Posts by philipmatthews
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Thanks for sorting out the Neil Young, it was excellent. It's funny, I had the impression that the Trans era was widely hated by critics, fans, etc but there was this very informed write up in Rolling Stone:
http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/neilyoung/albums/album/268168/review/5941290
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Some great Vocoder etc moments? Hope these qualify:
"In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country", Boards of Canada
"O Superman", Laurie Anderson
"Sexy Boy", Air
"Hamburger Lady", Throbbing Gristle -- but was that vocoder or some cut-up device they invented themselves? -
If Christchurch gets to be New Munter can Auckland be New Ulcer?
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I don't mind the HoS column. I take it as entertainingly bonkers: the semi-senile ramblings of a eccentric olive oil farmer from Hawke's Bay. I'm more alarmed by the fact that Holmesy has completely ruined what used to be the only decent interview show on TV (was Agenda, now Q + A). It used to be the place where interview subjects could actually finish their sentences; now we need to cut back to the yabbering host every five seconds, like every other show.
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Saturday, according to Paul Litterick's blog/Elton John.
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That Holmes piece also makes the assumption that women don't go to work, or must have low-stress, meaningless jobs if they do ... Work pressure: it's a man's man's man's world.
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Nothing much to add to today's fascinating discussions, but this -- I was a little worried that some of my speculation last night was out of order, but the reality of how these stories have played out this morning seems so much worse and far stranger than anything we could have speculated about. Most of that's been gone over. But I was very interested in this line in the Herald on Sunday's "time to move on" editorial:
"He must remove himself from the public spotlight and forget any notion of further legal action."
I know Russell said much the same thing back on Friday, back when this Veitch narrative seemed that much more coherent than it does now, but given the NZ Herald is one of two media outlets Veitch explicitly named on Thursday, I wondered if this is a first: a publication urging a celebrity not to sue a sister publication.
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Stephen Judd, you asked before about speculation. Well, who invites this speculation? His representatives, who phone TV3 with the news just in time to make it breaking news at the top of the 6pm bulletin and just when the Sunday papers are thinking about their front pages.
As for intention, there's a basic rule of thumb in mental health circles that if someone is talking positively about plans for the future -- as Veitch was on Thursday, re his career and children -- then they are generally not genuinely suicidal. Apologies if it seemed like I was sneering before; I don't think I was. But from what we know of this current part of the story, it's obvious that he wanted to be found.
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How many alleged attempts now? Call me callous, but we might need a rewrite of Sylvia Plath for our Tony:
Dying is an art, like everything else.
I don't do it very well at all ... -
Those were perfectly pitched interviews by John Campbell. To me, the saddest moment in them was Kirsten saying she had been misdiagnosed at the hospital because of the lie she had to tell to protect Tony. Tragic and appalling. "It was about power and control," she said. Still is, perhaps: his answers, years later, are full of language about how he "reacted", was "allowed" to behave like this, directing us to shift the blame to some other entity.