“The true test of any hotel, as you well know, Diane, is that morning cup of coffee”Agent Cooper Twin Peaks The new day started with a fresh , if not entirely new experience. Despite growing up on instant coffee I haven’t had any in over 20 years. When traveling I will always opt for the…
Author: southstarbrew
Travel : Departures
“It’s the fear of what comes after the doing that makes the doing hard to do” Tony Kushner – Angels in America I am sitting in bed writing this in a hotel just outside the moat and fortified wall of the old city of Chiang Mai. Walled cities are going to be a reoccurring theme on…
Life : My Internal Rings of Berhampore
From my vantage point I can see policemen forming up into lines. They are wearing double breasted trench coats, visored helmets that give them a look not unlike Star Wars Storm Troopers and in their hands, they grasp truncheons like they are holding sub machine guns. They are set against a backdrop of old villas,…
Life : The Tomb
I stay on the bus an extra stop as we crest the hill sailing past the cemetery. I walk back along Karori Road past a house that is built down the hillside. The top level is one room perched atop the house. An adult lifetime ago I “lost my virginity” in that room. Even at…
Life : Combe
Coomb | Combe | Comb A valley, often wooded and often with no river From the Middle English Coumbe and the Old English Cumb. Related to the Welsh Cym. I’m stood on the side of the road in the bright morning sun. It’s February in Exeter Devon and the weather is much warmer, dryer and…
Life : Plenty more in the Sea
A truck with “eco” on the side hoists a skip up over its head and inverts it. It winnows a broad range of detritus across the carpark. Bloody tissues dance and pivot in the wind. Plastic skins find graves amongst the overgrown shrubbery. Offal is swooped upon by gulls. The driver seethes at the sky…
Life : Become the Ocean
A man builds a barricade of driftwood at the end of his sand dune.A wall to keep back the rising tide of absolution. No one’s sins will matter when the inundation comes. No one’s fears will last long. He steps over piles of carrion. Gulls sweep over like drones. Try to look at this like…
Life : Just an ‘Other’ White Straight Dude
I recently wrote that I have a propensity to think of myself as outcast. This self casting as the sore thumb or the ‘other’ doesn’t just arrive from nowhere. I grew up raised by aging hippie parents who did things their own way. My mother had very specific thoughts on god and good and love…
Life : Pākehā Man makes it about himself again, Whaea Blue
I came across the writing of Talia Marshall very recently. Her rebutting of Paul Moon and Scott Hamilton’s takes on Ans Westra to be exact. The piece is sharp, humorous, withering and persuasive. I summarise but in essence it starts with ‘the dog had a stroke and now I am here dealing with you boof…
Life : Happy Trails
Paw and hoof and foot pock marks extend towards a grey haze of horizon. Each one the scar of this morning’s moment of happy free abandon. They swirl and knot and zig and zag and finally lead back to the dunes. They die as happiness gives way to indelible terra firma. The day matures and…
Raise the Dawn 