Posts by Te Radar
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Thanks so much for this Russell. Finally explained. Also: Sheez.
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Well, that was informatively depressing.
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Hard News: Comedy Festival 2: The Genius…, in reply to Stuart Coats,
Oh, that entrance! Quite possibly the best of any show I've ever seen.
Go just for that. Stay for the rest. -
Lovely review of John there Russell. It was a great show, and one that shows that despite some recent comments about the nature of comedy, or moreso it's content, stand up can be intelligent, thought provoking, and change inducing. It was a brilliant example of the art form.
May i also recommend, especially for those of you who aren't stand-up fans (i know you are out there) the wonderful work of Trygve Wakenshaw. Beautiful modern absurdest buffonery. If you aren't familiar with him, he has been lauded at many overseas fests recently, and is currently one of our best humourists IMO.
http://www.comedyfestival.co.nz/auckland/show/squidboy-trygve-wakenshaw-
http://www.comedyfestival.co.nz/auckland/show/kraken-trygve-wakenshaw-
If you haven't seen anything yet, pop online and take a chance, especially with the crop of great young comics we have.
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Hopefully not doomed to the unfortunate "former X Factor NZ contestant" moniker forever, a little psychedelic folk and blues rock from Tom Bachelor's The River Jesters. More of this on X-Factor in the future please.
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I'm happy if Russell is to let people share their history fails and wins for as long as they like. The great thing about topics like this is that you the people democratically decide who long their life is by simply stopping posting to, or reading them.
If people also wish to alert others to worthy books or websites or indeed museums (of which we have hundreds, large and very, very small) that they think people should look out for in their travels then it might make for a nice little repository of shared wisdom.
I've not been to Puke Ariki's current exhibition on the the Taranaki Wars but that's as good a reason to get me down there to the 'Naki as any I've seen from a museum in a while.
And as far as museums extending their briefs and organising field trips I'm gutted i can't be there on the 23rd May for a jaunt around with their "in the footsteps of Titokowaru" excursion. Now that's a day out.
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Oh, there is a great Gilbert Mair book out for those interested, entitled "Gilbert Mair, Te Kooti's nemesis" by Ron Crosby.
And i really must finish Judith Binney's "Redemption Song, A life of Te Kooti", but it's quite heavy going. That seems to be the way with history book occasionally.
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Re Winner,
Thanks Russell, good choice, and I nominated Sam F for his knowledge of the Semple Tank as the Auckland recipient.
Hilary, rest assured I won't get you to stand up and make yourself known in the show, and issue a retrospective apology on behalf of your ancestors.
There are some great to-ings and fro-ings about the need and appropriateness of apologies in the news today though, in regards to whether Tuhoe should receive both an apology from the Crown and those tribes who assisted in the pursuit of Te Kooit and Co and the campaign against Tuhoe in general.
There's a great story in all of that long pursuit, featuring the wonderfully colourful Gilbert Mair, who for a while i believe was the only Pakeha involved in the actual pursuit as the govt simply allowed Te Arawa to do the hunting. The kupapa vs mercenary vs settling tribal scores debate is a fascinating and touchy topic. Mair's involvement with the Arawa Flying Column, regardless of the ethics, is the stuff of frontier legend.
I still find it a little galling that as a child I knew more about Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone or Geronimo (no matter how fictionalised the accounts) than the likes of Mair and Te Kooti.
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My ancestor, Richard Davis, a missionary farmer in the Bay of Islands, brought gorse to NZ in the 1820s.
There's no doubt the antics of the Acclimatisation Societies and enthusiastic amateurs certainly created a wealth of problems. I'm looking a little at the Boxthorn problem in Taranaki, which resulted in a great win for kiwi DIY.
Or what about the Trekka?
Todd Niall has written a great book about them. They represented us at the Venice Art Biennale. They sure say a lot about the people we were / are?
And while we are here I'm currently reading Tony Simpson's "Shame and Disgrace: A history of lost scandals in New Zealand". Allow me to thoroughly recommend it, as it makes current shenanigans around the Super City, the RWC, the booze laws, etc etc all too predictable.
Happy also here to see if anyone else has any other NZ history books they can recommend to people? There are plenty out there, and it's easy for some of the lesser known but good ones to slip past people.
But River Queen?
The Micheal Laws biopic? I hadn't realised production had started on that...
For the most madcap council offering this week try this:
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Ah yes Sam, the Semple tank is actually in the show. I had to track down some images for it off a Russian website. In many ways it is a great example of the nature of these unsung stories. Many people have heard tales of them, but are never sure if they actually existed.
Semples Tanks certainly did, and if they are a great example of kiwi vehicle modification, what happened to many military machines after the war was something else again.