Vancouver Special

Description

Vancouver is at a crossroads in its history--host to the 2010 Winter Olympics and home to the poorest neighborhood in Canada, it is a young, multicultural city with a vibrant surface and a violent undercoat. In Vancouver Special, an alternative guidebook, writer and performer Charles Demers digs deep to examine the past, present, and future of Vancouver, shedding light on the various strategies and influences that have made the city what it is today (and what it should be). Vancouver Special is a love letter to the city, taking a no-holds-barred look at Lotusland with verve, wit, and insight.

Charles Demers was born and raised in Vancouver. He is an activist, journalist, and comedian; he often performs as one-half of the comedy sketch duo Bucket, an act that Robin Williams called ?the future of comedy.?

A lot of people have tried to explain Vancouver. But to do justice to a place so blithe yet smug, weird yet eager to please, good willed yet tough on poor folks, well, you'd need a hilarious stand-up-comic who also happens to have laser beam powers of social criticism. Fortunately we have that guy. Charles Demers. And sure enough, he nails this city, cold. --David Beers, editor of "The Tyee"--David Beers "David Beers " It's only fitting that a city with so many unlikely facets--its conspicuous wealth and conspicuously ignored poverty, its inscrutable WASPiness and inscrutable Asian-ness, its left-wing face and right-wing heart--should be both celebrated and excoriated by a writer with such multifarious abilities. Taking Vancouver on one neighbourhood at a time, Charles Demers examines his hometown from both the tender filter of personal history and a wider, socio-historical point-of-view. A comedian, political activist, and novelist, Demers writes so well about Vancouver because his essays are like the city at its best: open-minded, compassionate, and never boring. --Kevin Chong, author of "Baroque-a-Nova "and "Neil Young Nation"--Kevin Chong"Kevin Chong" (09/22/2009)