Supermarket creep

I hate supermarkets; they sap my soul.

There is so much stuff – so many varieties of things we don’t need in packages that we will just take home and throw away. We are faced with a plethora of options but no real choice. How many cereals can one person handle? I find myself standing in front of them staring at the multiple versions of maize and my eyes glaze over.

It starts with the vegetables. There are simply too many and they are all evenly spaced and displayed in colourful regimented mounds that seem plastic in their uniformity. And it’s so cold that I lose the circulation in my hands, while my mind loses the will to live.

The music is vile, and the forced jollity of the announcements telling me what’s on special in aisle four makes me want to cry at the thought that the real world is out there somewhere, but it’s not in here. What’s in here is bored-out-of-their mind women pushing trolleys and pandering to their brattish offspring.

It’s one of the domestic chores I like least, right up there with cleaning the toilet. And yet, I love a farmer’s market.

Here there is something seductive about the produce on offer. Even the names are alluring; the pale and fragrant lemon cheese; the still-warm vine-ripened tomatoes; the personally-pressed virgin oil; earthy new potatoes; regal purple aubergines; spiky but soft artichoke hearts. Some people believe that any list can be poetry if the right words are used, but that’s another matter.

I’m currently reading the brilliant Eating for England by Nigel Slater. He writes of the farmer’s market; “I shop there because I want to meet the people who grow what I eat, to experience the joy of seasonal shopping, to be as close as I can to where my food originates without actually getting my hands in the soil. And I suspect that, as I trundle up the hill with my recycled bag of cheap corn on the cob still in its fresh green husks and a swaying bunch of three-foot-high sunflowers, it probably allows me to feel just a wee bit smug about those shoppers with their supermarket packet of identically sized, overpriced, cellophane-wrapped green beans from Mozambique.”

When I was a student, I used to go to different shops to collect my groceries. There was a herbalist, a greengrocer, a fishmonger, a delicatessen (I couldn’t afford anything from there), a butcher, a baker and yes, even a candlestick maker (and I was going through that late teen/early twenties obsession with smelly incense and cinnamon and spiced pumpkin candles).

Things were cheaper, and I could talk to the people who sold them. Sure, it took all day to collect my bits and pieces wrapped in waxed paper but that was okay, because I had all day – I was inevitably procrastinating about writing an essay on eighteenth century English drama.

Now it’s far more convenient to drive to one soulless sterile building with blinding bright lights and no heart. (To be fair, when Big Fresh in Christchurch introduced singing vegetables to the greengrocery section it was truly terrifying).

And yet, some people like it. As I returned a trolley to its berth (is that what they call them? They should) a bloke smiled happily, “I love the supermarket; it’s full of hot women. I’m going to come here every day.” And there you have it; it may not be a bustling bazaar or a social souk, but it can be considered a meat market.

Creation

There was a time when no one believed in the Theory of Evolution. Then there was Darwin and On the Origin of Species and everyone did. Now some people refute evidence that the world wasn’t created in seven days. According to Creation, 150 years ago a nine-year-old child was made to kneel in rock salt for defending the existence of dinosaurs. She was Annie, the favourite, and short-lived, child of Charles Darwin.

Creation tells the story of a man’s personal and familial battle – to confirm what he has proven; he must turn his back on all his wife believes. Paul Bettany embodies Darwin’s inner struggle beautifully with nuances of insanity as he wrestles with the big issues. Science is at war with religion and, as the obnoxiously vituperative Huxley (a splendid Toby Jones) tells him, “You have killed God”.

He does not slash through the framework of society glibly and in fact prevaricates for a couple of decades before finishing his earth-shattering work. He knows that, “Society is bound together with religious beliefs – it’s an improbable form of barque, but it floats.” As he fidgets through grace before meals and leaves a church in a middle of a sermon by his friend Reverend Innes (a firm but gentle Jeremy Northam), we see the gradual eroding of his religion in a tale told through flashbacks and fast forwards. “The loss of faith is a slow process like the raising of continents over thousands of years.”

He questions the rational of a vindictive divinity. Thousands die that only a few may live – what sort of a plan is that? Innes can only answer, “It is not my duty to speculate on the will of God.” Just as there are no atheists in the trenches, Darwin postpones publishing because, although he has proved the triumph of science, he is still afraid to risk his mortal soul. When his daughter’s life hangs in the balance (it is to be supposed that she died from scarlet fever), he is prepared to bargain with God; if you let my child live...

This all sounds rather weighty and cerebral, yet Bettany’s Darwin is warm and vivacious. Whether playing with Jenny the orang-utan, explaining to his daughter in explicit detail how light can make a picture as she fusses in the photographer’s studio, or waiting nervously for his religious wife to finish reading his book and pronounce her verdict, he is eminently human albeit not particularly Victorian.

If there is a heaven and hell, he may be separated from his wife for eternity. And he loves his wife as he loves his children. Jennifer Connelly plays Emma Darwin with unassuming grace and strength. Their chemistry is clear through looks and gestures that belie the oft-portrayed repressed emotions of the era. She says of her husband, “He’s like a barnacle and if you prise him from his rock you’ll kill him.” It appears that she is this rock.

It transpires that Darwin and his wife are first cousins and both of them feel guilt over their daughter, Annie’s death. He worries that they never should have married and that their blood is too close. He thought they were breeding the perfect child but now fears that they endowed her with the weakness that killed her. Amid the current debate about designer babies, it is opportune of him to muse, “Nature selects for survival; humans for appearance.”

There is rather an obvious scene in a pub where two pigeon fanciers explain to him that they are breeding their birds to enhance their attributes, although there are inevitable casualties en route. Is he guilty of treating living things as experiments – even his children? In one of his hallucinations, the dead embryos captured in specimen-jars come horrifically alive in his study. In a fit of fevered rage he releases all the doves from their cote, disgusted by his genetic engineering. His imagination becomes increasingly obsessed with Annie (Martha West) who continues to dominate his thoughts after her death.

Great cinematography abounds from the opening credits (cells; sperm; fish; birds; butterflies; wildebeest) to the sped-up cycle of life and the seasonal changes depicting passage of time. The English countryside is stunning with its woodland mammals and rock pool inhabitants. Nature is instructive and it is also a battlefield. In a scene straight out of a BBC documentary, a fox catches a rabbit much to the dismay of the youngest Darwin girl. The moral is left to Annie to explain, “The fox has to eat the rabbit or its babies will die – that’s the balance of things.”

And above all, this is a story. Darwin regales his children with tales of adventure – how many kids can rely on their father’s personal exploits of climbing the Andes, being on a ship struck by St Elmo’s fire, earthquakes and giant sloths? The backdrop is an achingly beautiful string quartet or the passionate piano playing of Emma. The beautiful descriptions come from a voice over of diaries and letters weaving a rich tapestry of light and dark threads.

Nothing is black and white. Can you maintain a belief in an abstract theory when it threatens you personally? How far can you have a difference of opinion and still be friends? How much should you leave to your children and what do you owe them? The film contends that we are in a constant state of flux – we have been and are being evolved – and that this is not the end. The future (stem-cell research; cloning; religious fundamentalism and the latest God delusion) is as yet unwritten.

It is fitting that the film is based on the book, Annie’s Box by Randal Keynes, a great-great-grandson of Darwin himself. As Charles and Emma separate and reunite, their harmony and entropy echoes the opening credits. Side-by-side and hand-and-hand they appear two-by-two in a manner that will satisfy followers of Genesis and genetics alike.

Books read in September

The following are short reviews of the books that I read in September 2009. The marks I have given them in the brackets are out of five.

The Post-Birthday World – Lionel Shriver (3.9)
This might well be subtitled a novel of sex and grammar. It concerns middle-class middle-aged navel gazers, debating whether or not to have an affair, yet it is strangely compelling.

The Sliding Doors concept means the book is written with artifice and mathematical precision, almost like a ‘boy book’ but with a female subject matter, reminiscent of Carol Shield’s Happenstance. The first chapter is the same – Irina and Ramsey go out to dinner on his birthday and she is tempted to kiss him despite the fact that she is in a stable relationship with Lawrence. In the words of the author, ‘Thereafter the narrative splits into two parallel universes: the one in which she gave into temptation, and the one in which she remained faithful to her partner and demurred.’

The eternal love triangle is not exactly a revolutionary theme for a novel, but it is observed with such intense scrutiny that many nuggets are familiar, although some of the dialogue is unrealistic.

The two men offer the choice of companionship versus eroticism, and Irina discovers that not all excitement is good and that security is hugely undervalued. Obviously Ramsey and Lawrence are opposite sides of the same coin. “If you put the two of them together – Lawrence’s discipline, intellect, and self-control, Ramsey’s eroticism, spontaneity, and abandon – you’d have the perfect man.” The reader is practically invited to get involved – which man would you choose? In Irina’s situation, what would you do?

The artifice of the novel occasionally intrudes, and Shriver deliberately draws attention to it. In this novel of linguistics and semantics, every word has significance and connotation. Every utterance is analysed for meaning or pretention and the imagined children’s stories that Irina illustrates are both fascinating and relevant.

Transition – Iain Banks (4.2)
This novel is supposedly the mid-way point between Iain Banks and Iain M Banks, so you get the best of both worlds; nitty-gritty realism and fanciful sci-fi imaginings. From the opening sentence – “Apparently I am what is known as an Unreliable Narrator” – you are immediately plunged into chaos and confusion.

The narrator is a transitionary, someone who can flit between worlds where they can interfere and affect outcomes. Some of the tasks of the Transitionary are to do good; to intervene by introducing people to each other, leaving a book lying around for them to discover, stopping them from entering a building that is about to collapse. But these are not the roles the Transitionary relishes and which keep him awake at night.

Some people are able to tandem, which is to take another person with them when they transition. Most transition with the help of a special chemical in tablet form, called septus, although the Transitionary does it by sneezing, like Nadia Popov in Rent-a-Ghost. An organisation controls the transitions and the quantities of septus, but what happens if people can flit or transition without it? Also, some people are able to pervert the natural order by assuming new bodies and simply refusing to age or die. As with all of Iain (M) Banks’ novels there is an element of paranoia and the fear of powerful corporations, and he advocates disorder and natural arbitrariness.

With or without the M, Ian Banks is instantly recognisable and any novel of his will provide a good read. You know what to expect up to a point. His genius is that he can take similar ingredients each time – sex, torture (this gets a bit preachy and there is an obvious swipe at the Bush administration and Guantanamo Bay), drugs, whisky and of course, Scotland – and create an entirely new concoction.

Desdemona, If Only You Had Spoken! – Christine Brückner, (translated by Eleanor Bron) (4)
This collection of eleven monologues was written by Christine Brückner and translated by Eleanor Bron who adapted them for the stage. Brückner wrote imagined monologues of women who were famous but had never had a chance to be heard. The subjects range from the Virgin Mary to Clytaemnestra or Desdemona. Some of the characters are fictional heroines, others are real characters, like Gudrun Ensslin (part of the Baader-Meinhof group) or Katharina von Bora, who was married to Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant movement.

Each speech is introduced with a concise and informative explanation of the character and their relation to history. In these monologues, many of the women rail against their invisibility, demanding to be considered in their own right, rather than as a wife, mother or unpaid housekeeper. Brückner has given these women a voice; all of which are varied, but all of which are real.

Eleanor Bron seized upon the opportunity to translate these pieces and perform them. She confesses she was helped by the fact that, “Monologues, once the province of after-supper recitation and revue, had recently started to find favour once again. This revival owed a lot to Alan Bennett’s television series ‘Talking Heads’, which resuscitated the form by demonstrating its richness and variety.”

All of the women have things to say, which range from relationships and motherhood to politics and war. All of these women are angry, which makes their emergence from the page to the stage very dramatic. All of these women are powerful. All of them deserve to be heard. And Christine Brückner and Eleanor Bron should be commended for bringing them to our attention. Now we just need to sit up and listen.

Lucky Man – Michael J Fox (3.8)
When Michael J. Fox ‘came out’ to the media that he had Parkinson’s disease (or P.D. as he terms it) in 1998, the disease came to international attention. He is quick to point out that it affects people differently and their reaction to the drugs they take will vary. He can only relate his story and he does with candour and honesty that is touching and informative.

Dealing with the disease forced him to alter his way of life, deal with his drinking and address his issues with his family and fame. In order to explain what changes he made, he relates details from his career and his lifestyle, some of which he is ashamed.

He describes the world of fame as a hall of mirrors – an unreal world in which you get given free stuff all the time and the police let you off speeding tickets in residential areas. The freedom that came with this fame proved to be his undoing as he constantly pushed the boundaries only to find that there weren’t any and if he wanted some, he would have to put them in place himself.

And then he woke up one morning with a hangover and a twitching little finger that wouldn’t go away. For a long time he denied the symptoms and attempted to carry on life as normal, but eventually he saw an analyst, gave up alcohol and forced himself to confront his illness. “I experience the full panoply of classic Parkinsonian symptoms: rigidity, shuffling, tremors, lack of balance, diminished small motor control, and the insidious cluster of symptoms that makes communication – written as well as spoken – difficult and sometimes impossible.”

He takes medication to quell these symptoms but he can’t stay on it all the time so he experiences a sort of Jekyll and Hyde melodrama depending on whether he is on or off his medication. He arranged his life so that he could act or be seen in public when the drugs were in effect ensuring no-one knew he was sick. When the acting and hiding of symptoms got too exhausting, he finally decided to publicly admit his illness. But he didn’t want pity from his audience; he wanted to be able to do something positive.

He found that breakthrough research is being done into Parkinson’s that cannot be funded – the Bush administration’s stand against stem-cell research is far from helpful, if not downright criminal – but according to a professor of neurological sciences, “of the big three degenerative neurological diseases – Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s) – we think P.D. will be the first domino to fall.”

MJF didn’t just want to be a poster boy for P.D. so he set up his own organisation to help researchers find a cure within find a cure within the decade. “Our optimism on this score was matched only by our impatience.” We can only hope that his impetus helps bring a cure for this debilitating disease. And sooner rather than later.

Burnley banner

Burnley used to believe that Owen Coyle was God. He raised them from the second division to play in the premiership alongside the footballing superstars. Now he has abandoned them and gone to Bolton. True, he used to play for Bolton and his heart is more likely to be there, but it's a bit of a kick in the teeth from the man who banged on about loyalty.

Burnley fans are understandably bitter, but they know money talks. After all, they were among the first clubs who introduced player's wages to the league in 1885. They've been paying for it ever since.

Him Outdoors says he's 'very disappointed' but he's ready to shrug it off and get on with it, but not without cheering on this banner, dsiplayed at the recent fixture between Bolton and Burnley. The one below isn't quite as witty, but it fits on the page.

My newest favourite thing: artists on the green

It was a scorching hot day as I walked down to Arrowtown Village Green for a spot of art and craft. The shady positions were highly sought after as the artists and artisans sold their wares.

I love Leslie Duggan’s artwork and we have several of her colourful and vibrant fabric creations adorning our walls. One (of red hot chillies and ice cool martinis) was given to us as a wedding present. The quirky cats and jaunty pukekos are also favourites. I see she also does triptychs of more subtle korus and kiwis in muted tones which would make great wall hangings too – check them out at her garden shed gallery.

I met the charming Rex Charlesworth with his fabulous display of handcrafted glass beads and jewellery. He is inspired by dragonflies; their iridescent colours, fragile wings and superlative aerodynamics. Some of the beads featured in pendants and earrings are fashioned to represent their startling eyes.

We discussed photography and patience – he clearly has lots of it as he used to spend hours photographing dragons and damsels in minute detail and extreme close-up. You can follow a link from his Queenstown Hotglass website to see some of these wonderful images.

I was also pleased to meet the artist Christina Roach who, despite being inundated with golfing fans for the Michael Hill NZ Open, was still smiling as she painted her Central Otago landscapes. This is the scenery with which she chooses to surround herself and you can tell her connection to it with each loving brush stroke of the oil on the canvas or the dots of colour that represent glorious autumnal leaves on Tobin's Track.

Christina had almost sold out of her paintings and so was completing some more to add to her stock. Today she was painting from a photograph – a panorama of images taped together, which she kept in the front pocket of her apron. I suggested that it might be difficult to imagine the landscape while she looked out at the Arrowtown street bustling with summer visitors, but as she mixed more pockets of paint, she said she knows these hills like the back of her hand.

Driving Forces

People who drive sign-written vehicles can be startling stupid. I ride my bike around the Wakatipu Basin a lot and I see some alarming driving. Many cars (usually 4WDs) cut me up or don’t understand the concept of share the road. I know this is mutual and there are quite a few cyclists who display a reckless disregard for fellow road-users also, but that’s not what this post is about.

Last week I was carved up three times in less than ten minutes in Arrowtown by the same vehicle. Arrogance or ignorance; I’m not sure which is worse, but it certainly motivated this bloke’s attitude to the road. He ended up pulling into his driveway (overtaking me and then turning inches in front of me, causing me to brake heavily) so I know where he lives. If he continues this behaviour, I will let you know where he lives too.

And this is where those with sign-written vehicles come in. It’s all too easy to think you are in your own little bubble when you drive, but your antisocial and unthinking actions affect everyone else in your vicinity. You are blatantly advertising that you don’t give a toss and are reckless, thoughtless and completely inconsiderate. Do you really think anyone would want to do business with you? I’ve witnessed a lot of woeful driving; dangerous overtaking and careless corner-cutting. I won’t mention it here, but I know who you are.

I must also give credit where it’s due – there are some sign-written vehicles in the area who display consistent courtesy and I would certainly recommend their business to anyone who requires their services. Among the more noticeable champions of the road are Nomad Safaris, Otago Southland Waste Services, Addstaff and Ministry of Works.

Of course, not everyone wants you to know who they are. Once, Him Outdoors was racing around the Lake District when a car pulled out sharply in front of him forcing him to slam on the brakes and take evasive action. He waited until the driver was looking his rear view mirror then flashed a rude signal and mouthed obscenities very clearly, which the other driver couldn’t help but lip-read.

The flashing blue lights popped up and Him Outdoors was reluctantly pulled over by the unmarked police car. After trading ‘You shouldn’t have pulled out like that’ and “It wouldn’t have been a problem if you weren’t speeding’, the policeman allowed that he had another pressing call to attend and that Him Outdoors was lucky to be let off without a fine. His parting shot was, ‘Just watch who you call a f*&%ing t#%t in future, sir.’ Which goes to prove, you can never be too careful on the road – someone is indeed always watching.

Boy Books

The latest list to challenge my Libran (and female) sensibilities is Esqire's 75 Books Every Man Should Read. Clearly, I am not a man, but I'm always interested in the difference in reading habits between the sexes, so I took a look. I have read about a third of their list so I suppose I am entitled to some insight.

One of the things I took from this list is that men don't read books by women - we know this anyway. Often on men's top ten favourite reading lists, the only female author you will find is Harper Lee. I often thought this was because, what with the androgynous name and general lack of public appearances, many blokes think she is a man. Perhaps the same is true of Flannery O'Connor, as she is the only female included in the 75. I think that's pretty shallow. But then, why 'should' someone read a book? To find out about things they don't know, or to reaffirm what they already do?

The books have little blurbs to sum them up. A large proportion are about war. Others are about dogs, horses and cattle or mountains and seafaring - exploration in other words. Men 'should' read about tough manly heroes and their pursuit of survival; adjectives include raw, unrelenting and revenge.

They admire stories about slaves, prison, spies, scandal, presidents, journalists, detectives and the Holocaust; apparently these are manly topics. They are also encouraged to read tales of mateship, farting and sex; childhood, highschool and college. There is usually an edge about having a passionate longing (whether or not it is requited) with your best friend's girlfriend/wife and a troubled relationship with your father.

Of course, there are heaps of titles about drugs and drinking. Descriptions are full of words such as crazy, drunk, hallucinatory, boozing, brawling, fighting, whiskey and defeat. Naturally this leads to a chronic onset of navel-gazing; dirty, damned, grotesque, trapped, desolation, darkness, loss of self.
It's no surprise that the quintissential boy book, Heart of Darkness makes it onto the list, although I am puzzled by the omission of Albert Caumus' L'Etranger. Apparently men should read of cold brilliance, sparseness, animalism, brutality and deception.

I find this list somewhat depressing, mainly because it suggests that men are still living in the past. They dream of swashbuckling adventures where men were tough and women were unimportant. If there was a war to fight, then all the better, as they could prove their valour and value. They could then adopt an attractive world-weary pose to demonstrate strength and knowledge of unspeakable things. When they lost their pioneering capabilities they retreated into drugs and alcohol, unable to face reality, assuming a delusional paranoia that everyone was out to get them.

In real life they are drinking in bars, working in offices and playing pointless computer games by themselves. They read these fantasies but they don't discuss them (how many men do you know in book clubs?) because they like to believe they are the explorer who has discovered new territory. They still don't have any friends and they still don't care what women think.