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!