Movieland, the temple of the Royal Vancouver Porn Society, endures.
Despite apparent dangers and unseemliness, the conventions keep on coming. The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), has ranked Vancouver as North America’s top destination for international meetings–ahead of Toronto, San Francisco, New York City, and Seattle–and 24th internationally.
VANOC is starting to issue media releases every time anyone sneezes over there. Today, it was Volume One of their Legacies of North American Winter Games report about the lasting benefits of the Lake Placid games in 1980. Three volumes are to be released in the upcoming three weeks, all with the same message: The Winter Games bring money, jobs, and athletes to their host communities for many decades after the closing ceremonies.
Unfortunately for those of us who are footing the bill, these reports are more advertorial than research. Connecting present tourism and sport benefits in Lake Placid to an event that occurred more than 25 years ago makes as much sense as connecting Brian Mulroney to the Green Party of Canada.
Why matter has mass is one of the three big questions that remain unanswered by particle physics. The answer apparently lies in finding the Higgs boson, a theoretical and elusive particle. The ATLAS project is on the search and has spent $9.5 billion to construct a 27-kilometre particle accelerator in a tunnel beneath Switzerland and France. In Vancouver, TRIUMF is building a $23 million data centre near the UBC campus to analyze about 5 per cent of the data ATLAS will generate.
Regardless of what the scientists might posit about the nature of existence, it appears Svend Robinson is out of purgatory and on his way to Paris.
It’s not supposed to happen in a nice neighbourhood, even one on the east side of town. I got on the Powell Street bus at the end of its run today, at the spot near the PNE where it changes into a #4 UBC.
A drunk guy, too young to be so broken down, was sitting in the back, talking to an open bottle of booze and unseen ghosts.
My inner social worker slipped into overdrive and I asked the driver if she thought the guy was okay. She was one of those happy extroverted types who laughed as she said she thought so, but added she’d be dumping him off as soon as the bus arrived in the Downtown Eastside.
Almost immediately, the guy began to wretch. It sounded like he was about to die, but when we checked, he said he’d tell us if he did. And then he puked. Not a lot (which was not a surprise given his dehydrated state) but enough to put the bus out of commission.
Which is how it turned out I got the express bus downtown. I sat in the front and kibitzed with the driver as she raced towards Pender and Homer where a new bus awaited.
We passed many people patiently waiting at many stops. None were allowed on, just the driver, the drunk, and me. It’s the closest I’ve come in a long time to feeling like a V.I.P.
It made me think of the first lines of the old Leonard Cohen poem, The Bus:
“I was the last passenger of the day,
I was alone on the bus,
I was glad they were spending all that money
just getting me up Eighth Avenue.”
Our local bastion of brilliance, the Fraser Institute, is having a special lunch meeting tomorrow to address the topic “Why Mexicans Don’t Drink Molson.”
Apparently they think it’s connected to regulations, state-sponsored cartels, and foreign investment restrictions, rather than a simple preference for Corona.
In Vancouver, much has been made of Huang Yong Ping’s use of animals in his House of Oracles installation, recently arrived and quickly censored at VAG, after stops at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Huang Yong Ping is no stranger to censorship. He is considered one of the most subversive artists to come out of China, and is recognized for his artistic exploration of the dynamics of power. This is probably why he now lives in Paris instead of his homeland.
His work using animals, insects, and decaying organic matter has previously been censored under the pretext of humanistic values at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1994 and in Rotterdam in 1996, both cities which promote freedom of expression as a fundamental social value.
Dialogue around the conflicting values of freedom of artistic expression and of humane treatment of animals is not, in itself, a bad thing. Such dialogue is how we get democracy, or at least the reasonable facsimile of it under which we presently live.
On this use of insects in art issue, I tend to come down on the side of freedom of expression. It’s not nice to purposely put insects in settings that encourage aggression, but it is a bug-bite-bug world and maybe that was what the artist is trying to address.
So I was amused when I noticed Degan’s post at Beyond Robson this morning, in which she said she was Vancouveriste enough to think that art is better without animals in it. Hmmm. Vancouveriste is Vancouveriste enough to think that food is probably better (at least in the ethical sense) without animals in it, but art, maybe not so much.
Vancouveriste is Vancouveriste enough to have purposely not brought children into this overpopulated world, nor to have acquired any pedigreed domestic animal companions. Such a philosophical stance makes me unfit for life in Kitsilano, I realize. But I live in Vancouver East, (aka Vancouveriste) where strays of the human, feline, and canine varieties are always welcome. I have been known, however, to crush the occasional spider under my heel. Please don’t call the SPCA.
When it comes to pets and power dynamics, I really wouldn’t mind if this bunny showed up at my door. She’s a girl after my own heart.
Vincent Lam’s series of linked stories about young doctors is told with a sense of detached intimacy that was excellent enough to win the 2006 Giller Prize and is currently being developed into a TV drama by Shaftesbury Films.
Although I found myself caring about each of the four characters who are central to Lam’s stories, I may never feel the same about going to the doctor again.
Evil has its privileges, and its price. Implausible plot elements are only partially offset by great acting by Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington, who took best actor Oscar back in 2001.
I just got home from a council meeting at Vancouver City Hall. All the councillors looked cute in their ‘nucks jerseys, all numbered 7, perhaps in honour of Brendan Morrison, though only the mayor wore the dark jersey. But I digress.
The matter I was attending for was third on the order paper, and much less interesting than the item that was first up for discussion.
Trillium Park. Maybe you’ve never heard of it. That’s because it isn’t really a park yet. It’s a 7.5 acre site on the False Creek Flats, south of Prior, between Malkin and National, on the former Burlington Northern Lands.
Trillium Park did get some press last fall, when the Parks Board decided the Trillium site should become an athletic park, despite protestations from the community concerning what they saw as a lack of public consultation about the Park’s future.
But an athletic park it will be, complete with two artificial turf fields, because in the view of the NPA members of the Parks Board, that is its best use for the community at large.
Everyone on council wanted to approve the artificial turf fields today, because Vancouver is short of playing fields, despite Trillium Park’s not being the optimum site. Even Vision’s loquacious Heather Deal gave props to the NPA’s Suzanne Anton for teaching her about the social benefits of sport.
It was the “extras” for Trillium Park that were a bit challenging to take in all at once. Outgoing Deputy City Manager Brent McGregor has cooked up quite a stew for his swan song. Some of it was a bit hard to swallow. Remedial work at Science World and a land sale were some of the ingredients.
The land to be sold is the site of the Vancouver dog pound, which is apparently in a sorry state. McGregor’s penny wise, pound foolish solution: sell the existing dog pound site, move the pound to Trillium Park, and rename it a “dog care centre.” I guess the city mandarins figure the folks in Strathcona will get by without the passive recreational space parks normally offer.
I like dogs as much as anyone does. The ones that are impounded should be properly cared for. But let’s call a spade a spade. This cocked up city scheme seems designed to look like it’s giving Strathcona a park even though it’s really giving them a pile of dog doo.
It’s been a challenging year. My mother’s death in early September was an excoriating, though sacred time–one that smacked me upside the head about the true nature of our mortality, and a good deal harder than did my father’s death twenty-five years earlier.
Book ending my mother’s passage were a cancer diagnosis, and in the late fall a cancer scare. The former is manageable; the latter remains a possibility, though there’s no indication it will soon, or even in the longer term, result in my demise.
There have been crises, large and small, in our extended families; the resulting tsunamis of varying intensities have washed over Mr. V. and me. One or two have momentarily knocked us off our feet.
More recently, I became accidentally embroiled in Pacific Innovations, a fraudulent fiasco if there ever was one. They presented me with an investment opportunity, and in an unguarded moment, I decided to trust them. The result was a surprise charge of $10,600 on my credit card. In the end, thanks to Chris Olsen of CTV’s Olsen on Your Side and Valerie MacLean of the BC Crime Prevention Association, I got the money back. The Royal Bank of Canada, unsupportive and unsympathetic, lost me as a customer—not that I suppose they’ll notice.
Which brings us to the present—not exactly a prime time for a house makeover. But there you have it. Or, rather, there we have it. Mr. V. is lucky enough to have a workplace to escape to every day. Me, not so much, as I do most of my work at home. Very little work is getting done these days, and I do’t expect that to change for the foreseeable future.
Our house is one of those aging beauties that will benefit from having some work done. Not a full renovation, but something between a facelift and a chemical peel.
Unlike when a cosmetic surgeon works on a person, however, reno work always costs more and takes longer than anticipated. The torch on soprema roof over our 1960s style family room addition needed not two, but six layers of tar and gravel removed, plus reframing over the soffits.
“Redoing” the deck means all the boards and most of the joists are in the monster bin in the alley, with only the side supports remaining, and these only because the lattice on one is overgrown with English Ivy, which, although considered by some to be a nasty weed, does provide a sense of cozy privacy.
Beyond keeping all the reno balls in the air, and juggling some minimal work commitments, my hands are full and my mind is usually one minor crisis from melt down. Except, of course, when it does melt down, which it seems to do on a regular basis these days.
There have been some good things this year, as well. Interesting projects, short trips south and to the Island, plenty of good food, wine, and chocolate, and time with friends and family. I’ll write about some of these when I have more time, and I’ll expect even more of them when the house is done. In the meantime, please bear with me, and don’t mind the spotty posting.
P.S. This is the state of my bedroom. This too shall pass!
