Muse by Craig Ranapia

I'm sure we'll all live to regret it, but I've been invited to be the Paul Henry analogue on The Discourse Weekly Show's Discourse Votes 2011 HD-internet-tele-thingy, alive from an undisclosed location in glamourous Newmarket on Saturday 26 November from 7pm. 

The brief, according to the e-mail I got from co-host Dylan Reeve after an impromptu invite on Twitter is as follows:

We kick off at 7pm and will basically spend the next four-hours talking shit about the election and stuff while delivering election results.

To avoid becoming crazy and repetitive we're looking for any and all guests who can offer interesting comments, insights, rants or interpretive dance...

We will basically be winging it, so you're welcome to come in more-or-less whenever, and stay for as long as feels comfortable.

MUSE readers might be aware that something's happening on Saturday and as a public service (in accordance with Friday tradition) here's some You Tube tunes if you're suffering from politics fatigue.

Of course, you may think there's some oblique commentary going on, but I couldn't possibly comment. (And just to make sure nobody does on Election Day in possible breech of election law, I won't turn the comments on until Sunday morning.)

If your default setting for politics is "grim, bitter cynicism" what better place to start than Stephen Sondheim's Company - a grim, bitterly cynical look at another fine institution? Marriage.  Here's two clips from John Doyle's minimalist 2006 Broadway revival.  

'The Little Things You Do Together' (Barbara Walsh & company)

'You Could Drive A Person Crazy' (Raul Esperanza, Kelly Jeanne Grant, Angel Desai and Elizabeth Stanley)

'Pocket Calculator' (Brent Amaker & The Rodeo)  If you've given up trying to make sense of anyone's sums a country-fried Kraftwerk cover can't do any harm. Right?

'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind [Live]' (Neil Hannon)  "...forgive our foolish ways"?  Someone has to say it. 

'Walls Come Tumbling Down!' (The Style Council) Paul Weller and chums go to Warsaw, and a music video takes on an added layer of irony with hindsight. Last heard this call to arms playing over the PA at a mall while Christmas shopping. Draw your own conclusions.

'1999' (Prince and The Revolution) Party over, out of time?  Then girl-on-girl frottage behind the keyboards like it's 1999. (Hey, it was the 80's - it seemed like a good idea at the time.)

'Jesus bleibet meine Freude' (Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring)' (J.S. Bach, arranged and performed by Dame Myra Hess) Just because it's heartbreakingly fraking beautiful.

At Muse we respect our elders, but often wish they didn't make it so damn difficult.  However this charmless item on Morning Report, has focused Muse's final major policy release of the 2011 campaign season.

Grey Power is being criticised for calling on Auckland Council to review the number of Asian immigrants in the city.

As part of a submission for Auckland Council's 30-year plan, the lobby group asked for a forum to look at the changing face of Auckland and the impact of different cultures.

Grey Power's submission is based on population forecasts which suggest the Asian community will be the dominant ethnic group in Auckland by 2040.

Auckland regional director Bill Rayner says the proposal is not meant to offend anyone, but many of its members want the country's population to remain Pacific-based and not have such a large Asian component.

With all due disrespect to Mr. Rayner, if his organisation doesn't mean to be offensive it really should try not putting its name to submissions that sound like a Winston First press release. 

The only think that can be said in favour is that it's nowhere near as bizarre as as this pre-senile bigot in last Thursday's issue of The Aucklander:

Des Dunlop is a sixth generation New Zealander. He's seen the country go through a lot of changes - some he's not too sure about. And he's not afraid to speak his mind about them.

"Us old guys go to town and it's a case of 'spot the white man'," says the 71-year-old Milford resident. "I don't want to live in a culture where we're the minority. I don't want to see the city overrun with people from Asian countries."

Big deal.  My whanau have been here for at least six centuries. Doesn't make me any less of an arse-bag when I spout ignorant, bigoted foofy-tosh in public. It does get a lot worse - Dunlop's penetrating analysis of the Asian penchant for "dogbox" housing and incomprehensible old bludgers scamming free bus rides is just precious.  But I couldn't bother writing another futile detailed rebuttal of immigrant-bashing after reading this:

Mr Dunlop isn't afraid of being called a racist.

"I'm entitled to say what I like, when I like, where I like and how I like. That's the way I was brought up."

And so he is.  Just as I might be perfectly entitled to find his address on the electoral roll, publish it and encourage the Yellow Peril to stage a rolling flash-mob outside his house.  Ethnic cooking smells, pagan cultural practices and weird jibber-jabber not only welcome but obligatory. With any luck, it would frighten the racist old fool to death before he brings further shame on the neighbourhood.

The hook in this plan is that it's a dreadfully inefficient use of time that could be better spent running takeaway bars and being good at math.

Wouldn't it kinder and more cost-effective if all these miserable, terrified old white people were released from their suffering?  The first act of a Muse-lead Government will be to lower the compulsory retirement age to 30 immediately.  Instead of trying to pay for pensions, we will wipe out youth unemployment (and pretty much everyone else) by following the blueprint laid out in science fiction classic Logan's Run.

You know in your heart it makes sense. Be strong. Renew!

One of the perils and pleasures of the internet is deluding yourself that work-avoiding browsing is "research".  In a desperate attempt at self-justification, I'm ripping off the Shelf Life feature from The Spectator's Book Blog.  Twelve questions as simple - or complex - as you care to make them.  And, I hope, illuminating as well.

1) What are you reading at the moment?

Just finished reading (and reviewing for The Listener) Stephen King's 11.22.63 and P.D James' Death Comes to Pemberley.  Giving my eyes a day off.

2) As a child, what did you read under the covers?

Trick question - you can't see anything with your head under the covers.

3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one?

No, but Art Spiegelman's MetaMaus -- especially the audio interviews of Spiegelman's father on the DVD-R included with the book -- is coming pretty damn close. 

4) You are about to be put into solitary confinement for a year and allowed to take three books. What would you choose?

The Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor.  The Bible (King James Version). A year of solitary confinement might also be the perfect opportunity to finish War and Peace (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, who are the focus of this fascinating New Yorker essay).

5) Which literary character would you most like to sleep with?

Aeneas -- no disrespect to Queen Dido of Carthage, but while it's all great fun shagging some buff, swarthy demi-God on a mission you should be thankful when they decide to push off.  

6) If you could write a self-help book, what would you call it?

If I could write a self-help book, I'd be far too busy taking all that good advice to write any of it down. 

7) Which book, which play, and which poem would you make compulsory reading in high school English classes?

Taking life seriously enough to laugh at it is a valuable skill you should learn as early as possible, with frequent refresher courses.  So put Leave It To PSmith (P.G. Wodehouse), The Importance of Being Earnest and a collected edition of the poems of Wendy Cope on the syllabus.

8) Which party from literature would you most like to have attended?

Any one in Pride and Prejudice affording the opportunity to slam a piano lid on Mary Bennet's fingers.

9) What would you title your memoirs?

'Here Lies'

10) If you were an actor, which literary character do you dream of playing?

Lily Bart in The House of Mirth.

11) What book would you give to a lover?

That would be kissing and telling.

12) Spying Mein Kampf or Dan Brown on someone's bookshelf can spell havoc for a friendship. What's your literary deal breaker?

Owning a copy of 'Mein Kampf' is not grounds for a social death sentence. Being a neo-Nazi is.  Nor is it any great tragedy to lose the aquaintance of someone who'd snub you for owning trashy popular novels - even one as ghastly as  The DaVinci Code.

Feel free to come up with your own answers, quibble or denounce this whole exercise in trvial foofy-tosh below. 

I LIKE SHORT SHORTS The Show Me Shorts Film Festival is in Christchurch and Dunedin until Sunday.  Not just for people with ADHD!

HOORAY FOR WELLYWOOD! The schedule (and very tasty website) for the 2012 New Zealand International Arts Festival (24 February - 18 March)  is live.  In brief: Not much in the way of obvious "must see" shows, but a lot more depth and range in the programme.  Word is that Bon Iver's two shows (February 27 & 28) are going to be the first sell-out, so don't dilly-dally if you're a fan.

MMMM, WAFFLE... Muse's favourite cultural curmudgeon, The Listener's Hamish Keith, casts his gimlet eye over the major parties' arts policies.  Is not impressed by the waffles on the campaign menu.

"I'VE GOT TO FIND THE FLAMING NIPPLE!" I'm a huge David Lynch fan and Blue Velvet is still a love letter straight to the head after 25 years.  You mileage may vary, of course, but the discovery of over an hour of long-lost deleted scenes - a selection of which have been included as an extra on the 25th anniversary BluRay/DVD re-release - is a cause for celebration. Like Lynch himself, I believe it's pretty obvious that most deleted scenes get that way for good reason.  But as he also says, “Some people flunk out of school, but are still very interesting people. They’re not in the class that goes ahead, but maybe you’d like to go visit them.”

OCCUPY THE COMIC BOOK STORE! One of the more unnerving side shows to Occupy Wall Street is over-caffenated comic book guy Frank (300, The Dark Knight Returns) Miller, getting really really cross at the "louts, thieves, and rapists". (Because, of course, Frank, using "rape" as shorthand for non-rape "shit that I don't like" really puts you on the moral high ground.) "Scientist, futurist and best-selling author" David Brin responds with Why the OWS Kids are Better Than #$%! Spartans. My sympathies are with Brin. However, responding to Miller's tendentious, ideological junk history with some of his own isn't helpful.  Neither is "Leni Reifenstahl would be proud" - the Godwin of film criticism - the third degree burn Brin thinks it is. 

HATERZ GONNA HATE, AND OBTUSE DOUCHE-CANOES GONNA PADDLE Noah Berlatsky mounts his white horse and rides to the defence of Twilight saga heroine Bella who, apparently, "grown-ups" (well, "second-wave feminists") hate with the force of a thousand suns. Apparently it's all about a hatred of "femininity" while The Hunger Games' Katniss is a terrorist bitch who really just wants to get married anyway.  Or something. If you've got any clues, enlighten me below...