The Devil You Know

At high school, in the girl’s changing room, there was a mirror next to the toilets. It was long, but sat high up on the wall. I was a short teenager, a little over five feet for most of the time, so the bottom of the mirror only reached as far as the top of my neck, just below my chin. Apart from my bobble head peaking over, the majority of the mirror reflected back the high tiled walls and ceiling of the shower room. It was a bit like looking into eternity, a vast expanse of white juxtaposed by this little animal head, a wink of identity at the bottom of an expanse of nothing.

So here’s the part where you make a choice

Art is entirely subjective. The value of a piece of art, to any individual, is derived through a combination of subjective meaning and the talent of the creator. Of course, what constitutes ‘talent’ is, also, entirely subjective. When I use the word ‘art’, I’m talking about any creative output, from a literal piece of art, to a screenplay, to everything in between. The example I’m going to use to demonstrate my argument is from a television show. And yes, I do mean Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But, before you groan loudly, roll your eyes, and close this tab, just, calm your farm, and hear me out, because, I’m not really talking a TV show here. I’m using an aspect of it as a metaphor to tell a bigger story about the importance of subjective meaning and why art, the analysis and interpretation of it, is so important to our personal growth and perspective on the world. So, ner.

'Roads? Where we're going, we don't need... roads.'

It started with a run. 

There was a moment while I was running around the bays of Wellington, in the beautiful morning sun, looking out at the ocean, where I felt exhilarated. That moment was the culmination of months of change and effort, and it felt good. I felt almost peaceful. But when the world changes, it changes fast, and mere hours later, I woke up to messages from my parents telling me that not only had my gran been suddenly taken ill, she only had hours to live.

Huts of New Zealand 2017 - Part 2

You came back for part two? Wow, how bored are you? Well, it is January, so I’m guessing that the answer to that is very. Plus fed up of work, plus probably suffering from some kind of ill-health…Ooop, too real? Let’s get back to the huts.

July (31/07/17)

This is Awatere hut on the Makateru river in the Ruahine forest.
As you know, I always look for the story, but there isn’t always a story lurking, sometimes a hut is just a hut. The most details I could find were– ‘This is a basic three-bunk hut in the Hawke’s Bay region.’ What more could you need to know?

Huts of New Zealand 2017 - Part 1

Back in January of 2017, through a series of odd coincidences, I was given a calendar for work all about the back country huts of New Zealand. I shared this on Facebook because, hey, look, a weird calendar celebrating a bizarrely niche subject matter! As a follow on, somebody suggested that each month I could write something about the featured hut, and share photos. The idea was immediately amusing to me because I knew nothing about huts or their purpose, and yet they seemed very, well, twee. I don’t think there’s another word for it.  So for no other reason than the idea made me laugh, I began writing monthly Facebook posts about the huts. I did this on my personal page only, for a number of reasons- I didn’t know how interesting it would be to other people, whether I would actually keep it up for a 12 month period, and to publish it on my blog would mean doing proper referencing so as not to be a dick in sharing pictures that were clearly not my own (but hey, that tedious work is now done!)

Deconstructed Memories

This is a collection of moments, told in various tenses, from various points in time. Any quotes from others are to the best of my recollection and should not be taken as gospel. Same goes for any quotes from myself. I’ve kept it anonymous, of course, but if some of it clicks that’s unavoidable because this stuff actually happened, albeit that the events have been prodded and poked about a bit to serve my narrative. What’s the narrative? Trust me, just go with it.  

Also, all quotes referenced are listed at the end, to avoid breaking the flow with excessive asterisking and footnoting.

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What IT means to me

If you read this blog on the regular you’ll be more than aware that I’m a fan of horror as a genre, both in literature and on screen, and last week saw the release of what would turn out to be the horror film with the highest grossing opening weekend of any R rated film, Stephen King’s IT. I also contributed to these stats, which is not like me, paying for media like a well behaved person. This was because I was excited to see what they had done with the material (also, in NZ, the cinema only costs $10!) and I have to say, I was really impressed with the result. But before I elaborate on that, I’m going to go back to the source material, to consider why this story means so much to me in the first place.