ISSUE #4

It was C.S Lewis, the au-

thor of The Chronicles of Narnia, that spoke about “experi-

ence” as an important learning process, vital for the accumulation of life lessons.

“Experience is the most brutal of teachers,” he said. “But you learn, my God do you learn.”

Nothing can prepare you for the rest of your life as much as any given “experience” can. No amount of reading, studying, or even listening to others talk about their own experiences. You have to create them in order to shape your own impressions, opinions, and ideas. Even challenging experi-

ences from the past can allow you to develop further in a positive way. The experiences

we encounter are necessary for us to grow, progress and, most im-

portantly, to learn.

FOREWORD

THANKS TO THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS: Maria Elige Aliaeva, Jessica Cockerill, Taylor James, Jordan Jeffrey, Benjamin Horgan, Steph McRoberts, and Reece Young.

SPECIAL THANKS: Ben Reithmuller, for helping with the design for this issue.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND UPDATES, VISIT STYLOMAGAZINE.TUMBLR.COM

issue 4 playlistARE YOU EXPERIENCED? JIMI

HENDRIX

MY GENERATION THE WHO

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE LOU REED

MOONLIGHT DRIVE THE DOORS

WHITE RABBIT JEFFERSON AIR-PLANE

NOTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR HAS BEEN ANYTHING WE COULD

CONTROL TAME IMPALA

SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES BOB DYLAN

LUST FOR LIFE IGGY POP

CHANGES DAVID BOWIE

DON’T STOP FLEETWOOD MAC

PRODIGAL SON THE ROLLING STONES

NOW PLAYING AT 8tracks.com/stylomagazine

SOMETIMES I WANT TO thank my past self for keeping journals. I still have all of them today, several rang-ing from the age of eight up until my first year abroad, straight out of high school (while at the moment I have three separate ones, all of which I insist are for different uses – “I need one for doodling, one for lists, and this one has a leather-bound cover, so naturally, I had to buy it…”)

There has always been an internal sense of urgency within me to capture my surround-ing observations and experiences, through artwork, mindless rambles from my stream of consciousness, or as exemplified by my childhood dia-ries, tenaciously documenting every living moment. I would frantically rush to get the concurrent happenings of my life onto paper, my thought process often moving inconveniently faster than my pen.

Was it really necessary though? Certain entries from said diaries painfully articulate mundane, banal days at school or at home that are often prolonged over pages and pages of wonky handwriting and gestural circles placed over each lower

case “i”. These recorded experiences are of no particular interest to me now, although some I do recall – mostly rushed descrip-tions of crippling ‘embarrassing moments’ or awkward descrip-tions of first kisses.

I often flick through pages and pages and am struck by how severely important these past experiences must have been in my life at the time. What was then ‘the end of the world’ is almost entirely forgettable now, and I suppose that is an unin-

tentional piece of advice handed over from my past self to my current – and future – self, in the form of a pubescent journal. The truly im-portant memories stick and are played out in vivid clarity.

Perhaps we should enjoy each moment as it arrives, regardless of importance, because in three weeks, six months, or five years, it will merely be a past experience for your past self to be preoccupied with. This goes without saying, whatever is worrying you or concerning you or occupying a major part of your life right now, breathe through it, let it pass, acknowledge it (whether you choose to do so in the form of pen-to-paper or not) and prepare yourself for the next experience. Maybe your state of mind is not determined by the happenings in your life, but rather your attitude towards them.

Words by Andie Phil l ips

“WHAT WAS THEN THE END OF THE WORLD IS ALMOST ENTIRELY FORGETTABLE NOW ... THE TRULY

IMPORTANT MEMORIES STICK.”

PEN TO PAPER

Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg

Artwork by Reece Young and Steph McRoberts

MOUNTAIN SOUL

Christopher McCandless’ van (Into The Wild, 2007)

I go to the forest to put my fears to restbeneath the moonlight there’s no prejudice

I can be myself from head to toe A beautiful monster, craving natural flow

Passion is the spark, love is the fuelFurther out into the mountains

Deeper throughorganic ragged wood

The ebb of being exploding

in my chestLife rushing

through my veins

Rivers, are teachersTrees speaking to all creatures

this is what it means to Be..Branches swaying in the wind

young wings learning freedom

The further away I get from expectationsthe more I receive

invigorating revelations

about this land, about who I Am

Words by Maria Elige Aliaeva

whitepill by jessica cockerillAs terrestrial organisms we live in constant flux. Our bodies are tightly closed like stomates, sealing in the seawater of our blood. But we cannot survive this way, and we are forced to take in and expel our surroundings. By uniting the extremes - total repro-ductive control in humans, and the free-flowing surge of marine life - I hope to capture the experience of alienation from a world we were once a part of. As a coast-dweller, this feeling seeps into me frequently.

TURKISH DELIGHT

I THINK I HAVE always known I was Turk-ish deep down. Even in kindergarten I knew something was up when my fellow Aussie classmates would snack on sulta-nas and I would shamelessly snack on kalamata olives. It’s not that I didn’t like sultanas; it’s just that given the option, I pre-ferred to eat olives. No one wants to be different growing up in school, and if I could tell my four year old self how strongly I would one day connect with my mother’s culture; I would tell her to embrace the path of being ‘different’, and that it will all be worth it. I was born in Australia to an English Father and a Turkish Mother, but have always felt like my Turkish roots have completely counteracted my Australian and En-glish passports. So besides feeling like Toula from My Big Greek Fat Wedding, when the white sassy wonderbread-eat-ing young girls ask Toula what she’s eating for lunch, and she says “Mousaka” and they say, “What? Moose caca, hahaha??” (evil laughter), I am so glad that I was raised the way I was.

Being brought up by parents of different cultures meant I was very aware, even from a young age, of the world that lay beyond Australia. As I grew older throughout school, my questionable Turkish roots started to appear even more and more. I inherited my mother’s big Turkish eyebrows which were always something I hated; especially growing up in the early 2000s where having pencil thin eyebrows was your pathway to glory. My mother used to always used to say to me, “Taylor, look at some of the most beauti-ful women of the world’s eyebrows, look at Brooke Shields, look at Cindy Crawford!” I had no idea who those people were, and frankly I didn’t really care, because in those awkward teen years the only world you saw was purely based around the pe-rimeter of your school gates. And plus, this wasn’t the 80s mum, this was the 2000s.

Then came my name, which I never thought would be an issue until people started to discover that most of us had middle names. “Taylor James,” I hear you say, “That sounds like a fairly conventional white name?” Yes, it would have been, but my mother decided that Taylor James sounded just too English so she put her Turkish maiden name in between. So, while everyone was content with his or her middle names of Jane, Grace or Brown, my middle name was Avşar. It sound-ed weird, it looked weird, and I couldn’t even pronounce it properly myself. I was so embarrassed of having such a foreign middle name, and shunned it whenever it came up. I told my classmates it meant and was pronounced like Asia in English, which was obviously a lie but people seemed to believe it any-way. I was very aware of the many other cultural differences that could potentially isolate me from the majority at school, and I diligently avoided any mention of them at the chance of not fitting in. Looking back on it today the things I was worried about seem so stupid and insignificant, but I can remember how life-destroying they felt at the time. Being Turkish felt like a social burden following me around, and I was so eager to get rid of it. Although I had to deal with a few altercations along the way, in my later years of schooling I thought my fight to be ‘white’ looked as strong as ever. The day eventually came and I thought I had made it as I was the same as the loud, over-bearing, dancing, red-cruiser drinking Ashleys, Courtneys and Brittanys at parties we went to, and I thought it was brilliant.

All of that came crashing down in 2009 when I was in year 10 and I spent a summer in Turkey with my family. I had been a couple of times before when I was younger, but this time it was different. A whole new appreciation for my back-ground was ignited and I was finally discovering how proud I was of my roots. The Turkish language felt so natural coming out my mouth, it truly felt like my mother tongue was finally being spoken. The long days of soaking up the warm sun at the beach, day-long boat trips to different islands, and endless swims in the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean made its carvings into my favourite childhood memories. The experi-ence of going to the markets everyday, fishermen bringing in what they caught that morning, the abundant range of spices, sweets and jewels at the bazaar - it all culminated to what it meant to live in Turkey for me. For the time I was there, I did not feel like I was just there for a summer, I felt like I’d been living there my whole life. I became a Turk in every thing I did. I squirted fresh lemon on all my meals, I religiously ate yoghurt and even drank ayran*, I recognized that çay* was not only a drink but an institution, I smoked like a Turk, I only washed myself with olive soap, and I often played backgam-mon with the locals on white rooftops. The enchanting prayer callings from the Mosques always sounded so hypnotising to me, and I would pick out some of the Arabic words I knew from the prayers of the Qur’an that my mother had taught me as a young girl. I had finally realised how ‘rich’ a culture could

be, and how beamingly proud I was to be a part of it. All the things that I’d tried to hide while growing up, the things that I thought would potentially segregate me from my classmates, they were now my favourite things that made me an Avşar.

Living thousands of miles away, it’s only every couple years I see my Anneanne* and Dede*, so when we are together it’s always so precious. Half of our time was spent with them hugging, squeezing, kissing me, and pinching my cheeks. I didn’t mind it because I know how much it kills them for us to live all the way in Australia. My An-nenne thought the more food she made me, the more I would love her, so she would always ask me what I was hungry for. As for my Dede, just thinking about Turkey makes me miss him so much. He would always wear his hat and smoke his pipe in his chair; and I would swing on the hammock adjacent and we would play cards in the garden for hours, so contently untouched by anything else going on in the world. He was so beautifully patient with me and never refused a game, and I was so blissfully unaware that he would let me win half the time. After all it is my Dede, Süleyman Avşar, who is respon-sible for my middle name, and my eyebrows, both of which I wouldn’t have any other way today. Inshallah* I will have a child one day, and regardless of whether they are raised in Turkey or not, I will give them my middle name of Avşar. But this time around, I will tell absolutely everyone.

Ayran- a salty yoghurt drinkÇay –black Turkish teaAnneanne - grandmother in TurkishDede - grandfather in TurkishInshallah - a common saying in Turkey: “gods willing” in Arabic

Photos and Words by Taylor James

TURKISH DELIGHT

“I HAD FINALLY REALISED HOW ‘RICH’ A CULTURE COULD BE, AND

HOW BEAMINGLY PROUD I WAS TO BE A PART OF IT. ALL THE THINGS THAT I’D TRIED TO HIDE WHILE

GROWING UP.”

FEBRUARY 2014 Taylor James

Artwork by Jordan Jeffrey

A MESSAGE TO MY NIECE

Sometimes when you try to stand up, wheth-er it is for who you are, for your sister or for your friend; you’re going to fall down. Sometimes it’s because you stumbled, most times it’s because you were pushed, but there will never be a time that you will jump.

Photos and Words by Benjamin Horgan

MORE STYLO

COMING SOON

DO YOU WANT TO BE A Part of the next issue?

THE THEME FOR ISSUE #5 IS PASSION.Contributions are always welcome.

If you want to get involved, please contact via Tumblr:

STYLOMAGAZINE.TUMBLR.COM