R.I.P.
By Tristan Egarr | 15 Oct, 2007
In the first century AD, the Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius Nero often consulted astrologers in order to run his empire at its optimum standard. Because Tiberius was somewhat untrusting, he would have a burly servant carry his soothsayers along a rocky path to his citadel; if he believed their divinations to be utter rubbish, he would instruct his servant to throw the soothsayer down into the ocean below. Nevertheless, the historian Tacitus reckoned that none of this did Tiberius any good, since he basically sat in his castle and neglected his empire. And we all know how well the psychic hotlines worked for VUWSA this year… More
By Tristan Egarr | 24 Sep, 2007
Week in and week out this column has been bringing you tales of death, mainly because I like to think about how things end. Yet, at times of such great national importance such as these, it is important that we put away our morbid sensibilities, and give thanks to something which actually stops people from dying: rugby. More
By Tristan Egarr | 17 Sep, 2007
“Suicide is painless” according to the theme-song for M*A*S*H – although, in fact, many forms of suicide are rather painful indeed. Pain, however, can be beautiful. More
By Tristan Egarr | 10 Sep, 2007
Poor Baiji, the white-fin Yangtze river dolphin. Latin name lipotes vexillifer, locally known as “goddess of the Yangtze” and “panda and water”, now known as Extinct. She was unknown one day and gone the next. More
By Tristan Egarr | 3 Sep, 2007
ENSOC rule 1: “All cars MUST be road legal (WOF + Rego) ON THE DAY. You won’t be allowed in if not.”
For the last two years, the Undie 500, where thousands of stumbling, side-walk urinating Canterbury engineers descend upon Dunedin in cheap cars fitted with nifty costumes, has descended into rioting. More
By Tristan Egarr | 13 Aug, 2007
“The night’s gone wrong Now the whiskey’s all gone
And it’s looking like the acid might have won.”
After nine years’ havoc-wreaking, Dunedin’s lords of thrash-punk are calling it a day. More
By Tristan Egarr | 6 Aug, 2007
She who never was yet is nevertheless feared shall now be proclaimed - deceased.
It is time to sound the death-knell to a phantom image of matriarchy, created by those men who are too lazy to compete in a world in which a woman, who is more capable or qualified than them, is allowed to compete for “their” jobs. And, well, because: a woman who doesn’t laugh at a sexist joke is going to INVADE POLAND! More
By Tristan Egarr | 16 Jul, 2007
Dead 1969 - 1991;
Euronymous 1968 - 1993
On a windswept fiord, where the ravens swoop and dive, a pasty man in black leather pants raises his hands in a devil-fingered salute. It is time to “fuck shit up”, as it were, black metal style. More
By Tristan Egarr | 9 Jul, 2007
Last month, Kurt Waldheim, former United Nations Secretary General (1972-81) and president of Austria (1986-92), passed away of congestive heart failure. It was fitting that he should slip from this world so quietly, at the venerable age of 88, after a decade of quiet retirement. It was fitting, for Waldheim was a man who carefully bottled up his demons and, even when they leaked out for all the world to gawk at, refused to confront their scary fangs or the corpses they left in their wake. More
By Tristan Egarr | 28 May, 2007
Matthew 6:24: “Ye cannot serve both God and Mammon.
”Rev. Jerry Falwell: “Oh yeah? Just watch me.” More
By Tristan Egarr | 21 May, 2007
Crown Shakur died on April 25, 2004 in Atlanta, Georgia, at six weeks of age, so malnourished that doctors could count all the bones in his body without removing his skin. More
By Tristan Egarr | 14 May, 2007
Elagabalus, otherwise known as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, was crowned Rome’s twenty-fifth imperial overlord at the tender age of fourteen. A troop of moody soldiers - camped out and upset at the death of their beloved emperor Caracalla - stumbled upon the young princeling while he was ensconced in fine robes and jewel-studded shoes, celebrating sacred rites of the Most Pointy Black Stone of the Sun God Elah-Gabal (from whom the young ruler took his name).
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By Tristan Egarr | 7 May, 2007
The rich can, alas, get away with murder. And when their victim is a helpless banana tree, rooted in too-solid soil that shackles him to his mistress and executioner, the rich may play with his life and emotions like a toy to their kittenish claws. For Aishwarya Rai has married a banana tree, and this tree is DOOMED.
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By Tristan Egarr | 30 Apr, 2007
The Trenchcoat Mafia
“YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE!? Natural SELECTION!!! God damn, it’s the best thing that ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms.” Words left by Eric Harris on his website eight years ago, just days before he and Dylan Klebold went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School More
By Tristan Egarr | 23 Apr, 2007
Easter! Commemorating Our Lord Jesus Christ being brutally tortured – then turned into a zombie – but by using rituals from pagan northern-spring rites – despite the fact that it is more autumnal here in godzone. And how, may I ask, do we make this zombierific spring-fall celebration? Why, by LYING to our Children that a Bunny gives them Chocolate, of course.
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By Tristan Egarr | 2 Apr, 2007
Francis Bacon was a man of many meats. No, not the painter Francis Bacon - though he did paint some rather sexy carcass portraits. I mean the late-Renaissance philosopher and discraced judge, Lord Francis Bacon. More
By Tristan Egarr | 26 Mar, 2007
On February 6, the Hubble telescope photographed the planetary nebula NGC 2440. This great ball of colour is the bloated cadaver of a star long ago deceased. When alive, NGC 2440 (who is located approximately 4,000 light years from you and I) had been about the size of our own sun. Her biography tells us much about the fate of our own solar system.
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By Tristan Egarr | 19 Mar, 2007
“Dying is pointless. You have to know how to disappear.”
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By Tristan Egarr | 12 Mar, 2007
In Japan’s industrial hub, Osaka, there is a baseball dome home to the Orix Buffaloes. And in this dome, on February 28 this year, a ceremo- nial ring of 34 Buddhist monks stood with 6,500 mourners to officiate funerary rights beneath a gigantic banner, emblazened with the visage of an elderly man. This man was Momofuku Ando.
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By Tristan Egarr | 5 Mar, 2007
The incandescent light bulb passed an electric current through her tungsten filament for over a century, producing warmth and a yellowy light each time. She was born twice - simultaneously, to Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison – in 1878. And although her parents did not at first see eye to eye - fighting a custody battle over the child’s patent - they eventually came together to form the Ediswan company and the world’s first mass production of artificial light. More
