It is reas­sur­ing to know that the salon did not die in 18th cen­tu­ry France, gath­er­ing togeth­er in RL to con­verse, spar, eat, con­nect and dis­play our intel­lec­tu­al charms has not gone out of style.  Recent­ly we have had Pecha Kucha, Ignite and more Bar­Camps than you could throw a pack of Pos­tIt notes at.  Today the open source inclined have been play­ing with their toys at Soft­ware Free­dom Day and this week is full of occa­sions to be wit­ty and pret­ty and geek (slash nerd).

This week brings Nerdnite#2, anoth­er Tues­day night din­ner and Web­stock will be bring us mini-mar­vels and the big unveil of the speak­ers for 2011.

All of these events are non-geek friend­ly (plen­ty of room for fraghags), all you need is an eclec­tic men­tal diet and a love of cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion, so don’t be shy.  Nerd­nite looks to be tak­ing eclec­tic to a whole new lev­el with geo­engi­neer­ing, sto­ries, witch­craft, and food on the menu at Bet­tys Bar this Mon­day.  It seems the case that peo­ple self-iden­ti­fy as geek but get twitchy when ref­ered to as “nerds”, well per­haps this word is going to be reclaimed as well if this Nerd­nite thing catch­es on.

Besides, geek appears to be con­test­ed term, this week we have had @BR3NDA toot­ing about priv­i­lege and com­put­ers:

Tonight at the Bur­gundy Room at Bode­ga you can wit­ness the third live out­ing of a new band fresh from record­ing their demo.  Be there so you can brag to your friends that you were into them before they hit the big time.  Simon Sweet­man does­n’t hate them, so that is some kind of endorse­ment 😉

The Good Words is made up of:

•  Nik Jarvie-Wal­drom — Vocals
• Taku­mi Motokawa — Key­board (com­po­si­tion prize win­ner)
• Mike Duffy — Bass
• Nick Hens­man — Drums

These guys are all kinds of awe­some, they kick off at 9.00pm with sup­port from Old Time Ene­mies $10 on the door.  All the dets are on the invite here.

Their bio says it as well as I can:

Take one soul-jazz tem­plate, elon­gate it, daub in bits of funk, traces of pop and the ener­gy of a rock band to cre­ate 21st-cen­tu­ry Diva blues. Proud­ly Kiwi, defi­ant­ly orig­i­nal and with enough quirk to keep them far from the labels of any par­tic­u­lar ‘scene’, The Good Words live in the moments with­in songs, side­step­ping the obvi­ous com­par­isons by offer­ing just enough spon­tane­ity in the per­for­mance, enhanc­ing the craft­ed tunes. Hook­ing the audi­ence from start to fin­ish.

[Dis­claimer: The author lives with super tal­ent­ed Taku­mi Motokawa but it ain’t just her that thinks they are shit hot, the demo is get­ting plen­ty of play in the office.)

That’s what the cal­en­dar is telling us. As is the wind howl­ing through the trees, and short­ly, a string of cold south-west­er­ly thun­der­storms and gales. Stay classy, Welly Weath­er God!

Leav­ing that aside, the our eter­nal opti­mism finds expres­sion in the cel­e­bra­tion of grow­ing things that is the Spring Fes­ti­val, to start at the week­end (through to 3 Octo­ber).

The first event is the annu­al Otari-Wilton’s Bush Open Day & Plant Sale, which any aspir­ing sub­ur­ban­ite should be advised to attend ear­ly if they want to pick up the real­ly good stuff. Ear­ly bird catch­es the hard-to-find horoe­ka vari­ant and all that. But even if you’re not a gar­den­er, the ‘Bush is a very nice place for a stroll, espe­cial­ly on Open Days when after­wards you can reward your­self at the sausage siz­zle (and the last cou­ple of years there’s been a cof­fee cart there too).

The reces­sion may be grind­ing on, but it seems there are plen­ty of hos­pi­tal­i­ty oper­a­tors will­ing to take a bet on a new ven­ture. In recent weeks, we’ve heard of the fol­low­ing (re-)openings and upcom­ing rumours:

• Keenan’s (for­mer­ly New Orleans)
• Wasabi Sushi (for­mer­ly Beau­jo­lais)
• Capri (for­mer­ly Koi)
• Vic­to­ri­an Ale House (for­mer­ly Stan­ley Rd)
• Ances­tral (for­mer­ly Unit­ed Video in Courte­nay Pl)
• Oze­ki (brand new, on the cor­ner of Tory St and Fran­cis Pl)

The first three have already opened, with mixed results. Capri has had at least one very good review; Wasabi is part of the respect­ed Kazu empire; and Keenan’s … not so much. If any of you have expe­ri­ences to share about those, or juicy gos­sip to share about the oth­ers, let us know!

So many good things on this week­end. Maybe Welling­ton’s about to put its head up out of the win­ter slump.…? 

One high­light is art-pop­pers Xiu Xiu who are play­ing SFBH with Siamese (Grayson Gilmour) and tal­ent­ed duo Glass Vaults. Phew.

And here’s a girl in an apple. Tickets$26

Cre­at­ing con­tent on the inter­webs is all very well, but some­times one has the need to express one­self in IRL.

For­tu­nate­ly the coun­cil have forseen this need and erect­ed giant tri­an­gles of expres­sion around town. There’s one under the umbrel­la sculp­ture at James Smiths Cor­ner, and oth­er by the tri­pod sculp­ture down the oth­er end of Courte­nay.

So what incin­di­ary mes­sages will we see? Peo­ple stick­ing it to the man and/or lady? Telling the politi­cians where to go?

Or per­haps some­thing charm­ing and delight­ful.

So, the Can­ter­bury earth­quake. Our thoughts are with our friends and whau­nau in the area, and we’re so glad that there haven’t been any fatal­i­ties *hugz*

But, of course, liv­ing in the shaky city of Welling­ton, it makes us aware of the impor­tance of being pre­pared should such a big one hit our fair city. Remem­ber — parts of the two roads out of the city run along the fault line.

Resources for pre­pared­ness in an earth­quake:

• Welling­ton City Coun­cil’s basic pre­pared­ness guide­lines
• The Gov­ern­men­t’s Get Ready Get Thru guide
• The Greater Welling­ton Region­al Coun­cil’s earth­quake infor­ma­tion

In the mean­time, let’s count our bless­ings — we have elec­tric­i­ty, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, run­ning water, sew­er­age and a roof over our heads.