Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: "Creative" and "Flexible"

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  • Roger Lacey,

    Dear dear Robbie.
    Why seek to crush or dismiss something that does you no harm and yet give pleasure to thousands. You seem upset that your taxes are paying for something you don't personally use. As Russell pointed out our taxes pay for many things that we may not like or use. I've never climbed Mt Aspiring but I'm happy for my taxes to pay for the upkeep of the tracks.
    Following your logic, would you instead like to have to pay a toll every time you step on a footpath or cross a bridge or go to hospital?
    Stop trolling here and start lobbying NZoA for your niche, it may be a better use of your valuable time. :-)

    Whatakataka Bay Surf Club… • Since Apr 2008 • 148 posts Report

  • Paul Litterick,

    I'd argue that works by Charles Goldie and Peter McIntyre are somewhat more relevant to our nation than the Well Tempered Clavier.

    Auckland City Art Gallery has an irrelevant Guido Reni - Dead White Italian, died in the same year that Tasman found New Zealand. The Gallery has also received some French Impressionists from some American bloke. We should have told him that they aren't relevant. Bloody foreigners.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report

  • Caleb D'Anvers,

    Yes, Goldie and McIntyre invented painting on canvas, you know. In fact, Pakeha culture -- hell, human beings themselves -- evolved here. Came up out of the ground. Something in the water here, apparently.

    London SE16 • Since Mar 2008 • 482 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    Well, you know I'd slash fuding for TVNZ and just pay for Maori TV.

    Don't mean to be rude, but, um, you're not exactly arguing from an informed position here, which makes me doubt your good faith.

    "Funding for TVNZ" is already less than zero -- it pays us a dividend -- so good luck there.

    Or are you saying you'd slash all NZOA production funding and leave it to the market? In which case you seem to have gone from saying there should be no public broadcasting support for high culture to no public broadcasting at all. I'm not sure we're really that poor.

    Even as a devil's advocate, you're not making much sense here.

    Re Te Papa/paintings, I'd argue that works by Charles Goldie and Peter McIntyre are somewhat more relevant to our nation than the Well Tempered Clavier.

    Okay. But even if you only count the 15% of Concert airtime that's New Zealand performances and/or compositions, it still compares very favourably with the taxpayer's annual bill for galleries and museums, let alone the capital expenditure on same.

    There are regular exhibitions around the country of European art works but they tend to be funded by the twin demons of sponsorship and visitor fees.

    But the staff who manage them and the buildings where they are displayed are not.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • philipmatthews,

    Auckland City Art Gallery has an irrelevant Guido Reni - Dead White Italian, died in the same year that Tasman found New Zealand. The Gallery has also received some French Impressionists from some American bloke. We should have told him that they aren't relevant. Bloody foreigners.

    We'd better ask the National Gallery of Victoria to give us back its McCahons as well. Can't see how they're relevant to a bunch of Australians.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2007 • 656 posts Report

  • Jolisa,

    Meanwhile, while we all play this "shoot-at-the-evil-Ludwig-van-Beethoven" shell game

    Now this is some truly evil Ludwig van Beethoven. Not just evil, but illin'...

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report

  • Robbie Siataga,

    I am not your monkey.

    but you do expect me to grind your organ for you so you can have your wee dance in public.

    But, hey, I guess the Maoists did have the coolest uniforms.

    gestapo ones were better and its not like i buy into some hard left right march to the tune of an idealogues drum.

    it's issue by issue, case by case, point by point, note by note to which my tune can be changed.

    The differences are just about which art, and how much funding.

    ...and the suspect decisions of those who call the shots with no critical feedback as to the relative merits of one form over the other. It's just all too subjective on their part with no accountability or transparency.

    Since Feb 2010 • 259 posts Report

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    our taxes pay for many things that we may not like or use.

    Most of those things are easily justified: it's easy to make a moral AND practical case for the preservation of Mt Aspiring, or the DPB, or whatever. But the argument for Concert FM is something along the lines of: 'it doesn't cost much, I want it and fuck you.'

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    Auckland City Art Gallery has an irrelevant Guido Reni - Dead White Italian

    For a moment I read that as "Dead While Italian" -- as if it were an aggravating factor ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • giovanni tiso,

    But the argument for Concert FM is something along the lines of: 'it doesn't cost much, I want it and fuck you.'

    If you say so.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Geoff Lealand,

    Meanwhile, while we all play this "shoot-at-the-evil-Ludwig-van-Beethoven" shell game, the actual elites (Sony, TimeWarner, etc. etc.) get away with handing us our culture

    Agreed, but that is not to say that a number of major labels selling classical recordings are also part of these conglomerates.

    High culture assumptions about entitlement, class and privilege should be as open to investigation as are the shortcomings of crass commercialism. There is a rather worrying Denis Duttonish view of the world creeping into some of the judgements being made hee.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Heh! But surely ragging on Rudman is truth to the powerless. You can't rag out your own organization publicly, that's just a plain fact of paid employment.

    If that's a 'plain fact', I guess Russell really should get on with turning Media7 into a TVNZ infomercial. :) Nor do I feel particularly inhibited about using my PA Radio pieces to rag on the government of the day (Thanks New Zealand on Air, regardless!) or questioning the human decency of anyone who'd give smirking buffoons like Laws or "JT and Willie" access to a live microphone.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • giovanni tiso,

    There is a rather worrying Denis Duttonish view of the world creeping into some of the judgements being made hee.

    Feel free to be less vague. Because I find the explicit claims repeatedly made here about the music played on RNZ Concert being the entitled prerogative of a privileged class to be - how shall I put this? - bollocks.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Robbie Siataga,

    Stop trolling here and start lobbying NZoA for your niche, it may be a better use of your valuable time. :-)

    trolling my tattoed blue arse and No, once bitten twice shy :)

    Good points otherwise, however its not like there is a viable net based alternative for the delivery and quantifiable benefits of a good walk in a national park. Fuck knows if there were i wouldn't be getting soft in the gut.

    Sure, pay taxes to avoid tolls and for a free health service everyone will use at some stage but let's draw the line somewhere.

    What if it was a country and western music station we were subsidising ? That has just as much cultural capital as classical and would you defend that if you weren't so much into C&W ? Honestly, i'd feel the same way about any genre based public funded radio.

    In this case, pay for what you like and repriortise the savings into hospitals or whatever other better cause needs subsidising.

    Since Feb 2010 • 259 posts Report

  • James Butler,

    Is there much gospel music on ConcertFM?

    Messiah?

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report

  • James Butler,

    What if it was a country and western music station we were subsidising ? That has just as much cultural capital as classical and would you defend that if you weren't so much into C&W ?

    I love much country music, and it undoubtably has a huge amount of "cultural capital", but you're saying 60 years of the music of one end of one country has as much "cultural capital" as 600 years of the music of the entire western hemisphere?

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report

  • Alien Lizard (anag),

    indie nihilist?
    I stumbled on this on the web
    - maybe it helps explain the stance...

    "Nothing is perfect
    In the space where nothing exists
    will one find perfection
    The perfect nothing

    Accept nothing as fact
    Question everything
    Determine your own truth
    Define your own reality

    BE YOUR OWN MESSIAH..."

    - Robbie Siataga/Kavanagh

    The Arrrgh Complex • Since Jan 2010 • 158 posts Report

  • Just thinking,

    Thanks Robbie I've tagged Taaz to my favourites.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report

  • bronwyn,

    But the argument for Concert FM is something along the lines of: 'it doesn't cost much, I want it and fuck you.'

    Arrggh! I think there is some very selective reading going on here. I'd go onto to make a list of what other people have already said, but I suspect you wouldn't read that either.

    tamaki makaurau • Since Nov 2006 • 86 posts Report

  • Craig Ranapia,

    I'm struck by the assumption that some high art can justly be funded and some can't.

    Um... I still looking for where I said anything quite so thoroughly dunder-headed. In a perfect world, I'd be handing Chris Finalyson a blank cheque and telling Tony Ryal, Ann Tolley, The Bolter and 'Crusher' Collins to go organise a cake stall or two. But the simple reality is that health, education, welfare and Police are always going to be sexier Budget bids than Radio New Zealand. Or my own favourite outlets for entitled bourgeois self-gratification -- for the record, I'm a really bad homosexual who finds ballet coma-inducing, otherwise I'm an easy date. :)

    And please point me towards a single arts organisation on the face of the Earth that has complained about being lavishly over-subsidised, having to turn away rich donors kicking down the doors and suffering under a general embarrassment of riches. Wishing doesn't make it so, worse luck.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • giovanni tiso,

    I'd go onto to make a list of what other people have already said, but I suspect you wouldn't read that either.

    You think? :-)

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Danielle,

    pop is an industry -- a top-down system in which prefabricated tastes are imposed from above

    I am on your side here Caleb, but I must note that pop is also often what the pointy-headed elitists call a 'dialogue' rather than solely a top-down system.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report

  • Geoff Lealand,

    Feel free to be less vague.

    Y'all don't know Denis Dutton? The Univ of Canterbury self-appointed guardian of all that is Great and Good in culture--and a pox upon what might be popular and cheerful and ephemeral. He is also great at personalising attacks, rather than engaging with ideas. I once was accused by him of being 'envious' because I dared criticise the hoo-haa around the America's Cup.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report

  • BenWilson,

    Fair cop Craig. If you employer is the gummint then everyone is free to rag on them. It's so large and faceless it's like ragging on the ocean. Rudman does not work for them, though, so the rules are as I said. Rag on your employer at your peril. Especially if your employer is a newspaper and your rag is a column in their rag.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    There is a rather worrying Denis Duttonish view of the world creeping into some of the judgements being made here.

    Dutton's abysmal utterances while (and before) he was on the board of Radio NZ in the 1990s helped shaped my extremely unfavourable view of him.

    He actually pushed for Radio NZ to dump its own news operation and buy in a service from an existing commercial provider. He was even deluded enough to claim that this would result in an improvement in quality.

    He came to the board as founder of Friends of National Radio, a group whose ideas about what the national broadcaster should do would have killed it with dullness.

    Did I mention that I regard the man as a pompous idiot?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

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