Archive for January, 2011

Vancouver’s very own The Pack A.D. has been on the road for the past ten months touring their latest Album, We Kill Computers. Just as they’re about to step into the studio to record their next album, they released this video for their track Cobra Matte today!

In other Pack A.D. related news, watch for them playing on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight on Friday.

SCENE AND HEARD showcases the independent music scene here in Vancouver. We interview some of our favourite local artists, post weekly guest playlists comprised of Vancouver artists and ‘Last Week in Music’ highlights some of the concerts happening around the city…

We’re back! Two shows for you this week…the opening gala of the PuSh festival had The Zolas performing at 560 on Monday, and last Friday, David Vertesi, Treelines and Behind Sapphire played an all ages show at St James Hall. Was a great week of music!

THIS WEEK IN MUSIC: has 500 shows on Friday, and I’m going to see some in Victoria! Your options include: The Pack AD @ The Biltmore, Christopher Arruda, Adaline & Rob Moir @ The Diners Rendezvous, Nadia von Hahn vs Chantel Upshaw @ Falconettis OR come to Victoria to see Versa with The Roadside Dogs & NikTex @ Metro Studio and then mosey over to Lucky Bar for Top Less Gay Love Tekno Party! Also this week, I will be seeing Hard Core Logo: Live! Check it out!

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

You might remember a while back we helped spread the word about BetterTogether.ca’s Hands-On Cook-Off Contest? Well the nice folks over there recently spoke to our very own Playground editor, Jason Landry, about family food trends for an article with along with some interviewees from Today’s Parent Magazine and Delish Magazine. Read their insights on what everyone’s talking about in the world of family and food HERE!

Jason’s son, Evan, learning how to make pasta!

Know young people with great green ideas for Vancouver? Get them to check out Vancouver Foundation’s new Generation Green Awards. The 20 best ideas submitted will get up to $12,500 to help make their green ideas happen. The awards are open to people 6-24 years old and the projects have to take place in Vancouver. Other than that, we are really open to anything that will help the environment, from urban farming to green transport to water conservation to — well, the sky’s the limit. As long as it’s a green sky. The WEB SITE has all the details (plus it’s quite entertaining.) Or watch the cute video:

Young people who don’t happen to have a great green idea on tap can still win prizes by taking our “How Green is your Brain” quiz, or by submitting photos to the green photo contest. (If you aren’t “young” anymore, the quiz is still a real brain teaser — don’t get too cocky!)

This is a one-time-only initiative, and the deadline for the awards is March 4, 2011, so interested parties need to get a move on. Please forward to your networks, and to any youthful hives of enviro-inspiration you may know of.

Written by: Dorothy Bartoszewski, Vancouver Foundation

Photo from Vancouver Archives

Join us in the cozy basement club of the Waldorf  Hotel for drinks and a casual conversation with Jenn Farrell, author of The Devil You Know. Whether you’ve read the book or not we’ll be talking candidly about short fiction, some of the themes in The Devil You Know, the act of getting published and more. Also, bring a copy or two of a loved book to swap for a new read!

7pm – 9pm – FREE

Drinks available to purchase during bookclub. Dinner served upstairs at Café Nuba all evening.

“There are points in Jenn Farrell’s amazing collection that I felt like I was listening in on the most intimate conversations of strangers—I was rapt with attention, but almost guilty for being privy to such intimacy. The Devil You Know treads familiar territory—small town ennui, adolescent love, grief and self-destruction—but does it with such emotional acuity that it doesn’t feel familiar at all, it feels extraordinary.”
— Catherine Hanrahan, author of Lost Girls and Love Hotels

Read more about The Devil You Know and Jenn Farrell on Anvil Press. More information here. Feel free to invite anyone you’d like and get in touch if you have any questions or would like to get involved more.

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

Something that fascinates me about photography is the camera’s ability as a mechanical tool to measure time. At both ends of the spectrum, the camera can record something not visible to the human eye, at least not in the way our brains process visual information in real time. andy6white has produced an image that is a subtle trick for the mind, a result of a long exposure that reveals the accumulation of light over 71 seconds in full daylight. Looking back towards downtown Vancouver from Jericho, and looking slightly surreal, this is Twenty Three.

What I really appreciate about this effect is that its completely analog – a neutral-density filter fitted in front of the lens reduces the amount of light that reaches the film/sensor without disrupting relationships between colours and hues. So they wouldn’t be particularly effective as sunglasses.

And the barnacles have no where to go, so take all the time you need.

Gary

One of the very fist blog posts made on VancouverIsAwesome.com, back in February of 2008, contained this Expo 86 video below. As the city gears up for it’s 125th Anniversary (and we participate in the programming with Rain City Chronicles), and as the city (with a small “c”) as well as the City (big “C”) are also gearing up for the one year anniversary of the 2010 Winter Olympics, I started wondering about Expo 86 and what, if anything, was being done to celebrate it’s 25th anniversary on May 2nd, 2011. I asked Twitter, I asked Facebook and of course I asked Google… but I came up dry!

Are you or your organization or business planning any sort of celebration to remember Expo 86? Are we going to have to go grassroots and organize something of our own? Do you want to help? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section of this post!

Princess Diana and Prince Charles rode the Skytrain. Oh yes they did.

Learn more about their royal adventures in THIS POST over at The Buzzer Blog and in case you missed them check out the last two video blasts from the past (one and two) that we bootlegged from them.