So Brilliantly Clever - Peter Graham Awa Press $42.00

"On June 22, 1954, in the depth of a southern winter, teenage friends Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker went for a walk in a park with Pauline's mother. Half an hour later the girls returned alone. Honorah Parker lay in a sea of blood on a lonely track. She had been savagely murdered. In this mesmerising book, lawyer and true crime writer Peter Graham tells the whole story for the first time, giving a brilliant account of the crime and ensuing trial, dramatic revelations about the fate of Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker after their release from prison and their strange lives today, and a penetrating insight into the crime using modern psychology."

Nearly 60 years after the fact, former lawyer Peter Graham dissects New Zealand’s fascination with the Parker-Hulme murder.

June 22, 1954, Juliet Hulme (15) sneaks a half-brick from her Ilam home into her shoulder bag before heading to the home of close friend Pauline Parker (16). Once there the pair slip the brick in a stocking and hide it in the bag again. They have a ‘pleasant lunch’ with Pauline’s family, before taking the bus with Pauline’s mother, Honorah, up Christchurch’s Port Hills to Victoria Park.

On the Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid on Thursday Night -

My guest tonite is Marina Lewycka writer of several well known novels, including her latest 'Various Various Pets Alive and Dead.  Also Larry Love from Alabama 3 and the usual assortment of new music and chaos.  The Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid - Thursday nights from 7.30 - only on Groove 107.7FM.

My guest tonite is Marina Lewycka, whose new novel Various Pets, Alive and Deadis due out shortly. 

Lewycha was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany after World War II. Her family subsequently moved to England where she now lives. She graduated from Keele University in 1968 with BA in English and Philosophy and from the University of York with a BPhil in English Literature in 1969. She began, but did not complete, a PhD at King's College London.

She currently works as a lecturer in media studies at Sheffield Hallam University.

Lewycka's debut novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian won the 2005 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic writing at the Hay literary festival, the 2005/6 Waverton Good Read Award, the 2005 Saga Award for Wit; it was long-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and short-listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction^. The novel has been translated into over twenty-nine languages, including Romanian, Bulgarian, Dutch, Russian, Norwegian, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese, and Catalan.

Lewycka said in a 2008 interview that she would have been happy to write a sequel to A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian after the initial book's success but was advised against doing so. Instead she wrote her second novel Two Caravans, which was published in hardback in March 2007 by Fig Tree (Penguin Books) for the United Kingdom market, and was shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize for political writing.  In the United States and Canada it is published under the title Strawberry Fields.

Lewycka's third novel We Are All Made of Glue was released in July 2009.
In 2009, she donated the short story "The Importance of Having Warm Feet" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Lewycka's story was published in the 'Earth' collection.

Later the same year, she donated a second short story, "Business Philosophy", to the Amnesty International anthology Freedom: Short Stories Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In addition to her fiction, Lewycka has written a number of books giving practical advice for carers of elderly people, published by the charity Age Concern.

Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past: Simon Reynolds : Faber & Faber

Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past
Simon Reynolds
Faber & Faber

It seems we are living in a pop age gone crazy for it’s own past. Now-a-days every past band from Bananarama to Urge Overkill is dusting off their equipment and heading out on a reunion tour. Re-formations, expanded reissues of classic albums and outtake-crammed box sets, remakes and sequels, tribute albums and mash-ups all will inevitably follow.. Ok nice, given the aging populations. the new availability of formats like MP3, itunes, etc. But remember, Pop and Rock are really only n it’s first generational cycle. What happens when we run out of the past? Author Simon Reynolds asks “Are we heading toward a sort of culturalecological catastrophe where the archival stream of pop history has been exhausted?”

Creator of Rip it Up and Start Again, punk’s great legacy, Simon Reynolds has been lauded as one of the finest music writers of his generation. He suggests that we are nearing the tipping point and that although earlier eras had their own obsessions with antiquity —For instance the Renaissance had obsession for Roman and Greek classicism, the Gothic movement’s worshiped medievalism, The Victorian embraced the historical artefacts of Japan and the new colonies— never has there been a society so obsessed with the cultural artefacts of its our own immediate past.

This book examines the cult and industry of retro and asks the question: Will our obsession for the past kill off any originality and distinctiveness of our own? In the light of recent Big Day Out Headliners Soundgarden and upcoming tourists Creedance Clearwater Revival it would be worth asking what role and relevance these bands play in today’s music culture. Soundgarden, for example have long been referred to as Grunge Pioneers, yet by their own admittance they are a band that is not intended to last. Adopting the punk ethic of a do-it-yourslef, paper the cracks and live fast and die young the band created a maelstrom of driving chords, infectious tunes and power angst that was meant to sum up the youth of the 80’s but never to last past the decade. I wondered as I watched three greying rockers (dressed as bike mechanics, slowly moving about the stage) what their impact would be on the teens of today. So has Reynolds, when he questioned the revived tours of The Sex Pistols and panty dampers Boyzone. Truth be told, the main audience attendance in all cases were guitar players and aging punks with their nephews. And in the case of Boybands, grownup teeny bopper mums and their daughters. CCR will attract a sing along classic hits crowd. The simple truth is that we like to connect with our past and relive the glories. Why else would grown men collect old cars, women keep love letters or grannies keep their wedding photos and marriage china. The reality is our past is what makes us. Music is no different and Retromania feeds off that.

Noel Gallagherclosed the show, saying 'See ya round, maybe.'

No fanfare, or spectacular close. No fireworks or any kind of Rock 'n' Roll finish. Russell Brown happened to be standing next to me, smoking a joint and quipped 'Is that it? No Encore". "Don't be stupi," his mate replied, "This is still the Gallaghers. You're lucky they turned up!."

Meet the punters at BDO 2012

The coffee Bar Kid is at the Big Day Out...

I'm currently in the crowd watching LIVING END. The crowd is an average size but I'm expecting more following 5pm and the end of working day. Best act so far was regurgitator.

Local skater - BDO 2012 ^

<- Laying down the law at BDO 2012.

The Foam dome at the Big day out.

To follow the coffeebar kids BDO adventures, hop over to his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/#!/tim.gruar