LORDE

Not so long ago, Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Everest, was the most famous New Zealander, beating out such early contenders as Bob Fitzsimmons, Ernest Rutherford and Katherine Mansfield. Hillary was the only New Zealander to be included in Clive James book on Fame in the Twentieth century published in 1993. Hillary was (possibly) temporarily pushed off the pinnacle of Kiwi world eminence by Peter Snell but more lastingly by Sir Peter Jackson.

Until a few short months ago.

But now, thanks to the power of the Grammy and the notoriously capricious adulation of the young, Lorde is probably the most famous citizen of Aotearoa. She is living history, and a Google tap on her US version of Royals sees her approaching a quarter of billion hits and rising. (Up five million in two days!) Her success has effortlessly surpassed all her recent sometime NZ female pop star rivals such as Bic Runga, Brooke Fraser, Ladyhawke, Gin Wigmore and Kimbra.

What is striking about Lorde is how old-fashioned she looks. Resembling a portrait photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron who specialised in Victorian portraits of both famous and unknown people between 1863-75, the teenager’s face is framed by full-bodied, impressively bedraggled hair suggesting a weekend spent in tornado alley at the wrong time. On stage, she looks moody, even vampirish – a sword & sorcery witch – deploying black and white intensity, dressing from head to foot in dark apparel that hides her youthful figure. Lorde is mysterious, almost pre-Raphaelite, the embodiment of the non-frivolous. Hers is the glamour of the vampire – the dark side of Romanticism, the opposite of the sunny girly Katy Perry. Quite possibly Lorde is beautiful but her makeup and her presentation makes this question secondary. The videos of her two big hits Royals and Team written large on grey cities, dingy bedrooms, and smashed up building sites exude urban depression and gloom, her voice mournful, plaintive. A new kind of blues?  While her voice is not the most polished, varied or powerful in the business, the tone of its pathos wins you over to her cause. Whatever that may be.

Lorde conveys the impression she is camera shy, yet confident. Without actually looking old, she seems more mature than the young 17 (as of early 2014) she actually is. Then there are the curious hand gestures. What are the gestures telling us? It’s difficult to say. Perhaps the hand is trying to sculpt some elusive immaterial material, an invisible ectoplasm (which eludes, though probably was sought by, the camera gaze of Ms Cameron). Are her twisting fingers the signature gestures of some new form of avant-garde theatre? Or a grope for meaning – which, alas, will never prove graspable. All part of the attraction, presumably. The mystery of Lorde is not in what we see but what it means, or hints at.

Like the Goths or the Pre-Raphaelites of whom visually she is a marginal cousin, Lorde looks like someone too serious for sunlight. One surmises her body is tan-less. And if you doubt the pre-Raphaelite comparison have a look at The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse or Bocca Baciata by Gabriel Dante Rossetti. (On line discovery: you can acquire the Pre-Raphaelite look by braiding the hair when half dry and let it dry before taking it down. And if this fails, there is the triple barrel curling iron, guaranteed to produce the desired effect.)

Whereas, at this late date, a waterfall of hair doesn’t register as the sexually charged image which it did in the Victorian era, it still signifies a powerful icon of femininity. Daringly, in Tennis Court, her hair is tied up in head-hugging braids and the visual is her face only – almost a record in minimalism. And, of course, there is the voice - haunting rather than strident, possessing the timbre of someone singing in a cave or from the bottom of a well. More echoes of the Gothic?

What do the songs mean? The lyrics of Royals express a strident denunciation of ostentatious wealth and appeal to the masses (that is, most of us) who will never own diamonds, Cadillacs, islands, tigers etc and of course are never going to be royals - either by virtue of wealth or birth. Thank you, Joel Little, for reminding us of the yearning to not be ordinary. The wild popularity of Royals in America, suggests the citizens of the USA have tired of the phony glitz of success and want to re-earth themselves with some everyday reality without the razzle-dazzle of special effects – usually pseudo-psychedelic lolly shop gift-wrapped hallucinations.

Compared to a gaggle of contemporary talented and aggressively sexy female singers, the contrast with Lorde’s visual style is dramatic. Katy Perry is wholesomely and unashamedly girly, Hollywoodishly pretty, voluptuously figured, cheeky, playfully theatrical, with videos and costumes crammed with candy store colours. She even appeals to pre-teens – thanks to the jellybean hues – less so to grownups who presumably have more sense. Alas, it speaks for my own immaturity, that she appeals to me. And, by the way, she can really sing.

Beyonce is unrelentingly and athletically sensual. Rihanna is aggressively sexual. Christina Aguilera oozes American sexiness and produces the most stylish and surrealistically inventive videos - though Katy Perry is giving her a good run for her money. Lady Gaga (symbolic name?) varies between hectic undress and zany high camp over-dress. Miley Cyrus, once the world’s most notorious teenager, is rapidly aging into her twenties, and seems bent on out-Gagaing the Lady herself (if that’s possible). Madonna, now of grandmotherly vintage, hangs onto her seemingly perpetual youth by keeping in shape.

Lorde is everything that Katy Perry, Beyonce, Rhianna, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus are not. She is quiet, sombre (and sober), dignified, mildly gloomy, neo-Gothic and non sexual.  Perhaps, instinctively, she realises that the limit of publically sexually tinged theatricality has been reached. The only parts of her that are visible are face, hands, arms. Hence, though sexuality is minimalised to vanishing point, femininity (aided and abetted by lashings of dark lipstick) is enhanced.

Lorde is sparingly face-on to the camera, retreating from the startle of confrontation. Whether Lorde will provoke a horde of shyish, neo-Gothic singers or is a one-off, remains to be seen. This is a pluralistic age and the media has always excelled in accommodating a vigorous variety of visual and musical styles. This unfolding drama awaits full fruition.

To re-vamp:

Katy Perry: Despite my womanly figure, I am a little girl who loves jelly beans.

Beyonce: I am a pole dancer without a pole.

Rihanna: I am a dusky sex vamp.

Christina Aguilera: I am the cool avatar of feminist surrealism.

Lady Gaga:   I am an unobtainable sex goddess who changes her costume every two seconds. How could you possibly be bored?

Miley Cyrus: I am prepared to undress and spit at a moment’s notice.

Lorde: I am a teenage black and white ectoplasm-grasping Pre-Raphaelite goddess .

THE GREATEST INVENTIONS OF THE PAST 2000 YEARS

This collection of short essays (or assays) edited by John Brockman is one of my favourite books. A casual browse will provoke agreement, disagreement, thought provocation, incredulity. (How could anyone name the Gatling Gun as the greatest invention of the last two millennia?) Some will say this sort of question can’t be answered. Of course it can be answered! The whole point is the variety of answers proffered. And everyone attempting an answer - with a few exceptions – is either a professional scientist or academic, or author of substance, several of them world famous in their field. No bloggers, thank God.

The only major quibble is why cut the survey short at the start of the common era (as it now called). This chronological imitation cuts out the axeled wheel, harnessing of fire, crop cultivation, primitive weapons (eg club, spear,  bow and arrow), canals and waterways, dramatic production, plus the alphabet and language itself. Arguably, the alphabet and language are the greatest inventions in the whole of human history. In the 2000 years timeframe stipulated the necessary omission of either the alphabet or language prompts the naming of printing either of the Chinese kind or the Gutenberg kind. Printing is one of the major candidates, receiving six nominations.

Before moving to consider the extraordinary range of answers, let us consider what an invention is. When I was about eight years old I became interested - even enthralled - to discover the difference between an invention (eg the aeroplane) and a discovery which was usually a previously unknown place or country - New Zealand, for example. An invention customarily implies some form of technology, a machine or mechanical contrivance. However, some of the answers in Brockman’s book ingeniously include concepts that benefit humanity or extend its powers without being in the usual sense an invention. Some of them are philosophical principles (let it be noted that language involved no technological devices). Non-technological answers include: social structures that enable inventions, the information economy, philosophical scepticism, Christianity and Islam, the interrogative sentence, free will, the idea that all people are created equal, the idea of an idea, the human ego. In my view, none of these concepts are inventions in the usual understanding of that term. If you are of a religious mind, religion is neither invention nor discovery but a matter of revelation. Les Murray, considered Australia’s leading poet (his reputation is less affirmed in New Zealand), has written:

Religions are poems. They concert
our daylight and dreaming mind, our
emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture

into the only whole thinking: poetry.

Murray is a Catholic so his contention that religions are poems is a positive one. Another poet (whose name eludes memory) made the same point but in counter reaction to the idea that religions are in some sense objective and true.

Okay. Before we get into the obvious “heavies” – printing, electricity, varieties of mathematics, computers (all strong candidates), and science itself which all get between 5 and 8 votes let us consider some of the more offbeat answers. Biologist Jeremy Cherfas chose the basket without which, “You cannot have a gathering society... no home and hearth, no division of labour, no humanity.” I don’t agree it’s the greatest invention of our era but it’s an intriguingly non-typical answer. Starts off okay, then moves to hyperbole.

Other unconventional answers include, reading glasses the flag, board games, Thermos bottle, Gatling gun, the eraser, and chairs and stairs. While there is a case for reading glasses (assistance to short-sighted Middle Ages monks carrying the burden of western culture), the others seem, quite frankly, either implausible, inadequate, inaccurate, trivial, or perverse.  Nicholas Humphrey, a theoretical psychologist says that reading glasses “prevented the world from being ruled by people under forty.” This last witticism is fatuous because many of the world leaders were illiterate, regardless of age. The flag was picked by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (did his parents invent the name?), a professor of management, because it is was a “symbol of belonging which millions will follow to ruins or victory,” His choice is fallacious for people do not go to war because of a flag but because they were persuaded to, told to, ordered to, recruited or volunteer to fight for either money or patriotism. Board games sounds lightweight but the case for them (that is, western Chess and eastern Go) is named because they are the basis for mathematical models and the refutation of our destinies being at the mercy of whimsical gods (less convincing) are well argued by John Henry Holland, a professor of computer science.

Leon Lederman, who won the Nobel Prize for physics, picked printing first then the Thermos bottle but gave no reasons for the latter. I cannot think of any reason that would justify such a trivial choice. (Tongue in cheek?) The Gatling Gun was picked by Bob Rafaelson, a highly gifted film director (Five Easy Pieces, the King of Marvin Gardens). Why not the cannon? For hundreds of years prior to the Gatling gun, it lay behind military dominance. (And, by the way, the atomic bomb was picked twice.) In any event, the sense of the term/question “greatest” would surely not include the eraser. We all know what a mistake is – you don’t need an eraser to deal with it - you can ignore it or cross it out. Chairs and Stairs were selected by Karl Sabbagh, a science writer and television producer. He is aware that these were invented before 2000 years ago but felt annoyed that other obvious choices had already been made – the Indo-Arabic number system, computers, contraceptive pill. Sabbagh argues that stairs allows for a more objective view and that chairs enables eyes, arms and hands to be free to do additional tasks. A more impressive choice than I initially thought but alas outside the stipulated time period. How about the axeled wheel, the alphabet and writing?

A couple of additional seemingly odd choices – the identification of the sense of smell and the mirror. Marvin Minsky, a mathematician and computer scientist says, ‘that the smell of a chemical was not  necessarily a property of that chemical but some related chemical in the form of a gas, which therefore could reach the nose of the observer.’ He speculates that this insight transformed the incoherent field of chemistry into the great science of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I fail to understand the logic of this conclusion and therefore am not inclined to accept it. The mirror? Can he be serious? Tor Norretranders, a science writer, argues that the mirror allows of viewing oneself as a daily habit. And more importantly – the invention of the mirror is closely related to the problem of free will and the invention of the modern human ego. Excuse me? He argues more shrewdly that the mirror enabled the viewing of oneself through the eyes of others. Hang on a minute – does not the mirror allow the viewing of oneself? If you don’t have servants to make yourself up - valets etc - you could then check your own makeup. Clearly the mirror caused the French revolution for it enabled everyone to think they were able to be democratically viewed by others (joke). I’m sure the impact of the mirror on the common person was less important. If you work the land all day is your appearance that important?  In any case how about the camera and the cinema as ways of being viewed by others?

Another significant group were technological developments that assisted travel - the caravel, the rudder, flying machines, space travel. Several choices centred on science centrally - organised science, science, the idea of continued scientific and technological progress, the evolution of technology, the scientific method, (twice). Or education: the university, universal schooling.

An interesting divide was between the modernists who picked something very recent – the computer, the contraceptive pill, genetic engineering, the atomic bomb, the green revolution, and the majority who picked something more historical – prior to the twentieth century. Anything prefixed by tele- is a good bet – television (twice), telescope, telecommunications. I’m surprised no one picked the telegraph which enabled communication at a distance with rapidity (smoke signals etc did it more slowly). A system was developed in France during the Napoleonic era which allowed of semaphore communication from hill to hill by a series of metal towers – smoke signalling without the fire. This elaborate system of metal towers became instantly obsolete with the invention of the telegraph. The telegraph also inspired the development of the modern newspaper’s capacity to tell us the news with greater alacrity rather than tardiness. Imagine how long it would take Cook’s discoveries to be relayed back to England prior to the telegraph!

Printing was my initial choice (and the immediate choice of several mature aged friends that I asked).  After all I am a writer, and relatively few books existed prior to Gutenberg. Philip Campbell, editor of Nature since 1995, who chose printing, writes: “After all the World Wide Web is just a printing press with electronic or photonic elaborations.” My guess is this sentence will shock some people who are infatuated with this contemporary electronic toy. Post Gutenberg, printing enabled the mass production of books and therefore the widespread promulgation of ideas, both religious and secular. One of the key differences between styles of government considered democratic and those considered tyrannical, autocratic, communist or just horribly corrupt, is that democratic regimes allow a much greater freedom in print (or other media). Freedom of the press is a keynote of the American way of life and governments throughout history have controlled print in order to make sure their power is not threatened.  But after reading this book, my opinion shifted from print. I’ll reveal my choice in a moment.

Just as the alphabet (plus necessarily, writing) was an extension of oral language and printing an extension of writing, so too was the telephone (Edison invented Hello) a handy extension of letter writing or talking. It would be hard - even for the late Pavarroti to shout in New Zealand and be heard in America, and a letter used to take several days. Now the telephone makes communication almost instantaneous! Also no one picked the telephone which is like the telegraph on steroids.

If you ask a mathematician what’s the greatest invention generally the answer well be some form of mathematics – quantum theory, the Indo-Arab counting system (three times),the Infinitesimal calculus, mathematical representation, the calculus (twice). Fair enough. However, I am a print person rather than mathematics person so for me print is more important even though mathematics underlies all science.

A notable division is between those who choose very recent inventions such as the atomic bomb (twice), but I’m not buying that), and the computer or internet (seven choices)

So what is my choice? The harnessing of electricity – a relatively new invention, traceable variously to Edison who made it available to New York in 1882 or Tesla who initially co-operated with Edison but having quarrelled about a broken financial promise to pay him $50,000 for re-designing his direct current generators went on to develop Alternating Current and supply Chicago with electricity in 1893. Without electricity, very little of today’s technology would work – think of a world minus electric light, radio, television, computers, refrigerators, ovens, aeroplanes, factories, offices, smart phones etc etc. The electricity choices were as follows : the harnessing of electricity, the electric motor, the battery, the electric light, Volta’s electric battery and Otto Von Guericke’s static electricity machine.

Other candidates that weren’t mentioned were radio waves, the cinema, photography, heavier than air flight, mass media and social media.

In the future, if the development of artificial intelligence continues (alas, it will), we might have to praise one of these diabolical devices if it can think for itself (presumably de rigueur) and produces a way to travel to the stars or diverts an asteroid from destroying planet earth. On the other hand, it might get ideas into its head (eg mind) to run the world better than we do.

Until then, I’m sticking with electricity.

FORGOTTEN SILVER

Forgotten Silver is New Zealand’s finest, most brilliant and most inventive film – a cinematic masterpiece. Much of its brilliance resides in the adroit inclusion of short additional film excerpts either alleged “real” footage or additional feature footage, composed for the occasion. As an example of meta-film making, it is breathtaking. The film as a whole is the most astonishingly rich 53 minutes of cinema ever filmed. It is a film that rewards multiple viewings. This ingenious mockumentary caused howls of rage when it was revealed that the great film pioneer whose life was explored was mythical. It was as if we had been introduced to a new Edmund Hillary of film-making only to be informed it was all done in a hangar at Whenuapai and that this new Hillary had never existed. What a rotten trick!

Forgotten Silver breathlessly unfolds the (literally) incredible story of how a young New Zealand film maker with the epically ordinary name of Colin McKenzie created a Bible-based masterpiece  called Salome and several silent comedies about Stan the Man. He also invented a camera powered by a bicycle, yet another powered by a massive steam engine and a third, hidden in a suitcase. Kiwi ingenuity at its best. Even at this early stage of the film suspicions should have flared that this was a leg pull. If the Heath Robinson-style camera did not provoke scepticism, how about 2000 times 12 = 24,000  (twenty four thousand!) eggs stolen to make a film? Then there were the exotic Tahitian berries - 4 and half tons to make 22 seconds of film (!). Plus the truly great cinematic-technological inventions –  the wedding of sound and image in 1908 alas rendered in Chinese, the first colour film which by virtue of involving several topless Polynesian maidens wound up ensuring Colin was arrested for smut and consequently sent to jail for six months. It is well known that sound arrived in cinema in 1927 with Al Jolson’s detestable voice warbling scratchily. If sound had been invented  nearly 20 years earlier, this would be a revolution in cinematic history. Because of this innovation, prominent film personalities like Leonard Maltin and Harvey Weinstein earnestly told us that Colin McKenzie should now join the pantheon that included Edison, the Lumiere Brothers and D.W.Griffith. The presence of such famous film entities served to back up the affirmation of our own local celebrity, Peter Jackson, that a forgotten cinematic genius had been re-discovered. But what about the 24 thousand eggs? Can someone unscramble this delightful omelette?

One of the many delights of Forgotten Silver is the complex historical layering – most of it faked. When the film begins, the presentation of a solemn Jackson offers no clues as to the historic hoodwinking that is to follow.  Following the bedazzlement of eggs, berries, invention of colour, close up, tracking shot etc, we have Rex Solomon of Majestic Lion (presumably a take-off of MGM  and Cecil B de Mille) which has McKenzie deploying an army of 15,000 extras (see footnote) running around in the remote bush of Fiordland. If such an event had ever taken place, it could not possibly have been forgotten. For those familiar with New Zealand history at a more detailed level, the picture of Colin’s “father” would have been recognised as Arawata Bill, a well-known figure in South Island folklore who died in1947 and was celebrated posthumously in a ballad by poet Denis Glover in 1953. Arawata Bill spent many decades unsuccessfully prospecting for gold. Other stills were similarly moved from their true register in history into the reinvented folklore of the film.

One of the sad things about its reception was that the few (or were they many?) who believed Forgotten Silver’s celebrated protagonist, film maker Colin McKenzie was real, became furious when they discovered he was not. I’m Not Laughing of Hamilton writes, “I know that everyone (!) was fooled so I am not embarrassed to admit I was too and I don’t think it’s funny. It has made me unable to trust anything that TV1 put on again.” Sad, sad, sad. Everyone was not fooled and I’m Not Laughing should be embarrassed at his own historical ignorance.  Anyone familiar with our cultural or film history would not have been fooled.  In fact, they would have been delighted by the wittiness of the spoof. What is truly amazing – which defies credulity – is that several people believed it to be authentic. Some of these letters may have been written tongue in cheek. For TV cognoscenti, Montana Theatre on Sunday night always screened a feature not a documentary. Of course the casual TV browser (thousands, perhaps) may have been unaware of this. Keith Harrison wrote to The Otago Daily Times that “The whole presentation lacked humour, lacked purpose, lacked shape and lacked talent”. I strongly disagree with every point: it was the funniest NZ film I’ve seen, it had sublime creative purpose, it was exquisitely constructed and showed that Costa Botes and Peter Jackson are possessed of formidable talent. Possibly, Keith was unwittingly writing about the bone people?  The critic contributors to Rotten Tomatoes gave it 100 per cent rating – a rare accolade.

Many of the angry letters came from Timaru (or the South Island) and thought the film had done a disservice to Richard Pearse. The fake footage of Pearse was an affectionate rendering of his alleged flight – brilliantly rendered in blotchy black and white. The computer enhancement of the newspaper in someone’s back pocket “proving” that the Pearse flight preceded that of the Wright Brothers is beyond praise. I still laugh thinking about it. The Pearse episode – and the would-be aviator was always clear that the Wright brothers had achieved controlled flight before him - was only a small amount of the rich cinematic texture which included in its 53 minutes several other films, most notably the hilarious Stan the Man and McKenzie’s alleged masterwork, Salome, based on the Bible. The five Stan the Man films which successfully aped the overacting of the silent comedy, reinforce the notion that much slapstick comedy contains an element of cruelty which in real life (as opposed to reel life) could only provoke outrage. No matter, the hoped for comic effect is gloriously achieved when Stan plasters the face of the Prime Minster Coates with a custard pie and receives a trouncing with several truncheons. Cinema verite comedy surrealistically framed by not so inspired film comedy. This sequence echoes in construction and tone the crashed flight of Pearse trying to avoid cameraman Colin.

Salome, the forgotten masterpiece of Colin McKenzie was only seven-eight minutes long. Again surely its brevity would have indicated this was a hoax, or what you will. In the ensuing furore, Jackson wittily making reference to the opening sequence said that possibly they had been leading people down the garden path. This may have been extemporised (I suspect) for the interview occasion but it is an arguable aspect.

Surely the hoaxed indignant should have been wacking their foreheads with their palms and proclaiming “Silly me! Sucked in! Hoodwinked!” Yet in their defence, if they had been tuned in after the film had started and heard Leonard Maltin, the famous American film critic, proclaiming that Colin McKenzie was in the pantheon with Lumiere and D. W. Griffith, then belief in the documentary (actually, a mockumentary) was reasonable. However, for those who knew their history, suspicion would surely have crept in. If Colin McKenzie was as famous as the film asserted why had no one – literally - heard of him? Obviously, because he did not exist. All his achievements and his vast horde of extras would surely have been remembered.

A hoax is to be contrasted with a fraud. The fraudster pulls the wool over his victim’s eyes in order to extract money. The hoaxer wants to perpetrate a trick beyond that of any magician’s sleight of hand. The hoaxer wants to show us something about our credulity, our willingness to believe the fantastic, the unusual, the improbable, is real. The hoaxer does not want our money but our minds. To make matters worse or - depending on the generosity of your perspective - better, journalists and the media and Lindsay Shelton of the Film Commission were all in on the Forgotten Silver hoax. New Zealand being small, centralised, and eager to be up to date – and above all eager for new heroes to affirm itself as participant in world culture - was in fact the perfect country or culture in which to hoodwink a gullible public. In general, the New Zealand cultural scene is permanently ossified in provincial mode. Forgotten Silver transcended this stance and liberated our cultural psyche from the boggy ponds of localism into the heady waters of international cinema art.

The explicit and implicit agenda of Forgotten Silver was complex yet clear. It was a spoof on celebrity and forgotten heroes, a playful reinvention of history, a leg pull to test our gullibility in the face of apparent authority and indirectly a criticism and celebration of the heroic dedication needed to fund and finish a film.  It is well to remember Forgotten Silver was made several years before the triumphal trilogy of Lord of the Rings which was to bring Jackson fame and fortune.

While a huge debt of credit must goes to Jackson let us not forget Costa Botes who both co-wrote, co-directed and co-acted in the film. The original ideas and raft of the script came from Botes. Thus, Forgotten Silver is in some sense more of a Botes film than a Jackson film – though this is not to deny Jackson’s enormous part in the making of the film. Besides, the two have been close friends since they were young men and as with many an art work, the closeness of kindred spirits energises the enterprise.

The genius of Botes was to reverse the customary historical fabulation of moving famous persons person to times and locales that they have not inhabited or lived through, by inventing a mythical famous person. The effect is to create temporary myth rather than say a more enduring one like that of the Christian emperor Prester John, thought to be heroically waiting in the wings to save the European Christian world from Muslim invasion. Alas, there was no Prester John, and alas no Colin McKenzie, and the great innovators of early cinema remain French and American – not New Zealand.

At this point in cultural and film history an innocent viewer of this great film would be hard to find. The hoax is out of the can (and if you have read this blog), then Forgotten Silver has, like a modernist building, had its inner construction revealed. But if you haven’t seen it, please remedy this lack as soon as possible. It is a rich treasure trove of all the tricks of the cinema minus spectacular special effects.

Forgotten Silver is rediscovered gold, cultural bullion. It is our treasure and our triumph.

Footnote:

Nicholas Reid noted in 2000 that Peter Jackson had 15,000 extras for the Lord of the Rings. QED: In a former life Peter Jackson was Colin McKenzie. 

Welcome to the blog of Michael Morrissey, New Zealand writer

Welcome to a blog with a difference.  As a writer it was an obvious choice for me to write a literary blog. But I decided to include a wide ranging choice of subject matter. I am intending to cover famous personalities, inventions, history of science and medicine, architecture, art, astronomy, space travel, book reviews, films and many other topics.