Archive for April, 2011

UNPLUGGED is a state of mind. It’s that point in your consciousness where you can feel at one with nature, escaping the trappings of the day-to-day to an almost dream-like place where nothing else seems to exist besides you and your natural surroundings. It is our opinion here at VIA that Vancouver holds a unique place in the civilized world in that reaching this state often requires no more effort than simply pulling off to the side of the road, pocketing your keys and taking a few steps into the forest. I am a sucker for sunsets/sunrises. There is nothing more awesome than that dramatic moment when the sun meets the horizon and colors our world in a way that says, “hey, don’t forget about me, I can turn an ordinary landscape into a psychedelic event without one bit of elicit pharmacopeia. This beautiful shot submitted by Vanessa Griffiths of a morning view from Bowen Island exemplifies my point. It looks like a Good morning from Bowen Island indeed.

By the way, please don’t forget that if you want to see your outdoor photo’s featured at VIA, submit them to our V.I.A. UNPLUGGED Flickr pool.

After Wednesday’s big Lil Wayne concert in Vancouver I was lucky enough (thanks to persistence and help of Drake) to do an interview with the man himself! Here’s Weezy! Doot doola doot doo … doot doo!

Nardwuar vs. Lil Wayne

Stay tuned for another interview next week and if you can’t wait then head over to NARDWUAR.COM, FACEBOOK.COM/NARDWUAR or TWITTER.COM/NARDWUAR!

Every week V.I.A. Giveaways will give you a chance to win … something. Watch this space and if you’re a real keener, follow @VIAGiveaways on the Twitter for even more good times and random free stuff! This week is tickets… tickets, tickets, and more tickets. Have you blown your available cash self-medicating during the intensely stressful round of Canucks playoffs? Low on funds but still crave a social life? Then you need to pay attention to this post.

Vancouver is Awesome is pleased as punch to be co-sponsoring this Friday’s midnight screening of Labyrinth at The Rio Theatre and both this Saturday’s ongoing West Coast Pop! series at the Red Room (featuring performances by Young Liars, Oh No! Yoko, and guests) and BetheChange.org’s Navigating the Great Turning “unconference” (featuring a whole slew of interesting people… and yoga!). We’re also giving tickets to the acclaimed Brooklyn duo of Buke and Gass at the Biltmore on Saturday night, too….

David Bowie in tights. Hair. Dancing. Babies. Magic Dancing. Puppets. End Scene.

Vancouver Specials are everywhere this week. Oh No! Yoko having fun. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Take a listen to Young Liars HERE and Oh No! Yoko HERE. For West Coast Pop! ticket information, go HERE.

Come and find out what is in the center of the galaxy in that poster. And the fabulously bespectacled Andrea Reimer (I love her glasses) will be there.

If you are a self-starter than this “un”conference could be for you. I think it requires a lot of energy to go, but then you meet the people and you do the yoga and you hear these stories and then it changes your thinking for a bit. Word. For more information and to get what I am saying, go HERE.

Buke and Gass. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Featuring real instruments that they made themselves, these guys are (to borrow from the record-store-clerkspeak I employed when I jockeyed that horse), “basically on the soundtrack to the .Etsy movie that Julia Roberts will direct as a female counter-point to The Social Network, featuring over-zealous DiYyers and their jerky ex-boyfriends in place of Zuckerberg.” Go HERE to get what I am saying (check out that bell-shoe-instrument she’s wearing! Where do I get one?!).

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

There is a rumour circulating out there that we get a lot of rain in Vancouver. And to be fair, we do get our share, but that’s what happens when you set up shop where a rain-forest once stood. And in the interest of full disclosure, the North Shore gets a teeny bit more rain per year than the City of Vancouver. While the rain may get a little monotonous during the winter months, once spring hits, we are reminded that there is a payoff to it all.

And that payoff is evident in a photograph by Gregory Johnson that was submitted to the group pool. This past Tuesday Gregory paid a visit to a very lush and extremely green Lynn Valley – over on the aforementioned North Shore. Just stunning how the entire frame is filled with green; (North) Vancouver Is Awesome.

Gary

Vancouver has a vibrant art and design scene. It is our mission to make this stimulating world accessible to everyone.Artsy!Dartsy! is Vancouver’s online Art & Design event guide. Offering comprehensive event listings since 2008, the site is updated daily to promote current and upcoming exhibits, lectures and shows. It is a resource for casual art-goers, industry professionals and tourists. With a user-friendly format, information is sorted by media, venue, schedule and location as well as handy street maps.For the full listing please head to Artsy-Dartsy.com.

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The Monte Clark Gallery presents Brad Phillips  Somebody Write to Me.

Opening reception: Thursday Apr 28, 6 – 8pm

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It’s Jeans Day in Vancouver today! In support of BC Children’s Hospital I’m wearing the fancy tie that the kids made me, and of course I’m also wearing jeans!

Jeans Day is a fun and easy event for people of all ages to participate in and show their support of BC’s kids. By purchasing a $5 button or $20 lapel pin, you get a chance to wear your jeans to work or school on April 28th and help the kids at BC Children’s Hospital.

Since 1991 Jeans Day has helped raise 11.7 million dollars for BC Children’s Hospital. Money raised from Jeans Day™ directly benefits the BC Children’s Hospital Excellence in Child Health Fund. Contributions to this fund go to the areas of greatest need at BC Children’s Hospital, providing the essential services, research and advanced technology necessary to make leading pediatric care accessible to the province’s one million children.

You can pick a button up at one of the retail partners below or make your donation online HERE!

.I.A. is co-sponsoring the amazing Vancouver Sometimes Plays Itself film series that’s screening at the Waldorf Hotel! It’s the first comprehensive showing of some of the earliest, most ambitious and strangest films shot in Vancouver and it happens every Monday at 7 PM for the next few weeks. The series is presented by local arts researcher Elvy Del Bianco, who has spent the last year and a half identifying and acquiring Vancouver-set films, and will feature notable guest speakers. Michael Turner’s On Location 1 (Elvy Del Bianco’s Annotated Film Collection) will screen weekly before each film, and we’re priming it here on the blog by offering Elvy’s thoughts on that week’s title.

This week’s film is Madelaine Is…, and here’s the trailer:

And here’s the synopsis and some thoughts from Elvy:

After a dispute with her father, a young Québécois woman (Nicola Lipman) moves to Vancouver. There she navigates creative expression, the fashion world, an egotistical-chauvinist-leftist boyfriend (John Juliani), a proto-nerd possible love interest (Wayne Specht), a slumming physician and a skid road resident while on the winding road to happiness.

In 1971 Madeleine is … was much hyped: the first Canadian feature length film directed by a woman, Sylvia Spring, whose challenges in bringing the film to screen in a male-dominated industry mirrored the tribulations of its lead character, it was anticipated as a female response to Don Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road (1970). Instead, reviews were poor, business worse and Madeleine is … all but disappeared.

An undeserved fate. The film suffers some technical and aesthetic limitations –like pretty much every Canadian film of …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>