Vancouver round-up

Here's an excellent review of Lisa Smedman's new book Vancouver: Stories of a City. (re:place)

And a story about Joe Rimmer and his hand-made limited-edition copies of Tom Sawyer, mostly talking about growing up in a Vancouver that resembles the Mark Twain classic. (VanSun)

Francis Bula writes in Vancouver Magazine about how cities around the world are trying to emulate our city. (VanMag)

The Urban Dweller on VanCity Buzz talks about Vancouverism. (VCBuzz)

Speaking of Vancouver, what about Electoral Area A...? A failed-candidate has asked for a referendum on becoming a municipality. (straight)

Gordon Murray created a parody copy of the Vancouver Sun newspsper in 2007, to highlight his opinion towards the Canwest-owned paper's apparent pro-Israel/anti-Palestine position. He was taken to court, of course. Judge Alan Donaldson, of the B.C. Supreme Court, decided that freedom of expression could not be used as a defense in a copyright infringement case. (straight) [Personally, I see this as setting up for all those "copyright infringers" that use any Olympic icons for parody or satire, or some other unwanted-by-VANOC bad-press.]

Francis Bula talks about her friends' photo blog. (bula) It's called Splinter In Your Eye, and is about Vancouver in transition (mostly). (SiYE)

Another good read is the summary from re:Place magazine about their re:Connect event. (re:place)

Here's a tip for drivers: know where the unregulated parking areas are. (CTV) There's also a great link on the right-hand side that shows the frequency of parking tickets across the city that's fascinating!

Check out this link to Bob_2006's flickr stream with a good write-up about the Vancouver Museum. (flickr)

And there's an even better idea than my "tent city on vacant lot" idea from before. "Stop Gap Housing." (tyee) The problem? Finding land...? Maybe those vacant lots I was mentioning...?

Before I forget, check out the rest of Penny Coupland's awesome paintings of Vancouver scenes, like this one of Kits Beach. My personal favourite is one she did of our favourite watering hole, the Wolf and Hound, but it was unfortunately taken down from her Flickr photostream.