Homeless in Vancouver: Look at these big beautiful blossoms

As super powers go, it’s fairly pedestrian but I can make people look.

I can make people look when I’m binning with my bicycle and trailer through a back alley and and I cross an intersecting street. Pedestrians walking on the sidewalk of the cross street will (if they can), more often than not, steal a look down the alley ahead of me.

And whenever I stop to take photographs, there are always pedestrians around me who are compelled to look in the direction they see me pointing my camera; some are further prompted to take their own photos.

People also seem to have no choice but to try and get a look at what I’m doing on my laptop, especially when I’m using it in McDonald’s. Some folks will actually stand behind me and try to shoulder surf.

Actually I realize it’s got little or nothing to do with me, it’s just curious primate behaviour: one step removed from “monkey see, monkey do”.

Don’t think I’m going out on a limb to say that people are curious

Yesterday afternoon I stopped to look at and take photos of what I’m fairly confident is a magnolia tree; planted in front of the BCAA building on the northeast corner of West Broadway Avenue and Oak Street—gnarly thin wandering branches tipped with large pink blossoms of pointed velvet-fleshed petals, if that helps any.

It was definitely a display worth looking at.

But as I crouched in the curb lane with my camera pointed toward the tree, I was frustrated by how many people (upon seeing my camera) felt the immediate need to slow down and look at the tree in such a way that blocked my shot.

A bit later however, when I could be seen balancing on a planter in order to get a few shots looking down on one of the big blossoms, the curious looks of the passers-by were much more understandable and I only took them as my due.