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Amanda vs. the NZ arts establishment

  • Writer: Amanda Riddell
    Amanda Riddell
  • Jan 15
  • 1 min read

If any of you had ever paid me for my work, we wouldn't be in this situation. Given that these people are self-defined gatekeepers, my indie success - that is frequently exceeding their results on a smaller budget - is an embarrassment. They want to force a concert that allows them to say they 'discovered' me. Instead, I went to the weed club in Auckland and turned on my webcam. - Sondheim discovered me. That's common knowledge. Or, to go back even further, Hugh Stevenson when I went to Burnside and joined his specialist music programme. - Then, to rub more salt in the wound, it turns out my compositions are more valuable than my renditions of covers. If I was just a recitalist, there wouldn't be a problem, but those compositions have a similar type of sociopolitical heat to Lennon/McCartney. In NZ, at least, there's quite a few tune detectives decoding my lyrics. The current government wishes they could class me as a threat to national security. Advocating for leaving the US-based imperial group is an increasingly mainstream view in Te Riu-A-Māui, but I lack the protections that Helen Clark has. The concert would only exist to diminish my mana and enhance theirs.

 
 
 

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2 Comments

Amanda Riddell
Amanda Riddell
Jan 14

I'm not in jail, obviously, but the downside of my AMPP docuseries was that it told everyone where I lived. That means it's partially compromised. Whenever things happen in the building, I can never quite be sure if it's normal or if it's a coded message from the SIS.

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Amanda Riddell
Amanda Riddell
Jan 14
Replying to

Why coded? They have no legal right to surveil me without a warrant, and they're not supposed to actively dissuade people, so it's all clandestine. Judith says they're not involved at all, but that's clearly a lie.

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