Stuff in the Newspaper

The ever-excellent Richard Glover presents: Mardi Gras For Straights and Squares, in which, starring with the Trakky Dak Liberation Leaugue and People Who Don't Know Who Kate Ritchie Is, you will find:

Gay Men Who Can't Dance It will be a busy weekend for the Gay Men Who Can't Dance, the only float being entered in both the Oxford Street parade and its suburban offshoot. "We feel doubly oppressed," says float organiser Adrian "Two-Left-Feet" Adriani. "If a straight man can't dance, everyone thinks it's cute but with a gay man there's no tolerance. Just cruel, high-pitched laughter." Adrian's partner, Dave, agrees. Limping slightly from a badly bruised foot, he says the group wants to reach out to others oppressed by stereotypes. "Already," he says, "we've had meetings with the Italian Mammas Who Can't Cook and the Indian Dads Who Don't Care If Their Sons Aren't Doctors. Tentative feelers are also being put out to the Aussie Blokes Who Just Can't Abide The Taste Of Beer. The float will consist of 25 gorgeous gay men, all of them dancing like drunk labradors.

Less humourous, more intersting: Author Emily Maguire on sex and sexism

Have a nice saturday, everyone!

O Week in a nutshell

My Random Club of the Year- one club I join, whose events I have no intention of going to- is the Sydney Uni History Students Society. Who looked down their noses at me because I mostly take English subjects. Well, YOUR DEPARTMENT CUT YOUR MEDIEVAL 3000 LEVEL UNITS, didn't it? Along with all other 3000 level courses. Hmph.

They sell badges. Mine- which I also bought for daiskmeliadorn- reads Until I See A Footnote, That's Just An Opinion. I didn't purchase the 'history matters' badge, having read only days ago The Rebel Letter's assertion that poetry does not MATTER, it MEANS.¹ I did purchase, for my easily amused B, a badge which read History Students do it in the past. Tense. It occurs to me that this quote, including as it does a conjugation joke, would be better suited to Latin students, but anyway.

The Faculty of Arts staff, along with one postgrad and one undergrad student, hosted a debate entitled Are the Humanities Useless?. It was chaired by Carole Cusack, a formidable and excellent woman, and starred many entertaining people. The first speaker, Chris Hartney, she introduced as a Religious Studies lecturer who believes that God, if perfect, must be able to exist and not exist at the same time, and it is in his non existant form that Chris choses to acknowledge him. This amused me, even thought his arguments against the humanities were the spurious 'outdated', 'unprofitable' sort of ones. The second affirmative speaker, Nick Reimer, caught on to the important point, arguing that a lot of things are useless, and GOOD. Pasta Machines. Cuckoo Clocks. Abstract Art. Younger siblings, but didn't take this argument nearly as far as Rebel Letter or Jonathan Jarrett have been known to. He then proceeded off to talk about people whose lives were ruined by the humanities, and never managed to tie this point together. The third speaker for the affirmative, Vrasidas Karalis, is an inherantly hilarious man.

What is humanities? The study of human beings! Who wants to know himself? Very dangerous!... Humanities gives you the illusion that you are in a position to know yourself, and then when you get to know yourself, you are very disapointed, and then you need psychiatrists...
Humanities is bad for mental stability, creates many fears- for men, castration fear, for women, fear of big dicks!...
Humanities expose our inner moral dillemas. Do we want to have moral dillemas? No! Morality is the defence system of the weak!...
If you follow Humanities, know what is in store for you: problems for yourself, confusion for society, you make your families dysfunctional...

Vras would have won the debate by force of personality, if it weren't for the fact that the negative's final speaker, an undergraduate and student politician, was not only engaging but also had a coherent argument in his five minutes- something the rest of them, used to conference papers and interminable articles, were obviously struggling with.

Said excellent debater was also manning the stall next to Christian Students Uniting. He entertained us by running around interrogating all the christian clubs about evolution and homosexuality, and coming back to heap praises upon us for not opposing either, informing us that 'Jesus loves you guys best!'. B is obviously bad for me- a year ago, I would have found him intimidating and annoying, if not for his militant athiesm, certainly for his student-politician demeanour. As it happens, I found him immensely entertaining and a sincere sort of person, and I should like to hang out with him again, given the chance. He bought our T-shirt, on grounds of its amusement. It reads:

Will Jesus return as a cyborg pirate ninja? Asking the big theological questions- Christian Students Uniting

The universal opinion seems to be that yes, he will. daiskmeliadorn got into a long conversation with a catholic friar over the 'glorified body of christ' as a result of these t-shirts.

So there you go. That was O-Week 08.

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1. Mind you, I personally would say that anything which MEANS must MATTER (ie, be of importance), but that not all IMPORTANT things are USEFUL, and history, like poetry, is one of them.

Improv Everywhere

Hat-Tip to Rob over at pumphouse.