Vancouver, Day 3
Oct. 25th, 2011 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leahbobetLots of kind of half-assed planning today, and not a lot of follow-through.
Met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
subject_zero as advertised, and decided we'd try for the Museum of Anthropology: one of the backpackers I was drinking with last night said it was really very good, and I hadn't been out by UBC just yet. So we walked to the stop for the right bus, only to have the bus pass us right by, and Danny said, "Hey, is it even open today?" So I made sure. And no, it was not. Dammit, Vancouver: I like culture on Mondays too.
Cast about for a few more ideas, and ended up at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which we knew was nearby because Occupy Vancouver is right in front of it. The first two floors are closed -- they're putting in a new exhibition -- but the third and fourth were open, and they weren't bad exhibitions: on the third, a history of the collection itself, complete with copies from their files about restoration, and the founding of the museum, and various pieces they'd acquired on subscription. The one about Emily Carr and their restoration drive for her stuff was especially good, as were the 1910s newspaper clippings, mostly due to awesome 1910 typography. On the fourth was a three-artist video installation exhibit: one from Vancouver, one from LA, one from Guadalajara. The last two were really quite good, and video's not exactly my thing.
Best thing in the gallery today: probably a full-room installation of a cityscape made of coloured plastic, with projectors running images of cityscapes through them and onto the white walls. It was something about the way the light broke and twisted through them, and the feeling of being inside and outside the piece all at once: it reminded me of the best thing we saw at Nuit Blanche this year, in the Gladstone, with the screens full of shots of crows. We do not necessarily know art very well here, but we know what we like.
Ironically, though, it was pretty hard to get a washroom in the gallery. There was one right in front, and the security guard manifestly would not let me use it even though I was right there about to get an admission. Third floor or nothing. This is deeply ironical in a city where there are actually clean, free, accessible public washrooms in parks in the poor part of town. Income disparity strikes again.
After being cultured and so on, ran a few errands: picked up some US cash for Seattle tomorrow, grabbed a coffee on Georgia Street (thus completing our survey of the major Vancouver coffee chains visible: Blenz, Waves, and Trees), and walked through one of the downtown malls, where I failed to get a refill of face powder and Danny ogled iPads, and we concluded that malls are fundamentally the same the world over and mostly suck pretty hard. And then we meandered back to Granville for dinner at a big and trendy-looking sushi place that was nonetheless pretty much empty, and ate all the sushi in the world. The value of all-you-can-eat is apparently lots. We've been walking all day for three days. I think we needed the protein.
Our conviction that Vancouver is frozen in musical 1998 continues. Music played at the sushi place included Sloan's "The Good in Everyone" and the Refreshments' "Banditos".
Back at the hostel now, camped out in my first-floor armchair (informally dubbed the Quiet Room, it being quieter than the common room) to answer e-mail, figure out the distances and ways and means between me and the bus station, the Seattle bus station andjonofthewired's place, all that and the airport for Thursday, and just generally be central in case anyone from the little posse we had going last night is heading down to the bar. Although given how sleepy I am at this point, I may just call it an early night. There is a reasonable amount of travel happening tomorrow.
Next update from Seattle!
Met up with
subject_zero as advertised, and decided we'd try for the Museum of Anthropology: one of the backpackers I was drinking with last night said it was really very good, and I hadn't been out by UBC just yet. So we walked to the stop for the right bus, only to have the bus pass us right by, and Danny said, "Hey, is it even open today?" So I made sure. And no, it was not. Dammit, Vancouver: I like culture on Mondays too.Cast about for a few more ideas, and ended up at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which we knew was nearby because Occupy Vancouver is right in front of it. The first two floors are closed -- they're putting in a new exhibition -- but the third and fourth were open, and they weren't bad exhibitions: on the third, a history of the collection itself, complete with copies from their files about restoration, and the founding of the museum, and various pieces they'd acquired on subscription. The one about Emily Carr and their restoration drive for her stuff was especially good, as were the 1910s newspaper clippings, mostly due to awesome 1910 typography. On the fourth was a three-artist video installation exhibit: one from Vancouver, one from LA, one from Guadalajara. The last two were really quite good, and video's not exactly my thing.
Best thing in the gallery today: probably a full-room installation of a cityscape made of coloured plastic, with projectors running images of cityscapes through them and onto the white walls. It was something about the way the light broke and twisted through them, and the feeling of being inside and outside the piece all at once: it reminded me of the best thing we saw at Nuit Blanche this year, in the Gladstone, with the screens full of shots of crows. We do not necessarily know art very well here, but we know what we like.
Ironically, though, it was pretty hard to get a washroom in the gallery. There was one right in front, and the security guard manifestly would not let me use it even though I was right there about to get an admission. Third floor or nothing. This is deeply ironical in a city where there are actually clean, free, accessible public washrooms in parks in the poor part of town. Income disparity strikes again.
After being cultured and so on, ran a few errands: picked up some US cash for Seattle tomorrow, grabbed a coffee on Georgia Street (thus completing our survey of the major Vancouver coffee chains visible: Blenz, Waves, and Trees), and walked through one of the downtown malls, where I failed to get a refill of face powder and Danny ogled iPads, and we concluded that malls are fundamentally the same the world over and mostly suck pretty hard. And then we meandered back to Granville for dinner at a big and trendy-looking sushi place that was nonetheless pretty much empty, and ate all the sushi in the world. The value of all-you-can-eat is apparently lots. We've been walking all day for three days. I think we needed the protein.
Our conviction that Vancouver is frozen in musical 1998 continues. Music played at the sushi place included Sloan's "The Good in Everyone" and the Refreshments' "Banditos".
Back at the hostel now, camped out in my first-floor armchair (informally dubbed the Quiet Room, it being quieter than the common room) to answer e-mail, figure out the distances and ways and means between me and the bus station, the Seattle bus station and
jonofthewired's place, all that and the airport for Thursday, and just generally be central in case anyone from the little posse we had going last night is heading down to the bar. Although given how sleepy I am at this point, I may just call it an early night. There is a reasonable amount of travel happening tomorrow.Next update from Seattle!
