Category: English

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Blake Lawrence, PhD Candidate (Design) and Performance Artist, University of Technology Sydney

Three frogs, a shark, a unicorn and a Tyrannosaurus rex dance in front of a line of heavily armoured police in riot gear.

Over the past few weeks, activists taking part in protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the United States have donned inflatable animal costumes. The aim is to disrupt the Trump administration’s claim that the protests are violent “hate America” rallies.

The result is a sight to behold, with many encounters between police abd protestors going viral.

Whether they know it or not, these costumed activists are contributing to a rich history of using humour and dress to mobilise against and challenge power.

The ICE crackdowns

Since its creation in 2003, ICE has enforced immigration laws on the ground, arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants convicted of criminal activity.

During Donald Trump’s first term as president (2017–2021), the agency expanded its operations to target and deport many people with no criminal record.

This expansion sparked the June 2018 Occupy ICE protests, inspired by the broader global Occupy movement challenging corporate power and economic inequality.

The first major Occupy ICE action in 2018 occurred in Portland – a city known for its creativity and dissent. It grew from a rally organised by the Direct Action Alliance into what federal officials called a “very, very peaceful” encampment with kitchen tents, kids’ spaces and media hubs.

The protesters forced the temporary closure of the facility for about eight days, before federal officers cleared the site and erected a fence around its perimeter.

Following Trump’s re-election this year, ICE operations have intensified again, with the repealing of policies that prevented enforcement operations in sensitive areas such as schools and hospitals. Protests have followed.

In Portland, tensions escalated again this September, when Trump described the city as “burning to the ground” and “overrun with domestic terrorists,” announcing his plans to deploy the National Guard.

A federal judge has so far blocked Trump from doing so, saying the protests don’t meet the requirements for rebellion. He will likely keep trying.

Operation inflation

Protesters in Portland and across the US have long used humour and costume in their demonstrations. In October, a TikTok video showing an ICE agent spraying pepper spray into the air vent of an activist’s inflatable frog costume amassed more than two million views.

The clip exposes the absurd levels of police force against peaceful demonstrators. The protester, Seth Todd, said his intention was to contradict the “violent extremists” narrative, and “make the president and the feds look dumb”.

The Portland frog has quickly became emblematic of resistance, appearing on shirts, signs and street art, including parodies of artist Shepard Fairey’s iconic OBEY design – the authoritarian face replaced by a cartoon amphibian surrounded by the words DON’T OBEY.

And the frog costume has spawned imitators, with creatures multiplying in protests across the country, including at the recent No Kings rallies. One group of activists launched Operation Inflation, a website that crowdfunds inflatable suits for protesters, aiming to make resistance more visible, playful and safe.

Strategic silliness

One example that echoes Portland’s blow-up menagerie is London’s Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA). Members of CIRCA dressed as clowns during anti-war protests in the early 2000s. They played tag around police lines, hugged officers, and marched in absurd choreography.

As scholar Eve Kalyva notes, such actions employ “strategic frivolity”: silliness or absurdity in a way that disrupts the scripts between police and protester. By appearing playful rather than menacing, costumed activists directly counter narratives that paint them as violent threats.

The Portland frog and its friends work with the same strategies of silliness. Their dancing and cartoon-like actions make it impossible to frame them as thugs. Their soft forms bounce in contrast to the hard utility of riot gear.

From suffragette sashes to handmaids

Beyond frivolity, activists throughout history have also used dress and costume to more serious effect. In Britain in the early 20th century, suffragettes wore coordinated purple, white and green sashes to project unity in the fight for women’s voting rights.

In the US, dress and costume have played important roles in successive movements for African American liberation. During the 50s and 60s Civil Rights Movements, many marched in their best suits and dresses to assert their dignity against dehumanising racism.

The Black Panther Party had an unofficial uniform of sunglasses, berets and black leather jackets, embodying a more defiant style.

More recently, demonstrators in the US, Northern Ireland and Argentina have donned the red cloaks and white bonnets of The Handmaid’s Tale to protest abortion bans.

Similarly, The Extinction Rebellion–affiliated group Red Rebel Brigade stages actions in flowing red robes to mourn environmental loss.

And the wearing of the fishnet-patterned keffiyeh has now become a global symbol of Palestinian support.

Naked solidarity

On October 12, Portland’s anti-ICE demonstrators – many in their inflatable suits — were joined by thousands of naked cyclists in the Emergency World Naked Bike Ride. As costume designer and historian Camille Benda writes in Dressing The Resistance: The Visual Language of Protest (2021), nakedness in protest lays bare the body’s vulnerability to state violence.

In Portland, the mix of bare skin and soft blow-up animals heightens both the absurdity and tenderness of the scene. These protesters offer new avenues for direct action at a time when many people’s rights and freedoms are at stake.

At the time of writing, ICE was reported to have increased its weapons budget by 700% from last year.

Whether Trump will ultimately deploy the National Guard remains unclear. But across the US, the frogs (and their friends) keep multiplying. Their placards declaring “frogs together strong” remind us of the strength to be forged in unity and laughter.

Blake Lawrence does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why US activists are wearing inflatable frog costumes at protests against Trump – https://theconversation.com/why-us-activists-are-wearing-inflatable-frog-costumes-at-protests-against-trump-267975

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Alistair Evans, Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University

For more than 60 million years, venomous snakes have slithered across Earth.

These ancient, chemical weapon-wielding reptiles owe their evolutionary success in part to the effectiveness of their bite, which they deliver at an astonishing speed before their prey can escape.

Now, a study I coauthored reveals, in astonishing detail, exactly how these bites work. Published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology, it is the largest study of its kind to-date, and uses advanced video techniques to show how various snake species have evolved very different strategies to deliver their deadly bites.

Thousands of snakes on Earth

There are approximately 4,000 species of snake on Earth – about 600 of which are venomous.

Scientists started visually recording the strikes of these snakes to better understand them in the 1950s, when high-speed photography and cinematography were first developed.

Since then, these technologies have improved dramatically, allowing scientists to capture and study the action of venomous snake bites in much greater detail. For example, past research has shown there are clear differences between strikes to capture prey, versus those used for defence.

But most recent studies that have examined snake bites have been limited by a number of factors.

Firstly, they have captured the bites using only one camera. This means we only get a side-on view, whereas the snakes can slither in all directions. Secondly, the recordings have been of a relatively low resolution – in large part because they were made in the field with low lighting conditions. Thirdly, they have often focused on a single snake species or a limited number of species. This means we miss out on seeing how many other species may behave differently, or strike faster.

Welcome to Venomworld

For our new study, my colleagues and I studied the bites of 36 different species of venomous snakes. These species were from the three main families of venomous snakes: vipers, elapids and colubrids. They included western diamondback rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox), blunt-nosed vipers (Macrovipera lebetinus) and the rough-scaled death adder (Acanthophis rugosus).

All the snakes we studied were housed at an institution in Paris, France, called Venomworld. There, we built a small experimental arena consisting of plexiglass panels lined with a cardboard floor, in which we placed the individual snakes.

We presented the snakes with a simulated food source – a cylindrical hunk of medical gel, heated to 38 degrees so it resembled prey for those that can detect heat.

Two high-speed cameras, placed nearby at different angles, automatically captured the snakes striking the gel at 1,000 frames per second.

Using the footage from these two different views, we recreated the strike in 3D to investigate, in detail, its various components such as its duration, acceleration, angle, and how fast the snake’s jaw opened.

In total, we captured 108 videos of successful strikes – three for each of the species included in the study.

Striking and slashing

There were major differences between the strikes of the snakes we studied.

Vipers struck the fastest, moving at speeds of more than 4.5 metres per second before sinking their needle-like fangs into the fake prey. Sometimes they would quickly remove and reinsert their fangs at a better angle. Only when the fangs were comfortably in place did the snakes shut their jaws and inject venom.

Some 84% of the vipers included in the study reached their prey in less than 90 milliseconds. This is faster than the average response time for a startled mammal – the preferred prey of many vipers in the wild.

On the other hand, elapid snakes, such as the Cape coral cobra (Aspidelaps lubricus), crept towards the fake prey before lunging and biting it repeatedly. Their jaw muscles would tense, releasing venom.

Colubrid snakes, such as the mangrove snake (Boiga dendrophila), which have fangs farther back in their mouths, lunged towards the prey from further away. With their jaws clamped over it, they’d make a sweeping motion from side to side. In doing so, they tore a gash in the gel to inject the maximum amount of venom.

Our previous research highlighted how the shape of snakes’ fangs is closely tied to prey preference. We can now show how they use these deadly weapons in the blink of an eye – and why they have been able to survive for so long on Earth.

Alistair Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.

– ref. High-tech cameras capture the secrets of venomous snake bites – https://theconversation.com/high-tech-cameras-capture-the-secrets-of-venomous-snake-bites-267738

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Carol Lefevre, Visiting Research Fellow, Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide

Between the end of a summer that had been going on too long and the beginning of a too-warm autumn that would crank up my climate change anxiety to ten, I joined a tai chi class.

I had noticed a sign when I was out walking. Immediately, I went online, paid some money and put my name down for the first available session. Looking back, I wonder why I thought this evening class, held in a suburban community centre, might soothe the assorted anxieties I was carrying. Signing up was an impulsive act, prompted by some deep, yet inarticulate knowing that the way I was feeling would not be eased by words; something different was needed, something physical.

I’d had two big bereavements: first my mother, then a beloved aunt. They had been the two most important women in my life, and suddenly they were gone. Meanwhile, I was under ongoing surveillance following surgery for cancer, caught in that uneasy post-treatment period that tests one’s nerve – because there is nothing to be done but wait.

At certain moments, usually in the middle of the night, a niggling voice would whisper that the cancer might be gone but it could return, that even as I lay there in the dark trying to sleep, some small, festering body part might be plotting treason. Sometimes the voice was that of the naturopath I’d consulted, who’d warned since my body had made a cancer, I needed to avoid the conditions that had allowed that to happen. Which, of course, I would – if only I knew what they may have been.

It was a time when at least once a day I would find myself on the verge of crying; sometimes, inconveniently, the tears broke through. It could happen anywhere – when I was out walking, or in the supermarket; sometimes it happened when I was driving, and I’d have to pull over until I was able to quieten my thoughts enough to drive on.

Inconvenient weeping

I’d almost progressed to feeling tearful about being tearful, when I came across the first of Deborah Levy’s trilogy of autobiographical writings, Things I Don’t Want to Know. In it, Levy documents her bouts of inconvenient weeping. It was riding on escalators at train stations that set off Levy’s tears, especially the upward escalator. She writes: “By the time I got to the top and felt the wind rushing in, it took all my effort to stop myself from sobbing.”

I recognised that effortful feeling of trying to control the sobs. Like Levy, I also knew something had to change. Her solution had been to book a flight to Palma, Majorca, where she was met at the airport by a taxi driver with white clouds floating in both his eyes. On arrival, Levy had bought Spanish cigarettes with the intention of taking up smoking again and when the driver abandoned her on the road to her hotel, she sat on a rock and lit the first cigarette.

It was also somewhat comforting to read, in Joan Didion’s essay Goodbye to All That, how as a young woman in New York, she had found herself crying in elevators and taxis and Chinese laundries. There were certain parts of the city she had to avoid, including Times Square in the afternoons, or the New York Public Library at any time, for any reason.

Her solution was to get married. But I was sorry to learn her crying continued even after her marriage to fellow writer John Gregory Dunne. Didion cried, she writes, “until I was not even aware when I was crying and when I was not”. It was a year in which, she tells us, she understood the meaning of the word “despair”. A doctor expressed the opinion she appeared to be depressed. He wrote down the name and number of a psychiatrist for her, but Didion did not go.

A friend had given me the name of a psychologist who she said had helped her, but I had given up on psychology. Or at least, the psychologists I had consulted when things had been going badly in the past had left me poorer without improving matters.

Now, everything was conspiring to cast me low, including that ever since the cancer surgery, my hair had been shedding – hair I had patiently nurtured through the transition from chemical dyes to natural health, hair I had joyously grown halfway down my back for the first time since childhood. My hair was everywhere in the house and in the car; it even migrated into our food. I knew I had been fortunate to have avoided chemotherapy, with its side serve of hair loss, but now it appeared I was to lose it anyway, albeit more slowly.

I read that both surgery and stress can contribute to thinning hair, and concluded although I had been anaesthetised when surgeons re-sectioned my colon, my body had been present and remained deeply shocked.

In signing up for the tai chi class, I was throwing myself upon the mercy of the universe.

A kind of poetry

The only time I had ever actually seen tai chi involved one of those surreal moments that occasionally occur in life. About five years earlier, I had been driving along the southern terrace that borders Adelaide’s parklands and the car radio was playing a piece of classical music by a Japanese composer.

The sound was spare and melancholy, and when I glanced across to the park I saw a tai chi class in progress. That was not in itself unusual – people use the parklands all the time for various fitness activities. What made time swerve to a halt was that the slow movements of the tai chi people were perfectly in time with the music coming out of my radio.

I had stopped the car to watch. The group practising tai chi couldn’t hear the music, of course, but the synchronicity of movement and sound produced a kind of poetry. Perhaps, then, when I saw the sign advertising “tai chi for health and wellbeing” outside my local community centre, it was this memory of the unexpected beauty I’d witnessed that had nudged me over the hump of my inertia to join.

Tai chi is a form of mind-body exercise that originated in China. Its history is somewhat shadowy, with contributions attributed to various monks and masters reaching back as far as the 12th century, and possibly beyond. In T’ai Chi Ch’uan and I Ching: a choreography of body and mind, Da Liu, a tai chi master, credits the most complete foundations of tai chi to a famous Taoist, Chang San-feng, an ardent follower of Confucius who was known as “The Immortal”.

Da Liu writes that Chang San-feng famously observed a fight between a crane and a snake, and from the way the two animals moved he realised “the value of yielding in the face of strength”. He studied the behaviour of wild animals, clouds, water and trees moving in the wind and “codified these natural movements into a system of exercise”. Da Liu concedes: “We owe the present forms of T’ai Chi to numerous masters […] over many centuries.”

Tai chi has been influenced by Confucian thought, and by traditional Chinese medicine, but its roots lie deep in the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, which emphasises the natural balance in all things. In Taoist thinking, everything is composed of two opposite but complementary elements: yin and yang. The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote eloquently of the principles of yin and yang in his famous work the Tao Te Ching.

In tai chi, the polarities of yin and yang are expressed through the form’s shifts of weight and balance, through hardness yielding to softness, tension releasing to relaxation, and moving the body in ways that expand and contract. Gentler and more meditative than the Chinese martial arts it evolved from, its slow, dance-like postures flow into one another, combining concentration, physical balance, stretching and relaxation, with natural, peaceful breathing.

There are different schools of tai chi. Chen, Yang, Wu and Sun styles are named after the Chinese families who developed them, and the skills are passed orally through the generations.

The form I was learning had been developed by a Taoist monk, Master Moy Lin Shin. The tai chi he brought to the West is a modified version of Yang style’s 108-move set. Its elements are borrowed from the Chinese internal arts of XingYi (a bare-handed fighting form), Bagua (a complex system of eight trigrams, which in tai chi relate to movement and body parts), and Liuhebafa, or “water boxing”, a form characterised by its flowing, fluid movements.

Taoist tai chi has been criticised for these modifications, which are sometimes seen as a dilution of classical tai chi. Criticism focuses on the fact Master Moy removed the “fighting” aspects from his form in favour of emphasising its health benefits. His decision was most likely influenced by the health difficulties of his own early years, as well as by the needs of the people he trained after he emigrated to Canada.

Lou Reed, legendary musician, songwriter and founding member of rock band the Velvet Underground, credits tai chi with saving him after years of self-destructive substance abuse. Reed began a martial arts practice in the 1980s; he came to love the fighting aspect of Chen style, but he was also in awe of tai chi’s power to heal. In a letter published by The New York Times in 2010, Reed wrote:

I wish I could convince you to change your life and save your body and soul. I know it sounds too good. But truly: Tai Chi – why not?“

A lesson in humility

My first class was a lesson in humility. Never a sporty type, never even an adequate dancer, awkward hardly does justice to the feeling of finding myself in the centre of a group of people who, at the instructor’s command, began a series of complex moves they seemed to know by heart. Later, I would learn ushering beginners into the middle is a kindness; it means when they turn, there is someone they can follow.

At the halfway point of that first class, Chinese pu’erh tea was served in tiny porcelain cups. Brewed from the leaves of a variety of tea plant native to Yunnan Province, pu’erh tea goes through a complex fermentation process and is reputed to have many health benefits. After the tea break, it was back to the centre of the floor for more repetitions of the move we’d been working on.

That night, we were practising move 18: Carry Tiger to Mountain. It evolves out of move 17, Cross Hands, which even I could manage. The body turns with the arms bent as if cradling a heavy bundle. Yes, I thought, this sorrow and anxiety I’d been holding was my tiger; a creature burning bright with memories that had become too painful, a body darkly striped with grief.

It felt as wild and dangerous in its way as a real live tiger, but if I could only master the correct way to carry it to the mountain, perhaps I would be able to leave it there and move on.

Tai chi requires complete focus, making it almost impossible to think about anything else. So when I came across American beat poet Alan Ginsberg’s poem about tai chi, it struck me as a somewhat inaccurate portrayal of what happens during tai chi practice. Ginsberg is in his kitchen in New York, the only place in his apartment with enough space to do tai chi, but his moves are interspersed with domestic concerns:

the Crane spreads its wings have I paid the electric bill?

White Crane Spreads its Wings is one of tai chi’s most subtly exhilarating moves. It involves a simultaneous rising and turning, a spine-expanding stretch that, for me, somehow generates a feeling of hope. What it doesn’t do is allow any room for thoughts of “the electric bill”. What was Ginsberg up to, I wonder, as his white crane spread its wings in his kitchen? I can only conclude his electricity bill was a pressing matter in his life at that particular moment.

Studies have shown tai chi can modulate the regions and networks in the brain associated with depression, with mood regulation and processing emotions, and with stress and distress.

A focus on life force

Of the Chinese martial arts, tai chi belongs to the internal arts known collectively as neijia. The focus is on mental, spiritual and “qi” (chi) – or life-force – aspects, rather than the physiological nature of the external martial arts.

The Eight Methods are qi, bone, shape, follow, rise, return, retain, conceal. At this early stage of my study of tai chi, they remain a mystery. But the principles of the Six Harmonies are evident in a muted way in the class teachings, where emphasis is placed on movement with intent, and on developing an awareness of what one is feeling during the moves – internally as well as externally.

For those of us who lose touch with what our bodies are doing and feeling, neglecting to pay attention until they threaten our wellbeing, or even our lives, this fusing of mind and body, spirit and movement, intent and qi, feels like an important survival skill.

For example, every year almost 7,000 women in Australia are diagnosed with a gynaecological cancer. These cancers are characterised by low survival rates and are notoriously difficult to detect. Something like ovarian cancer can show up in many different ways and spread quite widely before being correctly diagnosed.

Increased awareness of our bodies could help us bring the information to our doctors that might assist in earlier diagnoses and better outcomes for these and many other conditions.

In 2020, tai chi was added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. There have been claims for the practice’s beneficial effects on people living with Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis: conditions that come with a debilitating loss of coordination and balance.

One year-long study of women with MS, carried out between 2019 and 2020, showed measurable improvements in the areas of their balance, gait, mood, cognition – and also in their quality of life.

Cancer as betrayal

My experience of cancer has been that it feels like a betrayal. For decades, my body has carried me through every kind of weather, both actual and emotional. It has reliably bounced back from every health breakdown. No words can adequately describe the sense of loss engendered by a cancer diagnosis, even one that is not yet deemed terminal.

I was fortunate to be diagnosed early, but I was still blindsided by my body’s deceitfulness, its silent treachery; even after surgery, it was a shock to realise the bounce-back appeared provisional. Was this payback for all the times I’d wished for a different physiology – longer legs, straighter hair, slimmer hips? Or for the times I’d just plain hated the way I looked, hated my own clumsiness in the world so much I’d mistreated my closest ally?

Tai chi asks us to turn our awareness to the body with gentleness and precision; to become better at hearing what it has to say. I have felt let down, so when tai chi’s difficult “separations” sequence requires the whole of my weight to be supported by one ankle, one foot, five toes, I ask my body: Will you hold me? Will you keep me from falling? Can I count on you effortlessly as I once did, as a child, as a young woman?

And each time I do not wobble, or have to save myself from falling, it feels like a baby step in a gradual rebuilding of trust, perhaps even of finding forgiveness for the betrayal, a re-bonding with the self at a profound level.

The Taoist Tai Chi logo is the circular yin and yang symbol, with the light and dark sections reversed. It is said to symbolise tai chi’s ability to reverse bad habits and the ageing process, and thus to promote good health. During practice, I hope to reverse the conditions, whatever they may have been, that prompted my body to turn against itself.

But I understand it is a gradual process, as slow and continuous as the movement and pace of tai chi itself, sometimes compared to pulling a silk thread from a cocoon. Pull it too quickly and it breaks; pull it too slowly and it won’t unwind. Slow and gentle doesn’t equate to “weak” or “ineffectual”. Fundamental to tai chi is the concept of “effortless effort”, in which relaxation enables the important inner work to take place.

Less inclined to tears

For me, two months into the practice, my emotions felt more under control; I was less inclined to tears. Week by week, I was discovering that grief and loss are not only held in the heart and mind, but also in the body; muscles and tendons, all the complex systems of nerves and blood and lymph that circulate our distress, are open to being soothed by the language of movement.

As winter set in, I began taking extra classes, going two or three times a week. Pitching up at draughty memorial halls in outlying townships where huge stages were framed by crimson curtains, and where in one case, rows of two-bar electric heaters high up on the walls appeared to be the only heating.

Physically, I found the constant shifting of weight, the expansion and contraction of parts of the body, the striving for a sense of flow, the need to focus, all generated a tangible feeling of wellbeing – though I still felt like an awkward beginner.

In Taoist Tai Chi’s 108-move “set”, some moves – like White Crane Spreads Wings, and Hands Like Clouds – occur multiple times. Learning involves sharpening one’s observational skills, as each move is demonstrated three times by the instructor.

Another subtle aspect of the art is being helped by following those around you who are more skilled, and by their patience in “treading water” for a time while beginners settle in. In this way, tai chi becomes both an individual and a communal endeavour: expressing, through effortless effort, the Taoist ideal of service to others.

To practise the set outside class, the moves must be memorised. It requires patience, persistence and possibly years-long commitment, but studies show the benefits are well worth the effort, especially as we age. Even a tai chi practice of only 24 weeks has demonstrated improved cognitive function in older adults with mild cognitive impairment.

‘I don’t want to seem mystical …’

Lou Reed’s book The Art of the Straight Line: My Tai Chi, edited by his wife, artist Laurie Anderson, was published after Reed’s death. It contains his writings on tai chi and conversations with fellow musicians, artists and tai chi practitioners.

“I have often thought of tai chi as some kind of physical unity to the universe itself, some strange ancient methodology that could link us to the basic energy wave of existence,” he writes. “I don’t want to seem mystical, but something does happen to you when you practice this ancient art.”

Reed became a devotee of Master Ren Guangyi, practising Chen style tai chi for up to two hours a day, and for six or seven days a week. He took Ren on a world tour with him, eventually putting him on stage to do a tai chi set while improvising music to complement the form. The two performed together and engaged in tai chi with the public at Sydney’s 2010 Vivid Festival, which was curated by Reed and Anderson.

In The Art of the Straight Line, in a transcribed conversation between Laurie Anderson and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (with whom Reed had studied meditation), Anderson movingly recounts how

as Lou died, he was completely conscious. And he was doing Cloud Hands, a tai chi movement, while he died.

Reed had had cancer of the liver and hepatitis, and had undergone a liver transplant six months earlier.

In Things I Do Not Want to Know, Deborah Levy concludes it was the past, specifically her childhood in Africa, that had returned to her when she was sobbing on escalators. After weighing things up in Majorca, she settles down to write. In Goodbye to All That, Joan Didion leaves New York and returns to California. After a time, the moon over the Pacific Ocean and the pervasive scent of jasmine make her tears in New York seem “a long time ago”.

Even so, after the death of her mother, Didion wrote: “There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.” For a long time I had shared that view, but now, as I progressed with tai chi, I was beginning to think there might be ways.

For me, grief for the past has been as much a factor in my tears as my anxiety about the future. Helplessly poised between the two, I found in tai chi a way to manage this position – not by looking back, nor forward, but expanding and contracting into the present moment, shutting out the world’s noise and finding peace within myself through movement and mindfulness. If this sounds too mystical, I can only agree with Lou Reed: “Something does happen to you when you practice this ancient art.”

What is the “something” that happens? It’s difficult to define, and I suspect you feel it almost immediately if you’re going to feel it at all. I’ve noticed that people who’ve never done tai chi come to a first class and they either never return or, like me, embrace it with the zeal of missionaries. In searching for a way to explain the “something”, I can’t find a better place to start than the opening move.

‘I’m confident it’s happening’

The opening to tai chi appears the simplest of movements. The hands, from hanging at the sides with the palms open, rise in front of the body and then slowly float down. It’s the motion one uses when flinging a sheet over a mattress to make a bed, but so much slower. With the upward lifting of the hands, the body contracts; as the hands descend, the body expands and rises.

It is surprising how soothing this motion can be, how almost at once the mind and body calm. The upward lift is driven by pushing up from the floor, with the hands rising as if on puppet strings, but the downward drift comes from dropping the elbows. They are such subtle adjustments, yet the body responds with a palpable quietening.

There is a sense of return in this move, even though it is a beginning. It’s the feeling I get at the end of a long walk when I open the gate from the street and step into our garden. Or when I close the front door behind me and breathe in: home.

In The Art of the Straight Line, Anderson writes that after more than 25 years of practising tai chi, Lou Reed “could actually feel chi. He could pinpoint it, describe it, and trace the way it moved through his body”. She describes how Reed would demonstrate chi by passing one hand over the other.

When I felt that for the first time, I was electrified. I was holding a ball of unbelievably powerful energy and realizing that it could move through me and that this is also what I was made of.

I have not felt the chi moving through me, but it is early days yet. Eight months in, I remember to straighten my spine as I go about my day; I am calmer and have better balance. While I can’t actually see the new neural pathways forming in my brain, I’m confident it is happening.

I continue each week to carry my tiger to the mountain. In the kitchen, while I wait for the kettle or the oven, my white crane spreads its wings. At night, visualising the first 17 moves sends me to sleep. When I practice the difficult cloud hands, I am reminded of Lou Reed: the way he brought his art and his capacity for devotion to tai chi, and was rewarded.

I approach each class with beginner’s mind, and am hopeful of one day experiencing chi’s electrifying energy.

Carol Lefevre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Friday essay: tai chi helped me navigate grief and loss. Its story spans ancient China to Lou Reed – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-tai-chi-helped-me-navigate-grief-and-loss-its-story-spans-ancient-china-to-lou-reed-265280

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Paul Crosby, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, Macquarie University

Taylor Swift’s latest studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, has just enjoyed a second week on top of the Billboard charts, after smashing all-time sales records on its debut.

In the United States alone, it sold more than four million album-equivalent units in its first week, a metric that combines physical sales, downloads and streams into one figure.

Swift once again topping charts with her latest album probably comes as little surprise. What has turned heads is the way she did it. In just one week, she released 34 versions of the same album.

This was more than clever marketing. It was economics in action. Swift’s release is a masterclass in pop economics, showing how artists turn attention, scarcity and emotion into revenue – on a record-breaking scale.

Taylor’s version(ing)

The Life of a Showgirl was released in dozens of formats, with physical and digital editions tailored to different levels of commitment.

In total, over the first week, there were 27 physical editions (18 CDs, eight vinyl LPs and one cassette) and seven digital download variants.

A range of covers, coloured vinyl, bonus tracks and signed inserts turned one album into a collectable series rather than a single product. Other artists – such as the Rolling Stones – have used this strategy before, but rarely at this scale or with such an intense response from fans.

Economists call this versioning: offering multiple versions of the same product so customers reveal how much they are willing to pay.

For many casual listeners, one version is enough. But for devoted Swifties, collecting extra editions can feel irresistible.

By tempting these superfans to buy special editions, often at a premium price, Swift captures consumer surplus – the gap between what a fan is willing to pay and what they actually pay.

Instead of leaving that money on the table, the strategy turns passion into profit. The cost of creating extra covers or vinyl colours is small, but the willingness of fans to pay more for them is high. That is exactly where versioning pays off.

The psychology of spending like a Swiftie

Swift’s strategy is not just about pricing. It relies on how people actually make decisions, with emotion, status concerns and social pressure, rather than as perfectly rational consumers in economic theory.

One of the strongest ideas in behavioural economics is loss aversion. People feel the pain of losing something more than the pleasure of gaining it. Swift’s release uses this to full effect.

Limited editions, surprise drops and retailer-exclusive covers frame the decision not as “should I buy this?” but as “do I want to miss out?”.

For many fans, the thought of missing out on having a particular version forever feels worse than the cost of paying for it now.

Scarcity strengthens the pull. When items are available only briefly or in fixed quantities, they become positional goods, valued not only for what they are, but because others might not be able to get them.

Research shows that when something is scarce and uncertain, people act faster and spend more.

When one vinyl beats thousands of streams

These emotional decisions translate into commercial results. In major music markets, every physical purchase counts towards the charts, no matter the format. If one fan buys four editions, that counts as four sales. When thousands do the same, first-week numbers soar.

This strategy makes even more sense in the streaming era, where listening contributes far less to chart rankings than physical sales. On the US Billboard 200 chart, it takes about 1,250 paid streams or 3,750 ad-supported streams to equal one album sale.

Physical sales are once again a major source of revenue for the music industry. In the United States in 2024, physical formats generated around US$2 billion (about A$3 billion), up 5% from the previous year.

Vinyl sales rose for the 18th straight year and made up almost three-quarters of all physical music revenue.

Where the strategy meets its limits

Versioning works, but it has limits. Even the most devoted fans reach a point where excitement fades and cost starts to matter.

Economists call this diminishing marginal utility. The first version of an album brings a lot of satisfaction. The fifth or sixth brings less. Eventually, another version does not add enough enjoyment to justify the price. Fans begin to feel they have had enough.

Some fans are already asking how many versions are too many. That reaction matters. Trust and goodwill function like capital. They take time to build, but they can also be spent. If fans begin to feel taken for granted, loyalty becomes harder to maintain and even harder to win back.

The Life of a Showgirl was a lesson in the monetisation of fan devotion. But every show has a final act. If fans start to feel like customers rather than part of the performance, the applause can fade quickly.

Paul Crosby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. In her revenue era: the economics behind Taylor Swift’s 34 versions of The Life of a Showgirl – https://theconversation.com/in-her-revenue-era-the-economics-behind-taylor-swifts-34-versions-of-the-life-of-a-showgirl-267737

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jessica Biesiekierski, Associate Professor of Human Nutrition, The University of Melbourne

Social media and lifestyle magazines have turned gluten – a protein in wheat, rye and barley – into a dietary villain.

Athletes and celebrities have promoted gluten-free eating as the secret to better health and performance.

But our review in The Lancet published today challenges that idea.

By examining decades of research, we found that for most people who think they react to gluten, gluten itself is rarely the cause.

Symptoms but not coeliac

Coeliac disease is when the body’s immune system attacks itself when someone eats gluten, leading to inflammation and damage to the gut.

But people with gut or other symptoms after eating foods containing gluten can test negative for coeliac disease or wheat allergy. They are said to have non-coeliac gluten sensitivity.

We wanted to understand whether gluten itself, or other factors, truly cause their symptoms.

What we did and what we found

Our study combined more than 58 studies covering symptom changes and possible ways they could arise. These included studying the immune system, gut barrier, microbes in the gut, and psychological explanations.

Across studies, gluten-specific reactions were uncommon and, when they occurred, changes in symptoms were usually small. Many participants who believed they were “gluten sensitive” reacted equally – or more strongly – to a placebo.

One landmark trial looked at the role of fermentable carbohydrates (known as FODMAPs) in people who said they were sensitive to gluten (but didn’t have coeliac disease). When people ate a low-FODMAP diet – avoiding foods such as certain fruits, vegetables, legumes and cereals – their symptoms improved, even when gluten was reintroduced.

Another showed fructans – a type of FODMAP in wheat, onion, garlic and other foods – caused more bloating and discomfort than gluten itself.

This suggests most people who feel unwell after eating gluten are sensitive to something else. This could be FODMAPs such as fructans, or other wheat proteins. Another explanation could be that symptoms reflect a disorder in how the gut interacts with the brain, similar to irritable bowel syndrome.

Some people may be truly sensitive to gluten. However, current evidence suggests this is uncommon.

People expected symptoms

A consistent finding is how expecting to have symptoms profoundly shapes people’s symptoms.

In blinded trials, when people unknowingly ate gluten or placebo, symptom differences almost vanished.

Some who expected gluten to make them unwell developed identical discomfort when exposed to a placebo.

This nocebo effect – the negative counterpart of placebo – shows that belief and prior experience influence how the brain processes signals from the gut.

Brain-imaging research supports this, showing that expectation and emotion activate brain regions involved in pain and how we perceive threats. This can heighten sensitivity to normal gut sensations.

These are real physiological responses. What the evidence is telling us is that focusing attention on the gut, coupled with anxiety about symptoms or repeated negative experiences with food, has real effects. This can
sensitise how the gut interacts with the brain (known as the gut–brain axis) so normal digestive sensations are felt as pain or urgency.

Recognising this psychological contribution doesn’t mean symptoms are imagined. When the brain predicts a meal may cause harm, gut sensory pathways amplify every cramp or sensation of discomfort, creating genuine distress.

This helps explain why people remain convinced gluten is to blame even when blinded studies show otherwise. Symptoms are real, but the mechanism is often driven by expectation rather than gluten.

So what else could explain why some people feel better after going gluten-free? Such a change in the diet also reduces high-FODMAP foods and ultra-processed products, encourages mindful eating and offers a sense of control. All these can improve our wellbeing.

People also tend to eat more naturally gluten-free, nutrient-dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes and nuts, which may further support gut health.

The cost of going gluten-free

For the approximately 1% of the population with coeliac disease, avoiding gluten for life is essential.

But for most who feel better gluten-free, gluten is unlikely to be the true problem.

There’s also a cost to going gluten-free unnecessarily. Gluten-free foods are, on average, 139% more expensive than standard ones. They are also often lower in fibre and key nutrients.

Avoiding gluten long term can also reduce diversity in your diet, alter your gut microbes and reinforce anxiety about eating.

Is it worth getting tested?

Unlike coeliac disease or a wheat allergy, non-coeliac gluten sensitivity has no biomarker – there’s no blood test or tissue marker that can confirm it.

Diagnosis instead relies on excluding other conditions and structured dietary testing.

Based on our review, we recommend clinicians:

• rule out coeliac disease and wheat allergy first

• optimise the quality of someone’s overall diet

• trial a low-FODMAP diet if symptoms persist

• only then, consider a four to six-week dietitian-supervised gluten-free trial, followed by a structured re-introduction of gluten-containing foods to see whether gluten truly causes symptoms.

This approach keeps restriction targeted and temporary, avoiding unnecessary long-term exclusion of gluten.

If gluten doesn’t explain someone’s symptoms, combining dietary guidance with psychological support often works best. That’s because expectation, stress and emotion influence our symptoms. Cognitive-behavioural or exposure-based therapies can reduce food-related fear and help people safely reintroduce foods they once avoided.

This integrated model moves beyond the simplistic “gluten is bad” narrative toward personalised, evidence-based gut–brain care.

Jessica Biesiekierski receives funding from NHMRC, Rome Foundation, Yakult and Australian Eggs. She is affiliated with the Nutrition Society of Australia and the Australiasian Neurogastroenterology & Motility Association.

– ref. Your gluten sensitivity might be something else entirely, new study shows – https://theconversation.com/your-gluten-sensitivity-might-be-something-else-entirely-new-study-shows-267098