Blog
Tag: Vancouver
5 Things Vancouver: Peter Darbyshire
by Dan
Travel + Vancouver / February 05, 2010
Kicking off our new and exciting "5 Things Vancouver" travel series is author Peter Darbyshire.
Peter is the author of Please and The Warhol Gang (forthcoming from HarperCollins Canada).
In his spare time he runs the website CanCult.ca. Follow him online at
www.peterdarbyshire.com.
What is the single best thing about living in Vancouver?
Being able to cycle year-round. It’s the small things that matter.
Where do you look for books in Vancouver?
32 Books on the North Shore. It’s like a diamond mine: small and
cramped but packed with beautiful little gems.
Where’s the best place for coffee?
Where isn’t a good place for coffee in Vancouver? People know their
brews here. I guess I’d say Caffé Artigiano because that’s the place I
hit most often, but you can’t really go wrong here unless you stumble
into a Starbucks by mistake.
What is your favourite Vancouver hangout?
Wreck Beach. I haven’t been there in a while, but I love that it
exists. Every city should have a nude beach.
What’s your favourite free thing to do in Vancouver?
Walk one of the sea walls and just take in the ocean views. Some
people have to fly thousands of miles and pay thousands of dollars for
something like that. I just have to walk out the door and down the
street.
Thanks Peter!
Comments (1) |
Tags:
32 books 5 things vancouver caffe artigiano coffee peter darbyshire travel vancouver winter olympics
5 Things Vancouver
by Dan
Travel + Vancouver / February 05, 2010
Coffee Talk
by Dan
Food & Drink + Vancouver / February 04, 2010
As a quick follow-up to yesterday's post about the art and science of the perfect espresso, I just thought I would post a link to this Report on Business article in The Globe & Mail about Vancouver coffee institution Caffè Artigiano:
“The coffee world has really evolved in the past five, 10 years, the science of extraction. A large corporation can't focus on that. Coffee's becoming more and more detailed. People will want to know where the coffee came from, how sustainable it is, how the farmer is treated, how much he was paid, the terroir of the farm.”
The general manager of Caffè Artigiano on Hornby, Kyle Straw, is the current Canadian Barista Champion(!), and along with Bryant Simon, author of Everything but the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks (University of California Press), and business reporter David Ebner (who wrote the article), he participated in an informative live chat about coffee with Globe readers yesterday.
(Pictured above: Wanderlust Coffee Journal from Chronicle Books)
Vancouver City Timelapse
by Dan
Film + Vancouver / January 28, 2010
An artistic collaboration between music label InnerLife Project and Dan and David Newcomb of the TimeLapse HD YouTube channel, "Vancouver City" is absolutely stunningly beautiful timelapse video of Vancouver:
The soundtrack features the vocals of Linda Ganzini.
(via Coudal Partners)
Comments (1) |
Tags:
music timelapse vancouver video
BBC Sport - 2010 Winter Olympics
by Dan
Sports / January 26, 2010
BBC Sport has unveiled a rather wonderful 40 second animated trailer for their coverage of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics featuring "the story of Akiak and his quest to find the missing head of Ilanaaq, a stack of rock in human form, which sits on the mountain above Whistler, where the skiiing and sliding events will take place":
Comments (0) |
Tags:
bbc sports vancouver video winter olympics
VIMFF: Climbing While Eating Popcorn
by Siobhan
January 26, 2010
I've been to the Vancouver International Film Festival before... but this week I'll be attending the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival for the first time. I'm excited to go - from what I've heard, it's a really fun festival.
I'm not a climber myself, but my partner is - and one of these days, he's going to show me how to scale a rock wall myself. Gulp.
Until the then, I'm happy to watch some great films - with both feet firmly planted on the ground. 
Books for climbers:
- The Zen of Mountains and Climbing: Wit, Wisdom and Inspiration
- Sport Climbing: From Toprope to Redpoint, Techniques for Climbing Success
- Climbing: Training for Peak Performance
Click here to see a list of more Climbing books.
- Trekking in Nepal Himalaya
- Trekking in the Patagonian Andes
- Trekking in the Indian Himalaya
Click here to see a list of more Trekking books.
DIY @ MOV
by Siobhan
January 20, 2010
Calling all Vancouver crafters!
This Thursday, January 21, the Museum of Vancouver is hosting what's bound to be a fun evening of creativity and craft. DIY@MOV is billed as a "A Night of Social Crafting" - there will be music, snacks, drinks, plus a craft market, and workshops:
Blim: button-making and screen printing workshops
Knitgirl: Knitting and Craftivism
Kirsti Wakelin: drawing/ exquisite corpse.
The DIY@MOV event is part of a new exhibit at MOV called The Art of Craft:
Art of Craft showcases 173 spectacular fine craft works in three parts:
Unity & Diversity: Selected Works - 75 pieces from across Canada recently on display at the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale in the Republic of Korea.
By Hand/BC and Yukon - 51 pieces from Canada’s West Coast with a focus on the artists’ creative processes and studio environments.
Craft from the Republic of Korea - 47 pieces demonstrating the excellence of traditional and contemporary crafts.
Get all the details on the DIY@MOV event and the Art of Craft exhibit the on the MOV site - then come out and celebrate DIY, craft, art and design ... or whatever you want to call this stuff.
Personally, I love how these terms are overlapping, intersecting and merging more and more in recent years. Creativity is creativity, and, in my opinion, the tools or media you use don't determine what you create or how it should be perceived.
In that spirit, two of my favourite books on the list explore the ever-growing world of "makers": 
Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft and Design is an overview of some of the amazing talents in the crafting community in the US today - people who have been part of the huge resurgance of craft that's been taking place for the past few years. Handmade Nation is also a film - watch the trailer.
By Hand: The Use Of Craft In Contemporary Art approaches 
the Art/Craft topic from another angle: showing how media and techniques and traditionally considered "Craft" - such as embroidery and knitting - are being used in the "Art" world. The paperback edition of By Hand is coming out in April 2010.
(Of course my list does not include all the lovely how-to and inspirational craft books. For a good list of these, check out the Chronicle Craft Catalogue for Spring 2010 (PDF).)
Reflections on Duthie Books
by Jamie
News / January 19, 2010
The sad news about Duthie Books closing has just hit the wires.
Today everyone at Raincoast is thinking about the wonderful staff at Duthie's, many of whom have decades of bookselling experience. These type of people are vital to the long term health and vibrancy of the publishing scene. We are rooting for them.
There will be lots of talk about what the closing of this landmark bookstore in Vancouver signifies for the book industry and for the culture of books in Canada. Let that be a debate for another day, but when that debate comes, I will argue that despite what certain painful recent examples may suggest, the future of book in Canada is very, very healthy.
For today, I want to comment as resident of Kitsilano, the Vancouver neighbourhood where Duthie's final store is located.
Many people who have lived in Vancouver longer than I, will remember Duthie Books as a large sprawling chain. I have been in Vancouver for decade and know Duthie's as single stand alone store, that stocked books I wanted to read and whose staff loved to talk about books as much as I do. I bought my son's first book at Duthie's and to this day we can't go by the expansive thirty foot store front window (with displays changed daily) without him insisting we go in. I love books on politics, he loves the books on dump trucks. Good stores, large or small chain or non-chain matter to cities. Stores like Duthie's matter to me.
Gratitude
by Siobhan
Current Affairs + Health & Wellness / October 06, 2009
This morning on my way to work, I walked by about a dozen people, scattered along the sidewalk, who were holding handwritten cardboard signs. They said things like “I have a home”, “I was warm and dry last night” and “I have a people who support me”. It’s all part of Gratitude Week, an effort to end homelessness in Vancouver.
The campaign is well-timed, with Thanksgiving coming up this weekend. Just this morning, in fact, I was thinking about what Thanksgiving books I might blog about this week—and the first one that came to mind (yes, even before the mouthwatering Thanksgiving cookbooks!) was Chronicle Books’ Gratitude Journal. It’s a place to keep a daily record of life’s little blessings; the small things that are so easy to take for granted—but really are so very important and meaningful. Here’s an explanation on eHow.com about how to keep a gratitude journal. It seems like a great way to take the time to really appreciate what you have—and also to reflect on what others may not.
In that spirit, please visit the Gratitude Week website to learn more or to get involved.
Seth in Conversation with Douglas Coupland at VIWF!
by Dan
Events + Graphica / August 26, 2009
In what promises to be one of the highlights of this year's Vancouver International Writers Festival, Canadian cartoonist Seth will be in conversation with author Douglas Coupland on Friday, October 23 8:00 pm at the Waterfront Theatre.
Tickets, which go sale Friday, September 11, 2009, are $18 and are available from the VIWF box office.
I would get your in there early if I were you!
In the meantime, The Daily Cross Hatch have posted a great 3-part chat with Seth.
In the interview Seth discusses a whole range of topics, including Comic-Con, Charles Schulz's Peanuts, Watchmen, Alan Moore, WIMBLEDON GREEN, and Seth's most recent book GEORGE SPROTT (1894-1975):
I wanted George to be someone who was in the public eye, but obviously not a genuine celebrity, because then you'd have to deal with the problems of real celebrity in the story. It's not a story about fame, because that's too easy. But George's limited fame is an essential ingredient. It's a story about things falling away with time. That minor fame of his simply gave me another element of his life to fall away.
Read Part 1 of The Daily Cross Hatch Interview
Read Part 2 of The Daily Cross Hatch Interview
Read Part 3 of The Daily Cross Hatch Interview
Comments (0) |
Tags:
douglas coupland seth vancouver viwf