Category Archives: Vancouver

my summer vacation 3.0

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Come on, he said. Get in the car, he said. It’ll be great, he said. You’ll like it, he said.

You see this coming a mile away, don’t you?

“I’ll take you on a nice, scenic drive through the wine country, raincoaster,” said Metro. “Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Sure did. So into the car hopped one unsuspecting Vancouverite.

I should have suspected something when I spotted the sign that said we were on the road to the dump. “Sanitary landfill,” excuse me.

Eventually we toured quite a slice of the back country, the kind of mountains where the Akeleys and Whatleys confer on strangely bald mountaintops, between huge menhirs placed there by unknown beings long before the Poquassetts settled the land in the tenth century BC.

We passed the dump at about minute fifteen. I should have jumped. The raccoons would have been swift and merciful.

Instead, we did not turn around until well past the dump, well past the reservoir, well past the…fucking pavement’s end. Eventually the gravel turned to rocks and boulders, and Metro was persuaded to give up or sacrifice the undercarriage of the non-off-road-equipped Ford.

We turned around, actually, just past the sign that said we had reached Cowpat Farm.

We had left Lovecraft territory entirely, and entered Shirley Jackson‘s godforsaken lands.

The Shebeen Club: Book Banning, Free Speech, and Mein Kampf

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The Shebeen Club Presents: 

Forbidden Words: Banned Books, Free Speech, and Mein Kampf
on the occasion of the 81st anniversary of the publication of Mein Kampf 

When: 7-10pm, Tuesday, July 18th

Where: the Shebeen, behind the Irish Heather, 217 Carrall Street, Vancouver BC

How: reserve in advance by emailing lorrainedotmurphyatgmaildotcom

How Much: $15 to July 14th, door $20 space-available, includes set dinner and a drink; strictly limited to 25 places

What: Literary jabber, mingling, presentations, chit-chat, and dinner: great heaping mounds of  your choice of bangers and mash or pasta, plus a glass of pop, wine or beer.

Who: The Shebeen Club, Vancouver’s Monthly Literary Gathering.

Join us for an even more heated than usual evening upstairs in the ould Shebeen. We will be marking (rather than celebrating) the 81st anniversary of the publication of Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Our presentation will focus on the critically timely issues of freedom of speech, terrorism, protection of innocents, and civil liberties.

Dress code: epaulets, gags (full-on gimps will be asked to “normal-up”), Mao jackets, blogger pj’s, or just get a deep-fried tan, bleach your hair, and come as Ann Coulter.

Door prizes: We have a don’t ask, don’t tell door prize policy. We don’t ask you if you like ‘em, we expect you not to tell us if you don’t. Book donations snivellingly accepted.

Meet and Mingle 7-7:30

Listen and Learn 7:30-8

Beery solipsism and merlot-influenced manifesto-ficating 8-9 or whenever they finally throw us out

Art Opening, Lucky Red

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Mirmy Invite

Lucky Red Presents:
New Work by MIRMY: Boxes made with real skeletons
Saturday, July 8: 8PM

For the past three years, Mirmy has been producing unique artwork incorporating skeletons and taxidermy, starting with members of the weasel family (which is surprisingly vast)  then moving on to snakes; mostly cobras.
This, her latest collection, features boxes incorporating animal skeletons (2 snakes, a rat, cat, rabbit, skink, fish bat and a frog) as central figures. Always thoughtful, Mirmy has provided most pieces with handy open and shut doors in case sensitive or squeamish guests arrive to view your art collection.
Before the animal rights folks freak out, we’d like to advise people that Mirmy is a proud member of Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists (MART): a group of taxidermists who adhere to a code of ethics regarding not killing living things for the purpose of using them in art.

An added treat for the evening will be a performance by Wendosa, who I am told are two charming young ladies, playing cow-punk in the Lucky Red courtyard.

All in all, a fine way to pass a hot summer evening. See you there.
xox
midnite

LUCKY RED
Union at Main…on the cutting edge of chinatown

What I did on my summer vacation: Part the First

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  • I dreamed I was cleaning out my ears with bobby pins. I’m sure it wasn’t the beer; it was the heat.
  • I saw Rattlesnake Island, where Eddie Mansour came to grief, ultimately snapping and taking the staff of the Canadian Embassy in Lebanon hostage, because that is what you do when a clique of white good ol’ boys ruins your dream of a camel-shaped resort (with bonus pyramid!) on Okanagan Lake.
  • Saw Eddie’s Castle (or Eddie’s Folly) the monstrously tacky, 70’s style, pink stucco B&B overlooking Rattlesnake Island, where Eddie slowly, and against all odds, recovered his wits and lost what remained of his fortune. If memory (of his autobiography, From Nuthouse to Castle) serves, several suites had circular beds, one was revolving, and of course there were heart-shaped jacuzzis. Available now for a round $1million, it looks as if it is haunted by the ghost of Robert Goulet: one balcony has fallen off entirely, sliding down the cliff face onto the highway. The once-beautiful view is marred by the semitransparent mist of organisms growing on the windows, and the land is slowly falling, piece by piece, into the lake. It would be a wonderful place to retire and slowly go insane. Perhaps I shall save up enough one day.
  • I saw a double rainbow over Westbank and can now definitively state that the rainbow ends at Canadian Tire. Picture to follow.
  • My only goals for this vacation were A) a sunburn and B) a hangover. A was accomplished the first day. And the second. I have high hopes that Winery Tour Day will allow me to tick off B as well.
  • I can now identify, having towed it for several hours, a ’61 Nash Metropolitan.

My Neighborhood, for real

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So, as you might already know by my blog irregularity, I am experiencing a power crisis. I am without electricity. In Canada, we call this “anhydrous” but you might call it any number of things, including inconvenient.

But among other things, it means that I only have electricity between midnight and five in the morning, when I can safely run a power cord to the outlet down the hall without anyone ratting me out to the building manager.

However.

There are those who could bust me. In my hallway, there is a youthful Chinese girl who is carrying on an affair with a man on one of the upper floors, but who doesn’t dare let her father, with whom she lives, know. So, every night about twelve-thirty, I hear her door open and the elevator going up. About three, it comes back down and she goes back to her room.

She’s not about to rat me out for using the power. It’s mutually assured destruction.

When I go out to unplug the apparatus, sometimes I see some unusual things.

It’s four-thirty in the morning. It’s the Downtown Eastside. Of COURSE I see some unusual things.

But among them I do not expect to see an actual scimitar. Apparently, instead of the tai chi ladies who practiced there last year, each dawn is welcomed by an actual, fucking, practicing fucking, samurai.

He’s out on the patio, practicing his moves. I am well aware it should be a katana instead of a scimitar, but what can I say, the man is versatile.

And armed.

Oh, who are the people in my neighborhood. In my neighborhood. In my neigh-bor-hood? Oh, who are the people in my neighborhood. The people that you meet each day?

The samurai has a big sword
Don’t mess with him or you’ll get gored.
He practices each day at dawn
Could skewer you just like a prawn.

‘Cause the Samurai’s a person in my neighborhood.
In my neighborhood.
He’s in my neigh-bor-hood!
A Samurai’s a person in my neighborhood.
A person that I meet each day.

Oh, trysting kids are scaredycats.
Their dad might find out, don’cha kno?
They sneak around, it takes real gumption
They can’t expose me: M. A. Destruction.
Oh, a Samurai’s a person in my neighborhood.
In my neighborhood.
In my neighbrhood.
And the trysting kid’s a person in my neighborhood.
They’re the people that I meet
When I’m walking down the street
They’re the people that I meet each day and, by silent mutual agreement, do not appear to recognize.