GSM ed. 5 vol. 3 "Alphabet Soup"

Contents

J --- Joking With Dad pg. 10 K --- Kickstarter pg. 11 L --- Let’s be Friends pg. 11 M --- Mega Brains pg. 12 N --- Networking Rehab pg. 12 O --- Original Story pg. 13 P --- Painful Pets pg. 14 Q --- Queer Fads & Fancies pg. 14 R --- Reality Vs. Superheroes pg. 15

A --- Adventure Time pg. 6 B --- Bebop Review pg. 6 C ---Cult of Fandom pg. 6 D --- Dollar Dazzler Drinks pg. 7 E --- Extermination: pros & cons pg. 8 F --- Fanning the Flames pg. 9 G --- Gen Y to Gen i pg. 9 H --- Horror Movie Survival Guide pg. 10 I --- In the Dark pg. 10

S --- Sloppy Seconds pg. 15 T --- Travelling Home pg. 16 U --- Urbantopia pg. 17 V --- Videogames Saved My Life pg. 17 W --- Who Wore it Better? pg. 18 X --- Xenophobia & Other Fiends pg. 19 Y --- Youth. Cigs. Music. Perth. pg. 19 Z --- Zigzagging My Way Home pg. 20

Editor & Design: Tom Reynolds editor.gsm@gmail.com Advertising & Distribution: Tom Reynolds communications@ecuguild.org.au Cover: Jason Dirstein Images: Jason Dirstein (9, 10, 13, 16), Liam Lucas (15), Rehana Badat (9), D’Arcy Ellis (8, 14), Tom Reynolds (4,19, 22), Emma Stevens (7), Manuel Mendoza (11, 12), Kristinn Hermanniusson (10), Grace McKie (3) Editing Team: Asten Nunn, Brennan Peers, Madeline McKenzie, Rehana Badat, Aldy Hendradjaja, Jess Patterson, Zoe Braybrooke, D’Arcy Ellis, Divya Jankee, Rosemarie Dale.

Want to review stuff for us?

Arts: Aldy Hendradjaja arts.editor.gsm@gmail.com Books: Rehana Badat books.editor.gsm@gmail.com Film: Dina Waluyo film.editor.gsm@gmail.com Games: Asten Nunn games.editor.gsm@gmail.com Music: Asten Nunn 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.

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Editorial

“Alphabet soup” was a means to open up the magazine to writing about anything. The real challenge however was halving the word count for submissions.

When I kicked off GSM some writers used to bitch that 750 words was “too big” a word limit (which made we wonder how they coped with writing essays). So I was kind of amused when this edition’s contributors started sending back their articles with grumbling notes saying, “it was so hard to keep within the word limit!” Actually, that made me pretty happy because it showed people really cared about what they were writing. To be honest the best thing about being Editor is when a newbie comes into the office and gleefully announces how much they enjoy writing for GSM.

Editorials are such a crock of shit, in many ways. I mean, who actually reads these? (Hi mum) And coming as they do at the end of an intensive process they are inevitably fuelled by the remaining dregs of creativity that haven’t been entirely milked dry by the pressure to co-ordinate the advertising, design, editing, and distribution of each edition. Needless to say when someone points out a minor typo or criticises some obscure aspect of the layout it makes you want to hit your head into the table yelling “WHAT MORE CAN I DO?” However, I’m told that editorials are a useful means of providing some explanation of what we’re publishing, so I’ll continue nevertheless. The concept behind this edition wasn’t original, having contributed to a similarly themed student magazine six years ago – and even then the idea was hardly fresh. I wanted to challenge the writers this edition because by second semester they have usually found their literary footing.

Next month is our final edition, which will be dedicated to the visual arts (eg. photography, vector, illustrations, watercolours, painting, cartoons etc). The theme is “EXPOSURE” but all submissions will be considered. First time contributors and staff are welcome! If you would like to contribute something get in contact: editor.gsm@gmail.com The Editor Tom Reynolds Thanks to: all the new writers this semester who liked their first encounter with GSM enough to come back for more, Amy Raz for her assistance with promoting us to students, D’Arcy Ellis and Rehana Badat for their delivery skills and Josh Chiat for his delivery driving skills, Jason Dirstein for flooding my inbox with a bounty of images for this edition, and all the good people who’ve popped their head in just to say they like what we’ve done so far. Your constructive feedback can only help improve your magazine.

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4

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The ECU Kids Holiday Program offers school aged children a variety of different sports to participate in during the school holidays, as well as providing a great environment to develop skills and make friendships. If your child is ready for an exciting holiday program that is not only fun, but good for them then you have come to the right place. Activities are structured so they are appropriate for each age group, and are supervised by experienced and skilled staff.

Our program dates are: 2nd October to 15th October, enrol now...

Visit www.ecu.edu.au/sport/kids for program details, featuring Circus skills and Perth Wild Cats. Not sure if your kids will like the ECU Kids Holiday Program? Have your kids not tried the program before?

If so visit our website for a free no obligation half day trial. Please print out the pass, fill it in and attach to the enrolment form.

G-News

· Basketball (Joondalup) · Mixed Netball (Joondalup) · Indoor Soccer (Joondalup) · Indoor Soccer (Mount Lawley) · Touch Footy (Joondalup) · Mixed Netball (Mt. Lawley) For more information email ecusports@ecu.edu.au or visit www.ecu.edu.au/sport

Watch this space in next issue to find out how our fellow ECU Students will perform in this year’s Australian University Games in Adelaide. Don’t know what it’s about and want to find out more visit http://www.ecu.edu.au/sport/uni_games Play Team Sports now ...

Social team sports are good for your body and mind, but they can also give you the skills and attitudes you need to succeed with friends and life in general.

Team sports are valuable in terms of exercise, friendship, and helping to develop confidence and a positive attitude.

Start now with no registration or joining fee and one low price per game. Sports available

5

ABC

This is one of those clever cartoons that are dressed up as a kid’s show while giving a very sly wink to a much older audience. In the process it has become something of a pop culture phenomena amongst twenty-somethings. Centred on Finn (a 14 year old human) and Jake (his shape-changing dog – and brother) the two engage in magical adventures across the post-apocalyptic land of Ooo. The show is rounded out with a cast of regular characters including the Ice King, Princess Bubblegum, BMO (their computer-game roommate) and Lady Rainicorn - Jake’s Korean-speaking flying unicorn girlfriend.

Whereas more self consciously “adult” shows like Family Guy rely heavily on non-sequitors and pop culture references to maintain momentum, Adventure Time retains a greater degree of “magical continuity” and exploring the fantastic as a means to move the story along.

Already in its fourth season the show has advanced into slightly more esoteric and surreal realms from the third season when a host of new writers were hired.

The style of animation contributes to the show’s sense of childishness and joyfulness. The show’s predominately bright and colourful, heavy with blues, greens, yellow, and pink. The detailing is simple and clear. Unlike many other cartoons Adventure Time uses a variety of musical scores; ranging from 80s style electronics to rock and acapella.

Adventure Time is highly recommended if you enjoy shows that make you feel like you’re enjoying a private joke delivered with a nod and a wink, if you like good animation, clever storytelling and decent dialogue.

4/5 Review by Tom Reynolds

6

What happens when you take the best elements of Firefly, mix it in with an amazing jazz soundtrack and sprinkle in some amazing noir style and sensibilities?

The anime series Cowboy Bebop. Aboard the rickety star-ship “Bebop” we find a colourful, though seriously jaded, group of individuals turned bounty hunters.

Spike Spiegel is a Bruce Lee-worshiping ex-gangster from Mars with a shady past and even shadier enemies. Jet the grizzled cop who left the force after being taken out of action, losing an arm and his wife in the process. Then of course we have Faye Valentine, the 200 year old (technically) card shark and grifter on the run from every law-man in the Solar System for a debt so big they don’t even have a number for it. Lastly we have Ed an androgynous pre-teen with a whimsical sense of humour and badarse hacking skills, if only she could focus on a single task for more than five seconds.

The series takes place several hundred years after humanity has colonised the stars and Earth is all but a wasteland that’s occasionally mentioned as a tourist trap. We follow the cast through countless bounties chased across the stars (with varying success) as they try to piece together their own broken lives, come to realisation about the importance of friendship and family, and try and make a few credits along the way. For a series with excellent animation, flawless voice acting, actual comedy and a whole lot of heart, I wholly recommend Cowboy Bebop for anyone who’s looking for something just a touch more serious than the usual anime affair.

5 space cowboys out of 5 Review by Aron Shick

Fandoms, we all have them. Whether you are Team Stefan or Team Damon, Team Bill or Team Eric, Team Spongebob or Team Patrick, you are knowingly subjecting yourself to lives of senseless, mind-numbing impatience and paranoia (whether in between seasons or on a weekly basis between episodes). Will she really end up with him? Will he be able to keep his secret long enough to keep his fancy car and marry the idiotic heiress?

Will character ‘A’ wake up from the coma character ‘B’ put them in because they were sleeping with character ‘C’?

Television producers thrive on the knowledge that we as an audience will wait, impatiently or otherwise, each week to find out how the previous weeks cliffhangers will be resolved.

I will be the first to admit that I have been waiting for the new season of Bones to start like a little kid waiting for their birthday, Easter and Christmas to arrive all at the same time. I desperately want Booth to find Bones and for them to live happily ever after so I can live vicariously through their on-screen relationship. It is what we as fans do, we root for our favourite couples, get upset when a fictional antagonist comes into the picture threatening to ruin everything we love, and we get mad when they make (what we consider) the wrong decision.

We, as an audience, know that what we are watching is a work of fiction but we will still wait with bated breath, hoping and praying our favourites end up happy in their on-screen lives. If we can’t have our happily ever afters then at least they should… right?

Words by Madeline McKenzie

D

Being uni students we enjoy drinking, however, a lot of alcohol is often ridiculously overpriced. We all know you can get cheap booze, but you don’t want something that tastes like cigarette butts. So I put myself through the best and worst of cheap booze so you wouldn’t have to.

Gossips Sweet Lips Moscato If you are after booze that is ridiculously cheap and a little classy this is definitely what you want. Sweet Lips is exactly that, sweet.

It’s fruity and light, and goes down like a treat. It’ll make you look 10 times more mature and sophisticated than your mates because you get to drink it from a wine glass. It also only costs $3.79 a bottle. While it’s only three standard drinks a bottle you can buy three bottles for 10 bucks. CRAZY. 3.5/5 Oettinger Pils Not being much of a beer drinker the Pils absolutely repulsed me.

It tastes a lot like Emu Export but is from Germany, so perhaps it’s more appealing as it’s foreign. It has an incredibly bland and boring palate. It lacks a je ne sais quoi. The smell is strong enough to get you smashed off your face without taking a sip.

Each can is 500mL and is almost two standard drinks, which makes this the winner if you want to get hammered for under $15.

You’ll just have to ignore the taste. 2.5/5 Passion Pop If you’re looking at how to get drunk on the least amount of money, this is your drink. Whilst it has a reputation for being more of a girly drink it’s so easy and light that guys could enjoy it too. It smells like cat piss but tastes pretty damn good and has a lovely fruity taste. However, it does leave a bit of a tang in the back of your throat, but you can wash that down with more. It’s $4.75 per bottle and contains 5.6 standard drinks. I hope you didn’t want to remember your evening. 4.5/5

Mercury Cider – Draught It looks like beer. It smells like beer. It does not taste like beer.

This is the cheapest cider I’ve ever come across and possibly one of the nicest. While it’s a little on the dull side it’s neither dry and bitter, nor is it too fruity. It’s very much a manly cider that just slips down your throat. Each bottle is 1.5 standard drinks and it will only cost you $16 for a six pack. 4/5 Bacchus Cowgirl Smoothie The colour alone is enough to make you feel sick. Cowgirl is a putrid pink colour that hints at what your vomit will look like the morning after. It’s clear from sniffing it that this is a strong drink that means business to your stomach. As it’s also very creamy it leaves that sickening aftertaste in your mouth and throat that lingers for hours. There are 7.7 standard drinks in one bottle which will cost you a tiny $12. Get drunk quickly from this one, but I can’t guarantee how good you’ll feel in the morning. 2.5/5 Bowler’s Run At the moment this is the cheapest wine you can get, with each bottle costing just over $2.50. That’s probably the best part about Bowler’s Run because the taste is terrible. It’s so bitter it sends shivers down my spine, as if someone was dragging nails across a chalk board. However each bottle averages about 7 standard drinks, which makes this the cheapest way to get drunk. But hey, the awful taste is practically gone by the time you reach the end of the bottle. 3/5 GSM: If you are going to get smashed please remember these three golden rules: be responsible (pace your drinks), be considerate (nobody wants to clean your vom out the carpet), and be safe (always ask yourself “would I trust this person if I was sober?”).

Words by Francesca Mann Images by Emma Stevens

7

E

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?

FG

Let me preface this by saying, if you don’t know who Plank, Dr Utonium or Charmander are then just go. Leave. Give up on your childhood now, because it sucks.

Welcome to the fresh air bubble of Edith Cowan University! At ECU, we believe our students have the right to fresh air wherever they walk. (Warning: don’t go close to the edges though, that’s where toxic smoke looms).

I wouldn’t be too surprised if this was on ECU’s welcoming letter soon. Their passionate attempt to save the environment and promote healthy living has, in my opinion, spiralled completely out of control. Banning smoking on the campus a) does not prevent smokers from walking an extra 100 meters, and b) makes ECU look even worse with cigarette butts littering the surrounding gardens. Wouldn’t it be smarter to allow smoking where the bins and ash trays are in the grounds? That way, cars driving past don’t see crowds of smokers huddled around the smoke-free campus sign, making ECU look highly intelligent.

So, what about the tavern? Smoking and drinking go hand in hand, but these two have been tragically separated since the start of the year. Mount Lawley’s Tav 101 is not officially a part of the uni, so why should it be governed by ECU’s senseless smoking by-laws? Oh that’s right, the fresh air bubble. If only the Tav could be banished to the outskirts of the uni, it would resemble a decent bar where smoking and drinking are both acceptable.

It just confuses me to think people smoking outside of the grounds will provide the uni with cleaner air, than smoking in the campus. This amazing concept of WIND just springs to mind.

Unless there is actually an invisible barrier trapping our clean, studying minds in, the wind will blow the toxic smoke around, until we’re all breathing a mixture of air, tobacco and car fumes.

Does ECU not care about life outside the pristine, grassy campus meadows? What a brilliant idea! Let’s get the smokers to pollute the earth, as long as it’s not on holy ECU grounds. The neighbouring Mt Lawley High School and Elimatta Nursing Home won’t mind a bit of extra smoke.

Soon enough, you’ll know you’ve reached uni by the subtle moat of cigarette butts ironically surrounding our‘smoke-free’campus.

I guess life wasn’t meant to make sense.

Words by Rachel Knight Image by Rehana Badat

At nineteen the phrase ‘back in my day’ seems a little clichéd and entirely irrelevant. It’s something my grandparents should be saying, something they do say. But quite frankly I think the use of it this once is warranted.

From what I remember my childhood was all smiles, a few tears and a whole lot of laughs. We played actual tic tac toe, rode actual bikes and talked to actual people. There was none of this faux-friendship bullshit we seem to have embraced as a result of the ever-growing Facebook cult.

From what I have seen we have undergone a rapid transition from a childhood of comfort and curiosity to a childhood of convenience. Thanks to the internet if a child wants to know something all they have to do is whip out their iPad and ask almighty Uncle Google and within seconds they have their answer.

Then there is the clothing. Oh my, the clothing. A few years ago I was out shopping with one of my best friends when she stopped, pointed to a series of skirts and said, “Those aren’t skirts, they are glorified headbands”, and since then it has only gotten worse. Shorts aren’t shorts unless your arse cheeks are threatening to make a violent appearance and shirts are nothing more than bras with a different label. And with idols like Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus who would expect anything else? Whatever happened to the days of the Power Puff Girls and ‘sugar spice and everything nice’ being the ingredients to the perfect little girl?

Gone are the days of Saturday Disney, Cheese TV, Tom and Jerry, That’s So Raven, the (original) Smurfs, Dragon Ball Z and Ed, Ed, and Eddy.

Kids these days are so heavily focused on technology. Angry Birds and Moshi Monsters have taken over. We have gone from Generation Y to Generation I – iPads, iPods, iPhones, iEverything.

The way I see it Generation Y had the ideal childhood, we still had the Internet, we still played in the streets and spent time with actual people. A preteen experience lost on the youth of today like a giant lollipop on a diabetic.

Written by Madeline McKenzie Image by Jason Dirstein

9

HIJ

How to survive being in a horror movie On the off chance you ever find yourself in one of the following situations, here is a list of Do’s and Don’ts of how to NOT end up like a character in the plot line of any horror movie ever made.

1. If someone has died in the house you plan to move in to… DON’T! Chances are their ghost is still floating around partying with Casper-the-FriendlyGhost’s not-so-friendly cousins.

2. If said house is, or has been, abandoned … don’t even think about it.

3. If you can’t see the road from your front porch… there is a nine out of ten chance no one would hear you scream if something went wrong.

4. Door-to-door sales people AREN’T DOOR TO DOOR SALES PEOPLE! They will force their way into your home and bad things will happen!

5. If your neighbour owns a pair of binoculars or a semi-decent telescope… invest in some heavy duty curtains, I watched ‘Disturbia’, I know what happens.

6. If you hear a sound in the attic/ basement… DON’T GO AND HAVE A LOOK! 7. If the phone rings in the middle of the night (especially if it is during a storm)…

LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE! If you need reasons, watch When A Stranger Calls, it should be proof enough.

8. If you are pregnant, alone and your car breaks down on the side of the road … WHY ON EARTH WERE YOU ALONE? There you have it, if you follow these few simple rules your chances of ending up in an American horror film will be significantly decreased.

Words by Madeline McKenzie Image by Jason Dirstein

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No Lights No Lycra Mount Lawley Pavilion No Lights No Lycra was started by a couple of dance students from Melbourne in 2009. Their concept is now global with chapters everywhere from Brooklyn and London to Sydney and Berlin.

Perth was one of the earliest groups, thanks to the efforts of sisters Casey and Mia Campbell, and has been shaking, stomping, jiving, and pirouetting for the last 18 months. A second group was also recently established in Fremantle, a testament to NLNL’s growing popularity.

So how does No Lights No Lycra work?

Find a large room, put together a 90 minute mix-tape, set up a couple of speakers, turn off the lights, and let the dancing begin! It’s all about allowing everyone the space to dance without inhibitions, there’s nobody to impress - or embarrass yourself in front of - in the dark. NLNL is run as a drug and alcohol free event - which keeps things civil and focused on enjoying the dancing.

The music varies each week, and regular attendees are actively encouraged to contribute a playlist. In fact doing a playlist at NLNL is something of a rite of passage. It’s also an extremely rewarding experience as patrons are keen to share their enthusiasm for their favourite songs with periodic whoops, clapping, spontaneous “fuck yeahs!” or even occasional laughter at something unexpected. Everything from Nicki Minaj to Animal Collective, Queen, and Tchaikovsky has been played. It’s difficult to be disappointed.

NLNL is every Thursday. Entry is $5.

Dress to dance and bring a water bottle.

Review by Tom Reynolds Image by Kristinn Hermanniusson

Fathers. We all have them. And we have all forced laughter on occasion in response to one (or many) of their terribly pathetic attempts at comedy. When I asked my dad if he had any bad dad jokes his response was simple “there is no such thing as a bad dad joke”. So I have compiled a list of the best and worst dad jokes I could find.

1. Mum asks dad to “put the kettle on” and dad replies “I don’t think it will fit”.

2. What cheese can never be yours?

Nacho cheese.

3. I’ve got a dentist appointment; it’s at 2:30.

4. “Dad I’m hungry”… “Hi hungry, I’m dad”.

5. Why did the orange stop in the middle of the road? It ran out of juice.

6. Me: “can I have 50 bucks?”… Dad: “Forty dollars? What do you need thirty dollars for?”

7. What do you call a deer with no eyes?

No idea.

8. What do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs? Still no idea…

9. *Driving past a cemetery* “Hey look, it’s the dead centre of town… everyone’s dying to get in there!”

Perhaps the best (and worst) practical joke, comedic practice if you will, of all time…

10. Pull my finger.

Words by Madeline McKenzie Jokes by every dad… ever.

KL The idea of asking people for money has been around for a while.

You’ve probably walked past a few people on the street at least once in your life who are holding up signs like “Please give cash, need food to live” or “Need money for karate training – ninja’s killed my family” and though these people certainly have a need, it’s not often that this is seen as an investment.

They received a resounding $723,887 in donations and the praise of many for their innovative and exceptional art design. Double Fine studios made $3,336,372 in 33 days when they only asked for $400,000. They wanted to create an old school point-and-click adventure game and asked people to put their money where their mouths were.

Enter Kickstarter, a website with a very savvy marketing strategy that’s giving thousands a chance to see their dreams come true – assuming you’re willing to be generous.

Even a console has been “Kickstarted” with the Ouya Console going into full development after acquiring a staggering $8,596,475 in donations towards this free-ware, open-source, completely mod-able console that will be able to run Android and Apple Apps. You may notice that I have used the word donation a lot, which is part of the catch with Kickstarter: if the client in question reaches their goal but still produces a crappy product you can’t seek any kind of punitive damages – you can’t ask for your money back. The assumption is that you gave it to the client in good faith that they would create a product as specified.

Kickstarter began on the 28th of April in 2009, the brainchild of Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler. The idea was to create a platform in which anyone, assuming their idea had some sort of merit, could create a video, post updates and basically sell the public their idea.

Why was this important? Previously videogame development had been left to small groups (and I mean small) of dedicated people making games just for the fun of it, or massive corporations like EA and Blizzard/Activision employing thousands of people at a time to make monolithic gaming experiences that you’d see on your store shelves.

Not so with Kickstarter. Many indie developers have jumped on the “crowdsourcing” bandwagon and started producing amazing results. A small time development team of five who go by the name Stoic Games asked for $100,000 to make a side-scrolling, Viking-themed, real time strategy called The Banner Saga.

But that product can still suck.

How many games have you played in the past that you were super excited for, only to find that upon closer inspection, they were all just razzle-dazzle with no substance? It’s a risky business, this crowdsourcing, but it’s a risk I am willing to take.

Are you?

Words by Aron Shick

Aladdin: this “street rat” thief from Agrabah would be a cool person to chill out with. We would have fun things to do, such as stealing from the markets and exploring the Cave of Wonders (which is full of gold and diamonds, so it’s kinda like being inside Gina Rinehart’s basement. Did I mention he has a pet monkey, a magic carpet, a fun genie, and a super hot girlfriend named Jasmine… What? I’m just saying.

Captain Jack Sparrow: I know what some girls are going to say: I want to hang with Captain Jack Sparrow because he’s hot and dreamy. Ladies, if we can stop talking about the Captain’s Johnny Depp-esque good looks for five minutes; he could also be a good drinking buddy and wingman. Plus he’s a sailor with a really cool pirate ship to sail around in. Although, one minor flaw, most of the time, he would mumble out words in which I wouldn’t really understand. But meh, I’d still chill with the captain and the crew.

Savvy.

This list kinda looks a little sexist with me wanting to hang with the lads, so I’m going to find a princess to hang with. Out of all of them, the Disney chick I would like to chill with the most would be…

Disney films have been a major part of our childhood. When we go to the happiest place on Earth (ignoring all the screaming kids and tired parents) we might, once in a while, hang out with the characters at the park. But if those characters were actually real and not just some sweaty guy in a costume (sorry for ruining dreams and childhood moments there), who would be the best Disney character to spend a day with? This is my personal list of the top three Disney heroes I would chill out with:

Rapunzel: I’m talking the girl from the film Tangled in 2010.

She’s very active, exciting, energetic, adventurous, and fun to be around, so she’ll be good to take nightclubbing with on a Saturday night in the city. She might need to do something with her hair though if she wants to avoid trailing it through Perth’s vomit-stained weekend streetsides.

Word by James Blackburn Image by Manuel Mendoza

11

MN “Pinged!” “Woweeeee!” “BALLLLLL!” 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 non-sequitur 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 braindead 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

12

Get up in the morning, check Facebook. Get to university; check Facebook a million times in the lecture. Get home, check Facebook.

Get into bed; check Facebook before you fall asleep. Is that you? If so maybe it is time for a bit of networking rehab 101. Personally, I am one of those people sitting in a lecture or tute facebooking or doing something on another social network site on my iPad. I do feel bad for not paying attention but come on, lectures are not fun, especially when the lecturer thinks he is super funny.

The first rule of networking rehab 101, see how long you can go without before you go crazy like a crack addict during a dry spell. I challenged myself to one month of no social networking – no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blogger, Tumblr, and Pinterest. It was not easy, which is why I failed after only two weeks. However, it was nice to get away from all the drama and bullshit.

Second rule of networking rehab 101, no networking during major assignments and exams! I am currently at the end of my second year and I still get distracted when I do assignments. Personally I think when exams come around, deactivate your Facebook!

The third rule is go and have an “actual” social life. Some people spend so much time sitting behind their computer talking to friends.

Go have a coffee and gossip at Dome, or visit them at home. With social networking normal communication is lost through technology.

Like my dad always says, “remember the good old days of letter writing, phone calls and just rocking up to your mates house unannounced.”

The forth rule of social networking rehab: it is just Facebook. It is not going to be the end of the world. The funny thing is I know a few people who think like this. One day without Facebook or a social network will not hurt; it will be there tomorrow when you wake up. I promise...

The fifth and final rule, go mow your lawn for your parents! A bit of fresh air, exercise and vitamin D will do you some good! No sitting around all day at your computer, or at least take it outside if you cannot live without it, you little addict.

Words by Aneta Grulichova Image by Manuel Mendoza

O

The best way to describe the room would be like a human sauna. Elaboration: instead of your typical sauna that’s generally fuelled by coals heating water to make a whole bunch of steam which makes the patrons of the sauna sweat and become benevolent and assume that they are losing weight, etc, etc. This sauna (that is, the conceptual but apparently now more real than ever human one) has cut out the middleman, so to speak, and fuels itself through what one could call, if they were feeling in a pretentious mood, ‘liberate exudate’, or something like that. Which is to say that the room is so hot that the people in it sweat a lot and by doing so make everyone else hotter, causing the original sweaters to sweat even more, etc. It’s a vicious cycle, and it’s all just for an amateur one-man play by a guy that William doesn’t even know all that well, or even think he likes, if we’re going to be honest.

And as we’ve mentioned, yes, the room is far from empty. A middle-aged, spectacled Japanese man - probably an expatriate. But in this kind of situation even appearing to be slightly interesting can work very strongly in your favour, what with the whole mystical orient thing that the less clever students are apt to fall for at least 90% of the time even if you’re just some lower-level bureaucrat who shits out poetry on his cigarette break - the Japanese guy writhes uncomfortably in the corner. He looks about 50, maybe 40 if the nicotine habit is serious. The room is getting more crowded by the minute and there’s basically no space left, save for a couple of minuscule openings gaping out of the human blob that’s decorating the borders of the room.

He says, “I think the toughest problem most people face today is not knowing how to pronounce Don DeLillo’s surname.”

William kind of wishes that his nose would start bleeding.

Occasionally, maybe once or twice a year, his nose will spontaneously bleed, without any perceptible duress behind the bleeding. He tells himself that maybe it’s because of some coincidence with regard to the inner dermal part of his nostril drying out thanks to the onset of summer, which just happens to occur at the same time that some sunspot has suddenly burst and blasted him with ultraviolet radiation. Probably. He’s never been able to spark the bleeding through his own efforts, even if he deliberately picks his nose really hard under the pretense of trying to retrieve a particularly stubborn fragment of nasal debris - sure, it’ll make his nose ache, but there won’t be any bleeding.

The weirdest nosebleed he’s ever had - obviously not his ‘favourite’, or any other label suggesting that it was something he enjoyed, more just appreciated, in an abstract way. The most serendipitous occasion of a nosebleed when he was doing something that could be regarded as a situation in which a nosebleed would be appropriate, that is, the bleeding would have been - and since the bleeding did occur, was complimentary to what he was doing, was just after he had just watched this old Pasolini film that various overtly-reactionary MPs had been banning and then unbanning from the entire country every few months, reliably, for like 20 years, even prior to the year he was born, probably - the one about fascists torturing teenagers and making them eat their own shit, etc.

He had borrowed a copy of it from his local library, and the fact that he was actually able to just walk in there and pick up a copy of a thing that was apparently so vile and dangerous to the general public that the afforementioned politicians had been trying to eliminate it from the public consciousness for something like the last 40 years. That Pasolini himself had been like, stabbed to death on a beach by a prostitute and then had his corpse run over by a car just after the film was released, so provocative was this piece of celluloid – had amused him, in way that he was comfortable with expressing in an outburst of laughter but only with sort of an internal wave of bemusement.

He’s still in the sauna. The last few gaps seem to have been occupied, and the Japanese poet-cum-Nobel-Laureate looks even more uncomfortable than before, if that’s even possible.

William sighs and stares at the desiccated carpet beneath his feet. He’s been sitting here for what seems to almost have been an hour, now. A girl sitting in the southwest corner of the room leans forward every few seconds and closes her eyes, and then suddenly straightens back up, like she’s a narcoleptic trying to disguise her disease as some kind of personality quirk. Then she stops. Her eyes widen in a look of what could be regarded as elemental terror – the same sort of terror small burrowing mammals feel when the hound starts digging its way into the tunnel. This look in her eyes intensifies as she shrieks in horror: “What if the perfomance never starts? What if the perfomance is us?!”

And then she collapses. Apart from a couple of her friends who sort of restrain her, nobody pays her any notice.

Words by Lachlan Keeley Image by Jason Dirstein

13

PQ

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

14

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

RS

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.

Why do we never see superheroes at the shops? Or washing their batmobile? Or picking up dog poop? Because they don’t fit into society. Think about it, superheroes stick out like a sore thumb and it would be impossible to live a normal life where they have an office job and a family with 2.5 kids.

First, superheroes usually run around with their undies on the outside and capes flapping in the breeze. This is pretty impractical. You can’t go to the shops with your underwear over your pants, people would think you’re crazy. No matter how many lives you claim to have saved.

Secondly, it’s annoying if someone constantly talks in an unusually loud, booming voice and always announces what they are going to do. Superheroes couldn’t scream “I MUST STOP HIM” in the middle of the office as Fat Bob waddles off with the last doughnut.

Leading on from this, continuously being interrupted by someone trying to save people/pets/houses/cars/food would be irritating, especially if someone doesn’t need to be saved. The neighbour’s cat may just enjoy climbing trees and mewing for hours, and that ‘damsel in distress’ may have just been role playing. It happens.

But in a society where most people just want to be left to their own devices, there’s just no desire for that annoying guy that wants to help everyone getting involved without an invitation.

Also, if an outed superhero wanted to fit in they would instantly put their lives at risk as villains would know who they are, where they work and so on. Why do you think Batman, Superman AND Spiderman all keep their ‘normal’ lives far, far away from their superhero life? Because the more people that know who they are, the higher risk they are at of being killed!

And finally, everyone is aware that superheroes disappear because they are needed. Imagine if they are half way through cooking dinner for their 2.5 kids, when all of a sudden, the symbol of a cat is flashed into the sky, alerting Cat Man that there is trouble. Off he goes to save the day, the kids go hungry and Welfare steps in.

This would not be good at all.

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?

This is why superheroes will never fit into society. So put your camera away, you will never see Superman taking out the rubbish.

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 Francesca Mann Image by Liam Lucas

Words by Paige Champion Image by Liam Lucas

15

T

Turning back the imaginary pendulum of time, I found myself suddenly inhabiting the familiar body of a nine-year-old who clapped excitedly after finishing watching a re-run of the popular Japanese drama, Oshin. I was not able to recall why I was at my cousin’s house, but there were other memorable bits and pieces that I subconsciously refused to let go. It was late afternoon, Grandmother was still around and I could smell her home-made croquettes being cooked in the kitchen. If there was a device that could make this a reality, I would be lying to say I wouldn’t be tempted to start all over again. This reminiscence is one of the many occasions where I feel to be “at home”.

A good friend of mine once told me that Singapore is “home” to him. I did not bother to find out why, but we have known each other for a while, and I could probably have listed many possible reasons that made him say so. He was born and raised in Singapore. He has built himself a lovely family and happily earns a living; dedicating himself to a cause which he calls his “vocation”.

I think about a certain “uncle” that I have considered like family; his small apartment, his television set, and his old mother who are pretty much everything to him. He once jokingly asked me if he could donate his old mother to a local church for charity.

Despite a few minor quarrels once in a while, “Uncle” seems to have a healthy mother and son relationship. I could hear them cracking a joke once in a while in their conversation and they occasionally play cards. It is obvious that there is no such thing as a perfect life, but this “uncle”, living together with his mother in a small apartment, is basically his “home”. Sometimes I halfamused myself by hoping that I did not ruin any of that because I practically lived with them for quite some time.

Words by Prayitno Wignjopranoto Image by Jason Dirstein

16

A portion of the lyrics from a popular song Home Sweet Home says, “though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home”. I think most people associate the phrase “home sweet home” with their birth places. It might not be pretty, but it is the place where we developed our childhood memories.

Now, for some people, remembering their childhood may be unpleasant. But there is always something else there such as friends, school, teachers, eating comfort food... or perhaps some nostalgic embarrassment that will cause a smirk when recalled.

Does this mean “home” is simply the place we are so intimately familiar with from being surrounded by family members and loved ones? I pondered on this question for quite a while because I am going back to my home country very soon. The feeling of excitement to meet up with my sister and the rest of my family is always there for sure, but there are moments when this kind of trip simply becomes routine. If I am honest, normally I would feel this way because I feel disappointed with so many things.

Such as constantly worrying about career, money, paying bills, not being able to understand some people, and making terrible mistakes that I seem to never learn from. At this point, some might argue that everybody has their share of things that they need to sort out and I wholeheartedly agree with that. If people demand any specificity of things that have been going through my mind within the last 24-hours, believe it or not I could have spilt my guts. None of this matters that much because I still have to figure out what “home” really means.

Rather than being somewhere familiar, I would like to call myself “at home” when I know that I can really count on some people when I need them. I am “at home” when something or someone can make me feel nostalgic. There are perhaps still many other ways where I can feel myself to be at home. As I grow older, I am convinced that to keep on having the courage to pick myself up (no matter how I hard I fall or feel disappointed) supported by friends, family members, and even things that I experienced in the past as a child is my “home sweet home”. Clinging to these feelings, I can always make a trip to my home country with a big smile knowing that I will always have a home and it goes with me wherever I go.

UV

Highgate is an inner-city suburb which borders on the edge of brilliance and belligerence. It is, essentially, a spit of a thing. It’s the second smallest suburb in Perth (the #1 spot is held by Kwinana Town Centre… if you can believe it!) but manages to pack the most things in. It is bordered by Lincoln Street to the south, William Street to the east, Harold Street and Lord Street to the west.

It’s the suburb where you can get the best coffees at some of the coolest cafes (Lincolns, The Merchant and Soto), buy some brilliant designer jewellery (Behind The Monkey on Beaufort), then have an award winning dinner (Jackson’s on Beaufort), all ending with more award winning cocktails from Beaufort’s Luxe Bar (the supersized Stormie Mills in the amphitheatre is a treat to behold too). It is also where you come on a Sunday to buy flowers for the house (both corners of Beaufort and Chelmsford). Hell… the flowers are so cheap you end up splurging all week. And Highgate also holds the 2011 title for ‘the most sophisticated meth lab’ constructed at a residential address, coming in as the state’s 150th drug lab bust that year.

It’s also where you can pick up a street hooker or two, particularly along Stirling Street. Don’t be surprised if, when walking Highgate’s streets at night, you get a curb crawl yourself. Just keep looking forward and don’t freak out. While I have had a belligerent blind drunk hooker try to yank the beret from my head (it is a very lovely beret), I haven’t experienced much other mischief or harm (touch wood). Best advice?

Don’t walk alone with headphones in and if somebody walking acknowledges you, acknowledge back, never ignore them. If you ignore them, they’ll take offence.

Highgate’s must-see attractions? The Stirling Towers (aka The Suicide Flats) on Stirling have the most charming views from the 11th floor, which you can access with ease and nonchalance. Marvel at The Lincoln Street Ventilation Stack (aka The Shit Tower), Australia’s second largest structure of its kind, an old world homage to waste disposal. Speaking of shit, stroll the laneways and walk the path The Night Men (aka The Shit Men) worked in the late 1800s, cleaning the outhouses each night. St Mary’s on Mary and St Albans on Alban are both worth a peek. And then stop by Tony’s Newsagency on Beaufort and meet Slinky, the world’s cutest Daschund. End with a crème brulee from Lincoln Street Patisserie – delicious.

The idea is that through the discovery of a new medium you are able to forge a new connection, rebuild a bridge you thought had burned down or climb out of a terrible place back into the light.

That is the premise of the website How Games Saved My Life and it does not disappoint. With all the negative media that videogames get, from their tenuous connections to school shootings to being blamed for aggressive and anti-social behaviour, it’s a wonderful change of pace to see a site dedicated to the positive and down-right uplifting effect videogames can have on people’s lives.

In one of these stories a young man named Jett details his early life as a budding adolescent with social anxiety and an inability to find his place in the world. Suffering from bullying and a troubling home-life, he began to see himself as less than human and no longer deserving of the love and compassion that seemed to come so easily to others. Falling further into depression, he began to see no end in sight to his misery – the thoughts of suicide were considered as a reasonable alternative.

But then something happened: He played Fallout 3.

Now I won’t be the one to tell you that the game itself is perfect, nor will I say that this game has some kind of magical properties than can save adolescence from themselves but I will say this. From the way he writes and the brutal honesty in his words, that game saved his life.

He found a sense of meaning and purpose in a world that needed him; a virtual world, a pretend world, a world that was not real but a world that needed him none the less.

He was their saviour, their hero and they were his friends.

They meant something to him, and he to them. There are thousands of stories just like his and countless more no doubt untold. Go and see for yourself, how videogames can save your life.

Words by Aron Shick

4.5/5 Review by Scott-Patrick Mitchell

17

W Okay, so the Yosemitians will have it this time, its kind of hard to give this one to anyone other than the guy whose whole face is basically a moustache. He was clearly rocking the ginger ninja of a ’stache way more than Hulk Hogan ever has (even though his moustache is still pretty specky).

Charlie Chaplin: 50% Hitler: 40% Pancakes? 10% Whether grown for additional comedic value or to personalise a dictatorial fascist regime, moustaches have often been more than a little fuzz above one’s lip. In fact it would be reasonable to suggest that behind every great man in history there was an even more impressive moustache. Aside from the toothbrush ’stache made famous by Charlie Chaplin and then infamous by Adolf Hitler there have been numerous curious caterpillars that have adorned many a famous face over the past century or so.

Albert Einstein 42% Josef Stalin 52% Crush the Kulaks 6% Frank Zappa 70% John Wilkes Booth 27% I like peas! 3%

By the looks of things the ‘m’ in E=mc2 stood for moustache because that man could clearly grow a mo’. But as far as I’m concerned (and everyone else I asked) Stalin clearly wore it better, his facial fuzz slightly more imposing than Einstein’s. The B’s have it.

Now whilst I am not at all impartial to peas the winner of this one is clearly A, Frank Zappa’s curious caterpillar actually looks like a caterpillar got lazy and fell asleep on top of his lip. Although Booth’s facial fuzz is striking, I think that after assassinating Abraham Lincoln I highly doubt anyone will be giving him “mad props” for his moustache any time soon.

Mario 25% Luigi 25% Is there a difference? 50% Yosemite Sam 55% Hulk Hogan 29% Why are their guns bigger than they are? 16%

The general consensus on this one? A resounding C, because honestly, who can tell? Mario’s appears to be slightly more unruly than Luigi’s but other than that these two brothers from different mothers are pretty much on a level playing field when it comes to their facial fur.

Words by Madeline McKenzie

18

XY

Ablutophobia: fear of washing or bathing. It turns out that kid in school everyone said stunk didn’t actually have poor hygiene problems, they were just scared.

Barophobia: fear of gravity. How’s that working out for ya?

Dextrophobia: fear of objects on the right side of the body, the left side is fine, but those objects on the right side just cannot be trusted.

Ergophobia: fear of work. Turns out one in six Australians have this, they are also known as dole bludgers.

Geniophobia: fear of chins. Understandable, especially those of the butt variety.

Heliophobia: fear of sunlight. Thanks Twilight.

Hippopotomonstrostrosesquippedaliophobia: fear of long words. This just seems a little bit cruel.

Mottephobia: fear of moths. I kind of have this one, when I was four my uncle told me they suck your blood when you’re sleeping. “Cheers Uncle Andrew!”

Nomophobia: fear of being out of mobile phone contact. I think most 14 to 16 year-olds have this.

Novercaphobia: fear of stepmothers. Sounds fair, I mean hello, Cinderella?

Octophobia: fear of the number eight. I actually thought it was quite a trustworthy number being symmetrical and all that.

Ommetaphobia: fear of wonky eyes. I totally have this one, I know, they know I’m staring.

Oneirophobia: fear of dreams. Yeah, they already have a name, nightmares…

Papaphobia: fear of the Pope. All those shifty Catholic priests have obviously tainted the Man In White’s reputation.

Pogonophobia: fear of beards. Seriously what is a beard going to do, tickle you to death?

Urophobia: fear of urinating. This is kind of understandable considering the state of public toilets. Oh, and let’s not forget those girls that stress the importance of not breaking the seal on a night out, then proceed to piss themselves when they sneeze.

Xenophobia: fear of strangers or foreigners. Also known as “fit in, or fuck off”.

Words by Zoe Braybrooke

The isolation of Perth has made for some very creative individuals.

Constantly material is being put out that is really fucking legit.

The beauty of this is that the mainstream masses, the festival pill- popping type, has no idea that this underground scene exists.

There are few venues that cater for these types of crowd and bands.

However, they do exist and are havens to a strong music scene.

The following is a recollection of a Saturday night at one of these venues.

The water pipe bubbles away. The confines of the falcon sedan are getting hazy. My mind races at the thought of the gig. It should be epic. It always is. It’s the best place to see music in Perth. Hopefully it’s not too busy tonight. Last week I couldn’t move. I was getting eyes from a girl who was being hounded by blonde mouse. The dude was tripping me out so hard. If a human and mouse had a child he was standing next to me. Filthy rodent be gone!

Felicity is amazing. Everything about her. She has style down to a tee. Her presence mesmerises the audience. She is so seductive.

This is complimented with two velvet sounding guitarists embarking on countless tangents to Felicity’s acoustic rhythm. The drums and bass guitar bring it all together. The music fuels my imagination. I get lost in my thoughts.

The courtyard is a place to retreat. Sometimes you need a break from the intense atmosphere inside. Rich colours and grape vines meet my eyes. It feels like you’re in another country. The vibe is like no other. A few dudes are playing pool and a lot of people are smoking cigs. The sweet flavour of the lemon, lime and bitters I’m holding greets my dry mouth like a heavenly gift. Man, my feet are sore. Time to find a couch. So many thoughts yet so little words. I stare at the wall. I stare at the people. Hitting on girls is not happening tonight. I’m in no head space for small talk.

I move back inside. A wall of sound surrounds me. The band is rocking out, really going for it. I get that awesome butterfly feeling.

I’m here and I’m watching this shit go down firsthand. I’m one of the lucky ones.

Words by Chris Gow Image by Tom Reynolds

19

Z

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.

20

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.

Z

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

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Arts

Two Generations – 20 years of Chinese Contemporary Art Linton and Kay Galleries Two Generations is a touring show featuring 28 Chinese contemporary artists. The exhibition comes from the Red Gate Gallery in Beijing and is a partnership with the Chinese Ministry of Culture as part of “Experience china – the Year of Chinese Culture in Australia”.

The exhibition features a diverse mix of pieces and styles, ranging from photography to sculpture, painting and electronic installation, each of which reflects on the skill and the depth of the contemporary art scene in China today.

The themes of the art are just as varied but all are uniquely Chinese in feeling— in particular the sculptural pieces, ranging from the strange unworldliness of Chen Quningping’s “No” statuettes, which are reminiscent of children’s toys but with strange twisted proportions and faces, to Shi Zhongying’s striking piece of bronze, which is an almost skeletal cast of a fruit tree with the ashes of the real tree scattered around its base. That being said, the ‘flat art’ is by no means uninteresting, displaying sensitivity and technical prowess of the artists. This exhibition seems to be a collection of some of the top examples of modern Chinese contemporary art.

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Shadow Quartet Art Gallery of Western Australia

Closely Observed Perth Centre for Photography

William Kentridge’s Shadow Quartet features four sculptures, each of which is said to represent multiple personas. And perhaps it’s true enough, because each of them looks like an abstract mixture of various objects—human bodies, round palettes, what looks like a mouse head and so on.

Have you ever noticed how small things can suggest the image of big things? I mean, how big things - like a car - are built with smaller parts - like steering wheels and seats and a radio? By examining these small things we can see the big things themselves: seeing the forest for the trees. This is the theme in Stuart Ridgway’s photography exhibition, Closely Observed. He took pictures of small, everyday things—things we never take notice of—to convey an overall location.

The most interesting feature of this exhibition is how each of the sculptures transforms, depending on which angle you look at them. For instance, if you look one of these sculptures from the side, it looks a bit like a fat man standing (at least, that’s how I perceive it), but if you see it from the front it looks like a humanoid being with a head like a TV and the legs of an obese person. This particular sculpture might criticise the relationship between obesity and TVaddiction—then again it might not. It’s difficult to say, because if you see it from yet another angle, it looks different again.

The curators of the show have done an excellent job of selecting a diverse and interesting mix of art, providing a detailed and interesting background on each artist and their works. For lovers of Chinese art or for the complete novice this show will be both informative and fascinating.

All of these sculptures are bronzecoloured, but the position of the lighting makes them darker, as if they really are shadows. All of them are also humanshaped—at least, it looks human if seen from a particular angle. The crude texture of these sculptures seems to suggest the idea that they’re made by nature, just like shadows are; it’s not smooth like most man-made sculptures. I must admit I’m not particularly impressed by this exhibition—more puzzled than impressed—but still, I think it’s quite fun to walk around these sculptures, trying to discover various meanings behind each of them.

4/5

2/5

Review by D’Arcy Ellis

Review by Aldy Hendradjaja Image by Tom Reynolds

Closely Observed consists of sets of images, in which each set refers to a certain location and each image focuses on one or two objects in that location.

Ridgway might have photoshopped some of these images, such as in the ‘Car’ photography set, to provide a feeling of enclosed space—very appropriate with the location itself. In other pieces, such as in the ‘Sky’ set, Ridgway gave a feeling of open areas. The lighting and the shadows also help to attract the audience’s attention on these objects.

There’s only one thing I feel uncomfortable with: this exhibition contains not only sets of small images, as mentioned above, but also larger individual pictures. What I mean is, there are also images that stand alone—larger sized images that show only one object.

While the quality of these larger images doesn’tlose to the smaller ones, I found my eyes kept diverting to the direction of these larger images when I wanted to examine the smaller ones more closely.

Besides this technical problem, though, this exhibition has said a lot about Ridgway’s skills as a photographer.

3/5 Review by Aldy Hendradjaja

Arts

Doodlers Anonymous Online I was lucky enough to have the chance to review Doodlers Anonymous—a fun, quirky little site filled to the brim with talented scribbles. Curated by a small army of four, the website is apt at tracking down even the most elusive of doodlers.

The premise is simple: at any given moment, someone, somewhere, is scratching out a picture in whatever material they can find, from a “pencil in a moleskine, marker on a napkin, ink on a torn receipt, sharpie on concrete” to pretty much anything else the various contributing artists can find. Updating almost daily, Doodlers Anonymous features a full range of works—from simple notebook sketches to full, beautifully realised collages and found material sculptures.

Beyond simply showcasing the efforts of a number of relatively unknown artists, Doodlers Anonymous also organises a range of collaborative initiatives. You can find the result of many of these—from calendars to T-shirts to art books and more in the online store. While some of the prices were a little steep for my wallet, it’s definitely the place to look if you’re looking for some genuinely lovely objects with the added bonus of actually contributing to the support of individual artists.

Overall, the website itself is simple to navigate, and absolutely perfect for displaying short bites of an artist’s works, with links to additional works and portfolios should any of them catch your fancy. For a dose of daily inspiration, check out this site.

4/5 Review by Rehana Badat

The Colourists Japingka Indigenous Fine Art Gallery Beautiful. There are few other words I can use to describe the use of colour and texture in the artworks presented at the Japingka Indigenous Fine Art Gallery.

Nestled within the twisted streets of Fremantle, The Colourists exhibition provides the perfect intimate experience for viewing these amazing works of earthy colour and amazing hues. The style of the artwork itself is mainly Indigenous in nature, with a few of the more contemporary pieces existing with perfect harmony with their more traditional counterparts.

What struck me the most was the artists’ abilities to capture some of the more unconventional colours found in our Australian landscape and, through a combination of skill and love, create works that break our expectations of what we commonly assume is the traditional earthy palette. In particular, the works by artist Kudditji Kngwarreye caught my attention through his ambitious use of colour.

On first glance they seem far too deep and vibrant to exist in the natural landscape, but on closer inspection they bring to mind the deep oceans of the southwest and the vibrant sunsets of the north.

Placed next to the more conservative, but wonderfully textured works of Lorna Napurrula Fencer, these two artists attain a balance between texture and colour that made this exhibition incredibly enjoyable.

I highly recommend it to anyone willing to see the beauty of their landscape in an entirely new light.

3.5/5 Review by Rehana Badat

Yalangbara Western Australian Museum Before colonisation Aboriginal peoples had inhibited Australia for roughly 45,000 years. According to legend, the mythical Djang’kawu brother and his two sisters, Bitjiwurrurru and Madalatj, birthed the first Aboriginal clan in the northern region of Australia, Yalangbara. The mythical siblings then proceeded to introduce languages and customs for the Aboriginal ancestors.

The exhibition gallery displayed numbers of Aboriginal-handcrafted arts made by members of the Rirratjingu clan, the Marika family. The exhibits included items such as decorations, ceremonial objects, paper and dyed-synthetic wool presentations. According to the legend, Rirratjingu was the first Aboriginal clan from Yalangbara and is originated from the mythical Djang’kawu siblings.

The exhibition is the project of Banduk Marika, who wants to look after and share as much information as possible on the Yalangbara cultural heritage that was previously kept isolated from the rest of the world.

Respecting the value of their artistic heritage, no pictures were allowed to be taken during the exhibition. This might result in a little bit of disappointment for some visitors, but the exhibits were all accompanied by labels that explain the meanings behind them. In general, the exhibits were meticulously produced but looked like monochromatic printings. It is strongly recommended to learn a great deal about the Yalangbara art prior to you visit to the museum since no brochures or pamphlets were provided (more information can be easily found online). A catalogue on the exhibition can be purchased at the museum’s shop.

3/5 Review by Prayitno Wignjopranoto

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Books

Unmasked Christian Read, & Emily Smith

The Deep: Here be Dragons Tom Taylor & James Brouwer

‘Unmasked’ is the story of super-villains and criminals. The first edition of this graphic novel introduces us to Simon – strip club bouncer by day, debt collector by night.

The Deep: Here Be Dragons is a graphic novel about a family of deep sea explorers and the interesting shenanigans they get up to. The pace builds slowly, introducing characters and their quirky personalities while revealing the main plot; investigating an old sea map’s marked location of dragon sightings.

The story seems to take place in three different time frames. The first and second are at separate points in the character’s past, while the third is a retelling in the present day. With no clear definition as to the changing contexts, this layout is somewhat perplexing. It should also be noted that while narration and dialogue are clearly separated, trying to follow the two different storylines at once is a bit much.

Otherwise, the story is really quite engaging. The plot, scattered and unkempt as it is, is intriguing and the cliffhanger at the end definitely made me feel like picking up the second edition.

The characters are well written and, despite being super villains, believable. I feel this is half due to the mild sex scene part way through and half because they have day jobs.

The art by Emily Smith was very well thought out, extremely intricate and at times quite graphic. It all worked well with the story, and the physical features of the characters and settings matched what I mentally pictured by their dialogue.

Overall, the novel left more of a positive impression on me than a negative one. I would most definitely recommend this to a friend, and if I see the second edition of this on a shelf, I’d seriously consider buying it.

3.5/5 Review by Ashley Swetman

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Torn Andrew Constant, Nicola Scott, Joh James & Emily Smith Our lives are a series of firsts. Our first steps, our first words, and our first graphic novel. At nineteen I finally decided to tackle the latter of the three by reading Torn by Andrew Constant, well as much of it as I could without wanting to tear my hair out.

The writer of The Deep, Tom Taylor, known for Star Wars: Blood Ties and Star Wars: Invasion by Dark Horse Comics, brings to us a journey that all ages can enjoy. There is little back story given about the Nekton family apart from being a long line of explorers, although this doesn’t stop the reader from feeling familiar with the characters. The pacing of the story is done well and it’s easy to follow, if a bit predictable, and has light hearted humour woven through to make the experience enjoyable.

Put simply, Torn is 124 pages of mindnumbing bullshit and a few pretty pictures.

Tom even managed to squeeze in some environmentally friendly morals.

James Brouwer has done an exceptional job on the artwork in the book. His stylisation of the characters is made to pop on the page with his crisp, clean line work. The colouring is fantastic, even if the majority of the pages are dominated by deep blues (no surprises there).

Overall the art just begs readers to pick it up and flick through.

The entire time I spent reading (or rather trying to read) Torn, I was left feeling a little more than confused and if I were to pick it up and read nothing other than the first few pages I would put it straight back down without a second thought.

Gestalt Comics has published a great graphic novel in The Deep: Here Be Dragons, picking up an Aurealis Award for best illustrated book/graphic novel for 2012. Hopefully in the sequel we will see more story depth or plot twists, but either way it should be a book to look forward to.

The artwork by Nicola Scott, Joh James and Emily Smith is without a doubt the highlight of Torn. The script by Andrew Constant on the other hand, well, let’s just not talk about that. From what I managed to gather Torn is the story of a man and a wolf, the two maybe being the same, but their purpose? I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.

It disappoints. When they say don’t judge a book by its cover, they mean it: the cover art for this particular graphic novel excited me, it intrigued me, it made me want to read. But within the first five minutes of reading it I began to wish I hadn’t. It didn’t entertain me, it didn’t satisfy my self-induced intrigue, it did nothing but disappoint.

A series of pretty pictures, well illustrated, well thought out, let down by a lacklustre storyline and sub par dialogue.

4/5

0.5/5

Review by Liam ‘noddy’ Lucas

Review by Madeline McKenzie

Books

The Nightmare Lars Kepler

I, Wolf Matt Boyd

Flowers of Baghdad Bruce Lyman

The Nightmare is a murder mystery novel, written by Swedish couple Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril under the pseudonym Lars Kepler. It’s the second book in the Joona Linna series; however, the first book, The Hypnotist, isn’t a required reading to understand The Nightmare.

Romulus is a 16-year-old boy who suffers from a genetic disorder that will literally send him round the bend, hopping mad and ultimately be the death of him. His father finds an experimental cure that is more than a little unconventional! With the whole family in tow, they make their way to Austria, so that Romy can be cured. I mean why should the fam miss out on an opportunity to holiday abroad just because you’re dying and need to be turned into a werewolf? Teenagers these days are SO selfish!

This is a tale situated in one of the most controversial places of our time.

Malik and Aadil tell two different stories encompassing the potentially bright future, but also the darkened and mystical, not-so-distant past. Bruce Lyman has dedicated his thrilling novel to the streets of Baghdad.

My first impression was that the book would follow Detective Inspector Joona Linna entirely, and from the summaries I read, he struck me as a Sherlock Holmes type character. I was confused when the first few chapters followed Penelope Fernandez, who is later revealed to be the true target of the murderer. Throughout the course of the book, the story switches between following Penelope and following Joona, occasionally visiting other semi-major characters.

I’ll admit that I haven’t actually finished the book. Though I did find the storyline interesting, the writing was tough to get through. It’s disjointed and hard to understand, a symptom that I think is due to having two authors and not originally being in English. I’ve read very few books where two authors have pulled off a story with great success, and none of them have been written in the third person. There is very clearly two different writing styles, and it makes it hard to enjoy the book as much as it should be.

There are also a few passages in the book where it seems as though the translator, Laura A. Wideburg, has over translated, the most notable being where Kepler describes the herring platter towards the beginning of the book.

3.5/5 Review by Ashley Swetman

It does indeed cure all that ails Romulus, such an alpha-werewolf name, but the downside is turning into a wolf.

When I think about it, there are some similarities between the werewolves in this book and the vampires in Twilight and I’m not talking about tacky character development! Some alarmingly similar but obviously “original” concepts arose in Boyd’s paranormal masterpiece, curing the sick by turning them into werewolves (not vampys!), living in relative harmony with humans. One refreshing difference: there are a lot of graphic descriptions, limbs being torn off bodies and jugulars being ripped out, which I must admit, I found easier to digest than the fragile emotions of one Bella Swan.

Surprisingly, the plot is tolerable and the writing bearable. The characters seemed to lack the onion layering that makes for a deep, mysterious but relatable character.

If you’re a victim of the paranormal romance genre and you enjoyed Twilight and other such drivel, I’d say it’s time you sand your teeth into “I, Wolf” 2.5/5 Review by Jessica Paterson

The book is narrated by the two main characters in alternating sequence.

Malik’s narrative features short diary entries depicting his everyday events as a shopkeeper and father. Aadil, on the other hand, is retelling his secretive past in a prison cell with the reader assuming the point of view of a journalist.

The story is written with very colloquial language, most probably to depict Aadil’s poor English and Malik’s informal recount of the day. The effect of this is disappointing as it limits the complexity of language that could have been used to illustrate the nuances of terror and love the men experience. But the language does allow the reader to feel a certain authenticity in the story.

The two plots vary in suspense: Malik’s story illustrates the hope that the Iraqi people might feel comforted through their horrifying reality, while Aadil’s story keeps the reader engaged and interested continuously. The downfall of the novel is just this: Aadil’s narrative is prolonged and adjourned by Malik’s emotional and uninteresting daily events.

Ultimately the novel is divided to please two different audiences; unfortunately, it disunites the reader’s interest in an inconsiderate manner and results in one of the stories becoming a nuisance.

2/5 Review by Martina Elfinsson

Film

Tinkerbell & the Secret of the Wings Director: Peggy Holmes As a part of what Disney is presenting as the ‘Faries’ franchise, Tinkerbell and the Secret of the Wings certainly ticks all the boxes for tiny people who like anything that sparkles. The movie features the voices of Mae Whitman, Lucy Liu, Megan Hilty, Raven-Symoné and Angela Bartys.

This latest instalment into the adventures of Tinkerbell takes her and her thrillseeking ways into the unknown Winter Woods. It is in this forbidden wonderland that Tink discovers her long lost cold fairy sister Periwinkle. However as with most late life family reunions it does not come without its complexities. Cue underlying love story, the coming together of two fairy cultures to save the environment and you have a sweet ‘fairy’ tale with a happy ending. All wrapped up with a heart warming soundtrack featuring artists such as Selena Gomez.

As far as Disney goes this is no Nemo, but is but tolerable all the same. A light hearted 77 minutes full of visually spectacular computer generated animation, the first of it’s kind for a full length Disney feature, all created with the wonder of Walt. Luckily for us Disney are actually pretty good at throwing in a ‘grown-up’ joke here and there which helps to keep the adult mind sane whist juggling children in fairy costumes that have had too many sugary treats. As a mother myself I would recommend holding out on the cinema experience with the kiddies for this one and get excited for the express DVD release in November.

3/5 Review by Lauren Jones

Resident Evil: Retribution Director: Paul Anderson

Hotel Transylvania Director: Genndy Tartakovsky

Yet another movie in the ever-floundering franchise of Resident Evil washes up on the slimy shores of videogame knockoffs. Paul Anderson seems hell-bent on making sure that next paycheque comes in for himself – no matter the cost to our sanity. Having produced such “blockbuster hits” as Dead or Alive, Death Race and the latest retelling of The Three Musketeers. Anderson has really outdone himself: he’s actually managed to make me hate the original Resident Evil videogames franchise just by extension.

Tartakovsky has always had a rather playful way of approaching his sauce material with animated comedy series like Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack and the ever popular Star Wars: Clone Wars franchise. Hotel Transylvania is no different.

We are immediately and candidly reintroduced to Alice (Milla Jovovich), the Resident Evil version of zombie Jesus, through a brief synopsis of the last few films. She talks right at the screen recounting the plot of the whole franchise in less than 30 seconds. The plot meanders back and forth between two separate groups both working to free Alice from the confines of a facility.

She somehow ends up being associated with a little girl as her “daughter figure” which causes Alice to make insane and downright silly moral choices even for this nonsensical franchise.

The dialogue is so stilted and cardboard that I actually started making up better lines out loud to make it more interesting.

Sound direction, while providing all the satisfying booms and kapows you might expect, falls flat when the close combat starts - every punch sounds like snapping plywood.

I have endured terrible drama, lame dialogue, endings that don’t make sense and plot lines that make even less – but I have never endured all of them at once, or wanted to stand up and scream “Why!?” so much as when I saw this movie.

1/5 Review by Aron Shick

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We begin our journey into a world in which monsters are persecuted by the “evil humans” and sometimes just need a place to relax and unwind – enter Hotel Transylvania, run by Count Dracula Thus begins a whirlwind of toilet humour, slap-stick comedy and the kind of “heartwarming friendship” you can only see in kids’ films and greeting cards.

The animation for most parts is quite sound, other than some characters displaying a significantly higher degree of articulate modelling than others. Best examples being the Wolf-man compared to the Frankenstein; like Da Vinci to a crayon drawing.

The score hits all the right notes, adequately matching the mood of each scene. I was more than a little surprised to find out the voice actor for Dracula was none other than Adam Sandler, not that I could have told you from his surprisingly convincing accent.

This movie accomplishes what it sets out to do as entertainment designed for the younger audience: it provides a lighthearted take on racial tension, alternative family units and the age old question of when to let your children spread their wings and fly into the world – even if they’re batwings.

3.5/5 Review by Aron Shick

Music Film

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days Director: David Bowers Dog Days chronicles the summer holiday pseudo-adventures of Greg Heffly as he traverses a tortured caricature of a middle class America that, coupled with the GFC and spiralling rates of divorce, has probably ceased to exist by the end of this sentence. Drawn over 94 minutes, this movie manages to shoe-horn all the usual suspects of pre-teen angst; from Greg’s laughably unrealistic yet bafflingly successful attempts to woo Holly Hills, the tennis goddess of his dreams, to the insultingly shallow ‘relationship problems’ he has with his dad. From beginning till end there is no discernable rise or fall of conflict, with resolutions that reduce the entire cinematic debacle into simply a series of Things that Happened.

But this is where I stop for a moment to step into the mind of the only minor I could legally drag into the cinema with me: my little brother. From the introduction of Greg and his quest to spend as much of his summer playing video games indoors, it was clear that he, and the many around him, had found a hero. Greg was just like them – just another kid trying to make sense of a stupidly complicated world by doing right when it was convenient and wrong when he was likely to get away with it. And even I, as far removed from the target audience as possible, couldn’t help but suppress a giggle at some of the more absurd scenes. While Diary of a Wimpy Kid: DD never reaches beyond the quality of a Nickelodeon telemovie, it seemed to definitely hit all the right notes for the twelve and male demographic. See if you’re either of those.

2.5/5 Review by Rehana Badat

Ruby Sparks Directors: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris

The Words Directors: Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal

Ruby Sparks is the story of Calvin, a one-hit-wonder author, and the woman he writes about – who fantastically appears in his kitchen one morning. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris who first worked together directing Little Miss Sunshine direct the film. It stars Zoe Kazan as Ruby Sparks (It’s Complicated) and Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) as Calvin. It is also Kazan’s debut screenplay.

The Words, written and directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, centres around Rory, an aspiring young writer who struggles to get his work published.

He finds his success retyping an old manuscript he found inside a leather bag his wife got him in Paris then, consequently, the real author reveals himself to Rory.

Originally, I thought this movie was just your typical romantic comedy about a boy and girl falling in love. But more than that, I see Ruby Sparks as an allegory, saying that dreams and life and love don’t always turn out the way that you plan them to. There’s also a “subtle” message about emotionally abusive relationships that isn’t really all that subtle.

All of the characters have flaws that make them believable human beings, a feature most modern day movies severely lack. The film itself is full of clichés, but the groovy soundtrack, enjoyable but predictable storylines, and the fact that Antonio Banderas is in it can quite easily overlook these. All the feel-good stuff is somewhat ruined by the ending – which is also heavily clichéd. Whether you’d go and see it for the social commentary or the romantic comedy aspect, Ruby Sparks is fun and easy viewing.

3/5 Review by Ashley Swetman

Arriving at the Jaffa Room, I was excited (I even spent the extra money to take the cab there because I was running late). The trailer was really well done and it induced excitement. The film itself contained a lot of technical cinematic treats in the film. The cinematography was executed beautifully. The colour tones of the flashback scenes were a gorgeous vintage combination of dark blue and warm yellow. The score was absolutely mesmerising and it played a great role in drawing the audience into the plot. And the actors’ performance was superb (Zoe Saldana was a real treat).

The greatest let down is the most important aspect of the film: the plot.

There is a lot of exciting incidents but it lacks a significant, if not noticeable, climax and denouement. I am trying really, really hard to not give away any spoilers. But. Think of Inception in terms of story writing. Now, add a big huge fail. Unlike Inception where there is a resolution to the climax and the main conflict of the plot you are instead given an open end to the general idea. The Words leaves the story hanging. There is simply no resolution, it is like a really long pilot to an otherwise well made TV series. The Words certainly wasn’t worth my $13.50 cab ride, and it surely isn’t worth your $15. Jut rent it out.

2/5 Review by Dina Waluyo

27

Games

Living Earth HD – $0.99 Radiantlabs, LLC

Entertainment Book Australasia Entertainment Publications of Australia Pty. Ltd.

Arguably the best weather app for the iOS, it provides comprehensive global weather data accompanied with a beautiful interactive HD image of the world, including cloud formations, real time.

Firstly, for anyone who hasn’t heard of the Entertainment Book… as a student you should probably go out and buy one! It costs $60 and offers you discounts and deals for hundreds (thousands, possibly) of places in Perth and interstate. The most common deal is get 25% off or ‘Buy one meal, get one free’. As soon as you do this twice you have made your money back. Plus, you have a year to get through as many vouchers as possible, and there are some incredible places to try in the book.

Allowing easy access to conditions and temperature for any location, sunrise and sunset times, humidity, wind speeds and 10 day forecasts (with two hours interval breakdowns), it is far more comprehensive than the stock standard iOS weather app.

The inclusion of an alarm clock makes this more than just a weather app, letting you select your wake up tone (or your own music) and snooze interval (like Apple’s clock app for iPhone), except you’re only able to set one alarm. This takes handheld weather to the next level.

4.5/5 Review by Joel Grant

The app makes your life easier by showing you which establishments are close-by to where you are. Let’s say you want to go out for dinner and want to use a voucher from the book.

Instead of having to flick through the book and find out which suburbs are convenient and which restaurants are nearby, all you have to do is press the ‘nearby’ function and it will point out what is, well… nearby.

The worst part about this app is that it does not have the option of linking you to the website of the establishment. It would be much easier if it did so that you could check out the menu or whatever you need. The best part about this app is that it is super convenient. It is free, so it makes the perfect companion to the Entertainment Book.

3.5/5 Review by Asten Nunn

The Simpsons Tapped Out (Electronic Arts) From the writers and creators of the famous animated TV Show, ‘The Simpsons: Tapped Out’ is an awesome new app that sees Homer causing a meltdown at the nuclear power plant which results in Springfield being wiped out. You play a Sim-like God and your mission is to rebuild Springfield.

The graphics are beautiful in this game and looks like the same animation from the show. The app is free, but in order to purchase different buildings, you need to pay with donuts. When you don’t have donuts, you have to pay ACTUAL money to get donuts.

If you’re a fan of the show and you like games where you control avatars (like the Sims), then you’ll like it.

4/5 Review by James Blackburn

28

Games

Temple Run Platform: iPad - also available from 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.

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

2.5/5 Review by Rehana Badat

29

Music

The Beach Boys Fifty Big Ones Greatest Hits

R.E.M. Document

How to Dress Well Total Loss

The Beach Boys are universally known as being one of the best bands out of the 1960s. While this is true, you can’t really put them on the same pedestal as you’d put The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.

And while this is a collection of The Beach Boys 50 greatest hits, the truth is that they only have a handful of truly great songs.

R.E.M. have had a fantastic music career spanning 31 years and 15 albums. I knew they made some seminal albums in the early to mid 90s, but knew little about their earlier recordings. When I started to listen to their 1987 re-released album Document I noticed a passionate band with some issues on their minds that they seemed to want to portray through their music.

Total Loss is the second album from How to Dress Well (singer-songwriter Tom Krell). Following the 2010 debut album Love Remains (a concept album about heartbreak), Krell claims that his new album was about “finding a way out of darkness when there is no light ahead” and the end result is very interesting.

A lot of the songs on this anthology are hard to listen to. Although the barber-shop style harmonies are superbly crafted, their heavily repetitive use causes the songs blur together. Their songs are almost exclusively fixated on California, girls and surfing. The anthology also contains two songs that were actually released earlier in the year. I’m not exactly sure why they’re counted as part of their “greatest hits”. Especially because they both sound like they’re trying too hard to indulge in recreating their trademark sounds at the expense of trying to make good music.

The spacing of the songs on the album could have been done better. Songs with similar themes and styles are played one after the other, with the effect that up to ten minutes of upbeat and cheery songs are followed by another ten minutes of slow songs with little movement. As well as this, arguably their three best songs: ‘God Only Knows’, ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ and ‘Good Vibrations’ are tacked on to the end of the second disc, almost like an afterthought. Unless they fix the progress of songs, this album is definitely not worth buying.

2/5 Review by Ashley Swetman

The first track ‘Finest Worksong’ is a real call to arms with lyrics stating “Take your instinct by the reigns, the time to rise has been engaged”. The second song on the album ‘Welcome to the Occupation’ has even more emotive lyrics such as “Here we stand and here we fight all you fallen heroes’’. This style of forthright language stretches throughout the whole album.

The bonus disk that accompanies this release is also a fascinating listen. It is a live concert from their Work tour from 1987. My favourite track out of the two albums is ‘So Central Rain’, which is a tale of missed opportunity.

After listening to this album I have a huge amount of respect for what R.E.M. did musically with an eccentric but brilliant frontman and great support from the band, but also what causes they stood for outside the music scene. There is no doubt that Michael Stipe and his bandmates were not afraid to ruffle some feathers.

4/5 Review by Jason Harris

The album is experimental with falsetto reverb voices singing simple but devastating melodies in unusual RnB tempo beats, which are the same elements from his last album. The album itself is well structured, telling the story of recovering from depression after losing people who are very close to him.

It starts off with the intro ‘When I was in Trouble’ which is has great vocals and lyrics and is short, sweet and simple. The second track, and my most recommended track of the album ‘Cold Nites’, captures the feeling of loneliness well, with an innocent slow flowing RnB style. This is a little similar to the style of Justin Timberlake. It’s a slow and sad song but the feel of the album improves as we progress through it.

Another favourite is ‘Talking to you’. I love the cinematic strings and the simple melody that the falsetto voice sings. They both work so well together that they almost brought a tear to my eye.

Overall, the album is well mixed and flows well to tell the story of stepping out of dark times, and the songs themselves are good with the falsetto reverb voices and the instruments working well to set the moods and tell their story perfectly.

If you’re a fan of James Blake, Janet Jackson, and Active Child, then you’ll like this.

4/5 Review by James Blackburn

30

Music

Various Artists Fifty Shades of Grey – The Classical Album This is an album not meant to challenge classical aficionados; in fact it’s not really meant to appeal to them at all. This album is marketed, very specifically, to the cashed-up, tasteless, middle-aged, married, female readers of Fifty Shades of Grey. And unless you fall into that demographic, I suggest you stay away.

The album features tracks chosen personally by E.L. James that inspired her to write the novel (originally it was Twilight fan-fiction) and now form a collection of suggested background music while reading the book. The soundtrack for this saucy-sex novel is pretty dreary and common stuff: Chopin’s ‘Nocturne #1’ and ‘Prelude #4’, Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’, Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D’ and Rachmaninoff’s ‘Piano Concerto #2’ are there, as they are on every classical compilation album ever made.

Anyone else with even a passing interest in classical music will recognise most of the other inclusions in the album.

Labelling this collection part of the Fifty Shades universe actually slightly soils the music for me. By themselves, they’re all great (although overused) pieces of music, featuring in films and advertisements since time immemorial.

Indeed it is commendable that this album is helping to bring classical music to the masses, yet I can’t shake the feeling that this is, in reality, a marketing stunt taking advantage of out-of-copyright music. If you were looking for a classical album to add to your study-music selection, look elsewhere: There are better, cheaper collections available. If you love Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey then there’s probably very little I could say to dissuade you from wasting your money.

1.5/5 Review by Warren Argus

Ricki-Lee Fear & Freedom

The Presets Pacifica

Ricki-Lee’s latest album Fear and Freedom is comprised of eleven tracks including her most recent singles ‘Raining Diamonds’ and ‘Do It Like That’. It is an eclectic collection of surprisingly good pop songs from a woman who shot to fame during her time on Australian Idol.

They’re baaack! After a four-year break The Presets have reappeared. Following their hugely successful second album Apocalypso, I wouldn’t blame them if they had some trepidation about coming back on to the scene. Their initial success meant that they would have had to work even harder to produce something magical. So, how did the Australian duo do this time around?

Her lyrics are riddled with messages of empowerment, self-belief and selfconfidence. Messages we as listeners are able to relate to and carry with us. The lyrics are at times a little on the corny side but the melodies are incredibly fun and upbeat and (as much as I hate to admit it) really quite catchy. That, and I am a total sucker for violins, synthesised or otherwise.

At first I was definitely on the fence about Ricki-Lee’s ability to produce an entire album that was actually worth listening to, but she has definitely succeeded in more ways than one. The complex (and totally amazing) instrumental elements of each track emphasise just how much she has grown as an artist over the past eight years since leaving Australian Idol.

The album has this innate ability to make you want to get up out of your seat and just dance even if, like myself, you were genetically gifted with two left feet.

Ricki-Lee definitely surprised me with this album and I would gladly recommend it to anyone!

4/5 Review by Madeline McKenzie

The boys have created a colourful and eclectic mix of techno, pop, rock and electronic on their new album Pacifica, and it is certainly enjoyable. I must admit that the first song that I heard was a track called ‘Push’ and I found it to be incredibly annoying and repetitive. I was starting to wonder what I was getting myself into. The album quickly moved on to better things though, and a song named ‘Promises’ came along and caused me to have a flash back to 1980s pop. Fun. The lyrics are surprisingly complex; the song ‘Ghosts’ is a perfect example of this.

Although it is heavy on repetition, it is very poetic, and conjures up some nice imagery of “streets of neon” and “faraway lands”. The album in general wasn’t particularly cohesive. The mood and pacekind of went up, down, up, down, which messed with the flow of the overall album.

All in all, there is no doubt that The Presets are talented. It is incredible that such a complicated sound can come from just two people. Hate to say it though (because I was a big fan of Apocaypso) but… it is nowhere as good as their last album.It does give off a Café Del Mar vibe though, which makes the album a good accompaniment for summer.

3/5 Review by Asten Nunn

31

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