Once and Future

Something odd and wondrous is happening. Something "wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey," as a certain Doctor might put it. Recently, I shared with Hawk the Disney version of The Sword in the Stone. Naturally, he loved it, as it involves Knights and Wizards and Beasts. And only a couple of days ago, in his school library, Hawk spotted a golden-covered copy of T.H. White's The Once and Future King, pointing out that it matched the one on my shelf. Next to it were no less than five copies of The Sword in the Stone, which, I explained to Hawk, was the first part of the larger book. "Can we check it out?" he asked. I told him we could, but first we'd have to work through all the other library books we had at home!

I was in eighth grade when my friend Travis showed up with his golden-covered copy of The Once and Future King. I had already consumed The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Prydain and the Dune Chronicles, and feared there was little left in the world worth reading. But here was something with promise.

Once I got into screenwriting, I thought The Once and Future King would make a great epic film or mini-series (no offense to the Camelot musical and film), and it ranked high on my list of dream adaptations to write someday. And now it's back in a new version. As fortune would have it, my friend Brian Sibley has written a six-part dramatization for BBC Radio 4 that airs beginning this Sunday, November 9.

Not so very long ago, in Wellington, my friend Jack (Lord of the Rings tour guide extraordinaire) called me up. His voice was urgent (not that unusual), but also excited (again, typical): our mutual friend, the writer and broadcaster Brian Sibley, was in town. He was staying in the Museum Hotel, and we were to join him for dinner at the hotel's Hippopotamus Restaurant & Bar. I didn't yet own a car, so I quickly cabbed over to the Te Aro district and bounded into the restaurant.

At Hippopotamus Bar & Grill (l-r): Jack, Brian, Ryan.

Brian was in Wellington conducting research and interviews for his (compulsively readable) three-part Official Movie Guide of The Hobbit Trilogy. As locals, Jack and I were keen to supply our intelligence and, of course, glean whatever production secrets Brian might be able to share with two crazy Tolkien fans.

We had a splendid time. Brian proved a true gentleman, sweet and generous, and a gifted conversationalist. Indeed, Jack and I soaked up many tales from Brian's work in radio and film (go check out his entertaining blog). He's one of those warm people who can put you at ease with seemingly no effort at all; it's no wonder he's corresponded with and met a great many of his personal heroes. As we parted, we took some photos together.

I'm not sure what all this synchronicity means, Brian's adaptation and Hawk's excitement and the final Hobbit film and connections made in wonderful Wellington. But as I was preparing this blog, I checked the date on the photos. Exactly three years ago today.

Olórin He Was in the West

Or rather the South, I suppose. No matter. The Hobbit is nigh, and Hawk is ready. He's not alone.

The city is amped for the film's world premiere. Banners of its characters -- Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin, Gollum, Elrond, Galadriel -- wave from the lampposts. Shadowy silhouettes of the Grey Wizard, the 13 dwarves, and their unlikely companion show up in shop windows; their color likenesses appear on Air New Zealand planes. An oversized stamp featuring Bilbo blankets the side of the New Zealand Post building.

Tomorrow perhaps 100,000 or more fans, denizens or wayfarers, will jam the streets outside the Embassy Theatre for the red carpet event and a glimpse of some of the film's stars. We'll be among them.

Over the weekend we visited the Hobbit Artisan Market set up in Waitangi Park. We also visited the Weta Cave, where we picked up a hat for our little Wizard. He's too young yet for the film itself, but it's been a real privilege to witness the proceedings through his eyes. We read the book earlier in the year ("Why does Gollum have only six teeth?"), after visiting the set of Hobbiton in Matamata. He's met a number of the cast and crew, including co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, for whom he recited Bilbo's "My dear Frodo" and the dwarves' song from the teaser trailer. And he's followed Peter's online production diaries. He understands that films are made, and that people make them. I'm okay with that.

Our journey to Wellington, to New Zealand, wasn't entirely unexpected. Certainly, no one knocked on our door and whisked us away in search of ancient gold. But the energy surrounding these films, the national pride, the community, and a young boy's excitement -- all of these are a most welcome surprise. It's a great time to be here.

High Summer

The boy is growing. The man watches the boy climb the dusty trail, one step at a time, and wonders if once upon a time he too climbed such a hill, his father climbing up behind him.

The man remembers a snowy field, being pulled on a sled by his father. The weight and firmness of the steel runners cutting through the whiteness. They were far from home, it seemed, in a vast and silent world. He had no idea, the man is sure, of one day pulling sleds or hiking hills.

The boy and his father reach the summit. The grassy path is matted and brown now, the green of the wet winter burned out by the summer heat.

The boy and his father have some food at this spot at the edge of the world. They take in the nourishment of this place. Perhaps they are both growing stronger.

The man is unsettled by the transposition of father and son, boy and man. He wants to linger a bit. But the boy takes his hand and leads him down the trail again.

A Good Day

New Digs 2.0

One way to draw a woman's ire, if you're interested in that kind of thing, is to move house and then, when asked if you have doubts about the move, to answer honestly that you do. This approach is particularly effective - and I'm speaking philosophically here - if your woman has been the principal architect of such a move, has supported the "direction" you provided, followed the project brief, as it were, to the letter.

In this way we rather suddenly found ourselves living in a beach cottage in the neighborhood of Seatoun, on Worser Bay, on the peninsula of Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand, the World. And if any doubts were expressed and any ire drawn, they were resolved after only a couple days; for living in a beach cottage on the water and across from mountains is pretty damn awesome.

It's not like things weren't already pretty spiffy. The routines, the ways and means, we had them all down to a science. A seven-minute walk to work, another five to the harbor. A Victorian house tucked away in a lush park. A split schedule where Jenifer and I each worked half a day in the office, half a day in the field with Hawk.

A great big abundant life.

We first became acquainted with Seatoun during our first visit to New Zealand. Our tour guide Jack drove our party through the seaside suburb to show us the grounds where Orlando and the Hobbits had trained for The Lord of the Rings. Over the past year, as we contemplated which neighborhood to settle in, Seatoun kept coming back to us. Okay, mostly to me, as such a move would require a wholesale lifestyle change and put us about as far away as possible from the Steiner school we were investigating for our son. But Jenifer plugged away on Trade Me, scouring the listings for houses here, there, and everywhere; and ones we really liked popped up time and again in Seatoun; and we suddenly started making lots of new friends who lived in Seatoun. Eventually Jenifer's logic centers had no choice but to acknowledge the fundamental correctness of my intuition. (Boy, I'm gonna get it.)

Our place is small but cozy and full of what the Danes call hygge, that warm feeling of contentment and well-being that comes from sitting by a warm fire at the end of a long day out of doors. This time around we have a mud room ("the airlock"), a wee back yard, and even a greenhouse, which Hawk already refers to as "the playroom" and which will soon feature a sandbox. The house faces northeast, which means more sunlight. The key feature, though, is the view. Our windows look out on wind-carved rocks (crawling with hermit crabs the size of peppercorns), brilliant green water, the endless passing of ferries and frigates, and an active, welcoming community: walkers, dogs, triathletes, the odd blue penguin. Everyone here seems to keep their curtains open most of the time, and you often can't help but look in (or out) because of the view.

Where Te Aro was wooded, dark, dense, Seatoun is open, bright, airy. As a new friend observed, our move quite literally affords us a broader perspective. Our walking world is now circumscribed not by office buildings and bus lanes but by Scorching Bay to the North and Dorset Point to the South. At the latter Hawk and I now routinely "go an an adventure," a nature hike along the rocky shore that wraps around to Breaker Bay or up the Pass of Branda through the "poky" pine trees of the Beacon Hill Reserve. From here you see the flat blue line of Cook Strait, which separates the North and South Islands. Massive shipping vessels crest what looks like the edge of the world. Here if feels like we are at the edge of the world.

This is our neighborhood now. This is where Hawk will grow up, where he will clamber through the bush with his goblins-in-arms, where he will mount spy missions on unsuspecting hikers and investigate long-abandoned military bunkers and sit in the tall grass of the old Maori pa and listen to the wind.

Shortly after we moved I had occasion to walk by the old place. Passing through the park beneath it, I suddenly felt very clear: our energy had moved on. I had grieved the place, our ways and means, the morning after our move. Now, I smiled in gratitude for our entry into a new world. Our old house protected us, held us during a year that was at times very difficult: one way to make enemies, if you're interested in that kind of thing, is to take over an existing business. Fortunately, it's also a way to make friends.

No, the move was necessary, and if any doubts arose, they did so only because, as is ever the case with leaps in the dark, we are called to make them before we think we are ready. Or maybe that's just how it is with grownups. As Hawk would yell every time before sprinting down the path to our old house: "Two, three, go!"

Here and Back Again

Let me just put this out there: this place is great. And by this place, I mean Wellington. New Zealand. Middle-earth.

On Monday, Jenifer, Hawk, and I attended the Wellington rally to keep the production of The Hobbit here in New Zealand. Joining us were our friends Jack, Aiko, Grant, and Steve (who's neatly summarized the whole affair here), along with several thousand proud Kiwis who came out to proclaim to Warner Bros., an Australian actor's union, and the world their pride in their film industry.

The event took place in Wellington's Civic Square. It's a familiar haunt for Hawk and me, as several times a week we pass through it on our way to the waterfront, each time Hawk delighting in the great "sky ball!"--a globe of silver ferns that hangs over its center. Through the courtyard and over the City to Sea Bridge, where the wide rim of the harbor opens up, where the city itself encircles you in its green water and hillside houses and misty mountains.

It's magic in this spot, and now all the more so for the gathering of filmmakers and fans and everyday folk who understand just how important a certain line of creative work has become. More, much more is on the line than money as Warner Bros. decides whether The Hobbit will be made in New Zealand. I can't imagine anything like this positive, peaceful "rally" happening in the States. Not that people there don't join together to support a cause, but here in New Zealand there's a feeling of ownership, a feeling that film itself is a community enterprise. It's been said many times that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was made not by a director, nor even a team of filmmakers, but by an entire nation.

Of necessity I've been working almost exclusively on our business (we're only a few weeks away from unveiling our fully operational website). But so far my experiences echo what I've been hearing and continue to hear, again at this rally: that the film industry in Wellington--an industry whose technical infrastructure, indeed its pounding heart, was largely built by Sirs Peter and Richard--is what Hollywood was in its early days. The dream is alive here, where filmmakers are knighted national treasures and joyfully lead a people's collective longing to create something great.

UPDATE 28 October: The Hobbit stays! Check The Noldor Blog for details.

Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa

It begins with a windmill, a train station, and three gunmen. The windmill turns and creaks without ceasing, as if the wind has at last found its voice after a long search and is reluctant to give it up.

The men await their prey and the train that will bring him. They do not know that he will be their death, nor that these last minutes during which they contend with the elements, and their own boredom, will be their last. They know only that they are at the station to do a job, the kind of job that men like them get sent for: hard men who've lived hard lives in a hard land. They don't know that their quarry, haunted by an encounter with a brutal villainy, is harder still.

At the beginning of Once Upon a Time in the West, the audience knows none of these things, either; but as the opening credits unfurl with a languid intensity, surely they must feel they are in the hands of a master.

Once Upon a Time in the West is a big movie, maybe even a great movie. Directed with conviction by Sergio Leone, king of the spaghetti Westerns, it is one for the big screen. I have a copy on DVD, currently in storage somewhere in southeastern Pennsylvania, but I've never seen the 1968 film in a theater. Fortunately, the New Zealand International Film Festival, a yearly roadshow affair traveling through the country's major cities, was in town in recent weeks and screening the film at the Embassy Theatre.

The timing couldn't have been better. In recent weeks, preparing for an upcoming project, I had watched Leone's classic Man With No Name trilogy, as well as Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (the basis for A Fistful of Dollars). Now, with Once Upon a Time in the West, I would get to return, if only briefly, to American soil, even if in some ways Leone's vision of America never quite existed.

Moving to another country has a way of messing with your head. It's hard not to constantly compare your new experience with your vast repertoire of facts, expectations, routines. I'm told you tend to spend the better part of your first year abroad looking back on the world you knew.

This process has been incredibly fruitful. While my travels in northern Europe certainly reframed for me questions of identity, ethnicity, and politics, living here in New Zealand has helped me see more clearly those aspects of America I never realized I appreciated. I've never felt stereotypically American--which, for argument's sake, we'll define as "entranced by consumerism"--but now, after engaging in the classic American behavior of taking over a business, I see more clearly than ever the value of vision and the ambition to see it through.

If Americans are brash, impulsive, loud, then New Zealanders tend to be less outspoken about their achievements, credentials, ambition. Subject to a cultural phenomenon known as tall poppy syndrome, which dictates that one not toot one's horn too loudly, they can be downright tightlipped when asked to promote themselves. Such a reticence is tantamount to heresy to American notions of marketing.

I don't know if Kiwis lack ambition. It may simply be that their focus is elsewhere. They are a mobile people, given in many cases to traveling and working and living abroad for at least a year, and this is understandable given their geographic isolation and numbers (4.2 million as compared to the 5.8 million of the greater Philadelphia region). Where America remains a place where much of the world seeks to live, New Zealand is a land whose people yearn to see, if only for a time, the rest of the world.

New Zealand is not a land of Opportunity, perhaps, as America may still be, but one of opportunities for those who are looking. New Zealand is also very young, and perhaps it more closely resembles an earlier postcolonial America, where the influence of its mother country was still strongly felt and the transformation into something other than a pioneering Wild West had yet to fully manifest.

Of course, I could be wrong about all this. After all, I've been here a scant six months.

Towards the end of Leone's epic Western, the mysterious Harmonica (Charles Bronson) enjoins Cheyenne (Jason Robards) and his men to build a train station at Sweetwater, the remote homestead of the late Irishman Brett McBain. Cheyenne figures that McBain had been counting on selling his property, but Harmonica, whose own journey has "something to do with death," corrects him: "You don't sell the dream of a lifetime!" Sweetwater, Harmonica explains, was sitting on the only water in the region, and thus the westward-reaching railroad would have to pass through it, and McBain, or his heirs, would hold the golden key. And so a new station is built, and an outlander's ambition finally realized.

Still At It

Hi. I haven't forgotten you. The next installment of What I Did and How I Felt About It is . . . on the way. There's no shortage of grist for the mill, nor of Nietzschean life-affirming stressors, some of which may yet prove fit for online consumption. Or not.

Still, goodness abounds. It's hardly a bad thing to eat breakfast in your lounge (Kiwi for "living room") and catch, through the bare wintered limbs of the trees outside the window, and under the pink glow of sunrise, a glimpse of golden waters. Harbor view!

See you soon.

The Mysteries of New Zealand

Somehow it's already May and we're more than three months into this adventure/project/flight of fancy. For the most part we've made the adjustment with some semblance of grace. The daily operations of our business are now more or less a matter of rote (though much good work remains), our new life without a car remains a refreshing change of pace, and fiery sunrises over Wellington Harbour seem a welcome rule rather than a fleeting exception.

We've learned a thing or two about our new world and also discovered there really is the thing known as culture shock. In our experience it's not the total systemic disruption suggestion by the name, but rather the gradual accumulation of innumerable, seemingly insignificant, differences in ways of thinking, our expectations of native New Zealanders and theirs of us, and run-ins with the uncanny Kiwi approach to solving problems with limited resources.

For example, everything in New Zealand is metered. The minutes on your mobile phone, the gigs you download online, the liters of oxygen you breathe. There is good reason for this, as Everywhere Else Is Very Far Away, and the local population is insufficient, numerically speaking, to produce items in any kind of Quantity.

Add to this the stunning decision, in 1969, by the New Zealand Ministry of Standards, Higher Maths, and Weights of Things to abandon the Imperial system of counting for metrication and you have, for an American brain, a system tantamount to chaos. For, you see, such imposing standards are implemented with a firm irregularity, with the result that you measure (if so inclined) the energy contained in your food not by calories but by kilojoules (whatever they are); your height in the English way of feet and inches; your weight in kilograms . . . or stones -- unless of course, you are determining the mass of a baby, in which case pounds and ounces are your friends.

This same logic dictates that you use a teaspoon for tea but a dessert spoon for dinner, and probably also has something to do with the fact that you'll pay nearly NZ$200 for a pair of Nike basketball shoes circa 1985. Phone numbers are 9 or 10 digits long, with the area codes taking up between 2 and 4 of those digits, and are written in whatever pattern the owner chooses, so you can't rely on the usual mnemonics.

Also, cricket. It's not a Kiwi invention, but still.

Not all of New Zealand's Mysteries are so baffling. In the tradition of British wizardry, the Kiwis have developed a Defence [sic] against Phantom Power, that insidious energy sucker. Every outlet is outfitted with a handy switch that allows you to cut off the flow of electricity and thus prevent the Measurers from squeezing a few more cents out of your monthly power bill.

And then there's the Majestic. Perched atop this tower is a crown of lights (visible in the accompanying photograph). Since we took up residence in our apartment we have made an evening ritual of checking on the color of the lights, which typically go on at sunset. Some nights they are red, others green or blue, still others a flashing sequence of the full ROYGBIV spectrum. As with so many other things here, there seems to be no rhyme or reason, no governing standard, and I suppose that really is part of the charm of this place. You can't be complacent, for things are always changing, and you just might swipe your EFTPOS card the wrong way when purchasing your organic feijoas. Perhaps it's best to take after the little man I imagine is tucked away in his little cell by the Majestic's boiler room, madly pedaling his chromatocycle to power the lights that nightly shine over the city's shimmering waters.

An Evening at Park Road Post

Recently I had the privilege of attending the sneak preview of Costa Botes's new documentary, Candyman: The David Klein Story.

Costa, a veteran of the New Zealand film industry, is probably best known in the States for Forgotten Silver, the satire/hoax he co-wrote and co-directed with Peter Jackson (and which largely fooled the New Zealand public), as well as his extensive making-of documentary for The Lord of the Rings (included in the fairly recent special editions of the theatrical-release DVDs).

Candyman I knew less about, only that it had something to do with jelly beans. But I was quite keen, as they say here, to go to an industry event which also had the appeal of being held at Park Road Post.

Sometimes referred to as "Skywalker South," Park Road Post is the premier post-production facility in this neck of the woods, where an increasing number of films is wrapped up, everything from King Kong to Red Cliff to District 9.

The building features a beautiful Arts and Crafts design, but the theater for the screening (I don't know if there are others) depicts what seems a Victorian view of the Near East. The interior is extravagant and a bit kitschy, with frescoes of camels and turbaned traders, but the quality and care taken are so apparent that somehow the overall ambiance is enhanced. Throughout the screening the ceiling's thousands of miniature lights twinkled like the night sky.

The evening's program began with Day Trip, a short directed by up-and-coming filmmaker Zoe McIntosh from a script by Costa about the conflicted aspirations of a Maori gang member. Then came Candyman, an intimate look at the life and inventions of eccentric candymaker David Klein, the man behind the many-flavored Jelly Bellies candy as well as many lesser-known confections. The film explores his sometimes too-generous nature and the collapse of a dream in the face of corporate greed. I hope it finds distribution in the U.S. -- it seems perfectly suited to PBS or other intelligent channels.

After the film I met Costa and we discussed his approach to documentary filmmaking. I found him humble, earnest, genuine, and, like so much of the industry here, encouragingly accessible. Wellington, it's good to be here.

Little Miracles

Some people go their whole lives without having an adventure. -- overheard during last week at my former job

Anything can happen. Anything has happened. There was never a Plan B. No backup, no hedged bets, no second guessing. Just the dream and the path we saw leading to it. One basket holding all our eggs.

The weeks leading up to our eventual settling of the holistic health practice we purchased were nothing short of sublime, a 9-to-1 ratio of beauty to terror. On several occasions it seemed the whole thing might fall through and we would find ourselves without visas, without jobs, without even the ability to legally work, and with only a few short weeks until we left these shores.

We decided we would do the best we could to live well. We visited friends, made new ones, and discovered those new and regular haunts that brought peace and gave shape and rhythm to our days. Several times a week we would take Hawk to the playground at Waitangi Park. Our friend Francisco, a travel photographer, runs the cafe there and proved a source of steady encouragement who never failed to lift our spirits. Situated on the water where Mount Victoria meets Oriental Bay (some of the choicest real estate in Australasia), with a clear view of the green hillside neighborhoods of Kelburn and Karori, the park became our sanctuary. Here, in this spot, we were in New Zealand.

Other aspects of the city played their part, too. The yellow GO Wellington buses bear numerous suggestions for city activities, and if I never GO SMASH A SIX OUT OF THE BASIN, I sure don't mind being encouraged to GO FILM A TRILOGY or GO WIN AN OSCAR. The civic pride is plainly evident here and in the New Zealand Post's Writers and Readers Week, which (among more formal programming) saw the public display--at bus stops, on walls, atop the swing-set of our park--of the finest magnetic poetry generated at installations throughout the city.

We experienced firsthand the kindness of strangers. Just outside the KiwiBank, a gentleman insisted on giving us $30. Unaware of him until that moment, I imagine he overheard our chatterings regarding the annoyingly late arrival of a critical wire transfer. I'd never experienced such open generosity. Sometimes there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Here the common understanding says that between strangers there are only two degrees of separation, not the usual six. This already seems true in my experience, both socially and through our business, though it doesn't hurt having friends in the tourism and hospitality industries. In any case, our roster of local connections has grown rapidly, and for that we're very grateful.

There is a freedom that comes with adventure. Two weeks into our new jobs, we're keenly aware of the responsibilities, as well--to those who work in the collective, to our clients and the broader community, to ourselves. As Jenifer likes to say, now that we've gone through the drama, "We've already done the stupid and impossible, so . . ." And then she laughs. Anything is possible.

New Digs

There's something strange about New Zealand houses. Not that they tend to house New Zealanders, but that they typically have neither insulation nor central heating. You might think this doesn't matter, as the country is so far south, and south is hot, and in this would agree with the mistaken English settlers. However, the North Island's climate is sub-tropical, which for the purposes of our discussion means (a) there is little seasonal variation in temperature; and (b) you're likely to wake up in the middle of the summer night freezing your arse off.

We knew about the houses going in to our search for an apartment. Indeed, every one of our Kiwi friends informed us of the cold, hard facts. And if I have been at all American in my comportment during my time here, surely it has been in my scoffing of the situation of the temperature. You can hardly blame me. Last May we arrived in the middle of the worst Wellington winter in 25 years: a bit of rain, some wind, lows in the low 40s. Our first trip nearly three years ago was taken during the equivalent of autumn in the northern hemisphere, and the weather was resplendent.

The apartment, or "flat," we found is the second floor of a Victorian house built in the 1890s. High ceilings, two (inoperable) fireplaces with exquisite tile work, lots of storage, a bigger kitchen than we had before, and a great sense of flow. The other serious contender was a place in Thorndon, a quiet suburb that's home to mostly government workers and apparently a great family area. But it felt too out of the way, disconnected from the culture of the cultural capital of the country, and bit too far a walk from our business.

The flat we took, by contrast, is only a 10-minute walk to work and not much further to the waterfront. It is situated in an urban green belt above a small park, where university students hold occasional chautauquas and the cicadas sound like crackling power lines. We can see the top of Mount Victoria from our living room, as well as the sleek Majestic Centre, the tallest building in the city and seemingly transplanted from the Cloud City skyline.

The street is actually a pedestrian footpath named not out of any nod to literary tradition, but rather to reflect a heretofore unknown labor of the Grail Knight; namely, the carrying over hill and under hill of eight suitcases, three carry-ons, and a car seat up the vertiginous steps to the keep. It suits us well.

Other aspects of Kiwi life take more getting used to. It is well established that New Zealanders, following their English forebears, drive on the wrong side of the road, and that their water goes down the drain in a manner contrary to northern custom. Less well known, and understood, are the rules governing sidewalk etiquette and water usage. Like cars, pedestrians are to take the left side of any thoroughfare. "But," I'm told," that's changing." There's really no telling how you are to navigate through foot traffic. Similarly, the standard for faucets is hot on the right and cold on the left, but that seems to vary from building to building or even sink to sink.

I don't mean to imply that Kiwis are backwards. New Zealanders are proud of their history as a land of backyard inventors, plucky souls who maintain that nothing can't be fixed with a bit of No. 8 wire and some elbow grease. It's nothing short of amazing what has been accomplished here in so little time (since only 1840), and that from years of making do has come a tremendous spirit of can do. This gumption is largely the result of the country's geographic isolation, low population (4.2 million), and youth (making the States seem downright elderly). Perhaps the Englishness has something to do with it, too.

Still, there are those odd moments when, shopping for groceries in the New World Metro, you find in the span of one short aisle--eggs, pet food, condiments, and DVD players, and you, perhaps more American than you'd thought, wonder how anything works at all.

Dispatches from the Outer Rim

We've crammed a whole lot of livin' in the 11 days since we touched down in Wellington, so here's a run-down of the various points high and low:


1. I want to know what love is. I want you to show me. Actually, I have a pretty good handle on this, thank you, but I must have heard this song no less than four times in the Brentwood on our first day back in New Zealand. Not that I'm complaining, as I'm finding myself curiously attracted to the current spate of pop hits, which curiously remind me of that good old 80s stuff. I got darn near weepy at the New World (the local supermarket) when the Pet Shop Boys' rendition of "Always on My Mind" spilled into the aisles. Something is afoot here.


2. "Do you work for Weta?" I never tire of hearing this question, which for Wellington taxi drivers is apparently the most logical thing to ask Americans here on business. Of course, I explain our particular venture and plans, but that doesn't mean you know.


3. Finding an apartment is harder than you might think. In fact, finding even temporary quarters can be tough when you have to contend with an influx of young people in town for AC/DC or the NZI Sevens (some sort of "rugby tournament" that requires packs of the aforementioned younglings [and some oldsters] to dress like carrots, turtles, flip-flops, or Arabs). But yesterday we prevailed! Our new place is a 10-minute walk from work and not much further to the waterfront.


4. Coffee. Is. So. Good.


5. Good friends make you feel at home. We are keenly aware that we are here for business, have work to do, want to get busy, and are not on holiday. And there are sundry tasks each day to keep us busy and which are necessary to get the ball rolling. But our friends have taken it upon themselves to take us around town and invite us into their homes. We've watched the removal of the mast of King Kong's SS Venture in preparation for its scuttling (which happened a couple of days ago), hiked up to the stately memorial to Prime Minister Massey, dined at Scorching Bay's Scorch-O-Rama (the site of the original Chocolate Fish cafe, which has since been reincarnated elsewhere), and enjoyed the festivities for Waitangi Day, the national holiday celebrating the signing of the Waitangi Treaty between the English settlers and the Maori.

No matter what I've been doing or what's going on, every so often I have this recurring or perhaps multi-part epiphany: I live here. It's a great feeling.

The Interlude

The other two are passed out on the bed here in our room in the Brentwood in the suburb of Kilbirnie, on our first day in Wellington. It's the third such first day, only this one is for real, the start of something new and unknown and wholly welcomed. We're staying at the Brentwood, a little hotel (by American standards), the only one between downtown Wellington and Miramar, because of a new friend we met through an old one. We arrived like vagabonds, tired and hungry, only to find out, after finding the promised free wi-fi, that a van was already awaiting us.


There have been many such unexpected bits of goodness along this particular way. As anyone who voted for me in the Your Big Break filmmaking competition (or for that matter, simply registered) already knows,  I was not one of the five finalists. Disappointing, yes. But for me the entire experience was tremendous, a fun and productive challenge, something I decided to do--had no choice but to do--on top of selling our house and innumerable other tasks. I was pleased with my work--no mean feat--for a contest whose very existence, at this time, seemed providential.


And so I found myself feeling very grateful for the opportunity to share my work, my perspective, my take on what New Zealand means--within the context of an advertising slogan. The anticipation of the results, while wrapping up my corporate work; saying farewells as best I could in a limited time; searching for answers for friends and family; moving in with friends and moving on.


On Wednesday, however, I was not feeling much gratitude when we learned, at the gate in San Francisco, about what I shall lovingly refer to as the passport glitch, and how a year's labor seemed suddenly jeopardized. And yet: the resulting delay, the postponement of our flight, the walk back from G93 . . . all these meant that I was in the perfect time and place in the South Court to meet, and thank, Barrie Osborne, the producer of The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings . . . and also Your Big Break. Barrie Osborne. What a gracious man. 


The next day, after spending a good part of the afternoon resolving the passport glitch, we wandered around looking for dinner. I had it in my head that Indian was the necessary cuisine (Italian was right out), and so, after inquiring at a nearby hotel, we proceeded past the Transamerica Pyramid in search of a restaurant that with each block seemed less and less likely to exist. 


I paused at a corner building. I noticed a plaque that described it as the home of Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope studio since 1972. This was interesting, I thought, but then my eye caught another Indian restaurant across the street. Not until Jenifer pointed out, quite rightly, that we were standing at the  front door of Cafe Zoetrope, Francis Ford Coppola's restaurant, did I see that maybe we should go in and enjoy some Italian food. 


And so we did. I enjoyed the best chicken caesar salad I've ever had, as well as an '07 Pinot Grigio. The previous 24 hours had been a mite stressful. And so we are enjoying the atmosphere, the photographs, the awards, and saying things like Barrie Osborne, when in strolls the Master himself. He moves to the rear of the cafe and disappears from view. Not until we leave do we see him again, sitting alone at an outside table and on the phone. There is no need to interrupt him, of course, but Hawk waves and delivers a bright "Hi!" and Francis waves back. A blessing.


Getting to Wellington has been a journey of persistent groundlessness. Again and again I am reminded that thinking I have some measure of control in the whole affair is rather pointless. You do what you can and then move on. Breathing is also helpful. Every seeming obstacle, every delay, every hysteria-inducing complication has meant that good stuff was on the way.  Two unplanned days in San Francisco turned out to be the perfect way to get to New Zealand, right on time.

Further West Than We Thought

When you step over the borderline of the "known" into the land of the "unknown," you take a risk. But this borderline is so unendingly fruitful, we just say "Okay." We take the risk. — Werner Sobek, architect and engineer

My last week at work I took a back way to the office. There are vast tracts of farmland and woods here, a district impossible according to previous experience and landmarks. The road winds between dell and vale, through hunting grounds and an old graveyard, and I wish I’d known these paths years before, but catch myself, grateful I know them now.


The sun glitters through trees, through the grey and silent world, dumb with frost, and the road finally opens to the back streets of Phoenixville. The bridge at Gay Street has been rebuilt, and it takes me across the Schuylkill to the wide, low skyline. Everything familiar has changed and been reborn in our time here. The old steel city itself, and more recently familiar, everyday haunts: my gym, which closed without notice; my company, which has relocated to a new building. We have sold our house and live in a back room of our friends’ house in Spring City. Everywhere I go, walking through a restaurant, driving through fields, the words rise up in me like a prayer: We are moving to New Zealand.


It is not lost on me that our new quarters are situated on the corner of Wall Street and Park Road, the convergence of material and creative abundance. It’s a fitting wink to the work Jenifer and I have done this past year, to our aspirations and willingness to identify and seek opportunity. I can safely say we had no idea New Zealand would change our lives.


During our first trip three years ago, we quickly fell in love with New Zealand and its people, making lifelong friends and discovering a pioneering culture that offered seemingly unlimited opportunity in our respective fields. Afterwards I came home and (according to reports of dubious origin) stomped around the house muttering, “I want to live in Wellington.” That was a start, setting an intention, but really no way to manifest a new reality. We didn’t know how to make this leap, what mechanisms were needed to click us out of one life and into another.


I made another push towards Los Angeles. But searching for work you don't really want has a way of wearing on you. Hawk's arrival the next year changed everything. His presence, his needs, his potential and my awareness of my role in fostering it led to a serious contemplation of Where I Was and Where I Was Going. After Hawk's name came to us (there is no other way to put it), we learned that, apart from its being derived from the Old Norse word for the bird, as well as a first name, it comes from an ancient Indo-European root that means "to seize." This was wonderfully appropriate for him as well as an ongoing lesson.  

Questions arose. About the conditions of my life, what I really want for myself, the life I want to give my son. David Byrne's shrill voice sang in my head, asking: What am I still doing in this house? Why am I still doing this corporate work? And: Why don't I wear autumn colors more often?


At the same time Jenifer, less given to brooding, was searching and finding answers of her own. Last winter (in the northern hemisphere), she discovered a holistic health practice for sale in Wellington. It met every criteria she had established for the kind of business she wanted to run, and in May we returned for a scouting trip. It turned out to be exactly right.


The next six months were jam-packed with a seemingly endless stream of tasks. Filing our application with Immigration New Zealand, which meant writing a business plan and accumulating sufficient evidence as to our Good Character and general Suitability. Preparing our house for market. Selling it. 


An odd thing happened during all this. I started getting good at it. Meaning, there was so much to do in any given week (on top of raising a small child and visiting with two sets of grandparents most weekends) precious little time was left for worrying about how I was going to finish everything. Paying bills, running errands, keeping up with the house--all the things Normal People do--now seemed within my everyday capacity. I got less practiced at procrastination. Maybe taking on the opportunity before us was my way of taking responsibility for my life. Maybe I was growing up.


I don't think moving to New Zealand is required for this. For us, however, it's what we needed to integrate our individual and shared dreams, to spend more time together, to live in a harbor city, to create a way of living that's in step with who we'd become while living in and outgrowing a small condo in a small town in Pennsylvania.


As I've shared the news of our plans, responses have been mixed. Some regard us with supportive excitement, others as if we are sailing into the West, to the shores of Valinor. (And perhaps we are, though I promise we’re going by plane.) The most common question is what my family thinks. Our move will be hard on them, no doubt, but I trust that through the distance we will grow closer.


There are many things I will miss. Perhaps most of all will be the sweetness of this time, these last days in the world we've inherited, when we didn't yet know the shape our dreams would take.

City and Sea

We’ve been back from our trip for what seems like eons now, the subtle tides of reverse culture shock have long since ebbed, and a few weeks ago I got around to cleaning out the luggage. In my suitcase, in what I believed was an unused pocket, I found a sizeable plastic bag filled with dirt. How long the fine, powdery soil had been there, or where in the world I picked it up, or for what reason, I have no idea. I can only thank my lucky stars the LAX security forces didn’t throw me in a Homeland Security dungeon on charges of bioterrorism. They did take my bag of apples.

In any case, I’ll wrap up the narrative of our trip with some of the highlights of the last week of our stay. Our love of harbor cities demanded that we take a harbor tour, and it turned out that the Museum of Wellington City and Sea offered a particularly appealing program: the Ships and Chips tour.

The tour starts with a brief account of Maori creation myths, then dashes through a selection of the top 101 stories from the 20th century that are relevant to the day’s main attraction. At this point you are whisked outside to catch the vessel that will carry you across the Wellington Harbour to Matiu/Somes Island.

The island’s name reflects modern relations between Maori, the original settlers, and Europeans, or Pakeha: peaceful coexistence, mutual respect, and a prevailing "get it done" attitude. As Matiu, the island had been the site of an important fortified stronghold, or pa. In the 19th century, the island was renamed after Joseph Somes, deputy-governor of the New Zealand Company, and served as a sort of Ellis Island for the unwanted: the diseased, prisoners of war, and individuals guilty of belonging to races or political affiliations suspected of anti-nationalist agendas.

The journey to the island was magnificent. For winter especially, and considering the beginning of our trip, the skies were sunny and the water clear and steady. The white towers of the city’s Central Business District quickly fell away, and within 20 minutes we reached the green island.

We were greeted by Matt, one of the rangers who lives on the island. He escorted our party into a little outbuilding where we got the lay of the land and checked our bags for mice, which have been kept off the island as part of conservation efforts. After Matt’s talk we were free to range the island’s various loops, with the only significant rule being to return in time for the ferry. Before heading off, though, Matt taught us the Maori word for “hawk”: kahu.

After enjoying our boxed lunch of the Kiwi standby, fish and chips, we began a large circle around the perimeter of the island. Soon we were found the cemetery memorializing the quarantined who had perished, and just off the south coast the smaller Leper Island, so called for the Chinese businessman forced to live in a cave for a year until he died not of leprosy but kidney failure. The walk was far from grim, however, as the alien trees and the rocky shores, and the call of the red-crowned parakeets/kakariki provided plenty of satisfying wonderment, even if we didn’t spy the elusive tuatara, a contemporary of the dinosaurs. Atop the island are the conservationists’ buildings, and near the working lighthouse I found a tram track dated to 1866. From that point we could see, across the harbor, the narrow, winding road we’d taken around the Miramar peninsula a number of times, including just the day before.

Our aim was the Chocolate Fish, the popular café in Scorching Bay, Miramar, but we knew that was impossible since the establishment had closed recently under scandalous circumstances. Our friend Jack agreed to take us to its replacement, if only to enjoy the view, and then on a tour around the city’s extensive coastline.

Since New Zealand is so far away as to seem either exotic or an abstraction of time and place, one of the questions I’m asked most, not unreasonably, is “What’s it like?” The simplest answer I can offer, at least of Wellington, is San Francisco with Seattle weather. The domestic architecture is a mixture of Victorian and modern, and in the countryside or along the shores you are likely to find sprinklings of weather-beaten bachs (pronounced “batches”)—little huts that serve as summer homes and vacation getaways.

As we drove through these little seaside villages, we looked out for blue penguins and shags and took in Jack’s engaging commentary. At one point we reached the end of the road and the awesome slope of Red Rocks. The landscape was impressive as it was, but it didn’t hurt to learn that it had doubled as the site where Frodo and Sam hid from a troop of Haradrim in the shadow of the Black Gate. In every sense of the word, this place is fantastic.

Mount Victoria and the Lungs of the City

Yesterday I had a few hours to myself as Jenifer and Hawk visited some new friends, so I decided to spook around the neighborhood of Mount Victoria to enjoy the architecture and view. Turning left onto Hawker Street, however, I saw a sign for the lookout atop the mountain, so I abandoned my plan and followed the trail up the street past the orange-brick cathedral and monastery of Saint Gerard's, and continued up the wooded path into the bush. The slopes were steep and slippery from the off-and-on rain, but within 15 minutes I emerged from the green to the mountain's top. I'd passed the spot where Frodo and his Shire buds got off the road and suddenly came face to face with a very new and very flash public restroom. I crossed the street and a quick jaunt up an improvised trail took me to the highest point in the city.

The view is panoramic and reveals just how green the city is. Ironically, the only original bush left is that in the botanic gardens, but you can still appreciate the city planners' vision in creating a town belt that would bring oxygen to the growing class of workers for the Industrial Age. A surprise rainbow added a perfect, if unnecessary, final touch to the view.

We leave for the States this evening, so I'll add a few more posts, as well as pics, after we get back.

In God's Golden Bowl

A million years ago, before the last Ice Age, we visited Nelson. I do endeavor to provide timely accounts of Where We Went and What We Ate, but time is nothing if not elastic when you're traveling, and is probably not best spent in youth-hostel Internet caves, especially when you're in New Zealand.

To this preface, however, I will add its epilogue, the account of precisely how we made our way to Nelson, which is to say that we nearly did not. The night before our Monday-morning flight, we decided to program the alarm on my new watch, a reward for 10 years of service at the day job. It was titanium and Danish, so no complaints there, but we did discover at this late hour, after perusing the instruction booklet we had so thoughtfully packed, that its "crown" could not, indeed, be extended to the third position, let alone the second. I would need to acquire an alarm clock if were were to awake in time for the flight.

And so I ventured across the oceanic breadth of Wakefield Street to the New World, which by New Zealand standards is a pretty good-sized supermarket. That I did this without any navigational devices, and possessing scanty star lore, without being struck by an automobile was a significant accomplishment. In the end, however, it would take three such sojourns to acquire the sought-after device and the 1.5V aka AA battery that powers it.

The "Abstract Art Swivel Alarm Clock" is a masterwork of Chinese design. You can tell its worth right from the box alone, which features the following instructions in no less than eight (8) different languages:

1. Removing the Battery Cover.
2. Inserting the Battery.
3. Setting the Time.
4. Setting the Alarm Time.
5. Using the Gerund.

Step 2 was my particular favorite, as the battery found its final resting place not because the slot was consciously designed to house it, but by a considerable application of will on my part. I won, but this meant the onset of a peculiar "click-clack" that would haunt me the rest of the night. Despite my lack of faith, the instrument performed its function, and early the next morning we were on our way back to Nelson.

The flight from Wellington to Nelson, across the Cook Strait, comprises probably the best 25 minutes in the air you will find anywhere in the world. We were treated to a glowing sunrise over snow-capped mountains, oceans of cloud, and that distinctive gemlike water. We had traveled once the other direction, taking the ferry from Picton; this mode of travel is equally majestic if rougher on those who haven't yet gained their sea legs.

When you land in Nelson's little airport, you are greeted by a flat plain encompassed by a far, long ridge of mountains whose distant strength is hard to capture on film. Once in the town itself, you find yourself enclosed by steep, verdant hills, long intersecting triangles of folded green in dappled golden light. The land here is reassuring, and you feel you have a solid place on the earth, as if you are given definition by its otherness.

We met with Kimberly and Cathy at the former's retreat in the section of Nelson called the Maitai Valley. The meeting was to be a yoga workshop of sorts, a reunion of those Jenifer had taught two years ago, but it was the Queen's Birthday, after all, and short notice meant a more intimate gathering would be had. After lunch in town, at the Morrison Street Cafe, we returned to the valley, and I stepped out to take some photographs and take in the view. It seemed I had stepped onto the set of The Last Samurai, even if that film was shot on the North Island. Just behind the retreat center was a small, sloped pasture, and I counted myself lucky to meet the likes of Zoe the goat and two horses, one brown, one white. How could you not grow as wise as they, living on the side of such a mountain?

Not all talk was yoga-talk, however; Jenifer, Hawk, and I also spent our share of time enjoying the view from Kimberly's spectacular and surprising Art Deco house. From the so-called Centre of New Zealand, which we had hike to last time, the house appeared an orange rectangle lodged squarely in the middle of a mountain. Up close, its color was terra cotta, its design boldly and aerodynamically Art Deco. It fit its environment quite suitably, and though Kimberly and her husband, both Americans, couldn't be more grounded, such a dwelling might well be considered "flash" even in avant-garde Nelson, home of healers and seekers. The architecture of New Zealand offers up some surprising secrets about the culture; I'll try to comment on these next post.

Jenifer and I also connected with Elayne, a massage therapist, and her husband Mark, a woodworker who specializes in Native American flutes. We had gone to Elayne for treatments on the recommendation of a mutual friend, and, as so often seems to be the case here, soon found ourselves invited over for dinner.

The flight "home" to Wellington the next morning was just as terrific as its predecessor, and it seemed we even brought a bit of Nelson's golden weather back with us . . .

Weekend in Waikanae

I was going to post this entry yesterday, but Fortune stepped in and allowed us to catch the last showing of Star Trek at Wellington's Embassy Theatre. Good thing, too, because it seemed best to see how "The Future Begins" before discovering how "The End Begins" with the premiere of Terminator Salvation.

Yesterday was largely a regrouping day after returning from sunny Nelson on the top of the South Island. I'll get to our stay there next time, but first let's go back to our weekend in Waikanae. Through a mutual friend we met in Nelson two years ago, Jenifer connected earlier in the year with Melissa Billington, an American expat who teaches "Myoga" at her Powa Centre in downtown Wellington (and also on TVNZ's Good Morning show). As luck would have it, she was running a teacher-training workshop in Waikanae, about an hour north of Wellington on the North Island's west coast, and we were invited to go along.

The drive up was fairly unspectacular if you were somehow able to become bored with the steep hills, dense bush, and glistening blue-green water; or if, through a sizable act of will, you had overcome your fear of hurtling down the wrong side of the road, perched to the left of the driver as if dangling like the gyroscoping gun turret mounted on the far side of a B-wing fighter.

In any event, we safely reached our destination, a lush and serene place far from the road known as Saddle Creek Farm. As we crept along the winding dirt path, a massive black-tailed rabbit sauntered across the lane, taking all the time in the world and offering our whirring hrududu no regard whatsoever. He had dealt with our kind before.

The retreat building itself was a rustic wood cabin topped with the fairly commonplace corrugated steel roof that suggested a shantytown in Nairobi, Mumbai, or Johannesburg. Yet the scenery gave a far different impression, of a rugged land worked by rugged individuals who don't seem to mind the isolation of the bush or, indeed, of their tiny island nation.

Dinner that night, as all the weekend's meals, was prepared by a feisty Italian woman named Pia. The food was hot and excellent, an Italian/macrobiotic blend that was far heartier than I could have expected. Breakfast the next morning, however, would not be served until after a two-hour yoga practice that began at 5:30. Those familiar with my metabolism will know that this prospect was not encouraging, but somehow I found my center and enjoyed an excellent practice led by Melissa, and survived to tell the tale.

After breakfast, Hawk and I ventured into the wild. Along the way we met a strange goose with a green face and a box-like body. His "shoulders" were pointed and his honk sounded like an old-time motor car's; he was strange yet still familiar, as if from a world turned sideways, and typical of the fauna to be found on this fair green isle.

Further down the road we came upon a tiny white chapel set on a slope set before a tall sheep's grazing ridge. We had learned that this little building was actually the painting studio of the farm's owners. It seemed the perfect place for contemplation.

We returned from our tramp, content in having bolstered our man points; for we were the only males in a workshop full of women. The setting would have been perfect for who knows what manner of moon dancing, witchcraft, and Cosmo quizzes ("How to Tell If He Really Loves Your Dosha!"), but in truth the discussions (at least the ones I was privy to) centered around the science of Ayurveda and the Vedic moral precepts known as the Namas and Niyamas, as outlined by B.K.S. Iyengar in his book Light on Yoga.

I alway find that such getaways, when enjoyed in the company of new friends, tend to seem longer than they really are. But the darkness of Sunday evening rolled around soon enough, and we were on our way back to Wellington, for a brief interlude at our familiar room at the YHA, before an early-morning flight to the South Island, to Nelson, and to familiar faces.