Posts by Lea Barker
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This just in, Global Language Monitor has announced its word of the year at http://languagemonitor.com/
Obviously not as geo-topical as the NZ version, but it's "hybrid", which just edged out "surge" in the final months. Not surprising, since GLM tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet.
The top smiley is ?-) Pirates rejoice!
And the most understood word on the planet is OK.
Here's GLM's MO:
The analysis was completed using GLM’s Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI), the proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet. The words are tracked in relation to frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets, factoring in long-term trends, short-term changes, momentum and velocity. GLM’s global network of language observers have nominated English-language words throughout the year from the world over. -
Oh, c'mon! The best albums evah were the Loxene Golden Disc Awards compilations. Trash'n'treasure all lumped in together. Who knew we had it in us?
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Just for some alien perspective... a startup news website in Oakland, California, is offering $50 for a 500-word story; Wired pays 50c/word for a beginning writer, up to $1 at the high end.
You're lucky to even have a union in NZ. Just today (August 14), the Denver-based owner of several unionised Bay Area newspapers lumped them in with another group of papers he owns which aren't unionised, then said there wasn't the requisite 50% union membership to allow the union to continue to represent the workers. The story is here:
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003625179The San Francisco Chronicle, on the other side of the Bay, is unionised, but that hasn't helped, as the owners--The Hearst Corporation--are getting rid of a quarter of its editorial staff. And publishing their demise as "Colleagues Remembered" online at SFGate.com:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/category?blogid=28&cat=1301I really liked the coverage I've seen of the weekend's conflab in Wellington.
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http://www.hbo.com/conchords/video/index.html
I don't know how to embed video here on Public Address System, so may I just direct your attention to this website [url|http://www.hbo.com/conchords/video/index.html], where you should seek out Episode 8's "Foux Da Fa Fa"--I predict a million downloads in the first week if it's ever put on iTunes.
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I once had a childhood wish fulfilled when I got paid to sit up all night and watch television.
Unfortunately, the decade in which the wish was fulfilled was the one in which BBC World covered every smoky, bloody detail of the war in Kosovo and the genocide in Rwanda. It was also the decade in which Clinton was interminably impeached and Diana impeccably interred, and NBC Asia dared not turn from either story.
On the bright side, I did discover Cow and Chicken and Dexter's Laboratory.
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Back in '73, I lived in Leeds and worked in a theatrical costume shop. Whenever Leeds United was playing at home, the shop would be swamped with fans coming to buy blood capsules and stage knives so that they could add to the media frenzy about football hooliganism. Subversive little buggers!
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Hmmm... I can see only snippets, not the whole first episode.
I think late high-school and college-age Americans will go for it. At the SF Film Festival, the audience loved Eagle vs Shark, which has the same sort of humor. Marketing is the key here in the US.
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Many moons ago, I was at the after-show party for an awards ceremony in Auckland, and was on my way up to the bar to get another round of drinks for our table. There in my path, lying flat on her face on the floor, remnants of champagne glass in hand was one of the award winners. "Silly bitch, can't hold her drink," I thought archly as I stepped over her without breaking my stride.
By the time I got back to our table one of the people who'd been sitting there had left, and I learned that was because she was a nurse and had been summoned urgently to help the young woman on the floor, who was now on her way to hospital. The stem of the champagne glass had pierced her throat.
Since the person in question is rather jolly famous now, with action figures and all, I'm thinking of hiring myself out to step over wannabe TV/movie/singing stars while incanting my magic spell: "Silly bitch, can't hold her drink!"
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Doesn't it defeat the whole purpose of this column to show who is writing it? The only people she's going to meet are people who want to be mentioned in it. Then again, maybe that IS the purpose of the column: a reality newspaper show where the contestants self-select knowing they'll get 15 syllables of fame.
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Oh, so TVNZ only exists in Auckland now?
Because I've usually left for other jobs after about 18 months, I've had three "first days" at TVNZ: at WNTV1's Wellington studios (strictly speaking, an NZBC first day), TV2's Shortland Street studios, and Avalon Studios in Lower Hutt.
What I remember about the first "first" back in 1975 is that the clocks on the wall all stopped when there was a power outage on one of the circuits just as my cohort of new recruits arrived.
That was in the rickety old Waring Taylor Street studios, where I often worked in a tiny room that had previously been a urinal in the mens club the building was converted from.
As for the people, like one of my colleagues from those early days says on this video, "Not too many bastards!"