DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Last Fall, the auto club’s VIA Magazine ran an article about Vancouver, British Columbia. The first paragraph grabbed my attention:

For the last five years, Vancouver artist Kent Avery has spent his weekends stacking stones on the English Bay waterfront… Avery hops down off the seawall and begins to tug and lug, setting one rock atop another until he has engineered a Dr. Seuss skyline of improbable teetering obelisks, sometimes more than a hundred of them, precarious sky castles three, five, 12 rocks tall. Eventually, the incoming tide knocks them all down and Avery starts over. He leaves a tip jar on the wall beside a notebook of facts and photos. [The] book boasts, “It’s all about balance!”

Regular readers of this site may recall my penchant for creating stone sculptures. But mine are lame compared to Avery’s. I use flat stones because they’re easier to stack… whereas Avery finds the round and oblong ones and stacks them improbably on end. Check out this photo from Mike Whybark’s gallery.

During our recent visit to Vancouver, I made sure to seek out Kent Avery and his mastery of balance. We parked in the southwest corner of Stanley Park and hiked north, clockwise around the park. I quizzed every pedestrian, flapping the VIA article: “Have you seen this man?!” Everyone I asked had seen the sculptures, but not that day. It seems Avery had vanished like his ephemeral art.

I believe we found the area where he works, though, so we set about creating a few sculptures of our own. For the first time I tried to do this the hard way — I found a round stone and stood it on end on a boulder. Then I surprised myself and stacked another one on top — although not on end, alas!

Townshend on Michael Moore (seen in Pete Townshend’s diary):

[Michael Moore] will have to work very, very hard to convince me that a man with a camera is going to change the world more effectively than a man with a guitar.

What is the Meatrix?

I consider it a public service, if not a public duty, to explain why pizza can be considered a health food. Allow me to quote from the HerbalGram article on lycopene:

Lycopene is a potent quencher of singlet oxygen (a reactive form of oxygen), which suggests that it may have comparatively stronger antioxidant properties than other major plasma carotenoids… Lycopene has been found to be a potent and specific inhibitor of cancer cell proliferation… Lycopene induces Phase II enzymes which help to eliminate carcinogens and toxins from the body.

The article goes deep into the science behind the claims, and uses the phrase “conjugate reactive electrophiles” which makes me smile because it reminds me of dack’s web economy bullshit generator.

Anyway, in the table of lycopene content of common foods, the highest-rated item is, you guessed it, pizza sauce.

Pictured is the Starbucks franchise at the corner of Thurlow and Robson in Vancouver, BC… as seen from inside the other Starbucks at the corner of Thurlow and Robson in Vancouver, BC. Yes, there are two Starbucks stores at the same intersection, diagonally opposite one another.

The best thing I can say about this is that both Starbucks had plenty of open seats, whereas the non-chain Italian coffee house at one of the other two corners had a huge crowd and a line waiting for tables.

The worst thing I can say is that I went into Starbucks and took one of those open seats. I ordered an oatmeal cookie and a bottle of root beer, thereby contributing to the decline of cultural diversity as well as to the success of an exported American monopoly. Sigh. At least I didn’t also visit KFC, McDonald’s, Burger King, Quiznos, etc., despite numerous opportunities.

(The truth is, given that there are 112 Starbucks in Vancouver, concentrated in the commercial and tourist areas, the chances of not going into one, at least inadvertently, are lower than you’d think!)