Town Talk: Regional Recycling Vancouver looks after its binner clients
Credit to Author: Malcolm Parry| Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2019 15:00:52 +0000
BINNERS’ DINNER: In fact, a fourth annual lunch, not dinner, was served recently at Regional Recycling Vancouver’s Evans Street facility. Binners, who constitute 40 per cent of the operation’s 200-to-300 daily clients, also chose from racks of donated warm garments. General manager Jason Smith said that non-binner depositors had waived $2,700 worth of refunds.
Regional Recycling Vancouver staffer Hen Lai and sister Kim managed the hotdog barbecue at the Evans Street operation’s annual luncheon for binners.
The retained cash bought new underwear and socks for distribution, too. The recent doubling of some recycling fees has benefited binners, said Smith, who hopes to see deposits charged on dairy containers. Regional Recycling opens at 7:30 for binners, always provides hot coffee, and conducts a $100 cash draw every two weeks.
Jane Durante will design a Japanese garden for architect Michael Green’s Salt Spring Island home, art studio and woodworking-shop complex.
STILL BUILDING: Architect Michael Green threw another seasonal party recently. As usual, its invitation uniquely read: “No RSVP. Guests Welcome.” Wall-to-wall celebrants included landscape architect Janet Durante, who has a home adjacent to Green’s two-hectare Salt Spring Island beachfront property. He has demolished a 1910 house there, retained a 1930s one, and is building a house, art studio and woodworking shop. Durante will add a Japanese-style garden. “It’s like the shoemaker’s (unshod) children,” wood-high-rise specialist Green said of his low-rise complex’s leisurely development. Real-life youngsters, grads and even architectural retirees will benefit from its completion, though. Up to 25 students in Green’s seven-year-old DBR (Design Build Research) non-profit program will spend two weeks there. They’ll design and then build structures that, like their Lower Mainland predecessors, will benefit the local community.
The UBCP/ACTRA showbiz union named Camille Sullivan and Ben Cotton best actor and actress for roles in films Kingsway and Crown and Anchor.
AND THE WINNERS ARE: Being honoured by your professional peers is always rewarding. It was for Ben Cotton and Camille Sullivan recently when fellow UBCP/ACTRA members named them best actor and actress at that union’s eighth annual awards show. Cotton was cited for his role in the 2018 film Crown and Anchor, and Sullivan for hers in Bruce Sweeney’s city-shot Kingsway.
Canadian Club of Vancouver president Raymond Greenwood wore a vintage Vancouver Canucks jersey to welcome former goaltender Kirk McLean.
TWINE MINDED: Few Vancouver Canucks jerseys are seen at Canadian Club of Vancouver luncheons. But some were worn when club president Raymond Greenwood — a.k.a. Mr. Fireworks — had Kirk McLean reminisce on his 1987—1998 spell as Canucks’ goaltender. There were fireworks aplenty when a riot followed McLean backstopping the 1994 Stanley Cup’s seventh-game loss to his future team, the New York Rangers. Of the Canucks today, McLean said: “We’re drafting and we’re developing within.” Meanwhile, the team-owning Aquilinis “do everything they can to make players more comfortable.”
Daniel and Henrik Sedin’s Vancouver Canucks numbers will join Pavel Bure, Trevor Linden, Markus Naslund and Stan Smyl’s when retired in February.
As for other former players, McLean noted that Daniel and Henrik Sedin’s 22 and 33 numbers will be retired to hang with Pavel Bure, Trevor Linden, Markus Naslund and Stan Smyl’s during weeklong February ceremonies.
Laura Byspalko heads a campaign for programming, funding artists and other needs of the Indian Summer Festival that she and Sirish Rao founded in 2011.
FESTIVAL SUPPORT: The Indian Summer Festival has gained much status since Laura Byspalko and Sirish Rao founded it in 2011. According to Rao, the diversified 14-day festival serves “the curious mind. The more it is fed, the more curious it gets.” Byspalko recently launched a campaign for feeding the festival itself with $25–$600 donations that would help expand programming, pay artists, keep ticket prices low and provide free access to the needy.
GIVE US AN E: Pacific Central station’s trains and buses must be speedier than repairs to its red-neon sign’s darkened E.
FISH FINGER-POPPERS: A Fraser River rockfall is preventing many salmon from proceeding upstream. In the Oct. 22, 1927, Vancouver Sun, riverside observers blamed a similar dearth on salmon disliking jazz, possibly including Bessie Smith’s then-current Back Water Blues. Conversely, Australia’s Macquarie University Fish Lab recently reported that feeding sharks prefer jazz to classical airs such as Debussy’s La Mer.
Lola Lush vamped with city painter Jim Cummins, aka I. Braineater, whose name and art echo currently exhibiting Thierry Guetta, aka Mr. Brainwash.
BRAIN POWER: Chali-Rosso gallerist Susanna Strem is exhibiting works by Mr. Brainwash — real name Thierry Guetta — at a McArthurGlen Designer Outlet pop-up locale. Some say the Franco-Californian artist is a creation of Britain’s similar Banksy, whose real name may be Robin Gunningham. Vancouver has a brain-nicknamed painter in their genre, too. He’s Jim Cummins, a.k.a. I. Braineater, who covers more canvas, wood, metal and even human skin than many house painters do walls. Perhaps Strem will show him one day.
MISSED CHANCE: One year ago, an all-Canadian Christmas present to Juan Guaidó might have changed his lot. Remember him? Venezuela’s presidential aspirant who, despite many nations’ encouragement, couldn’t topple Nicolás Maduro? If only we’d given him Lt.-Col D.J. Goodspeed’s astounding book, The Conspirators. It analyzes four coups d’etat that succeeded and four that failed, from Belgrade in 1903 to Rastenburg in 1944. While noting that “no (coup) technique yet known could succeed in a true democracy,” The Conspirators’ most vital conclusion is: “The nation’s armed forces should support the rebels or at the least be neutral.” Venezuelan troops did neither, whereupon Guaido lost his bid but, remarkably, not his life. Vancouver Public Library has one copy of Goodspeed’s appraisal of a subject necessarily never taught in nations’ military staff colleges, so you may need a coup de chance to get it.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Merry Christmas to everyone, including post-NAFTA negotiators who gave us the unpronounceable USMCA instead of CAMUS OR USCAM.
malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456