intraspace: the review lounge

2009-03-26T18:04:00.002+13:00

i rush to write this even before i've finished listening to all the tracks - nz electronic musician rhian sheehan's new album 'standing in silence' is a triumph.

i've long been a fan of ambient electronic music probably since it subliminally forced its way into my young subconscious via endless hours of my brother playing the likes of tangerine dream, vangelis, jean michel jarre and other synth geniuses.

anyway, in recent years i've developed a distinct taste for artists like m83, mogwai, sigur ros, mum etc often from the chilly climes of the northern hemisphere. i've always liked rhian sheehan too, but not this much...

his new release channels a whole lot of great stuff, and i can hear a bit of mum in there and sigur ros, maybe a touch of vangelis. it also reminds me of the soundtrack for the aussie film 'somersault' by decoder ring.

to make it that much more tempting, you'll find it on itunes for NZ$11.99 in a non-drm high bitrate form (also on emusic). 14 tracks of absolute goodness for 12 bucks!

black out!

2009-02-18T21:08:00.002+13:00

Batman 2

2008-09-02T23:33:00.004+12:00

This is a scattered review of the second most popular film of all time. The Dark Knight is that, a four out of five star exposition of the line society holds between order and everything else. Dark he is and becomes during the film, while still ending up as self-sacrificing as any good Knight should be. Over-archingly, it is about life today, at least in big cities in the USA. What does a society do in the face of reckless hate? Become as bad as Bin Laden? Torture etc? The conclusion sums this up perfectly as the Joker sets up an experiment like the one from the 70's where people were asked to shock eachother on command, and did.

How quickly will a white knight give in when senseless violence is metered out? How do you hold the line ... How do you combat forces that hold to no order or rules when you do?

There's alot of deaths, but then there are alot of characters, something which the film does struggle with (this is the curse of Batman films - notice the higher the sequel number, the more characters have always been included - and the suckier they have become yeah). Batman in TDK is really just a co-star with the Joker (as expected) - and Harvey Dent (unexpected) - and this feels a little strange, tho it is a bold choice. Several other supporting characters are important, but still there is the feeling that the central story gets a little overpowered.

The last third while brilliant, is spoilt by the mummy-like makeup on Two-Face. It certainly is out of a comic, and tends to downgrade all the final scenes where we watch Harvey's demise. And what happens to the Joker? Caught of course, but no proper resolution is provided. The reason I'm mentioning more negatives at this point than positives is that after waiting 6 weeks now to see it, and reading all the wonderful reviews, I was expecting a five star flick. But don't get me wrong, I'm eagerly awaiting my second viewing, and it is a worthy combination of Heat, the Untouchables, and Batman Begins.

M83 - Saturdays=Youth

2008-04-27T19:06:00.001+12:00

First couple of songs - I’m asking ‘why cross the line into making synthy 80’s pop?’. M83 has always used epic keys with an 80’s feel to underscore much of his work, but on this new album, well he really gets carried away. I guess the cover should have warned me. Kim and Jessie’ and ‘skin of the night’ really are terrible - two stars, which means they’ll be deleted shortly from my collection.

But then, I get to ‘graveyard girl’ and ‘couleurs’ and I start to dig it. Maybe I was just getting used to it, but these tracks were getting better - more instrumental and epic electronica without any particular decade-obsession.

Unfortunately, the next track ‘up’ douses this enthusiasm, though the slight Coctau Twins resemblance is something. The nicely titled ‘we own the sky’ is ok, and amps up towards the end, but again has too much chorus-ized singing. I’ll spare you too much more of my up and down review, but suffice to say its been quite a first-listen journey.

Late album is mostly 3 out of 5 star territory, until the final track, ‘midnight souls still remain’ - its nearly worth the price of the album itself. Just leave it on repeat for around 40 mins to make up for some of the others, something that sounds crazy, but please, try it.

Speed-the-plow at the Old Vic

2008-04-13T05:13:00.003+12:00

On Wednesday, Mim (my wife) and I went to see a David Mamet play called Speed-the-Plow at the Old Vic theatre in London. We'd never been to see a "serious" modern play before, and so we were a bit apprehensive especially as it only features three actors. Part of the draw was definitely the fact that Kevin Spacey (who's the artistic director at the Old Vic) and Jeff Goldblum were the two leads, giving us a chance to see a couple of brilliant (and famous) actors working on stage.

On the whole we were really impressed. The play is driven by snappy dialogue, and watching those two guys acting live made me realise just how good they are at acting. The sets were fairly minimal, and our seats had a slightly restricted view which sadly coincided with the exact spot where at least one character sat for much of the play! What really surprised me was how much I enjoyed the story (which I won't spoil for you - you can find a precis on Wikipedia).

I'd always been worried that I would find modern plays incomprehensible or boring, I guess in a parallel to the way in which I find a great deal of modern classical music impossible to engage with. But as it happens the play did such an enjoyable job of skewering the moral bankruptcy of modern film-making, that I am now keen to go and see some other modern plays. There were downsides - despite being a comment on Hollywood's corruption of art in the pursuit of making money, the play features some fairly offensive language and a liberal sexual morality, but I guess you could argue that the playwright was attempting to reflect the culture he was portraying - it would be ironic if he had included populist material in order to entice people to pay to see the play.

three for free

2008-04-12T12:03:00.004+12:00

when the internet is functioning at its best, stuff is free. here's a little round-up of three websites that made me say, "wow, i can't believe they are giving that away for free."

www.freedocumentaries.org - i can't remember where i first came across this site, but i think it's great. on freedocumentaries.org you can watch political / social documentaries for free, streamed through google video. there is a good helping of not so well known docos but also stuff by the likes of micheal moore. i'm not trying to endorse (or otherwise) these documentaries, but here's a little list of world-recognised films that you can watch for free on the site:

- an inconvenient truth
- bowling for columbine
- SiCKO
- the road to guantanamo (recommended)
- super size me
- born into brothels (recommended)
- enron: the smartest guys in the room

www.readymademag.com - ReadyMade is apparently a pretty well known magazine in north america - it offers all sorts of design projects that you can do at home. it's all class. and now they are offering their new issues in digital form for free. check out the latest version here. brilliant stuff.

www.bethinking.org - here's a christian resource for you. bethinking.org is a uk-based website that offers loads of mp3s of various academics etc talking about social and religious issues from a christian point of view. also preserved here are talks by the likes of schaeffer and rookmaaker. i'd spend a lot more time of this site if i had more time.

on the headphones: 'how can i be sure?' by dusty springfield, from the album 'the very best of dusty springfield'.

nz culture down ya

2008-02-15T09:12:00.009+13:00

it's time to get some new zealand culture down ya. here's a round-up of some recent kiwi dvds and cds i've noticed...

cd - liam finn: i'll be lightning. this has been out for a while now, but i hear it's being released soon in the usa. to the mention the usual patter first: liam finn is the son of crowded house's neil finn. even though this fact has been said a million times before, i think it is quite important. there is a musical heritage at work here - liam's uncle tim is also a key nz musical figure, having started the seminal nz band split enz. i have a photo book that came out in 2000 called 'once removed', essentially a behind the scenes look at neil finn's touring life. the young liam lurks in the background of lots of the photos in the book. he's been immersed in music all his life and this matures in 'i'll be lightning'. it's a brilliant, eclectic album, and i have a hunch that it will get pretty big in the states.

also, i need to mention the cover art for this cd which features liam's own very cool photography. given that he plays all the instruments on the album and also provides the artwork for the cover, we have one seriously talented kid here. check out the liam finn cnet in-studio appearance here.

cd - little bushman: pendulum. this is little bushman's second album. i'm not sure how to describe it. the band is the baby of former fat freddy's drop member warren maxwell, who is rapidly cementing a fine reputation in the nz music scene. while fat freddy's drop is a roots-dub experience where maxwell played the saxophone (i think), little bushman is a different kettle of fish. maxwell explores all kinds of musical styles but somehow manages to make it all gel into a unique style. the underlying rhythm tracks are incredible. a socially-conscious album with forward momentum and musical skill.

oh, and one dollar from the sale of every cd goes to unicef to help support gareth morgan's water management project in tanzania. gareth morgan is principally using the proceeds that he received from the sale of a little company his son started called 'trademe'.

dvd - out of the blue. in november 1990, the year of nz's 150th celebrations, the country was rocked when a gunman went on a murderous rampage in the quiet otago town of aramoana. that's only 17 years ago, and it's still pretty fresh in people's memories so it was always going to be a gutsy call to make a movie about it. if the subject had been treated with even a little bit of the sensationalism of hollywood movie-making it would have been a total failure - a completely tasteless and inappropriate project. i have rarely seen any subject handled with the tenderness that director duncan sarkies achieved in making 'out of the blue'. the film doesn't pull any punches but is completely free of sensationalism. even the soundtrack, a minimalist piano piece, doesn't attempt to stimulate the emotions of the viewer. karl urban in the role of the first police officer on the scene is brilliant - urban, in my opinion, is the finest actor produced by nz in the last 10 - 15 years. 'out of the blue' is one of the best films i've ever seen from anywhere in the world. as dominion post reviewer graeme tuckett said, "impassioned, dignified and damned near flawless."

dvd - flight of the conchords. and now for something completely different - from the other end of the nz cultural spectrum. i've talked about flight of the conchords before in my post about eagle vs shark. anyway, to recap, jemaine clement and bret mackenzie are two incredibly talented nz musican-comedians who, incidentally, just won the grammy for best comedy album of 2007. they were given a contract by hbo in the states to create a comedy sitcom based on their live act. the result is very good - not perfect - but very good. always entertaining and sometimes outrageously funny, the dvd of series one (yes, they've been given a second season) has just been released in nz. not a bad valentine's day present, thanks anna.

that's your nz culture round up for feb 08. get it down ya!

Death of Aussie Cricket

2008-02-02T19:22:00.000+13:00

(time to be controversial)

Well know that we in Aussie land have a new more touchy-feely, environmentally friendly (about time!) Prime Minister, it seems that our Aussie cricketers are no longer allowed to win at all costs. Yes, the hard-edged, never give up spirit of the displaced Aboriginals, early settlers, and Diggers is now suddenly out of fashion.

let's face it, in cricket, Australia had some lean years before Alan Border re-developed the gutsy never say die attitude that allowed moderately skilled teams to go on with later star bowlers (Ooh Ah and that spinner) to conquer the world. While the tough attitude was suitable and needed in Border's day, now that Australia has been on top for so long however, the same attitude has seen the team attacked from all quarters.

Apparently having fun is now supposed to be more important than winning. Sounds good - but as India just showed, when the team was forced to play a bit nicer, it started to lose... Does this mean the team must slide down the rankings for a while, suffer in confidence, and then be re-vitalised at some future point by the tough attitude again when it will be ok?

Personally, I think a high level, test-based competition should actually be tough. Otherwise, what's the point of watching a game where both teams are trying harder to be friendly than to win. Its the dare to win attitude that makes the game compelling in the first place. So say we all, except now that toughness is out of style. But we did sign Kyoto!

favourite websites of 2007

2007-12-22T10:18:00.000+13:00

i use mozilla firefox, and under 'bookmarks' i have a folder called 'daily'. every day i go to that folder and click on 'open all in tabs'. every day begins that way - with a bowl of porridge and viewing my 'dailies' before work at my desk.

at the moment i have 20 websites on that list that i flick through. i thought i'd give a bit of an end of year round up on my 20 daily sites.

the best ones

www.stuff.co.n z in my opinion stuff is the best news portal in new zealand. it contains the combined resources of the fairfax media newspapers. this year, stuff had a redesign and after a few days getting used to new navigation it all started working great. even though the information has its basis in newspaper material, the website is well thought out and presented. i guess my favourite bit would be the daily cartoons - especially the work of moreau, which i saw for the first time this year. he is easily my favourite nz newspaper cartoonist. another good innovation by stuff was introducing a whole stable of blogs on all sorts of subjects. i only wish i had had time to read more of them.

dra wn! this is an illustration blog based in canada. i can't even remember where i first came across this one, but it is really brilliant and has been constantly growing in popularity. i'm not an illustrator per se, but they serve up a great range of stuff that is visually inspiring. they also update very frequently which means that a daily visit is rewarded.

last.fm the online music networking phenomenon. i've already written about his one, so i won't go into too much detail. suffice to say that it continues to fascinate me and as of today i'm 4 songs away from hitting the 15,000 songs played mark. you can visit my page here.

dark roasted blend aesthetically, dark roasted blend is butt-ugly. but the content is fascinating. the writers trawl the internet looking for weird and wonderful material and presenting it daily based on a theme. mostly the material is visual - and in 2007 i've seen some crazy stuff on there.

stereogum this provides the bulk of my music reading. it has a north american hipster angle which can get a little bit tiring but all up i enjoy reading it and benefiting from free music downloads and staying up to date with what's happening in the world of indie music (as stereogum sees it).

boingboing subtitled 'a directory of wonderful things', boingboing (as i said in my other blog) would be the blog i'd choose if i could only read one blog. it is widely recognised as being a masterful example of blogging. the writers present an eclectic range of material on all manner of subjects and somehow 85% of it manages to be interesting.

ffffound! this is the newest addition to my daily website family. it is still in its beta form. it works by its users tagging images on the internet that they like. if more than a certain number of users tag a certain image, that image is displayed on the front page. the beta is closed, so i don't know how you become a member but it seems like the current members have pretty good taste. my only worry is that that will change, and the quality of the material will drop, when the site goes public and anyone can register. for a while, there was a bit of a spate of 'arty' pictures of girls with not much on, but that seems to have disappeared again - which is a good thing - i'd hate to see the site become one-dimensional. all up the images served up are an inspirational collage of excellent design, photography, illustration and ephemera.

y ahoo! mail where would i be without this one? i know there is competition from hotmail and gmail, but i've been using yahoo! for my email for years now, and it keeps evolving in the best way. this year they added unlimited storage and a very good interface. their work has kept me satisfied with using yahoo! as my main personal email program.

the good ones

conscientious a photo blog by jm colberg in which he makes posts about his favourite contemporary photographers. i don't know enough about contemporary photography to know how useful his selection is, but i use it as a way of looking at contemporary photography and hopefully staying a little bit up to date about what is happening.

b etter propaganda this is a rather good music marketing website. the reason i use it is to get free legal downloads from some pretty interesting artists, and i have discovered new material this way. i visit the new releases page every day but it looks like it only updates once a week. this year they introduced a new downloading interface that is supposedly an enhancement. truth be told it gives them another opportunity to display advertising and makes downloading a lot more of a hassle - i wish they had left it as it was. still a good resource though.

crave the cnet gadget blog. i read the american one - apparently there is a uk one as well (and an asia one too i think) and i've often wondered whether maybe i should read the uk one. but all up, it a good way to keep up to date on new gadgets and techie news.

ilovetypography i guess this is a fairly specialist blog, written for (as the name suggests) lovers of typography. it started this year and is run by john d boardley, an englishman in japan. the site is beautifully presented and has fascinating articles on type. the articles are fairly long and i have to confess to never having read one right through (not john's fault, just time constraints). but i intend to read a lot of this site over the next couple of weeks while i'm on holiday.

the others (maybe getting cut from the 'dailies' in 08)

lomography.com blog i love my lomo lca camera, i love the photos it takes. it has lived up to all my expectations (except for the fact that it just stopped working - shutter jamming). and so it was a no-brainer to frequent the official lomo blog. when i first started getting into the lomo i read a lot of criticism about how the lomo society markets what should have remained an aficionado's camera or (for some people) a camera relegated to a soviet trash pile. and since reading the blog i too have started to get impatient with the lomo society and its vast number of adherents. reading the blog you see a vast amount of photography taken by people using lomos and other odd cameras and the overwhelming feeling is that most of it is really bad photography dressed up with x-processing, expired film, lomo vignetting and light leaks. most of it is rubbish but because it has odd colours the lomo society holds it up as a great example of lomo photography. i'm really starting to rebel against this idea, because i don't want anything to stand in the way of my love for my lca and the idea that really beautiful and great photos can be taken on it. the lomography blog is going to get cut from my dailies.

damn interesting when i first discovered this blog, it truly lived up to its name. and it continues to specialise in mostly fascinating articles about all kinds of odd and obscure things. just make sure you don't visit the comments section. people are alarming anti-social and often not terribly smart in that area. there is also an endless supply of pop-atheistic commentary, and often embarrassing creationist rebuttal. and all in all i've lost my taste for the site. i'm cutting this from my dailies and maybe adding it to my email feeds list instead.

give away of the day this 'blog' got off to an exciting start. the premise being that everyday the site would give away a piece of commercial software available for that day only for free. users were abuzz with what free software might be offered. and for a while i downloaded quite a bit - including two or three utilities that i use very regularly (of special mention, glary utilities and fusiondesk - the second one has changed the way i work). but then it all started to get a bit samey and it quickly became apparent that no famous pieces of software were going to be offered, and that freeware alternatives were often better. i'm torn about what to do with this site - i'm worried about cutting it because what if i miss something really good? (so the hype still hasn't completely worn off).

ephemera this is a blog about the world of ephemera collecting - like collecting old sears catalogues and things like that - in effect the art of collecting stuff that other people throw away. initially i was intrigued about this. but i feel like the interest is waning - i guess looking at this blog everyday has made ephemera less quirky to me and therefore less interesting. a good blog though for ephemera collectors.

pulp of the day every day this blog displays a pulp fiction paperback bookcover. i'm really interested in the retro artwork on these covers and it is a pretty interesting blog to look at. they also run a daily caption competition where readers make up alternative captions for the covers. but only two or three readers participate so that gets a bit boring (i don't participate). like the ephemera blog, the novelty of this one is starting to wear out a bit.

horse latitudes a music blog based in the uk. really cool layout and the uk angle is nice. principally i added this to my dailies because it is jonathan's favourite music blog, so i figured if it was good enough for jonathan... in the time i've been looking at it it hasn't captured me too much but it can stay for now.

i guess i'm floating another music blog. this one tantalisingly offers tracks for download but so far hasn't offered anything i wanted to download. probably not a keeper for me.

book by its cover the premise of this blog is very cool - it shows samples from small press and home produced art books - usually hand-drawn stuff. it's quite interesting, and can stay for now.

so that's the round up - feel free to disagree and mention your own favourite sites in the comments - all two of you.

on the headphones: 'crumble' by calexico, from the album 'feast of wire'.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

2007-11-05T08:46:00.001+13:00

After reading almost exclusively non fiction this year I decided it was time to start reading some fiction. I had recently read about Oscar Wilde's the Picture of Dorian Gray in several places so thought this may be a good place to start.

The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the story of an extremely good looking young man who make a pact that enables him to keep his youthful looks throughout his life. Instead of him growing older the effects of his life and the effects of his sin are not seen in his body but in a portrait of himself.

Dorian under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton enters into a double life. While maintaining a respectable reputation within society he secretly begins a lifestyle in search of endless pleasures regardless of the cost. With each step further into a depraved life the only outward sign is the painting (that is carefully hidden in his house)becomes more and more aged and marred.

Wilde does have a way with words and their is some very clever and witty writing. At times I feel he gets a bit carried away with philosophical discussion between Lord Henry and Dorian. While some of these are quite amusing as Henry explains his hedonistic view on life, at times they are rather drawn out.

Overall this is a fascinating tale that looks at human nature, sin and the cost of living simply to pleasure oneself.

If anyone is looking to read this I highly recommend getting the Penguin Classic edition as it also includes some interesting articles written about how the book was received when it was released in the late 1800's

how to make an art gallery

2007-10-22T13:32:00.000+13:00

tauranga has never had the reputation for being a cultural centre. in fact, in the past there has been a noticeable lack of cultural activity. the city had a reputation, even 15 years ago, of being kind of a giant retirement village. i remember reading in frank sargeson's autobiography 'once is enough' a comment about 1950s tauranga that was something like, "the lights of tauranga had nothing to offer me but tidy gardens and pink flamingoes". it was, and still is, a suburban paradise.

over the last ten years small nz towns and cities have been getting themselves more culture, actively seeking out artistic activity to add 'flavour' to their municipal identity. recently this phenomenon has been catching up with tauranga. even in the time i've been living here (nearly 5 years) things have noticeably changed.

one such project is the establishment of a tauranga art gallery. incredibly, tauranga has never had one. the only galleries have been commercial galleries selling the kind of art that matches the sofa and looks nice in your beach house.

predictably, the project (which received council funding) was viewed with suspicion by a good sized chunk of tauranga's pragmatic rate-paying population. but a committed team has seen the project through to completion. on saturday, the gallery opened to the public.

as the building (designed by mitchell & stout) went up, i have to say i wasn't overly impressed with the external architecture. to me it looked a bit more like a cinemaplex than an art gallery and i was, and still am, worried that it will date ungracefully. but walking through the big glass doors, i was immediately captured by the interior space.

it is compact, but uses the space very well with a high ceiling in the entry area. this is also the first display space you enter. the ceiling height allows for big art pieces and alleviates any feeling that the gallery is cramped by its small size. for the opening, this area houses two-storey high works by tauranga-born mark braunias.

the ground floor has a number of intimate display areas including a small concrete-walled room that obviously makes use of the existing building - i really liked that room. in these areas, the gallery has pieces from its collection on display. and quite a nice little collection it is - featuring work by the usual suspects (hotere, mccahon et al - nz works). the wall space has been well utilised but it doesn't feel cluttered.

overhead there are semi-opaque aqua coloured panels which are part of the floor of the upstairs mezzanine. the shadows of people walking on these makes intriguing shapes when you look up at them from below. these panels are an excellent architectural feature.

the mezzanine is a nice space and has two film screening rooms at the end. on display was photographic work, and in particular the best images from 'world press photo 2007'. having that as the opening exhibit was a stroke of genius by the gallery staff: photography is a very accessible art form; the images were very emotive and you couldn't help being affected by them; it brought international work into the gallery.

actually, it was great to see how many people had turned out to have a look at the gallery. the place was packed. and it seemed as if people who had just come for a nosey, went away genuinely impacted by what they had seen. as far as art is concerned, that is the definition of success.

this is how you make an art gallery in a place like tauranga. i'm immensely proud that it is now a feature of our city. i knew having a gallery here was a good idea but now i'm completely sold. if you ever visit tauranga, make sure you visit the gallery. it'll only take you about half an hour to look around - unless you want to stay longer.

gallery site here. view the gallery space here.

on the stereo: '15 step' by radiohead, from the album 'in rainbows'.

war and peace

2007-10-22T10:01:00.000+13:00

i did it. i read 'war and peace'. my cunning plan of reading the 'books' of war and peace interspersed with other books (to keep up my interest) paid off, and about nine months after starting, i finished.

my pleasant surprise was that war and peace is actually a cracking good book. it is such a vast and masterful work of art - combining the society intrigues of victorian novels (by austen and hardy etc) with gritty narratives about napoleonic warfare.

to quote tolstoy (from an article that he published about the novel), "I have spent five years of uninterrupted and exceptionally strenuous labour under the best conditions of life [on this work]." tolstoy doesn't hold back, and he achieves a work of grandeur that succeeds in holding the reader's attention through action and character studies.

my tactic of reading other books in between probably helped, but i actually found that i was pleased to get back to war and peace.

for tolstoy the reason for writing such a book was not mainly to entertain his readers. he had a theory about history that he was evidently very committed to demonstrating.

tolstoy says that war and peace "is not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less an historical chronicle" [although it quite clearly contains elements of all these]. "War and Peace is what the author wished and was able to express in the form in which it was expressed."

the concept that tolstoy wants to communicate is this:

"The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two ... but by the activity of all the people who participate in the events... Morally the wielder of power appears to cause the event, physically it is those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in the one nor in the other, but in the union of the two." (from the epilogue)

this is why war and peace has a cast of over 500 characters. each of them has a role to play in history, actions have ramifications. but at the same time the characters are also swept along by the events of history - participants and victims, as it were.

the only time when the narrative really slows in the book is at the end when tolstoy puts together all his thoughts about history in essay form, just in case the reader has missed the point. this break from narrative is a bit of an anticlimax but i suppose it is necessary given tolstoy's primary aims for the book. this ending shouldn't stand in the way of you reading it if you're not a history student - it comes at the very end as an epilogue, so doesn't interfere with the narrative.

all up, brilliant. highly recommended.

read more about 'war and peace' on wikipedia.

warandpeace-o-meter: finished!

In Rainbows - that's how we can see the music world, thanks to Radiohead

2007-10-11T21:06:00.000+13:00

The Band of the 90's, was not short-lived Nirvana - but ground-breaking Radiohead. Written off as one-hit wonders after 'creep', they moved onto an album of perfect but un-heralded britpop ('the bends') before releasing the monumental 'ok computer', the album that brought rich desolation, rock and art to the mainstream. So good was it that they've been able to do what they like since - including the jagged electronic rock of 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac', the lesser 'hail to the theif', and now their new album 'in rainbows' thats been released as a download first - its also a first for the music industry in that you can buy it for - whatever you like - whatever you think its worth.

I paid 1 pound actually! For this I got every track (Radiohead don't allow for the album to be bought as seperate tracks ala most downloaded music) at a just average quality 160kbps MP3, and without artwork. Like many, I expect I'll buy the real cd wth full quality tracks at a future date, but for now, being able to get the tracks so soon and try them out is brilliant.

So did I get what I'd paid for? No - I got a lot more - 4 stars for this one - beneath the 5 of 'ok computer', but it is really good - with a combination of their jagged electronica and desolate but rich rock - it has jarring moments, but they make the soaring ones so much better - particularly on 'weird fishes', 'jigsaw' and 'all i need'. Some parts sound like bjork, or even some other band doing 90's as the retro sound it'll be in a few years.

So why not drop them a pound yourself, even if just to stick it to the music industry big wigs. For more opinion on the album and its unique release, I'd reccomend the comments at my favourite music blog, horse latitudes, from where you can also find the link to buy the album.
Go here: http://www.horselatitudes.co.uk/

eyewitness accounts of a historic rugby loss

2007-10-09T10:44:00.000+13:00

it's been ages since anything was posted on intraspace. but i think apologies for that kind of thing are a bit lame, so i won't bother.

instead, i've asked a couple of my uk-based mates to pass on their thoughts about the all blacks' loss to france in the quarter finals of the rugby world cup.

a few days ago, my aussie mate jonathan (jnxyz) and i compared notes about who australia and nz were meeting in the quarter finals and matter-of-factly decided that we would be playing each other in the semis. i did, however, call france our 'bogey team' as they have a history of upsetting the all blacks. and i recalled aaron saying that the english might possibly upset the aussies.

on sunday morning, before i left for church, i checked the internet and saw that the aussies had gone down to england. i was about to fire off a quick email to jonathan when i suddenly thought - better wait until after the all blacks game before i do that... probably just as well in hindsight.

anyway, here is a match report from john butterworth, who was at the game in cardiff:

I actually felt sorry for the Aussie supporters as I watched their team lose while I ate lunch in the Cardiff pub. I thought how crap they must be feeling as they sat in their seats in the stadium and I tried to imagine what it must be like. It's a good thing that's unlikely to happen to us....

Earlier, the streets were filled with black. It was about mid-day and there were kiwi's everywhere. There was a smattering of Red White and Blue but I wondered where the French foreign legions were? A bunch of Maoris crossed the road from Cardiff Castle in single file dressed in black complete with gumboots - Cardiff was was one big New Zealand icon. Suddenly the French arrived. Brightly clad and gloriously noisy, their good natured but fierce support was inspiring and they made friends everywhere.

The stadium roof was closed and French songs filled the arena. Occasionally the All Black chant went up - you know the one: "All Blacks" clap clap clap. Childish, and pathetically delivered, it was each time drowned out by a magnificent chorus of French singing that could have made a Welshman proud (but probably not quite). Insert all sporting adjectival cliches here:___________________. This was the atmosphere. This was the greatest rugby stadium in the world. The view of the pitch from one of the worst seats in the house (if there are any) was more than good. The noise in the stadium - deafening and the rivalry between supporters though very real was very fun. It promised to be a great night for the All Blacks to win. Bugger.

A fairly sound first half you would have to say - and we dared to think it was in the bag. The AB's looked sharp and in control (sort of). The half time break disappeared and we settled down to watch the All Blacks gradually extend the lead and put their foot on the throats of the hapless french. The ridiculously high prices we had paid on ebay would soon be distant memories and we would return to London that week to boast to our English colleagues of how we will take them apart in the semi's - no more All Black choking this time mate!

Sometimes you wonder what a coach said at half-time. This was one of those games where you wondered what both coaches said. We watched unsettled as the French went to fourth and then fifth while the AB's seemed intent on coming fourth or fifth - or worse! Surely we would sort it and come back - the nervousness on the pitch - the complete and sudden lack of faith in their ability would only last for a bit and then everything would be all right again - yeah?

5 minutes to go - camped inside the 22. Righto, well done boys - drop goal time. Left it quite late but you're in the right place now. Just center up a bit and throw it back to.....to....who's freaking there?!! Drop goal guys - it's gotta be a DROP GOAL !!!!!!....... Yeah but wait on - not now - hang on to it now!, don't do it now!, don't.....

I can hear the laughter of the French supporters around me as - I only hear 'cause I'm no longer looking, I'm just waiting for the roar after the ball will be inevitably kicked into touch.

Kiwi blokes are actually in tears. Most of us just sit and stare at nothing in particular. Another monumental mental collapse - a sporting mind meltdown of the highest degree. I guess we kind of expect it now - maybe this team does too.

Oh well, as they say, c'est la vie. Bollocks it is!

meanwhile, luke and patrick were watching the game on a big screen in london:

I watched it at a venue called The Grand, at Clapham Junction in London. It's an old theatre and has a screen that is 40 square metres in area. Fantastic picture and great atmosphere.

Up until the final loss of possession a win was still very much a possibility, so it was then that it hit. I just put my head in my hands for a while. Patrick starting kicking things. I then suggested we leave. We went to the pub over the road for a two-hour de-briefing.

Oh well. It's very hard to swallow and you kinda wish you didn't emotionally involve yourself in the All Blacks success or failure.

the crime of olga arbyelina

2007-08-30T17:20:00.000+12:00

the crime of olga arbyelina, by andrei makine

the local library has a few andrei makine books. it was 'the earth and sky of jacques dorme' that first introduced me to makine and i fell in love with his writing style. 'the crime of olga arbyelina' was my second outing with his work.

it all starts off with a fascinating scene that unfolds in a russian cemetery in paris. an old man tends the graves and tells stories of the people who inhabit them. visitors come to the cemetery to hear these stories, furtively listening to the old man's words and fleeing when he notices them listening. and so, he tells the story of olga arbyelina.

the first scene is of olga sitting on a riverbank in a small town near paris next to the corpse of a middle-aged man. the suspicion of course falls on olga as the murderer - evidently this is the 'crime' that the title talks about. however, the narrative then flicks back about two years, and through suggestions and finally out and out revelation, we find out what olga's hidden crime really is. incest. (yikes!) sorry if i've ruined the story for you, but that all but ruined the story for me.

makine once again shows his genius for poetic writing, but at the point of the revelation, the story becomes a dark irredeemable tragedy that ends in olga's madness and leaves the reader feeling somehow sullied by the reading experience. olga's haemophiliac adolescent son (the other party in the said 'crime') is an unlikeable ghost-like figure who drugs his mother. so it becomes pretty hard going, although makine never writes about his subject in stark and brutal terms, no matter what his characters' crimes may be. perhaps this makes it more disturbing in a way. by being captured by his gentle poetry you feel somehow implicated in the story. you keep reading, hoping for that chink of light that might reveal some hope. none comes.

even though i love makine's poetic language, in this book it sometimes feels like this language is just filling space. a couple of times, i found myself thinking that the whole novel could have been quite an effective short story.

all up, do i regret reading this book? probably. 'the earth and sky' was so much more skillfully done in terms of narrative, structure and language. and because of that i haven't given up on makine.

warandpeace-o-meter: 876/981 (volIII, bookXV, chapVII)

eagle vs shark

2007-08-25T11:11:00.000+12:00

in the last few years, a comic force has quietly been brewing in new zealand.

in one corner we have 'flight of the conchords' - a couple of new zealand blokes - bret mckenzie and jemaine clement - who decided to sing comedy songs. they called themselves "new zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo". bret mckenzie is actually a pretty accomplished musician in nz circles - playing in the black seeds and having his own music under the name 'video kid'. apparently he was also in lord of the rings. so you see he's served his time in nz creative circles. jemaine clement did all kinds of stuff - including the voice-over for the l&p ads about life in nz (unless you live in nz, you have no idea what i'm talking about). anyway, flight of the conchords suddenly became very popular - world-wide. first in the uk, where the bbc did a radio documentary thing in 2005 and then they also got a slot on hbo in the states. they played all kinds of festivals around the place, and then i saw them live in nz last year when they supported bic runga. very funny. from there they ended up getting a sitcom series on HBO. this series has just finished in the states and they have been given a second season. the first season screens in nz soon. if you've never seen flight of the conchords in action - watch this.

in the other corner we have taika waititi. taika is a general creative jack-of-all-trades. he got quite a few awards (including an academy award nomination) for a short film called 'two cars, one night'. i saw him speaking at last year's semi-permanent design conference. very funny. he met jemaine clement (the guy from flight of the conchords who wasn't in lord of the rings - as far as i know) at uni in wellington and they formed a comedy act called the 'humourbeasts'. they did a show where they reinterpreted the legends of māui (unless you live in nz you have no idea what i'm talking about). taika got together with an actor called loren horsley (she was sieglinda in 'xena: warrior princess').

out of this fertile comic milieu sprang the film 'eagle vs shark'. it was written by taika waititi and loren horsley and stars jemaine clement, loren horsley and taika waititi.

last night, emma and anna and i went to see it. anna said, "i don't normally like nz films, but this one looks quite funny." it is in the vein of napoleon dynamite - "small town nerd humour"? and a number of critics have compared it to that film, although i have no idea if taika waititi was influenced by napoleon when he wrote and filmed eagle vs shark in 2005. there is something distinctly new zealand about the characters which overseas viewers might not differentiate from napoleon.

anyway, eagle vs shark was tremendously funny and very very good, and i loved it. it didn't do very well in the states but it has debuted at 4 at the nz box office behind 'live free or die hard', 'the simpsons' and 'i now pronounce you chuck and larry'. it grossed NZ$113,999 in the first week on 27 screens, not bad when you consider that all the other films in the top 10 were on at least 40 screens. now why the heck are nz cinemas not getting behind this film? it makes me mad. honestly people, it is right up there and well worth watching. the actors were great (no weak performances), the storyline was amusing - heaps of great nz culture. it even has a little miss sunshine-esque little girl. it has poignant moments wrapped in the humour, and a great soundtrack by the phoenix foundation. new zealanders! australians! brits! peoples of the world! get to it!

watch the trailer.

on the headphones: 'to the sky' by maps, from the album 'we can create'.

SP07: the review

2007-08-19T12:07:00.000+12:00

after last year's semi-permanent design conference i was adamant i'd be back again and i was. last year, i spent some of my time texting roly to tell him what he was missing out on - this year, he relinquished and came along. the two of us packed up and headed north, staying with my folks in kaiaua the night before and then into auckland for the conference the next morning.

here's how the day unfolded:

alt. "alt," as the sp07 book says, "is a multi-disciplinary design company based in auckland." last year, some of the designers that spoke were very unconfident in front of the audience and i was worried the same thing might happen when the guy from alt got up. but while he was clearly more comfortable in front of a mac than nearly 1000 people, his lowkey approach worked really well. he basically just showed us through some of alt's work and it was pretty interesting and amusing. he comes from a fine arts background so there is some nice interplay between art and design in their work.

umeric. "the studio of director ash bolland and designer/art director von dekker." umeric is a motion graphics outfit based in sydney. ash was the speaker and he is nz-born, so the lowkey approach continued. he took a while to get started and his windows-based laptop crashed a couple of times in front of the huge mac-using audience. umeric's work, once things got under way, was impressive - in particular the animation mixed with live action and a project they did for the mtv australia music video awards (pictured) - very cool. ash walked us through the process of creating a few of their projects.

3 deep. "founded in 1996 by brett phillips and david roennfeldt, 3 deep design has established a reputation for uncompromised design excellence, commitment, passion and design innovation." we wondered what the heck was going on when some aussie dude got on stage and informed us that 3 deep were getting a bit bored of presenting at events like this, and had asked him to help them present their work. he then went on to explain that he wasn't from 3 deep before proceeding to show us some of his own work. eventually, to our relief he invited the proper 3 deep guys up on stage. they had decided on an interview format, which didn't really work because the sound was terrible and the mics kept feeding back. their work was ok but i wasn't blown away by it. in the end i decided to go for a walk, go to the toilet and text my friends to meet up for lunch instead. roly left early to go and get some new tyres for his car.

glue society. "a creative agency based in sydney and new york, the glue society is made of 10 writers, designers, art directors and film directors." these guys presented an incredible array of innovative (and sometimes controversial) advertising work. their stuff was characterised by humour and strange twists on reality. faced with a limited budget, for example, for the promotion of an aussie tv comedy show, they hired billboards in about six really cheap locations around the world - including iceland and iraq. the publicity they got from this crazy venture outweighed anything they could have purchased with a bigger budget.

misery. "auckland-based artist, painter and designer of characters misery started out as a graffiti artist, but her many visions of where she'd like to see her art and characters applied have seen her expand into everything from fashion to toys." 'cutely disturbed' or 'disturbed cuteness' are the terms i would use to sum up misery - everything she does seems to exude this sense. she appeared on stage with a guy in a sausage suit playing a ukelele, someone in a fright mask playing one of those sticks with the bottle tops attached to it that you hit on the ground to create a rhythm, a guy dressed up as a mexican wrestler, and three people behind misery-styled masquerade masks. these last three she described as her "minions", pronouncing it with a french twist a la "fillet mignon". it was really quite fascinating although i have to admit that i was distracted by the sausage guy instead of watching misery do her painting demonstration.

made thought. "madethought is a london-based multi-disciplinary design consultancy working in brand identity and development, art-direction, packaging, print and interactive design." this is the one i remember least about. the work was very solid, and the client-base very impressive, but for me, nothing much to write home about.

uva. "london-based united visual artists work with led, traditional lighting and projection technologies as sculptural elements, with their bespoke software approach allowing them to use existing technologies in new and unusual ways." as with last year (when the event ended with taika waititi) the most fascinating speaker was saved for last. uva push the boundaries in what we normally think about in connection with design. while what they do is well beyond the budget or abilities of anything i will probably ever be involved with, they had me captured when they started talking about how they designed the album artwork for leftfield's rhythm and stealth, before going on to design all the stage lighting and special fx for the massive attack world tour and u2's vertigo tour - not only fascinating me with their flashing lights, but also working with three of my most favourite bands in the process. it sounds like these guys trawl the world for cool lighting and video products before combining them in crazy ways for very cool projects. some of their best work also included some public installations, including a couple at the v&a museum in london (pictured). far too cool for words.

thus the day ended, and roly and i cruised back home. main highlights for me: alt, misery and uva (also getting one of my photos into this year's semi-permanent book and scoring a particularly sweet-looking rangefinder camera for $5 at the markets in the square outside the venue). bring on SP08 which, they announced at the end of the day, is likely to be stretched out across two days and include more specialist speakers in the area of photography and illustration and stuff - too much fun.

on the headphones: 'urban getaway' by elemeno p, from the album 'love & disrespect'.

brief editorial interlude

2007-08-15T20:46:00.000+12:00

a brief editorial interlude at this point, my friends.

jnxyz's post on fatherhood signals the birth of new depths here at intraspace. we have all your needs covered: books, films, music, computer games, and tips about labour and babies. what more could you ask for?

skip my review of '1984' (which i inaverantly posted before i realised the magnitude of what had occured on the blog), and go directly to 'The Father's Voice (a semi-regular review of becoming a father): pt1' - if you dare.

nineteen eighty-four

2007-08-15T20:23:00.000+12:00

nineteen eighty-four, by george orwell

you tell yourself that you should read these classic books, and you put it off because even though they are classics you really have no idea what you are going to encounter. i think 'moby dick' has a lot to answer for in this respect. i started reading that book expecting to be absorbed by a rollicking tale of a captain hunting down a particularly nasty white whale. instead, it ended up being 'everything i know about whaling, by herman melville'. terrible tedious stuff with tiny bits of narrative thrown so that melville could claim it was a story. perhaps i've judged too harshly - i never did reach the end (although i intend to one day). but this 'moby dick' gives classics a bad name.

however, i'm into futuristic sci-fi movies and i had an inkling that '1984' was a predecessor to that narrative form. and one day anna was going down to the library and asked if there was anything i wanted. and i thought, "now, what were the books i was going to read?" and i remembered this one.

i started reading it immediately and was pleasantly surprised that 1984 is nothing like moby dick - in fact it is very readable (nearly 200 years of development of the novel form has clearly paid off). it was published the year before orwell died in 1949, and is one of orwell's two most famous novels - the other one being 'animal farm'. as is usual with orwell, the work is very political and allegorical, but that is carried along by good novelistic devices that make the story absorbing.

the book gets a little bit bogged down in one section and part 3 (the last part) is not quite so action-packed. that's all ok though, because the aim of the book is not really to entertainment, but to paint a picture of the distopia that could develop under a socialist totalitarian system. unfortunately the book doesn't have a happy ending, but that suits the story so is probably the best conclusion.

i wouldn't read this if you need cheering up, but if you're into narratives about the future (like me) then definitely get into it. the volume i got was the 'complete novels' and i think i might be back to read more of orwell later.

warandpeace-o-meter: 785/981 (volIII, bookXIII, chapI)

The Father's Voice (a semi-regular review of becoming a father): pt1.

2007-08-15T12:50:00.000+12:00

(or 10 of the things no-one tells you)

I became a father this week! Thanks for your congrats. Apart from the lingering feeling of amazement that comes from seeing your newborn being lifted up by the midwife and taking its first breaths of air, we feel like we've completed part one of a Doctorate in only 7 days. While nature does do its thing supernaturally well, its still a huge learning experience. Below is an overview AND a list of ten vital, important, crucial, essential things that NO ONE TELLS YOU!

07.08.07
1.10pm Penny calls to say she's having irregular cramps that feel like period pain - are these contractions starting?

1. Contractions actually feel like period pain, so will be familiar, and are centered in one spot, not all over.

4.00pm I arrive home from work. The cramps are still semi-regular, but Pen has to sit down when they come now. I guess they are contractions!

5.30pm Ring the midwife - yes come in when they are 5 mins apart. By this standard, we plan to leave around 7pm.

6.15pm Things are really moving! We leave instead at 6.30pm.

6.45pm We drive (fast!) to the hospital - imagining what we'll say if/when we get pulled over for speeding... “yes, we'd love a police escort officer”.

7.10pm We're here! Poor Penny pausing every few minutes from the car to the birthing suite. No prizes for guessing why we're here as people we pass offer us a wheelchair.

8.00pm After initially writing her obs on a paper towel, the midwife has now got Pen's chart and her contractions have slowed a little now where in safe hands. Nothing for it now but to let them take their course, maybe have Pen in the shower to help with pains, give her regular drinks and snacks, and as the midwife says, 'just breathe through it'. I support her in different standing and sitting poses to alleviate things a little...

2. Breathing is the number one key thing at this point! Pen just mostly figured it out - slow and deep - some extra coaching though wouldn't have gone astray.
3. There are some really good poses (wife's arms around your shoulders/neck) that help ALOT - ask your midwife to show/ describe them in good detail before labour starts...

10.00pm- Examination time. Enough said, apart from the fact that another one won't be done until 1:00am 2am - that's another four hours of regular pains now every 4 mins... The midwife came in every 30mins, just took blood pressure etc as you'd expect, but I was never sure what their role was - do they 'make' it all happen or just be there for an emergency? Maybe we were just naturally gifted so didn't need much help...

4. Ask the midwife exactly what her role is so your not disappointed when she disappears for stretches/ r annoyed if she's always in your face.

1:01am After a shower, and various poses to aid the growing pain (every 3 mins now), Pen starts to feel that something is changing. What? We don't know, but by 1:30am, things are really happening. Pen's pain has really changed and asking the midwife (who's still getting ready for a routine 2am examination) gets her thinking it may be nearly time.

5. There are 3 pain stages to labour - initial contractions, then it changes when bub is entering the cervix proper, then the pushing at the end is different again. Knowing it will change and knowing what this signals would have been nice! Its a bit hard for the wife to ask many questions at this stage!

08.08.07
1:30am Pen turns herself around on the beanbag as she feels thins are getting close. I support and talk to her.

2:00am Bub's head is crowning! The midwife gets Pen to feel the top of it - her hand comes away red but she seems to have renewed energy. Suffice to say (skipping past the gory bits) that the pushing stage commences and bub comes out fast! Only three big pushes (with long pauses in between actually) and the midwife holds up our darling, letting Penny be first to check its sex - a liitle girl!

6. You will cry. Spontaneous tears appear when bub does.

2.45am Helena Rose is here, and resting on mum's chest, alert as anything, gazing around, and only crying when Pen is in pain for a few more pushes (getting out the placenta) - maybe empathy will be a personality trait for her. She's strong too - grabbed and brought out some of the placenta membrane with her.

4:30- Time passes as a blur now. Some of it is Pen cuddling bub, me cuddling bub, etc. We 7:00am finally put on one of Pen's 'birthing' mix cd's - a classical one and all fall asleep for 20 mins or so. 7:30 we're off to the ward - its breakfast time - remember eating? That essential life action? We'd forgotten all about even basics like this!

Day 2
09.08.07 Amidst some lovely hospital visits by family and friends, there is the feeding. Its hard! Bub and Mum are amateurs really. Some midwives take time to help out and teach Pen different ways it is done. But regardless, it gets painful. A book or something mentions protectors that can be worn to help out. Right, that sounds pretty good, why didn't anyone mention it before things got sore?

7. & 8. Nipple protectors and creme are essential! They're the best gift you could ever get your partner BEFORE entering hospital. Use them early (especially the creme) and much later cracking etc can be avoided. Not like us, I mean I only got the creme itself after seeing it on the chemist shelf myself while getting the protectors... And get good thin protectors (Avent is good).

9. This is the most amazing bonding time for you and your partner - made poignant by the father having to leave the hospital overnight (maybe we'll go private next time).

Day 4
12.08.07 Home! Better and a little scary at the same time. My first night with bub and I wake every 5 mins to check I can still hear her. Its obvious that bub has only a few phases; sleep, feed, dirty nappy, and cry. Helping her arrange these in the best order is our adventure of the first week.

10. With help from my Ma staying over, we've worked out that if you must do something to baby (change nappy, bath etc) do it BEFORE a feed. She'll naturally drop off to sleep after a feed, but not if you then have to disturb her again. This will save heaps of angst and crying and desperation.

Oh and here's a bonus #11: be prepared for life in slow motion... its not entirely unpleasant to just sit and hold baby and next thing an hour is gone.

ps. The midwives were really good at their job! Just not so at communicating.

long player by hollie smith

2007-08-09T17:08:00.001+12:00

i guess this review is a little late in coming (the album was released a few months ago), but after a long wait i finally picked up this cd at the warehouse last night (thanks to a free voucher i got from answering online questionnaires).

without wanting to provide free advertising for the warehouse (a nz discount retailer), can i just say their prices are amazing for new releases - it looks like nearly everything is NZ$22.95. when i used to work in the music department at the warehouse back in the day, the normal retail price was $29.95 - and even that was cheap compared to other stores that wanted anything up to $33.95. i think this type of price drop is absolutely crucial in this day and age of the digital download, and if the warehouse can do it then there must be a margin, which shows you what the usual mark-up on cds is. with this album costing $17.99 to download on itunes, why wouldn't you fork out the extra $5 and get the cd art and drm-free music?

so anyway, back to the album. hollie smith is hot property in the wellington nz music and has been for quite some time. she released an ep a couple of years ago which was excellent. meanwhile, she engaged in a number of collaborations, most notably fly my pretties. apparently she also had pretty good success with an album of celtic music when she was a teenager (a fact that she is no doubt trying to forget, but you can buy that album from the online shop of historic scotland). after 'long player' came out this year she was promptly signed to a division of blue note records.

'long player' is an incredibly mellow album (maybe a tad too mellow?) that beautifully showcases hollie smith's abilities without overstating them.we have a mixture of 10 cruisey jazz/soul/gospel/funk infused songs. i haven't listened closely enough yet to be able to tell you what she is on about in her songs but it is definitely something soulful. musically, the only disappointment for me was that there is very little dub influence on the album and i love it when hollie sings on dub tracks. but maybe the nz scene has enough dub now (not that i mind - the more dub the merrier).

the album art is also understated but very nice.

'long player' comes highly recommend - great laidback vibe from a supreme talent. get it!

the great nz road trip (highlights package)

2007-08-08T20:30:00.000+12:00

[picture: andrew (left) and dave getting rained on while walking on a jetty, taupo. picture by rob]

over the weekend i went on a road trip with my two brothers - rob and dave. i think this was the first time the three of us had been away together on a trip like this, so it promised to be an interesting social experiment. back in the day, when they were roadtripping as younger men i was only about 10 years old. 20 years later we set about planning to drive down to the central plateau of nz to see what we could see. and it turned into rather a good trip. here's the highlights package...

day one: south of rotorua we went to a place called orakei korako (aka hidden valley) - a geothermal area that is supposed to be pretty good. we shelled out our $28 per person (tourist prices) and went across a catchment lake (part of the waikato river) on a little ferryboat to the other side. then we looked at sulphuris formations and various subterranean bubblings. the highlight was a big open cave surrounded by native bush with a blue tinted thermal pool at the bottom.

stayed that night in taupo.

day two: we set out from taupo and headed to the famed horopito motors. weatherwise this was exactly the same type of day as when lance and i went there earlier in the year, except now it was winter - so it was about 9 degrees colder. horopito is always good. and afterwards we took quite a lot of photos in the surrounding landscape. from there we headed to ohakune.

in ohakune we got a brilliantly cheap lunch from the bakery and drove up mount ruapehu. at the top of the road, dave's 'snow warning' went off in his car. it was 1 degree outside and raining/sleeting. well you can't not get out and touch snow when you're up the mountain so we braved the stinging rain for a few minutes. back in the car we decided that the only sensible thing to do in weather like this is to go for a bush walk.

we went down the road a bit and found a nice track to some waterfalls (the waitonga falls to be exact). being in the bush was ok - wet but not windy - until the track crossed open tundra that looked like the marsh scene out of lord of the rings, but colder and without the faces and lights. we got lashed with more sleet and had to concentrate on not getting blown off the boardwalk. back in the bush we descended into a valley. the path ended far too far away from the actual waterfalls for these kiwi blokes, so we bush-crashed up the valley until we were standing right beneath the main waterfall. so now we were being thrashed by the waterfall as well as the rain - refer to mention of temperature earlier to appreciate comfort level - but it was exhilarating and literally breath-taking.

after 2 hours of being out in that charming weather we finally got back to the car and cranked up the heater, which did a surprisingly good job of keeping us warm in our 1 degree celsius rain/waterfall water-soaked trousers.

stayed that night in turangi after driving north up the desert road.

day three: we drove north to a road that travels up the west side of lake taupo. we stopped at an old jetty and took more photos (pictured above), getting more rain on us and spying a picturesque village across the water with a waterfall and church with a high steeple. we worked our way around the lake until we came to the sign to waihi village - the place we'd seen. anyway, further up the road was a big handpainted sign telling us to keep out. before the sign were a couple of great-looking little 1950s holiday cribs which i had to photograph for my safe little world stuff.

standing on the edge of the grass in front of the places, i had taken a couple of photos when i heard a vehicle behind me. anyway, to cut a long story short, it was lady telling me off for photographing private property - the locals clearly sensitive about outsiders in this area. i explained to her that i wasn't doing anything wrong. she told me i had to ask for permission to photograph the buildings. i said, "can i photograph the buildings?" she said, "yes" and drove off. the old killick charm clearly paid off.

then we went further north up the waikato river, taking in a couple of quite impressive dams until we came to arapuni and the enormous swing bridge that i had forgotten was there. we parked the car and walked across the bridge feeling like it was going to collapse at any moment and send us hurtling into the rapids over 50 metres below.

that night back to my parents' place in kaiaua, then back home the next day.

a classic trip accompanied by dave's rather eclectic ipod library (everything from audioslave to hot chocolate and portishead); and apart from one 'discussion' about politics, no arguments...

on the headphones: 'the underdog' by spoon, from the album 'ga ga ga ga ga'.

max

2007-08-08T20:11:00.000+12:00

max (directed by menno meyjes)

this is one of those movies with an appealing-sounding blurb that gets negative reviews. admittedly, the only reviews of the movie i'd read were from fellow users of mail-order dvd rental outfit fatso.co.nz. but the blurb won me over and so did the fact that it stars john cusack; i added it to my wait list and it turned up a couple of days ago in the post - no one else wanted it.

let me recap the synopsis that made me want to watch the film: a jewish german named max rothman (cusack) returns from the front having served for germany in WWI. he was an artist before the war but having lost an arm, he sets up an art dealership selling the latest avant-garde modernist art in munich.

against the backdrop of germany's defeat and the severe reparations imposed by the treaty of versailles, rothman comes across a young artist who has also just returned from the front: a corporal by the name of hitler - adolf hitler. rothman tries to encourage hitler to express his angst more fully in his paintings. hitler, however, is also dabbling in oratory and politics, and is caught between struggling to be an artist (an occupation that he genuinely believes he has a calling for) and his obvious abilities for convincing oratory... well, history tells us which direction he headed in.

but this film is fascinating. cusack reminded me why it is that i like his acting so much - he is brilliant in this role - he had me hooked on his character within the first few minutes. the guy playing hitler (noah taylor) was also very good.

i suppose that it helped that i have an interest in art and history, but i found the character studies of this film riveting - both rothman and hitler are tremendously complex characters. and the film ends with a heart-wrenching and ominous conclusion. it is understated, but knowing what happened in actual history makes the film reverberate with meaning.

so, my fellow fatso members, i defy you. this is a great movie.

watch it my friends (especially if you are into modernist art or history).

on the headphones: 'reprise' by hollie smith, from the album 'long player'.

Giuliani Leadership - First things first

2007-07-31T14:44:00.000+12:00

I first read Rudolph Giuliani's book on leadership a few years ago and since then it has been a book that I never tire of. Giuliani was a two time mayor of New York and was mayor during the September 11 terror attacks. The book will not be everyone’s cup of tea but if you have an interest in politics (and leadership) then I am sure you will find the book very interesting. While I do not agree with Giuliani on some political and moral issues, I have come to admire him tremendously as a leader. The book is jam packed with fantastic leadership principles and examples of how these principles worked in changing New York City. So for the next few days I will discuss a different chapter of the book.

#1 First things first

"Every morning at exactly eight o'clock, I make my mother very happy. Throughout my childhood, she would lecture me on the virtues of finishing my schoolwork before I went outside to play ... That's why I've begun every single morning since 1981 with a meeting of my top staff"

Giuliani goes on to explain throughout the chapter that as mayor of New York City the task could be completely overwhelming. So to ensure he dealt with the vital things first he met with his key leaders first thing every morning. This would give the opportunity for key issues to be dealt with in a timely manner. He credits this meeting as one of the keys to his success as mayor.

While this may be leadership 101, in rereading the book it has challenged me afresh. Often I find myself getting drawn to what appears to be urgent rather then what is truly important. The other challenge is to avoid tasks that while important are not exciting and instead rush to tasks that are exciting regardless of importance.

As a Christian leader (or even just as a follower of Christ) the first things first principle means that time with God needs to be the first part of your day. One of the things I have discovered is that you never know who you are going to encounter on any particular day. As a Pastor, people will ask you for advice and they are hoping for more then just your opinion – they are looking for Godly wisdom. If I am regularly connecting with God and putting him first, there is a much greater chance that I will be able to have an informed perspective on a situation rather then just regurgitating cliché answers.

The first things first principle is all about living life according to priorities and doing the right thing at the right time. Jesus constantly lived by this principle – His life was driven by his mission, not the agendas of other people. In Luke chapter 2, Jesus as a 12-year-old boy goes missing and when his parents eventually find him he is in the temple. When they question him about where he has been he replies, "Why were you searching for me? Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"

Later in John Chapter 4, prior to Jesus meeting the woman at the well, the Bible says that "Jesus had to go to Samaria". The interesting thing is that he was taking a journey to Galilee, which would not usually necessitate going through Samaria. The reason he had to go to Samaria was that he had to visit the woman at the well. His life was ordered by his mission not convenience, and he knew the principle of completing everything at its appointed time.

In John Chapter 11 Jesus finds out his friend Lazarus is sick, this seemed to be an urgent situation. It would appear that the first things first principle would dictate that you would go and visit your friend. However as Jesus knew what he was going to do, he knew that this was not the time to visit Lazarus. Instead he waited until Lazarus died and then visited. When Jesus arrives, Lazarus’s sisters say, "Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died". In other words, “If you had just put first things first then we would not be in this situation”. But Jesus was looking at a bigger picture than their agenda. Jesus wanted to raise Lazarus from the dead but to perform this great miracle he had to delay what other people deemed to be urgent. I am not suggesting we leave our friends to die! But the first things first principles does mean not being ruled by others’ opinions and agendas but always acting out of true priorities

A Tale of Two Kingdoms

2007-07-27T17:11:00.000+12:00

A Tale of Two Kingdoms is a point and click adventure game for PC computers. At one stage adventure games were one of the most popular genres for PC gaming however as computers got more wide spread the market for adventure games decreased and software companies began producing games aimed at a more mainstream market. After being snubbed by commercial companies many adventure game fans have started up their own projects either remaking old games with enhanced graphics or as in the case of Crystal Shards (the makers of ATOTK) releasing their own original adventure games. While most fan team start with great intentions and ambition they never end up completing their projects as it takes literally thousands of hours of work to make an adventure game. That is why it is so nice to see a project that has been followed through to completion.

I downloaded ATOTK (for free!) on Sunday night and was instantly impressed at the level of detail put into the game. It is amazing that people would put so much effort into making something simply for the enjoyment of others and for no monetary gain.

Graphics 7.5/10
The Graphics in ATOTK are fantastic! So much detail has been put into the background art and it is quite amazing how many extra animations they added into the project. They have settled for the classic adventure graphic style, which is VGA and is a retro 1995 feel to the graphics. While they may not be cutting edge technology they are still very easy on the eye and a great example of VGA background and sprites

Story 7/10
All adventure games need a solid story and ATOTK does not disappoint. The game is set in a fantasy land called Theylinn and you play the part of a mercenary solider who has come from another land to help save the kingdom from a goblin invasion. However things don't turn out quite as intended as the king is murdered and you are framed for the murder. One thing that makes many adventure games unplayable for Christians is occultic references and participation in dark magic. While ATOTK does have some magic it is played out like a fairytale and is far more tame then something like Lord of the Rings. So unlike many games that I either pass over or begin to play and then have to stop due to questionable material it was great to find a game that I was able to play and enjoy.

Gameplay 6.5/10
ATOTK has the classic adventure interface and it seems to work very well. The only negatives is that it opened up too much of the game at once rather then revealing piece by piece as the story progressed. It also had far to much dialogue, it can be frustrating for a player to read through so many different replies to questions. On the positive side it has several side quests and also some alternate endings which do add value to the production

Overall 7/10
Overall ATOTK is a good quality adventure game. It is amazing to find a full game that is completely free and so should be downloaded by anyone with an interest in storybased gaming.

Anyone who is interested in the project should check out www.taleoftwokingdoms.com

And for all those who didn't know I was a computer nerd .... now you do!!!