Everyone loves a success story, and in the New Zealand arts community, there’s no greater one than that of the Montana World of WearableArt™ Awards Show.

The idea for the now-iconic shows was conceived by Nelson sculptor Suzie Moncrieff. In 1987, she decided to exhibit art on human bodies as an innovative form of promotion for a rural art gallery, in which she was a co-op member. Combined with elements of theatre and dance, the result was a never-seen-before blend of art and fashion—and WOW® was born.

“In those early days, I suspect nobody had any idea of where WOW® was headed,” says Mike Ward, a Nelson-based former Green Party politician, whose hand-painted creation The Emperor’s Entourage won the competition’s prestigious Supreme Award in 2005.

Certainly, it would have been hard to predict the measure of success that WOW® would go on to find. Today—23 years after its humble debut—WOW® is a major event in design, fashion and costume calendars worldwide, attracting over 300 entries from across the globe each year. The annual award shows, now held here in Wellington, contribute a huge amount to the city’s economy and tourism industry; in fact, a study by McDermott Miller for the Wellington City Council estimated that the Montana World of WearableArt™ Awards Show in 2009 gave rise to just over $15 million of new spending.

“The biggest winners are retailers, who see close to $5 million of that,” says David Perks, chief executive of Positively Wellington Tourism.

“Accommodation-wise, Wellington is close to capacity throughout the WOW® awards season, and hoteliers and the like take in somewhere around $4 million as a result of the shows. The hospitality sector sees about $3.5 million through its tills.”

McDermott Miller’s research also indicated that 65 per cent of the Montana World of WearableArt™ Awards Shows’ audiences in 2009 travelled from outside the Wellington region exclusively to see the event. “So we’re looking at well over 20,000 [visitors],” Perks points out.

Clearly, then, it’s hard to argue with WOW®’s popularity. What is less straightforward is the show itself—a fact that its brand and strategy manager Donna Ching acknowledges.

“It’s true—it is hard to describe!” she says.

“One of our biggest strengths as a brand internationally is that we’re so unique, but it can also be our biggest weakness when you’re trying to describe it, as it really needs to be seen to be believed…”

This year’s World of WearableArt™ shows will be the eleventh that Ching has worked on. Her involvement with WOW® began in 2000, when Moncrieff and competition director Heather Palmer asked Ching to be a part of the show’s full-time management team.

“At this stage, the show was a three-night event with a total audience of 7,500, and we had no permanent home or base,” remembers Ching.

“The main appeal was the commitment, vision, and shared fun of working alongside two inspiring people. It was really a passion for me, and I never thought about it from a career or financial perspective.

“You can’t experience anything quite like WOW® anywhere else in the world,” Ching continues.

“I love the quote from Bob Haven, professor in Costume Technology at Kentucky University in the United States, who, after his first experience of entering WOW®, said, ‘athletes have the Olympics; actors have the Oscars; musicians have the Grammys; and designers and costume creators have WOW®’.”

Unlike those honours, however, WOW® isn’t exclusive. As the competition is open-entry (and judging is ‘blind’), a butcher, a baker, or even… well, a former politician has just as much chance of winning the Supreme Award as a professional costume designer does. However, the standard of entries is high: to be successful in the competition, a design has to have visual impact on a 40-metre arena stage, as well as demonstrate a high quality of workmanship—in other words, a work of art with the WOW® factor.

Room to grow

Thanks to the passion and perseverance of Moncrieff, Palmer, Ching and the rest of the team, WOW® soon outgrew Nelson. In 2005, WOW® management decided to move the awards shows to Wellington, as part of a four-year contract with the Wellington City Council.

“Certainly, we believe that Wellington was the natural and right step for the show to take in its journey to reach an international audience,” says Perks.

“Since their first year in Wellington they have increased their audience size by over 30 per cent.”

This decision was hotly contested by Nelsonians. Those who had supported WOW® since its infancy saw it as a uniquely Nelson experience—and moving it across the Cook Strait was perceived as a slight to the city in which it had flourished.

While Ward allows that the move to Wellington “opened up more possibilities” for WOW®, he points out that, as home to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the New Zealand Ballet and Sir Peter Jackson’s movie-making, Wellington “might be expected to produce ‘spectacular’”.

“Call me parochial,” says Ward, “but I like to think WOW® presented as an even more remarkable achievement—and a more intimate experience—against the backdrop of a modest provincial city, and that it would have continued to develop had it stayed here.

“The move was a great loss to Nelson, and in fact, came as a shock to most Nelsonians. If the city thought that there was any chance of getting it back, I believe it would [endeavour to].”

Ching maintains that WOW® had to move to Wellington if the brand was to develop both commercially and creatively, as it had “outgrown the infrastructure of a smaller city”.

“Nelson had nurtured this event—and we’re so proud of our Nelson roots—but the event had to grow for it to continue to be successful, and Wellington was the natural choice…

“The full-time WOW® team are based in Nelson—we’re a bit like a travelling circus, and move to Wellington for the three-week period of the shows,” she says.

“So the show is still effectively produced out of Nelson.”

Nelson is also recognised at the competition’s home throughout the year, due to the WearableArt™ & Classic Cars Museum, in which a selection of successful entries in the competition are displayed.

“Often, the first experiences international people have of WOW® is the Museum, and they get inspired to enter or see the show,” says Ching.

“There’s a really nice cross-promotional opportunity between Nelson and Wellington—the show promotes the Museum in Nelson, and the Museum promotes the Wellington show.”

Opening doors

Of course, WOW® is more than just a spectacle for tourists and a cash-cow for councils. Entering WOW® presents designers and creative types with the chance to challenge themselves—as well as the opportunity to make contacts in a competitive industry. In the case of 24-year-old Claire Prebble, her success in WOW® led her directly to Richard Taylor’s Weta Workshop.

Having entered WOW® 14 times, Prebble—who grew up in Golden Bay—is a comparative veteran of the competition. She gave up on conventional schooling at the age of 13 in order to pursue alternative forms of education, which allowed her more time with which to pursue her passion.

“I got involved at a really young age, and I just really, really enjoyed entering each year,” she recalls.

“I got a real buzz from seeing my costumes up on stage, and meeting all the other artists.”

She did not struggle to come up with ideas for entries.

“Sometimes I’d just have a visual idea, and I’d have to figure out a way to make it happen,” she says.

“There might’ve been some years where I’d get stuck and have to think quite a lot about what I was going to make, but that wasn’t very often… Sometimes, I’ll have ideas for costumes, and they’ll be there for years and years—it’s just a matter of when is the right time to do them.”

In 2004, aged 18, Prebble became the youngest-ever recipient of the Supreme Award for her creation Eos, which was made of sterling silver wire, copper wire, beads and silk. In order to achieve a striking stage presence, she paid particular attention to extending the design’s wings, ram’s horns, and train.

“She was a real visual thing for me, and then I came up with the concept of what she meant,” says Prebble.

“I found out that Eos was the Greek goddess of the dawn, and that worked really well, because I worked on her so many nights ‘til dawn… It all just sort of—fell together.”

Prebble used her winnings to travel for six months, in order to broaden her knowledge of international approaches to design.

“I’d been itching to travel for so many years; it was something that I really wanted to do,” she says.

“Growing up in Golden Bay, it’s only, like, 5,000 people—so I’d never even really used public transport!

“It was a huge learning curve, and probably one of the best things I’ve ever done.”

Prebble met Sir Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop through WOW®.

“I just kept in touch with him, and a couple of years later—maybe in 2006 or 2007—I was up in Wellington for the Montana World of WearableArt™ Awards Show, and I asked him if there were any projects going on,” she remembers.

“I was actually interested in being involved in Halo, but he said—well, there’s this project happening, and if you want the job, you can start tomorrow. So I flew home, and packed my bags, and came back up, and that was my 21st birthday.”

That job turned out to be designing costumes and weapons for James Cameron’s blockbuster, Avatar. Prebble worked on the movie for nearly three years, basing herself both in New Zealand and the States.

As an independent contractor, Prebble is employed to work as and when she is needed: “I keep busy with my own bits and pieces,” she says.

“Jewellery, costume work, fashion, a little bit of teaching… I get up to a real mixture of things.

“I’ve got something else on at the moment, and I’m putting all my energy into that—it’s a personal project, a costume that I’ve been thinking about for the past five years, and I’ve finally got the time to make it.”

For this reason, Prebble has not entered WOW® this year, although she has nothing but praise for the competition.

“The whole impact of the show is so spectacular and over-the-top, and it just creates such a wonderful atmosphere,” she enthuses. “It gave me such a buzz [to enter]. And it was so wonderful to meet a whole bunch of creative people who were so into it as well, and so encouraging. That would be what it’s about for me, really.”

A practical application

22-year-old Emma Whiteside graduated with a Bachelor of Industrial Design with Honours in 2009. That same year, she entered Queen Adelaide, a design made of recycled automotive radiator copper, into WOW®’s Shell Sustainability Award.

“I entered that year because it was my last year at university, and I still wanted to enter as a student,” she explains.

“I was a dancer growing up, so I quite liked the idea of relating performance to my design degree—and because I can’t sew, I wanted to push myself into doing something different.

“One of the main reasons I entered WOW® was because I wanted to do something outside uni, using my design skills in the real world.”

Working on Queen Adelaide during her Honours year was “an amazing amount of work.

“I was in my second-to-last semester of my final year at uni, and I was doing three papers: two industrial design core papers, and a fifth-year research [paper] that I was silly enough to take on—again, just because I wanted to push myself.

“So by doing WOW®, I took the risk of my grades going down,” she explains.

“But they turned out all right,” she adds, with a slight smile.

Whiteside started designing her entry with a medium in mind: scraps of automotive radiator copper, which she gathered from a factory in Auckland.

“My parents used to own the factory, so I grew up playing around with this material when I was little, and I really wanted to use it,” she says.

“I’d also used the material to make a light in my second year at university, so I knew it’d work really well with stage lights going into it.”

She used aluminium hoops as a framework for a fabric dress, which the copper parts were then sewn onto. Working with fabric was a “huge challenge” for her.

“When I started putting the dress together and it wasn’t even holding itself up—that was a big problem,” she says.

“I was going to give up then. And the next time that I thought it wasn’t going to work out was at 4 o’ clock in the morning before it was supposed to be sent, and I was still sewing copper onto the dress!”

To be eligible for the Shell Sustainability award, an entry has to be made of at least 85 per cent recycled materials. Whiteside reinforced the visual spectacle of her design with a strong and relevant concept.

“The reason I called it Queen Adelaide was because Queen Adelaide was quite a resourceful queen—she didn’t like spending public money, so at her coronation, she decided to take out all the jewels of her old crown and put them into her new one. She was sort of the ‘recycling queen’.”

Whiteside’s success in WOW® opened a number of doors for her: most notably, she was commissioned to build a giant bamboo globe for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which was then exhibited at Te Papa. At the moment, however, she is focusing on developing her newly-minted furniture and lighting design business, which she has started with a fellow design graduate.

Whiteside believes WOW®’s appeal lies in its lack of elitism: “It’s not biased, there’s no hierarchy about whether you’re a professional or not… anyone can enter. That’s the thing that captures designers to enter.

“And for the spectators… it’s the fact that it’s not just a fashion show on a catwalk. It’s more like a circus, or a whole theatre production. That’s what keeps people coming back every year.”

Image: ‘Firebird’, Susan Holmes, Auckland. Winner of the 2009 Untouched World WOW Factor Award. Photo courtesy of World of WearableArt Ltd and edited by Salient.

You’ve probably heard of Kerry Prendergast. Love her or hate her, she’s the Mayor of Wellington City. She’s the one that thought the Wellywood sign was a good idea. Yeah, her. Remember?

In a few weeks time, if you’ve been organised enough to change your details on the electoral roll, you’ll get you chance to have a say on who leads this city for the next three years. It’s democracy in action, or something like that.

Turnout for local body elections has always been significantly lower than that for general elections—and young people are even less likely than the rest of the population to bother filling out their postal ballot forms and sending them back.

While, no doubt, apathy plays a significant part in our reluctance to vote in local body elections, a general lack of awareness of the function of local councils—not to mention District Health Boards—and what they do on a day-to-day basis means that we don’t feel like we have a vested interest or reason to participate.

Then, of course, there is the perception that the council is just a bunch of old people sitting around talking schmack about rates, water, roads and other unimportant shit. But think about it: Do you put your rubbish out to be collected in those yellow rubbish bags? How about that recycling? Have you got a resident’s permit to park your car on the street outside your house? Do you frequent any of the parks around the city, the Botans perhaps? This is all ‘stuff’ the council, and we as residents of Wellington, deal with every day.

The problem is that councils don’t often appear ‘relevant’ to young people. Attempts to get youth involvement or perspective can come across as token gestures, or they’re just plain fucking cheesy. Congrats to the Hutt City Council which has had thousands of responses to their first comprehensive youth survey. One hopes that the council will take the responses on board and work on some positive, youth-friendly policies and initiatives.

There’s only one way to change attitudes—those of councilors towards young people and vice versa—and that’s to get involved, take an interest in local issues that affect you and vote. Not voting means you basically waive your right to legitimately bitch and moan about stuff.

Next week: STV—is it as bad as an STI?

Also, wanna apply to edit this smutty rag next year? Check out the ad on page 33. Applications close 22 September. Want more info? Email editor@salient.org.nz, give us a call 04 463 6766 or pop into the office.

Former Victoria University interior design student Brittany Bell appeared in Wellington’s High Court last week to challenge the plagiarism findings made against her by the university in 2008.

Bell was barred from graduating after the university found her guilty of presenting other architects’ work as her own. Bell has already appealed the decision to a university disciplinary appeal committee, who upheld the ruling.

As reported by NZPA, Bell’s lawyer Les Taylor has argued that Bell’s work did adequately attribute its source and that she could not have done anything more to identify the images.

“It would be a curious form of plagiarism that directed the examiner to the very work being copied. If there was any intention to deceive … Ms Bell went about it in an extremely unusual way.”

He says that the university committee did not understand Bell’s methods of referencing.

The university’s lawyer Bruce Corkill QC says that Bell should have known that she needed to clearly reference her sources, as these requirements were made “crystal clear” to students. He says that the referencing was too vague and indirect for a final project.

The images Bell used came from the design website Suckerpunchdaily and included the work of an award-winning Spanish architect.

Taylor has requested that the court decide whether Bell is guilty of plagiarism, rather than sending the decision back to the university.

On Tuesday, Justice Dennis Clifford said that he would consider recommending that any university decision be made by a panel comprised of different members, if he were to suggest that as an outcome.

Justice Clifford has reserved his decision. The decision had not been released when Salient went to print.

VUWSA President Max Hardy encourages students who feel they have been treated unfairly by the university to approach VUWSA, who can advocate on their behalf.

Bell, who has left university, now works at Wellington’s Weta Workshop.

I believe that all students should engage in the process of improving the University they attend. The University, I think, is more than just a service provider. Taking ownership of your University is part of making a commitment to your own education and to the generations that will go after us. I am aware of course that some students don’t want to be involved. But there are others who are working to make sure that they and those that come after them have the best experience at University possible. If you are the latter, or care to shake off your apathy cloak for a day, I have two opportunities for you this week.

STUDENT FORUM MONDAY: 2011 FEES and YOUR UNIVERSITY

The Vice-Chancellor, the Chancellor and I will be hosting a student forum on Monday at 2pm in the Memorial Theatre. We will be there to discuss and answer questions on 2011 Student Fees and your University in general.

At VUWSA’s request the Forum has been opened up to issues other than just the fees you pay. It will be a very good opportunity to hear the leaders of the University front up about these issues and ask any questions you might have. I would encourage everyone who is interested in the quality of their education and how much they have to pay for it, to come.

NEW POWER PHRASE: THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

Universities have a new power phrase they like to throw around – “the Student Experience”. On 27th of September I will be facilitating a workshop of University Council on this “Student Experience”.

My objective will be to try to give the Council a snapshot into the diversity of experiences that students have at Victoria and what defines these experiences –good and bad, remarkable and unimaginably awful.

Why? Council govern the University, and the decisions they make shape the University and our experiences of it. However, some never come in regular contact with the students of the University they govern.

As a Council, our objective is that all students have an outstanding “student experience” and that we all feel connected to and proud of our University.

No doubt, some students have some experiences that paint a rather negative picture of their time at Vic, either because of a lack of support, or institutional bureaucratic nightmares [StudyLink]. Conversely, some find their time at Victoria enriching and transformative. Sometimes because of what happens in their academic study, and sometimes because of what they do outside of the formal learning environment.

I would be interested in hearing what you think defines your experience, and how you think the University could improve it. Please get in touch (president@vuwsa.org.nz) if you have something to share.

LAST 7 WEEKS: CAMPUS EVENTS

The last seven weeks before exams are upon us. VUWSA wants all these weeks to be good weeks and we hope you will have fun and be supported to achieve exceptionally well. We have organised events every week. Our goal is to be visible and active on campus, so hopefully you will see us around.

Cheers,
Max Hardy
max.hardy@vuwsa.org.nz

The Victoria University-led team entering a solar bach in the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon has received support from groups around the world. Since being selected in April, the team has been offered assistance by a number of national and international groups.

The team, led by Vic postgraduate students Anna Farrow, Ben Jagersma, Nick Officer and Eli Nuttall, will travel to Washington D.C. in October next year to take part in the competition. This is the first time a group from the Southern Hemisphere has been selected to take part in the annual competition.

A former US Navy commissary officer has offered to house the entire team in his four-storey mansion, Canadian Fanshawe College will help with construction and American University in Washington D.C. will ensure the team feel welcome when they arrive.

In New Zealand, the group have been offered advice and support from industry experts.

“We’ve been overwhelmed by the support we have received from these extremely passionate Kiwis; we’ve learnt so much already,” Jagersma says.

During the 21-day event, held on National Mall near the White House, the group will construct and operate their solar bach, which will be put through a series of tests before a winner is announced. The New Zealand team is one of 20 groups competing, with the event expected to attract around 150,000 visitors.

The solar bach will be constructed and on display in Wellington before it is shipped to the US.

A number of New Zealand companies have also offered their products to the team, who hope to fill the bach with New Zealand-made products and appliances.

“So far a number of companies have been very supportive and the team are hoping that the entire house can be supplied by donations of products,” Farrow says.

More information can be found at www.firstlighthouse.co.nz

Kia Ora,

Campus Safety Audit

I hope you enjoyed your holiday, and are ready for the last six weeks of the year. While you were off doing that, I was meeting with the University and Baz the community constable to organize a Campus Safety Audit. I don’t know if you realized this, but Vic is up a hill. A big hill. And late at night it can be scary having to walk down the big hill. We’ve been lucky in that there haven’t been any attacks on campus in 2010, and we’d like to keep it that way. There are already Campus Angels on Kelburn, Te Aro and Pipitea from 7 – 10pm to walk you home/to a bus stop/a well lit area when you’ve been studying late at night but what about outside their hours?

Over the next six weeks, VUWSA will be carrying out a survey and identify risks on campus to see if there is anything we can do to make you feel safer. After all, you’re spending at least three years here and that is a lot of late night library sessions – especially with exams fast approaching. The coolest thing is that the University has agreed to work with VUWSA and do anything they can to help make your campus safer.

We’re not trying to scare you, and by all means don’t think that campus isn’t safe – there is security 24/7 and closed circuit cameras around to make after hours less threatening. We just think there can be more done to make your university a safe space.

VUWSA General Elections

I know, I know, we’ve just had a round of elections and we’re already amping up for some more. But these are the exciting ones. You could replace me! The constitution requires you to be a self-identifying woman, but if you are and you’re interested then you can contact me at wro@vuwsa.org.nz to find out just what it means to be Women’s Rights Officer. It’s lots of fun, and you get to organize events like picnics, fashion shows and gigs.

VUWSA Women’s Group

If you’re interested in joining the group, email vuwsa.womens.group@gmail.com to be put on the mailing list and kept in the loop about the weekly meetings. Also you can follow us on Twitter (@vuwsawomens) and check out our tumblr to stay updated on important feminist issues.

Have a great rest of the year!

Caitlin

Victoria University won the Joynt Scroll university debating competition last Monday, marking their fifth consecutive win and 46th win since the tournament began in 1902.

Two Victoria teams competed against each other in the Grand Final, with the Victoria B team successfully affirming the moot “That housewives and househusbands should be paid for their work.”

The winning team featured students Asher Emanuel, Nick Cross and Richard D’Ath. The Victoria A team, comprised of Jenna Raeburn, Udayan Mukherjee and Paul Smith, came a close second.

D’Ath was also named Best Speaker of the tournament and Smith and Emanuel received highly commended awards.

D’Ath and Mukherjee were also selected for the NZ Universities’ Prepared Debating Team, with D’Ath named as captain.

Held in Wellington this year, the debating tournament is New Zealand’s second-oldest sporting event, with Auckland, Otago, Victoria, Canterbury and Waikato universities competing annually.

This win continues a successful record for Victoria University’s debating. As reported in Salient, Victoria won the Australasian Intervarsity Debating Champs in July this year. The university has also won every New Zealand domestic debating tournament since April 2007.

VUWSA Te Aro Clinics

VUWSA has not visited the Te Aro campus as often as we would have liked. The tyranny of distance/the mountainous environment of Wellington has proved a constant frustration for many.

For the remainder of the year VUWSA will be visiting Te Aro each week to make the following (and more) services accessible from the Atrium every Wednesday 12-3PM. We’ll be launching it with a free BBQ, noodles, and music this Wednesday.

You’ll be able to get your free bus tickets if you have classes at Kelburn on the same day, food banks, information and appointments with our Student Advocate, free tax return advice, information about Campus Angels, clubs, representative groups and be able to have a chat with one of your student representatives about ideas, issues or questions you have about your campus, course or the University.

VUWSA is fortunate to have such a proactive and dedicated representative group at Te Aro. STUDiO is the group of people who act as representatives for all the students based in and around the Vivian Street. They help us train and support dozens of Class Reps and Faculty Delegates and ensure the views, concerns and issues relating to Architecture and Design students’ are communicated and acted on. They also keep things interesting outside classes, arranging regular events and parties, guest lectures, forums, barbeques and design competitions.

We hope these weekly clinics are the beginning of a stronger VUWSA presence and service at Te Aro and go a little way in making up for of lack of visits, hellos and hugs.

VUWSA Flatting Mag

Flatting can be an awesome and life changing experience when it all goes to plan. But when things go belly-up when you least expect them to, friendships can be ruined, awkward flat romances can blossom and it all just becomes a freaking nightmare, especially if you are not prepared. It can leave you stressing, getting sick, out-of pocket, homeless, or even friendless.

That is why here at VUWSA we are currently putting together a guide about everything you need to know about flatting in Wellington. From knowing the law and your rights, to warming your flat up, to knowing the ins and outs of Wellington’s suburbs, everything will be in it.

We need your help though. We want you to email wvp@vuwsa.org.nz with all your tips, tricks and stories about flatting. We’ll collect them all up and include them in the magazine.

Student Forum

Do try and make it along to the Student Forum with the Vice Chancellor and Chancellor at 2pm Monday in the Memorial Theatre. Read Max’s column for more information.

Seamus Brady
wvp@vuwsa.org.nz

Making yet another political comeback, granny charmer Winston Peters spoke to an audience of about 70 students—at least 50 years the junior of most New Zealand First supporters—at Victoria University before the mid-semester break.

Crushed into the smallest and least-glamourous meeting room in the Student Union Building, the New Zealand First leader took questions from the floor about a range of topics, as diverse as Wellington’s late trains, mining, universal student allowances and pig farming.

Peters’ appearance at Vic attracted mainstream media attention with TV3 star John Campbell and 3News political editor Duncan Garner present. 3News reported after the event that Peters is intending to stand in John Key’s seat of Helensville in the 2011 election.

Peters was berated throughout his 50-minute stand-up performance by Act on Campus President Peter McCaffrey. McCaffrey was accompanied by a large white sign that simply said “no”. The sign was reminiscent of Peters’ own “no” sign which he waved around at a press conference in 2008 in the midst of the scandal regarding political donations. Peters refused to autograph McCaffrey’s sign.

Ousted in the 2008 election, after Peters failed to win his Tauranga seat and the party failed to make the five per cent threshold necessary for representation in Parliament, Peters has been lurking in the political shadows—until now.

Peters’ visit was hosted by New Zealand First on Campus. At the meeting’s conclusion Peters encouraged those buoyed by his sentiments to consider joining the party.

All Whites players were predicted to make an impact in the overseas transfer market following New Zealand’s unprecedented success at the recent World Cup. The team’s achievements have since lead to a range of outcomes for the players concerned.

While there have not been wholesale, or particularly exceptional transfers, the most outstanding result has to be 22-year-old defender Winston Reid’s signing at EPL club West Ham. Reid was unknown in New Zealand before the World Cup, but that has all changed. His late equaliser against Slovakia in the All Whites’ opening match grabbed headlines, and made him an instant household name.

Since the World Cup, Reid has been linked to a number of top European clubs, including All White captain Ryan Nelsen’s Blackburn Rovers. However, the Hammers secured the talented youngster for three years, with a reported £4 million transfer from Danish side FC Midtjylland.

While Reid’s induction to the Premier League has been well publicised, another All White—18-year-old striker Chris Wood—is also currently plying his trade in England’s top flight. Wood’s West Bromwich Albion was promoted for this season, making him the youngest Kiwi in the competition.

The All Whites’ other World Cup goal scorer, Shane Smeltz, was another big transfer prospect. Smeltz’s prolific form in the A-League over the last few years—including successive golden boot performances—has been nothing short of phenomenal, and this made him hot property even before the successful World Cup campaign. Smeltz has since been signed in on a big money, two year deal to play in China for Super League club Shandong Luneng.

However, these players’ successes have not been without hiccups. Reid made a surprise start in West Ham’s first EPL match of the season, only to make a decidedly average performance in a losing side. He has since picked up a hip injury which has seen him miss the last couple of games, putting his (near) future aspirations in further doubt. Meanwhile, Smeltz reneged on his Chinese deal after spending just five days in the country, and returned to A-League club Gold Coast United. The striker has now signed with Turkish club Genclerbirligi, despite the risk of repercussions for breaking his Shandong contract.

Perhaps most disappointing for All White fans could be Chris Wood’s apparently uncertain future at West Brom. The club recently signed former Celtic striker Marc-Antoine Fortune, and is expected to put both Wood, and fellow striker Simon Cox, up for loan once the Championship window re-opens. However, Wood made an appearance off the bench against English and European giants Liverpool just over a week ago—surely a career highlight—and his young age makes him an almost certain star of the future.

Playing in strong leagues overseas can only strengthen the All White squad as it moves into a new era. Let’s hope Kiwi football can continue its stellar run—both home and abroad.
With a few minor tweaks, the Phoenix will certainly have the potential to grant the latter!

Rivalry between halls of residence is likely to increase in 2011, with the university’s introduction of a new contender for first choice on application forms.

The yet-to-be-named accommodation at 132 The Terrace will be a fully-catered, 241-bed hall, serving primarily domestic first-year students.

This development comes shortly after University Hall announced its decision to significantly limit accommodation for domestic students from 2011 onwards. As reported in Salient, Manager of Student Accommodation Nick Merrett said she believed students wouldn’t be disadvantaged by the changes, as there were already a large number of places in halls of residence offered to domestic students.

In a press statement released by the university, Vice-Chancellor Professor Pat Walsh indicated that there was a significant need for accommodation for domestic students.

“The demand for accommodation at Victoria has been growing significantly in recent years—students from across New Zealand and overseas want to study at Victoria. With Te Puni Village, and now this new complex, we are meeting this need for high quality accommodation.”

The building will be leased by Victoria University and is soon to be refurbished into a student accommodation complex.

Students are able to apply for the new hall online at www.victoria.ac.nz/accommodation

Such a system will have obvious implications for the policy initiative currently being implemented of managing enrolments. Tertiary education providers are going to want to accept only those students they are confident will complete. Leaving managed enrolments aside, however, there is another implication of this policy which requires some consideration.

The objectives behind this aspect of the Strategy include ensuring that “qualifications are high quality and relevant for [the requirements of the Government, students and their families]…better course and qualification completion and progression rates for students as a result of higher-quality teaching and learning”. Apart from there being no indication that performance-based funding of the teaching programme will actually involve the evaluation of the quality of teaching itself, a system of financial incentives and sanctions focused on completion and retention also risks creating a perverse incentive—encouraging providers to lower the standard of a given programme or course in order to ensure students pass, and they continue to receive funding and are not penalised for non-completion/non-retention.

The goal of raising the standard of tertiary education qualifications, and combatting the popular mindset of ‘Cs get degrees’ is a laudible one. But will the performance-based funding of teaching programmes implemented in this way achieve this goal, or might it do more harm than good? Are there other measures of performance and other elements of the teaching programme which would be more effective in assessing performance and ensure quality education?

The next Education Action Group meeting will be on Wednesday 8th September at 4:30pm in the VUWSA Meeting Room on the ground floor of the Student Union Building.

Karori gets a share of VUWSA’s love, too

In an attempt to make architecture and design students feel more included, VUWSA will offer services at Te Aro Campus for the remainder of 2010.

Every Wednesday members of the VUWSA exec will be available at Te Aro Campus to administer services including free bus tickets and the foodbank. VUWSA President Max Hardy says that separate staff may be hired to carry out this service if it is continued in 2011.

VUWSA will operate in conjunction with STUDiO, the representative group for architecture and design students, who advocate on behalf of and organise events for the students.

Hardy told Salient that VUWSA is also planning to speak with students at Karori Campus. Hardy hopes to discuss with students how VUWSA can best cater to the needs of education students.

As reported in Salient, following the recent by-election newly-elected Vice-President (Education) Bridie Hood said that she hoped to create a strong base at Karori Campus, with the goal of setting up an education student rep group.

At the time of writing, an analysis by the Sydney Morning Herald illustrated that the 150-seat Australian House of Representatives will see 72 seats held by Labor, 72 held by the Coalition, one to the Greens, and four seats to independents. The seat of Brisbane remains “too close to call”, with the latest tally of the votes marginally favouring the Liberal (Coalition) candidate, Teresa Gambaro. However, at this point, there remain 12,000 votes to count, approximately half of which are absentee and provisional ballots, which many predict will tip Brisbane towards Labor.

This is important, as it would give Labor leader, and caretaker Prime Minister Julia Gillard a significant advantage in negotiating her way back into power. Sydney Morning Herald National Editor Mark Davis explains: “The majority is 76. If Brisbane falls Labor’s way, then Julia Gillard would have 73 seats plus the new Greens MP for Melbourne, Adam Bandt (who has already indicated he will work with Labor). From this platform of 74 seats, Labor would need just two of the four independents to form government. By contrast, the Coalition would be on 72 seats and could only form government if it secured the support of all four independents.”

Despite this, Labor’s prospects are somewhat offset by the fact that polls show the majority of the three rural independent’s constituents would prefer their elected representatives supported Tony Abbott’s Coalition. A Galaxy poll revealed that only 36 per cent of the 600 voters in these electorates felt as though the trio should back Labor.

On Wednesday 25 August the three independents met with both Gillard and Abbott, outlining seven demands to help them in making their decisions in who to support to form a minority government. One of the three, Rob Oakeshott outlined that the seven demands would help them to ensure a stable government, and added, “if we can’t get that, let’s go back to the ballot box”:

• Economic advice from the Treasury and Finance secretaries, most importantly analysing the effect that election promises from both sides would have on the nation’s budget.
• Briefing from the secretaries of key departments in Government.
• Briefing from both the caretaker and shadow ministers on their plans for these departments over the next three years.
• An outline of each side’s plans to make improvements to parliamentary procedures and private members business.
• A commitment to explore “consensus options”. This would mean that more than the simple majority of 76 would be required to govern.
• A commitment from whoever the three decide to form a government with, that a full three-year term would be completed.
• A timetable for reforms on political donations, electoral advertising and donations.

There are two fundamental concessions in these seven demands. The first is related to the three-year term. In Australia, terms are not fixed, and the prime minister’s ability to decide the timing of an election is a key power. Michelle Grattan, political editor for The Age, explains that this benefits the independents in two ways. First, “it maximises their period of influence”, and second “it ensures they are not quickly held to account by their own constituents”. This is important because “by the end of three years, they would hope to be able to point to bags of benefits for their own electorates as well as to more highfalutin’ achievements”.

Both Gillard and Abbott have agreed to this first concession, promising an election will not be held before August 2013. The second key concession hasn’t been quite so easily accepted. The analysis of the costing of each sides elections promises has seen Gillard agree, however Abbott has flatly refused to concede this claiming that this amounts the “trashing of the Westminster system”.

“Our system depends on public servants being able to give free, frank and fearless advice to government,” Abbott says, “and that means the advice has got to remain confidential.” Instead, Abbott has offered the three independents an audit of the Coalition’s costing prepared by a leading firm during the election campaign.

Abbott’s failure to comply with this request has somewhat alienated him from two of three independents. Bob Katter has warned that this “makes it much more difficult for us to give [Abbott] the gong to become prime minister”. Tony Windsor has also said that “it’s not a good start at all, because when we go into this issue of stability… what we are trying to establish here is a degree of trust”.

All of this points to negotiations that are likely to be lengthy, as independents weigh up these concessions against the wishes of their constituents. Moreover, discussions will be drawn out further by the fact that these first seven demands don’t include any regional concessions, which the rural independents are sure to push for. Australia could be waiting indefinitely for a government to be formed.

Challenges and changes to New Zealand’s constitution were on the agenda at a recent conference organised by Victoria University’s Institute of Policy Studies.

Held at Victoria University’s Pipitea campus and then at Parliament, ‘Reconstituting the Constitution’ covered changes to the constitution in the last decade, such as the creation of a Supreme Court, the passage of the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 and New Zealand’s involvement in climate change.

The conference included a diverse range of speakers including several international experts. Seventeen-year-old Wellington College student Rayhan Langdana also spoke at the conference, praising the presence of young politicians and the increasing engagement with Parliament.

“I think people my age should be more involved in Parliament. The voting age could be lowered by one year and there should be youth seats in Parliament.

“Elsewhere in the world, people our age are fighting for their country and for their religion. Here, we need to be challenged and to feel our opinions are valid.”

Conference co-organiser and Victoria University legal academic Dr Petra Butler discussed the importance of Langdana’s presence and the generational passing of the Bill of Rights.

“We are very conscious of the need to pass the Bill of Rights mantle to the next generation. Rayhan’s presence at the conference sends an important message in that regard.”

The brand spanking new VUWSA van arrived over the holidays, prompting VUWSA exec members to excitedly Gmail chat Salient Editor Sarah Robson.

Robson, who was in Auckland at the time, received several Gmail chats from VUWSA President Max Hardy and and Vice-President (Welfare) Seamus Brady exclaiming about how big the van is.

The new van is white and seats 13 people. This larger capacity compared to the old van means that the VUWSA Exec can now travel as a pack.

Team Salient will be taking the van to the annual Aotearoa Student Press Association Awards, which will be held in Auckland later this month.

Salient’s fully qualified driving staff are fearful of the fact “the gear lever is up by the steering wheel”.

“What is it, a truck or something?” one Salient staffer exclaimed.

“At least the old van had some, uh, personality. This one just looks like a great big unused tampon driving along the road.”

Salient will be tying a piece of string to the tow bar for the trip north.

Clubs will be able to book the van. Salient advises that interested parties talk to VUWSA about this.

You may remember that before the break we said we were going to eliminate two people over the holidays. Well, because we’re bitches, we’ve kept our promise and two of your favourite lecturers are goneskies. Chris Eichbaum and Hilary Pearse, you’re outta here. Are all you Eichbaum and Pearse fans upset? Maybe you should have tried harder. Now there are only five left to battle it out over the coming weeks. Expect a twist. Maybe.

You know what to do. Vote either by texting 027 CUSTARD, or emailing editor@salient.org.nz. If you’re going to cheat, be smart about it. If you text us heaps, we become quite familiar with your phone number. We know you’re the same person. We’re not as stupid as we look.

We want to see more t-shirts, posters, badges and viral marketing campaigns. Call the mainstream media. Get on talkback radio. Email Kathryn Ryan while Dean is on Nine to Noon and say how awesome Salient is. We’ll love you forever. Promise.

Oh and don’t vote for Candy Badger. Or maybe, do.

Marc Wilson, Psychology
My favourite—in fact, defining—TV show is not the TV series I’ve presented (they’re a bit naff and none of you are old enough to watch TVOne anyway); it is The X-Files. If you’ve really never seen it think of Fringe but with subtlety, Gillian Anderson as the hot redhead sceptic and David Duchovny as the porn-watching crusader for the Truth. Together they investigate head transplants, alien babies, psychic killers, government cover-ups and other stuff that makes our world such an awesome place. In a time when chain-smoking was still marginally acceptable, the series’ Darth Vader was the Cigarette Smoking Man. Who killed JFK? Covered up the Roswell aliens? Rigged the 1980 Olympic US/USSR ice hockey game? Ol’smokey, that’s who. For me this isn’t just entertainment but the inspiration for my research and my teaching—join me in PSYC429 ‘Psychology of Superstition’ or PHIL215 ‘Conspiracy Theories’ anyone?

David O’Donnell, Theatre
Book: Nola Millar: A Theatrical Life by Sarah Gaitanos. Nola was a pioneer New Zealand theatre director and this book is endlessly inspiring creatively, as well as celebrating Wellington’s rich theatrical history.

Musician: Gareth Farr creates works of electrifying beauty reflecting our Pacific cultures and landscapes.

Film: Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire has angels in long black coats invisibly cruising the streets of Berlin, circus acts and Nick Cave—the perfect movie.

TV: The Office is the kind of drama I’d like to make, extracting uneasy existential laughter from foibles of real people and situations.

Peter Andreae aka Pondy, Computer Science
The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. All of Pratchett’s discworld books are wonderful; I love his insight into the way our real world works (and doesn’t). Why The Hogfather? First, the wonderful parody of a computer with an artificial intelligence, replete with obscure references to early research in AI, including some from the lab where I did my PhD. Second, it has Susan in it—seeing through the perspective of someone who is genuinely rational is always mind bending. Third, the combination of his deep skepticism combined with his warm sense of what is central to being human. Go read what Death says to Susan after she has saved the Hogfather.

Dean Knight, Law
Favourite book: Uncle’s Story by Witi Ihimaera. In the summer of 2000/01 it had me and all of my friends blubbing. A moving story blending Maoriness, gayness, sign language, masculinity—all told through a search for an uncle’s long-lost, war-time lover. Superb!

Favourite musician: Does Kathryn Ryan count? I confess my radio is usually glued to National Radio… But otherwise, Everything But the Girl. Or, for something upbeat, anything playing on GeorgeFM.

Favourite TV show: No question. West Wing. All 7 series. End of story. [FN: For the long list of favourite quotations and scenes from West Wing, see facebook status thread.]

Favourite film: I know as the law guy I should mention A Few Good Men.  A 1992 classic law movie. Stunning cross examination of Jack Nicolson by Tom Cruise:
Col Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I’m entitled to them.
Col Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Col Jessep: You can’t handle the truth!
But, being truthful myself: J’ai tué ma mère / I Killed My Mother from Toronto and New Zealand film fests. Stylish, quirky film about a young gay boy’s love-hate relationship with his mother—written, directed and starred in by a really talented Quebec kid.

Matthew Trundle, Classics
A Classicist to the end…

Book: The Iliad of Homer: the finest epic poem vividly portrays the struggle for life over inevitable death, the glory of eternal fame, and the horror of war sung in the finest poetry. The Iliad remains the foundation stone of western literary tradition.

Musician: In the absence of ancient music then classical must do. Dmitri Shostakovich produced the most sublime and romantic symphonies for orchestra, notably cello and violin sonatas, and especially famous is his Opus 97a. The Gadfly Suite.

Film: Gladiator, naturally, for persuading Hollywood of the value of productions about the ancient world; no corrupt sword and sandal homage this, but a genuine effort to reproduce the ancient Roman Empire. It may not be perfect, but it is wonderful!

TV Show: I Claudius. By far the finest adaptation of antiquity for the small screen, sans unnecessary blood and sand, sans CGI, just fine dialogue brilliantly acted. The Sopranos comes to the classical world, as indeed the classical world was there long before The Sopranos.

The humble tamagotchi has been upstaged by the Tardigotchi, a new digital pet created by researchers from Victoria University.

The Tardigotchi, developed by a team comprising Victoria University’s Doug Easterly and Tiago Rorke, and Matt Kenyon from Penn State University, took out the top prize at Brazil’s Electronic Language International Festival (FILE) in late July.

The Tardigotchi is in many ways similar to 1990s fad the tamagotchi, but with a twist—inside the Tardigotchi is a living microorganism.

“The look and feel is kind of Tamagotchi meets Harry Potter,” Easterly says.

The Tardigotchi has three main components: a portable brass sphere that can be carried around by its owner, a docking station, and software.

The owner of a Tardigotchi looks after the microorganism (called a tardigrade) and a virtual creature at the same time. The virtual component is an avatar of the tardigrade, it may react with independent behaviour, but also reacts directly to the tardigarde’s activity.

When the user feeds the virtual pet with by pressing a button, this action literally feeds the tardigrade with a syringe, and its avatar rubs its full belly.

Easterly says the Tardigotchi brings to light a number of issues.

“Tardigotchi raises interesting questions, such as whether interaction with an electronic device can lead to emotional attachment.

“It also serves as a reminder for the special place humans have in communing with other animals, perhaps equally for artificial ones.”

More information and a video of the Tardigotchi can be found at www.tardigotchi.com.

1. Best thing you did over the break?
2. What is the one piece of clothing you’d save from your burning house?
3. What do you rate as your worst fashion disaster?
4. If you were forced to wear Crocs or jeggings, which would it be?
5. What is your prediction for the next fashion trend?

Anthony, 21
Business

1. Had a mean weekend over at Mt Maunganui, got incredibly wasted with good friends.
2. Olive SGC Jeans! So good!
3. I’d have to say wide leg cargo pants, haha or the terrible Hawaiian shirt phase!
4. Jeggings, worn like thermals, heh!
5. It seems as though the 90s are back!

Zoe, 19
Industrial Design

1. Buy U2 tickets.
2. Uh, hmm, none, naked is better.
3. Not sure, I owned at the side ponytail in my day.
4. Sigh, really? Uh, jeggings—blasphemy.
5. Anything goes right? Spoons.

Courtney, 20
Marketing and International Business.

1. Head over the hill to Martinborough for a few days lazing in the sun with my friends.
2. My Daniel Hechter wool coat, which I wear over anything and everything… I don’t know how I survived Wellington weather before I bought it!
3. Hopping on the platform sneakers bandwagon during The Spice Girls craze (mine were orange with glitter and metallic panels). Thank God they caused me to break my ankle and I was forced to stop wearing them.
4. Probably jeggings (reluctantly), hidden under a very, very long t-shirt. Crocs just look like cartoon shoes to me.
5. I’m hoping it will be old school tribal patterns, like Aztec or Navajo prints.

Eve, 21
Landscape Architcture

1. Paid off my credit card… Then went to town.
2. The dress I wore to my 21st.
3. Purple cardigan in form one, I liked to accompany it with matching purple lipstick, blah!
4. Did you mean leggings? Definitely leggings, unless jeggings is a new abbreviation of jeans and leggings that I haven’t heard yet in which case probably Crocs, bad as each other really though.
5. Cat suits!

Nicole, My driver’s licence says 20
Sometimes I study law

1. Went to Fiji: got a tan, tried windsurfing and spent most of my time reading on the beach.
2. In Wellington? Definitely my ZARA blazer. It’s warm.
3. A dysfunctional lace top that I bought back when I thought I could pass as a gothette, haha!
4. Crocs—nothing is worse than cameltoe. Not even real toes.
5. I don’t know, fur trims? On everything!

Jonathon, 21
Bachelor of Design Innovation

1. Sleep.
2. Tobe 1.6’s.
3. Ugg Boots + Nissan Skylines.
4. Crocs, they are cool in Japan.
5. Hot pink Hoverboards. Ooo yeah!

Snap pants 8/10

They make you look like Sporty Spice (win) and you don’t need to take off your shoes to get them off (convenient—if you’re playing sport). They’re versatile: wear them down, roll them up, half unbutton them, leave them done up. I used to cringe when I saw girls walking around with them undone, like, right to the top, so the pants flapped around in the breeze. Wear them like this and you lose cool points.

Spice Girl shoes 5/10

I imagine countless numbers of girls rolled their ankles while wearing their sweet, sweet Spice Girls-esque platform sneakers. It was for this very reason that I was never allowed platform sneakers of my own, and resorted to borrowing my friend’s spare pair. Though the shoes increased your cool points at school, their wearing has probably led to ongoing foot problems for a generation of Spice Girls fans.

Flares 2/10

So annoying to bike in, they drag along the ground, they’re really heavy (due to excess fabric), they get wet… Can skinny jeans, like, never go out of fashion?

Patterned bike shorts 0/10

Apparently bike shorts are back in fashion. Ew. Seriously? If you look good in bike shorts, you must be a stick. They expose your wobbly bits for all the world to see. They’re not particularly flattering. If you’re going to wear them, please make sure you wear something that covers your bum. I don’t want to see that.

Turtleneck skivvies 7/10

They keep your neck warm and they come in every colour imaginable. The perfect accessory to any outfit. And one Salient arts editor really likes how Ryan Phillippe wears them in Cruel Intentions.

Polar fleeces 10/10

They’re so warm. They’re so snug. They come in all shapes and sizes. I want one with dinosaurs on it. And a pocket on the front. Please?

“Slut wings” 0/10

I’d never heard the term “slut wings” until just the other day. Apparently it’s a South Island thing. “Slut wings” refer to the two skinny dangly bits of hair that used to frame girls’ faces while their hair was either tied up in a ponytail or in a messy bun. They look even worse when they are slathered with too much gel. Rats’ tails were the male equivalent.

Cargos 9/10

Back when cargos were cool, you didn’t need to take a bag anywhere—you could put everything in your pockets. So convenient. Your lunch, a CD, your Pokemon cards, your Hubba Bubba, you name it, you could fit it in the pockets of your cargo pants. So. Awesome.

Salient fashion tip!
Don’t throw anything out of your wardrobe… ever. It might come back in fashion again.

Australian Liberal National Party member Wyatt Roy, at the ripe old age of 20 years, has been elected as the youngest member of Parliament in the federal election held on 21 August.

Roy, who is still completing his degree at Queensland University, won the right to represent the electorate of Longman in northern Brisbane in Australia’s House of Representatives.

An election eve gaffe by Labor candidate Jon Sullivan, who criticised the parenting skills of a father with a disabled child, was one of the contributing factors to Roy’s success.

His election promises, which focused on funding for local health and transport issues, also made Roy popular with voters.

Roy is committed to the development of sustainable long-term planning and is also a member of the party’s Disability Policy Committee.

Former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello said that Roy was on track to become the leader of the party by 2035.

Snacks can be tricky. We all know we shouldn’t be stocking up on chippies and chocolate cookies, yet when we’re hungry and lunch is several hours away, few things seem more appealing than a Triple Chocolate Cookie Time. This week I’ve listed a whole lot of ideas to keep your lunchbox full and healthy:

• Fruit or vegetables: Fresh, sliced, dried, anything goes. Even frozen—try freezing grapes or a banana for something different.
• If you’re not a fan of “greens”, add something to make them more appetising, such as cheese, or make something like ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and raisins, it’s an American thing). One of my lecturers loves apples with peanut butter.
• Fruit kebabs are more interesting than “plain” fruit.
• If a salad isn’t filling enough for a “proper” meal, have one for a snack.
• Jelly! Your inner-child will rejoice. Add chopped fruit to jelly and leave to cool overnight.
• Add dips like hummus, cream cheese or salsa to veggies like celery or carrots.
• Add dip to crackers. There are endless options for crackers (I love tuna, avocado and pepper). Mix up different crackers, cheeses and relishes. For something different, try rice crackers or cruskits.
• Rice wafers are another option. Plain rice wafers are really nice with honey.
• Pretzels and plain popcorn are both great too.
• Fruit yoghurt (stay away from the “artificial” flavours like chocolate and caramel). Kill two birds with one stone and add fruit to yoghurt like sliced banana, berries, or almonds. Yes, almonds. Sliced almonds with yoghurt is one delicious flavour marriage.
• Make your own muffins—healthy flavours like blueberry or bran instead of chocolate chip.
• Try something different with toast. Maybe sliced tomato sprinkled with salt or grated cheese, or banana with jam.
• Make pikelets the night before, and have plain or with jam the next day.
• A plain boiled egg is a good source of protein.
• A few pieces of sushi are nicely filling. If you make sushi for dinner make extra for the next day.
• Make a smoothie and carry it around in a thermos (they’re not just for coffee you know).
• Make your own muesli bars—they’re healthier and often tastier.
• If you need something sweet, go for dark chocolate, or chocolate-coated raisins or peanuts. If you need fizzy, opt for the diet or “zero” options.
• Leftovers often make good snacks—raid your fridge.

One of the main battles when it comes to food is keeping up variety, so don’t be afraid to try something new. Find out whether your friends or flatmates have any “unusual” food loves (ham and peanut butter? Cheese and fried onion? Honey and marmite sandwich?) and give it a try. You never know, you might find your new favourite food.

Students do their bit for Pakistan

The forces behind “Kate’s Party” are now backing a good cause, encouraging students to donate money to the flood victims of Pakistan.

University of Canterbury student Josh Smith has created a Facebook event as a way to encourage students to donate a small amount of their student loan or allowance money to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as part of the appeal for Pakistan.

The page appeals to university students from around the country to give some of the cash they get “from Mr Key and his mates” to help the people of Pakistan.

The power of social networking appears to be effective. Currently 5522 people have been invited to join the group, with 397 saying they will donate.

A running tally on donations on the wall of the group shows that approximately $775 has been donated.

Smith says he has three reasons for starting the event. He says he sees it as a solution to three problems: the amount of time students waste on Facebook; the amount of money students squander on alcohol; and the need for aid in Pakistan.

“I’m stoked because it’s ended up as a way to use something that is quite often a time-sucker (Facebook) as a way for students to do something which people might give us some credit for (because I don’t think we do enough of that!),” he says.

Just over a month ago Pakistan was hit by the heaviest monsoon season on record, causing widespread and destructive flooding. At least 1,643 people have died and at least six million people have been left homeless. These figures are likely to increase as more bodies are found and diseases such as cholera threaten.

Shocked by the scale of the flooding, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has urged foreign donors to increase the aid effort.

Students interested in contributing to this cause can find information on the Facebook page “Donate $10 of your Student Loan/Allowance to Pakistan!”

Before you reach for the anti-ageing cream or spend more money on more moisturisers to sit next to all of your other moisturisers, before you slather yourself in soap every day, before you see bags under your eyes and crows feet beside them, and cry because you’re 21—have a think about all of the trash you put onto your skin.

Most people who care about their skin have probably heard all this before, so I’ll do the usual stuff quickly. Bad for your skin: caffeine, alcohol, late nights/no sleep, dehydration, stress, bad diet, lack of B vitamins, no sunscreen (even on a cloudy day), not taking off makeup at night. Basically anything remotely bad for your body will show up first on your skin—it’s the largest organ in the body and you can’t really expect any less. Good for your skin: lots of fluids, sunscreen, moisturiser, eight hours sleep, meditation/relaxation, good diet.

Firstly, moisturiser is great daily if you get one matched to your needs, and your skin! Some have nasty ingredients which, as they soak into your skin, may do more harm than good. Be logical—it needs to soak into your skin, not sit on top of it—using more than you need is a common skin sin. Perfumes, glitter, and other trash often have ingredients which dry out you skin—your skin isn’t only absorbing the moisturiser bits, it’s absorbing all of it. Using stuff recommended for pregnancy (or most LUSH cosmetics) is great because they’ve thought hard about every single ingredient.

Soap is not necessary every day! Suds and lather do not represent cleanliness—they are extra ingredients. Use what you need to get clean, and no more. If you can bear it, only use soap once every few days. There are some great products out there that are not technically soap, or have a lower soap content, for example body milk, which cleans you but doesn’t strip your skin as badly. This goes for facial cleansers too. Your body likes having a bit of dead skin and fluff on it as it protects the tender new skin, so avoid anything with much exfoliator in it, or don’t use an exfoliant cleanser every day. Most importantly, after cleansing, use toner and moisturiser. Toner will neutralise any leftover soap, so your skin’s PH is back to normal. If you don’t use toner, your body will freak out and produce oil to compensate. Moisturiser puts back into your skin what needed to be there in the first place, as well as compensating for the drying cleanser.

Whatever you do to your face, do to your neck. This includes washing, toning, moisturising, use facial products there, not body ones, and do it every time. This avoids creepy old person neck waddle. Pay attention to the back of your neck as much as the front here. We’ve all had to sit behind creepy oily pimply neck-backs before.

If you must pop your pimples, use a needle and gently push the grossness out. Popping them with fingers and nails does much more damage to the skin and you’ll get a huge amount of redness.

Under your eyes is a good representation of your immediate wellbeing, so to perk up your eyes immediately, shotgun a glass of water. Seriously. Also, that skin is among the most delicate in your body, so be careful what you stick on it, like cheap makeup, and you shouldn’t use exfoliant anywhere near your eyes!

The Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) intends to put its ongoing membership of the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA) in the hands of its members.

In 2010 OUSA paid $86,169 in membership fees to NZUSA. The fees go towards national representation of students, advocacy of tertiary education issues and lobbying in Parliament. In the revised 2011 OUSA Budget, the NZUSA budget line has been increased to $90,939.

In the first draft of next year’s budget, the NZUSA budget line had been reduced to $0, clearly indicating OUSA’s intentions towards NZUSA. However, at the budget-setting meeting, OUSA voted to increase the line 5.5 percent in 2011 to allow for inflation, and an increase in OUSA members. It was also decided that the question of OUSA’s membership of NZUSA would be put to a student referendum.

The OUSA exec was evenly split on the issue. Humanities Rep Walker MacMurdo advocated putting the decision to the students.

Last year’s Finance and Services Officer Mike Bridges, who was sitting in on the meeting, asserted that this was a massive and complex decision which the exec was best informed to make.

It was decided that the exec should inform the students about the issue, and ask them to weigh in.

OUSA President Harriet Geoghegan could not comment on the decision, stating that she was not present at the meeting. It is unclear when the referendum will be held.

The University of Canterbury Students’ Association (UCSA) has pulled out of NZUSA on the grounds of “contractual breaches”. NZUSA accepted UCSA’s decision as valid.

No one on the OUSA exec has gone on the record to give Critic a clear indication as to why it should no longer be a part of NZUSA. There is a feeling that for the same amount of money OUSA could more effectively lobby the government itself.

NZUSA currently requires 12 months’ notice prior to universities withdrawing their membership.

OUSA is attempting to change the constitution to require only three months notice. OUSA is confident that the notice period would not change their budget, as NZUSA tends not to follow up payments during the year’s notice.

It was something of an occasion last weekend when I bought a $20 ticket and headed out in the evening fog to attend a different type of gig from those of my not-so-fevered youth. Set at the Newtown Community Centre, the seats were filled with a variety of ages. I guessed at people’s backgrounds: grey-haired radicals, colourfully-clad anarchists and long-time ardent unionists. The draw card of the night was David Rovics, a US-based musician who writes political folk songs about subjects as diverse as the occupation of Palestine and the reasons why Somali pirates are awesome.

Rovic’s music was alternatively hilarious and heart-wrenching, and ended up giving me more chills than three years of living in a Dunedin flat put together. His songs brought about an almost uncontrollable urge to chain myself to something (erm, in a political way, of course). I wondered: what is it about a well-written song that can tear you up? It’s one thing to read, research and superficially understand an issue, and another to be suddenly overwhelmed with sadness by means of a simple melodic and lyrical progression.
In the realm of climate change psychology, studies continually find that providing information alone results in no real behaviour change. We don’t respond well to plain facts alone, but what about emotions?

Call me an idealist, but I figure that if we could better understand the struggles of others we’d dig so deep in our pockets for Pakistan that we’d hit a coal seam. If we could begin to feel the effects of military occupations far across the globe we’d be protesting outside embassies daily, weekly, forever. The problem is that it’s incredibly difficult to imagine another human’s pain, particularly when they’re unknown and distant. Let’s not even try to talk about other forms of life: how do you empathise with a carnivourous snail? What about an ecosystem?

Although communicating intangible feelings using analytical descriptions can obviously be pretty problematic, for most people emotions can be translated through music, visual art, and fiction. That’s why protest songs are so important: because they can easily make emotional connections that encourage peeps to take action. Unsurprisingly, in many different cultures you can find a massive back-catalogue of songs calling for social change. Protest music gives commonality to artists diverse as Bikini Kill, Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie.

Try as I might, I can’t seem to find any climate change-related protest music. I fear this is a niche that must be filled. If you’d like to join my hip-hop collective, please contact me ASAP.

The government is investigating the possibility of using debt collectors to tackle overseas student loan debt as part of a review of how student loans are administered.

In recent months Revenue Minister Peter Dunne has taken a rigorous approach in cracking down on student debt, with much of the attention focused on overseas debtors.
“The problem is with people who go overseas.”

Dunne says that many students evade repayments because they know that the government cannot track them while they are overseas. The majority of students living in New Zealand with student loans do not default on compulsory payments.

Before considering using debt collectors, the government had unsuccessfully approached other countries to discuss reciprocal recovery arrangements.

“To our great surprise the response we received… was ‘we don’t bother chasing our offshore debtors, why should we chase yours?’”

Labour Tertiary Education spokesperson Grant Robertson says he is concerned about the costs of introducing debt collectors.

“Ensuring that borrowers pay back their loans is important. However, using private contractors, especially debt collection agencies overseas raises the prospect of increased charges.”

This development is the latest in a raft of changes aimed at lowering overseas student loan debt. In August, Dunne said that the government will reduce repayment penalties for students living overseas as a way of encouraging these students to return to New Zealand.

The government is also planning to have online access to consolidated account information for students in April 2012, making it easier for all students to repay their loans.

Relax. I’ll just cut a bit here and … Oh shit.

Birthdays seem to go hand in hand with relatives trotting out photographs of your younger self you wish did not exist. Forced to relive those mortifying moments when your parents were still the dictators of your wardrobe, you notice an unsightly trend as each image flips before you.

Who the fuck has been cutting your hair?

I have never got on with my hair and its constant mockery of my life began as a baby, when I would lie on my back and roll around the floor in an attempt to be athletic. This act was to have a severe impact on my dignity because, on the joyous day of Baby’s First Hair Cut, the hairdresser was met with an unsightly bald patch on the back of my bulbous noggin. Funnily enough, I have only ever seen this phenomena one other time—a local stray cat rubbing his ass on concrete. Said cat was bald in three days.

It seems hair only exists to scorn us. At age six, I retaliated to its misgivings by strategically placing a wad of gum in the curls behind my left ear as we drove around one Saturday afternoon. Sticking it to the man, as it would seem. My feeling of sheer triumph was short-lived, replaced with trepidation once it became clear that no, the gum was not going to cooperate. And, as my mum went to the kitchen drawer to retrieve a pair of scissors, it dawned on me that my hair had won. Again.

After that unfortunate incident, I spent three months growing out a kinky scrap of hair that stuck out in all directions. On purpose, I’m sure. So at age 12, I took drastic measures and opted for the pixie cut. After a month, once the novelty of mohawks and liberty spikes wore off, I was left with a curly mop of hair that refused to cooperate. Too lazy to blow dry or brush it, I spent my early adolescence looking like a hobbit. Clearly I had forgotten how much this irritated me because I cut it all off again at the arrogant age of 17. As I restyled it back into a mohawk, a skill that comes in handy, I jokingly thought I would make an excellent Harry Potter.

To date, I have dressed as Harry Potter three times.

It was clear something needed to be done about Hair before it turned me into a walking shrine to J.K Rowling. I made a vow to grow it out, wash it, tend to it, and whisper sweet nothings between brushings in the hopes it would stop being such a raging bitch and sit right for once. It’s a battle, I’ll admit, growing out hair. Hair’s latest trick is getting caught in car doors but looking back on the recent photo albums, I’m glad A-Typical Nineties Hair has been laid to rest.

But whatever you do, don’t mention The Bob. I’m yet to forgive my four-year-old self for wanting that one.

Student evaluation forms actually count for something

Students will be able to access summaries of course feedback online, after a new Student Feedback on Teaching and Courses policy was approved by the Victoria University Academic Board.

The policy provides that annual summaries of responses to the core feedback questions for all courses evaluated will be available to staff and students through the university portal.

Also included will be appropriate general commentary on the interpretation of the feedback. A summary for a particular course will be replaced when a new evaluation for that course has been carried out.

VUWSA will also receive summary reports which will outline the overall teaching and course feedback by school and by Faculty, as well as for the whole university.

“VUWSA supported the development of the policy,” VUWSA President Max Hardy says.

“It will ensure better information is available to students and encourage better teaching practices. Placing an emphasis on quality academic learning and teaching is one of VUWSA’s most important goals,” he says.

“With the strategic direction of the University research-oriented, it is great to see measures focused on quality teaching being put in place.”

The VUWSA Alternative Student Guide is also out for students to peruse. Pick up a copy online.

Welcome back. Hope you’ve recovered enough from whatever state of unreality or active denial you were living in for the past two weeks to focus on the next few hundred words or so. An exec meeting occurs (on average) every fortnight, so what follows this week is the summation of two distinct meetings which I’ve stitched together based on related issues. Sit tight.

The meeting on Wednesday 18 August was mercifully short, clocking in at just under half an hour. It’s worth pointing out that this is slightly shorter than the report Max Hardy gave at the previous meeting detailing his past six months of work alone.

It was also notable for being the first meeting held since the 2010 VUWSA by-election. Despite this, as of the meeting on 1 September, Paul Zhong still hasn’t showed in his capacity as newly-elected International Officer. Three consecutive absences without apology will result in an “assumption of resignation”. Oh dear.

That being said, both Richard Carr and Tom Reed (Administration Vice-President and Queer Officer respectively) managed to make it to their first meeting; Richard even submitting a work report without needing to. Work reports as a whole were pretty good. Most managed to submit them the next meeting, except for James Sleep and Masha Kupriyenko, who gave verbal reports. James’ written report was still on his work computer, which is a fair excuse considering he works in North Korea where email access is a privilege reserved for only Inner Party members.

A proposal for a review of VUWSA Representation was discussed during the 18 August meeting, and put forward on 1 September. The review panel will consist of three or four VUWSA exec members, appointed by the executive, and up to six other members appointed by the exec on recommendation of the panel. These further six members can be representatives from Rep Groups, VUWSA staff, clubs, VUWSA Trust, or external to VUWSA entirely. The panel is intended to recommend ways of “enhancing communication amongst all student representatives and representative groups”, and improve voter turn-out and meeting procedures. This has far-reaching consequences for the future of the organisation, especially with the threat of VSM which will no doubt be considered by the panel.

The 1 September meeting appointed an election committee of Nick Kelly, Robert Whitaker, and Fleur Fitzsimons. Dates for the election were proposed between Thursday 30 September through until Thursday 7 October. Nominations will be opening on Thursday 9 September.

Zach Dorner (Environmental Officer) pointed out that publicity for previous elections has been less than spectacular. Hardy and Caitlin Dunham (Women’s Rights Officer) suggested that members of the executive speak to lectures to encourage students to vote and be nominated. It was also recommended that the Returning Officer play a more active role in the promotion of the elections.

Central to the last two meetings was discussion of the temporary move of the VUWSA offices to an interim location, and the forest of boners that cropped up during it. The intention was to relocate to the IT suite on the ground floor of the Student Union building for the duration of the office upgrade. Unfortunately, despite the Association Manager’s insistence to the contrary, the computers still haven’t been connected to the VUWSA internal network, preventing any sort of meaningful communication. Whoops.

Education Officer Sleep tabled two motions regarding proposed changes to employment law. Sleep, who was a speaker at a public demonstration against the changes earlier in the month, moved that no future VUWSA employee be subject to a 90 day “trial period”. Under the proposed law change, the ability to fire staff within 90 days of their employment would be extended to all businesses. Current legislation constrains this ability to businesses of 19 or fewer employees.

This movement was passed unanimously. The issue arose with Sleep’s second motion, that VUWSA make a submission on the bill that the government has put forward, outlining the benefits of “fair and decent” employment practices. Sleep’s argument was that the proposed law changes go against VUWSA’s employment standards and role as an advocate for students, especially considering their role as future workers. The counterpoint (presented by most other members of the executive) was that VUWSA is seen in the public arena as predominantly a service provider for students, NOT an employer. On that basis, the consensus was that it was inappropriate to make a submission on behalf of VUWSA without consultation of the student body. The motion lapsed, and Sleep finally stopped talking over the top of Hardy.

Will VUWSA make a submission on the greatest change to employment law since the union-crushing laws of 1991? Will they move into their new office before construction workers tear the walls down around them? Will James finally submit a written work report? Will I slam my balls in my desk drawer until a blood clot forms which moves to my brain rather than sit through another four hours of meetings for you guys?

You’ll have to tune back in to Eye On Exec to find out.

Candy Badger is Salient’s resident advice guru. If you need any help with relationships, flatting, university or anything else, drop her a line at candy.b.badger@gmail.com.

Hey Candy,
I am an international student from America (fuck yeah!) and I have been trying to figure out exactly what I should scream whilst bungee jumping (to commemorate me wetting myself). This will be filmed and serve as an endless example of my cowardice. Whenever I really think about it, all I come up with is, “My Dick!”

Help would be appreciated,
Freefall Freddie.

Dear Freddie,

Gosh, I hope you didn’t already bungee during the university break. I told the editor we should rush out an issue to get your advice to you, but she was toooo busy sunning herself on her tropical holiday (in Feilding).

You know what’s even better than pissing your pants? Pissing on other people. Therefore I double dare you not to wear pants when you bungee.

Given that you are American, it’s a great opportunity to yell something about how much you love your country! I’m thinking along the lines of ‘take that, Taliban scum!’.

Then instead of Freefall Freddie, you’ll be the Patriotic Pisser.
Love,
Candy

Hey Candy,

yours
Not a very funky monkey..

Dear you,

I know how you feel. I just farted and it smells really bad. Funky, you might say.

Short of a mass murder, you could go find some new friends. There’s heaps of people out there looking for a new friend. You could add me on Facebook, then go through my friends list and pick yourself a few keepers (I don’t know who any of them are so you can have whoever you want!).

I’m a big believer in karma, so if you behave yourself and eat all your vegetables, do your homework and go to sleep early, you’ll win the Lotto and then everyone will want to be your friend!

And if that fails, you could get revenge on all those dicks by putting buckets on top of doors, concrete in their flippers, a grizzly bear in their wardrobe etc.

SMOOOOOCH!
Candy

Designer, publisher, consultant, and more recently, mayoral candidate Jack Yan is, not surprisingly, an extremely busy man. Born in Hong Kong in 1972, if Yan is successful in his bid to be the next mayor of Wellington, he will be one of the city’s youngest at just 38.

Immigrating to New Zealand with his parents, Yan was schooled in Wellington before attending Victoria University where he graduated with both a Bachelor of Law and a Masters of Commerce.

In 1987, Yan started his first company designing typefaces and turning them into digital fonts, filling a niche in which no other New Zealand entrepreneurs were operating at that point. He now runs three companies simultaneously; Jack Yan & Associates is a global media and communications consultancy firm; The Medinge Group is a Sweden based think tank concerned with issues surrounding branding; Lucire, Yan’s third company, is both a web-based and more recently, in-print fashion magazine.

As a mayoral candidate, Jack Yan has campaigned on a number of platforms. Most significantly, he aims to see free wifi available in the city, while focusing on creating jobs through a technology platform. Long the environmentalist, as seen through his work with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Yan promises a comprehensive environmental programme for Wellington. And, perhaps most importantly, Yan, who co-wrote a book concerning transparency in branding, assures that a council under his leadership will be significantly more transparent in its proceedings.

In this interview with Salient, Yan spoke about just one aspect of his life. Offering reflections on both his introduction to the fashion industry, and his subsequent work within the industry, Yan also offers a vision that would see fashion at the forefront in presenting Wellington to the world.

Without further ado, Mr Jack Yan…

…on his introduction to fashion.

“Strangely enough, it had actually nothing to do with fashion to begin with. In 1987, I started my own business and that was in the graphic design world. I got involved very quickly with the typesetters around town because I really love typefaces. I had the ambition to become a typeface designer, and as it turned out, I did become the first typeface designer to work on a desktop in New Zealand, to do it digitally. So, when you have that love of type at an early age you’re very aware of what is good typography, what is bad typography, how much more it costs to get good typography, and good typesetting done.

“I can’t remember what project it was at high school, but I remember picking up a copy of Studio Collections, which was an Australian fashion magazine in 1989. The typesetting in that was absolutely beautiful. You could just tell that money was lavished on this product. It was much better than Vogue et cetera. Because I was involved in the publishing world, even then—doing my own layouts and stuff, literally cut and paste; physically, scalpel and glue—I thought, what is the most glamorous way to present information? The answer is fashion.

“The fashion magazine has an aesthetic of its own, but there was no reason that aesthetic could not be shared with lesser publications, and by lesser I mean things like school magazines. I was involved with publishing school magazines to some degree back then, in the late 80s and early 90s. If you have ever looked through your old school’s magazines, they are really boring—title, columns, text and a black and white photo of the First XV. Every page was the same. I thought, there is no reason, not even cost-wise, that that aesthetic couldn’t be shifted over to the school magazine, so I started designing school magazines along those lines. It was just understanding that form of presentation.
“It was inspiration by the fashion magazine’s art direction, and that is really the reason I got into. So, it wasn’t so much a love of fashion, although I grew to love it from talking to other people in the industry and understanding that their method of creativity is quite similar to mine. Creative people do seem to have that sort of kinship, in that we do take risks and we don’t base things on some cold calculated formula. There is something inside us that drives us. We look at what the next trend is going to be, we look at the behaviour of people, and we try to translate that into something tangible. So, I shared that with a lot of fashion designers, and that is why I love, not so much fashion, but I love the creativity that goes into fashion.

“I looked at ways of pushing the aesthetics because I still to this day believe that a fashion magazine is one of the most startling, beautiful ways to present photographs and text.”

…on founding Lucire magazine.

“In the 90s, the interest thing was the world web. So, the same question arises. Web pages in 1993 were boring. It was headline, type, headline, type—you couldn’t even do columns with the initial html 1.0 specs, so again, I tried to find ways to extend what was possible with coding, to turn something into what looked like a fashion magazine. Lucire in 1997 was really an exercise in that…

“I really used fashion as a means, and as a medium to really communicate socially responsible issues. Fashion was a means to an end. It was a way to show off great art direction, and great design. I think really my passion still lies more in design more generally as a discipline, with its graphics, animations and fashion, rather than just specifically fashion. It’s a world that I really love.”

…on Lucire and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“It’s a long story. It was about 1997 that I met this guy Chris Macrae whose dad was Norman Macrae, the deputy chief editor of The Economist. In 2001, DNA, a local Wellington firm, created a site called allaboutbranding.com, which is still going. They wanted the first set of articles to be of such a high calibre that we would set the stage for everything that followed. Chris was appointed the editor, and I was appointed one of the first contributors. The site got off the ground and was very successful.

“In 2002, I was just walking about, and went to a travel agency, just out of total inspiration, and said how much is a ticket to Stockholm. I didn’t really think about, I just loved Swedish design. There was no rhyme or reason for me to go, but I just enquired about it, got the price, and went back home. About four hours later, Chris sends me an email which says ‘how would you like to come to Sweden? We’ve got this conference on there—the chief brand offices meeting. It’s in Medinge in Sweden, come along’. How many times have you enquired about going to a place just before you get asked to go? So, I took that as I sign that I was meant to go to this. I went, and that meeting really became what is now known as The Medinge Group.

“The big topic then, right after 9/11 and the Enron collapse, was social responsibility. The feeling was Naomi Klein has attacked us, Enron has collapsed, and people think branding is defunct and irrelevant to society. Well actually, it’s not. It’s just that if it is being used for evil it is bad, if it is being used for good, it’s good. We decided to write this book called ‘Beyond Branding’, and use good for good. We came up with this thing called the ‘Brand Manifesto’, which the CEO of Medinge now calls the ‘Constitution of Medinge’. It was writing this that gave me this reputation for corporate social responsibility (CSR).

“One of the people I met as a result of having gone to Medinge, was a guy called Will Rogowski, who then worked at the UNEP. I recognised that the organisation was never going to get the word out preaching to the converted. The only way to get the word out was by aligning it with a medium that was considered ‘cool’, and we could make the environment ‘cool’. I remind you this is 2002. The deal went through the UN machinery by 2003 and then we announced it. We started promoting eco-fashion, but also showed that eco-fashion didn’t mean wearing khaki tones, and hemp, but is as good, and as fashionable, and as meritorious, and as deserving as mainstream fashion, and that has always been our bag.

“Lucire really was started to show that niche fashion is as good as mainstream fashion. You could go to somewhere like Frutti, and the design integrity of those garments was as good as what was at the top of New Zealand fashion at that time—Zambesi, Karen Walker, Trelise Cooper. They deserved coverage. Late 90s fashion media was very focused on those top labels—it was very Auckland-centric. I like to think I helped change that in my own little way. Anyway, we coordinated that promotion with the environment…

“With UNEP we had eco-fashion, but we wanted to start looking at other causes. We thought let’s look at fair trade, let’s look at other things that we can promote using the UNEP banner, and they fully got on board. It generally was brought up by social conscience, but if you look through my career it has always been about game changing. With fashion on the web, I recognised you could have an international fashion magazine coming out of New Zealand. With Lucire we’ve launched here, we’ve launched in Romania and we’ve launched in Thailand. We’ve got one more country coming up which I can announce in the next few weeks.

“Again, it is showing we can do this, you don’t have to be a French company like Elle, you don’t have to be a US company like Vogue. You can do this from New Zealand and show Wellington to the world. And it’s the same with the environment.”

…on the importance of fashion to Wellington.

“Fashion is something that is very tangible, so if you are talking about creativity, it is a very tangible sign of Wellington’s creativity. There is no reason why we can’t market Wellington to the world using our designers. Say to the world: This is what we are capable of. We are leaders in this country for creativity.

“We have had a very successful run, promoting ourselves as a tourism destination, and an event capital—not thanks to the incumbent mayor, but thanks to the incumbent’s predecessor, Mr Blumsky. It is entirely conceivable that, now that we are in a creative age rather than a leisure age, we use fashion as the poster-child for Wellington’s creativity. Sure, we can use Weta. I’d love to use Weta as well, but I think it takes Weta and the geek community, equally used with fashion, to send a picture out to the world to say: Wellington is actually a centre of creativity on this planet. I don’t think that is an arrogant thing to say, and I actually believe that we are well equipped to promote ourselves as all of those things. All we need is a creative leader who gets this industry.

“Think of Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is known for geeks, it doesn’t have the other things that make Wellington great. It doesn’t have special effects, that is in the North Bay Area. We’re talking an hour to two-hour drive north. We are the only city in the world that has all three of these things in the one space—special effects, tech and fashion. You go to Paris, they’ve just got the fashion. You go to Milan, same thing there. There is nothing else that stands out in terms of their creative realm, so there is a lot of backing in saying this is the most creative city in the world.

“We need to capitalise on that and use fashion as a gateway. Not everyone is going to be impressed by geeks. I know that. Despite the great work they do, they are always going to appeal to the Technorati. Fashion is a lot more mainstream. It is a lot broader, certainly for females—it is a much bigger area for them to sink their teeth into. So let’s use that as a means for promoting Wellington.”

MySpace Loses Face to Facebook

Social networking site MySpace seems to be having trouble accepting that Facebook has well and truly usurped its role.

Following a recent revamp to make the site look more like Facebook, MySpace also now allows users to connect their accounts, so they can check and update their MySpace and share content without leaving Facebook.

MySpace has recently faced significant losses in advertising, users and face, following its once overwhelming popularity, circa 2005.

Let that dream die, MySpace, just let it die.

Bebo was last seen crying in a dark corner of cyberspace.

Foursquare takes on STIs

“Check-in” for Chlamydia!

Foursquare and MTV have recently joined forces to encourage people to get tested for sexually transmitted infections.

Users of the phone application Foursquare, which allows users to ‘check in’ to locations they visit, can now notify their friends when they get an STI check. This development is part of MTV’s ‘GYT: Get Yourself Tested’ campaign, which features competitions and celebrity endorsement.

Once tested, users will be presented with a GYT badge they can show off to their friends via the application.

That’s cooler than an STI.

Hate on a Plate

Upper Hutt resident Lisa Marie Thompson was recently accused of being a white supremacist because of her car’s numberplate.

The controversial plate, which reads ‘ARYAN1’, was the source of a complaint to the New Zealand Transport Association (NZTA). The complainant said they were extremely offended by the plate and its apparent reference to Hitler’s racist Nazi regime.

“This is really offensive, for pretty obvious reasons. How can somebody even have a plate like this approved? I am baffled.”

The complaint has confused Thompson, who bought the personalised plate four years ago as a reference to her former boyfriend, Andrew Ryan.

“Why did I do it? Because it’s the name of my ex-boyfriend.”

NZTA have refused to withdraw the plate as they say this would breach Thompson’s rights.

“On its own it is simply a name and I believe it would require some other words, actions or gestures to be inciting.”

Plates that have been withdrawn by the agency in the past include DRGDLR, JAPSUX, MDAFKR, OLDKNT, SIKCNT, TAMPON and TBAGGD.

Her

It was a last minute rush to get ready for my blind date, so I went for the casual wear-what-you-did-to-uni and heels look. My sister gave me a ride to the bar and I had a bit of a freak out on the way there thinking: ‘Oh shit, this could potentially be the most awkward night of my life! What if he’s really weird…?!’ We figured there was about a one per cent chance of finding the next love of my life, a 15 per cent chance of him being a total creep, which left an 84 per cent chance of having a good time with a really massive bar tab. Not bad odds really.

He was dead on time. I appeared about two minutes later, and in this time he had already deterred a potential man friend by explaining he was on a date, and made friends with the bartender instead. I decided he was in the 84 per cent bracket and we introduced ourselves and made slightly awkward ice-breaking conversation while downing cocktails.
It turned out he had been called upon for the blind date as he was the only male in the building—bribed with the prospect of free food and drinks. Not gonna deny it, I was blatantly there on the off-chance of finding a guy who had the potential to really rock my socks…But he was a really nice guy and we got on smashingly.

It gets a bit blurry after the cocktails, but we shared tales of life, love and the zoo. It would seem I narrowly avoided assault after I spilt my drink on a woman (the bottom of the glass was wet and it may have dribbled on her a tiny bit). I apologised really nicely and she flirted with me, before becoming enraged at the bar girl for serving her $3 bubbles “in a warm glass!?”

High fives were exchanged when we discovered we had finished the tab, and we bought celebratory tequila shots before affably making our way to another bar to meet my friends. We discovered we were both from the same town, and he heroically stepped in to save me as I was being whooped at pool by a friendly bogan. He got my number as he left, and I guiltily stayed out for a bit longer. I had a blast and hopefully he did too—and I just got my essay in on time. Success! Cheers Salient and the Garden Club!

Him

8pm: I walk into the Terrace Bar and a old man hits on me and asks if I want a drink. I tell him I’m waiting for my date and he walks away—awkward!

8.01pm: The bartender informs me that she just walked in.

8.02pm: We introduce ourselves and order some drinks.

8.05pm: Our bartender disappeared, and we got a new bartender and re-ordered.

8.10pm: Oh god I’ve forgotten her name (what a dick) and politely ask her; she remembers my name because it rhymes with hers.
 
At some point we ordered pizza—I remember this part but the bartender sure didn’t—he  made awesome drinks though, so I forgave him .

She talked about her jobs and the boys that hit on her. She told me her hang outs (Library, Boogie, Big Kumara—I pulled her up on this one), but she was sweet and funny so I let it go. We had more drinks and then she spilt drinks on the lady next to her. The lady was an interesting character, and complained  that her $3 dollar bubbles came in a warm glass and she wanted another, but she left after an argument with a bartender.
 
She talked about her childhood and apparently we come from the same town—her mum may have been my teacher. She said she was awesome at pool and even beat the boys (cute and skillful?). She talked about uni and her smarts, her riches and her travels (yes, I will be your toy boy). At one point she asks me to stand guard outside her toilet door. I obliged.
 
At one point she noted she had a essay due tomorrow—obviously my charm swayed her to stay. We continued talking and drinking, and next thing you know, she pointed out the beetles moving on the bar table (they were disco lights)—I was buzzing out!  The pizza came (finally) and we finished the bar tab! We both agreed one more for the road and hit the tequila! She invited me to  Bristol with her friends where we duly drank more (gin, lol) and played pool…The lies come out—she epic failed at pool.
 
Never a dull moment, amazing chick. Thanks Salient!

The relationship between fashion and architecture may seem surprising to many, given the ephemeral (and somewhat superficial) nature of the former, contrasted with the percieved durability and permanence commonly attributed to the latter. Unlike a lot of clothing, a building is not easily tossed asunder when it shows signs of wear, nor is it as subject to seasons and the swift ascendance of new trends as is fashion. Rei Kawakubo however, an architectural enthusiast and the woman behind Japanese fashion heavyweight Comme des Garçons (CdG), has been looking into their commonalities as a means to challenge the traditional conception of fashion and architecture as separate disciplines.

Founded in 1969 in Tokyo, CdG’s designs borrow heavily from architectural materials and techniques to create intensely sculptural garments that consistently turn conventional notions of fashion and beauty on their heads. Kawakubo’s first showing in Paris in 1981 provided a dramatic contrast to the highly tailored offerings from other designers, with sculptural, asymmetrical garments layered, draped or wrapped in unconventional ways. The forms created by Kawakubo deviate from more orthodox fashion practices, and ranges such as Excellent Abstract (spring/summer 2004) use structural elements to manipulate the garment away from the body as a means of expressing the idea that a garment, much like a building is a spatial construction. In 2000, Kawakubo was honoured with an excellence in design award from Harvard University’s School of Design, and has garnered praise over the years from many of her contemporaries, including Alexander McQueen, who once cited her as the world’s most gifted designer.

In addition to subverting traditional techniques and treatments, Kawakubo’s personality presents us with a more humble front than some of the star designers and architects who often give convoluted and obtuse explanations of their work and practice. She rejects any fixed interpretation of her work and on the rare occasions she has spoken she has denied that her work should be considered art, insisting there is no hidden agenda in her design work. The very name of the company was chosen simply because she liked the sound of the words.

Brooke Hodge, in her book Skin and Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture, admits being interested in the parallels between the two disciplines following her work on an exhibition dedicated to CdG. During the course of her research she was “struck by the visual similarites between clothing design and architectural structure” as well as being fascinated with the aptness of “architectural terminology” for describing Rei Kawakubo’s garments.

This linguistic crossover is not confined to Kawakubo’s work and its influence can be seen in the exchange of vocabulary from both areas. Notable developments in materials and manufacturing processes have led to architects adopting sartorial terms such as wrapping, folding, weaving, layering, texturing, hanging, draping and coating to better express architectural ideas, while the fashion world has simultaneously been quick to adopt such terms as “architectonic”, “sculptural” and “constructed” to articulate a new-found appreciation of the body and its relationship to space.

Kawakubo’s architectural involvement is not limited to metaphor, however, and the formidable fashionista is extremely particular about the ‘total environment’ surrounding her label. In a way not dissimilar to the Bauhaus creation of Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork), her desire for the completeness of experience requires her to take extensive control over the way in which her designs are to be encountered. She has worked with a number of high-profile architects such as Future Systems and Takao Kawasaki in the creation of around a dozen specifically designed CdG boutiques from Toyko to New York that dramatically contrast with more typical retail environments. In addition to these flagship stores, there are around 200 stockists worldwide whose stores must meet a certain level of architectural quality specified by Kawakubo herself, as well as innovative ‘guerilla’ stores.

In 2004 CdG initiated their first ‘guerilla’ store in Berlin in an “out-of-the-way” location designed to be open for the duration of one year only, and fitted at a minimum cost. The use of temporary structures to display and sell her garments through non-traditional means has had considerable impact on contemporary architectural practice by bringing the temporal quality of the fashion industry into the realm of a discipline with a tradition of durability and permanence. By suggesting that buildings need not be built to last, Kawakubo has opened the door to a whole new generation of architectural designers free from the immutability of traditional construction and a number of practitioners in the fashion world have since opened similar temporary outlets.

If the practice and influence of Rei Kawakubo gives any indication of the future direction of these two disciplines, we can be sure to see the boundaries between architecture and fashion to blur further. The continuing relationship between fashion and architecture is likely to produce ever richer developments in both fields, and the crossfertilisation of such practitioners as Kawakubo will see the development of increasingly hybrid practices that can reintroduce the emobodied and ‘lived’, sensory experience into architecture and unimagined architectural forms to the world of fashion.

Retail Worker Mops Herself Into Corner. Again.

Victoria University student Grace Perkins was trapped overnight in Lambton Quay’s Supre store after she mopped herself into the back corner of the shop when she was closing up for the night.

Perkins says she was distracted by Supre’s witty slogan tees while she was cleaning the store, and did not notice she was mopping in the wrong direction.

It was only when Perkins reached the changing rooms that she realised her mistake. Once there, Perkins was unable to leave the store as the soap used is a high-gloss formula which remains extremely slippery for many hours after it is used. The soap is unique to Supre, who use it in all of their stores to create a highly reflective surface which accentuates the bright colours of their clothing.

“When I, like, mopped myself in last month I slipped over and, like, it really hurt. I had this big bruise on my face, it was, like, sooo ugly.”

After injuring herself the first time, Perkins was reluctant to attempt leaving the store again.

She spent the night in the changing rooms, sleeping on a pile of tube skirts, until her colleagues arrived to open the store the next morning.

When spoken to by Salient, the store manager said she was investigating ways to prevent a re-occurrence.

Max Hardy Struggles to Handle Massive Twitter Handle

VUWSA President Max Hardy admitted this week that his infamously long Twitter username, @victoriauniversityofwellingtonstudentsassociation2010presidentmaximushardy, has caused him significant problems since he launched his account in June.

Twitter, which allows users to address followers in 160-character long messages, requires each user to have a unique username, or ‘handle’. Once Hardy’s handle is typed in full, it leaves only enough space for a 65-character message.

This has significantly reduced possibilities for the length of replies that Hardy’s friends can write to him. Hardy told Salient that he believes this is the reason why he has not attracted many friends or followers on the site.

“If my name was a bit snappier I imagine I’d be getting a lot of interest from my fans, but as it is, the most they can say is ‘Dear Max, I’m a student at Vic, I’m writing to tell you about…’ before they run out of characters.”

Hardy says he thinks a lot of students are frustrated by the extremely limited number of characters.

“Lots of my followers now post shorter messages, I think to try and point out how long my handle is. Like ‘Max sux’, for example. I’ve been getting that a lot recently, actually.”

The long handle also causes problems when Hardy re-tweets his own tweets. If his message is already a certain length, Hardy has trouble adding much to it.

Last week his fifteenth retweet read: “Cool eh RT @victoriauniversityofwellingtonstudentsassociation2010presidentmaximushardy finished President’s column! Salient’s gonna love me!”

No one had replied to the tweet or re-tweet when Salient went to print.

Hardy urges students who wish to discuss an issue that is longer than 65-characters to either send multiple tweets or poke him on Facebook.

As the ancient saying goes, “when I think of Merlot, a few words come to mind.” This variety is one of the world’s most popular, and it is one of the principle blends in Bordeaux wine where it is the most abundant grape. In New Zealand, second to Pinot Noir, it is the most planted red wine grape with approximately 1371 hectares of vine in the ground.

It is rumoured that the name Merlot is derived from the Old French word for ‘young blackbird’, which probably alludes to the colour of the grape. Merlot is relatively easy on the ripening scale and its large berries and thin skins mean that the wine is generally less tannic, and can be tucked into sooner.

Merlot’s ‘easy drinking’ nature, market saturation, and presence in terrible movies such as Sideways has seen the variety cop a fair amount of flack from many of the worlds ‘wine buffs’. Don’t let this become a barrier on your highway though, as there are, without a doubt, many fine examples out there.

Being one of the softer red wine varieties, Merlot is versatile when it comes to food matching. Recently I had a glass while nibbling on a Moro bar. Deemed “loose as” by many, I actually found the combination to be both lavishly cute, and rewarding. This aside, Merlot tends to work the best with red meat and pork dishes.

Wine of the Week:

This week’s wine of the week is solid value for money and is the Thornbury Hawkes Bay Merlot 2007 ($13-15). The great thing about this wine is that, given its price, it isn’t just a tinny medicinal fruit bomb. Once in the glass, the wine gives off fantastic black fruit aromas as well as complex cedary oak and chocolate. Having had a couple of years in the bottle now, on the palate it is silky smooth and across the board it really does reflect the high quality and concentrated 2007 Hawkes Bay vintage.

To be honest, I’m not sure if I can write anything new about Jodi Picoult. She is to readers what leftover pizza for breakfast is to kids. We’ve grown up with her books on the coffee table or in our best friend Stacy’s Roxy backpack. And aside from that gratuitous movie adaptation of My Sister’s Keeper, anything with her scent on it has usually been a bet well-hedged. House Rules doesn’t break the mould. It’s the story of Jacob Hunt, an eighteen year old with Asperger’s Syndrome and an obsession with forensics. His mother Emma is a struggling advice columnist who rolls with the many punches of Jacob’s Asperger’s induced eccentricities—think colour-themed days, frequent meltdowns, and hypersensitivity. His younger brother Theo is a social outcast by association and starts to break into homely looking houses to feed his need for normalcy. When Jacob’s social skills tutor Jess turns up dead, his AS incriminates him more than his DNA evidence, and Emma hires rookie lawyer Oliver as his counsel. A warning: raise not your eyebrows that Jacob exhibits every symptom around—Picoult can’t sell the plot unless he manifests bad. As far as character originality goes, leave your seatbelt unbuckled; Jacob’s a doozy, but the staples (long-suffering sibling, devoted mother, and authority figure with a heart of gold) are reincarnated as the latest Picoult characters. Familiarly absorbing at the start, House Rules drags towards the end and only an author as successful as Picoult could get away with a self-indulgent 532 pages—not to mention that the final resolution comes as a finger-snap over the last four pages. To finish, I’ll leave y’all with a quote from Florence + the Machine: “Who is the lamb and who is the knife?” In Jacob’s case, that one will keep you up all night.

Wellington was filled to bursting with brewers, beer geeks and Discovery Channel cameras when New Zealand’s biggest week of beer appreciation hit our windy shores last week.

Our BrewNZ weekend began with the shocking announcement that Dominion Breweries was crowned New Zealand’s champion brewery of 2010. While this announcement was met with some shock, and even a few walk-outs at the awards, it goes to show that DB do what they aim to do—make clean, easy lagers—well.

The big guys had their night, but during the weekend it was the innovative, craft breweries which stood centre stage. Over 100 beers from Invercargill to Delaware were made available to the public during the peak of festivities on the weekend—Beervana.

But which beers are worth revisiting after the hangover?

Dave’s Faves:

Each year the BrewNZ awards includes a festive category, to challenge breweries to make beers to a certain theme. This year’s festive brew was ‘Go Native’. Most breweries took this to mean ‘put a native tree or vege in a beer’. Three Boys brewery of Christchurch took it to mean ‘dice up some pineapple lumps, and throw them in a porter’. Thankfully Three Boys Pineapple Lump didn’t reek of the native treat—it was a full bodied, intensely roasty porter with just a hint of lumpy goodness.

8 Wired The Big Hangi showed just as much innovation. They took the recipe of their smoked porter, and replaced the beechwood smoked malt with manuka smoked kumara. The huge amount of smoked starch made drinking it like eating a plate of delicious roast kumara. A pity only 50L was made; can someone donate 8 Wired 500kg of kumara so they can make a full batch?

Denise’s Standouts:

This year, Beervana was the launch pad for Tuatara’s 10th anniversary ale, simply titled X. Brewed in the style of a Belgian Tripel, Tuatara X is like the brewery’s Ardennes on steroids. When the brewery initially brewed Ardennes, they released it at about 8-9 per cent ABV. While it’s at 6.5 per cent today, for their 10th birthday, Tuatara’s gone back to its roots. This strong, Belgian beer has an amplified caramel and coriander profile, with the more subtle hints of vanilla and orange peel—and the alcohol’s hidden incredibly well.
Yet in complete contrast to almost every other beer released at or around Beervana, Yeastie Boys Punkadiddle 3.7 per cent is a subtle, red English ale which is all about the malt. Dubbed “hop-hater” by the Yeastie crew, the beer’s the complete opposite of the hoppy, strong craft ales that have dominated the scene this year. With a creamy texture, a biscuity flavour and hints of roast malt and light fruit, Punkadiddle is one of Beervana’s best.

When the Beervana leftovers trickle out of the town hall, they should wind up at Hashigo Zake and Malthouse. Keep an eye out.

If you have any questions or comments about this week’s beers, you can email us at davethebeerguy@gmail.com or denisethebeergirl@gmail.com

Sharpie Crows
Golf Course / Mass Grave EP
(Mole Music)

Sharpie Crows’ last release, Greed, cemented itself as one of the best New Zealand releases of last year exceedingly quickly; its hyperpolitical noise balladry ringing true with many of those dissatisfied with either one Mr. Key, the lack of visceral, angry music in Wellington, or both. Then, of course, they upped and left to Melbourne, leaving us pretty much high and dry—a pretty good move really, since their brand of rhythmic, grooving, sparse noise-rock is much more in tune with the likes of Bad Seeds children like HTRK than the poppier focus of Flying Nun offshoots in New Zealand.

And now we have Mass Grave, the new EP. Once again produced by band member Jackson Hobbs, the quality of the work here is immediately apparent. Sharpie Crows have a bizarre knack for self-recording to a level well above anyone else operating on the same budget. It’s not gloss, not by any stretch, but it is b.r.u.t.a.l.

The music itself switches down a gear from the unrestrained fury of Greed; opener ‘Communist Girls’ rides by on a two simple haunted house keyboard chords, the same tone carrying over into the ‘Fifteen Golden balls’ duo. It’s important to note, I think, that this EP probably has the best flow of any piece of work I’ve listened to this year—keyboards from ‘Communist Girls’ overlap into ‘Fiftteen Golden Balls’, which in turn segues neatly into the final two tracks on the EP—a credit to both their songwriting and their production skills.

The two parts of ‘Fifteen Golden Balls’ are two affecting sides to the same coin: Part 1 reprises the trailer trash guitar shreds of ‘Landlords’ from Greed, driving a 4/4 nail home. Part 2, however, sprawls much more; at almost half the speed of its first part, Sam Bradford’s vocal multitracking haunts much more than their terror-noise assaults of past, and the horn-filled exiting coda, equal parts melodic and apocalyptic, is a surprising but excellent turn for the band. Leading out the EP are ‘Country Music’ and ‘Hunterville Tire Spikes’, both employing the best of their effects—the former’s stuttering machine-gun pedal bursts jar the listener out of the childish keyboard melody, ‘Hunterville Tire Spikes’’ slow, echoing build is easily the EP’s highlight, however. Bradford’s yelling punctuates the tale of Hunterville’s redneck Tartarus over some deathly, pallid pacing: it’s a world of pain laid out in 5 minutes of unrequited angst and squalor.

Following on from this, is Golf Course. Effectively a b-sides EP, it comes free with Mass Grave, and showcases a weird, fun side of Sharpie Crows. There are live smash hits, like ‘Bank’ and the formidable ‘Sheepskin’, alongside a couple of other, rougher, less subtle tracks than those on the main EP. The real surprise here is ‘Heybro vs Keybro’, a nearly six-minute banger redux of Greed epic ‘Hebrew vs Key’. It gets grating in parts, with a solid section of the middle taken up with an annoying refrain of ‘Racheeeeel, Racheeeel’, but still, it’s a Sharpie Crows banger.

All in all, this EP marks a turning point for Sharpie Crows, it seems: Josh Jenkins is no longer a part of the band, and their future is up in the air. However, even if there is no more Sharpie Crows material in the near future, this is all you need to tide you over, it’s hateful, for sure, but compellingly so. To quote their press release: “You know when you hear it, and you don’t hear it often, because most bands can’t do it. It’s staring into the void, and then pissing into the void.” That’s pretty much them.

Buy it.

Mass Grave: 4/5

Golf Course: 3/5

Distraction Camp advertises itself as being something entirely unlike what Wellington theatre has seen recently. This might be a slight over-statement, but there is very much a sense of difference, of stepping outside of the norm that hangs over the luxurious 90 minute running time.

It takes Jean Genet’s The Balcony as a provocation and text—but stops short of being any kind of direct “production” or “performance” of that text. It is set in a “house of illusions” in Christchurch (or maybe Wellington) 2009, where men come to reenact perverse images of control. One dresses as a bishop and drips hot wax on a sinning young girl. One is a judge attended to by a gimp on stilts passing judgement on a petty thief. One is a Nazi Camp Commandant. With all this recreation and reenactment, questions of veracity, truth and role hang heavily (along with a chandelier) over Distraction Camp.

The performances range from being very good to great. Peter Falkenberg’s direction and Chris Reddington’s design are both sumptuous and controlled, showing a very fine eye has been put towards the images, the plateux of the show. There is a real joy to be taken in the looking at of Distraction Camp. The show is very clearly aware of this and plays very much with the audience’s complicity in the voyeuristic act.

Distraction Camp is so sure of its images that it sometimes hangs on to them a bit too long. The biggest fault you can find with this show is that it just lets itself take a bit too much time. The opening wordless introduction sequence is a beautiful spectacle, and its shape and development work very well up to a point but very quickly it starts going just too long. This is a show that rides a line between being abstract and what some may see as self-indulgent. On which side of that line it falls is up to the individual audience member.

Distraction Camp
Directed by Peter Falkenberg
Performed by Greta Bond, Ryan Reynolds, Coralie Winn, Simon Troon, Marian Mc Curdy, Liz Boldt, George Parker, Emma Johnston, Chris Reddington, Nicole Reddington and Sophie Lee
At BATS, 9pm, 31 August—11 September 2010
book@bats.co.nz or (04) 802 4175

Email suggestions for an upcoming Animal of the Week to elle@salient.org.nz. Only five to go!

ANIMAL FACT!
Animals wish they were your best friend—if only you noticed their existence.

Over the Weather and Under the Moon

By Francesca Brooks

On the fifty-second day of her heart-stopping crush on a girl called Elizabeth, Nora woke up and begged the universe for a spontaneous medical condition that wouldn’t quite kill her, but would give her a justifiable excuse to stay in bed and wallow. At least for a couple more hours.

She closed her eyes and, as always, replayed everything she knew about Elizabeth. Nora remembered things about Elizabeth differently to how she remembered everything else. With Elizabeth, she could actually recall the sensations of things happening for the first time, in that way when you know something really happened, instead of just the second- or third-hand experience of remembering remembering it later. She thought about the day Elizabeth dropped her pen and picked it up using only her pinky and ring finger. She thought about Elizabeth’s emerald-coloured cardigan. She thought about the way Elizabeth asked questions in class, questions that would be exasperating from anyone else, but were somehow thought-provoking and even necessary when uttered by Elizabeth, with her brow furrowed adorably in uncertainty and her tinkling laugh of self-deprecation when her queries were resolved.

A knock sounded on her closed door. “Nora? Are you getting up?”

This was why she shouldn’t have lived with people of her major. She sighed. “I’m coming.” She pulled her blankets around her and promised herself that she’d climb out in twenty seconds. Thirty. And then she would get up. Four hundred seconds later, she emerged from her cocoon and went to brush her teeth. An annoyingly perky face appeared at the bathroom door.

“Oh, good, you’re coming. We have fifteen minutes. Did you want some toast?”

“That’s okay, thanks. I’m not really hungry.”

Her friend smiled sympathetically. “Are you a bit under the weather? You’ve been sleeping so much lately. Are you getting sick?”

“I’m fine. Great. Over the moon. Just give me a sec.” She closed the door.

Nora and Elizabeth had shared exactly thirty words over three exchanges. Once, early on, during the second week of her attendance-improving crush, Nora had purposely sat directly behind Elizabeth, so she could stare at her while pretending to concentrate. Elizabeth had turned around to pass Nora the stack of handouts for that day and Nora had tried her hardest to appear casual as she said “thank you,” her pulse flickering as the fingers of her left hand slid past those of the pretty girl’s right. Elizabeth had smiled at her and quickly turned around without a word.

Fifteen days later, Nora had temporarily zoned out while wondering how tall Elizabeth was, and missed her teacher’s homework instructions. She’d asked the boy next to her, “Wait, what did he say we had to do?” but it was Elizabeth who’d turned around from her seat in front of Nora. After realising that Nora hadn’t been talking to her, she’d smiled and still answered, “Just read all of chapter six and do the topic questions,” her voice sounding even sweeter in its whisper. Nora had prayed that she would remember the facts of importance later instead of just the layout of Elizabeth’s freckles like a constellation across her cheeks.

And finally, on the thirty-ninth day of Nora’s thought-ruling crush on Elizabeth, something remarkable had happened. Nora had arrived early and garnered what she considered to be an optimal seating situation for a three-hour class: in the back third the lecture hall, at the edge of the row, with a free seat on either side of her, giving her plenty of room to stretch her legs and arrange her books while still allowing for a swift departure. She’d stopped lingering after class in hopes of talking to Elizabeth. The self-loathing she always felt from being too overcome to say anything was destroying her, so she’d resigned herself to admiring from afar. Her flatmates usually sat together with their other nerdy friends. Nora preferred to sit alone, flitting between taking notes and daydreaming about Elizabeth’s eyelashes.

The class had just started when Elizabeth had rushed in, her messenger bag bouncing against her hip as she dashed up the stairs to the first available aisle seat she could find. Which was next to Nora.

Elizabeth sat down without hesitation or doubt. As if it was her automatic place. As if they were really friends, instead of just watcher and watchee. As she unpacked her books, she turned to Nora and asked, “Did I miss anything?”

A million responses ran through Nora’s head, from witty to serious to just plain creepy. She chose the most obvious. “No, he just started.” She knew she wouldn’t remember a thing from the next three hours except the moment when her elbow brushed against Elizabeth’s.
———-
On the fifty-third day of her stomach-lurching crush on a girl called Elizabeth, Nora woke up with butterflies, slammed her alarm clock off, and tried desperately to get back to the dream she’d been snatched from. She’d been somewhere snowy, with a red jumper and frozen red hands to match. Elizabeth had been there, in a white jumper, grinning at Nora, her white teeth gleaming like the snowflakes that fell around her.

After twenty minutes of failure to fall back asleep, Nora got up and went to the kitchen, but she was too full of longing to have any appetite. So she went and had a shower instead, slipping on her way out and stubbing her toe. It hurt like heartache.

She left the house thinking that if her life were a movie, it would currently be raining. Hard. The kind of sudden downpour that only happens once a year in real life and every couple of days in fiction, and always at really dramatic moments in the characters’ lives, where it perfectly matches the epic swell of their anguish.

But instead, it was sunny, and the sunshine warmed her face and neck and forearms, and Nora couldn’t help but smile. Maybe this crush didn’t have to make her so sad all the time. She hadn’t intended for it to get like this. Originally, it had started as merely an observation, and then a reason to show up every day. She thought that if she kept it in check, not quite nursing it but not killing it off, it would be something nice to enjoy as part of her daily existence; just something to feel. She hadn’t counted on turning her back for a few seconds and having it grow exponentially and out of control, like a weed, taking over the entire garden of her mind until there was no soil left for other, wanted plants.

Elizabeth was already there when Nora arrived. She was wearing her emerald-coloured cardigan. Nora looked away and tried her hardest to think about something else.

They had slept together once. That is, they had napped briefly at the same time during an intensely dull early-morning statistics lecture, which isn’t quite the same thing. Though Elizabeth had smiled guiltily at her as they’d both stretched afterwards, and Nora had felt like her heart would explode.

After her classes had finished, Nora decided to walk home. She tried to think of the last time she’d felt like herself. Or, at least, the old version of herself, who could actually concentrate on things for more than a minute without her mind wandering to a girl. As she meandered through the city, her thoughts were entirely consumed with Elizabeth. Nora hated herself for being so superficial and ridiculous. Why did she even like her so much? They’d exchanged all of thirty words. She didn’t really know anything about Elizabeth beyond the fact that she had a tiny birthmark on her neck. She just liked her because she was gorgeous. And smart, and sweet. Fascinating and unguarded. Luminous like the sun. What other reasons were there?

Nora realised that she was sick of feeling so simultaneously empty and full all the time, bursting at the seams with emotion but having nothing real inside her.

As she approached an intersection to cross the road, deep in self-reflection, she came across a woman selling balloons. She had a zoo’s worth of balloon animals perched on her stand and a cluster of helium balloons tied around her wrist, shimmering in the late-afternoon sun. One of them was the same green as Elizabeth’s cardigan, and Nora’s eyes were instinctively drawn to it before she was even aware of her staring.

“Would you like one?” The woman’s voice startled Nora out of her trance.

“What? Oh. No, that’s okay.”

The balloon woman smiled widely, causing her pink inflatable hat to squeak. “Take one. For free. I think you need one. You look a little under the weather.”

Nora laughed self-consciously. “No, I’m fine. I’m over the moon, in fact.” She took the string of the balloon that the woman held out to her. It was the green balloon. “Thank you so much.” She slipped the balloon around her wrist, smiled gratefully at the woman, and crossed the street.
———-
On the fifty-fourth day of her misery-inducing crush on a girl called Elizabeth, Nora woke at the same time as the sun, the navy blue sky blending into pink like tie-dye through her curtainless windows. The first thing Nora saw was the green balloon, a bulbous shadow hovering gently against her ceiling, not quite moving or staying still. She stared at it for a long time, watching it drift slowly across the back wall. It was nice having the green balloon in her room. She could pretend it was Elizabeth’s green cardigan. She could pretend she had a piece of her here.

Nora sat up and pushed her window open, feeling the cold, dewy air rush in and suck the balloon towards it. She grabbed its shiny synthetic string just in time, winding it taut around her index finger. Maybe she didn’t want the balloon here as a constant reminder. She thought about popping it. It wasn’t Elizabeth, after all, or Elizabeth’s cardigan. It was just buoyant gas trapped in latex, empty and full at the same time.

For reasons she would later not entirely be able to understand, she leaned over the side of her bed and fished a black marker pen out of her bag. Being careful not to burst the balloon, she wrote four short words on its squeaky surface.

I AM OVER YOU.

Seeing those ten letters on the balloon stirred Nora in a way she hadn’t expected. They weren’t true, of course. But one day they would be. They marked a time somewhere in Nora’s future where she’d be able to think about other things, and when she’d care about someone who knew it, and when she’d finally feel like herself again. She took a deep, overwhelmed breath and knew what she had to do.

Nora knelt on her bed in front of the open window and pushed the balloon out the window, letting the string unravel. She clutched the last inch of it between two fingers, and then she let it go.

The balloon floated away, emerald green against the pink sky, carried high by the wind until Nora couldn’t see it anymore, and then it climbed higher still, up, until it hovered, carrying all of Nora’s aching with it, holding it safe and far away from her, trapped somewhere between the clouds and the heavens, over the weather and under the moon.

Edgar Wright has made a name for himself with his incredibly pop culture-savvy output, whether this be his BBC TV show Spaced or his knack for simultaneous genre parody/homage in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. His most recent film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, is pop-culture porn. A kinetic, colourful, cluttered assault on the senses that references video games, music, TV and other films—I freaking loved it.

Of course, I am by no means unbiased on the matter. As a child of the nineties and noughties I am predisposed to squeals of glee whenever Zelda, Seinfeld or Dragonball Z is referenced. Nostalgia aside, however, this film certainly stands in its own right.

Based on a Canadian cult comic book series, Scott Pilgrim stars a reliable (if typecast) Michael Cera as the eponymous lead. He falls in love with Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), but to secure his place in her life he must defeat her seven evil exes lead by the repulsive Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman). While both leads are solid, the scenes are consistently stolen by various members of its huge supporting cast. Of note are Kieran Culkin as Scott’s gay roommate, Anna Kendrick as his sister, Ellen Wong as his adorable but scorned ex-girlfriend, and Schwartzman, Brandon Routh and Chris Evans shine as members of the league of evil exes. Evans’ cocky film star Lucas Lee is the funniest thing in a very funny film.

With all the things the film has going for it, it adds up to a bit too much. Wright keeps the volume turned up to 10 for the whole film, leaving no space to breathe. It is almost as if someone made an entire film out of the intertextual and cinematographic gimmicks that made his previous two films such joys (in much smaller quantities). The film could have probably benefited from having a few superfluous characters or plot points cut, and some of the more gimmicky aspects limited to just the battle scenes.

Other than that, the film was a delight and will feature in many of the ‘best of the year’ lists compiled by my fellow pop-culture nerds.

Shipwrecked! has a full title and that full title is Shipwrecked! An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis De Rougemont (As Told By Himself). Which, rather helpfully, is quite self-explaining. This show presents itself as Louis De Rougemont (Nick Blake) recounting to a paying audience the (based-on-a-true-)story of how in his late teens he was shipwrecked in the Pacific and the numerous adventures that followed. Louis is ably assisted by two local players (Darlene Mohekey and Jackson Coe, former editor of these very theatre pages).

As much as this is a play about a formerly-shipwrecked man recounting his tale, it is a play about story-telling, about how we connect with other humans and the desperate need to be a somebody. It is also about riding sea turtles as if they were horses.

The spare and sparse design by Andrew Foster is a masterstroke and is lit entirely by desk-lamps hanging from the ceiling controlled with on-stage switches by the cast. Gareth Farr’s music (also performed by the cast) is another total triumph.

The greatest joy to be had in Shipwrecked! is not in its great performances or emotional intimacy but in just how properly funny it is. It is hilarious. Like, very hilarious. It is, after all, an entertainment.

Shipwrecked!
Written by Donald Margulies
Directed by Peter Hambleton
Performed by Nick Blake, Darlene Mohekey and Jackson Coe
In Circa 2, 28 August—25 September
www.circa.co.nz

Tommy Ill
Tommy Ill
(Loop Recordings)

Full of catchy choruses, early nineties feel-good beats and soul samples, this debut full-length from Wellington rapper/producer Tommy Ill lives up to the hype created by his first few EPs and maniacal live show. A so-called “indie-rapper”, he inverts the usual rapper braggadocio, as others have done before, without doing away with it completely. He’s serious about his work—this is a true lover of hip hop having fun and seriously enjoying it.

Most of his rhymes are hilarious and self-deprecating. ‘Robot’ reminds me of someone like Das Racist; it’s an awesome song about his little robo-buddy who’s “gonna be bigger than big” apparently. He takes pot shots at scenesters—something we all love—on ‘Winning’(see also: LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Losing My Edge’): “Listening to Best Coast just to stay relevant. Listening to Beach House just to stay relevant. Listening to Tommy Ill just for the hell of it.” Some of it could be old Souls of Mischief material and other songs nod to A Tribe Called Quest’s energetic brand of jazz-sampling and their use of acoustic instruments. Much of it grabs 60s R&B hooks and runs with it. These songs are built to please a crowd; ‘Come Home Mr Ill’ is an instantly likable pop-rap song with chart potential.

The production is lush but clean-sounding—lo-fi but all the better for it. Obvious work has gone into these ten songs, with assistance from the boys from Crackhouse 5. Hip hop has had a bit of a mixed history here in New Zealand but Mr Ill’s tunes don’t suffer from the corniness and over-earnestness that some local stuff contains. His sound is accessible, and hopefully he’ll reach more ears with this release, but he’s definitely more Tourettes than Savage.

The sunny quality of the music should tide us over till summer. But not everything here is a party banger. Closer ‘Matchsticks’ is emo-rap at its best and a classic break-up song: “She stole my heart and all she left was nerds”, goes the mantra. It’s a highlight from this excellent little album.

3.5/5

It was a cold winter. Icy cold. Freeze your face off cold. The kind of cold that you wouldn’t want moving into the house two doors down from yours. The kind of cold you wouldn’t grant permission to marry your daughter, not that that would change anything after all—this cold doesn’t ask for hands in marriage. It takes them. That’s how cold it was. Steam did not so much cloud out of people’s mouths as escape like a crazed blue collar criminal digging his way out of minimum security prison with a spoon. I did not so much walk as glide down the ice slick side walk. Exploding fire hydrants had sprinkled the roads with deadly water. Ever seen water strangle a man to death in the hot midsummer while out playing lacrosse? Not a pretty sight. Not one I would recommend. I wouldn’t pay to see it again. Deadly stuff, water. Deadly like death by poison or falling masonry. No one knew why the fire hydrants had exploded. It was a mystery, a haunting riddle song lilting through the decrepit trees of urbania, a question silently yelled by every omnipresent aggrieved fireman. The police said they were investigating. But they say a lot of things. Lots of people say a lot things. Sometimes I wish I was back on that mime colony. Nice places, mime colonies—somewhat sparse though, a feng shui nightmare. How do you know where the energy flows when all the walls of your house are metaphoric? Questions beget questions it seems. I was on my way to the store to buy some food. I was hungry, see. Hungry not like the country Hungary, more like the country where no one ever has any food because business has gotten slow, gambling addiction means that I’ve had to sell all my other clothes to a homeless man for hug that I plan to trade for a miracle and win the lottery. That country was my soul, see. That’s right. Things had gotten tight. Money was low like back yard paddling pool with a giant leak caused by twelve-year-old chain smokers filling it with champagne that they somehow got their little mitts on. Finances were short like a dwarf that lives in a vice inside a shrinking machine on Jupiter.

I still wasn’t sure how I’d pay for the food at the store. I wasn’t beneath theft, I would do it if I could, especially since the last time I went to this store the keeper made a snide remark about my paying for a loaf of bread with pennies I stole with magnets from charity collectors. He cut me deep with his words, cut me deep like seventeen monkeys knife fighting with machetes in your living room with greased floor.

This week at BATS theatre a play by the name of DOORS. WALLS. AND ALSO SILENCE. is being performed. It’s supposed to be quite good. To find out more we sent Salient contributor Dther Uean to interview the writer/director of the play Uther Dean.

DU: Play?

UD: Yes?

DU: You play?

UD: Me play?

DU: Yes. About?

UD: Life and stuff, I guess. We devised it then I wrote it so basically its about the neuroses of about 9 local theatre makers. It also has jokes and swearing and fighting and a man pretending to be a cat.

DU: Long?

UD: 90 minutes or so. But we’ve been working on it for about five months so yeah, long for some.

DU: Boring?

UD: No. It even has a twist and everything.

DU: Twist?

UD: You’ll have to wait and see.

DU: Story?

UD: Well, basically, it’s about these two girls who live together, Emma and Lydia. They don’t really get on. Then, suddenly, a liquid that seems awfully like blood starts seeping through their walls which starts them both on thrilling and exciting voyages of discovery.

DU: Lesbians?

UD: No.

DU: Why not?

UD: Because no.

DU: What it look like?

UD: It looks like a play. With a set and lights and stuff and projections. It’s kinda like from the future. We have these six doors that we build all the scenery out of. Things like elevators and baths. It’s pretty cool.

DU: Why?

UD: Why what?

DU: Why go?

UD: Why should you go? Why? Well, you should come because for $18 ($13 concession) you get 90 minutes of theatre. Good theatre. Theatre with people being punched and people swearing and making phone calls and talking about Karori and sitting upside down and waving their arms to the one decent song on Editors’ latest album and Ju who designs Salient designed the graphics so you should come for those, they’re pretty cool. It is has a bit where someone kicks down a door and someone tells someone a story which is really funny and someone eats Weetbix. It has everything you could possibly want.

DU: Kay.

UD: Thanks.

DU: Where?

UD: It’s at BATS theatre, which is number 1 Kent Terrace. It is on from the 2nd to the 11th of September (with no performances on Sunday or Monday) at 6.30pm. Tickets are $18 or $13 and you book them by calling book@bats.co.nz or calling (04) 802 4175.

VBC top 7

1. No Age—Glitter
2. Die! Die! Die!—Wasted Lands
3. Twin Shadow—Slow
4. T54—Julie K
5. Street Chant—Yara Aba
6. Veronica Falls—Beachy Head
7. The Body Lyre—Pastiche

VBC Presents:

JOE BLOSSOM with special guests Full Fucking Moon and Luck.

Wednesday, 8th September, San Fransisco Bath House.

Earnest but playful at the keys, Blossom’s infectiously catchy melodies are charmingly reminiscent of indie pop-stars Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or The Decemberists. Live with his band The National Average, Blossom puts on a tight, delightful and at times theatrical set. His last set in Wellington before embarking on an international adventure to the USA for a few months, this is a show not to be missed!

Gaunt avant-garde noisists Full Fucking Moon entrance with layer upon layers of haunting reverb, generally laying waste to their surroundings – epic to behold. Luck is Luc. Luc is from Ladybird. Like in Ladybird, Luc plays lilting lovely indie pop. As Luck.

Free entry, drinks specials! $3.50 Macs handles, $8 jugs, $4 tequila shots, $4 bubbles! Holy shit you better get there.

Barb is one of the most utterly predictable album releases of the year. That is to say, who took a look at the lineup of this New Zealand super-group and didn’t think this was a great idea? Barb consists of straight-up NZ indie pop royalty: Liam Finn, Eliza-Jane Barnes, Connan Mockasin, Lawrence Arabia and Seamus Ebbs. Thankfully, their debut outing is not a boring, drawn-out jam session of bustling egos, but a charming collection of swoon-worthy tunes. Barb sounds like nothing less than a well-matched group effort, with each musician’s idiosyncrasies shining through.

There are pop hooks a-plenty tucked neatly into this satisfying little gem. From the opening doe-eyed ‘Leo’, right through to the dreamy ‘Looking Through Barb’s Eyes’, Barb is unrelenting in its catchy, knee-weakening choruses. It’s hard to pick a highlight because it’s so diverse and it’s all so damn good.

‘Not a Bird’ starts with a silly, childish chanting verse before descending into a complex, intensely melodic and completely absorbing chorus. Connan’s sweet, child-like coo stands out as being particularly well-suited to this song and adds to the innocence suggested in the title. Lyrically, it veers from being cutely oddball (“I am not a bird at all”) to cutely beautiful (“I will draw you pictures of all the places we will visit when we’re old”).

‘Time to Contemplate’ gives you a break to do just that as it builds tragically with heartbreaking keys and a woeful Finn crooning about lost love. While one could easily get caught up in the melancholy at this point, the weird quirk of ‘Beatman’ will swiftly pull you out of that funk.

Barb could have easily turned into a handful of highly capable musicians competing against each other or an exercise in self-indulgence, however we are given the exact opposite. They’ve taken into account each others’ individual sounds and channelled it into one lush project. They’ve also maintained the excitement and fun of such a collaborative project, making this one a keeper.

4/5