Dispatches From the North, Number 1 of 2

Seattlest took a little jaunt up to downtown Pacific Rim Canada the other weekend. Vancouver is the Toronto of western Canada and, just like its gritty eastern counterpart, we just *big throbbing heart* the place. We love its density, its layout, and its landscape. We love the architecture, even its endless kilometers of glass and steel high rises. Moreover, it's a walkable city. If you're a reasonably able-bodied tourist, you should be able to stomp all over Vancouver's geo-stylistically pornographic downtown peninsula without problem.

And how could you not want to walk with signage like this!? We call this figure The Jaunty Walker. In both his solid and dot-outlined form, he is superior in every way to the Constipated Walker we have here in the States. Our constipated walker would hit you with his cane for being insolent, if he only had one. He says gloomy things like, "oh, damn, I hope those scary teenagers don't run me over... and my liver hurts." There's nothing about the Constipated Walker that conveys happy perambulation. On the other hand, the Jaunty Walker, why, he's a regular flaneur. The only thing missing is a stylish fedora. We know that Jaunty Walker is perfectly sated consorting with other Jaunty Walkers; however, we think that a periodic... ahem... intersection with Sassy Walker mightn't be such a bad thing --for international diplomacy, of course.

We haven't yet decided whether or not Vancouver's downtown apartment blocks are avante-garde for there is far too much green glass. However, we appreciate the vast diversity of what we call architectural serifs which adorn the buildings and make them stand out individually, green glass be damned. These serifs are little details; some, like interesting-looking balconies, are functional while others are purely aesthetic. We're suckers for just about anything, even a simple garter belt, that will make a modern building less rectangular, plain, and dull Modern. Damn you, Mies!

For that reason, we enjoy seeing buildings that, for example, look like the bow of a boat. Vancouver, it has water and boats -- very apropos. Well played, architects! We can only speculate about the rooftops, however; will the invading alien fleets arrive in iron-shaped vessels? Or, perhaps, they will like to have a nice picnic under a tree?

Oddly, all of these fun architectural touches make even the plain buildings less boring. Buildings in a city don't -- or they shouldn't -- just stand on their own. Rather, they should engage and play with surrounding buildings or the streetscape or the sky. Vancouver seems to have a good mix of new and really sexy old structures. Sometimes, the juxtaposition is bizarre, though, mostly, it is sublime. The upshot of the new stuff is that, since its skin is mostly glass, it reflects well. As a result, a walk downtown provides one with some great reflections and mirror views.

Finally, we like the fact that business signage in Vancouver is less ostentatious. We suspect there's some heavy-handed, quasi-socialist by-law (that's an ordinance or municipal code to us) squashing the free speech of businesses and dictating to them just how loud and obtrusive (things slip through the cracks every now and then) their signage may be. In the name of the visual quality of the built environment, we kinda like it.

It rained all weekend up north, which meant that we could not idly observe part of a cricket match in Stanley Park or stroll along the seawall on English Bay. We're OK with the former, being too daft to understand cricket. But we missed seeing Kent Avery's balancing rocks. We did, however, take advantage of the breaks in the clouds to have an urbane gelato on Denman, to eat appropriately greasy and cheap breakfast, and to stroll in a most sassy manner down Davie Street.

Everything seemed to be on sale. Not a single shoe store on painfully and self-consciously chic Robson Street was passed without us being drawn in by 30%, 50%, and 70% off sale prices. If that didn't lighten our wallets enough, we couldn't escape without saving more money (through buying more stuff) at our regular haunts down on Cambie and Cordova: Deluxe Junk, Venus and Mars, and Mintage. Unfortunately, we did not get to clog our arteries at the Cambie with their deadly delicious poutine.

One would think that with all of these clearance sales, Vancouver was falling apart at the seams and holding a fire sale to pay the rent. We shall see how our beloved YVR holds up in the coming weeks.

Next installment: civic strikes, Canadian economics, and salacious foodstuffs.