Posts by Russell Brown
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Hi folks.
The show itself was good tonight.
It has struck me that a lot of my focus on Christianity has been on lunatic American evangelicals and their local analogues, like McCoskrie and Tamaki., who I actually think are bad people. It was genuinely pleasant to talk to some decent and articulate people from the Christian community.
Good story about the connection between the CBA and the pirate-era Radio Hauraki too.
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Hard News: One man’s Meat Puppets is…, in reply to philipmatthews,
More at the Meat Puppets end than the Poison end. I've been enjoying the Bruce Russell-compiled Time to Go -- the Southern Psychedelic Moment: 1981-86, on Flying Nun. The least obvious F Nun compilation in years -- perhaps ever. Bruce's theme is about a psychedelic movement in South Island post-punk music, and it stands up.
It totally does. I concur with his sleeve notes too.
I think non-obvious compilations are a good way to approach the Flying Nun catalogue (canon?) at this point. Why let Siltbreeze have all the fun?
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Hard News: One man’s Meat Puppets is…, in reply to dyan campbell,
At my school Nick Gilder (Sweeney Todd) played sock hops and dances many times before he became too pricey for high school dance budgets.
Sweeney Todd
Hot Child in the CityNow there's a song brought to me by Casey Kasem ... but I'm sure it was as Nick Gilder.
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I'm quite intrigued by some of the Christian Broadcasting Association productions -- there's remarkably little god-bothering in Real Life with John Cowan, which airs on Newstalk ZB on Sunday nights:
Real Life with John Cowan is a weekly nationwide chat show, featuring a different high-profile guest every week. John talks with them about their life, their upbringing, their passions and their view of the world. And when appropriate, we chat about faith, spirituality and "God-stuff".
Real Life with John Cowan is all about the big questions of life.
Most remarkably, the intro music for the show is Iggy Pop's 'The passenger'. Crikey!
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Ross Mason,
Poetry Russell. Given my thoughts long ago on that. Got no problem with tangaroa in a poem. But I have great difficulty accepting that tangaroa** should be consulted before sailing away.
But Chris didn’t mention literally “consulting” Tangaroa or anything like that. He explicitly said the idea was metaphorical – a metaphor for risk assessment, if you like.
I’ve had pretty much the same thought, sitting on a beach – what kind of god must Tangaroa be? It doesn’t mean I believe there to be an actual god called Tangaroa who directs the waves. It’s just a way of modelling nature. A poem.
And you can be as teeth-achingly literalist as you like, but what a person thinks of when they gaze out to sea is their own business.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Ross Mason,
Why would Tangaroa “take you” out 1000km and then “take you”? Giving a name to a “taker” – like god – seems to be a common theme with spiritualists.
Build a better boat.
Do you enjoy poetry, Ross?
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Some of you won't have seen the post since I updated it with a link to a bigger version of the original plan.
It's really worth a look. Although I'm glad the name New Ulster didn't catch on.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Ross Mason,
There is no doubt this country has developed over the last 200 years under the direct influence of the christian faith. Practically any connection with other world religions was nigh impossible.
Not really true. As I wrote a few years ago:
I’ve been reading Sir Keith Sinclair’s A Destiny Apart: New Zealand’s Search for National Identity, which makes some fascinating observations about the practice of war remembrance that developed here after World War 1. A conventionally religious flavour was gradually squeezed out in favour of the Dawn Service, which, says Sinclair, “might, indeed, have been some pagan ceremony.”
The concrete symbols of remembrance that dot the country even now, he notes, “are neither churches nor chapels; the cross is rarely employed. Rather, they look back to the Greek cenotaph, the empty tomb or to the column. The Auckland War Memorial, like the National Museum in Wellington, was inspired by Greek Temples. Each is placed on a hill, like the Acropolis. The obelisk looks back to ancient Egypt. Some monuments are arches, like the triumphant arches often erected in nineteenth-century New Zealand to welcome distinguished guests. These too, derive from the pre-Christian world. In many countries, these war memorials played a major role in strengthening nationalism. The nation was imagined as a community in which everyone shared, and to which everyone owed an equal duty. For men, that duty, included, if necessary, the supreme self-sacrifice.”
There are few things more bound to our sense of national identity than Anzac Day, and yet it is really not a Christian occasion.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Ben Curran,
I always find the word respect an interesting one in these discussions. There’s a spectrum of meaning attached to the word respect. It can be used to denote due regard for the feelings/rights/traditions of others, in which case I fully condone it’s use. It gets tricky when it is confused with one of it’s other meanings though – in the sense that it can be used to denote admiration for someone/something.
Very much (a).
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Aw, damn. Congratulations on what you've done with Hindsight, Damian. It's been of a different order to yer usual retrospective show.