[morgueatlarge] That Festival Report

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent November 2003]

Three months of very severe busy. Here’s some short-form updates:
* we did the festival
* we had many visitors, including Lucy and John, Kirsten, Leon and Matt E
* I supervised the steady expansion of a bookshop-based roleplaying club
* I scored a freelance web content development contract for really quite stupid money
* Cal got a big exciting job
* we travelled through England
* lots and lots of other stuff

I’ve been just about bouncing off the walls this past week, desperate to get some time to catch up on all the things I need to catch up on, including this. And now the time has arrived – Matt has been kicked ou^H^H^H sadly left us, and I can stay late at work and tap out this email. Smoove.

I believe I promised a Festival report. Here goes.

—–

FEST

The Edinburgh Festival is, as we like to say back home, world famous in New Zealand. It’s a big deal if a Kiwi act makes it to the festival, and even bigger if they actually do well. I was waiting for the Festival from the moment I decided to stick around in Edinburgh, determined to see every damn thing I could manage.

It’s actually a bunch of festivals all running simultaneously. Wellingtonians, imagine the Jazz Festival, the Film Festival, the Festival of the Arts and the Fringe all at once and you’re getting the idea. The bulk of the fest is the Fringe – which operates according to the ‘you bring it, we’ll list it’ system of welcoming all comers.

The real competition in the Fringe is for venues. The big venues, such as the Gilded Balloon and the Assembly Rooms, are able to pick and choose the best of the best, and they release their own Festival brochures featuring their own acts. Their reputations are sound indeed. A lot of other people come to the Festival with shows to put on, and every conceivable venue is used. There were something like 200 different venues for the Festival. The competition means the venues cost a fair chunk of cash, and that comes through in the ticket prices – the Festival this year was filled with lamentations for the lost days of yore when tickets were £3 and innovative risky shows weren’t put off coming by the cost of the venue. This led to a rival festival down the road in the cheaper confines of Leith, a ‘people’s festival’ where the tickets weren’t extortionate and the bars weren’t full of pissed London-based comedians. An interesting situation and you can probably tell I’m about to start ranting about my point of view on it all, but I know you’re not bloody interested in that lot, so I’ll skip to the good stuff.

On Weds July 30 Caroline and I had a pre-Festival warm-up with ‘Jeremy Hardy vs the Israeli Army’, a documentary following a London-based comedian who went to Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement. Harrowing stuff, and the filmmaker was on hand to talk about the film afterwards. It was a good document of the ISM’s people and processes, which served as a good counterpoint to some of the hysterical propaganda that circulated about them following the deaths of ISM activists Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall. Sobering, but enlightening and ultimately a rewarding experience.

It was to be a very political Festival. Many performances were commenting on the Middle East situation, almost without exception being very critical of the Bush administration and the UK’s role in what is seen over here as ‘Bush’s war’. Perhaps the strangest outcome was the infamous Comedy Terrorist, Aaron Barschak, desperately trying to wring a show out of the time he crashed a royal birthday party dressed as Osama. (Now *that* frenzy was something to be seen.) He was ignored by audiences, although every outlet reviewed the show, and the consensus was ‘terrible, you have to feel sorry for him’. It was an odd direction for the often-scornful media to throw some sympathy.

I didn’t go and see Aaron Barschak. I relate this story here simply because the 2003 festival will be remembered for him; and because one of the newspaper profiles revealed his co-conspirator, the Colonel Tom Parker to his Elvis: none other than New Zealand’s own “comedy genius”, Brendhan Lovegrove. (I apologise if anyone reading this is a friend of Brendhan, or a fan, but seriously, the guy never gave me anything other than vague bodily discomfort.) So there’s a Kiwi connection you won’t read about on http://www.nzedge.com/!!

Anyway. Politics out of the way, we kicked off our Festival with the very funny Wicker Woman on July 31, which I picked because I love ‘The Wicker Man’ and, well, why not give it a shot? It turned out to be a fortuitous selection, as these reviews make clear: http://www.population3.co.uk/reviews.shtml. A damn good show, although it never did hit it big.

You might wonder how it is that a show like this, with such excellent reviews, could fail to succeed? Simply put, the competition is intense. There is so much happening so fast that it’s hard for cream to rise to the
top. But Population 3 will not be forgotten – sometimes it takes a year or two to build up the word of mouth. Case in point: Flight of the Conchords.

Kiwiland’s folktastic duo were the underground rumble at last year’s fringe, the show the comedians wanted to see. This year, they came in with no publicity machine, a show they’d cobbled together at the last minute, and a good rep with the right people. I knew they were out there, but I wasn’t interested in seeing them. I can see those guys anytime back home. Any time.

Instead we welcomed August with ‘Homage to Louis’ from the Jazz and Blues Fest. The venue wasn’t what I was hoping for – it had all the ambience of an old folk’s home, and the audience was mostly grey. But quite frankly I didn’t care. It was a great show, covering Louis Armstrong’s whole career, with a lot of emphasis on some of his wilder early material. I’ve never seen any appeal in tribute acts, but this one worked for me, even the lead singer doing his best Satchmo scratchy voice for the vocals. Brilliant stuff.

We followed with a bit of stand-up, the Cream of Irish Comedy. Cue joke about how the cream has curdled, or whatever. I have never seen a comedian die as thoroughly as the last guy here did. Yikes. NOT FUNNY.

Sunday. We zoomed into town in time for Dark Earth, one of the big events of the theatre programme, a shadowy portrayal of Glasgow urbanites coming across a family scrabbling a living in the Scottish borders. I liked it a lot, although the ending crossed over into an unappealing hysteria (theatre seems to do this a lot – it has its big emotional scream-and-shout finales without really justifying the emotions on display). It’s been criticised for being too allegorical, or for cramming too much social commentary in, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest. I got a lot out of it.

We spilled out into the daylight and rounded the corner in time to enjoy the Cavalcade that was the proper opening of the festival. Float after float after float, most of them advertising some show or other, all led by the massed ranks of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo’s marching bands. Phenomenal fun.

Then back around the corner to catch some physical theatre from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. It was called The Human Show, and after watching it we scored free tickets to Joe: The Infinite Universe immediately following. Physical theatre’s not my thing and my appreciation for dance doesn’t go much beyond the level of ‘hey, that’s cool’, but it was a nice afternoon’s entertainment.   I enjoyed Joe a lot. I’m not even gonna try and describe it. There were bodies, they moved, there was lighting, there was sound, there was a science lecture.

Then we cannoned across-town to the Underbelly for The Mighty Dread, a piece of hip-hop theatre about a south London rapper who can’t be emotionally honest to his girl and loses her – and then challenges Love itself to a verbal showdown. That was the hook that grabbed me – verbal sparring with an anthro’d Love sounded wild, and since it hadn’t been too long ago that 8 Mile had mainstreamed battle rhyming I was counting on some good stuff. It turned out I liked pretty much everything *except* the battle – after an hour of build up it amounted to three brief stanzas: ‘love sucks’/’no it doesn’t, chill out’/’oh, okay then’ which was a sad anticlimax. I’d wanted a roaring swirling philosophical debate cat-and-mouse wordwar and I just didn’t get it. Still, they’re a young company and I enjoyed the show, so I’m not going to bitch any longer. At least they had some non-white faces on stage, anyway.

The night was to end with Live Ghost Hunt, a mock-doc ‘let’s find some ghosts in this very building’ piece of broad comedy. It was nice and occasionally innovative but quite mild, really – I think it would have worked better with a pint or two fizzing up my brain. Still, made me jump when they sprang the ghost on us, which was at least part of the point.

And that was that. We trundled off home, collapsed and slept. It was the end of Sunday 3 August.   Only 25 more days of festival!

MORE TO COME…
———

I have about 2 weeks until our next visitor turns up, so I’ll try and be disciplined and get all caught up by then…

Wish me luck!

Morgan

[morgueatlarge] FlashMorgue – Wgtn, this Thurs, 7.56pm

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent September 2003]

Most of you will probably have heard about ‘flash mobbing’, where crowds of people suddenly gather to perform a pointless act and then disperse.

This is not one of those. This is a FlashMorgue.

This Thursday, September 11, marks the one year anniversary of my departure from New Zealand. To celebrate/commiserate, I hereby summon all my friends and family currently in Wellington, New Zealand to a FlashMorgue.

The FlashMorgue will take place on the north side of the pedestrian crossing on Courtenay Place, the one down the Embassy end. Specifically, it will take place in the view of the webcam here:
http://citylink.co.nz/services/webcam/courtenay/

The FlashMorgue will take place on Thursday evening. Please gather at the FlashMorgue site at 7.56pm precisely.

Greet your fellow FlashMorguers with good cheer and hearty wellwishing. (Singing is entirely appropriate but not compulsory.)

Somewhere between 7.59 and 8.03pm, the webcam will update, recording an image of the FlashMorgue for posterity.

At 8.06pm, please disperse. Or, alternatively, go to a drinking salon of your collective choice, I’m in Scotland so I don’t particularly mind either way and even if I did there’s not much I could do about it.

I encourage all Wellingtonians to attend this FlashMorgue, and all non-Wellingtonians to attend virtually. (In the UK, for example, you’ll want to refresh the link above about 9.05am on Thursday.)

Have fun, and most importantly, be safe.

NOTE:
I will organise a reward for anyone who comes in one of the following costumes:
* a spooky cow
* a bemused moose
* a pigphone
* a Jon Ball

Additionally, the spirits of the east and west inform me that anyone attending who is waving a flag of any description at the precise moment the camera shoots will experience good luck for the remainder of the week. So wave those flags, superstitious folk!

———

I have a big email about the festival coming, but I haven’t written it yet. In the meantime, I will relate to you the following brief story. Today in the work café as I was ordering a panini (cheese and mushroom), a girl stopped me and asked, are you from New Zealand? To which I replied, Kate? Kate Druce?

We were both a bit surprised at our feat of memory, because the last time we saw each other was in about 1989. And we weren’t even friends then – we only ever met a couple of times. (Through the kid’s journo pages of the Evening Post, as it happens. Mum, you may dig through your archives now and find an exact date.)

Of course, this being a “New Zealanders all know each other” story, I expect that many of you will also know Kate Druce. If you do, please reply. I’m curious to see whether the law will prove true.

—-

The sun is shining and I am a happy morgue. Peace, love!

[morgueatlarge] Tale of Three Cities (3)

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent August 2003]

STOCKHOLM

One month ago, Caroline and I got on a bus, then we got on a train, then we got on a plane, and in a few hours we were in Stockholm.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to being able to do that. This is one of the reasons New Zealanders travel – from New Zealand, it’s a huge effort to get pretty much anywhere except Australia. Over this side of the world, it’s as simple as logging on to the net and seeing where cheap flights are going and just going there.

As it was a cheap flight, ‘Stockholm’ really meant ‘Skavsta, one hour twenty minutes by bus south of Stockholm’. We landed in a small airport in a forest as dusk was coming on. It was not like any other forest I’ve been in. The trees were hulking and sleepy, and swallows looped above us catching insects.

(Okay, I don’t know if they were swallows. I don’t know from birds. But ‘swallow’ plus ‘loop’ makes you think of ‘swoop’ and that’s also what they were doing. Poetic license, y’see.)

We piled on the bus and rolled on out. The scenery was great – forested banks of hillside, sky-catching lakes, clear blue sky deepening into darkness. It was a young and delicate landscape, a teenager blossoming into adulthood compared to the grumpy ancient mariner of Scotland. Not nearly so
young as Aotearoa New Zealand, of course; my home country’s hills and coasts seem only half-made, fresh from the womb.

It was still light, barely, as we came into Stockholm itself. The city is fascinating, spread out over islands and peninsulae linked by bridges, beautiful. Intriguing, also, because the islands and curves of the harbour put a strange shape to the city, preserve it from singularity. Each curving shoreline of each island instead offers its own individual Stockholm, giving way to the others gracefully as you walk along. We walked everywhere. That first night we walked from the new town across the central island Gamla Stan, the old town. It isn’t a large island – a brisk walk from one side to the other would be an easy five minutes – but it was within these shores that Stockholm grew and was bounded for centuries.

We were staying in an old police station, converted to a hotel a few decades back, on Sodermalm, the southern island which is apparently the hotbed of alternative student culture. I didn’t see much of that to speak of, but it was a nice neighbourhood. It’s a great city to wander at night, so peaceful and safe. Close to midnight we wandered through some parks and women were sitting alone under lamps reading novels. It’s that kind of place. The pace never got near to hectic while we were there. Cyclists were the biggest threat and often the fastest thing around, and there were huge numbers of them. Cal noticed the odd sight of ‘bike cemeteries’, corners of public spaces were cycles were left never to be collected. The ones on the outside looked fine – but away in the centre, at the wall, they were little more than rust skeletons.

A wrecked vehicle is also at the centre of Stockholm’s highlight: the Vasa Museum. (“Whoa, nice transition, morgue!” “That’s why you’re the DJ and I’m the rapper. Word is bond.”) In 1628 the warship Vasa sailed from Stockholm. It didn’t make it very far – a few minutes after launch it keeled over and sank. The Vasa was lost under the waves, not too much further away than a particularly good stone’s throw. And, in time, it was forgotten.

Except by obsessive history buffs and salvage experts. One of these found it and funded an ambition campaign to lift it. It emerged from the water in 1961, and stands now in a museum constructed to hold it. And it’s *astonishing*.

It’s a huge 17th century warship in a room. It’s mounted upright and moodily lit and you can do everything short of walk on board. It’s very well-preserved because the low salt content in the water means the worms that devour the wood of other wrecks can’t survive in this harbour. It has been restored where necessary with great sensitivity, clearly indicating which bits of wood are new restoration and which bits are original (answer: the new-looking ones are new, the old-looking ones aren’t). There are full-size reproductions of much of the carvings painted up in the same gaudy colours of the original, right next to the originals in place on the ship, long-since bleached of colour. There are hundreds of explanatory points. There’s so much information you could drown in it. It’s an amazingly successful museum. It does everything a museum should do and does it with great style.

And it just so happens that this excellent museum houses perhaps the most rawly impressive historical artefact that will ever be discovered.

It’s a winning combination. If you’re nautically inclined, it’s worth the trip just for this.

Stockholm is not just a ship in a museum, of course, but that’s all I’m going to tell you about. (Okay, also a brief plug for the city’s comic library, located in a high-profile city-centre building – Bryan Talbot original art exhibition!) It’s a pretty cool place. It’s very much a city, though. If you love visiting cities this will suit you well, if you hate them this won’t convert you.   However, it’s a small city, with lots of parks and water, and that suits me just fine.

Also, there were lots of mooses, so myself and Miss Moose felt quite at home. (No real mooses, sadly. But then, neither myself nor Miss Moose are real mooses either.)

Last word: if you end up in an underground pizza joint in the Sodermalm where no-one speaks English, get out while you can. The grumpy staff and dire food just ain’t the kinda dining experience you want.

Peace, love and mooses

~`morgan moose

(Dean: we *tried* to find local food, but failed – I still don’t know what local food *is* in Stockholm.)

(Erik: thanks for your email! If we’d had more prep time I would have warned you that we were coming, even though you probably would have been nowhere near Stockholm at the time. You’re most welcome to come over to Edinburgh any time! And I haven’t forgotten the photo…)

(All: read this blog: http://www.stonesoup.co.nz/chinashop/)

[morgueatlarge] Tale of Three Cities (2)

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent August 2003]

EDINBURGH

I see the city through new eyes as Caroline discovers it. It’s beautiful, that old town skyline across Princes St like nothing else on earth. The Museum of Edinburgh has some good maps and models of what the town was once like, and suddenly it snaps into place, the way the old structure of the town lies beneath the new, the simple logic of two parallel streets, one leading up to the castle, one to the market below the castle, and a loch on the other side. It’s a logic that’s still working itself out, an invisible strata woven through a city’s life. Edinburgh’s beating heart is the Castle and the old town beside it, and the new town and other expansions are simply branches reaching out for more sun. Everyone who lives in Edinburgh understands this, and everyone who visits senses it on some level. Part of understanding Edinburgh is seeing how the past silently manifests in the present – it’s no wonder Edinburgh’s famed for its ghosts.

The two best spooky tours in the city are the Mary Kings Close and the City of the Dead. (This is their reputation, anyway – I haven’t been on any others.) Mary Kings Close is an old street that once ran down from the High Street, up towards the Castle, down the hillside to the Loch. The bottom two thirds were demolished at various times, but the top third was built over the top of and remains to this day – an entire street in the cellar of one of Edinburgh’s largest buildings. The tour winds you down into the dark, through reconstructions of the living conditions of Edinburgh’s citizens and featured oddities that have given this Close its sinister reputation – plague-troubled, site of a celebrated murder, and site of at least three significant ghost stories. But it’s walking up the Close at the end of the tour that has the most impact, laundry hung plaintively between the narrow buildings, steep and slippery stone underfoot, and a heavy stone darkness above like a night that has forgotten how to dawn, a street unchanged, an alley that is the opposite of modernity. Then out on to the spine of the city, the Castle waiting just beyond, and the feeling that the city knows its past, even if those who walk across it don’t.

City of the Dead is less worried about imparting knowledge and more about sharing an experience. It’s the only night tour that takes in Greyfriar’s Kirkyard, where Edinburgh has buried tens of thousands of its dead in unmarked graves, where the seeds of the Civil War were sown by signatories to the National Covenant, where a little dog became famous for its loyalty to its dead master.   Greyfriar’s Kirkyard has another claim to renown as well, as the site of one of the better documented hauntings you’re ever going to come across.

The story goes that in 1998 the mausoleum of “Bloody” MacKenzie, vicious persecutor of the Covenanters, was desecrated by a homeless man; since then the kirkyard has been a site of strange supernatural activity, most notably in the Covenanter’s Prison, a long aisle of mausoleums concealed behind the Kirk. Here, in the Black Mausoleum, hundreds of tour parties have experienced inexplicable occurrences, being pinched or pushed or breathed on or even collapsing unconscious.

Sounded cool to me.

The guide led us on a somewhat elaborate route around the Old Town, down narrow wynds and along the cowgate, cheerily telling of the tortures and atrocities in the city’s medieval past. Then into the Kirkyard itself, dark and only a little bit spooky (I had come here to sit in the sun and eat sandwiches many times, so I suppose my defences were strengthened). We heard of those who had died and been buried here, or indeed those who had graverobbed.

Finally, past the Mackenzie tomb and into the Covenanter’s Prison and, finally, the ominous Black Mausoleum…

I don’t believe in ghosts. However, I also don’t *not* believe in ghosts. I’ve heard about, and even experienced, enough strange stuff to at least have an open mind.

But that doesn’t even matter, because visiting the Black Mausoleum didn’t have anything to do with whether or not I thought ghosts were a real phenomenon. Really, I just wanted to have a bit of a scare. I like watching scary movies and I particularly like it when they scare me.

We’re herded into the Black Mausoleum. It’s basically a big stone chamber, featureless. I end up right at the back. Right in the corner at the back. It’s a bit cold. And dark – it’s dark. The only light comes from the
entrance – from the tour leader in the doorway. He has us all packed in and he starts to explain about poltergeists, how they work, what it feels like when you’re in a cold spot… he keeps things moving, but there’s a lot to get through, and I’m stuck in there at the back in the darkness, the wall is right behind me… and I’m reminded by one of the testimonies I’d read before coming, from the guy who was standing right at the back when he heard scratching on the stone right behind him…

The infamous Todman Street flat was haunted, of course, and not just by the ghost of decades of parties. At least, that was its reputation. Sometimes, when I’d walk up the stairs late at night, the place where the ghost was supposed to appear, I’d be chilled, and I’d hurry up to my room as fast as I could. Because it’s fun to be spooked.

When I signed Cal and I up for the tour, I wanted the same kind of spooky. And I got it. In spades. Stuck at the back, in the dark… my legs kept feeling extremely cold, which is how a supernatural ‘cold spot’ starts, so I hopped from one to the other and tried not to look over my shoulder…

I had spent all day hoping that someone would faint (over 100 have done so on the tour so far), that scratches would be found on someone’s arms, that *something* weird would happen in the Black Mausoleum. But when I was in there at midnight, stuck at the back in the corner, I feel no shame in
telling you I was desperately hoping the opposite. I was spooked. And that’s the name of the game.

It’s a good piece of fun. The guys taking the tour know how to work human suggestibility to their advantage and are good at drawing out moments to set your nerves on edge – but don’t worry, they’re not in the business of giving heart attacks and they crack a lot of jokes to break the tension. The
nerves end up on edge anyway, because the place has a reputation, and maybe all those faintings and scratches aren’t just co-incidences or accidental self-hypnosis or hysteria… maybe…

Curious ghosthunters can read more at http://www.blackhart.uk.com/cod_old/eyewitness.html

NOSTALGIALICIOUS

Before leaving Edinburgh for London to pick up Cal, I hooked up briefly with Maryanne Garry, a Psychology professor from my student days who was in town for a conference with students in tow. In one of those typical every-Kiwi-is-only-two-degrees from-any-other-Kiwi things, friend Alastair was in town and catching up with one of his friends who was one of Maryanne’s students and in town with her. Anyway, I turned up and we caught up. I got to update her on the whereabouts of many of her ‘98 class, some of whom are reading this. (You know who you are. How could you forget?) And all was sweetness and light and utterly nostalgialicious. Snappy.

Take care everyone.
morgue

[morgueatlarge] Tale of Three Cities (1)

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent August 2003]

LONDON

Sun in blue sky, a lonely admiral. Isle of Dogs, dead hot. Sitting on grass in a park watching the Thames, top arc of the eye of London imperceptibly shifting in the distance, Caroline appears before my eyes for the first time in ten months. It really does feel like no time was lost.

On Tottenham Court Road is snappy hotel the Grafton, Edwardian apparently, forced windows open to fight back the heat. Walkable to everywhere. Two days walking London, no buses, no tube, sewing streets and sights together as we go. Nothing sorts out your geography of a city like walking it, not even buses. (Of course, bus and tube everywhere on the last two days – we’re not stupid.)

Hard bustle of Oxford Street. That beautiful curve of Regent St, my personal symbol of London. Eros and McDonald’s billboards in Piccadilly Circus.   Settled moments in Leicester Square. Cleopatra’s Needle beside a mucky, thrilling Thames. Covent Garden bursting with music and shade. Westminster, St Pauls, Fleet Street, Soho, Trafalgar Square.

The Brit Museum, my second time, still didn’t manage more than a fraction of it. A show – The Madness of George Dubya, Kubrick’s Strangelove reworked into musical contemporary satire. Ride the Eye, surprised to find it underwhelming, an uncommon sentiment it seems but there you go. Drinking in a London pub, 11pm closing time and homeward stagger, traditional.

Catch up with many wonderful Londonites. Big party out at Frank and Sam’s, backyard barbecue no less. Regent’s Park, James Park, Russell Square, Embankment Gardens, other greens. The Diana hubcap. Tower Hill and the shortest Jack the Ripper tour ever. Dinner in Brick Lane, new heartthrob locale for the BritLit scene, where eager and sincere young men fiercely pimp their eating establishment, throwing in free drinks and discounts to tempt you inside.

Wander the shoulders-back grid of Bloomsbury, absorbing the scene, randomly stumble into an enormous book traders fair full of squinting hobbyists evaluating first editions.   Later trip to Spitalfield’s market, the market is empty except for a rather good organic café. The Tate Modern, as full of stunning work as the last time I was there, enormous black Pinocchio riff outside.

London. Absolute magic.

(I bored all the Londoners with my muttering on about it, not to mention Cal who heard it about eight thousand times, but I’m going to say it again – the congestion charge in central London has reduced traffic on the streets to about a third of what it was. It’s amazing the change – it’s like a totally different city. It’s easy to cross the road, the buses rattle along at a healthy pace instead of being just the sitting-down version of walking, noise is down to a healthy shout, the air is cleaner, and the pressure isn’t so intense. It’s a happier place. Give that man what done this a Knighthood already.)

———

JUDITH

I don’t exactly know what to say about this but it’d feel false to leave it out. This was never really a travel journal so much as a bunch of rants about what is on my mind. I’m just going to type and see what comes out.

My friend Judith O’Sullivan died on Wednesday of cancer. She was at home in Upper Hutt with family.

On my third day in London, back in September, I spent a wonderful day wandering Greenwich with Elizabeth and Roland (who were, you will recall, my exceedingly kind and generous hosts). As we walked I received a phone call from Judith, to make contact, welcome me to London, and invite me to a party that very evening. I was pleased she rang, because it gave me a chance to tell Elizabeth and Roland one of my favourite stories.

In New Zealand there’s a film festival each year devoted to showing unusual, non-mainstream cinema from around the globe. One year on the bill was the infamous live-action manga ‘The Story of Ricky’, a martial arts flick so stupid, ridiculous and disgustingly extreme that it attained instant classic status among odd-movie aficionados around the world. I went with a small group of people including my friend Billy, who brought along his old friend Judith who I’d never met before. Not only did Judith enjoy the film, but at its conclusion, she ran out into the street and stood there in the rain, stopping traffic, doing kung-fu kicks.

Naturally, we all fell instantly in love with her. (Except Billy, who was used to it.)

I love that story. (That’s the short version, but the longer one just has more description in it.)   It’s just so… random and cool. It’s actually important to me, I’ve told it so many times it’s become something of a symbol to me. Symbolic of what exactly I’m not sure. I’m not even sure any more how much of it is true. Not that that matters, because the spirit of it is absolutely right, as all who knew Judith would agree. She was mad in the best possible sense.

She ended up in Auckland and we didn’t see each other often (although she did turn up at one of those infamous Todman Street parties) but we did stay in sporadic touch, even after she moved to London. Really, I was only a minor figure in her life, and she was only a minor figure in mine, but she was a friend. More importantly, she was an incredibly good friend to Billy, who is still pretty much the other me. It’s deeply strange that she is gone.

I didn’t go to the party that day in September. Can’t even remember why not, some lame excuse whose details I’ve forgotten. I figured I’d drop in on her at the Bodyworks exhibition before I left to Rome. Didn’t manage that either – disorganised and short of time. And by the time I got back to London the cancer had been diagnosed and she’d gone back to New Zealand.

Billy, and everyone else close to Judith, I don’t really know what to say. All the usual sentiments I guess, sincerely meant. Peace, and love.

(Don’t get too gloomy, all you readers, that’s the last thing she’d want. Just think how cool it would be to see a girl stopping traffic doing kung fu in the middle of the road in the rain. And however cool you think it’d be – trust me, it was way, way cooler than that.)

———

Take care out there everyone.

~`morgan

What I’m reading:
The Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

Just finished:
The Atrocity Exhibition by JG Ballard
Amaryllis Night and Day by Russell Hoban

[morgueatlarge] BJMEEOP

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent July 2003]

BARBIE

I went out to Peebles for a barbecue with Stephen Ellis and some other friends I’ve made through the roleplaying network here. It was lovely and sunny and we stood around in a perfectly manly sort of way, looking at the charcoal and nodding. I even ate some meat. I can honestly admit that I never expected to enjoy a wonderful sunny barbecue in Scotland, except as some kind of sick antipodean prank, but it turned out fine.

Peebles is the kind of small town that you’d invent as a parody of small towns in the UK. Small and scenic, old locals in their Sunday best clustering out of old stone churches, a winding main street with a narrow
footpath, folding green parks and bright, tended gardens. Steve lives in Haystoun Cottage. The river running through is called the Tweed. Only a besuited badger playing cricket with a monocled fox could have made it more charming.

JODHPURS

Speaking of foxes, the kind without monocles are fairly common sights in the cities here, skulking guiltily along under cover of night. It wouldn’t be hard to put an alternative reading on the fox-hunting debate that continuously rages throughout the UK, with the hungry, bedraggled fox representing the lowly working class drudge, and the spiffing, horn-blowing hunters representing, well, representing themselves actually. I have no time for the practice of hunting and killing animals for sport, but I also think there are bigger fish to fry in the world of politics. The hunting debate is a convenient venue to continue the battles of class that have underlined UK social history for the last century, and the fierceness with which both sides put their case, and the sheer amount of energy spent on both sides, disturbs me for all kinds of reasons. The Countryside Alliance (a beautifully spin-doctored name) has mustered massive pro-hunting rallies up and down the country.  This issue is threatening to cause a rift between the Commons (voted for a ban) and the Lords (who will not pass the ban) with no forseeable constitutional benefit, nor any real progress on the underlying issues of residual classism. Good lord, people, why can’t you get so energetic about causes that actually *matter*?

Then again, given the massive bias in the Countryside Alliance for a conservative political stance, it’s probably better for my liberal ideals if they stay distracted.

In any case, the pro-hunting crowd have turned on some pleasingly barmy interventions to push their cause. My two favourites: choosing one of the (quite ancient) giant white horses that have been cut from chalk into hillsides around the country and placing a giant rider atop it; and sending two young women to parliament wearing nothing but painted jodhpurs and riding jacket. (The iconography and pageantry of the hunt is clearly very important – maybe a better way to get hunting banned is to enforce safety regulations insisting hunters wear giant pink reflective flourescent outfits and keep their horses under a speed limit.)

MAOW

Another oddity that has recently emerged into my consciousness – big cat sightings in the UK, and particularly in Scotland.   Every now and then it comes to light that someone or other has seen a big cat wandering in the wilderness, or even in the city or suburbs. A few recent letters to commuter rag Metro were of the ‘I saw this big cat and no-one believes me!’ type, most from Glasgow. When I asked about it, a friend of mine here named Simon told me his father had seen a big cat a few years ago, and that the popular theory is wealthy people abandon or lose their exotic pets. Classic urban legends stuff, which sent me to the indispensable urban legends reference guide www.snopes.com. Snopes, however, didn’t have much to offer on the big cats. Next stop was http://www.britishbigcats.org, a society of people who Believe. The photos they have are a sight more convincing than the last Bigfoot images I saw. Not to mention the fact that (according to this site, and the photos and reports therein) there have been a few
documented captures of big cats in the UK.

So colour me that shade that means I think the UK becomes a much more interesting place with big cats sneaking through its hinterlands.

EPHELANT

Alastair and I sat in the Elephant House, the best of Edinburgh’s café’s, and talked about his latest miss adventures. That Best NZ songs CD came on, Loyal and Counting the Beat and the others. Luckily I had placed Alastair with a view of the castle out the window, because otherwise it could have been anywhere in New Zealand – something I relish as a long-term Kiwi in Edinburgh, but something a visitor to the place really should try to avoid. Visitors should all be down the road drinking whisky and chomping haggis in
a dark Scots pub. Regardless, it reminded me of the history underfoot and in the neighbourhood, of the famous occurrences in. Greyfriars Kirkyard in one direction and up in Edinburgh Castle in the other. There’s a banality to living here, making some of the romance of history unsustainable – and I think, on balance, that’s a good thing. Romantic notions of the importance and significance of the past are all well and good, but it should be remembered that the past was the present too, once. There’s a kind of beauty in that.

The other draw of the Elephant House is its claim to fame as (one of) the cafés where J.K.Rowling penned the first Potter. I can see why – warm, friendly, relaxed, great big writery tables and a view of an enormous castle out the window. I’m doing my writing here too.

I haven’t read the new Potter. Everyone else is, everywhere. On the midnight release JK turned up in a bookstore on Princes Street here and chatted to kids for an hour or two, which puts her in my ‘very classy’ list. And it should be noted what an achievement it is to create one the of the most anticipated creative works of all time and have it, by and large, live up to expectations.

EDGE

I’m slowly working my way around the NZ Edge website at http://www.nzedge.com/ and from what I see, it is good. Some interesting ideas about the way forward for New Zealand. Worth plugging here, check it out if you have a minute.

Also, people who don’t sign up to any of those ‘reuniting people’ websites make baby Jesus cry. Pick of the bunch for my money is http://www.oldfriends.co.nz/, which if it stays free will be the only one standing in a year or two. I just loved finding this:
http://www.oldfriends.co.nz/oldfriends/institution_photos/institution_photo.asp?id=500
a few people on this mailing list might recognise a few faces… hell, anyone who wants to know what Leon “have you seen my little dog” Verrall used to look like will probably enjoy checking this one out…

OE

Cal arrives in London tonight. Tomorrow morning I go down to meet her. Londoners! Text or call me! 0781 7772635! We will be in town until Sunday evening! It would be nice to see you!

PEACE

love
morgue

(I’m on leave from work for the next two weeks, so anyone who uses my work
address to reach me – don’t expect a reply.)

[morgueatlarge] everyone would speak in rhyme

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent June 2003]

This is necessarily bitsy. But I’m sending it anyway.

——-

I didn’t make it to Michael Franti and Spearhead’s gig in Glasgow. It was sold out before I found out. I am considering Ice T in August, however. In consolation I bought the new album, and after one listen I’m not sure how much I like it. Hmm. Live he still goes wild though. So. Interesting.

In 1997 the three people in the world I most wanted to meet were Joss Whedon, Michael Franti and John Ralston Saul. I don’t know who they’d be now, but I still would be up for dinner with those three. At least I’ve hugged Franti.

——–

Lucy’s sister Miranda came to stay the weekend before last, for, like, virtually no hours. But even so briefly it was nice to have someone else in my living space again, first time in months. If anyone wants to come stay, you’re most welcome. (Although I still don’t know where I’m living when and at the moment there’s not much but hard carpet to sleep on but what the hey.)

The other cool thing was it reminded me how nice a town to show off this is. Edinburgh with the cool skyline and all. wellington, I must admit, is also a nice town to show off, I’ve just never had the opportunity.

So come visit. (Although I’m starting to get booked out for the festival time…)

——

I have finished writing the film script I’ve been messing around with (Blair – yes, that one) and my new novel’s edging towards 70,000 words, which is slightly worrying considering the absence of plot. Productivity is still good anyway, rattling along at a fine clip. Other things are on the burner as well. Feels good. All in longhand. Who’d have thought? Harlan Ellison would be proud.

——

I’ve been getting my taste of home each weekend on Channel 5 with ‘The Tribe’ and, once, the dire ‘Revelations’. It pleases me more than ever to see a smoking metal barrel outside Central City Plaza in the Hutt as a representation of Earth’s Dark Future. Plus most weeks I see someone I know.

(foreigners – the tribe is a fairly successful youth tv show made by a UK company in my home town, so all the locations look very familiar. see www.tribeworld.com for more. ‘revelations’ is the same without the
successful part. the tribe is occasionally quite good and I have an irrational love for it anyway.)

—-

What I am reading:
Jose Saramago’s ‘The Cave’
Chris Ware’s ‘Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid in the World’

What is in my bag but hasn’t been read any yet but hey, it makes me look all intellectual and stuff:
Michel Foucault’s ‘The Archaeology of Knowledge’

—-

I was introduced to ‘Kin’ last Wednesday. ‘Kin’ is a poetry/prose/music open mic night and it’s very laid back and filled with great people and I’m going again. good to be in the hum of creative interaction and be reminded of the power of words and the energy of attention, of how life is made up of moments and everything that means, how that means everything. definitely going back.

—-

roleplayers in wellington – check out http://central.rpg.net.nz/ and the growing Wellington rpg community. it has a lot of potential.

—-

still worried about world events. still convinced there’s a way forward.

—-

peace to you

morgue

[morgueatlarge] clod in culloden

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent June 2003]

I know, it’s been a while, yadda yadda.

———-

After returning from my familial European adventure, and a day in London catching up with All They Folk There, I returned to work for an almost-week. Public Enemy played in Glasgow and I didn’t go, on account of not being able to go, but it still rankles.

Family reconvened midweek in sunny Edinburgh. This was the glorious Scottish Easter. Lovely. Fated, I’m told, not to last, but we’ll refrain from talking about it in case of any jinxwards movement. We wandered Edinburgh and in particular my personal stomping grounds. We dined in a Genuine Scottish Pub TM and haggis & neeps was et in combination. The Meadows was a lovely place for a night-time stroll but the trees were bare; less than a week later it was an impenetrable fog of pink petals. I busied myself in my office as family saw Edinburgh Castle and the other usuals, and we sorted ourselves out for Next Phase: the Easter road trip.

We had arranged specifically to go on a road trip over Easter, on account of me not having certainty that I’d be off work. Unfortunately, it was Easter, and it was glorious, and everyone else had the same idea. Not the best planning. Nevertheless we claimed a hired car and hit the road (with only a minor backtrack when I realised the car had a CD player and thus I could listen to CDs, something I hadn’t been able to do for two months). Good sounds. Sunshine. Glasgow. Traffic. Crawl

and crawl

and crawl

and crawl

until

we

were

THROUGH

and then it was free and clear and we hit the road into the fabled highlands. As we drove I wondered whether we had taken the high road or the low road to Scotland. On the ‘high road’ side, we were all of the most impeccable character. On the ‘low road’ side, we were a family from the uncouth depths of the Hutt with Shihad up loud on the stereo. I decided we came down on the high road, but only because the stompy music wasn’t up *that* loud.

[aside – Pacifier aka Shihad charted on MTV2’s top 20 in the US! Kiwi music oi! www.pacifierband.com]

And, as the song says, we reached the bonnie bonnie backs of Loch Lomond. And they were indeed Bonnie. The place is stunning, hence the song, hence the tourists circling through, hence my fond memories, hence the filming of ‘Take the High Road’ on location there.

[aside – ‘Take the High Road’ was a long-running Scottish soap, and it had a lot of personal talismanic importance. You see, I watched five minutes of it when I was about thirteen and all that happened in that eternal five minutes was two women lamenting the fact that the cat was under the bed and wouldn’t come out. Those of you who knew me in my teenage years may remember me making bewildered, awestruck, appalled reference to this fabled zen-meditativisual experience.]

Didn’t explain the traditional tearooms, which were a much more vivid trip into the distant past than any castle tour I’ve been on so far. The shudders I felt were genuine. Still – Shandy in a can, it can’t all be bad!

Onwards. We drove past Loch Ness (no monster) and through skifields (no snow) and I can confirm that, yes, the Highlands really are as beautiful as they say. I guess I am officially joining the they on this. (Don’t worry, Leon, I’m still one of the ‘us’-es apart from this.) A long drive, but it was actually a great way to experience the countryside, and appreciate how different it was and how quickly the changes came.

Inverness, to a B&B; and a pleasant wee wander. Nice town. Very pretty.

Onwards the next day. We made our way to Culloden, site of the infamous battle that was the final death of the Scottish struggle for independence, and a horrific war crime to boot – the English slaughtered the surrendered Scots and hunted down those who escaped, killing them and those who sheltered them, and all because of falsified documents indicating the Scots intended to slaughter the English the same way. This was only in the middle of the 17th century, the fairly recent past by northern hemisphere standards.

As it happened, we arrived at Culloden, utterly by co-incidence, half an hour before the anniversary service marking the battle. It was a moving gathering of men and women, some from a great distance (including a Kiwi who, inevitably, was connected to someone we know). A professor in Scots culture from Edinburgh University spoke, and it was a good speech, recognising that the wounds of the past cannot be wished out of existence, yet finding some positive meaning in the occasion.

It’s a nice place. The information centre is well-realised, the site itself is simply and honestly marked, four flags marking the corners of the battlefield. I wandered alone over the stumpy ground for a few minutes,
after the pipers had finished and the memorial ceremony had turned to talking. And it got to me, to be quite honest. My family tree would have branches that lead here, to this field. One of the many reasons for coming here was to connect with my ancestral heritage, and here it was beneath my feet, buried in a mire of misled hopes and butchery. And overhead the sun was shining and the sky a brilliant blue.

There was more to the trip, of course. Aberdeen, showing up my scepticism about it’s ‘sparkling granite’ by living up to its claims of beauty. Finding the neighbourhood, if not the street, where my grandmother was born. Watching the RSC’s production of Rushdie’s sprawling ‘Midnight’s Children’. Balmoral Castle. The tiny village of Geddes, which is my mother’s maiden name, my middle name, undoubtedly a corner that gave rise to part of us. Chaos in the roads of Dundee. And feeling every moment.

And then it was time to say goodbye. My parents first, disappearing behind the closing door of their hotel room. Then my brother, off on his own round of adventures (that would eventually take him to scenic Auch with its cathedral and its statue of d’Artagnan). And the family was done and gone, and me in Edinburgh still, making it homely even if it isn’t my home.

I love this town.

—–

And as one time falls, another rises. July 9 my girlfriend Caroline arrives in the UK. We tried being single and on different sides of the world, and it just didn’t seem to work.

—–

I meant to write here about the trip I made to Loch Earn where Naomi, last seen as my travel buddy in Greece & Rome way back in September, is working at a Four Seasons. I’ll just say it was cool, and I met some great people, and the scenery was great. Yay!

And also I wanted to write about the wonderful bonfire I was at a few nights ago, held in the lush Salisbury Centre garden to farewell Willie on his onward path towards Ireland. Most importantly, the spontaneous lecture covering 2500 years of Greek history delivered by an enthusiastic Greek, making full use of whiteboard and whiteboard marker. An odd party to be sure, but glorious in its attention to simple pleasures.

But instead I’m going to go and buy some food and go home and eat it.

—-

Shouts to Judith,

and to the defuncting flat of JustinSamFishKirstenRichie, scene of many good times

and to Sophie, because.

—-

Find out what I thought of Matrix Reloaded here (click on ‘comments’ for may 23): http://www.additiverich.com/

—-

Love and Peace
morgue

[morgueatlarge] Personal Nightmare – unrepentant

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent April 2003]

In San Sebastian there was a woman. She was cute. She wasn’t wearing much clothing. She was four stories tall.

She was advertising a fantasy film fest, one of the more notable ones in the world according to later investigations. There is no point to me mentioning this except as a dubious lead-in to the real story, and because that giant cardboard chick was pretty memorable and deserves a reappearance in the morgueatlarge story. And because in theory this email list is for my travel adventures and, well, that was one. Whereas this… this isn’t.

The connection? One of the sibling festivals of the San Sebastian one is the equally highly-regarded Dead By Dawn, right here in Edinburgh. And I went along to the part of it that mattered.

They’d sold out the weekend passes but they were selling tickets for unclaimed seats ten minutes before sessions started. I figured I had a good shot of getting into the film I wanted because the film I wanted to see was closing the festival – at midnight on Sunday night. Surely someone would rather sleep than see yet another scare movie??

(Sleep, I spit on your grave!)

So at ten to twelve I rock up to the counter at the very styley Filmhouse and give the girl a winsome smile and I am rewarded with a ticket to the UK premiere of Don Coscarelli’s new one: BUBBA HO-TEP. (Three actually, I’d accumulated two Irish girls in the Filmhouse bar while waiting. Huzzah!)

And there were speeches and thank yous and prizes and finally the lights dimmed and the projector came on, showing the only existing print of Bubba Ho-Tep. Friends, let me tell you this – this is one HECK of a movie.

Starring Evil Dead’s Bruce Campbell as the King, Elvis himself, old and tired and stuck in a rest home with a growth on his pecker and no-one believing he is who he says he is. Bruce Campbell! The man with a chin full of shovels! The Western master of physical comedy! Infamous in NZ for co-starring in the Jack of All Trades TV series with Shorty alumni Angie Dotchin! The cult hero of all true movie geeks!

The story? Elvis teams up with (old, black) JFK to take on a soul-sucking mummy and his rubbery flesh-eating scarab beetles, all the while meditating on the arc of life and the process of aging and the way Western society treats its aged and its decrepit.

It’s *emotionally moving*. It’s *brilliantly performed*. It’s *about something serious*. And it has *Elvis fighting monsters with a zimmer frame*. Folks, this may be the perfect movie.

Director Don Coscarelli is, like Bruce, a name that raises smiles on the faces of the initiated, for his was the Phantasm horror trilogy, three outstandingly inventive low-budget frightfests that defy description. If
the Evil Dead trilogy is the Star Wars of the horror world, Phantasm must surely be its Indiana Jones.

[ASIDE FOR GEEK INDULGENCE]

(from ‘Fear Itself’. Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 4)

Xander: Okay, and on that happy note, I’ve got a treat for tomorrow night’s second annual Halloween screening. People, prepare to have your spines tingled, your gooses bumped by the terrifying (Pulls out a video and reads the title) Fantasia. Fantasia?
Oz: Maybe it’s because of all the horrific things we’ve seen, but hippos wearing tutus just don’t unnerve me the way they used to.
Xander: Phantasm. It was supposed to be Phantasm! Stupid video store!

[ASIDE ENDS]

See? Xander knows. Coscarelli! Phantasm! Reggie Bannister!

Bubba Ho-Tep!

BUT! THIS ISN’T EVEN THE POINT OF THE STORY!

The point of the story is this: on the way out I TOUCHED ELBOWS with Robert Englund!

Robert Englund is an actor. He played ‘Willie’ in the American Sci-Fi mini-series ‘V’ that was all over the airwaves in the 80s, the one with the alien reptiles disguised as humans eating rats and being all fascistic and stuff.

And he also played Freddy Krueger in all the Nightmare on Elm Street films.

Freddy Krueger! Elm St! He’s horror ROYALTY, man! He’s personally caused more nightmares than anyone since early Michael Jackson! (very obscure family in-joke there)

I TOUCHED FREDDY. I didn’t make it to his talk but I touched his elbow with my elbow and no-one can ever take that away from me.

When I was thirteen I had a poster on my wall. Freddy was there. Funnily enough, it was a modern monster group shot like those ones you find of the Universal Studios posse, Dracula-Wolfman-BlackLagoonCreature- FrankensteinMonster – it also featured Michael Myers, the William-Shatner-masked killer of the Halloween films, and Leatherface, the grunting terror from primo date flick Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, along with the other member of the modern pre-Scream scare pantheon, Jason from the Friday the 13th series. Which is relevant, because the long rumoured Freddy vs Jason is in the can and up for release soon, helmed by Bride of Chucky mad genius Ronny Yu! Chucky was voiced by Brad Dourif who was Grima Wormtongue in The Two Towers! Grima was part of the entourage of King Theoden of Rohan, alongside Hama played by John Leigh!   John Leigh was in Shortland Street as Lionel Skeggins the beloved doofus husband of Kirsty Knight played by Angie Dotchin! ANGIE DOTCHIN WHO WAS IN JACK OF ALL TRADES WITH BRUCE CAMPBELL WHO WAS IN BUBBA HO-TEP!

EVERYTHING CONNECTS!

I just thought it was cool.

————–

Relevant links:

Dead by Dawn:
http://www.deadbydawn.co.uk

San Sebastian Fantasy and Horror Film Fest, which has a (different) pic of the giant woman on the front page http://www.donostiakultura.com/terror/

Morgue in San Sebastian – the November 9, 2002 entry at
http://www.topica.com/lists/morgueatlarge/read/
Featuring special guest star Ella!

Robert Englund’s IMDB:
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Englund,+Robert

Bubba HoTep’s IMDB:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0281686

Freddy vs Jason’s IMDB:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0329101

Angie Dotchin’s IMDB:
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Dotchin,+Angela+Marie

My mate Norman’s IMDB just because he has one:
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Cates,+Norman

Charlie Bleakley’s IMDB because I said g’day to him on the streets of Edinburgh without explaining who I was or how I knew him, undoubtedly screwing him up for the rest of the day:
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Bleakley,+Charlie

Nat Torkington’s classic review of the first Shortland St magazine, published way way back in the early days, and featuring on the cover Angie Dotchin (ta da!) and Hollywood’s b-movie hunk du jour, Martin Henderson (most recently and bigly the doomed hubbie in The Ring)
http://prometheus.frii.com/~gnat/frii/shorters/

———-

All is right with the world.

Anyone who emails me will get a reply telling them in amusing fashion exactly how happy I am. I will attempt to incorporate any one word of your choosing in the first sentence of my reply!

Love and peace to all.

morgue (missing the ol’ BBS… *sigh*)