[Ever wondered how some secular charities raise money?] …. Well, look no further…
Ian Steward reports today how:
Flea infestations, gay love scenes, the Samoan tsunami and Helen Clark featured in a night of story-telling to raise money for the Christchurch earthquake.
Nine media and literary personalities related 10-minute tales on the theme of “survival” to a large crowd at the events centre atop the Auckland War Memorial Museum last night.
Writer Steve Braunias told of a one-month OE that ended in flea-ridden depression in a Wellington flat that doubled as a bordello (he claimed to have infected Helen Clark with the fleas, though not at the bordello).
Author Emily Perkins told a harrowing tale of her youngest daughter almost losing her leg to medical mishap in the British medical system, and photographer Marti Friedlander, 82, brought the house down with a tale of amateur mountaineering that persistently came back to her love of Kiwi men.
Musician Don McGlashan’s struggle to be a “normal” dad was destroyed when, dressed against the cold in pyjamas, balaclava, and socks-on-hands, he was discovered in his garage-studio by a group of young boys as he laboured to fit a score to a movie’s gay love scene taking place up a tree.
Comedian and writer Oscar Kightley gave a sombre note to the night – as it was the anniversary of the Samoan earthquake and subsequent tsunami he gave some of the stories of survival he had heard from his homeland.
Organiser Susanna Andrew, from the New Zealand Book Council, said the event was a great success.
All funds raised went to the Red Cross appeal fund for earthquake relief, she said
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