At PULP we love
PLACES!
ALL ARTICLES
On Friday the 13th of February, full of spite from the working day, I stumbled down the stairs of the Cellar Theatre and sat my arse down on a metal bleacher for what would turn out to be the best evening of my week.
The sprinkling of water sent outfits into disarray, leaving hair a little more frazzled, makeup a little less blended, and everyone a little more ready to throw themselves around a dance floor.
As this performance explored the common myth of the changeling baby, it interrogated the way that myths justify the othering of individuals who live outside of social norms…
I still had bell hooks. And I still had my grandma. Knitting’s always helped, too.
Though some might argue that the roses had it coming, blaming their lack of resistance, too fragrant, too passive, too much.
I dream of a deer drowsing, just like me, supine on the side of the road. I don’t know how I know it’s a deer because the figure in the vegetation has no head, but I wait to glimpse the curve of antlers.
Someone left their tarot cards and a book called Narcissism: Denial of the True Self in my room after a party at the old house.
In my memories, we’re still just clueless children climbing water towers, alcohol running in our blood, watching the forest from above, under the summer sun.
A brown glass decanter, bound in red leather. A sleeping pill bottle, unscrewed. A yellow pitcher. An empty toothpaste tube, A lightbulb, illuminated by cool fluorescence.
I have spent the past two to three years of my life being Sydney’s biggest Italo Calvino shill.
As I walk past the Quadrangle every morning, despite the now-manicured lawns, memories of the encampment linger in my mind.
She left in a flutter of perfume, cashmere, and the faint clatter of keys. The diffuser exhaled one last measured sigh of peppermint. Dr Clarke capped the pen, glanced at the clock, and opened the next file.
As I became older and five cents became an unappealing amount of money to receive for the arduous task of searching for tiny green caterpillars, I no longer wanted to help my mum.
O my faun my hunter you are the soul of the whole room yes there is something in you in the curves of your cheekbones and the strands of hair; in pearlescent earrings, in the corners of your face in you, you are the edelweiss on the acme of Qaf or Meru
Part family drama, part psychological thriller, Stephen Karam’s The Humans traps the Blake family in a dilapidated New York apartment for an uneasy Thanksgiving dinner. The play peels back the horror of modern American middle-class life; debt, illness, ageing parents, and unaccomplished dreams.
I’m being fed this creator’s short form videos where he turns his New York apartment into a makeshift cafe, baking sweet and savoury treats once a month for his friends and neighbours.
I envy those who can just close their eyes and swim.
It’s blue and wriggling. Why is it wriggling? Turn it off, I pray, please let it die.
“Is it freaking you out that this goes in my butt?”
“No,” a little, “that’s awesome, I’ve just never seen one for real… before.”
He presses it to my leg and I feel a trembling in my bones.
But first, I’m here,
In the free air, free and clean-ish,
Which gives me some time,
A few seconds more,
To piss over their heads,
With real feeling.
Did someone ask you who your favourite philosopher was? Did you get stuck thinking of a name equally pretentious and performative? Answer these questions to find out what your Subway order can reveal. Instant ostentation, no thinking needed!
My first memory of ‘body swapping’ media was in 2009, sitting across from my pink PlayStation 2, gleefully watching the first live-action Scooby Doo (2002) movie on an archaic Panasonic TV.
Police State necessitates a reciprocal exchange between the viewer and the performer, which Walter Benjamin defined as “aura”: the integral essence of an original work that fades in reproduction.
Slow craft challenges obsession with productivity targets and overconsumption. The work does not begin with the embroidering of the fabric but instead the preparation of a range of vegetables which are slowly processed into homemade fabric dyes.
I am drowning under the river red gum, slipping between mud and silt—who can tell the difference?
I grip my mothers hand tightly, not wanting to let go.
The constraints of tangibility truly plague my waking days. Holding hands is not enough, being in the same bed is not enough, lying on top of me with your full weight is nice, but not enough.
We can only run as a hobby because modern society has no need for our bodies. Effort loses its productive value and now belongs to the domain of recreation.
It is both hollow and alive, a refuge and a trap. For better or worse, this is the public square of Southeast Asia.
PULP is established on the sovereign land of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, as well as Indigenous members of our creative community.
We respect the knowledge and customs that traditional Elders and Aboriginal People have passed down, from generation to generation.
We acknowledge the historical and continued violence and dispossession against First Nations Peoples. 'Australia' and its many institutions, including this University, are founded on the very same violence and dispossession. As editors, we will always stand in solidarity with First Nations led processes of decolonisation, reflected in the substance and practice of this magazine.
Sovereignty was never ceded.
Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.
This Opera House show was expected to be a repeat of his performance at Carnegie Hall in New York: stripped bare of everything but the music and a sense of cultural occasion.