Sunday Morning Chowdown
A Brunch Review
Paul’s Place Omlettery
2211 Granville (at 6th Ave.)
Life
Urban Exploration
At first glance, this alley is ugly and boring. But in the long run, I believe this shameless visibility of waste helps keep capitalism honest.
I first became aware of Fraser Street's chaotic beauty from the front. After picking up a month's supply of Polish mustard near 26th, I wandered into The Corners...
How to make homebrew that doesn't taste like homebrew.
Dan Small's homebrewing shop makes me want to farm. Mostly it's the smell in there - the fresh barley, hops, and malt extracts. Opening the door feels magical, like finding a portal into 18th century England after tripping over a needle on East Hastings.
Dan is a friendly man in spectacles. He emits a calm...
Can't Kick The Habit
I shoot you out your Chukkas/ Pusha hear the whispers of all you motherfuckers
Sunday Morning Chowdown
A Brunch Review
Tomato Fresh Food Cafe 3305 Cambie Street (At 17th Ave.) 604.874.6020 tomatofreshfoodcafe.com
G33K!
“Claire!” “Hiro!” “Claire!” “Hiro!” “Claire!” “Or maybe the senator…” “Okay, now you’re just being stupid.”
Whether or not this particular water cooler conversation seems familiar to you, the fact is: “favourite character” discussions (or arguments) have been a fact of life for as long as ensemble TV shows have been around. (Perhaps longer: “Capulets!” “Montagues!” “Idiot!” “Mouth-breather!”)
My Parkade
Before they painted it grey, the parkade across the street was noticeable for miles. It had a bright coat of neon green and enough lighting to make your car gleam as you circled the exit ramp.
Solar Hot Water Party invades Mount Pleasant
If you are really bent on sticking out the coming environmental apocalypse, I strongly suggest doing one of two things: 1. Learn to build solar panels from everyday objects or 2. Find someone who has learned this and cling to said person.
On March 30th I attended a workshop in Mount Pleasant concerning the first suggestion. The hands-on class ran all day, and ended with our small group of amateurs surrounding two completed solar hot water panels. Similar workshops are planned as part of a "Free School" initiative led by Andrew Rushmere, an education student at SFU.
Can't Kick the Habit
I don't want to get pigeonholed here by just writing about sneakers: there's more for your feet than just Air Forces and Bapstas. Fetishization in the shoe world doesn't end at fluorescent sneakers(though do check out the amazing work of Art Force One at art-force-one.com, a custom sneaker pimp from France who c...
Bosman's is dead; long live Bosman's
Downtown loses its best low-key bar; what's to become of The Lewinsky?
Having grown up in the suburbs, I try not to complain about the so-called "bridge and tunnel people." Suburban revelers need a place to party too, but it has gotten a little out-of-hand. It's been clear for a while that Granville is strictly the dominion of frat boys and bar stars (We miss you, Sugar Refinery!). For the rest of us, there aren't that many options west of Gastown.
Unfortunately, those options are about to get even slimmer. On Friday, April 27th, Bosman's (or rather the Side Bar Lounge at Bosman's Motor Hotel-most people just call it Bosman's) will be closing its doors. A change of ownership in the hotel meant that Heather and Gino, who rent the space to run the bar, didn't get their lease renewed, and that alcohol will no longer be served on the premises.
Sunday Morning Chowdown
A Brunch Review
Paul’s Place Omlettery
2211 Granville (at 6th Ave.)
G33K!
“Claire!” “Hiro!” “Claire!” “Hiro!” “Claire!” “Or maybe the senator…” “Okay, now you’re just being stupid.”
Whether or not this particular water cooler conversation seems familiar to you, the fact is: “favourite character” discussions (or arguments) have been a fact of life for as long as ensemble TV shows have been around. (Perhaps longer: “Capulets!” “Montagues!” “Idiot!” “Mouth-breather!”)
Preview: In the house
For those looking to ease into festival season this year, In the House promises to be one of the most intimate and unusual public events of the summer.
The two day multi-arts festival features music, theatre, dance, spoken word, puppets, storytelling, burlesque, and more.
And it all takes place in the living rooms and backyards of a cluster of houses around the 1100 block of Semlin Drive.
Myriam Steinberg, the festival’s artistic director, says In the House is an “outside the box solution” to the dwindling availability of performance venues in Vancouver.
Sunday Morning Chowdown
Hellven
Hellven Bar & Grill
2066 Kingsway (near Victoria Drive)
(604) 873-1010
Swallow
Tooth and Dagger presents the subjective pharmacology of a generation, and a city. Vancouver, here’s what you’ve been taking:
Sunday Morning Chowdown
Hellven
Hellven Bar & Grill
2066 Kingsway (near Victoria Drive)
(604) 873-1010
Swallow
Tooth and Dagger presents the subjective pharmacology of a generation, and a city. Vancouver, here’s what you’ve been taking:
Sunday Morning Chowdown
Hurricane Cafe
The Hurricane Cafe
2230 7th Avenue, Seattle
(206) 682-5858
G33k!
Mouse Guard: Fall 1152
There comes a time when, unless you are a furry, you are expected to put your storybooks about animals aside – most likely somewhere between 10 and 12. At this point you graduate into more adult fare like VC Andrews and Stephen King and have no time for anthropomorphic cats outwitting wildebeests while flying min...
Swallow
Tooth and Dagger presents the subjective pharmacology of a generation, and a city. Vancouver, here’s what you’ve been taking:
G33k!
Puzzle Quest
The blocks would appear everywhere: a spare crack, an unfilled spot at the corner of my eye, somewhere I was least expecting. When I let my mind wander the shapes began to fall. I’d see a reverse L, a long bar, a cube – all of which filled gaps and disappeared. Hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep, ye...
Swallow
Tooth and Dagger presents the subjective pharmacology of a generation, and a city. Vancouver, here’s what you’ve been taking:
Potluck of Destiny
The Tipping Point Aims to Keep Knowledge in the System
Underground arts venues around town are caught in a vicious cycle. Lacking the financial backing and reputations to procure venues as legitimate as the Culch or the Firehall, they re-purpose industrial and marginalized spaces (becoming an early link in the gentrification chain). And if they’re fortunate, th...
Sunday Morning Chowdown
Epicurean Delicatessen Caffe
Epicurean Delicatessen Caffe
1898 First Ave. West (at Cypress)
604-731-5370
G33k!
Puzzle Quest
The blocks would appear everywhere: a spare crack, an unfilled spot at the corner of my eye, somewhere I was least expecting. When I let my mind wander the shapes began to fall. I’d see a reverse L, a long bar, a cube – all of which filled gaps and disappeared. Hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep, ye...
Swallow
Tooth and Dagger presents the subjective pharmacology of a generation, and a city. Vancouver, here’s what you’ve been taking:
Potluck of Destiny
The Tipping Point Aims to Keep Knowledge in the System
Underground arts venues around town are caught in a vicious cycle. Lacking the financial backing and reputations to procure venues as legitimate as the Culch or the Firehall, they re-purpose industrial and marginalized spaces (becoming an early link in the gentrification chain). And if they’re fortunate, th...
Marie Gomez Place
On August 1st, 2006, the Province ran a cover photo of the Marie Gomez building under the headline “HOUSE OF HORRORS.” The article portrayed the Downtown Eastside (DTES) residence as a “crack house” where “female addicts are tortured and their heads shaved for not paying drug debts.” Since then, in the hands of other horror-hungry papers, the building has cultivated a reputation as the worst residence on the Downtown Eastside.
The current reality of Marie Gomez, however, is significantly different than what the available press indicates. Indeed, in June, Marie Gomez tenants banded together and initiated a massive clean-up effort to rescue not only their building, but their reputation. Joined by friends and family of the DTES community, tenants have performed necessary upkeep and displayed a strong desire to combat in-house violence.
The effort is particularly impressive given that the residence’s final closure is imminent. Due to deep rotting in the walls, “you can’t make a case for repairing this building,” says Kim Kerr, executive director of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA), who own and operate Marie Gomez. “We’re never going to overcome what’s behind the walls of this building.” Some tenants complain of respiratory problems due to black mould, and the estimated cost of repairing the building is $2.5 million.
Watch Where You Stand in This Alley, You Might Become Disgusting.
In the early days of the strike, it was all about piles. Neat little mounds of individualized rubbish behind every house. Now, crafty Vancouverites have rallied their collective waste-management abilities to create a new form of trash disposal, the Informal Neighborhood Trash Heap.
G33K!
It was 20 years ago that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created Watchmen and destroyed, nearly at a stroke, the universe of superheroes we had built up over the 40 years previous. Costumed crusaders were no longer light-hearted and comical, they were dark-hearted and held secrets as great and word-shattering as their powers. Watchmen deconstructed and reshaped the way we see our heroes; innocence was no longer a part of who they were—our saviors would henceforth and forever be as scarred as we.
NWT cultural exchange
According to an old adage, there are two kinds of stories: Someone Goes on a Journey and A Stranger Comes to Town. The sly implication, of course, is that there is, ultimately, one story with two points of view, and that story is about an encounter with the unknown.
The saying came to mind a few months back when a friend of my brother’s said he was going on an exchange to the North West Territories in October. There, he would learn to kill and clean a goose. Meanwhile, the kids from NWT were looking forward to a Wal-Mart expedition.
Fort Good Hope, NWT (pop. 600) is a huddle of log buildings on the eastern shore of the MacKenzie River, 20 km south of the Arctic Circle. In summer the town is accessible by air and river; in winter the ice road opens.
The ten Fort Good Hope teens took their nine-day southern soujourn in mid-August. I visited with them and their Vancouver “twins” while they did some gardening at the UBC farm. Other activities included a photo scavenger hunt and journalism workshop (results to appear in Redwire magazine), a football game, numerous trips to the beach and, yes, shopping at Wal-Mart.
Run by the Purple Thistle Centre, an East Van free school, and funded by the YMCA, this is the third such exchange in the last five years.
Consider this ‘A stranger comes to town’.
Jobs 2.0
Ever played Hungry Hungry Hippos? An afternoon at NowPublic.com
As big trusted news sources become things of the past, Vancouver’s NowPublic.com is breaking ground for a new institution of citizen journalism.
Recently named one of the year’s best 50 websites by Time magazine, NowPublic serves up the people’s news out of a Gastown loft space overlooking the railway tracks and the ocean. There, half a dozen staff members park laptops at a long, picnic-style table for the day’s work.
Sunday Morning Chowdown
Go Fish
1504 W. First Ave.
on Fisherman’s Wharf (west of Granville Island) 604-730-5040
Brunch doesn’t have to be about eggs, pancakes and coffee. While I tend to lean heavily on the breakfast side of brunch, every now and then I like to go for a lunch-focused brunch. I find it keeps my palette alert.
I was pretty excited when I first heard about Go Fish. The latest venture from the brains behind Bin 941 (I hear this is a big deal in Vancouver foodie circles. I’m not cool enough to know for myself), Go Fish, serves fresh, in-season seafood caught by local fishers. Its no-frills stand is located right on Fisherman’s Wharf, a five-minute walk west of Granville Island. The atmosphere is not that of your typical waterfront patio; beach chic it’s not. But being surrounded by fishing vessels and predatory seagulls is not without charm.
G33K!
There is a line between genius and madness. I’m not always sure where the line lies because it shifts from person to person and from savant to lunatic, but it’s always there. Picasso—genius or madman? Possibly a little of both; I’m not sure I’m qualified to say. The same with Salvador Dali—vague lines, both. Similarly, there was a hazy freakin’ line obscuring the division inside of Fletcher Hanks.
Most people aren’t familiar with Hanks’s comic work, produced mainly between 1939 and 1941. Indeed, until the editor of his new collection, I Shall Destroy All Civilized Planets! (Fantagraphics), showed it to his estranged son, he had no idea his father had done anything like it. But lack of appreciation at the time did nothing to stem Hanks’s output, which included some of the hands-down weirdest comic-book adventures ever put to print.
Jobs 2.0
Open-source livin’ with a chief blogging officer
Underemployment opens the floodgates on spare time. Free from the crush of the daily grind, muscians jam, athletes kick balls and bloggers hit their keyboards. But when Roland Tanglao found himself out of work, he never thought his blogging habit would land him his next paid gig.
“When people don’t have jobs and they’re tinkerers —- which most hackers and technical people are —- they start tinkering,” he says. “After I was laid off in 2001, I blogged.”
Tanglao, a Nortel Networks developer through the ‘90s, was laid off during the dot-com bust of the early 2000s. He documented his experiences in a now-defunct technology blog. “That [blog] basically got me to where I am now,” he says. We’re sitting in the sunny Gastown offices of Bryght, Tanglao’s current place of work. Bryght is a Vancouver-based online content and community management firm specializing in open-source systems. It helps clients use the popular Drupal framework, an open-source content management system containing blog engines and web applications.
Swallow
Name: Daniel
Sex: Male
Age: 31 years
During college I worked part time in health food stores. It was slow, so I had plenty of time to read the books we sold. I was exposed to the pseudo-science that most supplements are based on, the history of the industry and the later-falsified claims of many “wonder supplements” (dessicated Argentine beef liver, anyone?). But there are a few basic supplements that I have had pretty good personal success with that also have a good body of research behind them.
Vitamin D – 2000 IU
Many scientists now pin the higher cancer rates in developed countries on our lack of sunshine, which supports our production of vitamin D. Previously, they thought it was caused by industrial pollutants. At $2 a month, you’re basically irresponsible if you live north of the Tropic of Cancer and you don’t supplement vitamin D for at least part of the year.
Manhunt -- Wolves vs RAbbits
It’s dark. I’m in an alley downtown, and I’m being followed.
I watch the two figures in my periphery, unaware that I am being herded. Passing a dumpster, I nearly trip over a third body as an arm reaches up from the ground near my right leg. I leap to the left and bolt.
This is Manhunt.
Sunday Morning Chowdown
Finch's Tea and Coffee House
353 West Pender at Homer
604.899.4040
finchteahouse.com/
A prime nesting place
I recently took an oh-so-scientific* poll along Commercial Drive to discover the secret that turns a café into an alluring second home, drawing the same folk in again and again. People spoke of comfortable seats, the opportunity to meet new people, fair trade coffee.
What about the taste of the coffee i...
If You're Polluted and You Know It Clap Your Hands
My preoccupation with everyday environmental chemicals began by accident, when I got a job on Environmental Defense’s Toxic Nation campaign.
I wasn’t looking for employment at the time. I’d moved to Toronto a couple years prior to pursue a Master’s degree in Environmental Science...
G33K!
Here’s what I want in a laptop: something light. Something small-ish, but with a screen big enough to properly display e-books, PDFs, comics, videos or any of the other media I like to browse. A functional web-browser. A word processor. Wi-fi. And cheap. And now, thanks to the One Laptop per Child initiati...
Mushroom Season
I’ve never had a reason to like Septembers: summer’s end, the onset of rain, school starting. But while I’d learned to appreciate the smell of wood smoke in the air, it was only a couple of years ago that I realised that I could love fall’s harvest. Not pumpkins, apples, or even a good fal...
Polo Carnage at the Tennis Courts
There’s a clatter of mallets hitting the cement, echoed by the sound of bicycles racing into the tennis court. Two teams set themselves up on opposite sides, and with a call of “1 – 2 – 3 – KILL!” the race for the hockey ball in mid-court begins. With ski-poles-turned-m...
Sailorisms
This is the second in a series of dispatches from Mike Anderson, who is sailing south down the Pacific Coast with his mate Jon Brown aboard their 26 footer, Argo. These missives weave events from two voyages: one, begun in September 2003, ended in disaster a mere 72-hours after departure from Victoria, BC. The se...
Sunday Morning Chowdown
Slickity Jim’s Chat ‘n’ Chew 2513 Main Street near Broadway 604.873.6760
Swallow
Name: Siegren
Sex: Female
Age: 25 years
Occupation: Traditional Chinese Medicine Student
By the fourth bag, all I taste is snake. This particular snake is blue-green, and as you boil it in the earthenware pot, the scales take on a hint of their old lustre. “Black-stri...
The Craft Racket
Try as I might to avoid the holidays, they are slowly sneaking up. As much as I’d like to spend Christmas lying on my couch watching ‘80s movies and eating cereal, there are obligations to be met. Which means gifts for people, and not just for those that I intend to make things. If you’re like ...
Sunday Morning Chowdown
Joe's Grill
Joe’s Grill
2061 West 4th Ave
604.736.6588
Lately, I’ve had a tremendous desire to eat pancakes. Maybe it’s the cooling weather, maybe it’s my increasingly lumberjack appearance now that I’ve begun my winter beard. Whatever it was, it felt to me like it ...
G33K!
Shopping for your g33k: DVDs, Board Games, Art Books, Comics, and Hardware.
And so the shopping season sneaks up on us again. You’d think that we would have been ready for it this year, what with the writer’s strike and a lack of quality TV to distract us, but we quickly plugged that gap with Halo 3, just like I plugged that friggin’ Guilty Spark with my Spartan Laser (...
Sailorisms
This is the third in a series of dispatches from Mike Anderson, who is sailing south down the Pacific Coast with his mate Jon Brown aboard their 26-footer, Argo. These missives weave events from two voyages: one, begun in September 2003, ended in disaster a mere 72-hours after departure from Victoria, BC. The second attempt began in September of this year and is presently underway.
Sarah Chase, Human Kinetic Calculator
A Dance In Vancouver Report
I’ve always thought that dance could make itself more useful. You know, like apple peelers and mechanical engineering. Most choreography these days is a lot of arms and legs waving around for nothing. That’s why they put dancers on empty stages: so they won’t get in anybody’s way. Imagine ...
Swallow
Tooth and Dagger asks 'What are you taking and why?'
Sex: Male Age: 25 years Occupation: Law Student What: Modafinil
Ever since playing Fallout and getting all of my characters hopelessly addicted to the “smart drug” Mentats, I’ve wanted to use chemistry to better my brain. Until recently, I’ve settled for coffee, which is nice, bu...