After taking the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by storm, and a wildly successful run off-Broadway, Vancouver actor and rapper Baba Brinkman returns to perform his unabridged production of The Rap Guide to Evolution at The Cultch at the end of this month. Brinkman combines the wit, poetry and charisma of a great rapper with the accuracy […]

The 25th anniversary of the Illuminares Lantern Festival is happening this Saturday at Trout Lake and it will also be the last. Since 1988, the non-profit Public Dreams Society has hosted the festival (along with other events like the Parade of Lost Souls) but according to artistic director Matthew Bissett, it’s just no longer feasible. […]

Racing across my Twitter streams this afternoon was the news that the Waldorf Hotel in East Vancouver was closing its doors and soon a link to the official press release appeared: Rest In Peace @WaldorfHotel. Thank you for an amazing 3 years as an arts and culture hub in our city http://t.co/dUvQi0w6 — Vancouver Is […]

The Parade of Lost Souls Festival is currently underway with the Secret Souls Walk and Dance Party rounding out the festivities on Saturday. Photo credit: Eyesplash & Tim Gage on Flickr Photo credit: PiscesDreamer & PiscesDreamer on Flickr This year’s Secret Souls Walk invites artists, performers and patrons to explore what the end of this […]

The Secret Lantern Society is hosting the 18th annual Winter Solstice Lantern Festival in communities around Vancouver tonight. The public, young and old, is invited to gather on the East Side, in Yaletown, on Granville Island, in Chinatown, and new this year – in South East False Creek. Each neighbourhood event starts off with a […]

Patrick Maliha is becoming the Patron Saint of Comedy in Vancouver. An award-winning on-air host, columnist and comedian, Patrick created the annual “People’s Champ of Comedy” comic search, hosted benefit showcases for charitable causes, and is one of the city’s biggest promoters of amateur and professional comedy. His latest event is the return of the […]

Today is the first day of the Neanderthal Arts Festival at the Vancouver Eastside Cultural Centre (July 21 to 30), a developmental festival featuring new and experimental work by local theatre companies, and one from Montreal. This year’s line-up includes a play about a pregnant man (My Pregnant Brother/Freestanding Productions), a musical about a bigamist […]

I read an old headline last week that on May 27th 1902, Vancouver’s baseball team defeated the University of California on the Powell Street Grounds (now, Oppenheimer Park). Seeing this tidbit on the Vancouver History website made me realize that I have never actually talked about Vancouver’s Japantown before and the significance of the Powell […]

If you have ever wanted to know about the history of your home and the people who occupied it before you, James Johnstone is who you want to track down. Over the years he has researched background information for over 800 houses in Vancouver and 300 of those in East Vancouver alone. 1891 – Mount […]

Stopping by my daily history read, I learned that it was on this day 30 years ago that the Carnegie Building reopened as the Carnegie Reading Room. Located at the intersection of Main and Hastings, I thought it would be worthy of the history profile to see how the building has been a part of […]