Posts Tagged ‘Vancouver’

A Somber Month, This Month of April

Saturday, May 8th, 2010

April was pretty nostalgia-laden, remembering friends and family who have passed away and mourning a friend we lost way too soon, over an April weekend… (and in turn reminding me of others, loved and missed)

Devon was a drummer in indie band You Say Party We Say Die, all friends that grew up in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Devon lived life to the hilt, he would keep you up until all hours whether you liked it or not, and you’d have a good time (so long as you didn’t close your eyes).

When I was a freshman student at the University of the Fraser Valley we were room-mates. Devon gave me a gig once drawing a graphic for one of his bands, a band called Blue Collar Bullets. He always did what he loved, and anything he had going on on the side was really geared towards making it easier for him to do more of what he loved, which was making music with his friends.

Take it as a not so subtle hint that,  death does come ripping.. So tell people you love them if it hasn’t been said, talk to your family and keep your friends close. And do what you love, or learn to love what your doing. It can all change in a second, in all its horrible beauty.

Devon at the Marshall house, somewhere in the late nineties...

Devon at the Marshall house, somewhere in the late nineties...

Some Links…

  • Devon Clifford’s Obituary, a great tribute - Apr 19, 2010 Vancouver Sun
  • Also lost in the month of April, legendary MC GURU from GangStarr, one of a handful of the reasons I found to love hip-hop music… Keith GURU Elam R.I.P. –  New York Time Obit.
  • And if you can, please take a moment to donate to the American Cancer Society – In Loving Memory of Kathy Gwen Hahn

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Welcome Back, Welcome Back…

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

The trip to Vancouver was a mixed bag, mostly a success, but hard work. Vancouver has not gotten any cheaper, in fact it’s generally more expensive, especially in terms of transportation… Skytrain is a whopping $2.75 per zone (of which there are four, more or less) and add five dollars if you need to get to Vancouver International Airport.

Is it useful? Absolutely, just about everything you might need to get to in Vancouver is accessible by Skytrain or Bus. Lets just say I probably spent in the area of ninety dollars in three weeks on transit alone, and that’s with a lot of casual forgetfulness thrown in to soften the expense.

Random Self Portrait, Vancouver Art Gallery. © 2010 Peter Demaria

The city looked pretty as ever.. Olympic-ness as far as the eye could see, and characteristically bustling with metropolitan activity, most of it reserved and polite. I was considering a relocation on this trip, and visited upwards of sixty different Design-related business over a two day period. Almost all of them were in stages of post-Olympic-business shock or at a near standstill and praying for signs of economic life. If someone is reaping the boon of Olympic spending, it’s not your average boutique design firm.

Granville Street, Vancouver BC. © 2010 Peter Demaria

One thing I loved about the Vancouver Olympics was the level of support for local artistry and culture. There were tonnes of art installations, and the Native component of BC’s cultural landscape was pretty well represented, even in the official merch’ offerings. There was plenty of discontent around, but many of the admittedly disgruntled were proud of how Canada was getting behind the Olympics.

For all its issues, if you can afford to live there, Vancouver is probably one of the prettiest, safest and friendliest cities in the world!

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