Redeemed

Going back the thread about the damned ugly whale-things appearing all over town, it's worth mentioning in fair counter-point that the city has over the past couple of days started putting up the summer banners along Georgia and Granville, and they are genuinely interesting. I noticed the first of them yesterday on my way to work. The 1100 block of W. Greorgia features banners that are of the MacMillan Bloedel Building (i.e. "the waffle"), the 1000 block (ironically, since this is the block the waffle building is on) doesn't have banners of the waffle building, but of what I recognised to be the stairs by the waterfall off Robson Square/the provincial courthouse. From work I couldn't tell exactly what the ones further east on Georgia were of, but tonight walking home from the Warhol opening (thanks again to miss_tease for the tickets!) I realized they were of the Waterfall building on W. 2nd Ave., and clued in that all the banners were of Arthur Erickson designed buildings around town. In front of our apartment the banners feature the Museum of Anthropology and elsewhere I saw ones of the quad at SFU. I checked on the city's website and sure enough, it is in fact a tribute to Arthur Erickson.

This, I think, is fabulous. Unlike the usual let's-slap-on-some-salmon-bears-and-killer-whales "West Coast" "Super-Natural B.C." approach to making crap "uniquely Vancouver", this is something that is utterly, genuinely, and truly uniquely Vancouver. Vancouver is a city, not a forest. There are no bears wandering down Howe Street. Salmon do not leap out of the sewers under Davie Street. Since the Vancouver Aquarium ended it's killer whale programme in 2001 when Bjossa was moved to Sea World in San Diego, you're not likely to see a killer whale anywhere in the city either. Cities are made of buildings and people. If you want to live in a forest, move to Youbou.

Doing things on a Friday night is good.

Last night, thanks to Tania, Elaine and I attended the Warhol opening at the VAG with Peter, Alen, Natalie, Trish, and Jessica. Like any decent opening this mostly involved drinking wine and chatting. Elaine and I were the philistines of the group that actually went in and looked at the artwork. Out of it all I really enjoyed his shoe drawings from the 1950's the most, with a series of hammer-and-sickle drawings done in the 1970's being my second favourites. Yeah, there were some soup cans there, too (yawn). After the gallery we all went and and had more booze and some snacks at Taf's. It was a nice night out with friends away from the clubs for a change.

Chicago Stairway

I know I promised to put my other pictures from Chicago that aren't in my C10 gallery up and have yet to get around to it. So, here we go:

Stairs in the Congress Plaza Hotel, Chicago.

Letting my punk roots show for a moment

Buckwheat Ronald Reagan is dead. The world is now ever so slightly a better place. Just say "no" to fascists.

But remember, kids: his legacy lives on. Watch the fun as Bonzo props up a false economy built on debt and millitary excess. Monkey see, monkey do.