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Blogs / February 2009

March 2009 | January 2009
    • The Hutt knows how to throw a party
      • The Petone Fiesta has gone from strength to strength, and this year looks like it will be a bit of a stunner. The action kicks off at 6pm, 7th March, with the The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra. The Woolshed Sessions also play, and if you fancy something a bit louder to waggle your dags the Wellington Batucada will be out in force. Check the full line up here.
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        • Jackson Street, Petone


    • For Shortness
      • Following on from the previous post, where the power of the mighty telephoto reduced tall buildings to flatness in a single bound, we here at the Fish thought that it might be time to try that trick on other streets.  Flattening out perspective, as shown here in the classic (but I’ve always thought, slightly dodgy) example of Albrecht Durer from 1525 “Draughtsman drawing a recumbent w
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    • Adam Page Solo finishes this weekend ...
      • ... and if you haven't seen his show at Downstage, you should get your tickets now! Find out more hereAdam page SoloThat's what our patrons say about Adam Page Solo:"I look forward to another series of Adam Page's performances! He's such a funny and multi-talented musician, making music improvisations on the spot. A must-see show!""Awesome!""Hands down, the best show at Fringe this year! Adam Page
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        • Hannah Playhouse, 12, Cambridge Terrace, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Heavenly Navigation
      • Fuse Circus have joined The Fringe with The Navigators, a new outdoor show under the sails at Queens Wharf. If you haven't seen their previous shows, Heavenly Burlesque or Gravity and Other Myths, then get down there right now! If you have, then while a few of the moves may be familiar, it's still wonderful entertainment. The "narrative" may be little more than an flimsy framework from
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    • Cinephilia: Opening This Week
      • Another light-ish week of cinema releases to report: Readings have so much confidence in the new Rob Schneider prison-comedy Big Stan that the only evening sessions are at a deadening 9.20pm at night. According to IMDb this is the first film directed by the Deuce Bigelow star which means we now have the phrase "a film by Rob Schneider" to terrify and depress us. Also Sky City Queensgate.
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    • Puni accomodation
      • Looking up Vivian St, past the closed down peepshows and the sadly tacky brothels, a new building can be spied on the hill.  It’s the new student accommodation block called Te Puni, and the neighbours on the hill are in trepidation - apparently 375 horny 18 year olds are inside. Yes, it will be noisy - expect lots of puking in the bushes for the first few weeks, and then they’ll settl
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    • Coralline red algae
      • Botany has recently acquired a unique collection; a special group of calcified red algae known as the corallines. Coralline algae are abundant and ubiquitous throughout the world’s oceans, playing very important roles in marine ecosystems. The encrusting, or crustose, species can form unusual lumpy, warty-looking layers in the intertidal, sometimes completely covering rocks. Perhaps you have
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    • Identifying maidenhair spleenwort ferns.
      • The maidenhair spleenwort is a spleenwort fern (Asplenium) that (supposedly) looks like a maidenhair fern (Adiantum, see below). The 600 or so of the world’s spleenworts are characterised by having their reproductive structures in lines away from the margins of their fronds’ undersides. The reproductive structures (the sori, made up of the sporangia which contain the spores, and their
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    • Not just hot air...
      • When I first arrived in NZ a couple of years ago, my friend and I were driving north when we happened upon the myriad of turbines dotting the lanscape of the Tararua Wind Farm. We thought it was the coolest thing we'd ever seen. It was like something out of a sci-fi movie, but in a good way, not an alien-is-gonna-burst-out-of-your-guts way. How cool it would be to look out at that skyline every
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        • Hannah Playhouse, 12, Cambridge Terrace, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Dark Waters
      • If you head on over to fish central, we’re diving deep into the murky depths in order to protest S92A. We’re sure you’ve heard all about it, so we’ll spare the diatribe. However, things arent all gloomy. Check back in a day (or two) to find a newly re-emerged fish - things will have changed…
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    • Transit’s tasteless menu
      • The latest iteration of what was once Transit, now called the NZ Transport Agency, (obligatory maori moniker: Waka Kotahi) is now into publishing. Edition no. 3 of Pathways is glossy and cheerful, and like most of the recent publications from recently re-organised public service departments, entirely full of bumpf and platitudes with nothing much useful to say at all. One article however was wors
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    • Cuba Street Carnival at a glance
      • We love the Cuba Street Carnival, but their website: not so much. The programme is only available as a Flashy map or as a printable (but not downloadable!) full programme. And with so much stuff to see so many stages at once, it's hard to compare everything and work out what to see when. So, I typed all the acts into a spreadsheet, and turned it into a simple table with all the acts line
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    • And what is faith?
      • Ian Prior, noted epidemiologist and arts patron died earlier this week. Luncheon under the ash tree, an exhibition organised by Aratoi which celebrated Ian and Elespie Prior’s art collection, toured galleries around New Zealand a few years ago. Regan Gentry, Green Islands, 2007 Wellington Sculpture Trust’s Four Plinths Temporary Sculpture Project A couple of works on show in and near Te Papa stand
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    • It’s Showtime!
      • Cuba Carnivale is upon us once more. But will the showers hold off for us today, or is it time to think of the perhaps inevitable: do we need a SambaDome ? Carnival night parade is all about being hot and sweaty and (so it seems, near-naked), along with the inevitable music, rhythm and hypnotic samba music beats. Will the crowd break into spontaneous dance and applause this time, or merely look a
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    • Cinephilia: Opening This Week
      • With most Wellington screens growning under the weight of Oscar-bait, only Readings (and Sky City Queensgate if you are so inclined) is opening anything new this week. My Bloody Valentine 3D was well attended at sneak previews last week but sadly isn't much of a film. It's a remake of a beloved horror of the same early-80s (same vintage as last week's Friday the 13th). Apart from the title th
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    • Blow me away
      • Newsflash: Mill Creek Wind Farm approved, almost all intact - just 2 turbines short of the full picnic. We blogged about it before, back in June last year when it was announced and publicly notified - and we thought that the residents of Ohariu Valley might put up a bigger stink than the residents of nearby Makara did when they were confronted with Project West Wind.
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        • Makara, Wellington


    • We see 92a and we want to turn it black
      • So you're not attending Webstock or you're willing to skip lunch tomorrow? From the Creative Freedom Foundation: Public Demonstration In Wellington on the steps of Parliament on Thursday 19th at (edit) 12pm with a petition handover at (edit) 12.30pm. This is a postive event where we will hand out hundreds of CDs and thank the politicans that support us - so please keep it friendly and p
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    • Honey pot
      • In case you’re a new visitor to Eye of the Fish, and are looking for some of the particular posts on certain subjects, here’s a quick summary of some links that you can click on and take you straight there. Please do feel free to add your comment on any of the subjects. For instance: Discussing the proposals for the National Library Debating the proposed Flyover at the Basin Reserve Ta
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    • Cellar-Vate Winermaker's Dinner: Hunter Wines
      • There are still some places available for the February 18 Cellar-Vate winemaker’s dinner featuring the wines from Hunter’s in Marlborough. You pay $40 and you get to try yummy wine and food matches. Here's the menu: Hunter’s Sauvignon Blanc 2008 On arrival Hunter’s “Miru-Miru” Brut Smoked salmon canapés on rye with preserved lemon and cream ch
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    • Little Fishes swim upstream
      • When I was younger, I sometimes thought it would be good to be a black woman, so that I could qualify as a backing singer for Talking Heads: they always seemed to have the best dancers / singers / ass-shakers in the business, and they could get so close to the Master Byrne himself. Perhaps that’s just me.  I never viewed it as a comment on society that perhaps they were pigeon-holed into tha
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    • A sketch of the artist
      • James Luna, Artifact piece, 1985-1987 We’re back in Wellington and James has returned home to work on shaping what will be the One Day Sculpture project. As I mentioned, this post covers a bit about James’ practice by looking at a few works. James Luna has been creating visual art, interdisciplinary exhibitions and performances that are informed by his native culture for over three dec
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      • te-papa

    • Latrodectus Love Bites
      • St Valentine's widow spider   In honour of Valentine’s Day this post will look at the wonderful world of courtship in the spider genus Latrodectus, more commonly known as the widow spiders. Readers of my previous post will recall this genus includes species such as the American black widow (Latrodectus mactans), the Australian redback (L. hasseltii) and the New Zealand katipo (L. katipo), all
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    • Stimulus package
      • Much as we’ve always enjoyed a good stimulus package up here at Eye of the Fish world headquarters (beaming at you tonight from way up on the Majestic Tower because, to be frank, we’re sick of all that cloud down there at ground level): we’re left a little unstimulated by the whip of our new master. He’s cracking, but I don’t hear no jumping.  Yes, today (well, actua
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    • Beagle boys
      • Conrad Martens, Kororareka in the Bay of Islands, 1841 In honour of Charles Darwin’s birthday today, here’s a work by one of the artists from HMS Beagle. Conrad Martens painted this view of Kororareka, the site of modern Russell, in 1841. It’s based on sketches which he made during on a brief visit there in 1835. Martens had left the Beagle by this point, but the ship passed through New Zealand la
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    • Phoenix Foundation: 40 Years
      • The new Phoenix Foundation video, directed and starring Academy Award®-nominated director Taika Waititi is a wee gem, following our energetic protagonist in a one-shot piece of filming that takes him around the western coastline of Lyall Bay.
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        • Lyall Bay, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand/Aotearoa (OpenStreetMap)


    • Valentines day: roses are what?
      •   Margaret Stoddart, Roses, 1920s In Europe during the 1300s February 14th was thought to be the day when birds paired off to mate. This date was originally an ancient Greco-Roman pagan festival, and was later called St Valentines Day Feast by the Church. Since the 1300s, on February 14th each year, roses (and flowers in general),  have been widely accepted as gifts and Saint Valentines Day is now
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    • Fellow travellers
      • Nicholas Chevalier, Cook Straits, New Zealand, c 1884 Reading about American artist James Luna’s travels around the country brings to mind of a couple of earlier artistic visitors to New Zealand.   Nicholas Chevalier, the Russian-born, Australian-domiciled Swiss painter made two visits to New Zealand in the 1860s. The first, in 1865, was sponsored by the Otago Provincial Council. Not to be outdone
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    • Winds of Change
      • Downstage opens its doors for the first time this summer with three new shows opening in less than a week! This time last year Tim Spite's SEEyD Company thrilled audiences with the paua poaching action adventure Paua (netting Spite the Chapman Tripp Director of the Year Award in the process). Now they're back with a re-working of earlier success Turbine, which blew people away at BATS in 2006: An
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    • Skin deep differences don’t matter in Katipo
      • Skin Deep Differences Don’t Matter in Katipo Katipo female and eggsacs. Image ©Te Papa Having spent my last two postings dealing with butterflies and moths, it’s time to move on to the animals I love the most – spiders! The subject of this posting is the katipo spider (Latrodectus katipo), New Zealand’s only endemic spider known to be dangerous to humans. Katipo is a Maori word meaning ‘night stin
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    • Adam Page Solo The Big Idea Q & A
      • below is a Q and A I filled out for the website www.thebigidea.co.nzi was feeling extra silly when filling it out. had alot of fun though!! here 'tis During what hours of the day do you feel most inspired?During the sleeping hours   How would a good friend describe your aesthetic or style? Aesthetically bare footed and stylishly unstylish   What aspect of your creative practice gives you th
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        • Hannah Playhouse, 12, Cambridge Terrace, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Thank god that's over
      • I can't claim to speak for all the Wellingtonista, but I have to say it: Sevens weekend is horrible. There's a lot of gushy talk in the main media outlets about how colourful and vibrant and alive the city becomes, but one could say the same about a nasty fungal rash. Many of us who live in the central city can attest to how colourful and vibrant and alive the city is most of the time, and in an a
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    • Indoor Sports Centre
      • The Eye of the Fish has tried to keep away from the whole sorry saga of the Sports Centre, but recent developments deserve a forum for comment. The entire Sports Centre fad has escaped by the Fish, for whom the idea of 12 courts full of screaming netballers sounds more like a living hell than a place we’d ever want to go to. Apparently even 12 courts is a small number, claim the supporters,
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        • Cobham Park, Wellington


    • Te Waipounamu
      • On our last day in New Plymouth we met with Govett-Brewster Art Gallery staff and SCANZ (Solar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand) artists. SCANZ involves  a residency, exhibition and symposium for artists working with new media and technology. James, Rhana Devenport, Megan, James Pinker and and SCANZ artists Natalie Robertson, Rachael Rakena, Lisa Reihana. James gave a brief talk about his work to Ga
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    • Waitangi
      • Around 8 years ago, the city of Wellington was in a turmoil. The aged forces of Waterfront Watch, an elderly bunch of Wellingtonians with time on their hands, decided to take on the Wellington City Council over their proposals for the waterfront land. The public was stirred up into a paroxysm of hatred for Variation 17 - what were portrayed as proposals by the WCC to allow building all over the waterfront. Waterfront Watch were largely successful, forcing the hand of the Council to reduce the scope of their ambitions, and lobbying hard for the creation of what is now Waitangi Park. And well done too - the park is great. But now there’s another proposal on the waterfront.
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    • Crafty Waitangi
      • Can't wait till craft2.0 in april to get your shopping groove on? Well no worries becuase for those of you in Wellington this is a weekend of crafty awesomness... First up on Waitangi Day itself, why not head out to Pataka and celebrate Waitangi Day and the Festival of the Elements with a spot of crafty shopping. The Festival of the elements is  being held at Te Rauparaha Park & Te Raupa
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    • A visitor to Waitangi
      • Alfred Sharpe, Where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, 1882 Mr Alfred Sharpe has just returned from a three weeks’ sketching tour in the Bay of Islands district, with a well-filled portfolio of sketches, and with a number of orders from the residents of that district. The sketches comprise views of Russell, Paihia, Waitangi, Ngaheiu, Pakaraka, Pouerua, Ohaeawai, Waimate, Kawakawa, and the Waiomio
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    • On the road with James Luna
      • Since I posted introducing One Day Sculpture and visiting artist James Luna, who is developing a project to be presented at Te Papa, Megan, James and I have been to Auckland and back. James Luna, End of Acoustic, 2005, from a faux rock & roll multimedia installation - All Indian All the Time    In Auckland James gave a talk at the Auckland Art Gallery’s Art Lounge as part of their Easy L
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    • Cinephilia: Opening This Week
      • More Oscar contenders hit our screens this weekend. Gus Van Sant's biopic of the first openly gay elected politician in the USA, Milk opens today at Readings, Penthouse and Lighthouse Petone. Sean Penn plays San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk who was assassinated by fellow city official Dan White in 1978. Penn is supported by Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men), Emile Hirsch (Int
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    • Walk the line
      • You don't have to be a trainspotter or J-line commuter to be interested in the redevelopment of the Johnsonville Line (though it undoubtedly helps). In any case, you shouldn't miss your one and only opportunity tomorrow to walk the tracks between Crofton Downs station and the Wadestown crossing loop. Highlights include spectacular views of the gorge and a couple of spooky tunnels to explore.
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        • Wadestown, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6140, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • The deluge and the ark
      • Recently, a group of researchers in New Zealand suggested that the absence of fossils between 25 and 22 million years ago indicated that the islands completely disappeared under water, and then later re-emerged. But a newly discovered fossil reptile suggests this theory does not hold water. Alan Tennyson, Curator of Fossil Vertebrates at Te Papa, and colleagues, found the remains of a fossilized
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    • More masking tape
      • Colin McCahon, Mondrian's last chrysanthemum, 1976 Mondrian’s last chrysanthemum, the Colin McCahon painting we bought at the end of last year, arrived at Te Papa recently. It’s great to see it again. Like most paintings, there’s a lot about this work that you don’t get until you see it in the flesh. There’s beauty of the painting itself, its amazing combination of subtlety and urgency.
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    • Fur Patrol under the stars
      • You will of course remember how last year the Phoenix Foundation's gig in Frank Kitts Park was voted Best Live Performance at the TAWAs? Well this year, the Starry Nights concert on February 19 (during Webstock!) will feature the magnificant Fur Patrol, and of course since Miss Ratpony is such a fan, we have this gif as a gift for you: 
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        • Frank Kitts Park, Wellington


    • Treaty Debate: The Maori seats in Parliament
      • Derek Fox What do you think of the Māori seats in Parliament? On Thursday 5 February @ 6.30 - 8 p.m. two speakers will deal with this provocative issue - The role of Maori in Parliament and the future of the Maori seats. Professor Philip Joseph and Derek Fox will discuss this topic as part of Te Papa’s annual Treaty Debate series. Join the debate We want to hear what you think. You can watch
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    • Windows to the world
      • Time to get back to talking about architecture. One of the things that the construction slow-down may give us, incidentally, is more time to actually think about architecture - the hectic pace that the architects in our city have been working at, with barely time to pause between designs, has led to a plethora of work of (at times) dubious quality. The designs for one multi-storey apartment buildi
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    • A Tiger with Crimson Wings
      • A Tiger with Crimson Wings  This post is inspired by Smiv’s reminiscences about cinnabar moth caterpillars when commenting on my previous blog entry: http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2009/01/26/a-menu-for-monarchs/#comments Also, as adult cinnabar moths are on the wing this time of year in New Zealand summer and sightings always generate a number of calls to Te Papa’s entomology department, I thought t
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