and you know it’s all getting a bit much
when auckland-in-the-rain just looks like
…auckland.
auckland-in-the-rain
once the old bastards die…
an interesting thing happened while we were watching the finals of the rugby world cup on marsden wharf earlier this year. this was the third wharf set up with large screens, but there was still a massive crowd, and this about an hour before the game started. we thought we were lucky to get to the front…till we realised that the crowd was mostly drunk teens whooping it up, in the mistaken notion that we were remotely interested in how they had painted their chests to look like the all blacks jerseys. i tried a few times to get them to sit bloody down, and was beginning to lose my patience. then the anthems (of france and aotearoa nz) came on.
now my experience of hearing the national anthem sung in public is that you can hardly hear people sing the māori part of the anthem, while the english bit is bellowed out, usually loud enough to raise the dead. i was very touched, and rather surprised, to hear no audible difference in the volume of the crowd’s singing the english and māori parts! the kids obviously knew the entire anthem well, and were glad to sing it out loud!
the point? as i watch the battle auckland council and businesses wage against street art, i sometimes despair. there is a marked preference for fascist gray over the swirls and swoops of the muticolour pacific. then i remember the rugby finals and the kids singing, and realise that change WILL come. change will come as long as a) the kids learn a better way, and b) we old bastards die.
yay.
ta’fxkz+auckland playback theatre
auckland playback theatre acting out the story of how arul and i gatecrashed a wedding the first (second?) time we met in person.
a few weeks ago, arul died.
i refuse to mourn. i miss him, and there is much i wish we could have talked about, and maybe i could have been less ‘tough’ with him…but i refuse to mourn a hardcase who left a flash job at microsoft to write songs in trichy, who habitually pointed out that none of the emperors had any clothes on, who died doing what he bloody *believed, not what he was told to do.
wherever you are, my brother, i know you are making them *squirm. you’ll need to, you are always ta’fxkz.
pottle broke?
dee and i went for some pottery classes recently, and these are my results. the ones i like, anyway. awesome experience, and something i am considering continuing. there is something primal about the whole thing that i find very attractive. i love that most pottery is functional, that it takes hard(ish) physical work, that it takes years to master, that it uses fire to turn earth into stone, that the studio is in onehunga…
the website of the auckland studio potters society
onehunga library cosplay/perspective
2010
2011
some days work is a chore to get through. it *can get tiring to be constantly nice to people, specially when so many of those people seem to think it is somehow your privilege to be nice to them and clean up after them and answer a million questions because they can’t be arsed reading the goddamn manual. then there is comic month and cosplay, and things aren’t as bad any more. staff who are on their weekend come in *in costume, and things are turning positively mushy. a *whole bunch of people (many from auckland university cosplay club) turn up for the event and hey… it is *awesome to work at onehunga library again! perspective, huh?
here’s the album on the onehunga library facebook page, and the only video it occurred to us to take. is gonna get SO much better next year!
no smell of ash
the wind whispers
and there is no smell of ash
or the creaking sounds
of a world turning to rust
the wind howls
and there is no smell of ash
or the creaking sounds
of a world turning to rust
and in the end
everything changes
and everything
remains the same
while away,
travelling is nice. while away, i learned that
- kissing is prohibited on kuala lumpur trains.
- maharashtrians sometimes burn tobacco and use it to clean their teeth.
- in telugu, the the honorofic ‘garu‘ can be used for both men and women.
- water is boiled with cardamom in kerala, giving the water a subtle flavour like green tea.
- in bengaluru/bangalore, rum is sometimes sold in tetra-packs.
most importantly, though,
- in a pinch, you can use shampoo to wash a tee shirt.
…
photo copyleft nick wheeler
taking a bit of a break. in the meantime, you might
read the sly company of people who care, go the fuck to sleep, yellow face or kenji;
listen to b-side beats, found sounds, or ta’fxkz;
watch theo jansen or two cars, one night;
see you in six(ish) weeks!
breathe
breathe in
breathe out
breathe in
breathe out
breathe
in
breathe
out
breathe
in
breathe
out
breathe
