Category: D’autres
Vancouver Art
Emily, My Emily
I can’t say as Emily Carr it the Group of Seven ever meant much to me. Any of the pieces I had seen in books, I generally skipped by a so much “trees and rocks” and her work generally represented a period that I found a bit boring.
But I haven’t actually looked at her since my trips to the MOMA and I certainly have never seen the originals. And more importantly I had never visited places like Skedans and the Broughtons.
So I’m changing my mind. I like Emily Carr. The Gallery nazis won’t let me take a picture but there is one painting of a west coast forest that truly captures what I feel when standing beneath the tower cedars of BC’s west coast. I guess I’ll have to read up on Ms. C.
We wandered downtown Vancouver and soaked in all the cool people before wandering off to catch our plane.
My illicit picture of one of the Emily Carr paintings that struck me.
I also was intrigued by this Chinese artists style and may try and emulate it…it is a tiny section of 40+ foot scroll. Forgive the blurriness
YVR
Dave not buying a boat.
Leslie wanted to buy this boat, but I wouldn’t let her.
This is the crew cabin in the bow of a 55′ Beneteau that I couldn’t buy even if I wanted to.
Yesterday was an great day. We toured the Granville Island floating show and Dave introduced me around. Nice to talk to brokers with a bit more of a personal connection. Sales people are still sales people though and I’m pretty sure Len was working hard to put the bug in my ear. But he was good at it so none of that slimy feeling was left behind.
Yesterday we talked quite a lot to all three Hunter brokers. The first was a good salesman and while we felt the pitch, we also felt he was on our side. The second guy was even better or actually just genuinely interested in talking boats. I really left believing him. The third (a woman, which may or may not be significant) was pure old school used car salesman. She left us believing Hunters could sail around the world without even getting the hull wet. She was good. Real good. And I would never buy anything from her. I am way to paranoid to ever trust someone that can steer me around like that.
Anyway we toured some boats and chatted in the rain. I like the Catalina 445 as a I’m-so-rich dream boat. But the Jeanneau 37 wasn’t bad as a realistic dream…
We drive back to BC Place and wandered. L and I bought some Gill 3-season gloves so our fingers will be warmer this year. We took in a couple of seminars. One on couples cruising which had a lively speaker and some common sense knowledge and one in canal cruising. This guy, an author of a couple books, needs to take classes in public speaking.
He read from his notes and the only time he had any colour in his voice were the 2 asides when he looked up from his screen. Couple that with a very linear story of his boat buying experience and picture slides with 0 explanations and he had a few people leaving mid-presentation.
Which was too bad because the presentation had good bones and based in his Q&A after he had good knowledge and a charming personality. Margaret liked it though so I guess I was just looking for more. Makes me want to go back though.
The we headed out to the Boathouse overlooking English Bay for an awesome dinner and terrific company. Them’s good peoples.
I really enjoy the boats how. D & M say we really ought to check out Seattle’s show (which just started) so maybe we try that one year. It’s nice to spend a couple of days dreaming and not worrying about reality. Leslie always enjoys Vancouver, and I do too, even if I did get wet.
And now we wait for spring and sailing season 🙂
More Day One Images
Boaty-Boat-Boat
So off to Vancouver. Our first flight since the no bag/carry on rule change and wow, what a difference. For one thing they have zone boarding now which is good. For another they are actually checking bag sizes. And for yet another thing it now takes flipping forever to board the plane.
Tanstafl as Mr Heinlein used to say. (There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch for you uninitiated.)
Off to #YVR and the boat show. Hopefully, after all that sailing in 2014, this year we will have a better idea of what we we are looking at/for.
Day one. Note to self. It rains in Vancouver. Jean jackets are not waterproof.
So I got a bit wet.
Pedro Porn Star
Volume 2, Issue 1 of T8N magazine is all but done. And Pedro Migennes the Lion once again bulled her way into the photoshoots. The shotlist called for an image of the clothes first, the girl second and the bed third. There was no cat. So she changed it. It turned out though didn’t it?
Sexy…
Rob wanted me to make a real estate ad more ‘sexy.’ You can find the most amazing things on Google images…
Personally I love the guy who hires models to wear nothing but chocolate in properties he has for sale to apparently encourage people to imagine that it comes with the girls… and the chocolate… for the missus…?
Just shy of 18 years
Almost 18 years ago we ‘acquired’ Samantha. In January 1997, we brought her home from the old Humane Society on Yellowhead and immediately locked her in Zak’s room with the old baby gate to protect her from Hobbes, who was many years older and many pounds heavier. So she hopped the gate. And we put her back. And she hopped the gate.
For almost 18 years Sammy has been ‘hopping the gate’ and doing—and getting—pretty much whatever she wanted. And now she isn’t.
After almost 18 years together, we made the decision to take her to the vet today and end her life. She had been gradually deteriorating and losing weight for almost 2 years now despite the daily pill wars, but the last couple of weeks took her from a playful and mobile ‘big’ cat to one who barely moved and who was now skeletally thin and the last couple of days had us carrying her around out of sympathy for her old bones. It was the right decision. I just hate that it had to be made.
For almost 18 years my life has revolved around a stone’s worth of fur, claws and attitude. She cataloged books, climbed up robes, chased (and caught) birds and rabbits, was featured in books and magazines, and sought out everyone she could for her just and deserved portion of attention and she shared all of it with us. And now it doesn’t.
Life sure is funny.
To Samantha T. (The) Cat: te memoria
Fleeting Fame
I never did post Leslie’s (@lavermeer) fleeting brush with fame. She tweeted a comment after the finale episode of So You Think You Can Dance and look what happened!
For the links…
Spent the day setting up some T8N online and social media, some hardware and finalizing a few design issues:
T8N Magazine website: a basic wordpress installation built on Parabola
Twitter: twitter.com/t8nmagazine
Instagram: instagram.com/t8nmagazine/
Facebook: facebook.com/t8nmagazine
And a Mailchimp mailing list, a bunch of email addresses and a new computer for the editrix…
Then it was finalizing some logos and setting the final version of the files for use.
All in all, a pretty busy day 2 for T8N Magazine.
T8N magazine — the First Day
For the last little bit most of our old Hole’s gang has been working to bring a new project to reality. As of today it is officially a go. In November of this year we intend to launch a new lifestyle/community magazine focused on St Albert. Rob Lightfoot, former Publisher of Vue Weekly is at the helm and is going to handle the business and sales aspects while Carmen, Brenda and I will work on content and design.
So far all we have is a our interim T8N Media Kit and of course, the logo above.
We should have the website up in a few days and we have already started on the prep work for the editorial and photography. The first issue is planned for mid November and the second mid to late January. After that, if all goes well, it will move to monthly and there are plans to expand the business from there.
But for now it is all about scrambling to put out our first issue in time to hit the Xmas market. Wish us luck…