Capital Punishment

The man next to me is snoring. Well, I say snoring, but it’s not so much snoring but more suffocation on one’s own saliva in a very loud and provocative manner. It’s two o’clock in the morning and this man’s catarrh convulsions are not new to me. In fact I’ve become accustomed to them every evening for the past six nights I’ve been in Canberra. More than accustomed, in fact, I now understand the man’s sleeping habits so well I can anticipate the type, length and magnitude of the snore before it even occurs (and yes, there are different types of snores). On the early morning of my last night, however, I have reached my snoring acceptability threshold. Reaching over from my bunk to his, I aggressively shake the bed in order to wake him from his slumber.

Ethically-minded readers might argue that this would be unfair to the person in the bunk underneath the man, and this would be a fair retort. However the person in the bunk underneath, who I have yet to interact with in the past week, is still out on an evening escapade, probably to avoid the snoring. This is why the lights are still on in the room (I may have forgot to mention this). Thus, in this chamber of sensory superfluity at this late hour I feel my actions are justified. This does not prevent me from contemplating how I could suffocate the man and make it look like an accidental suicide. I decide against this idea though, given that my limited experience in this field would likely result in slow and tedious death, eventuating in more noise than the snoring itself created.

Beyond my snoring, kettle-and-slipper-owning, treat-the-room-like-his-own-personal-Chinese-laundry, mature-age-student dorm-buddy, I did enjoy my rainy week in Canberra. Instead of going into the breadth of activities experienced during the week I have instead provided a few brief glimpses into my time in our nation’s capital, placed in non-chronological order for added displeasure.

05/03/20, 14:01
It’s two o’clock in Parliament House - Question Time. I sit in the public gallery overlooking the floor of the House of Representatives, observing the usual rhetorical back-and-forth akin to students arguing over who should be school captain. In this instance the captain of the rugby team, Scott, is arguing against Anthony, the head of the chess club.

Half an hour into the seventy-five minute session Bob Katter arrives, the class’ ‘special’ student. Wandering in without a bow or head-nod towards the Speaker he leisurely gallivants toward the Serjeant-at-Arms and gets his named marked off the attendance role. The Serjeant unflinchingly marks off his name, unsurprised by the tardy recidivist. He slowly reaches his seat and, like a inattentive student, begins chatting and distracting those around him, encouraging the Member for Warringah to ignore the proceedings with him. After minutes, though, he disappears and does not return even when three successive divisions are called.

On occasion, like teenagers kissing under the bleachers, members of opposing parties meet behind the Speaker’s chair and have a convivial chat. They then sit in their opposing seats and resume screaming at each other. Meanwhile Scott’s advisors sit on their computers WhatsApp-ing the PM, sitting six feet away. They send him some edgy retorts, ways of give non-answers and suggestions for what to buy his wife for her birthday. The backbenchers sit, scrolling through their Facebook feeds, with only the people in the TV camera’s frame listening to the questions and answers.

04/03/20, 10:11
It’s a rainy day in the capital, the rainiest day in the last eighteen months according to the bus driver. I’m sitting on the Culture Capital bus, a free bus which takes tourists to the city’s major attractions. The bus driver is providing commentary as we drive and, seemingly, he appears to be doing it all ad lib. “Over there is the pool,” he says before a long pause. "That building on the right is the National Film and Sound Archives. It used to be one of our stops but it's not anymore." I would not have obtained such local insights as this on my own and so I’m glad I am able to gain such crucial local knowledge from my local guide. Soon though we arrive at Old Parliament House and, having a student card, I was able to avoid the Museum’s unruly price gouging and instead receive entry for half price, limiting the blow of the exorbitant $2 entry fee.

“Bob Hawke was this tall.”

05/03/20, 12:45
Having missed the 12:30 tour at the National Gallery I opt instead to avoid the masses of school groups and head towards the art talk for the day, unsure of what I’m actually signing up for. When I arrive in the quiet back corner of the gallery I discover that the talk is a discussion panel with the two artists who designed the projection on the NGA for Canberra’s Enlighten festival - a shameless knockoff of Sydney’s Vivid - currently on during the evening.

A student asks which grade Jackson Pollock was in
when he completed this work.

The two artists along with the interviewer walk out in line looking like the police lineup for a murderer who had been arrested in a barbershop mid-haircut. Whilst the interviewer, gasping for breath underneath his shirt’s top button, should have asked the pair if they could ask their hairdressers for refunds he instead begins to question the pair on their artwork. The first artist, unhappy with the question, decides that they needed to introduce themselves before continuing. From this first sentence uttered a flurry of pens begin taking notes in the audience, their owners hanging on every word of the artistic mastermind even if it is merely preamble. Meanwhile the woman next to me scrolls through an article entitled ‘How to Cook Fake Meat’ on her phone.

An empty wall with a sign that reads “This work of art has
been temporarily removed.”

  

“Untitled” by Mary Corse

The artist pronounces their full name and says that they have been trying to change their last name to their mother’s maiden name. He says this apologetically because his father was European and his mother was Filipino and assumedly he is disappointed by the limited number of vowels in his name. The other artist also introduces herself. The talk continues and everyone listens, all following the false narrative that what is being said has actual intellectual or literal meaning. The answers largely uses phrases like ‘intersections of culture and gender,’ ‘social experience,’ ‘a decolonised dance mode,’ ‘it invites a dialogue’ and ‘breaking down stereotypes.’ One artist deviates from this path at one point saying, after thirty minutes of analysing their own work, that they don’t like to overanalyse and over-intellectualise stuff. Nevertheless, having been at the talk and seeing the artwork the following evening I am still unsure of what was actually trying to be expressed in the work.