The Best and Worst of the 2019 Christchurch Santa Parade

The Santa Parade is an annual event in Christchurch, and I don't think I've missed it once in the past five years. I used to go frequently as a child, and believe it or not, some of the floats I saw as a kid are still going strong all these years later. Now that's staying power!

And the truth is that I just LOVE parades. They were always my favourite part of visiting theme parks in Australia and America, though it's hard to say why exactly they're so appealing to me. Maybe the organized chaos, in which all manner of floats, characters, dancers, animals and miscellany march down a blocked-off street for the enjoyment of the masses.

But a parade that's run largely on volunteers is sure to have its ups and downs: things that are generally innovative and colourful, and things that... aren't so much.

Having taken my niece for the second time, here is the best and worst of the 2019 Christchurch Santa Parade...

Events: Armageddon

So, I attended my very first Comic Con (though as we call it in New Zealand: Armageddon). Even having watched these things on-line for so many years, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but having wandered Horncastle Arena for the day, I think the best way to describe the whole thing is as a huge indoor marketplace that sells very specialized geek merchandise.

Photography

I went on a day trip today to a place called Castle Hill, named for the limestone boulders that are reminiscent of an old abandoned ruin (at least that's what the brochure says, but to me it looks more like an alien landscape).

The last time I was there I was twelve years old and on my way to school camp, so it was a rather surreal to return twenty years later to find it relatively unchanged – though I wasn't able to find some of the landmarks that I recalled from last time.

It was about a two hour drive from my house, and as you can see under the cut – it's a pretty spectacular destination.

Links and Updates

Okay, well I'm back from Sydney. Weather was great, plane didn't crash, and a good time was had by all. I'll get back into the reviewing/recap business tomorrow, but for now here are all the requisite tourist photos:

Photography

Do you know what I love? Open-air markets. Do you know what I especially love? Open-air market food. I went to Riccarton Farmer’s Market yesterday and was surrounded by all the sights and smells of what you see under the cut...

Links and Updates

It’s been a pretty blasé couple of weeks, but a short article of mine has appeared in Awkward Paper Cut. Titled Writing Imaginatively Under Constraint, it gives a highly condensed overview of television’s mastery of storytelling, specifically how it’s learnt to draw complex narratives out over the course of forty-five minute episodes. (Mines at the bottom, so scroll down!)  

I also picked up a treat for myself at the mall:

I dearly want to write on Orphan Black, but I honestly don’t feel worthy of it. The more I watch the more I’m impressed by how concise and clever the writing is: the plotting, the themes, the characterization. Perhaps with this latest rewatch I’ll be able to muster up the courage to say something meaningful about it.

This is a great piece on “concern trolling” when it comes to our treatment of female characters in romantic relationships, and the painful transparency of fandom when it criticizes girls for getting in the way of other ships being bad feminist icons because of their romantic attachments. (The article actually links to one that I originally commented on; so I like to think I may have helped inspire it!)

Eight days left until season two of Sleepy Hollow!

The other day I went for a walk in the Christchurch Botanical Gardens, and to my surprise, the door that adjourns Christ’s College (which I call the Narnia door because it reminds me of the one in The Silver Chair) was open! I’d never seen it open before, so I took the chance to slip through and take some pictures of the beautiful stonework on the buildings there:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photography

I took a trip to the Botanic Gardens yesterday with my camera for a wander around. There are so many great sculptures there that I made a little mini-set of some of the stonework you can find there.

Links and Updates

Whew, I only have time for a quick update today, but rest assured that a lot of good stuff is on its way.

I’m well underway with my Narnia re-read, and the review for Prince Caspian should be up soon – and it's significantly shorter than my previous one for The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, thank goodness. I’ll rewatch the film tonight and hopefully have it posted tomorrow.

Though it’s been out for a while now, I’ve only just sat down and absorbed the latest trailer for Doctor Who season eight, with our clearest look yet at Peter Capaldi in the lead role.

I’ll admit, I’m still a little bit miffed that Capaldi has been stolen from The Musketeers (he was a sublime Cardinal Richelieu), especially since my interest in Doctor Who has been on the wane recently. Too many of Moffat’s party writing tricks have gotten stale, and I can’t say I’m hugely invested in the search for Gallifrey (assuming that’s what the new episodes revolve around, and no I haven’t touched the leaked scripts).

Still, I’m interested in the new dynamic between the Fourteen and his Companion (hopefully an older man will eliminate all traces of UST), so I may watch casually and do a season-long review as opposed to my usual episode-by-episode posts. Like Sherlock and Game of Thrones, this is a show that has to be seen if you want to understand at least 60% of Tumblr's joy, outrage, tears or OTT wailing into the void.

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Here's our first glimpse of Elsa in Once Upon a Time, which makes me feel I made the right decision to call it quits at the end of season three. It’s hard to really articulate why adapting Frozen of all things was the straw that broke the camel’s back in regards to me watching this show. Because it feels like blatant pandering and/or bandwagon jumping? Because Frozen only came out last year, putting rest to the insistence that there is any sort of “master plan” going on? Because the show now feels like elaborate cross-over fan-fiction starring your favourite Disney characters as opposed to a subversive look at how familiar fairytale characters would cope in modern times?

I don’t know exactly, but more than anything else this show has tried to pull off, this one really rubs me the wrong way. For those sticking with it, I legitimately hope you enjoy what’s to come, but there'll be no more reviews from me on this front.

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If you have a spare ten minutes, then please check out this wonderful little short-story called Little Knife by Leigh Bardugo, a companion story (along with two others) to her novel Ruin and Rising. It’s a fairytale, vaguely Scandinavian/Russian in atmosphere, with all the familiar motifs you’d expect: a beautiful girl, a greedy father, a suitor’s challenge, a threefold trial, and a supernatural helpmate – but with a satisfying twist on expectations.

Here’s a taste:

The river dove through the earth, moving with strength and purpose, leaving caverns and caves and tunnels in its wake. It crossed the length of Ravka, from border to border and back, as the rock tore at its current and the soil drank from its sides. The deeper the river plunged, the weaker it became, but on it went, and when it was at its most frail, little more than a breath of fog in a clump of earth, it felt the coin, small and hard. Whatever face the metal bore had been long worn away by time.

Reading it is like enjoying a refreshing yet spicy hot drink, and it looks like I’ll have to add yet another book to my already dizzying TBR pile.

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Yesterday I attended a Bear and Doll Show, which took place in a room full of elderly women engaged in knitting, crocheting or other forms of embroidery, and a hopeful little boy trying to sell pink candy floss.

I thought I’d share some photos as – you have to admit – bears and dolls have a power and appeal that can’t properly be explained. They were the companions of our childhood, our very first friends and confidants; and so as adults they become windows back into the past, vessels of nostalgia and carriers of that mysterious quality of earliest childhood.

Walking around brought back a lot of memories, and so many of the dolls and teddies on display were genuine works of art: tiny little personalities staring up at you with doleful eyes. I snapped some pictures of my favourites:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Finally the Writer’s Festival starts in Christchurch this August, and I’m in the midst of putting together my time-table for the event. There are so many interesting seminars and guest stars, that it’s a bit like being put in front of a buffet table and told you can only fill up one plate.

I’m going to stick to my specific interests, which always has (and probably always will) be Young Adult, Kid Lit, fantasy, sci-fi, history and the supernatural, and luckily there’s a lot to sate my appetite on this score.

If you live in New Zealand, be sure to check out their webpage and if you’re interested, here’s my (current) itinerary:

Saturday 30^th August

Creating Worlds: Young Adult Readers (Elizabeth Knox, Laini Taylor, Karen Healey, Tania Roxborogh, Meg Wolitzer)

The Truth About Writing KidLit (Gavin Bishop, Melinda Szymanik, Tania Roxborogh)

Margaret Mahy's The Changeover: 30 Years On (Stuart McKenzie, Elizabeth Knox, Karen Healy)

Sunday 31^st August

Supernaturally (Laini Taylor, Elizabeth Knox)

Beyond the Veil: Historical Ghost Stories (Diane Setterfield, Rosetta Allan, Coral Atkinson)

Even more exciting, it looks as though I’ll have the chance to interview Laini Taylor, the author of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy! I plan on refreshing my memory with a re-read of her books, and I’ll let you know more as soon as I can confirm a date/time.

Photography

There will never be anything more lovely than trees silhouetted against the evening sky.

 

I took these from the reservation at the end of the street outside my work, and it really did look like some sort of sky-wide bonfire going on, with the massive trees used as kindling.

2011 Christchurch Earthquake

Last weekend I took a drive into the middle of my home city, where the effects of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake are still blatantly apparent.

The pictures below may seem like rundown industrial areas; old warehouses and abandoned buildings lying on the outskirts of a once-busy city - but no. All these photographs were taken in the very heart of Christchurch City, where there is still plenty of life and a slow-but-steady attempt at a rebuild.

One of the strangest aspects of the city at this time is the juxtaposition of empty or destroyed sites existing right next to newly-constructed buildings, giving the entire landscape a bizarre atmosphere of a wasteland that is gradually growing back into a social/cultural hub.

It's not unusual to sit in an outdoor café and enjoy the view of crumbling brickwork on the building opposite.

 

 

I really can't emphasis enough that all these images were photographed on the same street. There are attempts (as with the flower beds) to infuse the neighbourhood with some degree of life and colour, but the subsequent oddness of the environment is impossible to fully capture.

As an aside, the construction site in the third image down was once the night club where my parents met each other.

 

 

But as it happens, the corgis are back! I didn't even know they existed before the local paper informed me that they had returned to the area, so I made sure to go and see them. Just outside one of the cafés (which boasts a great view of a half-destroyed building) the three of them were sculptured in honour of the Queen's bicentennial - or something like that.

And if you think one looks shinier than the others, that's because one was stolen and had to be replaced. Why someone felt the need to steal a bronze corgi is anyone's guess.

So things here are ever-so-slowly crawling back to a more natural state, though it'll be years and years before Christchurch feels like a fully mended city once again. Still, little things like flowers and sunshine and bronze corgis can't help but make you feel just a little more optimistic in what is otherwise such a strange wasteland.