the Blackthorn Orphans
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I don't know who said this but fuck me, it nails the whole thing.  Fuck off out of our organs.

10/5/2022

 
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Lilies from the garden

4/2/2022

 
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On not having children

27/1/2022

 


In the space you leave for
other lives

​the tiger bears a daughter of her own.

​

Photos du Jour: Misty Walk, Back Beach Port Chalmers.

6/5/2021

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​The weather moved me yesterday.  It was misty in that patchy, anomalous way that means you can't see shit one moment while it's clear as a bell 10 m down the road.  Always look behind you into the sun during mist.  These are a wee bit noisy but the camera was ancient and tiny, so whatever.  I didn't throw on any FX filters, just black and whited them.  This is pretty much how it looked.

​
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The sun was pushing through the watery suspension and lensing into the void over the bay in the form of a cold white rainbow- the opposite of darkness yet somehow vacant of all the properties you expect of light.
​ I had never seen this before.

​

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I made a Poem about Paul Banks from Interpol. Please Hold Your Applause til the End Thank You.

5/5/2021

 
It's 3.38 am and this is the first and only draft.  Enjoy.

​
I dreamed Paul Banks was my boyfriend
I called up and annoyed him
while he was working
on a song
He went and changed the title
from Kelly
to Kelly You're Annoying Me
your love
it is destroying
my creative life.


Paul Banks
you are late for dinner
my wild venison wonder
it is an undisputed winner
a culinary triumph
I changed my eye makeup for you.

I detect
your gentle and yet withering
attempts to fend my tentacles
so I extinguish
​our communique
reluctantly relinquish
​all that silver-tinted sarcasm
you musicians
you are all the fucking same.



Photo du Jour: Fir

1/3/2021

 
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The white dust ring around his nose is a product of his insistence on digging up the stones under our café table chairs so he can lie in the cooler shade.  

It always amazes me how different two dogs of the same breed and strain can be.  Fir is a lot more easy going than Felix, who didn't care for unfamiliar dogs; he loves everyone and takes nothing personally, assuming any aggression or rebuff is just some sort of misunderstanding that you will reconsider as he trots away, unshaken.  Many crises have been averted by his breezy diplomacy, for which we are incredibly grateful given the burgeoning ranks of poorly-socialised dogs and clueless owners.  He is extremely affectionate and trusting, welcomes any and all attention and sits patiently through baths, haircuts and flea-pickings, another tremendous relief (although Felix was similarly tolerant).  

He's got a few annoying quirks, though.  Obsessively coveting my hair bands, for one, stealing and eating them whenever they are in reach, necessitating public extraction of the poopy elastic from his bum hole while out walking.  The kleptomania is apparently congenital, his grandmother being an accomplished thief of dog treats from concealed tupperware according to his breeder so there's not much to be done about it.  Socks are another illicit passion.  He snores while lying on one particular side due to a slightly sloppy palate.  And my god, his ability to find and devour anything disgusting or hazardous while out walking is a continuous nightmare.  Our battle to stay between Fir and the street caviar he finds so compelling has so far kept him out of dog hospital, but it would be great if filthy arseholes stopped throwing their fishing gear and chicken bones on the fucking ground.

So, how's your week going?

Blackthorn Rose Review: Chartreuse de Parme

11/2/2021

 
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When all things are truly considered, there are actually very few roses that merit a featured position in any mixed garden.  That's quite a sad admission after so many centuries of fervent breeding and distribution.  Our Zone 9 location offers no earthly challenges to any damn rose; no gophers, exotic attack beetles, frost heaving, desert summers or blue-titty blizzards- nothing.  And yet, when browsing my photo files for new review candidates I'm always struck both by the number of plants we've consigned to steamy decay on our half-sentient pile and the many that have simply popped their simpering clogs for no particular reason.   
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Unless you're prepared to endlessly spray and surfeit them, roses often suck.  Which is why I always pay attention when one stands out, aesthetically and constitutionally.  Chartreuse de Parme is just such a paragon, a classic, high-end hybrid tea that is both aristocratic and tough; a veritable dragon in the garden.  The magenta-averse may be getting the vapours at this point because CdP is the kween of the naughtily vibrant blue-pinks and you may associate this colour with bad taste; I would agree that it can be horrific in the wrong situ, but just breathe now and remember that some things are more than the sum of their parts.

Chartreuse de Parme was born in 1996 in the famous Delbard nursery.  Those people know what the fuck they are doing.  In a previous review I insisted one should choose a rose with at least a couple of well-known stars in their genetic background, but then CdP comes along with a bonkers ancestry to poop all over that cosy theory.  You won't be shocked to discover one of its parents is the very lovely Nuit d'Orient, or, as we say down here while scratching our balls, Big Purple, a highly-perfumed stunner that only made it a few years in our yard.  The blooms and rich fragrance are reminiscent of that pretty little fella, if more classically pink.  
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Ancestry-wise, the deep red Charles Mallerin and pink Yves Piaget have their own striking qualities but the grandparent Peace is probably the main source of CdP's best bits, given that few of its other antecedents are spectacularly distinguished.  This rose somehow squeezed every last drop of greatness from that Mendelian lottery.  Golf clap!

Chartreuse de Parme is an arresting rose with a decidedly haughty carriage and a generous growth habit, standing boldly upright on stout canes with enough dark, glossy foliage to balance that pose and provide a backdrop to blooms that are held clear on lengthy and gratifyingly butch stems.  Here it grows to a good 1.5 x 1m wide, well beyond the '90cm' indicated on the label, though doesn't aspire to much more so you won't need a chainsaw to keep it in check.  
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On this anonymous rootstock it is a good doer, tolerating considerable interference from underplanting and general shovel intrusion.  This is especially praiseworthy because high-quality flower producers are usually hungry, thirsty and fussy about setbacks.  I don't think our CdP has ever lost a main cane or aborted a flower cycle in spite of these insults, nor have I seen it defoliate with rust or blackspot, our two main aggressors.  So two thumbs up for health. ​
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But let's face it, no one plants Chartreuse de Parme for its rude health or admirable posture.  Rose fanciers are flower sluts and this one comes through with a cyclic sufficiency of tough, slightly leathery, classic tea rose blooms in an intense, hypnotic blue magenta with a slightly silvered reverse (please note the camera exaggerates this phenomenon, especially in the above and below pics).  That pleasing sculptural form and glowing colour withstand rain unscathed, remaining almost supernaturally clean.  This is super-important in a maritime climate.  CdP is a standout cut flower both in the vase and as the star of a bouquet, lasting well and playing nice with a lot of other flowers.
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 You may hesitate to expect more and yet there is a definite and respectable perfume, a medium-strength old-school tearose with a bit of dusty fruit and that cool unplaceable note that is possibly unique to this class.  Sawn blonde wood?  Crushed leaves?  Aged pot pourri?  The scent lasts pretty well and can sweeten up in the vase but lacks a wee bit of silage, if I'm going to pick any nits.

Does CdP suck in any respect?  Not really.  It can sometimes be a bit bloom-shy in the first spring cycle for me despite full sun.  There might be an extended lull between flushes, understandable given the biological cost of such quality flowers.  And like many five-star prospects, Chartreuse de Parme is congenitally unsuited to sitting quietly in the landscape.  It will stand out like dogs’ bollocks unless provided with similarly flamboyant companions, so don’t plant it thinking it will somehow magically calm the fuck down if you throw enough gypsophila at it.  Give her red and lime euphorbias and delphiniums and those giant African lobelias to hang with.  CdP's surreal circus beauty is no clown show and deserves pride of place.

Want More?  Clickety click for more Rose Reviews


The Titan Arum, Amorphophallus titanum, in bloom at the Dunedin Bot Gardens

9/2/2021

 
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Thanks to Jo for the phone pics.  We had to wait in a sweaty line full of students to view this vegetal hulk and convey its magnificence to you, constant readers.
 
​YOU'RE WELCOME.

Photos du Jour : Port Chalmers Represent

2/2/2021

 
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How's it going?  

I'm posting new things.  Doing it.  Doing it.  
Feels good.

The blank black sign looks shopped but it was real, wired onto the fence outside the Port facility. Then it was sadly withdrawn, presumably by the very same hand that affixed it, sucked back into the silent wormhole of entropy from whence it came.  All I know for sure is that someone billed us for it.

There's been some quite good tagging on the trains lately, but we hardly ever have a camera when we see it.
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RubyHue Lipstick Review: Pat McGrath Unnatural Natural

27/1/2021

 
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The Gen X bellwether influences in Pat McGrath’s aesthetic will always be an intrinsic pillar of her appeal to we peeps of a certain vintage.  That darksided moosh of dirt and luxe, sinister historical x futuristic bling, the visual angst and effusion.  She came up with freaky units like Philips and Garland, McQueen, Galliano and Mugler et al., at a time when everything was on the slab and subject to the art school scalpel.  McGrath's shit is instantly recognisable and largely worthy of the reverence it receives.  So refreshing in these tawdry times!
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I’ve always admired two things about the Pat McGrath range from a distance; voluptuous packaging and the rigorous specificity of her individual shades.  Each one is a look per se, existing for a particular reason instead of just occupying some pointless rung on a chromatic ladder (see: latter-day MAC).  It's a bit weird then that Unnatural Natural (Luxetrance) is the first McG lipstick I’ve owned.   That would be because the retail price tag is beyond insane; pushing $80 here in the southern hemisphere with postage and that’s a fuck outta here situation, vanity be damned.  If you’re going to snatch an entire hundy, you better knock me on my arse with unconditional pornographic awesomeness.  So I dodged that trauma and picked it up second hand.  

​Unnatural Natural is, I think, discont’ now but there’s plenty still knocking around online; I salute my budget-conscious hos with this belated review.
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On a light face (my personal experience), UN is a lot; dark, strident, graphic and not something the casual lipstick person will probably enjoy.  For one, it comes out swinging from the tube with 100% intensity.  You can’t really cut it back for a daytime look.

The shade itself is a deep, highbrow, violet milk-chocolate brown.  The former keeps the latter decidedly neutral, even somewhat cool, so don’t pick this up thinking you’re getting a cosy ochre that will fuck well with your spray tan; Unnatural Natural will possibly hiss at your bronzer and any yellow tones you might have knocking around.

The violet element was apparent in the stain left by the palm-swatch, so please note its low-key pervasive influence on this shade if that's a tone you struggle with.  UN plays down the green in my eyes and emphasises the darker greyish murk, but makes my neutral to pinkish skin look great.  
While it's a beautiful and far more neutral option for deeper complexions with cooler elements, you might want to be dark/light enough to provide adequate contrast to avoid a lost-lip outcome.

UN in this Luxetrance formula is quite... 
heavily present on the lip, reminding me of another slightly annoying formulation, maybe some of MAC’s gluggier mattes, without the overt chalkiness?  It’s not so much uncomfortable as distracting and I do find it a wee bit drying on wipe-off.  There is a thick, waxy satin finish that persists, but the overall, socially-distanced impression is of a dense off-matte rather than any obvious lustre. 
Most disappointingly, it thins out on the centre of my lower lip after a few minutes under no particular duress, which fucks with the shade’s uniformity.  That is not something I’m inclined to forgive in a product at this price point.
​​
Unnatural Natural is a nice product, overall. That I wouldn’t put it in my top five is a bit of a surprise to me, given the hype.  The colour is sophisticated but the formula has some tactile drawbacks and the price makes me abandon cart every fucking time.  Oh well. ​
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L2R, MAC unless stated:
Russian Red, Sin, PMcG Unnatural Natural, Jasper, Paramount,
​Nars Golshan, Nars Lonely Heart, Marrakesh, Spice It Up
Paramount looks dupe-esque on the hand and you probably don't need both products, but its dissimilar formula makes it more of a trad brown once applied.  I thought Jasper (LE) would be a lot closer: nope- it's more of a Sin-type blackened, boiled wine.  Spice It Up may be difficult to get straight with the camera on a sunny day but it has quite a bit in common with UN, hue-wise, if you're looking for a lighter, shinier version.
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RubyHue Lipstick Review: You maybe masked and locked down but you can still be Glamour


The Blackthorn Orphans Serialization:  Dakhma 17

25/1/2021

 
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Shaw's mirror showed him the remaining conscript emerging from his suicidal transport.  Scrabbling to his feet, the man stared up at the over-looming parapet as though waiting for it to pronounce a deferred doom.  The wind flapped his clothes against his body and snow blurred him momentarily; when nothing more occurred, he murmured and began to brush himself off with mindless hands that fell once more to slack disuse while Susan searched the empty castellations on her own account, closing her eyes and dropping back onto her knees.

​Still in a crouch of his own, Shaw began to struggle out of the ephemera that was strapped to him.  Josephine snatched up the tracking device he had cut loose and threw it back at him, striking his shoulder.

"You won't get clear... " she promised, watching him upend his pack and gather what he needed.  "She'll spill everything when they get her in the chair..."  
"This place is fucking empty, she doesn't know shit and you..."  Breaking off, he lunged forward after Susan's hands, too late to stop their lashing strike.  She punched the split length of silvered pine butted in her fists into Josephine's thigh, committing her entire weight to the assault; driven deeply, the dry wood pierced her skin, skidding then stubbed blunt between the knot of bones and sheaths inside her knee.  The woman retched out a rasping cry, clutching the leg as the shard shifted in the flesh contracting round it and Susan launched herself at her, clubbing furiously at her face with both bound hands.  They slid together down the wet slope; Shaw shouted after them, but as he struggled to his feet it was the sucking crack of a bullet loosed from the ruin that stilled the women struggling below.

His head snapped forward on his neck and opened, expelling wet red and thick sodden pink through the outward dissolution of his features.  The hot matter struck the side of Susan's face; his body listed, dropping to and falling forward from its knees.  On the ledge the remaining conscript caught a second round and toppled before the sound of the first had died away.  Susan kicked back from the woman underneath her, fingers sliding on a small stretch of half-buried black, a pistol jogged from its holster and stamped into the thin snow.  Snatching it up, she planted her boots against the woman's hip and aimed the weapon at her face.

Her shot threw the pistol backward in her hands.  A knocking report swept down the hillside as a booming seashore echo, leaving a dark puncture in the snow by Josephine's left ear, but before she could amend her aim, a grasp closed on her jersey and hauled her sideways; keeping his hold on her, Sachiin swung his rifle from his shoulder and struck the stranger senseless with its stock.  

The soft sound of his voice puzzled Susan, seeming new to her while behind them his brother cast fresh snow over the ledge in dropping from it, holding his rifle clear.  The chain still bound her to the nameless woman and she exclaimed in sudden and visceral repugnance, casting up screeds of dirty snow as she pounded her boot against the latters' arm and ribcage until Sachiin cut the black cuffs from her wrists.  With her freed, he sat down on the slope as though his legs had failed him, finding the hand that hung by her side with his own and breathing a prayer of thanks, his eyes still wide and holding a ghost of their commonplace shade.  Shaw's stricken body shifted weakly in a slow, petering contraction, closing on itself with a series of little shudders, like a child wracked by the distant passage of a dream.

Susan cleared her throat and slid her hand from his to push back her loosened braids.  The snow wandered against her face as she drew her sleeve down over her wrist and used it to wipe the thick pink spatter from her mouth.



Blushing pulses of pain roused Josephine to the sight of dark eyes in a pale scowl blurred down to lithic tones and shifting, misted shapes.  The girl wrestled her black boot from her left foot, wrenching the leg that had swollen around the shaft of wood still buried in its knee.  With her head to the foot of the ruin, Josephine saw the curving wall loom in a dreadful grey parabola, black cuffs securing her hands at the small of her back, though she could no longer feel them.  Her former captive shuffled her feet into the warmth of the stolen boots, walking a short distance and stopping to rock back and forth, then stooping to lace them with her best hand.  Josephine's rifle slid forward against the back of her head from where it hung across her shoulders.

The small party had chosen sparingly from the vanquished corps' equipment, satisfying necessity more than preference, Susan taking obsessive care to locate those samples wrested from her person.  Having segregated them in the midst of the clearing, she looked again toward the survivor and stamped her new boots over the fragile receptacles, splintering and kicking them into oblivion.  Behind her, Sachiin lifted her pack to test the balance of the load, cheating Fyodor's questing snout of the rations stowed in its compartments.  Shaw's body lay like refuse, limbs left skewed by their passage over the stony ground; a florid drag had trailed the remaining portions of his head like effluent bleeding from a rusting pipe.  

Josephine did not know that her weatherproof garments had been awarded to Susan, feeling only random and dissonant elements of her own exposure, pinching pain and blue-hued absences.  The fraternal creatures standing before her claimed the whole of her faltering attentions, the fauna of a lost continent that drifted away slowly while they walked its distant shore, a paradox that crowded all else backward.  Snow embraced them as surely as it reviled her, closing like the jungle around the oscillated feline and leaving nothing to explain.  She ate what she could get of them until the memory began to seize and fracture, choked with their detail, closing her eyes only when the frowning girl complained to a companion of her stare.

The shadow had been scoured from the wall beneath the steps since Petrouchka's demise.  Sachiin followed its curve to her remains, where his hands moved in a simple observance, articulating sorrow and gratitude.  That which had been spared by her immolation was already half-interred by snow, its sated darkness consumed in turn.  

"I don't think she did it for us." Susan ventured, standing at his side.  He half-turned to pick her up and held her dumbly.  "Breathe." she urged into his ear, appraised of the suspension he still suffered despite her warmth and sentience.  His brother brought tape from Josephine's kit and Sachiin set her down to wrap her injured fingers; she watched their crushed colours disappear, letting him go to make a final sweep of their surrounds.

"They could have had us all by now.  You should have gone." she told Kala'amātya.  He did not reply.  

"I put my foot down." Sachiin admitted. 

​"Again?"  Susan's face slackened into a half-formed smile, but it was dismissed by the purpose that turned her back toward Kala'amātya and prompted her to trail him as he performed his own final survey of the debris broadcast around them.  "Petrouchka was lying..." she whispered, wiping stiffened hair from her cheek and awaiting some sign that he was attending to her communique,  "She told me Helaine was happy, and then sad... not the other way around."  His acknowledgement was wordless and delayed, evinced as an expression he turned away from her, but she was gratified, and stood to work a glove over her injured hand.  He emptied the rifle he had used to kill Shaw and the conscript, laying it out beside Josephine in an act that Susan came slowly to appreciate.  "That cow was the one who did this to my fucking hands."  She leaned once more over the woman's leg, examining the wound she had inflicted with a satisfaction as plain as carbon daubed across her face.  "It looks bad..."   

Josephine's gaze continued to mine the precious values of Kala'amātya's surface.  He returned her stare with something forged beyond the windblown, fox-grey span of prosaic indifference.

"Will she walk, if she makes it out of here?"

"Eventually." he conceded.   Susan squinted at her own irresolution when his silence became expectant.  

"So it's up to me..."
​
"She's your mark.  You get the horns."
​
​"I think I'll leave it.  It sort of feels like throwing back a live grenade." she declared, taking out the pistol and directing it at Josephine in passing.  "It won't be your fucking knee next time." she promised her, joining Sachiin as he moved out, the piglet trailing him closely.

They skirted the stiffening remains of the corps; Susan held her companion's hand in negotiating the drop onto the snow-blurred trail, blowing the flakes from her fringe and urging him onward.  The narrow way curved to the east with the hollow leading from the weathered spur, the clouds lowering to graze the apex of the tallest pines.  Where the steps diverged they halted, the brothers murmuring to one another, Kala'amātya offering a handgun and a fold of bills to Sachiin and accepting a camouflaged bag in the exchange.  The latter lifted Fyodor from the snow and over his shoulder, stuffing the small animal under the cowl of his pack.

"Sis'thle bai'in." he said softly, addressing the brief courtesy to his brother.
"What's this?  Where are you going?" Susan demanded.
"West." replied Kala'amātya.
"East." Sachiin confirmed when she looked back to him. 

"But... when will..."  The question's plaintive irresolution and the expression that accompanied it took them both by surprise, Kala'amātya shifting the rifle to his left shoulder.  He waited momentarily, then lifted the hood of his sweatshirt, stepping up onto the westward flight.  She caught his arm and turned him back toward her.  "Wear you teeth, and don't be such a bastard." she whispered, wresting something small from the pocket of her jeans and pushing it into his grasp.  "It's got a filling, but don't throw it away... it's definitely lucky."

He looked down at the tooth in the palm of his hand, then turned again and began the long climb toward the wooded ridge, his footprints first softened, then obliterated by snow.  Blowing on her hands, she watched her breath curl in plumes as he was lost to them, still frowning to herself.

"Do you know where he's going?" she asked her remaining companion.
"Yeah..." Sachiin admitted through a seasoned scowl.  "I'm pretty sure I do."

He held out his hand and she stepped down with him in the opposite direction, beside the course of an infant spring, its silvered flux slicing through the snow in its desire for the darkness of the gorge.




f i n i s

*

Read the Book onsite


Re: Insurrection Fail

9/1/2021

 
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😂😂😂😂😂😂
​To anyone genuinely wondering, no, this was not an Antifa gig.  Leftists and social justice people don't need euphemisms or false flag bullshit.  We say it all out loud and don't need to hide behind any weak-arse fuckery because our principles are clear and meaningful.

I did mention this before.  But it bears repeating.  
Stay safe!
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Fucking Xmas Again, Isn't It?

16/12/2020

 
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Dear readers, I think we're all aware that 2020 has been a shit sandwich for most of us.  As Kiwis we might not be (currently) living in a cesspit of freewheeling COVID and human plague rats, but between all the ambient mental, physical, political and environmental challenges, this year has really taken a dump on our motivation and creativity.  Going through the hard yards creating non-shit content just to have fucking Google jack my clicks with their stupid image page has been particularly demoralising, and between that, Weebly's retarded page view counter and VPNs etc, I now have no clue about how many are visiting and what you want to read and see etc.

I'm hoping next year will prompt me to struggle out of that gelatinous apathy.  A few of you have written with kind words and that has been nice, so thanks for your encouragement.  R and I hope you have a tolerable end of year period and hopefully some kind of holiday.  We'll try to get our arses into gear and post some shit shortly.
​X  X  🤘

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I think you have to be old enough to get this but whatever

9/11/2020

 
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Thumbs Up

8/11/2020

 
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November 06th, 2020

6/11/2020

 
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I made a Hat.  It stays on and everything.

8/9/2020

 
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Knitting sucks big dog's bollocks.  It's boring as shit, doesn't go well unless you've been doing it for fifty fucking years, the patterns are soul destroyingly basic and to cut a long story short, I refuse to do it.  But I have a lifelong love of wool, dammit.  And textiles, spinning, weaving, sheep... anything lanolin-related.  This plight is exacerbated by the fact that no knitter ever wants to make anything for me, no matter how many hints slash massive lists of demands I drop.
So fuck them.  Who better to cater to my exacting yet amorphous expectations than me?
​

Watching basket making stuff on Youtube from various cultures must have started up a subconscious thought-stew because I bought a bunch of handspun and started finger-crocheting without any real idea of what might come of it.  Four lines of different natural, relatively hard wool became a fat braid-like structure which I then just coiled from the top, sewing/warping it together as I formed it with a single thread and needle.  

Whatever this process is rightly called, I highly bloody recommend it.  It has all the relative technical ease of simple basketry, the low cost of hand sewing, the stress-free malleability of coil potting and the satisfying look of something someone else did, lol.  
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​If, like me, you suffer the highly refined and tremendously dignified problem of giant head/big hair syndrome, you know hats that fit and stay are a precious resource.  This bitch is heavy enough to remain seated in coastal wind and keeps the drips from one's eyes.  It is more than stiff enough to hold its shape but you could set/felt it up a bit with hot water, probably.  I've gone on to make a scarfy cravat thing for R using the same technique and you could do a really nice dog vest or coat out of it.  You may not be impressed, but I am.

The Bicácaro- Canarina canariensis

7/9/2020

 
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Personally, I fucking loathe most campanulas, those dirty ship rats of the perennial world, but don't let that prompt you to dismiss C canariensis.  It displays none of its obnoxious family's shitty proclivities and abundantly rewards a bit of consideration, which is more than we can probably say for most our own relatives.  There seems to be some confusion around this genera with some peeps' canariensis looking suspiciously like C eminii, a similar African species, but who knows?  One is as nice as the other.

Mine is around three years out from ye olde tiny seedling stage and this is its first flowering, hence my excitement.  

In its native islands, canariensis lolls about as an understory plant in remnant forest up to 1000m elevation, draping itself over other vegetation in an attitude of endearing vegetal sluttiness that should earn it a place in any garden.  A scandent creature rather than a true twining climber, you can send it up or down, over wire or hanging from a basket and I intend to do the latter with this plant now that it has attained a decent size.
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I bought my Canarina from a local weird plant lady on a whim because Canary Island plants tend to do well here in our introverted little microclimate, they are often endangered in their native range and because the flowers are insanely beautiful.  You can see something of its Campanulaceae heritage in the shape of that pendant bell and delicate foliage, if not the plant's habit or marmalade palette. 
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C canariensis is a bit of a seasonal contrarian in that it dries out and retreats back into corky, dahlia-like tubers just below the soil surface in early summer, sitting out the stinging UV of our hotter months and reemerging in autumn.   ​Here the flower appears in early spring and can continue for a while until edible fruits occur, a prospect I hardly dare hope for.

In lieu of any specific advice about soil needs, I stuck mine in a 50/50 blend of rose mix and coarse pumice, guessing from its forest-slope origin that a relatively open, well-drained but humusy medium was called for.  It gets a good watering about once a week while in growth, and bugger-all over summer when dormant, so it's not particularly high maintenance.

While I have found most plants hardier than conventional wisdom allows I really would not roll the frosty dice and leave this fleshy guy out over night in any sort of high winds or winter.  The stems are hollow and easily munted.   Mine sits outside with my Aloes and has probably experienced close to freezing under a polycarbonate verandah, but any direct icing would turn it to sludge in fairly short order.  Too hot is no good either; C canariensis will apparently decline if your summers inflict extended temps over 25 C.  

Well shit, that makes two of us.
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Other Vegetative Glories because Plants don't Talk Shit or Cough On You in the Supermarket


Photo du Jour: Fir

26/6/2020

 
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June 03rd, 2020

3/6/2020

 
Just in case it wasn't obvious:

Black Lives Matter.

If you were wondering, yes, policing in NZ is also deeply racist.  As well as being highly politicised, gender-predicated and supportive of class privilege, because all that shit is just another face on the same fucked up coin.  Don't get me started because I can and do go on all day about the shit I've seen, both personally and in reportage.  

To all the white people with no real dealings with cops who don't know how to feel about this- take another white person's word for it, if that's what you need (but do seek help for that).  Police racism is real, devastating, and violence against the status quo is hundreds of years in the making.  If in doubt, be quiet, think harder, accept self-evident truths and adjust your outlook; aligning with reality is your job as an adult.

Police in New Zealand are militarising while we are arguing about this.



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