Miscellany

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November 24, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Short Story: Neighbourhood Fragments # 9

I was listening to Pip Adam’s podcast. Because I like to listen to Pip Adam’s podcast. She has good guests. She gives good chat. She likes good books (and writes good books) and it’s a fun way to spend 40 minutes (or so). Particularly while walking. (I love podcasts best when I’m walking). The other day I was out walking with Pip Adam’s podcast (it was on my phone and in my ears – it’s not an actual person). And right when I got to Pip Adam’s house (which is not that far from my house) I had this thought, almost out loud, I said (but just to myself, just to be clear) wow, imagine if I bumped into Pip Adam right now while I had her voice in my head already. I smiled (to no one) and then kept walking. Before the end of the street I bumped into…you guessed it…Pip Adam. I told her the story. She laughed and said that was a classic Aro Valley thing to have happen. She said she was sick of everyone and everything generally – and that is why she had bought three peanut slabs and a head of broccoli. We said goodbye and I carried on listening to her voice on her podcast in my ears and on my phone and via my headphones. And then the guest, Luke Buda, explained that he was listening to a previous episode of Pip Adam’s podcast while he was on his way to be recorded for that particular episode of Pip Adam’s podcast. (And how that was such an Aro Valley thing). And just as he finished saying that on Pip Adam’s podcast I looked up to see the real-life Luke Buda driving past and flicking me up the devil-horns the way he always does when he sees me (regardless of whichever podcast is on at that time).

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November 22, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Gig Preview: Ethersonic, Kodama 木 + a new film dir. by Baxter Gray ‘Solar’ – Pyramid Club, Wellington, Friday, November 27, 2020

This Friday at Wellington’s Pyramid Club there’s a multi-media showcase of music, projections and film – including the premiere of the film ‘Solar’ by Baxter Gray.

A film about a future that we hope will never occur its themes of isolation, xenophobia and a post climate-change world are of course very real; a reflection of fears and thoughts of the future.

There will also be work from experimental artist Kodama 木  – sonic landscapes with an otherworldly essence. Kodama 木 explores deeply layered atmospheres which invite introspection and presence. Listeners will be taken on a dreamy celestial journey. Read More »

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November 22, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: No Longer In Excess

Michael Hutchence of INXS died 23 years ago.
I remember it well. We drove from Wellington
to Hawke’s Bay to celebrate a mate’s 21st.

It all got pretty loose, as it always did – on the
way up we teased one of our friends about how
we were not going to stop the car, he needed

a piss and we gave him an empty bottle to fill.
At the party I jokingly engaged in a bit of
silly play-fighting with a pal and cracked his

head against the fence. He wasn’t pleased.
Bear with a sore head.  Down to the pub after
the main events and  zombie-like stumbling around

in the wee small hours for a last scrap of the fun
that had long since departed, had been drained
from the bottle. It felt like the longest drive home

the very next day, the car buckling under
the weight of five hangovers. And we stopped
in Levin – fuel for the car and for us all.

The radio told us Michael Hutchence was dead.
And we stared at our feet as we thought of the
hits. Now we are older than he’ll ever be.

Some of us have achieved almost as much as he did.
Some of us won’t ever get close. We’ve all
done better than him in lasting longer though.

An important metric – in some ways. And
back then, when he heard his sad news, it wasn’t
a given this poem would definitely happen.

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November 20, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Ironic Pile-Up

The ironic thing
is not here

if it was
it wouldn’t

be an irony
now would it?

The ironic thing
is somewhere

over there – or
out there, really

really out there
but it probably

should be here
so this poem

can have its
actual subject –

though subjectively
the aim of this

poem has been to
consider a subject

that wasn’t here as
any sort of object.

Objectively we can
see the aim even if

the execution wasn’t
up to much.

But hey, there you go
another irony!

(Not that you can
see it of course).

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November 18, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: At Any Bar

There at the bar, where I
haven’t been going as often
lately. No need, when the
coffee’s as good at home, and
the company is far better.

An article I read just the other day
said you are an entirely different person
at 77 than you are at 14. I feel entirely
different at 44 to when I was 34. And
some days, even, to when I was 43.

A friend told me earlier today that
I’m able to do things without looking
for applause or validation.

I’m not saying that’s true, but it
explains why I now feel out of
place at any bar.

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November 17, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: A Mate of Mine – Yet Another Rugby-Tragic – Was Surprised to Know I Even Cared About Basketball.

“I don’t get basketball
at all”, he said. “It’s just

You score a point, then I will,
then you, then me, then you, then me…”

He did his best to make that sound
like it was a bad thing.

I let him score his point.
Then went home to watch

a 35-year old replay of the game
where Larry Bird scored

half of his points left-handed
– and told people after

he was saving “his good hand”
for a more worth opponent.

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November 17, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Hold Your Applause

The anxiety-ridden comic thanked the audience
for being at the show. He got a round of applause for
saying that he had a girlfriend of three years. Then spoke
of how he was a nervous wreck before he met her and how
jealous he was of his friend with confidence. He got the most
laughs for sharing the stories that were neither funny nor actually
part of his routine. We’re all in the wrong job when you drill right
down. We’re all anxiety-ridden at the end of the day. Perhaps especially
at the end of each day.

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November 16, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Working Hard

the hardest job i’ve ever
had, is looking for a job.

i go from not being good
enough to sweep the street,

to thinking i might have a
chance as the EA To The World

(hey, it’s worth a shot, right?)
my cv is primed, my cover letter

has never been better, my soul
feels empty. i couldn’t gather

enough self-worth to sell, as if
in some way that might help

and people reminding me of all
my skills somehow doesn’t seem

to reassure the bills, which are forever
threatening to topple more than

my soul. climbing out of the hole of
unemployment is the hardest job there is;

the toughest irony – long, dark nights
and what always feels like wasted days

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November 15, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Far Too Much And Still Not Enough

There’s far too much poetry in this world,
he said, writing another – but I’ll keep it
brief, I won’t channel grief, I won’t compare
people to days when it’s sunny, I won’t try
to be funny and won’t rhyme all the time (that’s
a dreadful crime!) Instead I’ll write whatever
comes to mind. I hope you won’t mind that this
is all that I have. It’s all I can do. It’s all that I
can give. And this one wasn’t worth it at all –
but I knew that before you did. And that’s the
important thing with poems. The poets might never
be sure of themselves but the words are certain
they’re the right ones; the words are certain they were
meant to be here and in this way and on this day and
all in a line and – yes – sometimes ending with a rhyme!

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November 15, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Short Story: I Blame Neil Gaiman

It was probably 6pm when my father dragged Amanda Palmer off the fence and dunked her face in the pool. Almost everyone had been drinking. And now Ms. Palmer had a face full of water. I’d once given her a pretty unkind review way back,  but this seemed excessive even to me. I had to fight hard to take my father’s hands away from the back of her head. The ironic thing, I guess, is she’d been perched up on the pool fence with her ukulele singing her version of Radiohead’s High and Dry. Some of the family had even recognised the song. But my dad just lost his Christmas spirit then and there. Something snapped – and not just Palmer’s third ukulele string. “You are not to invite your musician friends around at Christmas ever again”, my dad said as he sunk back into the deckchair examining his hands as if they never belonged to him and he’d recently just found them (around Amanda Palmer’s neck). “I didn’t invite her”, I tried to explain. “And she’s not even my friend”. How she had ended up sitting on our pool fence in Hawke’s Bay for what felt like days but in reality was only – only – a punishing 187 minutes – was anyone’s guess. But I blame Neil Gaiman. I blame Neil Gaiman.

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November 14, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

It Was The Best Gig Ever # 19: Stevie Wonder, Christchurch 2008

I’ve loved Stevie Wonder’s music my whole life. My mum tells the story that one of the records they’d rock me to sleep with was Songs In The Key of Life – which was born the same year as me and makes me think my folks were pretty fucking hip.

And so, of course I love all of the great Stevie albums (and many of the average/dud ones too!) but Key of Life is the one. If I have to pick one. But why pick just one – and actually Original Musicquarium and the boxset At The Close of The Century might actually be the ones; they’re probably the collections I’ve listened to most often, maybe more than any album by any artist outside of The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Read More »

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