10-3-30

Seriously. It makes me smile ear to ear. And then, there it was, the book. I had to have it. I had to own it, if such a thing was possible to own. It truly is a beautiful thing.

10-3-29

I used to live in an apartment with the most beautiful painting on the wall. The painting was all greens with dashes of yellow and black and it was huge. The colours were streaks across the canvas, blurry, and moving. I might be making this up, but the person who owned the painting, she told me her sister painted it and I'm not sure who titled the painting but I think one of the two of them conspired to call it "A Drive in the Country in the Spring" or something similar. We were both from rural Ontario and both of us had spent at least some time in the back of a car with our faces pressed against the windows looking at the countryside whipping by. Anyone who has done similar and seen the canola just coming into bloom will understand just how perfect the painting was. I wish I had a photograph of that painting.

10-3-28

There Be Lions. This would be the name of my new band, if I had a new band, which would imply I had an old band, which I didn't, and I don't even play an instrument with any prowess, but if I had a new band it would be called There Be Lions.

10-3-27

Home is where the heart is.

10-3-26

10-3-25

It's in moments like this that it all makes sense. I never planned on procreating. It was an accident. And I'm sure her mother had a hand in this somehow but as we got ready to go to daycare this morning I looked down at the sidewalk and asked, "what's going on?" "I'm keeping your seat dry" she said in response. And there she was standing above my bike seat with an umbrella and it all made so much sense all at once.

She "borrowed" my camera before that and took the picture below. "I took a picture of Sophie" she said. "Yes you did." I responded. ? She took such a perfect photograph.

10-3-24

And then, poof, they were gone. There were artifacts that would slowly disappear too. The ash of the fire pits would wash away, the murals that had been painted on the wall in the background have already been painted over. It may be like it never happened.

I contemplated once that I might be a creative writer, that my stories would have some slim entertainment value to a select few and that particular small audience might have been all that mattered. One of the stories I contemplated was about a man who took photographs of things that disappeared, or rather, the things he took photographs of disappeared. It wasn't intentional, and over time he realized it happened quite frequently and he actually became somewhat afraid to take photographs any more. He had to fight with the sense of satisfaction taking a good photograph afforded him and the idea that he might be responsible for the demise of the very beautiful things he chose to take pictures of. He became particularly afraid of taking photographs of people but there were moments when smiles were utterly irresistible and he would cross his fingers, his pinky and his ring finger, as he took the photograph in hopes of protecting his subject, like he didn't really mean it as he released the shutter, like it didn't count because of the crossed fingers.

Maybe I'll write that story one day. Maybe I already have.

10-3-23

Odd Lots. Leftover spaces. Improbably places. If you look closely you'll see a shared little space with a small deck sandwiched in between the two buildings. The light well is required for any number of reasons but to bridge the gap between property lines with a shelter pushes a new boundary. The property line itself is interesting, the building pushing as close to it to maximize its volume, to be the most building it can be, while shrinking away as much as possible to pull light into itself, making itself a better building. It's an interesting relationship, this push/pull/bridging. So chock full of metaphors for me right now I don't know where to start.

10-3-22

Tent City was located at 58 West Hastings and was put together to protest the lack of affordable housing in this city. I can attest to that fact having bought one of the most affordable homes in the entire city and not being able to sustain it without renting the basement out. There were legal orders and rushes to find homes for people and all that good stuff and in the end there were a couple of hold outs who would rather live on the street than be given a place to live. Over a few days even that small number dwindled and now there are maybe three lonely tents in the middle of that vacant lot propped up on shipping skids and tarped to keep them dry, and an urban dweller's version of an SUV in the form of a shopping cart parked out front. I don't know how long it will be before the black helicopters and windowless vans swoop in to clean out the last of the squatters. A day? A week?

10-3-21

Cora and Chris Burnette of Vancouver's The Burnettes.

10-3-20

I had dinner with my good friend Dave in Calgary. His generosity has always been appreciated but this was extra special. He's got a bit of a Scotch habit and he opened up his liquor cabinet for us on Saturday night. It's a better stocked bar than most high end restaurants and never had I tasted so many brilliant Scotches in one sitting. And the meal was amazing, and to finish off the night was a 50 year old Cognac. Brilliant. Thanks Dave. You're a gem.

10-3-19

The day was a blur. And then it was gone.

10-3-18

10-3-17

It was after midnight when I rode home from work so this picture is technically for the 17th even though there are 23 hours left in the day and I may very well take another photograph before the day is through. I have no idea what that thing on the sign is supposed to be.

10-3-16

This.

10-3-15

I don't know.

10-3-14

It's a pool hall that shut down months ago? Years ago? I'm not sure, but the front windows have been papered over for as long as I can remember until today and I was surprised to see the pool tables still there, with balls on them (and assorted sundry ingredients of a retail space renovation) like so many artifacts of a time gone by. It made me wish there was a pool hall in the neighborhood. Perhaps I'll have to wrestle my way into the inner circle at Joe's, see if they let me knock a few ball around in their cafe one night.

10-3-13

Sophie had Lila over for lunch. Lila is a year and a half older than Sophie and Sophie worships her. She bounced off walls in anticipation and when Lila got here Sophie barely touched the ground bouncing from room to room to show Lila her toys, her paints, her movies. They made their own little pizzas and we cut up some red peppers and sugar snap peas. There were games of hide and seek, drawings, and a good amount of time spent in the mucky back yard digging for worms.

Then a couple of friends came over for the Canadian Saturday night tradition of hockey on the television. I rescued the barbecue from behind a pile of lumber and lit it for the first time since moving into this house. Some incredible grain fed, hormone free pork ribs were jerk spiced and slow barbecued (an hour on the grill), spicy curried beans and rice, and chicken for desert. Wine and beer, of course, and long conversations about the politics of the Olympics, who wrote "that song" on the Lost Boys soundtrack, room mates, and Sophie (still bouncing) staying up way too late as kids love to do when the adults are socializing (I remember doing the same as a kid).

Getting back to the fundamentals is a good thing. It feels like ages since I was here but the shoes still fit and are comfy so I might walk around for a bit, check things out.

10-3-12

In painting the wall blue I wonder if they were thinking it would blur into the landscape. Just behind that wall (building, really) there's a magnificent view of the mountains of the North Shore. As I've been in this building from where the photo was taken for the last few days I've taken a photograph of the mountains each time but have avoided posting them here because I thought it would be all too easy to post photograph after photograph of the mountains but in the end there aren't any here. The closest was the one of the cranes in the sun but even in that one the mountains are hidden by clouds (they were magnificently viewable at different times throughout the day though).

I'm working on lower floors now, the view has changed but it's still interesting.

10-3-11

10-3-10

It's intriguing the things we hold on to that give us hope. We get easily distracted from the real issues because there are other things that tell us that everything is going to be alright. I've been renovating rooms for a society that provides housing for hard to house people. They can seem a hopeless bunch sometimes but they are people, with insecurities and fears, and they hold on to things that I could never pretend to understand, things that make them feel safe whether it be crack or heroin or a cheap plastic Rosary. It's not so dissimilar to the rest of us, not dealing with the important things the way they should be dealt with because somewhere in there we find little signs that things are going to be alright. It's a temporary solution and eventually you're faced with the fact that you need to change things yourself if they are, indeed, going to get better.

It's times like this that the false hopes get left behind, cast aside, left on the floor of the last place that offered you shelter as you move on to the next place. These rooms I'm renovating, the tenants have moved to a new facility, one that promises to facilitate a healthier lifestyle. It's modern and clean and has stricter lifestyle policies. Is it just another plastic Rosary? Or is it the solution? I'm not sure but it's important to realize what approaches merely mask the symptoms and what ones actually facilitate a cure. And if you don't find the cure all those good feelings you get while you mask the symptoms, well, they fade and are missed and the problems are still there waiting for you. That's not good.

10-3-9

Hastings Street at Pigeon Park. I'm working days for the rest of the month. The entire neighborhood is so different during the day.

10-3-8

Sophie asked me to draw her a picture so I drew her a picture of a tree in the spring with a robin in its branches. I grew up thinking that a robin was the first sign of spring and it's felt a lot like spring here the last few weeks.

10-3-7

Home-made curried beef stew. I really should cook more often.

10-3-6

Two pictures again. But I couldn't resist.

This afternoon found me on a mountain bike trail I hadn't seen in maybe 8 years. It's a loop on the North Shore connecting a myriad trail types. I was perhaps a bit rusty, okay, a lot rusty, on my technical riding skills. There were parts I've ridden a dozen times that I walked for fear of falling and killing myself. But the cobwebs were slowly cleared away, most of them anyway, and from time to time we got to stop and look around and enjoy the scenery. It was a perfect afternoon and that might have been enough.

But later that day, that night actually, I was fortunate enough to find myself in the company of good souls tucked into an odd corner of Vancouver's downtown east side. Bernadette is a friend of a friend and she opened up her studio to a group of amazing people, kindred spirits. It's hard to describe how magical a time and space it was. Her art lined the walls and it's sincerity was bolstered by evidence of the process that surrounded it. And canvases, a hundred of them or more, stacked against walls, and cataloged in bookshelves. Bernadette had made an incredible rabbit stew and there was fifty, or more, bottles of wine on the counter. It was all very rustic and the way the house was, the low light, the hundred year old walls without insulation, the sloping floors, the perfect music, the excellent company, it felt like I had been transported away from this city to some mythical utopia. I imagined a shotgun by the door that had been used to shoot the rabbit that was in the stew, it would have been possible to believe Bernadette had spent the afternoon in the back yard skinning and gutting the rabbit. And to think I almost didn't go but midway through the night I was inspired to get out, get away, and am glad I did. And can't wait to do it again.

10-3-5

I saw the horizon today. To me, that's very important. Sometimes it's necessary to not feel so boxed in. Today was one of those days.

10-3-4

Nothing.

10-3-3

In moments like this when I post some three days after the date of the post I have the benefit of hindsight. I already know that there will be no photo for tomorrow and for good reason, I spent the day with my daughter and even though I hauled a camera around with me all day the moments we spent together seemed more important than photographs of them. But on this day, the 3rd, like most days, there were any number of photographs I could have picked from. Like this one:

This is where I live. I was reminded of that quite succinctly today. It's not so bad, really.

Good enough that I took more than one picture of it. More than two, truth be told. East Van. When I first saw this monument I was offended even though East Van has nothing to do with who I am. I first thought of Dog Town. I thought it cheesy that a monument to the east side of Vancouver would co-opt the symbolism of a 70's band of skate kids. Turns out that it's a symbol worn on the jackets of gangs in Vancouver who were around in the 50's or 60's but certainly before a bunch of punks like Stacey Peralta had busted onto the scene of skateboarding.

But this is more the type of image that I would have gone with, dust and all, to mimic an old photograph.

Or this which so defines what Vancouver is to me.

But this last one would have been "the one" had I only gone with one photograph for the day. It's closer to what I'm feeling these days. But since I know already that there will be no photograph for tomorrow I can pre-make it up today with extra photos. Is that fair? Who cares. It's my blog.

10-3-2

That front wheel is a work of art.

10-3-1

It was like they were camping. She was starting a campfire in an alleyway. I looked for the cameras but it was too late at night to be a prank or an art installation.

10-2-28

10-2-27

It's not that easy taking a picture of yourself while taking a picture of yourself taking a picture of yourself.

10-2-26

Both of these hubs are about 8 years old. They've been on one commuter or another for that entire time with essentially no maintenance. The rims finally wore out so I decided it was time to build a couple new wheels. Since the hubs had been freed from their wired captivity it seemed a good time to refurbish them. The top has been re-polished, the bottom shows how it looked before all four stages of sanding and a final stage of polish. They were pretty dull but the finish on both (the other hub has also been cleaned up since the photograph was taken) have been returned to liquid.