AustLit

'In 2006, a shopping centre in Queensland’s Hervey Bay agreed to de-install a controversial anti-loitering device on the basis of unlawful discrimination and direct physical harm. Installed in 1996 at the recommendation of local police, the ‘Mosquito’ emits a continuous tone at a frequency of 17.4 kHz in order to deter antisocial youth. &e device’s efficacy depended on the fact that our ability to hear high frequencies rapidly deteriorates with age. Arguments both for and against this device pivot on the way it deliberately manipulates auditory perception to target a specific, presumably undesirable, demographic. What we heard as teenagers—what we were capable of hearing—is very different to what we’re hearing now.' (Editorial introduction)

'We acknowledge and pay our respect to all the Grandmothers, Mothers, Aunties, Sistas, and Sistergirls, Cuzzies and Tiddas gone before us, those lost too young, and those to come. We love you, your strength, knowledge, humility, grief and anger. Youse are all Most Deadly!

'Shout out to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and editors who have worked with The Lifted Brow before this, and who held the door open for this edition.

'Running the editorial as a collective for this issue of The Lifted Brow was important for many reasons. Too often as Blakfellas we are expected to work as lone rangers in white corporations and institutions, as the keepers of all knowledge, the go to on every ‘Aboriginal issue’, and the incompetent to lay blame with when things don’t go well. It is expected that we are happy to fit into the individualistic mindset of western capitalism, because you want that job, right? To keep a roof over you and your family’s head, right? To be all white, white?' (Editorial introduction)

'A memory isn’t a stable artefact, it’s an experience carved from a sea of empirical data to try and prove a rule: if x, then y, because z, and z, and z. We maintain these moments tangentially, relationally, “As long as... not as possible, but as is willed by interested parties.”

'Learning to tell the stories that serve us best necessitates the loss of stories we told before; this negotiation is inherent to narrative. Our brains respond to new data, reconfigure the hierarchy of information, reconstruct the narrative, and move on. A narrative demands that we don’t keep everything.' (Jini Maxwell Editorial introduction)

'As a teenager, one of my favourite movie scenes featured a baby-faced John Cusack standing in his tweed coat and Clash T-shirt, boombox held aloft in the air, blasting Peter Gabriel in a last-ditch attempt to woo back his girl, who is sleeping in the bedroom above. These days, I’ve no desire to revisit the film—I worry that what charmed me in a mainstream eighties rom-com may easily come across as borderline stalker-ish now—but something about the overly earnest scene keeps popping back into my brain. This is important, Cusack’s character says; even if all this is inevitably doomed, I must at least TRY.' (Annabel Bardy-Brown, Editorial introduction)

'I lose followers every time I tweet about sports. But then again, Twitter is a shitty website, and sports bring me endless joy. Whether encountered in a local park or an arena, they’re settings for all kinds of incredible human achievements. They’re also rich in symbols that can be applied to all walks of life, or stretched to fit generic introductory statements.' (Justin Wolfers Editorial introduction)

'Here’s a situation you might’ve found yourself in: you go out for dinner with a group of friends and, before ordering, decide the bill will be split equally. Were you alone, or paying only for what you yourself ate, you’d probably order the least expensive option available (within reason), but what you really want to order is about ten dollars more than the item you’d pick if you were solely responsible for footing the bill.' (Editorial)

'On the same July day that a 5,800km section of the Larsen C ice shelf calved off from Antarctica, sending Twitter into a fresh bout of eco-anxiety, one of us was people-watching a Melbourne street where all appeared to be business as usual. Despite the rain, teens queued for supersized cartoon-pink iced donuts; one 4WD driver got into a fight with another, after stealing her park. It was the type of prosaic horror that might be found in a short story by George Saunders, whose absurdist fiction compassionately engages with our times, and who happens to be interviewed in this issue. “Don’t be afraid to be confused,” writes Saunders in The Braindead Megaphone—as if there were another option available to us in this winter of stuplimity.'

'('Why haven’t you let them out? Why have you not let them into your society?')'

(Editorial)

'The Australian Senate is soon to debate a bill that, if passed, would prevent people who arrive by boat seeking asylum in Australia from ever gaining long-term settlement and protection, and, as a consequence, ultimately rewrite the definition of ‘refugee’ in this country. Allegedly a deterrent to people smugglers and an effort to stop people drowning at sea, the proposal is the product of a policy that attempts to shift the meaning of words in order to violate human rights and international law, gag information, and dehumanise victims.' (Editorial Introduction (Brady-Brown, Annabel and Dzunko, Zoe Lifted Brow, The, No. 33,(3))

'At The Lifted Brow we often find ourselves thinking about intention: what did we intend to do, what do we intend to do, what should we intend to do, and why. What we can promise is that we always intend to intend, no matter what. And we can tell you that we know that the right intentions are a good start, but are never enough on their own. Which is why we intend to continually evolve, too.' (Introduction)

This magazine is concerned with language and information on a very plain level. See it talking to you? (John Ashbery-ish) This magazine is concerned with styling language and information for the purpose of shifting units.' (Introduction)