fish heads
Fish heads, Auckland
Whenever I see fish heads, like this glorious lot, I am reminded of the story by Apirana Taylor, called Fish heads.
I used to get students with low literacy levels to read this story and they always responded to it. It talked to them and their experiences.
It’s a story of a young Maori guy trying to buy fish heads from fishmongers who don’t understand the value to him.
I see that it is recommended for school students too.
And I loved this visit with friend Mo to the newly updated Auckland wharves where lovely sculptures, old silos and fish markets replace the tatty old waterfront, that we did use to like a lot. The new one is better though.
almost annual event
E's summer pud
And every year E makes this wonderful summer pudding.
She made it this year too. I am not sure if this is the recipe she uses. But it’s always delicious. With custard. mmmmmmmm
And yep. We had a lovely time.
why do we?
I visited the very lovely Auckland City Art Gallery while in Auk and enjoyed the experience. Why? Because I loved seeing more of the collection – in particular the lovely small image from circa 1832 that shows Rangihoua Pa in Northland. I have not yet found a copy of the image but it’s a small image, painted by an anonymous painter with little houses going straight up a seemingly perpendicular hill. The houses seem to have little red rooves. 
It was a delight to see so many familiar colonial and 1980s/1990s images and some (like this one) new.
I liked the big pink tree thing outside and enjoyed seeing the McCahons (see previous post).
But as I wandered the maze of galleries I felt as if I was in Italy again. I got lost, I couldn’t exit and the rooms are full of paintings.
Why do we look at art?
My generous friend who took me to the airport says that art galleries are designed to educate us about being bourgeois. He mentioned a book that I cannot recall the name of. And in a way it’s true. We look at art so we can feel that we identify. That we belong. That we understand the code. Museums also were begun to demonstrate the wonderous nature of things collected from colonial voyages.
I like seeing the work of some of my friends – J and F who finally met. Its because they are personal, I understand the reasons and they belong in my world.
This is Juliette’s semiotic work about reading and study. She wanted, she said to make the papier mache with the discarded proofs of her dissertation but didn’t have the energy to do it so it’s old Readers Digests. The discarded dissertation would have been more personally meaningful perhaps but this works too. Echoes of my old school desk!!!
So what DO I think of the Auckland City Art Gallery? I think it’s splendid but I think it’s old school. It confirmed my place in the world but it did not challenge me. But I also did really love seeing all those paintings with which I am so familiar and which were the background to parts of my life. And the joined building is beautiful.
epiphanies
Like “potentially” which I am finding the most irritating of words overused in the media (not as irritating as the vernacular use of “like”), “epiphany” may be my over-used word. I suspect we are expected (by whom? God?) to have only one in our lifetime, but I’ve had one or two recently.
So, the value of being a tourist in my old university town was many-fold. A couple of epiphanies, unstructured wandering and quality time with two people I am fortunate to call “friends”.
tourist town
Walking the streets of a city you used to live in, as a tourist many years later is an odd thing. The area that used to be a bit run down and only slightly sleazy has new owners. In fact both the upper and lower environs of Queen Street have new owners but tucked away around Lorne/High there is a little part of Aotearoa/Italy with the chichi shops – Scarpa, Mi Piaci and the notable designers – World, Workshop, Kate Sylvester et al.
It’s a look that works for me – cheap food and expensive clothes.
The question du jour (after lunch) was “what sort of jeans suit a nearly 60 year old who’s not skinny” and “how many black dresses does a girl need?”
The answer to the first question is still not obvious (ones that suit and are comfortable?) and the answer to the second is “enough already”. Had that chichi little number in Veronika Maine been blue or green or even purple I would have succumbed.
It’s hard to decide, in a city you are less familiar with, which shops to choose. I’m pretty clear now that ones with peach/pink/apricot decor are not for me, nor are the ones where the shop person eyes you head to toe and where that very nice cardigan that caught your eye has a price tag of $1045.00.
I did enter a shop (corner upper Vulcan Lane and High) where the lovely people helped me decide that those seductively cheap Workshop jeans were not for me, alas. All three people were great and I’d return any day. Gawping at shoes in Mi Piace was fun but I could not convince myself that even for tango, those heels would work. Visit World Beauty for a sensual wander and do NOT ask yourself why Guerlain perfumes ($109ish duty free, $140ish in Farmers) are $239.00 but do sigh over the art nouveau allusions and the range of perfumes, books, bottles, powders and pretty little things.
Shopping. Wandering.
Oh what did I buy? Tango CD and Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads (really only for that Kyllie/Nick duet “Death is not the end” the rest is pretty dire) from Real Groovy and soap and shampoo from Lush. Modest luxury.
Here ends the shopping broadcast..
2011
Well the year has started. Sunny, warm nothing wonderful but good friends, good weather and new doors onto the deck. We always wonder how the year will be, what new things will happen to us. How we will cope, what we will find. 2010 was certainly one out of the box for me in intensity, drama and many new friends. Here are some old and new ones celebrating new year with a Dutch themed party.
Auckland mural
Found this while escaping the rain and liked it.
