A fine Messe

Travelling without a lap top is great but blogging on an iPhone is hard. There are iPads and smart phones aplenty at Frankfurt -- the free wifi grinds to a halt at lunchtime -- but mostly there are books, in huge quantity. If this is what the death of publishing looks like then death is nothing to be afraid of. Things were very different in 2003-2006, people tell me, in the "boom years" but again things seem pretty good. The floors of the main halls are crammed with stalls and reps taking meetings. One publisher told me the point of the Fair is to be seen, "so people know you're still alive."

New Zealand is in two places: in the sales stand in Hall 8, which is as busy as the others, and in the main forum, where stands the pavilion, the events stage and the green room, where the mood is unfailingly upbeat. The locals and publishers I've spoken to like the Pavilion and think we've done well. (Disclosure: I crashed a party that wasn't really for authors. "You must feel like you are in the tank with the sharks," someone said, in a German accent.) There is a lot of talk about hiking; I've had to bluff my way through that. My sessions are today and Sunday. I've had meetings, been interviewed for radio and the Arte tv channel and am taking part in an online event on Saturday. And it's raining, so as an Aucklander I feel right at home. Although my head does hurt this morning for some reason.

Late night

Jazz at the A-Trane, Bleibtreustraße 1. Raphael Beiter on trombone. Amazing vocal performances by Fama M'Boup, Friederline Merz, Zola Mennenech and Anna Marlene. Your host: Andreas C. Schmidt. 

Is this thing on?

From the Mana Verlag press reception at the Patio-Restaurantschiff Helgoländer Ufer/ Kirchstraße, Berlin, with Peter Walker, Robert Sullivan and Philip Temple.

Signs

Arts and culture

Baby it's cold outside

Upfront

Looper is very good. I saw it on the recommendation of a colleague -- the trailer didn't attract me at all, and I wondered early on if I was going to like it (the irony of time travel is so much of it has been done before) but then it turned great and, perhaps even more importantly, stopped at just the right moment. I mostly enjoyed it for the things I've been writing about here: a minimum of special effects and a lot of talking for its own sake. And the editing: the memory flashbacks between present and past felt like an old-fashioned movie where the cuts told the story instead of chopping between multiple angles to smooth over preposterous or hard-to-get action.

I've seen a lot of movies with Emily Blunt in them now. Is it me or does she always dress the same?

Anyway... recommended. Can't say more. Will spoil it.

Good indie movies now are becoming what TV used to be: genre, low-budget, heavy on drama and dialogue. It's the new age of talkies.

On the same (4K digital) screen beforehand, a trailer for the Prometheus Blu-ray with spoilers and an additional scenes that made me hope it was going to be good all over again. Because that's what a movie theater has become: a first-look enticement to partake in the real viewing experience -- the high-def home theater drilldown into What You Missed. The deleted scenes on the Prometheus Blu-ray take apart the theatrical cut like it's Last Year At Marienbad. That's the experience audiences pay for now: a deconstruction. In a weird way, they're watching Godard movies.