Issue 14: Winter 2023
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In the clubs
The 1964 guide to the club fields of the South Island. “You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub.”- ‘In Da Club’, 50 Cent Here’s an approximation of the conversation I had the first time I set foot on a club field: “What the hell is that?” “That’s the nutcracker.” “Nut what??”…
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An elephant’s graveyard
We heard there was an elephant buried in a Southland paddock. When we went to investigate, we found Sally. Riversdale is a small town tucked between the Hokonui Hills and the Mataura River, just northwest of Gore. It has a nine-hole golf course, an annual Mixed Media Art Exhibition and a gloriously restored circa-1880 country…
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Into thick air
Whitney Thurlow is a professional mountain guide with more than 50 ascents of Tititea Mount Aspiring. But it was a boredom-induced walk up the road that nearly did him in. It was the kind of mood where a bad idea could take root and flourish. I had just returned from an aborted guiding job in…
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Starlink, star bright
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s thousands of satellites circling Earth. I’VE GOT PERSONAL BEEF WITH ELON MUSK BECAUSE THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIS SATELLITE TRAIN MY MATES WERE ON ACID, AND IT SCARED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THEM. I was babysitting some friends in the Matukituki Valley, gazing at the indifferent…
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Winter mixer
Onwards and upwards at the Remarkables Ice & Mixed Festival. A four-limbed creature moves across the vertical face with careful agility. The rock is plastered with blobs of freezer ice. The creature’s extended arms end in singular sharp hooks and its lower limbs are adorned with multiple spikes, which it places carefully. It looks terribly…
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The rice is right
When is gentrification a good thing? When it happens to gruel, that’s when. Congee is comfort food. A traditional Asian rice porridge, or to be Victorian about it, gruel, congee is a nourishing, reassuring and inexpensive dish that has been a go-to in households across Asia for thousands of years. It has also, of late,…