Steve Hely's Blog, page 127
September 9, 2016
How big are places compared to other places?
Traveling across the South Island of New Zealand by train, I was trying to work out for myself how big exactly the country is.
It looked big
With the help of OverlapMaps, here’s a comparison of New Zealand to California:
The total land area of New Zealand, says Google, is 103,483 mi²
In US state terms, that makes it just smaller than Colorado, at 104,185 mi².
Colorado has about 1 million more people.
Colorado: 5.356 million (2014)
New Zealand: 4.5 million
Pop wise New Zealand is about the size of Kentucky or Louisiana.
The folks at Brilliant Maps do fantastic work in this field. Here are some of my favorites:
Los Angeles and other cities overlaid on The Netherlands:
Not sure I totally understand what’s going on here.
Map by Chris Stephens, from naturalearthdata.com
Created by: reddit user Tom1099
US in China by population:
How the US population fits into China by reddit user jackblack2323
OR:
Map by reddit user gotrees
The relative size of the 24 largest islands in the world, map by reddit user evening_raga
And The Circle:
Map created by reddit user valeriepieris
Here’s one more for you, from OverlandMaps:
Australia’s population is 23.13 million or so, so it’s about three million people bigger than Florida (20.2 mill) and smaller than Texas (27.46 mill). Whole lotta room down there. About as many people as Illinois and Pennsylvania put together, in a land area (2.97 million square miles) that’s about as big as 51 Illinoises.
one of Australia’s more densely populated areas.
September 8, 2016
When Will You Marry?
What a title for a painting. Heard of this Gaugin painting in an article about Qatar’s art scene. Reportedly some Qataris bought it for $300 mill. Says Wiki, back in 1893:
Gauguin placed this painting on consignment at the exhibition at a price of 1,500 francs, the highest price he assigned and shared by only one other painting, but had no takers.
Gaugin didn’t always crush it with his titles (Study of A Nude, etc) but sometimes he nailed it. Here is Where Are You Going?
(sometimes less interestingly called Woman Holding A Fruit)
Of course best of all, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? at the good ol’ Boston MFA.
Charles Morice (fr) two years later tried to raise a public subscription to purchase the painting for the nation. To assist this endeavour, Gauguin wrote a detailed description of the work concluding with the messianic remark that he spoke in parables: “Seeing they see not, hearing they hear not”. The subscription nevertheless failed.
You can read about Geoff Dyer’s frustrating experiences with these paintings and Gaugin and Tahiti in:
I was bummed I missed that dude at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, bet we could’ve had some laughs.
September 1, 2016
Ngiao Marsh
In New Zealand I got invited to participate in the Great New Zealand Crime Debate, which was a blast. I was on a team with Christchurch lawyer Kathryn Dalziel and sociologist Jarrod Gilbert, who got badly beaten several times while writing this book:
My job it turned out was to roast the members of the other team, namely New Zealand broadcaster Paula Penfold (who was lovely and a good sport):
Anyway, afterwards they had the Ngiao Marsh Crime Awards. Who was Ngiao Marsh?
She was a New Zealand writer of detective stories, mostly starring Roderick Alleyn. Some of the covers of her books are great:
Says Wiki:
Marsh never married and had no children. She enjoyed close companionships with women, including her lifelong friend Sylvia Fox, but denied being lesbian, according to biographer Joanne Drayton. ‘I think Ngaio Marsh wanted the freedom of being who she was in a world, especially in a New Zealand that was still very conformist in its judgments of what constituted ‘decent jokers, good Sheilas, and ‘weirdos’’,’ Roy Vaughan wrote after meeting her on a P&O Liner.
It sounds like her mysteries, which revolve around poison on darts and that kind of thing, are exactly what Raymond Chandler was ranting against in his essay “The Simple Art Of Murder“:
This, the classic detective story, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. It is the story you will find almost any week in the big shiny magazines, handsomely illustrated, and paying due deference to virginal love and the right kind of luxury goods. Perhaps the tempo has become a trifle faster, and the dialogue a little more glib. There are more frozen daiquiris and stingers ordered, and fewer glasses of crusty old port; more clothes by Vogue, and décors by the House Beautiful, more chic, but not more truth. We spend more time in Miami hotels and Cape Cod summer colonies and go not so often down by the old gray sundial in the Elizabethan garden. But fundamentally it is the same careful grouping of suspects, the same utterly incomprehensible trick of how somebody stabbed Mrs. Pottington Postlethwaite III with the solid platinum poignard just as she flatted on the top note of the Bell Song from Lakmé in the presence of fifteen ill-assorted guests; the same ingenue in fur-trimmed pajamas screaming in the night to make the company pop in and out of doors and ball up the timetable; the same moody silence next day as they sit around sipping Singapore slings and sneering at each other, while the flat-feet crawl to and fro under the Persian rugs, with their derby hats on.
Chandler calls for something a little harder edged:
The realist in murder writes of a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost rule cities, in which hotels and apartment houses and celebrated restaurants are owned by men who made their money out of brothels, in which a screen star can be the fingerman for a mob, and the nice man down the hall is a boss of the numbers racket; a world where a judge with a cellar full of bootleg liquor can send a man to jail for having a pint in his pocket, where the mayor of your town may have condoned murder as an instrument of moneymaking, where no man can walk down a dark street in safety because law and order are things we talk about but refrain from practising; a world where you may witness a hold-up in broad daylight and see who did it, but you will fade quickly back into the crowd rather than tell anyone, because the hold-up men may have friends with long guns, or the police may not like your testimony, and in any case the shyster for the defense will be allowed to abuse and vilify you in open court, before a jury of selected morons, without any but the most perfunctory interference from a political judge.
It is not a very fragrant world, but it is the world you live in, and certain writers with tough minds and a cool spirit of detachment can make very interesting and even amusing patterns out of it. It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what we call civilization. All this still is not quite enough.
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is his adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in.
If there were enough like him, I think the world would be a very safe place to live in, and yet not too dull to be worth living in.
Wow. The world’s big enough for both kinds of mystery I guess.
This year’s award was won by Paul Cleave:
For his book Trust No One:
August 25, 2016
Cape Flattery
Stormy day in Lyttelton, New Zealand.
Named, apparently, after George Lyttelton:
Shackleton left from Lyttelton on his first Antarctic expedition:
On this day, there was a ship in the harbor called Cape Flattery:
I had to look up where Cape Flattery is:
Cape Flattery is the northwesternmost point of the contiguous United States.
Cape Flattery is the oldest permanently named feature in Washington state, being described and named by James Cook on March 22, 1778. Cook wrote: “… there appeared to be a small opening which flattered us with the hopes of finding an harbour … On this account I called the point of land to the north of it Cape Flattery.
I learn that beloved 1930s movie characters Ma and Pa Kettle live on Cape Flattery:
Ma (Phoebe Kettle, played by Marjorie Main) is a robust and raucous country woman with a potato sack figure.
Wikipedia helpfully links to the article on potato sack:
August 22, 2016
Bureau of American Ethnology
The picture on the Wikipedia page for the Bureau of American Ethnology is perfect at conveying what exactly was the deal with the Bureau of American Ethnology.
August 21, 2016
Further Investigations into New Zealand politics
I was interviewed on the phone with someone from this great website in New Zealand. (A stressful interview because I was late to meet Nick Wegener at Callendar’s, let’s hope I didn’t embarrass myself!) I mentioned I’d been reading up on New Zealand’s prime minister John Key. She suggested I look into John Key’s son, who is a DJ who drives around in a Ferrari apparently.
Max Key.
Here are some photos of him, and here is his song:
August 18, 2016
Twenty Greatest Australian Artistic Accomplishments of All Time
Let’s see if I can make an absolutely definitive list:
20) The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
This book is like nine hundred pages long and it sounds sexy, there were worn paperback copies at every library book sale of my youth so it must’ve hit home. Haven’t read it, but I think it’s an achievement, it makes the cut.
19) True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
I myself didn’t finish it but it definitely seemed like an achievement.
18) The movie Oscar and Lucinda.
This movie is weird and great. Ralph Fiennes can’t stop gambling. A real achievement.
17) The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes.
Enormous, ambitious, compelling, tremendous work of historical storytelling. Some excerpts give a sense of the style:
“At the lower end [of poor London circa 1788] were occupations now not only lost but barely recorded: that of the “Pure-finders,” for instance, old women who collected dog-turds which they sold to tanneries for a few pence a bucket.”
of the first night the convicts were allowed on land in Australia: “as the couples rutted between the rocks, guts burning form the harsh Brazilian aguardiente, their clothes slimy with red clay, the sexual history of colonial Australia may fairly be said to have begun.”
“Davey marked his arrival in Hobart Town in February of 1813 by lurching to the ship’s gangway, casting an owlish look at his new domain and emptying a bottle of port over his wife’s hat.”
16) The song “Waltzing Matilda”
Give it up, this is catchy song.
15) Flinders Street Station
Australian architecture has to be represented. You can’t give it to the Sydney Opera House though, designed by a Dane. The Royal Melbourne Exhibition Hall gets a lot of attention, but I think Flinders Street Station is the more unique and impressive building and thus the greater achievement.
14) Wandjina Rock Art of the Kimberly.
Spooky, mesmerizing, and 4000 years later (judging by pictures, never seen it, would love to) it still holds up.
13) The Bee Gees, To Love Somebody
Not sure if the BeeGees should be included, they weren’t born in Australia, but feel like they make the cut. Corny? Maybe, but sometimes putting it all out there heart-wise is the way to go. Don’t agree? Take it up with with Beyoncé:
The Bee Gees were an early inspiration for me, Kelly Rowland and Michelle. We loved their songwriting and beautiful harmonies.
12) The song “Tomorrow” by Silverchair
Just a slam dunk of ’90s rock. These guys were 18 when they recorded this.
11) Paintings of Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri
Wild, original, great. Previously covered here.
10) The movie The Proposition
Intense, gripping, cool. The soundtrack alone almost got its own entry.
9) Heath Ledger’s performance in Brokeback Mountain / Russell Crowe’s performance in The Insider (tie)
Wasn’t sure how to place individual acting achievements in non-Australian movies, but felt like they should be represented. Heath Ledger is so good in this movie, he walks such a dangerous line, it’s tense all the way through. Crowe in The Insider is, imo, his best and most human performance in an incredible career.
8) AC/DC’s song “You Shook Me All Night Long”
Indisputable party rock classic. It’s true, maybe “Highway To Hell” or another AC/DC tune could go here, but I think “Shook” is the more dramatic achievement, standing out from the crowd of AC/DC songs.
7) The movie Gallipoli
Young Mel Gibson, deeply moving movie about running, buds, war. What an intense journey this film takes you on.
6) Tame Impala’s album Currents
Why are some songs on this list and some whole albums? Because it’s my list, I can do what I want.
Kevin Parker of Tame Impala has said that listening to the Bee Gees after taking mushrooms inspired him to change the sound of the music he was making in his latest album Currents.[94]
5) The movie Walkabout
Why are Australians so good at making dreamy movies? Great kid performances. One of Warburton’s top seven!
4) Cait Blanchett in I’m Not There
What a masterful performance. Amazing achievement.
3) The movie Picnic At Hanging Rock
Is there another movie with such a special combo of creepy, trippy, mysterious? Peter Weir crushing it.
2) The Mad Max epic.
Ride chrome into Valhalla. When you put all three movies together, it’s a wonder this didn’t come in first.
1) The Avalanches album Since I Left You
Number one by a mile. Name a better album by Mozart. You can’t.
Honorable mention:
This painting of a platypus by John Lewin
Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn“
Summer Heights High (respect, I just never got too into it)
Rebel Wilson’s performance in Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect
One of Patrick White works (“The Ham Funeral”?). Dude won the Nobel Prize, but I have not read them and can’t include them here.
Priscilla Queen Of The Desert (seems admirable)
Kath & Kim
The Slap TV drama
Nicole Kidman’s performance in Moulin Rouge
you might’ve thought Nicole Kidman would’ve made it into the top 20 but the fact is she didn’t!
INXS, “The Devil Inside”
a strong case can be made for INXS – my countercase is why didn’t I remember them until Boyle suggested them when I told him about this list?
Joseph Reed’s interior for the State Library of Victoria
Brett Whiteley’s Summer at Carcour:
I welcome your arguments in the comments.
August 15, 2016
How much imagination do cats have?
from a Wall Street Journal article about what cats are up to, mentally:
There is little evidence that cats (or dogs, for that matter) have much in the way of an imagination, so cats that have never been allowed outside probably don’t miss the fresh air they’ve never breathed.
August 14, 2016
Shorter History Of Australia
Trying to learn a bit more about the history of Australia, a frequent topic here. Barcelona Jim directed me to:
This book is fantastic, just what the doctor ordered, highly readable, interesting on every page. It’s so hard to get good condensed history but Prof. Blainey just crushes it. Some highlights:
(A nepenthes rowaniae of North Queensland from northqueenslandplants.com)
How about the Aranda nighttime divisions?
Delicious trepang:
Photo: Gail Ngalwungirr harvesting trepang on South Goulburn Island (NT Department of Fisheries)
The last convicts:
Stamps!
from Wiki:
t eventually became the best selling mystery novel of the Victorian era, author John Sutherland terming it the “most sensationally popular crime and detective novel of the century”. This novel inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the character Sherlock Holmes. Doyle remarked, “Hansom Cab was a slight tale, mostly sold by ‘puffing’.”
Shearing as serious sports:
Thursday Island:
Looks like a nice place to chill. How about the Flying Pieman?:
New pasttimes:
What?
August 12, 2016
Readers’ gallery
Japan
Looks like this lucky fellow got an advance paperback galley
I can haz informative entertainmentz?
this guy gets it
class story in a classy town
I see the baby went right to the pictures — fair
elegant staging — is that the Australian edition?
at the Strand? Nice.
is that TV’s Alex Borstein?!
Ice cream and books?! You kiddin me?!
Damn, featured in the newsletter? Damn.
I think I recognize that thumb as belonging to Matt Goldich!
look at this cool as hell post-feminist Australian dad
Send me yours to helphely at gmail.com
