ISSUES

LIBRARY CARD PROTEST OVER WITCHCRAFT

NZPA

A Wairarapa Christian minister is crusading against what he says is Masonic paganism by renouncing his library card.

John Cromarty, of St David's Church in Carterton, objects to a Masonic Lodge being used as a temporary library because he says the group is connected to witchcraft, the Wairarapa Times-Age reports.

In a letter to Carterton Mayor Gary McPhee, Mr Cromarty said he and his wife had handed in their library cards and were asking their friends not to visit the lodge, which was housing the town's books while a new events centre was built.

He said while Freemasonry did some good in the community and portrayed a facade of being compatible with Christianity, its foundations were rooted in witchcraft and paganism.

A past master and a Freemason of the lodge, Warwick Cashmore, said Mr Cromarty's attitude was extremely disappointing.

"The basic tenants of freemasonry are brotherly love, relief, and truth," he said.

Royal Draughtsmen


Draughts was always my favourite board game, because I could beat my father at it. When one of our pieces successfully outmanoeuvred the opposition to be "kinged", we always announced 'King-Thing!' in a sing-song voice.
I like to imagine these young men are having a quick game of draughts at the beach, rather than a long, drawn out chess ordeal. Chess has no place at the beach. Draughts however, would be a good way to pass half an hour or so between having your bbq lunch with a draught of cold drink and having your second swim.

(However being from Arizona this is probably in some desert landscape.)
photo from Cline Library archives @ Northern Arizona University
via

Private Libraries


Shelving Trolleys as bookshelves. Reminiscent for me of a work I installed at Elam's Fine Arts Library in 2007, when I catalogued my room by Dewey Decimal System and filled trolleys with random room detritus waiting to be shelved. No more messy floors!
Would solve pretty much every storage problem, with space for the 'q' books as well. Probably the only piece of furniture I want to buy.
But only if I could sort my books by Dewey Decimal System, naturally.
Perhaps this could be the storage and display model for my dream of running a private library/archive/business/entrepreneurial scheme.
If the whole artist hoopla falls through, you see.


via Brutus Magazine

A Plant


Staring out the window on a bleak and gloomy Sunday past the new pot plant on the window sill.
No one seems to know what kind of plant it actually is, though. I am assuming the red berries are inedible.

By Rail


Last weekend my parents travelled back to Auckland from Wellington by steam train. I wish I had done that before I left New Zealand. What a majestic beast.

Times, they are a-changin'

The seasons change, and autumnal winds slow my cycling and whip my hair into tumbleweed, and it starts to darken at 8 o'clock instead of 11. I remind myself soon I will have to check when daylight saving is due to end. Before I was always confused as to what I was meant to do at the change over - in what direction was I meant to wind my clocks, and no one I asked every seemed completely certain of their answer.
Now I have a clever little saying in order to instantly recall this vital piece of information, and will be admired everywhere for being able to pass on this knowledge.

SPRING FORWARD / FALL BACK

(admittedly I never call Autumn "Fall", but 'Autumn back' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.)

As found in 'Kissing the Gunner's Daughter', an Inspector Wexford mystery, by Ruth Rendall.

First House


First House (1950) designed by Group Construction Company, later 'Group Architects'.
via the Architecture Archive, University of Auckland

Affectionately known as 'the Group', they are now the subject of a new book Group Architects: Towards a New Zealand Architecture (Auckland University Press, October 2010), edited by Julia Gatley, also responsible for the acclaimed Long Live the Modern: New Zealand’s New Architecture, 1904-1984 (AUP, 2008).
The book will be launched with an exhibition of the same name during Auckland Architecture Week 2010 at Gus Fisher Gallery. The exhibition combines drawings, photographs, models, furniture, paintings and sculpture by members of the Group. Houses, the building type for which these modern architects are best known, are depicted in photographs and models.

I wonder if 'Allan Wild and Colin Wilson in Conversation' (reproduction plywood chairs) 2008, will be included.

Three Chairs



Similar chairs - first designed by my grandfather Allan Wild for Group Constructions 'First House', in Takapuna, New Zealand. Seen in situ above, with matching plywood table and kitchen furnishings.
From Auckland University's excellent Architecture Archive.
Allan Wild and Colin Wilson in Conversation, 2008, reproduction chairs built by my father and I, part of the exhibition 'Modern Love' at rm 103.
ROLU Furniture, found here.

On the Outskirts of Malmö




Went for a cycle to Jägersro, on the 'outskirts of Malmö'. Filled with interesting sights, including Jägersro Tower(Malmö's television and radio tower), Malmö Mosque (the second oldest in Sweden), and spotted a handsome water tower. Also home to 'Jägersro Trot and Canter' - Sweden's oldest horse racing track, featuring a buffet restaurant open daily. Their special pea soup is a winter favourite.

CLUES

"ALL SOLUTIONS AND NO CLUES, THAT'S WHAT THE DUMBHEADS WANT. THAT'S WHAT THE BLOODY NOVEL IS: ALL 'HE SAID, SHE SAID', DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SKY...I'D RATHER IT WAS THE OTHER WAY ROUND, ALL CLUES, NO SOLUTIONS, THAT'S THE WAY THINGS REALLY ARE. PLENTY OF CLUES, NO SOLUTIONS."


Philip E. Marlow, writer of detective stories

The Singing Detective (1986)
Episode 4: 'Clues'

Love Letters


Complete set of lead type at Ri Xing Typography, one of the last factories in Taiwan to produce traditional Chinese type.

But in practice, it was not suitable for Chinese—a language with over 45,000 unique characters. Typesetting in Chinese took “minding p’s and q’s” to a whole new level, and accuracy was challenging when characters were essentially compounds of many radicals and ideograms. Running a Chinese letterpress shop required an enormous storage space and basic literacy of at least 4,000 commonly used characters.

read more about the demise of movable type in China