Jeans: The Final Chapter

BY TAHI MOORE

(JEANS: The Final Chapter)
This is the land of big. I see people wearing stuff I want to buy. Where do they get it? Where do you get a v neck t-shirt. I got a slightly oversized piere cardan t-shirt with a big round neck like a girls shirt that I like. I found a small shop where the guy brings back stuff from Japan and they only get jeans in my size. So I got some.

CRAFTSTYLING
I had to craftstyle the jeans down from a wide straightleg to the cut that suits me. So I did that, and now after months of searching and going to the other side of the world and recraftstyling jeans from france for the japanese market at a reasonable price I have what I've been looking for. It's a letdown. Jeans aren't worth all that effort. I mean they're not that great. You just kind of need them. I understand why people pay four times as much as they should for jeans that look okay when they try them on. From now on I'm just going to make my own suits.



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Happy New Year

BY HENRY OLIVER





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Watches

BY TAHI MOORE

I'm in KL. A lot of people are wearing watches. Watches I think are hard because there are so many that think like it's a necessary thing that you kind of pretty up a bit. But the whole cell phone thing yeah you know.

Now, I think that watches are just like it's like you wear one for the look so now it wants to just look like a watch. If there is another layer of re-hiding the watch, it's too much it's too complex you have to just have the thing looking like you got the watch because it looks like a watch. It goes the other way too, it can be too basic like you just got a cheap watch because you need one. No they can never be too basic, nor too cheap looking like it's okay to do plastic becasue it looks just like an expensive watch you know with the gold bits and the flashy writing or whatever and that elegance of style or something you gotta get a cheap watch just simple like the person designing it goes can you see the time? Yeah okay, it's done that's it. Sometimes the cheap watches are really good too, but most of the time they're just like the expensive ones, they have way too much details, the time display just hides under all this crap on your wrist. If there's a useful function in having a watch it's that you can read the time in half a second instead of five seconds. You really want that time thing right tere without being too cluttered up.

But more people are wearing watches. The othodox thing to do is to get an old one with good design. I've been predicting that swatch watches will come back, I don't know. But they still do plain ones which are nice.

I'm looking for a good see through watch I really want a quartz crystal digital see through watch no details. Would that just look too much like a mac? Probably. Okay.

Styles: Railroad, which is about readability, but the official swiss ones have this blob on the end of the second hand.

Dive, I've seen a few people wear them well. Then there are all these watches with bezels and it's like having an altometer on your car.

Pilot watches usually have a triangle at the top, often with a couple of dots. It's all a bit whiffy, I'm sure there are lots of watches that work but the whole theme thing I mean it's not fancy dress here.



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Review in a Dream

BY LYDIA CHAI

I'm at a party and Wes Anderson is sitting in a corner by himself. I walk up to him and we start talking about his latest film that has just opened in the cinemas, Darjeeling Limited.

Overall, I think it is better, slightly less emotionally detached, than his previous films. Less production geekiness.

Not a very convincing story arc, though. Two brothers are duped by their elder brother into a spiritual journey in India because he wishes to bridge the silence between them; they have been estranged from each other ever since their father's funeral. Somehow, I don't buy into the cathartic effect of their clumsy journey.

Anderson appears bored and looks elsewhere for a friend or nearby bar to save himself. I hammer on with my drunken commentary.

"And the colours of India, you just like the colours," I blurt out, but this isn't what I mean. I have to do some backtracking.

My listener is tiring of my diatribe, expecting me like any other to accuse him of exoticism. But his interest is piqued when I suggest that his portrayal of India is not one-dimensional. It doesn't do what Sofia's Lost In Translation does to Japan. In fact, he completely repackages his impressions of the country, so that it isn't even India that we are seeing. Not even a mythical India. Just colours.

I wonder if he is just enamoured with the colours of India, that's what I meant earlier. It's not offensive, it's just boring, I say.

I am sinking deeper into my own acidic nonsense.

"All your characters in all your movies are the same!"

At this point, he tells me off by pointing out that Darjeeling Limited was written by three different people, so of course the characters can't all be identical, and walks off to someone who has offered to buy him a drink. I feel like a fool. I could've put it better.



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Black Jeans Okay. Running Shoes No Longer Real.

BY TAHI MOORE

2 things.

BLACK JEANS>

They seem to be just black jeans now. Not a whole lot of people wear them it's just another colour less different from dark blue than acid washed light blue. Maybe I've been bothered with the the colour of my shrink to fits which I think are slightly not dark blue enough. No. They don't have a very good cut. But anyway now I think black jeans have stopped being a bit funny or past it and they're not a sketchy colour any more, which is nice.

SHOPPING FOR SOMETHING>

I don't think there's enough of everything to decide you want a particular kind of pants or shoes or anything and hope to find it from a week of shopping. You'll probably find something that kind of looks like what you want but isn't any good and you buy it anyway and it's a super mistake. Almost everything works by chance because almost nobody who makes clothes has any idea, or they do and make people what they want. That Simpsons episode where Homer designs his dream car which brakrupts the car company looks wrong to me. It'd probably be a huge hit. Walk into any sports shoe shop and look the array of clown shoes on sale and people actually wear them everywhere. It's a true story.

I went to Sole in Vicky Park Market and they had some nice New Balance retro style running shoes, except they had gaint Ns on the sides. I don't want to know who contracted the same shoe gluers, who make all the other shoes, to put these out. I have this intuitive feeling that shoes are no longer made by the company that owns the name. It feels like imitation shoes that just happen to be legally liscenced. It's like buying fan merchandise. It doesn't feel real.



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Merry Christmas

From all here at Review. We'll be back in the New Year with more local profundity and enthusiams.

With love,

Department Of Conversation



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My Chemical Romance Vector Arena

BY SRIWHANA SPONG

The 6th of December is predictably dark and miserable. It rains and my feet get wet, which is not a good start. But on the corner of K rd and Pitt street Niki gives me three picture discs: Teenagers, Famous Last Words, and I Don’t Love You, and when I see Stevie dressed in a red and black tuxedo jacket I know it’s going to be the only night in the 07 calendar. I then spend a long but rewarding time drying my shoes and inner soles under the hand dryer in the Carlton Hotel/Club/Arms……who can remember? Its name is as innocuous as its décor.

Downtown the merchandise caravan looks like it has been invaded by a thousand teenagers with their mothers’ eftpos card. There is nothing left, but as Justin points out, ‘that logo makes everything look shit’. Which is true. It is pretty desolate outside the arena, but I am beginning to realise that I might be a late twenties minority. Justin buys beer, and gets ID’ed. The guy even checks the back of his drivers license??? I always love entering the Vector Arena, emerging into that warm blackness latent with expectation. Our seats are entry D, door 2, row P, seats 16 and 17. In front of me is a mini black parade of 12 year olds in tour t-shirts. The stand out, and my envy, wears a black and gold marching jacket. Someone I met for the first time earlier that night at Gambia Castle has ended up in the seat next to me. I can only conclude that some strange magic is crackling in the air tonight. We are to the side of the stage, and very close. Through my monocular we can read the set list, and Justin and I pass the time by texting my siblings downstairs that Gerard is whispering the song order in my ear backstage.

The lights get cut, and darkness prepares to crawl onto the stage. When the band finally begins its ascent Gerard waits at the bottom of the stairs, his long white fingers clutching the balustrade, head bent. Waiting. The new king of rock theatrics takes his sweet time before ascending to face a dark landscape full of screaming girls. And then a stream of profanities, flames bursting from the stage with a searing heat, fireworks so loud that every time they explode I jump. For a Guy Fawkes baby this feels like the day I was born.

Mama we all go to hell, but tonight it feels like the doors of heaven have split wide apart. Thousands of outstretched palms appear like daisies opening to the sun, and Gerard Way master of the dark and theatrical, snarls, spits and swears on all. High points are everywhere, the graph flatlines against the roof of heaven. Ray Toro gives a guitar solo, and Justin and I are blinded by a shard of light that explodes from his axe. A moment full of so many clichés, it somehow feels like genius. The night is one big anthem. When I don’t Love You grips the Vector Arena in its bitter embrace, thousands of cameras spontaneously puncture the darkness, and Gerard leads his underage parade to the stars, with the mother of all melodies. Cancer, which is surprisingly good live, envelops the arena in a hush so soft you could almost hear the grim reaper drop his scythe. The Black Parade, ‘the Bohemian Rhapsody of our generation’ (Justin), storms to an end with a fall of blistering auburn fireworks that rain down like tears.

MCR weave an hysterical gothic tale, unafraid in the face of a blinding melody, and as consciously over the top as Lisa Minellis’ false eyelashes in Cabaret. For all their blackness, these orchestraters of lyrical doom, are still good catholic boys, and what they inspire is more ethical hedonism than Rimbaudian tabletop antics. Like true showmen they save the best till last. Famous Last Words is a storming, scornful ode to the end of something you hoped might just last forever.



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The Green Crocodile Sandwich Bar, Darby St, Auckland City

BY SALLY CONOR

Working in the city sometimes feels a bit like an episode of Survivor; every lunch-break is like an immunity challenge and the race is on to find sustenance lest you perish or get voted off. Locating a simple sandwich can be as difficult as canoeing all the way around the island with a dead boar tied to your oar and sometimes you will end up eating something that resembles fermented yak’s testicles anyway. If, like me, you work in the city, you have probably scouted out most of the sweet lunch spots in town, and stick to your favourite haunts day after day, partly out of laziness and partly out of a fear that if you deviate from the tried-and-true, you might accidentally find yourself at McDonald’s eating pureed chicken gizzards cut with asbestos (otherwise known as Chicken McNuggets).

The discovery of a new lunch place is akin to finding fifty bucks in your old jeans pocket. The possibility! All of a sudden, one’s options are blown wide open. I recently received a tip-off about a sandwich place in town, down that sidestreet by The Body Shop and opposite The Recycle Boutique. I could hardly believe my ears! A place that makes ordinary sandwiches? In TOWN?? And what was more it had a cool name, dripping with exotic associations: The Green Crocodile.

I promptly went in search of this fabled food oasis. Now, I know of other places in town where you can get a regular sandwich made: there’s one in the SkyCity cinema complex and one in the Downtown foodcourt. However. These sandwich joints are in horrible neon MALLS. The very experience of visiting them is so unpleasant as to cancel out any pleasure, financial or gastronomic, incurred from getting a sandwich made to your tastes (NB Subway definitely doesn’t count because going in there is like visiting a mall anyway in its revolting same-ness, and all its branches smell of old meat and empty promises of ‘freshly baked’ bread… freshly defrosted blobs of stodge more like). The Green Crocodile is a regular shop on an actual street that catches real daylight and is staffed by real business-owners, not mall drones.

My first impression of The Green Crocodile was that half the title does not lie. It’s painted completely green on the inside! Cool! However, there was no evidence of a crocodile anywhere which was a little disappointing. I was at least hoping to be served by a person in a crocodile suit. Or maybe someone dressed like Steve Irwin. But in this case, reality was better than my imagination because I was served by possibly the nicest lady in the whole world. She called me ‘love’. She listened to my sandwich order like she really cared about me and my nutrition. And she wore beautiful shiny lavender eye shadow. A glance at the health certificate told me that this was Lesley. Lesley is my new favourite Auckland Personality. I am intrigued by her perennially cheery manner and dangly earrings. Her middle name is Pearl!

The sandwich itself was really yum: vogels with nice ordinary cheese, tomato and lettuce. I have simple tastes and am mostly a vegetarian but for everyone else there is a dizzying array of sandwich options for your eating pleasure. Lots of different breads, meats, salads, cheese, pineapple, pickle, condiments, cottage cheese… it was almost enough to make me order a double meat French roll with everything including two types of mustard. AND they do toasted sandwiches and burgers and milkshakes too! You can even buy yummy baked goods for one dollar. Just one dollar! NOTHING costs one dollar anymore. If this is the last bastion of the one dollar sweet in the whole of Auckland I wouldn’t be surprised. If only there was a booth and a jukebox I would make The Green Crocodile my new hang out à la The Peach Pit.

It seems like The Green Crocodile is one of a dying breed. I just heard last week about the imminent closure of another of my favourite lunch joints: Ima on Shortland St. Yael who owns and runs and cooks at Ima has been driven out by the exorbitant rent in central Auckland. She and Lesley operate at opposite ends of the lunch spectrum in terms of cost and ingredients (I like a delicious $8 Moroccan Tuna pie from Ima just as much as a $4.50 cheese sarnie) but they have one thing in common: they make their food with love and understand that lunch is a time to feed more than the coffers of the fast-food chain conglomerates. It’s about eating something that was made just for you with real food value and actually enjoying it. It’s about being able to zone out and drop fresh lettuce and chutney on your lap while you check your facebook page. It’s about somebody calling you ‘love’ even though they don’t know you.

Finding The Green Crocodile is another one of those Auckland moments for me – when you discover a new gem sparkling in amongst the dusty old scoria. A gem staffed by genuine people unaffected by both overpriced High St wankery and the mass-market sterilisation of the city. I intend to make Lesley my friend and enjoy many a chocolate milkshake whilst reading New Idea at the little table in The Green Crocodile. Ronald McDonald can go fuck himself.



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Shoes Sprts Shoes Style Wires for Casual Smart Casual Plus

BY TAHI MOORE

I SEE PEOPLE WEARING VANS
After I noticed people in photos in magazines and ads for jeans wearing Vans, I looked at some in a shop and they still looked the same. Then I saw three people wearing them. They were good. The soles are thick, which is tricky, except when they get it right.

THE INTRACACIES OF SPORTS SHOE DESIGN
I mean when anything gets a bit indistintive in the design it it gets a bit indistinctive. When design gets perfect it tends to get boring unless it's doing something really good. Casual shoes are good when they're plain, but usually they're sports shoes. Vans tend to have thick soles and a wavy logo that can go either way. that thick sole thing really stands out and they really need to be funny in another way to really work, and basic. And basic. aand basic. Sometimes you can do 3 colours, but usually it's 2 colours too much. There's no such thing as smart casual in sprts shoe land there's no such thing as dressed up. It won't work. The sprts shoes you put on today are the shoes you got because they looked really good with your jeans. That's it. You can't save the wavy line. You can't wear them and insist comfort. You can't hope they'll work when you're not looking or when someone else sees the something you don't right now. That happens sure but not usually. Usually it's all hope and a dream follwed by the comfort zone of memory loss oblivion. If they don't work now and you still buy them they'll know they won't have to work later on and you'll still wear them ha ha sucker.

CHEAP SHOES
Went to No1 shoe warehouse to try some Vans turned out to be lookalike nradn I liked the white chuck type shoes 20 dollars but then a voice from the jeans in depth research said don't by me I was made with below subsistence wages, probably. I tried to do research into that but nothing. What does that mean? I don't know.



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BY RYAN MOORE