Up in Ontario

Funky Vancouver Office Space for Rent

Anyone looking for an office?

Funky self-contained office in shared space (Downtown Vancouver)

23 W. Pender at Carrall

Available July 1 or right away: $450 includes rent and utilities, possibly wireless Internet.

Funky self-contained 300-sq-foot office within shared space (your door can be firmly closed). The office is very bright with high ceiling, cool view, suitable for up to two workstations, with extra hall/room for utility, desks or lounge. A calm, creative environment. Not suitable for very loud or messy activities (e.g. metal bands or abstract expressionists). 

The office is within 1000-sq-foot space shared by graphic designer/event promoter, fashion designer, publisher and two writers. Includes lounge area, spring water, microwave and fridge. On 3rd floor of very secure and well-maintained heritage building (the BC Electric Building). Building has cleaning, gym, secure bike parking room, and an excellent coffee shop. 

If you're interested, send me an email and I'll put you in touch with the powers that be.

70 Years of Penguin Design

When the Duck and I were in London last fall we made a point of visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum on the recommendation of a friend and to see the 70 Years of Penguin Design exhibition. The museum didn't disappoint at all. It overwhelmed us.

The most impressive part I remember was seeing relatively recent objects considered as artifacts - telephones, toys, brooms, vacuums and radios all got play as collectable items. I loved this inclusive approach. It made the museum come alive and, at the same time, added weight and consideration to the objects of the contemporary world.

But. For me, the Penguin exhibition disappointed. I liked the see the evolution of the penguin mascot, and the development of titles' designs through iterations, and the various covers for the same print, reinterpreted year after year by new designers for changing times. But overall: not so worth going for. I'm glad the rest of the museum was so impressive.

But again. In photos, things can be so much more impressive. When I came across this collection of photos of 70 years of Penguin designs I wondered to myself if I'd given the exhibition short shift. The photos make it look better than it was. So enjoy the photos.

Your Photos on Jones Soda

Jones Soda, the soft drink company that started here in Vangroovy and makes some wonderful old-fashioned cream soda, offers anyone the chance to get their photos on the label of a bottle of Jones Soda.

The price: $34.95 + shipping. Ouch. Those 12 bottles of pop will hurt the pocketbook, each one worth more than $3.

Any takers?

Continuing to Thwart Telemarketers

In this blog's ongoing attempts to make your life better by thwarting the efforts of telemarketeers, I present the Get Human Database, a collective effort to bypass the auto-voice systems of banks, telcos and government agencies to talk to a real breather.

If you have a shortcut through the purgatory of the phone tree, please, by all means, contribute it to the masses. We have only our shackles to throw off.

An Experiment in Hand-Selling Books

Henry Alford writes a funny and interesting article in the NYTimes about his experiment selling books on the sidewalk. He collected a few titles from his own library and his friends and set up a table.

Through the course of his experiment he developed a few tactics to sell the books. Each book needed a hook, or 'talking point,' as Alford calls it. He needed to adapt his pitch to his audience. His display of the books mattered in how they were perceived. The books he presented to buyers had to match the interest and mood of the buyer.

Basically, the experiment provided a cool, whimsical snapshot of the bookselling business in action at the most-basic grassroots level. Fun ensues.

How to Sell Books by Really Trying.

Freakonomics of Monopoly, the game

Truman Collins has written a ridiculously comprehensive guide to the probabilities of various tactics in the game Monopoly. Breakdowns of the likelihood of each square to be landed upon, return on investment or different properties and building strategies, this has got it all.

In practice, for me it's all just geek gratification. I like to play Monopoly, but only until that boring state is reached when someone has built up a property or series of properties and turns start to take forever because so much money changes hands. Consequently, I lose interest in the game before anyone actually wins. Before that point, in the buy-everything stage, I like it, particularly because there are so few rules about swapping properties and dealmaking. You can propose anything and see if someone will go for it.

Oh, and the best property to buy in the game? Illinois Avenue.

Update: One night after writing this post we were out for Blizzards at the local DQ. Hey, summer seemed to have arrived. I mentioned the post to Travis and he mentioned a full book of Monopoly strategies he had once read. Later he emailed me a link to the book: Winning Monopoly: A Complete Guide to Property Accumulation, Cash Flow Strategy, and Negotiating Techniques When Playing the Best-Selling Board Game

Nathan Sellyn Guest Blogs for Raincoast

Newly minted author Nathan Sellyn will be guest blogging on the Raincoast blog from May 22 to 26. Sellyn's debut collection of short stories, Indigenous Beasts has been well-reviewed and excerpted in Toro Magazine.

Raincoast has also done a very cool thing and created two podcasts to promote Indigenous Beasts, as well as PDF sampler, all available on the Raincoast website. If you're interested in Canadian fiction not written for your mother, check it out.

Canadian Design Resource - Official Gallery

Just discovered the Canadian Design Resource - Official Gallery today from a link off the CBC Radio 3 blog. It strikes me that this is almost the same as Douglas Coupland's Souvenir of Canada and Souvenir of Canada 2 books but better. What those books could have been like without the pretentious kitch-art photography that seems interesting at first blush but then offers no meaning or narritive for the objects depicted, leaving me always asking, so that's it?

In contrast the Canadian Design Resource catalogues objects from our national past and provides short anecdotes of context. Thus we get:

The Crazy carpet, now termed a “Wacky carpet” is manufactured and designed by the toy manufacturer H2O Recreations Inc. in Chomedey Quebec.

An inherent part of growing up in Canada the Wacky carpet has stood the test of time spanning generations of Canadians. The no frills design of the Wacky carpet is all part of it’s charm. A slick surface with handles pretty much sums it up. It’s lack of comfort and control are made up for in it’s unpredictability and shear speed which makes for a wild ride down the local toboggan hill.

Usually found tucked away in the clutter of Canadian garages and basements or left abandoned in the back yard the Wacky carpet would fit in well among the sleek, minimal designs of contemporary interiors, furniture and architecture.

Not recommended for those with sensitive arses.

Volkswagon Passat: Hacking Advertising

Just saw a new ad for the Volkswagon Passat and almost fell off my chair. Audacious, brilliant and wonderful. They've hacked advertising from the inside out. It's ripe for the picking.

Too bad for all that 'people's automobile' Nazi history. But hey, reality is complex.

(Cross posted from the new AdHack blog.)

Inconsequences of my Actions

Oh, it only hurts because it's true and everyone is afraid to admit it: I'm Doing My Inconsequential Part For The Environment. But in the end we'll all be dead and the messes we've created will be problems for other people. We're all downhill from someone.

From those geniuses at The Onion.

Ringxiety, Life With My New Cell Phone

To report back to you, dear readers, on my continuing quest for telecommunications sanity, I have news! I have taken the plunge and signed up, hook, line and sinker, for a celly. I was done shopping, found a reasonable compromise, an excellent sales person, and did the deal.

Now I have a sleek Motorola RAZR v3 to trundle around in my pocket. It synchronizes with the address book on my computers and holds a charge longer than I have been able to exhaust it. I refuse to read the product manual and consider my ineptness with the device part of a social experiment.

Carrier? In the end Telus, the great inheritor of our local telecommunications-privatization largesse (we remember that right? That all these telco monopolies not 15 years ago were inflexible, bureaucratic public utilities? That we all owned them at one point?) also became the inheritor of my largesse, a prize extracted from me largely due to my consumer fatigue. I broke down. I was done. I couldn't be bothered to spend any more time considering the decision when there was no decision to be made. It was a case of the best worst case, the strongest of a bad lot, and I just wanted it to be over. I have only a little shame in reporting that the bastards did finally grind me down.

So far I received 43 calls on my spanking new celly, and I have yet to develop Ringxiety.

Once More, With Feeling

For over a year now the phrase 'once more, with feeling' has been niggling around in my brain, bothering me. It's a phrase used all over the place to evoke a sense of retrial, but with a further commitment this time. Headline writers love it like a familiar crutch to see them past their intellectual limps. But what, dear Jove, is its origin? Where did it come from?

I've queried Google without success. Nothing but references to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (who named an episode 'Once More With Feeling'), an article about What Makes People Gay? and various headlines around the world, including one in Australia with the snippet 'Fornicating with Mr. Darcy'.

So now I appeal to you, dear readers out there in the bittysphere. Anyone got anything?

As a reward, check out the sweet music of Joshua Radin. It's like good red wine for your ears.

How 5 Men Set the World Price of Gold

Yesterday, in the print edition of the Globe and Mail I read this great article by Doug Saunders: How London's mysterious golden boys get their Fix.

If you walked through the London trading floor of Bank of Nova Scotia's ScotiaMocatta division yesterday at exactly 3:00 p.m. and walked into a small conference room at the side, you would have witnessed an ancient ritual that sounded more like some rite of Freemasonry than anything having to do with modern markets.

Simon Weeks, the head of the Canadian-owned gold-trading operation, is the chairman of the mysterious cabal known as the Fixing, and he convenes the conference call every day for the Afternoon Fix.

He opens a leather-bound blotter and starts scribbling. Over a speakerphone, in quiet, clear voices, five men start speaking in tongues: "Good afternoon, gentlemen, we'll start the Fix at 673 and a quarter.

Ridiculously Thorough Guides: Knife Sharpening and Pizza

Travis posted today about a ridiculously thorough guide to knife sharpening, that goes into way too much detail for me but does provide a few good tips, particularly a technique for using a steel upside down.

In that vein and since it's a Friday, how about Billy Reisinger's ridiculously thorough guide to making your own pizza. It's subtitled 'a guide for the pizza amateur,' but really, who out there, apart from those kids raised in religion-based towns or hudderite communes, is a pizza amateur? I mean, c'mon, pizza is the common food currency of coming of age, of loosely organized get togethers and of work lunches. It's the microsoft of sustenance - poorly appreciated yet ubiquitous.

Win a One-Year Subscription to the London Review of Books

Gail of Open Brackets is running a contest to give away a one-year subscription to the London Review of Books. To enter, submit a fictional personal ad of 'unsettling' quality, in line with those found in the personal ads in the classifieds of the LRB.

Gail cites some tame examples to set your thinker in motion:

Girtonian nymphomniac seeks monogamous relationship with man in suit (expensive cotton shirt helpful), ready to be dishevelled. Literate, elegant male 55-65? Box no. 08/01

I’d like to dedicate this advert to my mother (difficult cow, 65) who is responsible for me still being single at 36. Man. 36. Single. Held at home by years of subtle emotional abuse and at least 19 fake heart-attacks. Box no. 09/08

A list of what I’m looking for in a man is displayed on the door of my fridge. You’ll never see it, however, because I locked myself out of my flat at the weekend and will probably have to rent somewhere else for a while. Menopausal woman, 52. Sent my HRT off to Truprint back in January and now spend most evenings staring in despair at seven rolls of unprocessed Christmas film with no hormonal benefits whatsoever. Box no. 09/11

I spent an entire day in the British Library sourcing obscure reference material to cite in this ad, then I lost it all when I stopped off at Burger King on the way home. Man, 34. Box no. 09/12

Please, also post your entries in the comments.

Rocking for Breast Cancer: PB and the Knives

A kick-axe rock show that's all about benefits to breasts? Look no further, you've found it.

My friend Emily writes:

Hi All, Anita has a team (Team LiveSTRONG) in the weekend to end breast cancer this August and she is holding a fundraiser party to help raise the necessary funds for her team. I've been helping her a bit with the organizing and it's shaping up to be a fun night! Here are the deets:

WHEN: Friday, June 2nd (doors @ 8pm)
WHERE: Croatian Cultural Centre - 3250 Commercial Dr.
WHAT: Patrick Brealey and The Knives will be playing
HOW: Tickets $20.00

I have a stack of tickets so just let me know if you can make it and I"ll get the tickets to you (and even if you can't make it your $20 will go towards a worthy cause). We are hoping to sell as many tickets as possible in advance so just let me know and I'll get the tickets to you.

Thanks,
Em

Since I don't think Emily wants me handing out here email address to the hordes of the Intermaweb, how about contacting me, James Sherrett, if you need more details or if you're interested in tickets. Do it for the breasts.

Right, rock on then.

How to Believe in God

Douglas Rushkoff, a smart cookie and really interesting author, posts on his blog: Faith = Illness: Why I've had it with religious tolerance.

The post is very interesting and I recommend reading it, regardless of your religious beliefs. It's argument is topical and timely beyond the scope of religion in any region, or any religion, period. It gets to the heart of what makes us human in a civilization.

Now, I don't want to discuss the merits of religion and belief on this blog, because I don't think it's a great forum and the risk of misunderstanding are too high. But if you see me in person, please, let's talk about it. I love this kind of thing.

Cherry Blossoms Blown Away

Every spring here in Vancouver we get a gusty day that blows all the cherry blossoms off the trees and papers the streets, sidewalks and boulevards with their tiny pink petals. Yesterday was the day for this year.

I tried to capture a few of the more interesting collections I came across, and these cherry blossom photos are the result.

And, if you're interested, a little poetry to go with the photos...

At rest in a coffee shop
on the day the cherry blossoms
fell from the cherry trees.

Through the air they floated,
across the roads, swirling in between building.
Pink petals covered roads and sidewalks,
made lawns appear
as if weddings waited to be performed.

A beachball rolled across the street,
wedged itself between the curb
and the back bumper of a parked BMW.
The BMW driver kicked the beachball
out into the street again
where a press of air from a bus
lifted the spinning ball into the air,
across the street
bouncing in front of an organic produce stand.

And everywhere,
cherry blossoms tumbled like torn tissues.

Out on English Bay
wind rolled the water
until whitecaps popped up over the surface.
Dark clouds formed
over the mountains
to the north
dropped shadows over the big houses
clustered on the slopes

An eagle fidgets in the high wind
above the roadways
and buses, heading west, out to the ocean
where the fish swirl
their silver bodies
in the froth
of the whitecaps.

A parking meter is about
to run out.

Babies: the new black.
Pregnant mothers
their athletic gear
come and go,
talking michealangelo,
of strollers and doctors appointments.
Strollers roll past with
their bundles insulated
apprehension and wonder.

A tornado of cherry blossoms
flushes past,
the tiny flakes making visible
the rising motion we cannot see.