Oh. Okay. We escaped, then. Brilliant. We love it when we do that. [This smells like a Doctor Who quote. Remove. No Doctor Who quotes when I share the byline!—Elle]
So here it is. The final issue of Salient ‘11. To mark the occasion, we have increased the pages, and made the paper worse. We like to think that we’re expressing a moral about clouds and silver linings: you get more Salient, but on inferior paper. But really, newsprint was the only way we could afford to bring you all 72 content-packed pages of this, our Summer Reader—a handy chunk of culture to get you through the coming four-and-a-half-month Salient void.
We don’t expect you, our dear readers, to feel as sentimental about the end of this era as we do, but it’s an appropriate time to reflect on the past year. We took over as co-editors of this fine rag on 1 February. Now, over eight months later, exhausted and unwashed, we pause to reflect on our life choices.
How would our 2011 have been different had we not taken on this job? Eight months is a long time. In eight months, Uther could have taken in all existing Doctor Who media—and still he would have been really disappointed by how fucking obvious every reveal in The Wedding of River Song was. If she wasn’t on at least two forms of contraception at any given moment, Elle could (almost) have had a baby. Would these have been more worthwhile uses of our time? Would we have had more sleep, more money, more of a social life?
In all honesty, Uther and Elle have had a baby… he’s called Giancarlo Riccardo Salizzo. Not really.* But editing Salient is much like being a parent. The frustration, the stress. The sleepless nights. The horse semen. The takeaways. The alienation of our friends. The dissolution of our social lives. The listening to ‘Like a G6’ on repeat. The only difference is that, had she been pregnant, Elle wouldn’t have drunk so much… right?
Salient has been our child for the best part of the year. The great thing is, now we get to chuck him into the unexpecting arms of Allie Emaneas and strut into the distance without a backward glance. This isn’t intended to be seen as a whine about how difficult our job has been—more a commentary on the commitment that is coming to an end and the lessons we’ve learned in the hotseat—which is to say, a lot.
We have learned that people by and large refuse to abide by the adage ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’. We have learned that sometimes people are happy to do the most tedious of tasks for no other reason than to help a friend out. We have learned that the most economical time to drink at The Hunter Lounge is between 5pm and 7pm, when Castlepoint is on the cheap.
For all the sleeplessness and human shit, we have had a great year. We surpassed 2000 Likes on Facebook. We won the only ASPA award we cared about (best cartoonist for Dinocop). We strengthened ties between Salient and VUWSA and the University. Faces to Deface made an appearance in nexus as ‘Mugs to Meddle With’. We finally caught on to Issuu. We covered protests, programme cuts, change proposals, VSM. We scooped Stuff.co.nz on the fact that Garth McVicar had not in fact written his own book. We had mainstream media outlets hanging on our every YouTube upload. We remixed a VUWSA candidate’s video rant in a dubstep hit. We revitalised SalientTV with hilarious results. We published Dinocop, the finest piece of narrative fiction since Ulysses. We took on Werner Erhard and Landmark Education and… lost. We live-Tweeted the shit out of #everything.
Most of our successes would not have been possible were it not for the wonderful, dedicated team of people we have surrounding us. To list every person who has made this year’s Salient possible would make these pages little more than a six-point text wall of names, so take it that if you’ve seen someone’s work printed in the magazine this year, chances are that they’re a good cunt.
There is, of course, one person without whom this magazine would literally not have come out each Monday. Designer Dan—you have been an island of calm in a turbulent ocean of hysteria. For as much as we whine about how stressed and busy we are, your job is considerably more demanding than ours, but you haven’t let on once. You took our ideas, filtered out the shit, and turned out a good-looking mag every week without fail. And for that, what’s left of our sanity thanks you.
Also worth a shout out are the people who contributed to Salient for the first time this year. Thanks for getting on board, and thanks for listening to our feedback: the most rewarding part of our job this year has been seeing you grow. Like flowers. You’ve all come a long way, and we urge you to continue contributing to this organ of student opinion. You carry the bright distant future fireworks in your eyes.
Oh, and Asher and Ollie—you might find it harder to make a baby, but best of luck. We’re obviously going to be a hard act to follow, but you’ll do fine. Just never cut letters to anything less than two pages and don’t publish comics that don’t have jokes. Because, let us tell ya, our readers? They like writing letters about how angry non-comedic comics make them.
Now. Go. Have a summer. But not before you catch up on eleven weeks’ worth of learning in time for exams.
When we edit we do it right (gettin’ slizzard),
Uther Dean (the Mark) & Elle Hunt (the Jezza)
*It’s called Stella Blake-Killer.