Posts by philipmatthews
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My own LUQ:
-- How many unshipped warehouse copies were there for Witi to buy back?
-- How many copies were returned to Penguin by bookstores?Given that the novel has been a bestseller week after week, my hunch -- and it's just a hunch -- is few in both cases. After all, why would a bookstore willingly return one of their bestselling items?
One other LUQ:
-- How many people will want to buy the book a second time? I doubt there are many desperate Witi readers holding off until the newer, better version is published.
The whole episode still feels shabby and unresolved to me -- not dissimilar, in a funny way, to Niki Caro and Joan Scheckel's unsatisfying explanations of their mangling of The Vintner's Luck in their recent film. In both cases, a sense that we'll know more in the fullness of time but best to put it behind us now.
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I'd suggest Timaru also; as an indicator for sarcasm I mean.
You mean we could just put Timaru in brackets after a sentence to indicate sarcasm? It has potential. As in, "That transmission gully is a grand idea (Timaru)."
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Or indeed recognising it.
You don't have to snipe at everything, Giovanni. Let some things go.
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Need to find some way of indicating sarcasm.
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Means the new capital of Palmerston North (Craig) could still have easy access to the rest of the world.
If we're going to move the capital, it's only fair that the South Island gets a go. I'd suggest Timaru: already has a motorway in and out, a good port and could use the influx of bright and interesting people ...
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Further thoughts from Peter Wells on the Witi Ihimaera scandal. Very frank, this one. Eg:
Witi Ihimaera’s role of cultural ambassador is something worth looking at in more detail. Ever since his first, stunningly simple and eloquent stories emerged he has had what can only be called a very good ride. He became a diplomat, that most carefully judged of silver tongued careers. Latterly, when the hard work of gay liberation had been done, he came out as gay. He also became more vocal about Maori rights once the hard work of Maori radicalism had been done. In one way New Zealand has needed a man like Ihimaera - charming, personable, bicultural. Adaptable. He has been heaped with richnesses. A man who has not got a particularly illustrious academic record is a professor at a leading university where he himself teaches writing. Only this year he was given a laureateship - perhaps the final poisoned gift to a man heaped with honours, aroha and mana.
The post is here:
http://www.peterwellsblog.com/2009/12/new-book-goes-fishing.html
Also, he shares the disbelief that some on this thread have related: that this book could still continue to be the best-selling NZ novel in the country right now, despite everything.
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That doesn't even have a topic. If he's going to be foolishly wrong, can he at least be it about one thing at once, rather than six unconnected rambles?
Oh, he has a topic all right. It's that the fake threat of global warming is damaging local retailers this Christmas not the, you know, recession, while those dodgy climate scientists in East Anglia are getting off lightly compared to Tiger Woods. Does any of this make sense? Of course not.
The first time I've ever got to the end of a Hopkins column. And the last, I expect.
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As for last night's Close Up, TVNZ has plumbed new depths of superficiality. Outrageous that the state broadcaster can trivialise public debate on climate change like this.
No surprises. They managed to completely trivialise 9/11 by letting Mike Hosking run a warm bath for Richard Gage a couple of weeks back. I'd be interested to see a poll of Close Up viewers on that issue.
In a slight but relevant derail, I've been looking at the Booksellers NZ bestsellers of the year list. In the NZ non-fiction list, six of the ten are cookbooks, and the remainder: the memoirs of a psychic (Kelvin Cruickshank), the memoirs of a jeweller (Michael Hill) and, at number seven, Ian Wishart's Air Con. How apt the tenth book is a guide to growing vegetables.
Another thread would be interested to know that the ninth-bestselling NZ novel of 2009 is The Trowenna Sea, mostly by Witi Ihimaera.
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Does anyone know the status of 'nigger' the dog in the remake of The Dambuster's movie?
Renamed African American in the last shooting script I saw.
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And, it goes without saying, to stop getting Bob McCoskrie on the speed-dial as if his opinion counts for anything at all.
And yet TV3 went to McCoskrie for his comments on the Latta report. If there was ever an example that demonstrated that the journalistic he-said/he-said "balance" model is broken, it's this story.