Tonight Nic and I ventured to Commercial Drive in East Van to check out all the freaks in costume. Lots of people were dressed up for Halloween, too.
Ho ho.
As with last year we had come to experience the Parade of Lost Souls. The 2020 version — my first — was a nifty tour along several blocks through dark and spooky alleys where most ofthe neighborhood had dressed up yards and garages in appropriate Halloween trimmings (or drippings).
Upon arrival at the park near Templeton there were masses of people already gathered. We spotted The Line and took our places in it, ready for the spooky tour.
A pair of bulldogs dressed as a bumblebee and a hot dog were in the line ahead of us (along with a couple of guys) and collectively they provided a
visual distraction as the line slowly crept forward.
The line weaved around and through the park, which featured a band andorher sundry booths and exhibits. Then the line ended, we were back where we started and we wondered what the heck just happened besides a whole lot of nothing.
Answer: nothing. No street tour this year, apparently. We wandered the park a bit (which didn’t require bring in the line to begin with) and the only thing of note was a tent filled eith a bunch of organs — the kind used to creepy effect for the music in musty horto classics. With random members of the public madhing the keys of eight organs simultaneously and none of these people possessing any apparent musical talent you get something equally or posdibly even more horrifying than a movie filled with monsters or vampires. We left.
Nic suggested checking out a fake haunted house perhaps but I figured our luck on the evening had rnded eith the rain holding off so we watched The Twilight Zone and ate popcorn instead.
Had we stayed half an hour later we eould have sern the actual parade as it turned out but them’s the breaks.
At least Nic was seriously stylin’ in his pimp suit. I went dressed in my usual straight guy outfit. Fools almost everyone!
Recently I was participating in a discussion on great science fiction novels and I trotted out one of my favorites that I read way back when I was all of 14 years old, Fade-Out, by Patrick Tilley. A slightly expanded/modified version of the novel was later released that I read as an adult and the story still holds up. That edition featured this cover tiny image ahead, I may scan in my copy just so it’s legible):
Black with a glowing orange-red circle that could signify almost anything. Not very arresting as far as images go (and for some reason this particular scan makes the title impossible to see).
However, the original Dell SF (US) cover on the copy I bought in 1978 was this:
A monstrous mechanical spider in front of the Capitol Building with masses fleeing in panic. A classic flying saucer hovering above. A title done in that cheesy chrome look. How could I resist? I couldn’t!
The great part is that the event depicted on this sensationalist cover does not happen in the book. Nothing even close to it happens — though there is a mechanical spider. And it does take place on Earth, as the inclusion of the Capitol Building would suggest. But otherwise, it’s a mashup that deliberately distorts to create a more exciting image — and it worked! If I had encountered the revised cover in 1978 I’d likely have never picked the book up.
On the one hand, this leads me to think that I should judge a book by its cover (cool cover = cool book) and shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (dull cover = dull book). Since the same book had both a dull and cool cover and especially since the cool cover was a load of hooey, my conclusion is: book covers are hooey. Read the first few pages and see if you like what you see instead.
This first photo was taken from the Sapperton SkyTrain station. As you can see there is also a rail line that travels beside the SkyTrain at ground level. As you can also see there is a car carrier whose driver appears to be unclear on the concept of how gates at railway crossings work. This could have been messy with all that coal.
Unfortunately I could not discretely take the next photo so I had to use the phone camera’s zoom function and accidentally engaged out-of-focus mode. This is a woman standing directly beneath a SMOKING IS PROHIBITED sign outside of Wal-Mart. I say no more.
I couldn’t think of a more poetic headline and besides, those are impossible to deal with when doing a search years later.
Today Steve Jobs died. The Apple site has a simple page to him dedicated here. The statement on it is from current CEO Tim Cook and reads:
Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.
I have a love/hate relationship with Apple. I’ve applied to work for the company. I’ve mocked the iPad for bringing iBooks to Canada with no actual books to purchase. I’ve owned three iPods, two of which sit on the desk where I’m writing this, alongside my iPhone 4. I’ve dismissed the original iMac (the one with the hockey puck mouse). I’ve marveled at the elegant design of the current iMac. But through all of my mockery and admiration I have acknowledged that Apple would not be the company it is today — not even close — without one of the most utterly capable CEOs any tech company has ever seen.
Steve Jobs wasn’t just a visionary — he not only oversaw Apple and the introduction of a slew of incredibly successfully, industry-defining products (iPod, iPhone, iPad, the iTunes music store, the mock turtleneck sweater) but also an entirely different company as well — Pixar. To be so successful with just one company is amazing. To be so successful with two — simultaneously! — is insanely amazing. Unlike a lot of people with vision, Jobs was able to transform his into reality. He was also a terrific speaker and showman. When he reappeared earlier this year to introduce the iPad 2 people ate it up, ignoring how much thinner and frail he looked.
And in the end life was cruel to him. Having survived pancreatic cancer in 2004 and a liver transplant in 2009, he took medical leave in January of this year, resigned as CEO in late August and today, just weeks later, is gone, felled by an illness that money and power cannot ward off. He was only 56.
The world has lost a uniquely talented individual. It will be interesting to see where Apple goes in the years to come with Jobs’ guidance. It would not surprise me if it falters, his imprint was so strong. But it’s also likely he planted the seeds to keep the company strong, knowing his time was coming to an end.
As I said on Quarter to Three’s forum, this makes me sad but it’s not too surprising. They seemed to be drifting since before Bill Berry left the band in 1997.
They did their ‘rock’ album in 1994 with Monster, a deliberate change-up from their previous sound but the follow-up to that album, New Adventures in Hi-Fi felt at times like an awkward blend of the two previous albums, Automatic for the People and Monster, suggesting the band was unable to settle on a direction.
Once Berry left they got more experimental and production-heavy, with dense arrangements that were pretty much the antithesis of their IRS records. There was some good stuff in there but some of it felt labored or worse, was forgetful. The latter albums also felt (to me, anyway) as if an individual band member drove each one — Accelerate was Buck’s album, Around the Sun was Mills’, Up was Stipe’s, there was a sense that the group no longer shared a vision, they just worked agreeably together.
I quite liked Accelerate, their self-described attempt to stay relevant. In all the years since 1986 it’s the album that most recalls my favorite, Lifes Rich Pageant. In retrospect it was a penultimate last hurrah.
Still, 30+ years is a hell of a run.
And I’ll admit, I’d pick up a Mike Mills solo album.
Google+ has some neat ideas and overall I like the look and functionality more than Facebook. As a bonus there are no stupid games to block, at least not yet.
But like most social networking sites I find after setting up an account it quickly goes fallow/gathers cobwebs or whatever metaphor works best for you.
But here it is, my Google+ profile. It is also conveniently linked along with all my other never-used profiles over to the right under My Links.
I did something over the past weekend that I haven’t since I sold my car way back in 1986 — drove over to Vancouver Island. Technically I wasn’t driving, as Jeff did that. We ventured over Saturday morning and returned Sunday afternoon, heading to sunny Duncan via Nanaimo and Departure Bay. Strangely, we picked what was probably the hottest day of the year to visit, noteworthy only in that it has not been hot this year at all.
Once we had arrived in my hometown, I dragged Jeff around various old haunts and took a picture of the giant hockey stick at the Cowichan Community Island Savings Centre. This stick — the world’s largest — came to Duncan after I had moved away. Ironically, I first saw it at Expo 86 after moving to Vancouver and away from Duncan. We noted, with some curiosity, that the big swimming pool/slide area adjacent to the centre was apparently only opened for two hours in the morning on Saturdays. Indeed, an inspection through its darkened windows revealed it was abandoned. Maybe they want people to go muck about in the river or something in the summer.
Giant hockey stick:
Speaking of abandoned, a walk around Cowichan Senior Secondary School proved depressing. Although the small sign out front exhorted everyone to enjoy summer, the school grounds looked not merely empty but desolate. The track had weeds popping up through its surface, the creaking wooden bleachers nearly blasted free of paint, the buildings were faded, paint peeling from their walls. The bus area looked like it had not seen a bus in years; likewise the teacher parking lot. The grassy areas between buildings were unattended and wild, though the fields appeared to have been cut sometime this year. The main photo on the school’s website seems to be from the 1920s* when a horse livery was situated next door. The buildings are actually the same color today. Maybe the school lets things go fallow, so to speak, during the summer months as a cost-saving measure.
This abandoned/depressing theme continued at nearby Kinsmen Park where the monster slide I remembered from my youth had been replaced by a community garden. No kids is going to face the risk of breaking his neck in a community garden. Bah. The jumbo swing set was likewise gone, replaced by a little sissy set in a new kiddie play area. Despite being the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon the park was pretty much empty.
We crossed over behind the community centre to what we thought might be the rumored new high school building. It had a certain scholarly aspect to it and indeed it turned out to be the new Island University campus. Signs on the doors revealed it had a lien on it, so good luck to getting in come September, students!
None of this is to suggest that Duncan itself is deserted. Far from it, the island highway was choked with traffic as usual, the city streets hardly affording a chance to just toodle around without someone tailgating you. We made our way to my mom’s place and I suggested ice cream so we hit the Dairy Queen and it was good.
After a supper at Romeo’s we went for a walk along the river dike with Sophie the wonder dog in tow (you wonder what she finds so fascinating about every blade of grass she stops to sniff).
Here we see mom and Jeff looking over a li’l foot bridge at the many minnows darting about in the water below:
There were a decent number of people frolicking about in the Cowichan River. Some had dammed off a section of it to make a wading pool while others chose to park their chairs square in the middle of it just because.
While at the river I got bitten by something, which has been my unofficial theme for the summer (“I’m delicious, suck my blood!”) and the bite became as itchy and annoying as all the others I’ve dealt with the last few months. Today — four days later — it’s finally pretty much gone. Stupid bugs.
It was still a nice walk and would make a decent place to jog, provided you slathered yourself in bug repellent or ran inside a plastic ball like hamsters do.
We ended the evening with two games of Yahtzee. To my surprise Jeff had never played before. This meant he won both games, of course.
Before leaving the island we got one more gift — a cold. I’m just starting to get over mine now after days of a scratchy throat, sneezing and sundry related cold symptoms. I suspect the ferry was the vector for this. The ferry, or as I call it, that big floaty thing where kids scream for 90 minutes solid.
Anyway, it was a fun little trip, even if the high school looked like it hadn’t been touched since I graduated a hundred years ago.
* slight exaggeration, though if you look carefully, it’s probably safe to peg the photo circa the 1950s
Over on East Columbia Street in New Westminster, the Sapperton Place Cafe offers a menu where ‘All Prices included HST’ (perhaps anticipating the tax’s possible defeat in the recent referendum) that includes a morning snack for a mere $2.50. For that low price you get coffee and your choice of muffin or ‘cheese scorn’, a roll that I suspect is either forged in the fires of Hell, merely disdainful of the cheese it features or perhaps is just generally designed to offer early morning contempt to the world in its own small way. Whichever it is, yum to the delicious cheese scorn!
Last year I vowed not to return to watch the Pride Parade unless I could drag someone along to suffer with me. Who knew I’d find someone? Even better, my partner Jeff is a Pride Parade virgin. After expressing a desire to go I cautioned him that we would need to arrive early in order to find a place to sit, as standing was Very Bad.
We arrived later than planned but did indeed find a spot to sit about three blocks past the start of the parade route. Though it had rained earlier in the morning, by parade start the sky was clearing and it was a perfectly warm 21ºC. The parade began right on time and shortly after it did I came to realize the girls sitting directly in front of us (on the sidewalk curb) were Screamers. They screamed at most everything. They were also Grabbers. Any time a person strode by offering a cheap bead necklace, card, candy or condoms their hands were thrust out and waved around like flags urgently calling for surrender, except in this case they were asking the parade participants to surrender their loot to them. They made off with a pretty good haul.
The BC Liberals were once again absent.
Most of the left-leaning parties were represented, though the Conservatives and NPA also returned. Hedy Fry was again on hand after narrowly winning re-election in May. This time she was dressed merely in a silver sparkly gown, with no hint of power armor or alien headdress.
Spencer Chandra Herbert was again present and was as adorable-looking as ever. Elizabeth May always looks like she’s having the best time ever, kind of like a happy drunk. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is somewhat the same. He wore a snazzy shirt.
Crazy Naked Guy did not return. I wonder if perhaps he is now wandering happy and naked in the Great Beyond now. Or got arrested after last year’s parade.
I had predicted five floats of men in underwear and turned out to be under, as there were at least six — and that was with the Odyssey’s absence this year.
Again, the parade seemed to run out of gas in the last 15 minutes and Nic’s VGVA group was dead last instead of being merely third-from-last like in 2010. Here’s a great close-up of Nic lurching after an errant volleyball. Great except for that fat head in the way, a recurring theme in my photos given where I was sitting.
Despite making no effort to secure any loot myself I still came away with three items: a leaflet from the BC Civil Liberties Association (actually three of them — do I give off a civil liberties vibe or something?), a leaflet for a play called Bare: A Pop Opera (“He’s wearing glasses, I bet he goes to the theater!”) and finally a big blueberry gumball which I did not technically receive, as it bounced off my shoulder and landed in front of me. Jeff took it to help fight his morning mouth.
I will say this — having someone along, especially your partner — makes for a much better experience. I also greatly preferred a sore butt after sitting on concrete for nearly three hours vs. the sore back from years past. I still say they could knock a good 15 minutes off the parade and not lose much.
With summer making a half-hearted appearance this year the opening night of the Celebration of Light fireworks was looking like it might be a little damp, with a few errant drops of rain falling shortly before the show was to begin at 10 p.m. Fortunately the deluge never arrived and we were able to watch China’s entry without getting soggy.
We assembled just south of the Innukshuk while it was still light, setting up on one section of the recently restored seawall. Apart from a smoker who occasionally lit up with one of his Designed-To-Find-And-Taunt-Non-Smokers cigarettes the crowd was well-behaved, even enthusiastic. As the intermittent rain fell I opted to leave Nic and his friends briefly to meet up with Jeff who was en-route, as he was bringing my kangaroo jacket (no, it’s not a hoodie, dammit). I walked along English Bay beach and the foot traffic grew more congested until it became something akin to that molasses in January thing. At the same time a stunt pilot was conducting silly and daring tricks over the bay and I, having the kind of mind I do, thought about how one of his tricks would tragically backfire and he’d come straight into the crowd I was trapped in the middle of.
That did not happen.
Instead, we watched a spectacular and dazzling Chinese show. Knock them for that whole communism/lead-in-everything stuff but darned if they don’t know how to put on an impressive fireworks display. The crowd left thoroughly sated.
Perhaps even more impressively, Jeff and I walked to the Waterfront SkyTrain station and still managed to get home before midnight, earlier than I had managed last year — and I was traveling within Vancouver that time, not out to the ‘burbs. Our SkyTrain trip was made further delightful by a foursome of Surrey youth who fit the stereotype to the letter. I mean, we are talking straight out of Casting 101 here. I say no more.
