David Sedaris takes notes and makes live edits to his scripts as he’s reading — he trials everything before publication. Fascinating to watch him actually writing in the margins of his work on stage. Prob my favourite bit of seeing him read actually, the live editing.
I loved hearing this read and it’s a terrific piece. As an immigrant myself I like your outsider’s eye on NZ ways. The whole chainsaw thing I’d never thought about although the tyranny of the lawnmower I have mulled over for many years …
Hi Mary! Thanks so much! Lovely to meet you. I enjoyed your poems--I meant to say the other night, the poem (or stanza?) that ended on the simple note of harvesting the olives, after all the madness before--that was a great moment. Stays with me.
I think as an outsider here I will never understand chainsaws the way my Kiwi mates do! Lawnmowers, yes. A suburban Phoenix boy here. We should have had desert but out there we were, pushing the mower around our little squares of lawn...
I loved how specific this was (also personally love axes and chainsaws so always ready for a deep dive there) and how you used that as a way to describe life in NZ; a lovely window into a world!
Hi Samara! Glad you dug it! I am mostly befuddled by tools but NZ has taught me the peace of chopping wood every now and then. Not chainsaw ready, no sir. But my mates here are chainsaw people, and this feels enough somehow!
I miss chopping wood every morning for my wood stove! it is peaceful indeed. and having mates with chainsaws seems like a good way to go (although I suspect one of these days one of them will convince you to give a chainsaw a whirl and you’ll be forever converted)
Hi Marty! Glad you enjoyed it! I suspect my farmer mate's answer would be money. Slim-to-zero margins of late. You just drive 'em slow, I guess? I never had guts to speed on them myself.
Oh this is lovely. D'you think it's 'Timber, I want to go home' or 'Timber! I want to go home' ? As in, an address sung to a pile of cut wood, or an echo of the day's cutting work followed by a lament? Did they even shout 'timber' after cutting trees?
Sammy says: "I think in my mind it's like timber... (in a resigned sort of way)... I want to go home. Just fuckin timber... everywhere... whole life is timber sort of feel. Life of a bushman."
So great to have you read this live, and now to get to read it —your voice still here through the different form. Such a great piece.
Thanks man! You learn everything about a piece reading it aloud, right? So much fun!
David Sedaris takes notes and makes live edits to his scripts as he’s reading — he trials everything before publication. Fascinating to watch him actually writing in the margins of his work on stage. Prob my favourite bit of seeing him read actually, the live editing.
Gutsy. But then he's David Sedaris. I make mental notes as a I go and forget half by the time I'm done.
I loved hearing this read and it’s a terrific piece. As an immigrant myself I like your outsider’s eye on NZ ways. The whole chainsaw thing I’d never thought about although the tyranny of the lawnmower I have mulled over for many years …
Hi Mary! Thanks so much! Lovely to meet you. I enjoyed your poems--I meant to say the other night, the poem (or stanza?) that ended on the simple note of harvesting the olives, after all the madness before--that was a great moment. Stays with me.
I think as an outsider here I will never understand chainsaws the way my Kiwi mates do! Lawnmowers, yes. A suburban Phoenix boy here. We should have had desert but out there we were, pushing the mower around our little squares of lawn...
I loved how specific this was (also personally love axes and chainsaws so always ready for a deep dive there) and how you used that as a way to describe life in NZ; a lovely window into a world!
Hi Samara! Glad you dug it! I am mostly befuddled by tools but NZ has taught me the peace of chopping wood every now and then. Not chainsaw ready, no sir. But my mates here are chainsaw people, and this feels enough somehow!
I miss chopping wood every morning for my wood stove! it is peaceful indeed. and having mates with chainsaws seems like a good way to go (although I suspect one of these days one of them will convince you to give a chainsaw a whirl and you’ll be forever converted)
Sorry I missed the reading! I find Wellington dominated by the Monterey Pines, actually!
Oh those too, yeah. I idolize the pohutukawa and so I see them everywhere. Pines are boring! That's a whole other post, the boringness of pines
Nice piece thanks Dan.
Next time you see Punch's owner, maybe ask why the quad bike is lacking a life-saving roll bar.
Hi Marty! Glad you enjoyed it! I suspect my farmer mate's answer would be money. Slim-to-zero margins of late. You just drive 'em slow, I guess? I never had guts to speed on them myself.
A traditional song about cutting down & cutting up trees from my friend Sammy... https://sammyleary.bandcamp.com/track/timber-2
Oh this is lovely. D'you think it's 'Timber, I want to go home' or 'Timber! I want to go home' ? As in, an address sung to a pile of cut wood, or an echo of the day's cutting work followed by a lament? Did they even shout 'timber' after cutting trees?
Sammy says: "I think in my mind it's like timber... (in a resigned sort of way)... I want to go home. Just fuckin timber... everywhere... whole life is timber sort of feel. Life of a bushman."
Sammy's album Old Bush Road was just announced as a finalist in the ANZFA folk awards...
Love this Dan!
Thanks for the inspiration! Waving Southward!