Unfortunately I didn’t have time to post this while I was in Vancouver. I went to UBC (University of British Columbia) Museum of Anthropology on Monday. Generally, I don’t like anthropology museums, since they tend to make cultures, usually those that were wiped out by the white people who created and now run the museum. This is supposed to have gotten better in the 60s or something, but if you go to the Anthropology museum at Harvard, every third caption is something like “this is the (item) that (armed white male) took from (unarmed person), Chief of the (group) Tribe, (white guy) shot the chief in the back of the head and ordered his slaves to take all of the chief’s stuff.” Yay!
The museum at UBC felt different. Yes, there were numerous artifacts taken from a variety of cultures, most prominently, there were a number of totem polls. However, the most prominently featured item was a giant redwood sculpture by an artist who is a member of an indigenous group. It was huge, made of wood, and portrayed the story of his tribe’s creation myth. After the Great Flood receded and there was again dry land, Raven, the trickster, flew through the air surveying the damage. He found a (giant) clamshell, and prying it opened, discovered the founders of the tribe, the first humans. The fact that this piece of what is clearly art
Why is the Sistine Chapel, painted in 1512, or the Mona Lisa, painted in 1503 considered art, while a totem poll carved in 1884 is considered artifact, a relic of history? When a civilization is destroyed, the humanity of that group disappears. The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci,while the totem poll was made by "native Americans." What was different about the totem polls at the museum (and the ones at Stanley Park, which I forgot to mention) is that they are contextualized in the living, continuing history of the cultures to which they belong. The museum at UBC had a declaration of rights signed by a group from one of the First People tribes asserting the right to their land. At Stanely Park, totem polls from before the potlatch ban (the most serious form of persecution against the indiginous peoples of British Columbia) were mixed among more modern ones, which served as art, and in doing so, restored to their fellow pieces that status.
Showing posts with label Vancouver. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vancouver. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Vancouver
Shabbas
In the morning I took the SkyTrain into downtown and walked into Stanley Park, a large park adjacent to downtown. It's bigger than Central Park in New York, and really well maintained. The park is almost an island, surrounded mostly by water, but connected to downtown. There are walking/running lanes around the outside of the park along the water, and inside that, a pair of biking/rollerskating paths.
Walking around downtown, it was a pretty cool place. I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery, which was a very contemporary museum. There was a large, two-floor series dedicated to comics, cartoons, and video games. Another exhibit was showed the work of a Chinese performance artist who worked with forms of the body. There are pictures of him and others, generally naked, doing unusual things. It, along with some of the other exhibits were not exactly my thing. There was a large exhibit of paintings by female Canadian artists that contained some more conventional forms, some of which I really liked. I also enjoyed the work of an indiginous artists, which included some instillations and an exhibit about a project where she took a giant megaphone she took around the country, having people talk to the land.
The video game section was curated by Will Wright who created SimCity and The Sims. It featured eight video games that were important to the field. What upset me about this exhibit was that two of the video games were The Sims and Spore, a game Will Wright is currently making. What role exactly he had in choosing the games and coming up with the copy I don't know, but in more than one places it described Spores as highly anticipated and predicted it would change the industry forever. Additionally, The Sims is described as being important because it took as it's subject every day life. I would surely agree that The Sims is an important game, and maybe for the reasons he talked about, but I have some real issues with the exhibit. First and most important, the text on Spores and the images of the coming game looked a lot like an advertisement. These days video games permere to first weekend grosses comperable to big budget movies, so for a promotion for one of them to come in the form of art exhibit feels like what is sometimes refered to as corporate creep, the sense that private corporations are making their way into all aspects of our culture. Naomi Klein talks about this in No Logo in the section No Space.
Another issue I had with the exhibit is that I have never seen the video game read as a form of art. As a recent student of the liberal arts, I don't reject the possibility, but there should certainly be some sort of standard for evaluating each work. What consitutes the game? The game art? The standard play of the game? Secret levels? Cheat codes? What about modifications (mods)? One of the games featured was Quake, in part for the numerous mods made for it. What about MMORPG or other linkable games. Is the online interaction part of the form? When you play Super Smash Brothers Brawl, it warns you that content is not rated by the ESRB. What about Second Life, which may not be a game at all, but rather a platform. Video games are a form of performace art performed not by the artist but by the viewer. It has the potential for a very interesting dialogue about the nature of art, but none of this was discussed. Rather, there were eight short reviews, two of which featured the work of the curator, one of which he will soon be trying to sell to all those people who came through the museum.
Still, I enjoyed the exhibit, and walking around downtown Vancouver, and definitely had a good day.
In the morning I took the SkyTrain into downtown and walked into Stanley Park, a large park adjacent to downtown. It's bigger than Central Park in New York, and really well maintained. The park is almost an island, surrounded mostly by water, but connected to downtown. There are walking/running lanes around the outside of the park along the water, and inside that, a pair of biking/rollerskating paths.
Walking around downtown, it was a pretty cool place. I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery, which was a very contemporary museum. There was a large, two-floor series dedicated to comics, cartoons, and video games. Another exhibit was showed the work of a Chinese performance artist who worked with forms of the body. There are pictures of him and others, generally naked, doing unusual things. It, along with some of the other exhibits were not exactly my thing. There was a large exhibit of paintings by female Canadian artists that contained some more conventional forms, some of which I really liked. I also enjoyed the work of an indiginous artists, which included some instillations and an exhibit about a project where she took a giant megaphone she took around the country, having people talk to the land.
The video game section was curated by Will Wright who created SimCity and The Sims. It featured eight video games that were important to the field. What upset me about this exhibit was that two of the video games were The Sims and Spore, a game Will Wright is currently making. What role exactly he had in choosing the games and coming up with the copy I don't know, but in more than one places it described Spores as highly anticipated and predicted it would change the industry forever. Additionally, The Sims is described as being important because it took as it's subject every day life. I would surely agree that The Sims is an important game, and maybe for the reasons he talked about, but I have some real issues with the exhibit. First and most important, the text on Spores and the images of the coming game looked a lot like an advertisement. These days video games permere to first weekend grosses comperable to big budget movies, so for a promotion for one of them to come in the form of art exhibit feels like what is sometimes refered to as corporate creep, the sense that private corporations are making their way into all aspects of our culture. Naomi Klein talks about this in No Logo in the section No Space.
Another issue I had with the exhibit is that I have never seen the video game read as a form of art. As a recent student of the liberal arts, I don't reject the possibility, but there should certainly be some sort of standard for evaluating each work. What consitutes the game? The game art? The standard play of the game? Secret levels? Cheat codes? What about modifications (mods)? One of the games featured was Quake, in part for the numerous mods made for it. What about MMORPG or other linkable games. Is the online interaction part of the form? When you play Super Smash Brothers Brawl, it warns you that content is not rated by the ESRB. What about Second Life, which may not be a game at all, but rather a platform. Video games are a form of performace art performed not by the artist but by the viewer. It has the potential for a very interesting dialogue about the nature of art, but none of this was discussed. Rather, there were eight short reviews, two of which featured the work of the curator, one of which he will soon be trying to sell to all those people who came through the museum.
Still, I enjoyed the exhibit, and walking around downtown Vancouver, and definitely had a good day.
Friday, July 4, 2008
First Day in Vancouver
So, I was definitely profiled at the train station. Of all the passengers arriving, three of us were pulled aside. Canadian Customs does not like men traveling alone. The concern according to the customs official, was that I would run out of money and be unable to support myself. Presumably they do not want poor Americans taking advantage of their generous social welfare system. I assured the official that I had adequate cash on hand as well as plenty of reserves, but he still took nearly every article of clothing out of my bag, which makes me think he may not only have been concerned about me supporting myself, unless he was looking for unpaid bills.
I walked around the Mt. Pleasant area, where my hotel is. There are a lot of independent shops including two Indian markets, three Ethiopian restaurants, and a single-screen theater called The Rio. It's not the hippest area, but it's nice. I had planned on taking the sky-rail (a raised mass transit system) but it looked very crowded. Also, wasn't thrilled with the height of the thing, and didn't know how long it would take to go and come back.
Shabbat is approaching, and not much else has happened, but I want to try to keep up with the blog unlike in LA, where I waited until the end to post.
I walked around the Mt. Pleasant area, where my hotel is. There are a lot of independent shops including two Indian markets, three Ethiopian restaurants, and a single-screen theater called The Rio. It's not the hippest area, but it's nice. I had planned on taking the sky-rail (a raised mass transit system) but it looked very crowded. Also, wasn't thrilled with the height of the thing, and didn't know how long it would take to go and come back.
Shabbat is approaching, and not much else has happened, but I want to try to keep up with the blog unlike in LA, where I waited until the end to post.
Coast Starlight / Cascades
In my last post discussing the more existential elements of my trip, I neglected to discuss the more concrete elements of my travel. The Coast Starlight was supposed to be 34 hours, and ran about 2 hours late. The biggest difference from the Southwest Chief was that the Coast Starlight did not have electrical outlets at every seat (the same is true with the Cascade, which seems to be a similar train model). This restricted my activities somewhat, as I was unable to charge my electronic devices, so I had to ration power. There were outlets scattered throughout the train, but I they were inconveniently located and often in use.
As a result, I finished A Wrinkle in Time, which I had picked up at my parents house and started reading. I also read Ella Minnow Pea, a really creative novel I’d heard reviewed a while ago (I don’t remember when), and finally got around to reading. It’s set on a fictional island off the east coast of the United States, where the founder is venerated for his creation of the pangram “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” But when the tiles that make up the pangram begin to fall, letters become outlawed, and a struggle begins to save the language and the island the characters so love. The story is told in a series of letters, which must abide by the restrictions of the disappearing letters. As language becomes more strained, the one of the word-loving characters becomes more desperate. It’s a worthy read about tyranny and the power of language to combat it.
My seatmate for the entire trip was a high school teacher from a small southern California city named Jim. He was going to Seattle to take an Alaskan cruise. Jim was friendly, and we got along well, but what surprised me was that he had no books, no music, no diversions at all. Perhaps it has to do with him being from another generation, but he spent the whole 36 hours, most of it in his seat, looking out the window or sleeping. His patience impressed me a great deal, and I wish I wasn’t so wired to need constant stimulation.
The view out the windows was beautiful. There was a lot of agriculture in California, but also a lot of beautiful mountain vistas, a few of which were on fire. I’m not kidding, we passed no less than three wildfires, which put out huge columns of smoke that blanked the sky. The reason the trip takes so long despite being a much shorter distance (I think) than the chief is that there is a great deal of curving to get around the geography. There was one mountain, identifiable by the fact it was on fire, that we seemed to circle all the way around, presumably because crossing over on through it was not, to the railroad’s planners, worth the effort. Waking up on the second day, I saw the day breaking on some of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever witnessed. In the pre-dawn glow, huge mountains covered in thick forests stretched all around us, towering above and plunging down below. As the light grew, the scenes became no less spectacular. It was around the California-Oregon border (our last California station was at 1:00 a.m., and our first Oregon stop was at 7:00). The California coast (which was much earlier in the trip) was also quite a sight to behold, and at one point we passed a nature preserve and saw sea lions lounging in the shallows. But for me, the Puget Sound was the superior body of water, not as vast as the ocean, but hauntingly serene. The scenery so far on the Cascade has been typical of the Pacific North West, which is to say, glorious.
On the Coast Starlight I got even less sleep than on the Chief due to the fact that a person nearby was snoring like a buzz saw. Seriously, I’ve slept alongside snorers before, loud ones, and I can sleep through almost anything (including, my family will tell you, storms that shake the house), but I’ve never heard sounds like these made by anything that wasn’t mechanical and high-powered. I also had an aisle, making it that much harder to find a comfortable position. The experience convinced me to spring for a sleeper on the Empire Builder (from Seattle to Minneapolis, though it goes on to Chicago).
The passengers on the Starlight were a bit more interesting than on the Chief. There was a pair of Buddhist monks in full orange robes. There was a couple who appeared to be Mennonite or some other traditionally dressing, technology spurning sect (though I guess since trains have been around a long time, they’re okay). There was also a very goth looking couple. Each pair stood out brilliantly against the backdrop of a wash of “average” Americans. Which is not to say that those riding the Chief and the Starlight weren’t racially and socioeconomically diverse. Rather, that diversity has become, beautifully non-noteworthy. When a the children from a white family and the children from a black family were playing together in the aisles of the car in front of me, no one, myself included, seemed to take any note of it other than, look out, kids coming through (or perhaps, damn kids, make noise on the train…grumble, grumble). I think it may have been these pairs, each standing out from the crowd, yet each with someone to share the experience with, that brought on my bout of loneliness expressed in the last post. There is a kind of closeness in joint isolation, where you and the person you are with are brought that much closer by having no one else to take a share of your attention, perhaps a reason for travel I neglected.
I just went to the food car in the Cascade, and it is outrageously good. There are gourmet-sounding food items like spinach quiche and foccacia margarita pizza, and more importantly, a selection of 3 PNW microbrews, including two of my favorite beers, the Pyramid IPA and the Windemere Hefeweizer. The closest thing to a microbrew on the Chief or the Starlight was Heineken, a far, far cry from what’s being offered here. Since it’s a morning train, there will be no beer consumption, but it’s a promising sign that there is at least a potential for quality in Amtrak food, even if it is for the time only regional. Even if I don’t get to try any of the food, it’s one step towards my dream of sitting on a train to Boston eating curried quinoa with roasted vegetables and toasted almonds while discussing politics with a businessman enjoying a t-bone steak. (I’m eating the quinoa for health reasons; I would have rather had the sustainable Pacific Cod/Yukon gold potato fish and chips. The quinoa is very good though, and goes great with the 2009 Red Diamond Cabernet Sauvignon I’m drinking. Also, McCoy, the businessman, chokes on his steak after claiming Reagan helped curb the budget deficit and has to be given the Heimlich maneuver by the RN from Worchester sitting behind him. She went into medicine after her son’s life was saved because under Massachusetts’s universal health insurance system, her son’s life was saved when a melanoma was caught early.)
Heading to Vancouver now, I feel better about the trip. Seattle was nice, and though I was only there a few hours (less than 1/3 the time I was on the Coast Starlight), it seems like a nice city and somewhere I would like to visit. I missed dinner on the train, and walking to the hotel, I passed a place called Mideast Mix (or something like that). It was one of those places you can just tell is good (how else could an unstylish ethnic restaurant survive and be open past ten in an uber-hip neighborhood like Pioneer Square. After checking in and getting settled, I returned to the eatery, not three short blocks away, and discovered the secret of its success. In addition to selling really good falafel and (disturbingly) cigarettes, his menu included gyros, cheese-burgers, and something called a cream cheese [hot] dog. They were open late to cater to the hungry and intoxicated, who the man behind the counter treated with shocking rudeness (possibly due to the fact that they were obnoxious and drunk; he was perfectly polite to me). The food was, as predicted, delicious and the service was fast (if not, as stated before, always friendly).
This far north, Shabbat does not begin until 9:00, so I may blog again this afternoon. If not, I’ll try to do so on Sunday. Shabbat Shalom to all.
As a result, I finished A Wrinkle in Time, which I had picked up at my parents house and started reading. I also read Ella Minnow Pea, a really creative novel I’d heard reviewed a while ago (I don’t remember when), and finally got around to reading. It’s set on a fictional island off the east coast of the United States, where the founder is venerated for his creation of the pangram “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” But when the tiles that make up the pangram begin to fall, letters become outlawed, and a struggle begins to save the language and the island the characters so love. The story is told in a series of letters, which must abide by the restrictions of the disappearing letters. As language becomes more strained, the one of the word-loving characters becomes more desperate. It’s a worthy read about tyranny and the power of language to combat it.
My seatmate for the entire trip was a high school teacher from a small southern California city named Jim. He was going to Seattle to take an Alaskan cruise. Jim was friendly, and we got along well, but what surprised me was that he had no books, no music, no diversions at all. Perhaps it has to do with him being from another generation, but he spent the whole 36 hours, most of it in his seat, looking out the window or sleeping. His patience impressed me a great deal, and I wish I wasn’t so wired to need constant stimulation.
The view out the windows was beautiful. There was a lot of agriculture in California, but also a lot of beautiful mountain vistas, a few of which were on fire. I’m not kidding, we passed no less than three wildfires, which put out huge columns of smoke that blanked the sky. The reason the trip takes so long despite being a much shorter distance (I think) than the chief is that there is a great deal of curving to get around the geography. There was one mountain, identifiable by the fact it was on fire, that we seemed to circle all the way around, presumably because crossing over on through it was not, to the railroad’s planners, worth the effort. Waking up on the second day, I saw the day breaking on some of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever witnessed. In the pre-dawn glow, huge mountains covered in thick forests stretched all around us, towering above and plunging down below. As the light grew, the scenes became no less spectacular. It was around the California-Oregon border (our last California station was at 1:00 a.m., and our first Oregon stop was at 7:00). The California coast (which was much earlier in the trip) was also quite a sight to behold, and at one point we passed a nature preserve and saw sea lions lounging in the shallows. But for me, the Puget Sound was the superior body of water, not as vast as the ocean, but hauntingly serene. The scenery so far on the Cascade has been typical of the Pacific North West, which is to say, glorious.
On the Coast Starlight I got even less sleep than on the Chief due to the fact that a person nearby was snoring like a buzz saw. Seriously, I’ve slept alongside snorers before, loud ones, and I can sleep through almost anything (including, my family will tell you, storms that shake the house), but I’ve never heard sounds like these made by anything that wasn’t mechanical and high-powered. I also had an aisle, making it that much harder to find a comfortable position. The experience convinced me to spring for a sleeper on the Empire Builder (from Seattle to Minneapolis, though it goes on to Chicago).
The passengers on the Starlight were a bit more interesting than on the Chief. There was a pair of Buddhist monks in full orange robes. There was a couple who appeared to be Mennonite or some other traditionally dressing, technology spurning sect (though I guess since trains have been around a long time, they’re okay). There was also a very goth looking couple. Each pair stood out brilliantly against the backdrop of a wash of “average” Americans. Which is not to say that those riding the Chief and the Starlight weren’t racially and socioeconomically diverse. Rather, that diversity has become, beautifully non-noteworthy. When a the children from a white family and the children from a black family were playing together in the aisles of the car in front of me, no one, myself included, seemed to take any note of it other than, look out, kids coming through (or perhaps, damn kids, make noise on the train…grumble, grumble). I think it may have been these pairs, each standing out from the crowd, yet each with someone to share the experience with, that brought on my bout of loneliness expressed in the last post. There is a kind of closeness in joint isolation, where you and the person you are with are brought that much closer by having no one else to take a share of your attention, perhaps a reason for travel I neglected.
I just went to the food car in the Cascade, and it is outrageously good. There are gourmet-sounding food items like spinach quiche and foccacia margarita pizza, and more importantly, a selection of 3 PNW microbrews, including two of my favorite beers, the Pyramid IPA and the Windemere Hefeweizer. The closest thing to a microbrew on the Chief or the Starlight was Heineken, a far, far cry from what’s being offered here. Since it’s a morning train, there will be no beer consumption, but it’s a promising sign that there is at least a potential for quality in Amtrak food, even if it is for the time only regional. Even if I don’t get to try any of the food, it’s one step towards my dream of sitting on a train to Boston eating curried quinoa with roasted vegetables and toasted almonds while discussing politics with a businessman enjoying a t-bone steak. (I’m eating the quinoa for health reasons; I would have rather had the sustainable Pacific Cod/Yukon gold potato fish and chips. The quinoa is very good though, and goes great with the 2009 Red Diamond Cabernet Sauvignon I’m drinking. Also, McCoy, the businessman, chokes on his steak after claiming Reagan helped curb the budget deficit and has to be given the Heimlich maneuver by the RN from Worchester sitting behind him. She went into medicine after her son’s life was saved because under Massachusetts’s universal health insurance system, her son’s life was saved when a melanoma was caught early.)
Heading to Vancouver now, I feel better about the trip. Seattle was nice, and though I was only there a few hours (less than 1/3 the time I was on the Coast Starlight), it seems like a nice city and somewhere I would like to visit. I missed dinner on the train, and walking to the hotel, I passed a place called Mideast Mix (or something like that). It was one of those places you can just tell is good (how else could an unstylish ethnic restaurant survive and be open past ten in an uber-hip neighborhood like Pioneer Square. After checking in and getting settled, I returned to the eatery, not three short blocks away, and discovered the secret of its success. In addition to selling really good falafel and (disturbingly) cigarettes, his menu included gyros, cheese-burgers, and something called a cream cheese [hot] dog. They were open late to cater to the hungry and intoxicated, who the man behind the counter treated with shocking rudeness (possibly due to the fact that they were obnoxious and drunk; he was perfectly polite to me). The food was, as predicted, delicious and the service was fast (if not, as stated before, always friendly).
This far north, Shabbat does not begin until 9:00, so I may blog again this afternoon. If not, I’ll try to do so on Sunday. Shabbat Shalom to all.
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