KEY POINTS:
1. Guyon Espiner eats a steak
The physical act was easy. The steak knife glided through the beef fillet without resistance, the mushroom caponata was an innocent bystander and the porcini butter a willing accomplice.
But raising the fork the short distance between the patiently laid table and my waiting mouth was to cut through a good chunk of my life: my decade without meat.
Some counsel against making decisions on an empty stomach but this decision had already been made.
I had taken the day off and set out running to Island Bay, through Owhiro Bay, off-road along Wellington's south coast and up over the Red Rocks track towards the Brooklyn wind turbine time, amid the dull, yellow tussock and the bright, blue sea, to digest just how it important it was for me to end 10 years as a born-again meat virgin.
I decided to become a vegetarian while living in London towards the end of 1996. I'd been working in Fleet St, not as a journalist but as a barman at the Cheshire Cheese. Alongside the warm ales quaffed by city types in the square mile, the landmark London pub served standard lunchtime fare; a favourite was the hefty beef sandwich. When the mad cow disease scare struck, suddenly beef was off the menu.
It came off my menu, too, and when a friend decided to follow his girlfriends lead and become vegetarian I though I'd also try that. I was surprised how easy the conversion was and how little I missed meat any of it: chicken, sausages, mince; even the smell of bacon frying at breakfast left me unmoved.
I'd decided to continue eating fish, which technically made me a piscivorous vegetarian, and that's when I realised the trouble with my new diet would not be resisting temptation, but explaining myself. Unlike declaring a preference for cheese over dessert or tea over coffee, rejecting meat invites intense inquiry and even confrontation.
You are expected to have a good reason or one will be found for you. Many assume being vegetarian aligns you with a set of political ideals. Former Prime Minister Mike Moore famously talked about the vegetarian wing of the Labour Party and everybody knew what he meant tree-hugging greenies who did not live in the real world.
I took a swig of water as I made my way up the hill path towards the wind turbine. Scientists say eating meat makes you stronger and that must be so but I wouldn't know. As a meat eater I wouldn't run for the bus. As a vegetarian I've run four marathons and the 60km Kepler Challenge mountain race. Maybe they would have been easier with the extra protein and iron.
The track forks ahead and I take the easy option down to Owhiro Bay and home; it's been two hours and I'm getting hungry.
In fact I'm ravenous when I raise that fork to my mouth and a little anxious.
The friend I followed into vegetarianism all those years ago told me how he had the occasional craving for meat. Once he'd opted for veal and his stomach had rejected it immediately.
I looked around Logan Brown, one of the capitals finest restaurants, for options in case my stomach wasn't up to the challenge, but the exit strategies did not look promising.
I bit into the beef fillet but rather than revulsion I felt a rekindled passion. The meat collapsed in my mouth and a musty fog of rich flavours seemed to fill my whole head. My memory engaged, flicked swiftly through the culinary reference points and (apologies to Logan Brown) fixed on fond memories of steak and chips at Cobb & Co in the late 1970s, when a meal without meat was not a meal at all.
My heart was racing out of memory or desire I don't know but I charged on, severing off a larger chunk of the beef and then a larger one still.
But when I stopped momentarily to take stock and sip my red wine I was suddenly hit with the overpowering sensation that Id had enough.
I couldn't finish the beef fillet. It wasn't that it didn't taste good, or that the celeriac puree, faithful mushroom caponata and seductive porcini butter weren't perfect partners in crime. It wasn't even that this was an assault on my moral sensibilities, it was more simple than that.
I can do without meat, I don't miss it and looking down at the remainder of the beef, I finally realised I don't need a reason that is enough.
* Guyon Espiner is the political editor at Television New Zealand.
2. Cathrin Schaer takes a vow of silence
Some people are too fond of their pets. Others are a little too enthusiastic about cars. Me, I'm a little too fond of the sound of my own voice.
I know this because sometimes when I'm in the middle of telling someone an immensely important story I notice that they begin to stare over my shoulder, far into our non-mutual future. Good friends have been known to interrupt me with "cut a long story short". And at parties, I have this uncanny knack of triggering bladders I'm always the last person to see your friend before they rush off to queue for the bathroom.
So when I was asked to take a vow of silence for a whole weekend for this story, my first question was "why, what's the point?"
Looking at the popularity of silent retreat as well as having seen various spiritual types during my Asian travels there's clearly something good about keeping shtum. And there's a long tradition of shutting up among more enlightened mortals who have gone before me.
Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, started a religious movement whereby his followers had to follow strict rules, one of which was a rule of silence. They believed that words were often used carelessly and could misrepresent the speaker. And Mahatma Gandhi used to spend one day in week in silence because he believed it brought him inner peace.
Meanwhile, modern day Vipassana courses and other sorts of silent retreat focus mostly on the purification and clarification of mind and spirit.
Right, then. I am certain there's nothing quite as refreshing as a spot of mindfulness, clarification, purification and getting closer to any higher powers willing to have me. This will be a sort of "urban Vipassana" if you like, that will allow me to retreat from the crazy social whirlwind that is Ponsonby Rd.
And I'm enthusiastic about the results will I become more appreciative of human interaction? Will I feel rested and have clearer thoughts? Will my hearing become super-sensitive? And most importantly, will I start to watch what I say and gasp talk less?
I can't wait to find out. But almost immediately I run into problems. Friday night I imagine two halcyon days of peace and quiet, of floating around in a metaphorical white robe of mental bliss. Saturday morning the phone rings. I automatically pick it up and say, "hello?". Doh.
Later, I'm talking at length to a friend about how hard it is for me to keep quiet. So he suggests we go to a movie and I can practise for a whole hour and three quarters. Unfortunately, the movie is Stomp The Yard and it is impossible to resist making an in-depth analysis of this profound commitment to film. Nor can I resist talking about the sweaty man next to us who is eating popcorn more loudly than any human being has ever before.
Sunday isn't any better. My mother calls but resolute, I ignore her. Then a friend calls and leaves a sobbing message about a minor romantic drama. I ignore her, too. Another friend calls she has time off from her family and is dying for a coffee. She doesn't get out much but I ignore her anyway. But now rather than feeling cleansed, I'm just starting to feel horribly guilty. So I call both friends.
And once again, its a slippery slope down into the valley of idle chit-chat.
At this stage I'm starting to wonder what a girl needs to do to get a moment to shut up around here? It takes effort and I think I now know why hermits wall themselves up inside caves for 20 years they just want a bit of peace and quiet. The "retreat" part is obviously just as important as the silent bit.
Then just as I begin to think this is an impossible task I get lucky: I get sick. Trying to get out the door to work on Monday I almost fall back into bed, aching and shivering. Maybe it's an indictment of modern life but catching a hideous disease seems to be the only way I'm going to get some quiet time.
No one knows I am at home so they wont try to call me. I make one brief phone call to work, leaving a message saying I wont be coming in. I make a sign for my flatmates. It says: "I'm sick today AND I have taken a vow of silence". One of them reads it and then asks "why?"
"For a story," I blurt out.
Curses. It's amazing how much we take verbal communication for granted. Determined to keep going, I find some masking tape and stick it over my mouth to remind myself to keep quiet until they've all left for work.
"Why are you doing this? What's the point?" my flatmate demands. With tape over my lips, I write him notes to explain. I could argue with him right now but because I'm writing I keep it to the essentials. When you do a Vipassana course you are not supposed to communicate with anyone, not even smile or gesticulate at your fellow meditators or sing to yourself. But I've since discovered that Gandhi used to write notes during his once-a-week day of silence, so if its okay for Gandhi, its okay for me. I wonder if Gandhi would have sent text messages, too?
Before he departs, my flatmate tells me kindly, "I quite like it that I can talk and you just have to listen." And he's right, I definitely listen to him more because I don't get to butt in.
After everyone has left and I'm alone with the cat (do I get to talk to the cat?), I find other noises more interesting, too. I know it's illogical but I was thinking that if I was silent then everything else would also be quieter. But the guy mowing his lawns, the helicopter overhead and the children screaming outside continue oblivious to my vow.
Around 11am I contemplate going to the supermarket to get some lemon, honey and aspirins. But I'm not sure if this is possible without appearing rude or taking my "vow of silence" sign with me to the shopping mall and appearing demented. It all sounds too hard so I stay at home and have a cup of tea instead.
I spend the rest of the day at home, drifting between my bedroom and the TV, and manage to resist talking to anyone, even the cat.
By late afternoon I've really enjoyed the feeling of having no demands placed on me by other humans. In the evening, when my flatmates come home they start talking about all sorts of things television shows, internet downloads, music, their workdays and dinner. And here I think I may have achieved something. Because rather than listening to them more intently, I find I listen to them less.
Most of what they're saying is irrelevant to me. Its small talk, literally. And because I am not going to talk to them and they know it, they almost ignore me. So in some ways, even though I was not strictly uncommunicative all day and I did need help from a piece of sticky tape at one stage, I have succeeded. For short moments I have managed to retreat a short distance from the world of the loquacious. All I could manage was to keep quiet for several stretches of hours at a time but it has made me interested in going on a proper, organised silent retreat.
But most importantly for all those party-goers I have driven into the bathroom will any of this make me talk less? Or become a better, more pure person?
Don't know really. It did make me think more carefully about what I said and about how much we take something as simple as talking for granted. As for the sainthood, well, I'm still working on that one. I'll tell you all about it at the next party.
* Cathrin Schaer is a writer for Viva and a regular contributor to Canvas.
3. Christopher Niesche goes unconventional
It's nine oclock on Monday morning and I'm about to walk through the door at work. I've eschewed the dark suit and conservative tie I usually wear and am instead wearing a bright-red, open-neck shirt and brown checked pants. I feel like Bozo the Clown.
My colleagues' reaction is immediate. What happened? they say; What's with the change of outfit?
I'm cool now, I tell people, or, I'm dressing for the new economy, the internet.
What I don't tell them is that I am on assignment from Canvas to put aside the conventional clothes I usually wear to work as business editor of this newspaper and to dress more flamboyantly, indeed fashionably.
To that end I'd gone to the World Man shop in High St, where designer Benny Castles helped me to pick five outfits to wear for the week of the experiment.
Many men might relish this opportunity, but the idea of dressing to attract attention makes me queasy. It would be an exaggeration to say I shed my inhibitions in the dressing room at World Man, but I suppressed them as much as I could and came away with five brightly coloured outfits, most of which I normally wouldn't be seen dead in: a pastel yellow cardigan, a maroon hoodie, a bright red shirt, green pants with a rainbow-coloured waistband, a bright-yellow belt.
Castles who wore his clothing with considerable panache had helpfully sticky-taped each days outfit together on its coat hangers to ensure I avoid any mix-and-match accidents.
At work, I am in a meeting and when I glance up I see colleagues smirking at each other as they look at what I'm wearing, before quickly looking away to avoid my eye and pretending to concentrate on what they're doing. These are the sort of smirks you'd see after someone had disgraced themselves at the office Christmas party the night before, and I'm not used to being on the receiving end.
Later that day, when I go to get lunch, I bump into a colleague on the street.
Hello Chris, you're not at work today? he says, adding as he looks me up and down, so this is the real you.
Actually, I tell him, no its not. The real me likes wearing a coat and tie, at least when I'm at work, and always has.
At school in Sydney, I had to wear a tie from the age of 6, and in the senior school from age 12 a grey suit was mandatory. These certainly weren't stylish suits and were even less so when splattered with clay from pottery class but after 12 years, wearing a suit and tie became reassuringly familiar.
After a few years of wearing casual clothes at university which seemed entirely appropriate for a place where attendance was optional but beer for lunch wasn't, I joined the workforce and have worn a coat and tie since.
On Thursday, I finally get to wear a suit and tie, but not like anything I've ever worn before.
The shirt lime green with pink polka dots is like pyjamas. The suit is a colour probably known in the fashion trade as aubergine or pinot noir, but which could most accurately be described as purpley-brown.
You're looking fruity today, says a colleague, in what is probably the most frank assessment of the week's wardrobe.
Later in the lift, someone says to me: That's a cool shirt, man, it takes a bit of daring to wear a shirt like that.
No one usually calls me man. Maybe I am cool after all, but I certainly don't feel it.
Flamboyant clothing might be expected to make the wearer more flamboyant, but the outfits have the opposite effect on me. Instead, I spend much of the week hiding out in my office, slinking off to the tearoom for a cup of coffee only when I think the coast is clear.
Clothes might maketh the man, but these outfits and the attention they draw have diminished me to someone afraid to leave his office.
As silly as I feel, most of my colleagues congratulate me on my new look. So much better than the boring suits and ties, they say.
Behind my back, the reaction was somewhat different, I hear later.
Apparently, people wondered if I was having an early mid-life crisis or whether impending fatherhood had somehow led to this fashion epiphany. Some suggested my wife had started choosing my clothes; others thought Id become gay.
Monday morning a week later, the experiment is over and I go to work in one of my dark suits. No one notices or comments on what I'm wearing. Perfect.
* Christopher Niesche is editor of the Business Herald.
4. Eugene Bingham takes to the air
On the verge of my maiden flight, trussed-up like a Christmas turkey, an old fear zooms back into my mind. The director of Maui, One Man against the Gods, Tanemahuta Gray, has offered to teach me how to fly, emulating the graceful, acrobatic stars of his show. But I'm preoccupied by my only other attempt to take flight, a moment of primary-school daring when I'd bravely climbed the adventure playground to whiz down the flying fox. Pathetically, I'd frozen with fear on the launch pad, forcing two teachers to clamber up and save me.
So what am I doing here in a harness about to fly? Call it the sheer challenge, the chance to vanquish the memory of that day 25 years earlier.
It hadn't helped that the night before Id been hit by the weirdest text, suggesting I bring two or three pairs of underwear. I'm perplexed - do I wear them all at once, or will I need spares? What have I got myself in for?
Next morning I head for the Hawkins Centre at Papakura, where lithe young dancers and actors limber and stretch in preparation for a hard days rehearsals. I'm feeling stodgy and frumpy, a lump incapable of leaping, let alone flying.
You must be Eugene, says head climber, Nick Creech. I wonder if it's because I'm the only stranger on set today, or because he's recognised me from the figures I had to supply in preparation for my flight height, weight and girth were all necessary safety measurements.
Creech is gripping a harness and looks like he belongs at Everest Base Camp lean, long, muscular arms and legs, and a goatee beard. Actually, he explains, this is exactly his environment he studied at circus school and is a specialist climber for theatre and circus shows.
It makes him perfect for this role on Maui, where the actors are taught to swing and fly, suspended by ropes as they sing, dance and act out the Maori legend. Creech's credentials established, I'm already beginning to feel calmer about what lies ahead of and above me.
Gray comes bounding towards me, with a wide smile and arm stretched out to shake my hand. Don't worry, he says in a soothing voice, you're in good hands. Gray explains he and Creech will guide me through what it takes to fly. As they fit me with a climbing harness, strapped firmly around my waist, hips and groin, Gray asks if I got the message about the underpants.
These things are firm, he says, as Creech yanks on a strap, straining to pull the harness as tight as possible. I find the extra underpants make it a bit more comfortable. OK so they're not in case I get too scared.
I'm almost ready to soar, but first things first. Gray gathers the cast and crew for the morning karakia. Telling the story of Maori gods, Gray acknowledges and prays to the spirits and ancestors each day, imploring them to watch and guide over the production. I'm pleased: with nerves jangling, I'll take all the help on offer.
There's no time to fret now, though, as I stand at the top of a steep ramp on stage, the auditorium below me. The harness is clipped to two ropes, strung through pulleys high in the ceiling. My personal counterweights, Creech and one of his colleagues, are poised to hoist me skywards. The first ascent is gentle as my feet slowly lift off the ground but its still an effort, hips thrust forward and stomach muscles held tense to remain upright. It's a wholly unreal sensation, yet it's strangely natural, 3m above the stage. I feel like I'm floating, though it still doesn't feel like I'm flying.
As I come back down to earth, Gray launches into a display. He swoops and twirls, flutters and flaps. He's a natural. A graduate of the NZ School of Dance, Gray earned international wings with De La Guarda, a world-leading Argentinean aerial theatre company. He drew on that experience as co-creator of Maui, a show he hopes to take to the world as the Riverdance of New Zealand.
Inspired by Gray's display, I'm ready for my next flight. This time, there's more to it than just a vertical ascent. Once aerial, arms out wide, I'm rapidly pulled forward, adrenalin rushing: takeoff at last.
There's no such thing as fear any more. This is fun, zooming forward, sideways, backwards, all under the control of Creech and his team. I'm their puppet on a string; a flying marionette.
For my crowning moment, Gray teaches me to flip. Suspended several metres above the stage, he encourages me to fall forward and flick my legs. It's harder than I think it will be, but finally, I'm twirling over and over, propelled by momentum. Then backwards. Gravity? Huh!
It's strangely addictive. Flips mastered, I want to try more. But there's serious work to be done, rehearsals, and its time for me to be unclipped.
It's been a blast, but the real thrill comes when I watch the professionals in action on opening night. Though I know the secret of how they fly, I still feel the magic of their aerial performance, perhaps more than I would have.
It's one thing to learn to fly but quite another to fly and sing at the same time.
* Eugene Bingham is the Weekend Herald news editor and a regular contributor to Canvas.
