The Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret, East Vancouver’s beloved performance and production company that is known for creating fully immersive theatrical worlds, presents the Parade of Lost Souls on Saturday.

The exact location will be revealed at the stroke of midnight on All Hallows’ Eve but be prepared to join in the revelry from 7:00pm to 10:00pm on Saturday, November 1, 2014. A Masquerade After Party will follow at Astorino’s Hall on the drive starting at 9:00pm. Tickets for this event are available online in advance for $20.

Founded on principles of active participation, the success of the Parade of Lost Souls is reliant on the spectator joining the spectacle. Leading up to the event, participate in one of the many artist-led community workshops in dance, music, art and costuming.

Photo credit: bcbusinesshub & bcbusinesshub on Flickr

This beloved East Vancouver event, whose heartbeat is a community-driven parade inspired by Dia de Muertos (The Day of the Dead), and similar traditions that occur all over the world, was created by Paula Jardine and Public Dreams over 20 years ago. In recent years, the parade has travelled around East Vancouver featuring performance of all sorts, interactive art installations, and this year Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret continues this tradition.

Photo credit: PiscesDreamer & PiscesDreamer on Flickr

A mainstay on the East Vancouver cultural scene, The Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret is known for creating original theatrical acts with an immersive and magical aesthetic. Find workshop descriptions, times, locations and volunteer opportunities on the website and follow the event on Facebook and Twitter for more information.

There is beauty in the rain, and it’s a large part of why Vancouverites tolerate it for so long throughout the year. It washes away days of dirt, leaves, and debris, and it keeps our natural surroundings lush and green. It clears the air, fills our reservoirs and mountain streams, and gives us excellent excuses for purchasing the latest gumboots and Gore-Tex.

Photo credit: Clayton Perry on Flickr

I searched Vimeo for Vancouver rain videos and I found these great gems:

Vancouver Rain from Jordan Megahy on Vimeo.

And one for after the storm:

Related Posts: Vancouver Summer Videos, Vancouver Fog Videos, Heart of Vancity Timelapse, Vancouver Timelapse Videos, Old Vancouver Video Collection, Vancouver Video Collection, Vancouver Timelapse Videos Part Two, GigaPixel Timelapse of Vancouver, Another Vancouver Video Collection, Port Mann Bridge Timelapse Video, Video Love Notes to Vancouver.

The City of Vancouver Archives will present their fifth annual screening of “Vancouver – A Progressive City!” at the Vancity Theatre this November. This popular screening, complete with a wide range of newsreel footage, home movies, industrial and promotional films, will focus on Vancouver from the 1930s-1960s.

1946. Airline stewardess passing the “Vancouver, City of Destiny” film to a man at the airport. Archives# CVA 1184-2349. Photographer: Jack Lindsay

Local historian Michael Kluckner will provide historical commentary with emphasis on Vancouver’s workforce, celebrations, and the city’s commerce, heritage and culture.

Some of this year’s archival highlights will include the construction of the Lions Gate Bridge, early milk delivery service, the Grey Cup and Shriners parades, and television spots reporting on the community. The screening will also feature a special cameo appearance of Vancouver’s first city archivist, Major J.S. Matthews.

Another screening, “Vintage Vancouver“, will be hosted by Michael Kluckner on November 2nd. Kluckner will guide the audience on a moving image journey into Vancouver’s past with musical accompaniment by jazz pianist Wayne Stewart. Highlights include home movies, park board films, experimental films, and on-the-fly documentaries.

To accommodate the demand for these screenings, three showtimes are available:

Film: Vancouver – A Progressive City!
Screening Time: 2:30pm on November 2, 2014
Location: Vancity Theatre – 1181 Seymour St, Vancouver
Speaker: Michael Kluckner

Film: Vancouver – A Progressive City!
Screening Time: 2:30pm on November 30, 2014
Location: Vancity Theatre – 1181 Seymour St, Vancouver
Speaker: Michael Kluckner

Film: Vintage Vancouver
Screening Time: 7:30pm on November 2, 2014
Location: Vancity Theatre – 1181 Seymour St, Vancouver
Speaker: Michael Kluckner and Wayne Stewart on piano

Win Tickets

I have a pair of tickets to each of the three screenings available thanks to the City of Vancouver Archives. Here’s how you can enter to win:

• Leave a comment naming which screening you would be able to attend (1 entry)
• Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)

I will draw one winner at random for each screening. Each winner will receive two tickets to that screening. The draw will take place on Friday, October 31, 2014 at 4:00pm. Follow the City of Vancouver Archives on Twitter and Facebook for more information about this event and many others.

Update The winners are: Don McQueen (Nov 2nd at 2:30pm); Verna Morse (Nov 2nd at 7:30pm)

It’s date night in the West End. You enjoy a lovely meal at a neighbourhood bistro, you hold hands walking down towards Lost Lagoon, the setting sun casts a beam of light across the water illuminating weeping willow trees, and then… the birds start to swarm. Seagulls, swans, ducks, Canadian Geese and an American Coot.

It will be tempting to take a photo to post to Instagram, and that’s just fine. But be sure to resist the urge to feed any creature you see in Stanley Park.

Ducks eat a mix of aquatic plants and insects to stay healthy and anything aside from that can be severely detrimental.

This summer the Stanley Park Ecology Society (“SPES”) launched #QuackSnacks, an event with the purpose of educating park visitors about this practice. SPES asserts: “Feeding ducks is so unhealthy that organizations including the US National Parks Service and the BC SPCA consider it indirect animal cruelty.”

The way I see it, we are a culture concerned with eating local, natural and organic so why do we impose the exact opposite on our feathered friends in the park? A commenter on the #QuackSnacks event added that as long as bread and seed mix is handed out, [ducks] will not move on to forage for their natural foods.

So be a good neighbour to the creatures in our city’s crown jewel. Visit, enjoy, play, photograph, and soak up its natural beauty. But please, don’t feed the ducks in Stanley Park.

A photo posted by Rebecca Bollwitt (@miss604) on Oct 10, 2014 at 6:26pm PDT

For more information check out the Stanley Park Ecology Society online and read about the The Birds of Winter in Stanley Park.

On Saturday, October 25th, 55 awards were handed out in 21 categories for the BC Beer Awards. The fifth annual event included a consumer tasting event at the craft beer festival as well as the BC Beer Awards ceremony.

Photo credit: Ruth Hartnup on Flickr

BC Beer Awards

If you’re looking to drink local beer, the list of winners is a great place to start. Here are just a few of the breweries that were honoured this year:

All of the winners and runners up can be found online. October is Craft Beer Month in BC, with events through to October 31st.