For most, although not all, New Year’s Eve is an optimistic time for celebration. Many also reflect thankfully on a dying year that enhanced their and their families’ well-being and that saw them benefit others. Those portrayed here appeared in this column during 2018 and are remembered for being among the myriad who contributed to the character of a community that many value as second to none.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra president Kelly Tweeddale welcomed music director Otto Tausk after a debut concert conducting works by Edward Top, Francis Poulenc and Igor Stravinsky.

With his net worth topping $17 billion, 27-year-old Hugh Grosvenor, the seventh Duke of Westminster, attended a reception alongside city-based Grosvenor Americas chief executive Andrew Bibby.

Heiltsuk artist KC Hall and Haida Clarence Mills contributed designs to 60 female and male fashions by Chloe Angus that also featured Coast Salish, Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka’wakw) and Ojibway motifs.

Dr. Chan Gunn was honored by University of B.C. President Santa Ono when his $5-million donation spurred creation of a sports-medicine and pain-research-and treatment facility on campus.

Bruce Allen welcomed singer-client Michael Bublé when he and other city-based talent managers entertained colleagues and performers at a reception that accompanied Juno Awards festivities.

Demonstrating a curry that his mother used to make, restaurateur-chef Vikram Vij told Audi car-launch attendees: Chicken white meat is the most boring meat there is. Always cook with the bone in.”

When the Pants Off gala benefitted Prostate Cancer Canada, Angus Research Institute chief Shachi Kurl and CBC TV news anchor Mike Killeen sported identical Joe Boxer smiley-face shorts. Photo for the Town Talk column of Dec. 29, 2018. Malcolm Parry/Special to PNG [PNG Merlin Archive]

Opening his and wife Laura Byspalko’s eighth annual Indian Summer Festival, Sirish Rao said the 14-day event was devised “for the curious mind. The more it is fed, the more curious it gets.”

When dealer Christian Chia debuted Rolls-Royce’s titanic Cullinan SUV, silver-painted Cynthia Doucet wore fan-driven flowing attire to simulate the maker’s Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament.

Inez Cook and Lauraleigh Paul Yuxweluptun’aat prepared and served smoked oolichan and barbecued salmon to guests at the West Vancouver Harmony Arts Festival’s alfresco Indigenous Feast.

Night of Miracles gala chair Bob Rai accompanied wife Harpreet when the ninth annual event reportedly added $755,000 to the $5.4 million raised earlier for the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation.

The Neeko Philanthropic Society’s Mana Jalalian admired artist Mona Malekian’s traditional painted eggs that were part of the Haft Sin display at a celebration for Persian New Year.

Yolanda Mason sculpted a bicycle entirely with bones from 10 species for her participation in the local heat of an international art tournament sponsored by Bombay Sapphire Gin.

Early childhood educator Lule Abbay was happy to see Commercial Drive’s Havana restaurant reopen after renovation although son Solomon still looked for nourishment directly from mama.

City photographers Lincoln Clarkes and Dina Goldstein were ready for anything when the fifth annual Capture Photography Festival opened with a reception at the Contemporary Art Gallery.

SINGING ALONG: Peter Wall figured that Vancouver needed a celebratory song like New York, Chicago (that toddlin’ town) or San Francisco where singer Tony Bennett lost his heart. So, in the gung-ho, property-development manner, he wrote “a love song,” called it Vancouver: City By The Sea, and had operatic tenor Richard Margison perform it at his invitation only Wall Ball. Backed by a full band, four-piece Latin ensemble and eight UBC Opera Ensemble members no less. Companion Aliaksandra Varslavan and mother Olga decorated the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre ballroom and foyer with at least 1,000 candles. As for real old times, past balls saw then-premier Christy Clark and then-mayor Gregor Robertson share Wall’s table. Fellow knife-and-forkers this time included B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson and wife Barbara Grantham intriguingly seated beside former Robertson chief of staff Mike Magee and his wife and Convergence Strategies partner, Suzanne Hawkes. Although invited repeatedly, newly installed Mayor Kennedy Stewart declined, possibly because of Wall’s initially covert billboard support of electoral rival Hector Bremner. Had Wall penned a campaign song for fifth-place finisher Bremner, it would have been of the swan rather than love, variety.

Operatic tenor Richard Margison sang Vancouver: City By The Sea, a “love song” that developer Peter Wall wrote to debut at his candlelit Wall Ball.

Aliaksandra Varslavan and mother Olga reflected the pre-electric era with1,000 candles in and around a Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre ballroom.

Wall Ball attendees, actor-TV host Todd Talbot and singer-wife Rebecca, met while performing in the Arts Club production of West Side Story.

STEADY NOW: Sparing One Wall Centre Tower occupants from queasiness is a technology developed by the city-based Glotman Simpson structural engineering firm. It involves a penthouse-level water reservoir and roof-to-basement pipes that keep the slender 48-floor tower from flexing under wind forces. “The parts of a structure you don’t see are often the most significant,” Glotman Simpson claims. That certainly applies to the firm’s since-much-copied combination of partly tensioned springs and self-aligning cups that would let the Vancouver Convention Centre West’s overhanging glass wall deform safely during earthquakes and then return to position. Unconcealed, though, are company principal Geoffrey Glotman, wife Myriam and the Glotman Simpson cycling team’s large-sum fundraising for pancreatic cancer research.

Geoffrey Glotman safeguards structures with hidden technology and, with wife Myriam, fundraises to do the same for pancreatic cancer patients.

The Glotman Simpson engineering firm deftly illustrates its expertise with sophisticated but hidden technology to strengthen structures’ integrity.

LIKE IT IS: In The Vancouver Sun Dec. 29, architect-developer-writer Michael Geller reviewed his 2018 real-estate predictions and made fresh ones for 2019. Missing was mention of his own West Vancouver Vinson House project that was completed in July. The scheme entailed moving a heritage home rearward and developing its lower floor and two new adjacent structures to make four residences on the erstwhile single lot. When the market softened and what looked to be sales pitches appeared in a community-newspaper article and in Geller’s emailed seasonal greetings, a colleague suggested that they might make him seem desperate. As smoothly as a showbiz comedian, Geller promptly wisecracked: “I am desperate.”

Architect-developer-columnist Michael Geller wisecracked about seeming urgent to sell units of his Vinson House project in West Vancouver.

LETTING IT BE: When B.C.’s archaic liquor rules finally permitted hotel-only cocktail bars in 1954, the Hastings-at-McLean Waldorf was among few outside Vancouver’s downtown core. Many such originals either died with their hotels, or changed beyond recognition, but the Waldorf’s Polynesian-themed Tiki Bar soldiers on. Its original decor is largely intact albeit without Edgar Leeteg’s velvet paintings that then-owner Bob Mills acquired during a 1948 Hawaii vacation. Meanwhile, a distinct East-of-Main style has arisen among folk less interested in umbrella-adorned cocktails than in band concerts and the ever-growing annual Eastside Culture Crawl. A recent Tiki Bar relaunch saw the Waldorf jammed with Vegan Night Market attendees. They included Andre Lacke and Shannyn Warren who reflect today’s changing economy by having day jobs in cannabis dispensaries.

Shannyn Warren and Andre Lacke joined celebrants in the Tiki Bar at East Hastings Street’s Waldorf hotel where elements retain the Polynesian motifs that then-owner Bob Mills introduced seven decades ago. For Malcolm Parry’s Town Talk column on Jan. 5, 2019. Photo by Malcolm Parry. [PNG Merlin Archive]

X, Y, Z. … : “Generation Z QBs reshaping college football” read a Vancouver Sun headline on Dec. 27. That recognized the continuing influence of Generation X, the cult-classic book that West Vancouver-raised Douglas Coupland began writing 30 years ago. Now, with the alphabet ended, future Generations may have to double up on their identifying letter. Not that Generation ZZ’s hip youngsters, say, might relish comparisons to long-bearded ZZ Top rockers and their 1933 Ford hot-rod. Meanwhile, many of the Generation X book’s margin items remain relevant. Coupland’s McJob term literally entered the language, of course. Even more brutal today is his definition: “Homeowner Envy: Feelings of jealousy generated in the young and the disenfranchised when facing gruesome housing statistics.” And every generation from A to ZZZ might endorse Coupland’s tip to author Oscar Wilde: “Dorian Graying: The unwillingness to gracefully allow one’s body to show signs of aging.”

Douglas Coupland and Malcolm Parry imitated Palm Springs turbines before the former settled there to turn his Generation X concept into a first book.

CHANGING TIMES: Northwest Marine Drive passersby paid no attention to two cheerful young men innocently toting a high-powered rifle and shotgun at the roadside Jan. 5. No police tactical squad swooped. Nor was anyone surprised by a fellow wearing a dress shirt, tie, tie pin, tailored suit and glossy shoes for a misty-morning visit to Spanish Banks (not Banks). Then again, it was January 5, 1958. More or less anyone then could own and carry firearms. Of those that did, few ever imagined that future young men would use them to publicly murder drug trade rivals whose activities also killed thousands of their own youthful clients.

On January 5, 1958, no one was slightest concerned by Ray Salt and Don Starling openly toting firearms on the shoulder of Northwest Marine Drive.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Humpty Trumpty sat on a wall …

malcolmparry@shaw.ca, 604-929-8456

2009 began somewhat in reverse to 2019. Back then, newly inaugurated Barack Obama occupied the White House and signs of a severe economic recession were declining. Here in B.C., gang violence increased dramatically just as we celebrated being assigned the 2010 Winter Olympics. Principal bidder Jack Poole would die before those low-snow games began. Famed architect Arthur Erickson perished, too, as would two of the 35 folk (and one fast ferry) portrayed on this page. Still, they and the 33 others revisited from 2009 columns contributed in still-evident ways to the character of the province we cherish.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

Nanaimo-born singer-pianist Diana Krall had friend Sir Elton John join a benefit concert for Vancouver General Hospital’s Leukemia Bone Marrow Transplant program in memory of her mother Adella who succumbed to multiple myeloma in 2002.

Gwen Point accompanied husband Steven, B.C.’s first Aboriginal lieutenant governor, at the 64th-annual Garrison Military Ball that no longer entailed the presentation of serving or retired warriors’ debutante daughters.

Restaurateur chefs Rob Feenie, Tojo Hidekazu, Michel Jacob, Pino Posteraro and Thomas Haas participated in the Senza Frontiere dinner that benefitted the Chef’s Table Society’s bursary and scholarship programs.

Nimisha Mukerji and Philip Lyall premiered their 65_Red Roses documentary about cystic fibrosis patient Eva Markvoort who, despite a double-lung transplant, would die in 2010 but still spur medical-research fundraising.

Kasi Lubin and Shauna Hardy Mishaw kicked off the eighth-annual Whistler Film Festival they’d founded with a $30,000 fundraising and that, under Hardy Mishaw, has become a fixture that bow screens 90 international movies.

Cognoscenti already knew that one way to get vehicles like this 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 B Coupe into Pebble Beach concourse d’elegance contention was to have them restored by RX Autoworks’ Mike Taylor and Ian Davey.

Graduate student Hong Zhu was the first to take up residency when Prospero International Realty Inc. chair Bob Lee opened the 81-room MBA House at the University of B.C.’s Robert H. Lee Graduate School of Business.

Recently retired from the National Ballet where fellow principal dancer Karen Kain called her “the iron butterfly,” Chan Hon Goh prepared to lead the Goh Ballet company that parents Choo Chat Goh and Lin Yee Goh founded.

With four PuSh International Arts Festivals behind him, founder Norman Armour prepared to welcome 30,000 ticket buyers to a 21-show season and to continue doing so until his retirement from a much-grown event in 2018.

One year after the institution he headed became Emily Carr University of Art + Design, president Ron Burnett told students that up to 96 percent of them could expect to “become what you imagine, from an artists to an entrepreneur.”

B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation Crystal Ball committee member Sherry Doman welcomed friend and 20-times ball supporter Indra Sangha who, though now terminally ill with ever-spreading cancers, said: “I had to come.”

Rev. Mpho Tutu heard then-nine-year-old pianist Jeffrey Luo play Mozart and Chopin airs at a benefit for her archbishop-father’s Desmond Tutu Charitable Foundation and the Dali Lama Centre for Peace and Education.

Having starred in the multi-Genies-winning The Necessities of Life, star Natar Ungalaaq flew from Igloolik, Nunavut for a screening attended by director Benoit Pilon’s former classmate, city-based filmmaker Lynne Stopkewich.

Michaela Morris and Michelle Bouffard’s now-dissolved House Wine Enterprises firm was a go-to for many seeking wine know-how and especially those with 2,000-bottle cellars that needed supervision and enhancement.

Concord Pacific chief Terry Hui and Westbank Projects Corp’s Ian Gillespie were already big-time developers when they checked what architect Walter Francl had done for Bob Rennie’s 97-year-old Wing Sang Building.

Ask A Woman event-planning co-principal Tammy Preast lifted 14-year-old Casey at a gala-benefit for the Love On A Leash firm she founded that would later raise funds for such organizations as the Dhana Metta Rescue Society.

Brent Comber rescued water-borne forest debris to carve imposing artworks and Obakki clothing firm principal Treana Peake raised funds to construct water wells and permanent schools for those living without either in South Sudan.

On the last day of the year, a marine-transport vessel carried away a Pacificat fast ferry, one of three that failed to meet operational and economic demands and that, after long mothballing, were sold for pennies on the dollar.

CALIFORNIANS, HERE THEY COME: With the Feb. 23 to March 3 Vancouver International Wine Festival approaching, executive director Harry Hertscheg hosted a tasting of certain red and white wines at the Blue Water Café. They included a blood-red Transylvanian Liliac, a pearly white Nova Scotian and, from feature region California, a Sonoma Chardonnay named Cannonball that presumably spent little time in the barrel. Fourth-time Bacchanalia gala chair Jana Maclagan said that swig-a-thon’s presenting sponsor will be the Blakes law firm. Not a hard sell, perhaps, as husband Bill is its local office’s managing partner. Sharing a 30th anniversary with Blakes, festival beneficiary Bard on The Beach theatre company will stage its first production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus Aug. 20 to Sept. 15. That leaves only his Henry VIII still to be staged. Given that monarch’s off-with-their-heads ways, though, it might better accompany the Vancouver Craft Beer Festival.

Vancouver International Wine Festival chief Harry Hertscheg toasted festival beneficiary Bard on The Beach’s executive director Claire Sakaki at a pre-tasting for the California-themed event that runs Feb. 23 – March 3.

TO CELL AND BACK: Imagine paying $1,500 for a mobile phone too big for pocket or purse. One that only makes or receives calls — with no apps. Or a $99-a-month, three-year plan providing 30 free minutes monthly and 50 cents a minute beyond that. Welcome to July 5, 1985, when Cantel West introduced newfangled cellphones. Interviewed by Rogers Communications chief Ted Rogers for the startup president’s job, Brian Josling asked: “Who would want a phone in their car?”

Former Cantel West heads Kathy McLaughlin and Brian Josling showed a bare-bones cellphone that cost $1,500 when service began here in 1985.

At Hollyburn Country Club recently, he and other wireless-biz veterans remembered a launch month that also premiered 1985’s top-grossing movie, Back To The Future, starring Canadian Michael J. Fox. Cellphones prevailed, of course. So did Josling’s successor, Kathy McLaughlin, who survived Hodgkin’s lymphoma and an auto-immune liver ailment despite the usual treatment for either often causing death from the other. Applying business-executive techniques, she made a medical plan, hand-picked its practitioners, undertook two liver transplants and lived. Her don’t-take-no system is detailed in McLaughlin’s book, Back To Life — easily searched by cellphone.

Paul Wong assembled 700 letters from 70 of his late mother Suk-Fong’s relatives and friends in his Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden exhibition.

CAPITAL LETTERS: Before cell and hardwired phones, there were letters. Still are, of course, if less profuse than those in artist-in-residence Paul Wong’s exhibition at the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden (see Kevin Griffin, Sun, Jan. 12). It includes 700 letters to his late mother, Suk-Fong, from 70 family members and friends. The show is a second cultural novelty there for Wong. In August, he added contemporary Asian drag performers to a traditional Chinese opera recital as part of the Alternative Pride series.

Ruggero Romano, Tom Charity and Giulio Recchioni backed Italian Cultural Centre chief Joan D’Angola Kluge at the Italian Film Festival opening.

HOMELESS MOVIE: The sixth annual Italian Film Festival ran in the Vancouver International Film Centre with works by such celebrated directors as Bernardo Bertolucci and Federico Fellini.  It was co-presented by the Italian Cultural Centre, represented by Port Alberni-raised executive director, Joan D’Angola Kluge. As usual, that Grandview-at-Slocan facility served opening-night moviegoers with Italian delectables to eclipse those at similar events. The festival itself provided food for thought in Italy-raised, three-year city resident Ruggero Romano’s documentary, V6A. That’s the postal code of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It’s where Vancouver Film School grad Romano immersed himself to direct a 67-minute film that, along with homeless and other area dwellers’ countless woes, portrays their strong sense of community. Promotional text calls the film “an unexpected celebration of the resilience and beauty of the human spirit.” And all from a newcomer not yet 23.

Alex Sandvoss’s paintings of DTES residents opened the Italian Film Festival where Ruggelo Romano’s V6A documentary depicted that neighborhood.

NOT AT HOME: Exhibited at the Italian Film Festival opening gala were paintings by White Rock-raised Alex Sandvoss, 25. Many were part of The Faces We Pass By Every Day, her July 2018 exhibition at the Visual Space Gallery.  Not that Dunbar Street passersby see many of the homeless folk Sandvoss photographed and then painted. She could also have entertained them on the classic Selmer Mark VI tenor sax with which she graduated from McGill’s jazz program. Sandvoss plays somewhat in the Stan Getz idiom. Pretty good painter, too.

Dialog architectural firm founding partner Norm Hotson stayed retired for mere months before sticking his beak back in the game at son Kai’s practice.

NORM DOES DORMS: Just as artichokes don’t readily give up their spiny exteriors and downy innards, architects can be hard to pry from their careers. Take Norm Hotson, who co-founded the Hotson Bakker firm, now Dialog, that master-planned Granville Island and many other complexes. Hanging up his T-square in 2017 but remembering early working days in an apartment-room corner, he soon signed on with architect-son Kai’s then-fledgling outfit. The two now handle such projects as a $108-million, 1,000-bed student residence at UBC (with Ryder Architecture) “and plenty to keep us busy,” Hotson père said.

Ceramics collector Jean Fahrni will wear her trademark pearls and Bill Reid gold bracelet when actress-daughter Jennifer stages her 100th birthday party.

PLUMS AND PORCELAIN: Jean Fahrni’s homemade plum wine has bedazzled guests much as she was when acquiring fine ceramic wares along Asia’s fabled Silk Road. Her decades-ago porcelain collection now resides at Museum of Vancouver. Details of an imminent showing there will be revealed at Fahrni’s wisteria-covered Point Grey log house on Feb. 2 when, as testimony to plum wine’s health-giving virtues, she’ll celebrate her 100th birthday.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Imagine the foofaraw in la belle province if 1995’s hairsbreadth Quexit referendum had passed.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

PAINT HER WAGON: Diyan Achjadi doesn’t wait long for buses between her Main Street home and associate-professor job at Emily Carr University. But one waited for her recently. To paint it. Rather to wrap it with artwork representing her native Indonesia from a Dutch settler’s fantasy viewpoint (see Kevin Griffin, Sun, Jan. 22). Achjadi got a more realistic view of that 17,000-island nation Dec. 22 when a tsunami struck while she visited family there. As for the articulated bus, fellow artists Patrick Cruz, Rolande Souliere, Erdem Tasdelen and Ann Torma wrapped identical models in a public art project called How Far Do You Travel? It was co-produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery and TransLink. Meanwhile, bus riders may visit Achjadi’s Coming Soon exhibition of hand-printed posters on Main, Cambie and Railtown construction fences.

BRITSPEAK: Articulated transit vehicles there are called bendy buses.

Grandchildren Asher, Cassidy and Hannah Barnett backed twins Jeffrey and Peter Barnett at their joint 80th birthday party in the Sutton Place hotel.

80/80: A 160th birthday party occupied the Sutton Place hotel recently. In fact, it was a dual 80th for twins Jeffrey and Peter Barnett who, while there, made a cash gift to the Jewish Community Centre’s L’Chaim Adult Day Centre. The British-born brothers have long supported the JCC Sports Legacy Dinner, Variety Club, Tourism B.C., Hebrew Free Loans and other community efforts. Restaurants they founded included Ole Cantina, Rosie’s on Robson, Watermark and the Pizza Patio and Elephant & Castle chains. They also launched Canada’s pioneering topless club, Cat’s Whiskers. The brothers remember an early-days Pizza Patio client ordering ever-spicier concoctions to share with his Great Dane dog. Following a six-month hiatus, a repeat order came from the customer’s son who, when asked about his father and his favoured dish, said: “It finally killed him.” As for coming into the world themselves, Peter recalled that their mother, Edith, had expected only one baby. Asked later why she sat beside an open upstairs window, she wisecracked: “I’m contemplating jumping.”

After impressing pop-rocker P!nk last year, Victoria Anthony, 13, will release her own original song, Without You, on Spotify, You Tube, etc. Feb. 1.

Odlum Brown investment firm VP Christina Anthony in 2007. Her daughter has apparently inherited her singing skills.

CHRISTINA’S SECRET: Richmond-raised Christina Anthony relieved her early Wall Street bond-trading job by singing at Manhattan’s jazz-and-blues landmark, Arthur’s Tavern. Returning home, she eventually became a vice-president at the Odlum Brown investment-management firm. Anthony also founded the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs that has mentored and otherwise helped hundreds of young women to develop business skills. She also proved adept at having babies, one of whom inherited the singing gene. That’s Victoria, 13, who wowed pop-rocker P!nk at Rogers Arena last year. Now, possibly with a little mentoring by mama, she’ll release her words-and-music original song, Without You, on Spotify, YouTube and other social media Feb. 1.

Seen here with Fairlith Harvey, Idris Hudson has contrasted his club-deejay career by developing aromatic oils and essences called Calm Your Nerves.

FLIP SIDE: Nightclub-goers expect DJ Idris Hudson to make plenty of noise and get them hyper-active. In utter contrast, he set up by day in the Cordova-off-Hawks MakerLabs complex to develop a range of oils and essences called Calm Your Nerves. One aromatic spritz is claimed to be “wonderful after a workout or dance-floor session.”

Science World performance director Brian Anderson enlivened a Science of Cocktails preview with a 10,000-volt device playing musical melodies.

SCI-NIE: Science World’s annual Science of Cocktails gala will return Feb. 7. Last year’s running had 35 participating bars help raise $276,000 to fund field-trip bursary programs. More is expected this time. More scientific high-jinx, too, as was demonstrated during a recent four-bar preview. One presentation featured a vacuum-aided contraption in which bullet-speed ping-pong balls smashed beverage cans, much as younger male drinkers might use their foreheads. Another produced “alcohol clouds.” Real ones, that is. Most dramatically, Science World performance director Brian Anderson manipulated a Tesla coil’s 10,000-volt sparks to produce recognizable musical melodies. Given his Tesla car company’s elusive profits, Elon Musk might adapt such tamed lightning to play Cyndi Lauper’s Money Changes Everything.

Vladivostok-raised artist Anyuta Gusakova exhibited her 2.5-meter-tall Gazelle Girl sculpture and several large paintings at the Italian Cultural Centre.

STANDING TALLER: Long before Vladivostok-born sculptor-painter Anyuta Gusakova attended Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts, alumni turned out statues of Bolshevik leaders Lenin and Stalin. Possibly reflecting student-moonlighting as a fashion model, Gusakova’s 2015 debut exhibition in Vancouver included metre-high sculptures of impossibly slender nude women with heads topped by dandelion seed pods. That air-head motif is no more. Instead, menacing antlers sprout from the 2.5-metre-tall Gazelle Girl sculpture in her Italian Cultural Centre exhibition. Its body, though still slender, looks athletic enough to spring and even fight. Less animatedly, it is surrounded by 1.5-square-metre paintings in Gusakova’s Princess series.

Davie Dosa Co’s Sharv Ramachan cooked pancake-like dosas for Sukhi Kaur Virk to stuff with spiced potatoes at Dine Out Vancouver’s launch gala.

THE SPUDS HAVE IT: Tourism Vancouver’s Jan. 18 to Feb. 3 Dine Out Festival launched with a tasting gala at the Rocky Mountaineer Station. Benefiting the B.C. Hospitality Foundation, the event featured some two-dozen B.C. wine, beer and cider producers and 10 city-restaurant stations. Participating eateries featured crowd pleasers like The Arbor restaurant’s vegetarian kimchee hotdogs on miso-brioche buns and La Mezcaleria’s rainy-night-welcome hot tortilla soup. The longest lines were at the Davie Dosa Company station where, like a revved-up movie, chef-owner Sharv Ramachandran and Sukhi Kaur Virk sped pancake-like spiced potato dosas into $90-ticket buyers’ outstretched hands.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: On this day in 1902, Rossland’s Alhambra hotel advertised “a big glass of beer and bowl of clam chowder for 5¢.”

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

HAPPY HUNDREDTH: Erynn Smith and Alexandra Mauler-Steinmann co-chaired the recent 31st annual Symphony Ball at the Vancouver Convention Centre West. Attendees applauded honorary chair Nezhat Khosroshahi who has served and supported the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for decades. They also welcomed MC Gloria Macarenko, the Prince Rupert-raised CBC-TV and radio journalist-host recently named to the Order of Canada.

Symphony Ball honorary chair Nezhat Khosrowshahi feted the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on the event of its 100th anniversary.

CBC radio and TV journalist-anchor Gloria Macarenko MC’d the Symphony Ball shortly after being named for induction into the Order of Canada.

The orchestra itself is 100 years old this year. Birthday celebrations have included the sixth annual New Music Festival’s performance of Saskatchewan-raised Nicole Lizée’s multimedia Percussion Concerto. Such new music in the VSO’s founding year, 1919, would have included Josef Hauer’s revelatory 12-tone system and English composer Edward Elgar’s more conventional Cello Concerto.

Visiting with pianist Lang Lang, the Foundation of Charitable Chinese Immigrants’ QiQi Hong noted the VSO School of Music’s “wonderful music.”

The coming century holds much promise for the VSO School of Music that then-music director Bramwell Tovey envisaged in 2003. CEO Jeff Alexander and board chair Arthur Willms backed him. A cultural-amenity density bonus enabled developers Rob Macdonald and Bruno Wall to build the $30-million school. Later, as a young student played its Model D Steinway piano, Foundation of Charitable Chinese Immigrants founder QiQi Hong said: “No matter where you are in the world, wonderful music is heard there.”

Vancouver Kingsway federal Liberal nomination seeker Tamara Taggart might expect a campaign song from husband and 54:40 band member Dave Genn.

TAG ALONG: Another local broadcast veteran, Tamara Taggart, hopes to follow Macarenko to Ottawa. Not for Order of Canada induction but as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Vancouver Kingsway. Should she snag that nomination, husband and 54:40 band member Dave Genn might raid that ensemble’s repertoire for Baby Ran and Trusted By Millions as her campaign songs.

HAPPY NEW: The Year of The Pig got a 10-day head-start when Bold Properties founder-CEO Hao Min chaired the 12th annual Scotiabank Feast of Fortune gala at the Westin Bayshore Hotel. As usual, the event funded priority surgical and emergency-care equipment for Mount Saint Joseph Hospital. Chefs from the Fortune Terrace, Maji, Me + Crepe, Mott 32 and Peninsula Seafood restaurants, all of them Chinese Restaurant Awards winners, reinforced the event’s culinary reputation. The gala also honoured Royal Pacific Realty senior vice-president Sing Lim Yeo, who founded the gala, heads its fundraising committee and, with wife, Patricia, is involved in many MSJ Hospital efforts. Yeo also chaired the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. service agency’s foundation until succeeded by Brandon Hui in 2017.

1980s Southeast Asia travellers Nina and John Cassils begin funding children’s hospitals and clinics that are still supported by the Taste The World gala.

CHEERS EASE FEARS: The recent 10th annual Taste The World wine-tasting event raised funds to provide otherwise-inaccessible health care to children in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The event and related programs were sparked when, with others, Vancouver residents John and Nina Cassils provided $2.5 million to Cambodia’s Angkor Satellite Hospital for Children and also supported Medical Action Myanmar clinics. Laos’s Lao Friends Hospital for Children was added later. The Cassils, who had travelled Southeast Asia since the 1980s, joined Calgarians Weiland and Susan Wettstein in 2005 to launch the CW Asia Fund. Along with providing health-related services, its field operatives offer education, food-production, clean-water, income-generation and other programs to achieve overall social betterment. Not a bad aim for folk tossing back reds and whites in a safe, comfortable Vancouver ballroom.

Although a devotee of remote indigenous cuisines, late city-based travel writer Garry Marchant couldn’t quite stomach a central African whole-bat stew.

ARM’S LENGTH: Travel writer Robin Esrock gave useful advice to globe-exploring Sun readers on Jan. 19. Only the more-adventuresome, though, might heed the rule of late city-based scribe Garry Marchant who had visited more than 100 countries before reporting on any of them. Single-bag luggage must be held in one hand with outstretched arm, he insisted. More feasibly, he urged remote-region travellers to learn the phrase “Two beers, please” in all possible languages and dialects. Beer is a foodstuff and often safer than the water in such places, he advised. Moreover, invitations to share it are made where those addressed tend to be friendly and helpful. Aspiring to always eat local food, Marchant broke that rule only once. That was while riding a freight-and-passenger truck through central Africa where the cauldron at a one meal stop disclosed an entire fruit bat. No dessert, either.

Readying for a photograph that city-based Alex Waterhouse Hayward will exhibit in Venice, screen actress Liv Ullmann said: “Don’t make me smile.”

STRAIGHT FACED: Marchant’s former Vancouver friend and colleague, Alex Waterhouse Hayward, will soon leave for Venice, but not to write about it. Instead, he’ll exhibit 10 photographs at The Room Contemporary Art Space gallery when it debuts on San Marco Square on Feb. 21. His works include six nude studies along with portraits of actor-director Vittorio Gassman, director Werner Herzog, Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann and Budapest-born porn star-turned-Italian politician Ilona Staller, a.k.a. Cicciolina. When photographed in Vancouver, Face to Face Oscars nominee Ullmann admonished Argentina-born Waterhouse Hayward to not make her smile.

At his 33-year-old restaurant, John Bishop hosts such choral-music fundraisers as a recent repeat dinner for Vancouver Chamber Choir benefactors.

SINGERS’ SUPPER: Raised in Wales with that nation’s love of singing, 33-year restaurateur John Bishop has often hosted choral-ensemble fundraisers. Vancouver Chamber Choir benefactors were guests there again recently. All beneficiaries have thanked him, especially mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli to whom, following an Orpheum concert, Bishop presented a pagoda of criss-crossed french fries that she demolished prestissimo. Good for him. For us, too.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Ever-increasing concerns over runaway urban growth might lessen if activists began protesting water pipelines.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

ANOTHER RECORD: First-time co-chairs Carman Chan, Isabel Hsieh and Pao Yao Koo hit a home run when the Chinese community’s 24th annual For Children We Care gala reportedly raised a record $4.1 million. That will go toward a $14-million campaign for relocating the development-and-rehabilitation Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children to the B.C. Children’s Hospital’s main campus.

Carman Chan, Isabel Hsieh and Pao Yao Koo chaired a Versailles-themed gala to reportedly raise $4.1 million for the Sunny Hill Centre for Children.

Last year’s event brought in close to $$3.4 million, which exceeded 2017’s by $836,000. Contrasting the hospital’s fiscal prudence, the gala’s theme was Versailles, the extravagant palace and estate that helped bankrupt 18th-century France and send King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette to the guillotine. Conductor Ken Hsieh and the Metropolitan Orchestra entertained gala-goers with music from Parisian Jacques Offenbach’s 1858 Orpheus In The Underworld that also enlivens the cancan dance. Happily, the gala’s fundraising co-chairs proved that they could-could and did-did.

Third-time For Children We Care gala presenter Ben Yeung saw Open Road dealer Christian Chia display a $500,000 Rolls-Royce Cullinan SUV.

FOR PAINT JOBS WE CARE: Open Road auto dealer Christian Chia showed a $500,000-range Rolls-Royce Cullinan SUV at the For Children We Care gala. Viewers included the event’s third-time presenter, Peterson development firm executive chair-CEO Ben Yeung. Few buyers of the off-road-capable Cullinan would likely subject its flawless, porcelain-like surface to damage along bush-and-rock-flanked trails. Ditto when parking by night in certain DTES zones, including one where developer-to-be Yeung located his fresh-from-varsity dental practice.

Hometown Star recipient Jim Pattison was feted by Premier John Horgan but hasn’t hire him to a top job as he did a predecessor, Glen Clark.

STARRED: Local self-made billionaire Jim Pattison and entertainers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have received Hometown Stars from the Canada Walk of Fame organization. The local ceremony followed a flossier one in Toronto where Paul Anka and investments supremo Warren Buffett serenaded Pattison with Frank Sinatra’s My Way. Rogan and Goldberg were lauded here by fellow walk-of-famer Howie Mandel. Also by teacher Mike Keenlyside from Point Grey Secondary where their stars will be embedded. Of their alma mater, “Everybody needs to know that Seth was a dropout and didn’t graduate,” Goldberg cracked.

Entertainers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg received Canada Walk of Fame stars that will be embedded at their Point Grey Secondary alma mater.

Howie Mandel and chef-restaurateur Vikram Vij attended a ceremony for city-raised billionaire Jim Pattison and entertainers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg.

When John Oliver Secondary grad and legendary toiler Pattison was asked if he really ought to be at work during daylight, he replied: “The answer is: Yes.” As for working for Pattison as former NDP premier Glen Clark does, successor John Horgan said: “I’ve got a job right now, but that’s an option.” That option would doubtless pay more than his current $205,400.16 salary. Meanwhile, Horgan and others might heed Pattison’s words: “Do the little things well and the big things will follow.”

Long-time Bella Bella resident Ian McAllister directed and Seaspan principal Kyle Washington executive-produced the Great Bear Rainforest Imax film.

BEAR FACTS: Another billionaire hit town recently. That was Seaspan Marine Corp. head Dennis Washington whose US$6-billion-range net worth is close to Pattison’s but whose 332-foot yacht Atessa IV overpowers the latter’s 150-foot Nova Spirit. Washington arrived for the premiere of Great Bear Rainforest, an Imax movie executive-produced by his son and Seaspan ULC executive chair, Kyle. Its director, Ian McAllister, met the younger Washington three years ago at a luncheon for the Pacific Wild Foundation that McAllister co-founded. Rather than conventional digital shooting, three-decade Bella Bella resident McAllister argued for Imax’s costlier 70mm film system that promises worldwide access to young audiences. The picture’s own young characters include Mercedes Robinson, who lives in 350-population Klemtu and retrieves DNA from trees where bears scratch themselves. Of her debut movie role, Robinson said: “You can get a lot of information from bears … who are guardians of the eco-system and have the ability to make it thrive and make the land more healthy.” When grown up, “I hope to provide information to the younger generation so that they protect the (bears’) territory and save it from those taking it from them.”

B.C. Women’s Hospital Foundation CEO Genesa Greening and board chair Karim Kassam fronted a $300,000 fundraiser for chronic-disease diagnosis.

NEED FOR SPEED: B.C. Women’s Hospital Foundation president-CEO Genesa Greening and board chair Karim Kassam reported $300,000 was raised at the recent Illuminations luncheon. That’s where guests were illuminated regarding thousands of women plagued by slow-to-diagnose health concerns. A tenfold increase in research funding is said to be needed to address complex chronic diseases that are up to nine times likelier to affect women than men.

Aide de camp and former Vancouver police inspector, Bob Usui, escorted Lieutenant-Governor Jane Austin at a B.C. Women’s Hospital Foundation fundraiser.

MEADOW MONEY: Attending the luncheon, the B.C. lieutenant-governor and former Women’s Hospital Foundation board member, Janet Austin, called the hospital’s researchers “some of the best in the world.” Then, pointing to retired Vancouver police inspector Bob Usui, who is one of her 35 ceremonial aides de camp, she told guests: “People think he is the lieutenant-governor, not me.” Her joke likely reminded some of an earlier LG, David Lam, who claimed that children sometimes misheard his title as “left-handed governor.” As for research-funding, Austin sounded in tune with rancher-predecessor Judith Guichon by saying: “Money is like manure — no good if it isn’t spread.”

Gillian Siddall was installed as president and vice-chancellor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s still-new False Creek Flats campus.

NEW CARR: Bonhomie, not money, was spread on Great Northern Way recently with Gillian Siddall’s induction as Emily Carr University of Art and Design’s second president and vice-chancellor.  She succeeds 22-year incumbent Ron Burnett who oversaw the much-enlarged academy’s move from Granville Island.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: February 23 is International Dog Biscuit Day or, for humans taking a mouthful, World Sword Swallowers Day.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

BARDY HEARTIES: The Bard on the Beach theatre company artistic director, Christopher Gaze, welcomed guests to the Vancouver International Wine Festival’s Bacchanalia gala with a line from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII: “Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.” That 16th-century monarch’s notion of goodness, of course, included having six wives and beheading two of them. Happily, the Bard company has not only kept its head but stayed on its feet aided by the $229,500 that this year’s Bacchanalia reportedly netted. Attendees were challenged to remain stable, too, while consuming five courses from Hotel Vancouver executive chef Colin Burslem and 10 wines from Australia, Croatia, France, Italy and the U.S.A., including the festival theme locale, California. Fifth-time chair Jana Maclagan acknowledged event presenter Blakes, the law firm where husband Bill’s successor as office managing partner is mining-finance specialist Peter O’Callaghan. As for her spouse’s future, Jana supportively toasted it with: “Bill goes back to being the best tax lawyer in Canada.”

Blakes lawyer Bill Maclagan and Bard on The Beach executive director Claire Sakaki revved up for Bacchanalia with Romantica Franciacorta Saten Brut.

Bard on The Beach artistic director Christopher Gaze and Bacchanalia chair Jana Maclagan toasted the Vancouver International Wine Festival opening.

Seen here at an earlier Bacchanalia auction, Andre St. Jaccqes again snagged many fine wines to be resold profitably at his Bearfoot Bistro in Whistler.

LOADING UP: As usual, Whistler’s Bearfoot Bistro owner André St. Jacques bid on enough high-end wines auctioned at Bacchanalia to constitute two truckloads from Victoria’s Parliament Buildings. That’s hardly surprising as a bottle of Chateau Latour for which he paid $10,000 in 2016 promptly cost a Bearfoot diner $20,000. Meanwhile, everything acquired for his bistro’s $2.2-million cellar at last year’s Bacchanalia has been sold and guzzled, St. Jacques said.

Fundraising for Eternal Theatre were (rear) Seamus Fera, Oliver Spilsbury, (middle) Shelby Armstrong, Yoora Kang, Ashlyn Tegos, Jessica Wong, (front) Avidor Mana, Caleb Lagayan, Katrina Teitz, Ricardo Pequenino.

GETTING STARTED: Theatre-company galas don’t always entail spiffed-up celebrants quaffing 10 wines and raising six figures. Take Eternal Theatre director Seamus Fera and aged-under-25 cast members who partied to fund a pop opera they’ll stage titled bare. Based on Shakespeare’s Rome and Juliet, it addresses Catholic boarding-school students “grappling with issues of sexuality, identity and the future.” Given the production company’s name, maybe the show will run as near-eternally as Hoarse Raven Theatre’s Tony n’ Tina’s wedding, which was co-directed by Fera’s parents Michael and Tanja. Bare will premiere at the 49th-off-Oak Unitarian Church of Canada on May 29.

Jessica Oblak, Patrice Mousseau and winner Sonia Strobel competed in the Forum For Women Entrepreneurs’ $25,000 Pitch For The Purse tourney.

Fiore Group managing director Lara Dauphinee and Forum for Women Entrepreneurs founder Christina Anthony co-chaired the Pitch For The purse gala.

PURSE NETTED: “There’s a party goin’ on right here.” Checo Tohomaso and the Sweet Soul Choir belted out those words from Kool & The Gang’s 1980 song Celebration to launch the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs organization’s Pitch For The Purse gala. The $25,000 purse was awarded to Skipper Otto fishery firm co-founder Sonia Strobel, who edged Satya Organics co-founder Patrice Mousseau and Copper Medical’s Jessica Oblak. FWE founder Christina Anthony and Lara Dauphinee co-chaired the event, which reportedly raised $870,000. Dauphinee is managing director of the Fiore Group that was founded by city-based multi-enterprise billionaire Frank Giustra. She was previously executive assistant to then-premier Gordon Campbell who enthusiastically attended earlier FWE events.

Women in Film + Television Vancouver president Sarah Kalil and VP Shannon Kaplun didn’t win an Oscar themselves but did front a ritzy event that synchronized with Hollywood’s Academy Awards.

OSCARS R’ US: While a 2019 Academy Awards audience filled Hollywood’s Dolby theatre, tourism entrepreneur Randy Vannatter and Women in Film + Television Vancouver’s Sarah Kalil and Shannon Kaplun welcomed guests to the Pinnacle Harbourfront hotel’s Vistas 360 Room. Unlike WIFTV’s boisterous parties in downtown clubs, this first Oscar-related event had several participants don tuxedos and gowns. As for their own screen activities, WIFTV president Kalil produced director Lisa Ovies’s short I Wanna Date U. Vice-president Kaplun co-directed the 13-episode Dreamcatcher Bios series for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Kaplun can’t disclose her present project on artificial intelligence, although AI-aided folk likely could figure it out. More pertinently, the six-day, 47-movie Vancouver Women in Film Festival will return March 5, with opening-night screenings of the U.S. Warrior Woman and Canadian short Biidaaban (The Dawn Comes) at VIFF Vancity Theatre.

Cpl. Ryan Davies nominated employer Costco and manager Tia Deyette to be honored for granting reservists like him time off for military duties.

ON PARADE: At the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada armoury recently, Maj.-Gen. Paul Bury thanked employers and educational institutes who encourage military reservists. “You are directly supporting Canadian interests,” he said of those giving extra time off for reservists (B.C. has 4,400) to “pursue military training, participate in operational deployments (and develop) characteristics that are an asset to employer and employee.” At an event hosted by the Canadian Forces Liaison Council, 11 such organizations were honoured. Based locally were Costco, CP, Glotman Simpson Consulting Engineers, Kisik Aerial Survey, Lower Mainland Steel and Miller Titerie Law Corp. Each was nominated by a reservist employee such as Costco’s Cpl. Ryan Davies, who will soon trade his corporal’s uniform for an RCMP recruit’s red serge.

Dayton Frost and Taylor Hobbs checked the Railtown Settlement Building facility where they’ll wed Sept. 6 without going into deep hock.

THEY DO: The Dunlevy-at-Alexander Settlement Building offers food and drink aplenty from its Belgard Kitchen, Fresh Tap Winery and Postmark Brewing operations. Now you can get married and hold receptions there. That’s in a white-painted, large-windowed, skylit room where $1,600 will open the door and menus for up to 60 seated guests start at $75 per. Attending an open-house recently, trucker Dayton Frost and special-needs teacher Taylor Hobbs said they can barely wait to return Sept. 6 and tie the knot there.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Washington, D.C., business headline: “Beltway retailers can’t get enough fireproof pants.”

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

Actress Pamela Anderson hoped that a Raphael Mazzucco artwork would fetch $30,000 at a Vancouver Club auction and thus benefit her foundation’s efforts for human, animal and environmental rights.

OFF THE BALL: Actress Pamela Anderson, who was “discovered” at a B.C. Lions football game, recently sought $30,000 for art created by a former Vancouver Whitecaps soccer player. That was Coquitlam-born Raphael Mazzucco who, as an international fashion photographer, has portrayed several supermodels on Sports Illustrated swimsuit-edition covers. Although not among them, Ladysmith-born Anderson achieved swimsuit fame herself in the Baywatch TV series. Her visit to the Vancouver Club was for an art auction to support the Pamela Anderson Foundation’s efforts regarding human, animal and environmental rights. She temporarily withdrew Mazzucco’s work, titled Beauty and Light, until a $30,000 bid was received four days later. The event was staged by the local LuvnGrace Entertainment impresario, Vernard Goud, who handles her foundation’s global fundraising events.

Crazy 8s filmmakers Jerome Yoo, Nessa Arem, Steven Kammerer, Michael Vidler and Lee Shorten ringed tourney development head Paul Armstrong.

SIX EIGHTS: A century after tight-budget Hollywood pioneers made movies in eight days, young folk still compete to do so. The recent Crazy 8s tournament had Nessa Arem, Steven Kammerer, Heather Perluzzo, Lee Shorten, Michael Vidler and Jerome Yoo top almost 200 other hopefuls to receive $25,000 in cash and kind for shooting, post-producing and delivering their short epics in eight days flat. At a festive screening, each likely dreamed of a directing career like James Cameron’s, whose 2009 Avatar earned almost $3 billion but took 10 years, not eight days, to make.

FLY HIGH: Georgia Street’s recently revamped former courthouse plaza might look better still with the 56-metre flagpole it had in 1911.

Actor-director Jason Priestley toted a Lovey dress when family friend Julia Molnar opened a South Granville satellite of Paris’s La Maison Bonpoint.

THAT’S THE POINT: Including her own six, Julia Molnar has dressed many youngsters at Isola Bella, her 36-year-old Kerrisdale Village store. Now she’s added a second, Bonpoint. “What a cute place for a restaurant,” restaurateur-friend Umberto Menghi said of the South Granville facility that, with a dog-leg staircase between two floors, would challenge food and drink servers. It is the first Canadian satellite of Paris-based La Maison Bonpoint and, like the original, also offers some first-for-Molnar adult attire. From that line, actor-director Jason Priestley toted a Jane Austen-style dress named Lovey. He and Molnar became friends after his wife, Naomi, applied Molnar’s actor-husband David Cubitt’s makeup for a movie here. Cubitt missed the Bonpoint opening to perform in Siren, a TV series that has Port Moody represent a legendary home for mermaids. Attiring any generation of the latter would give Molnar pause at either store.

Julia Molnar’s spouse David Cubitt aided fellow Medium TV series star Patricia Arquette’s charitable foundation at his and Molnar’s home garden party.

Model Jasmeet Thethy and CityLux Boutique owner Sunan Spriggs wore sequins-and-crystal dresses at South Asian Fashion Week’s debut show.

For South Asian Fashion Week, Phillipa Dutt modelled a trench coat by designer Amneet Athwal who wore her own blush-pink two-piece chiffon gown.

DRESSED TO THRILL: Womenswear abounded during three-day South Asian Fashion Week at the Plaza of Nations. Opening night runway exhibitors included the Mumbai-based Falguni Shane Peacock concern and downtown Vancouver’s CityLux Boutique. Its owner, Sunan Spriggs, dressed model Jasmeet Thethy in a sequins-and-crystal gown and wore a knee-length version herself. Not that CityLux’s customers would relish being seen together in identical creations. Technology-smart from having co-founded and divested a credit-card-processing firm, Spriggs links clients’ wardrobe items to their expected social activities and warns them when to be wary. As for wearing identical bathing suits, that may occur around 2029 when part-Thai Spriggs expects to build a 20-villa private hotel on Phuket waterfront property she inherited.

Hunza Mian, whose drag-performer name is Manghoe Lassi, towered over everyone, including sister Ikrah at the South Asian Fashion Week kickoff.

HIGH GUY: South Asian Fashion Week’s opening-night guests welcomed Toronto-based Muslim drag artist Humza Mian, who appeared as Manghoe Lassi in a CBC-TV series titled Canada’s a Drag. Wearing a screaming-yellow dress and with six-inch heels contributing to his 220 cm wig-top height, Mian literally overshadowed all others, including 80-cm-shorter sister Ikray. Respecting a current convention, beard, hairy arms and chest are all part of Mian’s entertainingly gender-bending act.

Shannon Heth, seen here with architectural firm head Michael Green, claimed in 2006 that polka dots attract men and can generate business opportunities.

DOT COME: Women who wear polka dots tend to attract men and create business opportunities for themselves, PR-firm principal Shannon Heth said in 2006. Recently, she attended a Ballet B.C. performance with architect and wood-high-rise protagonist Michael Green, who has moved his MGA firm’s practice from Gastown to South Granville. Asked if her 13-year-old thesis still holds, Heth smilingly pointed to her polka-dotted tights.

SETTING IT STRAIGHT: Andre St. Jacques is Bearfoot Bistro’s founder, not current owner.

Former Ballet B.C. principal dancer Crystal Pite choreographed Solo Echo that the company has performed internationally and did again here recently. P

STEPPING OUT: Marking her 10th anniversary as Ballet B.C.’s artistic director, former dancer Emily Molnar welcomed sponsors and supporters to a season-opening concert in the QE Theatre. It included a performance of former member Crystal Pite’s Solo Echo that the company has staged at sold-out venues in Madrid, Toronto, London and Tel-Aviv. More and likely larger tours will be announced soon by the Ballet B.C. executive director, John Clark. Meanwhile, former board chair Dr. Kevin Leslie (Linda Brown succeeded him) said: “We almost can’t keep up with those opportunities. Ballet B.C. is seen as a source of exceptional contemporary dance … and of easily international quality.”

Former Canadian Olympics swimmers Karen James and Jeanne Warren, now Jensen, attended Ballet BC’s season-opening performance at the QE Theatre.

STROKE FOLK: Heeding Dr. Leslie’s words were two women who represented Canada internationally. Swimmer Jeanne Jensen (then Warren) competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and Karen James in 1972 at Munich. The latter event, at which Palestinian terrorists massacred 11 Israeli athletes, still distresses James who has chaired the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver since 2017.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Maybe stay in bed for World Sleep Day March 15.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

With her horror movie La Quinceanera in the Vancouver Women in Film Festival, and others due, Mexico-born Vancouver Film School teacher Gigi Saul Guerrero said that, though potentially helpful, she’s “scared of ghosts.”

ONE TO WATCH: The six-day Vancouver Women in Film Festival opened at VIFF Vancity Theatre with several of the program’s moviemakers present. Among them, 11-year Vancouver resident Gigi Saul Guerrero had her 2016-shot horror flick, La Quinceañera, screened on March 9. For opening-night celebrations, the Capilano U grad and Vancouver Film School teacher hurried back from L.A., where she’s directing another screamer, Into The Dark, to premiere July 4 on Hulu. To her Mexico City parents — a violinist-cellist-father and dancer-mother who forbade her to watch the kind of film she now makes — “A little demon was born,” Guerrero said gleefully. “Me! I am in love with horror movies.” Oddly, she is “scared of ghosts,” who you’d think would be invaluable as script consultants.

Awarded a scholarship to study in Alsace, Siobhan Detkavich tasted that region’s choucroute dish at fellow chef Michel Jacob’s Le Crocodile restaurant.

ALL YOU CAN EAT: Rather as Strasbourg geese produce paté de foie gras, Le Crocodile restaurateur Michael Jacob force-feeds diners once a year with a dish that reflects his native Alsace’s German rather than French cuisine. It is Choucroute Garnie au Riesling: sausages, salt pork, knuckles, bacon and ham hocks heaped over wine-sauerkraut, onions and spuds. That belly-buster was served at Le Croc when Alsatian winery principal Jean-Frédéric Hugel presented a scholarship to Okanagan-based Siobhan Detkavich. Named for his late father Etienne Hugel and Vancouver wine-trade veteran Werner Schonberger, the scholarship provides culinary and wine training in Alsace and enrolment in the Society of Wine Educators.

Hamid and Arya Eshghi were “angel” supporters when a Neekoo Philanthropic Society soiree reportedly raised $125,000 to fund 30 student grants.

Committee chair Saeedeh Salem welcomed singer Rana Mansour when a Neekoo Philanthropic Society grant-funding soiree anticipated Persian New Year.

The Neekoo soiree saw Tandar Tanavoli wear jewellery by father Parviz whose temporary detainment in Iran she helped overcome.

ON THE WING: With Iranian New Year’s Day, Nowruz, coming March 21, Persian Canadians reportedly raised $125,000 at the Neekoo Philanthropic Society’s eighth annual soirée. The committee head and LaStella winery co-principal, Saeedeh Salem, said it will fund grants for some 30 low-income students The event’s “angel” supporters were Hamid and Arya Eshgi. Her father, Daved Mowfaghian, has donated many millions to B.C. cultural, educational and medical facilities. L.A.-based soirée entertainer Rana Mansour’s latest song, Zan (Woman), seemed to reflect International Women’s Day and contemporary Iran: “I am the voice of our generation. Even if you bind my wings, I am more free than ever before … If you think your arms are strong, I will tear off this blinding veil … I will make the dark, black sky bright and full of stars.” Happy New Year, indeed.

Sonia Andhi presented a Shakti Society Resilience award to Monica Gartner whose crippling childhood ailment didn’t prevent a successful adult career.

MORE STRONG WOMEN: Shakti Society founder-head Sonia Andhi marked International Women’s Day at a 17th annual awards ceremony. Honoured were Sujana Dhillon, Karen Dosanjh, Monica Gartner, Aman Gill, Tavisha Kohhar, Kamaljit Kaur Lehal, Senator Mobina Jaffer, Balinder Johal, Dr. Babra Rana, Saker Senaratne, Rukhsana Sultan, Monika Verma, Sukhvinder Kaur Vinning and Shakila Zareen. Resilience-category awardee Gartner is an author, public speaker and human resources department civil servant. Dodging childhood death from the genetic bone disease osteogenesis imperfecta, she has lived in a wheelchair and physically grown little since. In every other respect, she stands and walks taller than many.

The clock is ticking on Vancouver-raised former London brasserie owner Michael Parker opening an Italian-themed restaurant in Mount Pleasant.

ONE MORE TIME: Our Italian-restaurant honeymoon will continue in May when city-raised Michael Parker and a partner open the 120-seat-range Sprezza Tura at Kingsway and 11th Avenue. Lower Mainland franchises are planned. The name means “perfection without apparent effort,” said Parker, who reportedly spent 42 months checking 200 potential locales. His previous enterprise, the Hill Bar and Brasserie in London’s tony Belsize Park district, attracted showbiz celebs. One of them, Lord of The Rings star Sean Bean, strolled outside for a ciggie with Playboy centrefold model Nadia Foster, got stabbed in the arm and nonchalantly returned to finish his drink. That wouldn’t happen in Mount Pleasant, of course.

A memorial for Raincoast Books publisher Allan MacDougall lauded him for human conversations and encouraging those that involved his family dogs.

BEST FRIEND: Author-humorist Garrison Keillor wrote: “They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.” Many nice things were said about Raincoast Books president-CEO Allan MacDougall when a celebration-of-life reception jam-packed the Vancouver Lawn Tennis and Badminton Club on what would have been his 72nd birthday. Among them, son Peter recounted MacDougall’s charmingly characteristic reluctance to curtail the family dogs’ sniffing ceremonies with others encountered during walks. “He thought he was taking them away from personal conversations with their friends,” Peter said of his lucidly conversational father. As for less-fathomable pets, Keillor wrote: “Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.”

The late Kenny Colman, here crooning to Irish TV actress Jane Purcell, is the subject, with son Chase, of a documentary movie titled Cool Daddy.

IT DOES MEAN A THING: City-based jazz-saloon singer Kenny Colman, who died in 2017, features in a new documentary film titled Cool Daddy. Produced by Relevision firm principals Roger Evan Larry and Sandra Tomc with Paul Armstrong, it shows the dying Colman both supporting and discouraging his long-neglected son Chase’s mid-life ambition to be a singer, too. Their interactions provide chastening advice to others who may become involuntary role models. As the stardom-balked Colman might have sung, It ain’t necessarily so.

With Paul Armstrong, Relevision principals Sandra Tomc and Roger Evan Larry produced the Cool Daddy film about Kenny Colman’s dying years.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Thursday was the anniversary of my arriving in Vancouver. Thank you, Canada, for the welcome and the opportunities you freely offered, and especially for continuing to do so for others.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

Wearing honorary naval captain’s uniform, S.U.C.C.E.S.S. CEO Queenie Choo, right, welcomed former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould when the Bridge to S.U.C.C.E.S.S. gala benefited youth-oriented programs.

OVER THE BRIDGE: The United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society’s recent annual Bridge to S.U.C.C.E.S.S. gala reportedly raised $531,300 to help fund early childhood education and youth leadership programs. Fittingly, co-chairs Timothy Hsia, Cheryl Kwok and Modi Liu appeared younger than some who front other galas.

Cheryl Kwok, Timothy Hsia and Modi Liu co-chaired an event that reportedly raised $531,300 for the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. community-service agency.

Past runnings saw then-premier Gordon Campbell anticipate Prime Minister Dress-Up by sporting embroidered-silk Chairman Mao jackets. This year’s fancy dresser, S.U.C.C.E.S.S. CEO Queenie Choo, wore an honorary naval captain’s uniform to welcome thrown-overboard justice minister Judy Wilson-Raybould. Assorted federal, provincial and municipal office holders and seekers attended, too. The event’s implicit ethnicity aside, it began in Highland style with Macallan single-malt whiskies served freely and bagpiper David Glover skirling Scotland The Brave. That tune’s words, “Staunch are the friends that greet you,” reflect S.U.C.C.E.S.S.’s 1973 founding resolve. They were validated by the society reportedly delivering 148,000 services to 61,800 clients in 2018.

Niccolo Ricci displayed a $137,200 crocodile-gold-and-diamond belt during a reception at the Georgia Street store named for designer-father Stefano.

BELT UP: Ricci is the Italian word for curly. An appropriate one, too, as the $137,200 price of one belt at Manuel Bernaschek’s Stefano Ricci menswear store might curl your hair. Shown by designer Stefano’s visiting-from-Italy son Niccolò, the crocodile-leather belt gets its outstanding price tag from a solid gold buckle with 13.8 carats of diamonds. Less exuberant versions in the Trump Tower’s street-level store start at $1,350 and average $3,800. At 91.5 cm (36 inches), the gold-and-diamond belt would need much more crocodile hide to span Donald Trump himself. Then again, some mightn’t begrudge him the entire live animal, with no wall between them.

Loving Spoonful head Lisa Martella and Forage manager Matthew Presidente celebrated a 60-restaurant fundraiser to feed those with HIV/AIDS.

MORE SPOONING: Loving Spoonful executive director Lisa Martella had some 60 evening-meal options when the 25th-annual Dining Out for Life fundraiser ran recently. Restaurants from Arriva to Wildebeest set aside 25 per cent of that night’s food sales to add an expected $75,000 to the $3.75 million previously raised for feeding HIV/AIDS patients and families. Such meals cost Loving Spoonful $3.55 each. Martella eventually settled for a fondue entrée at Forage and dessert at Mary’s.

Minerva Foundation CEO Tina Strehlke welcomed co-founder Nancy McKinstry who hosted a 20th anniversary reception in the Stanley Park Pavilion.

LIKE MOTHER: The Minerva women’s-leadership organization opened for business with Judith Forst singing L’Amour from the opera Carmen. The soprano was present, but didn’t sing, when Minerva co-founder Nancy McKinstry hosted a 20th anniversary celebration recently. Co-founder and former MLA Sue Hamill attended, too. Minerva CEO Tina Strehlke thanked attendees “for the values you pass on.” Former mentee Christal Do, who is now a UBC Sauder School of Business student, likened Minerva to “a mother. You taught us, guided us … had more faith in us then we did for ourselves … (then) let us go without asking for anything in return.” New to Minerva’s Women Leading the Way program, Alysia MacGrotty expects “to find the strength I have in myself, implement it in the workplace, and have the support of so many women.”

Christal Do and Alysia MacGrotty benefit from women-empowering programs that the Minerva Foundation began offering when founded 20 years ago.

THANKS, DAD: “I think that the only ultimate guide we have is our conscience and if the law of the land goes against our conscience, I think we should disobey the law.” — Pierre Trudeau.

The Vimy Foundation’s Jennifer Blake and Mark Truelove showed a book with 151 of his non-dramatizing colourized images of First World War events.

The Vimy Foundation’s They Fought In Colour shows German prisoners carrying a wounded First World War Canadian with two of them smoking cigarettes.

REAL LIFE: City-based Mark Truelove is known for adding lifelike colour to historic black-and-white photos. They include ones of Canadians engaged in the 1914-1918 First World War. The Vimy Foundation (vimyfoundation.ca) recently published 151 of Truelove’s modified images in an oversized 290-page book titled They Fought In Colour. It does not dramatize a conflict that killed 10 million combatants and wounded 20 million. Nor does it dwell on the Battle of Vimy Ridge that many call a seminal step in the emergence of modern-day Canada. What it does do is present scenarios in the hues that those who were present saw. And all for the cost of $50 rather than the lives of many pictured.

Then-London Drugs president Wynne Powell occupied a Learjet in the London Air Services facility that recently hosted a Children Wish Foundation gala.

TEN YEARS AGO: Then-London Drugs president Wynne Powell unveiled London Air Services’ hangar-office building by praising the Bombardier Learjet 45 XRS aircraft based there. “It’s like tying a rocket to your ass,” he said of such high-flying business jets. The company now operates Learjet 75 models. It also opens the 84,000-square-foot facility to charitable events. A recent Children’s Wish Foundation, B.C. and Yukon Chapter gala reportedly raised $550,000 to help benefit the 1,000 life-threatened youngsters served annually. Some request trips involving commercial airliners, although Powell’s rocket-related allusion might provoke other wishes.

Seen earlier, tenor Ben Heppner might be equally incredulous at Peter Wall having composed and recorded the Vancouver City By The Sea “love song.”

MORE WAXING: Operatic tenor Richard Margison recorded the Vancouver City By The Sea “love song” composed by property developer Peter Wall. Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky will do so, too, when Wall sponsors her Oct. 30 concert at UBC’s Old Auditorium. For his next entertainment-related undertaking, Wall says he’ll write a screenplay about a Ukraine-born lad becoming a New World business success while besporting himself at racetracks, Las Vegas and suchlike. Wonder who that might be?

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: WorkSafeBC’s project to “reduce injuries and incidents” in craft beer production seems not to include those that occur during and after consumption.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

HEARD INSTINCT: Vancouver International Auto Show executive director Jason Heard’s blood contains more than father Phil’s Y chromosome. There’s gasoline, too. Heard Sr. has been involved with automobiles since 1990, when he launched Vancouver’s Molson Indy races as general manager. He’d already staged boat, floating-boat and RV shows. Inheriting that know-how, Jason began staging successive design exhibitions in 2004. Having formed Heard Productions Inc., father and son operated the Collector Car Show and Auction. The New Car Dealers Association of B.C.’s annual car show then retained them. They’ll likely go full throttle for next year’s its 100th running.

Impressions Live Art owners Olga Rybalko and Bill Higginson have raised $25,000 for Paralympians with paintings they create at the car show.

CARS ON CANVAS: For the sixth year, Bill Higginson and Olga Rybalko created a large painting for auction at the car show’s Unveiled reception. Such opening-night works have reportedly raised $25,000 to benefit Paralympics athletes. Other charity fundraisers have generated some $100,000 at Higginson and Rybalko’s Yaletown-based Impressions Live Art gallery-studio. They’ll wed next February in Higginson’s native Gold Coast, Australia.

Seen with another automotive sculpture, Helene Aspinall and Marcus Bowcott produced the Trans Am Totem that will soon move from Quebec Street.

BRANCHING OUT: As for used cars, artists Marcus Bowcott and wife Helene Aspinall addressed a Ferry Building audience regarding their Trans Am Totem sculpture. Made for the 2015 Vancouver Biennale, that Quebec-at-Milross installation has Pontiac, BMW, Honda, VW and Mercedes-Benz bodies stacked atop a cedar trunk. Given the City of Vancouver Public Art Committee’s reported antipathy to it, Marcus Bowcott said: “I figure I must be doing something right.” The jalopies may hit the road again as an anonymous buyer, to be named by May, has reportedly chipped in perhaps $250,000 to add the sculpture to the city’s public art collection, relocate it and compensate the biennale and the artists. The latter produced a similar Audi-BMW-Mercedes-VW piece for Munich’s 2017 Tollwood Festival.

Maks Fisli’s photo shows Marcus Bowcott and Helene Aspinall with the piece similar to Pan Am Totem they produced for Munich’s 2017 Tollwood Festival.

Recovered from injuries that kept her from Canada’s rugby team, Devon Luca will be called to the bar and has joined the Blakes law firm’s litigation squad.

COMING IN NOW: The Rugby How website says a scrum half, although smaller than most players, must have superior speed, agility, evasiveness, decision-making skills and be “cheeky.” It’s also best to avoid being concussed and tearing an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) two weeks after being carded by a national team. Fit again four years later, Devon Luca played in the recent B.C. Sevens series and on the provincial team. “There’s no feeling more rewarding than stepping back on to the pitch with the women who helped carry you off the last time,” she said following a celebration for the Minerva women’s-leadership organization. “I wanted to make the team, so I could quit on my own terms.” She’ll be called to the B.C. bar in April and has already joined scrummers in the Blakes law firm’s litigation group.

ROCKET MAN: At Lisbon’s Monstra International Animation Festival on Thursday, Marv Newland began screening all 14 films his International Rocketship studio has produced here.

Linda Ohama and then-103-year-old grandmother Asayo Murakami saw the former’s movie, Obachan’s Garden, that the Cinematheque will screen April 1.

RARE OPPORTUNITY: City moviemaker Linda Ohama’s Obachan’s Garden will screen at The Cinematheque in April. It relates historic events to the life of her late grandmother, Asayo Murakami. That dancer, violinist, cannery worker and mother of 10 left Hiroshima for Vancouver in 1923, was forcibly relocated to Manitoba in 1942, then farmed in Alberta. Still tough at age 103, she flew here for the film’s 2001 premiere. Hospitalized for flight-induced respiratory difficulties, she discharged herself to see the film. Now you can see it, too.

Jonathan T. (Jonty) Parker brandished a bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne that one of his E-type Jaguars won in concours competitions.

RUMBLE READYING: Jonathan T. (Jonty) Parker’s British-car streak has fizzled. He and wife Dewey first adopted a Lincolnshire vicar’s Rolls-Royce. North Vancouver-based RX Autoworks then restored Jonty’s 1960 AC Ace to win its class at the top-drawer Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Two Jaguar E-types earned such prizes as Dom Perignon Champagne. Jonty then trolled the southern U.S. for a rare Austin Vanden Plas Princess with Rolls-Royce engine. Returning, he bought and will soon perfect a 1926 Nash Advanced Six roadster so speedy that bootleggers converted its rumble seat to hold illicit hooch. That should be handy should it win more champagne or, as in the Lincolnshire vicar’s case, perhaps sacramental wine.

Late Sun and Province photographer Mark Van Manen and Tiger Woods were portrayed by retired Sun shooter Ralph Bower wearing Augusta National champions’ jackets.

RIP: Friends and colleagues celebrated late Sun photographer and keen golfer Mark Van Manen’s life at Glen Eagles Golf Course recently. Among his displayed blow-ups, one by retired Sun photographer Ralph Bower showed Van Manen beside Tiger Woods wearing an Augusta National champions’ green jacket Bower had finagled. As his companion, Heide Eden, spoke, a window behind her disclosed a duffer shanking ball after ball into fairway-flanking trees. Van Manen was never so inept, with a one wood, camera or in his ever-honourable personal conduct.

With $18.5 million raised, Jacqui Cohen will delay the Face The World gala for a year and manage her Army & Navy store chain’s centennial festivities.

ABOUT FACE: After 28 years of generating $18.5 million for vulnerable-citizen charities, the Face The World gala will skip 2019. “I am pressing pause,” said Jacqui Cohen of the flossy fundraiser held, uniquely, in either of her family’s homes. Instead, she’ll handle centennial festivities for the Army & Navy store chain that grandfather Sam Cohen founded and that she’s headed since 1998. FTW will resurface for its 30th anniversary in 2020, Cohen said.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Their muddling evacuation from Europe may make Brexiteering Britons nostalgic for the relative orderliness of Dunkirk.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

HOLY BEEFSTEAKS, BATMAN: Just as she did in 1999, Hy’s of Canada COO Megan Buckley welcomed guests to the Gotham steakhouse’s recent anniversary celebration, this one the 20th. As wall-to-wall invitees enjoyed abundant drinks and food, Hy’s president-CEO Neil Aisenstat cracked: “We can still give it away.” They can sell it, too, and have done since 1955 when Neil’s late father, Hy Aisenstat, launched the self-named chain in Calgary. Our Hornby-off-Dunsmuir Hy’s Encore has served 60-day, dry-aged rib steaks and other prime cuts since 1962.

Musicbiz partners Sam Feldman and Bruce Allen flanked singer Sarah Maclachlan during a debut event at Gotham in which Allen had a financial interest.

Three blocks away at Gotham, fine-weather patrons enjoy an open-to-the-heavens patio where a Bible store once stood. Its succeeding steak house adopted the Gotham nickname that author Washington Irving coined for New York in 1807. Irving’s inspiration was an ancient English village where the name reflected its beginnings as a “home of goats.” In a tactic worth retesting today, that small community’s 13th-century residents reputedly outfoxed tax collectors by simulating insanity. Here, though, Gotham patrons must keep their wits about them when negotiating a curving stairway to the basement washrooms, especially after a few beverages. When one distinguished-looking man’s possibly overcautious descent resulted in a usually embarrassing personal accident, he nonchalantly announced: “Well, this is a black suit, so nobody’ll know.” What fellow diners upstairs would have known is that such deception was never needed for Gotham’s high-calibre fare and service.

Macdonald Development Corp’s John Macdonald attended the Gotham event while father Rob caddied for other son Stuart in the PGA Tour Series-China.

FORE: Macdonald Development Corp. vice-president John Macdonald attended the Gotham anniversary. Hardly surprising, as the group his father Rob Macdonald founded owns the property and the adjoining St. Regis Hotel and is an equal partner in the restaurant. Among MDC’s current Canadian and U.S. projects, the Lakestone development encompasses 1,300 speculation-tax-free units near Okanagan Golf Club’s Bear and Quail courses. Missing the Gotham elbow-bender, Macdonald Sr. was at Chongqing’s Poly Golf Course where he caddied for younger son Stuart in the PGA Tour Series-China.

Oliver Young’s 1927 Triumph 500 TT should pale beside his restoring 1930 Bentley Speed Six car like one that outraced a cross-France express train.

SUCH A KICK: Spring sunshine awakens hibernating motorcycles. Although few riders may be in their nineties, some bikes are. Among them, restorer-collector Oliver Young’s 1927 Triumph 500 TT could hit its present age in miles per hour when new and deftly tuned. Young wouldn’t repeat that, but he is readying a four-wheeled British road-burner. His 1930 Bentley Speed Six is a stablemate of one that raced the Blue Train from Cannes and, despite a Channel-ferry crossing, was in London before the crack express reached Calais.

After retrieving thousands of global plants to propagate at his nursery, Dan Hinkley was astonished by city sculptor Marie Khouri’s bronze tree trunks.

TREES BY MARIE: Local nurseries will soon face an onslaught of folk seeking familiar and new plants for their yards, verandas, window boxes and pots. Meanwhile, having searched the world for the thousands of species he’s propagated in Washington state, celebrated plantsman Dan Hinkley found an unexpected one here. While he and landscape architect-UBC teacher Ron Rule toured Robert and Marie Khouri’s garden, Hinkley was entranced by bronze-looking tree trunks among the greenery. In fact, they were genuine bronze artworks sculpted by Mme. Khouri. “I must have some of these,” Hinkley said for the umpteenth time during his five-decade career.

Teetotaller James Walton and Michelle Mackay showed equipment he made for his Storm Brewing operation along with one of the beers produced there.

BOTTOMS UP: The Sun reported March 5 that increasing property taxes may force many craft breweries from East Vancouver. Meanwhile, 100 such producers will serve 300 beers and ciders when the 10th annual Vancouver Craft Beer Week opens May 31. Attendees may toast teetotalling former mushroom farmer James Walton, who founded Storm Brewing in 1994, welded together some fermentation tanks and literally got craft-beer’s pot boiling.

With plans mooted to double out-of-hospital cardiac-arrest survival, Kevin Eastwood recalled Sonja Bennett helping save his life on an L.A. sidewalk.

BACK TO LIFE: Cardiac arrests reportedly kill 40,000 Canadians annually. Eighty-five per cent of arrests occur outside hospitals, with nine out of 10 dying. At its annual gala May 31, the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada will campaign to double that 10 per cent survival rate by 2029. Heartening news for city moviemaker Kevin Eastwood, who was 36 when felled on an L.A. sidewalk. Calling 911, actress-friend Sonja Bennett was guided to apply cardiopulmonary resuscitation until defibrillator-equipped paramedics arrived. Several of survivor Eastwood’s friends then took CPR training. Good for them, and maybe you.

Robert Lee’s photo of him with a 1992 hotel development had a friend crack: “You were just starting to make money then, and now you’re printing it.”

BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS: Bob Lee was profiled in The Sun March 30 for convincing fellow UBC governors to launch residential and commercial developments that generated $1.6 billion. Rather like a self-deprecatory comedian, UBC commerce grad Lee told them: “I’m not really an academic person, but I do know a little bit about real estate.” Likewise, when former city mayor Tom Campbell pooh-poohed his opening bids for a 260-unit tower, golfer Lee deadpanned: “The pressure made me shoot 30 above my usual high 80s.” Offered the Ernst & Young accounting firm’s Entrepreneur of The Year Award, Lee cracked: “I thought they were calling to ask me about raising money.” Even at his retirement-tribute dinner, where then-premier Gordon Campbell said: “You and I all know that Bob isn’t going anywhere,” Lee promptly replied: “Thank you for coming. I’m leaving now.”

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: The Revised Ottawa Dictionary defines “principle” only as money.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

BEEMER TEAMING: BMW dealer Brian Jessel and managing partner Jim Murray cleared all but one vehicle from their Boundary-off-Lougheed new-car showroom to stage the 14th annual Cabriolet gala. Previous runnings reportedly raised $2 million. Staged by Diana Zoppa and sponsored by ZLC Financial chairman-CEO Garry Zlotnik, the recent one benefited Pancreatic Cancer Canada by netting some $525,000. The sole car left standing beside a spotlit stage and dining tables reflected the ever-more-elegant gala’s name. It was a just-introduced BMW M850i Cabriolet tagged at $145,000. Figuratively donning his dealer hat, Jessel compared it to a certain $350,000 British sportster, “But this is a nicer car.” As for other BMW introductions, half-year Cabo San Lucas resident Jessel said: “We’ve got a lot of new product coming this year. I won’t have to marry for money after all.”

Elektra Women’s Choir conductor and co-founder Morna Edmundson welcomed operatic soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian to a benefit banquet at the Sutton Place hotel where she sang works by Berlioz, Bevan and Schubert.

BETTER WORLD: Operatic soprano and graduate biomedical engineer Isabel Bayrakdarian sang at the Elektra Women’s Choir’s recent benefit-banquet in the Sutton Place hotel. Elektra honorary patron Bayrakdarian also performed at the choir’s 30th anniversary concert in 2017. At the hotel, co-founder Morna Edmundson conducted the 53-voice ensemble as she did in January at East Hastings Street’s Oscar’s Pub. That Elektra Uncorked fundraiser followed the release of Elektra’s 15th album, Silent Night. No repertoire stick-in-the-muds, the choristers are heard prominently on Gibsons-based progressive-metal musician Devin Townsend’s Empath album that released March 29 to seven-figure YouTube hits. Such musical genre-bending aside, few would dispute Schubert’s An Die Musik that Bayrakdarian sang to Elektra patrons: “You, lovely art, in how many gloomy hours of experiencing the turmoil of life have you ignited love in my heart and transported me to a better world?”

City singer Amanda Wood accompanied an ovarian cancer fundraiser’s fashion-show models with an energetic rendition of Alicia Keys’s Girl On Fire.

Anna Wallner, Marousa Dumaresq and Kristi Brinkley modelled Chikas, Sundress and Riana garments at the Love Her benefit for Ovarian Cancer Canada.

Okanagan Crush Pad owner Christine Coletta brought wine to and accompanied cousin Lisa Konishi at a $225,000 Ovarian Cancer Canada benefit.

OVARIAN OVATION: With Franci Stratton chairing for the third time, the recent Love Her gala reportedly raised $225,000 for Ovarian Cancer Canada. The lunchtime event included a fashion show by West Vancouver retailer Marilyn Diligenti-Smith. Local volunteer models hit the catwalk as singer Amanda Wood belted out Girl On Fire. Ovarian cancer, however, is a murderous fire that researchers and practitioners yearn to put out while striving to discover how its starts. Back at the gala, attendees applauded when an annual award commemorating business and community leader Virginia Greene went to Christine Coletta and cousin Lisa Konishi who have jointly lost eight friends and family members to ovarian cancer. More cheerfully, Coletta donated and served much wine from her 45,000-cases-a-year Okanagan Crush Pad operation.

His artist in residency at the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden now over, Paul Wong will publish a book based on 700 letters to his late mother.

PAUL’S LETTERS: Paul Wong’s year-long artist in residency at the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden ended with a reception at his Keefer Street studio. Fifty-five arts-related tenants reportedly pay $2 a square foot to occupy the building’s lower, third and fourth floors. A Korean restaurant and Scotiabank branch are conveniently located at street level. Meanwhile, Wong’s now-concluded exhibition of 700 letters to late mother Suk Fong has received a reply. The Canada Council for the Arts reportedly offered $54,500 to fund a related book. “We’re trying to get the money as soon as possible in case there’s been a mistake,” Wong cracked while admitting, “It was more than I asked for.”

With one of her works to open the DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Baljit Sangra hopes to make a feature about Canadian South Asians in the 1970s.

POST PAST: B.C.’s early 20th-century South Asian pioneers were the subjects of a recent Vancouver Sun article. Now, moviemaker Baljit Sangra wants to portray their second- and third-generation descendants. To open the DOXA Documentary Film Festival May 3, Sangra’s 85-minute Because We Are Girls examines three Williams Lake sisters who concealed their shared sexual abuse for almost 25 years. She hopes that her next, and bigger, project will be a feature-film drama. “I would love to do a coming-of-age narrative of South Asians growing up in the 1970s,” Sangra said. “The fashion, the music, what they thought.” That might cost $5 million. Let’s hope she raises it.

Former mayor, former premier, cannabis firm principal Mike Harcourt received Simon Fraser University’s President’s Distinguished Community Leadership Award.

NEW LEAF: Simon Fraser University chief Andrew Petter presented the President’s Distinguished Community Leadership Award to Mike Harcourt recently. The latter’s merits aside, the Four Seasons Hotel ceremony echoed Petter having been in 1991-96 NDP premier Harcourt’s cabinet. No such gender or partisan links occurred in 2010 when the honour went to Petter’s decade-later successor as B.C. Liberal finance minister, Carole Taylor. Her co-awardee, since-deceased husband Art Phillips, was Harcourt’s predecessor-but-one as Vancouver mayor. Soon after her award, Taylor was named chancellor of SFU where, vis-à-vis president Petter, she said: “My job is to protect him.” In his early 20s, lawyer Harcourt counselled Kitsilano-based Cool-Aid youth social services’ clients, some of whom were jailed for possessing marijuana joints. Today, he chairs Lumby-based True Leaf that plans to produce 2,500 kg of cannabis annually.

Andrew Petter made an SFU president’s award to Mike Harcourt as he had done in 2010 to the university’s then-pending chancellor, Carole Taylor.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: A century ago, satirist Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary contained: “Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.” Also: “Conservative: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.” Finally: “Liberty: One of imagination’s most precious possessions.”

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

HATS OFF: Nobody expected Easter bonnets, fascinators or headgear of any kind when the Show It Off extravaganza filled the Vancouver Playh­­ouse recently. Hair alone was the attraction, and Avant Garde salon owner Jon Paul Holt and dancer-choreographer producer Viktoria Langton showcased plenty of it when the male and female show benefited B.C. Children’s Hospital. Stylist from the UK, across Canada and hereabouts created confections that, in most cases, were frothed up on models attired in the Playboy rather than Easter bunny manner.

Dee Daniels will return from her and Denzal Sinclaire’s U.S. tour to sing at Motown Meltdown’s benefit for Seva Canada’s eyesight-restoration efforts.

HIGH FLYERS: Early aviators gained surprising extra height by flying at top speed and jerking back the joystick. They called it the zoom climb. A century later in 2008, one-time television wunderkind Moses Znaimer applied the term to half-century-old folk able to elevate their lifestyles. Among now-77-year-old Znaimer’s related enterprises, Zoomer trade shows feature travel, financial, cannabis and health-and-wellness exhibitors. Entertainers, too.

Joy TV’s CARPe diem show host-producer Carmen Ruiz y Laza greeted Motown Meltdown’s Bill Semple and Kendra Sprinkling at the Zoomer Show.

The recent Zoomer show here saw Kendra Sprinkling produce a version of the 17th annual Motown Meltdown concert that will play the Commodore Ballroom April 27. Its beneficiary, Seva Canada, restores eyesight to thousands of global patients annually. One concert singer, Dee Daniels, will zoom home from her and Denzal Sinclaire’s touring tribute to the late Nat King Cole and daughter Natalie.

Vancouver Sun Sun Run columnist Lynn Kanuka and editor-in-chief Harold Munro welcomed guests at a reception preceding the 35th annual event.

FEET FEATS: Olympic bronze medallist Lynn Kanuka’s columns helped prepare Vancouver Sun reader for last weekend’s 35th annual Sun Run. She and run co-founders Doug and Diane Clement were acknowledged at a reception where Sun editor-in-chief Harold Munro noted that the 10k event’s earlier participants had covered the equivalent of 10 times around the world. Kanuka’s 2019 columns revealed that her training world extends northward to Burns Lake and New Aiyansh beyond Terrace. With three other regions, they’re part of her 10-year-old effort by which Indigenous leaders develop running and walking programs. Regarding such communities’ elders, “Their health has changed,” Kanuka said. “Their blood pressure has gone down.” So have blood-sugar and cholesterol levels, “One has even lost 100 pounds,” she whistled.

DO GO: Although tough by foot, the few B.C. residents following remote, spectacular Highway 37 north from New Aiyansh to the Alaska Highway should relish every one of its 750 kilometres.

Some wonder whether the brotherly love Jason Kenney had for Charlie Wu in 2015 will extend to other Vancouver residents now that he’s Alberta premier.

KENNEY, CAN HE? During 2015 TaiwanFest celebrations here, then-federal immigration minister Jason Kenney called festival manager and former University of San Francisco fellow student Charlie Wu “my Chinese brother with different mothers.” Let’s see if such familial regard for B.C. residents will continue.

Monica Soprovich, Tanya Perchall, Rebecca Bond and Carey Smith ringed host Zahra Salisbury at the Hotel Georgia’s Reflections terrace reopening.

SKY TIME: Springtime sees the Rosewood Hotel Georgia’s substantially open-air Reflection terrace reopen formally. Rain made the recent event rather more al drencho than fresco. But with one area permanently covered and some others tented, attendees stayed dry and, given the enhanced intimacy, possibly more reflective. They were hosted by Zahra Salisbury, whose brother Azim Jamal and uncle Joe Moosa founded Pacific Reach Properties that paid $145 million for the then-90-year-old hotel in 2017.

UP PARRYSCOPE: One block west on Georgia Street, the Depression-delayed Fairmont Hotel Vancouver will celebrate its 80th birthday on May 9.

Seen partying at his architecture firm’s old Gastown premises, keg-surrounded Michael Green literally raised the bar with an Armoury district move.

GREEN PARTIERS: Free drinks and a high-volume deejay would fill any Friday-night joint to the rafters. So it was when A-grade party giver and wood-structure-tower advocate Michael Green celebrated his self-named architecture firm’s move to Armoury-district space formerly occupied by Emily Carr University students. Despite a new climbing wall, Green’s guests didn’t actually reach the joint’s near-10-metre-high rafters.

Kelsey Kushneryk and Lindsay Owen alternate between piloting a Twin Otter and a rebuilt and re-engined DC3 aircraft between Arctic and Antarctic bases.

Still, two among them routinely reach higher altitudes in places quieter, colder and far more dangerous than False Creek shores. Former rodeo roper-funeral director Kelsey Kushneryk and partner Lindsay Owen are 4,000- and 5,000-hour pilots who have spent six seasons flying for Calgary-based Kenn Borek Air in Antarctica and the Canadian Arctic. Owen hit the news in 2017 as first officer aboard a Twin Otter that sped 14,000 km from Alberta to rescue two sick workers in ‑­­60 C temperature from near the blizzard-whipped South Pole. She and Kushneryk also pilot an 80-year-old DC-3 airliner that, like the same-age axe with four new heads and six new handles, has likely had every part replaced and turbine engines installed.

Vancouver International Centre for Asian Art interim head Yun-Jou Chang and president April Liu fronted 20th-anniversary celebrations at the Imperial.

A-PLUS: Now ensconced on Keefer Street with a 30-year lease, the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, aka Centre A, celebrated its 20th anniversary recently. President April Liu and interim executive director Yun Jou Chang welcomed centre founder Hank Bull and guests to the Main-off-Hastings Imperial where Chinese-language kung-fu movies once were screened. Las Vegas-born Liu is a Chinese art historian and Museum of Anthropology public-programs curator. Belgium-born, Taiwan-and-Prince-Rupert-raised Chang is vice-president of the pan-Asian Cinevolution Media Arts Society. As well as encouraging beginning artists, the centre “strives to activate contemporary art’s vital role in building and understanding the long and dynamic Asia-Canada relationship.”

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: While Chinese genetic scientists transfer human brain cells to monkeys, the reverse process may have been perfected in London, Ottawa and Washington, DC.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456