There’d been a bit of tooting over on Twitter about Customs Brew Bar, a new cafe from Coffee Supreme, so when it opened the Wellingtonista paid a visit.
It’s not your run-of-the-mill cafe – as well as a lush woodern interior, Customs also sells a range of single-original coffee beans and uses less than ordinary methods of brewing the beans.
So I had a chat to Coffee Supreme’s Justin, who kindly explained the concept behind Customs Brew Bar.
It’s time for another Pecha Kucha Night, where creative people of Wellington will each give a short talk – with 20 slides each at 20 seconds per slide.
It’s TONIGHT – Monday 19 October, at the lovely Downstage Theatre. Doors open at 6.30pm, with the event starting at 7.30. It’s $9 admission – cash only.
Tonight’s line-up:
Ralph Johns – landscape architect
Meena Kadri – design lecturer/communications strategist/researcher
Philippe Campays – architect/artist
Sarah Maxey – graphic designer/artist
Andy Irving – artist/designer
Hilary Beaton – Downstage Theatre
Troy Donovan – facade designer
James M. Maddock
Margaret Austin
Craig Nicholson – interculturalist
Sheba Williams – artist
George Hajian – graphic designer
Meighan Ellis – artist
James Everett – game designer
Alison Wong – novelist/poet
Miranda Harcourt’s new one-woman play "Biography of My Skin" has just opened at Downstage, and, crikey, it’s good. My co-theatre-goer Kowhai and I have spent a bit of time since discussing its impact on us.
The premise of "Biography of my Skin" is that it’s a one-woman biographical play written for actress Miranda Harcourt by her husband, Stuart McKenzie. So she’s telling her story, but in her husband’s words. Clever, huh?
Sometimes it takes the eyes of a visitor to shed a new light on the ordinary.
Fernando Ramierez is a Chilean photographer who’s been spending a bit of time travelling around Wellington buses using the Daytripper ticket.
He started noticing the other passengers on the bus, and began talking to them and photographing them. This lead to his Daytripper photo essay series.
[I] soon realized that Wellington is a beautiful city not just because of the great architecture. It’s a beautiful city because of its people. Really kind, they let a complete stranger approach, take photos, learn about their lives and hope for the best.
Scoop has some photos online and also the photo essay available as a PDF. And there’s also Fernando’s Flickr group with the photos.
For the last couple of weeks, Wellington has been teased with the sight of grim reapers going about their business around the city. These hooded folk were promoting the new play "Good Night – The End", which has recently opened at Downstage. Written by the multi-talented Jo Randerson, the play looks at a group of three grim reapers (and their zesty Italian administrator), just spending time in their break room between reaping.
And like most people, the stuff that gets discussed on breaks is often nothing to do with their work. So instead it’s arguments about doing the dishes, using all the Milo, and Cheezels, pies, pizzas and hash browns, coming across as an unruly mix of between The Office, passiveaggressivenotes.com, Big Brother and a bit of the Mighty Boosh thrown in for good measure.
A couple of cool new features have arrived at Google Maps.
First, the images used in the satellite tiles have been updated, and with images of a higher resolution so you can zoom in right down to the smallest click on the slidey thing.
The old images pre-dated the bypass, so it’s good to see more up-to-date images.
Also, the images appear to have been taken on a bright sunny day and the city looks absolutely gorgeous.
Second thing is Google Transit, which lets you plan journeys using public transport (click on Get Directions in Google Maps).
Wellington is the first city in Australasia to have Google Transit, as reported in this envious article in the Herald.
Alan’s already had a bit of a play with it:
Whero’s New Net, by Albert Belz, is a play inspired by The New Net Goes Fishing, Witi Ihimaera’s 1977 collection of short stories looking at the experiences of rural Maori moving to the cities.
This play takes the idea forward to the next generation, looking at Whero (played by Bree Peters), a young Maori woman living in London and trying to make a break as a singer-songwriter. She’s rather good, but a little nervous and somewhat overshadowed by Red, her confident, glamorous musical partner.
Whero is supported by her Irish manager and his boyfriend, also urban Maori. All is going well, when Whero meets a mysterious stranger – an East Coast Maori fulla who has the diary of her deceased father.
And it’s there that things get interesting, with Whero having to deal with aspects of her family’s past, her present and the pressures of the future.
We’ve always known that Wellington is a warm glowing lovefest of pinko liberal lefties. And no matter what your feelings are on the ambiguously worded opinion poll citizens-initiated referendum on kid-hitting, looking at the specific results of the Wellington electorates is pretty interesting.
As it happens, as of Friday night, the top two electorates in New Zealand with the highest percentage of ‘yes’ votes are Wellington Central (35.9%) and Rongotai (29.22%), and Ohariu isn’t too far behind with 19.73%.
The other big pockets of ‘yes’ are found in Auckland Central (28.84%) and Mt Albert (22.67%).
So if you’re feeling a little let down by the overall referendum result, a little comfort can be found in knowing that Wellington is still ace.
If you’ve visited Akaroa, you’ll know how the li’l Canterbury village prides itself on its Frenchness. See, it was founded by the French.
Dave Armstrong’s new play "Le Sud" takes the idea of the French in Aotearoa a few steps further – ce qui si le français avait colonisé l’Île du Sud?
Uh, I mean, what if the French colonised the South Island?
The comedy is set at a political meeting, with the Kiwi-as North Zealanders paying a visit to their Gallic southern neighbours to see about buying some of that electricity they have an abundance of.
We meet the sleazy South Zealand prime minister, his lesbionique deputy, and their minister of native affairs, who’ll do anything for a dollar. Or a franc. And if you’ve learned a bit of French in school, you’ll be able to feel clever throughout their opening dialogue en français.
The North Zealand team are lead by the good ol’ Kiwi bloke PM, and his coalition partners – a very left-wing Maori woman and a very ACT-like young dude.
The story manages to be quite naughty at times – much more naughty than you’d get on the telly – and the cast are brilliant with both the verbal and physical comedy.
I will also praise the bold, effective costumes by Nic Smillie. It’s kind of nice knowing that New Zealand political culture can be summed up in three well chosen suits.
And when all this comes together, Dave Armstrong’s pen of lolz manages to skewer French, Kiwi, Maori and political culture, throw in a bit of sex farce (Oh-haw-haw! Baguette!), and produce a really fun, funny play.
"Le Sud" plays at Downstage until August 22.
Strike Session with Adam Page is about halfway through its run at Downstage. Strike is a long-standing New Zealand-based percussion group, and they’ve teamed up with Adelaide multi-instrumentalist Adam Page for this show.
After the jump, kumaras, mirimbas and old car parts.