I received a flier for the 2009 edition of Wellington’s Round the Bays. This year, a half-marathon distance has been added to the program – runners only. I don’t think I could train up for the longer distance before Feb 15, but I’ll definitely be doing the fun run portion.

The New Zealand Cartoon Archive played host tonight to a panel discussion of political cartooning in modern New Zealand. It was tied to the current installation of engravings by William Hogarth and attempted to answer the question of whether modern cartoonists carry the same strength and capacity to deliver commentary as Hogarth had several centuries ago.

The three cartoonists each spoke about his work in terms of publication, intention and technical details. Several examples were presented, explaining in a concrete fashion the approaches taken. The audience was presented with a range, from striking single images that cause instant recognition of an idea to intricately detailed works that require analysis, and maybe a history lesson.

It was a fascinating session, binding tightly the realms of politics and entertainment. This is a good thing.

First off, don’t make comparisons. Even though the event listing in the Wellingtonian started off with “If you liked…”, don’t go there. It’s not a fair comparison. Take Adagio for what it is. And that is good.

Dance, acrobatics, pole and aerial movements mingle with comedy and music, sketching a loose story. The individual performances were well done and the whole show was well received, although the scenes seemed a touch isolated. Two real, live musicians provided a very nice interactive touch – they did well bringing the piano into the set and working a piece around it.

If Adagio is a starting point, I expect that New Zealand is in for a treat. There is room to grow and develop a stronger show, but I left satisfied with this one.

I picked up two sets of tickets for upcoming concerts on my way home last night. Slow Boat has tickets for both The New Pornographers on Oct 16 and for Holy Fuck on Dec 8. Both shows should be incredible and San Francisco Bath House is a pretty sweet venue.

Now if only I could convince Wintersleep to come and play, it would round out the year in amazing form.

I found out about this by accident. I was in the cafe at Te Papa with a friend last month and happened to see everything being set up. We didn’t stay, but my curiosity was piqued.

On the first Thursday of every month, Te Papa hosts Science Express, a series of science seminars on a broad range of subjects, free to the public and podcasted. I’m planning to go along tonight, even though the topic is a little less science and a little more social: Youth Crime – A Hot Election Issue

I had seen the poster ages ago and was intrigued, but it was on a whim that we bought tickets for Elemental, the new performance by Strike Percussion. The show was quite good, both visually and musically. It started with the ignition of 2 pairs of mallets, providing a fiery light show to go with the heavy, driving rhythmic introductory piece and setting the expectation level quite high. The overall quality was high, playing with water and fire through the program – arguably with air as well, but there were a couple of segments where the broad noise of the cymbals drowned out the melodies. The good far outweighs the bad, and the show is well worth the ticket price.

While walking home a couple days ago, I saw a poster in Slow Boat for an upcoming show. The New Pornographers are set to play Wellington on October 16th at San Francisco Bath House. I may have to drag a few friends out to this one. It should be an awesome show.

I’m a little late off the mark on this one. It’s nearly the end of my first day of July, but there are several timezones still spinning around the sun on the 141st birthday of my country. I was pleased to hear a couple people humming O Canada for me this morning, mentions of The Logdriver’s Waltz and watching a new ad campaign for the CFL.

I don’t know of much actual celebration going on in Wellington. I don’t have anything planned for it, but I’ll be up in Auckland this weekend, so I might bump into a few Canadians then.

Yesterday was all about skateboarding. Somehow, this translated to a full-on event at Kilbirnie Rec Centre with inline skates, roller-skates, skateboards and scooters. There were demonstration hockey games and a best-trick skateboard competition, with free public sessions for anyone to try out any of the gear. Kids made up the bulk of the population, with some parents to watch and help out, and in some cases, to try to keep up.

Over the course of the free-sessions, I’d helped a couple kids and a couple parents with their skating. The kids, backwards and stops; the parents, getting started. One of the parents thanked me for helping out with everything and we started talking a bit. She wants her daughter to be able to skate (inline) to school when she’s improved enough. I think that’s great. It’s nice to see that people consider skating as a viable option for getting school.

I was keen to watch the roller hockey demonstration. It looked quite different to inline hockey – probably more related to field hockey. The net was smaller, leaving the goalie on his/her knees nearly full-time. The best part was watching a player stop. Instead of stopping forward, players spin and stop backwards, using breaks on the toe of the skates. Weird and cool.

Edit 2008/06/24: Fixed image orientation. Apologies for not noticing.

A moment of cynicism: I just took a look at Metlink’s website and ran across a news item regarding World Environment Day.

Tranz Metro are showing support for World Environment Day on Thursday 5 June 2008 with a $1 day promotion. The $1 ticket covers all services operating between 9am and 3pm excluding the Wairarapa services.

This little token gesture manages to avoid being useful for anyone who may travel for work. There isn’t even a bus that would take me to work after 8am.

A special $1 World Environment Day ticket will be available to give people a souvenir of the day.

Instead of doing something useful to try to encourage use, they offer souvenir tickets. With the giveaways coming from Auckland Regional Transport Authority, one has to wonder who’s in the marketing department at Metlink.

Having said that, I hope some people see the promotion tomorrow and make use of it. I’m interested in seeing patronage rise and service improve. This is my vote for a $6 weekend STARPass?.

World Environment Day is on June 5th. That means this Thursday. Wellington is playing host and many of the sites around downtown have already started dressing up. Walking from Civic Square through to Waitangi Park, I couldn’t help but get excited about the green-ness:

• Poster-boards listing events
• An opening ceremony of some sorts with nicely dressed people in City Hall
• A proudly sponsoring message on the stock exchange ticker
• Shell’s¹[2] World of Performance at the waterfront
• Brightly lit displays along the promenade at Waitangi Park

Apologies for the cynicism… While that list reads out a little half-hearted, this is about raising awareness. Not just for people who are concerned about environmental issues, but for the average person and their average kids. When people hear about climate change or sustainability, they think they are being preached to, that they have to give everything up or be labelled a heretic. Most of the benefits actually come from making little changes to everyday habits. Big changes are hard, little changes are easy. I’ll start preaching after they buy into phase one…

The list of events is pretty impressive – check out the brochure. As noted at Texture, even though the name implies a 1-day event, there are activities going on all week long. With exhibits for children and for adults, everyone should be talking about possibilities. With luck, we can get them thinking about priorities.

Read more about it at the government website and see what you can do to kick the habit.

A couple other tidbits:

• Auckland transit giveaway
• Christchurch has its own program
• Land Transport New Zealand is starting to advertise sustainability. Watch the video.

¹ No, the irony is not lost. There is a Formula 1 demo car on display during a sustainability festival. Really…

² Shell isn’t really entirely evil. They are doing a bit of planning ahead.