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Sunday, October 11th, 2009 | Author: Trevor Ellestad
Glasnost at POP UP...the Shop

Glasnost at POP UP...the Shop

POP UP… The Shop, located in the heart of Gastown is an exciting concept in Vancouver retail. POP UP provides local designers, vintage dealers, and retailers the opportunity to showcase their wares for a couple of days in their very own shop.

On October 16th and 17th, local designer Stephanie Schneider will be unveiling her Fall Collection to Vancouver. Her line, Glasnost, consisting of skirts, shirts and jackets complemented with leather work designs including hip-sacks, wallets and custom flasks for the gents will all be priced to sell.

Come down and check out Stephanie’s exciting new line on October 16th and 17th between 11am-9pm.

glasnost.ca

More information on POP Up… The Shop:

Located in the heart of uber-hip Gastown, this unique concept store offers an ever-changing installation of retailers and products from emerging designers & vintage dealers to bigger brands blowing out discount stock and samples.

Thursday, December 04th, 2008 | Author: Trevor Ellestad

My brain has been something of a broken record the last while.  Phrases and images of short duration have been repeating themselves continuously. I’ve come to wonder if, like a sick child, my brain can’t keep any of my memories down. Rather, my brain is regurgitating past thoughts, spitting out chunks of old haiku poems, dirty fantasies, and random tidbits of information.

One of the most common sets of words that have been popping up has been “gay sensation”. Over and over again this simple pair of words has come to the surface of my thoughts, and only today have I stopped to think about what this might mean. When I think about these words I’m forced to wonder what it takes to be a gay sensation, and why, as with all buzz words and tags, has this seemingly innocent pair, come to incorporate itself into so many recent “newsworthy” events.

From a Vancouver standpoint some of these newsworthy events include: Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model, Mr. Gay Canada, and most recently, the unabashed promotion of Peter Breeze, some young twinky looking triple threat whose music makes my ears hurt. But, it seems to be only my ears a hurtin’ because the gay community seems to be backing him up full force. And, good on them for backing up a comrade who has probably paid his dues in the Western Canadian gay circuit.  After all, it is the gay way isn’t it?

Well frankly, I probably wouldn’t know anyways. Everything I’ve ever learned about the “gay way” I learned from Xtra West, late night movies on Showcase, and my rare physical encounters with the gay community. Until recently I have been a gay man, totally immersed in a straight person’s world. Granted I have the odd chum of my sexual persuasion, but we’ve inevitably ended up in bed with each other, and inevitably gone our separate ways. I’ve only recently hit my gay puberty, coming to terms with the fact that every gay man deserves to be a part of a world that he may have shied away from previously. I suppose I’ve been hiding behind my own misperceptions of the gay community for way too long as well. I’ve been hiding behind all my straight friends, completely comfortable in my sexuality, but a stranger in my own life none the less.

Maybe all these reasons are why I find it so easy to pass judgment on the gay community, or perhaps it is just my overriding cynicism, but as I begin to engage as a gay debutante in a whole new world, I should at the very least give all this gay hysteria a chance, shouldn’t I?

My alien presence in this world is still too apparent, I can’t help but be completely skeptical about what it really takes to be a true sensation in today’s world. Is it enough to be a talentless hack, but ride in a chariot of gayness? I guess it’s too early for me to tell, and perhaps the longer I spend in this brave new gay world, the more my tastes will change too. Perhaps what sounded, or looked amazing today will waste away behind my spanking new rose-colored glasses. Perhaps my belly will tighten further than ever before and my pecks will blossom in perfect symphony with my ass. Perhaps one day too, I will become a gay sensation.

Saturday, October 25th, 2008 | Author: Trevor Ellestad

Parade of Lost Souls

I spent tonight in the company of a three-year-old and a cacophony of bubbles and the beating of drums during the Parade of Lost Souls on Commercial Drive. The candle-lit tables and shelves scattered throughout Grandview Park caught my attention first. Perhaps it was the opportunity for the slightest of heat that drew me to the fire, or my fascination with the strange edifices that they adorned.

Parade of Lost Souls

The streets that surrounded the park were covered with decorations as unique as the costumes around me. I am amused to see faces in windows and the lifelessness of houses that have been left vacant of surprises. There is a unique fascination that we westerners seem to have in Halloween, and I wonder where its origins lie. Why we find cause only once a year to dress silly and traipse around escapes me. Often I find it merely leaves us feeling obligated to outshine others or perhaps guilty for not partaking. Needless to say, this festival is a gift to the neighbourhood and the city, bringing light and sound to an otherwise deadly still season.

A sign proclaims to honour the dead, above me, and white birds born of paper dance around our heads. It is in the delicate nature of these things that I find us to be celebrating life more than anything. And, amongst all these various forms of death, it is the vibrancy of the changing of seasons, the fire, and the musical accompaniment that shine through.

The clear skies send the chill in the pavement through the soles of my converse and up into my legs and abdomen. As I walk away I can feel the heat of the festivities on my back and hear the fireworks fading in the distance. Soon my companion and I reach 1st Avenue, and I’m reminded of the existence of cars and pavement. We are forced to walk once again on the sidewalk and the shock of reality sets in.

I wonder sometimes, if to an outsider, it is the traffic jams and the regular routine of our work-weeks that seem peculiar. If it is in the honouring of the dead that I find such warmth, why is it still, that in what we call life, I find such a cold embrace? It seems sometimes, that all our struggles need to dissipate, is the closing of roads and a certain balance of chaos, fuelled by candles, bubbles, and fireworks.