Innholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2018 i frankie Magazine

recently, we added member to : a new the frankie family a three-month old puppy named Woody. He entered our lives with a hop, skip and a whole lot of wee, and hasn’t stopped bouncing (or weeing) since. A few weeks in, we came to a realisation: putting together a magazine isn’t all that different to raising a pup. In both instances, you’ll spend your days juggling several tasks at once (like washing the dishes with your hands while a strategically cocked leg keeps a hungry snout out of the bin); cleaning up all manner of messes; and – depending on your anxiety levels – referring to specialist resources to make sure you’re doing everything right. (In one hand, a style guide; in the other, the latest hand book from…

I went on Instagram for the first time in ages the other day. I haven’t been off it for any particular reason; I just forgot my password to the mobile app about eight months ago and became so incensed by the idea of having to reset it that I almost tossed my phone down a stormwater drain. Enter my email address to receive a reset token? How dare you ask me to perform this disgusting chore! Don’t you know I have better things to do, like dig through my clean laundry pile for undies and then moan to my boyfriend that I can never find anything around this place? Anyway, I was finally moved to log back on, tempted by the promise of fresh pictures of my friends’ children and…

Olivia Morrison was at a restaurant in Copenhagen when she first tasted real butter. “My husband and I were living in Sydney at the time,” the New Zealand-born founder of Tasmanian Butter Co. says, “and we were really getting into food and the whole idea of travelling to eat new things.” When they sampled Copenhagen’s cultured butter, they were both a little wowed by its intense flavour. “It was awesome stuff, and we were immediately like, why can’t we get butter like this in Australia and New Zealand? I wanted to know why it tasted so different.” When they returned home, Olivia embarked on a research mission and discovered the answer to her question: it was all about bacteria. Adding live bacteria to the mix creates a richer, tangier product,…

JERICHO ROAD CLOTHING Ever seen kids’ clothes and wished they came in adult sizes? Well, that’s exactly what we make: quirky, colourful pieces with fun prints to make you feel fabulous. All our clothing is designed in Brisbane and ethically manufactured.jerichoroadclothing.com.au FLAT+FITTED Melbourne-made bed linen that feels just like the snuggly sheets you get in a five-star hotel. Our sets are simple and affordable, plus our Scandi-inspired designs are timeless, so they’ll fit right in with your existing bedding.flatandfitted.net.au FROCK ME OUT We design gorgeous, often vintage-inspired prints, then turn them into dresses, tops, jumpsuits, kimonos, skirts and (very soon) bathers. Our clothes flatter lots of body shapes and are ethically made from natural fabrics.www.frockmeout.com.au ALEXIS, ECLECTIC A slow fashion label based in rural New South Wales. We play with…

ASHLEY RONNING X-RAY SPEX For this project, I’ve chosen the incredible 1970s English band X-Ray Spex. The group’s frontwoman, Poly Styrene, formed the band by placing an ad that said: YOUNG PUNX WHO WANT TO STICK IT TOGETHER. That explains it all, really. They made awesome, raucous, bratty punk music. High energy, lo-fi anthems of mass production and identity. They brought fun to a punk scene that was, at the time, overly masculine and destructive. I’ve known of X-Ray Spex for a while, but really got into them last year, as their debut album Germfree Adolescents has been in the high rotation section of my housemate’s record collection. I’ve spent a lot of time dancing around the lounge room to “Let’s Submerge”, and singing the title track, “Germfree Adolescents”, really…

Big feelings can sometimes make you feel like a total weirdo. When you’re super-anxious, really scared or experiencing some other yuck emotion, it’s easy to feel completely alone, like a faulty human mistakenly set loose on an otherwise normal planet. Melbourne-based musicians and mental health advocates Honor Eastly and Graham Panther have both lived through the rather pointy end of feelings like these. About a decade ago, Graham’s life quite suddenly fell apart for no particular reason. He experienced episodic breaks in reality, struggled to even drive or go shopping, and tried all sorts of therapy and pills to get back on track. Honor, meanwhile, spent 16 days on suicide watch in a psychiatric hospital in 2014, after years of depression took a major turn for the worse. Having seen…

My dearest frankie, I sat down with my coffee on a shitty Sunday morning to read issue 80. Each time I turned the page and exclaimed, "Yes, Eleanor!" or wondered in a quiet panic whether Mia and I are actually the same person, I felt myself slowly untangling. Thanks for always putting humanity into words and letting me feel a little more human while you're at it. Teanna x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dear frankie, Like the new parents in issue 80, we too are riding a 'new baby tidal wave'. (This morning that tidal wave was a big brown poo-nami all over my husband's clothes!) We welcomed our first baby into the world in…

LESS IS MORE Sometimes I’m happiest when I’m by myself. I never have liked crowds, unless I’m in front of them. Then it’s OK, because there’s space between me and them, and they seem almost like one person. It feels more intimate. But when I’m part of it, I get creeped out. There’s something about a crowd that seems scary; we turn into something else. I just saw this crazy footage of American Nazis in New York City. It looks a little like a Trump rally, but it’s from 1938 at Madison Square Garden – just 20,000 devoted followers of Nazism expressing their thing all at once, saying everything at the same time. It’s weird. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .…

NIGHTTIME RITUALS In the same way that Pavlov’s dogs were conditioned to expect food when they heard a bell chime, your brain can be trained to enter snooze mode when certain actions are carried out. Try a warm bath, simple stretches or listening to a particular song before hopping into bed. The key is to stick to it for at least a month, allowing time for mental associations to develop. LAVENDER As well as making your undie drawer smell delightful, lavender is a natural doziness trigger. The purple flower contains chemicals that have a calming effect when inhaled, slowing your heart rate, reducing anxiety and generally making you crave a quick kip. Try spritzing some lavender oil onto your pillow or massaging a few drops into your wrists before bed.…

Every few months I pick up my cryptic crossword book and commit to a life of cryptic mastery. I fantasise about rattling out The New York Times Saturday cryptic in under 30 minutes, and being called upon to help Australian cryptic master David Astle with questions he just can’t crack. For a week, sometimes two, I study the little book and bash out beginner crosswords. A thrill jolts through me every time I solve a clue. I feel stronger and smarter, as though my superpowers are unleashed question by question: at one-across, I’m a regular woman; by the time I reach 23-down, I’m Batman. Or Cardigan-Clad Cryptic Crossword Caz. Nah, Batman. The joy of these heady early days of learning soon fades as I progress from the wading pool of…

BOOK NERDS, ASSEMBLE // The first step is to find your book club crew. Have you got bookish besties already, or are you keen to make new friends? Shout out to your existing circles, post fliers at the local library, or create your own digital gang on a website like meetup.com. Once you’ve got some bites from literary-minded types, you’re best off capping numbers at 10, for maximum book chat and minimum chaos. SYNC YOUR WATCHES // Decide how often your book club will meet – once a month is a good starting point, as it gives everyone time to actually read the book and formulate some feelings. Find a day and time that suits everyone’s schedules, and make sure you stick with it. It’s OK if people miss the…

Raewynne Latemore knows who she wants to be buried with. She’s stuck a giant Elvis poster to the inside lid of her coffin so “he can be lying on me for all eternity”. Pearl, on the other hand, has a thing for poultry. She’s decorated her casket with pictures of chickens, and wants egg sandwiches to be served at her wake. Then there’s Robyn, who has sealed into the lining of her coffin every single love letter shared between her late husband and herself. When filmmaker Briar March first came across a news article about the New Zealand-based ‘coffin club’, she knew instantly she was onto something interesting. “When I’m looking for a film idea, I tend to look for things that pop out at me: strong, universal metaphors and…

MINNIE AND ROMAN CASTEVET IN ROSEMARY’S BABY It’s often said that New Yorkers don’t know their neighbours, even though they’re literally surrounded by them. But New Yorkers probably have extremely good reasons for ignoring the people next door – a neighbour might be a murderer (see Rear Window), or, in the case of Rosemary’s Baby, all your neighbours might be members of a coven of Satan worshippers who want to use your body as a vessel for the devil’s offspring. There’s an uncertainty throughout Rosemary’s Baby as to whether Rosemary’s suspicion of her neighbours – the eccentric Castevets and their band of predatory pals – is well-founded and true, or whether she’s losing her grip on reality. As Guy, her unsupportive husband, likes to say: Rosemary has “the pre-partum crazies”.…

There’s nothing like a good chuckle to lift your spirits. But not every LOL is created equal. There are two main kinds of laughter: impulsive, natural laughs triggered by something you find truly amusing; and voluntary, posed laughs brought on in social situations, like when your boss makes a not-all-that-funny joke, or you want to fit in with a group of chortling peers. Research shows these different types of laughs spark activity in separate parts of the listener’s brain, so be warned: you might think you’re an expert schmoozer, but your boss will instinctively attempt to decipher the purpose behind your laughter. A hearty laugh gets the whole body involved, starting with a network of muscles in the face. When something funny hits our eyes or ears, the brain tells…

Recently I moved from a large house to a tiny apartment, and in the process of culling my stuff, I came across a stack of high school diaries. As a teenager with very few friends and a serious amount of ‘alone time’, diaries were a lifeline. I bought new ones every couple of months and filled them front to back with rambling stories about my feelings. I don’t know why I find it so surprising, but it turns out teenage Sam was pretty full of angst. Part of the horror of finding your old journals is that they tell a really specific, one-sided version of your adolescence. In one that I assume came from the early puberty period – judging by the words “EMINEM ROX” scribbled on the back –…

When I was 14, I was confronted with disgusted looks from my peers on a school holiday camp, who had taken my unwillingness to wear thongs in the shower as some kind of personal affront. Apparently, when sharing a washroom with five other teen girls, you’re supposed to keep the soles of your feet off the communal surfaces at all times. No one had ever told me – perhaps my parents were irresponsible, or perhaps they’d just never had to deal with tinea. Ever since that shameful moment, I’ve been acutely aware of my surroundings in all showers besides my own. Searching for mould spores, lurking bacteria, or a common stray pube, I spend approximately three-quarters of my bathing time inspecting the tiles for evidence of their owner’s uncleanliness, in…

Where is it? 11 Byrnes Street, Newstead, Brisbane. Describe The Ceramic House in a sentence. An open, light-filled studio for teaching, selling and celebrating the craft of ceramics. How did it all begin? Charlie: Going back 15 years, it started when my father bought my mum a pottery wheel for her 40th birthday. We all joke that he created a monster that day. And I guess a mini monster in me, as she was never able to chase me away from her studio. Tell us about your range of products. C: In our gallery front we sell Mas & Miek Ceramics – a handmade range we’ve been creating together for five years. Our love for clay and exploration of process are the fundamentals of our small-scale practice. We chase the…

THEY’RE DITCHING THE BAGGAGE I’d been doing The Drones with Fi Kitschin and the guys for yonks, and it occurred to me, “Fuck, I could be in another band, just do something different.” If you’re in a band for that long, you start wondering what it’s like outside. The Drones have all good baggage, but it’s heavy – you have to deal with a lot of the history and what people expect. This band is fresh – we can do whatever we want and not care what anyone thinks. It feels really invigorating. THEY’RE STILL SURPRISING EACH OTHER You write to suit the people you play with, and if you play with the same people all the time, you keep having to reinvent the wheel. With Tropical Fuck Storm, it’s…

It all started with some childhood doodling. While most of us were busy sketching wonky bubble letters and those pointy ‘Stussy S’s in our school diaries, Nick Misani went for something a bit zhuzhier. “My mum still has letters I wrote when I was little that are full of drop caps, fancy borders and unrestrained use of curls,” the Milan native says. That fascination with ornamental lettering never went away and, many years later, Nick found himself working alongside renowned Italian-American typographer Louise Fili in New York. Under her expert tutelage, Nick honed his strokes, swashes and knowledge of historical typefaces, including tiled mosaics – then he stumbled across an Instagram competition asking entrants to “letter where they live”. “I created the first ‘fauxsaic’ – a digital, typographic mosaic –…

Technically, my job title is ‘architectural historian’. Clients come to me wanting to know more about the history of their house – when it was built, previous owners, how it might have changed over time, and the families that lived there. It’s usually people who’ve recently bought a house, but I also have clients who’ve lived in one for years and are curious, or they want to make changes, but do it in a way that’s sympathetic to its history. I set up my business, The House Detective, about six years ago. On a day-to-day basis, I visit archives, libraries, search online and chase up previous house owners, trying to find as much information as I can. I search through records that might be relevant, and look over historical certificates…

I was brought up to be polite. I was taught to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and to treat people with respect. And you know what? It’s served me pretty well. I get on with others, I make friends easily, and I’ve only ever been punched in the face once. But what I can’t get my courtesy-conscious head around is when people demand I grace them with maximum friendliness in situations that might not otherwise expect it. Let me explain. If I’m walking down the street with my headphones on, happily howling along to some form of ’80s punk rock, and someone sporting a shit-eating grin and a clipboard extends their hand towards me, I will ignore them. Because I don’t know them. It’s kind of weird to be so…