Sitting in a park, waiting for the minutes to pass
Chicago Winter
The year opened like any other for most people, maybe. For me, it opened with the new responsibility of taking care of a crawling baby while the ground… Read more →
When you have a baby, you get lots of advice. One early tip was to keep a journal of the experience, to help you process things, or remember things.
This blog would have been the perfect place to keep a… Read more →
The nature of reality. Existential crises. Free will versus determinism. These are all my favorite things and Westworld showrunner Jonathan Nolan continues to make wondrous contributions to the perennial debate: what is real and what is a mirage?
Check this… Read more →
As a teenager I was certain there was life after death and at university I learned this meant I sat on the side of Dualism when it came to the Mind/Body philosophical conundrum.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy… Read more →
Mythology Versus Religion
Reading Stephen Fry’s retelling of Greek mythology in his novel Mythos, I had an epiphany as to how it is possible for Creationists to believe the world was created in six days, little more than 6000 years… Read more →
Zadie Smith recently released a collection of essays in a book called Feel Free. One of the older essays, Generation Why?, is a review of the Facebook-inspired movie The Social Network as well as a savage indictment of social media… Read more →
Unlike my other literary heroines—Jane Austen and George Eliot—I feel lucky to be Zadie Smith’s contemporary and to have read each of her novels upon release. I’ve grown up with her themes and Swing Time is no exception.
The details… Read more →
Every time I chew through another great TV series I fear I’ve come to the end of the line. Having just finished, Stranger Things and Call the Midwife on Netflix, I checked to see what I’d missed on HBO. And… Read more →
Her full name is Sister Dorothy Anne Dickson of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Mission, but I know her as Auntie Dot.
The following is a transcription of an interview she gave with my cousin, Pastor Joseph McCauley.… Read more →
Recently I read Patti Smith’s memoir M Train and it became clear she loves a good cafe as much as I do. In the book Smith spends a lot of time in her local Greenwich Village cafe, where she eats… Read more →
I had long heard the name Patti Smith and associated it with the exciting time in NYC, somewhere between Warhol and the Ramones. I thought of her first as a musician, like an American PJ Harvey perhaps – though she’s… Read more →
Today I was tidying up my papers in preparation for going back to NZ from Saudi and I came across a pamphlet on Rudra Meditation, which I’d been meaning to read for years. The final pointer was: “The greatest sadhana… Read more →
A few whimsical memories of my time living in KSA. It wasn’t all bad!!
Passing a spice shop and taking a breath of cardamon and cinnamon then a second later catching a whiff of the sewer.
Buying an ice cream… Read more →
So I’ve been here over four months now and a few things are standing out in my experience… but excuse the mostly unrelated photos as it’s not very cool to take pics in public.
The first thing is the beggars.… Read more →
I landed on the 18th December, after 31 hours travel, feeling shattered and worried I’d made a big mistake. I’d been told I would be met at the airport by someone who would have a sign. I interpreted this to… Read more →
This doco was released in 2006 but the facts remain valid and it’s well worth a look. Oil is a pet hate of mine and I was half expecting to have heard all the horror tales before but there was… Read more →
I was born in Whakatane but moved to Gisborne when I was 3 so I’ve never really considered the place to be my hometown. My dad, however, has lived there most of his life and the last couple of times… Read more →
A month or two ago a single pipe in one of Fonterra’s many tentacles was discovered to be “dirty” and this was blamed for the contamination of milk, which was used in the processing of infant formula – some… Read more →
Kanye’s latest album is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea and on first listen, I wasn’t sure it was mine either. It’s an original beast: frenzied and relentless one minute, mellow and plaintive the next. The lyrics are raw and… Read more →
April 25th marked the 14th anniversary of the death of Kemi Olusanya, better known as Kemistry from the female drum n bass duo Kemistry & Storm.
When I went to London in May 1998, I arrived on a Tuesday and… Read more →
That phrase came from a review of Zadie Smith’s recent novel NW but could as easily be applied to two movies I’ve been wanting to see for a while but – based on the reviews – couldn’t quite face.… Read more →
I’m late on this review but the movies may yet get a general release, or come out on DVD, so what does it matter? I went to three movies at this year’s NZ International Film Festival and each one left… Read more →
If I can go to bed at around 1 or 2am and wake at around 10, I’m fine. But as soon as I have to get up at 7am, and therefore get to sleep earlier, I start having issues. It’s… Read more →
I’ve changed my URL to Street-lit.com as part of the marketing strategy for my novels. Street Literature encompasses modern urban life: pop culture, music, fashion, slang, partying, ambition, creativity, despair… wracked by guilt for how far we’ve come from our… Read more →
*Well serves me right for being pessimistic: I must update this post because City have just won the league!!! Brilliant.
**Now they are utterly dominating I’m embarrassed to say I adopted them!
So it’s pretty much inevitable that United will… Read more →
To quote my own novel: “It’s so wack and it happens all the time: places get hip on the strength of their nightlife and independent vibe then corporate types move in and make it mediocre faster than it takes a… Read more →
