Posts by Russell Brown
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Simon Grigg,
At best I find the #whitewhine and #firstworldproblems tags arrogant – the rest if the world seen through a Discovery Channel or tourist experience filter, or at worst b̶o̶r̶d̶e̶r̶l̶i̶n̶e̶ racist.
Thoughtlessly rather than maliciously so, as per the Atlantic column that Gio mentioned and which Toby Manhire covered here.
It’s hardly a sin to publicly make light of one’s minor frustrations. People just need better words for it. #middleclasscalamity, perhaps.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to giovanni tiso,
But not allowing for the existence of class or a sufficiently honest and nuanced understanding of class impoverishes the political conversation,
Could you possibly just talk about it instead of complaining about how you're not allowed to talk about it and trying to bait Damian?
No one is stopping you.
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Legal Beagle: Paula's Peril; or The…, in reply to Phil Lyth,
As as aside, I saved from electionresults.govt.nz the data of votes cast at each polling place based on preliminary results. Be interesting to see, in Waitakere and elsewhere, what if any variations there are when compared to the final count.
Do feel very welcome to report any observations here.
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Legal Beagle: Paula's Peril; or The…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
It’s not entirely up to her, to be frank. I’m trespassing on my host’s territory here, but I believe you got to come to an electoral petition with specific grounds for complaint. And with the enormous amounts of time, energy and money involved I don’t think anyone pulls that trigger casually.
Quite. They'll wait for the judge's decision, explaining the reasons for rejected votes, and then look very carefully at that before spending what could be $100,000.
As a matter of pure political strategy, I would think they'll come up with the money somehow if there seems a realistic possibility of enacting the Edgeler Scenario.
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Hard News: The music I listened to, in reply to George Darroch,
And was there any good music made by women?
I’m utterly intrigued by Lana Del Rey.
The whole thing is a confection, of course (two years ago she was aspirant singer-singwriter Lizzie Grant) but that’s where I think the Nancy Sinatra thing actually hits home. ‘Video Games’ and the new one ‘Born to Die’, are successors to the theatrically-produced hits of Lee and Nancy.
When ‘Video Games’ came out, she and her managers and producers were also trialling a completely different sound for her – ‘Diet Mountain Dew’, for example, is okay but not great in a Lilly Allen style.
So they’ve road-tested it online, initially with a came-from-nowhere cover story which isn’t entirely untrue. I wonder if they anticipated that there’d be a takedown request from Disney for the original version of the ‘Video Games’ collage video that snuck onto YouTube. That would be a great way of making the early adopters – people who’d seen or better yet grabbed a copy of the original.
They may have jumped the shark already with the are-we-really-to-believe-this narrative around the “leaking” of the video for the new single ‘Born to Die’ (from Russia, no less) but it’s fun to watch.
And having played ‘Born to Die’ several times quite loudly as I cooked this afternoon, I think it’s an awesome pop song that defies the grinding conventions of much modern-day pop.
Video:
MP3 here.
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Capture: City Scenes, in reply to Damian Christie,
2011 was also the year when I was lucky enough to explore two Pacific Islands, Rarotonga and Samoa. Places that time forgot:
I like the idea that there's a container ship containing all the remaining Blue Stratos that's been circling the Pacific since the 1970s.
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Capture: City Scenes, in reply to Damian Christie,
Gee that's lovely Damian. Enjoy.
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Well, Adrian Sherwood was great last night. He played everything from roots classics ('Chase the Devil'!) to out-and-out dubstep. I was glad to have my earplugs and my body aches a bit today, but it was very cool.
Also: lots of mums 'n' dads having an E. Bless.
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Hard News: The music I listened to, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
..and I meant to say Gin Wigmore has done well!
I saw two TV shows in a row the other night
(one Aust and one American) that had her songs in them...
Good on her!It's the new reality if you're a composer. Sync deals are a more reliable source of income than record sales -- and they might also just make you a star.
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Hard News: The music I listened to, in reply to Simon Bennett,
Slave Ambient (War on Drugs)
I kept feeling like I should be really into that but it didn't quite gel for me. Ah well ...