Chris Skelton/Stuff
Martha Marti Friedlander, pictured shortly before her death in 2016, is recognised here and around the world for her invaluable insights into New Zealand s socio-cultural history.
Vintage photographs of artists in their own environments, taken by celebrated artist Marti Friedlander, are now on show in a new exhibition at Waikato Museum. The exhibition, which opens on Friday, is toured by New Zealand Portrait Gallery and has been curated by Friedlander’s friend and former lecturer, Dr Leonard Bell. The prints chronicle New Zealand’s social and cultural life from the 1960s into the twenty-first century. Friedlander’s subjects are artists, writers, craftspeople and actors, including Ralph Hotere, Maurice Gee, Dame Robin White, Wilf Wright, Darien Takle, Michael King, Evelyn Page and Gaylene Preston.
MARTIN DE RUYTER/Stuff
Author Maurice Gee has added his voice to submissions against a proposed residential development in a rural Nelson valley.
High-profile Nelson residents have added their voices to the Save the Maitai campaign against a proposed housing development in a rural valley. Monica Pausina spoke on behalf of the Save the Maitai group on the second of three days of hearings of public submissions to the Nelson City Council’s Long Term Plan on Wednesday. She was supported by some of the more famous names on the petition against the development, including actor Mark Hadlow, Olympic medallist Rod Dixon, and author Maurice Gee, who did not attend in person but had his written submission read by Hadlow.
Science Fiction & Fantasy
A Conversation with Octavia Cade by Arley Sorg
New Zealand author Octavia Cade had always planned to be a scientist when she grew up. “But as much as I love science, scientific writing sucked all my enthusiasm out. It’s the worst. It’s boring and inaccessible and scientists have no right to whine about people misunderstanding science when they have done everything they can to keep them from it.” Cade studied botany as an undergrad, and “became fascinated with algae and the intertidal zone.” She earned her master’s in biology, looking at reproductive strategies of a native seagrass, and her PhD in science communication at the University of Otago, “the biggest scicomm center in the world . . . and it’s a fantastic place to study.”
The Shoeshine column is the
NBR’s longest-running feature. It was launched during the euphoria leading up to the October 1987 sharemarket crash, which hit New Zealand harder than most.
It was inspired by the legendary story about how, in the late summer of 1929, a shoeshine boy gave stock tips to Joseph Kennedy, a financier and father of John F Kennedy. Being a wise investor, Kennedy thought, “If shoeshine boys are giving stock tips, then it’s time to get out of the market.”
Kennedy made a killing by selling his stocks before Wall Street collapsed in October 1929, eventually leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Brannavan Gnanalingam says he would not be a writer if it were not for libraries.
OPINION: Every fortnight, my mum walks down to Naenae Library to read my columns. She has a chat to the librarians, who often pass on their views of my column for that week. It’s turned into a bit of a ritual for her. I grew up around libraries. Or, more accurately, I grew up in libraries. I would spend hours in the Naenae Library initially, and then the War Memorial Library in Lower Hutt, reading and reading. I then learned I could take books home, which probably saved my mum a lot of time. She never complained about the time I’d spend in there. She never refused to take me, whenever I asked. We didn’t start off with any books in my house. We ended up with thousands.