Etienne Zack is suddenly in unfamiliar territory. The Montreal born artist has just landed in a curious little outpost most of us think of (if at all) as a place to buy cheap gas or pick up duty free parcels. It’s a place borne of a 19th century border dispute between England and America, an...Read More
One of the most important and symbolic pole raising ceremonies in recent memory occurred on April first, 2017 at UBC. Haida master carver Jim Hart spent two years working on a new pole that serves as both a telling of the trauma of Canada’s First Nations’ experiences under the residential school system, and as a...Read More
My first exposure to “experimental” vocal music was hearing French singer Tamia Valmont’s 1978 recording of First Polyphony. It became a late night staple on the radio show I hosted at UBC in the 80s. It was otherworldly to me at the time. Valmont was a jazz vocalist combining studio tape manipulation and effects with...Read More
This past year a local webzine publisher with direct ties to Christy Clark’s chief fundraiser chided me for daring to compare Trump to Her Majesty in the course of a Facebook thread. And although I was merely quoting that hard left publication The Financial Post http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/terence-corcoran-christy-clark-channels-trump-with-her-misleading-misguided-anti-foreigner-housing-tax, that awesome online nose tweak got me to thinking...Read More
Lalo Espejo weighs in on the foreign corporate donations so beloved by the BC Liberals. It’s interesting to see our local media once again taking up the rear after The New York times rightfully made this a story. But it’s typical, just as it took the excellent work of Ian Young for the South China...Read More
Next to the catastrophic, “End Times”-like scenario predicted for the closure of Point Grey Road for the purpose of encouraging cycling/boosting property values of well connected citizens/turning Fourth Avenue into a rush hour death chute, the remodeling of the Burrard Street Bridge was going to be the most anticipated act of civic vandalism to take...Read More
You may have caught wind that affordable artists’ spaces in Vancouver are not just at a premium, but virtually extinct. Recent news about The Secret Lantern Society’s space being redeveloped once again casts a light on the effects of relentless pressures on urban space. You may also know of Alan Storey’s public art works. Among...Read More
Whenever I’m downtown I like to wander past some of the older buildings that have evaded the wrecker’s ball for one reason or another. There aren’t many left. My earliest memory of an old downtown heritage building was the one at 804 Pender Street where my mother began Spectrum Players’ Lunch Hour Theatre in 1969....Read More
This is an 8mm home movie shot on the set of Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller by Wes Taylor and Wayne Robson (both RIP) in the fall of 1970. Wes was my stepfather and I visited the set as a boy. It was a magical place to explore as you can imagine! That it...Read More
