The Big Issue Australia #653 – A World Beyond Meat

Ed.

643 653 21 JAN DD MMM 2021 2022

xx.

WILL SMITH SIRI HUSTVEDT and YUMMO PIKELETS

BURGER MAY J UST SAVE THIS

PLANET PLANET E HE T TH

A WORLD BEYOND MEAT

NO CASH? NO WORRIES! Some Big Issue vendors now offer contactless payments.

NATIONAL OFFICE Chief Executive Officer Steven Persson

ENQUIRIES

Chief Financial Officer Jon Whitehead

Advertising Simone Busija (03) 9663 4533 sbusija@bigissue.org.au

Chief Communications Officer Emma O’Halloran

Subscriptions (03) 9663 4533 subscribe@bigissue.org.au

National Operations Manager Jeremy Urquhart EDITORIAL

Editorial (03) 9663 4522 editorial@bigissue.org.au GPO Box 4911 Melbourne Vic 3001

Editor Amy Hetherington

thebigissue.org.au © 2022 Big Issue In Australia Ltd

Deputy Editor Melissa Fulton

All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

Contributing Editor Michael Epis Contributing Editor Anastasia Safioleas Editorial Coordinator Lorraine Pink Art Direction & Design GOZER (gozer.com.au) CONTRIBUTORS Film Editor Aimee Knight

PRINTER Printgraphics Pty Ltd 14 Hardner Road Mount Waverley Vic 3149 PUBLISHED BY Big Issue In Australia Ltd (ABN 61 071 598 439) 227 Collins Street Melbourne Vic 3000

WANT TO BECOME A VENDOR?

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS

Contact the vendor support team in your state.

ACT (02) 6181 2801 Supported by Woden Community Service NSW (02) 8332 7200 Chris Campbell NSW, Qld + ACT Operations Manager Qld (07) 3221 3513 Chris Campbell NSW, Qld + ACT Operations Manager SA (08) 8359 3450 Matthew Stedman SA + NT Operations Manager Vic (03) 9602 7600 Gemma Pidutti Vic + Tas Operations Manager WA (08) 9225 7792 Andrew Joske WA Operations Manager

MAJOR PARTNERS Allens Linklaters, BHP, Clayton Utz, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Federal Government, Fluor Australia, Herbert Smith Freehills, Macquarie Group, MinterEllison, NAB, Newmont, Transport for New South Wales, Ovato, PwC, Qantas, REA Group, The Snow Foundation, Government of Western Australia, Woolworths MARKETING/MEDIA PARTNERS AdStream, Beem It, C2, Carat, Chocolate Studios, Macquarie Dictionary, Realview, Res Publica, Roy Morgan, Town Square DISTRIBUTION AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Small Screens Editor Claire Cao

The Big Issue is grateful for all assistance received from our distribution and community partners. A full list of these partners can be found at thebigissue.org.au.

Music Editor Isabella Trimboli Cartoonist Andrew Weldon

The Big Issue is a proud member of the INSP, which incorporates 110 street publications like The Big Issue in 35 countries.

CONTACT US GPO BOX 4911 MELBOURNE VICTORIA 3001

(03) 9663 4533

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

@BIGISSUEAUSTRALIA

HELLO@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

@THEBIGISSUE

THE BIG ISSUE AUSTRALIA

The Big Issue acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and their connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Can’t access a vendor easily? Become a subscriber!

Every Big Issue subscription helps employ women experiencing homelessness and disadvantage through our Women’s Subscription Enterprise.

To subscribe THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU or email SUBSCRIBE@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Contents

EDITION

653

16 Cooking Up Change The sudden lockdown of high-rise towers in Melbourne left residents in shock – but the community banded together, and the result is a unique cookbook.

26 FILM

The King’s Court King Richard, the biopic of Venus and Serena Williams, is more about family than tennis, in particular their father and firebrand coach Richard, played by Will Smith.

WOULD YOU LIKE SOME FRIES WITH THAT?

32 BOOKS

12.

Hey Siri

How Now Fake Cow

by Sonia Nair

Plant-based meat is now a viable alternative to actual meat. Not only does it have the succulent, fatty, umami taste, but it’s good for you, good for the planet – and the animals won’t mind. cover photo of the Grill’d Impossible Burger by Impossible Foods contents photo by Getty

Prolific and versatile author Siri Hustvedt turns her hand to memoir and essays in her latest work, Mothers, Fathers and Others.

40 TASTES LIKE HOME

Pikelets

THE REGULARS

04 Ed’s Letter & Your Say 05 Meet Your Vendor 06 Streetsheet 08 Hearsay & 20 Questions 11 My Word 20 The Big Picture

24 Ricky 25 Fiona 34 Film Reviews 35 Small Screen Reviews 36 Music Reviews 37 Book Reviews

39 Public Service Announcement 43 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

Jennifer Congdon used to come home from school to home-cooked pikelets, just as her grandchildren do now, served at the same table on the same farm.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

The Road Ahead

I

spent my summer break behind the wheel, driving from my parents’ in Geelong to my in‑laws’ on NSW’s Central Coast and back, catching up with family and friends along the way, some whom we hadn’t seen since even before the pandemic began. There was that sense of freedom, of open roads and open horizons, sound‑tracked by the cricket.

We took the inland route through Echuca, Wagga Wagga, Cowra, Orange, Mudgee and towns in between. We discovered the Big Strawberry in Koonoomoo, ate cherry pie in Young, and came up against giant servos and fast‑food joints at many a turn. Compared to road-stop fare of old, we noticed a trend towards plant‑based burgers and other meat‑free meats – a sustainable, cruelty-free movement we look at in this edition, one that might just allow us to have our steak and eat it too.

We also welcome a new Small Screens Editor, Claire Cao, a writer, editor and

LETTER OF THE FORTNIGHT

critic from Sydney. She’s taking over from Adelaide-based Aimee Knight, who is now our new Film Editor, as we bid farewell – and say thank you – to Annabel Brady-Brown, who has shared her love of cinema on these pages for over four years.

And, in Streetsheet, vendors and those in the Women’s Subscription Enterprise have joined together to pay tribute to Peter Holcroft, a former member of The Big Issue’s Sydney office, who passed away last year. Peter was also an avid photographer, and for more than a decade worked with Sydney vendors to capture their images for Meet Your Vendor. As his NSW colleague Chris Campbell says, “Peter had, in many ways, been the heart of the Sydney office. The vendors knew that they could count on Peter to be a fair and steady presence.

“I was privileged to be with him in the hospital in his final days and the very last things that we talked about were all the people and lives he touched and helped change through his time at The Big Issue.”

04

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

The Big Issue Story The Big Issue is an independent, not-for-profit magazine sold on the streets around Australia. It was created as a social enterprise 25 years ago to provide both a voice and a work opportunity for people experiencing homelessness and disadvantage. Your purchase of this magazine has directly benefited the person who sold it to you. Big Issue vendors buy each copy for $4.50 and sell it to you for $9, keeping the profits. But The Big Issue is more than a magazine.

Your Say

I felt compelled to write with praise for Jeffrey who I met while waiting for a bus today in Adelaide. After I politely declined to purchase a magazine, we shared our stories with each other until he reached his stop. At one point I asked what his special interests or skills were, but he couldn’t think of anything at the time, apart from wanting to work.

After he left, I realised I had missed an opportunity to point out to him at least one thing he was very good at: he listened! He didn’t once interrupt and I felt very comfortable talking to him.

It’s a quality far less common than it should be in people, so I think he should be proud to count that as one of his skills or talents. Thank you!

CHAREEN WOODS ADELAIDE I SA

WOW! What a wonderful surprise when I purchased the Big Christmas Special (Ed#651) and my terrific vendor, David, was on the cover.

His huge, cheeky smile and friendly welcome each fortnight always cheers me up. Fabulous choice for The Big Issue Christmas cover.

NOLA AIRD SUBIACO I WA

• Our Women’s Subscription Enterprise provides employment and training for women through the sale of magazine subscriptions as well as social procurement work.

• The Community Street Soccer Program promotes social inclusion and good health at weekly soccer games at 23 locations around the country.

• The Vendor Support Fund will offset the cost price of products for vendors, allowing them to earn a larger margin on their own street sales.

• The Big Issue Education workshops provide school, tertiary and corporate groups with insights into homelessness and disadvantage, and provide work opportunities for people experiencing marginalisation.

CHECK OUT ALL THE DETAILS AT THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Chareen wins a copy of Jennifer Congdon’s cookbook Woodstock: Farm, Food and Family. You can check out her pikelet recipe on p40. We’d also love to hear your thoughts, feedback and suggestions: SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

YOUR SAY SUBMISSIONS MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY AND SPACE.

Meet Your Vendor Growing up in the south of Italy, my story isn’t the best story. I come from a single-parent family. It was an arranged marriage. My mother was very young, just 16. They had to go overseas for seasonal work because there was no work in the south of Italy, so I was left behind with my grandparents. My town was destroyed by an earthquake and there was no school, so they put all us kids on a train and took us to nuns. I was five when this happened. I stayed there for six years. It was a not very nice place. When I finished school, I trained as a chef.

How I came to Australia is a nice story. I met my ex-wife – she’s Australian – when she was on holiday in Italy. I met her in Rome. I was in the city and she was looking at a pair of shoes. If it wasn’t for her, I would never come to Australia. I’ve been here for more than 33 years.

I’ve been back to Italy many times. I used to go to Italy every single year when my mother was still alive. But since she passed away in 2007, that was my last time. I would like to go back one more time to say goodbye. I still have friends and some relatives.

Since I divorced, I’ve had a decline. I had lots of friends and people around me but since the divorce everybody ran away. My ex-wife introduced me to a sect, so I was brainwashed. All these people who were supposed to be my friends, they reject me.

I was completely isolated.

I went back to work as a chef. I was working 16 hours straight. One day I was cleaning French beans and the knife twisted and I got a deep cut on one of my fingers. I went to the doctor, and I got five days off for the injury – and I was sacked! That’s when I went to the tribunal.

I had Legal Aid, but I got paid only $1000. Can you imagine?! That was my collapsing. I was depressed and felt rejected. I wasn’t able to work anymore.

I started selling The Big Issue during the pandemic. It’s been more than a year, and I realised that it was something good. The Big Issue is really helping me. I now find myself with a bit of extra money. And it’s helped with my anxiety and my depression. I meet people who are very nice. And one of the best things is that you get to read a story you might not normally read. Some stories really impress me.

It’s not easy selling The Big Issue. It takes a lot of courage. I don’t feel very comfortable to stand on the street with the magazine in my hand. But there is always a positive when you see people coming to you and get the magazine and smile. I get to meet people. I’ve met lots of beautiful people. It is nice talking to them; they respect you as a human being.

Pasquale

interview by Anastasia Safioleas photo by Autumn Mooney

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

05

21 JAN 20221

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE AT GEORGE ST, SYDNEY

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

Vale Peter

06

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

In memory of the wonderful Peter Holcroft, who worked with The Big Issue in Sydney for more than a decade, and who passed away last year.

Peter was a lovely man who had a big heart. He took our photos for our vendor profiles, and at Christmas parties and things like that. My memories are of Peter setting himself up for his daily routine in the office, then he would head out and get his bacon and egg roll every morning. You were a very kind man Peter and you helped me through so much. I enjoyed my chats with you every time I went into the office. You are going to be dearly missed. Your passion for The Big Issue was strong. You will always have a place at The Big Issue and when you’re looking down on us, I know that you’ll be making sure we’re all working hard. Thank you for being a caring man to all of us.

You will never be forgotten. Thank you, my friend, for everything.

GLENN F | CENTRAL STATION

It’s been a sad year losing Peter.

I believe there’s a heaven and we’ll see him there!

EDWINA | WSE

May you rest in peace, Peter.

After the office rang and said you were finally free from pain and suffering, before the tears, came a fleeting flow of memories: of the many times I sat at your desk, head on the table, unable to process the negatives and positives that survival had become. You just talked and shared your thoughts with an honest smile. I hope you understood how much you helped me free myself from who I thought I was. You were never too shy to stand up to bullies. Your seat can never be replaced and the office is different without you, but your photos are there of the good times us vendors shared. When I get upset with myself, I’ve lots of pictures you took to show me that I’m just trying each day to be me – and that’s who I am. Ta, Peter, for being you. Now the tears flow.

RACHEL T | PYRMONT

Peter was always kind to everyone.

He was always a happy person. He was everybody’s friend with an attitude that counts. If you talked to him for long enough, you’d realise he was a really sweet man!

He shall be sadly missed always.

I’m sorry he is gone.

ROSLYN | WSE

A helping hand in a time of need A friend indeed May the Lord God protect you evermore Until the other shore GLENN W | SYDNEY

Peter has gone from our sight but never from our hearts. I will always remember you through those photos you took of me. Rest in peace Peter, love from Josephine.

JOSEPHINE | MONA VALE & AVALON

Peter was a beautiful soul. He was always so kind and giving, and always smiling. He’s a missed part of The Big Issue and will always be rememberd by me and many others.

MELISSA | WSE

I have a fond memory of Peter taking many camera shots of me for the vendor profile in the second August 2014 edition of The Big Issue. This was a sell-out edition.

GARY G | DARLING HARBOUR

I met Peter at the Surry Hills Big Issue office a long time ago. He was a very good friend. Now I’m sad he has passed away.

SUE | PARRAMATTA

I was really sorry to hear of Peter’s passing. He and I didn’t always hit it off, but he didn’t hold a grudge, which I admired about him. We both love soccer. Peter supported Liverpool FC and I support Manchester United and we got to watch some of these games together, and we could ramble on about football for ages. It’s sad that Peter had only retired a short time before passing away. He was an extraordinarily patient man and I will miss him. RIP Peter and “Come on United!”

DREW | BARANGAROO & SUMMER HILL

Peter was the first person I met at The Big Issue office when I offered to volunteer. He took me on and I started by answering phones, and doing the front desk, plus storing and filing back issues. Peter was a nice, easygoing man, very helpful and of course a great photographer.

He is very much missed but I am sure he is in a good place.

ALAN | VOLUNTEER

Here’s to 2022 I’m glad to be back at work seeing smiling faces, making new friends and money, LOL. Stay safe, get vaccinated and we can remain open. I wish for a better, bigger and safer 2022. Cheers all!

CHERYL QUEEN VICTORIA MARKET | MELBOURNE

Cuppa and Chat A big shout out to all my customers and others for being so kind and caring and generous, and very easy to do business with. They’re very quick to buy me a cup of tea or something else to eat. They are all sorry that I’ve had a few health problems. I appreciate everything they do – they make me feel welcome in the area. I appreciate all the chats I have with my customers and finding out a bit more about them, and them

finding out a bit more about me.

I appreciate them treating me as an equal. I hope they have a Happy New Year and 2022 is a good one, for all of us.

LES READINGS, GLENFERRIE RD, HAWTHORN | MELBOURNE

Balm of Calm Shopping centres are hard, especially when it’s busy and your trip doesn’t go according to plan. It’s Sunday afternoon. I’m at Westfield, my throat is getting tight, I am about to cry, my brain is disconnecting, shutting down.

I can’t speak, words aren’t getting through to my mouth, I’ve gone mute. Oh god that’s the worst thing that could happen now.

I can’t even tell someone that I need help. I open up my speech app and type a quick message that reads “Can I please use the calm

room? I don’t have the code but have been in there before”. I walk over to the centre’s information desk, I show the lady my phone, she reads it and writes the code down for me. I’ve now been in here for just over 40 minutes.

The calm room is an amazing initiative and provides a place to go and have a bit of quiet time to reset. I am grateful for it because the alternative is having a panic attack in a busy shopping centre and feeling embarrassed and unsafe, and not having a chance to pull yourself out of the attack because there is nowhere to be alone to calm down. Sensory input continues to assault you from everywhere. The calm room is a low sensory environment that is greatly needed in times of meltdown and shutdown. I wish more places had a calm room.

GRACE KAMBAH SHOPS | CANBERRA

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

Birthday Gift

MICHAEL CAUSEWAY LANE & PRAHRAN MARKET | MELBOURNE

SPONSORED BY LORD MAYOR’S CHARITABLE FOUNDATION. COMMUNITY PHILANTHROPY MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN GREATER MELBOURNE AND BEYOND.

07

MIC HA EL WIT H HIS PO RTR AIT

21 JAN 2022

I was determined to celebrate The Big Issue’s 25th birthday with something special, so I thought some artwork was in order.

I approached an artist called Brett Willis – many of his drawings are exhibited in a shop not far from my pitch at Prahran Market.

I got the drawing done so that the office could have it as a gift and a souvenir. Twenty-five years is a fantastic milestone, and this drawing reminds us of how far we’ve come. It’s been a great feeling being back on pitch and selling again this year.

It makes me feel good and it’s great to once again engage with my customers – it gives me a sense of great achievement. To my customers: I appreciate you all and I look forward to serving you for many years to come.

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

“

08

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

In elementary school I opened my lunchbox and it was empty.

I was devastated.

“Things like the golden bowerbird – it sounds like a death ray from some cheesy 70s sci-fi series.”

Sean Dooley, from Birdlife Australia, on one of the 53 species of birds captured on Songs of Disappearance, an album of Australian bird calls that beaked at No#3 on the charts, ahead of Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber.

NPR I US

Decluttering queen Marie Kondo on her life’s “biggest disappointment”.

A moment that sparked no joy.

“We booked the cruise because we were convinced it would be a fun, safe bubble of vaccinated people.

But who were we kidding? There’s no place to escape Omicron.”

Milly Parkinson, who developed coronavirus symptoms one day after returning from a Caribbean cruise. Cruisers continue to party like it’s 2019, despite the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warning Americans to avoid travel on cruise ships.

THE GUARDIAN I UK

THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

“Only recently, I was like, life‑work balance? That’s an amazing concept. I didn’t even know there was a name for it.

I thought it was just like, work your ass off until you crash and burn, and then take some time off to heal your body and mind.”

Actor and singer Juliette Lewis on fine-tuning her boundaries at 48.

“There are celebrations, dance, singing. It is just like a wedding indeed.”

Mohammad Qasem Razawi on being reunited with his baby grandson, Sohail, five months after he was lost in the crush at Kabul airport as thousands of Afghans fled the Taliban.

Sohail was found by a taxi driver who took him home to raise as his own. He will now be reunited with his parents and siblings who were evacuated to the US months ago.

“People really like the idea of spending an exorbitant amount of money and kind of being – I don’t want to say ‘swindled’, but it’s like a financial domination thing for a lot of men.”

Self-described “fartpreneur” Stephanie Matto on making US$200,000 and counting by selling her farts in jars to people who like to blow their cash. Yeah, it stinks.

TAIPEI TIMES I TW

“The happiest moments in my life were when I would ride my BMX around my neighbourhood.

They were my first experiences of independence…where I wasn’t a passenger anymore. I was the driver.”

Actor Ryan Gosling on being a rev‑head ever since.

“I am excited that I am going back to school... I have all along longed to go back to school so that I can achieve my dream career of becoming an accountant.”

Rachael Nalwanga, 16, on returning to school in Uganda after nearly two years, thanks to the lifting of the world’s longest educational COVID shutdown. But officials expect a third of children will never return to school.

“For many years in popular culture, people associated the Viksø helmets with the Vikings. But actually, it’s nonsense. The horned theme is from the Bronze Age and is traceable back to the ancient Near East.”

Helle Vandkilde, an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, busting the trope that Vikings wore horned helmets. Rather, that image was established in the late 1800s thanks to the costume design in a production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

GQ I UK

CNN I US

VICE I US

ROLLING STONE I US

THE IRISH TIMES I IE

20 Questions

by Rachael Wallace

01 Who were the men’s and women’s

singles champions of last year’s Australian Open?

02 Which nation has a larger

population, the USA or Russia?

03 Who stars as Diana, Princess of

Wales in the film Spencer?

04 The landmark US court case of Roe

vs Wade was decided in a) 1975 b) 1980 c) 1978 or d) 1973?

05 The Rovers Return is a fictional pub

in which TV series?

06 Which Pacific archipelago recently

voted in a referendum not to become independent from France?

07 By what name was Karol Wojtyła

more commonly known?

08 What colour is the star on the flag

of Myanmar?

09 At 1pm during Daylight Savings

“We wanted to do great things with this bull, and we just want him back.”

Stud manager Patrick Joyce pleading for the return of Texas Powerplay, a $108,000 Angus bull that has vanished from a farm in Yea, Victoria.

DAILY TELEGRAPH I AU

“We’re like a therapist for our clients. So, this would help us recognise signs. As far as physical

NEW YORK POST I US

“In general, it is a very good thing for animals to sleep with their people… Dogs and cats who are more closely bonded with their humans get additional health benefits, including increases in beneficial neurotransmitters such as oxytocin and dopamine, the feel‑good hormones.”

Dr Dana Varble, chief veterinary officer for the North American Veterinary Community, on the benefits of getting a ruff night’s sleep.

It’s good for the pets, and can be good for their owners too, by decreasing anxiety via warm fuzzies.

Time in Victoria, what time is it in Western Australia?

10 In which country did Anne Frank

live most of her life?

11 Where was Julia Gillard born?

12 Which former coach of the

Socceroos is now manager of Scottish Premiership club Celtic?

13 What is the Spanish equivalent of

the Academy Awards?

14 What is “Canadian oil low acid”

better known as?

15 Which 1980s Australian pop group

had a hit single with ‘Funky Town’?

16 Who was the first player to score

a century in the 2021 Men’s Ashes series?

17 Who is comedian Billy Connolly

married to?

18 What is the most common letter in

the English language?

19 Which teenager had a starring role

in the Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony in 2000?

20 How many Gold Logies did Bert

Newton win?

21 JAN 2022

THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

or what a person may say…it’ll help us guide that person as to what’s the next proper steps for that person to take.”

Chaka Jackson, a hairdresser in Tennessee, where a new law requires hairdressers and barbers to undergo free training to identify clients who may be experiencing domestic violence.

CNN I US

FREQUENTLY OVERHEAR TANTALISING TIDBITS? DON’T WASTE THEM ON YOUR FRIENDS SHARE THEM WITH THE WORLD AT SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

ANSWERS ON PAGE 43

09

“What is the standard we Boy 1: “Is this your accept as a norm dog?” in our society Boy 2: “No! I’m a kid, for people who not a person.” don’t have a lot of money and need Overheard by Paul O’Shea in a place to live?”

Fitzroy, Melbourne.

Dina Schlossberg, executive director of Regional Housing Legal Services in Pennsylvania, after a fire that killed 12 of the 18 members of an extended family living in a four-bedroom public housing unit in Philadelphia.

EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Colin Varney @earwormnovel

I

n late 2020, I suffer a late-life crisis and join a band. A friend is seeking a drummer. He and I had formed the rhythm section of a fierce post-punk outfit during the 90s. In the throes of live performance, we’d developed a curious telepathy. I’d sense when he was about to make a mistake and vice versa. We compensated and complemented each other.

But that was then and this is now. I haven’t performed for 15 years. I’m a librarian and hobby novelist: not the best role model for a wielder of the sticks.

I’m off to practice. I follow directions to an address in a semi-industrial no-man’s-land. I reach a nondescript door left ajar. Pushing it wide, I find myself in a common area crammed with sagging op-shop couches.

Sallow illumination reveals posters peeling from the walls. A vending machine is plastered with depictions of Led Zeppelin, all tumescent guitars and glabrous bared chests. A corridor leads to a series of decrepit side chambers. In short, this establishment is either a rehearsal facility or an opium den.

The rooms smell like old carpet and musicians. The owner sprays air-freshener. I stare balefully at a rickety drum kit complete with split and shattered cymbals.

My attempts to play are clumsy. Muscles have atrophied, joints corroded. I can’t get a handle on the intricate structure of the songs. There’s only one number in which I’m able to get up a head of steam and by its conclusion I’m panting, trying to disguise exhaustion. Still, it’s good to be behind the skins again.

I’m hooked, but as I leave that night I’m convinced they won’t invite me back.

Yet they do. Over the ensuing weeks my efforts become more assured. The band congeals into a unit.

We gauge each other’s strengths and tolerate failings.

Telepathy with the bassist is re-established.

My fellow band members are committed, tenacious and allergic to fashion. We sense the culture is hungry for aging middle-class alternative rock and we’re overqualified to deliver. Young musicians milling in the common area eye us piteously, yet we’re not the oldest boomers in the place. There’s a tribe of grizzled sheddads that have about a decade on us. They inhabit the back room and pump out thunderous 60s garage. They

are not going gentle into that good night and they are unhampered by dignity. They’re an inspiration.

Every rehearsal contains at least one moment when I become acutely aware of my mortality. Limbs falter and breath rasps up my gullet. My face burns as if in close proximity to the profusion of candles that adorned my last birthday cake.

Drummers are heavily associated with corporeality and mortality. They’re famous for hard living and an aversion to TV sets, which they heave from hotel windows. We picture them as Neanderthals, instinctive and unsophisticated. The percussionist from The Muppet Show was called Animal; he communicated via grunts.

There’s a joke that contends you know the stage is level when the drummer drools from both sides of their mouth. We disregard the PhD achieved by Bill Bruford, the bedrock beneath Yes, or the innovative neo-classical compositions of percussionist Steve Reich. For the record, Lindy Morrison, once the engine room of The Go-Betweens, is a shrewd social activist.

The myth that drummers tend to be the first band member to die was probably generated by the high‑profile demises of Keith Moon and John Bonham. I prefer to contemplate The Ramones in this regard. Renowned as a band that liked to do things differently, by 2005, the percussionists were the only Ramones left standing.

By mid 2021, my band were enduring a punishing schedule of practice, readying ourselves for gigging.

With a clutch of original songs ready to go, we were discussing where to make our debut. Then the Delta strain of COVID-19 made planning obsolete.

As I bunkered into lockdown I longed to return to the kit. Another joke asks: what do you call a person that hangs around musicians? Answer: a drummer. I hate drummer jokes, but there is some truth to this one. I enjoy watching my talented friends conjure tunes into existence.

Despite that moment in every practice when age overtakes me, playing floods me with purpose. I feel my pulse setting up a steady tempo through my nerves; my heart drumming in my chest, unflagging. Because our bodies are a rhythm section, thrumming with vitality. When we dance, we synchronise to the beat. And in that instant of joy and physical transportation, we savour immortality.

Colin Varney is a Sydney writer and recovering, now lapsed, drummer. His novel, Earworm, is a tragi-comedy narrated by a love song.

11

Librarian Colin Varney shuns the exhaustion and the jokes to dance to the beat of his own drum.

21 JAN 2022

Pick Up Sticks

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

12

HOW HOW NOW NOW FAKE FAKE COW COW

Here’s some food for thought: herds of Aussies are going meat-free, and still eating burgers – plant-based burgers. It’s good for you and great for the environment, plus the new generation of plant-based meat alternatives has got that flame-grilled umami flavour down patty. We take a look at what’s at steak…

by Sonia Nair @sonnair

Sonia Nair is program manager at the Melbourne Writers Festival as well as a writer and critic.

13

21 JAN 2022

F

ake meat. Clean meat. Synthetic meat. Meatless meat. Plant-based meat. The names are many, but their intention is the same – to reduce our animal meat consumption and its environmental impact.

In a sign of the times, supermarkets are stocking plant-based meat alternatives besides animal products. Want a vegetable protein burger? Look no further than the burger section. I try a few and am struck by their startling similarity to beef. vEEF’s fibrous plant-based Classic Burger Patty has a realistic burst of encapsulated fat in every bite and a lustrous shine, much like a beef burger. The Big Fry Burger is chewy and browns up nicely on the stove, with a smoky aroma. The mushroom-based Fable Cheeseburger sold at Grill’d physically resembles a classic cheeseburger, and has an earthiness and heft to it.

Today’s groundbreaking animal-free products have one key difference to yesteryear’s counterparts such as tofu: they taste like meat. Yep, plant-based meat products made from wheat, soy and peas are achieving the fat marbling of a traditional steak, the umami savouriness of meat and the flame-grilled flavour, aroma and juiciness of a burger on the grill.

American companies Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are perhaps the most widespread of plant-based meat products, but Australian meat substitutes like the ones I sink my teeth into are rapidly making their mark. Australian start-up v2foods was born in 2019 out of a partnership between CSIRO, its investment fund Main Sequence Ventures, and Competitive Foods Australia, the parent company of Hungry Jack’s, to solve this problem: how do we feed a growing global population sustainably? v2foods’ most famous product is its Rebel Whopper patty, made from protein extracted from legumes.

“We went back to the basics of understanding meat chemistry, using the science at CSIRO to fully understand why meat tastes so good,” v2 chief executive Nick Hazell explains. “At v2, we talk about a texture system, a fat system, and a flavour system – which

is a funny way of thinking about meat, but we had to understand how meat worked to make a plant‑based version that was as delicious and nutritious.”

Two prominent Australian alternative meat producers have harked back to Asia’s rich tradition of imitation meat. Bucking the trend of using soy and wheat proteins as their main ingredient, Fable Food Co – established in 2019 by chef-turned-mycologist Jim Fuller, organic mushroom farmer Chris McLoghlin, and vegan entrepreneur Michael Fox – uses shiitake mushrooms to make slow-braised style meat and burgers.

“We cook them in unique ways to bring out the mushroom’s flavours and amplify the meaty flavours,” Fox says.

While Cale Drouin, founder of brands Made With Plants and PlantAsia, looked to Malaysia and Taiwan for inspiration on how to market a range of gluten protein‑based meat alternatives to an Australian audience – alternatives ranging from duck and pork to chicken and beef.

Plant-based meat is forecast to see exponential growth. Locally, CSIRO estimates revenue from domestic consumption and exports of plant-based meat products could reach up to $6.6 billion, while 2019-20 saw retail sales from the Australian plant-based meat sector grow by 46 per cent to $154 million. Globally, a report from Barclays Research shows that alternative meat is forecast to command up to 10 per cent of the US$1.4 trillion global meat industry in 2030, up from the less than one per cent market share it held in 2019.

When Tammy Fry’s family established Fry Family Food in 1991, it was because of her (and her mother’s)

vegetarianism – now it’s a matter of saving rainforests and reducing climate change. Having started out in the Fry family kitchen, the company now employs 450 people who produce up to 26 tonnes of plant-based meat products every single day.

“We never started Fry’s as a commercial enterprise. It would’ve been crazy because there were no vegetarians or vegans we knew of,” Fry says.

Australia’s increased consumption of meat-free products in the last few years can be attributed to three main factors: health, the environment and animal welfare.

Australia’s vegetarian population has risen slightly from 10 per cent in 2012 to 12 per cent in 2019, but with 42 per cent of Australians saying they are eating less meat, or none at all, the one thing the new generation of meat alternatives have in common is their target market: “flexitarians”, people who have a primarily vegetarian diet but occasionally eat meat.

“Framing the problem as ‘how to convert more people to veganism’ was not helpful,” says v2’s Hazell. “There is room for sustainable meat and sustainable plant-based meat. But globally, to feed the 10 billion people who are increasing their meat consumption as they get wealthier, we have to do it in a different way.”

Flexitarianism is enough to nullify the worst effects of livestock production. “Adopting a healthy flexitarian diet can restore the planet,” according to Norwegian scientific not-for-profit EAT. “Doing so would reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions globally…while at the same time saving millions of lives.”

Plant-based meat has no shortage of detractors, who claim it is high in fats, sugar and salts. But studies have shown that replacing animal protein with plant-based protein reduces mortality risk, type-2 diabetes and the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

“The World Health Organisation has classified sausages and bacon as a group one carcinogen [definite cause of cancer] and red meat as a probable cause of cancer,” says vegan Fox. “Bowel cancer is one of the biggest killers in Western countries like Australia and it’s related to a lack of fibre in the diet – meat has no fibre. It’s okay to eat small amounts of meat, but not the 110kg of red meat, poultry and seafood Australians consume every year. Meat is unhealthy in the quantities we’re eating.”

Plant-based meats are healthier than their meat equivalents, due to their lower or comparable sodium levels, higher or comparable levels of protein, and lower levels of fat and saturated fat. Plant-based meats are also a source of fibre.

“Plant-based meat isn’t what you should exclusively be eating, but you have to compare apples to apples,” says Fry. “We’re comparing ourselves to processed meat – a burger for a burger, a sausage for a sausage.”

As the world’s population grows and countries become wealthier, meat-eating increases. The UN predicts global

PHOTOS BY VEEF AND GETTY

V E E F ’S MAN: C O W, R G E R A E V BU HA D O N ’T C L A S S IC

MOOVE OVER BEEF! NICK HAZELL OF V2FOODS, RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HUNGRY JACK’S REBEL WHOPPER, SAYS WE NEED A PLANT-BASED FUTURE.

“It’s going to be a long time before cultured meat has a significant impact on this space,” Drouin says.

“There are consumer questions that need to be answered and we’re going to have to train and educate consumers on what these products are. Trying to change people’s fundamental ideas about food is going to take a long time.”

What’s clear is that at no other time in history have so many entrepreneurs, scientists and chefs been focused on making highly sophisticated products in a bid to save our planet, our health and our animals.

“Plant-based meat is so close to meat there’s no longer a compromise to eat a plant-based rather than a meat-based product,” says Fry. “We’re at that point where people can’t tell the difference anymore. When we see price parity, we’ll see an influx to plant diets because it makes sense that people would choose that.

It’s very exciting.”

21 JAN 2022

So what of the future? Well, in due time cultured meat may well be joining the plant-based stuff on our supermarket shelves. That’s right: in laboratories across the globe, scientists are developing “grown” meat, produced by cultivating animal cells rather than killing animals. This substitute will not just resemble meat, but be meat on a molecular level.

Last year, American company Wildtype Foods grew a world-first cell-cultivated salmon, while in Japan, a team of scientists produced the first-ever 3D printed cut of wagyu. Closer to home, Sydney-based start-up Vow Foods is making meat from the stem cells of 13 animals, including alpacas, water buffalo and kangaroo. While in Singapore, the first nation to approve the sale of lab-grown meat, diners at private members’ club 1880 can tuck into a fancy meal of lab‑grown chicken nuggets.

Plant-based meat is here to stay, but cultured meat at this stage faces a lack of commercial viability and unknown consumer appetite.

“The plant-based protein industry needs to be as big as the animal-based industry is today by 2050.

This just has to happen, because there is no more viable land left on the planet.”

15

meat consumption will increase by almost 73 per cent by 2050 to meet the demands of a 10 billion-strong global population.

Drouin doesn’t mince his words when asked about this prospect. “It’s planetary destruction. We don’t have the landmass to do that without enormous rainforest destruction.”

A UN report backs up Drouin’s claims, saying a combination of agricultural intensification, increasing demand for meat, conversion of land, and climate change are destroying natural habitats.

That has another consequence: bringing people into closer contact with disease vectors. “Pandemics such as the COVID-19 outbreak are a predictable and predicted outcome of how people source and grow food,” the report says.

Livestock contribute 14.5 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for 77 per cent of global farming land. Plant-based meat is more sustainable on nearly every metric – using 72 to 99 per cent less water, 47 to 99 per cent less land, and generating 30 to 90 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions than animal production.

Hazell says it’s a no-brainer. “The plant-based protein industry needs to be as big as the animal-based industry is today by 2050. This just has to happen, because there is no more viable land left on the planet to convert to agriculture to feed our growing livestock industry. Something has to happen and that something is a trillion-dollar opportunity and has got a lot of investors very interested.”

But the costs of plant-based meat remains a barrier to many. Most plant-based meat products cost around 50 per cent more than meat products in Australia, which Drouin attributes to farming subsidies in the meat and dairy industries.

XXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX

XXXX

The Big Picture THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

16

RUTH ROASTS BEANS IN THE MANKESHKESHA BEFORE FRIENDS GATHER ROUND THE JEBENA. HER COFFEE CEREMONY IS AN IMPORTANT DAILY RITUAL.

Cooking Up Change In 2020, residents of Melbourne’s inner-city housing towers were locked in without warning. Their response was to lean on each other. They cooked, they made coffee, they talked – and they created a cookbook.

by Anastasia Safioleas Contributing Editor @anast

Ruth Eyakem grabbed her bag and headed out the door the moment she heard about the sudden five-day lockdown. From midnight, residents of nine public housing towers would not be permitted to leave for any reason. There was just enough time for Ruth to rush to the pharmacy for her medication. But downstairs she found the estate bathed in blue light from police cars and she was met by a wall of police. They ordered her back up to her apartment.

“I told them that I heard the lockdown would be from midnight but you’re already here stopping us. Why?!” explains Ruth. It’s now 17 months later and we’re sitting in her living room, the sun streaming into her 12th‑floor apartment. She stops to take a sip from a tiny cup of coffee. “I told them that I need my medication. They said my medication would come to my house, but I never got it.”

Ruth and her 15-year-old daughter spent the five days holed up in their apartment, the lockdown the result of rising COVID cases in the high-rises. The high‑density living, with its shared corridors and elevators, made them especially vulnerable to the virus. With little to do other than watch the news, her traditional coffee ceremony – conducted every day – became even more

21 JAN 2022

Arts Victoria, who commissioned residents of the towers to respond to the COVID crisis as a form of recovery. Featuring recipes cooked over that weekend, it documents a moment in time when this group of women came together to heal through food.

17

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

W

hen a group of refugee women from different African backgrounds got together over one weekend to cook food, they were still recovering from events that had taken place during Australia’s first COVID winter – the sudden hard lockdown of their homes in one of Melbourne’s inner-city public housing towers.

Recipes handed down over generations were made and eaten. Over countless cups of cardamon-spiked Ethiopian coffee they talked about life, love and home, and what happened to them and their community in that winter of 2020. There were bowls of Halima’s smoked paprika okra, Leila’s cumin-dusted rice, Emebet’s berbere-spiced lentils and Sara’s sugar syrup drenched Sudanese baklava. Ruth made coffee in the Ethiopian tradition, setting up a portable burner to brew it strong and inky. Frankincense burned, filling the room with its heady smell.

Refugees from Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, these women and their families have fled conflict for a safer home in Australia, so are familiar with the push and pull of a life marked with trauma. They live in the public housing towers located in the suburbs of Flemington and North Melbourne. When these towers were rushed into hard lockdown on a July afternoon in 2020, that familiar tide of fear and anxiety washed over them once more. This weekend of cooking was an opportunity to make sense of what was happening, and to reconnect. And it was how the Flemington Sisters cookbook was born, funded by Multicultural

Niaymia (Dry Okra

by Awatif Ingredients

5 tablespoons oil s, 3 medium white onion chopped ato diced tom 1 i stock cube gg Ma 1 1 cup water 1½ cups of yoghurt 1 tablespoon tomato paste

18

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Method

With Yoghurt)

1 tablespoon peanut butter 2 tablespoons ghee ra 3 tablespoons dry ok powder ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon black pepper 1 teaspoon chilli

Add pot on medium heat.

Add vegetable oil to a diced the in x Mi . den brown onions and stir till gol . Stir ter wa d an be stock cu tomato. Add the Maggi be is cu ggi Ma the d ensure everything together an dissolved. Season. about d leave the lid on for Turn the heat down an pot and let the heat, remove the 10 minutes. Turn off it cool completely. r and ato paste, peanut butte Add the yoghurt, tom ck in food processor. Put ba ghee. Blend well in the h wit son Sea er. wd okra po the pot and add the dry it til un , ile wh a for illi. Leave the salt, pepper and ch ad or rice. is thin. Serve with bre

important to her. “It helped me pass the time. Helped to calm my nerves. My coffee ceremony was my medicine,” she says. A few days later, the whole of Melbourne would join them for what would turn out to be 111 days of lockdown.

Ruth tells me that throughout East Africa, a coffee ceremony brings the neighbourhood together. The smell of roasting coffee will waft down the street, signalling it is time to gather around the jebena, or coffee pot. Ruth likens it to therapy and says there is never a bad time for a coffee.

“Over coffee, we tell our best friend – who we trust – all of our problems,” she says. “People come together and solve problems over coffee. If two tribes have problems, they’ll come together over coffee. If the wife has a problem with her husband, she’ll come and talk to the ladies of the village over coffee. If someone passes away, we all come together and make coffee every day for two or three weeks – people come and talk until that person feels good. We talk over coffee, and we help each other. We solve any problem over coffee.”

Awatif Taha is Ruth’s neighbour. She has lived with her family in the same public housing tower for the past 18 years. A refugee from Sudan and a prominent member of the towers community, she is still troubled by the hard lockdown.

“The way they did it was no good. If they tell us two or three days before that we need to lock this tower to protect you, it is alright. No problem,” she says evenly.

“But why only nine towers in Flemington and North Melbourne without any notice? We have a lot of older people, sick people… Why like this? Like animals?”

The towers community is diverse, home to people from different cultures, speaking different languages, following different religions. Arabic is the most prominent language.

Like Ruth and Awatif, they cannot understand why they were singled out with what would turn out to be the harshest COVID response implemented in this country.

Well over a year later, emotions still run high. Mistrust simmers, and feelings of indignation battle with a weary acceptance that life must go on. The healing has begun – led by the community.

Awatif and her husband work with the Multicultural Sudanese Centre helping women, children and new arrivals navigate the system, helping them with schooling and housing. During the towers’ hard lockdown, they spent most of their time on the phone, ringing residents to make sure they had access to information and services, and liaising with a variety of organisations and the Department of Health and Human Services on the residents’ behalf. Ruth also helps run Mamma’s Kitchen, a Moonee Valley City Council initiative for women from the towers to develop skills in areas including aged care, child care and hospitality. And through Multicultural Arts Victoria, she was able to bring together the group of women who would go on to call themselves Flemington Sisters.

Spiced Rice

by Leila Ingredients 1½ cup white rice 3 cups hot water Little bit of oil 1 medium onion 2 cloves garlic 1 tablespoon grated ginger

1 chopped tomato ½ teaspoon cumin powder ½ teaspoon coriander powder Salt to taste Fresh coriander

Method

COOKING, RECOVERY & CONNECTIONS COMMUNITY COOKBOOK IS OUT NOW. YOU’LL FIND IT AT: MAV.ORG.AU/FLEMINGTON-SISTERS. TO BOOK RUTH FOR A TRADITIONAL ETHIOPIAN COFFEE CEREMONY, EMAIL RUTHRUTHA29@GMAIL.COM.

19

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND AND DESHANI BERHARDT

RUTH AT HOME ON THE 12TH FLOOR

“It was really great putting that cookbook together,” she says. “It was over two days and we cooked lots of food together. There was lots of cooking and lots of tasting. There were eight of us, so we did it in two groups. We cooked in the morning and then we eat. It was really nice. It helped us build a community.

“These things also help you keep your culture, your language and your food. It is good to learn new things, but it is important to also keep your identity otherwise you forget everything.”

It was the group’s diversity that provided the magic, says Awatif: “The group has people from lots of different countries – Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan. People think Africa is all the same, but we all speak different language, have different music… Our skin is dark but we’re not all the same.

I remember when I worked in child care my manager called me one day and said ‘Awatif can you come and translate for me. There’s a Somali lady here.’ I said ‘Somalia?! It’s a different country and a different language to Sudan!’”

Ruth and Awatif are glad that something so terrible spawned the Flemington Sisters. And there are hopes they’ll be able to get together to do more cooking and perhaps even produce another cookbook. As the Flemington Sisters collectively put it: “Food, culture and friendships are so important to us. These things nourish us, keep us connected and keep us confident and strong in who we are.”

21 JAN 2022

Wash the rice two tim es and then soak in wa ter for 20 minutes. Drain .

In a pot, add oil and he at before adding onion , garlic, ginger, tomato , cumin and coriande r powder. Add salt and fry for a few minutes . Add the hot water.

After the water boils, add the soaked rice.

Reduce the heat and cook for 15 minutes.

Serve with fresh coriander.

series by Leigh Henningham

The Big Picture

At the End of Their Line

20

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Photographer Leigh Henningham documents the day that a 150-year‑old Victorian fishing community came to an end.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

Ricky French is a Melbourne-based journalist specialising in feature writing and travel.

W

hen the last Holden Commodore rolled off the production line near Adelaide in 2017 it was all over the news, the glitzy ceremony documented by hundreds of cameras and seen by millions. The fanfare was more muted on Victoria’s Gippsland Lakes, where a lesser‑known industry was quietly wrapping up in March 2020, watched only by the tide, a few hungry pelicans, and one photographer in the fog.

“It was a heavy mood. They were sad; their future was uncertain,” says Leigh Henningham of his time photographing the last days of commercial fishing on Australia’s largest inland waterways, first fished by the Gunaikurnai people. The Victorian government was buying back the remaining 10 licences – owned by local families – preferring to keep the lakes stocked for recreational anglers. After 150 years, the fishermen and women unloaded their catch at the Lakes Entrance Fishermen’s Co‑op for the final time.

Henningham worked alongside his wife Nikki, an oral historian who was collecting the commmunity’s stories for a University of Melbourne oral history project. The first person he photographed was Gary Leonard, a fifth-generation fisherman for whom fishing wasn’t a job, it was a way of life.

“It was the most perfect morning, beautiful and serene,” recalls Henningham. “Other times it would be pitch black and pouring rain, but the fishermen didn’t mind. They’d go out and find their net by dead reckoning.”

The fishers knew their waters too well to bother with instruments or satellite navigation. The ancient mariners’ method of dead reckoning – calculating their position by using speed, direction and time – was good enough, delivering them to the nets they’d set the day before. Henningham photographed the fishers hauling up their catch – silver trevally, flathead, garfish, mullet and black bream – before returning to the co-op, built by the fishermen themselves back in 1968. Broad trawlers from the open waters still dock at the co-op, but the lake’s fishing folk are gone.

“They had to find new jobs,” says Henningham. “Some became truck drivers, or got work with the council, a few bought fishing licences at Corner Inlet, one of the few places in Victoria you can still fish commercially.”

When Henningham held an exhibition for his photos in Lakes Entrance, the mood was both sombre and celebratory.

It was one of the rare occasions where the last 10 fishing families gathered in the same room together, and tears flowed like the tide when they saw they weren’t going to be forgotten.

“They were proud that their history was going to be commemorated, and it illustrates their lives for people who would have never known anything about the commercial fishermen of the Gippsland Lakes,” he says.

Their day of reckoning might have come, but the memories are far from dead.

ANDREW TRIGG WALKS ON WATER (ALMOST) AT LAKE VICTORIA IN THE GIPPSLAND LAKES

FOR MORE, GO TO LEIGHHENNINGHAMPHOTOGRAPHY.COM.AU.

XXX

A FISH IN THE HAND… (THE HAND IS GARY LEONARD’S)

FATHER AND SON FISHERMEN ROB AND MATT JENKINS

JAMES CASEMENT XXX ABOUT TO CAST NETS AT DUSK ON LAKE WELLINGTON...

22

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

OLD MATES LEIGH ROBINSON (LEFT) AND ROSS GILSENAN

HERE’S JAMES CASTING THE NET

ANDREW TRIGG FORGES AHEAD AT LAKES ENTRANCE

MARY MITCHELSON, WHO HAS SINCE PASSED AWAY AND IS FONDLY REMEMBERED

Ricky

24

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Thunderstorms will once again be the summer drama queen.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

Dark and Stormy

I

s there anything better on a summer evening than an earth-shaking thunderstorm? You know the sort.

The clouds and the tension rise in harmony as hot afternoon melds into hot night. The cumulonimbus clouds would be better named cumulo-humongous. Bulging and bruisecoloured blue, they come at you with pure intimidation on their mind. Then comes the first flash of lightning. The sky grumbles like it has a bad bellyache, and you know it’s on. Hell breaks loose and heads to the heavens. Fork lighting stabs manically at the hills, the ocean, your house, anywhere it pleases. The sky is strobing as though it’s been short-circuited.

You never realise how big the sky is until you try to monitor the whole thing at once. You feel exhilarated, energised, alive; there’s electricity in the air and for once it’s not a metaphor.

Of course, we shouldn’t celebrate thunderstorms too brazenly, because you don’t want to get on the wrong side of them.

The saddest person I ever interviewed was a woman whose husband was killed by lightning in front of her. Equal saddest person I ever interviewed was a woman whose husband was killed by thunderstorm asthma, a mysterious phenomenon where particles of grass pollen are broken up and dispersed into microscopic pieces during a thunderstorm, causing deadly asthma attacks in susceptible people. I doubt that either of these women – nor the couple I interviewed who’d been blasted out of their shoes by lightning (but survived) – would feel much comfort at the sight of approaching storm clouds.

I’ve felt the fear myself. Once while hiking in New Zealand, I found myself alone on the top of a mountain pass when a bloody great storm ripped through the valley. New Zealand doesn’t do thunderstorms like Australia, but this one was a beauty, at least in retrospect. The downpour had flooded the river that would have led me to safety,

so I was trapped where I stood, completely exposed, with nowhere to shelter and at the mercy of whatever electrons were coming my way. So, what did I do? I took out my metal tripod and electrically conductive camera and started taking photos, of course. There’s a certain peace that comes over you when you’re resigned to whatever fate awaits, or so I’ve heard. I didn’t feel peace till about a week later.

I once interviewed a meteorologist about the science behind thunderstorms. He was very patient and drew me a nice picture of plus and minus signs floating around a storm cloud. Then I interviewed a physicist. He was less patient and rubbed his eyes a lot. I don’t remember anything either of them said, but that doesn’t matter, because I only want to remember storms themselves. Like the storm that bore down on our secret hut near the summit of Mount Wellington in Hobart. Or the one that heralded the onset of the wet season in Western Australia’s Kimberley, soaking the parched earth with the first rain in five months. Or the storm that wouldn’t shut up over Victoria’s King Valley, and the one that painted the sky the most incredible twilight colours in Victoria’s Pyrenees.

There’s a sub‑tropical storm every time I go to Brisbane, so I can only assume that the city is in a permanent state of anarchy.

Whether they delight or devastate, thunderstorms will once again be the summer drama queen, causing havoc at the cricket, unleashing hailstones the size of stone fruit, bearing down on beachgoers, zapping powerlines and starting bushfires. And when it happens, we all know where we’ll be. Outside, breathing in the smell of rain and calculating how far away the beast is. Waiting for the flash and counting the seconds: one, two, three…

Ricky is a writer, musician and storm boy.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

I

t’s warm weather, and that means one thing. Yes, swollen ankles, but it’s also the time of year I ponder on whether or not to get coloured pigment injected deep into my dermis. My tattological clock starts ticking every “short sleeves” season, and the skin on my left outer bicep wakes up and starts grumbling about how it would quite like some ink, thank you.

You could argue that if I’ve not done the deed after a couple of decades of thinking about it, then I should walk away, Renee.

And yet the itch persists, and my left upper arm keeps signalling that it’s missing a little something. Good on you, arm, I’ve thought many a time, not hostile to the impulse, but utterly clueless as to what, exactly, I should get inked on my body for All Eternity.

What if I get it wrong? What if I hate it?

What if I get caught up in some embarrassing cultural rip and emerge with a Celtic barbedwire arm band incorporating Japanese calligraphy that I thought meant strength and beauty but translates to supermarket car park? Sure, cold sweats just thinking about it. But after 20 years of foot-dragging my psychopathology is unlikely to be “leaping on a bandwagon”. More “avoiding commitment in case I get things wrong”.

There are, we’re told, so many ways to do tattoos wrong. People be Judgey McJudgeface.

It’s permanent. It’s ugly. It’s unfeminine. What if you want a job in a bank? Hmm. The perennial question is What Will They Look Like When You’re Older? WHAT HAPPENS when you’re no longer a young and gorgeous burlesque dancer, and your tattoo is less “sweet sexy mermaid”, and more “Ursula the sea witch”? What happens then, eh? One day you’ll be ancient and saggy, and you’ll regret that leopard ready to spring from your shoulder, lush begonias circling your breasts, and your exciting nonconformist life hanging with carnies and creatives and dancers. What rubbish.

News flash: one day we will all – if we’re lucky – be ancient and saggy. Well-lived skin art is neither here nor there by then. Sure, not all tattoos are winners, but it’s a load of ageist hogwash to imply that older people should fade away like sunroom curtains and ensure they don’t offend anyone’s aesthetic sensibilities with their blurred tatts and uglyarse decrepitude. Come on, the purpose of life isn’t to die in the same condition you arrived in from the factory. We’re not Star Wars figurines.

It’s odd, having opinions about what someone might look like when they’re 80 – or 60, or 40 – and using it as a stick to stop them expressing themselves now. Picturing myself as a cleanskin octogenarian doesn’t sound like a win, tbh. It sounds – and forgive me, my feathered friends – chicken.

Chicago educator Nora Flanagan gives a spoken word performance about tattoos, titled Storybook. She’s in her forties, fierce, smothered in tattoos, and looking forward to being the person in the nursing home who you know not to mess with. YES KWEEN. I am here for this. So, finally, are others.

In America in 2016, one in 20 people getting their first tattoo was over 60. In December, The Guardian reported an upswing in Brits over 60 getting inked. It’s bound to be similar here. The most refreshing part about aging is the fewer fucks you give about other people’s opinions.

The less society deems you worth looking at, the more it’s the perfect time to get ink.

Something bold and thrilling. Something irreducibly you to put the brakes on stereotypes of how “over 50” should behave.

So it’s a chook, then. Or Ursula the sea witch? She’s a total post-menopausal bad-arse with a good frock and don’t-screw-with-me vibes. Perfect.

Fiona is a writer and comedian with skin in the game.

21 JAN 2022

In Living Colour

The purpose of life isn’t to die in the same condition you arrived in from the factory.

We’re not Star Wars figurines.

25

Fiona

King Richard

Film 26

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

The biopic of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams is not so much about them and tennis as it is about their family, especially their father and coach, the titular King Richard.

by Aimee Knight @siraimeeknight

Aimee Knight is The Big Issue’s Film Editor.

PHOTOS BY CHIABELLA JAMES/WARNER BROS AND GETTY

The King’s Court

“My father was military,” says Smith. “When I was growing up, the kids don’t get a vote. You do what’s laid out for you, what’s established for you.

“In our first meeting, Venus said, ‘You know, it’s almost like they brainwashed us. Our punishment was that we couldn’t play tennis,’” he laughs. “It was like a Jedi mind trick. It wasn’t the standard thing of a parent pushing a child. It was throwing fuel on a fire coming from inside of Venus and Serena.

“That was a new parenting idea for me, of aligning with your children versus directing your children,” Smith continues. “It wasn’t, As a parent, I know and you don’t. You’re going to do what I say because I’m right and you’re little. It was a very different approach that was somewhat eye-opening.”

Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1942, much of Richard’s early life – referred to in oblique drop shots throughout the film – was marred by rampant racism in the Jim Crow-era South. King Richard hints that this adversity catalysed the brash personality that made him both a thorn in the side of hoity-toity tennis parents in 1990s SoCal, and an easy target for media ridicule as his daughters rose to sporting prominence.

Williams was oft seen animating prim and proper Wimbledon grandstands, brandishing a whiteboard with handwritten missives like “Welcome to the Williams Show!!”, prior to experiencing his first of several strokes in 2016.

So reverent is King Richard in rendering its title character that some critics have called the film a hagiography, bobbing and weaving as it does around the fact of Williams’ first family: the five children he seemingly forgot after shifting focus to his prodigiously gifted daughters (whose career he mapped in an 85‑page tome before they were even born).

“That vilification is still out there,” says his stepdaughter, Isha Price. An attorney by trade, she

21 JAN 2021

TH E MA KI NG VE NU S, RIOF TE NN IS SU PE RSTA RS : AR D AN D SE W IL LI AM S CH RE NA (F RO M LE FT ) IN 19 91

27

I

n 1995, budding tennis star Venus Williams, aged 14, was needled on TV by a white male journalist questioning her adolescent confidence. Her coach and firebrand father, Richard Williams, intervened. “You’re dealing with a little Black kid,” he told the reporter in the now infamous clip. “Let her be a kid.”

Actor Will Smith was struck by the segment when it first aired. “The look on Venus’ face burned in my heart,” he says. “That’s how I wanted my daughter to look when I showed up, like she had a lion. She was so confident and so comfortable that her lion wasn’t gonna let anything happen to her. You know, I fell in love with Richard Williams.

“That was 20-something years ago, and when the opportunity to be part of this came up, that was the first thing I remembered. I wanted to show a father protecting a daughter like that, to the world.”

Smith plays Williams in the heartfelt biopic King Richard, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (Joe Bell).

The richly detailed drama charts the patriarch’s plan to mould his modest pre-teen daughters, Venus and Serena, into the Grand Slam champs we know today.

It may seem counterintuitive, even paternalistic, to make a film about the Williams sisters – two of the world’s greatest living athletes – skewed through the identity of their divisive father, whose boisterous extroversion is nailed by coach Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn, Scandal) when he tells Richard, “You are the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, and I coached McEnroe.”

But centring the story in Richard Williams’ experience opens up thematic and narrative territory beyond that of an ESPN special. Though the tennis sequences are plenty exciting, King Richard scores more points off the court, around the dinner table, in the Compton home shared by Richard, his wife Oracene (Aunjanue Ellis, If Beale Street Could Talk) and their five spirited children.

“I wanted to make a movie that my mom could see,” says director Green, seated on a tennis court with his cast and key creatives alongside Venus and Serena Williams at the film’s global press conference in LA. “She’s never seen a tennis match before, but she understands what winning and losing is. She understands what family is, what love is, what struggle is.

“Will and Aunjanue [were] the backbone of the family – not only in the film but on set, creating an environment for everybody to excel. It was amazing to have those co-captains on the field.”

This isn’t the first time Smith has played a parent up against the odds. A father of three, he starred alongside his real-life son Jaden in The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) and After Earth (2013). He brings ferocity, tenderness, wisdom and, well, willpower to his portrayal of Richard – a man who, by all appearances, dedicated every waking minute to his family.

28

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

“It was a cool conversation,” Singleton continues. “We got to speak to them as people. Serena and Venus,” she says, addressing them, “you are two women I’ve looked up to my entire life, so it was really fun to get to know that side of you.”

“It was important I let people know just how big of a heart Venus has,” adds Sidney, 15, who’s appeared in Roots, Fences and Hidden Figures. “I had such an amazing experience getting to create this family.

And I was excited to try tennis.”

That’s right: both Singleton and Sidney had to learn to play the game like two of its all-time masters – a daunting prospect familiar to Smith, whose 2002 turn as indomitable heavyweight

Even if you don’t understand tennis, you understand family.

TOP: WILL SMITH IS KING RICHARD MIDDLE: RICHARD AND SERENA ON COURT IN COMPTON, 1991 BOTTOM:WIMBLEDON DOUBLES CHAMPS, 2009

Muhammad Ali was Oscar-nominated.

“There are professional fighters who can’t move like Muhammad Ali,” he says. “There are professional tennis players that can’t play like Venus and Serena. I want the world to know that not only did Saniyya learn to play like Venus – Saniyya is left-handed. She learned to play like one of the greatest tennis players of all time with her off hand,” he says with pride.

“Being able to step into Venus’ shoes helped me grow as a young woman,” adds Sidney. “They were so humble at such a young age, and they had such a great father. Again, family is everything.”

“That’s what I really loved about this,” says Venus. “It’s a family film.

Even if you don’t understand tennis, you understand family, and with a family, you can do anything. Some of us are born with that, some of us have to create those families, but surrounding yourself with family can take you higher.”

KING RICHARD IS IN CINEMAS NOW.

21 JAN 2021

VENUS WILLIAMS

29

PHOTOS BY WARNER BROS AND GETTY

joined the project as an executive producer alongside her little sisters, because establishing trust and maintaining mutual respect with the filmmakers was a key concern. “It took some time to get there with my family, because there was a bit of distrust – as you can imagine, being in the public eye for as long as they have. Oftentimes in sport, you get one chance – one time to step up to the line and serve that ball – so you want to make sure it’s right.

“I might have gotten on a couple of people’s nerves on set, but I had a responsibility to my family,” she explains. King Richard may be named for their patriarch, but Price wanted to ensure due credit was laid upon their fiercely devoted mother, Oracene “Brandy” Price.

“We have these stories where you have the heroic male figure,” says Aunjanue Ellis, Oracene’s on‑screen conduit, who transforms the narrative when her character confronts Richard over his paternal and spousal shortcomings. “To do something where we did not see that Miss Oracene was a co-conspirator of this crazy dream would have been dishonest. We tried to give her the presence she deserved because that’s the truth.”

Tennis may not be a team sport, but filmmaking is, and Ellis is also quick to recognise her co-stars, Demi Singleton and Saniyya Sidney, who play Serena and Venus, respectively. “I worked with these amazing young women,” she says. “They educated me. They make it look easy: I’m just having a good time with Will Smith today. But that’s the deception of their genius. [Not] everybody can have such a lived-in experience like that on camera.”

Just shy of 15, Singleton is an actor, singer and dancer previously seen in the crime drama Godfather of Harlem. To prepare for this major undertaking, she says, “Saniyya and I did a lot of research.

It was really important to us that everything we did was real, because this is not our story, it’s theirs.” Surprising, then, their conversations with the Williams sisters touched on everything but tennis. “We spoke about their life, their childhood, the people they dated growing up,” says Singleton, laughter volleying across her castmates.

“To make sure we were portrayed in the right way,” Serena clarifies, tongue in cheek.

Grace Cummings XXX XXX Music

X

A Perfect Storm

30

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Melbourne artist Grace Cummings reaches high and low to touch the elements on her second album, Storm Queen.

by Lachlan Kanoniuk

Lachlan Kanoniuk is a screenwriter and critic living in Melbourne.

“We’ve been telling the same stories over and over again for fucking however long, you know?

And we do it for a reason. Because they’re real and they’re true. We all understand them or don’t understand them, in equal measure. These big things, they are dramatic just by their nature.

I don’t know if I necessarily get that from being an actor. I think I get it from just being a dramatic person myself,” she wryly states.

An appreciation for the classics, whether it be literature or the golden age of singer-songwriters, informs Cummings’ approach to lyrical and musical composition. It’s a determined method, though she says it doesn’t come at the expense of observing contemporary works.

“My nature is to draw on classic things, but not as a rule. It’s just how it happens. The same way that everyone goes and sees Hamlet again, or

STORM QUEEN IS OUT NOW.

21 JAN 2022

If I did believe in God, I think there would be many of them, like the ancient Greeks.

goes in and sees Chekhov, or a new play with old themes. You go because you’re hoping that person can show you something about that story that you don’t know yet,” she explains. “I try to be in my own voice as much as I can, with the hopes that I’ll be able to show somebody something that they might not already know.”

The songs on Storm Queen often paint landscapes using lyrical and sonic palettes, the authenticity of which is the result of Cummings sourcing inspiration beyond her base in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Her new music was particularly informed by the transformation of bushfire-affected regions in Victoria.

“I spend a lot of time in the country. A particular place in East Gippsland was in my head when I wrote a lot of these songs. And it was especially important for me last year, because a lot of that area had burnt down just before the 2020 new year,” she explains.

“Before that happened, directly after that happened, and then a little while after that when everything started to grow back: all three of those images are equally meaningful.”

It was in regional Victoria where Cummings played her last show before the pandemic took hold, supporting American artist Weyes Blood in Castlemaine in March 2020. With touring off the cards, the trajectory of her debut album, Refuge Cove, released in November 2019, was cut short.

Plans for a second album had to be adapted to the practical limitations of lockdown uncertainty.

Her original intention was to arrange and record an album with a full band every step of the way, but the logistics made that impossible. Instead, instrumental flourish is used sparingly, but effectively – notably the searing saxophone on ‘Storm Queen’ and show-stopping theremin on album closer ‘Fly a Kite’.

“I had a bunch of songs, mostly that I wrote during lockdown. There was around two weeks where I was able to get into the studio, teach everyone the parts to those songs. It’s still quite a minimal album for that reason,” she says.

“Thankfully we all managed to get in the same place for two days.”

The live debut of Storm Queen also marked the return of live music in Cummings’ home state, opening the Play on Victoria special event in October 2021. It was a moment of relief and celebration. “You could feel it in the air. I really was jumping for joy. I know it’s a cliché, but it really did feel as though we were all there together,” she recalls. “I’ve never felt that quite so much.”

31

I

t’s there on the album cover. A crimson rosella is held aloft, much like Hamlet’s skull of Yorick, setting the scene for a fealty to nature, and propensity for dramatic storytelling. Storm Queen, the second album from vocal powerhouse Grace Cummings, is elemental on several levels, folk songs set in lyrical climates ranging from freezing cold winters to raging firestorms.

Cummings’ awe-struck reverence for the power of nature borders on religious fervour, evident in a voice that calls to mind both a preacher mid‑exorcism in the lower registers and an ornate choir solo when hitting higher notes.

“Worshipping and fearing nature, as well as it being like a religion, is absolutely spot on for me,” says Cummings, over the phone. “If I did believe in God, I think there would be many of them, like the ancient Greeks.” The titular ‘Storm Queen’ plays the role of one of these gods, a vengeful counterpart to Mother Nature.

Along with the appreciation for millennia-old stories and mythology, Cummings also treads the boards for Melbourne Theatre Company, explaining her flair for the dramatic – or perhaps it stems from something more fundamental.

XXX

Books

Siri Hustvedt

XXXxxx XXXxxx

by XXX XXX @xxx

XXX

X

XXX

Hey, Siri Celebrated author Siri Hustvedt talks art, rage, hope and her new memoir-tinged essay collection, Mothers, Fathers and Others.

by Jo Case @jocaseau

Jo Case is Books and Ideas Deputy Editor at The Conversation and a writer and critic based in Adelaide.

PHOTO BY GETTY

32

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

I

I

t’s late afternoon in Brooklyn when Siri Hustvedt pops up on my computer screen, her red lipstick vivid against her white‑blonde crop and white turtleneck sweater. She’s framed by bookshelves, on either side of a familiar painting over a mantlepiece: the original cover of her international bestseller, What I Loved, her third novel, a psychological thriller set in New York’s art world. She explains that her publisher commissioned the painting as a gift to her. “I think it’s just wonderful,” she says warmly.

While perhaps best known for What I Loved (2003), and the Booker-longlisted 2014 novel The Blazing World (also set in the New York art world), Hustvedt is the prolific author of seven novels, one book of poetry and eight books of non-fiction. We’re here to talk about her latest, an essay collection. Mothers, Fathers and Others ranges widely in scope: from the slivers of family memoir that open the book, to considerations of the placenta, translation and misogyny, and reflections on a horrific 1965 murder.

“The mutations of gender are all over my work from the beginning,” Hustvedt writes in one essay.

“It’s deep material, some of which I have no grasp of,”

intersectionality”. A voracious reader, she demonstrates a genuine openness to expanding or adapting her views in response to what she reads and learns.

In one essay, she compares current debates about internet addiction to the 18th-century outcry against the novel in England. New technologies, she writes, are always viewed as dangerous, from the novel to the railroad, television and now the internet. When I ask her about it, she excitedly reveals that even though it’s a very recent essay, her views have evolved since.

“I’m curious about the degree to which the people who set the algorithms in motion can predict the end products.” We talk about the way social media dictates reading or viewing paths. “You’re drawn into a pit,” she says. “They know that negative emotions draw people in. That’s part of who we are. Erotic imagery, angry imagery – all of it is arousing, and it keeps people interested and looking.” Is that new? “No,” she says, telling me that when mass literacy happened in England, “they couldn’t translate anti-clerical French pornography into English fast enough.”

The pandemic comes up, of course – in the book and in our conversation. It shows us, Hustvedt says, that we’re all profoundly connected, socially and

biologically. Did the pandemic and the government response have an effect on the presidential election?

“In a nitty-gritty sense, the fear and disappointment with you-know-who’s handling of the pandemic did have an effect, absolutely,” she says. “But has it altered, for example, the nativist supporters of the former president? No. The pandemic may even have fanned the flames of right-wing populism across the globe.”

While things look grim, Hustvedt is heartened by the progressive movement’s response to Trumpism, and says that grassroots activist groups around the country “are working really hard”. She was part of a small group that formed calling themselves Writers Against Trump (now renamed Writers for Democratic Action). Hustvedt hopes that the “racial reckoning” in response to the murder of George Floyd will be lasting. Another sign of hope, she says, is the opening of the “tremendously closed system” of the arts to people of colour and women. “Let’s hope it’s not fashion,” she says. “We have to hope it’s genuine change. That once the doors are open, they can’t close again.”

MOTHERS, FATHERS AND OTHERS IS OUT NOW.

33

she tells me. A feminist since she was 14, Hustvedt believes her sense of a gender hierarchy is rooted even earlier, before she was able to articulate it. She writes about the accommodations expected of nice girls in the world of Midwest Minnesota, where she grew up.

“Smiles and nods and gold stars” were rewards for the “sensitive reader of the desires of others”. Women were taught to suppress any frustration that came from the sublimation of their own needs.

These essays fairly burst with women who fight their suppression. There is Hustvedt’s paternal grandmother, a difficult woman inspiring complicated feelings, whose anger at her poverty and a marriage she regretted “helped her survive”. Then there’s Hustvedt herself, furious at being judged on her looks (a woman she hoped would mentor her once asked “What are you doing at graduate school? You look like Grace Kelly”) and also on her famous husband, novelist Paul Auster (she was once asked by a German journalist if Auster wrote Hustvedt’s first novel, The Blindfold).

“Rage is a useful feeling,” says Hustvedt. She quotes Audre Lorde’s 1981 essay ‘The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism’, and says that she has “taken deeply to heart” Lorde’s criticism of white feminists who have shut their eyes to “what is now called

21 JAN 2022

We have to hope it’s genuine change. That once the doors are open, they can’t close again.

Film Reviews

Aimee Knight Film Editor @siraimeknight

D

utch auteur and professional pervert Paul Verhoeven is back in the Sapphic habit. His historical drama Benedetta takes cues from the true tale of Tuscan nun Benedetta Carlini, who, in the 17th century, was beset by visions divine, violent and erotic. Inside the dubious sanctity of her Catholic convent, holier-than-thou Benedetta (Virginie Efira) performs miracles, disturbs the clergy and becomes intimately entangled with the novice Sister Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia) – the dark to Benedetta’s light. Fans of Verhoeven’s Showgirls (1995) will be titillated by his textbook fascination with women who love women, and how that power dynamic plays out in cloistered worlds. Though it lacks the deliciously unhinged satire of RoboCop (1987) and Starship Troopers (1997), Benedetta – in cinemas from 10 February – is a curious reflection on taboo, corruption, mysticism and martyrdom.

Moving from the Renaissance to the metaverse, cyber-fantasy anime Belle (Mamoru Hosoda) also explores the effects of cultural repression on young women. Here it takes place in contemporary Japan, and on an alternative reality platform called “U”, where grieving teen Suzu (Kaho Nakamura) finds viral stardom via her pop singer alter-ego, Belle. It treads similar territory to the Oscar-nominated director’s earlier Summer Wars (2009), but it’s worth seeing on the big screen for its sweeping virtual vistas full of creepy-cute avatars and a seemingly weightless humpback whale covered in subwoofer barnacles. AK

XXX NUN TOO HAPPY

THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE 

With her gaudy-glam style, caked-on make-up and bouffant hair, Tammy Faye Bakker – played with great empathy and a Betty Boop giggle by Jessica Chastain in this biopic – was not your typical preacher’s wife. But before she got divorced, and before she was embraced, rather surprisingly, by the LGBTQ+ community, she was a pioneer of televangelism. The satellite network she founded in the 1970s alongside then-husband Jim Bakker, played here by Andrew Garfield, beamed Christian programming into millions of homes across the US and internationally – until being rocked by scandals that saw the couple exiled from their empire, with Tammy in particular made the butt of many a late-night talk show joke. The Eyes of Tammy Faye, named for the 2000 RuPaul-narrated documentary from 2000 on which it’s based, dutifully charts Jim and Tammy’s rags-to-riches rise and their dizzying fall. What a shame that Michael Showalter’s film lacks the campy exuberance that characterised the pint-sized personality herself. KEVA YORK RED ROCKET

34

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU



Is it too early to announce the feel-bad sex comedy of the year? Sean Baker’s follow-up to The Florida Project (2017) continues to illustrate life on the margins with neo-realist verve, but this time exudes a riveting, febrile energy through its ex-pornstar protagonist, Mikey Saber (Simon Rex). Mikey is a smooth operator who’s visibly rough around the edges. Having expended every last ounce of goodwill in Los Angeles, he’s forced to scurry back to his Texan home town with only the singlet on his back. He cannily exploits his estranged wife’s sympathy to crash on her spare couch (and, soon enough, occupy her bedroom), only to turn his attention to Strawberry (Suzanna Son), a freshly legal doughnut-store employee. Red Rocket launches into provocative territory, illuminating the squalor of Mikey’s narcissism while warming to his rascally sex appeal. Baker elides moralism for dark humour and hardcore eroticism, unflinchingly assessing the intersection of sexual fantasy and exploitation. It’s a tale as American as apple pie. JAMIE TRAM

LIMBO 

On a secluded Scottish island, the only local colour to be found is the asylum seekers stuck in immigration limbo. Wandering the isle is a deadpan Syrian refugee named Omar (Amir El-Masry) who has talent for the oud. That lute is his closest companion, and he’s almost never seen without it – his last link to the life he left in search of a new beginning. In between loitering around with his Freddie Mercury-admiring flatmate, Farhad (Viskash Bhai), run-ins with the freewheeling local youth, and cringing through awkward integration classes, Omar finds himself with abundant free time to ponder his past and contemplate his future. The island’s quirky wryness loses its charm as Omar grows disillusioned with migration, while the fate of his militant brother and cash-strapped parents weighs heavy on his mind. Limbo matches whimsy with poetics. It gives nuance to stereotypes, frames rundown flats in a harmonious visual style, and finds depth within the story of a simple man looking for a home. BRUCE KOUSSABA

Small Screen Reviews

Claire Cao Small Screens Editor @clairexinwen

ARAATIKA: RISE UP!  | NITV

THE AFTERPARTY

 | APPLE TV+

 | 28 JAN ON APPLE TV+

Few Shakespeare murders are as famous as the assassination of King Duncan by the traitor Macbeth (Denzel Washington), who’s promised the crown by three foreboding witches and makes an accomplice of his spouse, Lady Macbeth (Frances McDormand).

In the dead of night Macbeth slits his liege’s throat and declares himself lord of the land by daybreak. It’s almost as if the Bard of Avon’s classic was written to be a Coen Brothers (Fargo, No Country for Old Men) motion picture. The tragedy’s innate darkness is well‑suited to Joel Coen’s playbook – he’s flying solo as director for the first time. His gothic take is submerged in bleak black and white – creating harsh and moody silhouettes. It’s within these shadows that Macbeth begins to see daggers as he descends into madness.

The majesty of the acting talent is a sight to behold on its own; neither Washington nor McDormand nor the supporting cast pull punches, in a collection of exasperated monologues that build to a crescendo of spilt blood. BRUCE KOUSSABA

The mysterious murder of Bieber-esque pop star Xavier (Dave Franco) is at the centre of this new series from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie).

Helming the investigation is quirky cop Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish), who asks to hear each suspect’s “mind movie”.

Each episode features a new genre – the night is recounted as a rom-com, action film and psychological thriller, depending on the narrator. The solid line-up of comedians – Sam Richardson, Ilana Glazer and Ike Barinholtz – each gets an episode playing to their strengths. Some segments work better than others. Yasper’s (Ben Schwartz) musical episode is a standout, with dance sequences making full use of Schwartz’s goofy physicality. Jamie Demetriou (Fleabag) is particularly funny as the perennially ignored Walt, a character so meek no-one recalls his name. Zoe’s (Zoë Chao) cartoon episode, however, is a slog. Though it’s an amusing gimmick, The Afterparty’s mishmash of genres results in a series that feels disjointed.

IVANA BREHAS

D

esperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry has long been fascinated with the lacquered trappings of middle-class womanhood and the secrets seething beneath. The first season of his anthology series Why Women Kill showcased his penchant for murder and lipstick, but with a temporal twist – its leading ladies all lived in the same Pasadena mansion, decades apart.

Those who enjoyed this experimental turn may be disappointed by the second season, set solely in 1949. But fans of Cherry’s tropes will revel in this reversal-of-fortunes tale about “the middle-aged housewife no-one ever talks about. The drab sparrow no-one has time for.”

The sparrow in question is dowdy Alma (Allison Tolman), who longs to be part of a glamorous garden club headed by queen bee Rita Castillo (Lana Parrilla, known for playing another Evil Queen in Once Upon a Time).

As someone who formerly found Cherry a little schlocky, a little reductive, this season is delightful in its confident embrace of pitch-black humour. In this noir vortex of benevolent serial killers, spousal hatred and gorgeous sculptural gowns (courtesy of Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant), Cherry manages to shift his usual focus on marriage and fidelity to a more complex examination of traditional femininity. Among all these silken textures, the show asks: how hard will an invisible woman strive to attain these symbols? Alma’s moral descent is so delirious, so fun to watch, it gives Breaking Bad a run for its money. Catch both seasons on SBS on Demand. CC

21 JAN 2022

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

WHY WOMEN...THRILLS

35

Araatika: Rise Up! is the rare documentary that trusts in the power of its subject matter. Director Larissa Behrendt deftly shows the story of the NRL’s fraught uptake of a new and unique Aboriginal war dance. Behrendt demonstrates sensitivity for her subjects, affording public figures like Stan Grant as well as Elders like Yuin man Uncle Max substantial screen time to ruminate on the profound implications of the war dance and its relationship to football and culture. Pairing these interviews with archival footage of the NRL struggling to grapple with Indigenous identity, the propulsive narrative makes it clear that what’s really at stake is the cultivation of a new Indigenous dance tradition. The film’s primary subject is Anaiwan rugby player Dean Widders, whose infectious passion eventually spreads to younger generations of athletes as well as sports celebrities such as Adam Goodes. Culminating in a dance performance with historical weight, there’s a clear sense that this is just the beginning, with much more dancing to come. ZACH KARPINELLISON

Music Reviews

A

Isabella Trimboli Music Editor

36

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

new year, and new music from the David Bowie vaults. A new box set, Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001), chronicles his work in the 90s, and shows a master refusing to rest on his laurels, taking some of the most bold and experimental leaps of his career. With each album from this period, he traversed new, vast sonic terrain, including ambient, jungle, dance and electronic music and noise rock. At the time these albums received middling praise, and some accusations of trend hopping, but Bowie was simply doing what he had always done best: remaining open and curious, willing to take risks even if they didn’t always pay off.

I’m wary of the glut of box sets that arise when a huge star passes away – it’s hard to shake the feeling that these reissues and repackages have been put together simply for a cash grab. But this series, which surveys each era of Bowie’s work, is elegantly compiled, with unheard brilliance that fans will love.

The real gem here is the never-beforereleased TOY, a lost album from 2000, where Bowie reinterpreted some of his earliest songs with his then touring band (this has also been released as a standalone box set TOY: BOX).

It’s a fascinating listen, with Bowie adding polish and flourish to his rougher material. It doesn’t always work, but the heights are worth it. The elegant, orchestral ‘Shadow Man’, originally from the Ziggy Stardust recording sessions, is beautiful, a ballad about being trailed by personal demons and fears. IT

IL LI AN T BO W IE ’S BR RE AD VE N T U

@itrimboli

KEYBOARD FANTASIES REIMAGINED VARIOUS ARTISTS 

Keyboard Fantasies Reimagined sees a wealth of revered contemporary musicians – including Blood Orange, Bon Iver, Arca and Kelsey Lu – reinterpreting Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s Keyboard Fantasies, a gorgeous album of meditative synth music released on cassette in 1986 to a small audience. The music of Philadelphia-born, Canada-based Glenn-Copeland was inexplicably unearthed in 2015 by a prominent record collector in Japan, kicking off widespread acknowledgement, a subsequent reissue in 2017, and now this new release.

None of the artists here craft versions that strongly utilise their own distinctive style, instead all take a similar approach of covering/remixing the songs with lush ambient arrangements. While enchanting, they lack the originality of these musicians’ own work, and ultimately leave listeners craving the simple purity of Glenn-Copeland’s originals. Julia Holter’s ‘Fastest Star’ is a standout, taking ‘Winter Astral’ from Keyboard Fantasies as a spine that she sings her own lyrics over. Overall, Keyboard Fantasies Reimagined is an enjoyable album, but mostly a generous recognition of an overlooked masterwork. ANGUS MCGRATH

BLAK MATRIARCHY BARKAA

COVERS CAT POWER





Hip-hop’s female MCs have long proclaimed themselves queens. For her debut EP, Blak Matriarchy, Malyangapa and Barkindji rapper BARKAA deploys the trope to specifically celebrate Blak womanhood and restate the sovereignty of First Nations Australians. In the boom-bap titular track, BARKAA resists British imperialism, blazing, “Couldn’t care less ’bout the monarch/Ima set fire to the kingdom, I’m coming for them.” BARKAA has already generated heat in Australia’s maledominated hip-hop scene, joining Briggs’ Bad Apples stable. In 2020, her ‘OUR Lives Matter’ became a Blak Lives Matter protest anthem.

On Blak Matriarchy, BARKAA unleashes more blunt truths, her observations sharp and her humour cutting as she shreds entrenched colonial narratives. BARKAA references past personal and institutional struggles in ‘Bow Down’, a song of resilience and triumph.

And she also reveals a comic irreverence, particularly in the jayteehazard-produced reggaeton single ‘King Brown’, about purging a toxic partner. CYCLONE WEHNER

This is the third time Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) has devoted an album to reinterpretations. Nothing here is quite as transformative as her whispery 2000 version of the Rolling Stones’ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, but Marshall’s aching murmur finds plenty of emotional grist in songs like Frank Ocean’s ‘Bad Religion’. While most of these selections were already Cat Power-style slow burns to start with, it’s still fascinating to hear her alterations. Marshall turns Bob Seger’s power ballad ‘Against the Wind’ into an eerie signal of personal upheaval and recasts Kitty Wells’ ‘It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels’ with slinky bass and finger snaps. Amid strong material by Lana Del Rey, Iggy Pop and Nick Cave, her singing is at its most animated on ‘Pa Pa Power’, a song by actor Ryan Gosling’s short-lived band Dead Man’s Bones. Self-produced by Marshall with a stark openness, Covers keeps up her tradition of reworking her own songs, spinning 2006’s bleak ‘Hate’ into a more hopeful new version dubbed ‘Unhate’. DOUG WALLEN

Book Reviews

Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor @melissajfulton

H

OUR HAPPY DAYS JULIA HOLBE





Another Day in the Colony is a powerful collection of essays written by Munanjahli and South Sea Islander woman, Chelsea Watego. Through rich and personal accounts, Watego exposes the insidious ways racism and violence are inflicted upon Black bodies in public spaces as well as large institutions, from the police force through to academia. Readers are spared familiar tropes of “fighting back”, with Watego instead writing from a place grounded in sovereign insistence. On matters of race, Watego establishes her positioning as the author: “I am not claiming the position of ‘knower’, rather I am showing how I came to know.” Written explicitly for Blackfellas using anecdotal storytelling that is both conversational and academically referenced, Another Day in the Colony calls for a strategic and collective refusal of state-sanctioned violence.

The book is above all a warm tribute to the intimate teachings, beauty, pain and joy shared in Black homes and around the kitchen table, across generations, and on any given day in the colony. LAURA LA ROSA

In Julia Holbe’s debut novel, translated from German by Imogen Taylor, four young women spend their summers together at the French seaside, their friendship forged over long and languid days filled with swimming, eating and wine-drinking. One summer, Lenica brings charismatic, carefree Sean along, whose charm initially excites the group but who ultimately leaves them burned. The novel alternates between those heady days and the present, decades later. Holbe’s prose is beautiful and her close examination of female friendship, first loves and reckoning with the past is sincere and absolute. Though the ending feels overly sentimental – the four women seem too sure of themselves and too bonded for one summertime man to tear them apart – this can largely be forgiven in favour of Holbe’s sunny seaside imagery and the value she places on friendship.

LAST LETTER TO A READER GERALD MURNANE 

In the author note to this, his final book, Gerald Murnane describes its writing as an effort “yet again to explain [himself]”. The book that’s resulted contains an essay on each of his previously published books, with one final piece about Last Letter to a Reader itself. These essays chart his development as a writer, and unpack the ways that his books came to be, with his consummate skill as a sentence maker and the richness that results from the sometimes “roundabout” ways Murnane approaches his subjects. Among the most electrifying moments is his essay on short story collection Emerald Blue, in which he notes the similarities between his Antipodes and the Brontë sisters’ own imagined worlds, asserting the seriousness of this work. Dotted throughout the book are moments of indignation about the ways that his work has been interpreted by literary critics, and the harshness of these moments is amusing and troubling in turn. But the wealth of Murnane’s insights and the poignance he achieves are difficult to deny. JACK ROWLAND

DANIELLE BAGNATO

37

ANOTHER DAY IN THE COLONY CHELSEA WATEGO

21 JAN 2022

ow I love reading cookbooks in bed! Between the glossy pages, the pristine photos and the far-flung destinations my mind conjures at the mention of ingredients – pomegranate molasses, saffron, orange zest – it’s a habit guaranteed to sustain that holiday feeling, even if you don’t cook a thing.

But it’s the writing that really gets me going, and Claudia Roden – titan of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cookery – writes about food like no other.

Now 85, Roden has spent much of her life travelling the world, accosting people on trains and in cafes and making friends of them by asking what their favourite dishes are. “There is a special conviviality and intimacy in the kitchen that you don’t quite get in the living room,” she says. Her latest, Med: A Cookbook, is a distillation of a life spent travelling, cooking and eating. The food, like the woman herself, is generous, unfussy and good fun.

Nigel Slater’s A Cook’s Book also has plenty to feast on. This one’s written in his signature diary style, bursting with odes to all things hearty and satisying, from the Big Mac, to kneading dough for bread, to the zip and sizzle of garlic in the pan. And the recipes are fresh, joyous and reliable. “Cooking – for me at least – is about making yourself something to eat and sharing food with others but also – whisper it – about the quiet moments of joy to be had along the way.” Sounds like permission to read in bed for a little longer, to me. MF

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

When you’re in a tree, it’s just you. Even if there’s another kid higher up or further down, it’s you figuring out how to climb. It’s you hearing your breathing and grunting as you find a foothold. It’s your voice, being swallowed by the tree all around you, that you hear most clearly. You are both very much yourself, when you’re climbing a tree, and also you’re looking out.

This magical juxtaposition makes you feel both big and small. Both brave and wary. All-seeing and yet self‑conscious.

There’s a breeze, sometimes, up there, that isn’t moving about among the people at ground level, whose concerns remain un-mussed by the gentle suggestion that they might not be the most important force in the universe.

Trees do another thing you don’t tend to see unless you’re in one, which is that they grow around things, and towards things, and bend and accommodate and, in that sense, have a consciousness, just like yours.

They have a different relationship to time, maybe, and perhaps they don’t care so much about things like having to pay bills or whether or not they have a staff meeting presentation, but they, like us, live in the world and impose themselves into it, somehow.

Looking down on other people is another thing about being in a tree that shifts you out of yourself.

They’re down there, worrying about their own little lives, seeing each other’s faces front-on, completely failing to look up and witness the majesty of scale.

There they are, down there, thinking that their entire experience of the world is framed by – let’s pick a distance not entirely at random – 1.5 metres. If

only they’d look up. If only they’d realise the depth of the scale.

You don’t have to climb a tree to get the perspectives offered by one. I do recommend it though. Climbing a hill is a great substitute. Astronauts report that they never think about the world in the same way again after looking back down at Earth as a ball in the universe.

Climbing a tree or a hill or peering out the window of a multi-storey building or looking down at Earth from an aeroplane offers perspective in much the same way.

Seeing all the tiny people. Focusing on one for just a few seconds and imagining all the thoughts going on in their head. What are they worried about? Where are they going? Who is thinking of them right now? Whose favourite person are they?

When I was in my tree, there was a trail of ants absolutely tearing about the place, in their perfect little rows, with their singular sense of purpose, and I had the most adult thought. I thought: easy for you, ants.

I wished, briefly, for their certainty, their organisational gifts, their one true calling. Down below, a child shouted instructions to me, urging me to gather the fortitude and dexterity required to climb further up the trunk. And maybe it is okay to momentarily want to be an ant, and to then clamber backwards down a tree in a most undignified fashion and receive the earth with grateful relief. Maybe it is okay to slip back into your normal, boring, stressful, everyday concerns without giving it a moment’s thought. It’s possible, too, to realise, a few hours later, that ants probably don’t laugh much. Ants probably don’t take delight. They don’t have an imagination or a bunch of idiot mates who make them giggle and feel better and try new things and roll their eyes at them.

Shifting yourself slightly from your normal frame, though, has a lot to recommend it. You can do it with your imagination. You can do it by socialising. You can do it by sitting in someone else’s kitchen. Suddenly it’s not just you, in your 1.5 metre frame, forgetting to look up.

Public Service Announcement: climb a tree. The world looks different up there.

Lorin Clarke is a Melbourne-based writer. The new series of her radio and podcast series, The Fitzroy Diaries, is on ABC Radio National and the ABC Listen app now.

39

I

did something recently that adults don’t often do. I climbed a tree. I didn’t climb it gracefully.

I didn’t climb it high. I climbed it because I was dared to, and if one is dared to climb a tree, one must do one’s very darnedest, regardless of one’s vintage.

Trees are all the things you remember them being.

Strong, scratchy, full of critters darting about getting on with their very important business. One thing I had forgotten though, is that being up a tree changes your perspective on the world completely.

Public Service Announcement: you’re at the bottom of the picture. Sometimes it’s good to shift your focus up slightly.

21 JAN 2022

Tree Change

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

40

PHOTOS BY COURTNEY YOUNG

Tastes Like Home Jennifer Congdon

Pikelets Ingredients Makes 24

Combine dry ingredients. Make a well in the centre, add milk and eggs. Gradually blend in flour with a wooden spoon. Then beat with a wooden spoon until smooth, and air bubbles form. Leave to rest for 30 minutes.

Cook spoonfuls of batter in a hot pan, greased with butter. Turn when bubbles appear on surface.

Remove from pan when cooked, and place on a wire rack covered with a tea towel.

Serve warm with butter and your favourite topping, or cold with jam and whipped cream.

SHARE

TIP We use wholegrain Rosella (wheat) Woodstock flour in this recipe and the pikelets are light and full of flavour.

I

grew up on a family farm called Woodstock in the Southern Riverina of New South Wales, where my dad had been raised. Many of my cherished childhood memories have a direct connection to food on this farm. Family gatherings involved delicious food and each aunt had her specialty. Our kitchen had a large wooden table in the centre of the room, and I was always amazed how many bodies could be squished around it. We ate most of our meals here and loved the food and conversation.

Mum is a good cook and always had the biscuit tins full and ready for unexpected guests invited in for a cuppa. Morning and afternoon tea were important rituals and it is fortunate that farm work helped to burn off some of these sweet breaks. We loved Anzacs, yo‑yos, shortbread, Afghans and chocolate slice to name a few.

But, on a winter’s day, I loved pikelets. We would get home from school, cold and hungry after running down our dirt track from the bus stop, where we’d be greeted with warm Milos and Mum making pikelets.

I remember Mum cooking the pikelet batter directly on the hot plate of the Everhot wood stove. When the batter bubbled, she would flip the pikelets over and place them on a tea towel when they were done. We ate them dripping with butter and golden syrup as quickly as she made them.

I now live on this family farm with my husband, and we make pikelets with our children and grandchildren.

The same table sits in the centre of the kitchen. We make our pikelets with stoneground wheat milled from organic grain grown on the farm. The pikelets still warm us all, and there is something special about this continued sharing of food with family and friends around the kitchen table.

21 JAN 2022

Method

Jennifer says…

PLAN TO RECREATE THIS FAVOURITE AT HOME? TAG US WITH YOUR PIKELETS! @BIGISSUEAUSTRALIA #TASTESLIKEHOME

JENNIFER CONGDON’S COOKBOOK WOODSTOCK: FARM, FOOD AND FAMILY IS AVAILABLE VIA WOODSTOCKBOOK.SQUARE.SITE.

41

2 cups flour pinch of salt 3 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda 1 tablespoon sugar 2 eggs, plus enough milk to make up to 2 cups Butter to grease the pan

Puzzles

ANSWERS PAGE 45.

By Lingo!

by Lee Murray leemurray.id.au PROTEST

CLUES 5 letters Bout of overeating Carry, fetch Existing Middleman Salt‑water solution 6 letters Deep red precious stone Eye membrane Noisy firework Playful repartee Win back 7 letters Enter rudely and without permission (2 words) Piece of mesh for the head Posture, deportment Warming 8 letters Make cheerier

I

H G

E N B R

T

A

Sudoku

by websudoku.com

Each column, row and 3 x 3 box must contain all numbers 1 to 9.

9 6 4 8 6 1 5

5 6

1

8

5 2 8 6 2 3 5 7 2 9 1 2 8 5 8 4 1

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD PAGE 45 ACROSS 1 Castle 4 Adjacent 10 Lightning 11 Cuffs 12 Mean 13 Attendance 15 Thunder 16 Single 19 Jejune 21 Fraught 23 Capitalise 25 User 27 Eagle 28 Propagate 29 Minstrel 30 Govern

DOWN 1 Cellmate 2 Signature 3 Lute 5 Digress 6 Accidental 7 Elfin 8 Tasked 9 Kilter 14 Adjustment 17 Legislate 18 Sturgeon 20 Eclipse 21 Fusion 22 Scream 24 Pagan 26 Halo

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka 2 USA 3 Kristen Stewart 4 d) 1973 5 Coronation Street 6 New Caledonia 7 Pope John Paul II 8 White 9 10am 10 Netherlands 11 Barry, Wales 12 Ange Postecoglou 13 Goya Awards 14 Canola oil 15 Pseudo Echo 16 Travis Head 17 Pamela Stephenson 18 E 19 Nikki Webster 20 Four

21 JAN 2022

Using all nine letters provided, can you answer these clues?

Every answer must include the central letter.

Plus, which word uses all nine letters?

by puzzler.com

43

Word Builder

We’ve seen a lot of protests in the media in the last few months.

However, protest didn’t actually develop its sense of being against something until relatively recently.

Protest comes to us from Latin: pro – “in public, out” and testari – “declare”, with the overall meaning of “assert strongly and publicly”. (And no, the similarity between testārī and words like testify or attest is not a coincidence!) By the 1450s, protest had made its way into English and meant “make a claim or vow”. It wasn’t until the late 1500s that protest started to take on a sense of opposing something rather than just asserting it. It was another 300 years before it began to describe a big group of people publicly expressing their opposition to something.

Crossword

by Steve Knight

Quick Clues

THE ANSWERS FOR THE CRYPTIC AND QUICK CLUES ARE THE SAME. ANSWERS PAGE 43.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10

11

ACROSS

1 Fortress (6) 4 Bordering (8) 10 Weather phenomenon (9) 11 Restraints (5) 12 Average (4) 13 Presence (10) 15 Weather phenomenon associated

with 10ac (7)

13 14 16

17 18

19

20

21

DOWN

22 23

24

25 26

27

28

29

30

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

ACROSS

DOWN

1 Keep thermal coat in case (6) 4 A record spinner gets a little cash on the

1 Phone a friend or pen pal? (8) 2 Stamp in giant letters “POSITIVE CASES” (9) 3 String instrument spoils recording (4) 5 Deviate upset marine in drag? (7) 6 Random act Iceland concealed (10) 7 Naked selfie the third for Tina Fey (5) 8 Charged at desk jockeys (6) 9 Condition of Glasgow sewer? (6) 14 Change commercial with Good Guys model (10) 17 Constitute after support is passed (9) 18 Salt coating egg on fish (8) 20 Obscure snippets during EastEnders? (7) 21 Union of US I once embraced (6) 22 Riot from outing as massacre erupts (6) 24 She may not believe old man on horseback (5) 26 Greetings after the Mexican left for a Corona (4)

side (8)

10 Inflammation constrains finish for Usain

Bolt (9)

11 Copper’s shackles, foolproof restraints! (5) 12 Cheap import (4) 13 A decent tan disguised appearance (10) 15 Essentially anything lower for 10ac sound (7) 16 One of Sean Connery’s roof tiles? (6) 19 In Paris, I twice ran over a pedestrian (6) 21 Charged with false scam reportedly (7) 23 Exploit shift working to do this? (10) 25 Customer remains after Charlie and Tom

depart (4) 27 Occasionally Texan golfer has one of these! (5) 28 Reproduce decent stride in audition (9) 29 Old player’s terminals missing a battery? (8) 30 Guide carrying overnight bags (6)

1 Fellow prisoner (8) 2 Autograph (9) 3 String instrument (4) 5 Meander (7) 6 Inadvertent (10) 7 Impish (5) 8 Assigned (6) 9 Good order or condition (6) 14 Adaptation (10) 17 Pass law (9) 18 Northern hemisphere fish (8) 20 Astronomical event (7) 21 Blending (6) 22 Shriek (6) 24 Heathen (5) 26 Circle of light (4)

SUDOKU PAGE 43

9 6 3 2 1 7 8 4 5

2 4 8 6 5 9 7 1 3

7 5 1 4 8 3 2 6 9

5 7 6 1 9 2 4 3 8

3 1 9 7 4 8 5 2 6

8 2 4 5 3 6 9 7 1

1 3 5 8 7 4 6 9 2

4 9 2 3 6 5 1 8 7

6 8 7 9 2 1 3 5 4

Puzzle by websudoku.com

WORD BUILDER PAGE 43 5 Binge Bring Being Agent Brine 6 Garnet Retina Banger Banter Regain 7 Barge in Hairnet Bearing Heating 8 Brighten 9 Breathing

21 JAN 2022

15

16 Sole (6) 19 Dull or uninspiring (6) 21 Anxious (7) 23 Put to advantage (10) 25 C onsumer (4) 27 Bird of prey (5) 28 Breed (9) 29 Medieval musician (8) 30 Rule (6)

45

12

Click 2000

Pete Sampras and Roy Emerson

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

46

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

B

efore there was Roger, Rafa and Joker, there was Pete Sampras, and before Pete Sampras there was the guy to his left, Roy Emerson, the least‑known high-achieving Aussie sports superstar.

Ahead of this year’s Australian Open, the big three are locked in a battle for the most men’s Grand Slam titles, having won 20 apiece. Pete Sampras previously had the most, 14, a boast that was his for seven years. Before Sampras, Emerson reigned supreme, with 12 titles – a record he held for 33 years, from 1967.

Emerson played in Australian tennis’ golden era, the 1960s, when 32 of the 40 men’s Grand Slam titles were won by players with an emu and a kangaroo on their passport. He was born in Blackbutt, Queensland, a small town high on the Great Dividing Range northwest of Brisbane, named after the gum tree. Growing up on a farm, he milked cows every morning, which sportswriters theorised strengthened his wrists and forearms. Going barefoot, he would stand in manure to warm his feet. Of such trials are champions made.

Emerson put a premium on fitness, and was famous for his “no excuses” policy: “We believe that if you play, then you aren’t injured, and that’s that.” Stern perhaps,

but Emerson was of his time, which also included not taking things too seriously. One article notes he was a “great character”, offering as evidence that he routinely woke roommate Ashley Cooper “by grabbing him in a headlock and slamming him into the floor”. Novel.

His first major was the 1961 Australian Open, followed by that year’s US Open, both times beating fellow Queenslander Rod Laver, generally considered the game’s greatest, alongside Roger Federer. Emerson reached 15 Grand Slam finals, losing just three, all of them in 1962, to Laver. In December that year Laver turned pro, disqualifying him from the amateur-only Grand Slams.

Emerson’s last major title was the 1967 French Open. When the Slams opened to pros in 1968, Laver returned – and took all four titles the following year, as he had in 1962.

It is for this reason – the absence of Laver – that Emerson is not uppermost in our minds, as well as the fact that from 1968 he has lived in California. Funnily enough, “we moved to Newport Beach because Rod (Laver) lived there”.

For all that, Emerson remains the only men’s player to have won singles and doubles at all four majors, and his 28 Grand Slam titles in the two formats remains the highest.

47

21 JAN 2022