Debunking the Target urban myth

For the past couple of years, we keep hear­ing people tell us not to go to a cer­tain eth­nic res­taur­ant because “they were filmed by Tar­get scrap­ing leftover food back into the food to sell” and vari­ous oth­er stor­ies along the same lines. We got an email recently say­ing that someone else had heard the rumours, but had also heard that Tar­get nev­er actu­ally filmed there. So we put on our Ser­i­ous Invest­ig­at­ive Journ­al­ist Hats, and sent out two very easy emails set out on a quest to dis­cov­er the truth. Tar­get wrote us back:

Yes we’ve been get­ting that for years too prob­ably because tar­get was filmed just around the corner at top shelf’s office down there for the first two or three years. Its nev­er been on Tar­get and I have con­firmed this with the own­er. We think that for a cam­era to be in the kit­chen it must have been anoth­er staff mem­ber film­ing. I have no idea if its true or false but again it wasn’t filmed by us and no one in our office ever recalls see­ing it. Urb­an myth?

And just to doublecheck, we emailed an Envir­on­ment­al Health Officer at the Wel­ling­ton City Coun­cil, in the Build­ing Con­sents and Licens­ing Ser­vices, who told us that this par­tic­u­lar res­taur­ant has a Cer­ti­fic­ate of Regis­tra­tion val­id until July 2011. So can people please stop spread­ing this rumour? It’s ridicu­lous and untrue. If you don’t like the food, don’t eat there, but find anoth­er tar­get for your defam­a­tion.

And no, we’re not going to name the res­taur­ant in ques­tion if you haven’t heard the rumours, because mud clearly sticks regard­less of wheth­er it’s deserved or not.

Need something indoors to do with the kids?

Dur­ing the school hol­i­days the good folk at the Film Archive run a kids movie pro­grammed called Mini Sized Square Eyes (not to be con­fused with the Square Eyes Found­a­tion).

Every Monday, Wed­nes­day and Fri­day at 11am dur­ing the hol­i­days the kids can be enter­tained for an hour with gems from the Archive’s extens­ive col­lec­tions, includ­ing the ori­gin­al film ver­sion of Where the Wild Things Are, early Walt Dis­ney anim­a­tion and clas­sic slices of NZ exper­i­ments on film. Screen­ings designed for kids aged 4 – 12 years. Bug­gies wel­come.

Entry by gold coin dona­tion.

 

Click Local

North of Wel­ling­ton is a sunny para­dise, known as Petone. Petone and its sur­round­ing sub­urbs now have their own web­site cre­ated by loc­al webby types, Brent Dick­ens and Michael Hay­mes. Click Loc­al sets out to give loc­al people, groups, busi­nesses, artists and organ­isers a place to pro­mote their ideas and events. Its evol­u­tion will depend very much on the people who con­trib­ute, so it would be great to see heaps of people get involved.

If you’re keen, con­tact Brent Dick­ens: brent@clicklocal.org.nz

 

Botanic infamy

OMG. The Wel­ling­ton Botan­ic Gar­dens, cur­rently teem­ing with life and col­our and gen­er­al spring­time joy, gets a men­tion on an upcom­ing epis­ode of The Simpsons, the first of the new series.

The epis­ode guest stars loc­al boys made good Bret and Jemaine Conchords, and the pair use the Botan­ic Gar­dens good name for great lolz:

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJkdPbpoc5s]

And remem­ber the annu­al Spring Fest­iv­al is cur­rently hap­pen­ing at the Botan­ic Gar­dens, so why not take the oppor­tun­ity to frol­lick in the spring blooms and say you were down with the gar­dens before they were fam­ous.

Grouper (US) with Pumice and Glass Vaults tomorrow night.

For those who caught Grouper dur­ing her last trip to NZ, she will need no intro­duc­tion. For those who missed her – don’t repeat your mis­take! We are lucky to have a return vis­it from this Port­land nat­ive, play­ing once again with Auck­land’s Pumice with new­comers Glass Vaults at Happy tomor­row night (Tues­day Septem­ber 28th). Pre­s­ales are $15 from undertheradar.co.nz. More on the door.

Liz Har­ris’ GROUPER evokes the ghosts of songs, using minor-key, folk-derived melod­ies swathed in sheets of delay to carry her fra­gile vocals. Over albums such as Wide (2006) and Drag­ging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (2008), Har­ris has expan­ded upon her decept­ively simple form, mov­ing from all encom­passing ambi­ance, cocooned in oceans of reverb, to a more stark, yet no less absorb­ing form, vul­ner­able imagery emer­ging from the music like half-remembered dreams.

Auck­land’s Stefan Neville a.k.a. PUMICE is in no need of an intro­duc­tion for dis­cern­ing NZ listen­ers. A ram­shackle one-man band, play­ing gui­tar, vocals, tape loops and drums sim­ul­tan­eously, he bridges the void between all-out impro­visa­tion and tightly executed song craft. It’s noise, it’s lo-fi, it’s drone, it’s pop – often all at once – Pumice defies all expect­a­tions with his live show. Neville’s dis­co­graphy is bey­ond extens­ive, hav­ing been con­sist­ently pump­ing out releases since 1994.

Hav­ing already brought her arrest­ing and beau­ti­ful show to NZ in 2009, Grouper­’s return is a wel­come chance for those who missed out first time around to see Har­ris’ aching and mov­ing music in the flesh.