Ten days in and I’m already planning the move to my new digs. Just a few minutes walk from the department, I’ve found a place strategicially placed between my work and play zones. It’s on a strip called The Terrace, in an old deco-era building. It’s up on the fifth floor, at the top of some pretty treacherous steps. An okay view, where, if you crane your neck properly, you can actually see the harbour. I suspect I’ll take this for the year and then see what happens. It’s not a dream place at all, but it’s cheaper than the last place and it’s my own abode. I’m a bit weary, after two years, of living in someone else’s place, sleeping in someone else’s bed, eating off of someone else’s plates. Time to put down some roots and surround myself with things of my own.

So it’ll be a spartan apartment for the first while, but the kitchen looks good, I’ve got a bedroom, an office and a living room, separate domains which are perfect for me. I’ve even got cat doors, as do the neighbours.

The weather finally turned nasty today. Winds and rain the likes I’ve not seen or felt for a while. I know this is only a hint of the full power of Wellington weather, so no complaints yet. It does make the descent down to the city a bit more unpleasant, though. Stories of cars being blown into the bay are common here, as are tales of people losing their heads to bits of runaway tin roofing. Scary stuff. It’s quite dramatic, all the same, and it’s certainly part of the appeal for me. The weather here is at least assertive, which you can’t say about Berlin.

I’ll no doubt make some comments on NZ TV soon. I’ve only got four channels so I can’t say much. They’re just running Desperate Housewives and the last season of 24, which is the typical lag time here. I’m thinking I’ll start writing something about Bittorrent and the way in which it’s affecting local television schedules (as well as the hype-building machinations of the European and North American broadcasters). We’ll see, but as it’s the way I keep up with the Daily Show, etc., it seems like a good new direction to go with things.

I’ve sorted out my things and I’ve dug up some vinyl treats for you. I’ll be posting them over the next few weeks, as I rip them. It’s good to have music back in my life. Some more Indian disco for you, again: Asha Puthli - 1001 Nights of Love.

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Landed. Intact and, for now, momentarily relaxed.

I arrived here Tuesday and promptly came down with some mysterious throat ailment that seems to be afflicting the young and infirm. It’s on its way out, but my voice did go walkabout for two days.

Having come into my new office at my new job, things were not nearly as far behind as I thought they might be; in fact, computer networking, etc., had been set up for me six months ago. They had since gone dormant as they weren’t being used. And, of course, some departments at Vic have no record of me being an employee of the university. Lost in a bureaucratic hiccup, I’m crossing my fingers I’ll get paid on time.

Of course, what would a new school be without a tiny bit of intrigue? Three days after I arrived, staff were set to go out on strike (no one had mentioned this to me before my arrival). The same thing happened to me at Humboldt, where the students went on strike three days after I arrived. And in Melbourne, two days after I arrived, the students were protesting against a govt plan to do away with student fees (well, they actually intend to make paying them “voluntary” - the current Australian govt are made up of a bunch of backwards goons, who are introducing anti-union, and let’s just anti-human, regulations and laws which will further set that country back). The grievance here is based on a 5% salary hike, nothing substantial at all really. We’ll see how that turns out as the strike date was postponed for various reasons, but the main one having to do with modifying the negotiating process.

I’ve got a nice place, only five minutes walk from the campus. It’s lodged somewhere in 1950s New Zealand (though its rental costs are most definitely 00s NZ). I don’t think I’ll stay there long. To that end, I spent Saturday being given a tour of the greater Wellington area (the population of which is just over 400, 000), with thoughts of which neighbourhoods would be best. It looks like having a bike here is going to be impossible. Not only are New Zealanders notoriously bad drivers, cyclists are a rare breed and the roads are often just wide enough to squeeze in one car. And the hills. The hills are at such a gradient that I’d be mad to consider putting butt to bike seat.

I start my teaching next week and from the sound of things, I’m being eased into it all. One course, this trimester, with a few guest lectures along the way. Next trimester the same. Positively civilized approach designed not to alienate fresh-faced staff. I’m sure the admin things will have some impact on research time, but they seem keen on keeping people here, so it won’t be too much in the end. And the staff keeps growing. A new hire this coming year, after having done four last year. Media Studies is the fastest growing department according to stats. Phew. And it’s almost got some respect, too. Go figure.

Wellington seems to have changed little from my last visit, but that’s only at a cursory glance. A few more buildings (planning people, you need a better plan) and some signs of bar and club life is a nice reminder of what makes Wellington appealing in its quaintnesss.

It’s also election time here and I’m just wrapping my head around things. Labour’s Helen Clark has been in for two terms now and there are signs that the Nationals may get in or at least put a significant dent in the former’s hold on power. If the Nats get in, things like the recently launched Maori TV (which is actually not a bad place to pick up some basic Maori) will get the axe, along with the usual conservative twaddle about encouraging business and investment through tax cuts, etc. And the Libertarians are here, too. The Maori Party also has some presence, along with the Greens and a party called 99MPs, which seeks to shrink the Parliament from its current 120 MPs down to 99, the idea being that they’d take those other salaries and redistribute the wealth. The head of this last party is a dusty old matron who utterly lacks any charisma and/or charm and thereby prevents them from looking anything but looney.

Yes, New Zealand is a long way from where I was before, but it promises to be a good challenge (not least is the bloody wind here). A reminder of what that profound geographic fact has done to the NZer character comes from hometown band Split Enz (from whence the title of this entry comes as well): “They tyranny of distance didn’t stop the cavalier, so why should it stop me?” Simply put, and it shall be my moto for the next little while. Especially when mounting the hills.

I’ll give you more soon, but for now to the music, of course, and perhaps the band which has done the most to affect any decision I had to come back to NZ: The Clean. Having only released four proper lps, and a few comps, in their 26 year history is a pretty good indicator of the glacial pace at which some things move here. Regardless, their leisurely pace is part of their persistent charm for me. Four tracks from Robert, Hamish and David: Anything Could Happen, Big Cat, Secret Place, and Chumpy.

Iso G.

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To be moving again is not necessarily a good thing. I console myself with the thought that soon enough I’ll be in my new home, where I’ll be able to rest my feet and enjoy getting bored in one place (rather than many).

I’m in Melbourne now, having spent a week in Sydney, where I stayed with my old friend Rod and his partner Anita. They’ve got a great place in Surry Hills, a brightly-lit place in an area lousy with good cafés and the like. It’s not Yuppieville yet, but the constant renovation and the Starck-designed condos nearby suggest it will be soon (although the fact that they’re not selling is a good indicator that the housing boom in Sydney has slowed substantially).

Sydney was marvellous. Sunny and warm (okay, warm by Canadian standards at 17 or 18 degrees in the middle of “winter”), it was a great time to do some walking about, soaking up the great new architecture there. Plenty of those pics show up on Flickr. I’ve become a fan of Seidler, a man who’s designed numerous buildings throughout the city (and just had his citizenship revoked through a computer glitch).

Not having really spent time there for twelve years (I was there for an IASPM conference in 1999, but spent much of my time in Bronte, near Bondi Beach, and while under the weather with a kick-ass bronchial flu that had hit 1/4 of Sydney), I noted the many changes since then. There is a remarkable Asian face to Sydney now, which means I ate plenty of Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese food while there. I hit the Asian supermarkets as well (Berlin’s are pretty piss poor, actually) and found that on Sunday, the place was buzzing, while the rest of the CBD slept.

That said, I had a few experiences which left a bad taste in my mouth. The first happened within hours of my arrival, where, while walking by Central Station, I witnessed to Asian cab drivers being harassed by police, asked to open and empty the trunks of their cabs. It was very aggressive and to my eyes, quite invasive. This was happening in the context of a surveillance culture which is astounding in its pervasiveness. Plenty of signs asking you to watch your fellow citizen for suspiscious activity, etc. And just today, a story about a video release warning of a jihad, done by someone with an Australian accent. The sense that Australia is next is very present here.

The other experience was a bit more humorous, or at least I deflated it with humour. While walking home from downtown one night, Rod and I passed by an old wall ad, which I wanted to photograph. We were accosted by a quartet of pleasantly-drunk middle-aged locals who wanted to know what my interest in architecture was. I said I often preferred the old wall ads, which you find most often on older buildings of course. One fellow replied that there really is no old architecture in Aus, as the country is only a couple of hundred years old, to which I replied: “According to some.” His quick retort: “Oh, I’m not black, mate.” Rod and I diverged at that point.

On Tuesday, I gave a talk at UTS, doing a longer version of my Ping Pong Country presentation. It seemed to go down well enough and as I’m still working out some of the kinks, it was good to have some Berliners and a couple of other people familiar with the city in the audience. It’s always good to keep test driving these things, with good feedback to push it along. I think that once I get to Wellington, I’ll bang it into shape.

Having done the Sydney thing, I thought I’d get a good dose of Melbourne as well. I always preferred Melbourne to Sydney, as it’s just a bit more modest about its achievements. Of course, I hadn’t quite prepared for the weather, so when the pilot said it was 5 degrees out, I realized I’d used my heavy sweaters to actually pad my packing boxes back in Berlin. It appears that a cold front has moved up from the South Pole, which has meant that snow has fallen on the Southeast Coast for the first time in decades. It is bitterly cold here, but nothing a hardy (ex?) Canadian can’t handle.

My return was marred slightly by a mixup at the hostel I was supposed to stay at. They had no record of my having booked with them, and in fact they don’t take on-line bookings anymore. Perhaps they should tell people this? I did receive a receipt and my credit card was debited, though. Anyway, the place was a bit of a dank and mouldy tip, full of acoustic-guitar wielding crusty hippies and drunk Brits, no longer my idea of fun (if it ever was). I had to move to a hotel, which is probably better suited to my sleep needs. It’s down near Flinders Station, which is opposite the new Federation Square, a remarkable space which was not here when I last visited. I’ll stop by later today. Though can I just say that one building looks the mirror image of the Jewish Museum. The Aussies I was with want to argue that Fed Square may have actually come first, but I’ll do a bit of research and sort that out myself.

I’m in awe of the new bar culture here, which makes plenty of use of the city’s back alleys. A friend took me out to a few of them last night and they were all quite fun to hang out in. None of this existed twelve years ago, so it’s good to see the CBD spring to life again. Apparently Sydney is trying to do much the same to revive its downtown. First they have to get rid of the tourists (which don’t seem to plague Melbourne in the same way).

I’m now off to buy myself a scarf and a fleece. I comfort myself with the thought that I get two summers this year (but also two winters).

Music, culled from Remco’s Berlin collection of absolute trash. This is from an Indian film called “Apman.” It reminds me of the Shocking Blue’s “Venus,” mixed up with Ami Stewart’s cover of “Light My Fire.”

Iso G.

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To cover the world, to cross it in every direction, will only ever be to know a few square metres of it, a few acres, tiny incursions into disembodied vestiges, small, incidental excitements, improbable quests congealed in a mawkish haze a few details of which will remain in our memory: out beyond the railway stations and the roads, and the gleaming runways of airports, and the narrow strips of land illuminated for a brief moment by an overnight express, out beyond the panoramas too long anticiapted and discovered too late, and the accumulations of stones and the accumulations of works of art, it will be three children perhaps running along a bright white road or else a small house on the way out of Avignon, with a wooden lattice door once painted green, the silhouetted outline of trees on top of a hill near Saarbrücken, four uproarious fat men on the terrace of a café in the outskirts of Naples, the main street of Brionne, in the Eure, two days before Christmas, around six in the evening, the coolness of a covered gallery in the souk at Sfax, a tiny dam across a Scottish loch, the hairpin bends of a road near Corvol-l’Orgueilleux. And with these, the sense of the world’s concreteness, irreducible, immediate, tangible, of something clear and closer to us: of the world, no longer as a journey having constantly to be remade, not as a race without end, a challenge having constantly to be met, not as the one pretext for a despairing acquisitiveness, nor as the illusion of a conquest, but as the rediscovery of a meaning, the perceiving that the earth is a form of writing, a geography of which we had forgotten that we ourselves are the authors.

–George Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces

Sound

Iso G.

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