Matariki — Māori New Year 2015

Matariki – the Māori New Year – takes place on Pipiri 18 June 2015. During Matariki we celebrate our unique place in the world. We give respect to the whenua on which we live, and admiration to our mother earth, Papatūānuku.

Our theme for Matariki 2015 is Maumaharatanga: Remembrance – Our people, our places, our past.

Explore our 2015 Matariki events including:

Matariki Community Art Project in the Library

Come along to any library and learn about our people, our places, and our past. Make a paper korowai maumahara (memory cloak) from stencil rubbings. Once finished, you can add it to the community art space or take it home.

Matariki Wā Kōrero – Matariki Storytimes

Join us and share stories, rhymes and songs themed around Matariki.
Suitable for tamariki aged 2 to 5 years. Sessions are 30 minutes with an art activity to follow.

See our list of Matariki Wā Kōrero – Matariki Storytimes.

Matariki storytime at Te Kete Wānanga o Ōraka. Shirley Library. Monday 16 June 2014.
Flickr 2014-06-16-DSC04495

Celebrate Matariki at the Botanic Gardens – Sunday 21 June 11am to 3pm

Join us in celebrating Matariki at the Visitor Centre, Botanic Gardens. Something for everyone with displays on Matariki, kapa haka performance, interactive storytelling, community art projects and a talk with Joseph Hullen.

Find out more about Matariki at the Botanic Gardens

Whānau Fun Day at Rehua Marae – Saturday 27 June 10am to 4pm

A Whānau fun day of storytelling, stalls, information, whānau activities, and much more.

Find out more about the Whānau Fun Day

Rehua Marae, St Albans, Christchurch. Saturday 28 June 2014.
Flickr 2014-06-28-IMG_0505

Matariki resources at your library

• Explore our page on Matariki.
• Read our page on Matariki for kids.
• Find more information on Te Ao Māori and Te Ao Māori for tamariki.

Don Draper’s bookshelf and other Mad Men reading

After seven seasons, and innumerable long, boozy business lunches, the very last episode of 1960s advertising drama, Mad Men, screened last week.

No more of the sharp-suited, advertising wunderkind and human trainwreck, Don Draper. No more of the prickly but talented Peggy Olsen. No more of the dapper and urbane Roger Sterling. No more Pete, Joan, or Betty.

Well this simply will not do. I need something to fill the Jon Hamm-sized hole in my life. Fortunately we have plenty of reading material to keep pining Mad Men fans occupied.

First up are the Mad Men reading lists. Books read by characters, referred to, or quoted from in every episode. We’ve compiled two lists of titles we hold for you to consult for seasons 1 – 4, and 5 – 7 (based on the lists made by the inimitable New York Public Library).

But there are plenty of other options for delving into the world of Don Draper like the following –

• The advertising world in the 1960s was a pretty interesting time and place and according to Mad women: The other side of life on Madison Avenue in the 1960s and beyond, yes, it really was that sexist. Read more in The real Mad Men, The golden age of advertising, and 60s all-American ads.

• Just what is in an Old-fashioned? Or a Manhattan? Other than an interesting way to spend an evening, that is. Vintage cocktails: Retro recipes for the home mixologist has the answers.
• Fully immerse yourself in the world of Mad Men by planning a holiday in New York and scoping out the real life locations used in the show with Mad Men’s Manhattan.
• Music can evoke an era like nothing else can. Listen to Mad Men: A Musical Companion (1960-1965) for a little 1960s crooning and grooving.
• Missing the sleek sixties styling of Roger Sterling’s office? Tempted to add some to your own home? Then look no further than Miller’s Collecting the 1960s or Sixties style.
• I think I’ll miss the clothes the most *sniff*. Fortunately there are a range of titles that fit the bill in this department. Try Fifty fashion looks that changed the 1960s, The 1960s or The fashion file: Advice, tips and inspiration from the costume designer of Mad Men.

B is for…

…Bobby, a blue and white budgie that I remember from childhood – he could say his name, address and telephone number (presumably in case he got lost?) and ‘beak-planted’ onto the floor of the cage from his perch one lunchtime when my brother and I were listening to Listen with Mother on the radio. We buried him with great sorrow and solemnity in the garden – his casket a no longer required Berlei Bra Box.

B is for ‘Bubble & Squeak’ – several sets of gerbils that lived with us for a time that all had the same name because my brother wasn’t that creative in the name department. Any visitors to our house had to be careful where they walked in our garden as the ‘headstones’ indicating where they had been ‘finally rested’ eroded over a period of time.

B is for Brenda who hated rodents with a passion and wouldn’t enter our house unless the gerbils were either back in their cage or playing in an old yellow baby bath. Unfortunately she didn’t realise they could hop out of the bath and it invariably meant she clambered onto the nearest chair (no mean feat wearing stilettos) and screamed the place down until we found them, picked them up by their long tails and put them back in their cage. Ah, memories!!

B is for Boris the parrot. I looked after him for three long weeks when his owner went into hospital. The owner had spent a lot of time at sea in his earlier days and that bird had picked up some very salty language! Boris was a fantastic mimic – he had me dashing to my intercom several times before I realised he was making the buzzer sound. He kept me giggling with his ‘falling off a cliff’ routine. I would say ‘fall of a cliff, Boris’ and he would eagerly respond with ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggggh SPLAT’ in a very deep cockney voice. The downside to our brief relationship was his affinity for profane vernacular. It wasn’t long before the other residents in the building were giving me a wide berth as they wondered what uncouth lunatic I had living with me in my flat.

Several years on B is for ‘Budgie’ again… I would like another one and have been searching the non-fiction section of several libraries in my daily travels.

So if you are interested in budgerigars, parakeets, parrots, cockatiels and macaws as pets then head straight to the 636 section in the non-fiction and see what it entails. As for me, I’m going to be choosing my words very carefully with the budgerigar.