Facehunter in New Zealand

25Nov09

Almost missed this, but Yvan Rodic  appears to be lurking around Auckland right now.

These pictures, from his blog, were taken on K Rd, uploaded today.

Terribly exciting news. I can’t believe this hasn’t made the papers – but that’s fine, you saw it here first.

I’m sure everyone will be taking extra care with their appearance over the next couple of days.

Filed under: Flights of Fancy   |  2 Comments
Tags: Beautiful, fashion, fun, inspiration, photography

Ones to watch: 7 real life boss playas

17Nov09

“Cool”, for me, has a different meaning than what I remember. Swag is essential, as it always was, but swag devoid of substance will soon lose its lustre, as it has proved to do many times in my experience. For me, people I respect or rate, to any degree, now depend on their level of positivity. Positivity is distinct from happiness – because happiness is a silly measure of anything, and stupid people can be happy.

To live life positively, instead of negatively, is to be for things instead of against everything, as Anais Nin would say. It’s easy enough to rant and rave against the world (as everyone has done), but it’s harder, and more telling of your high-level of steez, if you start walking your talk. There are people in my life I find a pleasure to associate with because they are an infinite fount of inspiration and entertainment. No one should suffer fools as friends.

Of course, all the people I regularly associate with (by choice) are inspiring and interesting in one way or another, whether its because of a talent, peculiarity, eccentricity or simply because they are particularly entertaining or passionate about something. But in this post I thought I’d draw together the real-world inspirations who have had the biggest impact on me, because they live as authentically as they can, and are determined to live a life.

Top 7 real-life boss playas, in no particular order.

• Sylvia Giles: Having a cup of tea with this lovely lass is one of the most uplifting things to do. Visiting her in her apartment this year never failed to pep up the dullest or most uninspired of days. So full of positivity and novel ideas (her forté, after a handy stint in design school), and of course, fun eccentrities, Ms Giles is a delight to be around. She can claim a large chunk of the credit for revamping the print edition of AUT’s Te Waha Nui newspaper, making it look cleaner and more professional than it has in years. She also has a keen eye for fashion ideas and design trends. She is currently on Waiheke Island, clucking over her new baby garden, and eagerly awaiting the arrival of Stephen Fry’s QI on Prime TV.

• Dallas Gurney: Dallas is Sylvie’s partner, and a real gentleman of very high esteem. Currently the manager at Radio Network, Dallas did the same course I did (the AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism) while working fulltime, and missing only five classes in the whole year. I’ve always admired people with a strong work ethic (because I’ve been sorely lacking one, until recently). What’s more, he did the course to better understand his employees. If he didn’t know me to be such an incorrigible trouble-maker, I’d probably ask him to employ me, as rad bosses are a rare find. He also makes a terrific Trivial Pursuit Ombudsman/referee.

• Kieran Nash: Mr Nash is someone a Beat writer might dub “a working class intellectual”. Everyone loves him because he is a bundle of contradictions – he hates hipsters, indie kids and pretentious wank, yet probably has a better taste in music, movies and books than most people (if not most hipsters, indie kids and wankers). He is partial to a rollicking good time, but will never flake on someone for being too hungover. His drive and procrastination also moved him to create the meanest pisstake ‘zine known to Auckland City, Rebate, a direct challenge to AUT’s debate magazine. While sometimes mistaken for a sour grump (when stressed or “laying down the law”) he is mostly a good cunt, and I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t end up as some kind of household name. He also has a fine collection of shoes, including Timberlands, and wolf t-shirts. His wardrobe, and jew-fro, has become one of my new sartorial inspirations.

• Andrew Hughes: Mr Hughes has an incurable passion for “new media platforms”, “ventures”, “investments” and “returns”. He uses a terrific amount of jargon in every day speech, and normal conversations with him can soon turn into motivational speeches. He is this the quintessential hustler. If it were anyone else, I might be disenchanted, but as it happens I am actually hoping he will start recording his own podcasts. This guy is one of the sunniest, most hopelessly ambitious (ruthless?), productive and positive people I know. Right now he’s travelling around the country for the Herald Online, and he’s also scored himself a job at Trends magazine. If he wants to make something happen, he will. He’s also one of my most entertaining and uninhibited friends – I don’t think I’ve ever been bored in his company. And what’s more, he makes a fine breakfasting companion. There aren’t many bigger kicks than sitting with him in the sun over a giant breakfast, chewing over urgent and ambitious plans for the future.

• Hussein Moses: I don’t know Hussein very well, but his blog alone makes him one of my everyday inspirations. He knows more than almost anyone about music (across all genres), and tracking industry news and trends seems to be one of his all-consuming passions. And the crunch – for a music blogger (or any kind of blogger), he can actually write. Even if his passion was sheep-farming or competitive gardening, or something wild like that, his savvy and execution would probably garner him as many followers as he has now.

NO PHOTO.

• Mike Boyes: There’s nothing to say about Mike, except that he is one of the most talented and most decent people I’ve ever met. He doesn’t care a jot about social affairs – his life is in his art, literally. Content to lock himself away for days, or weeks, without friends or fussing, he will labour over his projects with a singular vision, and they will always turn out beautifully. Even so, he has a lovely sense of style (always the icing on the cake when finding someone to admire), and has less evil in him than any other person I know (everyone has their sinister streak).

While I said these were in no particular order, there is one person I always look up to for inspiration on the greyest days. I know him as Bosco (although his name is Richard Dube), and he’s a Canadian who has skipped from one country to another for most of his life, travelling around the world until something stops him, most probably death.

When I met him in New Zealand he was a truck driver, and before that he was an ambulance worker. He must have worked countless jobs in all the places he’s been. After I met him he went to Nigeria as part of a peace-keeping mission, where he was stabbed during an unfortunate friendship with some sort of general. Right now he’s in India doing humanitarian work.

He will live his life like this, defying any and all conventions, from one home to another. The whole world is his backyard, and I believe he is one of the last examples of a true bohemian I will ever meet in this dreary new world.

Filed under: Beautiful   |  2 Comments
Tags: Beautiful, fun, inspiration

New kid on the block (Pt 1)

14Nov09

The bench outside St Kevin’s Arcade, K Rd has a new owner. Braving old Margaret, his bench-next-door neighbour and stiff hustling competition, David Merritt has set up some kind of ramshackle, makeshift printing press for his poetry. These are his tools:

As I stupidly neglected to ask him what the hell he’s trying to do (it all seems a matter of course on K Rd), I will have to deduce those old-fashioned type-set blocks are what he uses to print his poems. The printing is done on shitty pieces of cut-up A4 printer paper, charmingly bound within a wedge of brown  cardboard, and held in place with a couple of staples down the spine. Once printed, his wares are for sale next door (on the bench beside him).

The backward copyright logo on the blackboard stands for “Copyleft”, David Merritt’s publishing endeavour.

From printing press to shop, David has got self-publishing on lock-down. He jokes that he’s going viral (was it really a joke?) but most people on K Rd seem to know him already. My friend gave me a tidy little copy of  geek prayers (pictured above), autographed by David, and I was happy that today I could meet the man behind the ingenious poem.

He seems just grizzly enough for you to know he’s seen a fair bit of the world, but rejects my friend’s offer to buy him a beer, because “the drunk artist is such a stereotype”. Even so, if you believe him (and I haven’t decided if I do), he’s also been at the darkest end of a Bukowksi-esque tunnel. He says he’s left behind three ex-wives, wryly acknowledging the part he’s supposed to play as an artist-turned-bum-turned-artist.

Actually, if you were to be completely skeptical, you might be inclined to think his persona is one big performance. David is certainly a hell of a poet with fans in many quarters (just Google him), but he seems self-aware sitting on that bench, which is intriguing in itself.

His nails are black and filthy, but his clean white shirt is no testimony to his night sleeping on that bench (although he certainly did, as he was complaining about the fire alarm that went off in the arcade late last night). At the same time, his monstrosity of a stapling-gun cost $240, he said.

He seems terribly clever, with no pomp or pretentiousness, and also terribly mischievous. He brazenly asked us to buy him a coffee this morning, sending us off down the road with two of his scrappy publications (one was a poem inked on a piece of cheap paper, stapled to some cardboard). “It’s okay, I trust you guys,” he said. I was half-charmed and half-confused by his audacity, wondering whether he was just some old kook setting up a weird racket in the Arcade. I thought: Maybe he’s some sort of self-styled maestro, looking for n00by young recruits to feed his ego?

But when we got back, he was being conned by an old Malaysian-Indian man, who claimed to be a prominent financial journalist and currency adviser (he was trying to convince David to let him be his manager). David was content either way, and seemed touchingly naive and open to all these people moving in and out of his space.

As these are all my observations, based on only a short conversation and what I’ve heard from friends who have picked his brain, I really can’t paint a picture of him with any authority. But, these were my impressions, and I will be keeping an eye on him.

Because I’d like to chronicle David’s stint on the K Rd bench, in Part 2 of this entry I’ll upload some scans of his book/poetry geek prayers, and in Part 3 I’ll put up some explanation of his work/a backgrounder and a quick interview with him (if he doesn’t relocate anytime soon).

Filed under: Beautiful   |  4 Comments
Tags: art, Beautiful, culture, inspiration, literature

An exercise in self-satisfaction

14Nov09

This blog is not really about celebrating the mundane, but the little rituals of life that we often take for granted are sometimes crammed full of glorious silliness. For example, the habit of eating “breakfast”, or even the odd concept of “meals”, for that matter.

Today, as I sat down in the warm sun to have breakfast at Revel Café on K Rd, with a freshly-pressed copy of the Herald beside me, I felt the pleasurable and intoxicating feeling of self-satisfaction. My breakfast cost $15, the chai latte $4, and the very act of purchasing this meal felt like a peculiar kind of hedonism. Night-time “debauchery” (that word is becoming a stiff cliché), doesn’t feel half as indulgent as breakfasting on a sidewalk, before taking a slow, smug circuit around the shops.

It’s funny that food or drink is more enjoyable when it looks good. Drinking an over-priced coffee out of a dainty, rustic little cup must be terribly satisfying (this was my friend’s drink, not mine, and I was jealous of his cup – and less happy with my own drink – because mine was served in a boring latte bowl).

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of “meals” – I always thought them tiresome and unnecessary, when grazing or eating whatever you feel like throughout the day will do you just fine. To need a meal, to need to survive by religiously eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, almost seems like one of those myths proles would be indoctrinated to believe for some kind of greater good – it makes no sense but we’d do it anyway, because it’s easier. I often fall into the “meal” trap, feeling uneasy when I miss breakfast, lunch or dinner, even if I’m not particularly hungry at the time.

The satisfying sort of meal, the meal that is good for you because you’re not eating it out of obligation or habit, is the one you eat among friends. It’s the dish that is too difficult or complex to make, or too pain-stakingly presented. Then the joy comes in the savouring of it, the selfish destruction of the little culinary masterpiece.

If I had more money and leisure time, dining on small and un-filling portions of very expensive food would quickly become my raison d’être, simply for this weird feeling of ownership, control and choice over this very pesky human need. If we can’t photosynthesise, which would be far more efficient, then we can at least dress up this ugly necessity into something more appealing.

The concept of “dining” – instead of “mealing”-  isn’t new, of course, but you don’t really understand the aristocratic, Roman affection for it until you experience it at the right time in your life (now that I have started acquiring swag and steez, albeit in entry-level amounts, I finally get it).

This, again, wasn’t my meal (mine was the same sans camembert and cream). Although the food wasn’t “healthy” by any stretch, it was good, and I felt restored, well-kept and self-content.

Filed under: Beautiful, Flights of Fancy   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: cuisine, culture, food, fun, inspiration

If every angel’s terrible, why do we welcome them?

09Nov09

Oil painting of Farinelli, centre, in the peach frock coat.

Mankind has been fucking with nature for its own pleasure as far back as 400AD, exemplified in the castrati opera singers of Italy in the 17th century.

With their immense height, elongated arms and hands and large heads they were terrible and magnificent to behold. And their voices, unnatural and exquisite, captivated audiences.

Of course, today we would never dream of cutting off a boy’s testicles for the sake of preserving his pre-pubescent voice. The practice was cruel and utterly selfish – nature was sacrificed for art’s sake.

The castrati provide a fine example of “aesthetics over morality”, or perhaps “functionality over empathy” – heaven forbid, quite literally, that the Vatican let women sing in the opera.

But such ideas are more meaningful, if no less indifferent to human experience, than the idea of l’art pour l’art. Only by choosing aesthetics over moral or ethical obligations could we have created such beautiful monsters: strange, sexless creatures who sang like earthbound seraphim.

Farinelli, depicted in film

These days we try to restrain ourselves from tampering with humans, saving our mischievous bent to make glow-in-the-dark fish and mice with human ears grafted to them. But we pervert the natural course of human development in countless other ways.

It is now possible for a virgin woman to conceive, or for us to cut ourselves up and re-arrange our features for aesthetics’ sake. We can take hormones to influence the characteristics of our sex, and could pre-order a baby to our specifications, down to the colour of their eyes.

This is not necessarily “wrong”, even if there were such a thing as “wrong”. It seems to be the human experience running it’s course. To some extent, our drive to interfere must be natural. Without it, we would have less understanding of ourselves.

Who would have known that to castrate a boy would allow his bones to grow well into adulthood, so his ribcage was more pliant and could expand as his lungs grew to an enormous capacity?

This early 20th century recording of Alessandro Moreschi, the only castrato singer to ever be recorded, is the most tangible remnant of humanity’s ruthless dedication to beauty, art and entertainment. In the recording, which is very poor quality, Moreschi’s voice is aged past its prime, and has lost a significant part of its range.

Moreschi was also never trained in the rigorous tradition of the all-time great singers, Farinelli and Caffarelli, and so he isn’t a true reflection of a castrato who is also a great singer. Of course, I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to be emasculated before I could know anything about masculinity. But in my inability to empathise with these people, who after a hundred years seem more beautiful and mythical than tragic and freakish, the most lamentable thing is that I will never hear the sound of a perfect castrato voice performing the wildest of vocal acrobatic feats.

Filed under: Great and Terrible   |  4 Comments
Tags: art, Beautiful, culture, gender, music