Four and a half things to do this weekend
1. Right now you should go and buy your ticket to the Wellington Girl Geek dinner, because according to their site, there are only three tickets left. And you know you want to go, because a) Brenda is awesome at all things interweb b) I’m speaking and there must be a reason why I’m so hubristical and c) we already mentioned the hopeful swag.
2. On Saturday, you should go to the Gay and Lesbian Fair in Civic Square, because, to quote Sue, it’s “fully licensed with rumours of whitebait fritters”.
3. As if that wasn’t enough of a fair, on Sunday there’s the Newtown Festival!
4. Also on Sunday, the Costume Cave is having a sale of its old costumes, so you should go along and get some new outfits to spice up your life. As a side note, I was going to do a post at one stage recommending that you rent any wigs you may need from the Costume Cave instead of since Creative Showoff in Thorndon they’re $10 instead of $20, but then I was a month late in returning a wig to Creative and they didn’t charge me anything, so that’s nice.
And the half point: Since we know there’s plenty of Aucklanders who read this site as well, on Saturday at 5pm the Aucklandista is having its first meet-up in an extremely untrendy bar near the Viaduct, and so if you’re interested in contributing to the site, you should get in contact to find out where they’ll be and come along.
Homage to Duchamp
Here’s another one of the wee guys in this series of temporary sculptures:
Quite an appropriate location, atop the long-abandoned toilets and amid the construction of the new Courtenay Place park.
With Swagger
Often with the Wellingtonista we tell you things. Today, however, we’re asking for things. Specifically:
1. Swag: Wellington is going to be having its first Girl Geek dinner, and I’m putting together Swag Bags — if you have something you’d like to put in around 50 bags for 50 technologically-minded and intelligent women, please get in touch — johubris @ gmail.com.
2. Contra: Last night lots of us attended a Bloggers’ Meet-Up, and the awesome Epic Beer came up with some lubrication to get us started. The Wellingtonista absolutely would be very very keen on doing this sort of thing more often. We’re working on our guidelines, and templates to allow space for brand exposure, but this is just a heads up: if you offer good products or services, and want to reach our smart readers who like disposing of their incomes, we would like to work with you, so get in touch.
Belonging somewhere
Opening tomorrow night at the Film Archive — Wellington multi-media artist Sarah Jane Parton presents her wacky take on the future…
Well known for her beguiling video and installation work (and love of lycra leotards) Parton has assembled a cast and crew of Wellington’s finest to create a sci-fi musical odyssey starring Toi Whakaari graduates Antonia Bale, Anja Tate-Manning (Chapman-Tripp award winner), and Jade Daniels, alongside theatre veteran Rose Beauchamp, dancer Sam Lahood and a bevy of young and talented children.
With music performed by a live band featuring the members of Cassette under the musical direction of Parton’s partner Luke Buda (Phoenix Foundation), fronted by the perpetually hilarious Jo Randerson, the show contains a reasonable degree of cynicism, offset by moments of absurdity and humour.
In this cross-genre work, ideological meltdown is imminent, the revolution is doomed long before it begins and audience members are advised to bring a blanket.
PERFORMANCE DETAILS
Thursday 28, Friday 29 February and Saturday 1 March at 7pm
at The Film Archive, cnr Taranaki and Ghuznee Streets
Tickets:
Full Price — $15,
Concession — $13,
Fringe Addict — $12
Read Brannavan Gnanlingam’s great interview about the show
here
CafeNet for your iPod
We like CaféNet at the Wellingtonista, yes we do. But it’s not always an unqualified feeling. Mostly it works well once you find a hotspot — and more arrive all the time. But sometimes, and with some devices, things aren’t so rosy.
At this Wellingtonista’s risk of sounding like a spoiled geek whose new toy won’t do what it says on the box, it seems that iPods Touch and iPhones don’t always have an easy time connecting to CaféNet. And it’s not just this writer’s experience — others have noticed it too.
More after the jump…
Layering Buddha
German sound-artist and musician Robert Henke — he also records pretty great minimal techno as Monolake — is in the midst of a tour of Australia and New Zealand.
At 9pm on Friday night he is doing one of his famous Layering Buddha performances at the Adam Concert Room, at VUW. There will also be an address by Henke at 6pm the preceding night, at the same venue.
During the performance the audience is placed in between a ring of six speakers with the performer sitting in between them in the center. The layers of sound are dynamically distributed in space, providing an experience of being really placed in between the sonic cloud where the acoustic result depends on the position of the listener.
More after the break, including audio! Electrons! Downloads! Joy!
Earth Hour (8pm , 29th March) — Wellington City Council press release
As promised:
NEWS RELEASE
26 February 2008Wellingtonians encouraged to turn off the lights for Earth Hour
Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast is encouraging Wellingtonians to turn off their lights in support of Earth Hour on Saturday 29 March.
Earth Hour, a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) initiative aimed at fighting climate change, was launched last week in Christchurch. While Christchurch is this year’s official host city for New Zealand, Wellington is eager to participate.
“Earth Hour is a fantastic way for Wellingtonians to show their commitment to fighting climate change. Every little bit helps and if we all turn off the lights for just one hour we all can make a difference. Wellington’s vision is to become the first carbon-neutral Capital in the world, we must do everything we can to make that vision a reality,†she says.
“We will be signing up as an official partner of WWF in this initiative next year and put some resource behind it. This year we will be leading by example and turning off our lights,†Mayor Prendergast says.
Earth Hour will begin at 8pm on Saturday, 29 March. It started in Sydney last year and was a resounding success with the city’s energy usage dropping by 10 percent. Lights on famous landmarks — the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge — were turned off for an hour and businesses and residents joined in. This year cities across Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand are joining in.
Wellington City Council will register as a participant of Earth Hour and will look at what lights it can turn off. This could include the external lighting at swimming pools, libraries, recreation centres and other Council-owned buildings and the lights in the trees in Oriental Bay and Civic Square.
Climate Change Portfolio leader Cr Ray Ahipene-Mercer says Earth Hour is a great way of showing how much we care about the planet.
Free Wellington: on your phone!
Okay, you know how the Wellingtonista have a twitter account that you can sign up to in order to receive updates to your phone about what’s going on in the city? Yeah, I suppose I should be the first person to admit that doesn’t go so well. You see, despite the fact that all Wellingtonistas know the login and password for it, there are only a small handful of us who use Twitter, and all of us therefore have our phones configured with our personal accounts, which means any updates to the Wellingtonista Twitter have to come from online, which means we’re tied down to a computer.
Well, clever people have come up with solutions to let everyone use their own personal accounts to update one main twitter. I first experienced this at Webstock, with the Webstock Twitter bot which ran hot during the conference. Now there’s the Free Wellington account, which will send you updates on things to do for free or under $10 in Wellington. But here’s the trick: you can update it too. Just follow FreeWellington on twitter, and preface your updates with an FW, and everyone will be able to know what the water’s like at the beach, or why they should be staying the hell away from Waitangi Park…
It’s a genius scheme. Now we’re just hoping that the Wellingtonista will get a bot of its very own for Xmas!
Drinking in the streets
The Masked Barfly has joined the problem drinkers in Cuba Mall. No, I haven’t started quaffing meths or wrestling diners for their steaks (it’s all a filthy lie): Good Luck have gone overground and now have an outdoor drinking area in the middle of the mall. I suppose the local retailers don’t mind people drinking in the streets as long as we’re paying them $15 a pop for the privilege.
A couple of us flies were still buzzing after the Ornette Coleman gig, and after a quick stop at Kazu to fill our abdomens (and to sup on salt-rimmed sake & tonic — so wrong and yet so right) we headed off to Happy for the rumoured “after party”. Well, it was definitely afterwards, and I suppose it was a party, but unless we left too early (the Newtown bus was calling) there was no sign of Mr Coleman or even one of his myriad bassists. Oh well, a Chris Knox sighting will do for now.
So, “El Toro” is it? It seems all things Mexican are hot right now, and while it’s not exactly a tequila bar, Viva Mexico from the much-missed Wakefield Markets will be making a welcome return. It opens this Friday at the back of the Left Bank, complete with old favourites like Divorced Eggs and new hipster-friendly Dios de los Muertos décor.
Speaking of comebacks, Herd Street Brasserie is apparently set to reopen next month. Let’s hope that the new owners are more savvy than the original ones: though let’s face it, that wouldn’t be hard. And the Masked Barfly also hopes that they continue an emphasis on alcohol as well as food: all together now, “Oh I do like to drink beside the seaside…”
Knocked Up Dead Skunk
There’s a lot on in the cultural capital tonight but my completely biased pick for the evening’s entertainment has to be Loudon Wainwright III at the SFBH.
Supported and accompanied by one of his daughters, Lucy Wainwright Roche (half sister to the more famous Rufus and Martha), Wainwright is bringing his singer-songwriter folk-rockin’ guitar to our shores on the back of last year’s album Strange Weirdos: music from and inspired by the film Knocked Up. Yep, not only did Loudon III supply the music for the movie’s creator, Judd Apatow (who made Freaks and Geeks, so he must be cool), but he also acted in the movie — playing a gynecologist.
Wainwright’s most famous for songs like ‘Dead Skunk’(1972) but alongside his musical career his acting has been ticking along for some time; the two strands successfully marrying when LWIII played singing surgeon Capt. Spaulding in M*A*S*H.
Intrigued? I am. And in the interests of full disclosure: my band, the Wrongdoings, will open for Loudon tonight, on the eve of our Auckland debut at Ladyfest ’08.
Doors open at 9, tickets available from Ticketek, Real Groovy or on the door at San Francisco Bathhouse.
CUNNING LINGUISTS: if you can tell me what it’s called when you add a “III” to your name I’ll be dead impressed either at your linguistic knowledge or your mad google skillz — the closest I could get to it is that it’s some form of pronominal suffix. And it’s driving me crazy.