Sunday, May 18, 2008

VAG - Round Two


Yesterday I wrote about the Premier's announcement that the Vancouver Art Gallaeyr would fins a new and exciting home on the Waterfront in the Plaza of nations sight. I wrote that I approved of that initiative.

Not that the Premier or anyone else needs or seeks my validation.

Let's face it for validation all we need do is order the Dog Poo Souffle from our local eatery and our server will automatically beam back at us, "Good Choice!"

But I thought this - the Art gallery at the Plaza - was a good fit.

However...there's always a "however" in modern disscourse, isn't there?...this afternoon a neighbour, pulling the weeds from his lawn, preperatory to taking his 35-foor sailboat out for a run, offered that he thought this location for the new VAG was a lousy choice.

"Keep the water for housing and cafes. The Art gallery is for looking in, not out. The original plan of the old Bus Depot site near the QE Theatre and the Playhouse and whatever else might grow there was a much better move!"

And, you know, he's got a good argument there.

But, as we moved on, heading for our extremely late Sunday breakfast, we talked about this discussion and, while I thought it was a pretty good point, ultimately I found myself still likng the Plaza location.

The Getty in Los Angeles (pictured above right) is such a spectacular set of buildings in such a fabulous setting that one can easily take several days of hanging about outside before you even open a door to look at paintings on the wall.

Time will tell...

http://laughingintheisles.blogspot.com/



Just a reminder, Dear Bloggomaniacs,

Please BOOKMARK this site:

http://laughingintheisles.blogspot.com/

I am leaving for the UK on Tuesday, May 20th and I will not be reading many newspapers or posting my daily blog until my return June 8th.

BUT...from Friday, the 23d, when I arrive in Edinburgh, and then on a week later to Dublin, I will be posting photos and babble on my travel blog, Laughing In the Isles.

As for today, I found much of what was being sold as news, really warmed over stew...the media commenting on itself, the growing "support" for the drug shoot-up place ("If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.- Bertrand Russell), something's happening in hockey, and so on.

Here's my feeling.

We are not picking our family members out of the fallen rubble this morning. We are not fighting for medicines or food for our cyclone-devastated friends and neighbours. We are not dodging missiles hurled into our marketplaces. At least not at this moment.

Summer seems to have arrived with a welcome vengeance.

It's a long, lazy weekend.

Chill, baby...

Obama on Obama


“Barack is worth millions now,” Mr. Osnos said. “It’s almost all based on these two books, two books not based on a job of prodigious research or risking one’s life as a reporter in Iraq. He has written about himself. Being able to take your own life story and turn it into this incredibly lucrative franchise, it’s a stunning fact.”


That is the last paragraph of a fascinating 3-pager from today's NY Times on Barak Obama, the book writer.
It is much to the credit of the article's author, Janny Scott, that this piece is neither overly critical not over-praising, but a well-balanced account of a man and how he got to be standing where he is today.