I'm not big on buying magazines, but I subscribe to Technology Review, which is my source for a lot of facts on all manner of global issues. It tests my patience at times though, as I've always been a keen observer with vivid memories from before I was two years old, and have always exercised my brain in as many multitasking ways as possible. I've also dealt with a lot of people in my time, having logged over four million kilometres in company cars representing divers fabricants and suppliers of fashion clothing, timber, footwear, hi fi, photographics, electronics, TV, home renovation, auto electrical, computer graphics, and IT, and I've been using computers since 1967, starting with IBM mainframes, and have been using internet since 1989. So there's not a lot of opportunity to pull the wool over my eyes.
I've also hung out with every variety of the alternative set, from total hippies, through the whole new age movement, psychedelia and the recreational drugs path, and have had alternative medicines in my family for more than seventy years. (I should note that I spent several spells in hospital, and have survived a serious encounter with peritonitis, which allowed me to have my first experience with astral travel.) I'm thirty three years older than my partner, which precludes any chance of my becoming doddery, and I have to keep one step ahead of pretty much everything. I've sailed around the world several times, though I regret the smallest vessel was 14,000 tonnes, so I've sailed smaller yachts as a passion from way back, when the Tempest, Soling and Flying Dutchmen were the rage, and I've built, in a team, several honours winning keelers in Sydney Australia, which has in turn exposed me to some of the toughest characters the Aussie boatbuilding industry sheltered. It has also been my good fortune to have worked for several museums, the Auckland Maritime Museum amongst them, where I sailed a few very fine older, traditional boats. I used to hang out at the local aerodrome as a kid, where I learnt to put a new skin on De Havilland Tiger Moths, and got a reasonable amount of light aircraft and glider time in return. I also had a friend who rebuilt Jowett Javelins as a hobby, and he gave me my first taste of an Ariel Square Four, 1000ccs of strange motorcycle, which had come from a sidecar combination, and had a reverse gear. Much later I was to befriend John Britten, one of the Very Cleverest People of this world, and shared his passion for building the world's best motorcycle.
All the while I've carried a camera, and am only horrified where digital has gotten you all; I refuse to have one, though I've bought my partner one; she's using my rollfilm gear in preference now, and I have a fine collection of decent cameras, nearly all distinguished by their Very Wide Angle lenses. I learnt this art from two meticulous tutors, at Canterbury University, NZ, and they in turn made sure I knew how to make an image that will last more than a century; like it used to. I also had the luck to be in the hifi business before the advent of the CD, and have been able to discover, from the variety of eccentrics and extremists in that trade, what decent sound should be like. I worked with technicians great and small, and was able to build the Ultimate, No Compromise Sound System. This has recently been resurrected by a friend, and, I am sad to say, there has apparently been nothing manufactured to eclipse it in the last thirty odd years since the CD arrived, and I left. But it is good to know there are people out there still dedicated to vinyl, and barring the total anihilation of life as we know it, long may that medium run.
I play slide guitar, but the portability of these instruments exclude my having more than a couple with me, but I have enough life left in me to know I am only briefly parted from the others of my collection. My most pressing drive, every day, is to eat well and nourish my body correctly; for better or for worse I find the Diet by Bloodgroup the most important factor in good health, and after that, put me in the way of a good book and I will devour 900 pages in a few days; I've always done it, never really bothering with children's literature from age seven, when I read my first serious non-fiction. Manga is the only comic form I enjoy. Since then I've come to admire Thomas Pynchon, Cordwainer Smith and Neal Stephenson. In films, "Tron" seemed to me to be hard to eclipse for a decent modern effort, until NZ started major film creation with 'Lord of the Rings' and now 'Avatar,' which tops ALL my lists. But Fellini, von Trier, Herzog and Wenders have all moved me. I rate Joni Mitchell as one of the most listenable musicians, Bob Dylan as the most influential, and early Little Feat got the group thing pretty well right. If I was to load my brain up once more, I'd probably like to hear John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Birds of Fire again, and for the new, I'm still waiting for the knockout performer. I think Michael Jackson taught us all how we'd like to dance, but it was Burnt Friedman, Non Place Urban Field, who showed me that everyone can make good music, no previous experience required. Nuff said.
I've also hung out with every variety of the alternative set, from total hippies, through the whole new age movement, psychedelia and the recreational drugs path, and have had alternative medicines in my family for more than seventy years. (I should note that I spent several spells in hospital, and have survived a serious encounter with peritonitis, which allowed me to have my first experience with astral travel.) I'm thirty three years older than my partner, which precludes any chance of my becoming doddery, and I have to keep one step ahead of pretty much everything. I've sailed around the world several times, though I regret the smallest vessel was 14,000 tonnes, so I've sailed smaller yachts as a passion from way back, when the Tempest, Soling and Flying Dutchmen were the rage, and I've built, in a team, several honours winning keelers in Sydney Australia, which has in turn exposed me to some of the toughest characters the Aussie boatbuilding industry sheltered. It has also been my good fortune to have worked for several museums, the Auckland Maritime Museum amongst them, where I sailed a few very fine older, traditional boats. I used to hang out at the local aerodrome as a kid, where I learnt to put a new skin on De Havilland Tiger Moths, and got a reasonable amount of light aircraft and glider time in return. I also had a friend who rebuilt Jowett Javelins as a hobby, and he gave me my first taste of an Ariel Square Four, 1000ccs of strange motorcycle, which had come from a sidecar combination, and had a reverse gear. Much later I was to befriend John Britten, one of the Very Cleverest People of this world, and shared his passion for building the world's best motorcycle.
All the while I've carried a camera, and am only horrified where digital has gotten you all; I refuse to have one, though I've bought my partner one; she's using my rollfilm gear in preference now, and I have a fine collection of decent cameras, nearly all distinguished by their Very Wide Angle lenses. I learnt this art from two meticulous tutors, at Canterbury University, NZ, and they in turn made sure I knew how to make an image that will last more than a century; like it used to. I also had the luck to be in the hifi business before the advent of the CD, and have been able to discover, from the variety of eccentrics and extremists in that trade, what decent sound should be like. I worked with technicians great and small, and was able to build the Ultimate, No Compromise Sound System. This has recently been resurrected by a friend, and, I am sad to say, there has apparently been nothing manufactured to eclipse it in the last thirty odd years since the CD arrived, and I left. But it is good to know there are people out there still dedicated to vinyl, and barring the total anihilation of life as we know it, long may that medium run.
I play slide guitar, but the portability of these instruments exclude my having more than a couple with me, but I have enough life left in me to know I am only briefly parted from the others of my collection. My most pressing drive, every day, is to eat well and nourish my body correctly; for better or for worse I find the Diet by Bloodgroup the most important factor in good health, and after that, put me in the way of a good book and I will devour 900 pages in a few days; I've always done it, never really bothering with children's literature from age seven, when I read my first serious non-fiction. Manga is the only comic form I enjoy. Since then I've come to admire Thomas Pynchon, Cordwainer Smith and Neal Stephenson. In films, "Tron" seemed to me to be hard to eclipse for a decent modern effort, until NZ started major film creation with 'Lord of the Rings' and now 'Avatar,' which tops ALL my lists. But Fellini, von Trier, Herzog and Wenders have all moved me. I rate Joni Mitchell as one of the most listenable musicians, Bob Dylan as the most influential, and early Little Feat got the group thing pretty well right. If I was to load my brain up once more, I'd probably like to hear John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Birds of Fire again, and for the new, I'm still waiting for the knockout performer. I think Michael Jackson taught us all how we'd like to dance, but it was Burnt Friedman, Non Place Urban Field, who showed me that everyone can make good music, no previous experience required. Nuff said.
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