Happy birthday Daneila

Today is my friend Daniela's birthday. She's a pretty great person, and seems to be able to express herself in ways that I'd like to. She's fun to hang out with, and is wonderfully conversant; things just seem to flow so nicely.
Daniela lives in Dunedin, and a while ago she had to read White Noise, by Don DeLillo. I offered to record myself reading it aloud, but fell through because, well I don't think I had the commitment to dictate an entire novel.
For her birthday, I read her a few short stories, which were more interesting, and wholly more achievable. My favourite one is I Am Unemployed, by Tao Lin. I was very happy with how it sounds, and if you'd like to listen to me reading it, click here (and read along with it here).
Happy birthday!

The Love Police

This was my first large scale wheat-pasting - it's based on a screen shot from this video, a montage of activity from The Love Police. It's pretty cool; some pretty inspirational and awesome quotes from a guy talking through a megaphone.

I used a bunch of sheets of A4, 6x4 of them. The paste was probably too thick, but overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out. Thanks to T'nealle for being my Wing-Paster. I was going to make a speech bubble, but wrote in chalk - I intend to change his message nightly.

You can head down Aberdeen St in Central Chch if you'd like to see him...

The last few days

I'm in my last week of uni, ever. I'm very close to finishing a Bachelor of Science in Biological Science, and I don't have any plans at the moment to do any post-grad work. I think I shall write more about uni another time; for now, here are a few things I've done lately.
-The other day, cycling to uni, Kim caught up to me on her bike. We cycled the rest of the way, then I bumped in to her as she was leaving, and her, Eamonn and I cycled home. It was a perfect day for a bike ride, and Kim and I used our bells, which just seems like the most cheerful, spring-like sound ever (Eamonn has no bell, but squeaky brakes).
-Gina and I have been meeting up at uni. It's been nice spending time together, but more specifically, we've been partaking in Don't Forget to Write - writing letters to strangers in the library at uni. I've received some interesting ones, and I think I may just start writing to strangers in the phone book.
-Hannah, Eamonn, T'nealle, Jono, Melinda and I went and saw Spirited Away at the Academy Cinema in the Arts Centre. It was a free screening as part of the Japanese Film Festival, and was much better than I remember.
-Eamonn, Melinda and I watched Donnie Darko. It was about as good as I remember.
-I made a large pasting which will probably go up tonight. Out of newspaper, I also made a few pictures of little tufts of grass, and flowers, which I pasted around the bottoms of power poles etc near my house. A man walked by and said 'you're doing a great job'.

Flying/falling

Have you ever seen a horse running? At a gallop, for the tiniest moment of time, it is airborne - flying with nothing touching the ground.
Have you ever seen a bird flying? In the air, some passerines flap a few times, before retracting their wings. For the tiniest moment of time, it is coasting - ready to fall through the air like a rock
Horses flying; birds falling. Sometimes I feel stuck in the middle. Stuck between flying and falling.

Street workers

I've lived in Christchurch for about four years now. The first two were spent in the dull, student-centred suburbs around uni. Then I moved in to town, and discovered real Chch. Which includes prostitutes. I live on a street parallel to Manchester, the main street for such business. It was an odd thrill seeing these women - I could conceivably pay them for sex. Walking home at night, I've found most of them to be very friendly and polite, and I return the courtesy.
For the most part though, things seem pretty terrible. Hearing people yell things at them from their cars is disheartening, as is seeing single men driving past, doing U-turns to reevaluate their options. Knowing that substance abuse drives a lot of women to the street is also really sad, and though it's decriminalised, it still seems very dangerous.
Most of the action takes place between Armagh St, and near Bealey Ave. One night, friends and I counted 17 women along this stretch. T'nealle and I pasted some messages last night, which read '11: Love Thy Street Worker'. I think it's a nice message (to clients, and the general public (they are part of our city)), and perhaps also suggested being an 11th Commandment - I'd like them to be treated nicer, and judged less.

Seth Frightening

I enjoy music, and I also enjoy making lists. As I host a radio show, I like to present a list of my favourite albums of the year (here is 2009's). And I'm sorry to spoil it for you, but my favourite album of this year is Seth Frightening's The Prince and His Madness. It's just incredible, and has been a daily listen for the last month at least.
I wasn't that in to it at first - it's haunting, fragile, and repetitive. But these are the parts that have really grown on me. As an album, it's an astonishing piece of work.
I don't think I can recommend this enough. You can have a listen here, and buy a physical copy from here.

Message

Saturday nights up town in Christchurch are generally pretty unbearable. Loud, awful people everywhere, and that smell which always seems to be present outside clubs. T'nealle, Rose and I met up for some wheat-pasting, which meant the night would be great. I like being up town, but not a part of Town.
I made a long banner at work. It was quite motivational I guess; an amalgamation of a few ideas. We put it down Woolsack Lane, home to some amazing graffiti, and a lot of lighting

'You are the only example of you there'll ever be. Therefore, you are a piece of art, making history. You can do anything you want.'

Get well soon cards

I suppose I could say that this is part of my ongoing series of street art in response to the Chch earthquake. I was walking through town yesterday, and thought that some cards would make the city feel better. I didn't have any Chch-related images, so just used old National Geographics. T'nealle and I went pasting, and once again, these photos were taken by her (I really need to get a camera...). I don't expect them to last very long, but they say nice things like 'Dear Christchurch, Sorry to hear about the recent tremors. I'm hope things will be back to normal in no time, and we'll be amazing again. Best wishes.'
It was signed by stickboy, which I'm going to use for pastings in the future. It was my high-school nickname - partly (I'd like to think) due to my playing field-hockey, but mostly due to my rather slender build. I think it's a good pun now, what with all the sticky paste I'm using.

I also put this face on a light in the ground in the Square



I went for a walk up town the following afternoon. Four of the five cards had been removed (the card in the third pic is still there)

Stickers

Here are some photos of some stickers I put up around town back in June/July. My friend Daniela took the photos when we spent a really nice day together, eating lunch and walking around. Most of them are gone now, but I was really pleased to see one that said 'you are art' was still on Flour Power.

Sweetener

As hinted at in this post, I've met a pretty amazing girl, and things are wonderful. Her name is Gina, and things seem pretty perfect. Eamonn played match-maker (in that he shoved us together, and told me she was vegan), and we really hit it off.
It's all been really nice, and I like how things are so natural. Often, I'd start crushing on someone (or fall for a friend), and let it carry on for weeks or months. But this just works, straight away. She is sweet and funny gorgeous and smart.
One of the strangest things I've found is that sometimes, I kind of forget what she looks like, and when I remember, I'm left a little breathless at how pretty she really is.

Kiri

I'm really excited, because one of the greatest people ever (and one of my especial favourites) is coming to Christchurch! Her name is Kiri, and as I've mentioned before, she means more to me than I could ever hope to really explain here. Regardless, here are some thoughts:
We met when I was 17. I was in my last year of high-school, and we started going out.We were together for three and a half years, and so many things happened in that time. I think the biggest one was that Kiri really helped me 'open up', and become the kind of person I wanted to be - I always found it difficult to express myself. A lot of our early relationship felt up and down, but things really worked out, and we lived together for two or so years. She just has the biggest heart, and... I don't really know what else to say. I was just listening to God Only Knows, which really made me think of her.
Together, we experienced: elation, miscarriages, terrible decisions, love, many kittens, caring for a two-year old, making things work from nothing, serendipity, death, wonder, late nights, illness, togetherness. She changed my life in so many ways.
And she's in town for a few days this Sunday. I can't wait.