Month: July 2008

things to do in vancouver

Wednesday:

10 pm. The Mix-Up, Terence’s DJ night at Maxine’s Hideaway, the ex-whore-house at Davie and Bidwell.

Thursday:

9 pm I’m Afraid of Comedians, Dylan Rhymer’s comedy night at Slickity Jim’s Chat & Chew, and yes the kitchen will be open.

Friday:

7 pm. What Is It? Crispin Glover live at Pacific Cinematheque, presenting his short film and a slide show.

8 pm. Aimee Mann kicks off the Vancouver International Folk Fest.

Saturday:

10 am – midnight. Vancouver International Folk Fest, featuring That Mike at Stage Five, with Kobo Town and Dubblestandart, Eliza Gilkyson, and Béla Fleck.

11 am. Cloudscape comics, Jeff Ellis’ comic-collective, has a table at the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of KRAZY! The Delirious World Of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art exhibition.

1 pm. Backyard Summer Music Festival, a free all day party at Jessica Mason-Paull’s Foxy House, 1535 East 4th. Bands: Mama Pulpa, La Comuna, Headwater, The Get Down, Shay Faded and The Heard, and our friends Jess Hill and Chelsea Johnson.

Sunday:

10 am – 2 am. Vancouver International Folk Fest, featuring That Mike, Jayme Stone and Mansa Sissoko, Jorane, and Michael Franti.

9 pm. Bury the Hatchet, a cancer benefit at the Jupiter Lounge for my friend Richard Lett, a stand-up comic, to pay for his chemotherapy. Performing: Kyle Jones, Alicia Tobin, Kevin Foxx (Comedy now and Host of The Kevin Foxx Show on CFRB), Erica Sigurdson (Comedy Now, Halifax Comedy Fest, Comedy Now), Dylan Rhymer (Comedy Now), and Lachlan Patterson (Comedy Central Live at Gotham, CTV Comedy Now, Just for Laughs, Halifax Comedy Fest, Video on Trial)

artpost: just the right size

Audrey Kawasaki has announced her next print sale!

If Only You Were Here
signed and numbered edition of 150

size: 22″x22″ on a 24x”24″sheet – with frame: 28.5″x28.5″x2″
price of unframed: $220 – framed: $450

It will be made available for purchase on July 19th Saturday at 1:00 pm pacific time.


If I had two-hundred dollars to spend on art, this is where it would go. I’ve been following Audrey‘s work for years, (her delicate work regularly graces my otherwise cluttered computer desktop), but this is the first print offered that really captures me. There’s just something about the composition, the lines, the flowering lights, that tugs at my eyes and won’t let go.

I’m feeling unaccountably unattractive

“Free Speech is the right to yell ‘Theater!’ in a crowded fire.”
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp -Abbie Hoffman

Barely averted disasters, not quite problems, almost, practically, nearly, verging, uncomfortably close. Yesterday I was right next to the mild downtown explosion, but managed to just miss nasty smoke inhalation; the resulting massive power failure kindly skipped the corner with my building, leaving us with power but no internet, so basically a blank day paid; the heavy wing-backed chair that dropped on David at work didn’t break his arm, (he’s hurt badly enough that he gets a paid day off work, but not so badly that he isn’t glad about it); and we lucked out and managed to rescue Ray’s vehicle, which was accidentally locked into a closed parking lot while we sat in the ER waiting room for three hours.

There seemed to be a downward spiral.

But then there was ice-cream and a Vincent Price film, The Last Man On Earth, (which is what I am Legend should have been), I got a message that my camera should be fixed by the weekend, and we gave Ray a DVD box-set of Bela Lugosi films and a cute stuffed bunny with floppy long ears, so yesterday was alright after all.

A white pebble day, by any account.


starving for change

The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City.

Persistence. It’s important to try. The boxes have been melting away, leaving the clear bones of a more functional home behind, newly blue and shiny red, that will be nice to live in, once we’ve finished sculpting muscle from the remaining meaty mess. I still need to buy brackets for the glass shelves, chemicals to take the tacky glue off the big hall mirror, wall-paper glue and a smoothing brush, put up the shelves and the last mirror, drawer my clean clothes, arrange the hall closet, shelve the still-to-be-mailed packages, rinse the last two batches of the dusty dishes, sort the last pots and pans into under the sink, catalogue what’s being given away and post the list on-line, launder the dish towels, fold them away, organize the bathroom, disinfect the counters and sink, bathe the cats, inventory what’s left, (as I’m sure to miss something), schedule an optometrist appointment, sweep the hall, vacuum, all of which will likely take me until Friday, if I don’t get any help, then take a week off. Finally.

That Mike‘s going to be in town not this weekend, but next weekend, playing the Folk Fest as a featured artist, which will take a bit of the stress away. He might even be coming along to see Crispin Glover with us, (us being, so far, me, Duncan, David, and possibly Lung), which I expect will be oodles of fun. It won’t be until after he’s left that I’m going to tackle the wall-paper that’s going up in the living-room, a vogue knock-off pattern of black and gray flowers on white. I need some time where I’m not concentrating on cleaning, on tidying, on sorting and shelving and assimilation.

Hanging the wall-paper will be an entire day’s work, even if I move all the furniture and wash the wall the night before. I’m not looking forward to it just yet, though I know after a break I will again. The Folk Fest will be a perfect distraction. Already I’ve started figuring an itinerary, planning on who to see and when. Start Saturday with Mike at Stage Five, with Kobo Town and Dubblestandart, move on to Eliza Gilkyson at Stage Three, snack on a delicious picnic, spend some time at the super sekrit backstage hammock, wander, dance, find Mike’s next show, and end the night with the glorious Béla Fleck. Sunday, more of the same, except with Jayme Stone and Mansa Sissoko, Jorane, and my once acquaintance, (friend of Shane and Mike), Michael Franti, who let me stay on his couch once, back in the nineties.

artpost: art, patience, timing


No.60 | N 70°26’36.5“ E 27°53’27.1“,Tanafjorden, Finnmark, Norway, 2007

No.61 | N 61°39’51.9“ E 6°51’27.8“, Briksdalbreen, Norway, 2007

LIGHTMARK: incredible long-exposure light painting by Cenci Goepel and Jens Warnecke

They’ve also taken photos Tierra del Fuego, Suomi, Germany, California, Spain, and France, which are available in their absolutely stunning gallery.

Eeee! Paint me excited.

Pacific Cinémathèque presents Crispin Glover for three exclusive evenings, July 18-20.

Mr. Glover will be presenting Crispin Hellion Glover’s Big Slide Show, an hour-long audiovisual performance-presentation in which he narrates images from his story book series. Following will be his debut feature film, What Is It?, a mind-blowing, taboo-obliterating phantasmagoria and psychodrama which he describes as “the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe and how to get home, as tormented by an hubristic inner psyche.”

Each evening concludes with a Q&A and book signing.

TICKETS: $20 — Advance tickets are on sale now, but are only available on-line at www.cinematheque.bc.ca.

Tickets will also be sold at the door. Box Office opens at 6:30pm nightly. Annual $3 Pacific Cinémathèque membership required. Restricted to 18+. NO PASSES will be accepted for this event.

unhappy staying in, wanting ice-cream

Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin has recently discovered that sarcasm is an evolutionary survival skill.

My apartment has finally begun to feel as if I live there after four years in the same place. I blame my godmothers things, taking up all the space. I blame her silver sun framed mirrors, her plants, her rows of carefully chosen objects that took decades to find. When I come home after work, my apartment smells like her, as if somehow she’d been visiting. Flour and myrrh and coconut and frankincense, thick swirls, flavours mixing with my own, the cats, candles, cardboard, and sunshine.

Every box is a new mystery, a penny worth of mystery, full of a mixed assortment of silver, food, tiny antiques, and tired moments of what is this, exactly? One very large box is entirely filled with spices, crushed leaves in tiny clear plastic bags, some with labels too faded to read, some in oddly shaped bottles that makes me think they weren’t purchased within my life-time. They hint at delicious meals, semi-exotic flavours, interesting combinations of taste. Where will I find room? I still don’t know. It was a feat enough collecting them together.

All I need is time, extra time, time tucked into crannies of minutes, the creases of hours meeting hours, needle thin threads of seconds adding up, secretive whispers of moments stolen from inattention, from bad decisions, from missing busses and losing keys, from distraction, procrastination, and the tips of fingernails, all added up. Enough time and it will all be done, the boxes will be unpacked, the things put away, the dust hoovered up, the disaster removed. My living environment will be cosy, friendly, cheerful and clean, the way I want it to be as soon as living possible.

David has gone out to meet with an old friend tonight, someone he hasn’t seen in a very long while. They might come back here after dinner, they might not. In either case, I am staying in, seeing what can go where, discarding as much as possible, skipping dinner, clearing space, creating a country, declaring sovereignty over the scattered boxes. I really wanted to go with him, painfully so, especially when he called, asking me to join them, but already I can see progress. There is more than only a path from one end to the other, there is space to walk, space to sit, space to wander around, room to better maneuver through the war.

When I can no longer stand it, when I stand in the kitchen, a dish in hand, seriously contemplating smashing it to save cleaning it, I go back and re-work my summary paragraph for Vitka’s dystopia novel, the one that’s going to go to the publishers as a Here, Buy This Book! It’s a nice distraction, something soothing in the middle of the dusty cardboard love song.

Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine, an interactive china-smashing sculpture by Yarisal and Kublitz