On Friday I was chuffed to attend the 2nd Asia Pacific Writer’s Forum held at the Wheeler Centre as part of the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. Our topics for the forum were “Increasing Diversity,” “Media Control”, and “The Literary Economy”. I live-tweeted the event, and Peril recorded it for future analysis but I am cheekily getting in first with my feels.
This post is a combination of note taking of the discussions and translations into my feelings and continuing thoughts.
But relatedly, and above the cut: today I issued a challenge on twitter:
Please welcome Friend of No Award Amanda to Museum Shops of the World.
If there’s one thing the Japanese do well, it’s ridiculous merchandise. And that translates to their museum gift shops (and how!).
I’d long heard of the Yokosuka Museum of Art in Kanagawa – it’s renowned for its architecture and ability to “blend into the sea” (it kind of really does), as well as highlighting contemporary Japanese artists. The gift shop is in two halves – one being in the main building and the other in the separate pavilion dedicated to Taniuchi Rokuro.
A few months ago (!) at Continuum, Liz and Steph and friend of No Award Melina did a panel about the prison Island of Sodor. Steph finally wrote up her panel notes to tell you about it. Behind the cut — if you’ve ever wanted 1000 words on the governance of the Island of Sodor, this is for you.
No Award is totally not yet grown up, and as such has role models. They’re under the read more cos this got long, turns out we role model many Australians.
The politician Steph aspires to be, Penny Wong (queer, Malaysian-Chinese, left, yells in public) cuts Joe Hockey so decisively.
The Coalition party room voted not to allow a conscience vote on same-sex marriage. Tony Abbott has suggested it be put to a popular vote, or maybe a referendum, or maybe a plebiscite, terrifyingly demonstrating that some of our federal politicians don’t understand how our political system actually works.
Liberal Senator Eric Abetz suggested that because Dolce and Gabbana had never married, same-sex couples had no need of marriage.
Liz asks: Is it possible that Tony Abbott just likes onions? Is that a bad thing? Should we as a nation be food shaming him for his unusual tastes when there are so many other weird and terrible things he does? Is it just that it’s quite funny to watch someone eat a whole raw onion, French or otherwise?
An Asylum seeker who is married to an Australian PR was removed from her husband (and the centre in Brisbane where she was living, and the school where she was studying to receive her HSC) and is currently in a Darwin detention centre.
The state of Victoria’s new government logo looks like a map of Tasmania. In every possible sense.
Steph says: I know how white person names work. This man has a fake name.
Someone suggested that Indigenous Australians were making booze out of vegemite and so vegemite should be banned in remote Indigenous communities. Vegemite watch began, but has since been retracted.
Steph says: no. Also call them Daesh, cos it makes ISIS mad to be delegitimised in this way and cos actual Middle-Eastern people have suggested we do so – the Western media is the only media who calls them ISIS.
Australia’s politicians come together with respect and honesty over this important issue. #kerning#auspol
This weekend Liz and a host of No Award staff writers visited The Museum of Old and New Art, or MONA, in Hobart. And so, a shop review in brief.
Liz wrote:
Too many postcards for old exhibits and not enough for current ones; no Ah Xian postcards, which is unfortunate because I love him and would have bought one.
Strongly book-focused, with jewelry that you can get from the NGV for the same price.
The cunt soap (actual name) was a highlight, except for the peppermint scented one, which just seems intrinsically uncomfortable. Well, nothing about MONA is meant to be comfortable, but I don’t think genital itch is what they were going for.
TL;DR: two stars.
No Award staff writer Ashleigh notes: what I did appreciate was that the book collection was pretty well focused on artists whose work is or has been on display. that is surprisingly uncommon.
Museum: Museum of Old and New Art
Location: 655 Main Road Berriedale, Hobart, Tasmania
Items purchased: Liz purchased a postcard of “the Star Trek exhibit“; Noted Fatberg Zoe purchased a tote bag; Official Calligrapher Moya purchased “a fatcar postcard & a novelty blood filled syringe pen with which to creep out my new work frans.” Ashleigh purchased these things and also has a list of books she plans to purchase cheaper from book depository.
Getting There: Liz and the No Award staff writers flew to Hobart and drove to Mona because the boat is $20 a head and is basically there to disguise the lower middle-class suburbs that surround MONA.
Date and Time Visited: mid arvo, Saturday
ETA: Official Calligrapher Moya wishes to amend her review to give MONA negative points, as “the syringe pen is gross and blobby enough to not function as a pen at all”. Unfortunate, though that is often the way with novelty syringe pens.
Mr Raff said body corporate and property owners were footing bills of between $800-$1000 for the installation of cameras down drains in unit housing to determine who is responsible for clogging drains, should the problem arise.
Cameras to look at who is flushing wet wipes! We hope the cameras are in the drains, not in the bathrooms.
Netball: The sport America invented, then lost. Liz has a lot of complicated feelings about netball, mostly because it was compulsory for girls at her primary school, and the teachers just assumed everyone knew the rules. Plus, she was tall (yes, really!) and much better at basketball. However, netball as a cultural artifact is really interesting!
(MONA is not a great place to visit if you are asexual, have triggers relating to graphic depictions of rape, or have issues around cruelty to animals. I mention this because it didn’t come up in any of my pre-trip reading, and I personally would have liked some warning. Also, I can’t figure out why people were upset about the blunt knife in this piece, when the real issue is that the bowl is too shallow and the fish are hanging out in their own excrement.)
On the upside, I have yet to produce a museum review as terrible as this one.
Huw Parkinson of the ABC has found his calling: Australian politics and pop culture mash-ups. The only aspect of this Bronwyn-Bishop-as-Lucille-Bluth clip is that Tony Abbott isn’t Gob.
On a related note, Friend of No Award Ash has drawn our attention to a highlight of Bishop’s Wikipedia page:
Bishop was educated at Roseville Public School, completing her primary education in 1954. Bishop undertook a five-year LL.B. program at the University of Sydney. However, she was deemed ineligible to continue after failing a number of subjects multiple times. Bishop failed a total of 11 subjects over six years. In her first year in 1960, she failed all four core subjects. In 1964, she failed four subjects again and repeated them in 1965, in which she failed three again. The policy of the University of Sydney at the time was that a student was required to show cause why they should be allowed to repeat a subject for a third time, and Bishop was deemed ineligible to continue.
…Bishop first worked as an articled clerk and played an acting role as a barrister in the 1960s Australian television program Divorce Court.
Finally, Liz had one ongoing problem in Tasmania: the underwire of her bra kept popping out and trying to stab her. But Google has provided a solution! (No, it’s not “don’t wear bras without underwires”. They don’t exist in my size, and aside from the occasional stabbing, I prefer the support that comes with a bit of metal in one’s undergarments.)
This link has “borrowed” content and gender essentialism, but it also has more useful illustrations than the original source: How To Repair An Underwire Bra, featuring cheap corn/bunion pads.
If you chat with Stephanie for longer than about half an hour, you’ll probably discover her very loud opinions on capitalism. She has opinions. As a Chinese-Australian, from a South East Asian economy, from a variety of colonies, capitalism looms large and angrily. Capitalism is at the forefront of her mind when she rails against environmental degradation, against the injustices of our social system.
One of the major components of environmental action and changing the dichotomy in Australia is often about capitalism, and how we need to find a new paradigm. At No Award, we applaud anyone trying to engage with the capitalist storyline and changing it. We especially applaud anyone bringing other people with them.
Here’s an email Steph got from Liz when she was like ‘maybe we should No Award about this’:
I THINK NO AWARD NEEDS FIVE POSTS AND THEN TO GATHER A CROWD OF VILLAGERS WITH PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES TO STAND OUTSIDE THESE PEOPLE’S SHACKS AND TELL THEM TO CUT THEIR HAIR AND GET JOBS.
(Please note, No Award is very fond of long hair and also not having jobs)
Last week the other week Steph went to the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney (in Chippendale!) and it was great! Modern Chinese art, yes, thank you. And on 30 July they close the current exhibition to bump in the new one so GO TODAY. The current exhibition is heaps of fun. Sorry, sorry.
Steph is SO EXCITED about Jane Rawson’s new book ‘The Handbook: Surviving and Living with Climate Change’. She’s also very jealous that she didn’t write it, but we all have our climate change burdens to bear. Here is a blog post in relation to it.
Octopus Wrestling and the Cephalopod Uprising. No Award does not approve of this article’s strong anti-cephalopod bias, not to mention what passes for journalism at Vice, but there are some interesting cephalopod facts in there.
Underneath the ‘Orientalist’ Kimono – a brief look at the issues that arise when Asians living in western countries consider something — in this case, white people trying on a kimono — racist, while Japanese people regard it as a positive sign for the future of their culture. Intersectionalism is complicated!
no-award.net 
