Maranui v2

It’s a cold, rainy Tues­day after­noon in the first day of win­ter. Why, it’s a per­fect day to go to the beach!

The occa­sion is the first day of busi­ness for the back-from-the-dead Maranui Cafe. After being dam­aged in a fire last year, escap­ing the threat of demo­li­tion and man­ag­ing to keep not just the build­ing intact but also the busi­ness, the cafe has been reborn, like a phoenix ris­ing from a pile of cof­fee grounds and sand.

While there’s still a lit­tle bit of work going on in the rest of the build­ing, the cafe is well open for busi­ness. It’s much like the old cafe, only with a fresh, shinier feel to it.

One mas­sive improve­ment is the sound-absorb­ing ceil­ing, which helps cut down the Sat­ur­day morn­ing echo cham­ber of doom ambi­ence old Maranui was noto­ri­ous for.

The new kitchen is bright, white, tiled and with one of the bet­ter views offered by a cafe kitchen in Welling­ton, is back in full effect. The staff seemed busy and buzzy and they have every rea­son to be.

The cheer­ful inte­ri­or was a per­fect place to be on such a crap­py win­ter day (espe­cial­ly after a tor­tu­ous­ly slow bus trip over on the #3), com­plete with a view of the tru­ly mis­er­able, grey Lyall Bay, that seemed to say, “Oh hai guyz. I’m a surf beach. Let’s go surfin’!!! Lol”. (Man, Lyall Bay is a dick.)

It’s real­ly good that Maranui Cafe is back. It’s quite dif­fer­ent from your stan­dard Welling­ton Cafe, and come sum­mer, the place will sure­ly be jam-packed.

But the best thing about the new Maranui — the all-impor­tant Maranui SLC vis­i­tors’ sign-in book is charred and smoky from the fire.

Dirtying up your ears: Erogenous Tones III

 Remem­ber how last year Eroge­nous Tones was nom­i­nat­ed for a TAWA as Best Art Expe­ri­ence? Well now’s your chance to expe­ri­ence it for your­self! 

Eroge­nous Tones is cum­ming to you live again, again and again. Now two ladies (we lost one to the dev­ils dan­druff in Brazil) read you erot­ic sto­ries XXX rat­ed, roman­tic trash, and shock­ing fan fic­tion, all accom­pa­nied by sexy syn­the­sis­er music by the Kre­mer. A roman­tic night of aur­al plea­sure, that will make you wan­na come again, again and again.

So we’ll see you on Wednes­day June 02 at 9pm at The Watusi, right? 

Talk talk (and watch)

The Film Archive is mix­ing things up a lit­tle for the next three weeks. 

On three con­sec­u­tive Thurs­days (start­ing this week) speak­ers from the Edu­ca­tion team and one spe­cial guest will talk along­side rare and inter­est­ing footage from the col­lec­tions.

The series is called Talk/Show (just to make it obvi­ous) and it’s a nice depar­ture from the usu­al screen­ing pro­gramme. 

First up is a ses­sion on Welling­ton and its unique geog­ra­phy and set­tle­ment. Some great footage in here includ­ing doc­u­men­tary extracts, ear­ly silent footage, gov­ern­ment and unof­fi­cial sources and ear­ly home movies.

Will be a fas­ci­nat­ing and infor­ma­tive look at this rainy, windy, steep place we choose to call home! 

 

Some more bits and pieces

• Wendy from the deli­cious Cul­tured Petone is run­ning a cheese-mak­ing work­shop. Learn to make your own halou­mi and ricot­ta. Yum!
• A treat for NZ Music Month: Phoenix Foun­da­tion fan fic­tion. Bear cos­tumes sur­pris­ing­ly do not fea­ture. Please feel free to con­tribute your own fan fic­tion sto­ries in the com­ments. 
• Issue #2 of Fish­Head is out now. We haven’t read it yet so we don’t have fur­ther com­ment to offer at this stage.
• Richter City Roller Der­by is hav­ing a CAR­NI­VALE-themed fundrais­er at the Gar­den Club on May 29:
  

  This fab­u­lous event fea­tures the tal­ents of The Eye­balls, The Beat Squad, MC Lisa Tom­lins, The Raskol­nikovs, DJ Rhys, DJ Forge and DJ Taip. Cheap drinks avail­able until 12am, and a prize will be award­ed to the Best Dressed.

• The menu for the Mebus Wine­mak­er’s Din­ner at Cel­lar-Vate on May 26 has been released (along with the email address­es of every­one on their mail­ing list, whoops!):  
  

Leaving a paper trail

We’ve raved about Mon­terey Bar before, but just quick­ly, we want to point you to their blog on which they dis­play the best of the art­works drawn on their paper-cov­ered tables. You have to won­der about what was going on when this divorce set­tle­ment was writ­ten, or what exact­ly is wrong with these tights — but I could tell you the back­sto­ry to Senor Hand­some if you ask nice­ly. 

Joel Salom’s Gadgets

Bizarre uses for ping-pong balls, mega­lo­ma­ni­ac robot dogs, fire jug­gling, and a healthy dose of audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion are just some of the ingre­di­ents in Joel Salom’s Gad­gets, which opened tonight at Down­stage as part of the Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val.

It’s a mix­ture of accom­plished phys­i­cal com­e­dy from Aus­trali­a’s Joel Salom, backed by Marko and Jim, a cou­ple of very tal­ent­ed musi­cian-per­form­ers who, from time to time, become part of the action.

Read on…

Cyclists who cruise are awesome, cyclists who whoosh are not

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY8FSTlH5C8&]

 Cycle Aware Welling­ton has a cute cam­paign going to encour­age cyclists to ride nice­ly on the water­front.

 

If there’s any­thing we at the Welling­ton­ista endorse, it’s free­bies and nice cyclists.

 

More details here.

This job is pretty rubbish

 Remem­ber when rub­bish col­lec­tors used to come up and col­lect from your bins at the back of the house, even when you lived up big steep path­ways? Good times. Any­way, here’s a mini doc­u­men­tary called Dusties from NZ on Screen for your Fri­day after­noon view­ing. Enjoy!

Doug Jerebine (AKA Jesse Harper) in town this weekend

Leg­endary (and non-myth­i­cal) NZ gui­tarist brings his East­ern influ­enced Blue Cheer-Hen­drix-Atom­ic Roost­er meets Son­ic Youth skwall to Wellign­ton at Hap­py on Sat­ur­day 8th May.

[video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OOG-As652k]

We can’t pin­point when Doug was last in Welling­ton, but he was there in August 1965 when The Pret­ty Things swung through town, play­ing in Mike Per­janik’s group*.  Doug left for the UK in 1968 search­ing for more open minds. The next year he record­ed an albums worth of Hen­drix influ­enced mate­r­i­al under the name Jesse Harp­er. Acetates and tapes fil­tered back to NZ and the Human Instinct appro­pri­at­ed the best songs for their first two albums. Giv­ing away music in 1971, Doug moved to India where he stayed for 35+ years.

Cur­rent­ly based in NZ — Doug Jere­bine will be bring­ing his sear­ing musi­cal mes­sage to Dunedin, and tak­ing no pris­on­ers. This will be a unique per­for­mance. Accom­pa­ny­ing Doug will be Miles Gillett (drums), son of Bob Gillett — Doug’s musi­cal inspi­ra­tion and fel­low mem­ber of Dougs late 60s group The Brew, and Chris Orange on bass. Open­ing the show will be the EXCELLENT MANTARAYS!

For more info on Doug, check out Kei­th New­mans excel­lent Doug Jere­bine sto­ry.

Doors at 8pm – DOUG ON STAGE AT 10pm

ADMISSION $15

* Google him — fas­ci­nat­ing career — and you prob­a­bly know one of his most famous com­pos­tions if you watch Aus­tralian soaps!