After making a post about the Bowmac sign [mbv], I knew there was more that I wanted to say, but with a slightly different and more personal twist. It all has to do with the Fred Herzog exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which has been the talk of the town for several months.
[Herzog] has produced a substantial body of photographs, taking urban life in Vancouver second-hand shops, vacant lots, neon signage and the crowds of people who have populated the city’s streets over the past fifty years-as his primary subject [VAG]
After looking at a bunch of Herzog photos, I recalled a picture I had seen of my Opa (Grandfather) that sits in my mother’s room on her dresser. It’s definitely a photo of him walking down Granville Street, you can see the neon “Studio” sign in the background, the Vogue’s marquee, and a bus stop for the #17 Oak and #19 Kingsway.
On the back of the picture, there was a stamp that said “Foncies Photo 872 Granville Street, Vancouver 2, BC”. My dad told me about a man who would stand on Granville and take pictures of passersby, then give them a ticket to come back and claim their photograph. After getting my paws on the photo of my Opa, I did some Googling and I found a Flickr Group dedicated entirely to ‘Foncie’s Fotos’.
Street photographer Foncie Pulice must have shot over a million people walking along Granville Street in Vancouver between 1946 and 1979. He’d hand you a ticket as you passed which you could redeem for your picture after 24 hours. There must be tens of thousands of these photos kicking around in albums, scrapbooks, etc. [Flickr Group: Foncies]
Foncie is famous for his unique, everyday shots of Vancouverites in his own right. There’s a great interview with him posted on Chuck Davis’ site.
People even made appointments for street pictures! “Oh, yes. They’d phone ahead and tell us what time they’d be walking down Granville. Dr. Peter Bell-Irving had members of his family photographed every year. I have shots showing one little tyke in that family growing all the way up to six-foot-five.” [Interview with Foncie Pulice: Chuck Davis.ca]
If you have your own Foncies photos kicking around, feel free to upload to the group or share your story. Although it doesn’t go back extremely far, it’s fun to uncover and rediscover little glimpses into Vancouver’s urban past.
Episode #130 audio is now up for your listening pleasure. We had a wicked time at the Sparta show on Friday night and especially during our little podcasting adventures with Keeley Davis.
Jim Ward, subject of our last interview, was under the weather but when we went back stage and saw Keeley and were not disappointed. It was great to talk to the latest member of the band, contributor on their new album Threes, hear about his side projects and impressions of our fair city.
Run time is 40:43 and turn it up, this will kick your ass – at least the music will anyway. Check the site for show notes, links, audio player and mp3 [RadioZoom #130]
I usually leave the hockey blogging to the professionals, but I have to make mention here since this is indeed Miss604’s Canuck Life. Yes, I’m a hockey fan, that ain’t a coincidence, and I’m pretty freakin stoked about our boys going to the playoffs.
Vancouver’s playoff spot is assured, so now it’s just a matter of positioning… specifically, whether can they win the Northwest Division title. Tonight’s game against LA can guarantee them that title, if they win and Minnesota loses to Edmonton tonight, outright. (Though really, WHO ever loses outright to Edmonton anymore? The Wild may just stay in this race for another game…) [CanucksAndBeyond]
We’ve been on a bit of a haitus on our Hockey Podcast but all you folks can breathe easy, you’ll probably have your Kool Aid this week.
So aside from the Canucks, who else do you want to see in the playoffs? Either playing against us or over in the Eastern conference?
Update: While we’re on the Canuck topic… My friend James pointed me toward an article in Vancouver Magazine that details the life, passion, career and personal endeavours of Captain Vancouver aka Trevor Linden.
I was reading Airdrie’s blog post about not joining Twitter [wiki], where she links to a Rocketboom video about how annoyingly addictive the service can be.
I decided to start Googling around found a couple funny Twitter spoofs. Now I’ve never been a huge Star Wars [wiki] fan, and I have been blogging all night doing a live blog my other site, but I found this pretty freakin funny.
Recent updates from Darth Vader’s Twitter.
* Just used the Force to scratch that itch that’s been bothering me inside my helmet. Its good to be a Sith Lord.
* Met some new people today. My kind of scum for the most part. Except for one… IG-88. Call me old fashion, but I just don’t trust robots.
* Finding that dust and fingerprints show up too easily on gloss black. I should have opted for the Solar Yellow or Sedona Mist helmet color.
* Memo to self: Sell my shares in the Tibanna Gas Mine on Bespin. I have a feeling prices are about to plunge. [Chatterwocky]
Once you recover from that (and the realization about how dorky I am), a few website notes for Miss604.com.
I just upgraded to WordPress 2.1.2, and it’s pretty neat. There are still a couple things to get used to e.g. there is no longer a preview button that will jump you down the page to view your post before publishing, but the auto-save makes up for it. We’re still working out some kinks – like getting my blogroll to display by rating and not alphabetically, and sorting my categories in that drop down menu on the sidebar. If you notice anything isn’t working normally, please contact me.
At 1:10 am I fell for a prank. I was all sleepy snuggly on the couch until I got up to check my computer one last time before bed. There on my screen was a random IM that freaked the pants off me. I perked up, told John what I had just read, then tried to do some sleuthing. I started to get kinda worried about what I read because every sign pointed to … “this isn’t really possible”. On a whim, I sent Brad (frequent site commenter and friend of my sister) a message on MSN. I briefly detailed what I had read just minutes before and mentioned how it was distressing me. After a couple replies he finally asked me if I knew what day it was today.
As tears were welling up in my eyes, I looked over at John “do you know what day it is today?!” He started laughing. Bradley was laughing. I’m so happy to be his first April Fool’s Day victim of 2007.
Feel free to share your stories below in the comments, either pranks you’ve played or things you’ve seen on the web e.g. the Google TiSP. It might make me feel like less of a sucker.
