Westender – April 16, 2015 by Westender

APRIL16-23 // 2015

EVERYTHING VANCOUVER

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High times: The rise of dabbing • THE FUTURE OF ST. PAUL’S • • 4/20 TURNS 20 • • NOSH’S FIRST FIVE-STAR REVIEW • NEWS // ISSUES • STYLE // DESIGN • EAT // DRINK • MUSIC // ARTS • FILM // TV • HEALTH // SEX

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INSIDE THIS WEEK You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack by Tom Gauld

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News5 Vancouver Shakedown6 Cover story7 4/207 Whole Nourishment13 Fashion15 Shop Talk15 Urban gardening16 What’s On18 Nosh20 Fresh Sheet21 By the Bottle21 The Growler22 Follow Me Foodie23 Music24 Arts25 Reel People26 Movie reviews27 Real Estate28 Play Outdoors32 Sex33 COVER: THINKSTOCK PHOTO

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WHOBUYSASTROLLER WORTHSTEALING?

Re: Who steals a stroller? April 2,2015 The classic umbrella stroller for only $19.99--easily replaced if stolen, or, quite simply, not likely to be stolen. Folds up and easily ﬁts into any trunk, even those new, popular Fiats. For $980 savings, 140 Persephone Red Ale growlers could be purchased. Most importantly, it would force modern, urban parents to leave every possible infant product at home, forcing our youth to face the world without the comforts of blanket, soother, favourite stuffy, organic wipes, wipes warmer, baby sunglasses, bathroom baby harness, baby bum fan, and the ever popular breast-feeding simulator harness. –Coby

TAKING‘TALKRADIO’ TOOFAR

I just switched radio stations to a new one who recently rebranded their name and for the most part, they are great.The morning crew are hilarious and put a smile on my face every day.They annoying part is that most of the other radio hosts talk over the intro to songs all

the time. I like to hear the whole song not some host yapping through the beginning. Learn timing you goof. I did email them but never heard back.Too bad. I’ll switch back to my other station if they don’t smarten up pretty quick. –Geckogirl

TRANSITQ&EH?

I’m in favour of better transit, but I voted NO in the transit referendum.Why? Because they’re asking the wrong question! The mayors’ council had agreed that the carbon tax should be increased, and tolls should be placed on bridges and roads (“user pay” is only fair) – but Victoria overruled them because it was too afraid of offending their wealthy friends by asking them to pay their fair share. Why shouldn’t drivers pay for better transit?They’re the ones causing the congestion – not some guy sitting on a bus trying to get to UBC.Why should he have to pay even more for improvements? I have to laugh at drivers who want better transit, which they won’t use – but they hope all the other drivers will so they can ﬁnd parking spaces faster and avoid trafﬁc jams.They really

need to get a clue. –TomTrueman

BE-PROGRESSIVE. B-E-PROGRESSIVE!

Grant McLaren thinks we should ‘privatize’Translink, the same way BC Liberals/Socreds have privatized hospital services, senior care homes, BC Rail, etc… All so we can create more profit for some corporate greedster, pay workers below poverty levels & provide substandard levels of service to the customer? Translink, the executive that administers it not withstanding, does a great job considering the immense size of the system it manages, all while being handcuffed by that sameTranslink Board (BC Liberals). If anythingTranslink should be handed back to BCTransit, let the province finance & be responsible for transportation, as it is supposed to be. Premier Christie ‘Crunch’ created the over-paidTranslink Board, she should pay for it as well. Regardless, voting NO is a step backwards. Not everyone uses the transit system, but everyone benefits from it. VoteYES, be progressive, not regressive. –Jim Brown

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Moving St. Paul’s Hospital to involve ‘extensive consultation’ MIKE HOWELL @howellings

The high tide line left a mark of oil on a rock in English Bay. Crews continue to clean up oil that leaked from a freighter in English Bay last week. Jennifer Gauthier photo

Vancouver oil spill might be bigger than expected Mayor steadfast in calling response slower than necessary MIKE HOWELL @howellings

The amount of oil that spilled from a freighter into English Bay last week is more than the original estimate of 2,700 litres and could be as much as 5,000 litres, city manager Penny Ballem told city council Tuesday. Though Transport Canada continues to investigate the spill from the Marathassa bulk grain carrier that occurred April 8, Ballem said her information from officials is “it’s probably going to be in the range of 3,000 to 5,000 litres.” “We don’t know the exact number,” she said in providing an update to council on efforts to clean up the spill. “Hopefully, that will come out over the coming days but that’s in the hands of Transport Canada.” Ballem made the comment after arriving from a base at the port where she met with Canadian Coast Guard and other officials involved in the cleanup of the spill of bunker C oil, which was used to fuel the ship. The Marathassa, which is managed by Alassia NewShips Management Inc. in Athens, Greece, was on its maiden voyage from Busan, Korea when the spill was first reported by a recreational boater at 5pm last Wednesday. Ballem showed a map of the spill, which highlighted the path of the oil. It washed up on several beaches on or near Stanley Park, over to the shoreline in North Vancouver and into Vancouver Harbour. Globules of the highly toxic and viscose oil also reached the shore of New Brigthton Park near the Second Narrows Bridge, some 12 kilometres from the source of the spill.

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At least seven ships in the waters off Stanley Park were also contaminated by the oil as the slick moved north across the ocean.The ships have since been cleaned. Ballem said officials don’t know how much of the oil came to rest on the seabed. Up to 20 seabirds were affected by the spill, with one having to be euthanized. At least three birds are being treated by a wildlife rescue association in Burnaby. Though Ballem said the city could have been notified sooner of the spill, she did not criticize the Canadian Coast Guard’s response time to the spill. “We need to figure out was it adequate, and what is adequate and not only just adequate but what should we expect in this city,” she told reporters after her presentation to council. Ballem said she wants to compare the response to what the “international benchmark” is for similar-sized spills in other port cities in the world. Mayor Gregor Robertson, however, said he had a lengthy meeting Saturday with Canadian Coast Guard and he came away from that concluding the response was “not good enough.” “We have the largest port in Canada, the biggest port on the west coast of North America and should be able to deal with these types of spills very urgently,” he told reporters. “For a small spill, it was a slow response. For a large spill, it’s unthinkable how much damage would be done in those initial hours. We clearly have to have more resources, more capacity to respond to a spill of any size.” When reminded of Ballem’s position that she could not say whether the response was adequate or inadequate, the mayor agreed more information is needed on how other agencies working in ports around the world respond to spills.

But, he said, “just looking at the basic information of a ship immediately off shore of the largest port in Canada, adjacent to the most precious park in the world in Stanley Park, and port infrastructure minutes away from that spill site, it’s hard to believe that we couldn’t have had a quicker response.” Robertson and Vision Coun. Kerry Jang pointed to the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard base and other cuts to marine services as a factor in not having a quicker response to the spill. Vision Coun. Geoff Meggs said there has to be a better way of detecting an oil spill than having a recreational boater report the slick to authorities. “It’s never been clear to me what would have happened had he not been there and prepared to phone it in,” Meggs said. “It’s beyond belief to me that it was a recreational boater, but thank heaven he was there.” Coast Guard Commissioner Jody Thomas issued a statement April 12 describing the response, which involved the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation, as “exceptional.” Thomas said 80 per cent of the spill was contained and recovered in 36 hours. She also noted the Kitsilano Coast Guard base “never provided these types of environmental response operations, and its presence would not have changed how we responded to this incident.” Ballem noted near the end of her presentation that she and city ofﬁcials planned last Thursday to conduct a mock “table-top” exercise on an oil spill.When deputy manager Sadhu Johnston called her in the morning to tell her about the spill in English Bay, she didn’t believe him. “He said, ‘No, no it’s real,’” she said. –Story courtesy of the Vancouver Courier

The agency that operates St. Paul’s Hospital downtown on Burrard Street unveiled plans Monday to replace the aging facility and build a new $1-billion “state of the art” hospital and health care campus on an 18.5-acre site adjacent to the city’s train station at Main and Terminal. But in announcing the news for a new hospital on the False Creek Flats, Providence Health Care left questions unanswered about the future of health care services in the West End and whether the entire hospital will be demolished and its land sold for redevelopment. The land has been assessed at $360 million. “There’s been no decisions whether we’re selling land or not,” said Neil MacConnell, a former Providence manager who was rehired to lead the project, which requires the agency to raise $500 million to match a $500 million investment from the provincial government. MacConnell, speaking at a news conference at Providence’s ofﬁces on Hornby Street, cautioned the agency still needs to consult with West End residents about health care needs before ﬁnalizing plans for the century-old hospital, which needs more than $80 million in seismic upgrades. In a subsequent news conference in Victoria,

O Granville Island

hospital in the area known as the False Creek Flats. But, he said, his focus is on ensuring emergency services are available to downtown residents. “You couldn’t really get to that site they’ve proposed for the new hospital during the Stanley Cup riots because the bridges, the viaducts and SkyTrain were all closed and buses weren’t really running,” he said. “So it was a huge boon that we actually had a hospital downtown to serve those who were injured by the riot and impacted by the tear gas.” A common message from MacConnell, Providence senior staff and doctors gathered at Monday’s news conference was that St. Paul’s Hospital is not just for West End residents and that it serves the Lower Mainland and rest of the province. Dr. Julio Montaner of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS at St. Paul’s Hospital acknowledged “we are all emotionally attached” to the existing facility and it has a long tradition of serving West End residents. But, he said, health care providers are running out of space at the hospital and work in “sub-optimal” conditions. He pointed out the B.C. Centre, like other health care providers, is offering care outside the hospital, which is line with the new model of bringing services to where people live.

Health Minister Terry Lake also emphasized the need for “extensive consultation” with residents. But, he said, St. Paul’s will be redeveloped and proceeds will help pay for the new hospital on Station Street, which borders the Downtown Eastside and is 2.9 kilometres from the old hospital. “But again, the consultation process will determine what remains at that site,” Lake said. “We’re not shutting the door, we need to hear from people.” Whatever comes of the consultation, MacConnell confirmed there will be no emergency department in the West End, citing statistics that show 19 per cent of emergency room visits to St. Paul’s in the 2013/2014 fiscal year were from West End residents. And 80 per cent of those visits, he added, were “non-urgent.” NDP West-End MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert said he was concerned about losing the hospital and its emergency department, especially since Premier Christy Clark announced plans in 2012 for renewal of St. Paul’s on its current site. “If Christy Clark had fulfilled her promise she made in 2012, we would have a state-of-the-art health care tower at St. Paul’s Hospital already, and be renewing St. Paul’s Hospital to make it seismic safe,” Herbert told the Courier by telephone. Herbert said he wouldn’t debate the need for a new

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Opening weekend in Desolation Sound Grant Lawrence Vancouver Shakedown @GrantLawrence

The Horseshoe Bay ferry lineup is a massive snake of cars in the obscenely early darkness of morning, but I somehow navigate the congestion and make my reservation within minutes of it vaporizing. Occupants of cars surround me, nervously drumming their steering wheels, adding up the hours in their head if they miss the ferry, knowing that life is just better on the other side of the water, as least for the long weekend. Call it a ritual. It’s opening weekend of the family cabin. That means it’s time to stuff the car with way too many bags of chips and a few cans of soup, warm sweaters and old jeans, beer and propane. Then it’s the -ahem- completely law-abiding drive to the ferry terminal, adhering to all posted speeds. After the ﬁrst of two ferry crossings, its the long and winding trek up the stomach-churning Sunshine Coast Highway to the end of the road and beyond: Desolation Sound, BC.

The Lawrence family cabin. Grant Lawrence photo Opening weekend occupies the idle moments of my winter months, as I daydream of summer adventures in the West Coast wilderness. I also spend too much time worrying and hoping that the little wooden cabin, which has sat perched on the rocks like a kelp crab for over 30 years, has managed to survive another winter. When I was a kid, opening weekend meant begrudgingly crawling into the backseat of my parents’ compact car and, not even halfway there, puking everywhere.The weather

always felt way too cold and damp to be going away for the weekend.These days, I’m grown and my parents are older, which means I do the opening weekend trek on my own, to make sure that everything is in relatively easy and working order before my folks and family members arrive later in the season. Big Buck$, our ironicallynamed lovable junker of a boat, is backed slowly into the green salt water at the government wharf at the end of the road.The battery charger has been on it overnight, so the 90

horsepower outboard motor roars to life like an angry bear being booted early out of hibernation. I crack open my ritualistic first beer of the season and steer the bow of Big Buck$ into the open water. The cabin finally comes into view. It’s at the very least, from a distance, still standing.The clouds rip open and rain comes down in sheets, but it’s ok: I’m back, and it’s invigorating. My nostrils fill with the rush of the rain, the ocean, the moss and seaweed along the shoreline. I leave the supplies undercover on the boat, unloading it later once the squall passes.The cabin looks pretty good from down on the rocks, nothing out of place from weather, animal, or human. Stepping through the creaky front door, the familiar musty cedar interior takes me back through decades of memories. All seems well for another season. In 30 years from now, when I’m too old for opening weekend, maybe it will be my son that will make the trek in my place (no pressure, Josh!), and enjoy the same sense of freedom, anticipation, first beer, and his own set of memories of the cabin on the rocks in Desolation Sound. W

Open Houses: Heart of Davie Village Public Space Improvements

Help us create a plaza that’s an inviting, dynamic space, which celebrates Davie Village and the local LGBTQ community.

As part of the West End Plan, approved in 2013, we’re looking at making key improvements to the Heart of Davie Village (Davie and Bute streets), which include creating a permanent plaza, mid-block pedestrian crossing and decorative overhead feature. Pendrell St Bute St

Davie St

Mid-block Crossing Thurlow St

Jervis St

Permanent Plaza Public Space Improvements Burnaby St

Drop by an open house to see our preliminary concepts for the Heart of Davie Village public space improvements. It’s your chance to review the proposals and let us know what you think.

6 W April 16 - 22, 2015

Saturday, April 25, 2015, 11 am – 2 pm Heart of Davie Plaza, intersection of Davie and Bute streets Monday, April 27, 2015, 5 – 8 pm St. Paul’s Anglican Church 1130 Jervis Street

Public Space Improvements Decorative Overhead Feature

City staff and consultants will be on hand to answer questions and receive your feedback.

Stay tuned for more open houses in May. For updates on dates and locations, join our email list: vancouver.ca/heartofdavie or phone 3-1-1 Artist’s conceptual rendering of potential public space improvements at Davie and Bute.

Community invited to help shape West End’s artistic future ROBERT MANGELSDORF @robmangelsdorf

More than 45,000 people live in the tiny slice of downtown between Georgia and Burrard, and more than 10 per cent of those that do are employed in the arts, according to John Hewson, one of the founders of WE Arts. But despite having a wealth of creative talent living and working in the West End, the neighbourhood has little in the way of artistic resources and venues. Hewson and other members of the community are hoping to change that. WE Arts, a grassroots community organization that supports the arts in the West End, is hoping to develop a comprehensive West End Arts Plan, which it hopes will act as a guide for the City of Vancouver as it looks at redeveloping the neighbourhood. “The project was funded by the City of Vancouver CNAD grant, and will result in an Art Plan that the city and developers (amongst others), will use to identify community beneﬁts for the West End community,” says Hewson. “These might include a new arts centre, lane-way live-work studios for artists, an arts market, or

Continued from page 5 “The reality is, we’re moving a few blocks away,” said Montaner, noting the new site is about a 10-minute drive from St. Paul’s and more accessible for many people. “It’s not like we’re going to another continent.” Dr. Don Sin, a respirologist at St. Paul’s, pointed out more than 70 per cent of patients who visit the hospital are from outside the “core region.” And, Sin said, 50 per cent of visits come from outside of Greater Vancouver. Wait times to see doctors will double by 2020 in the existing facility, he added. Dianne Doyle, president and CEO of Providence Health Care, told reporters the decision to build a new facility on the False Creek Flats came after a detailed

an art strip on Robson.” The group held an initial planning meeting in February that attracted close to 100 from the community, and the biggest issue Hewson said they heard from residents was space. “There’s no gathering spaces, no artistic spaces. It’s even been next to impossible ﬁnding a place to hold this meeting in the West End.” The next planning meeting takes place this Sunday, April 19, at the Empire Landmark, and again the public is welcome to attend and participate. “The urgency to have people attend is real, as the planning process will not be repeated anytime soon,” said Hewson. “The city planners, council and staff are listening, and the developers are our friends in delivering the arts and cultural beneﬁts we see the community needs. We need to speak up now, and ask for what we want, so that we are included in the future, making our wonderful neighbourhood an even better place to live.” The West End Art Plan meeting takes place Sunday, April 19 at 1pm at the Empire Landmark, 1400 Robson. To register for the free event, visit WEArts.ca. W

analysis of what it would take to renew the existing hospital. Doyle said the conclusion was there would not be good value for money spent, or real improvement on inpatient services or increasing the number of private rooms, which are key to preventing the spread of infections. “It was not a good solution,” she said, noting Providence consulted with “world experts” to examine the cost and design of the proposed hospital on Station Street. “We do know in speaking to [ﬁnancial] donors to date that there’s a lot more excitement about the opportunity to build on the Station Street site than we were able to generate in terms of support for a rebuild on the current site.” –Story courtesy of theV ancouver Courier

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4/20

High times: The rise of dabbing KELSEYKLASSEN @kelseyklassen

Marc Emery is holding court at the back of Cannabis Culture, his weed-themed store and political headquarters on West Hastings Street. Fresh off serving a fiveyear stint in jail in the United States for selling mail-order marijuana seeds across the border, theVancouver activist is still every ounce the Prince of Pot he’s touted to be. In the past few months, however, he’s made room under his crown for a new moniker: the Duke of Dabs. Dab, honey oil, budder, earwax, shatter – whatever street name you prefer for Butane Hash Oil (BHO), people are turning to the trendy cannabis concentrates in droves for stronger, faster, purer, and pricierTHC highs. And while hash oils and techniques like hot-knifing have been around since the 1970s, industry insiders have seen a full-blown renaissance in the past year, due largely, they say, to the fact that modern dabs can contain up to 90 per centTHC. To clarify,THC stands for tetrahydrocannabinol (the psychoactive compound in marijuana) and that’s way stronger than your father’s hashish, or even today’s marijuana buds, which clock in at around 25 per cent. Ratios like that make dabbing about the most intense high an experienced (or inexperienced) pot user can find. So for 18 weeks now, Emery (the Duke) has invited store customers to step up to his dab bar to see, for free, what all the hype is about. “This is going to be very big around the world,” says Emery, between hits on his sublimator. “It’s just starting here; but

everywhere you have pot you’ll have this. So what I’m trying to do is show people how to do it right, explain what’s going on, what it’s made of, and showing them what really amazing, top-end, $70-a-gram shatter is like.” Since December, Emery says he has dabbed 2,850 volunteers – selecting the right shatter from his menu, carefully tweezing out a small amount of the sticky substance, and then touching it to a red-hot piece of metal on his sublimator to vaporize it for inhalation. More than half of his dabbers have said it was their ﬁrst encounter with that form of the drug. But as dabbing is gaining momentum in the living rooms and cannabis lounges of North America, it’s also grabbing headlines in mainstream media. Dubbed “Marijuana’s Explosive Secret” by one American news outlet and “the crack of marijuana” by others, dabbing is gaining notoriety not only for how it is smoked – often heated with a torch, much more like crack or methamphetamine than your traditional joint – but for how it is made. “There’s a whole host of these different products and they’re each made from different types of chemicals,” explains JeremiahVandermeer, editor of Cannabis Culture magazine. “Butane extraction is very popular, or there’s a bunch of different solvents like alcohol and CO2 that people use to extract the trichomes from the plant, and that’s what makes hash. And then you try to remove the solvents from it, so that you don’t have any residue left behind.” The resulting substance is either buttery, waxy, sticky like sap, or brittle like toffee, and

loaded withTHC. But butane is highly ﬂammable, and this method of production has led to a spate of accidental home explosions in states, such as Colorado, where marijuana was recently legalized. Colorado responded swiftly to the problem with new safety rules for the manufacture of concentrates, which went into effect last month.They include ensuring an industrial hygienist or professional engineer approves manufacturing equipment, and having an eyewash station available on site. But they apply only to Colorado’s commercial marijuana industry; home growers are still free to make concentrates how they please. As the law tries to make sense of the issues surrounding BHO, however, the producers have also adapted. “RosinTech is the new big, popular thing,” saysVandermeer. “Just, like... in the last few weeks. People have realized that you can just take some parchment paper and a hair straightener or aT-shirt press, squeeze the buds between it.” Out come the resins, he explains, and you’re left with a relatively clean product – just the active ingredients and the chemicals themselves – with all the plant material removed. “It’s just like the product you get when you extract with a solvent,” he says, “but without any of the residue in it.” Or any of the boom. As for fears that ingesting THC in such high quantities can be dangerous, dabbing proponents are quick to point out that there has not been a single recorded case of a marijuana-related overdose in Vancouver – something the BC Coroners Service conﬁrms – however there are certain health rami-

Above: Marijuana activist Marc Emery demonstrates dabbing, a controversial new way to smoke hash oil. Below, left: A close-up of shatter, the most common form of dabs. Rob Newell photos ﬁcations to consider. “You can really never OD on smoking [or dabbing] because you’re limited by how much you can absorb through your mucous membranes,” saysTerry Roycroft, founder of Vancouver’s Medicinal Cannabis Resource Centre. “But if you don’t have any idea how powerful it is and you’re used to maybe one hit of hash, and you take a big hit off a 94 per cent shatter, there could be some problems,” he chuckles. “Psychologically, they’re getting so high – they’ve never felt that before. Heart palpitations, things like that.That creates anxiety.”

Roycroft, whose company provides guidance in the use of medical marijuana, and helps patients navigate the system to legally possess, also expresses concern with regards to the lack of oversight on what people are able to buy through local dispensaries. “As a physician-based group, we want to be able to give people certain standardized dosages for medicinal purposes. People say, ‘Dabs, dabs!They’re great!’ without really knowing how they’re made and what impact that could have on them. “It’s powerful stuff.” If you’re getting your dabs

from any of the marijuana dispensaries that are open in Vancouver and operating without business licences – which, according to theVancouver Police Department, now number in the 80s – it’s also very illegal. In Canada, under the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR), only licensed producers, of which there are 15, are allowed to sell cannabis. And none of them currently sell extracts or edibles, prompting many to turn to their nearest dispensary to ﬁnd what they need.

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4/20

4/20 returns for 20th anniversary ROBERT MANGELSDORF @robmangelsdorf

This Monday, the grounds of the Vancouver Art Gallery will again be going up in smoke as the annual 4/20 rally celebrating cannabis culture and advocating for marijuana legalization return for its 20th anniversary. This year promises to be the largest event yet, thanks to the addition of a second stage at Robson and Howe. Organizers are expecting close to 15,000 people to take part in the annual gathering, which culminates with a synchronized smoke-up at 4:20pm. “This is the 20th year and it’s Marc’s ﬁrst year back, so it’s going to be a big one,” says organizer Jeremiah Vandermeer. Pot activist Marc Emery, the so-called “Prince of Pot”, was released from an American prison last year after serving ﬁve years for selling mail-order marijuana seeds. As always, the 4/20 event will feature live music, dancing troupes, burlesque performances, and more than 250 vendor booths. Among the booths will be vendors

selling recreational marijuana openly, and illegally – something long tolerated by Vancouver Police. “There’s nowhere else in the world like it,” said Vandermeer. “Even in Colorado, you can’t sell pot outdoors. Vancouver is totally unique.” While the mood at 4/20 is always light-hearted, there is an important political message that’s being made. Despite a handful of US states having recently legalized both recreational and medicinal cannabis – including Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado, and the District of Columbia – both the federal and provincial governments here at home have little interest in legalization. “We are frustrated,” said Vandermeer. “The movement started here in BC and because of this brutal Conservative government, every issue of progressive politics in this country is being strangled. The guy in charge hates this community and doesn’t care that 70 per cent of Canadians support legalization.” With an impending federal election in October,Vandermeer says the focus of this year’s event will be to get

Far left: 4/20 organizer Jeremiah Vandermeer at his Cannabis Culture office. Rob Newell photo Left: A man sells pot at the 2013 rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Above: An aerial view of 4/20 in Vancouver. Cannabis Culture photos people voting. “This could be the year of legalization,” he says. While the 4/20 rally got its start in Vancouver, the concept of “4/20” was inspired by a group of high school students in the 1970s in California who would meet up to smoke pot everyday at 4:20pm. The term “4:20” soon

became ubiquitous as code for marijuana use among the “Deadhead” culture associated with the rock band The Grateful Dead. Marc Emery and his supporters took the concept a step further with the inaugural 4/20 rally on April 20, 1995. By having hundreds of people smoke pot in public at the same time, the police

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would be unable to arrest them all. “To our knowledge, no one was doing anything on April 20 for 4/20 [before our ﬁrst rally],” says Jodie Emery. In the past decade, the event has spread south of the border thanks to the Internet.YouTube videos of the annual Vancouver event have reached a new audience

in the US, resulting in 4/20 events cropping up in recent years. This year, 4/20 events are being held all around the world, with 27 rallies being held across Canada, everywhere from Toronto, ON, to Yorkton, SK. For more information on 4/20 Vancouver, visit 420Vancouver.com. W

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The reign of a new king– Crop King Seeds By Kristi Alexandra Move over Budweiser, there’s a new king in town. Thing is, this king is hawking a different kind of “bud” altogether — marijuana seeds. Crop King Seeds, the local start-up that’s being touted as Canada’s first name-brand marijuana seed company, is hoping to be a pioneer in a movement that sees weed juxtaposed with recreational substances like beer or wine. Only safer. “We want to lend our brand to the industry, like Jack Daniels does to the whiskey industry. We want to be that trusted brand, where people can have confidence in that product,” says the company’s owner, Kyle (who asked not to be identified by his last name) at the Crop King Seeds office, located in the penthouse of Vancouver’s Dominion Building. Not-so-coincidentally, it stands directly beside the Amsterdam Café and Marc Emery’s world-famous Cannabis Culture shop. “When the US decided to legalize, first Colorado and then Washington State, I said ‘Okay, it’s time that Canada starts a seed company,’” says Kyle. “We have one chance to do this right, to change the whole tone of this industry and I want to show the community

that we’re doing our part.” Crop King Seeds was established in 2005, but the marketing blitz didn’t go live until 2012 — when Colorado ended its prohibition against pot. Now, the brand is waiting on Canada to change its tune, too, a promising possibility if Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is elected in the upcoming federal election. “I had put everything together behind the scenes so that when this industry evolved, we were ready to go. We were packing merchandising products, customer service, the list goes on,” Kyle says. And ready they are. The office boasts racks of seeds sold in five- and 10-packs, T-shirts, pins, ashtrays, gardening stakes, posters and other branded merchandise baring the Crop King logo — a jolly, bearded man wearing a royal purple crown and a ganja-green cloak decorated with Dark Angel, a strain from the Netherlands, balances both Indica and Sativa characteristics for moderate pain relief and marijuana leaves. mind exploration. Easy for the novice grower. Boasting 23 individual seed strains, Crop King’s seeds are personal touch. of five to 10 seeds, depending sold in 145 stores across CanKyle travels across Canada, on the strain. ada, including head shops, and to the Netherlands and The next step? Major home dispensaries in Vancouver (the Spain twice a year to seek out and garden stores across city has 83) and garden centhe world’s best breeders, North America. tres such as Jon’s Plant Factory bringing back the cream of “Eventually, I would like to be in Burnaby. Buyers can also the, ahem, crop. sold on the shelves of Canadisnag an order of seeds at the Its latest feat is White Cookies, an Tire and Home Hardware. company’s website, CropKinga hybrid of the world’s two If they can sell beer- and Seeds.com. most popular strains, White wine-making kits, they sure as Prices start at around $40 and heck can sell seeds. I don’t see Widow and Girl Scout Cookies, range up to $100 for packages both of which recently won the a difference in that,” says Kyle. “What marijuana is to the seed Cannabis Cup. From packaging to quality conbusiness, it’s just the same as trol to caring for its customer wine to grapes and beer to base, there’s no arguing that hops and all of that.” the start-up is all about personFor now, the seeds are considalization. ered “novelty items” and what “Our main customers are baby consumers plan to do with the product after they’ve taken the boomers and senior citizens. They want to come in here, seeds home is, ultimately, up grab five seeds, put them on to them. their balcony and open their “We’re not the final product. We’re just the start and people porch and just grow these need to go out and acquire the things like they would their daisies in the garden. Those tools, the space and the time are our main customers, not to complete this project,” Kyle drug dealers and gangsta’s,” says. Though the company is hands- says Kyle. “We’re here to cater to the off when it comes to growing, moms and pops.” the product is not without its

1405-207 West Hastings Street, Vancouver cropkingseeds.com Westender.com

Get to know us Q What’s your customers’ favourite strain? A If it’s a new customer, I would give them an autoflowering strain like Candy Cane, or we have a little dwarf plant that’s sold mainly to seniors. It grows about 18-inches tall and it’s used for juicing and can be turned into oil for arthritis. Q What do you do in your spare time? A We try to give back to the movement as much as possible. I’ve donated over $100,000 so far to legalization efforts, to medical challenges within Canada and I just send Marc and Jodie Emery to the University of Toronto to speak on a panel. Whenever possible, I’m always looking to give back to the community. That’s why I sponsored the baseball team (Vancouver’s the Crop King Seeds Sluggers). Q In your opinion, what’s the best method of consuming marijuana? A I believe smoking is going to be less frequent with the technologies that are being introduced. You can consume it as an edible or with a vaporizer because you can control the dosage. Now, you can take marijuana to sipping a glass of wine. You can chug a glass of wine, chug a bottle or take a little sip. In this case, you can consume a tiny amount that does the same thing. Q What was the last thing you read? A I read the marijuana news every day. Every day, you open the newspaper and there are articles on marijuana. It’s so exciting to be a part of this, to be a pioneer in this industry. Q Who’s your business idol? A Because we’re pioneering a new industry, to have someone to look up to, well, we don’t. We’re in a brand new sector within this industry. We just throw stuff at the wall and see if it sticks; we just make it up as we go along. April 16 - 22, 2015 W 9

COVER // FEATURE

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4/20

The ultimate stoner playlist ROBERT MANGELSDORF @robmangelsdorf

4/20 is here, and we here at the Westender have crafted a psychedelic journey to the centre of the universe for those brave enough to take the trip. So strap on your ear goggles, sit back, relax, and smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Pink Floyd, “One of These Days” Any psychedelic playlist pretty much has to start with Pink Floyd. From their 1971 studio album Meddle, “One of These Days” is largely instrumental, save for Nick Mason’s distorted demonic warning of “One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces”. The duelling basses in either ear build the song to an explosive crescendo, the perfect blast-off for our journey. Black Moth Super Rainbow, “Sun Lips” This vocoder-drenched break-beat-driven bit of craziness comes courtesy of a bunch of Pittsburgh art freaks that includes electronic artist Tobacco. Super weird and super awesome.

Yes, “Heart of the Sunrise” An absolute psychedelic classic from the kings of prog rock. Chris Squire’s insane bass is front and centre throughout this 11-minute epic’s meandering movements. Turn on the black light, shit is getting real.

Outkast, “SpottieOttieDopaliscious” An overlooked track from their 1999 album Stankonia, “SpottieOttieDopaliscious” is further proof that Outkast is the most versatile, creative music group of the past 20 years.

Funkadelic, “Maggot Brain” Basically a 10-minute guitar solo by then 21-year-old Eddie Hazel, who, legend has it, was given LSD by George Clinton and told to imagine he’d been told his mother died and then found out it wasn’t true. Neon Indian, “Deadbeat Summer” This lush, warm soundscape will make you nostalgic for a time and place that never existed; an afternoon spent in the arms of someone who was never there; a kiss that was never shared. Fu Manchu, “The Falcon Has Landed” A stoner rock classic. Sounds like Sabbath and Deep Purple making out in the back of a blown 426 Hemi Barracuda on the side of a lonely desert road.

is, like, seven different kinds of weird. Non-sensical, random, and utterly amazing, it is the zenith of ’60s experimental psychedelic freak-jazz.

Gorillaz, “Stylo” Featuring Mos Def and R&B legend Bobby Womack, the steady beat will suck you in and propel you forward. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Put this in your pipe and smoke it. Butthole Surfers, “The Hurdy Gurdy Man” Gibby Haynes (who is apparently singing into a desk fan) and company take this cover of the Donovan classic to some pretty weird places. As you would expect from the Butthole Surfers.

The Drive-In, frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar RodríguezLópez decided to full prog. “Cygnus… Vismund Cygnus”, the opener of 2005’s Frances the Mute, shows the band in top form, and at their most epic.

The Mars Volta, “Cygnus… Vismund Cygnus” After the demise of postpunk hardcore legends At

Captain Beefheart, “Pena” Produced by Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart’s 1969 album Trout Mask Replica

TOP SHELF MARIJUANA

Radiohead, “Everything in its Right Place” The opening track off Radiohead’s 2000 album Kid A, the lush synths on “Everything in its Right Place” spread out in all directions. While OK Computer marked the beginning of Radiohead’s evolution from a straight guitar-driven rock band, Kid A saw the band take their musical experiments to the next level. The Pharcyde, “Drop” The 1990s were truly the golden age of hip hop, as evidenced by the Pharcyde. The backwards-ﬁlmed single-take video was one of director Spike Jonze’s ﬁrst efforts. The Avalanches, “Frontier Psychologist” “Frontier Psychologist” is a beautiful mish-mash of audio oddities. The hit single from The Avalanches’ seminal 2000 album, Since I

DELIVEREDTOYOUR DOOR As Easy as Ordering a Pizza

LeftYou, it helped launch an entire genre of sample-based music referred to as “plunderphonic”. Still waiting on a follow-up boys… Kate Bush, “Running up that Hill” This ‘80s classic still holds up remarkably well, and what could be trippier than talking to God and swapping bodies with your lover? Tame Impala, “Alter Ego” From their 2010 album Innerspeaker, “Alter Ego” is a neo-psychedelic anthem that will have you bobbing your head to the hammering drums as you ﬂoat through the ambient synth-scape these Australians have created. Sigur Rós, “Varúð” This Icelandic band manufactures musical epiphanies for a living, and nowhere is that more evident than on “Varúð”. Off their 2010 album Valtari, this song will send you to heaven and leave you drifting among the stars. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “Dead Flag Blues” A post-apocalyptic lullaby not recommended for those prone to bad trips. Intense, heartbreaking, but ultimately uplifting. Like life itself. Boards of Canada, “Twoism” This trippy down-tempo classic from Scottish brothers Marcus and Michael Sandison celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The perfect chill-out track to end the journey. W $(%/%,'*/,*!+*0.-3" ,3 #%/,*! ,3 ,&* *!,%0* 2#1)#%/, 3!#%!*.

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Look out! Budzilla is here... By Gen Handley

When asked why he started Budzilla Medical Cannabis and Butters just over a year ago, managing director Rej Houle says it was pretty simple. “This is about helping people. If we didn’t stick our necks out, people wouldn’t have access to these effective, therapeutic products,” he says. “When people have tried 20 or 30 different types of medications and nothing works, and have even been damaged by those medications, these marijuana products are a blessing and it’s a blessing for us to provide it to them.” Located on Kingsway and Nanaimo Street, Budzilla sells close to 500 unique, products ranging from specialty candies and easy-toswallow THC capsules, to edibles like cookies, and medical cannabis. These are products not found anywhere else in the industry, all with varying levels of THC and CBD(cannabidiol). Budzilla’s patients are everyone from young people to seniors with issues ranging from psychological problems, to chronic health disorders like psoriasis, to potentially terminal diseases like cancer and AIDS. “When somebody with cancer, who has the courage to come through our doors and has tried everything, it’s really not just weed anymore, we really bond with our patients and care about them…it becomes a lifelong relationship.” Houle says that what makes Budzilla unique is that not only do they sell their products to other dispensaries, but they don’t usepreservatives, and focus on using local, ethical, organic ingredients like honey and fruits and vegetables. “That’s very important to us,” he says. “We

try to source the best local ingredients for our products – like fruits and vegetables from BC. They don’t last as long without preservatives, but the resulting quality is worth it for our customers.” More than 10 years ago, while working for a medical marijuana dispensary, Houle saw an opportunity. “There wasn’t a lot of quality cannabis food products,” he says. “You could get medicated cookies, but they were pretty much hockey pucks – they were edible but not delectable.” Over the years, Houle and his team conducted endless rounds of baking and tasting, even engineering a way to make their cannabis butteryellow, not green. “In every way we could, we’ve tried to improve the process and the product and I think we’ve done a very good job, creating new methods to bring to the market,” he explains. “We’ve made these products gourmet – in the look, the taste and in the strength.” He says their most popular products are the Raspberry and Nutella Lindz – tasty, donut-like sugar cookies, which are flying off of the shelves. “We makes a batch of those, so about 60 or 70 cookies, and they’re gone within an afternoon, easily.” Soon, they’ll be releasing a THC spray that isn’t available anywhere else in Canada. “It’ll range in a bunch of different flavours, like mocha, cappuccino, caramel and mint,” he says. “It’s super-duper effective and takes about 12 seconds to absorb sublingually, under your tongue, so it’ll be able to treat people really quickly, like those who experience seizures. We’re really excited about that product.”

I’m trying to accomplish, but I draw a lot of inspiration from Granville Island and individual Italian pastry shops. With the owners’ permission, I’ll go in and take pictures and ask for recipes.

Rej Houle, Managing Director of Budzilla

Q What’s the biggest misconception about weed? A Probably that people who smoke cannabis are lazy. I work 17 hours a day, seven days a week so I beg to differ on that one. [Laughs] Q How do you get in-

spired for your baked goods? A It all depends on what

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Q In your opinion, what’s the best way to consume pot? A Probably either vaporization or in edible form, just because it’s a lot less abrupt. Q Does pot really increase creativity? A Well, it’s inspired us. But it depends on the person; it’s an individual thing and how they react to it. Q What’s the best music to

listen to while high? A That’s a really tough question. How about I answer it this way – I won’t listen to country music, the rest is fair game. [Laughs] Everything from Jimi Hendrix to T-Pain to dubstep or whatever. In the lounge, we listen to a wide variety.

April 16 - 22, 2015 W 11

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4/20

Vancouver’s leading Medical Cannabis Dispensary

“Westcoast Medicann provides an alternative therapy to those searching searching for a holistic approach” Mail Order Service Education Seminars Phoenix Tears Multiple Strains of Medical Grade Cannabis for Every Condition

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Call to Make a Doctor’s Appointment 2391 Cambie Street Vancouver, BC V5Z 2V7

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Baking with Watermelon STAFF @westendervan

Local weed diva and Wreck Beach icon Watermelon (aka Mary Jean Dundson) loves to “bake, smoke pot, tell jokes, and tango dance.” For 13 years, the pot pin-up has been sharing her “special” creations, like the Cannaburger and the No Frownie Brownie, on herYouTube channel, Baking a Fool of Myself. And the world-famous ganja ninja made more headlines recently, when her Commercial Drive store, the Licorice Parlour, became the ﬁrst place in Vancouver to offer snortable chocolate. But with Watermelon, it’s still all about the edibles, and she’s handpicked two recipes from her stash just for you. As always, use responsibly.

GINGER SNAPS

3/4 cup oil 20 grams shake ﬂour 1 cup brown sugar 4 tbsp molasses 1 egg 2 cups ﬂour 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon

Watermelon, the Weed Diva. Maria Coletsis photo 1 tsp ginger 1 tsp cloves Directions 1. Sauté oil and shake ﬂour on low heat for 1/2 an hour. 2. Let cool slightly. 3. Combine all dry ingredients together. 4. In a bowl, mix molasses, sugar, shake oil, and egg. 5. Add dry ingredients and mix well. 6. Form into small balls and roll in white sugar. 7. Bake at 350F for 12-15 minutes. 8. Store in airtight container.

BC BAKED SALMON

1. Select a fatty cut of salmon. 2. Preheat oven to 325F. 3. Crush dried marijuana leaves/buds. 4. Rub. 0.75 grams on each steak. 5. Sprinkle with rock salt. 6. Cover with foil and bake for 12 minutes. 7. Remove foil and allow top of salmon to bronze brieﬂy. 8. Cool and serve. W % ):8 ":8/ (/91 3:&:0-07/5 4:"206/82.9$'!*9,::#:,"+6/#,

Franchise Opportunities Baked Goods www.weedsglassandgifts.com

Visit our booth at the 420 Celebration and see our selection of edibles.

OPEN DAILY AT 12 LOCATIONS AROUND VANCOUVER • 1807 Burrard St (@ 2nd) • 604.336-4448 • 1232 Burrard St (@ Davie) • 604-428-2420 • 2580 Kingsway (@ 34th) • 604-336-0420 • 3450 E. Hastings St (@ Cassiar) • 604-568-4420 • 2619 W. 4th Ave (@ Bayswater) • 604-336-6420 • 211 E. 16th Ave (@ Main) • 604-336-5420 12 W April 16 - 22, 2015

• 6657 Main St (@ 51st) • 604-336-7420 • 1193 Main St (@ Terminal) • 778-379-1420 • 5038 Victoria Dr (@ 34th) • 778-379-4420 • 1108 Richards St (@ Helmcken) • 604-891-1420 • 991 Marine Dr (North Van) • 778-340-2420 • 11295 Clearbrook Rd (Abbotsford) Westender.com

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@WESTENDERVAN

4/20

Edibles: The benefits of eating pot Patty Javier Gomez Whole Nourishment

@WholeNourishBC Weed, reefer, pot, ganja, chronic: whatever you wanna call it, unless you live under a rock, you know what it is. Cannabis has a history of medicinal use through many cultures dating back thousands of years. If we look back far enough we can date it to 2700 BC, when Chinese emperor Shen Nung, considered to be the father of Chinese medicine, discovered marijuana’s healing properties and would prescribe it for treatment of several ailments including gout, arthritis and even poor memory. And although it’s current healing usage may be controversial to some, its popularity and beneﬁts are only growing – so much so that you can’t walk a block in Vancouver without seeing a medicinal marijuana dispensary. With the rise of all the medicinal marijuana shops making it more mainstream, many people aren’t just smoking pot anymore, they are eating it for its therapeutic effects, which are vast and well-documented by many people across the world suffering from several ailments. Its medicinal purposes vary: it can be used to reduce nausea and vomiting in people going through chemotherapy, it has offered relief of symptoms for people

with HIV/AIDS, and has been used to treat chronic pain, muscle spasticity, and several neurological disorders. Research has also recently revealed that marijuana can destroy certain cancer cells and reduce the growth of others, including an aggressive form of brain cancer. From cookies, to brownies and infused salsas, along with an assortment of fudges, caramels and candies, there are many ways to get therapeutic effects without smoking it. Cannabis is fat soluble, which is why it is generally infused into forms of butter or oil to be used in cooking. And eating marijuana isn’t limited to just those mentioned above: have you heard about the pizza joint in East Van on Kingsway that puts marijuana oil on its pizza? It’s called Mega Ill and it’s all the rave in town. Now you can’t just go in there and order a piece of chronic pizza, you have to be over 18 and present them with either a doctor’s prescription for medicinal marijuana or a medicinal marijuana card. With what appears to be a pretty legit operation, though, this looks like a great place to take your medicine in a social non-stigmatized environment. Now before we get into the beneﬁts of eating it as opposed to smoking it, you need to be familiar with cannabinoids. Cannabinoids, like THC and CBD, are the chemical compounds secreted by

cannabis ﬂowers. THC is the psychoactive compound associated with being “high”, while CBD doesn’t produce psychoactive side effects, making it advantageous as a medicine. But both mediate communication between cells. When cannabis is consumed the cannabinoids bind to receptor sites within our brain and body, and different cannabinoids will have different effects, depending which receptor they bind to. There are 85 different types of cannabinoids and they are all known to cause varying degrees of relief and comfort in patients.

or other illnesses in your body. Also, many people are unable to smoke for health reasons, so this is a viable alternative. % 4: 9! !29+ :;2: 0-8 "*: more of a “body buzz” because your body feels very relaxed and heavier, making it beneﬁcial for so many different illnesses. W

Edible marijuana products might be just what the doctor ordered. Thinkstock photo

THE BENEFITS OF EATING VS SMOKING

% 3/597* !1-79/" .2//2bis, edibles are introduced to the body through the gastrointestinal tract and processed by the liver before entering the bloodstream. The liver changes the cannabinoid THC into the more potent 11-hydroxi-THC which tends to have a stronger, more sedative effect. % &2:9/" 9: 6955 52!: 5-/"*#( and result in a more intense feeling. % ,-/"*#'52!:9/" *$$*.:! don’t require continued dosing throughout the day or night. % )-: 2! ;2#!; -# +212"ing to the lungs as smoking; when you smoke it, the burning plant material releases more than just THC vapours, and even though THC itself is a cancerﬁghting agent, all of these nasty side effects of smoking can still cause cancer and/

MEDICAL MARIJUANA Welcome to quad country

Harm Reduction Pain Management Alternative Health Care Naturopathic Practitioner

KARUNA Tired of average medicines for high prices at other clubs? Karuna brings back the word Compassion to clubs with high quality meds for less. Over 60 strains available.

www.karunahealthfoundation.com 778-588-1888 4510 Victoria Drive,Vancouver Westender.com

April 16 - 22, 2015 W 13

MADE IN CANADA

14 W April 16-22, 2015 Westender.com

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STYLE // DESIGN

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FASHION Niki Hope Shop Talk

@NikiMHope

CAPSULE COLLECTION FEATURES BAMBOO JERSEY

Check out the new capsule collection featuring seven tops – made of bamboo jersey – by Melissa Araujo. The line is made “for everyday life,” says the Vancouver designer whose clothes combine functionality and versatility. Araujo incorporates a minimalist approach with neutrals, clean lines and silhouettes in her designs. MelissaAraujo. com

SHOP HOP AROUND

Get down to Gastown on Thursday (April 16) to see what makes it one of the city’s most stylish hoods. Forty-three shops and 14 restaurants are taking part in the annual Gastown Shop Hop. When the clock strikes ﬁve (5 pm), balloons will line the cobblestone streets to mark store entrances. Hosted by Gastown boutiques, the event celebrates spring fashion with music, treats, and promotions. The shopping continues until 9pm and includes everything from eyewear to shoes to home décor to fashion.

EFW: Fashion love that feels good Niki Hope Style File

@NikiMHope Quebec-born fashion ﬁrecracker Myriam Laroche can’t recall a time she wasn’t in the clothing business, though she remembers when her ideas about the wheeling and dealing consumption-based industry started to change. For years it was about squeezing out every last dollar, buying and selling racks of clothing churned out for maximum proﬁt. Eventually, it started to feel a little icky for Laroche. “At the beginning, I was proud of that because that was the job – I was a super-crazy buyer … and it was just about the money at the end of the day,” Laroche says with her charming Québécois accent. “I reached a point of questioning where that was going.” She still loved fashion, but Laroche started thinking about how she could feel good about it. “When I stepped back and I was like, ‘Ok, this is happening and how can we make it better, healthier, and make it feel

Eco Fashion Week founder Myriam Laroche. Contributed photo good?’” Laroche says. Her realization corresponded with her move toVancouver, where she launched Eco FashionWeek (EFW). Now in its ninth season, the non-proﬁt event kicks off on Sunday (April 19) and runs until Friday (April 24) with a week of eco-conscious clothing events that focus on design-

ers who work with sustainable materials, like vintage and repurposed fabrics. The purpose of the event is also to educate consumers and companies about the impact fast-fashion and mass consumption has on our fragile planet, which has taken a hefty beating at the hands of most industries, fashion being

no exception. For instance, a single mill in China can use 200 tons of water for each ton of fabric it dyes, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.There are countless other jaw-dropping examples of waste in the fashion biz and equally horriﬁc labour abuses. In a surprise move, H&M, considered one of the worst fast-fashion offenders, is actually opening Eco Fashion Week with the BC launch of its spring 2015 Conscious Exclusive Collection at the Fairmont Hotel on Sunday (April 19). The line is made from more sustainable materials such as organic cotton and recycled polyester. H&M will also present its Garment Collecting Initiative, a global movement that encourages customers to bring unwanted garments of any brand and in any condition to H&M. “It is a big deal to have a major brand like that,” Laroche says about H&M’s presence. In her view, it’s better to partner with large-scale producers than work against them. “We need to work with the people that have the biggest footprint,” she says. “Those businesses are coming from

an era where it was just about money. Right now, they are still on that business model, but things are changing. But for them to flip and change completely, it’s not the same strategy as a boutique that has one store – it’s thousands of stores.” Meanwhile, another highlight will be theValue VillageThrift Chic Challenge, presented byValueVillage on Monday (April 20), where three stylists are given $500 to whip together 10 catwalkworthy outfits using only thriftstore threads. For the final day (April 24), VIFFVancityTheatre partners with FashionWeek to present Traceable, a film about reforming working conditions for fashion factory workers. Following the screening, there will be a panel discussion on Fashion Revolution Day, which was started in response to the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed 1,133 and injured 2,500. “We want to be inspiring,” Laroche says about EFW. “It’s not just about what’s the next thing to wear. It’s really about, ‘Hey, lets talk about what’s going on.’We’ve been making clothes the same way for years, it has to change.” W

SITKA LISTENS TO THE GREAT BEAR SEA

Sitka, a Vancouver/ Victoria-based outdoor lifestyle apparel company, has decided to change its business model after more than a decade to reflect its core values of wilderness activism. The model blends a for-profit retail/ wholesale business with an active environmental nonprofit society. In the coming weeks, along with launching its spring collection and a new Vancouver retail space, the company will launch an Indiegogo campaign to fund the installation of a network of hydrophones on the central coast of British Columbia. The data collected from the hydrophone network will offer an accurate assessment of the effects of shipping on the marine environment and therefore make a case for the area to be a protected marine sanctuary.

CAN’T-MISS WAREHOUSE SALE

Lastly, run, don’t walk to this warehouse sale. Clothes from boutiques Misch and One of a Few, along with designer wares from Dace (one of the city’s best independent designers) will be up for grabs at discounted prices (some merchandise will be up to 80 per cent off) on April 25, from 10am to 4pm. at 285 E. 1st. W & )"6'$ *8/5 -(87 +6$% !.,4 18 !'%'(87.04(6,326#

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East Van’s neighbourhood garden shop for the past 20 years!

17th Annual

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2014

Figaro’s Garden is a well-known Vancouver gem for expert garden advice, locally sourced, organic plant material and high quality garden supplies & decor.

16th Annual

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1896 Victoria Drive • 604-253-1696 www.ﬁgarosgarden.ca /ﬁgarosgarden • @FigarosGarden April 16 - 22, 2015 W 15

STYLE // DESIGN

URBAN GARDENING

Five tips for the urban gardener Jennifer Scott A Good Chick to Know

@Jennifer_AGCTK

Let us help you create a beautiful outdoor space

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Atlas Pots

When I discuss décor it often refers to interiors and using our walls and indoor living areas to create a personalized home. But one of the elements of maximizing a dwelling space is the outdoors; while city living often doesn’t afford large yards, many homes and condos offer some exterior square footage, from patios to window boxes, that give opportunity to extend our design a little bit further. Small-space living has become a standard term for urbanites, and that deﬁnitely carries forward to our outdoors. Creativity becomes key when looking to design outside, as we look to ﬁnd ways to expand on our living areas.The ideal patio design incorporates space to relax and entertain combined with greenery to remind us that we truly are outside. A welcome

break from the concrete urban landscape, working plant life into the outdoor décor creates a sense of life and tranquility in the design. Gardening is one of those hobbies that, previously, I found both daunting and out of my skill set. However, as a designer I’ve learned the importance of addressing every inch of the home and have come to love designing the details of the outdoors. From the colour and pattern details of the pots and vessels chosen, to the huge variety in texture, scale and colour of the plant life available in the city, designing an urban garden encompasses all the elements of traditional interior design; it is truly about creating a visual extension of your indoor entertaining space. I chatted with the owners of Vancouver’s go-to boutique garden shop, Figaro’s, about the process and planning of a small space urban garden.

Continued on next page

ELEMENTAL GARDENS Vancouver’s Urban Garden Experts Courtyards • Patios • Penthouses • Terraces • Balconies (residental and commercial)

info@elementalgardens.ca • www.elementalgardens.ca 604 831 9283 • Find us on Facebook! 16 W April 16 - 22, 2015

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STYLE // DESIGN

URBAN GARDENING

Call or click before you dig

Whether you’re gardening, planting a tree or installing a fence this spring—avoid costly surprises by calling BC One Call first to get your free natural gas line location details.

Three easy steps before you dig: 1 Call: Call BC One Call at 1-800-474-6886 or cellular *6886 or click bconecall.ca 2 Review: Once you receive your natural gas line location, review it before digging. 3 Clarify: If you need further clarification, call us at 1-888-822-6555 and we can explain. Know what’s below before you dig. Learn more at fortisbc.com/digsafe. FortisBC uses the FortisBC name and logo under license from Fortis Inc. (15-015.1 03/20)

Figaro’s Garden co-owner Hartley Rosen offers tips for the urban gardener. Rob Newell photos

Continued from page 16 Hartley Rosen, who took ownership with his wife in 2013, offered up ﬁve key tips for creating a successful outdoor plant space in the city:

LOOK UP

Every square inch counts so make use of both horizontal space as well as vertical space. Think about using climbers, living walls, and anything else with upward growth to ﬁll in the vertical space and increase the [garden] surface area.

SIZE MATTERS

Choose smaller or dwarfing varieties. Many growers are now breeding small, more compact cultivars that are great in small space situations. Look for anything that says “compact”, “for containers” or “patio” on the label.

CONTAIN YOURSELF

Container gardens have been a huge trend, as people with patios and balconies do not have in-ground space to plant. Large pots or vessels can be used to house just about anything you would plant in-ground, but you need to be mindful of the size of the plant as well as stay on top of watering (as containers will need a more frequent water schedule).

TROPICAL VISION

Use large-leaved, tropicallooking plants as they help make the space feel larger and enticing; they offer a unique

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visual interest which can detract they eye from the actual size of the garden space.

FOCUS

Spring Gardening is Here! Add colour to your garden this spring

Create small vignettes or focal points of interest which guide the eye and hold the attention, making the space seem tidy and the smallness of the space seem less signiﬁcant. As with interiors, clutter takes away from the design and details - follow that same principle with the garden. From a design perspective, the ﬁrst step to creating a garden is to choose the pots that will be used within the space, as this sets the style canvas for the patio area and plants.There have been many lines that have chosen to offer natural-material pots, which not only create texture, but also enhance the nature theme; the hottest materials right now are bamboo, clays, concretes, terra cotta and of course traditional cedar boxes. Once the look, feel and size of the vessels has been determined, it’s time to consider which plant life works the best with the chosen containers; the Figaro’s team had a few suggestions of which varietals are best suited to small space gardens. Lavenders, herbs, brazelberries, Japanese maple trees and Coreopsis are the tried and true winners for an urban setting that can withstand the city elements and container setting, and also add interest in terms of palette and texture to achieve a layered, well-styled overall appeal. W

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HOURS OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK 9am to 5:30pm Holidays 9am to 5pm

April 16 - 22, 2015 W 17

ARTS // CULTURE

WESTENDER.COM

WHAT’S ON Th/16 MUSIC TIGERS JAW Pop-punk band from Scranton, PA on tour in support of their latest release Charmer with special guests Lemuria and Somos. 8pm at Studio East (1480 Frances St.). Tickets $15 at Red Cat, Zulu and TicketWeb.ca. All ages show. ONES & ZEROS Vancouver indie rockers bring their dual male/ female vocals, gritty guitar riffs and 80s new wave and postpunk sounds to the stage with special guests Reef Shark and Cat Blonde. 8:30pm at The Hindenburg. Tickets $9 at TicketFly. com or $12 at the door. VOICE TO VOICE An evening of Art Song performance created by composers from the UBC School of Music and writers from the Thursdays Writing Collective representing the power of diverse individuals to take traditional forms and create something new. 8pm at St. James Anglican Church. Admission is free.

COMEDY JOKES PLEASE! A weekly comedy show featuring Vancouver’s finest comics and aspiring standup’s. 9pm at Little Mountain Gallery. Admission is $5.

THEATRE/DANCE A FATEFUL MEETING OF LES FEMMES Fatales Beth and Michelle host a role-playing murder mystery evening with their friends, where real life exlovers, business embezzlement and illicit entanglements collide, and murder is in the air. 8pm at Havana Theatre. Tickets at Little Sisters, Bonerattle Music and LeapingThespians.ca

EVENTS NAKED GIRLS READING: TALES OF LOVE Full frontal literature meets fine art as the Naked Girls share selections from the great declarations of love, history and literature, hosted by Lydia DeCarllo. 7pm at Hot Art, Wet City. Tickets $20 at EventBrite.ca

Fr/17

Sa/18

Mo/20

MUSIC

JOSEPH Indie folk-pop sister trio on tour in support of their debut release Native Dreamer Kin with special guest Caleb Groh. 8pm at Alexander. Tickets $15 at Red Cat, Zulu and TicketWeb.ca

GIRAFFE AFTERMATH The hip-hop psychedelic approach to building on the traditions of reggae and dub music carries a triple bill with Heads Hang Heavy and The Brass Action. 9:30pm at The Railway Club. Tickets $10 at the door.

CHARANGA HABANERA Havana based timba ensemble deliver their signature 40s and 50s charanga style Cuban music to the stage, presented by Island of Music. 7pm at Commodore Ballroom. Tickets $37.50 at LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster.ca

KIESZA Canadian pop singer/ songwriter/producer appears in support of her latest release Sound Of A Woman with special guest Betty Who. 8pm at Commodore Ballroom. Tickets $30 at LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster.ca

RUMER English pop singer/songwriter on tour in support of her latest release Into Colour with special guest Vincent Bernardy. 7pm at Biltmore Cabaret. Tickets $16 at Red Cat, Zulu and TicketWeb. ca. Early show.

VHINE UND SZONG Satisfy your craving for the sensational Veda Hille with the fourth installment of the intermittent series with special guest Aislinn Hunter. 8pm at Founders’ Lounge. Tickets at Tickets.TheCultch.com

THEATRE/DANCE

MICHAEL JEROME BROWNE Three time Juno nominated roots/traditional and blues multiinstrumentalist, songwriter and living encyclopedia of American roots music. 8pm at St. James Hall. Tickets $20 at Highlife, Red Cat, Rufus’ Guitars, Prussin Music and RogueFolk.bc.ca

INFECTED MUSHROOM Israeli psytrance/electronica/psychedelic duo on tour in support of their latest release, a compilation of extended tracks and new singles. 9pm at Commodore Ballroom. Tickets $30 at LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster.ca TWO GALLANTS San Francisco based guitar-drum duo on tour in support of their latest release We Are Undone with special guest Will Sprott. 8pm at Electric Owl. Tickets $15 at Red Cat, Zulu and TicketWeb.ca DISCORDER LAUNCH PARTY Discorder Magazine holds their spring launch party/fundraiser featuring live performances by Still Creek Murder, Stefana Fratila, The Crowbots and a DJ set by BB.Yu. 9pm at The Astoria. Admission is $5 before 10pm, and $10 after (at the door only). PHOENIX CHAMBER CHOIR GLOW The final concert of the 32nd season of one of Canada’s most respected and celebrated choral ensembles featuring choral works by John Tavener, Gabriel Jackson, Jake Runestad and Canadian icon Jean Coulthard. 7:30pm at Holy Trinity Anglican Church. Tickets $25 at PhoenixChoir.ca LORD HURON A musical and visual project fronted by Michigan’s Ben Schneider, on tour in support of their latest release Strange Trails with special guest Leon Bridges. Cayucas. at Vogue Theatre. Tickets $25 at Red Cat and LiveNation.com SACRIFICE Toronto thrash metal band headlines with special guests Anciients, Black Wizard, Skull Vultures, Neck of the Woods and Aggression. 6pm at Rickshaw Theatre. Tickets at RickshawTheatre.com

Lord Huron, April 17

COMEDY BOBBY SLAYTON Making audiences laugh for over thirty years, the “comic’s comic” from New York brings his pitbull brand of intensity to the stage. 8pm & 10:30pm at The Comedy Mix. Tickets $18 at TheComedyMix.com JOHN BEUHLER A Canadian comic who has shared the stage with Zach Galifinakis, Joan Rivers and Martin Short and star of the Global TV snowboarding mockumentary, Chill. 7pm & 9:30pm at Yuk Yuk’s. tickets $20 at YukYuks.com

THEATRE/DANCE SINGIN’ SAFARI! Children’s entertainers Lisa and Linda are back with this move-along, singalong good time featuring their award winning signature songs as part of the Great West Life Tiny Tots series. 10am & 11:30am at Vancouver Playhouse. Tickets at VancouverSymphony.ca THE DUCHESS AKA WALLIS SIMPSON The fabulous, epic and true tale of Wallis Simpson, the notorious, convention smashing American divorcee for whom Edward VIII gave up the throne. 8pm at Historic Theatre. Tickets at Tickets.TheCultch.com. Runs until April 18.

ART MENNO KITTY A new and colourful group of oil paintings by East Van artist Andrea Hooge, drawing from her childhood interpretations, created to convey a childlike air of playfulness and humour. Opening reception 7-11pm at Hot Art Wet City. Runs until May 2.

INDIAN ARM The story of a family dealing with unspeakable tragedy, exploring what it means to live together, to lose everything, and to survive unimaginable grief based on Henrik Ibsen’s Little Eyolf. 8pm at Studio 16 (1555 West 7th Avenue). Tickets at Universe. com. Final performance.

...2 orchestra seats for Piper Kerman, author of “Orange is the New Black” as she recounts the year she spent in the Danbury Correctional Facility for a crime she committed ten years prior. Her story is compelling, moving and often hilarious. Her memoir was adapted into a Netflix series and is a runaway success! 7:30 pm, Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at the Orpheum Theatre.

Go to www.uniquelives.com/vancouver for bios on the upcoming season. To enter, go to westender.com and click on contests. Contest closes at 9am on Monday, April 27.

COMEDY

VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE A delightful new farce for our hyper-connected era shows us just how funny unhappiness can be in this witty mash-up of Chekhov characters and smart phones. 2pm & 8pm at Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage. Tickets at ArtsClub.com. Runs until April 19.

THE SUNDAY SERVICE Local comedians, improv actors and all around entertainers produce their weekly show featuring classic form games in the group’s unique, high-energy style. 9pm at Fox Cabaret. Tickets $7 at the door.

CHEAP & FUN

WELCOME TO THEBES A passionate exploration of a clash between the world’s richest and the world’s poorest countries in the aftermath of a brutal war. 8pm at Jericho Arts Centre. Tickets at JerichoArtsCentre.com. Runs until April 19

RECORD STORE DAY Neptoon Records hosts their annual celebration of the record store with in house performances by local bands White Ash Falls, Les Chaussettes, Strange Things, the Lazys and a meet & greet with rock legend Eric Burdon. 10am-10pm at Neptoon Records. Admission is free.

ART Plein-Air Blossom Painting The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival presents opportunities to capture cherry blossoms on canvas with sketching and painting in watercolour, acrylics, and oils led by professional artists. 10am-2pm at VanDusen Botanical Garden. Tickets at VCBF.ca

ENTER TO WIN

18 W April 16 - 22, 2015

Su/19

Return to Food:

Discover the Secrets of the Life-Changing Anti-Diet A FREE EVENT with Sherry Strong, Chef, Nutritionist and Author Wednesday, April 22, 7-8:30pm at Choices Floral Shop and Annex, 2615 W. 16th Ave. • 604.736.0009 Thursday, April 23, 7-8:30pm at Choices South Surrey, 3248 King George Blvd • 604.541.3902

THEATRE/DANCE

CHEAP & FUN NIFTY FOR FIFTY SALE Back for its eighth run, 30 local designers and artists present a glorified garage sale filled with affordable art and fashion where every unique item is priced at under $50. 11am-8pm at Heritage Hall. Admission is $1. KERRISDALE ANTIQUES FAIR The bi-annual favourite, now in its 14th year features over 250 tables and booths of 18th, 19th and 20th century antiques and vintage collectibles – a must for seasoned enthusiasts and novice collectors alike. 10am-5pm at Kerrisdale Arena. Admission is $7.

STU LARSEN Australian folk singer-songwriter tours in support of his latest release Vagabond with special guest Matt Saunders. 8pm at Media Club. Tickets $16.50 at LiveNation.com

COMEDY THE LAUGH GALLERY WITH GRAHAM CLARK Legendary weekly stand up show of East Vancouver’s biggest and brightest comics. 9pm at Havana Theatre. Tickets $5 at Eventbrite.ca

THEATRE/DANCE ONLY PLANET CABARET In a style all their own, OPC – a unique collaboration of Salt Spring artists and activists - takes the most pressing environmental issues of our time and serves them up in a unique performance that’s funny, thought-provoking, entertaining, moving and inspiring. 7:30pm at Roundhouse Community centre. Tickets at EventBrite.ca

CHEAP & FUN 420 Join the world’s largest annual celebration of our favourite herb in the downtown blocks surrounding the Vancouver Art Gallery started by none other than the Prince of Pot, Marc Emery. All day at 750 Hornby St. IV-XX SCAVENGER HUNT Bring a bike, a big backpack and a lock, pens and a map for this treasure hunt at Strathcona Park. 7-10pm at Strathcona Park (Malkin and Hawks). MANGLED MONDAY Trip down, down, down into the sixth dimension with the showing of Forbidden Zone, the musical comedy followed by a set by darkwave/ post-industrial Kilroy Katerwol.

There is more online

westender.com

What if the secret to losing weight, gaining energy, clearing up brain fog, balancing moods and reversing disease symptoms was a simple as returning to eating real food? This seminar takes a philosophical approach based to science and nature, dispelling myths and cleaning up nutritional confusion. Free session but registration is required. For full details visit choicesmarkets.com, call the number listed with the host store or inquire at Customer Service. /ChoicesMarkets

@ChoicesMarkets

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ARTS // CULTURE

WHAT’S ON Tu/21

Th/23

We/22

MUSIC

KAISER CHIEFS British indie rockers from Leeds on tour in support of their forthcoming album featuring the lead single Falling Awake. 8pm at Commodore Ballroom. Tickets $32.50 at LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster.ca

CLEAN BANDIT British electronic outfit, hot off a Grammy win for Rather Be on tour in support of New Eyes. 8pm at Commodore Ballroom. Tickets $24.50 at LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster.ca

MASTODON AND CLUTCH Heavy metal rockers from Atlanta co-headline with the Maryland rock band and special guests Big Business. 7pm at Commodore Ballroom. Tickets $45 at LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster.ca

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE The long-time Japanese psychedelic rockers return to Vancouver with special guests ST 37. 8pm at Electric Owl. Tickets $15 at Red Cat, Zulu and TicketWeb.ca

TOMMY TIERNAN Just For Laughs presents the Irish comedian blasting his way through Canada with his new solo show, Out of the Whirlwind. 7pm at Vogue Theatre. Tickets $45.50 at TicketFly.com

KALIN AND MYLES American hip hop act from the Bay Area on their The Dedication Tour in support of their debut EP Chasing Dreams. 6pm at Rio Theatre. Tickets $25 at TicketFly.com. All ages show.

THEATRE/DANCE

COMEDY

BLASTED Sarah Kane’s highly provocative and overtly shocking play is an incendiary, visceral portrayal of a world where private and public violation collide, forging a potent theatrical vision of destruction, collapse, redemption and love. 8pm at Pi Theatre (Performance Works, Granville Island). Tickets at PiTheatre.com. Runs until April 25.

COMEDY COMEDY AT THE BILTMORE Dann Quinn hosts this All-Pro comedy revue with a rotating weekly headliner and eight professional stand-up comedians. 9pm at Biltmore Cabaret. Tickets $10 at TicketFly.com

EVENTS CALIFORNIA WINE FAIR DINNER An opportunity for wine lovers to expand their knowledge of the region featuring a decadent spring-inspired four-course menu created by Siena Restaurant’s executive chef Jessica Howery with select wines from Edna Valley, Ghost Pines and Louis M. Martini. 6:30pm at Siena. Tickets at ArtsClub.com

KING’S HEAD COMEDY Colin Sharp and James Kennedy present an evening of laughs with a rotating cast of local comedians and visiting acts from LA, NY and Toronto. 9pm at King’s Head Pub. Admission is $

THEATRE/DANCE BRIGHT BLUE FUTURE Arianna and Alexandra are a couple with a relationship on the rocks when a former boyfriend, a heavy night of party and a cute club take-home named Josh push the party, and the partiers past their limits. 8pm at East Van Studios. Tickets at BrownPaperTickets. com. Runs until May 17.

CHEAP & FUN BIGGER ON THE INSIDE: DOCTOR WHO NIGHT Step inside and discover endless possibilities with Doctor Who themed trivia and events, door and team prizes for best costumes and of course, the Trivia Master prize with live music by DJ Tim the Mute and burlesque. 7pm at Electric Owl. Tickets $8 at Red Cat, Zulu and ElectroStub.com

STATIONARY: A RECESSIONERA MUSICAL An indie rock musical about the moment when big dreams meet reality checks, tackling post-recession existence with ukulele in hand. 8pm at Historic Theatre. Tickets at Tickets.TheCultch.com. Runs until May 2.

DIGITOUR All your favourite YouTube musicians live on stage for a return of the largest social media festival that millions of YouTube fans have been asking for featuring headliner Hayes Grier. 6:30pm at Vogue Theatre. Tickets $27.50 at LiveNation.com PROBLEM American rapper, hiphop artist, Snoop Dogg collaborator appears with special guests Vancity Prince, Billionaire B, Juvi Dizzle, Ayetown, Shane Mac, No Regrets, C-Stylez and Rashad Rawkus. 9pm at Venue. Tickets $25 at BPLive.Electrostub.com

COMEDY AL MADRIGAL A fan favourite on The Daily Show and regular co-star on NBC’s About A Boy, hailed one of the “most brilliant rising comics”. 8:30pm at The Comedy Mix. Tickets $15 at TheComedyMix.com

THEATRE/DANCE DISCOVER DANCE! The Dance centre’s popular noon hour series features the exceptional young dancers of the Arts Umbrella Dance Company performing contemporary ballets created by choreographers around the world. 12pm at Scotiabank Dance Centre. Tickets at TicketsTonight.Ticketforce.com PROUD Last season’s runaway hit returns for an election year encore in this sexy, cheeky and surprising play where a different outcome to the last Federal election sees the Tories take Quebec and win a huge majority. 8pm at Firehall Arts Centre. Tickets at Tickets.FireHallArtsCentre.ca

ART STEFAN SAGMEISTER: THE HAPPY SHOW Extensive multimedia exhibition culled from the creator’s ten year quest to understand happiness. 10am-8pm at the Museum of Vancouver. Runs until Sept. 7.

IETROW

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1124-470 Granville St. (at West Pender) • 604-685-8090 • www.pietrowlawgroup.ca

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April 16 - 22, 2015 W 19

EAT // DRINK

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DINING OUT

Left: BC salmon, lightly cured, with artichokes, potato, radishes, bagna cauda. Above: Wishes + Luck owners Dolly Reno and Ciaran Chung. Right: A cocktail exclusive, Hello Sailor. Rob Newell photos

Commercial Drive just got lucky small plates of deliciousness in the evenings. The brotherand-sister duo behind the shop, Jess and Dolly Reno, were awesome hosts, and the dark chocolate-espresso brownies became a byword. Like many good things, Lear Faye outgrew its original mantra and the siblings made an amicable decision to part company (in business only). Dolly has taken over the space and re-launched it as Wishes and Luck, a cool little full-service restaurant that features the ﬁne kitchen toolings of partner and EC Ciaran Chung (formerly of Boneta and L’Abbatoir). The room hasn’t gone through too much of a reno, thank goodness. The ut-

Anya Levykh Nosh

@FoodGirlFriday

WISHES + LUCK

2270 Commercial Dr. 604-484-9371 Facebook.com/Wishes AndLuck Open Tuesday-Sunday, for dinner, late night, and weekend brunch When Lear Faye opened on Commercial last year, it was an instant and quiet hit with locals. The coffee-shop-cumbistro seemed to be doing it all right, serving up local ethical beans by day and

terly intoxicating cedar patio, enclosed by a garage door on colder days, was built by Reno’s dad and is still in place, as are the vinyl tunes. On a cool night two weeks ago, I sat out on the heated patio with friends and didn’t notice the chill in the air until I was walking to my car. The menu is smart, approachable and delicious. Prices for dinner hover between $4 and $18, while brunch doesn’t break $15. Crispy pork bits ($6) are excellent, small croquettes of hock and jowl, sided with a complex grainy mustard and pickles. I’m so over beet salad on restaurant menus, but this one ($11), with red and yellow varietals roasted in

brown butter and laced with mint, creamy sheep’s cheese and yogurt, I could eat all day. Lightly cured salmon ($17) with artichokes, potato and radishes sits on a thick layer of garlic-anchovy dip, known as bagna cauda in Piedmont. The “sorta” traditional beef tartare ($15), with the ubiquitous egg and some surprising hickory accents, was heady, rich and easily lapped up, as were the meatballs with cheesy toast ($16), which was exactly as it sounds, and reminded me of something my mom used to make for me on extra-special days. Desserts ($7) were also excellent. While the chocolate ﬁg cake wasn’t my personal

favourite, it was well-made. The buttermilk panna cotta, on the other hand, was beautiful, and one of my favourite panna cottas of all time. Caramelized pear tarte tatin with ginger ice cream showed off Chung’s amazingly deft hand with pastry. This one was light, flaky and oozing buttery flavour. Cocktails like the Vancouver ($12) with gin, fig-infused punt e mes and Benedictine, are worth repeat orders, but it’s the tiny but well-selected wine list that’s worth close attention. Even with only one BC wine, it’s a winner. Glasses for $8 include Legado Munoz Garnacha and Misconduct Pinot Grigio, both excellent

pairings for the menu. As you walk in, pay attention to the wall sign on your left, “I got lucky in East Van.” By the time you leave, you’ll be the one saying it. % 28:< 40B:AH H<! 9008 @#EGE8" <96DG <== GHE8"! E8"0!GE9=0 $6# ;6#0 GH<8 '( :0<#!, ?0<# H0# 0B0#: 1683<: 68 ./. C<3E6 -80&! -8 GH0 .6<!G <83 F83 H0# 68 >@EGG0# 5$663"E#=$#E3<: <83 +<70966A, 76;*+663)E#=+#E3<:, W Food: !!!!! Service: !!!!! Ambiance: !!!!! Value: !!!!! Overall: !!!!!

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EAT // DRINK

@WESTENDERVAN

WINE

Vancouver’s favourite breakfast destination for over 10 years.

Getting to know Grenache Michaela Morris By the Bottle

@MichaelaWine

As much as I want to toast the sunshine, I’m still in need of a red to warm me up. These days Grenache is deftly serving both purposes.With its warm and generous embrace, Grenache is the quintessential transitional red. It’s equally suited for barbeques as it is for holing up indoors when the rain makes an untimely reappearance. While it’s one of the world’s most planted grapes, Grenache still ﬂies slightly under the radar. It often hides behind appellation names in countries where the region takes precedence over the grape. Despite being best known by its French name, Grenache didn’t originate in France.Yet this wine giant does boast the largest amount of Grenache plantings. In particular, it reins king in the area of Languedoc as well as the southern Rhône Valley. Ever had a Côtes-du-Rhône? Then you’ve surely had Grenache. For many years, Spain has conﬁdently laid claim to Grenache’s origins, where it goes by the sassier sounding Garnacha. Prevalent throughout the entire country, it shows up in numerous regions. Navarra, Calatayud, Cariñena and Campo de Borja are just a few to look out for on wine labels.

Anya Levykh Fresh Sheet

@FoodGirlFriday

SCENE // HEARD Truffles Fine Foods, the popular café at VanDusen Botanical Gardens, has opened another location in downtown Vancouver at 785 Howe. TrufflesFineFoods.com You’ve heard of ice cream and you’ve probably heard of shaved ice, but have you heard of Taiwanese snow cream? The flavoured milk-ice treat is extremely popular in Asia, and there is now a Vancouver purveyor, Ice Pik Shavery, in Collingwood at 3377 Kingsway. IcePikShavery.com

Best Cit y of the

SILVER WINNER 13th ANNUAL 2010

Breakfast & Lunch | Open Daily 7am – 3 pm 2211 Granville St. @ 6th Ave. 604-737-2857 Most recently the Italians have presented compelling evidence that this grape was born on the island of Sardegna. Here it goes by the moniker Cannonau. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard this name before. Not many people have. Whatever its roots, Grenache clearly loves a Mediterranean climate. Besides basking in the balmy reaches of Southern France, Spain and Italy, it can be found soaking up rays in California, Australia and Chile. And it radiates back that sunshine when it’s in the glass. The result is typically a heady, high alcohol red with rich ﬂeshy fruit and soft tannin. Unabashedly hedonistic, Grenache’s charms come in the form of lush red berries, scented herbs, pepper and sweet spice.Yet as fun-loving as Grenache can be, it does have a more serious side. The regions of Châteauneuf-duPape in France and Priorat in Spain offer the most intense, concentrated (and spendy) expressions. of the popular Wallﬂower Oaken Gin on Friday, April 17. Available at both the distillery and private wine stores, as well as this weekend’s BC Distilled festival. OddSocietySpirits.com

DRINK // DINE ICYMI…BC Distilled is taking place this Saturday, April 18 at the CBC Studios at 700 Hamilton, with both afternoon and evening public tastings. Sample dozens of craft spirits from local craft distillers, paired with food samples from top local chefs. Proceeds beneﬁt the BC Hospitality Foundation. BCDistilled.ca

Fairmont Paciﬁc Rim has a new executive chef. Nathan Brown was formerly executive chef at The Ritz-Carlton Beijing, Financial Street, before which he worked at both The Fairmont Dubai and The Fairmont Singapore.

The next Save On Meats Greasy Spoon Diner Supper Series will feature the chefs of Earls Test Kitchen on April 21. Ryan Stone, Hamid Salimian, David Wong and Brian Skinner will each be preparing a dish for the meal, in support of Rainier House. Tickets are $95 each including tax and gratuity, with two seatings, at 5:30 and 8pm. GreasySpoonDiner.com

Odd Society Spirits is releasing their second edition

On April 23, help conquer oral cancer at Taste for

Westender.com

While the debate over birthplace continues, I propose conducting your own research and sampling Grenache in all its guises. 2013 Torres, ‘5G’ Campo de Borja DO, Spain $15.99 Mmmm Garnacha… Very pure red fruit nose with baked sweet thyme and pepper. It simply drips with succulent raspberry and crunchy red plum. Alcohol is kept beautifully in check.This is the ultimate barbeque wine. 2012 Château la Courançonne, ‘Gratitude’ Plan de Dieu Côtes-du-Rhône Villages AOC, France $20.89 Grenache with a healthy dose of Syrah. Black cherry, black plum, dried herbs and chewy tannin provide a satisfying mouthful that would stand up to a lamb roast. 2013 Domaine Lafond, ‘Roc-Epine’ Tavel AOC, France $21.79 Grenache is also a muchloved grape for making rosé. A staple on our shelves, Life, a gala fundraiser at the Terminal City Club. Executive chef Greg Van Poppel will be joined by chef Alex Chen of Boulevard Kitchen & Oyster Bar for a themed, multi-course sit-down dinner. The evening also includes a champagne reception and a finale of tasting flights of wines and Scotch. Tickets $350. ConquerOralCancer.com On April 30, come out for the Canadian Flavours Gala at the Terminal City Club and enjoy spring releases from the Naramata Bench Wineries Association along with food from 15 of Canada’s top chefs, including Jesse Grasso of Toronto’s The Black Hoof, Nicholas Nutting of Tofino’s Wolf in the Fog, Andrew Winfield of Calgary’s River Café, and, from Vancouver, Ned Bell of Yew Seafood & Bar, Eric Pateman of Edible Canada, and Bella Gelateria. Tickets $125 per person. Eat-Vancouver.com On May 7, support the BC Hospitality Foundation at Dish ‘n Dazzle at

this dry example allows us to drink pink year round. Strawberry, cherry and bitter orange peel. Bigger boned and a bit boozy but perfect for grilled chicken. 2011 Santadi, ‘Noras’ Cannonau di Sardegna DOC, Italy $30.49 Intriguingly earthy tobacco, leather and coffee aromas with hints of black licorice. Dense rich fruit reminiscent of plum cake and a clove spice ﬁnish. Made for roasted suckling pig. 2012 Odchota Barrels, ‘The Green Room’ Grenache Shiraz, McLaren Vale, Australia $32.19 Super fragrant and fresh. Fruit driven but in a justpicked bowl of summer berries way. Light on its feet and nothing jammy about this. Just quaff.

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the Vancouver Convention Centre. Sample more than 80 premium wines from Argentina, as well as food from Bistro 101, Aura, Black and Blue, Cin Cin, Forage, Homer Street Café and Bar, Joe Fortes, and more, as well as a cocktail competition and live music. Tickets $75. DishNDazzle.com W

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April 16 - 22, 2015 W 21

EAT // DRINK

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BEER

The best places to booze in Vancouver Stephen Smysnuik The Growler @StephenSmys

Left: Main Street Brewing. Above: Stateside Commercial Drive. Below: Brassneck Brewery. Contributed photos

The weather’s been teasing us with warmer days, which has got me thinking about the best places to enjoy a pint. Why do I equate sunshine with drunkenness? Silly question. Why do we associate whales with water? They just go together. A couple of side notes: These are my favourite places to drink based purely on aesthetics and convenience, and is not at all based on beer or food selection. Also, watch out for an expanded version of this list in The Growler’s upcoming second issue, which is out in May.

MAIN ST. BREWING

Where: Uh, Main Street Easily my favourite tasting room in BC. Located in the old Brewery Garage building, it’s been refurbished to maintain that old warehouse feel. The high ceilings and sky lights are intact. Also, it’s never too busy, which I suppose isn’t great for business, but is great for everyone else, assuming the tasting room does enough business to stay in business.

BEER ISLAND, A.K.A HABITAT ISLAND

Where: False Creek A tiny island between the Cambie Street Bridge and Olympic Village. People have ﬂocked there to crush six packs on the island’s stony shore, with its stark views of Yaletown directly across the creek. The cops show up now more than they used to, which adds a danger vibe that pairs really well with public intoxication.

STATESIDE PUB

Where: Commercial Drive It’s a pit of depravity, with expertly curated American beer, and very little natural light that breeds the sort excessive sport drinking that’ll leave you basically mangled upon leaving. But in a fun way.

THE BLACK LODGE

Where: Fraser & Kingsway Admittedly, a hipster

and famous burgers

locale, but the Twin Peaksthemed décor, cavernous interior and rotating Parallel 49 taps make this a cozy hangout for the bearded, the ﬂannelled and those with progressive hairstyles. It also features one of the most consistently satisfying iPod playlists, ranging from Hall & Oates to early-’90sera Flaming Lips (the best version of the Flaming Lips, case closed).

THE WICKLOW’S PATIO:

Where: False Creek You’ll need a hat, or at least decent sunblock, if you’re planning any daytime drinking – the sun rides high and hot over this patio, which has an exquisite view of False Creek, its marinas, and downtown beyond it. It all has an English mariner’s pub vibe to it, which I dig.

DEVIL’S ELBOW:

Where: Downtown Located in the old Chambar (which has moved next door), this new craft-beerand-BBQ joint has all the brick-walled charm of a New York dive without any of the unseemly elements of a New York dive (i.e., dried puke in random places). The Howe Sound Brewing owners own a share in the bar, so the majority of taps are Howe Sound beers, which, if you’re uneducated in, will make it easier for you to get educated in.

BRASSNECK

Where: Main Street What’s a list like this without adding Brassneck, whose tasting room has done as much for drawing people in to craft beer as the beer itself. The tasting room’s designer Joe Holmes-Peters. passed away in March, so here’s in honour of him, for doing something extremely rad for beer, for Vancouver, and for people who love both. Ed. Note: Alibi Room very narrowly missed this list. But even though the tap list is extensive and impressive, and the food is extremely delicious, generally friendly service and attractive clientele. But it’s too loud in there, man. I can’t hold a decent conversation. W

There is more online

westender.com GRANVILLE & DRAKE 718 Drake Street 604-605-0045

GEORGIA & CARDERO 1616 West Georgia Street 604-681-8034

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DUNSMUIR & HOMER 405 Dunsmuir Street 604-899-6072

BROADWAY & LARCH 2518 West Broadway 604-731-2434

OAKRIDGE CENTRE 41st & Cambie 604-261-2820

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EAT // DRINK

@WESTENDERVAN

DINING OUT Morna Edmundson, Artistic Director

Surprise chefs rock EAT! Vancouver lineup Tapestry International Mijune Pak Follow Me Foodie

@FollowMeFoodie

It’s not Susur Lee or Tojo, this is Susur Lee and Tojo! A collaboration dinner between the celebrated Toronto chef and Vancouver’s renowned sushi master, Hidekazu Tojo, is surprisingly part of EAT! Vancouver’s new “Dinner Series”. We’ve come to expect the expected from EAT! Vancouver, and to be honest, excitement for the event was dying. But, they changed things up this year and the Dinner Series is where my appetite strikes. Leading chefs from across Canada have paired up with some of Vancouver’s ﬁnest for 11 once-in-a-lifetime chef collaboration dinners. Well, hopefully they happen more than once, but for now, this is your only chance and missing out, from a food enthusiast’s perspective, seems tragic. These are hot ticket dinners, the hottest of which is, perhaps, this one with Lee and Tojo. When it comes to “modern Chinese”,

I’m extremely hesitant and biased. The mostly poorly done “Asian fusion” food trend from the ‘90s is still haunting us, but there’s a right way and wrong way of doing everything, and Susur Lee is arguably one of the leaders in this category doing things right. As a side note, another chef doing modern Chinese food justice in Vancouver is Joël Watanabe of Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie (who is also hosting an EAT! Vancouver chef collab dinner series with Michael Caballo and Tobey Nemeth of Edulis in Toronto on April 28). I recently dined at Bao Bei and must plug the phenomenal Crispy Pork Belly with pickled watermelon radish, cucumbers, pickled ginger, crispy potatoes, and Vietnamese dressing, and the Lettuce Root, stir-fried with aged in-house prosciutto and dried baby shrimp. Can someone say, umami? I still think about it. Okay, now back to Lee and Tojo. Paired with chef Lee is one of Vancouver’s most well known sushi chefs, Hidekazu Tojo of Tojo’s Restaurant. Not only has Tojo-san pioneered Vancouver’s Japanese

Celebrity chef Susur Lee. Contributed photo ﬁne-dining scene, but he was among the four Japanese restaurants in the city in the 1970s. His claim to fame is the California Roll, and although some food historians argue its parentage, his skills go way beyond the roll. More traditional than

modern Japanese in theory, he still has love for BC ingredients and West Coast inﬂuences, so I’m expecting classic Japanese with quirky Tojo personality in his dishes. Rolls will be on the menu for sure, and a preliminary sneak peak teases the Great Canadian Roll (asparagus, Atlantic lobster, and smoked sockeye salmon), the Tojo Roll (California), and the Golden Roll (crab, scallop, and salmon wrapped in a sweet egg crepe). This six-course dinner, paired with wine, takes place Friday, May 1 at Tojo’s Restaurant (1133 West Broadway). Tickets to this legendary evening of modern Chinese meets Japanese from two culinary icons in Canada are $225 (includes gratuity, taxes not included). Buy tickets at eat-vancouver. com/susur-lee-and-hidekazutojo-at-tojos/. For details about the EAT! Vancouver Dinner Series, visit eat-vancouver.com/ dinner-series. W

Celebration of Women’s Choirs

Elektra Women's Choir (Vancouver), Cantus (Norway), Canzona Women’s Ensemble (California), and Esprit de Choeur (Manitoba)

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BRITISH COLUMBIA ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES COMMISSION

The BC Electoral Boundaries Commission is coming to town and wants to hear from you. The commission is proposing changes to the area, boundaries and names of electoral districts in B.C. The Preliminary Report is now ready for your views on the proposed changes at www.bc-ebc.ca/reports. Join a public hearing: DATE: CITY/TOWN: LOCATION: TIME:

Friday, April 17 Vancouver SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St, 1400-1410 Segal Centre 9 a.m.

Now is the time to have your say and shape your province. WEBSITE:

www.bc-ebc.ca EMAIL:

info@bc-ebc.ca PHONE:

1-800-661-8683

Submit your views online at www.bc-ebc.ca or by email to info@bc-ebc.ca before May 26, 2015.

Westender.com

April 16 - 22, 2015 W 23

ARTS // CULTURE

WESTENDER.COM

MUSIC

An ‘Education’ with Kaiser Chiefs LOUISE BURNS @_louiseburns_

“Indie rock” and “aging gracefully” are two phrases not often found in the same sentence. But here we are, in 2015, using all of the above to describe Kaiser Chiefs, one of the UK’s most treasured indie rock bands who, after being together for 15 years are indeed, aging gracefully. After releasing their international breakout album Employment in 2005, Kaiser Chiefs charmed indie rock fans across the globe with the catchy, intelligent Britpop anthems. Songs like “I Predict A Riot”, and “Every Day I Love You Less and

Less”, afﬁrmed their position at the head of the second wave of the British invasion, the same wave that brought us The Klaxons, Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys. Like many bands that broke from this wave, they were never able to top their initial success, each album selling less than the previous, perhaps a result of not having the right song, or the inevitable rise of illegal downloading. On top of that, original drummer and main songwriter Nick Hodgson quit in 2012, triggering a mini-identity crisis within the band. While some could ﬁnd themselves drinking bottomless pints in a dark pub, bitterly dreaming of the glory

REVIEWS // WAXAHATCHEE

Ivy Tripp (Merge)

Ivy Tripp is the third LP by Waxahatchee, the solo project of Alabama-bred Philadelphian Katie Crutchﬁeld (Swearin’) who writes music with a raw honesty that make you feel like she is singing directly to you, or for you. According to Crutchﬁeld, to “ivy tripp”, is to embody the directionlessness of Gen X and Y who would rather drift then settle. This theme rings true throughout the record, particularly in

24 W April 16 - 22, 2015

songs like “<” and “Poison”, the latter in which she sings “you get lazy, you get boring, you jump the train”. She channels her inner -‘90s, scrappy indie rocker in songs like “Under a Rock”, and album-closer “Bonﬁre”, an epic, brooding

days, Kaiser Chiefs rose to the challenge. “When Nick left, there was a moment of jeopardy where we could have crumbled, but actually we chose to ﬁght for what we believe in and what we love, and out of that came [the new album],” says keyboardist Nick “Peanut” Baines, who Westender caught up with on pre-tour holiday in Santa Monica. Their newest album, Education, Education, Education andWar, is an energetic Britpop album that takes its name from ex-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair’s 2005 speech, in which he emphasizes (a few times) the importance of education. While the album may be

politically inspired, it is by no means a “political record”. “Our lyrics are often formed from personal experience and observing what is around us,” says Baines. “We don’t preach to people, we just say what we see.” In 2013, lead vocalist Ricky Wilson joined the cast of TheVoice UK as a judge, alongside will.i.am, Kylie Minogue and the legendary Tom Jones. The band was hyper-aware of the possible backlash, facing accusations of “selling out” or putting fame ahead of the music. But when you’re approaching your band from a careerist side of things, it couldn’t have made more sense. “It certainly helped us,”

piece that builds upon itself in a snowball of distorted guitars. On Ivy Tripp, Crutchfield sounds her most confident to date, taking your hand and high-fiving you as you “ivy tripp” through life, sounding neither empathetic nor apathetic. She’s simply aware that sometimes life gets messy and confusing, and as she sings in the stunning “Half Moon”: “the darkness and music are a perfect escape”. – Louise Burns

SUUNS AND JERUSALEM IN MY HEART

Rating:

!!!!!

Danny North photo says Baines of the show. “We had a big discussion about whether Ricky should do it or not. There are so few music shows on British TV right now, so the choice to do it was made easier by the fact that, like any band, we want to be seen and heard. The Voice was a great way to achieve that.” And what better candidate for a show balancing possibilities and shattered dreams than an indie rock musician? Kaiser Chiefs embark on their umpteenth North American tour this month, a tour that will bring them all across the planet, yet again, in promotion of Education, and with new drummer Vijay Mistry replacing Hodgson,

Suuns and Jerusalem in My Heart Secretly Canadian Suuns, who are best known for their art-fuzz-rock sensibilities (and that Nike commercial they did a few years ago), and their long time friend Radwan Ghazi Moumneh of Jerusalem In My Heart decided to take their friendship to the next level when they paired up for a seven-day collaborative session, resulting in an album one could imagine being played in a dusty Beirut

punk bar or grimy Montreal warehouse. As the press release suggests, this album is very much “vibeladen”, featuring songs that range from analog-synth/vocoder heavy, such as “2amoutu l7tirakan”, to Arabic/electronic fusion, as seen in “Gazelles

the band says it has never felt more self-assured. “We’re very aware of what we want to be and how we want to entertain a crowd, and the sort of power we want our music to put out,” says Baines. So, any advice to aspiring young musicians hoping to embark in a similar journey? “Listen to your parents, get a proper job.” Smiley face. W

KAISER CHIEFS

play the Commodore Ballroom on April 21st with special guests Howler. Tickets $32.50+ doors at 8pm

in Flight”.There is a deﬁnite krautrock edge, favouring repetition and meditative beats overall, but does not shy from punk, electronic and Moumneh’s inﬂuence (he is of Lebanese descent, and “2attam Babey” features a rather lovely vocal melody in Arabic). It may not be the most coherent album either of the two have made, but the fact that they wrote and recorded all seven songs in seven days is proof of the transcendental nature of their relationship and the music that they create. – Louise Burns Rating:

!!!!!

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ARTS // CULTURE

@WESTENDERVAN

MUSIC

Strings, voices, and songs Mary Margaret O’Hara, Peggy Lee headline concert spotlighting the art of song SABRINA FURMINGER @sabrinarmf

What makes a song? Is it the length of the piece, or the presence (or absence) of lyrics? Is it the instruments involved, or how the audience experiences and digests the music? Is it when it was written, or how easily it ﬁts into a workout mix? For Giorgio Magnanensi, artistic director of the trailblazing Vancouver New Music ensemble, the question of what makes a song is compelling enough to warrant an entire concert – and, after Saturday, Magnanensi and concert attendees alike should have an array of new answers to ponder. The concert is Voices and Strings, and features Vancouver New Music performing new and recent works by Linda Bouchard, Jay Schwarz, Linda Catlin Smith, and Peggy Lee and Mary Margaret O’Hara. “The song as an idea is pretty wide and open, but it’s more of an exploration of lyric expansion in different

ways,” says Magnanensi in a recent phone interview. Lee, a renowned Vancouver-based cellist, and the legendary singer-songwriter O’Hara (best known for her 1988 EP Miss America) will also perform. “I wanted to have a new set of songs with Mary Margaret and Peggy, because I love their collaborations, and I love the fact that Mary is not particularly always on the frontline,” says Magnanensi. “She appears and disappears. She was in Vancouver three years ago, and I think that was the last time we saw her here.” Voices and Strings will lead audiences on an aural journey that begins with the “distant sonority and atmosphere” of Smith’s Les ﬂeurs anciennes (2000), whose melodic material hearkens back to the fourteenth century while not overtly embodying any speciﬁc pre-Baroque style. Magnanensi describes the second piece – 2010’s Music for Orchestra III by GermanAmerican composer Schwarz – as eccentric. “Schwarz’ piece is very much about forming harmonic texture in a very slow motion,” says Magnanensi. Bouchard’s new work Réfraction plays with the idea of refraction: melodic material disappears and resurfaces

over the course of the song. The evening closes with 2 cans and a string thing, Lee’s and O’Hara’s collaboration. It’s “a song that people would recognize as such” given the fact that it’s the one piece in the concert that actually contains vocalization, says Magnanensi. It’s no accident that the ensemble for this concert is limited to stringed instruments, he adds. “The pieces are actually all very different, and with strings as a uniform palette, you have so many different kinds of expression, both lyrical and harmonic,” says Magnanensi, who will conduct the ensemble through the various works. Magnanensi is proud that Voices and Strings features a predominantly female ensemble performing the work of (with the exception of Schwarz) female composers. “Not to be demagogically feminist in any way, but it’s true that women have always been, in the composition domain especially, ostracized, but they are beautiful composers, and in Canada, there are many of them,” says Magnanensi. “This is not about women and men. This is about beautiful music.” At its heart, Voices and Strings highlights the diversity contained in a single question, according to its conductor. “It’s always interesting for me to work on new things, to discover what people are doing with sound, and with ideas,” says Magnanensi. “Material and sound is always the same. Sound exists before we write music. It’s a primary force, so to have different people working with that energy and bringing their own perspective is a beautiful discovery.” W

Continued from page 7 “You cannot sell cannabis products. It is an illegal practice,” says VPD spokesman Brian Montague. “All of the shops that you see in Vancouver are all operating illegally, and those that are running them run a risk that they may get some unwanted police attention in the future.” Montague says the VPD has executed about half a dozen search warrants on Vancouver dispensaries in the past year, for reasons ranging from ﬁre safety hazards to selling to minors, but the storefronts are loosely permitted to exist because they rank low on the department’s priority-based approach to policing. Montague cautions, however, that dabbing, like any activity involving drugs, should still be approached with common sense. “One of the things that causes us concern about any sort of illicit drug use, is knowing exactly what’s in the substance you’re taking – knowing where it came from, knowing your source. Because we’re seeing a lot of cases, including cases involving cannabis products, that

involve substances like methamphetamine and fentanyl.” “These are not only super addictive,” he adds, “but potentially fatal.” But neither that, nor prices ranging from $40 to as high as $125 per gram, have stopped dabbing from becoming the manic pixie dream girl of the recreational pot scene. Dan (who asked for his last name to be withheld) is a salesman, a soccer coach, and a six-joint-a-day smoker. Every two to three weeks for the last few years, he and ﬁve long-time friends have pooled their money and bought half a pound of weed to divide up between them. Yet the 31-year-old says that, just four months ago, his group had never even heard of dabbing. Now, a portion of their weed is regularly given right back to their supplier and converted with butane into shatter. The self-professed pot expert might never have become aware of it, though, had something on the radio not caught his ear: rap music. “I had recently gotten satellite radio in my car, which opened me up to like, World Star hip hop-type music, and it was absolutely the factor in me learning about dab!” he

laughs. “There was like, four songs in a row about dab. It was so popular and apparent, and in rap music, you really see what’s being pushed at the forefront today; this very moment.” He subsequently did some research, discovered the YouTube videos of people “greening out” and falling down, and asked his connection about dab the next time he saw him. To his surprise, his dealer had some right there. “It wasn’t nearly as strong as I thought it was going to be,” Dan recalls of his ﬁrst time. “I didn’t fall over, if that means anything” he adds with a smile. “But it was such a strong hit that I only did one and I felt like the 16-year-old version of myself pretty quickly.” Like Emery, Dan couldn’t wait to share his discovery with his friends. He cautions, though, as many pot smokers are quick to do, that dab has by no means replaced traditional bud in his day-to-day operations. It’s reserved for special (or decidedly not special) occasions. “It will take away your day,” he says, wide-eyed. “It’s like comparing shots to beers. Dab is the tequila of marijuana.” W

West End

Art Plan Speak up, get involved, be heard

Voices and Strings takes to the stage of the Orpheum Annex on April 18. For tickets, visit NewMusic.org.

SUNDAY April 19 1:00 – 4:00 PM FREE REFRESHMENTS FUN FREE EVENT Empire Landmark Hotel 1400 Robson St.

JOIN US SUNDAY

Legendary singer-songwriter Mary Margaret O’Hara (bottom) will perform her collaboration with Vancouver cellist Peggy Lee (top) as part of Voices and Strings on April 18.

Westender.com

April 16 - 22, 2015 W 25

ARTS // CULTURE

WESTENDER.COM

FILM & TV

Focus and fire FOCUS actor Josh Blacker on legal career and growing up in South Africa Sabrina Furminger Reel People

@Sabrinarmf

Long before he was a familiar face in the Vancouver film and television scene, actor Josh Blacker was a little boy growing up in South Africa. Although his parents staunchly opposed the injustices that were par for the course in their adopted country, Blacker was nonetheless disturbed by the disparities he observed around him. He witnessed a particularly violent incident when he was only 12-years-old. “There was a group of 20 or 30 men beating on this kid with sticks, and then they got a car tire, filled it with gasoline, put it around his neck, and lit it on fire,” shares Blacker during a recent interview in Kitsilano. “It burned with fire into my memory.” It was a pivotal moment for the young boy. “I thought, ‘if I ever see somebody in distress or need, no matter what happens, I’m jumping in,’” he says. “I don’t even think about it.” These days, Blacker is a busy actor with a long list of credits, including SGU Stargate Universe, Supernatural, Fringe, Human Target, Transporter:The Series, and Elysium, where he played a South African mercenary. He’s also the star, co-writer, and producer of FOCUS, an indie comedy about a focus group (not to be confused with the other movie of the same name starring that

mega-famous 1990s sitcom star). But the impact of those early experiences continues to echo through Blacker’s life and craft. “As an actor, [growing up in South Africa] informed me as to the significant evil in the world, and people who will just do anything for power, and a lot of the characters I play, that’s their M.O.” says Blacker. “They’re power-hungry, they’re violent, they’re oppressive, and I saw it firsthand as a kid.” Blacker and his family relocated to Canada when he was 16-years-old. A natural born performer, he’d studied drama in South Africa and continued on this course after his move to Alberta. He was well on his way to earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre at the University of Calgary when doubt derailed his plans. “Everybody said, ‘Josh, you’re so smart, you can go do anything that you want, you can be a lawyer, a doctor, and you can’t make a living as an actor,’” says Blacker. “I thought, ‘You’re right, I’m going to go and get a real job.’” That real job ended up being in law. Upon graduation from law school, Blacker practiced at three different firms, tackling everything from medical malpractice to corporate litigation. “I just didn’t enjoy any of it, and I hated getting up in the morning and going to work,” recalls Blacker. “You have to bill every six minutes of your day, so you see your life going by six minutes at a time, and it was the most dismal experience ever. So I woke up one morning and I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’” Cut to Blacker cramming his belongings into a U-Haul and driving towards the mountains. Destination:

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In FOCUS, Josh Blacker plays a product developer who has one day to save his career. Contributed photo

Vancouver, where he’d finally turn his acting aspirations into reality. His role in Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium was a career highlight. Blacker moved from the hype and energy of Elysium into FOCUS, which was filmed over 10 days at the height of the 2013 film industry drought and #SaveBCFilm campaign. “We drew on all of our experiences working in offices, because it’s one thing most people have done in their lives, and everybody’s got a story,” says Blacker, who co-wrote the screenplay for FOCUS with actor-director ChristopherYoung. In FOCUS, Blacker is

Troy Elston, a developer who shepherds products from inception to market. Troy’s last product was a disaster, and he’s got one day to make sure his new creation tests well with a focus group, or his career will be over. “The character I was playing [in FOCUS] was a former version of me, a more stressed-out version of me,” says Blacker. FOCUS also stars Rebecca Davis, Ryan Beil, and Toby Hargrave, and includes a scene-stealing cameo from William B. Davis, the proliﬁc actor of stage and screen best known as the Cigarette-Smoking Man from The X-Files. “[Bill Davis] worked for

less than scale, and for an actor of his stature, you’d never think that he would, but he’s such a big supporter of young ﬁlmmakers,” says Blacker. The ofﬁce comedy has scooped up several awards on the festival circuit, including awards for Best Comedy and Best Actor at the Oregon Independent Film Festival. FOCUS will screen in Vancouver later this spring. W Catch Josh Blacker in WWE’s Marine 4: The Moving Target, available on DVD and Blu-ray on April 21.

Fan Expo: Interview with the walking dead Sabrina Furminger Reel People

@Sabrinarmf

To ﬁlm buffs, Scott Wilson is the versatile actor who lit up the screen in In The Heat of the Night, In Cold Blood, Dead ManWalking, Pearl Harbor, and countless other essential works of cinema. But to fans of TheWalking Dead, the 73-year-old actor is Hershel Greene, the uncompromising farmer who ﬁrst appeared in the second season of AMC’s mega-hit zombie-centric series. Wilson is no longer on The

26 W April 16 - 22, 2015

Walking Dead (for reasons directly related to the conceit of the show), but he was happy to talk about his, erm, ﬁnal exit and his career during a lull in the action at the recent Fan Expo Vancouver.

Q: What did you enjoy most about Hershel? It’s cool to see how he evolved over a period of his time on the show, and in that show, unlike a play, you don’t realize the full arc of a character in one evening. In this, you didn’t really know, so you try to have input on the direction that he’s taking, and watch it evolve.You have to be alert, and stay on your toes. I enjoyed the process.

Q: Did you take anything when you left The Walking Dead? I always take some wardrobe. I always take a piece of wardrobe. They let you have that. It’s kind of a piece of you, in a way.

Q: How did you get started as an actor? I hitchhiked from Georgia to California when I was 19, and I got drunk one night and ended up in an acting class. At the end of the class, the teacher said, ‘I don’t know what your problem is, but don’t come back to my class drunk.’ So I went back the next week to apologize to him, and he gave me a mono-

logue from a Eugene O’Neill one-act play called The Long Voyage Home, and for some reason, I went back and did that monologue the following week, and I said, ‘this is it, this is what I want to do.’

Q: When did you start appearing at fan expos? A lot of the [Walking Dead] cast had been doing them for a couple of seasons, and they said, ‘why don’t you do it?’ And I said, ‘it’s not my thing.’ And then I went to one to see what they were doing, and I said, ‘this is kind of fun, because it really is a nice outreach to the fan base.’ In the old days, the actors would go to the provinces

for openings of their shows or openings of grocery stores or car lots, and they intermingled with the fan base. Then with television, late night talk shows started, and they went to NewYork or LA and kind of abandoned what was between them. So these shows kind of take the celebrities and actors and put them back in contact with the fan base, and I think that’s an interesting way of looking at it. W Read the full interview – as well as Sabrina’s chats with Lance Henriksen and Jeremy Shada – at Westender.com.

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Westender.com

ARTS // CULTURE

@WESTENDERVAN

MOVIE REVIEWS THE SALT OF THE EARTH

Directed by Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado Given that veteran director Wim Wenders has spent recent years experimenting with visual presentation with 3D films such as the acclaimed Pina and upcoming Every ThingWill Be Fine, this seems an ideal time for him to finally delve into the work (and, ultimately, life) of a visual artist who he’s long admired: Sebastião Salgado, the “social photographer and witness of the human condition.” Wenders cleverly commences his documentary (which was co-directed by Salgado’s son, Juliano) with an intense study of the striking photo series that first captivated him, The Mines of Serra Pelada. As our eyes pour over the pristine black-andwhite, deep focus images of bedraggled Brazilians toiling in an imposing mountainside mine, Wenders initial fascination with the photos’ power is not only rekindled but contagious. Drawing us only deeper into the work is Wenders’ customarily casual-yet-eloquent narration, which asserts that these photos aren’t so much documents as short stories. Maintaining a meditative air, the documentary unfurls hundreds of Salgado’s grand compositions, each of which is suited for the big screen. As they appear in chronological order, we’re invited to lose ourselves in each and retrace a storied career with the artist himself serving as our guide (as Wenders largely cedes voice-over duties). The narrative and emotional arc that ensues is

remarkably powerful as his work transports us through several rings of hell on Earth – the Kuwait oil ﬁres and the Rwandan genocide amongst them – but exudes endless compassion for the poor devils who inhabit them. And as the ﬁlm recounts Salgado’s own crisis of faith in humanity and subsequent recovery, it achieves an incredible feat: leaving us in as much of the man as his art. –Curtis Woloschuk

TRUE STORY

Starring Jonah Hill, James Franco Directed by Rupert Goold Truth is stranger than fiction in the psychological crime drama True Story. The film spins the sordid tale of disgraced New York Times reporter Michael Finkel (Hill), who discovers accused murderer Christian Longo (Franco) has taken on Finkel’s identity and meets with the mysterious man to get some answers. The two strike up an unlikely rapport as Finkel becomes hungry for image redemption with the prospect of an exclusive story and possible book deal, while Longo’s intentions grow increasingly murky. Based on Finkel’s own memoir, the movie would actually work more effectively in documentary form, as the results are eventually rather dramatically inconsequential, but it offers a chance for Hill and Franco to respectively showcase their serious sides. Director Rupert Goold crafts the film with expert detail, meticulously staging some brilliant scenes, while Masanobu Takayanagi’s pristine cinematography captures the story’s utter bleakness. In fact, True Story suffers from a little too much

melodrama as interrogation scenes start to feel overly dreary. For all its build up and mind games, the plot can’t quite carry the bulk of the cat and mouse game into a thrilling conclusion. but the character examination and sheer production value are enough to keep a compelling grasp on the audience’s attention. True Story is an above average character study; what the ﬁlm lacks in genuine thrills and tension it makes up for with two solid lead performances from normally comedic stars. Hill and Franco’s scenes may become repetitive but there is no denying their compelling acting. –Thor Diakow

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

Starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart Directed by Olivier Assayas It’s no secret that the ﬁlm industry isn’t particularly kind to actresses of a certain age. Consequently, it’s little surprise that, as we meet Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) on a train speeding through Switzerland, she ﬁnds her career idling at a crossroads. With little interest in SFX-laden blockbusters, she

art city

Juliette Binoche (left) plays an actress, and Kristen Stewart her assistant, in Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria. yearns for meaningful work. It ﬁnally presents itself in the form of a return to the stage for a revival of the play that originally vaulted her to stardom decades earlier. However, on this occasion, she’s to play the older woman in the psychological drama rather than the young temptress. Having affectionately mined his own rebellious youth for 2012’s dreamy Something in the Air, writerdirector Olivier Assayas now takes the opportunity to slyly illustrate the anxieties that can arise when reﬂect-

ing on one’s past. And while the ﬁlm trades in some of the ﬁlm industry satire that fuelled Assayas’ IrmaVep, it’s primarily a character study exploring insecurity, identity and the inescapable ravages of time. It’s primarily Maria’s interactions with two other women – Valentine (Kristen Stewart), her savvy assistant, and Jo-Ann (Chloë Grace Moretz), the scandal-plagued inheritor of her breakout role – that incrementally reveal Maria’s wounds and frailty. As Maria and Valentine run lines incessantly (and

increasingly passionately), Assayas effectively blurs the lines between roles and reality. In turn, he offers an intelligent, compelling and darkly amusing commentary on our tendency to reinterpret and rewrite the past. And as Maria discovers that it isn’t the same play she’s returning to – time and experience have had their way with it – we’re left to consider what might lay in wait should we dare throw ourselves back into our own formative experiences. –CurtisWoloschuk

call for artists

in the

REVIEWS //

10th annual visual art show & sale

artist registration Need a venue to showcase and sell your art?

Take part in our 10th annual “Art In The City” Visual Art Show & Sale. Opening Gala & Sale Friday, May 1st and art sale Saturday, May 2nd and Sunday, May 3rd. For more details, pick up an artist package at the West End Community Centre. $100/10‘x10’ space/individual $93/10‘x10’ space/group

WEST END COMMUNITY CENTRE Comedic actor James Franco reveals his serious side in True Story, in which he plays accused murderer Christian Longo.

Westender.com

870 Denman Street, Vancouver, BC 604.257.8333 www.westendcc.ca

Jointly operated by the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation and the West End Community Centre Association

April 16 - 22, 2015 W 27

LIFESTYLES //

(604) 541-4888

REAL ESTATE Dianna Stocker

Colonial Pacific Realty Ltd.

www.diannastocker.ca

Joanne Beeson, J.D. www.joannebeeson.com

FEATURED LISTING - THE HAYWOOD Only 2 Penthouse ocean view homes remain each with private rooftop terraces

$963,000 plus GST | $1,799,000 plus GST

Spring

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2432 Haywood Avenue, West Vancouver (Dundarave Village)

OPEN SAT/SUN • 12-4:30 CARNEY’S CORNER

WesTenDeR One Rare two bedroom, two bath strata just steps to Denman, Davie and Robson streets as well as English Bay and Stanley Park. Houselike layout offers oversize kitchen updated with stainless appliances and granite counters, engineered wood floors and gas fireplace. Covered balcony offers additional space for al fresco dining and urban gardeners. Super new common roof top deck for suntanning and entertaining. Pet friendly, rentals limited. Parking and locker included while laundry can be installed with permission but just across the hall! By appointment. $479,000 fIRsT vIeWIng agenT OPen fRI 10-12:30, 1631 COmOx

The aDmIRal Popular post and beam construction. 70s condo offers much more to todays home buyer. Overheght ceilings, large rooms, more storage and more cubic feet! Spacious one bedroom has been modified enlarging kitchen, adding office and general updates including engineered wood floors, corian counters, updated bath, newer cabinets, appliances, fixtures and window coverings. Quiet area of the building overlooking garden with large balcony and only one common wall.Cat friendly, great storage, guest parking and one underground stall plus locker included. Sale of property pending probate. $369,900

WEN

West End Neighbours

urban residences_modern living | seller’s & buyer’s agent specialist

AnnLok

cell 604.767.0959 | office 604.714.1700 www.annlok.com | ann@annlok.com Medallion Club Award Member

New info always available on the website; an opportunity for community to stay in touch and keep up on local issues. www.westendneighbours.ca

TALK TO LIZ CARNEY 604 685-5951/603-3095

Niz.cKrLIy@cILtury21.cK • www.vancouvercondo.com CILtury 21 IL TowL RIKNty • 421 PKciHic • 1030 DILMKL

Sutton West Coast Realty | 301-1508 West Broadway

presales | assignments | resales | investments specialist

Over 10 years experience working for You.

NEW LISTING: 1206-1420 W. GEORGIA STREET – THE GEORGE: $479,900 In Town Realty

ATTN: INVESTORS & VIEW LOVERS!

Sought after “03” suite at Harbour Side Park! BREATHTAKING FOREVER VIEWS of Coal Harbour, Stanley Park, marina, + N.Shore Mountains. This is the most sought-after 1 bdrm floor plan w/the best view in the building and no wasted space. Open kitchen with 5 appls. Insuite washer/dryer, insuite storage, huge living room, marble bath, open kit. Secured U/G parking, 2 storage lockers, + 2 private bike lockers. Indoor pool, gym, theatre, hot tub, 2 meeting + party rooms, billiards, 24 hr. security, visitor parking, resident manager etc. Well maintained and managed building. Pets and rentals allowed.

$499,900 • 1603-555 Jervis • Breathtaking views!

STRAIGHT OUT OF B.C. HOME MAGAZINE!

This extraordinary home must be seen! Luxurious 3 bedroom, 3 bath urban oasis features a sophisticated Art Deco esthetic with $160,000 in upgrades. The main floor boasts hardwood floors, a gourmet kitchen, a sunken living room with gas fireplace, a large family room (with gas fireplace) two huge garden patios, and a stunning dining room with unique canvas painted ceiling by artist Veronica Foster. The upper level has a big balcony, 3 bedrooms include huge garden view master bedroom and 2 spa-like 5pc baths. The lower level has what most other condos are missing. A giant 468 sq ft media room / man cave, a private 2 car garage and 350 sq ft of storage room with direct access to your home.

$1,590,000 • 1020 Quebec St • Extraordinary

Call MICHAEL ROBSON

for your private appointment

604-671-7256

michaelrobson@shaw.ca www.vancouvercanadarealty.com

28 W April 16 - 22, 2015

Prompton Real Estate 201-179 Davie Street, Vancouver

WEST END/COAL HARBOUR: Rainscreened, completed in 2002 • Ultimate downtown spacious living with everything at your doorstep! • Amazing location - everything within minutes surrounded by seawall, Coal Harbour waterfront with seaside recreation, restaurants, marina & leisure; Robson St. retail & entertainment district, Stanley Park, Denman St & Financial District • Ultra spacious SW corner 684 sqft 1 bdrm + large den (with windows) features granite countertops, breakfast bar, generous rooms, plenty of natural light, den is great for an office /or small guest suite, insuite storage & W/D, perfect floorplan, great entertaining space, 1 prkg & 1 sep. storage locker • Fabulous gym • Rainscreened concrete construction! Great investment property too. Great condition with city views • Call Ann for more information & viewings. GROUP WEST COAST REALTY

false creek north | yaletown | coal harbour | vancouver

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REAL ESTATE //

@WESTENDERVAN

Rob Joyce & Sales Associate Roger Ross

West End Specialists Nobody knows the West End better!

Sales Associate Roger Ross

West End Specialist Rob Joyce

MLS Diamond Master Medallion Award 2014

Your own private 425 sq. ft. West End deck!

Heritage Character 1055 Harwood #212 Renovated 705 sf South-facing

OPEN: SAT 3:30 - 4:00 1967 Barclay #403 Renovated West of Denman SW corner 1 bdrm with open kitchen. Roof deck. Pet friendly strata. $348,000.

suite at Harcrest Apartments. $319,900.

Water Views 1146 Harwood #1403

Offer Pending 1850 Comox #704

Renovated water & mountain view suite at The Lamplighter. Great price for 595 sf strata unit on Sunset Beach. $349,900.

High end upgrades, English Bay views at resort style El Cid. Hurry! $319,900.

We sell 100% of our West End listings!

rooftop deck! above this top floor suite. Extraordinary style and upgrades to every aspect of this spacious contemporary 1 bedroom + office home situated in the heart of the Denman neighbourhood. Enjoy panoramic mountain and city views from your very own private, bright & sunny immaculately presented massive urban oasis rooftop deck. Features include: gorgeous chef's kitchen with top quality cabinets, skylight and window allowing plenty of bright light. Won’t last! $439,900.

604.623.5433

WEST COAST WEST COAST

www.robjoyce.ca

MAUREEN YOUNG

5 Year Variable

(Prime less 0.85%)

Rates subject to change without notice. O.A.C.

Thanks Clients for Making Me One of the 2014 “Top 100 RE/MAX Realtors in Western Canada”! A Sophisticated Approach to Lifestyle Attainment. Professional Advisement and Marketing of Fine Vancouver Properties. Number One Realtor in Office 2012, 2013 & 2014 2014 RE/MAX Chairman’s Club Award Winner

CURRENT LISTINGS: MACKENZIE HEIGHTS NEW PRICE

DIDYOU KNOW that by making your mortgage payments every 2nd week you can have your mortgage paid off 3 1/2 years sooner – an easy way to save thousands in interest! Contact me for all your purchase, refinance and renewal options. Other rates and terms available.

CALL 604-805-5888

maureen@maureenyoung.ca | maureenyoung.ca Dominion Lending – Downtown Financial An Independently Owned & Operated Corporation

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robjoyce@telus.net PERSONAL REAL ESTATE CORPORATION

CURRENT RATES

2.59% 2.00%

SOLD 1924 Comox #412 $469,900.

Certified Senior Agent & Luxury Marketing Specialist

Senior Mortgage Advisor

5 Year Fixed

L LD O O S S

New Listing 1705 Nelson #402 OPEN: SATURDAY 2:00 - 3:00 Enjoy your very own private 425 sq. ft.

BY APPOINTMENT 2905 West 37th Avenue, $4,780,000

• Brand New 5,383 SQFT 7 Bdrm, 8 Bath Home • Stunning Architectural Craftsman-Style Masterpiece • 4 Bdrms Up, 1 Down, Plus 900 SQFT 2 Bed, 2 Bath Legal Suite • Three Car Garage • Beautiful Landscaping, Built-in Water Fountains & BBQ • Stunning Oak Floors, High-End Appliances, Wok Kitchen • Mackenzie Heights/Kerrisdale – Near Best Schools and Right on Bike Route • Completion February 2015

Crest Westside Ltd.

More on My Website at: www.MichaelDowling.ca

WEST END

KITSILANO

WEST END

NEW LISTING

OPEN SAT & SUN 2-4PM 506-1720 Barclay Street, $268,000

1001-1250 Burnaby Street, $278,000

• Gorgeous Beautiful Renovated 1 Bedroom in Sought After “Lancaster Gate” – One Block to Denman • 644 SQFT, North West Corner With Lovely Tree Views • Lots of Light, Stunning Designer Renovation • Beautiful Laminate Wood Floors Thru-ought • Outdoor Pool • Storage, Parking Rentable • Commercial Leasehold till 2073 • Rentals allowed! Welcome Home!

Prepare to be MOVED™.

OPEN SAT & SUN 11AM-1PM

• Gorgeous, best unit in building at “The Horizon” • Second From The Top, South West Corner With Protected Ocean Views! • Junior 1 Bedroom With Partition Wall For Bedroom • Stunning Renovation with Beautiful Hardwood and Tile Designer Floors • Built-in Halogens Thru-ought, Quartz Counters, Jacuzzi Tub in Bathroom • Stunning Rooftop Deck, Pool and Rec Area, Parking and Storage Available • Commercial Leasehold till 2073 • Rentals Allowed,Welcome Home!

OPEN SAT & SUN 2-4PM

1814 W. 11th Avenue, $1,098,000

• Like-New 1270SQFT “Tudor-Style” 4Plex • 3 Beds, 3 Baths & Single Garage • Euro High-End Kitchen W’ Granite Counters • Warm Hardwood Throughout • Large Sunny Private Patio, Balcony Off Master & Covered Porch • Walk to Lord Tennyson School 1 Block • Few Blocks To Broadway UBC Express Bus • Gorgeous Home On Pretty Tree-Lined Street

EAST HASTINGS VILLAGE SOLD!

OPEN SAT & SUN 2-4PM

703-1277 Nelson Street, $578,000

• Renovated Largest Floorplan in Georgie Award Winner! • Best Building in Central Westend • 2 Bed, 2 bath 950SQFT Lots of Light • Beautiful Bathrooms, Granite Counters • Huge Windows With Great Views of Mountains & City • New Pipes, 1 Parking, 1 Storage, Rentals Yes, Pets No. • Updated Gym, Cedar Saunas • 2-3 Blocks to Robson, Davie, Denman, Parks & Shops • Welcome Home!

Call Us Today for a Confidential Needs Assessment and Market Analysis

210-2320 Trinity Street, $358,000

• Beautiful Partially Reno’d 2 Bedroom 900SQFT WIth Wood Fireplace! • North West Corner Suite – Best Location in Building • Quiet Side of Solid Building With Lions, Stanley Park & Harbour View on Quiet Lovely Street • Building Backs Onto a Park • Parking & Storage Included • Pets & Rentals Allowed! • Hottest Neighbourhood Up and Coming!

604-787-5568

www.MichaelDowling.ca

April 16 - 22, 2015 W 29

DOWNTOWN’S MOST AFFORDABLE LUXURY

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SM IT HE

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Due to current land and construction prices, HE LM we cannot foresee any future CK Downtown Vancouver EN ST $800/sf. developments to be priced under YALETOWN ALETOWN DA

“

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YALETOWN ALETOWN

Yaletown Roundhouseaddress by Bob Rennie -Taken from an industry SkyTrain SkyT

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HORNBY & HELMCKEN AT THE VANCOUVER LAW COURTS 164 CITY HOMES FROM $346,900 · ADDITIONLIVING.COM PRESENTATION CENTRE OPEN DAILY 12–5PM, EXCEPT FRIDAYS 1149 HORNBY STREET · 604 620 6692 THE DEVELOPER RESERVES THE RIGHT TO MAKE CHANGES WITHOUT NOTICE. PRICES AND AVAILABILITY ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. RENDERING AND VIEW ARE APPROXIMATE ONLY. E.&O.E.

30 W April 16 - 22, 2015

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REAL ESTATE //

@WESTENDERVAN

STEPHEN BURKE CALL NOW

FOR YOUR

SUTTON GROUP - WEST COAST REALTY 301-1508 W BROADWAY

RETIRE ON LOST LAGOON

604-714-1700

w w w . s t e p h e n b u r k e . c o m COMPLIMENTARY

604-551-4190

CONDO MINIMAL

FIRST TIMER BUYER

D L O S • • • • •

W NE

Efficient micro 1 BR. 440 sq. ft. Fully upgraded kitchen and bath Breakfast bar + Sep dining for 4 10x10 living room, bright E facing Acclaimed Mid Century co-op

CONSULTATION

• • • • •

Steps to SOMA area, shops, cafes Broadway, skytrain & main areas 1 BR strata w/ mountain view Updated kitch/cabs & backsplash New bathroom vanity & lighting

• • • • •

& AT ”S O “

WALL CENTRE

G TIN LIS

W NE

4th floor 1600 sf 3 bedroom 2 bath End unit with opening windows 3 sides Overlooking spectacular post card views Stanley Park, Lost Lagoon & mountains Large sunny open plan granite kitchen

710 CHILCO

• • • • •

1161 sf 2 BR/2 bath at Wall Centre Nestled in the trees-an urban oasis Gorgeous fully upgraded kitchen Cozy sunroom DR. Walk score 100 Bring your house-size furnishings

• • • • •

OM RO D BE

Entertainers’ dining for 8-12 guests Large LR with oversize ‘picture’ window 2 king-size BR’s, 1 with granite ensuite 3rd BR for media room, home office Prestigious Chilco Towers on the Park

$1,050,000

SKY HIGH 1 + DEN + DECK

0-4 2:3 N SU

Newer pet friendly floors--laminate Cozy gas FP, gas incl. in maint fee Insuite WD permitted w/ approval New roof. Lo maint. incl H+HW+gas Parking & storage locker included

1975 PENDRELL $259,900 440 E. 5TH

W NE

G TIN LIS

• • • • •

G TIN LIS

• • • • •

EN OP

45 -1: 12 T SA

Established building in South False Creek 777 sf 1+den (could be 2nd BR/office) Upgraded kitchen cabinets & appliances Engineered wood floors throughout Custom walk-through dressing room

$289,900 1050 BURRARD $798,000 120 MILROSS

• • • • •

Semi-ensuite bath w/ upgrades Cozy gas Fireplace in living room 10’ x 7’ ft. open air entertainers’ deck Views to Mt. Baker and Burrard Inlet 1 parking/storage. Recently refreshed.

$525,000

www.dexterrealty.com 604-689-8226 Yaletown 604-336-3539 Main Street 604-263-1144 Kerrisdale

Layla Kevin Skipworth Managing Broker Bamford

Brad Pacaud

Kris Pope

Taking our Listings Global

Jimi Brockett

Nicole Cannon

Michael Chen

Matthew Chow

Jennifer Devlin

Christopher Dohm

Scott Evans

Erica Fremeau

James Hau

Jeff Holmes

Megan King

Johan Leung

Clarence Lowe

Travis Mako

Jocelyn Manlapaz

Bob Moore

Sean Murty

Mateen Qureshi

Nadine Ramos

Tyrone Robinson

Harj (Romi) Rai

Mike Rooney

Michael Shaw

Simmy Sandhu

Sheila Sontz

Melany Sue-Jonhson

Daryl Suarez

Natasha Sully

Larry Traverence

Esther Twerdochlib

Sharon Wayman

Michael Webster

Laurel Wood

Maria Zavaglia

Matt Magee

604-790-6589

matt@mattmagee.ca

101-1250 BURNABY ST.

skipworth@ dexterrealty.com

www.loftsvancouver.com

$195,000

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Run, Vancity! Run! Stephanie Florian Play Outdoors

@PlayOutdoorsVan Are you one of those people who hyperventilates in large crowds? Does the thought of pounding pavement for 10ks through the downtown core make your knees buckle? The annual Vancouver Sun Run is this Saturday, April 19, and it will generate a feeling that compares to no other. Imagine yourself as a salmon, fighting your way upstream against a current of competitors. Although extremely overcrowded, there is rhyme and reason to the race day mayhem.Tens of thousands of fitness junkies and anti-runners will be out in full force, take the city by storm and then – poof! – will be gone. Call it an obligation or a rite of passage, but every fit and fun Vancouverite should surrender. Despite the pain and inconvenience (it is at 9am on a Sunday on Georgia), suck

it up and enter.This annual spring ritual is not an option but a call of duty. Here’s why:

HISTORY

Since 1985 the Sun Run has been molding Vancouver into a kingdom of healthy people. Hit the ground running with over 50,000 others. This is the largest 10K in Canada and the second largest in North America so it’s go big or go home time.

THE RUSH

Nothing quite beats the adrenaline rush of a competition when you are at the start line waiting for the gun to ﬁre and the high energy cheering stations are sending out positive vibes.Ten kilometres is doable even if you have missed a few training sessions. The route is classic Vancouver: English Bay, Stanley Park, our usual beautiful hood.

FREE STUFF

Just like driving, slower runners stay right and let others pass on the left.When approaching the ﬁnish line, don’t stop, don’t faint but do move

out of the way. Cool down as you walk into the Sun Fair and high-ﬁve familiar faces while your heart rate settles back down. A plethora of snacks and other free goodies await you under the roof at BC Place Stadium before the awards ceremony starts at 11am.

PRESS

See your name in the newspaper! Wear a GoPro and capture the ﬁsh swimming upstream while getting elbowed by crowds of other runners. Create your own media coverage onYouTube.

EXPERIENCE

It’s pretty much impossible to run a road race as big as The Vancouver Sun Run without crossing paths with someone you know. Even non-runners come out for this one because it’s all about the experience and the camaraderie. We live in one of the most health conscious and picturesque cities in the world, so just do it! Run,Vancity! Run! W

TIPS FOR RUNNING YOUR FIRST MARATHON If you’re a runner, your main goal of entering the marathon may be to win the race. If you’re a walker or that is your ﬁrst marathon, your main goal should simply be to ﬁnish the race.The best training process for either goal is gradually building up your mileage. Runners should be able to run at least 30 minutes straight before starting marathon training.This is to allow your body to become accustomed to running such long distances. If you are a novice runner, you might begin by alternating walking and running during the pre-training stage in order to reduce the

risk of running injuries. It’s important to keep in mind injury prevention at all times. Refueling for recovery is equally important.Your body needs to rest between runs so it can recover from one run to the next, getting stronger between each run. Nutrition and eating the right foods at the right time also play a vital role in recovery. Running shoes are a pivotal aspect as well. It is important to invest in a good pair of shoes even though they tend to be expensive. A local store that specializes in athletic footwear can help you choose the shoes that

will work best for your feet. Carbohydrates will be the primary source of fuel during long runs. If you’re a runner, you should consume a diet that consists of at least 65 per cent carbohydrates. Also, make sure that you drink plenty of water or consume sports drinks throughout your walks and/or runs. In order to ensure proper hydration, make sure to drink 6 to 8 ounces of ﬂuids every 20 minutes. Consistency and dedication will help you to build up your distance capability and improve your endurance. –Story courtesy ofVancouverHealthCoach.com

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Free Will Astrology By Rob Brezsny The California Gold Rush hit its peak between 1849 and 1855. Three hundred thousand adventurers flocked to America’s West Coast in search of gold. In the early days, gold nuggets were lying around on the ground in plain sight, or relatively easy to find in gravel beds at the bottom of streams. But later prospectors had to work harder, developing methods to extract the gold from rocks that contained it. One way to detect the presence of the precious metal was through the use of nitric acid, which corroded any substance that wasn’t gold. The term “acid test” refers to that process. I bring this to your attention, Aries, because it’s a good time for you to use the metaphorical version of an acid test as you ascertain whether what you have discovered is truly golden.

The time between now and your birthday will provide you with excellent opportunities to resolve lingering problems, bring drawn-out melodramas to a conclusion, and clean up old messes – even the supposedly interesting ones. You want to know what else this upcoming period will be good for? I’ll tell you: 1. Surrendering control-freak fantasies. 2. Relieving your backlog of tension. 3. Expelling delusional fears that you cling to out of habit. 4. Laughing long and hard at the cosmic jokes that have tweaked your attitude.

In the mid-19th century, the entrance exam for the British Royal Navy was quite odd. Some candidates were required to write down the Lord’s Prayer, recite the multiplication table for the number three, get naked and jump over a chair, and drink a glass of sherry. I’m guessing that your own initiation or rite of passage may, at least initially, seem as puzzling or nonsensical as that one. You might be hard-pressed to understand how it is pertinent to the next chapter of your life story. And yet I suspect that you will ultimately come to the conclusion – although it may take some time – that this transition was an excellent lead-in and preparation for what’s to come.

In 1909, Sergei Diaghilev founded the Ballets Russes, a Parisian ballet company that ultimately revolutionized the art form. The collaborative efforts he catalyzed were unprecedented. He drew on the talents of visual artists Picasso and Matisse, composers Stravinsky and Debussy, designer Coco Chanel, and playwright Jean Cocteau, teaming them up with top choreographers and dancers. His main goal was not primarily to entertain, but rather to excite and inspire and inflame. That’s the spirit I think you’ll thrive on in the coming weeks, Cancerian. It’s not a time for nice diversions and comfy satisfactions. Go in quest of Ballets Russes-like bouts of arousal, awakening, and delight.

“Don’t ever tame your demons – always keep them on a leash.” That’s a line from a song by Irish rock musician Hozier. Does it have any meaning for you? Can your personal demons somehow prove useful to you if you keep them wild but under your control? If so, how exactly might they be useful? Could they provide you with primal energy you wouldn’t otherwise possess? Might their presence be a reminder of the fact that everyone you meet has their own demons and therefore deserves your compassion? I suspect that these are topics worthy of your consideration right now. Your relationship to your demons is ripe for transformation – possibly even a significant upgrade.

Will you be the difficult wizard, Virgo? Please say yes. Use your magic to summon elemental forces that will shatter the popular obstacles. Offer the tart medicine that tempers and tests as it heals. Bring us bracing revelations that provoke a fresher, sweeter order. I know it’s a lot to ask, but right now there’s no one more suited to the tasks. Only you can manage the stern grace that will keep us honest. Only you have the tough humility necessary to solve the riddles that no one else can even make sense of.

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My message this week might be controversial to the Buddhists among you. But I’ve got to report the cosmic trends as I see them, right? It’s my sacred duty not to censor or sanitize the raw data. So here’s the truth, as I understand it: More desire is the answer to your pressing questions. Passionate intensity is the remedy for all wishy-washy wishes and anesthetized emotions. The stronger your longing, the smarter you’ll be. So if your libido is not already surging and throbbing under its own power, I suggest you get it teased and tantalized until it does.

Karelu is a word from the Tulu language that’s spoken in South India. It refers to the marks made on human skin by clothing that’s too tight. As you know, the effect is temporary. Once the close-fitting garment is removed, the imprint will eventually disappear as the skin restores its normal shape and texture. I see the coming days as being a time when you will experience a metaphorical version of karelu, Scorpio. You will shed some form of constriction, and it may take a while for you to regain your full flexibility and smoothness.

Georgia is not just an American state. It’s also a country that’s at the border of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Many people who live there speak the Georgian language. They have a word, shemomedjamo, that refers to what happens when you love the taste of the food you’re eating so much that you continue to pile it in your mouth well past the time when you’re full. I’d like to use it as a metaphor for what I hope you won’t do in the coming days: get too much of a good thing. On the other hand, it’s perfectly fine to get just the right, healthy amount of a good thing.

When you’re a driver in a car race, an essential rule in making a successful pit stop is to get back on the track as quickly as possible. Once the refueling is finished and your new tires are in place, you don’t want to be cleaning out your cup holder or checking the side-view mirror to see how you look. Do I really need to tell you this? Aren’t you usually the zodiac’s smartest competitor? I understand that you’re trying to become more skilled at the arts of relaxation, but can’t you postpone that until after this particular race is over? Remember that there’s a difference between the bad kind of stress and the good kind. I think you actually need some of the latter.

Until the early 20th century, mayonnaise was considered a luxury food, a hand-made delicacy reserved for the rich. An entrepreneur named Richard Hellman changed that. He developed an efficient system to produce and distribute the condiment at a lower cost. He put together effective advertising campaigns. The increasing availability of refrigeration helped, too, making mayonnaise a more practical food. I foresee the possibility of a comparable evolution in your own sphere, Aquarius: the transformation of a specialty item into a mainstay, or the evolution of a rare pleasure into a regular occurrence.

Piscean author Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated over 40 books for children. Midway through his career, his publisher dared him to make a new book that used no more than 50 different words. Accepting the challenge, Seuss produced Green Eggs and Ham, which went on to become the fourth bestselling English-language children’s book in history. I invite you to learn from Seuss’s efforts, Pisces. How? Take advantage of the limitations that life has given you. Be grateful for the way those limitations compel you to be efficient and precise. Use your constraints as inspiration to create a valuable addition to your life story.

Apr. 16: Akon (42) Apr. 17: Sean Bean (56) Apr. 18: Conan O’Brien (52) Apr. 19: Kate Hudson (36) Apr. 20: Miranda Kerr (32) Apr. 21: Iggy Pop (68) Apr. 22: Jack Nicholson (78)

Erika Lust works off everything from submitted fantasies to her own imagination for her films.

Meet Erika Lust, the feminist porn pioneer Sex with Mish Way

@MyszkaWay Erika Lust makes what she calls “feminist porn”: cinematically appealing films with a story that feel voyeuristically sexual, employing the “modern image of women” and desire. The Barcelona-based director’s work feels more like an actual movie than the quick cut, close up fuck scenes we are used to viewing on most mainstream sites. She indulges in the viewer’s needs (a year ago she started a series of films called XConfessions, in which scripts are built off fantasies mailed in by her audience) and strives for narrative. “The sex is real, you can see the pleasure, the sweat, the touching and hear the sounds,” Lust tells me. “Viewers can see themselves in my films.They feel like they could live out that scenario. Mainstream porn on the other hand is usually only made for men, with little consideration to creativity or imagination. Everything is repetitive with the same films being churned out over and over again with fake female pleasure and all goal being that of the male´s money shot.” From April 15-17, Erika Lust will attend Toronto’s 10th Annual Feminist Porn Awards, a celebration of people making strides in alternative forms of pornography that don’t boil down to the male money shot. Lust has won many accolades in the past (even doing her own TedTalk about pornography and her story of entry into the business) and is well known as a pioneer in feminist porn. This year she will present her own Night of Indie Erotica as well as

presenting exclusive director’s cuts of her XConfession series followed by a Q&A. When Lust began making films she was doing it because she loved it: work straight from the heart on a low budget, but she still managed to attract a lot of attention for her work. “I like to have creative producers within my team, with the talent to make things look more expensive than they’ve actually been, with the ability to make the most of what they have. I say this because I think it’s not only money which makes real movies, but the attitude of those involved, as you also point out: care, love and above all imagination.” One main thing that separates Lust’s work from the gaggle of the mainstream is her casting and filming approach: where as “normal” porn requires actors to contort themselves for the camera’s awkward angles, Lust asks her performers to have sex as they naturally would (she always pairs and groups actors with people they have expressed interest in working with) and she finds the right camera angle herself. “I like to concentrate on the details, the hand grabs, kisses, sweat, facial expressions, body movements, not just the shot of genitals,” says Lust. “My imagination is also a lot more vivid and adventurous than real life (like all people), so through erotic filmmaking I have the privileged of reenacting this with the performers, stories and locals in my films.” Lust prides herself on finding performers who are diverse in appearance. Although many mainstream sites cater to the needs of people who just want to watch the blonde, big-tit

girl-next-door get fucked in the ass, Lust tries to hire a variety of actors ranging in body shape, adorned with tattoos, wickedly thick or thin, and uniquely beautiful. She chases the real people we can all identify with. “The porn industry has set a standard for thin shaven girls and muscular men. This can make it really difficult to get hold of performers with a unique look,” she admits. “But as my business has grown we have managed to find more and more in the way of amateur performers and other independent filmmakers.” Above everything, Lust truly enjoys her job, because it’s her passion. She chose to make pornography because she saw a need for change in an industry she was fascinated by and participated in. An industry that a lot of people still turn their nose up at, even though porn is consumed in inconceivable amounts today. Who doesn’t watch porn? Really, who? “Mainstream porn has given porn a bad reputation as abusive, cheap and badly made,” Lust explains. “It can be hard for people to associate the word with something positive and inspiring., but there is a growing body of open-minded people who are supporting their independent pornographers and are after something more realistic, intelligent and creative.” More over, Lust has hope. “I think it won’t be long before people start to change their minds.” W

EMAIL MISH Send Mish your own sex questions and queries to sex@westender.com

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