

Posted in 🍿 F I L M : M O T I O N, 😂 F U N N Y : J U N K
Tags: Jedi, Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, May the Fourth be with you!, Star Wars

A couple touring New Zealand climbed a mountain together. One was Playboy playmate Jaylene Cook, so naturally she had her photo taken in her birthday suit while up there.
Big whoop, right. Here in New Zealand however, someone was bound to have an opinion to do with it having a profound, culturally significant effect on their large group of friends and relatives who never would have known about it otherwise but when they do they’ll have some really strong feelings to share.
…It pissed some men off, in other words.
Playboy playmate Jaylene Cook has scaled Mt Taranaki in a nude photo shoot, but not everyone has taken kindly to the stunt. The glamour model, who is touring the country with her photographer boyfriend Josh Shaw, posted the photo to Instagram which has attracted more than 8000 likes.
But one Maori academic said the photo was culturally insensitive and disrespected the mountain.
“I also know cousins and relatives who will be quite upset about it. They would consider it as being disrespectful towards the mountain,” Maori academic Dennis Ngawhare told Fairfax.
He said he believes iwi and hapu in Taranaki share his thoughts.
Cook defended her decision to go nude, saying she and her partner did their research before hiking to the summit of Mt Taranaki. Playmate Jaylene Cook climbed Mt Taranaki, posing naked for images near the summit. She said the photo isn’t explicit and that being nude is a natural and powerful pleasure, something not to take offence to. According to Cook, she waited until other trampers had left before undressing and posing for the camera.
Stratford Mayor Neil Volzke weighed in on the issue, saying the stunt was unexpected and culturally insensitive.
Cook was given the title of Playmate after she was featured in Playboy Mexico in January.
Cook was originally from Waikato before moving to the Gold Coast in Australia.
– NZ Herald

Such is the case with basically every landmark in New Zealand. I’m not cynical towards cultural custom and beliefs by any stretch of the imagination, however, I believe nudity is not something people should be attacking especially if it is consensual and innocently naive (I don’t think their intentions were to anger people/the mountain). And in this case, I think it’s pathetic Cook’s naivety on matters of iwi and hapu is being used to make an example of a belief, however valid it may seem. Or invalid; how can that one photo be culturally insensitive when it’s so culturally unremarkable?
I could segue into the dangers of anthropomorphism, but I’m really not that invested in trying to understand human behavior beyond my own opinion on the matter at hand. Naked woman on a mountain. She’s a Kiwi. Sweet. End of story.
Plus, well, it’s kind of hilarious to me (but not in a surprising way how this is considered news worthy in this funny country) because there have been countless promiscuous harlots visiting our beautiful shores for reasons of both business and pleasure for years don’t cha know?
Those landmarks weren’t mainstream enough to make a big deal about I suppose #doublestandards
Heard this song in quite possibly the hippest bar in the city today while on a date, and it will never not cheer me up:
One of my favourite songs and animations of all time: ‘Nina Simone – My Baby Just Cares For Me’ a 1987 stop-motion claymation directed by Peter Lord, co-founder (1976) of Aardman Animations, famous for bringing the world Wallace & Gromit.
After recent flooding in Papamoa, New Zealand, entire fields became the home of thousands of cobwebs:
This is the result of the spiders fleeing the floodplains. It’s a survival trait that spiders use their webs to parachute themselves from danger. As remarkable a sight as this is, it does beg the question; where the hecking heck are all the spiders now?!!
Leading up to the date, I was expecting a great show while really not knowing what to expect. It was great. Me and Renée enjoyed it, and myself more-so noticing her little idiosyncrasies every time the actors came within vicinity of kissing each other (hehe her smile kills me). The entire cast for this particular play was comprised of men only, which made for some rambunctious sexualised comedy.
Shakespeare was a master of his craft, and experiencing that genius translated live among a crowded audience and with a friend no less was memorable to say the least.
Here are some quotes from the play which are quite profound beyond their intended comedic context:
My affection hath an unknown
bottom, like the bay of Portugal Plenty (this line was changed to describe a NZ coastline, and was a cleaver play on words in itself—plenty.
— Rosalind confides to Celia that her love for Orlando feels limitless.
We that are true lovers run into strange
capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature
in love mortal in folly.
— Touchstone is relating some of the follies he has committed in the name of love and concludes that love itself dictates mortal folly—silly acts which are bound to fail.
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion
— Orlando praises Adam as representative of the good old days, as contrasted with the present, when no one does anything except for reward or promotion.
If thou remember’st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not loved
— Silvius, the young shepherd, is advising an older shepherd in the ways of love. Silvius, full of the overweening assurance of youth, declares that if the older shepherd cannot remember every time he made a fool of himself for love, then he has not experienced true love.
If ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it
— One of the gems of wisdom that Jaques takes away from Touchstone is that if ladies are young and attractive, they know it.
Pop-up Globe, an open-air amphitheatre, the world’s first full-scale temporary working replica of Shakespeare’s theatre, the second Globe, popped up for the first time in Auckland in February 2016 with a twice-extended debut season that sold over 100,000 tickets including 20,000 to school students.
For showings info and tickets visit, http://www.popupglobe.co.nz/tours I highly recommend “Much Ado About Nothing.” My personal favourite so far. And by recommend I mean see first, because you’re going to want to see all of them.
Writing truth. I don’t usually reblog, but this was a delightful read 🙂
I think I’ll hit ya with a 90’s throwback 😀
Be safe and alert around train crossings, people. I’ve seen first hand what the impact of a train will do to a person and it can be fatally devastating. #donteven