Lot's Wife Edition 6 2016

LOT’S WIFE 

— EDITION SIX —

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RMI0043_Uni_Student_Mag_Ad_Lots_Wife_140x200_FA.indd 1 

12/09/2016 4:42 PM

CONTENTS 

Lot’s Wife is entirely 

written, illustrated, edited and 

distributed by students, 

just like yourself! 

If you would like to be 

involved, we are always always 

always looking for new 

contributors and volunteers. 

Say hi anytime: 

Lot’s Wife Office 

1st Floor, Campus Centre, 

turn right at the MSA desk. 

Or drop us a line at 

lotswife2016@gmail.com 

Advertising inquiries: 

E: msa-lotswife@monash.edu 

P: 03 9905 8174 

About the cover artist 

My name is Monica Hunt and 

I’m currently in my third year 

of studying Arts/Visual Art. 

My practice is heavily improvisational, 

and thus often 

leads to abstract imagery. I 

don’t let my mind interfere too 

much with my image making, 

I let the pen do the work so 

to speak. 

You can find my art on 

Facebook: Ismonia Art 

Instagram: @ismonia 

Twitter: @ismoniart 

STUDENT 

08 

11 

13 

15 

16 

18 

20 

SCIENCE 

CREATIVE 

SOCIETY 

23 

25 

26 

28 

30 

31 

39 

40 

I want to believe 

Up all night to get lucky 

47 

49 

41 Electrons are the creepiest 

particle 

50 

42 Procedural generation in No 53 

Mans Sky 

44 Living in a dematerial world 

54 

45 Science Crossword 

56 

60 

Inhospitable conditions 

Survive the summer 

FABSOC spring 2016 

Multilingual Melbournians 

Interview with MCJAF 

The case for independent media 

Office bearer reports 

Photo essay 

Transition to earlier 

61 the memoryboat 

62 How to remove the training wheels 

63 An experiment in understanding 

64 CIty adopted 

66 The things we like 

Positively paradoxical 

The #hashtag movement 

Good for you 

We need to talk about Lionel 

Politics in trenches 

Wot’s Life with monorail man 

CULTURE 

Cartoons find their serious side 

Wonder Woman 

A beginners guide to film 

photography 

Pon pon pop 

Some of the best podcasts 

BONUS 

06 Contributor thankyou 

32 Results of MSA elections 

34 Centrefold: Pull-out 

calendar and poster 

Pattern by Natalie Ng 

Lot’s Wife | 3

EDITORS 

Timothy Newport 

Carina Florea 

Lisa Healy 

DESIGN 

Natalie Ng 

SUB-EDITORS 

STUDENT 

SOCIETY 

Tricia Ong 

Jermaine Doh 

Rajat Lal 

Matthew Edwards 

Ishana Srivastava-Khan 

Maddy Luke 

CARINA FLOREA 

SCIENCE 

CULTURE 

CREATIVE 

Lot’s Wife Edition Six 

October 2016 

© Lot’s Wife Magazine 

Level 1, Campus Centre 

Monash University 

Clayton, Victoria 3800 

Kinto Behr 

Kathy Zhang 

Mevani Amarasinghe 

Lachlan Liesfield 

Georgina Lee 

Melissa Fernando 

Amber Davis 

Audrey El-Osta 

Sarah Kay 

Published by Mary Giblin, Printgraphics, Mount Waverley 

As you read this paper you are on Aboriginal land. We at Lot’s 

Wife recognise the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples of 

the Kulin Nations as the historical and rightful owners and custodians 

of the lands and waters on which this newspaper is produced. 

The land was stolen and sovereignty was never ceded. 

After the release of our first edition at the beginning of 

this year, Tim, Lisa and I sat in our office and wondered how the 

hell all our stands in the campus centre and Menzies had been 

emptied within a day. Our first suspect was that the cleaner had 

taken all the copies available to build some sort of Lot’s Wife 

paper fort or they just really really liked our science crossword. 

But as the year went by and our copies kept flying off 

the stands and our community of writers, illustrators and 

everything inbetween kept on growing, it became clear that 

people were picking up and reading our magazine and thats all 

we can really hope for. 

I am so proud of every single person that contributed and 

helped out and it’s been absolutely amazing getting to work with 

so many talented and hard working people. 

In the lead up to the printing deadline, we’re getting 

kicked out by security for staying in the building for too long so 

I will be quick. 

Thankyou and lots of love. 

Lot’s Wife condemns and will not publish any material that 

is racist, sexist, queerphobic, ableist or discriminatory in any 

nature. The views expressed herein are those of the attributed 

writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors 

or the MSA. All writing and artwork remains the property of the 

producers and must not be reproduced without their written 

consent. 

4 | Lot’s Wife

TIMOTHY NEWPORT 

LISA HEALY 

Wow. Wow wow wow. 

We made it. I mean, we as in editors, illustrators and 

writers, made it to the last edition. You’ve still got three weeks 

of class and who knows how many exams left, but hey! At least 

you’ve got this mag to see you through. 

I just want to personally thank all the people who made 

this happen, especially my sub-editors (Amber, Sarah, Audrey, 

Kathy, Ted and Mevani), our designer Nat, and our infinitely 

patient printer Mary. We would have literally exploded without 

you guys. 

It’s been an insane year. I think 2016, like many of us, got 

screwed over by Allocate+: all the elections, natural disasters, 

and celebrity deaths got crammed into one year. 

If this has been a tough year for you, I want you to take a 

moment to breathe. 

In. 

And out. 

You’ve made it this far, and if you power on for another 

two months, holidays and all the sunburn and casual work that 

comes with them will be here. Brace yourself. 

Summer is coming. 

It’s been the best of times, it’s been the blurst of times. 

The curtains are closing and the lights are dimming so I’ll hustle 

with my thank-yous and good-byes. 

Firstly, thank you to our forever radiant contributors - Lot’s 

would have looked pretty dull without your presence. 

Cheers to all our gorgoeus sub-editors - your late-night edits 

meant the magazine actually had content. 

Thank you to the beautiful Nat. To quote Delta Goodrem circa 

2003, we would have been “lost without you” and the magazine 

would have missed out greatly this year without your touch (and I 

would have far more bald patches on my head from all the stress). 

To Maddy, Ovi and Tara - you’re the shining stars that we wanted 

the rest of the university to see twinkle. Lot’s may not be in your 

trusty hands, but never forget how amazing you are and that you 

have so much talent that the world has seen and will continue to 

see. 

To Tim and Carina - I don’t know what to say but thank you. 

You’ve made it one hell of a ride; it has sometimes been on cruise 

control, other times veered terribly off course, but we made it out 

alive. I feel utterly blesssed to have met and worked with you both 

(also, thanks for putting up with my daily anecdotes and incessant 

chattering. Also, dicks n shits, hacks n cracks). 

Bless all of the beautiful people who I have crossed paths with 

this year and who have made this experience what it is. 

And to Lot’s. I am so honoured to have edited your pages this 

year. I hope we were worthy enough and served you well. (Long live 

Ado/Edith). 

I’m gonna miss ya Lot’s. It’s been nice knowing ya. 


THANKYOU 

During our last proof reading session, we gathered as many 

contributors as we could for one last group photo. However, 

this is only a fraction of the students who have contributed 

throughout the year so we’ve published the names of 

A special thankyou goes out to Nat who is a legendary 

designer, amazing colleague, and huge nerd. We would 

have exploded by Feburary without you. 

everyone who lended a hand. 

We’d like to thank each and every one of our writers, 

illustrators, designers and anyone who helped out this year. 

Lot’s would be nothing without every single one of you and 

we are so glad to have worked with such a lovely bunch of 

people. 


A. A. Kostas 

Abdul Marian 

Alisoun Townsend 

Amber Davis 

Amber Francis 

Amelia Chin 

Anna Zhang 

Anagi Wickremasinghe 

Andrea Duval 

Angus Marian 

Anastasia Goutzoulas 

Audrey El-Osta 

Basia Mitula 

Ben Neve 

Brian Shih 

Brittany Wetherspoon 

Ceitidh Hopper 

Christina Dodds 

Claire Noonan 

Clarissa Kwee 

Chris Allen 

Dan Carter 

Dan Podbury 

Daniel Ffrench-Mullen 

Declan Trevv 

Devika Pandit 

Dilan Fernando 

Ed Jessop 

Elizabeth Bridges 

Elisie Dusting 

Elyse Walton 

Eliza Stribling 

Emily Dang 

Emily Holding 

Emma Simpkin 

FABSOC 

Gazain Zia 

Grace Wang 

George Kopelis 

Georgia Braun-Hutchinson 

Grace Frarccio 

Genevieve Townsend 

Harley McDonald-Eckersall 

Hashwina Vimalarajan 

Isaac Reichman 

Ishana Srivastava-Khan 

Ina Lee 

Jake Kirk 

James Temple 

James Quintana Pearce 

Jasmine Walter 

Jasmine Duff 

Jermaine Doh 

Jemma Cakebread 

Jena Oakford 

Jennifer Worthing 

Jessica Lehmann 

Jessica Stone 

Jessica Suares 

Julia Pillai 

Justin Jones Li 

Kathrine Mitula 

Kathy Zhang 

Kate Mani 

Karla Engdahl 

Kapil Bhargava 

Kinto Behr 

Kiowa Scott-Hurley 

Lachlan Liesfield 

Layla Homewood 

Lily Greenwood 

Linh Ngyen 

Lucie Cester 

Lucy Moloney 

Maddy Luke 

Manon Boutin Charles 

Matthew Edwards 

Melissa Ferndando 

Mevani Amarasinghe 

Michael Wilkinson 

Monica Hunt 

Nadia Dimattina 

Natalie Ng 

Nick Bugeja 

Nicholas D’Arcy 

Ninad Kulkarni 

Olivia Rossi 

Olivia Parry 

Oliva Walmsley 

Ovindu Rajasinghe 

Rachael Welling 

Rajat Lal 

Rhyss Wyllie 

Richard Furguson 

Rose Boyle 

Ruby Kammoora 

Ruby Muller 

Sarah Kay 

Sa Pasa 

Sarah-Grace Chedra 

Sachetha Bamunusinghe 

Sasha Hall 

Sian Mann 

Sigrid Lange 

Sophia McNamara 

Shannon Ly 

Stephen Encisco 

Steph Siomos 

Stephie Dim 

Sasha Hall 

Stefan Boscia 

Shivani Gopaul 

Tara Hellwege 

Tracy Chen 

Tricia Ong 

Verity Norbury 

Viet-My Bui 

Writey McWriteface 


STUDENT 

Inhospitable 

conditions 

By Richard Ferguson 

Illustration by Elsie Dusting 

I 

f you’re reading this, you’re most likely a student. And if 

you’re a student, there is a good chance that you have, do 

or will work in the hospitality industry while studying. Along 

with retail, it’s one of the few feasible job prospects that can 

be accommodated around full-time study. And it can be a great 

experience: meeting people who you otherwise never would 

have, prolonged post-shift drinking sessions in which stories 

are shared and life lessons taught. I personally found this to 

be the case, especially in my twenties. I learned a lot from the 

opportunities I’ve had working as a waiter and a barman, and 

have many fond memories. However, this same industry is 

one where systematic worker exploitation and wage-theft is 

endemic. Many will know what I’m talking about: not having 

penalty or even base award rates paid, setting up or closing 

outside of the nominal shift hours, managers taking the lion’s 

share of tips, or worse still, owners taking tips for themselves 

(a particularly grey area in Australia where tipping is not well 

established). 

And it’s really hard to know how to feel about all of this. Is 

this fair practise? The generally accepted position is that there 

are unwritten rules for working in hospitality, which is that it’s 

often for cash payments below the award wage, without super 

payments, with each establishment having its own system of 

divvying up tips at the end of some period of time. Of course, 

this situation is most often completely opaque; it seems to be 

the case that none of this is discussed, you figure it out when 

you receive your first pay or you quietly ask a workmate when 

you’re polishing glasses. But the general justification for this 

dynamic seems to be that everyone accepts that turning a profit 

in hospitality is really, really hard and they simply can’t afford 

to pay the full-wage to staff. This is the regular industry argument 

against the validity of having to pay penalty rates in the 

evenings, on weekends and public holidays. This argument is 

easy to understand and get on board with. But it’s also a fallacy: 

it’s not a legitimate business practise– legally or morally– to 

base your business plan in part around wage theft. This was, 

as I’m sure many of you are aware, a major preoccupation of 

the twentieth-century. While I’m sure many restaurant owners 

wouldn’t recognise the practise in this way, this is in effect what 

it is. 

There is another dynamic at play: these jobs, casual jobs, are 

precarious by nature. There are very few protections for casual 

workers and those in hospitality are generally regarded as disposable. 

As Noam Chomsky outlines: “If workers are insecure 

they won't ask for wages, they won't go on strike, they won't 

call for benefits; they'll serve the masters gladly and passively”. 

It’s not that the cafe down the road is in the same league 

as Monsanto in terms of evilness, but the sum is that you can 

either accept the unspoken agreement or remain unemployed. 

Without meaningful income protection or universal income 

scheme, most will take the job. You have little choice. Like I 

mentioned, it’s hard to know how to feel about this. You might 


STUDENT 

see the job as transitory until your degree is finished and not 

care so much. On the other hand, you might be so grateful to 

have a job that it feels rich to want more (ie. the minimum 

wage). In any event, this situation is so entrenched that the devaluation 

of hospitality staff is reproduced by those staff themselves 

towards others. I’ve heard workmates in the past say 

that we weren’t worth the penalty rates, that we didn’t deserve 

them. Once an oppressive force manages to have its oppressed 

thinking contrary to their own best interests, something is seriously 

wrong. Let’s remember: the minimum wage as outlined 

has been determined by an independent body as to what one 

needs to be compensated considering the work being done, the 

time or day it’s being done, and the costs of living in Australia. 

So, why feel bad about wanting the minimum wage? 

Having long-since left an employer who grossly and systematically 

underpaid their staff, I came to this conclusion: that I 

worked hard, that I did the work and that I should have been 

paid for it. After undertaking some investigation as to where 

I stood, I approached my former employer. I must say, I was 

terrified. I dispassionately pointed out the “mistake” in my pay 

and requested that it be rectified. And they did. While there is 

this weird “mutual agreement”, there is a legal one detailed on 

Fair Work website. At the end of it, I received what amounted 

to almost 11% of what my total pay should have been. Can you 

imagine landing your first job after uni, signing a contract, and 

receiving your first pay 11% less? You would point out the discrepancy. 

That’s a significant amount to not be paid, especially 

when you’re on the minimum wage. In my case, I must admit 

to feeling underwhelmed after it all. I had hoped that as well 

as seeking some personal retribution, that this business owner 

would reconsider their practise, or even just feel ashamed. But I 

feel that systematic wage-theft really is a part of their business 

plan, into which they account for one employee every five-years 

putting their hand out. Whatever they had to pay me, and the 

time spent to reconcile the situation pales compared to the 

thousands saved from all the others. 

It doesn’t have to be like this. My position is this: if you 

engage with staff in a meaningful way from the start, your 

business will reap the benefits many times over in comparison 

to what’s involved in undercutting them. I say this because it’s 

happening where I work currently. Once I was taken on, the 

owner took the time to sit with me, outline what they expected 

of me and what I could expect of them. Not only did he outline 

my pay, he even printed out the relevant award for me and 

told me whom to contact if I thought my pay was not in line 

with it. This is best kind of managerial manipulation: I now 

feel like I want to do well for them. By focusing on their actual 

business activities instead of what they can get away with from 

their staff, I’d hazard a guess that they will be more profitable 

than spending all the time and energy in manipulating their 

staff and constantly retraining due to higher staff turnover. 

By humanising their staff rather than treating them as an 

Working as a waiter and a 

barman, and have many 

fond memories. However, 

this same industry is one 

where systematic worker 

exploitation and wage 

theft is endemic. 

input of production, by recognising that we are different to the 

fridge or the meat slicer, they will get more out of us. To those 

of you who are under the unspoken agreement, I urge you to 

investigate your rights and claim what’s yours. If we continue 

to accept this paradigm then, like the workmate who says we 

aren’t worth the minimum wage, we inadvertently reproduce 

the devaluation of ourselves and support this exploitation. If 

you don’t put a value on yourself, no one else will. The more of 

us who reject it, the less tenable the situation becomes. 


10 | Lot’s Wife 

STUDENT

STUDENT 

Survive the summer 

By Rachael Welling 

Illustration By Elizabeth Bridges 

T 

he end is nigh. The semester is slipping away through 

our fingers like salty tears shed after getting back your 

mid-sems. You know what that means? Four mercilessly long 

months of holidays, bookended by the twin dreads of results 

release and O-Week. It’s a black hole at the end of a car crash of 

a year. But don’t fear, I’m here to fill that hole. 

Wait, no not like that. 

1. Find A Job 

Finding a job is certainly the most ‘productive’ way to waste 

four months. You could be a Christmas Casual, except that 

most places have hired theirs by now (but really, you wouldn’t 

be reading this if you had your life sorted, would you?) Or you 

could be an intern: get paid to feel inadequate when normally 

you’d be doing that all day, every day, for free. Or you could 

also sell yourself – that’s right, your skills. Tutor, paint, mow 

lawns, walk dogs, or whatever else people are willing to burn 

money for. Here’s the thing though: it’s a giant scam. Most jobs 

require you to show up. Some are even full time. Yeah you’re a 

‘full-time’ student, or whatever, but a job is literally full time. 

You can’t watch that shit online, alright. You have to leave your 

room, you have to shower. I mean, the obvious upside is money, 

career development, building networks, and office gossip, and 

maybe even some office hookups. But is it really worth it? Is 

your dignity already that far gone? Is it? 

2. Work On Your Personal Brand 

So maybe you don’t have a job, or suck too much to find one 

(i.e. the truth). Well now is the time to work on your Personal 

Brand TM . Get a LinkedIn, spend hours on your profile, and get 

those sweet, sweet connections. What happens next? Who 

knows? You have to let that LinkedIn page marinate, alright, 

for at least twelve hours. Once it’s done who knows what will 

come out? Maybe a job offer, maybe new connections, or more 

likely, random spam and nothing else. Is you profile pathetic 

and pitifully short? Upskill! Learn to code, all the cool kids are 

doing it. Get a CodeAcademy account and spend two hours 

making a text-based adventure game in Java. What? What do 

you mean you aren’t suddenly earning buckets of dosh in your 

own version of Sillicon Valley? Are you even trying? No wonder 

you’re unemployed. 

3. Go Outdoors 

It’s literally summer. You can’t complain about shitty 

Melbourne weather, you can’t moan about having assignments 

due, you can’t even say you don’t have enough money because 

most things that are outside are free. Parks are free, beaches are 

free, even some food is free. In fact, most things are free if you 

don’t get caught*. Alternatively, just mooch off your friends. 

If you have a mate with a pool, have a pool party. If you have a 

mate with a pool but he doesn’t like you that much and would 

hesitate to call you a ‘mate’, just don’t tell him about the party 

(pro tip: don’t have the party when he’s home). C’mon, we’re all 

students here. If you can’t think of innovative ways to do things 

on the cheap, what are you really doing at university? 

4. Watch TV 

There is also the option to not go outdoors and instead 

watch TV shows about people who do. I don’t need to explain 

this; Australians are literally the most prolific pirates in the 

world. Four months is probably enough time to watch the 

entire Australian Netflix library, or the entire American library 

if you have a sneaky VPN. Yes, that is a challenge. 

5. Existential Crisis 

Am I doing the right course? Should I study more? My GPA 

is fine right? Am I going to find a good job? Get a good house? 

Do I even want a house? Will I ever find the one? Will I ever 

find ‘the one’? Do I actually like my uni friends or do we only 

hang out because failing any real conversation we can just 

moan ‘OMG Uniiiii’ at each other repeatedly? Should I drink 

less? Should I eat better? Am I OK looking? I’d be fine with OK 

but am I even OK? Am I a good person? Does anyone like me, 

really? (Repeat ad infinitum.) 

6. Literally nothing 

This is what you will do anyway. This is what we will all do. 

Embrace it. Lazy isn’t a personality flaw; it’s a lifestyle. 

So now you have six activities to fill the void: work, upskill, 

mooch, binge, weep, exist. Now you can make the most of your 

summer. Now you can grow as a person, as an adult, in the ever 

changing journey of the ‘best years of your life’. Or you know, 

you can not do that. Which do you think is more likely? 

*I don’t actually advocate stealing, alright. It’s just an option. This is 

all about options. 


STUDENT 

FABSOC 

Spring 2016 

2016 came and has almost passed as quickly as the return of 

choker necklaces and the rise of designer sneakers. This optimistic 

year saw FABSOC surge in popularity, through developing 

a notable social-media presence and hosting a variety of 

popular events which sought to embrace and share the popular 

norms of youth fashion culture. 

The most notable event was our Careers Night Expo, 

which saw distinguished speakers from Myer and L’Oréal give 

valuable life-lessons in marketing. The event was packed out, 

with over 100 eager attendees ready to learn the handy tips 

and tricks of the trade, earned through years of hardwork and 

moving up through the ranks of corporate and retail workplaces. 

Attendees expressed their joy over receiving an enticing 

FABSOC welcome pack, which included freebies that were predominantly 

fashion/style related, and some FABSOC members 

were lucky enough to win significant giveaway prizes, including 

designer watches, swimwear apparel and fashion accessories. 

Our ‘Street-style snaps’ held every week by our creative photographers 

on campus has continued to remain popular with 

university-goers, and proved excellent for generating hype, 

spreading fashion enthusiasm and providing an original platform 

to allow students to spark their own creativity and gain 

inspiration. It surely cannot be a coincidence that Monash has 

lately experienced a surge of suave and trendy students flaunting 

their fancy flannels, furry fleeces, flashy flares and frisky 

footwear, frequently found in fifty flawless fabrics, fashionable 

as flamboyant flamingos, with no floral frocks, felt fedoras and 

flaky flip-flops in sight. 

In September, we organised a clothing swap event in collaboration 

with VGen as a way of raising awareness about unethical 

practices such as using child labour to manufacture clothing. 

The event was a big hit, allowing attendees to freshen up their 

wardrobe looks through the ethical exchange of recycled clothing, 

at no cost whatsoever! 

As fun as 2016 has been, the next year presents an exciting 

challenge. FABSOC wishes to continue to promote the 

expression of students through fashion, stressing individuality 

and creativity. Our goals are to inform the student population 

of ethical fashion, and to provide important fashion-related 

career information. Every member of the committee has played 

an integral part in organising and activity-planning, and we 

will continue to host fun and innovative events. Our journey so 

far has been rewarding, but 2016 has not yet come to a close, 

so keep a look-out for more fashion events to be held soon this 

semester! 

See you there, and bring on the trends of 2017! 

From top left to right: 

Cindy Zhu 

Engineering , 4th year 

Jacket: assc 

Jumper : overseas 

Pants: uniqlo 

Shoes: Lacoste 

Bag: Boo 

Glasses: overseas 

Amy Tran 

Commerce/Science 

Top: ASOS 

Cardigan: Temt 

Skirt: ASOS 

Boots: Betts 

Arman Saffar 

Arts/Law 

Jumper: Gant 

Chinos: Topman 

Shoes: Ara 

Watch: Daniel Wellington 

Bag: Tumi 

Chris Tricker (Left) 

Arts and Law, 2nd year 

T-shirt: H&M 

Jacket: Levi’s 

Jeans: Calvin Klein 

Shoes: Converse 

Ryan Pola (Right) 

Visual Arts and Education, 

3rd Year 

T-shirt: Target 

Jeans: Dior 

Shoes: Uncut 

Love, the FABSOC team! 


STUDENT

Multilingual 

Melbournians 

By Emma Simpkin 

In late August of 2015, Laura Blackmore hit upon an idea 

that was to be later picked up by Disney and be applauded 

across Melbourne. The Monash student was studying her 

Masters in translation while living at Berwick campus when she 

had a vision of starting a blog dedicated to showcasing what she 

most loved about Melbourne - it’s linguistic and cultural diversity. 

Laura, the Language and Cultural Ambassador for Disney 

Australia and New Zealand’s ‘Dream Big, Princess’ campaign, 

recounts the beginnings of her Facebook page, Multilinguals Of 

Melbourne (affectionately nicknamed MoM). 

“I had the idea and then thought, ‘how can I do this?’. I went 

to tell my roommates and they were sleeping so I had to go to bed 

thinking about every detail – I don’t think I slept at all that night!” 

Multilinguals of Melbourne promotes language and cultural 

diversity by sharing the stories of everyday people who learn, 

speak and breathe multiple languages. The stories and accompanying 

photos Laura publishes to her wildly successful 

Instagram, Facebook and blog have been likened to those of 

Humans of New York founder’s Brandon Stanton. And for good 

reason. 

Laura’s approach to sharing the experiences of multilinguals 

is firmly focused on the authentic, often unmentioned realities 

of living in a multicultural city through the lens of individuals 

who speak, live and breathe multiple languages. At the time of 

print, Multilinguals of Melbourne has represented over 20 nationalities 

and 37 languages, with Laura’s posts reaching a peak 

of 12, 000 view shortly after its recent one year anniversary. 

MoM’s stories are equally challenging, touching and 

eye-opening. When asked if she ever prompts interviewees or 

knows what she’ll ask someone about, Laura admits she never 

goes into a meeting with any angle. 

“It’s always varied, I can never pick how a conversation will go… 

So I never have questions prepared. I’d rather let someone share 

openly and MoM be a space for that.” 

MoM’s first subjects were Laura’s multilingual roommates 

(who shared 10 languages between them) and later expanded to 

include numerous members of Monash language clubs, ACYA, 

Monash Radio and Mango Languages. Laura herself has been 

asked to speak at yLead’s Social Impact conference and was 

recently featured in Disney’s ‘Dream Big, Princess’ campaign 

as one of three Australian women who are inspirations to their 

community. 

“What I love about this project is how it creates a community. 

People I’ve interviewed are my friends or have become my friends 

through sharing their stories.” 

The beauty in the Multilinguals Of Melbourne initiative it’s 

open-hearted inclusiveness. Laura’s own disillusionment with 

the academic pressure and competition in learning languages 

at university strengths her resolve to never ask the individuals 

she interviews to need to meet a standard of fluency to fit the 

multilingual criteria. Anyone who speaks, studies or learns 

more than one language, regardless of if they’ve been speaking 

it for one day or ten years, can be interviewed. 

“My own language-learning journey was strained but that’s why 

I’m so passionate now.” 

What officially constitutes a language or culture is often 

defined by politics. In allowing interviewees to speak out about 

their culture, MoM infuses a realism and understanding that 

has made Melbournians of all backgrounds sit back and take 

note. 

So what’s next? According to Laura the next step for MoM 

is a print magazine but in the meantime, Multilinguals Of 

Melbourne will continue to grow as Laura’s success attracts 

more individuals hoping to share their experiences. 

While you’d be forgiven for believing Australia only has 

one official language, Laura Blackmore’s, Multilinguals of 

Melbourne is setting the record straight and righting misconceptions 

of Melbourne as a city with only one language and 

culture, one interview at a time. 

If you speak or are learning more than one language and 

would like to share your story, you can contact Laura 

Blackmore via the Multilinguals of Melbourne Facebook 

page at http://facebook.com/multilingualsofmelbourne 


Twirling, twirling 

If you’re ever on the Lemon-Scented Lawns on a Monday night, 

you might have some questions, like Why are there so many jugglers? 

What the heck is that rope for? Is that hula-hoop on fire? 

The Monash Club of Juggling and Firetwirling has long been 

one of the strangest sights on campus, but they’re also one of the 

most welcoming clubs. Maddy Luke managed to get Anthony 

Embleton to sit still for five minute to chat about his experiences 

in our local circus. 

How did you get involved with MCJAF? 

I found out about it through Host Scheme Camp, where we 

actually get most of our members. It’s good exposure. 

Is there something unique about this club that makes people 

more inclined to join? 

I think a big part about it is that it’s super inclusive, which is 

why jaffys go for it. You know, it’s one of the first experiences 

they have at uni and it’s with people who are just open and 

brilliant and who accept just about anything. It’s the kind of 

thing that most people wouldn’t normally think to try so we try 

to be as accepting as we can. 

Do a lot of people come into MCJAF with prior experience 

with juggling and firetwirling? 

A few people do, but those are usually people who have already 

been doing it and then realise ‘oh, we have a club for it.’ Like, 

for me, I came into it with absolutely no experience, and just 

loved it, and kept going. 

I’m guessing this means you have some kind of training? 

Because everyone in the club pretty much started from the 

beginning at the club, everyone is willing to teach anyone new 

things. First week of every semester, we usually have our beginner 

workshops going on, so people can try anything, and it’s 

a super friendly environment. Anyone that wants to learn the 

thing can ask somebody and they will teach them the thing. But 

really that’s true throughout the year. 


Are there any mid-year events for people who want to join 

them? 

People can join at any time. We have our Jams every Monday, 

where you can rock up, see if you like it, if not, well, then it’s 

not your thing. But yeah, like I said, anyone’s happy to teach 

at any time, so just rock up and do what you want to do, and 

there will be somebody there to help you. Everyone plays with 

their toys, learns new tricks, practices. A lot of it is just people 

hanging out because there are some good people there. 

Every four weeks – so every four Mondays – we have a Burn, 

that usually involves free pizza, so ‘come down for free pizza’, 

and yeah, we provide the fuel for people to basically do 

everything they’d be doing every other week, but with fire. We 

run events like workshops off campus, bounce days, things like 

that. But basically we just… any good thing that we think is 

relevant, we put on. 

We have performances throughout the year, not at the club, but 

people from schools or small businesses that want to put on a 

fete or something with a circus-y vibe will ask us to perform, 

which is a great opportunity for anyone that wants to give it a 

go. Then there’s the Variety show, that’s our show. People in the 

club put on some incredible acts for anyone to come and see. 

Is there a particular selection process for that show? 

We have our performance coordinator, so that’s one of our committee 

roles, and basically, it’s completely open. Like I said, we 

are an accepting club, and anyone can put forward a performance, 

it’s not just ‘you have to be good enough.’ The only real 

criterion is that you actually have a performance ready in time. 

Do you have any big events coming up towards the end of 

semester? 

We have our end of year camp coming up, after end of year 

exams. Camp is one of the big ones and we have a lot of stuff 

going on; workshops running throughout the camp, fire both 

nights, and at the end we have a renegade show, which is just a 

small show at the end of camp that doesn’t need any preparation. 

It can be as simple as ‘look at this new trick I learned.’ 

It’s a great way for people to support everyone else with what 

they’ve been learning. 

Obviously it’s called the Monash Club of Juggling and 

Firetwirling, but it’s not just limited to those things, is it? 

Oh God no, I yoyo! Like, I literally just had a performance where 

I did nothing but yoyo – I’m the only one who does it at the 

moment, but the president also started which is great. Really, 

it’s any kind of skill toy, or even just any kind of skill that needs 

practising. We even have somebody who’s just started dancing 

lately, just because it’s a fun place to practice it. 

Yeah! What’s the most unique one you’ve seen? 

Ha, I feel like my yoyoing comes to mind, shameless self-plug. 

Though one of the more recent ones has been a guy that’s 

started whipping. Um… that one may… we try not to annoy 

people around campus with that one too much, but that one’s 

been pretty cool. [At the Burn] he had a giant fire whip, aw that 

was great. We have some acro people, which is pretty cool. It’s 

a circus club, so a lot of people feel it’s out there, but for us it’s 

started to feel normal. 

Are there many members of your club who don’t take up any 

of these activities, and are just there because they enjoy 

watching other people and being there for support? 

That does happen more often than I was expecting when I 

started, but the general trend is that eventually they’ll get into 

something and keep going. You see a bunch of people standing 

around and doing fun things and trying not to hit themselves 

in the face and go, ‘Oh, I wanna try that, can I learn this basic 

trick? Oh cool, I learned this one, now I wanna learn this next 

basic trick’, and keep going. 

Thank you for all this! Any parting words? 

It’s not a club that requires dedication. Anyone can come at any 

time. It’s not like a martial art or a dance or something, where 

other people’s learning is dependent on yours. Everybody is 

learning what they want at their own pace, if they even want to 

learn anything. Otherwise, it’s just a fun atmosphere. It’s the 

kind of thing where you can just come down once, try, never 

have to see us again. 

Although, of course, you’d want to see us again. 

Nice! So maybe those people who didn’t get ready in time for 

the variety show can perform their tricks there? 

It’s not just that, it’s just a good way to encourage people to 

not feel embarrassed about the things they’re doing. I’ve seen 

bigger applauses for people getting really basic tricks for the 

first time than someone you’ve seen for ages with tricks you 

can’t even comprehend. 


The case for independent media 

It’s a special privilege to edit a magazine. A privilege we have 

been honoured to receive this year, and a responsibility we have 

not taken lightly. In keeping with our ideal of fair and honest 

reportage, we have refrained from using our position to sway, 

influence, or endorse any particular views. However, we believe 

the following is too important for us to stand idly by. 

With the MSA election week come and gone, and the campus 

centre rid of the multi-coloured t-shirt chaos that is student 

politics, we wanted to discuss something you may or may not 

have noticed: a handful of students in purple shirts. 

This year, there was a new ticket on campus, a group of 

independent students contesting the Lot’s Wife Office Bearer 

position, going up against the Goliath that is Go! (Go!liath, if 

you will), who have held the majority vote in the MSA for the 

last 11 years. With them, they brought an interesting proposition: 

one of student media breaking free from the hands of 

student politicians, and being held by experienced writers and 

long-standing contributors to Lot’s Wife. 

A bit of background: we, the current editors, were approached 

by the 2015 editorial team last year to run for the 

position. We were deemed by them to be the best fit for the 

role, as all of us have been highly involved in the magazine, 

and experienced enough to handle the workload of running an 

entire publication. We were excited with the possibility ahead 

of us, however we were told in no uncertain terms that we had 

to run with a political group, the aforementioned Go!, in order 

to claim the position. 

Naive and unaware of Go!’s history, we each paid the compulsory 

$75 tithe in order to run on their ticket. We donned 

our blue t-shirts for that one, dreaded week in semester 2, after 

which we managed to win the position (as the Go!-sponsored 

candidate has nearly every year). It was a hellish week (even 

toilet breaks had to be approved by the campaign manager), but 

we survived it, and looked forward to our upcoming year. 

In 2016, we put our (figurative) blood, sweat, and (literal) 

tears into this magazine, establishing a community composed 

of Clayton and Caulfield students, and working towards 

achieving a cohesive and well-established framework, through 

which talented writers could be published, and where emerging 

writers could be supported. 

Early into our tenure, we all almost immediately expressed 

that we did not want the following year’s editors to run with 

Go! or any political group in order to receive the office. We believed 

that the traditional method, ie. running with the major 

party, was too easily abused. Candidates with political affiliations 

could (and would) use the position to fight their partisan 

battles, and restrict publication of dissenting voices. 

In the first edition of this year we published an article that 

spoke of a motion passed by the Monash Student Council 

(MSC) - in which Office Bearers and student representatives sit 

- over the summer, to remove the position of Finance Manager. 

In response to publishing this, we were told by a member of 

the MSA Executive that if we were to publish anything of this 

nature again, we had to run it by them first, as criticism of the 

MSA was seen as “divisive”. 

With this in mind, we moved our attention to other student 

issues that are equally as important but were not related 

directly to the MSA, lest we get pulled up again. Articles that 

critiqued the way Monash University has responded to sexual 

assault on campus, issues surrounding a lack of gender-neutral 

toilets on campus, the need for a people of colour department 

within the union, the relationship Monash has with Woodside 

Petroleum, and the controversy over the introduction of night 

exams were all featured within our pages this year. 

These were all issues that deserved an equal amount of attention, 

yet we still felt that we could not critique the MSA and 

student union and actions carried out from within. Throughout 

our time as editors, there was always the fear that the edition 

would be pulled from the stands or shredded and that is not 

something we wanted to subject our contributors to. 

When election season came around again, we tried to negotiate 

with Go! for an independent partnership, where we could 

make a recommendation, and then Go! would support them 

as independents, as they did with the Left Action ticket for the 

Environment and Social Justice department. This suggestion 

was rejected out of hand, so we instead suggested a team that 

we thought Go! should run, as had happened with us. 

Go! seemed amenable to this situation, until the last minute, 

running instead their own team, of which only two out of 

four having had any experience with Lot’s Wife and none with 

editing experience. They did this without any consultation with 

our team, causing them significant distress, as they had been 

repeatedly reassured that Go! would run with them. 

Upon Go! rejecting our recommended candidates, we were 

faced with a choice. Given the behaviour of the Go! representatives, 

and our own past experiences, we had little interest in 

supporting their claim. So once again, we donned our shirts 

for election week, but this time they were purple, representing 

something we believed media should be: independent. 

Whilst we did not win, we put up one hell of a fight, winning 

almost 1000 votes, a remarkable feat for a ragtag team of 

underdogs that formed in just over a month. Unfortunately, Go! 

won all positions in the union, except one that is controlled by 

Left Action. Due to this outcome, we have significant concerns 

about the transparency and accountability of the student union 

and the role student media should be playing in this. 


There have been issues that have occurred in the past that 

your student publication should have been reporting widely on 

but weren’t. We feel this is because political factions constantly 

dominate Lot’s and bias and a lack of transparency become 

rampant. 

Over the years, unprofessional and, we believe, unethical 

acts have been perpetrated by members of the MSA, most 

of whom are from Go! and many of which maintain ties and 

affiliations with the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Whilst it is 

completely fine to have your own political leanings, it is problematic 

when situations arise when it can interfere or influence 

the use of student money. In 2015, $50,000 was approved by 

MSC for a campaign called ‘Australia Needs a Brighter Future’, 

whose aims were to fight and oppose attacks towards tertiary 

education. The PR firm that this campaign was linked with, 

Essential Media Communications, has strong ties to the ALP, 

with several key staff members connected to the party. As 

reported in Honi Soit, University of Sydney’s publication, this 

spending was not transparent with the campaign having done 

next to nothing since. 

In 2015, members of the executive - while campaigning 

for Go! - destroyed an independent student publication called 

Grotty. An article was published in September that critiqued 

the wages of staff within the MSA. Thus, 150 copies of Grotty 

were taken from Wholefoods and destroyed by being turned 

into paper chains that were then placed in offices and displayed 

at a Go! fundraiser. This was followed in election week by Go! 

campaigners throwing shredded copies of the issue over campaigners. 

Writers and editors of Grotty, as well as their friends, 

were powerless to stop their magazine from being publicly 

denigrated. We believe these actions displayed last year are an 

abhorrent example of not only a lack of respect toward students 

and their work, but also contempt towards independent 

media that critiques the union. How ‘progressive’ are members 

of our union if those who speak out are silenced, and silenced 

in such an appalling fashion? 

Farrago, University of Melbourne’s student newspaper, is 

currently an unattainable dream for Lot’s Wife. Prospective 

editors are determined by a rigorous pre-selection process, 

where the current editors and the Media Collective, a body of 

students who have worked on the magazine throughout the 

year, vote on next year’s editors. They then run on a ticket 

called Independent Media during the elections and it is rarely 

contested, as the other tickets see the benefits of this. 

The current Farrago editors believe that this transparent and 

fair process benefits the newspaper, “by not only providing a 

political grouping, but also by ensuring the most experienced 

members of the Media Collective at UniMelb are in charge of 

running Farrago and Radio Fodder”. This is certainly not always 

the case at Monash Clayton. 

All we desire is for Lot’s to be independent of the union. The 

position doesn’t hold a vote on Monash Student Council and 

one can only assume it is because we are to be an ‘independent 

body’ that reports on the occurrences within the union, rather 

than have a vote on what occurrences actually take place. But 

how can we be a beacon of independence when one political 

group has their fingers in nearly every pie, including our own? 

We have felt pressure throughout the year to not publish 

student’s work that has critiqued actions within the MSA, in 

“Throughout our time as 

editors, there was always 

the fear that the edition 

would be pulled from the 

stands or shredded and that 

is not something we wanted 

to subject our contributors 

to.” 

fear of a similar response to what happened to Grotty. In fact, 

right now we are fearful of what will happen to the very publication 

you are reading. We are caught in a situation where our 

right to free speech is threatened to the point that we are fearful 

to print. Our contributors’ do not deserve any sort of action 

that devalues and disrespects their work. We value their art but 

we also value freedom of speech and we believe we should not 

have to compromise one in order to have the other. 

The real question that should be asked here is: why are you 

so worried about being critiqued? What have you got to hide? 

You are a part of a $5 million body that is meant to be representative 

of the students and also possesses a large amount 

of student money. Your business is the student’s business. 

Transparency is key; in fact it is necessary for an organisation 

to function healthily. And media – the fourth estate – is the 

body that is meant to facilitate that transparency and hold 

those in power to account. So why are you so scared of the 

media not being completely on your side? 

But, to you the reader, it doesn’t have to be this way; students 

can have their say, they can vote differently in student 

elections. They can find out what is happening themselves: get 

involved in the union, go to MSC, see what is actually happening, 

participate in departments, be in the room where it 

happens. Think about what your union can do for you because 

right now it might not be doing that at all. If all else fails, follow 

our lead and put your name on the ballot next year. 

Disclaimer: This article is no way commenting on the MSA as a 

whole. We are critiquing the actions of some of the student elected 

representatives of the union that hold Office Bearer positions. 

Honi Soit article on ‘Brighter Futures’ campaign: http://honisoit.com/2016/02/ghost-campaign/ 

MSCs regarding ‘Brighter Futures’: http://msa.monash.edu/ 

MSA/files/45/45ec83a6-ef62-463e-b801-ff37a022641d.pdf 

Grotty issue that was destroyed: https://grottycommie.files. 

wordpress.com/2015/09/grotty-issue-6.pdf 

MSC regarding Grotty incident: http://msa.monash.edu/MSA/ 

files/54/545d1cad-9457-4eda-974d-d73337dff4af.pdf 

Post about Grotty incident: https:// 

www.facebook.com/MonashWholefoods/ 

photos/a.513224158799115.1073741837.347398725381660/820354374752757/ 


OFFICE BEARER REPORTS 

MSA PRESIDENT ABBY STAPLETON 

Hey Monash friends! Hope study stress hasn’t got you down, we’ve been fairly busy here at the MSA. 

Over the next few weeks we will be officially launching the workers’ rights advice service! As well as the 

free legal service available to all Clayton students. You might have seen the MSA banner at the most recent 

National Day of Action on August 24 th ! All the departments here worked hard to ensure that there was a big 

Monash contingent at the protest, this included putting up posters, banner drops and numerous stalls and 

lecture bashes. Last Thursday there were quite a few of us from the MSA who attended the CUB rally in the 

city. Carlton United Brewery recently laid off 55 workers and then attempted to re hire them at 65% less, so 

remember to boycott CUB! I have also been busy planning the MSA awards night which will be a joint collaboration 

with the Academic Affairs department. That’s all for now, hope you all have a great semester! 

TREASURER MATILDA GREY 

We’ve made it midway through semester 2! It feels like a milestone. An achievement. And one that has 

crept up on me unnoticed until I sat down to write this report to realise how far we’ve come together. I 

suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise given how busy we’ve been in the last few weeks! We’ve organised and 

run a third National Day of Action, which saw an awesome turnout of students on the streets of Melbourne 

CBD on August 24. Some of us have also been participating in actions to support 65 sacked Carlton United 

Breweries workers; remember to boycott their products at your parties! I’ve also been working hard to organise 

and kick off the budget process for 2017, and to divest the MSA reserves. Ciao for now! 

SECRETARY GLENN DONAHOO 

After much successful promoting and work around the National Day of Action on August 24th, I attended 

the protest at the State Library to stand against the Liberals continuing attacks on higher education. The new 

MSA website plans are looking great and is set to be up and running in time for enrolments next year, making 

the website much more accessible and easier to use that the old one. The constitutional changes I have been 

working on in collaboration with other departments and collectives will have been voted on by the time of 

publishing. Hopefully they have passed and we will now be able to introduce a People of Colour Department 

within the MSA, which is very exciting. If you have any issues during the upcoming exam period make sure 

you come and see one of our amazing student rights officer. And as always, if you have any suggestions on 

services or campaigns we could run, please send me an email at glenn.donahoo@monash.edu 

EDUCATION (ACADEMIC AFFAIRS) 

The final NDA of the year wrapped up in style on the 24th August with a great turnout and speakers including 

Van Badham and Roz Ward. We have also closed our nominations for the MSA Teaching Awards for 

Semester 1 and nominations for Semester 2 will be open for the next few weeks. We are also gearing up for 

the review into night exams in November, where hopefully we can ensure students aren't left in the dark 

with issues around exam timetabling. We hope to have served you well as you 2016 Education (Academic 

Affairs) Officers, and thanks for being awesome! Stay golden kids! 

EDUCATION (PUBLIC AFFAIRS) 

The Public Affairs Department has been hard at work building for the August 24th NDA and we had 

the privilege to help lead the march with members of the People of Colour Collective. This tied in with our 

campaign and the referendum to introduce a People of Colour Department in the MSA. This is an exciting 

opportunity for the MSA to join in with other student unions to represent students of colour on our campus. 

We have loved working with the PoC Collective and hope to continue the work of the Collective into next year. 

And hopefully you guys have enjoyed having us as your Education (Public Affairs) Officers! 

DISABILITIES & CARERS 


OFFICE BEARER REPORTS 

QUEER 

We’ve crossed the halfway mark of the semester and already it has been jam-packed with queer goodness. 

Following the ‘Loud and Proud’ performance night in week 2, we immediately started preparing for Queer 

Week and getting potential candidates ready for the 2017 queer officer position. 

Queer week was an absolute blast, a ton of workshops were run such as ‘queer people of faith’ and 

‘interracial dating’ as well as our autonomous groups meetings. Returning this queer week were some crowd 

favourite events like ‘coming out by candlelight’ where people share their stories, our pancake BBQ this time 

featuring purple pancakes for wear it purple day, and capping off the week was Queer Ball at sir John’s with a 

futuristic theme. 

Now things are winding down, but we still have plans for the semester like our upcoming marriage equality 

rally on 14/9 and SWOTVAC and chill to name a few. If you want more info, or would like to be added to 

our secret Facebook group email msa-queer-l@monash.edu or the public MSA Queer page. 

WELFARE 

The Welfare Dpizzle has just been doing their thang. Free Food Mondays is still running at full capacity – 

serving on average 150 people per week. Special shout out to our beautiful Vollies who put up with our continual 

stress and poor banter. Gravity were unable to run Yoga during week 6 due to terrible weather conditions 

however we hope that the rain rain will go away and come again on another day other than Tuesdays (Keep an 

eye on the MSA page for the next event and registration link). And lastly, we’ve been brainstorming ideas for 

the upcoming R U OK Day happening on Thursday the 15 th of September (Wk 8). Welfare will have a Friendship 

Tent set up in the Northern plaza filled with crafty activities for you and others to enjoy whilst having a chat. 

Asking your friends if they’re okay okay is an importany conversation which a lot of us don’t do regularly 

enough. So make sure next time you see your BFFLs ask and listen! Remember that Monash has excellent 

services to help with any issue (Contact us for further information if needed). 

Until next time – Timbo n Brendo send hugs and kisses to you all! 

ACTIVITIES 

What a year it’s been! 2016 has been amazing in the Activities department! We have two last events 

for students which are Oktoberfest and AXP! Get your ticket to Oktoberfest, the craziest night of the year 

with wench and lederhosen outfits, live german band, free unlimited food and alcohol all night - what’s 

not to love?! AXP is the classic send off, get rid of those exam blues and welcome in the summer break! 

Can’t believe the year is nearly over, the Activities department wants to thank everyone involved this 

year, all other MSA departments, volunteers and of course the students! Can’t wait to see you all next 

year for even bigger and better events! 

xoxo activitiesgurl 

ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 

Remember that monash academic who was facing deportation with his family because his son was autistic? 

Well, we ran a huge campaign to stop their deportation. We got hundreds of students involved in a solidarity 

photograph and hundreds of staff to sign our open letter to the immigration minister. And the best bit is we 

won. Thanks to the public outcry and the mass support from the monash community, we were able to make a 

difference. We extend our deepest gratitude to everyone that got involved in the campaign. 

We’ve also been busy bringing anti-racist politics to campus. We held a free screening of ‘Chasing Asylum’, a film 

about the torturous offshore detention centres. We took dozens of students to a rally to support the indigenous riots in 

Kalgoorlie. We co-hosted a meeting on the Black Panther Party too! 

For the rest of the semester we want to keep holding left wing forums and promoting progressive campaigns 

on campus so chuck us a message on facebook if you want to get involved @ ‘MSA Environment and Social Justice 

Collective’. 

WOMEN’S 

Good golly, how time flies! To close out our semester we will be looking into getting DISSENT, our 

own zine published, and continuing our support for the Human Rights Commission’s national survey 

into sexual assault in universities. We will also be continuing smaller events in the department including 

discussion groups and are looking into a larger social event with other departments. We are also 

going to be doing work to help usher in next year’s Women’s Officers (Nikola & Shreeya) and gathering 

feedback from the instalment of the content warnings. As this is our last Lot’s Wife report for the 

year, we’d like to thank everyone for a lovely year; we have been challenged, learnt so much and made 

so many connections, and for that we thank you all, you have made us stronger and better humans. 

INDIGENOUS 


SOCIETY

SOCIETY 

Positively 

paradoxical 

By Amber Francis 

Illustration by Lucie Cester 

cw: discussion of sexual assault in the 

abstract, misogynistic and whorephobic slurs 

“Sex positivity” is a movement about undoing the stigma 

around sex. It means different things to different people, but 

broadly, it’s the idea that all sex is positive if it’s consensual 

and practiced safely. It’s about affirming agency and freeing 

people from judgement. Education is an important tenet of this 

ideology, including information on consent and safe sex, as well 

as encouragement of experimentation, casual sex, polyamory, 

queerness, and kinks. This ideology is part of many feminist 

and queer rights movements, because while stigma affects 

everyone, women and queer people have their sexualities 

particularly shamed and policed, and the demand on men to 

be virile and sexually active is often couched in misogyny and 

gender essentialism. 

That all sounds pretty great, so where’s this movement going 

wrong? We all ought to be free to have as much or as little sex 

as we’d like, and a movement about education and eliminating 

judgement is crucial, given today’s society and our history. 

The problem is, it’s impossible to have a movement about 

eliminating judgement which simultaneously proclaims sex to 

be ultimately good. That is a moral judgement. When you say 

that all safe, consensual sex is positive, you leave the question: 

why would anybody not consent? Sex positivity is intended to 

give people freedom to abstain should they choose, but disliking 

something inherently good becomes absurd. Sometimes it’s 

phrased as “sex is potentially positive” but often this important 

distinction gets lost. It needs to be actively emphasised. 

Though it goes against the movement’s aim, sex positivity 

directly feeds into the society-wide virgin/whore dichotomy. 

Throughout history and across multiple cultures, women have 

been trapped between being seen as too prudish or too sexual. 

Usually the virgin is the “good woman”: loving, chaste, concerned 

with motherhood and family. She’s wife material, the 

kind of girl a man can bring home to his mother. 

But she’s boring, repressed, passive, and unattractive. On 

the otherhand, the “whore” is the temptress, the femme fatale; 

she’s sexually available and hot, but not a “good woman”. She’s 

dirty. She’s slutty. She’s saucy. She’s the “other woman”, the one 

men cheat on that good wife with. 

The assumed default changes throughout history. 

Sometimes, women are assumed to be naturally passive and 

uninterested in sex, needing to be coaxed into it by men, and a 

sexual woman is a deviant. At other times, women are assumed 

to be naturally promiscuous, and must be kept rigidly under 

control to protect their purity. Meanwhile, men are cast as the 

helpless victims of women’s seductive charms; or slaves to their 

own sexual urges kept in check by women’s resistance; or the 

active, confident party without whom sex would never happen. 

Obviously the population doesn’t divide cleanly into any category; 

these are stereotypes. Often, all these attitudes are held 

at the same time, in a dizzying paradox of sexual mores. But it’s 

a pervasive dichotomy. It results in women being called sluts 

just for being attractive or having large breasts. It feeds into 

ableism; physically disabled women, deemed “unattractive”, are 

desexualised and assumed virgins, while mentally ill women, 

deemed “crazy” and “out of control”, are hypersexualised. It 

feeds into homophobia; the stereotype of “lesbian bed death” is 

related to the idea that, without men, women cannot maintain 

sexually active lives. 

The morals assigned to sex tend to the puritanical “sex is 

dirty, virginity is pure” side. But in more “permissive” periods, 

such as the sexual revolution of the 60s, the Roaring 20s, and 

various art movements throughout time, this gets somewhat 

reversed, and the “chastity is boring, sex is fun” aspect becomes 

more important. This is often deliberately running against the 

grain of tradition, since the desire to be progressive is powerful 

as well. At the same time, sex appeal is very much tied up with 

a lot of other values, including beauty, health, desirability, selfworth, 

and love. 

Sex positivity, like the other sexual revolutions, attempts 

to alleviate slut-shaming, and show that there’s no shame in 

sex. However, it renews the idea of chastity as repressed, and 

promiscuity as desirable and liberating. It suggests that all that 

holds people back from enjoying sex and having lots of it is the 

stigma. If sex is ultimately good, not having sex is bad. Not 

wanting sex means that something’s wrong. While it’s absolutely 

not what the movement intends, those who are trying to 

pressure others into sex nevertheless use it to argue that sex 

and sexual liberation are positive. Why would you refuse? Are 

you repressed? Are you frigid? 

Further issues behind sex positivity are some of the messages 

used in education campaigns. In particular, slogans like 

“Consent is sexy”. This slogan aims to rebut notions that asking 

for explicit consent would “ruin the mood”, by reminding 

people that checking consent is a positive part of the sexual 

experience. 


SOCIETY 

But it’s hard to hold much nuance in three words, and 

numerous problems have been identified. Firstly, since consent 

- sexy or not - is compulsory, this framing misses the point 

and reduces consent to a fun extra. Secondly, this directly links 

“sexy” with “good” and “important”; sexy is used as an unqualified 

positive (again, an issue for sex positivity overall). Thirdly, 

if consent is sexy and won’t ruin the mood, does that mean not 

consenting will ruin the mood? Many activities can come under 

the umbrella of “sex”, and people must be free to refuse some 

even if they’re keen for others. And people might not want to 

have sex, but still have a good time together. Not wanting to let 

someone down or ruin a fun mood is already a pressure behind 

much unwanted sex. 

Sex positivity is often taken further; namely, it’s often 

claimed that there is no such thing as non-consensual sex. Sex 

is fundamentally consensual, and if there’s no consent, it’s 

rape. If sex is good, then there can’t be any such thing as “bad 

sex”. Sex is loving. Sex is ethical. Sex is without shame. Sex is 

consenting. If it wasn’t, it wasn’t sex. The old no true Scotsman 

argument. No nuance, no overlap. 

This is absurd. Imagine if this argument was applied to the 

“safe” part. It isn’t sex unless you’re on birth control! No condom? 

Not sex! There’s no such thing as unsafe sex! Worse than 

absurd, it’s harmful. 

Many rape survivors don’t initially realise that what 

happened was assault or identify it as such. There are infinite 

reasons why. They might have been coerced; they might think it 

wasn’t “bad enough”; they might be in denial. They might never 

call it rape, even if it is a so-called “textbook example”. People 

need this ability. Of course, many survivors want to keep their 

assault separate from other sexual experiences, and do this by 

using distinct labels; that’s also important. No single approach 

will suit everybody. Many activities are regarded as sex by 

some people and not by other people, and rape is one of them. 

But campaigning for rape to never count as sex is dangerous. 

Narratives around sexual assault are incredibly limiting and 

shaming already. We don’t need extra levels of labelling and 

scrutiny for survivors. 

Even besides sexual assault, the movement’s quest to prove 

that sex is ultimately positive ignores lots that simply isn’t. It 

doesn’t have to be assault to suck. Perhaps someone’s not into 

sex at all, but felt they should give it a shot. Perhaps someone’s 

been assaulted previously, and this unavoidably affects all their 

sexual encounters. Perhaps someone has vaginismus or something 

else which makes sex difficult or painful. Perhaps some 

partners like completely different things and they’re trying to 

compromise. Perhaps someone’s using sex to self-harm. There 

are infinite ways to enjoy sex, and as many ways to not. They’re 

not all “experimenting”, and won’t improve with practise. It’s 

usually acknowledged that survivors and those with disabilities 

or other medical conditions might not want sex; but this still 

implies that, were it not for that “deficiency”, everybody would 

want and enjoy sex. 

“If sex is ultimately 

good, not having sex is 

bad. Not wanting sex 

means that something’s 

wrong.” 

Some people are asexual, some just aren’t interested. We 

need to work as actively to tell people that it’s okay to not enjoy 

sex, and that we don’t need the mediocre “bonding” experiences 

we’re told are integral to normal healthy relationships. We 

can work with our partners and the people in our lives to create 

mutually beneficial relationships, however we want those to be. 

There’s nothing inherently negative about sex, and the 

seemingly inescapable stigma needs challenging, but there’s 

nothing inherently positive about it either. It’s imperative for 

sex positive movements to maintain this distinction. While sex 

is demonised, it’s also hopelessly entwined with desirability, 

beauty, and love; these are ideas which need to be challenged 

alongside slut-shaming. 

Like other activities and hobbies, there are ways to go about 

it that are respectful, kind, and loving; there are also rude, 

unsafe, and abusive ways. It’s all sex. Not everybody is into it. 

Not everybody wants to be into it. People need education about 

consent and safety, but honestly, the world has had enough of 

assigning moral value to sex. 


SOCIETY 

The #hashtag movement 

By Sachetha Bamunusinghe 

T 

he fact that I’m writing this article is a testament to how 

far technology has become involved with our lives. 20 

years ago people would have referred to ‘hash’ as that button 

on their block phones, or the legendary hashbrown (still is). 

However now, the hashtag has revolutionized the way we communicate 

about world issues. World issues are serious issues 

that affect real people in the real world. So how has typing your 

opinion on social media become an important role in advocating 

world problems? Is the #hashtag movement a call for 

the new generation of discussion, or is it rather, a call in only 

discussion and no action? 

An important advantage of hashtag activism is the ability to 

increase awareness about global issues. As social media allows 

us to connect with people from around the world, advocating 

an issue can be done with a click of a button. A notable example 

is #ALSIceBucketChallenge which involved participants pouring 

ice water on themselves to increase awareness of Motor Neuron 

Disease. This hashtag campaign spread awareness about the 

disease and how there is ongoing research for the causes and 

for a cure. Additionally, the #ALSIceBucketChallenge generated 

an increase of donations for many ALS organizations to 

research the disease with approximately US$220 million donated 

in 2014. The #ALSIceBucketChallenge encompasses the 

power of social media in spreading awareness of what would 

have been a lesser-known health issue, and to instead, increase 

charitable donation and awareness worldwide. The power of 

hashtags allows us to advocate these issues to our community 

so they are informed and aware of how they can take-part at 

any level and contribute. 

Another advantage of hashtag activism is the inspiration 

to create change, and to discuss important ideas with others. 

A hashtag that is close to home yet encapsulates values that 

are universal is seen through #iwillridewithyou. This hashtag 

sparked discussion after the siege in the Lindt café in Sydney, 

as there were reports of Australian Muslims fearing to ride 

public transport in Australia. The hashtag allowed people to 

pledge their support to ride public transport with those who 

wear religious attire, to help them not fear racism in public. 

This great campaign created a sense of unity around Australia, 

as Australian Muslims felt safer in their community as Mr 

Malas states in an ABC interview “it’s very positive and just 

makes you feel you are not alone in this”. The hashtag #iwillridewithyou 

illustrates how a community who may feel divided 

and disadvantaged can instead unite and create a more harmonious 

Australia. Additionally, #iwillridewithyou has sparked 

online discussion about why this is an important issue and how 

racism by the few is not tolerated in our multicultural society. 

It is evident that hashtag activism in the technological world, 

can pledge our support and drive for positive change in the real 

world. 

However, in light of these positives there are certain 

limitations that should be noted, one of which is how successful 

outcomes from hashtag activism is not guaranteed. For 

example #BringBackOurGirls was formed after the abduction 

of 276 school girls by a Boko Haram-led militant Islamist group 

in Nigeria. It is believed that the girls were abducted for forced 

sex slavery, a horrendous issue that is becoming prominent in 

marginal areas. The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls was recognized 

by well known figures such as U.S First Lady Michelle 

Obama, who assisted in driving more awareness of the issue. 

However two years later many of the girls are still missing, 

resulting in increased pressure for International Governmental 

organizations to undertake appropriate action, and further 

increase funding for school programs in Nigeria. Another 

movement that highlights failed elements of hashtag activism 

is #Kony2012. This hashtag was used to raise awareness about 

a violent militant movement led by Joseph Kony, who was 

known to use child soldiers in Uganda. Although this sparked 

discussion in 2012 and campaign videos were seen millions of 

time, Kony is still currently free. Many say that the #Kony2012 

campaign was one that was too focused on making impactful 

films, rather than finding practical solutions. What does this 

say about hashtag activism? Is it really making a difference in 

solving world issues? 

These are just a few points about hashtag activism and 

its role in discussing world issues, but there is also intensive 

research conducted by many so do check it out. Hashtag movements 

have the ability to spark much needed discussion around 

the world. Although, are we so congested in social media that 

we dismiss taking further action in real life? Would we rather 

advocate behind the safety of our screens? Whether you believe 

the #hashtag movement is effective or not, it is certainly 

becoming a point of discussion and will continue to be so in the 

future. 


SOCIETY 

Good for you 

By Harley McDonald-Eckersall 

Illustration by Amber Francis 


SOCIETY 

Content warning: This article contains 

discussion about body isssues and eating 

disorders 

A 

familiar conversation: You ask someone – friend, lover, 

acquaintance, family member, etcetera – if they would 

like to share some delicious item of food with you, only to be 

greeted with the increasingly common phrase, “Oh I shouldn’t, 

I’m trying to be good”. How many of you have been a part of 

such a conversation in the recent past? I’m guessing that if we 

were in a classroom right now, there would be a sea of hands 

raised in agreement. But what does this perception of food 

and health mean for us as a society? Are we really at the point 

where we judge our morality on how physically healthy we are? 

Doesn’t that seem kind of messed up? 

These days we are bombarded with the idea of conscienceladen 

eating, with phrases such as ‘guilt free’ being plastered 

across everything from pasta recipes to ice-cream and moral 

labels such as good, bad, naughty and virtuous being used 

to refer to what we choose to put into our bodies. The health 

industry is one which seems to constantly be trying to guide 

us towards a perfect lifestyle, offering us “superfoods” and 

informing us how much exercise we should be doing, what we 

should and should not be eating, and why the way we want to 

live is just not good enough. 

More and more we are being conditioned not to accept our 

intuitions about our health and to instead follow the guidelines 

of the latest study or celebrity fitness blogger, who we are 

led to believe understands our bodies far better than we ever 

could. Simultaneously, our trust in our own senses and needs is 

degraded, while we are flooded with a barrage of conflicting information. 

At the end of the day it seems that no matter whose 

advice we follow there will be someone else telling us that we 

are doing it wrong. This leads to the conclusion that there must 

be a “right” way to be healthy. 

Can anyone see what is missing from this insidious perception 

of individual health? That’s right – the individual. What 

our health industry seems to be largely missing is the fact that 

health is immensely personal and is not something a one-size 

fits all mentality can be applied to. When wellbeing is moralised 

individuality is eliminated, leading to a widespread disassociation 

of personal needs and desires, an effect which can have 

extremely dangerous outcomes on mental health and identity. 

As a person who is struggling with, and recovering from, an 

eating disorder, I have seen this disassociation first hand in an 

eating disorder ward at one of our local hospitals. As a direct 

result of messages from the media and the internet, I have 

experienced in myself – and I have seen in others – a complete 

What our health 

industry seems to be 

largely missing is the 

fact that health is 

immensely personal and 

is not something a onesize 

fits all mentality 

can be applied to. 

loss of trust in physical sensations, with my needs only allowed 

to be fulfilled when they are endorsed by someone else. Desires 

and behaviours are labelled as good or bad, based on the latest 

piece of information read or heard. 

No doubt these are extreme cases, but they are not as 

far removed from the norm as one may think. In fact, this 

obsession with, and moralisation of, health is so prevalent that 

it has even spawned its own unofficial diagnosis: orthorexia 

nervosa. It seems that general beliefs about food, exercise and 

health are blurring with mental illnesses, with even perfectly 

healthy people’s consciences prickling when deciding to watch a 

movie instead of going to the gym or to enjoy a piece of ‘guilty’ 

cake at a friend’s birthday party. While health is undoubtedly 

important it is also holistic, and encompasses more than just 

the physical, unquestionably linked with wellbeing and – 

crucially – happiness. 

When how we choose to go about achieving our own 

personal version of health becomes the focus of morality and 

judgement, we run the risk of losing sight of what our real 

needs are and how we can achieve them. While there are people 

who may want some professional guidance to achieve optimum 

wellbeing, for the most part we are the ones who understand 

what health feels like for us and what we need to do to function 

at our best. So, next time you or someone else goes to refuse 

something they want because they are ‘being good’ perhaps 

take a moment to question whose concept of good is being 

considered. Is it really yours? 


We need to 

talk about 

Lionel Shriver 

By Linh Nguyen 

‘White people create the dominant images of the world 

and don’t quite see that they thus construct the world in 

their own image’ 

Richard Dyer, ‘The Matter of Whiteness’ 

the teacher reads snow white 



in our fairy tales 

my daughter will scar herself 

with household bleach tonight 

crying mirror mirror on the wall 

erase this face as black as night 

Maxine Beneba Clarke, 

Melbourne Writers Festival, Opening Night 

Address, 26th August, 2016 

I am hopeful that the concept of “cultural appropriation” 

is a passing fad … 

Membership of a larger group is not an identity. Being 

Asian is not an identity. Being gay is not an identity. 

Being deaf, blind, or wheelchair-bound is not an identity, 

nor is being economically deprived. 

… I would argue that any story you can make yours is 

yours to tell, and trying to push the boundaries of the 

author’s personal experience is part of a fiction writer’s 

job.’ 

Lionel Shriver, 

Brisbane Writers Festival, Opening Night Address, 

11th September, 2016 

I 

’m tired by this. I’m exhausted. I have nothing new to say 

that many others haven’t already said before me. 

By the time this article reaches you this controversy will 

most likely be yesterday’s news, yet the debate at the centre of 

it remains as pertinent as ever. 

Don’t know what I am talking about? 

This year, Lionel Shriver was invited to give the opening 

address at the Brisbane Writers Festival. Shriver, always the 

one to bait controversy, went against the festival’s rosy-bland 

theme of ‘Community and Belonging’ to deliver an incendiary 

keynote address on ‘identity politics’ and ‘cultural appropriation’. 

Many people walked out during her speech, one of which 

was Yassmin Abdel-Magrid, who—in a blog post that went viral 

and was subsequently published on The Guardian—described it 

as ‘a poisoned package wrapped up in arrogance and delivered 

with condescension’. Countless think pieces have sprouted up 

in response. In writing this, I’m in danger of adding noise to an 

already deafening room. Yet, the spectacle surrounding Lionel 

Shriver’s inflammatory speech has tapped into an issue that is 

raging at the heart of our collective consciousness. 

For Shriver, the primary injustice of our literary culture isn’t 

the erasure, the silencing, and the marginalization of “minority 

or disadvantaged identities” (her words, not mine), but the 

militant climate of ‘political correctness’ that a privileged, widely-published 

and internationally-celebrated white writer like 

her faces. She uses her platform to bemoan the push toward 

inclusive representation, stating how the presence of transgender 

and queer characters in TV shows such as Transparent and 

Orange Is The New Black is just another ‘fashionable exercise’ 

in tokenism. She takes shots at the criticism levelled against 

her depiction of the single black character in her new novel. 

But most of all, she ridicules the ‘hoo-ha’ surrounding issues of 

‘cultural appropriation’ in art and fiction, namely, when a white 

writer speaks for, and writes from the perspective of, a person 

of colour. 

Underneath all her misplaced racial ignorance and self-importance, 

there lies a genuine question—are there limits to an 

artist’s imagination? How do writers create and relate to stories 

outside their own experience and identities, particularly when 

they are positioned in a place of power and privilege? How do 

we represent other lives? Lionel erases all nuance to the discussion 

when she immediately attacks from the defensive, and 

mocks the legitimate critiques that people have raised. 

Let’s take a recent example from Monash. Earlier this year, 

MUST put on a show that involved, among other things, a 

white student dressing up and performing as his Chinese 

alter-ego. Many in the Monash Women of Colour Collective felt 

this to be a prime example of yellow-face, another incident in 

the long history of white people performing as Asian stereotypes 

(See: Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s). 

To give the benefit of the doubt, let’s say that this performance 

was intended as a sincere homage to Chinese people and 

Chinese culture, et cetera et cetera. However, the idea that you 

can put on an ethnic or racial identity as a costume is inherently 

offensive, and to do so echoes the racist tradition of minstrel 

shows. While this may not have been the artist’s intention, 

cultural products are not created in a vacuum. 

Lionel Shriver champions the idea that ‘fiction writers have 

a vested interest in protecting everyone’s right to offend others’. 

She utilizes the common trope of ‘political correctness’ as 

a form of totalitarian censorship, eroding her inalienable right 


Non-white children 

grow up in a culture 

where, in the stories 

and narratives they 

receive, they don’t see 

themselves reflected. 

to freedom of expression and speech. As Junot Diaz remarked: 

“note the contradiction: Shriver’s right to appropriate should 

not be questioned, by our right to question that appropriation 

should be condemned”. Shriver sees herself as an outlier, an 

‘iconoclast’, defending an unpopular opinion in the face of 

righteous moral indignation; but in essence, Shriver hasn’t said 

anything that we haven’t heard countless times before. A cursory 

glance at the comments section will show that many, if not 

most, share her views. Lionel Shriver isn’t in danger of being 

silenced – her speech has garnered a blizzard of attention, and 

is circulating with immense traction. Lionel isn’t speaking from 

the margins; she’s pontificating from a seat of power. 

Indeed, coverage of Shriver’s Speech eclipsed that of 

Maxine Beneba Clarke’s powerful Opening Night Address at 

the Melbourne Writers Festival, two weeks before. Maxine, a 

Melbourne writer of Afro-Caribbean descent, chose to address 

‘the unsung narratives, the stories ignored, the stories beneath 

our feet…the worlds often absent from our national literature’. 

Two festivals, two incommensurable opening night 

addresses. 

Maxine affirmed how integral narratives and stories are to 

one’s world view and self-perception: ‘‘Story is how we say: ‘We 

were here.’ ‘We existed.’ ‘This is how it was.’’ 

She asks: ‘What do we seek story for, if not to encounter 

worlds different from our own, as well as interrogate the one 

we exist in?’ 

Maxine draws attention to the fact that non-white children 

grow up in a culture where, in the stories and narratives they 

receive, they don’t see themselves reflected: ‘some Australian 

children learn very quickly that literature is a landscape they 

do not belong in, that books render them invisible. That their 

stories are not important’. (if you want to make a human being 

into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of 

themselves – Junot Diaz) 

As a first generation migrant, I can attest to this experience. 

Although as a child I was an avid reader and consumer of literature, 

in the fictional universes I encountered, I discovered that 

– bar one or two exceptions –I didn’t exist. On TV, in films, in 

music; I didn’t exist. 

It wasn’t until university that I discovered a term for this 

exists: symbolic annihilation. 

Symbolic annihilation encompasses two things: firstly, it’s 

not seeing yourself represented in culture; secondly, it’s only 

seeing yourself being denigrated, reduced, eroded, infantilized 

—in essence, only seeing yourself through someone else’s 

terms. 

In my five years studying literature at this tertiary institution, 

I can count the number of texts I have studied, written by 

a person-of-colour, on my fingers. 

The ‘Academy’ is overwhelmingly white. The culture industry 

is overwhelmingly white. Stories are uniformly depicted from 

a white perspective. Racialized images are uniformly created 

from a white perspective. 

(If the producers of racial imagery do not interrogate their 

perspective, then they may simply recreate the imperial gaze— 

the look that seeks to dominate, subjugate, and colonize.’ bell 

hooks) 

Yes, I believe that writers can and should step outside their 

own experience and inhabit other people’s skin. Fiction can be a 

place of radical identification and radical empathy. 

Yet: 

Co-opting someone else’s voice is an act of violence. Putting 

on someone else’s skin is an act of violence. 

As an artist, you can choose to engage in that violence. But 

don’t suggest that this act is without cost. 

Own it. Own that violence. 

Understand that you are implicating yourself in a colonial 

and imperial tradition. 

Know that narratives, that words, that language itself — 

they are not neutral, not innocent. 

Know that culture cannot be divorced from the material 

conditions of the world we live in. Know that stories come with 

histories. 

More than anything, be conscious and critical of the culture 

you consume. 

* My title is inspired by this brilliant essay: 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jennybagel/they-pretend-to-be-us-while-pretendingwe-dont-exist 

‘They pretend to be us while pretending we don’t exist’ by Jenny 

Zhang 


SOCIETY 

Politics in trenches 

By Julia Pillai 

In response to Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech, all nine 

Greens senators walked out of the senate in a move that 

Greens Leader Richard Di Natale described as “reaching out 

decent Australians” by speaking out against racism. However 

this action by the Greens, much like Pauline’s speech itself, has 

caused controversy. 

The speech, and the response to it, summarises the problems 

between the left and the right. While the statements made by 

Pauline range from ridiculous, defamatory, untrue, and likely 

to incite hatred, the action by the Greens did not do anything 

to remedy that issue. If anything, it may have had the opposite 

effect. It may have proven in the eyes of Hanson supporters 

that the Greens are ‘latté sipping, elitist socialists’, out of touch 

with the increasingly disillusioned working class. This has led 

to far right groups making ridiculous claims of bigotry that 

are seemingly unable to tell the difference between historical 

and systematic oppression based on identifiers that cannot be 

altered or chosen by individuals, and are expressed by people 

simply wishing to oppose opinions that other people choose to 

have. 

I was *inspired* by a Junkee Video of with a overtly hipster-ish 

bearded tattooed guy talking about how getting news 

through social media has led many people to be in “echo chambers”. 

In order to save myself from my friends socially progressive/liberal/centrist-to-left 

opinions (over the last few months) 

I have forced myself to do the following: 

1. Follow The Australian on Facebook 

2. Actually read these articles… past the headlines 

3. Read the comments… and occasionally actually comment. 

Like most Facebook comment threads, the ones in response 

to The Australian are all fairly feral, illiterate and horrifying 

and likely to make you think horrible things, like “Socrates was 

right democracy is a terrible idea”. Yet other than an increase 

in misanthropy, it’s been an experience. And viewing both sides 

has led me to this conclusion: 

The right love to troll. The left adore calling out. 

While there is certainly scope for real criticism on many issues, 

the foot soldiers of the right never takes that opportunity. 

Instead, it opts for ridiculing the issues, creating straw men and 

making intellectually deficit claims. They fail at every level to 

understand what they are discussing - they know that they hate 

‘political correctness’ but have no real understanding of what 

that means, or the actual purpose of what that is. 

The left, on the other hand, have strangely similar problems. 

While much like how there is space for criticism on issues, 

there’s certainly a legitimacy in calling out problematic actions 

or statements. Yet the foot soldiers of the left too often call 

out individuals, rather than actions and opinions. “What that 

person says is illegitimate because they (the person who said it) 

are/racist/sexist/queerphobic, etc.” 

Politics is personal, and on both the left and the right, 

individuals feel hurt and disregarded. They also feel genuinely 

terrified. Whether or not we think that these feelings 

are legitimate, both sides *feel* oppressed, and in some cases 

they are. The feeling on both sides is that the other side is not 

willing to educate themselves about their issues or struggles, 

and not willing to take measures to reconcile. This is also true. 

Preaching to the converted does not solve any issues. It only 

digs our political graves. 


Wot’s Life with Monorail Man 

Illustration by Christina Dodds 

What do you do, exactly? 

I've sold monorails to Swinburne, Deakin, and RMIT, and, 

by gum, it put them on the Times Higher Education World 

University Rankings! 

Well, sir, there's nothing on earth 

Like a genuine, bona fide 

Electrified, six-car monorail! 

What'd I say? 

Monorail! But I hear those things are awfully loud? 

It glides as softly as a cloud! 

Is there a chance the track could bend? 

Not on your life, my jaffy friend! 

What about us brain-dead slobs? 

Just drop out! I’ll get you cushy jobs. 

Were you sent here by UniMelb? 

No, good sir, they need my help! 

I swear it's Monash's only choice, 

Throw up your hands and raise your voice! 

Monorail! 

What's it called? 

Monorail! 

Once again! 

Monorail! But our parking system is messed up and 

broken... 

Sorry, ma’am, the Chancellor has spoken. 


RESULTS OF ELECTIONS 

Counting of votes cast at the 2016 MSA annual elections has 

concluded, with election results declared. The number of votes 

for the referendum is listed first and then the first preference 

votes received by each candidate by position is listed below 

that. 

Referendum 

For the referendum question: 

“Do you agree to the proposed amendments to the MSA 

Constitution including the addition of 

Radio Monash as a division, the creation of the People of 

Colour department, the removal of 

the Committees from the constitution and the changes to the 

Queer and Disabilities 

departments?” 

2,601 students cast a vote in the referendum out of 30,414 

students on the electoral roll. 

• 2,105 students voted for the resolution to be adopted. 

• 397 students voted against the resolution being adopted. 

• 99 students cast an informal vote. 

The referendum question was declared to be carried. 

Environment & Social Justice Officer 

Jasmine Duff & Tess Dimos Go! 1808 

Naish Gawen & Jasmine Shirrefs Grassroots 706 

Informal votes: 87 

Women’s Affairs Committee 

Jessie Lu Go! 852 – 1st Elected 

Emily Jiang Go! 9 – 3rd Elected 

Gellie Cano Go! 6 – 4th Elected 

Eleanor D’Ambrosio Scott Go! 13 – 5th Elected 

Emily Griffith Grassroots 213 – 2nd Elected 

National Union of Students Delegates 

Abigail Stapleton Go! 1365 – 1st Elected 

Matilda Grey Go! 19 – 4th Elected 

Jessica Stone Go! 15 – 5th Elected 

Nicholas Virgo Go! 15 – 6th Elected 

Tess Dimos Left Action 527 – 2nd Elected 

Jasmine Duff Left Action 21 – 7th Elected 

Lauren Karas Grassroots 312 – 3rd Elected 

Any queries in relation to the above can be directed to me at 

msa.returningofficer@gmail.com. 

Electronic copies of the multi-member count sheets are available 

from the MSA upon request. 

Gavin Ryan 

Returning Officer 

23 September 2016 

0409 757 504 

msa.returningofficer@gmail.com 

Editors of Lot’s Wife 

Robert Staunton, Emina Besirevic, Nicholas Bugeja & 

Sophia McNamara Go! 1565 

Ovindu Rajasinghe, Madeline Luke & Tara Hellwege 956 

Informal votes: 95 

Monash Student Council General Representative 

Eve Ward Go! 1548 – 1st Elected 

Sasha Brady Go! 28 – 2nd Elected 

Benjamin Caddaye Go! 12 – 3rd Elected 

Eleanor D’Ambrosio Scott Go! 17 – 4th Elected 

Elizabeth Jackson Left Action 362 – 5th Elected 



SUN MON TUES WED 

2 3 

4 5 

9 10 11 12 

O 

C 

T 

O 

B 

E 

R 

16 17 18 19 

23 24 25 26 

30 31

THURS FRI SAT 

1 

6 7 8 

O 

C 

T 

O 

B 

E 

R 

13 14 15 

Designed by 

Lucie Cester 

20 21 22 

27 28 29 

November already? Turn 

over for an illustration by 

Olivia Parry


SCIENCE 

IT MEANS THEY CARE? 

Relationships, be they partners, friends or family, can be a great 

part of life, but sometimes behaviours that we can brush off as 

someone 'just showing how much they care' can actaully be 

harmful or dangerous. Relationships should be about equality, 

respect and open communication. These are some red flags you 

should look for before or during any relationship. 

MONASH 

SAFER COMMUNITY UNIT 

T: +61 3 9905 1599 

E: safercommunity@monash.edu 

monash.edu 

Try asking yourself: 

• Do they show extreme moodswings, saying that they'll love you 

forever then getting angry and saying they hate you? 

• Are they expecting you to make big, unreasonable committments to 

them very early in the relationship? 

• Are they possissive, jealous or manipulative? Do they try to stop you 

from seeing your family and friends or spread lies about you to them? 

• Are they controlling of your behaviour, such as dictating where 

you go, what you can wear or even what you can eat? 

Never date someone out of pity and trust your instincts. If these 

behaviours sound familiar, the Safer Community Unit can help. 

For information, advice and support in a safe environment, please contact the Monash University Safer Community Unit on 9905 

1599 or just dial 51599 from a Monash phone.The Safer Community Unit website also lists resources and links to external agencies 

http://www.adm.monash.edu.au/safercommunity/ 

Adapted from Surviving Stalking (2002) by Michele Pathé

SCIENCE

SCIENCE 

I want to believe 

(but the math says no) 

By James Quintana Pearce 

Illustration by Eliza Stribling 

Almost a year ago, civilisation was shattered when citizen 

astronomers prepublished a paper on arXiv titled: 

Planet Hunters X. KIC 8462852 - Where's the Flux? What originally 

appeared to be a tepid report of a tedious astronomical 

phenomena detected by the Kepler telescope between 2009 and 

2013 soon became the subject of global gossip and speculation. 

KIC 8462852 (now known as Tabby’s Star after the lead 

author of the paper) lies roughly 1,400 light years away in 

the constellation of Cygnus, the swan*. The paper reported 

“aperiodic dips in flux of up to ~20\%. The dipping activity can 

last for between 5 and 80 days. They concluded that the most 

likely explanation was the passage of a family of exocomets or 

planetesimal fragments in front of the star. 

That would have been fine, if the boffins had left it alone. 

However, Professor Schaefer from Louisiana State University 

examined half a million photographs of the sky taken between 

1890 and 1989 and found that the star had been dimming 

consistently over that hundred years. 

Not to be outdone, a grad student at CalTech published a 

study showing that the dimming of the star was even more 

excessive than that. Over the first thousand days of the Kepler 

mission, Tabby’s Star dimmed at 0.34% (twice as fast as over 

the period looked at by Professor Schaefer) then dimmed by 

more than 2% over the next 200 days, and then steadied out. 

As the authors wrote: “No known or proposed stellar phenomena 

can fully explain all aspects of the observed light curve.” 

So, what explanation does that leave? That’s right: Aliens. 

As Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, 

said: “this looked like something you would expect an alien 

civilization to build”. The idea was that the dimming was caused 

by an alien civilisation building a Dyson Swarm, which is a large 

number of objects orbiting a star and capturing its energy, such 

as solar powered space stations with vast solar panels. 

Don’t worry, maths proves that it’s not an alien 

megastructure. 

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains about 100 billion stars. 

That’s a whopping big number. While we don’t know how many 

alien civilisations there are in the galaxy, Frank Drake once 

proposed an equation to estimate how many we could detect. 

He argued that the number would be equal to the average 

rate of star formation in our galaxy multiplied by the fraction 

of formed stars that have planets, multiplied by the average 

number of planets per star that has planets that can support 

life, multiplied by the fraction of those planets that actually 

develop life, multiplied by the fraction of those planets bearing 

life on which intelligent, civilised life has developed, multiplied 

by the fraction of those that have developed communications, 

multiplied by the length of time over which such civilisations 

release detectable signals. 

That’s a lot of things to take into account, but the important 

thing is to notice how many of those are fractions. Most stars 

seem to have planets, but very few of those planets would be 

capable of supporting life. They have to be the right size, with 

the right components, at the right distance from the star. 

Even those planets that could support life don’t automatically 

generate it - as far as we know life has spontaneously generated 

exactly once, even though other planets in our solar system 

have been capable of supporting life in the past. So I think it’s 

safe to say that only a small fraction of planets that can sustain 

life actually develop it. 

How many planets that have a genesis event actually go on 

to develop an advanced civilisation that we could detect? The 

formation of eukaryotes and multicellular organisms is not a 

given, and most life events would stay at the primordial ooze 

stage. If intelligent life develops, but finds itself on a planet 

without an easy fuel source or without many metals, it’s not 

going to get very far. 

I won’t put any numbers in here - you can play with that - 

but it’s safe to say that for every star that contains an advanced 

civilisation building a Dyson Swarm, there are hundreds of 

millions - or even billions - of stars that are just doing their own 

thing based on non-living processes. Remember, Kepler only 

looked at 145,000 stars. 

So any time we detect an irregularity, no matter how 

difficult it is for us to come up with an explanation that fits 

its peculiarities, the chances of the cause being alien civilisations 

rather than astronomical processes is in the order of 1 

in billions. If we found a strangely behaving star every day we 

would, on average, have to look for hundreds of thousands of 

years before we found a peculiarity that was actually the result 

of aliens. 

This argument applies to everything regarding aliens. If a 

strange craft floats down before you one lonesome night, and 

a little green man with silly antennae on his head struts up 

and down in front of you making “meep meep” noises, it’s far 

more likely that you ate the wrong mushrooms than that you’ve 

made inter-planetary contact. If this craft came down in a city 

and thousands of people saw and took photos and videos and 

posted them to instagram, it is statistically far more likely to be 

a hoax perpetrated by Russia or Coca Cola than alien life forms 

popping over to say “hey gurl”. 

*Of course, everyone missed the obvious “Black Swan” pun. This is because news 

organisations keep firing sub-editors. 


Up all night to get lucky 

by Hashwina Vimalrajan 


W 

e've all been in that situation before. Hands on head, 

clock ticking on one side, papers scattered all over, 

caffeine or energy drink on one end, table lamp on the other 

and a bleak computer screen with the words ‘'DEADLINE DUE 

TOMORROW'' right in front . And cue *panic attack*. 

As university students, we’re all extremely prone to pull 

the eventual all-nighter now and then. Some of us do it most 

of the time and emerge victorious 10/10 (I suspect witchcraft 

involved with this), but with most, it’s usually just rushing 

to pass or achieve an average mark. We're well aware of the 

consequences associated with our decision of pulling an 

all-nighter but why do we still do it? Well, science states and 

proves that when the human brain is subjected to any severe/ 

intense form of stress and or pressure, it chooses to take the 

quickest route and carry out the said task as soon as possible. 

This is simply a survival mechanism. The response enables the 

human brain to quickly react to life-threatening situations. A 

semester paper due the next day or an impending exam, etc. 

would be the precise definition of a life-threatening situation. 

So, as much as people advise us to get seven to eight hours of 

sleep, we're somehow going to deny that suggestion completely, 

respond to our hormonal and physiological changes and 

jump on to the bandwagon to complete what's thought to be, 

a ‘'successful all-nighter''. Procrastination here is the mother 

of all evil and most definitely one of the factors aiding the 

attempt of an all-nighter. Now, as an avid procrastinator myself 

I can confirm that the guilt and panic does not kick in until 

the very last minute; that no matter what task big or small, it 

just somehow decides to get delayed by itself (or the universe 

conspiring against it) and if there was a rehabilitation centre 

for this disease, I would willingly admit myself to it. I say this 

as I rush to write this overdue article. Guilty as charged. Once 

procrastination comes into play, the situation all goes downhill 

and we're trapped into what seems to be a time crunch filled between 

caffeine and a computer screen. In this small time frame 

where we work tirelessly trying to finish our task and when we 

take the irrational decision of not sleeping, what do you think 

happens to your brain? 

Well first and foremost, your hormone levels rise. Cortisol is 

a stress hormone and as stated earlier, since your stress levels 

are already high, deciding to stay awake the whole night makes 

it rise even more resulting in a decrease in memory, bone 

density and lowering of immunity. Another two hormones that 

mess things up are leptin and ghrelin which regulate appetite. 

In individuals who lack sleep, the body tends to produce less 

leptin and more ghrelin making you feel constantly hungry. 

Safe to say, if you're trying to lose weight or be healthy don't 

even TRY to attempt an all-nighter. Secondly, your thalamus 

goes haywire. The thalamus is an essential component of the 

vertebrate brain and controls consciousness and alertness 

.Without this functioning properly, the human mind loses its 

ability to recognize faces and facts. This can be linked with the 

popular ideology that an all-nighter doesn't actually help you 

retain information, but rather forget it and that your prefrontal 

lobes get tied up. Working memory is divided into four subsystems 

and all of these are connected to how well your frontal 

lobe works, and this takes a hit when you don't sleep. 

Now that you've been enlightened about the biological consequences 

of an all-nighter and will still do it anyways, here are 

some alternatives you can choose to follow: 

1. Switch from caffeine to fruit. Eating an apple has been 

scientifically proven to keep you more awake than consuming 

a gazillion amounts of decaf. 

2. Read and read and read. Rereading the material during 

the daytime, and then sleeping on it, helps encode that 

material into your long-term memory whereas if you 

study all throughout the night, your brain will have difficulties 

recalling the necessary information. 

3. Chuck out the energy drinks and hit the gym instead. 

Exercise has scientifically be proven to boost your mood 

and give you more energy due to the mood-enhancing 

chemicals that are pumped out when you exercise. So in 

between breaks, squeeze in a squat or two to pump up 

some of that energy. 

4. Stay cool (literally). When the effects of your sleep 

rhythm start to chime in, it signals your body to sleep 

by making you feel colder. Resist the urge to turn up the 

heat and layer down. 

5. Vicks it up. A lesser-known trick for an extra boost is 

found in Vicks Vapor Rub. Since it is a drug containing 

menthol and camphor, it tries to stimulate your senses 

and keep you awake. 


SCIENCE 

Electrons are the creepiest particle 

By Basia Mitula 

Electrons. Tiny, little, smaller-than-microscopic things 

that people tend to forget exist when going about 

their day to day lives. You learnt about them in science class. 

They have something to do with electricity. And they’re 

EVERYWHERE. 

You probably are quite familiar with these concepts. But 

have you ever considered… just how creepy they are? 

The key to their creepiness lies in quantum theory. Quantum 

theory, by definition, is weird. As many famous physicists have 

said in varying different ways: “if you think you understand 

quantum mechanics, you really don't”. Electrons as quantum 

particles act in weird ways. Weird and kinda creepy ways… 

One of the first things you learn about if you do quantum 

physics is the double slit experiment. There are two tiny tiny 

slits in a wall, and something gets aimed at the two slits which 

then may or may not change the path of this ‘something’ which 

we then detect on the other side. Now, we can do this with an 

electron gun, shooting one electron at the two slits at a time. 

After doing this quite a few times (after all, repetition is a vital 

part of science!) what do we detect on the other side? 

… 

… 

… 

A wave interference pattern! 

Yes. That’s right. If you thought an electron was as simple 

as a particle, you would be wrong. In this situation it acts like a 

wave! What’s weirder, is that only one electron is going through 

the two slits at a time. It’s almost like it somehow goes through 

both slits at the same time and interferes with ITSELF. Like, 

what the hell is an electron anymore? Do you know? Because I 

sure don’t. 

Now we’re going to change the experiment a bit. We want to 

see exactly what’s going on at the slits, so we’re going to put a 

detector on one slit to tell us when an electron goes through it. 

That’ll settle things, right? We repeat the experiment exactly as 

before, using the electron gun to shoot one electron at a time 

towards the double slit. We look at the results and blink (a bit 

at them) in surprise. This time there is no interference, nothing 

more than a completely ordinary pattern as would be created 

by a particle. So that begs the question: Why does adding a 

detector completely change the results of the exact same experiment? 

How does the electron ‘know’ that there is a difference 

between the two? How can it be a wave in one experiment, and 

a particle in the other? What actually is an electron? 

Time for round 2. There’s this thing in physics called 

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. One aspect of this principle 

is that it is impossible to predict where a quantum particle will 

be at any point in time. It’s possible to predict where it’s most 

likely to be, but not where it definitely will be. This means we 

have no idea where electrons are most of the time. Can we set 

up a detector saying when they’re at a certain point? Sure. But 

when that electron leaves that point we have no idea where in 

the universe it is. Theoretically, it could be at the other side of 

the universe. (That’s very unlikely, but the fact that the possibility 

exists is pretty cool and/or creepy, depending on your 

opinion.) 

This is how Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment was 

thought of. The idea is that an electron is in a contained area. If 

the electron is in one half of this area at a certain time, a poison 

is released into a box with a cat in it. If the electron is in the 

other half, no poison is released and the cat will be fine. There’s 

a 50/50 chance that the poison has been released, and we have 

no way of knowing if it has or not before opening the box with 

the cat in it. So the argument is, if we don’t open the box, the 

cat is in a superposition, being both dead and alive, and only 

opening the box will force the cat to be one way or another. 

Kinda weird, right? 

Here’s another weird thing. The electron is being held back 

by an energy wall. It just doesn’t have the energy to jump over 

that wall. The poor electron :( 

So what’s an electron to do? 

Have you ever tried walking through a wall like the wizards 

do to get to Platform 9 3/4? Did it work out? Most likely your 

answer is ‘no’. (If your answer is ‘yes’ then please do write 

about it for Lot’s Wife. I want to read all about it.) It is an 

accepted fact. People just can’t walk through walls. That’s why 

the ability to do that would be ‘magical’. Now, electrons live in a 

different world than us. A world so tiny, the ‘magical’ becomes 

‘normal’. What would you say if I told you that under the right 

circumstances electrons can barge right through that energy 

wall that was holding them back? That they can transmit 

information instantly from one electron to its partner which 

is faster than the speed of light? That people have successfully 

teleported electrons? Yes, that’s right, the quantum world is 

literally magical. 

If you’re not creeped out by now, let me leave you with a final 

thought. Since there is a small probability that an electron could be 

anywhere in the universe, why can’t it be possible that every electron 

in the universe is actually the same electron, but everywhere at 

the same time? 


SCIENCE 

Infinite worlds: 

procedural generation 

in No Man’s Sky 

By Rachael Welling 

Early August saw the release of the much anticipated No 

Man’s Sky, a space exploration survival simulator from 

Hello Games, billed on being almost entirely ‘procedurally 

generated’. There are around 18 quintillion planets for players 

to visit, or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 to be exact – all with 

their own unique landscape, climate, flora, fauna, perils and 

spoils, and all of it essentially created by an algorithm (or two). 

The term ‘procedurally generated’ was bandied about a lot 

during the game’s development, often as the game’s main draw. 

Not as often, however, was the term explained. So what exactly 

is procedural generation? 

Starting at a definition, procedural generation is the creation 

of content using an algorithm, with an algorithm essentially 

being a set of rules and parameters used to take an input and 

turn it into an output. Long-division is an algorithm. Baking 

a cake is an algorithm. Googling something sets in motion a 

web search algorithm. The types of content that can be made 

using procedural generation vary widely: numeric, visual, audio, 

text-based, among others. In videogames, procedural generation 

is typically used for generating game environments (terrain, 

textures, map layout), encounters (how AI will act and/or 

react to your actions) and loot. Loot generation in particular is 

one of the more common examples of procedural generation in 

videogames. Say every time you open a box in a game, you get 

a cache of items. Naturally there needs to be a list of items you 

can receive; procedural generation doesn’t create from nothing, 

it needs inputs. So when you open the box, you might receive 

a completely random list of items, defined by an algorithm 

that picks items randomly, or you might receive items based 

on some parameters: your skill level, your class, the items you 

already own, or how ‘rare’ different items are. Both of these 

scenarios are ‘procedural generation’, and just two of the many 

types of procedural generation used in No Man’s Sky. 

Lead developer on No Man’s Sky and co-founder of Hello 

Games, Sean Murray, was hesitant to call his work on the game 

‘programming’, as he and his team weren’t ‘creating’ the game 


SCIENCE 

in the traditional sense, but rather the rules and recipes that 

would create the game’s world. First thing’s first, the galactic 

map. An input number (or ‘seed’, apparently the phone number 

of one of the developers at Hello Games) is used to kick off a 

pseudorandom number generator, which plots the position and 

stellar classifications of the stars in No Man’s Sky. The coordinates 

of each star becomes the next input, and an algorithm (or 

two) takes it from there. Star coordinates determine orbiting 

planet number and location, planet location determines planet 

terrain and climate, and climate determines the type of flora 

and fauna. That first input – the phone number of a (probably) 

overworked London game developer – creates an entire 

universe, and creates it the same way for each player. This is 

why that first generator is ‘pseudo-random’. In order to avoid 

melting the average gaming console, No Man’s Sky essentially 

generates a portion of game universe in real time based on player 

location (as opposed to constantly generating and keeping 

track of all 18 quintillion planets). Because of this, it needs 

to generate each planet the same way each time, otherwise 

there would be pure, actual chaos as planets and entire star 

systems completely changed with each revisit. This highlights 

an interesting caveat in the use of procedural generation; it is 

never truly ‘random’, and often governed by many many rules 

to make sure the output of the algorithm is at the very least 

coherent. 

Make no mistake, a vast amount of programming went into 

making No Man’s Sky an actual game as opposed to a dynamic 

and needlessly vast screensaver; things such as the user 

interface, the story, the physics, and the mechanics all needed 

a designing hand. Procedural generation simply handled the 

rest. And even then, the algorithms themselves needed a 

heavy amount of design. There need to be rules in place to 

stop No Man’s Sky’s algorithm from generating ten thousand 

planets around one star, or planets populated by 1000ft tall 

trees, or fish without mouths. Some of these rules can be fairly 

straight-forward, for example, imposing hard limits on certain 

parameters. Other rules relating to the generation of in-game 

flora and fauna are slightly more complex. To avoid generating 

creatures that look like they’ve come straight from God’s fever 

dreams, ‘silhouettes’ as they were dubbed by Sean Murray, were 

created by Hello Games for different types of fauna. There is a 

‘fish silhouette’ for example, with a basic fish skeleton and fish 

bits that the algorithms and mutate into something unique 

- assigning limbs, shapes and textures at random. Animation 

and behaviour is then assigned on top, for example large, 

horned or generally more mutated creatures are inherently 

more aggressive*. Similarly, the trees and plants on each planet 

are generated using L-systems, fractal equations that mimic 

organic structures. It is important therefore to distinguish the 

use of procedural generation in videogames as guided randomness. 

Where game design is architecture, procedural generation 

is gardening. 

It’s worth mentioning that No Man’s Sky received mixed 

reviews. The game currently sits a 71/100 critic rating on 

Metacritic. IGN called it ‘amazingly big, but too often poorly 

designed’. Videogamer UK somewhat scathingly described it as 

‘an ocean of stars, a thimble of possibilities’. We just detailed 

how immense and complex the procedural generation in No 

Man’s Sky is. If No Man’s Sky was criticized for being ocean wide 

and pond deep, what was the point of all that work? This brings 

us to why procedural generation is used. Procedural generation 

excels at creating a large amount of content, and making the 

content entirely unique, but not necessarily interesting. For 

a game about space exploration, a big world waiting to be discovered 

is a huge selling point. This was the selling point of No 

Man’s Sky. Since the game’s release it has become clear that this 

was also the only selling point. 

Therefore the final question about procedural generation 

is whether or not it can truly replace good game design. In an 

interview with IGN, Sean Murray snorts that when he looks at 

a planet in No Man’s Sky, he doesn’t see the mountains, he sees 

‘the maths’. Many of the game’s critics however have called that 

‘maths’ dull and repetitive (as maths often is). Regardless, No 

Man’s Sky is a technical achievement that manages to procedurally 

generate an entire universe. Hopefully in the next iteration 

of the space exploration mega-game, someone will figure out 

how to also procedurally generate fun. 

* My partner recounted the story of a particularly aggressive goat-like species he 

encountered in game, which he subsequently named Goatouttahere. The wonders 

of space exploration, everyone. 


SCIENCE 

Living in a 

dematerial 

world 

By Abdul Marian 

The other day, amidst my regular schedule of procrastination, 

I stumbled upon an article that talked about something 

called dematerialisation and the unique effect it’s having on the 

world’s resources. If you’re unsure, dematerialisation refers to 

the process of converting material resources into electrical or 

digital equivalents. This is being undertaken by many companies 

and businesses; making the move from paper records and 

shares certificates to digital ones. Many aspects of our lives 

have already switched formats; our dictionaries, alarm clocks 

and contact lists are probably all digital now. 

Likewise, the particular article claims that the resources 

19th and 20th century economies were reliant on becoming 

obsolete nowadays. Paper is one example, not only are we now 

storing more and more records digitally, we are also sending 

mails and reading books digitally. This has led to an overall 

decrease in the need for and hence production of paper and 

similar resources in the U.S., according to The Breakthrough 

Institute. Similarly the sharing economy has also been contributing 

to the increased optimization of resources and decrease 

in superfluous resources. Many sharing apps and websites 

have allowed those who have cars, couches, rooms and other 

spare items to lend them to those who don’t. This is the kind of 

economic and social change that proponents of globalisation 

and digitisation have been heralding since the creation of the 

Internet. Despite an increase in the number of mouths to feed 

and bodies to clothe, the demand for certain resources hasn’t 

followed thanks to an increase in the efficiency of the usage of 

those resources. 

The concept of dematerialisation is often touted as an alternative 

to the problem presented by Thomas Robert Malthus. 

Malthusian theory or philosophy identifies that a society with 

a finite supply of food and an exponentially growing population 

will eventually destroy itself. Malthus had conceptualized various 

equilibrating restraints that would prevent such catastrophes, 

namely celibacy and delaying marriage. Dematerialisation 

offers an alternative to this outcome by saying humanity 

could possibly increase resource usage efficiency to a state of 

ephemeralization. Buckminster Fuller coined this heady term 

as doing "more and more with less and less until eventually 

you can do everything with nothing". We are currently seeing a 

trend towards this, as transport, computers and entertainment 

devices all seem to be getting more powerful and taking up less 

physical space. 

Obviously there are problems with dematerialisation, its 

scope and its translatability. Unfortunately most of the development 

and study of dematerialisation is happening in the 

U.S. To some extent, there is an expectation on other countries 

to match the U.S. in rates of both production and dematerialisation. 

There’s enough diversity even amongst developed 

countries to show we will not all develop at the same rate and 

with the same outcome. One of the major shared economies in 

the U.S. is the car sharing community that has been responsible 

for a supposed decrease in the need for individual cars. As 

we all know, however, car-sharing services like Uber have not 

taken off quite as smoothly here and in other countries. If small 

things like this can change the effectiveness of dematerialisation 

in developed countries what about other countries, where 

infrastructure and technology are not as well developed? It’s 

an even bigger challenge to bring developing countries to the 

same level of technological production as the U.S. and others. 

Do countries that are worried about internal wars have the 

luxury to concentrate on dematerialisation and its associated 

costs, whose benefits may only be enjoyed in the long term? 

Jesse Ausubel states that historically, the world has never been 

at the same level of wealth or consumption as it’s number one 

consumer; consider Imperial Rome or 19th century England. 

This has been for a number of historical, geographical and 

political reasons. This rule still applies today and should be 

considered when talking about bringing different individuals 

and groups up to the same level as other countries. 

An important side effect of the globalisation process, 

one that is not always emphasised, is its potential to further 

increase the divide between poor and wealthy individuals and 

nations. Those who are able to access high-speed Internet and 

mobile tech are now able to lead the charge in dematerialisation 

innovation, while those who are not are left to straggle behind 

with the expensive, non-renewable resources of yester-year. 

As the U.S. is shutting down coal plants and pushing to find 

new-renewable sources of energy; other countries like China 

and Japan continue to open new ones. Japan for example has 

had to completely shift its economical focus from nuclear energy 

to coal and other resources after the events of Fukushima 

in 2011. What is evident is that different countries are all at 

different stages in development. It is even more important 

that we acknowledge these different stages as not necessary 

all part of one timeline leading to a common goal. In this case 

an increase in resource efficiency through the same means of 

dematerialisation as western, industrial nations. 

We really do need to something about the resources we 

use; we need to find (or engineer) the cheapest, cleanest and 

renewable resources. These advances that are helping us use 

less of certain resources are a great step forward. What remains 

to be seen is how different countries around the world adapt 

these ideas to their own situations; so that everyone can reap 

the benefits. 


CROSSWORD 

1 2 3 

4 

5 6 7 

8 9 

10 11 

12 13 

14 

15 

16 17 

18 

Across 

2. Person trained for travelling in space 

4. Constellation depicting a hunter 

6. Small space object usually with a tail of 

dust or gas 

9. An object orbiting a planet, Earth has one 

of these 

12. Arrangement of stars forming a shape 

14. The first animal to orbit earth was a… 

16. First man in space (Last name) 

17. Second largest planet in our solar system 

18. Large piece of space rock orbiting the Sun 

ANSWERS AT LOTSWIFE.COM.AU 

Down 

by Rajat Lal 

1. Relating to outer space or the universe 

3. First man on the moon (Last Name) 

5. Name of two space probes launched at the 

same time – the furthest known man made 

objects travelled in space 

7. The act of transforming another planet to 

make it more habitable 

8. This former 9 th planet in our solar system 

was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006. 

10. Name of the first manned craft that 

landed on the moon 

11. Largest planet in our solar system 

13. Cloud of dust and gas in space 

15. This planet is often referred to as the red 

planet 

17. The star closest to Earth 


CULTURE 

All grown up: cartoons find 

their serious side 

By Maddy Luke 


Spoiler alert for Season 3 of Bojack Horseman and 

Season 2 of Rick and Morty. 

If you told me a year ago that I’d be crying about a cartoon 

set in a world where animals and humans (mostly) co-exist 

as equals, and features a washed-up celebrity horse struggling 

with his self-worth largely due to the pressures that come with 

fame, I’d have laughed. But nope, here I am mourning over 

season three of Bojack Horseman – the strangest thing though, 

is that I’m laughing about it too. 

Perhaps I’ve only taken notice as I’ve come into adulthood 

myself, but it seems that adult cartoons which don’t just feature 

explicit jokes are an emerging trend. Obviously, crude humour 

still exists – which I have nothing against – but a Family 

Guy style of comedy no longer permeates all adult cartoons. In 

a surprising turn of events, there is actually some well thoughtout 

content! 

Urgh, Maddy, I hear you say. Do you honestly have to force 

a deep meaning on everything? Can’t you just take the show at 

face value and leave it be? 

Perceiving that adult cartoons exist purely for comedy simplifies 

them. These days, cartoons often explore societal issues 

through their story arcs or characters, or call on the audience to 

pick up on hints that foreshadow epic plot twists. 

In the most recent season of Bojack Horseman, the audience 

sees Todd struggle with sexual relationships. He exhibits clear 

discomfort when faced with sexual situations, but when he is 

asked if he was gay, replies: 

“I don’t think I am, but… I don’t think I’m straight, either.” 

(Todd, S03E12) 

While the show doesn’t outright use the term ‘asexual’, the 

connection that many asexual viewers have with Todd’s experience 

is significant enough. The fact that the show even brings 

up that attraction goes behind ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ is a massive 

step for television in itself. 

Bojack Horseman also acts as a critique on Hollywood 

culture, showing the darker side of the glamour from the perspectives 

of the celebrities trapped in it. Using the unfamiliar, 

animal world as the setting indicates to the audience that they 

are about to see things from an entirely new perspective, which 

couldn’t be closer to the truth. From season one, Bojack’s struggle 

with self-worth has been treated as a core tension between 

himself and other characters as he begs for their affirmation: 

“I need you to tell me it's not too late. I need you to tell me 

that I'm a good person. I know that I can be selfish and narcissistic 

and self-destructive, but underneath all that, deep down, 

I'm a good person and I need you to tell me that I'm good." 

(Bojack, S01E11) 

In the case of Rick and Morty, you can very easily take it as 

a silly show about a ridiculous scientist and his grandson. Still, 

if you want to obsess over the possibilities of the Many Worlds 

Interpretation that the show frequently makes use of, you 

can. The internet is swarming with theories, from questioning 

whether we follow the same Rick and Morty every episode, 

to wondering whether Rick is originally from the universe we 

assume. The subtle (though potential) foreshadowing of many 

cartoons makes them a mystery waiting to be unraveled, but 

again, only if the viewer cares to try. 

However, sometimes the serious side of adult cartoons can 

be a bit of a hit and miss, leaving us with an unintended impact. 

In the season one finale of Rick and Morty, the ‘meaning’ 

behind Rick’s catchphrase ‘wubba lubba dub dub!’ is revealed, 

and… I’m not sold. 

“In my people’s tongue, it means, ‘I am in great pain. Please 

help me.’” (Bird Person, S01E011) 

While I disagree with Morty’s retort (“Rick’s not that 

complicated, he’s just a huge asshole.”), Bird Person’s line does 

nothing to convince me of Rick’s emotional baggage, which is 

better explored in other episodes. It felt like a bit of a cop out, 

especially since he often uses the phrase to celebrate. To me, 

the explanation is the funniest part of the episode, for all the 

wrong reasons. 

Some adult cartoons, like Bojack Horseman, are overt 

with their core messages, making for an emotional journey. 

However, others are not so clear. Rick and Morty can be taken 

either as a fun, casual watch, or an epic adventure for the viewer 

if they care to examine the potential clues. Cartoons are not 

simply a medium for comedy but are used in diverse ways to 

impact their audience. 

Still, it’s sometimes nice to just use them for a laugh, and the 

best part about these shows is that you can. Only, in Bojack’s 

case, you’re often laughing through tears. 


WONDER WOMAN 

By Jessica Lehmann 

Illustration by Natalie Ng

CULTURE 

The character, or rather caricature, of Wonder Woman is 

fraught with questions and dichotomies. Is she a representation 

of a strong, liberated female embodying feminist 

ideals, or rather a representation of the regression and repression 

of women that still permeates in this day and age? A movie 

adaption of Wonder Woman will finally be released in cinemas 

in 2017. Coupled with increasing social commentary on female 

role models for youth, an analysis of the history of Wonder 

Woman is timely and insightful. 

It is generally accepted that the creator of Wonder Woman 

was a man, William Moulton Marston. His own back story 

sheds light into the conflicted and backward society of the 

1930s that was in need of a female icon. One could argue 

Wonder Woman was this icon, a bridge between first wave 

suffragette feminism and second wave 1970s women liberation 

feminism. 

Wonder Woman’s creation was inspired by the women in 

Marston’s life: his wife Elizabeth Holloway, and ex-student 

Olive Byrne whom he lived in a polyamorous relationship, 

with “love making for all”, Holloway later said. Both Olive 

and Elizabeth were strong women; Elizabeth being a qualified 

lawyer and psychologist (a rarity in those days), and Olive a 

staunch feminist, the niece of Elizabeth Sanger (the woman 

who first coined the term ‘birth control’ and founded Planned 

Parenthood in the US). The metal bracelets worn by Wonder 

Woman are modelled on those worn by Olive instead of a 

wedding ring, depicting the commitment Marston had to Olive. 

And the crucial decision whether the new superhero would be 

male or female was made by Elizabeth, thus making Wonder 

Woman a collaborative creation by a polyamorous family. 

Marston’s own academic theories focussed on matriarchy 

and masochism. These theories are realised in Wonder Woman 

with continual references to ropes and chains and Wonder 

Woman repeatedly tied up in the comics. Wonder Woman’s 

golden ‘Lasso of Truth’ is modelled on another invention of 

Marston and Holloway (though she was never formally credited 

for) – the polygraph. Apparently during studies with the lie 

detector, Marston found women to be typically more truthful 

and reliable. 

"Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new 

type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world" Marston 

wrote, and the masochism depicted merely reflected the emotional 

and social chains women were victim to in reality. 

Wonder Women first appeared in the December 1941 

issue of ‘All Star Comics #8’. She has an alluring back story 

a ‘la Superman. Her alias is Diana Prince, and she hails from 

a paradise island populated by immortal female amazon 

warriors. She left after rescuing and falling in love with Steve 

Trevor, an American airman, to fight against the evil axis forces 

and promote peace, justice, and women’s rights. How these 

women came to live on Paradise Island is explained by Wonder 

Women’s mum Hippolyta in the character’s debut comic, “In 

the days of ancient Greece, many centuries ago, we Amazons 

were the foremost nation in the world In Amazonia, women 

ruled and all was well”. However, men conquered and made 

women slaves. “The Amazons escaped, sailing across the ocean 

to an uncharted island where they lived in peace.” Wonder 

Woman was not conceived but born out of parthenogenesis, 

Queen Hippolyta carving her daughter out of clay (truly women 

doing it for themselves.) 

Wonder Woman was super strong, fast and wielded weapons. 

She’s intelligent, impervious to harm, and could fly in her 

invisible airplane. The influence and forward thinking nature of 

Wonder Woman is truly astonishing in the context of her creation, 

an era where women were heavily restricted – she even ran 

for president, which is only now becoming a reality. Included 

in the original issues of Wonder Women, with Marston at 

the helm, was a regular feature, “The Wonder Women of 

History”—a four-page centrefold, containing the biography of 

a woman of achievement. Wonder Woman was also a founding 

member of the ‘Justice League of America’, and is often thought 

to be an equal to Batman and Superman – some even argue her 

strength is superior to them. 

After Marston’s death in 1947 the feminist ideals of Wonder 

Woman drastically changed. Robert Kanigher was hired as writer 

(despite Holloway requesting the role) and Wonder Woman 

was degraded to the secretary of the Justice League, no longer 

employed in roles that may threaten the patriarchy but instead 

as a babysitter, fashion model, a lonely-hearts newspaper advice 

columnist, and a movie star. In the 1960s Wonder Woman 

even lost her powers all together and regressed to being Diana 

Prince, a trendy fashion boutique owner in Greenwich Village. 

The empowering centre fold column was replaced with wedding 

information - representing a patriarchal view of the aspirations 

of women. 

Wonder Woman popped up again in the 1970s in the 

pioneering feminist ‘Ms.’ Magazine, but was largely ignored in 

favour of other superheroes- (to date there has been no solo 

female superhero blockbuster). Next year this changes with the 

release of the first part of a Wonder Woman movie trilogy. 

Looking back on Marston’s press release for Wonder Woman; 

“to set up a standard among children and young people of 

strong, free, courageous womanhood; to combat the idea that 

women are inferior to men, and to inspire girls to self-confidence 

and achievement in athletics, occupations and professions 

monopolized by men” because “the only hope for 

civilization is the greater freedom, development and equality 

of women in all fields of human activity”. One can ask, has 

the equal world pioneered by Wonder Woman been realised? 

Certainly not in Australia. Women make 83¢ for every $1 a 

man earns, mothers spend twice as many hours looking after 

children compared to fathers, and domestic and family violence 

is the leading preventable cause of death, disability, and illness 

in women aged 15 to 44. It’s a wonder you would want to be a 

woman. But maybe, just maybe, with strong role models such 

as Wonder Woman, the next generation may be able to break 

free of the chains of patriarchy and live in paradise. 


CULTURE 

A beginner’s guide to film photography 

By Shannon Ly 

F 

ilm photography can be unpredictable in a way that is 

both terrifying and liberating. However, it is a rewarding 

experience when you are able to achieve the tone, look, and feel 

that many photographers try to replicate in digital. Whether 

you’re just getting into photography, moving over from digital, 

or you’ve inherited some old cameras from your grandparents 

and don’t know what to do with them, this is a practical guide 

to shooting the most common film formats and where to get 

them processed. 

SHOOTING FILM 

35mm 

Probably the cheapest and most accessible way to start 

shooting film. This was the standard back in the day, so 35mm 

cameras can be found everywhere, ranging from cute ‘90s 

point-and-shoots to fully manual SLR cameras. If you don’t already 

have one, have a look around flea markets and op-shops, 

or buy one on Gumtree. Save yourself the frustration by doing 

some research, inspecting the camera if possible, and making 

sure that it has been tested. There’s nothing worse than wasting 

rolls of film and losing valuable photos because the shutter 

doesn’t work or the film can’t wind properly on the reel. 

If you’re wondering which colour film to buy, start off with 

consumer-grade 35mm such as Kodak Ultramax or Fujifilm 

Superia. These are often sold in multi-packs, with 24 or 36 

exposures per roll, and provide consistent results, useful for 

when you’re learning how to use a new camera. For black and 

white, you can’t go wrong with Ilford HP5 or Kodak Tri-X. Both 

films have good latitude, making them very forgiving if you 

accidentally over or underexpose your shots. There are also 

chromogenic films such as Ilford XP2, which allow you to shoot 

in black and white but can be processed in C-41 chemicals like 

colour film. 

After you figure out how your camera works and what kind 

of results to expect, there is a multitude of professional-grade 

and specialty films to experiment with. 

120 

With a much larger negative size, photos shot on 120 usually 

retain more detail and are more suitable for enlargements. 

However, the stakes are a lot higher – a roll of film will only get 

you 12 or 16 frames, depending on your camera. 

As with 35mm, you can buy an SLR, but there is also the 

option of a twin lens reflex (TLR) camera, which has one lens 

for the viewfinder and another lens below it for exposing the 

negative. The waist level viewfinder in TLRs can take some 

getting used to, as the glass screen shows a mirrored image, 

and it can be disorientating trying to move left to compose 

right (pro tip: swivel your body, not the camera). That said, once 

you get the hang of it, you can take some killer mirror selfies, 

Vivian Maier-style. 

Instant 

Now, as it was then, instant film is the life of the party. 

There’s nothing quite like clicking the shutter, watching a photo 

pop out of the camera and waiting for it to magically develop in 

front of your eyes. 

Instax, made by Fujifilm, has been around since the late 

1990s and is the easiest way to get into shooting instant film. If 

you’re looking to shoot legitimate ‘Polaroids’, you’re out of luck: 

Polaroid stopped making the original instant film back in 2008, 

but a company called The Impossible Project makes film that’s 

compatible with existing Polaroid cameras. Fujifilm also used to 

produce ‘peel-apart’ film, which you could shoot, pull out of the 

camera and then ‘peel-apart’ to reveal a positive and negative 

image. This has recently been discontinued, but if you manage 

to get your hands on the last remaining packs, it’s worth trying 

out. 

DEVELOPING FILM 

Standard ‘negative’ colour film can be taken to any photo 

lab in Melbourne which still processes film. The majority of ‘1 

Hour’ photo labs have closed down or switched to digital, but 

there a few camera stores such as Michaels and digiDIRECT in 

the city where you can buy film and get your rolls processed. 

There is also an indie photo lab, Hillvale, which literally runs 

out of a garage in Brunswick. Just be aware that black and 

white usually costs more to process than colour, and it can be 

very expensive to process dying formats such as transparency/ 

slide (E-6) and APS film. 

For a more DIY approach, it is possible to buy the chemicals 

needed to develop your own black and white film at home: 

Vanbar in Fitzroy stocks these, as well as some Australianbased 

eBay stores. It takes a little more effort on your part, but 

is a fun and very cost-effective way of shooting film. 

Hopefully, reading this guide brings you a step closer to 

picking up a camera and taking photos. You never know what 

you’re going to get when it comes to shooting film, but that’s 

what makes it so interesting. Take your time, don’t be afraid to 

experiment and most importantly, enjoy the process. Happy 

snapping! 


CULTURE 

Changi Airport, Singapore. Taken on a Hillvale Sunny 16 400 film on an Olympus Trip 35 

Jongker Walk, Melaka, Malaysia. Taken on Ilford HP5 400 film on an Olympus Trip 35 

Photos by Angus Marian

CULTURE 

By Clarissa Kwee 

Illustration by Elizabeth Bridges 

‘J 

-Pop Princess’, ‘Oriental Lady Gaga’, ‘International 

Kawaii Ambassador’, ‘Harajuku Cinderella’ – all these 

titles have been bestowed upon one lady. Sometimes, her songs 

precede these epithets that dot the digital sphere; she’s known 

as the Invader Invader, Candy Candy, and PonPonPon girl too. 

But her name is Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, and she’s a pioneer of the 

“nu kawaii” movement sweeping the globe. 

As a twenty-three year old millennial who’s conquered a 

music scene all on her own, one can only imagine how surreal 

the experience is. But despite her astounding success, her humility 

is laudable. “All of those names are a big surprise to me, 

they are fun! However, it is not really my purpose to be called a 

certain way. I do what I do, because that’s how I express myself. 

I love horror and grotesque, sometimes up to the point of being 

traumatised.” 

Authentic Kyary is cute meets quirky meets colourful, but 

the most curious feature about her kawaii style is that it is 

often infused with creepy images, in fact, if she could add one 

more adjective to the mix, she says it would be “poisonous”. 

Take her song PonPonPon, which has accumulated almost 100 

million views on YouTube; its music video features the singer in 

a nursery box set adorned with toys, faceless dancers, floating 

organs, skulls, and an extra eyeball or two. Bubble-gum pop 

might not be traditionally pestilential, but she’s right about her 

music’s certain contagion factor. Kyary’s sweet, bright register 

pans smoothly over electric guitar riffs and synth-spiked tunes, 

employing simple hooks that are repetitious, and infectious. 

Coupled with jarringly bright music videos, each song plays out 

like a mini hallucinogenic pipedream that invites chibi anime, 

Lady Gaga circa 2008, and Where The Wild Things Are in equal 

measure. 

Sometimes it’s easy to forget how young Kyary is, and 

behind all that show business is just a girl at the age normally 

considered to be a hazy, in-between time to fumble for a grasp 

on security, success and adulthood. While most twenty-three 

year olds have just graduated university, preoccupied with 

getting lost and finding their place in the world, she’s already 

sitting on top of it. But even the greener side of the grass has 

a view. Had she decided to lead the life of a non-celebrity, she 

would have become a dressmaker, because she loves fashion; or 

a nursery teacher, because she loves children. She too reflects 

on how different her life could have been. “When I started this 

business, I was not expecting to be this successful. I was suddenly 

so busy, shocked, and nervous about what was going on.” 

Kyary says, “What I would tell my old self is how busy it would 

be, and how hard sometimes it is.” 

But Kyary’s diligence and ambition have undeniably allowed 

her to reap the fruits of her hard labour. Kyary’s success overseas 

is demonstrative of a cultural paradigm shift. PonPonPon 

debuted at No.1 on the US iTunes electronic chart despite the 

absence of foreign promotion, she recently bounced from country 

to country on the KPP 5iVE YEARS MONSTER WORLD 

TOUR, and has 6 million collective followers on social media. 

Yet scrolling through the comments, the only answer users can 

provide to the questions, “Why is this video so bizarre?” and 

“What am I watching?” is “Welcome to Japan.” The meaning of 

that ambivalent greeting? Even Kyary isn’t quite sure. 

“I am not sure of the reason why I am sort of accepted 

overseas, however I can assume that my fashion and music 

videos are received as an extent of Japanese anime characters, 

perhaps. I feel this kind of art form is rare and very Japanese.” 

Western fascination with Japan’s idiosyncrasies can be seen 

as both a blessing and a curse, and it cannot be denied that, at 

least partially, interest in Kyary can flow from the initial surprise 

of her audial and visual disjunction. But it’s also no secret 

that Japanese pop culture is universally endearing for a number 

of different reasons; ‘weird’ is a word people use to defend 

themselves against forces of the unfamiliar, or the unknown. 

‘Weird’ might cause some to leave, but it undoubtedly makes 

others curious, exploratory, and want to stay. Indefinitely. And 

Kyary welcomes them with open arms. 

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu celebrated the 5th year since her debut with 

her first compilation album, ‘KPP Best’, released in May 2016, and 

is currently on her ‘KPP 5ive Year Monster Tour’, which stopped in 

Melbourne in June 2016. 

Rapid Fire Answer Time with Kyary Pamyu Pmayu 

1. Favourite English word? 

Hello. 

2. Biggest pet-peeve? 

Bad planning. 

3. Weapon of choice in the apocalypse? 

Enchantment. 

4. Last movie you watched? 

“The Danish Girl”, 9/10. 

5. Any phobias? 

Bugs. 

6. Are you an early riser or a night owl? 

I would say a night owl. 

7. Do you believe in ghosts? 

Haven’t seen one yet. 

8. Food you could eat for the rest of your life and never get sick of? 

Plum. 

9. Given the opportunity, would you rather star in a romantic comedy 

or a horror film? 

Horror movie. 

10. Go-to karaoke song? 

“Joy” by Yuki. 

11. Do you have any pre-concert rituals? 

Brush my teeth. 


CULTURE 

Some of the best podcasts you 

(probably) arent’t listening to 

By Linh Nguyen 

Illustration by Angus Marian 

There is a brave, bold new world out there in the land of 

podcasts. This ‘new’ media format had its moment in the 

cultural zeitgeist when, in 2014, NPR’s true-crime show Serial 

became a hit phenomenon, popularizing the form and bringing 

in mass audiences in unprecedented waves. What’s unique about 

podcasts as a medium is that it seems to sit comfortably between 

the analogue and the digital, tweaking a traditional format – 

the radio – with that of online distribution and subscription 

channels. The mutability of the form allows for a proliferation of 

podcasts to flourish, ranging from well established media outlets 

(such as NPR, ABC, BBC, etc.,), to independent and grassroots 

podcasts that cater to a more local and niche audience. 

So, as a self proclaimed podcast ‘connoisseur’, to guide you, 

I’ve curated a completely arbitrary list of some of my favourite 

podcasts (in no particular order): 


CULTURE 

1. THE NEW YORKER RADIO HOUR 

Hosted by: David Remnick 

Release: Weekly 

Why Should I Listen? If you’re already familiar with the tone 

and style of the New Yorker’s print and online publication, their 

podcast definitely won’t disappoint. Each episode goes for – 

you’ve guessed it – an hour, and covers about three to four stories, 

ranging from news stories, politics, art, and pop-culture, 

and interviews with the likes of: Donald Trump’s ghost-writer; 

Paul Simon, Lena Dunham, George Saunders. 

Where to start: Episode 44: Russia Then and Now; 

Episode 39: The Gawker Sex-Tape Blow Up 

2. LA REVIEW OF BOOKS RADIO HOUR 

https://lareviewofbooks.org/av/ 

Hosted by: Tom Lutz, Laurie Weiner, and Seth Greenland 


Why Should I Listen? An offshoot of the online literary publication, 

The Los Angeles Review of Books, the LARB podcast is 

a more irreverent and playful beast than its online, (and rather 

high-brow) predecessor. LA based authors, artists, filmmakers, 

and critics are regular guests on the show. 

Where to start: 15 July: Bullsh*t; 5 August: Ghettocide 

5. LONGFORM 

https://longform.org/podcast 

Hosted by: Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, Evan Ratliff 


Why Should I Listen? A podcast about ‘the stories behind the 

stories’, Longform is a series that mediates on the craft of longform 

journalism and non-fiction writing. Each episode centres 

around a conversation with a particular writer about their 

process and how they approach their subject matter. 

Where to start: #97: Ta-Nehisi Coates; #144: Cheryl Strayed 

6. MONACLE 24: THE URBANIST 

https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-urbanist/ 

Hosted by: Andrew Tuck 


Why Should I Listen? A show about ‘what makes cities work 

– or fail’, The Urbanist examines cities around the world, how 

they are designed, how people live in them, and what the future 

of the metropolis will look like. If Urbanism isn’t your thing, 

Monacle 24 have other shows including: Culture, The Foreign 

Desk, The Cinema Show, The Globalist, and many more. 

Where to start: Episode 253: Why so Moody?; Episode 239: 

Mapping the City 

3. THE RE-READERS 

http://www.therereaders.com/ 

Hosted by: Sam Twyford-Moore, Dion Kagan, Steph Van Schilt 

Release: Fortnightly 

Why Should I Listen? For some local voices, hit up The Re- 

Readers, a literary and cultural podcast based – right here! – in 

Melbourne. Each episode looks at three ‘topical’ stories in 

the world of arts, writing, and culture, and the re-readers trio 

are often joined by a host of notable Melbourne writers and 

cultural critics. 

Where to start: August 19: MIFF Special; June 1: Scorsese 

Exhibition and Arts Funding Cuts 

4. BBC IN OUR TIME 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl 

Hosted by: Melvyn Bragg 


Why Should I Listen? A clever show about clever things, BBC 

Radio’s In Our Time is a discussion series committed to exploring 

the ‘history of ideas’. Each week Melvyn invites three of the 

leading academics on a subject to discuss and debate, and topics 

fall under the categorizes of Philosophy, Culture, Religion, 

Science, and History. Learning is fun! 

Where to start: Plato’s Symposium; Einstein’s Relativity; The 

Invention of Photography 

Podcasts are a flexible and fluid medium, and they’re constantly 

evolving. I’m sure there are many, many great podcasts 

that I’ve failed or forgotten to mention—and that’s okay! Go 

forth and find them, or just go and listen to Serial again! Season 

three is coming out in 2017, and I, for one, cannot wait. In any 

case, happy listening, and enjoy. 

Honourable Mentions include: 

• The Writer’s Voice: New Fiction from The New Yorker 

• The Partially Examined Life 

• The Poetry Magazine Podcast 

• The New York Public Library Podcast 

• Granta 

• Slate Political Garbfest 


CREATIVE 

Photo Essay 

By Shannon Ly 


CREATIVE 


58 | Lot’s Wife 

CREATIVE

CREATIVE 


CREATIVE 

Transition to earlier 

By Isaac Reichman 

Fulfilment of basic satisfactions, 

Asking quietly for skilled distractions 

While we ‘ponder’, much more maliciously. 

Answer the question posed by the city skyline; 

Buildings supine in the broad light. 

By the harbour, 

By the pier and boardwalk. 

Never steer towards the cheap talk, 

Towards the neon fireflies 

And ten thousand paper doves 

In the flooded gutter. 

We rise above this fog of doubt 

In packets of mud-soaked trousers 

Stained with time and the sins 

Of conscience on an empty mind 

We cannot even hope to heal 

Unless we ‘ponder’ much more meticulously 

Unbutton our shirt collars 

Roll up our shirt sleeves 

And feel our heart beat 

As Nietzsche preached 

To kill the non-existent god 

That we made a deal with 

Because we guessed they were real, and 

Because in exchange for false happiness 

It received existence 

But it was us who received neglect 

So now every fear must die 

Then we can resurrect 

Beneath this rotten outer shell, 

Is but the ringing of a bell around 

Our true necks 

That are pale and unweathered 

Shirt collars and scarves to protect our feathers 

From the solar wind 

As a lonesome earthling on mars 

Banished for the same sins 

That we find on both sides of the rind 

We are still standing in line 

In line to withdraw more and more and 

Possess less and less. 


CREATIVE 

the memoryboat 

By Ed Jessop 

Mosquitos replace the flies and buzz the fluorescent arrival of a spotlight moon, illuminating a scoop of rustlined soil, once bed to 

a river and now to a figure - a figurine: of Outback, tired bones, and eyes of loneliness. 

He sinks down to his knees, alone in the sunken channel but for the shifting boat beneath him, tripping him up whilst it bobs on 

the current - a persistent storyteller uncrossing and crossing its legs, clearing its throat, eager to begin. 

The night is still - clear but for the moon - yet his ears are drowned in the lapping water at the boat, the happy chaos of the 

shearing shed, the finishing chink of a mended fence-post, and the calf his youngest daughter had called Maisie - her first lows 

and her last. 

The wind picks up, covering him with a fine duvet of dust, while the minnows bite at the bait he offers them - scars, lost stares 

and the twisting of a wedding band around his ring finger. He doesn’t seem to notice the rising water, now at his knees, now at his 

waist, pulling him further under with each passing thought. 

In the bed he dreams of schoolbuses, home, Christmas heatwaves, bushfires, brumbies, of her, of their children, of singing them 

nursery rhymes together until they fell asleep - her favourite being The Owl and the Pussy Cat, of teaching them to swim because 

she always wished she’d been brave enough to learn, and regretfully didn’t. 

Struggling to breathe, he falls from the boat, onto hands and knees, gasping for air as water streams down his cheeks, only to 

remember that there is no water at all. There is no water at all anymore. 

He stands up, and for a short while he stumbles down the embankment, only to arrive suddenly at a stop. The spotlight fades 

and a few stars peek out, curiously. He vanishes amongst ghost gums and shrubbery, the only shape now visible being a freshly 

painted white cross, dug deep into the earth and laid bare beneath the moonlight. 

The air has grown thick with dew and dawn by the time he walks free of the trees. Having left his final anchorage to rest on the 

shoreline, his step is lighter as he follows a trail back to the farmhouse and his family. Feeling the suns warmth on his skin as it 

momentarily shares its sky with the moon, he smiles to himself, thinking of pea-green boats and Bong-trees and almost expecting 

to see a bush pig run by, with a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, with a ring at the end of his nose. 


CREATIVE 

How to remove the training wheels 

By Manon Boutin Charles 

N 

o matter how happy or sad we are, we all have that idea 

of the person we wish we were, but are not. Maybe a 

thinner version of yourself? One who would start working on 

their assignments more than two hours before the deadline? 

Maybe your ideal twin would travel the world? Stop overthinking 

everything about their relationships, or just clean their 

room more often? 

Most of the time, you’ll have to admit it, you already know 

what to do to become that person. Just - fucking - do it. Stop 

eating cake all day, stop procrastinating, go to the gym. Easy to 

say, I know. 

Many years ago (but not that many, to be perfectly honest), 

I was a child wishing to be this other child who knew how to 

ride a bike without training wheels. How to become this other 

(better) child? Nothing easier: just remove these wheels and 

go. Just do it. Just stop being scared, just stop overthinking it. 

Just go. But I didn’t want to. I was going to fall, for sure. It was 

going to hurt, obviously. I was fed up with those scabs on my 

knees. I was ashamed because my friend Ann could already ride 

without training wheels. I was scared of being ashamed; and 

ashamed of being scared. 

I never learnt. For many years, I had been that girl pretending 

I didn’t like to cycle that much. Didn’t like it, didn’t want to, 

had a super nice book to read - just go without me. And one day 

it hit me straight in the face; I remember that abandonment, I 

still feel it in my face. All those lovely days, all those sunny rides 

I had been missing. All those private jokes I couldn’t understand 

because I wasn’t there. I was determined to learn, but I 

had no idea how to achieve that. Then one day, one of my cousins, 

eight years older than me, who had no idea I didn’t know 

how to ride a bike, asked me if I wanted to go with him. I was 

around twelve and (of course) I had a massive crush on him: he 

had perfect blonde hair and was more mature than all the other 

boys I knew. I said yes with heart-shaped eyes before my mind 

had time to say ‘Wait. Fuck – you can’t actually do that’. Before 

I understood what was happening, I was on the seat, right food 

on the pedal, left foot on the ground, and so scared I felt my 

heart beating from the tip of my hair to my toenails. I remember 

that my little sister gave me that look – worried beyond 

belief. She didn’t say anything but probably knew it all: I was 

in big trouble. I suddenly remembered one piece of advice from 

a movie, or a dream, or a book, or anything: ride as fast as you 

can. Not sure it was a good advice: maybe I had even made it 

up. I think I fell once, but I told my cousin there was a thing on 

the road, and it went fine. I am not sure I had ever felt so scared 

before, but it was also a relief. I thought “Really? All those 

fretful years for that?” I felt ridiculous, relieved and actually 

pretty great. I could feel the air toying with my hair, the tears 

beading in my eyes - just so they weren’t too dry, the fresh wind 

engulfing me in a very hot summer day. My heartbeat, so loud, 

as if it was trying to recreate the sound of my steps if I had 

been walking instead. I fell in love with speed and going fast. 

Ten years later, I am finally able to rationalise my fears… haha, 

nope, just kidding. If I was an animal, I would be the most 

yellow-livered chicken in the coop, the weak one which looks 

kind of sick and lost. I remember how the same story happened 

again with motorcycles (ultimate fear - too ashamed to admit it 

- try anyway - love it) and many other things. A weird mixture 

of fear and excitement. A weird mixture of fear and excitement. 

Just the awareness that I had defeated a phobia was incredible, 

stirring. There is nothing like the feeling that you just overcame 

one of your greatest fears. 

Just. Fucking. Do it. It’s worth it. 


CREATIVE 

An experiment in understanding 

By Isaac Reichman 


CREATIVE 

City Adopted 

By A. A. Kostas 


Illustration by Elizabeth Bridges

CREATIVE 

The Things We Like 

By Justin Jones Li 

I 

t was one of those lazy, stay-in days, where there were no 

commitments and no expectations. Sunday afternoons 

afforded the greatest liberty, including the freedom of phantom 

shackles to the couch, before which the latest season of Couples 

Simultaneously Renovating and Cooking burst forth from the 

TV. Arnold lay on his side, with his chest leaning on the arm of 

the couch. Deborah’s arms were wrapped around his waist; her 

legs were tangled in his. 

“Hey, do you want to do that thing we did last Sunday?” 

asked Pamela. 

“One moment.” Arnold tried to shrug Pamela off him long 

enough to sit up, but succeeded only in sitting up. “What 

thing?” 

“You know, the one where we take off all our clothes.” 

“We take off our clothes to do a lot of things.” 

“Huh.” Pamela brought a finger to her chin in contemplation. 

Arnold took the opportunity to wriggle around with one less 

arm binding him. “Yeah, you’re right. Now I don’t know how to 

describe it, but it felt really good.” 

Arnold had enough degrees of freedom to pick up the remote 

and turn off the TV. He turned to face Pamela directly. “I 

honestly don’t remember what we did.” 

Pamela broke her gaze and started scratching her head. 

“Damn it, I can see it in my mind’s eye, but the words just aren’t 

coming to me.” 

The remote found itself in Arnold’s grip again, and he 

mused, “It’ll come back to you. I’ll just put this back on for a 

while.” 

He felt a slight tug at his other wrist. Arnold turned his head 

to look at Pamela, but her eyes were turned up to the top right 

corner. Her mouth was slightly open and emitted a quizzical 

hum. 

“Can I kiss you?” 

“Sure.” 

Pamela brought an arm around Arnold’s neck, and pulled 

him gently towards her. She introduced his lips to hers. Soft 

against soft, each pair of lips were a cushion for the other. After 

two rounds of parting and joining, Pamela changed up the 

game, pressing rigid bands into Arnold’s mouth. 

For his part, he put his weight behind his jaw. Pamela 

pushed him back into equilibrium, and once the two of them 

were upright, opened her mouth to give and receive. Their 

tongues slid about on each other, knocking against teeth and 

gums indiscriminately. 

“Ow.” Arnold quickly retreated from the kiss. 

“Is everything ok?” asked Pamela. 

“I think you bit me.” 

“I’m sorry. Do you want to stop?” 

“Nah, it’s fine.” The cogs in his head began to turn. “Actually, 

I don’t think I’ve shown you how to bite me properly. Mind if I 

demonstrate on you?” 

“Sure.” 

Arnold cupped Pamela’s head in both hands, and gently 

caught her bottom lip between his teeth. He applied a measure 

of force and stopped when he met a certain resistance. 

“Like that, but harder.” 

Pamela grabbed his jaw and pinpointed her target. She 

closed in on Arnold’s bottom lip and delivered an electric pulse 

that flooded his body with the spark of life. His eyes rolled back 

as everything opened up: every muscle, every fibre, every cell. 

He made his way onto his back. Pamela followed him. She 

gave him another hit. He pulled her in so that she could share 

in his vibrant joy. Feeling only the faint aftershocks of her 

blessing, Pamela needed to direct her partner in a language he 

could understand. 

“I want to feel you up a bit.” 

“Go ahead.” 

Pamela moved her hands down Arnold’s sides to his hips. 

Arnold responded kind, shearing the weight of the world from 

her back. 

“Do that again.” 

Arnold’s hands traced loops around the length of Pamela’s 

torso, each time rubbing excitement into her skin. She pushed 

Arnold’s legs apart with her knee, and she occupied the space. 

Her hands took on their own opinions, travelling to Arnold’s 

waist, and there they dug in and dug a little lower. 

Arnold’s hands moved more deliberately to divine her 

intentions. They moved past her waist and his fingertips flowed 

under her jeans. There they met a lacy material. 

“Did you go to work this morning wearing lingerie?” asked 

Arnold. 

“Yeah, it makes me feel sexy. That’s how it works, right?” 

Arnold shrugged his shoulders. Pamela laughed, then she 

kissed him. 

“Oh, about that thing I want us to do… Take off your pants. 

I’ll do it on you first.” 


CREATIVE 

Illustration by Olivia Parry

Lot's Wife Edition 6 2016

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