The art of living well, or... well, living the art.

A mid-week miracle happened the other day. It was sunny and beautiful outside at the very same time that I had a few hours on my hands. It was the middle of the day in the middle of the week, and I wasn't strictly compelled to be somewhere, doing something, so I went for a ride. Because I could. :)

Isn't it gorgeous? That's Brunswick Beach, the day's destination. I followed the Sea to Sky highway from Vancouver, headed north toward Squamish, which came in at number 32 on the New York Times'  52 places to go in 2015. It must be one of the most beautiful stretches of road anywhere on the planet, that bit, and I love that I can ride there in just over an hour.

photo from The Highway Bandits

That glorious view certainly makes the price of the Whistler Gran Fondo worth your while, especially since there are no cars on the road during the event. But on Wednesday I was happy enough to share the road with the motor vehicles, and delighted to bask in the sunshine for a few minutes on Brunswick Beach. And as I did, it occurred to me that two of my previous employers both live there. Needless to say, beautiful Brunswick Beach, a wee tiny suburb of the lovely village of  Lion's Bay, is one of the more exclusive neighbourhoods in the Lower Mainland. One of my past employers is on the spit, with one beach in the front of his house, and another in the back! Can you imagine? What a great way to live. And as I sat there in the sunshine, it occurred to me that both of them are people who are doing what they are passionate about. One of them is a geologist, and the chairman of a group of mining companies, and the other is an interior designer, and a good one at that. They inspire me because the two of them have both figured out how to make a good living doing what they love. What better life can there be for any of us?

I am certainly happy working with another great, inspired entrepreneur. I am part of a team which is taking the reality gaming world by storm. We just opened the first of three exciting, Immmersive and interactive adventure rooms, which are challenging the very nature of entertainment. No more going to the movies to see Indiana Jones. Now you can come to G.U.E.S.S. HQ and BE Indiana Jones. My current boss is another person achieving success by pursuing his passions, and that got me thinking...(don't worry, I didn't hurt myself this time round. Even small brains need exercise, you know.)

I have always admired artists, because they spend their time creating beauty for the rest of us, and better yet, the beauty that they create challenges people. Good art inevitably causes us to think, an to respond, and sometimes it even inspires us to change our ways.

The writing is on the wall.

I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery the other day, to see the Forbidden City artifacts, and though I did enjoy all of the beautiful and interesting relics from days gone by, I was enchanted with the more modern Unscrolled exhibit upstairs.

Bang at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Ai Weiwei always challenges the status quo.

Art is a noble pursuit, especially when its purpose is social change. Ai Weiwei has another installation here in Vancouver, a part of the new Bienalle exhibit scattered about town, and that one is definitely making a statement. It's called F-grass, and it looks just like a calligraphic F, too, because the Chinese word for grass sounds just like the F-bomb. He is telling the government censors to go fuck themselves, bless his heart. Sometimes art takes great courage.

But thank goodness for courageous souls like Ai Weiwei. It's really no wonder that tyrants are afraid of art, and beauty. Hitler hated the modernist movement, and no wonder. And Canada's very own tyrant has gagged scientists and burnt libraries, so it's up to us to fight back with beauty, and truth.

We went to the Belkin Gallery up at UBC a short while ago, to attend Tom Burrows' opening night. 

He has a long history of challenging the status quo, our Tom.  After the District of North Vancouver burned down his house on the mud flats east of the second narrows bridge, the UN commissioned him to examine squatters' communities around the world.  A few decades on, the Vancouver Art Gallery build a mock-up of that legendary community in front of the Shangri-la, the most expensive real estate in the city. 

From Shangri-La to Shangri-La

Given all of the perpetually empty properties owned by foreign nationals here in Vancouver, the idea of establishing another squatters community, this time in the heart of  waaaay more vacant than it appears Shaugnessy, is more than a little appealing.  After all, housing is a human right, and there are a lot of people sleeping on the streets in this town.  I love the way Tom solved his own housing needs. After he returned from his squatters inquiry, he bought a beautiful piece of south facing property on Hornby Island, and then he built - by hand! - a beautiful little house into the cliff, where he could happily settle in and create to his heart's content. Everywhere he has gone in life, Tom has left behind him a legacy of beauty and social change. I love that in a man.

He always has his finger on the pulse of culture itself, does Tom. He sees things few others are aware of, and he does it decades before it dawns on everybody else. He thinks so far outside the box that the box itself is irrelevant. He is one of those rare, beautiful individuals with a truly planetary consciousness, a man whose life is a kind of switch which serves to awaken the rest of us. A few years ago he held an exhibit of bicycles. Yes, bikes.  He strung them up throughout the gallery, a jungle canopy of two wheeled beauty, hung to inspire contemplation. And this is what he had to say about them.

I hope Tom's messages of sanity soak in soon enough that we see significant change over the next few years. It might still be possible to create a world where all life is honoured and respected, and where we live in harmony and dignity, instead of in absolute obeisance to profit, and the worship of this endless cycle of obscene consumption. Well, it isn't exactly endless now, is it? All lifestyles are created equal, but some are more equal than others.The writing really is on the wall. 

“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.” 

― George Orwell, Animal Farm

Harmony. Symmetry. Balance. 

The irony is that there is so much joy to be found in a simple life. And function really does create form. So many people comment on my legs - daily, weekly, monthly... it happens all. The. Time. But though it looks as if I spend endless hours in a gym, I never, ever do. These crazy-assed gams are nothing more than the manifestation of many years of living in my happy zone, and of staying true to my convictions. You know. Four wheels bad, two wheels good. Better than that, though, my two wheeled place of joy keeps me sane when madness rules all around. Harmony, symmetry and balance are yours for the taking, too. Just park the car for a month and give your friendly neighbourhood bicycle a spin. You will be glad you did when all is said and done. Promise. xo

Woman about town.

Humanity's complete and utter dependence on fossil fuels is something I've been known to get all worked up about. I needed to take my mind off any and all serious subjects this past weekend. It was definitely time to kick back, to become a tourist in my own backyard, and what better place to do that than in Vancouver's historic Gastown?

Sure, the cobbles are quiet now, 

but this is the site of the Gastown Grand Prix, one of the marquee events in BC's very own Superweek, held this year from July 10-18. I would love to compete, but they don't have a Superweak category for us crash test dummies.

John Denniston

Still. I can dream. And this weekend, that's precisely what I did. I sat and dreamt of fast rides

and of ...

artisinal underwear. That's right.

And lo and behold! Imagine that!

Not all knickers are created equal, y'know.  All it takes is mere cash.

A whack of cash will buy you a seriously suggestive ball and chain of a chair, too. If you're into that sort of thing. 

And if you're not into sitting on something so divinely voluptuous,

You can always find yourself seated upon something velo-uptious. I wandered around the hood a little more, but something was missing.

Something really is missing, too. And Gastown is nothing if not creative. You never know what you'll encounter when you go searching for the Gastown steam-clock these days: 

Some days it looks like this,

while others, like this. But in the tourist books it always looks like this:

hqworld.net

Things are not always what you'd expect. But never fear. There are some things you can still count upon in this town. No matter where you find yourself, beauty always abounds, and no matter where you're going,

two wheels are always the best way to get around.

The truth is a well-kept secret here in Ford country.

Hello!  Here you go - an extra large picture of an extra large pick up truck. Way to go, Chevrolet! You really outdid yourself on that one.

When does "Bigger is Better" beome just plain stupid?

Un.  Believable. What would prompt a person to purchase such a Leviathan? It serves no purpose, except perhaps to make up for some sense of SHORTcoming, as it were. It doesn't even have a fifth wheel. It's a four wheel drive with duelies, a super heavy beast of a machine with the capability of hauling five tons, only it's all for show. That box in the back there has no more capacity than any other off-the-lot half ton pick up truck in the country. A Toyota can haul as much, and it can do it with an order of magnitude less fuel. The Dickus Minimus who chose this joke of a truck obviously needs it to haul his ego. He carted it in this monster, along with his ass, clear across the country. Can you see? It's sporting Ontario plates.

And like the rest of us, he has undoubtedly witnessed the effects of climate change over the past decade or so, with the increase in extreme weather events. You've gotta wonder whether he just doesn't buy it, that climate change is real, or whether he figures his actions have no impact on the greater whole.  Either way, we clearly don't see eye to eye, he and I. Pick up trucks are a plague upon the Canadian economy, and the scourge of our environmental efforts, but try telling that to your average redneck.

I've had arguments about climate change with a few people over the past few months. Way back in the day, even before the protests at Clayoquot Sound, back when I first started thinking about my impact on the planet, and wondering about ways that humanity might alter its course to halt the full scale destruction of the Earth's natural spaces, we environmentalists were a rare species.  Sure, everyone was aware of David Suzuki, Canada's very own Lorax who speaks for the trees, but few people claimed much of a sense of personal responsibility until 1993 and the Clayoquot Sound protests. Twenty some odd years on, and the landscapes themselves - both literal and political alike - are vastly different. Literally. Just ask Naomi Klein, or better yet, read her epic work entitiled This Changes Everything. These days, climate change is a concept on everybody's radar, and most people claim an understanding, an awareness of how their lifestyle, their actions, and their habits of consumption impact the rest of the world.

And yet those who deny the obvious are always so strenuous in their protest. Take Mr Moore, for eample. the CBC's early edition introduced him as one of the original founders of Greenpeace. Despite his environmental beginnings, he turned to the dark side. He has become a spokesperson for the very industries he so vehemently decried thirty years ago. But now he earns a comfortable living, so there's that.

The one thing you can't help but notice about climate change deniers is that they tend to make a ton of dosh off the very industries at the heart of our global warming issues. Besides, who want to actually bother to change?  Change is challenging. It's easier to just carry on with a comfortable lifestyle, and instead point fingers, calling the rest of us mad. Mind you, Mr Moore was introduced as Patrick Moore on the CBC, and yet when I tweeted in response to his interview, a fellow named John Charles Moore took up the sword to do battle, so maybe multiple personality disorder explains his change of heart, and his loose connection to his name. You'd think in that case, he would embrace change, and pursue a sustainable global economy, instead of sitting back and calling environmental activists crazy.

And plenty of people truly have gone mad. You don't have to travel all of the way to Paris to find people who have lost the plot. We have our own home grown lunatics right here in beautiful British Columbia. Like the 64 year old woman who was arrested a couple of weeks ago for laying potentially lethal traps for mountainbikers on the North Shore mountains. As if life isn't dangerous enough as it is.

In fact, all you have to do is spend a few hours in traffic, or down at the ports, and you risk changing the structure of your genetic make-up, at least you do if you're exposed to deisel exhaust.  Why?  Some researchers at UBC determined that a mere two hours of exposure to deisel exhaust is all it takes to interfere with the body's methylation, a coating that attaches to many places on your DNA, affecting the expression of some 400 or so genes. And that truck up there? Not just too big to be beautiful, but deisel, too.  Figures.

It's overwhelming, sometimes, how very far we humans still have to go. But I can always find peace on two wheels. Even when the world leaves me reeling in the chaos, there's a moment of inner calm, and quiet contemplation available any time, any place.  All I have to do is head out of doors to go for a spin.

It's not rocket science, but it is tried, tested and true. Riding a bike is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, even on the most challenging of days. And it's not even one of those guilty pleasures... :)

Works a charm, every time. It's the honest truth: the best pick-me-up is the farthest thing from a pick-up truck. Don't believe me? Give it a go. Try it for yourself and see.

It feels like the very first Time Trial...

Hello!  Here you go - an extra large picture of an extra large pick up truck. Way to go, Chevrolet! You really outdid yourself on that one.

When does "Bigger is Better" beome just plain stupid?

Un.  Believable. What would prompt a person to purchase such a Leviathan? It serves no purpose, except perhaps to make up for some sense of SHORTcoming, as it were. It doesn't even have a fifth wheel. It's a four wheel drive with duelies, a super heavy beast of a machine with the capability of hauling five tons, only it's all for show. That box in the back there has no more capacity than any other off-the-lot half ton pick up truck in the country. A Toyota can haul as much, and it can do it with an order of magnitude less fuel. The Dickus Minimus who chose this joke of a truck obviously needs it to haul his ego. He carted it in this monster, along with his ass, clear across the country. Can you see? It's sporting Ontario plates.

And like the rest of us, he has undoubtedly witnessed the effects of climate change over the past decade or so, with the increase in extreme weather events. You've gotta wonder whether he just doesn't buy it, that climate change is real, or whether he figures his actions have no impact on the greater whole.  Either way, we clearly don't see eye to eye, he and I. Pick up trucks are a plague upon the Canadian economy, and the scourge of our environmental efforts, but try telling that to your average redneck.

I've had arguments about climate change with a few people over the past few months. Way back in the day, even before the protests at Clayoquot Sound, back when I first started thinking about my impact on the planet, and wondering about ways that humanity might alter its course to halt the full scale destruction of the Earth's natural spaces, we environmentalists were a rare species.  Sure, everyone was aware of David Suzuki, Canada's very own Lorax who speaks for the trees, but few people claimed much of a sense of personal responsibility until 1993 and the Clayoquot Sound protests. Twenty some odd years on, and the landscapes themselves - both literal and political alike - are vastly different. Literally. Just ask Naomi Klein, or better yet, read her epic work entitiled This Changes Everything. These days, climate change is a concept on everybody's radar, and most people claim an understanding, an awareness of how their lifestyle, their actions, and their habits of consumption impact the rest of the world.

And yet those who deny the obvious are always so strenuous in their protest. Take Mr Moore, for eample. the CBC's early edition introduced him as one of the original founders of Greenpeace. Despite his environmental beginnings, he turned to the dark side. He has become a spokesperson for the very industries he so vehemently decried thirty years ago. But now he earns a comfortable living, so there's that.

The one thing you can't help but notice about climate change deniers is that they tend to make a ton of dosh off the very industries at the heart of our global warming issues. Besides, who want to actually bother to change?  Change is challenging. It's easier to just carry on with a comfortable lifestyle, and instead point fingers, calling the rest of us mad. Mind you, Mr Moore was introduced as Patrick Moore on the CBC, and yet when I tweeted in response to his interview, a fellow named John Charles Moore took up the sword to do battle, so maybe multiple personality disorder explains his change of heart, and his loose connection to his name. You'd think in that case, he would embrace change, and pursue a sustainable global economy, instead of sitting back and calling environmental activists crazy.

And plenty of people truly have gone mad. You don't have to travel all of the way to Paris to find people who have lost the plot. We have our own home grown lunatics right here in beautiful British Columbia. Like the 64 year old woman who was arrested a couple of weeks ago for laying potentially lethal traps for mountainbikers on the North Shore mountains. As if life isn't dangerous enough as it is.

In fact, all you have to do is spend a few hours in traffic, or down at the ports, and you risk changing the structure of your genetic make-up, at least you do if you're exposed to deisel exhaust.  Why?  Some researchers at UBC determined that a mere two hours of exposure to deisel exhaust is all it takes to interfere with the body's methylation, a coating that attaches to many places on your DNA, affecting the expression of some 400 or so genes. And that truck up there? Not just too big to be beautiful, but deisel, too.  Figures.

It's overwhelming, sometimes, how very far we humans still have to go. But I can always find peace on two wheels. Even when the world leaves me reeling in the chaos, there's a moment of inner calm, and quiet contemplation available any time, any place.  All I have to do is head out of doors to go for a spin.

It's not rocket science, but it is tried, tested and true. Riding a bike is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, even on the most challenging of days. And it's not even one of those guilty pleasures... :)

Works a charm, every time. It's the honest truth: the best pick-me-up is the farthest thing from a pick-up truck. Don't believe me? Give it a go. Try it for yourself and see.