On this page:-
groups
films
poetry
prose
books
-
journals
web
sites
references
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On this page:- groups
|
Richard Von Sturmer |
Note: this is not an official page. I've written it because I like what I've read of Richard Von Sturmer's poetry, but I couldn't find much about him on the Internet.
Richard Von Sturmer was born in Auckland in 1957. He attended Westlake Boys High School, North Shore, Auckland, as did several of those later active in New Zealand music such as Don McGlashan, Tim Mahon, Mark Bell, Ian Gilroy and Andrew McLennan (aka Andrew Snoid).
Over the years
he has formed music and theatre groups, worked on films, and written poetry.
For about a year, around 1985, he taught at Northcote
College, Auckland. He now lives in New York. At the end of a page,
The
Bodhisattvic Garden, on the Rochester
Zen Center web site, he is described as "a writer, occasional photographer,
and co-editor of Zen Bow." [Zen Bow
is
the quarterly journal of Zen Buddhism published by the Rochester
Zen Center.]
 |
Groups |
With Charlotte Wrightson, like him a writer and performer, he started a group called Inside Information, a type of music theatre. There Is No Depression In New Zealand was the title of their first show. Otis Mace (real name Richard Lello) wrote some music for them.
Von Sturmer provided Otis Mace with lyrics for songs: Effort, Money and Time and Twizel.
Don McGlashan (later in The Whizz Kids, Blam Blam Blam, The Front Lawn, The Mutton Birds), was involved in both ideas for songs and in taking part in shows around Auckland. Don describes Richard writing lyrics in capitals on a typewriter - short lines and political diatribes with titles like Frank Gill's An Idiot (Frank Gill having once been an MP).
Some of their material was arranged and perfomed by The Plague.
Charlotte Wrightson and Von Sturmer formed The Humanimals. His first book, We Xerox Your Zebras (1988) developed from their work together.
There were at least two Humanimals short films (There was a script for a third, I'm not sure if it was ever made.)
Charlotte Wrightson and Von Sturmer also formed The Popular Schizophrenics. He described it as "a cross between a political party and a religious organisation."
The Search For Otto (1986) was a Popular Schizophrenics film.
In 1977 Von Sturmer returned from England, according to The Mechanics Of Popular Music "charged with the new punk movement that flourished there. He assembled a troupe of 'actors' and they rehearsed a series of theatre/music pieces revolving around his poetry and showmanship. The called themselves The Plague." They used material from Inside Information; songs such as Frank Gill's An Idiot and Private Property.
Don McGlashan described the music in an interview for Radio New Zealand's Musical Chairs in April 1998, "It was a really vicious noise, but it was really fun, fun to be part of. "He played with The Plague a few times, coming straight from playing French horn in the Auckland Symphonia, (now the Auckland Philharmonia), dressed in a 'penguin suit' and to stand on stage while people wearing only a coat of paint (assorted colours) would jump around him. Don McGlashan said of Von Sturmer, "Richard was a really prolific writer - and still is."
Also in The Plague, and ex-Westlake Boys High School pupils too, were Tim Mahon (The Whizz Kids, Blam Blam Blam), Mark Bell (Whizz Kids, Blam Blam Blam, Coconut Rough, Scribble), Ian Gilroy (Whizz Kids, Crocodiles, Swingers) and Andrew McLennan aka Andrew Snoid (Whizz Kids, Coconut Rough, Swingers, NZ Pop, The Zoo).
The Plague first gig was with The Scavengers at the State Theatre, Symonds Street, Auckland, due to Tim Mahon's persistence in hassling the promoter, Derek King. Again, as a result of Tim Mahon's efforts, The Plague were given an afternoon slot at the Nambassa Festival at Waihi, (North Island, NZ) in January 1979. They created a sensation when Von Sturmer and his backing vocalists, The Snoids appeared naked (apart from a covering of blue paint).
Nambassa (Wikipedia)
Nambassa - 25 year commemorative website, under construction, due late 2006.
A few months later Von Sturmer and The Snoids left The Plague. The remaining members became The Madda Ferrets then The Whizz Kids, who after changes in the line-up became Blam Blam Blam.
Although he wasn't a member of the band, Von Sturmer co-wrote the following Blam Blam Blam songs:-
Maids To Order was the title track of the first Blam Blam Blam EP. There Is No Depression In NZ was written for Inside Information and became a top 10 single in July 1981 and has appeared on several compilation albums.
|
Films |
Flying
Fox in a Freedom Tree (1989)
|
Poetry |
I have no time to do anything. I have too much time. I spend my time contemplating my lack of time. A lifetime of timelessness. I am lifeless and I am still alive. I have become the centre of all activity: birds fly overhead, fish swim in the sea, people pass by in cars. And yet I haven't time to enter their world. My time and their time are ages apart. I have no time. I have time on my hands. I am caught by myself and can't let go.
The book includes poems... about a journey from London to Italy to Auckland, written in the form of the Japanese genre, Haiban, a prose form of Haiku ...written in a fixed place (a coffee bar in Ponsonby Road, Auckland) on Monday afternoons...from living in Italy... visiting Mexico...inspired by a film (Wim Wenders - Wings Of Desire)...seeing something and then realising moments later that what you thought you saw wasn't there, it was something different...
From A Network Of Dissolving Threads:-
shimmering
through the
air
Imagination is nothing but movement. The hills dissolve and the sheep dissolve (there will be other hills and other sheep). One day you stand in the countryside, the next you're back in the city, looking into a shop-window. And each day is merely the fold of an accordian. And when the accordion is compressed. You hear the whistle of a train. A green train. And the thud of figs as they land on the earth.
***
I thought there
were parrots in the sky
but it was
just the light from the setting sun
colouring
the seagulls red
There are some poems by Richard Von Sturmer in a New Zealand poetry magazine called Salt. They disappeared for some time..then reappeared, although the home page tends to load briefly and then jump to a Yahoo error page. If you're fast enough, the links to the other pages on the site seem more stable! This is part of Von Sturmer's writing for Salt:-
Part 3: The Eclipse.
nobody thinks
about banding
the thin legs
of the sparrows
They sharpen their beaks on the backs of the chairs and hop onto your table, expecting you to share with them some of your sandwiches. "Are ye not of more worth than many sparrows?" "No," you would have to respond as one flies away with a bit of crust. "Even a single sparrow, at this moment, is my equal." Beyond the caf terrace, the surface of the harbour is a calm and solemn gray. The storm, which has just passed, has taken away the light as well as the rain so that everything is now subdued, except for the small birds. And even though your mood tends towards the melancholic, you can t help but smile to yourself, knowing that you can never be completely alone when in the company of sparrows.
thunder without clouds
space without time
wind without the earth
The shadows of trees soften, with crescent shapes swirling like bubbles among the blurred outline of leaves. Overhead, the sky is a remote blue, although possessing a peculiar density so that it appears, not like the interior of a dome, but rather like the outer surface of a gigantic sphere. People fall silent as they move across the lawn, engrossed in the subtle diffusion of light. One group of friends remains standing beside their picnic blanket. They take turns holding up a dark rectangle of glass. Through the smoky lens, the black ball of the moon can be seen blocking the sun, with only a thin halo of the brightest green visible around the edge.
|
Prose |
From: Images from the Center, Time and Place:-
"A monk once asked Master Joshu, 'How should I use the twenty-four hours?' Joshu replied, 'You are used by the twenty-four hours, I use the twenty-four hours.' Whatever we do, there is the underlying awareness of time passing, of impermanence. In our free time we may watch a movie, or sit outside a café with a friend. Or we may visit someone in a hospice, or take our cushion to Rochester's Mt. Hope Cemetary and do zazen facing a gravestone.
Each activity is fine, just as it is. Each activity allows us to be in the present moment, to be a still point in the midst of ever-changing circumstances."
|
Books by Richard Von Sturmer |
 |
We Xerox Your Zebras, Richard Von Sturmer, Modern House, 1988. ISBN 1-86942-101-9 |
 |
A Network Of Dissolving Threads, Richard Von Sturmer, Auckland University Press, 1991. ISBN 1-86940-054- 2 |
 |
Images from the Center - Daily Life at an American Zen Center, Joseph Sorrentino and Richard Von Sturmer, Rochester Zen Center Publications, 1998. ISBN 0-940306-49-2 "A collection of fifty black-and-white photographs by Sangha photographer Joseph Sorrentino on life and ceremonies at the Rochester Zen Center, with text by Zen Bow editor Richard Von Sturmer." |
| Suchness: zen poetry and prose, Richard von Sturmer, HeadworX Publishers, October 2005. ISBN 0-476-01030-6 | |
Anthologies which include poetry by Richard Von Sturmer:-
 |
Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English, An, Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-19-558355-8 |
 |
How You Doing? - A Selection of New Zealand Comic and Satiric Verse, Edited by Harry Ricketts and Hugh Roberts, Lincoln University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-909049-26-2 |
| Second New Zealand Haiku Anthology, The, New Zealand Poetry Society, 1998. ISBN 0-473-05374-8 | |
|
Web sites which include writings by Richard Von Sturmer |
|
References - sources for this page |
Web Sites:-
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright
note:- I understand it is acceptable to quote from copyright works for
the purpose of reviews - which is the aim of this page.
Page
compiled by carolyn
Last
updated 4th August, 2006.