Walla artist

Walla Artist

I wondered what this was last night while sitting through ten to fifteen minutes of scrolling end credits just to see where our last night's film was shot. We both had our own ideas and we were both wrong. But, says I, who's these blinking walla artists?

Things like that tend to jump out at you after a while. You know, like 'what is ADR?' and why did it have to be done in five different countries? I know now what ADR is and - possibly - why it had to be done all over the shop. ADR is a TLA (three letter abbreviation) for Automated Dialogue Replacement or Additional Dialogue Recording also known as dubbing. I surely shouldn't have to explain dubbing at this stage of the game.

Nor should I have to explain 'rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb' to the likes of us that came originally from the UK or nearby, like Ireland, Republic of, or Ireland, Northern.

The extras making up crowd scenes would go: 'rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb' to simulate background chatter.
A Walla Artist is I am reliably (wikipedia of course) informed, the North American version of rhubarb.

Hi, does anybody remember the geese or ducks scene in a Hitchcock film which the blindfolded star mistook for the chatter of a cocktail party?

Burning man

Just back in nicely kippered from a big burn in the paddock below us. Our landlady asked us if we wouldn't mind clearing up the product of the loppers and the saw of herself and previous tenants over the years. We were happy to oblige. Because there is a strip of pines and also assorted farmland around us we applied for a permit.

On the day the person who permits these things was due to visit we got a call from the office saying he'd had to go to a big fire somewhere. Later listening to the Radio New Zealand National news we heard the reports of a huge fire in Central Otago. Three days later we were still hearing reports about it flaring up. I must digress here for a moment. None of our TV news watching friends had heard about this fire although it burned thousands of acres. One would have thought that might have made good TV. Radio still draws pictures in our heads.

When the man who permits things turned up a few weeks later we asked him had he been to the fire in Central Otago. He had and said that it was a near thing. It took the three reported days and more to get a handle on it. The fire started from a controlled, permitted burn off by a farmer (hey I'm a farmer I know what I'm doing). The Smoky Bears here are always warning Joe Public not to be lighting fires in dry conditions when they out camping but I don't think Joe and his missus and kiddiewinkies causes as much damage in fires as the responsible level headed farmer who knows what he's doing.

I innocently asked if the framer didn't listen to the weather forecast to make sure there were no gusts of wind due to carry the blaze far from its home. There was fierce muttering from the man who permits things which I took to mean the answer, in short, was 'No!'

Our fire is out now. I haveraked and levelled the ashes. I have dampened it down with two watering cans of H2O and will return shortly to the burning site to dampen some more.

If you hear of a big fire between Port Chalmers and Waitati it won't be because we were remiss. Somewhere a farmer is waiting for a dry windy day to get rid of an acre or so of highly flammable material.

Good luck now.

Interview with the memoirist

interviewer: What would you say is the main difference between a memoir and a novel?
me: A memoir is more fun to write.
interviewer: Fun?
me: (laughs) Yes, yes ... fun!

Geoff Dyer and me

I've been thinking what might have happened if the person who pointed me in the direction of Geoff Dyer had sent him my piece on Bruce Lee. Would Geoff now be reading me and thinking of the strange resemblances between two writers of different ages and islands.

Not every earthquake produces a Tsunami but alas yesterday's shake did. Our thoughts are, as always, with the victims of sudden tragedy.

Who I'm reading this week ...

... while not writing: Geoff Dyer, that's who.

Once I wrote a piece which had a similarity of style to Geoff's But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz

I'd never heard of Dyer but someone who read my piece about Bruce Lee gave me an excerpt of But Beautiful and that was me hooked.

His current release is Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

That's all folks.

Fly me to the ...

better not quote more for fear of litigation.

Just sitting here reading about Nabokov's last and unfinished novel when I turned my head to speak to Polly and noticed what I thought was a spider on Polly's shoulder. Closer inspection proved it to be a fly - a pale fly, an anaemic looking thing. Polly said she had seen a couple more today (she'd kept that quiet) and that they might be a recent hatching from a dead rodent in our loft space - heard, poisoned but not seen. As she said this another pale drifter emerged from a crack in the ceiling. The glory hole is too high to reach without a ladder I am happy to say as I did not want to stick my head up into unknown territory and perhaps be attacked by flies desperate to escape.

I stood on a chair and sprayed some dreadful insecticide along the ceiling crack. We trust this will work.

When we lived in Donegal this happened to us: our boy cat, the late Master Samuel Beckett, must have allowed a mouse to escape, which crawled injured into a crack in our stone floor behind a potato crock. One day we were treated to a horde of dozy flies emerging  as if by magic from a dark corner. Ain't nature wunnerful?

Risin' early

Rubbish collection day is here again. Yippee! A great start to the week I feel. Getting up, rain or shine, to cram the miscellaneous bits of rubbish into the black bag, then ambulating fluidly down the hill to the communal collection point. Why can't I leave the rubbish outside my house? I don't know why. Probably for the same reason that our mail is not delivered to the house but to a mailbox at the end of a side road. We live on the main road. There is something not right here. I think we have inherited a set up from previous tenants of the property. Ask an anthropologist. They'll tell you. A set of circumstances pertains to a particular time and with usage, even when the circumstances have changed, there is a reluctance towards modification.
I thought after the first week that I would test the system by leaving our blue recycle bin outside our front gate as per instructions from Dunedin City Council's own website. The worst that could happen I reasoned was that the bin-men would drive on by. No big deal then, just carry the bin down the hill the following week. Have I been able to do this? No. I feel like the Master in his mystical prison under Sunnydale Library. I am confounded by the advice I was given by the landlord. I am unable to advance beyond this advice and put it to the test to see if it is valid.
I'm made of sterner stuff - I'll try again next week, eh?