Posts by dyan campbell
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Anyway, a lot of the American stuff I mentioned was completely against the mentality of southern cracka skinheads you mention, and probably more politically left than most British punk bands. It doesn't mean they didn't draw that skinhead crowd who were looking for some of that aggression, but the bands weren't courting it. New Zealand punk and post-punk in the 80s had the same kind of skinhead problem.
Bang on, absolutely. Some people badly misinterpreted Nomeansno's Sex, Cats and Nazis and missed the point the band's very name is feminist graffiti.
Movie on the Vancouver punk scene here
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Hey Andin! Give me a recent Buddhist saying! Or even one of a modest vintage. I tire of these old Buddhist / Sufi / Daoist sayings.
Spikehegan, I can help you here - my sister runs one of humanitarian Jane Goodall's schools, and some of the students - none of whom have ever written a song before - have penned something of a modest hit. My sister Shirley nearly keels over with pride very time she hears it.
The phrases about peace and love may sound hackneyed to any cynic over 15, but the kids who wrote the words don't know that yet
The whole song is just one big fat Buddhist saying, and it can't get any more contemporary than out of the mouths of babes.
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__What happens when your dole runs out?__
Then you get starve, as befits the undeserving poor.
I haven't lived in Canada for 21 years so I'm not sure what's in place now, but back then you went on UIC benefits if you were unemployed, and when it ran out (which was indexed to how long you had been employed to begin with) you either got another job or went on welfare. Unemployment benefits, workers' compensation benefits, Canada pension plan and (compulsory) government medical insurance were all automatically deducted from your salary, as well as being contributed to by your employer and the government.
Novelist Douglas ("Generation X") Coupland coined the term "Poverty Jet-Set" to describe the demographic in Vancouver that would plan to work long enough to qualify for UIC then go (cheaply) to Hawaii, Mexico, Europe. Or they would go up Whistler or Grouse Mountain to ski. There actually used to be droves of people on the hills wearing signs on their ski-jackets that proudly said "UIC SKI TEAM".
At the point that UIC benefits ran out you could go on welfare, though I never personally met a single person who admitted to collecting welfare. Like dropping out of high school, going on welfare isn't something people feel comfortable admitting as there is a huge social stigma attached to either.
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Congrats on the award Graham, it's well deserved.
The book, ironically, still isn't available at Whitcoulls ...
Is so sadly typical.
You think that's bad, you should have seen me trying to buy Dimmer's I Believe You Are a Star a few years back. The staff at the music store told me there was only one copy in stock at any time and that a staff member had that particular copy at home.
Unfortunatelly for me (and Dimmer, for that matter) I was on my way back to Vancouver and had stopped in to buy several copies of the CD as gifts for a number of friends back in Canada who'd been diehard Straitjacket Fits fans.
I eventually bought the CDs online and sent them to the intended friends when I got back to Auckland, but it's not quite the same thing as bringing them with me.
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god forbid, SHOPPING FOR A HOBBY.
I hear your pain and I have a song for you, and all of us who really, really loathe shopping.
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it is time to move on.
It was time to move on pages ago
Apologies for not leaving the conversation once and for all when I said I would, and clearly should have.
NOOOOO! Don't go! I'm really enjoying this. Do you know how few articulate and heated arguments about the nature of art they are? Not many at all.
And was hoping y'all would fight a duel. I don't think there has been a PAS duel yet.
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I agree with Paul and Robyn about Weta's attempts at... sculpture being... less than successful. And I think Robyn's description of the rugby sculpture as looking like one of those Father's Day things is pretty accurate.
But I disagree with you Paul on a couple of points. First, that indigenous cultures did not create objects that were neither practical, ceremonial nor anything but objects of beauty.
The explorer Charles Waterton describes (in Waterton's Wanderings) seeing an incredibly valuable stone bead necklace that belonged to a chief in the Amazon. Each bead took two lifetimes to carve. The investment of time was a measure of the incredible value of the piece. The only point of the object was its beauty and the status of "wealthy" it conferred on the wearer.
Also - the assertion that primitive art was static is mistaken - the style was not static, and both Hamish Keith and Anne Salmond have written about this odd and inaccurate assumption.
Hamish Keith is especially vocal on this point in The Big Picture and he describes quite specific styles and periods of art in Polynesian culture.
There is always a lot of public art in Vancouver - maybe instead of Party Central the waterfront in Auckland could have outdoor art installations from around the world. I may have grown up around some of the ugliest architecture on earth:
- great onion rings though...
... but the art and the green spaces (Auckland could use a few) more than compensate...
Here is a neurobiological definition of art, which for me comes closer to defining the term than any other frame of reference.
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__thinking about things that shouldn't be allowed to exist. Potatoes were at the top of the list.__
.. which drew a roar of laughter from my potato-phobe.
Jolisa, if he also dislikes cucumber he is sure to enjoy Mark Twain's recipe for cucumber:
1 cucumber, sliced thinly
4 Tbsp sour cream
2 tsps fresh dill, choppedSeason with salt and pepper, mix thoroughly and discard as inedible.
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Mark Twain included plenty of very misleading details in a lot of his work ("Innocents Abroad" anyone?)
Islander! I can't believe I forgot to argue with you about this... imagine the great pleasure it would have given Mark Twain to know that 100 years after his death two readers would argue over the age of one of his fictitious characters.
Anyhow, yes, I've known many boys of many ages, I had brothers, went to school, taught gymnastics.
I have always pictured Tom as a little fellow because his "snarling" is easily crushed with a gentle "there's a good boy, Tom" from Mary. And the way Twain describes Mary "turning the vast shirt collar down over his shoulders and buttoning his neat roundabout up to his chin" conjures a little boy, in my mind anyway.
American academic & writer (Alison Lurie) really really doesnt agree with you- e.g author of the NYRB review
I agree with you that Twain is hugely contradictory about the information he offers but Alison Lurie seems not to have read the book at all. Lurie's essay was what got me snorting with derision in the first place.
She writes "When Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn run away from home they meet both good and bad characters"
But she's wrong. Tom and Huck (who are accompanied by Joe Harper) don't meet a single solitary person when they run away.
Lurie may have the subject of her essay confused with some of Twain's many sequels. Tom Sawyer, Detective Tom Sawyer Abroad etc, but the episode Lurie describes in her essay does not actually happen at all in the book.
She goes on to write: "Tom is seriously delinquent. He lies, steals, smokes, skips school, causes an uproar in church, runs away from his adult guardian, and associates with dubious companions."
But again, this isn't accurate. Tom is never "seriously delinquent" and his only "dubious companion" is Huck and his friendship with Huck is a measure of Tom's good character. The uproar in church is caused by a poodle, not Tom.
Lurie writes "when they become homesick and return to Hannibal, they are greeted as heroes."
But the boys - the group includes Joe Harper, not just Huck and Tom - don't live in Hannibal, they live in St. Petersburg. The whole book is set in St. Petersburg... not Hannibal. And they're not greeted as heroes, they are greeted as children everyone is relieved to find alive, or at least Tom and Joe are. Huck is not greeted at all until Tom insists he is included in the welcome.
Lurie wants to draw a comparison between Pinocchio and Tom Sawyer, but they are entirely different books, written for entirely different audiences, with entirely different messages.
Lurie writes (of their escapade to Jackson's Island) "The lesson seems to be that you can skip school, worry and frighten your relatives, and get away with it."
And again she misses the point. Twain wasn't writing a cautionary tale or morally edifying for children. He meant to poke gentle fun at the hypocrisy of adults.
Also Tom learns plenty - the real point of that passage in the book is that despite Tom being whacked on the head with a thimble by Aunt Polly (for a crime he didn't commit as it's actually Sid who broke the sugar bowl) he realises his Aunt Polly loves him, and that he loves her in return. And most relevant in that passage is the part where Tom brings it to the attention of the town that Huck has not one single solitary adult who cares whether he lives or dies.
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I thought the Press story was actually really nice -- and relevant in that she's written about her new love on her new album. It rang true.
Sorry, I didn't mean that interview that was intrusive - it was actually well written and gave a good impression of Anika Moa as friendly, funny and smart. It was full of personal information, but clearly information she happily shared.
I meant the intrusive press Anika Moa was describing in her interview - where they keep pressing for information, to the point where she had to ask her manager to make them back off. I do enjoy reading some personal details in interviews - what I meant was I don't want to know anything beyond what a performer wishes to tell the press.