I’m having a wee bit of bother wrapping my head around Project Civil City, the latest policy to sally forth from the well-paid minds at Twelfth and Cambie.

First, there’s the C-word itself. Civil implies politeness, courtesy, kindness, and gentleness–behaviours which I have not noticed a surfeit of in Vancouver.

People who work in restaurants and shops are almost unfailingly polite. That’s their job, and most of them do it well. But on the streets, it can be another matter. It’s not that the city is populated by hordes of obnoxious boors. Even so, living here can often feel like death by a thousand ill-mannered cuts.

It’s the little things. The low-level discourtesy and thoughtlessness. People walk in front of each other without excusing themselves, or even noticing they have done so. They come to fisticuffs in big box stores over bottles of water they don’t absolutely need. They ramp up the bass on “their” music until neighbours’ bones shake. They take phone calls in the middle of conversations. They talk too loudly in restaurants. They drive as if there is no one else on the road. And they swan about trailing ample evidence of conspicuous consumption in their wake.

I could go on, but you know what I mean, even if I didn’t mention your particular peeve. When I go on vacation and come back to Vancouver I am always struck by how cold, impersonal and, yes, uncivil, our streets can be.

It seems that Judy and Sam believe that all low level incivility will magically disappear if we do something about “those” people. You know the ones—the homeless, the addicts, and the aggressive panhandlers.

Project Civil City aims to cut the numbers of “those” people in half by the time the Olympics arrive. Homes for the homeless would be a good thing. But homelessness is a social problem that’s been looking for a solution for far longer than the thousand or so days Judy and Sam think it’s going to take to solve it. Likewise treatment and/or maintenance programs for addicts.

As for aggressive panhandlers, I’ve only ever met one. A couple of years ago, a healthy-looking young man with an obvious sense of entitlement told me he had AIDS and asked me for five bucks. I turned him down, telling him I live with a serious medical condition myself, and that I was on my way back to work. He proceeded to scream at me that his disease was far worse than mine. I knew he was mad at me for not giving him money, so I just walked away.

On the other hand, I frequently take the Powell Street bus through the Downtown East Side. Often, street people who have no money will board the bus and politely ask the driver if they may get on free. Most times, the drivers let them on. I have never seen any of “those” people act badly or aggressively, despite the fact they may be mentally ill, homeless, and/or addicts.

Investing some real money to give these folks the help and services they need is altogether a good thing. But it’s going to take a lot more than a million bucks to hire bylaw officers and another $300,000 a year for a Civility Czar.

And reversing a couple of decades of ill-conceived social policies likely won’t encourage the self-involved and over-privileged to be kinder, gentler, or civil.

1. On pure gut feel, I’m predicting Celine Stéphane Dion will come up the middle and win on the third ballot.

2. If I am wrong, and they pick Ignatieff, then we are f*cked.

It was a dark and stormy night last week when, along with a couple of friends, I took refuge at L’Artista Ristorante, located near the west edge of Burnaby at 3891 East Hastings Street.

European-trained Chef/owner Federico Murrini opened L’Artista in 1992, having previously operated Al Forno in Gastown for eleven years.

We were greeted by a charming hostess who welcomed us and took our coats before showing us to our table.

One of our party had arrived early, and to pass the time had ordered half a litre of the diffident and inoffensive house red wine. It had clearly been carefully chosen by the chef to blend well with a range of the chewier dishes on the menu. This was quickly replaced with a bottle of supple and fruity Beringer’s Stone Cellars Merlot.

What you get at L’Artista is well-prepared, and tasty food. No foams, no spoons, and nothing deconstructed. There is plenty to choose from on the menu, whether antipasti, soups, salads, pastas, meat, or fish. It is the same sort of menu you would have found in the previous century, perhaps on your first hot date, in a dark little boite with checkered tablecloths and candles in Chianti bottles, where you would live dangerously and order Spanish coffee for dessert.

My companions started with the day soup, a traditional broth-based potato, kale, and leek soup, accompanied with the requisite fresh and crusty Italian rolls, and whipped butter. Each pronounced the soup delicious.

Main courses included a green peppercorn steak that is a fixture on the menu and the cannelloni and red snapper, both of which were daily specials. The carnivore, a woman of considerable culinary talent, said her steak was perfect; there wasn’t a single thing she could think of to improve the dish. Likewise, the pasta was described as very, very good, from the house made tomato sauce, to the perfectly al dente tubes, to the cheese that finished the dish.

My fish, on the other hand, left me scratching my head just a bit. Red snapper is a solid and unexciting fish that should theoretically provide a palate for almost any kind of savoury sauce. The snapper was well prepared, generously proportioned, and (as I’d ordered extra veg and no starch) was accompanied with plenty of vegetables.

But I didn’t quite comprehend the sauce. It was a slightly savoury combination of olives and capers. I liked it well enough, but it was a sauce that wanted to accompany pork, or maybe chicken. Snapper was definitely not the best choice to highlight the sauce.

Despite l’Artista’s very generous portions, my companions had room for dessert. One had been too busy to eat during the day, and the other must have been working very hard. The tiramisu and chocolate mousse disappeared before my eyes, but not before I got a chance to sample; both were delicious, and clearly made with quality ingredients.

L’Artista is a comfortable room that is just edging towards shabby, and may soon be due for a makeover. Regardless of when, or if, that happens, hopefully L’Artista will continue to offer its well-prepared, classic retro Italian cuisine, and its charming hospitality and service.

Expect to pay about $75 per person for three courses, dessert, and wine, including taxes and tip.

Friday night this week saw Mr. Vancouverist and me at the East Side Culture Crawl with plans that were, as it turned out, a little too ambitious.

After a quick glance at the map on the Culture Crawl’s website, we decided that touring all the studios in two adjacent buildings in one evening was very doable. And so, we set out to first visit 1000 Parker, and then to check out the Mergatroid Building at 975 Vernon.

We never made it to the Mergatroid, instead spending nearly three hours wending our way through four floors of studios and workshops in the gigantic labyrinth that is 1000 Parker.

In our time there we were thankful to run into only one pretentious asshat artiste, and only a few of middling talent. There was plenty of middling plonk on offer, accompanied by food that ran the course from Brie to Cheesies, with almost every studio welcoming, hospitable, and very crowded.

Vancouver, it seems, loves the Culture Crawl. And east side artists and artisans, it seems, are happy to forgo what could have been valuable creative or recuperative time in order to welcome Vancouverites into their studios. This year marks the tenth for this east side event.

Here are some of the highlights of our tour of 1000 Parker:

Red Star Furniture Design
James Esworthy’s work is knock out gorgeous. Breathtaking. And did I say gorgeous?

J. D. O’Connor Design
A distant and filthy rich relative has recently died and left you enough money so that you are now filthy rich yourself. Do not pass go. You no longer need the two hundred dollars. Instead, go directly to J. D. O’Connor for all the incredible millwork for your new custom kitchen and your library, too. It will be as beautiful when you pass on your riches as when you first laid eyes on it.

Straight Line Designs
We will forgive these talented folks for their contribution to the Spirit Bear inanity in which our fine city was recently gripped. Straight Line is fun stuff, well made. And we loved the little tike who was picking fart colours off the Pionite sample board while making fart sounds. We should all be so free, especially at the Culture Crawl.

Pouch & Couch
Pouch is not exactly art. They make bags for diapers, laptops, and other stuff. These durable bags are made from heavy vinyl, leather, with shoulder straps made from stuff that would work well in auto seatbelts. Cool selection of colours and shapes. Stylish enough for almost anyone.

Couch is the upholstery division of Pouch. Right now, they are making mid-century modern inspired armchairs, covered in interesting, tweedy fabrics, and stuffed with very high-density foam. We tried one and found it very comfortable despite its being somewhat low slung. That will soon be remedied with the addition of wooden rockers–definitely a chair for all reasons.

Doris MacDougall
We liked the custom finishing work that Ms. MacDougall and her partner Michael Fitzsimmons do at next-door Zebo designs. But I was far more taken with her paintings. Painting is what she does to relax after a busy day. Amazing what one can accomplish if one simply stays away from Second Life, C-Street, and other time-eating pastimes and focuses on creating.

Janice Wong Studio
Janice Wong, perfectly attired, perfectly coiffed, and perfectly charming, had many small dreamily beautiful monotypes and paintings on display. Her work is very evocative of something deep within me that I can’t quite figure out, at least not yet. Her book, Chow: From China to Canada, Memoirs of Food + Family, was also discreetly on display.

Trevor Jansen Photography
Jansen’s display was limited to a collection of portraits and another of playfully erotic work. His work is bright and sunny, and he pushes the colour as far as he can without distorting the nature of his subjects. I was struck by how happy everyone looked in the photos Jansen had selected. Clearly, he is a photographer who knows how to connect and have fun with his subjects.

Street Stories
These haunting black and white photos, and the simple poignant stories that accompany them, provide a stark glimpse into the realities of living, and being trapped on, the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. The photographer, Shannon Loewen, spent many hours over many months talking with and photographing her subjects, and tells their stories simply, honestly, and without judgement.

Our visit didn’t even scratch the surface of the community of more than 200 artists and artisans who are in some cases thriving, and in other cases struggling, on Vancouver’s proud east side.

I could blame the absence of posts on work commitments, and that would be partly true. But I could have found time to put something on this blog in the past few days if I’d focused on it instead of the infernal Second Life.

But now I’m back. The in-world me, Labonna Willsmere, is no more. Last time I saw her, she was a he, wings on the grass in front of him her, a bushy white wolf’s tail hanging out the back end, and a perfect rack that had morphed into perfect pecs.

Don’t get me wrong. I like my own chest a lot more than either of the ones I left behind in Linden’s world. And I definitely would rather be attending to this little blog than the impressive and fantastical world the Second-Lifers have created.

Hopefully I’ll be posting here soon with something more interesting for you to read about than my brush with game addiction.

Public Eye Online reports Alan De Genova has elected to sit on the Parks Board as an independent, and, always a gentleman, will not be slinging any muck at the NPA.

CBC reports on San Franciscan’s Donna Sheehan and Paul Reffel of Global Orgasm. December 22, which is Winter Solstice, is the big day when everyone–and particularly folks living in countries with (real) Weapons of Mass Destruction–is invited to experience orgasm at the time, place, and level of privacy of their choosing.

The theory is that as a result of a global orgasm, peace will break out all over the planet. I’m not sure about the science of this, but it would definitely be a lot more fun than “holiday” shopping.

According to this item in Vancouver blog Beyond Robson, parks board commissioner Alan de Genova will make a statement tomorrow morning at the Terminal City Club.

Given his voting record since his banishment from the Noble Partisan Association, it’s not likely he’ll be asking them for forgiveness. Maybe he’ll take a run at city council next time. He’s got a lot to offer civic government, in any case.

Food-o-crats are mad for power all over the planet. Including in Wales, where a tempest is brewing over Black Mountain Smokery’s Welsh Dragon Sausages.

Local independent film maker, Leon Kaplan of Rio Relaxo Productions, is premiering his documentary on the False Creek live-aboard residents who “moored on the outskirts of False Creek’s marina system.”

Before hearing about this film I didn’t give its subjects much thought. I’d heard that the law had changed and the live-aboarders had to “move along.”

Kaplan’s film, according to his creative brief hosted on his blog, will consider a range of questions including gentrification, voluntary simplicity, minimalism, sustainability, freedom, and self-reliance.

The premier screening of Water Squatters (with some of the film’s subjects in attendance) will be on Friday, November 24th at Video In, 1965 Main Street in Vancouver. Admission is $7.