Posts by Matthew Littlewood
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The Sunday column waxed and waned, but Braunias still has powers of description well beyond those of most columnists. He's one of relatively few NZ print columnists who make me think "I wish I'd written that".
His long-form pieces in North & South on various "small towns" in New Zealand were often so funny, sympathetic and strangely revealing that I was reminded how much I missed his work in the Listener. Jane Ussher's too, her photography for those pieces was equally evocative. He really should anthologise those articles, they're among his best writing, which is saying something.
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Keir Leslie does not look at all like you think he does.
I can vouch for that. I can also vouch he is brilliant company. Such a shame I couldn't make this...work commitments proved too difficult to get out of. Maybe next time.
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Man, I'd love to attend this...but, with it in Wellington, it might be a bit of a struggle. However, I will see what I can do, I've got some leave coming up and want to use it accordingly.
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Philip Matthews is not only alive, but writing as beautifully as ever. Philip, if you get the chance to read this, please send me an email. Those are some great photos.
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Just in case you're wondering, I've just been talking to Dave Imlay from Galaxy Records. He's safe, and fine, and ironically his store (pretty much) survived, while the ones around him didn't. The staff at Alice in Videoland seem to be largely accounted for, but I haven't heard about Penny Lane or Radar yet.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Emma Hart,
Emma, if you do decide to take refuge in Timaru, shout out and I’ll see what I can do. Please take care.
My family is safe, although not without a scare.
Just been talking to ChCh band the Transistors (well, one of them). They're all safe, even if their flats are absolutely totalled. Good to hear most of the ChCh PAS’ers are safe and sound.
This is too much, really.
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Ironically enough, Moira Shearer – who was a professional dancer not an actress – gives a better performance than Portman in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s delirious melodrama The Red Shoes (1948), which was one of the highlights of last year’s film festival. Like Nina, Vicky Page literally dies for her art. But unlike Aronofsky, Powell and Pressburger give their lushly over-produced, stratospherically high camp tragedy of the conflict between art and life a heart and mind. I could believe that Vicky Page would sacrifice her marriage for the claustrophobic world of the Ballet Lermontov and Anton Walbrook’s equally obsessive impresario. Boris Lermentov doesn’t need to need his hands between anyone’s legs or talk dirty; his seduction begins in a much more dangerous place.
Yes, and as many have pointed out before the thematic parallels between The Red Shoes and the more, sinister and ahem, graphic Peeping Tom are rather frightful. I think the Red Shoes succeeds as both an experience and a melodrama because of its willingness to go as out there as possible, while still keeping its feet on the ground (no pun intended). The depiction of the backstage mechanations has a curious intimacy to it, and more to the point, Moira Shearer’s dancing is so good that you genuinely believe her when she choses art over life.
If the characters seem outsized well, that’s because their art is outsized. Of course, the visuals have a lot to do with it too- I’ve never seen such concentrated reds on screen, it’s almost unflinchingly lurid at times.
I’ve often wondered whether there was something about the best melodramas of the 1940s that we’ll never be able to capture again: the way they push and push against the codes while making sure just enough is oppressed to get past the sensors. Not that there’s anything explicit in the Red Shoes, but all the suggestions are there, obviously. It’s some kind of perfect, that film: a proper fairytale as Hans Christian Anderson originally told them.
I haven’t seen Black Swan, although I intend to, if only to see how much my experience tallies with Craig’s.
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And because it's Friday, here's one of the Chic Corporation's finest:
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Russell Brown,
I was going to offer a bit of an admonition thing about us being unkind to each other, but things seem to be working out. Meanwhile, here’s Sarah Daniell’s awesome interview with John Campell about being the only guy in the village at VUW gender studies:
What a fantastic interview! Also something I never thought I would see was Chris Trotter coming out in defence of women’s studies. Truly, life is full of surprises. He talks about last night’s show here. As round-table discussions go, it was highly entertaining, and young Hannah has a very smart head on her shoulders. I get the impression she’s one to look out for.
Um, I’ve got no idea where the conversation has headed recently, I just thought I would big-up this week’s Media 7.
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Glen Johnson’s account on the ground, published in today’s Herald on Sunday.
On day 10 I had stood on the roof of the building, the main frontline of the clashes below me. The stink of petroleum, from the hundreds of petrol bombs thrown over the past few hours, lingered in the air.
I headed back to Talaat Harb and along downtown Cairo's main street. It was filled with cars. Hundreds of flags waving from windows. An unbelievable blaring of horns. Celebratory gunshots.
I headed east to a human rights centre I had visited a few days earlier. The door had been kicked in, computers wrecked and papers strewn around.
But now I saw two elderly women - one wearing the abbayya and niqab, the other with a modern haircut and denim jacket, arm in arm.
Finally, I walked to a street I had visited on day two of the protests. A woman wearing the niqab passed me. Through the small slit in the garment, her eyes beamed. For the first time in weeks I felt safe.