As ever, I'm not inclined to be too terribly serious on a Friday – read further down for a cat video -- but do please allow me to commend to you last night's Media7 discussion about the origin and backdrop to the PEDA funding controversy. I think we got to some stuff that hasn't been reported before – at least not outside the Pacific media world.
Richard Pamatatau was as together as ever, and it was nice to meet Efeso Collins (an extremely impressive young man) and Sefita Hao'uli (who I was pleased to discover is a regular Public Address reader). Obviously, you have to be interested in the subject matter to run a panel discussion, but I was really interested in what these three had to say.
There's also a chat with new Metro editor editor Simon Wilson. His first issue at the helm is out on Monday, and includes Gary Steel's interview with Chris Knox, which is accompanied by some striking – and discomforting – portraits by Jane Ussher. The issue also contains work from new regular writers Emma Hart, Damian Christie and David Slack, and also something from Gemma Gracewood. Which just goes to show what a fantastic judge of talent I am.
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You'll note, fresh today, Paul Millar's reprised analysis of the circumstances and significance of Bill Pearson's 'Fretful Sleepers'. Paul was kind enough to supply an introduction when I first re-published Pearson's famous essay in Great New Zealand Argument, and he's now adapted the relevant chapter from his Pearson biography, No Fretful Sleeper. I have two copies of Paul's book to give away to people who write interesting comments under the post.
If you're in or near Wanaka this Sunday, you could do a lot worse than to get along to a rare screening of my buddy Andrew Moore's NZ skate history No More Heroes, put on by Manual magazine.
Some tunes:
'Specially for Danielle, to help her with that bad-feminist thing (although Julie Bindel feels your pain), the Xx vs Notorious B.I.G. (It's Soundcloud – look for the little download arrow) which is way better than it has a right to be.
A bunch of remixes, from the blogosphere (the dubstep mix of 'Heart of Glass' and the Holy Ghost remix of 'Drunk Girls' took my fancy) plus a bunch of free-and-legal downloads including a full live performance of The Pixies' Doolittle
And in a complete different vein, I'd never twigged that one of my favourite Nina Simone songs, 'Do What You Gotta Do' (it's tacked onto the end of the obscure, brilliant live album 'Nuff Said') was written by Jimmy Webb. It features on his new album, Just Across the River, and there's an approved free download of it with this review. Yep, it's pretty cheesy - but the same reviewer has also posted versions by Nina, Clarence Carter and Roberta Flack. Niceness.
A word for the vee-jay set performed by KillaManraro (aka Ned Ngatae) at last week's Turnaround. An hour of 80s electro and R&B classics would have been good enough for my colleagues and I; the visuals just made it great.
Now, if you are one of the few people who haven't seen Matt Smith's wonderful turn with Orbital on the Doctor Who Theme at Glastonbury last Sunday, it's here:
You may remember the timeless YouTube video of the cat that wandered around with a bag on its head. This is the same, awesome, cat, from Japan:
And that is all. Feel free to share anything else of significance.