time to change this line i think

NO MORE, not for holidays, not for Rubber Stamps

danp — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:56:18 +0000

The first sign was that he had not made a rubber stamp this time. He had always made a rubber stamp when he moved. There was something about the act of committing the new address to molded rubber. Something about the pushing of that new molded rubber into the old ink pad and stamping it down onto the physical envelopes that said

“This Is Where I Live Now”.

But that need seemed to have passed.

He was not going to analyze it any more than that.

That part of doing those things was over now.

The fun and enjoyment of finding and fixing

up the ‘right’ image of head and face, and then later of their faces together,

did not assert itself to be done.

He tried to think of it as a stage of growth, though what he was growing into or away from he really did not know. It seemed that after all this time he should have some sense of this, but no. Life restarted each morning independent of the past. Life pushed him up and out with no regard for what he had thought should be important. No consideration of what he felt or had been feeling, Life proved to be unpredictable.

Holidays, for instance, used to be anchor points in a year. Although commercially motivated now, it had always been thus. Holidays that had begun for agricultural or religious or procreationally purposeful reasons had settled, formalized, and stratified into specific booking periods within each year, and he had come to rely on them for a rythym of sorts.

That too seemed to be passing, or at least changing enough that he could no longer count on any sense of comfortable familiarity throughout the year. The cultural shifts away from the Average White Old Guy society had also brought new and festive events into the stream to fragment and sparkle the passage of time across the months. And when it came to the end of the still somewhat conventional calendar year, the flashing facets of changing newness amidst the competing holidays of all the faiths and ethnic groups did impart both a new excitement and a growing bewilderment of confusion.

Maybe because of this he saw many pulling back, opting out, stopping certain things. Many friends and acquaintances had long since ceased sending physical cards at the holiday time.

Not that the seasonal greetings no longer came in, they always did, lots of them

. . . but almost all were digital now.

Heading into this new decade was to be the end of rubber stamps for return address envelopes and the end of sending physical Holiday Season’s Greetings cards. He was sad to see these go.

Almost as sad as he was at seeing his old big wooden art-table go. The need for these things had gone. The need for them to be gone increased.

He had a couple of the last of last year’s Greeting cards left, but he would send those out to his two sons in their far-flung addresses along with the requisite number of old family photo albums. The photo albums were no longer needed either. In fact, the return of the photo albums were the last condition of the divorce that was slightly older than his now used car.

He lifted his head, straightened up his jaw and chin, stiffened his upper lip, and moved forward.

He said to himself and the air in general, ” I need to change the “he” in that old !@#$% AWOG book-to-be. . . The “he” is now ”JACKSON KELLEY.”

And so the writing of the book was reborn to tell the story of the death of Jackson Kelley,

average white old gentleman.

“Kelley turned on his heel, the way he had been taught in basic training 4 decades ago,

and said goodbye, for now . . . “

( end )

dream laughter question

danp — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:21:43 +0000

cfb

danp — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:44:10 +0000

cfb

Long Cool @ 70 MILL

danp — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:25:58 +0000

Determined Little Beauty In The Long Cool Love Cave @ 70 MILL St.

He looked at her silhouette against the bright window at the far end of the place.

The lovely smiling curves of her small body surrounded by the glowing brightness

of the windows to Toronto at the other long end of their most recent home.

Earlier, there might have been a very selfish thing taking place as he drove home.

Before, when he was driving the long way home from his new work in the old car

he had heard that one line from the Talking Book CD by DeLillo

called COSMOPOLIS that said :

“When he died he would not end, the world would.”

He could not help but smile.

This was a time of enjoyment at being alive.

This was a time of not being dead and gone.

It was all of the wonderful things that found him each new morning.

It was the look of it all when you opened the door to their new home.

When you opened their door on the 9th floor, after you had entered the turn-of-the-last-century 1999 first floor that had been mixed with and butted up to the heavy solid rack-house brickwork from the 1800’s century before that, with all of that sitting on the small street across from the main Distillery complex of Victorian Industrial buildings of stone and brick with painted British wooden trim and windows, it was the look of the place.

The small street had a combination name that also made him smile at its obsolescence.

70 MILL Street . . . it reminded him every day of the now rapidly disappearing movie format of 70 millimeter film that movies had been made with for so long. Now, in this digital age, they lived with one foot in this future-present and the other in their 1800’s of worn brick and metal and stone. It felt just right.

After passing the small trees and gardens at the street level entrance, tended to by the earliest residents of the building, and after riding the small elevator up to their 9th floor in the not-too-big building, and walking down the short and modest hall to their door, it was the look of it when you opened the door to their new home that pleased them both so much. The look of it that drew them in, toward the light at the far end of the place.

She in this place was the same determined little beauty that he had met back in ‘04.

Her progressive motion, cloaked in style, had pleasantly packaged up her inner driving creativity.

All of this flowered forward throughout their new living space.

Her dark eyes flashed bright and her smile gleamed wide as her strokes and motions took form in the shapes and placement of everything. The stretch of organic and curves on the right side ( that somehow became his area ) meshed and locked with the left side of her compartments and open spaces. Both the left and the right sides married in the middle-flow of what now struck him as the Long Cool Love Cave. It was long and cool in the hot summer when they had moved in. When you opened the door from the hall your eyes were pulled through and past the long dramatically lit central space and right out the bright windows to the northern view of Toronto with tree tops poked through with old and new buildings sticking up and through and beyond the leaves, right up into the big bright northern sky.

She could be herself here, and all the constantly occurring ideas with their transitory experimental juxtapositions could all play out in this new long space.

When visitors came to call and asked whose ideas these where in this new place he pointed his right arm and hand directly at her as they both smiled.

He had never really just given in when living in a space, particularily one that was most obviously now HOME. But she was better than him at seeing and playing and doing this.

She created a new space for the both of them to truly settle down into.

And as things moved about, as certain new or old objects left the space they were in yesterday and ended up resting somewhere else today, it never bothered him because they always looked better and somehow supported the feeling she was giving birth to in this place as the jazz music played through the digital air.

This new sense of HOME in this place had fanned out to the city of Toronto itself.

He no longer asked her which way to turn, or where certain streets or addresses were.

Something in his mind clicked, then slapped down into a new clean functionality.

He knew where he was in this city. Everywhere in the *whole* city. This was new. He really had not learned the lay of the land anywhere since he had lived in Vancouver 40 years ago. Now it seemed as though he had just been drifting, at varying rates of speed, for about four decades. He now knew the North, South, and East and West of it all. And he liked going HOME here from any of these four directions. He knew things had changed and he wondered ( but not too much ) about what would happen next. He would just take it the way it came. And he somehow knew that “When he died he would not end, the world would.”

He was enjoying being alive.

He was glad that he was not yet dead and gone.

It was all of the wonderful things that found him each new morning.

It was the look of it all when you opened the door to their new home.

(end)

LABOUR DAY and some reasons WHY

danp — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:11:16 +0000

Yes, just what was it that did happen way back there, way back then . . .

AND WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW ——————- RIGHT HERE ——————— IN CANADA

This blog was supposed to come out in May on MAY DAY 2009, but I delayed. Life itself had become too frantic and busy in the Spring and Summer, but now at the end of Summer and beginning of Fall of 2009, it seems that I feel more like sending this out.

A while ago, and perhaps even now, there had been some speculation about why I left LAIKA, why I was laid off.

On that uncomfortable day last Christmas I was told “ There is no work for you to do “.

In the strictest sense, this was true. The people actually responsible (for getting new movies through and out of DEVELOPMENT, so that those of us in PRODUCTION could actually *make* the next movies) had not satisfactorily completed their work and so ….. there really was no PRODUCTION work to be done …… probably for the next 12 to 18 months or so at that point in time ….. somewhere around the end of 2009 or even the middle of 2010.

This blog might help to cast some light on at least *my* 2008 layoff situation. Although there really was other work for me to do there, the proverbial “POWERS-THAT-BE” ( not a bunch of Powers really … only one “Decider” with some advisors really ) deigned that the work should be done by someone other than me. This Decider did not have the character nor guts to talk with me himself, and in fact on the same day I was laid off, when I saw him emerging from the office of my boss the CEO, he turned his face down to the floor and away from me to avoid looking at me ….. though we were only about 15 feet apart in an empty hallway. But I knew all this was coming. I had sensed it almost a year earlier and had been very frustrated for that entire year. The following is an excerpt from a phone call exchange with a truly objective outside party, made just after the LAYOFFS in 2008.

After some discussion about why all of this happened, both to the 300+ production people in general, and to me in particular . . . . I ended up saying something like :

“Well, thanks for the call . . . and I do agree with your more objective critique.”

“In fact, I know that if I had revolted against my boss and allied myself with aggressive people to go to the owner behind my boss’ back, I would have succeeded in staying at the studio and working at LAIKA. ( I probably could have even been promoted )”

“ I knew that well over a year ago

( when my boss specifically asked me to step back a bit from the first LAIKA movie )

( when my boss specifically did not want me to help in DEVELOPMENT, told me ‘no, just let them do it’ )

and when I chose not to step over my boss to the owner of the company,

as others had done … successfully.”

“I just don’t work like that . . . not because I can’t, but because I choose not to.”

“I would make that same decision again today,

so I am at peace with “the situation” at LAIKA.”

( easier to be at peace when you are out of it )

I went on to explain to the caller “I ran into this same LA-style corporate-aggressive-rule-the-roost climate in DISNEY years ago, and it was one of the reasons for me deciding to leave DISNEY after working on many good movies there. But, thanks again for your call because I admire and respect your work and your integrity.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

That was the gist of the phone call conversation way back in December of last year, just after the layoffs when I was trying to make sense of what had just happened there in Portland, Oregon.

If I had acted much earlier, and had aggressively TAKEN OVER the Development-Into-Production process ( rather than politely-respectfully trying to influence it with Plain Old Common Sense ), or maybe even gone around my boss very early on in the making of the first LAIKA movie when we *all* KNEW the work was growing in scope, size, and complexity ….. maybe things would have been different ….. but after telling my boss about growing concerns every week, I was told to let it continue, and then eventually to back away from it ( and that first movie grew from 80 budgeted minutes to 100+ unanticipated expensive minutes that fortunately eventually found a large enough paying audience . . . so none of the practicalities ended up mattering at all . . . such is show-biz ).

Although I had attempted to influence the work needing to be done, both in the making of the first movie and in the development area of the next movies ( that really should have been ready for production after two and a half long years in Development ), my boss directly asked me to step back from both areas ….. and I respected and followed my boss’ request. After all, my boss had given me good raises over the three years, as well as MERIT INCREASES based on my truly productive performance in the new LAIKA company.

But, even if I had approached it all differently, it would not have been neat and tidy.

It would have been messy. The lack of clarity about who was actually responsible and in charge of the movie-making side of LAIKA caused many of us great difficulties. Several left voluntarily even before the layoff. When a post-mortem interviewing was done on the making of the first movie the pattern of feedback and answers was obvious and consistent.

Until all of that is dealt with…. ( and perhaps it HAS all been dealt with by now ? ) …. the bad operational history will just repeat itself at LAIKA.

Further adding to my long period of frustration was the official response I received when trying to correct specific management problems …… during attempts to identify, quantify, and simplify production problems within the very first movie, I was sneeringly told at that time by the naïve and mostly invisible Leader that :

“we do not need a Police State” at LAIKA.

All in all, when the confusing and toxic smoke has finally cleared, ( and maybe it HAS all cleared by now ) I think we will all see that during at least that specific period of time from 2006-to-2009, we had all been just toys in a rich man’s play-box, and that the eventual moments of truth will come to those whose fervent desire for something so different ( “cheaper-edgier-scrappier” ) is stronger than their ability to see it what it actually takes to create and build quality stories and movies on a continuously improving basis in a multi-picture movie studio.

Out of all of this, over the last three years or so I learned that Portland and Oregon are truly beautiful and wonderful places full of genuinely friendly people. But along with that I also had to learn that both are ruled thoroughly by the King of Oregon and those he sanctions. I had seen this kind of COMPANY TOWN fear and disdain before. When I grew up years ago in old Detroit no one could say anything against the now infamous BIG THREE automakers ( mostly because everyone and their sister and cousin worked for them in Detroit . . . and now we all know how that attitude caused things to turn out for the entire Midwest of the United States ). Much of what I read & heard in Portland after the 2008 LAIKA layoffs seemed to ignore the way over 300 people had been managed right out of the company as they were let go late in 2008 ………. any talk or coverage of the events seemed to distort the situation into something else too?

This older book

about Portland of the past

described a nature of the city

that I seemed to see signs of again later in the more current Portland media ?

And to be very honest, on top of everything else I have just described I guess I have always had problems with authority when it refused to make sense, or acted in a juvenile and irresponsible manner that negatively affected the organization, the people in that organization, and the real work to be done ……. and in this particular case, when it also remained cold and silent to its own people……

. . . out of ignorance, fear, or disdain.

But TIME really does take care of all these things, and as I said, I am glad to be out of that situation.

SO – THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED THEN,

AND HERE’S WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW, RIGHT HERE……

Now, after all this time, I am back in Toronto-Ontario-Canada again.

In many ways it feels very similar to my more frugal existence back when I was an art student in Detroit in the 1960’s. While I miss some of the extravagances of spending that we had enjoyed in recent years ( at least those years after I rebuilt from the devastation of a destructive surprise divorce in ’03 ), there is a degree of comfortable simplicity and almost a quiet neutrality of being that comes with making and spending less.

The change, the chaos and upheaval that is going on now in the world most probably outweighs any of the turmoil I had experienced before, even back in my “student” days in the 1960’s. It was/is inevitable that confusion and difficulty would be on the rise as the technological ( and economic ? ) curve of change accelerates and steepens.

Sitting in Canada now, instead of the United States of America, does give me a more clear view of what seems to be all around us, all of us. At this point in time it feels like the same END-OF-EMPIRE that I saw happen to England in the 1950’s-1960’s when I was sitting in the United States. That did not alter the problems England faced, but it certainly changed the way Life was lived, and the way the rest of the world regarded England.

I am glad and happy to back in Canada. Canada has its own unique set of problems and challenges but even now, forty years later, the friendly and civilized Canada that I first met back in 1969 still presents itself and lives in an honourable and positive way in this world. In short, we are happy to be back in Canada.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

But another big change because of all of this has been me leaving the arena of MAKING MOVIES. ( i refuse to call them “films” any more )

- movies movies movies . . . I am done with them, the MAKING of them I mean.

I will still go to movies in theatres . . . for the communal experience, and for 3d stereo

… at least until 3d stereo come to my 68″ big home screen in our living room.

- but the making of them, especially the making of animated movies requires an attitude of

acceptance about loyal artistic samurai becoming roaming nonaffiliated ronin, armoured against

the violence and collateral damage of THE MARKET PLACE & PLANNING APATHY & INCOMPETENCE.

( to this day we remember still that masterless samurai called ronin caused troubles for themselves during the early Edo Period in Japan. )

No, for me treading forward with the wisps of semi-retirement swirling about my strong but aging veined ankles, … for me … if i must put effort in again, it will be to LEARN that which i have avoided . . . some REALTIME INTERACTIVE.

Not about the LOOK and STORY so much as about the culture and psychology of making new things for others to create or indulge themselves in some addictive participatory creativity of their own.

( as I get deeper in doing this I remember back to childhood when branches and sticks from the forest, or even manufactured green plastic soldiers only about 2.5 inches tall, how they all lost their stiff lifelessness and became real living things in my young and playful hands, and how long I could STAY in that world . . . enjoying myself with my own fiction )

- yes, if I have to do it again in any way I want to learn ( RElearn? ) about things like this.

But I will always like movies.

Movies were my Educator growing up. Movies led me to Music, and Art, and Literature.

In my last days in Portland Oregon movies led me back to Fiction Literature from the 1930’s. As I read and read ( while trying to sort out what had happened, and what had been lost, and what was next ), I came across this text from Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 San Francisco story of THE MALTESE FALCON :

“He returned and sat, elbows on knees, cheeks in hands, looking at the floor. Red rage came suddenly into his face and he began to talk in a harsh guttural voice. Holding his maddened face in his hands, glaring at the floor, he cursed Bundy for five minutes without a break, cursed him obscenely, blasphemously, repetitiously, in a harsh and guttural voice.

Then he took his face out of his hands,

looked at the girl, grinned sheepishly,

and said :

“Childish, huh? I know, but, by God, I do hate being hit

without hitting back. It’s a cheap price to pay for winning.

Though I will remember it.”

More bloggish writings to come on 1830’s British warehouse architecture

and living in Toronto The Good,

but for now, ( the end ).

what?

danp — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:54:51 +0000

L I N D E N W O L D

danp — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:47:06 +0000

LINDENWOLD in the German language means “Linden Woods”. There is a town in New Jersey in the United States that is named LINDENWOLD, supposedly because the town’s founder wanted to plant many trees in and about that town. But this is not about that New Jersey town. This is about Olde Toronto, in the country of Canada.

Just the way that Oregonian SIMON BENSON had lived in his Oregonian house on the spot where they eventually built the big condo tower in which Viola and I dwelt in the city of Portland, another intriguing spot of interest and curiosity was where LINDENWOLD once stood, the home of JAMES G. WORTS of “GOODERHAM & WORTS” grand imperial distillery fame, in Olde Toronto, Canada.

Viola and I had lived in this Distillery District before moving to Portland and had liked many aspects of it. The place we lived in at that time was on the very southern edge of the Distillery, where the big lake with it ships unloading used to be before landfill allowed more building out into that edge of the Lake Ontario.

But we really had not looked into nor come across anything about early family homes, particularly the home of James G. Worts which was on the northern edge of the Distillery at that time.

Some of the history behind this started with James G. Worts’ wife Sarah, and her father . . .

The building of LINDENWOLD and the women

that lived in it and ran it can be seen at :

http://www.distilleryheritage.com/snippets/91.pdf

The distillery expansion into the largest distillation company in the British Empire caused LINDENWOLD to come down, being replaced with large . . .

. . . Victorian Industrial stone and brick distillery process buildings. Today there is a dignity and solidity to these structures that, for some reason, made them feel good.

This series of images of the buildings of The Distillery District and the building we came to live in were taken last Spring, before our great cross-continent trek out here to Olde Toronto.

I remember liking old buildings with strength and color and texture all the way back to about 4 years of age. There is something about all of these buildings in this area that resonates strongly with me.

The architecture, the building styles, and that which you do not see in these images . . . the people and the music and the eating and the walking and the baby stroller pushing and the dog walking . . . . this place, once busy, then desolate empty, is now ALIVE again.

Our building is actually right next to, and also built on top of, the old brick Distillery buildings that went up on the site of the old LINDENWOLD household.

Our building is a humble 1999 12 floor condo building with an 1830’s basement.

The front entrance has a big wheelchair ramp to the left of the front door, but i usually nip into the side door between the old building and ours.

A cadre of neighbours are constantly planting and growing in front of and to the sides of the building.

The re-birth of “The Park”, eh ?

Well, people had kept trying to bring back this area over the years . . . but now the governments ( city and provincial ) are actually doing it.

From the Don River to the east of us,

right past us and on into the downtown of Tornonto too

. . . it will be just fine to live in

( it is already, and gets better by the month ).

As the summer came and Viola and I travelled across both countries to come HOME to this place we both grew to like it even more than before.

I know it will be cold ( but beautiful ) in the winter when the snows come in November or so, but we will like it as much as we do right now.

Although the interior ( of our condo unit ) is still a little cluttered with the last cardboard boxes, our NEW *HOME* is taking shape and we will send images of it soon.

- but for now,

HELLO from LINDENWOLD,

in the old heart of the Olde Toronto.

- More to come.

70s_pic_hair

danp — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:02:47 +0000

Vancouver Canada made me love Portland Oregon

danp — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:17:44 +0000

Much has happened over the last months, but now it’s all coming to a major transition point in time. After much tumult at the end of last year in 2008 and some doldrums across this first half of 2009, we are just about to go through another major change.

We found that events stacked up in a fortunate way that would allow us to make a quick trip to Vancouver, B.C., Canada, before our even bigger and longer road trip from the west to the east at the end of June, 2009.

I had lived in Vancouver twice before, once as an illegal immigrant back in the late 1960’s . . . and again as a husband and father through the 1970’s. Going back to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada this time was meant to be a meeting of old friends and a tour for Viola to see one of the westernmost cities in Canada before our return to Toronto.

We always try to know or remember who we are or were in the places that we live. But Vancouver Canada in 2009 taught me why I fell in love with Portland in 2006 when I arrived there in Oregon, USA. Portland today is what Vancouver used to be when I was there over thirty years ago. A smaller scale city with friendly calm people on the west coast of the continent. Vancouver today is a bustling dynamic and vertically growing bigger city with the same amount of space but with LOTS more people and cars. Some of the other aspects of Vancouver include the heavy influence of native tribal groups, like the HAIDA. I had always been taken with the HAIDA art . . . and still am today.

Viola and I saw this newer exhibit about the very first humans on Earth that was unveiled by England’s Prince of Wales one year before I left this part of the world in 1981.

The vitality and strength of the HAIDA traditions exclaim themselves with great dignity in this large carving by BILL REID of the HAIDA in British Columbia.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Viola and I eventually wandered down to GASTOWN, the older part of Vancouver and one of the first places I stayed when I arrived as an illegal immigrant back in 1969.

Trying to remember that time I have accumulated notes that I am slowly writing into a larger piece of work some day. The words go something like this :

He got a room in a hotel in old Gastown in Vancouver, B.C., with the room right over the “bar”, which they all called the “pub”……long before this area was redeveloped to be a nice area for tourists.

There was a ruckus and noise every night. You couldn’t quite call it a “party” every night because the participants were all highly random, eccentrically different, and sometimes rowdy enough for physical bravado and altercation.

No matter what combination of variables swirled together in that dark room with frayed, beer-soaked carpets, old coin juke box music, and cigarette-smoked, partially threadbare pool tables, one was always guaranteed to have a ruckus and noise every night. Living there above the bar of the corner building he got to know the people of this local community. The dedicated local bar-flies, the hard-hats working seasonally, the Canadian version of urban black pimps, drifting young people ( like him ), and various waves of hookers, jocks, and johns.

The day never got rolling until about lunchtime. There was never a shortage of people to meet.

It was a place of conversation, music, and even business of sorts. He received a commission that kept him going for about a month, designing and painting an outdoor mural that previsualized the joys of a new topless dancing club opening up nearby.

The ruckus and noise became soothing … the way some people leave a TV on in a house to keep them company. The ruckus and noise from the bar was its own dangerous advertisement, pulling in curious new visitors off the brick streets of Gastown, who would join in and meld their hoots and exclamations and curses into the hot stream cooled only by more beer.

One could sit back up against the far wall, facing the main doorway, and feel the rhythm of the place. As the door opened, spilling blue-white-rainy light into the dark smell of stale hops – it always seemed to be raining in Vancouver. The swinging door’s bright-burst would be followed by a ripple of sound, as all went silent near the door to let each eyeball adjust long enough to see who or what was coming in. Then the ribbon of silence would ripple back through the whole room, with each denizen stopping-looking-staring-pivoting, then returning to their own portion of the ruckus and noise and beer.

He met at least two new girlfriends there, in the dark and noisy parts of that gritty textured palace of the Hoi Polloi. He probably could have stayed on at that place, living above the bar, had it not been for the extraordinary number of interesting people coming in, each with their own dramatically unique situations. One night he met some loud and pushy ( but still Canadian Friendly ) people who had just returned from Vancouver Island. They convinced him to try his hands at tree-planting on the west coast of the island, far from the cities and people.

It sounded so good, and so opposite of what he lived in at that moment, that he left the next day and stayed on the island for many months, returning “home” only to be unexpectedly shanghaied out to sea for more time as a novice salmon fisherman on the Pacific Ocean. All of these things happened during that time with no notice or intervention by anything remotely electronic or digital or virtual.

He did not realize just how much he was living and loving and fighting and surviving in the new wild west of that older physical-mechanical century.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The city of Vancouver that I remembered from those old days was a simpler, easier-going small city than the contemporary ( and very tall ) dynamo of today. As I toured around the city of Vancouver with Viola now, in 2009, it dawned on me that Portland Oregon in this new century lived and breathed and moved at about the same speed and attitude that Vancouver had in the *last* century.

Simple times. Less rush. More consistent enjoyment of Life. I had loved Vancouver when I came there from Detroit.

The old Vancouver moved, but at an easy and polite and happy pace.

The new Vancouver is still happy but the energy levels are much higher with the crowds and traffic down in the Vancouver West End now chock-a-block with seemingly hundreds of new POINT TOWERS ( like the skinny tall glass and metal one I am trying to sell my condo in Portland, which was designed by a Canadian from Vancouver ).

The old Vancouver I knew, and with which I associated so many good feelings and pleasant memories was just smaller, like Portland is today.

The lower scale of the buildings allowed for a relaxed breathing in of the sky that sits above and behind the city, even when it is misting rains from that sky for months out of the year.

I remember the old cars from the states, many made in Ontario back east in Canada, as well as the first big wave of smaller cars imported from Japan then. I went from a VW to an Austin Healey Sprite to a Fiat Spyder to a Ford pickup truck ( to explore Crown Land by the logging trails in the bush ) to a Honda Civic. I could see Grouse Mountain out my 3rd floor walk-up apartment. The smaller scale and spacing of buildings made life feel more open and free.

Walking through the old Vancouver West End near where I found work eventually, before all the POINT TOWERS, it was also quiet and relaxing. Although once in a while some longed for the excitement of Toronto or Montreal or even San Francisco, most were happy living in this wonderful place.

Even back then people complained about traffic downtown, but it was nothing . . . much like the easy traffic in downtown Portland Oregon even to this very day in 2009.

I saw the past everywere I took Viola in the city of Vancouver now. So we mixed city and nature as we wandered because Nature always helps, and both the people of Vancouver and the people of Portland love Nature.

We strolled along waters’ edges and also down through old Gastown in Vancouver . . .

. . . with its steam clock and its very specific NO SMOKING signs . . .

And then it was time for VISITING old friends that I had worked with at the CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION in the days when it was bringing a sense of Canadian Identity to the wide and far flung population of this very big country.

First visit was to meet up with Lawrence at 5pm and I was late. The increased traffic and the bad timing of rush hour caused me to be late ( and he will never let me forget it ), but we did meet up for a coffee downtown in new Vancouver.

I learned lots of things from Lawrence when I worked as his assistant years ago. He was from England and with him he brought superlative organization and timing . . . along with green leather boots and a shaved head.

Even now, when teaching at EMILY CARR – or when assembling his new body of art work - he still goes bald into the world. Both of us are long since done with CBC but I really valued and enjoyed my times there working together.

We left Lawrence and headed over to Doug & Doreen’s, running late still.

We met up with Doug and Doreen in the West End of Vancouver. Doug and I had worked together at CBC and I have been a fan of Doreen’s PINHEADS for years now. They never let Doug stop art directing . . . show after show after show ! They have a fantastic place in the tree lined walking streets of the West End.

From our dinner table in the sky we could see the harbour below and for some reason I remembered the old BOOM of the Nine O’Clock Gun down in Stanley Park below us. Almost as soon as i remembered it the cannon fired its 2100 hours signal . . .

The gun is a 12-pound muzzle-loaded naval cannon, cast in Woolwich, England in 1816.

Seventy-eight years later, in about 1894, it was brought to Stanley Park to warn fishermen of the 6pm Sunday close of fishing. On October 15, 1898 the gun was fired for the first time in Stanley Park at noon.

The 9pm firing time was later established as a time signal for the general population and to allow the chronometers of ships in port to be accurately set. The Brockton Point lighthouse keeper, William D. Jones, originally detonated a stick of dynamite over the water until the cannon was installed. The cannon eventually had an electronic trigger installed and is now activated from the harbourmaster’s perch on top of a building near Canada Place. The fluorescent lights illuminating the gun from overhead go out exactly ten seconds before it fires, and turn back on a few seconds afterward.

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Next we drove to Floyd’s place across the bridge.

We arrived late and slept soundly, waking to a beautiful day the next morning.

Floyd and his daughter put us up for a few days and we were very grateful. One of the mornings I even made my now-standard breakfast for everyone ( EGGBEATERS + TURKEY + CRACKED PEPPER + HOT SAUCE + LOW-FAT CHEESE + BAGEL + ORANGE JUICE, yum . . . )

Floyd and his daughter also introduced us to their two birds, OZZIE & PINTA.

Nicole is great with birds, dogs, ducks, all animals . . . they seem to know her.

Later, Dave from way over on the Sunshine Coast joined us at Floyd’s. We all used to work together back at the CBC and did the old guy thing of reminiscing. While Floyd had left CBC to go to Paris and New York and now Japan, Dave put down roots and built TWO houses up on the Sunshine Coast of B.C. where he and I used to work for CBC on location in a small fishing village.

All of us went for a walk as the skies began to cloud up a bit. Just walking and talking.

Seeing sights and places I had not seen in over three decades.

And seeing a few things that did not exist at all when i was here before.

We regathered at the PLANETARIUM that I used to walk to in the old days, to await the arrival of Kuni.

Kuni had also worked with us at CBC back in the old days, but was the first to leave.

He settled down across the other bridge, the old LION’S GATE BRIDGE, and got himself a house and a boat and began painting his own artwork. We all drove back up to the place that he got then and now shares with the wonderful Elisabeth.

Kuni is from Japan and Elisabeth is from Germany and they make beautiful English music together.

This shot is actually from CANADA DAY, but it’s too good to leave out of this blog.

We toured the house that 30+ years ago I ( and others ) helped Kuni move into.

Much was the same but much was new too. Particularily his new paintings, all good!

Elisabeth extolled the virtues of life there in their place in the Pacific North West.

She prepared more goodies to eat and drink and was a magnificent hostess to us all as we sat around eating and drinking and talking and laughing.

Their dog MAGGIE got along great with Nicole and almost with Viola too ( almost ).

We relaxed even more and enjoyed their hospitality inside and out.

When we went out we saw the scale model masted ship that Kuni had built ( he builds many things they have there ).

Kuni has the small ship floating in the pool, all rigged up with little Christmas lights, ready for the holiday season.

So, as Nicole played with MAGGIE the dog and we talked and remembered the long and pleasant day was drawing to a quiet close.

After returning to Floyd’s and celebrating Nicole’s Honor Role Award with a dinner, we slept after preparing for the trip home to Portland the next day. But instead of driving straight home we did a little sight-seeing first.

At everyone’s recommendation we decided to look in on YALE TOWN in Vancouver. Yale Town turns out to be almost the same as THE PEARL in Portland Oregon . . . old warehouses brought back to life as stores and restaurants and clubs . . . and just as nice the PEARL too . . .

Yale was a small town in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

It was founded in 1848 by the Hudson’s Bay Company as Fort Yale by Ovid Allard, the appointed manager of the new post, who named it after his superior, James Murray Yale,

then Chief Factor of the Columbia District. In its heyday at the peak of the gold rush, it was reputed to be the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco. It also earned epithets such as

“the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia” and “a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah” of vice and violence and lawlessness. As the railway line was extended to Vancouver, these Yale residents followed it closer into the city, and settled in modest housing close to the yards soon dubbed Yaletown.After the 1986 World’s Fair (Expo 86), held on neighbouring former-industrial land, the whole area became ripe for development. The site was sold to a Hong Kong-based developer Li Ka-Shing, setting in motion the redevelopment process which continues to this day.”

We also took in the ANTHROPOLOGY MUSEUM out by the University of British Columbia. I had not been there since it opened in the 70’s.

Again the HAIDA . . . I don’t know why I am so moved by their work, but I am.

The contemporary building housing the collection is aging well.

We toured the inside of the museum and two of their security people competed vigorously to take our pictures inside the great hall with inside totems.

One last stop . . . out into STANLEY PARK to see the sights and to find the TEA HOUSE.

The original part of the tea house was built in 1784, but has expanded since.

It’s a nice spot in a fantastically beautiful park right in the middle of the city and ocean.

A little mimosa and breakfast and we began the journey back to Portland.

The trip – though short – was a great one.

Viola got to see some of the beauties of BEAUTIFUL B.C. and I got a chance to really understand why I had fallen in love with Portland Oregon too. There will always be a warm place in my heart for the Pacific Northwest, but I know now that it began in my youth, when this inexperienced urchin from the mean streets of Detroit came west to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

And I will always be grateful.

More later . . . around Labour Day, from Canada.

May be June – Move It – Soon

danp — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:29:20 +0000

May be June – Move It – Soon . . . and missing MABLE’s birthday.

This will be the first time we have not been to see Mable { Viola’s Mum } in Canada for her birthday since I met Mable five years ago. With all of the things we must do to before we make our move back east later this month, we cannot travel long distances much at all until late June.

She will be 95 this June 12th { happy birthday Mable! } , and we will see her when we arrive there in Toronto in very early July.

Meanwhile, here in Portland the bright sunshine days of late May pushed deeper and deeper into the start of our Summer here.

Hollywood itself has come to record their famous movie stars in front of the colloquial locals in the wideshot places of pretty Portland.

Viola and I have socialized with and enjoyed more friends that will continue to stay on in this fine and totally enjoyable city of Portland.

Oregon is such a beautiful place to live and love in.

And some people really know how to expand and enjoy the range of that Living.

Luigi and Kathleen have now ruined restaurants for us, even in Portland.

The foods they made were unbelievably delicious !

The contrast that comes upon people and places when the rains finally go is beyond description, which is why I always use images with the text ( it is the lazy man’s way of conveying the intended more clearly ).

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Next,

I delved into nocturnal bowling alley transformations across the river in Portland. They had a gathering of artists display their image work to promote business in their fancy-dancy bowling alley across the Willamette from us.

So I asked if I could show some of mine and they said OK . . .

Mostly the people ignored what was on the screen and just had fun, because that’s what THEY came for.

But the screens were everywhere in the place . . .

So while we drank a coffee, we could see the images of all the artists in every room and open area.

It was a big place and popular, but maybe not as popular as they’d like in these lower budget days of the Great Recession-Depression of 2008 ?

So, we unparked the TT and drove back home over the bridge.

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As we finish up our preparations to leave we continue to meet with the wonderful people we have met here.

Lots of genuine folks with good hearts and positive feelings.

In fact, the long lost secret of the whereabouts of the legendary HYENA-BANANA-PLANT was revealed as we dined on a very tasty and convivial meal.

It seems the poor wandering animal is now THE DOG IN DUNDEE ( AKA “Pyro” for its woodburned markings ).

After we resolved that regional mystery, we proceeded to sup and solve the World’s Great Problems . . . right up to and including the soothingly relaxed national character of Latvians . . . right into the night.

Good Food Good Drink, and conversations about the building we all lived in.

It is hard to leave, but we must go . . . . there are only about 29 days and 48 seconds until Viola and I drive away East.

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So, what’s left in the month we have remaining here in Portland Oregon?

Not sure yet, as there are just too many choices in this great place.

We will take in LIVE MUSIC one more time at both the Zoo and at Jimmy Maks in Portland.

At the Zoo they have their summertime concerts outdoors in the early evenings.

We will see FEMI KUTI there . . . .

And then, on a separate night, we will see SLY & ROBBIE up at the Zoo too . . .

I have liked their music for many years but have never seen them in person.

Amidst all this music . . . . . . . .

we are also going to see . . . . . . . . . .

a movie about MYSTIC INDIA :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71IUdOwPHKU

and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK0–em-6b8

We’ll see this on the big screen over at the OMSI on the river . . .

Then, it’s back to music again when we go for two more times to our favourite JAZZ place here in Portland.

First we go to see LINDA HORNBUCKLE, a local singer with heart and soul bigger than the rooms she sings in.

Later we will return to JIMMY MAKS club to see a man named DEVIN PHILLIPS from New Orleans, who moved to Portland after Katrina

and is amazing . . .

He plays originals that he writes himself as well as interpretations of others . . .

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And then, well then we will FINALLY move . . . really . . .

After all the delays and postponements, we are actually pulling up the young roots that never got a chance to anchor us here. We return to where we lived before we came here.

And I hope, I really hope, that this HOME that we go to now is one that will last a while longer.

Maybe long enough to feel like we are really HOME.

There will be more blogs and emails and entries in FACEBOOK and maybe even some experimenting with the new GOOGLE WAVE http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Google_Waves_Goodbye_to_E-Mail__Welcomes_Real-Time_Communication

. . . . but not for a little while, now it is time to go.

(the end) . . . for now . . .