Unlike the modern painters who live in the Fairview neighbourhood of Vancouver, I would guess paleolithic painters back in the day (30,000-years-ago) -- those so-called "cave people" -- had the option of sketching their rough ideas out in the dirt. But once they committed their work to a cave wall there couldn't be much thought of just throwing it away and starting over, so every stroke, and swirl, and smudge, was probably carefully thought out. It was worth their effort -- nothing can ever last as long as some of those cave paintings have. Click the above image to enlarge it, while it lasts.
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Spared from the wrecking ball![/caption]
A worker involved in the demolition of the Ridge Centre complex at 16th Avenue, and Arbutus Street, told me, for a September 26 post, that someone had taken away the iconic bowling pin. I didn't find out who had saved it from the wrecking ball until last night, when I was laying down a "bed" of newspaper pages for my wet bike, and trailer. According to this Vancouver Sun article, two well-to-do Vancouverites, Eric Cohen, and Yosef Wosk teamed up to preserve the landmark neighbourhood fixture which sat atop the North-East corner of the centre, advertising the 15-lane bowling alley, for 63 years.
Spared from the wrecking ball![/caption]A worker involved in the demolition of the Ridge Centre complex at 16th Avenue, and Arbutus Street, told me, for a September 26 post, that someone had taken away the iconic bowling pin. I didn't find out who had saved it from the wrecking ball until last night, when I was laying down a "bed" of newspaper pages for my wet bike, and trailer. According to this Vancouver Sun article, two well-to-do Vancouverites, Eric Cohen, and Yosef Wosk teamed up to preserve the landmark neighbourhood fixture which sat atop the North-East corner of the centre, advertising the 15-lane bowling alley, for 63 years.
Innovation cuts both ways. Sometimes it improves your life; other times it improves the bottom line of some low-life manufacturer. Consider the photo above, of a seemingly well-finished desktop someone tossed out in Fairview today -- probably veneer laminate over low quality wood -- not great, but good enough. Take a look at it from the other side:
Yes. It's a veneer on cheap wood, but just the thinnest sheet of particle board. The manufacturer has figured out how to eliminate most of the cheap wood, by replacing it with a cardboard honeycomb. I refuse to be shocked, but I really am. This is some kind of high point in the history of low quality, crappy furniture. It's definitely innovative -- evil genius innovative. Probably manufacturers have been doing this for years, and I'm the last person to figure it out. Click the images to enlarge them.
A previous post about Vancouver's utility poles refers to the stamped metal circlets workers for the company Pole-Tec hammered into each utility pole they had inspected for the City of Vancouver. It appears that lots of companies in the business of inspecting, and surveying the urban landscape follow the same custom of nailing markers down to document work done. The result, in Vancouver, is many little metal "breadcrumb" trails throughout the city, on the utility poles, and underfoot, nailed into the asphalt streets.
These metal markers probably quickly outlive their usefulness, becoming unnecessary once a project is completed. After that, they become unintelligible artifacts for people to puzzle over, if they notice them. Over time, the street markers become literally unintelligible -- the weight of car traffic flattens out the stamped-in lettering.
I looked down a few afternoons ago, in an alley somewhere in Fairview (should've noted the location), and saw this marker -- very fresh-looking, with it's stamped lettering still clear, and sharp: "BUTLER SUNDVICK 394" All this tells the uninitiated, armed only with Google, is that a survey company based in Burnaby, B.C. was marking it's progress in this particular alley.
Butler Sundvick does all sorts of survey work; legal, engineering, and, my word for the week, cadastral. Their Web site builds them up as a major go-to surveyor for private developers, and that;s probably true. The company has also been involved in sorting out the legal tangle, survey-wise, for the Canada Line rapid transit system between downtown Vancouver and the airport. So maybe they were doing survey work for the city, but likely as not, they were surveying for a proposed development in Fairview, meaning another 1960s, three-storey apartment building will be replaced by a 12-storey "pedestal" condominium. Oh joy. Click the image to enlarge it.
These metal markers probably quickly outlive their usefulness, becoming unnecessary once a project is completed. After that, they become unintelligible artifacts for people to puzzle over, if they notice them. Over time, the street markers become literally unintelligible -- the weight of car traffic flattens out the stamped-in lettering.
I looked down a few afternoons ago, in an alley somewhere in Fairview (should've noted the location), and saw this marker -- very fresh-looking, with it's stamped lettering still clear, and sharp: "BUTLER SUNDVICK 394" All this tells the uninitiated, armed only with Google, is that a survey company based in Burnaby, B.C. was marking it's progress in this particular alley.
Butler Sundvick does all sorts of survey work; legal, engineering, and, my word for the week, cadastral. Their Web site builds them up as a major go-to surveyor for private developers, and that;s probably true. The company has also been involved in sorting out the legal tangle, survey-wise, for the Canada Line rapid transit system between downtown Vancouver and the airport. So maybe they were doing survey work for the city, but likely as not, they were surveying for a proposed development in Fairview, meaning another 1960s, three-storey apartment building will be replaced by a 12-storey "pedestal" condominium. Oh joy. Click the image to enlarge it.
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On our left, the flag of Canada. flanked by the flag of the Province of British Columbia.[/caption]
On our left, the flag of Canada. flanked by the flag of the Province of British Columbia.[/caption]
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Kent taking it easel; getting ready for a bike ride, in fact.[/caption]
Yesterday I visited my friend Kent Crawford, a local Vancouver artist. His landscape painting are quite the thing -- straightforward realism at first glance -- on closer examination the detail resolves as a multitude of jigsaw puzzle-like bits of solid colour. It's not exactly pointillism, but the tiny shards of solid colour similarly blend together at a distance. I like his painting a lot, and happily encourage people to check out the galleries of his work on his Web page, Which I admit I've had a hand in building.
Kent taking it easel; getting ready for a bike ride, in fact.[/caption]Yesterday I visited my friend Kent Crawford, a local Vancouver artist. His landscape painting are quite the thing -- straightforward realism at first glance -- on closer examination the detail resolves as a multitude of jigsaw puzzle-like bits of solid colour. It's not exactly pointillism, but the tiny shards of solid colour similarly blend together at a distance. I like his painting a lot, and happily encourage people to check out the galleries of his work on his Web page, Which I admit I've had a hand in building.
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Art alert! The dumpster camera's lens cover didn't open all the way! Ha! It works.[/caption]
The sequel to the 2012 film, The Hunger Games is coming. Hunger Games: Catching Fire is scheduled for release next month. At least one person can't wait. I found this "Hunger Games" poster in a container bin last night on my way to bed. Attached to the bottom right-hand corner of the poster is a facsimile of the mockingjay pin worn by the lead character Katniss Everdeen.
The movies are adaptations of the first two novels of a trilogy written by Suzanne Collins, aimed at teenage readers. I enjoyed the first movie -- the novels, not so much; I personally felt they were marginally better written than a Dan Brown novel -- that's like Da Vinci Code for "badly written." Fortunately for Ms. Collins, I'm in a minority. I will watch the movies though. I thought the screenwriters of The Hunger Games film actually improved on the novel. I liked the casting of the film, particularly Woody Harrelson as Kaleb, though, after reading the novel, I thought Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen was just a tad too well fed.
Art alert! The dumpster camera's lens cover didn't open all the way! Ha! It works.[/caption]The sequel to the 2012 film, The Hunger Games is coming. Hunger Games: Catching Fire is scheduled for release next month. At least one person can't wait. I found this "Hunger Games" poster in a container bin last night on my way to bed. Attached to the bottom right-hand corner of the poster is a facsimile of the mockingjay pin worn by the lead character Katniss Everdeen.
The movies are adaptations of the first two novels of a trilogy written by Suzanne Collins, aimed at teenage readers. I enjoyed the first movie -- the novels, not so much; I personally felt they were marginally better written than a Dan Brown novel -- that's like Da Vinci Code for "badly written." Fortunately for Ms. Collins, I'm in a minority. I will watch the movies though. I thought the screenwriters of The Hunger Games film actually improved on the novel. I liked the casting of the film, particularly Woody Harrelson as Kaleb, though, after reading the novel, I thought Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen was just a tad too well fed.
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