In the 1990’s, I would visit the bookshop of John Quilter (Quilters) on Lambton Quay. I didn’t know John very well then, in fact I barely spoke to him. For years, he was someone I would glance at curiously while sifting through the books that lay flat on a broad table, lifting one at a time to reveal another one underneath; John seated at his book-covered desk, glasses perched on his nose, reading and looking up, always with a gentle smile. John Quilter image: https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion...

In February we are lucky enough to be hosting a number of Fringe acts at Undercurrent! Here is the program: Takesie-Backsies Dates: 18, 19, 27, 28 February 2026 Time: 7:00PM Tickets: $15 ( https://tickets.fringe.co.nz/event/446:8313/ ) Noah Levinson (US) brings his immersive storytelling style to Aotearoa in Takesie-Backsies , an original piece of absurd and darkly comic fiction. In 2024 he delighted audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with his original story, "Of Course You Are, We...

Sorting through some of my personal stuff this morning I found this newspaper cutting inside an old diary. It’s a review of a pop concert held at the Wellington Town Hall. In the top right of the article you can see, in pen, a date: 15/12/86 and next to it ‘BRILLIANT CONCERT’. I was bewildered, 16 years old; a few months into a clerical job at the Wellington Education Board and surely doomed to remain there until the end of time. Then it seemed to me that little cracks of light began to...