Most entrancing read about an apparently boring place

There’s something decidedly ballsy about dissing your hometown in print. Mette Bach, known for her columns in The Advocate and Xtra! West, breaks from writing queer commentary to focus her cutting humour on Delta, “a place where people got bored and died”. Off the Highway, her first book, is part critique (of strip malls, the Alex Fraser Bridge, continued threats to Burns Bog), part memoir, and part paean to what her old stomping grounds could be.

Best insider’s guide to the city

Charles Demers’s nonfiction book Vancouver Special is a witty, observant, and very personal guide to the city and surrounding suburbs. Published by Arsenal Pulp Press on the eve of the Olympics, the book was shortlisted for a B.C. Book Prize. In his essays, the local comedian, novelist, and activist provides a refreshing take on Vancouver’s history, culture, and geography. In one chapter, Demers describes the hodgepodge of social groups that inhabit the Commercial Drive neighbourhood. In another, he explains how celebrities like David Duchovny (the X-Files star who notoriously complained about Vancouver rain on a late-night TV talk show) have “made enemies in Vancouver by being dinks”. The book offers insights for both those who have called the city home for years and first-time visitors.

Most zine-ful Reading Room

Regional Assembly of Text
3934 Main Street
604-877-2247

When it comes to hidden jewels of the city, the Regional Assembly of Text is full of them, as noted in our 2006 Best of Vancouver issue. What brings the compact stationery and gift shop back four years later is the transformed storage closet—affectionately called “the lowercase reading room”—now home to a gazillion zines and chapbooks. Step into this three-metre-by-one-metre space and you’ll feel like Gulliver washed up on the shores of Lilliput. There’s an alcove that seats maybe two, but you could probably jam in five people if breathing wasn’t important to you. Each zine is more creative than the next and will inspire you to drop off one of your own. And while you’re there, don’t forget to take a peek in the drawers by the front counter for some secret art installations.

Most inspiring First Nations language activist

Skwxwú7mesh-Kwakwaka’wakw activist, artist, and writer Dustin Rivers is only 21 years old, but he’s fighting to save languages now spoken mostly by people who are over 65. His people’s language, Skwxwú7mesh snichim, is “critically endangered”, having 10 fluent speakers according to a report released in April by the First Peoples’ Heritage, Language, and Culture Council. Rivers thinks the real number is lower, and he knows many First Nations languages are in similarly dire situations. This year, he learned the Where Are Your Keys? system of language learning and organized the Save Your Language Conference to share the method with other First Nations language activists. He’s also been working on a video podcast to help make sure Skwxwú7mesh snichim doesn’t go extinct.

Best potential Engrish.com submission

God knows we love Engrish.com, the Web site that exists solely to mock those with a, um, somewhat tenuous grasp on the English language. As every card-carrying member of the Long Duk Dong fan club knows, Engrish.com is where people from all over the world send photos of signs created by ESL types. Rather than get a North American with at least a Grade 5 education to proofread their handiwork, they just tack it straight up on their buildings, thereby inviting mockery. Classic Engrish.com postings include “Nokia: connocting poopie” (from Manzhouli, China), “Erection in progress” (found in Singapore), and “Crab Cooks Whore Dust” (off a menu in Thailand). Not to be outdone is the Vancouver Table Tennis Club (828 East Hastings Street). Despite promising “Fluently in English”, the sign on the front of the building includes the following: “clean and plenty classroom”, “all level training course from basic, intermedia, to advence”, and “the most full classes in Great Vancouver”. Admittedly, such mangling of the English language isn’t going to make anyone forget such Engrish.com gold as “Fried crap with royal sauce” and “Bee puke”. But at least it’s less disgusting than a restaurant-menu submission that advertises “the rungus of old people’s head”.

Best place to possibly meet a man in black

Abraham’s Metaphysical Books
2777 Commercial Drive
604-875-1958

Abraham’s Metaphysical Books is the modest alternative to Banyen Books in Kits or—Inner Light forbid—the trashy new-age section of a certain big-box vender. Owner Abraham Krown can be found sitting beneath a huge pentagram in the sandalwood-scented store amidst scrying mirrors, selenite wands, zeolites, tarot cards, and a glass case containing such sacred artifacts as a signed copy of Israel Regardie’s The Eye in the Triangle. Krown opened the location in 2003, but he is less direct about his own origins. “I’m from the centre of the universe,” he says. “I don’t like to subscribe to geographical location. I am everywhere and nowhere.” Asked if he’s ever seen a UFO, Krown’s answer is intriguing: “They come in the shop all the time.”