the wellingtonista - a blog about wellington, new zealand

Collapsing Creation

Hadyn — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:59:39 +0000

Arthur Meek’s bold new play Collapsing Creation explores the courage of a visionary who must battle his conscience and soul to change the world - and find the strength to face the fallout.

Starring Peter Hambleton as Charles Darwin and Catherine Downes as his devout wife Emma, Collapsing Creation is a heartfelt and fascinating account of what happens when ideas, faith and reason collide.

Commissioned by the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution as part of worldwide celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's masterpiece: On the Origin of Species.

For every Saturday throughout the season there’s a free lecture series about Darwin and Evolution. The first lecture is this Saturday (7 Nov) at 6pm, featuring Dr. Hamish Campbell from TePapa and GNS speaking about ‘Darwin’s Inspirational Voyage’.

All lectures are free and you can come even if you’re not attending that evening’s performance.

Review after the jump

Skate your Face Off

Hadyn — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:28:22 +0000

This Saturday is the last bout of the Richter City Roller Derby regular season. The two teams, Brutal Pagaent and Smash Malice are locked at one win apiece and this last bout looks to live up to the "Big One" billing.

For those who don't know, Roller Derby is a women's sport where two teams race around a flat semi-oval track. It's almost like a mash-up of rugby and stock cars. The main thing is that YOU don't skate (which is the most commonly asked question).

It's a fantastic spectator sport and the crowd is as much fun to watch as the sport (almost).

What: The Big One, Roller Derby
When: Saturday, 7 Nov, Starts 7pm
Where: TSB Arena, Queen's Wharf

The Wellingtonista & Twitter's Lists

Alan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:03:55 +0000

We've talked about Twitter before - we're on it, of course, as over a thousand of you already know. Over time Twitter has evolved from a WTF? (back then at the same stage in its life as Google Wave is now) to an indispensible part of our social networking landscape.

If you've logged on to Twitter recently you'll have seen their newest feature, Twitter Lists. These are a way to group up other Twitter users, both among the people you follow and the people you don't. You might want to group up some of your friends; or make a list of your favourite bands; then you can conveniently view just those tweets from those people.

Where this becomes interesting is that it's possible to follow other people's lists. A nice example of this is @webstock's Speakers List - a List of speakers at past and future Webstock events. Following this list allows you to immerse yourself in the whole Webstock vibe, months in advance of the event itself! Very handy.

Of course The Wellingtonista is not to be left out of this action. It can be quite hard to find the best people to follow on Twitter - so let us do it for you! We have compiled some must-follow Wellington-themed lists for you to follow, with more on the way.

@wellingtonista/team - Us! Or at least, the large subset of us who are on Twitter. We are, of course, all well worth following individually, but following the list is probably easier.
@wellingtonista/wgtn-music - Locally based musicians, venues and record shops. Why aren't there more out there?
@wellingtonista/wgtn-theatres - A mix of cinemas and playhouses. Good for finding out what's on, and whether there's any competitions, specials or other promotions running.
@wellingtonista/wgtn-food-and-drink - all the cafés, bars, venues, restaurants and bottlestores we could find. The interplay between the various cafés in particular is quite nice and collegial and almost warrants its own List, really.
@wellingtonista/wgtn-events - Events. You know what they are: Festivals; Markets; Carnivals. And the occasional, uh, sporting event.

Clearly these lists could do with a little fine tuning, as well as additions. So let us know!

You're fly-erred

The Masked Barfly — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:10:49 +0000

Plenty of Wellingtonians would have spat out their flat whites on Saturday morning when the Dom Post cover revealed that our old friend Terry Serepisos is going to host New Zealand's version of The Apprentice. As I'm sure you're all aware, the American version Donald Trump is famous for putting his name on all sorts of ridiculous things:

With his success in real estate and television, Trump has succeeded in marketing the Trump name on a large number of products. These products include Trump Financial (a mortgage firm), Trump Sales and Leasing (residential sales), Trump University (a business education company), Trump Restaurants (Located in Trump Tower and consisting of Trump Buffet, Trump Catering, Trump Ice Cream Parlor, and Trump Bar), GoTrump(an online travel website), Donald J. Trump Signature Collection (a line of menswear, men's accessories, and watches), Donald Trump The Fragrance (2004), Trump Ice bottled water, Trump Magazine, Trump Golf, Trump Institute, Trump The Game (1989 Board Game), Trump Vodka, and Trump Steaks. In addition, Trump reportedly receives $1.5 million for each one hour presentation he does for the The Learning Annex.

So what this fly wants to know is what products do you see Terry putting his name on? And would you buy them?

Under the Southern Cross

Anna — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:11:16 +0000

A safe place to avoid all the ghouls and zombies this Saturday night will be the Film Archive cinema.

A brilliant silent feature film from the 1920s - Under the Southern Cross - is screening with live musical accompaniment by Warren Maxwell, Maaka McGregor and Himiona Grace.

This "Maori folk drama" made by Universal Studios in 1929, features an epic love triangle, cave scenes shot on Waitomo and White Islands, a fiery volcano and 'A Contest of Spears'. It's also worth coming to see for the intertitles alone.

"Neither tribal custom, danger nor the sacred ban of "tapu" could covercome the strength of his love"

Limited seats available. Tickets: $10

It's that magical time of year

Hadyn — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:58:12 +0000

Tomorrow is All Hallows Eve the night where the spirits of dead walk the earth. It's a time of ancient tradition and rememberence of those who have passed away.

Samhain, however, is known to date back at least 2,000 years, based on analysis of a Celtic bronze calendar discovered in the 1890s in Coligny, France, in what was then called Gaul.

The festival marked the end of the Celtic year, when the harvest was gathered and animals were rounded up. It's said the hides of cattle and other livestock slaughtered at this time were ritually worn during festivities that likely hark back to even earlier pagan beliefs.

"The spirits of the dead were impersonated by young men dressed with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white or disguises of straw." These costumes were intended both to protect revelers from any malevolent spirits and to fool households they visited.

In Scotland and elsewhere, revelers masquerading as the dead would go around demanding food offerings—a forerunner to today's trick-or-treating.

But that was then, and costume technology has improved vastly beyond simple straw. Halloween is now one of the most creative of the holidays (in the American sense of the word) with folks creating some fantastic costumes.

But it wouldn't be fun without at party so where can you take your amazing Halloween creation?

Weight Watchers

noizyboy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:52:32 +0000

Congratulations to Parallel Dance Ensemble (and their video making team) for taking out the top award at this year's Handle the Jandal music video awards. Enjoy...

Other winners (click thru for video on YouTube):

Best Use of Exploitative Tactics to Promote A Band:
Judah Finnigan and Ben Forman for Highlife's Berserk

Best Editing:
Joe Fish for James Duncan's A Obvious

Best Cinematography:
Kimberley Brown for Electric Wire Hustle's Perception

Best Concept:
Lisa Dunn for Parallel Dance Ensemble's Weight Watchers

Best Animation:
Preston McNeill for Isaac Aesili's With You In My Bed

Rising Star:
Greg Pawsey for Cougar Cougar Cougar's Satan's Blues

Handle the Jandal - DIY

kowhai — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:21:18 +0000

Tonight at the Embassy theatre there will be an visual explosion of enthusiastic amateurs, with the annual Handle the Jandal DIY music video competition coming to the big screen for one night only.

This Wellingtonista hand delivered one of the entries all the way from that heaving metropolis Auckland, so may possibly be a wee bit biased about who she thinks should kick some arse.

Remember the controversy over the Hot Grits and the milk swilling babies (booze for baby?!?) last year?

Grab your Jaffas and head along tonight to celebrate the skanky and disruptive DIY spirit of our cultural sector on the big screen.

What: Handle the Jandal - DIY music videos

Where: The Embassy Theatre

Cost: $17 pre-sales $22 on the door

Details on the Radio Active website here.

Oh, Adelaide, Adelaide, I want you tonight

stephen clover — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:40:35 +0000

The first we heard of The Adelaide when it popped up on Adelaide Rd in 2006 was when Tom gave it the Mystery Bar treatment on WellUrban.

This week's mystery bar used to be notorious for many reasons, and there would have been times when only the staunchest and/or dodgiest punters would have ventured inside. These days it seems a bit tamer, though it's still not the sort of place that you'd take someone you were trying to impress. Unless they really, really liked cheap beer. Having said that, it was comfortable enough on a quiet Saturday afternoon, and there were no scary patrons in sight. Actually, there were almost no patrons at all, though the general is that it would get very busy at times, and I imagine it gets hard to move when there's a rugby match on or a band playing.

... and he couldn't have been more right! Many a wasted night has been spent in its confines, and the subsequent wasted day was always well worth it.

Unfortunately The Adelaide shuts it's doors this Saturday after more than three years of gigs and good times. So you've got one last week to come down and enjoy a band, bingo and beer. We'll be capping it all off with a massive day of music for Halloween

Weds - The Final Spin for the original BINGO event in town

Thurs - Bad Statistics, Detrytus & guests

Fri - Sniper Alley ACDC tribute

Sat - Matinee show; Streetlight Requiem, The Proxies

Sat Evening; Fosset & Badger, Cougar Cougar Cougar, The Cold Shivers

Apparently there is nothing planned for the site at this stage, but apparently alsa "the vultures are circling" and we're sure it won't take long for someone to move in.

What's the story, old sport?

The Masked Barfly — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:12:37 +0000

While buzzing around Courtenay Place recently, I noticed that the Sports Café was closed for renovations. A sign said something like "Don't worry" (and I didn't) "we'll be back with a new bar soon". My antennae perked up at that: could this prominent corner soon be home to something new, something shiny, something (not to put too fine a point on it) that's not the Sports Café?

Then I spotted an email address on the sign, one that ended in "saints.co.nz". That's the website for the local Saints basketball team, so some sort of sports-related bar seemed likely. What's more, the Saints are officially "The Century City Saints", since they are sponsored by Century City Developments. That company is owned by a certain Mr Serepisos, who also happens to have owned the first bar on this site: and what a many-splendoured thing Ecstasy Plus was, back when I was just a larva.

So, gentle readers, what do you know about this place? Will it be a basketball-themed bar? A return to the glitzarama of the early 90s? Or some unholy combination of the two?