Posts by Geoff Lealand
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That Canadian pair who made a visit here weren’t promoting ‘free’ speech; you were expected to pay to hear their bile and hatred?
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kia ora Russell. If you are able to travel, taking a trip to the Tawhiti Museum in Hawera (South Taranaki) might be helpful.
Created in an old dairy factory, it features a myriad of intricate, miniatures of local history (well, versions of Pakeha and Maori history), all hand-crafted and painted. There are also larger-scale reconstructions of domestic and work life across a range of interesting buildings—I particularly appreciated the building dedicated to Ronald Hugh Morrieson, having spent my growing up years in Hawera.
There is one particular building which reconstructs the model-making process and they have more recently been working in collaboration with Weta. $15 admission.
We visited there yesterday, after biking from Opunake with a friend (a bit of a tale, with my bike draining its battery a few km short of the town, after two hours of biking into a stiff nor’wester). Went there primarily to interview my 86 year old uncle, who is still a practicing dentist (and a bit of a rogue). The Tawhiti Museum was an interesting extra.
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On another matter, the little film I have endeavouring to get seen by as many people as possible is now available on NZ On Screen: The Reel People of New Zealand (Nick Homler, 2017), It is a homage to independent cinemas around NZ—the people who run them and the people who go to them—as seen through the eyes of a young American film-maker. People seem to love it, even those Aussies when I took it to Sydney a couple of months ago.
Whilst these rainy days persist, do take a look ... -
Thank you, Russell, for this lovely, reflective piece. I am one of those folk who have drifted away from PA; an occasional visitor rather than the avid daily reader of those halcyon days of 4-5 years ago. I miss the Great Blend get-togethers and MediaTake.
I guess, like others, I been distracted by those forms of SM which demand less thought and reflection—damn you, Instagram! But there are occasions when they serve a great purpose, For example, the community created by Peter Wells—very personal commentaries about his cancer treatment.
But I share your anxiety about financial uncertainty; a year into so-called retirement (I rail against that word!), when a very generous university salary has diminished to bugger-all generates doubt. Should I buy that expensive concert ticket? Should I contine to go to films once or twice a week? Should I do more unpaid work? But this is tempered by the knowledge that for many people in Aotearoa, there are more immediate questions, such ‘How can I feed my children? How can I buy them new shoes? But at least we have a government who is beginning to listen to them.nga mihi nui
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Praise for Russell’s advocacy from another media source. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/12/18/367890/media-person-of-the-year-1
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I like ‘kindness’ too, as an antidote to prevailing horrors.
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to mark taslov,
Mark; you are rather labouring the point. I nominated ‘smocking’ because it occured twice in his tweet, and both times in upper case. Difficult to attribute to anything other than Trump’s carelessness in communications and further demonstration of his ingrained stupidity. Perhaps he would consider ‘smoking’ to be false spelling.
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As the year staggers to an end, it has to be ‘smocking’
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Hard News: An epic day at the park, in reply to Russell Brown,
And no Sevu Reece for the Chiefs. Double boo!
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... and Deathcab For Cutie, at the 2019 Arts Festival.
Incidentally, what has happened to the Great Blends? There hasn’t been one fir ages and I am pining for one. 🙄