Marvel - the Exhibition, Wellington New Zealand

 Hi there

We have a new exhibition building in Wellington and one of the first exhibitions on show was about Marvel comics and films.  I finally got around to visiting it last week.  It closed this weekend.

There was a lot of information about the early Marvel comics, with information, drawings, photos and  comic drafts, including memories by famous comics producers such as Stan Lee.  I was amazed to see so many rules set by govt that the comic people had to follow in the 1950s and 1960s in order to print their comics.  No guns, no bad language, there always had to be a moral in each story, the baddie had to be shown going to prison, the super-hero had to come from a good family...

There were also costumes from Marvel movies, as well as props -

above: gauntlet of Thanos, Marvel films

above: costumes, Black Panther

above: Black Panther bracelet that showed hologram messages.   I had to wait for the hologram to come out from the bracelet

above:  Thor's hammer

above:  Ironman's costume

above: Spiderman's costume, "No Way Home"

above:  Wolverine's claws

The next exhibition at the Exhibition Building (opposite Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand) is going to be about "Dr Who".

ANZAC DAY, NEW ZEALAND

25 April

Palmerston North

 Hi there

Last Thursday I went to Palmerston North for the night.  It's only a couple of hours up north from Wellington.  I went up there to see the show "Matilda-the Musical".  I love the musicals put on at the Regent Theatre.  The shows are always so vibrant and exciting.  The actors seem to love their roles and their happiness just radiates around the theatre.

"Matilda-the Musical" was wonderful, from start to finish.  I couldnt get over all the people I met who were related to the actors on stage.

Proud grandmothers were everywhere, pointing the fact out to anyone who would listen that their grandchild was, wow, up there on the stage.

This show had two full casts, mostly children, taking turns every other night.  By sheer luck, I was sitting right next to a grandmother who had come all the way from England, just to see her granddaughter playing the part of Matilda.  

Matilda's dad was also there.

"Are you a stage daddy?" I asked.

"Absolutely!" he said.  He then went on to tell me all the roles his offspring had played or had coming up in the future.  "She's signed on to be the young Elsa in "Frozen".

This talented little thing was all of eight or nine years old.

I enjoyed this version of "Matilda-the Musical" better than the version I had seen in Australia a few years' back.

I had travelled to Palmy (as the locals call it) from Wellington by Intercity bus.  It was nice not to worry about traffic jams and road works.  I stayed at Kiwi Suites Motel, a very, very, very tired-looking place but it was only a minute's walk from both the theatre and The Square.

The town's shops border The Square which is a green space, with the Intercity bus stop in it's centre.

If I remember rightly, when a football team were accommodated recently in Palmy for the Women's World Football Cup, the team snuck out of Palmerston North, with the understanding that the town was a dead place, with nothing doing in it.

i went to the mall, on one side of The Square.  I was overjoyed to discover that the place had a - wait for it! - candy floss machine!!!!  I got myself a stick of candy floss, and happily ate it walking around the mall.  Yummmmmmyy....  Of course, I had to find a ladies' room afterwards to wash my hands.   And my face.  What - ?  I pick at candy floss with my fingers;  I'm not a candy floss amateur.  If I buried my head in the stuff I would have to rush to a salon for a hair makeover, just to get all that pink sticky muck out of my not-so-golden locks.

Right across from the candy floss machine was a healthy option.  An orange drink machine that picked out an orange from rows of them, peeled it, poured the juice into a cup, then passed the cup out of the machine to the buyer.

*Candy Floss = cotton candy in USA.

above:  the candy floss machine.  I put in $10 (and worth every cent, both in the watching of the mechanical arm wafting the fresh candy floss into a ball, and in my eating of the stuff).

Note the orange machine opposite.  I can just imagine people standing between the two machines pondering whether to go for the healthy option or the sugar-y one.  No angsty decision-making for me.  Candy floss, of course, won hands down.

above:  Inside The Square.  The Palmerston North i-Site Information Office is also in The Square. When I was a child, living in Palmerston North, the construction in this photo had a big very obvious  cross on the top of it.  Decades ago, I read that non-christian people didn't want the cross there, but the christians won out and the cross was kept.  But, whoops, where's it gone nowadays?  Oh wait - if you look real close there's a sort of image of a cross on the top block.

Old People Movies and Old Dog Movies: a guarantee of a death?

 Hi there

When I was a kid I was horrified over the death of "Old Yeller", the dog in the Disney movie.  It took me right up until "Marley and Me" (2008) to realise that the pet in most movies - usually a dog - died at the end.

What?  Huh?  Oh, no...

I have to be the world's worst howl-iest, sob-iest, cry-iest movie-goer ever.  If there's a sad ending, I exit theatres with red eyes and a runny nose.  If an animal dies, I'm gasping and heart-broken.  The tears are often still flowing when I'm a 100 metres from the theatre.

So ... I gave up animal movies ("Watership Down", anyone?)

And then I discovered that old people in movies were also popping their clogs at a great rate. Any movie aimed at an older audience was guaranteed to have a death just before the end credits.  Poor Graham in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" was an end-of-movie goner.  And not content with just Carter dying in "The Bucket List", we also got Edward thrown in as last-minute bonus.  Cancer, heart attacks, dementia are endings most used for movies centred around The Last Hurrah of old people.

I don't want to reveal a lot of movie plots in this blog so I'll just finish with a request to movie producers:  Hey, Mr Producer ...  how about a happy ending in an old people movie?    Oh, and while you're at it, don't forget about the doggies either....

above: stock photo of poster.

Post Office Closings

 Hi there

Last week it was announced that postal deliveries as we know them are going to be phased out.  No more Post Office posties delivering our mail. Outside couriers will be contracted.  How long will it be, I wonder, before our letter boxes will become surplus and we'll have to trudge to some communal space to pick up our mail?  Or ... more likely, mail deliveries will be stopped completely.

I still have friends who write letters and so I have to write letters in return. I used to love watching Regency dramas where the lady of the house would write a letter to a friend across town and then summon her maid to hand deliver the missive.  Wouldn't this be neat?  Of course, as several of my writing friends are overseas; I dont really think a maid would be happy about delivering my letters, especially as she would have to be back at the mansion before tea to arrange my hair, set out my evening clothes, and darn my stockings.

We all knew the death knell had started when several years back we switched to only getting mail deliveries three days a week, instead of the usual six.  Uh-oh,...

My father worked his entire working life for the General Post Office, here in New Zealand.  Way before I was born he used to sort letters, on the overnight passsenger train heading from Wellington to Auckland.  And back again.

As Dad's evening train pulled out from the station, he was inside the post office carriage frantically sorting letters.  I think mail bags were thrown out and other bags brought in at various stops.  After about four or five hours the steam train reached the halfway stop of the country village of Taihape. Passengers leapt out to buy their cups of tea, buns, sausage rolls and sandwiches. They only had about thirty minutes to complete their buying.  The cups, saucers and plates were expected to be left on the train to be collected and later returned to Taihape.  Many houses around the country ended up with New Zealand Railway crockery in their cupboards.  The same went for the pillows you rented out in Wellington and handed in on arrival in Auckland some 12 hours later.

Dad left the train in Taihape.  He transferred to the train coming from Auckland and went back to sorting letters as this train chugged its way to Wellington.

above: stock photo.  steam train of the time

I so remember travelling in train carriages similar to the above photo.  My family travelled many times to and from Auckland.  I would lower the top narrow window and try to stick my head out.  The sooty steam would get in my eyes.  When the train turned a corner there was always a glorious view of the engine chug-chugging along, steam blowing from its stack.