Posts by Joe Wylie
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Jon @ What you term " semi-commerical thread " might equally be called extortionary.
Who's got a good WINZ customer service story to provide a little non-commercial anti-extortionary balance? Should be worth a pair of socks.
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1970s New Zealand truly was another country.
Even if you were more-or-less there. As I was elsewhere for the first half of the 70s I missed Edwards' meteoric rise. Watching his heavily-hyped interview/confrontation with Muldoon in early 1976 (on my next-door neighbour's spanking-new made-in-Waihi Philips K9) I could only wonder what justified what seemed a towering sense of self-importance when he opened by stating that he'd been offered sexual favours provided he "spill your blood on the studio floor".
After all these years I think I finally understand. -
I have always thought the biggest threat to the left's current natural hegemony is a Federated Farmers Party led by Bill English, in coalition with an urban liberal National Party.
Sounds rather like a local version of the National Party of Australia, formerly the Country Party, aka the little caboose of the Nat-Liberal coalition. Over time the OzNats have attracted a disproportionate share of flakes and flat-earthers, and have had ongoing flirtations with such nasties as the League of Rights.
As such parties represent special economic interests before all else they're limited to advocating a Muldoon-style exclusive socialism, where wealth is redistributed only to special interests, rather than where demonstrable need exists. The Australian Nats are largely bankrolled by the mining sector. Considering its size and economic importance it seems a little strange that its primary political advocates are largely a bunch of shonks.
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As Frank Zappa replied, when asked if he believed that anyone can be truly free:
"If you can't be free you can always be cheap." -
He's not coming across as particularly human, nor genuine . . .
Raymond Chandler once described the actor Alan Ladd as a boy's idea of a tough guy. Ironically that was before Shane, the 1953 western where Ladd plays exactly that role, the hero of a small boy named Joey. Somewhere in the arrested-development end of the National party there seem to still be a few who see Dr. Smith's (__Warning, warning Will Robinson__ ) bizarre and gaffe-prone android aspect as some kind of political asset - a kid's idea of a politician.
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. . out there in Steinbeck country, the hot lettuce valley, owned in the main by smart second-generation hillbillies who got out of Appalachia while the getting was good, and who now pay other, less-smart hillbillies to supervise the work of Mexican braceros, whose natural fitness for stoop labor has been explained by the ubiquitous Senator Murphy: "They're built low to the ground," he said, "so it's easier for them to stoop."
Hunter S. Thompson: Hell's Angels, 1967
More about Lockwood's tap-dancing - and arguably more talented - predecessor here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Murphy -
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You should try Olivier's Othello -- that masterpiece of bootblack camp. . . I think the kindest thing you can say about that particular performance is *cough* it hasn't dated well.
Maybe it's Olivier's kaftan and oversized tacky stage-bling, but it's a bit spooky how much this overhyped 60s turkey resembles - visually, anyway - a blaxploitation flick from the following decade. Give it a crime-jazz Curtis Mayfield-style soundtrack and it might be watchable again.
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I'm certainly no fan of Hughes' work -- and from what little biography I've read, not sure I'd have liked the man much either --
While I'm sure he'd make a lousy imaginary friend, it was Ted Hughes's rather slight The Iron Man that inspired Brad Bird's delightful 1999 movie The Iron Giant. Probably the reason that the film's hero is named Hogarth Hughes.
Are kids studying imaginative movies like this, for example Hayao Miyazaki's films since Nausicaa? There's more dark and challenging magic in the first ten minutes of Spiirited Away than can be found in the whole of The Shawshank Redemption.
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One of the great aggravations of my life was getting to the Gerard Durrell book where he goes to New Zealand and having him describe it as just like being in England. Admittedly, this was the fifties . . t
Alexei Sale dumped on NZ in a similar fashion after returning from a stint down under to pimp Morrison bikes on TV (__I've got a brand new Morrison__). Fair enough, except he described mid-80s NZ as being stuck in the 50s of his UK childhood, with the antediluvian BBC puppet show Muffin the Mule ruling the TV ratings. Although the show had been defunct since 1955 and has never aired in NZ, it didn't stop Alexei giving his audience what they wanted to hear.
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but raccoons are so cute, especially the babies .... until they sneak thru the cat door after the catfood and can't get out, and mum gets really mad .... (but can't fit through the same cat door) ....
I heard a tale of someone running the After Dark screensaver on their Mac, the one that emits cricket chirps while little critter eyes blink against a darkened background. The pesky 'coons tore the screens from the windows trying to get at the virtual bugs.