Postcards from New Zealand: Day Fifty-Five

This morning, we got our usual breakfast of sticky rice with banana from the Thai woman at the farmer’s market, but for some reason I was voraciously hungry, so we topped it off with a purchase from another booth: fried bread with an herbaceous, oily topping. I’ve been seeing signs for fried bread the entire time I’ve been here, and from a purely linguistic appraisal, I did not want to taste it, and I did not want to like it. But, it was purchased, and it was consumed, and it was, I’m afraid, delicious.

Postcards from New Zealand: Day Fifty-Five

This morning, we got our usual breakfast of sticky rice with banana from the Thai woman at the farmer’s market, but for some reason I was voraciously hungry, so we topped it off with a purchase from another booth: fried bread with an herbaceous, oily topping. I’ve been seeing signs for fried bread the entire time I’ve been here, and from a purely linguistic appraisal, I did not want to taste it, and I did not want to like it. But, it was purchased, and it was consumed, and it was, I’m afraid, delicious.

Movies: Koyaanisqatsi

Our host here is a filmmaker. In addition to screening his own films, he runs a film club and screens other movies around town every few weeks. Last Friday night, he screened Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, the early 1980s characterless, plot-less, and dialogue-less first in the series of three portentous -qatsi films, showing it on an outdoor screen set up in the clearing of a tropical garden. It was one of the last fine evenings of the summer here in New Zealand, and as the clouds moved across the screen in the opening scenes, they outpaced the actual clouds, which moved in the same direction, sympathetic to the tempo of the moment.

Tempo is the key to this film, as its set to an original score by Philip Glass. I had already long loved this music before seeing the film for the first time in 2003, when it was accompanied by the Philip Glass Ensemble, playing the score live to a screening of the film at Davies Symphony Hall. Perhaps for that reason, I found the music more compelling than the video, both years ago, and again just the other night. That said, there are moments in which the sound and visuals are in such concert that one does get a slightly additional thrill than if one were merely listening to the record at home.

Reggio’s video, which begins by scanning the beauty of the natural world, then catalogues the terrific achievements of the industrial world, from the hot dog factory to the mushroom cloud—and I use “terrific” in the etymological sense. The director is not subtle, and while there is certainly much that is aesthetically pleasing about hair-netted women working a processed cheese assembly line, particularly when set to the edifying strains of Glass’ choral arrangement, the ultimate sensation one takes home is less poignant than despairing. In writing about the second film of the series, I described feeling it as a sort of invitation to mass suicide. Koyaanisqatsi, too, though its hideous scenes are often beautiful, seems designed to inspire a loathing for humanity.

Postcards from New Zealand: Day Fifty-Four

This morning, I didn’t want to hang around Graham’s flat as usual; I was feeling unsettled, so I went for a walk in the Domain, one of Auckland’s big parks, which is actually a grassy volcanic crater. I went into the Wintergarden, two small glass arboreta connected by a courtyard with a pond, which opens onto a fernery in the back. Inside one of the arboreta was a Maori woman with the traditional lip and chin tattoo. She and her ten year old son were sketching the plants. So much for savagery.

Postcards from New Zealand: Day Fifty-Three

Today, I drove our rental car back to the agency because the letters ABS had lit up on the dashboard, and the breaks were making a stuttering sound, accompanied by a sticking feeling underneath the pedal. This was our third rental car thus far, both of the previous having been returned for brake issues as well, in addition to the second one having an expired registration, for which the car received a $200 ticket. They didn’t have any other available cars on the lot, so they had one of their guys drive with me to their airport branch to pick up a different car, which we did. Back at the city-center agency an hour later, it was found that our new car had an expired registration, because, in fact, it was supposed to be for sale. One would think that a business would be better organized, but one would be wrong.

Postcards from New Zealand: Day Fifty-Two

Washing today was more successful than it has been yet, except that when it came time to take it all in, the boys were playing with another friend and the chickens in the garden. As I swung the giant clothes-tree round and round, I kept laughing and shouting “Watch out!” as the sun-stiffened sheets slid over their shoulders and across their faces. The garden is sufficiently large that they did not need to play underneath the clothes-tree, but the chickens like it there, for some reason, and the boys like it where the chickens like it.

Postcards from New Zealand: Day Fifty-One

The past few weeks, I’ve been taking Aldo to the train station in the morning and driving into town later in the day, so that he doesn’t spend the first hour of the workday sitting in traffic. The train in the morning seems to come on time, which is a good thing, because the trains in the evening tend to depart a few minutes early. I think that a train that departs 3 minutes early is worse than a train that departs 3 minutes late, but there is a tipping point somewhere; a train that departs 3 minutes early may be better than a train that departs 25 minutes late. The precise location of the tipping point also depends on the length of time until the next train. At night, when the trains only come once on the hour, more lateness is acceptable as opposed to a bit of earliness.

Postcards from New Zealand: Day Fifty

This afternoon, driving home from the Coromandel Peninsula, we stopped at a roadside cafe for a snack. It turns out we had stopped into a royalist cafe for a snack, where we read pamphlets provided by The Monarchist League of New Zealand while eating chocolate banana cake. You can read some of their delightfully innocuous propaganda at www.monarchy.org.nz. Here is a particularly tasty morsel: "Like most monarchs, the Queen receives no salary for serving as New Zealand's head of state. She is a volunteer. . . She does this, not for personal glory or accolades, but out of a great personal respect and admiration for New Zealand." As a New Yorker, it was hard for me to believe that this cafe and all its memorabilia (commemorative cookie tins for the wedding of Price Charles and Princess Diana?) wasn't displayed ironically, but Aldo assures me it is in earnest.

Postcards from New Zealand: Day Forty-Nine

Today, we wanted to buy land. Driving around, one gets the feeling that the whole country is for sale, there are so many signs up, but this one made us pull over to get a leaflet from the Take-One box. Unfortunately, like so many good properties for sale in this country, the price was listed as "By Negotiation," which, to me, is meaningless. Obviously, by the nature of selling, all prices are by negotiation, but the seller is responsible to open that negotiation by asking a specific price from which the buyer can begin negotiating. Now, Heather Benson is going to have to waste her time reading my email and responding to me with the price, which will be some figure I cannot afford.

Postcards from New Zealand: Day Forty-Eight

This morning, we got a surprise call that a friend's beach house in Tairua was free for us to use. Tairua is on the Pacific Coast of the Coromandel Peninsula, and it is so beautiful there that you cannot stand it. When we got there, just before sunset, the tide was out. Most of the harbor is so shallow that, when the tide goes out, the sea leaves behind vast expanses of sand, made reflective here and there by licks of inch-deep water. When the tide comes back in, everything brown turns blue.