Seeking is the Antithesis of Happiness

Eckhart Tolle is changing my life.   By which I mean – reading his books is changing my perspective.  Which is actually so much more important than any external change in circumstances.  Without a change in perspective we just keep repeating the same patterns in different ways.  A fundamental change in perspective is much more transformative [...]

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I'm growing – GROWING damnit!

At the moment I’m reading a book called “Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny”.  In it, Robert Wright applies game theory (non-zero vs zero-sumness – don’t worry, the book explains it) to cultural and biological evolution to “isolate the impetus behind life’s basic direction”.  In the first section, which I’m currently reading, he applies this [...]

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More Wackness Than Dopeness

Part homage to the nineties, part coming-of-age story, The Wackness is a little indie movie that has been getting great reviews, about a teenage boy who swaps marijuana for friendship and counselling sessions from a barely-holding-it-together psychiatrist while harbouring a crush on said psychiatrist’s step-daughter.To be honest, I didn’t get what all the fuss is [...]

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Watchmen – Made to be watched by men?

Some of the most gratuitous violence I’ve ever hidden behind my hands from (granted I generally avoid violent movies at all costs). Superheroes. In lyrca and PVC. Having sex. Nuclear explosions. Awful, awful pseudo-philosophising. Innards.  The Forrest Gump soundtrack.Did I miss something? If the point was that human beings are by nature base, violent and [...]

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He's Just Not That Into You – and you are NOT the exception!

He’s Just Not That Into You has to be one of the first self-help books to be turned into a fictionalised Hollywood movie. It is based on the book of the same name – which to be honest, I haven’t actually read. Let’s bear in mind that it was written by former Sex In The [...]

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Sheba Williams Album Release Gig – SFBH, Wellington, 22 November 2008

[Update 1 Dec 08: published here] Having been promised an ‘electrifying stage show’ from ‘a performer unlike anyone else in Godzone’ by practically every events website in town, Sheba Williams had a lot to live up to when she took to the San Francisco Bathhouse stage on Saturday night (November 22nd, 2008) to support the [...]

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Body Corporate ‘Howlaround’ Release Gig (Wgtn)

[update 19 Nov 08: this review has now been published here] My first thought, on hearing that Auckland band Body Corporate would be playing their Wellington release gig for debut album Howlaround at The Adelaide, was: ‘well, that’s a little random’. The Adelaide is what I would tend to describe as a ‘seedy old man [...]

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Day of Art and Fun in Welly!

Wow, what a brilliant day I had today! Went and investigated some options up at the Vic campus, which was nice because Vic is such a great Uni and it reminded me of the great time I had there doing my BA   Sat in the little graveyard perched on a stone overlooking Wellington city [...]

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Circus As Art – Seriously Sophisitcated

Hear the word circus and what connotations immediately spring to mind?  If you’re anything like me, images of pathetic clowns pulling off tired slapstick jokes on a floor of sawdust spring to mind.  Sad, neglected animals being bossed about by rotund ringleaders under a red and white tent and children in spandex flying from rooftops. [...]

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Blindsight

Today I went to one of the films on for the Wellington Film Festival called ‘Blindsight’. It was a documentary about a blind American guy who took 6 blind Tibetan youth on an expedition to climb the peak next to Mt Everest. This guy, Erik, lost his sight when he was 15 and yet went [...]

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