Last weekend’s Sunday Star Times Sunday magazine had a fun essay by Leah McFall lamenting how hard it is to meet-cute in Wellington – that is, have one of those lovely romantic-comedy style accidental meetings with the fellow of your dreams, usually involving something quirky like bagels or poodles. It’s impossible here because, as we all know, in Wellington everyone knows everyone.

The essay isn’t online (boo, Sunday magazine!) but I thought it was worth sharing this bit, where Leah comes up with a magnificent metaphor for Wellington’s dating scene:

It’s like when you step onto a 16-seat propellor plane. There’s the guy at the top of the steps who rips your ticket, stows your laptop and passes round the Minties. Then he puts down the lollies, tugs on an earpiece, strides to the cockpit and starts the ignition. That’s what you’re dealing with, in Wellington: the man who is everywhere. How can you meet-cute with that? You’ve met him before.

Being a recent arrival to these parts, there are still many social dots I’m yet to connect, but I’m already finding strange connections in places I’d least expect it.

But perhaps there’s an advantage to this small-village scene? After all, if everyone knows everyone, you’re soon going to hear what your pilot’s crash rate is like.

Sometimes, a bar is too pretentious even for me. Though by “pretentious”, I don’t mean what some people seem to mean by that: expensive, stylish, ambitious or glamorous. No, it’s bars that make a great show of aspiring to all those qualities, and yet end up being the same-old same-old Courtenay Place tack, that really set my mandibles on edge.

You know that most gig promoters live in Auckland, eh? And that Aucklanders don’t know we exist, right?

As a response to the Aucklocentricism (it’s a word, ok) of the touring scene, a bunch of local promoters have sprung up, banded together and generally defied the odds to bring some amazing internationals to intimate Wellington venues over the last few years. Which means we don’t have to travel to see our favourite band, and taking a punt on an unknown quantity is a lot easier and way less expensive than trekking up the island. Plus the likelihood of having a quiet beer next to the main act after a show is ramped up several notches when it’s at SFBH or Bodega.

Which brings me to I Heart Hiroshima. They came over from Australia in April to support Ratatat in Auckland, but they couldn’t make it down here. Ratatat, however, played to a sold-out crowd at Bodega and knocked our socks off. They told IHH about it, and the band begged indie Wellington promoter Palomino Agency to bring them down to see us. They’re playing at Bodega next week – Friday 18th – so do us all a favour and go see them! Their songs have been all over tv and radio recently, but if you haven’t heard them, and you liked Ratatat – or you like the fab local supports Thought Creature or Little Pictures – take a punt. Tickets are only $20+bf right now from Slowboat on Cuba St so why wouldn’t you?

Charlie Watts was once asked in an interview whether he ever tuned his drums. When Charlie replied in the negative the interviewer asked him “why not?”

“Because every time I hit ’em, they go out of tune.”

I am minded of this story every time I hear the Strike guys striking up for they give their gear a fearful walloping at times (as well as plenty of beautiful, subtle and fun moments, too).

“Elemental”, Strike’s new show is well in to it’s first week and audiences of all ages are loving it. Described by Simon Sweetman in the Dominion as “an amazing show” and Aaron Watson in the Capital Times as “endlessly inventive” and “not to be missed” this show is a smash hit.

There are seventeen percussion pieces in the show, including newly-commissioned compositions from Gareth Farr and composer-in-residence Takumi Motokawa, and the ensemble play hydrophones, pyrophones, dippophones, Bedford trucks, and even the occasional percussion instrument, as part of a tremendously theatrical concert experience.

The season continues at Downstage until 26 July and you can find more information here.

Full disclosure: I work for Downstage and you’ll often find me at the top of the Hannah Playhouse staircase, welcoming patrons to the venue.

So tonight was the Silicon Welly magazine launch party (which we twittered about yesterday), and naturally I was there, representing for the Wellingtonista. I was interested to see that in this IT networking occasion, the ratio of guys to girls was about 7/2, and in talking to the rare woman there, I found that – like me – the majority of them worked in project management, comms or organisation. As Wellington’s official Queen of the Geeks Brenda has asked before (sorry, I can’t find the link, maybe she’ll comment with it) – where are all the female programmers at? And if you look at the cover of this issue of Start-Up, you’ll see that only ONE of the Silicon Welly honorees is female. What’s going on, people?

I don’t have the answers, so I suppose all I can do is promote some gender-separate events. Pretty Pretty Pretty which is the girlie site I run with Welllingtonista PAG Amy, is having a big girlie party to celebrate our third (month) anniversary, and if you’re a lady, you’re invited. Meanwhile, in response, the boys are holding another Chap’s Night that you might happen to come across. Enjoy!

I’m a big fan of real-time bus information – electronic signs that use GPS technology to tell you precisely when the next bus is coming, rather than having to rely on the theoretical arrival time of the printed timetable.

These have been up and running in Auckland for a few years now, and when I was living there it made catching a bus just that much easier.

For example, I could avoid sardining myself into a packed bus if I knew there was another one coming along soon. And instead of just waiting at the bus stop, I’d know if I had enough time to grab a coffee or browse in a shop before the bus came, or even walk for a bit to the next stop. And if a bus was running late, I’d know that too.

So it’s exciting to see that the Greater Wellington regional council are in the process of planning a real time bus info system. They have a survey up (running until July 20), wanting to know what sort of information you’d like, how you’d like it delivered, etc. And there’s also the possibility to register interest in being part of a focus group.

Take the survey now plz.

For those of you who’ve never heard of Nanook, Thursday night’s screening at the Film Archive is unmissable.

Widely considered the first feature length documentary ever made (shot in 1922) it’s an exceptional account of Inuit life on the ice.

Using traditional methods (including killing large fish by biting the back of their heads/necks? whatever you call that bit at the top) and hanging out with his “wives” in the harshest of climes, this snapshot of Nanook’s life is even more poignant as he died two years later, lost in a snow storm.

The film later went on to be discredited for “setting-up” traditional hunting methods, raising interesting questions which fit perfectly with the current mediagallery exhibition by Wellington artist Sarah Jane Parton.

She’ll be performing a response to the film live with the musical back up of Henderson/Beban/Crewdson

THIS THURSDAY, 7PM, AT THE FILM ARCHIVE
TICKETS $8 / $6

Film Archive events calendar

The NZ Herald reports that a company named RCG, who are “retail experts” have given ratings to the malls of Aotearoa because, “We thought it timely.”

So I thought it was timely to take a look at what they thought of the malls of the greater Wellington area. Do any of them equal Auckland’s mighty four-star Westfield Albany?

The article is skewed towards Auckland Malls, but it does mention poor North City in Porirua, which is only worth two stars as it is “struggling to achieve good sales”. The article also says that Lower Hutt’s Queensgate “made a big statement” (What, “I’m a mall in Lower Hutt!!!”?), but doesn’t say what the rating is.

But most interestingly, the article notes that the researchers found that “Wellington was bereft of malls”, like that’s a bad thing.

Perhaps it’s because Wellington’s inner city street shopping works so well it hasn’t created a demand for giant malls lurking out in the suburbs.

We have Cuba Mall, and I reckon that’s worth more stars than any dirty ol’ suburban mall out there.

Photo courtesy of Solid State.