Postcards from Palmengrad

While stumbling about this town today, I saw ...

1. An elderly woman in an electric wheelchair in a giveaway Tui sombrero.
2. 4 middle-eastern gentlemen smoking from an elaborate hookah in their garage.

wellington snaps

A woman taking a break from busking on her guitar picks up a real estate give away and flicks through it. People continue to drop coins in her guitar case.

A child, perhaps four, shouts 'I love you' at people from her carseat.

An Asian family passes me on the corner, where I am smoking. They give me filthy looks as if I am selling myself.

I liked the orchardist though

My eyesight is dimming.
I see only six of the seven sisters.
Tonight I left a party to be alone
to imagine being among a crowd.

names of the Mayans

So Mayans got to have pretty cool names, which is does not really make up for the necessity of perforating your ears, tongue, genitals using a stingray spine (Steve Irwin! Crikey!). Lots of the names seem to combine animals and a number

You get one to three glyphs for your name. Slot one seems to be for qualifiers and adjectival forms of verbs, such as great or a number, 18 for example or smoking. The second seems to be an animal or god slot (possibly the same thing) and ritual/war objects. The third slot appears to be for bodyparts including those of animals or animals. Here are some of the top ten kings' names:
Great Jaguar Paw
Smoking Frog
18 Rabbit
Shield-Jaguar
Smoking Squirrel
Lady Beastie
Lady White-Quetzal
If someone was smart they would make a 'your Mayan name' generator just like your porn name generator and etc

visual ethnography

To

was nice and sunny and the locals got up early to mow their buildings.

Birds in the park gave us a twirl in their new summer finery.

the wow box

So last weekend I stayed down in Pito-One or Petone as it is now called. It used to be the saddest piece of real estate in the Hutt Valley despite having the foreshore. Until the closure of the meatworks in the nineties raw meaty sewerage was dumped straight in the harbour. Now it has been gentrified and feels like a little seaside town right round the corner from the Welly. My friend M with amazing foresight picked up a worker's cottage a (skipping) stone's throw from the beach for about ten bucks in the eighties. He has witness the urban renewal in the village and has participated by adding a modernist extension to the his humble abode.

Mark has an awful lot of stuff though. He is a collector which is something that I admire, but it also makes me a little claustrophobic. It won't be long until the giant modernist space is completely full.

I found love ...

... but it wasn't for me

The balloon and the note are bilingual, with Arabic on the reverse ... I'm guessing the message is the same though.

apology for an accident, Cuba St

archaeometerology - I just made that up

If you need rain here's who you have got to call
Ningirsu is the god of rain, fertility and irrigation in Sumer and Babylon. He is depicted as an eagle with a lion's head.
Baal, "the rider on the clouds," is the god of rain, thunder, and lightening.
As Indra is the god of rain, people sing songs to Indra and pray for rain.
Bushman is the god of rain wind and breath.
Mensäbäk is the god of rain; his name means "Maker of Power." Most interesting of all, Hesuklistos is Jesus Christ, the god to foreigners, who the Lacandones believe to be the son of Äkyantho', who is the god of foreign people and objects.
Tishtar is the god of rain originating from Varukasha Sea (Farakhkart) and distributing water among all countries
Rudra is the god of rain and thunder
Ilojin is the god of rain, of which the tropical Fenstre receives copious amounts. It is Ilojin who brings the monsoonal deluges for half of the Fels year.
Chac is the god of rain, and he is unhappy at the move at the WTO to privatise water, which Chac gave to everyone
Tlaloc is the god of rain, Leonardo is the god of... of... well, you decide.
It seems natural that the masks used by local farmers for rain supplication would be Ryujin, as this is the god of rain
Phya Than is the God of Rain who must be presented with shooting rockets come the sixth month of the lunar calendar
The Rato Machhendranath (rato=red) is the God of rain as well as the God of mercy.
Sabi is the god of rain.
Among the Dinka Deng is the god of rain
Dai Wong is the God of Rain and the guardian of the farmers.
The Thunderbird is the god of rain in our land. His wings are the thunder, his eye is the lightening, he spills the water from his back.

Tetnut- is the goddess of rain, moisture, and dew. She is said to share one soul with Shu.
Bunzi is the goddess of rain and fertility

in lieu of sentences

The streets of Wellington contained the following people

• Keith (but not Burt)
• Rupert (+hug)
• That girl, I think her name is Fiona but I want to call her Alice
• a lot of moustaches
• The coffee man with the face from Easter Island
• that other guy
• and plenty of other people. Who knows if they are worth knowing
• the back of Melanie's head

• Some lookie-likies
• A younger Sophie
• A not as sexy Nelly

difficult emails

What do you do dear readers when the tone of emails is hard to gauge? A couple of weeks ago a friend invited me down to see his new extension (fna fna). We rearranged the original dates to this weekend. I emailed earlier just to check whether this was still the go and got this in return:

Yeah I guess I could manage (sigh). Lets know your rough movements time (are you driving or bussing ?)

So what is this? Humour? I don't email MP that often so I don't know if this is his email humour style or am I feeling the fever and he actually doesn't really want me to stay. So what I do? Respond with some sarky sulkiness ... if you don't want me to come ... or just send him the ETA etc? The low level of enthusiasm is infectious.

Second email dilemma. Because I was expecting to be in Wellington next weekend and two of my dear friends who fled the grad earlier this year will be there for a summit meeting of sorts ... sounds quite exciting for historians doesn't it, I thought I would go down on Thursday and stay in a hotel and socialise with them mildly, as well as sort of try and arrange a *meeting* with my latest micro-crush. So I contact one of the friends who has given me the following options:

X and Y are keen for us to both go stay there on Thursday night - do you want to? It'd be real nice to all catch up together, but I am happy to go with whatever you're comfortable with. Otherwise, maybe we could have another pj party in NAME OF HOTEL Your call.

There seems to me to be a third option she's not giving me. I party with the Grad-uates and then escape back to the hotel alone. Well hopefully not alone.
So should I respond to this email with " Sorry XY AND Z I 'm planning to blow you off to get me some!

in the interest of oversharing

the expression moist towelette really creeps me out

In the interests of interactivity

There was a Sexpo in the grad this weekend. Yes you read that right. A sex expo. The lovely middle aged woman from Aitutaki who makes my coffee in the morning thought she would tell me all about it. She met a lovely porn star lady ... and bought her video. She also met a lot of our colleagues and clients there.

indestructable?

This thing wants to make everything Hindi ... Tamil is much prettier.

So I haven't been here for a while. I haven't been feeling myself lately. And not in the way that expression has come to mean. Since the oh too brief sojourn in the northern hemisphere I have been well completely bummed about life in the 'Grad. Mostly work stuff which of course I cannot blog about, but we might say in pijin ristrakja. I have had no interesting thoughts only little pieces of memory colliding on the neural networks of my mind. I have been thinking about this though

It was the sweetest funniest moment.

As for this blog though, who knows, perhaps I have lost interest. Maybe I am too busy. Despite the internet 2.0 my interest in the web has become even more passive. The truth is probably the way I feel about this place is the same as other aspects of ma vie. I need more discipline. I need to put time into things and not get so distracted. I need to get to the end of some things that I start, cos I am way too familiar with square one

13/30

It's funny how people from the past just slip into your mind when you're not looking .. like flyers for pizza places you've never heard of clog your mailbox. I was crossing the road this morning when Rachel slipped into my mind. She used to spend a lot of time at the cafe I spent a lot of time at ... my excuse was I worked there. She was young maybe 14 but going on 30. Sadly not a very together 30. She had acres of sisters, only one older, who was pretty grounded, which was lucky as her mother was one of those serial marriage types who project managed the wind festival and then moved to Canada. She was really proud of how her daughters were her friends. But I used to think that sometimes daughters need mothers. Rachel went out with this guy. He had the tattoos, the scarifications, the piercings other mothers might have muttered under their breath about. He was also the guy who could have been the bassist for ... dreamed up the video for ... probably invented ... you get the picture.

They were in love. They took photos. If they had been around they would have made movies on their cellphone. So he gets them printed ... somehow ... and they meet at the cafe to have a look at Rachel artily naked standing up in the bath. Rachel artily drunk face down on the bed. You get the picture.

Something happens, and they leave, and the photos get left behind. Rachel and her boyfriend are not particularly popular with the staff, the managers, the other customers. Someone decides that it would be funny to lift up the glass on the table and insert views of Rachel as the centrepiece. So someone decides it would be funny to expose her naivete her desire to shock knowing there would be repulsion and or laughter, someone decided it would be funny for her mother to find out in public exactly what the boyfriend had invented.

The photos were rescued before any damage was done. They were handed back to Rachel on her next visit, with a fatherly warning from one of the bosses. She slipped into my mind today and I wonder what she would make of it now. I'd like to think it would be awkward memories for her. But who can say...

The London scene

Cartwright Gardens, early morning. The following early morning there was a fox.


In fact there were a lot of foxes in London, and they inspired me to be foxy. K will attest.

Ah porn and telecommunications ... the best of British?

She's my London Girl!

It was so great to see you, and the Godbabies. It doesn't feel like time separates our meetings. The last time was only a moment? a heartbeat a go. Thanks for showing me London again. Without you I would never have peed at the Tate Modern, Old St Pauls or gone to Tiblisi ... or got to the airport on time ... I am coming back for more!

Also saw Max, but I was overwhelmed and jetlagged and well crap, by that stage. But she hasn;t changed at all. Beautiful.

I have to say though that the Amerika is the silliest place. So obsessed with bombs and the like, that it would be the easiest place in the world to accidently immigrate to.

I am tired still.

I will go now ... and dream of England.

I hope I was a good visitor.

it's lucky

they paint lines on the ground in Hong Kong.

Otherwise, earth is indistinguishable from sky.

I spent a lot of time in the airport in Hong Kong, which is mostly airy and light. Except for these smoking rooms, which look like bars. Perhaps the Cantonese for them is 'smoke bar'

views and signs

co.ck

I have just come back from here ... that's the business and country code for the Cook Islands but you know me puerile humour and everything.

The wedding was spectacular M and S looked spectacular, the tropically grey skies and fierce winds were spectacular. My speeches ... I was master of ceremonies ... were okayish. I was glad to be upstaged by S's son.

Rarotonga sure is a beautiful island and way more developed than my other homeland. Despite the fact that everything looked spookily familiar .... the way of life and the ubiquitous sound of lightly Poly accented English made it surprisingly different.

I am having computer issues right now and am panicking about repacking for the UK so will post photos ... I took four ... later.

dusty's mum and other stars

of the art world.

I just found out that Caroline has curated this exhibition. And maybe even produced this artwork.

I bet the line sizes go funny now ...


The exhibition is about how artists engage with the art economy and yet position themselves as belonging to alternative cultures. It is also stars some other old friends of mine. So if you are in W-town go and have a look. I think it is called Territorial Pissings ... or something of that nature.


I personally think it is about fandom and diaristic self-expression. Maybe blogging is art. I like that this is about Kurt Cobain. It reminds me of Usti. I have been thinking about it a lot lately fan-hood. I am more of a fan of things now than I used to be. Part of being a late bloomer I guess ... [I am still waiting] ... I think I took fandom to lightly as a teen when you are supposed to have posters on the wall. Sure I liked, I obsessed over bands and possibly even slightly modelled myself on Morrissey, and I did dream about once. Only once. He climbed in my bedroom window and did my maths homework. I wasn't taking maths at the time.


Caroline is awesome, though I haven't seen her for years. Last year I say a one woman show that was created from verbatim stories told by women and girls. Dusty's story was the best.


I sometimes imagine myself as an artist, probably a conceptual artist or an installation maker. People say I have an artistic temperament. A polite way to say moody, is it not? Instead I am a social scientist. Which is really somewhat of a surprise to me. Perhaps my artform is not making decisions about stuff like careers, but just getting buffeted along by ... insert set of beliefs here.

After all every life, is a narrative told by ourselves to ourselves ... are we our only listeners? Is that a wise question to ask in the blogosphere? We make sense, and tidy away the loose edges. Look at what I have just done. I just told you I am a social scientist, which is a short hand description of all the accidental falling into paths that led to here. So Luc Sante was cleverly right in a sneaky kind of way saying that humans are really just 'factories of facts'.


I had something else to blog about from last week's adventures in the 'Grad with AbD . We didn't get to Noir as our night was ruined by someone else's hair cut ... but that's another story.

I should be a dentist

because my day job is already pulling teeth ...

noir

Of course I could be spending my time doing something more profitable, but to blog is to procrastinate. So last night ended up being an awesome night out like I haven't had in a long while. Fish Bar wasn't so crappy as usual and the music was strangely good. We then moved on to the new revamped hotel bar, which had the coolest fit out like in a magazine and everything. Shame the clientele didn't live up to the decor.



Lastly we went to meet angsty A in all her birthday angstiness at the place formerly known as Malga ... the scene of AbD's triumphant investigations! By this time we were all feeling quite wasted. And we danced to crappy music and got more wasted. And I said hola to the little Chileans ... who I say HOLA! too a lot. So I said HOLA to them and Carlos said "Do you speak Spanish?"

The choreographer one of the two was a surprisingly unco-ordinated dancer for a .... dancer... or maybe I just wasn't getting it.

So inspired by going to the movies the other night ... when did they replace the term advertisement with "message of interest"? Come on! I was all set to go to the film festival screening of "Old Joy" because it has Will Oldham in it, not because it is in the film festival. I think it is bourgeois assumption that things are an artform if they can be in a festival. Anyways I was already to go see Will shuffle and whisper if his acting is anything like his singing, that is, but it turns out that it was last week. So I will just have to stare at this non-moving picture ... that's why they are called stills folks ...

And for your clicking pleasure ... a charming craft site, but beware there lurks a dark side to his art ...

http://bentobjects.blogspot.com/

and what of shower caps?

whither have they gone? You just don't see them in the stores anymore, do you. Perhaps I will have to get them from the petshop, where they are repackaged as canary cage seed catcher thingies. For now I will fashion one out of a new world bag, in a recyling kind of way.

Note, there will be no photographs by way of illustration, you will have to experiment with a supermarket bag of your own .... unless you are lucky enough to live in New York where according to the movies they put groceries in brown paper bags.

Besides men are never seen in shower caps in the movies. And Americans seem to wear track suits to bed.

a bell is a cup until it's struck

and a pony is a small horse.

Thanks to E, for answers to this, and many other of life's questions.

Some of you may know that I was going to NYC in the new year to celebrate a small mile stone. Well the Al Qaeda of birthdays i.e. my family have hijacked that plane ... plan and rerouted the celebrations to an all-family love-in a place quite a bit like New York ... only smaller and less interesting. So book your plane tickets folks we're off to Blenheim. Hurrah.

No other news to report. I am getting a new office, but since work talk is verboten, I can't go into the ins and outs of all that.

Ah well, I'm hitting the shower cos I am out on the town. Am meeting people at the fish bar, which passes for hip around here, but is actually just annoying. The bouncer looks Saddam Hussein, but his name is Ashley. That just about sums up the place.

Little Eddie

and he did come up to just above my knee. A charming little chocolate covered Dexter breed cow.

Turns out that I was useless as a cowherder, as they tried to follow me to the gate, not out of a desire to get loose ... they were just going with the flow. Of course, I had no idea what to do, and tried to talk them out of it. Oh well any dreams of a hobby farm went out the window.

animal vegetable mineral

I was supposed to be going to see tiny baby cows. Apparently, Eddie the Dexter only reaches your knee ... which doesn't seem very cow-like to me. In fact that very notion brings me to my main point, dear reader ... well actually not a point but a series of questions. Yes, I seek enlightenment, and that's where you come in.

You see, either there is something wrong with my vocabulary or with the English language. I want to say that Eddie is a cow, even though he is or will be when he grows up a bull. But to me, cow is the general cover term: a female cow is a cow, and a male cow is a bull. I can't use the word cattle to refer to a specific cow-or-bull. Can you?

This got me to thinking about other animals I am not so sure about. I don't know what a pony is. I mean I can recognise one out in a field, but I don't have a proper definition of one in my head. Is a pony just a short horse? Or is it some separate species? Do some horse parents just have pony babies like some weak gene? (Does the mare look at the stallion and think, well pony-ness doesn't run on my side of the family? Or do you need a mummy pony and a daddy pony to make a pony?

And what about sharks and dolphins? Are they both mammals even though they seem very fish like to me ... Is there a separate category that includes dolphins and sharks, and how does that relate to whales. Whales and dolphins seem similar to me, but I guess I am categorising them by disposition, they seem friendly and orientated towards peaceful fun ... whereas sharks are just nasty. And as for Orca, they seem like sharks pretending to be whales pretending to be sharks. I mean they used to be called killer whales which implies that killing is quite unusual behaviour for whales. There is no equivalent killer sharks because the opposite is true, sharks that aren't constantly eating surfers, swimmers etc are the rarity.

And what about eels? Are they fish? Or stingrays?

This gets me onto tomatoes and avocados, fruits or vegetables? I know the scientists say that they are fruit, and have some reason that escapes me about the seeds ... but tomatoes are definitely a vegetable for me because the likelihood of heating before eating is about 50/50. That is my taxonomy does admit grey areas, but it is the possibility of being consumed raw that separates the fruit from the veges. The higher likelihood of being eaten cooked seems to make you a vegetable. What about salad leaves, you say? Yes they pose a problem for my system, but they seem to be a separate subcategory of vegetables.

So dear readers, how do you organise the natural 'kingdom'? Help me out here ...

so this is what it will be like

from now on.

So C has moved to Auckland, and DrL is away, so it is good practice for when he moves south permanently. Weekends will be quiet... not that I miss the karaoke. Giving that up has been the only new year's resolution I have ever managed to keep.

Went out for a drink last night with Dr O before he disappears into matrimony. In fact he sort of already has given that he has moved to a rural idyll with horses, dogs and a philosopher. Whoever says ... and it seems that most people do ... that men don't talk about their feelings ... don't know Dr O. I was charmed by the tenderness of his feelings towards his wife especially as his conversation was sprinkled with hegemonic discourses ... "don't get me wrong, that kitty has claws" he said at one point.

Anyways...

perhaps they are spooky ...

Some just appear a little shy though

do I know you from somewhere?

Back in the W-town, and I always feel just a little bit sexier ... okay more interesting which passes for sexy around here ...

Wellingtonians just seem more happy. They don't scowl at you on the street or shout from cars. Is this what they mean by 'civil society'? Have been getting back into the swing of things back in the Palmengrad and the job, but its 7:30 and I am about to have an hour long online meeting with clients. So modern so dull. Slipped away for an hour to a bar and met up with Uncle S who caught me up on the arrival of babies ... so many babies ... mine must be in the post.

I went to the national bird show the other day. Apparently birds freak a lot of people out. I kinda like the way that they look at you. I also like photographing them ... as you might have noticed. Luckily for you I don't have my camera with me. It is interesting how phobias seems to be culturally learnt phenomenona. The people of the village think we re crazy to be scared of rats and spiders, but they are horrified by tiny little lizards.

Oh well I had better get back to my cyberhui ...

shoe and tell 2

This is Putu, the chicken I was given at the end of my last stay. She has had three litters? broods? ... sets of chicks since then. The first lot was eaten by dogs. But the hens of round 2 are are about to lay. Soon I will be up to my neck in fowl. Actually I am going to trade them in for a pig ... I should have enough by December ... so I can enter the circumcision ceremony. Papa BB is amping for me to do it, as he will be my sponsor. This means he has started to refer to me as his pig - a joking way of referring to a wife ... Hmm ritualised homosexuality anyone?

shoe and tell

Here's the rooster I ate at my going away dinner.

I did not eat this turtle. They know not to hunt them.

I had a great time though, endangered species not withstanding. Some very sad and disturbing developments though. One sister in law died in childbirth. Premature labour brought on by yet another bout of domestic violence... Another uncle has a very serious case of elephantitus ... and one of the teachers ... ayoung guy died in his sleep.

And me?I accidently swam with a shark. I was standing in waist deep water inside the reef, and noticed a fin slowly rise above the water about 15 metres away. I thought I was hallucinating until I heard one of the chiefs resting on the stage ... a kind of verandah affair just above the beach cry 'shark shark'. This is it I thought. So I started to carefully and splashlessly move back to the shore about 40 metres away. Because of the shape of the beach, it actually dips down just near the shore, and I thought if this shark is going to take me, he'll do it there. My legs were a bit shakey once I got out of the water, but no damage.

When I got back to my house I mentioned the adventure to my brother aged 9. Oh it wasn't a shark, just a dolphin, he said. And he would know because he was there. And he knows better than the chief ....

Other than that it was pretty much work work work. I didn't drink nearly as much kava as on previous occasions and that seemed to have allowed me to preserve a calm demeanor in the face of the usual shenanigans -consultants not turning up when they said they would ... the laplap and the water shortages ...

Oh well am back now, and back into it.

getting away

attempt two ...

So I am off again tonight ... hopefully.

An update on smiling man for those of you who may remember. Yesterday on my way to work, my smiling buddy you know the one intellectually challenged but a charmer was hanging at the traffic lights with a brother? caregiver. He rushed up while I waited to cross and put his head on my shoulder and said ... "You're a naughty man" ... What does he know that I don't?

bound for

nowhere ....

So as you might imagine form my typing on this interweb thingy I am not in the village. I am at home, in my kitchen.

I got as far as Auckland, but my flight from the "grad was delayed and missed my connecting flight to Island-land.

Oh well, try again Sunday.

little boxes

In the (smells like teen) spirit of tidying my bedroom because of landlord sneakiness, I bought fifteen of these.
I have actually only constructed these five. The rest lie uselessly flat inside their packaging.
But won't I be tidy? Won't I be impressive? Won't I look organised ....

I should stop this

arse-ing about and get on with preparing for the foray into the islands. The concept of organising myself is paralysing. So instead, I sit here. I have presents to get, structures to prepare, house to clean, as I know my nosey landlord will sneak in while I am away. Speaking of houses I saw one that I want. I went to one of those online mortgage calculators and well let's just say homeownership and I will probably never be friends.





Anyways as Max often entitles her posts, but with probably not intentionally skitey pictures of her destination I'll be away ...

Not quite Paris, is it

your eye and its partner

So blogger ate my template ... not to worry ...
So what have I been up to? Wouldn't you like to know ... Escaped to the big city fun for some cat sitting, with a curiously uninteractive cat. She didn't miaow she didn't purr and she doesn't sit on you. Just near you. It was unbelievably cold down there too. The house seemed impossible to heat. It is the first time I can honestly say I was glad to get back to Palmengrad. Not that it is a lot warmer here, but my little brick fortress sure keeps the heat in. Work has continued to suck my will to live ... in fact working isn't what it was cracked up to be ... what can you do? an ex-languid youth has gotta eat ...

I did have fun down in the 'ville though. Met up with EmB and AB and we got a surprise special guest visit from, well Ab did we were merely collateral visitees. I'm off to the islands next week, despite the fact I have not procured a school bell for the new village church ... I will be in trouble with the elders. I guess they just don't make bells like they used to ... In other news I have been reading about them Persians. What with the hoohaa about 300 and my love of Ole Herodotus. So in Persian Fire, which proposes that whole shebang was the birthplace of east versus west carryings on, and that the Greeks were terrorists states, I did learn one thing that I am sure that movie left out. At the battle of Marathon there were 600 Thespians! War of the lovies I'd suggest.

In other reading news ... I don't get out much ... aparently in Igbo culture a very excited greeting for someone who you have not seen for a while is to say "your eye". The proper response is "your eye and its partner".

So, dear reader(s) Your eye!

Holy moly

On the way to the supermarket I passed an Islamic sausage sizzle.

Recently at some kind of interfaith seminar our beloved leader confirmed that we were not a theocracy. The links, she would have us believe, have long be severed. The only protest this raised was Bishop Brian Tamaki http://www.bishopbriantamaki.org.nz/ and his creepy destiny church. Performing a haka in protest, they claimed the PM had betrayed one hundred years of christianity in this country. So Brian what about all those other hundred years your tipuna were here?

Weirdly though, given the PM's assurance, the speaker of the house grimly says a prayer as the first order of business in parliament ...

The downside of the vanishing christian heritage of the nation is the selling off of some of Wellington's architecture gem. St Gerard's monastery is now a chiropractor's office, the Fortuna Chapel is trapped inside a retirement home and now Stella Maris and the Star of the Sea may be sold off.

go rhyme your runes in june,

I'm not your seventh son ...

So how's your June progressing? It's finally got cold here, particularly the nights I have slept on the couch. This is a sign for me that things aren't going so well ... the tv as night nurse ... Things have been crazy busy at work ... but I can't blog about that ... but can you say hostile takeover?

In other news, there is no other news. I have been moping and working only. Aren't you glad now for the June blog silence? I have been reading Wierzbicka's theories of semantic universals, particularly her views of the non-match up of emotions. When she compares the Russian words that are most commonly translated as sad, she notes this very big difference. (The preposed question mark suggests this is a marginally acceptable construction. Nothing before the sentence indicated this is a grammatical construction).

On cuvstvoval kakuju-to grust', on sam ne znal pocemu.
?On cuvstvoval kakuju-to pecal, on sam ne znal pocemu.
He felt some sadness, but he didn't know why.

The difference is the interpretation of vagueness, only grust' allows this reading, and this impacts on other aspects of the grammar of the language. Here they are as adverbs:

Pecal'no ja smotrju na eto pokolenie
sadly I look on this generation
"I look with sadness on this generation."

grustno ja smotru na eto pokolenie
sadly I look on this generation

The difference between the two is the interpretation of sadly. In the first it is a judgement about this generation; the second implies a facial expression, describing the manner in which the event of looking was carried out, i.e. "With a sad face, I look at this generation."

Okay enough semantics. I am cleaning my house, and cursing my toilet today. Over the past few months its refilling power has slowed to a trickle ... making it awkward with guests. Now it has stopped altogether.

manly hugs and chick fights

the usual saturday night then ... Started out late last night, met up with karaoke buddy and the Maori-Samoan dream team who hadn't see for ages, W - the Maori half was also very excited to see me, and I was crushed for some minutes against the wall with him. Unfotunately for me they love to drink in the rugby head bar ... which makes me feel tiny and somewhat out of place. But as if rugbyheads were bad enough, women who fetishise the hegemonic masculinty represented by the various 1st XVs in attendance are far worse. Yappy ageing chihuahua lady started hitting on the Maori half of the afore-mentioned team, and karaoke buddy made it worse by telling her to move away. Ended up Samoan landed a few good punches on the chihuahua snout before I stepped in as the human wall. The chihuahua yapped and yapped until we left. And then tried to follow us to another bar to continue the fight.

Hurray for rugby.

this is the one that we played at assembly ...

Last night I went to my first school dance ... that is if you don't count the 'Disco for Kampuchea' that Jane Kaeshagen and I organised in Grade 7. Actually, it wasn't a school dance it was a real gig at 'the tummy', the all ages venue here in the 'Grad.

Days gone by I used to go see my friends' bands. The D4, Hustler, Glam R Us. Now I go to my friends' kids' bands. Still it was pretty awesome and like being at High School. The Semi Automatics opened for a couple of older bands, but there was still a see of emos all throwing their goats as if NCEA depended upon it. And the lead singer, pretty charismatic for a 16yr old really did intro one of the songs with the title of today's post. So cute... except for the girls screaming 'Oh.My.God. everytime one of their little friends arrived.

I'd like to link you, but they appear to be the only band that aren't on myspace.

Unfortunately one of the other adult team was this really creepy French guy who appears to spend too much time at home. It was like he had never seen women before. He was also amazed that I had no idea how much baby sitting cost. But why the fuck would I? I have a day job.

So well anyway, cleaning the house can no longer

I trust you have been talking among yourselves ...

while I have been in communicado ... or should that read while I have been a moody bastard?

Apart from a dash down to the big city where I celebrated the lovely E.B's birthday with 3 delicious cakes with my friends AbD and Matty B among others, life has been one long festival of shite. Since blogging, drinking, misbehaving and have one's own opinion is strictly ix-nay at my workplace I can't fill you in on that ... so you are saved from reading a long and heartfelt whine ...

So what have I been doing? Apart from the big Ws whining and working? Not a fuck of a lot. Certainly not gardening. I did pay my electricity bill twice on the same day, giving me a whopping great early payment discount this time round! And I undertook shopping therapy. I meant to buy shoes, but came away with pants and a shirt which I now have to wrap round my feet for sins, which is exactly what you should do with woollen trousers, eh?

I have been reading Herodotus - father of history, or so his agent says, - but not in any English Patient-y sort of a way, but because it is the closest I have come to reading fiction after Lucy Ellmann disappointed me with Doctors and Nurses.

Later tonight I will be going out in my new pants. I rarely go out pantless, but this will be their public debut. I am celebrating that a friend has got a job in a real city. She however is less celebrating and more freaking out. Needless to say I will be sad to see her go, and since she is my going out buddy? accomplice? it now dawns on me I may not have needed new pants after all. Or perhaps they will go out and look for friends like the poor empty pants in What was I so scared of?

lotus, mittens, towel

So life had become insane. My clients, my colleagues, my dog .... okay I don't have a dog, but if I did it would have gone insane over the last two week period. So what is a boy to do? Well run away is always a good (grown up) option so I headed for the big city for a .... big city experience.
I cried in the national archives, I got bored at a boring seminar run by Ms Smug Researcher, and got a cold.

I did have though with Melf and Mcdreamy ... dinner, drinks, back home by 10pm.

I actually need a real holiday I think. Not visiting Australia, not the islands ...

Sorry this post is whine, but hell, do what you are good at.

Cardy Rock!

So after a stressful week of co-worker meltdowns and recalitrant 'clients' and computer to owner harrassment, I went out and took Max's advice and drank to kill off the Rennie dreams. Glad that's over, though it now seems that bad dreams are plaguing her ...

Anyways, started out with the historians and ended up with B and P of the Wanganui adventure story. He's an old welly acquaintance so we seem to share a lot more common interests. Ended up seeing the Brunettes. A fine fine band, and many cardy wearers in attendance. Hurrah. They started out life as a retro laden duo - a kind of Carpenters thing with glockenspiels and cute melodies. Surprisingly now they are a swinging six piece, with all but Jonathon guitarist, songwriter and singer swapping instruments all night ... Is that something you should do with a clarinet?

It was nice to be a fan again; looking up on the stage with admiration and excitement. And the bar had gisborne gold on tap. I haven't drunk that beer in years. So nostalgia dressing has deepened into do other nostalgic activities. Perhaps I am having a mild midlife crisis ...

Anyways so Friday night was rocking, and yesterday I could do nothing. I attempted to get cheap fresh vegies from the farmer's market but got bored along the way. Tried shoe-shopping - a desperate joke, and came home and sat on the couch contemplating cleaning, working, tidying and achieved none of those things.

Today I woke early and wandered about, and am now realising that all the love I had for the world has evaporated as it does by this time every sunday and all my best laid plans, like those of humans and rodents, come to naught.

bad dreams in the night

It's like I'm on Lariam again. Nightly I am visited by this crazed woman named Rennie. She's violent and manipulative and well just plain evil. The first dream, started out nice I was visiting my old friend Catherine. Her house turned out to be my apartment in Paris ... of course, and the neighbours across the balcony were this really nice middle aged couple with Australian accents. Rennie, their daughter came to stay and the shouting and screaming started and somehow I was in their apartment and discovered the bodies. Rennie had stabbed them in the bathroom. For some dream-logic reason instead of calling the police she had me cleaning the blood out of the shagpile ... Who puts shagpile in the bathroom? For the last week she has been back in my dreams, and she makes out she is my friend. She follows me to bars, and if I don't pay attention to her she goes off. The other night it ended with her having followed me to a bar dressed in a giant rabbit suit ... not the playboy bunny kind but the full plushie sort. When she wasn't getting noticed she grabbed a bear bottle and bashed her own teeth out. I woke up with the vision of her standing there with blood pulsing out of her mouth and dripping onto the costume matting the fur.

Any Freudians/Jungians out there care to explain? Neatest correct entry wins.

oh and ...

stay tuned for reality tv show blogging. If the guests don't turn up there will be time for commentary on Alpha males go wild in the pirates show aka Everything that is wrong with Matthew Ridge - that's for you, AbD. And oooooh boy, hey Rudi.

the gates of hell are close

by. It explains all the flies in my house. And before you say anything, not just my house, Palmengrad is swarming with these devil's henchmen. I just went medieval on their flying asses with the spray, something that I am actually usually quite opposed to, but enough already.

So househunting continued today ... a railwayman's cottage. Very cute hundred year old villa with a little verandah but I was sensible enough to take an advisor this time. And as soon as we hit the kitchen she said get out of here now. So back to the original plan of waiting for one on Savage to come up ... I'm not so good at waiting though.

I drunkenly invited some people for tea tonight. I shouldn't have. I should be working ... and the evil flushing mechanism on my toilet ... the cistern of hell? ... has gone wonky as it always does when I am expecting visitors. I being drunk at the time, only remembered by chance this morning about inviting them, so I am not sure if they have remembered at all. I have left a message on their phone, and now don't know whether I should prepare all the tasty treats or not ...

I guess I could have lots of vegan leftovers, if you are up for any ...

big ho

me owner.



I went house hunting yesterday. Though kinda on the down low. I was sort of accompanying a colleague who is looking for a new house, but with the vague understanding that I might be interested. I have been slow coming to the idea of homeownership. It seems like a weight around the neck more than anything else and to be honest I never thought I would earn enough that the lady bankers wouldn't scoff down there silk scarf wrapped throats at the thought of a mortgage for me. But it turns out that I might be earning enough to get myself into ridiculous debt.





I have the self awareness that I am not a do-er upp-er-er and have not the supposedly kiwi diy dna but it would be nice to live without that GODDAM red paint in the living room.



My only problem is that there are only two streets in this town that I want to live in, and the people living here (yes the Sav is one of them) don't seem to move a whole lot. Apparently a lovely lady died just round the corner, so we went and had a look at the carnage she had wreaked when she was feeling a little more spry ... circa late sixties by the look of the carpet and the drapes. This beautiful 30-40s state house with rimu and matai floors had all of its original features ripped out - the doors replaced with that beer-bottle coloured textured glass and one of those rubbery concertina doors. She had also made little curtains to hang over such offences as the wardrobe doors and even over the fusebox!

what happens to the rat that stops running the maze?

The doctors think it's dumb but it's just disappointed...

Yes more nostalgia music buying. I am trying now to resist an Afghan Whigs restock. A week of unrelenting stress, angst and to admit to you all anger, well just a little. The weekend again and here I am in the kitchen thinking music of the early nineties. Talked on the phone for over an hour with C.C in Sydney, which was great, trans-Tasman gossip lines though. And it looks like NYC for 40th birthday ... any takers?

On the surface this weekend is stretching out into a silent and empty few days, before the clients return on Monday .... for another short week ... anzac day ... but underneath it all will be the nagging suggestion of work to be done, bedrooms to be tidied and the like. I am going to go looking at houses with a colleague. Really for her, but secretly for me. I have never really wanted to be a home owner before. I guess though I am relenting to the Pakeha dream of owning land ... and if I don't do it now I will never get it into it.

I'm pretty picky too. There are really only a few streets I want to live in in this town, and even then only a few houses. In fact, I think I really want to own this house, but that's not an option. Open homes scare me ... hell as you know ... I can't really stand visitors. So being a stranger is some poor person's house, basically invited to judge their taste and decorating skills is a bit off-putting.

Well enough dullness ... Would you like to me blog on american idol/america's top model/dancing with the stars ?

I thought not.

nostalgic dressing

pays off. Against all predictions, dressing as you did circa 1986-1989 does not make you look tragic, or like some misguided ageing hipster. It makes you look younger. Cooler. During unsuccessful shopping outting I was handed a flyer for a rock and roll gig. I might just go.

shopping city terrors

So the old blog turned out to be a cleaning blog ... no wonder I abandoned it ... here's hoping this doesn't turn into a shopping blog ...

So its Easter Monday, which elsewhere in the civilised world means one thing ... SALES ... but here in Palmengrad, not so. You were hard pressed to find a cafe open. I having no food in the house and unable to express my identity through consumption since before Good Friday was planning on replacing those dear departed undies ... and some new shoes ... and something to read ...

But denied. All excited I left the house before nine, and headed into the ville, in time to see the bourgeois set up their Mercedes Benz club display ... Noting the shops were not yet ready for my perusal, I downed coffee ... and then another ... and then another ... I window shopped, I saw a great Maoist teapot set in a closing down sale, in a shop that couldn't be bothered opening up to close down ...

The bookshop opened. And had a sale ... on cookbooks. It was packed with ladies who lunch ... and probably don't cook. I came away empty handed after contemplating buying a replacement copy of Diski's skating to antarctica - the best autobiography slash travel writing I have ever read.

So empty handed was I, as I wandered home ... past the local Savemart ... not nearly as spectacular as the Wanganui effort. Still, a Pierre Cardin jersey for seven dollars ... that'll do nicely.

Vegas! .... well kinda

It is holiday time again, and the same battle between the police and garden centres is raging up and down the country. Apparently Gardening For Jesus is not an option ... though Smacking your Kids is a truly Christian thing to do ... Go figure ...

Anyways so it is the season of road trips again, and I headed out with Br and his Girlfriend to the second hand shopping mecca that is Wanga-Vegas ... hometown, but not birthplace of the Marvellous K. We stopped first in Marton, a pretty little town with a dark underbelly. It has the highest suicide rate in the country. We stopped in at a second hand hall to hone our skills for the bargains that awaited us further along the line. P bought a cute little skillet to heat seeds and nuts, and perhaps create the occasional frittata-for-one... I discovered we were also at the site of Rangitikei Country Music Club ... which may or may not be implicated in the aforementioned suicide statistic.

Perhaps, this perceived link explains, the demure, if not covert decoration of their hall.

Onwards, to the mighty Whanganui river, and out to the fallen down suburb with river views to behold the savemart, the largest I had ever seen, and with a carpark full of late model 4 wheel drives. Inside, we were the only neo hipster kids, the rest were poor and mainly brown, which suggests that the income is going into feeding the gas guzzlers outside. Anyways, we came a way with a bargain or two. I was especially pleased with a vintage navy silverdale cardigan with leather knot buttons ... in fact I am wearing it now. Five dollars well spent.

I am succumbing to nostalgic dressing once, again. Jeans white t and a cardigan takes me back to undergraduate days making melting polystyrene cups into "sculptures" and avoiding class.

In other clothing related news, I had to bid farewell to my two favourite pairs of underwear this week. One was given to me be the lovely E, and date from her reporting days... What makes us so attached to our clothes? Why are we ... perhaps men in particular ... reluctant to part with our ragged but loved favourites? Is it some identity we have invested in these vestments. Is throwing out the ragged-edged t or beloved undies the same as euthenazing a pet, or is it just the hassle of replacement, the awkwardness of shopping at the mall, and in my case buying new underwear off a young client?

reaching out

to the cyberhermitage that is savage reserve. So as my cyberworld expands I have begun to receive strangers into my hermitage. I'm not talking desperate scammers from the Bank of Nigeria, but actual people. I just received an invitation to stay in the handsome building known as the Harmony Club of Selma which is odd as it does not appear to have accommodation, despite the so-called residential floor.

As the charming but not so informative website explains, the Harmony Club was set up by the Jewish community of Selma, Alabama. In 1930s it became the home of the Elks, which sounds like one of those Barney Rubble type secret societies. So what happened to the Jews of Selma? Does anyone know? Did they head out west with the Joads? Emigrate? There was no Jewish state to speak of? I imagine the building for years abandoned empty like the temple MM and I visited in Plovdiv with its beautiful naive art and its abandoned scrolls and apparatus of worship, and how MM spoke Spanish to the Ladino speaking caretaker. A language that had been carried to Eastern Europe by the Jews leaving Spain, some east, some West with Columbus to the New World, a phrase which now looks odd as its local referent here is a chain of supermarkets. That gives a new spin to the John Donne poem

let us others to New Worlds have gone

doesn't it?

I am rambling and you have better things to do...

rehydrating

is probably good idea right now. Though, never the poster boy for the late 2oth early 21st century, I am not one for toting round a waterbottle. So I guess my veins are shrinking or necrotising or something nasty as we speak, and it could according to the pump ads be (partially) responsible for my miserable attention span ... though I am still blame late onset attention deficit disorder ...

Anyway the long awaited tour of the 'Grad with Melf and Sean was well worth the angst of a four hour delay in arrival. Especially since they brought with them a bottle of seven tiki white rum and (left behind the last of the) manuka honey vodka. Either of these mixes with ginger beer and lime went perfectly with late after noon badminton on the lawn.

Games where it is reasonably possible to participate with a glass in hand are the best kind, clearly. Despite losing in the Manawatustan Wellington play-offs it was a good time all round(s after rounds). The proceedings were interrupted by the unusual Spanish women he keeps a lot of her furniture in my garage., but that was all by the by.

We went into town and showcased the local residents' talent at the local karaoke joint. Which is breath-taking, but not in the way you might think. Palmengrad appears to be bride capital of the universe. We spotted 7 different hen parties. Each with not-so-blushing-bride with veil and skimpy outfits, all matching a theme ... naughty catholic school girls seems popular this year, which gives a whole porn-as-as-street-theatre atmosphere to the strip.

Melanie succinctly summed up the problem of the 'Grad, from a Newtown/Wellie perspective ... there is only the equivalent to Courtney Place here.

Speaking of 'atmosphere' this time as a lexical item, I awoke the other day to ad on the local radio for a brand new restaurant "opposite the hospital" ... fire your copywriter ... which has rebranded itself and has a great new name .... ambiente', pronounced in the approximation of a French accent as only a resident of the 'Grad could produce AM-BE-ANT-TAY. If you have to French it up a little, what's so wrong with ambience?

The locals, conservative about all other facets of life, have a very gung ho attitude to language. I'm not one an apostrophe-obsessed person. It is perfectly reasonable for people to be confounded by the rules of the little bugger, as the standardisation of this aspect was produced by printers not linguists or authors as late as the nineteenth century. Besides, the morphology of English is so poor that in spoken language we do not distinguish the ending -s as attached to verbs to mark 3rd singular present habitual aspect, and both plurality and possession on nouns. Yet no-one is confused when listening because we recognise word class and function from context. I digress ... rant ... What locals here seem to enjoy is sprinkling diacritics from other languages over perfectly reasonable English words in a manner reminiscent of heavy metal bands. There is a hotel named after an English county which has a nice overlay of umlauts above each of the vowels, which must really confuse the German and Hungarian tourists. Another obsession is inappropriate z. Just down the road from the aforementioned hotel, is another imaginatively named shadzz. Most locals have no idea how this is meant to be pronounced, which surely would impact on room occupancy rates, no?

And before I go. If you hanker after white rum, take a look at seven tiki. The bottle and the website reproduce the legend of the seven canoes that brought the Maaori to this corner of Polynesia. Who says hard liquor can't be educational. Though, if you ever find yourself navigating an outrigger in the Pacific in hopes of finding us down here, don't rely on the map on the bottle. For some reason, Tonga is west of Tahiti and more northerly than Hawai'i ...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

So how was your day?

I am over over over my 'clients'. In other news I have felt hung over all day after a big night out on 3 drinks.

After a birthday drop-in on a friend with a boxed gerbera ... rapidly becoming the most insincere flower ... replacing the chrysanthemum and the carnation ... though they are kinda disney-like .... I ended up watching people salsa at a Chinese bar (?!!). Men seem to like dancing salsa. I think because if you can you look good at it. Salsa skills perhaps run along an inverted bell curve, as you see a lot of good salsa dancers and a lot so-so ones, but really no-one in between. Perhaps men like it because it is such an instructed dance, they seem to be listening to a little voice in their heads counting one and two and, and shouting hip-swaying instructions. Hmm I guess I am not a big fan of these contrived styles. Dancing is a language and last night most of them looked like they were lip syncing it.

Gosh criticism? Here on Savage Reserve? Perhaps because I feel unable to criticise the aforementioned clients. So sorry dancers, sorry salsa fans, I'm projecting.

no comment?

Blogger won't let me comment on my own blog! So this is for you K. Yes anything with crust in it is hilarious and any expression with moist makes me blush

someone needs to go

to abuse school. Walking home on Friday night at the dangerous hour of 9pm, I got this shouted at me from a dude in a car

you're a fucking sexy man ... or woman ... or whatever you are

I think I'll analyse that as an initial slippage with a poorly attempted coverup.
Still abuse from passing cars is the norm here. I had apples pelted at me from a moving vehicle the first week I lived in this town which really kicked off my loving relationship with this place.
Ill-advisedly, we went out last night. We forgot it was St Patrick's day ... and fiddly dee potatoes to that, I say. Though I did learn an amusing new expression -kia ora begorrahs i.e. people of Irish and Maaori ancestry. Everywhere we were out of place, too old, not rugby enough, not emo enough, not wearing green, not pissed till puking. MelF and McDreamy are coming up next weekend and I am worried now about how entertain them. I am tired of smirking at the provincial ways here. It is no longer amusing, now I get that there are no alternatives.

calendarisationmania

apropos to the apropos to MM's post. I have been scouring the net for more examples of the calendarisation of professions. Though perhaps as not as odd as the men of mortuaries, the gondoliers of Venice have been immortalised and calendarised, and most sacrilegiously, priests of Rome

if you're fond of

sand dunes and salty air....

When I was a kid summer started just before school ended in December. But things have been happening here on Earth since then ... global warming? crustal shift? cellphones? and now summer starts the day school starts back.

To celebrate the greenhouse affect, today I went to the beach. I am actually not much of a beach-goer. In fact, my co-beach-goers were surprised and a little put out that I didn't want to swim. I would have had there been waves, but to me there is little point in swimming when there's barely a tide. And besides, because there were kids in our party they swam between the flags in a very crowded people soup. So I instead investigated the sand dunes and burnt the soles of my feet in doing so ... Doesn't this, though .....

.... seem more inspiring than that?

I still find it hard to believe that on many parts of the coastline, the local governments not only allow but generally encourage people to drive up and down the beach ... so much for salty air.

lost in found

Have spent the afternoon at foundmagazine. I used to look at all the time but then I forgot about it. So I guess I found it again. Anyways, I am sentimental, and nostalgic for things that we might have experienced individually and yet somehow remember collectively. Is that you, zeitgeist, haunting us all?

This photo received a lot of comments, especially from women who used to own these togs. Many wished they still had them now. She's a little scary, a little fierce, but so so cool...

Anyways, as much as the found photographs are arresting, it is often the little notes, the scraps of thoughts addressed to the self, a lover, or a stranger who has boxed your car in at the carpark that really grab you ...