RobiNZ Personal Blog

Antarctic Mission–A travel itinerary of movie soundtracks and a podcast hero?

I seem to have developed a rather strange way of deciding on a travel itinerary. I cycled (nearly) to Mt Everest, which was amazing, but I never had the longing some have to visit it.

I went because an unexpected opportunity to visit an amazing place coincided with a great bunch of people to travel with. That I got to visit a unique part of the world, long connected with New Zealand (thanks to pioneering adventurers and more recent adventure travellers) was just a bonus.

One memorable part of the journey was listening to some music, part of my lifelong ‘playlist’, on location. Although he wrote it without ever visiting China, let alone Tibet, hearing Vangelis’ China, particularly “The Tao of Love” & “Himalaya” tracks, staring at the milky way on a clear cold night on the Himalayan Tibetan Plateau was memorable. Something the 80’s kid who first heard them, on LP!, never imagined.

 

And now it has happened again

I’m planning to visit another place Vangelis has not but, again, captured perfectly in his music. I first saw Koreyoshi Kurahara's film "Antarctica" when it was released back in the 1980s. it was based on a real 1958 ill-fated Japanese scientific expedition to the South Pole and the fate of the fifteen Huskies they were forced to abandon there. The ambience and subtilty of the Japanese original was somewhat diminished by a terrible American accent overdub but the soundtrack survived this assault and lives on as one of my favourites.

I don’t remember when I first heard Karl Kruszelnicki (Dr Karl) (probably mid-2000’s) but first saw him speak at The Amaz!ng Meeting Australia 2010 (Sydney) #TAMOz. This Taxi Driver, Physicist, Medical GP & Surgeon, and science communicator extraordinaire is one of my favourite podcasters. Karl has degrees in Physics and Maths, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine and Surgery and has worked as a physicist, tutor, film-maker, car mechanic, labourer, and as a medical doctor at the Kids’ Hospital in Sydney. Dr Karl is currently the Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at Sydney University, where his ‘mission’ is to spread the good word about science and its benefits.

Although he has a great drkarl.com website his main communication is by radio/podcast (on the ABC in Aussie, and BBC), his many books, media appearances, and public speaking. He also offers free 45 minute Skype sessions to any school, bookable here. I have had a few attempts to get him to speak at the NZ Skeptics Conference over the years, and was impressed how willing he is to do this if possible, but so far the timing around his (manic) schedule hasn’t worked out.

So when an email arrived, from World Expeditions, advertising an Antarctic Cruise with Doctor Karl it caught my eye. Like Everest I don’t have a life long yearning to visit Antarctica but though adventure, from Robert Scott (who went via NZ) to Sir Edmund Hillary, and tragedy (Air NZ Erebus), Antarctica has touched almost every Kiwis life.

So, all going well, in late November 2019 I will be with Doctor Karl and listening to another Vangelis soundtrack in the location it was composed for!

"Theme from Antarctica". From the original score of Koreyoshi Kurahara's film "Antarctica". Composed in 1983 by Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (Vangelis).

Oh, and maybe another soundtrack location to follow

It costs quite a lot to fly to South America so I wanted to add some other destinations to help justify the ‘investment’. After a fortnight in the frozen South I decided it had to be somewhere, hopefully, warm(er). Thought about a cycle trip, but seems it is the wrong season for that so some time in Buenos Aires is the mostly likely option.

While looking at some travels from  there another favourite, also lessor known, film soundtrack came to mind. Roland Joffe’s film The Mission, about the experiences of a Jesuit missionary in 18th-century South America, featured Ennio Morricone’s original score and memorable scenes shot around the Iguazu Falls.

I have always loved the soundtrack, first heard on a CD borrowed from Auckland library, and some time there seems like a good idea. I have plenty of time to refine this part of the itinerary but, for now, travel by soundtrack seems just fine.

A Big Bike Film night lesson!

Great night last night; Big Bike Film night feature “The Moment” (at the Academy Cinema) on the birth of freeride mountain biking. Amazing riding often captured with huge (by today's stds) cine/video cameras on neck breaking helmet cams.

My orignal plan to train in (so wouldn't arrive a sweaty puddle) and bike home was foiled by not feeling up to cycling thanks to an odd sinus/head cold thing I've had going on. Was mostly over it but decided to take it easy. Should have done it though, would have got home quicker!

The Aotea carpark was full so I ended up in Victoria St. The digital capacity signs in Nelson St made that decision painless.

It had over a hundred parks available when I entered but about half of those were consumed by idiots who can't park their stupid huge SUV/Utes and left the gaps between the next car/wall/column too narrow to park without climbing out the sunroof or back hatch to escape!

Got back to the carpark to find just one (of only two!) pay machine working and it wasn't accepting notes; card or coin only. Not a problem but card payments take about twice as long as cash, no paywave...

25 minutes in the line waiting to pay would have had me more than half way home on the bike!

https://www.bigbikefilmnight.nz/

TEDx Auckland — 2013 remembered, bring on 2014!

While buying my ticket to TEDx Auckland 2014 remembered I’d never gotten around to writing a post about the 2013 event.

Earlier this year there was some flack about TED, prompted it seems by some ‘dubious’ TEDx events. From my experience at TEDx Auckland it certainly wasn’t one of those. The Aotea Centre was full, the speakers uniformly excellent and it covered a wide variety of topics.

In his intro MC @VaughnDavis (below right) made a comment which summed up my TEDx experience. He said with TED on-line you tend to self censor, focus on the familiar, topics of interest. With the live event you can’t and it is a good thing. It was, as he suggested, the unexpected which made a real impression.

For example I’m not a fan of poetry but one memorable session was Grace Taylor’s Rising Voices (Youth poetry movement) and the powerful performances by Marina Alefosio & Brian Gashema. They’d never been on stage before and got a thoroughly deserved standing ovation from the full house Aotea Centre audience.

I had heard of Dr Richard Nunns but never seen him lecture. His style was awesome, building from a slow, seemingly rambling, start to an amazing mash up of traditional Maori instrumentals, a string quartet and hip-hop (with King Kapisi). Pity there isn’t a video of that session

My notes

Rather than trying to review all the sessions in detail, it was a while ago!, here are the notes I made on the day with a few [added comments]. I’ve added links to the actual presentation page, most of which have videos, if you want to see what inspired them.

The photos are all mine (my TEDx 2013 Album on Flickr). It was nice to be at an event which encouraged photography, tweeting and recording!

• Jimmi Hunt – The worlds Biggest Waterslide - 
  • Love the suit
  • Built the giant slide, lilo’ed down the Waikato River
  • Depression 20% in NZ
  • Ask for help livemoreawesome.com
  
• Lillian Grace – Know your country: Wiki NZ
  • Presents data without analysis to remove bias [does that follow or does analysis sometimes reduce bias?]
  • Form your argument from solid data
  
• Dr Richard Nunns – rediscovering traditional Maori music 
  • 1950's only a few Maori instruments known
  • His work has rediscovered 46-47
  • [loved his opening remarks] “I can speak for hours on a marae and people love it, but TED organizers expect something profound in 15 minutes”. “Took me 7 minutes to turn off my cell phone in the green room”
  
• Mark Sagar – Baby X
  • Artificial behaviour and emotional modelling
  • Live neurobehavioral models [potential to use for brain disease modelling & study]
  • Brain + face + nervous system = behaviour
  • Face is muscles driven by nerves, by brain
  • Brain Lego :-)
  • See Laboratory for Animate Technologies
  
• David Truebridge  Our need to create 
  • Left right brain balance
  • Art'tivision activism [I didn’t make many notes but this was an interesting talk]
  
• Pete Russell – Oooobee Ooooby - Out of our own backyards
  • Hacking the supply chain www.ooooby.org
  • Imported frozen pastry [in previous business]
  • Went to world food forum, learnt mega food was killing small producers
  • New goal: Make local food available & economic
  • Grower to door
  • Food commons [like creative commons] model
  
• Grace Taylor - Rising Voices, the power of words
  • Powerful demonstration of spoken word as a cultural, social change enabler. [Amazing performance and I don’t (generally) like poetry!]
  • Her challenge to us: What story would you tell?
  
• Malcolm Rands – A new model for business
  • Solar panel project
  • Ethical business
  • Ecostore
  
• Joseph Michael – Dark Cloud/White Light
  • HD Time-lapse NZ landscape photography (amazing)
  • joemichael.net
  
• Helen Clark – (former) NZ Prime Minister – Yes She Can! 
  • Women can
  • When they do it has to count
  
• Robert Oliver – Pacific food – Recipe for development 
  • Little Pacific food seen in pacific resorts, same in Caribbean
  • Menus join tourism to agriculture
  • Pacific became dumping ground for high fat low quality meat
  • Wrote Me'a Kai book Random House
  • TV1 Sept
  
• Richard Faull – Rethinking the Brain (works with Jenny Morton) 
  • Brain stem cells in adult makes new
  • Neurogenasis Neurogenesis
  
• Ash Graham  (Music)

  

• Brian Sweeney – The NZ Story, Living on the Edge 
  • NZ Edge.com
  • Punk Eek - change happens on the edge
  • Diaspora >
  • Brain drain > Network
  • Consumers > Export
  • Ernest Godwin
  • Find your edge
  
• Sophie Tamati – Hika language App 
  • Hika language learning system for mobile web devices
  
• Welby Ings – Creativity in education 
  • Creativity is disobedient thought
  • Schools favour literacy and numeracy, if you don't have them ability is missed
  • If we pursue tick box completion education is dumbed down
  • Organizations are not human, creativity is.
  • Creativity is constrained by fear & power
  • Learning is not safe
  • Humboldt University; "Where they burn books they will eventually burn people" 1802
  
• Joseph & Maia (Music)
• Robyn Paterson – Finding Mercy 
  • Finding Mercy documentary
  • People are not born to hate, they must learn – Mandela
  • A very moving performance
  
• Dale Williams  - Small town turnaround
  • 2004 - high unemployment, crime, vandalism
    • Career advice tertiary education not employment focused
  • Local solutions for local problems
    • Employer focused
    • Pre-employment info
    • Established local careers expo
    • School leavers connection program. If no plans contacted every 14 days
    • Work readiness training - time management, drivers license, tools, skills - with mentoring
  • Result: Nobody under 25 unemployed since 2006, low crime, no graffiti
  • Why isn’t he Mayor of Auckland, a thousand times better than Len Brown [and this was written before the Bevan debacle]
  
• Wrap Up -  A chance to thank the TEDx Auckland team

Between sessions the foyer included exhibits from some speakers and even live art. Lovenotes, handmade stationery from waste paper, were being made and sold on site. There was also a chance for some to experience Baby X but the queues were too long for me.

If I’d written this soon after TEDx Auckland 2013 I would have said keep an eye on the site for 2014 news. However, the tickets for 2014 are on sale at http://tedxauckland.com with one already sold to me! See you there?

Amazon’s ‘Recommended For You’… Got me!

I was watching a documentary about Facebook which, in part, mentioned how their adverts are targeted:

“Going by the ads I see Facebook thinks I want an AMEX card, a new kitchen, a cinema ticket, a Honda and a holiday in Rotorua. That's zero correct.”

Then a bit later:

“The ads now think I still want a Honda, tickets to cricket, AMEX Platinum and affordable wall art. Oh, and Facebook marketing. No, no, no, no and no!”

On the other hand, Amazon’s ‘Recommended For You’ is absolutely spot on. I had actually banned myself from purchasing any new media until I had viewed/read/listened to the stuff I have. However Amazon made me break the ban on as this recent delivery shows:

• The Orchestrion Project: A video of Pat Metheny’s amazing one man multi-instrument live performance and feature, interviews sharing how it all came together.
• Syd Mead Visual Futurist: An interview with the man responsible for the look, the tech feel, of movies like Tron, Bladerunner, 2010 and many other future visions. Fascinating if, like me, you have an interest in Syd’s work.
• Trebuchet: The George Hrab disc I should have got from him at TAM Australia (photo right) but for some reason didn’t. I also recently subscribed to his Geologic Podcast. You can listen for free but I reckon its worth supporting.
• Mondo Agnelli: A car industry book about the Agnelli Family (Fiat owners), Fiat and that Chrysler deal.

If you are interested in any of these check out the links below. It costs you no more and a little bit of Amazon commission goes towards my Kiva loans (advert income from this blog goes to charity).

   

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Flash mob in Wellington

Members of The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with guitarist Justin Firefly Clarke performing the track 'The Ride' from the Good for Nothing feature film soundtrack. Composed by John Psathas. Video by Bryson Rooney.

 http://www.goodfornothingmovie.com/           http://www.nzso.co.nz/

'An Honest Liar’ - The Story of the Amazing James Randi

Sometime over the holiday break, one of those frequent rubbish days of a summer not to remember, I stumbled upon the documentary film ‘Being Elmo’ on a Sky channel. It was a fascinating look at Kevin Clash's life and career to as the man behind Elmo.

Although released a few weeks back I just heard an interview with ‘Being Elmo’ Editor Writer Justin Weinstein about his next project: 'An Honest Liar’ - The Story of the Amazing James Randi:

On James Randi’s An Honest Liar – Token Skeptic podcast Episode One Hundred And Eight

A first for the Token Skeptic podcast: an interview with Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom, who are the directors/producers of the forthcoming documentary on James Randi, called An Honest Liar.

and more at

'An Honest Liar - Movies.com
You need to have a lot of gall or a lot of merit to call yourself "amazing." James Randi has both. In the late 1940s he began performing magic under the name of The Amazing Randi…

An Honest Liar - Work-in-Progress trailer from Justin Weinstein on Vimeo.

This film is a stunning lifesaving minute - Immunity #stopavn

@purplefae’s beautiful film tackles the anti-vac myths in a minute.

More at www.purplefae.com

The History Boys shine at the Maidment

I guess I should disclose that I know the the Director Jessie Peach as, before setting out on his multi-media career, he sold me bird seed, at the Bird Barn. I should also disclose that I’m not a regular or especially knowledgeable theatre goer, the last live show I saw was Spamalot in Vegas!, but I’m glad i saw this production.

I’m too young to remember Beyond the Fringe so the first memory I have of Alan Bennett is a skit from The Secret Policemans Other Ball (1982). Since then I’ve become familiar with his Film and TV work including one of my all time favourite films: “A Private Function”. I had seen the “The History Boys” movie and can understand the attraction, and challenge, it would present to a director.

Jessie has assembled a well respected core cast whose performances give the play the strength Bennett’s script requires. It’s a lengthy, morally and intellectually challenging story (in part testing my limited memory of High School French) but you don’t notice as the time flies by. That is helped by the obvious enthusiasm and talent of the younger cast members who shine as “the boys”. Simple, but effective, staging and constant changes of pace and mood also help bring the script to life.

If you’ve seen the film the plot is no surprise but live performance and simplicity of limited locations seem to bring more focus on the script. It is verbose, must have taken some learning, and while there are definite leading roles all the cast get a chance to shine, and they do. In typical Bennett style there is love, pain, laughter and loss along with a fair degree of commentary on society and the education system. I must admit wondering about Kiwi actors, Kiwi accents, in these very Northern English roles but there are no fears there. With the help of a brilliant cast the “former bird seed seller” (see his Twitter profile) has done more than justice to a fine play with this polished production. Go and see it, you won’t regret it.

The Peach Theatre Company production The History Boys runs until the 24 October at the Maidment Theatre, Auckland.

STARRING:
George Henare OBE, Annie Whittle, Andrew Ford, Bruce Phillips,
Todd Emerson, Harry McNaughton, Milo Cawthorne, Elliot Christensen-Yule, Paora Durie, Nic Sampson, Sam Berkley and Chris Tempest.

Remaining Shows: Thurs 15th 8pm, Fri 16th 8pm, Sat 17th 8pm, Sun 18th 4pm, Tues 20th 6.30pm, Wed 21st 6.30pm, Thurs 22nd 8pm, Fri 23rd 8pm, Sat 24th 2pm and 8pm

Directed by Jesse Peach - www.twitter.com/jessepeach

PS: I wonder if Jessie has ever seen Dennis Potter’s TV play Blue Remembered Hills? I imagine he’d like it.

Remembering “Higher Trails”, a great Kiwi song

UPDATE 2017-08-07: to fix broken links and amend as have since found/purchased the DVD at JB Hifi NZ

Graeme Hill played “Higher Trails”, by John Hanlon today and will be speaking to him tomorrow (Sun 30 Aug) on Radio Live. I associate it with the New Zealand documentary “Off the Edge” which was released in 1976. That means I was only ten but the tune, lyrics and epic visuals of hang gliders spiralling around the Southern Alps were permanently etched in my memory.

It still looks amazing especially when you consider it was shot on film (no mini-digital video then) with limited resources/support. I’d love to buy this I have since got this on DVD and it has aged well. It was a crime John was completely overlooked when the APRA top 100 New Zealand songs was compiled.

In my head

When I first visited Aoraki Mt Cook, on the Adventure South 2004 cycle trip, “Higher Trails” was the soundtrack running in my head. I can’t remember but suspect it inspired this photo.

Damn the Dam

Another song of John’s became an anthem for one of New Zealand’s biggest conservation battles which spanned the 60s and early 70s. “Damn the Dam” [cried the fantail] was adopted by the campaign against the Manapouri Hydro Dam scheme. The government planned a dam to raise the level of Lake Manapouri (below) 30 metres, merging it with nearby Lake Te Anau, to provide power to an aluminium smelter.

That would have flooded a vast area of pristine bush including this fantails home (below). In the end Norm Kirk’s Labour Government imposed lake level restrictions and a modified scheme saving much of this habitat. Although I was a child at the time it’s impossible to visit Manapouri (I've been lucky to hike, cycle and do several tourist boat trips there) and without remembering “Damn the Dam” and the work of the conservationist that saved it.

I found “Damn the Dam” on YouTube, although this isn’t the original video. Sadly it appears we may need John Hanlon to write a new conservation anthem, thanks to Gerry Brownlee's discussions to possibly allow more mining within conservation areas.

Blu-Ray or HD DVD?

I’m not in the market for a player yet but watching this format battle seems like a repeat viewing of the VHS/Beta war. Seems the New York Times isn't sure either as today it says;

Did Warner Brothers Just Kill HD DVD? – New York Times Blog

but only a few days ago it seemed nobody was winning;

In the DVD War Over High Definition, Most Buyers Are Sitting It Out - New York Times

What if nobody wins the high-definition DVD format wars?

 It seems EngadgetHD know why: 

The real reason why Warner went blu? - Engadget HD

I hope the formats don’t go the way of DAT in the consumer market. It format was great for professionals, and recording enthusiasts, but for most it was a brilliant solution to a problem nobody really had. Given the number of DVD’s I’ve seen connected to composite inputs, or worse RF!, you wonder if image quality is really a priority for many. I suspect if you ask most consumers they wouldn’t know, or care, which format is better and the balance will be tipped by content.

Technical superiority didn’t help Beta in the battle with VHS but I hope this is one race Sony do win.