Muse by Craig Ranapia

 

Most days, my constitutional takes me past a garden gnome -- a golem of ornamental kitsch I'd dearly like to kidnap and grind into dust except for a tiny little plaster thumb sent home as a warning not to further blight my life with fugly figurines, yappy rat-dogs, vulgar Christmas lights or age-inappropriate cars that scream "my penis is invisible to the naked eye." 

Sadly, I'm convinced the smirking little beardy-weirdy will come to life and eat my heart if he's ever removed from his arbour so I greet him with the traditional cry: Suburbia delenda est!  

So, yes, Wellywood.  I feel your pain.  Really.  My neighbours are a pack of tacky weirdos too, and I'm sure driving around the block slowly, and making a prime plonker of myself on Farcebook would really help.  (I do draw the line at offending the Irish though -- those Micks are scary.)

I'm even newly sympathetic towards cranky acting out, since the first version of this post managed the dubious achievement of actionably defaming six individuals in the space of five hundred words.  My legal advisor has earned a cheap-ish but not at all nasty bottle of single malt for Christmas.

What won't be on the present list is anything from the Moa Brewing Co., because this ghastly troll marketing crossed the line from amusingly parochial (if somewhat silly) to downright creepy.

Those amazing creative geniuses in Wellington, New Zealand have got resource consent to put up their really neat sign, as featured in the NZ Herald, and Moa Beer is pleased to announce our involvement in this fantastic project by offering a Beer-Bounty to anyone who knocks it down.

Successful application of civil disobedience will get you 10 cases of Moa Original and 5 cases of Moa Reserve, with the bounty re-offered every time the sign is replaced – no questions asked.

And seeing as the sign itself is completely un-original it would be nice if it could be destroyed in a completely original way, so feel free to think outside the box a bit.

I fully expect the standard "oh, get a sense of humour and stop being so PC" rah-di-rah.  OK, I've thought outside the box.  I'd like Moa's marketing manager Sunil Unka to post his home address and phone number in the comments, because I know a couple of dykes who'd like to "creatively" express their displeasure over this. 

You milage may vary, as the kids say, but I don't find inciting people to be petty vandals any more attractive than homophobia.  And we may yet see whether the courts share my dull, humourless political correctness if anyone is foolish enough to claim the "bounty".

I honestly do find the sign still beyond belief -- though not as ridiculous as a pipe-smoking garden gnome.  (Or folks sniffing at how vulgar and American it is while, not a million miles away, others are paying the mortgage with Belgian boy detectives, genocidal super-intelligent apes and more bloody Hobbitses.) But there's an essential truth in the notion that good fences make good neighbours, and so does minding your own god-damed business.

As long as my neighbour conform to the law, they don't have to give a rodent's rectum what I think about their gardens.  Hell, I'm warming to the idea of a Robert Mapplethorpe tribute water feature just to freak the commuters. As far as I'm aware, the Wellington Airport has resource consent (though on principle, I've issues with it being non-notified) they're building the damn thing on their land, and are not compromising operational safety in any way, shape or form.

I'm not particularly fussed either way, but you know what you "creative" Wellywooders should really be outraged by?

• That Warren and Mahoney had a chance to design something sympathetic to its surroundings yet fresh, and distinctively Kiwi on Bunny Street opposite Wellington Railway Station.  Instead you got this banal slab which could be anywhere -- and should be anywhere else.  (Then again, the cornerstone tenant is the IRD so perhaps it's karmically appropriate, or even a matter of policy that government departments have to occupy buildings with personality bypasses.)  It certainly didn't scream "you are in a creative, vibrant self-confident city with a sense of its own identity" last time I visited Wellington.

• Speaking of which, the Better Half and I stayed with friends in Petone -- and I'm not fishing for freebies, but Jackson Street is turning into Ponsonby Road (a collection of good eateries and bars, quirky shops and local colour) without the pretension.  Don't know how long that will last when the heritage buildings start being demolished -- and it's a damn shame a combination of local government indifference and intransigent owners let things get to the stage were it may be inevitable.  I only wish local MP Trevor Mallard could be as full-throated in defence of his own backyard (well, the street his electorate office is on) as he is for the aesthetics of his deputy leader's electorate.  (And to be fair, and more than a little parochial myself, perhaps the Prime Minister could form an opinion on the Auckland City Council's latest foot-dragging on the Saint James before the bandwagon chunters by.)
• And, finally, yes, Te Papa still makes my heart cry.  But that was an opportunity lost last millennium, and wishing it would quietly slide into the harbour has been consigned by history to the realm of historical bad taste.  At least there's still the City Gallery and Museum of City and Sea a few minutes away; and The Dowse Art Museum and Porirua's Pataka haven't been consigned to local government's "nice to have but screw you" list. Yet.   

Then again, that might prove nothing more than Wellington -- like Auckland -- is a city of parts: good, bad and utterly indifferent.  And none of us are obliged to like any of it, but mature cultures find a way to deal with it. 

IRRESISTIBLE DRAMA QUEEN ADDENDUM:  I love David Farrar to bits and pieces, but this deserves to be mocked without mercy. "So why is Wellington International Airport determined to impose this montrosity on us, against our will? Who gave them the right to effectively rename our capital city?"  *cough*Helengrad*cough*  

It goes without saying that I feel rather icky about having to explain 'property rights' to the National Party's highest profile on-line figure, but not at all surprised.  I'm off to order one of these (LINK TO IMAGE NSFW) for the garden now.

*    85 Authors Protest At The BBC’s Treatment Of Genre Fiction.  The Fundy Post's Paul Litterick is not impressed.

*  The Dim-Post has discovered the hardboiled, pitch-black noir of Richard Stark's Parker and the unnerving pleasures of Patricia Highsmith.

*     George RR. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series makes my wrists ache just looking at the damn things (four stout volumes, a fifth due out on a couple of months), and the anticipation around HBO's big budget, heavily hyped adaptation of the first volume, A Game of Thrones, is intense.  (As are Martin's ever so slightly unhinged fans -- as seen in Laura Miller's disturbing New Yorker profile.) But if it's half as much fun as  Annalee Newitz's righteous geek girl bitch-slap of a rather odd sexist and genre-snobby review in the New York Times, we have a new classic on our hands.

*     Roger Ebert hits the highway to Fogey Town in Does anyone want to be "well-read?"-- but, thankfully, takes the by-pass and ends up with a rather sweet reflection on reading by inclination.

*     Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout (and one of my favourite arts bloggers) calls Mike Leigh's Topsy Turvy -- his rather surprising re-telling of the creation of The Mikado -- "the smartest backstage movie ever made."  Hard to disagree, but did he have to make me pine for the Criterion Collection's released of this and a  studio film of The Mikado made in 1939 by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company?

 

*     How awesome is Aretha Franklin?  Awesome enough to make a  Doobie Brothers cover, and a kilo block of early 80's disco over-production, sexy.

I'm not going to debate this -- go make sweet sweet love to something.  What else do you have to do on a Monday morning?

 

I know it's short notice, but Auckland handmaidens (every MUSE needs one or two right?) at a loose end tonight should catch Miyazaki Hayo's Oscar-winning Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi) at a very special Auckland Film Society screening. 6.30pm, Academy Cinema,  44 Lorne Street, Auckland.

Thanks to the generosity of Madman Entertainment, we've received permission to open the screening to non-members. Entry is by donation with all proceeds to the Red Cross 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Appeal. 

 

Please to reserve seats, and members this might be one screening where you don't want to show up at 6.29. :)

The print is the excellent English dub, which may offend anime purists -- but whatever else you say against the House of Mouse, Miyazaki and the rest of Studio Ghibli's output has shown large American corporations can do right by "foreign" films. They just have to make an effort.

And you may ask this question: "I've got the DVD, why should I bother?"  Because if you haven't seen Miyazki's lush, lovingly detailed masterpiece -- whose vision of female empowerment is more complex and satisfying than Sucker Punch's fetishwear wank fantasy -- on the big screen, just once, you haven't really seen it at all. 

Great film, great cause.  I'll even buy an ice cream for the first person who comes up and introduces themself.  What do you want -- blood?

It's not terribly healthy when a blogger is lost for words, but our gracious ring-master pulled it off by dropping this gem-like turd from Police Association hench-thing president Greg O'Connor into my Twitter feed.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor believes the officer who arrested entertainer Tiki Taane at a Tauranga nightclub for singing the rap anthem F*** the Police will have the public's backing.

But Green MP Keith Locke has defended the performer, saying he has the right to sing whatever he wants and the police were being "precious".

Mr O'Connor said he could not go into detail about the case in which Taane, 34, is to appear at the Tauranga District Court on Friday on a charge of disorderly behaviour likely to cause violence.

But he said that "any right-thinking New Zealander will understand and will be fully supportive of police actions" when the facts emerge.

"Cops are being attacked all over New Zealand and nothing happens in isolation, so I'm sure when New Zealanders get the full version and not the Keith Locke version they will fully understand."

I'll take Greg's claim to privileged knowledge, and a telepathic understanding of the minds of all "right-thinking" New Zealanders, with a grain of salt - and a whole case of tequila.

But as a culture vulture, there's a rather skanky logic fail going on. 

"Cops are being attacked all over New Zealand and nothing happens in isolation..."

OK, Greg.  Let's play your game.

For rather obvious reasons, Southern Opera has to cancel their already postponed from last September production of Tosca.  For Greg's benefit, that's a jolly little blood-and-thunder melodrama whose second act climaxes with our heroine murdering the chief of police after a pleasant evening of blackmail and implied date rape. 

Not exactly my cup of tea, but since it's premiere in Rome, on 14 January 1900, it has been enormously popular.  With 110 years of data, it should be a snip to prove a causal relationship between performances of the following scene and cop killings and suicides. Right?

Grand opera a little rich for your cop-killing blood?  Try some comic operetta instead; and there's few better than the tuneful snark of Sir Arthur Sullivan and William S. Gilbert.  Marvel at the blood-thirsty maidens and marginally less eager policemen in this clip from The Pirates of Penzance!  (Greg, however, might want to lie down in a dark room with a wet rag over his face. It's disrespectful.)

Still too hoity-toity?  Who doesn't love a musical with twinkle-toed juvenile delinquents?

 

Tosca, Pirates and West Side Story aren't exactly obscure; and in their own ways, all were controversial and accused of encouraging disrespect for lawful authority.  But the one thing O'Connor and his ilk can't do -- and even worse, don't believe they have to seriously try -- is back up their assertion that words and music they don't like lead to real world crime.

I'm sure we've all been having a good snigger about the so-called "tupperwaka" -- God knows it would churlish not to join in when Shane Jones has found a cultural interest that doesn't require a box of tissues and a valid credit card. 

Still, I'm rather surprised that the usual suspects haven't found the time and energy to direct a little of their epic austerity concern trolling at some of the more... shall we say, marginal recipients (among plenty of entirely worthy projects) of the $9.48 million in funding from the REAL New Zealand Festival Lottery Fund Committee that was announced with little fanfare on April Fools Day.

Why, for example, is the taxpayer stumping up to help the NZSO and New Zealand Choral Federation "make a set of professional choral recordings that will help communities, schools, choirs and the public all over New Zealand learn the national anthems of the Rugby World Cup 2011 participating teams"? 

And when it comes to two dollar shop kitsch, Ngati Whatua is going to have to epically pimp out that plastic waka to out-tack this load of old balls the Auckland City Council will hold a publicly-subsidised tea-bagging with.

Giant Rugby Ball Homecoming

The Giant Rugby Ball will be in pride of place on Auckland's waterfront and will ensure that visitors and locals in Auckland have the opportunity to see and experience this New Zealand icon.

I could be entirely cynical, and suggest that there's little scope for election year "damn Maari" dog-whistling, and it's easy to give your inner redneck a call when "good taste" dictates that noble savages only use natural fibres. 

The real outrage should be -- but unsurprisingly isn't -- that we had an opportunity to treat arts and culture as an integral feature of the Rugby World Cup insead of an afterthought. It's hard to see much evidence that we didn't choke.

Still, we'll always have the Official Dick Frizell Tiki Hoodie! (Which, by the way, is teh awesome.)