Not-Auckland

BY SALLY CONOR

Where does Auckland begin and end exactly? In a city that is characterised by its sprawl, it is almost impossible to tell. The only silly metaphor I can think of is a fried egg… built up in the middle and with a fairly definite central area but sort of tapering out into almost translucent thinness somewhere around Albany in the north and Manurewa in the south. Does Orewa count as a suburb yet? It can’t be more than five years before it does, surely.

The disease of mass suburban development is spreading north like a terracotta-tiled architectural plague. The Hibiscus Coast is already being eaten alive by the canker, and soon Orewa will be engulfed, as will acres of beautiful rolling arable land and dark forest. Auckland seems to be something of an insatiable beast, always spreading, always expanding, in the manner of The Blob. Stand still in the outer suburbs for too long and you might find you have been paved over to make way for a carpark.

Two consecutive weekends have seen me uncharacteristically venture north out of Auckland and I have found myself to remark on several occasions: “I really must get out of Auckland more. I find myself forgetting what a gorgeous country New Zealand is”, but if I’m honest, these brief sojourns have left me conflicted. It’s clear that I love Auckland. Most of the time on this blog I won’t shut up about how great I think it is. So any trip away from it, however brief, leaves me feeling mildly homesick and a little discombobulated. The country is so QUIET. You can hear The Wind. You can see the shape of the landscape for miles. You have to drive for ten minutes to get to THE Shop, singular.

For any institutionalised city-dweller, these things are beautiful and pleasant but nonetheless unsettling. I like the country but I miss the city. And then at the same time I resent the encroachment of the city into the country. I want them to be able to exist together in harmony without the growth of the one equalling the death of the other. I want Auckland and Not-Yet-Auckland to sign some kind of Treaty:

“I, Auckland, promise to be a more considerate neighbour and to not keep moving my borders further into Not-Auckland’s territory at night when no one is looking. I promise to be satisfied with the already massive space that I occupy and to focus on utilising it more effectively and making it better for those who already live there rather than exacerbating my already significant problems by ravenously expanding even further. I acknowledge that my expansion problem stems from insecurity and that I need to look inside myself for validation rather than eating more of the country in attempt to fill the void. I promise to respect the integrity of the countryside and to leave it the fuck alone for the sake of Nature and for those small communities that make New Zealand awesome and of which I have already gobbled hundreds. I promise to go on a diet. I promise to purge myself of asshole developers, bad architects and Mark Ellis. I promise to love myself and my brother, Not-Auckland and to respect his private space.”

Cities are characterised not only by what they contain, but by what surrounds them – everyone needs to get away from the city sometimes, and where will we go if Not-Auckland is subsumed into Auckland? Somewhere, somebody needs to draw a line.



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Happy New Year

BY HENRY OLIVER





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BY RYAN MOORE

No Pictures

BY SIMON DENNY

We had to give the car a bit of a clean as we had to give it back the next morning. We had a rather dodgy map but knew we were in the right area. There were no signs and after about an hour we were about to give up when Jon spotted it. It was dark by now but we managed to get a picture of it. After cooking up some food in the van we then went to the minus 5 degrees bar. We have a similar one in London. We were given big jackets and gloves. The bar is made all of ice, including the glasses. There were some really good sculptures in there but they would not let us take poictures. The novelty of being cold soon wore off and we went to another bar. There was a big casino in the centre of town. We had used their parking so we had to go inside (convenient for Jon) whilst Jon enjoyed the roulette I enjoyed the free hot drinks. We then had to find somewhere to stay for our final night in the van. It was late and quite a built up city so we settled on a relatively quiet road. I will miss our little moon roof we had, at night you can open it up and see lots of stars. I will not miss waking up and having to drive to the nearest toilet in order to pee though! The next morning we did just that and stayed parked up in order to get our stuff packed up. Jon noticed a hole in one of the mens cubicles (think Shameless, if you have ever seen that episode) and we noticed in the hour we were there that way too many men were using the cubicles. Bit much for a Saturday morning but we were sure we had stumbled accross a little hunting ground for Auckland's gay men.

We were running late for dropping off the van so we knew we would have to pay a $10 penalty which wasn´t much. Now, with this company you had to bring the van back clean. We could not find a car wash but had noticed brushes to clean windows and buckets at most stations. So, in true backpacker style we washed the whole van down with the window brush and rinsed it with a watering can. The man in the garage must have thought we were nuts and was giving us a confused look. When we went to take the van back half an hour late we found the office was closed. I called them and we were meant to take it to their office near the airport but no-one had told us, this meant we didn´t get charged for being late. So we drove there and I managed to pursuade a cab driver dropping someone off to take us to the airport cheaply. We were not due at the airport for another 3 hours but as we were close there was no point going back to the city. With 3 hours to kill before check-in we got a free shower and caught up on our diary.

Once checked in our flight was delayed by 2 hours which meant another 5 hours waiting around. They gave us a voucher which we spent in the bar, well what else is there to do in an airport. I felt rather merry when we finally got on the plane!



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Weathering Christmas on the way to Waiheke

BY MARCUS STICKLEY

"Return ticket on the 11 o'clock sailing to Waiheke, please,'' I said, trying to sound bright and awake despite feeling about as grey as the brooding clouds over Hauraki Gulf that were waiting to rain.

I handed over $30 cash I got $1.50 back.

The square of paper I was giving in exchange was clipped as I stepped onto the gangway to the half-full Fullers ferry at the terminal in Auckland City.

Even with the wind up, and rain threatening, I was going to sit outside on the top deck. I needed plenty of fresh air and room to move should the need to heave over the side win the mind-over-matter battle raging in my body.

Sea sickness had never been a problem for me. Even in my worst Cook Strait crossing, where glasses were smashed at the bar and every other person had their colour-drained face in a bag, I hadn't been fazed. I even enjoyed it.

But the night before had gotten heavy. At a music industry Christmas party free drinks were flowing and there were old friends and friends I'd forgot I had to catch up with.

While I was feeling the after effects of all the cheer, I boarded with a group of corporate who were just warming up for a day I suspected they would indulging the Christmas spirit at the Island's wineries. On their excursion a spikey, silver-haired Santa was wearing a sports coat and jeans with his big red sack.

Sitting in an uncovered section of the top deck with me were a group of women made-up with bug-eyed sunglasses who moved for shelter from the blustery wind soon after we pulled away from dock.

I stayed on with a few other blokes and tucked my baseball cap into my backpack to avoid it being whipped away.

Also on the top deck was a cameraman who on our stop at Devonport was joined by a soundman carrying a mic and boom. On the way to the island they shot a passing ferry and some panoramic views.

By the time the boat past Rangitoto my head was starting to clear. The sky was not. It was unsettled, like my stomach. Those scrambled eggs I had for breakfast were in need of some reinforcement.

Two women and a male companion sat in the seats immediately around me, sauvignon blanc's in hand, having just been down to the little onboard cafe/bar. One said she's spilled her glass three times already and struggled to light a cigarette as she crouching for cover behind a row of seats.

Just as get up to find out if there is a steak pie at the cafe counter the ferry's engines drop a gear – we were at the island only 35 minutes later.

Even on a bad day the sailing seemed smooth, spilled wine and self-inflicted pain aside.


Marcus Stickley moved from Auckland three years ago and sometimes misses it, especially the rock'n'roll. He now lives in the South Island.



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Video Stores

BY DOMINIC HOEY

Even though it’s now possible to download movies before they’re in theaters, a part of me still enjoys wandering aimlessly though video stores. Perhaps it’s the ability to hold something tangible, or the off chance that I’ll stumble across a good movie I haven’t seen. Unfortunately most video shops are to films what airport bookstores are to literature. With this in mind, I’ve put together a short list of stores in order from best to worse, so you never have to watch another Adam Sandler film because there was nothing else to get.

Video Ezy Ponsonby is a rare exception to this chain stores rule of thumb. Most Video Ezy’s are about as likely to have the Herzog film you’re after as Mc Donald’s is to serve you vegan burgers. Not only does this store boast an impressive collection of classic films, it’s also open 24 hours, which is important if like me, you choose to indulge your love of both drinking and films at once. It’s worth checking out the recently released section, which has a few gems among the TV series and National Geographic documentaries. As one staff member recently pointed out to me, its not that they only get good films, they just get everything. Speaking of the staff, the usually intoxacted employees never seem to mind my inane questions like,”what’s that film with the trucks in it”?

Videon is the antithesis of a chain store, no five for ten dollar speacils or prison blue uniforms here. This store located on Dominion rd, has probably the best selection in Auckland if not the country. Unfortunately many of these films are only available on video, which means you’re reduced to watching your movie of choice in snow storm vision. A friend of mine recently let me use his membership card at Video Ezy, warning me it had some fines on it. It turned out the account had 150 dollars owing, but after handing over $2, I was able to get out Worlds Ten Worse Plane Crashes without any trouble. That shit won't slide at Videon. You’ll be charged the cost of hiring the film everyday its late and won't be able to rent a new one to the debts are paid off. The staff are bristling with so much nineties attitude its like walking into a Kevin Smith film.

Civic Video in Surrey crescent is pretty unremarkable. I just put it in here so I could have four stores to review. It’s got an okay selection especially if you own a video player. It closes early, but isn’t too anal about late fees. It’s kinda like the quiet middle child of video stores in between the popular older sibling and the Down Syndrome half-brother.

Which bring us to Blockbuster New Lynn. I know expecting a Blockbuster to have a quality movie selection is an act of futility bordering on madness, but it’s the closet video store to my girl’s house. Instead what you get is row after row of romantic comedies and straight to DVD sequels of shit films. I once spent over an hour there, in a stoned daze only to leave with The Hills Have Eyes 2 and the distinct feeling I’m wasting my life. To be fair there are probably much worse video stores, but since I’m unlikely to be renting films in Bulls anytime soon, it can serve as the bottom of the barrel.



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Grafton Bridge

BY SALLY CONOR

Bridges are kind of like airplanes. We all use them with impunity and with as little thought possible about the delicate physics that keep them from dropping us out of the sky. We trust bridges to get us from one place to the next over impassable distances. And only the tiniest niggle at the back of our thoughts alerts us to the fact that we are REALLY HIGH UP.

Perched as we are on our craggy little isthmus, in Auckland we rely on bridges daily to carry us over waters or gullies or over ridiculously complex bits of motorway. Our largest bridge is possibly the most instantly recognisable symbol of our city, and its efficiency at squeezing ever-growing numbers of us backwards and forwards over its narrow back is a matter of constant hair-rending. Was any bridge ever so loved and loathed as the Auckland Harbour Bridge? I feel a bit sorry for it really. It has done so much for us and yet we dub it ‘the coathanger’ and berate it for not being bigger or more beautiful or for not being a tunnel.

Anyway, I am inclined to think of Auckland as the ‘city of bridges’. I bet a lot more of us use bridges than sailing boats, and I’ve always thought ‘the city of sails’ was a hopelessly elitist and misleading nickname. We aren’t a city of wankers in dinghys, we are a city of people in the shadow of a bridge. We are troll people.
I’m kidding. But there really are some very nice bridges in Auckland – I always get a lot of pleasure out of crossing the Hopetoun Bridge… it swoops so beautifully out from under Ponsonby and drops you down so gently in the central city. And those railings along the side mean you can see everything over the edge in a faintly flickering way like a reel of film.

The bridge I use the most by far is Grafton Bridge. I’m constantly traipsing across it between home and the city – it’s kind of like the passage between my public and private life. My state of mind always alters slightly as I cross it, between interior thoughts of food and laundry and sleeping, and more outward-looking ideas about food and work and where my next drink is coming from.
I’m kidding again. But it’s true – Grafton Bridge marks where I am, both geographically and psychologically. By the time it deposits me at Grafton shops, I feel like I am home. But when I step off it onto Symonds St I realise I am running ten minutes late for work or to meet someone. It snaps me out of myself and reminds me that I live in Auckland City and had better Buck Up My Ideas.

As a piece of architecture I find it rather lovely – a bit chunky yes, but the Perspex sidings lend it a certain shining, blade-like quality, as well as making it feel a bit like Kelly Tarlton’s, especially when it’s raining. A big freckly stingray could float past and I think most people would barely blink. These curved windows also have the effect of containing the bridge, of folding it over into an almost tunnel, so that you feel you are enveloped by it, and in turn, brought a little bit closer to the other people who happen to be traversing it at the same time. I almost feel part of a community when I cross Grafton Bridge. We’re all on it together, going about our business, for a few minutes all carefully NOT thinking about the equations that prevent us from plummeting to our deaths, all reading the traffic for a good time to cross, and all observing the complex footpath etiquette that allows fast walkers to pass and med students to be held up for as long as possible.

Occasionally, the bridge serves as a message board: once someone plastered slightly scary love notes on the pillars down one side. ‘Karin I Love You’… ‘I Want to Have Your Babies’… ‘I’ll Love You Forever’… etc. I always wondered how the recipient received this incredibly public declaration, because the next day, someone had tried to rip several of the notes down. Was it Karin? Or just some bitter old Scrooge who hates love? To whomever posted those notes: thanks for letting us bridge-dwellers into your private life for one brief day, it was very romantic of you, but in the future, maybe you should stick to text messages like the rest of us.

Probably the best thing about Grafton Bridge is the view out over the gully and the glittering ports, across the harbour to Devonport and into the Gulf. That most Auckland of views is always so comforting as we each trudge along our own little predestined threads of pavement to work or home or school. And it is these threads and passageways that form the pattern of our lives. Clip clop, clip clop. If we are the billy-goats, who is the troll under Grafton Bridge?

Probably John Banks. Or maybe Mark Ellis.



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Christmas in the Summertime

BY AMBER EASBY

Those blurry bug eyes, that come hither finger – there is nothing creepier than the Whitcolls Santa, though he is looking particularly worse for wear this year. Santa doesn’t wink anymore and it took Whitcolls a week to get his forefinger going. You can even see a giant plaster over his moving knuckle.





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Auckland Hospital

BY SARAH HOPKINSON

My first piece of advice to you, if experiencing an allergic reaction that appears to be rapidly advancing, is to call an ambulance. After having a lie down to see if it would pass, I called my mum (who lives in another city). This wasn’t an altogether bad start, as she does suffer from a deadly allergy to most antibiotics, but I foolishly downplayed it on the phone. Having not eaten or touched anything untoward or out of the ordinary, and being a generally healthy person, I didn’t want to seem like a hypochondriac. By this stage my face had swollen and turned a frightful shade of red, as had my hand, arms, feet (all itchy) and, I am sure if I had thought to look, most of my body. Mind you, this was far less disconcerting than the throbbing in my ears and tightening in my chest and throat. Both dithering and unnecessary modesty can be dispensed with - it is very unhelpful in such situations.

After checking the house was locked, I decided to walk down the road to such the local doctors. Again, not a great idea but the cool breeze was nice on my Violet Beauregarde-style skin. Family medical centres are fine, great for colds and immunising babies, but can be also by-passed in emergencies. The nurse who took my blood pressure did her best to hide her panic but I could see she was rattled, the fear was palpable. What followed was a flurry of action, a shot of adrenaline was stuck in my thigh (no magic marker like Pulp Fiction unfortunately) and an ambulance called and told ‘to hurry.’ All most unsettling. It was about this time that I began to wonder if I should call my lawyer (any lawyer) and dictate a will to ensure all of my not-very valuable possessions were looked after in the even of an untimely departure. It was also about this time, as I was being carried out to the ambulance, that the GP asked if I could pop in tomorrow and pay my bill. A bit on the nose I thought.

Adrenaline is fun. As you would imagine, 0.5 ml of it straight into the muscle is an instensification of the rush you get when excited or in danger or after you have an intense argument with someone. It makes you shake uncontrollably, which, when you are not cold, is a quite peculiar sensation. This aside, St Johns Ambulance staff - I can’t say enough good things. So calm and collected! Drips, ECG machine, oxygen: the work of a moment. A strapping tattooed ambulance driver recorded my personal details, completed my ACC form (wishful thinking) and finally, on arrival, hefted my gurney with consummate ease and skill that comes of much practice.

Emergency rooms are pretty bleak as a rule, full of worried people and flustered nurses. Optimised for efficency and practicality, these are not the most relaxing of locales. Not that you really care when you arrive - what you care about is that this place and these people have the ability to make you better, or at least bear witness to your demise. In my case, thankfully, they performed the former task sterlingly and by the time I was moved off the main floor and into an observation ward I was feeling fine, the shakes had receded to mere tremors, and I began to take stock of the surrounds.

Hospitals in general, but Emergency rooms in particular, provide one of those strange situations were all claims to privacy dramtaically fall away - it is no longer of any relevance or consequence. So, despite not being curious in the least, it did not take long for me to realise I was, happily, in far better shape than most of my invalid companions. A few minutes after my arrival a generously proportioned chap was rolled in with both legs in full cast. From the conversation that took place between his family and unfortunate friend who had witnessed the accident, I managed to glean (or actually couldn't avoid learning) that he had jumped of something for fun and broken both his legs: one shin, one ankle. His parents seemed very put-out about this and proceeded, in loud English accents, to tell the lad just how stupid he was. When he went to sleep they referred to him as the ‘silly stoner’ (he was pretty whacked out on Kedamine), and discussed his relegation to their garage for 6 weeks. Perish the thought. I began to empathise with his reckless antics.

This is certainly not a complaint, as it is of course necessary and unavoidable, but the noise in these places is quite remarkable. When recovering from a not-insignificant shock to the system, hearing a nurse loudly explain, over the cacophony of beeps from all manner of machines, to a diabetic chap over-the-way how his cathater and diaper works, is not the most soothing to the ear. Nor is the muffled snoring of said dare-devil neighbour, or the middle-age Remuera lady telling her elderly mother (whom she calls Mummy in a baby-voice) not to worry about ruining the cashmere sweater as they have a MILLION more at home. And I swear I heard a staff member use the expression 'shit the bed-pan'. Maybe I was just hyped up on meds, getting my colloquialisms and contexts twisted.

Under the circumstances I had a pretty good time, a little unsettling, kind of novel, mostly just boring. I was treated efficently, kept informed of my condition and discharged promptly (after the 6 hour observation period). I mean, I don't really need to sell the Emergency Room - it is not like you have a choice - if you are going there, you need to be there and that is where you will stay until the threat to your person recedes. Noone feels 'at home' here and the percentage of the population that enjoy their visits must be slim. Strange warped-floral curtains and uncomfortable beds aside, who wants to be confronted with the fragility and inevitable mortality of the human race on a regular basis? The ugliness and despair of the sick - not so fun.

And of course in this context details that one might usually fuss over, or discuss in a 'review' seem awfully insignifcant - I mean, I can mention the shy-making size of my gown (which did nothing to conceal any of my underclothing until Debi helped me wrap it around twice), or the fact that the food was gross, or even that the printed label on the brown paper bag that carried my belongings should've had an apostrophe (it read 'patients property' - which would've usually got me very worked up). But who cares? Emergency Wards aren't supposed to be appealing - they provide the minimum comfort to ensure your recovery, and recover I did. Constantly bombarded with new lives to save they hardly want people hanging out, taking up room and distracting their already over-worked staff. So, sure I will try and steer clear, but until the time they discover what substance actually caused my anaphylactic shock (and eating stops being like a game of Russian Roulette) I will continue to feel confident that in case of an emergency, with the help of St Johns and Auckland Hospital Emergency staff - I will be in capable hands.



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Three Liam Finn Shows and a Baby

BY SALLY CONOR

Before I begin, let me get one thing straight: I am not stalking Liam Finn. The fact that I went to all three of his Auckland shows recently is not testament to any slavish fandom, unlike the fact that I attended both Ryan Adams shows in August, which sprang from my abiding obsession with and slightly scary infatuation with said musician. Don’t get me wrong. I like Liam’s music a lot and I really enjoy his gigs. But I don’t want any of you getting the wrong idea. Having said that, I found myself showing up to all three shows. Mostly coz my friends did. But it turned out to be a very interesting exercise in how live music can be transformed by surroundings, audience and the relative drunkenness of the performers and punters alike.

Thursday 8th November, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Newton
The only dry show of the three, and boy was the lack noticeable. The audience were all weirdly respectful and quiet. Almost too quiet because in between songs where there is usually the din of conversation and bar-fights and shouting, there fell an expectant silence. As the applause died from the previous song, the audience seemed to collectively say “That was nice, now what are you going to play next? Huh? HUH??!” Enjoyably for us, the result was BANTER. With the musicians also stone-cold sober, the on-stage banter was of varying quality, but most of it was very funny. The best call of the night was when Liam’s tour partner EJ Barnes told him his face “looks like a vagina”. We all cheered and clapped whilst wondering, are you allowed to say ‘vagina’ in church?
The show itself was awesome. The acoustics of the church really did the music justice and when things got noisy and experimental, our enjoyment was enhanced by feelings of delicious guilt brought on by listening to crazy rock ‘n’ roll music in a house of God. When our eyes wandered from the antics of our hosts, the church provided gorgeous architectural eye-candy of jewel-bright stained glass, warm polished wood and pleasing proportions and shapes. And down the front, the cutest baby in the world was running riot clad in little yellow headphones. It was really funny. And all of this was made possible as a result of the gig being held at a church. The family-friendly atmos, lack of mood-altering beverages and beauty of the room really made the music the focus of the night and I left feeling as if I had just worshipped at the altar of sweet riffs and loop-pedals.
(NB Me and my companion for the night enjoyed the evening so much that we resolved to attend an actual service at the church the following Sunday. We showed up but pathetically wussed out in favour of worshipping the divine Coffee and Croissant at Benediction. At least the café had a religious name.)

Thursday 15th November, The King’s Arms Tavern
I think most people have experienced a night at the King’s Arms when it is sold out - shoulder-to-shoulder packed, hot, smelly and often unpleasant. Feeling unwilling to tackle the mosh, my friend and I stayed down the back most of the night which I later regretted as it was probably the finest show of the tour. Liam was in fine voice and at his daring best in terms of pushing the boat out with experimentation. He played an incredibly gnarly drum-fill at one point. EJ was wearing a really beautiful velvet mermaid dress and was forced to sing one of her own songs by Liam which actually provided a really nice change of pace. Everyone sang along to the big numbers, especially ‘Gather To The Chapel’. Are these things possibly due to the fact that everyone was lubricated by alcohol? Probably. I think it is no accident that drugs and alcohol are so indelibly associated with music. They really do seem to facilitate risk-taking and freedom of expression and awesome drum fills. The crowd was a lot noisier than at the church but then the response to the music was also a lot more enthusiastic.
The King’s Arms isn’t the most inspiring of venues but the way it compresses people into a narrow space seems to create a special kind of atmosphere and focus of collective energy which may have something to do with its longevity as a venue. I wish I’d been right up the front in the thick of it.

Saturday 17th November, The Leigh Sawmill Cafe
On arriving, the first thing we heard was that the musicians had all gotten completely wasted in Wellington the night before and hadn’t been to sleep. Support act Dictaphone Blues appeared wearing a scarf around his head which he said was “holding my brains in”. Our expectations for the show dropped a bit. Then we found out that we weren’t allowed to order food so started drinking on empty stomachs which raised our expectations again (hurrah!). I found scotch and soda to be a very agreeable alternative to dinner. One of my favourite things about the Leigh Sawmill is the way people seated upstairs can peer down at the stage from behind the musicians. With the stage surrounded by expectant punters, the room starts to feel a bit like a coliseum (Which way will it go?? Thumbs up?? Or thumbs down??!!). Watching how performers react to scrutiny is always sadistically fun. Tonight, they responded with alacrity. Liam and EJ were definitely a bit quiet on the banter front (which was a shame as they’re so good at it) but otherwise showed no signs of party fatigue on stage, playing a blistering set that included a tremendous Neil Young cover. You know a musician is good when every time he starts a new song, you say to the person beside you ‘oh THIS is my favourite’ which is more or less what I did. But the highlight was the final song, ‘Wide Awake On The Voyage Home’. A beautiful, elegiac sprawling thing that was the perfect send-off and the enthusiastic country crowd sang along and provided thunderous applause.

Three different nights, three different venues, three different levels of inebriation all made for three incredibly varied but similarly awesome musical experiences. I think the church gig was my favourite for the sheer beauty of the building and the way the unusual circumstances produced a really enjoyable variant of the normal rock ‘n’ roll show, what with vagina talk and cute rampant babies and all. When musicians get creative with venues like this it really pays off for everyone involved and with our already dire number of venues for gigs and the rumoured imminent demise of several other key sites, experimentation like this ought to be encouraged, nay, ought to become the norm. Now if only we can find a way to convince the Church that whiskey and soda promotes holiness in heathens…



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Browns Bay

BY SARAH HOPKINSON

Browns Bay quietly muddles along in its sunny corner of the North Shore unbeknownst (or purposefully ignored) by the majority of Auckland city dwellers. Ostensibly it boasts no glittering attractions; the beach is ok, the sights mediocre, it is very middle-class but not entirely without charm. Elderly drivers congest traffic, sidewalks are roamed by bored youths that haunt the $2 dollar shop and messily eat ice creams on the promenade. Yet to be railroaded by malls, the main street is peppered with the family businesses and boutiques usually confined to small towns and yester-year; including a knitting store (not the trendy type), a Christian book store, pet and pie shops. It is very white, noticeably so. High percentages of British and South African immigrants frequent multiple nationally themed stores such as ‘The British Shop’ (where you can buy those delicious marmite flavoured crisps) and a traditional South African butcher (for the boerworst connoisseurs). On Sunday mornings there is a market where you can select form a vast array of succulents for not much more than 50c each. All in all Browns Bay is a friendly place, perhaps a little backward, familiar and a touch unsettling.

The suburb also boasts a large elderly population and, despite the ghoulish implications, there isn’t a surer signpost for good opportunity shopping. The solid good taste and practicality of our grandparent’s generation, coupled with do-gooder middle-class-ness makes Browns Bay a kind of second-hand store haven. To my knowledge, as well as several furniture outlets, there are 4 stores that stock chiefly clothes and bric-a-brac. It is for these shops that I frequently take the trip to the Shore.

For me good thrift-ing is all about the ratio, you see. For example, a Savemart can be disheartening because the bad monstrously outweighs the good. An inner-city vintage store on the other hand can be too easy; the scales are purposefully tipped in the good’s favour. Browns Bay strikes a near perfect balance: it is hard work but it pays dividends. It offers the thrill of the chase. In Browns Bay, among the usual garish floral synthetic full-length dresses, dime novels and old misshapen men’s shoes that clutter second-hand stores, the discerning eye can find treasures of insurmountable quality. The pure lambs wool cardigans, tapered well-cut trousers and linen sundresses of my Antonioni-inspired dreams, have all been spotted here. I once bought a Harris Tweed, not dissimilar from one my grandmother owns (and probably purchased on from some discerning stockist on Bond St or the like) for the price of Sunday brunch. (I often equate op shop spends with food; the mental use/exchange value comparison is very rewarding.) This I added to a long list of acquisitions that includes everything from sturdy hand-knitted woollen hot water bottle covers to an alcohol cabinet with mirrored shelves and martini glass hooks.

However, it saddens me to say that while the treasures at Browns Bay have never, by any stretch of the imagination, been in abundance there has been a perceptible downturn in the last year. I am not sure whether my tastes have changed, some astute businessperson has cottoned on or simply that the generation that supplied the stores is slowly dwindling. Perhaps all of the above. In saying that it remains a worthwhile trip, if only to take half a day off, cross the bridge, chat to the lovely volunteer ladies, eat a tasty beef and mushroom homemade pie from the local French Café, and immerse yourself for a moment in sunny suburban stupor.


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The Benefits of Looking Up (The Secret Observation Deck on Wakefield St)

BY SALLY CONOR

Cities are prismatic. They change with the light and reflect new qualities from every angle. Auckland is a city of hidden surfaces - at times it can seem dull and grainy, with its character leached and corroded by commerce, sprawl and the blight of apartment buildings like limescale on the surface of some bright blade. But at other times, and with the right guide, it is radiant and crystalline. Those of us who love Auckland know its freckles and foibles: we know its crannies and sparkling moments; we seek out the sides of the prism that reflect the best light. And we know that there will always be new discoveries to make us fall in love with it all over again.

I have a friend whose great talent is for seeking out these ways to see the ordinary through entirely new eyes – when you spend time with her, you find life takes on new urgency and lustre, possibilities open up before you where you thought there were only blank walls. One day recently, she took me on a serpentine walk through town, promising to reveal a great new secret of Auckland. Like Alice’s white rabbit, she led me through a doorway and a tunnel of sorts (in this case, an upward journey through a lift-shaft to the seventeenth floor) and out onto a deserted rooftop Wonderland of mouldering turf, weird box gardens of aloes, and an unexpectedly bright panorama of our city. She had brought me to an observation deck, poorly disguised a pseudo-garden of the lowest possible maintenance, with seating and places to walk, sheltered areas for viewing and… that is all. No one else was there, and it felt dreamlike, nonsensical… a place straight out of Lewis Carroll in fact, verging on pointlessness in its under-use, if it weren’t for the quite extraordinary perspective of Auckland that it offered.

From the skytower, Auckland becomes a flat mosaic crawling with puny movement. From this angle, Auckland retains its dimensions but presents a weathered, weary face of lumpen rooftops, back alleys, silence and assorted architectural triumph and shame. The encroachment of the new is all too depressingly obvious from the seventeenth floor, with cranes infesting the skyline like wiry harbingers of the beige mediocrity soon to follow. Gems like St Matthew’s cathedral and the Smith & Caughey building defiantly jostle for light among the encroaching apartments and badly thought-out office spaces (does anyone else think that new skyscraper going up on lower Queen St looks exactly like a cheese grater?) and their beauty is all the more poignant for it. Anyone who loves Auckland can surely feel their heart breaking for our city’s slow, aesthetic death.

Anyway, the point is that despite the dawning horror of being able to see clearly what is happening to the architectural character of central Auckland, viewing the whole patchwork from up here is exhilarating and newly inspiring. The glow of light and life from the ocean and Gulf islands shines greenly over the entire panorama. Advertising is remarkably absent this high up – no billboards are visible, no tagging or postering has ascended, even music and the constant burble of imperatives to buy buy buy are lost in the altitude. The only iconography that survives the climb are the neon beacons atop our tallest towers: ANZ, ASB, VERO… and the City Mission cross (God is fighting a daily battle for skyline dominance with the fallen angels of finance). Also pleasing is the surprising amount of green clustered between the building blocks of civilisation… Albert Park and the Domain provide the velvety, shadowed places that are such cool refuges from the reflected glare of thousands of CBD windows. This green frequently inhabits the non-spaces – the redundant bits of air between buildings that contain defiant patches of weeds, hardy trees reaching for life, or the small victory of grass in the cracks of our paved-over land.

Perhaps what one sees most clearly from up here is the unused concrete expanse of all the nearby rooftops – one can’t help but wonder, what if all those roofs contained gardens like this one, but with real grass and leafy trees, flowers and ferns, moist earth and teeming life? What if Auckland had a whole secret world seventeen floors up? What if we blanketed our coarse but necessary commercial lives with a tapestry of nature between us and our atmosphere, or perhaps more crucially, protected our atmosphere from us? What would it do for our carbon emissions? For our quality of life? It’s just a nice thought.

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The other extraordinary thing about my friend who brought me to this place is that her fiancé is a ninja. I’m not even kidding. He has a black belt in ninjitsu. Not only is this fun fact testament to her unique quality, it also informed the way she presented this garden to me. She passed on a story he told her about how people hardly ever bother to look upwards in their everyday lives. Apparently ninjas are taught to be ultra-aware in three dimensions, and to frequently use the spaces above them to hide from their enemies who are unlikely to look beyond what is right in front of them. Those of us without ninja powers are so often guilty of viewing our world with a lazily shallow gaze, and it is so simple to just glance upwards every now and again, to see things differently, discover our habitat anew and appreciate the entirety of what surrounds us. I like to think of my visit to this rooftop garden as an extreme expression of that idea: I looked up, all the way up to the seventeenth floor, and what I found there was an entirely new way of seeing my world, of seeing Auckland.




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