Retrospective

PULP continues to be PULP, whatever that means to you. Just not your grandma’s orange juice, and definitely not your favourite Britpop band.

All image credits: PULP Editors

A year ago around this time, one Patrick McKenzie (if the desolate halls of USyd even remember that name) penned an article about finding a name for the PULP office. Once again we are at such a crossroads, as we prepare to walk out of another office with no name. It felt good to be out of the rain…

Following on from the legacy of the 2022–23 PULP editorial team was a big task. They were able to establish a presence across USyd campuses, with the beginnings of a new cultural identity. And how exciting! To have another physical publication back on university grounds, where it’s easy to lose hope for the future of student journalism given the current climate.

For us, a lot of things changed immediately. PULP got W I D E R. PULP got weirder. PULP got sexier. PULP’s growth was joined by a community of independent magazines across Eora. 

In the time we have published seven issues, Fling, RAG, Booker, Killdeers, and others have emerged on the scene with their debut issue. We congratulate them. When you’re holding 84 pages of PULP in your hands, it may look easy, but these are the guys that really put in the work: without the payroll, without the office, and without that sweet, sweet USU funding. These guys manage to put out issue after issue, for nothing else but love of the game, love of the scene. 

I’m looking over the final pdf for Issue 15, and it feels as if time has collapsed and I’m back to last July (poorly) proofing 9. Despite all that has changed, as we agonisingly note in each editorial, little is different. To quote one fictional Scottish statesman, “it’s just another day at the fuck off-ice.” When I write the editorial later, I’ll probably quote McLuhan or Mencken to make us sound a little cool and edgy, despite the fact that any given day at the office will largely revolve around minor gossip, fish soup recipes, Sonal’s favourite fan-fiction, and Kate’s love life. I’m listening to ‘Cemetry Gates’ playing off my laptop as I type. If I peer just a little over my monitor, I can see Simon and Justine playing pool, procrastinating while the wave of layup swells. Justine is winning. Just in front of me, Lizzy is perfectly focused on a Law reading, wrapped up like a babushka in the grey scarf that always sits on the back of her chair. Lameah is editing her Pinterest board, and Huw is writing some drivel about Irish-Australian identity. Keats and Yeats are on your side.

The move across campus was met with a whisper of shock. Change is scary, Wentworth felt so far away. But here, in our den, we have made a home for the magazine. Where to start? We collated a Pinterest board, a clear vision of Mad Men sex appeal. It ended with a three hour long meeting, deliberating on the right rugs for the space and whether or not a Hasbulla cardboard cutout was a good idea (it was not). My favourite decoration is ‘The Vulva’, a Noguchi-wannabe paper lamp. We meet and write in the boardroom, everyone taking their favourite seat. From the corner at the window, going clockwise: Simon, Justine, Huw, Lizzy, Sonal, Lameah, Kate. The centre pile of receipts, reference material, and paper samples are still a mainstay on the worktable. As the office expands backwards into the basement of the Wentworth Building, it becomes a safe space. Beanbags artfully arranged by Lameah, our resident interior designer, this space feels like ours. We take refuge here in our dungeon — reading Honi between classes, workshopping pitches, recounting horrendous Hinge dates. Behind our growing library is where the magic happens: dj simmo’s decks. Any given day of the week I decide to stop by the office, Simon is there, meticulously curating his next set. And I am privileged to listen.

I love the kitchen. It came with a panini press which we’ve only just started to use. Also an endless supply of Twinings. Also expired frozen pie from the office’s previous inhabitants, and a special gift from last year’s PULP team. Thank you to our Redbull-plug, many early morning classes and nights spent working on the publication have been fueled with your caffeine. 

If short, colourful, punchy — pulpy, dare I say — articles defined the PULP of 22–23, it was long form, jarringly monochrome pieces that characterised our own run of magazines from 23–24. We wanted affect. We wanted to see the future. Where the triple spread piece was a rare sight for the last team, you’d be remiss to not spot one in the last couple issues. The idea that we would be able to produce anything near the quality of the first eight issues would be mind boggling to us when we first began as editors: but now that we have come to our own final edition, I feel safe to say, at the very least, that we did a damn fine job. Beyond all these contrasts and contradictions, one thing I want to keep the same is how kind, friendly, and helpful each member of the departing PULP team was to us as we made our baby steps into editorial work. These guys were rock stars to us — and in many ways, still are — yet we never felt a hint of condescension and sourness that we’ve heard is so common to Honi handovers. We hope, bringing in the new team of editors, to continue this tradition, building a new understanding of student journalism that is based on solidarity and respect rather than deceit and petty drama.

Following on from the traditions of last year’s team, the office remained an open space for contributors and friends to connect over all things PULP and publications. I know when I started uni, I would’ve been terrified of entering a space like this. So, particularly for first-time contributors wanting to get into writing or simply to make a couple of new friends, we hope the office has been a welcoming space for you. Now that our pool table has finally been built, drop in for a game.

We also ventured beyond the safe waters of Sydney with our contributions. In Issue 10, we welcomed Northern Ireland based publication Craic Magazine. In 13, we made our way to Montreal. And in 14, to New York City.

Our launch events ranged from raunchy to sophisticated, and we invited all our Facebook friends. It rained a couple times, and we may have encountered some unexpected guests, but it was incredible to see so many unfamiliar faces. People who had no clue of the faces behind PULP, and came purely for a love of the magazine, or just for the bar tab. Thank you. And to all the venues that so generously supported our ambitions: Verge, Lord Gladstone, Hermann’s, The Glebe Hotel; we could not be more grateful for your hospitality and sympathy for our limited student budget. Somewhere through the grapevine, I heard PULP being referred to as the “party society.” If that’s what it takes to bring campus life back to Sydney, then so be it. When isn’t there a reason to celebrate the Arts, anyways?

Our team had quite an unconventional start to the term. While last year’s team had the benefit of shared MECO classes, bonding over the traumas of running an Honi ticket, in addition to years of friendship, none of us really knew each other before PULP. Some of us were brought together by the social puppet mastery of mutual friends, serendipitous encounters at uni events, or simply, the omniscient word of mouth. I remember meeting Lameah at the Issue 6 launch event last year. She was as inquisitive as ever, our brief but memorable encounter ending with her guessing my star sign (she was wrong but oh so close). At the time, I didn’t realise I knew her already. And also Kate, Simon, Huw, Justine, and Sonal. She wrote about her tits in Issue 4! Anthony Bourdain! Toads! Little did I know, I would see these people almost every day for the next year, and we’d make a magazine together.  

I’ll miss our weekly workdays. Maybe even boring meetings when we’re all tired and stressed. Definitely the long, lingering meetings when we brainstorm and dream of the possibilities for PULP: What if we made PULP skinny? What if we made a sticker sheet? What if we printed a clear cover? What if we went to Fashion Week? 

It is a privilege to be able to create a print publication in the first place. Exchange students are often shocked they don’t need to pay for our magazine, or even that we get paid for editing it. Unfortunately, universities around the world are becoming increasingly dominated by business-minded management consultants who care more about numbers than people.

But if the transition of PULP to print, and the consistently empty JFR stands mean anything to you, hopefully it offers a glimmer of hope for the future of student journalism and the Arts in tertiary institutions.

The idea of quantifying PULP, even quantifying our short time editing it, terrifies me. I don’t want to undermine us, I don’t want to glorify us. Instead, I’ll leave it to a friend who often tells me that we’re all just “PMC email job hacks”, anyway. It’s a fair summation. After all, art will not save us. But what if that was never the point? What if art and I were just trying to help one another?

As we enjoy our weekly Friday lunch in the warm Courtyard sun, I think about Frank O’Hara in the blistering heat of Manhattan, having his favourite meal of the day. He writes, “the Bar Américain continues to be French | de Gaulle continues to be Algerian as does Camus | Shirley Goldfarb continues to be Shirley Goldfarb | and Jane Hazan continues to be Jane Freilicher.” 

So, though we bid goodbye to PULP this year, PULP continues to be beautiful. PULP continues to be novel, free, sexy, as do you. The PULP office continues to be nameless, unquantifiable. PULP continues to be PULP, whatever that means to you. Just not your grandma’s orange juice, and definitely not your favourite Britpop band.