Archive for March, 2009

As a lifelong Vancouverite, one thing that I’ve noticed has always been a constant is how hard this City likes to party!  Give the citizens any opportunity to get hammered and hit the streets and they will do so with reckless abandon…

Hi, I’m Kliff Klaven. New to the VIA family and resident history nerd. I’ve been a fan of VIA for a while, and thought it could be a cool idea to share some of Vancouver’s awesome past from time to time on here. Although we are a relatively young city, we’ve got more than our fair share of cool stories, characters and events. So without further ado, lets start off with a fun story from the day Vancouver burned to the ground :) Read more

Thanks to Vancouver artist, Bandit, who recently did some installations at the Timebomb Trading office. Photos here.

Thanks to all who came out to the “shopping free” event! Just over 110 people came out for the cause; muffins were served freshly baked, virgin shirley temples were enjoyed and shoppers of all ages spent a glorious Sunday afternoon at Box studios with Marjolyn and I. Check out the madness (and the after-madness) here:
http://www.oncelovedthreads.com/frockswappictures.html

Every city seems to have homeless people. Vancouver just seems to have an abundant of homeless people all cramped into one corner. Every since I moved into the city, I just dealt with the street dwellers as they were. I didn’t really care unless they were preventing me from skating a spot. Some are surprisingly really kind and step aside to watch us skate. It is good to know that there are some great Vancourites that are trying to solve the homeless problem. My filmmaker friend, Trevor Johnston worked with the Streetohome organization and made this video. It is awesome that normal citizen’s are trying to make Vancouver a better place for everyone.

Yesterday’s Junos made me think of the Rascalz and how they helped get hip hop some more prime time exposure come Canadian music award season some Junos ago. Big ups Misfit, Red1, Kemo!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUWpCuzm9Ho&fmt=18

Our very own Dylan Doubt sent me a link to an incredible set of photos he shot of Will Oldham when he was in town playing the Vogue last week. Below is one of them, the rest are here and here.

Do you think you could be “the next Fred Herzog“? For those of you who are unfamiliar with the name, he is the legendary Vancouver photographer who documented our city’s changing urban landscape throughout the late 1950’s up until the late 1980’s.

Inspired by Herzog’s work, Parklane Homes is inviting budding Vancouver photographers to submit their very best pictures of Main Street, where they are building the townhouse development called The Block.

All you have to do is submit up to five of your fave shots to http://memelabs.com/theblock and then get everyone you know to vote for yours to win! The Grand Prize winner will receive a limited edition print of Fred Herzog’s “Main Barber from Sidewalk 1968″, which is pictured above.

The contest runs from March 25 to May 31.

I bumped into Maestro Fresh Wes on Sunday morning at The Artist Sanctuary for the Junos at The Loden Hotel. Y’all know him for “Let Your Backbone Slide” but he’s since gone on to transition into acting, starring on TV shows like “The Line” on HBO. He recently moved to Vancouver from Toronto, so expect to see his face around our lovely city more often.

Here he is high fiving the always lovely Ndidi outside of the Loden Hotel.

Anyone have any awesome memories of the Grizzlies? I know that for myself, seeing the Grizz (awesome mascot by the way) bounce off trampolines and dunking was definitely a main highlight (I was 11 when they moved to Memphis). Also, the tracksuits were a thing of beauty.

This video is pretty fun to watch…it sure makes it look like the Grizzlies won a lot of games on buzzer beaters. They gave it out to all the fans at the end of the first season as sort of a highlight package/documentary and I actually have two copies of this on VHS in my room somehow. Unfortunately I don’t have  a VHS player, but one day I hope to be able to check them out in all their glory.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq8F3ynjzws

Every once in awhile I like to troll the Canadian Design Resource site (AMAZING!!!) and pick out things that have to do with Vancouver and re-appropriate them here so you can enjoy them and hopefully be inspired to visit the C.D.R.. Click the titles to check out the full posts…

Vancouver Roller Skating Club Decal

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Got this from the folks at Color mag this morning:

Skaters interested in entering the [Skate And Deploy] contest, there is a limited number of spots. The cost is $30.00, but that includes a ride from Van to Whis in the Coors Light limo/bus hosted by the Coors babes/free beer. You must be 19+. The bus will also take you back down to the city at 10pm.

Here’s the LINK to more info. If you skate and you’re kinda good and you like to drink beer then you can’t not enter. Even if you’re not that good if you calculate a bus/limo trip to Whistler and back with most likely all the beer you can drink: the Greyhound costs $48.80 + all the beer you can drink for $40 (I hope?) = $88.80. That’s a savings of $58.80. Basically you can’t afford not to enter this skate contest… and you could WIN money on top of those savings. F a recession!

Our next featured artist for The Proof is photographer Jeff Otto O-Brien, who’s work was recently selected for VIA’s Photo of The Week.  He is part of the upcoming group show, The New Photographers, which opens this weekend at Gallery Atsui. Instead of presenting images of material possessions and daily consumptions as a representation of his day-to-day, Jeff shares his ideas, intuitions and emotive states inspired by the rooted things in his environment.

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