Posts by Sam F
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Sam -- I had a feeling I saw your review of Chronic City in the Listener a little while ago, but can't find it now. You were largely positive?
Yes, really enjoyed it; hadn't read anything by Lethem previously but loved the energy in the writing, and the sense of characters scrabbling for grip on a world somehow shifted just out of sync with reality.
I reviewed it as a Short Takes piece with Joshua Ferris' The Unnamed. I don't think the Listener puts Short Takes online anymore unfortunately (or at least not mine), so despite the printed magazine I have on my desk, for all internet intents and purposes the piece never existed...
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By jove, that might just be it.
Brilliant in its simplicity, isn't it?
For example, on the issue of solving traffic congestion, Aucklanders might differ considerably on the means to reach the desired end. Is it rapid transit investment, or bus fare subsidies? Perhaps congestion charging? Or more and wider motorways run through suitably unphotogenic suburbs? Such a Gordian knot, so inconveniently tangled up with the genuine concerns and lives of actual human beings.
If only the powers that be could find it in their hearts to indulge voters with the freedom to elect people to tell appointed CCOs to do a 'good job', we could remove the unwelcome intrusion of political debate into the proper business of unelected boards, and the natural order of things would be restored.
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Holy fuck --If Belich is calling Jackson a racist perhaps he'd like to 1) remove the weasel word qualifiers, 2) bother fact-checking his assertion and 3) recast the passage without the post hoc ergo propter hoc.
I certainly hope Professor Belich expects a slightly more rigorous and careful style in his students essays.
The bit you quoted above is actually from Caleb's comment a page or so back, not from James Belich (whose line about NZ as Shire in Reforging Paradise can be found referenced here).
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Philip:
Might check [ Parrot and Olivier ] out on your recommendation. I've found Carey to be surprisingly hit and miss this past decade -- True History of the Kelly Gang was excellent but both My Life as a Fake and His Illegal Self were pretty disappointing, I thought.
Just finished the book and was quite impressed - did have to reread a little to get the full impact out of it, but that's always the way. I see from your blog you've also read Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem - any thoughts on that one?
Oh, merit, schmerit. What it boils down to is 'if I deliberately misinterpret every single scene and character, this sure is conservative and racist!' :)
Funny, I was thinking the other day of how Shutter Island (warning: spoilers) might read from a Scientologist perspective...
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I had originally intended to comment here along the lines of "I can't wait for the Womens' XV to arrive", but I'm sure at this point they've probably had enough of this stuff, just like the rest of us.
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Currently making my way through Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America. Like it very much - although it'd probably be even better if I'd read any de Tocqueville beforehand (the book draws heavily upon Democracy in America).
After that there's some as yet unreleased goodness from AUP for me to get to grips with...
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Couldn't help but think of this:
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As is now becoming family tradition, I crammed most of my summer funtimes proper into nine days in February, spent down at Waihi Beach. The weather was pretty much invariably glorious and a good time was had by all (with a few exceptions, including a workplace burglary which dragged my sister and her bloke back to Auckland for several days to deal with the aftermath...).
It was so nice in fact we tried for a weekend of the same at the end of February - which was great on the Saturday, but Sunday unfortunately got a bit derailed due to the tsunami alert...
Other than that, have enjoyed this year's Auckland summer weather but have found the humidity a bit of a pain - the cooler air that's begun now to linger at dawn and dusk makes getting around on a bike much more pleasant, and there's still plenty of warmth in the middle of the day to get out and about in.
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Those alter egos were and are created for specific intents not relevent to this site anymore.
I see.
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But on the other hand, I have a torch. It's got an LED bulb and is powered by a dynamo (i.e. you crank it; no batteries). It's not great to use but I've not no worries about it not working in an emergency.
We have similar ones that have a large trigger you squeeze to charge. They punch out quite a bit of light, actually; certainly more than the solar version on dad's keyring.
Plenty of canned food and bottled water. I must be one of the last people under 25 with a stand-alone single speaker transistor radio (which lives in the kitchen), but we don't have batteries for emergency use - pop those on the shopping list I guess?
Fava beans sound good. Add a nice chianti and a good-sized hunting knife and the world's your post-apocalyptic oyster.