Are you suffering Glee withdrawal symptoms?

The first season of one of the best shows on TV ended on Friday night with a great episode that had all the singing, dancing, and drama that I have come to love.  If you watch Glee you know what an awesome show it is and if you don’t watch it you really don’t know what you’re missing.  For the uninitiated Glee is set in McKinnley High School in America and is about the ups and downs of a group of teenagers who belong to the school’s Glee Club (like our school choirs but so much better).  All the stereotypical high school groups are thrown in with lots of teenage issues, which doesn’t make it sound all that appealing but when you add some great musical numbers such as ‘Don’t Stop Believing,’ ‘My Life Would Suck Without You,’ ‘Jump,’ and ‘Gold Digger,’ and some cool dance moves you’ve got a great show.

The music is the best part of the show for me and I can’t get enough of the songs.  While driving to the West Coast and back last week both of the soundtracks got played endless times yet I didn’t get sick of the songs.  If you’re like me I’m sure you’ll have the songs stuck in your head for days.  We now have both Volume One and Volume Two in the library to help you get over your Glee withdrawal symptoms so that you can survive until Season Two returns later in the year.

 

Christchurch Romance Writers

Essie Summers is one of a number of successful New Zealand romance writers. The Guru has suggested some more with a Christchurch connection. These include:

Alison Roberts is the pseudonym of a Christchurch writer who is still going strong with Mills and Boon. The Press has an interview with her called  “A career built on love”.

Nora Sanderson, 1905-1975. Nora was writing for Mills and Boon in the 1960s and 70s and possibly lived at Templeton. She was born Nora Brocas and the library has her book about growing up in New Zealand. Her novels can be interloaned from the National Library.

Mavis Winder, 1907-1987. Our libraries still have plenty of her works. She wrote some titles under the name Mavis Areta and published in the USA as Mavis Areta Wynder to ensure correct pronunciation. Her maiden name was Wright. Her books had some wonderful titles – ‘The fanned flame’, ‘Love keeps no score’, ‘Folly is joy’…

Does anyone know anything else about these writers or any other successful romance writers based in or around Christchurch?

 

Calling All Poets

Are you a poet? Festival of Flowers, in association with Heritage Christchurch, is holding a poetry competition combining the the Festival theme ‘The Tree of Life’ in the year the Festival turns 21. Poems can be up to 30 lines, with choice of style wide open: sentimental, quirky, hilarious, philosophical. Email up to two poems by 24 February to: summerpoets@gmail.com

The Judges will be James Norcliffe and Ruth Todd, who both officiated at the 2005 event. Finalists will read their works out at a Soirée (at Heritage Christchurch) on 2 March prior to the supreme winner being announced. A selection of poems will later appear on the Festival of Flowers website.

• Find poetry resources at your library
• Read more about the Festival of Flowers
• Read an interview with James Norcliffe

 

How to be leader of the pack

Up until recently our house was dominated by two small hairy dogs. According to the trainer who came to help us, we needed to gain control and become ‘leaders of the pack’. Suggestions ranged from eating out of their bowls first to establish top dog status, (you will be relieved to know that this did not require becoming partial to dog roll), to holding them by the collar when making a point to assert our dominance.

Dog Trainers of course come at a cost, and if you want to save money but still get good advice, then the library has many books that can help tame and train the small and hairy, to the large and boisterous.

• Training the hard to train dog by Penny Swager
• The everything new puppy book: choosing, raising and training your new best friend by Carlo DeVito
• Inside of a dog : what dogs see, smell, and know by Alexandra Holowitz
• The Christchurch City Council website has everything you need to know about being a responsible dog owner.
• localeye has some trainers that you may wish to contact

 

The Don

My colleague’s recent post about Don McGlashan  reminded me that Mr McGlashan truly is a living legend (Dick Hubbard awarded him the title so it must be true). I didn’t get to interview him at  Auckland Writers and Readers, which was just as well when the temptation to bow down and intone “I am not worthy” in the manner of Wayne and Garth when they meet Aerosmith was almost overwhelming, and that was from the third row of the audience .

Such enthusiasm in a mild-mannered middle aged librarian caused some amusement to colleagues but I think it’s fully justified in this case.  It seems admirable and increasingly rare to just keep on making good work, year after year, to say that “the work itself is its own reward” and to be almost surprised that when you go on tour in the middle of a recession you still sell out around the country. 

Fiona Farrell talks about ‘poetry moments’  – those times when when you’re doing something else and suddenly a few lines of poetry come back to you. McGlashan did say at the songwriters’ session in Auckland that songs aren’t just poetry but I have poetry moments all the time with his songs, probably because they are about here; Highway One, not Route 66, and because for a long time it seemed nobody sang about here in a voice that recognisably belonged to someone from here. All the singers in New Zealand bands put on American or British accents.

Mount Eden brings to mind “Dominion Road is bending, under its own weight, shining like a strip cut from a sheet metal plate ’cause it’s just been raining” and crossing the Auckland Harbour Bridge it’s “lights across the water, a bracelet in these sky” In Wellington it’s “she loves Wellington, she was born there, she grew up out in the Hutt Valley”

At home in Christchurch it’s  “I sell sporting goods I’ve got a shop not far from Cathedral Square” and when in Aramoana the haunting “And oh yes..one of those AK47s for some collector down the line”. I’ve even had one on the Tube in London “talking loud in a Kiwi accent”. How could you possibly pick a favourite? (although mine is Andy)

I make it a rule to see Don McGlashan and whatever great band he’s assembled at least once a year. This year it will be in Wellington at the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, and I can’t wait.

 

Image of the week

A view of Beach V, one of the initial landing points for troops, Gallipoli Peninsula. 1915.

Source: The Canterbury times, 28 July 1915, p. 39. File Reference: KPCD-03-048. From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries. Collated for 2009 Beca Heritage Week’s ‘Doves & Defences’ – Discover Christchurch in Peace and Conflict

Do you have any photographs of war time? Contact us.

Contact us if you have any further information on any of the images. Want to see more? You can browse our collection here.

 

Work that skirt!

Skirts are great things to wear. Want to have some fun? Try a skirt binge!

When you’re feeling low, ungraceful or bored, just put on a wacky skirt with crazy colours (or an elegant skirt you would wear out) and feel the transformation! In summer, when you’re seriously considering moving to Antarctica, try wearing that light muslin skirt you bought years ago.

If you’re tired of wearing track pants (again!) find a skirt that’ll brighten your day.

Where do you buy interesting and amazing skirts for all seasons? In second hand clothing stores. It’s amazing what other people have cast off. Go have a look – rummage through some skirts. Many won’t suit you, but don’t be discouraged! It’s surprising what can look good with your vibrant green striped top. Find a skirt that’s burnt-orange and try it on. Alternatively, take a navy blue mini-skirt with red polka dots and just savour the effect!

If you’re feeling super motivated and enthusiastic, take your pick of the library’s books on sewing. Find some old material and take time-out to make a funky skirt. Need ideas? Check our recommended Fashion sites.

Skirts are there to be enjoyed – go crazy!

Have a favourite skirt you love to wear? Ever found a winner in a dusty op-shop? Tell us your skirt stories.

 

Don McGlashan: On the unpopular edges of a popular field

Don McGlashan, who played North Hagley Park on Saturday, is one of New Zealand’s foremost songwriters. His name appears four times in the APRA Top 100 songs of all time – with Blam, Blam, Blam, The Front Lawn and The Muttonbirds.

This eight-minute interview was  an opportunist one – after his songwriting session at the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival he generously agreed to answer a few questions.

Fascinating to talk to, McGlashan shared his love of “Dickens with cannons”, which Roger Hall put him on to; his belief that he is on the unpopular edges of a popular field; details of his 1930s cowboy guitar which he bought in Christchurch; and some of the  literary-style techniques that he uses in his songwriting.

• Listen to the interview [8.3Mb MP3]:

• Find items by Don McGlashan in the library catalogue

The book that McGlashan talks about in the first part of the interview is Bounty, by Caroline Alexander.

Did you see Don at Sounday? And what’s your favourite song of his? Or is his style too much for you?

 

In the company of Kage Baker

I’ve just read of the death of sci-fi writer Kage Baker and am moved to write and sing the praises of her Company series of books. I don’t know who or what led me to pick up her first novel of the Company series In the Garden of Iden - not being much of a science-fiction or fantasy reader. It was probably the notion of time-travel, of someone juxtaposed into the 16th century.

I found reading nirvana – that holy trinityof interesting characters, ingenious story, and loads of rollicking action – this was a book (and then luckily a series of books) to get pleasurably lost in.

This review from Dayid Soyka on the SF Site explains the series well:

Kage Baker’s latest in her series of stories about the Company, a mysterious 24th century conglomerate that recovers lost artifacts from the past. Salvage operations are performed by a network of immortal cyborgs — surgically-created humans recruited as children (the process is not suitable for adults) throughout the eons — on the scene of various disasters to recover items just before, say, the Alexandria Library burns down or the San Francisco earthquake hits. Thus, the paradox of time travel — whether going back in time can cause events that will change “the present” — is sidestepped by using agents who are “of the time,” though the time of their existence lasts for centuries, and who are careful not to alter the known historical record.

Phew. But the way Kage writes, it’s not gimmicky at all –  there is clarity and cleverness.  And characters … what characters!  Our main protagonist Mendoza is a young woman from the time of the Spanish Inquisition who is charged with preserving botanical specimens. And I am utterly in love with the male hero and his various incarnations – Nicholas Harpole/Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax – and can’t help but envisage someone intense and delicious like Christoper Eccleston playing him in a movie.

The Company series finished recently, but now it looks like Not less than gods has added to the story.

So rest in peace Kage, you’ve given this reader immense pleasure, and I’m just one of many who’ll miss your creations. Luckily the ones you given us are here to stay.

• Books by Kage Baker

 

Vintage style fabrics

I have to say I have always been a sucker for the whole shabby chic movement with the gorgeous vintage fabrics.  This lust is being kept well fuelled by some new offerings by the library  such as Rachel Ashwell’s  Shabby chic interiors and Cathy Kidston’s Sew! and her not so new Tips for vintage style.

Given the reserve lists on these items, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who drools (chicly of course) over the glossy pages.  My biggest problem with it all has been my inspiration has often been curbed by trying to find the right materials – in most cases the material itself.  Imagine my joy when I was introduced to a wee treasure trove of a shop in Tarras that had beautiful jewellery, second hand shabby chic furniture and even wonderful vintage style fabrics.  Great for when I’m down in Central Otago but what to do when at home?

Last week I finally checked out a local offering: Femme de Brocante.  If you love fabrics and like me have trouble sourcing vintage style fabrics, this place is fantastic.  Now if I could just get the hang of sewing…