Vision Vancouver fundraiser

I attended the Vision Vancouver fundraiser on Tuesday as a volunteer (with student loans like this, who needs enemies?) and was treated to a lovely evening of good food, entertainment, and some good old fashion politicking. A wonderful evening, all in all. I'll leave a more full and entertaining description of the event to Jonathan Ross over at civicscene.ca; I just have a few notes.

I've heard some grumbling about its location at the Wall Centre, but as far as I can tell it was there because the Walls (are they ever called the Walls?) donated some serious cash and the use of the room (Gregor thanked them personally), and when you're holding a fundraiser you probably don't turn that down. Especially when you know who your audience is.

I attended a similar function last year during the nomination campaign as a guest of a candidate, when no one really knew what Vision stood for, when ex-Parks Board Commissioner Allan De Genova was a real contender for the mayoral nomination. There was some money there (apparently De Genova sold half the tables), but there were also quite a few union tables, and candidate supporters tables.

The big difference this year (apart from the presence of contortionists), and it wasn't that big but enough so that it was quite evident, was the amount of money in suits that came through the door. I'm not sure what the guest list looked like, but the event was sold out and it seemed to me that most tables were corporate buys. Simple conclusion: now that Vision are in power, there are more people interested in making nice with them. I don't mean to imply that there is anything wrong with this, just an observation, and I was surprised that Jonathan Ross didn't make note of it, in his otherwise excellent and entertaining post on the fundraiser.

Aside: former NDP premiers Mike Harcourt and Glen Clark were in attendance, as was former COPE/Vision city councilor Jim Green; all were recognized by Gregor in his speech. As was Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and I think Premier Gordon Campbell and BC Housing Minister Rich Coleman were as well.

City of Vancouver budget update

From CKNW News:

City Hall shortfall dwindles
VANCOUVER/CKNW AM 980
Janet Brown | Email news tips to Janet
10/15/2009

"What a difference two weeks makes.

At the end of september the City of Vancouver announced it was facing a 61-million-dollar shortfall.

The preliminary budget numbers are now in for 2010 and the budget shortfall is now pegged at 28-million-dollars, down from the 61-million just two weeks ago.

At 28-million homeowners would face a property tax hike of five-per cent.

However staff say they're aiming for a tax hike of two percent at the most.

They say there are more cuts to be made.

A service review underway by the city has been looking for ways to save money and make the entire organization more efficient."

Wow. How did that happen? $32m in savings found in two weeks?

Gentlemen of the Road, or Swashbuckle this, Brian

"All adventure happens in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home"

Rather than write a book review, I'm simply going to track the words that I have to look up as I read Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road. It's a playful book, and Chabon's vocabulary might come across as pretentious except for that. I've skipped some words that are clearly singular items with little relevance beyond their place as a noun (though I've included some of the same).

p. 4 - bambakion - "In his quilted grey bambakion with its frayed hood" - A padded leather or cotton under-garment; Byzantine.

p. 17 - perspicacity - "Perhaps the span of breath remained to the intruder for the enjoyment of his perspicacity" - having a ready insight into and understanding of things; from Latin perspicac- seeing clearly.

p. 19 - fleam - "with their scalpels and bloodletting fleams" - a kind of lancet, as for opening veins; late Middle English fleme from the Greek phlebo meaning vein.

p. 20 - contumelious - "He was nearly as gifted at languages as the contumelious myna." - scornful and insulting; from Latin contumelia, perhaps from con- ‘with’ + tumere ‘to swell.’

p. 28 - mezair - "With a mezair and a cut to the left" - a movement in which the horse makes a series of short jumps forward while standing on its hind legs; from Italian mezzaria, middle gait.

p. 28 - caprioles - "and a cut to the left and a pair of caprioles" - a movement performed in classical riding, in which the horse leaps from the ground and kicks out with its hind legs; from Latin capreolus, diminutive of caper, capr- goat.

p. 38 - impasto - "squelching through mud that was an impasto of dirt and blood" - The process of laying on paint thickly, from the Italian for paste.

p. 42 - maunderings - "I would rather... than suffer through a month or more of listening to your maunderings." - talk in a dreamy or rambling manner, perhaps from the obsolete maunder, to beg.

p. 43 - affiant - " and affiant now to that failure and to the ruin of his gods" - a person who swears to an affidavit, from the Latin fidus, meaning trusty.

p. 57 - plangent - "and with it the plangent cry of a soldier-muezzin calling his saddle-weary brothers" - loud, reverberating, and often melancholy, from the Latin verb plangere, meaning to lament.

p. 108 - caviling - "though Joseph would hardly miss the Venetian's caviling or tendency to whistle tuneless tunes all day and night" - to raise irritating and trivial objections; find fault with unnecessarily, from L deriv. of cavilla: jesting, banter.

p. 112 - integument - "scrutinizing the elephant as if seeing through its rough integument to its giant organs" - a natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind; from the Latin teg(ere) to cover

p. 113 - arrant - "he often finds himself in receipt of the most arrant gossip imaginable." - thorough; unmitigated; notorious; from Middle English, variant of errant.

p. 126 - gonfalon - "revealing a gonfalon of russet hair" - a banner or pennant, esp. one with streamers; from Italian gonfalone, from a Germanic compound whose second element is related to vane.

p. 126 - bartizans - "along the battlements and bartizans of the walls of Atil" - an overhanging corner turret at the top of a castle; from 17th-cent. bertisene, Scots variant of bratticing [temporary breastwork or parapet,] from brattice ; revived and reinterpreted by Sir Walter Scott.

p. 128 - caparisoned - "caparisoned in purple silk and cloth of gold" - be decked out in rich decorative coverings; from obsolete French caparasson, from Spanish caparazón ‘saddlecloth,’ from capa hood.

p. 147 - chiromancy - "a wandering eastern people skilled at chiromancy" - the prediction of a person's future from the lines on the palms of his or her hands; from Greek kheir hand.

p. 161 - dolmen - "Imposing and forlorn, a grave marker, a dolmen, the eyrie of some august raptor." - a megalithic tomb with a large flat stone laid on upright ones; from French, perhaps via Breton from Cornish tolmen hole of a stone.

p. 170 - attar - "a faint ribbon of some rank attar in the air." - a fragrant essential oil, typically made from rose petals; Persian from Arabic 'aṭir fragrant.

p. 171 - asphodel - "whose smell of bitter asphodel" - a Eurasian plant of the lily family, typically having long slender leaves and flowers borne on a spike; from Greek asphodelos.

p. 177 - tenoned - "a monstrous thing of heavy timber and tenoned wheels" - join by means of a tenon (a projecting piece of wood made for insertion into a mortise in another piece); from Latin tenere.

p. 182 - termagant - "whether the Northmen were better endowed by their greedy and termagant gods for commerce or slaughter" - a harsh-tempered or overbearing woman, also historical, an imaginary deity of violent and turbulent character; taken to be from Latin tri- ‘three’ + vagant- wandering, and to refer to the moon “wandering” between heaven, earth, and hell under the three names Selene, Artemis, and Persephone.

p. 186 - carillon - "chiming over and over like some kind of bellicose carillon" - a set of bells in a tower, played using a keyboard; from Old French quarregnon peal of four bells, based on Latin quattuor four.

p. 192 - vinous - "his breath vinous and his emotion nettlesome" - of, resembling, or associated with wine (I guessed that but wanted to be sure); from Latin vinum wine.

So there you have it. He knows his words, he does.

Chabon tells a fantastic tale, but it's nothing particularly special. I had high expectations after Kavalier & Clay, but I think maybe I initially missed the point. It's "genre fiction", as he hates to say, and it is a swashbuckling adventure told well. He relies on some stock characters that tend to populate the genre, but with sufficient differences to keep them interesting (the big dumb warrior isn't so dumb and plays a mean game of chess-ish).

As usual (and as demonstrated above), Chabon demonstrates a playful attitude towards language. If he's not making up words he's mining history books and old dictionaries. His two merry men reminded me at first of Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, verbose and too clever, but thankfully their wordplay is toned down after their introduction.

This novel was fun to read, whereas Kavalier & Clay was inspiring and touching and fun and huge. Well worth it for fantasy fans, probably worth a go for all readers. I can't help but fall into the (I hope) old paradigm of genre fiction, and I hope this book inspires all readers to give fantasy fiction a go.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

Politics, schmolitics, I'm writing what I want to write.

I just finished reading a few books and watching some movies, so I think I'll get started on a few reviews.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

This is the best book I've read in a while. I quickly followed it up with a collection of essays by Chabon called Maps and Legends, about growing up, the creative impulse, boundaries, adventure, comics, writing, reading, and so on. Both are brilliant.

Chabon begins his collection of essays, Maps and Legends, with a bitter-ish treatise on the state of genre fiction. He believes all writing is for entertainment: “I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period.” Fantasy, science fiction, detective, etc. All genres offer entertainment and insight, in varying degrees, and literature proper shouldn't have a monopoly on literary respect. He has stuck to his guns, producing a hard-boiled mystery (The Yiddish Policemen's Union) and a swashbuckling adventure in serial (Gentlemen of the Road) after his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

The amazing* Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is an epic American novel, spanning 16 years (1939-1955), in the lives of two Jewish cousins who meet in pre-war New York. Joe Kavalier escapes from the Nazis in Prague, makes his way to America, and with his cousin Sam Clay (anglicized from Klayman) collaborates on a brilliant Golden Age comic book, The Escapist. They also make small fortunes, fall in love, lose loved ones, then ostensibly fight more Nazis, and raise a family and fall in love all over again.


The origin of the Batman, from 1939. For a great intro to Batman, or any comic, check out this site.

I grew up reading comics, though none from the Golden Age**. First old Jonah Hex, ROM and Sgt. Rock comics that a family friend had; then the hero variety: X-Men, Wolverine, Spiderman and Batman; and finally darker, character-driven "adult"-oriented comics like John Constantine: Hellblazer, the Sandman, Preacher, and so on.

And while the subject matter is fairly dear to my heart (I still regularly read comics, but I don't buy many anymore), Kavalier & Clay is by no means a book about comics. Michael Chabon has done an amazing job of taking a childhood obsession for many of us and using it as a backdrop for a very human tale of heartache, loss, hope, amazement and love.

Chabon's writing fits everything in the book perfectly. There are sentences that are reminiscent of comic writing, Bam-Powing across the page. I wanted it to be a true story; indeed, Chabon has had people writing to him asking for information on the K&C's creation, the Escapist.

I am a little reluctant to recommend this to people that didn't grow up reading superhero comics, but if given half a chance it wraps you up in a world that you want to learn more about.


* I meant this first one. It is amazing.
** The late 1930s to late 1940s. From Wikipedia: "The period saw the arrival of the comic book as a mainstream art form, and the defining of the medium's artistic vocabulary and creative conventions by its first generation of writers, artists, and editors."

Spanish adventures #2

Our time in lovely San Sebastian is coming to an end. What a gorgeous city. Ruined only by our stay in a dirty hostel, the only place under 100 euros a night we could find.

Arwen, you were right, they do throw garbage on the floor of tapas bars. And they stub their cigarettes out on the floor. It´s really weird.

I got a little sunburned, true to form. Then it clouded over, sparing me the embarrassment of being the sunburned tourist on the beach.

The tapas (pintxos) here are amazing. Ridiculously rich. Barcelona was quite a disappointment on the food front, but while San Sebastian does have its fair share of low quality eateries, there are some absolutely amazing places.

Yesterday we climbed the small hill/park to the castle. There are cannons in it from the early 16th century. And there´s a graveyard dedicated to English soldiers who gave their lives to defend the town in a war in the 1830´s, against the Carlists. Something I´d like to look into. Putting a damper on the walk were the swastikas everywhere, looked to be the work of one person, but on almost every bench and sign.

Today we´re going for a morning swim (the beach is a few blocks away), then coffee and croissants for breakfast, shopping for supplies and off to the train station for a trip to the Mediterranean coast of France. Au revoir!

Spanish adventures

Hey all. I may try to write some travel stuff here, depending on how often Nina and I make it to an internet place. So far:

Travel was 24 hours from door to door. Ugh. The Seattle airport is dreadful: crap food, crap appearance. Amsterdam airport, on the other hand, was quite pleasant. I had a beer on the flight from Amsterdam to Barcelona, 10am local time. Free. Nice work, KLM.

Barcelona is hot and sweaty. If you know what I mean, and I think you do. Wine is cheap, food isn´t. Our room is tall and small and has a balcony overlooking a pretty street. There are Bar Cafeterias on almost every corner that sell coffee, booze, pastry and sandwiches.

So far we´ve seen only a few homeless people, and only been asked for money twice. Maybe they all stayed away after being moved out for the Olympics in 1992?

Every building here is interesting. Every single one, for real. And the beach is right downtown. We went swimming in the Mediterranean last night, and it was warm and cleaner than Kits Beach. The benefits of not being a major port, I guess.

My Spanish is so weak, I couldn´t even remember how to say ´bed´.

Until next time.
B

Extended absence

Hi everyone (if there is anyone left),

I just wanted to apologize for the lack of notice about the extended absence. Work and stuff got in the way of blogging. I will remain away until after May 12th (election day in BC!).

Cheers,
Brenton

Olympic Village update

OFFICE OF THE MAYOR
City of Vancouver

January 9, 2009

STATEMENT FROM THE MAYOR


In the last election, I made a commitment to Vancouver taxpayers to make public the previous council's business decisions on the development of the Olympic Village. Today, I am delivering on that commitment.

The Olympic Village is a billion-dollar project, and the City's on the hook for all of it.

To my great frustration, we can't turn back the clock on the actions of the last Mayor and Council. We are financially and legally committed to complete this project.

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games will be held here in Vancouver. We will meet this challenge, and we will excel as proud hosts to the world's greatest athletes.

And we'll be doing it in the most difficult economic environment we've seen in more than a generation. As Mayor, my job is to protect the interests of Vancouver taxpayers. I'm focused on making the best business decisions possible as we move forward, and to do it openly.

We now know why the previous city government didn't want to talk about the deal they'd made. The arrangements were not in the public's interest.

The decisions taken by the previous city government have put the city at enormous financial risk, even as we were told in 2006 by our elected leaders that the Olympic Village would be developed at no risk to the taxpayers.

I campaigned on the promise that I would provide to the public as much information about the Olympic Village finances as possible.

Here is what we have learned about how the city got to this point today.

We've learned that in 2007, as part of a complex three-way agreement, the previous council provided not only a financial guarantee for $190 million between the City, Fortress Investment Group, and Millennium Development, but more significantly, voted to provide a completion guarantee to Fortress Investment Group.

With that action, they effectively made the City of Vancouver the project developer from that point forward. This decision was only disclosed in the city's 2007 financial statement, released in April 2008.

Fortress, acting within their rights under that deal, stopped advancing funds to the developer for Olympic Village construction in September 2008. As you know from media reports, city council decided in camera on October 14th to approve payments to the contractors to allow construction to continue.

Upon taking office, it became clear that immediate action had to be taken. The current arrangement was not sustainable.

Confronted with the difficult situation, council has directed city staff to negotiate a financial arrangement that will best protect the taxpayers of Vancouver.

These negotiations are ongoing.

We know we've been dealt a very tough hand, but I believe we can meet our obligations. We're working very closely with our partners - VANOC, the province and the federal government - to maintain the financing for the Olympic Village project and deliver it in time for the Games. The work we are doing with our partners will get us there. And I commit today to Vancouver taxpayers that they will be informed of the decisions that we have to take in the weeks and months ahead.

Right now, we're in the middle of urgent and delicate negotiations. The information we are sharing today does not compromise those negotiations, and is important for clarifying the status of the project and dispelling ongoing rumours and speculation.

I will also be following through on one of my other key campaign promises, by holding a special meeting of council on Monday to share what we've learned with the people of Vancouver.

Media Contact: Kevin Quinlan
Executive Assistant to the Mayor
City of Vancouver
778.995.2264

Homelessness debate - what blogs are for

There is a great debate on homelessness and housing in Vancouver going on on France Bula's blog. Check out these posts and the comments sections, mostly the first two:

Solving homelessness — beyond spin

Solving homelessness, beyond spin 2: David C’s response

Pennsylvania Hotel opens supportive housing

A new light in the Downtown Eastside

Homeless shelter numbers from new emergency effort

This is what blogs are meant to do, I think. Good, constructive, reasoned, impassioned debate. Thanks, Frances et al.

Is Canada the new Somalia?

I wrote an undergrad paper about failed states, examining how Somalia seemed to be building itself from the bottom up. That was until the US decided the Islamic courts were the next Taliban and encouraged Ethiopia to invade at the behest of Somalia's pseudo-government, which radicalized the country and may have pushed the somewhat moderate Islamic courts further towards fundamentalism. Well done, gang.

In his last post, Paul Wells at Macleans compares Canada to Somalia. Yes, you read that right. He argues that we don't have a coherent government, and uses the listeriosis outbreak to support his theory. (I personally love the talk-show host reference.) The short version:

Capital Read, Inkless Wells - By Paul Wells - Sun, Jan 4 2009 at 4:31 PM - 49 Comments

So. Let us review the options.

• Coherent government: (a) announce an inquiry; (b) hold the inquiry.
• Alternative, conservative coherent government: (a) explain why no inquiry is necessary; (b) do not hold an inquiry.
• Incoherent government — failing-state government: (a) announce an inquiry; (b) attempt to ban public-sector strikes while appointing talk-show hosts to the Senate.

blog.macleans.ca

And this is his response to some decent criticism of his post:

Actually I was trying for a kind of a Mark Steyn thing, albeit to make a point Mark would not like or agree with. But of course I take your point. To be clear: I do not actually think Canada is much like Somalia. In Somalia, for instance, you can buy private health care without going to jail. There! That’s the effect I was trying for!

That is the funniest thing I've read in Canadian political commentary in a while. Thanks, Mr. Wells.