Schroedinger's Tabby

New Year Resolutions

2012-01-24T10:44:00.000+13:00

Get more exercise. Lose weight. That's what the vet told the Tabby yesterday. So he is now on the 'Catkins diet' (high protein, low carb.)

"You do know that Atkins died young, don't you?" says Schroedinger to the vet. But the vet lectured us about the danger of diabetes and so we agreed to try the neutered male, stay-at-home variety of the expensive cat biscuit.

Meanwhile the Tabby was exploring the consult room, found a box of doggy treats, fished one out and ate it.

Of course he has put on weight over the holiday period. He ate the Xmas tree.

The Year of the Dragon

2012-01-23T20:59:00.000+13:00

Happy Chinese New Year!

Yes, I am still here, I just worked through Christmas and then took a trip and then came home and I'm still working.

But it's all good. What a year the Dragon has for me. Hang on tight, we're taking off!!

Peace and Lovejoy

2012-01-04T11:08:00.002+13:00

Happy New Year!

2011 finished for me with a delightful flourish - the unexpected survival of Comet Lovejoy after passing through its proximity to the sun. In our Southern Christmas skies those who rose early for those few festive days were treated to a gorgeous yuletide display of the fading comet with an incredibly long tail flaring high above the horizon. Glorious.

Here's to more unexpected survivals for 2012. Hope you have a good one.

Xmas Card

2011-12-24T16:59:00.000+13:00

Season's Greetings

2011-12-21T23:09:00.000+13:00

This is the dear departed beloved Old Tabby who lived to the venerable age of 20.

We wouldn't risk trying to get New Tabby to dress up like this!

Wishing you a happy holiday

and peace and joy for the New Year.

Cultural Exchange

2011-12-21T23:02:00.002+13:00

Wrapped monument resembling a Presbyterian stupa

The Exchange, Dunedin

They voted with their feet

2011-12-21T22:51:00.002+13:00

New Zealand held a general election and the turnout was the worst ever, the worst since the Victorian era. Why are people disenfranchising themselves? For an increasing number of New Zealanders, their 'bright future' is in Australia. Abandon ship!

Cat Science

2011-12-14T16:37:00.000+13:00

It is a scientific fact that a cat will always be on the wrong side of the door.

There is a story that the brilliant scientist Sir Isaac Newton invented the cat door, because his cat was for ever pushing open the door of his attic laboratory at just the right time to spoil his light experiments.

If the door was locked the cat would howl and scratch to be let in and Newton being a cat lover, cut a strip off the bottom of the door and attached some dark fabric so that the cat could sneak in under it without contaminating the experiment.

100% KIWI REAL-LIFE STORIES

2011-12-13T23:55:00.002+13:00

There's a very good feature in this week's NZ Woman's Weekly giving the background to the new book about Janet Frame.

No really, it is an excellent article and not out of place given that Janet Frame is a loved NZ icon, and that this new book is very readable and enjoyable.

Here's to the demotic forum!

My only regret is that the Tabby sloped off and missed out on the photo shoot.

Postscript: A link to the article online.

Total Eclipse of the Moon

2011-12-11T16:04:00.001+13:00

Lunar eclipse 11.12.11

Image from stuff.co.nz

I managed to watch about 20 minutes of a beautiful progressing total lunar eclipse early this morning until heavy cloud obliterated the view just before the shadow had almost entirely obscured the moon at about 3 am NZ time. It looked to me like a most exquisite pearl button - with delicate indescribable shifting colours - with a shiny edge glinting in the light, and the 3D effect was breathtaking. I was watching through binoculars although the spectacle was also very pretty with the naked eye.

My mother was a fan of cosmic phenomena, and she infected me with her passion throughout my long childhood of being dragged outside during the wee small hours to see the first Sputnik or a lunar eclipse or a pretty conjunction of heavenly bodies, and in her enthusiasm and by example, she managed to teach me a few things about chasing these elusive wonders:

(1) It's not easy but it's worth it

If you want to see astonishing magical things in the night-time sky you have to to sacrifice a bit - and get up when you'd rather be asleep in a warm bed, and stand out in the cold, and get tired, and get a cricked neck watching and waiting.

(2) You need to persevere

You need patience and stamina, maybe to wait for the clouds to clear or for the moon to rise up behind that hill or for that comet to become visible or before you catch sight of the blinking trail of that satellite. So often it is when almost everyone else has given up and gone off to bed that the floor show begins.

(3) You need luck but you also need to do your research

It helps to be looking in the right part of the sky and from the correct spot on the earth and at the right time of the night and without any obstacles such as bright city lights, your own porch light, the roof next door, a fog bank, or an inconvenient mountain range.

The internet is very helpful these days, and theoretically one is more likely to be able to hear about and see an aurora, for instance. (And if you don't catch it yourself at least you can see somebody else's photo!)

(4) Sometimes the 'experts' are wrong

This precept was very useful when Halley's Comet came by in 1986 and the general public were told when to watch for it. I was so excited and couldn't wait and went out looking every night much earlier and was rewarded with a much better view of it than many others who waited for the official optimum viewing, by which time it had become more fuzzy and less spectacular, and the judgement of many was that their whole effort and build-up had been a disappointment to them.

Also it pays not to believe it when you are told a meteor shower will not be particularly productive, or that the night is too cloudy to see it, because clouds have a habit of suddenly parting and allowing the sight of some dazzling spectacle you will never forget.

(5) Keep Alert and Pay Attention

You need to keep your eyes open. A cloud can drift away and reveal a blood-red fully eclipsed moon in all its glory, or a meteorite or a fireball can whizz by in a blink of an eye and the saddest thing you can hear in that situation is "Did you see THAT!?!" If you're going to stand outside in the cold you may as well make sure you're not wasting your time.

Be prepared to be thought mad and obsessed along with all the other driven people who have a goal and don't mind stepping outside conventional boundaries of behaviour to achieve it.

It will be worth it for the image you can hold in your mind for ever afterwards, and the knowledge that you made the effort, and you saw something rare and special for yourself, maybe in your own back yard.

A Marvellous Year

2011-12-09T16:19:00.001+13:00

The giant stuffed toy Moa in the Otago Museum, Dunedin

Allen Curnow, numero uno NZ poet (in my opinion), would have turned one hundred years old this year.

This is my centenary tribute, a joking allusion to his much-cited poem "The Skeleton of the Great Moa in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch", which contains the two lines that have inspired many a subsequent generation of literary wannabes:

"Not I, some child born in a marvellous year, / will learn the trick of standing upright here."

So, has it happened yet? Is anybody standing upright yet? Or are we still evolving? Or are we going backwards?

I'm pretty grumpy with Aotearoa New Zealand right now so I'm more inclined to the 'going backwards' point of view...

Anyways Happy Centenary to a great poet, thanks for the words well spoken.

The latest Landfall has some fascinating and informative poems, reminiscences, discussions and other gestures in honour of Allen Curnow, including an amazing tribute poem by Janet Frame (published there for the first time ever), that she wrote after attending an Auckland literary party while she was the first Frank Sargeson Fellow in 1987. She was busy writing her last novel The Carpathians, but took time off to hang out with old chums, and managed to weave a poem out of a seemingly trivial piece of small-talk.

Reaching new heights

2011-12-08T23:10:00.001+13:00

The agency cat seems to try to outdo himself in adorableness and this stunt - getting stuck up a cabbage tree - pretty much takes the cake.

Nature abhors a vacuum

2011-12-07T17:38:00.001+13:00

And this cat cannot resist an empty space.

Tuesday Poem: Ozymandias

2011-12-06T10:04:00.001+13:00

The new Dunedin stadium

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Percy Bysshe Shelly

What I learnt from my cat

2011-12-05T18:29:00.001+13:00

Focus. Extend yourself. Stand on your own two feet. Dance.

Schroedinger's Oven

2011-12-01T11:09:00.001+13:00

Schroedinger's Tabby is one of those cats who cannot resist investigating a small space. Any box or even bag offers an invitation he can't turn down. He's an explorer. A scientist, even. Occasionally his explorations seem a little risky - and these two photos show you what I mean.

No cats were harmed in the taking of these photos, and it was all his idea. Frankly we're shocked.

By Birdlight

2011-11-25T10:49:00.001+13:00

Attended a marvellous book launch the other night at Dunedin Public Library. It was the kind of literary gathering Dunedin does so well - very crowded, friendly, noisy and full of news and gossip and catching up with friends, colleagues and acquaintances over snacks and drinks. Also a great way to meet people as everyone's individual networks intersect in interesting new ways. Kind of like Facebook - but in person!

The book was Sue Wootton's new poetry volume BY BIRDLIGHT and it was good to see publisher Roger Steele of Steele Roberts on one of his welcome visits to Dunedin, doing the honours.

Celebrated NZ poet Brian Turner gave an excellent launch speech and Sue Wootton also spoke well - I'm hoping that both Brian's and Sue's speech notes will find their way to the publisher's web site because even their prose seemed to be full of insight and poetry and I really felt that I hadn't heard such interesting poetry launch speeches ever before...

There's so much to know, about the cover image, about why the title is "By Birdlight", and Sue and Brian relished their subject matter and read beautifully, of course.

I'm a fan of Sue's poetry and it's a delight to have another book of hers to savour. One of the standouts of my early browsing through the poems is 'Orchard' - a tender and glistening memorial to the tragically killed young poet Rhys Brookbanks who was part of our Dunedin poetry community before he went to Christchurch to work at Canterbury TV.

There's a scintillating poem about Kandinsky's synesthesia, that I was much impressed by when I first heard Sue read it (at one of the Circadian Rhythm poetry evenings), including lines like:

the impossibility of settling on one colour for the wind -

Roger also spoke to the crowd and pointed out just how many well-known NZ writers were in the audience to celebrate Sue's launch. Just to name a few, apart from Brian Turner of course, we had Emma Neale glowing from her recent win of the Kathleen Grattan Poetry Prize for her manuscript 'The Truth Garden'; novelist Laurence Fearnley, winner of the 2011 NZ Post Fiction Award for the best NZ novel of 2010, The Hut Builder; legendary poet Peter Olds who has just published Skew-Whiff a terrific fine illustrated edition of his poetry with Otakou Pess; Paul Sorrell whose most recent book is getting much deserved attention and admiration - a guide to the Central Otago 'rail trail'; author Penelope Todd who has launched out into a much needed and audacious online publishing venture; poet Rhian Gallagher who has just published a new volume Shift with AUP; author Paddy Richardson; distinguished literary elder Vincent O'Sullivan was also there, along with too many more poets and writers and academic authors to name - there was such a crowd I didn't even get to see everyone who was there.

(Some of my writer friends, I was reminded, are fans of the gorgeous Tabbyssinian Agency Cat, and politely asked after him, which is why I have recently posted some new portraits of him ;)

Brian Turner (left) listens while Sue Wootton addresses the guests at her book launch

November 2011

In the green room

2011-11-24T21:23:00.001+13:00

By special request, some photos of the agency cat

2011-11-23T23:31:00.001+13:00

D'oh! Where's the remote??

Guardian of the upstairs and almost looking like a normal grownup cat.

Stripes are so slimming.

Tuesday Poem: WH Auden

2011-11-22T11:15:00.001+13:00

Epitaph on a Tyrant

by W. H. Auden

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,

And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,

And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

More Tuesday poems at the Tuesday Poem Blog

The TEAGATE tape: what doesn't John Key want you to know?

2011-11-21T14:21:00.002+13:00

The New Zealand general election happens later this week. This year there's a clear choice between a selfish right wing National-led Government with a prime minister whose secret comments are so objectionable he uses "his" police force to try to keep the public from hearing them; and a return to a Labour-led government in cooperation with the Greens and the Mana party and anyone else to whom asset sales are anathema (looks like that means Winnie the Comeback King).

My own hope is that this time next week we will have an MMP government that is willing and able to put the needs of all the people before the greeds of a privileged few.

WHEN YOU ARE IN A HOLE YOU DON'T SELL YOUR LADDER: ~ Phil Goff

The most recent Horizon Poll (which is the only reliable major political poll currently being taken in that it takes into account undecided voters and uses a representative sample) shows that the two opposing camps are neck and neck and that when the minor parties are taken into account, the results may well be too close to call.

But the rabidly right wing media continue to crow over bogus poll results, comparing popularity counts for the major parties as if MMP didn't exist, and discounting potential coalitions.

They know well that neither a left-led nor a right-led government is a dead cert, and yet they continue to try to deceive the public into believing that a National win is a foregone conclusion. They try to shore up this impression by continually trying to turn the whole election into a popularity contest between the figureheads of the major parties, and by evading or ridiculing rigorous discussion on the actual idealogical issues.

Another way that the mainstream media in NZ show their usual Tory bias is in that they don't call TEAGATE by its proper name: TEAGATE. They spin it as "a storm in a teacup", and "the tea party tapes", - and these are the same journos who leaped on the most spurious hiccups in Helen Clark's career and trumpeted them as whatever-gate.

One telling comparison is the recent event where John Key joked and chattered through a solemn minute's silence. He didn't know about it, he later claimed, and the patsy media have let him get away with it.

Compare that to their response to Helen Clark when her chauffeur was caught out speeding. Helen Clark was in the back of the car working on papers yet the whole affair was deemed "speed-gate" by the media - as if Clark was responsible personally - and they still go on about it, years later, whenever they feel their precious right wing regime is slipping in popularity.

But, flunkies that they are, they mildly accepted that Mr Key could so misread the public occasion he was appearing at, that he didn't notice the silence and the grief and the bowed heads of the crowd. That's OK then.... Prince John can do no wrong in their eyes.

Let's hope the voters are as sick of their hypocrisy and his cynicism as I am.

Superlatives may apply

2011-11-19T12:09:00.004+13:00

'Perfect', 'essential', 'treasure trove', 'rich storehouse', 'indispensable'.

A major new release of the uncollected and unseen writings and speech of Janet Frame.

Interviews, essays, reviews, satires, letters to the editor, speeches, reports, eulogies.

Required reading for anyone interested in New Zealand history and biography.

Also in writing. In feminism. In 20th century literature.

From Penguin NZ November 2011

Dunedin Celebrates Scottish Heritage

2011-11-18T11:35:00.115+13:00

OTAGO SCOTTISH HERITAGE COUNCIL

PRESENTS THE
2011 SCOTTISH FESTIVAL

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

Saturday 19 November
1.00pm.

Follow the skirl of the bagpipes for the Grand Opening of The Scottish Festival at the Dunedin City Library. The lassies vying for the Queen O’ The Heather will be introduced. This will be followed by short talks commemorating the 120th anniversary of the Dunedin Burns Club. The opening of the Robert Burns Poetry Competition also begins. Plus, at 2.30pm, join us in the Octagon where Professor Tom Devine, from the University of Edinburgh, will unveil a plaque on the Robert Burns statue – describing the Burns statue in Dunedin.

Saturday 19 November

The 2011 ROBERT BURNS POETRY COMPETITION.

Write a poem in English or Scots, inspired by the life or works of Robert Burns. Entries close on 10 January 2012. Competition organised by the Dunedin Burns Club. Free entry. Forms available from your local library or www.dunedinlibraries.govt.nz

Saturday 19 November
4pm

The "Death" and Reinvention of Scotland. Join Scotland’s leading historian, Professor Tom Devine, at the Otago Settlers Museum. Professor Devine will discuss the historical fears surrounding the ‘death’ of the ancient identity of Scotland and the ‘invention’ of Scottishness in tartanry, song, story and myth. Free entry. Advanced booking required by Ph 474 2728 or email osmmail@dcc.govt.nz

Saturday 19 November
8pm

Social ballroom dancing with the Dunedin Scottish Society. Fairfield Community Hall, Fairplay St Fairfield. $5.00 entry fee to pay at door. Plus bring a plate. Ph 476 4423

Monday 21 November
12noon to 12.30pm.

Piper in the Octagon presented by the Dunedin City Council to celebrate the Scottish Festival.

Monday 21 November

In Search of Scotland.

By using wonderful 19th century images from John Parker Lawson’s Scotland Delineated (1858), those visiting the exhibition will be able to travel Scotland in their mind’s eye. Beside each image are books from Special Collections that highlight Scotland’s cultural, social and economic past. Call in and view the exhibition which runs through to 16 December. De Beer Gallery, 1st floor, Central University Library, 65 Albany St, Dunedin. Opening hours Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5.00pm. Ph 479 8330. Email donald.kerr@otago.ac.nz

Monday 21 November
5.30pm.

The Lowland Clearances and the Scottish Exodus to New Zealand. Long lost in Scottish history – the story of the lowland exodus is brought to light. Join Scotland’s leading historian, Professor Thomas Devine, OBE (University of Edinburgh), as he reveals the true scale of the ‘Silent Clearances’, and their significance for Scottish emigration to New Zealand in the nineteenth century. This will be followed by a book signing plus wine and cheese reception with the Deputy British High Commissioner. Free entry courtesy of the Dunedin Public Library. Venue at the Dunedin Library. Advance bookings required. Email library@dcc.govt.nz or Ph 474 3690. Professor Devine’s participation in the Scottish Festival is brought to Dunedin by the Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, the Otago Scottish Heritage Council, the Dunedin Burns Club, the Dunedin-Edinburgh Sister City Society and the University of Edinburgh.

Tuesday 22 November
2.30pm.

Unveiling of the Sylvia Stewart Sculpture. Join the Dunedin-Edinburgh Sister City Society for this special unveiling. A stone taken from the Leith to Edinburgh and sculpted there by Sylvia Stewart is now located at the Edinburgh waterfront. A reciprocal structure is made from Edinburgh rock and is being unveiled on the Leith side of the Stadium in Dunedin by Professor Tom Devine. For the exact location follow the sound of the pipes.

Tuesday 22 November
6.30pm.

The Puzzle of Scottish Sectarianism. Free event at St Paul’s Cathedral. Talk by Professor Tom Devine why Scotland is unique in 2011 in having an anti-sectarian strategy and laws thought necessary by the Scottish Government.

Tuesday 22 November
7.30pm.

Ceilidh (musical evening) at Robbies Bar and Bistro, McAndrew Rd. Come along and enjoy a great night of celebration and entertainment. The contestants for the Queen O’ The Heather will be there. Free entry provided by the Otago Scottish Heritage Council.

Wednesday 23 November

Highland Bus Trip. Leaving at 9.30am. Sightseeing with entertainment (small pipes). Organised by the Campbell Clan. For details Ph 473 9921.

Thursday 24 November
10.30am and 5.30pm.

What Lies Beneath: NHNZ Film Screening: In Search of Good Keen Whalers. See one of the best preserved whaling stations from the 1830s whaling booms plus a picture of the harsh life endured in one of our first truly integrated communities. Free screening in the Teen Space, City Library.

Sunday 27 November
12 noon – 4.30pm.

Come to the Scottish Highland Games for a great family day out. Pipe Bands, Highland Dancing and Marching. Fun events that everyone can join in – Tossing The Sheaf, Caber Tossing, Deadweight Carry plus Carrying the Stones. Events for Children with Gumboot Throwing, Egg and Spoon Races and plenty more. No event entry fee. Prizes in all events. Compete for trophies and cash prizes in the Scottish Shop/Caledonian Society Handicap Mile Race. Also the Crowning of The Queen O’ The Heather will take place at the games. Gate fee $10.00. Children under 14 free. Caledonian Ground, Logan Park. www.otagocaledonian.org.nz This event is organised by The Caledonian Society. allens10@clear.net.nz Ph 4544863 or 4558839.

Sunday 27 November
7pm.

Old Time Sequence Dancing. Taieri Scottish Dance Club. $2.00 entry fee. Methodist Hall, Wickliffe St, Mosgiel.

Monday 28 November

At 7.30pm Scottish Country Dancing provided by the Burns Scottish Country Dance Club. Entry by gold coin donation. Soft shoes required. Dunedin South Presbyterian Church in Chalmers Hall (back hall) King Edward St. Ph 4890453.

Tuesday 29 November
2pm.

Life and Folkways of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Come and meet acclaimed Canadian writer Alistair MacLeod as he reads his stories. Barclay Theatre, Otago Museum. Ph 479 4936

Wednesday 30 November
St Andrews Day.

St Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland and St Andrews Day is celebrated by Scots all around the world. Always a great get-together at Robbies Bar and Bistro, MacAndrew Rd. Lunch at 12 noon. Price is $12.00 for lunch and entry by ticket only. Tickets at the Scottish Shop and Robbies. Hosted by the Taieri Scottish Society.

Wednesday 30 November
5.15pm.

Holding Fast: From Scotland to the New World, 1791-2011. Dr Alistair MacLeod discusses the history and culture of Scottish settlement in Nova Scotia. This public lecture will be held in the Archway 1 Lecture Theatre, University of Otago. Ph 479 4936.

For any enquiries phone the Secretary, Susan McLean, 489-3565 or email willowburn@clear.net.nz

The O.S.H.C. thank the following sponsors for their generous contributions to The Scottish Festival.

Dunedin City Council

The Greenhouse Florist

The Scottish Shop

McRobies Robbies Bar and Bistro

See the above programme on a pdf downloadable from the following website:

http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/events/exhibitions/scottish-festival

[Sorry the timetable has formatted so bizarrely in its interaction with Blogger. I tried to tidy it up but life is too short! It annoys me that thoughtless web designers insist on providing important info like this programme ONLY on pdf as many of us browse on smart phones these days and can't access pdfs that way. - PC]

Pepero Day on Steroids

2011-11-14T12:46:00.002+13:00

Every year in South Korea on the 11th of November, it's Pepero day. Pepero being a chocolate-covered pretzel manufactured by Lotte. 11/11. Get it? Looks like pretzels! Of course this unique version of Valentine's Day was invented for commercial purposes but it has stuck. And it's huge, especially among the young people. When I was teaching in South Korea my students exchanged gift boxes, and teachers and professors were also included in the affectionate outpouring of choco sticks!

So I find it easy to remember Pepero Day every year even back here in New Zealand. And now that there is a larger Korean population here, with a rise in Korean grocery stores, one is easily able to find a box of Pepero sticks should one so desire.

This is the sweet choco biscuit face of gangster capitalism.

Well of course just a few days ago Pepero Day was an even bigger deal than usual: 11/11/11.

Fingers say: 11.11.11

11.11.11

2011-11-11T23:15:00.003+13:00

11.11.11

11 seconds after 11 minutes past 11am

Wake me when the rugby is over

2011-10-30T13:36:00.001+13:00

Oh, it's over already?

Then wake me when they stop talking about it...

It never rains but it paws

2011-10-26T17:44:00.001+13:00

New Tabby really hates the rain and we have had some torrential downpaws lately. So he has shown keen interest in the umbrella.

Stepping out...

Tuesday Poem: Spring in Dunedin

2011-10-25T11:29:00.003+13:00

Chairman Miaou exhorts a thousand Tuesday Poets to blossom

Spring in Dunedin

is like a message from the central authorities
that there is more to life
than woollen socks and substance abuse

is an enthusiastic lover
who wakes early to examine the face of
a sleeping partner

is just
the slow delicious thaw
of an expected frost

by Pamela Gordon

(from Under Flagstaff: An Anthology of Dunedin Poetry University of Otago Press 2004)

More Tuesday poems can be found at: the Tuesday Poem Blog. The Tuesday poem posted on that blog today is by one of the very best New Zealand poets of all time, Kendrick Smithyman.

A scribbler such as myself could be overwhelmed by a great poet like Smithyman's talent and significance, and be cowed into silence, but I am heartened by the popular phrase "Let a thousand flowers bloom", an affirmation evolved from Chairman Mao's injunction to "Let a hundred flowers blossom". Only a hundred? Make that thousands of Tuesday poets!

S-t-r-e-t-c-h

2011-10-23T16:46:00.000+13:00

NZ's shipping 'deregulation' leads to environmental disaster

2011-10-15T14:28:00.016+13:00

Right-wing ideology 1 - Birds 0

This is the famous bar-tailed godwit named E7 who has had books written about her. With transmitter attached she made the epic series of flights from New Zealand to Alaska and back that are the routine for this species of migratory bird.

Tracked by satellite, E7 made the longest recorded nonstop flight by a 'land bird'. Altogether she made a 29,000 km series of flights on her trip to her breeding grounds and back.

She has retired these days and is living in an estuary on the Bay of Plenty coast line.

Or she was, until last week. I haven't heard yet, whether anyone knows if she is one of the countless thousands of birds that have been killed by the horrific oil spill from the stranded container ship the Rena.

E7 is well known and has her tag on so the local bird experts will be keeping a look out for her. I almost don't want to know.

I can't imagine anyone reading the species statistics of the birds found dead so far without tears coming into their eyes.

This below was an early list of the dead birds that had been found and identified. It's only the tip of the iceberg of course.

At that stage there was only one bar-tailed godwit. I saw the dead albatross on the news and wept then as I weep now.

Mallard/hybrid duck 2

Little penguin 20

Antipodean wandering albatross 1

White-capped mollymawk 1

Northern giant petrel 2

Cape petrel 4

Grey-faced petrel 1

Mottled petrel 1

Antarctic prion 3

Fairy prion 12

Blue petrel 13

Buller’s shearwater 92

Flesh-footed shearwater 3

Sooty shearwater 13

Fluttering shearwater 198

Little shearwater 15

Common diving petrel 358

White-faced storm petrel 38

Australasian gannet 7

Pied shag 4

Little black shag 1

Spotted shag 2

Pukeko 1

Bar-tailed godwit 1

Variable oystercatcher 1

Rock pigeon 3

Tui 1

Australian magpie 1

Blackbird 1

Starling 2

And let us be clear. This was no 'accident'. This was an accident waiting to happen, and the 'blame' is not on one person. It can be sheeted home to New Zealand's right wing neo-liberal economic policy 'experiment' that puts corporate profits ahead of safety.

Further reading: The Standard on 'Key's Katrina'.

The Cat's Pyjamas

2011-10-11T22:21:00.000+13:00

"I have never met a cat I didn't like"

but even for a feline worshipper this one seems particularly adorable,

with his fluffy pantaloons.

Tuesday Poet - WB Yeats

2011-10-11T10:01:00.002+13:00

Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.

Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.

Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked— and where are they?

Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery....

WB Yeats, from Nineteen hundred and nineteen

See More Tuesday Poems on Tuesday Poem Blog.

Do the right thing

2011-10-10T17:05:00.001+13:00

"Do the right thing.

It will gratify some people

and astonish the rest"

~ Mark Twain

Hegemony

2011-10-10T16:24:00.000+13:00

To be honest I can't remember whose blog I lifted this off.

(Probably TUMEKE)

But it's pretty relevant lately.

It took several weeks in New Zealand for the mainstream media to report Occupy Wall Street.

And there seems to be a lockdown here on any criticism of our money trader Prime Minister John Key.

Any slipping of his bland smiling mask (as with the throat slashing gesture Key made in Parliament last week to Phil Goff) and the evidence is removed from online archives and doesn't appear in news bulletins.

It's an information stranglehold.

Free Speech is OK as long as you agree with the Big Boys.

Hypocrisy. Is. Everywhere. Not just in Wellington. But especially. In.

WELLINGTON!

Social climber

2011-10-09T12:44:00.000+13:00

New Tabby likes to position himself in the highest place in the room. This time he found he had competition for the role of Top Cat. Golden Pussy had a scarily fixed stare and just would not blink or back down...

Urban garden

2011-10-09T12:29:00.000+13:00

For an urban garden the wildlife is not too bad here in the rambling two story mansion. We are on a hill overlooking the harbour and so the view of the city, sea and hills is amazing. It's only five minutes' drive to the centre of the city. And there are pockets of bush on our section and nearby. So we have resident tui, flaneuring flocks of wax-eyes, and even have been visited on occasion by a couple of fat 'wood pigeon' kereru.

We make sure to attach bells to the Tabbyssinian when he goes outside and so far (cross fingers) he hasn't brought back a native bird at all. In fact he seems to prefer chasing insects and catching lizards, and almost always brings the reptiles back in a rescuable form. He stalks the common skink (not the rare jewelled gecko, thank goodness!) - and at first it was only the tail he was left with, but he soon cottoned on to that trick and started presenting us with the skink minus tail. Then he wised up to the detachable tail thing and has lately been returning with the animal whole. I hope they survive when we take them back outside. It's not easy sometimes, living with a predator, but we do our best to minimise the slaughter. And I understand he's just trying to contribute to our household stores. For himself, he prefers cat biscuits to anything that creeps or crawls or flies.

Mystical contemplation of a tiny bug.

Note the bright spangly pink collar (it has two bells).

Schroedinger's box experiment fail

2011-10-06T22:52:00.000+13:00

Sweet dreams

2011-09-30T00:06:00.000+13:00

Night Vision

2011-09-27T22:10:00.004+13:00

Dark Night: Walking with McCahon

by Martin Edmond

(Auckland University Press 2011)

Another marvellous book from the amazingly prolific Martin Edmond, who seems to have been "in the zone" for years on end, producing book after book after excellent book.

And here's the latest title, which garnered a rave review in The NZ Listener from Justin Paton, who as art curator and critic knows what he is talking about. Says Paton, "it's always a relief to encounter a new book by Martin Edmond." I know exactly how he feels, and I share the difficulty in not knowing how to shelve Edmond's books. They are a mix of non-fictional, poetic and fictional treatments of biography, art criticism, history, autobiography, fantasy and travelogue.

The current one - on the great NZ painter Colin McCahon's fugue in the Sydney Botanical Gardens - is gentle, full of quiet moments and contemplation, easy walks, clear signposts, and when the dark falls and things are decidedly hairy, we are led on a careful walk through the darkness. It's as if we have night goggles on. Edmond makes a genial self-effacing guide through impossible lost territory. He shows us things that never happened - but he doesn't play tricks on us, or tell barefaced lies - and it's his honesty and his own imaginative wanderings and wonderings that make us feel we understand a little more as we make the Way of the Cross through seedy Sydney.

Rugby vs Rugby

2011-09-27T16:09:00.001+13:00

New Tabby stalks the All Black teddy

You could be excused at the moment, and frankly, much of the rest of the time, for thinking that there is nothing in New Zealand as important as Rugby Union.

But that's not true. There's Rugby League too.

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/warriors-grand-final-banned-fan-zone-4419129

A hot time in the old town tonight

2011-09-23T00:27:00.002+12:00

Hello there! What I'm reading is an incredibly fascinating and well-designed new book about one of my favourite subjects:

VOLCANOES OF AUCKLAND: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE by Bruce W Hayward, Graeme Murdoch and Gordon Maitland (Auckland University Press 2011).

I grew up in Auckland on a ridge near the Onepoto crater and skinned my knees on scoria many a time. But there's so much new to learn and this book is just a delightful combination of education and enjoyment. There are maps, lists, artists' impressions, historical and scientific facts and conjectures with useful illustrations and all organized in pleasantly logical ways. "The essential guide" is not a misleading subtitle at all. There are some reassuring facts about the scope of future eruptions and the amount of likely warning time, but plenty of room for a touch of frisson also...

The book won't die while there are books like these around that feel good to hold and look at and read through.

Tuesday Poem: Ursula Bethell 'Pause'

2011-08-30T12:05:00.004+12:00

Pause

When I am very earnestly digging
I lift my head sometimes, and look at the mountains,
And muse upon them, muscles relaxing.

I think how freely the wild grasses flower there,
How grandly the storm-shaped trees are massed in their gorges
And the rain-worn rocks strewn in magnificent heaps.

Pioneer plants on those uplands find their own footing;
No vigorous growth, there, is an evil weed:
All weathers are salutary.

It is only a little while since this hillside
Lay untrammelled likewise,
Unceasingly swept by transmarine winds.

In a very little while, it may be,
When our impulsive limbs and our superior skulls
Have to the soil restored several ounces of fertiliser,

The Mother of all will take charge again,
And soon wipe away with her elements
Our small fond human enclosures.

Mary Ursula Bethell (1874-1945)

It's snow fun after all

2011-07-25T13:57:00.002+12:00

Tabby couldn't understand why we wouldn't let him out into the blizzard yesterday. It looked like such fun with all the flakes whirling around. So we let him out today, and he'd only taken a couple of steps when he stopped short and jumped smartly off the freezing white stuff.

First he licked his paw, and had a closer look at his footprints.

Weird stuff. He scratched at it. Nope, cold. And wet.

Let me back inside, please?

Snow day

2011-07-24T15:49:00.000+12:00

Cantabby appreciates his feather duvet.

It's snowing in Dunedin today. Wonderful. Cold but wonderful. According to my indoor/outdoor thermometer, the outside air temperature has not risen above 1 degree C since before midnight last night, and a lot of that time it has been below zero. Reasonably snug inside the house though. The agency cat doesn't seem to know what snow is - he rushed along the window sill trying to bat at the whirling white things (Butterflies? Tiny white birds?) and was desperate to be let outside. We weren't keen to let him go out in such a wild mood, so we let him poke his head out to see how freezing it was. A snow flake flew into his ear and he retreated smartly. Back to sleep. Wake me up when the sun shines again.

Watch a slideshow of the biggest snow in Dunedin for years: Otago Daily Times.

Happy Poetry Day

2011-07-22T17:33:00.002+12:00

Today is Poetry Day in New Zealand and it's an event that has really taken off - especially with those of us who celebrate every day as poetry day. It's a day when it's OK to love poetry.

New Zealand National Poetry Day Friday July 22nd 2011

To mark this special day I'd like to feature a couple of brand new slim volumes I've recently bought and I'm currently enjoying.

in vitro by Laura Solomon (2011)

Beyond sharp, these satirical set pieces offer a tasty read. "In vitriol" might have been a alternative title. I don't believe poets should pull punches.

Favourite poem "The Poet Leaves the Table." Favourite lines:

She had been mollycoddled enough.
No, no, I think you mean, she had been mauled enough.

Western Line by Airini Beautrais (2011)

I love this book even though it is published by "an academic press of mediocre standing which devotes far too much of its funds to lacklustre poetry" because I admire Airini Beautrais' poetry (it's not lacklustre at all) and because there are lots of trains in the book and I love trains as well as non-lacklustre poetry.

Favourite quote is from a prose poem called "The Woman on the Phone"; the woman is on a train and blabbering away at full volume on her mobile phone with just a handful of other people (including of course, our poet) a captive audience, listening in. The train goes into a tunnel and the woman is of course cut off, but doesn't at first understand. "Hello?" she says:

She has forgotten what happens under mountains.

Dunedin's primo poetry event will happen this evening at the Dunedin Public Library, in direct competition with some sort of rugby game going on somewhere else in the city. Readers will include the wonderful Rhian Gallagher, whose first book Salt Water Creek was shortlisted for the prestigious Forward Poetry Prize and whose second book Shift will be released later this year by Auckland University Press; Michael Steven; Richard Reeve; and Burns Fellow Fiona Farrell; with pyrotechnical poet David Howard as MC.

Viva Poetry!

The New View

2011-07-21T16:34:00.000+12:00

An icy midwinter evening after a beautiful sunny Dunedin day - the very best that this season has to offer here in the South. Looking from the new house on the hill, across the narbour to the city. The large structure lit up like a Chinese lantern is the controverisal new stadium - an expensive luxury bankrupting the entire district - the brighter it shines the duller the surroundings seem. It's drawing all the money to itself and swallowing it in one glowing burp. I wonder if we'll be able to hear Elton John from over here when he plays the inaugural concert.

Tuesday Poet: Hone Tuwhare

2011-07-19T12:00:00.001+12:00

Small Holes in the Silence: Collected Works by Hone Tuwhare
Godwit New Zealand 2011

Just bought this collection hot off the press in time to have a Tuesday suffused with Hone Tuwhare's poetry.

When he was good, he was very very good, and I really do cherish his famous poem 'Rain' from which the phrase "small holes in the silence" is drawn.

I knew Hone quite well at one time and back in the day used to prop up the bar at the Robbie Burns Hotel with him, and had the odd feed and a drink with him in his little cottage in Dundas Street Dunedin. And many times heard him read, always including the poem 'Rain', never growing stale because of the delicious and sensuous way he savoured every word as he performed his Greatest Hit.

So his voice reads these poems aloud for me and I browse through looking for the ones I want to relive and linger on, and - in this ample volume revealing some verse I hadn't seen or didn't notice before - discover new tidbits for the first time. As with every Collected you have to take the stalk and the chaff along with the ripe tasty meal. And you get the sense of the journey of the poet, of their life, of all the work they had to do and the listening and the living and the travelling and the reading and the writing. And a bit of drinking and carousing, and a lot of loving.

Of course I don't have to have been at the edges of a poet's social circle to love their work. For me the poets I choose to read and admire become my friends, it's as if I was there when they wrote that thought down, and I'm grateful they went to all that trouble despite all else in their life. Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, Frank O'Hara. And so on, and so on. Their words are as if uttered for the first time, no matter how far away in time and space they are from their reader.

It's useful to have a Collected Works with the texts of every book, and the book covers, and some new Maori translations of many poems besides. And photos. Kia ora, Hone.

And I
should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind

For more information about Hone Tuwhare: http://honetuwhare.org.nz/

For more Tuesday Poems: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com/

The Temple Gallery

2011-07-16T12:57:00.000+12:00

http://www.templegallery.co.nz/

This quirky gallery is one of many hidden treasures in the arty southern city of Dunedin, where the weather is so crap it's a great place to work without distraction on your sculpture or your novel or your screenplay, your painting, your poetry etc. Cold weather spurs creativity? Is it true? Anyway this belief is one of the ways we console ourselves here where the winters are always bitter but so too, often enough, are the summers.

The Temple Gallery was originally a Jewish Synagogue. The architect was William Clayton, who designed another of Dunedin's lovely houses of God, the Anglican All Saints Church on Cumberland Street (1865). I went to that All Saints Church last year for the first time, to attend the funeral of a elderly friend, a well known and respected left wing author. There's a certain comfort in gathering to mourn in such a pleasing aesthetic environment, even if you're not particularly religious. Well, that is how I feel. But I love the holy and the solemn, it must be my Catholic background. The fine church felt like a fitting place to farewell a treasured and honoured member of the arts community.

Art galleries are a lot like churches, aren't they. Often they too are vaulted towards the sky. They're cavernously larger than most of us would dare to make our living environments. We behave circumspectly in galleries too. We're respectful, we're meditative, and quiet, we bow towards the works, and circle them reverently and take care not to touch or to approach too closely. Even if we're not converts to the sect or the denomination on display, we're generally quietly tolerant and civil (at the time anyway). And if we're lucky enough to be invited to the opening, we nibble on crackers and sip red wine.

Building began on Dunedin's first Synagogue in 1864, and it was consecrated in 1865. By 1881 the congregation had grown and so moved into a larger synagogue that was constructed nearby. In the same year the building that is now the Temple Gallery began its life as a Masonic Lodge. The structure was extended and altered - in a 'Romanesque' style - but with the original synagogue still at its heart.

The freemasons sold their former Lodge into private hands in 1992 and it has since housed apartments as well as the marvellously distinctive art gallery with its mysterious steep garden pathway rising in a zigzag from Moray Place up to the sheer edifice of the Temple.

I visited the gallery recently to check out the latest facinating exhibition: 'Poisons' by Martin Sullivan (see ODT review by James Dignan). A most enjoyable mix of genres, wooden carvings, castings, bird bones and found objects; the placing of the displays using the atmosphere of the gallery well to create a sacred/secular - or is that scared/secular - space of myth and nightmare memory.

Construction details and dates drawn from a flyer written by art historian Peter Entwistle and available at the Gallery.

Books acquired recently

2011-07-15T19:19:00.002+12:00

Martin Edmond's Dark Night: Walking with McCahon - One of my favourite authors on the subject of one of my favourite artists. What's not to love? But I haven't had a look in as Schroedinger grabbed this one first. Looking forward to it. Artandmylife has posted a great review.

Michael King The Silence Beyond edited by Rachael King. I was close to Michael and he emailed me as he was about to leave the house on the morning of his fateful trip. Not taking my laptop, he said, but in the unlikely event of an emergency I have my cell phone with me. He did take his laptop as it turned out, and there wasn't just an emergency, there was a tragedy. Fortunately Michael was better organised than many of us and he had backups and printouts of his work back at home, it wasn't all lost with his computer in the disastrous car crash and fire, so his daughter Rachael was able to gather together some unpublished and uncollected pieces for this volume. Reading this book has been a poignant experience for me as I shared a few of Michael's journeys. All the same I was quite shocked to find my name in the index.

Well, history is all our story, his story, her story, my story.

Dear Sweet Harry by Lynn Jenner. Glad I found this. It is truly fascinating, unique. Autobiography, poetry, fiction. Highly recommended.

Tuesday Tabby Poem

2011-07-12T21:11:00.000+12:00

Cats

by Charles Baudelaire

Both ardent lovers and austere scholars
Love in their mature years
The strong and gentle cats, pride of the house,
Who like them are sedentary and sensitive to cold.

Friends of learning and sensual pleasure,
They seek the silence and the horror of darkness;
Erebus would have used them as his gloomy steeds:
If their pride could let them stoop to bondage.

When they dream, they assume the noble attitudes
Of the mighty sphinxes stretched out in solitude,
Who seem to fall into a sleep of endless dreams;

Their fertile loins are full of magic sparks,
And particles of gold, like fine grains of sand,
Spangle dimly their mystic eyes.

(Translated by William Aggeler)

My life is measured in coffee cups

2011-07-10T12:08:00.000+12:00

The fax of the matter

2011-07-07T13:39:00.000+12:00

I can't get away from my desk right now.

I'll tell my people to get in touch with your people.

Don't panic

2011-07-06T11:04:00.000+12:00

but do register your protest.

2011 Garden Bird Survey

2011-06-25T10:55:00.000+12:00

10 waxeyes (aka silvereye, tahou)

It's that time of the year again Kiwis, to count the birds in your garden! Just for one hour, sometime this week. Here is all the info at the Landcare Research - Manaaki Whenua web site:

http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biocons/gardenbird/

Including a beautiful downloadable identification chart with pictures of the most common 'native' and 'introduced' birds.

There's an option for online data entry.

The New Tabby is a keen bird watcher and is all for counting the birds. We do all we can to make sure he leaves it at that, including restricting his hours outside and always putting a noisy collar on him when he does go out. We have had to stop our habit of feeding the wild birds because it just makes them sitting ducks for his attention.

Schroedinger has also been observed climbing into a large tree to drag the Tabby down off the lower branches, trying to discourage puss from heading higher where the birds hang out.

Warning belles

2011-06-24T23:49:00.000+12:00

The agency cat is a trifle spooked by the sound of its own two-bell collar. The ever present jangle/tinkle seems to have worked so far. No sign of any dead birds. The tuis don't even seem alarmed.

Like a red rag

2011-06-24T12:02:00.001+12:00

Now I have been known to rail on this blog and elsewhere, about how disappointing it is that so much that we as a society gained through feminism, appears to be slipping away... The rights of women to be treated and regarded as equal to men can not be taken for granted and feminism is not over.

Is it because there's such a rabid right wing government just now in New Zealand that these attitudes are flourishing? Or vice versa? (There was a distastefully anti-woman flavour to much of the gutter campaign to turn the hearts of New Zealand against the much admired and respected Helen Clark. The "death by a thousand cuts" that felled one of our most popular prime ministers largely used a sword of women-hatred to draw the blood... if you don't believe me, you weren't paying attention.)

The sexists and misogynists and their attitudes are being trotted out more and more and yesterday to the shock of even mainstream NZ an extraordinarly archaic, medieval even, opinion was aired and has caused a fury of outrage and embarrassment across the political spectrum. Even the libertarian Hilary Calvert wasn't impressed with the suggestion that women deserve to receive less pay because they take time off every month because of menstruation difficulties.

Now clearly the dinosaur who expressed this wrong-headed notion has been so emboldened by the ascendancy of right wing discourses across the news media that he has felt that he and his patriarchal capitalist mates are now bullet proof. There is a stranglehold. Key journalists and commentators are clearly enamoured of Mr Key and his henchmen and do all they can to smooth the way of the 'reforms' that are underway to destroy New Zealand's social welfare system and sell off its assets to profit barons. It is deeply biased ideologues who are beaming at us from the news reports, spinning like crazy, and it's very hard to hear an opposing view to the right wing agenda.

The CEO of the Bosses and Overlords - chief advocate for the proposed deeply unfair extension of "youth rates" up to age of 24 years old - made one mistake in making his proclamation to the effect that women are poorly every month and that this decreases their productivity and thus is a reason why they receive lower wages than men.

Click here for TV3 Coverage

Sexism doesn't fall uniquely on to the right of the political spectrum. It is probably happier there, but it can be found across society. It's a crime against human rights, not just a matter for the "socialists" and the "PC brigade" (as he lamely tried to argue later on) and it's easy to predict that this chap is going to find himself on the wrong side even of his own former supporters.

Alasdair Thompson has been declared a red zone and the only option will be to demolish.

("Fears of red zone waste lands")

Meanwhile I'm hoping the blokes on the left wing will resist the temptation to use this opportunity to air their favourite tampon jokes, or they might discover that this is one issue that doesn't necessarily run along class lines.

Damn lies and statistics

2011-06-22T14:56:00.004+12:00

New Zealand's current Prime Minister John Key is, notoriously, a former currency trader, and his rabidly right wing elitist rich folks laddish Maori Party/National/Act/United Party Government, while pretending to be centrist, has been speculating with foreign exchange and interest rates under the guise of urgently borrowing overseas money to shore up their deficits. They've been borrowing 380 million dollars a week, and until recently using this terrible burden as their excuse to make preparations to hock off the family silver to repay the debts they were piling up. Turns out they needed far less than they were borrowing (100 million a week was being piled up somewhere, stockpiled), the word is they were just second guessing that future rates might cost them more (but hello, they'vre stacking up the interest NOW even if the rates do rise, they're racking up fees before they're necessary!) (More details on this con at The Standard.)

I wouldn't put that guy in charge of my household let alone a country.

This is not the only instance of poor maths in the "smiling assassin" (he got that nickname in the cut and thrust of the world of the money changers). Nothing personal mind, he's even a good bloke so his cronies say. And he's a multi-millionaire. But here is his priceless rebuff when he was challenged on the poor record of New Zealand's protection for the environment:

Is New Zealand really, as advertised, 100% percent pure, BBC's Hard Talk asked John recently.

Said Key, yes it is 100% pure "for the most part"...

"For the most part" NZ is 100% pure.

Ha!

He was also 100% going to get the Pike River miners home to their loved ones.

He was also 100% not going to raise GST, but he did.
(Link to his election promise not to raise GST)

He's also 100% behind Christchurch and that could be the reason why they're munted.

Just who and what falls through the gaps if 100% doesn't mean 100%?

The Longest Night

2011-06-21T23:09:00.004+12:00

Well there goes mother nature restless again. Just a few minutes ago another major Christchurch 'aftershock' that rocked the whole South Island as you see above by the quake drum.

I have to say it looks worse than the 5.3 it has been provisionally declared.

Oh Christchurch, what is to be done with you on the longest night of the year, with power cuts again?

Here's the ChCh drum, looking like the place is in constant motion:

And here's Dunedin's nearest available drum image showing that here further south we've gone out in sympathy:

Wishing everyone a safe winter solstice. Or summer solstice, if you're on the other side of the planet.

Tuesday Poem: 'The Understanding' by Sandra Bell

2011-06-20T19:50:00.032+12:00

Thanks to Sandra Bell for giving me permission to reproduce this poem, and to Phantom Billstickers for their wonderful 'Poetry on Posters' initiative.

Sandra was due to read this poem at the Poetry on Posters Phase 6 Global Launch held last Friday night in Christchurch, but, oddly enough, because it mentions a volcano, her flight from Auckland was cancelled because of the volcanic ash cloud and she couldn't make it! The poem was read out at the event by her friend and fellow musician and poet Jay Clarkson who also has a poster in the series.

More Tuesday Poems at the blog: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com/

Super 8

2011-06-20T18:23:00.000+12:00

This film seems to polarise reviewers, but I enjoyed Super 8 very much. But then I wasn't expecting Tarkovsky. It was a retro romp, a homage to the great Spielberg kid's movie, and also an affectionate tribute to all those children who have grown up wanting to be actors and film makers. Lots of movie references not just to Spielberg, every trick and set piece in the book, and being a little kid at heart I loved it. I was convalescing from surgery when I went to see it (yes, thanks it all went well and I'm fine now) and it was "just what the doctor ordered". Even not too scary although it kept trying to be. Sometimes you just want to have fun. The train wreck was fabulous.

NZ Post Book Award finalists

2011-06-20T17:27:00.000+12:00

The finalists for the New Zealand Post Book Awards were announced some weeks back, and many fine books are there, as usual. Some of my favourites from the last 12 months of publishing in NZ are included, and some are missing. As usual. Awards are like that. They have judges, and the judges choose. It's not American Idol.

It's incredible, given the current economic climate, and the state of publishing in general, and challenges to booksellers, that so many fine books are still published in this tiny country with its population of only about 13 (stats derived from The Daily Show).

The list of books included (and excluded) for acclaim is a credit to everyone in the NZ publishing industry and to all of us who actually still buy books. Long live the book!

As usual there are some gripes and grizzles about omissions, and it is always interesting to look at who is complaining, and why they might be complaining. Or not.

I quite liked Stephen Straford's commentary on his blog Quote Unquote concerning the continuing controversy over the slashing of NZ Post Book Award fiction & poetry shortlists from five to three. His seemed a lone voice of dissent in the otherwise loud - and sometimes hysterical - objections to a short list.

Publishers will of course wish that more of their books would bask in the limelight. You can take their squeaks with a grain of salt. Booksellers don't want the buying public to be disappointed by being tricked into trying a hyped up lukewarm product. There's a conflict right there. But given that awards are (usually) about quality books, not the crap that generally sells well, the booksellers will also be reluctant to *waste* primo shelf space on worthy but hard to push books.

If I had a say in the matter, it's the diminishing of the non-fiction categories I'd want to change. Biography was always a strong and interesting group and it's a shame to see the likes of Paul Millar's terrific biography of Bill Pearson up against Neville Peat's exquisite book about the Tasman Sea, for instance. And why was Tasman not in the "illustrated" category?

And there's a significant poetry anthology within the poetry category, and another substantial poetry anthology in the "general non-fiction"... What's with that? (Well, I can see that 99 Ways wasn't intended to be an "anthology" but unfortunately the effect of the book has been to create a canon, for good or ill, and if it is to be assessed then in my opinion it is Mauri Ola that it should be standing up against...)

Whoops - there, you see, I'm starting to gripe... So what else bothered me?

No sign of what was in my opinion the best New Zealand novel published last year, The Collector's Dream by Pierre Furlan. It would not have been eligible I suppose because the author is not a Kiwi. But he does have strong enough ties here to have written and published (in translation) a marvellous NZ story. Shame it could not have jostled for a gong.

No sign of my favourite novel published in NZ last year, Quinine by Kelly Ana Morey, a ripping transgressional postmodern/historical yarn, a vibrant but flawed text with more vitality and creativity in one chapter than in the whole of many of the other local novels I read.

But of course, all this is deeply subjective. The three finalists in the fiction section are all excellent. One might be sad to see a personal favourite missing, but one can hardly say there is a book in the final that doesn't deserve to be there.

Phew. Who would want to be a judge in this online poll climate where everyone feels like they know better?

There was only one genuine surprise for me, and that was the overlooking of Bill Manhire's latest volume The Victims of Lightning for the poetry shortlist. That does seem astonishing. Could it be that after training up generations of clones of himself in his writing academies, that Bill Manhire's work is now so indistinguishable from parodies and imitations, that it no longer stands out as unique?

I tried to imagine why a precious Manhire text might not have made the grade. The only disappointment I had felt in reading that book, which has some marvellous poems in it, as always, was the inclusion of a section of song lyrics. Which are not, in my opinion, poetry, are rather tedious on the page, and pretty skippable for poetry purists. The songs themselves are probably a lot of fun if you're at the live gigs, enthusiastically attended by the rest of the writing school gang, no doubt, but the inclusion of the lyrics did tend to weaken the overall effect of the book. However, along the lines of my comments about the Morey novel, I do personally prefer the quality of the content over all else. And that book has some great poems in it.

Back to Basics

2011-06-20T15:05:00.001+12:00

Gratuitous pussy shot.

you can hide but you can't run

2011-06-20T13:20:00.000+12:00

It's a happy bloggy birthday to Schroedinger's Tabby born three years ago today, and we at Tabby mansion are celebrating with a plate of digital jellymeat as we speak.

The Tabby blog is pretty much defunct lately as is possible to see, and we can partly blame Facebook for that, it's so much more interactive and easy, and provides instant gratification.

But any excuse for a Party even on the empty dusty stage of a half-abandoned blog...

Actually I have been thinking of deleting the whole shebang, and still not sure what to do and where to go. People are apparently still reading the Tabby though, according to blogger stats, but there's a fair bit of tut-tutting I gather and who wants shit like that? Life's too short... (A post of mine was called "abusive" on another blog this year, which was a bit rich, because the accusation was made by someone who is apparently an apologist for an abuse I was railing against!)

The word *abusive* is being abused. By the way. (Note for a future blog meditation.)

More to the point, my accuser didn't just attack the Tabby's right to free speech (she being from the School of policing the right of her and her own to do and say what they damn well please as long as it doesn't hurt anyone in their social and professional network), she also outed the Tabby publicly. So she attacked my right to remain semi-anonymous.

Now the identity of the Tabby's author was never much of a secret as such, but until then it had been a reasonably safe place for me where I hoped that the psycho stalkers that I inherited might not find me. They're all over my other blog, the work one, that is part of the job.

The Tabby was meant to be an escape for me from my job, somewhere where I could be myself without the spectre of my professional responsibility overwhelming the other things that are important in my life: cats, train rides, politics, poetry, my own ocasional poetry scribblings too, contemplation, science fiction... food. etc. There was only one major 'rule' for the blog and that was it was to "not mention the war..."

Unfortunately I did mention the metaphorical 'war', because like all messy fields of conflict it isn't something I can turn off at 5pm, it does invade my real life, it is my real life as well.

Which is why Facebook has been enjoyable for me, a place where I've managed (so far) to more or less integrate many facets of me and what I do (admittedly while also having to block the key *trolls* that were harassing and stalking me around the internet - the ones who had led me to attempt to resort to an anonymous forum in the first place). On fb I have also been able to judiciously unfriend or otherwise avoid a handful of frenemies and bullies who seemed to be trying to silence or manage me.

Anyway I did sometime earlier this year break the cardinal Tabby blog rule and make a statement - a personal one, about my hurt and outrage at the crass exploitation not just of a great New Zealander, but of someone I knew and loved as a person, who was being grievously misrepresented... I howled this painful cry of anguish on the Tabby blog..

Mistake. It's my own fault I was outed. There are 'laws' of physics, and self-imposed rules, and there are social codes. I broke one of them at least, and I think the cat in the box might be suffering rigor mortis as a consequence.

Of course it's like raging against the tides, and against the movement of seismic plates, to rage against the natural processes of appropriation and mythmaking. But the Tabby is about a cry for justice among other things. (It has also been about celebrating really good pudding.)

And of course it always pisses the bullies off when their freedom to steal and cheat and lie is challenged. That's not surprising, and I don't shy away from that kind of aggro. But, more insidiously, stepping out of line also annoys the queen bees of the social network who rule the universe with their "squeee" and their stiflingly imposed and sickly cultivation of hive mind, if anyone questions the loveliness and loveiness of their world, or criticises something they have decided to promote, whether or not it stinks.

Anyway. Mea culpa. Etc. *stuffs mouth with more cake* Squeee!

Otago Settlers

2011-06-18T16:13:00.000+12:00

When I first came to live in Dunedin 25 years ago today, I arrived in the wee small hours of the morning at the art deco NZR bus terminal that now has been incorporated into the Settlers Museum, currently under redevelopment but with a visitable web site:

http://www.otago.settlers.museum/

Tuesday Poem: Moving Words on the MRT

2011-06-15T15:25:00.001+12:00

The poem pictured above is called "The Degenerate South" by Chia Hwee Pheng aka Xi Ni Er.

"A nation in the south, but the heart lies north"

It appears as part of MOVING WORDS: Singapore's version of "Poems on the Underground" - Commuter Poetry on the MRT written in (or translated into) the four official languages of Singapore (English, Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil):

http://www.movingwords.sg/

Singapore poet Madeleine Lee came up with the concept: “A few times on the MRT, I was caught with no reading material - so ended up reading only ads!"

Presented by the National Arts Council and SMRT, Moving Words is organised by The Literary Centre in conjunction with the Singapore Writers Festival 2011.

"Marrying technology and the literary arts, a free Mwords iPhone Application developed by Singaporean mobile developer 2359media will also be available for download from 25 May 2011 to generate interest in creating poetry on the move. Playing on the notion of magnetic poetry, users will be able to rearrange words from a bank of 400 words which will include commonly used Singlish phrases as well. Users will be able to upload their finished poems onto www.movingwords.sg, and also share it on their Facebook and Twitter accounts."

For a complete Tuesday poem, and links to many more, visit the TUESDAY POEM blog here.

Cat as ammonite

2011-05-17T16:47:00.001+12:00

It's winter. We're hibernating, OK?

Speak the truth

2011-04-24T22:18:00.000+12:00

Packing

2011-04-19T18:12:00.000+12:00

So the Tabby has selected his packing container, labelled "Optimum" (it bears the subheading "mature cat", which is a little unrealistic; since there is a lot of kitten still in this young chap).

The lessons of history

2011-04-19T18:09:00.000+12:00

It was really the new tabby's idea to move away from the beach. He has been traumatised (as have we all) by the TV images of the Japan tsunami.

It has been poignant to learn of the ancient stone markers along the Japanese coast, warning later generations "not to build below this point" and "if there is an earthquake" to beware of a tsunami.

Apparently it only takes three generations for beach dwellers to forget the threat from the sea, and to again move back to the sight and sound of the tide.

Maybe we need to erect some stone markers in New Zealand too.

Little cat feet

2011-04-15T17:21:00.000+12:00

Yes, I guess, I'll even miss the fog!

Flotsam & Jetsam

2011-04-15T17:16:00.000+12:00

What I'll miss: beachcombing. Which mainly consisted of picking up all the rubbish - glass and plastics.

Very few treasures, just sadness at what we are doing to our planet.

One memorable time, a shipping container washed up.

I am so glad there was never an oil spill. Yet.

Sunsets

2011-04-15T17:11:00.000+12:00

The sunsets on this beach have really made everything else worthwhile, yes even the micro climate hurricane.

Big Ships

2011-04-15T17:08:00.000+12:00

I love the way the cruise ships come and go to Port Chalmers and unload thousands of lovely holidaying people who speak in exotic accents and are amazed at and adore everything.

Crepuscular

2011-04-15T17:03:00.005+12:00

What I'll miss - celestial signs that the universe really does care.

Touchdown

2011-04-15T16:59:00.000+12:00

What I'll miss: the many ways the gulls come in to land, and it's not always graceful.

The Ned Kelly Gang

2011-04-15T16:41:00.000+12:00

What I'll miss: the Sidney Nolan letterbox.

In for the krill

2011-04-15T16:39:00.002+12:00

What I'll miss: (well maybe not so much when it all starts decaying and gets a bit smelly) - the krill. Is it really krill? That's what we call it anyway, waves of small red crustceans floating in on some mysterious tides and then being stranded on the Otago peninsula beaches, attracting the shrieking ecstacy of karoro and other birds.

At a stretch

2011-04-14T18:08:00.000+12:00

The agency Tabby is an exotic beast,

with a unique fashion sense.

He's not afraid

to wear stripes and plaid

with polka dots

and plain.

Squid Pro Quo

2011-04-14T18:01:00.000+12:00

What I'll miss when we move closer to the city: driving back late at night over the spine of Otago Peninsula after a long day in town, looking down to the Southern Ocean; the lights of the squid boats.

Oh My Godwits

2011-04-14T15:33:00.002+12:00

What I'll miss when I move away: the godwits.

Last saw them in early March, they were fat, and red, in breeding costume, ready to fly away on that mad long journey. It was what I've come to think of as 'godwit weather', grey, misty, drizzly, and as almost always here, pretty windy. They're not easy to spot - they blend in so well with the sand and the edge of the tide that they are almost transparent.

I think they left around about then. Last year I was lucky enough to see them go - in their flying wedge, circling once then climbing away.

That was just a day or so before the terrible quake and tsunami in Japan.

I worry about them. Where were they when the East Asian catastrophes were at their worst? Have they flown through any radioactivity? have their stopover feeding grounds been destroyed or contaminated?

We heard that the Japanese tsunami killed thousands of albatrosses at Midway atoll near Hawaii.

What else has been and will be the cost to wildlife from the earthquake and tsunami? Especially from the dangerous radioactivity pouring into the sea?

Moving On

2011-04-13T22:33:00.001+12:00

New Tabby (not the starving stray any more, you may note) looks wistfully out at the swans and ducks and gulls and pied stilts and oystercatchers. We don't let him out there; we don't think it's responsible.

Our two years at sea level at the edge of the tide are coming to an end. We're moving to a brick house on a hill. There'll be a lot to miss but the cat will get outside more once we move further away from the wildlife paradise.

Happy Birthday Tuesday Poem

2011-04-05T13:24:00.002+12:00

The Tabby rifles around in Schroedinger's Box for a Birthday Poem.

The communal Tuesday Poem blog is one year old. Happy birthday!

The Tabby was for a time a TP contributor, but, ah, cats need their sleep, so The Paradoxical Cat features now as one of the "alumni"... a fellow traveller, fellow dreamer...

Ah look, a favourite cat poem has been unearthed! This is an excerpt from Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart (1722-1771).

FOR I WILL CONSIDER MY CAT JEOFFRY

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having considered God and himself he will consider his neighbor.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he's a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.

For the dexterity of his defense is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord's poor, and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually--Poor Jeoffry!

Poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can sit up with gravity, which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick, which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is afraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Icneumon rat, very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.

For the electrical fire is the spiritual substance which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.

The Tabby is dead. Long live the Tabby.

2011-03-17T22:55:00.002+13:00

Just having to live with the mystery of where the new Tabby was hanging out before he walked in the door and decided to stay.

Who is he? Where did he come from? Why did he end up on our doorstep?

Also having to get used to being pounced upon by a young cat who likes to lie in wait...

Cantabby

2011-03-03T23:00:00.012+13:00

Two years to the day since the elderly eponymous tabby died, we decided to allow ourselves to be adopted by the young tabby that had walked in to our kitchen one minute before the devastating Canterbury earthquake hit, at 12.51pm on the 22nd February.

I believe you have a vacancy, he said, and demanded to be fed. He ate hungrily while our house rocked from the shock waves emanating from a catastrophe happening hundreds of kms away.

We never thought we would get another cat. But the agency knows best, and even delivered almost the exact same model of cat as our beloved tabby. This one has some exotic genes as well as the tabby markings, but then don't they all. They're all descended from the egyptian gods.

*Hat tip to Dan for suggesting the name 'Cantabby' x

Tabby lost and found

2011-02-25T16:35:00.007+13:00

FOUND: skinny, hungry young tabby. How did this divine creature get to be all alone out at the beach?

It's friendly, house trained and a very civilised houseguest, polite, purring, intelligent. Strong abyssinian features, long in legs and body, a muscly powerful animal. Did I mention hungry?

What a fine cat! has the agency sent us our new Tabby? Well, we thought so until he went out onto the sandflats and harrassed a flock of oystercatchers (they breed in the paddocks behind our house) making them scream in alarm and all fly off in a cloud. What if he did that to the godwits? What if he went for the young ducks and swans?

Who would dump a hunting cat here within a few kilometres of albatross and penguin chicks?

And he seems to be looking for his home. I hope we can find him a home, if not the one he has lost. Somewhere a little less close to vulnerable wildlife.

I seen the little chick

2011-02-18T10:37:00.016+13:00

Otago Daily Times photograph: Linda Robertson

The ODT headline says it: Female pairing raising chick (9 Feb 2011).

This I gotta see, I thought. Like many a local, I rarely stump up actual money to visit the tourist attraction at the albatross colony I live only minutes away from.

But lesbian albatrosses raising a family, now that is something worth a pilgrimage. You go, sisters!!

So I wandered over to the Royal Albatross Colony, Pukerua, Otago Peninsula and paid my 30 bucks in hopes of catching a glimpse of one of the couple of dozen or so chicks that have been born in recent weeks, in one of the best breeding seasons ever at Taiaroa Head.

At least three chicks are on nests within easy viewing of the observation post. This is the "guarding" time, when the adult pretty much obscures the chick except when feeding or when the mate arrives from foraging out at sea, to take over the babysitting duty.

Luckily, one of the chicks was easily visible, fluffy adorable little thing. Well worth the trouble and effort.

And if I didn't already live there in wonderland, I'd have been absolutely blown away by all the other attractions I see on a daily basis - the views, the other birds and wildlife. Well, I'm not immune to that glory, I hope I'll never be blasé about that. But the shaggy baby albatross being sheltered by its impressively giant parent was really something to see. Lovely.

(Our proximity to such rare and wonderful wildlife is one of the reasons the Tabby Household is currently Tabby-less. Will have to wait for a return to the city before we get another cat. Have to admit, they're just murderers. It's a paradox for a cat-and-bird lover.)

Tuesday Poem: The Maori Jesus by James K Baxter

2011-02-15T14:32:00.023+13:00

"I saw the Maori Jesus walking on Wellington Harbour"

I was walking on the Wellington waterfront and I saw a quote from Hemi's poem 'The Maori Jesus' seemingly floating in the Wellington Harbour.

Wellington Writers Walk

It's a good poem, thought-provoking, a historical piece. Most literate New Zealanders should already have a familiarity with Jim Baxter's poetry, but in any case maybe it's in Paul Millar's recently released anthology Selected Poems of James K Baxter (AUP 2010):

As for 2011, I was walking in Wellington and I saw the Maori Jesus.
He looked like... Hone Harawira!

A Significant Birthday

2011-02-15T14:06:00.015+13:00

Today is the birthday of one of my all time heroes, Galileo Galilei.

I was quite young when I first read about him, and I have always been inspired by his courage in the face of impossibly powerful bullying and even imprisonment.

Not to mention of course, the extent to which he contributed to the march of human knowledge and understanding. He didn't just think up new things (and promote the discoveries of others); he also fought against the suspicion and ignorance of his time, and suffered for it. He wasn't stupid, though. When threatened with torture, he renounced his "heresy" that the earth moved around the sun. Legend has it that he muttered under his breath, "And yet, it moves."

Eventually of course, he was vindicated, and there's the hope for all who have the confidence to uphold an unpopular position.

"Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds." ~ Albert Einstein

I'm particularly grateful for his brilliant innovation of developing and turning the telescopes of the day, until then used for military purposes, towards the sky.

Thanks for the telescope, dear friend separated from me through space and time. Happy birthday!

A Fine Romance

2011-02-14T10:38:00.003+13:00

It was a glorious Valentine's Day morning.

Schroedinger and I were setting off on the scenic journey from our seaside cottage to the city.

PC: Shall we take the high road or the low road?

Schroedinger: It depends on the auguries.

PC: Well, you read the chicken entrails while I pick up the newspaper at the village store.

Schroedinger: If there are chicken entrails, that could in itself be a bad sign.

ADHD kids get 'shoddy' diagnosis

2011-02-14T10:35:00.002+13:00

That was the headline in the Sunday Star Times yesterday. Good to see criticism of over-diagnosing and misdiagnosing of fad disorders.

The main factor seems to be that an 'easy' diagnosis is done by observing a few stereotyped cliches of behaviour, making assumptions and jumping to conclusions, and negative evidence is overlooked.

Would be good to see a focus on the blatant misuse of the term ASD as well (autism spectrum disorder). At the flakiest edges of the autism cult, every single human being is on the so-called "spectrum". If 100% of people have it, how useful a term is 'ASD' to those of us who have a loved one who is really affected by autism?

Food for thought, alternative definitions:

ADHD = Already Diagnosed by His Dad

ASD = Anyone Slightly Different

Scraping the bottom of the bowl

2011-02-11T16:38:00.022+13:00

Frank Sargeson's toilet, Takapuna

Shabby, dirty, and with the seat up

Women not welcome here

Click here for Janet Frame trustee Denis Harold's review of Gifted by Patrick Evans

I couldn't believe it when I saw that the judges of the Commonwealth Literary prize have selected Patrick Evans's cultural appropriation of Janet Frame, for the Asia Pacific shortlist.

Gifted exploits Janet Frame and steals her identity; it changes almost every relevant fact about her life in order to portray her as dishonest and elusive and inhuman. It's a deeply deceitful work that seems to have fooled many people into thinking it's some sort of tribute to Frame.

Yeah right. Coming from one of the most irritating thorns in Frame's side, a persistent Porlock who outraged Frame by his misrepresentations of her life, a man she really did despise, is it likely to be anything but revenge for her having spurned him as failed and flawed biographer?

Actually in an online interview Evans claims his novel is the "consummation" of all that Frame never really achieved (in his opinion). So he is not just appropriating her great reputation and using it to publicise his pale shadow of a book, he is attempting to take her place. He calls this her "last novel" and claims to have channeled her in writing it.

There has been no discussion within NZ of the lack of ethics in the identity theft of a great author who died only 7 years ago. Claims that it's "just a novel" wear thin in the light of the fact that all reviews have sported pictures of Janet Frame and made claims about her real life based on the Evans travesty.

It's not hard to see why those opposed to this sick and creepy novel - and I know there are many - have kept quiet in public.

They are afraid of the immature but vindictive power of the people who have been promoting it, to exclude anyone who opposes them, from the fellowships and mutual support and patsy reviewing that keep the mediocre drones of the hive mind busy and fed and feeling good about themselves.

Yet again Frame is demeaned and seen through the eyes of her woman-hating one-time 'mentor' Frank Sargeson, who quickly turned against her and spent many years involved in a vicious and untrue gossip campaign against her, resenting her success and pathologising her.

Sheesh people, where are your hearts? Where are your morals?

This is a crazy mean little country with no soul of its own; it was always abusive to Janet Frame and even after her death the bully-boy men and their heartless flunkie bitches are pissing on her grave.

A plague on them and their houses.

Not one decent reviewer or critic willing to raise these issues, in a whole country?

Unbelievable.

What a piss-poor state NZ literary criticism has reached, when such a hugely significant attack on the integrity of NZ's greatest author has not even been questioned.

But it's a small country, and the tendrils of influence and mutual obligation apparently reach, in this case, to every single corner of the literary world.

Except Janet Frame's corner. But who gives a shit about her?

Not this tall poppy slashing country.

Thank God she's dead, because nobody cared enough to stop the lobotomy this time, that Patrick Evans has given her.

The Release of Bound

2011-02-02T19:49:00.037+13:00

Vanda Symon at the launch of her 4th Sam Shephard novel, Bound.

University Book Shop, Dunedin, 2/02/2011

Vanda Symon's third novel Containment was a finalist for the Ngaio Marsh Award for best NZ crime novel for 2010.

I can't wait to read this new instalment. The launch was crowded out, not only with friends and family, and the Dunedin literary set, but also with a flying wedge of forensic scientists whose brains Vanda has apparently been picking (in a manner of speaking, maybe... or maybe not!)

The speeches were revealing indeed. We learn that Vanda is not as innocuous as she may seem, that perhaps it is her proficiency at the sport (or art?) of fencing, that gives her such insight to the way a sharp blade travels through flesh...

We were told that Vanda has recently returned to university and added first class postgraduate qualifications to her pharmacy degree, and is on the verge of launching into PhD research on "the forensics of Ngaio Marsh".

I, like so many other Vanda Symon fans, am saddened to hear that Bound may be the last Sam Shephard novel. Is Sam hanging up her badge? What is to happen to her? Is she OK? (We do worry for the poor lass sometimes, she doesn't always make the wisest of decisions!)

Then I was relieved to hear there is another novel underway... That is good news. Vanda writes well and has an uncommon ability to create believable characters. She has been moving around Dunedin and outlying areas too, and populating it with horrific crimes. In fact, you could say that Dunedin itself is one of Vanda's characters.

I've read enough of this new novel to see that it opens in the small seaside community of Seacliff, North of Dunedin. Fascinating - I have lived in several spots around that area myself and couldn't help wondering which was the house with the gates and the long driveway....

And what a priceless line this is, in describing the derelict site of the old psychiatric hospital:

"In its heyday they'd incarcerated many a poor soul there, including our world-famous writer Janet Frame, who was put there due to the fact she was creative and different. Nowadays they gave you fellowships for that, not lobotomies."

From the Tabby's point of view, quite the nicest thing about this novel is that the author has dedicated it to her beloved cat. It is hard work being the muse asleep near the computer, purring loudly (some might call it snoring!) and it is nice to get a bit of appreciation sometimes...

Link: NZ crime fiction blog Crime Watch anticipates the release of bound.

Farewell Tiger

2011-02-01T16:35:00.022+13:00

For Pablo Neruda, the tabby cat was the "minimal drawing-room tiger" (line from 'Oda El Gato').

The year of the Tiger was more than a tame pussycat for me, it was a roaring beast and a wild ride. Oh I hated most of it. Am I wiser? Am I more balanced? Did I learn from my mistakes. and has merely surviving the horrors of it, made me a better person, has it given me a sense of achievement and triumph? Hmmmm...

Might be too early to tell. For now I'd rather say good riddance you nasty clawing monster 2010. Hello cuddly bunny big-ears! Welcome!

Chinese astrological Horse that I am, apparently the Tiger year is meant to be an up and down time of reversible fortunes for me, and so it was.

I remember back to the last time there was a Tiger year 12 years ago, and, is it my imagination? Was it just as crazy? Just as awful? Didn't I have appallingly bad health that year too, but didn't I also soldier through and reach success, as well as the occasional sudden prominence - unfortunately attracting the most vicious envies and resentment, as well as personal betrayals and unfair public attacks?

Sure, there were fabulous things that happened, high profile things, for good and ill. I had a guest spot in a New Yorker blog, surely a high point for a mousy-coloured tabby... but on the other hand the NZ Listener and National Radio's Kim Hill both enabled some well-plotted slanderous attacks on my good name... But there was high profile support and praise too. Quite a roller coaster. I didn't deserve any of it. Just leave me alone all of you, I need to lick my wounds.

Swings and Roundabouts. And it just goes to show, don't get a swelled head when it's going well, and be don't be destroyed by vindictive personal attacks. I believe there is a Kipling quote that fits the bill. I quite like Kipling, he is always helpful when conditions are extreme. I wish I could afford to be snide about his platitudes, that would mean I was having a quiet year...

'Partial Privatisation' of State Assets

2011-01-31T13:22:00.006+13:00

Not a good idea, in my opinion.

And it's dishonest to try to spin this sell off of community resources built up by the taxpayers, as an opportunity for "Mom and Pop" investors to have shares.

Kiwi Mum and Dad already have a share. Those assets belong to us all, Mr Key.

Happy Birthday Robbie

2011-01-25T18:27:00.012+13:00

Dunedin is a poet's city, looked over from its heart by the statue of a poet, Robert Burns. And fittingly, there was a birthday celebration for the late great Robert Burns today at the Dunedin Public Library. Dunedin poet Sue Wootton spoke about her experiences as Robert Burns Fellow at Dunedin's University of Otago, and read some of her poems. There were many poets in the audience too, appreciative of the fine reading. Then there was a ceremony celebrating the wnners of the 2011 Robert Burns Poetry Competition. Medals were presented to the three winners by Professor Liam McIlivanney. It was great to hear the poems read aloud by their authors.

Media Stranglehold

2011-01-24T15:51:00.021+13:00

Switched on the telly this morning to catch the 7.30 am news on TV One. I would usually listen to such a news headline update on National Radio, but I had an idea that there might be some footage of yesterday's storms and floods in the North Island, so preferred to see the moving pictures.

Oh but I was sadly disappointed. Didn't they used to have news updates on the half hour? I was subjected to the cringe making sight and sound of our Prime Minister John Key being toadily interviewed in a soft happy friendly way. Pure PR. Cringe. Now I remember why I hardly watch TV One news any more. They are so clearly not just in the pocket of the right wing spin mongers, they ARE the right wing spin mongers.

Shudder. So I switch over quickly, quickly to National Radio. They'll be having a 7.30 news update. Surely it's in the charter?

But, Noooooooo! Simultaneously, also at half past the hour, the National Radio is playing a RECORDED INTERVIEW with John Key!! Noooooooo! I really have very little tolerance for yet more patsy interviewing of the Smiling Assassin, and it is sounding sickeningly sycophantic. So quickly, third resort: Channel 7 TV News update. Yes! They are having a news report.

But it is about the meeting at Ratana. And they are making it all about John Key! They are saying the Ratana Church has in the past had a big influence on the way their people vote, and that they used to lean towards Labour but now there is a swing to National. At least, the journalists think we will believe that Maori have suddenly opted for the right wing, if we are told it often enough. There's no mention of the fact that maybe there was a good reason for Maori to prefer Labour governments, then and now, because the Labour Government's policies were more beneficial for a wider range of people, not just pitched to enrich the already rich and to bolster the small and already powerful elites.

Then I wonder. 7.30 am on three major news broadcasters, and the same message is being beamed out. Nice Mr Key, everyone loves him, he's the most popular PM ever, and won't it be nice to elect him again this year, even the Maori people love him, and you know they used to mindlessly vote the way they were told to, but now they have a choice they'll go to the pro-National right wing Maori Party...

Is this an evil plot? Or just a coincidence? Are the docile news hacks just playing along with the strings being pulled by the big money PR strategists - or are they actively engaged in their own pro-right wing political campaign?

I've had similar experiences flicking around TV channels during ad breaks, finding the same jingle for a major product airing at the same time, so the poor viewer can't escape hive mind even if they attempt to avoid it by channel surfing. So now are the same tactics being beamed out at us masquerading as "news"?

No wonder so many of us cobble our news together online these days instead of "trusting" the "impartiality" of the national broadcaster. The "National" broadcaster really seems to be that, these days, sadly.

Funny thing is though, whether this was a deliberate attempt to flood the news media with positive feel-goods about the money marketeer-turned PM, or just a nauseating coincidence, it won't work.

It won't work. They're desperate, you see, and their edge of desperation is starting to show. The gap between what they are saying and what they are doing to poor old NZ all over again - selling us off, running us down, and throwing people out of work - is becoming apparent to more and more people.

Maybe not to the small carefully chosen over-polled portion of the populace, but to the rest of us. We are seeing through the hype, and, no, we are not going to vote National.

The Longest Days

2011-01-11T18:35:00.008+13:00

A lingering sunset a couple of days ago, photographed at about 10 past 10 pm. At this time of year the Southern New Zealand city of Dunedin gets almost an hour more daylight than the cosmopolitan northern city of Auckland. The delightful late twilights are one of the very good things about living here. There are many others. We don't have mosquitoes or ants here. We can see the Southern Lights and way more stars. We don't have to worry about volcanoes. I'm not in a mood to talk about the negatives. I'll get back to you about that in winter time (which could be next week...)

Setting sail on a sea of words

2011-01-10T17:24:00.039+13:00

On the weekend I finally settled down and opened up this lovely Christmas present from a very dear friend who always knows exactly what to give me: ATLANTIC.

I'm a Simon Winchester fan. I have a row of his books, well not a literal row, they would be in a row if I didn't have to shelve them in different parts of the library, because of the variety of topics, and I shelve by category not author. He first came to my attention because he wrote about two of the things I love and will read about until the pussycats come home: dictionaries and volcanoes.

I'm not a great genre fiction reader, but if I want a gentle few hours of (edifying) escapism, I can think of nothing better than grabbing a lively narrative about the eruption of Tarawera or Krakatoa. I not long ago reread my collection of Tarawera books and was delighted one day recently to hear that there was a fresh piece of research about to take place: an underwater search for what happened to the famous Pink and White Terraces! Mapping of the Lake Tarawera floor starts on the 23rd January!

I can feel a Krakatoa binge coming on, just talking about it...

Now I can get a bit restless when I'm reading Simon Winchester, excitement junkie that I can be when the topic is volcanoes or anything that can get stormy (like arguments about language...)

He's so loquacious, and erudite, and thoughtful, and he paints his pictures on such a broad canvas, that he's like one of those storytellers you come across, and at first you're impatient, wanting to hurry them up, get on with the action, until you realise for this particular blend of educator/entertainer, the meandering side roads and the back stories just HAVE to be told, and you just have to let them set the scene, even if it takes a while, so you settle in, tune yourself to the steady pace and the measured voice. It's good for me, it calms me down. And he's not that vain, egotistical sort of floor-hugger who has got everything from wikipedia, he has earned the right to be listened to, on account of some real journeys and because of his own encounters with story and storytellers.

I just Googled to find a picture of the book, and discovered that Simon Winchester has his own website, and if I wanted I could follow him on Twitter and "Like" him on Facebook!

OK OK. But I want to read this new book first. So far I have only read the Preface which is a personal introduction; his first journey across the Atlantic at a young age. And I sneaked a peek at a later chapter just to make sure he wasn't going to annoy me with any nonsense about denying climate change. Phew. He seems overly polite about the 'controversy' (from my point of view), but pretty clear about the facts, as usual. No problem there.

Anyway, Shh now, I'm reading...

Anger Management

2011-01-07T18:11:00.008+13:00

Wise Words from the Tabby Guru:

Good anger management depends on knowing the difference between a hiss and a bite.

A hiss is a warning than some situation is inappropriate. A bite, on the other hand, is intended to inflict pain.

Miaow.

"To be angry with the right person at the right time and in the right way and for the right reason, is not easy." ~ Aristotle

Shooting fish in a barrel

2011-01-05T17:46:00.005+13:00

FishUniversityPress RT @ BigFish "I don't think of myself as part of a school"

Also retweeted by:

@fishpie @fishballs @fatfish @fishdaily @modernfish @MinistryOfFish @Fisharts @sprat @tailfin @tailspin @stinkslikeafish @Fish_Council @fischious @ficism @fish_schism @fishnchips @SmallPondInstitute @FishItUp