Love this story from Craig Robertson's Chris Knox bio about how an Auckland punk band learned to play "Anarchy in the UK" by taping the short bits that aired in a news segment off of the TV and just playing those parts. (Try to explain this to a young person today haha)
Hi Douglas - years after our interview the Chris Knox biography is out and will be available in the US in May. Pre-orders on Amazon a.co/d/0eXbnYBz
Thanks for taking the time to read it - and for the positive words.
2/2 power poles to signify US neglect of PR infrastructure (esp since Hurricane Maria); saying God Bless America and then listing Spanish speaking countries of “the Americas”.
1/2: It’s existence made it political but it was political in some very visible (& important ways). Recreating sugar cane plantations on the field brought US colonialism to the fore; handing a Grammy to a boy intended to invoke Liam Ramos
Sorry to miss you but thanks for the shout out!
And this did zero for rugby’s US profile. It was buried on a steaming platform while sports fans were watching college (American) football on all the major networks and ESPN (I watched it at an Irish pub in Boston where at most a 1/3 of the pub cared - the rest were there on a Hallo-weekend stop)
and we can let them riot on an empty street
Thanks Simon (we need to catch up) - those very positive words mean a lot coming from a legend like Simon Grigg
I’ve always thought of my filing cabinet book as a material history of Taylorism (with a focus on information)
To be fair the text is “only” 389 pages. There is another 70 pages of notes, timeline and discography. But it’s still a lot of words! We know Chris was partial to a lot of words.
I said I'd write a few words about Craig Robertson's much-anticipated Chris Knox bio, which I love.
These are personal reflections on what will likely be the definitive history of a man who changed indie/alt music globally
opdiner.substack.com/p/cause-when...
#aotearoa
@audioculturenz.bsky.social
We were born in the right time
I also have about a dozen turnpike postcards but that one went nowhere so to speak
A few years ago I went on a post office vintage postcard collecting kick. I have about 100 postcards including a post office from all 50 states (which took a bit of hunting).
www.instagram.com/polesofcambr...
I have no memory either. It can be first on the list of things that aren’t in the Knox bio!
In hindsight not a great idea to have your hobby be writing a book when your day job is writing books but a decade in the making my bio of Aotearoa NZ musician Chris Knox is coming out in a few months.
What a year for the legends of NZ music. The Don McGlashan doco. The Shayne Carter doco. And now the Chris Knox biography, out in Oct. aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/chris-knox/
Is this parody?
Not this way (package of letters tied higgledy-piggledy) -knot this way! (package tied neatly and in order of size).
"Not This Way- Knot This Way!"
Internal GPO poster advising on the correct knotting method. Unknown artist, September 1964.
Ref POST 110/1569, Royal Mail Archive
You were robbed by an uncaring public
Some more background on the history of passports & free Black people pre 14th Am. States could issue passports & abolitionists exploited this to use ppts to argue for citizenship. And while numbers are low the State Dept did issue more than 2 passports (1)
Naturalized citizens could get a US passport, including Chinese. From 1903-5 a disclaimer on US passports issued to citizens of Chinese descent said their ppt did not guarantee them entry to the US.
For more see my book The Passport in America: The History of a Document global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Key to remember: in mid-19c passports were a novelty and not clearly linked to citizenship. Debates over the citizenship for free Black people were important to the US passport taking on its role as a certificate of citizenship (4)
In 1856 Congress declared only the Secretary of State could issue passports but governors continued to issue them for the next few decades. The same act also clarified that a passport could only be issued to a citizen (3)
A free Black woman Sarah Remond was issued a US passport in 1859 initiating a controversy when the US embassy in London refused ti recognize it. Usually free Black people got a special certificate that recognized their birth in the US and the right of protection (2)
Some more background on the history of passports & free Black people pre 14th Am. States could issue passports & abolitionists exploited this to use ppts to argue for citizenship. And while numbers are low the State Dept did issue more than 2 passports (1)
This is content you need - an Instagram account devoted to poles www.instagram.com/polesofcambr...