Posts by Hebe
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Up Front: Absence in the Arcades, in reply to Rob Stowell,
...the slow pace, and some moments of boredom, often led me deeper into a strange territory...
Christ Stopped at Eboli was my arthouse film epiphany. Never went back.
the old Regent Theatre which was decorated as mock Spanish townscape it even used to have a faux night sky and everything
That night sky and the balconies were truly magical to a teenager: Riviera dreams.
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Hard News: Walking upright again, in reply to BenWilson,
Look, it's dynamic environment.
Quite, and the ground is shifting on this one 24/7.
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Hard News: Walking upright again, in reply to Joe Wylie,
The cathedral may belong to the Anglicans, but iconic considerations aside it’s had massive material support from the state, and has long served as a venue for a whole range of secular functions.
I guess that a lot of the row is about the Anglicans asserting their ownership and right to decide on the cathedral’s fate versus Brownlee in election-year mode, Cera, the City Council officials, Bob Parker, heritage advocates and anyone else who is putting their oar in.
Seems that there are a lot of opinions about what should be done and no-one willing to hand over $50 million to pay for it. An unholy mess in every way.
I loved that cathedral inside -- the outside was ugly standard Vic-Kiwi-Gothic -- but I’m willing to let it go if a better city can arise. From being a lifelong old-buildings-lover, I’m rapidly turning around to a stance of bugger putting our collective emotional, intellectual and physical resources into what are now piles of rubble. Let’s put those resources into re-inventing not rebuilding the city.
I worry that the amount of time and energy people are spending on very knackered buildings and areas will allow the fast-buck merchants to literally drive trucks through the great possibilities open to us all. And that applies on a personal level too – it’s easy to get derailed by the crumbling foundations and sinking garden and not see the opportunities to recreate our lives. One of Christchurch’s frustrations for me has been the rather self-satisfied closed shop, and that has been blown apart .
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Lilith: You poor dear;. I'm keeping sane by digging - literally - and planting. You aren't alone; I know many people who are feeling overstretched and overwhelmed. A walk at Woodend beach out of the shake zone for an hour last week was magical; I have to polish those magic moments to get through the hard work and occasional brutality of daily life. Do you need help to access some sort of help?
When A City Falls is a bit soon for me; one of my coping mechanisms is avoidance of large gatherings in confined spaces and much of the time not listening to earthquake footage with the sound on. Visuals I can handle but the sounds throw me into flashback.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Just thinking,
Essentially clerical classifications from files, & not based on engineering assesments. This has caused ripples in engineering circles.
Why do you say that? I live near the Heathcote River and geotechs have sunk holes all around the area and seem to monitor them regularly.
When my partner asked the geotechs what they were doing he was told that hundreds (500? can't remember the exact figure) of holes had been sunk around Christchurch and were being monitored, either with devices of some sort or manually and that would record the amount of lateral spreading and vertical land movement.
Mind you, they also said the monitoring would continue for a year or more; so are decisions being made before all the data is in? That seems likely given the huge political pressure to be "seen to be" acting. I'm sure our place on the flat is still moving; the backyard has some rather lovely gentle slopes now -- at least they are north-facing, and a freshwater spring pops up sometimes down there, so that could be useful.
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What retirement?
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Just thinking,
In fact you are still green, now with a fetching yellow tint . We're that shade too but I take it that each site will within those broad zones be different.
This story provides an easy link to the maps and stuff:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/5870986/New-green-zoners-face-tougher-standards -
Cracker: On the trail, pt 1., in reply to BenWilson,
The two times I’ve had newborns have been the only two times in my life it’s been good to suffer from insomnia.
Very premature twins (means two-hourly feeds and changes and feeds and changes andandand) gave me a taste for all-night television.
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Cracker: On the trail, pt 1., in reply to Islander,
and I’m bloody thankful that I only teach them fishing & cooking & the occaisional molotov cocktail…
You sound like te perfect auntie, as long as you talk politics and books too.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Islander,
My brutalist (and wealthy) former father-in-law summed up the philosophy of the concrete-builders when he explained why he was so enthusiastic about the buildings in Paris: "Built of stone. There's no bits that'll bloody rot off."