Geoff Stahl
I’m off to Christchurch later on today, to prepare for a little pingpong country action, as part of the Scape arts festival. I’m leading a symposium on art in the city, which should be good fun. As part of this I was asked to do an interview for RDU, the student radio station based at Canterbury down there. Assuming it would be about ping pong I was jazzed to talk about it. However, the first question was “Why did you choose media studies in New Zealand? I mean, we’re a small country at the bottom of the world, why would you come here when you’ve been to so many other more exciting places?” Well, I explained, I’ve always loved New Zealand, after coming here in the early nineties, and had longed to get back here somehow. I didn’t expect an academic job would do it for me, but it did and for that I’m grateful. I admitted that I’ve loved the music most. And I like Wellington more and more. Sure, it feels small and isolated sometimes, but that’s part of the charm for me. I can leave a couple of times year, get over to Aus, maybe to Europe, but I like it here and I’ve done the big cities for the time being.
The interview continued after that and hit on some ping pong and country issues. As we wrapped up, he asked me if I’d be interested in offering some sort of media commentary as part of their new breakfast show. I was flattered, naturally. He claimed, with some earnestness, that people with American or Canadian accents always sound like they know what they’re talking about. A shining moment of self-deprecating cultural anxiety, the kind that wants some sort of confirmation that they matter. This is another instance in which I make that analogy to Sally Field winning her Oscar for “Places in the Heart,” that point when she says “You like me, you really like me.” Sometimes someone says something that makes that seem so a propos.
Music is not thematic in any shape or form today, so here’s just a few rarities that I’ve ripped and have been loving lately.
Geval Trio - Psicosis (sic)
Amral’s Trinidad Cavaliers - Oye Como Va (sampled by the Beastie Boys)
S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and S. Janaki - Boochi Boochi (with a lovely Hi-NRG break a la Bobby Orlando/Divine)