Archive for January, 2010

There are some seriously incredible things going on in February, and one of those incredible things is the Real Vancouver Writers series at W2. Every Wednesday in February Real Vancouver will showcase local writers doing short readings of their work and/or interacting with a moderator, taking questions from the audience and will include book sales, signings, a multimedia component, music, cash bar, raffles and giveaways.

The official word:
Located at 112 East Hastings Street across from the refurbished Woodwards Building in Downtown Vancouver, the Real Vancouver Writers Series consists of 4 weekly events showcasing local Vancouver writers, publishers and creative literary artists at the W2 Community Media Arts Centre.

These evenings are designed to show the city and the world real and diverse Vancouver culture and real creative individuals in the literary and publishing communities at a time when the eyes of the world are on our city.

Countless millions of people will want to know what real Vancouver culture looks like.

We are determined to take the opportunity to show the world just how amazing, diverse, talented and fun our literary and publishing culture is!

These events will occur every Wednesday during February beginning at …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Over the next few days I’m going to be sharing some of the Google maps that have been put together by the city as a part of their Open Data Catalogue project. Originally it was a bit Jonny Mnemonic and I was struggling to find actual uses for the data they were providing (which is available in all sorts of computer languages and database formats) but with their 2.0 launch it’s definitely something that normal folks are able to benefit from.

This one’s a lot like a project we’re working on… it’s a map marking all of the parks in the city…

View Larger Map

Contrary to our original plan of simply gleaning peripheral stories here and there, we’ve actually got quite a bit of coverage of the 2010 Games planned for next month. We’ve got folks attending a bunch of Cultural Olympiad shows, we’ll be blogging from our Awesome Showcase at Shine delivering stories from out-of-towners and their experiences in our city and even though we got denied media accreditation some of us might even be attending some sporting events as fans with point and shoot cameras. Go figure.

All of that being said, I think what I’m most excited to report to you is that our DAILY FLICKR PICKR series of photos that we post from our Flickr pool will be all Olympics themed until the closing ceremonies. Every day we’ll be bringing a new image that one of our readers has uploaded to our pool that is somehow Games related, making our Olympic coverage your Olympic coverage! I believe we’re still allowed to use the “O” word up until February 12th but if I am mistaken then you will see this title change from “Your Olympic Coverage” to “Your Fun Time Non Summer Sporting Contest Coverage” soon enough.

So join our Flickr pool and upload your photos!

Today’s DAILY FLICKR PICKR is a photo courtesy of Ryawesome, and the title is “Cut-Outs of Olympiads”:

Cool! CBC Radio 3 just uploaded an Artist Series podcast with Tegan Quin that you can download HERE. And when you’re done read our interview with her HERE and listen to our Guest Playlist with her HERE and check out the photos from the Tegan and Sara show at the Orpheum HERE. It’s a Tegan overload!!!

A lot of times you’ll read interviews with famous people and the writer starts their introduction off by telling you that “no introduction is needed” for them. Well, this is one of those interviews. I mean I could tell you that he was on Family Ties and in the Back To The Future series of films back in the day and I could tell you that he lives with Parkinson’s disease and has championed a foundation that is paving the way for one day finding a cure for it, but I think the one thing I could tell you that you might not really know about Michael J. Fox is that he really is a genuinely nice, incredibly awesome person. I was fortunate enough to get to speak to Michael recently about all things Vancouver and before getting on the phone I had one of those “never meet your heroes because they could turn out to be a-holes and ruin your lifelong admiration of them” moments of apprehension but was left reeling after the conversation at how completely opposite to that it was. I am incredibly proud to bring you our interview with one of Vancouver’s finest exports and ambassadors to the world.

photo: mark seliger

MJF: Hi Bob. How are you doin? What’s it like at home today?

Bob K: I’m good, thanks. It’s pretty nice, it’s supposed to rain. So let’s start with a broad question… what makes Vancouver so awesome?
To start with, on the top of the list, it’s just visually stunning. There’s a convergence of land, water and sky in a way that just doesn’t exist anywhere else in a city. It’s just amazing. And also it attracts people that are worthy of it, people who enjoy the hell out of it and use it and develop it and share it. The people know what they’ve got and they take full advantage of it.

Cool. I just saw that HelloBC.com commercial that came out, the “You Gotta Be Here” one that you were in. What was your experience with that?
The funny thing is that I shot mine in New York, but ironically the place that …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

We have posted a few houses that have sparked our interest in the past, but no house in the city intrigues me as much as this one.  Why?  Because it’s pretty much the west side house version of my home.  It’s in Dunbar which is kinda like Hastings-Sunrise East.

I wonder who lives there, is it like the bizzaro me who tells people he’s half white instead of telling them he’s half asian?  Does he post on www.vancouverisAHOLE.com?

Does your house have a doppelganger?  Where is it?

The Best Before series of events that we’re co-sponsoring (the one where 200 people, all equipped with video game controllers, play a game together on one screen) starts tomorrow night at the Cultch and we’re giving away 2 pairs of passes! It runs until February 7th and the schedule is HERE.

To enter to win, simply send an e-mail to dani@pushfestival.ca with the answer to this question:
Where is the creator of this project, Rimini Protokoll, based out of?

Here are some photos care of our own Julia Kozlov who went to a preview the other night, followed by a video that explains things a bit…

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

City Of New Lights – Chad Dickson from Jarvsky on Vimeo.

The last part in the 2009 Vancouver production, City Of New Lights (click here to watch each section of the video).

“I was so driven to skate once I was able to hop on my board. I just went for it, and it turned out better than I imagined,” says Chad Dickson, a Vancouver-based skater who’s gone through alot since being involved in a near-fatal accident back in December ’08. The odds weren’t in his favour, but in a short span he ended up accomplishing more than most sponsored Canadian skateboarders. Read more about his banner year right here.