Take a photo of a barcode or cover
in 2000-2004 i was workin part time as a sports history tutor at unsw in sydney (my unfinished phd thesis was on the myth of bradman) and we got a lot of lebanese kids from the western suburbs joining the class thinking it'd be an easy elective where they could learn about the irl circumference of brad fittler's fat thighs. so they weren't too enthusiastic about all the blather about raymond williams, guy debord, barthes, but they loved me coz i was the only brown tutor they had. i was a mate and then i was a bro after meeting a large group of them at the anti-iraq war protest at hyde park. they told me where to get the best falafel in sydney (and to order them with chips), where to get the best turkish delights, where the first krispy kreme shop was at the parramatta mall. it was funny, even though i was as coconut as i could be, classics degree from the anu, lived in glebe/newtown, listened exclusively to you am i, youth group, john reed club and other forgotten white indie bands of the mid to late '90s, one of my earliest memory of oz was of sydney's outer western suburbs, being ensconsced in a dorm in the university of western sydney's nepean campus while attending a green left weekly/democratic socialist party's conference on trotsky. it was backended with a play staged on a boxing ring directed by wiji thukul. i remember the golden dome of the nepean mosque during a glorious sunset. funny bcoz i thought then i had ended up in the eerie middle of nowhere but now michael mohammed ahmed's sweatshop collective that he runs out of the now rebranded western sydney university seems to be the coolest thing to come out of the fragile ego of this antipodean behemoth, the woke center of things, the universe! o how i wish i could predict the future, i would never have left that dorm and eat more oranges to relieve my boredom. p.s. oya maacih fellow badde manorian @nininditya udah bawain ini #straightouttapunchbowl!