PULP: ISSUE 19 2025

NOT YOUR FILO MUSIC MAGAZINE

PULP ISSUE 19

NOT YOUR FILO MUSIC MAGAZINE

PULP ISSUE 19

PULP is published on the sovereign land of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, as well as Indigenous members of our creative community. We respect the knowledge and customs that traditional Elders and Aboriginal people have passed down from generation to generation. We acknowledge the historical and continued violence and dispossession against First Nations peoples. Australia’s many institutions, including the University itself, are founded on this very same violence and dispossession. As editors, we will always stand in solidarity with First Nations efforts towards decolonisation and that solidarity will be reflected in the substance and practice of this magazine.

Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Senior Editor Hugo Anthony Hay Editors Kelly Caviedi Bipasha Chakraborty Joan de la Kagsawa Ashray Kumar China Meldrum Design Kelly Caviedi Bipasha Chakraborty Ashray Kumar @pulp.usu

@pulp.usu

@pulp.usu

@pulpusu

The views in this publication are not necessarily the views of USU. The information contained within this edition of PULP was correct at the time of printing. This publication is brought to you by the University of Sydney Union and printed by SEED Printing Group.

Issue 19, 2025

A

B

Welcome to

PULP

This is Issue 19 of PULP, a student run and funded arts and culture magazine. We publish the work of young writers, artists, and creatives. PULP is vulnerable, raw, and experimental. We cover everything from culture and art, opinion and analysis, fashion and photography, comedy and creative pieces.

No holds are barred in the pages of PULP. PULP contains content that explores mature themes and is intended for mature audiences.

Welcome to PULP.

C

i

U

su

Dear Reader,

We welcome both returning and new students to the University of Sydney (USYD) with the launch of the USU Arts and Culture Team, a new collaboration that brings together PULP and Verge Gallery. This marks the start of an exciting new chapter in the creative landscape at USYD. The vision of USU Arts and Culture is to lead critical, contemporary discourse through dynamic programming and publishing. As part of the broader USU Campus Experience Strategy, the team will facilitate a range of programs including exhibitions, publications, events, mentorships, and workshops featuring both student and professional artists. For example, 2025 will see the inaugural Parhelion Film Festival — an arts festival that showcases short and feature-length films, live music and food,

F

oreword

all thematically linked to the University.

In addition to our regular exhibition and publication launch parties, we’ll host several editions of Block Party, a party that intersects live DJ sets with performance, and visual art.

The USU Arts and Culture Team will provide a platform for both emerging and established voices. We aim to promote a vibrant and inclusive arts ecosystem that reflects the cultural diversity of our university and contributes to broader cultural conversations, enriching the student and campus experience.

Exemplifying this is PULP’s 19th issue and Verge Gallery’s exhibition, ‘You’re Welcome?’, which launch concurrently.

Both feature artists and writers that challenge colonial and capitalist narratives through introspection, personal anecdotes, manifestos and humour, fostering an inclusive environment where all voices are heard, valued, and respected.

While PULP and Verge Gallery will maintain their distinct identities, this collaboration will unite USYD’s creative communities, building new networks and opportunities for students through cultural partnerships with both university and external groups. Together, we’ll provide a safe, welcoming space that supports the growth of emerging cultural producers.

We look forward to working with students, artists, and community members to shape an accessible and thriving arts community — one that sets the stage for an exciting future for arts and culture at USYD. Tesha Malott, USU Arts and Culture Manager

ii

iii

S

enior

I possess black, I possess white. What do you desire?

I have been haunted.

Each day I try to hop outside of my ghosts, but I end up leaping into phantoms.

I can feel myself filling up, attempting to contain so much in an increasingly small body.

I’m about to blow, but I ain’t dumb.

They are out there trying to take my flow.

I will take them for ransom.

I know that I am gone.

They have watched me grow and bloom into myself but now… they want some.

They want some, but I possess two twins.

Two twin glocks. Two twin glocks and they turn me into a dancer.

Free, bounding. I espy two twin foes, I draw them on a banner.

I have two twin lovers.

We want to be enrapt in each other.

They want to link with the gang.

Yeah.

I possess black, I possess white. What do you desire?

I contain multitudes but I need the one.

E

ditor's

I need a ride or die, I have crawled up from my lowest point, you should see the way I have stunted. Now, I wish for my best. I want Diamonds — I want that. To weigh a tonne.

But alas, my foes. They try to conspire against me because of where I have grown from.

But they don’t know me, they just know where I’m from.

Nevertheless, my lovers abound me, they are trying to pull up to my place.

They didn’t want me yesteryear, so they may disperse from here.

They flood my inbox. It bursts like I do.

So, I know they want a taste.

I possess black, I possess white. What do you desire?

I have been haunted.

Each day I try to hop outside of my

N

ote

ghosts, but I end up leaping into phantoms.

I can feel myself filling up, attempting to contain so much in an increasingly small body.

I’m about to blow, but I ain’t dumb.

They are out there trying to take my flow.

I will take them for ransom.

Hugo

iv

iii

In Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery is a painting that is completely black. Black Square embodies a terrifying eternity.

Its canvas is the colour of one’s pupils, of the abyss, of the shadow of all history (including its problematic own). A continent away, another painting composed by the same artist — White on White — hangs upon a wall of New York’s MoMA. As one white square lays on top of another, we are faced with the other meaning of eternity: of limitlessness, of one infinity meeting another.

Both artworks may seem to subsume everything in its wake, but if you get real close, you will find a familiar presence on the canvas. Squint hard enough and you can see your own reflection, your own shadow gazing back at you.

We often wonder what our reflections and our shadows get up to while we busy ourselves with our day. Do our shadows get sick of us staying in our seats for hours?

Do our reflections beg for us to approach a mirror so they can see us once again?

As we read over Issue 19, we can’t help but notice these refractions of ourselves on these pages. Be it within the divine body of the algorithm, the melancholic

E

melodies of 90s dream pop or the cruel corridors of Facebook marketplace, holding these monochrome pages in our hands almost feels as if the eternities that Kazemir Malevich obsessed over have been sliced, amalgamated, bound, and impressed with our own souls.

In each of these moments, the contributors of this issue have offered their stories for us with the utmost generosity. Some of these articles are unwavering in speaking on such distressing matters as abuse, discrimination, and historical injustice.

We welcome these voices not only because we are grateful that our contributors are so honest, but because we want you to know that you are never alone. Help is always available in our community and on campus, and we urge you to refer to these resources if you ever need support or feel distressed: Lifeline — a free, 24 hour mental health support line. Call 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14.

1800RESPECT — A free, 24 hour support line for those affected by domestic, family or sexual violence. Call 1800 737 732 or text ‘HELLO’ to 0458 737 732 USYD Safer Communities office — USYD’s support office for sexual violence, sexual misconduct, domestic and family violence, bullying and harrassment and modern slavery. Call +61 2 8627 6808 or email safer-communities.officer@sydney. edu.au

ditorial

USYD Health and Wellbeing Office — USYD can provide or connect you to a mental heath counsellor for free, ongoing support as well as offering physical health services and a support line. Go to https:// student-wellbeing.sydney.edu.au/home. aspx to request on going support, or call 1300 474 065 or text 0488 884 429 for immediate support outside of office hours.

Finally, if you or anyone else is in immediate danger of harm, call 000 and request an ambulance.

When you read this, over half a year has already elapsed since we began our tenure as editors of PULP. The office pool table is now just a table, the bean bags seem to move by themselves, and our cardboard cutout of Lana Del Ray watches on as we bicker over the minutiae of a vox pop. It feels like we’ve lived a hundred lives since June of 2024: from all the parties we have enjoyed with you all, to all the pitches we’ve endlessly deliberated over.

And we are more than eager to do it all again — to throw more parties, to pore over more pitches, to live a hundred more lives. As another academic year begins, we have once again thrown ourselves into the jaws of this campus, ready to unflinchingly deliver more alluring and bewitching copies of PULP for you to feast on. 2025 is not only the Year of the Snake; 2025 is going to be the Year of the PULP. A thousand thanks to all the PULP vets, to all the beautiful contributors, and to those for whom Issue 19 is their first-ever PULP. You are all forever faithful citizens of PULP nation.

Lots of love, and stay hydrated, Joan, Ashray, Bipasha, China, and Kelly

v

A s h r a y K u m a r

Ella Nguyễn & Miles Hiroshi Huỳnh

F

i

05

07

When did I become bound by the shackles of my iPhone?

Use For

K S

A r w e n Beaumont-Lee

vi

t a

e p

s

t

11

01 a a

r

This Good

Sound Luck

M u r t a z a Bandukwala

H u Anthony

H u m D e k h e n g e ‫ےگ‬ ‫دںیھکی‬ ‫مہ‬

The The

o Hay

A Sharehouse, that thing which eats.

17

15

g

23

19 Flesh

of Lychee

H o l l y G e r r a r d

The Suit of Armour in the Hotel Lobby at 3pm T a m a s i n S t a n t o n vii

C h i n a M e l d r u m

B i p a s h a Chakraborty

Who is Newtown Affirmations????

1

3

33

31 B S

l

c

Vienna CurranS t a n o v s e k viii

43

39 i i

g k

1

F F L K

i

n d i n a y i

w

z

o

z

y k

g e

M a d e l e i n e C a h i l l

P a r a s i t e

53

47

55

Towards a Blak Australia Policy: A Manifesto for Decolonial Socialism

M i c r a M u s i n g s

E F

O l i v i a R u s s e l l

t l

h o

a y

n d

ix

x

xi

xii

i

KATE SAAP

WHEN DI D I U BECOME BOND BY THE O F SHAC KLES H I ?

N P O E MY 1

Like many media studies students before me, I own a copy of Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media (1988). To be perfectly candid, I purchased a copy of the text, read the prescribed first chapter, and have never picked it up since. Sitting on my shelf collecting dust, it flashes its dusty spine at me; Chapter Two ‘Worthy and Unworthy Victims’ is dogeared, knowing that I will never turn another page. I like to be known as someone who owns a copy.

Nothing is worth reading anyway unless it comes with an ‘eight min read’ indicator in the header.

An IPhone Is Placed Inside A Small Glass, With A Cord Attached And A Small Statue Head Inside The Glass As Well. This Small; Glass Is Positioned Within A Larger Glass, All Set Against A Blue Background, Levin Lee, n.d.

Nothing is worth reading anyway unless it comes with an ‘eight min read’ indicator in the header.

In a world where you can pay someone to collect your lunch from around the corner, our time is valuable. Not in a metaphysical way, but in a very derogatory sense. If we must optimise every moment according to capitalism and continue to contribute to the market, then we couldn’t possibly spare fifteen minutes to walk away from the desk and get some vitamin D. So of course we need to schedule in eight minutes to read an OpEd — I have a three hour long skincare routine after all. My time is precious.

What Chomsky and Herman posit still stands: our attention is bought and sold by meaning-making authorities. No one reads the fine print that allows your data to be farmed and sold for profit. The difference between the late 80s and now is that the authority lives on a device that fits into my pocket and never leaves my side. This is less to do with optimisation and more so the commercialisation and commodification of everyday life. We want to signal to our peers that we are informed; these virtues are marked by who we follow on social media or the infographics we share on our story. In effect, Big Smartphone is to blame for the commodification of knowledge.

Babel, Cildo Meireles, 2001.

As we use our phones to engage with the physical world around us, we lose sight of what valuable communication 2

Liquidity Inc., Hito Steyerl, 2014.

Liquidity Inc., Hito Steyerl, 2014.

and information mean. The issue with Big Smartphone is that it means we must sign into an account on a third party platform in order to have access to information. Simply another means for grifters with the financial backing to make an impact on what information you have access to.

Why do I need to follow the right people on Instagram when I should just be able to turn on the TV and find out what’s going on from public service channels? Why do I need to make an account to be aware of what’s going on in my community and surroundings? If SBS had a minimalclean-girl-tomato-summer-core aesthetic, would we start to repost their Instagram infographics?

My problem is not with staying informed. I am asking you to consider who you pay your attention-currency to.

Traditional mass media and public service media are years behind the quality and reach of online-only news outlets like The Daily Aus or Impact. Being aware of world issues has shifted from an expectation to a strange, gatekept knowledge-club.

KATE SAAP

But Big Smartphone knows you aren’t really paying attention to the news, you only half watch seasons of Community while doomscrolling ASMR slime videos.

Good writing is not necessary, the average audience is not engaged. What’s problematic is that corporate media-makers instruct their writers to avoid nuance. This behaviour has severely damaged our attention spans — or, worse — capacity to give a shit. Information is not reported based on its newsworthy-ness, but its potential to go viral. Fear mongering and clickbaiting, to me, exist in the same realm. They both aim to capture the largest amount of our attention (or rather, our time) possible.

Since attention is currency (the more watchtime videos get, the more advertising they can accept), news reports are often constructed in a similar format to MrBeast or David 3

Dobrik’s productions. With fast cutting, an incredibly enthusiastic tone, and an air of something slightly offputting. They follow the structure of “you’ve probably heard about [insert topic here], it’s really crazy! Let me break it down for you.” This style makes the reader assume the story is more complicated than it is, as if Albanese selling out to gas companies is surprising.

It is so easy to be led by misinformation in a world like this.

I have fallen victim to fake news of Frank Ocean dropping a new album one too many times. Except, this doesn’t only happen online, people need to be aware of who is funding their news and where their attention-currency goes. Your brother still watches Sky News. Everytime I find another media outlet has been acquired by NewsCorp or Fairfax, an angel loses their wings. Public service media works because it is funded with taxpayers money who then, in theory, should care about seeing that money used for good.

Some people might push back and say that having access to independent public service media is a privilege since many don’t trust their governments or the quality of commercial outlets is better. I don’t think that good news journalism or criticism should only be accessed behind a paywall.

If traditional meaning authorities no longer hold cultural capital, then where ought we look to for guidance?

Influencers? Content creators? Podcasters? Charming and cool radio presenters?

If traditional meaning authorities no longer hold cultural capital, then where ought we look to for guidance?

Influencers? Content creators?

Podcasters? Charming and cool radio presenters?

I’m reminded of a billboard I saw in New York earlier this year. Patrick Dempsey was informing passers-by to practise safe driving and put on a seatbelt. The New York State road safety authority (whatever it’s called, I didn’t have time to notice) paid an actor who played a doctor for many years on Grey’s Anatomy to tell the public to wear a seatbelt or else they’d end up in hospital. This man is not a real doctor. And it made me wonder if New York State knew that too. The justification I made here is that his character, Derek Shepherd, was on screen for eleven seasons as a medical professional. It is easier for people to immediately draw the connection to health and wellbeing when they see his face. Even simpler: people find him attractive so they listen to what he has to say. Celebrity endorsement is not limited to billboards. I am embarrassed for people that need Billie Eilish to tell them who to vote for, or are reliant on Brittany Broski to remind them to register to vote in the first place.

our ability to spend our attention-currency in the right ways. Removing yourself from the idea that politics is a performance but rather an action, and starting small, are great ways to get started on your journey towards loving the old reliable public service broadcasting. The benefits it has had for regional communities can be reflected in our own consumption of media too (see WIN, NITV, and the CBAA network). This process is about self-discovery and realisation. By de-influencing ourselves, and focusing more on grassroots, localised issues, you become connected with your immediate community which has enormous positive outcomes. The rental crisis does bring some push back to this statement but it’s beyond the scope of the argument.

What I’m asking is that you think more about where you are spending your attention-currency. Subscribe to the ABC’s daily newsletter; it comes into your inbox at 7:35am and there’s a quiz on Fridays. If you have time to listen to a podcast about influencer drama, you have time to read the news.

How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File, Hito Steyerl, 2013.

Performative activism is bad but I acknowledge I am not better than my peers: RuPaul taught me how to change a tyre on TikTok. I do think that this kind of influence is powerful and there is an onus on celebrities to use their platform in times of extreme crisis, but only using celebrities as your beacons of political thought is not a means to get solid, reliable information (unless you are Slavoj Žižek, Hasan Piker, or Chappell Roan).

All we have as net-citizens and knowledge seekers is

4

External influences, memories, and interactions are central to the formation of identity, continuously shaping the self. In this series, I scanned various elements — my own self, calligraphy, and found graffiti/visuals — and superimposed them to create a layered composition, reflecting identity as a performative construct that is not fixed, but always in flux.

ASHRAY KUMAR

55

6

Use This Sound for Good luck

ARWEN BEAUMONT-LEE

7

I’m asking Chat GPT for spiritual guidance. I’m Eminem’s real daughter. I’m gonna join a cult if I can find one. I’m googling ‘how to survive sexuality’ like Lohanthony. I’m doing subliminals to you. Are they working? What’s your star sign?

Did you hear about The Miracle? It’s gonna come and take you far, far away from here. All you have to do is use this sound for good luck. It doesn’t matter how many other sounds you’ve skipped, just DON’T skip this one. Or do and suffer the consequences at exactly 1:34 AM tonight.

I was looking at love spells on Reddit (r/lovespells) and I found one that said to write the name of the person you want to attract on a piece of paper six times with your name over the top in the opposite direction. Write your intentions.

For example, ‘he thinks about me all the time’, ‘he wants to be with me.’ Wrap the piece of paper towards you around the knife and tie it multiple times with a piece of red thread.

Pee in a plastic bottle and put the knife inside. Close the lid and recite “(their name), I bind you to me until I lift this spell” a few times until it feels right. Meditate while visualising the spell working. And finally, leave the bottle in a place where it won’t be disturbed, such as by a creek or in a basement under your house. I’m not crazy. I didn’t do all that, but I did somewhat absentmindedly write his name in my journal with mine over the top. Seven times instead of six because the latter felt a bit satanic.

I’m intentionally inducing artificial mania by disrupting my circadian rhythms, increasing my caffeine intake, restricting calories, and promoting nocturnal physical activity. I love exploring neurochemical extremes.

I’ve been feeling extra sensitive to demonic imagery and messaging lately. Lana Del Rey summoning the devil with her hands while she sings. Fans fainting en masse at her concerts, screaming “Kill me! Kill me, Lana!” Cameras glitching, faces contorting. I can’t listen to ASMR anymore because there’s something evil about the way they look dead straight into the camera, trying to lull me to sleep so they can invade my dreams with dark subliminal messages.

Interrupting my half-sleep with ads for a new mattress. Rain sounds for sleep don’t work on me either. I don’t like waking up in the middle of the night to white noise blaring in my headphones. Who knows what kind of contact that’s making with my subconscious? When I was in Japan, I started to get freaked out by the sound of Suica cards tapping on and off, like high-pitched bird chirping.

Did you know you’re probably a master alchemist and didn’t even know it? If you catch yourself around a person sending you negative energy and you create something positive out of that, then you’re an alchemist. Yes, I am a Energy Alchemy!!

Our *red heart emoji* has a magnetic field and it is a centre for both energy fields. + and - combine to make a life force.

Polarity is everywhere and needed for life.

Satan had a foothold on Elfbabe08. She used to make Forever21 hauls, hair tutorials, bedroom makeovers, DIYs. Turns out she was a secret alcoholic with extreme anorexia until she found the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.

‘Bethelbots’ are equipped by the church not just to minister in the gifts of the Spirit but to live a supernatural lifestyle.

8

They hang around parking lots and grocery stores, asking people with wheelchairs and walking sticks if they can pray for them to be healed. They deliver people from suicide, addiction, and eating disorders. They make symptoms of autism disappear by sending text messages. They can even resurrect the dead. Elfbabe08 says the power and spirit of God is alive and working. Her recent videos are about recovering from trauma and addiction through having faith in God. She lets her handler, Britain Fairly (fake name), do most of the talking. Britain says, “I love when Mer goes ‘I am not a number on a scale or a number on a screen. My worth is in Jesus’.”

Animus unlocked, frontal lobe developed, chakras aligned, microdose consumed, trauma healed, sinuses cleared.

Intellectually based. I’m going limitless mode.

I watched an influencer read her coffee grounds in a vlog.

She saw a magistrate; a wise, holy man. Deep purple energy, a protector, or dream spirit. She said he was looking over his shoulder, like “are you coming?”. There were some animals following behind him, and I was among them. I know she was talking to me because she looked right into the camera as she said it. She told me it was my destiny. That no matter how far I stray, or how long I take, he’ll always be there, checking over his shoulder to make sure I’m still on my path.

Are you an Arcturian starseed? Starseeds are souls that choose to inhabit the earth from far away parts of the universe.

Descendents of the Arcturians have realised that separateness is an illusion, and the impact of planet Earth’s collective actions spans much further than we are aware of. If you feel that you might be an Arcturian starseed but you’re struggling to reach your potential, it may be due to blocked chakras. A guide to successfully unblocking chakras can be found here.

ARWEN BEAUMONT-LEE

I caught a boy quoting Timothée Chalamet to me once. A video came up on my For You page while he was pissing.

Timothee in a press interview, saying “you can be the master of your fate. You can be the captain of your soul.

But you have to realise life is coming from you not at you.”

I remembered us sitting in a cafe once, him asking me if I felt like life came “from me or at me.” I let the video play again when he was back in bed next to me just to see how he’d react. He laughed and said he’d been wondering when I would come across it. Turns out it wasn’t a Timothee Chalamet original quote at all, but one from a poem called Invictus. Invictus meaning unconquered, which I am not.

9

Have you heard of the halo effect? It’s about how people associate attractiveness with positive traits such as kindness,

intelligence, and sociability. I think it would have all been different if I was born with a better canthal tilt and a greater degree of facial symmetry. A stronger aura. I heard potassium-maxxing is the new thing. 4 bananas and 2 litres of coconut water a day.

I got my fortune told by the Senso-Ji Temple in Tokyo. I paid 100 Yen to rattle a box until a stick came out with the number 32 on it, leading me to its corresponding drawer.

I took a slip of paper out and read my fortune. The title was ‘worst luck.’ In vague and badly translated English, it said something about my wish not being fulfilled by fate, meaning I would have to seek it out for myself. This seemed like good advice to me, but a man told me I was supposed to tie it to a tree to symbolise that I was leaving my bad fortune behind. I wouldn’t have minded carrying my bad luck around with me in my wallet.

I worry sometimes that I’ll be waiting my whole life to win a lotto that I haven’t even entered. I just want to believe in something. Who cares if it’s a conspiracy theory or a fake reality TV show or a government psyop? All I’m looking for is a ticket.

The entire universe is on your side and rooting for you to get what you want. This is your lucky sound. Make a wish!

10

11

12

I was fished from my mother’s cleaved stomach, gloved in a cashew-shaped sac. Yet I arrived, thirst or the first principle of the universe packed solid in my gums, shrieking for release.

That is to say, the mouth is the beginning of everything.

When he said I was the love of his life, I began in drought, parched for sap and bright blue nothing.

He brushed a finger across Europe, here, I’ll

ELLA NGUYỄN & MILES HIROSHI HUỲNH

take you. Across the dashed lines between histories, far away, we could be casted in marble as lovers among salt palaces and gilded doorways.

All my firsts and ends, for him now.

I listened to every record in his car, Diet Coke unswallowed until warmed in my mouth, and the truth is, he hid his teeth.

13

When he slept, I chiseled out a keyhole in his back to peek inside the crushed velvet cavity, the bone cage of a person who did not: a traveling ball of saliva, surging breaths, simmering bile.

Told me his brother used to punch him like this.

Blacked out, white knuckled, purple faced. Undying on the driveway to an entire body engulfed in thirst.

But how disarming my eyes were, he said, unaware that three generations of pity were staring back. The white man’s face could be the barrel of a gun.

I pleaded for taste, blackened hurt, purple on the back of my thigh, the walls crumbled as white chalk did.

Dust devil, he held himself back from kicking me in the head.

Blink.

14

I asked for my mother’s wound to encase me again. Then I prayed for him to only remember the beginning as he rubbed the graze on his temple. My lips pressed to his back to seal an ocean. Sometimes I looked down and the gun in my hand gleamed. When he cried in my lap as

ELLA NGUYỄN & MILES HIROSHI HUỲNH

a body shriveled up on that driveway, I saw a boy without a mouth but thirst arrived anyway.

15

16

The Flesh of The Vietnamese woman on the street corner calls out to me, as she did this morning.

The quang gánh — shoulder pole — presses into her protruding collar bone, and the fruits balanced in the basket roll softly against each other, like I imagine molecules do.

“Beautiful Girl! You look so pretty! Buy some fruit!”

The shopfront’s neon lights are caught in the puddle at her feet and, as I weave between the traffic to meet her, a lychee tumbles forth from its cradle and shatters the pothole mirror.

“Beautiful Girl!” she says again.

I smile with my red heart and my red lips and point at the lychees. She gives me far too many to eat in one sitting and hands them over with warm, tired hands. The first morning I met her she held my palm in hers and whispered her name.

Thị Lan.

HOLLY GERRARD

Thị Lan knows that I don’t like oranges or apples, but that I could eat long nhãn and lychee for each meal and she always sends me on my way with a warm, tired 17

squeeze on my arm and a farewell: “Goodbye, Beautiful Girl.”

When I look at my doughy face and body in the windows I pass I almost see Beautiful Girl; who is sweet and dense and doesn’t mind the way femininity rolls down round shoulders and settles on a soft stomach.

It is progress, though.

When I was Girl (though I argue I never was), I couldn’t look at her in the mirror, or in photographs.

She seemed entirely alien.

My skeleton pushed against her warm, silken flesh, searching for the zipper on my spine that might allow me to slip out and erupt.

I think of her sometimes, on nights like this, when my shirt is low and the wind kisses my chest as greedy eyes stare. They don’t know there is nothing there anymore. I ate her years ago, splitting the tough skin with my front teeth to reach the fruit inside. But tonight,

The Lychee here, with the moon hiding behind low, yellow clouds, Beautiful Girl walks with me.

She has become something I can bear to perform, but only when the streets are busy with smoke and sirens and my face does not feel my own; when my flushed cheeks are ripe and my proud eyes smirk: you can’t have me anymore.

I wear her like it is an honour to perform again.

I wear her like the neon lights that ripple down my body; like sticky fruit juice painting lips and dribbling down my chin.

I wear her like I can wipe her off again.

It makes it easier to leave her in the reflections.

18

MURTAZA BANDUKWALA

19

20

TAMASIN STANTON

21

While designing this suit, I aimed to combine plate armour design with frog physiology, or frog-adjacent icons such as the lily-pad.

I chose to draw armour because it highlights the strengths of working without colour. Armour has areas of intense contrast in values, with reflections and shadows creating interesting shapes on the metal’s surface. I chose to draw Ted Lick’s armour in particular because nothing is more inspiring than a friend’s creativity and enthusiasm.

The Suit of Armour in the Hotel Lobby at 3PM is a graphite and charcoal drawing inspired by an NPC in a friend’s D&D campaign. The suit has been designed for a small frog named Ted Lick.

22

23

24

These walls can talk, they speak to me each day. They greet me coming down the stairs in the morning, the sleep in my eyes snagged like an ice axe. They speak to me in bumps and grumbles late at night when I am searching for my glasses, apologising through thin plaster. They speak to me in the grimace I make spilling wet turmeric on my white counter.

They taunt me when I am looking for my ‘misplaced’ lighter.

Conversations nestle themselves in the cracks and contours of these spaces, settling, then spreading like a loving mould. My lumbar buckles over the nosing of two or three stairs and my elbows match the angle of its riser as I stick my face between balusters attempting to remember mundane extremities of last night’s party. Vulnerability is exorcised from me here.

Like a strangler fig, I am covered and subsumed.

HUGO ANTHONY HAY

The legs of the coffee table I brought with me in December sunk into the carpet — its threads clasping at the bubbles of oxidising steel. I have begun to forget what is mine, and sometimes it is easier to forget. Pinches and splashes of spices and sauces sneak out of their containers and into my housemate’s food. My clothes button themselves up and walks into my housemate’s closet as his walks into mine. These walls are simmering a master stock of thingyness, everything inside it blending together.

25

The sharehouse is a special thing. It is an object of attrition.

It is a thing that eats, that breathes, that gives, and that takes.

It leaves its mark on other objects, on the people that inhabit it, and the people that pass through it. It is a symbiote. It is an encompassing living bubble that feeds off of you and your things, morphing all that it touches. When you enter, you bring objects and experiences that are wholly your own. But when you leave, yourself and your objects will be changed, lovingly scarred. You exit not as you entered — whole and independent — but like meiosis, a whole splits itself onto something new.

We have been taught to think of objects as mere things. As tools for the extension of our being and our experience; as inanimate producers of sensory information — entities to be acted upon or to have action extracted from. Objects are clusters of the things we can perceive about them and the things we can do with them. It is a chair because I can sit on it, it is a hammer because I push nails in with it. It is a beer because it’s beautiful and delicious and bubbly and yellow and alcoholic and I have it on Wednesdays. Without our perception or action, objects cease to be, cease to be useful and become ideas, only existing through human action and perception. We have been taught that Schrödinger’s cat is waiting for us to decide its fate; that the unobserved tree falls silently, if it falls at all.

We may also have been taught that objects are instruments of power and politics. That there is nothing beneath an object’s function under the systems of control and violence placed upon us by the state, capitalism, or language. That the only real role that objects have in the world is their role in these systems.

Control of food objects are used to satisfy or perpetuate our hunger. Roads are used to control our movement and our physical experiences. Metal brackets are placed onto concrete to prevent people from sleeping on them.

I think that both of these views are incomplete.

Objects are not merely the sum of their properties, to describe them as such is to neglect what binds these properties together. If this were the case, then we would never mourn the breaking of our favourite mug when we could just buy another one or be able to explain what makes our favourite fork special even though we have a drawer full of them. Objects aren’t just the ideas we have of them or extensions of our own ideas of the world, the hand of a concept or of power. They are merely catalysts for these ideas — an object is an extension of power because it can do the things in the world that power needs it to do. Food objects have power because they can satiate you, roads have power because they can move you. Schrödinger’s cat has been in the box the whole time — and really wants to leave.

Objects have properties and are extensions of ideas but that isn’t all that there is. The world is not the world as manifest to humans; to think there is a reality beyond human thinking is not fantastical or exclusively religious. Your glass of water is as much being picked up by you and squeezed by your fingers so it doesn’t fall, as much as the glass itself is pushing against your fingers, stemming like a rock-climber. Objects exist in a constant tension with each other, pulling, pushing, taking, and providing. The water is looking for a place, somewhere to go, it will move when the glass is tipped or when it breaks.

The glass was once sand before it was lit aflame in a crucible, crystalised in water of which it now holds. Objects are experiencing, affecting entities like we are. Objects interact with each other as we interact with them — having private and exclusive lives. If a tree falls in a forest, there are things there to hear it and there are things that made it fall.

This view is known as Object-oriented Ontology (OOO). I believe that OOO resolves the tensions between the actions of metaphysics — acts of zooming in — and the actions of materialism — acts of zooming out. We have only ever been able to see either the forest or the trees but OOO can take us on a hike, holding our hand it shows us both.

26

The sharehouse is the quintessential experiencing agential object. It converses with the things inside of it, morphing them. It is different from a hotel, in which you are a passenger, or your family home where you have a prescribed social role; that of a child, of a sibling, or of a parent. You enter a sharehouse, an established self with your objects, as established things carrying your experiences, tastes, and habits with them. Then a war of attrition begins.

It begins with furniture and appliances — they become organs of the sharehouse, digesting and exchanging. They become a property of the sharehouse, a part of its shape and experience. Then it swallows more. Pantry items, groceries; becoming used by all inhabitants, spilling, then affixing themselves to the woodwork, the stove, crockery. Then eventually clothes, unused razor blades, and facial creams follow. Things slowly cease to be yours, but become ours, become the houses’. As much a part of the sharehouse as the plumbing and insulation. Objects come and go as they please just as you do. You leave for work and arrive home later, your old tomatoes suddenly fresher, and the freezer full of fresh

HUGO ANTHONY HAY 27

passata. There is a can of beans that has been in the pantry longer than you have lived here and it will be there long after you are gone. Its rust is contagious, attaching to fresh cans of tuna placed on top of it and the hinges of the pantry.

Your objects will get freckles, bruises, and cuts from your housemate’s things. Sometimes they’ll play well with others, other times they won’t. The heater will trip the fuse, and the rug will be so 2016-frank-ocean-is-the-goat-supremebox-logo-yeezy that it makes your fingernails beg for your eyeballs. But it will slide under the cupboard so well. Your things will find a niche in this organism.

Once in this harmony, they become a part of your experiences. When shoulder-bound to the frame of a door, conversing the sharehouse holds you interlinked, the walls not a mere vessel. Your relationships are touched by the sharehouse — a friendship in a home is unlike one outside of it. You share a basic means of survival, unbound by familial baggage or expectation, it is one of profound vulnerability of opportunity. Bubbled by the privacy and intimacy of the home, the housemate relationship is the sharehouse in

conversation with sociality. Rent will crush you some weeks and you’ll drink Shaoxing and coke out of stolen Kmart glasses. In winter, you’ll rejoice that your housemate went to the bathroom first so you don’t have to experience the bite of cold plastic and porcelain on your sleepy cheeks. You’ll lament that your door creaks, and the stairs thud as someone you probably shouldn’t be sleeping with scuttles out. Your housemates know. Objects as they arrive will be in the front of your mind. The sharehouse will pick them up, placing them in its pocket until the only thing left to really look at is the other people in the room. When you go, you have to reach right in it, dig through the lint and gum wrappers and take them back.

Perhaps that explains the euphoria of ridding yourself of a terrible housemate or the very special grief that occurs when a truly good housemate leaves — there is an absence, not just of them but also of all they have touched you with. Of all the stains they have left, of all the drinks they have spilt, of all the small cuttings of thread picked nervously from their shirt that they leave on the floor. No longer can they hold you in

their absence while you are under their blanket, no longer are you warmed by their candle light, satiated by their leftovers, or relaxed by their wine. Your chopping board will still have cuts from their knife but your onions won’t go missing. Your couch will keep the shape of them in its foam and it won’t cradle you like it did with their pillows. Parts of all of your things will be missing, waiting to be filled again.

The sharehouse affixes itself to you, it is held in you as much as you are held in it. It shelters you from rain as much as you shelter it from emptiness. All the objects that have passed through it are connected like a great fungal mind or a coral reef. In constant exchange with you and your housemates, the sharehouse becomes itself. It becomes something we can never really know but something we can really feel.

28

29

30

l VIENNA CURRAN-STANOVSEK

My artworks are a collection of loving renders of niche icons through graphite and charcoal portraiture. Using traditional drawing, an analog medium, to archive the visual aesthetics of the internet’s underbelly preserves their digital ephemera in a physical context. In my recent series, Community Cards, a balance is struck between capturing internet culture’s immediacy and traditional drawing’s meditative process.

Big Slick — an ace and king in poker — references the cultural significance of tattooing as a means of immortalizing imagery on skin, while also alluding to the high-stakes, fast-paced world of online poker communities, where anonymous players forge identities through gameplay.

31

Through drawing, this emphasis is placed on the physical labor and materiality involved in archiving digital sensibilities. An intention to elevate elements often dismissed as ‘low-brow art’ — such as text formats, pixel art, or online graphics — by situating them within a fine art context.

My work encourages viewers to experience the nostalgia and introspection of recognizing familiar aspects of digital culture while simultaneously viewing them in a new light — elevated, embalmed, and imbued with a sense of permanence.

32

Who

is Newtown Affirmations ????

After 20 minutes of waiting, I feel like I’m going crazy. I sit in a cafe, watching my surroundings. I’m profiling everyone I see. We are scheduled to meet at 10:30am, I arrive at ten, anxiously straightening the cutlery, ordering a batch brew, checking my notes for the 50th time. My neck whips around to look at everyone who arrives. Adidas Sambas, jorts, ordering an iced long black… seems too on the nose.

A slightly scruffy three piece suit, a skim flat white… could they really be an office jockey? How should I even greet them? With a handshake? Do I dap them up? I remind myself of my current skill level… A high five?

CHINA MELDRUM 33

Issue 19 (adjusted) Package.indd 33

I order a matcha to calm down, and then someone walks in, makes eye contact with me, waves, then orders. Is this them?

Or is my memory for names and faces failing me again?

They sit down opposite me. The handshake we end up doing is oddly chill. While unexpected on my part, it feels right for the moment. It’s finally happened. The culmination of a three week spiral, an anxiously sent DM, and sheer luck. I’ve found them. I found @newtown.affirmations.

5/2/2025 1:06 PM

Six months earlier.

Five minutes later.

Eight seconds ago, @newtown.affirmations started following me. Eight seconds ago, I was having a tea outside, cloud watching, while somewhere else, someone else decided to follow me. And that someone was @newtown.affirmations.

At first, the follow sat with me in a quiet delusion. The account probably just randomly followed me. Am I being recognised for my semi-frequent-esoteric-only-slightlyposture-y photo dumps? It ate away at me. It clawed at me.

Who was behind it all? Who were they? Did they know me… Did I know them?? I started to see The Admin in all my friends, everyone at every function, in every person I passed on King Street. I knew I had to uncover the uncoverable. I had to find the true face of The Admin of the famously anonymous @newtown.affirmations. Everyone had their own story to tell — the account was their old friend from school, they met them at a smoko on Oxford Street (or was it the Impy?), they were on their close friends story, but they didn’t know who they were. I waded through a sludge of misinformation for a while. The inside joke snowballed into actual intent, and a plan. The Admin could hide but I’d catch them eventually. I’d unmask them.

@newtown.affirmations is a Newtown-specific meme page, posting sometimes septence daily memes about Newtown, the Inner-West, its people, its happenings, and the broader world concerns of the Inner-Westosphere (if trying to find cheap selvedge denim can be classed as a concern). Every event happening in Sydney, the account has a hyperspecific meme for it. The Southwest link buses? Bosnians at Thai Pothong? Moo Deng giving a lesbian a cigarette at Birdcage? 7 circles of Hinge hell? All covered by @newtown. affirmations. The account is the centre of the veritable Newtown panopticon.

Three weeks earlier.

I posted a call out asking for leads on The Admin. It yielded varied and very weird responses. Countless people had their own pet theories about their identity. Seven different old high school friends were suspect, a small group had the theory that they were a Labor staffer (I almost pulled the plug on the whole project then and there), a friend’s ex talked to The Admin via DM about Greens LGA discourse.

According to a few, it was secretly me and I had no idea this entire time... it seemed that no one actually knew, but everyone had a vague idea. How were we all living like this?

How was this going under all of our noses? A kingpin of Gadi meme pages was just roaming the street and it could be anyone. I was getting too close to this case. I needed to let it go. “It’s just a meme page, who cares.” “Pack it up Louis Theroux” The haters jabbed at me. There were too many things that I had questions about. There was too much I didn’t know. I would uncover the account if it was the last thing I did.

My investigation thus far was fruitless, it was time for a hail mary. I couldn’t live like this for much longer. I had to know.

If the public weren’t going to give me answers I would peel off the mask myself. A cold DM to@newtown.affirmations.

This is what journalism was made for. This is what Noam Chomsky would have wanted.

When they sit down, they reference a story post made 30 seconds before walking in — a guy on a bright yellow Vespa getting randomly drug tested on King Street, with the caption ‘someone called the gentrification police on his ass.’

The comments on the post were part culture war (Newtown is post-gentrified), part Inner-West specific digs (Vespa guy was being arrested for claiming to live in Newtown while secretly living in Macdonaldtown). My theories about The Admin’s appearance were only somewhat correct. They have a brat tattoo (figures), and are wearing a pair of orange Adidas campus shoes. For a pretty big meme page, they are soft spoken but passionate. What was hiding under this veneer of nonchalance? What was inside the brain behind some of the best memes this side of Marrickville? They sip a strong cappuccino while I ramble, I realise that my notebook of questions is going to do precious little to structure this conversation. I embrace the tangents.

I find out a lot of pretty curious things about The Admin as we chat. The account was started during lockdown due to boredom more than anything, and despite @newtown. affirmations’ exponential growth, it is still a personal meme page for The Admin. As the account got bigger, they were conscious of the many moving parts of local social media fame: wrangling with brand deals, legal strife, disclosing running a meme page to employers, requests for the account to cancel people, manually adding 600 people to a Close Friends story. “There’s a lot more to consider now I guess, than when I started it.” But I didn’t come for the drama.

What drew me into the case was finding The Admin.

Searching for the person who was capable of such greatness (Sydney Metro shitposting) and horror (40+ close friends story posts in 12 hours).

I asked what the most fun part of the page was overall, and they lit up.

34

“I love it when people just message me out of nowhere and start yapping about something… and it’s such innocuous stuff sometimes, people have placed so much cultural reverence on something like a fucking turkey walking over the street… I don’t know why [people] like the page, honestly.

It doesn’t mean much to me one way or the other.

I feel like it’s nice to see them have a… I guess a positive response to me responding to them or whatever. Like that’s a nice feeling, how could it not be?”

In our short 45-minute chat, I often forget that I was sitting right across from the subject of my months-long investigation. Is this how that twunk from Hannibal felt?

The Admin was genuinely passionate about the Newtown world, they took most interactions they had on the account with a grain of salt, and a healthy level of disgust to the sometimes posturing phony nature of many Enmore Road inhabitants. “If I had to choose between having a beer with Barnaby Joyce and like any person from the Inner-West, I’d probably choose Barnaby.” Apart from the jadedness that comes from running a meme page for years, they enjoyed both the community and the page’s reception, as well as their personal distance from it. As I got to know more about The Admin, the illusion I had created of them slowly started to deflate. The weeks I spent wondering, questioning, doubting, suspecting, full of paranoia and distrust of those around me started to come undone. Had I done all this for nothing? Was it really not as big a deal as I thought? Burning doubt was soothed by the steady pace of my talk with The Admin. While my parasocial delusion was shattered, it was good to know that @newtown.affirmations reflected the best, rather than the worst of the Inner-West.

CHINA MELDRUM

By the end of the chat, I felt bittersweet. The illusion was gone. I knew The Admin. The chase was over. I had found @newtown.affirmations and came to find that they weren’t a shadowy panopticon guard, ruling over the greater Enmore area, but a full-fledged person with a non-meme page centric life and non-Newtown Affirmations interests. As I asked my final question (‘What’s a fun fact that wouldn’t kill anonymity?’), The Admin laughed and looked around the room for a bit, searching for an answer. We stood up, a second handshake, now a little more secure than the first.

They responded: “you could say something like ‘I prefer Enmore’ that’d be funny… Yeah, do that one.”

When I started asking who The Admin was, if people weren’t laughing that I was trying to do an exposé on a meme page, they honestly didn’t care about the identity behind the page 35

I had found affirmations and that they weren’t panopticon over the greater but a fullwith a noncentric life and Affirmations

@newtown. came to find a shadowy guard, ruling Enmore area, fledged person meme page non-Newtown interests.

as much as I did. Do we need to know the face behind our memes? I would say after my interactions with The Admin, that @newtown.affirmations is still just as funny. The enjoyment we find in accounts like @newtown.affirmations can exist while The Admin lives in pure anonymity, I think it’s actually better this way for both parts of the memeenjoyer-to-meme-maker relationship. But I’ve gotten too close to the truth. If we all knew The Admin, who knows what hell would break loose. Maybe there’s something to blissful ignorance. For the greater good, to protect the precarious balance of the niche meme landscape, The Admin remains unknown.

We walk out to the street together. On Parramatta Road we part ways. I watch them slowly get engulfed in a raging city crowd. A few steps later, I look back over my shoulder. The Admin is gone.

36

37

PULP 38

Finding Faye

In 1994, Cantopop darling Wang Jingyun (王靖雯, Shirley Wong), dropped her stage name. With the release of Random Thoughts (胡思亂想) came the return of her birth name — Wang Fei (王菲, Faye Wong) — a name that now reverberates across both Chinese and English-speaking worlds.

Shortly after Faye moved from Beijing to Hong Kong, she was given the name Wang Jingyun by Cinepoly, the first record label that she signed with in 1989. Two-character names were unusual at that time in Hong Kong. The name Wang Fei was weird, the label thought, it would immediately cast her as an outsider from mainland China. In their eyes, Wang Fei was less commercially viable, so Wang Jingyun she was. In just five years, she released six albums to commercial success, but often they were sonically safe, excessively ‘traditional’ in their regurgitation of Cantopop formulas. For once Pitchfork expressed a decent take, with Michael Hong describing her early albums as “uninspired renditions of Japanese and American hits” sandwiched “between treacly adult-contemporary ballads.” In other words, Shirley Wong was made to be a Hong Kong popstar.

LIZZY KWOK

But anybody who is familiar with Faye’s oeuvre understands that Shirley and Faye are remarkably different artists, with Random Thoughts marking a radical shift from the “mainstream pop” which had largely characterised her musical career thus far. Even Wang Jingyun — a name so polite, almost guarded (with the character 靖 jing explicitly meaning quiet) — fails to capture the audaciousness of Faye Wong’s musicality. In this way, Random Thoughts can be seen as our introduction to who she is as an artist, or at least who she strove to be without the constraints of the corporatised record label.

39

Random Thoughts was also my formal gateway to the world of

Faye Wong. She was already a household name in my family, but Shirley more so than Faye. Naïvely, then, I never paid much attention to her music, relegating her artistry to the evergrowing collection of Cantopop that my parents loved before me. Fresh out of high school, I launched into the obligatory cliché of lost-arts-loving-teenager-discovers-Wong-Kar-waiand-thinks-his-films-are-the-coolest-thing-ever. I devoured it all, admittedly with an obsessive desperation to impress my pretentious Jean-Luc Godard loving crush at the time. But I kept returning to Chungking Express. The way that Faye’s character sways side to side to ‘California Dreamin’, both completely oblivious and glaringly performative; the way she charmingly competes for Tony Leung’s gaze; the softness and singularity of her Cantonese cover of ‘Dreams’, now immortalised in Random Thoughts. How could you not be utterly transfixed?

With the Royel Otis TikTok-fuelled resurgence of the Cranberries, I’ve found myself thinking about the ingenious covers of Faye Wong. In Random Thoughts, she dares to cover two Cocteau Twins songs, ‘Bluebeard’ and ‘Know Who You Are At Every Age’ from their 1993 album Four-Calendar Cafe, interpreting lead singer Elizabeth Fraser’s beautiful but notoriously specific glossolalia. The lyrics of ‘Know Who You Are At Every Age’, the opening track of the album, are less decipherable than ‘Bluebeard’ , but its cascading guitars immediately demand your attention. I won’t heal unless I cry, Elizabeth sings, I can’t grieve, so I won’t grow / I won’t heal ‘til I let it go. I drown in her voice, surrendering to the feeling.

Cry cry cry ‘til you know why / I lost myself, identify.

In Faye’s cover of ‘Know Who You Are At Every Age’, which can be translated to “Know Oneself and Know One Another” (知己知彼), she similarly grieves the loss of a loved one, although her lyrics are more deliberately nostalgic or sentimental: 不知不覺愛已死（愛已死） Without any of us even realising, our love is dead (love is dead) 共你知彼知己 何必逃避 Together, we’ve come to know one another and know ourselves; why would we escape [that reality]? 當初講過愛到死（愛到死） In the beginning, we spoke about loving each other until the day we die (love until death) 就算今非昔比 仍一起（仍一起） Even if it’s completely different now, we’re still together (still together)

40

When I listen to Faye yearn for her past/present lover, I can’t help but romanticise the early stages of any relationship; nothing mattered other than surrendering to the feeling. Watching her move seamlessly atop scenes of clouds, water, and trees in the music video, I feel almost powerless, thinking about the entanglement of two lovers. No one evokes this feeling for me more intensely than Faye. This is partly due to the efforts of her longtime collaborator Lin Xi (林夕, Albert Leung), who also worked with Hong Kong pop stars Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui throughout his career, writing the words for ‘Know Oneself and Know One Another’ as well as one of my personal favourites, ‘If You’re Happy, Then I’m Happy’ (你快樂 所以我快樂). In this song, Lin articulates the pure, intuitive feeling of falling in love; the feeling of fleeting control, when one becomes subject to the other. Your eyes redden (你眼睛紅了) / My day darkens (我的天 灰了) / You’re tired (你覺得累了) / I go to sleep ( 所以我睡了). And isn’t that lovely? To know our feelings are always mediated by others — whether it be through romance, friendship, or family.

Of course, the English language fails to reflect the poetic simplicity of Leung’s prose. Translation issues aside, however, the straightforwardness of Albert and Faye’s approach to songwriting mirror that of Elizabeth in that they follow feeling first, rather than meaning. To quote a 1994 interview with 1FM Radio where she spoke about her writing process: “The lyrics are words that I’ve found by going through books and dictionaries written in languages I don’t understand. The words don’t have any meaning at all until I sing them. . . The music and the singing and the words created a feeling, and I had a freedom [in] doing this.”

LIZZY KWOK 41

For decades, Cocteau Twins fans have still attempted to dissect Elizabeth’s lyrics where they are cryptic and essentially undecipherable.

A relentless obsession with the artist’s process, where Elizabeth has openly discussed her aversion to writing English language lyrics. It is a futile and unimaginative effort, just follow the “sound and the joy”, as Elizabeth said in a 2009 interview with music writer Dave Simpson. Thankfully, these efforts to figure out exactly what the Cocteau Twins were trying to say have never bothered Faye; she

has always made the covers her own. Nonetheless, after 1994, we see that Faye increasingly shares Elizabeth’s ethos of songwriting. Of course she never dispenses with language entirely, but particularly in her 1997 album Fuzao (浮躁), we hear words blur and fuse. Faye experiments with her voice as instrument, her voice as rhyme, and as melody. Again, this is in no doubt thanks to the influence of the Scottish band, having written and produced the melancholic Fenlie (分裂) from their song ‘Tranquil Eye’ and the haunting Saoxing (掃興) from ‘Touch Upon Touch’ — a song best heard alone.

Although Faye is often remembered in the Western imaginary for her role in Chungking Express, she led a prolific musical career in her own right. In the seven years following Random Thoughts, she released 12 albums — an inconceivable number even at a time when Hong Kong record labels expected artists to release a new album every year.

She continued to be unapologetic in her affection for formidable female artists such as Teresa Teng, whose soft, mellow voice continues to hypnotise listeners across Asia and Chinese diasporas in particular. Teng’s music is reimagined in Decadent Sound of Faye (菲靡靡之音), the title being a playful subversion of the Chinese government’s criticisms of Teng’s music in the 1980s as “decadent” bourgeois music, or mimizhiyin (靡靡之音). She continued to experiment throughout the 90s, her popular 1998 release Sing and Play (唱遊) playing with sounds of the Cocteau Twins in ‘Whimsical’ (小聰明), KTV-friendly Mandopop in ‘Red Beans’ (紅豆), and Electronica in ‘Child’ (童). And because doing too much never fazed Faye, she even starred in a couple films in the early 2000s.

Since then, she has more or less retreated from the public eye. But Faye Wong’s influence lives on — in the immortalised memories of her sound, her fashion, and her films. For me, Faye has always been a uniquely singular artist; in the same way that people talk about Prince, Beyoncé, or even Blood Orange — it is difficult to put Faye’s music in a box, and at the same time, she pulls influences from everywhere. Within her discography contains an homage of different degrees to the Cocteau Twins, to Teresa Teng, and the Black Panthers (黑豹) among a slew of artists, and yet, Faye has always expressed a singular sensibility to the changing form of pop music.

42

BIPASHA CHAKRABORTY

The 1995 Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service found the force to be engaged in money laundering, drug trafficking, evidence tampering, fraud, various forms of assault, and serious engagement within pedophile networks. In the last five years, the NSW Police Force found over 5000 officers engaged in misconduct. Since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, there have been 582 Indigenous deaths in custody.

43

The police force since its inception has been saturated with corruption and abuse.

‘131’ is a three-panel block print utilising black ink and digital inversion, featuring the popular phrase, “I smell bacon, I smell grease.” Printmaking has a long radical history given its ability to efficiently and cost-effectively replicate and distribute protest art.

Historically acting in opposition to capitalist modes of production and dissemination. With each ink roll, I think of those wronged by the police system. With each carving, I think of those lost in the grips of the police system.

The police force needs to be defunded, dismantled, and abolished. No justice, no peace.

44

BIPASHA CHAKRABORTY

45

46

TOWARDS A BLAK AUSTRALIA POLICY

A Manifesto for Decolonial Socialism

I don’t remember a time when I lived on my own Country. The soil beneath my feet has always held stories that are not my own, and yet there is something that connects the experiences of First Nations people across so-called Australia.

Settler-colonialism has impacted all of us.

Marx once wrote that capitalism is a system in which “all that is solid melts into air.” For First Nations peoples, this insight captures a deeper reality: under settler-colonialism, even the air is stolen from us. The Australian state, with its liberal democratic facade, sustains itself on the violent dispossession and exploitation of Indigenous peoples. This foundational contradiction exposes the limits of classical Marxism in theorising liberation in settler-colonial contexts.

To truly address the entwined oppressions of colonialism and capitalism, a Blak socialist revolution must weave decolonial principles into the fabric of its praxis, transcending the Eurocentrism of traditional Marxist thought.

ETHAN FLOYD

The Colonial-Capitalist Nexus Colonialism and capitalism are not disparate systems, but deeply intertwined processes of accumulation and domination. Marx’s concept of primitive accumulation – the expropriation of land and resources to fuel capitalist development – eloquently describes the dispossession experienced by First Nations peoples. This relationship also reflects the dynamics of imperial core and periphery theory, where the extraction of land and resources from 47 47

Indigenous peoples not only sustains settler states like Australia but also flows outward, enriching the coffers of imperial core countries. However, Marx’s analysis focused predominantly on Europe and failed to fully account for the enduring structures of colonial violence and their global ramifications.

The Australian state perpetuates this nexus through institutions that enforce both capitalist and colonial logics.

Mining corporations desecrate sacred sites under the guise of economic growth, funneling the resulting profits into both domestic and international markets. For example, the destruction of Juukan Gorge by Rio Tinto in 2020 highlights how these practices erase cultural heritage while serving economic interests. These actions epitomise the settler state’s exploitation of Indigenous lands for profit and its reinforcement of global inequality by ensuring resource wealth flows disproportionately to the Global North. At the same time, welfare policies criminalise and dehumanise First Nations communities, enforcing dependency on the oppressor while stripping communities’ autonomy. The carceral system, functioning as both a tool of labor discipline and racial control, incarcerates Indigenous people at rates unparalleled globally. Together, these institutions interlock to sustain the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples, embedding colonialism within the broader structures of capitalist accumulation.

Attempts at reform within this system – be it symbolic land acknowledgments or advisory bodies like the Voice to Parliament – fail to disrupt these foundational structures.

These gestures placate settler guilt while leaving intact the mechanisms of dispossession. They also serve as a means to stabilise the capitalist state by redirecting resistance into bureaucratic channels, forestalling meaningful change. True transformation demands more than reconciliation; it requires the assertion of sovereignty and a radical reimagining of the state.

Decolonising Marxism Traditional Marxism often positions the industrial proletariat as the central agent of revolution, sidelining Indigenous struggles. This reductive framework overlooks how sovereignty and class are deeply intertwined in settlercolonial contexts. For First Nations peoples, land is not merely a means of production but a source and cornerstone of identity, spirituality, and governance.

48 48

The writings of Frantz Fanon offer a vital corrective to these Eurocentric blind spots. Fanon argues that colonial liberation involves not only economic transformation but also the reassertion of cultural and spiritxxaual autonomy. In A Dying Colonialism, Fanon writes that “[in] the colonial context, the coloniser only sees in the native an instrument for production.

When the colonised resists [sic], they seek to affirm their existence in defiance of the coloniser, turning to their history, myths, and spiritual practices for strength.” A Blak socialist revolution must therefore centre land restitution and cultural revival as inseparable from its broader project.

ETHAN FLOYD

This approach requires rejecting the economism of orthodox Marxism in favor of a holistic vision of liberation. Colonialism is not merely an economic system; it is a totalising structure that invades every facet of life. It reshapes social relations, enforcing hierarchies of race, labor, and land ownership that sustain global systems of exploitation. To dismantle it, revolutionary praxis must address the spiritual, cultural, and material dimensions of Indigenous oppression.

49 49

Towards a Blak Socialist Framework A Blak socialist revolution envisions the dismantling of the settlercolonial state and the creation of a society rooted in Indigenous sovereignty and socialist principles. Achieving this vision necessitates a dual focus: decolonisation to dismantle colonial structures and socialism to replace capitalist exploitation with collective ownership and care.

1. Land Back as a Foundational Demand

Land is central to both colonial exploitation and Indigenous liberation. A Blak socialist framework begins with the restitution of land to First Nations custodians. This demand must also advocate for an alternative political economy where land is treated as a living entity rather than an asset. This is not merely a redistribution of property but a profound reimagining of governance, where decisions are guided by Indigenous legal systems and ecological knowledge.

2. Economic Transformation

The capitalist mode of production prioritises profit over people and land, perpetuating inequality. In a Blak socialist future, extractive industries would be dismantled, and resources managed collectively in community-controlled structures. Additionally, the reinvestment of resource wealth into reparative economic programs for Indigenous communities can ensure these transformations address historical inequalities.

3. Abolition of Colonial Institutions

The settler-colonial state relies on institutions like police, prisons, and welfare systems to criminalise and control Indigenous lives.

These structures must be abolished and replaced with systems of care rooted in mutual aid, communal accountability, and restorative justice.

4. Cultural and Spiritual Revival Colonialism attacks not only the material conditions of Indigenous life but also its cultural and spiritual foundations. A Blak socialist revolution would prioritise the revival of languages, ceremonies, and knowledge systems, integrating these into education, governance, and daily life. This is not merely an act of preservation but a reclamation of identity and agency. This revival can serve as the ideological backbone of a decolonised economy, reframing productivity and value through Indigenous epistemologies.

Revolutionary Praxis

The journey toward a Blak socialist future is neither linear nor inevitable. I’ve stood on the frontlines of protests and organised with the grassroots. It’s in these spaces that I’ve seen the seeds of a Blak socialist revolution: the courage to block mining trucks, the solidarity of sharing resources and providing mutual aid, and the resilience of standing against a state designed to crush us. These moments remind me that revolution is not just necessary—it’s possible.

But it demands organised struggle, driven by the dialectic of crisis and resistance. Across Australia, this resistance is already visible: land defenders blocking mining projects, communities mobilising against Black deaths in custody, and grassroots networks providing mutual aid. These movements exemplify the spirit of a Blak socialist revolution, but they must coalesce into a coherent revolutionary strategy.

Building such a strategy requires alliances across oppressed groups. Solidarity between Indigenous sovereignty movements and the broader working class is crucial.

This means confronting the reformist tendencies within Australian politics that seek to neutralise radical demands.

It also requires fostering spaces — such as grassroots community assemblies, Indigenous-led environmental campaigns, or union actions that incorporate anti-colonial principles – where diverse struggles against racism, capitalism, and environmental destruction can intersect and strengthen one another.

Conclusion

This is both a vision and a call to action. It urges us to confront the colonial-capitalist system not as reformists seeking to soften its edges but as revolutionaries committed to its dismantling, rejecting the false dichotomy between socialism and sovereignty, asserting that they are inseparable in the fight for liberation.

For Australia to become truly free, it must cease to exist in its current form. A Blak socialist future envisions a society where land and people are no longer commodities but kin, where power flows from the wisdom of Elders and the collective strength of communities. In this society, political economy would not prioritise extraction, but stewardship, care, and collective well-being. Such a vision challenges us to imagine beyond the confines of the present and to organise for a world where liberation is not just possible but inevitable.

The question is not whether this revolution can happen, but whether we have the courage to make it so.

50 50

2 0

WANT TO BE IN PULP? SCAN QR!

51

2 0

?PLUP NI EB OT TNAW !RQ NACS

52

PAR ASI TE

MADELEINE CAHILL

53

Parasite explores the volatile and parasitical nature of heavy emotions such as depression, rage, grief, anxiety, lust, and shame. This work explores these intrinsic emotions, illustrating their unpredictable power and ability to shape our lives.

This piece was created by dropping a piece of string into a page and tracing its path with graphite. The action was so simple, yet created the most erratic and unpredictable patterns, a visualisation of the chaos emotions can evoke within us.

Often viewed as harmful, with more research I discovered that certain parasites can be beneficial. When parasites like tapeworms and roundworms take up residence within the body, they actually help strengthen the host’s immune system. Parasites lead to heightened immune activity, making the body more capable of dealing with other invaders like pollen and bacteria.

This idea parallels how, despite their destructive power, emotions can catalyse resilience and enlightenment. The contrast of dark and light — through both line and negative space — symbolise the interplay between suffering and growth. This tension between light and dark reflects how even our darkest emotions have a place and a purpose within our journey.

54

Facebook

Notes

Notes 18 September 2024 at 16:16

Micra Musings

2014 Nissan Micra $6,000 Listed 7 days ago · Sydney NSW

In September I had my heart broken. Between disillusionment with my degree, questioning my career prospects, and wondering if I should drop everything and move to Melbourne, I was lost and longing for change. You arrived at just the right time. We met online — Facebook — and for one whirlwind week we got to know each other. Texting until late, around busy work and uni schedules, we finally set a date for the weekend. I had bared my heart and my feelings were seemingly reciprocated, sharing five years of itemised service invoices, lamenting night shifts, even travelling to the south side of the Bridge for me. Every day I looked forward to our exchanges. You were the first thing on my mind in the morning and the last at night. Totally vulnerable to your charm, I could see my life coming together again.

My insecurities and uncertainties fell away as our chemistry reassured me that some things are just meant to be. It was just so easy.

Did our texts mean nothing to you? I had almost paid for a mechanic and everything.

How quickly I had fallen for that sleek silver exterior, that threecylinder engine, that ice-cold A/C. So clearly I could imagine my phone plugged into the aux, speakers blaring as I hit fifth gear on the freeway. I saw my friends squeezed tightly in the back, windows hand-cranked down, beach bags by their feet. This was the answer to the tedium of my life. This was exactly what I had been missing. My ticket to freedom, my road tripping accomplice, my dream tiny car.

We had a 2 p.m. date. You sent a 1:43 p.m. text. Deep in a blissful reverie, blindly trusting and ignorant, the buzz in my pocket went unnoticed.

OLIVIA RUSSELL

Description

Bought 3 years ago. Great condition, reliable, and fuelefficient. Selling as I don’t drive to work anymore Very low kms. Serviced regularly. Rego until December 55 55

“Hi, sorry to be a hassle I have someone looking at the car at the momment (sic.) who is pretty interested so can we push the inspection back a bit just incase? (sic.)”

Twitter

Google Docs

My housemate was in the driver’s seat, running through our inspection’s plan of attack. Open on my lap lay my notebook, scrawled with instructions on how to find a VIN and what an engine oil dipstick should look like. We had done our research, we were ready for seemingly anything.

20 minutes in to a 25-minute drive. The first text still unseen. Your 1:51 p.m. follow up.

“Hi I’m so sorry if I wasted your time, the person I’m showing the car to has just bought it.”

At last I retrieved my phone, ready to let you know we were nearly there. As the notifications came rolling in, reality came crashing down. My heart stopped. The spring breeze turned frigid and my stomach hit the bitumen. All that I thought I knew, all that I had believed about us fell away. Winded by the velocity of your betrayal, cut loose and floundering at the shattering of my fantasies, I was forced to register the truth.

You never told me anyone else was involved. Was I meant to figure that out on my own?

My housemate turned the car around. With tears in my eyes, I texted back saying it’s fine. Of course it’s fine, you didn’t owe me any loyalty. We had never agreed on any label, it was only natural you would be talking to others.

Nothing was natural, however, about the way my lunch began to claw its way back up my throat. My mind reeled as the future that I had imagined with that silver 2014 Nissan Micra crumbled around me. Trips to the pool.

Carting friends to and from the airport. Driving up the coast to visit my parents. After such a long talking period, can you blame me? I had been so sure that what we had was special. Does this other girl even know about me?

What about the sweet things we told each other? About Sundays at the car wash and services every six months, about splashing out on comprehensive insurance,

roadside assistance and all? Were you spinning the same lines to her, too? I thought we were a match, I wanted to do it all together.

Did I not make myself clear? You knew this was my first car and still you couldn’t be honest.

I think I’ve realised I never really wanted a car before now. I guess I never meant as much to you as you did to me. Don’t you know comparison is the thief of joy?

My friends tell me I dodged a bullet, that I’m better off without a car anyway. What’s that statistic – carless women are the happiest demographic? Women are better off without cars, whether they want a vehicle or not? Something like that. My friends say the new owner will figure out your two-faced ways soon enough.

Squeezing my hands, they assure me you were just desperate and scared you’d never find a buyer, so you settled for the easy choice.

I nod and agree that you were punching all along. But it isn’t really about the car, it’s about what I had felt between us. Deep down inside, I wanted to be chosen, even if we were doomed. I know logically it isn’t personal. You were the problem, not me. But why is it so hard to believe? I chose you, why didn’t you choose me?

I want to believe that what we had was real, but I think I’ve been strung along enough already.

One day I hope we can say hello in the street. I crave going for one last drive; talking about pretentious books and getting your oil changed. Swapping pants in the op shop, and finding the best deal on Premium Unleaded. But today I box up your empty promises and leave them in the dust under my bed. I guess now we’ll never see how far we would have gone together. I’ll waste no more tears on this Nissan Micra. I think we both know that, in truth, I’m really more of a Fiat 500 girl.

WANTED: Fiat 500 or similar, 150 000 km and under, big brown eyes, excellent fuel efficiency, $8000 or less, emotionally available, automatic transmission preferred, nice smile, full mechanical logbook, recent rego, good knees, located SouthEastern Suburbs, will share lemon gelato, and do crosswords with me forever and ever. ONO.

-1584

56 56

CONTRIBUTORS ANSWER: what is your favourite chair?

HOLLY GERRARD @hollygerrard red Vietnamese stool

ETHAN FLOYD @ethaaanfloyd camping chair

LIZZY KWOK OFFLINE Facebook Marketplace pink chair 57

MILES HIROSHI HUỲNH @lo.ng red Vietnamese stool

ELLA NGUYỄN @depuss.y old theatre chair

VIENNA CURRAN-STANOVSEK @cowboyluv the velvet egg chair in libraries 58

TAMASIN STANTON @vasternous a park bench with no anti-homeless features

MURTAZA BANDUKWALA @bandukwali

MADELEINE CAHILL @happiechappie_makes 59

the floor

KATE SAAP @m1ss_kate bus seat directly on top of the driver in a double decker bus

OLIVIA RUSSELL OFFLINE the driver’s seat

ARWEN BEAUMONT-LEE @arwen.772 school chair that you can crack your back on 60

EDITORS ANSWER: what is your favourite chair?

BIPASHA CHAKRABORTY @d1gistar Woven Mora Stool KELLY CAVIEDI @kellycaviedi Muddycap Hungry Chair 3

ASHRAY KUMAR @_ashrayyy 18C Rosewood Indo Portuguese Chair 61

JOAN DE LA KAGSAWA @joan.dlk Peacock Chair

HUGO ANTHONY HAY @hugosux Henry Wilson Alpine Chair in Walnut

CHINA MELDRUM @china.thecountry Isokon Penguin Donkey I in Birch 62

63

NOT YOUR FILO MUSIC MAGAZINE

PULP ISSUE 19

NOT YOUR FILO MUSIC MAGAZINE

PULP ISSUE 19