Category Archives: photography

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Occupy Vancouver Thursday October 20 General Assembly

Julian Assange?

Who is that masked man at Occupy Vancouver?

Yes, they screened V for Vendetta at Occupy Vancouver tonight, threatening to rupture the delicate space/irony continuum.

V for Awesome, that's what.

V for Awesome, that's what.

Particularly in this shot:

Watching the Watchers

Watching the Watchers

in which the audience watches the video of the audience watching the video of the announcer showing the video of V. But who watches the watchers of the watchers? The cops, that’s who.

Twitter was abuzz with the news that the Chief is claiming the costs of policing (no arrests yet, not one) are threatening to put the VPD in the red. Conveniently NOT mentioned was this:

and this:

and this:

but don’t write off Twitter entirely, even if the troll/disinfo quotient is suffocating lately. It also contains things like this hilarious little item:

Occupy Tweet TheKRF

Occupy Tweet TheKRF

99% stupid

99% stupid

And this, which made me literally laugh out loud.

And now, your nightly Slideshow. Only sixteen pix here, rather than the say 130 from last time.

Second night of rain, and the crowd is bigger than it was earlier in the week, though of course not as big as the weekend. Even more tents: I think I saw a VPD estimate of 150, although I think that’s really high. There are certainly twice as many as Sunday, so a hundred or so scattered around the grounds, even creeping towards Robson along the East side of the Art Gallery. My friend and I were hoping to find the tent mobilizing mouse had donated, but it looked to be occupied, so she went home and I went to Blends to get some work done, and now it’s 6:22 am and I’m still working on posts, but at least I got my actual real paid done! That’s important for smacking down all the “get a job you filthy hippie!!1!!” trolls, and there are, did I mention, a LOT of them about.

I tried liveblogging the General Assembly (PDF link to the Occupy Guide from NYC!), to show you how your direct democracy sausage gets made, but it was ever so slightly disastrous. For one thing, not to be sexist, but there are a lot of women who seem to want to speak but contrive to avoid being heard. When not even the willing Human Mic participants can hear what you’re saying, either speak up or give up.

Here’s an unedited transcript. And yeah, it’s pretty ugly. Oh, at some point someone from one of the committees said that if anyone were taking notes, they’d like it if they were run by the committee. Well, I guess they must be very disappointed in me, that’s all I can say.

Oh, and I can’t spell Tsleil-Waututh when I’m trying to type quickly.

Continue reading →

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Occupy Vancouver Monday/Tuesday Night

to fellow citizens of the Occupy movement

to fellow citizens of the Occupy movement

As you can see, I started my Occupy Vancouver photoset at Tiffany last night. What more proof can you require that the 1% have offshored all the decent jobs? That window display is absolutely covered in dust! Ou sont les cleaning persons d’antan?

Moving on to Louis Vuitton. Does anyone besides me remember when they had a window display made of dozens of silver CCTV cameras focused on one pair of $1100 shoes? No? Just me then? FINE! In any case, the 1% are, as you can see here, safely confined behind bars as if in a zoo, and if Alberni is not a zoo, what IS? I ask yez. Especially on a Saturday night.

I got a lot of photos of signs, and although it took me a minute, I did like “Walk like an Egyptian” on the flag, which was over by the potted palm. There’s also a sign crediting Tunisia as the birthplace of modern democracy.

The little “I’m here for you. Are you here for me?” sign at the bottom-right of the “We are not kidding around. Stay a night and talk to us” sign at the top of the steps is the one that was kicked over earlier that afternoon by the chubby, dark security guard, who should have been on the other side of the fence in fact.

There is a guide to hand signals used in the General Assembly propped up against one of the Lions, although for the nearsighted a little more proximity would be helpful. God only knows what’s written on the whiteboard against the other Lion, as I myself am nearsighted and couldn’t make it out, even with the zoom, because I can’t fly.

YET.

I did like the guillotine labeled “Bargaining Tool,” but then as we’ve established, I’m a big old anarchistic meanie who thinks fear can be an effective weapon.

“My Other Occupation Sucks” is pretty good as well. A nice takeoff of the “My Other Car Is A…” bumper stickers. I saw a Porsche once with “My other car is a Datsun” on it.

Who is Moloch?

Actual Bohemians not welcome at Bohemian Grove

Obscene Wealth and Greed are Not Canadian Values

Obscene Wealth and Greed are Not Canadian Values

Yeah, whatever. Tell it to Conrad Black.

There are now TWO red Homelessness tents on the premises. The number of tents is growing daily/nightly, and I expect tomorrow to be the biggest day yet, thanks to Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, authors of my favorite theme song. It’s hilarious to me that the YouTube has now become popular enough to have ads on it.

I had an enjoyable conversation with some firemen. I didn’t recognize the jackets, and firemen weren’t around the first couple of nights, so being me I toddled up and asked what group they were with, where they were from. They told me and asked where I was from. I said “The Internet,” and it was FUCKING GLORIOUS because I swear to god one guy’s eyes opened wide in alarm. Then I told them I was a blogger, they asked me where I lived, which was really none of their business, but I’m not very closety so I said Chinatown and we shared a chuckle over the fact that when the alarm goes off at my place all the Chinese people wait till I get there and then sort of shove me at the firemen, like “she’s white, let HER talk to them.” They were quite cool and probably around to make sure there were no open flames in the tented area. Later, I heard some of them go for coffee and they were discussing the income disparity and arguing whether or not it was bigger in BC than in the US.

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Photos from Occupy Vancouver first night/second morning

Since Flickr will neither allow them to be viewable to the general public nor respond with anything like a solution via Support, I’ve decided to go ahead and upload all the photos here instead. Buh-bye Flickr!

You can read what I had to say about the evening in this previous post.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So there’s my WordPress-specific slideshow from the Saturday night to Sunday Morning of Occupy Vancouver. I meant to get down there last night as well, but instead I blew up my friend’s blog and had to spend much time recreating it at WP.com (note to bloggers: DO YOUR BACKUPS!!!! Or you make the babby raincoaster cry).

Once again, however, the best shots are not mine. The BEST shot is this, from Jazmin Miranda:

Donald Sutherland is Canada's Spirit Animal

Donald Sutherland is Canada's Spirit Animal

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Sunrise over Condorizon, Yellowknife

This was two house-sits ago, out in what I called Buttfuck Nowhere, which it is if you don’t have a car, and I don’t. Also known as New Newfoundland, for the influx of Newfies: such an influx that the local grocery store carries big white plastic pails of “beef navels”. Those are actual beef navels, not some kind of seagoing bovine, because it’s a popular food in Newfoundland, or so I surmise from the fact that the bucket has a map of such on the label. I found a recipe for beef navel pastrami, but otherwise I’m not sure what you do with them.

While I was out there, housesitting at a far too nice place on a perfectly ordinary road surrounded by condos, Walmarts, and Tim Hortonses in all directions, I decided to take the garbage out. In the middle of the night. Well, normally who cares, right? Only on my way back from the dumpster I saw something move under a car, something doggish-size, and being from Vancouver and used to raccoon and skunks and coyotes and such, I just made growling “giddoudahear” kind of noises and something shot off into the brush.

A lynx.

I knew a woman from William’s Lake who used to go out hunting grizzly bears in the woods, just her and her two bear dogs (the kind they tell the white people are extinct, but aren’t). The only thing in the wilderness that scared her was the lynx: apparently they’re just as crazy and aggressive as wolverines, and will attack pretty much anything.

So yeah. Even taking out the garbage can be a bit of an adventure up here.

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Requiem for Resolute Bay

This is photographer Dave Brosha‘s panegyric in praise of Resolute Bay in photographs and music. Here’s a tribute to the people of the North, from one of their own.

My heart’s in a million pieces right now. Good people that I know have been taken in this tragedy. A beautiful community that I used to call home is devastated.

To the great folks at First Air, the families of those taken on Flight 6550, and the people of Resolute Bay.

Dave Brosha