What Good are the Arts?

Original post at The Lumiere Reader.

Anyone who’s had an argument about art knows that it can be as bad as politics or religion for getting our egos riled up. I myself have experienced something close to homicidal rage when a relative of mine declared his love of classical music to be wiser, more sophisticated and closer to God than my love of literature.

So when I attended What Good are the Arts?, a highlight of this year’s Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, I confess that I was gleefully hoping for a fight. The topic was a book of the same name by John Carey, Emeritus Merton Professor of English at Oxford and book critic for the London Sunday Times, who argues that not only is it foolish to say that music is inherently more valuable than literature, but it’s impossible to prove that art benefits society or makes us better people. He was joined by Denis Dutton, a philosopher at the University of Canterbury, and Sarah Thornton, chief writer on contemporary art for The Economist.

Interview: Bryan Bruce

Investigator Bryan Bruce’s new book re-opens the 2000-year-old case file on Jesus of Nazareth’s death. Original post at The Lumiere Reader.

It’s an image that sticks with you. Bryan Bruce, New Zealand documentary filmmaker, is in Israel with his camera crew, on his way to the River Jordan to film a scene at the spot where Jesus of Nazareth was baptised by John.

“I have to be taken under armed escort by the Israeli army,” he tells me over the phone, “with a tank behind me and an armoured personnel carrier in front of me, through a minefield, to get to the River Jordan. I get to the river on this spot, and on the other side are Jordanian tanks and armoured personnel carriers. And the Israelis shout across to the Jordanians, ‘If you don’t want to have your tanks filmed, you might want to move them slightly to the left.’”

This jarring contrast between Biblical mythology and political reality is the challenge of Jesus: The Cold Case, Bruce’s third book and its accompanying documentary. Drawing on his experience as a true crime investigator, Bruce takes on the New Testament narrative of Jesus’ death and comes to a grim conclusion about the role it has played in the religious and ethnic conflicts of the last 2,000 years.

What Not To Do at a Q&A Session

Last month I attended the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, and one of the sessions I went to featured Adrian Wooldridge from The Economist (who I interviewed later that day, but that's for a different post). After Mr. Wooldridge finished his talk about American exceptionalism and evangelical religion and the current state of the Republican Party, the moderator opened it up to the audience for questions.

And you know that one guy (or girl, but it's usually a guy) who always seems to get his hands on the microphone at these things, the one who doesn't really want to ask a question as much as he wants to impress everybody with his super awesome rambly argument for five minutes? That Guy?

Yeah, so this time That Guy was an American (go team!) and he stood up and announced to the auditorium, "Well, of course, as you know, we are finally beginning to realise that despite all his soaring rhetoric Obama is just as bad as Bush. With his continuation of the imperialist war in Afghanistan and his use of secret CIA prisons, it's clear that the military-industrial complex has..."

And it was just about here that a perfectly sweet-looking older lady at the back of the room rolled her eyes and yelled, "This isn't a question!" To which half the audience muttered, "Seriously!"

For a moment he stood there chuckling and trying to pull his dignity together, and then, bless his heart, he actually tried to pick up where he left off and ramble on some more. This time everyone slumped in their chairs and groaned out loud, and Mr. Wooldridge started laughing and waving his hands, and the moderator asked if the gentleman could please get to the point already, until That Guy mumbled "So, uh, had you considered that?" and sat back down.

And that is why I love New Zealanders.

Life is Long

"I would caution against believing the 'life is short' advice that you should live every day as if it is your last - as if you're only ever going to be roughly the age you are now.... Hopefully, life is long. Do stuff you will enjoy thinking about and telling stories about for many years to come.

"The best way to guess what is going to work out in the future, to figure out what you will be glad to have played a role in, is to get smart and get smart fast. To take the opportunities that you've got very seriously. To continue your education ... in a lifelong way. Be intellectually and morally rigorous in your own decision making and expect that the important people in your life do the same, if they want to stay important to you.

"Gunning not just for personal triumph for yourself but durable achievement you will be proud of for life is the difference between winning things and leadership.... When given the choice between fame and glory, take glory. Glory has a way of sneaking up on fame and stealing its lunch money anyway."

-- Rachel Maddow, Smith College Commencement Address, 16 May 2010

Graffiti

We have a lot of taggers in Wellington. Generally they annoy me, but sometimes they take me by surprise, like this one at an Island Bay bus stop. It was painted over by the end of the week.

Interview: Michael Otterman

This month I interviewed Michael Otterman, an American writer and human rights consultant, in preparation for his appearance at the 2010 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival. The original post can be found at The Lumiere Reader.


In the lead-up to Iraq’s parliamentary elections in March, much of the Western media was optimistic, even congratulatory. Newsweek magazine went so far as to declare “Victory at Last”, heralding the rise of a new democracy in the Middle East. The cover shot was from President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on board the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, which took place seven years ago this month.

For Michael Otterman, a writer and human rights consultant, the view of Iraq is shockingly different. “There are children in Iraq who were born seven years ago who have known war their entire lives,” he told me over the phone from New York. “It’s been horrendous. By some estimates there have been 600,000 deaths, and displacement which is unparalleled in the Middle East.”

This is the grim focus of his second book, Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage. Co-authored by Richard Hil with input from Paul Wilson, it examines the devastating effects of the war on Iraqi citizens, who have been largely ignored by Western governments and the mainstream press. The book includes first-hand experiences from people of all backgrounds, collected from blogs, diaries, and personal interviews.

Interview: Elizabeth Knox

I'm stealing my second major book review and interview from the old site of The Lumière Reader - which isn't done with me yet, it seems. More to come later.

Last year, after reviewing The Love School by Elizabeth Knox - and eagerly reading most of her previous books while I was at it - I got the chance to interview her about the sequel to her most successful book, The Vintner's Luck. Her story about a homosexual angel who falls in love with a French winemaker gained so much international acclaim that New Zealand director Niki Caro turned it into a film. The premiere at the Toronto Film Festival was a few weeks away when I went to Knox's house for the interview.

As it turned out, the film got panned by critics and created an upsetting local controversy in New Zealand. But Knox was friendly and optimistic when I met her, and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to her. We did the interview in her kitchen over coffee, while her three cats took turns sitting on my notebook.

* * *

TEN YEARS after its publication the last pages of The Vintner’s Luck can still break your heart. Sobran Jodeau has died, the years have passed and the fallen angel Xas wanders the Earth, hiding the scars where his wings used to be and grieving for his lost love. It feels satisfying and complete but for Elizabeth Knox the story is just getting started.

“I was always going to write a sequel,” she told me. “But I didn’t get around to it for years, because Vintner was a success and I got stage fright.”

‘A success’ was putting it mildly. There on the table was a colour proof of a new paperback cover promoting Niki Caro’s film adaptation. Earlier, Knox had turned the sheets over to show me publicity stills of Jérémie Renier and Keisha Castle-Hughes, and even one of herself in a cameo appearance on location in the idyllic countryside of Burgundy, France.