October 2010
Monthly Archive
6 October 2010
New Zealand Fashion Design was to have been the first session of The Press Christchurch Writers Festival in September. Sadly the Festival had to be cancelled in the wake of the ‘quake, but this event is still happening at Christchurch Art Gallery on October 13th at 6pm.
Angela Lassig was Senior Curator History, at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa for eight years. She specialised in fashion and textiles and curated a number of exhibitions, including the fondly remembered (by me anyway) Japonism in Fashion.
Lassig’s New Zealand Fashion Design is a luscious look at New Zealand designers and their work over the last thirty years. She will be talking to one of the most interesting, Francis Hooper of World, accompanied by images from the World archives.
Accustom your eyes to the gorgeousness of it all by setting them on some recent acquisitions to Christchurch City Libraries’ collection of fabulous fashion books:
and the DVD Valentino; the last emperor - take special note of the imperial pugs; Molly, Milton, Monty, Margot, Maude and Maggie.
5 October 2010
Dystopian societies have featured in a lot of young adult novels lately and an increasing number of these are written by New Zealand authors. There is Anna Mackenzie’s The Sea-wreck stranger and it’s sequel, Ebony Hill, Mandy Hager’s Blood of the Lamb series, and my favourite, Fleur Beale’s Juno of Taris and the sequel, Fierce September.
Fierce September continues the story of Juno and the other inhabitants of Taris. The group are rescued from their dying island and are taken to Aotearoa. The country that was once New Zealand has changed considerably in the time that they have been living on Taris; Christchurch is now home to only a few people as it is too dry to sustain life. Juno and her people arrive in Wellington and are to stay in a refugee centre while they settle into life Outside. Life is very different here – they have technology, different clothes and freedom from the controlling society of Taris. But life on the Outside isn’t so peachy. There are those that don’t welcome the people of Taris and launch a vicious hate campaign against them and only days after they arrive a pandemic hits the country.
Fierce September is a fantastic sequel and it was great to find out what happened to the people of Taris after they left their home. Fleur Beale has created interesting characters with complex relationships and you really empathise with them. One of the interesting extras with this book is the online content that you can also read. There are two blogs that give different views showing how people in Aotearoa feel about the refugees from Taris. If you haven’t read Juno of Taris you can always start with Fierce September as there’s a good synopsis of the first book at the front.
5 October 2010
We read because we love words. We write because we’ve got something to say.
I love words. Am obsessed by them in all forms. Big words, small words, local and foreign ones, multi-syllabic obfuscatory exemplars and wee short ones.
I love reading them in a book (screen/newspaper/instruction sheet/shampoo-bottle/bus ticket …), and I love writing them too.
When writing (as you may have noticed) I tend towards the verbose, the chatty, the loquacious even. My children tell me I torture them by frequently using words they’ve never heard before. My long-suffering blog editor would, on some days, cheerfully toss me out the window, I’m sure.
Which brings me, finally, to my point. (See what I mean?). The other day while co-editing a somewhat chatty blog post, a heated discussion of (more…)
5 October 2010
As most Christchurch residents well know, yesterday marked one month A.C.E. (After Canterbury Earthquake); however the 4th of October is also notable as the Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, and founder of the Order of Friars Minor.
Francis was the son of a cloth merchant and was born towards the end of the 12th century in Assisi, in the gently rolling hills of Umbria. Following a serious illness, he was inspired to give up all worldly goods to become an itinerant preacher. His love for nature and animals gave rise to legends in which he was depicted preaching to birds and taming wolves. Many churches still hold an annual Blessing of the Animals service to commemorate his Feast Day.
Saint Francis is also remembered for his Canticle of the Creatures (also known as Canticle of the Sun) in which he refers to the sun, wind and fire as his brothers, and to the moon, stars and water as his sisters.
To find out more about Saint Francis (whose hometown, incidentally, was rocked by strong earthquakes in September 1997) browse the following resources:
5 October 2010
I’ve heard people talk about the Ron Mueck sculptures as creepy, disturbing or grotesque. And I was secretly looking forward to a bit of that freaky factor. But when I saw the sculptures in the flesh, the words that came to me were not the ones I imagined – serene, peaceful, still.
And the other thing that struck me was a sense of history – both in terms of the personal and human (literally from the cradle to the grave), and the history of art. These were figures you could imagine in Renaissance art – the pregnant woman with her ecstatic face could easily be a Madonna. The little old lady, tiny in her bed was like a miniature Dutch painting. And Dead Dad has all the still grandeur of Jesus laid out in the tomb.
It’s unexpectedly beautiful.
4 October 2010
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![Cars, bicycles and a bus create a busy scene at the Bank corner, Christchurch [ca. 1930]](http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Photos/Disc4/Thumbnails/IMG0053.jpg "Cars, bicycles and a bus create a busy scene at the Bank corner, Christchurch [ca. 1930]")
Cars, bicycles and a bus create a busy scene at the Bank corner, Christchurch [ca. 1930
Want to find out how and why Christchurch streets and places got their names?
Christchurch street and place names is the resource for you. It aims to give the origins of Christchurch street and place names. Information has come from published works and anecdotal information.
It is researched and regularly updated by Margaret Harper (Aotearoa New Zealand Centre, Christchurch City Libraries) and if you would like to contribute, please contact us.
Did you know Antigua Street used to be called Windmill Road? It is one of the original streets of Christchurch, named by surveyors Joseph Thomas and Edward Jollie. The names of these original streets were taken from bishoprics listed in Burke’s Peerage, and included familiar streets like Antigua, Barbadoes, Cambridge, Cashel, Chester, Colombo, Durham, Gloucester, Hereford, Kilmore, Lichfield , Madras, Manchester, Montreal, Oxford, Peterborough, St Asaph, Salisbury, Tuam and Worcester.
4 October 2010
TumbleBook Library is an online collection of animated talking picture books which teach kids the joy of reading. TumbleBooks are created by adding animation, sound, music and narration to existing picture books in order to produce an electronic picture book. Kids love to play with these interactive books -I promise you peace and quiet …
TumbleBooks are designed to be experienced in either automatic or manual mode. In automatic mode the pages turn by themselves and are narrated – while in manual, the narration is turned off and children turn the pages and read at their own speed.
- Story Books: Old time favourites such as “The Paper Bag Princess” by Robert Munsch, as well as newer titles like “Matthew and the Midnight Tow Truck” and “Abra Cadabra and the Tooth Witch”. Plenty of titles to interest boys and girls.
- Chapterbooks: Older students can read classics such as “Black Beauty” and “Matt Christopher: Goalkeeper In Charge”.
- NonFiction books: “Animals in Camouflage” , “Who Likes The Rain?” and “Meet The Meerkat”
- TumblePuzzles and Games: A collection of online puzzles, concentration games, spelling games that reinforce concepts from the book featuring a picture from the book.
- Language Learning: A growing selection of bilingual books in mainly French and Spanish.
You can access Tumblebooks and many other useful databases from home with your library card number and PIN, or at our community libraries.
4 October 2010
In my blog about two weeks ago: My Pub Quiz Fantasy – The Man Booker Prize, I hoped that In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut would be this year’s Man Booker winner. Well, I’ve just finished reading it and I no longer care if it is the Booker winner or not. I just want other people to read it. I want to share it. It’s that good.
Three stories make up the book: The Follower, The Lover, and The Guardian. Galgut is the central character throughout. In each story he fails either to follow, to love or to guard. But put that way off to one side because he excels as The Storyteller in prose that is clean, compelling, almost hypnotic.
Arguments against this novel as a work of fiction seem spurious. All memory is fiction. Try comparing your memory of an event with someone else’s. Greg and I can barely agree as to the exact sequence of events on The Night Of The Earthquake and that was only a month ago. I rest my case. Galgut gets round this by writing mainly in the third person “he” and then unexpectedly switching to the first person “I”. He explains this early on in the novel on page 5:
“He sits on the edge of a raised stone floor and stares out unseeingly into the hills around him and now he is thinking of things that happened in the past. Looking back at him through time, I remember him remembering, and I am more present in the scene than he was. But memory has its own distances, in part he is me entirely, in part he is a stranger I am watching.”
Needless to say book clubs around the world can expect me to foist this latest Galgut on them. As a tribute to his writing I will finish off in Galgut style:
She knew she would put this latest book into her book club. She could see her lovely friends skirt it warily, see people pick it up and put it down. She could feel that they would rather have had another Jodi Picoult. But I don’t care, I want to share this with them. I want us to remember this book together.
Someone out there, read this book. Share your comments. I am lonely here in my one woman Damon Galgut Fanclub!
1 October 2010
Necrology – a list of notable people who have died recently
- Geoffrey Burgon, 1941-2010
Composer who won accolades for his film and television scores including the theme to Brideshead Revisited
- Tony Curtis, 1925-2010
Actor who rose from the New York ghetto to achieve cinematic immortality in Some Like It Hot
- Robin Gibson, 1944-2010
Pillar of the National Portrait Gallery for 30 years who revitalised its 20th-century collection
- Sally Holloway, 1926-2010
Journalist who became only the second BBC woman reporter and wrote a history of firefighting in London
- Tony Judt, 1948-2010
Eminent historian who chronicled both postwar Europe and the progress of his own fatal disease
- Frank Kermode, 1919-2010
Outstanding scholar and literary critic who sought to bridge the divide between the academic world and that of the common reader
- Edwin Morgan, 1920-2010
Scotland’s first ‘Poet Laureate’ whose vision encompassed both the trivial and the miraculous
- Patrick O’Dea, 1919-2010
Quintessential NZ public servant, involved in the organisation of six visits by the Queen to New Zealand
- Arthur Penn, 1922-2010
Director of stage and screen whose violent examinations of exclusion included Bonnie and Clyde
- Laszlo Polgar, 1947-2010
Formidable Hungarian bass who brought passion and a brooding presence to his many operatic roles
- Eric Tindill, 1910-2010
World’s oldest Test cricketer who kept wicket for New Zealand and also played for the All Blacks
1 October 2010
I didn’t find a mysterious bottle labeled, “Drink Me” to make me extraordinarily small (that’s me pictured next to Ron Mueck’s sculpture, In Bed). Nor did I eat any cake that made me grow to great heights (see picture below). I attended the sneak peek of Ron Mueck’s exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery. Wow!
Many people initially respond to Mueck’s works with: how lifelike! That has to be the first reaction. The lifelikeness smacks you in the face. The skin is so real you would expect it to be warm and supple to touch. But it’s not. It’s hard and room temperature. (I didn’t touch the artwork! A small resin sample is available to provide this tactile experience.) Pimples, goose-flesh, veins, folds in the hands and feet… It’s all there. The ability to so absolutely render the human form is a tremendous skill, a skill Mueck refined in his past life as creator of photo-realistic props and animatronics. His craftsmanship is impeccable.
But how does a work of extraordinary craftsmanship transcend craftmanship to become “art?” (more…)
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