So much bubbling up

March 30, 2009 at 12:47 am | In just_so | 7 Comments

As we work on MetroCascade, I continue to be amazed by all the bloggers, events, and sources that we uncover (ok, that I uncover!).

One twenty-something dude told me that he didn’t think there was any value in uncovering the cool stuff in Victoria. He didn’t think there was cool stuff in Victoria.

Whatever. I’m nearly 3 decades older than he is, and I remember all the cool stuff that I enjoyed in Victoria BC when I was 14, 15, 16, 17 years old: the Churchill pub (ok, I was underage/ drinking illegally: bite me), now reincarnated as the Jellyfish Lounge (and still troublesome!); Sappho’s (an early 1970s private gay bar in Victoria, unlicensed, where you could dance till 4 a.m. and then go to a 24-hour cafe – Scott’s! – for a butter tart and cup of tea, before heading home at dawn); the Quee Queg Cafe in Bastion Square (oh, scan thru this comments thread for more info on Valdy – Valdy? Jesus, I completely forgot about that darned old hippie!); amazing events at local music venues; the list goes on…

And the point is that it’s still going on. What I saw in my underage degeneracy wasn’t a fluke. It was normal for here.

You know, it’s like that Magritte painting:

Rene Magritte, Ceci n'est pas une pipe

Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

This is not Victoria.

(….Oh yes it is.)

(PS: I was never a Valdy fan, by the way. I wasn’t a folkie. Still don’t like the style. Just saying. I do remember that one time, when I was 14 or 15, I was hitchhiking on Hillside Avenue with my friend, and we got picked up by Mose Allison and his band. They were in town to play a concert at UVic. We told Mose in the most sage tones we could muster that UVic was out in the sticks, and that he and the band really should go downtown instead. True.)

7 Comments

  1. Mose Allison? That’s very cool. I see from a quick check of the Martlet archives that was September of ’73.

    Comment by robert randall — March 29, 2009 #

  2. Wow, Rob, that’s amazing – thanks for looking up the date! Ok, so if that was the time I was thinking of, I was 16.
    .
    Since I thought this happened when I was younger, I think in my mind I conflated the Mose Allison encounter with an episode that must have happened a year or so earlier. In the earlier episode, I was hitchhiking by myself on that same street, …and my father stopped to give me a lift. OMGZ, as they say…

    Comment by Yule — March 29, 2009 #

  3. Haha! I love this post. The city is really what you make it, and a lot of people have made it their own. I remember having thoughts about the city being a bit sleepy, so I did something about it.

    Comment by Davin Greenwell — March 30, 2009 #

  4. I found my way here by a rather cicuitous route. From bedelighteddaily.blogspot’s post on Metrocascade, to another blogspot blog called cheapvictoria.blogspot, who has your blog listed in the side bar. I don’t know if you feature that one as an Author on Metrocascade but it might be another good one.

    Thanks for the comment on my blog (my garden ) as above. I think Metrocascade is a great idea.

    The mention of Magritte has enticed me to comment: I have photoshopped a notion I had for Magritte and posted it to Flickr, here: Magritte exhumed and on my blog some time ago. That photo and the tags get so many hits … I never knew there so many people interested in Magritte.

    This topic would make a great category on Metrocascade, I think. This IS Victoria!! With people telling stories, like this one. You write so very well, wish I had more time to spend here.

    All the best with Metrocascade.

    Maggie

    Comment by maggie — April 6, 2009 #

  5. Thanks for finding this blog post to comment on, maggie! (And thanks for the ideas/ compliment on my writing!) I love your “Magritte” photo, that’s so cool. (I like how the fuzz on the hat is in focus!)
    .
    Now that I know you’re such a fab photographer, I’ll be hitting you up to ask if you want to be a featured photographer on MetroCascade! (The photos are in the left sidebar, thumbnails that link to the photograper’s work. Right now, we’re featuring Davin Greenwell, before that it was Tyler Nixon. We’re keeping the photos up for about a month – everything is still kind of slow for now – but eventually we’d like to change the galleries at least weekly. I just know there are plenty of good photographers in Victoria.)
    .
    Cheapvictoria or Cheapskater’s Victoria is one of Vikki Flawith’s blogs, right? We have a couple of her blogs already – my god, she’s prolific – but I didn’t know about this one. We’ll add it, thanks for the pointer!

    Comment by Yule — April 6, 2009 #

  6. Thanks for the compliments on my snapshots. Sure, I would love to be a featured photographer, along with people like Tyler Nixon and that One-eyed man, or others who I believe are actually professionals. Yes, I did notice the thumbnails in the side bar, thanks. Changing galleries weekly would keep it more interesting. Everything moves so fast in this digital world.

    I think a hunting ground for more photographers would be the vfxy photoblogs site. I hope you can view this page: vfxy’s Victoria photogs But I wonder if you need more work or more photographers/photoblogs. :-))

    Yes, I believe you have the owner of cheap victoria correct. Very prolific!

    Comment by maggie — April 6, 2009 #

  7. Hey, cool! Thanks for the link to vfxy’s Victoria photographers – lots of new-to-me-names, and some familiar ones, too!

    Comment by Yule — April 6, 2009 #

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