FARRAGO

 “Apep was so long and large that, even laid flat, he was taller than any human. His roar was so loud and so powerful that even the earth would shake at its sound. The enemy of Ra and order, he emerged from below to bring darkness, thirsting for chaos and destruction. Many tried to stop […]

Ever since my brother, my sister and I were small, my dad had a vision for us to become surfers. He had a shimmering dream of his three kids gliding down the face of waves out at sea, perfectly executing 360 degree turns with the grace and power of Kelly Slater. He has tried hard […]

content warning: colonialism, racism, civil war  Looking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, the year 2020 may well be known as the year of the monument. In previous years, there had been little international debate surrounding the continued presence of colonial monuments—a representation of a bygone and problematic history.  Indeed, in 1927, writer Robert Musil famously proclaimed […]

content warning: sexism, graphic violence and gore. Spoilers for Jennifer’s Body. Horror has always been a tool to explore girlhood and female virtue. But what Jennifer’s Body (2009) does differently—and so well—is show a teenage girl in her ultimate form: brutal, cringey, flawed, and most importantly, still a child. The script narrates the story of […]

“What, announce a policy without a slogan? Are you mad?”- overheard from Scott Morrison’s office, presumably. There’s a problem with slogans in politics: when political slogans age into accepted wisdom and the taint of ideology is forgotten, political partialities can be passed off as facts of nature. Of course, arguments are much easier when your […]

content warning: racism The Not-so-distant Colonial Past and “Post-racism” In recent years, the idea of “post-racism” has become increasingly popular, with people often stating that “racism no longer exists”, particularly in Western countries, including Australia. I have personally experienced this. One experience I had was when I was in a college tutorial telling my peers […]

Welcome to Canon in She, a column that celebrates the beautiful music of composers who identify as women. In this edition, we have a violist who wrote for a variety of instruments, a resourceful African American pianist who wrote a Christmas cantata, and an Australian pianist who writes lyrical and quirky music for various instruments.

In my dream, I stand at the triple crossroads. Oily yellow light spills down onto the bitumen, barely illuminating the roads’ beginnings. To the eastern fork, I see the klongs of Bangkok, hear an echo over the long-tail boats: “this way to your past”. To the western way, the Australian countryside stretches infinitely, drowning in heavy rainfall: “this way to your future”. To the northern road, a Janus-voice of twin-speaking conjurers, beckoning me to choose their shadowed path: “our ways are unknown”.

Pre-COVID-19-lockdown-reality, I meant to go see Billy Elliot the Musical, based on the 2005 film of the same name. Not-so-surprisingly, I didn’t end up going. Instead I read about it, watched the movie, I even signed up for free at-home ballet lessons – this one wasn’t really followed through – and I got to reflect on the subtleties of the plot and the songs in the musical’s soundtrack.

These recipes are paraphrased from 17th-century Dutch chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont. Luckily, he is remembered for discovering gases such as carbon dioxide, not for conjuring mice and scorpions.