Last week I introduced you to what will likely end up being the best book about Vancouver released in 2011, Michael Christie’s The Beggar’s Garden published by Harper Collins Canada. HERE is my review.

I’m quite happy to announce today that Michael will be at Ardea Books (formerly Sitka Books) this Friday to celebrate the release, and that V.I.A. is co-sponsoring. And in case you weren’t at the Vancouver Book Club meeting last week I’m also happy to let you know that The Beggar’s Garden is the current selection!

So come down to Ardea, pick up a copy of the book, get Michael to sign it for you, read it from cover to cover, then meet up with us in a few weeks to discuss the book with him at the next Vancouver Book Club meeting.

Please join us!

Every day we share a single photo from our Flickr Pool shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!).

Today’s photograph is courtesy of La Ola, titled VPL, and shows the main entrance to the downtown branch of the Vancouver Public Library. Opened in 1995, it replaced the previous…wait a second? Front entrance to the library? I don’t see the front entrance to the library in this photograph…

The official address of the Vancouver Public Library’s main branch is 350 West Georgia Street. So why would the main entrance of the library be accessed from Robson Street? The answer is that Moshe Safdie’s early concept drawings of the approved design show the library’s entrance at the corner of West Georgia and Hamilton, which happens to make a lot of sense – the other three corners of this intersection feature fairly important civic structures in the city: the Post Office, the CBC and the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Of course, were the library built that way, the plaza would have been in the perpetual shadow of the 21-story Federal Building that was also a part of the library. Thankfully someone noticed this prior to construction, and although the design was flipped with the plaza relocated to the sunnier south-eastern corner of the lot, the address remained as 350 West Georgia Street.

Gary

SCENE AND HEARD showcases the independent music scene here in Vancouver. With 24,658+ artists, boasting 111,721+ tracks, the CBC Radio 3 web site is the absolute ultimate authority, and the home, of independent music in Canada. With that massive library along with tools for members (free to join!), we’re taking advantage of what they’ve set up by bringing you a fresh batch of music every week featuring local groups who have tracks (entire albums, even!) on the R3 site.

Still finding sparkles from the last Top Less Gay Love Tekno Party show in December?, well I am excited to announce that you can get your glitter/dance on again this Saturday when the band plays at the Cobalt. In the mean time, lead singer Michael Shindler has put together a playlist for your listening pleasure. So click the photos below to hear it and put together your best sparkle outfit to the Colbalt!

Nicholson Road is part of a daily photo project aimed at sharing and celebrating the different communities in Metro Vancouver. Each week Vancouver Is Awesome will be featuring one of the most engaging photos from the project in order to draw your attention a little bit outside of the hyper-focus that we usually have on the city of Vancouver. Metro Vancouver Is Awesome, and you should get out and explore it!

We’re back in Coquitlam this week for a visit to Como Lake, a small man-made lake in roughly the center of the city. Being surrounded by residential communities, the lake is a very popular spot to take the kids for an afternoon, to sit back and relax, or to go for a brisk stroll. It’s almost exactly 1km around, and features a path that encircles the entire lake, making it a great place to time a run or two – and the view is sure better than a regular running track/treadmill!

Once a year, Como lake is stocked with small Rainbow Trout for your fishing pleasure. Up until October 2008, there was a restriction on who could go fishing in the lake: You had to be a senior, or a child under 16. I guess the 20-somethings were feeling left out so it’s now open to anyone, though if you’re over 16 you’ll need a valid BC Freshwater Fishing Licence.

And if fishing isn’t your thing, there are plenty of ducks to feed. So get out and enjoy a little nature!

More from Nicholson Road can be found HERE.

I started this project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Location: Gene coffee @Main (Jan. 24th, 2011)

I was hanging out at Gene this soggy afternoon, and while I was waiting for my coffee to be ready I saw this guy sketching on his sketchbook. He seemed like a cool guy and, although he had headphones on, I went up to him to invite him to be part of the project. He didn’t have any tattoos, but a friend of his happened to pop by (with a lovely dog!) and he said “hey, maybe you should be talking to this man right here, he has some”. Said friend joined us and I explained what the deal was to him. He was in.

“Yeah cool, I can be your stranger. Maybe I’ll share this one on my hand, just ‘cos is the most accessible. It’s SHHHHHH! —he made the gesture as he explained. We laughed.  —I did it to myself with a sewing needle, and I don’t know, I just did it ‘cos I thought it was funny, plus all of my friends were doing it, so… that’s pretty much why.”

It was pretty funny. We then discussed finger-moustache tattoos, to what he said that he had thought of getting a goatee tattoo with the moustache on the index and the beard on his thumb. Haha.

My coffee was ready, so I thanked both of the guys and let them carry on with their conversation. I went back to my table and continued with my day. Cool stuff.

Thank you strangers! Have a good day y’all!

To check out the daily strangers, click here:  astrangeraday.com

In case the name James Jervis Blomfield does not ring any bells among Vancouverites today, allow me to reintroduce him to you through one of his better known works, the original design of the crest of the city of Vancouver, used from 1903 to 1969. Devised in 1901 when James would have turned 29, it was painted for official adoption in 1903, and it remained the official crest until a simplified Coat of Arms was granted by the College of Heralds, London, England on March 31, 1969. Chuck Davis wrote more on the subject of the coat of arms HERE.

Born James Jervis Alfred Bloomfield (he later dropped an o from his name, and added his mother’s maiden name Jervis) in Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, his father brought the family to Calgary around 1885, then to New Westminster in 1889, where he established the stained glass firm Henry Bloomfield and Sons. It was the great fire of New Westminster that destroyed their family home in 1898, ultimately causing them to move to Vancouver in 1898. (Read a harrowing account of the fire told from his brother Charles Bloomfield’s perspective on page 75 of Royal city: a photographic history of New Westminster, 1858-1960 by Jim Wolf.)

I took a trip to the Vancouver City Archives recently to see some of his work in person. The Archives holds two original illustrations of the city’s coat of arms by James Blomfield, the first being a preliminary rendering (which I’m presuming it is actually the original painting from 1903), as well as a special memorial painting from January of 1945, at which point Blomfield would have been approaching the age of 73. You can see the legacy of stained glass artistry from the Bloomfield/Blomfield family in this fine rendition.

Click image to view large

James Blomfield made numerous arts contributions to the city of Vancouver. In April 1900, he co-founded the Arts and Crafts Association in Vancouver, as described in a short notice in The Canadian Architect and Builder. According to Gary Sim’s Art & Artists in Exhibition: Vancouver 1890 – 1950, this group was a precursor to the Studio Club (1904), and later the B.C. Society of Fine Arts (1908). In addition to the many significant works of stained glass while working at his father’s firm, James Blomfield also designed the granite and bronze Queen Victoria Memorial Drinking Fountain in Stanley Park, and he produced some very fine etchings and watercolour paintings, one such painting is seen on the cover of the James P Delgado book Waterfront.

James Blomfield left Vancouver in 1907, and eventually settled in Toronto in 1920. He was buried in the Hamilton Mausoleum in Hamilton, Ontario, which itself is another extraordinary chapter, as told by Chuck Davis on VancouverHistory.ca.

Remarkably, you’re still able to make a direct connection to the Bloomfield family today, as this GPS tour takes you right past the door of his father’s Vancouver home, the Henry Bloomfield House, which still stands at 2532 Columbia Street.

I had a chance to check out the latest exhibition at MOV this past weekend and walked away inspired, as usual. SweaterLodge Unlatched is a lot more than a massive polarfleece sweater taking up an entire room, it’s a comment on our culture of mass consumption and our love of the great outdoors. Created by architects/artists Bill Pechet and Stephanie Robb, the fleece in this sweater was made up of about 2,650 plastic two litre bottles and is quite obviously a giant piece of Vancouver culture.

When you get past/under the sweater you find your way into another room that contains the story and concept of the SweaterLodge project, the pieces production and its travels thus far (it was originally constructed for the Canada Pavilion of the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture). You’re then offered a free piece of Polartec 200 polarfleece with which you’re encouraged to take home, make something out of, then include in the MOV’s Flickr group Museum of Vancouver MOV. All of the submissions will be printed out and posted within the exhibit itself.

I grabbed a piece and constructed this …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Every day we share a single photo from our Flickr Pool shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!).

A little bit of whimsy today courtesy of Michael Kalus, who managed to catch this Dairyland crate at rest at Sunset Beach recently.

These versatile crates perform a wide range of tasks in our world, far exceeding the imaginations of their designers as storage/transportation vessels, as step-stools and as basic building blocks. It is to these hard-working yet unsung crates that I dedicate today’s post – so take a load off, unpack the books and the LPs and have an afternoon off. The canned goods can chill on the countertop until you get back.

…just keep a look out for the Dairyland guys, they might be out there looking for you.

Gary