French Farce Works for Theatre UBC, City Plans to Increase Traffic on Cambie: VancouverIAM

This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from VancouverIAM where you will find the best blogs from Vancouver, BC as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring

City Wants to Increase Car Traffic on Cambie

From Steven Rees’s blog, Rees reports that the City of Vancouver Engineers want to “increase car traffic on Cambie now that construction of the Canada Line is nearing completion.” In his post, Rees notes that the Canada Line “is supposed to have the capacity to shift 100,000 people per day - or the equivalent of ten lanes of single occupant vehicles.” But to stay within budget they have already reduced the number of trains, because of course “there is no need for that much capacity.”

Rees has written many times that “if you go for cheap, surface light rail you can not only increase people carrying capacity you can also reduce car capacity.” He points to Copenhagen for its “long-standing policy of removing just 3% of the space allocated for cars every year,” which has improved the “liveability of the city” and, because of the “gradualism… it is accepted because it is not really noticeable.” The City should have “used the opportunity of all the people moving capacity underground to make Cambie less of a drag strip.”

Tailor Made Documentary Features Local Line of Family Tailors

GungHaggisFatChoy reviews the recent CBC documentary Tailor Made, which highlights Modernize Tailors' 80 year history in Vancouver Chinatown. “Modernize Tailors began in 1913… [and] brothers Bill and Jack took it over in 1953.”  Now Bill's younger brother Milton wants to help them “retire gracefully by turning the tailor shop into a ‘living museum’ and ‘hobby shop.’” In the post, Wong calls the film a “a wonderful documentary that was more concerned with the present day human story… than retelling the history of Chinatown.”

In the different successor storylines, “the viewer learns an appreciation for what Bill and Jack Wong created with Modernize Tailors, and why it has a special place not only in Chinatown history, but also Vancouver history.”  There are celebrity appearances by Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, a “picture of Sean Connery who was a customer, as well as a thank you note from Gordon Lightfoot.”  Wong states that Tailor Made took 1 1/2 years to film. In addition, there have been three other documentaries about Vancouver Chinatown families and individuals in the past three years: “Mary Lee Chan: Taking On City Hall, I Am the Canadian Delegate (the Douglas Jung Story), Generations: The Chan Legacy.”

Theatre UBC Proves 17th C. French Farce can be Relevant

Over at Beyond Robson, Jon reviews UBC’s current production of Learned Ladies, one of Molieres’ least produced plays. In his post, Jon writes that “a 17th century French social satire, one which seemingly holds feminism as its primary target, doesn't immediately scream ‘contemporary relevance,’ ‘rollicking entertainment,’ or '’fun Vancouver night out.’” However, Theatre at UBC has taken on the challenge, and the play runs at the Frederic Wood Theater until February 16th. This latest presentation is “a comedy surrounding the follies of three women who seek education, wit, and intelligence at the sake of their family's happiness.”

Jon says of director Patrick Gauthier, who leads “an almost faultless cast and crew,” that he delivers a “gutsy” and “surprisingly relevant and entertaining performance.” It’s “jabs at academia” give audiences something to relate to, “and are so well handled by the troupe at UBC that one easily puts aside the comedy's slightly sexist tone.” The costumes are stunning and all the strong performances “had the entire audience laughing throughout.” Our blogger calls this “one rhyming French satire you won't want to miss.” The performance runs through February 16th at UBC.

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VancouverIAM is part of a groundbreaking network of city-focused blog aggregation, user generated media and social networking websites currently rolling out across North America. Each IAM website filters and organizes blog content as well as offering video upload capabilities, social networking, blog authoring, favourites lists and rumours. The IAM Network is a division of SoMedia Networks Inc which also operates Inveslogic.com, Greenedia.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com. For more information or to register an account, visit VancouverIAM.com.