Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Lilith __,
I'm sure people will be flying laser kiwi, too.
Ah why not.
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Up Front: Reading Murder Books, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Doobie Dick?
I tried to like Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice both in book and movie formats, just didn’t work for me, tried too hard, too many words, or something…Pynchon's been trying too hard since Vineland. Like Don DeLillo and Martin Amis, allowing himself to be anointed as a kind of secular shaman whose every sentence is presumed to be rich with significance has turned him into an indulgent bore.
Both Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 (the title is also the final sentence - "She settled back to await the crying of lot 49") and V are delightfully complex whodunits dealing with massive conspiracy theories, which cut out just as the expected resolution appears imminent. Once you're over the initial "You bastard!" reaction the implications of what you've been reading start to percolate, which wouldn't happen if things had been tidily resolved.
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Grant McDougall,
Joe, he was being facetious.
Me too.
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to BenWilson,
Mansplain
What does that mean?
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Sacha,
Tangle of nasty nutjobs continues.
"Calls to both Slater were not immediately returned."
Multiple peronalities? -
Speaker: Judith Collins and the…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I think it was the implication of prison rape ("with a cellmate") that was really beyond the pale. That's a long way below the standard of character we should expect in a minister of the Crown.
Absolutely. In the mid-2000s a South Australian TV ad publicising increased penalties for drink driving was quickly pulled after an outcry over its closing scene. A middle-class everybloke finds himself cast into jail where he's checked out by the resident rough trade, with the clear implication that he's in for some extra-judicial punishment of a sexual nature. As someone noted at the time, once we officially endorse such things, we're the perpetrators.
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Access: Is New Zealand Fair and Square?, in reply to izogi,
I'd hoped my own experience wasn't representative of the industry, but perhaps not, and maybe nothing's changed after 20 years.
From the experiences of a close family member who'd been regularly assisting a friend with her Dunedin newspaper and leaflet deliveries, it seems that things haven't improved. As someone with a cognitive disability who longs to work and feel valued she's currently pretty much limited to voluntary work in a charity store. Being energetic with an outgoing personality doesn't seem to take one as far as it used to once you hit your mid-40s. Perhaps she's fortunate in having a sympathetic WINZ case manager, as she's reliant on a benefit in order to have something of an independent life.
Anyway as of the end of last month the delivery work stopped abruptly when her unfortunate friend fell victim to a particularly savage dog attack. While such incidents are probably rare, it's a nasty reminder that not only is delivery work poorly paid, it can also be horribly dangerous.
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Speaker: Judith Collins and the…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
...given her new insights so she won't make statements in the future like the one she made a few years ago about the anticipated punishment an autistic man could expect in jail (and which was reported on Public Address).
I think Grant Robertson was correct when he doubted that Collins' inflamatory comments were directed at a specific individual, though she certainly made no effort to clarify her position once the media and police had colluded to deal to their scapegoat. Michael Lhaws, for one, got particularly vile and personal over that case. There were genuine cases of looting at the time, with even Phil Goff making a throwaway crack about summary executions.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Saving the St James, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Thanks for that, great clip. If you hadn't pointed out the Confucian subtext I'd have assumed that kind of thing started back around 1970 with Giorgio Moroder :)
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Electric paint or ePaint can't be far away
Does this spell the end for Jim’ll Paint It?
