Black Faggot

Tonight another Wellington Festival piece of theatre - confronting, or perhaps not. It is called Black Faggot and I am looking forward to my first 'gay' Islander theatre, played probably by two 'straight' actors, it usually is. We'll see...

In the meantime I am having a restful day for my back ensuring an awake and enjoyable evening. Yesterday's gales have abated thank God, so tonight is a leisurely stroll and a bus to Cuba Street then to the Playhouse Theatre on Cambridge Terrace to see the two-hander social satire 'Black Faggot', and hopefully to enjoy it.

Well this gem may be locally situated but its appeal is universal, and the talent on stage is totally international. What a great show, the audience adored it, and it deserved a standing ovation.

The actors, whatever inclination they may have had, were so talented anything was possible. Because of the Islander content it may be a bit restrictive for some, but no matter, it is a winner, wonderfully written and impeccably performed. Viva Samoan theatre! I think even that arch-talented Aussie comic Chris Lilley would have loved it, perhaps learned from it. Six stars!

Pre-theatre tea at Floriditas

But first a return to Floriditas, as promised...

It is a fine night and the short bus ride into town sees me in Cuba Street in ten minutes, a nice preparation for the Black Faggot later tonight at nine pm. I pass by several iconic Wellington sights, the first a rendezvous of two young lovers in Cuba Mall, always a good place to meet up. She, a stylishly dressed twenty year old, slimly attired in black with heavy black framed glasses framing a pale, lightly decorated face, full lips slashed with a violent red you could see a mile away, perfectly applied of course. The makeup of the young Wellington women is fastidious and very fashion conscious. She smiles and gives a great wide armed chaste hug to her young date of Chinese origin, also bedecked with black frames and a broad white toothed grim. They look so good together, another racial mix brought about by common education and interests I would say. They probably even have a future together, for a while, anyway.

Then there is the ubiquitous busker, always ready to make a living on Saturday night on Cuba, as there are already at six pm a number of couples walking hand in hand looking for an inviting restaurant to try out, and there are many of those, believe me.  I walk into Floriditas and it looks as though in a much earlier incarnation it may have been a butcher's shop, the old white tiles on very high walls and some on the floor giving evidence of that, and the marble-top benches could also be original. The service is impeccable, with pretty girls in long black aprons solicitously greeting you, but not too pushy, asking if there is anything you might like to look at, while serving the glass of water, un-chilled and no ice, of course. I notice there are pre-wrapped Floriditas breads for sale on the counter for a hefty fourteen dollars I believe, but they would be marvellously fortifying I'm quite sure. I may buy one some day as a gift - they are made for that.

I order a Japanese Sencha green tea as I am not hungry having already eaten at home, but the temptation of a dessert is not beyond me. The bespoke menu gives a lot of tantalising offers and the table along from me is diving into some delicious dishes. Rotund and red-faced, they epitomise the healthy (?) dining out-of-towners enjoying a Saturday night before the flics, or a show at the Wellington  Festival. It is, after all, perfect weather tonight, and the Kiwis make the most of it. I catch sight of afar, the sophisticated pouring of  bubbly, the equally discreet half filling of the red wine goblet, all in all, it is the 'fine dining' experience without any pretensions. And it seems, in typical Kiwi style, no tipping! In the US there would be a necesary 25 per cent surcharge on everything, but not here, in egalitarian Wellington.

Sencha tea...

And brown sugar Pavlova, the Kiwi way, the best I have had.

My neighbours paying their bill...no tipping!

...a blended nuclear Kiwi family enjoying a Saturday night out (Floriditas bread on counter).

Weird experience?

Today was a strange one and there were a couple of reasons...

First at BP we had an unusual theft, a fifty dollar note disappeared from a perspex donation box which was locked with a chain, virtually impregnable, and still it was lifted. There was a suspect who had been before in trouble for honesty, or the lack thereof, and he was the only person in the office at the time of the theft, so circumstances pointed obviously to him and there were a few minutes during the afternoon when he was alone in the office. But what can you do, no concrete evidence. But L. and I knew it was him and we wondered how he would present the following day, that is if he did come. But as he had an appointment with the finance advisor interestingly, he did appear, but in a state of visible angst and even anger. He also was carrying a very sharp saw to cut something up L had asked him to do. He had a sad story of being victimised at his home and so he had decided to leave as he couldn't tolerate the unwarranted criticism anymore. A woman neighbour had complained about his activities, whatever they were, we weren't told. 

Anyway his very weird behaviour gave evidence of something else seriously going wrong, which we both felt was surely the result of a guilty conscience. On discussion with the newly returned boss we saw there was nothing to do, he was already suffering from the misdeed. But the mystery remained, how did he on earth get the banknote out of the the money box? A Houdini act if ever I saw one!

Housemate A on Oriental Parade - she loves walking it!

The next strange event was my visit to an acupuncturist, recommended by a friend who said he was marvellous. My back had suddenly given up when this morning I twisted it somehow on getting out of bed, obviously the result of something bigger than that, but I know my back well, and it needed attention, and fast. So I accepted the recommendation and made an appointment that very afternoon, today in fact, at Kilbirnie close to where I had to go anyway. 

It was NOT a good idea. Joe Gin, was his name, in a tiny office sub-let from a computer cartridge business. It was also quite dirty with a couple of the necessary body skeletons on the wall and certificates of some qualification. He began by tying me to his rather grimy table and proceeded to twist my body to one side, then the other, more and more, he encouraged.  I  discovered later it was his form of chiropractoring  where he didn't have to use his own strength to manipulate.

However I did not want manipulation, I wanted acupuncture, but what can you say? He finally  gave me a couple of needles, one in my very sore back and one on my ankle, which he later laughingly forgot to extract.  Quickly I gave him sixty dollars which was what my friend had quoted, but he said it was not enough because of the manipulation. Then he said I could pay more on the next visit, which I am afraid will not happen as my  back has felt no different at all since the treatment. I suppose it's just more experience, I will have to try another one before I get the right person. 

At my evening HU song, D and V told me of their man, another Chinese doctor called XU, so I feel I will try to see him as soon as possible, and just forget I went to see today's one. It was indeed a very forgettable experience.

So there were two Wellington weird events in two days, so it is not all a bed of roses here, but then, where is?

Shimmering waters from my balcony...

With Maori Chieftains guarding my home.

Young Wellington music fringe

Tonight confirmed the amazing creativity of budding musicians in this vibrant city. The Fringe Festival is alive and well in Wellington, and I was invited by friend H to attend a small soiree in the basement of a pub on Tory Street.

On arrival, with very low light, I could hardly make out the hunched forms on the floor supposedly asleep. They were the musicians playing sloths,  and when the time came they slowly got up and began to use the goblets filled with varying amounts of water to play celestial sounds. But this was just the  beginning. Slowly, one by one, they rose from the space on the floor and each one crawled individually to take their place at various instruments on the makeshift stage.

Xylophones , timpani, piano accordion, scratching LPs, and also using voice, their performance lasting about forty minutes was exceptional, it was so creative I was stunned. All of them were totally immersed in their roles as sloths playing  perhaps a 'Middle Earth' type of music. And it sounded wonderful!

'Only in New Zealand', I said to myself, and at the end of their act I was happy to congratulate the leader, a young Maori girl who was totally modest and even self-effacing in accepting my warm praise.

Really, Wellington has a bright future with these young people who will eventually take the artistic helm. Viva la musica!

Sloths awakening...

Extra props..

Outside after the show...

Saturday Night in Wellington

In the Embassy foyer, retro chic a la Sir Peter Jackson, I arrive early to see a much awaited Coen Brothers' movie 'Inside Llewyn Davis'. Again the Coen brothers do not disappoint. It is a great Groundhog Day type-story, of a week in the life of an aspiring folk singer in New York who appears a total loser, played out in the faithfully reproduced early sixties. 

The movie is stolen, for me, by a marmalade cat called Ulysses, who drifts winningly in and out of the plotline, which is really non-existent. Llewyn is based on the real-life memoirs of a Greewich Village hipster/folk singer who just preceded the arrival of Bob Dylan on the New York scene. It also pokes  wry fun at the 'folk scene' which, for anyone who lived through it, is much fun. Has some great moments, four stars! 

This is the shiny black interior restored authentically when Peter Jackson revamped the cinema for the   World Premiere of 'Lord of the Rings' a couple of years ago.

I then decided to catch a festival entry of Israeli Dance Company extraordinaire called Batsheva, it was absolutely amazing, playing at the wonderful original St James theatre. The local social conscience provided a guard of honour for arrivals in demonstrating against Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

The Batsheva Dance Company from Israel

And the demonstration it caused against Israel,

Inside the beautiful St James Theatre.

...and for Israel, on Courtenay Place

Fog closes airport

How can you not love a city which has a mist which becomes a fog descending all over the city and manages to close for forty-eight hours its international airport without so much as a murmur?

Well that was Wellington in the last few days, and after my rhapsodising over the mist, I had to accept that it was more than that (but I still enjoyed it!)

The Wellington Arts Festival has arrived and there is a super-abundance of choices of the most excellent kind to choose from, so many, that frankly, I may stay at home. Just joking. Me? stay at home?  This morning I went for my first visit to the gracious and wonderful grounds of Government House, in New Town, right next to my Scottish Dancing venue. They had told me the annual Scottish Pipe Band Competition was happening and it was worth a visit. It certainly was, see pics. Watching the precision of beautifully attired men and women, boys and girls, skilled with their instruments and marching spectacularly, all done with the background of the rather gothic structure of Govt. House was quite memorable in spite of the threatening weather. It was nothing for them of course.

On to Te Aro for a light lunch at the Aro Cafe with the sparky terrier seen in picture. Am now deciding if I go to see a film, and then theatre tonight, or is it too much? Last night in Cuba Street I discovered the absolute delights of the Friday-night Market, which was a revelation and one which I will frequent in the future. It was a piece of Asia mixed with New Orleans, and topped with Kiwi niceness. Quite a wonderful experience and later, after buying a secondhand book, Melvyn Bragg's famous biography of that great roué and thespian, Richard Burton (more later ), I had a hot chocolate at the fabulous French style Floriditas where I will certainly return for a meal one night. It was packed with appreciative customers and the smell of good food was more than enticing. For sure I will be back!

Musing over the Arts in Wellington Festival...

The wondrous Govt House with Pipe Bands...

More marching boys....

..the patient wire-haired Terrier at Te Aro

Mist over the Bay

The ever-changing weather patterns over Cook Straits result in some beautiful opportunities for the keen and sometimes foolhardy sailors to take their sails and try them against the unpredictable winds.

This week has seen the most wonderful benign days, with long twilights diminishing into soft and sensuous nights. This is an easy city to fall in love with in all its eccentricities.

I never cease to be amazed at the resilience and smiling grittiness of its inhabitants. Jogging, no, more like running, constantly in the face of awful gales, rain lashing at lycra besuited athletes of all ages. As they do come in all sorts, bred in this often very inhospitable climate, they are born to overcome all its elements.

I admire them, but never ever, aspire to be one of them, as I never could.

The lone sailor...

...the stuff of poetry.

..still there

At Work and Art Gallery Opening

Monday was another ( half) day at work which I am quite enjoying with my colleague Lesley who is relaxed and efficient. The plans are slowly getting together for the Memorial at Te Papa.

As well last night I went to an opening of a photographic exhibition at Thistle Hall, one created and curated by a new friend who has just returned from UK. His exhibition rather clumsily entitled Histories, Habitats, Mishaps and Harmony at the Regents Canal in London, was an interesting one. Although done in a bit of a rush, people arrived in quantity and were met by some lovely finger food provided by Fidel's and the obligatory red and white wine fare. The photographs were mostly unframed, hence quite reasonably priced, although in discrete English fashion, no mention at all was made of pricing.

It was a social occasion like all openings with  many professional first-nighters and those who were just curious in Cuba Street. S, the photographer, is a native Wellingtonian so he knows the Art scene here well, and what goes down and what doesn't. All in all it was a success I believe and won't do his career any harm. I feel that eventually he has ambitions in Academia so it was not a commercial exercise at all.

For me it was another experience where I met some more people, but memories of my past job managing a Gallery in Gosford were not that welcome. It is a very artificial milieu and one that I have certainly had enough of.

At work at BP with Lesley

Island Bay Fair and the Dallas Buyers Club

A perfect Wellington day for a fair, and this was big one, and great music, food and shopping for those  who like such stuff.

I spent a few hours there at the beautiful Island bay, mainly collapsed in the heat, with block out on, and listened to a fabulous Reggae style band, in photo below..

They were really excellent, ready for export or not?

But my day had only just begun as I had booked to see a preview at the Cuba Lighthouse of the new Oscar nominated 'Dallas Buyers Cub' with the very popular Matthew McConaughey starring. 

It was an amazing role for him and also his support, Jared Leto, both of whom lost a total of about fifty kilos to play the roles of dying drug addicted users. There are possible Oscars for both of them. But the story was fascinating, especially for me having lived in the middle of this history, some in the States and some in Australia.

It happened early in the AIDS crisis in 1985, when people with HIV were being made guinea pigs for the drug researchers, and the release of AZT was very disputed as it hadn't been double-blind tested. AZT was later discovered to be lethal in large doses which were unfortunately being given early on where many hundreds, even thousands, were dying. The true life character Ron, a homophobic straight person, having contracted HIV on one encounter with another drug addict, decides to go to Mexico and smuggle in some better drugs called Nuclear Peptides, which hadn't yet been passed by the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. With a transgender business partner, Jared Leto, whom he reluctantly befriends, he mounts an alternate medication underground and they become known as the Dallas Buyers Club, selling memberships at $400 monthly and giving many infected people these unavailable drugs. 

However they are very unpopular with the medical authorities who are obsessed with their own expensive research and their need to test all the drugs. Ron even takes the State to court but loses his case. Eventually he and his transgender friend die, having abused their bodies with other drugs a bit too much and also taken some AZT, which is basically poison. There is a final postscript saying the fight against AIDS is not yet over...very true.

As a historical movie it is accurate, and as a piece of cinematic art it is a great success, and it's also made on a mini budget. Incredibly, for a movie which nearly didn't get made, it has already grossed 29 million dollars. Certainly worth seeing for many reasons, but if only for the excellent acting. Four stars.

Enjoying the sun and music...

A great balancing act!

The bay and the blessing of the boats.

The Reggae Band - fantastic!

Saturday blunder...

Well I can look with hindsight at my Saturday full of blunders, and not not just the one...

I was thinking how perfect it would be, a lovely summer's day scootering across Wellington to an audition for the new world choir I have been anxious to try out for, then perhaps a leisurely coffee and lunch somewhere, and later a movie. Sounds great aye, but it was not to be. Perhaps I didn't prepare myself properly for the day!

First mistake was a quick misreading of road signs which, in notoriously badly signed W, could lead one into trouble. It led me on to the Motorway of No Return, miles up north on the way to Porirua.

Finally I managed to illegally cross the road to escape the north flow and retake the traffic south, back to Wadestown in Wellington, where I was supposed to end up. The idea of auditioning was getting less and less attractive, so on taking yet another risky turn, and asking two unassuming pedestrians where I was, and getting vague replies, I managed to recognise some landscape and decided to forego the audition which I already was unsure of, and visit my friend B in the neighborhood. After more enquiries, as she was in a hiddend cul-de-sac too, I found her, and we had a chat about singing. She was very solicitous and diagnosed a possible polyp on my vocal chords, something which she herself had experienced, and she kindly gave me the card of her voice specialist.  Thanking her, I left, popped by the St Luke's Church, venue of the world choir, found no-one much there, and justified my non- attendance. I would write them an email later, explaining my absence, I said to myself. 

So on to visit the local St Paul's historic church, now defunct, but a tourist destination. The photos describe it better than words. Amazing wooden construction, all original and with a great atmosphere. The tourists had just left when I arrived so I had a few nice quiet moments. Around the corner was the Narional Library and Archives, with the lovely Home Cafe. I dropped in to have a late brunch and read the Saturday papers. It is such a modern and delightful space, with Wifi access, nice people and an Art Gallery as well. A great Saturday morning ro replace my lost audition, I thought.

Browsing through the entertainment section I read of the French movie which won the  Palme D'Or at Cannes last year, 'Blue is the warmest Colour'. It looked very interesting and I decided to catch the one showing at the Brooklyn Lighthouse on the hill on the other side of the city. I  just had time to make it, so I hurriedly jumped on to my scooter and whizzed through the city feeling a precarious set of glasses in my jacket pocket.

Yes, you got it, after a most brave and OTT sexy movie, (between two women btw), I emerged a bit dazed from the cinema and searched in my jacket for my very necessary glasses case. It was not there! Merde, I thought, in my appropriate French, they've fallen out on the road in my haste, how bloody stupid of me. To make it short, a quick return to Cafe Home, another search on the route to cinema, no glasses anywhere. I really deserve this I thought, when will I ever learn? ...As Bob Dylan sang, or was it The Seekers, Judith Durham was a a Kiwi after all.

So there was was my non-perfect Saturday, hopefully another lesson learned, but an expensive one, as the replacement here in Wellington won't be at all cheap. Was the movie worth it? Well if I've learned a lesson I suppose it was. The movie itself, the tale of an adolescent getting in touch with her sexuality, was amazingly accurate I felt, with well earned awards to both Tunisian director and the two lead actresses, who performed the lesbian sexual feats with great reality and enthusiasm, bordering on the pornographic, but just not getting there. Although I heard the US couldn't quite swallow (sorry!) the X rating enough to include it in the Oscars. Europe, however, embraced it fully, and it won awards all over the place. Certainly a movie worth seeing, for the non-squeamish sexually, I mean. Four Stars!

  

Amazing ceiling at St Paul's

The Nave

Looking back...

Home Cafe at the National Library

Waiting for coffee..

First week at work

We are having marvellous summer weather and I am entranced by my daily ride to town on Oriental Parade, see pics.

Also for these three coming weeks I am a worker at my drop-in centre Body Positive. I am assisting L while the boss is on holiday. Our brief is to make a big success of the AIDS Candle light Memorial Ceremony this year. Last year it appears very few came and it was disappointing for all. So with some good efforts by us this year it will be attended by all the right people in Wellington. It is conspicuously taking place at Te Papa in the Marae, probably the most sacred spot in the city. The two weeks to come will be very important to lay the foundations to make a great success of this important day on May 18. 

It is a celebration of survival, and a memorial for those who have passed on who helped prepare the way for the present. It should be a moving and spiritual occasion for all who attend. The last one I attended was in Melbourne when Justice Michael Kirby gave the keynote speech where many were moved to tears. We should try to emulate that occasion.

My balcony in the sun

Sea gulls on the take

Quelle vue!

Two movies on Racism

It is becoming increasingly popular these days to discuss the once hidden subject of racism, but to  have two big movies on the subject out at the same time is quite something, and both ready to compete for the Academy Awards. They are of course the much awaited 'Mandela - Long Walk to Freedom', and 'Twelve Years a Slave', a popular choice for many as Best Movie.

I have just emerged, exhausted, from a viewing of the above film, with an award winning performance by English actor Idris Elba, as Nelson Mandela. The life of Mandela is such an epic that I was amazed how much they could condense into two hours, including quite a study of his relationship with Winnie, who I recently heard was not favoured at all in his will. The history of South Africa is such a recent one, and the depiction of the mass killing of hundreds of blacks at Sharpeville in 1961 was still keen in my memory. It is an important movie and certainly deserves to win awards in a few categories. I'd give it four stars.

Two more award possibilities in 'Slave'.

A couple of hundred years earlier and we have the story of Solomon Northup, a free black man kidnapped and held illegally as a slave in the south for twelve years. 

This is another awful and true story of white man's perceived dominance over the black race. Both male leads are worthy of mention, Solomon played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and his nemesis played by my favourite Irish actor Michael Fassbender. Producer Brad Pitt plays a small role as the abolitionist Canadian who eventually effects the freeing of Solomon, but the post-script says that he never was given justice over the horrific affair. Such was the racist state of life in the US before the abolition of slavery. The white race is guilty of so much in its historical maltreatment of his black brothers and sisters and we are still on this road to equality even with a supposed radical black President in Barack Obama.

 Another must-see movie however, also four stars.

Below,Mandela's courtship of Winnie

The Proud and the Profane

Today was the first day of the Rugby competition, and I was told it is an event not to miss, seeing the crowds dress-up that is, so I went into town to have a look. But I was too early it seemed, no-one was around, so I happened across the birth home of NZ's most famous writer, a short story teller who revolutionised the art, Katherine Mansfield. Her birth home is in Thorndon, 75 Tinakori Road, and I had often seen it and was waiting for the best time to enter. Today was obviously it, everyone was at the Rugby Sevens!  I parked my scooter nearby in the now very affluent suburb, and was welcomed in by the attending lady who took my backpack. 

The house had been beautifully restored and there was a real feeling of the 1800s when Katherine's father, a quite wealthy merchant, was just starting his career. They were a very upwardly mobile family and her mother was a beautiful woman who had five children, but as was often in those days she was left in not good health, and died quite young. However she died not as young as her brilliant second daughter, Katherine. 

Wild and adventurous Katherine contracted tuberculosis while living in London, possibly through undetected gonnorhoerra, and died at the tender age of 34 in the south of France, where she had lived with her adored friend Ida Baker for the months preceding her death. Her husband, John Middleton Murray, whom she also loved, was an editor and publisher who stayed in London for his career, and a very handsome man he was too, but unable to give her the love she was looking for.

 Katherine was before her time, and her best friends in London were DH Lawrence and his German wife Frieda, with whom she eventually fell out, as they wanted more in the free-love stakes than her more simple husband was willing to give. The Lawrences and the Wolfs, Virginia and her husband, were the elite literary set with whom she mixed in London after she had precociously published her first novel and short stories which had been very well reviewed. She was a phenomenon. She was a witty person, original and at ease with everyone including the Irish philosopher Bertrand Russell, who said her conversation was even better than her writing. Here was a young New Zealand lass who had been sent half way around the world to school in London as great things were expected of her, but she was bowing to no man. Her biggest love was platonic, and Ida joined her in France to care for her in the later stages of her life. Katherine left a literary legacy, even at the tender age of 34, of hundreds of short stories which live on today and are said to have greatly influenced the style of short stories in English literature. She was as good as the great French short story writer Honore de Balzac, in my opinion.

Houses on Tinakori Street opposite Katherine Mansfield's birth place.

So on to the rest of my day witnessing the emergence of Wellington in Drag, as that is what it seemed. There were so many men in frocks, with big falsies, and loving the spectacle they created. It was a football carnival after all. Along the foreshore in the many bars and pubs the music was loud and the beer was flowing to prepare everyone for three days of festive Rugby Football. 

Unfortunately I just heard that New Zealand lost its first game, Wellington will doubtless be in a black depression!

See the photos below.

Showing I.D.s to the serious doorman outside Red Bull

The girls were having fun too!

This was not a girl!

But this one was an old girl!

Boys in kilts...

And girls in tutus...