VANCOUVER - The Chronicles of Nah-Nah-Nah

Regular sufferers of my contrary mind will know that despite my constant exposure to the great wonders of the Earth's natural beauty; I am constantly moaning about not seeing enough snow. Obviously someone got as sick of hearing about it as the rest of you because, for the past two days, West Vancouver has been deluged in the white stuff.


St. Francis-in-the-Snowdrift.

Really, and I'm not complaining here, Vancouver has had rather a lot to deal with over the past few weeks. We had the torrential rain which flooded the highways and caused much spinning out of control type incidents (I was driving to the stables that day) and the huge storm which brought down trees and dumped so many pollutants into the city's reservoirs that water boiling advisorys were put in place for over a fortnight (I was walking to the office that day) and now, just a few short days later, a couple of feet of snow have been dumped over the city (I was driving to buy the bedding for my new apartment at the time. Even a blizzard could not keep me away from the sixty buck comforter clearance at Home Sense)

In many ways, it's made the past twenty four hours or so rather quiet. Church attendance was down to under two dozen on Sunday; the evening lecture series had similar numbers... And then the snow got *really* heavy. There's still at least one car sitting outside the church brought by folks who came to that lecture and haven't been able to get it back out yet.


Insert your wise-ass "faun-and-sign/lamposts-in-the-snow" type jokes here.

Monday morning, then, opened with even *more* snow and the news of public and private school closures across the north shore (Christine's screams of delight, it should be noted, were even louder than Aaron and Anna-Mae's) and had this particular youth worker been staying anywhere else but the rectory he wouldn't have trekked into work either. Sadly, I'm pulling double duties this week as both youth worker and parish administrator (sitting in an office, dealing with phonecalls and editing a newsletter... Wait? Does this sound familiar?)

What struck me, as I mentioned before, was just how quiet the day was. Aside from a few phone enquiries ("Have the snow ploughs been down yet?...") a couple of hardy visitors, the morning was cool, crisp and silent. The kids may have all been off school but, besides a few cursory taboggon runs, Caulfield Cove remained silent. It later transpired that all the kids had gone up to the top of the hill to find steeper runs. Which were mostly in the playing fields of local schools. In other words, on the one day nobody needed to go there; the one place you were guaranteed to find kids today was at school. It turned out that those who had stayed away were the wise ones. All visitors who made it to the church in anything but a four wheel drive car were promptly stuck soonafter. Special mention must go to the guy who came in to drop off some flooring equipment and got stuck for so long that he did a whole day's work stripping out the carpet in the lounge for reflooring tomorrow.

All this relatively peace and quiet went swimmingly until early afternoon. When, just as the print order for the newsletter was being written up, the power went out. Cue several hours of darkness; some huddling around the gas cooker and me raiding the hot chocolate supplies which didn't get used at youth group (to which nobody turned up. A first, then. Youth group competes with school - and loses)


When the snows come, the fabled mountain dogs of West Vancouver emerge from hiding to take control of the Earth... Either that or some dog walkers decided to brave the snow. Whatever.

Still no sign of the snow ploughs as night falls and, although the snow has stopped, the temperature isn't forecast to rise about freezing for another couple of days. In fact, with the windchill factored in, we're predicted a cool minus nineteen degrees for the night... Needless to say, plans for moving into my new apartment at the end of the week are looking slightly shaky. First order of business tomorrow will be to find the Chevy. I parked it in its normal space on Sunday evening and it's getting pretty hidden right about now. And then there's that newsletter to finish. And all the other office work. And, wait, aren't I also a youth worker?

What is the handy little moral at the end of these recent adventures and hardships, I hear you ask? What is the philosophical bon mot I plan to leave you with? Well, here it is: we got a whole pile of snow; and the rest of you didn't. Nah-nah!

VANCOUVER - I've Seen Angels Fall from Blinding Heights

Somewhere on the shiny, British exterior the dull edges are beginning to show through. I feel the sheen ever so slightly beginning to tarnish. This isn't the end of all good things or any nonsense like that, just the adjustment from new immigrant staring wide eyed at beautiful vistas to youth pastor getting on with the job he's been asked to do and having to make apologies for leaving a splotch on the sanctuary carpet as he does so. That means there may very well be a splotch on me but, what the hell; I was never a very good Mercedes.

So, anyway, Casino Royale. After a jaunt across town for a meeting which never happened (the first of many, I'm sure) I found myself with some time to waste and so thought it was about time to reaquaint myself with my old friends; the movies. My list of must sees has gotten rather long recently and now that The Prestige, Children of Men and Babel are all pretty much out of the door until DVD day I felt I should try and see at least one movie that's been on my awaited list for quite some time. Review follows. As usual, those without enough hours in their life for such things and just want my rant of the day about youth group matters should skip to the photos.

Bond films have been some of my favourites for pretty much ever. Obviously there's a certain action-movie-bloodlust reason for that. Casino Royale happily provides the requisite thrills to qualify on that basis. There's running! There's jumping! There's a bit where James Bond punches two guys at the same time and another where he deflects an oncoming machete hit with the silencer of his Walther PPK! It's all there, it's all great...

Now, the *other* reason I can rewatch the Bond films pretty much all the time is that each entry is so very much a product of its time. You want to know what was considered cutting edge at the end of the sixties? Watch the Vegas scenes in Diamonds are Forever Want to see a showreel of great cars of the eighties? Chase scenes in A View to a Kill How an action movie in the mid nineties looked? Tomorrow Never Dies. I've purposely chosen some of the iffier entries in the series to make this point. Even a bad Bond film is worth paying attention to; even if it's just for the amazing production values and attention to detail in costumes and special effects. It's why I think the whole series is still worth a great deal in modern cinema.

In this light, the supposedly revolutionary Casino Royale really isn't that revolutionary at all. The mainstays on the Bond films are still there; establishing shots of extraordinary vistas, cutting to Bond driving through said vistas in his latest car, cutting to Bond getting out of car wearing impeccable Brioni outfit etc. etc. Yes, there's no Q and no gadgets and blah blah blah. But those things have often served as distractions from the broader context of the film, rather than feeling that integral parts of it. Bond's cars get newer and newer each time around but the Q scenes remain exactly the same.

Here's what's really new in Casino Royale:

(1) As Goldeneye was designed to show Bond could operate in a post Cold War world, so Casino Royale is trying to get us to accept Bond in a post 9/11 world. Forget Die Another Day (which was already well into production when the Twin Towers were attacked); this is the start of Bond vs. terrorism. And, surprisingly, the producers have decided to get very jingoistic about Bond vs. terrorists. He, quite literally, chases them to the ends of the Earth inflicting countless amounts of damage on the way just to make sure he gets his kill (a cynical person would be reminded of Team America, World Police during action scenes in Madagascar and Miami Airport) and MI6 has had a bit of a paradigm shift as well. Back in Goldeneye, Judi Dench's M was mocking Brosnan's suave Bond as a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War." In Casino Royale she spends the entire movie actively trying to turn Craig's rougher Bond into just that, whilst bemoaning the fact that the Cold War is over. The context of this film then, is that apparently the solution to the world's problems today is pretty much what it was yesterday; to hit and shoot them until they stop moving. Which was the same context of Goldeneye and, actually, is the context for all Bond films. So, really, there's no change there.

(2) Decent dialogue. And, this time, it really is new. Forget the Purvis, Wade and Ian Feming credits; this is surely down to Crash and Million Dollar Baby's Paul Haggis, who *knows* how to write flirting banter between two intellectuals without resorting to single entendres every other sentence. This is easily the best written Bond of all time and that alone is the reason why the film is a success. If Pierce Brosnan had been given a decent script, he'd have done a fine job with it because he is a fine actor. He wasn't (well, he *nearly* was in The World is Not Enough) so he just did a pretty good job. Daniel Craig is given a decent script and he does a fine job with it because he is a fine actor. Simple. This leads to the final point...

(3) ... Daniel Craig. Who, quite simply, allows us to accept that James can still be Bond and yet bleed considerably to earn the privlidge. Craig has one of the toughest action hero roles written in Hollywood for quite some time. He has to take a beating, physically and/or emotionally in *every-single-fight.* And he does a great job with it; still making it darn obvious that his Bond is an egotistical maniac despite all his punchups. That said; the arc his character is going on is to turn him into the Bond we know and love from the previous films in the franchise. In other words, at some point in the future (and I predict it shall be the near future) he will face a megalomaniac wanting to do something truly horrific to the world and he'll make a witty bon mot whilst punching him repeatedly.

Casino Royale isn't designed to reinvent Bond; but to just make the character palatable again. It succeeds; it's great fun to watch and will be fun to rewatch because to the decent script adding to all the things we already knew and loved about Bond which are all present and correct. A few other minor points:

(1) The product placement, which is as horrendous as it was in the Brosnan days, has survived even after getting rid of the puns. This gives the film a bizarre sense of humour since, in the absence of double entendres, I found that the long, lingering shots of Bond's Ford Car, or Bond's Sony Eriksson Phone or Bond's Sony Laptop are now the jokes you laugh along to in the cinema but feel dirty for doing so. Funniest line in the film? "What's the watch, Rolex?", "Omega", "Beautiful."

(2) The producers deserve kudos for casting Eva Green and doing the impossible; make a beautiful actress with an astoundingly sexy French accent even *more* sexy by turning the accent British. Surely a first in cinema... Green is pretty great. Even if her character makes *NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.* I don't want to labour this criticism because it's a holdover from Fleming's original novel but, seriously, when you've seen the film and know what you do about her character at the end; go back and try retroactively to make sense of her behavior in individual scenes. If she weren't Eva Green, she wouldn't get away with holding such a silly role together. Thankfully, she is. If you want to see an actress try to make a silly role work and fail miserably, take a look at Halle Berry in Die Another Day.

(3) Did I mention that cool bit with the pistol silencer and the machete?


Basketball, Air hockey and a big-ol-space in a church. That'll be youth group, then.

Working with the youth group has been a lot of fun so far. The way I see it, the current tension this ministry faces is getting beyond doing interesting things each week (which is, panic attacks on Monday mornings aside, relatively straightforward) and putting together a vision for the ministry in upcoming months and years. There's a lot of ideas and possibilities. From social action and mission trips through to study and discussion groups. It takes time to work out the most appropriate actions and slot them in; whilst still being vaguely interesting in the contact times for youth group as they exist at the moment on Mondays.

That said, I've learnt in recent days that certain other people see the tensions of this ministry slightly differently. They see the tension as existing between the youth group doing what it does and the rest of the church doing what it does and making sure that the former's actions don't adversely effect the latter. Perhaps I'm just a born slob but this doesn't really seem like a big deal to me. Make some mess; clean up said mess and serve church warm and with salad garnish to next group. Done deal. However, it turns out that my attitude may be wrong. And that the mess itself, to begin with, is a great sin and no amount of cleaning can help with what is a fundamental failing of today's youth to not make a mess.

To this, I say: whatever.


Laurence mixing it up on the cello. What youth group may be all about? Possibly. Just don't tell anyone it was in the Sanctuary. It was our little secret.

Oh, there was also a big storm this week and some folks in the not-too-far-away neighborhood had parts of their houses smashed by trees, and have been without water and/or power for the best part of a week. I bet they may even have had some splotches on their carpets as well. Better send Daniel Craig round to sort them out.

VANCOUVER - Anyway the Wind Blows

Having been a bit of a social butterfly for the past few weeks I've found my way into a few other circles of St. Francis life besides those directly related with youth type matters. One of the most interesting is the bi-weekly home study group who, as well as offering me copious amounts of food and furniture, have some fabulous stories of travels past and their own journeys to Vancouver (seeing as how skiing and snowboarding are reduced to the level of 'past-times' around here,
finding a born and bred Vancouverite in West Vancouver is, apparently, what passes locally for extreme sport) and advice about living in the city. And, obviously, they ask what I've been up to in the past week.

So I reel off my list. Wake up early, drive kids to band practice, take dog for walk in lush forest park, drive Mercedes out to large house across town to look after some other children, go with them to country club and maybe go curling or play a little badmington (depending on which courts are open, y'know) Maybe head to the office or do the work on someone's wireless laptop in a nice coffee shop, before driving the Mercedes along a ridiculously beautiful section of highway to the study group. And most people, at that point, nod a bit and tell me of their similar happenings (if they're, like me, a desperate housewife) or of their job in a ridiculously beautiful office somewhere across town (if they, like me, have a ridiculously beautiful office. Well, okay, it's not *that* beautiful. But the building it resides in sure is) and away we go on some conversation usually ending with a theory on when the snow which is gathering on the peaks at Cypress or Grouse Mountain is going to get heavy enough for the skiing season to begin. Such is life.


One boy and his Mercedes. Treasure the picture. This scene shalt not be repeated in hither boy's life again. Until he nexteth housesit, of course.

One person, though, always responds a little differently. He screws up his eyes a little. He smiles. And then he says to me: "this isn't real, you know. People don't actually live like this." And he's completely right. They don't. I've been in suburbs of major cities, and quite recently too, where running water if an optional extra and six hours of cut power at the height of the summer heat is regarded as a good day (and it's not like these things are for using an AC unit. This is just for turning on the one hob ring to make dinner) So what is 'real life' and does this weird lifestyle actually count?

Real life is such a hard concept to define, I think, because the standards we measure it against are constantly shifting around. Shit happens; life's what goes on as you attempt to dodge it, get as little on your shoes as possible and blame somebody else when folks ask you what that awful smell on you is. What seems to happen in this town, though, is that folks try to set their ideal life standards in such a way as to try and make themselves immune to the changeability of life. The weather is a good example of this since Vancouver, on a natural level, has delightfully random standards. In the course of a day, we can go from bright and clear skys through to monsoons on the highway.


Downtown Vancouver. Somewhere, off frame, the clouds are impatiently gathering. Waiting to roll on in and start causing a ruckus.

Yet the lifestyle makes little or no concessions to the weather. The city is designed around the car, there are few outdoor activities which have not been replicated indoors (and often on a larger scale) The lifestyle operates through a combination of routine and careful execution. Even the change of the seasons is catered for, with separate cabin visiting in the winter offsetting the overseas travel of the summer and baking rituals in the fall. That said, there are a plethora of weddings and funerals in any given month here. Life still finds a way of throwing in the unexpected. The question is; is there enough room for the unexpected in the West Vancouver lifestyle? And, more to the point, where does God fit in? He who has historically shown great impatience with lifestyles which are controlled, categorised and easily referenced?

I sense that my youth ministry will revolve around trying to find an answer to that question, and being in a place where I can throw in a few curve balls of my own to mix things up a little. To do that, though, I can't be where I am now. I need to be across town in North Vancouver, in my new apartment where I cat might be swung if only it's an ickle, docile one. And I need to get there in my new car, a busted up Chevvy with such endearing quirks as a driver's door which may or may not choose to open when shoved hard from the inside. But someone still needs to give me that wireless laptop I was talking about. Let's not get silly about this, people...