MY PLACE, MY TIME: VANCOUVER 2011

stranger than fiction: you can't make this stuff up. who could have predicted that seattle, unbidden, would have shown up to the cascadia future planning conference, no less welcome for its unexpectedness, but not unexpectedly disappointing for its failure to contribute anything productive to the conversation. leo chow's father just died. the least you could do for the proprietor of the oldest ironic (not to mention iconic) no nonsense bar in british columbia is agree to the push-up contest. you want to compare literature? that's my other show. (and it's on right after this one.)

none of solder and sons, albion or criterion books had a copy of death in spring. nor did they have used copies of europeana or the tracey fragments (and you know that we would have found ms. medved to get a signature if we'd have found that book). criterion is awfully organized and the plays section is small. i was happy to sift through the fiction piles on the floor that more or less corresponded alphabetically to the books on the shelves behind them, but i couldn't stand the scoffing that i got when i asked if the unsearchable section of plays had any sarah kane. he asked if he could help! macleod's didn't have any of the titles i was searching for either, but it is where kate beckinsale shops.

we would have had time to go to spartacus books on e hastings, vancouver's stylier answer to the black rose collective here in portland, had it not been for horseshoe bay -- but how couldn't i show caroline "where mountains touches the sea." that's vancouver. and despite the tendency of the commission to raise the bar at the bar on its nights out, standards are standards, and there's a reason we're here.

that reason, it happened again tonight. those gastropubs on water and alexander aren't half bad. they're wonderfully charming, in fact. i meant to give all the details, but tonight gave itself over to portland's corresponding responsibilities. i'm groaning as i check the clock. thank you, vancouver, for reinvigorating our faith that the real world can be just as tantalizingly distracting as the digital one.

compete? maybe. but do what you can to show your best. that's a weekend at the jewel of the west coast.

the old atsui gallery (i was never able to find it open) has been renamed fukai. heat or depth? which should we prefer? foster? that was a central focus of the accords, and i suppose i can delay narrating the specifics until their resolution.