Australians remember Captain America

On January 24, 2015 By Liz BarrIn comics, media, meta3 Comments

“Tell the truth, we all thought it was another silly rumour. Bad enough the Yanks sit out the first three years of war, but then, right when it’s getting hairy, they go out and spend money on a super soldier project? Well, we knew they were [CENSORED], but who’d have believed it?”
– Bruce Leonards, Private, 7th Division of the Second Australian Imperial Force, WWII

“Just bloody typical, isn’t it?”
– Police Inspector Charles Price

Two white men in US military police uniforms pose for the cameras. They look outrageously arrogant, conforming to stereotypes about Americans. — American MPs pose outside the Central Hotel, Brisbane, Australia. Early 1942.

“It seemed rather silly to spend all that money when our boys were dying in Burma and New Guinea. But that’s Americans for you. Well, he was rather handsome, I’ll give them that. Didn’t he die?”
– Beryl Montgomery, Australian Army Nursing Service

“Bad enough that Brisbane was practically an armed camp — girls falling over themselves to go to nightclubs with American soldiers, couldn’t say no to a bit of chocolate and a pair of nylons — then the Yanks went and put a silly costume on a male model. Bet the girls will be going silly for him, next, too.”
– Leading Aircraftman Keith Avard, Royal Australian Air Force

[No Award notes that the legendary appeal of American soldiers to Australian women had as much to do with their coming from a culture where women were, you know, considered worth talking to, as their material advantages.]

[The Waifs – Bridal Train]

[Also, what’s up with this thing where YouTube doesn’t let us get the old embed code anymore? DOES THE NEW ONE WORK FOR ANYONE AT ALL?]

Using no less than three primary documents, discuss the effect of the Captain America mythos on the Australian experience of World War II.
– year twelve Modern History exam question, Bongoola State High School, Queensland, 1997

“Of course they needed to build a super soldier. Everyone knows the US Armed Forces were [CENSORED].”
– Private Clyde Cotterill

Nazi propaganda leaflets aimed at Australian troops in El Alamain.

“What a [censored]. Those seppos need us more than we need them. We don’t need a super soldier when we have true blue Aussies.”
– Billy Sampson, farmer (father of Private William Sampson)

Angered by the slurs cast towards Captain America and the Howling Commandos, American soldiers Harold Hicks, William Edward Arford and Terje Brekka began an all out brawl that drew in all American naval staff, all New Zealand naval staff, and a number of Australian boys present in the National Hotel at the time. Although initially uninvolved, Stanley Reginald Hooper (26) and Ned Rako Kelly (21), Maori soldiers unwinding in the bar, were soon drawn into the brawl, and were the only fatalities. The Coroner at the time ruled these deaths as caused by self-defence, but later testimony by Australians and New Zealanders present reveals the ongoing antipathy towards the Americans over constant boasting of the role of the Howling Commandos, and the lack of stamina of the Antipodean boys…
– excerpt, Captain America and the Boys and Girls of Australia, David Tiller, Penguin Books, 1966

“We used to love the boys coming through, but they’ve all come up skiting since this all went down. Really, the Battle of Perth was inevitable.”
– Helena Cook, Pub Owner, Fremantle

“MacArthur was already neglecting Australian and New Zealand troops. We knew, without a doubt, that once they started producing super soldiers, we were right out of it. No chance of a look in after that.”
– Captain Charles Hardy, 9th Division, 2nd Australian Imperial Force

Australian Prime Minister John Howard again refused to apologise for experiments conducted on young Aboriginal men in the 1950s in an attempt to reproduce America’s super-soldier serum.

“These terrible experiments are in the past,” said the Prime Minister. “It’s time for Australia to move on.”

Until 1995, the Australian and British governments denied that Project Albion existed. Four men died and eight suffered permanent disability as a result of the experiments.
Transcript, ABC News, 12 April 2000

“Saw him on a newsreel. Big bloke, eh? Reckon he’d go in for Aussie rules? Melbourne could use a player like him. Provided we ever get the MCG back from the Marines.”
– Betty Fraser, nurse, Melbourne, 1944 (as remembered by her daughter, Adele Brunton, in 2012)

[Historical note: for part of WWII, the US Marines were housed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.]

Colebatch argues that American unions were so inspired by Captain America that they refused to strike during the war. Australian dock workers, he suggests, lacking such a powerfully patriotic motivator, fell prey to the manipulation of Communists, fifth columnists and traitors. What we needed was not just a superhero, but a conservative superhero.

Colebatch writes of Steve Rogers as a sepia-toned historical figure. The fact that Captain America is alive and well, exposing SHIELD corruption and talking up universal health care, is as insignificant as any of the other facts he mangles.
– J. M. Caudwell, review of Australia’s Secret War: How Unions Sabotaged Our Troops in World War II in The New Left, October 2014.

“Bloody Yanks.”
– Private Jim White

Ancillary Conversation

On January 9, 2015January 9, 2015 By Liz BarrIn books6 Comments

Ann Leckie’s 2013 debut novel Ancillary Justice exploded on the SF scene and, in 2014, won a whole lot of awards and considerable praise for its portrayal of imperialism and depiction of gender. The blurb:

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Breq is both more than she seems and less than she was. Years ago, she was Justice of Toren–a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of corpse soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.

An act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with only one fragile human body. And only one purpose–to revenge herself on Anaander Mianaai, many-bodied, near-immortal Lord of the Radch.

Space opera. Corpse soldiers. Artificial intelligence. Space politics. These are things that No Award is here for. And to the surprise of absolutely no one ever, we have some opinions about Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword. So many opinions, in fact, that mere Twitter conversations couldn’t do them justice. Accordingly, we are joined here today by Dr Sophie and Dr Jonathan.

Continue reading “Ancillary Conversation” →

No Award’s official gift guide

On December 9, 2014 By Liz BarrIn Uncategorized5 Comments

There’s a post going around Tumblr at the moment, about how hard it is to buy for people who don’t have obsessions. AND IT’S TRUE. It was a good day for Liz when her mother got sucked into Game of Thrones — the DVDs should keep us going for a few Christmases yet.

Well, No Award is here to help. What follows is a list of things we already own and think are great, or that we’d appreciate finding under a tree and think others would too, and maybe even a few things we couldn’t care less about, but seem like they might be hypothetically appealing to others. All prices are in Australian dollars.

We aren’t into dividing gifts by gender (sorry, Tony Abbott OH WAIT NO WE’RE NOT), but the alcohol probably isn’t appropriate for all ages, so we’re dividing the diverse and complex human race into two categories:

Tiny People Who Are Still Developing Cognitive and Motor Skills

Blahaj. “Soft toy, shark” says the IKEA website. And yes, that’s true, but Blahaj is SO MUCH MORE. It’s the ideal gift for a child small enough to be HILARIOUSLY ADORABLE while walking around with a stuffed shark of approximately equal size, but it also makes the perfect housewarming gift for … well, anyone. Get one. Get six. $24.99 at IKEA. (Steph notes: Blahaj’s predecessor, Klapparhaj, was only 19.99 and I am OUTRAGED at this inflation. Also note that my house contains both Blahaj and Klapparhaj)

Six plush sharks sit around a boardroom meeting table at Ikea. They're discussing serious shark business. — HAJ PARTY

Also, IKEA has a pretty great range of toys in general, including soft dolls that aren’t white. Or golliwogs.

If you’d rather something more geographically appropriate, you may also buy a shark from your local capital city aquarium (please note: No Award doesn’t necessarily endorse aquariums, but we do patronise their shops).

Shark – Air Swimmer.

A helium balloon in the shape of a shark. — WE JUST LIKE SHARKS, OKAY?

But what child-or-grown-adult doesn’t need a lifesize, remote-controlled, helium shark? Currently on sale for $39.99, but also currently out of stock. The company does other animals, but none as cool as sharks, let alone squids or penguins, so what’s the point?

Crystal Growing Kit. No lie, Liz would have murdered for this when she was small. $16.95 at Australian Geographic. (Australian Geographic is full of cool and interesting science-related gifts, and although some have pink packaging, it doesn’t seem to be strongly gendered.)

Any of these awesome ‘teaching story’ picture books by Ambelin Kwaymulina, which have a focus on telling indigenous stories about how to live in the world. Suitable for all the sproglets in your life. ($16.95)

Shark vs Train by Chris Barton. We here at No Award haven’t read this sproglet book, but it seems relevant to our interests.

Larger People Who Have The Motor Skills Down But Are Still, You Know, Growing And Learning Every Day, But More Importantly, Can Legally Be Given Alcohol

Photograph of a bottle of Kraken Rum (with octopus on label) against a white background. — “Put the beast in your belly.”

Bonus points if the alcohol is cephalopod themed.

Stephanie is a big believer in hot toddies; Liz is a big believer in cephalopods. So we both rate Kraken Rum pretty highly. Also, it’s actually good, if you’re into dark spiced rum. Which we are. Please enjoy your cephalopod-themed alcohol responsibly. About $50 per 700mL bottle.

DVD box set: The Gods of Wheat Street.

DVD cover: a good looking Aboriginal man in his forties gazes into the distance; an Aboriginal woman of about the same age stands behind him, smiling. She's his mum's ghost.

Now, Liz has a confession to make. Remember how she managed to blog about every single terrible episode of Secrets & Lies? Well, she followed that with the clever and charming Gods of Wheat Street, but it was so good, she had too many feels to encapsulate them into a post.

And that’s terrible, because Gods not only represents a rare Australian foray into the magical realism genre, but it does so with a majority Indigenous cast. The blurb:

Odin Freeburn, head of the family, is being pulled in all directions as he tries to keep his family together. Odin has one brother in jail, another brother is in love with the daughter of the family enemy and his wife has run away to the city leaving him to raise their two daughters.

To complicate matters, his employer has just died, his sister-in-law is in love with him and the spirit of his mother Eden has come back on a mission to protect the important destiny of the Freeburn family line.

And, really, that’s about it, but what more do you need? Family drama, a ghost, some criminal shenanigans. It’s well-written and funny, and also heartbreaking, and also Electra is one of my favourite female characters ever. Also Shari Sebbens wears this amazing dress with an avocado pattern. I can’t tell you how much I want an avocado dress. Currently on sale for $19.99 at the ABC Shop!

Liz and her mum both recommend Janet King, another recent ABC drama ($24.98 at JB Hi-Fi). It’s a thriller/mystery about a Crown Prosecutor who comes back from maternity leave and plunges straight into a conspiracy that reaches the very top of NSW politics. (And it’s NSW politics — frankly anything seems plausible.) Some material may be triggery for people who have issues around sexual abuse, child abuse and the judicial system.

Pretty much anything from the First Shop on the Moon would make an amazing gift. The ideal gift for the civil disobedience penguin in your life. But enough about Stephanie.

For the well-dressed cyclist in your life, Captain Robbo’s Adventure Pants ($90) or anything from Tread & Pedals. Adventure Pants are handprinted by Captain Robbo, super comfortable, and stress tested by Stephanie when she was doored by a car on Hampden Road to definitely help save your knees. Comes in cephalopod patterns. Tread & Pedals are based in Melbourne and are upcycled bicycle parts jewellery and clocks and things. Awesome cufflinks from chains, bracelets made of spokes (Steph owns three of the latter and loves them).

Nothing promises a festive holiday season like a bit of paranoia! How about Australia Under Surveillance by Frank Moorehouse and Dirty Secrets: Our Asio Files by Meredith Brugman? (Both $32.99 at Readings.) Liz just finished reading the latter, and although it got repetitive towards the end, it’s full of interesting, horrifying and occasionally funny stories about ASIO shenanigans and Australia’s dubious attitude to civil liberties during the Cold War.

Stephanie’s books to recommend are Transport for Suburbia by Paul Mees ($95), on the problems of public transport in suburban areas (note: Stephanie hasn’t read this and desperately wants to); and The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine ($35), a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses set in the Jazz Age (and one of NPR’s books of 2014).

Did you just laugh mirthlessly at the idea of being able to afford two new release books in Australia? Liz wishes to point out that Kobo does gift vouchers. (Liz personally prefers Kobo devices over other ereaders as they will support DRM-free ebooks in a range of formats, unlike certain other readers, Kindle.)

(Amazon also do gift cards. Sometimes you have to compromise your principles in order to get that ebook you were chasing for less than $30.)

Or, for value for money and some excellent Australian SF, how about a subscription to Twelfth Planet Press?

Does the nerd in your life have their Continuum membership yet? Because that would make a great gift! Provided that your nerd lives in Melbourne or has the means to get here, or else that you’re also paying for transport and accommodation. Otherwise, I guess buying them a membership would be a bit mean.

A gift that transcends borders (as well as time and space) is Australian audio SF drama/comedy Night Terrors, a sort of Australian remix of Doctor Who, but with more female characters, puns, and a Harold Holt joke in the second episode that made Liz hit pause and frantically text Stephanie.

Back in the book department, Liz and Steph both enjoyed/are enjoying Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie ($19.99 at Readings), despite the fact that even a book about a culture without gender manages to have an entitled male-bodied douchebag stealing oxygen. If you don’t have anything nice to say about Seivarden, come and sit by us. But also buy it for the intellectual space opera fan in your life.

Gifts For People You Don’t Really Want To Give Gifts To

Maybe you drew the tedious sister-in-law in the family Kris Kringle. (Disclaimer: Liz’s sister-in-law is great.) Maybe you’ve pulled your boss in the office Secret Santa. Maybe you’re just a troll. Here’s some suggestions!

– Remember, in year seven, we converted tea towels into plastic bag holders? That. Remember to wash the tea towel first! (Or not.)

– Soap on a rope

– A tea towel converted into a plastic bag holder … filled with soap on a rope

– An Iggy Azalea CD

– A TARDIS-shaped tea infuser. This is for when you’re trolling Captain Picard. Obviously.

– Bacon-flavoured vodka.

No Award takes no responsibility for any family or office feuds that may arise out of these gifts. Do not give bacon-flavoured vodka to vegans. In very few workplaces is it acceptable or appropriate to give a sex toy to a colleague.

Greg! The Link Spam!!

On November 27, 2014 By Liz BarrIn links, Uncategorized1 Comment

Can you have a garden in New Zealand? The entire existence of Reddit is justified with one post and its amazing comments.

Remembering Heartbreak High — ABC + ’90s nostalgia + Aussie teen drama = a No Award approved post!

According to Australian Screen curator, Tammy Burnstock, Heartbreak High was based on a stage play written by Robert Barrett, first published in 1988, which was adapted into the successful film The Heartbreak Kid (1993), starring Alex Dimitriades and Claudia Karvan. The 1993 film set out to be diverse and capture the ‘melting-pot’ Australia that, at the time, wasn’t being portrayed in shows like Neighbours or Home and Away. According to producer Ben Gannon (who would go on to become executive producer of Heartbreak High): “The Heartbreak Kid was presenting a world that we didn’t think was widely known outside of Australia; a multi-racial, urban, more ‘gritty’ high school. Up until Heartbreak, we didn’t feel that had ever been properly represented on film or television.”

This need for multiculturalism translated into the Hartley High inner city school setting; Heartbreak High not only offered seven seasons of diverse casting, but also explored racial tensions within the school setting. The pilot episode centered on character Rivers (Scott Major) repeatedly goading new student Jack Tran (Tai Nguyen), resulting in an after-school brawl.

The Guardian‘s series on Australian anthems is always good, but Liz is particularly keen on Clem Bastow’s remembrance of “! (The Song Formerly Known As)” by Regurgitator, an electro-punk tribute to the glories of staying home. It’s been Liz’s personal theme song since she first heard it on Triple J, and gets more relevant to her life every year.

We at No Award have little to contribute to the subject of Ferguson and the murder of Michael Brown, being Australian and not black. We would mostly like to see our fellow Aussies being less smug about that “never happening hear”. Guys, Australian cops have a long history of killing black children, and also black adults. The only difference is, they’re less heavily armed over here, so they have to arrest you first.

But Larissa Behrendt says it better than we can: Indigenous Australia knows the cynicism exposed by Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson.

Watching the events in Ferguson unfold raises similar questions about Australia’s own legal system. The parallel is immediately drawn with the failure to secure a conviction in the case of 36-year-old Cameron Mulrunji Doomadgee, who died in a Palm Island lockup over 10 years ago.

Mulrunji was picked up for singing “Who let the dogs out” at a police officer, Chris Hurley, who drove past him in the street. He was charged with public nuisance. He had been in police custody for only an hour when he died. An autopsy revealed four broken ribs, which had ruptured his liver and spleen.

Hurley was indicted for assault and manslaughter but acquitted in 2007. He is the only person ever charged over a death in custody of an Aboriginal person in Australia.

The Ferguson issue this week had Liz, at least, asking some questions about the grand jury, ie, WTF? Luckily, The Conversation is here to outline the history of the grand jury and why they’re not that great a concept: Only in America: why Australia is right not to have grand juries.

Mood whiplash:

One for Sleepy Hollow fans: what are Henry’s ethical obligations to Frank Irving as an attorney?

Henry also has a significant conflict of interest with Irving, as Henry’s goal is to bring about the Apocalypse under the direction of Moloch, which goes against Irving’s interests.

Liz works in the legal industry, so she thinks about this sort of thing a lot.

Disability or Superpower? Deaf identity in YA

Keighery is hearing, and had major qualms about writing a deaf protagonist. ‘The more I researched deaf experience, particularly the politics, the more worried I became. At times, it seemed an impossible task to represent such complexity. But I discussed these terrors with people whose opinions I respect. My sister told me it was good and correct that I felt fear, since it showed a healthy respect for the topic I was going to tackle.

(This strikes Liz as being good advice for any author writing about a culture or identity they have not lived for themselves.)

Linkspam don’t get around much anymore

On November 5, 2014 By Liz BarrIn links3 Comments

The big-eyed children: the extraordinary story of an epic art fraud

In which a person, male, attaches himself to a more-talented person, female, and treats her badly while claiming both credit for her work and the associated rewards. This is interesting, not for the intrinsic quality of the art — which is, um, debatable — but for the satisfaction of Margaret Keane’s eventual triumph.

(Bonus! The comments featuring guys going, “Name one occasion on which a man has taken credit for a woman’s work,” and getting dozens of verifiable cases in response. Note: this does not make reading the comments in any way worthwhile.)

Architecture for Bikes (in pictures)

Here at No Award we adore cosplay, especially cosplay appropriate to Australia’s climates, and so this photographic project by Klaus Pichler of Australian cosplayers in their homes is just EXCELLENT.

Stephanie has a lot of feelings about ‘authenticity’ and racist and classist devaluation and revaluation of work, and you should definitely read Crafted nostalgia: The romanticisation of a handmade economy by Cher Tan at Kill Your Darlings.

When production reaches a saturation point, the desire to pursue ‘authenticity’ is rehashed to the point of becoming the norm. But in the developed world, is the quest for an ever-changing authenticity evidence of the romanticisation of having less?

Yes. Perfect.

SECRET BOOKS: Melbourne’s hidden libraries. Stephanie, being the unrepentant urban hipster that she is, wants to create a library in the vestibule of her apartment building (which is a refurbed factory in Fitzroy).

The impact of David and Margaret on Australia’s film industry: Pomeranz and Stratton: a critical loss for the Australian film industry.

Stephanie is also pretty chuffed about this: Proposal to curb car traffic in Brunswick Street in favour of pedestrians. High density in Fitzroy. No cars on Brunswick Street! The no bikes thing is fine as well, cos bikes can use Napier street. Yes, thank you. Recently Stephanie took the opportunity to submit to the City of Yarra Local Traffic Management Survey. You better believe she had some things to say about the lack of bike parking and bike lanes in certain areas.

Yay for the internet: Melbourne hotel cancels ‘pick-up artist’ seminar amid outrage over choking technique. PICK UP ARTISTS. If you are a pick up artist, you can leave No Award. Thanks.

Man climbs onto whale carcass as feeding sharks circle off West Australian coast.

It is not yet known why the man chose to board the carcass.

And the follow up: Mum thinks I’m an idiot.

Notes on the Exotic, by Andrea Lee at the New Yorker.

And some people who spoke about Gough at his funeral: Cate Blanchett, who gave a killer, lovely leftie speech and made Tone a bit awks; Noel Pearson, talking about discrimination.

If there were no Racial Discrimination Act that would have been the end of it. Land rights would have been dead, there would never have been a Mabo case in 1992, there would have been no Native Title Act under Prime Minister Keating in 1993.

Without this old man the land and human rights of our people would never have seen the light of day.

There would never have been Mabo and its importance to the history of Australia would have been lost without the Whitlam program.

Only those who have known discrimination truly know its evil.

Only those who have never experienced prejudice can discount the importance of the Racial Discrimination Act.

This old man was one of those rare people who never suffered discrimination but understood the importance of protection from its malice.

Workplace etiquette for baby boomers

On October 10, 2014October 10, 2014 By Liz BarrIn Uncategorized3 Comments

Every now and then there are rumblings about how young folk in the workplace don’t know how to behave, and need the wisdom of baby boomers to survive professionally.

It’s a cliche, of course, but Team No Award, plus our fellow millennials Ash, Zoe and Weaves (the latter two being Fatberg Inc) had our own thoughts on the matter. Here are our tips for baby boomers — all, alas, taken from real life.

no one cares that you’ve accrued enough superannuation to retire
50 Shades of Grey is not the kind of material you should be passing around the office
put your damn phone on silent
you don’t need to make a remark every time someone has Asian food for lunch
vegans: they exist … and they might be sitting at the desk next to you
renters: they exist … and they might be sitting at the desk next to you
gay people: they exist … and they might be sitting at the desk next to you
Asians: they … oh, come on, how did you miss that?
the appropriate term is “transgender”.
no one cares about your investment properties
but have you considered multitasking?
keep your hands to yourself
an Excel spreadsheet is not a good place to put your 10,000 word verbose descriptions of things.
playing opera loudly is just as annoying as playing any other kind of music loudly. Even if you’re the boss.
turn your goddamn mobile phone down or off, Jesus Christ. Your phone doesn’t need the typing sound. Truly, it doesn’t.
nobody has sympathy for your difficulty in pressing buttons on the printer. nobody.
“No, I’m not looking at buying real estate any time soon, thanks” is not an invitation to lecturing on the merits of owning real estate.
– qualifications in medicine, law, or literally any other thing do not make a young person able to fix your phone/computer/television based on your description over the phone.
your helplessness in the face of clear instructions regarding something technological is not cute and in fact is not even acceptable workplace behaviour
it is appropriate to attempt to gauge interest in such subjects as the state of your rosebushes and then modify the amount of time you spend talking about them according to your audience.
nobody cares about the state of your colon.
stop asking people if they’re planning to get pregnant
or married
especially if the people you’re speaking to might be anything other than heterosexual
try not to use the phrase ‘Not Like Us’ unless you’re prepared to see some eyebrows rise
the appropriate response to the attempted suicide of a colleague’s teenaged son is almost anything other than “Kids just don’t seem to have sticking power these days, do they?”
stop touching me
the printers are not in fact conspiring against you personally. (Being printers, they conspire against all humans.)
having time to binge watch TV on the weekend isn’t a sign of a lack of commitment
having interests outside of work, period, is not a sign of a lack of committment

dedicating 60+ hours a week doesn’t actually make you the most amazing person ever
no one is impressed that you eat two meals a day at your desk
in fact no one is impressed by your denial of joy, happiness, or excitement, period.
yes, you got me. I totally made up those food intolerances for attention. Yup.
yes. I am racist against white people…
…and sexist against men. Those are totally things.
stop touching me
no, I will not share the story behind my tattoo
yes, we really do want to be remunerated for our work. Shocking, I know.
that check-out chick you were whinging about probably has a law degree
yes, I am motivated by money. That HECS debt’s not gonna pay itself off, you know.
take a tip from the digitally literate: don’t use your work email, which everyone can see, to communicate with recruiters.
when sending co-workers porn, keep in mind that your work emails will be reviewed when your company either sues someone or is sued by someone
17:27 is a terrible time to call a secretary in to revise a letter
“Can you just…” at 17.27 pm is FUN FOR NOBODY
people who don’t have kids or spouses are not inherently less deserving when it comes to picking holiday dates or going home on time
the average price of a house now is about fifty years of our life, so it’s great that you paid your mortgage off by working a second job in the 60s, but that shit doesn’t fly any more
groceries for a week = half my rent. please ask me again why I don’t own my own house
yes, I’m 30 and not married, just like I was last week and the week before, but PLEASE stop trying to set me up with your son, I’m actually quite happy the way I am
STOP. TOUCHING. ME.

Suffice to say, we’ve all been in the workforce for a long time, and have maybe accumulated a tiny bit of resentment. Just, you know, a bit.

I’ll be good to you, linkspam

On October 6, 2014 By Liz BarrIn links10 Comments

A few hours after Stephanie’s linkspam went up on Monday, I was emailing her with more things to post. So!

Remember that time we shared some lessons from Australian ’90s music? Vass linked us in her own linkspam, and then she linked this:

The Complete Girlfriend Story: Nothing is Impossible

In which Paul Keating’s pro-Asian policies merge with manufactured pop to create … a really depressing series of failures.

During one of Girlfriends early interviews, a cynical musical journalist asked the girls outright what made them any different from New Kids On The Block. Loau answered “we’ve got tits”, at which point the girls management went into damage control. Loau was gently at first, then much more firmly, reminded of Girlfriends rules. According to Loau, she was reminded not to say tits, bum or any words that indicated Loau knew what sex was, and she was to live in a world of perpetual joy and innocence. It was a reminder to all the girls that Girlfriends image was not to deviate from the squeaky clean, that they were to act as if they didn’t even know what a boyfriend was.

Also from Vass:

The 3 Types of Australian Accents

I actually disagree with this post, mostly because it argues that Julia Gillard has a “general” accent. If this was true, she wouldn’t have received so much classist abuse for it. (Note to self: find time to write the massive post about Doctor Who‘s Tegan Jovanka and Julia Gillard and the silencing of women who sound working class.)

But also, I disagree with the premise that Australia doesn’t have regional variations. There is absolutely a Queensland accent, and even an Ipswich accent. Not to mention the famously posh stereotypical accents of Adelaide and also Melbourne’s suburbs like Brighton.

And there are also variations for people with non-English speaking backgrounds. I once worked with a woman who could tell whether a speaker’s family was Greek or Macedonian based on their inflections.

Decolonisation and Dinosaurs — or, the woman who stopped the theft of Mongolia’s fossils.

The Secrets of Star Wars: it’s very important that you know about Star Wars’ almost Australian canon:

After a dinner of “thanta sauce” and “bum-bum extract,” Luke embarks on a long-winded, jargon-filled explanation to his younger brothers about the Force of Others. Originally discovered by a holy man called the Skywalker, the Force is divided into the good half, “Ashla,” and the “paraforce,” called the Bogan. To prevent people with “less strength” from discovering the Bogan, the Skywalker only taught it to his children, who passed it on to theirs.

Passed it on via an old Monaro, we can only assume.

How the Shinkansen bullet train made Tokyo into the monster it is today.

In more Melbunny transport news: Melbourne Bike Cabs; the failure of myki fines; and some stuff about the East West Link (please note that No Award’s official position on the East West Link is yeah nah mate). And also the sad truth about Melbourne’s transport future (spoilers: there won’t be any rail link to Tulla).

More for infrastructure nerds: photographs from the construction of Melbourne’s City Loop. The official opening in 1981 featured pretty girls in T-shirts and bikini bottoms, because if there’s one thing that needs to be sexy, it’s a rail network.

Are Muslim Women Right To Be Afraid Of Australian Schoolchildren? First Dog on the Moon is No Award’s favourite cartoonist, although we’re mildly concerned that Brenda the Civil Disobedience Penguin violates Stephanie’s copyright on her life (eg this old cartoon about the east west link). But the Dog nails it, as usual.

Normally No Award and MamaMia prefer to politely ignore each other — which is to say that we pointedly ignore MM and they are unaware of our existence — but they ran Jo Qualmann’s piece on being asexual, and we think that’s pretty great. It’s good to see marginalised voices in the mainstream! Also, Jo is good friends with Liz’s brother, and we are more than happy to bask in her success.

Do you obsess over the BoM’s reports? As cyclists, No Award does, and so it’s important to understand the changes to how weather will be reported. (It’s not hard)

Also (you can tell Stephanie is currently reading the news sites), evidence (in case you needed it) that Australia’s Commissioner for Human Rights is a dingbat:

Mr Wilson said he does not support banning burkas, but questioned why some women wear it.

“I do find people walking around with full-length or burkas or hijabs or… I always get the different ones confused… confronting, because it is not something that we are used to seeing in Australia,” he told 612 ABC Brisbane.

“I always wonder and question whether people do it voluntarily.”

He said people were “well within their rights” to wear burkas, but “it doesn’t mean I don’t find it confronting”.

Liz notes: by all means, let’s concern troll about the hijab and its variations, while closing down women’s shelters. That link is from a few months back; I signed a current petition relating to a St Kilda shelter on the weekend, but have managed to forget the link.

(Liz also notes: I am not Muslim, but my stepmother is. She chooses not to wear a hijab for feminist reasons. Her sisters choose to wear it … also for feminist reasons. It’s complicated, and we at No Award aren’t interested in playing at being white saviours.)

Finally! Interesting women of history! The Empress Dowager Ci’an!

Now, Liz is an educated and historically literate woman, and she grew up in a family with a very strong interest in Asian history. Yet it was only last week that she discovered that, for twenty years in the nineteenth century, China was ruled by two dowager empresses — Cixi and Ci’an. It’s the little-known Bitches Get Shit Done Era.

…but seriously, I had never heard of Ci’an until I started reading Jung Chang’s biography of the Empress Dowager Cixi. Which is great, by the way — not just because it’s interesting, but because Chang is a big old Cixi fangirl, and at least once a chapter she starts ranting about traditional historians erasing Cixi or minimising her achievements, or perpetuating myths about how she and Ci’an hated each other, when in fact they were BFFs.

I paraphrase. Slightly.

As a general rule I’m wary of revisionist histories (especially when a lot of the primary sources are in a language I can’t read), but Chang’s work here feels solid. She’s very much writing for a general (and western) audience, but her facts seem reliable. I expect we’ll hear from Stephanie if she’s made any egregious errors.

Anyway, Cixi is brilliant and clever and vastly under-appreciated by history. I have some quibbles with the way Chang writes for people who are entirely ignorant of Chinese culture, and substitutes western concepts for actual translations — like “Praetorian Guard” for what I presume are the imperial guards — but I expect Stephanie will be able to speak at more length on that topic when she eventually reads it. She’s currently, um, “enjoying” some amazingly racist travel writing, so you should send some good thoughts her way, and also vegan cupcakes. She needs them.

Got a sharehouse problem? Let us attempt to solve it for you!

On September 1, 2014 By Liz BarrIn Uncategorized4 Comments

Liz and Steph have lived in a lot of sharehouses. We have experience. And also lots of friends with experience. If you find yourself, say, with flatmates whose drunk friend turned up at 5 am on a Sunday morning and possibly pissed on your couch, only you can’t tell for sure because the couch cover and mattress have mysteriously vanished … well, we don’t have an answer for that, because that’s Liz’s life right now, and she’s not one for confrontational things like asking questions outright in a face to face and mature manner.

But if you have a query, or a good story to tell, or advice re: Schrodinger’s piss couch (that isn’t going to wind up on passiveaggressivenotes.com), this is the time and place to ask, and we’ll answer in a post in the near future.

53 important life lessons from Australian music of the ’90s

On August 9, 2014August 9, 2014 By Liz BarrIn music, Uncategorized27 Comments

Ah, the ’90s. Liz and Stephanie both came of age in that magical decade. We have fond memories. We both learned a lot from ’90s Australian music, and we thought it was time to share those lessons.

If this post has a theme song, it’s Kimbra’s “90’s Music”. Obviously.

Gif from Kimbra's video for "90s Music": a child puts a video into a stickered machine and hits play.

For the purposes of this post, 2000 is absolutely part of the ’90s. YES, WE ARE INTO THAT LEVEL OF PEDANTRY AROUND HERE. Well, Liz is.

At some point in its existence, every single share house in Australia will have “Accidentally Kelly Street” as its theme song. (“Accidentally Kelly Street”, Frente!)
No matter how great your post-punk ’80s synthpop homage is, a deliberately incorrect apostrophe in your band name will ensure you’re a one hit wonder. (“Cry”, The Mavis’s)
Thanks to that one montage in Heartbreak High, “Only When I’m Sleeping” will always seem melancholy and ultimately heartbreaking. (Stephanie note: THAT’S BECAUSE IT IS COME ON) (“Only When I’m Sleeping”, Leonardo’s Bride)
Australians invented girl power; the Spice Girls just had better marketing. (“Girl’s Life”, Girlfriend)
Actually, you don’t need to wash your jeans that much. (“Dirty Jeans”, Magic Dirt)
In every pop queen there is an alt-pop singer-songwriter yearning to be free. (Kylie Minogue, Impossible Princess)
Kylie has yet to top “Did It Again” for quality and self-awareness.
It’s possible to have an earworm in 2014 from a song you heard once in 1998 and never managed to track down a copy of, even though the internet assures you the lead singer in that obscure Melbourne group is still totes hot. (“Delicious”, Moler)
It’s wrong, but Liz liked that song about American hegemony and teen angst a bit more after it’s used in Buffy. (“American Shoes”, Motor Ace)
The nicest boys can write the stalkiest songs. (“Everywhere You Go”, Taxiride)
Don’t ask Dannii Minogue to look after your goldfish while you’re away. (Cover art, “All I Wanna Do” single)
Seriously, Dannii, what are you doing to that fish? And why do you change the spelling of your name every few years?
Girls like that don’t go for guys like us (but your 32 year old self will realise that’s just a classic case of nice guy itis from the 90s) (“Girls Like That (Don’t Go For Guys Like Us)”, Custard).
A mixed-race girl from the outer suburbs of Perth can be just as much of a pub bogan as anyone else, a realisation you’ll make the first time you ever hear “Holy Grail” and every time after. (“Holy Grail”, Hunters and Collectors)
Every friend has their flaws, but they’re awesome regardless and you still love them. (“You Sound Like Louis Burdett”, The Whitlams)
Flower hats will go out of style (non Australians may know them as Blossom hats), but you will always, in your heart, wish they come back (“Take It From Me,” Girlfriend)
Brown Australian boys can be just as cool as white boys from anywhere (and this was important in Stephanie’s identity formation) (“Let’s Groove”, CDB)
The rest of the world has other flavours of Coke! (“I Want You,” Savage Garden)
Every breakup mixtape for the rest of your life will include the lines “I’m like a waterlogged ball / That noone wants to kick around anymore”. (“Heavy Heart,” You Am I)
There are hipsters, and they come from Freo (“Sweater,” Eskimo Joe)
Every Australian loves David and Margaret (the video clip for “Greg! The Stop Sign!” TISM)
Liz’s home town was famous in the ’90s as the home to a whole lot of meth cooks. (“Caboolture Speed Lab”, Custard)
Stella One Eleven’s In Your Hands is a perfect work of feminist folk-rock, and absolutely worth spending a decade hunting down on CD after Liz’s Walkman ate the cassette. (Stella One Eleven, In Your Hands)
Even at the age of 13, you know that “When I kiss your mouth, I want to taste it” is a fairly sexual lyric, and no amount of disingenuous denials in radio interviews will change that. (“Mouth”, Merril Bainbridge)
No matter how floppy the hair or sincere the puppydog eyes, one great boyband cover of a disco track doesn’t equal a great album. (CDB, Glide With Me)
Liz had the cassette.
(For a boyband who had one hit and then vanished into obscurity, CDB were surprisingly important to No Award. They are now the official boyband of No Award.)
DON’T WORRY, THEY’RE STILL GORGEOUS.
Paul McDermott and that blonde-haired Wiccan with the culturally appropriative Bindis should have collaborated more. (Paul McDermott and Fiona Horne, “Shut Up/Kiss Me”)
Can’t drink the water in Sydney. Can’t eat the food in Japan. Can’t breathe the air in Los Angeles but a million people think they can. (Frenzal Rhomb, “Never Had So Much Fun”)
Bad boys are overrated. (Girlfriend, “Bad Attitude”)
Simplicity is timeless. (“The Day You Went Away”, Wendy Matthews)
Can’t dance? At least try to vogue. (Video for “Human Race”, Margaret Urlich)
No Award does not endorse age-related prescriptivism, but nevertheless, there may come a time when it seems a bit silly for a grown woman to sing about pashing. (“Pash”, Kate Cebrano)
Objectifying women isn’t cool, but CGI is pretty great. (“Polyester Girl”, Regurgitator, and associated video)
In some cases autotune and associated voice processors are good and necessary things. (Diana Ahnaid/Ah Naid/Anaid, any of her live songs compared with a studio track)
Why can’t everything be like before? Time moves ever onwards, but fuzzy guitars are forever. (“Pace It”, Magic Dirt)
A song can be really beautiful and insightful and brilliant, and then descend into self-congratulatory grossness because white men think they’re hilarious. (Last 30 seconds of “No Aphrodisiac”, The Whitlams.)
Sisterhood is great… (“Sister”, Sister2Sister)
…especially if you’re fighting ninjas together. (“Venus or Mars”, Jackson Mendoza)
The 20th century sucked, but the year 2000 will bring a dramatic positive change. (And just because it’s the ’90s doesn’t mean we should stop hating Thatcher.) (“Anthem for the Year 2000”, silverchair)
Don’t put up with people who don’t take you seriously. Especially dudes. (“Don’t Call Me Baby”, Madison Avenue)
Falling in love is a lot like experiencing a traumatic injury. (“Buses and Trains”, Bachelor Girl)
Bass addiction is a serious problem in modern society. (“Addicted to Bass”, Josh Abrahams & Amiel Daemion)
From girlpop queen to goth-infused pop singer-songwriter via world music is a really great progression. (“Sick With Love”, Robyn Loau, “Manu”, Siva Pacifica)
In the wake of the Columbine massacre, nothing is more appropriate than a cheery alt-pop song about a public shooting. (“Run Baby Run”, deadstar)
Is there anything better than grunge? Yes, grunge with a woman on guitars and vocals. (“Down Again”, The Superjesus)
Grunge pop with a woman on vocals and white-person dreads on everyone is less great, but still important in demonstrating that kids from tiny country towns can make a big noise. (“Weir”, Killing Heidi)
If you were an Australian Voyager fan in your teens, Powderfinger’s “My Happiness” may have been a really important song for you. Also, Roma Street Station is no place for a tiny CGI slinky. (“My Happiness”, Powderfinger)
Being a teenager is really hard, but somewhere out there is an indie band who gets it. (“Teenager of the Year”, Lo-Tel)
If you’re 11 years old, the “when you make love to me” line in Danni(i?) Minogue’s “This Is It” is pretty racy. I mean, if you’re quite a sheltered 11 year old. (Julian McMahon’s chest hair is also troubling.) (Dannii Minogue, “This Is It”)
Ex-child star striving for credibility after an awkward “sexy” album? Think sepia. Everyone takes beige seriously. (“Chains”, Tina Arena)
This is a serious business album cover.
Bad break-ups come with surprisingly violent imagery, and maybe it’s safest to be single forever. (“Torn”, Natalie Imbruglia)
If a New Zealander writes a really good theme song for all the wistful, dreamy girls who will in a decade worry if they’re secretly manic pixie dream girls, well, New Zealand is practically Australia, right? (“Sway”, Bic Runga)
Australian musicians can do weird and emotional alt-rock just as well as Tori Amos or Fiona Apple, even if tedious Triple J dudes will laugh at her a few years later. Because they’re JERKS. (No Award does not endorse stalking even if the riffs make it sound totally empowered.) (“Coma”, Max Sharam)
The very first time you hear a pop song with an Australian accent, it will sound weird and affected. (“Ordinary Angels”, Frente!)
If a brown person ~~writes~~ sings a song about their home in the Torres Strait or just north of Arnhem Land, it will be co-opted by the mainland for generic Australian pride. (Christine Anu, “My Island Home”)

How serious are we about this post? It has its own playlist on Spotify. Think of it as No Award Radio. Or don’t. We’re not the boss of you. Sadly, because of the limitations of American music streaming services, it doesn’t have all the songs discussed here. Yeah, we’re mad, too.

No Award goes to the movies: Snowpiercer

On July 30, 2014August 1, 2014 By Liz BarrIn movies6 Comments

Actually, half of No Award went to the pub, then we met up in a cocktail bar, then we went to the movies. (Stephanie’s post is coming … soon.)

None of this pre-movie drinking was enough to make Snowpiercer live up to its hype.

The rest of this post contains spoilers, because it’s not so much a review as a reaction, and occasionally I just need to stand back and go, “Okay, really? SERIOUSLY?”

Sometimes it seems like Tumblr fandom has very low standards. Like thinking that Pacific Rim, a movie where a whole lot of people of colour die and a white dude has manpain, is a shining beacon of progressivism and representation. See also: giving Team Welcome to Night Vale cookies for being nice to queer people. Who hurt you, Tumblr? Who let you think the bare minimum was good enough?

In this case, we know who taught that lesson: Hollywood. But by accepting the framing of the original cut of Snowpiercer as original and inclusive and brilliant, we’re just continuing to let them write the narrative.

Snowpiercer is a movie about Chris Evans, white guy, leading a revolution inspired by his mentor, John Hurt, white guy, against Ed Harris, white guy. Along the way, Octavia Spencer plays a Mother Who Loves Her Son and Kang-ho Song and Ah-sung Ko play Asian Supporting Characters With Useful Arbitrary Skills And A Subplot Of Their Own That Isn’t Really Explored In Depth. And Tilda Swinton spends a third of the movie chewing the scenery, which is brilliant and delightful and kind of just highlights how by-the-numbers everything else is. Except that it’s on a train, which is cool because trains are great.

This is a movie that pulls its punches. The oppressed tail end passengers are fed on protein bars, black gelatinous strips that don’t remotely resemble the western food craved by Chris Evans and Jamie Bell. When the revolutionaries reach the car where these protein bars are manufactured, we learn the HORRIFIC and TERRIBLE TRUTH about their origin: they’re made from cockroaches.

Okay, that’s pretty gross, but between you and me, I was expecting to find out they were made from the children abducted from the tail section in the first act. Given a choice between “starvation” and “cockroach jelly”, I’ll take the jelly any day. Hell, cockroaches are a delicacy in some parts of the world. So the montage of ignorant revolutionaries happily gorging themselves on protein bars while Chris Evans looks on in silent judgement is hardly warranted. We don’t need you to be our food police, Scruffy Chris Evans Revolutionary Dude.

Now, try not to be too shocked when I tell you that the passengers in the forward section of the train aren’t eating cockroach jelly. They’re eating sushi, fresh fruit and steak. The train is a metaphor, you see, for class and oppression, which is why there are multiple speeches about people having pre-ordained places that they just have to accept. If this is the cut that Harvey Weinstein thought too complex for the average American viewer, I’d hate to see the edited version.

As it happens, Chris Evans’s pre-ordained place is Revolutionary Leader and Future Train Leading Dude, as arranged between Ed Harris and John Hurt. This is probably not intended as a metaphor for white patriarchy, but it works surprisingly well. I can’t say I really cared, but that’s because Curtis the White Revolutionary Played By Chris Evans just isn’t very interesting. And I can’t really blame Evans for that — he seems like a delightful human labrador, and very nice and all, but he’s not really a guy who can rise above a mediocre script. And this script was thin as paper.

Not to mention lazy. Security specialist/drug addict Namgoong Minsu is awoken from stasis to assist the revolution; a few scenes later, he tells his daughter, Yona, about a landmark he looks for “every year”. Except the unstated number of years he was sleeping, I guess. Yona, at 17, is too young to remember life before the train … except she can’t be exactly 17, because she too has been in stasis. In a couple of scenes, Yona demonstrates clairvoyancy, which doesn’t seem to surprise or amaze anyone. Later … nothing. Towards the end, Ed Harris congratulates Curtis on being the first human being to travel from one end of the train to the other. But earlier we saw his sidekick Claude, memorable for being a beautiful plump woman in a striking yellow coat, visit the tail end. Now she’s there, in that very scene, at the front. Are fat women not human beings? No, it’s just this impossibly careless script.

The most shocking thing the movie does is kill off most of the characters and leave only Yona and Timmy, an adorable black child, alive. Well done, I guess, but what is the point? Yona has had no arc of her own; Timmy was barely in the movie.

I’m pretty bummed that I didn’t enjoy Snowpiercer more, because I was really looking forward to seeing it. I’m tired of properties being hailed as incredibly original or progressive or even simply good, and then finding, no, they’re just mediocre. I like big, dumb movies, and I enjoy finding the shreds of intelligence that exist within them — the opposite experience is just depressing. Snowpiercer had some really great scenes, but I almost wish I’d walked out after Tilda Swinton died, so I could imagine a much better final third in place of what we actually got.