er tw t n’ ld ou sh u yo d an t that grea ck all over Robin Thicke’s d* Words by Holly Richter

S

o I’ve recently finished reading Lolita, one of the more beautiful books I’ve ever come across. The way Nabokov uses the English language is exquisite, but the subject matter is something different. It’s a manipulative exploration of a dark obsession with, quite simply, paedophilia. Mixed with a bit of incest for good measure. What’s interesting is the way Humbert, our trusty narrator, describes these beautiful young girls that drive him mad. He calls them nymphets. He lovingly details their every cheekbone, their soft skin, their light and shiny hair. These nubile young creatures are the fairies of his wonderland, thrust into the spotlight without realising and without consequence. It kind of reminds me of a far gentler – far more picturesque – version of this strange culture I seem to be surrounded by.

A culture where beautiful, slim, young girls are the object of idolatry for men, women, children, old and young alike.

Where female beauty and the ability to sexualise it is something gripping our very soul. Who else is there to look at, through this bizarre kaleidoscope we call social media? Tavi Gevinson is young and successful, and would fit in seamlessly with Humbert’s nymphets. Chloe Grace Moretz; big eyes, luscious lips and some fabulously bold career choices. Another sublime young lady. Miley Cyrus; long limbs, a skinny waist and short blonde hair.

Well… whilst her physical attributes would certainly favour her presence amongst these starlets, Miley has instead done everything in her power to separate herself from all concepts of innocence, purity and girlhood. Instead she has propelled herself into infamy hitherto unknown and that’s a fact; her latest video clip is the most viewed, and fastest, in VEVO history. In case any of you have been living under a rock - or spending your time doing less worthy things such as studying, working or helping others – I’ll fill you in on the scandalous event I like to call “Twerkgate.”

Young Miley, of Hannah Montana fame, spent the better part of her VMAs performance all fleshy and limby; twerking on Robin Thicke and waving around a giant rubber finger as though it were a penis. So who is Robin Thicke? What is twerking? Why am I even writing about this? Fair questions, dear reader. With over three million

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hits on YouTube, one can’t deny the explosive nature of the whole debacle; only intensified by the release of her latest clip, which has 95 million views and counting.

Robin Thicke, bless him, is a married thirty-something who likes to sing about the blurred lines between consensual sex and “good girls” saying no.

Twerking is (actually fun) when you stick your butt out and wiggle it in a bizarrely contained, yet violent, manner.

I am writing about this because Miley has taken the world by storm, and not exactly in the most positive light. Hateful tweets, demeaning memes and furious Facebooking were pelted at MC over the last few weeks. This generation devoted more attention to the VMAs performance than the announcement that Syria’s government was using chemical weaponry on its citizens. Yes, that’s upsetting.

The VMAs themselves have been known, for years, as a vehicle for attention-starved celebrities to perform acts of “controversy” in the hope of generating more media and more money. Yeah, that shits me. Still, I feel a little uneasy when I see so much vitriolic media from fans, her peers and anonymous online profiles alike, all targeted at someone who was just being a bit of a muppet.

Clearly Miley’s latest branding – including new album, Bangerz – is an attempt to finally cast off the Hannah Montana image that’s been clouding her for years. To sprint away from the other Lolitas of her generation, to evade her childhood and to be a real live grown up once and for all. One of the hallmarks of this transition into adulthood is by embracing sexuality: child stars have been doing it for decades. Still; just how successful is Miley?

She is okay with being naked in front of a world audience.

She is okay with being objectified both on stage and in front of the camera. She is also super fine with simulating fellatio with a piece of garden equipment.

Yes, MC is an individual and has every right to express her sexuality. But this time I’m not entirely on board.

Being overtly sexual - in the manner of a porn star, not an emancipated woman - is not classy, or smart, or a very good business move. Singing and dancing along to ‘Blurred Lines,’ one of the most outrageously misogynistic songs of the decade, is not my idea of freedom.

My idea of freedom comes from Lena Dunham. GIRLS is one of the most endearing success stories of my generation. In this somewhat autobiographical, very much up close and personal story, Dunham has achieved something influential and inspirational. Dunham has sex on camera. Dunham and her co-stars get naked for their art. But the cast of GIRLS achieve a very, very different message than Miley in her latest film clip. GIRLS represents real people, real relationships and real bodies.

The characters are beautiful, different, tattooed, scarred and special. Big or small.Eloquent or not. And that type of sex is far healthier than the thousands of other images being thrust upon us (excuse the pun). Studies on the sexualisation of young girls reflect the damaging nature of this culture. It is widely accepted that girls need the freedom to explore and develop their sexuality. But this needs to occur in an environment devoid of the commercial, highly sexual, grossly misogynistic bloodbath that is today’s media. The consequences of such sexualisation include lower self-confidence and a massively increased rate of anxiety. Another interesting observation is this; when girls become preoccupied with their appearance, their ability to concentrate and focus on mental tasks is diminished.

How then are we still expected to thrive in a country where our Prime Minister describes his own colleague as “young, feisty and with a bit of sex appeal?”

shame and misunderstanding about your body can dramatically affect your ability to participate in safe, fun, consensual sex.

I don’t know if I have all the answers, but I do know that following Miley’s lead is not one of them. Give me Emma Watson anyday. I’d rather be Josie Geller of Never Been Kissed fame than one of the sexy she-devils in Spring Breakers. Mostly because I get a massive kick out of laughing, dancing like a dickhead and throwing food at my friends- as opposed to snorting cocaine, threesomes in pools and tight rubber knickers. The dirty little secret is that yes, everybody has sex, everybody likes to feel sexy and most of us wish we were a bit thinner – but we still have our minds and hearts intact. And we respect ourselves, and our mates.

The selfie epidemic is just another facet of this evolving web of narcissism; many complex factors are intertwining to create a megalomania of sex, beauty and perfection.

Girls are following their culture perpetuated by their role models in the media spotlight. The final, most devastating consequence is that young girls can develop extremely debilitating attitudes tosexand body image. Confusion,

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LaBE LS Words by David Eva ns

I

n the supermarket, a simple label can help us make an easy decision with minimal effort. We simply read a piece of paper attached to an item. With a quick glance, we can figure out the worth of that item to us. It takes out all the guesswork we would have to do otherwise. We try to do the same with fashion. We take the guesswork out when meeting someone for the first time, with just a quick glance. This is a great defensive tool late at night when faced with a shady character; but more often than not, this tool can unfairly discriminate. A simple, yet obvious, judgement on someone may highlight the exact label they are trying to hide.

“Your son has a learning difficulty,” was how the paediatrician phrased it to my parents. “ He will find school life difficult and may not even finish.”

I was about three at the time, when the day-care staff noticed something unusual about me: the difficulty I had speaking. When the day-care staff told my parents, I was whisked away for a second opinion and between the bland white walls of a paediatrician’s office, I was labelled a dyslexic. The paediatrician would use the word “diagnosis” and that’s how I perceived it as a child. My three-year-old self didn’t understand what a diagnosis was, but that was what I was told, and that’s what I had to believe. At seven or eight I began to see a difference in myself compared to my peers at school. The arduous one hundred word spelling tests were dismal failures. It was hard for most kids at that age, but I was at a different level. For example ‘p’s’ and ‘b’s’ were hard to differentiate between, and can still be bothersome today. The word ‘bowl’ I would spell ‘pool’ in the test and then hastily cross the word out because I remembered a pool could hold a larger volume of water than a bowl could. I dashed the lines over the word so violently I was close to tearing the

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page. I knew it wasn’t me that stopped me from working out the answer but only that eight letter word, dyslexia.

Over the years the aggressive markings on a test paper turned to long hours typing on a computer with a resolute determination. I actively grew my vocabulary and forced myself to use new, more profound words in school assignments. It took me longer to write than other students but I didn’t let that hinder my spirit. In high school it all managed to come together; to be precise in a Year 9 English lesson. My English teacher gave me back my assignment, I received a mark; twenty-seven out of thirty. I couldn’t believe it and neither could the teacher. She told me to wait after class and when I did I was told her concerns; “Did someone else write your paper, David?” She asked if I had cheated. To be fair, she was a lovely lady and didn’t usually “jump the gun” and accuse her students of cheating, but because of one label she was made aware of by the school, she somehow subconsciously came to this conclusion. That was outright the fondest and most memorable compliment I had ever received.

I wish I could say that, “from then on, I received twentyseven out of thirty for every assignment I handed up,” but I would be lying. In actual fact I had to complete year 12 over two years. However I did make it to university eventually and when I came across “Do you have any disabilities?” on the Flinders form I said “no.”

I wrote this not because I believe I have a lot to say, but because I have so much to prove. If we dare to tear off our label from who we are, we might find our true potential trapped underneath the one thing we thought defined us.

[25] Photograph by Charles Chiam Chuang Chao

Subverting a Subculture

Words by Dorian Bašić

N

o doubt most of you have been flooded with Facebook statuses, snapchats and other forms of media containing some reference to the newly released Grand Theft Auto. These days, “gaming” is less of a hobby, and more of an experience with which most people have a casual relationship. In a much simpler time, people with intense interests in things like gaming, science, or speculative fiction weren’t the norm. The term “geek” was a label those people had to endure and suffer—more of mark and a curse than social currency. If one accidentally revealed membership to their favourite sci-fi fanbase, conversation would turn to remarks about the weather. But people have breathed new life into the meaning of “cult status,” forming various fandoms for their favourite fiction and factions for their favourite characters. Various forms of consumer-generated content, such as memes, parodies, fan fiction and illustrative art are one result.

Shockingly enough to those out of the loop, this is all relatively normal. What happened then, to turn the world upside down? Firstly, a brief social and historical outlook on the now Americanised high school experience.

As a superficial psychological analysis, geeks resorted to intense obsessions as means of escape. These passions and habits channelled attention away from the horrors of being awkward and unsociable. Whether you assume I’m

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projecting or not, I would wager that these geeky teens were largely unable to climb the ladder of the student hierarchy (first rung being athleticism or sex appeal). As a result, the unfortunates banded together to feel safe.

These would be the kids that would huddle together, trading cards, war-mongering with painted figurines or conversing about virtual stratagems. They would shy away from ovals and basketball courts, instead gathering in shaded, seated areas, libraries and computer labs.

This division persisted after high school where the two classes were either drawn towards nightclubs, or hobby shops and gaming tournaments. The two worlds were clear cut and people were happy amongst their own kind.

Then it happened. The lines were blurred, sportsmen and supermodels began to wear thick-rimmed glasses unironically, while the average age of the Doctor Who viewer plummeted. Women and neck-bearded men were collectively confused as their former tormentors tried hard to look like them, and were rewarded in doing so.

When did the Übermensch decide to descend from the heavens, dress themselves in rags, die for all our sins and make it alright for the everyman to follow in their footsteps? Around the time that mainstream youth culture had finished scraping the last chunks of meat off the punk rock skeleton. This would be after 2007, when newly branded “emo” and “hardcore” bands lost their mass appeal. Bread and butter youth culture is known to pick

up a well established, untarnished subculture; devour it; and absorb every marketable aspect. It siphons off all the energy into mainstream media, retail outlets and their trend-setters. When it’s done, all that’s left in the eyes of the public is an out-of-style turd. It happened to rap and urban culture, to the Gothic scene, and to punk rock. It’s been happening for a while to most movie franchises, and now everything that identifies a geek is swimming in stomach acid.

So, what was the selling point for geek culture? It’s synergy with social media. Online profiles are reduced to two things: tastes and appearances (Myspace angles or not).

What better way to flag to your friends or followers that you’re not just a pretty face, but also “adorkable,” than by buying whatever the consumerist abomination says “This is GEEK. Geeks are SMART;” by which it implies, “buy this and you will be too.” The psychological effect it has is the same as nationalism or patriotism, where by association a person can take the best elements of something and procure it for themselves. Except it isn’t done by belonging to a religion, born as a particular ethnic group, or being a citizen of a nation. It’s done by wearing those mythical thick rimmed glasses, playing Skyrim or Call of Duty, or alerting people to whatever you’re watching and reading while broadcasting (as loud as possible) “I’m SUCH a NERD.” The fascinating part? Unlike ethnic nationalism, these guys would shun the authentic geek.

Shallow people are essentially buying personalities like they always have and always will, it’s just that being a geek is “in” right now. Perhaps it will become a permanent fixture of youth culture thanks to the way technology interacts with our daily lives. But the result is that long-standing online communities have been flooded, the average gamer has developed an allergy to being challenged, while fan bases of TV shows and comics have become volatile grounds for factionalist warfare between purists and those newly initiated.

Sadly, the natives were a part of a sub culture of modern times, one that was built entirely on the person’s taste.

A thought from my favourite fictional aristocrat comes to mind: “...the loveliest melody in the world becomes unbearably vulgar once the public start humming it...and becomes commonplace, almost repulsive.” While those dying for attention saunter around in nerd blackface, and as The Big Bang Theory does what it does best (dilute the subculture into pop references), what the connoisseurs consume will increasingly come from the fringes. The same rule of association will apply, but in reverse —”geeks” will become increasingly averse to their own mainstream elements in fear of being identified negatively by each other, or simply being unable to detach the obnoxiousness of the crowd from the game/series/novel/ movie.

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Photograph by Jack McEntee

Automation Appreciation Words by Will Parry

O

n my recent holiday to the Gold Coast, my family and I started a day by queuing for about an hour for entrance into Movie World. Once inside, multiple additional hours were spent in queues for a 30 second adrenaline fix of the rides Superman Escapes and the Joker’s Arkham Asylum. We queued for 45 minutes to watch a snippet of Ice Age in “4D,” which lasted about half of that time. There was a queue at the cafè, a queue to exit, queue on the road, a queue to use the loo in the hotel room, queue queue queue.

Exhausted and famished, we departed for tea to Queensland’s popular heart of consumerism and highrises, Surfer’s Paradise. A massive day of indulging in thrills on nothing but empty carbs left our guts dangerously depleted. Every food outlet looked like a stairway to heaven. It was a special occasion so we eventually picked a flash “pasta, pizza” restaurant, Vapiano, mainly on impulse and appearance.

Upon entry we each received a swipe card, which served as our own personal bill. We sat at the table and, while waiting to be served, discovered that the card was worth $75 dollars; and that upon loss of the card, complete reimbursement was solely your responsibility. Now it may sound fussy, but I’m not entirely happy with this instantaneous financial liability. We eventually realised, thanks to the actions of those around us, that there are no waiters/waitresses taking orders and you must go order at the drinks, pizza, antipasto, or pasta bar. I voiced my opinion about the card humorously to the bartender while ordering a couple beers; she laughed and gave a simple swipe of the card over the automatic billing machine, adding to my tab. I seceded from my minor outrage upon realisation that this new, automated, high-tech card system may have some advantage by eliminating the need for money handling ‘til exit.

My belly cued me, it was time to order some food. I turned to face the pasta bar and there was a MASSIVE QUEUE! The novelty of this flashy restaurant was that you got to watch a chef cook your meal and can even have a conversation but, as a consequence, the chef could only cook meals slowly, one-by-one. So I was forced to queue until the time came to order my meal.

I came to the realisation that there were very few waitresses, who had only to pick up the dirty dishes and wipe the tables for the next patron. Now if this was a review, I’d give the place outstanding scores for atmosphere, novelty and food quality, but it’s not. It’s an opinionated rant about automatic systems gone wrong.

This restaurant made me consider all the staff members that may have been laid off upon the introduction of this automatic billing system, all so we could stand in line for an expensive, small serving of pasta. Now that may not have been the case in this particular restaurant, but it is true that ever since the automatic teller machine, many jobs are becoming ever more obsolete. This new system of hospitality had us raising issue of automated systems over our pastas and pizzas. If you haven’t already thought about this, consider that there are already (even if only in a prototypical form) computerised and automatic: • • • • • • • • • •

Transport vehicles, Business column writers, Other writers such as sports results, Musical composers, Fast food producers, High precision farming vehicles, Receptionists, Educators, Legal investigators, and Military weapons (not just unmanned, literally automated).

As the capabilities of these automated services increase, the stability of current jobs will likely decrease. As an optimist, I believe new required skill sets should be taught in anticipation in today’s schools in order, to replace the obsolete positions of employment with new employment opportunities. Upon observation, the marketing, coding and engineering careers seem to be where that party’s at.

As every business chases the highest profit, at the lowest expense, a pessimist may argue that we are setting ourselves for a future much like Terminator.

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Sexism D

ear reader, you have probably witnessed a lot of discussion about social injustices against women lately. Even if we get to vote, the subliminal cultural perception and treatment of women in Western society is still problematic. But if we’re talking now about more subtle injustices against women, we must also acknowledge those against men.

Binary understandings of masculinity and femininity determine that if men are active, women are passive; if men are aggressive, women are supportive; if men are strong, women are weak; etcetera. But binaries are a double-edged sword. Sexism against women silently implies sexism against men because calling women the ‘nurturing’ sex must then imply that men are somehow the neglectful sex. Even if men are usually offered the more positive side of the comparison, they are still forced into stereotypes of personality and purpose.

Men don’t seem to talk too much about it, but they have their own problems with objectification. Women are portrayed as unrealistically thin and flawless in the media, but men on TV are mostly guys who spend hours at the gym bulking up as part of their job, and this can’t have a particularly positive effect on normal guys. And I know it does have some effect because of times like when I went to see the latest Superman film with my friends, and the guys commented afterwards that they felt like they should all go to gym now or something.

Sadly enough, advertisements aimed at men often make women look stupid and advertisements aimed at women make men look stupid. Ads marketed toward stay-athome mums not only fit women into roles as domestic goddesses, but also make men look like blithering idiots who can’t possibly do the dishes or change a nappy all on their own. The media isn’t fair to anyone.

Men are almost always expected to be the heroes; not just in fiction, but also in life. I was watching a science fiction show with my dad recently in which a couple were attacked. The man got scared and fell over while the woman, though also scared, advanced and tried to defend him. This guy was obviously meant to be portrayed as a coward who didn’t love his girlfriend enough, and my dad expressed anger at his behaviour. But if the roles had been reversed and it was the woman helpless, on the floor, I think my dad would have found it much more acceptable. Men are meant to be physically stronger, and for this reason they have expectations placed upon them that are not placed upon women. But some women are stronger than men. And the girl in this TV show was better

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situated to fight off the attacker than the boy because the boy fell over. Maybe she was brave, but I don’t think that therefore made him a coward.

"advertisements aimed at men often make women look stupid and advertisements aimed at women make men look stupid."

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy chivalry. I love it when my boyfriend opens the car door for me. The action could be interpreted to say, “Here, pathetic woman, allow me to open your door for you. I look forward to repayment in the form of sexual favours.” But I know he doesn’t do it out of disrespect or because he wants something.

Modern chivalry has evolved from the ways men in the past have shown they care for women, but the gesture in this context is just about a person trying to make another person happy. I think it’s fine and lovely if men choose to make women happy. I just don’t think it’s okay for them to be expected to do so. You can’t expect a favour.

I would like to argue that concepts of masculinity and femininity can’t be justified at all, but I have personally experienced a feeling that I could only describe as ‘feminine,’ which defies such a theory. Perhaps feeling feminine simply means feeling attractive to the opposite sex. When a woman’s hips swing when she walks, it’s considered feminine; it emphasises the unique physical traits women have that usually appeal to heterosexual men. But physicality and sexuality do not equate to personality, so gender can’t determine our mental or emotional nature.

If we move with the idea that masculinity and femininity are labels for being attractive to the opposite sex, we can’t possibly assume that a man is defined by aggression, dominance, or a lack of emotional awareness, the same way women are not defined by passiveness or disempowerment. Because women like all sorts of men.

From the look-at-me-I-have-muscles-and-a-fancy-beard style of Chris Hemsworth in Thor, to the shy, fragilelooking Victor from The Corpse Bride.

against Men

Words by Miranda Richardson

There is too much pressure in the media for men to be emotionless, always the first to step into danger, aggressive, dominant, etcetera. If men are allowed to cry in film, they get that cheesy lone-tear-running-down-thestony-face thing. It’s not healthy to deny emotion, and not fair to assume that men rarely enjoy gentler, more nurturing activities like cooking or sewing. It’s said that women love musicians; love a guy who can cook; love a guy who is good with children; and all of these activities show that he has a “sensitive side.” Who wouldn’t appreciate a man who can be gentle with his strength? He doesn’t have to be that way to be masculine, but he can be. Ladies are often attracted to confident, assertive guys, but confident women are attractive too. Being assertive and brave is just a good quality to find in anyone.

"There is too much pressure in the media for men to be emotionless" Perhaps the quality that links all admirable men is their heroism. A man is attractive if he is selfless; tries to do the right thing; and is generally a good person. There is a similar mix of passive and assertive heroines in fiction, and both extremes appear feminine to me. Being “good” at being a man or a woman simply means being a good person. If there are exceptions to this rule, the subjectivity of attraction alone would disprove the idea of a set way to be masculine. Thus the only uses left for the terms “masculine” and “feminine” would be for describing stereotypes and social constructs.

is also a Thing

Either way, men are not always given fair portrayals in media or fair expectations in life. Sexism against women is an important issue, but one problem doesn’t nullify the validity of another. We need to address and question our perception of both women and men; an individual can only be judged by their own personal nature. Sexism against men is still a fairly unexplored issue, and no injustice should be ignored.

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Not Just For Kids Who Can’t Keep Still Words by Adriana Allman

I

n early 2012, I was told by my psychiatrist that I had a “textbook case” of ADHD. It was both a relief to finally have an answer to my life struggles, and not surprising. However, why was I diagnosed at 23 rather than as a child? I thought that those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder were the kids who were always in trouble for yelling, talking all the time, or just running around and being obnoxious—at school I was so quiet. Also, I thought it only affected boys?! You’d be surprised what it actually entails.

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurobehavioral condition characterised by the symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity, and recognised to be a lifelong disorder rather than just a childhood problem. Interestingly there are three different subtypes. The combined subtype is the most commonly diagnosed form of ADHD. This is the one people commonly associate with ADHD; early diagnosis with characteristics of disruptive behaviours of inattentiveness, and impulsive/hyperactive tendencies. The ADHD Impulsive/ Hyperactive type is a less common form which means people have the hyperactivity and impulsivity but without distractibility. Finally, the ADHD Inattentive/Distractible type is characterised by inattention and distractibility.

Inattentive types are less disruptive and active than those who have the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive variations, meaning they slip under the radar of getting an early diagnosis. Generally it’s later in life, when a person cannot cope with what life is throwing at them, that they decide that help is required. It’s most commonly seen in girls, and the one that I identify most as having.

It wasn’t until I had to move back home with my parents, did the idea that I may have ADHD pop up. Having not lived with them for around four years, they could see the impact that my behaviour was having on myself and to everyone in the household. They noticed my constant state of chaos—mess followed me wherever I went and was constantly stressed due to impulsively agreeing to do things for which I struggled to find time. In this mind set, feeling frazzled, barely able to stay afloat and with daily issues to overcome, eventually it becomes so acute that something needs to be done. Inattentive types also tend to direct negative feelings inwardly rather than talk about them; and become anxious and depressed which brings on a whole other set of problems. This is in comparison to the more aggressive and openly defiant behaviour that our outwardly hyperactive counterparts convey. The “inattention” is usually the result of “overattention” because people with ADHD lack the ability to filter out unwanted stimuli and will instead pay attention to everything, rather than focussing on one thing—the reason why we get so distracted and disoriented.

Adults who are diagnosed with ADHD face complex issues. Low self-concept and low self-esteem are common in adults with ADHD, often resulting from longterm educational and interpersonal difficulties. This was a problem that I was beginning to face, especially because of university and the comparisons I made between myself and other students. Academic inconsistency is a huge issue with ADHD’ers, where it’s possible to understand a subject or concept, yet still only get a passible grade because of unfinished work, missed assignments, or

misunderstood directions. Generally my grades would range for very high to very low, despite the enormous amounts of time I would put into the work. It became frustrating that I was able to understand a concept, yet unable to effectively prove that I did understand it.

Because some of the main symptoms include missing details and becoming distracted easily; difficulty learning or organising new information; frequently daydreaming; forgetfulness; and slow processing of information compared to peers, it’s no surprise that fewer people with ADHD go on to higher education, or are less likely to complete their studies. Sometimes the struggles just aren’t worth it. Feeling dumb because during discussions you need those few extra moments to think of a response, but miss the opportunity; unable to remember facts or information as easily as your peers; or all these students capable of producing HD essays on a night’s work compared to your pass you spent three weeks producing (with great difficulty). Because I have such high expectations of myself, knowing I have the capacity to achieve higher, I get angry when I can’t hit those expectations. Or I get depressed. Or both. The amount of times I have threatened to leave uni in a rage-y depressive state of melodramatic turmoil are numerous.

While many believe that ADHD is a pharmaceutical company construct to make money, not all people will require medication. Medication is only prescribed when symptoms cause great hindrances in a number of settings, with significant impairment in academic, social or behavioural function. Other non-pharmacological approaches look at things like cognitive therapy or counselling. I ended up on medication, and it has actually made a huge difference. However the medication only does so much—it “clears the fog” so to speak, and helps to find the focus and energy to work on other strategies to get life on track. Learning study strategies, more efficient organisational skills, as well as the use of dietary

supplements like b-vitamins have helped dramatically, and people around me have noticed the changes too. In the beginning, I was worried about what would happen to me when I went on the medication. I started to think who then is the real me? The me now, or the me on the meds?

But I realised that the drugs don’t affect who you are as a person or your personality, rather, they allow you to work on your weaknesses and build on your strengths.

Luckily, there are some benefits to the condition. Firstly, we can go into “hyperfocus”, meaning we have the ability to focus so intently on one thing that everything else seems to disappear. I know I have gotten annoyed for being interrupted while being on a roll with something thinking only ten minutes had passed, when in actuality three hours had gone by! Secondly, it’s argued that ADHD’ers think more creatively, using their right brain more so than their left. Logical steps or sequences usually aren’t compatible with the ADHD brain; so instead we use patterns, connections and intuition, rather than the restrictive, conventional memorising methods that others may use to learn or find solutions to issues (like maths, accounting, and economics – topics I have no interest in and can’t even understand/stay awake for). Because of this, we’re able to discover relationships between all sorts of things, as well as develop new ideas or different ways of approaching a task. You just need to think about people like Sir Richard Branson, Thomas Edison, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, and John Lennon, just to name a few who show[ed] symptoms of ADHD; and look what they achieved.

Also for some, like myself, caffeine has a calming effect.

What a topsy-turvy world we live in!

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ghjfsd

TV Show Crossword

WIN!

Complete the crossword and send a picture of your Nathan Erdely answers to stephanie.walker@flinders.edu.au to win one of 10 free double passes to Palace Nova.All those years sitting in front of the TV

pay off with this issue's TV Crossword!

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are going to

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Across the lives, loves and laughs of six friends in Manhattan Vincent Chase navigates his way through fame and fortune in Hollywood 5 Mark and Jez are two roommates in England who have nothing in common Aaron Sorkin created this show set in the White House The811lives, loves, andthat laughs of sixthe friends A British show launched careerinofManhattan.

Ricky Gervais 12 TheChase sitcom about 'nothing' Vincent navigates his way through fame and fortune in 13 A semi-improvised comedy created by one of the Hollywood. co-creators of Seinfeld 14 and Basil Jez ownsare a hotel Mark two roommates in England who have nothing in 19 quotes: 'C'mon!', 'I'm afraid I just blue myself.' , 'I've common. made a huge mistake.' This television show was criminally cancelled three Aaron Sorkin created thisafter show setseasons in the White House.

21 A teacher diagnosed with lung cancer decides to team up with an exthat student to startRicky cooking crystal meth A British show launched Gervais’s career.

Chronicles the life and times of Nucky Thompson a The23sitcom “nothing.” hybridabout politician/gangster 24 An animated fighting showcreated famous for long co-creators of A semi-improvised comedy by extremely one of the fights and coined the phrase 'super saiyan' Seinfeld.

25 A HBO program set inside a prison 26 owns A program about a police officer who kills criminals who Basil a hotel. escape justice Was criminally cancelled after three seasons.

Quotes: 29 Three different but related families face problems and “C’mon!”, “I’m trials in their own hilarious ways afraid I just blue myself.”

31 A HBO program set in a funeral home 32 Louisdiagnosed CK's comedy series FX A teacher with lungoncancer decides to team up with an ex33 Animated television show on Comedy Central that student to cooklampoons meth. ideologies, celebrities, religions and fearlessly political Chronicles thecorrectness life and times of Nucky Thompson, a politician/gangster 34 Fry is frozen in 1999 and thawed out in 2999 An 35 animated fighting famous for extremely A show set in the show late 1800s, revolving around thelong fights, which of a town of deep corruption and crime coinedcharacters the term “super saiyan.”

36 A comedy drama show set in Sacred Heart Hospital An 37 HBO set inside a prison.

An programme epic sci-fi western created

by Joss Whedon 2 4

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25 26 A programme about a police officer who kills criminals who escape justice.

29 Three different but related families face problems and trials in their own hilarious ways.

31 An HBO programme set in a funeral home.

32 Louis C.K.’s comedy series on FX. 33 Animated comedy television show on Comedy Central that fearlessly lampoons ideologies, celebrities, religion, and political correctness.

34 Fry is frozen in 1999 and thawed out in 2999.

35 A show set in the late 1800s, revolving around the characters of a town of deep corruption and crime.

36 A comedy drama show set in Sacred Heart Hospital.

37 An epic sci-fi western created by Joss Whedon.

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Down A television show set in a community college A anime show about giant robots piloted by teenagers who have mental issues 6 Centered around the exploits of Sterling _ _ _ _ _ _ and his co-workers at ISIS, an international spy agency 7 A HBO historical epic focusing on Ancient Rome 9 Animated show that coined the term 'do'h!'

10 A television show set in the 1960's in an advertising agency 15 Classic science fiction television series about ordinary people caught in extra-ordinary situations 16 Modern zombie series 17 This english drama centers on the Crawley family and their servants 18 Anime series which involves a notebook capable of killing anyone whose name is in it 20 James Gandolfini portrays the New Jersey mafia boss 22 A television show famous for killing off characters and having an incorrigible kid becoming a King 27 A british show that follows a family line through the ages.

Has a character called Baldrick in it.

28 An FBI agent investigates the murder of Laura Palmer 30 Baltimore drug scene, seen through the eyes of drug 1 dealers A television show set in a community college. and law enforcement 1 3

Special TV edition!

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An anime show about giant robots piloted by teenagers who have mental issues.

Centred around the exploits of Sterling _______ and his coworkers at ISIS, an international spy agency.

An HBO historical epic focussing on ancient Rome.

Animated show that coined the term “d’oh!”.

A show set in the 1960s in an advertising agency.

Classic science fiction show about ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations.

Modern zombie series.

This English drama centres on the Crawley family and their servants.

Anime series which involves a notebook capable of killing anyone whose name is in it.

James Gandolfini portrays the New Jersey mafia boss.

A show famous for killing off characters and having an incorrigible kid becoming a king.

A British show that follows a family line through the ages. Has a character called Baldrick in it.

An FBI agent investigates the murder of Laura Palmer.

Baltimore drug scene, seen through the eyes of drug dealers and law enforcement.

Spotlight: An Introduction to Gore J

ust as there are stark, noticeable changes in fashion or art over years and decades, clear distinctions in the style and execution of gore in cinema can be found over time. Not surprisingly, the “low-brow” horror genre has the greatest depth of diversity and tastes on the matter. Compared to the action and thriller genres, horror carries enough fantasy elements to significantly stretch the tired bounds of human imagination. This results in simple bloodletting being portrayed in varied strokes and shades, placing enough levels of abstractions between it and the more “grounded” sights and scenes of films like First Blood or Commando.

In the first few decades of cinema, horror dealt almost exclusively with suspense, mood, and other “unseen” elements. Early horror films were largely inspired by Gothic short stories and poems, which inspiration was reflected in their mostly classic folk/spiritual nature — if they weren’t outright adaptations already. This is seen in Dead of Night (1945), a self-contained anthology of short films, which contains tales concerning the comparatively wholesome stock themes of premonitions, guilt, and paranoia.

Twentieth century horror continued this relationship with “literature” throughout. Contemporary films in the genre were often based on works written anywhere between fifteen and forty years previously. The biggest distinctions in this regard are from the 1960s onwards, as onscreen horror drew from EC Comics’ series The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt. Likewise, in the late 1970s the work of H.P. Lovecraft caused another tonal and stylistic split, which continues to the present day. However, the cinema timeline is somewhat disorganised, as EC Comics were thematically the middleman between Lovecraftian and Gothic writers, despite being published fifteen to twenty years after Lovecraft’s death.

These three influences in horror are points on the “gore spectrum”, ranging from off-screen and clean deaths, to machete handiwork, and finally complete physical dismemberment and trauma.

Most slasher films of the 80s and 90s toed the EC line. The comics themselves were targeted at the adolescent and

pre-pubescent audience. As a result, the contents within shared a certain harmony with campfire ghost stories and urban legends. Slasher films are almost entirely of this stripe. The relentlessly abominable and unstoppable phantoms of the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises were certainly fearsome beings, but they were locals.

They were the town’s secret or shame. The Myers’ kid that snapped, or the grieving mother who used to work at the nearby summer camp. The result is a style of violence that’s over-the-top, but not out-there. The blood runs thickly, and in litres, but it lacks a deeper psychological undercurrent that’s present in “Body Horror.” There are countless axes and machetes in faces, but these films often don’t have the edge, or the gore, to get under the skin of the modern viewer.

The body horror genre is a different beast altogether.

Lovecraft was one influence, as his short stories often contained amorphous, indescribable (ironically) “eldritch” abominations. These creatures were writhing masses of flesh, eyes, and tentacles that defied the known laws of nature. Another influence was the director David Cronenberg, who independently of Lovecraft kicked off the genre in the 70s. His style of horror had an element of disease, transformation, and one or two sexual undertones that resulted in the coinage of another name for the genre — “venereal horror.” Later on sex would become a staple of similar films such as Society (1989) and Hellraiser (1987). Directors within the genre essentially had free reign to play with and reshape the human form, almost as if it were play-dough.

There’s more to gore than just “blood and guts.” After enough desensitisation or exposure to horror in film, the viewer’s disgust no longer blurs the carnage onscreen.

Much like an art connoisseur, one can identify differences and similarities in style, technique, and texture. What results is an appreciation for special effects, their application, and the sources from which they are drawn.

Words by Dorian Bašić

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he Best Offer is easily the most mysterious, misleading and visually beautiful film I’ve seen this year. This film is written and directed by the acclaimed Italian film-maker Guiseppe Tornatore, whose most notable release is 1988’s Cinema Paradiso. The Best Offer is Tornatore’s first English language film. This is a huge achievement, although it does result in an occasionally clunky screenplay. Nevertheless, the brilliant acting by the entire cast is enough to make the complex script work.

Australian actor Geoffrey Rush appears in easily his most impressive role since The King’s Speech. Rush is Virgil Oldman, the owner and esteemed auctioneer at a major auction house in an unnamed European city. Although he has built his reputation as an honest salesman and appraiser of fine art, he is in fact a collector himself. He describes highly valuable pieces of art as lesser works by little-known artists so that his trustworthy accomplice Billy (Donald Sutherland) can purchase them at a bargain price in auction. Oldman then buys them back from Billy, to install amongst his personal collection in a secret and heavily secured room in his home. Rush perfectly conveys Oldman as an aging, wealthy man who obsessively collects the most brilliant and expensive female portraits ever painted, as a replacement for real-life relationships and love.

Things take an eerie turn when Oldman is asked by the elusive heiress Claire Ibbetson (Sylvia Hoeks) to appraise the pieces of art and antiques left to her when her parents died. Although he visits her ancient villa many times, Claire will only ever communicate by phone. Oldman eventually discovers that she keeps herself locked inside secret quarters and never ventures outside as a result of severe agoraphobia. Oldman becomes obsessed with meeting Claire, and gains her trust by bringing her groceries and talking to her through the walls. Eventually she allows him to see her and an intense relationship ensues as Oldman falls in love with her.

Jim Sturgess is Robert, a young craftsman and mechanic, who helps to reassemble an ancient artefact from pieces found throughout Claire’s villa. During these sessions he encourages Oldman’s relationship with Claire, following their story with so much interest that Oldman begins to

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Film Reviews

suspect Robert loves Claire himself. Claire’s explosive fits of agoraphobia induced anxiety add an element of suspense and fear to the already lonely mood. The eerie mood can be attributed to artworks of mysterious origin in the neglected villa and the strange dwarf woman in the bar who endlessly mutters numbers to herself. This all adds to the thriller aspect of the film. Eventually all the characters come together in a shocking yet brilliant twist.

Tornatore cleverly withholds the geographical setting of the film and thus, the outside world seems to drops away as the viewer is immersed in a surreal world of art. The interior of Claire’s home and Oldman’s portrait gallery function as different worlds that exist in their own right As such, the film’s setting is predominately psychological; Oldman’s obsessive nature and Claire’s anxiety dictate the mood. The Best Offer has only two downsides. Firstly, with a runtime of 131 minutes, you’ll want to be relatively awake when you watch it. That being said, the length is definitely necessary to establish the complex plot.

And secondly, the cringe-worthy sex scenes between Oldman and the much younger and more beautiful Claire are disturbing to watch.

This film engages with the age-old discussion of whether life imitates art or art imitates life. If you have an appreciation for art, especially female portraits, you will find this film captivatingly beautiful. The drastic and well-executed twist leaves viewers with as many questions answered as unanswered. This is a movie that is essential to watch with someone else, in order to have much needed discussions afterwards. The Best Offer is a unique cinema experience in that even if ultimately you hate it, you still won’t regret watching it.

Words by Annie Robinson

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ost modern “thriller” movies no longer satisfy my desire for suspense and mystery, with many succumbing to clichéd conclusions that I can pick from the opening credits. However, one recent film has stood apart from the rest, telling a tale of endless twists without using cheap tricks, relying instead on just a little bit of magic. With an all-star cast and a gripping plot, Louis Leterrier’s caper Now You See Me had me leaving the cinema reeling, but finally replenished.

Now You See Me follows a troupe of street magicians who turn into international stars when an unknown benefactor bands them together as the Four Horsemen.

On stage, the group commits elaborately constructed crimes of theft, which a dubious detective fails to fathom and struggles to solve. As the film progresses, audiences discover there is a lot more at play than meets the eye, including illusive identities and secret societies, all of which ties together at the film’s conclusion.

The Four Horsemen work together with colourful, chaotic chemistry, the actors playing their archetypes flawlessly: Jesse Eisenberg as the wiseacre illusionist, Woody Allen as the charming mentalist, Isla Fisher as the fiery escapist and Dave Franco as the sexy sleightof-hand artist. Award-winning actors Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine play their clueless, egocentric characters with the professional panache only found in film veterans.

Now You See Me is a jam-packed film which offers elements of drama, romance, action, suspense, comedy, crime, and a flicker of fantasy. Leterrier has directed a diamond in a sea of coal. If – like me – you’ve been craving a good film that will have you on the edge of your seat, I highly recommend you watch this film. You won’t believe your eyes.

Words by Georgia Brass

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oody Allen has done it again. He’s created another complex neurosis-ridden masterpiece.

His fans will be pleased, this time being treated to all the stars, including big names such as Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, and Louis C.K. Blue Jasmine chronicles the life of elegant New Yorker Jasmine, played flawlessly by Cate Blanchett. After her marriage to a wealthy businessman (Alec Baldwin) ends brutally, she moves away from her life of luxury in Manhattan to a more modest existence in San Francisco with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins).

The audience watches with trepidation as Jasmine falls to pieces, her mental balance deteriorating as her penchant for vodka grows. Watch her and those around her unravel, torn apart by their own neuroses, selfishness, and indecision around love. It’s heavy but it feels incredibly real. Woody brings to light the fact that there are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people, but that we are all just struggling to get by.

The film also follows Ginger, who is desperate in her attempts to obtain love and build a better life for herself and her children. Allen juxtaposes rich socialite Jasmine against naïve younger sister Ginger to captivating effect, ultimately examining the human condition.

In true Allen style, the cinematography is refreshingly simple and free of special effects. Be prepared to witness the beautiful imagery of San Francisco, a truly bright and vibrant city. And as the movie commences, don’t forget to enjoy the standard Woody Allen opening titles that we have all come to love.

For the 43rd feature written and directed by this film magnate, Blue Jasmine was engaging, entertaining and erratic. I give it three stars. It was no Midnight in Paris – but really, what is? Life peaked in that soul-soothing masterpiece.

Words by Katerina Bryant

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Theatre Review: Babyteeth Words by Sarah Gates

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hen introducing the State Theatre Company’s Babyteeth, playwright Rita Kalnejais promised a play which would be “as much about her family learning to let go and live fully and in the present as it is Milla’s first love story.” Milla is fourteen years old and dying. She and her family must face her imminent death and somehow find a way to say “goodbye” and “I love you.” It should have been a heart wrenching, beautiful show, with an audience drowning in tears and actors responding to their sobs. Instead, Babyteeth fell flat, disappointing in several key ways.

Was it realism, melodrama, or surrealism? Either the director, Chris Drummond, could not decide on a style, or the cast was confused. And so was the audience. The actors switched between subtle, realistic portrayals of the characters, and over-the-top displays of grief or humour.

Where the actors would exaggerate a line, scene or joke, it simply came across as bad acting. The audience would be blinking back tears at one moment, then distracted by the acting in the next.

Also distracting was the sheer number of wacky characters. The play would have worked, and worked better, with just Milla (Danielle Catanzariti), the mother, Anna (Claire Jones), the father, Henry (Chris Pitman), and the boyfriend, Moses (Matt Crook). The young

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next-door neighbour, the violin teacher and the young boy were superfluous. Their presence was baffling. The violin teacher and boy, especially, added nothing, with the central characters already providing comic relief, and the significance of Milla’s violin already evident from the scenes between Milla and Anna.

Furthermore, the characters are not lovable or endearing, although they are clearly intended to be. Despite the difficulty of the situation, I couldn’t understand or forgive the characters for their chosen coping mechanisms. Anna is the worried mother, who sleeps with her daughter’s boyfriend. Henry is the soothing, steady husband, who takes to injecting drugs and, it is implied, forming a relationship with the young next-door neighbour. Twentyfive year old drug dealer Moses manipulates Milla into giving him money, and he is reintroduced to the family during a home invasion, in which Moses threatens Anna with a knife. Although he spends time with the dying Milla, he is never particularly comforting, compassionate, generous, or even interested with the young girl. He is screwing another woman, as well as having slept with Milla’s mother, when he has sex with Milla at the end of the play. This is disturbing, and illegal. Not the beautiful love story Kalnejais, Drummond and the marketing material claims it to be.

Drummond stated that he was drawn to the play because of “how successfully it walks the high-wire between comedy and tragedy.” Well, neither genre was convincing.

There were very few tears leaving the Space Theatre and even fewer laughs at the awkward moments of comedy throughout the play.

The semiology also fails to impress. Many of the imagery and metaphors are lacking, such as Milla’s baby tooth, which she loses without emphasis or effect in the sex scene with Moses, the figs that Milla and Moses pick, which are arranged and change colour over the days, and the violin, which is both overdone and underdeveloped at the same time – with one scene between Anna and music teacher discussing the idea, but no continuation of the reference to drive home its significance.

That said, 21 year old Catanzariti and Crook are amazing as Milla and Moses; and the final scene is remarkable.

Catanzariti is most remembered for her starring role in Hey, Hey it’s Esther Blueburger with Toni Collette, for which she won an Australian Film Institute Award. For Babyteeth, Catanzariti bravely shaved her head, demonstrating this young actress’s dedication to her craft. She is engaging and vulnerable – even if the character was irritating. Crook is familiar with the State Theatre Company after working on Simon Stephens’s Pornography and Sarah Kane’s

Blasted in 2012. For the role of Moses, he becomes a hopeless, lost junkie; unable to be the cruel criminal he appears or a kind, selfless friend. Although their relationship is awkward, neither Catanzariti or Crook are to blame. But despite the flawed script, Kalnejais shows her talent in the emotional climax of the final scene. As Milla passes away, the set closes on her, with the large screens folding inwards. Milla and the audience gaze through the wooden slats, looking in on her parents’ discovery of her death.

Milla calls out to her mother, just metres away. Designer Wendy Todd and lighting designer Geoff Cobham made this moment truly unforgettable and heartbreaking. If every symbol had been as effective as this one, the play would have been a wonderful accomplishment.

The set is minimal and flexible for the multiple scene changes. Cobham and composer Hilary Kleinig show their skills in transforming the set into a train station, in which a train rushes past Milla in a deep trance – one of the few times surrealism is used to great effect.

All in all, the talent of the cast and crew is evident, including the playwright and director. There were several flaws to the production, so it couldn’t be recommended. But I would return to see another production by this bunch, with another script and, hopefully, a clearer vision.

Art Review OzAsia Festival 2013: SOUTH [south] EAST

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his year’s OzAsia Festival is Malaysian themed, and the SOUTH [south] EAST art exhibition is one of the many highlights which demonstrates the colours and beauty of this unique, Southeast Asian country. [I’m Malaysian, so please allow me some small bias.]

SOUTH [south] EAST is a visual project by Adelaide-based international artist Daniel Connell, presented and launched by the Adelaide Festival Centre and Nexus Multicultural Arts Centre.

Working with the Malaysian Students’ Council of Australia, Daniel produced large, magnificent portraits of 25 Malaysian students currently studying in Adelaide, with yours truly being one of them.

These portraits are done on tracing paper using charcoal. In the middle of the exhibit, a projector shows a video of the painting process and how the portraits are brought to life. Seeing the portraits arranged side-by-side and “face-to-face,” I really felt that the artist managed to capture and portray the beauty of Malaysia’s multicultural diversity.

Above: Some potraits from the exhibition.

It projects an air of acceptance, which I believe is a huge part of Malaysian culture. By accepting the beauty of diversity and acknowledging that each of us is different, we find the common ground that allows us to form close bonds. We accept the way others perceive us and learn of our true potential, striving to bring it out in ourselves.

When I first saw my portrait, I thought, “Wow, I wish I saw that face every time I looked into a mirror!” It was like a regeneration scene from Doctor Who; you see a face you know well transformed into something new and strange, yet it retains a sense of familiarity.

Above: The author’s portrait, the artist, and the author.

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In a way, SOUTH [south] EAST shows that sometimes in accepting and acknowledging each other’s differences, we are similar; and that by working together in harmony, we create a form of beauty that transcends international and cultural borders.

Words and photographs by Charles Chiam Chuang Chao

Game Reviews Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams

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s a child in After School Hours Care, agility was essential. The first two kids to the video games got dibs on Super Mario Kart, the next kid got Alex Kidd in Miracle World, and the chumps that were left behind had to play with the clunky old Commodore 64s. As a clumsy kid that could barely put one foot in front of the other without falling over, I knew the drill. Insert the 5 ¼-inch floppy disk, enter the BASIC commands, and try and find a working joystick.

Dragonborn

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ragonborn is the latest downloadable content expansion to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Apart from adding the new quests, characters, and enemies expected of an expansion, it is unique in allowing you to venture beyond Skyrim itself for the first time. The arctic island region of Solstheim lies north-east of Skyrim, and had previously featured in the Bloodmoon expansion for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. It has been occupied by the Dunmer since the eruption of the Red Mountain drove them from their homeland.

The main storyline is a mix of new levels and enemies as well as the familiar Druagr-filled dungeon crawl of the main game. The expansion features perhaps one of the more interesting Daedric princes, Hermaeus Mora, the prince of fate, knowledge, and memory. However, in true Bethesda style, you will find yourself happy to simply explore and complete side quests before touching the main mission – and unlike in Dawnguard, there are plenty of side missions that are in themselves substantial. The nostalgia you’ll feel on seeing the environments of Morrowind recreated in the Skyrim engine, with their familiar architecture, wildlife, and plants, also contributes hugely to Dragonborn’s value.

Dragonborn adds much more than just new quests and zones. The new resources can be used to create a variety of interesting weapons and pieces of armour.

The new potential companion, Frea, is a Skaal shaman who leads you through the main quest. While not as interesting as Serana, the companion from Dawnguard, she is still a worthy addition to the game with a decent backstory. Another addition is the long-awaited ability to ride dragons. While this experience is a bit lacking – with dragons tending to fly into objects and no way of directly controlling their flight path – it was still a nice feature to see in the game.

Overall, thanks to the addition of so much new content, I felt this expansion was worth far more than the $12 I paid in the Steam summer sale. For any Skyrim fan looking for some fresh content, this expansion is exactly what you need.

Words by Tamara Babij

The Great Giana Sisters was a school favourite, a shameless rip-off of Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo Entertainment System: but as we less-agile kids soon learnt, beggars can’t be choosers. When the C64s were trashed in favour of faster, less clunky technology, the days of the Great Giana Sisters came to an end.

Fast forward nearly 20 years, and sitting on the Steam front page for fifteen dollars is Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, the sequel no one expected. Unlike its predecessor, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams makes no attempt to replicate the classics, instead becoming a beautiful and addictive platformer on its own merits.

The player plays as Giana, on a quest across several worlds to rescue her sister from a giant dragon. However, that’s where the similarities to the NES classic end. Giana is now a teenager, and as a girl in a stage of transformation she has acquired the ability to manipulate her dreams in order to deal with her fear and inner conflict. You see, the game is played within the dream world, and Giana may switch between her “cute” and “punk” personas, each with unique abilities, to progress through the levels. While cute Giana has the ability to float and double-jump, punk Giana excels in her attack abilities. The world itself also changes with each persona, from a cheerful environment to a dark and sinister one, which has implications for the paths which are accessible to the player. The limitations of each of these personas see the player seamlessly switching between the two to complete the levels while discovering the secrets within them.

While the basic platforming gameplay is hardly groundbreaking, Twisted Dreams focuses strongly on the persona-switching mechanic to breathe fresh air into the side-scrolling platform genre. Visually, Twisted Dreams is gorgeous, and it is accompanied by a solid soundtrack complete with both “cute” and “punk” versions of the level themes. Gameplay is both intuitive and fluid, however, the keyboard controls slightly mar the otherwise enjoyable experience. Despite this, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is an enjoyable and affordable platformer easily accessible to casual and serious gamers alike – no matter how agile they are.

Words by Adam Rau

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Music Reviews The Jungle Giants – Learn to Exist

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he Hurting Scene is the debut album from Hunter Valley singer-songwriter Melody Pool. Pool comes from a country music background and the album was recorded in Nashville. This country influence is present throughout the album, but in a subtle way that is made accessible to a wide audience by straying closer into folk and pop territory.

Songs such as “Open Book” show a maturity to Pool’s writing beyond her twenty-one years. This is aided by her use of storytelling and an advanced understanding of human interaction. Pool has excellent vocal technique, with a lovely honeyed tone. She succeeds in singing with an obvious but not overpowering Australian accent, similar to the style of The Waifs.

Pool cites English songstress Laura Marling as an influence on her Triple J Unearthed page, and there are noticeable similarities in The Hurting Scene. The song “All of the Love” almost feels like a positive re-interpretation of Marling’s track “All my Rage”. However, Pool does not quite measure up to Marling in terms of lyrical depth and musical sophistication.

The closing track “Pretty Little End” is a standout song: it is catchy and Pool’s vocals smoulder, complementing the use of male backing vocals and violin to create a wonderful full sound. It is a shame that this song is not higher up in the track listing, as it adds a necessary sense of movement and direction.

The Hurting Scene is a strong debut from Pool and is sure to appeal to folk singer-songwriter fans. Despite a small lull towards the end of the album it comes together well as a whole. Pool has vocal and lyrical talent; if she continues to hone her craft she has a promising future.

Words by Elizabeth Daw

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earn to Exist is the debut album from indie fourpiece, The Jungle Giants. After a string of hugely well-received EPs, and several big sound animated tours, colourful lyrics and brilliant showmanship, Learn to Exist is what fans Australia-wide have been waiting for. They’ve hit the nail on the head, managing to deliver great sounding music that feels like youth, freedom and friendship.

It opens with “Come and Be Alone With Me,” comprised of brilliant harmonies and those signature friendly lines that make you want to do exactly what they’re asking. Of course no album would be complete without its standout track, and that is where “I Am What You Want Me To Be” comes alive. If you haven’t already heard it, go and YouTube it. Now. Infectious stuff. “Skin to Bone” is similar, but better – sexy, raw and so, so catchy.

More brilliance through the middle of the album; with the perfect sing along song in “Got Nothing To Lose.” Some stranger sounds come from the echo in “Truth May Hurt” and “A Pair of Lovers.” The chorus consists of yelling, pain, honesty. “Devil’s in the Detail” seems wiser; an acoustic tongue-in-cheek. An old favourite, “She’s a Riot,” makes you pine for that gorgeous someone who gets under your skin and makes you smile, singing, “If you stick with me you won’t ever be so lonely…”

“Domesticated Man” is cheeky and really quite funny.

Clap along! Rounding out the album is “Anywhere Else” which is another chance to sing along. It feels familiar, like a boyfriend and a girlfriend having fun. This album is masterful at capturing the simple truths about simple relationships. “Home” is an interesting finale. It’s nostalgic, gentle and easy on the ears.

I’m lucky enough to have seen these cats live a couple of times; whether or not that’s the case for you, do yourself a solid and have a listen. These guys are the real deal, and their music is as enjoyable to listen to as it is reflective of the better, no, the best things in life.

Words by Holly Richter

Restaurant Review: Celsius Words by Lauris Buckley and Robbie Peschel

looked like what we are: a couple of poor, working class uni students.

Although you are getting bang for your buck with the food, the drinks menu may be a little overpriced – who pays $10 for a local beer? But if you decide to sample from the wine list, you won’t be disappointed, especially if you ask for a recommendation.

The only risk in opting for the degustation menu is that there is the possibility of encountering “challenging” dishes like sweetbread. If you don’t know what it is, then you probably don’t want to eat it either. But that’s part and parcel of fine dining, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

The menu is very vague, only listing the main ingredients and not mentioning the exact way in which the dish is prepared. This only adds to the mystery of the dish until it is explained by the waiter.

Celsius Restaurant & Bar 95-97 Gouger Street Adelaide 5000 www.celsiusrestaurant.com.au We know what you’re thinking. We must be typical law students, with wealthy parents and money to burn. But we’re quite the opposite: struggling to make ends meet and satisfy champagne tastes on a beer budget. Adelaide is a small city, and being hospitality workers we were bound to find out about this deal sooner or later.

Have you ever visited a restaurant and been so impressed with the menu that you wanted to try everything? Well, now you can at one of the four restaurants in Adelaide to get a coveted “star” in the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide 2014. Celsius offers a five course degustation lunch for $50. You’re given a sample of dishes that not only tantalise your taste buds but also give you value for money.

There’s a lot of focus in the changing economy about sustainable innovations, and being uni students this is something we always have in mind. How many of you have switched to organic vegetables and humane farming? At Celsius they share these values and acknowledge the quality of the produce that comes from following them.

Nearly everything that is served on the plate comes from their family owned farm in the Barossa. And we can tell.

But let’s not beat around the bush; this is a classy establishment, no wifebeaters or thongs please! You may feel a little intimidated by the modern atmosphere at first, but our waiter made us feel welcome even though we

So here’s how the degustation menu goes. To start, we’re served with freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven.

The first course is kingfish, and it looks small enough to be a supermodel’s dinner. But this is only a teaser for what’s to come. Beautifully presented, light and fresh; the flavours are complicated but refreshing.

Nothing is as it seems in fine dining, and this is evident in the second dish – a whole plate of black. Cut into the charcoal and let your mouth do the tasting, not your eyes.

Cooked in squid ink, the blackened vegetables retain their natural flavours despite the alien appearance.

Duck is a personal favourite, so Celsius has big shoes to fill. Crispy skin and melt-in-your-mouth flesh will win you over. The lunch menu is an experiment for the chef, so some of the elements are a little unrefined. While the duck is a definite standout, the grain porridge it’s served with has a texture that takes some getting used to.

Suffolk braised lamb with broad beans and lamb’s tongue lettuce is next. This is the standout dish that will have you coming back. The lamb is so perfectly cooked it literally falls apart as you touch it. The sweet, succulent meat and firm, farm fresh greens perfectly complement each other.

The sweet smell of citrus wafts across the room as the final dish arrives. However, the standout is not the ice cream, orange, or macadamia; it’s the candied fennel.

With a texture resembling praline, the fennel is crunchy, sweet, and different.

It’s possible to experience gourmet food on a shoestring budget. The whole point of fine dining is pushing the boundaries, and Celsius does this. Give it a go.

books Eyrie

by Tim Winton

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yrie, the new novel from Tim Winton, is the story of Tom Keely, a former environmental activist who we meet in the depths of divorce, unemployment, and prescription drug addiction. The plot follows Keely as he falls into the orbit of a woman from his childhood, her enigmatic grandson, and a couple of petty criminals.

A new Tim Winton novel is always a major publishing event, and this is one of his best since Dirt Music. Winton is back in familiar territory: Fremantle, the dilemmas of middle-aged men, the harsh beauty of the Australian environment, and the complexities and small joys of relationships between people.

Winton has always had a talent for this kind of thing. His characters speak, think, and feel like real people; their voices sound genuinely Australian without feeling stilted or condescending. This is true of the novel more generally: the plainness and unpretentiousness of Winton’s writing belies the enormous subtlety with which he weaves his narrative.

Winton’s prose is always crisp and beautiful, but occasionally he gets positively lyrical, as in this scene where a hungover Keely ventures into a hot Fremantle morning: It was hot enough to kill an asbestos sparrow. The concrete forecourt livid, the street branding, blinding, breath-sucking. Acid light plashed white underfoot, swashing wall to wall, window upon window, and he waded in it a moment, tilting spastic and helpless, so suddenly porous and chalky it was all behind his eyes in an instant, fizzing within his skull until it rendered everything outside him in flashes and flickers. No gentling tones out here, only abyssal shadows or colours so saturated they looked carcinogenic.

There’s really not much I can say which could add to that.

If you’re into literary fiction, do yourself a favour and buy this book immediately.

Words by Simon Collinson

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Pursuing Love and Death

by Heather Taylor Johnson

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t’s been a good year for the Flinders creative writing department. Hot on the heels of the much-lauded Burial Rites we now have Pursuing Love and Death, the debut novel from our own poet, reviewer, and creative writing lecturer Heather Taylor Johnson.

As the title might indicate, Pursuing Love and Death is the story of a wedding and a death. The novel is structured around the family reunion this upcoming wedding provokes, and is told from the perspectives of Luna, the bride, Graham and Velma, her divorced parents, Ginsberg, her gay brother, and Darren, her obese uncle.

It is clear that Taylor Johnson has invested much time and effort in exploring these characters’ personalities, with the result that each is three-dimensional and highly believable. She takes some risks with these slightly unusual characters, but they pay off spectacularly. In particular, the complexity of the relationship between Ginsberg and his straight wife is masterfully handled.

Indeed, the sympathetic exploration of this relationship and others is perhaps the novel’s greatest strength.

Another pleasure, and one perhaps unique to novels written by poets, is witnessing more colourful and descriptive uses of prose than most novelists would dare. Of course, this daring leads to a few missteps and awkward moments – in particular, some neologisms feel a little stretched – but for the most part the quality of Johnson’s writing is far above that found in the average first novel, and Darren’s quest to write a modern-day Confederacy of Dunces allows Taylor Johnson to insert her wry, literary sense of humour into the book.

Pursuing Love and Death is an excellent debut from a talented local author, a finely balanced portrait of a family, and a sensitive and moving story of love and death – in all their forms.

Words by Simon Collinson Disclosure: I was in one of Heather’s tutes last semester.

Clouds Can’t Cry I am a cloud, A collection of all below, The streams, Lakes, Rivers, And oceans.

When I start to feel heavy, I break myself into pieces, And give them all back, To you, Below.

You grow strong, I am happy.

You start to flow faster, And faster, And faster, Until you are gone.

Leaving me, With nothing, A few drops.

Tears, On an ex-lover’s cheek.

Words by Jack McEntee

p o e t r y

Happy Maggot There go pass me by, don’t slow don’t smile, Pressed play, can’t rewind it’s one time, one time.

Only, only, one time, Stop, don’t stop Surfers on the beach they feel it too, hearts in their throats, choking on the view, crowds in the street forget it all the time, like maggots in the sun we’re writhing blind One life, press play – squirm don’t wait, it won’t stop to save time Don’t slow, writhe blind, Happy maggot Like sunlight, on a maggot sunlight on a maggot, sunlight on maggot, Smokers out the back don’t know it’s true, Killin’ themselves faster, breathing in the fumes, close bodies in the club remember all the time, like maggots in the sun we bump and grind, One night, don’t think, grind Don’t look, you can’t pause to be polite,

First Days of Spring The sun’s rays gently caress my fresh skin Their warmth burrowing deep into my soul The vibrant green leaves stuck in time Paralysed, as if they’ll never dance again Blue brilliance breaking through the sheets Uncovering the world as it wakes anew The smell of it all so pure and clean These are the first days of spring Words by Nikki Klindzic

Like sunlight on a maggot sunlight on a maggot, sunlight on a maggot, People holding hands feel it too, always forming couples whilst cosmically confused, leaders and believers, they forget it all the time like maggots in the sun we’re writhing blind, Sunlight on a maggot, 7181566961 per packet, Writhe Happy Maggots.

Words by David Schell

A Big Morning

Words by Sean Letford

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wenty minutes late seemed a bit much, especially when he was the one waiting.

The wait was starting to really grate. He could understand being a little late, but 20 minutes was really stretching his patience and good nature to the limit. After all, he decided, on the list of things he could do with his time, waiting ranked fairly low. Wasn’t waiting, by its very definition, the nothing before something finally happened? And he was decidedly sick of nothing: he wanted something, anything.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t anticipated this. He’d been warned ahead of time that punctuality was not a virtue his date held terribly dear. There was more than a slight chance this person would be late. But, he decided privately, they were no longer “late” – late ended around eight minutes ago. Now they were tardy, and he despised tardy.

There was not a lot to do while killing time. He had already laboriously pored over every available piece of reading he could see – everything from the headlines of the newspaper in the hands of the older man on the bench ahead of him, to the signs that seemingly adorned every available inch of space above the stores across the street. He had even read some of the signs multiple times, just in case the wording could have possibly changed since he last read them. His last rereading of these signs revealed that the wording had, in fact, stayed the same.

He occupied himself by looking around the park; he determined that it was nice if you were into that kind of thing. The grass could use a trim, though, if the invisible legs of the crows were anything to go by. The paving stones also seemed impossibly stained for such an apparently nice area – do they even clean paving stones? How does one clean a paving stone? After thinking on this point, he decided that it didn’t matter in the end, so long as the fountain was well maintained. This one was incredibly impressive; it was why he decided to sit on its edge. It was the crown jewel of the park.

The fountain was clearly meant to be representative of some kind of myth or fable. He could not recognise the figures, but they stirred a feeling of familiarity in the back of his mind. There were creatures with bulls’ horns, fishes’ tails, and what seemed to be goats’ legs. In the centre were a handful of naked, impossibly good looking, and physically fit men and women. Was it Greek? Probably, he might look it up later.

Was the side of the fountain always so uncomfortable, or was it just because he was losing feeling in that part of his body? He rearranged his position to try and get comfortable.

His date was now 22 minutes late.

His mind was finally starting to wander towards something beyond his inevitable encounter – namely,what he would eat on his way back to the hotel. He was struggling to decide exactly what he was in the mood for, beyond the fact that it shouldn’t be too heavy; no one really wants to be laden with too much food

after sitting bored for 20 minutes. It seemed wrong somehow.

Then he saw that his date had finally arrived. And she was incredible looking.

She walked up one of the many paths towards the fountain. Her short, flowing black dress complemented her pale skin and figure perfectly. Her hair was short, brown, and curly, and it moved softly in the light breeze. She had kept it pinned to frame her face, rather than letting the hair get in her eyes. She was clearly practically minded. He liked her right away.

A sudden rushing feeling of incredible relief. Finally, he would get a chance to meet her.

She had moved off the path and had laid herself face down in the grass underneath one of the park’s few trees. She rested on the ground, changing positions until she was content and comfortable. She finally seemed to settle with lying on her stomach, arms crossed underneath her chin. Then she pulled out a book and began to read. She was a picture of bliss; serene and calm with her book before her.

He stood up and grabbed his jacket, carrying it across the crook of his arm. The jacket was heavy and covered his hand. He was ready.

But then why was he so nervous? He could feel the faint layer of sweat that seemed to have coated his palms out of nowhere; as if his body was punishing him for daring to even be nervous. His heart rate had quickened from its traditional rhythm to something closely resembling a fast swing beat. He couldn’t be certain, but he was positive that if anyone looked at his eyes they would see dilated pupils and a look that would betray his lack of confidence.

He started to walk towards her. What should he say? Should he say anything? He had dressed casually, but what if it was too casual? He wanted to make a good impression. This meant a lot to him. He did not want to appear a fool.

He started to think about his walking pace. Was he moving too slowly? Maybe he should speed up half a pace to appear normal. He wasn’t sure what exactly a half pace was, but it seemed like the appropriate acceleration required by the situation.

He was approaching out of her line of sight. She had her back towards him. He was trying to look calm and confident; maybe if he tried to make himself look that way it would miraculously happen.

He was close now. Was he too close? Should he take a step back? No matter, it was too late: she had turned her head to see him.

Up close she looked even better than from afar. Her dress was not pure black, but rather speckled with small white polka dots. She was perfectly comfortable, laid out on her stomach with her left leg casually crossed on top of the right. She looked curiously over her shoulder, a ghost of a smile on her lips. Her book was clearly entertaining her. Maybe the smile was for him? Her shoulders moved passively, in time with her breathing.

The jolt reverberated up his arm. The smell of hot metal lingered for what seemed like an eternity, the sound little more than a whisper. Her shoulders stopped moving. The smile faded.

He walked away, trying not to draw attention to himself. He decided he would have a light chicken baguette from the café next to the hotel.

It had been a big morning.

GAMES! Easy Medium

Puzzle 1 (Easy, difficulty rating 0.37)

Puzzle 1 (Medium, difficulty rating 0.55)

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Hard Very Hard

Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/~jdhildeb/software/sudokugen/ on Sun Sep 29 09:02:28 2013 GMT. Enjoy!

Puzzle 1 (Hard, difficulty rating 0.63)

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Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/~jdhildeb/software/sudokugen/ on Sun Sep 29 09:02:38 2013 GMT. Enjoy!

Puzzle 1 (Very hard, difficulty rating 0.89)

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[48] Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/~jdhildeb/software/sudokugen/ on Sun Sep 29 09:02:46 2013 GMT. Enjoy!

Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/~jdhildeb/software/sudokugen/ on Sun Sep 29 09:02:53 2013 GMT. Enjoy!

Red Bull Curates Flinders T

he concrete bollards that reside pride of place in the Flinders University Plaza received a fresh lick of paint under the careful guidance and wings of a Red Bull initiative activated at O’Week this semester. The grey, unfriendly and lifeless bollards represented qualities on campus that only a mother could ever love.

The noun ‘curator’ is defined as a custodian of a museum or other collection, but had been construed to mean a keeper of a large cylindrical eyesores, arousing intrigue amongst the student body.

For two days, the words curator and HexOne were interchangeable. A humble artist, Hex arrived on campus under the watchful eye of the FlindersOne and FUSA, armed with an abundance of Ironlak aerosol paint, a positive attitude and an arsenal of creativity. Dealing predominately within the vein of 3D abstract, Hex’s affection with street art and a steady hand had crowned the campus with a sense of imagination and culture.

What culminated was a sense of pride on campus, awakening the student body and we would like to thank FlindersOne and FUSA for their co-operation and assistance in bringing the activation to life for what was ultimately a very rewarding experience.

[49]