# 13 My week of nostalgia
How a Malaysian meal, a panini, and the beauty of Oyster magazine reminded me I'm a journalist
Last Wednesday after technorobics a few of us went out for a Malaysian meal on Lygon Street.
The class, run by my friend Emi, is a genius combination of techno beats and aerobics. After 60 minutes of jumping jacks and berpees, I ordered a plate of sizzling black pepper beef and a glass of lemon lime and bitters.
We talked about work. Someone asked how my new business was going, and I talked about the new emotional terrain I’m navigating. Freedom bundled with responsibility. Excitement with uncertainty.
I was sitting next to a lovely woman who I had just met. When I asked her what she did, she told me she was an email factory worker. Having worked in the corporate world for most of my career, I found this response quite funny.
Opposite me, Emi, who is also a school teacher when she’s not mixing beats and instructing aerobics, talked about the challenge of being available round-the-clock to students and their parents over email. I said that amount of contact sounds excessive. What happened to the right to disconnect.
The conversation turned to AI. Having experienced the full spectrum of feelings while using ChatGPT for the last 5 months, personally and professionally, I had a few thoughts to share.
It won’t be long for everything to start looking and sounding the same. AI-generated content will lose resonance. People will get fatigued and disengaged, and then (hopefully) we’ll start craving imperfect, human creations again.
I get that in the context of your creative work, someone said. But if I’m writing policies and emails, I’m not really concerned with it being a work of art. AI is amazing at giving me somewhere to start, so I’m not beginning from scratch. It saves me so much time.
Yes! I said. I’d had the same thought when it came to my professional work. Initially, I found ChatGPT helpful for bouncing ideas and providing a framework to begin a document.
But it’s the same skill that we’re going to lose, I said. Critical thinking. The ability to grapple with the blank page and trust that we can form our own ideas. To sit with our inner critic, and through that, create something. Something that you feel proud of.
Remembering an idea my sister had shared the previous week, I kept going.
AI will make emails obsolete. Because why are we even sending something that has no humanness behind it? What’s the point? I’ve noticed it with email marketing. People are disengaging, I’m disengaging. Because it’s not real.
Emi agreed, it’s a good thing that my students still have to write their essays by hand in final exams.
On Thursday I dropped into Stefanino Panino in Collingwood Yards where my friend Kayla works to say hi and have a panini. While I was waiting for my food, I noticed a pile of red booklets sitting on the bench.
I picked one up. It was the program for Dark MOFO festival in Tasmania. It felt nice to touch the matte paper and flick through the pages. I wasn’t overly interested in the subject matter. But this little red book was a moment of relief.
I liked reading the intro letters from the Lord Mayor of Hobart and the Artistic Director of the festival. The photography, the words, the design. It made me remember my own experience at MOFO three years before, taking in the sights of Tasmania for the first time.
I looked up from the booklet to my surroundings. I noticed some Bombers memorabilia on the walls and noted the cafe owners must be footy fans. There was also an old print of a koala framed on the wall. It was random, but koalas are my favourite animal, and it made me smile.
When my name was called, I asked Kayla if she had made my lunch. She nodded, and I felt, unexpectedly, a deeper connection with this panini. When I got to the car, I noticed she’d written Poodle in texta on the paper bag. A personal nickname she gave me when I met her at Meredith festival two years ago. I never corrected her at the time because I thought Poodle sounded like a chic evolution of Poochie.
I walked down Johnston Street, reenergised.
Prior to lunch, I had been attempting to record content in my Collingwood workspace. I’d been doing so against a backdrop of uncertainty. About whether this really felt like me, or was I trying to replicate a style of content I believed I should be producing - now that I’m mentoring in conscious business, marketing and communications.
I was certain I had helpful ideas and support to offer. But the creative expression, replicating the sleek podcast host, felt off. It didn’t feel like me.
That Dark MOFO program got me thinking about magazines, and how much I used to love them.
Going to the supermarket with Mum and receiving the treat of a Total Girl issue at the checkout. Or Barbie, Dolly, Girlfriend, Frankie, Elle. I grew up pouring over these glossy covers.
In year 3, I became editor-in-chief of my own magazine. Missy Mays. I organised weekly issues, collating contributions from my lil gal pals (Peri, Teika, Izzie). I can’t remember what cultural phenomena we were reporting on at Thirroul Public School, but it felt significant.
I hadn’t connected these dots before, but I went on to study journalism and media, with the vague hope of working in a fashion magazine one day.
Back on Johnston Street, I voice noted my sister, Elly (also known as Yok).
Yok! I was thinking I could get back into journalistic writing by profiling our friends and covering conversations happening in our community. Because everyone is so smart and creative and doing such cool things. I could turn it into a magazine. And you could be the editor and make it all sound good.
Heavily ideas woman, she texted back.
The last time this happened I’d shared an idea about starting a political party made up of our friends. She said this idea might need a bit more thought.
On Friday, I was 15 minutes early to my therapy appointment and found myself walking into an art store on Sydney Road. When the shop assistant asked if I was looking for anything in particular, I told her I wasn’t sure.
I picked up some paper, in colours I thought were pretty. Pink. Blue. Purple. The paper was textured and felt nice to touch.
I was reminded of my scrapbooking era.
When I would drag Mum to Spotlight in Wollongong shopping mall and spend god knows how much on various stickers, paper, and trinkets. I would create themed pages of photos with kitsch lines like ‘Three sisters are we’ and ‘Friends forever’, and then show my family members.
After therapy, I went into Savers and was drawn to the magazine section. I picked up two issues of Oyster magazine, from 2002 and 2004. They cost $3.50 each. Holding them, feeling the thickness of their covers, that feeling rose again. A sweet nostalgia - and maybe a hope. That, with intention, I could find this rich feeling again.
I’m writing this on Sunday evening, sitting on my bedroom floor. I’ve spent the last few hours flicking through these Oyster magazines and marvelling at their beauty. The profiles on creatives in the Australian community. The cool film shots from events in venues I know the name of. Fashion spreads featuring local designers and stylists that I can be inspired by, without feeling the need to ‘add this item to cart’.
I’m remembering that culture and media consumption hasn’t always felt so fast, bite-size, transactional and overwhelming.
It used to resonate.
Not in a ‘grab your attention for 2-seconds’ way. There was trust built, in local voices and publications, over time.
As consumers, we were willing to wait for a new issue or episode. To slow down and savour its richness. Similarly, creatives gave themselves the time to work slowly, with monthly cycles and seasons, and enjoy the frictional process of translating feelings and ideas into form.
I’m reminded of the part harrowing, part hopeful New York Times article I read recently by columnist Ross Douthat. He gives suggestions on how we might survive the ‘Age of Extinction’ - as the rise of artificial intelligence threatens our cultures, customs and humanity.
“…as someone whose professional life is a mostly digital existence, where together with others who share my concerns I am perpetually talking, talking, talking … when the necessary thing is to go out into reality and do. Have the child. Practice the religion. Found the school. Support the local theater, the museum, the opera or concert hall, even if you can see it all on YouTube. Pick up the paintbrush, the ball, the instrument. Learn the language - even if there’s an app for it…Sit with the child, open the book, and read.”
Borrowing a line from my favourite 90s journalist, I couldn’t help but wonder…
Was I the only one craving a return to traditional artistic forms? Or was a return to magazine culture craving me?
Thank you for taking the time to read. Me and Poochie Mag are evolving, and I’m grateful my readers are along for the journey.
Lots of love,
Emma / Pooch / Poodle x
Loved this! Lately, I've been getting transfixed by 80s and 90s music videos playing in the background - a similar longing for that kind of content you so beautifully described.
Love this!!
Made me think about happy times