Tuesday 13 September 2011

“Bill Cunningham New York – the documentary that made me fall in love with NYC” repeated since June 2010

My favourite film of the film festival last year was undoubtedly the documentary Bill Cunningham New York about the quirky character behind the NY Times On the Street column, a pictorial of fashion from the streets of New York and beyond. His clever eye and fearless cycling skills (his life flashed before my eyes several times) allow him to document the fabulous individuality and charisma of the eclectic style that makes New York a fashion feast. I love that Bill is often seen ignoring the catwalks because his mantra is all about people’s own creativity, so even at the prestigious fashion events he is spotted snapping more of the crowds than the next seasons showcase.

It was inspiring to watch someone so enthusiastic about what they do, although it was to such an extreme I couldn't help but wonder if there was a slightly autistic nature about him. But with such a delightful personality you can’t help but love him, if not for his wise cracking, then for his absolute modesty and perseverance for a hobby that he lives and breathes. Anna Wintour credits him with a quote “We all get dressed for Bill” and although he is a legend in his own right, he indulges in nothing more than an opportunity to get his next photograph.

I was utterly captivated and enjoyed every minute the film, I wish there was more! His friends are eccentric and just as entertaining; between them they must have some amazing tales to tell. How I wish they would!
I sporadically follow Bill’s On The Street column online where he narratives his pieces and I can enjoy listening to this wonderfully odd individual. When I was in NY earlier in the year I said to my friend Katie that of all the people I could see, if it couldn’t be Jay Z & Alicia Keys hanging out on the Empire State Building having a jam, then I would want to see Bill Cunningham haphazardly weaving through the yellow cabs on his bicycle, stopping traffic to get the perfect shot. Katie turned to me and laughed, because on her way to meet me 2 hours before she was 80% sure she had walked past him. Damn, timing is everything and I’d timed out of my chance for a glimpse.


  If you haven’t seen it already and you love fashion, photography or New York then this a doco for you! 

Thursday 25 August 2011

"This one time, there was this riot....." August, 2011

I always figured if I was going to witness a riot, it would most likely involve myself stampeding for the new Alexander McQueen at Primark prices*. Instead, from my flat I sat and watched the London riots unfold outside, unable to turn away, almost the way you are magnetised to watching a car crash scene. Although it really wasn’t so gruesome. I’ll take you back to the day it all kicked off…..
It’s Monday afternoon and I’ve just arrived back from Spain, heading straight to Waitrose to get my ‘post holiday diet’ rabbit food for dinner and I almost walk straight into the grill that’s been pulled down. My first instinct is to be furious with Waitrose for being shut and then relief that it’s only the main door (although I remain mildly annoyed with their incompetence). When we question the lady at the counter she says it’s in preparation for the riots. What riots? Apparently north London has had trouble........ but surely they wouldn’t come to the south west, at the very least to Clapham? Walking home I notice a few shops are shut and it’s not even 5pm. I Google ‘Clapham and riots’ but nothing comes up so therefore *obviously*  if Google doesn’t know about it then it’s not really true. I go off for a run, laughing at the prospect of riots in our area and make some jokes to myself when I see the Park Police out on patrol…..what are they going to do, use their leaf blowers?
After my post-holiday-exercise-regime run I head to the pub to meet Kim and Shereen for a pint or two (forgotten post holiday diet already) and at the start of a fresh round of drinks my friend Amie rings me, panicked, to say there is a mob of 50 hooded youths (and growing rapidly) and riot police outside her flat which is just down the road. I instruct the girls to get up and leave, immediately. Not saying why but impressed they don’t question me and abandoned full pints without hesitation. I questioned this later, scolded myself for not sculling it, little did I know I would need a stiff drink just a short time later.
My flat is just off the main street of Clapham Junction, above the Pizza Metro, not far from where the trouble is, and I argue with Kim about her walking home, trying to make her ring a taxi but finally compromising that my flatmate, Kate Jones, will walk her home along the back road that connects our two houses. When she gets home she rings to say everything has kicked off the these hooded youths have began a demolition spree  and now Jones is now trapped at her friend’s house, randomly next door to Kim’s. Eventually Jones rings our flatmate Paul to go and fetch her, I try to make Paul take a taxi but he’s intent on being the hero and you can’t argue with an Irish criminal lawyer, they think they know it all. They arrive back to the flat a bit dazed by what they’ve just witnessed although they didn’t feel unsafe because at this stage the frenzied youths are only focused on stealing, one even stepped aside with his plasma TV said ‘excuse me’ and let them pass.
Meanwhile, I have Shereen at my flat freaking out. She’s fresh off the boat and already having a tough start to London life so these circumstances are escalating her uncertainties. At the pub I’d been telling her how great London is and now she’s shouting at me ‘I thought you said London was safe’ .....um yeah..... damn you karma you always like to show up and prove me wrong don’t you. Amazingly, I remain calm and somewhat composed. My friends who know me well will be doubtful that this is the truth. Instead of having the usual Kate Senior Ridiculous Meltdown I do practical things like change out of long floaty maxi dress into shorts and lace ups to enable running from window to window for rubbernecking opportunities. I also worked out a fire escape route, which involved climbing out windows onto neighbours roofs and a lot of shimmying down drain pipes…..that did not impress me much. We turned off the lights so we could hang out our second floor windows and survey the scene without the risk of being identified, occasionally my anger overpowered my ‘practical’ nature and I yell out ‘you little mungrels’. Then I smartly retreat because a friend in Peckham reported petrol bombs were now being thrown around his street.
 I set up camp in our living room with the news on, flicking between searching on the Internet for more information, ranting on Facebook and swapping stories on instant chat because all the phone networks are down. Between Amie’s roof window view of Debenhams, Kim’s flat in view of KFC on lavender hill (plus Laura on next st) and my flat on the corner of the escape route, we form a triangle over Clapham and I can get instant updates of what’s going on.
From her window Kim can see hundreds of the rioters trashing the shops and restaurants in the heart of Clapham Junction. She said she saw a lady drive her car up, park one child up as security and drag off another child to help her bring armfuls of loot from Debenhams and filled the car before skidding off. Meanwhile I'm watching in absolute disbelief as teenagers, some just children, are staggering down the streets with bulging sacks fastened from sheets. The smug little buggers were not even running away, they swaggered around like they owned the show, and for about 7 hours they did. No policemen in sight, the riot police stayed half an hour and then nobody could recall their presence. When eventually the police do turn up they stand by and watch the carnage, thumbs tucked into their bullet proof vests and a smirk on their face. I imagine the Bombay rugby team could have done a better job than them.
The majority of the rioters are young and there appears to be as many girls as there are boys, but it’s hard to identify accurately under their hooded disguise. Some of the stuff they were hauling off was unarguably a good score, although reports will later come out that a lot of the electronics can be tracked. I spot three young girls with arm loads of awful beige grandma style handbags; I roll my eyes and mutter ‘amateurs’. Another bright spark is sprinting past with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s stretched out like a trophy. The ridiculousness reaches its peak when I witness a looter with his plasma waiting at the lights for the green man to flash go.
Our flat door sits nestled around the back of the of the Italian pizza shop, a five foot wall juts a metre out from the side of the house. Usually it’s the Italians perch for a cigarette break but tonight the hoodrats are stacking their loot against it, waiting for the wheels to arrive, and we can’t help but joke about opening our door and snaking their loot back off them (to hand in to the police of course).
In all honesty the riots didn’t get ugly until the riotrats ran out of places to loot. Waterstone’s bookstore, the health food shop and charities shops weren’t of much interest. So they turned from burglars to pyromaniacs. SKYnews had been playing the horrific scenes of the fire blazing in Croydon, a few suburbs away. But suddenly it flicked to a fire in Clapham Junction, at the party store not far from Kim’s house. Yes, she confirmed, it’s gone from smoking to roaring and can now be labelled ‘out of control’. When her street is advised to be evacuated, due to the risk the helium canisters in the party shop pose, she packs a bag and heads to ours. SKYnews then starts running a feed along the bottom of the page ‘Carphone warehouse in Clapham Junction is on fire’. This shop is in the same block, three shops down from my place. And now I’m officially afraid. Fire scares me. My housemate offers to put the batteries back into our smoke alarm while I scream something about incompetence and race up the stairs to pack an emergency bag of valuables. In the heat  of the moment  (pun intended) I’m fumbling around my room, shoving my valuables into a bag. So far I’ve dismissed most of my jewellery (all from the high street sales) and feel panicked that the only valuable things I can think to pack are my makeup and favourite Elle Mac bras. My NZ passport – probably most important valuable item – is nowhere to be found. I remembered that I hid it in a safe place, so safe of course I can’t find it. Before we (I) jump to conclusions and run up the road like madwoman with my bag of unvaluables, I decide to go and check if Carphone Warehouse is actually on fire. Shereen and I step outside and a car skids around the corner, halts and four guys jump out and run towards us. We scream and run back inside. They probably were running past us to the shops but I decide it’s a Man Job and Paul can do the checking. He returns to report Carphone Warehouse is not on fire. Soon it’s well past midnight and nothing else is on fire so we deem it safe to go to bed. But I sleep in my clothes, sneakers beside my bed……..just in case.


* There is no such range of Alexander McQueen at primark prices.

The day after the night before.....


Monday 25 July 2011

“Where are all the Cowboys in Boise?” Idaho, 29 May, 2008 (FLASHBACK)

Touchdown in LA was the end to my solo traveling as I teamed up with Tamsyn who had just flown in from NZ. Our first destination together was Boise, Idaho, not your usual tourist destination for a kiwi in America…and turns out not your usual destination for the average American either. Leading up to the trip when I had told various Americans in NZ, Aussie and Hawaii that I was heading to Idaho it was met with amused  laughter  or the polite raised eyebrows of surprise, followed by a mocking tone of “and why would you want to go there?”. Well it’s quite simple, to see all the cowboys and ranches of course. Excited at the prospect of swaggering around town in some traditional hats, kicking up dust in our boots with the rest of the locals, we wanted to experience anything that was different from the NZ culture and I had been assured the US of A would reward us with just that (plus I wanted a trendy new pair of cowboy boots since they seem to come back into fashion every year).  We also had what all tourists love in a new country - an invitation for a homestay and ours was with a guy, Skylar, who had come to our university hostel for a couple of weeks. Tamsyn had hosted him and his friend Ryan at her parents for a weekend.

 The cowboy fairytale began to crumble when we followed a bunch of people clad in the correct attire to the wrong departures gate, and then immensely disappointed to find not one person on our flight was wearing a cowboy hat or even a steel capped boot. We perked up again when Ryan met us at the airport complete with a white cowboy hat (ok so he was heading to vegas so must be the ‘for best’ version surely?). Skylar welcomed us to Boise with Budweisers and a BBQ with his friends where he replaced our names with a collective ‘the kiwi girls’ and propelled us to celebrity status with generous compliments about NZ.  Our creditability faltered when we brought up the cowboy expectations, it turns out our fantasy is more likely in Texas. Who knew a ranch doesn’t need to be run by cowboys, it doesn’t even have to have animals, from what I can understand it’s just another name for a country house with a whole lotta land.

Boise is a beautiful city built up with rusty red bricks in a logical grid of wide, clean streets and very few cars (but zero horses).  We loved our new role as tourists and to the amusement of our hosts we squealed in delight at the sight of squirrels (over and over), exclaimed “just like in the movies” to cliché American sayings/items, marveled over the enormity of restaurant portions, cheered with wicked smiles at the half vodka ratio in drink pouring, coughed our way through the windowless, badly ventilated bars that still allow smoking inside and counted all the places we came across the US flag (yards, plant pots, shops, sports stadiums, ranches).  All of which was, of course, documented in a photo diary of continuous picture snapping.

Our fascination with American food products lead us to the temple of Super Size Me, the American supermarket, complete with kiosks for Starbucks, a drugstore & DVD rental machine. We spent an afternoon amusing ourselves with all the foreign brands, like spushi which is spam sushi, and gigantic products that dwarfed most of the things in NZ. A cereal box the size of a carry on suitcase or 10 powerades for $10 and if you buy 10 you get 5 free! Our absurd behaviour (and hysterics) attracted the attention of a manger who asked us 3 times if we were ok? (unsure if he was alluding to our mental state). In the end we left with an armful of treats (peanut butter M&Ms, Doritos, pop tarts, Arizona green tea). Continuing on the food theme it must be said that we also had a love affair with taco bell (the king of tasty fastfood chains) that we were introduced to one night on the way home from the bars when there’s no such thing as a BP pie.

One of the best days we had in Boise was an impromptu All American Tour of Boise’s establishments. Having been dropped out of town at outlet shopping mall, where levis were ridiculously cheap and there was an entire shop dedicated to 4th July material, we were standing at the exit of the cark park trying to forge a plan to hitch home and when a young guy rolled slowly past & it turned out all we had to do was ask the first friendly, non-ax murder looking guy who came along. What started out as a ride into town escalated into a pint at Hooters, a bit of track at the stadium (plus some snooping around the locker rooms), gym and Endzone the stadium bar that, much to our pleasure, looked just like a sportsbar from the movies. The afternoon was spent mastering the art of horseshoe and shuffleboard, as Josh patiently repeated the rules and let us win a couple of games.

For our last night out in Boise our hosts took us out for a few drinks on the town and, at our request, with horse shoe in the beer garden.  Complete with our ridiculous 4th July ensemble on the 5th June our hosts soon ditched us, our NZ celebrity status trailing long behind our reputation as deranged patriots celebrating an entire month too early.  Two unsuspecting patrons were eyed up 
and bullied into a game of horseshoe as we were desperate to show off our new sporting talents and prove our ability talk the new American lingo we’d learnt on our trip. The two guys tolerated our possible cheating and our misunderstanding that ‘we were having a bangin’ time’ was not actually an American slang for cool but actually what it means universally (pity by this stage we’d been using it around the bar for some time). They even held up their end of the lost bet by wearing our headpieces and dissolving their manhood. They weren’t no cowboys but they were bloody good sports. 


Sunday 17 July 2011

“I went to Brooklyn to find something badass and I found a vintage haven” June, 2011

As it turns out, most people wouldn’t leave it until 2 days before their flight to NYC to book accommodation in one of the busiest cities in the world, famous for not having enough backpacker accommodation in a city crammed with tourists. Although I had a backup plan (for most of my trip I was staying with Katie Greaves, a lovely camera assistant who I met when I worked on thisAMERCIAStvshowthatfilmedinNzthatisTOPsecretaboutMODELS)  that plan was back up the state 2 hours away and I thought I should spend my first night in the Big Apple. Frantically ringing around hostels and being shouted at by irate hostel owners who were outraged I would try and book accommodation for MAY at such short notice (turns out it’s the busiest month) I found myself suddenly very worried I might be sleeping on central park bench. At the last minute....I think 1am the night before my next morning flight suffices...... Katie pulled through with a friend she knew in Brooklyn with a bed they keep for couch surfers. Cool, not only do I tick off ‘couch surfing’ as an experience, I’m gonna be in BROOKLYN!! Oh hooooow yes please, all the badass, cool people are from Brooklyn.
The street I stayed on Knickerbocker Ave
First thing I saw when I popped out of the subway
I had Alex’s name, his street address and a tube stop. And a phone that was snubbing the networks and refusing to work. I had a basic idea of how to navigate the subway system and I figured I could use my sneaky trick of reading maps on bus shelters (something I frequently have to do in London) and figure my way there. So off I trotted, dragging thenosiestsuitcaseintheworld across Jamaica station, where I appeared to the only lone traveller and very obviously foreign for not taking a taxi from the airport. After transiting through that station I became rather uneasy because the subway line was eerily quiet. On a Saturday afternoon you’d never find virtually empty carriages on the tube in London and I’m left wondering what memo I had missed. At my subway stop, I had a bit of a nightmare getting my suitcase through the barrier, actually I ended up throwing it over the top, much to the disapproval of the attendant who unhelpfully stood in his little glass cage and frowned at me. I popped out of the station and my first impression of Brooklyn is exactly what I thought it would be - graffitied walls, some beat up cars, a couple of interesting characters roaming about but once again hardly anyone around. I lost my intrepid nerve to wander the streets in search of the apartment and retreated down to use the payphone and get Alex to come and get me.

Their place was a brick, open plan style apartment with rooms off the main living space. High ceilings and crammed with lots of crazy stuff. Alex was in the middle of brewing his own beer, all made organically, so the apartment had a
PIE!
sweet yeasty smell as if he’d just finished baking some cakes. No cakes unfortunately, but the first place he and his flatmate took me to was a pie shop near the Graham subway stop. Amazing pie and I instantly became infatuated with the vintage decor and managed to window shop through a couple of vintage clothes stores before heading off to Time Square (more on that another time). During my few days staying in Brooklyn I discovered an amazing Bagel Smith, where I would get my breakfast each morning, a great coffee bar and so many crammed vintage stores. One of the mornings I decided to go exploring and headed off in the direction of some stores the housemates had told me about, but they were all closed until 10am so I decided to keep wondering. I wasn’t very aware of my surroundings and then I heard someone say ‘well well well look at that’ and turned to see what they were looking at. A line up of guys were all looking at me. I didn’t want to overreact but thought that possibly I might have walked a little too far into places I shouldn’t have. Because now that I was looking around I was noticing that actually no one was on the streets and I had a feeling of being out of my depth of geographical knowledge. So I decided to retreat back to my happy place of bagels and chipped china. I only saw a small piece of Brooklyn but I loved it. It has character, diversity and still a little bit of badassness to it.

Sunday 3 July 2011

"My new year resolution is to write a blog" - kate, 2011


And at the start of the seventh month in the year I finally get around to making a start on that resolution. This isn’t the first time I’ve attempted a written, story sharing, diary of my life.  The first time around the enjoyment was stripped away with the technical difficulties I faced with foreign computers (and my technical lack of knowhow). Then facebook stormed the world and easiness (laziness) of just uploading a bunch of photos and one line captions became the new diary. So here I am going back to what I started and sharing stories, thoughts, interests and photographs.
I have a few years of travels to catch up on so I’m going to throw in a few ‘flashbacks’ to previous adventures, thanks to my photo diaries on facebook the memories can be coaxed back.  I’m also hoping to improve my somewhat disjointed and often ranting writing style along the way. I can’t promise you’ll always understand what I’m saying but I hope you enjoy the pieces you decipher.

X Kate