Auckland - a City Ruled by Fear
... in April 1994 the Wizard was
approached
to perform by a public relations firm in Auckland who represented
Watercare
Services....
The Wizard pointed out that he would not intrude
on other
peoples territory without being invited by the legitimate authorities
and
asked the firm to arrange an invitation from the four city Councils
that
administer Auckland. Only one city council, North Shore, showed any
interest,
the others just did not want to know. The Wizard received a delightful
letter of invitation from North Shore (with a charming little poem)
looking
forward to his visit and informing him that no doubt lots of children
would
love to be present. The date was set for late May,
unless
of course it rained before then.
Then, a day or two before his departure, like a
thunderbolt
out of the blue, the Wizard received a letter from the North Shore city
council regretting they had to cancel their invitation...
The talkback radio stations, that are very
popular in
Auckland, were dominated for several days by a very serious debate as
to
whether the Wizard should be allowed into Auckland to do his rain dance
or not...
A Yankee Wizard in the Secular City
Then a fax arrived from an unknown wizard in a
small
town just north of Auckland offering to help in winning the spiritual
war
that was raging there. Naturally dubious of the credentials of a wizard
he had never heard of, the Wizard made further enquiries.
Wizard Ron was a Yank living in Silverdale where
he and
his wife Paula, a Kiwi, ran a small shop selling Mexican silver. He was
on good terms with the district mayor and local businessmens'
association.
He believed it would bring credit (in both senses of the word) if the
Wizard
were invited, all expenses paid, to perform his "wicked" rain dance in
Silverdale.
The mayor of the Rodney District sent the
invitation
and a few days later, in a blaze of media publicity, the Wizard arrived
to dance in the main street of tiny Silverdale assisted by his new
Yankee
chum.
A Wizard Fly-Over
To ensure success a helicopter was chartered to
fly the
Wizard over Auckland city whilst he made suitable gestures and chants
to
encourage precipitation. At the same time his voice was broadcast over
a local radio station. He urged the population down below to look up
and,
when they saw his plane, to demonstrate their support by doing a few
dance
steps or their disapproval by shaking their fists.
The Wizard then returned to the South Island to
do some
tourist magic for the ski fields in Queenstown.
[Exerpt from the Wizard of New
Zealand website]
©
ArchWizard of New
Zealand 1997.
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