Life in the little room, on the edge of a city, edge of an island, edge of the Pacific, and on the edge of the big world, has been good this week. Settling-time is past, and my stride is underway. Pieces of music seem to find themselves somewhere near completion. My energies and disposition have found their rhythm in this residency. I treat it like work. I spend the full day working till home time. I have a meal break in the middle of the day for lunch with the staff, when able, like all good unionists.

In the studio paintings are strewn on the table in various stages of dress, notebooks open for spontaneous scratching, piles gather in disheveled messes from previous efforts of image or sound making, sentinels of stands hold cymbals and microphones, others lean against the walls, books on the table open and inviting, there is a rotting Taupata log from home with dried-up fungi, and the Peace Lily is still making its way to flower.

One book of interest this week is the Collected Poems of John Berger. A good friend introduced me to Berger several years ago. He gave me ‘Hold Everything Dear’, a small book containing some of Berger’s essays on his connection with Palestine, among other topics.  The book arrived as a beacon in a personal dark time. And what a rope-ladder Berger has been for me since. By now I have read much of his work. Berger’s ability to strike a light in the bleakest of stories was a story I needed, and still need, to hear.

And in the grass of this rain
flowers
which grew with the strength of rivers
       –o the pockets of the ferryman
        packed with the letters
        silences and promised. numbers
        of those who left!
which grew with the strength of rivers 
into estuaries.

An excerpt from the poem Twentieth Century Storm is one such example from Berger. Like all good poetry, the more I read it, the more I read into it. A reminder that whatever ‘today’ may throw our way, the ‘tomorrow’ is waiting and open. The estuary is not a ‘Me’ moment. It is an ‘Ours’ event.

Between Me and Ours

A question has bounced around my head since winning this residency. I have been appreciative of the enthusiasm and support given by friends on gaining this privilege. Yet there’s been several times when people have stated, well-meaningly and with the warmest intent, that it is something I “deserve”, that it seems right to have it bestowed upon me in light of what has gone before. 

I really struggle with this idea, of ‘deserving’. I cannot help but think that the opposite of this is that there must be a battalion of ‘others’ that do not deserve it. I know this to be grossly inaccurate. I can rattle off a long list of extraordinary creative people from all walks who would make great use of such opportunities, benefiting both themselves and the communities they work within. I also think it accentuates the cruel myth that those who work hard get their due rewards. Next time you’re in a hospital, ask a cleaner about all the rewards they have gathered for their hard work. Privilege is not evidence of hard work.

False humility is also unattractive. I would be lying to say I am not making the most of this privilege/opportunity. All I can say is that what I think We All Do Deserve is safety from each other, from despots in power playing politics, from ideologies which lift up only themselves while targeting ‘others’, a place to live, a meal to eat, a person to love, a chance to play. We deserve the chance to be curious and explore, the opportunity to be wrong and learn, to dream and escape, to be trusted and responsible. You can add your own suggestion to my incomplete list.

It’s not strange to feel that the Political networks of the current day are doing their best to push one into states of disappear. But the political actors are not a ‘We’, it’s most often a He, acting like Dams would on a river, to obstruct, block, and bottleneck. So where ever you put your energy, whatever your cause for better might be, think of yourself and your crew, your people, your mob and your kin as something in flow towards, to be part of something that grows “… with the strength of rivers into estuaries.”

(Here is something uplifting, an incredible story of water, persistence, and restoration).

–

I finish the week with two vegetable.machine.animal shows. 

The first is the celebratory afterparty of Wellington Zinefest. An impressively wonderful event with multiple spaces considered and made available so people can access the party in whatever way they find comfortable and welcoming. I play in the main foyer of Trade’s Hall.

The entrance to this beautiful space became infamous in 1981. A suitcase packed with explosives was left at the entrance. It seems likely the intended targets were some of the Union organizations within. However it was the cleaner Ernie Abbott who picked up the suitcase and died in the explosion. The perpetrators were never found.

The second was a fundraiser for the Neil Roberts Memorial Day. Neil Roberts was a punk anarchist who died when the explosives he was carrying detonated at the entrance of the Wanganui Computer as the target, on 18 November 1982.  Located in the city of Whanganui, the computer was the NZ government’s first database of accessible information on citizens, used by police and other surveillance services. His act is seen as a protest against the government’s growing surveillance mechanisms. 

The fundraising show was held at a newish Wellington venue, Underworld, which seems to be comfortable with bands of a noisier and heavier disposition. It was an evening of assertive music in multiple styles, and me and the houseplant.

SOUNDBITES

1. The cat on the pillow talks, ‘Feed Me’. I drag the window behind me open and hope she jumps out , just like she does every other morning [or is she pushed?]. The dawn chorus calls into our room, the trees are close, sound-laden with feathered fruits. The doppler of another sound moves slowly through this song. It is a six am flight to somewhere awake.

2. I’m listening to ‘No Title As Of 13 February 2024, 28340 Dead’, the newest album by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The band lock this piece of their art as a statement on the carnage against the Palestinian civilian population. It confounds me that this music can seem both futile and essential. Music holding hopes and sorrows together, a bit like Berger’s words. 

3. My ears are still asleep. THAT sound upstages somnolence. I am immediately aware of the risk of being breakfast. ThE steady buzz cuts through the blur of early morning. I pull my anxious head undercover. Steady? Mosquito’s can be many things, but steady is not one of them. I hear the buzz again, I listen, realising it’s the whine of the machine grinding coffee beans.

4. I’m holding my phone to the downspout. As if I know where the pipes ears are, and I’m helping it take a call. The rain has only stopped falling outside. Inside, drops descend from the gutter two stories up to percuss at this elbow junction on the way to the drain. This wet military tattoo, the rhythm of rain, is what stopped me in my tracks.

5. Pull wire till straight. I underestimate the breaking point and fall one step backwards as the pliers and metal separate with sound. Repeat three times, calibrating the effort downwards. I notice a sine wave trapped in shape. I guess the resonance is transferred down the wire, the wave becomes visible when the vibration stops at the jaws of the vice.