The exhilaration of sports
This newsletter loves football for the next month!!
Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend, where we’re getting very excited about football all of a sudden. I’d like to think I’m immune to sports and then I watch something like the opening ceremony to the FIFA World Cup and get carried away in the spectacle of it: the billowing fabric, showed on TV from far above via a carefully positioned drone, the synthesised sound of pop music stars singing the anthem, then the athletes themselves, poised and focused on the ball. I didn’t go to the game, but when New Zealand scored the cheer was so loud I could hear it from my flat. Here’s to a weekend of enthusiasm for football and, well, links.
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
An emotional night for Auckland
After the tragedy of a workplace shooting on Friday morning, Auckland was transformed by the opening of the Fifa World Cup, Toby Manhire writes from the Eden Park stands. “Before last night, no game of football in New Zealand had been attended by more than 40,000 people. Running out in the opening game of the World Cup to the exhilarating roars of 42,000, you’d forgive the Ferns for a nervy start. But none of that for them. Slick passing, crisp patterns, pace, composure; an immediate sense that each of the 11 knew precisely their role.” The win was electric. “Last night, the crowd leapt jubilant to their feet, a sea of hands, flags and Fifa-approved poi, witness to another moment of euphoria.”
A whole lot of people getting excited about the football
Dunedin is obsessed with Barnes Dance crossings. Which is the best?
Molly Wooton walks to work every day in Ōtepoti. On the way she crosses nine Barnes dance crossings, where pedestrians can traverse the intersection in any direction. As the inheritor of The Spinoff’s long tradition of writing about roads, she rates them here, saying that the crossings give the city the air of a metropolis, even if you have to wait longer. For Dunedin residents: can you guess which despised crossing is described thus? “When the wind blows just right, you get a whiff of sausage rolls from the bakery ahead and you’re left contemplating whether pastry crumbs could accent your outfit. The crossing itself is a waste of diagonal space.”
A celebration of New Zealand’s best hairdressing salon names (see also: what does a linguist think about hair salon trends?)
Rescuing a New Zealand treasure, just in time
Bread and Roses is an epic film about women and politics in New Zealand, named for the song that will make you cry if you watch its rendition in the movie Pride. (Yes, two movies is too many movies for one sentence, but I digress.) Bread and Roses is a (three hour +) drama about the life of MP Sonja Davis. Made by legend Gaylene Preston, the master negative was found damaged in 2012, and just in time: if it had been left for longer it might not have been salvageable. Dame Gaylene tells Gemma Gracewood how the restoration, showing at the NZIFF, happened, with help from a lot of experts from the original production.
Rescuing another New Zealand treasure: Ōtautahi’s telescope
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Supermarket deals cost suppliers
Strolling through the supermarket, bright colours are eyecatching: a yellow and red sign declaring a “special”, while a display of carefully organised packets at the end of an aisle might tempt you to pick up something you had no intention of buying. The catch? These displays cost suppliers heaps. Olivia Sission speaks to small-scale suppliers across Aotearoa. “If we have to buy space for a promotion, we take a big hit. And we’re competing against Coca-Cola, Fonterra, huge multinationals for those spots,” one tells her. That glittering away of choices and bargains, so many options that it might make you (if you’re like me) want to lie down on the floor for a rest, is carefully negotiated and designed in the supermarket’s favour.
Why Knot, outlet shop for nearly expired food is cheap — and almost too popular
Life beyond social media
Last year, Madeleine Holden deleted her accounts. All of them: no more surreptitiously scrolling Instagram or Twitter, absorbing things she didn’t need to know about. “I convinced myself I was learning something from the bored missives of all the other 20- and 30-somethings wasting the prime of their lives online. All of this would feel thrilling for a few minutes and then miserable for hours, and I did it for years,” she writes. What replaced that time online? Books, contacting people directly, meditation and time with her daughter. “I took my daughter to the playground, rain or shine, and watched her play with her little baby friends, shoving their chubby hands in each other’s mouths while I chinwagged with their parents. My phone stayed in my pocket.”
Everything else
The Barbie hype is a lot, maybe too much. But 20 years ago, New Zealand had a doll TV show of our own.
We need to dismantle the idea of perfect motherhood
Scamming is a profound loss of trust
Ooooooh fun (also maybe a bit worrying?) interactive about the world’s changing population demographics as people get older from the New York Times
The Jonah Hill messages are a reminder that mental health shouldn’t be weaponised
Why are some people just so obsessed with their lawns?
Would Marama Davidson take a book to the next life?
Labour has launched its elections slogan. OK. Also, are students “living laughing Luxon” at O-Week?
Make being a sellout uncool again!!
Shanti’s podcast corner: are your clothes making you sick?
Wear what you want corner: why is there still no Black Ferns merch? And men deserve to wear colourful clothing without ridicule too!
In North America, dark secrets are buried at boarding schools for indigenous children. What are the limitations when we try to learn about this past?
After Barbie comes, uh, heaps more commodified films about plastic toys
What do teenagers really think about vaping?
On Taylor Swift, and following a musician through any different eras
How atmospheric rivers work, and whether we can live with all the rain
Take a trip to the jazz multiverse and get some cool music recommendations while you’re there
