Nice doggie, sweet whip

Isn’t this a pretty picture for the end of summer?

I caught this very blonde lab posing in the back of a Ford Model A pickup, circa 1930, on the main drag of Squamish, BC. The owner was a hippie enjoying a fair trade coffee and a health muffin outside in the rare sunshine.

I like his style.

BC Binnings house, now a modernist museum

 One of the treats of our recent visit to the West coast was a visit to  BC (Bertram Charles) Binnings house in West Vancouver. 

From the ’50s through the ’70s, BC, along with his friends and contemporaries Arthur Erickson and Richard Neutra, was one of the voices of modernism on the Pacific (presumably a rather lonely role, particularly in Anglophile Vancouver at the time), and his pioneering 1941 bungalow–now a museum– is a perfect expression of the early Modern West Coast spirit. Trained as a painter, not an architect, the former head of the Fine Arts department at UBC is most fondly recalled for his vibrant public murals and mosaics (most notably for the BC Electric building and the Imperial Bank of Commerce). 

But Binnings’ greatest legacy is arguably his odd jewel-box of a house, which  appears to have almost no right angles, requiring every corner to be less an example of architecture than a sort of custom-built decorative object one might live in. 

Here is an exterior view, from the garden (note the fashionable Japanese influence, and the odd irregularity of the windows).  

Customary view

   Here is the lovely front hall, from the entrance, with a view to one of Binnings lively murals, and a row of very Japanese influenced built-in cupboards.  

Customary style

 The livingroom, with its rustic fireplace wall of locally hewn Squamish granite, and contemporary Scandesign furnishings,  is perfectly preserved.   

BC Binnings lived here

 Absolutely everything in the house is oddly one-of-a-kind and custom-designed, including this brass reading attachment for the chair (and note the irregular, almost fan shape of the cement tiles in front of the fireplace).   

BC read here

  I did also love the perfectly fitted bathroom which looks as if it were designed for a ship, even though it was clearly updated (at least new tiles were added) some time in the 1970s. A set of high clerestory windows (which you can’t see–sorry) let in fresh air via a handsome (and charmingly nautical) bronze tasseled ring on a rope-like pull. 

BC bathed here

And then of course up a set of stairs off his bedroom, there is BC Binning’s light-filled and pegboard-appointed home studio–a charming reminder that Binnings was first and foremost an artist, and that his offbeat and amazingly progressive home was itself a work of art. 

BC worked here

Changeroom for bookworms

I don’t know about you, but I have stumbled upon so much book art lately. And I’m not just talking about arty looking books (although the newly re-designed Random House Vintage classics are looking awfully fetching these days), but art made with books, like this cool silo built  from a stack of paperbacks that functions as the changeroom in the supremely chic LynnSteven boutique in Vancouver’s Gastown.        

Designed by a Vancouver-based firm called McFarlane, Green, Biggar (known locally as the vaguely druggy sounding mgb), the silo book stack is supported by an interior frame of rolled steel, and you can see both the frame and the titles of each paperback when you enter this most bookish changeroom to try something on for size.        

Changeroom reading

 Here’s a close-up view from the back where you can perhaps more clearly take in the conceptual punch of using print books–now arguably an outdated art form–as pure building material:    

Readers rear-view

I must say mgb which did a lovely job with the shop on the whole, also cleverly left the pretty old tiled floor of the former occupants of the site inside the entry as a reminder of the former occupants–a literary reference in tile, if you will.        

Fashionable floor

  But back to books.      

A couple of years ago I fell hard for the work of a Hamilton-born, NY-based artist named Doug Beube (check out his work at jhbgallery.com) who started doing a lot of work with books, mostly because they were cheap (libraries and yard sales of course give the damn things away these days), and then because he realised there was something very poignant in their slow demise in the culture at large. Hence books, re-imagined by Doug as moulding material.   

Doug deconstructs and sculpts books, often in playful configurations. Here is a piece of his, using an outdated atlas, called Faultlines.        

Atlas, Shredded

And then, a couple of years ago at Toronto’s all-night contemporary art happening, Nuit Blanche, the big hit for me and my partners in crime was an enormous fort of paperbacks stacked much like the mgb changeroom but without the interior support–(it was a mess at the end of the night) in the austere loggia of an Ontario Ministry office.        

Now I’ve just discovered that the concept has gone commercial and you can buy your own book sculpture for home use: a hollowed-out old book that you can use as a protective, and stylish–shell for your ereader or iPad, on etsy through a seller called Vintage covers.        

Forgive its ugly autumnal background , but the old Peacock hardcover below has been quite charming repurposed and upcycled by BC-based Vintage covers, for use as an iPad skin–a literary cover, in effect, for those deserters of the fading world of print in favour of a digital keypad.        

Hardcover cover-up

Beautiful, but urban?

Blissfully laid back, with its beaches and bridges and absurdly bucolic geographical setting, Vancouver is one town that seems to be oddly insecure about its urbanity.  

We were in town visiting family for a week, and just driving around, as one tends to do in this non-pedestrian or public transit-friendly city, we must have passed by at least 20 different local businesses named “urban” .  

There was Urban sushi. Urban Fare. And Urban Weddings. Urban tails is a pet groomer. Urban Presentations is a home staging company. You can go to Urban Spoon for brunch and Urban Thai bistro for dinner. There’s even an Urban Ashram, which is surely a contradiction in terms if ever I’ve heard one.  

What’s really ironic about Vancouver’s little urban(e) obsession, is that in the hippest part of town right now, Gastown, which is unquestionably Vancouver’s most “urban” quarter (with all of the positives and negatives that term describes), the hippest of the new hip stores cropping up like weeds through the cement is like a breath of fresh country air.  

City bumpkins Walter and Jean-Pierre in the window of Vancouver's Old Faithful

With its studied, and exquisitely displayed collection of ruggedly purist, handmade Maine blankets, twig birdhouses, raffia-tied pine soaps and vintage school notebooks, Old Faithful –and its thickly bearded owner Walter Manning (along with his styling canine companion, a champagne-coloured French bulldog named Jean-Pierre) –epitomise the  Williamsburg meets Lynchburg, Urban Woodsman vibe that unites urban hipsters in every emerging city centre across the globe right now.  

Which, as a style movement, is nostalgically, yearningly, even poetically anti-Urban. But most decidely urbane.

Sign of the Times

Since 1903, the old Woodward’s building at 108  West Cordova has been a landmark of downtown Vancouver–first, as the city’s premier department store, and then, when the downtown Eastside crumbled into a seedy strip of bombed-out shells populated by the bedraggled and desperate around it–ground-zero for the city’s many cracked-out junkies.  

Now as the neighbourhood around Woodward’s rapidly becomes the chicest place in town to shop (at cool indie boutiques), dine (at artisanal charcuterie places in still-scary alleyways), and live (in “loft-style condos), the ‘W” is back in business.Smack in the midst of this gentrification, the old Woodward’s is now being re-imagined as, you guessed it, a loft-style condo development for young cool design types who would rather dodge addicts on their way home than live in suburbia.  The condos (which are still neighbours to crack addicts, but promise to radically revitalise the neighbourhood) sell for 250,000 to $1.4 million a pop. 

And like the styling boutiques and bars sprouting up around it (more on that later), the design approach to this gentrification effort reveals significant street style. 

Outside the building, in a new public plaza, the old ”W” of the store’s sign sits prettily rusting like a work of sculpture. 

On the ground floor, a new Nestors market, intended to replicate the former food floor of the old Woodwards department store, looks out onto a basketball court. 

Playing Ball with Stan

  The backboard of the basketball net features a large scale  iconic work by local  hero Stan Douglas–a photo recreation of the famous Gastown riots, which took place back in the 70s only steps away from the current site. 

Lingerie for Lakers fans

And the floor of the chic new, art/court is an enviro-friendly terrazzo made from the crushed marble of the old Woodwards ladies lingerie department . 

A nearby sign, posted in the upper window of a still-rough artists’ loft–presumably by a real artist–says what must be on the minds of the people who gave up the ghost on the old Woodwards, let alone Vancouver’s entire downtown Eastside: 

Savvy sign

The birthday boy

My son Philip is a genius. Every year we have a party for his birthday on the beach at Lake Huron. It’s always a gorgeous, moon-lit night in the dunes and we gather with friends and build a bonfire.  Just to make it extra insane, we like to pick a broad theme, which also involves highly improvised costumes and a  beach-friendly menu.

This year, Philip turned 17, and mostly since Philip loves to eat Asian noodles, we decided on ‘One Night in Bangkok” as our theme. I made an Asian slaw of cabbage and red onions and peppers and mango, marinated some lemongrass chicken on skewers for the grill and whipped up a vat of cold sesame noodles.

Philip and I went to Tap Phong in Chinatown for some chopsticks and a stack of carboard Chinese takeout boxes (they are easily found although sadly, you never get Chinese takeout in them anymore), and so we served our beach dinner altogether in these compact little takeaway boxes in our crazy Thai outfits in the dunes.

I wore what I realised later is actually my usual beach outfit: a military blouse, a sarong and flip-flops, my hair in Commie pigtails. Thomas was a red shirt.  Our friend Jim, who is British and can’t resist drag,  arrived dressed as a Thai Ladyboy, complete with silicone breasts (in his mother-in-law’s borrrowed bra, which is somewhat on the edge of weird).

But Philip, who, as I mentioned earlier, is a genius, had a far better surprise for all of us.

Last summer, Philip went to Thailand on a summer student trip where he learned to work with elephants in a wildlife refuge. On his trip he had seen these wonderful Thai lanterns and wanted to bring them home, but they were confiscated from his luggage (too dangerous, presumably) at the airport.

For his Thai-themed birthday, Philip resolved to find those same lanterns, which are called ‘sky lanterns’ online.

At Chiangmai Craft, he connected with a lovely guy called Barry who promised that a minimum order of 50 would be shipped to our doorstep in a matter of days.

Lantern Lift-off

 The lanterns came flat-packed and dissasembled, with their four-foot white rice paper shells separated from a small wire ring of flammable material that had to be wired to the bottom and then lit with a match. As soon as it grew dark we gathered at the water’s edge and everybody got one to light. The trick was to let them puff up and almost float away from you until you couldn’t hold on any longer and they escaped into the night sky.

Sky lantern sky

The sight of 20 giant white lanterns floating out over the lake was unbelievably lovely.

We all made a wish when we set them off and then swum in the cool lake under them and the stars.

The next morning we heard that we only narrowly escaped being beset by a swarm of emergency rescue helicopters. Clearly some cottaging retirees had panicked at the sight of all of our lanterns, thinking some boat had set off emergency flares and called the O.P.P.

 Had they arrived, I would have explained that it was my son’s birthday and that he was a genius. And then I would have offered them some Asian noodles in a takeout container. But it didn’t come to that.

Didier Leroy dining outdoors

Where do busy chefs like Didier Leroy grab a quick lunch? Apparently, at All The Best in the little row on Yonge Street that my French friends call “Les Cinq Voleurs”.

I caught the newly bearded Didier (‘It’s my first time growing a beard”, he told me. “Do you like it”) enjoying a quick mid-day avocado sandwich and a cool Limonata under the garlic ropes beside Harvest wagon’s bountiful display of fresh summer peaches and berries.

“I feel like I’m in Provence”, joked Didier, who claims that chefs never get to eat anything in their own kitchens (of course, Didier’s eponymous, and extraordinary establishment is just up the street). “Unless you leave for a little bit, you never get a moment of peace. Besides I like this sandwich, it’s very nice.”

As far as I’m concerned, All the Best should give him a free lifetime supply of avocado sandwiches. Having the chef himself–who is one of only 350 designated Maitre Cuisiniers de France in the world– eating lunch outside their gourmet store is the best free advertisement they could ever imagine.

The set table

When your very best friend who you’ve known since kindergarten tries to convince you to simply forget all about her birthday by jetting off to Kenya with her family on safari, what can you do but throw a birthday dinner on her return?  It was a gorgeous hot summer night,  so we set the table outside on the deck for 14 and prayed for no rain.  Since it was so boiling, we started with a cool vichyssoise (I used the old-school Craig Claiborne recipe for Vicyssoise a la Ritz, from the NYT cookbook, which is sinfully full of cream and wonderfully leek-y), and of course some extremely cold Tavel rose.  

Vichyssoise a la Ritz

  For the main course, we decided to go with something effortless and barbecue a filet. 

Bacon-wrapped beef

 My new method of wrapping the filet in bacon seems to keep the leaner cut  juicy even on the grill, and add a bit of welcome smoky flavour. When sliced, it’s like a filet mignon,  the perfect follow-up to the 50s retro vichyssoise.  For a light accompaniment, I made a mango/ginger/red pepper/cilantro and onion salsa, a caprese salad with arugula and a lemony vinaigrette, and some lovely tepid, wilted rapini (no need for starch beyond some crunchy baguette after that potato soup)  

Room temperature Rabe

  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the dinner immensely.  

Cheers!

 And as night fell, and it got dark out, we moved to the back of the garden for cake and champagne.

Let them eat cake

Bubblicious

Toastmasters

  

 

To the birthday girl

   

   The house certainly looked beautiful from the back of the garden. 

A good night

And I didn’t even mind when I discovered  the next morning, after a huge middle of the night thunderstorm, that someone had left not only my camera (which has since dried out in a bag of rice)–but the rest of the cake out in the rain.  

hot town, summer in the city

Forgive me if my English seems a little rusty, but this week, I have started thinking in Italian, which I have discovered is an excellent way to approach a hazy, hot and humid summer in the city.      

The week began with a truly delightful dinner al fresco at the new Enoteca Sociale, which really is just like a trip to Rome, complete with lightly chilled bottles of Sangiovese, small plates of bucatini all-amatriciana and cacio de pepe, and the car exhaust lightly perfuming your dinner out on Dundas Street. 

 Then it veered into a fun and fabulous mid-week  interview over a long and delicious lunch with architect Ralph Giannone of Giannone Petricone (who’ve done everything from Bar Italia to the Terroni on Adelaide)  and Terroni’s  Cosimo Mammoliti, the creative dream team behind the new Bettola di Terroni (look for it if you want the inside story of their longtime design collaboration on Saturday the 31st in the Weekend Living section of the Toronto Star)–before finally wrapping with a screening of Luca Guadagnino’s gorgeous, weepy ”I Am Love” (lo sonno l’amore) , starring Tilda Swinton as the repressed and Jil Sander-clad matriarch of a Milanese fashion dynasty.    

tragedy a la Milanese

It was beautiful–much prettier in my view, than Tom Ford’s much-discussed fashion movie, “The Single Man”, with fabulous, rust-hued velvet Italian fascist interiors reminiscent of Bertolucci’s “Garden of the Finzi Continis”–and deliciously erotic about sex and food (seduction and betrayal in this film actually happen in a dish of prawns and a bowl of soup, respectively), and ultimately wonderfully moving.  

Swinton plays the grown-up love of a mother with adult children with such convincing emotional truth, I was devastated by the inevitable tragedy. 

I don’t know if it was simply a reaction to the Italian opera of this lovely languid week, or just the ridiculous heat, but I just poured tears.

Living legend

I admit to being conflicted about whether or not to go and see Jimmy Cliff when I first heard the 62 year-old reggae legend was playing at Massey Hall. It can be a disappointment seeing a late-in-career artist, no matter how great they may have been in their prime. Sometimes their voices are shot, or they’ve lost their energy for performing and are just limply going through the motions onstage. Plus the audiences, often motivated by the same nostalgia, are usually depressingly old and uncool. Which was why I didn’t go to see Carole King and James Taylor when they were recently in town on their duet tour (and which to all reports, was a mistake). Like my pal Martha says, the greats are still worth seeing, because they will always deliver.  

Luckily I overcame my reticence. Because the man–recently awarded the Order of Merit, so he is now the Hon. Mr Cliff, and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame– is not only a living hit machine, he’s still bursting with love and positive energy: his opening number, “Wonderful World, Beautiful People”, had me smiling from ear to ear and dancing in the aisles, and I wasn’t alone.  

Still got it

Dressed in head-to-toe red, with a puffy 80s jacket with red-green-and gold patchwork, and a matching sock-monkey dread knitted toque,  Cliff was in fine form, bopping across the stage like a man half his age, his voice still getting you right where you live, and still inspiring with the weird ropy intensity of an aging Mystic man.  

A natural mystic

After “Wonderful World”, the hits just kept on coming: the elegiac “Sitting in Limbo”, the anthemic “You Can Get it if You Really Want” and “The Harder They Come”, the rockin’ “Vietnam” (updated by Cliff to a chant of “Af-ghan–istan”), covers of such slightly worn and faded reggae classics as “I Can See Clearly Now” and Cat Stevens’  ” Wild World” which Cliff has already recorded and made his own (basically anything un-Marley belongs to Cliff at this point)– and an even more poignant version of “Many Rivers to Cross”, with the lyrics “I’ve been licked, washed-up for years…” most moving sung by a performer who’s been far too long unrecognised and out of the spotlight.   

The Man and his band The band, all attired in matching orange Jimmycliff.com tees, was not only fetchingly cute (particularly the female backup dancer who everybody in the hall fell madly in love with), but were so tight and played with such funk the house was on fire. Even the band couldn't resist.Dancing dudes

 And most notably, during a rendition of Cliff’s unknown and newest track, “One More”, an irresistible, booty-shaker about having “one more song to sing, one more bullet in my gun”, which was still playing in my head when I woke up this morning–all blissfully danced out, brimming with positive vibes and still smiling.