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Moata's Blog Idle

Moata Tamaira is a librarian with a black-belt in sarcasm who's been meaning to get one in procrastination too but always ends up watching TV instead. Her blog is an unholy mash-up of whimsy, cynicism and wry observation.

A Sheep's Show

11:40am 10 Feb 2012

38 comments

Recently Bret McKenzie (Conchord, Elf and someone I wish would shave more comprehensively) was interviewed by US chat show host Conan O'Brien about his Oscar nomination for the song Man or Muppet. During the interview Bret mentioned that, yes, he did in fact watch The Muppets growing up and that there wasn't really a lot else on TV given that there were only two channels and the other really entertaining show that was on was A Dog's Show. He then briefly outlined the premise of the programme for the benefit of the American audience who quite reasonably found it hilarious.

It's a shame he didn't have the opportunity to elaborate a little about this televisual spectacle of my childhood because it really was compelling viewing.

It's funny to think that these days my must-see, edge-of-the-seat viewing generally involves disturbingly realistic zombies harassing Americans in winnebagoes but A Dog's Show was every bit as gripping as The Walking Dead. Perhaps more so because it was real.

I'm not sure that you could call it sport exactly but it had that element of excitement about it. If you think about it, it was a bit like a ball game where you score with sheep. Um, actually that sounds a lot more "behind the gym at Lincoln Uni" than I really meant it to. What I'm making reference to, of course, is that the basic aim was for the shepherd to get the sheep into the goal/pen and to do so as quickly as possible. But in an infuriating twist the ball was given legs and a mind of its own and the farmer wasn't allowed to go near it. Lord, the more I describe it, the more mental it sounds. I loved it.

I think it's just the kind of thing you have to watch to understand. Those sheep were on a hair-trigger and just a paw too far in the wrong direction would have some rogue ringleader (there always seemed to be one in any sheepy trio that had "loose unit" potential) inciting a fleet-footed revolt. Those damn pesky sheep. Even thinking about it I can feel my heart rate elevate ever so slightly. This is a peculiarly Kiwi condition and one that I am not in the slightest bit ashamed of, though I probably should be.

Redefining romantic gifts

11:58am 09 Feb 2012

45 comments

So this is the thing. It's Valentine's Day in a little under a week. And we're currently being bombarded with "subtle" hints about what we should be buying for our other halves, assuming that we have them, which of course we do because single people are abhorrent and an unsightly blemish amongst nature's even-numbered symmetry. The animals went marching two by two for to get out of the rain, not in single file or in irregular groupings. Get with the programme, losers.

At least that is what it has felt like in the past to me as an oft-single personage.

Most romantic gift EVER And the thing is, all this advice? It's a bit made up and rubbishy. All the catalogues with heart-shaped choc-choc and red underwear and roses and ribbons? Well, I'm not going to lie, I am highly susceptible to chocolate anything and I do like having cut flowers around the house but, jeez, if you're in lurve with someone and want to get them a gift (and I'm not saying you have to) then just get them something they would like. End of story. I really don't understand where all this "it has to be a sufficiently romantic gift" anxiety comes from. You know what's romantic? Doing something nice for someone. It doesn't have to be covered in love hearts to be "romantic". I mean, the most romantic thing the Silver Fox ever gave me was a plastic whistle. The second most romantic? A vintage wookiee.

Why is this cheesy romanticism so prevalent? What with all the catalogues and the simpering Michael Hill jeweller adverts and the stuffed toys with cutesy messages on them, I feel like a lone, somewhat crazed voice in the wilderness sometimes.

I mean, take for instance this top nine Valentine's Day gift guide from Yahoo that I came across yesterday. True, it includes some suggestions that appeal to me, like a trip to a day spa or the entirely realistic suggestion that you knock out a wall and build your lady a walk-in wardrobe (because everybody has a bathroom "that's hardly being used". What?) but boy do they screw the pooch on suggesting scrapbooking paraphernalia as a thoughtful gift option, at least with regards to this giftee. Remember that part in Mommy Dearest when Faye Dunaway/Joan Crawford completely does her nut over a wire hanger in her daughter's closet? That's me and cutesy themed paper. NO SCRAPBOOKING EVER!

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The Twilight diary

10:45am 08 Feb 2012

106 comments

Every year over the Christmas and New Year break I draw up a mental list (who am I kidding? It's an actual written list. There IS a notebook) of projects to be undertaken and completed by the time I return to work. This has almost always been an exercise in setting myself up for failure and these days I am pretty relaxed about it when I inevitably fail to complete entirely achievable tasks over the week and a half of spare time I find myself having. Stuff like selling unneeded items on TradeMe or fixing the hem on a skirt I haven't been able to wear for months without looking like Courtney Love's Polynesian half-sister (Love, being the patron saint of unkempt people everywhere).

Anyway, one of my goals for the festive season just gone was to finally read the supernatural love story and pop culture behemoth Twilight.

Why? Well, I'd always been interested in the polarising nature of the book. Some people think it's dreadful and will almost dehydrate themselves when discussing it, such is the quantity of spittle that issues from their angry little mouths when describing the book, while others prefer to lose moisture via the medium of drool claiming it's the greatest book they've ever read. I personally know people from both camps and I wanted to get an insight on why they should react so differently to it.

Having said that, I'm not going to claim to have gone into this with a completely open and objective mind. I'd already seen the movie when it came out and been generally underwhelmed, so I wasn't going to enjoy any suspense with regards to main plot points. But then I often end up reading a novel as a result of seeing the movie and I've never really felt that knowing what happens detracted too much from the reading experience.

And then there's that whole Twihard thing. I have to admit I was filled with trepidation upon borrowing a large-print copy* of Twilight from my local library. I mean, what if I actually liked it? What would that mean? I even attempted to borrow it "on the downlow" by using a self-issue machine only to be hampered by the attentions of not one, but two former colleagues (damn friendly librarians getting all up in my business). It was like being caught with porn. Or The Mahound. Not that there's much difference.

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Sitting inside my head

01:00pm 03 Feb 2012

59 comments

When I was about seven or eight my mother sent me to get my hearing tested. My memory of this is patchy but I seem to recall wearing an enormous pair of headphones and being asked to drop a plastic bead into a bowl every time I heard a tone. These tones were electronic in nature and ranged in pitch, a bit like the soundtrack to an 8 bit video game or something that b-boy hamsters would dance to.

At one point, bored with all the beeping and booping, I actually "faked" not hearing some to see what would happen. As it turned out, even with my reverse cheating I was still judged to have more or less perfect hearing.

The reason that I didn't respond when my mother spoke to me wasn't that I couldn't hear her, it's just that I was very busy being in my own head.

Ever since I can remember, I have entertained myself within my own skull. When I was a kid I didn't have imaginary friends, I had imaginary worlds. How on earth could I be expected to hear what my mother was saying when I was on a hovercraft. In Antarctica. With my dad, Harrison Ford? Or wondering what my imaginary twin sister might be doing?

These days a lot of the imaginary conversations I have with myself end up here and so make the transition from "useless wool-gathering" to "useless wool-gathering that I share with other people". And the more fantastical elements of my youthful fantasies have morphed into equally outlandish but more middle class territory like "one day when I own a house..." Sometimes I get really carried away and can spend many happy minutes cogitating on what the taps in my ensuite bathroom might look like. You'd think I'd be disappointed that the Antarctic hovercraft trips are no more, but honestly I don't miss them at all. If you've imagined one hovercraft expedition there's really very little need to go back.

Misunderstood (rather than evil) twins

11:10am 02 Feb 2012

32 comments

When I was a kid I had rather elaborate fantasies that involved being switched at birth. You see, my twin sister was living the high life with my/our millionaire parents with no idea that I was suffering in poverty in Linwood, Christchurch. One day, I would get my four poster bed and best mate who looked exactly like me, and who knows? There might even be a 10-speed and a Sodastream and a car with electric windows (electric windows being the fanciest thing I could imagine with regards to automobiles).

I was always a bit enamoured of the idea of twins. I always secretly wanted to have one. Instead all I had was a sister 2.5 years my junior who persisted in having her own ideas about things. If I had a twin we'd always get along and agree about most things and we would plait each other's hair and it would be marvellous. So there.

As it happens I was chatting to my disappointingly non-twinny sister last night and asked her what I should write about. She said simply "parasitic twins", which I found thoroughly confusing, but it eventuates she was making reference to news that doctors in Peru plan to surgically remove a parasitic twin that dwells within the abdomen of a three-year-old boy.

Now this is a condition that I know a little something about having watched, with perverse fascination, a documentary on the very subject several years ago. It's sometimes known as foetus in fetu and occurs when one twin absorbs the body of the other in the womb. In some cases the absorbed twin will continue to grow once the healthy twin is born, acquiring hair and (gulp) teeth over time (though never developing enough to have its own IRD number or Facebook account).

I can't help wishing that this had happened with the Olsen twins so there'd be one less of them depleting the world's stocks of eyeliner.

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