Foreign Report

BY TAHI MOORE

I'm not back in Auckland but then someone was talking about Swedish jeans and then I looked up this company I never heard of, Svensson Jeans, and the pictures looked good, so I looked up a shop that sold them, went there, tried some on, but the fit was really loose on the calf, I mean no good at all. And that was that. I didn't have time to obsess over something I couldn't get hold of it was just down the road. They even had a pair of hand crafted plain the right cut blue jeans from Japan in my size no pocket art or funny threads. They seemed a bit expensive. They weren't overly though, about half what you'd charge in Auckland. This was meant to be a good story, but now I'm just depressed. The sale shall be your only hope young man. Go.



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Barcelona, 1 de Junio de 2007.

BY SARAH HOPKINSON

As you may be aware, from the proliferation of gripping hostage crime-dramas on mainstream television, ransom demands are commonly accompanied by an image of the abducted (often blindfolded, looking suitably terrified) holding a local newspaper. I always thought that this role effectively reduced the newspaper to its essence - its currency and locality. Serving primarily as a marker of specific time and place, it acts as unquestionable proof of a subject’s ‘alive-ness’ on a certain day, proof that they continue to exist. For Fiona Connor’s Free Literature newspapers are the sole material. Mining content from a series of tabloids (the ‘free literature’ on a given day), Connor creates a hybrid version of Barcelona’s principal newspaper El Pais.1 The accompanying video (viewable online) offers a short glimpse of Barcelona as a city marked by vast numbers of newspapers, stacked on street corners, littering gutters. Maybe we are supposed to see the newspaper as a leitmotif for a place; a city succinctly summed up in its recurring symbol. One of those funny idiosyncrasies that tourists always notice.

Despite muddying signature styles, and displacing stylistic cohesion (ransom notes are popularly constructed from cut-out magazine and newspaper letters, precisely to prevent authorial detection) the modified El Pais’ spatio-temporality remains intact. In fact, subsuming all other publications into a strange crossbred whole, the newspaper is reduced, via a process of layering and doubling, to its marker of local-ness and current-ness. The collaged result is a mélange of one day’s worth of news; a concoction of information, imagery and advertising, disseminated in a certain city at a particular historical moment: 1 de Junio de 2007.

The content of this chronicle is largely unreadable, but not necessarily incomprehensible. In construction, areas of text and image that resemble one another, deal with the same topical issue or advertise the same product, have been pasted over the ‘master’ edition of El Pais. Idiosyncratic formats, fonts, proportions, wording and colours prevent a seamless assimilation yet a peculiar sense of cohesion prevails. Quite simply, the collaged pieces appear to signify the same (or similar) thing; they speak to shared concerns. The language barrier further allows us, and Connor, to behold this information pared back to its basic sign-value. Guided by the recognisable terms in the headlines, familiar political images (in this instance of pre-election Sarkozy) and ever-present ads for shiny, new-model cars the viewer is faced with a simultaneously discordant and harmonious whole, both foreign and oddly familiar.

While this fittingly subjective product of an encounter with a day in a foreign city maintains a casualness, this is neither a ‘stroll’ nor a meandering journey. It is less flimsy than that, more directed, more decisive, maybe more like a dérive - if we can take the liberty of thinking the ‘terrain’ as the newspaper, as opposed to the city, and the point of departure as El Pais. Despite this abstraction, both practices share a certain situated-ness – the ransom note’s aforementioned crucial spatio-temporal grounding. A paradigmatic derive - the practice of ‘transient passage through varied ambiances’ - took place for one whole day, ‘the time between two periods of sleep’, in a primarily urban setting, as it was in the ‘great industrially transformed cities’ that the social conditioning was considered most pervasive. Like Guy Debord’s practice, Connor is less guided by chance than the ‘psychogeography’ of her chosen environment. Open to the ‘constant currents, fixed points and vortexes,’ Connor is acutely aware and responsive to the recurrence of certain events and imagery, and their varying representational guises.2 The decision-making process has its own logic, developed in the very act of making. Collage causes a necessary fissure or rupture in the previously self-contained microcosm, opening it out to speak to the macrocosm, revealing a communicative system in perpetual movement and flux, constantly slipping and sliding, feeding off and folding in on itself.

Cutting, sampling, reducing, doubling and obscuring, Free Literature unconventionally maps an experience, a city and a moment, via active engagement with a thing inextricable from that experience, city and moment. Can we see the result as one big, unwieldy ransom note? Perhaps, but I am not sure what the demands are, it doesn’t appear to be asking for anything. Maybe just giving testament, maybe working it out for itself.



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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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Note Books

BY ASH KILMARTIN



A friend, recently returned from visiting family in China, presented me with a set of three notebooks. The largest, about the same length as my hand from fingertips to heel of palm. The smallest, making it just to my first knuckle from the heel.

The covers are of thin recycled paper, the colour of each a slightly varied shade of golden-tan, a colour I can't help but associate with thrift and pleasing uncontrivedness.
The unassuming nature of the books is further stated by the cover inscription: in red, four characters translated as "note book". Below this assertion, in a position on the page that tells pleasantly of well-considered design, lie two parallel lines. Also in red, they echo in the lower third of the page the form of the characters in the top third, encouraging the owner to make their own inscription – a name; perhaps their own or that of a project to which the book is dedicated.

The cheap material and simple form do not entail shoddy workmanship: the pages of each differently-sized book are bound in six sets of leaves, creating six evenly-sized humps at the spine when viewed from above and six small ridges which run the length of the spine, interrupted by the four adjacent rows of stitching which hold the sets of leaves together.

The text-block (the bound-together paper stock) is attached to the cover by glue at the spine, and secured by white end-papers (the pages attached to the inside covers and the first adjoining pages). Such perfectly-glued end-papers are probably my favourite feature of these notebooks.

The pages themselves are of thin recycled stock – like the covers, the pages differ slightly in colour between sizes. Each is finely-ruled (7mm, by my eye) in indigo ink, with two close lines separating the heavy header-space from the lined body of the page. No margins. All perfectly printed and matched, but for one page in the largest notebook, which is charmingly askew. Here, the lines march off the page at a thirty-degree angle, as though heading dynamically into avant-garde Soviet poster design. Quietly combatting loathed dog-earring are gently rounded corners at the upper and lower left-hand corners.

On the back cover, corresponding in place and scale to the parallel lines on the front, are four lines of characters and numbers. What they describe, I can only guess (or, I guess, ask said friend to translate). Their exact origin is unknown to me, although I'm told they're Government-issue books once given free to employees of the state-owned corporations. That they're apparently becoming harder and harder to find only adds to their mystery and appeal, of course.


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BDO

BY AMBER EASBY

We made it to the stadium in good time. We arrived a little before 4pm, having missed the traffic and spent $20 on a car park close to the front gate. The security was more relaxed than I remembered – a quick glance in the bag, no physical pat down. As a teen, I hid a cask of wine in my underwear to avoid confiscation. My brother once went to the grounds a week in advance to bury a bag of weed and a bottle of Jack Daniels. This time, I was happy to make it through with my water bottle.

Dizzee Rascal had just started in the Boiler Room. The tent was packed and like stepping into a steamy shower of sweat. For the first time, those bikinis and bare chests made sense to me. I was expecting to see a skinny little kid but Dizzee was totally buff! It was a fun show and overall, the best sounding performance of the day.

We queued for the next 45minutes for the Immortals Lounge. It was only worth the wait for the use of clean, flushing toilets. You could also drink beer from a bottle. I tried Steinlager Pure for the first time and was disappointed. Sure – it’s natural but so is urine.

If I see a band I like at a festival, it usually makes me wish I were seeing them at their own (indoor) show. This was particularly true of Arcade Fire. The barricading of the main stage floor made it impossible to see or hear anything, unless you were the die-hard Rage Against the Machine fans who staked their claim (I am watching a lot of Deadwood) early on. I have seen this system work well overseas but here, it was poorly implemented. Long lines and confused security guards meant the flow of the crowd was heavily restricted. I was stuck on the periphery and might as well have been listening to the radio.

We ditched Arcade Fire to see Battles. They were a little too techy for me but Henry loved them. Maybe it is a dude thing. Gemma and I sat at the back and were still able to hear well. I had hot dogs and chips with the good tomato sauce - delicious! Henry sent me text message that I got four hours later, saying “Believe it or not, this is their hit song."

Determined for a more satisfactory main stage experience, we made our way to Bjork a little early. We caught the end of Shihad, a band that must organise their entire year/career around playing the Big Day Out. We managed to secure a slightly better spot. I stood on my tiptoes for as much as I could for Bjork. The marching band of Icelandic teenagers, the costumes, Bjork’s spidey hands – it was an amazing show. Unfortunately the creep factor was growing in anticipation for ‘Rage’. One guy was yelling, “You suck” throughout. I was stuck behind a loud stoner couple who thought they had lost their weed. If I had been at the movies, I would have ssshed them. When they finally found it (in their pocket), they started to roll a joint. One dude wedged himself between Gemma and me, hoping to catch the joint as it was passed back. Another apologized for pushing in with a slow, inappropriate rub of my arms and a “sorry babe”.

We made our way back to the Boiler Rom for LCD Soundsystem, which was everything you would hope. T O T A L D A N C E P A R T Y. Still, I couldn’t help but worry about the muddy ground ruining my shoes or the young girls wearing t-shirts that said, “I am with the band”. During North American Scum, a sixteen year old pushed me out of the way in excitement and I realised, I no longer have the ability to enjoy the festival for what it is. We skipped The Clean to avoid the traffic and were in bed by midnight.



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Let's All Plunder Vinyl From Real Groovy

BY DAVE TAYLOR

You're probably all well aware of this, but Real Groovy is a national treasure. If Nicholas Cage was a kiwi, he'd star in films about trying to find it.

Unlike record shops in London or New York, the racks are raked over relatively lightly. And the prices are a steal. What you can pick up there for 2 bucks would cost you 20 quid on Berwick Street.

As music becomes easier to obtain and more freely distributed via the interweb, I find myself drawn more and more to vinyl. You want the latest release? You can grab it off the internet and stick it on your ipod along with millions of other people. You want to hear a 1960s album by Peg Leg Sam? Well, more than likely you'll have to come round my house to hear it because I bought the only copy Real Groovy had. It's not been re-released on CD so it's not been digitised and let loose on the planet of sound so you won't be able to pinch it off the 'net.

I encourage any of you with a passion for music to head down there. If you see an album that:

a) has a nice cover
b) is by a band you've not heard of
c) is priced at a dollar

then buy it! You might be buying an undiscovered gem - for a third of the price of a Magnum ice cream.

Since moving to Auckland last year, I've taken pot luck on a lot of dollar albums (and some pricier) from Real Groovy. As a result, I have a big stack of totally shit schmaltzy 70s country albums. But I also have a stack of amazing albums which
I would have been hard pressed to find anywhere else.

The purpose of this monthly column is to share some of the best discoveries with you. I'm aware I'm slightly contradicting my 'you can only get this at my house' argument by digitising these tracks, but there you go.

So for my inaugral column, I've picked out records by 60s pre-teen sensations, The Bantams, great 70s country by Loudon Wainwright and an album about being a mental patient by Don Bowman and Chet Atkins.

Beware the Bantams - The Bantams

These guys look like a 60s version of Hanson - three blond mop topped lads not yet into double figures agewise. They look slightly disturbing, and I was worried about the people at the counter thinking I was a peado when I went to pay for it. But it was worth it.

This track is their version of the classic Suzie Q. It's got an awesome garage rock production and fuzz guitar lick running through it. The boys do their best to sound older than they are and only the yelp in the middle reminds you that their balls haven't dropped yet.

> Download Suzie Q

Attempted Moustache - Loudon Wainwright III

OK, so a little easier to get this on CD. But I got this sucker for a dollar, and it's truly awesome. The cover photo makes me laugh - anyone who's tried and failed to grow some top lip furniture for Movember will feel a little better after looking at it.

This track is a fine ditty about random acts of violence. 'let's burn down McDonalds' sings Loudon 'tomorrow is sunday / there's going to be parades/back at the house/i've got some grenades'.

Loudon is sooo much cooler than his irritating son. Or at least, he was back then.

> Download Clockwork Chanteusse

Fresh from the Funny Farm - Don Bowman

On this record, there's Chet Atkins' impeccable country picking (knowingly lampooned on 'world's worst guitar picker'), some nice kitschy country close harmonies and Don Bowman singing about being incarcerated in a mental asylum, in the voice of a southern simpleton.

This track is about writing a letter to his sweet heart from inside the funny farm. 'I'm writing this to you with the blunt end of a spoon' says Don and we all share his pain.

> Download Letter to Ellie Mae

I hope you enjoy the tracks. If you do venture into Real Groovy and take a punt, I'd love to hear about it. Join this blog and add your comments below.

And I do like contemporary music too - read all about it at www.artrocker.com



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Shaky Isles

BY SARAH HOPKINSON

Kingsland does not want for good eateries - it has always been over-subscribed in that department. I noticed a new Mexican place has opened in Kalaloo’s place to join Canton, Mekong Nuea, Bouchon, Taboo, Roasted Addiction, Handmade Burgers and The Fridge in the ongoing tussle for our patronage.

When I first moved to the area The Fridge was something of a revelation - with its bountiful deli selection, homemade hot pies and endearing barrista/owner, I was a frequent customer. However general consensus is that since a change in ownership (I can’t think of a cafÈ for which this has been a good thing?) that saw an extension and staff shuffle, it has been on the decline.

Hence my delight when, in the garage-like space that has housed a number of transient ventures, (directly opposite The Fridge) a new cafÈ called Shaky Isles opened its fashionably-unkempt doors.

My first visit was with my father, his partner, my sister, Debi and Harry. A tough crowd to be sure - with an ex-high-country farmer, a winemaker, a vegetarian and a chap that just got back from touring the States frequenting diners - we had most culinary bases and persuasions covered.

And despite my initial reservations that it might be a bit ‘kooky’ (sparked by the wall mural that unhappily resembles a vodafone billboard) I was reassured by the casualness of the order-at-counter service and the great hanging lightbulbs that remind me of the Jeff Wall photograph based on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Whether that association was intentional or not, it worked for me.

I think what Shaky Isles does superbly well is keep it simple. There is not a blue cheese soufflÈ or hollandaise drenched crouton in sight. You can order ‘Good Stuff in a Bun’ or, if you were so inclined, ‘Pig in a Bun.’ They also do some swell pikelets with Raspberry Jam and Marscapone, a very tasty Breakfast Bruschetta and Whittaker’s Hot Chocolate. Everyone was happy with their food and coffee, the only quibble was that Dad's meal was a bit light on the bacon and Harry commented that Petit Bouchon (when it existed) did a better Croque Madame... but c'est la vie.

It is also surprisingly, refreshingly cheap. You’d struggle to spend over $12 on a main, and most of them hover around the $8 mark. Sure, the portions are smaller and the fare simpler but you leave satisfied. I struggle with rich breakfasts anyway and usually opt for a slither of hot buttered toast and a poached egg, especially after drinking too well the night before, so I was certainly not becrying the lack of hollandaise sauce.

I have now been to Shaky Isles three times. All of them good experiences. Always found a table but never found it empty. I now think the honeymoon period is over and we will settle into a comfortable relationship of mutual understanding.



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Hometown Superette Beverage Round-Up

BY SALLY CONOR

Jeez it’s hot! Usually I’m the kind of girl to hide away from the sun like a pasty grub in hibernation, but lately I keep finding myself trekking up Newton Rd in the middle of the day and by the time I make it to Symonds St I’m parched and sweaty. Hometown Superette at the Symonds St shops (next to the wig emporium) is like a cool oasis sans camels. One whole side of the shop is lined with fridges full of nice cold drinks. And such a variety! From your standard soft drinks and fruit juices through to incredibly obscure brands of sarsparilla and strange coffee-in-a-can. The choice is dizzying! Wow!! What follows is a brief survey of those beverages that I have sampled from Hometown so far:

Phoenix Elderflower

Okay so Phoenix is by no means obscure these days. Especially now they’re owned by Charlie’s. Fucking Mark Ellis again. Go away you dickbag! We all hate you! And your stupid advertising website is possibly the most abhorrent money-filching scheme ever conceived!! Get out of our faces and get yourself marooned on a rocky island populated by hungry Kimodo Dragons if at all possible!

So the Phoenix Elderflower drink is really really nice. Sweet and floral and refreshing. Good with gin! I tried it.

Ben Shaw’s Dandelion & Burdock

I was intrigued by this drink. It sat next to a whole lot of other weird-looking ones like Irn Bru, that kinda gross Fanta-like stuff from Scotland. The Dandelion & Burdock can was quite ugly, but I allowed myself to wonder what on earth a dandelion drink might taste like. I had visions of a lovely cool chamomile-style golden nectar that fairies drink out of acorn cups. I ignored the ‘burdock’ bit. This was unwise.

The drink is quite a dark brown and fizzy and almost 100% disgusting. Tastes cloyingly sweet and a bit like creaming soda but way more full-on. Perhaps this is what root beer is like? They were always drinking root beer in Babysitter’s Club novels and I never knew what it was. Kind of fake vanilla-ish and revolting. Avoid.

Mello Yello

Re-released! Again!

A bit like Lift. But not as good.

Lilt Fruit Crush Pineapple & Grapefruit

Another one from the weird shelf. Sounds like it should be awesome right? Pineapple and grapefruit together should be DELICIOUS. It even has a cool can! However, it does say in red letters on the back ‘Contains a source of phenylalanine’.Usually a bad sign. And indeed, this drink is a huge disappointment. Little trace of any pineapple or grapefruit flavour, only a vague, generic ‘fruit’ flavour, some bubbles, and an unpleasant furry coating on your teeth in the manner of Coke. Too bad! It seemed so promising. Sigh.

Ch’i

Yuuuummmmmmmm!!!! So eighties. So refreshing. So so good. Makes me feel a bit like Lana Cocroft when I drink it.

Ribena

Given last year’s false-advertising-vitamin-C-in-Ribena controversy, I thought I would re-test Ribena to see if the fact that it has not very much vitamin C in it detracts from its flavour. I got the kind in a juice-box (of course… does anybody actually buy it in those strange sac things?) and hoed into it with gusto. And then I remembered: I never drank Ribena for vitamin C in the first place! I drank it because it’s so goddam delicious. It tastes like my childhood. There’s something regressive about slurping out of a juice-box… it instantly makes one feel three years old again. It makes me wish I still needed two hands to hold onto Ribena! Remember how awesome it felt to have that much juice that you needed both hands?! They should put straw holes in the tops of big tetra-packs of juice, just so us grown-ups could experience that pleasure again. Kind of like when you get four Kit-Kat Chunkys and melt them together to make one giant Kit-Kat. Makes your hands feel really tiny!

I can highly recommend the Hometown Superette for all your beverage needs. They also have Dr Pepper and the full range of energy drinks if you need a bit of a pick-me-up on your way through town. They have an excellent range of chips as well. My kinda dairy.



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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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