Remember that 2006 movie, Paris, je t’aime? All the short films about Paris? I sometimes wake up thinking about those films or wonder what their characters would be doing now. Recently I felt like I was actually in one of the movies- the last one on the tape called 14e arrondissement by Alexander Payne. It’s about a middle aged woman who goes and visits Paris by herself. She wears a hipsack, uses French, sightsees, and takes it all in. In the closing scene she sits on a park bench and at once is filled with great joy and great sadness.

Well, LiveCity Yaletown, je’taime. I didn’t have a hipsack but an oversized purse, rain jacket, a map of Olympic venues and the honest intent to really take in the hugeness of the Games, the crowds, the line-ups, pavilions, energy, excitement. Like how some people go to Paris to feel love, I went to LiveCity Yaletown to feel magic.

The thing with magic and love is you’ve got to feel connected to something and usually that something is a someone or a lot of someones.  And like the character in the film, I didn’t. Sure, I talked to a few strangers, shared some cheers, tried to get a few interviews at some pavilions (not allowed), smiled and bobbed from foot to foot in the chilly rain with some super friendly blue-jacket volunteers, but the experience was at once, sad and joyful.  Sad to  not find that “it” I was looking for, joyful to watch the Canadian Men’s Hockey Team come back from the US loss with such a vigour and confidence, such a focus and clarity and speed, it was like James Hetfield sang Ohhyeahh at every flick of a skate’s blade and the team could score on Russia as though their sticks had wings.

What an incredible game. I’m sure we were all there because we wanted that incredible game to be bigger than our little screens at home or just streaming it from our computers at work. We wanted to be a part of it. Why go stand in the pouring rain in the late afternoon, cold and wet, watching a self-conscious good-hearted band from Manitoba play until pre-game if you don’t want something more?

But you can’t make it happen. Woody Allen said 80% is showing up. Yup. But what’s that other 20%? That’s the magic, that’s the feeling of love, that’s transcending whatever your current reality is and watching it turn into something else. That’s the shift, that’s what has made Malcolm Gladwell rich and probably not at all insecure to hang out in any New York City restaurant he pleases.

I forgot myself and where I was everytime Canada scored. A huge cheer went up from the crowd and my hands hit the air like jay z told me to.

But something was missing. Right in the centre of me.

I wanted to go around hugging people, especially the ones with canadian flags as capes, but I didn’t. I walked home with a heavy/ light heart, woohoo’ing pockets of people shouting Go-Canada-Go; high-fiving strangers, taking pictures, cheering at honking cars but not really feeling a part of it. I had tried to get into LiveCity Yaletown a few times and didn’t make it in. So,  I think I stored up my waiting-for-the-Olympics-magic to hit me and unfold within those large blue gates. But instead I got some rain, some friendly nods, some not so friendly nods, some small talk, some smiles and the chance to watch an incredible hockey game on a screen so big I couldn’t fit it all in my camera.  What I got was a sense of life, with its mixed bag of goods and bads.

And I also got this: a sound appreciation for those kids who dressed up and danced.

Is it too early to talk favourite Olympic moments? Is it alright that I feel whimsical about something that happened 5 seconds ago?

Sure it is!  To both questions!

I want to give type to a few things/events I admired so much during the Olympics that my jaw made a dent in my chest.

#1 Vectorial Elevation. Those lights felt like a city-wide hug of art. They were comforting, dazzling and incredibly interactive. And the icing on the sky? Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer spoke out about BC’s pending arts funding cuts.

#2 Circus West. As a part of  Granville Island’s Winterruption festival, performers and students of the circus wow’d growing audiences under the bridge on chilly, rainy and cloudy evenings.  My fav performer was the artist on the unicycle… it takes more than guts to try out new stuff in front of a live, expectant audience under a concrete bridge in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics, and anytime he fell, he just popped himself back up, made a motion to the audience to cheer him on, did a few dance moves with his arms and then tried the back flip again. Unbelievable and awesome.

#3 Also on Granville Island….Are you ready to rumbllllle…..Radio Radio rocked Performance Works/Place de la Francophonie like bees on speed. I only understood every third word they said but could feel it all, babee. Did I mention it was also my birthday? I lost the gemstone in my engagement ring, missed a date, ruined video for a fundraiser, got two pitches rejected AND still danced on fire to these guys, they were so good. For days after, my fiancee and I were much better phone conversationalists saying everything goes into ‘mon jacuzzi’ (so your carrot bean burrito in ma jacuzzi, paying my cell bill dans ma jacuzzi, I’m walking to meet you dans mon jacuzzi) Gosh, I forgot what it’s like to have fun. Radio Radio reminded me.

#4 Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal. If that didn’t kickstart our Canadian hearts, no Alice Cooper song can. What a rush! What a unified WHHAAHOOO which I’m sure could be heard from the moon. I jumped up from my friend’s couch and didn’t stop jumping until they went to commercial and even then I was still screaming. I kept saying “we did it, we did it, we did it!” and rationally I know I didn’t do anything to help get that goal, but emotionally I felt like every single past, current and future Canadian got that goal.  I think maybe I could get just as much excitement if I jumped from a plane, but this was way better.  Check out this video post on Geist.

#5 Walking/bumbling/fumbling/high-fiving and praying not to be crushed on Granville Street after Sid’s goal. At one point I came to an intersection, I was separated from my friends and a very thoughtful young woman going the opposite way told me “don’t go that way, you’ll get crushed” while giving me a high five and sharing some Canada-woohoo’s. I tried to turn around but that was a no-go. I had no choice but to keep going the same way and for a split second I promised myself never to crowd around dogs who can’t see beyond ankle or hip level (I’m so short) and then I thought if I go down, it’s over and then I thought, don’t think like that, then I saw these three incredibly stout men standing in the centre of the intersection like boulders in a waterfall. I gave them each a high five and a yah Canada! on my push past and one guy looked at the other two, laughed and then lifted me up in the air from my kneecaps saying “yah Canada!”  I was mortified, gleeful and relieved to see that if I kept following the crowd in a few meters I could get out of the main rush and get to the side of the street to cheer and wait for my friends. I waved my little Canadian flag, said thank you to the man when he put me down and felt a renewed confidence in humanity. Today, there was no way I’d let anyone fall either.

#6 Olympic Tent Village. What an incredibly organized, visual and heart-wrenching protest. And to my surprise the most welcoming for an interview request. The thousands of dollars if not hundreds of thousands of dollars that went into organizing and setting up provincial pavilions is in such contrast to the zero-budget, no PR, open-community centre that was the Olympic Tent Village. From garnering International news coverage to receiving blankets, tents and food donations, Streams of Justice really presented an Olympic message that I hope can have even a quarter of the impact of Sid’s goal. According to an article at mediacoop.ca, 40 temporary residents of the Olympic Tent Village have now found housing. Go, Canada, Go, er, let’s go National Housing Strategy, let’s go.

#7 The Tim-Horton’s-commercial-esque gushy stories that are orchestrated to make you cry before you hear the end of the first sentence… Vancouverites footing the bill for athlete’s families to watch the games, messages to medalist Joannie Rochette, Clara Hughes donating $10 000 to Take a Hike…Those get-yr-handkerchief, get-yr-blanky-and-have-a-good-cry stories.

#8 The turn out for the Memorial March for Murdered and Missing Women. Which I’m going to post about separately because it was so powerful to be there.

#9 Canada’s Northern house - unpretentious, wide-open and full of art. And still open till the end of March.

#10 That I missed so many olympic moments! Dance marathon, the ice thing in Richmond, a taping of the Stephen Colbert report, getting a high five from the wandering Aussie’s boxing kangaroo mascot… so many incredible people, experiences and that thing we’re all looking for just beyond the sidewalk pavement: magic.

This week on M2M, Sarah Hyde and I trade woes and wows about the Olympics. We put our red mitts and recorders into the mix and talk about the fine balance between telling Olympic stories and being a part of them.

I talk to John Douglas, a poet activist at the former Tent City on 58 W Hastings who gives me one of the best Olympic moments I could hope for: a poetry reading smack dab in the middle of soggy, red tents.  The Creative Director of Northern House answers a few of my questions as myself along with clusters of people gawk at a volunteers “pin-scarf” (she’s auctioning off about 10 pounds worth of international pins to benefit a youth centre in Inuvuk). And I approach some people on the streets to find out what they think of all-this-Olympics, turns out they think it’s pretty awesome.

take a listen.

 

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No matter how awkward The Great One looked standing in the back of a truck slowly making its way down a different route to light the outdoor Olympic cauldron or whatever technical difficulty occurred  seconds before the end of the show at BC Place, the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Olympic Games were OUTSTANDING.

Outstanding.

I went through at least four kleenexes at my friend’s house while the three hours of unprecedented storytelling unfolded.

The images of killer whales, the four host nations welcoming the world, kd Lang’s performance, the aerial salute to the prairies, the fiddlers, Donald Sutherland’s voice and snowboarder Johnny Lyall flying through the Olympic rings? Heck yes. What do you call that?

One Helluva Show.

So, when the lights shone on local artist extraordinaire, Shane Koyczan, I literally thought there was no way this opening ceremony could get any better unless a hologram of Terry Fox lit the cauldron, but that’s a very steep unless.

To witness Shane Koyczan perform is to know that you’re alive. And the fact that The Opening Ceremony planners had the foresight to  not only feature a hyper-local-exceptional talent, but a spoken word artist, well, here’s one word: outstanding. Ok two in caps: OUTSTANDING.

I felt sooo much pride for Vancouver, for the arts, for storytelling, for Canada that I didn’t think my chest could swell any larger without something gross happening.

And here’s the thing, Shane Koyczan’s performance is like kd Lang’s singing to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah: it comes from a place you feel privileged to witness. Honoured, exalted, even.

His commissioned masterpiece is uniting more Canadians than a chain of Tim Horton’s and I know that is saying a lot.

So I have to say this, there is one line in his work We are More,  that struck an off chord in my chest.

“and yes we say zed instead of zee”

It has never stood out to me before. I think it’s a pretty humble, clever little line, but somehow it being said while lit up on a drum stage in front of 68 million viewers, it sounded smug, snide, maybe a tiny bit like we were sticking out our tongues and saying “nahnahnahnah”. Like we resorted to semantics in front of our guests from the States. That we still can’t define ourselves unless it’s in comparison to those guests, to our neighbours to the south. And Koyczan is beyond right, we are more than that.

Much much more.

And something gross did happen in my chest, a small part of it turned to ash. With those eight words, a part of me slumped and thought, ah shoot, that’s not very Canadian.

So, I felt a tiny bit disappointed not because a pillar of the indoor cauldron didn’t raise up or that Canadian broadcasters kept calling attention to it, but that it felt like an artist with more integrity, heart and dignity than you could shake a dozen maple leafs at, played “king of the castle” for a second and the audience snickered right along.

I don’t think originally the poem was ever meant to come across like that.  It’s a prideful, humble piece of art.

So that said, I also have to say this: the guts, heart, courage, grit and talent, oh gosh, THE TALENT Shane Koyczan has would swell any chest to the point of bursting with pure pride. Olympic pride. I thought kd Lang stole the show until I saw Shane Koyczan’s beard and vest light up in the centre of it all.  No matter what my small beef, his performance was outstanding just like the entire Opening Ceremonies.

Go, Canada, go.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says he is touched by Canadian condolences.

On my walk home last night I spotted Nodar Kumaritashvili’s name, the 21 year-old Luge athlete who died on February 12th, up in lights.

Specifically, lit up along an apartment’s balcony and I thought, we can all do this!

Earlier in the evening I was noticing all the different Canadian flags lit up on apartment balconies, what if we put Nodar Kumaritashvili’s name in our windows? In lights, in writing, in a poster, whatever, to really show that the games truly are dedicated to him and that Canadians, although celebrating the Olympics, are mourning his loss.

 

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What a day for hang gliding emotions: swooping up, down, over there and back again.

There are a lot of currents in the air in this city right now, some congruent and some fighting for a piece of the wing.

The death of Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili is so tragic and senseless that it leaves one’s head spinning.  Although a few bloggers thought dedicating the opening ceremonies to him wasn’t enough, I thought VANOC did well. It was a powerful minute of silence after opera singer Measha Brueggergosman shook the 60 000 + people in BC Place. I have no doubt that that minute of silence was respected in households around the world.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Nodar Kumaritashvili’s family, friends and team mates who have decided to compete in his memory. If that doesn’t make your bottom lip quiver, reading the kind condolences people are posting will.

I also felt a turbulence of positive emotions yesterday when I saw the Olympic Torch carried past me . I stood within a large swell of people who cheered unabashedly. It was such a feeling of ‘coming togetherness’ or perhaps Olympic spirit, that for maybe the second time in my life I wanted to cheer for Canada. Not for the athletes and performers (I’ve been cheering for them for a long time) but for our country itself.  Inside my ribs I was saying something like, ‘you know, we’re not half bad, Canada, even with our large open wounds…racism, indigenous rights and land, poverty…we’re not half-bad, we may even, shoot,  be good. What a shift that was for me…to stand with hundreds of people celebrating… Canada.

 

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*Video note: I love  the guy wearing the best “Olympic” hat I may see in these next two weeks. You really get to see his hat the moment the flame goes past me as it blocks out my view, haha, then again at the very end of the video.

So, olympic spirit comes in lots of forms. A funny hat perhaps or a violent protest?

I sympathize with Olympic protesters because it’s true – hosting The Olympics has forced already marginalized people to shoulder the city’s problems in a way that is invisible and inexcusable.  How can we spend a billion dollars on security when people are sleeping in the streets? I think giving the Athlete’s Village to not-for-profits and social housing would be a great way to start undoing some of these injustices.

But no matter what, I don’t condone violence. Breaking stuff just turns people off, especially during such an emotional and symbolic time.  Depending on which story you read, the protests this morning were infiltrated by a “few bad apples” but were otherwise quite peaceful. I do know that the online forums have some thoughtful responses which probably took longer to write than it took a few masked people to break windows downtown.

And speaking of what is the what with media coverage, the W2, the official unaccredited international media zone, open 24/7 for bloggers, journalists and every combo of the two, are covering stories in a way we might not get to hear otherwise. You can get their coverage here. And rabble.ca is rocking Olympic coverage here. 

I want to share some ideas from the opening ceremonies in a future post. But for right now, I’m off to see Anvil, and you know what? Anvil are definitely the Olympians of Canadian Metal! Can you think of a lead singer more enthusiastic, heart-breakingly hopeful and ready to rock than Lips?

Nah, I didn’t think so.

I woohoo’d way way through seeing the Olympic Torch pass by me on Granville Island.

and I got this blurry picture to prove it:

Note to self: don’t ‘woohoo’ while shooting.

But this is exactly what surprised me: this incredible swelling of emotion came up inside of me. I wanted to scream, chant, group hug the people around me, cry and call my mom on my cellphone all at once.

(Last month’s bill and a sense of common decency stopped me).

It’s like how a well sung National Anthem can make even the curmudgeonist of person teary eyed – the chance to get to see the Torch make part of its final leg of its 100+ day  journey across Canada and back in the Olympic City of Vancouver on February 12, 2010 came over me like… like …. well… it was powerful.

So powerful, in fact, that I joined forces with a man standing next to me and as soon as the flame was well passed us we took off like two teenagers skipping school to find a place to stand along the dock to see the torch cross False Creek.

He even stood on a very tall post and got some shots with my camera. (not blurry at all).

It was so nice to share the excitement of the moment with someone.  And I couldn’t see past the crowds for the life of me, either.

I loved the nervous, excited and self-conscious buzz in the air at the docks. It was a much different feel from the earlier crowd where I got the blurry picture. There, people lined either side of the route and screamed their hearts out (a video of it will be coming shortly). But the crowd at the docks was more self-conscious and reflective.  I really really really wanted to start chanting “Go, Canada, Go” and rabble-rouse the crowd into cheering. I felt like all we needed was a tiny spark of ignition. It was like we were all standing at the side of an empty dance floor when our favourite song came on. I think if just one of us would have John Travolta’d to the centre, we would have sashayed right behind him or her.

I had no idea I had this patriotism in me.

But I hope as the Games go on, I’ll have the guts to let it out.

Now I just wonder how the protests are going at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I hope everyone is respectfully heard.

There will be a lot of images coming out of the next two weeks and I wanted to share a few that I see almost everyday in my neighbourhood.

They really make me stop and think.

I’m not sure which group or artist or non-profit to attribute the posters to or what they were made to represent in the first place.

But I find it bone-chilling because every time I see them I think of the missing women, largely aboriginal whose lives ended on “The Highway of Tears”.

In Metro Vancouver 45% of homeless women are aboriginal. According to an article in Megaphone, Vancouver’s Street paper, the Vancouver Police Department still lists 39 women as missing from the area.

The last thing I want is to make you or anyone feel bad.  I’m just looking to keep their stories in our minds. In a way it’s weird for me to write about it as a very privileged white woman living a few blocks away from  a Pottery Barn and designer chocolate shop.

But in another way, it’s not weird at all, actually it’s weird not to write about it. Not to notice it happening, not to make visible the invisible injustices… like the fact I’m very much alive in my bright pink coat next to black and white faceless posters that may represent people no longer with us, some of whom we as a society failed to notice were gone.

The posters are on trash bins which is like a swift rush of cold air flying through a stale room.  Just who (not what) are we discarding with our current policies?

I wrote to my MLA and MP about arts cuts, library freezes, student loans, water fountains and homelessness. My next letter is about an independent inquiry into the cases of these missing women.

You can sign a petition here.

And on Valentine’s Day,  starting on the corner of Main and Hastings, there will be a memorial march at noon.  Which gives everyone plenty of time to take in the Chinese New Year parade just a few blocks over beginning at 9:30am.

Witnessing the march just may be the most loving and thoughtful thing I have ever done on Valentine’s day.

Radha’s Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti was delicious and spiritually nutritious. A combo the yoga & eatery seems to serve up on a regular basis.

I ordered the soup. That's oregano oil on top, mmmm.

It was my first time in the space and it was packed. I’m not sure if it was because it was a special occasion but the feel in the room was exactly what I first came to Vancouver for: possibility and warmth mixed with a devilish sense of fun and irreverence.

A piano player sat down next to our table and made what looked like a very charming (aka old) piano sing like it was Etta James.

Now, I have to be honest, I didn’t want to get  my hopes up for the baked goods. I mean the night felt incredible enough as is but I was to become shocked by my own shortcomings when I tasted what must be love in a paper baking cup.

the cupcake that can change the world

This cupcake was so moist and sweet and like a first kiss with a new boyfriend that I had to loosen my scarf.  You see, I love baking and a few years back dabbled in veganism (I’m vegetarian now) and I can remember my partner liking everything I made except baking:  brownies: dry and crumbly; cookies: tasted like bran flakes with honey, carob soy chocolate banana pie: tasted like fake chocolate pudding with fruit. The only thing I could get some praise for was apple crisp and yah, that’s delicious, but c’mon, it’s apple crisp. It’s almost so good for you it could be breakfast and where’s the treat in that?

Our table had a cupcake, square, and three cookies to choose from.

Out of a yummy assortment of baked goods, our table voted the vanilla cupcake with the coconut icing the best treat we have tasted in a long time. Not just out of the goodies present, but out of all goodies ever made by people. (Who knows what cats can come up with).

Although hard, I will stop talking about the vanilla cupcake that I’m sure Zeus would have included in his clay colliseum in Clash of the Titans and get to the money part. Bongo roll… a preliminary estimate of the vegan bakesale profits was a cool $3000 and with government matching could jump to six grand. That total is from vegan rice krispie squares, vegan cookies and vegan cake alone. Wow! And no apple crisp in sight.

But by far the sweetest treat of the night came from one woman and her guitar.

So many cute vegan-friendly people were sitting on the floor holding hands while Frazey Ford sang to us in a voice that could chill a ghost and warm a soul.

I couldn’t believe I was eating soup and cookies while she sang just a few feet in front of me!

Yup, lately I almost forgot the original reasons I wanted to come to Vancouver -but when Frazey Ford sang and joked about being a product of dysfunctional hippy parents, they all came flowing back, one sweet reason at a time.

February 4th, be a part of it!

It’s incredible how many people are coming together to raise money for Haiti. Events such as Radha’s Vegan Bake Sale with Musical Performance by Frazey Ford to Ben Harper auctioning off a White Fender Strat to local elementary, middle and high school kids throwing their energies together and pulling off well over $100 000 worth of hard earned funds for the cause.

CBC, CTV and Global’s 3-network -fundraising-bonanza raised 16 million dollars which will be government-matched and text donations have brought in over $120 000 and counting, with the average text worth 5 bucks.

Even more staggering than the outpouring of help and funds in such a short period of time is the shock of the Earthquake itself. Why Haiti? Why again?

What is incredible is the amount of people who are not letting their coats get snagged on the Why and are already out the door figuring out the How. Take Team Jericho for instance. Six young BC Sikhs are in Haiti helping to serve thousands of daily meals and are blogging about their experiences. These teams of relief workers are the second phase of what the Sikh community has done so far in the face of this sudden tragedy. The first thing was to raise $1.5 million dollars in a week. (And implement a successful toy and school supplies drive).

Another incredible thing is how on the micro-local level, from your neighbour to the person you see on the bus everyday, people are talking about Haiti- about how they can help – not just about how terrible the situation is. That’s a big shift to go from feeling stunned still to feeling like we can do something. Whether that is a bake or craft sale, donating blood or supplies, supporting relief workers, and sending cash to government-matching organizations like the Red Cross.

It’s an incredible time for this city, for better or worse, we are about to host the Olympics – an event that brings together the very ideals of  discipline, strength and unity. I’m so happy to be hearing as much about Haiti as I am about the games.

Vancouver has a lot of problems but two of them aren’t apathy or lack of heart.