Speaker by Various Artists

I get an apartment closing date of October 8, 2003. Bad news, as this means negotiating with the bank to extend the loan commitment for two days. On the other hand, good news – enough time to get the place painted so I can move in a good couple of weeks before the marathon, which is on Sunday, November 2. But no. Because – well, this is New York, right?

On the walk-through inspection before closing I notice for the first time something very curious indeed: there are no lights in most of the apartment (including the living room, dining room and bedroom). You read that right: no lights. Not in the ceiling, not on the walls. Nowhere. Zippo. Nada. But there are lights in the kitchen, bathroom and inside the closets. Go figure. Apparently – and I suspect a lamp sellers’ conspiracy here - this is not uncommon in post-war buildings in New York.

However, being from a country where you flick a switch on the wall and the light turns on (a novel idea, that), I know that lamps are not for me. Which is most unfortunate, as light installation is very expensive and such a messy job (we’re talking jackhammers ripping open concrete ceilings here) that it can’t be done later after the painting. Timetable for moving in starts to compress.

Henceforth follows a crazy few days of learning about light installation (“track lighting”, “ceiling channeling” etc), getting quotes and making multiple calls to the building management company’s repairs persons to get the required approval. (Why do you need approval to get work done in your own apartment? Well, you know.) Finally, the electricians go in. Despite what the building’s written rules say (no contractors making noise outside 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays) I am told that, no, it’s 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. Then the electrician calls me on Friday to say that his men have to stop at 2.30 p.m. Fridays. Timing now looking very tight indeed.

One night, after noshing on healthy carbo-laden brown rice and vegetables at my local Japanese/Chinese, I get a fortune cookie message saying “This is a great day to handle those real estate matters!” (God: would you, just for once, stop picking on me and piss off, if that’s OK with you.)

Three weeks out from Marathon Day, I run my last pre-marathon half marathon – this time on Staten Island (think New York’s Stewart Island, but more people and less scenic). Things going great – running much faster than I did at Philly – and then, déjà vu, identical food reactions to last week’s 20 miler. Stop during mile 8, then mile 9. Culprit not the local Italian after all, but rather the instant oatmeal in both pre-run breakfasts. Mental note: avoid that poison on November 2.

Two weeks out from Marathon Day, I sprain my achilles tendon again. Frantic calls to podiatrist to reinstate my NSAID drug addiction.

Meanwhile, back at the new apartment: for some reason, the plasterer and painter, who do not make noise, are also subject to the hours rules – which the building gestapo strictly enforce. Becomes apparent that painting will not be finished by Friday October 31, 2003 (which astute readers will recall is the day the lease on my rental apartment expires and some 48 hours before the marathon). Painter tells me I can’t move in then. More frantic calls – this time to find a hotel room. But to no avail, as everything’s booked up for marathon weekend.

Running coach’s advice: in the week before the marathon, get lots of early nights and don’t have any stress in your life. Ha bloody ha. At least one thing goes right: I arrive home on the Monday to find the pizza shop shut with a notice that they’re closed through Wednesday for renovations. Good, I think, it’ll be quiet for once. But no, I spend a whole evening listening to hammering and powersaws, and finally after 9 p.m. go downstairs to try to negotiate a stop time, which they don’t honor so I end up trying to fall asleep to the sound of a powersaw. (Very astute readers will have seen the irony here: the reason I am still in the rental is because my contractors can only work on days of the week beginning with “T” and then only between the hours of 10.57 a.m. and 11.24 a.m.)

It’s July. In the space of six months I have begun training for my first ever marathon -- the New York City Marathon -- and have found an apartment to buy. Over the next weeks, things get even crazier. Just a few highlights:

• Mortgage commitment letter takes weeks to arrive. Reading it through - at approximately 1 a.m. on the second continuous through-the-night at work to sign up a mergers and acquisitions transaction – I discover that the bank has screwed up and approved me for $100,000 less than I applied for.


• The mortgage broker (Why a mortgage broker? This is New York) screws up some information on my mortgage application. Bank inserts a condition to my financing that I provide a satisfactory explanation of the discrepancies in my paperwork. Mortgage broker’s cunning plan for dealing with this is to lie to the bank. (Being wary of committing crimes that could lose me my attorney practising certificate, I don’t.)


• I submit my co-op board application. (Why does one need the approval of a building’s board to complete an apartment purchase transaction? This is New York.) Level of detail needed makes applying for grad school or submitting to a CIA security check – or even the long and arduous mortgage application - look easy. Takes weeks and weeks to get the interview with the board – which delays my purchase no end and plays havoc with my blood pressure as I dwell on the possibility of getting turned down by the board. In the end, board interview itself lasts all of 5 minutes. (“We were satisfied with your papers. We just had to get you in to set eyes on you.”)

And I am in the high mileage part of marathon training – including the occasional 18 and 20 mile training run. After three planned half marathons are thwarted by injury, I finally do a half marathon – in Central Park, in 78 degrees (25 C) and high humidity. And by now I have a running coach. (Why a running coach? Because, well, you get the idea by now. And to think that back home people prepare just by running a few extra laps of the cow paddock every now and again.) I manage to keep training through the tortuous New York summer by holding onto the thought “At least it will be a nice, cool 45 degrees (7 C) on Marathon Day.”

My physiotherapist is unimpressed that I haven’t cut back on the running. She tells me that “Runners are a sick bunch and you’re the sickest I’ve seen”, “You would run with a broken leg, wouldn’t you?” and “I just don’t get it. You’re a smart woman and you didn’t exactly go to Nassau Community College.” [New Zealand readers: think Greymouth Polytech.]

I come to realize that my life consists of only three activities: work, running and dealing with apartment matters. I hope that a few months down the track my friends will still remember who I am and that I can recall where the movie theatres etc. are.

Late September. On my running coach’s advice, I travel to Philadelphia for the Philadelphia half marathon. Far too warm for me – in the early 70s even at the 8am start – but again I hold onto the thought of 45 degrees in November. I wonder if organizing my weekends away around running events is taking things a bit too far.

Now, a note about food for non-running readers: food is important when you’re marathon training. Not just the powergels, honey packs, sports bars and Gatorade you scoff on long runs. Everyday diet – especially close to a significant run or race – also counts. Doubly so if you’re a food-sensitive almost-vegetarian like yours truly.

The Friday before my last 20 mile training run, four weeks out from Marathon Day. I set off to my one tried and tested pasta-loading restaurant - appropriately located at the foot of the 59th St. bridge (yes, that’s right, Simon and Garfunkel fans) where runners enter Manhattan during the marathon. From over the road it looks closed. Unfortunately, my favorite Italian place is not observing Yom Kippur; rather, it’s closed for good. Dammit. What to do now? Friday and Saturday nights I experiment with untried and untested Italian restaurants. 20 miler Sunday morning goes brilliantly – until mile 17 when I suddenly have to stop from a bad food reaction. Ditto last mile. Mental note: don’t eat at last night’s place again.

Visiting the Empire State Building. Riding the Staten Island ferry. Catching a Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. These are all quintessential New York experiences. When you’ve lived here a while you can add yet more adventures to life’s rich tapestry. Like buying an apartment in Manhattan. Or training for and running the New York City Marathon. Or both. At The Same Time. I did it, and lived to tell the tale. This is my story...

Sunday November 3, 2002. I’m on First Avenue not far from my rental apartment doing what I always do on Marathon Day: watching the runners go by, and reflecting on how crazy you would have to be to do this. Never in my lifetime. (So far, so good: normal, sane thinking patterns.) Then, out of the blue, a little voice: “Hmm, maybe it would be kinda cool to be running down First Avenue to the cheers of the crowd.” (Be careful when not only do you hear a little voice, but it uses phrases like “kinda cool.”)

Some context: at this stage, I am a very casual runner who manages a twice-weekly five mile excursion from aforementioned apartment to Central Park, twice round the reservoir, then home again at an 11 minute/mile pace. But finds it hard going.

January 2003. Start training, with a view to a 2004 (not 2003) marathon, on a sub-freezing point Tuesday morning some 36 hours after flying back from Australia and having had a late night Monday visiting Busytot’s parents. Somewhere towards Park Avenue, find myself splayed on the sidewalk with no memory of falling. Hurt knee, can’t run for a couple of weeks. Didn’t recognize this Obvious Sign from God. Instead, I become a card-carrying member of the New York Road Runners Club, doing road races in the snow and/or rain.

Fast forward to April 2003. Running going well, so maybe it’s the one year marathon plan. Submitted entry for 2003 marathon lottery (yes, that’s right, there are more people who want to run than the roughly 30,000 they can accommodate). Looking forward to half marathon season starting May. Then disaster strikes: partial dislocation of right kneecap. Can’t run for several weeks this time. Again, miss the O. S. from G. Only the start of a litany of injuries that goes on for months – including achilles tendonitis, sprained calf, multiple aggravations of old foot injury, more knee problems. Despite getting the engaged signal, God keeps trying, but I’m not listening. Get to know my physiotherapist very well (who spends a lot of time trying to persuade me to cut back on running and tells me I’ll never make it to November 2). Consider asking my podiatrist for a multi-trip card like you get at the movies.

June 2003. My number comes up in the marathon lottery. And one of my roommates says she’s leaving. I had intended to renew my lease yet again, especially as it expires two days before Marathon Day, and that would be a stupid time to move, wouldn’t it? But this is the catalyst for deciding that I am fed up with the hassle of looking for roommates, having to make multiple calls to the landlord to get even simple repairs done, chasing not only my but everyone else’s cockroaches, and calling the pizza shop downstairs every night to ask them to turn down their stereo so I can sleep. Epiphany: I will buy an apartment this year. (Gotta watch out for those epiphany thingamajigs as well as the little voices.)

I don’t mess about. Within a week, I have a real estate broker (Why a broker? This is New York) and am looking at apartments. I really like the first one I see and, having a mathematical background, conclude that the law of statistics means that I am likely to see several more I like. Wrong. A week and some twenty apartment viewings later, realize that apartment #1 was The One. Through my broker, submit an offer, thinking that things are looking good as it’s been on the market since April with one price reduction already. Wrong. That morning, an all-cash buyer has beaten me to it with an offer very close to the asking price. Much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Again, I miss the O. S. from G. I keep on looking.

Ten days (and another ten apartment viewings) or so later, I get a call from aforementioned broker: the deal with the all-cash buyer might be falling through, am I still interested? You betcha. By now it’s 4th of July weekend, which means that it’s harder to negotiate a real estate deal in New York than to buy a gelato in Rome in the middle of August. So nothing happens – except to my blood pressure – for several days. After that follows a tense couple of weeks of offers, counteroffers, making discreet inquiries of the co-op board whether my immigration status will ultimately be a showstopper to obtaining board approval, negotiating the sale contract and (as this is New York) engaging a firm to search public records to see if the view will be built out any time soon. By this stage, I’m running fast each morning to tucker myself out so that at least for the first couple of hours at work I’m too tired to be Stressbunny.

The contract is signed. Yippee! However – as this is New York – the complications have only just begun...

The Verlaines (with Ghostplane + Dominic Blaazer)
Thurs, Oct 23 The King's Arms

A week has already vanished since the Verlaines returned to Auckland last Thursday. Lead singer Graeme Downes might say that with each passing day we're a little closer to death and further away from maiden-hood, but it never pays to hurry things just for the sake of it. He's made that abundantly clear over the years. Take this long overdue tour itself, or the two years it took them to work up to their first performance back in the day.

Thankfully, the percolation is over, the brew dark, the creamer thick and oily - hardly burnt or bitter. The Verlaines - older, wrinklier, but still with a great head of hair - royally rocked the cradle at their recent King's Arms appearance. Or should that be "manifestation" - for isn't that the word usually applied to ghostly sightings like this? And cradle indeed - seeing as I'm too young to remember the band the first time round. To be honest I don't really remember too much from the evening in question. All I know is that on Thursday, Graeme Downes returned from the ether.

Admittedly, this was all experienced through a haze - whether of my own making or from the fumes rising off the crowd, I can't be sure. Maybe it was Downes' own special atmosphere, carted around by roadies just to keep him alive while away from the chill hypoxia of Dunedin academia.

The perennial, ageless and mythic qualities of Flying Nun - helped along by the miraculous image its name still conjures - had fortunately left me familiar enough with the hits, whether culled from soundtracks, music TV flashbacks (DJ-vu?) or lurking behind Steve Malkmus's thin, whiny cover (calculated to leave you yearning for the original).

The word Verlaines had long ago become for me a synonym for something that had gone beyond and assumed a life of its own. Thursday proved that this something was still alive, although not in your everyday sense: more like the youthful twin used to demonstrate time dilation in special relativity theory videos.

And the King's Arms, C4 and Flying Nun industrial complex deserves a shout out for doing its nonchalant best to make the band relevant again just in time for this Best Of resurgence.

On stage, twenty years later, the only thing that wasn't smoke-cured as a Marlin was the hair (that great head of hair - did I mention that?), Leaner, and with a fashion sense that might be trend-setting for its very absence, he stood his ground amid the swirling smoke with his buddies in tow.

I once naively thought Downes was Paul Verlaine, as the song goes, having long suffered a crippling inability to understand song lyrics. Whoever he called himself, he was always the coolest guy in the videos: standing still, or at most swaying just a little, doing his bit for the evolution of shoe-gazing indie rock. It was a pose destined to outlive the safety dance whose future cringe the video extras seemed too engrossed in at the time to care about.

Ah, and the voice. When he did take the stage, it was with the great, off-key siren vocal chords of effortless pop-rock. Later in the evening, Downes' gift for orchestration rose from the depths as the brass section blew its lungs out, piercing the fog like a greeting - or warning - from a spectral ship lost one evening off Banks Peninsula, and now on a valedictory tour of the nation whose flag it had always flown.

APRA's Silver Scroll Awards rolled around Tuesday night. This event celebrates our songwriters in fine fashion. APRA's (Australasian Performing Rights Association) members get together and have a mighty fine knees-up featuring music, of course, and much drunkenness and tomfoolery, but that's later in the evening.

One of the highlights is the performance of each of the five finalists' songs being transformed by other artists. Damien Binder's 'Til Now' was sung by Heather Mansfield of The Brunettes with the SJD band and a choir. It was the first song performed on the night and a very mellow rendition - so laid back that it drifted by most of the audience. Perhaps starting off with something more raucous might've helped.

Anika Moa and Anna Coddington (from Handsome Geoffrey) strolled out to perform Golden Horse's 'Riverhead'. "This is our attempt at a Golden Horse song - wherever you guys are, hope you like it. Oh shit, you're right there," says a startled Anika as she spies the band sitting near the front. Anika and Anna performed a stripped down version that had its own delightful charm, especially in the middle when Anika slipped in "we made this next bit up" and did a little dance. Golden Horse later won the most performed song in New Zealand award.

Bindspott's 'Plhex' (love those wacky hiphop spelling lessons) was performed by Jordan Reyne, accompanied by Indra Hughes on the Auckland Town Hall's organ and a chinky sounding drum machine, which was pretty impressive.

The MCs for the evening were comedians The Naked Samoans, dressed in tracksuits which made them look vaguely sporty - or was it meant to be hiphop? Dunno. They told us that all those videos with people putting their hands in the air wouldn't exist if it weren't for the songwriters. "There'd be nothing to put your hands in the air to." Then one of them adds "You might as well have thalidomide, 'cos there'd be no reason to put your hands in the air," which caused some shocked laughter and horrified looks to shoot round the room. Now that's pushing the envelope for ya!

The Naked Samoans did a fine job of ribbing the official speakers, like coming back on stage after Arthur Baysting: "ladies and gentlemen, Arthur Baysting. Riveting speech, Arthur, you had us with hello."

The inaugural Maioha award, presented by Cliff Curtis, went to Ngahiwi Apanui for 'Wharikihia'. Ngahiwi thanked APRA in his speech, noting that their cheque usually turned up just when he was in the poo. "It's the most money I've ever got from music. When I do a gig, two people turn up and they're both cousins, AND they refuse to pay!" The Naked Samoans came back on stage after him and made several delightfully politically incorrect comments about Maori before getting it back on track with "Let's give it up for Maori people". After dutiful applause one of the Naked Samoans added, "It's their country - we're just paying rent."

Some politicans were in attendance. Judith Tizard made a speech after a ridiculously overhyped intro. She said that "Bill English sends his apologies." He'd lost his job earlier that day. Peter Biggs, chairman of The Arts Council at Creative New Zealand, suggested that what we needed was less statues of Queen Victoria and one of composer Douglas Lilburn, which I think is a brilliant idea. Classical composer Gillian Whitehead won the Sounz Contemporary award for her work 'Alice'.

Rock band Augustino ambled on stage and churned their way through Ill Semantics 'Highway', eventually getting their groove on mid-song to the approval of the Dawn Raid table, who waved their hands in the air like they just didn't care.

The winner of the Silver Scroll was Nesian Mystik with 'For the people'. The band accepted the award (and $5000 cheque) in a prerecorded video as they're currently in England plying their trade. 'For the people' was performed earlier in the evening by a gentleman introduced as "New Zealand's own Frank Sinatra" which gives you an idea of his take on it. Think 'Nesians are you with me' sung Vegas-style, with strings and band. It was so cheesy and twisted - in a good way, mind. Hats off to the incredibly talented Victoria Kelly, musical director for the evening, for such a great job.

This year marked the final Silver Scrolls for APRA boss Mike Chunn. After 11 years with the organisation he's leaving for fresh pastures. Mike's first play The Orderly Business of Life was recently performed in Auckland but he is giving no clues as to his next move. Before he made his way to the stage a video tribute from his staff at APRA played, with Jordan Luck leading them in a rousing rendition of the Exponents' 'I'll say goodbye', sung as "Michael; we'll say goodbye, even though we're blue.' It was touching listening to his staff talk about him with much affection, especially the comment that no one could ever call Mike aggressive 'cos he drives like a nanna. Mike took the stage to a standing ovation. He has done a hell of a lot in raising the profile of New Zealand music and helping expand the possibilities for many of the songwriters in the room. He had planned to wing the speech but got told to write something down, so he did. He thanked his staff in his usual witty, erudite fashion, mentioning various characteristics he would miss. He left the stage to another standing ovation but didn't come back out. The Naked Samoans tried to entice him back but with no luck. So later they just carried him back on and made everybody stand and applaud again, just so he didn't miss it. Nice blokes.

After that it all got a bit hazy. Once the awards have finished, the fun part of the night begins - the second stage. This is where anyone can get up and sing two songs maximum. All sorts of musical shenanigans go on here. The Silver Scrolls are a great night to catch up with people I haven't seen in ages; an event thankfully devoid of any music industry hype or self important BS. It's just a bloody good night out. There were some other awards and things, but you can get that from the official news sources.