GSM ed. 1 vol. 4 "Orientation 2013"

GSM

E. 1 V. 4

Content

Editor: Tom Reynolds editor.gsm@gmail.com GSM - ECU 2 Bradford Street Mount Lawley WA 6050 Cover: D’Arcy Ellis Design: Tom Reynolds

Images: Grace McKie (3), Ali Alatas (10), D’Arcy Ellis (11, 17, 23, 24), Evonne Lai (12, 26), Liam Lucas (13, 25), Tom Reynolds (9, 14, 15, 18), Wenjie Zheng (16, 21), Kate Prendergast (20), Jason Dirstein (22), Giselle Natassia (27), Tom Ansell (29), Franco Iannantuoni

Psst! Want to do a review? Contact us!

Arts: Jason Dirstein arts.editor.gsm@gmail.com Books: Asten Nunn books.editor.gsm@gmail.com Film: Asten Nunn film.editor.gsm@gmail.com Games: Aron Shick games.editor.gsm@gmail.com Music: Madi McKenzie music.editor.gsm@gmail.com

The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Editor, ECU Student Guild or the Advertisers. GSM is editorially independent. The Editor reserves the right to make changes to material as required. GSM reserves the right to republish material. Contributors retain all other rights for resale and republication.

Hi and Welcome! My name is Sheridan Young and I have been elected your ECU Guild President for 2013. This is a new era for the Guild at ECU. I am working with your student representatives to create an effective and available student organisation; supporting students, clubs and promoting great events for ECU students.

Over the coming year we will putting on great social events, networking opportunities and create campaigns that make a difference for students. You can find out about these events on our website, facebook and in the regular emails you will be receiving from the Guild.

A great way to participate in ECU life is to be involved with a club or a society. They make an invaluable contribution to our campus atmosphere and we plan to work with them; supporting their events and their continued growth.

University life can provide many challenges. Your Guild is here to provide you with the support you need and we are working with the University to create and expand upon services for you. We currently provide services for students struggling financially,

Hundreds of

which includes free food, book vouchers, and interest free loans.

We will endeavor to use creativity to expand the Guild services to support students to overcome the issues and concerns that accompany university life.

I am also passionate about sustainability, equality and justice. I am excited at looking at ways in which ECU can connect with the wider community on these issues. As a Guild, it is important that we stand up for equality on campus and provide opportunities for all students. If this is something you are interested in, I invite you to come and speak to the ECU Guild!

We really appreciate students engaging with us and letting us know what they want, what they are dealing with and any great ideas they would love to see at ECU. We are committed to being true representatives of yourself and your peers. Please feel free to email, phone or pop into the Guild for a chat or a coffee. The Joondalup Guild Office is in building 10, the Mount Lawley Guild Office is in building 12 and the Bunbury Guild Office is in building 5.

I look forward to seeing you at the End of Summer Party at the Tav in Joondalup on the 28th February!

Sheridan Young

online videos

Watch these and many more at e c u . ka n o p y s t re a m i n g . c o m Available courtesy of the ECU Library

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Hiya! I’m Claire McCormick, your Education Vice President for 2013. I’m 26 and currently studying my second year of a Bachelor in Communication with a Double Major in Journalism and Political/International Relations.

I’m very passionate about student rights and as your EVP it’s my job to represent ALL students and address ANY issues that you have in regards to your university education.

I also want to contribute to creating a more vibrant, fun-filled and active environment at ECU to make sure your University experience is the best it can be!

My name is Dara Bamigboye , studying a Bachelor of Law and I am your 2013 Business and Law Faculty representative.

Jacky Le Mount Lawley Campus representative

I am really excited for this year as there are many events in the pipeline to ensure that students under our Faculty have opportunities for networking and socialising. University can be very stressful, so this year there will be a number of ‘stress less’ sessions in order to recharge your mental and emotional levels. I am here to look after the well being of students within the faculty and ensure that great memories are made during your time of study.

As a student studying a Doubles Degree (Arts/ Comm) 2nd year at Mount Lawley, I have the privilege to have been elected as your campus representative for 2013. This year, my aims are to bridge the gaps between faculties externally and internality, ensure Mount Lawley becomes a more central and active campus so there are more events and activities happening around the area, and to make sure the quality of the university environment is kept up to standards so that you can enjoy the benefits the ECU Guild has to offer you. In addition operate a more friendly student environment by receiving feedback (both the good the bad and the ugly) so that we can learn and improve aspects that are in need to be accounted for.

I am a very approachable person so if you have any suggestions as to any event ideas feel free to contact me on fbl@ecuguild. org.au , I can’t wait to work with you all and I wish you all a successful year!

If you see me around campus feel free to say hi and have a chat. If you have any concerns, questions or a great idea, please email me or find me on Facebook. Good luck and good times for the coming year!

Claire McCormick Education Vice President evp@ecuguild.org.au

Sanjay Menon Postgraduate Representative

Azlan Martin Chairperson, Equity and Diversity Department GSM Submission Greetings ECU friends!

Welcome to another spectacular year of studies and campus life. 2013 will be a very positive year for the Equity and Diversity Dept., and the Student Guild.

We’re excited to rebuild and grow, stretching our young wings as a student community and share positive ideas for the continual improvement of our services, so you have the best experience while studying.

My name’s Azlan, I’m the chairperson of the Equity and Diversity Department. I’m passionate about giving you a voice for issues that arise during university life. My Representatives, who stand for key equity and diversity areas within our University, are keen to engage and inform you about relevant topics throughout the year.

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I’m looking forward to meeting you.

I started my studies with ECU in Feb 2012 for Masters in Engineering. During my time here I found that the Postgrad students were really isolated and hardly ever attended any social events. Especially coming from India, which is so socially and culturally diverse, I felt bit alone. That’s when I thought I should change the system or become the change.

My main responsibilities would be to represent the PG students throughout the three campuses irrespective of their faculty or course, attend meetings to discuss the needs of PG students and see how these can be addressed. Also to make sure that the postgrads don’t crumble under the pressure of their courses, I will organize and conduct events through which they can meet other students and de-stress.

However my main aim is to have a great time meeting and interacting with new people....

Please check out their awesome stalls at our O-Days between the 1921st of February, to learn more about their invaluable input.

Upcoming important dates to remember include, but are not limited to International Women’s Day on March 8 and Rally for Marriage Equality on May 11.

I’m working closely with the Student Assist Officers, to help low socio-economic students and provide a helping hand for those who need it. The new textbook subsidy scheme will be launched soon, to provide assistance for the cost of necessary course books and emergency food hampers will be available from you’re nearest office (with long-life canned goods and a happy smile to brighten your day).

If you would like some more information, or would just like to chat then please feel free to spin me a message. My email address is equity@ecuguild.org.au.

ECU Students Amateur Elite Soccer ECU Students Amateur Elite Soccer Club(Inc.) invites all students (females and males) to join the newly created club for the 2013-2014 season. The club is opened to any member of the community.

Join the social team or if you wish to be more competitive, the reserve or 1st team. Mature age students can book their children in the Academy. We train on Wednesday and Fridays 6-8.30pm at ECU Joondalup.

For more info contact us at elitesoccerclubinc@gmail.com or on 0432 515 608 ECU Wellbeing Community We encourage healthy networking and peer support for issues of mental health and disabilities; aiming to improve wellbeing for staff and students, while reducing stigma. Previously, we’ve hosted ‘Tea and Talk’, promoting honest conversations for RUOK?Day, ‘Turn Blue for a Day’ in support of Beyondblue and regular meetings to touch base. We’re excited to develop our events in 2013! If you have any questions or would like to be involved, please spin us a message.

Email: ecu.wellbeing@gmail.com Facebook: ECU Wellbeing Community

Justice Awareness Group Justice Awareness Group seeks to raise community awareness of justice issues in Western Australia. We are a group of students, community members, academics, and professionals brought together with the shared goal of promoting equity and justice within our justice system. We will achieve this through community engagement and public discussion. Like our Facebook page: justice awareness group We can be contacted via Facebook or by email: justiceawarenessgroup@gmail.com

Association of Norwegian Students Abroad ANSA’s main purpose if to maintain Norwegian students academic, economic, social and cultural interests, and to create an understanding of how valuable the international students are through their experience and expertise from studying overseas. Throughout the year ANSA arranges various events such as start-of-semester cruise, back-toschool party, wine tour, bowling nights and the Norwegian constitutional day.

Like ANSA Perth on facebook: AnsaPerth ansa.perth@gmail.com

ECU Enactus The ECU Enactus team focuses on bringing about positive change in the community, through entrepreneurial action by utilising the knowledge of university students to make real change in our community. In the last twelve months, ECU Enactus has organised professional networking events, developed a number of engaging projects and represented ECU in Melbourne at the Enactus Australia National Conference and Competition. Enactus is an internationally recognised brand that offers professional development opportunities and is a great addition to any resume.

Website: www.ecuenactus.org.au Email: join@ecuenactus.org.au

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Mature Age Student Network The Mature Age Student Network at Edith Cowan University is a member of the Mature Age Student Network Australia. At ECU the club hopes to assist the transition, retention, and graduation of the mature age student by providing networking and social activities.

For more information, please contact Brian at bgoodman@our.ecu.edu.au Network Teach Network Teach is the official student association of the ECU School of Education. Our mission is to enrich the experience of aspiring teachers to become effective educators whilst also ensuring their ongoing support and transition into University life. We arrange a multitude of activities, events and programs throughout the year to achieve this aim. Activities scheduled for 2013 are inclusive of; a dedicated mentoring program, professional develop seminars, an education ball, ECU for Kids Day, revision and examination workshops, practicum master classes, regular meet and greet barbecues and lunches, wine tours, river cruises, and much more!

Facebook: Network Teach Enquiries: networkteach@ecu.edu.au Edith Cowan Student Law Society Edith Cowan Student Law Society provides services for the law students of Edith Cowan University, including networking opportunities, workshops, social events and presentations relevant to the legal industry.

Contact Email: secretary@ecsls.asn.au ECU Christian Union Joondalup We meet to proclaim to both Christians and non-Christians; Jesus as the ruler and rescuer of the world. This is what the Bible calls the Gospel (meaning Big News).

And this big news is something everyone needs to hear. If you are at uni and you are a Christian then CU is the place where you can grow as a Christian. If you are at uni and you want to find out more about Jesus then CU is for you. Come along, we would love to see you there.

Email: ecucu.joondalup@hotmail.com.au Website: http://joondalup.ecucu.org.au/ Student Arts Union

ECU Women’s Community We support female identifying staff and students at ECU. In 2012 we hosted Blue Stocking’s Week which celebrates women in higher education and a highly successful clothes swap at Mount Lawley. In 2013 we hope to hold many more events across all campuses, provide necessary free services and resources, and promote safety on campus. If you need to contact us you can find us on Facebook at EcusWomensCollective Email ecuwomenscommunity@gmail.com

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The SAU is a new student group that seeks to galvanize and promote university life through activities throughout the Mt. Lawley campus. We are here to serve as an intermediary between students and the university’s communications & arts department services by communicating all the ideas, suggestions, proposals, initiatives, concerns and other things that students may wish to share. On top of this, the SAU actively organises events across the campus with the intent of enriching uni life for all students!

Are there other ways to get involved?

Yes! We’re always looking for students with a good sense of grammar and spelling to help proofread each edition.

What sort of articles do you publish?

Anything that meets our publishing standards. We encourage writing your own stories, speculative pieces (think Cracked.com), satire, humour and opinion pieces as well as pieces about current affairs, news and politics. We determine what to publish by taking the best submissions we receive for each edition.

Yo! Congratulations on having refined enough taste in universities to find yourself at ECU. Edith Cowan is a university of opportunity. This means we take in lots of students who are typically the first (or one of the very few) people in their family to go to a university. Well done on making it into academia, uni is going to be a fun, frustrating, tough, rewarding and hopefully degree-endowing experience. GSM is relatively new, turning four in September this year, so like you we’re also finding out feet and adjusting to life at ECU. To help you we’ve gone provided some frequently asked questions.

So what is this “GSM” business I’m holding in my hands?

GSM is your student magazine. This means we source as much of the content as possible from ECU students like yourself. Our aim is to give the ECU community a platform for expression.

We’re funded by the Guild but remain editorially independent - a bit like how the ABC relates to the Government. The editor is an employee of the Guild, but student reps don’t influence the content of GSM except by publishing their own views directly. GSM is published monthly during the semester and is available on all our campuses as well as select locations around Perth and Fremantle.

What kinds of things can I submit?

Anything! Each edition is based on a theme to help focus your creative energy. We’re always looking for additional students to provide us illustrations and photos to publish, as well as writing reviews and articles. While we like to talk about important issues we try and keep an informal tone to GSM and we recognise that irreverence is a virtue in student press (e.g. we don’t take ourselves too serious and expect you to know that a campus rag and The New York Times are very difficerent publications).

How do I get involved with reviews?

Email the section editor and ask to join the mailing list. These folks organise review passes and samples – which you get to keep – as well as interview opportunities. Reviewing is a great way to dip your toe in the water and get involved with the community.

Arts: arts.editor.gsm@gmail.com Books: books.editor.gsm@gmail.com Film: film.editor.gsm@gmail.com Games: games.editor.gsm@gmail.com Music: music.editor.gsm@gmail.com

What makes a good article or review?

A good article is well structured, proofread (!), has a clear point, is engaging (makes us want to keep reading), a strong authorial voice (a bit of personality to it), and is creative. A review should tell us as much information as possible about the subject, and not just be a recap of the storyline or telling us if you liked or didn’t like something. Tell us why you did in detail! We have an extensive guide on how to write good articles and reviews for GSM on our Facebook page.

How do I get involved?

Come to our next writers’ night, the details are on the inside cover.

Writers’ nights are an informal brainstorming session where we generate ideas for articles, give out stuff for our review sections and generally muck about. We encourage free expression and keeping an open mind so if you’re easily offended you’ve been warned!

What if I can’t make it?

No sweat! Join the mailing list by emailing me at editor.gsm@ gmail.com and like our Facebook page too. All our contact details are on Facebook and we also let you know about last minute tickets and upcoming social events. We also run the occasional give-away and competition. And of course, we also remind you about deadlines!

By the way, what does GSM stand for?

Gibbering Scholar’s Monthly, Gay Sex Magazine, Gestapo Silencing Machine. Greendale’s Student Magazine, Garbage Spouting Mouthpiece. Take your pick.

I’d like to thank my 2013 section editors for working over the holidays to provide us their reviews and interviews. Asten, Jason.

Madi and Aron – thanks! The Orientation edition is a composite the best material we published in 2012. If you have general feedback about GSM (love it, hate it, tolerate it) – why not let us know? We’re genuinely interested in your constructive feedback. GSM is published on the Mount Lawley campus in an office recognisable by its prolific colony of black ants and kitsch wall decorations. Why not come say hi?

Tom Reynolds 2013 Editor

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Are you a first year international student new to Perth? Are you feeling a little manic/bi-polar right about now? One minute, it’s “Gah! I cannot believe that am I living in Perth, Australia! This.

Is. So. Awesome.” And the next it’s, “Holy crap. What have I done? I miss mum/ my boyfriend/ my mum‘s boyfriend so much! I don’t know anyone here. Why did I come here?”

Listen, it’s okay. You are not alone. Let’s take a deep breath, all together now. Better, right? First, whatever it is that you had to do to get here, you did it! Yay you! Don’t forget that, especially when times feel a little tough. Here are some tips on how to not only survive, but ultimately thrive here in Perth.

Get your grub on Being a student can be like trying to live a Jaguar lifestyle on a Pinto budget. The cost of living in Perth does tend to be higher than most places but can be managed with some planning. Eating out all the time can, well, eat away at your budget very quickly and can be unhealthy. Get in the habit of cooking. Locally grown food is plentiful here, so buy whatever is in season. It will end up less expensive and you’ll get the benefit of healthier food that helps the local economy.

Not a great chef? Start with something easy and work your way up from there. A super easy (and inexpensive dish) is pasta.

Cook the pasta and in a separate pan, lightly brown a clove of chopped garlic in some olive oil. Add some crushed tomatoes and toss in your cooked pasta. Top with some parmesan cheese and voila! A dish that’s not only yummy and inexpensive but can also be made in a large batch initially to make several meals.

Get creative You know the instant ramen noodles that are less than a dollar a packet? Well, they come with some great seasonings like sesame oil, chili and soy sauce. Fry up an egg, add some fresh veg and any leftover protein you may have in the fridge and you have an easy, inexpensive and balanced meal.

Can’t boil a pot of water to save your life? No worries, mate, there are plenty of pre-made meals at the grocery store. There’s such a great selection of different types of cuisine that you won’t have to suffer the pains of a bland diet! There are also daily specials at local haunts to help feed you. For instance, The Flying Scotsman here in Mt. Lawley offers a $10 pizza and pint special on Sundays.

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Get your social on There’s no way around it. Making new friends can be tough, even for the most outgoing person. It’s a lot like dating, except you don’t have the physical stuff to fall back on. First things first, make sure that you have an open mind. There are a lot of great people here in Perth, but you shouldn’t expect to find the exact same group of friends that you have back home. That expectation may leave you frustrated and then sad when an exact replica of your friends/social circle back home doesn’t magically appear.

Don’t be afraid to do things by yourself. Yes, I know, this is tough. Get over it! If you have an open mindset and are comfortable with yourself, it can lead to some new and exciting friendships (or more). Just remember to enjoy yourself. It’s contagious.

Talk to someone who doesn’t look like you. Talk to someone who’s in line with you at the bookstore. Talk to someone who’s sitting at the table next to you at the Aroma Café. There are opportunities to meet new people everywhere.

Get the basics Like every other city in the world, Perth does have crime.

Be careful and use your head. You are smart enough to have made it to university, right? If you’re out late don’t try and walk home. Get a taxi. Better to spend a few bucks and be safe rather than sorry.

There are certain parts of Perth that become very scary after a certain hour. For instance, just the sheer number of bars in Northbridge makes it a breeding ground for nothing good late at night. Know where you are going and always have a route planned out. From what I understand, public transit can be iffy after a certain time at night. Try to plan alternate methods of travel ahead of time.

You should also get very comfortable trusting your own instincts. If you hear that little voice in your head telling you something about anything, just follow it. Always.

You can make your time here in Perth a great adventure or a total snooze fest. Choose the adventure! And don’t forget to study hard, crack is whack, and so on…

Words by Julie Khan Image by Ali Alatas

A budget can be a hard one, what may seem reasonable one month, will break the bank the next if an emergency comes up. Try to keep this in mind when you start looking, better to be conservative than deal with angry housemates when you can’t pay rent for a month. Next is location. Be realistic! You WILL NOT get an awesome house with one or two great housemates in Mount Lawley for $100 a week and if you do, you lucky bastard, do not stuff it up! Budget and location really do go hand in hand, the more desirable the suburb the more you will pay.

Though also remember the more people in the house, the less you pay.

At one time or another during our life, we are ikely to venture out into the big wide world.

The downside of this is, in the big wide world your pay-cheque doesn’t stretch quite as far. A sad reality, but a true one. So what do you do? You can find an abandoned house, shop or warehouse and squat but that’s not really conducive to studying. You can live out of your car, but again this would make things difficult. Or you can rent somewhere.

The problem with renting nowadays is it’s expensive, VERY expensive! Only a decade ago you could rent a three bedroom, two bathroom house close to the CBD for $150 a week. In 2012 you will be struggling to find a room for the same price. Then there is the question of who to live with. Do you try and get some friends together, only to find your best mate snores like a train, or move in with strangers only to come home one day and find your housemates broke cousin “Jimmy” sleeping on your couch? Or take the gamble of leasing somewhere in the hopes you can find housemates to help reduce the impact on your bank balance?

The answer is all three. The key to sharehouse success is to keep an open mind and follow your instincts. Having just recently been on the hunt for a new sharehouse, after the old one went sour, I feel I can offer some insight into the do and don’ts of searching, moving in and cohabiting. First of all you need to prioritise, what are you looking for? What facilities do you need to be comfortable? Who would you like to live with? And most importantly what is your budget?

Which brings us to the question, how many people is too many? If you are happy to live in a three bedroom house with five people then go for it but remember the more people, the more clashes, concessions and arguments. We as humans are territorial beings and we need our own space in order to be happy.

Once you have located a few properties, do a drive by first. No, I don’t mean open fire on a nice place to make it less appealing, I mean see if the photos match what you saw online. What’s the street like and are there shops close by? If the location and house meet your needs, ring the number provided. Often an SMS is more convenient but if you want to get in first you need to call.

Remember this does give you a valuable opportunity to ask some questions, see if you click with them and suss them out. It sounds bad but security is always an issue, if possible take a friend with you when viewing properties, don’t carry all the rent and bond with you, let someone know where you are planning on going and most of all if you feel uncomfortable, get out of there.

Once you are viewing the property, grill your potential housemates a bit. Find out if they work, what they like to do on the weekend, do they have a bf/gf. All of these questions will come across as general chit chat but you can analyse them and see if you’re moving in with a potential drug dealer or party animal.

Lastly have a thorough look through the house, especially your potential room. Ask questions about who the rent is paid to, how long the lease is for, how bills are split (if they aren’t inclusive in the rent), would you all buy separate groceries or pool your money, any pest issues and the most important question, why is your housemate moving? To this question I have once received the answer ‘for giant cock’ to say I was shocked was an understatement but I was delighted at the same time, as I knew instantly we would get on. If you look at a place and there are small china dolls, with fake blood and burnt clothing in an outside laundry, you may want to give it a miss or the toilet overflows.

Words by Miss Paige Wittingham Image by D’Arcy Ellis

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Hang on, he has a sister? By this stage you are being shuffled into the house. You lean in for a hug and then lean straight back out when you realise that your kind gesture is not being reciprocated. Awkward. You look around for a common talking point. You scour the room like Sherlock Holmes in order to find just a skerrick of information to lead you towards a conversation starter. Nothing.

Meeting your partner’s parents for the first time is a big deal, a HUGE deal! It is about taking that next step in a relationship and trying to solidify your place in your partner’s life. Scary. Your partner has a close family and an extended family and friends and best friends and workmates and a whole social circle of people that you don’t know. Think about how many people that is…and then think about the odds of whether or not you will get along with them all. It’s scary. And worse still—these people are going to be judging you like cra-zy!

Are you good enough for Daddy’s little girl? You might have to shake hands with the father and look him right in the eye (and by the way—in that moment, he will know that you are penetrating his little girl). The younger brother might be wondering if you are as attractive as the last one he brought home. The best mate might speculate as to whether you make more or less money than their besties previous partner. Basically, if you really like this guy/girl then you need the approval of your partner’s close social circle… and it is not always easy to get.

Here is a taste of what it might be like for you: You have been going out with this guy for about three months when he decides that it is ‘time’. You pull on your most appropriate outfit; the white shirt with the demure neckline and the modest skirt that almost covers your knees. You practiced not dropping the ‘F-bomb’ all fucking day in preparation for the grand event. You paint on the fake smile that often accompanies falseness (and which, by the way, you absolutely abhor). You ask if there are any taboo subjects as you walk up to the door, to which he replies “Don’t ask about my sister”.

Righto, got it.

What kind of people have no cheesy photos of random children around the house? What kind of people have no...stuff.

No ornaments, no art—nothing but a solitary cross hanging in the kitchen. “So, you like Jesus, eh?” just doesn’t seem like a great start to dinner conversation. You keep quiet and leave it to your partner to do the talking...which he doesn’t do. Just smile and nod. The mother starts dishing up a lovely roast meal and you get served on what she calls a ‘lady-sized’ plate.

What. The. Fuck. You want to scream at her; “Hey ‘lady’, I don’t suppose you noticed that it is 2012 and that I am 5’11 and solidly built?” Before you can tell her what to do with her ‘lady-sized’ plate she is reaching for your hand and bowing her head to say grace. Er...double awkward.

You bow your head and half close your eyes. You sneak a peek at the wrinkly face of your future mother in law carefully choosing her words. You look down at your plate of golden roast potatoes smothered in gravy and wish that you had a tongue like Gene Simmons from Kiss so that you could lick the peppery brown substance without anyone noticing. Eyes are raised and forks hit plates. You painstakingly battle your way through an hour of completely mundane conversation.

You eat your plateful and want to ask for seconds but don’t dare ruin the illusion that you are ladylike. You manage to not swear and don’t make the mistake of leaning in for a cuddle on the way out.

They wave at the door and say that they hope to see you again soon. Not fucking likely. You see, you have had an epiphany.

Boredom appears to be genetic and you realise that there is no hope for your boyfriend. This dinner has made you realise that you never really liked him anyway...but the thought of spending Birthdays, Easter and Christmas with these knob-jockeys for the next five or so decades is enough to make you hastily retreat...never to be seen again.

Words by Asten Nunn Image by Evonne Lai

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Some might call me unpatriotic and un-Australian for not giving unadulterated praise to Australia, but none-the-less if there is no merit in harsh critique then my ramblings can simply be passed off as the ‘talk of a crazy man’. But is Australia the perfect country, free of negative attributes?

I’m not overtly patriotic, and at times struggle with my identity as Australian. Not because of my race, gender, age, sexuality, religious beliefs etc. etc., but rather my disgust of the hate that I see present in society. Whenever I’m feeling okay about the state of the country, someone, somewhere, says something that brings me back down. The following is a overview of some of the issues, and how they are at times treated in Australia, which genuinely disturbs me.

Aboriginals “We should just put them all in a town and nuke them” - Family Friend If this tactic sounds somewhat similar, that’s probably because it is.

The tactic is called genocide, and Hitler popularised it during World War Two. A lot of people refer to Hitler when talking about history and politics, to the point where I think he’s somewhat an overused villain pop-star [Ed: Godwin’s Law]. In this case, however, I see no difference. Issues which are commonly associated with Aboriginals include rates of alcoholism, average life span, level of education, levels of employment, etc. etc. I’m not going to comment on these, but assuming the very worst I still think that exterminating anyone with biological Aboriginal links is a little too far...

Refugees “Turning the boats around isn’t too far, we should be using them for target practice” - School Friend “How dare someone try to make Australia their home via boat!” says the white man. Irony much? I’m not an expert, but slaughtering individuals claiming asylum probably goes against the Refugee Convention, and can even be interpreted to be inhumane. Bet you didn’t see that coming!

Sexuality First four comments on a Perthnow.com article titled ‘Neighbours wins praise from viewers for first male gay kiss in the history of the show’: “Winning praise from many viewers!!? How many viewers? Not me I reckon that is gross and perverted. Yuk!!!”

“This is a one way street to insanity...all it does is try to normalize something that by definition is not normal ie the norm...Neighbours should be ashamed of themselves as setting a poor example to the young ones watching the show. Disgraceful. Australian television has hit a new low.”

“It’s not winning praise from me either. This deviant stuff’s being rammed down our throats so little kids will grow up thinking gay marriage is completely normal. Yuk.” “Shame Shame......wrong on so many levels.”

One male homosexual kiss in a TV series that’s been running for 27 years. God forbid children don’t adopt their parent’s hatred and discrimination, that would just be unacceptable.

Muslims “Australians used to mock Aboriginal spirituality and religion. If you did that to a Muslim, they’d probably blow you up” - Fellow ECU Student Now I don’t think that the person who said this was actively attacking Muslims, and it came about as a ‘slip of the tongue’ sort of a comment. I highly doubt she hates Muslims and thinks that they all plan on blowing things up, but I do think that it represents that Australia is uneasy of Muslims. The most obvious reason is 9/11 and associating terrorism with Muslims.

If we look at the Australian case, however, there have been no terror attacks. None. In the early 2000s Jack Roche tried to establish a small terrorist group in Australia. When interviewed about this by police, however, he responded with “nobody in Australia was interested at all”. Gosh, not all Muslims are terrorists after all!

So, yeah...

I’m aware that my judging of other people who judge people could be interpreted as hypocritical, or that I’m claiming to be some sort of moral superior. In the end, though, I’m just upset with the hatred and aggression which I see in society; which surfaces on issues concerning Aboriginals, refugees, sexuality, and Muslims. For a supposedly advanced community, I see a lot of what I perceive as backwardness everyday. It is this hatred and aggression which I’ve come to associate with Australia, and as such would rather not denote myself as an Australian to those who ask where I’m from. Maybe I’ll just say Sweden or Canada.

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Scenario 1 – The Ghost Town (Ghostperth) After the new global guidelines in resource management in December 2012, mining stopped in Western Australia. As the miners and builders couldn’t find work anymore, 60% of Perth’s population have left the state. Sociologists have called the movement the biggest pilgrimage since biblical times and the slogan “Go East!” has become a motivation for many. Surprisingly, most of Western Australia’s Irish citizens chose to move back to Ireland. As a result, Perth has become a ghost town. Previously popular suburbs such as Cottesloe and Scarborough are deserted, with kangaroos grazing in backyards.

Since the Australian government decided in late 2014 to give up on Perth all together, not even the streets and community services are maintained anymore. As a result there is rubbish everywhere. To make money, people have been hacking the asphalt into pieces and selling it to the new boomtown, Newcastle, in NSW. At the time this article was written Newcastle already had a population of 2.4 million – with thousands of new workers arriving every day. For the remaining Perth citizens, life has been tough. As there are no more restaurants, and supermarkets Coles and Woolworths don’t produce and sell to Western Australia anymore. Most of Perth’s citizens are dependent on growing their own vegetables and raising chickens in their backyards.

“Sometimes I go for a stroll in Leederville with my children”, said remaining Perth citizen Sheila Cooper, “and we try to find food in the deserted houses and shops.” While back in 2012 people were used to Jus Burgers, Hungry Jacks and McDonalds, the new generation does not even know what a burger is. Not even backpackers come to Perth anymore. The few that make it to the west coast take the new road from Exmouth to Albany, because they are scared to get robbed by hungry Perth citizens who are after their baked beans and Wicked Vans.

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Scenario 2 – The New New Zealand (Kiwiperth) The slow sinking of New Zealand due to the rising water levels caused by global warming, has had many Kiwis search their luck in Australia. Because of the boom in the mining industry and the unstoppable rise of the Australian Dollar, many New Zealanders have moved to Western Australia. As a result, Perth’s original citizens have disappeared to the UK, saying they would rather cope with bad weather and miserable people than with sheep grazing in Kings Park.

Northbridge pubs are now forbidden to sell anything but Stein Lager and the few remaining Aussies have complained about the choice of music: “Crowded House and Kimbra on replay” moans Aussie Paul Miller, “it really gives me a headache”. To maintain the bonds of the Commonwealth and to keep Kiwis away from Sydney, previous Prime Minister Julia Guillard proclaimed in 2018 that New Zealanders were allowed to keep Western Australia to make up for the loss of their country.

The New Zealanders created a new flag featuring a big sheep and edeclared the independence of Western Australia, which they renamed: New New Zealand. On Australia’s east coast, many people have been unhappy with the decision, saying the Kiwis would not appreciate Australia’s generosity and would just complain about the wind. New New Zealanders don’t even listen to Triple J; they nowhave their own radio station, called Double N. The only things that keep Sydneysiders happy these days is that Perth, New New Zealand, is further away from them than Auckland, New Zealand, ever was.

Scenario 4 – Jungle Perth (TreePerth) While Australia used to be the driest inhabited continent back in 2012, technical development has since made it possible to transfer large amounts of water from Lake Eyre in South Australia and Lake Argyle in Western Australia to Perth. As a result, people have not only started to wash their cars more frequently, but also to leave on sprinklers day and night. Before long the combination of Western Australia’s hot climate and the new water resources have turned Perth into a jungle.

Scenario 3 – Desert Perth (SandgroperPerth) Due to global warming, Western Australia has become a desert.

The large forests around Pemberton and Margaret River have disappeared and left behind sand as far as the eyes can see.

Tornados and sandstorms have been a struggle for the sinking population and have convinced many to move to Rottnest Island, which now has a population of 570,000 and growing.

“I hate the sand in my eyes”, grumbles DesPerth citizen T. Reynolds, who we meet with his backpack on the way to the harbour. Because the desert is still growing, Western Australia is now globally known of as ‘Wahara’.

The question of how to help Perth’s isolated citizens has troubled the United Nations, who have tried to come up with different solutions and asked countries all over the world to donate money for the good cause. Australians who are not wealthy enough to secure themselves one of the flats on Rottnest Island have been seen on little sea kayaks, making their way to Indonesia and Malaysia, which are overwhelmed by the number of refugees. Christmas Island refugees waiting to get access to Australia now have to struggle with Perth citizens on their way to Denpasar. Another problem is that the temperatures in the Perth desert at night go down to a freezing -24°C, which has W.A. importing clothes from Northern Europe, Canada and Alaska. Australian brands Billabong, Insight and Hurley have launched ‘desert collections’ to help Perth citizens survive the extreme weather conditions.

Without surprise, tourism has completely slowed down because most of W.A.’s natural wonders have lost their attraction.

“No-one is going to the Pinnacles anymore because they are buried under 200 tons of sand” complains tourism manager Bruce Smith. While there are not many reasons to live in W.A. anymore (except if you like to build sandcastles) people have tried to keep their spirits up: “A pro is that all the camels that have been freed after building the great railway lines can finally be of good use”, said politician M. Morley. “They were caught using helicopters and are now used as easy transport instead of bicycles, which have proven to be pretty useless in the sand”.

“People are actually swinging to work using lianas”, explains Sam Smorland. “It’s great, TransPerth has not been in use for years. It was a hopeless system anyway.” Perth people have also been glad that banana prices have never been affected by catastrophes in Queensland anymore: in Perth, every second plant is a banana tree. “I am having bananas every day! Banana shakes, banana bread, banana pancakes! It’s awesome!” Perth citizen Mara Walsh says. ‘Tarzan’ has become the most liked name for newborn males, with ‘Jane’ being number one for female names. The other good news is that now everyone can own a house, because they can easily build one from exotic jungle plants. People do not even need to buy property anymore, and building costs are cheap. Generally Perth citizens have been happy, although they’ve still trying to get used to the possibility of waking up in the morning to find that your precious pet has been eaten by a Boa constrictor.

Scenario 5 – Atlantis (Atlantperth) A giant tsunami caused by a seaquake in the Indian Ocean has turned Perth into an underwater city, now called Atlantperth.

While it took time to adapt to living underwater, citizens now say they embrace the new standard of living. “It is nice and cool down here!” gushes Julia Gillard, Australia’s previous prime minister, who has moved to Perth after political troubles in late 2012.

The reason why people choose to live underwater are best explained by Perth’s extreme climate conditions. “People reckon they have been over the ‘dry heat’ for a long time and embrace water life as a welcome change” says meteorologist D. Waludo. But while Western Australians have gotten used to their new life circumstances, the rest of the world is puzzled.

“Whenever I receive a letter from my granddaughter, the paper is wet and the ink is impossible to read”complains Sydney sider G. Paul.

But how do Atlantperths citizens cope with daily life? It seems that Perth citizens have been lucky after ECU patron Rolf made the invention that ultimately saved them. “You have to imagine it as a sort of mermaid tail”, he explains. “Now people can paddle to work or go for an afternoon swim through Murray Mall”.

“The houses needed to get vacuum sealed” adds builder J. Robson. “Good business for all of us”. The plumbers, on the other hand, have been out of work: “everyone just has a sewage pipe leaving the house.” The good news is that these days it is a lot easier to visit Rottnest or Penguin Island. Generally the tourism has slowed down, because Perth airport could not be used anymore. Bali is still a popular holiday destination but the Balinese have complained about swimming Aussies just popping their heads up at Kuta Beach.

Words by Marieke Reichert Images by Tom Reynolds

15

I just can‘t wait to get old. You heard me: Can‘t. Wait. Can‘t wait for my trousers – so long exiled to the uncharted reaches of my lower navel – to finally creep up and resume its rightful place just under my nipples. For that age when Today Tonight begins to emerge in my geriatric mind as a credible news source and when Bert Newman finally becomes entertaining for reasons other than his hair piece.

That‘s right, old. And why? So I can embarrass my grandkids.

Not intentionally of course. Or, at least, not in a way that I‘d be in any way aware about. It would happen innocently – perhaps while standing in full view on the hover bus, chatting happily to my already irate children/grandkids/asexually produced clones when suddenly, I‘ll say. “And what about those cyber-furries having sex with all those goats these days? At least in my day we had the decency not to do it in public” And just like that, all conversation in the bus will drop by twenty decibels and everyone who haven‘t already had their eyes trained on their mind-altering holo-displays will discover a pressing newfound interest in the pattern of their iShoes. And absolutely no one, not a single person will stand up and tell me I‘m not allowed to say things like that anymore.

And why? Because I‘m Old.

And no amount of soothing admonishment would change that.

Does that make her an inherently bad person? Of course not. Let’s make one thing very very clear: my Grandma kicked arse. Raising six kids as a poor widow against the oppressive backdrop of the apartheid regime proved that she was simply a product of the times.

But does that then mean, given the environment of her upbringing, that she couldn‘t have turned out any other way? Bloody hell, No! (Sorry Grandma.)

She could have been a social thinker of the time! She could have fought, and protested, and advocated, against the very things that the majority of society had come to accept. She could have embraced the taboos that no other had embraced, and in her own way, contributed to what I like to believe is the relative freedom of the current world.

Like Sir Thomas Paine, who (presumably out of sheer spite for his last name) during the height of America’s love affair with Slavery, felt enough outrage to state: “So monstrous in the making and keeping them slaves at all, abstracted from the barbarous usage they suffer, and the many evils attending the practice.”

But it was statements like this, coupled with his vocal attacks against the failings of Christianity, that meant Mr. Paine needed just six chairs to accommodate people attending his funeral.

Funny how that works, isn‘t it? Because I have a grandma who, back in her day, would have found it perfectly socially acceptable to comment on the cleanliness of the black people sitting on the bus.

Hell, she probably even found a good number of people who would have agreed with her, instead of the awkward replying silence and the uncanny feeling that her granddaughter is secretly calculating the mathematical probability of surviving a leap out the back window of a moving vehicle. But that‘s just the person she is.

So of course it was possible. Possible for anyone at her time really, to recognise their natural tendencies towards certain shades of morality to be a by-product of their environment. But what about us? What are the social norms and opinions that we take for granted. And how did we get them? What will we be saying, some sixty years from now, to a hover-bus full of people. What will cause our own backward prejudices – those last remnants of the society we enjoyed in our youth, to shine through.

So why didn‘t I correct her then? Well the reasons are simple: First of all, she‘s dead (and there are laws against that sort of thing). And secondly, well, she was old. She had lived her life.

Hers was a product of a by-gone era, replete will all the ideological idiosyncrasies of the time. Sure, to me she was just another source of love and biscuit-based bribery, but there were still moments where Grandma would say something so utterly, bizarrely and inexplicably racist that I‘d realise that the distance between the ideologies of her era and mine were separated not merely by years, but by decades.

What mundane opinions that we so take for granted – about euthanasia, gay marriage, the existence of God and the position of the toilet seat – are the product of genuine thought and assessment, as opposed to something we‘ve just learned to accept through years of browbeating propaganda?

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Words by Rehana Badat Image by Wenjie Zheng

Fads, crazes, manias, obsessions, whatever you call them everyone knows that at some point in our fragile peer pressure fuelled lives we were shaped by the pop culture fads of our generation.

1. Furby: my God those things were evil. I swear once I dropped one and it said “shoowah treeba eat-ah your soul.”

2. Snap bracelets: these were banned after they started falling apart and slicing kids wrists with the little pieces of metal inside them.

I’d say that’s a reason to put them back on the market.

3. Elastic Waistbands: don’t know if I should call it a trend or a tragedy, and as if to prove that things are spinning out of control, there’s the Snuggie. Adults wearing fleece onesies. What fresh new hell is this!

4. Ant farms: who knew infestation could be this much fun?

Pet Rocks Really, what did you expect when you picked up that pet rock in the toy section of K-mart? Did you really think that scientists had discovered some kind of mineral based animal, full of love, affection and silicate, just yearning for? Did you? I certainly didn’t. But dear God, I wanted to. I wanted a pet so badly I was willing to suspend all the dark cynicism, hate and disbelief within eight-year-old me. Even for the brief joyride home I was willing to sit quietly in the back seat of the car, carefully nursing the box lest I injure or upset the hypothetical animal inside. Schrodinger’s rock, if you will. Until I opened it up. Discovering that I’d just dropped ten bucks on something I could have nicked from my neighbour’s Zen garden. To hell with Pet rocks.

Sea Monkeys Who remembers the packaging for sea monkeys? The bright smiling faces. The suspiciously ethnically specific nuclear families.

The promises of dominion over an underwater civilisation. (Okay, maybe not that one). I don’t know about you, but to eight-year-old me the possibility of becoming God-King of your very own aquatic people sounded magical. “Will they love me?” I wondered as I poured the sachet of ‘magic eggs’ into the plastic tank that came with the kit.

Would they hate me? Worship me? Would I rule them with benevolence, or would I dominate their world in bloody glory, bartering fear and worship in exchange for wretched existence. The possibilities were endless. What I got instead was brine shrimp. Yeah, the live swimming things you fed to your fish. Goddamn.

Krazy Krabs Let me be very klear about something: there is nothing “krazy” about Krazy Krabs. A pet so god-awfully mundane not even the people that sold them kould bring themselves to spell their names korrectly.

I owned a pair of these kuddly krustraceans who spent exactly two weeks barely moving in their krab tank, before vanishing entirely for a full year then resurfacing at the bottom of my toybox larger, creepier, and more boring than ever. Fuck Krazy Krabs, for their unfulfilled promises of insanity, and their ability to reduce my spelling ability down to roughly that of a Spanish Speak’n’Spell.

Words by Rehana Badat Image by D’Arcy Ellis

5. Bermuda shorts: the original summer office wear of the 1950s tastefully paired with jacket and patterned tie of course.

6. Conical bras allowing women to stride confidently into the 1960s lifted, separated and pointed toward the future.

7. Fallout Shelters: the bad news: it is 1962. Your country is locked in a nuclear stalemate with the forces of communism. The good news: for as little as $100, you can buy your family a fallout shelter stocked with enough food and supplies for two weeks of glorious, radiation-free living. And don’t worry you can always convert that backyard eyesore into a playroom the kids will love!

8. Gold fish swallowing: why you should never let your elders claim that kids were more mature “in their day.”

9. Ouija Boards: sales trumped that of the companies’ bestseller, Monopoly®. The moral of the story? When given a choice, people will choose the undead over capitalism.

10. Pet rocks: (see article to the left).

11. Slinky’s: the ability to walk down stairs and open and close like an accordion 12. Yo-yos: the most recurring fad of all time. If you didn’t have a yoyo unspeakable things would happen to you!

13. Virtual pets: making death more easily digestible, I mean you can just press grandmas rest button right?

14. MySpace: a destination spot for 13-year-old girls to create ugly pages, and child molesters to frolic.

15. Skip It: this was cool until it hit your other foot and you busted your face on the footpath 16. Inspirational pictures/quotes: “you-can-climb-the-mounteverest-fly-like-a-seagull-dive-into-a-volcano-if-we-are-a-team” The life and death of a fad is a wonderful thing. Mostly because it happens so quickly.

Words By Jessica Paterson

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BUNBURY Here’s something you should know about Bunbury: ten years ago I went into a CD store looking for a copy of Ziggy Stardust and none of the staff had ever heard of David Bowie. Things have changed with the internet and all that, they even have subculture in Bunbury now, but when I was fifteen they had nada. I liked it when I was a kid: my hobbies were just going to the beach, militantly organising sleepovers and writing dorky poems, and all you really need for these activities is a beach. But it got harder for me to live there as I approached teenagerhood and became convinced that Bunbury was symptomatic of all evil in the world, so artless were its citizens, the architecture so devoid of angels, as if Bunbury were the only place on earth where mediocrity was tolerated.

Now I quite enjoy going there: it has my parents, who I like, and there are a couple of nice places where the staff will serve you coffee for hours and hours, and the beach is still there, obviously. But it took a few years of living away from Bunbury for it to start feeling like home, I can tell you that much.

COLLEGE I lived right near UWA for a few years, first at a residential college for hicks such as myself from cultural wastelands such as Bunbury, and later in a nice little apartment. Both were excellent and I still feel very at home in the area but never so much as in summer, driving down Mounts Bay Road with the windows open.

College naturally coincided with the period of my life where I thought that drunkenness was in and of itself a recreational activity (I think I decided at age 18½ or so, once it had been legal for me to drink for a few months, that it was in fact hopelessly mundane; I am pleased to announce that I have subsequently discovered a revolutionary system of “drinking alcohol sometimes”.) Anyway, I found myself with a fine group of friends who enjoyed the same breed of revelry as I, and every Friday (and Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday Night Student Night At KK’s) there would only be one question: Where are we drinking tonight? And the answer would be: Caroline’s room, or Damo’s room, or Russell’s room, or maybe In The Common Room.

It was an honest way to live, if unsustainable, and while I don’t particularly miss it I hold this time in very dear regard. There were 300 students living at my college and I am happy to say that Damo’s Room and Russell’s Room and The Common Room and the Dining Hall were all equally homes to me. I remember being homesick at college on only one occasion, and I managed to catch a ride back to my folk’s place that afternoon.

38 18

CRAWLEY The apartment in Crawley was the first and only time I have lived by myself. This coincided with the deepest and most agonising bout of depression of my life, but I still quite enjoyed myself. The apartment had floorboards and two chandeliers and got a lot of sunlight, and I would spend most days sitting on the floor teaching myself songs on guitar until it was time to go to a lecture, then I would make a vague motion as if to get dressed for class and decide not to go.

The worst thing about this place was the piece-of-shit woman hater upstairs. He was a small bespectacled man with the bearing of a civil servant. Mostly he was very polite but occasionally I would hear him come home drunk with his meek girlfriend and scream at her unendingly. One time the screams were punctuated with slamming noises so I called the police. I lay on the floor to maximise the distance between myself and his apartment and murmured into the mouthpiece. I couldn’t tell what happened once they arrived. It sounded inconclusive.

I was secretly scared of the guy after that but when I walked past him in the carpark I would stare at him as if to say, Fuck you. This is my home. He wouldn’t meet my eye but the girlfriend still came over, from time to time.

I can’t remember who moved out first, me or him.

AUGUSTA My parents have this great place down in Augusta. It’s an A-frame house and the inside is decorated in cheesy nautical shades of yellow and blue (it was like that when they bought it), nothing fancy, but it has a huge loft that I like to sleep in. You could fit ten people up there, probably more. I always get so excited when I’m going down there: I start mentally planning perfect days when I get up early and go for a run and then I write six songs and go kayaking and swim at Hamelin Bay and finish reading IQ84 (yeah, right) and maybe trounce everyone at Boggle over a nightcap. Then I arrive and sort of try to do everything at once, but succeed at nothing except for drinking three cups of tea and two cups of coffee, and I grow anxious that I’m missing some wonderful party in Perth. But then I get the hang of it, a bit, and usually manage to do at least a quarter of the things I planned to do, and it’s brilliant.

I love going down there, but for me it’s kind of like hiking: the best thing about it is how the pleasures of normal life are heightened when you return.

BUENOS AIRES How terribly pretentious! But it’s not, not really. When my friend Ro and I travelled to South America we spent a week there and I could have walked around the city for weeks more drinking cafe cortado y agua con gas and not doing much else. I loved the way you could go to a bar full of men in chequered shorts and suspenders with shaved heads and at midnight the music would change from ska to salsa and the same bald men would start swivelling and softening their eyes at you.

I loved everywhere I went in South America, but here’s the thing about BsAs: that was where we began the trip, and that was where we finished it. So when we returned to take our flight back to Australia six months later, the seasons had changed but my internal map of the city was intact and to this day I can’t read the name Hipolito Yrigoyen, which was the street we stayed on, without a jolt of delight travelling up my spine. Our flight was delayed by almost a week and part of me rejoiced to have all that extra time stalking around the now-autumnal city. An internal map, that’s all you need.

Ro and I only spent one night apart the whole trip; she stayed with a friend while I crossed the border from Chile back into Argentina.

After three months of sleeping in the same room, sometimes the same bed, it felt like the loneliest night of my life. When we met up again she told me she had dreamt about Bruce Springsteen (I had been listening to Born to Run more or less non-stop the entire trip) and awoken with the hollow awareness that she was unable to tell me about it. I was profoundly moved by this tale. Sometimes home is just someone to talk to when you have a dream about the Boss.

MOUNT LAWLEY I live in this slightly mental apartment in Mount Lawley. Apparently it used to be a brothel (apparently all of Perth used to be one big brothel). It’s quite ugly but I’ve set up a little music corner where I can write songs and record and I have posters from my gigs there.

Our bedroom window is huge and beautiful and faces onto a busy street so you can sit in the window and play guitar and dangle your legs and feel like you’re in the middle of something bigger than yourself. We have a problem with cockroaches although it’s much better than it used to be, and sometimes pigeons fly out of the fireplace. One time a really scrawny one fell out, blinking and covered in soot, and we left it for a few hours but it didn’t find its way out on its own so three of us stood around with mops and broomsticks and eventually herded it out but not before it flew in circles for an hour and shat profusely all over my living room. I love this apartment.

See, the thing I was trying to say before, a home isn’t made by staying somewhere. Home is about coming back. Just before I went to South America I fell in love with a literary hunk who lived here, and I used to love the apartment but in a distant, admiring way.

Like, how Bohemian! It was exciting to stay here but it never felt like a part of myself, not really, it was just a wacky old cockroachencrusted apartment full of curiously-dressed people. Anyway, the hunk convinced me not to make out with any dreamy portenos when I was in Sudamerica, and I eventually agreed, and when I returned he suggested I stay in his apartment until I found a new place and I sort of never moved out. That was three years ago. That’s what it takes to make a home.

Words by Caroline J. Dale Image by Tom Reynolds

ECU7436 Mono Press September

303 LOWE ECU7436 CRICOS IPC 00279B

FIND PARKING, NOT FINED PARKING. No one wants to spend all day stressing about parking fines. All vehicles parked on-campus from 8am to 8pm weekdays need a clearly displayed and valid permit or ticket. Student Red zones require a Student Red permit.

You can buy Short-term Student Parking Scratchies for $3 per day or $6 per week. Your vehicle must be within the marked bays to avoid a penalty, and parking rules apply all year, including semester breaks. Unfortunately, having a permit doesn’t guarantee you a spot, so make sure you arrive early to allow enough time to find one.

To make finding a spot even easier, check out ECU Carpooling at ecu.sharemycar.com. Or why not jump on public transport to avoid the hassles of parking altogether? There are many buses to and from ECU, with free CAT buses and excellent train services at Joondalup.

For more information on transport options and to order permits, visit our website.

www.ecu.edu.au/parking

“Sunset Eyeball” Kate Prendergast 20

Looking for a sweet pacifying tale to float you into dreamland?

Well, my advice to you is that you look elsewhere, compadre.

The fairytales composed by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 1800s dole out life to youngsters as we adults know it to be: unpredictable and punishing. The Brothers Grimms’ original versions of their famous fairytales were much darker and grotesque than their current Disney counterparts.

Exhibit A: Sleeping Beauty was actually raped in her sleep.

This Rohypnol-style love fest leads to a pregnancy in which Sleeping Beauty gives birth to twins, all while still in a peaceful slumber... I’m sure all women wish child birth was that pleasant, hey? I mean, apart from the whole being-raped-in-your-sleepand-having-babies-to-an-unknown-man debacle.

A question springs to mind while perusing the Grimm fairytales, and that is: why is it that over the years, fairytales have been softened down to be romantic and sweet? Well, the answer is this. They simply weren’t child friendly. The original fairytales were written for adults, not children. Fairytales were used as adult entertainment, first told around campfires and in hostelry in a medieval village whilst downing a pint of ale. They were lascivious, sadistic folktales designed to distract peasants after a hard day of cultivating and whatnot. So needless to say, as our society and culture evolved, so did the fairytales. They became more tolerable, like swapping brussel sprouts for… chocolate mousse? In order to get my point across, that fairytales used to be of a higher entertaining value (so obviously sick and twisted), I will tell you about the fantastically merciless world of fairytales Grimm style!

In Cinderella the step sisters attempt to fool the prince into thinking that their rather behemoth feet were indeed petite and more desirable than that of Cinderella’s by actually cutting off parts of their feet. Yep, just chopped them right off! What alerts the prince to their lies and trickery you ask? Pigeons. Yes, that’s right, blood and pigeons. As if this wasn’t pathetic enough, after finding out about their plight to withhold Cinderella’s well deserved happy ending, the pigeons then peck the ugly stepsisters’ eyes out. They spend the rest of their lives blind and alone... and missing parts of their feet. Karma is a bitch, my pretties *insert creepy laugh here*.

Little Red Riding Hood? More like Little Red Hussy! So you all think Little Red is a sweet innocent young girl who is tragically tortured by finding the Big Bad Wolf has gorged himself on her beloved Grandma? Well, do I have a treat for you! In the original version of this fairytale, Little Red outwits the Wolf by surprising him with a tantalising strip tease while he is lying in bed dressed as her Grandma. She then runs away whilst Wolf is distracted.

And I wonder why people got so up in arms about this version? I mean, what’s wrong with a dash of incestuous beastiality?

Yes, that’s right, stuck in her womanly nether regions! The baby is then killed anyway in Rumpelstiltskin’s raging fit. In the end Rumpelstiltskin tears himself in half and the princess lives happily ever after with her rather stretched vagina and a dead baby. Where can I get my hands on a copy of this lovely light reading?

The Brothers Grimm, giving me fond memories of violence and inappropriate themes, whilst providing Walt Disney with fodder for his sugarcoated movies. At the end of the day we have to wonder, is our generation more accepting of darkness and violence and will we be encouraging our children to regress to a time As for Rumpelstiltskin, well, this little man was not so pleased with the outcome of his Grimm tale. After trying to trick the sweet when the Grimm fairytales were told in their true form: murder, pedophilia, disfigurement, dead babies and coma sex? young girl, who can spin dry grass into gold, by challenging her to a dual with her first born child as bounty. He ends up being outwitted by the young girl and gets so enraged that he charges at Words by Jessica Paterson Image by Wenjie Zheng her, hoping to kill her, but instead ends up stuck in her vagina.

21

The world is trying to kill you. From global warming to the depletion of the ozone layer, live in no doubt that around every corner, is a threat just waiting to leap upon you. Our various world governments, in a break from the usual tradition, do appear to be concentrating their efforts to mitigating many of the risks. There is, however, one threat that appears to be largely ignored. One that lingers right before us. And about six feet down. Zombies.

Step One: Stock up on supplies Equipment: Fourteen months worth of canned goods ( approx. $4,000 - $6,000), bottled water (approx. $900.00) Optional: Lobster ($80.00 – Kailis) You are what you eat. Especially when you’re a zombie.

Your very first priority when planning for the zombie apocalypse is food. As delicious as Heinz Sphagetti O’s undoubtedly are, eight months of the same thing can get tiring – so be sure to stock up an a variety of canned goods for both the sake of your nutrition and your sanity.

Step Two: Build a moat Equipment: Shovel ($14.00 - Bunnings) Optional: Piranhas (Twenty of Britains finest – South America) Zombies cannot swim. They lack the vital brain capacity and inflatable yellow arm floaties to accomplish what we metabolically unchallenged can. Take advantage of this floaty deficiency by spending a few weeks mapping out your latest water feature. Ensure all proper paperwork is lodged with the relevant council authorities. Furthermore, with the simple addition of just a few schools of Pygocentrus nattereri, or the red-bellied piranha, you will ensure yourself a near constant supply of Undead fattened fish to supplement your exciting Sphagetti O diet.

Step Three: Construct self-containing Hydroponic farm Equipment: Indoor hydroponics kit (approx. $2,000.00 – Hydromasta. com) Optional: Bob Marley Poster ($5.00 - Ebay) Sadly, the impending zombie apocalypse will mean an end to a lot of the food we take for granted. However, this doesn’t mean we can’t occasionally enjoy a seasonal fruit or vegetable at the expense of a little space! A Hydroponic farm is the perfect way to grow your own healthy food alternatives, and, if you’re particularly handy when it comes to carrots, your own organic ammo. Be sure to only tend to your new garden in the dead of the night – so as not to arouse the suspicions of your neighbours. After all, the level of residual information stored within a zombies mind from it’s living existence remains unknown, and the last thing you want is a zombie with full knowledge of how well fed and nutrient rich your brain is! Allay suspicions with the installation of the Bob Marley poster in a prominent place. Point potential snoops to the Meth lab across the road.

Step Five: Arm yourself Equipment: Maverick mod# 88 pump shotgun short barrel ($155.00 - Gunsamerica.com) , pick Axe ($35.00 - Bunnings), baseball bat ($25.00 – Rebel Sport), police Commissioned Glock ($80.00 - Black Market), ammo (Price varies by quantity and type) Optional: Grenades

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Let me make something very clear: Guns are dangerous. And it’s your job to make them dangerous to zombies. Note that you should only ever use your weapons as a last and final resort -only after all other fortifications and security measures have failed should you consider pulling the trigger. Or if boredom compels you to begin picking off your less favourite neighbours from your rooftop. Ensure these weapons are kept within easy reach of your person at all times – if necessary, plant multiple versions of your selected weapons about your home and person.

Step Six: Plan for the re-establishment of the human race Equipment: Willing member of opposite gender Optional: Chloroform Humanity. Cut down in the prime of its existence. It is now up to you to rebuild and repopulate the glory that was once mankind. Often, the lucky selected person will be unwilling to enter your new fortress. Be sure to explain to them dangers of venturing outside, and the very real possibility of death should they try. Under no circumstances should force be used. After all, you will both be spending a great deal of time together in the future. If you have followed all of the above steps, congratulations! You are now ready for the zombie apocalypse. Or the Hostage Situation Squad. Whichever comes first.

Words by Rehana Badat Image by Jason Dirstein

The marriage equality debate has heated up over the past year or so in Australia, and recently I saw it take a turn that irked me. Not for the subject of the debate, but rather how companies have begun to have their say.

Basically, Gloria Jeans was portrayed as being anti-gay and Starbucks was portrayed as being pro-gay. The debacle started when marriage equality advocates called for a boycott on Gloria Jeans for giving $30,000 to the Australian Christian Lobby, which opposes marriage equality. Starbucks then, opportunistically, joined the frag with the statement “Starbucks Australia would like to publicly announce our proud support for marriage equality for all”. What had once been two coffee houses has now been transformed, at least in the eyes of my fellow Facebookians, into one that was pro-gay, and the other anti-gay. As such, the logic follows, the stance that you hold on marriage equality should dictate where you buy your coffee.

To think that my decisions on where I bought coffee had been dictated by taste and price, if not purely with which store is the closest to me. How silly.

I’d be a fool to suggest that this is the beginning of a wave of private companies that have a say and influence in determining public policy. Businesses have been donating, a lot, to political parties and lobby groups since time immemorial. Although some may like to think that democracy grants upon us an equal say in the running of a society, this is far from the truth. Money does indeed buy power. Where I see the (increased) threat in this recent development, is the encroachment of this influence further exerting itself into our private spheres.

Businesses aren’t people, so why should they have a platform which intrudes into my private sphere with which to espouse their desires for how things should be? The people in control of companies, the few, generally shouldn’t have the right to influence the public debate. In areas of business, perhaps, but how is coffee or chicken at all applicable to marriage equality? Or any other issue really? I don’t necessarily think that companies should, or could, be restricted from involving themselves in this debate, but I don’t like it.

Opponents of my objections would point to market forces and argue that if such opinions and perspectives were unpopular, than these companies would make less money, and thus their ability for ‘extracurricular’ activities would be limited. I still don’t buy this, however, as just the ability to publicly advocate a perspective is enough to influence a debate. Also, wouldn’t their shareholders like a little bit more of that green?

Now I doubt that Australia will adopt this ‘companies espousing values’ with the veracity of the U.S., but it never the less worries me. I enjoy the occasional coffee, and I’d really rather not have my simple pleasures in life tainted with the idea that my minuscule consumerism is disproportionately taking away my society’s right to dictate how the country I live in is run. I already feel guilty about orangutans, rubber trees, cheap Chinese labour, and the African mines where the precious metals in my phone come from.

Can’t I just drink my coffee?

Words by Larry Fife Image by D’Arcy Ellis

The Americans, not unusually, have taken their political debates further than us. Recently, Chick-Fil-A’s CEO came out saying that the company stood behind “biblical marriage” (read: anti-marriage equality). Following that statement, on Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day (I kid you not), a massive number of people ate at Chick-Fil-A as a political statement against marriage equality. There has also been Oreos, who released an image of an Oreo with a rainbow filling, which has been interpreted as supporting marriage equality.

Unsurprisingly anti-marriage equality advocates in U.S. called for a boycott.

Objects aren’t just objects; they also act as symbols. Clothing and cars are prime examples. They move beyond their functional purposes and often represent status, power, gender, age, and any other number of symbols. By buying certain products we are thus defining ourselves to the rest of the world. Think of that nineteenyear-old bogan in that Holden ute, that middle-aged man suffering from a mid-life-crisis in the convertible, or that environmentallyconscious individual in one of those hilarious smart cars. I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with this, in relation to the brands, until it moves into the area of political activism.

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Now we all know that we, as a species, are pretty great: we created the wheel, the Pyramids, holographic TV, space travel and the waffle iron – how could a group of sentient organisms that have all that cool stuff be bad, right? Wrong! If the number of movies based on apocalyptic scenarios are any indicator at how we are going as a species, which I am pretty sure they are, we’re on a fast-tracked spiral to oblivion! OK, so we might be doomed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make the best of it… right?

Apocalyptic Scenario #1 - Waaaaaaar Potential Instigators: Alien Invasion or Robot Singularity The Horror: the problem with that scenario is that as soon as there are machines smart enough to make better, smarter machines, we’re immediately delegated to either amusing meat-puppets at best or unnecessary biological interference at worst. The potential of an alien invasion is a thousand times worse since the enemy would be far better equipped (since they would have been studying us for years before attacking) and their completely *ahem* alien mindset would be utterly indecipherable from our own.

The Upside: so there’s a war on, huh? Well that means profiteering right? Selling out your own species could never be so lucrative!

Think of all the potential Robo-credits or Alien Plutarks you could earn by helping our new overlords round up stragglers! That guy from accounting you never liked, that girl who said no to seeing a movie or that bus driver who short changed you still around? No problems – recommend a vivisection and/or deep probing to make sure all those tasty human secrets they have aren’t wasted before they expire.

Apocalyptic Scenario #2 – Science Gone Wrong Potential Instigators: Nuclear Bombs or Biological Weapons The Horror: when people make jokes about Hiroshima on the internet it’s only because deep down, they somehow know they’re the only person who’ll find a subway tunnel or bunker that will save them – because they’re savvy, internet folk who can handle this kind of thing, ya know? If it happens near you it’s pretty unlikely you’ll get out alive, or at the very least, without a horrible disfigurement.

Words by Aron Shick Image by D’Arcy Ellis

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The Upside: mutations are not necessarily a bad thing (see: X-men and most superhero origin stories). The idea of having a scaly hide might work if you’re in law enforcement or two extra arms if you’re a DJ. Hard to say what a third eye could get you, other than scamming folk at the carnival into thinking you’re a psychic. As an added bonus, since you’re a survivor, you’ve got a fresh slate to start a new world Mad Max style! Feel like creating a civilisation that trades exclusively in sexual favours or a new religion and think the vast wastes could use a messiah? Now’s the time to try all those crazy schemes! Win-win!

Apocalyptic Scenario #3 – Old Fashioned Potential Instigators: Zombie Apocalypse or Biblical Beat-Down The Horror: the idea of the dead rising from their graves isn’t anything new (see: every zombie movie ever) but the idea of a theological end-game is older still (see: Judgement Day for us Western folk or Ragnarok if you prefer to go out in a blaze of Viking glory). Sadly you can’t huddle in a cave or hermit in the rainforest, this bad stuff will find you, and whether it’s horrible brain munchers, a pissed of god or a giant world-wide brawl, you’re in trouble.

The Upside: since it’s a big time apocalypse and everyone’s invited, this is the time to start that private military you’ve always dreamed of. Grab a group of unlikely heroes and start pillaging immediately.

The more stuff you get, the more likely people are going to join your army, and who knows? You might even get to go toe-to-toe with Odin – Avenger’s style!

Apocalyptic Scenario #4 – No Way Out Potential Instigators: Meteoric Calamity or Solar Catastrophe The Horror: this one’s kind of jerk move because there isn’t a great deal you can do about it. If there is a sudden solar flare of astronomical proportions then we’re all crispy fried before anyone has the chance to tweet it. If it’s a meteor, assuming we catch it early enough, we might have just enough time for some sleaze-ball to put it on pay-per-view: first class seats to our own demise.

The Upside: two words: no Consequences. With a set time limit till end-game, you might as well mercilessly hit on everybody you ever thought was hot, get wasted and challenge a shark to a fist fight – you’re finally free to do whatever you want! Nice, right?

Regardless of their upbringing, the bulk of AFL fans have always turned themselves over to stunningly dumb colloquialisms not seen in sports like rugby union or cricket. Phrases so unutterably stupid that they make the practice of speech seem redundant where silence or some nonsequitur like “shit this beer tastes like piss” would be saying just as much. Here’s the thing though – those three words at the top of this article, they didn’t come from a fan. They came from the mouth of one of Channel Seven’s chief commentators, Brian Taylor, a comedic foil wrongly positioned as the anchorman of much of Seven’s AFL coverage in the 2012 season.

BT’s most recent call, in the nail-biting Preliminary Final between Hawthorn and Adelaide (Hawthorn 97 – Adelaide 92 for those playing at home), went into meltdown in the final quarter with the fat man on the mic getting so worked up he struggled to utter words. At one point he made a bizarre aside about the fortunes of the Richmond Tigers that bared no resemblance to the action going on in this, or indeed any other match. All the while his right-hand man, the brain-dead Matthew Richardson, occasionally interjected with the phrase “good call BT” and presumably sat back down to scratch the scar left over from the lobotomy Channel Nine gave him when he first appeared on The Footy Show.

This isn’t a one-time happening though; this wasn’t simply a game so exciting that it was impossible for the commentator to keep his emotions in check. One dubious, later viral clip from earlier in the year featured Matthew Richardson wasting two whole minutes of call time on a pseudoscientific theory that people miss more goals nowadays because the goal posts are too large.

The AFL is arguably the best filmed professional sport in the world.

Aside from NFL and other affiliated American productions (NCAA Football for example), no other sport features as many camera angles, as innovative filming techniques or as large a staff of reporters and commentarians seeking to give its audience unparalleled information on the match in real time. The AFL, this year, has even moved to a deal where each game is shown, either on free-to-air or Foxtel, 100% live.

Unfortunately sports viewing has a bottleneck however – the quality of the production is restrained or enhanced mostly and primarily by the quality of the main commentator. Network football commentary has drifted gradually in recent years to seek out “comedic” personalities and place them centre stage only to see them blunder when they need to provide insight and composure – people who can provide these things are left to wait it out on minor Victorian radio stations (though there is some suggestion that the best of the young crop of radio commentators, ex-Bulldogs captain Chris Grant may make the step up in the future).

In a conversation with my father we noted how much better the production of the AFL is to Sky’s production of the English Premier League. The camera angles, the staff, the reporters, everything.

Everything except for the one part that makes or breaks the quality of the coverage, the commentary. If you have Foxtel, or you’re just paying for the electricity required to squeeze the shithole that is Channel Seven out of your TV then remember: You’re paying for this shit and until Seven employs commentators of the level of Dennis Cometti (or even better, Martin Tyler) across all of their games, you’re not getting full value.

Words by Josh Chiat

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away the greatest movie saga of all time began. Then, twenty years later, George Lucas completely screwed it up. The Star Wars prequels suck and to prove it let’s compare the relationship of Anakin and Padme to that of Han and Leia.

Chemistry Han & Leia: consider the subtle act of Han wrapping his arm around Leia while Lando flirted with her. Chemistry was evident in the subtle looks, touches and movements of the two. There was no denying that Han and Leia had the hots for each other, which made the audience passionate about their relationship.

Anakin & Padme: They looked uncomfortable in every single scene they had together. Their body language is akin to that of year five students who are dancing together at a disco. They seem to be willing each scene to end as quickly as possible and the audience can’t help but cringe at the obviously manufactured attempts at intimacy.

Dialogue Han & Leia: “Why, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herder.” What is there to say about such impeccable dialogue, really? Their exchanges were effortless and their romantic feelings were conveyed without overly sappy dialogue.

Anakin & Padme: “You look so beautiful” “It’s because I’m so in love” “No it’s because I’m so in love with you” Oh god, stop! I genuinely believe that letting Stephanie Meyer write the dialogue between these two characters would have made for a better script.

Relationship Development Han & Leia: after first meeting their relationship evolved; as they found out more about one another their immediate attraction was elevated by respect and admiration. It was ultimately a believable progression.

Anakin & Padme: they first meet when Anakin is a child and then they don’t see each other for ten years. However in Attack of the Clones straight away Anakin speaks of his feelings for her and how he hasn’t stopped thinking about her. In ten years. Alarm bells anyone?

We’ve really just hit the tip of the poorly written, poorly acted iceberg. In the immortal words of Master Yoda “Do or do not. There is no try” and I think we can all agree that in the prequels George Lucas did not.

Words by Paige Champion Image by Liam Lucas

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This may be due to the emergence of more homosexual public figures who are typically masculine. Sportsmen like Rugby player Gareth Thomas, cricketer Steven Davies, and soccer players Anton Hysen as well as David Testo have all come out as gay in recent years, following in the footsteps of Australian Rugby player Ian Roberts, who famously came out in 1995. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, a controversial figure, has nonetheless shattered perceptions of gay men in the business world, commanding a high salary and exuding a ruthless and powerful air in the public eye. Openly gay actor Neil Patrick Harris, meanwhile, has become a popular cult figure of masculinity, playing the womanising Barney Stinson on TV’s How I Met Your Mother.

Moreover, homosexual men have, for many years, described themselves as ‘masculine’ or ‘straight-acting’ in online dating profiles. Some academics and activists have taken issue with the term ‘straight-acting’, claiming that it is self-loathing or a symptom of internalised homophobia. I disagree with them: the term is not ideal, but I think it is simply a reflection on how much our society has separated the ideas of masculinity and homosexuality, rather than imagining that they might co-exist in one male body.

Because of this schism, masculine gay men are left in the position of needing to redeem or prove their masculinity, and claiming to be like straight men, whose masculinity is less problematic. It is a simple way to communicate to their prospective partner just how manly they are.

A single word can conjure up a thousand different images. Take the word ‘masculine’, for instance. What springs to mind? Popculture demi-gods like Chuck Norris, athletes like Dane Swan, or world leaders like Putin? Or maybe you just see disconnected images: tools, a football, beer, cigars, utes, tattoos, or guns? ‘Masculine’ tends to connote power, strength and competence.

How about the word ‘gay’? Do you see glowsticks and disco balls, cocktails and techno, Gaga and ecstasy, drag-queens and glitter? Kurt from Glee, Jack from Will and Grace, the whole male cast of Queer as Folk? ‘Gay’ often implies flamboyant, effeminate behaviours. It’s interesting how mainstream perceptions of homosexuality are homogenised and divorced from masculinity. It’s also interesting to look at how bullshit that notion actually is.

Homosexual men have been historically been represented as an unusual breed of effeminate male; men who, if we believe our TVs, prefer to act like women. It’s a stereotype that endures and to an extent is accepted by many gay men.

I don’t understand this: to me, a bloke fucking another bloke is about the most masculine thing I can imagine. There’s nothing feminine about it: just an overabundance of testosterone, muscle, lust and aggression. How can a bloke who roots blokes be seen as any less masculine than his straight counterpart? Sexual activity doesn’t dictate one’s behaviour or interests.

Despite the ongoing stereotyping, there are signs that many homosexual men are beginning to shun the socially-projected effeminate identity in favour of reasserting their masculine identity.

Why do gay men feel this need to prove their masculinity? I would argue that it is because of society’s conflation of sexuality with gender. Gay men are often viewed as effeminate and therefore ‘like women’. This may not bother some gay men; but it is clearly a concern for those many men who go to lengths to describe themselves on Manhunt or Grindr as ‘masculine’ and ‘straight-acting’. These men exhibit the same desire as most heterosexual men to be seen as masculine and as ‘real men’; they identify strongly with the male gender.

Once again, there are those who call this tendency ‘self-loathing’, but I believe they are grossly misinformed. It is much more selfloathing for a homosexual man to call himself ‘queer’. This trend has been popular since the 1990s, but far from being a reclamation of an epithet, it simply reinforces the heteronormative idea that homosexuality is unusual, weird, or a symptom of gender confusion. To call oneself queer is essentially to give up and accept the arguments made by homophobes, rather than arguing back and redefining homosexuality.

To those who say gay men can’t be masculine, or that they are inherently effeminate or queer, I say bullshit. Homosexual men are not queer; they are, like heterosexuals, bisexuals, transgendered folks and intersex peeps, totally, 100% normal. It would be of great benefit for gay men’s self-image and self-esteem to redefine themselves as such.

The bottom line is, then, that many gay men are extremely masculine. Gay men are sportsmen, businessmen, blue-collar workers, soldiers and world leaders. Gay men are strong, powerful and competent. The challenge, then, is to bring this perception further and further into public view and start showing the world exactly how masculine homosexual men are.

Words by Kristian Guagliardo Image by Evonne Lai

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Edition 3 2012 Cover Image by Giselle Natassia Art Director: Tom Reynolds Model: Adrian Rossetti Cosmetics: Hannah Ridoubt

Arts

Welcome to the newly reborn Arts section, my baby for 2013! I’ve ditched art reviews because let’s face it, they were boring. I want to make this section something I’d actually look forward to reading. Selfish, I know but I’m an artist who long ago came to terms with the fact that I’m the centre of the universe. What other profession pays us to create our own work for personal development?

Actually, in all seriousness, there’s a method to my madness. While I’m here to shape this section for my own creative desires, I sincerely hope you too will get something out of this baby.

In each month’s issue we will focus on the creative process to inspire creatively minded people. We will also provide a back stage pass to those who have always wondered what goes on in those crazy creative heads of ours.

This is where you ECU and WAAPA students come in. All you students working under the very general term of “the arts” are invited to write a brief article on your creative process and/ or interview professionals about theirs, and submit your piece to me by the 4th March via email at arts.editor.gsm@ gmail.com Many thanks to Tom Ansell and Franco Iannantuoni for being on the ball and submitting their articles months before the rest of us were even thinking about university. Special thanks to photographer Eveny Ye for taking the very flattering photo of yours truly!

Until next time, enjoy and happy creating! PEACE Jason Dirstein, Arts Editor

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Arts

My creative process and all thoughts that amalgamate start with existence and especially death. Philosophical, dialectical, and sometimes phenomenological analyses [sic] give me a basis towards refining the idea so that it becomes a powerful and emotive force. This certain perspective always starts with the individual self or the idea of what the ‘self’ is, to refine and advance me and others by creating work that inspires and addresses specific obscure themes or issues. Wonder and questioning never seem to leave me; it neither leaves those who become interested beyond the image’s depiction.

More recently, mainly through these discoveries and the creation of new artworks, I am focused on ascertaining the most important thing in this so-called “reality”.

As such, metaphysical and surrealist work is using me as a conduit in a consuming, cyclical pattern.

With the creation of a new image, experimental techniques and processes usually follow with the dichotomy of a new idea or way of thinking. Flamboyant or suggestive, sometimes analogical structures usually capture my attention when I begin a piece, and then the form or shape usually follows.

Movement or motion is another large aspect, which comes through the delicate use of line and spacing within the working area. These lines give energy and life or ‘animation’ as I pull and project them forward, to bring them to life from an amassed collection of thoughts and visions.

The work for me is a chance to show that feeling and emotions can most certainly be derived from complex foundations through imagery, even if the image is basically just a collection of lines and colours, or shapes and space… it becomes something more when viewed.

Words & Image by Tom Ansell Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Visual Arts (Bunbury Campus)

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Arts

These series of images are from the Instagram app from my iPhone. I use photography as a means to catalogue pictures that help me understand and interpretively communicate my life-world. I chose f32stop and my first name only in my profile as a means of remaining slightly ambiguous to the viewer.

My personal identity may give further subjectivity to the images. My reasons for photographing the subjects chosen aren’t always clear to myself. The goal is to record and catalogue personal aspects of my life visually foremost for me, but the viewer is welcome to engage with them.

I have placed certain limitations on the process of shooting and manipulation of imagery using only my iPhone and Instagram’s creative app. I feel this gives a necessary limit to the decision making process that would go on unabated if I was using all the applications available.

I want to retain most of the original image that was of interest photographing in the first place, only choosing to manipulate the image to enhance my original spark of interest. I started using the iPhone and Instagram app as a quick and interesting way to document my life.

I come from a traditional photography background utilising film stock, so the ability to quickly shoot, edit and display my work was revelatory for someone like me who started shooting images 20 years ago.

Instagram helps me keep in touch with all the elements of the creative process by finding subjects through lighting, mood, composition, colour, emotion, et.al. It brings the process of creative reflexivity on a daily or weekly basis. It produces a form of discipline I use to focus my creativity, which may not always occur so immediately in painting, drawing etc.

But I do believe that one area of the creative process informs another, so all areas are embraced.

The end result of this creative process, I hope, produces imagery that is informed, reflexive and layered so the viewer can interpret the visual language in a myriad of ways, leaving the obvious on the sidelines.

But there is still room for the inevitable candid, silly and uninteresting views of my life. You may or may not find it here, a subjective decision you alone can make. Either way, enjoy.

Words & Images by Franco Iannantuoni Bachelor of Contemporary Arts, majoring in Visual Arts (Mt Lawley Campus)

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Arts

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Books

Mystic City Theo Lawrence

Swampy Bill Marsh

The House of Memories Monica McInerney

A novel in three parts, Theo Lawrence’s Mystic City is a captivating tale of rebellion and forbidden romance awash with magic, mystery and a little mayhem.

Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh is something of an Australian legend. He is a singer and songwriter and performer and teacher and he writes for radio and the theatre and he also writes short stories and novels, some of which have been reprinted 14 times… phew! What a mouthful, talk about a jack-of-all-trades.

For anyone who has ever lost someone, you understand the heartbreaking and all-consuming ache that comes hand in hand with grief.

Australian-born author, Monica McInerney explores bereavement through her protagonist Ella O’Hanlon, who loses someone close to her in a tragic accident. This is mainly Ella’s story… but we all know that there are many sides to a story.

In The House of Memories, the reader is allowed access to multiple points of view, which helps us to understand the complexity of grief. There are five stages in the grieving process: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The reader is taken on a voyage of these stages as the story unfolds.

Set in a futuristic world where New York is under water due to the onset of global warming; the novel explores the lives of two of The Aeries most prominent political families, the Rose’s and the Foster’s, and the surprise union between their children, Aria and Thomas. A union Aria remembers next-to-nothing about after overdosing on a magical substance and waking up with no recollection of her torrid love affair.

Plagued with doubt and uncertainty over her upcoming nuptials Aria Rose fights to regain her memories of the man she is supposedly in love with despite his being the offspring of her family’s sworn rivals.

Enter Hunter, a brooding and secretive rebel mystic who dwells beneath the Aeries in the Depths – the home of the outcasts and the defeated mystics. In all of his mysteriousness Hunter manages to enchant Aria despite her social prowess and betrothal to gallant Thomas Foster.

Their friendship set to ignite rebellion throughout The Aries and the Depths alike.

Technically, the novel does little to disappoint in terms of the overall plot line and the intricacies of the characters individual personalities and their relationships with each other. At times it seems as though Lawrence is struggling to pen the scenes between the focal character Aria and her best friend Kiki; almost as if he doesn’t quite know how they should be feeling or reacting in relation to the feminine aspects of their relationship.

However this strong male authorial voice, evident throughout the novel, can be disregarded as a minor flaw as it certainly enhances the conversations composed between the more masculine characters, such as Aria’s father and his fearsome political opponent George Foster.

Mystic City is a breathtaking tale of a young woman’s bravery and determination to fight for what is right, despite her families preconceived traditions and stereotypes. An enthralling plot unlike anything I have ever seen or read before, Theo Lawrence’s tale has all the makings of a best seller and is definitely worth the read.

7.5/10 Review by Madeline McKenzie

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In his latest book, Marsh asks the reader to journey back to a simpler time and experience life as it was in rural and regional Australia back in the 50s. Marsh relives his happy-go-lucky childhood in a tiny town in the outback, and tells us story after story about the shenanigans that he used to get up to as a young boy. He vividly recalls his life and refers to Australiana stuff like footy, grain silos, yabbies’, outdoor toilets, Galahs, darts, bookies, cricket, yobbos and larrikins.

Apparently Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh is one of Australia’s favourite storytellers… he certainly isn’t one of mine, although I am probably twenty years below his desired target audience. This autobiographical account is like having to sit through an entire long weekend with an annoying grandparent waffling on about all the things that they did back in the golden olden days. Don’t get me wrong, the stories are interesting enough, it’s just that it is exhausting reading them because they seem so farfetched and over the top.

Hyperbole. That pretty much sums up this whole book. It is full of exaggeration, overstatement, overemphasis, magnification, inflation, and embellishment. The language that Marsh uses is inventive, and he certainly has an intriguing voice, I just found that it was too much for a novel. I would have enjoyed his style of writing more if it were in the form of short stories.

In saying that, I think that my Dad and Granddad would really enjoy this book. In fact, I think that most Dads and Granddads would enjoy it. It encapsulates country life in Australia beautifully, and the descriptions have the potential to conjure up memories from your own childhood. The novel is reminiscent and funny for sure, and I know that older people will enjoy it. I think that people who are 40+ will love it, particularly if they have spent time living in a country town.

5/10 Review by Asten Nunn

We start with Ella isolating herself from those who are closest to her, including her soul mate and husband Aiden. Ella has to work through her anger and blame towards Aiden and her spoilt and favoured half-sister Jess. She chooses to flee to the other side of the world, and seeks solace in a huge house filled with many eccentric characters, including her favourite Uncle: Lucas Fox. The house is saturated in memories from Ella’s childhood and adulthood, and Ella has her work cut out for her as she tries to sieve through the memories and leave her melancholy behind.

This book is profound: it is thoughtful, reflective and philosophical. Ella O’Hanlon (and the other characters) are as real as you and I, and it is easy to relate to them because they are fleshed out so well. McInerney’s writing is enjoyable as it is easy to read, the dialogue is realistic and the story links together in a cohesive yet interesting way.

I have seen a few reviews of the book and some people are saying that parts of the book are funny and that you will be laughing out loud one minute and crying the next. I have read some of McInerney’s other novels and agree that she can indeed be comical, but I didn’t find this novel to be very humorous. I was too sad to laugh! It is poignant, it is tender, and it really does stick with you after you have finished reading it. That is always a sign of a good book. The House of Memories is a wonderful story and McInerney can now add me to her list of adoring fans.

8.5/10 Review by Idi Amin

Books

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Film

This Is 40

Django Unchained

Director: Judd Apatow Starring: Leslie Mann, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Megan Fox

Director: Quentin Tarantino Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio

If this is what being 40 is like, then I am afraid. This comedy film carries on from the successful film Knocked Up, starring Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl. The loveable sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and her husband Pete (Paul Rudd) had a strong side story of their own in Knocked Up, and Judd Apatow obviously decided that the characters were rich enough to have their own movie.

The story examines married life in all of its splendour, and the movie has some genuinely wise moments interspersed with hysterical and borderline disgusting moments, as is typical of Apatow films. Anyone want to see a mammogram and prostate exam? No, me either, ewwww.

This Is 40 covers the stagnant relationship of Pete and Debbie, a couple who know each other almost too well. After being married for so long there are no boundaries and there is no mystery. The couple battle with the fact that the romance is dead, and that they are resigned to live a life that revolves around being a parent and worker bee.

Turning 40 is the last straw for Debbie, and she makes an oath to change the lives of her family by prioritising their happiness and removing all negativity, which comes in the form of cupcakes, cigarettes, technology and her teenage daughters obsession with the TV show Lost.

The film went for over two hours, however, it was enjoyable and didn’t feel like it lagged. The cast was loveable, and was essentially Apatow’s whole family! Leslie Mann is Apatow’s wife, and his two daughters were also in the film. All he had to do was kick Paul Rudd out and star in that role himself and it would have been a typical night at the dinner table in the Apatow home.

There was no nepotism at play here though, the cast did a fantastic and believable job all on their own merit. This is a funny movie and you’ll like it if you liked all of the other Judd Apatow movies.

6.5/10 Review by Asten Nunn

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Django Unchained is the latest blood-soaked romp of love-him/hate-him cinephile Quentin Tarantino. Billed as a “Southern”, Django is by far one of Tarantino’s wittiest, intelligent, totally bad-arse romps.

The story follows the slave Django (Jamie Foxx) as he is taken under the wing of semi-retired dentist and ridiculously casual bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz). The two develop a close bond that sees them on a quest to save Django’s long lost wife from a drawling plantation owner, (Leonardo DiCaprio). This is one of QT’s most engaging films, and is the perfect companion piece to the brilliant Inglorious Basterds. It is everything you’ve come to expect: unique characters, smart-mouthed dialogue, filmic violence, clever homages and a break neck pace that sees you engaged in every scene.

Christoph Waltz could play a rock and make it interesting, so his brilliance as the German emigrant dentist come bounty-hunter isn’t surprising. The character is one of Tarantino’s best, and perhaps the most sympathetic in his entire catalogue. His role as the European other allows for an inspection of the horrors of slavery that is incredibly rare of films of this kind. All the performances sizzle however, and Tarantino’s cameo as an Australian bushman is perhaps one of his more self-indulging homages to this country’s golden-era of exploitation that is so present in his films.

I find fault with critics (Spike Lee) claiming that the film trivialises slavery. The sad truth is that popular American cinema rarely examines slavery at all, not in any real sense. The violence of Django is by no means subtle, but the violence of American slavery wasn’t particularly subtle either. Tarantino represents the violence towards slaves (be it displacement or the use of the word ‘nigger’) realistically; it is easy to see why American audiences would be so uncomfortable with this representation of a past that is more often ignored (Waltz plays the only sympathetic white character).

Overall, Django Unchained is a brilliant example of Tarantino’s ability to execute his madcap cinematic visions. It’s a terrific tragi-comic adventure through dust and blood; Waltz’s beard is worth the price of admission alone.

4.5/5 Review by Patrick Marlborough

Film

Silver Linings Playbook

West of Memphis

Life of Pi

Director: David O’Russell Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert Deniro, Jackie Weaver

Director: Amy Berg Starring: Jason Baldwin, Damien Wayne Echols and Jessie Misskelley

Director: Ang Lee Starring: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan

It appears that filmmakers have started to realise that these modern times require contemporary storylines and some freshly written characters. People speak to each other differently now, and it is refreshing to see the characters in this film mimicking reality. Bradley Cooper plays Pat, and we meet him as he is being released from a mental institution. We don’t know why he was there, but the truth is revealed to us one secret at a time.

From director Amy Berg and in collaboration with first time directors Damien Echols and Lorri Davis comes West Of Memphis, the fourth and final installment of the Paradise Lost documentaries. The documentary tells the horrifying and heart-wrenching story of The West Memphis Three, Damien Echols, Jessie MissKelley and Jason Baldwin, three teenage boys wrongfully accused of and eventually found guilty of a heinous crime of triple child murder.

Silver Linings Playbook is the kind of film that get’s it all out in the open. What is ‘it’? Sex, prescription drugs, mental illness, and violence to name a few.

What is good about this film is that it treats these taboo topics with a sense of normality. Majority of the characters have something odd about them, and it is these oddities that make them remarkable.

An interesting spark ignites when Pat and Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) meet one night, and they both realise that there is someone else out there in the world who is just as fucked up as they are.

As far as the acting goes, there are some unconventionally tender moments between Cooper and Deniro, and Jackie Weaver does a fantastic job as the mother, however, it is Lawrence who steals the show. I think that it is meant to be Cooper’s story, but Lawrence is so candid and fragile as Tiffany that it totally becomes her story. The storyline is good, albeit a bit too long in parts, but overall it is a complicated love story befitting of modern times.

7/10 Review by Asten Nunn

Berg‘s documentary illuminates a case that shames the state of Arkansas and the American judicial system. A complete lack of forensic evidence and an epidemic of fear over satanic rituals sent the town into mayhem, baying for blood. They needed justice for this crime and the misfit trio fit the prosecutorial bill, regardless of the mounting pile of evidence pointing not towards these three teenage boys but to someone a lot closer to home for these victims’ families.

Berg does an amazing job of summarising the two decades of court challenges, trials and celebrity campaigns that bring this story of injustice to its not-so-happyending. West Of Memphis is an angry and indignant testament to righteous persistence.

As a follower of this case since 2004, I left the cinema with mixed emotions.

What we need to ask ourselves is just how many innocents are slipping through the cracks?

A cinematic experience like no other, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi will have you captivated from the moment the taste of buttered popcorn hits your tongue and the opening credits begin to roll.

An enchanting tale of one man’s unwavering faith and self-belief, Life of Pi is the recounting of Piscine Molitor Patel’s journey after being shipwrecked in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with nothing but a ravenous Bengal tiger for company.

Director Ang Lee stuns. His personal effort in conjunction with the technical prowess of the special effects team are to be highly commended in creating a film so cinematically stunning that at times would prove enough to make even the strongest person’s stomach turn. I for one was left feeling genuinely queasy watching on as the computer generated ocean raged, a new experience for a frequent cinema-goer such as myself.

Suraj Sharma makes his acting debut as a young Pi in a captivating display of raw emotion that will have you enthralled from the moment he utters his first words on screen. Despite the lack of physical animals throughout the filming process, namely the Bengal tiger Richard Parker, Sharma manages to portray the gutwrenchingly, bittersweet emotional roller coaster of his fictional counterpart to perfection.

10/10

An enchanting tale flawlessly portrayed, both technically and emotionally, that will no doubt be tugging at your heartstrings until the final fade-to-black. It will be the best $20 you’ve spent in a long while.

Review by Jessica Paterson

7.5/10 Review by Madeline McKenzie

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Games The idea of the reboot has been around for about as long as the idea of intellectual property theft: someone sees something good, or maybe even something awful, and says “I could do that waaay better!” or “You know, I bet if they had done this it would have been so much more amaze-balls” so they find the resources and tell the world their version of the story- sometimes with mixed results.

It’s a simple concept that had given us such glorious re-imaginings as the new Transformers games (War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron), the Fallout franchise (Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas) and the recent Rayman platformers. All of which were done with class, panache, various other colloquialisms for style and above all a fresh and interesting perspective.

But it’s not all rare candies and beds of fire-flowers, oh no, the reboot has also been used for evil and diabolical purposes: entries such as Bomberman on the 360, Sonic the Hedgehog’s various HD remakes, Golden Axe and the truly despicable Duke Nukem Forever show that reboots are sometimes not just a bad idea but suicide for a brand-name.

Some of the controversy over the recently released DMC (Devil May Cry for those not fluent in increasing obscure gaming acronyms) and the soon to be released Tomb Raider reboots are justified but a lot of it is also pretty ridiculous. I have seen many a message board (and conversation) light up with the wails of the faithful lamenting that this new usurper is nothing more than a mockery of the former glory that was once a great franchise.

Now I have never been what I would call a fan-boy about anything specific. Trending towards pragmatism that I like to think keeps me grounded, I am more often the fan-boy of what I would call the “idea of a thing” – the raw elements and concepts that a thing is trying to represent and put in my viewing window, rather than the specific details that comprise its surface.

As an example of this, DMC being an excellent subject, many fans were outraged by the fact that the lovable anti-hero Dante’s hair and clothing had been altered to match the dystopian and anarchistic urban-sprawl that composes the majority of the game. In this game Dante is younger, more rebellious, though not entirely sure of his own heritage or power. Which makes sense in both the context of the re-imagining and the aesthetics of the setting so this was a perfectly justifiable change for me since the solid mechanics, frenetic combat and bombastic style of the previous DMC’s was preserved despite these minor changes.

Tomb Raider however, is in the strangely unique position of occupying a space in gaming sometimes referred to as fan-service by those of us with tact. Previous incarnations of the franchise had Ms Lara Croft posing and stretching after and vigorous activity, making sexually charged comments and touting assets that would make a Playboy bunny blush (which she would have also done, since she was the first videogame character ever to inhabit the centrefold of that very magazine).

The new reboot begins with a younger Lara (running theme, anyone?) all fresh faced and filled with hope being stranded on an island full of murderous natives and drug runners, forced to take on the role of an adventurer not by choice but by necessity. This perspective is altered from a carefree archaeologist/tomb-raider (who was basically Indiana Jones) to a die-hard survivalist. This has changed the way some fans think about the heroine and they are not all happy.

So which way is it going to be? Are we going to allow these beloved franchises to fall into the annals of history and leave them as the fond, silver-lined memories they inspire within us? Or are we going to strive boldly into the future, constantly re-inventing, re-inspiring, re-imagining, re-mixing and re-booting our favourite games until they are only vaguely recognisable in comparison to the source material?

My answer is a resounding yes. There are some ideas that were great for their time, in their time, but have long since been passed by because of the continued evolution of our society. There are others that will always be timeless and could be remade again and again for eternity and still provide each new generation with the same sense of glee and wonderment they inspired in us. I know where I stand in the age old argument – how about you?

Words by Aron Shick

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Games

Temple Run

Platform: iPad & the Android store

Question: If Indiana Jones had a hell, what would it look like?

A highly addictive railroad platformer, if the people over at Imangi Studios are to be believed. Temple Run follows the adventures of a tomb-raiding adventurer as he flees the scene of his latest idol-based theft.

That’s it really. But trust me when I say that what Temple Run lacks is storytelling; it’s more than makes up for gameplay.

Taking full advantage of the iPad’s touch screen and motion sensitivity, Temple Run will have you swiping, scrolling and lifting your character through a series of fast-paced obstacles in a bid to not only escape the rabid skull-monkeys chasing you, but to collect enough coins to afford just one more powerup from the cleverly implemented rewards store. And while the gameplay is probably enough to bring both your social life and hygiene routine to a grinding halt, it’s the pursuit of coins and the increasingly difficult objectives that will keep you coming back for more.

In terms of graphics, Temple Run is wonderfully rendered, and despite the fact that the scenery is to a certain extent unvarying, the fluidity of your character’s motion coupled with the rapidity of the dangers thrown at you prevents this minor quibble from detracting too much from the overall game. At its core, however, it’s the sheer personality and quirky humour of the game (especially when you die – which you will often) that makes Temple Run one of the most enjoyable games you will play all year. Temple Run: The furthest you will ever run. And like it.

2.5/5 Review by Rehana Badat

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition Platform: PC

While the original Dark Souls was released last year, developer ‘From Software’, after heeding the cries of fans, has released a PC port with an added expansion. Prepare to Die is a direct port.

Almost nothing has been changed, with most of the six month porting time being spent on the new content. This, for the most part, is a good thing. Dark Souls was an amazing game on consoles, and it remains an amazing game on the PC, albeit with a few issues.

It is not, however, for the faint of heart. An action RPG with heavy influence on player skill rather than character skill, Dark Souls is an old school NES game with better visuals. With influence from Metroidvanias, Dark Souls promotes learning through play and has severe punishment for rushing in without careful consideration. This brings about an almost unparalleled sense of catharsis upon victory, no matter how small.

The expansion, Artorias of the Abyss, is a masterpiece.Set in an existing locale hundreds of years in the past, the atmosphere is as thick as smog and the boss fights rank among the best in the game. If you’re already a fan, the price tag is worth it for this alone.

Unfortunately PC-related technical issues have somewhat held it back. The resolution is locked to a muddy 1024x720 (but is fixed with a patch) and the frame rate capped at 30fps. Controls on the keyboard and mouse are abysmal, and playing with a controller is highly recommended.

4.5/5 Review by Simon Donnes

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Music

You’re A Shadow Hungry Kids of Hungary

No Beginning No End José James

This Is 40 Soundtrack

You’re A Shadow is the latest album by Brisbane-based indie pop band Hungry Kids of Hungary. The album is quite quirky and fun, different from music I would usually listen to, but refreshing all the same.

No Beginning No End is the most recent studio album released by singer-songwriter José James. In my opinion the album does little to excite, threatening to lull listeners to sleep from the opening chord progression of the first track.

After listening to the first few tracks it’s quite obvious that they have their own unique sound as a band; even though every song is fundamentally different there are stylistic elements that sound the same, reinforcing the bands overall indiepop style.

The eleven-track album embodies the sensual and soulful elements that are to be expected of the blues genre, however, as a musician James does little to push the boundaries lyrically or instrumentally. Each track is comprised of almost identical percussive foundations and bass chord progressions. Definitely something I would have playing in the background but by no means exciting enough to make you sit back in awe.

This is 40 is a film about an American married couple approaching a meltdown as they turn 40. The album features music

by Norah Jones, Graham Parker, Fiona Apple, and Lindsey Buckingham, with Ryan Adams and Wilco providing new material.

Lyrically the songs are meaningful and relatable and I love how every song takes you on a journey. Despite not being able to understand all the lyrics at times, the album does give you the opportunity to focus and listen to the music, which showcases the band’s distinctive musical style. The tracks on You’re A Shadow have a nice flow to them and the songs all come together nicely.

Despite my liking the album there are a few negatives that need to be highlighted.

On the earlier tracks it didn’t feel as though the music made sense with the lyrics, and the overall lyrical form was lacking. Also, not being able to understand some of the lyrics does tend to get frustrating after a while, but was still bearable. The later tracks are definitely stronger and more enjoyable.

Listening to No Beginning No End in its entirety it is evident that José James is passionate about his music and the album ir probably best suited to sit back and listen to on a summer’s evening when paired with a nice glass of wine, but that’s about all.

Personally, I believe that José James is talented; there is no denying that, but he isn’t unique. His music reminds me of every singer-songwriter who has ever moonlighted at a coffee club and or local pub. He’s nothing new and that is his greatest weakness professionally.

3.5/5

His bluesy ethereal sounds in addition to his folky tendencies making for a comfortable album that does little to surprise. However, if that is all you are after then by all means, you will love it.

Overall, the album is fairly boring, nothing new or remotely exciting despite James’ undeniable musical potential.

Review by Gabriella Camera

2.5/5

I would definitely recommend this album for people who are looking for something different and for those who enjoy the indie music scene.

Review by Madeline McKenzie

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The film This is 40 is meant to be a comedy; however the soundtrack is a little depressing for the genre. The flow of the album is slow, sad, and boring. A few songs are sung with just an acoustic guitar, giving it a more raw and relatable feeling. Songs like The Avett Brothers Live and Die sounded too country in relation to the other tracks.

The lyrics on the tracks describe what is going on in the couple’s life in the film, so that aspect was interesting. There were no exceptionally bad songs, however Paul McCartney’s Lunch Box/Odd Sox didn’t fit in with the flow of the soundtrack. It was different from the rest of the songs on the album. Norah Jones’ song Always Judging was the best song on the album and described the 40-year-old couple perfectly.

Personally, I did not enjoy this soundtrack. The pace of the soundtrack was too slow and depressing for my taste.

A comedy is meant to be fun, happy and up beat! On the other hand, maybe the music was aimed at an older audience.

When I am 40 I hope this is not the soundtrack to my life.

1.5/5 Review by Aneta Grulichova

Music

Braving what little rain summer has to offer, I headed into Music Rocks HQ, more than excited at the prospect of interviewing one of Perth’s newest musical talents: Winter’s Calling. As I walked through the door an enthusiastic, albeit slightly unsure, five-some stared straight back at me, ready to show me that they had what it takes to make it in the Western Australian music industry, and boy, was I blown away!

What’s the meaning behind the name?

A: Winter as a season has very negative connotations, it’s cold, its dark and calling as in like asking for help and it’s like if you are ever stuck or bogged down or at a dead end and you are just kind of reaching out… our music is like a helpline, like an answer, so that people can listen to our music and then be able to feel better about themselves and find an answer.

The Perth-based band, Winter’s Calling, comprise of Samantha Lucas, 19, Andrew Michie, 19, Georgia Sassenfeld, 18, Patrick Alexander, 17, and Caitlin Robinson, 16. They have been together as a band for the past nine months, although some members of the band have played together for the past three years. The five Perth-born-and-bred musicians recounted how they used to know of each other but never really knew each other until they were thrown together through the Music Rocks program, with Sam joining them more recently.

What’s your favourite part about being in the group?

P: Having someone younger than me in the group to pick on.

S: I didn’t expect to be this confident so fast… it’s definitely helped me! We all motivate each other and push each other in the right direction.

G: Doing what you love with your friends, it’s a good feeling.

C: I think the diversity, because we’re all so different.

A: 100% live performance.

Having played venues such as the Ellington Jazz Club, the Flyby Night Club, the Rosemount Hotel, The Shed, and at events such as Hypefest, the fabulous five-some are no strangers to the stage and their passion for their craft definitely radiates in all that they do.

Musically speaking Winter’s Calling could be compared to bands such as Anberlin, Hawk Nelson, Lost Prophets, Paramore and even Wakey! Wakey! at times. In the time I spent with Winter’s Calling they played five of their own original songs, each of them lyrically and musically unique with a powerful message embedded in each of them Lead singer, Sam, explained how her lyrics were like her diary, her own personal means of expressing her take on things. A notion drummer Andrew was quick to back up.

When asked to describe the band guitarist Patrick simply said, “crazy, ranga, quiet, hairy, drummer”, a description his band mates laughed off before revealing that during a performance they had once been described as being “like the Foo Fighters, but with a chick singer”.

What inspires each of you? Musically speaking.

Andrew: All five of us have a different favourite kind of genre.

Georgia: Sam’s ghetto.

Patrick: Classic blues, classic rock, anything before the 80s.

Caitlin: The White Stripes, classical Spanish guitar, anything dark and broody.

Sam: I love Wynter Gordon, oh and City and Colour, I know they’re not black but they’re beautiful.

5 things people should know about Winter’s Calling: G: we like to go crazy on stage!

C: we combine blues mentality with punk catchiness.

G: we’re all genuine, no bullshit.

G: we’ve played more gigs than people think.

S: We appreciate our fans, we actually have some fans, its so exciting we never thought we’d get fans, it’s really cool, you just don’t think it’ll ever happen to you.

Any funny stories to share?

P: Georgia knee butting herself when she pump jumped.

A: Blowing the amp at Charles hotel, we played one song and ten seconds in the amp just blew… the best and worst part was that we were the first band on so no one else had the amp head afterwards.

In amongst the playful banter and repeated short jokes I was able to grasp just how much music means to the five of them. Each of them drawing inspiration from their own idols, from their own genres, coming together to create music that has the undeniable ability to make you sit back and think ‘wow’. I guarantee we will be seeing incredible things from these five talented youngsters in the not-too-distant future.

Follow them on Facebook – Winter’s Calling www.facebook.com/WintersCalling

Words & Images by Madeline McKenzie

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