The chameleon reader

I am a chameleon reader. This is someone who takes on the personality of a character in their current read. In other words, a person who has porous boundaries between their real and their imaginary worlds.

The person most affected by this is my husband – who has taken to tentatively entering the house at the end of the day while he works out which persona is going to greet him. Here are some recent examples of my chameleon reading:

Commonwealth by Anne Patchett made me all envious of big families and large gatherings – resulting in an unexpected desire to entertain at home and devise menus for dinner parties. Just like  the beautiful Beverly who did exactly that, and ended up causing the mother of all family upheavals in the terrific family saga that is Commonwealth. We sank happily back to our two-person suppers when I finished reading this book.

However I bet my man preferred Commonwealth to the effect of my next read, Vivian Gornick’s Fierce Attachments. Reading Gornick makes me want to be a feisty, intellectual Jewish woman from the Bronx. It must have been a terrifying experience to come home to find me transformed into a sharp-tongued feminist with acute mother issues. But that too passed.

 

And in its place came the altogether more malleable Tannie Maria in The Satanic Mechanic. Along the lines of Mma Ramotse in Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana series, this South African Karoo novel comes with a lovelorn closet detective who is a terrific cook (this is one of those books interleaved with recipes – and the odd Afrikaans word). My husband was very happy with this turn of events. But, it was a short, easy read and I moved quickly on to…

… Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Well here is a character who Takes No Prisoners. Who reaches rapid conclusions, holds onto them come hell or high water, who only once in her entire marriage apologised to her truly lovely, all-patient husband. We watched the DVD. My husband thought Olive was a total witch. But she is not, so I put him right about that in a Kitteridgy way. Still, I bet he is praying that I do not read the book.

And that’s what chameleon reading is all about. You should try it – it’ll really keep your partner on his or her toes!

Q&A with Adam McGrath (part 1)

Kia ora music lovers!

Adam McGrath (Image supplied)

The big music news for 2017 is that Christchurch City Libraries will be featuring Adam McGrath for New Zealand Music Month 2017.

Adam is best known for his work being the driving force of the band The Eastern, who are widely regarded as the hardest working band in the lands. But did you know about his social conscience and the value he places on not only community but public libraries too?

I posed a series of questions to Adam in order for us all to get to know him a little better…

So Adam, what was the first album you ever bought?

“When I was ten. I hadn’t seen or heard from my Dad in two, nearly three years. He never paid child support and his name was dirty in my house. So he was like a ghost that I vaguely remembered.

One day I got home from school and on the doorstep was ZX spectrum 16kb computer and a jar full of money delivered courtesy of my erstwhile father. I was stoked, my mum full of sighs. We plugged the computer in and it worked, surprisingly. Come the weekend we hit New Brighton mall for a little shopping with the jar money, Mum got some new threads ready for a dance at the working mens club. I got a GI Joe Cobra Bore, “rip and roar, cobra bore, lots of trouble for GI JOEEEEEEE!” I still remember the advert.

But for me the holy relic of purchases on this day was a copy on tape of ‘Raising Hell” by Run-DMC. This changed my life, made me obsessed and hungry for music in a way I had never felt before, either for toys, or lollies or anything else my young brain had ever thought it wanted. That desperate desire continues unabated today. After 1000 failed jobs and nowhere/nothing starts there was no choice but to give my self up wholly to the blessing and curse of full time music and song slinging. I blame my dad, Reverend Run, Darryl McDaniels, Jam master Jay and New Brighton Mall.”

Which instruments do you play (on stage and not)?

On stage; guitar and harmonica and the nodules in my throat. On record I’ve played bass, mandolin, and keyboard. However not a single one of these, on stage or off would anyone (including most people in my band) say I was anything more than a hack and a chancer.

Is there an instrument that you don’t play but which you would love to be able to?

I would like to play the tin whistle. However whenever I pick up a tin whistle everyone around me suggests I don’t take it any further.

What was your first guitar and do you still have it?

I guess what I call my first guitar was an old F-series Yamaha, I bought for $100 at a junk shop on Manchester Street. I used to go in and play it and listen to the proprietor’s problems, health emotional and otherwise. This served me in good stead because the guitar was actually $120. It had a crack and the top lifted off from the sides, so I taped it together with yellow and green and white insulation tape.

I took that guitar all around the eastern and southern states of America whereupon even in its battered state it kept me feed and watered as it sung out across street corners from Philadelphia to New Orleans to Nashville and many smaller more lonesome corners between. After some time I guess it sensed that I had improved enough for something a little better. It’s job done, it pretty much committed guitar suicide whereupon all parts of it decided to more or less break at once; machine heads popped off, bridge pulled up, neck snapping. It was time to let it go.

It was called Rosilita and the last I saw of her she was in a wardrobe in the town of Conshocken, Pennsylvania waiting for either the dump or the next pair of desperate hands crazy enough to take her out into the world.

From now until his library performances in May, Adam will be reaching into the depth of our digital resources, he’ll be searching and exploring our physical resources, and most of all he’ll be connecting with the people of Christchurch by hearing their stories and discussing their lives/loves/losses. He will use much of what he discovers to inspire new works, songs and music, and during May, Adam will be available for a series of “Live with the Library” concerts, during which he will tell his stories of us, the people of Christchurch.

And here are the dates and times for Adam’s performances;

Central Library Peterborough – The Showcase Concert 

Saturday 20 May, doors open at 7pm

Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre

Friday 26 May, 3:30pm-4:30pm

New Brighton Library

Saturday 27 May, 2pm-3pm

South Library

Sunday 28 May, 2pm-3pm

Stay tuned for the next installment of our Q&A with Adam McGrath!

New eResource – The BWB Collections

Bridget Williams Books (BWB) have a series of online collections that are now available at Christchurch City Libraries. This is a collection of high-quality New Zealand non-fiction books which make it an excellent starting place for any research into New Zealand hot topics. We already have the Treaty Collection, which is an excellent start for all Treaty of Waitangi research but now have four more brilliant BWB collections to peruse.

The BWB Texts Collection

BWB Texts are short books on big subjects: succinct narratives from great New Zealand writers spanning:

• history,
• memoir,
• contemporary issues,
• science
• and more.

The best thing about the collection is the size, short reads that you can dip into or read the whole thing.

The Critical Issues Collection

The Critical Issues Collection provides full access to over 40 key books addressing the big issues facing New Zealand today:

• housing,
• inequality,
• climate change,
• child poverty,
• the environment,
• migration,
• financial crisis,
• and more.

The New Zealand History Collection

The New Zealand History Collection provides complete online access to a major, authoritative resource – over thirty years of award-winning history and biography publishing from Bridget Williams Books.

The New Zealand Sign Language Collection

The New Zealand Sign Language Collection has reference material alongside accounts of Deaf experience.

A great place to start learning about New Zealand’s third official language.

The Treaty of Waitangi Collection

A collection of searchable electronic reference books on the Treaty of Waitangi from leading thinkers on this foundational document.

The Girl Before : JP Delaney

Have you ever wanted to unclutter your life? Jane wants to start life over; a clean slate. Emma, the girl before, wants to be rid of not just “the clutter from our past…but the stuff we carry around inside our heads.”

Like a lesson on the Japanese art of tidying, the house at 1 Folgate Street offers just that. But does it come at a price?

The architect of this minimalist house, Edward Monkford, has strict rules for his tenants. 1 Folgate Street is a perfection of minimalist architecture; not one personal item may be on view to detract from the intention of this “sentient” house, programmed to respond to its occupants’ daily needs.

This is a great psychological thriller of repetition compulsion (a term coined by Freud). But who is acting out the sexual psychodrama?

Like pentimenti (parchments written over), Jane relates her tale over the Emma’s, discovering first Emma’s tragic death, then the similarities between them. Not the least being their physical resemblance.

But who is the reliable narrator? Jane? or Emma? And who killed Emma? Was it Edward, whose wife, too, looked like Emma and Jane, and also died tragically. Was it suicide? Or was it someone else…

The Girl Before is the first book under the pseudonym JP Delaney, used by Anthony Capella. This story had me riveted, addicted, then spectacularly surprised by its conclusion.

Pop your sleuth hat on these school holidays to keep up with the kids and enjoy this psychological thriller.

The Girl Before
by JP Delaney
Published by Hachette New Zealand
ISBN: 9781786480286

Roverandom: J. R. R. Tolkien

I thought I’d read all of Tolkien‘s works. I even have the Children of Hurin. Then I discovered this little gem.

Written for children, Roverandom is the story of a naughty little dog and a grumpy old wizard. When the Wizard takes his ball, Roverandom bites him on the bottom and…

…Roverandom is magicked into a tiny, begging, toy dog.

Tolkien delightfully relates this tale, adding all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures, a trip to the moon, and some dragons for good measure.

I recommend this story for Tolkien purists (there are some great colour plates), and also for those who like to read aloud to children. Great for that Pizza Wheel Reading Challenge!

Find out more

• Other children’s books by J. R. R. Tolkien

Researching Aurora Australis

I have been out trying to catch a glimpse of Aurora Australis or the Southern Lights. I spent last evening out on the port hills star gazing, I was unsuccessful again.

My first attempt to see the polar lights was when I was living in the UK and wanted to see the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. I booked a weekend in Iceland, which is supposed to have excellent viewing of the northern lights. Alas the weather in Iceland was cloudy, so no Aurora Borealis for me.

My children are now are asking lots of questions so I decided to do some research on the Auroras. My starting place is eDS, the libraries eResources Discovery Search which searches across heaps of eResources all at once. First result was the Research Starter on the Auroras which gives you a really good starting point for information, explaining how phenomena is caused by the interaction of solar radiation with the earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field. Other results include news stories, and articles from magazines such as Australian Geographic.

This got me thinking about another great eResource we have at Christchurch City Libraries, New Zealand Geographic Archive. NZ Geographic always has such great photos and didn’t let me down with this great article Nature’s Neon.

Now I armed with more knowledge about the Auroras will I go stargazing again and try to view the southern lights? Yes, I probably will.

A screen shot from New Zealand Geographic Archive – an eResource accessible with your Christchurch City Libraries membership.

Find out more

• About New Zealand Geographic Archive
• About eResources Discovery Search (eDS)
• FAQ: Can I access eResources from home?
• About Passwords and PINs

Review: Dear Ijeawele

I first came to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‘s work via The Thing Around Your Neck. I like short story collections for discovering new authors because there’s so much less commitment — I read a couple of stories and if I like them I continue; if not, I’ve only lost a few minutes of my time. The former, in this case.

I finished The Thing Around Your Neck (full of eloquent, insightful and sometimes snarky observations on being Nigerian in Nigeria vs. the US) and later had my heart broken by Purple Hibiscus. Since finishing Americanah in 2013 Adichie has stepped away from fiction to write concise manifestos of feminism: first We Should All Be Feminists (fairly self-explanatory), and now Dear Ijeawele, on how to raise a feminist. Both are very short and easy to read so you can easily finish one in your lunch break.

It’s all very common sense stuff but depressingly it apparently needs to be said. Things like: Don’t let motherhood consume you. Share parenthood equally. Bin the concept of gender roles. (That last one especially difficult to do in today’s blue and pink segregated toy aisles.)

I cannot overstate the power of alternatives. She can counter ideas about static ‘gender roles’ if she has been empowered by her familiarity with alternatives. If she knows an uncle who cooks well – and does so with indifference – then she can smile and brush off the foolishness of somebody who claims that ‘women must do the cooking’.

Some advice is more specific to raising an Igbo daughter, but you can easily substitute your own cultural heritage in her suggestion to cultivate a strong sense of identity, or in recognising the pros and cons of the society you live in.

Teach her never to universalize her own standards or experiences. Teach her that her standards are for her alone, and not for other people. This is the only necessary form of humility: the realization that difference is normal.

I wish someone had sat me down as a child and explained some of these things to me. Especially that I don’t have to be nice to everyone: kind, yes, but I don’t owe it to other people to be nice to them when they are hurting me. It can be difficult to have opinions on the internet without being stomped on, but that doesn’t mean we should silence ourselves.

I don’t have any children but I have an interest in making this world easier for everyone to live in, and the suggestions in Dear Ijeawele seem like a good place to start.

Dear Ijeawele, Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Published by HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780008241032

Te Rerenga Kōrero – Kua riro te pōro!

Kia ora. To encourage the use of Te Reo Māori Te Taura Whiri i Te Reo Māori – The Māori Language Commission publish weekly Māori phrases that can be used to support or cheer someone on.

Kua riro te pōro!
Lost the ball!

• Hear Te Rerenga Kōrero o te Wiki – Phrase of the week.
• Full list of 50 rerenga kōrero for the year
• Browse our Te Reo Māori resources.
• Previous Te Kupu o te wiki reo Māori posts.

Sergeant Henry James Nicholas V.C., M.M

He was a carpenter, a sportsman – a boxer – went to Christchurch Normal School (local boy), his photos show a nice face, and he wasn’t married. Just an ordinary kiwi bloke, maybe. But he did extraordinary things.

Sergeant Henry Nicholas, File reference: CCL-2011-11-17-November2011 358-HenryNicholas

Henry Nicholas enlisted in February 1916 with the 1st Canterbury Battalion, and landed in France in September 1916. With his Regiment was involved in fighting at The Somme, Messines and Polderhoek, (Belgium).

It was from the action at Polderhoek on 3 December 1917 that he was awarded the Victoria Cross for “conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty… exceptional valour and coolness”. He destroyed an enemy strongpoint that was inflicting heavy casualties and overpowered a sixteen-man enemy garrison, capturing four wounded prisoners and an enemy machine-gun.

While on leave in England in mid-1918 he was invested by the King, the first solder in his regiment to be awarded the V.C., and he returned to France in September 1918, promoted to sergeant.

The Regiment had the duty of holding the town of Beaudignies, near Le Quesnoy. A skirmish on 23rd October with a German patrol cost Nicholas his life, and earned him the Military Medal.

Armistice was just a few short weeks away.

The funeral of Sergeant Henry Nicholas, VC, in World War I, France. Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association :New Zealand official negatives, World War 1914-1918. Ref: 1/2-013667-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23124751

For more information:

• Our page about the life Sgt Henry James Nicholas VC
• Quid non pro patria : the short, distinguished military life of Henry James Nicholas VC MM / by John H. Gray
• New Zealand Army  – Canterbury Regiment
• Information about Henry Nicholas at He toa taumata rau / Cenotaph
• The Funeral of Henry Nicholas – NZ History
• Listen to the audio story of Henry Nicholas at Ngā Tapuwae: First World War Trails
• An account of his funeral in The Press and an Obituary

Flip Grater – On food, music and parenting

Singer-songwriter Flip Grater, Christchurch born and raised, is back ‘on stage’ after a hiatus from performing since the birth of her first child. We catch up with Flip to coincide with her gig appearance at Blue Smoke with fellow Cantabrian-bred Andrew Keoghan, as part of his Something Going On Tour promoting his latest album Every Orchid Offering.

Flip Grater (Image supplied)

Flip’s music has been described as sultry, languid, indie, folk and personal. Her albums include Pigalle, While I’m Awake I’m at War, Be All and End All and Cage for a Song produced by her own label, Maiden Records, and she has published a book The Cookbook Tour: Adventures in Food & Music (a tour diary including recipes and a CD).

She is currently working on an EP of lullabies and a new album of adult material. She says she writes music “to explore certain parts of my brain that don’t tend to appear in conversation.”

Aside from music, Flip has a passion for animal welfare, wholesome foods and cooking, and is a Francophile. And of course there’s the new love in her live, her young daughter.
We flicked some quick questions to Flip about her passions:

You’re an avid cook and vegan, what foodie books are you enjoying that you can recommend?

Currently I love the Yotam Ottolenghi books, Whole: Recipes for Simple Wholefood Eating and Thug Kitchen.

What music do you like to listen to when you’re cooking?

If my husband is cooking it’s always gypsy jazz. For daytime summer cooking I prefer (Belgian musician) Stromae or Rokia Traore, for evening or rainy day cooking Leonard Cohen or Gillian Welch.

You have a toddler now. How has parenthood changed your music apparoach?

Well for a start it’s pretty hard to get quality practice time in as my daughter loves to play the guitar with me if I pick it up. It’s all about fitting it in nowadays… trying to find quiet moments to play and be inspired.

You were vegan at 15 and even got your nickname Flipper from your animal rights activism. What form does activism take for you these days?

These days my activism mostly looks like setting a good example – living a vegan lifestyle, reducing plastics in our home, eating and wearing organics etc. but I have written a few pieces on my blog www.ewyum.com about certain food topics I feel passionately about.

You’re from Christchurch (having grown up in Parklands) and spend time here when not living in France. What are some of your current favourite spots in the city?

It’s been great being back seeing the new city coming to life. I miss the old High Street and lanes like Poplar Lane but I’m loving OGB, The Origin, Smash Palace, Mumbaiwala, Pot Sticker and The Cornershop Bistro in Sumner.

What role do libraries play in your life?

I’ve always appreciated libraries but never so much as right now! When we first got back from France we used New Brighton Library for all of our printing and boring officey stuff around my husband’s New Zealand Residency and applying for rental properties etc. Then I was there weekly during pregnancy reading an unhealthy amount of baby-related books. Now I take my daughter to keep her bookshelf rotating (and keep me sane by changing up the bedtime books). It’s truly invaluable.

I’ve been loving introducing Anais (my daughter) to classic English books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Peepo and her favourite book – Avocado Baby. And it’s great to find some brilliant newer books and New Zealand books in Te Reo like Kanohi and the Reo Pepi series. At the moment I’m loving reading her Little One by Jo Weaver and Lucy Ladybird by Sharon King-Chai.

Some of Flip’s Favourite Reads – on Music, Food and Parenting

• Just Kids by Patti Smith
• The Idle Parent by Tom Hodgkinson
• French Children Don’t Throw Food: Parenting Secrets from Paris by Pamela Druckerman
• Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms by Eugenia Bone
• French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork and Corkscrew by Peter Mayle
• Buddhism for Mothers by Sarah Napthali
• The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
  

Flip Grater’s Bio
Listen: Flip Grater CDs in our catalogue
Read: Flip’s parenting and food blog: ewyum
Follow: Find Flip Grater on Facebook

Check out other local musicians: New Zealand Music Month in May at Christchurch City Libraries