I first got the idea I might try and visit Vancouver after I saw the announcement for the Vancouver Art Book Fair likely sometime last Fall. The following is a brief travelogue. Many thanks to Rachel, Sheryda, Bopha who helped make this happen, and to everyone who passed along their Vancouver recommendations.
Thursday, July 3
I read Alison L. Strayer’s forthcoming translation of Annie Ernaux’s The Other Girl on the plane (it’s incredible). I arrive to Vancouver around noon Pacific Time and grab a Lyft to Takenaka in Gastown, recommended to me by Pablo. I was in a daze not having slept much the night before. I ordered one of the daily lunch specials, and while the food was pretty, everyone else’s plates looked so much better (in my sleep deprivation, I overlooked the fact that I was at an “uni bar.” Oops). Then I walked to Chinatown to kill some time at Massy before heading to the hostel. I saw some cool old Semiotexte editions. I remember being surprised to see so many American books, particularly the fiction titles. It didn’t make sense to purchase any of these while in Canada, so I headed over to the Hi Vancouver off Burnaby St. a little early— it’s a great hostel. Clean, quiet, near the water. After setting down my stuff, I opted to take a walk by the seawall rather than attend the opening event at Western Front. I ended up at English Bay Beach Park. Then I walked down Davie, bought some stamps (the post office is open until 9pm??), saw a guy steal some stuff from what I guess is a Canadian version of Rite-Aid. The cashier tried to call for security, but nobody really cared. On his way out the guy yelled: “THANK YOU!" Bold. Then I passed by Little Sister’s Book Emporium. Went in to pay respects. They had a cool selection of newer gay titles and some poetry. After, I bought some cake from Transylvanian Traditions before they closed. The guy who makes the cakes tried to sell me the rum cake. Fun! But I don’t like boozy cakes. I got some chicken skewers and roti canai to go from Banana Leaf and brought it back to the hostel courtyard. I watched the sunset. Both the cake and the roti looked better than they ate. It didn’t matter. I had arrived to Vancouver, the weather was beautiful and my bank account was flush.
Friday, July 4
I met up with Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross near 11am at a very happening brunch spot, Greenhorn Cafe. I first met Jacquie during the Zoom era in one of my Poetry Project virtual workshops and again in Studio / Diary where she also met Sheryda. It was a coincidence that our books share a publication date, and it was our good fortune to be on the same VABF panel Saturday. I read her book, The Longest Way to Eat a Melon— highly recommend!— and was hoping to share select moments from it with the students in one of the low-res MFA programs I teach in. We chatted about life in Vancouver, work, independent publishing. The avocado toast was great. We parted ways and I walked down Robson to meet up with Rachel. While I had basically just eaten, Rachel had not so we wandered into Joyeaux Cafe, a Vietnamese spot downtown near the waterfront— great ambiance. Walking around downtown, the city’s character felt a bit indistinct. In some ways, I registered it as a very global metro: there seemed to be many different kinds of people passing through, in addition to plenty of tourists (in town for “AA World”… many jokes ensued), but it was hard to grasp the character of the city beyond the fact that it was beautiful and surrounded by mountains and water. I don’t know what I expected— perhaps something more “foreign.” Since Rachel was due back in NY before not too long, I asked her to decide how we’d spend the afternoon before Friday night fair preview. So we went shopping at One of a Few. At the shop, I noticed an upcycled men’s shirt with some circular cut outs and bungee ties. It was cool. The shopgirl, Annie, said it was made by “a local designer” (Rachel and I discovered later over dinner that the designer was in fact the shopgirl, Annie— very coy!). I convinced R it was a good price once you convert from Canadian to USD. After, we ended up back in Gastown around the corner from where I was the day before; we ran into Alisha and J. I knew Alisha had roots in Canada, but it was a coincidence that we ran into her here in her hometown while she was visiting (Alisha’s book, A Catalogue of Risk, is also recently out with Wendy’s Subway— it’s beautiful). After coffee, Rachel and I headed to the book fair. The irony was not lost on me that I had become a bookseller, selling a book about a woman who quits her job as a bookseller in order to live in fiction. I decided that in order to avoid the conflict introduced by the question of whether I am a novelist or a poet, I would offer: “I am a conceptual artist whose medium is writing.” The rest of the night is a bit of a blur.
Saturday, July 5
The next day I met up with Alisha for brunch at Templeton diner before meeting Rachel back at the fair; I convinced Alisha to do a little bit of tabling with us. I stopped in to see the first talk, “Care Where No-One Does,” ft. Freek Lomme and Kevin Yuen-Kit Lo. They discussed illegible practices, graphic design, working on the periphery, having a day job, among other things; I felt like I was dropping in on an ongoing dialogue and left inspired. I guess I felt relieved to be in the company of people who appeared to have similar values with respect to art, commodities, community, collaboration, distribution. While I’d been to the NYABF at least twice, this fair at Roundhouse Community Centre was a much smaller scale event; there were maybe 40 tables altogether; participating as an author and tabling with Rachel allowed me to observe the comings and goings in a much different way than as an attendee. The fair felt consistently busy and because of the central downtown location and great weather, all kinds of people were passing through, not just art-book-fair-people (which is definitely a type). As one attendee remarked, “Go— Look! So many beautiful books!” What I like about art book fairs (vs AWP, for example) is that it invites general public to browse and explore; whether or not you buy anything (there are a lot of different price points— the cheapest books I saw were recent issues of Ker-bloom! for $2.50 which made me SO nostalgic because this was one of the first zines I ever read) there’s a lot you can learn and experience by just looking and browsing. While there was mostly Canadian and Vancouver-based artists and publishers present, there were some Americans in the mix besides us, and I never took it for granted the intermingling made possible by this kind of setup. It was a great time and I got to reconnect with so many old friends, like Joy, Editor at C Magazine, and Emily, the Literary Editor at The Capilano Review (where Jacquelyn is also the arts editor). I was ecstatic. Bopha Chhay, Associate Curator at Libby Leshgold Gallery, moderated the panel with me, Jacquie, Sheryda, and Rachel. To be in conversation with all these really brilliant and talented writers, educators, and culture workers was so wonderful. By the end of the second day, we sold out of copies of my book and I had no more pencils. Once the fair wrapped, Rachel and I headed to a housesit in Strathcona to drop off our stuff before heading out to dinner with some other New Yorkers - friends of friends - who were visiting at Kalvin’s Taiwanese restaurant off Victoria Drive. The gossip plus the prawns with egg yolk were def among the highlights.
Sunday, July 6
Last day of the fair. I told Rachel to go scope out the other tables before it got busy. I held down the fort and sold the last copy of Alisha’s book before heading down the street to a solo omakase experience I booked for myself in advance: 15 courses. Some were great and some were just OK. I started tearing up four courses in after eating some torched amberjack. It was just so beautiful. The uni was not out of this world. The soba was excellent. But at the end of the meal, when the staff congratulated me on my “new publication” I again began to tear up. I told them on the reservation form that that was the “special occasion,” so it’s not like I was surprised, but I was caught off-guard. I returned to the fair thinking I would charge my phone and then explore a little more of the city, but I was sad Rachel was leaving and wanted to hang out; I was also enjoying selling my friends’ books! So I opted to do more tabling, buy more books, and made a sales goal to sell ten books in the last hour— mainly so Rachel wouldn’t have to schlep whatever didn’t sell back to Brooklyn. Plus, I was energized: at 4PM there was still a ton of people milling about. I thought we made a great team slinging books, until R suggested I basically bullied some guy sent to the fair by his girlfriend to buy a copy of Na Mira’s The Book of Na. It was my first time tabling. I had zero chill. I also like to believe I know good shit when I see it. But there were moments where I felt like I was being a stereotypical pushy American (“You should go into sales!”). At the close of the fair at 5PM, there was a spontaneous round of applause, lots of good cheer, and by 5:10, Rachel had packed up whatever books were left, and by 5:30, we said our goodbyes. I headed to Granville Island with some new friends, took a peek in Upstart & Crow, had a mojito, and called it an early night.
Monday, July 7
Now that the book fair was over, I decided I would explore beyond downtown, and took up another recommendation to check out The Museum of Anthropology at UBC and The Asian Centre. “Is this the school where Sheryda works??” It was a beautiful campus. The museum was incredible; I got to catch work by Rebecca Belmore, which was pretty intense. I felt totally out of my depth— it was awesome.1 The plan was to meet Joy at the beach after, but then I got a text from her that said there were 409 stairs on the way to Wreck. Uhhhh… I was wearing sneakers, but I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task. I figured what the hell, I’ll do it. But I must have mixed up the trails, as did Joy, because I went down the staircase, and never found Joy, though apparently, she was already at the beach. It turns out we were on different sections of the same beach as we had arrived via different staircases. OK! So we ended up meeting again at the pub after I passed through the rose garden which was the most charming. I very badly wished for an Aperol spritz, but I had to hop on a bus to meet Bopha, Troy, and Sheryda at Phnom Penh for dinner at six. We shared the butter beef, the chicken wings, luc lac, and god knows what else. I think I realized: my digestion is too weak to eat so much raw food. And all everyone does in Vancouver is bike, go to the beach, and eat. Another thing I learned: I need physical therapy. Going down the 409 (or was it 377?) stairs was harder than coming up (It’s three days later, and I’m still feeling it).
Tuesday, July 8
My last day in Vancouver. I wanted to find this public artwork by Ken Lum, A Tale of Two Children. Before seeking it out, I grabbed a sandwich at Finch’s. Let it be said: I can be a very basic bxtch and the things I like are often quite simple. For me: nothing beats a good sandwich. So the best meal I had without a doubt was the pear sandwich— with prosciutto, blue brie, roasted walnuts, extra virgin olive oil & balsamic vinegar all on a baguette. That, plus a club soda, and I was good. On my way out, I spotted the musician Dan Bejar— OK! My urban exploring took me through some crazy industrial area, and after some wandering and neighborhood querying, I finally found Lum’s piece. After that, I walked to Emily Carr to check out READ bookstore and say one last goodbye to Bopha, Lyndsay, and Troy. Bopha showed me around, I bought more books, including another copy of Bopha’s book for Rachel. Dropped some postcards in the mail, ran into Freek, and got some chocolate covered potato chip ice cream at Earnest. That ice cream was the second best thing I ate during my whole trip. It was crunchy and creamy, good lord. Then I made my way to Contemporary Art Gallery to meet up with Godfre Leung who I knew from Minneapolis. He gave me a walk through of the CGFNY and Lindsay McIntyre shows— I especially loved McIntyre’s film Tuktuit. We met Alex and Louis at Guu. The yaki udon was so sticky and addictive— incredible comfort food on this last rainy day. I went back to Strathcona, cleaned up a bit, and re-watched Karyn Kusama’s Destroyer (2018).
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People kept asking me how is it possible that I could know so many people in this city I had never visited. Because I put in the steps. And I’ve been doing that for years. This diary isn’t just a flex: I’m sharing a version of what the legwork looks like so I don’t forget. Work not depicted above: the grants I applied to in advance and receipts I need to file to get reimbursed for some (not all) of my expenses. Travel is so nerve-wracking for me, especially by plane (I struggle with “transitions”). But I do it because it’s one of the ways I activate my intellectual life and invest in my practice so as to not unfairly burden other people (i.e. my significant other, family members, or students) with demands that they fulfill all my needs as an artist. I know some people (artists, writers, programmers) think that by publishing a book or announcing an exhibition, your community will instantly show up. That is unrealistic. It takes years of showing up, plus many emails, zooms to build these relationships. On the other hand, if you show up enough times, someone will eventually recognize you. I want to end with something funny and off-hand Bopha said: “Just be cool. Don’t be a weirdo.”
This phrase is a catch-all, condensation. For example, one of the most powerful images I saw at the Asian Centre, pulled from one of the UBC special collections, was a photograph of a Japanese Canadian child in an internment camp from B.C.’s “interior,” as described by the caption. I don’t know how to write about this here and so wish to reflect on it elsewhere.
Cute! I also have started IDing as a conceptual artist whose primary concept is performance.