Posts by ChrisW
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SH35, Gladstone Rd the main street of Gisborne’s CBD is straight ahead across the elderly bridge, while SH35 itself for heavy traffic turns left. Works End – ah, so that means all is safe hereonafter?
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It seemed trapped and needing help, so I did indeed open up and help it out without breaking any of those long delicate legs.
So today it was gratifying to see these two only a few metres from that window two days later, and imagine the bigger one was enjoying the freedom she’d regained. They'd found a comfortable quilted bed of generous size, and have numerous long legs to hook around the edges to brace themselves.
Closer view – they’re definitely down to business. I like their shadows, and the pattern of leaf venation they show up too. About this point they appeared to consider the photographer to be overly intrusive, and …
Unitedly decamped to a nearby boulder bed.
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Crane fly, on the wrong side of a fly screen, but incidentally giving a little lead-light windows class to my kitchen.
It seemed trapped and needing help, so I did indeed open up and help it out without breaking any of those long delicate legs.
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Emma Hart,
I think it's well worth watching.
Thanks Emma, for the heads-up on Parliament TV on the night - I found it well worth watching. Very stirring, both the process and the resulting great numbers, 77-44.
I have often thought back over the last few months to your May 2009 post on the subject and especially the long discussion thread: Are we there yet? And now the answer is - Just about, yes. The next morning's just-about-sunrise from my riverbank by way of illustration.
That was a great thread, but especially memorable for me as including my first real engagement in any discussion on PAS - challenging and rewarding much. You never forget your first.
To re-lay my card on the table, I was only a weak supporter of gay marriage then, needing to be convinced it would be a major advance on the availability of civil unions. Public argument in general seemed focused on the deeply entrenched opposition and bigotry, rather than aiming to shift the centrist people of broadly good will but who thought more highly of the need to retain a traditional one-man-one-woman essence of marriage itself. I thought it would take something like 20 years to shift enough of them, as I had shifted, across the political pivot point between the ayes and the noes, as for the 18 years from Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 to Civil Union Act 2004.
Perversely perhaps, I thought Chester Borrows’ speech on Wednesday night demonstrated something of the process well – proclaiming his conservative Christian perspective, teetering along the pivot point, acknowledging that many similarly thinking colleagues had crossed over and why, but falling back with the noes.
There seemed no indication the big shift was imminent in 2009. But it has happened and extraordinarily decisively. I’m sure the key has been the re-framing of the question as focused on simple, broadly inclusive equality. I’m deeply impressed.
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Heart-wrenched indeed. It gets another prod whenever I see the ads all over local websites, featuring the concrete penstocks of Maraetai II plunging over a rock face, and the bright lights of Dunedin. "The Crown is considering ...".
Weasels.
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Our inglorious government’s assets sales – that of Mighty River Power in particular – is well on the way to causing me grief now, after the anger, and then the lost hope that the Maori Council’s appeal to the Supreme Court might be successful in putting a spanner in the works for long enough.
I had formative years aged 6-11 living in Mangakino, construction town for most of those hydro-electric dams on the mighty Waikato River. Whakamaru was just along the road. Its photo features in the paper version of Saturday’s NZ Herald business story on share sale processes and prices – same photo badly cropped here , insensitively truncating Kaahu and Whakaahu, iconic maunga to me. That point down the bottom right was my father’s favourite fishing spot. Many a good feed of manuka-smoked trout …
My two photos above taken in October 2007 from the dam itself, over the powerhouse roof to the ‘tail-race’ – the short reach of ~natural river before Lake Maraetai by which we lived.
Those rock-islets in the middle used to be part of the solid land on the right bank until 1962, when weeks of maximum flows through both spillway and four turbines eroded away the gravel and sand of the terrace that tied them to the rock-based slope to the right. Somewhere in the old disorganised collection of colour slides I have inherited are some of a pre-1962 family fishing expedition/ picnic on those rocks.
The dams and power stations were ours – anyone could visit – call in at the control room to say gidday to the duty staff, then pretty well wander at will, to the fishing spot, and/or through the machine hall to see the generators, downstairs to a shiny spinning turbine shaft, along the concrete tunnel to the lift up to the top, sometimes with a detour on a long inspection tunnel through the body of the dam along its full length. Sometimes as a 10 yo alone, while my father fished.
We did many tours of the bigger older Maraetai dam nearby too, proudly showing them off to visiting friends and relations. Sometimes further afield to Atiamuri, Waipapa, Ohakuri under construction, then when finished and operating.Things changed with SOEs and electrified barrier fences, a more corporate face of ‘ours’ than the innocent prideful ours of the early 1960s, but still ours. And now this Government claims the right to sell our power stations, 49%, 51%, 100% – not much different in principle really, still seems like the bastards are putting them out there like those rock-islets, gone, out of reach.
Good grief, quite apart from the economic sabotage, it’s enough to make one angry!
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Nora Leggs,
It really was a great show (again).
Thanks Nora, Sofie and Jackson for the great coverage.
I had a better sense of how the rainbow warrior segment worked within the whole show this time, an important episode in the NZ timeline – the crowd response to this segment was the same this time as on Thursday night – non-plussed and silent
So again the silence of an otherwise responsive crowd belies the Metro Arts review of the show that Sacha linked to earlier –
One of the clearest messages of the night was a comical portrayal of dastardly cartoon frogs in scuba gear blowing apart a rainbow. It came across as a very public acknowledgement of the crimes of Groupe F’s countrymen and a bold apology to the people of Auckland for the Rainbow Warrior bombing.
Not so – it wasn’t a clear message, didn’t come across as a bold apology, it wasn’t received even if the reviewer’s superior insight enabled her to perceive the intention.
1985 is a long time ago for one so young. Art for Art’s sake seems indeed the best way of looking at it, a great show, but no messages.
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The magnificent large-format book 'Ralph Hotere'that Ron Sang published in 2008 is still available to shine more light too. I was most pleased to find it newly restocked in my local independent bookshop early this week, missed it first time round.
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Capture: Art On The Street, in reply to JacksonP,
Tribute to Ralph Hotere
I’m pleased to see more recognition of Ralph Hotere here, thanks Jackson. And Askewone – he’s done something extraordinary, for me at least. If I may show the key part of his source image from Marti Friedlander’s 1978 photo –
Then the corresponding part of Askewone’s tribute – I note he’s made an upward pointed arrow from the ridge of Hotere’s nose and faintly shadowed brow furrow, the subtlety of that broad furrow in the photo rendered sharp-edged, pointed and darker to make a distinct arrowhead.
And that arrow matches the one I drew attention to in Black Phoenix II on
the Summertime thread last week. Here a smaller version of the photo to emphasise the rounded form and arrow, the stainless steel panels that help define the arrow have details of their own. I suggested that the upthrust arrow being central in this Phoenix seems now an expression of Hotere’s art arising and living on in full vigour though the man is gone.And now Askewone has shown us an image of Hotere’s face matching Black Phoenix II, an extra layer embodying the man himself living on in his art.
If Askewone managed this even somewhat intentionally – brilliant. If unintentionally – brilliant. Thanks.
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
I felt he deemed it necessary to portray what had happened and by not sweeping it under the carpet (ocean) it showed the acknowledgement that the French Govt were responsible.
Fair enough perhaps, but in the same way I used " 'the French' " in acknowledgement Groupe F are not really the French, Groupe F are not acknowledging responsibility on behalf of the French Govt either. Perhaps too cryptic, just enough to stir a reaction and get a discussion going?
What about those who were there then?
