Linton Kwesi Johnson - Reggae Fi' Peach (live at the BBC, 03.10.81)
Modestly adventurous, while also endeavouring to look both ways when crossing the road.
25 April 2024
Great injustices are committed upon this land
Linton Kwesi Johnson - Reggae Fi' Peach (live at the BBC, 03.10.81)
24 April 2024
The golden age of American long-distance high-speed diesel trains
[In 1935] the Union Pacific train was immediately put into service as The City of Portland between Chicago and Portland, Oregon, and the Milwaukee Road soon launched the Twin Cities Hiawatha, running between the same two cities as the Burlington's Twin Cities Zephyr but powered by new steam locomotives designed to run at 100 mph. Diesel, though, was now the fashion and within a couple of years there were more than a dozen of these new diesel services, trying to outdo each other with the extra facilities and comfort they provided. Pullman joined in the craze by providing streamlined lightweight cars for several of these trains, but it was the decision of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to create an all-Pullman service that resulted in the service which could, justifiably, lay claim to being the most luxurious train in the world, pace the Orient Express. This was the Super Chief, which started running between Chicago and Los Angeles in 1936 in just under forty hours, a timetable that saved a full half-day on its steam predecessor, the Santa Fe's old Chief, a prestigious steam train introduced a decade before. The Super Chief became the train of choice for movie stars and studio moguls for their trips between the coasts and undoubtedly set a new standard of comfort for its passengers: 'Designed within by a group of eminent architects and stylists, its restaurant, observation lounge, bar and wide choice of overnight accommodation - every room richly panelled in wood veneers from the four quarters of the world were very reasonable replicas of the hotel accommodation to which the Hollywood haut monde who frequented it were accustomed.
These new streamliner services invariably offered all the accoutrements of the trains of the previous generation, but with modern extras such as air conditioning and electric razor points. The more spacious offered lounges, cocktail bars and office facilities, and all provided meals that today would earn them a Michelin star or two, elegantly hosted by a dinner-jacketed maƮtre d', as well as offering various sleeping car options. There was, too, a great emphasis on making the trip itself into a pleasure, rather than merely a trial to be endured, with a great emphasis on the smoke-free views afforded by the much larger windows.
The result of this feverish activity was that, for a short period in the late 1930s, the ten fastest regular train services in the world were all American streamliners. It was not so much the speed or the diesel- powered engines that caught the public's imagination, but rather their streamlining. They were, quite literally, beautiful behemoths, a source of pride and modernity in an era of economic struggle and austerity. The size and power of the elegant diesels seemed to epitomize American values, and gave people something to celebrate.
- Christian Wolmar, The Great Railway Revolution: The Epic Story of the American Railroad, London, 2012, p.330-1.
See also:Blog: The Sunday morning train to Verona, 15 June 2015
Blog: Take the 'A' train, 10 October 2009
Blog: You can get to Taumarunui going north or south, 24 May 2009
21 April 2024
18 April 2024
Reach across the cold divider, I will warm you
Thursday music corner: Marlon Williams is a New Zealand singer-songwriter with an increasing side-line in acting roles. He tours with backing band The Yarra Benders, and collaborates with fellow Lyttelton resident Delaney Davidson. Having met actor/director Bradley Cooper in Los Angeles, Williams was cast in a small role in Cooper's 2018 hit film remake A Star Is Born. He has also appeared in the 2019 Australian film The True History of the Kelly Gang, Alice Englert's 2023 film Bad Behaviour, and the New Zealand-filmed TV series Sweet Tooth.
Williams has released three solo studio albums, plus four other albums in collaboration with other artists, three of which were with Delaney Davidson. River Rival appeared on Williams' most recent album, My Boy (2022). It was the third single released from the album, after My Boy and Thinking Of Nina.
Marlon Williams - River Rival (2022)
13 April 2024
11 April 2024
But one little spoon of your precious love is good enough for me
Thursday music corner: Howlin' Wolf (aka Chester Arthur Burnett, 1910-76) was a Mississippi-born blues singer and guitarist who attained considerable fame as a progenitor of electric Chicago blues, and who was revered by the British blues exponents like Cream, the Rolling Stones and Steve Winwood. Howlin' Wolf released 14 studio albums during his lifetime, and scored four US R&B chart top ten singles: How Many More Years and Moanin' At Midnight (both 1951) and Smokestack Lightning and I Asked For Water (both 1956).
The Willie Dixon-penned Spoonful was a 1960 Howlin' Wolf single on the Chess label. It features on the Rolling Stone '500 Greatest Songs of All Time' list, and has been inducted into the Blues Foundation's 'Hall of Fame'.
Howlin' Wolf - Spoonful (1960)
10 April 2024
How the plough fostered societies with greater gender inequalities
Early Egyptian ploughs were scratch ploughs, akin to a stick being pulled through the earth. During the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BCE to 220 CE), Chinese farmers developed the turn plough, which turns the soil upside down, creating furrows. Settled agriculture was five or six times more productive than foraging. The plough brought the end of a society in which everyone's occupation was effectively 'food finder'. Indeed, one historian has argued that the entire modern world is the result of the plough.
Ploughs changed power dynamics too. Digging stick agriculture is relatively gender-equal, but ploughs require significant upper body strength to pull the plough or control the animal that pulls it. So the plough made farming a more male-dominated activity. The legacy of this technology has echoed down the generations. In countries where plough use was uncommon (such as Rwanda and Madagascar), gender norms are more equal than in countries where plough use was common (such as Mauritania and Ethiopia). Even among immigrants who have recently moved to advanced countries, those from countries with a heritage of plough use are less likely to believe that women should have jobs outside the home.
- Andrew Leigh, The Shortest History of Economics, Collingwood VIC, 2024, p.16
09 April 2024
04 April 2024
Let these times show you that you're breaking up the lines
Thursday music corner: Karen Dalton (1937-93) was a gravel-voiced American folk singer-songwriter whose struggles with alcohol and drug addiction during her lifetime limited her commercial success, but whose reputation has only grown with time. She released two studio albums, 1969's It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best, and 1970's In My Own Time. Something On Your Mind was the opening track on the latter album, and was composed by Quicksilver Messenger Service singer Chet Powers under his stage name of Dino Valenti.
Karen Dalton - Something On Your Mind (1970)
03 April 2024
How the 'heads' of London lived circa 1970
It was still possible for heads to live a low-budget life in London in 1970. Although student numbers were rising steeply as the baby boomers left school, higher education was still only available to 8 per cent of the population (today it nudges 50 per cent). This comparatively privileged group had their education financed by a grant from their local authority, money from their parents if they were lucky, and whatever they had managed to save from a holiday job, which usually involved some form of hard physical labour. With a loaf of bread costing 5p (or one shilling - this was the last year of pounds, shillings and pence), a packet of Embassy cigarettes 20p and a Wimpy hamburger 10p, most of their daily requirements could be covered easily. In many respects the world seemed as economically stable as it had done in the fifties. But 1970 was one year before the decision to take America off the gold standard and the subsequent rise in the price of oil ushered in an era when inflation became endemic. In 1960 the rate of inflation had been 1 per cent. By 1975 it was running at 25 per cent.
In 1970, heads sharing a flat in central London would expect to pay around £7 each per week. If they were prepared to settle for cheaper areas like Muswell Hill and Finsbury Park Time Out's Book of London predicted they could get a three-room flat for £15. Most of their entertainment was cheap. If they had gone to see Five Easy Pieces, which opened in London at the end of September, they might have paid 30p for their cinema seat. Most of the pleasures and diversions London offered to the tourist were too expensive for heads. They didn't eat out. They never took a taxi. The Time Out guide to alternative London advised that if you had difficulty getting back to the suburbs after a night at Middle Earth you could hitch a lift on one of the lorries leaving Fleet Street in the early hours to deliver the morning papers to the distributors. Credit cards were strictly for the adult world. Banks didn't open at weekends. When they were open they made it clear that they disapproved of anyone taking out any money. Anyone with as much as five pounds on their person was bent on some sort of blow-out.
- David Hepworth, A Fabulous Creation: How the LP Saved Our Lives, London, 2019, p.48-9.
See also:
London: The grooviest place on the planet, 16 July 2018
London: Earl's Court 1968, 16 April 2014
London: Denmark Street, 18 January 2010
30 March 2024
28 March 2024
They don't believe that it is sinning when you are winning
Thursday music corner: Lawrence Arabia, the stage name of Christchurch-born, Auckland-based performer James Milne, has released five albums of erudite, well-crafted pop in the mold of Harry Nilsson since 2006. His 2009 single Apple Pie Bed from his second album, Chant Darling, won Milne and co-writer Luke Buda the APRA Silver Scroll for single of the year, sandwiched between OpShop's One Day (2008) and The Naked & Famous' international hit Young Blood (2010).
A Lake is the opening track from Milne's 2016 album Absolute Truth. Brain Gym, another track from the album, was played by the legendary Iggy Pop on his BBC 6Music radio show.
Lawrence Arabia - A Lake (2016)
24 March 2024
21 March 2024
Will I be handsome? Will I be rich?
See also:
14 March 2024
Now he's out in space, fixing all the problems
“So we didn’t have to sell the kids to chemical experiments or anything,” he told The Chicago Sun-Times in 2012. “I think I’m a bit of a lucky person.”
07 March 2024
Lines To Be Read At the Casting of Scott FitzGerald's balls into the Sea
Jim Dandy in a submarine, got a message from a mermaid queen
06 March 2024
Crusader Kings 2: Some medieval doggerel
The Ballad of the Concubine Addiena, to whit:
G*d d*mn the Patriarchy
A tale from 9th-century Ireland, from Crusader Kings 2
Tis a tale of the wanton in the far isle of Eire
A young girl had been raised who had the longest black hair
In the palace she lived, with the Queen and the King
But the name of her sire, no courtier could sing
A bastard was she, yet cared for and fed
With the grace of the Queen, though not in her bed
The Queen lent a wet-nurse and paid for another
(But surely kept quiet about being the mother)
The girl's name was Addiena, uncommon to most
And as she grew she was more often to boast
Of her silken black hair that she wove forth in tresses
And the beauty of the linens in her fine English dresses
Now later, much later, when quite fully grown
Addiena and the Queen disagreed 'bout the throne
For the Queen's husband had become quite neglected
And Addiena, the rogue, had become quite disaffected
So Add, in her wisdom, seduced the poor King
(King Coscrach, the dotard, suspected not a thing)
And bore him a child, with no expressed shame
Arnemetia she called it, her own mother's name
A fitting tribute, she reckoned, to her bastard existence
A new life on Earth and a social resistance
The King, he ashamed, did wed off the maid
And the Queen, she angered, his doom she emprayed
So be this a lesson for every Queen to know best
If ye bring forth a babe from beyond royal nest
Set a household ban on all Concubina
And don't let your husband meet the fair Addiena
05 March 2024
Will Rogers in New Zealand
The Cherokee Kid is a gentleman with a large American accent and a splendid skill with lassoos [sic.]. He demonstrated what could be done with the whirling loop by bringing up a horse and its rider from [an] impossible position, once throwing together two lasoos [sic.] encircling man and horse separately. He also showed the spectators how to throw half-hitches on to objects at a distance, and did other clever work with the ropes. It was a very interesting performance.- Auckland Star, 20 January 1904
A novel feature was the lasso work of the Cherokee Kid, a cowboy in Mexican circus-costume, who whirls his swift rope round his head and lassos horse and rider in the twinkling of an eye. This rope work is pretty to watch, and altogether a desirable addition to the programme.- Evening Post, 8 March 1904
The Cherokee Kid is a slim chap, who toddles into the ring with a couple of lassoes, and does anything in the roping line with them, talking all the time. He gets near, fore, or off fore-leg of a galloping horse, or loops the rider — or both — with a lassoo [sic.] thrown with either hand. Also, he afterwards throws a half-hitch over each of a dismounted man's limbs. He is the most expert rope-thrower seen here to date. Moreover, his rough riding, on a grey mustang wearing a Mexican saddle, is very fine.- Free Lance, 12 March 1904
28 February 2024
The German Democratic Republic
The GDR, or The Very Shortest History of East Elbia
East Germany didn't become different because of the Russian occupation of 1945-1989; the Russians occupied the place because it had always been different.
Otto the Great invaded across the Elbe in 935 AD; the Slavs threw the Germans back out in 982 AD; the Germans tried again in 1127 and over the next two centuries they largely (but never completely) succeeded in supplanting the Slavs up to the river Oder. The Teutonic Knights went further until the Poles smashed them in 1410. Prussia was born under Polish suzerainty as an act of revolt again Rome in 1525, rose to fame in battle against Sweden, was made a great power by victories between the Elbe and the Oder, then saved from abolition by the Tsar in 1807. The fatal inability of the western Germans to unite allowed Prussia to conquer them after a single great battle on the Elbe in 1866. Prussia smashed France in 1870; it thereafter dragooned the Germans into providing manpower and money for its bid(s) to settle the 1,000-year struggle with the Slavs. That struggle ended in 1945 with part of East Elbia lost forever and what was left, between Elbe and Oder, a helpless colony of Russia.
With the creation of the GDR, this rump East Elbia formally became what it had always really been: the odd German-speaking man out in a Slavic Eastern Europe. Until the wall went up in 1961, the East Germans - above all, the young and educated - undertook a new Ostflucht to West Germany at an average rate of about 200,000 year on year, about the same rate as in the Ostflucht from the 1850s onwards. If Russia's clients hadn't built and maintained a deadly barrier to stop the fugitives in the meantime, by 1989 there would have been hardly any Germans left beyond the Elbe.
- James Hawes, The Shortest History of Germany, Devo, 2017, p.199
See also:History: Charlemagne's passion for education, 29 March 2022
Germany: NZ posters by young German artists, 30 June 2012
22 February 2024
Forgotten memories of laughter and war
16 February 2024
The North-South divide in England
The North-South Divide Gets Ideology
At the 1924 election, former Southern Liberal voters went Tory, and stayed there; former Northern Liberal voters went with Labour, and stayed there. This finally locked down the political North-South divide. The Liberal Party was English, with an ancestry going back beyond the Union of 1707. Although it had come to be identified with Outer Britain during the struggles of the 19th century, it never completely lost traction in the South - until now. The Labour Party was a very different animal. It was born of the United Kingdom, its first five leaders were Scotsmen, and for the first two decades of its existence it had zero impact south of the Trent except in the poor quarters of London's vast city-state.
The Conservatives were no longer facing off against a genuine rival English party. The opposition now was the Party of Outer Britain (Northern English + Celts) a.k.a. Labour. This hardened the age-old suspicion among Southerners that the North was somehow not properly English. Essentially the battle-lines were the same as in 1461, 1642 or 1848 (or, for that matter, as when Northern thegns and Welsh princelings had united against the Godwins of Wessex under Edward the Confessor).
The ancient struggle was now window-dressed with fashionable, 20th-century ideologies. Labour, the new incarnation of the Outer British Alliance, claimed its members were all somehow instinctively peace-loving, communitarian, and internationalist. This self-image remains central to many Scots, Welsh, and Northern English.
Men live by their generosities, by their loyalties; not by their interests, and their self-regarding impulses... that is the aim of the Socialist inspiration that gives us power in our Labour Movement.
- Ramsay MacDonald, Labour leader, 1924
Meanwhile, the latest version of the Party of the South claimed to represent a Deep Ethnic England. This vision is still widespread among those who love Barbour coats, the Cotswolds and suchlike.
The preservation of the individuality of the Englishman is essential to the preservation of the type of the race... To me, England is the country, and the country is England... The sounds of England, the tinkle of hammer on anvil in the country smithy, the corncrake on a dewy morning, the sound of the scythe against the whetstone...
- Stanley Baldwin, Conservative leader, 1924
- James Hawes, The Shortest History of England, London, 2020, p.204-206.
See also:Books: A NZer makes powerful enemies at the BBC, 28 February 2023
Books: It seemed now that only a miracle could save Chamberlain, 20 December 2022
Books: The rotten boroughs, 2 April 2017
15 February 2024
Maybe I'm weak, maybe I'm strong
Thursday music corner: US singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson (b. New York, 1941 - d. Los Angeles, 1994) was famed amongst music aficionados for the skill of his compositions and musical innovation, but struggled both with commercial success in the ruthless pop business, and with personal demons manifesting in the alcoholism that ultimately shortened his life. Famously, his two biggest hits, Everybody's Talkin' (1969) and Without You (1971) were covers of other artists' work rather than Nilsson originals. A friend of several Beatles, Nilsson was a prolific artist throughout the 1960s and '70s. Eight of his singles and three of his albums reached the US top 40.
Nilsson's start in the music business was greatly assisted by the Beatles' press representative, Derek Taylor:
Taylor, who first became enamoured with Nilsson after hearing his song 1941 on a car radio, concluded, “Nilsson is the best contemporary soloist in the world. He is it. He is the something else The Beatles are. He is The One.” To prove his belief, he bought 25 copies of Nilsson’s RCA debut album and despatched them to his favourite industry people, including all four Beatles. At which point, the world sat up and slowly began to notice.
Nevertheless (I'm In Love With You) is Nilsson's cover of Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby's 1931 song originally recorded by Jack Denny, which became widely recorded in the 1950s, with versions by the McGuire Sisters, the Mills Brothers, Paul Weston, Ray Anthony, Ralph Flanagan, Frankie Laine and Frank Sinatra. Nilsson's version appeared on his 1973 album A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, an album of old standards covers that reached the top 20 in the UK and Australia, and reached number 46 in the US. Nilsson's version of Herman Hupfeld's As Time Goes By was released as the album's single, and performed modestly in the US, Canadian and Australian charts.
Harry Nilsson - Nevertheless (I’m In Love With You) (1973)
08 February 2024
I've been forcing myself not to forget, just to feel worse
02 February 2024
Trump's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic
Trump had no idea how to handle [the Covid-19 pandemic]. The virus did not respond to his favorite instruments of power. It could not be cowed by Twitter posts, overpowered by campaign rally chants, or silenced by playground insults. For so long, Trump had believed he could overcome nearly any obstacle through sheer force of will, and in many cases he had been astonishingly successful. Over the course of his seven decades, Trump had managed to bluster and bully his way past bankruptcies, failed business ventures, lenders demanding repayment, fraud and discrimination lawsuits, and, once he reached the White House, a special counsel and even congressional impeachment. But he could not will away a plague. So he tried denial, another favorite Trump tactic. That did not work either.
The emerging pandemic would expose all the weaknesses of his divisive presidency - his distrust of his own staff and the rest of the government, his intense focus on loyalty and purges, his penchant for encouraging conflict between factions within his own circle, his personal isolation, his obsessive war with the media, his refusal, or inability, to take in new information, and his indecisiveness when forced to make tough decisions.
Trump had always been indifferent to most substantive policy matters and skeptical of anything that experts, scientific or otherwise, told him. He turned everything into a political question whose answer was whatever would benefit him politically. And that is how he would approach this crisis too. "From the time this thing hit," said an adviser who spoke frequently with the president, "his only calculus was how does it affect my re-election."
- Peter Baker & Susan Glasser, The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021, New York, 2022, p.37
01 February 2024
I would be wishing today on a four leaf clover
Thursday music corner: Tyrone Davis (1937-2005), later dubbed 'the king of romantic Chicago soul', was born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago in his early twenties. After joining the soul stable of successful Chicago soul producer Carl Davis in 1968 he attained immediate success with his first release, although rather than the A-side A Woman Needs To Be Loved, it was the B-side Can I Change My Mind that became a million-selling hit. Throughout his five-decade career 14 of Davis' albums reached the R&B top 40, and 35 of his singles hit the R&B top 40. He also achieved cross-over success on the national stage, with five US top 40 pop chart hits.
Turn Back The Hands of Time was Davis' third single, and it appeared on the 1970 album of the same name. Written by Jack Daniels and Johnny Moore, the single was his biggest hit, topping the R&B charts and reaching number 3 on the US pop charts. The album also reached number 9 on the R&B album charts.Tyrone Davis - Turn Back The Hands of Time (1970)
31 January 2024
"I'd always dreamed of being my own star"
You've been asked if you're a feminist so many times, and you're tired of that. But after you left Porter [Wagoner]'s show, it became an important moment of empowerment for women. You said, essentially, "I deserve my own space."
Yeah, you're right. I had always dreamed of a show of my own. I'd always dreamed of being my own star. I had never in a million years thought about being just a girl singer in somebody else's band. I kept trying to tell Porter, "I need a little freedom. If I'm going to stay here, I need to do this, do that." Oh Lord, everything I said was a big fight.
It was the hardest thing I ever did because it was scary, the leaving and the going. Everybody was saying, "You're making a big mistake. You're one of the best, hottest girl singers in the business, and if you leave Porter, you're not likely to do well." I wasn't afraid of my future because I truly believed I had one. But it was the going, having to hurt people that have helped you. Through my intuition and prayer and faith in myself, that's where I got the courage to do it. My first million-selling record [1976's Here You Come Again] was after I left Porter's show, after I went ahead and took on new management, did all the things I felt I needed to do. I've just been going ever since.
We still live in a world where women are fighting for equal pay, let alone respect. Are you proud that women particularly can turn to you for that example?
Absolutely. I kept asking for a raise, but the whole time I was with Porter, the whole seven years I stayed, my salary never changed. Porter justified it by the fact that I was making royalties, publishing my songs. He made every excuse. Porter would buy me gifts and publicise the fact he'd got me gifts, when I kept saying, Why don't you just treat me fair? I was never going to be any more than what I was, Porter Wagoner's girl singer. I didn't want to make as much money as him. It was his show. I don't care if you're a man or a woman or whatever your colour or your religion: if you do the work, you should be paid for it. It's not about anything other than your work.- Grayson Haver Currin interviews Dolly Parton, Mojo magazine, November 2023, p.37
28 January 2024
What Ridley Scott learned from making Blade Runner
Midway through, the Guardian ran an interview in which Scott said that he preferred British crews, because he could give them orders and they'd say, "Yes, guv'nor!" The crew printed up T-shirts that read "YES GUV'NOR MY ASS!" Scott and his British compatriots tried to quell the insurrection by wearing T-shirts reading “XENOPŠŠBIA SUCKS." The budget ran two million dollars over. The final days were a frenzy, with the last scene - Rutger Hauer's moody android death - shot against the last sunrise to dawn before Scott's cameras would be taken from him. In postproduction, Scott was fired - twice - but worked his way back.
When preview audiences expressed confusion, Scott, against his better judgment, added a voice-over and a happy ending in which Deckard and his android paramour flee Los Angeles; Kubrick gave him helicopter footage left over from The Shining.
Blade Runner came out in June 1982, two weeks after E.T., which synched better with the sunny Reagan era than Scott's bleak dystopia did. [Pauline] Kael wasn't its only detractor; another critic wrote, "I suspect my blender and toaster oven would just love it." After making six million dollars on its opening weekend, the film all but disappeared. Although it grew into a cult classic and became a touchstone for such filmmakers as Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve (who directed the 2017 sequel), Scott still speaks of Blade Runner with an ache. Asked what it taught him, he sounded like a defiant general routed by an undeserving enemy: "I learned that the only opinion that matters, when all is said and done - even with failure in your face, and you're lying on the mat, crushed - is, What did you think of it?"
- Michael Schulman, 'Napoleon Complex', New Yorker, 13 November 2023, p.43
See also:Movies: The refreshingly brutal candour of The RKO Story, 27 July 2021
Movies: Parker Posey on working with Christopher Guest, 31 August 2020
25 January 2024
Undo the blue, be bright and shiny new
22 January 2024
Wellington Anniversary Day 1924
In 1924 Anniversary Day, the 84th anniversary of the founding of the city of Wellington, fell on 22 January, a Tuesday. The main focuses of anniversary day in the capital were the annual regatta for the nautically minded and the opening of the summer racing carnival at Trentham racetrack for those fond of horseflesh. The capital's womenfolk were encouraged to outfit themselves grandly for the occasion, as this advertisement for racewear in the Dominion indicates:
(The IRD's inflation calculator estimates that the Shantung silk frock at 37/6 above would cost $225 today).
The Dominion also reports on the sailing trophy awarded as part of the regatta, the Sanders Cup, which was first given in 1921 in honour of the Great War hero Lt-Cdr William Sanders VC DSO. Sanders, the only New Zealand sailor to win the Victoria Cross, successfully drove off a German U-boat on his first mission as captain, but lost his life to another U-boat a few missions later. The Sanders Cup is still competed for today and is the oldest sailing trophy still awarded in New Zealand.
The Dominion's editorial is chiefly concerned with political events in Britain, and focuses on the imminent formation of Britain's first ever Labour government, led by Ramsay McDonald, within hours of the publication of the article. The editorial takes a sceptical approach to the new administration:
As it is at present organised, the British Labour Party includes, with men of comparatively moderate views, a number of extremists whose talk and ideas are those of the Moscow International. These extremists are, as a group, actively belligerent, and habitually regard all strikes as right and all opposition to strikes as wrong. They are an integral and not by any means unimportant element of the Labour Party. Hitherto they have been at least tacitly accepted in that character by the leaders and representatives of moderate Labour, but a searching test such as the railway strike may provide is not unlikely to demonstrate that the two wings of the Labour Party are incapable of working whole-heartedly together.Elsewhere, the Dominion reported on a fine night's entertainment had the previous evening at Wirths' Circus:
The Flying Lloyds gave an exhibition of triple somersaulting, double twisting, and reverse flights, done at a height of twenty feet from the ground, the like of which has rarely before been seen in Wellington. They fully merited the thunderous applause with which their turn was greeted. Equally dangerous and calling for the utmost degree of skill, as well as application of nerve and strength, was the turn of Evans and Perez. To climb up a 80-foot pole balanced on the shoulders of a man, and from the top do hand-balancing feats is not an everyday accomplishment, and the spectators literally held their breath.
Tickets to the circus located at Cable St ranged from three to seven shillings (plus tax), with children half price.
History: Wellington Anniversary Day 1850, 22 January 2015
18 January 2024
A friend won't say it's over and go out just for spite
Thursday music corner: Tommy Boyce (1939-94) and Bobby Hart (b.1939), known collectively as Boyce and Hart, were a singing and songwriting duo best known for their many compositions recorded by the Monkees, including Last Train To Clarksville and most of the band's self-titled first album. The duo also released three studio albums under their own names from 1967 to 1969.
I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight is Boyce and Hart's most successful single released under their own names, reaching number eight in the US Billboard charts in 1968. It was the title and opening track of their second album, released in 1968. The modern video below featuring 1960s TV actors Barbara Eden and Elizabeth Montgomery is mostly not contemporaneous to the recording, although some of it is from a 1970 episode of Bewitched in which Boyce and Hart are performing a different number, I 'll Blow You A Kiss In The Wind. (Also, Elizabeth: your guitar's not plugged in...)
Boyce & Hart - I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight (1968)
14 January 2024
Wellington Criterion: NZ Cycle Classic
13 January 2024
Photos from the Basin Reserve T20 double-header
11 January 2024
Let the heavens shudder baby, I belong to you
06 January 2024
The Hollywood golden age movie studios
Movies: Dan Duryea's fetishistic on-screen forte, 29 November 2023
Movies: Louise Brooks on working with Pabst, 18 October 2023
Movies: The meticulousness of Cary Grant, 29 July 2022
05 January 2024
My top 10 films of 2023
In 2023 I watched 281 films, which is a new record for me, surpassing the 262 I watched in both 2021 and 2022. I saw 245 of those for the first time, and 28 of the total were 2023 cinematic releases. (I've vowed to see more recent releases in 2024!).
This year's crop of directors includes a trio with five films each. I saw veteran director John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, The African Queen, Beat The Devil, and The Misfits, all for the first time. The African Queen was a highlight as this year's final Film Society film of the year in the Embassy Grand. Wes Anderson put out a clutch of four shorts on Netflix this year, the best of which was perhaps the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring Poison, and we also enjoyed seeing Anderson's Asteroid City at the Film Festival. One of the cinematic highlights of the year was of course Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, which we saw at the Queensgate IMAX, and at home I also watched his three Batman films and rewatched Interstellar.
Three further directors contributed four films each to my 2023 film diary. My favourite Japanese director, Hirokazu Kore-eda gave us Monster in the Festival, which encouraged a much-deserved rewatch at home of my Blu-rays of his wonderful I Wish, Like Father Like Son, and the peerless Our Little Sister. I experienced four films by David Cronenberg for the first time, two with the same name but different plots: the experimental Crimes of the Future (1970) and the body-horror Crimes of the Future (2022), his strikingly inventive Crash plus his first directorial effort Stereo (Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic) from 1969. And Mubi's collection of James Ivory films allowed me to see Autobiography of a Princess, Quartet, Heat & Dust and Henry James' The Bostonians for the first time.
In terms of the actors I saw most of this year, Cary Grant was an effortlessly charming front-runner, with nine films on the list, with only his 1946 classic with Hitchcock and Ingrid Bergman, Notorious, being a rewatch. My favourite of the other eight was possibly the 1938 comedy Holiday with Katharine Hepburn, and I also enjoyed People Will Talk, Kiss Them For Me, Born To Be Bad, Gunga Din, Monkey Business, and The Bachelor & the Bobby-Soxer. Only 1932's Sinners in the Sun was a dud, through no fault of Archie's. In 2023 I made a concerted effort to fill in my gaps in Humphrey Bogart's filmography, knowing that the Film Society year finale of The African Queen was steaming my way. Apart from that classic, I also saw for the first time Bogart's The Caine Mutiny, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, Deadline USA and Beat the Devil. Michael Caine appears thanks to his three appearances in Nolan's Batman films, plus Nolan's Interstellar and his committed performance as Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol. I enjoyed Florence Pugh in The Wonder, Midsommar and of course Oppenheimer (although her small role was rather thankless - while I love his films, Nolan could do with improving his female characters). She was also decent in Olivia Wilde's flawed Don't Worry Darling. And I broke a habit of a lifetime and watched some Tom "world's nicest actor" Hanks films for the first time - apart from Asteroid City, I also saw Catch Me If You Can, Cast Away and Saving Private Ryan. Not sure if I've acquired sufficient tolerance to see him in Forrest Gump, though.
And here's my top 10 films of 2023 - this year they're all releases from the calendar year, as opposed to 2022 films I happened to see here in New Zealand in 2023. Contains not one but two Wim Wenders films - a prolific year for a 78-year old!
1. Perfect Days (dir. Wim Wenders, Germany/Japan, 2023)
The cinematic equivalent of a delightful warm bath, in Perfect Days veteran German director Wim Wenders melds his long-established affinity for Japanese life with expert storytelling and unimpeachable casting to illustrate the simple yet touchingly honest tale of Mr Hirayama, a distinguished man in his sixties who spends his days cleaning Tokyo's myriad public toilets. While the film is a highly effective depiction of the dignity afforded by honest labour taken seriously by its practitioners, through the poetic resonances of Hirayama's orderly existence and his daily rituals the viewers are also entwined in the quiet, simple dramas of ordinary life - the delights of long-loved songs, the pleasure of admiring a noble tree each lunchtime, the friendly welcome of regular cafe owners and angelic-voiced bar hosts, the discovery of new-found literary morsels in second-hand bookshops, chance encounters with kind strangers, and unexpected visits from relatives long unseen. Throughout, lead actor Koji Yakusho is riveting and utterly endearing as the noble Hirayama, a quiet man with a passion for doing his job well, and a Japanese everyman's gentle sense of humour. Yakusho's final scene of the film is performed so tremendously skilfully and is so genuinely moving that it's hard to watch without immediately thinking of awards nominations. Perfect Days is a film that deserves a wide audience amongst those who appreciate honest story-telling, wonderful writing (by Wenders collaborator Takuma Takasaki) and acting of the highest possible calibre.
2. Monster (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2023)
3. Oppenheimer (dir. Christopher Nolan, US/UK, 2023)
Oppenheimer is a sumptuous film achievement best experienced in its native IMAX setting, which benefits from Christopher Nolan's most restrained directorial performance in years. The 'timey-wimey' experiments of Tenet, Dunkirk and Inception are barely present here in the wholly intelligible narrative, with the added bonus of the clear delineation of one key timeline (the Strauss hearing) being in black and white to aid viewer comprehension.
As a film experience Nolan could have delivered an entirely satisfying package by simply focusing on his thrilling Los Alamos - Trinity A-bomb test sequence, which is exemplary science filmmaking. But instead he expands the film's palate much wider, delving into Oppenheimer's reputation and the post-war battles over his legacy and loyalties amidst the climate of the Red Scare witch-hunts and blacklists that plagued American democracy in the 1940s and 50s.
The versatile and gifted Cillian Murphy and, in particular, Robert Downey Jr are likely and deserved Oscar nominations for their roles, and Emily Blunt is a possible nominee too, for her supporting role as the embattled Mrs O. Florence Pugh is as excellent as ever, but isn't given as much to work with in this very male story. The much-loved Tom Conti may also be an outside chance for an acting nomination for his role as Albert Einstein.
Visually the film is a delight, with muted colour palettes echoing faded 1940s photography, and much of the success of the picture also derives from the virtuosity and visceral impact of the score by Ludwig Gƶransson, who also scored Tenet.
My only slight criticisms are of one misjudged, but fortunately brief, sex scene involving Murphy and Pugh, which was superfluous to the plot and must have been unpleasant for Pugh to shoot, and the amount of screentime devoted to both hearings (the security clearance panel and the Cabinet confirmation). Some of the time devoted to the latter could easily have been sacrificed for a slightly shorter runtime without diminishing the narrative impact. But then I suppose that would have provided less opportunity for Downey's screen-filling Oscar grab, and in a film this good one has be open-minded!
4. Anatomy of a Fall (dir. Justine Triet, France, 2023)
5. Past Lives (dir. Celine Song, S.Korea/US, 2023)
6. Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scorsese, US, 2023)
It takes a major commitment to bring such a harsh and gruelling story to the screen in such an impressive package, but Scorsese excelled himself with Killers of the Flower Moon. Leonardo DiCaprio is to be commended for playing such a thoroughly reprehensible lead character, but equally many of the plaudits should also go to sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated Lily Gladstone for her portrayal of the indefatigable Mollie Kyle. A tough watch, but one of the few modern film that thoroughly justifies its extended (206-minute) intermission-less runtime.
9. The Boy & the Heron, dir. Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 2023)
10. Fallen Leaves (dir. Aki KaurismƤki, Finland, 2023)
Another deadpan Finnish working-class romance from the acknowledged expert, Fallen Leaves offers the traditional Aki KaurismƤki pleasures - stone-faced inarticulate bruisers, wistful disappointed women, seedy bars full of morose patrons drinking to forget their failed relationships, and heartless employers ready to cast our heroes into poverty at the blink of an eye. The obstacles to romance between the doughty Ansa and alcoholic Holappa are intentionally contrived, with the main pleasures being derived from the dry wit expressed throughout, with KaurismƤki giving many supporting characters wonderfully bleak lines that cumulatively build a sense of inspired silliness, heavily battened-down by the abiding rationale of the filmmaker's worldview, in which modernism and optimism are false prophets, and the simple pleasures of awkward romance always win through. Special mention must also go to scene-stealer Alma, the stray dog who pops up near the end and moves in with the heroine, and who should be put in as many movies as possible, Finnish or not.
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See also:
Blog: My top 10 films of 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010