Miscellany

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July 16, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Wellington Film Society: Preview – Fidelio: Alice’s Journey (July 16)

The Wellington Film Society’s program will soon take a break for a couple of weeks to welcome The International Film Festival but there’s still a couple of weeks of films and then the program returns in mid-August for another few months. Following on from last week’s showing of Young Torless we are back in contemporary times with Fidelio: Alice’s Journey.

A powerful first feature from a French filmmaker to watch, this is about a young woman toughing it out below decks on an ocean voyage. It’s unusual to see a 30-year-old woman as an engineer on a cargo ship, but Alice (Ariane Labed) is a tough pro, holding her own among the otherwise all-male crew in this slice-of-life French drama. Alice’s sweet Norwegian boyfriend is patiently waiting for her in Marseille, but when the captain of her latest posting turns out to be an old flame, staying true just got a lot more challenging. Lucie Borleteau’s remarkably assured first feature intrigues with its doc-style observation of the daily routines, sudden stresses and eccentric rituals of life on an ocean-going workhorse. Yet it never loses sight of the aching, sensual undertow prompting its protagonist’s sometimes impulsive behaviour. True, Borleteau might have stoked the flames a bit higher, but the languor of the storytelling draws us in, and Greek actress Labed is both convincing in French and a strong-yet-vulnerable presence capable of holding an entire movie together.
– Trevor Johnston, Time Out.
Read More »

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July 11, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Short Story: Neighbourhood Fragments # 8

The man down the road stops me to talk of his cancer – sore throat, blocked ears; three separate trips to the doctor. You’re fine. You’re not fine. Strep-throat. Take a sick day. A few months on – it’s throat cancer; sorry. But he’s on the mend and he’s – massively – on the meds. He’s on some trial. Doesn’t know if he’s getting the placebo or the (real) good oil. But he’s back on food, even though it tastes like shit. And he’s not ashamed to talk about it. He’s got advice, sound advice in fact: get yourself checked. Get to the doctor. Get into the hospital system. Get yourself seen to with the slightest concern. Get your worry seen to. And I’m standing there with only the worry that the cat wants its food. So I make my excuse and head home. Sometimes the best chats are the ones you never planned for, the ones you never expected. It was a good day today. He thought so too. Every day above ground, as they say. Whoever said that…someone told me it was Lou Reed. But his idea of a ‘Perfect Day’ didn’t sound so flash. So, I’m not so sure about that. Better ask the doctor next week. Read More »

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July 10, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

The 1001 Albums Challenge # 74: Chic – “C’est Chic”

I love Chic. I love Nile Rodgers. And yet I had never heard C’est Chic until just recently. I have listened to live albums and watched the recent DVDs and then way ahead of that I’ve had compilations and I regularly jam the key tracks, the big singles, the obvious stuff…but it’s weird that I’ve never listened through to the albums, I mean I’ve hunted out loads of Rodgers’ post-Chic stuff – solo albums and the lesser known sideman/production jobs, again as well as the big, obvious stuff from The Hitmaker. Read More »

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July 10, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Poems

I never
knew if
my mum

ever read
my poems.

last weekend
we caught
up

briefly.

she couldn’t
remember the
name of the

book she’d been
reading, nor the
author – but

she definitely had
it – somewhere –
on her kindle.

“you’d like
her”,
she said.

“she writes
all her
stories a bit
like you
do,

in funny,
long
columns…”

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July 8, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Wellington Film Society: Preview – Young Torless (July 9)

The Wellington Film Society’s program will soon take a break for a couple of weeks to welcome The International Film Festival but there’s still a couple of weeks of films and then the program returns in mid-August for another few months. Following on from last week’s showing of Les Cowboys we travel back in time a bit this week to the 1960s again for Volker Schlondorff’s German boarding-school tale, Young Torless. Read More »

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July 8, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: True Stories

my dad and my brother
have this story…

they were driving in
my car.

they were listening to
a tape I had left in

there. it was agreeable
to them, for them; some

Talking Heads greatest hits-type
thing. and just then,

they drove past the cemetery
and my dad pointed and nodded

referencing his father’s final
nap. or the first new one after

the final nap. and just
as he pointed, and just as he

said whatever he did about
his dad – the tape, which had

‘finished’, had fallen silent,
sprang back into life…

a conversation between me
and my grandfather.

two new talking heads, talking
aloud and maybe saying nothing

much; talking about an old life
– my school project had been

to sit with my grandfather across
several days and document

his life. he wasn’t unwell, we
didn’t then know that he had limited

days left on his count. the clock
ticking, his ticker not so much, not as

well as it had. and now,
a year or two on from there, or four, or

five, or whatever it was, my father and
brother turned white as, well, ghosts…

to hear this voice – just as they
drove past the burial ground.

we were talking about the sixties,
(I can remember my father telling me

not to ask his father about that particular
decade, ‘he wouldn’t have a clue, he was

not good then, didn’t understand the sixties
at all’ – I don’t think my dad understood that

was why, exactly, I wanted to talk
to his dad about that decade).

two talking heads, prattling on,
same as it ever was.

two garden-variety ‘experts’, nattering
and solving and pontificating…

teacher. and student. and we
eventually got our audience

a year or two, or three or four or five on…
and they weren’t sure they wanted

to be there, to hear, to have, to very
nearly hold…

but they’re sure that it happened, they were
in some way moved, in some way impacted.

The less we say about it the better,
Make it up as we go along…

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July 2, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

The 1001 Albums Challenge # 73: The Saints – “Eternally Yours”

I met Ed Kuepper a couple of years ago. I was the DJ before and after his set – he played a great gig and I felt lucky to be “on the bill”, sharing the bill with a legend. He was very polite, he approached me a few times during my opening set to ask about particular tracks, to thank me for reminding him of certain artists he hadn’t heard in a while, or didn’t expect to hear in this context. And then at the end of his set he thanked me, very warmly, for reviewing his album of the time. He told me he had loved the review. Very nice of the man to say so. Read More »

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June 30, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

The 1001 Albums Challenge # 72: Willie Colón & Rubén Blades – “Siembra”

As good as it is to hear albums I’ve heard of, know of, know about and by bands or artists I know and perhaps have collected up – but just not the one album mentioned as ‘The Classic’…it’s better, more interesting, more exciting, when I hear the albums I didn’t even know about. Like this.

Siembra is one of a handful of the collaboration-albums by modern salsa kings Colón and Blades. Both are still alive, both have made music on their own and collaborated with many others – but across the 1970s and 1980s they created a winning combo, working together to make music that bursts with life. Read More »

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June 30, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: I Met Athol Guy.

He must have been around 48 because I
was about 13…

He’s nearly 80 now.

(And I’m far closer to the age he was then
than I ever thought was going to be
possible).

He was
standing by the
buffet table,
his band had just
played and they had this dirty great-big
fuck-off feed waiting for them.

The Seekers.

Or The New Seekers.

Judith Durham wasn’t there anyway.

So it wasn’t really The Seekers.

My dad’s best friend was the promoter
of the show. And he suggested we go.

That meant driving halfway across the
island to see a pretty shitty show.

The promoter-guy’s son was into
the video game Skate Or Die, and
the band Suicidal Tendencies. And
as we walked backstage, with our passes,
after the gig,
he yelled out, really loudly, in this phoney
American accent he peddled for no real reason,

“Oh my gosh! Did that suck!??”

He had just finished
saying that
as we got to the door of the
Green Room
and standing right there,
by the aforementioned
food-station, was Athol
Guy. He wanted to meet
everyone and anyone
that he was sure wanted
to meet him.

We breezed on past.

It was explained we were
the promoter’s kids. And
friends.

And in fact I was
staff…

They’d offered me the job
of selling programs. And by offer, I mean
they told me I had to do it.

And I had stood by the merch-table
trying to sell $20 souvenir
programs – and I sold a few.
They paid me $20 for my night’s work.

Athol Guy
had this big grin – probably thinking
about the money he saved on those slave-wages.
He stood as upright as his double
bass.

He was the man.

And this was his band.

The Seekers. Celebrating – at that
time – some 25 years in the
game, or whatever it was.

They were dreadful.

And worse than the $20
payoff, we were given
a copy of their greatest hits
CD. (New versions, no Judith
Durham). And they all stood
around and signed the CD.

Athol Guy went last.
And signed his name larger
than anyone else.

I remember he had this
giant bit of salmon hanging
from the corner of his top
lip.

He shook my hand,
told me I was their youngest
fan.

My friend – the Skate or Die
for lifer – said loudly right at him,
“No he’s not!”

And we laughed after, as we discussed
how Athol Guy had just figured that
meant there was someone younger,
even than me, that was a fan of the
band. This imposter version. With
Julie Anthony sitting in.

Athol Guy kicked everyone
out of the backstage area,
said they were old and it was
time for bed.

I remember looking at the 48-year-old
guy and figuring him close to 80 then.

This was my first backstage
experience.

And I’ve hated being backstage
ever since.

Unless you are in the band, or
connected to the venue, or the immediate
touring party, you have no business there.

And even then, it’s
touch and go.

Speaking of which,

as soon as Athol Guy
shook my hand,
I knew it was time
to leave.

Even before he
kicked us
out – so he could
finish that salmon,
hanging there
like a Red Rubber
Ball.

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June 29, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Wellington Film Society: Preview – Les Cowboys (July 2)

The Wellington Film Society’s program moves back up to date this week. Last week it was the glam of Gilda – with cocktails after! But this week it’s Les Cowboys, a French-Belgian film from 2015.

Reaching across 15 years and multiple countries, Les Cowboys repurposes the narrative codes of the classic western to explore the complexities of a disrupted world. Read More »

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June 29, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Playlist: Here’s What Bob Dylan Will Probably Play in Auckland and Christchurch in August 2018

So, Bob Dylan is back in New Zealand in a couple of months – it’ll be my first time seeing him in over a decade, and I’m amped. Tickets to the gig purchased, flights booked, I’ve been reading a few Dylan books, I’ve revisited his Nobel Prize speech, I’m in deep with the catalogue working through every official album in order, and I’ve been finding a few new-to-me bootleg recordings too. Plus I’m listening obsessively to the Pod Dylan podcast which goes through his work song-by-song. Read More »

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June 27, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: The Meeting With The Supervisor

The meeting with the
supervisor went very

well, from what he was
(now) able to tell

he’d been doing a
pretty good job,

odd thing, though, if the
meeting had not gone

well (ie: if it had been
explained that he was

not delivering, not performing
as he should) that would

have probably made
just as much sense.

a toast then! To being
in the right line of work!