Harvest Bird: Notes to Self

Sixty Seconds of Ring-Tailed Lemurs

2009-10-20T06:45:41Z

Saturday was the Hen Day and Night. In between lunch and dinner, we went to Willowbank. There we saw the ring-tailed lemurs.

I like this video because you can hear my mother laughing.

[flickr video=4027208317]

Home/Not Home

2009-10-05T07:25:17Z

Colloquy with this post.

look back harder
through emptied spaces
no force of hindsight
can move the dust motes
indefinite shadows
the plants' life cycles
our words exhaled
the leaves sucked in.

Six Signs of Spring

2009-10-05T06:46:53Z

Low-quality photos taken on my mobile phone over the last month. Featured player: harvestdad!

H-Bird's Weekly Twitter-Spatter

2009-10-04T04:24:09Z

Work, more work, and idling about online, while in our near neighbourhood the earth shakes and the ocean sucks civilians out to sea.

A day of more-or-less recovery after lively work-break. Thank you to @saniac and @binkle for Saturday's entertainments. #

The personal trainer on the Wii is talking to @knedd in an unnecessarily sexy voice. What happened to "computer says no"? #

Fire drill, or, alternatively, fire. #

'Twas a drill, and brief, and while I was out I got an oo-err email about suggesting we address a matter orally #nottooshabby #

The bridal party's first dress fitting is this Thursday, (@MeganWegan will be pleased to know). #

I've signed up for #Brizzly. So far, so good, although I'm keeping #Twhirl open in the background for automatic updates. #

Just mistyped "demographics" as "demongraphics". #drFreudandthedata #

Ooh, #Brizzly appears to auto-update. #

Gosh, the seconded life is not that different to the teaching life. Extended periods of preparation then contact periods of high intensity. #

Why did you come Doug, if you didn't want to light a fire? #fotcwisdom #

Damn but I hate the new breast cancer awareness ad. Driven out by mother's denial in the form of a giant tumour. #

I feel sick about the destruction in Samoa. #

Wednesday night is something like housework night, or the midpoint of the week in which I feel guilty about all the cooking @knedd does. #

It's a hard life in the ovarian kingdom this month. I should be sitting on a throne of hot-water bottles sipping peppermint tea, but no. #

As suggested by @saniac at the weekend, predictive text that knows common Mori and other NZild words would be very handy. 4th /= hui! #

In the midst of assignment marking, submission writing & remuneration review, I am having a dress fitting today. Not feeling v bridal tho. #

Today was the third hui in which I have played a small organisational part. My colleague told me I had a good ear for te reo. V chuffed. #

Earlier, I felt like a ship being launched in my bridal ivory. Fortunately there are some other, differently-coloured layers to come. #

I don't understand breakfast bars. When it comes to breakfast, I'm a low-rider. #

RT @lara_w: Please help the Red Cross help our friends in Samoa http://bit.ly/14zHm0, our tweets are with them but practical help rules! #

RT @Artandmylife: RT @CherylBernstein RT @ciccariello http://blip.fm/~dp1ja Happy 75th birthday to Leonard Cohen! #

Today we went across the road to the ceremony venue to eat lunch, drink a beer and talk about where we would do the deed. #

I have five more workbooks to mark, and when that's done, I'll have no more marking until February. #

Millie and Evie have pollen allergies. I sniff, they itch and chew. We're this close to have some sort of allergenic road show. #

Just watched Dirty Dancing with @knedd, who then directed me to this: http://bit.ly/26uXdL #

"Bitch, Lipton knows tea!": http://wondermark.com/557/ #

The sun is shining and the mowers are thundering. #

While an anecdote is not data, our household also knows the glint in the eye prior to doing something naughty: http://bit.ly/3J6euI #

Including the policy is all very well, but is it subject to review by H&S reps? http://bit.ly/itkeB #

I don't suppose I should go to literary bookshops for books w pics of puppies. #

Mick Harvey sings Serge Gainsbourg. http://blip.fm/~e99tb #

Off to a joint-40th birthday party (or, as the hosts put it, 80th birthday party). #

By the sounds of it, the weather here isn't as crummy as in Wellington or Dunedin, but it's still crummy, by Jove. #

This network drive was supposed to solve all our data storage challenges. In many regards it has, but in others it is vexing indeed. #

Across from me, @knedd is watching Tua fell Cameron. Not one of my favourite things, boxing. #

Poneke Tales

2009-09-30T05:57:50Z

My thanks to you all for your kind wishes on the next few months' change of occupation. I spent today on sick leave, not discharging my duties. The pattern of the days when I am on my feet and on the job is not that different from the rhythms of teaching: thinking, preparing, doing, reflecting. The difference is that I share my work now with a wider variety of people, and have a rather more looming sense of my responsibilities to others, because I am new at them.

Last week I endeavoured to combine a meeting in Wellington with a few days' break. It may have been a better idea to schedule the break after, rather than around, the meeting, but I am not necessarily the best decision-maker concerning my leisure. Nonetheless, it was splendid to see so many people and do so many things.

I took in the shooting of an episode of Off the Ropes, in the company of Jo, Ms. Ratpony and others, not least among whom was the wrestler Lazarus Volt, for whom we waved glittery lightning bolts o' cardboard and shouted down the Heels with due ceremony. Later, an erotic reading at The Watusi was not quite what I expected, and even as the wine flowed, I considered, not terribly coherently, the problem at hand.

The next day I enjoyed lunch with MTNW and the Gamester at Large, then ambulated from Thorndon to Mt Vic to see the newest premises of Wanda Harland, where I was greeted, unexpectedly, by Kowhai at the counter. This was my chance to see first hand so many of the household items and objets d'art that I have previously viewed only online. Following afternoon tea with Megan, we took the opportunity for a second journey to the original shop in Petone, where I was delighted to meet for the first time the proprietress and make a small purchase. Later I had dinner with Faith, working on luring her back home for my hen's outing in exchange for the imposition of my getting married on her birthday. (I promised not to do it again.)

After Friday's all-day meeting there was just time to take a glass with most of those heading to the WOW opening (which my eye continually misreads as WoW, thanks to where the seor's interests have lain), and on Saturday morning I enjoyed brunch with Dangermouse, with whom I considered the relative ease, or not, of coordinating family members away from home while attending a wedding. During the afternoon I was considerably entertained by the company of Stephen, Kathy and Hannah (whose latest work you can see here), who took me around the south coast, including the sadly-named Happy Valley and the intriguing Carlucci Land. Here, salvaged goods became newly rendered on the landscape. My favourites were these foreground spheres, which rolled out like totems along the driveway.

I returned home to a newly-shorn seor, although the extent to which his more conventional crop has an impact upon the world's gender confusion remains to be seen. We have now less than a month until our wedding, to which I continue to look forward. There are a still a few matters of which to take care, and for which I hope to have more enthusiasm when I am feeling a little more well, and I thank my Wellington friends for their company on what was technically my last out-o'-town outing as a spinster.

Making pizza with Lucia

2009-09-30T04:34:31Z

Colloquy with this post.

You whom we made,
you whom we need,

Needless, to say,
mindfully, risingly,

needing, needling,
kneeling, kneading,

the pounding of the dough.
The heart set, to-and-fro.

H-Bird's Weekly Twitter-Spatter

2009-09-27T08:02:06Z

A two-week grab-bag.

A morning doing union work goes faster than a morning doing teaching prep, but that could be because I'm not at my desk & lack distractions. #

After the buzz of the union offices, everything at Desk Central is very quiet and still. #

L[ol] @br3nda: http://bit.ly/6CXiD #womenintech #

Dear Megan: please go back in time to the cool, pollen-free air of winter. Love, your turbinates and sinuses. #

The living room door is open to the porch at 6:25pm! This is almost as exciting as spring blossom. #

"Play some god damn Billy Joel!" http://bit.ly/xqPfT #katebeaton #

I am wearing contacts as a pre-wedding trial run. First time in about 7 years. Oh how my face has aged. Part dad part grandma part nanna! #

What happened to my glorious bone structure? Now my visage is a cross between a potato and a pudding. #

As much as it cheers me to know there is a twitter feed called @sinuses, I won't be following back. #followthis #

Ta-Nehisi Coates lights up my internet with his writing: http://bit.ly/8kJ5e #

Sleep by no means comes too soon: http://bit.ly/ISMOP #

Another huge day at work but now I am listening to #ErykahBadu, who always makes me feel as if nothing can go wrong. #

TEU on staff-student relationships. (Short version: nothin to gain except killin your brain) http://bit.ly/2SIOvC #

Lady Gaga earworm, dangnabbit. @MeganWegan, I'm your papa-razzi, etc. #

In working on wedding vows last night, replaced phrase "one true love" with "true love" but am tempted to go with rasta-style "one love". #

The suggestion the bride and groom just rap a few verses of Outkast's Miss Jackson has also been made. ("Forever? Forever ever?") #

These vows have a certain appeal too: http://bit.ly/x1QVZ #

No D&D tonight as the dungeonmaster has gone to Princeton, so I will have my dinner cooked for me in the appropriate fashion #domesticsphere #

Arthur's daughter Martha is in pup & due on the day of our wedding. (That's the wedding of @knedd & me. I'm not marrying my dog for now). #

Sadly that means Martha's breeder won't be there for the revelry. OTOH, grand pups! #

http://twitpic.com/i4x2j - Bring a little NZ cultural modernism to the Kanye Apology Generator: http://bit.ly/AAG1t #

I now have bridal lingerie and hosiery, in this season's exciting nanna-neutrals. #

It has been a very very mellow day. Currently sipping a White Cliff sauv blanc donated by harvestmother. #

Furthermore, I am getting better at using the phrase "it's for my wedding" to get prompt service in this city's retail establishments. #

The iTunes version of Wham!'s The Final lacks the remix of I'm Your Man and the instrumental version of Blue (Armed with Love). Feh! #

Based on their advertising, I would say the answer to how it feels to chew 5 Gum is: complicated. #

I think I love Chris Rock's intonation as much as his jokes. It's one soothing set of incendiary rises and falls. #

The question of which dog gets to sit where on the couch has complicated answers. #

First blog post by @knedd at http://www.thepubrightnow.com/ #

Mood today is less than sparkling. I may try a post-brunch walk in a little while, by way of rehabilitation. #

The bags in which http://www.ufitin.co.nz (lingerie shop) pack their products come from here: http://www.lovecalcuttaarts.com/About.html #

I went for a ten-pylon stroll in the sun and the wind, from Sockburn to Riccarton Park to Hei Hei #rockingthesouthwest #

First line of "They Call Me Big Mama": "They call me Big Mama 'cos I weigh 300 pounds". It quickly gets very saucy indeed. #

RT @johubris: turns out the #tikishack will be open on Friday for @harvestbird #

Things I have seen and cannot unsee #12897346743: pictures of Jonah Lomu in bodybuilding poses. #

Today I am busy but productive. But busy. But productive. But busy. But busy. #

Drinking something called a mega mocha. This may not be wise. #

I can tell I am learning things with these new responsibilities at work, since each day I start off by thinking, "I can't possibly do this". #

So long as I continue to surprise myself, it's all good. I will be the fail-whale-tamer. #

RT @johubris: Yup, sorry kids, I'll be being wined and dined and entwined. No #tikishack this Friday. Boo-urns #

Results of @knedd and my separate training efforts starting to pay off. We are jumping around like a couple 9/10ths of our age, by gum. #

Happy typing error: Victor Hugo becomes Victor Hug. #

As much as I enjoy using #Chrome, it doesn't always respond to Javascript commands, and some pdf links crash it at home and at work. #

The Rolling Stones' "She's a Rainbow" appears to be in the same key as the start-up music for Windows XP. #

It's a glorious day at Christchurch airport. Wellington had better work it for me! #

Thank you weather tweeps, this is most asseptable. #

A poor choice of bus has led to a light constitutional around South Wellington. #

I did not think when making plans for this evening it would involve Full House slash, but who can fault the element of surprise? #

But the record should also show that @doompony and I were first-rate cheerleaders at the wresting ce soir. #

Oh dear: sic transit gloria slash. It's Dr Phil and the feet of a jogger. I should never have left Kansas, Toto. #

A lively evening necessitates a quiet morning. Looking forward to lunch with @lysergica and afternoon tea with @MeganWegan. #

... followed by dinner with a FNOT (friend not on Twitter). Even my mini-breaks involve sitting and eating and sitting and eating. #

Lunch with @lysergica and @gamesteratlarge = passetyme with gud companye. #

Went to Mt Vic to see @wandaharland at her shop but was greeted instead by @wellykowhai. #splendid #

A spontaneous post-cuppa outing with @MeganWegan took us to the Petone premises of one @wandaharland! I have seen the empire's outposts. #

I should also note I bought a pack of playing cards with 3D images of puppies. #

RT @doompony: rasslin' pics from Wednesday. Too cool. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ratpony/sets/72157622319307141/ #

Last night I dreamed of PBRF. It was as frustrating in dreams as in real life. #

Cafe eating has now become paying someone to prepare and serve what @knedd makes for free at home. Thus, I turn into my mother. #

Investing for Dummies

2009-09-21T08:47:28Z

Colloquy with this post.

Oh, we invested in you,
a kind of futures trading:
time, money and mobility
yet to be set aside.

That's the way it goes,
baby, often and often enough:
the word for you was "blighted"
although by whom, dunno.

The last thing we spent on you
was giving you a pronoun:
only once you'd gone from us
were you in the second person.

Seconded time lucky

2009-09-21T07:31:44Z

My employment in my current position began in June, eight years ago, when I was grateful to have a job, a salary and a desk to call my own. Indeed, I still am. Since then I have taught continuously for anywhere between thirty-six and forty-five weeks a year, running parallel to, but not in sync with, the wider university's teaching schedule. In the early start-up days, this included teaching from April to October with no non-teaching time, thanks to two overlapping twenty-four week programmes. In October there was one week's break and then straight on until Christmas. In 2002, my first year full-time on the job, I went more-or-less mad. I had an office to myself behind the covered bike-stands, which was a fairly grim view but offered privacy for when I needed to cry between classes. You get the idea.

Somewhere in between the incessant turning-over of weeks, I managed to get out some: to the Old Countr(ies), France, and latterly Hong Kong and Japan, not to mention the wider environs of Aotearoa, from the Far North to the depths of Western Southland. For a long time, my working pace was such that marathon holiday jaunts, such as one-day drives from Wellington to Auckland via the Taranaki Coast, or from north Northumberland to Oxford in a day, seemed consistent with the pace of working life.

As of today, however, I am seconded from my teaching for the next five months, thanks to the current demands of my voluntary role. This was only confirmed in the last few days, so there has been very little mental time to prepare. I hardly know what to make of this, and keep having to repeat it to myself: from now until February, I will be working on course development, contributing to a group research project, and (for the majority of my time) carrying out the voluntary duties for which I am now paid. I don't think this will really sink in until my colleagues start teaching again (and, to be honest, since that begins a week before my wedding, I doubt I'll be paying too much attention for a while).

I feel neither excitement nor trepidation at this point, so much as relief that I won't be potentially short-changing my students by rushing off to meetings. Now I can rush unencumbered. I think if I am to make the most of this time in terms of the skills I have worked so hard to acquire for much of this century -- and from which I am officially on hiatus -- it will be to think hard, but stealthily, about what I've accomplished and what I would like to do next. I'm enjoying, a great deal, the stimulation of university-wide work and the opportunity to contribute on a wider scale (and have been helped to this point by the fact that those students who know about my role think it's a cool thing to do); it serves my altruism and my love of meta-narratives alike, not to mention my sense of responsibility to my colleagues in the wider university. But I wonder how long it will be before I miss the classroom, the responsibility and the intimacy of the teacher-student relationship, the blend of duty and creativity.

I don't know what's next. This is the first time in nearly nine years that I've been able to say that. I'm happy that the possibility of new adventure synchronises so well with my intention to marry next month. Even if life continues with business as usual, the symbolism of the juncture will be sustaining.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KO90EdKB-g[/youtube]

A hat-tip to MTNW for the video link.

Snoopin' round my door; crying all the time

2009-09-20T03:08:58Z

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5JALwwaASg[/youtube]

You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Crying all the time.
You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Crying all the time.
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine.

The seor and I came out of sleep and into the weekend arguing, as is our habit, about metaphors. Our focus in this case -- and I cannot remember why (perhaps the part of the conversation that began while I was still asleep) -- was on Elvis Presley's recording of "Hound Dog". Recalling early hearings of it in early childhood, the seor claimed the song to be, most likely, about a disappointing dog. Then why, said I, would the singer tell a dog that it had previously appeared "high class"? Maybe, said the seor, it had been sold him as a top show dog, or hunting dog, since rabbits were mentioned.

I stuck, metaphorically, to my point, and claimed the song was directed at a person. Why though, if it were a song of disappointed love, would the singer address his let-down of a lover as a "hound dog"? Did he want to call her a bitch? Was he in fact speaking to a friend (but again, the problem of "high class")? It sounded, I said, as if the song had been originally sung by a woman addressed to a man, and had got appropriated for the use of Elvis. The point after all, we agreed, was that Elvis rock it, not that the lyrics be particularly illuminating or penetrating.

Since ours is a Love 2.0, we asked the tubes: I to my netbook and he to his iPhone. The trail was quickly revealed, thanks to Wikipedia.

Elvis in April or May 1956 heard the song performed in Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, whose lead singer gave him permission to include it -- as a comic closer -- in his own performances, using the lyrics and some of the movements of Bell. Bell and his band had recorded the song the previous year, after rewriting the original lyrics at the suggestion of Bernie Lowe, for whose label they were making singles. The rewritten lyrics were intended to broaden the song's radio appeal.

In April 1953, five different country-style versions of the song with its original lyrics had been recorded, following its release, the previous month, on Peacock Records, performed by Big Mama Thornton. Thornton's 1952 recording had been produced by the song's authors, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. As a twelve-bar blues, it was an R&B number-one single.

And at the point of Thornton's performance, it all becomes clear. The song is addressed to the lover the singer is trying to jilt. Her points of frustration are clear: this main is a moocher, a shyster, from whom she needs to disentangle her time. Thornton's delivery is imperious but sassy, the kind of indirect storytelling that brings in one's friends and neighbours to shoo the interloper off the premises. Sometimes lovers come back, and are duds (even as late as 1965, the time of the performance below). What are you going to do?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XUAg1_A7IE[/youtube]

You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Been snoopin' round my door
You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Been snoopin' round my door
You can wag your tail
But I ain't gonna feed you no more

So what's the point? Something like this: that the seor and I were both right, about the song's underlying metaphors, and their flattening out to the point of death by the time of Elvis's performance. Both singers performed with barking and howling noises, but the weighting was different. "Hound Dog" carried Elvis's new celebrity, his notoriety, his threat to propriety; the dangerous dog was, in effect, he. Thornton makes barking noises and finishes the song where she started, but Elvis goes out on a shouting, gyrating, end-note, the song an augmentation of what began before it. If my preference is for Thornton's performance, that also recognises that, in Elvis's case, the song is not the point.

To say they rule my world

2009-09-19T07:53:36Z

I look forward daily to the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates, which I have praised elsewhere on these pages. In addition to the reasons I cite there, I wonder also if it is because his work exemplifies my sense of what reasonable argument can be: steady, reflective, connected to experience but also to the wider culture, discreetly slangy, thoughtful.

This morning's short essay on Prince, "All of my Purple Life" was a typical treat.

One thing I've appreciated about Prince, as I've aged, is that he knows how to sing about sex, like a man honestly singing about sex. Much of the misogyny in hip-hop (and I suspect in other art forms too) comes from, forgive my profanity, a deep-seated fear of ass. Men--and especially young men--fear what they will do to be physically involved with a woman with whom they're infatuated. They compensate by turning this fear on its head and projecting. They make women into temptresses, gold-diggers, and villains, and make themselves into conquering heroes. Pussy don't rule me, they'll say--even though pussy ain't thinking about them. Which is the problem, or rathertheir problem.

I think writing about gender and pop culture needs more of this kind of careful, humble, exploration of what can easily turn into a call to arms or, worse, an outbreak of hnurgh, hnurgh, hnurgh. To what extent is a fear of someone else assuming power over us a fuel for all kinds of hateful, or even hate-skirting, words?

The days of '92

2009-09-16T10:35:52Z

A recent article on the Fairfax webpages profiled a group of school pupils preparing for the annual ball. Here they are, dressed up and excited, as featured in the main shot of the article. There is also a series of four- or five-minute videos, which I confess I haven't viewed. It would be an exercise in nostalgia, which, as you'll see, doesn't sit completely easily with me.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="433" caption="To the Ball"][/caption]

My high-school ball, or formal as we called it at the time ("balls" were for the posh schools) was nearly seventeen years ago, a literal half lifetime. I wore a dress my mother made for me, from a wedding-gown pattern. I chose the fabrics: crushed velvet for the bodice and sleeves and a black background with red rose-print for the skirt. I wore my mother's jewellery, and possibly her shoes too. Though my skirt was full-length, I wore patterned black stockings which I saved for years, until they no longer fit.

[caption id="attachment_2926" align="alignright" width="275" caption="Before the Ball"][/caption]

The word that those who saw this photo typically used to describe me was "innocent". By any standard measure, I suppose that was true, but I would add others: tired, drugged (my relative thinness a side effect of this), apprehensive. It wasn't the ball that bothered me, but life more generally. This had been the last day of final-year exams, which I hadn't sat, and it wasn't clear whether or not I would be able to go to university. For that matter, I wasn't terribly sure what kind of commitment "going to university" would be.

In the weeks after this photo was taken I had the worst summer of my life, and made a fairly good fist of ruining it for those around me too. At the time of the photo, however, it wasn't clear where my mood was going to go, and I had hopes that the cessation of all the routines out of which had sprung my troubles might mean some measure of peace.

Despite the conservative cut of my dress I felt on the night the picture of form, favouring prettiness over glamour which I mostly spurned (something that served me well when the following year as a student I adopted the random sartorial layers of light grunge). I imagine many if not all of my friends felt the same.

The evening itself was a falling off of hopeful scales, however. I can still remember the moment, climbing the stairs to the town hall Limes Room (the previous year's leavers had allegedly been banned from Noah's for drunkenness, necessitating a different venue), and hearing my classmates profane bantering (to which surely I must also have contributed?) and being struck that we were not, after all, transported people; sophistication eluded us as fastly as the suburbs held us. There would be none of the magical otherness for me, at least, that gave Cinderella her window on to a different world, a better life, and even then (on the tipping point of atheism) I reflected how this was because there was no window at all: we were what we were. Still, look at us there, all young and cautious and gracious and hopeful. By minor miracles of Facebook connectivity, I am in contact with almost all these people.

[caption id="attachment_2928" align="aligncenter" width="491" caption="Days of '92"][/caption]

All that I wanted by that time in my life would come to me in the next seventeen years, though of course I wanted it not later but then: music and movies and art and drama and travel and lovers and adventure and mental wellness. Sometimes I thought of what I wanted as a kind of recognition, a validation maybe, but I see it now as something far simpler: learning to live with myself as well as others. I had already all the validation I needed, except that it was inaccessible to me.

I've lost, for ordinary purposes, some of the things I had then, among which chiefly I rue some version of how I looked at the time: thick hair and slim profile. Looks I suppose are the gifts of being seventeen, which none of us cherishes much, except as a function of the mighty narcissism that propels us into the world. I've been thinking on all of this as my friends pictured within add images from our shared past to their Facebook profiles, and as I organise my coming wedding, the older grown-up's second shot at dressing up.

They saw him rolling

2009-09-15T08:50:51Z

To whom this may concern

I am writing to sincerely apologise about a disturbance that took place down your street last monday. Me and a few mates done some burnouts down your streets and also rubbish has been left down there regularly. I am personally going to make sure this Kind of stuff does not happen in the future. And that the street is cleaned on a regular basis. Once again I am sorry for my actions and it will not happen again.

Yours sincerely [redacted]

This letter, handwritten and placed in an unaddressed envelope with a local employer's logo on it, was in our letterbox last night. Did the young man's employer catch him? And under what circumstances was he sufficiently chastised to undertake this letter-writing by way of punishment and reparation?

We were home last Monday and we didn't hear a thing.

H-Bird's Weekly Twitter-Spatter

2009-09-14T03:08:27Z

With unexpected heavy-handedness I deleted accidentally my archive of most of last week's tweets.

Confused as to why #TwitterTools has uploaded five versions of the same aggregate post to my blog. #

4th in line at the carwash, I can suddenly see the wisdom of teams of bikini-clad women working simultaneously. #

Lovely dinner party at the house of @chanelhughes, the first "couples" event to which @knedd and I have been. #

RT @knedd: @harvestbird the "" makes it sound dirty [He is right. It was an event at which the guests were couples, not a couples event.] #

Another hot day managing cold comfort, but I am fortified by wearing new jeans. #businesscasual FT ... W? #

Why at 34 years old can I not resist a sheet of free stickers? Didn't I learn my lesson when I was 12? #

One (Manuscriptus)

2009-09-13T02:14:43Z

Colloquy with this post.

i.

When they saw her
manuscripts' disorder,
then they knew
her depression was mortal.

ii.

My affairs I conducted
between towers of paper;
one sweep of the arm
and all order was gone.

iii.

When first I set off
the alarm at the library
I imagined a Venetian
midget would stab me.

iv.

These poems are policies;
this verse, standing orders.
Don't look now;
I'm ticking the boxes.

v.

At Kent Street
I slept in the study.
I read the titles
on the spines of the books.

Thirty years later
I remember that wall.
Their home was my home.
Those names, my backbone.

Google-Babel-Alphabet-Whispers

2009-09-13T02:12:34Z

Colloquy with this post.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God
and the Word was God

In die begin was die Woord, en die Woord was by God
en die Woord was God

N fillim ishte Fjala dhe Fjala ishte me Perndin
dhe Fjala ishte Perndi

, ,

;

Al principi era el Verb i el Verb era amb Du;
I el Verb era Du

;

Cesta je u poetku u Boga u istoj;
I Rije bijae Bog

Cesta je na potku u Boha ve stejn;
A to Slovo byl Bh

Stien er i begyndelsen hos Gud i det samme;
Og Ordet var Gud

Het pad is in het begin bij God in hetzelfde;
En het Woord was God

Tee alguses Jumala juures selles;
Ja Sna oli Jumal

Gawin ito sa simula ng Diyos;
At ang Salita ay Diyos

Tee nin alussa Jumalan
Ja Sana oli Jumalan

Pour ce faire, au dbut de Dieu
Et le Verbe tait Dieu

Para iso, a comezos de Deus
Ea Palabra era Deus

Aus diesem, dem Beginn der Gott
Und das Wort war Gott

,

,

,

Ezrt az elveket, az Isten
Isten szava

v a meginreglur Gus
Or Gus

Untuk prinsip-prinsip Allah
Firman Allah

Chun na prionsabail a bhaineann le Dia
An Focal D

I principi di Dio
La Chance parola

Dieva principi
Word of iespjas

Dievo principai
odis galimybi

Prinsip Allah
Word peluang

Il-prinipju ta 'Alla
Opportunit Word

Prinsippet om Guds
Opportunity Word

Bg Artyku
Szansa Verde

Deus artigo
Chance Verde

Articolul lui Dumnezeu
Chance verde

Boh lenskch
Prosm, Zelen

Boga drava
Prosimo, Green

Dios miembros
Por favor, Verde

Mungu Member
Tafadhali Verde

Gud Medlem
Please Verde

ye Tanrm.
Ltfen Cape.

.
, .

Cc thnh vin ca Thin Cha.
Xin vui lng mi.

Aelodau Duw.
Os gwelwch yn dda trwyn.
.
.

Members of God.
Please nose.

H-Bird's Weekly Twitter-Spatter

2009-09-06T01:22:52Z

Hard times and distractions.

Uninstalling Word which is corrupting the files I create within it on my laptop. Amazing how vulnerable such a glitch makes me feel. #

Downloaded Open Office as a stopgap. My manuscript still opens (phew). #

Former colleague now in Oman has started a lively blog: http://bit.ly/1ayk3f. Re entry#1: office mates & I wonder who the red-talkers were! #

Reasons to be unionised # 12409: http://bit.ly/2m1KeD (HT @juhasaarinen @freitasm) #

My 4-5 lecture contained at least three kinds of technological FAIL. Gave up trying to load my notes and winged it, the second time in a wk #

RT @Ghetsuhm: Emma status: http://ghetsuhm.livejournal.com/ (see also http://bit.ly/3wTj4J) #

Once again I have talked to teh mediah. Not sure I'm getting any better at it. #

Yay for lesbians on Hitched! Adorable lesbians, too. #

After today, I wish the rest of us can "grow wise, old and grey / Before that fateful funeral day". #mintchicks #postfuneralblues #

Feature on @wandaharland was necessarily cooler, but I was also in teh newz today, oh boy: http://bit.ly/Nx03F #

After locating around 15 versions of the wedding-dance song of his choice, @knedd is winnowing them down. #

RT @mcmoots: Have stumbled into apparently endless YouTube archive of bunnies humping balloons. http://bit.ly/3e0Flo #

My friend Jill now has a little news blog at her NT kennel's webpages: http://bit.ly/bbOIW #

The translations of the Otaki school students' letters are irritatingly unidiomatic:http://bit.ly/2IYct7 #

That Ramadan poster some students produced and about which I was raving last week? Someone "borrowed" it. #

Either one of my former admin colleagues is back filling in or I have gone back in time. #

Right, my week's work is done (except for essay marking over the weekend). I am going to drink a glass of wine! #rockingthesuburbs #

Oh, I admire Philip Matthews as a reader and a writer and an interpreter: http://bit.ly/19pmM9 #

It's green vs. green: fighting against the end of the chartreuse moratorium last night with a pot of green tea this morning. #

Found a wonderful outfit for Mum to wear to the wedding and took it to the dressmaker to get it altered to a perfect fit. #motb #

Meanwhile, have been crying on and off for the friend whom we lost this week. @hungrymama put up a lovely memorial: http://bit.ly/FpBzW #

Drinking a cuppa and dipping biscuits, the first made, the second brought, by @knedd. The sun is shining on my neck. #

I would be interested in a taxonomy of what happens when you plant particular vegetables #magicalgardening #

Continuing to find http://bit.ly/2CfBe4 very amusing (HT @sas73) #

I have been working out most days since mid-July, and yet I have gained weight. I find this infuriating, and infuriating too that I care. #

A sad fact about kittens (pace @annettle and @jsrnz, who kittens I'm sure support the allied powers): http://digg.com/d313Dfp #

For the purposes of wedding soundtrack research, @knedd is marshalling his Weezer. #notrude #

"We were good as married in my mind/But married in my mind's no good". @knedd suggests Weezer as Bret on FOTC? #

Have been sitting up in bed with @knedd, he reading the newsand happenings on the iPhone, I on Imouto the EeePC. #modernlove #

The teeth of Te Whiro

2009-09-05T04:09:57Z

I am quite numb, after two funerals in two weeks. Coincidentally, both were at the same church. In the shadow of these experiences, my thinking is quite jumbled. No doubt these paragraphs will reflect some of this.

The first funeral was of a former high school teacher of mine, with whom I had reconnected on Facebook. He had been suffering from motor neurone disease. Arriving at the venue brought the feeling of entering a time machine, albeit one that wasn't working properly. Almost all of the teachers whom I remember from my high school years were there, and all of them of course twenty years older. The greater part of ageing has perhaps been borne by me, since I was not recognisable to them.

When someone has died who is elderly, a funeral necessarily condenses their life in order to acknowledge and celebrate it, and when the dead are young, we mourn what might have been, the loss of our hope in them. The commemoration of a person in middle age combines both of these elements. It made for a long service, as person after person from a life lived very fully gave up the accumulated, myriad details of their time together. Each of the bereaved seemed to be pressing their own imprint against the passing of commemorative time, the moment when all this would necessarily be done and the casket put back the hearse.

So much of the ambience at a funeral is determined by the choice of music. This was one area in which my teacher had not let his wishes be known, and the family had made their own choices as a result. There was Michael Jackson singing "Gone Too Soon" as the casket was brought in. Something, I think, might be lost in the expression of people's literal emotions. What was evoked by the later singing of "Wind Beneath My Wings", I was less certain. There is too much noise for me around widely-loved popular songs to make an emotional connection. The fault was mine.

The dead man's children are the age now that I was as his pupil, and I the age of him when he taught me. I was one of the keenest history students at my small school and spent time on extension projects, additional reading -- the works -- so we had a lot of time together. It was also at that time that my mental health began to disintegrate significantly. My memories of that time are of emotions disproportionate to the content we were studying (even allowing for teenage enthusiasm), of almost everything being what is now described as "triggering". I was in a state of post-traumatic stress without a trauma. That teacher was one of the first people to suggest I take my foot off the accelerator, that I was doing fine, that I didn't have to fight for every point as if I were the least able of students. By the time that advice came I was too far gone to heed it, but it was good advice. He was, in that sense and others, a bon vivant, and he met by all accounts a bad death with the kind of courage no-one wants to have to draw upon.

I am not well fit for funeral theology, especially of the evangelical kind. The celebrant's rhetorical questioning of whether God had purposed that my teacher die this way drew sobs from the congregation and bile in my own throat, even as the answer was "no". I remembered the origins of my atheism in sermons of this nature. Those earlier days of depression were bilious too.

Not long after this I heard from[ljuser]hungrymama[/ljuser] the news that her sister-in-(common)-law had died. Juliet I first met in the secondary schools orchestra. She was one of the Burnside violists, a clutch of talented young women, most of whom were playing Tom Warren violas, the most desired of the New Zealand luthier-made instruments. She was kind to me despite my novice status on the same instrument and my lack of confidence. Later, she fostered me through the early days of the local youth orchestra, keeping me steady on the notion that this was no big deal, that we practised hard and were entitled to be there (the notion I continually doubted). She was wry and whimsical and the kind of person whom everybody liked. She had a soft voice and made lightly-pointed remarks. In her company I felt like my mental health problems were no big deal, and despite the fact that I dropped out of the orchestra for a year or so because of them, we stayed in touch and took university classes together.

We didn't know it then, but her own depression that came on a couple of years later, was going to dwarf any earlier experiences. I have been thinking about it a lot this week, trying to reread my memories of us at nineteen or twenty, trying to see from an older perspective what was going on. The best analogy I can give is of Te Whiro, who haunts Baxter in at least one of the sonnets of the Autumn Testament, and elsewhere.

... The hard rind of the ego
Won't ever crack, except to the teeth of Te Whiro,

That thin man who'll eat the stars. I can't say
It pleases me. (42, 7-10)

It was a force primarily centripetal, with the aim of destroying her, and it had a mighty backdraft too. I was too much in the company of Freudian notions of mental health to understand then that there are mental illnesses of all kinds that have no traumatic event and perhaps no trigger at their core. They simply consume; they are, in this regard, evil. My friend still existed, of course, but was often overwhelmed by this otherness. I did not know what to do, and after a few years of my anxious, irregular, Penfold-like hovering on the margins of the dreadful unhappiness that was not her fault, we saw less of each other. She felt, at the time, that I had let her down, and indeed I had.

I heard through friends and family of her recovery, of her overcoming the physical as well as mental limitations that her illness had brought, her subsequent graduation, and professional success, and saw on Facebook the lovely photos of her with her partner and their animals. What pleasure, what hopefulness, to see Te Whiro withstood, to see the exemplary staring back of someone whose life had been so perilous not long before. She had perhaps a dozen years of good health before it came back so recently, and she made in the dark of this the choices that took her life. I regret this, but I accept it. I think there are some things which cannot be withstood, even by people who are otherwise strong and brave. Mental illness is one area in which experience can make things worse as easily as it can make it better. In its severest forms, it erodes exactly that which preserves the will to live: the illogical optimism of the psyche.

Our thirties are inevitably the product of our twenties, of the choices we make, the experiences we have, of random chance and the inheritance of our genes. I am glad my friend got to have some of the things of which we thought her illness would rob her over a decade ago, those middle-class talismans of higher education and travel, as well as those more widely-shared dreams of love and animals. I abhor the way that mental illness eats away our ability to feel that we are loved, that we are worthy of love, our hope in our own existence. I do not believe that what Te Whiro takes, he keeps, however. In memory, in narrative, in the refusal to give up hope, we take back to ourselves the people we lose even though we loved them. I would have wished for both these people-from-my-past so many more years. I wish these years, with mental and physical health, for you and the people you love.

Image via[ljuser]hungrymama[/ljuser].

The Death of Cinema

2009-08-30T10:11:57Z

Colloquy with this post.

Dear pen drive, little USB-stick,
dear data in a thumb-sized stub,
your final mutability
was an irksome transformation.

Dear cluster of plastic and metal
whose end was abrupt and which
consumed some files I needed that day:
I don't suppose it matters.

I improvised my talk, recurred to
electronic sources for my handouts;
I'd backed you up on networks
which in turn back up to networks,

but still, my hand dives into the
back of my bag for you
by habit, impulse; dear little amputee,
dear toy.

Originally published at Harvest Bird.

Out on the Weekend

2009-08-29T23:40:59Z

The seor doesn't tweet much, but when he does, it amuses me no end.

Towit:

@harvestbird: A covers band in an Irish bar. It may be time to stop drinking. #

@knedd: In Mickey Finns Megan wimping out #

(All it has taken for him to join me in Web 2.0 was an iPhone. When yesterday morning I got up I found him on TradeMe, "buying the phone a present". It was a protective carry-case.)

I enjoy the gender confusion the seor creates when we step out late of an evening. A pink-cheeked, fresh-faced, drunk twenty-year old in an Aertex Shirt bailed us up on the way to the grim venue above, to shout "You look like a girl!" (to which the seor cheerfully exclaimed, "you look like a dickhead"). Earlier, a curly-haired man in a trilby hat had chatted up our booth of drinkers at our wedding joint, before exclaiming, "oh shit, there's a guy there!" Earlier still, at the house-party at which the revelry started, a former student of mine poured me boysenberry wine while expressing a wish to dress the seor's hair. She later attempted freehand pigtails. My beloved's androgyny casts light on how others feel about gender binaries, and the fears and pleasures therein.

Originally published at Harvest Bird.

Outwardly Bound

2009-08-29T23:06:52Z

My reflective time is at the moment constrained by a different range of duties at work. Concerte University, as you may know, has this year a new leader, which inevitably brings restructuring. In my union capacity, I am in the thick of things, to the extent that the university has seconded me to do this work. I still have my teaching, but for the next few months there will be less of it. My days are what I would call surface-busy: lots of meetings, a great deal of planning and strategising, much communication with members, and little time as a result to sit and think.

A positive outcome of this is that I am learning a heck of a lot, not so much on a curve as a series of steep climbs followed by brief plateaux. I do get bored easily, professionally, and this scratches my itch for variety. More importantly, it is to my mind ethical work, and part of my long-held wish never just to lie back and take things as they are dealt, but (after James Brown), to get on up and get involved. I am, to be sure, staying on the scene.

A less positive outcome is that I find myself at the end of the week mentally not much different from where I began: tired, a bit anxious and irritable, attempting to stay on top of a schedule that quickly fills up in advance. I fear intellectual backsliding, or, more accurately, a lack of opportunity to reflect on my actions, even as I must act, act, act, to keep on top of things. There is no longer a lot of silence in my day. I need to be talking to people all the time, and I wonder about the loss of variety in what I say as we remain necessarily on industrial message.

In lieu of detailed end-of-week musings, then, I offer an outward-looking prcis of some of what I have been reading lately, since the need to read never stops. This is an irregular, selective list, and no slight is meant by lack of inclusion.

Megan Wegan was gracious enough, via Twitter and her blog, to dress me up on the internet.

The daily turnover of Learning Curves, captures, in so many ways, the administrative minutiae of university teaching. Despite the disciplinary differences, many aspects of her work are similar to mine.

Merc's pages move me much. They are a window to something special, a form, as he recently himself said, of living book.

John-Paul's excursions into cultural history remind me of the writing of Steve Braunias in his Listener days, with less vinegar. Here is a textual snapshot of Shona Laing in the early 70s.

Philip Matthews, formerly of The Listener and now writing for The Press keeps a film-and-culture blog that educates me, in the best sense of that word, travelling down cultural fire trails to the unattractive as well as alluring past. Here he writes about Bowie and Jarman and the occult, in a post which I read and re-read. (Bowie's in space, indeed!)

Tim Jones, or @senjmito as he is on Twitter, has drawn me into a conversation of poets that includes @southernkbelz @ehjc @showyourworking and @HelenRickerby. It is very flattering to be in such good company, not least because I have been too shy, for a long time, to join any community of creative writers. This loose touching of bases, however, has happened rather more naturally and from it I draw encouragement in my small efforts.

Emma, whom we also know as @Ghetsuhm, didn't start the fire, but the comments to her recent post at Up Front have fanned some mighty flames. Lurking in a thread was never so pyrotechnical!

Some of you may have seen on Facebook my link to a post about the influence of F.R. Leavis on literary academia, written by LitLove in her long-form blog, Tales from the Reading Room. I thought her account spot-on, in commenting both on the past and the present, and added a few words of my own. I have such ambivalence about my relationship to the literary academy (one foot in, one foot out) that I find insider/outsider accounts reassuring in the way they resemble my own thinking. I do wonder what my academic life might have been like if I'd picked a different discipline.

Finally, I delight in the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic. His words are wry and wise and offer a window on American culture not typically, I think, available to the casual reader outside the mainland United States. His recent visit to Civil War sites in Virginia had me checking my feed reader for more. This entry, near the end of the story, is a good, if achronological, place to start. Moreover, he revisits the music of his youth (which was, as his contemporary, also my youth) under the moniker "Echoes of the Crack Age", linking in this post to this video that, again, felt like a cultural sounding I wouldn't otherwise have experienced.

Queen Latifah - New Music - More Music Videos

Originally published at Harvest Bird.

What do you know?

2009-08-23T07:49:28Z

Colloquy with this post.

What do I know?
Smashed oracle, small blogger,
keywords in a centrifuge.

working and depression
high-functioning depression
potter's ground

For advice on how to live your life,
you'll have to infer through squinting eyes.

street teenagers
adventurous people
ear popper

soft flat shoes

My stories
will exchange for stories;
an anonymous trade.

your baby is the size of a cucumber
miscarriage symptoms
pregnant dog
language metaphors

all over the keyboard
we're gambling on the future

cheese wedding cake
average amount spent on a wedding

(the prophetic sky, the archival deep)

matariki seven sisters
octopus illustrations
the soul doctor

Originally published at Harvest Bird.

Third video: kick-bÅxing

2009-08-22T12:16:49Z

My favourite among the comedians I have found via Flight of the Conchords is Eugene Mirman. Knowledge of this will give you one free point in the Facebook quiz about how well you know me.

Any one of his short films makes me laugh, but this is a good one with which to start. It loses focus a little towards the end, and is not safe for work, but then who am I to tell you what you should do while in paid employment?

Special Agent: Eugene Mirman - watch more funny videos

Originally published at Harvest Bird.

Second video: paring back the grapevine

2009-08-22T11:54:32Z

Which one of those whom I follow on Twitter linked to this? I should have made a note. I don't think the performance visible is done without accompaniment; it sounds as if the vocal track has been extracted from the original single. But oh, that musicality; the beat implicit in the phrasing, the demotic lyrics bending under the emotional heft of the delivery.

Let it not go unremarked that Mr. Gaye looks pretty good too, frilled shirt-front notwithstanding. His stance looks ever on the verge of dancing. (With that, one could command a classroom easily.)

[dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6kjcv_marvin-gaye-i-heard-it-through-the_music[/dailymotion]

Originally published at Harvest Bird.

First video: "this song is for my enemies"

2009-08-22T11:26:06Z

My last post coincided, and indeed contributed to, something of a flurry of housekeeping among our music files here in Sockburn. This in turn has led to a renaissance of those tracks to which I referred in the previous post, and others further back in time.

While this music plays, the seor and I have been talking about the music of our formative years. Neither of us listened to a great deal of early grunge (I even less than he), and yet it forms the soundtrack to our memories of the early 1990s, rather than whatever we listened to at the time. The combination of simple, blues-derived forms, plenty of distortion, and lyrical opacity still feels like a default setting for our tastes in pop music.

I've been struck by this while watching Demetri Martin on Comedy Central, one of the comedians with an adjunct relationship to Flight of the Conchords in whose work I now take an interest. I suspect a television show might limit the range of a lot of stand-up, but even so, there are moments at which I really laugh. Yet the skit to which I come back again and again doesn't appeal to me for being funny (and with some of its jokes I directly disagree), but for its musical construction.

Me versus you: what you gonna do? The question is no less weighty, no less quietly confrontational, for not being serious. It reminds me enough of something intangible, yet earlier heard, to have me singing it around the house, in the office, and at other moments inopportune.

Important Things with Demetri Martin

Power - Me Versus You

www.comedycentral.com

Joke of the Day

Stand-Up Comedy

Free Online Games

Originally published at Harvest Bird.