We stayed with Zenon in his 800-year-old stone house. It is a magnetic cathedral hosting people who want to change their life. Every night people dribble in, and stay for hours. I could write a book about Zenon; endlessly surprising, gruff, but undeniably sweet. He barely eats; he is on the (self-prescribed) Hot Girl Diet of a pack-a-day of Rothmans, low calorie jelly (which he eats off the smallest plate, using chopsticks), and whisky on ice. Someone told me ‘he gets full from the sun’. Zenon is named after a Cypriot philosopher from 300 BC. It is a very rare name; only fifteen others share it on the island of Cyprus, which has a population of around one million. The village we stayed in had 26 residents, but, as Zenon pointed out, then there were 28! One night when were sitting either side of him he called us, with a self-satisfied smirk, ‘The Angels of Zenon’.

Despite our pet name, we were no angels. Zenon begrudgingly entertained our belligerence; we would lie on his leather couches and call him into the room, asking him what his favourite painting was in a book on his shelf, what the hook on the ceiling was used for, and where the boxes of his ex-wife’s clothes were, so we could look through them (like he promised).

Zenon imparted his whisky-induced philosophies around the table, outside the summer kitchen, usually on the other side of midnight. He would often get us to repeat what he had said. One such time it was that ‘we should be lucky to have problems, because we have the opportunity to find solutions’. When he would arrive home in the afternoons, Zenon would remove his G Star Raw denim shorts, held up with suspenders (he only wore them when it was completely necessary—at all other times he was in his underwear), and had his essential cool-down hose-down. One time I asked him how his day was. He snapped back, ‘I just got here! Why are you asking me so many questions?! Relax!!!’, then slammed a brick of Rothys on the table and put Miley’s ‘Midnight Sky’ (live version) on the speaker.

After labouring in the kitchen for hours, cooking us a feast of pork belly and grated tomatoes (which he barely ate), Zenon would haphazardly chuck bread onto the table, missing our plates, and throw salt from about a foot away, onto our meals. This is a man who would interject ‘but ANYWAY’ if a conversation was going in a direction that was not entertaining him adequately, the same man that, after hearing me whisper to Mya that I forgot our postcards en route to a beach excursion together, reversed the car one hundred metres to the front door and said, ‘You’ve got sixty seconds’.

Zenon has the habit of ‘mmm-ing’, and I have the habit of wanting to know what is going on in everyone’s minds around me, so I would often reply with a curious ‘yes?’, to which Zenon would exclaim, ‘that was a private ‘mmm’!’. To begin with, Zenon would mock my manners. In his best high-pitched voice, he would sing-song a whiney ‘thank yoooou!’, but by day ten I had cracked him; he would even say ‘please’ when asking for a refill of whisky. Zenon told me multiple times that my skin was not white, it was BRIGHT white. (A beachgoer’s first words to me were poetic; they said that my skin was ‘like milk, fresh milk from a cow, actually goat milk, like halloumi’. Gorgeous).

The heat of Cyprus is something special; 32 to 43 degrees everyday. It really was my washerwoman dream: sheets and towels would be bone dry by the time the next load was ready to hang out. I washed everything in the house in my first 48 hours of being there. The only thing resembling air conditioning that we experienced over the fortnight was a 30-minute drive in a fellow village dweller’s Jaguar. Consuming five litres of water before midday was essential. Our new friends were inspiringly underpromising and overdelivering. One day, our friend (with the Jag) asked us if we wanted to go to the beach; of course, we excitedly accepted. We arrived at a port and boarded his boat, named Nephele, a Greek nymph (of course), and took turns driving it to the Blue Lagoon, where we ate cold watermelon in the impossibly blue waters under the impossibly blue sky. We saw one tiny cloud the entire time we were on the island and its whisper disappeared in minutes.

Every morning, Mya made breakfast from the edible garden: juicy cucumber, rocket, and chili eggs. Our arrangement was that I’d do the dishes. After breakfast, the epigeneticist would take us out for the whole day. We saw mouflons (the Cyprus native ancestor to the domestic sheep, which has heart-shaped horns and whose diet is wild herbs), bought the most faded and dog-eared postcards from 1991, had the national cocktail of Cyprus (the Brandy Sour), swum nude in sea caves, and ate fresh almonds by cracking open the fruit with a rock from the street. We went to the freshwater pond that Aphrodite famously bathed in. We splashed the water onto our faces and took small sips of it from our hands. We met the son of the guy who started Nandos. (Yes, he made us chicken on the barbecue, and yes, it was perfect.)

There was only one mirror in the house and it was Lilliputian, even smaller than Zenon’s dinner plate. We spent the couple of weeks not really knowing what we looked like. The front-facing camera on a phone is not a reliable narrator. (We did not, however, shy from taking thousands of photos of each other). This is the house by numbers: there were two broken fridges, one Dunedin-room-temperature fridge (still not cold enough to be cold), one new fridge still in its box, baking in the driveway, one set of bunk beds, which we slept in, originally built for his twins (now in their twenties and living abroad), and one television, which was always playing women’s sports (Zenon is a fantastic supporter of women’s sports, especially tennis and beach volleyball! The less clothes, the better). There were three bedrooms: our bunkroom, Zenon’s room, and the top bedroom, which was lived in by a chili-pepper-growing epigeneticist.

The epigeneticist would always have something in his hand for us to smell or taste; carob, wild sage, rock rose, lemon basil. He would produce these like a magic trick, his palms opening and out-stretched to reveal the samples. He treated his Nissan Note as a four-wheel-drive. We clambered over unfinished roads and barely-gravelled paths while listening to Sinéad O’Connor, Lana del Rey, Leonard Cohen, Vashti Bunyan, Mazzy Star, Robyn, and Silver Jews. I never wavered from wearing my platform sandals, even on hikes. The walk down to the beach below Shakira’s house did require some crab-like side-stepping, though.

For our last golden hour, we went to Aphrodite’s birthplace, Petra tou Romiou. We lapped up the lore. We had to do a quick pre-swim research to make sure we got it right. We followed this exercise religiously: swim around the rock three times anti-clockwise and have eternal love and beauty. Goddess willing.

I’ve been travelling primarily solo for the last four-plus years. Sometimes I’ll ask someone on the street if I can photograph them. Maybe I have selective amnesia, but I truly don’t remember (m)any nos.

What I love most in others, and what I try to cultivate in myself daily, is curiosity. Curiosity and eccentricity are my favourite attributes (and the easiest way to compliment me is to call me a ‘curious eccentric’).

Recently in Tbilisi, I met a girl in a shop and there was something about her... I asked if we could take some photos together. She said yes, and I spent most evenings with her in her shop: drinking red wine, eating Russian rye bread, trying on clothes, meeting her friends.

I’m completely unafraid to pay someone a compliment, and sure, once in a while it may fall flat, but whatever. Not every interaction has to go somewhere. If I see it, I say it!………maybe bolstered by the knowledge that I’m leaving town in a week.

-*-*-*-*-

Post-project fatigue… </3

Something I’ve been enjoying lately is making a master list of my interests: shells, grottos, long hair, cyanotypes, waterbeds, Leonard Cohen, platform boots, swamps...

Maybe you wanna try spending a whole day at a public library. Start early and go through all the art books. Make a pile of ten to thumb through, then rinse and repeat. Bring a notebook and pencil, and jot down keywords that jump out at you: ‘bathtubs’, ‘stars’, ‘perfume’.

Also if you can, find a kids’ craft book. Learn something new like salt dough sculpting and make some Christmas ornaments or magnets for your girls.

-*-*-*-*-

I get asked this a lot, and I have no desire to be mysterious in my answer, but I actually do not fully know how it all seems to work out. I know that sounds woo-woo.

I’m always excited to find creative solutions for making ca$h. I put flyers in mailboxes around my suburb offering to help with decluttering. I LOVE decluttering. Got a two-week gig out of that.

When out and about, I’ve done strange things like selling the skirt I was wearing to someone who complimented it. Luckily, I’d just been to a flea market and had jeans in my bag I could slip on.

Sometimes I seek out life modelling groups and ask if they need a model.

Mostly though, it’s about making my money stretch. For that, I send a million emails and cross my fingers that someone will open their chateau door and let me stay (for free).

-*-*-*-*-

I’m curious about (and love reading) the way people describe scents. Jacques Guerlain once said perfumes should smell of “the underside of my mistress.”

The one I wear has been described as smelling like “an angel’s bicycle seat.”

-*-*-*-*-

Mum and dad kept all four of us kids’ placentas in the freezer for years, through multiple house moves. Eventually, they planted them in Wānaka with white roses above each one.

-*-*-*-*-

Golden hour. Multi-episode investigative podcasts. Wearing my Yeti boots. Hearing someone’s jingling silver bangles. Chewing gum. Public libraries. Listening to long voice notes from Julie. The pursuit of knowing myself more every day.

-*-*-*-*-

My sister-in-law Nicola found this dentist. She’s a great researcher and I trust her implicitly. She and my brother, Ru, went, said the dentists were angels, so I decided to check it out the next day just to see what was what in my mouth.

All was well! I got a filling refreshed so I wouldn’t have to deal with it in a year or so. Didn’t realise white fillings had expiration dates?!

The place is called CityDent in Istanbul. My filling cost a hundy NZD. Message me for their WhatsApp. I texted at night and got an appointment for the next day.

-*-*-*-*-

I love Mainfreight trucks, and I am so glad you do too.

-*-*-*-*-

Lots of love, Con

Inside, an “Urban Angel” halterneck that had slithered through some Hyde Street party. A pair of “Angel in Disguise” boot-cut jeans, still stained with raspberry Vodka Cruisers. And a Glassons merino boat-neck that exhaled Cool Charm aerosol deodorant as I unfolded it.

This bag was proof of life after high school, evidence that someone had been a prefect, invited to parties, survived Orientation Weeks, and emerged as a gorgeous hero, with the best side fringe I’d ever seen.

When I was nine, my cousin gave me a pink camisole (pink being something my mother regarded with the same suspicion she reserved for hand-poke tattoos and energy drinks). My cousin was only eight years older than me, but she seemed to exist in a different universe. She was glossy-haired, freckled, already in exams, inhabiting a world of seriousness I longed to enter. She had ring binders with coloured subject dividers.

I wore the camisole on the Intercity bus from Dunedin to Timaru, my first solo journey. Years later, when I called her to tell her about my first kiss breathless, triumphant, slightly hysterical, it felt like filing a progress report with headquarters. She was living abroad.

My sister, who has always possessed the ability to charm anyone in retail into giving her full refunds, earned her own money delivering the Otago Daily Times. With her wages, she bought SUPRÉ clothing, including a singlet declaring, “a little bit dramatic.” (Yes, exactly like Regina George in Mean Girls.) Every hand-me-down from her felt like inheriting a piece of her charisma, pre-tested and guaranteed. Her best friend gave me a black t-shirt with rhinestones spelling “PARIS” in cursive. She had actually been there, to Paris. The shirt was my oracle. Someday I would go.

My paternal grandmother, my Nanny, is the keeper of family mythology. She presented me with a suitcase full of my aunt’s teenage clothes from the 1970s: denim short-shorts that became my summer uniform. My auntie is our family’s Lady Diana, glamorous, magnetic, the kind of woman who knows which glasses are for which wine, and serves French champagne all summer. Wearing her teen-clothes was like method acting, maybe I could become what she became, maybe, by adulthood, I could learn to host dinner parties that felt like sacraments, maybe I could be the kind of person people loved to be in a room with.

Through university, I carried my mother’s wipe-clean Harrods bag. Mythic, aspirational, every time I slung it over my shoulder, I felt an invisible thread stretching from our island at the bottom of the world to the beating heart of a Proper City. Mostly, though, I tried to emulate my mother’s genius for delivering precisely calibrated pep talks. I carried that bag like a talisman, hoping some of her would seep through.

Getting hand-me-downs from the people who shaped your idea of what’s possible was like stepping forward on a borrowed heartbeat, wearing someone else’s cool until you realised your own has always been there.

And when those clothes grow too snug, too young, or too much like who you used to be, you passed them on to a friend’s little sister. She waited just like you once waited for a bag of clothes that whispers, “The world is your oyster, little angel. Here’s what you’ll need to crack it open.”

In two days I would be competing in, for the second time, the annual long hair competition in Lithuania.

Long bus rides breed meandering thoughts, and as my hair dried I waded through the notes on my phone armed with unlimited 4G and nothing but time.

The last time I had wet hair on a bus I had just dipped and dunked in the Black Sea in Varna, Bulgaria. I thought of Edvard Munch’s Separation (1896). In the painting a woman with (almost impossibly) long hair angles towards the sea, looking like she is about to return to it, her hair draped around the shoulder of a man.

I thought about the Aquatic Ape Theory. The hypothesis of the aquatic ape theory (AAT), suggests some reasons for the body hairlessness of modern-day humans (one of several physical changes, but of course my control-f was “hair”).

The AAT was first proposed by marine biologist Sir Alister Hardy in 1960 who hypothesised a prehistoric period of semi-aquatic life in which humans waded into the water to avoid predators and to have access to a more plentiful source of food.

This theory was later championed by Elaine Morgan in her 1972 publication, The Descent of Woman (a direct feminist response to Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871)). Morgan says a lot in her treatise, but the part that stuck for me was her suggestion that wading into water would have been to protect the child that clung to the mother’s hip and fur, and would have, in the water, clung to the long hair stemming from her head. So the hair would have remained on her otherwise (relatively) hairless body for this express purpose, it being above water, and so the baby could hold their mother’s hair and swing their little body to her breast for a feed.

A baby clinging to their mumma’s hair in the water? Beautiful, gorgeous.

I was recently lucky enough to see one of photographer Julia Margaret Cameron’s (1815-1879) works IRL in Madrid, Spain, and stepped close enough to be gently told off.

I saw her hair and fingerprints on the print!

In Carol Mavor’s seminal text, Pleasures Taken (1995), she writes of the eroticism of Cameron’s hair and fingerprints left on her photographic plate.

Her photography has been a great aesthetic influence in the way I physically present myself. The girls and women she photographed, like many during the Victorian era, often had their hair loose and long. Kind of messy. Growing down their backs like a weed.

I have been known to bring my hairbrush to a party and will brush, braid and spritz (with whatever perfume I have in my bag) my friends’ hair.

This thinking about preening in public led me to Elisabeth Gitter’s paper titled The Power of Women’s Hair in the Victorian Imagination (1984). Gitter writes about the magical abilities afforded to (particularly long) hair in literature, often paired with sexual connotations.

‘The combing and displaying of hair, as suggested by the legends of alluring mermaids who sit on rocks singing and combing their beautiful hair… constitute a sexual exhibition’.

I thought about how one time I brushed my hair on Skype for 30 minutes for a $300 PayPal payment under the alias “Ophelia Rose”. I quickly learned this was a complete outlier and, unfortunately, could not be a career to pursue.

An advertisement came up on my Instagram feed for Ógra Skincare. This line uses the miraculous preservation qualities of peat bogs as their ingredients; especially the high tannin content (something that was currently settled on my skin and in my hair from the waters in Slovakia).

Over the last hundred years, many bog bodies (the oldest being 9,000 years old) have been excavated revealing perfectly preserved skin and hair. The discovery of bog bodies in Northern Europe has given an unprecedented insight into the hairstyles of people during the Iron Age, a mere two thousand plus years ago.

One of the best examples in relation to hair is the Elling woman who was found in Denmark in 1938. She died around 280 BCE and was put in a peat bog, and due to the acidic concentrations of the bog’s water, was preserved.

She was found wearing a mid-thigh length sheepskin coat and inside a leather sleeping bag. Her hair was long (around 85cm, not to be in competition with a bog body, but my hair was measured in Lithuania, at the Competition, to be 99cm) and stack-braided into an elaborate bun.

Her hair appears to be the same colour as mine too, but it is speculated that this is probably to do with the minerals in the peat.

Most bog bodies that have been found appear to be redheads.

Shortly after arriving in Lithuania I took a long shower, the last hair wash before the competition.

The water ran orange as the tannin took its leave. I conditioned with my current favourite - Mane ‘n Tail. The Horse Girls out there will be familiar, but for the rest of you, this is a conditioner that can be used for yourself and your horse. I’m a horse adjacent girl, I love the culture, support it etc. but pretty recently fell off one on an island in Greece.

I brushed my hair in the morning with my $300 boar bristle Mason Pearson (I have the “Popular” model) and tried really hard to not pick my chin pimple so my concealer had a fighting chance. The day was a whirlwind.

I walked out and did my spin, had my hair officially measured and I was led by the hand to a chair where my hair was braided in two. Then I was led to the stage where everyone in the competition, over one hundred people, had two braids and we were all being connected together.

The longest braid record, 142.1metres.

I stood amongst angels with hair that was double my length.

-The Art Paper.

Chateau Marmont, often referred to as “Hollywood’s Castle in the Clouds,” displays its name in the appropriately medieval-inspired typeface, Libra Uncial, created by Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos in 1938.

For guests, it is practically law to use the hotel’s complimentary branded pens and writing paper to write a profound thought in their best cursive and share it on their Instagram story.

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Joan has been depicted on screen many times.

Who will play her this time?

My guesses: Aimee Lou Wood, Mia Goth, or Saura Lightfoot-Leon.

Joan of Arc is, in a sense, the perfect patron saint of what Pinterest coined, in late 2024, as “Castlecore.” -core this! -core that! I know.

Pinterest and TikTok, have become The Source for identifying, naming, defining, and disseminating into collaborative moodboards, '-cores' and ‘aesthetics’ at speed. You have probably heard of “Tomato Girl”, “Blokette”, “Mob Wife”, “Cottage Core”. Yeah.

Well, the medieval era has once again become a costume box to be raided for inspiration.

This time it is called ‘Castlecore’.

But what about these past flirtations with the medieval? In the late 1960s, following the Space Race and rapid technological advancement, there was a collective pause to take a nostalgic glance in the medieval direction.

Cue that widely shared image of Pattie Boyd, you’ve seen it.

She is wearing a medieval mini dress:

I spoke to Karl Ferris, the credited photographer, who reveals he shot it “in 1967 for Honey Magazine”. He shares, with conviction, that “those medieval style tunics on Pattie and Jenny Boyd were designed by me.”

Also in the late ‘60s: Gunne Sax’s “leg-of-mutton” and “Juliet” sleeves (then, and now, highly coveted and collectable, I want), and Joan Baez’s deep engagement with medieval ballads.

In the 1990s, on the cusp of the digital revolution becoming fully mainstream, a similar moment of looking back was indulged in.

Cue the Pinterest-famous, medieval-inspired collections of Betsey Johnson (1997) and Anna Sui (1998). Sui’s final look was a pantomimic knight in a polystyrene horse made by James Coviello.

This recurring interest suggests a cyclical pattern: fascination with the medieval as a counterpoint to intense periods of modernity.

The Space Race, the Internet, and now, this new medieval iteration, Castlecore, positions itself against the endless scroll, and, perhaps most of all, imagery made by Artificial Intelligence.

One hundred years before Pattie and Betsey, Pre-Raphaelite artists like Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais drew heavily from medieval art and literature during their intense period of change, the Industrial Revvy.

And like the (Pre-Raphaelite) Bro’s, photographer Julia Margaret Cameron staged elaborate tableaux, costuming her subjects into romanticised visions of the medieval past. Oh, I love you, JMC.

What we call “medieval revival” is, in truth, a stained-glass window of interpretations. The Victorians, in their yearning for a ‘simpler’ past, conjured the medieval world we know. They transformed the Middle Ages into a fairytale, as a refuge from their changing world. And we ate that sh*t up.

Joan of Arc’s ring sold for $680,000 at auction almost a decade ago, but you can buy a replica by Rickson Jewelry starting at $637 for sterling silver.

Alternatively, on eBay, authentic medieval rings can be found for under $200. The posey ones with inscriptions like “’til forever” fetch higher prices.

Carousels of images on TikTok show us that the ‘Castlecore home’ is characterised by dark wood tables with old church pews as bench seats, hand-dipped beeswax candles displayed in hand-forged candelabras, thick sheepskins in front of the fire.

The colourway draws from gemstones coveted at the time: ruby red, emerald, sapphire, amber, pearl cream, and lapis lazuli.

Think of Margaret of York’s crown for visual reference:

The ultimate fantasy: a firelit room with thick stone walls, protected by a moat; so yeah, escapist. Reaching for armour. It’s the opposite of ‘sad millennial beige’ with its cold-tone LED lighting, and use of ‘the big light’.

-*-*-*-

Just as Joan of Arc predicted the Relief of Orléans, here are my forecasts…

Chore Dresses

Elizabeth Friendship’s book “Making Working Women's Costume” outlines how to make a period-correct one.

Yes, a chore dress, made in muslin, worn with ‘protective elements’ like heavy leather boots. Something Buttercup would wear on the farm in The Princess Bride (1987). You already have that image saved in your brain hard-drive, so here’s Helena:

If worn with a belt, one could be somewhat medievally-historically-accurate and tuck up the excess fabric and secure it.

Or head to the hardware store and get your needle and thread out to fashion something à la Bonnie Cashin:

Dagging

Dagging was a widely popular decorative technique to embellish the edges of garments during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

It involved cutting or slashing the fabric into shapes, like simple V and U shapes, or more elaborate designs like crenellations (more about that in a moment), scallops, and foliation (leaf shapes).

Lou Dallas's FW2018/19 collection featured a boiled wool purple overtop with an organic imagining of dagging.

I cannot stop thinking about crenellation dagging, the one mimicking castle battlements… I want a little leather miniskirt called ‘The Battlement Mini’.

DIY Elevating What One Already Owns

e.g. Sewing pre-killed fur to line jacket pockets for warmth.

DIY versions of Meret Oppenheim’s fur-snipped fingertip gloves.

Swapping plastic buttons for shell or sterling silver.

Annabella Schnabel creates perfect hand-set sterling silver buttons (some set with precious stones).

Tavern Culture

A heightened embrace of The Pub, and banquets with long tables, silver platters, whole roast chickens, and bottomless crusty bread.

Perhaps scallop shells (used by medieval pilgrims as utensils) could serve as spoons or bowls. Bottomless banquets over bottomless brunch..?

And one more thing:

I think we want to celebrate, or be, the devotee, the obsessive. Someone teaches us, in a two part video, the distinction between mulberry silk and polyester satin. In the medieval world, identity was defined by craft. Surnames like Farrier, Baker, Fletcher, and Miller are testaments to this specialisation. I think there’s a romantic yearning for that sense of purpose.

Anyway, let’s see how Baz brings Joan to the screen this time.

Two weeks in a château in the South of France, all expenses paid: and I mean all expenses:

+ return flights from anywhere in the world (!),

+ meals,

+ materials,

+ even shipping your artwork home!

Is this dream more of a mirage?

Let’s break it down.

The residency positions itself as an unparalleled opportunity for visual artists working across an almost impossibly diverse range of mediums: painting, drawing, graphics, illustration, printmaking, paper art, photography, sculpture, ceramics, and textile art.

They promise to provide all the materials and support for all these mediums.

Do they have a kiln? Do they have a sewing machine? A block of marble?

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The residency is widely advertised as "all-expenses-covered" and "fully funded," encompassing "round-trip travel (including airfare and visa fees), accommodation in a historic château, and all meals covered."

Adding to this, "excursions, and materials needed during the residency" are promised, along with "transportation of pieces made during the residency."

Let's pause, and consider the economics. Imagine an artist from New Zealand is accepted.

+ Round trip airfares, conservatively: $2500 NZD.

+ Shipping a few paintings home: $400 NZD.

+ Meals for two weeks, at $50 a day: $700 NZD.

+ Materials: $200 NZD.

That's a minimum of $3800 NZD per artist, not including the château accommodation costs, and that's just a back-of-an-envelope calculation.

The residency claims to host "50 selected visual artists" in "two groups of 25 people." However, the Château de Forbin, the advertised location, as detailed on multiple rental platforms, has eight bedrooms. Are artists sharing rooms with at least three others?

Where is the studio space for twenty-five artists of diverse disciplines?

The Château de Forbin costs between €5,000 and €7,000 per night to rent.

For 50 artists over two weeks (14 nights), just the accommodation would amount to an eye-watering sum of at least €140,000 [$265,000 NZD+].

And, remember, this excludes the international flights for 50 artists "from anywhere," all meals, art materials, excursions, and staff.

The setting is highlighted, again and AGAIN, as the "South of France," promising "artistic exploration: visits to iconic art locations like the Picasso Museum in Nice, the Matisse Museum, Fondation Maeght, and more," leveraging the region's rich artistic heritage.

The Château de Forbin is located on the outskirts of Marseille, inland, and hours away from these museums and institutions.

Making frequent, convenient, and cost-effective visits for 50 artists to these geographically distant locations is logistically impractical and incredibly expensive.

A key element of the residency is the "Gallery Opportunities," claiming that artists will be "considered for future exhibitions by 50 partnering galleries and curators."

Yet, despite this impressive number, the summer-residency.co website and other promotional materials do not provide a single gallery name.

The application deadline, originally April 30, was extended to May 31, and then to June 7, then June 14, with winners to be announced on June 21, 2025 (allegedly).

Call it a "conspiracy theory," but what if this entire operation is designed to bankroll a luxe summer holiday for a select group? The $25 application fee seems like a small ask, but multiply it by thousands of applicants, and you've got a gorgeous summer waiting.

Those repeated deadline extensions? Perhaps they needed more "investors" to hit their target.

And in November, we might just see a slick video montage of their "residency", conveniently vague, no faces, no identifiable tattoos, just the back of peoples’ heads. Perfect bait for next year's crop of hopefuls.

Initially, the advertisement lacked an exact location and dates. Just stating “South of France” and the months of July and August. Later promotional materials and the summer-residency.co website provided a specific location and specific dates.

Many of my Instagram friends are following the 200k-strong Instagram for the residency. Could they really have amassed that many legitimate followers since its first post in November 2024? This rapid growth is highly unusual for a newly established residency program. If these are in fact true and loyal followers, how many of this audience have sent in a $25 fee?

The financial model relies on a high volume of low-cost applications to generate revenue.

After all, who will chase after $25?

I have attempted to contact Abstract Mag with all these questions, but the only contact point, Abstract’s email (info@abstractmag.net), is bouncing back.

There is no “Summer Residency” contact page on their website, or email associated with the residency itself.

It could be legitimate, but I smell a rat. Let’s see what happens.

An Australian man who finds an ATM glitch loophole that allows him to withdraw huge amounts of money (1.6 million AUD) which he blows in just four months.

[8 Episodes].

BAD BAD THING (Season 1):

Twisty, turny. Vengeance, betrayal, affair, death.

[7 Episodes].

BLINK:

True story of Jake Haendel who slipped into a coma but was fully conscious and aware, leading him to hear things he wasn’t meant to.

[14 Episodes].

DELVE (Season 5) - POWDER KEG:

An investigative journalism masterclass that exposes the claims of New Zealand-founded billion-dollar powder supplement shilled by many (including Joe Rogan).

[6 Episodes].

THE CON - KAITLYN’S BABY:

Fake pregnancy! Doulas! Scammer!

[5 Episodes].

WHO TROLLED AMBER:

Organised bot army, investigative series, and the manipulation of public opinion.

[6 Episodes].

Stand Alone Episodes:

WHAT IT WAS LIKE - GETTING STUCK IN A WASHING MACHINE CHANGED MY LIFE

EXTREMES - THE MAN WHO MAILED HIMSELF FROM THE UK TO AUSTRALIA

In June of this year her new record The Bell, the Swan & the Golden Thread will be released.

Read more

Even Timothée Chalamet credits a pivotal early encounter with the rapper as a catalyst for his acting career.

Lil B acknowledged Chalamet's gratitude by reposting a clip of the actor's thanks on Twitter. Alongside it, Lil B expressed his writing, "LEGACY AND LOVE! - Lil B.”

Thank You Based God.

Me, Romily Plourde Marbrook, and Meka van Traa (X) caught up with him, via a phone call. He was at home in Berkeley, California. We talked compost, kindness, loving one another, expired vegetables, empathy and art.

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This is the telephone transcript.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

X: Sup Lil B! How's it going!

Lil B: Good! How are you?

X: Good! Whereabouts are you at the moment?

LB: I’m taking this call laying down on a yoga mat and relaxing right now, so we should be very peaceful.

X: Thank you so much for taking the time for this call! Okay, so our first question is do you have any advice for young people, and especially those trying to make it as artists and musicians in the current climate?

LB: My advice, as Lil B, is first, be kind to others. Being Based means, for me, living how you want to live, staying positive, not judging others. Also, realising that the artwork and the music that you create is special, because everyone has their own perspective, with each of us being individuals and people of the Earth. So just make sure to be non-judgmental, be loving, and love all.

No hate, hate is evil. We should not hate anyone. Even people that our society deems that we should, we have to love all because love is the strongest positive vibe.

Positive energy is the strongest. For anyone that wants to make it with arts and music just do it for the love, make art for the love, just let the creativity speak. Show your uniqueness through your creativity.

X: It’s nice that you say that, we’ve all been thinking about empathy and love at the moment and how it’s going to help us overcome our difficulties.

LB: One of my favourite words is empathy. I love that word. It means a lot to me.

We have to make sure we continue to focus on the head, the heart and the hands. The head, means just continuously learning. Focusing on your heart helps with empathy, love and respect. The hands means helping others, building, putting your hands within dirt, feeling the soil, growing food…

I live with a lot of bugs and animals. Lately, I've been putting some expired veggies out for them instead of throwing them away. I just throw them in the backyard for the animals and the bugs. Let them eat them or build something with them. It's like a day old after expiration, there's no mould in it.

X: That’s very inspirational! So you initially blew up in the early days of meme and internet culture. What do you think has changed from then compared to now on the internet?

LB: I created the first meme within rap and hip hop.

X: Thank you, Based God!

LB: Thank you! What’s changed is that now there is a larger audience. More people have smart-phones now and we understand this is the new way of communication. When I first started, not everybody had the iPhone, not everybody was connected in that way. Not everybody used YouTube or these other platforms. Now, there's just so much more opportunity, and a lot more artists are coming up. The whole culture of living has shifted for the better. I'm extremely happy and optimistic on what's coming up. I think there's a lot of great people doing amazing work and following their passion. For example keeping print media alive, and newspapers, people that are crafting instruments from scratch, starting restaurants in shared space kitchens, producing films or making photographs.

Some people might just be here to support other people and say, ‘Hey, I don't do any of that, but I want to support other people's dreams and be a fan of what others are doing’. We all matter.

X: Yeah that’s so true. What's your advice on handling the haters?

LB: To remain positive and understand that this is something that comes with gaining notoriety. People critiquing your work or critiquing who you are... they may not know you. You have to understand that this is a part of it. I look at it like being in high school all over again when you get quote-unquote famous, or when people know you. People spread rumours, there's popular people and a lot of people are trying to be cool. People trying to follow the crowd sometimes may not think for themselves and may hear something and believe it. Just stay positive and realise if it doesn't come from the source or the people that you really respect then take it with a grain of salt. I tell this to everybody, like my friends and family in New Zealand; don't gossip or make fun of people. There's no need to gossip or be mean or follow rumours.

X: We totally agree. The concept of being Based seems very Zen.

LB: Everything that lives and breathes is a living being, but we should also respect the objects that may not be breathing.

If you are staying in an apartment or home you should thank and appreciate the wood that covers you, and the doors that close so you can be safe.

There are a lot of things to be appreciative of. I think it's about finding all those things. That's the fun about life for me, finding everything that I can appreciate.

X: What's not Based?

LB: There are people that we call Fake Based. You really don't want to be that. But at the end of the day even if you are called Fake Based that doesn't mean that I don't love you. I love all, and I will always love. I might have to step back and not hang out with you or talk to you a bunch.

People who are Fake Based may need to live more life, find themselves, take a step back, love others more, or just continue to be self-aware and grow. I will always love all, and that won't change.

X: Oh yes we are familiar, that’s a good way of looking at it! So I guess thinking about what’s happening right now, how was the pandemic for you?

LB: It's been a learning experience. It's been a way to slow down and appreciate the small things. Look at your life, plan for more experiences, and really just appreciate everything that we have. The pandemic made me more appreciative of everything that we are able to do as humans, whether it be walking or going outside, or just being able to be in buildings together. And that goes back to what we were saying earlier, finding the ways to appreciate life best. That's what I love doing. I want to be surrounded by people who find reasons to appreciate life.

We don't have to go out to the club everyday if we are always talking about things that we appreciate.

That's my kind of buddy, those are the kind of people that I want to be around.

X: Totally, like practising mindfulness. Have you ever made visual art yourself, like painting or photography?

LB: Yes! I take pride in my photography. Years ago, a woman saw my photos and she actually compared me to Gordon Parks…I looked him up and I was very pleased. I aim to see the beauty in everything whether it's a crack in the ground, or whatever. Photography gives me the ability to show my personality and my respect and love of the earth and people. I showcased some of my paintings at the New Museum in Berkeley.

X: We just looked up your exhibition. It is so cool, so beautiful. You've got a great eye.

LB: Thank you so much. That means everything to me.

X: You have so many fans here. When I told a couple of my friends that we would be talking to you and everyone freaked out.

LB: Thank you so much. This is just the start. I look at my career, and think, I haven't even touched the surface yet. I've just been learning, growing and figuring out who I am and who I want to be within the music world. I'm working on my rebrand right now. I want to give the people that really care about me and believe in me, what they deserve. So, know that it's coming.

X: I think that that's why people relate to you so much because they look at you and your videos and think: it looks like I could be hanging out with Lil B, it looks like, oh, that could be happening down at the pet store near me.

LB: Yup. Yup. Yup. That's why I do it, because that's the message I want to convey with my music; just letting people know that they're not alone.

There are some people that may deal with depression, or being sad, or feel like they may have no one to talk to. I want everybody to know that you are loved, you're not alone and that this is a judgement-free place. We're Based and you are respected and loved.

That's the message I'm trying to push with the music and continue to grow. That's Lil B, that's the Based God.

X: Thoughts on New Zealand? And the New Zealand accent?

LB: In New Zealand I feel like there are a lot of creative people, models, and thinkers. Everybody from New Zealand, to me, is very unique.

It's a hub of creativity and forward-thinking fashion. I love the accent. I love it. I think it's comforting. I want to take some English classes again because I want to learn more words and expand my vocabulary.

X: I have a question that one of my friends wanted to ask you. He wants to know if you have any advice on a long distance relationship.

LB: I would tell your friend to follow his, her or their heart, and have faith. What is real and what is love will always come back. Try to be open-minded, kind and believe in your partner. Believe in yourself and lead first with love and respect. Just take your time to grow, learn, and support each other.

X: He'll be very happy with that.

LB: Amazing. Thank you.

*FIRE SIREN*

LB: I didn't hear any of that last time I was in New Zealand.

X: It was a firetruck.

LB: God bless the firemen, firewomen and firethey.

X: Thank you so much, Lil B this has been wonderful.

LB: Thank y'all. Appreciate you so much.

X: We need to get you back to New Zealand.

LB: That's what's next. I'm going to keep working on art until then, and work on being happy, living life, and hopefully I'll make it ‘til tomorrow.

X: Perfect. Thank you. Thank you Based God.

LB: Love y'all.

X: We love you.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

ENDS

She calls me every few days. Yesterday, she asked me if I wanted to come around for dinner. We will probably polish off a couple of bottles of Veuve Clicquot. I have designed a business card for her, as a surprise. I hope she likes it. It has two strips of tartan on it.

I have the pdf of Tikva Frymer-Kensky’s ‘In the wake of the Goddesses’ loaded into my phone to read on the way.

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The book is older than I, and the author died nineteen years ago.

My body has recovered from the car crash I was in with my parents, and the four-day tramp we started the day after, that ended in Siberia (the one down under).

I am listening to Spinning Spinning Spinning by The Simple Image, a New Zealand rock band popular in the 1960s. The LP cover art is by Des Bovey and it features two golden long-haired women with wings.

Have I set the scene adequately?

I am in my birth-city, Ōtepoti Dunedin. It has changed since I was a child. The Cadbury factory is no longer. The factory tour there was not just the promise of sugar, though that was potent. It was the seeing. The slow, deliberate drape of molten chocolate over golden honeycomb rectangles on a conveyor belt. The shuddering clatter of Crunchie bars being born.

A thick, cloying sweetness that clung to your clothes but mostly… that chocolate fountain, a sticky, indulgent Niagara. A tonne of melted chocolate fell from the ceiling.

It was the first factory tour I went on, and it ignited something in me. There’s a primal human curiosity at play here, a desire to understand “how it’s made.” The enduring popularity of those very television shows speaks to this, clips of which secure huge audiences on YouTube.

I recently called Vogel’s, a cult-bread producer in New Zealand, with a fiercely loyal consumer base. I enquired about visiting the factory. I wanted to be in that cavernous room filled with freshly baked soy and linseed loaves, watching toast and sandwich widths sliced into them. It is a bread that freezes impeccably and is brought back to life, almost undetectably, in a toaster. It has no peers.

I imagined rolls of their bags larger than the circumference of Tāne Mahuta. (The bags reused as bin-liners for bathrooms at your grandmother’s house.) The answer to my factory tour request was no.

I strung some words together that I hoped would find themselves in a meeting with the ‘higher-ups’ at Vogel’s gently enforcing (ha!) the missed opportunity to reward that ingrained loyalty with a glimpse behind the scenes.

My own small pilgrimages to places of making like the Bulgarian factory, where mountains of crimson rose petals were gently tumbled and coaxed into that most precious of oils, remains vivid. The air was thick with a perfume so intense it felt almost edible. To see the sheer volume of petals required for a tiny vial of oil instilled a #respect for the process.

My perhaps unreasonable devotion to Mason Pearson hairbrushes led me to writing to them, full of hope. I requested a peek behind the curtain. I got all the way through to one of the top dogs. But, she politely declined.

I think of the blast of menthol I would encounter on a Fisherman’s Friend factory tour. No, they do not let you waltz into their factory either.

I think of a sparkling water bath at the bottling site of Antipodes. Or it could be in Bergamo, Italy (S. Pellegrino), Vergèze, France (Perrier), or Hon Chuong, Vietnam (Đảnh Thạnh). A branded baptism. Ludicrous? Perhaps. But wouldn’t it be unforgettable? Absolutely.

The Cadbury factory in Dunedin understood this. That chocolate fountain was a promise. It was enchanting.

And, look, a couple of decades later, I am STILL talking about it.

We birthed the ‘feet’ of a donkey, an owl, a meerkat, a bee, and a bunny.

Shortly thereafter, back in the motherland, we fashioned sheepskin-clad boots for a lamb costume, a creation ultimately photographed for the final edition of New York City’s irreverent newspaper, The Drunken Canal.

Since then, I have succumbed to the allure of numerous furred, animalistic shoes, wearing many pairs to their death.

My fantastical wish is to one day find Iris Schieferstein’s horse hoof shoes in an op shop or on TradeMe. Fourteen years ago, Schieferstein, sourcing her hooves materials from a Berlin butcher and hollowing them out, unleashed these uncanny, unsettlingly wearable objects. More recently, Alexander McQueen’s Autumn/Winter 2024 collection resurrected this visceral aesthetic with a hoof boot.

If I close my eyes I can already conjure the sensation of walking the pavements of Dunedin, the rhythmic clop clop clop of a horse’s hoof striking the concrete. This soundscape evokes images of horses on cobblestone streets. In my mind’s eye I see the enduring imaging of Lady Godiva, enveloped in her flowing hair, astride her horse, nude. Perhaps it all awakens a deep-seated ancestral memory, a faint echo of a world where the percussive beat of hooves was an intrinsic rhythm of daily life.

The year 1967 witnessed the unveiling of the Patterson-Gimlin film, a grainy piece of footage purportedly capturing a large, bipedal figure striding through the forests of Northern California, igniting an enduring debate but, for some, ‘proving’ the elusive existence of the Yeti.

While the film remains fiercely contested, the 1970s saw brands like Diadora, Technica, and Siberia embrace the myth, crafting ‘Yeti boots’ swathed in goat fur.

These artifacts frequently resurface on eBay. Flicking through their listing photographs conjures visions of the mythical Yeti inhabiting its remote, snow-bound landscapes.

The discovery of a carved wooden foot in the attic of Raymond L. Wallace, a man who claimed to have encountered Yeti footprints, further convoluted the already enigmatic narrative. This reminds me of Maskull Lasserre's shoe project, featuring soles mimicking animal footprints. This work explores the notion of leaving behind animal ‘traces’ within urban environments. This juxtaposition can evoke a sense of the uncanny, introducing an element of the wilderness into an inherently domesticated setting.

The uncanny is vividly illustrated by pieces like Balenciaga's Reptile sneaker, where reptilian forms emerge from beneath jeans. Vivienne Westwood's Animal Toe shoes directly reference fauns and lion paws. Margiela’s Tabi boots, with their distinctive cloven split toe, echo the hooves of goats, deer, and cows, blurring the lines between human and beast.

To encase one’s feet in the dense, shaggy, undeniably animalistic texture of goat fur is to invite a subtle metamorphosis, to deliberately blur the lines between human and creature.

It is a playful embrace of the fantastical, a tangible connection to the realm of myth, most notably the satyr.

The satyr is invariably depicted with the cloven hooves, legs, and horns of a goat. Perhaps, in wearing shoes that subtly allude to such forms, we are subconsciously seeking a fleeting sliver of the myth for ourselves.

The Rick Owens x Moncler fur boots, with their generous swathes of goat fur sculpted into exaggerated and theatrical forms resemble the lower limbs of some mythical creature. Eighty years before Owens’ Moncler collaboration, Elsa Schiaparelli, the mistress of the bizarre, dared, in 1939, to unleash her Monkey Hair Shoes.

Yesterday, on Dunedin’s main strip, George Street, I complimented a woman on her fur thigh-high boots. She told me they were pony-hair. At the barn’s dance, she clopped away.

We want to transform.
We want to be myths.

All good (furry) things,

Constance

x

She is wearing a woollen jumper, fawn, with moments of cinnamon, and corduroy pants. We are sitting in her front room. I am on an antique couch, shrouded in fur—I ask if it is a yak—she excitedly confirms.

She opens a drawer and takes out a record of her singing, pressed with a photograph of her in her bedroom when she was twenty-something. Aspirational.

The room is full-to-the-brim with carefully placed furniture, most is one-hundred-year-old-plus rimu or kauri, draped with hand-loomed blankets, and hundreds of books. On a shelf, a heavy, silver Loving Cup stands beside a black and white photo of her father in his thirties. A patchwork of Persian rugs covers every millimetre of carpet. On the mantelpiece, a small, wooden-framed darkroom print of a huge Victorian house, called The Old Barton, takes centre stage. This is where Violet grew up, in Timaru, and where her mother lived until she was ninety. It was also where, in her small upstairs bedroom, the “old maid’s room”, she made an indoor garden (of soil, moss, and primrose) on the carpet, which she dutifully watered. The water soaked the carpet and dripped through the floorboards into the room downstairs.

Violet tells me her birth name—Bridget Charlotte Tilley Faigan—and explains why she goes by ‘Violet’. The New Zealand accent rendered the name ‘Bridget’ into a hilarious-to-her-peers mess while she lived in Bath, England, and attended school there for a term, during one of the many trips abroad with her mother growing up. Sometimes, these trips began and ended with a slow (but free) boat journey across to the other side of the world, in lieu of a plane-ride. In exchange for the boat passage, Violet’s industrious mother, Gladys, was the ship’s Doctor. At their various destinations, Violet and her siblings would stay in wonky cottages powered with coin-operated electricity.

We live four minutes walk from each other, it does not take me long to bound down the hill to hers. From the top of the street I can see a mature tree on her berm. This tree is etched with the initials of Violet and her children. She leaves the gate and the front door open.

Violet’s garden’s extension to the street’s berm recently resulted in a stern Dunedin City Council letter. She has charmed them though; the berm remains. She stands up and points to the back of her garden, past the pond, to a dormant-looking plant (to the untrained eye, i.e., mine). The next time I come over, this will be filled with big, white flowers that look like droopy handkerchiefs.

The regal bed of heavy turned wood is shrouded in clothing. Around the corner, in a sunroom connected to the bedroom, there are two full racks of clothes: beaded Edwardian gowns, velvet blazers, and white Victorian cotton dresses. Violet owned and ran vintage stores in Dunedin. Most recently, it was the Preservation Society, which had its last day of trading in 2018, after being open for fifteen years. I would go to this store before a film at the Rialto Cinema with my mum; we would coo over the shaggy sheepskin-covered chairs and the deer taxidermy.

Violet tells me about how she knocks down a wall to make a bigger room, beginning moments after having the idea to do so. She will move a heavy couch from one room to another. She mixes her own colours to paint the walls. She taught herself to tile the bathroom while doing it. The house is always in a state of flux. Objects arrive in piles, and move around the house, or leave: sold, gifted, or donated. An honesty box on the street mans a stall of plants for sale.

I am still trying to find a test for EQ (Emotional Quotient) that does not end in ‘enter your credit card details for the results to be sent to your email’.

Quantify, decode.

Gary Chapman’s “The Five Love Languages” falls short for me, and maybe it does for you too.

I distilled (heroically) what I deem to be the three unlisted love languages, to tack onto Gary’s Five.

Are you a spotlighter, or like to be spotlit? Recall, anticipating needs. What does it all mean?

1. Anticipating needs

Anticipating needs is being attuned to another’s desires, and preempting them without having to be asked. It’s intuitively understanding what they require in the moment and what they might need in the future. Its anticipatory nature shows you see them and care about their well-being – you want them to have what they need without even having to ask.

Anticipating needs is “Turn your AirDrop on”. Maybe he doesn’t have many pictures of himself, and you’ve been taking gorgeous candids all day, including at golden hour when the light was hitting his cheekbones just right. God, you hope he’ll post to the grid for the first time in four years!

Anticipating needs is “This could be your next book?”. Perhaps your friend just finished Anne Frank’s diary and has been telling you about how much she loved it. You suggest the memoir of Miep Gies.

Anticipating needs is saying “Got you eggs and bread” when your housemate came home late last night after a week of visiting their parents (it was intense). You got them the eggs they always get and (the right variety of) bread.

Anticipating needs is “The wifi network is called ‘Forever Love Cafe’”. Maybe you asked for the password on your way back from the toilet in a cafe because you know your friend has limited data left, and a couple of unanswered emails she wants to reply to before the coffee arrives. Anticipating needs is passing them your vape with your outstretched hand. Anticipating needs is being a step ahead.

2. Recall

Recall is the art of remembering and referencing details, stories and experiences, and reaching into this reservoir. Recall bridges the gap between the past and the present.

Picture this: you and your friend are sitting on the couch scrolling your respective Explore pages on Instagram. Your friend leans over to you to show you a picture of a cross necklace. You both share a sigh over how gorgeous it is. Months pass, and you’re at an estate sale and a very similar cross comes up for auction. You buy it and give it to your friend.

Recall is something specific to your friendship or relationship like “I’ve booked us to go to Le Garde-Manger on Saturday night, it’s 777 days since we met” because you met at that restaurant, and they love angel numbers.

Recall is exclaiming “They have a platform shoe museum here, let’s go!” when you’re travelling together and you’ve just arrived in a new city. You researched the niche museums on the three-hour train ride there. Your friend’s been wearing platform shoes for ten years and while you’re more of a ballet-flat girl, you know she’ll love it and you love to love her.

Recall is telling them “I found you this at an op shop today, were you still wanting a black boob tube?” because you know they used to wear a similar top every day but two weekends ago it got oil stains on it.

Recall is saying “Didn’t your mum grow up close to here? We should go visit the town and get a photo of you outside her childhood home” because you know her mum is going to love that photo. Recall is “You remembered!”

3. Spotlighting

Spotlighting is giving someone the opportunity to be recognised for their unique qualities and talents. It’s about being their cheerleader and creating moments where they feel appreciated and valued.

Spotlighting is saying “Let’s all go to [insert local karaoke bar here]” because your friend is great at karaoke, and everyone there is going to be so impressed and enamoured.

Spotlighting is asking “Have you met Grace? You have to pick her brains about book publishing. She binds all the hot art books in Auckland and knows everything about ink and paper stocks. Thank God you’re here, Grace, I’m out of my depth! Teach us both” when you’re talking to someone at a party who has brought up wanting to publish a book and your friend Grace has sidled up beside you.

Spotlighting is you and your friends wearing custom singlets underneath your hoodies that say your friend’s name at their birthday picnic. On the count of three, you take your hoodies off and all show your dedication to #spotlighting your friend.

Spotlighting is calling up Whitcoulls to see if they have the new North & South magazine that comes out today that your friend has an article in. You ask them to put one aside for you so you can take a picture of it and put it on your Instagram Story. Spotlighting is showing them that you see them, love them and you want others to as well.

*Originally published on Fashion Journal (AU).

1. If a portrait painter were to paint you from life tomorrow describe what you would wear, what your pose would be, where the session would take place, what items would be depicted, and where you would display the completed portrait.

2. If you could create a theme park based on a specific interest of yours, what would the attractions be? What would the theme park be called?

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1. What is an item of clothing you still wear after many years?

2. What makes a memorable dinner party?

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Growing up, we always went to funerals. Not just the ones that stopped our family in its tracks but also the quiet ones—friend’s grandparents, distant relatives, someone we had met once at a birthday party, or maybe never at all.

My mother and father would pull us out of school, bundle all four of us into the car (baby-wiping the toothpaste blob off our ties), and drive hours if necessary.

Funerals rarely happen at convenient times. They’re almost never at 11 a.m. on a Saturday. They’re at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday when people are at work, when children are in school, when life, as usual, expects to carry on.

Attending a funeral means choosing to do something inconvenient.

My dad has been a dedicated Otago Daily Times reader my whole life. He pores over the “Deaths” section near the back, noting the names we know or half-know. “Con, that woman who taught you piano died on Tuesday.” Of course I went to her funeral.

“To support the family,” my mother would say. That was the reason. That was always the reason.

By the time I left school, I had been to dozens of funerals. We had a protocol:

• Bring a card, written neatly with a calligraphy pen.

• Read the message aloud to Mum for approval.

• Stand where you are needed.

• Shake hands.

• Try not to hover over the club sandwiches.

We were often the only school-children there.

My mother still goes to a funeral every couple of weeks. She has a funeral dress—black velvet, long sleeves, just below the knee. Black tights. Black knee-high boots. “A patient?” we would ask when she got ready to leave.

Some people say to never bring a baby to a funeral. Absolutely not.

My sister breastfed her baby Teddy at our great-aunt’s, slipping out to the lobby only when he fussed, returning with him milk-drunk and half-asleep. Someone said “a baby at a funeral is hope”.

When my grandmother died, she stayed in our lounge for three days. The house was still, hushed but not heavy. My best friend came over to sit with me and, without hesitation, stepped into the room to see her body—the same room where we’d once had sleepover birthday parties.

My mother took photos of us around her. Recently, when going through boxes of photographs, I saw the images I had taken of mum, her blue eyeliner glassy eyes looking through the camera as she touched her mother’s face.

Going to a funeral is not about whether you knew the person well. It is not about whether your presence will be noticed, appreciated, or even remembered.

It is about showing up.

I have never regretted attending a funeral.

1. Who is the best person you have ever lived with? And the worst?

2. Describe the ultimate retreat for you. Where would it be? How long? What would you do? Which experts would be there?

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Every week for the next month, at eight a.m. (Motherland Time), I will send eight questions to your inbox.

You could ask your colleagues at work (after you have done stuff.co.nz quiz);

or write them on pieces of paper and place them under the plates at dinner party you are hosting or attending this weekend;

or ask the family group chat, and invite answers to be submitted as voice memos (with the parameter of minimum one minute!).

Take them along on a roadtrip,

a Hinge date,

or even a sit-down video-interview with your grandparent.

I hope they spark epiphanies, and folly.

1. What is a good album to listen to while walking around a new place?

2. What was your first job? What did you spend your earnings on?

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Tact is reading the room.

Tact is precision in communication. It is refined, and alluring.

When I am lucky enough to witness great tact, I try to be like a sponge and identify the key elements of it.

I love data, I love to distill.

Bedside Manner

If, by chance, you are a hairdresser or dentist, please tell me you are one of the Rare Ones

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Cave pearls: smooth, layered, improbable little stones, born in the steady dark, hidden in limestone caves where water drops from the ceiling in rhythmic, meditative beats, splashing into shallow pools lined with bits of grit and sediment.

Over years, and centuries, the droplets do their slow work, layering calcium carbonate onto these tiny grains, again and again, until a soft, fragile pearl begins to form.

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