Posts by Paul Litterick
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Islander, do try to be civil. And no I am not trying to be provocative; I am stating what is an observable phenomenon. It is also a necessary one: for any sub-culture to exist it must be distinct from mainstream culture. And the fact that canonical writers use non-canonical genres does not make those genres canonical, just as the appropriation of outsider art by established artists does not make those outsiders into insiders.
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Re Christchurch, Peter Beaven said that it was the only city in New Zealand where architecture is practised rather than undertaken. Christchurch benefits from an architectural tradition; its buildings are of high quality and it is not afraid of the Modern. Its architects were taught by their elders. It has a community which is concerned with the city centre.
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Better still, how about a giant statue of Ed Hillary in his bee-keeping days, with smoke-maker in hand..
Please, make that image go away.
It's also led to newer buildings taking on an Art Deco style in keeping with the surrounding architecure.
The Art Deco Trust has killed architecture in Napier, so that everything that is built must be a pastiche of a pastiche. Art Deco is not even a style.
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Chris, I think you have a problem.
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Austen certainly has fans. Perhaps that was a false dichotomy.
However, beyond the obvious fact of their fans thinking them really good, why should the Literary Establishment give awards to SF authors? SF culture exists outside literary culture. It has its own canon, its own conventions and its own community, which is inward-looking. Why then should it be resentful of being ignored by the literary world?
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... one can quite clearly show that there were sf/f novels that should have won but didn't...
Pray tell, how might one show such a thing?
They are generally by slumming litfic authors and not fan-authors, which rather makes me suspect a wee bit of bias.
Perhaps they are by good writers, writers who have readers rather than fans.
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You were breaking the law, you got caught. Get over it.
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And let us not forget the new Supreme Court building, opened this very day by Prince William the Balding. Apparently, it is a tree, a Pohutakawa. This probably explains why it looks crap. If you want to produce good architecture, you have to think about buildings, not about other things. It is not just a matter of keeping your mind on the task at hand, but also one of designing architecturally rather than making ghastly things that look like other things, like Gaudi did.
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Iconic architecture is easy. You just design a building that looks like something else which is not a building. Then everybody who knows nothing about architecture will love it. The Sydney Opera House looks like sails, Prince's Wharf looks like ships, the Sky Tower looks like a big pointy thing. You can turn it up a notch by making it look indigenous: the Manukau Pacific Events Centre is an epic fale.
The theory is that the iconic building brings the tourists to your yard. However, since every city in the world has got on this bus, the theory may not work any longer.
Rather than following Bilbao, it might be better to look at Barcelona, which recognises that it has old buildings of architectural quality and demands that new buildings are well designed. However, this idea would not work in Auckland, since most of our old buildings already have been knocked down.
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Wut? The really important question is Banks' American sales? If only you had mentioned it earlier.