Woroni Edition Six 2020

WOR ONI

DEPRAVITY ISSUE

WORONI TEAM

CONTENT

Lily Pang George Owens Aditi Dubey Juliette Brown Tilda Njoo Tara Finlay Nicholas Mezo Katie Sproule Queenie Ung-Lam Eammon Gumley

ART

Eliza Williams Alice Dunkley Emily O’Neill Maddy Brown Bonnie Burns Milly Yates Madelene Watson

RADIO

Elijah Lazarus Bec Donald-Wilson Jacinta Chen Rishi Dhakshinamoorthy Tom Stephens Louis Festa Fergus Sherwood Madelene Watson Niamh McCool Rucha Tathavadkar Davis Evans

TV

Liam Taylor Vy Tsan Christian Reeves Tanya Babbar Clara Ho Lucy Bruck Gautham Venkitaramamoorthy Jack Nicoll Charlotte Ward Ben Rowley Elena Couper Nagulan Gnanavel Ronan Skyring Rebecca Stoljar Isobel Lavers Giselle Laszok Sasha Personeni Shreya Gyawali Siobhan Fahey Juliette Baxter

NEWS

CONTENTS Cover Art - Sian Williams

NEWS 4 An Interview with Andrew Barr

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CAMPUS 11 ‘Do Not Expect An Easy Year’ 12 So, You Ran For Student Elections 14 Tariff Saga 16 COMMENT 20 What Does RBG’s Death Mean For U.S Politics? 21 Three Men, One Corroborree 23 What Does Capitalism Have to do with Promiscuity? 25 Wet Ass Patriarchy 27 In (Partial) Defence of Scomo’s ‘Exclusion-ForFailure’ Policy 29 In Complete Opposition to Scomo’s ‘Exclusion-For-Failure’ Policy 31

Divider Pages - Alice Dunkley

A Message To Conservative Students 32 Let Loose: The Benefits of Psychedelics 33 CULTURE 37 Woroni’s Guide to Armchair Activism Strokes of Genius 37 Madwomanhood 39 I May Destroy You 41 The Art of the Confusing 43 Two Way Mirror 45 Baby’s First Dating App 47

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CREATIVE 52 (De)pressing Purple Presser 51 Cringe 52 Plath’s Pockets 53 Garema Place 54 Ephemeral Revelry 56 The Fund 57 The Moose that Drank too Much 58 Tuesday 18th 59 Mushrooms 61 Mooseheads Re-opens: Introverts Lament 63 Breaking News! Miracle Drug Cures Insomnia 64

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An (Honest) Note From The Editor After four years of working at Woroni and 18 months as an executive member of the board, I am stepping down at the end of the semester. After giving so much of my time, passion and energy to this organisation, I have some parting thoughts.

Woroni was so incredibly important to me. For years I’ve been trying to execute my vision of a relevant, timely and interesting Woroni that isn’t afraid to take risks, make fun of itself, and sometimes others. While the board often has different opinions, the one think I know for sure is that every member of the board works incredibly hard and is doing their absolute best. Board members get honoraria, which is great, but for the work we have put in this semester for example, it would amount to a couple of dollars an hour in renumeration at most. I would never want to complain, because I know I signed up for this, and honestly, I would do it for free. However, when we receive incredibly harsh and personal criticism, I wish people would remember the following things: We are university students; we are volunteering to fill these roles in our free time; we have jobs outside of Woroni (I work three days a week and much of the board has similar work commitments); we have lives; we have feelings.

We welcome criticism and feedback, even when harsh. What I feel I have to speak out against is some of the straight up bullying and abuse the board and our contributors have seen (mostly) in Facebook comments.

This job is really fucking hard, and to the people who think they could do better, I challenge you to do just that. Every ANU student is a member of the association and welcome to run for the board, fill a casual vacancy or join the team.

I’d also like to give some parting advice to the future Woroni boards. I would encourage the next generation of Woroni to strive to take themselves a little less seriously, and prioritise the content that students actually want to see. In my experience that is satire, humour (including memes), opinion pieces and campus news. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the internal politics and forget that his is supposed to be a fun publication made by students for students. Woroni also needs to bring back features that meaningfully explore practices and ideas that are important and interesting to students. While Woroni provides an excellent platform for expressing views and experiences, it also needs to remember that catering content to the interests of students is equally, if not more, important. The leaders of the board need to set a vision and implement it and lead the way for the organisation.

My conclusion at Woroni is certainly bittersweet. Regardless of whatever unfulfilled dreams I had for Woroni, I will always vehemently defend the existence and importance of student media as a vital part of the university experience. I think this is a great edition of Woroni, and I hope you enjoy it.

Josie Ganko (Deputy Editor-in-Chief)

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Grace Sixsmith News Editor

EDITORS Sian Williams Art Editor

Bernie Callaghan Radio Editor

Isobel Lindsay-Geyer Editor in Chief

Matthew Donlan TV Editor

Rachel Chopping Content Editor

Josie Ganko Deputy Editor in Chief

Nick Richardson Managing Editor

NEWS

PHOTOGRAPHY: Maddy Watson

An Interview With Andrew Barr Conducted By Grace Sixsmith and Juliette Baxter

With the ACT Election coming up, Woroni sat down with Chief Minister of the ACT Andrew Barr to find out more about his experience at ANU, his connection to Malcolm Turnbull, his plans for the ACT and his favourite fruit.

Woroni: So, we’ve seen your column ‘Look to the Left’ and we did want to hear about it. We also heard that it caused such outrage that they had to do ‘Look to the Right’. So do you want to give us a little bit of background on ‘Look to the Left’?

Andrew Barr: Yes. So that would have been probably 1993, I think. So I’ve either been a third or second year student. I was a Canberra boy.

Well, I came here when I was four. Coming to ANU in 1992, was when Australia was last in recession.

So, there weren’t many jobs around. Students really struggled to get any sort of part time work. So we all had, let’s be frank, quite a little bit of time on our hands.

And aside from studying, I got involved in student politics. I joined the student Labor club in 1992.

And then at the end of that year, Woroni. Back when editors were elected. Are they still?

pages and then they had a few guest columnists.

And so it was, I think like the combination of force of personality and, you know, a willingness to actually write something every two weeks.

Yes.‘Look to the Left’. Yes, it did cause a degree of controversy, because there were some who thought I didn’t look far enough to the left.

Then there was the right who were not so happy about it as well. There’s been a very strong history of student liberal activity here. Labor was in government federally then. So they were a bit more active, around that time. Paul Keating was the Prime Minister, and the then liberal opposition leader was John Hewson. Who’s, whether his politics has moved or not, is now saying he’s a little bit more progressive, but at the time was the devil. It really was the campaigns that were run. Very very tough.

So that’s how it started. I think I was a columnist for a few years for Woroni.

And I then had the Association pages when I was the Treasurer. You have to write stuff for that as well.

W: Do you have a favorite article that you can remember writing for look to the left?

W: Yeah.

AB: No...

AB: The election at the end of that year and the team that won was different from the administration that won the Students’ Association elections. They ran as an independent Woroni team, which is fair enough. But then I think they probably felt that in order to have some balance with the administration, they should allow, yeah, they had the association

W: Maybe we should print one next to it. I’m pretty sure they’re all just over there [gestures to the Woroni office] AB: Have to be very careful about that one, but yeah. Yeah. Suffice to say things you say when you’re 20 years old, it’s...

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W: Probably not the best thing to come out just for an election!

W: What are your views on student unionism generally?

Speaking of your time as ANUSA treasurer, can you tell us a little bit about how you found that experience?

AB: Okay. Well, one of the other big issues at that time was an affiliation campaign that was run to get the

AB: Well, we didn’t have much money and around that time there was a lot of debate about compulsory student unionism. There was a student levy that everyone had to pay that went to ANUSA and to the student union. So there were always fights over who would get what share of money. In that period, there was one very significant debate that occurred around whether there should be not only a students annual contribution, but a collection of money for a student amenities fund.

ANU to join the National Union of Students.

And then there was a big fight over whether, if we should start doing that, which we did. I think it started at about 20 bucks a year for every student.

Then the fight turned to what that money would be spent on and they went, well it should be for a pool.

W: Well, that took a long time.

AB: Exactly! No seriously. Would it be to refurb the union building? Or do the uni bar? Those sorts.

Those debates were very topical at the time. There were a couple of stand out things from that year.

So we were the first administration. I was the first treasurer to fund the ANU Queer department as it was known then. Before they didn’t have a budget and had no way of operating or doing anything. So we gave them some money, which was a sort of a starting point for that.

So that’s the origin. So that’s how I, but I’m sure if you go back into the Woroni’s of 1994, perhaps, would they have the budget? You’ll see the sexuality department having some money, possibly for the first time it was either 93 or 94, around that year or so. Yeah, a bit of history there. We used to operate out of, or what was, the old Union. We were above the Uni Bar. This again shows how old I’m getting.

Labor guys used to love going to see the Whitlams play before they were famous. And whilst there probably were about 20, 30, 40,000 people who claim to have been at the Nirvana concert. I wasn’t one of them. I was at the Uni at the time, but I didn’t go.

W: Yeah. It’s still a very big debate.

AB So we spent six months campaigning for it and we lost. One of the other casualties of that was that I failed a unit and had to come back and do it again the next year. So it was just sort of a lesson that while some things are very, very important. Even if it meant I spent an extra year here. So I was four years at ANU because I had to finish another unit at the end, but, yes, that, that experience was well, one of the few campaigns, we’ve sort of been actively involved in that we got thumped. Then there’s the other famous one. It was a little bit later, but again was something I was involved in here was the 1999 Republic referendum. So in 1992, one of the clubs I joined and sort of was one of the founding members of was the ANU Australian

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W: The name doesn’t sound familiar.

AB: Yes. He probably wouldn’t be, he might have retired. Yes he was. He lectured in Australian political economy from a Marxist perspective. I think l took one of his classes to, you know, get a broader balance. Well, I studied arts and economics. So I spent half of my time in the arts political science faculty with a bit of philosophy and sociology thrown in, and then economics and economic history. So I got plenty of right-wing theory from the economics area.

W: So you might as well do the far left.

Republican movement, which is where I first met Malcolm Turnbull.

AB: I’ll show you this. (Editor’s Note: he showed us a photo of a letter he sent to Malcolm Turnbull in 1992 inviting him to come to the ANU to speak about the Republican movement). So, Turnbull was writing his book, and out of the blue, got this message from him, where he had dug up his old records. So from January, 1993 as letter to Mr. Turnbull, inviting him to speak on the campus. He said in his message to me it was ‘it’s a blast from the past.’

W: Definitely. It’s amazing that he’s still got that.

AB: Honestly, it was in his file somewhere at home.

W: Yeah. Just keep so much stuff there.

AB: So that was the era! We were trying to make Australia a Republic. That one hasn’t gone so well.

I tried to affiliate to NUS. Didn’t go so well then.

And then the other big big arguments at the time, were around the university-imposed a fee of, an upfront fee, for the legal workshop course over in the law faculty. And that led to a bit of an uprising on campus and the student occupation of the Chancellery Building.

So my job as treasurer was to finance the food supply into the, into the occupation. We kept them going with pizzas. I think they were in there for three days or something. It was quite a thing.

W: Was Socialist Alternative around at that time?.

AB: Yeah. Oh definitely. Yeah. In fact, is Dr Rick Kuhn still lecture here in the arts and political science?

AB: Yeah, that’s right. Benefits of a broad education is being able to consider things from many different perspectives. So they were probably the main highlights of that time. Probably the only other sort of interesting. And you’ll see that in the, in the editions and the election editions in all honesty, is that the, the banner under which, we ran for the election was ‘Green Alliance’.

Yes, and if you look carefully, I think the candidate for either the Commerce or Law faculty on that ticket with me. I was running for treasurer, was Shane Rattenbury. That’s where Shane and I first met, in the early 1990s.

So this is something that I say to all the young Labor youngsters is that the people you meet in student politics, it’s quite possible that you will see them around the traps later on. Then a couple of other examples. The president of the Liberal club in 1992, in my first year here, Stephen Byron, now runs Canberra Airport. And the guy who replaced Stephen used to work for Bronwyn Bishop. The public affairs manager for Huawei, the Chinese telco, that’s been Jeremy Mitchell. Some people you end up seeing in very odd places down the track.

It’s one of the great things about ANU is the people come from all over the country and you are likely to run into them again. 10, 20, 30 years later. In many different places. So yep. Liberal club presidents end up working for Chinese telcos.

W: So next question, because it’s the Depravity edition, we were wondering if you could tell us a bit of a spicy story from your time at uni?

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AB: Way back in the olden days, there wasn’t anything really between where we are here, probably just one block up and the city. So all of these, the ANU exchange and all that student accommodation and those buildings were just surface carparks. But there was Dolly’s Late Night takeaway, which is where all the taxi drivers and drunk uni students would go because it was between all of the clubs in civic and the campus. So yes, many a night would have been spent trying to sober up, by I guess, burgers and chips at 5:00 AM in that part of the world. Ah, I’m trying to think of some others. I mean there were some great nights at the Uni Bar watching the Whitlams, because they didn’t draw massive crowds there. And you know, like it was a pretty hardcore couple of, hundred of us who would go to their shows. I have vague memories of around Oktoberfest, with my ANU Uni Bar Stein.

This is like a pint, on the dance floor, possibly not holding my drink so well. So I guess that would be, Bush Week and O-Week. And again, back in the olden days, before responsible service of alcohol and various, limits were put on things, there used to be venues that would do 10 cent beers for students.

And then there was a place which is not far from where I work now called Montezuma’s, which was a Mexican place and they used to have happy hour on margarita jugs, two for $8 or something, like massive. We were experts at making our meagre money go as far as you possibly could on alcohol.

My final story is probably from my last year. We used to go over to Uni House, the bar over there. This is when we had graduated from drinking cask wine and jugs, all those. And you used to be able to buy University House, non vintage champagne in the bottle for $4.95. We were very sophisticated by our fourth year! We would go and everyone would buy a bottle and sit in the sun there before exams or after exams, more to the point, getting a little smashed on University House, non vintage.

W: Fantastic. We thought we’d also discuss general things about the ACT and policy. We were looking at the a hundred percent renewable thing.

Has that been achieved yet?

AB: It has.

W: Amazing. So what comes next?

AB: Well, as a little exclusive (editor’s note: this was announced two weeks ago), tomorrow we’re making a further announcement of a further large scale renewable energy project that has a big battery attached to it. So some of the initial work that we’ve done, has been to generate, through what I call reverse auctions, where we say, go out to the renewable energy market and say, bid us the lowest price to supply renewable energy for a 20 year period. And we will guarantee that we will buy it at that price, that fixed price for 20 years. And so that has seen about $2 billion worth of new, renewable energy generation. That’s contracted to the ACT, but it’s in a diverse range of locations and a diverse range of renewable energy types.

So we’ve got a lot of solar in and around Canberra because it’s very sunny. But most of our wind farms are in places that are a bit, windier so in Victoria, in South Australia, New South Wales. But it’s all contracted to come into us through the national electricity market. But one of the criticisms and this, you see this a bit around renewable energies, that ‘oh, but what happens when necessity it’s not shining or the wind’s not blowing? Do you have a guarantee of energy supply?’ Now we’ve partly addressed that by having our wind farms in different locations. So even if it’s not windy in South Australia, it might be in Victoria and New South Wales, but then the other way to address that is to then store the energy in batteries. And so tomorrow’s announcement sees a massive battery for Canberra, as part of another big wind farm.

So that will allow us to store the surplus renewable energy when it’s being generated. And then it’s available to dispatch for when the sun’s not shining and the wind isn’t blowing! So part of the next step for Canberra, is going to be having more of those batteries.

Now the advantage here is that we can then sell the power when we’re not using it. We can sell it into the national electricity market and sometimes the price is very high. So it’ll pay for itself. It’s actually a revenue generating thing and a practical example of renewable energy policy and sort of market economics at play, sort of weaving the two together that delivers the environmental outcome and makes money, not costs money.

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So we’re going well there, and then the other thing we’re thinking about now is at the moment, particularly in winter, and something we get a lot of our energy usage from, is gas. Also a lot of our energy usage comes from vehicles and so we need to have more electric capability, so we need more generation and more storage so that we can transition away from gas and fossil fuels vehicles. so part of the next step also is what we do with our electric vehicles, our charging capability and all the rest. But then the cars themselves all have batteries and they are also places that you can store power and sell back into the grid when you need to. So it’s quite clever, and so this is where the technology comes in around virtual power plants as well. In short, we’re generating a lot more renewable energy and the challenge now is storing it and then being able to use it when you need it. When, as I say, maybe at night when the sun’s not shining or on not windy days.

W: Yeah. We also wanted to ask about general policies surrounding support for uni students, especially during the pandemic.

AB: Yes. So we recognized pretty early that the Commonwealth were going to be excluding a whole lot of people from JobKeeper and JobSeeker.

Casuals, who hadn’t been with their employer for 12 months, international students, lots of people who weren’t eligible.

So we then did a couple of things. Firstly, we established our ‘Jobs for Canberrans’ program, which we basically said was targeted at those people who didn’t get any other form of support. So we’ve now employed more than 500 people. A lot of them are students and they are working in a diverse range of areas, some were helping with the bushfire recovery in the national park.

Others have been in our call centres, on our COVID hotline and some of our other support areas. There’s been administration, and a whole range of other projects. Some have been gardening and doing maintenance, it’s a whole range of stuff. Because we’ve got doctors, nurses, accountants, lawyers, but we’ve got bus drivers and maintenance, you know, there’s a very wide range of jobs within the ACT government, so we stepped in there. And then we also have provided a range of assistance for low income households with their energy bills. We

extended that to asylum seekers. So we’ve looked at all of this matrix of who’s getting extra support and who isn’t and tried to get some money and support to them. Fantastic.

W: One more question about that. What are your thoughts on the Federal Government’s announcements of fee hikes for university students and the whole thing about first years failing subjects?

AB: So both of these announcements are neither well intentioned nor well directed and I think they’ll achieve the exact opposite of the stated objectives.

Speaking as an ANU arts public policy graduate, in my own working life, I’ve benefited greatly from having a broad education. I mean, when I graduated in 1995, we were just recovering from the last recession.

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So I think it is my generation who were the last ones to experience what your generation is going to, in terms of what the market will look like. The happy news I can tell you is that things do rebound, but now is a good time to be at uni whilst the worst of it is happening. But my experience was that people graduating in the mid nineties, we’d have four or five careers in different areas. It used to be whatever you’d studied at uni would be your job for life. By the time it got to the mid nineties in my generation, it was ‘no, you should think about having four or five different careers’ so you need a skill base and for you guys, it is even broader. So that says to me that the value of thinking skills, the capacity to analyze problems and resolve is fundamental.

And then you’ll do sort of shorter, sharper bits of training on specific areas that you specialize in, but you wouldn’t necessarily have to study that for four years.

And so the big advantage of having a good general education now is fundamental. We shouldn’t be steering people down a really narrow path. And devaluing all of those other courses. Yes, we do need more people with STEM qualifications and there will be a need for more people with health qualifications and all the rest. But, you can do that, you know, in either a postgraduate context or one or two years of study. Not four years. And then just say that the rest is not as valued by society. That’s just not true.

So many jobs will require that level of education and general understanding, as I say, problem solving, being able to analyze. And it’s one of the better descriptions, almost learning how to think, to critically analyze.Read, absorb, analyze, and then come up with something.

W: Okay. Last question, which is a little quick fire round. Whatever comes to mind. The first question is one that we ask everyone. What’s your favorite fruit?

AB: Raspberries. Well, they’re a berry do they count as a fruit?

W: Yes. I think they do. Favorite kebab shop?

AB: Okay. The one in Dickson on Cape Street, is where I would go. It’s called Alara’s.

W: Favorite nightclub?

(Laughs) Well, when I was able to go out in

Canberra. I used to go to Cube a lot, so yes, but that was a little while ago.

W: Last one, if you had to have a song that would describe your time at uni, what would it be?

AB: Ah okay, so this is going back a long way, and do you want something contemporary from my time at uni or just a song?

W: A song that describes it.

AB: Okay, it’s a 50 year old song from my favorite band, the Rolling Stones and the song is ‘You can’t always get what you want’. Well, then, the lyric goes on, ‘but if you try some time, you just might find you’ll get what you need.’

Grace Sixsmith is the ACT Young Labor Women’s Officer.

Woroni reached out to Alistair Coe’s office but did not receive a response.

cAMPUS

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‘Do Not Expect an Easy Year’ An Anonymous SR Comes Forward

CW: explicit mention of self-harm, sexual assault, suicide, passing mention of eating disorders, panic disorder, social anxiety.

It is nearly time to apply for pastoral care positions across campus. The attractions of such a role are clear. For most residential halls, the position comes with a subsidy or scholarship, a larger room, a leadership role. You have access to resources you’ve never had before, and a unique ability to shape the community around you. You can help other people in a tangible way. When you speak, your voice is heard.

However, this role is also fraught. Any person in a residential hall will be familiar with the way their pastoral care team copes as the year goes on. Term 3 brings a lack of faith in the community, Term 4 a state of burn out. Mental illness is abundant, and SRs swap stories of the psychologists they’ve been to, who was good, who didn’t get it.

Most spend their last weeks dreading a knock on the door, and wishing for their contract to end.

Each year the positions are advertised afresh. The information sessions talk of portfolio

responsibilities and floor events. References to pastoral are limited to a line on a document, or a single, optimistic SR speaking about the good that can be done. There is more to be said. If you are deciding to apply for this role, then you have a right to know what you are signing up for.

The first thing you should know about pastoral care is that you will be bound by a confidentiality agreement. This is a good policy, and it protects students. You will become accustomed to asking for a resident’s permission before you seek advice from staff. You will get used to letting people know that there are some things you must report.

Sexual assault and sexual harassment, self-harm and suicide. Any instance where you feel there is danger to the resident or anyone else. Most can be deidentified. The rest you carry with you always, a steel trap of awful secrets.

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

Sometimes you can help in quick, easy ways.

How do I sign up for classes? Where is the Marie Reay Building? Can you help me make a timetable?

Where do I get a student card? How do I access financial support, can you drive me to the shops, how do I use the iron? You will give out condoms, and sometimes pregnancy tests, advise on good doctors, and help with extension applications.

The burden of other issues is not so light.

You will refer on to the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre so often that you start to lose faith in your community. You will know the sexual assault guidelines better than you know your course content. You will spend hours with survivors. You will be the first person to tell them that they are believed, and that what happened to them was wrong. You will hold them while they cry. After they have left your room, you will curl into a tiny ball and balance your laptop on your knees as you write up a report.

Every time the name of the alleged perpetrator is revealed to you, you will crumble a little inside. It will feel like a betrayal, and you will avoid that person in the lunch line, unable to tell anyone but the residential staff why you are no longer able to make eye contact. What will you do when a first year tells you that they were assaulted by your best friend’s boyfriend? Or when the survivor and the alleged perpetrator both come to you for support?

You’ll wonder what to do when a resident comes to you about their friend. This friend is suffering from disordered eating, or social anxiety, or panic disorder. You know this friend, but not well enough for them to trust you, and you’ll advise the student to encourage them to come and chat to you together. It will be a fruitless task, this friend does not want help, but they are burdening their fellow peers to the point of harm and it is on you to figure out what to do.

Every time a message appears on your phone asking for a chat, your heart rate will increase.

You’ll prepare yourself for the worst. You will traipse back to your room from wherever you are studying, and most of the time you will hear about friendship issues, or relationship problems, or how bad that night’s dinner was. Sometimes though, you’ll bind

up self-harm wounds, or make a call to LifeLine, or offer them your bed after they have a panic attack at the thought of going back to where they were assaulted. You will knock on doors, not knowing if the person inside is dead or alive.

The people will come in thick and fast at all times of the day, two chats one day, four the next, and you’ll long for a week off, waiting for the end of your role. You’ll wish you were back in second year, when others were bearing your burden. You’ll drop a course, trying to stop your grades from slipping.

Studying will become impossible. You will lie awake at night considering all that you have heard, and all that you might have done.

If COVID-19 restrictions continue, your position is made harder. Employed in what you thought was a caring position, you are expected to play an enforcement role, moving people out of common spaces and asking them not to drink.

What will you do when you come across a group of your residents having a beer together on your floor?

What if one of those residents was in your room the night before, hugging a pillow and crying as they told you about how lonely they feel, trapped in Canberra at the whim of some state government’s border policy? How will you connect with the residents to whom you owe a duty of care when you are unable to sit down with them in a shared space?

This can still be a valuable role. It is a tangible way to make an immediate difference to your hall. With proper boundary-setting, a lucky cohort of people, and the right support, things can go well. Think about what your residential hall is offering you before you go through your interviews.

To attend a hall with multiple on-site staff and small SR to resident ratios should be normal. To have proper training, consistent meetings and free psychologist sessions offered to you is the bare minimum that is required to keep a pastoral care system running. A subsidy or scholarship of some sort is essential. None of these things will stop you from burning out, but they will equip you with the skills and support you need before you wade through the year ahead.

What lies before you is unpredictable, but one thing about this role is certain. If you are applying for a Senior Resident position, do not expect an easy year.

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So, You Ran in Student Elections. Now What?

By Ben Chesler

Elections are finally over, and I think we can all give a collective sigh of relief. If you ran and weren’t one of the 38(ish) candidates who got elected, you’re probably disappointed with the result. You may have put a lot of work into developing detailed policy that no one read, or spent hours campaigning and joking that you’re now a “stupol hack” instead of studying. If you weren’t jaded and disillusioned with ANUSA already, chances are you will be when elections roll around next year and you see the same policy proposals paraded. Between bitterness and burnout, it’s no surprise that few student representatives run for reelection.

If you live in a hall of residence at ANU, you have the opportunity to get involved in your residential committees and organise activities and campaigns.

There is a tendency for many candidates to run for “first year” positions and few for senior roles.

The good news is that there are many different ways to make meaningful impacts on student life without winning elections. Instead of plotting to take over Clubs Council, here are a few ideas to get active on campus.

What do meetings of ANU Council, the Academic Board and a bunch of University committees have in common? Students can attend as observers. Many of the big decisions of ANU are made in these obscure bodies and you have the ability to see how this happens. You should give notice if you plan on attending (check each board’s charter for who to email), but there’s nothing stopping you from keeping an eye on the inner workings of the university. Except confidentiality.

And a lack of info on the ANU website. And that time ANU Council met in Darwin for some reason.

Residential Committees

The recent Interhall Committee campaign Who Pays the Price? has demonstrated how different residential communities can coordinate to force student issues into the public consciousness.

As with any of the ideas on this list, you shouldn’t run just to enhance your CV, get an honorarium or prepare for next year’s student elections. If you have the skills and passion necessary to contribute to residential life, go ahead.

If not, there are plenty of other opportunities.

ANU Committees

ARTWORK: Sian Williams ARTWORK: Sian Williams

Lobbying Student Representatives

Unlike taciturn student observers, many student representatives actually sit on ANU boards with full privileges, from the Undergraduate Member on ANU Council to the Student Experience Committee. Further, College Representatives have a direct dialogue with the heads of academic colleges. While you may not hold these positions, there’s nothing stopping you from lobbying your representatives to, in turn, lobby those with their hands on the levers of university power.

“Consultation” is a term often bandied about during elections, but you can ensure your reps actually make an impact. Arrange a meeting in person, prepare and present your issue, urge them to relay your concerns to the board/dean and follow up on action taken. It’s simple, and many reps will actually be keen to listen to someone who can give them something concrete to bring up at their next meeting.

ANUSA Working Groups, Departments & Collectives

As a member of ANUSA, you can attend SRC, College Representative and general meetings, where you can question officeholders and move motions. However, you can also get involved in working groups, where discussions from arts funding to gender equality influence the activities of the student union. As these are often poorly attended, you have many opportunities to contribute. Be warned: some working groups are more focused and effective than others. Try a few out to filter out the white elephants. You can also get involved with ANUSA’s autonomous departments and collectives, which often take the lead on organising campaign and advocacy action. If you’re from a marginalised community group, meetings are regular and open.

Just check Facebook or Department Officers for more info!

Education Committee (EdCom)

EdCom is the education committee of ANUSA, tasked with advocating for education issues as well as mounting campaigns and protests on topics such as fee hikes. While it has gained a reputation for being dominated by factional interests, it has gradually become more open in recent years. Combine this with relatively low turnout to meetings and a considerable budget

for campaign activities and there is significant potential for keen, experienced organisers to push ANUSA’s advocacy forward. It remains to be seen whether next year’s EdCom will be an effective force for change. Nonetheless, if you and a couple of friends have an issue you want ANUSA to campaign on (possibly with funding), then checking in with EdCom and the Education Officer is advised.

Student Media

If you’re looking to ask difficult questions to the ANU or publish essays on the student experience, student media is for you. With actual online readerships and topics ranging from changes to university degrees to wider university policies (not to mention detailed election reporting), ANU Observer and Woroni play an integral part in keeping the student body informed about all goings-on on campus. While reporter places are limited, Woroni is always on the lookout for online and print content from students. If you want to write opinion pieces on the student experience at ANU that people actually read, this may be an avenue for you.

Truth be told, the ANU doesn’t make it easy for students to affect university policy. Most of the big decisions are made at the executive level with little to no student consultation. Barring a sudden promotion to the Chancellery, you may have to broaden your scope outside of ANUSA and ANU to have real influence by finding organisations the university wants (or at least is forced) to hear. For instance, the Young Workers Centre runs a variety of campaigns combatting wage theft that you can get involved in through volunteering on their website.

You could also try emailing ANU executives directly, and if their response is unsatisfactory, reply or write a letter to the Canberra Times.

You can always run again next year, using your newfound insight into student elections.

Chances are it’ll be easier, since you’ll know what you’re doing, have name recognition and have (hopefully) been keeping up to date with ANUSA and university news, rather than being thrown in the deep end. Maybe you don’t even need to focus on ANU; there are plenty of other institutions and problems out there needing to be fixed. All you can be sure about is that if you don’t do it, it won’t happen.

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ARTWORK: Campbell Edmonds

The Tariff Saga

By Rachel Chopping and Stephenie Meyer

“About three things I was absolutely positive.

First, ANU was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of it— and I didn’t know how potent that part might be— that that thirsted for my money.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably fucked.”

Woroni is pleased to present a thrilling excerpt from Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling new series: ‘The Tariff Saga’

“I’m the world’s best predator, aren’t I?” ANU made no attempt to hide the bitterness in its voice now. “Everything about me invites you in— my international reputation, my inner-city location, even my SELT reviews.” It was all so much overkill.

What was the point of its urban campus charms and lures? Why couldn’t it have been as repulsive on the outside as it was on the inside? “As if I need any of that!”

Now it felt out of control, but not in the same way. All its love for education and idealism was crumbling to dust, a thousand centuries of profit stretched out in front of it, and it didn’t want to pretend anymore. If it could have no happiness because it was a monster, then let it be that monster.

It was on its feet, racing like her heart, in two

tight circles around the edge of Kambri, wondering if she could even see what it was showing her. It jerked to a stop where it’d stood before. It was going to show her why it didn’t need a pretty marketing campaign.

“As if you could outfund me.” It laughed at the thought, the grotesque comedy of the image in its head. The sound of its laugh bounced in harsh echoes off Harry Hartog.

“As if you could hold enough protests to fight me off.” The bitterness disappeared from its voice. The little tantrum had cost it no energy, but it had drained some of its ire.

“Don’t be afraid,” it begged in a whisper. “I promise—” No, that had become too casual a word.

“I swear only 6.7%. Every 5 years. Don’t be afraid.”

‘The Tariff Saga’ is soon to be available at all major booksellers. RRP $467 p/week.

For a bonus 35% discount, Woroni readers are encouraged to rip out this page and mail it to: ANU Chancelry Building 10 East Road Canberra ACT 2600

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WORONI 70 YEARS OF OUTRAGE AND ACTIVISM

Woroni is proud to display 70 years of content, art, radio and TV to ANU! The exhibition is filled with some of our more controversial content as well as charting the history of student activism in the pages of Woroni.’ Feel free to visit, located in the aMBUSH gallery above Harry Hartog. Here are some snippets from the exhibition opening.

Open until November 1st!

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ARTWORK: Sian Williams

What Does RBG’s Death Mean for U.S Politics?

By Eammon Gumley

For those of us across the pond, American politics is a passionate, divisive, and often bizarre spectacle. The death of Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg shocked the world, not only because of the loss of a civil rights icon and her inspirational legal career, but also because of its political and legal consequences. A vacant seat on the most significant legal body in the United States has added another potential prize into an election that many Americans see either as an opportunity to return to normality or an opportunity to strengthen Trump’s presidency.

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The theatrics (Senator Cory Booker’s comparison of himself to Spartacus) and moral quandaries (the ethics regarding allegations of the past criminal misconduct in judicial appointments) of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate hearing is still fresh in my mind. Given Trump’s promise to appoint a female Justice with just over 40 days to go before the election, I expect the oncoming hearings to be just as extraordinary as the last. For those of you who don’t fully understand the approaching political drama about to play out in the Senate and on the campaign trail, I have attempted to outline the many positions of Republicans and Democrats towards Trump’s attempt to appoint a third justice.

President Trump and Senate Republicans are faced with an unprecedented opportunity to appoint three Supreme Court justices in nearly the same amount of years. Bearing in mind that justices serve until death (such as Ginsburg or Scalia), Trump could be able to appoint a third of the Supreme Court for the next 30 years. President Trump has been quick to act, and his nominee is expected to be announced in the next few days.

Senate Republicans are faced with a dilemma between further shifting the political alignment of the court in their favour or retaining a precedent that if broken could politically damage their image in their constituencies. Senate Republicans were vocal about establishing a precedent in 2016 when they denied President Obama the ability to appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Ostensibly, the precedent was established over concerns about the mandate of the President and the Senate in an election year.

The current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, has previously stated on the record that he is in favor of retaining the precedent and multiple Republican Senators have pledged not to vote in favour of Trump’s appointee. Many of the Senators are up for reelection and are campaigning against wellfunded Democrats that will take every advantage of a reversal in position on such an important issue.

For those worried or elated about the prospect of a conservative court, the political position of the court is less than straightforward.

The appointment of a justice does not necessarily mean that Republican party policies will gain further

legal legitimacy, or that the court will move from its currently moderately conservative position. While some justices are more ‘conservative’ than others, ‘conservative’ jurisprudence is vastly different from political conservatism and relates more to justices’ interpretations of the Constitution. While Brett Kavanaugh is regarded as a moderately ‘conservative’ Justice, he has sided with ‘liberal’ Justices Breyer and Kagan to the same degree that he has sided with Trump’s ‘conservative’ pick Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Ginsburg’s death presents a real test of the precedent, and it is likely that the primary challenge of the oncoming confirmation process will boil down to the payoffs for elected officials between a chance of a more conservative leaning court or retaining the precedent. It is likely that the appointment process will be impeded in the Senate hearing stage as Democrats attempt to stall the process and Republicans iron out their positions on the appointment. For us in Australia, it means another political cage match from a country that can’t seem to have enough of them.

ARTWORK: Milly Yates

Three Men, One Corroborree

By Eammon Gumley

Smaller than the average share house, 23 Corroborree Park manages to be even more cramped on the inside than a cursory glance at the outside would suggest. I say cursory glance as a more sustained viewing of the house would make hardy stomachs churn. The lingering onlooker would start to notice features of the house that they would rather have missed. The remnants of slabs of the ‘Very Best’ lay scattered around the property, slightly hidden in case the real estate agent ever drove past. If Admiral Yamamoto had ever found himself at Corroborree, he would have found a crushed tin and a half smoked durry behind every blade of grass.

One of the oldest cottages in the Inner North, the affectionately named ‘Corroborree’ has been a share house since the

historians, we knew of its age and purpose through careful historiographical work, but the scratched statement on the wall declaring ‘This has been a sharehouse since ‘71’ helped. An embassy of filth and depravity in Ainslie, I found myself fantasising of the remote possibility that it could be invaded by the Viet Cong, and myself and my housemates evacuated by U.S. marines from its tiled roof.

For those blessed with livable share houses and struggling to imagine such a den of depravity, a quick floorplan is in order. Entering the front door, one is faced with a small corridor, branching off into three equally sized bedrooms and a bathroom.

Taking five paces straight down the corridor from the door, one walks into a decently sized living room with a four-seater couch and a TV. Walk through the living room and one finds themselves in the kitchen, with a small laundry and second bathroom through a small door on the right.

What’s wrong with that you may ask? With Corroborree, the devil is in the detail. On further inspection, one will see dollar-sized heaps of black mould distributed like stars across a soggy

Vietnam War. As house

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plastered bathroom ceiling. The switch for the kitchen fridge lies in the off position, with duct-tape enveloping the fridge door in an effort to prevent the unsuspecting from opening a rotting fully stocked fridge that ceased to work 4 months prior and hadn’t been opened since. In every nook and cranny, VB tins and rubbish lie dejected. Turmeric has stained every white surface in the kitchen, and the laundry toilet sits unbolted to the floor, ready to destabilise even the most experienced of sit-down afficionados.

It may seem obvious to most, but a disgusting environment leads to disgusting behaviour. The more disgusting the surroundings, the more immoral and depraved the activities. More nurture than nature (although nurture may be the wrong word), myself and my fellow residents found our manners and expectations slowly warped by the dystopian setting of the residence. The rubbish bin no longer mattered if the floor was covered in rubbish. Going out on a Thursday night became a Thursday to Sunday morning affair, if only for an

escape from the mouldy dust-covered wooden walls. Proper English became one of the many victims of Corroborree, as the other inhabitants and I began to speak a dialectical analog of Burgess’s ‘Nadsat’ language from A Clockwork Orange.

By this point, if a Russian gulag had advertised a vacancy, I would have disappeared myself to Siberia.

If students start off at the bottom of the housing ladder, then my ladder was longer than most. But having now moved from Corroborree, I see that its real value was in its ability to show me where my lowest moral and residential attitudes lie.

Experiences like Corroborree are rare and survival rates after inhaling black mould rarer, but if you were somehow enticed by the depravity above, I can’t suggest the three-bedroom yellow cottage more.

ARTWORK: Emily O’Neill

What Does Capitalism Have to do with Promiscuity?

By Anonymous In Australia, conceptions of ‘promiscuity’ can be boiled down to the following formula: Multiple occasions (Night out+ alcohol + incessant flirting + sex) = promiscuity

Promiscuity is understood with a negative connotation. People are deemed promiscuous if they are getting laid too often, too easily. The concern lies within the belief that sex should ideally be with someone you love and has a connection with. The implication is that having too much transactional sex makes you incapable of maintaining morally healthy sexual relations. My personal understanding of promiscuity is limited to and based on observing (at times partaking in) behaviour from my peers running around civic on Thursday nights, alongside Friday gossip sessions about the debauchery from the night before.

I had always assumed that promiscuity as a concept would be consistent in other cultures, but I did not realise how myopic such a view was until I read about Cuba’s erotic economy in Noelle Stout’s ethnography — After Love. The pingueros in Stout’s ethnography casts doubt on the existence of a ‘universal’ form of promiscuity.

Pingueros are straight, homophobic male sex workers in Cuba who have sex with gay men in exchange for money, clothing and accommodation.

They can make up to $1200 a month in a country where $60 is considered a well-paid monthly wage. In Cuba, pingueros are viewed as ‘strategic’ workers in Cuba’s emerging market economy and are not subject to the shame of being viewed as ‘promiscuous’.

Their experiences demonstrate that promiscuity is shaped by a myriad of factors — contextual, temporal and cultural. Pingueros as a phenomenon can be traced to the mass economic restructuring in Cuba, where Soviet-style communism was being phased out in favour of a market economy. This transition was accompanied by growing material inequality and opportunities for the hard-working individual. Working in the sex trade in Cuba is not considered scandalous in

the same way sex work is scandalised in Western countries. In Australia, sex work is stigmatised because people are uncomfortable with the idea of commodifying sexual relations, with sex workers facing systemic discrimination as a result.

In Cuba, having copious amounts of casual ‘sex’ is uncontroversial, rather it is the ‘work’ that is scandalised, as having sex with someone for money undermines the socialist values of hard work and labour.

Here, we see a cross-cultural disparity in our understandings of promiscuity, where economic structures play an integral role to our understanding of intimate relations. In pre- Soviet Cuba, straight men would have sex with gay men for pleasure, embodying notions of tenderness and empathy that characterised relationships during socialism.

However, in post- Soviet Cuba this undertone of ‘brotherhood’ diminished; it is replaced with pingueros with ‘empty hearts’ having sex with gay men for quick cash. The pingueros are not ‘empty’ because they have lost their dignity through sex, but because they lack the work ethic of ‘hard labour’ glorified in the socialist days.

Despite pinguero symbolising an erosion of socialist values, it is also an opportunity for them to negotiate their position, and subsequently the definition of promiscuity within an emergent market economy. For example, Ruso, a pinguero distinguishes between charging a fair rate, echoing the socialist sentiment of hard work, rather than ripping people off as a legitimate form of labour, which is viewed as giving in to greedy capitalist tendencies.

Thus, it is societal values that give contour to the notion of ‘promiscuity’, rather than individual self- interest. ‘Promiscuity’ is a culturally contested and constructed notion subject to negotiation by its members. So next time we judge someone as promiscuous, just pause and reflect on how much capitalism has conditioned us to value modesty, and be complicit in perpetuating stigma around sex workers as a unintended consequence

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Wet Ass Patriarchy

By Aditi Dubey

This piece needs no introduction. You know what WAP is. You’ve seen the video. Or you’ve heard people talk about it. Or you’ve seen hundreds of people almost break their legs/arms/ much more sensitive parts trying to do the dance on Tik Tok. You might have your own opinions about it, and you certainly wouldn’t be alone.

Some of them are really, really strong opinions, and often very negative. This is unsurprising, given that it’s a song about slick vaginas. Some people think that it’s the height of depravity. Not only is it perverse and “what happens when children are raised without God”, as one outraged American congressman put it, it’s also apparently a terrible influence on young women and girls in general.

Noted right-wing wanker political commentator Ben Shapiro lamented that WAP goes against the idea of treating women as “independent, well-rounded human beings”. Of course, their comments make a lot of sense. After all, these conservative white men are staunch advocates of women’s empowerment.

They know that pussies should only be referred to when a president talks about grabbing them nonconsensually.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

On a more serious note, their opinions do kind of make sense, don’t they? I mean, isn’t feminism all about making sure women are respected? Feminists are always going on about how women are objectified and treated only as sex symbols and this way of thinking needs to change immediately, etc, etc. Surely a song that is entirely about vaginas accompanied by a video that has about 5 seconds of footage that isn’t boobs and/ or buts would be cause for much outrage amongst feminists? In reality, however, the song is being hailed as an anthem of female empowerment and liberation. Why? Because there is a difference between objectification and sexual expression.

Picture a typical music video, especially one by a male musician. It probably has a man singing, partying, surrounded by scantily clad women. They drape themselves around him, dance with him, or just stand around looking hot. The camera focuses on their breasts, their tanned, bare waists, their endlessly long legs. You’ve seen this a thousand times and you probably know that this is objectification. The women in these music videos are just objects, just there to be admired, desired, and felt up by the man. They have no other purpose, they have no agency.

WAP is different. Yes, it also shows scantily clad women showcasing their bodies for the camera. The lyrics are explicit, their gestures clearly sexual. But there is a difference, and that difference is control. In WAP, Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B are clearly in control. They’re twerking and doing splits and licking their lips, but it’s not for anyone else to see. Their gazes aren’t demure, sexy but coy, appealing to a man as he looks on with a smirk.

There isn’t a single man in the music video. Their gazes are fierce and they pierce straight through the camera, bowing down for no one.

Now, of course, the song is addressed to a hypothetical man/men and is about how he would enjoy their WAPs. However, even in the lyrics, they show themselves to be in control. They want sex, but they want it on their terms. They want to be gagged and slapped and choked, but for their own pleasure. They aren’t asking or begging, they’re giving orders. There’s no mincing of words.

They’re ‘certified freaks’ who know what they want and aren’t afraid to ask for it. They use degrading terms like ‘bitch’ and ‘whore’, but these terms have

been reclaimed by women for a while now. I know what you’re thinking – “So if a man calls a woman a whore he’s terrible, but if a woman calls herself a whore it’s okay and maybe even empowering?”

Yes, exactly. I’m glad you’re following. WAP is empowering instead of objectifying because women are in control of its narrative. It’s women rapping about their own sexuality, flaunting their bodies because they want to. They do not cater to a male gaze. That is the key difference.

But that is also the reason why it is so heavily criticized. The men criticizing WAP cannot stand women (particularly black women) taking control of their own bodies and being sexually liberated. Women aren’t allowed to be sexual, unless, of course, it’s for men. If Cardi and Megan were dancing as a man looked on, and it was a man talking about their pussy, I guarantee that the reactions would have been different. Women are meant to be under control. Women who deviate from this norm and exert power in whichever way, whether it’s by running for office or by making music, are punished – a tradition that dates from burning witches at the stake to writing terrible things about female artists on Twitter.

WAP does not solve patriarchy. But it does bring to the forefront a perspective of women where women are in control of their own bodies.

You don’t have to like it to appreciate that. I’m not a huge fan of the song. Musically, it’s not my style.

However, on a sociocultural level, I recognise what it does. It shows two black women unafraid of their sexuality, openly, explicitly flaunting their bodies and stating their desires. The power of that cannot be ignored.

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In (Partial) Defence of ScoMo’s ‘Exclusion-ForFailure’ Policy

By Eammon Gumley

Browsing Schmidtposting, it has come to my attention that the Morrison Government’s education reforms are unpopular to say the least.

Attending at a strongly humanities-based university that would see a large number of students paying double the current rates, I can’t say I’m surprised.

What surprises me is the rapid dismissal of the policy aiming to remove loan access to students who have failed half their courses, which I am going to call the ‘exclusion-for-failure’ policy.

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

Before I zero in on the policy, it’s worth quickly addressing that I share the disagreement towards the majority of the education reforms currently being pushed by the Morrison government. I am aware that increasing the price of humanities courses is unfair, heightens the bar of accessibility, and would have doubled my current HECS debt. My issue is with the lack of two-sided debate for a policy that addresses an obvious problem with the loan system and strengthens the political survivability of subsidised education in Australia. It isn’t ‘anti-student’ as some claim, nor is it excessively harsh or cruel.

The exclusion-for-failure policy currently proposed by the government aims to legislate for the exclusion of students from the HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP education loan systems if they have failed 50% of their subjects in first year. This works out to failing at least 4 of their first 8 units, with a unit representing a course. The policy is clear in only applying to failures that I would call a ‘fair failure’. This is a failure in which a student failed to meet the requirements of the course and was not unfairly impacted by adverse circumstances like mental health or a range of other factors.

The policy is driven by the mechanism under which the HECS-HELP/FEE-HELP loan system works. The Australian Government (and us as future taxpayers) footing the payment of the interest rate for student loans means that we avoid the crippling debt cycle that leads to a 10% default rate typical of the US student loan system. This is not a system to be sneered at, as it protects us from the highly varied interest rates of the last few decades and the nightmare of compound interest. But our right to subsidised and accessible further education is not unlimited and brings with it certain expectations.

Primary among them is the expectation that taxpayer’s funds are contributing to the promotion of a public good, which a highly educated populace undoubtedly brings.

However, excessive and unwarranted failing undermines this calculation and brings perilous political attention to the system. Students who ‘fairly’ fail more than half of their courses (at the end of first year or at any stage afterwards) represent added costs to the taxpayer without the corresponding levels of benefit that significantly add to the aggregate level of education in society.

Approaching the issue from another perspective, a lack of an exclusion-for-failure provision undermines the current and future government’s ability to justify the loan system to an increasingly sceptical taxpayer. As a simplification of the point, attempting to sell an inner-city teenager’s right to fail half their courses to a middle-aged rural taxpayer with no tertiary background is difficult to sell.

A couple of points have been made in opposition to the legislation. The President of the National Union of Students (NUS) accused the government of attempting to incentivise success with the punishment of being cut off from the loan system. This is exactly the case. There have always been disincentives for failure that could also be seen as incentives for success. The exclusion-forfailure policy is no different from ANU’s probation and expulsion policy concerning excessive failure except that it universalises it among Australia’s tertiary institutions.

Another point is that the proposed legislation will unfairly impact students with valid issues that lead them to fail 50% of their courses.

However, the legislation is explicit about the ability of universities to provide exemptions. While I am aware of the various problems ANU has with adequately providing exemptions, the policy incentivises universities to improve systems like Access & Inclusion as it is in their interest to retain as many students as possible.

If I may offer one criticism, it is the indefiniteness of the inability to access the loan schemes. Young adults make mistakes, and indefinite exclusion seems too harsh a punishment for what could’ve been six months of inattention to study. A year of exclusion conditional on a successful second attempt at education makes more sense, allowing former students to learn from their mistakes without messing up too much of their future. The combination of economic soundness, political prudence, and a sense of forgiveness would make the exclusion-for-failure policy a winner amongst the assortment of education policy that is anything but.

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ARTWORK: Sian Williams

In Complete Opposition to ScoMo’s ‘ExclusionFor-Failure’ Policy

By Queenie Ung-Lam

CW: institutional betrayal, sexual assault and sexual harassment

The Morrison government has proposed another education policy that unduly impacts students. ScoMo, is there no end to your policy that treats education as an economic transaction instead of one which fosters the learning and growth of Australian youth? The proposal of the ‘exclusionfor-failure’ policy (as termed by fellow columnist Eammon Gummley) reveals that we cannot hope too much.

The exclusion-for-failure policy will legislate to exclude students who have failed half of their subjects in first year from the HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP government education loan systems.

Such a policy is aimed to reduce a debt cycle that is footed by taxpayers. It also serves to satisfy the notion that taxpayer money should contribute to a public good. Failing students, instead of being the boon to society as one would hope from a youth population gaining tertiary education, paint a rather dire picture of frivolous youths squandering their opportunities alongside taxpayer money. Not a sight that the Morrison government wants to be seen endorsing.

One key point made in opposition to this policy is that it will unfairly impact students with valid reasons for failing their courses. Crucial to consider nonetheless is that the legislation itself explicitly details the individual university’s ability to give out exemptions. This caveat is supposed to account for students being affected by mental health, disability or other adverse factors to their studies. However, in bestowing the power of the university to define what constitutes an ‘adverse factor’ and its merit in justifying a ‘fair failure’, the government places undue and perhaps, naive faith in university institutions. When it comes to listening to students and being understanding of their issues, universities are better known within the student

body to be dismissive or to superficially pursue action instead of instigating systematic and cultural betterment.

If the Government policy provides no process for its standardisation across universities, nor a Code of Conduct in the assessment of a ‘fair failure’, then it does little to protect students against institutional failure and betrayal. That in itself, is the key issue. There is no transparency in this policy that details how students will be assessed on their ability to gain exemption from a failure. The government has pawned off this process to individual universities. Yet without a government sanctioned standard, there is little to hold the university accountable to treating students in a fair, empathetic and inclusive manner.

The point was raised that as ANU wishes to keep its students, there is hope that the institution will tighten Access & Inclusion to be more accessible to students applying for special considerations and possibly, exemptions from failure. I wish we could confidently place such faith in the institution. However, three years of inaction on sexual assault and sexual harassment policy, the lack of student mental health services despite long waiting lists and using students in colleges as cash cows to pay off Kambri throws into serious doubt whose interests the ANU chooses to protect. Even when it comes at the expense of student anger and in some cases, decisions to leave the ANU, our university has done little to increase transparency of its practices or listen to student demands.

The truth with policies like this is that it is always students who pay the price for institutional failure and betrayal. In this case, quite literally so.

ARTWORK: Emily O’Neill

A Message to Conservative Students

By Julian Brazier

I attended an all-boys private school, so one can imagine the modest level of diversity I grew up with. We were all male, we were mostly Christian, we came from middle and upper class families and most of us were white. As with many other young men who graduated from that school, the lack of diversity shaped my view of the world and ultimately of myself. I became quite conservative in my views; I valued the status-quo, rejected the idea of privilege on the basis of identity whether it be through gender, sexuality or race and I prized personal responsibility and hard work to succeed in life no matter the adversity. You might be reading this finding it rather self-indulgent but hear me out, I have a point to make.

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Coming to the ANU two years ago upended my entire belief system and self-perspective. One of my immediate thoughts was how diverse the university was. The university was replete with people from all walks of life, each a product of their own distinctive past and unique upbringing.

I’d met people hailing from all around Australia with a variety of life experiences and some who unfortunately were far more disadvantaged than myself. The seminal and formative political discussions at university became heated and tense at times, I will admit. However, in each conversation I gained a sliver of new insight and a new perspective. It dawned on me that my idea of the world had been shaped by my upbringing, almost blinding me to certain issues. I didn’t realise rent day brought people a lot of anxiety. I didn’t know that race was still a pertinent issue for some people.

I didn’t realise that using the wrong pronouns could be hurtful. A phrase echoed by one of my friends during one such discussion will ring true to my ears everyday: “Just think about it from outside of your perspective.”

At first, I was skeptical of these issues and thought they were indicative of how young people weren’t grateful for being able to live in Australia.

After all, we’re a highly developed democratic Western nation with a higher quality of life than most other countries. What’s not to like? We are indeed extremely fortunate to be able to call Australia home. However, that doesn’t mean that some people don’t have it much tougher than others. The story isn’t black and white, indeed it’s quite grey. I began to think about what being in another person’s shoes would be like. I no longer saw the world as a dichotomy between extreme privilege and lack thereof, but as a place which was incredibly complex, where the human experience could be painful, even in a lucky place like Australia.

The ability to empathise and consider someone else’s opinion shouldn’t be pursued for some individualistic, self-actualising, sanctimonious purpose. You should develop it as a general courtesy, out of respect for others in society and to make the world we live in a better place.

Sympathising with others isn’t the same as studying more or improving your sporting performance.

There’s a difference between self-serving learning and learning to respect other members of society.

Not only does having empathy and consideration

generate more respect but it also leads to more conducive and agreeable discussions around political and social issues. Disagreements and differences pertaining to political and social issues only become exacerbated with opinionated voices and regressive insults, and that applies to both sides of the political spectrum. While I don’t always agree with the other person’s opinion, I do think there’s incredible merit and power in finding a middle ground and understanding that just because you disagree doesn’t mean they’re wrong or out to attack you.

For anyone who’s been in my position and had similar experiences, you can’t change your circumstances and the cards that life dealt you.

I can’t change mine either. What you can do is understand and sympathise with others who may view you as out of touch, privileged and ultimately insensitive. We all have our personal challenges that permeate class, race, gender and any other facet of identity but for those of us who have been dealt a good hand in life, I’m sure we can tolerate some initial anger and frustration in open discussions with others if it means we come to a middle ground.

This is an open invitation to all conservative students (and non-conservatives) reading this to try and be more open-minded and sympathetic. I’ve been in your position and I know how satisfying it is to defend the status-quo. I know the delight in feeling righteous and noble because you used ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ while others become livid and irate, consumed by ‘trivial’ emotion. I know what it’s like to look solely through the lens of my upbringing and beliefs. Whilst you don’t have to agree with every opinion I urge you to try and search beyond your lens and see the value in considering someone else’s opinion and position. It might be disagreeable and uncomfortable to have someone point out every way you have it easier than them.

See where they’re coming from and just admit it, you’re privileged. Admission of privilege is a minute demand compared to other people’s struggles.

Given our fortunate position in society, it is our responsibility to extend the generosity and the courtesy of understanding others.

ARTWORK: Milly Yates

Let Loose: The Benefits of Psychedelics

By Ramkumar Arcot Parthiban

There has been a surge in the use of psychedelic substances such as LSD (Lysergic acid Diethylamide), Psilocybin (mushrooms), Mescaline (Peyote Cactus), and DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) over the last 60 years, and this has also resulted in scientific studies on how they affect the human body making a comeback. From Carlos Santana ingesting LSD in Woodstock to enhance his musical creativity, on stage to Native Americans using Mescaline in sacred rituals, there is a lot to learn about these psychedelic substances. Researchers have been responding to these stories and narratives from artists, pioneers, and history which claim that psychedelics play a substantial role in heightening creativity.

Most governments have baulked at scientific studies that show psychedelics aren’t

just substances hippies and rebellious teenagers consume to get high and party, but are substances which have actually been traditionally used for centuries. They have been used, not just for fun, but for healing, expanding and enhancing creativity and the cognitive ability of our minds. There is a small number of researchers who still study these substances and don’t let politics and fear impede their studies. These studies show mounting evidence that these substances can be used to treat almost anything from PTSD to depression to cancer.

For example, researchers from the Imperial College, London, in June 2018 conducted a comprehensive study on the effects of Psilocybin on patients afflicted with treatment resistant depression.

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The study involved 20 patients who were given micro doses of the Psilocybin compound on a weekly basis and a range of their personality traits were examined over a 3 month time period. One of the personality traits examined was “openness” amongst the patients, as researchers believed it was one of the most essential factors for imagination, creativity and aesthetic appreciation. From the study, it was concluded that over the time period stipulated, Psilocybin along with DMT and LSD increased patients’ openness and creative thinking.

Recent studies of psychedelics and their impact on the human mind have a well-known precedent in the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1954, Oscar Janiger, a psychiatrist from the University of California, Irvine, conducted a study on the effects of LSD on creative output. He gave 70 artists LSD doses, crayons, pencils and a canvas to draw on while under the influence of the substance. He had them draw still-lifes, both on and off the substance.

From the analysis of the artwork, it was concluded that “LSD art” was neither superior nor inferior to non-LSD art, but it was comparatively brighter, more abstract, and non-representational. It also tended to cover the entire canvas.

There are several groups of people that believe that we shouldn’t be assigning a sense of morality to psychoactive substances since they are just material compounds and also because there aren’t clear, tangible distinctions between what is right and wrong. Intoxicated humans are heavily influenced by their emotional state, environment, and the people around them. Psychoactive substances are just a small part of the equation.

In this case, is it really immoral to ingest these substances?

The inclination to get intoxicated and expand the state of mind and to enhance creativity isn’t just a human instinct, but also an animal one. There are thorough accounts of animals intentionally utilising psychoactive substances in the natural world. From cats using catnip, to dolphins using pufferfish toxins to get high, there undoubtedly exists a biological drive in nature to experience and go beyond typical states of mind.

As such, ideologies which strive towards a “drug free-world” could be considered immoral and anti-science. There is direct evidence from nature and history that we have a biological drive to

consume psychoactive substances. By prohibiting drug consumption, we would be going against our natural instincts.

There is research suggesting these substances work by obstructing communication in the chemical systems of the brain. They affect the chemical serotonin which regulates our mood, sensory perception and sexual behaviour to name a few. Overdoses caused by these substances don’t always directly lead to death, but to extreme uneasiness and unpleasant experiences. Long term influences can cause a persistent sense of paranoia and psychosis (disordered thinking and detachment from reality), but are quite rare.

Although there is substantial evidence which suggests that psychedelics can be addictive and people can develop a tolerance, to what extent a tolerance could be developed is still unclear, and the addictive potential of the substances mentioned is quite ambiguous.

If psychedelics such as LSD and DMT have a set of risks and benefits, adults should be able to make their own informed decisions about whether they want to use the substances or not. Governments don’t have the authority to decide whether an adult can or cannot consume something. Thus, regulation and legalisation of psychedelic substances is necessary in order to adhere to a sense of morality. Legalisation and regulation would provide governments with the golden opportunity to educate communities and facilitate further research into psychedelics so that we can understand them better and use them to the best of our ability. This would also help prevent adversity which, at the end of the day, is the main reason governments oppose psychedelic substances. Providing information on the conditions that are required to use these substances would increase the moral acceptability of psychedelics.

I like to believe that psychedelics have the potential to make our lives better or worse. They can either empower us or enslave us, either create or destroy. In other words, psychedelics do have consequences. They are powerful substances that can alter our state of mind, and can be very risky under unsuitable conditions. Having said that, the positives do outweigh the negatives when taken responsibly and in controlled environments.

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ARTWORK: Bonnie Burns

Woroni’s Guide to Armchair Activism

By Katie Sproule

Everyone, it’s 2020. Bigotism is out. Activism is in. But in the age of staying in, how can you help out? The staff at Woroni has got your back. We’ve compiled a list of the top ten most foolproof ways you can pretend to make a change.

1. Don’t skip Youtube ads. Support independent artists. That million follower mummy-vlogger turned family prankster you secretly watch needs every cent she can squeeze out of that Squarespace/Audiotech/ExpressVPN sponsorship.

2. Watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. Yass. Queen. Slay.

3. If someone brings up disability, make sure to add to the conversation with that time you tore your ACL and had to wear a moonboot for, like, a month so you actually get it. Accessibility is important.

4. Watch half of a documentary on the meat industry and put a picture of the screen on your story. It’s okay not to finish it because it’s a bit confronting and gory and you shouldn’t have to shoulder that, but don’t mention this on Instagram.

5. Mention your lesbian friend as often as possible.

You cannot stress enough how cool you are with

it and how cool she is. Bonus points if you can drop into conversation how her girlfriend has a shaved head or mullet.

6. Only use the disabled toilets when you really have to go or are super drunk. Feel guilty and don’t make eye contact with other bathroom users when you come out of the stall.

7. Buy your clothes from a thrift store. In dire straits any op- shop will do, but it’s best to stick to expensive vintage boutiques that price up ugly motorcycle t-shirts from the 90s. This is good for your bank account and the environment.

8. Talk about how you travelled to Southeast Asia on your gap year instead of Europe. The less developed the better. Mention the super poor quality of the hostels you stayed in but how it was worth it. Bonus if you have photos with smiling children.

9. Own a bicycle with a cute basket. Sure you might only ride it when the weather’s between 17 and 25 degrees and the location is within walking distance, but during those 5-10 times a year you’re so much better than those scum driving cars.

10. Put the venus symbol in your bio #girlboss.

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

Strokes of genius

By Juliette Brown

Creativity is the diameter of humanity, revealing our lofty potentialities and inky depths.

From where, then, does it feed and twist and grow?

Live and move and have its being?

To Vladimir Nabokov, author of twisted tale Lolita, artistic creativity is something slithered and slathered with depravity. In Pale Fire, he writes ‘All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust, and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.’ In Lolita, the protagonist tries to justify his sexual deviance in a stomach-curdlingly beautiful passage, which concludes by linking perversion with poetry: ‘We are not sex fiends!...We are unhappy, mild, dogeyed gentlemen…Emphatically, no killers are we. Poets never kill.’ Nabokov’s creative genius seems to spring from the grotesque; it comes from painting disgusting things in a beautiful way, which destabilises the reader’s sense of the aesthetic, suggesting the indiscriminate moral turpitude of humanity.

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Similarly, South American novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez feeds off the melody of the beautiful and the disgusting to create a lot of his artistic effect. In Love in the Time of Cholera, for example, he describes a bubbly, swampy effusion of roses germinating from the bloody juices of dead bodies, and such imaginative juxtapositions seem to come from the dark, perverted parts of Marquez’s brain.

Freud (and others) would call this sublimation - channelling twisted, violent or sexually taboo impulses into creative, productive and more socially acceptable endeavours, where the alternative is repressing them into the erratic subconscious.

In other words, sublimation is a unification of drives. So perhaps writing drunk, or taking psychedelics to create music, is just escapism, uninhibitedness, or thrill-seeking. Or maybe it unlocks and lays bare the depraved, repressed subconscious, to channel it into more holistic, creative pursuits.

But maybe this is looking at it too rigidly.

Maybe there aren’t any dark, twisted parts of our brain. Foucault would certainly argue that madness and depravity have been societally constructed; that bodies and minds have been increasingly codified through the rise of moralism and empiricism, with anything out of the ordinary labelled ‘deviant’ as a means of control. It is no wonder that artistic creativity, which necessarily involves unconventional thought, is often linked with debauchery and insanity. Indeed, the stereotypical artist is the wild, impoverished bohemian, or the troubled painter who cuts off his ear, or the mentally ill female poet, like Sylvia Plath, whose ‘self-destructiveness’ and ‘violent, almost demonic spirit’ was the ‘source of living energy, of her imaginative, creative power’. I would argue that there’s a bittersweet courage in this creativity, which dares to be deviant to give us something beautiful; to give us a shattered mirror to hold up to our own minds. As Nabokov put it in his ‘Lectures on Literature’: ‘The meek prophet, the enchanter in his cave, the indignant artist, the nonconforming little schoolboy, all share in the same sacred danger. And this being so, let us bless them, let us bless the freak; for in the natural evolution of things, the ape would perhaps

never have become man had not a freak appeared in the family.’

On the other hand, we can think of creativity as something sublime and divine. Creativity was deeply celebrated throughout the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods – human creativity reflected our ability to appreciate nature and claim dominion over it, and our superior faculties for reason.

Modern philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev postulated in Creativity and Redemption that ‘Creativeness is not only the struggle with sin and evil – it wills another world, it continues the work of creativity…man is called to create a new and hitherto unknown world through free and daring creativeness, to continue God’s creation.’ He argues that depravity hinders, rather than galvanises creativity, because it obscures our true creative calling. Indeed, creativity is the shared projection of humanity’s colourful, imaginative and abstract inner world; it entertains, challenges, innovates and connects.

Overall, I think it comes down to whether we believe humanity, in its deep, creativity-sparking recesses, is essentially enlightened or corrupt.

Because as Nabokov foregrounds, the creative process is inextricably collaborative: ‘Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed — then its lovely reek will be smelt in the hollow of the palm, it will be munched and rolled upon the tongue with relish; then, and only then, its rare flavor will be appreciated at its true worth and the broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you have contributed something of your own blood.’

In other words, creativity involves a sort of symbiotic sublimation. Works of art only take on their true meanings when cast with the shadows and tones of our own brilliances and depravities; a stroke of genius is only as hellish or heavenly as the gallery before it.

ARTWORK: Maddy Watson

Madwomanhood

By Rachel Chopping

Is Sylvia Plath still alive?

I didn’t think so, but it’s recently become clear to me that she is as influential as ever. Often invoked as a kind of literary madwoman, Plath continuously makes her presence known in both popular culture and university literature classrooms.

Why is she still sticking around? Writer Becca Klaver comments that Plath’s long-lasting appeal “must have a lot to do with the fact that her story conflates glamour (beautiful, blonde famous poet ...) with destruction (...kills herself).” There is a ‘Sylvia Plath Effect,’ coined in 2001 by psychologist James Kaufman, that attests “Female poets were found to be significantly more likely to suffer from mental illness than female fiction writers or male writers of any type.” The consequences of the Plath phenomenon are far reaching— ranging from literary analysis of madwomen to contemporary illness-recovery memoirs.

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Susannah Cahalan is one of Plath’s confessional descendants. Her 2012 memoir Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness is a remarkable account of her diagnosis with the auto-immune disease anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.

Symptoms of the disease are often psychiatric, leading to consistent misdiagnoses with bipolar disorder. It’s a gripping read. Cahalan’s work as a writer for The New York Post and racing journalistic style makes sure of that. Brain on Fire’s narrative follows a young—and perhaps most importantly, recovered — ‘madwoman’ recounting the “hellish experience” of her illness.

Cahalan swings between thorough biological explanations of her symptoms, and lyrical gothic descriptions of her mad self. Labelled illustrations of the human brain are scattered throughout the memoir, yet all are done as if with a Victorian-era fountain pen and ink. Words like ‘frontal lobe’ written in gothic cursive and black ink splotches add to the effect.

Her gothic double is also present. The present Susannah watches herself in an old video recording. Her hospitalised self is pleading— for what, she no longer knows.

There I am, staring into the camera as if I’m looking death in the face. I have never seen myself so unhinged and unguarded before, and it frightens me. Without this electronic evidence, I could never have imagined myself capable of such madness and misery.

For all that Cahalan attempts to deglamourise illness, she still dips into allusion of Brontë’s attic-bound madwoman. Feminist literary theory often reads mental illness as a metaphorical form of feminist resistance— a technique that may be valid when studying Jane Eyre, but is not so useful in attempts to normalise and encourage positive mental health discourse.

Cahalan’s attempts to explain her illness in scientific terms is contradicted by the unhelpful melodrama of equating ‘madness’ alongside literary gothic doubles and unhinged selves.

Cahalan shares more than an appearance with Sylvia Plath— and even that is uncanny enough.

Brain on Fire, like the frequent casual racism in Plath’s work, utterly neglects to consider the role

race plays in discourses of ‘madness’. Because the Plathian figure of the fragile, mentally ill white woman is so prominent, Cahalan’s illness was addressed immediately, by an incredibly specialised team and with little financial consequences. While she claims her miracle diagnosis was “the luck of the draw,” luck has very little to do with the white-centric medical research that has historically excluded the challenges faced by black women.

Writer Margo Jefferson considers the white privilege inherent in “freely yielding to depression, of flaunting neurosis as a mark of social and psychic complexity” in her 2015 memoir Negroland.

Jefferson argues such a privilege is glorified in Plathian “literature of white female suffering and resistance” with little self-reflection. Intense pressure for a young Jefferson and her peers to be ‘responsible Negro women, and indomitable Black Women,” was instigated by representations of white, aesthetically compelling feminine despair. Cahalan and the Plath phenomenon have no interest in striking a balance between “white vulnerability and black invincibility,” and in a culture where black women continue to face mental health risks at twice the race of their white counterparts, this kind of apathy is nothing but complicity.

The creator of the Plath Effect has since expressed regret for the infamy his claim has accrued, admitting “my work has glamorized mental illness or associated it with being creative … I’ve made the larger problem worse.” I can’t help but rue how ironic it is that this phenomenon is guilty of recreating the very cultural ideas of womanhood and mental illness that forced its namesake to her death.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

I May Destroy You: A Review

By Phoebe Lupton

Content warning: rape, sexual assault, trauma

I am not one to jump on a bandwagon.

Almost every time I try, I end up not enjoying the ride. When, many years ago, I tried to watch an episode of The Bachelor, it made me carsick.

And just one look at the long, windy, bloody road through The Handmaid’s Tale forced me to run as far as I could in the opposite direction.

Arguably, the television bandwagon of the year thus far has been British actress and writer Michaela Coel’s new show I May Destroy You. This time, I wanted to jump on it as fast as possible (made difficult by the fact that it aired in Australia a good three months after airing in the United Kingdom and United States).

To stretch a metaphor as far as it can possibly go, I didn’t want to get off.

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A Sydney Morning Herald review of the show claims, ‘Yes, I May Destroy You really is that good’. I would like to paraphrase this by reemphasising, ‘Yes, I May Destroy You really really is that good.’ The show capitalises on everything that I think makes great television: multifaceted characters, a slow-burn plot and coexisting shades of light and dark in its tone. At the heart of it is Coel, who portrays emerging writer Arabella Essiedu. The story kicks off in the first episode with Arabella joining her friends on a night out at a club, which ends on a disturbing note: she finds herself at work the next day with a cut on her head and no recollection of the previous night’s events. It ultimately transpires that Arabella has been raped.

The following episodes take us through Arabella’s unravelling her trauma, as well as its impact on the people around her. One of her best friends, Terry Pratchard (Weruche Opia), tries to guide her through the aftermath of the rape.

Sometimes, Terry proves successful and other times, she doesn’t. Meanwhile, Arabella’s other friend, Kwame (Paapa Essiedu), balances his sympathy for her situation with his own complicated feelings regarding his own sexuality.

In the so-called ‘post #MeToo era’, I’ve sometimes worried that we’re losing grasp of the nuances of sexual assault. I May Destroy You keeps these worries at bay. The rape that Arabella survives is clearly depicted as something that can happen to anyone, regardless of where you are or who you’re with. The acting and direction alike are naturalistic and lacking in melodrama, painting sexual assault as a realistic thing that is just part of being human.

It’s not something that happens once in a lifetime to someone with extremely unlucky circumstances – it just...happens. It’s sad to think about it in this way, but it is accurate; 17 per cent of women and 4.3 per cent of men in Australia have experienced some kind of sexual violence or assault in their lifetimes (unfortunately, I am unable to find equivalent statistics regarding nonbinary people).

Coel has created an authentic character in Arabella, and an authentic story in the plot.

This authenticity is carried through all strings of the plot. In one later episode, Kwame organises a threesome with two other men, one of whom backs out at the last minute. When Kwame and the other man are alone, the man nonconsensually humps

him. Kwame brings his case to the police, who dismiss him on the grounds that he doesn’t know the perpetrator’s name, as well as the fact that the assault is non-penetrative. Another episode depicts Arabella seeking mentorship from fellow writer Zain Tareen. What is supposed to be a professional chat ultimately morphs into a sexual escapade, during which Zain removes the condom without Arabella’s consent. This boldly raises questions as to what we should deem ‘assault’ versus what we should deem ‘rape’, and how these questions might not be that easy to answer.

What struck me the most about the plot is that Arabella’s case never gets solved. She ends the series with a question mark above her head, but it’s significantly smaller than it was at the beginning of the series. Therefore, Arabella’s arc isn’t about figuring out whodunnit. It’s not really about the police or crime or the law – it’s about trauma.

As a piece of television production, I May Destroy is expertly made. Coel’s writing imitates life – it’s funny as well as morose, sometimes even at the same time. The themes of sexism, sexual assault and misogyny are not skirted over or taken for granted, probably because Coel’s own life has embodied these themes. When she partook in the 2018 Edinburgh TV Festival MacTaggert lecture, she revealed that she had survived sexual assault and has later named this event the inspiration for her show.

I May Destroy You is nothing short of a cultural reset. I hope that this show will rekindle the fire of the #MeToo movement and pave the way for future women of colour storytellers.

I May Destroy You is available in Australia on Foxtel Go.

By Nick Mezo

The Art of the Confusing

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

What makes a great film, great?

It depends on the film – and who you might ask. To a Tarantino fan, the answer may lie in gripping action, memorable dialogue, and the cinematic technique of an evident cinephile. To a George Lucas fan, worldbuilding and adventure are key.

And then there are fans of Christopher Nolan. Right now, cinemas are screening the British-American filmmaker’s eleventh feature film: the US $200 million-budget Tenet. Even

by Nolan’s standards, the work is a wild ride – and frequently incomprehensible. Thus, the creator of such mind-benders as Memento and Inception has once again affirmed his own interpretation of cinematic greatness: complexity.

But does Tenet offer greatness?

Unlike Nolan’s amnesia-centred Memento and his consciousness-themed Inception, Tenet’s subject is time itself. The film’s content is not confined to time ‘travel’, either: from the viewer’s perspective, the action in Tenet quite literally flows forwards and backwards at various points. The stakes are high: characters are fighting to save not only the world, but everything that has ever happened.

That makes for some dazzling cinematography. There is something thrilling about seeing gunfire and hand-to-hand combat in reverse, not to mention reverse car chases and explosions. The enormous amount of money poured into this film is continuously evident.

Yet, if Tenet’s storyline seems daunting to follow, that is because it is. Nolan quite patently believes in the philosophy that, in film, ‘showing is better than telling’. Dialogue is seldom used to explain what is happening.

When characters do talk, they do not waste a word. That frequently leaves a lot to be desired.

This 150-minute film, therefore, unashamedly demands every second of the viewer’s

attention. Those wishing to use the bathroom at the cinema and understand the plot will find themselves unable to do both. If asked to summarise the film for others, viewers may struggle.

It is true that some of that confusion is wrapped up intermittently, particularly at the film’s conclusion. Yet, moviegoers may find themselves grappling with Nolan’s Art of the Confusing for large stretches of viewing. That will be more satisfying for some onlookers than others.

For those considering this film, it would be unjust to solely comment on its complex plot. Tenet has more than its storyline adding to, and detracting from, its favour.

I’ll start with its merits. Notably, Tenet features outstanding acting from its entire cast. What is more, Tenet is the rare type of story that encourages viewers to consider complex themes – like time, war, and loss – from different perspectives. Nolan grappled with Tenet’s central ideas for more than a decade. Depending on their mental preparedness, viewers may reap the rewards.

Keener eyes have accused the film of further shortcomings. Brian Loyd of Entertainment.ie stated that poor sound mixing “often” rendered dialogue inaudible, though I did not perceive that issue. With cause, many reviewers perceive the film’s Russian villain as a ‘Bond-esque’ trope. In a scathing review, Mike McCahill of IndieWire labelled the film “humourless”. Evidently, humour is not a goal for which Nolan set out in this World-War-Three flick. Yet granted the film’s mental and emotional strain, I must agree that occasional relief would have added to his product.

All in all, I find myself recalling the words offered by Rotten Tomatoes for the Netflix series Midnight Gospel I also recently reviewed. Like that series, this “strange brew won’t be for all tastes, but those willing to drink deep will find a wealth of vibrant visuals and illuminating insights.” (That is, if they’re lucky.)

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ni ecaf s’enoemos fo espmilg a hctac I ,moorhtab .rorrim eht eht ni ssenmid eht etipsed tnayoub s’ehS

gnileef fo hgih eht no gnitaofl ,ruoh etal dna moor .tuo thgin a rof ydaer nac uoY .yrehcuabed fo thgin a rof ydaeR

.rorrim eht ni tuo flesreh skcehc ehs yaw eht yb llet

ARTWORK: Bonnie Burns

The Two-Way Mirror

By Queenie Ung-Lam

I look at my phone again - the third time in the last 30 minutes. I know it’s rude, but it’s so late - my eyes were droopy two hours ago, and the siren call of my bed has only gotten louder.

Someone goes to order another round of drinks.

Dammit! There goes my window to make an exit without seeming like the grandma that I am.

mirror. Confident. Already projecting into the wildness of the night, the looseness of moving to music that is too loud, in a throng of bodies that is packed too tight. Her highlighter will catch those strobe lights, her arms will reach out to friends, all of them unsteady on the ferocity of feeling so alive.

Alive,

I can’t resist. I look at my phone again.

9:39 pm! At this rate, I’ll never make it to bed by 10 pm. Sigh.

It’s a team bonding event for a group of us involved on campus happenings and the damn first years have the energy to turn this into an all-nighter.

How are they so fucking perky? I’m one of the few third years on the team and feel outnumbered— the fourth and fifth years didn’t even bother to show up.

They know the drill.

Finally, finally, it starts to wrap up. The first years are antsy, ready to make the walk to Civic whilst sharing a bottle of the Little Fat Lamb stored in a nearby bush. I lock eyes with a fellow third year.

We’re ready to get out of here.

I can’t walk to my car fast enough, racing down Northbourne as the minutes tick closer to 10.

9:54 pm. I’m on Adelaide Avenue.

9:56 pm. I turn sharply onto my street.

9:58 pm. I’m in the bathroom, electric toothbrush in hand, smearing lines of white, red and blue toothpaste across the bristles.

I quickly scrub at my face, not having to worry about wearing makeup. No jewellery today. I slip off my baggy crew neck, leaving it on the floor, too tired to even hang it over the laundry basket.

Just as I’m about to turn the lights off in the bathroom, I catch a glimpse of someone’s face in the mirror.

She’s buoyant despite the dimness in the room and late hour, floating on the high of feeling ready for a night out.

Ready for a night of debauchery. You can tell by the way she checks herself out in the

Alive, ALIVE.

I look into the mirror at the reflection of first year me. She’s ready to leave, just as I’m ready to come in. She looks past me, uninterested in this seemingly tired, muted being. Her eyebrows are raised, she’s disappointed at what she sees. Where did this grandma come from? she wonders.

I want to tell her, dude, I’m a third year now, fuck, nearly a fourth year, the years of student politics, last minute 2000-word essays and shit CBE tutorials have worn me down. Don’t give me that look. I’ve tried to remain upbeat, to want to go party after an entire week of uni, work and student activism, but what I need is rest, not downstairs Moose tequila shots. Debauchery is a thing of the past, red lipstick has been replaced with Vaseline, knee high boots with Uggs and pretty dresses with flannel pyjamas.

Do I bore you, I want to ask her? You must think me terribly, terribly mundane, home at 10 pm on a Thursday night. What happened to the ready for anything girl, the one who stumbled into a bush for a quick tac-vom before downing that cheap Aldi vodka?

I’ll tell you what. She grew out of it all.

Maybe it was the too many mornings waking up hours after sunrise, clutching her head to contain the aches. Or perhaps the change in responsibilities, the shifting of priorities so that liver health became more important than a raging night out.

But it doesn’t matter who she is now, who she has become. Go have your fun, you energised and wild youth. Let this third year rest. She’s fucking tired.

45.

46.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Maddy Watson

By Bernadette Callaghan

Baby’s First Dating App

ARTWORK: Milly Yates

47.

Bernadette Callaghan reviews Hinge-- the dating app ‘designed to be deleted’.

if someone’s profile makes me smile, I won’t comment or like.

How does one date in Canberra? Sleep with someone from your university college? Find a nice ADFA boy? Date your friend’s ex’s ex-girlfriend?

The prospects are grim. Single now for a year and a half, I have finally caved and downloaded a dating app, specifically, Hinge. The premise is simple but much more involved than I expected. First, you choose six photos which you can attach a prompt to - “Me during Fashion Week”, “As seen on my mum’s fridge” and “Plandid or candid” are some of the options. Then it’s time to answer three written prompts to fill out your profile. Examples include “I’m overly competitive about…”, “I’m the type of texter who…” and “I want someone who…”. You would think that not needing to write a real bio would take the pressure off, but choosing the right prompts is frustratingly difficult. Despite the time I spent carefully curating all my responses, it seems many of my fellow singles just don’t give a shit. Ah well, maybe it’s easier not caring.

Let’s move onto the scope of folks you will meet on Hinge. There’s the copy-paste white men with chiselled jaws and too many gym photos that make you despair for the human race. These are the self-same men who, when using the prompt “What are you weirdly competitive about?”, answer in the realm of “Everything”. This is not a personality trait, and it’s not cute. Then there are alt-men with mustaches who have at least one photo at a house party who assert that Seinfield is the best show ever (doubtful). The few queer* women on the app seem either to drink as a personality trait or crochet like their life depends on it. There’s always the few people you come across that you know, like a mate from uni whose profile you like “as a friend” (genuinely not sure if this is correct online dating etiquette, let me know), or someone you’ve worked with who likes your profile and makes you feel very awkward as a result.

As I start my journey, profile completed, my housemate walks me through the steps of liking someone’s profile. I can either like or comment on any of the photos or prompt answers that people have on their profile, and if I dislike them, simply hit the “X” and move on to the next profile. This makes it easier to comment noncommittally on someone’s fun travel photo or joke prompt answer, if you’re so inclined. I can’t say I’m a very carefree person, and I’m too scared of someone getting the wrong idea that even

Not all hope is lost though, dear readers!

I have organised a singular date with one of the measly six people I’ve matched with (only three of which responded to my messages). Will this end my search for “the one”? I don’t think so, but it will probably end my experimentation with dating apps. The act of judging people on their photos and prompt responses feels superficial and makes me feel like an awful person, even though I know so many people do it and manage to find genuine connection. As I also fear the mortifying ordeal of being known, having my profile out there for everyone to see is… horrifying.

Download Hinge, or don’t. Staying single is less stressful, in my opinion. *Editor’s note: the author now has four dates successfully planned on Hinge this week.

Woroni wishes her all the best.

48.

Party at Home

By Rucha Tathavadkar

Parties are probably the best part of everyone’s life right? Okay, maybe not for everyone, but for quite a few people. For me, partying is like a hobby. Seriously, I mean it. A hobby is something that helps you relax and that’s exactly what a party does. So parties are kinda important for me. But when the great tragic year of 2020 arrived and brought this pandemic with it, my life was turned upside down. Everything closed. Shut down! Stay at home. Go out only if you need groceries. That means no parties! Oh no!

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

Things started getting more normal after a couple of months and I saw a post on Facebook: ‘O-Week Party’. Finally, it’s happening! God knows how happy I was! But wait a minute — what do I see? A zoom link in the description? A zoom link?

Oh. An online party. I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed. I mean, come on, how can someone even have a party online? That sounds so strange, right?

But after months of being locked up in my room and being disconnected from the outside world (seriously, how can you even feel connected with other people when most of them have their videos turned off during online lectures?), I finally had a chance to do something. I decided to give this online party a shot. I literally had nothing to lose.

So I get ready and put on my favourite dress. That was the best part. It’s cold outside and if it were an in-person party, I would have had to wear my awfully heavy coat. But hey, since I’m at home with my heater set to maximum, I can wear whatever I want!

Already one advantage of having an online party.

I get dressed, put on my make-up and, instead of leaving my room, I sit at my desk. I open my laptop and bam! I am at the party. “Cool!” I think, “That actually saves me a lot of time.”

Now we are at the party. There are around a hundred people there, but you can see only a few.

Thanks, tiny laptop screen. Everyone has turned off their mics so you receive a silent welcome. Gosh!

Remember the days when you would walk into the elevator at Marie Reay and go to the 6th floor, which would be filled with people? People crowding around the food and the drinks counter, people talking to their friends. No matter how much you hate that noise, it does set the mood for the party.

But here, with all the microphones muted and only a couple of faces on the screen, you start feeling a bit awkward.

Shall I turn off my video? Wait no, this is a party and not an early morning lecture. I can’t, it would be so stupid! What was the point of getting dressed then? I can’t!

I don’t turn off my video and just sit there on my chair, staring at the screen. Soon, the party begins and the host starts talking. Feels like the start of yet another lecture. Then the lecture ends and

the party begins. First some dance workshops (they actually teach you some dance moves!) and then the DJ and when the DJ is up, I start dancing in my own room. There are people, but all of them are on my laptop and their audio has been muted, so I feel like I’m all alone. I go on dancing for a while and once I’m tired, I leave the zoom meeting and turn off my laptop.

Well, that’s how my first online party was. To be honest, it wasn’t that bad and since that was the only way to have a party, I couldn’t complain. But was it the same as an in-person one? No, of course not. I know in recent times, everything is online and technology has been a boon to us during this pandemic and it’s all thanks to technology that we can even have parties etc. But is it equally fun? No. Whatever you say, you need actual people around you to have fun and not just some muted faces on a laptop screen.

Parties, I believe, are the best place to socialise and meet new people, make new friends and begin your uni life with a bang. This, of course, is not possible in online parties. Online parties lack the personal element. Actual parties have a different vibe that make the party lively, while online parties feel just like a lecture. A fun lecture, but still a lecture.

It did indeed feel great to have an online party after three long months of being at home, but it still felt as if something was missing. The party noise, the chatter and gossip, the food and drink stalls were all absent. They are the life of the party and a party is incomplete without them. So, no matter how great this online thing is, it will never be able to truly replace the essence of an in-person event.

49.

Creative

51.

LOCKDOWN Juliette Baxter

52.

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

cringe By k.s

it’s nice that you tried

but…..

you’re not a poet you’re not post-modern you’re just fourteen

and you’re posting screenshots of word docs with no capitals

or

punctuation and

random line spacing on tumblr go do your homework and save this for your diary (like everyone else)

By Rachel Chopping

Plath’s Pockets

ARTWORK: Maddy Watson

One doubled, we go out to eat, Turkish For two. Then: Home again.

Still hungry, he eats me out.

Still starving, wish I’d stayed in.

My hollow cave Groans, apple core brain coated by Thin skin.

Fat chance. I Face the fact.

His seeds simply won’t accept The arid soil in me; just Tumble and dry.

My cherry syrup smears his mouth, I have, Bare parched lips, Bloody thighs A white sculptured waist in mind, A landscape, cut off sharp by The knife inside My cavern, my fertile grotto.

Tip tap.

Empty room, Full silence.

Who is that inside there now?

Who would like to sneak a peek?

Someone knocking?

But no, the moon drops right out of The sky.

Swelling tides, Flat voices.

It’s aching where the knife is It’s given like a prize, It’s job well done!

53.

54.

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

At night Garema Place is rubber on corrugated cobble.

Spokes up against the stars.

Smoky aphorisms, phantasms of friend and lamplight and trees shot through with thin red fruit.

Conversations drift away like a cold shower.

Riding in and out again.

Garema Place is

Garema Place

By Joshua Green

a thing sharp and lucid.

Sitting lizard-like upon the base of my spine draped across my ribs in acid nostalgia.

Aching.

Remembering and washing away.

Garema Place is an escape at least for a while.

Three bikes on cobble.

I feel a centring of myself like planets coming into orbit.

Winter crawls in as past crawls into present and things, once done, never to be undone are merely framed and remembered.

Fruits, accepted and eaten, not for tomorrow but for the day after that and after that again.

Things once simple are now entangled beyond belief.

But I’ve seen enough to know that the horizon is just over the next hill.

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

55.

ARTWORK: Maddy Watson

Some nights we have no inhibition.

Away from sterile rooms with book-lined walls The slow drumming of deadlines Breaths of scholastic agony Away from our mothers and our fathers The blanket of reason burnt Mischief in place of calm When the sun shuts her eyes When the quiet starts to shake It is time for us to go Our weekly wake

By Sisana Lazarus

Ephemeral Revelry

56.

Evening skin is beautiful.

Tiny skirts, lashes and perfume Tall shoes, lipstick and jewels Livers filled with nectar Lungs tickled by vapour Screaming over music and jumping up to the ceiling Laughing in the mirror and stumbling on carpet Words slurred Blood dancing in our veins Oh, to feel this alive everyday The kingdom outside lures us onward.

A palace to be together and alone Loud and sickly and warm and cosy A cure For heartache and worry No grief Only glory Faces twist and gleam We all fall in love If just for a second With strangers and with each other The world spins And we rush to mend it Then we fade away.

Floating back as the hours grow To the beds in our own private taverns Heads swimming and mouths dry Dreams we won’t remember Versions of ourselves veiled before daylight Eyes shut and bodies sink And with that goes the freedom So rich and so ethereal Here for a moment And gone the next.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

The Fund

By Oscar Dumas

Might I remind you Of a hurtful gravitational tug you Once placed on us.

You told me Take your sorries to the gavel hot boy, Because I had eaten all the ripe plums. No, In fact I pleaded for help for my grimly steep Actions, I had - under wills of divinity, Laundered from the overflowing green pocketssssss of The Fund.

You‌ you enforced, If the money is the root of all evil, Why would you wilfully swallow the corrosion.

Are you idle or stupid.

Does the Trust Fund know You can’t be trusted with funds: you added solemnly.

I said yes and cried because The entire sail struck stiff in the squall Until your head got in the way of a collapsing mast That Struck You DEAD.

57.

58.

ARTWORK: Emily O’Neill

The Moose that Drank Too Much

By Dana Rice

This poem begins with Tycho Brahe (known long previously) Who owned a rather strange animal that acted deviously This pet chiefly being Alces alces (also known as a moose) Had a slight little issue of overindulging when set loose This odd configuration of a moose and man Became famous in Denmark for the way they ran So one day a nobleman wrote to Tycho and said ‘Do you have something faster than a deer on a sled?’

Tycho responded with great satisfaction, ‘Indeed, I do!

I’d be perfectly happy to lend my fastest moose to you!

But you will have to wait until after Christmas Day If my moose (who enjoys Yuletide) is to have his say.’

The truth was that the moose was rather partial to The festive smörgåsbord that was now to ensue: Pickled herrings, Lucia’s lussekatter, Christmas ham with mustard, Gravadlax salmon, Jansson’s Temptation, different sorts of custard!

But of all Nordic delicacies that day It was Uncle Jørgen’s mead which made him bray Oh, it was lovely! So dark and thick and sweet!

So much better than their bread or cheese or meat!

The moose would admit that he had indulged a bit too much (To the point that for dinner the company had none such) And Uncle Jørgen took him by his antlers and said,

‘You bloody moose! You’ve drunk all our ale and ate our spread!’

So Tycho ordered his pet back to stable The moose bowed his head, feeling quite unable And began to meander down the stairs Swishing and swashing, having passed all cares Then he stumbled: bumbling, falling and tumbling quite far down Children laughed at the clown while women did begin to frown Uncle Jørgen shook his head, ‘No more mead for that goose of a moose!’

A chill ran through Tycho’s synthetic nose and he cried, ‘What the deuce!’

As it was, the moose knocked his head against a cannister And crumbled to the floor beside the wooden bannister Two days later he died of haemorrhage and was mourned By his owner Tycho who sobbed, ‘Poor dear, you were warned.’

A fortnight passed and he took up his quill (dipping it in ink) And he wrote to the nobleman saying he was in a kink ‘My best moose (for whom you recently asked) has suddenly passed And now there is no one to beat a deer on a sled going fast ‘However, I have one comfort to suggest (Don’t think badly of the moose—he was no pest.)

But I do now have this ever-slightest hunch That I can send you the remaining moose munch.’

ARTWORK: Bonnie Burns

Tuesday 18th

By Tilda Njoo

I was trying to work out what was different about the day. It had been gnawing at me you know - you know that feeling like something’s twitching just outside of your peripherals, twitching on the ground but you can’t quite turn around to see what, or where, or how it started twitching in the first place?

Yeah, that feeling had been gnawing at me all day as I walked around, dropping off some stuff at Genevieve’s and stopping by the café. Genevieve and I called it quits about a week ago. It was her idea, mind you, but I still felt bad about it, as if I’d run over her cat or something and had to go up to her front door and tell her about it myself. I still felt bad, even though it was like she had run over my cat. Anyway, maybe that’s the feeling I had that day, although it wasn’t quite so sombre as a dead cat.

The twitching felt blunt and grating in the kind of way that melancholia wasn’t.

59.

60.

As I was passing through the city on my way back from Genevieve’s to drop off her things, I was feeling the twitching so strongly that I even turned and looked over my shoulder a couple of times. I know I looked ridiculous, looking around behind me like that. Usually I try to be cool about things, especially in places like the city where there are so many people watching. Anyway, as I was walking, I was trying to figure out where it had come from.

There had been nothing unusual about this week, except that it had started with Genevieve and ended without her. I wasn’t all that bothered by it, except for the fact that I felt bad about it.

She wasn’t the sort of person you could write about.

She was too unassuming, I suppose. I got a story published once, you know. That almost makes me a writer and a writer can’t be with someone that they can’t write about. I made that rule up, but it just makes sense, I guess. Anyway, by the time I’d started thinking about Genevieve again, I was halfway across George St and on my way to the train station. I walk with quite a determined stride, and I was so caught up in Genevieve and the fact that the twitching hadn’t stopped that I was walking rather too determinedly, and people started looking up from the ground and watching me as I crossed the street, except that I didn’t even notice until I’d finished crossing and then I remembered to slow down and look cool again. People are watchers in the city. They watch and watch until you start to feel your own goddam skin burning up. That was the good thing about Genevieve, I guess. You never felt watched when she was looking at you.

I was halfway down the stairs to Platform 3 by this point, and my hand was twitching against the railings. I wasn’t even thinking really, wasn’t thinking about where I was going or the fact that it was towards the train that led out west, back out towards Genevieve’s place. The linoleum was ripping up underneath my feet as I walked onto the train.

That’s what it felt like anyway. It felt like my body was ripping at the train. Like it could tear the whole thing apart. Across the carriage a man kept folding and unfolding his newspaper, folding and unfolding like he was looking for something to distract himself.

His suit was pinstriped, but in a sort of obnoxious way, as if he really wanted everyone to know that he was wearing a suit. I was looking real hard at it. I was looking too hard and two seconds too late I realised that I was staring. The man looked at me strangely, like he knew I was the sort to not watch people, but

who slipped up every now and again and to kick themselves over it.

The train ride was too long, and by the halfway point I think the man had given up. He hung his newspaper hung limply over his knee. By this point, I was really starting to get into my own head. I kept telling myself, over and over: she won’t be home, she’ll be at work still. Over and over. Because even though I was on the train on the way to her house, I knew that if I saw her I’d start to feel bad about everything. It’s not like I didn’t already feel bad.

She’ll be at work. At least that’s what I told myself, over and over. She won’t be home. She’ll be at work. Like watching her move around behind her curtained windows would be like seeing my cat being run over, and then again in reverse. Just to make certain that it was dead. She’ll be at work.

I was sort of tense by then, because the sun was starting to set which meant that maybe she would be home. She wouldn’t be at work. I tried not to think about her as I walked off the platform and onto the street. It’s funny, considering the fact that I’m nearly a writer and all and could hardly bring myself to write about her, I sure did think about her a lot. Her. Genevieve. It’s funny to write her name. It almost shouldn’t exist on paper. She’s too unassuming, I guess.

Anyway, by this point I was so caught up in not thinking about her that I barely even noticed that I was outside her apartment, across the street and to the left a bit. We always used to say goodbye here.

She was the sort of girl to walk you to the door when you had to leave, and then walk you down the stairs and all the way across the street. Just to make sure you didn’t have to do it alone. The twitching had eased up. The twitching had eased up although I didn’t notice that until afterwards, because I was too busy noticing that her lights were on, and that they were framing two silhouettes in the window. I recognised Genevieve’s right away. I guess you start knowing people like that once you’ve been around them for long enough. The other silhouette wouldn’t detach itself from Genevieve’s, so I couldn’t make it out. I was really kicking myself now, telling myself that I shouldn’t have come, because I’d known that I’d feel bad if I did, and yet I still had to come and check up on her. As I turned away, I thought I saw her tilt her head towards the street. Maybe I’d imagined it. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Either way, I don’t even own a cat.

ARTWORK: Milly Yates

Mushrooms

By Neve Traynor

Pesky little eavesdroppers, their red bulbous heads nosing out of the dirt. Pompously round, suspiciously still. Like a snob with a secret.

I want to know the secret. So I’m crushing dried caps into my banana-berry smoothie.

Fly agaric, amanita muscaria, or the fairy toadstool if you don’t know your shrooms. Look for the big red hats with white freckles popping out under pine trees. Even an amateur like me can’t get it wrong.

Now they’re shrivelled and flaky in my fingers. The rotting odour digs down to my stomach, hurling my guts around. I gag and slam on the Nutri Ninja lid. Any second thoughts drown in the whirr of the blender. ***

“The girl treks, unabashed, over the mountain summit,” I murmur like a literary David Attenborough, “empty cup hanging limp in her hand, having slurped her way into imminent abandon.”

My guilty pleasure when I’m alone is self-narration.

What else am I supposed to do, while I’m waiting for the yawning to begin: the tell-tale sign of the mushies taking hold. Nausea inches up from my stomach, which shoots me a suspicious glare: This, again?

I stumble along a walking track that is only just visible in the dead leaves. The Canberra bush is a smudge of thick eucalypts. A sign stands by the path: “Warning Poison Baits”. My bowels squirm.

Why are these plants so difficult to digest? Mother Nature gifted us with psychedelics, only to chuck in the drawback of neurotic nausea. It’s no coincidence that the poison in fly agaric is the psychoactive component: you’ve got to work for your fun. Cheap thrills, huh? When Centrelink can’t afford you real drugs…

“She focuses only on the next footstep.” I’m breathing hard. Why did I do this? Don’t look back.

My head hangs and my eyes droop down my face like a Dali painting. I yawn.

A yawn! Praise the Lord! My body is processing. Another yawn: I march on in victory and gulp down a retch, knowing it will subside soon. The aftertaste of fungi still clings to my tongue.

“She staggers like a public drunk, leaning on scribbly gums for support.” I chuckle at what I must look like. The landscape is coated in an ugly winter grey and it swamps me with its uniformity.

The path shivers and shakes into a blur, then disappears into my huge yawn.

Voices crackle ahead of me and my eyelids fly open. People. “She was wholly unprepared to come across her own species,” I whisper.

Two young mothers appear through the trees sporting puffer jackets and leggings. They look disproportionately gigantic on the path, but that’s probably the pelopsia. One woman has a proud baby bump swelling through her lycra. I wipe at my ruffled hair and clutch the jumper trailing off my limbs, my mouth ajar in panicked paranoia.

“Hi.” The expecting woman nods at me on approach. She narrows her eyes. What are you on?

She glances at her friend and purses her lips: Is she alright?

I blush. Pity is infinitely worse than disapproval. My facial muscles push into a smile.

“You doing ok?” the other woman says.

I gape and flap my hands. They’re doubting me; I need a reply. Good. Or, good, how about you?

Maybe a I’m fine, thanks. How are you going? Enjoy your walk! The possibilities are insurmountable.

“Goo–” I gurgle and look up to face nobody. I whip around and see their ponytails bobbing down the path.

61.

62.

I take a sharp left and bolt from the path.

Enough of that civilisation shit. I canter through dry bush, the bumpy ride matching my internal mayhem. It was only two small caps, I shouldn’t be at hallucination level. Nothing pretty, nope, just my vision hopping before my eyes like a game of jump rope. England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. The top chunk of my visual field flicks to random images from memory: just now, a flash to a tree trunk I stopped at earlier.

Panting and scrunching my nose, I claw through leafless shrubbery, branches clipping at my dress. Perhaps the running was too much. My organs stir: my brain, my eyeballs, my stomach.

Something is shooting from my centre up my throat.

I halt and heave. Berry smoothie spurts from my mouth. I hobble over the earth, eyes shut, a puppet to internal reflexes. I purge up another round of purple water, and another, returning the mushies to the dirt. Each hurl washes me with the relief that it only gets better from here. The tide subsides on my empty tummy.

I open my eyes. Eucalypts encircle me, all muscle and height, warning of their surveillance.

“Sorry about the spew,” I cough.

“You’re sorry?” a voice crackles.

I stumble backwards and whip my neck around, but no one is there.

“Down here, halfwit! I didn’t die on my feet only to be puked on by an inebriated human.”

I squint at my vomit between my feet. A white lump lies in the dirt, beneath the puddle of berry water. I nudge it with my boot and dead leaves fall away from the chalky cranium.

“Bones?” I murmur. The skull glares up at me from its eye sockets, grinning from its jaw of neat teeth. Purple sludge drips off the crusty horns.

Vertebrae are scattered like stars around it.

“Bones!” the voice screeches. “Is that all you think I am? And who do you think you are, staggering around desecrating graves?”

My eyes boggle. Maybe my self-narration was getting meta, but this didn’t sound like Sir

David. The scene shifts a few centimetres and my vision flickers to an image of mushrooms for a millisecond – where did I see that? I push harder to concentrate but my perception is all out of whack.

“At this stage,” I exhale wearily, “the hallucinations are beyond psychedelic. The poison is hijacking the central nervous system.”

The skull lets out a throaty cackle. “Don’t talk poison to me, little girl. You know nothing of poison.”

My knees wobble as I squat at the grave site, glancing around me to check if anyone is watching. “I’d rather think I do,” I hiss as my vision strobes.

“Ha!” it grunts, a purple droplet rolling down its snout. “You don’t know of the piercing pain, the convulsions, the final breath. You don’t know of the agony of having your carcass torn apart by wild dogs. Nor the terror of rats scrabbling and gnawing your bones.” The skull gnashes its brown teeth. “Then to finally rest in peace, only for some tripper to vomit purple grot over your corpse.”

I stare at the decomposing carcass. Hair, blacker and thicker than mine, balloons beneath the bones like a dark cloud. The shadow of the animal that once was: a sheep or goat or deer. The air smells of rot.

It glares at me with its scraped out eyes.

“You’re the one I feel sorry for. Don’t you know anything? Look closer, little girl.”

I grab a stick to poke at the matted hair.

My face looms over the microcosm as I lean in and unstitch a piece from the dirt. Underneath, a tiny white nub is nosing its way out of the leaf litter. A faint bloom of rouge paints its skin.

“A baby fly agaric,” I say. A fleeting vision comes to me: colonies of baby mushrooms, silky white heads squirming up out of the earth. Their spores sprinkle, their tiny ears open, listening for rain.

I wait for a reply, but the skull is still and silent, smiling wide.

ARTWORK: Sian Williams

Mooseheads Reopens: Introverts Lament

By Katie Sproule

In recent tragic news, hordes of anxious Canberrans are once again being forced to invent new reasons they can’t leave the house on Thursday nights now that Mooseheads reopening. Thanks to the global pandemic, nervous introverts have been given respite from the sweaty, over-crowded rooms of sexually charged socialising with people you only kind of know. Now that this brief window of peace is coming to a close, one can expect to say farewell to chilled drinks with friends and a return to the weekly hellish nightscape.

“If it was just Thursday nights, I could probably deal with it,” commented Anna, a chronically stressed undergraduate. “But it writes all the girls off for Fridays too. Who am I supposed to get brunch with? Am I expected to get coffee by myself? And what about Saturday nights? Are they back too? Will my torment never end?”

The reopening of Mooseheads is not all bad, however, with businesses surrounding the nightclub to have a massive boom. Civic Maccas is expecting a mass increase in late-night purchasing

of nuggets and hash browns. Similarly, the 24-hour convenience store is expected to cash in on the return of drunk smokers who buy packets of durries to enjoy exclusively on nights out. ‘Can I cop a dart?’ will no doubt soon again be heard echoing through the bus station.

Amina, a college social rep, also sees the positive side of Mooseheads returning, particularly for first year ANU students. “This will give them the opportunity to experience true university life.

Finally, these eighteen year olds can wake up to the smell of vomit in the communal bathrooms, phones missing, and with over $100 mysteriously absent from their bank accounts. They can live, first-hand, the complex repercussions of hooking up with as many people from your college as possible. Our natural habitat is healing. It’s going to be beautiful.”

So dust off those white sneakers, pull out your ‘nice top’, and make sure to check on your friend with sensory-triggered anxiety, because Mooseheads is finally back and it’s time to drink irresponsibly.

63.

64.

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

Breaking News!

Miracle Drug Cures Insomnia

By Katie Sproule

In breaking medical news, a cure for insomnia has finally been discovered. Shockingly, it comes in the form of the common flower, chamomile (chamaemelum nobile), and is most effective when the dosage is delivered to the patient in the form of a herbal tea. This medicine can already be bought with no prescription at most local supermarkets alongside instant coffee and green tea.

The discovery was made by Canberra GP, Doctor McAdiot, who suggested the warm beverage to his patient, Celia Sleepless, at her appointment just the other morning. Sleepless had come to the doctor on Thursday before work, complaining that she had been awake for two days in a row and was not sure if the neon pink shapes she was seeing in the air were real.

McAdiot at first suggested “minimising stress” and “exercising a couple of times a week” but then brought out the tea in a final, drastic attempt to help his patient. A bold move in the eyes of his colleagues at the practice,, but one that really paid off.

“I mean I’ve been on pretty serious sleeping medication for a few years,” said Sleepless. “It’s

a bit of a chronic issue for me. I’ve tried low doses of antipsychotics and am regularly on valium, but it hasn’t really been working for the last couple of weeks. I’ve done so many sleep studies that I’ve lost count. When McAdiot suggested the herbal tea I just thought wow, why haven’t I tried this before?

I’m so stupid! Chamomile tea has changed my life. I now have no sleeping issues whatsoever. It’s honestly a miracle.”

McAdiot had some sage advice when asked what he would tell Woroni’s readers who had issues with sleep. “Look,” he said. “You’re not going to actually die if you don’t get enough sleep. Sure, you’ll feel really ill and like you’re losing your mind, but eventually you will just pass out and things will be fine. If you can’t handle it, head to your local GP so they can undermine your health concerns and leave you in tears.”

McAdiot said he is now looking into other cures for insomnia, notably crystals and yoga, and is just waiting on the funding before the research project can begin in earnest.

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We would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional custodians of the land on which Woroni is created. We pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.