Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori

Although it is nearly over, there's no need to stop practising your reo. There are some great ideas of what you can do on the Māori Television website. Speaking of which has anyone seen the hilarious ad they are running on Māori TV to promote te wiki o te reo Māori?

I tried to find it for you guys. But basically it has this guy running around with a megaphone announcing things in te reo. Like going into the dairy to get milk and yelling out "Miraka!" Cracked me up.

Anyway, there are some really cool t-shirts, stickers and tattoos in the same design as the balloons on the Kōrero Māori site. And they have a really fun quiz as well. And to find out the 100 Māori words everyone should know you can go here.

Ka kite anō.

Most accidents occur at home

Here's the reason why you should not walk around the house in oversized slippers with a cup of black coffee:

Sorry stairs, sorry carpet, sorry landlord.

Belated highlights from the weekend

Kia ora!

I have been busy working this week. Even though it is only part-time (sorry to you real working people, who make me look slack) I am unaccustomed to how much time it takes up. And then I got struck down by my annual sinus infection. :( So that's why I haven't got around to updating this blogity, blog, blog.

So...I know it's now Thursday but the weekend just gone was so awesome! I am still reliving it now. Very indulgent and now I feel slightly lighter in the wallet area, although it made me happy, so what the hey!

Films and eating were the two concurrent themes (no surprises from me really) of the weekend. But there was also friends, birthdays, babies and children to entertain us as well.

Food highlights included:

• A chocolate birthday cake (not mine, but BTW mine was sooo good)
• A soysage dog with fries from Frankie's Wurstbude (they have the best aioli too)
• MP's mash and veg
• Coffee and orange almond cake at Mezze
• A fantastic quiche, followed by chilli chocolate

So many treats, all so bad for me!

I went to 2 more films in the festival (4 in total). I don't seem to be able to do more than four, maybe because I have the attention span of a midge.

Saturday was the 'world premiere' of Land of the Long White Cloud.

You could watch some bits on Youtube or you could lobby your local theatre to screen it. Which is probably a better option.

After the screening the 'cast' and crew got up and talked. It's a real treat to watch a film with the contributors in the audience. Everyone laughed and talked when they saw people they knew.

Anyway, the movie is lovely. Funny, amusing, and thoughtful. The scenery is stunning and the people are choice! The only not so great thing was I think they rushed with editing a bit (3 weeks!) and it showed.

The other movie I saw was Visual Acoustic which I mentioned last week. As a lover of modernism, and a person who LOVES to look at other peoples houses, it would have been a crime for me to miss it. And happily I can report it did not disappoint at all, not in any way. The film was incredibly well-made, the subject was fascinating and well explained. The houses were so drawl worthy. I was in heaven! And it is narrated by Dustin Hoffman, who has a really relaxing calming, steady voice.

So I am now planning a holiday in Palm Springs, so I can fully nerd it out and spend all day swooning over Modernist architecture and taking photos of amazing buildings.

And I would stay in this hotel (Source)

And visit the Palm Springs Art Museum (Shulman photo from Palm Springs Modernism Committee)

And maybe take a tour of some of the houses (source: Shulman photo from Taschen).

And as a memento I would buy this Taschen book set:

Source: Taschen

All this luxury living has left me feeling incredibly thankful for the things I get to do in my life.

It is Poetry Day. Well Montana has made it so. I have never been that 'into' poetry. But I wish I was.

Today I have been to see 24 City screening as part of the festival. I'm sure they screened this movie today on purpose (it would be an incredible coincidence if they didn't), but I did not make the connection between poetry day and this film until I was in the theatre watching.

The film is about a factory that once produced secret military hardware but is moving to a new greenfield site and the site of the old factory is becoming a housing and shopping development called 24 City. It is part fact and part fiction. According to the movie the name 24 City comes from an old poem: the cherished hibiscus of 24 city in full bloom, a flourishing flower

The film is broken up with WB Yeats poetry quoted across a black screen, including this one that is particularly poignant:

Though leaves are many, the root is one;

Through all the lying days of my youth

I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

Now I may wither into the truth.

I am not sure what I thought of this film. I did enjoy the aesthetics of it. But emotionally I felt unattached, even though I think some people were sniffling in the audience (or was it swine flu?!)

Tony Rayns, London Film Festival, said this of the film "Jia once again humanises China's modern history - and turns it into poetry."

You can watch a trailer of this movie on YouTube. And read a review from the New York Times here.

Image from a scene in the film from NY Times

Things I love from Apartment Therapy

I love, love, love looking at other people's houses. One of my dream jobs would be architecture photographer. There is a very good film featuring the work of Julius Shulman on at the festival at the moment, called Visual Acoustics. And it just so happened that he passed away on July 15th. I am hoping to go see it, if it stops selling out!

Image by Julius Shulman from Apartment Therapy

Not really into urban holidays? Then the small town escape could be for you.

I love the idea and also this postcard:

Postcard of Paris, Illinois from: Apartment Therapy

Mr Jones wants to build a house with no windows, with a glass roof. Personally, as much as I like clouds, stars, planes and birds, I also like being able to see trees and people. Plus I don't want a crink in my neck. So maybe something like this could be a compromise:

Source: Apartment Therapy

Thanks Apartment Therapy for entertaining me today :)

Wedding High Fives

Mr Jones and I have been discussing the possibility of a wedding high five. We love to high five when we are happy or something goes well, so getting married could be the ultimate high five occasion. So since I am having a low activity week, I did some 'Internet research' and came up with these beauties:

The two handed high five. Source: Planet Neil - Tangents

The secret high five. Source: Seth Kaye Photography

The extra high, high five No. 1. Source: Offbeat Bride

The open handed extra high, high five No. 2. Source: Flickr

The impromptu high five. Source: Wedding Bee

The über coordinated high five (she's not looking and she can still do a high five!?! Now that's flash!). Source: http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~tamc/play.html

It could be a great moment, if we can get it right! Back to practicing...

What I'm learnt this week while watching daytime TV

Source: Flickr

So I have spent nearly a whole week in front of TV. It's about all I can manage at the moment and when I try and leave I end up back there.

I have a few things to report from my experience:

• You cannot watch TV all day, for many reasons, but mostly because boredom and frustration set in
• Oprah's still good, but maybe not an every day programme
• You could watch Good Morning every day, it's not so bad (or is that just the medication talking?)
• You cannot makeover a whole house in 60 minutes and do a good job (what a silly idea for a programme)
• At some stage Te Karere had a makeover, and it is looking good
• By 7pm you cannot face another minute of TV, so the whole relaxing mindless evening in front of TV is redundant
• You know you are 'growing up' when you decide current affairs programmes are more interesting than Shortland Street
• We should probably get Sky
• I wish they had Māori Television on during the day, cause they have some good shows
• And finally, it's much easier to get through a whole day on the couch, by not just watching TV, but also with books, magazines and DVDs!

I also noticed there is a lot of 'news' on TV these days, it's in the morning, during the morning, there are constant ad break updates, then at lunch time, the afternoon, the evening and late at night. And they repeat the same stories over and over again. It's quite a sad state of affairs when you have to use cheap news to fill in programming time. Sigh.

On the plus side... well sort of... it does mean I got to hear about these stories:

• The great chocolate war. Actually I read it in the paper first, but then I saw it on Close Up. Personally I try to avoid chocolate in bar form these days. But if I was to chose I would have to say I am a Whittaker's lover
• The gay penguins at the San Fransisco Zoo, who would you turn gay/straight for???

On a sadder note, I also heard an update on the story about Tiki Hunia who was shot in Jamaica last week. Now I didn't make the connection at the time, but I actually met him once and he was a good friend of my good friend. Like me, he was raised in the Bay of Plenty. His whanau are trying to get him home for his tangi as we speak. And if you want to help bring him home, go to your local Westpac branch and make a donation.

I'm back.

The Tui that likes to sing early in the morning in the Puriri tree outside our house is also back. So we can expect early morning wake up calls for months to come... lucky us :)

The International Film Festival has started. I am not sure how many films I will get to this year. But I sure am going to try and get to a few. I think I have marked about 30 films I want to see!

Yesterday was Bastille Day. So it's a great time to celebrate all things French, including French film directors, such as Agnès Varda. Agnès has two films in the festival line-up this year and later in the year NZ Film Society is screening some of her short films. She is known as a revolutionary film maker, feminist and was one of the few women associated with the New Wave film movement (La Nouvelle Vague). Very strong use of cities in film (appeals to me because I like cities).

I found this interesting article about her in the New York Times. And a review of Cléo from 5 to 7 and The Beaches of Agnès on the Lumière Reader (this is a good site by the way).

Source: Agnès Varda MySpace

Also I really like the name Agnès at the moment. If I had a daughter I might pick this name, even though no one else has come round to the idea yet!

Ciao for now

Far Michael Jackson had a flash as funeral!

His daughter totally broke my heart.

Andrew from Cheese on Toast was on 3 news today and on Morning report talking about the MJ tribute album. And they were playing it on Kiwi FM today. Good work.

I totally loved this mural in Otara by Dean Purcell:

Source: 3 news

Well, I'm out for a while. Will try and post in a week or so.

Gone But Not Forgotten

So in case you haven't heard... Michael Jackson died!

Yesterday when I was walking home, a women drove around the corner Rock with You blaring from her car stereo, singing along. I'm wondering if she would have done that two weeks ago...?

This whole mourning thing is being dragged out a bit. Some people must be making a LOT of money out of the whole thing. Not Cheese on Toast though, they have put together a MJ tribute album that you can download for FREE from their site. What an awesome idea, thanks Cheese on Toast!

In recent years I have become a huge fan of covers, so this idea excited me. Uni and her Ukulele does a great cover of Human Nature on this album.

My favourite MJ song is definitely Smooth Criminal, cause it reminds me of happy childhood times (odd I know). But I also really like the HIstory album released in 1995. Come to think of it I liked Dangerous as well. It really was a brilliant musical career.

RIP MJ

1958 - 2009

Source: Telegraph UK

Orchids

Last night I went to the opening of Wonderland: The Mystery of the Orchid at Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Rodney Hide gave an opening address. Something about having a super museum in a super city. Yeah, yeah. He's a lot more blokey looking and sounding than I remembered. Like if he wasn't so short I would imagine him as a rugby player. I also spotted, Ruud Kleinpaste, Michal Mckay, and Ray McVinnie.

When I heard the idea for the exhibition I was wondering how they could create a whole exhibition just about orchids, and in some ways I left still wondering. The exhibition design is amazing, the use of gardening equipment as props is very clever and the lighting is pretty cool too. But the actual orchids and orchid objects, well they were interesting, but you would have to really love orchids to fully enjoy this one. My Nana grows some of the best orchids I've ever seen and I think she'd really love it. I'm hoping we can get her up here to see it. Here's one she grew back in 2007, though the photo I took doesn't really do it justice.

I never really thought about the orchid in the way I think of say, roses or daisies or other ubiquitous flowers. But suddenly they are everywhere I look and I hadn't realised. I even had some in bathroom:

The florist has suggested I have the Pink Cymbidium Orchid in my bouquet.

I also noticed this image on the calendar...

They really are a beautiful plant and as the name of the exhibition suggests a little mysterious and seductive too.