2010: The Cultural YTD
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The CYTD (pronounced KYD with a silent t) has been a hard battle for the Heritage crews in Christchurch & not a total victory over the Arts Centre.
For me it started about 8months ago with being sworn to secrecy, which was broken by the would be developers without agreement or advice.
Todays puff piece by Philip Matthews in the Weekend Press,
takes up no less than 3 pages, but exposes nothing of interest or value.He celebrates position over qualifications and expertise. That is an Ass Prof with an intrest in but no expertise of Heritage or local Councillors have titles but resident Heritage expert Jessica Halliday doesn't get credit for her PhD and therefore devalues her research on the Dorset Flats.
He misses the point that Malcolm Duff of the Historic Places Trust was in favour of the development. And the CCC were advised by the Urban Design Panel made up of city contractors.
http://www.ccc.govt.nz/cityleisure/projectstoimprovechristchurch/urbandesign/urbandesignpanel/panelmembers.aspxOf course there's a book in this and I've got a working title.
The far right of course are still in ascendancy with the fascist takeover of Ecan. I not name calling here, what else is this system of regional government if not fascist?
One cultural victory for the Arts Centres owners, the people of New Zealand, and more battles to come over water and to get our democracy reinstated.
Like a bit of bitter-sweet dark chocolate I suppose. Enjoy the moment but the whole cake of chocolate is a bit overwhelming to face.
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Books: finally getting around to reading the last three Charlotte Grimshaws -- Opportunity, Singularity and The Night Book. Very highly recommended, esp Opportunity and Singularity -- two inter-connected story collections that I'd rate as some of the very best NZ fiction of the past decade. The Night Book is the new one that picks up where some story strands of Singularity finish -- she's creating this alternate and entirely plausible Auckland, with special attention paid to its more privileged suburbs.
Also: Brooklyn by Colm Toibin; The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson, edited by Mark Fisher; Apathy for the Devil by Nick Kent; Just Kids by Patti Smith. The cast of the last two overlap less than you'd think.Films: The White Ribbon. Antichrist. Shoah (Masters of Cinema DVD).
Music: Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age. This clip gives you some of its spooky-British-TV-from-the-70s flavour:
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Todays puff piece by Philip Matthews in the Weekend Press,
takes up no less than 3 pages, but exposes nothing of interest or value.He celebrates position over qualifications and expertise. That is an Ass Prof with an intrest in but no expertise of Heritage or local Councillors have titles but resident Heritage expert Jessica Halliday doesn't get credit for her PhD and therefore devalues her research on the Dorset Flats.
Funny -- I was writing the above while you were composing that ... I have a one-word answer: bullshit.
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Your saying Jessica doesn't have a PhD or you wrote an indepth analysis?
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Your saying Jessica doesn't have a PhD or you wrote an indepth analysis?
It's standard practice to cite academic titles in stories. Your beef seems to be that I named Jacky Bowring as an associate professor of landscape architecture at Lincoln University but did not say that Jessica Halliday has a PhD.
With all due respect, that's crazy. I didn't list Bowring's academic qualifications either, or Benjamin Gall's, or Anthony Gall's, or Dave Pearson's, or David Sheppard's, or the other experts I cited. That's how newspapers, magazines and broadcast media do things.
If you think Halliday deserves more credit for her work than I gave her, write a letter to the editor of The Press.
As for the "indepth analysis": I feel it is, you clearly disagree. Que sera sera.
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Kate Sheppards house in Clyde Road, is almost wonderful, untill you see the 1980s alterations. This is a real problem for Heritage Conservation. Best if it were restored to its original condition.
"That risk of creating mini-museums".I believe is an antiintellectual statement.
It is ironic that both demolition and preservation both come from neglect. Lyttleton and the Odeon demonstrate this point clearly. One working class and too poor to develop, now protected and a major museum if you will. The second was too pricey to properly preserve and will soon fall.
Sunnyside was interesting and I think in no small part its owner TRONT brought out a little local racism. It was a south facing building, with the architecture of Colditz & the social history of Auschwitz. There was no plan (fesible or otherwise) for the building to be used and given any life.
Duff NZHPT, has spent his professional career in the desert of Arabias fascist states & that is telling with his total acquiescence to authority , and quite againt the Trusts Charter. -
Oh god, I see nihilism only minutes away.
I haven't mentioned Crystal Castles have I?
Found them recently too. Also loving School of Seven Bells.
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Que sera sera.
Film critics. They'll put Hitchcock quotations everywhere.
Speaking of, Philip also recently put us all on to the mp3 stash of Hitchcock's conversations with Truffaut. One of my finds of 2010 so far.
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Just saw Hurt Locker - not a best but good, I thought. Taut, tight and honest for the most part. I think back to its Oscar rival Avatar and think - how forgettable. (I saw a Newsweek cover in a bookstand - Roger Ebert asserting that 3D was bad for films. I agree.The Hurt Locker was much more of a ride I thought and it didn't need no fancy 3D.)
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Just saw Hurt Locker
Saw it on a plane last week, and it even withstood a small screen and average sound quality. Hardly what you'd call glorifying war. Well, don't imagine they'll be using it as a recruitment video.
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Ahh, recordari! I'm reading a Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair. Saw it in the wonderful Browsers in Hamilton and thought of you. It's a bit madcap for me but I can't resist the literary detective thing.
And on a more general note: this morning on Kim Hill - two wonderful interviews about books and writers. I was in seventh heaven.
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@Lyndon: yes, I kept feeling like I was missing something in Eleven and Twelve, and that I would all become clear on a second viewing. Hmm. The only other festival show I got to see was The Tragic Life of Cheeseboy, which was properly magical and I may have even clapped my hands with glee at one stage - if only theatre made for adults could elicit the same response more often.
Also, Philip - I went to Colm Toibin's talk today at the Writers Festival, where he spoke about Brooklyn - it could have been great as he is clearly articulate and engaging but I don't think that a fellow writer necessarily makes a great interviewer. The interviewer also spent the first ten minutes or so making a big deal of Toibin's sexuality which was completely bizarre and enraging (for me, although Toibin was very gracious about it).
Apart from Wilco and the Pixies - two of the best gigs I've been to within months of each other - I had a great personal cultural highlight right at the start of the year when I played a gig in Karamea, got to meet all the locals, watched a local young lad's crotch get wrapped in glad-wrap (guess why?), and then pretended to be a DJ until 3am on a Monday morning. Those coasters can wipe the floor when it comes to partying, seriously impressive. The next day I had a great couple of hours with Barry at the Hector Country Music Museum.
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I'm reading a Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair.
Yes madcap, but entertaining. I'm three Murakamis in so far, so that was a great tip, thanks. Even the autobiographical marathon book was sort of compelling, and strangely philosophical.
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I watched an episode of the Jerry Seinfeld-produced Marriage Ref last night, with Larry David, Madonna and Rick Gervais as the guest celebrities.
I couldn't think what Seinfeld thought he was doing, other than dancing on television's grave.
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I couldn't think what Seinfeld thought he was doing, other than dancing on television's grave.
Cashing an obscenely large cheque, I suspect.
I saw a Newsweek cover in a bookstand - Roger Ebert asserting that 3D was bad for films
I defer to nobody in my respect for Ebert, but haven't we been through all this before with CGI, colour... and sound? Whatever you think of Avatar (and I wasn't a fan) you have to grant that James Cameron didn't use 3-D as a gimmick. He thought through how to make it work.
OTOH, I'm pretty glad that I picked up on the very bad word of mouth about the post-production 3D conversion of Clash of the Titans and passed on it. Saw it in 2D, enjoyed a competently executed piece of popcorn fluff.
Any technical advice is nothing more than a means to an end.
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The Ebert piece is fine for first year students to engage with (they all have to write an essay on Avatar as their final assignment, poor dears!) as it is an interesting counter to the general hype and hysteria about 3-D but a more interesting article appeared in The New Yorker in March, as http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/03/08/100308crat_atlarge_lane
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Sorry, I mean May.
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Just to square that particular circle, seeing as both are mentioned in the thread, China Mieville on the aesthetics of CGI and Avatar.
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Well it seems that auntie beeb has given us the stamp of approval -
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The New Yorker article and the China Mieville essay both duly read ... Both confirm my prejudices - a lovely thing on a Sunday night.
I'm glad The Hurt Locker won the Best Picture award.
The real world is full of amazing stories and if we're talking sci fi and fantasy, has anything recent topped Bladerunner for sci fi aesthetics and narrative???? I am soooo over LOTR and all that stuff.
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I am pretty much in accord with you, Cecelia. I need another Hobbit movie about as much as I need a hole in the head. If you are looking for another thoughtful movie which explores the dislocation and uncertainty of identity in a scifi settimng, I highly recommend the 2009 movie Moon (directed by Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son).
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Look at "Ponyo" and wait for "The Borrower Arrietty" - Hayao Miyazaki ake ake!
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One thing I love about PA is that I can start reading a thread knowing all the things I want to talk about, and seeing them all checked off before I ever get to the end post. Bastards!
China Mieville's The City & the City is a great book, well worth it if you're not normally a fantasy fan, because this is one that isn't fantasy. I still prefer Perdido Street Station for sheer wild inventiveness, but the latest one is the sort of book you read and think "Hmm, in eighty years English teachers will be boring their favourite students by trying to get them to read this, and the kids won't know what they're missing..." It's one of those quiet classics that can be read either as straightforward fiction or as a commentary on human behaviour.
Also looking forward to another Ian M. Banks book, Culture-bound or not. I think he did dig himself into a bit of a rut by developing character archetypes to use over and over, but who knows? He's an enjoyable writer and he can't get it wrong forever.
2010 seems to be the year that the Malazan books of Steven Erikson really made themselves known, even though he's been writing them for ten years. Two books published this year IIRC (if you include the one by Ian C. Esselmont) bringing the total to, what, ten already? Grown up, exciting, fun fantasy. I found his books particularly good after subjecting myself to a series of not so good authors, from the old school careerists (Terry Brooks, Stephen R. Donaldson) to the execrable production line idiots (Kevin J. Anderson, who I will personally hunt down and berate if I ever have the misfortune of reading another of his dull, poorly written monstrosities.)
On a more positive note: Robin Hobb's now two books in to her new series, with the second book coming out a month or so ago. Hobb's undoubtedly my favourite fantasy author, and one of the few authors my girlfriend (whose tastes tend more towards Jane Austen and Victoria Clayton) and I both enjoy. And Tad Williams' Shadowrise continues an interesting series that could wrap up well or could go south quickly, while Brandon Sanderson picked up the Wheel of Time series and did remarkably well at making things happen in a series where nothing have for a couple of thousand pages (though the painful sexism of Jordan's last few books still sits awkwardly across the entire concept.)
George R.R. Martin still hasn't turned in another __Game of Thrones_ book though. Come on George, you've had five years now.
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George R.R. Martin still hasn't turned in another __Game of Thrones_ book though. Come on George, you've had five years now.
To quote Neil Gaiman: George R.R. Martin is not your bitch. -- and every syllable of his reality check for fans with inflamed entitleitis is quotable for truth.
Seriously, I'm not the biggest fan of the 'Song of Fire and Ice' books (and only really interested in the upcoming HBO series because of a spectacular cast), but they're well-written, the characterisation is for the most part engaging and the narrative architecture is is fraking Chartres Cathedral not a garden shed. If I actually cared, I'd rather wait for a book that was worth my time and attention.
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If you are looking for another thoughtful movie which explores the dislocation and uncertainty of identity in a scifi settimng, I highly recommend the 2009 movie Moon (directed by Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son).
I was quite underwhelmed by Moon, actually. Virtually everyone I know raved about it, but I thought it wasn't really saying anything that Philip K Dick hasn't said a few times before. It was nicely done, but I saw the twist coming a mile away (though I may have drunk too deep at the well of dislocation/identity confusion fiction in my youth). Great soundtrack, though, courtesy of Clint Mansell (ex frontman of the Pop Will Eat Itself).
If people are on a sci-fi/fantasy tip, I've just re-read (and thoroughly recommend) Joe Abercrombie's fantasy trilogy (starting with The Blade Itself). Wonderful fun: takes a lot of typical fantasy tropes and then plays around with them. Snappy, evil, and fun.
Someone recommended Balkan Beat Box - indeed, I'm a big fan of their stuff (Eugene Hutz does some stuff with them too). It's interesting seeing the revival of the Eastern European sound, with bands like Gogol Bordello, Golem, Devotchka, and so on. Even locally there's a bit of a revival - I believe that the Benka Borodovsky Bordello Band are now back in Auckland, and here in Wellington we've got the Klezmer Rebs, Niko Ne Zna, the Raskolniks, and Oy Azoy.
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