Death By Chocolate


Friday night, Cal and I went to see “Death By Chocolate”. Except see isn’t the right verb, because Death Choc is one of those interactive events that seem to be all the rage in Wellington right now (all the rage I say).
It was neat fun! The setup is that there’s been a murder, and the suspects are cooped up in the building for a couple of hours while the show-attendees, as trainee detectives, attempt to figure out whodunnit. There’s physical evidence to examine as well as all the suspects to interrogate, flirt with and cajole. Lots and lots going on, and add to that plenty of delicious artisan chocolate available for the guests to enjoy.
(I actually think there is valuable information to be gleaned from the chocolate, but we were all far too busy eating it to treat in in that manner…)
The two hours fly past, and then there’s a debriefing session away from the suspects and an accusation is settled on by the group; our group of detectives came up with a dozen different possible explanations so I don’t think there was much confidence in the accusation we finally leveled, but it was highly entertaining nonetheless.
The mystery is not solved yet – all will be revealed at the end of the season. The mystery deepens in a web-based continuation of the case, showing all the evidence and offering opportunities to talk further to the suspects.
So that’s what I did on Friday. It was really great. It’s on again this weekend, Thursday through Sunday. If you’re in Wellington, you should go.
Show website
Ticketing website

Imma Let You Linky

but From the Morgue had the best linky of all time
Reading the Maps has the best overview of the saga of W(h)anganui’s controversial ‘h’
Sam Tsui continues the re-invigoration of Michael Jackson’s pop music with this immensely entertaining solo medley:

More photos of 19th Century Russia
A fantastic comic strip about riding the tube in London. Formally inventive and just a great laff. (via bleeding cool)
World’s smallest working model train layout
Evan Dorkin links to the first three installments of Beasts of Burden, in which a band of lovable mutts (and one cat) band together to battle supernatural threats. As a promo for the new series the original stories have been put online. It’s great stuff, especially for dog-lovers, but warning: part three is genuinely nasty and disturbing whereas the first two are just great fun.
The Gator’s perverse and often baffling blog offers up some linky including the Nigerian film industry and Turkish superman.
And finally… Hobo Darkseid

Ticket to Heaven (Canada, 1981)

In social psyc class this week we watched Ticket to Heaven, a dramatisation of indoctrination into the Moonies and then being pulled out by determined family and friends. It’s a hell of story, devoting almost its entire run-time to the process of falling under the spell of the cult, and the counter-process of being convinced to leave it behind. It sits right on the tail-end of low-key 70s film realism, with the first section of the film in Toronto full of method-style dialogue, natural light sources, and an integrated, moody soundtrack; by the end it’s switched into early-80s stylisation, with a sweeping score and some clear-cut heroes and villains. Despite these limitations, it provides a compelling vision anchored by a great performance by Nick Mancuso as David, the man who joins the cult.
It held attention in both classes, although the tension-busting gags got more laughter in the second group – I think the first group were too shell-shocked to laugh. It does seem very distant; cults like the Moonies were very much a 70s phenomenon. However, variations on the theme obviously still thrive around the edges of society (and it wasn’t too long ago that a cult was actively recruiting in an NZ university).
What interests me most about cults is the uneasy lines between them and religions, communal living arrangements, alternative lifestyles, even simple pan-cultural acculturation processes; there’s a lot of grey in there. However, what I got talking about after the film in the second class wasn’t what cults are or aren’t, but rather what they demonstrate about ourselves.
Cults highlight what to me is the key lesson in psychology: that our conception of the self as a clearly-defined inner core of identity that drives our behaviour and keeps us cohesive, is wrong. We are massively contingent; who we are is created by who we are with, by the actions we take, by the physiological constraints and stimuli we experience. When we look at a cult and wonder how someone could possibly fall under their spell, we are guilty of not acknowledging this fact. It’s the fundamental attribution error, turned inwards. It’s massively important in working out how to live in the world.
The class humoured me while I ranted and raved on this subject. So that was good.

Performance Review

I’ve got to do my part of my performance review tomorrow. Been trying to make it work tonight and it just eludes me. I have my KEY RESULT AREAS filled in and my KEY COMPETENCIES marked out but trying to relate everything I’ve done and learned and assembled in the last year in a little box is defeating me.
I actually don’t even know what type of thing I’m meant to write in the little boxes, it’s been so long since I’ve done one of these things. I sort of just want to write the same thing everywhere:
Done all this stuff, more or less.
It’s the more or less that makes it work. Because it’s ultimately entirely arbitrary isn’t it to try and capture the complexity of these relationships between me and other people, between my system inputs and the responses of the system, between my shaking of the spider’s web and the spider’s jerky approach, to try and capture them in a little box and rate it with a letter grade… Except it’s not really about capturing these relationships, is it? It’s about enabling a certain vector of communication. The performance review isn’t about reviewing performance – that happens all the time, in an ongoing way, the manager is always reviewing the employee’s performance, the employee is always interpreting their own performance. Maybe the process is really about manager and employee being able to send some important messages to each other.
So what kinda message do I want to send, I wonder?
No-one puts baby in the corner
In space no one can hear you scream
Send more paramedics
Hmm. Much to think about.

Ian Curtis Wall

Every day I walk past the Ian Curtis wall, the graffiti memorial to the Joy Division singer that has marked up Wallace Street’s concrete expanses for nearly three decades. (Mentioned on his Wikipedia page.)
Recently, it was removed by the local graffiti clean-up crew.
This is a genuine international attraction, and it’s been scrubbed off the map. (That link goes to Meredith Yayanos, international lady of mystery and recent emigre to Wellington; I have been bemused to watch her discuss Wellington’s many positive attributes in Twitter conversations with William Gibson and Warren Ellis, among others.) I’d be frustrated except its only a matter of time before the graff reappears; it’s already been chalked back up, bigger and brighter than ever.
But – it’s yet another blemish in the council’s record of understanding and dealing with street art. (See also the Drypnz fiasco.) Not that this is an easy task, graffiti slips right through the cracks of our social mechanics, but they can do a damn sight better than they’ve been doing. If we’re trying to a be a city of culture, then a bit of sorting out is past due.

Michael Laws, Prizefighter

Man, been busy these past couple days. But, bonus: have successfully convinced the scanner function on my printer/scanner to work with my laptop (previous frustrations). The software I used to use is still refusing to function, and it does other weird stuff (e.g. I can scan to my laptop from the laptop, but I can’t scan to my laptop from the scanner), but it goes. Hurrah!
So anyway, instead of a long blog, I’m just going to do what all us Kiwi bloggers do when we’re just phoning it in: quote the supremely self-satisfied Mayor of W(h)anganui, Michael Laws.

it was obvious, even in 1981, a liberated South Africa would exchange one form of madness for another. Apartheid was evil. So too is the African disease that has enveloped that nation, and from which it is condemned to never recover. (Sunday Star Times column, yesterday)

Evil of Apartheid = Evil of “the African disease”
I have no words.
Which is fine, because I need to do more work. Hurrah! Thank you Michael Laws!

Cheeky Seabird Linky

You get the feeling this isn’t the first time. Click through to watch:

Abandoned Theatres, latest in the web subgenre of “cool photos of weird abandoned places”
Andrew Rilstone (he of the fanboy linkage on my blogroll) delivers an amazing downloadable response-to-and-discussion-of Watchmen.
Michael Quinn Patton talks about how Maori creation stories illustrate his conception of social media (via email from Liz H)
Chris Sims delivers the only review you’ll ever need of Bring It On: Fight To The Finish, the fifth entry in the Bring It On cheersploitation saga!
This is how Broadway oughta be done: new song from “Legally Blonde: The Musical”, via feminist writer and coincidental Bring It On enthusiast Karen Healey

The UK’s first road map
The Economist delves into the quest for artificial stupidity (via BKD)
And finally… aaaaaaaaaaargh no i am seriously going to have nightmares over the existence of this creature (via Allen Varney, just like the cheeky seabird)

Freaks and Geeks: What happened next

morgue: Everyone reading this loves Freaks & Geeks, right? Right?
Readers: OF COURSE YES WE DO WITHOUT ANY EXCEPTION.
morgue: Well did you know that the story of these characters didn’t actually end at the end of episode 18, Discos and Dragons, with Nick dancing, Daniel dwarfing and Lindsay deading?
Readers: NO NO I DID NOT I SUSPECT YOU ARE ABOUT TO TELL ME ABOUT THIS
morgue: Yes I am. You see, the ultra-neat Yearbook DVD set features on its inside covers a bunch of signatures and messages from the show’s characters to Sam (front) and Lindsay (back). And a few plot developments are revealed!
Readers: DYING OF SUSPENSE NOW SPILL PLZ
morgue: So, from Sam’s pages, we find out that Cindy wants to be friends even though she still thinks Sam’s a jerk, while Todd reckons Cindy is crazy! Alan can’t bring himself to be friendly and writes insults all over Sam’s book! Nick Andopolis thinks Disco sucks! And most importantly, Maureen still wants to hang out with Sam!
Readers: BUT NICK LOVES DISCO NOW
morgue: Don’t be foolish Nick was just into disco because Sarah was and he was just with Sarah because he couldn’t be with Lindsay! Over on Lindsay’s pages we find out that Nick and Sarah broke up (surprise!) and he’s obviously still in love with Lindsay. The secret trip Lindsay took with Kim Kelly was apparently a success, because the mathletes think she went to the academic decathlon, and Kim’s talking about a second mission – presumably her mom and dad found out but kept quiet about it. And! Daniel actually has a coherent explanation for being such a s.o.b all season! Although it’s all spin obviously.
Readers: AND THAT’S IT
morgue: Um, yeah. It’s not exactly a lost episode I guess.
Readers: OH
morgue: No wait – the other thing you need to know. That episode where there’s a viking mascot?

Readers: VIKING MASCOT = TERRIFYING YES I DO
morgue: Well did you know that the dude playing the mascot is… THE BEEF.

Readers: LOL
morgue: (to himself) This was more interesting in my head than it is now in the cold, harsh pixels of reality.
Readers: THE BEEF FALLS OFF THE TABLE IN A VIKING HEAD LOL

See me, angsty

In October last year, Urban Driftwood was published. It’s a collection of poetry and prose by four young Wellington writers. I’m one of them, so is Dan of Freshly Ground foodblog infamy, and we get away with applying the word “young” because the writing is a decade or more old.*
And now you can download it free.
I wrote in the blog post linkied above, “The collection is a nice blend of voices, which was always Dan’s intent – he, Jane and Stephen all bring distinctive rhythms and styles and they balance each other well. Jane’s meditative simplicity, Stephen’s shaggy-dog shrugs of tone, Dan’s thoughtful density and my whatever. I am pleased to say that it lives up to Dan’s initial hope that we four writers together would be more than the sum of our parts.”
Its up for sale in hardcopy on Lulu, and we’ve added a free .pdf download. Go get it. Read my angst. I dare you.
* Yep, this project was in Dan’s to-do list for a looong time. Much respect for people who keep things on their to-do list for a decade and then actually do them.