The thing is, when the back catalogue was played over and over in January, I knew all the songs and most of the words. The visual imagery surrounding Bowie was as familiar as the family album. In going through my vinyl (kept in a box in the basement) I found this – a relic from my older brothers I guess.

Bowie was part of my whole life, I was born the year of one of his biggest hits. He (and his music) was always THERE. While I was the sort of person who eschewed “pop”, I was very fond of his movies particularly Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Hunger. I knew him through his work with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. In fact when he released “Tonight” in 1984, I already knew it from Pop and those instantly recognisable backing vocals which can also be heard on Lou Reed’s Satellite of Love.

I hadn’t heard Blackstar when news of Bowie’s death came out but I agree with many others that it was a startling end point. I still wonder where the fuck did Monday go.

I suppose I have nothing new to say. I still feel a loss, a gap where Bowie was and now isn’t. We all had our own version of the mercurial Bowie, and we still have the music. However I am amazed at the pervasiveness of his influence. Although he …isn’t here, we will still find him in unexpected places.

      
Paint mixer at Resene, Dunedin (Jan 2016)                                                           Paint Colour “Bowie” Resene Paints

A section of the book  tells the story of the painter Carmichael (supposedly based on John Constable) and his obsession with capturing clouds in paint. I had always considered Constable a painter of mills and bucolic settings, but you can see from this google search the extent of his cloud paintings, just a few reproduced here.

The difficulty of capturing the cloud is discussed at length on “A Theory..” however now the camera captures clouds with more ease, which you see everywhere in photography from Aotearoa.

Laurence Aberhart. Catholic Cross, Puketapu, Hawke’s Bay, June 1982

So can I walk with purpose in my small town, and is it big enough that I can also wander? Initially I am being guided by the 1970s books “Taieri Buildings” and “More Taieri Buildings” by Lemon and Bascand, and am trying to locate all the buildings still there that are within the build up area. Sadly some, like the old Flour Mill (in this photo just before its demolition), have been reduced to gravel carparks.

Recently on a night walk I managed to circumnavigate, by accident, the grounds of what was Holy Cross College, a former seminary. This photo was taken around 1900 I am guessing, as a new chapel was built in 1902.

 
DCC Archives, postcard in Taieri County Council Photograph Series. Photographer: AW Bathgate

And today I took this – from a similar position. You can see a former convent just in front, now a house.

 
Poor phone camera photo taken today of same view.

So yes….more to walk and write about. I am also excited to compare urban, rural and small town journeys. In Rebecca Solnit’s “Wanderlust: A History of Walking” she writes “In the country one’s solitude is geographical – one is altogether outside society….In the city, one is alone because the world is made up of strangers, and to be a stranger surrounded by starkest…is among the starkest of luxuries”.

Jackson Pollock lived and died there. The Pollock Krasner house in Springs in the Hamptons is now a study centre and museum of sorts.

Both Armistead Maupin and Edmund White’s (especially Forgetting Elena) stories of Fire Island.

Large parts of John Irving’s “Widow for One Year” takes place in the Hamptons also at Sagaponack. This is not an easy book but captures human nature so well like much of Irving’s writing

The wonderful book “Architect of Desire” about the infamous Stanford White was largely located at the Box Hill estate in Smithtown.

The decline of Box Hill led me to research the fading history of Long Island and I discovered this website about the mansions of Long Island and the architectural relics of its heyday.

The mansions of course bring us to one of the most know Long Island stories “The Great Gatsby” and I was surprised how close to New York in modern terms Gatsby’s Estate was. Wikipedia states that ” In this novel, Great Neck (King’s Point) became the new-money peninsula of “West Egg” and Port Washington (Sands Point) the old-money “East Egg”. Several mansions in the area served as inspiration for Gatsby’s home, such as Oheka Castle and the now-demolished Beacon Towers.“

Lou Reed’s Coney Island Baby and I am sure there are many many others….

Finally Rufus Wainright’s song Montauk is also a great favourite

Amongst the many books I’ve browsed through, a theme has emerged. These four mid 20th century American women have affected me deeply with their stories. The first thing that hit me was how much better off white middle class women are in the 21st century compared to white middle class women of the 1950s. But then I realised things haven’t changed so much. Women generally, and especially women who don’t “fit” still don’t have it easy.

What is interesting is these contemporaries (who I gather never met or if so only in passing) all had much in common and yet dealt with their reluctance to conform is such different ways.

One and Only is the story of Lu Anne Henderson, best know as Marylou from Kerouac’s “On the Road”. The missing female perspective on ‘the beats’ and the era can be found here. For this group Carolyn Cassady’s “Off the Road” is also a good one, but I found LuAnne’s story more touching and perhaps more honest. It also echoes a comment that I read somewhere recently (and now can’t find the source of but I think perhaps in John Clellon Holmes’ “Go“) that every generation thinks they invented a sexual revolution. Luanne wanted freedom and never really found it.

Alice Denham – July 1956 Playmate of the month, was the first (and only?) playmate to have a story published in the magazine alongside her centrefold. Denham because an adjunct professor of English and although she viewed sex as a “great adventure”, she used it and her body to get where she wanted to go and did reasonably well on it. Sex and brains, an irresistible combination! Her book “Sleeping with the Bad Boys” is well written, (although it could have been better edited) and flips between a tell all romp and  a sad description of another woman wanting to be recognised as an intellectual individual in the 1950s New York literary world run by white middle class men who simply didn’t want to know.

Joyce Johnson again is a female view of the beat scene. Her relationship with Jack Kerouac as “On the Road” was published is the focal point of the book but the more interesting part to me was again her struggle to write and be independent in 50s New York. The pain of the women being pushed to the back is so evident here – the cover photo is so revealing, as are others from that shoot. As the is the title “Minor Characters”

And then we come to Sylvia, who struggled and escaped and then when the carefully constructed ideal world she created fell apart, ended it all. I call her Sylvia because I’ve been working on a project related to her for 18 months or more and I feel I’ve got to know her.

The ideal world where she felt she had it all was  marriage and motherhood (like a good 50s girl should) and a literary life – with a loving literary husband in the English country side. This in spite of the advice a Smith professor gave her that the achieve a literary life for a woman at that time she must remain single or at least childless. However also the times meant marriage difficulties and she battled depression her whole adult life and I don’t need to say where it ended. My revelation has been her short stories in “Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams“. I think they reveal a lot about Plath that other works perhaps don’t. they are also more measured and avoid the hysteria of some of her more well know works.

I am still thinking about these women. Sadly I see and hear resonances of the stories everyday, repeated even now in 2015. We haven’t come as far as we might think ladies.

I grew up in Invercargill and was recently reminded of my “wow it’s a big world out there moment”. When I was maybe 11 or 12, my older brother played me a “Walk on the Wild Side”, insisting on me wearing headphones to fully appreciate the backing vocals. I was instantly enamoured, but it was the lyrics that were the revelation…”shaved her legs then he was a she”….WHAT? Thanks Lou, you brought New York to suburban girl living at the end of the world.

I drag my kids around art galleries, museums, on road trips, to historic sites, bush walks, sports games, swimming lessons, play them Mum music (Iggy Pop). We talk about things in the micro and the macro. I try to bring the world into our home. For example, my 6-year-old loves Antiques Roadshow and Time Team, (my influence of course), but it has been suggested that the “nana gene” is strong in this one. One night recently she started talking to me about the patterns and glazes of medieval floor tiles and how you could date them…she obviously has had the opportunity to learn about this (and now I have found this [.pdf] for her on the web) I am happy to run with that.

Yes the internet (and it was also the hope once held for television) can open our eyes and educate but it also very easy to go down a particular rabbit hole in the internet universe. We can surround ourselves with agreeable people on social media creating a bubble that doesn’t challenge us, we can search out only games or pron or whatever. Like eating only the foods that we know and like, it is often not good for us to have a narrow diet.

We also need to recognise that for many children (and adults) opportunities just aren’t there, or people just don’t know how to use or recognise them. School of course is a great environment for when the opportunities and experiences aren’t available in the home and school trips can provide those ‘eyes wide open’ moments. It is sad when I find that some schools can’t provide such opportunities as all resources must go into the core curriculum. Our own schools ensure no one misses out, however this is just not an option in some areas.

This is why I was very happy to contribute to this initiative from the Dowse who are a LEOTC provider.

And yeah I suppose I could give money more locally or perhaps wider (eg UNICEF) but I just hope one kid gets to stand in front of some art and gasp or cry or be affected and have their world widened by this scheme.

Tusiata Buchanan-Falema’a with a work by Reuben Patterson she chose for Pic ‘n Mix, at the Dowse.

I like visiting Wellington, not sure how I’d do living there again though. I had a lot of fun at the second hand book stores

Nice to pick up some of David Merritt’s Landrover Press poems. There is something special about buying a single poem…..

Oh and the food…the food was wonderful and authentic and so much variety.

Sadly our National Gallery at Te Papa (yes I know) was closed for a rehang. I could have paid to see the the impressionist exhibition but I really was looking forward to seeing my old friends (McCahon, Clairmont etc). I was going to snark about this until several people reminded me that perhaps it wasn’t as awful as going to Paris to find the Louvre  or Musée d’Orsay closed. But still, but still.

However coming home is good and we are rich here in Dunedin in other ways. I also cannot deny my deep suburban-ness where I take pleasure in the look and smell of a freshly mown lawn.

It is the public gallery that has just managed to raise over $200,000 to bring Michael Parekowhai’s Chapman’s Homer permanently to Christchurch via the Pledge Me Back The Bull campaign.

So why did I, a resident of Dunedin, back the bull?

Well the artwork is awesome. Ok that is trite, I found this work deeply moving. It is so unsubtley strong but attenuated by the delicacy of a concert grand piano, albeit a bronze one. The bull is undoubtedly a strong statement and pianos can be either. In this case the strength to support a bull but also capable of calm and storm (videos feature another Parekowhai Piano). Christchurch seems to have taken this work to its heart.

Why Christchurch? Well they WANT it, in fact the Director of CAG, Jenny Harper, obviously wants it a lot.  The letter about my initial donation was hand signed (not a printed sig) and also had a personal note. That’s dedication. I ended up deciding to donate more. The CAG has always seemed to me intent on creating relationships with it’s audience. There is give and take and it has always felt personal and warm and truly invested. I don’t know how they managed this, but that is my relationship with CAG and I don’t even live in Christchurch. I am even a “Friend of the Gallery”….They are doing something very very right. It’s not that others don’t care, but many galleries have a ‘take us or leave us’ attitude, or something horribly one sided. I see change but I admit, my heart belongs to CAG.  And, after a loooong time I am finally able and very happy to give back to them. Also I can always visit…

Congratulations to the Christchurch Art Gallery and to Christchurch. And a huge pat on the back to staff but especially Jenny Harper, who wanted this to happen, and made it happen.

My vision the past week, at best, has been something like the first 5-6 seconds of this

Which really makes you appreciate full vision. Also I am not allowed to drive for about a month, and as the only driver in the family that has also presented problems. However travelling by bus, however tedious enables you to NOTICE things. Even if sometimes you notice incorrectly (due to the poor eyesight) e.g. The man I saw walking a very large cat which turned out to be a labradoodle. Taking time and noticing is very good and I have realised that seeing is only part of things even though is stuffed up my plans to go to the local showings of the New Zealand International Film Festival.

An example of seeing &  feeling might be this video that I found on YouTube which completely captured my own recent visit to Seacliff. I think this video – and its only a video – also captures the feel of the place. Its hard to say as I’ve been there several times and it certainly has an atmosphere. Interested to hear if readers get anything from the video.

However, the visual is just out of my reach for now, as is a long term prognosis on my sight.

Now you may go about your business as usual. Someone once said to me that no one  wants to read about YOU, unless you are Steve Braunias.

*Getting eye surgery under a local anaesthetic is… “interesting”

These events always remind me how small Dunedin is and how good this can be. I turned up on my own not really expecting to know anyone except Dean Havard:- proprietor of Dead Souls books and also the man behind Kilmog Press. But as people arrived, it seemed like I knew nearly everyone. And the readers: Former Burns fellow, David Eggleton ; current Burns fellow David Howard; Lynley Edmeades, poet and one of the people behind Deep South. Dunedin is rich in the arts. The event was a launch for Vaughan Rapatahana’s books Toa and China as Kafka (a Kilmog Press book).

The setting was brilliant (Dead Souls is an atmospheric, old world bookshop), and the readings very good. I am sometimes wary of poetry, in fact I told someone at Dead Souls today that poetry makes me feel out of my depth. But I am a reader and consumer of poems. What I like is when a poem speaks to me, whispers in my ear, stays with me long after. Some times they reach out and grabs at me and today’s poems did that; Vaughan’s readings especially so. A poem from China as Kafka ‘At Waikanae’  described as “a lovely, lyrical poem reminiscing about the teenaged poet and his cousin mowing the lawns at their urupa, tending the graves of their whanaunga. ” But it spoke to me of living and working on the Kapiti Coast, of the tangi and the urupa I encountered and the sadness. I felt homesick.

Rapatahana also read from his novel Toa “a road trip through the ‘skinny country’ where Mahon, an ex-university philosophy lecturer, and his gun ‘Molly’ blast their way across the country in a black Mark IV.” Now that’s a book you have to read – and I’m looking forward to reading my copy.

I often think of tribes (in a postmodern sense) as I move through life and especially at events like this. I’ve never quite found my tribe. There has always been a disconnect. Occasionally, like today I find myself on the edge of a group and think, “maybe this?” But mainly I think I live at the intersection of many – in that slim crossover area of a Venn diagram; a lost soul perhaps?

But did today’s poetry stay with me? Yes. Humming on the drive home and then while I cleaned out the rabbit hutch and I noticed how sweet the new hay smelled. It followed me to the supermarket and then while I folded the washing. And now while I write this…and that is all good.

Worst photo ever – David Howard, David Eggleton, Vaughan Rapatahana (and others) today at Dead Souls Bookshop

* It may not sound like work, but for me a trip to the public pools is like entering one of the seven circles of hell.