The Big Issue Australia #630 – Jessica Mauboy

Ed.

630 12 FEB 2021

C

…

28.

JOHN CARPENTER

22.

MULLETFEST

18.

BANGARRA

AT TH E F LI

THE MOME D ED HE NT N A ANG R H

and

40.

ENCHILADAS

NO CASH? NO WORRIES!

Some Big Issue vendors now offer contactless payments.

NATIONAL OFFICE

Chief Executive Officer Steven Persson Chief Financial Officer Jon Whitehead Chief Operating Officer (Interim) Chris Enright National Communications and Partnerships Manager Steph Say National Operations Manager Jeremy Urquhart EDITORIAL

Editor Amy Hetherington Deputy Editor Melissa Fulton Contributing Editor Michael Epis Contributing Editor Anastasia Safioleas Editorial Coordinator Lorraine Pink Art Direction & Design GOZER (gozer.com.au)

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Contents

EDITION

630

18

Lighting the Fire This year, Indigenous dance company Bangarra celebrates 30 years with artistic director Stephen Page at the helm, and new film Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra.

22 THE BIG PICTURE

Crowning Glory

12.

Kurri Kurri, NSW, is the centre of the mullet universe – and boy, do they know how to rock a ’do.

From That Moment...

by Melissa Fulton

Australian Idol and all-round star Jessica Mauboy tells all about growing up in the Northern Territory, what she owes to her mum and dad, and how a dance-floor crab-claw led to true love. cover photo by Nicole Bentley contents photo by Getty

THE REGULARS

04 Ed’s Letter & Your Say 05 Meet Your Vendor 06 Streetsheet 08 Hearsay & 20 Questions 11 My Word 26 Ricky

27 Fiona 34 Film Reviews 35 Small Screen Reviews 36 Music Reviews 37 Book Reviews 39 Public Service Announcement

40 Tastes Like Home 43 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

CONTENT WARNING

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island readers are warned that this magazine contains references to people who have died (p18-21).

28 MUSIC

Carpenter, Director, Musician John Carpenter is best known for horror films such as Halloween, but these days he’s more of a musician.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

E FO RT NI GH T LE TT ER OF TH

All Together Now

I

have a loud laugh.

Yes, I’m one of those people – or so I’ve been told.

It’s hereditary.

My grandpa was famous for sliding straight off the couch while watching Morecambe and Wise, he’d shake so hard with side‑splitting laughter.

But I only just noticed my own LOLs had been missing these past several months, once the editorial team returned to our office in the Melbourne CBD. It turns out working from home is not so conducive to riotous mirth, the kind that leaves your cheeks aching and wet with happy tears. Zoom meetings are more a tee-hee kind of affair as you politely take turns to talk or wait for a screen to unfreeze.

So, it was a joy to be back face-to-face again for this edition (albeit all masked up and socially distanced), after putting together 21 issues remotely. It’s much easier to debate a semicolon in person.

Your Say

It’s also gratifying to see the city slowly coming back to life: outdoor cafes full of people catching up for lunch in the sunshine, lines for the library spilling out onto the street, buskers performing to small crowds. And, of course, more of you stopping for a mag and a chat with Big Issue vendors.

That buzz, that hope, can be felt around the country. In Adelaide, I’m told, the city is tingling in anticipation of Mad March, a celebration of the arts that actually kicks off this month with the Fringe and the Festival, then WOMAD. Among the headliners is our cover star Jessica Mauboy, who shares her Letter to My Younger Self, revealing the transformative love of family, the connecting power of music and the moment that changed her life.

Meanwhile, the Hunter Valley region is abuzz with hair clippers, as the town of Kurri Kurri prepares for this month’s annual Mulletfest. Whether you’re at home or in the workplace, it’s a story sure to deliver the life-affirming LOLs.

I’m writing to you with a shout-out for one of your awesome vendors.

I hope my description of him as the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing happy-chappy with a very impressive beard at Roma Street Station in Brisbane will be enough to identify him. He always has the biggest smile, wishing everyone a good morning as they pass on their commute. When I stopped to buy a copy of The Big Issue, he was as friendly as he seemed and our chat truly made my day. Sending a big thanks to him for being a beacon of positivity!

ELIN RIBBONS MOUNT GRAVATT EAST I QLD

Ed – Thanks Elin, your beacon of positivity is Greg.

I would like to give a shout-out to the lovely older gentleman who was outside the Block Arcade on Bourke Street in Melbourne on Friday 22 January. You truly made my day with a lovely warm greeting and I wish nothing but the best for you! Thank you to The Big Issue for supporting this gentleman.

LAUREN JOLLY KEW I VIC

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 24 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.

Ed – Thanks Lauren, you were talking with Chris.

• 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 20 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 Classroom educates school groups about homelessness.

CHECK OUT ALL THE DETAILS AT THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Elin wins a copy of The Kindness Community Vegan Cookbook by Edgar’s Mission. You can read Mel Baker’s recipe for Spicy Sweet Potato and Mexican Bean Enchiladas from the book 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

interview by Anastasia Safioleas photo by James Braund

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

12 FEB 2021

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE OUTSIDE TARGET, BOURKE ST, MELBOURNE

05

Pat

I was born in the UK in Surrey. I came to Australia when I was really little.

I still love the old country – it hurts my heart that I missed out on all my cousins, my grandparents, my uncles – but I’ve been in Melbourne my whole life. I had a really happy childhood, and we had the best parents.

I was never really that great at school, so I left when I was 15. I worked at the old Cottee’s cordial factory in Blackburn. That was a nice job. At Christmas you’d get an extra week’s pay. I was underage then, but they’d also give you a dozen bottles of beer! Then I joined the railways. That was a lovely job too, talking to the travelling public. I started off as a junior station assistant. You had to sweep the platform, collect the tickets.

Then I became a station assistant and after that a signal assistant. It was daunting – we had to make sure we only had the one train on each line!

When I became a station master in my own right, I had my own station.

We had to do interstate bookings and I used to help people plan their holidays. I loved it. We had an old signal panel and had to shunt trains.

It was such a great job but then Jeff Kennett came out and told us “Make the best of it. It’s not going to last.”

So, I got a job making dental products. It’s where I did my back – lifting bags of material into moulding machines. But one day they got a new manager. He called me into the office and said “Pat, there’s nothing wrong with your work but we’re restructuring. There’s your money.

See you later.” I was devastated. I still am in a way. I was pretty depressed after that.

I was just sitting at home, so I started collecting money for cancer patients. I met a friend there who had been at The Big Issue. He knew I couldn’t get a job because of my back and knees so he said give The Big Issue a go. I started selling the magazine and gee I enjoy it.

I get immense satisfaction talking to people. They’ll tell me about their kids, their husband, about their private life – some people really open up to you. I’ll never get wealthy selling The Big Issue but I get satisfaction and pride. Self-esteem that you’re working and you’re giving back to the community. I don’t know if it sounds a bit old-fashioned, but I don’t believe in being a burden to my country.

I would like to tell my customers that I really appreciate them. I love them all. I want them to be happy and prosperous. And to keep buying The Big Issue! I really care about every one of them. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

Purr-fect Pal

06

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

I

t is with sadness that we farewell much-loved Perth vendor Liz, who has passed away. Liz started selling The Big Issue in 2017, and instantly captured the hearts of staff, vendors and customers. She was understated and kind, forming fast friendships with everyone she met. At vendor meetings, Liz would glide across the room, always with a kind word and willingness to listen to everyone. She saw the best in people, never judged and was always heartfelt in her interactions. Liz laughed easily, without restraint, and often mischievously. She was charismatic and could light up a room – it was hard not to smile in her presence. There was an ethereal quality to how Liz moved through the world, graceful and delicate, generous yet vulnerable. Liz spoke fondly of her days teaching kids to swim, and it was easy to imagine how at home she felt in the water. She loved her cats, and was devoted to her best friend Misty, and they featured together in the 2019 Calendar. Liz was our boho hippie queen – the Stevie Nicks (who she adored) of our Big Issue community. She made our world a more joyful and kind place, and we will miss her terribly.

Thank you, Liz, for being authentically you. Rest in peace.

ANDREW JOSKE WA OPERATIONS MANAGER

DOUG CNR SWANSTON & LONSDALE STS I MELBOURNE

Reach for the Stars A wonder of a friend, who lends an ear and heart when I’m so low I can’t move off the floor, gave me a Chrissie pressie. Glow-in-the‑dark stars. With glee, I stuck them to the bare white walls – I even tried a smile, but it didn’t work so I turned it into a full moon. I was joyful in my creative flow. Then one night after listening to music, I looked and saw no shine. Were the stars broken? For weeks they didn’t shine. Then last night, late, I looked up and the little stars were shining bright as can be, true blue and such a glow. They work, yippee! What had changed? Let’s see… Yesterday, after a long while, I got up, opened

PHOTOS BY ROSS SWANBOROUGH AND BARRY STREET

Farewell Liz

It was six or seven years ago now when I heard a meow at my front door. I wondered what was going on, so I opened the door and there was a little kitten sitting there, so I brought him in and looked after him. He is trained well, goes outside to do his business – straight from the start he did that. He talks to me – he meows and I meow back – we have great conversations. When he leaves, he turns his head and meows goodbye and I meow goodbye back to him.

He is so grouse; he is not like a normal cat. The way I look after him, he thinks he is human. He loves being scratched on his belly – cats don’t normally like that – you really have no idea how grouse this cat is. He is unbelievable and he follows me everywhere. He brings me a lot of joy and love when he looks at me with his loving eyes – it melts my heart.

We have a strong connection and I think he was sent to me for a reason. It was meant to be.

the blinds, took my trolley out, greeted the morn with a smile and music and sold a few mags, then got back home and let the sun in. I guess that’s different than staying in the dark – being anxious, depressed and not being happy does dull my glow. Like the little stars on the walls, we need unity in community to glow and not mirror the hate and hurt that keeps us locked up so.

RACHEL T PYRMONT I SYDNEY

Taking Care of Me I am a new vendor in Adelaide.

I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly, and I love my job meeting and greeting the multicultural community in the city of churches.

It’s been a life-changing journey.

The Big Issue team gave me a lifeline back into the community and expanded my horizon. I know that I am not alone out there.

The money I earn will go towards paying bills and my tuition for further studies. Basically, my primary goal is to live and feel happy. Live my dream life.

I recognise that for the first time in my life, I am taking care of me, so no regrets! I’d been living like a hermit because I didn’t want to trust, to be hurt by others. Being alone was an option, and I was lying to myself pretending to be okay. Then I made friends, real friends, people like me! Finally, I had found like-minded people who made me feel comfortable and accepted me just the way I am.

GLENN’S ON TARGET

Personal Best I got a medal and a certificate for a high score in darts of 109. It’s my personal best! It’s been a couple of years since I started going to darts with ALARA. I used to play once a week, but now I play once a fortnight because I lost my funding. I’m trying to get my funding back, so I can go every week again. It’s fun to play and it gets me out of the house.

GLENN MEDIBANK, ADELAIDE STREET I BRISBANE

Q: Why do the French like eating snails?

A: Cos they don’t like fast food!

RONNIE CNR CREEK & EAGLE STS I BRISBANE

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

07

Ronnie’s Funnies

12 FEB 2021

SAVEY RUNDLE MALL , CENTRAL MARKET I ADELAIDE

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

“

This alert is a result of a test malfunction.

We apologise for the confusion this may have caused and are diligently working to ensure this does not happen again.

The Texas Department of Public Safety apologises for testing the state emergency service’s mobile phone alerts – usually used to help find a missing child – with a call-out for Chucky, the evil murderous doll from Child’s Play.

THE GUARDIAN I UK

the International Monetary Fund, on putting a US$2m value on a whale’s lifetime carbon consumption, so that decision-makers understand the climate-changing benefits of saving whales. Whales take their stored carbon dioxide to their watery graves, but if killed, the carbon is released into the atmosphere.

BBC I UK

“We have now realised [in COVID-19] that there is a giant gap in our knowledge about what maintains health in the olfactory epithelium [tissue] and the role of these cells, which are like scaffolding structurally. They create order, but if you knock them out, the whole system goes nuts.”

Dr Federica Genovese, of the Monell Chemical Senses Centre in Philadelphia, on how COVID-19 affects our sense of smell and taste – and how we are furthering our knowledge of those processes by tracking the virus.

THE AUSTRALIAN I AU

“We had, again, another great flight up…we’ve just got to work on that landing a little bit.”

John Insprucker, an engineer for SpaceX, the space company of billionaire Elon Musk, on the Starship SN9, which successfully launched, reached an altitude of 1km, and returned to Earth, where it crash‑landed and exploded, just like its predecessor.

08

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

CNBC I US

“You are not only what you eat, but what you ate as a child!”

Evolutionary physiologist Theodore Garland on a new study that suggests eating too much fat and sugar as a child can alter your microbiome for life – even if you eat healthier as an adult.

SCIENCE DAILY I US

“This ability to form relatively uniform, clean cut faeces is unique

in the animal kingdom. They place these faeces at prominent points in their home range, such as around a rock or a log, to communicate with each other. Our research found that these cubes are formed within the last 17 per cent of the colon intestine.”

Wildlife ecologist Scott Carver, from University of Tasmania, on wombats, who not only produce cube-shaped poo, thanks to the soft tissue in their small intestine, but then use it as a tactical communication device. Hey, if you got it, flaunt it.

CNN I US

“What you’re doing is valuing the service from the whales, because they’re sequestering carbon dioxide. It doesn’t mean that whales aren’t doing other things.

This is just a benchmark we can use to establish a lower bound on what the value of the whale would be.”

Thomas Cosimano, an economist from

“This is a historic and proud day for the Collingwood Football Club.”

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, announcing that a report commissioned by its board found the club had a unique history of cultural racism. After near-universal condemnation, McGuire retracted, saying the use of “proud” was wrong.

THE GUARDIAN I AU

“What’s the point of making do with someone you don’t like, and then divorcing in a couple of years?

It’s only a waste of time. The whole package of marriage is too hard.”

Joanne Su, who is among a growing number of Chinese millennials who are postponing marriage. In six years, the number of Chinese people getting married for the first time has fallen by 41 per cent, partly because of a drop in those of marriageable age, thanks to decades of the one-child

20 Questions

by Rachael Wallace

01 Which two countries are connected

by the Øresund Bridge?

02 In what year was the original Sonic

the Hedgehog game released?

03 Which is Australia’s second-largest

state or territory?

04 Which Beatle crossed Abbey Road

first?

05 Which grammatical symbol did

Italian scholar Aldus Manutius the Elder devise in 1494?

06 Which horse did jockey Michelle

Payne ride to win the Melbourne Cup in 2015?

07 What was patented by mailman

Rudolph Hass in 1935: a letterbox, a rollercoaster, an avocado or a refrigerator?

08 Are there more people or kangaroos

in Australia?

from buying shares on the app where they bought them in the first place.

Disruption, from the bottom up. Then disruption...disrupted.

FORBES I US

CNN I US

Overheard by Grace in nearby Geelong, Vic.

“For me, it’s not a macroeconomic management issue, it is a fairness issue, and what is the appropriate level of support we should provide to people who are unemployed.”

Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe on wanting a permanent rise in JobSeeker payments, above the pre-COVID levels of $40 a day, which are due to resume on 1 April.

THE AGE I AU

“While I’m not familiar with your work, I’m very proud of my work on movies such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and television shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel‑Air, Saturday Night Live, and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, The Apprentice – to name just a few!”

Former US president and out‑of‑work actor Donald Trump, in his resignation letter to the actors’ union, which was considering expelling him.

VARIETY I US

“It’s an anarchist attitude. Burn it all down. Eat the rich.”

Justin Gainer, of Chicago, who, like many others on Reddit, bought shares in GameStop, the world’s biggest videogame retailer, in an attempt to take on a Wall Street hedge fund at its own game – only later to be banned

“I really needed it... It meant a lot to me and it’s been a long time.”

Hug tent-user Lynda Hartman, on hugging her elderly husband for the first time since the pandemic struck – separated by plastic sheeting.

09 Who is the piano-playing character

in Charles M Schulz’s Peanuts cartoons?

10 Which two teams competed in the

2021 BBL men’s grand final?

11 For how many days was Kim

Kardashian married to Kris Humphries before she filed for divorce: 5, 31 or 72?

12 Which state does 2021 Australian

of the Year Grace Tame call home?

13 What is the animal in the Chinese

zodiac for 2021?

14 Cherophobia is the fear of what?

15 What is the name of the line on

Earth that separates day and night?

16 Which European country has 158

stanzas in its national anthem?

17 Which band took out No#1 in Triple

J’s Hottest 100 last month? Bonus point if you can name the song.

18 Actor David Suchet is best-known

for portraying which fictional detective?

19 Supermarket chain Aldi was started

in which country?

20 The term “pulmonary” relates to

which organ of the body?

12 FEB 2021

“There was a bit of a cultural difference in the relationship because her family is from Colac.”

policy, and also the changing attitudes to marriage, especially among young women.

THE AGE I AU

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

EAR2GROUND

My Word

by SJ Finn sjfinn.com

I

t’s 10.48 on a weekday morning and I’ve just got off the phone from Rob at Bairnsdale Motor Company in East Gippsland. Prior to the call, I was finishing my morning coffee, writing and being distracted from my internet browsing by two willie wagtails having a go at a kookaburra perched in a tree on my son’s bush block.

I shut my laptop and slide it to the far side of my bed. It’s a 40-minute drive into town and if I want a chance of buying this car – despite it costing more than I’d planned to spend – I have to get a move on.

“Bloke’s coming from Melbourne to see it,” Rob has told me. “I think he’s taking the long route down, has other vehicles to see in South Gippy. But yeah, he’ll be well on his way by now.”

I’ve been trying to buy a car for months. Who would have thought that something like a pandemic could make the task so much harder? The virus has clogged up the supply chain, I’ve been told. Ricochets right through the industry. Nothing’s moving. Even used cars. Best to wait until the vaccine arrives.

The road into town is unmade and windy. I’m in my partner’s car. We’ve been sharing, so there’s an imperative that’s unavoidably present. Still, I don’t want to compound the problem by spinning out on a corner and getting stuck against a tree. I instruct myself to stop behaving like I’m a rally-cross driver.

The bush I’m travelling through has made its own transition in the long, strange year of 2020. From tall dry eucalypt forest, to blackened sticks in a grey mono‑scape, to green walls of fluffy growth, I could be passing between buildings covered in vertical gardens.

I watch for wallabies. There are fewer since the fire and I don’t want to be responsible for the unnecessary death of another.

At the car yard, there are only 10 or so vehicles for sale.

It’s the sparsest second-hand dealership I’ve ever seen.

Rob comes out to greet me, his hand poised to shake mine long before he reaches me. I have my son’s dog Yuki with me and, in my haste, I’ve forgotten her lead. I’m

hoping Rob will be open to keeping an eye on her while I go for a test drive. It’s too hot to leave her in my car, which complicates the situation, certainly in my head.

The car I’m considering is a one-off. Not only here in this yard but in the dozens I’ve visited over the past months. Several times I’ve heard myself declare: I’m having a break from looking. It’s all too hard.

When economies slow down, goods stop circulating.

Because I work in health and welfare, I’ve paid little‑to‑no attention to the economic malaise that COVID has caused. You could say I’ve been otherwise occupied with the disease.

It’s also true that my work hasn’t been interrupted.

Just the opposite. I’ve been busier and more stressed than I can remember. Buying a car has brought some of the current economic impacts into my ambit. I’ve become aware that the availability of goods – new and second-hand – has tightened and, in some cases, come to a halt altogether.

On the supply side, I read, infections reduce labour and productivity, while lockdowns and business closures cause disruptions. On the demand side, layoffs and loss of income – and fear of layoffs and loss of income – reduce household consumption and business investment. Even if a country has enjoyed a relatively low infection rate, these global trends spread.

Purchasing a second-hand car has been proof enough.

Rob is happy to have Yuki sit on the floor of his portable office. “Where’s she from?” he asks after establishing I’m partly local, a question that seems vital for his business.

“Can’t upset the locals,” he’s told me already.

“She’s a camp dog from Alice Springs,” I say. Yuki’s stubby tail is going nine to the dozen as she sniffs her way around the small space before curling up in a corner.

After I’ve been for a drive and we’ve settled on a price, I travel back through the bush in a calmer state.

I’m not the sort of person who enjoys looking around to buy a car, so the relief of no longer having to search through ads and visit used-car lots is significant.

And Rob is an honest guy, something that is confirmed with friends that evening when they tell me he talked them out of buying one of his cars. Perhaps the only honest guy in the business. I’d certainly go back if the need arose and buy from his sparse establishment again.

SJ Finn is an Australian writer. Her latest novel is Down to the River.

11

Between the kookas and the bushfire regrowth, SJ Finn goes in search of a car, and brushes up against the economic reality of a global pandemic.

12 FEB 2021

Little Red COVID

12

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Letter to My Younger Self

FROM THAT

MOMENT… From her first time on stage at Darwin Airport Hotel to Australian Idol, from Tamworth to Eurovision, Jessica Mauboy always knew she wanted to sing – and that she owes it all to her family.

My parents taught me to be aware, respectful and considerate. Being one of five siblings, we had to share. Although there were a few fights here and there, Mum and Dad would always make us aware that we have to love each other and apologise if you had done wrong. I’m the second youngest, looking after my youngest sister – we were all very much taught to take care of each other. Little things like when we’re out, hold hands. In nurturing and loss, taking care of one another was our goal. And making up stories and dreaming big and playing in the backyard or going down to the park.

I realised I wanted to be a performer when I was about 11 years old. I remember my parents being up to something. They asked me to sit at the table and when they’d sit at the table, it meant business. My mum was frolicking around saying, “Everyone get ready, get dressed, we’re going to go have lunch at the Darwin Airport Hotel.” And

13

PHOTO BY NICOLE BENTLEY

I

grew up in Darwin, in a suburb called Wulagi.

I remember as a kid, the first thing we’d do after doing our chores, I would literally scurry down the street – a few houses down there was a huge tamarind tree – and I’d climb up it and stretch my T-shirt out in front of me and that would be my little foraging bag.

As a young kid, our parents were very much stern about us being outside. There were always things to do, Mum and Dad would say. Dad would be up there with the machete cutting the coconut trees and we would be picking them up and we would put them in the back of the Toyota ute.

We’d squeeze into it – all five siblings into a three-seater with no seatbelts at the time – a real trooper van, headed to the rubbish dump.

It was very outdoorsy. I was a kid that wore no shoes. I was happy to run barefoot basically.

12 FEB 2021

by Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor

I knew from that moment that I wanted to do music and sing like that for the rest of my life.

H FE LLO W TO P: W ITLI AN ID O L AU ST RA N TS , 20 06 TA C O N T ES BOT TO MH: IR ES PP IN T H E SA

spiritually that means I’m definitely on the right path.

I had just turned 16 when I was on Australian Idol. I didn’t want to do it, but your heart always tells you something different to your mind. Entering and auditioning, there was a lot of pressure, but having my parents there, and all my siblings to back me, made me very calm and strengthened me. They were my backbone and support. My parents had always been there from day one: taking me to my music lessons, my piano lessons. All the loans that they had put up, everything that they hocked because they needed cash just to put me forward, they worked so hard for me to get to where I am. I knew I had to give something back to them, and if that meant that I had to go on this journey, then I would do that. To be truly honest, if it wasn’t for my parents and if it wasn’t for my siblings going, “You’ve got this, Jess. You got this, Bubba,” I would probably be doing a different job. I would’ve become a teacher. I would have gone into community work.

Coming from a very big Aboriginal community, growing up with Yolngu language and a lot of the Aboriginal clans there, getting into community work was very natural. Seeing it firsthand – the hardship, the duality of it all, the English curriculum to the traditional cultural customs for the Aboriginal people – I think that’s definitely what made me very aware and worldly.

My mission as a young girl, having known all of these things, I was going to be a teacher. I was going to study a lot of the Indigenous cultures and languages. But it turned out very differently. I ended up picking up music and that was my pathway. And I think that’s why when I’m not doing music, I’m doing community work: going to remote communities and spending time with the language groups and different clans around Australia. It’s rewarding, working with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, seeing kids attend school a lot more, seeing them read more, not just in English but in their own language.

Allowing the parents to be involved in the curriculum too, for their children. Putting books into kids’ hands and into their laps so they can read day and night – that’s the mission really.

A lot of our family members were moved. My mum’s family descends from the Stolen Generations. This has

PHOTOS BY GETTY

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I remember she was like, “Put on that nice red going-out top that you like, Jess, and put your black slacks on.” We arrived and I noticed there was a guy in one of the corners of the pub. He had his music things set up and he was singing away; the music sounded really great. We sat down. I could hear the guy telling a story and he began to introduce someone. He was like, “We got a special guest today. There’s a little girl and her name is Jessica.” And then all of a sudden, I see my mum and dad ushering me towards the stage. And I was slightly cut – just annoyed because I knew then that my parents set me up to go and perform a song. It was quite a bit of people, a much older crowd. I ended up performing a Trisha Yearwood song called ‘How Do I Live’ from Con Air. As soon as I started to sing, the noise dampened down. The conversation started to go really quiet and people started to turn their heads. And I just thought, Wow, that’s how powerful music is. I still didn’t quite understand it, but I knew from that moment that I wanted to do music and sing like that for the rest of my life. That’s when the moment opened up to me. It was scary!

At 14, I’d won the Tamworth Prize.

It was wild. I was living in different worlds: by evening I was singing country music, and by day I was going to school or helping out my grandfather, going to the bakery to pick up bread that they were going to throw away and doing a bit of a trek around to people’s houses that needed bread or food. We would go out and do those kinds of things when I wasn’t performing or busking or studying. My parents really believed in and saw the potential in doing community work.

A performance moment that really stands out is when I was on Oprah. I think standing in front of a powerful woman, who obviously had her own pathway – being able to perform to someone who’s just so confident and so knowing – instilled a little fear in me, but also taught me to be in the moment. It was so nice because after I got off the stage, we had words with each other and her advice was keep doing what you’re doing, because you know yourself better than anybody else does. I took that to heart. That really meant a lot because it’s something that my mother tells me, and when people say certain things that are so wise and that you’ve heard before, for me,

JESSICA MAUBOY WILL OPEN THE ADELAIDE FESTIVAL ON 27 FEBRUARY.

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Club, in random places. Eventually I made the move and said, “Hey, do you want to make a relationship out of this?” It just happened slowly and organically and naturally. It gave both of our parents confidence that we were going to be together for a long time.

On his family’s island, Kalymnos [in Greece], he ended up proposing. It seemed like the world came together completely.

And I thought, I feel like we’ve already done the ceremony, but it still feels like the first day I met you. So yes. I totally said yes. And I don’t know when we’re going to actually do a ceremony or if we will ever, but it would be nice to bring our families together down the line somewhere.

It’s wild to think I’ll be on The Voice this year. I’ve been doing a little studying for it, because it’s such a new place for me, although I’ve come from a television show and had an experience of knowing what that felt like. But getting to go back and to build new artists and discover new talent? It’s really exciting to be able to put in work and to dedicate time and stories to these artists that are going to be pushed to their limits. I love to be able to teach and build, to sit there and be able to watch them grow and also break through. It’s going to be light and heavy at the same time.

If I could go back in time, it would be to 2014 when I wrote ‘Sea of Flags’ and I was invited as a guest to Eurovision. It allowed me to understand the idea of Eurovision; that was definitely a huge highlight. I’d never done anything like it. It was fun because I got to be a part of every moment, as well as bring the concept together.

I think my happiest moment was when I turned 30. I remember inviting my whole family. They didn’t have to do anything by the way – I catered for the whole thing, put every detail together – and the venue that I set it at was right on the beach at the Nightcliff foreshore. The sun was setting; I put the food out. I ended up popping a champagne bottle.

All my family and friends were gathered.

We were all wearing our version of cream and white, and it was just a beautiful scene.

I remember the sun-kissed colours in the sky, and the tide was coming in, and it gave me this flashback of all the moments that have happened in my life down to being with my family turning 30. It was quite magical. I had all the people that I love in one spot watching the sunset with me.

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always been a conversation – it’s political, it’s definitely something that I’ve grown up with, and it’s very natural as a community – people reaching out and trying to find their families.

Nanna Margaret is my mum’s cousin, basically. She happened to be watching The Sapphires on ABC one evening. And she said, “I just caught a glimpse of this face on TV” and she just thought immediately, This face looks like my family. And so she found out what my name was and where my line stems from, and found out we were related. Nanna Margaret ended up calling Mum and explained who she was. And at first my mum said, “No, my cousin has been missing for quite some time and there haven’t been any leads.” My mum hung up because she thought it was a prank call. Nanna Margaret rang her back and basically said, “No, this is not a joke.” And my mum was just in tears. At one point they eventually got on FaceTime; they saw each other for the first time. Everyone was bawling their eyes out.

It was a whole new connection and all new stories. It’s heavy, but we felt like there was positiveness because we ended up finding a whole lot more family. We had a family reunion not long after that. That was the first time meeting so many cousins of hers that she didn’t even know existed. It was incredible.

Themeli and I, we’ve been together since we were 18. We first met in Darwin, our birthplace. I was dared to pinch him on the bum. It’s absolutely true. I had just finished touring with The Young Divas and I remember my girlfriends picked me up and we headed into town to a place called Discovery. One of my good girlfriends decided we were going to play Truth or Dare. She goes, “Okay, the dare is, Jess, I want you to go down on the dancefloor and crab claw someone’s bum.” And I said, “Hell no, I’m not doing this!” She closed her eyes, waving her finger around, and was just like, “Okay, it’s that person – he’s the only one wearing the white T-shirt and he’s just there.” And I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing.

I just took off… I turn to my right and all of a sudden, the person that I crab clawed is literally standing beside me. And then I hear in my ear, “I know it was you!” I said I was so sorry.

I started to see him every day. It’s like the universe was going, “Hey, you knocked on this door – now you gotta to figure it out!”

I saw him at the supermarket, at the Coffee

A Heart Needs a Home After a lifetime of rentals, of falling-down shacks, of friends’ couches, Carly Rawson wants a place to call home.

Carly Rawson is a renter who has left Melbourne for the coast. She is studying Creative Writing at Deakin University. Her work has been published in Chart Collective, The Big Issue, Other Terrain and ACE Journal. @carlyrawson1

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t Kilda, Melbourne, at 16. Saved from homelessness by a student housing flat with starbursts of old blood on the ceiling. Front and back door reinforced with steel, the wood having ceded to boot, to fist. Walking my rent up Carlisle Street to Town Hall, to forgiving Frank Carbone, brother to Rose Banks and Yvette Kelly, the holy mothers of the Gatwick boarding house. Women who did the dirty work and withheld judgement. Who bled blue unsubsidised tears for 46 years until they had had enough. A reality‑show juggernaut didn’t waste any time snapping up the place.

Same flat, 17. A boyfriend whose punishments were inventive and protracted. The poor neighbours to have lived beside such audible misery. They never called the cops though, not until they all did, the very last time.

One attempt at local justice when a gang of well-meaning men fronted him with a crowbar. Flanked by the trans

sex workers who worked my street and who loudly voiced their motherly concern, it was quite the spectacle. He ran away, the coward. I died one more humiliating death.

The dust hadn’t settled from Jeff Kennett’s demolition job. Melbourne had a heroin epidemic. The rave scene was changing – the up, up, up coming down. Dock parties were swapped for Russell Street. Footscray, Richmond, St Kilda, Springvale. Everywhere. The city was putrid with it. Rising star Jamie Oliver was shocked when he hit town. What, he asked, in God’s name has happened here? Why are the streets piled with shit and the blue, barely breathing bodies of young people? Cosmopolitan Melbourne was caught leaving the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to its Italian leather shoes.

In a well-known anecdote a German officer visited Picasso in his Paris studio during the Second World War. There he saw Guernica and, shocked at the modernist “chaos” of the painting, asked Picasso: “Did you do this?” Picasso calmly replied: “No, you did this!”

Philosopher Slavoj Zizek, Origins of Violence: Six Sideways Reflections My blue period. Years in monochrome.

In Newcastle, refugees of sorts. A real cheap house down by the docks. The steelworks was shutting down and the mood was as black as the coal dust that rained from the ceiling each time you touched up against a wall. We were flanked by trouble. Bradley had shown no ambition at school so was set up in a house by his uncle, the president of the local Nomads branch, to sell speed.

He was lonely and kind-hearted and would trade drugs for company. Justin was a terrible junkie, magnetic and desperate. They hated each other. Drug politics.

My boyfriend and I lived in the middle like scales: tipping this way, tipping that, giving lifts, given gifts. In one year we were robbed three times, twice by Justin.

The night before we left Justin took me to his house and as he dug in the garden with a small shovel for my stolen jewellery he told me that for years as a ward of the state in Sydney he’d been traded for sex by bureaucrats. My boyfriend didn’t believe him. Why, I asked, why would he lie about something like that?

illustration by Luci Everett

I hold a fantasy so tightly that it’s calcifying into belief that someone, a stranger maybe, will bequeath me a house.

A few sweaty years in a town that is now no more than a beautiful husk hollowed out from within by big money and Airbnb. The ocean so loud outside my window that each night I dreamed I was drowning. A communal feeling to the street, the neighbours all open‑door friends, all vodka soda afternoons, all gainfully unemployed and involved, to some degree or another, in the importation of drugs. Bare foot, organic – they were sticking it to the man by sticking it to the Amazonian tribespeople, to the Hondurans, the El Salvadoreans, to the South Side kids, et al ad infinitum.

My husband’s parents bought their house in suburban Melbourne for $28,000 in 1980, a sum equivalent to $130,000 today. The median house price in Melbourne in 1980 was $40,000; in 2016 it was $713,000. Placed on the market now, my in-laws’ house would fetch above

I’m currently paying $835 to undertake a unit I completed at university 18 years ago, in a course I abandoned because I was stricken with the curse of my milieu. Sisyphus, brother, I am with you. I don’t begrudge it. I have little grace available to me but to mop the mess, clean the surfaces. Start again and again. I could tell you about inflation, the interest on the loan – I cannot tell you what it has cost me in shame.

It’s so easy to fall behind. You stop to see to something, tie your shoe, say, or staunch the bleeding, and suddenly you’re a 40-year-old barista with calloused hands, no super and a HECS debt as pointless as slipping a disc bending to pick up a milk cap.

Talking to my boss of 10 years about the dismal prospects of finding a better house in our price range. She asks me what I pay. I tell her. “That’s ridiculous,” she spits. “Why are you paying so much?” My boss with the tennis court and pool. My boss who still employed me as a casual and didn’t pay weekend rates. I explain that it’s actually pretty cheap, comparatively. There’s no point in explaining that all the free bread in the world won’t stable that table.

A 30/40 ratio is used to determine household stress. For those in the bottom 40 per cent income bracket paying 30 per cent or more towards housing costs qualifies as stress. Pressure can’t accumulate indefinitely without consequence. Outlets must be sought. Mindfulness is rarely the first avenue of enquiry.

My husband was thinking about taking a COVID-19 test on Thursday. He wasn’t remotely unwell but the $450 self‑isolation payment would’ve been the closest thing he’d ever had to sick or holiday pay. And he is tired, so tired.

I hold a fantasy so tightly that it’s calcifying into belief that someone, a stranger maybe, will bequeath me a house. Or a large sum of money with which I will buy a house. And sometimes I imagine finding a bale of drugs on the beach. Or a chunk of ambergris. Which I will sell. To buy a house. The point is that this is the only way I can conceive of it happening.

We could not afford to stay in Melbourne and live better.

We moved to the coast. My son runs wild in the garden.

The house is the nicest I’ve ever lived in and is slated for demolishment, permits pending. Four townhouses. Norm and Coral live next door. They hate our lilly pilly tree – it blocks the sun from the small poorly planned windows of their duplex. I am no arborist but I take a handsaw and do what I can because Norm and Coral are old and I want them to live out their last years in the light.

12 FEB 2021

Hey blue here is a song for you ink on a pin underneath the skin an empty space to fill in Joni Mitchell, ‘Blue’

$1.5 million. Stultifying nonsense numbers. The house price-to-income ratio has increased 78 per cent in the past 35 years. I have a low-income healthcare card and second-hand shoes. We wait for someone to die.

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Living where you can, where they’ll have you. The overpriced, falling down shacks. Couches. The bottom bunk in your best friend’s boarding house bedroom.

And yeah, it’s not, as the song goes, what you want, but it most definitely is not what you need.

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Lighting the Fire Artistic director Stephen Page put Bangarra Dance Theatre on the world stage, redefining Indigenous dance and celebrating the transformative power of First Nations culture and storytelling.

by Timmah Ball

Timmah Ball is a writer of Ballardong Noongar heritage. Her writing has appeared in a range of anthologies and literary journals.

BE NN ELON G, A SC EN E FR OM

BY BA NG AR RA

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e’re a new spirit of an old spirit and we are part of that life cycle and we will continue to share our stories, to preserve and to transform and to evolve,” says Stephen Page, who this year celebrates 30 years as artistic director with Bangarra Dance Theatre, Australia’s only major performing arts company that is First Nations‑led. The company has reached global audiences and received multiple awards while expressing Blak social justice issues that are often ignored.

For Page, culture and storytelling offer alternative ways to address racial inequality, after decades of institutional failures to resolve the consequences of colonisation. “[Bangarra is] awakening and shifting people’s consciousness. It’s not just a dance company for art’s sake – it carries other cultural responsibilities,” he says.

From productions like Bennelong, presenting the story of Aboriginal leader Woollarawarre Bennelong, to works like Dark Emu, inspired by Bruce Pascoe’s celebrated book, the company actively dispels colonial myths around terra nullius, as well as insidious stereotypes that affect Aboriginal Australians. Bangarra is firmly established as a fierce platform for First Nations sovereignty and critical debate, and its elaborate, large-scale dance performances informed by mob across the country are a way to educate mainstream audiences in a country that, as Page says, refuses to acknowledge its history.

“We can’t even constitute a treaty or even the responsibility of changing a date – we have the weakest leadership in the world because it can’t deal with its guilt and its history. We’re not allowed to talk about massacres – why not get it out there and let the next generation know about that?” he says with determined grit.

Page’s milestone 30th anniversary as artistic director with the company is intimately captured, with unflinching honesty, in the new film Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra, directed by Nel Minchin and Wayne Blair.

In the film, we witness the beginnings of Page’s career in suburban Brisbane, performing for family in the backyard alongside his brothers, David and Russell, under the direction of their older sisters. All three brothers were gifted, but their talent may have stayed within their small community if it weren’t for 16-year‑old Page noticing a poster advertising auditions for what would become NAISDA Dance College. A gut impulse to audition shifted his trajectory. Two weeks later he moved to Sydney – he was in. He was leading Bangarra nine years later, joined by David as music director and Russell as principal dancer.

Page’s leadership continues to be marked by the powerful lineage of his brothers, who have both passed.

Their guiding spirits nourish and inform the company artistically and culturally. Firestarter does not hide the devastation of their deaths; their tragedy reminds the viewer of the debilitating impact systemic racism and intergenerational trauma carries for many First Nations people, with horrifying costs to mental health.

PHOTOS BY TOBIAS BOWLES (TOP) AND PAUL SWEENEY

BROTH ERS RUS SEL STE PH EN AN D DAV L, ID

Colonisation is ever-present, but Bangarra rises from it with astonishing force, perhaps symbolising the meaning of the company’s Wiradjuri name: “to make fire”.

The company has challenged the canon of Western dance, fortifying Aboriginal culture on the national and international stage, and moving away from purely “traditional” dance to incorporate contemporary elements.

While that choice attracted criticism in the beginning, these bold creative and cultural decisions have helped widen opportunities for Blak artists to express layered identities, refusing Western categories or expectations.

As Page puts it: “We’ve got a foot in each world. We carry heritage and we’re evolving in a modern existence.”

This influence extends beyond the company; vibrant Blak dance culture that explores themes from urban identity, queerness, the diaspora and appropriation has gained notoriety in recent years. Award-winning First Nations artists like Jacob Boehme, Joel Bray, Amrita Hepi, Carly Sheppard, Vicki van Hout and Mariaa Randall, plus companies like Karul Projects, have delivered dynamic performances in festivals such as Next Wave, Yirramboi, Sydney Festival and Dance Massive. Boehme’s Blood on the Dance Floor and Bray’s Daddy have helped to redefine gender and sexual norms among First Nations men, while Hepi’s A Call to Dance uses audience participation to prompt viewers to consider cultural ownership.

Entering Bangarra’s fourth decade during a pandemic was unexpected, but created a moment for Page to reflect

on and reinforce ancestral bonds and commitments.

While he acknowledges the huge economic costs of cancelling performances, he also saw the pandemic as an opportunity to think about who they were as a company.

Unlike many in the arts sector, Bangarra avoided moving into digital spaces, where posting performances from home or hosting dance classes online became trends among an anxious industry unsure how to adapt to the loss of live audiences. Instead, Page found space to slow down and “take time to sit back and look at the value of the company and the next generation of dancers, making sure that all our immediate families were safe and our communities were okay”.

While COVID has changed the cultural landscape, Page is aware it’s reflective of bigger social shifts, which may offer some benefit.

“We are living in a psychological century and the last century was quite physical,” he says. “It’s about the psychology of now and shifting power and shifting systems and creating equality of gender. These conversations have been brewing and it’s been a process.

It’s like creating the longest social human opera ever.”

His thoughts seem to galvanise the role of performing arts as a method to guide who we are and what we want to be.

“It’s in my DNA to feel like I have to lead and have that responsibility,” he says. A reassuring position when political leadership lacks the focus or ability to drive change.

In Aboriginal terms, Bangarra is still in its infancy, learning from the past as it considers what will happen next. The past 32 years are just a small glimpse of the fire they will generate with 65,000 years of culture behind them. “It’s a life cycle of passing on knowledge, a value that has kept us strong,” Page says. “You always look, learn, listen and respect and keep the integrity of that to move into the future.”

Important insights for a country that is just beginning to heal.

FIRESTARTER: THE STORY OF BANGARRA IS IN CINEMAS 18 FEBRUARY. BANGARRA IS TOURING SPIRIT ACROSS NSW THIS MONTH. FOR TOUR DATES AND TICKETS, VISIT BANGARRA.COM.AU.

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[Bangarra is] awakening and shifting people’s consciousness. It’s not just a dance company for art’s sake – it carries other cultural responsibilities.

series by Neil Bailey

The Big Picture

Crowning Glory As the mullet again rears its head, photographer Neil Bailey visits the NSW festival that celebrates the nation’s – the universe’s – most polarising haircut.

by Richard Parker

Richard Parker is a writer from South Australia.

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airdresser-turned-publican Laura Johnson will never forget the day her friend JJ removed his peaked cap to reveal a bald head and a curly, cascading scruff at the back – a hairstyle affectionately named The Skullett. “I just burst out laughing,” she says of the magnificent mullet on the man she went on to marry. “It took me a little while to get used to it – mullets were not in at the time and as a hairdresser, I thought This is not okay.”

It begged the question: can you judge a person by their mullet? In Johnson’s quest to find out, she and her friends established Mulletfest: the biggest celebration in the known universe of people who like to wear their hair short‑at-the-front and long-at-the-back.

Held in Kurri Kurri, NSW, Mulletfest is back for its fourth festival this month.

Johnson believes the annual event has made a significant difference to the cultural and economic life of her regional community. Plus, she says, “It’s just such a good laugh.”

When Mulletfest first started in 2018, only those with “natural” mullets were able to enter because nobody had time to grow one for sport. In its first year, the competition had one female entrant: 11-month-old Sylvie Thornton, who won the category by default. But 2019 was a different story, with Michelle Gearin taking out the Greatest Mullet of Them All award.

“I was so impressed with all the girls

who entered that year and embraced the mullet,” Johnson says. “Mulletfest is about celebrating good people with funky hair. You’ve got to be okay with who you are.”

Mullets are scored on length, condition, style and stage presence, and there are several competition categories, including Ranga, Grubby, Everyday and Extreme. The event had 247 entrants last year, welcoming participants from Norway, Canada and the US. This year, the festival is hitting the road, hosting heats at participating pubs across Australia that have been driven to the brink due to COVID-19 and its effects on the tourism and hospitality industries.

Mulletfest also raises money for the Mark Hughes Foundation, a not‑for‑profit charity that supports those with brain cancer. In 2019 – the year photographer Neil Bailey snapped this series of contestants – the Mulletfest Crew produced a song called ‘Party at the Back’, with all profits from sales being donated to support brain cancer nurses and research.

When Laura Johnson and JJ got engaged, he offered to shave off his Skullet – for the wedding photos. But Johnson insisted on him keeping his style. “It’s part of him,” she says.

This year, she’s even decided to grow a mullet herself. “It’s by far the easiest hairstyle I’ve ever had,” she admits.

“Just throw a bit of conditioner in and you’re done – it’s great.”

MULLETFEST LETS LOOSE ON 26 FEBRUARY: MULLETFEST.COM.AU. FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM NEIL BAILEY: NEILBAILEY.COM.

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MO MULLET

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MULLET WITH A TWIST

GREATEST MULLET OF THEM ALL

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MULLET Á LA MODE

Ricky

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It was a good plan – I didn’t know what a consultant did, either.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

A Mixed Bag

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f there’s one thing COVID-19 has taught us, it’s that we aren’t really a country, more a collection of independent states. State borders used to exist more as a concept than anything tangible. But here we have it: checkpoints, border police and premiers making prime-ministerial-sounding proclamations about who will enter their state and under what circumstances. Sounds pretty serious, except that I’ve made several state border crossings since all this began – always with papers in hand – and been waved through with hardly a glance every time.

A recent Lowy Institute report ranked Australia as having the world’s eighth-best response to coronavirus. It was an interesting top 10. Two spots above Australia sat Rwanda.

I’ve had some experience at that border, crossing into Rwanda from Uganda a couple of years ago. It was my first time in Africa and I had just got the hang of Uganda when our van pulled up to a dusty complex strewn with tin sheds, guarded by soldiers carrying AK-47s.

Our local tour guide stopped the van, turned to us and said, “In Uganda, we are relaxed. But in Rwanda, a rule…is a rule.”

The first rule was to form an orderly line and wait your turn to have your passport and other documents inspected, then face a short interview. Another journalist in the group whispered to me, “Don’t say you’re a journalist. I always just say I’m a consultant.

It’s vague and no-one understands what a consultant does.” It was a good plan – I didn’t know what a consultant did, either.

What was I going to tell them? What if they googled my name and found the story I wrote about the bad toastie I had in Tasmania? My number would be up.

My turn came and a stony-faced man took my passport and scrutinised it hard, as though he recognised my face from somewhere. Had the cafe alerted Rwandan authorities? Maybe I was just being paranoid. “How long will you be in Rwanda for?” he asked.

“Just two days,” I replied.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to see the Kigali Genocide Memorial,” I said, honestly. He held a stamp and hovered it over my passport.

“And what is your occupation?” My honesty wavered.

“Truck driver,” I blurted out.

He took in my skinny frame sceptically and narrowed his eyes. He brought the stamp down.

“Okay. Go to the luggage inspection table.”

Others were in the process of having their bags opened and emptied. I wasn’t carrying contraband, of course – unless someone had smuggled something into my boogie board – but I was still nervous as the contents of my bag was tipped out and combed through.

“They’re not looking for drugs,” someone in my group whispered to me.

“Really?” I replied. “What are they searching for then?”

“Plastic bags.”

It was true. Rwanda banned plastic bags in 2008, and this was one area where a rule was most definitely a rule. A woman in our group had just been caught, a plastic bag held up to her face by an armed soldier. I thought for a moment she might be taken away, but a simple confiscation and ticking-off sufficed.

“What am I supposed to put my wet swimmers in?” she protested, a trifle unwisely I thought.

The whole process took a lifetime.

Eventually we were all processed and reloaded into the van, relieved of plastic bags, but some having gained new occupations.

Driving across the checkpoint on the Murray River after Christmas, I instinctively scanned the car for plastic bags. But it was only deadly viruses they were checking for.

Just not very carefully. You want a real border, go to Rwanda.

Ricky is a writer, musician and…truck driver.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

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it of a heads up, I’ll be mostly citing Wikipedia articles today, which is a journalistic no-no, but to be fair I’m writing about Wikipedia, so it’s either fair dealing or an ouroboros. Quick question – hands up – who just googled ouroboros and discovered that it’s an “ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail?” And did you discover it via Wikipedia?

Yeah you did, because maybe you’ve not studied ancient Egyptian iconography or Jungian archetypes, or you have difficulty getting your head around words with lots of vowels, and sometimes we need to QUICKLY FILL IN SOME GAPS. This is Wikipedia’s jam.

It’s got this. It steps in not when we want a hot take, but when we just want some facts.

Want to know Beyoncé Giselle KnowlesCarter’s father’s profession (Xerox salesman) or the antecedents of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (death of Edward the Confessor without an heir)? Forgotten the name of the first dog to orbit Earth (Laika) or how she died (a few hours after the launch of Sputnik 2, from overheating) or her nickname (Muttnik)? You can approach Wikipedia with confidence, particularly if you’re putting on a Soviet‑themed trivia night.

It is a surprise to feel this way, as Wikipedia has been roundly mocked over its 20-year history for being an unreliable source, and I’ve done my share of finger pointing. “It’s got the structural integrity of a salad,” I thought, joining the chorus, as one of my friends engaged in the hilarious, turn-of-the-century sport of frigging around with a politician’s Wikipedia entry, editing the then PM’s page to include references to imaginary ferret-based sex scandals, and a weakness for sculling Midori. Oh how we laughed. Yes we were immature, thank you for noticing.

The crowd-sourced content and “anyone can edit” ethos gave Wikipedia a cockamamie and vulnerable air. How could it be trustworthy? Even today, if you’re at university and cite Wikipedia as a reference,

you will be metaphorically torn a new one and possibly fail. And yet, here I am, championing Wikipedia. I even slung them $20 during their last donations drive, and $20 in freelance money is like $100 to someone with a job.

What’s changed, around them, is the cultural context. When Wikipedia was founded in January 2001, as a free, not-for-profit, collaborative, online encyclopedia, it wasn’t yet old-fashioned to go to reference books for information – my housemate had a wall of Encyclopedia Britannica – and newspapers were still broadsheets, well-staffed and well-resourced. There was a presumption that accurate information came from a few authoritative sources, and that the media had ethics. To quote Mary Hopkin, those were the days. We’re now riven by bias, fake news, gaslighting and conspiracy theories, and Wikipedia – which has “neutrality” as one of its central five pillars – is standing out like a QAnon shaman at a petting zoo. No spin? No agenda? What is this breath of fresh air?

Is Wikipedia perfect or definitive? Just no.

You don’t know who’s written anything, for a start – could be me *waggles eyebrows* – and there are still edit wars. But it is transparent. For example, Wikipedia has ongoing issues with systemic bias; the majority of its editors are male and they tend to be, er, strongly opinionated. There are, unsurprisingly, fewer pages detailing women’s achievements.

How do I know? It’s on Wikipedia. They’ve got an exhaustive ‘Criticism of Wikipedia’ page which dispassionately eviscerates their own shortcomings. “This is where we are definitely crap,” they detail, and “this is what we’re doing about it,” and “here’s how we’re failing,” and “here’s the receipts”.

Perhaps being honest about where you’re screwing up is as good as it gets these days.

Anyway. I don’t begrudge them the lobster.

Fiona is a writer, comedian and a wiki maiden.

12 FEB 2021

Facts Domino

Perhaps being honest about where you’re screwing up is as good as it gets these days.

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Fiona

Legendary director John Carpenter has been scaring movie-goers since Halloween.

Now he’s enjoying a later-life career as a touring musician.

by Doug Wallen @wallendoug

Doug Wallen is a freelance writer and editor based in Beechworth, Victoria.

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J

ohn Carpenter just celebrated his 73rd birthday. Well, not exactly celebrated – he didn’t do anything special. “Which is the way I like it,” says the veteran American filmmaker, on the phone from his home in the Hollywood Hills.

If this unsentimental response seems appropriate for the director behind blood-soaked horror classics such as Halloween (1978), The Thing (1982) and Christine (1983), it gives way to exuberant enthusiasm when he discusses his surprise second act as an in-demand composer.

Though he wrote the scores for many of his movies – including the Halloween theme – his transition to a proper recording artist still has him gushing.

PHOTO BY SOPHIE GRANSARD

John Carpenter

Music

Carpenter, Director, Musician

“It’s so much fun to do,” he says. “I love it.

I’m a 73-year-old man now, and I have a second career. It’s not quite as lucrative as the other career was, but it’s great.”

Having directed nearly 20 movies between 1974 and 2010 (and writing more than half of them), Carpenter has certainly earned a break from filmmaking. While movies remain his first love, one he may return to in time, he doesn’t miss the stress of shepherding an entire film. He relishes the freedom of making music. “Everything is on my terms. It’s just brilliant,” he says.

As for his acclaim as a composer, it’s been a long time coming. His pulsing synthesiser scores for films like The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986) nailed the anxious, otherworldly atmosphere of his sinister films, but it’s only in the past decade that Carpenter has received his due.

His scores have reached new listeners thanks to a series of vinyl reissues on horror speciality label Death Waltz, as well as the overt homage to Carpenter’s music in the theme song for Netflix’s smash-hit series Stranger Things (2016). Suddenly, he was able to take his scores on the road, performing them with a full band while creating new recordings in collaboration with his son Cody Carpenter and his godson, Daniel Davies.

Kicking off with Lost Themes (2015) and continuing with the new Lost Themes III: Alive After Death, Carpenter and his collaborators have penned a collection of haunting, doom-laced instrumentals for what he calls “a soundtrack for the movies in your mind”. But the trio still score proper films on the side, most notably director David Gordon Green’s 2018 update of Halloween and its forthcoming sequel Halloween Kills (2021).

“Cody and I started [writing songs] years ago,” says Carpenter. “We’ve tried playing different kinds of music: rock’n’roll, blues, all sorts. But score music is much more fun. It just comes out.”

Yet, there’s threads of rock’n’roll in Lost Themes III, with Davies – the son of legendary Kinks guitarist Dave Davies – adding foreboding guitar riffs to the two Carpenters’ icy synths, most notable in the prowling, after-hours escapade ‘Vampire’s Touch’. The live show, meanwhile, adds a second guitar, bass and live drums, playing a mix of Lost Themes tracks and those enduring film scores.

He didn’t set out to become a composer, despite his father being a music professor who also directed the church choir in which a young Carpenter sang (the influence of liturgical music,

as well as his beloved Beatles, can be felt on new track ‘Dead Eyes’). Composing came out of necessity – he began scoring his movies simply to save money and time. When he made the early police thriller Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) – after years spent creating DIY short films at university – he not only wrote and directed it, but also edited and scored it.

“You don’t have any money when you’re a low‑budget filmmaker,” he says. “So I decided to do it myself, because I can. If I get to a synthesiser, I can sound somewhat decent…and sound big. Then enough time goes by and it starts becoming part of the movie’s signature.”

Embracing layered synthesiser arrangements in the mid 70s, Carpenter found an affordable alternative to orchestral film scores. Synths had been around for years – he namechecks Wendy Carlos’ crossover album Switched on Bach (1968) – but they weren’t nearly as ubiquitous as they would become in the 80s and beyond. Influenced

by Bebe and Louis Barron’s creepy (and notably

S H E SC O RE

LOST THEMES III: ALIVE AFTER DEATH IS OUT NOW.

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pre-synth) electronic soundtrack to the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet (1956), Carpenter felt emboldened to commandeer the emerging technology of his time.

That fascination hasn’t ebbed either. “Well, you buy sounds now,” he notes with giddiness, when asked about his home studio setup. “The stuff you can get! It’s just endless; I haven’t even scratched the surface of where we can go.”

Yet I wonder if Carpenter, who thrived while working within the creative limitations of synthesisers, would feel overwhelmed by the number of choices now open to him. “Well, yeah, but I’ll take the great choices,” he says with a laugh, pointing out that he now has composer Hans Zimmer’s entire orchestra available at his fingertips. “You want me to play a kazoo?”

12 FEB 2021

Well, you buy sounds now.

The stuff you can get! It’s just endless; I haven’t even scratched the surface.

ACMI

Small Screens

ACMI: THERE’S A CHAIR IN THERE

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ACMI, the Melbourne museum dedicated to preserving the visual image, has reopened after a two-year rebuild and, amazingly, you can take the exhibition home.

by Jini Maxwell @astroblob

Jini Maxwell is a writer and games critic from Naarm/Melbourne, and host of ACMI’s Women and Non-Binary Gamers Club.

n entering the newly redesigned ACMI building from Flinders Street in Melbourne, the first thing to notice is the spaciousness.

Gone are the escalators that once led from the foyer up to the cinemas; they have been replaced with a wide, gently sloping set of wooden stairs that melt into tiered seating to the left. Upstairs on level one, the Federation Square entry opens onto a wall of slightly offset screens, each displaying a different scene. It’s a video installation

by New Zealand-Australian artist Daniel von Sturmer, and it imbues the space with movement and life. The whole space is, in a word, inviting: even the “Tickets” sign now reads “Welcome”, accompanied by an Acknowledgement of Country.

“We are big believers in the role of a museum as a welcoming, sociable, democratic space,” says ACMI

PHOTO BY ADAM GIBSON

Image Is Everything O

ACMI CHIEF CURATOR SARAH TUTTON

ACMI serves a huge array of people, hosting the general public in the hundreds of thousands – 660,000 people passed through the institution’s permanent exhibition in its last full year of operation – as well as international conferences, events and school groups. Conservators and archivists also work on site, preserving ACMI’s extensive physical and digital collections. The building’s new layout brings these groups into conversation, care of a media preservation laboratory separated from a public space only by glass cabinets filled with screen-related curios. Captivating in their kookiness, the DVD packets, 1980s boardgames and even merchandise from the 1990s ABC kids series The Ferals are the first pieces to be displayed from the state archive’s collection of 250,000 film-related objects, which have been moved to ACMI from the neighbouring Yarra Building.

Chief Experience Officer Seb Chan says the preservation lab’s centrality is “part of our focus on transparency” adding, “we hope to do open days, and to celebrate the work being done here on media art, videogame and software preservation”. With a remit that covers film, propaganda, social media and screens in the broader history of storytelling, adaptability is key to ACMI’s modular exhibition design, allowing the permanent exhibition to remain relevant in a rapidly changing field.

“It was really important to us that, as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, we had a real sense of place,” says chief curator Sarah Tutton. As such, the curatorial team has centred the respectful inclusion of the land’s traditional owners, particularly the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation, on whose land the museum stands. “We wanted

FOR MORE INFO, VISIT ACMI.NET.AU.

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It was really important to us that, as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, we had a real sense of place

to make sure Indigenous practitioners, work and voices were central to the exhibition.”

Guided by ACMI’s First Nations Advisory Committee, Screen Australia’s Indigenous Department, and co‑curated with Indigenous curators, the new permanent exhibition locates this country’s body of Indigenous filmmaking within a storytelling tradition that has existed for more than 65,000 years. Encircled by two stunning site-specific works by Gunditjmara‑Keerray Woorroong artist Dr Vicki Couzens, the updated permanent exhibition is multimodal, interdisciplinary and keenly aware of its history.

The curatorial team’s approach encourages engagement and touch, painting a complex, tangible portrait of the ever-evolving history of the moving image – “far less encyclopedic and far more playful” Tutton says. Zoetropes and magic lanterns sit alongside production documents from the hit videogame Hollow Knight by South Australian games studio Team Cherry, the eponymous instrument from Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), and a booth where you can film yourself and generate a digital flipbook.

The more traditional exhibits are no less remarkable.

Filmed interviews with some of Australia’s leading filmmakers, including Warwick Thornton (Sweet Country, 2017) and Rachel Perkins (Total Control, 2019) offer wisdom that feels precious and rare, while costumes from The Favourite (2018) are resplendent, centre stage.

This abundance might be overwhelming, if not for the innovative addition of the ACMI Lens: a circular touch card used to store information about the exhibition. After collecting the free take-home device on entry, the Lens can be tapped on any piece of wall text. It then saves all the information from that exhibit – including videos, descriptions and any of the many creative DIY screen projects ACMI offers – to the ACMI Lens website, where the unique digital pathway of your exhibition experience can be accessed with a code online. This sidesteps many of the issues that arise when displaying audio and durational work in the social space of a museum, while also maintaining the immersion of the exhibition. By allowing people to continue exploring the collections on their own time, at their own pace, even from their home, the Lens is an invaluable accessibility measure, with endless utility to students, researchers, interstate and international visitors, and anyone who might worry about missing details in the moment.

The Lens also perfectly sums up the throughline of ACMI’s approach to renewal. As Sedgwick says, it uses technology “to extend and enhance the ACMI experience, and create a truly multiplatform museum”. It all goes to show that expertise doesn’t need to be alienating; it just needs to be accessible, respectful and presented with joy.

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CEO Katrina Sedgwick. As the head of Australia’s national museum for film, TV, videogames, digital culture and art, she has overseen the centre’s $40 million redevelopment project, two years in the making, which has brought spectacular changes to every corner of the museum’s physical and digital spaces.

With a whole new layout, huge updates to its permanent displays, and nifty innovations that let patrons around the world experience the centre’s programming from home, ACMI’s revamp will, Sedgwick hopes, encourage visitors “to dwell, spend time, to feel more welcome” in the country’s only museum dedicated to screen culture.

PHOTO BY EUGENIA LIM

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Books

Rebecca Lim

Writing for children and young adults is all joy, except for not being able to use swear words as frequently as I might do in real life.

by Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

T

iger parents exist in the cultural sphere as a stereotype of overzealous (usually Asian) adults lording it over dutiful offspring and demanding filial respect and strict obeisance to rules. The title of Rebecca Lim’s latest book flips the cliché. Here, the tiger daughter learns how to fight: to be fierce and strong and push against her father’s misogyny and controlling rules.

“I’ve seen tiger parenting up close, so I wanted to reclaim that idea of strength, resilience and ferocity for the children who make it out the other side. An upbringing like that can break some people, but on the flipside, those who make it through are often a tougher, faster version, perhaps, of the person they might have otherwise been,” she says.

Tiger Daughter is YA fiction pitched towards newly minted teenagers. It tracks Wen Zhou, daughter of Chinese immigrants, as she tries to cope with the demands of both home and school. Wen and her best friend Henry Xiao are helping each other study for an entrance exam to a prestigious high school when a personal tragedy threatens to derail their ambitions.

The novel joins the steady trickle of “own voices” literature: books written by authors whose lived experiences match those of their characters.

As Lim says in her note to the reader, it’s about a migrant girl who’s balancing two worlds: “The Western sphere she is expected to navigate and accumulate fluency in, and the private, cultural sphere in which she’s being brought up.” Lim wrote the book for the “child-me” in her who realised that she never saw any characters in children’s books that resembled her. “When my daughter entered Year 7 at my old high school recently, she was given a ‘tailored’ list of reading suggestions that contained the same kinds of books I was given at the same age like The Getting of Wisdom, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Playing Beatie Bow. All wonderful books, all featuring no-one remotely like my daughter or myself. At a guess, her high school population is at least 50 per cent

TIGER DAUGHTER IS OUT NOW.

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Prolific author Rebecca Lim tackles the experience of the migrant child, mining her own childhood while also looking further afield.

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Seeing Your Self

Asian or South Asian. Tiger Daughter, while not exactly ‘tailored’ to their experiences, is closer to reflecting the lived experiences of my daughter and her friends.”

The friction between the two often competing demands of inside and outside the home is a sensation familiar to many, if not all, diaspora communities.

Being a migrant child herself, who grew up in Australia in the 70s and 80s, Lim can capture the plight of Wen with verisimilitude. Raised in a traditional Singaporean family and married into a traditional mainland Chinese family, Lim admits that she’s still learning, and pushing back on the rules all the time.

While she stresses that the book is not strictly autobiographical, it does come out of her life. “A lot of lived experience – mine, and the experiences of friends and extended family – has gone into the novel. There’s a lot of truth in it. Wen’s a composite of the type of kids I knew when I was growing up, but also of the kinds of migrant girls from driven families that my daughters (who are second generation on my side, third on their father’s side) know now. One of my girls had a birthday party a couple of years ago and out of the 16 girls at the party, nine left before the cake came out because they had to go to Saturday cram school! There’s a mix of first-hand experience and community stories in Tiger Daughter.”

Lim is a lawyer, illustrator, editor and a writer who’s written more than 20 books in genres spanning gritty real life to paranormal fantasy. Of her versatility and work ethic, she says, “All the things I take on probably reflect that aspect of ‘child-me’ that was strongly urged to do medicine and was told that you will never make a living from writing. Writing, in all its myriad forms (legal, technical, creative) is how I earn my daily bread, and have done for over 20 years.

“Writing for children and young adults is all joy, except for not being able to use swear words as frequently as I might do in real life. It’s such a formative, important time in anyone’s life that I’m keen for younger readers to not feel like I did – that something was missing or not quite right in the stories, or in themselves, because they aren’t reflected in the books.”

Tiger Daughter deals with difficult subjects: bullying, suicide, racism, sexism, domestic violence and gaslighting. For detractors who’d argue that these themes may be too confronting for young adults, Lim has an answer. “The COVID-19 lockdowns have only brought into stark relief how many migrant and refugee children are possibly living through difficult situations. You’d have noticed the surge in government advertising around domestic violence that’s actually going out in a range of non-English languages. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that level of advertising before. Kids are wise and resilient, and are possibly living these difficult subjects right now. Tiger Daughter is trying to tell them that things will change, and there’s always hope, but you have to make that happen.”

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

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s Another Round the first great film of the year? The Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, known for cruel bourgeois satires like The Hunt (2012) and Festen (1998), has flipped the script, crafting a tragicomedy about boozing and losing that is downright sweet. It sees Vinterberg reunite with the phenomenal Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Martin, a history teacher having a mid-life crisis – a role far less menacing than Le Chiffre, his Bond villain from Casino Royale (2006). Together with his three teacher buddies, each facing their own existential slumps, Martin tests out the obscure theory that humans are born with a blood alcohol level deficient by 0.05 per cent to see if day drinking (the rules include no alcohol after 8pm, or on weekends) will improve his workaday performance. This very silly premise unfurls in ever-surprising ways. Instead of the predictable moral tale about the dangers of excess, Vinterberg digs deeper, considering life’s highs and lows, its beauty and its pain, with a whole lot of heart.

If only the same could be said for Earwig and the Witch, the first Studio Ghibli film made using CGI, departing from the traditional 2D animation style for which the Japanese studio is beloved worldwide. The characters appear stiff and rubbery, and the story – about a rebellious orphan girl who is adopted by a witch – plods along, missing the thrilling bursts of imagination that put classics like Spirited Away (2001) in a class, and world, of their own. ABB

IT’S A VERY, VERY MADS WORLD

THE NEST 

There’s an incredible sense of being surveilled in The Nest – by a menacing camera, by cutthroat co-workers, by partners who might glimpse traces of each other’s true selves, if only they pry deep enough. Jude Law and Carrie Coon are the slowly disintegrating couple at the heart of this voyeuristic drama: Rory, a smooth-talking salesman and Allison, a mother increasingly suspicious of her husband’s expenditure. Beset by dwindling finances and mysterious occurrences in an English manor that grows more claustrophobic at every turn, their manicured facade begins to crack. Writer-director Sean Durkin shoots their descent with startling unease, a bit like the suburban terrors of Hereditary or even The Conjuring. These monsters are less tangible though: an overdrawn account here, a slammed door there. As paranoia builds and appearances unravel, one might begin to question the fabric of the film’s reality. Is something lurking behind every corner, unseen? Or have the real horrors been in front of us the entire time? MICHAEL SUN ZAPPA

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A wealth of archival footage unearthed from Frank Zappa’s Laurel Canyon home is the foundation for Zappa, Alex Winter’s adoring yet underwhelming documentary on the late musician and iconoclast. Instead of extending Zappa’s mythology as a freakish guitar god, Winter stresses that his real legacy is as a radical composer. It’s a comprehensive portrait that leans into Zappa’s many paradoxes: an icon for freedom of expression who was a controlling and cold bandleader; an artist who could go from working with the London Symphony Orchestra on avant-garde arrangements to turning Valley girl slang into a surprise hit song. But some of his more noxious contradictions – how he supported 1960s all-girl “groupie” band The GTOs but wrote lecherous, sexist lyrics – seem brushed over. The film drags at the midway mark, bogged down by too many talking heads. It’s also a shame that Winter opts for such a visually conservative and simple narrative structure, considering Zappa’s own oddball film experiments and surreal style. ISABELLA TRIMBOLI

MINARI 

Inspired by his childhood experiences, Minari is a film of great personal significance to writer-director Lee Isaac Chung. Crafted with a deep love for the characters that propel this intimate family tale, the film resonates with an authenticity worth treasuring.

Following his own kind of American Dream, Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun, Burning) moves his young family from California to rural 1980s Arkansas, with hopes of starting a prosperous farm growing Korean vegetables. This new life is a constant source of concern for his wife Monica (Yeri Han), who frets over their financial prospects and about being too far from a hospital in case their young son David’s (Alan S Kim) heart condition flares up. Hope arrives from Seoul in the form of grandmother Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung), whose wicked sense of humour fosters a sense of home. With the minari seeds she plants along the riverbed, the family begin to put down roots. Rich with emotion and featuring truly exceptional performances, Minari is something quite special. JESSICA ELLICOTT

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

AFTERTASTE  | ABC TV + iVIEW

QUOLL FARM

 | VOD

 | 14 FEB ON ABC TV + iVIEW

Satanic rituals, sex scandals, astral travelling – such was par for the course in the life of Australian artist Rosaleen Norton. Most active during the 1950s, Norton’s occult and overtly sexual themes ran afoul of the tabloid press, high society and the law. Using Norton’s own words from her diary as narration, filmmaker Sonia Bible (Muriel Matters) presents Norton as an artist devoted to her personal vision.

Norton’s gorgeously rendered artworks are shown in close detail. Most feature anthropomorphic animals, or mythological figures such as the Greek god Pan. The film isn’t shy about Norton’s art or personal life, with nudity both real and imagined. Steering clear of literal re-enactment, contemporary dancers instead embody Norton’s artistic subjects and companions. The dance sequences are brief, but effectively translate Norton’s art into the moving image. The film both revels in and attempts to demystify the salacious details of Norton’s life, a mix which doesn’t always gel. This is a conventional examination of an artist who was anything but. AGNES FORRESTER

Native Eastern quolls – adorable, spotted marsupials – are extinct on the Aussie mainland. But in Tasmania, they live on, most remarkably at an abandoned farmstead where writer-director Simon Plowright has decided to spend his year. Buoyed by a playful score, there’s a cheeky sense of fun in this one-hour documentary, as Plowright utilises night-vision cameras to glimpse these private creatures. It’s charming, akin to a Beatrix Potter tale, as quolls burrow into cottage floors, pop out of cabinets, and convert air vents into den entrances. Plowright becomes a character in his own right. After living alongside these gentle animals, and witnessing their delicate existence in the stillrich Tasmanian ecosystem, his heartbreak at human destruction and invasive predators is palpable. “What a privilege it is to see into their world,” he states, “and how fortunate I am to have found this special place.” To spend a spell with these cosy, fragile families, it’s easy to feel the same, and to take Plowright’s advocacy for habitat preservation to heart. CLAIRE CAO

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n the wild new crime caper I Care a Lot, Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) plays a cold fish extraordinaire.

Though her character, a “professional guardian” named Marla Grayson, repeatedly likens herself to a lioness – highlighting both her killer instincts and impeccable grooming – she’s really more of a shark. Marla preys on easy targets while hiding in plain sight behind a slick, slippery, business chick veneer.

Written and directed by J Blakeson (Gunpowder), this unhinged thriller sees Marla headhunt vulnerable elderly folk, often without family, so that she can drain their bank accounts. Working with a team of crooked healthcare providers, she attains legal guardianship over the senior citizens and proceeds to flip their houses, auction their assets and reap the rewards. That is, until she unwittingly tangles with someone whose disregard for ethics, fairness and personhood is as ferocious as her own.

I Care a Lot is a character-driven riot.

The factional warfare between the two hustlers feels almost Shakespearean in intensity, though it’s doused with black comedy, too (see Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage eating a chocolate eclair as power‑play). As each scene pushes the walls in a little tighter, the film’s omnipresent red flourishes – Marla’s dress, nail polish, a sportscar, espresso cup – start to evoke blood splatter, mottling a story that’s as complex, conniving and compulsively watchable as Marla herself. Catch I Care a Lot on Prime Video from 19 February. AK

12 FEB 2021

THE WITCH OF KINGS CROSS

NO RED ROSE

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Disgraced celebrity chef Easton West (Erik Thomson, Packed to the Rafters) is at the centre of this six-part comedy series, and he’s a familiar type – a cantankerous egomaniac who embodies every “ist” you can think of.

No-one is happy to see West return to the Adelaide Hills after his unceremonious exit from a high-end Shanghai restaurant – no-one, that is, apart from his potty-mouthed 19-year-old niece Diana (musical theatre star Natalie Abbott in her screen debut), a phenomenal baker herself. Enter West’s desperate bid to reinvent himself and start a restaurant with her. Food is always the backdrop – references to natural wine, farm-to-table and “authentic, but with a twist” food abound. The show’s dysfunctional family is even expressed in foodie terms, like when West accuses his sister of being “pickled in despair like an emotionally stunted cornichon”, and the commercial kitchen acts as the perfect pressure-cooker setting. The distinctly Australian brand of self-deprecation, crass humour and comedic turns led by the charming Abbott anchor an ultimately heartwarming show about family, inheritance and trauma. SONIA NAIR

Music Reviews

T

Isabella Trimboli Music Editor

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he release of R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan’s new album Heaux Tales got lost amid the hullabaloo of early January, which is a shame, because the already criminally underrated singer has put out the best record of her career – a cutting concept album on the many complications of sexual desire and romance for women.

Sullivan first emerged at the start of the noughties, a church singer who signed her first record deal at 15 and duetted with Stevie Wonder by the time she was 16. She was dropped by her label, but re-emerged a few years later, with a very valuable co-sign in tow: Missy Elliott, who would produce much of her early work. But in the following decade, Sullivan’s relationship with the music industry grew tenuous and her output was scant.

For decades, R&B has been full of songs that revel in liberated female sexuality. Here on Heaux Tales (pronounced “ho”), Sullivan leans into murkier emotional terrain, where empowerment and insecurity co-mingle, pleasure contends with personal ethics, the self-determined still seek a provider, and even power wielded through sex can leave one feeling unmoored.

The album sees Sullivan gather six stories of love and sex from women in her orbit.

These tales – presented as spoken-word monologues – preface songs in which Sullivan stretches her extraordinary voice to express the pain, joy, contempt, self-doubt and regret of her complex characters. IT

@itrimboli

ME AND ENNUI ARE FRIENDS, BABY SARAH MARY CHADWICK 

Me and Ennui Are Friends, Baby is the final instalment in a trilogy from the New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based songwriter that lays bare depression, heartbreak and the immeasurable sorrow of grief. Known for her sparse arrangements, sombre lyrics and prolific output, Me and Ennui… is classic Chadwick fare, with the singer sharing brutal stories of mistakes, regret and self-loathing with raw emotion and specificity. ‘Every Loser Needs a Mother’ is as wrenching as the title sounds, with lines like “And I’m nothing but I’m here/Despite my best efforts, dear” accentuated by Chadwick’s wobbly vocals and stark piano, her sole accompanying instrument. The title track divulges Chadwick’s wreckage; it’s devastating, but full of charming self-deprecation, which she uses to examine pain’s origins and impact. Me and Ennui Are Friends, Baby is another show of Chadwick’s masterful ability to explore the anguish and despair of being alive. IZZY TOLHURST

GAS LIT DIVIDE AND DISSOLVE

HERALD ODETTE

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Divide and Dissolve remould doom into a statement of sovereignty. On their new album Gas Lit, the two-piece – Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill, who are based in Melbourne – continue their virtuosic mix of brutal metal and lush, orchestral ambience to conjure new, hypnotic worlds of sound.

It’s overpoweringly loud but also slow and enticing, pulsing like blood. At the heart of the band is a message to dismantle white supremacy. Amid its terror, they find a will to speak, to cry out, to seek hope. It’s noise that erupts beyond the horror, so unrelenting that it blocks out all but the liberated future they will into creation.

‘Did You Have Something to Do With It’ is the only time that a voice appears on the album, which is filtered through robotic effects. The song describes our violent, chaotic present and concludes with a call to arms: “Our spirit is not weaker, it is waiting on us to decide what it is that we will honour while we’re alive.”

Growing pains are front and centre on Odette’s second album, Herald. Across these 11 slickly produced tracks, the 23-year-old chronicles the last five years of her life with vulnerability and honesty. The musician’s dexterity is on display across the record, spanning genres and styles including spoken word (‘Feverbreak’ featuring Hermitude), piano-led ballads (‘Wait for You’) and electropop (‘Amends’, ‘Herald’). There’s a bit of experimentation at hand, too, from orchestral arrangements (the swelling ‘Why Can’t I Let the Sun Set?’) to harps, all layered with the singer’s powerful, soulful vocals. Odette draws from the world around her – ‘Amends’ features the sound of a magpie she heard in the middle of a sleepless night. Heartbreak, regret and renewal weave their way through these songs as Odette ponders her own role in tough experiences, emerging with strength through accountability. The result is an emotionally intelligent, textured collection that is at once intimate and expansive.

ANGUS MCGRATH

GISELLE AU-NHIEN NGUYEN

Book Reviews

Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

F

PIRANESI SUSANNA CLARKE





A thought-provoking debut that examines ideas of sanctity, displacement, prejudice and identity through the stories of Nahla, a Muslim immigrant whose community dreams of building its own mosque near Sydney, and Heico, a local ornithologist whose concerns for a nearby nature reserve stand in the way of the mosque becoming a reality. Christy Collins writes with empathy, insight and a light touch, allowing the layers of story and character to unfurl gently and nimbly. There is great pleasure to be derived from her beautiful and original descriptions of birds and everyday experiences. However, the narrative would be richer if Nahla’s character were explored as assiduously as Heico, who’s a non-Muslim (white) male. While he’s beset with varying and complex challenges, Nahla’s personal journey seems limited to familiar tropes of immigrant enlightenment: finding her voice, learning English and seeking a sense of belonging in marriage and in her host country. She “must summon the courage”, whereas other characters are already graced with it. Overall, it’s an engaging read with a timely message: “We need to do more than let each other live. We need to want each other to thrive.” RUHI LEE

Piranesi is the eagerly awaited third novel by gothic fantasy writer Susanna Clarke, whose multi-award winning first book Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell was a worldwide bestseller (with an excellent TV adaptation).

Readers may be pleased to know this book is much shorter than her first. The story follows Piranesi, an amnesiac trapped in a grand ruined House of endless rooms by the shore of an unknown sea. Piranesi is perpetually fascinated by the House and the imposing statues placed in each room and corridor. His only friend is a sometime visitor who is convinced the House holds a powerful secret. Together they map and document the House. However, disaster strikes when another visitor arrives with information that undermines the foundations of Piranesi’s sense of self. Piranesi is an ethereal tale written in a different style from the dense academic prose of her previous novels. Yet the story is still flavoured by Clarke’s Victorian aesthetic, in her depictions of occultists and magicians, covens and unutterable mysteries.

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE IMMIGRATING NASH 

Sri Lankan-born Nash (he goes by a single moniker) is a multidisciplinary designer and artist based in Melbourne and this is his debut effort. It’s a book of illustrations about leaving your homeland for a brand-new country and all the eyebrow-raising, funny and not-so-comical encounters that come with such an endeavour. As Nash says in his introduction, his work is both “cynical social commentary and an account of his personal experience as an immigrant – the ‘other’ in any society”. The single line comments and accompanying artworks can be lighthearted or sobering: “In every social situation you’re representing more than just yourself”, “‘Spicy’ is not spicy”, “Not all beards are created equal”. It’s a thoughtful book that packs in a lot of insights and can be read as a guide for newcomers or as a tool for others to emphasise what it feels like to start again. THUY ON

RAPHAELLE RACE

37

THE PRICE OF TWO SPARROWS CHRISTY COLLINS

12 FEB 2021

ilm adaptations of literary works can be a bit dicey, but I’ve recently enjoyed the movie version of Jane Harper’s bestselling crime fiction, The Dry, with Eric Bana perfectly cast as federal agent Aaron Falk.

Next, I’m looking forward to checking out My Salinger Year, the celluloid translation of Joanna Rakoff’s memoir about working in a New York literary agency that once represented JD Salinger. Though ostensibly set some time in the 90s, it seems older than that, given the head agent Margaret (an imperious Sigourney Weaver) is averse to computers and her only concession to the 20th century is to retire the manual typewriter and install its electric counterpart.

Having read the book I already know that it will be a gentle, nostalgic piece about the bygone days of publishing. Rakoff, who has writerly ambitions of her own and is played by Margaret Qualley, is an intern who is mainly responsible for typing stock responses to the legions of Salinger fans obsessed with his creation, Holden Caulfield. The famously reclusive author, played by Tim Post, makes a couple of cameo appearances. If you’re planning to see this movie, I’d recommend you read Rakoff’s book first in preparation. It will add to your enjoyment. TO

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

Will you be remembered as a list of lines on a CV? Will you be remembered as all the times you failed to be the person you thought you should be? Or will you be remembered laughing at the kitchen table, the way you looked – in that moment – happy and free?

Will you be remembered as the one people always go to for advice? The person people always feel better after talking to? What a legacy! If you’re that person, chances are you’ll become something else: the helpful, supportive voice that’s in their head, always. This should be on CVs. This should be a major dot point.

Maybe you’re the person someone feels like when they do something? I feel like my dad when I’m reversing a car. I feel like my mum when I freeze in the middle of a bushwalk and mime at everybody to shoosh because I’ve spotted something.

Will you be remembered for being in an audience?

Someone squinting out under the lights at a sea of faces and scanning them for yours?

Are you an animal’s best person? I feel like if you’re

an animal’s best person you should get a certificate or something. Being an animal’s best person is a privilege indeed.

Maybe you’ve got a skill that isn’t celebrated enough?

I do. I’m really good at moving kids who are sleeping.

Something about the timing; sorry for boasting, but I’m just really good at judging it. If there were “don’t wake the sleeping child” events in the Olympics, I reckon I’d be able to sustain sleep through two costume changes and a change of venue. To those unfamiliar in the ways of the sleeping child, this may not seem like a skill – but trust me. Walk past a sleeping child at the wrong moment – creak one single floorboard – and you are quite likely to sustain an injury to the face. It’s a delicate business and if you don’t have my gift for it, well, I can’t explain it to you. All I know is, it’s a rare skill and should be considered a major dot point.

Are you a calmer-downer? Does your presence lift people somehow, make them lighter in the world?

Congratulations. You will never be forgotten.

Did you choose someone’s football team? Done. You can sit back now. Legacy assured.

Do people live on in your memory? Do you carry their stories? Do you tell them? Do you think about them? In business, there’s something called institutional memory.

That’s when, say, a secretary who has worked in the office for 30 years knows much more than her CV might tell you. She knows all the ins and outs of the business, and the culture, and the people. If you have institutional memory of your family, you carry the key to many things.

Be careful of the key. It’s powerful.

Public Service Announcement: your legacy is all the things that make you who you are, and sometimes you’re not entirely in charge of that. People are the big things and the little things – CVs and bank balances reflect precisely none of those. Be an animal’s best person. Be a calmer-downer. Be someone’s audience.

They’ll never forget you.

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

39

K

eeping score is such a human thing to do. We don’t just do it in sport. We do it in politics (“the budget: winners and losers”). We do it in business (don’t google “net worth” if you’re eating). We even try doing it in art (ask someone who works in the arts about this – but make sure you’re in a comfortable chair first). We definitely do it in our personal lives. Who’s the most popular, who’s the richest, the smartest, the prettiest, who has the best CV and the happiest family, who bakes best, shops smartest, is the most generous?

I recently walked past a newspaper that blared HOW HE WILL BE REMEMBERED atop a list of dot points. It was about a bloke who used to be the president of some united states and I thought: the idea of a legacy, the projected idea of how someone will be remembered…it’s never quite what the dot points claim it is.

Public Service Announcement: people remember incidental things as well as the dot points. They may not remember the details of tax cuts but they might remember how stiffly ex-presidents speak to small children. That, alone, might be the data they save to their hard drive.

12 FEB 2021

Join the Dot Points

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

40

FOOD PHOTO BY JULIE RENOUF, PORTRAIT BY VICTORIA SMITH

Tastes Like Home Mel Baker

Spicy Sweet Potato and Mexican Bean Enchiladas Ingredients

Mel says…

1 small red capsicum, diced 1/2 cup corn kernels, cooked 2 cups tomato puree salt and pepper 8 small wholemeal tortillas 375g jar vegan-friendly enchilada sauce 1 cup shredded dairy-free cheese

To serve blackened corncobs, avocado, steamed green beans, green salad

Method Preheat oven to 200ºC. Peel and dice the sweet potato and steam until soft. Put aside.

Heat the oil in a large pan. Sauté the onion on low heat until soft and slightly translucent.

Combine the chilli powder, garlic powder, cumin, oregano and cayenne. Add to the onion and cook for a minute or so.

Add the sweet potato, rice, kidney beans, capsicum, corn and tomato puree. Combine all the ingredients well, lightly crushing the sweet potato with the back of your stirring spoon.

Cook on low-medium heat for a couple of minutes. Stir occasionally so the mixture doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.

Lay the tortillas on the bench. Divide the mixture equally onto the middle of each tortilla, leaving space on the top, bottom and sides. Fold each side in till you have a parcel, and place on an oven tray. Top the enchiladas with your favourite mild enchilada sauce and the cheese.

Pop into the oven and cook until the enchiladas have started to colour and the cheese has melted.

Serve straight from the oven with your choice of blackened corncobs, steamed green beans, avocado and a lovely crisp green salad.

S

o many of my memories are a mosaic of food, family and close friends. There’s Mum’s homemade peppermint ice cream in the freezer, hearty casseroles slow cooking on the bench top and, most nostalgic of all, plastic ice cream containers filled with my late grandma’s caramel slice and yo-yos, always presented as soon as she and Pappy arrived.

As an adult, I’ve nurtured the notion of food traditions, experimented with recipes and created new favourites using many different ingredients to those I grew up with. A chance meeting many years ago introduced me to Edgar’s Mission – an incredible charity in Victoria that rescues and rehomes farm animals. It led me to research the foods I consumed. I was so affected by what I learned, and decided that I wanted an entirely new way of cooking. While the dishes I create for family and friends have largely remained the same, the ingredients I use are now sourced entirely from plant and non-animal alternatives. Lentils instead of beef, plant alternatives to dairy milk, and aquafaba (the liquid from a can of chickpeas!) to miraculously replicate egg whites, to name just a few. Preparing food in this way has deepened my connection to, and passion for, food.

This dish is one of my family’s favourites. Mexican cuisine encompasses so much of what I love about food: colour, culture and community. It’s delicious, hearty, versatile and super easy to make in large batches for gatherings. Family and friends gather around the bench as I dice sweet potato. My kitchen fills with the scent of smoky spices. I love the mess, the smell of corn cobs being blackened on the barbecue and lining the tortillas across my bench – fill, roll and repeat till each is snugly assembled in a casserole dish.

No precise timeline is needed. Simply snack on corn chips and guacamole while the enchiladas bake and your side dishes are prepared; they’ll be ready when they’re ready. In fact, the time before the enchiladas come out of the oven might just be the best – the sound of familiar chattering and laughter weaving through your home, as it does mine – as you share stories and eat.

MEL BAKER’S RECIPE IS FROM KINDNESS COMMUNITY VEGAN COOKBOOK BY EDGAR’S MISSION.

12 FEB 2021

1 small sweet potato 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 small red onion, finely diced 1 teaspoon chilli powder, or to taste 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon cayenne 1/2 cup short-grain brown rice, cooked and strained (or use pre-cooked rice) 1 cup canned kidney beans, washed well and drained

41

Serves 4-8

Puzzles

ANSWERS PAGE 45

By Lingo!

by Lauren Gawne lingthusiasm.com DO

CLUES 5 letters Dressed Embark Extensive Fed up Staple food 6 letters Class of word Eat ravenously Esteemed Look-alike Tribulation 7 letters Giant stone Tough, resilient

U R

L

B D O E

V

A

Sudoku

by websudoku.com

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

4 5

4

6 9 2 5 6 3 1 4 6 1 8

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

3 2

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD PAGE 45 ACROSS 1 Parakeet 5 Affair 10 Imbue 11 Piggy

bank 12 Honeymoon 13 Felon 14 Volume 15 Anthill 18 Modesty 20 Create 22 Sushi 24 Privation 25 Heartsick 26 Drape 27 Trying 28 Indecent

DOWN 1 Plight 2 Robin Hood 3 Keep your shirt on 4 Explode 6 Fly off the handle 7 Avail 8 Rekindle 9 Agenda 16 Intricate 17 Smash hit 19 Yuppie 20 Chicken 21 Invest 23 Shady

8 letters Strained

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 Sweden and Denmark 2 1991 3 Queensland 4 John Lennon 5 Semicolon 6 Prince of Penzance 7 An avocado 8 Kangaroos 9 Schroeder 10 Sydney Sixers and Perth Scorchers 11 72 days 12 Tasmania 13 The ox 14 Being happy 15 The terminator 16 Greece 17 Glass Animals with ‘Heat Waves’ 18 Hercule Poirot 19 Germany 20 Lungs

12 FEB 2021

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

Do does so much work in English that you probably don’t even notice it is used twice in this sentence. This small verb is used for so many basic actions, it’s difficult to neatly summarise. It even makes a cameo in some other structures. One is negation: you can say “I play the zither”, but to make the sentence negative it becomes “I don’t play the zither”.

Another is a question, if you ask someone “Do you play the zither?”

Do continues to have new adventures, to have a do as in a party is from the 1820s; the up do has been a hairstyle since the 1930s, and to do someone in has been a euphemism for murder since at least 1914.

Crossword

by Chris Black

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

12

13

14

15

16

17 18

19

DOWN

20 21

22

23

24

25

ACROSS

1 Bird (8) 5 Fling (6) 10 Permeate (5) 11 Place to keep money (5,4) 12 Postnuptial holiday (9) 13 Criminal (5) 14 Book (6) 15 Insect mound (7) 18 Lack of vanity (7) 20 Come up with (6) 22 Japanese dish (5) 24 Poverty (9) 25 Despondent (9) 26 Cover loosely (5) 27 Difficult (6) 28 Inappropriate (8)

26

1 Pickle (6) 2 Skilled archer (5,4) 3 Calm down (4,4,5,2) 4 Blow up (7) 6 Blow up (3,3,3,6) 7 Be of use (5) 8 Revive (8) 9 To-do list (6) 16 Complex (9) 17 Great success (5,3) 19 Fashionable middle-class

demographic (6)

28

Cryptic Clues

Solutions DOWN

1 Bird kept area tidied (8) 5 Beginning to fall into a festival romance (6) 10 Inspire EU to backtrack after branch leader quits (5) 11 Pop into parking space by the river and change

1 Soft, delicate jam (6) 2 Endlessly probing tough outlaw (5,4) 3 Renovated York Pioneers’ Hut to calm down

location? (5,4) 12 Doughnut maker gets improved money and holiday after joining union? (9) 13 Lifelong prison for criminal (5) 14 Size of small rodent invites hesitation? (6) 15 Tin hall repurposed for soldiers’ accommodation (7) 18 Do my set, playing with humility (7) 20 Greek island home to a fashion (6) 22 Meal served on train? (5) 24 Need to cut shot rival’s investment in pinot blend? (9) 25 Swings his racket down (9) 26 Cover premature ending for Don on TV (5) 27 Having a go is difficult (6) 28 Serve tinned cabbage sides with sauce? (8)

(4,4,5,2)

4 Former Poet Laureate starts poem with bang (7) 6 Federal fringes offend healthy movement,

‘Go Bananas’ (3,3,3,6)

7 Make use of a mask on the air (5) 8 Resuscitate elder upset about family (8) 9 Things to be discussed as newspaper receives

non-disclosure agreement (6)

16 Detailed interpretation of “nice” trait (9) 17 Triumph through crash and bash... (5,3) 19 ...that is, after youthful UK political party

leaders figure in gentrification? (6) 20 Stylish doll is yellow (7) 21 Finance hip doctors, vets (6) 23 Suspicious woman ditched leader for quiet (5)

SUDOKU PAGE 43

7 4 8 3 5 2 9 6 1

1 6 2 7 8 9 4 5 3

9 3 5 4 6 1 7 8 2

4 5 7 6 1 8 2 3 9

3 2 9 5 7 4 8 1 6

8 1 6 2 9 3 5 7 4

2 8 3 1 4 7 6 9 5

6 9 1 8 2 5 3 4 7

5 7 4 9 3 6 1 2 8

Puzzle by websudoku.com

WORD BUILDER PAGE 43 5 Robed Board Broad Bored Bread 6 Adverb Devour Valued Double Ordeal 7 Boulder Durable 8 Laboured 9 Boulevard

12 FEB 2021

ACROSS

45

27

20 Fowl (7) 21 Put money into (6) 23 Disreputable (5)

Click SEPTEMBER 1945

Bonitas Overlooks Dresden

words by Michael Epis photo by Richard Peter

46

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

R

ichard Peter (1895-1977) was a photojournalist barred from working in Nazi Germany thanks to his Communist allegiances, but who was nevertheless conscripted into its army, and served in WWII. Once demobilised, he returned to his home town Dresden in September 1945, to find it utterly destroyed.

It was destroyed by British and American bombers.

On the night of Tuesday 13 February, British planes flew overhead, dropping magnesium parachute flares, lighting the area for the next wave of planes, which dropped illuminated target indicators on the ground for the next wave of bombers, which arrived at 10.13pm. There were 244 of them. In 15 minutes, they dropped 500 tons of explosives and 375 tons of fire bombs. The combination ensured the city – old and wooden – would burn.

Burn it did. Most of the 25,000 who died were asphyxiated – the fire burned all the oxygen in the air.

Three hours later 1800 more tons were dropped. At midday the Americans came: 316 planes and 770 tons of bombs in 13 minutes. Then again 24 hours later.

Fifteen square kilometres of the city were completely destroyed, and virtually all its housing. It had also

destroyed all Richard Peter’s cameras. But he got hold of one and set about recording the devastation.

Dresden’s tallest building, the 100-metre-tall town hall, still stood. Despite the dangers, Peter climbed the stairs to the top. The light was all wrong; he could not get a photo. Nor could he get the sculpture of Bonitas, The Allegory of Goodness, into the frame – it was near the top of a window four metres tall. The next day he returned, climbed again – and found a ladder five metres tall, which he hauled up the stairs. But his camera could not get the statue in the frame – he needed one that could shoot wider. “After two days, I finally hunted one down, climbed the endless tower stairs for the third time, and thus created the photograph with the accusatory gesture of the stone figure – after a week of drudgery and scurrying about.”

Dresden’s bombing gave us this photo, and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, an American PoW captive there at the time, and testimony by diarist Victor Klemperer, a Jew saved by the bombing, as he had been issued his ticket for Auschwitz. But the trains no longer ran from Dresden.