Krazy! is as Krazy! does

A few years ago I made a couple trips to the Hermitage Museum while in St. Petersburg, Russia. Entire galleries within are each dedicated to one master. A gallery for Renoir, a gallery for Matisse, a gallery for Picasso… it's pretty amazing. So last summer when the Vancouver Art Gallery presented its highly anticipated show From Monet to Dali, I was pretty stoked to check it out because my then-recently discovered regard for fine art needed a fix.

Imagine my surprise upon learning this year's really big show at the Vancouver Art Gallery is as much a collection of European modernist art as Wreck Beach is nature's runway for lumberjackets, cowichan sweaters and Ugg's.

This year's show is:
KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art

("My, what a long title you have")...

I finally got a chance to get over there and check it out. It definitely ain't no collection of paintings and sculptures by guys with last names built to adorn the hard covers of coffee table books. Instead it offers something completely different, totally new and, I think, pretty darn fun for Vancouver…

Now, really… when was the last time you sat down at a table top PacMan game and played doubles with a competitive pal? The instantaneous nature of forming an addiction to power pellets is astonishing and all-consuming.

But that's not all the KRAZY! has to offer. No, siree. There's modern and contemporary comic displays, manga, anime, graphic novels, sketchbooks, storyboards, animation cels, films and video. You can even sit down and create your own masterpiece once the inspiration surrounding you proves futile to resist. Just like what happened to these pretty girls, Vikki and Vivian…

I found KRAZY! to be eye-catching, yet not entirely awash in color. The curious aspect of my imagination was very intrigued by what was around each corner; ranging from early 20th century comics...

...to a mid-80's Super Nintendo Entertainment System with a Super Mario World game cartridge...

If the calendar age of some of the works in KRAZY! didn't prove to occasionally rival the age of the building they're found in, it would be an almost defiant notion to curate essentially tech and youth-oriented pop cultural icons in a space like the Vancouver Art Gallery.

The building itself turned 100 a couple years ago and is the former BC provincial courthouse. On the contrary, PacMan hit the market only in 1980 (the same year as CNN, The Empire Strikes Back and Who Shot J.R.?).

Other than this summer, the Vancouver Art Gallery is generally filled with fairly traditional classic temporary and permanent collections by Carr, Warhol, Kahlo and O'Keefe.

All told, I really responded to KRAZY! and definitely plan to go again (yeah, I know how that sounds).

And if you like to get interactive with your art in Vancouver, do like the locals do and go a little crazy for art's sake...

P.S. Her name is Nicole. Yes, she is my friend. No, surprisingly the exhibit was not named in her honour.

Look Out Be...luga!

Three and a quarter hours is how long it used to take for the Red Arrow bus to travel between the two different cities my parents lived in for a short time while I was growing up (a process, incidentally, in which I have quite a ways to go before anyone would consider it complete).

So… Mom in one place, Dad in another. On weekends my brother and sister and I would settle in for round trip passage on the coach line service so we could go visit our father who was three and a quarter hours away (btw, Happy Father's Day goes out to good 'ol Dad today).

Eventually Dad returned to our city and those delightful bus trips came to an end. It's been quite some time since "3 and a quarter hours" held any significance for me, but I couldn't help but be reminded of it last Tuesday.

That was the day I watched and waited for 3 hours and 17 minutes as a pregnant beluga whale named Qila (pronounced: KEE-lah) endured labour and then, finally, gave birth to bouncing baby girl at the Vancouver Aquarium! Qila's labour began at 1:11pm and finished at 4:28pm.

Ever witness a beluga whale birth? There's lots of words I could use to describe this rare, amazing event. But maybe I'll just leave it at that... rare and amazing. You can add more words of your own which I'm sure you'll have no problem doing once you see for yourself what I'm talking about...

...here's a 69 second video of the beluga whale birth, as it happened here in Vancouver on Tuesday, June 10, 2008:

Quite the sight, doncha think?!

As you can hear from the audio, the beluga baby's birth elicited a boisterous response of cheers and applause from the people who saw the birth happen. There was about 250 people who watched from both the underwater viewing gallery and up outside at water surface level. They were just simply in the right place at the right time (if you like these sorts of things, that is).

After the calf swam to the surface to take its very first breath, members of the Aquarium's veterinary and animal care teams went in the beluga pool, wearing wet suits, and quickly lined the perimeter of the animal habitat to help the little gaffer avoid swimming into a solid surface.

But the newborn beluga quickly got the hang of her environment and then everyone removed themselves, teeth chattering, from the beluga pool.

The baby beluga whale has yet to be named although she's probably the most unforgettable thing I'll see this summer in Vancouver.