Black Sabbath is touring the world for the last time. It’s appropriately called The End.
The Auckland show was on April 28th and then they rock Dunedin on April 30th.
I’ll be grabbing my black t-shirt and jeans and flying down to Dunedin to do some headbanging to the wonderfully heavy sound. Ozzie is one of the few old rockers that can still sing like he did in his youth. I’m so excited!
Love reading and drawing your own comics? Do you want help with your drawing, assistance with your technique and tips on comics, publishing etc and a free comic? All of this for no charge? Right then get yourself signed up for our free comic drawing workshop at Papanui Library with Spencer Hall, artist/cartoonist. The workshop is for ages 12-18, registered attendees only and a limit of 30. We won’t let you go hungry either, there will be pizzas from Hell.
There was a waiting list of disappointed young cartoonists last year so don’t delay, break out the light sabers, shake out those capes, slap on the face paint and come dressed as your favourite comic book/Manga character and be in for a prize.
The selection of free comics this year ranges from Dark Horse to Archie to Strawberry Shortcake to Titan’s Assassins Creed to Love and Rockets. Something for all tastes.
Meanwhile back at the library our comic book collection grows apace. We have comic books about Men who dress as Bats, Women as Cats, Green Men, muscly men, and animals that talk, Bart Simpson and Adventures, Mysteries, Funnies, Scareys, the lot. I was delighted to see Scrooge McDuck, nephew Donald and the Beagle Boys make a comeback in hard cover. Made me quite nostalgic for my young reading self.
The library is the perfect place for finding new friends and discovering hidden treasures. A couple of weeks ago my wife discovered a series of picture books about a mischievous cat that had the whole family laughing out loud.
Cat is a bit grumpy. He hates Valentines Day and he’s jealous of the Easter Bunny, but the reader helps Cat work through his problems. Cat is tricky too so you often have to get him back on the right path again. He tries tricking the tooth fairy and wants to send Dog in to space in a rocket.
These books are so funny because Cat interacts with the reader using just signs that he holds up and his facial expressions. Here’s just one example:
From Here Comes Valentine Cat by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Claudia Rueda
We loved Cat’s facial expressions. Claudia can show you that Cat is up to no good just by raising his eyebrow or showing him smirking. Cat holding up the signs works really well too because you often have to use these to work out what Cat is thinking.
We originally got just a couple of the Cat stories but we had to reserve the others because they’re just so brilliant. They’re perfect for both young and old and you won’t mind reading them again and again. We even have an eAudiobook copy of Here Comes Easter Cat through OverDrive that is narrated by the author, which is fabulous.
Over the years I’ve had ambivalent feelings toward feminism.
However, this has changed markedly as I’ve encountered the work of people like Egyptian-American journalist and feminist commentator Mona Eltahawy, whose book Headscarves and Hymens states the case for “why the Middle East needs a sexual revolution”…and arguably a reformation.
This book came up on my radar because some argue it’s a key feminist work! And such works are important because they bring feminist issues to the forefront of the simple male mind, making me much more sympathetic toward the feminist movement and forgiving feminism’s sins against me…
After all, as a child, I blamed feminism for mother forbidding me to play with the muscular toy figurine G.I Joe, the plastic embodiment of the American military industrial complex.
Mother didn’t want me corrupted by a perverted depiction of masculinity, which promoted jingoistic American nationalism and war.
However, as I’ve grown older, and gotten (somewhat) educated, I came to realize that feminism is critical to the evolution of civilisation…
For most of history, the “fairer sex” has been subjugated by wicked men like G.I Joe, who deprive women of their civil liberties and sit on the couch in their horrible underwear, with their feet on the Ikea coffee table.
Which bring’s my trivial childhood recollections to an end, because sadly, the political, economic and social circumstances many women endure the world over are harsh and lamentable… such as those depicted in this read…
In this book, Eltahawy argues that throughout most of the Middle East, women experience on-going political, economic and social subjugation. She claims this is a region which doesn’t uphold plurality, individuality, autonomy and tolerance: the principles which underpin Women’s Rights in various countries.
There is a catalogue of personal experiences and statistics which Eltahawy refers to in order to buttress her impassioned claims.
Her travels into Egypt’s social and political cocktail of unrest gave her a multitude of insights into what many female citizens face there: simply walking through public spaces and riding trains means enduring a gauntlet of ungoverned, regular and almost casual sexual harassment. Women have no recourse against this because the Egyptian state doesn’t seem to care about this sexually violent culture.
Further to this, Eltahawy was arbitrarily imprisoned, sexually assaulted and beaten by Egyptian police after she partook in protests there.
Eltahawy argues thousands of women share these kinds of experiences throughout the entire Middle East every day.
She details how women have little economic and legal mobility in the region. Custody disputes over children, domestic violence, divorce and succession etc are regulated and determined by laws derived from archaic religious statutes, which favour men and almost completely deprive women of any control over family or assets.
Even basic privileges are denied, such as driving, participation in sports, wearing make up (because it “prompts sexual harassment’), and travelling alone without a male family member. Much of which is overseen by religious police throughout the region.
Elathawy argues this totalitarianism is the result of ultra-conservative Wahhabist and Sunni Islamic doctrines which are espoused throughout much of the Middle East and North Africa.
Critics have argued that her views are analytically shallow – that the Middle East is not culturally and theologically homogeneous, and that she posits mono-causal explanations that are borne out of her own Western-centricity which is covered by a misguided feminist veil.
In any case, this book has shone a light on my own white, male privilege, reminding me that feminism is a critical movement for humankind, and not just a force which wants to send young boys to school in Roman sandals.
Have a read and see what you think – of course your amazing Christchurch City Libraries network has copies you can borrow.
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I started to research the Halswell Heroes late last year, as Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre was gearing up to open. The project involves staff from nearby libraries; Upper Riccarton and Spreydon as well as the staff from the old Halswell library. We all chose a soldier from the Halswell War Memorial, and have been researching him, his family, and his war service, in order to create a biography for him on Kete Christchurch and a poster to display in the library.
Posters of Halswell Heroes on display at Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre
It’s been an excellent project and through it, I’ve learned heaps about the Halswell area and the men who enlisted (and some who were conscripted) to fight in the First World War. I feel like I know these men, and discovering different quirks about them helps us all remember that they were very real people.
I’ve learned that the Collins family lived near Halswell school and sent three sons to the war; Archie (Sarsfield), James and Frank (who signed up in Australia). James and Frank survived but Archie is on the Halswell War Memorial because he died from influenza a few days before the war ended.
Patrick Cunningham was a farmer’s son, a quarry-man and a bacon curer, but the fact that stuck with me was that he was known as ‘Paddy White Waistcoat’ because of his snappy sense of dress. He was childhood friends with Patrick McGough, who was a ‘prominent figure at all entertainments’ (ie, he never missed a party).
Walter Bryden joined the army not long after his little brother Albert had been killed at the Battle of Fromelles, in France. Walter and Patrick Cunningham were killed on the same day, 13th of June, 1917.
Albert Wills lied about his age to get into the army, had both measles and mumps when he was away at war, and was only nineteen when he was killed in France.
Isaac Warren was a conscientious objector from a huge Cornish family, who went to war with his younger brother Abraham and on the same troopship as Douglas Guiney. Douglas edited the troopship magazine called The Link to keep himself and the other men entertained on the long voyage from New Zealand to war in Europe.
Some of the men fought in more than the First World War. George Weir Ferguson fought in the Boer War when he was still a teenager, and was killed at Gallipoli in August 1915. Herbert Moyna, Edward’s brother, survived the First World War and went on to fight in, and survive, the Second World War as well, though he was unlucky at home; his girlfriend died before he left for the First World War, his wife died two years after they were married, and his mother died just before he left for the Second World War.
Display of Halswell Heroes at Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre
There are so many more stories; some of these stories we know, and you can read about them on the Halswell Heroes page of Kete Christchurch, or in the library at Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre.
You might know something about these men that we have not been able to find. If you do, please let us know, we would love to learn more.
This project is a work in progress. The staff at Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre have now started to research names from the Halswell Hall Roll of Honour, so do keep checking back as the list keeps growing.
I fell in love with Michael Foreman’s illustrations many years ago when I first discovered Michael Morpurgo’s books. I soon found out that he also wrote and illustrated his own stories, including War Boy and War Game which were stories about his experience of World War II. I found out a lot more about Michael Foreman and his huge body of work when I borrowed a fascinating new book from the library called A Life in Pictures.
A glimpse inside A life in pictures by Michael Foreman
A Life in Pictures is written by Michael Foreman himself, and looks back over his long career in the creation of books for children. It is a beautiful book that is packed with Michael’s illustrations and stories about the books that he has worked on and the people he has worked with. You can read about Michael’s war childhood, the importance of location and landscape in his illustrations, the people that have influenced him and the people that he has collaborated with.
If you’ve read a Michael Morpurgo book you’ve probably seen Michael Foreman’s illustrations. The M-Team have been collaborating for over 20 years (their first book together being Arthur, High King of Britain, published in 1994).
I’ve always felt that Michael Foreman’s illustrations are the perfect match for Michael Morpurgo’s stories. Michael Foreman mentions in A Life in Pictures that ‘Michael Morpurgo not only writes good stories, he writes good pictures. His stories are full of them.’ His illustrations for Morpurgo’s stories are usually in black and white, but it’s the smaller, shorter stories, like Little Manfred, where his full-colour illustrations shine.
Over the years Michael Foreman has worked with many other authors, both living and dead. He has brought the stories of Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens and Kenneth Grahame to life, bringing the ‘classics’ to a new generation of children.
My favourite edition of Michael Foreman’s classics is Kenneth Graham’s The Wind in the Willows. The colours are so vibrant and the characters leap off the page. Michael also travelled to New Zealand in 1987 to visit Kiri Te Kanawa to research a book based on legends told to her by her grandmother. This book became The Land of the Long White Cloud.
A Life in Pictures is a fascinating read for anyone who loves books for children and would be a valuable resource for artists or those wanting to become illustrators.
It’s a sad day for the music world. Prince of Purple Rain fame died on Thursday in his Paisley Park home. He was well known for his sexually-charged lyrics and his musical genius. He was a multi-instrumentalist.
“As one of the most gifted and prolific musicians of our time, Prince did it all. Funk. R&B. Rock and roll. He was a virtuoso instrumentalist, a brilliant bandleader and an electrifying performer,” U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement.
Prince fought for many years to ensure copyright was upheld on all his music. So much so that there were many legal battles, no Prince music videos appear on YouTube, there is no official Facebook page nor official Prince website apart from one page promoting his latest album Art Official Age.
It’s been a bit of a wait, but – fingers crossed ! – soon we will be able to stand on the Bridge of Remembrance again. Of course, the surrounds don’t quite look like the photo above anymore. The repairs, painstakingly carried out by SCIRT, to the Bridge and Arch were completed in September 2015, but access wasn’t restored as landscaping work as part of the Te Papa Ōtākāro/ Avon River Precinct project has been carried out on the Bridge and the Park of Remembrance.
“Changes include removing the walls at the western end of the Bridge and the construction of a grand staircase, a new ramp creating a processional connection to the Nicholas Statue, and paving which links with the river promenade and in-ground lighting to highlight the Triumphal Arch,” Ms Wagner, the Associate Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister, the Associate Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister said late last year.
The repair work to the Bridge included replacing the original 4 metre piles with 27 metre ones, and reinforcing the historic arch with an 8.2 tonne beam. The work means that the arch, built from rock quarried in Tasmania, will rock rather than twist in any future earthquakes.
On 23 April 2016 it will be 400 years since William Shakespeare died. He is believed to have been born on 23 April 1564. Certainly in the English language, few writers will have left such a legacy as this most celebrated of playwrights.
As an actor as well as a playwright he performed his own material, and in the four centuries following his death this material has continued to be performed, reinterpreted and reimagined in a huge variety of ways. His language can seem impenetrable, at least at first, but its richness, uncanny relevance, profundity and humour make it all worthwhile.
Some of his plays are performed with great regularity – who hasn’t seen a fluffy version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed in some lovely gardens on a pleasant summer evening? (No, MSND is not one of my favourites) Others are far more obscure – King John, anyone?
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited.
Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2.
As for my favourite Shakespeare? Hard to say – I find Troilus and Cressida fascinating and wish I could have seen the Te Reo Māori version at the 2012 International Shakespeare Festival in London. I love Richard III – a masterful and still influential piece of Tudor propaganda that works just as well played for comedy as deadly serious. Who cannot love Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing – a star truly did dance when she was created.
It’s so hard to choose – Macbeth is so fast paced and profound, and as for Hamlet. Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act 4, Scene 4 might just be my favorite piece of his writing – but what about Richard III, Act 1, Scene 2:
Was ever woman in this humour woo’d? Was ever woman in this humour won?
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