Notional Significance: Isthmus

It’s a given: New Zealand is a young land. But this infant isthmus, earthquake-raised, has already suffered abuses and transformations that have left it far from tender. If psychogeography is, as Iain Sinclair says, “a way of psychoanalysing the psychosis of the place in which I happen to live”, then this place will be on […]

Craft Beer for Japan

To raise funds in the wake of the diaster in Japan, Hashigo Zake is holding a tasting of Japanese craft beer on Thursday 24th March at 6:30pm. All proceeds will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross. The tasting will feature Tokyo beer writer Rei Murakami, who will be bringing beer from breweries Baeren and […]

We be jammin’

Have you planned your Craft2.0 experience around Jam off? Because you should,as the Great Wellington Jamoff is happening during Craft2.0 on the 23rd of April and judging kicks off at 2pm. I promise it’s going to be beyond special. Last time, it pretty much shut down the old Bank Arcade during judging, not only because […]

Notional Significance: Takeoff

National significance begins with a roundabout: from the air it looks like a navel, the axis of the world, the green Omphalos where one begins. But what is beginning here? There’s a distinct impression that more traffic comes from the eastern suburbs via Broadway than from the airport itself, which would make this a somewhat […]

TEMPORARY

TEMPORARY is a pop-up shop that appeared a few weeks ago in the ground-floor café space at the Garden Club on Dixon Street. We spoke to Blink, the one, perhaps insane, man behind A Low Hum. He set up the space with Matthew Davis from Flying Nun, and they’re selling “CDs, records, tapes, tees, posters, zines, books, art […]

Notional Significance: Flyer

Before reaching the starting point of the journey, I need to take a preliminary journey, from something resembling the heart of the city to the start of the highway: the airport. That in itself tells us something about just where cities fit into the whole “National Significance” agenda. A city is never an end in […]

Notional Significance

Allow me to introduce, not myself exactly, but the little series of posts that the Wellingtonista people have kindly allowed me to publish here. “Notional Significance” will be somewhere between travel writing, history, psychogeography and personal reflection, based upon walking the length of Wellington’s stretch of State Highway 1. The concept may sound familiar. I […]

Wellington Film Society starts tonight

All over the world it is volunteer organisations like the Wellington Film Society that keep the flame of film art alive so that cinephiliacs like me can get a decent palate cleanser every Monday night after a weekend of Hollywood tosh. I can’t recommend Society membership highly enough. Your membership fee equates to around three […]

Steak frites: does what it says on the box

If you’re after a classic and hearty meal, then we heartily recommend you hoof it to Le Metropolitan on Cuba Street. In fact, we suggest you go there on Monday March 14 especially when they’re having a fundraiser for Christchurch. How about I tell you about the dinner I had there recently in order to […]

Offbeat is back!

The Offbeat Originals story has a happy ending it seems — they are open for business, since Tuesday even. We can report that the fishburgers are just as they always were. Previously: What happened? Most missed Signs of life And the original Wellingtonista Offbeat review