Figwit

..found
a story that I’d seen in on the NZ Prime News about a Kiwi musician, Don
McGlashan, (whom I saw in the Comedy Festival a few years ago in The Front Lawn),
who’d ridden his bicycle into an open car door, (somewhat ironically in
Auckland’s Dominion Rd, which featured in a hit song he’d written
for his first band, The Mutton Birds), and suffered three broken ribs, a broken
collarbone and a punctured lung. (No wonder most cyclists you come across are
bad-tempered bastards..)
Hmmm.. A recurring theme of cyclists. That could be interesting. Then
I caught sight of this unusual word Figwit in association with The
Hobbit movie and a Conchord and I was immediately intrigued. If you’re
not familiar with The Flight of the Conchords then I can only urge
you to get with the program, but, suffice to say it’s a left-field musically
oriented sitcom which features the nuanced Kiwi humour, (some might just say
deadpan humour), of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement.
The Conchord in question was Bret McKenzie and he initially had a brief (three
seconds) non-speaking part in the council at Rivendell scene in The Fellowship
of the Ring, the first of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The story
goes that in the ‘a fan saw him on screen.. and thought. “Frodo is
great … who is that?” And from that, the acronym Figwit was born..’
*
After this initial dizzying success, Bret returned as an elf escort to Liv Tyler
in The Return of the King and delivered one and a half lines (to a
ladder) – and it’s from these two fleeting appearances that the tongue-in-cheek,
quite clunky but nevertheless very popular Figwit
website was spawned.
Now, I realise we’re getting into celebrity spotting here, but I’m
certain it never would’ve occurred to Sir Peter Jackson or whoever hired Bret
in the first place that Mr McKenzie’s momentary appearances in this gigantic
nation-building project would generate so much interest world-wide. I imagine
that Bret has been the financial beneficiary of all this attention, particularly
if it’s true that he’s appearing in The Hobbit spin-off
movie. He certainly seems to have moved up the movie actor food chain when it’s
reported that, ‘McKenzie was at Wednesday night’s opening of Miramar’s
new Roxy theatre along with Jackson and Hobbit cast members Martin Freeman,
Sir Ian McKellen, James Nesbitt and Adam Brown.’ That would be an interesting
night out, although not necessarily for everybody.
I’m pretty sure that nobody would’ve predicted any sort of movie
career for Bret unless perhaps it’d been as half of the Conchords –
or a third, depending on your thinking. But that’s the mystery and beauty
of the Net. Stuff gets put up and stuff gets seen and people react. But, as
for somebody trying to divine the mood and appetite of a prospective audience,
you’re actually no further ahead. The ‘experts’ are still
no more expert than they’ve ever been, otherwise everybody that considers
themselves an expert or is having their career guided by an expert would be
consistently grabbing the public’s attention.

Speaking of experts, I see they’ve endorsed the original decision by
the Court in the contentious Down Under case by dismissing EMI’s
recent appeal. EMI argued amongst other things that ‘the inclusion of
two bars from Kookaburra was at most a form of tribute to the piece,
penned by Toorak teacher Marion Sinclair more than 75 years ago.. The company
also said the trial judge had placed insufficient weight on the fact that
the similarities between the two songs had gone unnoticed for many years.’**
One might imagine that this decision could have enormous implications, particularly
in the jazz field where musically quoting well-known tunes in the context
of another is standard practice. The reason that it won’t, of course,
is that there’s no money in jazz, which in turn exposes the opportunistic
nature of the claim against Men At Work in the first place.
Perhaps the Men’s counsel got it wrong in pleading ignorance –
the video clip clearly indicates they knew what they were doing – but
I suspect that in reality the decision relates more to the sampling world
than it does the real (analogue) world. Ah, the vexed world of copyright.
Where would we be without it?

* Stuff.co.nz
** The
Age online

The video that I mentioned
I saw on The Press site has disappeared, so just in case you haven’t seen
it, here’s a chilling pic (maybe it’s a sitll from a home movie) that was
taken just as the quake hit Christchurch. It must’ve been taken not far from
where I used to live on Cashmere Hills. Thanks to Mick Newman for bringing
it to my attention.