Posts by David Herkt
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Bit of a slap with a wet rag really.
So, what do you feel about graffitti, Craig? Art or vandalism?
I'd still like to see the proposed sign burning, sort of a bit like those Ed Ruscha 1966 service-stations,,,*
Would work for me.
You'd get an iconic photo with that snap.
That's what its about, innit?
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Goff is going to limp through to the election, a simple and hobbled place-holder. Tizard is just a bizarre side-show, the same as Chris Carter, and her peeved attempt to hold us all in suspense is a reflection on her lack of judgment. You want to be the most disliked woman on Parliament, go ahead, Judith…
Labour needs to do a clear-felling. It should have already been done, but it hasn’t. A nice clean sweep of the Augean stables is in order. At a time when there are important issues (the failure of National’s economic policy, anyone?) to have an opposition party is such disorder is inexcusable.
And, as a matter of personal belief concerning the Hughes Affair, having a closet anywhere is a recipe for disaster. I know we are in an intermediary time when sexual preference still matters to some, but the psychology of closetry inevitably leads to Bad Places and Poor Judgments. This is an example...
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Wairepo Swamp Walk? I thought to myself, I've never noticed that. Then I read a more closely and realised that you were discussing the $3 mill right-of-way, the one with the Billy Apple lamps and designer paving, the one that I've seen, courtesy of a place of work, right from the get-go. The one that is precisely the length of two former houselots. "Short broad concourse"? Well you got that part right. And the lamps are signed by the master in deeply-engraved letterings. I think he designed the paving stones too. But, um, $3 million? For a right of way? I don't mean to be curmudgeonly, well I sort of do, but I'd rather $3 mill of library services. Be interested when the final balance comes in of expenditure on the WC and income gained from the same. I guess if you'd bought in the area you'd be calculating your improved values. But I do get the feeling that we are throwing a lot of cash at something that isn't going to quite equally recoup us in either tangible or intangible ways...
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Paul, there was a certain level of facetiousness in my reply, sorry not to have signalled it more... But in those knitting and sewing columns, which I did specify, Ms McLeod at least had some feel of authenticity, more so than those many of those paid to manufacture weekly opinion.
I'd have once put Braunias' birds in the same category, but then he slutted them to TV like an avian-procuress, eager for dosh, didn't he...
There is nothing more unpleasant than those who fake opinions with regularity. And the SST's columns have seemed to devolve over the last few years to the opining of the 'will-say-anything-for-cash' brigade, of which Laws is now the pure exemplar.
But as I tried to suggest, maybe it is all just the unpleasant flip-side of New Zealand's version of capitalism. Look at TVNZ. Look at the personalities of those the NBR regularly positions on some sort of 'Admirable' list. Look at RadioLIVE. Yuk.
And I really am beginning to think we should just take up some Pacific relaxed mindset, and just chill, while taking German tourists for rides on outriggers. Be healthier for everyone.
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I don't miss Braunias - wittering Kiwiana has only so much to give and he's been on repeat for a very long time. I eventually found Findlay Macdonald's brand of Public Intellectual just as annoying as Emily Perkin's Public Writer. Strangely, I do miss Rosemary McLeod...
I guess the age of the considered newspaper columnist is over - bloggers rule in that sphere. So, in the SST, it seems we are left with the deliberately unpleasant shock-jockery. Unless we find the SST readership complaining while simultaneously cancelling their subscriptions (something those inspired could also do in emails to those who advertise on Law's radio-show) this will not change.
But that 30,000 slide should give some room for reflection. I can't see alterations in layout or columnists affecting this. The dumbing-down (vide TVNZ) is simply going to continue in what seems to be some sort of awful species-drive toward eventual entropy.
I have always thought New Zealanders are simply not suited to the unpleasantries we think are required by Capitalism (especially in our odd shut-in's version of it - and especially not in our media). We should simply settle down to being the nice face of eco-tourism.
So bring back Rosemary. Those occasional columns on knitting and tea-pot cosies were little masterpieces.
[Russell, btw, I have to admit the phrase 'in defence of Jonathan Marshall's honour' is a great one. I bow in admiration...]
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Fun review, Craig. You made my 8.30am moment on the net before I settle down to real work… You had a relish there that I enjoyed, particularly around here on Public Address, where lately it’s been a bit like everyone is trying to resurrect the too much repeated tone of the twee wee Steve Braunias, now that we’ve finally lost our Weekend dose of that Celebrator of Kiwi Sentimentality. The only fun thing about Braunias was that tendency to self-destruct and that pithy use of the vernacular in emails. I also observe that no-one has commented about Mr Braunias’ double-happy duplication of his ‘employment difficulties’ with the Listener, where a similar vituperative streak with correspondents – except with Peter Wells there – got him offed from the masthead. But I digress, thanks Craig, you gave me pleasure at an hour of the day I usually experience with a desire for something stronger than coffee.
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There is a whole thesis to be written on pain in depictions of gay-sex for presumed heterosexual audiences. Leonardo DiCaprio does one of the best ‘pained’ blow-jobs in cinema history in the Basket Ball Diaries (first 2 cuts in this montage – however Leo had the added burdens of prostitution and drug-withdrawal to communicate. So Calvin Tuteao’s performance in ‘Nights in the Gardens of Spain’ wasn’t totally without precedent…
But I was fascinated by the subtextual shit with gayness going on, especially when coupled with an ersatz Maoridom blown up to Tourism New Zealand levels. There were so many ‘But why?’ questions going on in my head that I was doing loopy-loops trying to figure.There is very obviously the funding issue. Let’s stick that in Caps. FUNDING ISSUE. Gay isn’t fundable, really. Our broadcasters don’t think so. So in some ways throwing in the Maori Baby here was purely a financial decision. Changing the race of the characters to from white to brown probably meant all the difference in having the production selected for broadcast by our unchartered state broadcaster and funded by NZ On Air, which remember, is working for ‘us’… obviously in some weird broad political sense of the word.
Using Witi’s original scenario with its Gay and Pakeha mileu would have been impossible, I suspect. It wouldn’t have got past its first proposal to a Commissioner.
So the change of race and sexual context makes sense here, at least from the drama-maker’s perspective. Its work, right? I can’t think of any other reason for making the changes from the book to the TV drama. But I’d be interested in having the logic explicated, from a purely intellectual fascination with contemporary double-speak and some more than small interest in dominant ideologies in their practice.
As for the execution of the drama, alas… In my more despairing moments I think that perhaps as New Zealanders we can’t do ‘drama’ because ‘let’s pretend’ doesn’t work for our allegedly practical history. I do love getting convinced by performance. I do admire the art of acting. That was the other problem with ‘Nights In the Gardens of Spain’ for me – I wasn’t convinced in any way shape or form.
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Hi Craig. Personally I'm waiting for your Nights In The Gardens of Spain review. Apart from the 'work in itself', the good and the bad of it, I think it marks an interesting point in New Zealand cultural (and maybe media) politics... Roll on Wednesday!
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I resent Wellington quite frequently. Give me 6 months away from the place and I'll romanticise it quite happily. Two days there and I'm screaming to come north again where everyone is incompetantly normal and we're not living in some Anglo-Saxon chillwater state of middle-class civil-service consciousness. But with the Rugby World Cup (and notice how the next word comes so easily to the lips) fiasco, the Super City one, ditto, even Wellington is looking tempting.
I cannot believe the levels of incompetance repeatedly involved in both events. I'd love to blame Rodney but I can only blame him for half of it (and isn't the shit eventually gunna hit the fan for that tainted chalice of a Ministery). McCully and our blind-trusted multi-millionaire PM have to take some of the flak for the other half of what is increasing looking like a disaster in the making.
I do not like the fact that we are going to be saddled with major debt because of a botchedly organised sporting event. Part of me looks forward to the financial wash-up, to prove a point, part of me doesn't, because we are the ones who'll be paying, and for generations yet unborn. Just as I don't believe the National voters of Auckland are going to get rents of tens of thousands of dollars for their villas, I do not believe it is going to be a financial success for anyone apart from the vuvuzela sellers or that years equivalent.
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David Herkt, hmmm.
Simon Wilson, hmm, yourself.
Let's be clear. what we try to do with our Best Restaurants exercise is identify those places that we think are the best at what they do, given that what they do is worth doing in the first place.
No. You don't. What you are trying to do is to be an arbiter of taste which is quite different. You are aiming for, in modern parlance, an aspirational audience.
I'm not sure I enjoy your particular aspirations.
Now don't get me wrong. I really enjoy food. We eat extraordinarily well. I own a billion cookbooks. I like eating out. I live with someone who cooks professionally. I just don't think Metro is a good record of what people like to eat and where they want to eat.
I think your reviews are tainted by the same bizarre wanna-be-isms that I find frequently so unwholesome about the whole spectacle of Auckland. As I said, you've set yourselves up as arbiters of taste and I quarrel with the presumption.
You guys give, generally, Wanker Aucklanders extra meaning.
Don't like noisy restaurants, David? Don't like low lighting? Don't go to SPQR. We've told people what it's like and we've identified plenty of other places you would probably like instead. Noise and lighting are not usually related to quality, merely matters of personal preference.
Yep, I actually like SPQR for what it is. I've paid for many tens of meals there. I presume your reviewers still don't pay? I like SPQR. But I do not think it is a good or great restuarant. It is an equivalent to McDonalds for overpaid people who live in Ponsonby. It is convenient. That is all.
Are you really arguing that we should all have to accept just one set of personal preferences? And that it should be yours?No. but you all and Metro are claiming it should be yours.