Canada Post - strike's over

It was good to see these cutesy trucks back on the road. The strike is over and I haven't paid much attention to if the union's requests were legit or not. Harper claimed they were not and that Canada Post workers have better benefits and pays compared to their counterparts in the private sector. Just because Harper said it I don't want to believe it. But it is true that unions are not always demanding things in the best interest of who they seem to represent. Comes to mind, when GAPSA (Graduate and Professional Student Assembly) of the U (that is the UMN, of course) tried to unionize for better pays for humanities people. I went for their initial meeting as I thought that humanities students didn't get paid nearly enough compared to us (this is before I came to Canada - in Canada I think the sciences don't get paid nearly as enough either, in grad school). But it turned out it was this mega union corporation, a blanket one (of a couple) that represents various organizations in the US and it was pretty clear that the spokespeople for this parent union had no idea or interest in our poor humanities students' issues. So I voted against them - for which of course my humanities friend didn't like me. I still kinda feel bad for her and all of the humanities people, but I was convinced things wouldn't have changed just because we had a union, and if there is one thing I detest, it is to be taken for a ride, by some union-dues-collecting mafia, or actually by anyone for that matter.

cable busses and... ummm. their cables...

I have seen this before - those cable/trolley/electric busses slip their connection to the overhead wires that give them electricity, so the driver actually has to come out and re-attach the little hooks to the wires. Here the woman driver of the next bus, who initially seemed a little irritated at not knowing if this driver was leaving or staying with his bus, so he yelled back at her telling her to knock-it off basically and then here they were, a few minutes later collaboratively fixing the guys problem. The other time I saw this, the driver had a hook-on-a-pole thing to fix his problem; today these two guys had to flex their biceps a bit… and their gluteus too!

Peaceful Weekend...

Before I ventured out in to the downtown life, I spent a couple hours marathoning Les Cowboys Fringants, discovering great hits like 'Entre deux taxis', 'Mon Pays', 'Ma belle Sophie' and enjoying my old favourites, 'droit devant' etc… They are truly artists, when they can put into more eloquent words what everyone knows so well:

Oh, qu'il est triste le sort des amoureux!
Car on commence toujours à se dire adieu
Dès notre premier baiser

What a way to end a day and a weekend that began with me feeling confused and depressed, mostly about work, but enough about life too. But that was Friday afternoon.

Right now, I am here sitting on the sand in the beach, writing my blog; and the sunset disappointed some guys who had come to do sunset photos, because the sun hid behind the clouds, before it dramatically exited behind the mountains with a deep orange glow and they waited and waited, but the sun never exited this way, so the three of them read a passage from a book in some holy sort of way (I didn't hear what they read); two late twenties guys playing with their radio-controlled boat in a little bay like area formed by some rocks; a portrait photographer with his camera/light equipment and his model in a bikini who is getting cold so she puts on her sweater and they both start smoking (she is obviously more than his model, but less than his lover); a guy playing his accordion for the past two hours now; a total drunk trying to pick a fight with someone and it seems like finally he succeeded; a crazy upper-middle class mom who kept yelling at her little daughter that she went too far and into the water, kind of attracting stares of 'oh c'mon woman can you leave the disciplining out of the peaceful beach' so she took her unhappy daughter home finally; several cargo/cruise ships anchored way out in the distance, the sail boats of Kits Yacht club in the distance; the lifeguard now wrapping up his shift; lots of different languages in conversation passing around me, whiffs, well more than whiffs, of pot dotting the air. What a beautiful evening and a complete life - the good the bad, the yin the yan... the peaceful West End beach has a place for everyone.

Cranaval del sol

From June 20 to September 5, the Granville Mall is closed to traffic and every weekend they have some theme thing - this Sunday it was the Latin American day. With all the Latin American food stalls, little trinket stalls and their music and dance. I walked right into a David Suzuki speech, but not recognizing him, I turned around the other way thinking 'oh well some guy is just patronizing the Latin Americas' and people around me looked at me like I was a god damn red-neck not worshipping the Jesus of the left. Then he finished his speech and the MC said "thank you David Suzuki" and I stopped in my heels and joined the crowd, in at least looking at their Jesus. Don't get me wrong - I love David Suzuki, but while he is not as bad as Michael Moore, he can sometimes be a little extreme himself - like today when he was saying "Latin America can teach us so many things" and proceeded to name the Latin American countries, but didn't actually say what they can teach us. On the other hand I have no idea why the Latin American carnival invited Suzuki to give a speech. But I do like Suzuki and am happy I saw him. For the record, I also recognize the importance of the existence of Moore, on the extreme left, to counteract the extreme right wing we have today.

I had Yucca and some overdone but yum yum pork dish from the Nicaraguan stall.

The carnival proceeded to have the mayor of Vancouver give a speech, this time more aptly.

Before I ventured out in to the downtown life, I spent a couple hours marathoning Cowboy Fringant, discovering great hits like 'Entre deux taxis', 'Mon Pays', Petit Sophie' and enjoying my old favourites, 'doir prevent' etc… They are truly artists, when they can put into more eloquent words what everyone knows so well.

Vancouver Public Library

Libraries, they have always been such an integral part of my life. Everywhere I lived extensively, that is for more than a year, I have known the city library and used it quite a lot, when most of my friends couldn't show you the library on a map; it is not to say I was the only avid reader among my friends, in fact I am but only an average reader - but it is just simply that most readers are not library goers, and they like to own books. I just never understood how bookstores survived in North America when there were such good libraries around and I also never understood people's need to own books or even dvd's for that matter, well except for when you have a passion for a genre or a classic book perhaps, or a reference book. But this non-understanding might also stem from growing up with parents who were terrible pack-rats about books (and other things too). Today I have some friends who would proudly show off their personal book collections to me and, proudly again, exclaim 'aren't we pack-rats?'. And I always think, and sometimes say, you will not even come close to my parents by the time you are their age. You wanted to see what the world's political boundaries looked like in the 18th century, there we had that at home (once when I said this, some of my friends said 'ah that's so cool - I would go visit your parents just to see that if I ever went to Sri Lanka); you wanted to read the assassinations of American presidents, there we had a book chronicling those; you wanted to read about the supreme court proceedings of the case that accused Sri Lankan Tamils of cheating in broad day light to pass the tough university entrance exams in the 1970's, we had the complete bound works of the supreme court proceedings - all of this ready at our fingertips. This was in addition to all the school books, mandatory and suggested, for English, that my English-teacher dad had and actually most of the other books too, were his - the diversity of our home library very much reflecting his own diverse interests, a different era's version of myself. So I always told myself I would never amass that many books, but because my dad instilled in me the desire to read, I became an avid user of the library system.

The DS Senanayake library in Kandy, Kandy British council, Minneapolis public library, Grande Bibliothèque à Montréal, and now the Vancouver Public Library's main branch, all special places. The dated DS library and its kind librarians moving about in hushed silence arranging books and replacing cards (did I just date myself?), the Kandy British Council, where I used to meet the first guy who truly shattered my heart, the Convent library where I escaped boring religion periods and sometimes Mass, the Peradeniya library where I discussed life's philosophies with my later ex-husband, the Minneapolis public library and how it moved me to exhilarated tears at its grand opening ceremony at the new location, the Grande Bibliothèque that I was introduced to by my first Quebecois boyfriend. What memories will this Vancouver library make for me?

I was truly impressed by the architecture of this library - the inside I think didn't live up to Montréal's inside - I thought it was sunnier inside the bibliothèque, but then it is Vancouver, so… But yeah they had all the tech-cool and more with those electronic sliding bookshelves etc.

This reminds me of a Facebook post I made sometime ago: it wasn't about libraries or books or reading even. But I think inadvertently I did make a statement about the person who got me to read in the first place, my dad, always the parent who taught us the deeper, non-worldly things in this world, while my mom toiled over the worldy things, the money, what school we go to… In all senses of the world, a perfect combination of parents.

when I was five my Dad bought me 4 children's newspapers and said I had to decide on one as my weekly. I didn't have to deal with such difficult decisions again until I was nine, when he said I had to decide between a magnetic chess board or a badminton racket for christmas... Little did I know of the decisions that awaited me in adulthood... Ah to be a kid again...

I remember it was Rankati, Ran-something else, Mihira and Vijaya... and then he and I had this long discussion about how the Ran's might be ...a little too babyish for me and Mihira was boring, and the font and art in Mihira wasn't nice and rounded and I thought the sound of the name 'Vijaya' was more upbeat than that of 'Mihira'... so we decided to get Vijaya...

East Hastings

I wanted to walk around in Chinatown, and the night market, advertised as the first of its kind in North America, and I imagined it to be like Beijing's famed Wangfujing Night Market. And part of me also wanted to re-create the magic of the China trip I took with my brother. Sort of like sometimes I like to recreate the magic of the San Fransisco visit I made when my sister lived there. I took no trips with my sister since, and a couple with my brother, but those two trips still hit a sweet spot in my memory. Anyway when I actually went to the Vancouver Chinatown night market, around 6 or 7, it really disappointed, even when I expected much less than Wangfujing. But it was ok, there was some street food, not nearly as exotic as in Wangfujing, but hey... And some band playing...

Chinatown itself was so desolate: most stores closed: and had a haunting calm about it, like everyone had gone indoors, just before the storm hit. There were several grocery stores open though, and as I passed by, someone would pop their head out and ask me if I needed help. I was just looking, mostly inhaling the pungent smells of the dried seafood, partly because it also reminded me of some grocery/mom & pop stores in Sri Lanka, where dried fish was an essential; a smell pungent enough for me to not want to have it in my home, but to want to inhale, as I passed them in a store in Chinatown.

Earlier, I had stumbled upon a fire-truck exhibit in Gastown, and stopped by to take some mundane photos. The fire-trucks were pretty cool though, with tiny pistons and all the hydraulics showing, in those ancient trucks.

Then I stumbled upon a yard sale, at the border of Gastown and East Hastings, but still within the rich portals of Gastown. So I thought, yey, the rich people are selling their old stuff, maybe I can cut a deal or two - I am looking for a couple nice lamps for my apartment. As I walked around looking at the things spread out on the floor, I realized these were mostly things scraped from lower middle class homes, some maybe even lower - things that people might have put in the garbage, and other people had gone and retrieved. They were not dirty or anything like that, sort of like things you would find in a standard Salvation Army (in North America, as one my French-from-France friends and I observed once, things don't have to be super run down for people to just dump them).

One of the sellers, a woman about my height and my age but way more athletic, in shorts, a full length sports bra-top and running shoes, invited me to take a look at her things - a tiny black dress, a bra even... she would put it against her body and say - "see it is beautiful, not many people would fit into this, I can so see you in this". I said "well I am not really looking for anything and that is too fancy anyway" - she said "yeah clothes are hard, most people are looking for electronics etc". "Are you a professional photographer?", and this question really threw me off - 4 years ago, this camera would have prompted that question, but these days everyone has this camera, and I even had just the 18-55mmm lens, which is really very common (even with all this talk about the economy being so low, people seem to have a lot of money, even people who have no idea how to compose and frame a shot are buying this $1000 camera as their first, because people are always lost between what they need and what they want). I said I wasn't and she asked me what I did for a living and after having said what, and having asked her what she did, she replied "I am an advocate... you know... I deal with the people here... you know... it is not just homeless people... you know... you know what I mean...?" in a very not-articulate-enough for an advocate sort of way. "I live here" she said, waving at the huge building nearby, which wasn't Gastown rich, but rich enough still. I told her one day I want to do a photo project of this area and I am glad she told me this and hopefully I will see her again. "Oh yeah, we do this every Sunday... you know..." she said as she hopped from one foot to the other.

I was taking pictures of people's stuff, a magazine with Trudeau's picture, most floor-spreads manned by Native American looking people. "Hey camera girl!" - I turned around to find this guy with a huge Rubbermaid box around his neck - "take my picture" he made a face... I snapped several. "What's your name?" "Tinhead. I am from Montréal, that's what English Canada calls us" he said with a perfect English (as in non-French, not British) accent. "Ah! so you speak French?" "No no... my language part of the brain is not that good" - I thought it was funny an Anglophone in Montréal would differentiate himself from English Canada like that (pleasantly funny). "So what do you do?". I told him I am a physicist - it is always hard for me to say this without sounding pompous, but if I am going to do a project here, I will have to start off with an honest foot. "Are you studying particles, like that big thing in Europe that is smashing particles?". "I went to McGill, studied philosophy" he continued. And he continued to tell me little Science tidbits - trying so very hard to impress me - 'look I am not a stupid homeless guy... I know stuff...'; I was actually impressed, he didn't always have it right, but he knew more than some people I know who have all the time and access to this information. He would go on to ask me where I was before etc, and each time I told him, he would say "far oot eh?", even when he asked if I know TRIUMF, and I said, "yeah I work there", he said "far oot, eh?" - so it wasn't really a reference to 'far out', more like his way of saying 'is that so?'. I was having my, as usual loud laughter, and several people stopped to check out the unusual combination of the two of us, not knowing if they should interfere, since it looks like this homeless guy is harassing this poor little girl. And he kept looking around in fear every now and then, like a little puppy who has been beaten many a time for foraging through other people's trash: "I am just afraid your boyfriend might show up and beat me up". "No no don't worry, he is really not like that", I said, in the hope of calming him but also in the hope of being cautious - I might have even said 'he's home working today'. He gave me his real name and his address in some motel and the room number, "if you don't come it is your business" he said. I took them and said, "oh I am sure I will run into you here again". "There are all these girls who are raped and abused, who come to me... I give them a good night's sleep, never touch them" he assured me and continued to tell me some rape/abuse stories. After hearing them all, it instantly dawned on me, if I am going to do this photo project, it will not be easy - it will be so stressful hearing these stories - I might have to actually spread it over a few weekends, finding refuge in physics, during the week.

I also remembered someone talking about this documentary about East Hastings, and mentioned this total drug addict, who was apparently from a rich home in England, she even had a horse growing up apparently. Now maybe these stories are true, but if I were them, I would have certainly made up stories as such, of going to McGill, of being an advocat. So my logical-don't-you-try-to-trick-me brain will have to be held back too if these projects are going to happen.

Later I passed by Insite, the supervised drug injection site, a pilot project, the first of its kind in North America. It was just a nondescript building, its name not written, looked like a regular shop but with no obvious products to be sold - like maybe a travel office or something, but without the banners and advertisements. There were several people standing outside and inside.

So you always see people doing insanely stupid things, right? and you think 'oh c'mon, are you stupid or are you just an insensitive jerk?". And that is what I asked myself: my hands automatically raised my camera to my eye and snapped a photo of Insite, as my brain was still trying to decide if this was a good idea or not. A woman yelled "wait, did you just take a picture of me?" "errr... yes..." ok now my brain has decided it was a bad bad idea... I immediately apologized and erased the picture, I said I just wanted a picture of the building, but yes she was in the picture and I am erasing it. She calmed down later. Some other guy passed by threatening "you better listen to this lady, this is not a place to photograph people" - I apologized again. The woman later approached me and said how she is much better now, and during her high on heroin days she was way more psychotic than this. "Are you an under-cover cop?" she asked half jokingly. "No no... I just wanted to take some pictures". She thanked me for being 'so friendly' about it all.

I was so shocked at my own naiive and insensitive behaviour, when I later went into Chinatown's night market, I ordered pork dumplings when I wanted pork steamed buns and when the guy gave me the dumplings asked 'are these dumplings?', because in my confused mind, I was saying dumplings but meaning steamed buns. In life, the wrong you yourself do, is way harder to forgive, than those that others do... You are the hardest person to please...

One more game

Look at this deserted beach on this beautiful Vancouver Friday evening - the haunting nervous calm, as everyone is glued to a TV watching the Canucks take the Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals play-off.



No one knows to party it up like Montréalers; I know it is not very mature, but I miss the riots. But Vancouver didn't disappoint - look at all these people, the nerds, the kids, the Siekhs, the Asians, the caucasians, the homeless and even the police. As the game ended and any chance of jinxing it thus ended, this city erupted in a jubilant and noisy celebration; Canucks had wone 1-0.

A guy climbed up a lamp post, he was soon told that he can not do that, by the otherwise super nice and chummy-chummy police. The guy was (of course) wearing a Canadiens cap, but backward - some other by-stander came up to him and said 'you are used to the Canadiens' type celebrations, right?' - they both shared a good laugh.

Strangers high-five-ing eachother, all coming together, for this team. I was standing there photographing people and their emotions, occasionally responding to a high-five. As large groups of people all in unison like this often do, I was moved to tears which wasn't very comfortable - I didn't want anyone wondering why this Indian girl with a DSLR camera was crying when the Canucks are so close to winning the mighty Stanley Cup!

I have always wondered the validity of society's investment in sports - we spend all this money in building stadiums and paying professional athletes obscene amounts of money, for careers that end by the time they are 30, as opposed to, oh say, invest in a physics grad student who might produce until they are 80 years old or more. But this is the power of sports - the ability to bring people together under a single banner, a single slogan, their passion still intact. One might argue that war does the same thing, but sports does it without being destructive, if you disregard the occasional loot.

Few things can bring people together like that; Montréal's free festivals being among those. I remember my first Jazz Festival in Montréal, the musician who did one of those big free shows, played La complainte du phoque en Alaska: as the intro played, the crowd went hysterical with applause, and thousands of people joined in the singing. Speaking not any French at that time and not understanding a word, still, I remembered crying from euphoria. Later, the person next to me in broken English explained what the song meant - so I was able to look it up when I went home. To this day, even on the bleakest of days, I can listen to this song and create for myself a certain euphoria and revive my faith in humanity... and remember the beautiful city that welcomed me with wide open arms.

As whiffs of pot dot the air of this clear Vancouver night above all these people from all walks and talks of life, Canucks are one game short of winning the Stanley cup; and excuse my greed, but now I would really like to have a Stanley Cup in a city that I live in.

Kids

This kid in the bus had a Canucks jersey and a Canadiens cap on, so I was looking at him, the marriage of my two last cities' hockey teams. The kid who was maybe about a year old was blabbering baby-talk, and at one point took off his cap and hit his mom with it. The mom, of course being a mature adult, snatched the cap back and hit him with it, from the side of the visor (I knew, because I heard it!).

It made me gasp... I don't even like kids, I mean I don't detest them (hence I don't want to beat them!) And I don't mean to pass judgement on parenthood of which I know nothing and plan to remain so with some luck, but I couldn't help but wonder why people had kids, if it might try their patience so much that they would stoop down to the kids level of immaturity. Somehow I would like to think parenting had come a long way since the times of my parents' and grandparents'.

The kid began to cry and the mom said "does it hurt?" and when the kid nodded yes, she said "well that's how I felt too"... The kid stopped crying and pondered these word of wisdom for a bit and with his limited attention span, quickly switched his attention elsewhere. Ah kids! I know when kids cry it is more a plea for attention than a manifestation of the pain, but I wonder what lesson engraves in his little personality, from his mom hitting him back.

At work, I told this story, to my two office mates, one a new dad of a 6 month old girl and the other a soon to be dad of a girl. One of them agreed with the mom 'below a certain age, you can not use words to reason with them'... the other jokingly added, 'if I have a boy, I would so be beating him and kicking him like that'. I wondered out loud if I should call child protection services on my two office mates, to which one responded 'note to self: don't mention the baby dungeon in front of her'!

BC Spot Prawns

BC spot prawns, a sustainable fishing project; even the bags are biodegradable.

So with all this BC spot prawn hype, I headed off to the Fishermen's wharf in Granville Island to buy some fresh spot prawns right off the boat. As I approached the boat "prawns?" the fisherman called out. "Yes" I said as I was called closer. There were like 100 prawns in a hand basket and they were alive, and at this point I am thinking "well not this fresh" : slips out of my mouth these words actually : "do you have dead ones?". Without taking insult, the fisherman says "no, these are the freshest... here... you take them like this and twist their head off like this (whoa! did he just twist the head off a live prawn?), suck the juices off their heads like this... and eat the flesh like this...".

Getting light-headed now, I watch as he does the same with a second one and offers it to me "here, taste the ocean"... But because I do not know how to refuse something someone is giving me, I take it and put it in my mouth... As the prawn melts away in my mouth, reviving distant memories of my grandma's kitchen in the coastal Negombo... I am in heaven... and I order a pound... no, two...

Bringing 100 of these guys home in the bus was another story - they moved about as they got warmer. Then as I set them up to photograph, and show a friend on google video, they were jumping out of the bowl - one even jumped on my keyboard... eeewwww....

Then because you are supposed to cook them while they are still alive, or else if they die and their heads are still attached, apparently an enzyme is released that makes their meat mushy... Actually my mom used to say if you don't cook crab while they are alive, they lose their meat... Anyway, so I took all the prawns and plunged them in hot water for 30 sec... they immediately turned pink and their eyes became grey... awww... poor poor little prawns...

Had them for lunch with a ginger-tequila-butter reduction and then for dinner, prepared Sri Lankan style, with string hoppers that I bought from a Sri Lankan take-out restaurant.

I am still oscillating between 'did I just commit mass murder?' or 'has North America made me a wimp?'

But still, I am in heaven....

In the House Festival

Caught some of the 'In the House Festival', which is sort of like a fringe fest, music, story-telling and all sorts of other art, in backyards and homes on commercial drive. We went to this story telling - two of the four were really good... Bryant Ross told this story of his dad teaching him everything from how to box, how to live and finally how to die... it stirred up quite the emotion in me... and CR Avery was pretty poignant too - I liked his style of rendering life and its ways in east downtown, in broken, sudden stops and changes in direction... My two friends (one with IT background, the other with crêperie background) found him difficult to understand and chaotic, but I actually found him quite poetic.

Righteous Robots

So, BC law clearly states, for some busses,

buses require passengers to enter through the front door and ... Failure to pay the fare is an offense under the Transit Conduct and Safety Regulations.

but

Priority seating for people with disabilities and seniors

is only a suggestion.

Today a homeless guy got in the bus from the back door and this top-hat-and-coat wearing, middle-aged man, ratted to the driver. The driver just brushed it aside. The guy insisted to the driver a couple more times to ask him over the PA to get off. When the driver still brushed it aside, the guy walked all the way to the back of the bus and made the homie get out... The righteous robot came back to the front of the bus, beaming with righteous pride and stood, where at least 5 grandma's were standing, while 30-somethings dressed to the nine's were comfortably sitting on the seniors' seats - the righteous robot said nothing... and continued to bask in his, yep, you guessed it, righteous pride...

Legally the righteous robot did one thing right and zero things wrong. Morally, he just did two things wrong...

And of course I went to him and told him just that, after I congratulated him on helping preserve the law... and watched his face go from righteous proud, to confused angry... sort of like some injustice had been done, in not recognizing what a great act of selflessness he had just done...