From the Veranda of the Room of the Last Chrysanthemum

Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens, spike-topped walls and treble-bolted doors. Gulls alight on white-washed gables, creaking pagodas and dung-ripe stables; circle over towers and cavernous bells and over hidden squares where urns of urine sit by covered wells, watched by mule-drivers, mules and wolf-snouted dogs, ignored by hunchbacked makers of clogs; gather speed up the stoned-in Nakashima River and fly beneath the arches of its bridges, glimpsed from kitchen doors, watched by farmers walking high, stony ridges. Gulls fly through clouds of steam from laundries' vats; over kites unthreading corpses of  cats; over scholars glimpsing truth in fragile patterns; over bath-house adulterers; heartbroken slatterns; fishwives dismembering lobsters and crabs; their husbands gutting mackerel on slabs; woodcutters' sons sharpening axes; candle-makers, rolling waxes; flint-eyed officials milking taxes; etoliated lacquerers; mottled-skinned dyers; imprecise soothsayers; unblinking liars; weavers of mats; cutters of rushes; ink-lipped calligraphers dipping brushes; booksellers ruined by unsold books; ladies-in-waiting; tasters; dressers; filching page-boys; runny-nosed cooks; sunless attic nooks where seamstresses prick calloused fingers; limping malingerers; swineherds; swindlers; lip-chewed debtors rich in excuses; heard-it-all creditors tightening nooses; prisoners haunted by happier lives and ageing rakes by other men's wives; skeletal tutors goaded to fits; firemen-turned-looters when occasion permits; tongue-tied witnesses; purchased judges; mothers-in-law nurturing briars and grudges; apothecaries grinding powders with mortars; palanquins carrying not-yet-wed daughters; silent nuns; nine-year-old whores; the once-were-beautiful gnawed by sores; statues of Jizo anointed with posies; syphilitics sneezing through rotted-off noses; potters; barbers; hawkers of oil; tanners; cutlers; carters of night-soil; gate-keepers; bee-keepers; blacksmiths and drapers; torturers; wet-nurses; perjurers; cut-purses; the newborn; the growing; the strong-willed and pliant; the ailing; the dying; the weak and defiant; over the roof of a painter withdrawn first from the world, then his family, and down into a masterpiece that has, in the end, withdrawn from its creator; and around again, where there flight began, over the balcony of the Room of the Last Chrysanthemum, where a puddle from last night's rain is evaporating; a puddle in which Magistrate Shiroyama observes the blurred reflections of gulls wheeling through spokes of sunlight. This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.


- David Mitchell, in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, London, 2010, set in the Dutch trading enclave of Dejima in Nagasaki in 1800.

"Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?"

I've not seen Raiders of the Lost Ark for many years, but the enduring memory of derring-do in the name of archaeology (and riches, if they're handy) is charmingly evoked in Spelunky, a modern 8-bit style PC platformer that was mentioned in Lewis Denby's PC Gamer's articles on top-quality free games. Spelunky is soon to be released in a brand spanking new version with updated graphics and multi-player, but you can download and play the original 2008 version for no dollars and cents.  I've sped through at least 25 games of being poisoned, spiked, crushed and generally marmelised by this game and I can report that it's thoroughly addictive fun, so be warned. It's randomly generated each time, so no two levels are alike. I particularly like the extra complication of carrying the damsel in distress through all the mortal peril, which means you have to ditch her rather rudely every time you want to beat off hordes of spiders with your whip.  And don't forget that golden idol - which begs the question, if you can only carry one, which do you save: the the idol or the dame? Hmm...

An open letter to a nine-month-old

Dear Neve,

Your parents have had the clever idea of asking family and friends to suggest some wise counsel to guide you in the adventure of life that awaits you.  You don’t know me from Adam, and in fact we’ve not formally been introduced.  Hi!  I’m Ethan.  I’m a friend of your Mum’s from University and from work in Wellington.  I once saw you in your pram at your parents’ café.  Well, I saw your arm poking out.  It looked like a fairly normal arm to me.  An arm with potential.

In terms of useful advice, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of general wisdom offered up: you know, brush your teeth, do your homework, listen to your mother, ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in your hair, that sort of thing.

So I thought I’d be a bit more specific, and recommend a particular book.  You’ll probably be a reader anyway, what with studious parents like yours, but there are so many books out there and everyone’s got an opinion about the good ones and the not-so-good ones.  But here’s my suggestion, for what it’s worth:

You should read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Don’t let the fact that it’s from 1925 put you off.  You’ll be surprised how a story from that long ago can be so fresh and entertaining.  And I’ll wager that by the time you’re likely to read it – I don’t know, maybe when you’re 12 or 13? – you still won’t have visited New York yet.  It’s set there, you see.  (And visiting New York is great, by the way.  Do that too, okay?)

Fiction writing goes through fads and crazes.  Last decade a stack of books about a boy wizard sold millions; this decade everything has to have vampires in it.  Both will probably be replaced by some other trend by the time you’ll be a fully-fledged reader.  But The Great Gatsby endures as one of the most popular books of all time because it captures perfectly the spirit of the age in which it was written.  And even if you’re not interested in mysterious millionaires, New York in the Roaring Twenties, humdinger parties, lost love and jealously-guarded secrets – although you’d be mad not to be – The Great Gatsby has one all-conquering trump card up its sleeve.

It’s really rather short.

So what do you say?  You’ve got nothing to lose, Neve.  And if you like Gatsby (and I think you will), it may well lead you on to other Fitzgerald stories, the writing of his wayward wife Zelda (and isn’t that a great name?), or the peerless 1920s Jeeves & Wooster comedies of P.G. Wodehouse, or even to visit Long Island and see what Fitzgerald must have seen when he went to parties just like Gatsby’s.    

Because books – really good books – can be your greatest ally in life, can intrigue, inform and entertain you in good times and bad, and will help to make you into the excellent grown-up you will one day become.

Best wishes to you as you start that journey!  And don’t forget to listen to your mother.  That’s pretty important too. 

Bret McKenzie's 'loser face' fortunately not required

Well, hi, Bret McKenzie, from The Flight of the Conchords! Congratulations on winning an Oscar!

"Aw, thanks – it's completely nuts, isn't it?”

I don't know – I really liked your songs in The Muppets. Personally, I preferred Party of One to Man or Muppet, the song you won for, but, hey, who cares? You totally deserved it.

"Thank you. But for the past 24 hours I really thought I wasn't going to get it so I was practising my face."

Your loser face? Don't losers always just smile politely and clap? Or, worse, almost, make that ecstatic gasp, as Glenn Close did this year for Meryl Streep, as though Meryl had been jobbing around for decades and was finally getting the recognition she deserves. "Someone who has so many awards she probably uses most of them as teething toys for her grandchildren has beaten me! Yay!" So are you saying, Bret, other facial options are available to losers besides grace and ecstasy?

"Oh yeah, I wanted to do this" – he reels back in horror, face in hands. "Or maybe this" – he mouths exaggeratedly a word that is not suitable for a family newspaper. "I thought that would work."

That would TOTALLY work! It almost makes me regret that you won. But, you know, not really.

"Yeah. Not really."

- Hadley Freeman, Guardian, 27 February 2012

The merest hint of mortality

The bi-annual international arts festival has just begun in Wellington, and all around the capital the arts community is gearing up to put on a show. The Dowse Gallery in Lower Hutt was aiming to participate by installing a work entitled So It Vanishes, by the Mexican artist Teresa Margolles. It’s a conceptual piece in which soap bubbles are projected into a large space within the gallery; the catch being that the liquid used to produce the bubbles uses trace amounts of water from a Mexican morgue that has been used to wash dead bodies. So on the one hand, we have the light-hearted whimsy of playful bubbles in an art gallery, but on the other there is also the frame of reference of mortality and the transitory nature of life – like a bubble, our lives will one day pop out of existence.   

It’s an interesting concept, and one that’s less pretentious than some of the other exhibits the Dowse typically shows. The ‘morgue water’ is supposedly only a minuscule proportion of the total liquid supply used to produce the bubbles; indeed, the curator said on TV3 News that it would be ‘four tablespoons in 160 litres’ used through the whole 12 week duration of the installation (that portion of clip not online). That's a ratio of more than 2700 parts ordinary water to 'morgue water', so the vast majority of the liquid used to produce the bubbles, 99.96 percent in fact, is plain tap water. 


This 2004 Frieze magazine report on an identical Margolles exhibition at the Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt shows the reaction the exhibition (then called En el Aire / In the Air) is meant to elicit:

In the museum’s soaring hall children play under bubbles that come from Teresa Margolles’ piece En el aire (In the Air, 2003). Running, laughing, catching, they are fascinated by the glistening, delicate forms that float down from the ceiling and break up on their skin. A common motif in art history, the bubble has long been used as a memento mori, a reminder of the transitory nature of life. The children’s parents, meanwhile, studiously read the captions. Suddenly, with a look of disgust, they come and steer their offspring away. The moment of naive pleasure turns into one of knowing repulsion: they have learned that the water comes from the Mexico City morgue, used to wash corpses before an autopsy. It’s unimportant that the water is disinfected; the stigma of death turns the beautiful into the horrific.  

The key here is the word 'disinfected', which was not mentioned in the New Zealand discussion around the Dowse exhibit. If the water was disinfected, then there is even less rational grounds for concern. And in this era of biosecurity and stringent checks on imported goods, you have to wonder if the 'morgue water' actually exists at all, and isn't just an artist's imaginary concept. She certainly seems keen on it though: it's also used in this Tate Liverpool exhibit, dripping onto a hotplate and making interesting sizzling noises.

But in any case it appears the installation will not go ahead because the local Te Atiawa iwi, who play a strong role at the Dowse, have objected to the ‘morgue water’ on cultural grounds. They argue that in Maori spirituality, water that has been used to clean dead bodies is tainted and cannot come into contact with sacred artworks. The iwi’s primary concern relates to the historic pataka (carved food storage hut) that is a centrepiece of the Dowse’s Maori art collection. They find it unacceptable that tainted water might pollute their taonga, and they also express health concerns for the safety of visitors to the museum, with iwi spokesperson Liz Mellish saying to TV3, 'We would be concerned for all people about the safety of such a thing, particularly children who could run in', and 'It's inviting death in, so culturally it's really, really unsafe'.

Respect for other traditions is an important trait, particularly in an environment like New Zealand in which one cultural tradition has run roughshod over the beliefs of a colonised minority. Society should endeavour to allow all members of society to feel comfortable sharing their views and beliefs, and the iwi are fully within their rights to express their concerns about the Margolles installation. The Dowse’s press statement indicates that there were long-running discussions about the exhibit, and it seems that the gallery was unable to reconcile its desire to show the Mexican piece with its stewardship of the iwi’s taonga.

But when a cultural tradition is out-dated and anachronistic, where is the harm in questioning that tradition – in a polite way, naturally? The exponential dilution at work in Margolles' art installation renders the ‘morgue water’ – if it exists at all – utterly harmless. These bubbles could not pose any risk to visitors  who came into contact with them. The only danger is that they might think about their lives and the role that death plays in society and culture. And kids, blithely unaware, might have a bit of harmless fun playing in bubbles. Isn’t that a laudable goal? If we start labelling Margolles' work as 'unsafe' it makes us akin to the shysters who promote hyper-diluted homeopathic remedies as genuine medicine. 


There's also the concern that superstition is derailing a 21st century art installation. The Dominion Post's reporter, Shabnam Dastgheib, clearly raised the 's-word' when he spoke to Victoria University's head of Maori Studies, Peter Adds: 

Adds said superstition was a "loaded" word and any objections to the exhibition would have been based on a deeply entrenched cultural belief for many Maori. "People would have inadvertently placed themselves in danger and Maori people would have treated the people as being contaminated. Those people would have been treated with a degree of caution. Maori don't muck around with issues of tapu."    

Oxford defines superstition as 'excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural' and 'a widely held but irrational belief in supernatural influences, especially as leading to good or bad luck, or a practice based on such a belief'. This sounds like an accurate reflection of the dynamic at work in this case. It's true that some Maori people may have treated people who came in contact with the bubbles as being 'contaminated', in a cultural rather than medical sense. But there is no proof that the exhibition could 'contaminate' people in a way that actually led to adverse medical effects, and certainly no cause to believe that they had 'inadvertently placed themselves in [actual] danger'.

There's also a slightly worrying aspect of superstition at work in the TV3 item by reporter Charlotte Shipman, which says of the Dowse's pataka, 'It's so sacred to Maori it can't be filmed'. This concept of unfilmability was mentioned in another recent case, that of the return to New Zealand of a collection of severed Maori heads (toi moko) from French museums. A TV3 European correspondent explained to viewers at the time that for cultural reasons the heads could not be filmed, which begs the question, when did such a modern concept as video imagery become part of Maori tradition, and who decided that this was culturally unacceptable? And why is it acceptable for the Dowse website to show a picture of the pataka but not for television to film it? (On reflection though, I can see a good reason for not showing images of the toi moko on the nightly news. It would probably put people off their tea).

I don't have any problem with the iwi standing up for what they believe in, even if in my view the beliefs they express are based on superstition. Good on them for putting their views in a persuasive way. Because this was a problem that the Dowse has made for itself. Gallery director Cam McCracken has issued a statement that indicates that this was really an issue of the Dowse trying to have its cake and eat it too (which has always been a silly aphorism, but you get my drift):

Because of the work’s themes of death and memory, The Dowse has been in close consultation with representatives of local iwi, Te Atiawa, in the months leading up to the opening of So it Vanishes. In particular, we have discussed Teresa’s work in relation to our most treasured taonga, Nuku Tewhatewha.The Dowse is guardian of this nationally significant pataka which was carved in the 1850s as a sign of support for Kīngitanga, or the Māori King Movement. Nuku Tewhatewha is one of only seven Pataka built around the North Island as ‘Pillars of the Kingdom’, and is the only one to survive. Its home at The Dowse carries great meaning for many communities locally and nationally and the team at The Dowse is proud of its guardianship role.Grave concerns have been shared about exhibiting So it Vanishes alongside Nuku Tewhatewha and The Dowse has therefore decided not to proceed with the exhibition. This was a difficult decision to make, but one we believe is important.

Grave concerns! Pun unintended, I presume. 


The Dominion article referred to above also quotes iwi kaumatua Sam Jackson:

Te Atiawa kaumatua Sam Jackson said he had been asked to bless the bubble installation but refused. Iwi also threatened to shut New Zealand's only sacred pataka (storehouse), Nuku Tewhatewha, housed in the museum, if the exhibition went ahead because of fears it would be contaminated. 

So here's the rub. If the Dowse wanted to run Margolles' exhibition it could have done so by either sealing off the pataka in some way - by putting it in storage, ceremonially sealing the rooms it sits in, or even arranging a loan to another museum, which would enable more New Zealanders to see it. But when faced with the decision to proceed with the bubble exhibit at the expense of the pataka exhibit, the gallery chose its pataka. Cam McCracken told TV3: 'The pataka is the heart of the building, and for it to be closed off or its essence or its lifeforce to be removed was just a bit too difficult for us to contemplate'.


Really? Its 'lifeforce'? If the iwi concerns were unable to be addressed, the Dowse could have 'protected' the pataka in some way. But it chose not to, and now all it has to show for the exercise is an empty gallery and a reputation for pusillanimity. It's certainly a pity: I for one would have made the journey to Lower Hutt to visit Margolles' exhibit and see what else the Dowse had to offer.   

No pickle, no performance

[Harold Kennedy's] book [No Pickle, No Performance] is dedicated to actress Renee Taylor, who refused to come on stage during a play's opening night until she got a pickle with her sandwich, as she had during the previews. The coffee shop that had provided those sandwiches was closed, and the curtain was held while a prop man got in his car and went searching for the holy pickle. It arrived seven minutes after the advertised curtain time, and the show went on.

Unknown to Taylor, the stage crew was so enraged by her antics that they performed "a little ceremony" with the pickle before giving it to her. Gloria Swanson later said: "Poor Miss Taylor. Can't you see her shopping around to every delicatessen in New York complaining that she can never find a pickle to match the caliber of the one she had in New Jersey."

- Max Millard, interviewing Harold Kennedy in 'TV Shopper', 22 July 1978, compiled in 100 New Yorkers of the 1970s.


[Cross-post from Very Friday Blog]