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Podcast – Teaching war, teaching peace

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Speak Up Kōrerotia logoChristchurch City Libraries blog hosts a series of regular podcasts from specialist human rights radio show Speak up – Kōrerotia. This show is created by Sally Carlton.

11 November 2018 marked one hundred years since the signing of the Armistice that ended the First World War. The scale of this war makes a compelling argument for commemorating it – we must remember in order not to repeat the mistakes of the past – yet does this argument hold true? Guests are invited to ponder the question: Does teaching about war translate into teaching about peace?

Part I: Rowan Light (University of Canterbury)
ANZAC Day commemoration as teaching; changes to ANZAC Day over time including shift from veteran- to state-led event.

Part II: Katerina Standish (National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago)
Acknowledgement of violence in New Zealand curricula and its impact on teaching war and peace

Part III: Laura Jones (Te Papa, New Zealand’s national museum)
The ‘Gallipoli: Scale of our war’ exhibition; role of the museum in encouraging audience reflection on notions of war and peace.

Transcript – Teaching war, teaching peace

Find out more in our collection

Catalogue link to New Zealand society at war 1914-1918Catalogue link to Johnny EnzedCatalogue link to GallipoliCatalogue link to New Zealand and the First world war 1914-1918 Catalogue link to Stand for all timeCatalogue link to The Anzac experienceCatalogue link to They fought for us: PasschendaeleCatalogue link to Anzac heroesCatalogue link to The story of the first world war for childrenCatalogue link to The Anzacs: An inside view of New Zealanders at GallipoliCatalogue link to AnzacCatalogue link to Remembering the First world war 1914-1918, Teaching resource  

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Podcast – DANCEability

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Speak Up Kōrerotia logoChristchurch City Libraries blog hosts a series of regular podcasts from New Zealand’s only specialist human rights radio show Speak up – Kōrerotia. This show is created by Sally Carlton.

Join Rodney Bell (internationally-renowned wheelchair dancer and founding member of Touch Compass), Lyn Cotton (Founder and Artistic Director of Jolt Dance Company) and Jo Casey (Regional Programmes Coordinator (Christchurch) at StarJam) in a beautiful and uplifting discussion on the benefits of dance and performance for people perceived as having disabilities.

Part I: Why do you do what you do?
Part II: The benefits of dance – health and wellbeing, social, identity
Part III: The benefits of performance for dancers and audience – visibility, confidence, self-worth; performance as a human right
Part IV: What would you like to see happen in NZ in terms of dance and disability?

Transcript – DANCEability

Find out more in our collection

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Win tickets to the NZSO Prokofiev & Tchaikovsky concert

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Music lovers, take note!

TPicture of music noteshe New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s 2018 season concludes with a concert featuring works by Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky at Horncastle Arena on Saturday 17 November.  The pieces being performed will be:

Hindemith – Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Prokofiev – Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63
Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64

Symphonies no.5 & 6 Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich, 1840-1893 Violin concertos Sonata for two violins Prokofiev, Sergey, 1891-1953 Cover of Symphonies Der Schwanendreher, etc Hindemith, Paul, 1895-1963

Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber grew out of a request from choreographer and dancer Léonide Massine in 1940 for music for a ballet. While the project was shelved, the completed piece has since been adapted for ballet productions and is equally powerful as a standalone work.

Prokofiev’s rich and multi-layered Violin Concerto No. 2 was his last work written in Europe before his return to the Soviet Union. It makes full use of the instrument, with intoxicating contrasts in tone, colour, melody, and rhythm and is the perfect fit for the virtuosic skills of NZSO Concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen.

Inspired by his homeland, Tchaikovsky’s bold Fifth Symphony came 10 years after his Fourth and divided audiences at its premiere. It is bursting with unforgettable melodies and lush orchestration, making it one of the great works of the Romantic tradition. Under the baton of Maestro de Waart, the NZSO will perform it in all its glory.

We have 2 double passes to give away to library members. All you need to do is tell us which floor of Tūranga, the new central library, holds the music collection and fill out your details in the competition entry form. Entries close at 5pm on Sunday, 11 November and winners will be announced on our competitions page on  Monday 12 November.

Podcast – Food waste

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Speak Up Kōrerotia logoChristchurch City Libraries blog hosts a series of regular podcasts from specialist human rights radio show Speak up – Kōrerotia. This show is created by Sally Carlton.

If food waste were a country, it would be the third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the United States. Added to this immense environmental impact is the social impact: How much food is thrown away that could be eaten?

Join our guests as they share statistics and information about the various ways in which they work to repurpose food waste and save it from landfill.

Guests:

Transcript – Food waste

Find out more in our collection

Cover of Waste: Uncovering the global food scandal Cover of The waste not want no cookbook Cover of Scrap wilt and weeds Cover of American wasteland Cover of Too good to waste Cover of Leftover gourmet Cover of Eat it up Cover of My zero-waste kitchen Cover of How to make and use compost Cover of This book stinks Cover of Making a meal of itCover of Waste free kitchen handbookCover of Food waste

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Competition: The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society

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Charming. Quirky. Nostalgic.

All words that have been used to describe Mary Ann Shaffer’s bestselling novel, The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society. The historical WWII novel that Shaffer (a former librarian) wrote when her plans for a biography of Robert Falcon Scott’s widow, Kathleen Scott fell through, “Guernsey” was extremely popular when it was published ten years ago. An epistolary novel (one that is told through letters or other documents), it tells the tale of Guernsey island-life during German occupation and is filled with engaging characters. It’s very much a book for booklovers, capturing, as it does, the transformative magic of reading.

And now it’s a movie. Opening in New Zealand on 25 April, “Guernsey” the movie will be a must-see for fans of the book but also for those wishing Downton Abbey was still a going concern, with no less than four former Abbey-ers in the cast, including lead, Lily James.

Lily James as writer Juliet Ashton in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society movie. Image supplied.

If you’d like to read (or re-read) the book as well as see the movie we’ve got the competition for you! For your chance to win one of five double passes to the film and a paperback copy of The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society answer our question about epistolary novels and enter your details in the entry form. Entries close 29 April and are open to Christchurch City Libraries members and winners will be announced on Monday 30 April.

Many thanks to StudioCanal for supplying the prize for this competition.

Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival

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4 – 8 March 2015, hosted by the Waitaha rohe at Hagley Park (North), Christchurch. Kia Rōnaki The Maori Performing Arts

Every two years, Te Matatini organises the Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival, where top kapa haka teams from New Zealand and Australia compete for the honour of being crowned the best of the best.

The Festival started in 1972 and is now the world’s largest celebration of Māori traditional performing arts, attracting over 30,000 performers, supporters and visitors.

Over four days audiences experience the best Māori performing arts in the world, from the harmonies of dynamic group singing to the graceful movements of women performing the poi and the ferocity of the male haka.

The Festival is a whānau friendly, smoke, alcohol and drug free event.  It is an opportunity for all people, regardless of culture, background or age to come together, to share and celebrate.

While the main focus is Kapa Haka , the Festival also celebrates Māori culture and cuisine.  Visitors can enjoy a range of retail and food stalls, art and craft exhibitions and other entertainment activities.

Day 1 – Pōwhiri b The Girls in the Kapahaka y the Tangata Whenua.

All Kapa Haka performers, supporters, dignitaries and visitors are welcomed by the local hosts.

Days 2, 3 and 4 – Pool Rounds (Te Ihu, Te Haumi, Te Kei).

Kapa Haka teams are required to perform six disciplines within their performance piece – whakaeke (a choreographed entry), mōteatea (traditional chant), poi (light ball swung on the end of a rope), waiata-ā-ringa (action song), haka and whakawātea (exit).  They must perfect every discipline in a polished 25-minute performance.

Each performance is judged against set criteria, by expert judges, appointed from around New Zealand.

Taonga (trophies) are awarded to the team with the highest score in the seven compulsory (aggregate) categ Waiata mai 35 Maori songs Leathem, Kare Rapata ories (the six disciplines mentioned and the seventh category, Te Reo Maori – the use and clarity of the Maori language). Further taonga are awarded across non compulsory (non-aggregate) categories such as Kaitātaki Wahine (Best Female Leader), Kaitātaki Tāne (Best Male Leader) and Kākahu (Costume).

The top three teams with the highest combined marks in their competition pool will compete in the Competition Finals.

Day 5 – The Finals (Te Whakarae)

The finalists are judged anew to determine third, second and the new Toa Whakaihuwaka – overall winner of the competition.

More information:

Underground Overground Archaeology display

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There’s lots of rubbish on display at South Library!

Well, once upon a time, some of it may have been rubbish. Now, however, the broken crockery, old bottles, fragmented clay pipes and fragmented porcelain dolls are important clues to historic lives in Christchurch.

Demolition of buildings built prior to 1900 requires an archaeological survey and sign-off as a requirement under the Historic Places Act. Consequently, archaeologists from Underground Overground Archaeology have been finding lots of interesting artefacts that show us how people lived in Christchurch – back when Europeans were relatively recent immigrants to this country.
Underground Overground Archaeology displayUnderground Overground Archaeology display

The display is at South Library, 66 Colombo Street, Beckenham at least until mid March.

Beth Clayton
South Library

Resistance is fertile

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GardeningI first came across the phrase “guerrilla gardening” while trawling through the thousands of gardening-related websites available to be Googled. Now Richard Reynolds, initiator of http://www.guerrillagardening.org has written a book On guerrilla gardening: a handbook for gardening without boundaries.

Reynolds defines guerrilla gardening as “the illicit cultivation of someone else’s land”. Guerrilla gardeners see a waste patch of ground – an empty building site, for example – and plant it with flowers or crops. Often this activity is undertaken in the dead of night, on “raids”, so as to evade the eyes of authority or the legal owners of the land.

This is not mere anarchy, however. As Renolds explains in his book, illicit gardening has a history and a philiosophy, and uses the tactics of guerrilla warfare to make our built environments more beautiful and useful spaces.

If Johnny Appleseed was one of your childhood heroes, this book will strike a chord. Visit the website too – it’s full of photos of people doing naughty things with plants on traffic islands.

See our gardening pages for more information.

No ordinary son

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Hone Tuwhare, 1922 – 2008

I can hear you
making small holes
in the silence
rain

If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut

And I
should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind

from Rain

http://www.honetuwhare.co.nz/

Image: At the Wairoa Maori Writers & Artists Hui, 1973.
Photo: John Miller

Our page on Hone Tuwhare

Qiu Xiaolong

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Last week the Chinese government executed Zheng Xiaoyu, the head of their State Food and Drug Administration for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including antibiotics blamed for at least 10 deaths. This has come amidst widespread scandals over the safety of Chinese export products covering everything from pet food contaminated with melamine to toxic toothpaste. According to a recent article in Newsweek virtually every product category is affected.

I have been following this with particular interest because I have just finished reading the first three detective novels by Qiu Xiaolong, which are set in modern Shanghai. These give an intriguing insight into life in modern China and the government’s attempts to curb corruption.

Inspector Chen started his career as a student of English literature and a poet. Originally destined for the foreign service he was rejected at the last minute because of a politically incorrect relation and assigned a job in the police. He has attained his rank due to the patronage of his boss, whose role is solely political. Each case he is allocated involves a delicate balancing act, as he attempts to intuit whether he is really supposed to investigate the politically sensitive cases he is allocated, or if finding the real culprit will bring his career to a sudden halt. Does the government really want to expose corruption or does it just want a scapegoat? The answers make for absorbing reading.

Links:

(posting from Bernice)