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cedarboughs · 1 year

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The Californians

The posters had been up all over town and the hill for a month. The International Junior Freeriding Cup, presented by a major car brand. They would rip down the rails and groomed jumps of the terrain park underneath the Lynx Quad, and everyone would cheer. We were dreading it. A competition meant a flood of athletes descending on Raven River in a loose horde, high on glory and just plain high, and every modifier on the poster winnowed the athletes, already a particular breed, into a narrower clan. Junior: teenage athletes. International Junior: American teenage athletes. Given that so particular flood, then, maybe the conversation I had on Hemlock Street was inevitable.

We were headed down Hemlock to the Trapper’s Cabin liquor store, three of us, lifties all, from the rental house. Antoine and Pierre had moved in there a few weeks ago, just after the start of the season, during the second hiring spree. Antoine, from Trois-Rivieres, was a huge birdwatcher, and had taught me how to identify waxwings by the way they flocked. I had taught him Ticket to Ride - the board game, not the Beatles song. Pierre, from Gatineau, had given me his password to an online indie short film festival out of Montreal. I had found his best golf disc when he lost it in the snow.

It was a warm night for January. We were in little more than sweaters, and wide Hemlock was alive. There were no fences on the residential side of the street, and between houses you could see and smell fires cracking in backyards, joints being passed around them. Somewhere down a side street, a guitar was playing some cowboy chords. We were just passing the bottle depot when footsteps fell in behind us, crunching on the old snow of the sidewalk.

“Where’s the party?” said a voice, male, barely broken, and with a faintly detectable American-style fry on the syllables.

I was in a good mood, so I glanced back and said, “Right here, man! This sidewalk is the party!”

I expected in response a half-ironic but genuinely enthused fist pump and a mumbled ‘Hell yeah,’ an acknowledgement of the simple joy of existing, of standing on the cusp of the night, the unknown and, for all we knew then, the endless night, like a fresh-powder chute hidden by cliffs, and we were standing at the drop-in, clicking poles, ignorant of what the line might hold but ready to drop all the same.

But there was no fist pump, no feeling of the drop back there. Instead, I turned and started walking switch to look at round faces, unmasked, deadly serious, hanging over shelf-creased Arc'teryx jackets. The one who’d spoken, I think, had a green jacket and was a bit shorter. The other was in orange and a little lankier.

“Are you guys going to a party?” Green asked flatly.

Now, I did really think that the party was there on the sidewalk. Not to get too woo-woo about it, but on some level it’s true that a party is a state of mind. That said, we were also on our way to a real party, that is to say, a physical party, nothing wild, but a living room in another rental, some drinks, and a Bluetooth speaker. Whoever brought a speaker somewhere was always hailed as a hero. Tunes out loud always brought things up, but a speaker cost well over a day’s wages for a liftie, probably close to a week’s rent. I had looked at them a half-dozen times, but never yet brought myself to justify it. It was an expensive sacrifice to the altar of kicks. Kicks! Did anyone actually call a fun night out ‘kicks?’ anymore? Not likely, but I didn’t mind thinking it. Whenever I started thinking in Kerouacisms, I knew my energy was right for the night. It was Margot Frances and Jimmy Anders, who had lived in the basement of the rental house before Antoine and Pierre, who had left On the Road in the kitchen for me when they moved out, after all. I could do a lot worse than taking some of the slang from it and leaving the homophobic and misogynistic bits. I wonder vaguely if Margot and Jimmy would be at the other house tonight. I had heard they were back in town, after tree-planting somewhere in the Cariboo for the summer. I had cooked my best chickpea pasta for Jimmy and Margot and given them the recipe. Margot had taught me Norwegian Wood – The Beatles song, not the Murakami novel. I had given Jimmy the novel.

So, yes, we were going to a party. But we’d already agreed, without a word exchanged, that these guys wouldn't be following us there.

“We’re looking for hookers,” said Green.

“Hookers and molly,” said Orange. ”You know what molly is?”

MDMA. I did know. I’d seen enough videos of glassy-eyed people grinding their teeth in dark parkades to know. It wasn’t much of a Raven drug. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there were drugs aplenty in town. I’d heard the rumours about how to get shrooms, and testimonies from lifties who insisted it was the only way to watch 2001. And of course, by my calculations there was a cannabis shop for every one-and-a-half-thousand people in the region, which had to be some kind of record, and that was just the legal trade. From what I’d heard, most people still got back-alley stuff, whether out of price or habit, since there was almost no enforcement on it anyway. Last summer during the public concert series, there was an opening act by the guy who owned the disc golf course, whose legal name was Eternity Equinox. He’d sung four songs, and three of them were about how pot was an herb that he grew in his garden and so should be legalized. I don’t think anyone had the heart to tell him that this had been the case for years. Margot said it was the best act of the season.

But I’d never heard of MDMA in Raven River. I knew what it was, but didn’t know what it was, and maybe that was the difference. The drugs people wanted here were plants and mushrooms. You could imagine every step from growing in the woods to a backyard fire. Ecstasy was a pill, wasn’t it? Like Tylenol. Totally synthetic. I had no conception of where Eternity Equinox’s garden might come in.

“Bro, d’you know where to find hookers?” Green said again.

I didn’t know if there were sex workers in Raven. It was certainly possible, but I’d never heard of it. I was still in a good mood, though, so I joked back at them: “Everyone’s a hooker for a price, right? For a million bucks I’ll do anything!”

Again, no laughter, but in the dark patch between street lights I could feel more than see a smirk come to Green’s face. ”My daddy’s a millionaire,” he said, “I could give you fifty thousand right now.”

“Right now? For nothing? Deal!”

“I’ll give you ten thousand to suck my cock,” he said.

“We’re from California,” Orange put in, as if to support the claim. Only millionaires came from California, I guess he meant to say, and not from anywhere else.

Antoine turned around for the first time and asked, “How old are you guys?”

“I’m fifteen and he’s sixteen,” said Green.

“Ah,” said Pierre, and there was great understanding in the syllable. Fifteen. Children of the new millennium. It still struck me as odd that birth years could start with a 2 for people who knew what drugs were. The Californians were born well after the twin towers crumbled down, just around when the economy followed, when, as Arcade Fire put it, we watched the markets crash, and the promises we were made were torn. We had to make our own promises after that. It became clear after a few years that the things we were told in school, that we could all climb the ladder of work and profit, that hard work paid out in the end in the victorious capitalism in which we lived, all that was bunk. So, we had to figure out something else. I think we were all still trying to figure out what that was, but I don’t know. It’s not as if we talked about it. And for kids like these Californians, it was history anyway. They had their own shatterings. I sometimes lamented that my life beyond my hometown had been almost entirely pandemic, but hell, these kids’ whole teens had mostly been pandemic so far.

“Ten thousand dollars, bro, if you want it.”

“What do you guys do for fun around here?” asked Orange.

I said, ”Ski,” just as Pierre said “Snowboard.”

Well, it was the Kootenays in January. What answer did they expect?

“I can do a backflip,” said Orange.

“That’s really cool,” said Pierre, falling back with them a bit. It was cool. I couldn’t do a backflip. Pierre could, I’d seen it once, but he didn’t often. When we rode together we spent more time digging the resort and the sidecountry for hidden lines, untouched pockets of treacherous but ridable alpine terrain far down the remotest ends of ridges where no one had dared to go since the snow fell. Backflips by the chair were cool, but they took time away from that.

“This place is kinds fucking lame,” said Green, “There’s really no hookers except you fags?”

“We’re not hookers. Or gay,” said Antoine.

“Ten thousand, dude.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Antoine. We crossed a side street and he picked up his pace, muttering to me, “Viens. On parle en Francais, ouais?”

My French was hardly good enough to hold any sort of conversation even in the enunciated Parisian accent of school memories and Duolingo. In Quebec French I was hopeless. Antoine knew that, though. He was trying to talk so that the Californians couldn’t overhear. He would go easy on me.

“D’accord,” I said, wondering if the Californians could tell how bad my accent was, how transparent our attempt at coding our words was from them. We had no clue that they didn’t also speak French, I suppose. Somehow it just seemed unlikely.

“I think they are rich,” said Antoine, in a French that was much slower and more scholarly than his and Pierre’s usual cheerful chatter, “They think they can pay for anything. It changes you as a person.”

“Oui,” I said back, “I mean, ouais. And they’re fifteen!”

“Are you gonna suck my cock for ten thousand dollars?” Green shouted again.

“You are going to do it?” asked Antoine, a smirk in his voice.

I struggled to find the words in French to explain. Even “Non,” was too transparent, as it sounded just like the English word. So, I just said “They’re fifteen,“ again, ils on quinze ans, and Antoine nodded sagely.

Pierre was hanging back, speaking with the Californians quietly. Antoine glanced at the three of them. “He’s good at talking to them,” he said. We were getting close to the liquor store now, and they could tell. The sign with the trapper in his David Thompson hat was lit and visible. They knew where we were going, and switched tactics accordingly. The ten thousand dollars to be added to a sex offenders registry seemed to be, mercifully, put to the wayside.

“Will you buy us beer?”

“Maybe,” Pierre said diplomatically.

“We want PBR. Do you know what PBR is?”

Do you know what PBR is? I wanted to say back to them, it’s cheap shit. Instead I said, “Yeah, I know PBR.”

“Pabst?” asked Pierre. I nodded. “Ah,” he said, ”Cheap shit.”

“Not bad as cheap shit goes,” I said, granting a concession to the Californians. It was true; it wasn’t like it was Kokanee.

Pierre held the Californians back again as Antoine and I went ahead. With Pierre distracting them, we could talk in English now.

“There’s no price for sucking underage dick,” he said.

“No, of course not.”

“I don’t want to be on a registry. It’s selling your freedom.”

“And your self-respect. It’s just a horrible thing to do. I wouldn’t want to do it even if they were our age, but at least it wouldn’t be criminal. They think they can just pay us to become criminals. Do you think they were joking? They have to be just joking. Right?”

“I don’t know, man. I really don’t know. Money does things to you. They think they can just own people.”

We came to a stop at last, across the road from the Trapper’s Cabin, the five of us hemmed into a two-by-two line by the snowbanks. Pierre came over to us, a messenger crossing No Man’s Land, and leaned in. “I told them we would get them beer as long as they don’t follow us.” Antoine and I nodded. This seemed like a fair price for peace.

“Will you get me a six-pack of PBR?” asked Green.

“I’ll get you one can,” I said.

“Two,” said Green.

PBR was cheap shit, and there were two of them. “Alright,” I said.

We started off across the road. As we went, Green dug his hands into his pockets and said to Orange, “Bro. It’s kind of lame. I thought the team was gonna party.”

The team. Somehow, until then, I hadn’t thought about the freeride competition. But of course, that was why they were here, wandering the streets unsupervised. This was probably one of the first times they had a weekend away from their parents, who were back in Los Angeles, busy with their millionaire business. If they were millionaires. As we crossed Hemlock I thought about the bad teen movies I’d seen, where the heroes - to stretch a term – pulled off such elaborate scams, whole layers of lies. I thought about the party scene in every movie like that, with flashing coloured lights coming from who-knew-where in a house full of people with their arms up, music blasting, not a speaker in sight. Part of me still thought that maybe parties like that did exist, and just like in high school, I still wasn‘t in enough loops to know about them. But no, I’m sure I would have seen one by now. I thought about pop songs and trap-hop songs, music videos and lyrics, popping pills and hoes in the back seat. Like I said, Hemlock is a wide street.

There was only one car parked at the Trapper’s Cabin. I hadn’t noticed it across the street, but it materialized in the red light up close. I was terrible at recognizing cars – these days they were uniformly bubbly and monochrome, the better to resell you to someone who might not like a certain colour, my dear - but this was a car I would remember for years. It was a pale green chevy pickup, circa early nineties model, with “protect parks” stickers on the tailgate and no less than three Rasta bobbleheads all lined up in the windshield. The roof was folded in a way that was definitely off-model, and I knew it was because it had collapsed in after a huge dump of snow, and then been punched back out and reinforced with two-by-fours nailed to the inside. This was Margot Frances and Jimmy Anders’ truck, a Genuine Kootenay Beater. When walking along the ski hill road with intent to get up there close to opening, it was generally known that if a clean black Mercedes SUV passed by, it wasn’t worth the muscle motion to send up a thumb. If a GKB the colour of road salt grumbled past, though, that was usually your way. And absent the quasi-trusty shuttle bus, Margot and Jimmy’s truck was my favourite way to ride up or down. There was just one back seat, which I had to fold into and sit sideways in, and feeling not at all like I’d be safe in a crash, we would set off around the hairpin switchbacks on the hill road, playing The Doors out loud on Margot’s Bluetooth and talking about our runs for the day.

If one of them was shopping, I’d say hi.

I’ve never thought of a liquor store as a refuge before, probably, and thankfully, because I’m not an alcoholic. But it was kind of nice having a place that we knew the Californians couldn’t follow. We could talk freely here, albeit with the restriction that we couldn't explicitly mention our plan to toss some cans to underage Americans, although in fairness, it was the Trapper's Cabin, the less refined of the two liquor stores in Raven River, and given it was Raven River, that was saying something, so I doubt the cashier would have cared in the least. He was slumped over the counter, head in his hands, hands breaking up the fall of his blond hair, which fell too around wire-framed round glasses – blond! Round glasses! So that was why the truck was outside. Jimmy was the cashier!

“Hey!” I said, just as I’d promised myself.

Jimmy jumped up a bit, activating Customer Service Mode, but shut it down when he saw me. “Jay!” he called out, “You’re still around!”

I always went by J, or Jay, in Raven River. Jerry, what I’d been in Calgary, had been ditched after the first few weeks of jokes. I’d vaguely known that a Jerry was a term for a bad skier, but not realized quite how prevalent it was, or all the implications. Jerry wasn’t just someone who didn’t know how to ski, who was new, trying to figure things out. Jerry was someone from Calgary, or Toronto, who had a fresh snowsuit that matched pants to jacket, and slick skis with oiled bindings, and his toe in the heel piece of the bindings, because with the cash he’d spent on coming out here, somewhere along the line he must have bought the understanding of what he was doing.

“I’m still around,” I said, “I heard you were back. And working here!”

“Ayup. You’re liftying again?”

“Yeah. Probably my last season.”

“You said that last winter.”

“I did. Yeah. I don’t know. Can’t beat the free pass, I guess.”

“Yeah, for sure. It’s tough going back to paying for it. Margot’s just doing day passes, ‘cause she tore her ACL climbing in November.”

“Oh, shit! Hope she’s alright?”

“Yeah, she just lost enough riding days that buying the pass didn’t make sense. She’s working at the Lark Café now. Jill got her the position she used to have.”

“Right, ‘cause Jill’s at that mid-mountain coffee hut now. I always get free hot chocolate from her. Well, if I’m scanning at the base, I’ll just let Margot up.”

“Much obliged,” Jimmy nodded, and I went off to look at beers.

For what I called a less refined store, the selection at the Trapper’s was good – two walls of beer and cider fridges and warm packages in pyramids between, good breweries from all around the West and any flavour profile or drinking style you might want. We rolled past plain sours and fruit sours and salted sours and goses, milk stouts and peanut butter porters, you name it. Antoine lingered in front of something called a Show-off Double IPA. I thought he might take it, but he pointed instead at the peacock on the label and said, “Green peafowl.” I think his bird-identifying was mostly somatic at this point, totally involuntary.

The PBR was tucked in the slightly dismal back corner, under the little selection of Budweiser and the like. I grabbed a six-pack and brought it to Jimmy. Antoine settled on a box of ginger ciders. Pierre was still in the back, weighing a nice pack of honey ales with another pack of PBR.

“I didn’t know you were big Pabst guys,” said Jimmy.

“No,” said Pierre, “This is for someone else maybe. I will try to decide if I want to get it.”

“Party?”

“Yeah,” said Antoine, in a quick, shut-us-down sort of way. He didn’t know Jimmy, though. With any other cashier, not an old liftie, he’d have been right to be cautious. But I knew Jimmy.

“Jimsy,” I said, using Margot’s pet name for him, which I didn’t know if I was allowed to do, but whatever. “You remember when you sent Napalm Chute in the work jacket and I didn’t tell?”

“Yeah,” said Jimmy, unsure where this was going.

“Right, that’s all. So you don’t need to tell whoever your boss is here that there are two fifteen-year-olds outside who won’t leave us alone unless we get them beer.”

“One of them is sixteen,” said Pierre.

“Sure. Some of the PBR is for them.”

“Some?”

“Two cans.”

“Did they give you money?”

“No,” said Antoine, “But they’re rich. They could have!”

“I don’t think they were really rich,” I said. Putting it out loud changed the situation somehow.

Jimmy went to the window, to the little maze of gaps between his back counter and the posters above, and peered out. “Those kids by the light?”

I joined him at the window and looked. The Californians were kicking at a frozen snowbank under the halogen glow of a streetlamp. Maybe they were trying to cut a path through. That bank was solid ice though, weeks old, thawed and frozen a thousand times. It was hardly just snow anymore. At best there was a layer of avi-chute choss, three-day-old plow discard, on top of gravel ice. What’s that thing about the Inuit language having ten words for snow where English has one? Whoever started spreading that one wasn’t a skier.

“They look kind of beat, don’t they?” I said.

Jimmy nodded and considered this. “D’you mean like beaten up, or like, The Beats, like Kerouac?”

“Both. Isn’t it the same thing, anyway? Like, he used the word the way it was used, beaten up, but then he added the other definition, the thing about beatific.”

“You read it, Jay!”

“Yeah. Thanks for leaving it there.”

“I’m gonna get the honey ale,” Pierre broke in suddenly, “And I’m gonna give some to the kids as well. It’s more expensive but I’ll keep some.”

“They wanted PBR,” I said.

“But this is better,” said Pierre, “It’s sweet. They’ll like it. I’ll give them two.”

“I was going to give them two of the Pabst,” I said.

Jimmy leaned in and laced his fingers conspiratorially. “Tell you what,” he said, “If you’re getting two half packs then you’re just buying one, really. Then the kids can have the rest. They look pretty beat, after all. So...” he took off his glasses, laid them on the counter, and looked to the ceiling, “It’d be too bad if you put one of those packs in your bag and I didn’t see it. You might forget to even pay for it.”

Grinning, Pierre unshouldered his backpack and slid the honey ale in. We paid for the Pabst and Antoine’s cider, which came out to not much more than the honey ales by themselves. The cost, then, was around an hour’s liftying. Two if it hadn’t been for Jimmy. Of course, to say two hours of liftying meant nothing without specifying. Was that two hours of the top station at the out-of-the-way chair on an uncommonly quiet day, sitting in a hut with a thermos of hot chocolate and a paperback, watching snow fall on the valley cedars outside, and then occasionally, every two minutes or so, someone would get off, give a wave, and glide away? Or was that two hours at the base, the main base, on a mobbed-busy weekend, with an endless crowded maze of beginners needing the chair slowed down or even full-stopped for them, and others trying to skip the line while you were occupied, and rich Americans who didn’t think the rules about masks in line applied to them, and even the best most courteous guests were still part of the back-aching cycle of bumping, holding back the mass of each and every chair with a special calculated one-leg-up leanback and never a moment to sit down or even to simply stand at attention? Those shifts paid the same: not quite a six-pack per hour.

“Thanks, man,” said Pierre, as he packed up all the beer, ”From a liftie to another.”

Jimmy only shrugged. “Not a liftie anymore,” he said.

“But you were, man, and maybe you say, once a liftie, always a liftie. What were you saying about calling people Beat, Jay? It means two things?”

“Sort of,” Jimmy explained, “It means, like, poor, beaten up, had a bad time. But these guys back, what, seventy years ago, made it that, but short for beatific, like, spiritual. Godly. They thought that one led to the other.”

“Yes!” said Pierre, jabbing a finger, leaning close in over the glass bit of the counter where Jimmy scanned wine bottle bar codes, “And Liftie is like that. It’s the job where we put people on the lift, but it’s also, like. Hey. Answer me this. When you work on a chair, who’s your favourite person to see in line?”

Jimmy and I had no answer for this, but without missing a beat, Antoine said, “Another Liftie.”

“Exactly!” said Pierre, getting way into it now, “Because they are your friend, but not just that. Because they make you feel good about doing the job. They know what it’s like! And...” he was practically vibrating now, “Wherever you meet another liftie, an old liftie too, even years later, they also try to help, because they know you’re down, they know you’re working hard and you’re tired and they LIFT you up... and you LIFT them up sometimes. The people who own the ski hill, who own the shops, they want you to pay for everything. They want you to work more, they want you to be better than the other guy by buying more stuff by working harder so you have more stuff than him. You compete, always competition. Lifting just yourself up...”

“By your bootstraps,” I nodded. I’d never understood that expression. The only boots I even knew of that had straps were ski boots with ratchet straps, and they were too tight to the boots to lift anything by. They were too busy holding you to the snow.

“But you don’t have to. Instead, you let people have free beer. That’s what Liftie is. You lift each other!”

Jimmy stood stunned for a long hanging moment. I thought about the songs we sang and taught on guitar, free beers and hot chocolates, bird facts, board games. I thought about Pierre and Antoine and Jimmy and Margot, and Jill at the mid-mountain hut. Then Jimmy hit a button on his screen, and my short receipt began to print with a sound like the Lynx Quad powering up in the morning, and he nodded, slowly at first and then picking up, and said “Hell yeah.” Then he turned to me and said, “Holy fuck, Jay. Where do you meet these people?”

I said, “At the hill. Liftying. Where else?”

The Californians were still hanging out under the streetlight when we left the store. They perked up when they saw us heading back their way.

“You got our stuff?” Green called.

In response I twisted two cans off my six-pack and tossed them one at a time at him. He caught each with the flawless reflexes of a seasoned backflipper.

“Take some of this too,” said Pierre, tossing them two of his honey ales.

“What’s this?” said Orange.

“Try it!” said Pierre, “Expand your taste!” Then he jogged off. Antoine was already headed back the way we’d come from.

The Californians didn’t comment on getting four beers when they asked for two, but then, neither did any of us. I never saw them again after that, so I never got any more hints on whether they really were millionaires’ sons, or just ski team kids on the tournament dime. Right then, when they were huddling with their gloveless hands in their armpits on a lonely street, I decided it didn’t much matter. Green gave me a peace-sign salute, a universal gesture of cool accord, and we parted, we two victims of disparate hoped-for nights.

As I ran to catch up with Pierre and Antoine, a big raven fell with a sound of wind from a nearby powerline, landing in the middle of Hemlock Street. I took a pause to curtsy a bit. I always bowed to a raven when I saw one alone. One of them, an immortal one, pulled the first humans out of a clam shell on the beach in Haida Gwaii, so it was always good to be respectful, because you never know. Two years ago, when I was browsing a list of ski resorts that were looking for applicants, I had seen Raven River and thought of that.

Two days later, on the final day of the International Junior Freeriding Cup (presented by a major car brand,) I was working the Lynx Quad at the mid-station. A remarkable oddity for a chairlift, Lynx Mid lets riders get off halfway, or else to sit tight and carry on through. For those who carried on, up to where they entered the start gates at the top of the terrain park, all I had to do was watch them pass by, thrusting their numbered bibs out to the safety bar for all to see. I passed the time by collecting high-fives. As they glided past, all I had to do for a high-five was to extend my hand, inches from where the chair slid by. I always got one back, and they would cheer for me.

#writing #kootenays #liftie life #based on my experience working at a ski hill in the early 2020s #and the culture surrounding that community

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luxerentals-blog · 4 years

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miracleonice87 · 4 years

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Say You Won’t Let Go

a Sidney Crosby wedding series

Part 1

a/n: here’s part 1 of ??? ! It won’t be a long series, maybe 2 or 3 parts, but I just want to keep the door open for more!

summary: a Pittsburgh royal wedding. Juliette Lemieux (100% made up) is the niece of Pittsburgh legend Mario Lemieux, who is practically a father to her. She falls in love with Sidney Crosby after meeting him as a college student while living in Pittsburgh. this series tells the story of their fairytale wedding weekend.

warnings: brief mention of deceased family member. otherwise, so damn fluffy it’s practically cotton candy.

_____

I burst through the door of my uncle’s palatial home to find him standing in the grand entryway waiting for me, my aunt and four cousins not far behind him.

“Bonjour!” I greeted them, scurrying toward my uncle’s open arms. He pulled me into his six-foot-four frame, a whole foot taller than my own, for a warm hug with a wide smile on his face, one that looked so much like my late father’s. A sharp pang went through my heart at the thought, causing me to hold onto him tighter.

“Juliette! Bonjour, princesse,” Mario said warmly, kissing the top of my head. “Tu es si belle!” (You look so beautiful!) he exclaimed, pulling back and holding my smaller hands in his large ones. I beamed.

“Merci, oncle,” (Thank you, uncle) I thanked him, dropping my head a bit bashfully as he took in the sight of me, dressed in a classic white sheath dress and strappy nude heeled sandals. I could see the tears forming in the corners of his eyes as he stared at me. I knew just what he was thinking.

“Don’t start crying already, or I’ll be crying for the next 48 hours!” I warned, a laugh escaping me despite my and my uncle’s evident shared sadness over my father’s absence from this special moment.

“I’ll try my best,” Mario promised. All I could do was nod and squeeze his hands.

My aunt Nathalie enveloped me next, kissing my cheeks before audibly admiring my new diamond choker. I reached up to touch it and felt a blush creep onto my face at almost the same moment I felt a warm hand come from behind me and rest on my hip. I glanced in the familiar figure’s direction.

Sidney leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to my temple. I placed my palm flat against his stomach and gave him a bright grin.

“Thank you,” I said to Nathalie. “Sidney gave it to me before we left the house, as a wedding present,” I added softly, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth. As a rule, I never bragged to anyone about the extravagant gifts that my fiancé often lavished upon me, but I certainly didn’t mind giving Sidney full credit in front of only my aunt, who knew us both so well.

Nathalie’s eyes widened slightly and she gave Sidney’s upper arm a squeeze. “Well done, my boy! It’s so beautiful,” she praised. He kissed her cheek and said, “I have you to thank — every time I shop for jewelry, I hear your voice in my head.” Nathalie laughed. “You’ve always heeded my advice! Not that you needed much of it. You have wonderful taste — in jewelry and women,” she teased, giving us a wink.

Sidney and I both chuckled and then greeted my cousins excitedly — Lauren, Stephanie, Austin, and Alexa, with whom we were both incredibly close, with Sidney having lived with them for several years at the beginning of his career. We had that arrangement and Mario’s longtime mentorship of Sidney to thank for the two of us ever meeting in the first place.

Growing up, I had typically visited with Mario’s family three or four times each year, whether in Pittsburgh or in his and my shared hometown, just outside Montreal. My father, Mario’s oldest brother, had passed away suddenly from a massive heart attack at 45, when I was only 12, shattering my world during a crucial time in my adolescence. While my mother did her best to financially provide for me, an only child, she had always been emotionally unavailable to me — even when I was very young. I was always a daddy’s girl, making the loss of him that much more jarring. My mother shut down completely after my father’s death, and my aunt and uncle took notice immediately, worried for my well-being. They became my unofficial guardians and quasi-parents.

In the years that followed, I started to spend even more time in Pittsburgh with Mario, Nathalie, and my cousins, with my uncle quickly stepping in to fill the role of a father figure for me in place of his older brother. I was sandwiched between their two oldest, Lauren and Stephanie, age-wise, almost exactly. For many years, but particularly after my father’s death, I had lived with them for several months out of the year, around my school schedule.

Mario and Nathalie included me in every family vacation, holiday celebration, and birthday party possible, even purchasing my first car and paying for my private school and then college education. At 18, I decided to move to Pittsburgh officially to attend Duquesne University, just a block from the Penguins arena, as a marketing major, allowing me to spend much of my free time with my family at Mario’s house, where, at the tender age of 18, I met Sidney.

I owed nearly every good thing in my life to Mario and Nathalie, including intimately encouraging me to pursue a relationship with Sidney, after some initial reservations about our age difference, which quickly faded as they saw Sidney and I grow closer together. They had truly done it all for me, and now, they were throwing me a rehearsal dinner in their sprawling backyard in just a couple of hours, along with a wedding reception to follow tomorrow’s church ceremony.

As Mario walked out the back door to speak to some of the rental company employees finalizing the set-up of our beautiful tent and chairs for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s reception, and Nathalie and my cousins scattered to grab their belongings, Sidney pulled me to his body, his hand on my lower back. He simply stared at me with a satisfied look on his face, causing my pulse to quicken as I looped my arms around his neck.

“What are you thinking about, mon amour?” (my love) I inquired. Sidney shook his head slightly.

“Everything. How beautiful you look right now. How beautiful you’ll look tomorrow. How beautiful you’ll look when you’re carrying my baby,” he told me, placing soft kisses to my face between each thought. “How beautiful you’ll look with our little ones in your arms. How beautiful you’ll look when you’re 90.” I smoothed my fingers over the neat hair at the nape of his neck, a wide smile across my features.

“When I’m 90, you’ll be 97,” I offered, feeling as though I might burst into tears unless I broke up the moment with some levity. Sidney laughed loudly and then groaned. “Don’t remind me, please,” he begged. I leaned up to kiss his plump lips. “Okay, I won’t,” I whispered against his mouth, causing a soft moan to escape him.

Just as I pulled away from him, my maid of honor, ever the Type A event coordinator, called to us from across the spacious room.

“Come on, lovebirds,” Lauren teased, smiling. We both looked to her, still wrapped up in each others’ arms, and saw her tap the face of her gold watch. “We’ve gotta be at the chapel in 30 minutes and it’ll take every bit of that to make it,” she added.

“Leave them alone!” Alexa piped up, giggling as she adjusted her heels. “They were having a moment.” Her older brother rolled his eyes, grabbing his sunglasses from the coffee table in front of him.

“Have you met them?” Austin joked. “They’re always having a moment.” Nathalie appeared from the hallway, fastening the back of her earring, and mused, “And that’s why they’ll be married for the next hundred years.” She winked in our direction.

Sidney looked down at me and waggled his eyebrows, making me giggle. I smoothed my fingers over the collar of his crisp new white golf polo, which he had matched with a pair of navy blue slacks and loafers, a signature look of his.

“I suppose they’re right, my blushing bride,” he said. “Let me put my overnight bag in the guest room and we’ll be on our way.” I nodded as he pressed a kiss to my cheekbone and turned to pick up his leather travel bag near the door and took it to the basement, his former living quarters.

With both of us being fairly traditional people, we had agreed to sleep apart the night before the wedding to honor the age-old custom, despite having lived together for almost two years. To combat that complication, Sidney had insisted that I be the one to stay in our house for the night and that he stay at Mario’s, since he, my uncle, Austin, and Sidney’s father and groomsmen were meeting there the following morning anyway for a game of golf at the fabled Oakmont Country Club prior to the ceremony. He wanted me to feel as comfortable as possible as I got ready for our big day.

After a minute or so, Sidney’s hands came to rest on my waist from behind me, and I smirked to myself at how clingy and affectionate he had been these last several weeks as we prepared to begin our lives as husband and wife.

“You ready for this, Jules? There’s still time to run,” Sidney purred softly into my ear, kissing the skin there.

I turned to face him, holding his jaw in one hand. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” I murmured before kissing him long and hard.

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Trudeau’s Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority (AP) Canadians gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party a victory in Monday’s parliamentary elections, but his gamble to win a majority of seats failed and nearly mirrored the result of two years ago. Trudeau’s Liberals were leading or elected in 156 seats—one less than they won 2019, and 14 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the House of Commons. The Conservatives were leading or elected in 121 seats, the same number they won in 2019. The leftist New Democrats were leading or elected in 27, a gain of three seats, while the Quebec-based Bloc Québécois remained unchanged with 32 seats and the Greens were down to two. “Trudeau lost his gamble to get a majority so I would say this is a bittersweet victory for him,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. “Basically we are back to square one, as the new minority parliament will look like the previous one. Trudeau and the Liberals saved their skin and will stay in power, but many Canadians who didn’t want this late summer, pandemic election are probably not amused about the whole situation,” he said.

COVID has killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 flu (AP) COVID-19 has now killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic did—approximately 675,000. And like the worldwide scourge of a century ago, the coronavirus may never entirely disappear from our midst. Instead, scientists hope the virus that causes COVID-19 becomes a mild seasonal bug as human immunity strengthens through vaccination and repeated infection. That would take time. “We hope it will be like getting a cold, but there’s no guarantee,” said Emory University biologist Rustom Antia, who suggests an optimistic scenario in which this could happen over a few years. For now, the pandemic still has the United States and other parts of the world firmly in its jaws.

Why Louisiana’s Electric Grid Failed in Hurricane Ida (NYT) Just weeks before Hurricane Ida knocked out power to much of Louisiana, leaving its residents exposed to extreme heat and humidity, the chief executive of Entergy, the state’s biggest utility company, told Wall Street that it had been upgrading power lines and equipment to withstand big storms. That statement would soon be tested. On the last Sunday in August, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana and dealt a catastrophic blow to Entergy’s power lines, towers and poles, many of which were built decades ago to withstand much weaker hurricanes. The storm damaged eight high-voltage transmission lines that supply power to New Orleans along with scores of the company’s towers throughout the state. Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were without power for days. Ida damaged or destroyed 31,000 poles that carry lower-voltage distribution lines in neighborhoods, nearly twice as many as Hurricane Katrina, according to Entergy. Lawmakers and regulators require utilities to ensure safe, reliable service at an affordable cost. The grid failure after Ida is the latest display of how power companies are struggling to fulfill those obligations as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather. In California, electricity providers have been forced to shut off power to tens of thousands of customers in recent years to prevent their equipment from setting off wildfires and to reduce energy demand during heat waves. In February, the grid in most of Texas failed during a winter storm, leaving millions of people without power and heat for days.

White House faces bipartisan backlash on Haitian migrants (AP) The White House is facing sharp condemnation from Democrats for its handling of the influx of Haitian migrants at the U.S. southern border, after images of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics went viral this week. Striking video of agents maneuvering their horses to forcibly block and move migrants attempting to cross the border has sparked resounding criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who are calling on the Biden administration to end its use of a pandemic-era authority to deport migrants without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum in the United States. At the same time, the administration continues to face attacks from Republicans, who say Biden isn’t doing enough to deal with what they call a “crisis” at the border. Immigration is a complex issue, one no administration has been able to fix in decades. And Biden is trapped between conflicting interests of broadcasting compassion while dealing with throngs of migrants coming to the country—illegally—seeking a better life.

Haitian journey to Texas border starts in South America (AP) Robins Exile downed a traditional meal of plantains and chicken at a restaurant run by Haitian immigrants, just a short walk from the walled border with the United States. He arrived the night before and went there seeking advice: Should he try to get to the U.S., or was it better to settle in Mexico? Discussion Monday at the Tijuana restaurant offered a snapshot of Haitians’ diaspora in the Western Hemisphere that picked up steam in 2016 and has shown little sign of easing, demonstrated most recently by the more than 14,000 mostly Haitian migrants assembled around a bridge in Del Rio, a town of only 35,000 people. Of the roughly 1.8 million Haitians living outside their homeland, the United States is home to the largest Haitian immigrant population in the world, numbering 705,000 people from the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Significant numbers also live in Latin American countries like Chile, which is home to an estimated 69,000 Haitians. Nearly all Haitians reach the U.S. border on a well-worn route: Fly to Brazil, Chile or elsewhere in South America. If jobs dry up, slowly move through Central America and Mexico by bus and on foot to wait—perhaps years—in northern border cities like Tijuana for the right time to enter the United States and claim asylum.

‘We were them:’ Vietnamese Americans help Afghan refugees (AP) In the faces of Afghans desperate to leave their country after U.S. forces withdrew, Thuy Do sees her own family, decades earlier and thousands of miles away. A 39-year-old doctor in Seattle, Washington, Do remembers hearing how her parents sought to leave Saigon after Vietnam fell to communist rule in 1975 and the American military airlifted out allies in the final hours. It took years for her family to finally get out of the country, after several failed attempts, and make their way to the United States, carrying two sets of clothes a piece and a combined $300. When they finally arrived, she was 9 years old. These stories and early memories drove Do and her husband Jesse Robbins to reach out to assist Afghans fleeing their country now. The couple has a vacant rental home and decided to offer it up to refugee resettlement groups, which furnished it for newly arriving Afghans in need of a place to stay. “We were them 40 years ago,” Do said. “With the fall of Saigon in 1975, this was us.” The crisis in Afghanistan has spurred many Vietnamese Americans to donate money to refugee resettlement groups and raise their hands to help by providing housing, furniture and legal assistance to newly arriving Afghans.

‘Crisis of trust’: France bristles at US submarine deal (AP) France’s top diplomat declared Monday that there is a “crisis of trust” in the United States after a Pacific defense deal stung France and left Europe wondering about its longtime ally across the Atlantic. France canceled meetings with British and Australian officials and worked to rally EU allies behind its push for more European sovereignty after being humiliated by a major Pacific defense pact orchestrated by the U.S. Speaking to reporters in New York, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said European countries won’t let Washington leave them behind when shaping its foreign policy. Le Drian reiterated complaints that his country was sandbagged by the submarine deal between the U.S., Britain and Australia, which led to France losing a contract to sell subs to Australia. Washington, London and Canberra say the deal bolsters their commitment to the Indo-Pacific region, and it has widely been seen as an effort to counter an increasingly assertive China. But Le Drian, who is in New York to represent France at the U.N. General Assembly, said it was a “brutal, unexpected and unexplained breach” of a contract—and a relationship.

Pedestrians take to the streets of Paris to celebrate the city’s seventh annual ‘day without cars’ (Business Insider) On Sunday, Paris turned over its streets to pedestrians so that citizens and visitors could enjoy its seventh annual “day without cars.” Announced by socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo in 2015, the city received enthusiastic support from both ordinary Parisians and unlikely parties including the head of a French drivers’ association, USA Today reported. From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., cars, motorcycles, and scooters are banned throughout Paris, and any offenders face a fine of 135 euros, according to the Paris Without A Car website. Certain vehicles like buses, emergency vehicles, taxis, and private drivers are allowed to circulate, although their speed is limited to 20-30 kilometers per hour (12-19 miles per hour) in certain areas. Events at this year’s “day without cars” included a techno parade, picnic, bicycle fair, rollerblading marathon, and street art exhibitions, according to the event website.

More evacuations as lava gushes from Canaries volcano (Reuters) Lava gushing from the Canary Islands’ first volcanic eruption on land in 50 years has forced authorities to evacuate another part of El Paso municipality on the island of La Palma and to urge sightseers attracted by the phenomenon to stay away. About 6,000 of the 80,000 people living on the island have been forced to leave their homes to escape the eruption so far, TVE said. The volcano started erupting on Sunday after La Palma, the most northwestern island in the Canaries archipelago, had been rocked by thousands of quakes in the prior days. It has shot lava hundreds of metres into the air, engulfed forests and sent molten rock towards the ocean over a sparsely populated area of La Palma. Experts say that if and when the lava reaches the sea, it could trigger more explosions and clouds of toxic gases.

Magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes near Melbourne (Reuters) An earthquake with a 6.0 magnitude struck near Melbourne in Australia on Wednesday, Geoscience Australia said, causing damage to buildings in the country’s second largest city and sending tremors throughout neighbouring states. The quake’s epicentre was near the rural town of Mansfield in the state of Victoria, about 200 km (124 miles) northeast of Melbourne, and was at a depth of 10 km (six miles). The quake was felt as far away as city of Adelaide, 800 km (500 miles) to the west in the state of South Australia, and Sydney, 900 km (600 miles) to the north in New South Wales state, although there were no reports of damage outside Melbourne and no reports of injuries.

‘An iron curtain’: Australia’s covid rules are stranding people at state borders (Washington Post) The four figures huddled in the shade on the side of the highway, eight miles from a border they had hardly noticed until it slammed shut behind them. As flies buzzed and crows circled and their supplies ran low, they waited for emails that would allow them to leave New South Wales and return to their home state of South Australia. Teresa Young and her husband had been stuck at the rest stop—little more than a toilet in the middle of the Outback—for 10 days. “All of a sudden, Australia has been cut up like pieces of a cake,” the 75-year-old said on a recent day. Welcome to covid-era Australia, where state border closures designed to keep the coronavirus from spreading have turned retired office workers into roadside nomads. When the pandemic began, many Australians found that the leaders of the country’s six states and two territories, rather than the federal government, suddenly controlled the most vital things in people’s lives, including who could go to work and where they could travel. The closures have upended domestic travel and stranded scores of Australians internally, even as a vaccination ramp-up means some states—and international airports—will soon open up. People in Sydney could find it easier to fly to Singapore or Los Angeles than to Adelaide.

Sudan’s coup attempt (Foreign Policy) Sudanese state media reported a “failed coup attempt” early Tuesday morning. The coup reportedly involved an attempt to take control of the state radio services. If confirmed, the attempted power grab would be the fourth putsch attempt the African continent has seen this year, following military takeovers in Guinea and Chad and an unsuccessful coup in Niger.

#headlines #news

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careydodd · 3 years

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joshuahyslop · 5 years

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EURO TOUR: JAN-FEB, 2019

Well, 22 days, 15 shows, 13 trains, 10 flights, 8 countries, a lot of Ubers, a couple Taxi’s and 1 rental car later and I’m back at home. This was another great tour but not without its challenges. I got to bring my good friend, Zachari Smith (zacharismith.com) on the road this time and that made a huge difference. Not only was it terrific fun to get to play the shows together, it also made the low moments seem not quite as low. Everything started off great. I flew to Montreal a few days before the start of the tour to rehearse with Zach. It went smoothly and it was wonderful to get to spend time with some of my dear friends in that city before hitting the road. SCOTLAND: We flew to the UK a few days later and started things off in Glasgow. We played in an underground club called Stereo. It was a good first show. There was a good crowd and it felt great to go from rehearsing to actually playing in front of people as a duo. ENGLAND: The next day we took a train to Manchester. We played in a lovely little spot called The Castle Hotel. Jet lag was hitting us pretty hard but we were able to nap before the show. We travelled to London the next morning and after arriving at the wrong hotel, walking with all our stuff to the right hotel, checking in, having a pint and grabbing dinner with friends, we played an incredibly fun show in a very full room at The Old Blue Last. FRANCE: The next morning we got up early and took the train from London to Paris. I remember feeling a little off when I’d gone to sleep the night before, but I assumed it was just the jet lag. We’d both started coughing on the train but I tried to chalk it up to the cold air. By the time we’d arrived at our hotel we knew something was wrong. We managed to grab some food and get back to the hotel room where we spent the next 34 hours sick in our beds. I don’t know if it was food poisoning or the flu, or some awful combination, but we were knocked down. Unfortunately, this meant we had to cancel our show in Paris. I felt (and still feel) horrible for having to cancel the show. I can’t wait to come back and make it up to everyone. When it happens, it’s going to be fantastic! THE NETHERLANDS: We were still feeling awful the next morning. We had to catch another early train and when we eventually arrived in Groningen we went straight to a Pharmacy where we bought everything we could think of. The show that night was in a beautiful old church called the Lutherse Kerk and it was sold out. I drank as much tea and hot water as I could, had what might’ve been a dangerous amount of Advil, cough drops, vitamin C and echinacea and then went ahead with the show. It was an amazing night even though we were feeling sick. The crowd was fantastic and the show went well. DENMARK: After a good night’s sleep we woke up to a much needed day off. We had a lot of travelling to do, but were thankful for no show that night. It was going to be a couple of trains to Amsterdam and a cab to the airport where we’d be catching a flight to Denmark. We were supposed to arrive in Copenhagen around 5pm. Unfortunately, while we were jumping from train to train, I managed to leave my backpack behind. It had my passport, my money and all my information in it. I panicked and ran up and down the train looking for someone who could help. I couldn’t find anyone and I was very close to giving up. Zach called the lost and found and explained the situation to them. Within the hour they’d located my bag and told me I could pick it up at Den Haag Centraal - about an hour train ride from Amsterdam Centraal, where we were. I left Zach with our gear, took the train to Den Haag, grabbed my bag, got on another train back to Amsterdam Centraal, ran with Zach to a cab, raced to the airport and promptly missed our flight to Copenhagen. We had to purchase another flight that would be leaving later that evening. We got to our hotel a little before midnight and crashed hard. The next day we played in a nice little spot called the Ideal Bar. It was a good show and I was glad to play it, but we were both feeling exhausted. NORWAY: We flew to Oslo the next day and took the train from the airport to downtown. The show was in another awesome bar called Krøsset. It went very well and I was so thankful for a smooth night. I got to see some old friends and get to bed before midnight. It was great. GERMANY: We flew to Zurich the next day, and were met at the airport by Zach’s friend, Timo. Zach booked all of the shows in Germany on this run so I was excited to see what was in store for us. We were playing in a cafe/barn in a small village called Wintersulgen right outside Heiligenberg. Timo drove us to his place in Airach for dinner before he drove us to the venue. We had two shows in two days at the cafe and we were happy to be in one place for a little while. Both nights were sold out and both nights went very well. After the show on the first night our host, Martin, took us outside in the snow to his own personal sauna. Between sauna sessions we had snacks and beer and finally felt relaxed. It was like pressing a giant reset button. SPAIN: Timo drove us back to the Zurich airport the next morning where we caught our flight to Madrid. I’d never been to Spain before and I was very excited to check it out. I had no idea what to expect from the venues or the crowds. We played in an underground cave called The Costello Club and we were blown away. The crowd was fantastic and were singing along to the songs! It was an amazing night. We travelled by train to Barcelona the next day where we played in another underground bar called Sidecar and had another amazing night. After the show I spent a long time chatting with people at the merch table. Two people gave me watercolour paintings they’d done of the album artwork from In Deepest Blue, and another woman told me she’s a photographer and she uses my music while she works. I felt so much support from the people at those two shows. I can’t wait until I can come back to Spain again. GERMANY (again): We flew to Frankfurt the next day and then took another train to the city of Erfurt. We had a series of house shows booked in Germany for the next week but, thankfully, we had the night off. We stayed with the hosts of the show in Erfurt. The next morning we picked up our rental car and then we got ready for the show. It was in an office building and they had professional lighting and sound. Zach opened on all the German shows and he did a fantastic job. We had a bit of an after party that night, which was a lot of fun, and then got some rest before heading out the next day. I’d never driven in Germany before but Zach had. He gave me a lot of much needed warnings and explanations before we hit the autobahn. There are long sections on the German highways were there is no speed limit. On average, most people drive between 130-140 km/h. There were many times when I was driving around 160 km/h and a car going over 200 km/h would come out of nowhere and just fly past us. It was crazy. We made it to Dresden and played in a beautiful place called the Castle Röhrsdorf. It was a full room and it went very well. It was the first show I’ve ever played where everything I said to the audience had to be translated (thanks again, Sarah!). We had a great time but were off again before we knew it. This time we drove to Ulm where we played another wonderful show. We had lots of great food before ending the night with a jam session, some absinthe and a little pear schnapps. We headed out the next morning and drove back to our friend Timo’s house. We were staying with him and playing in his village that night. It was another great show and we ended up staying out late connecting with the people there. We had a short drive the next day so we slept in as much as we could. After some coffee and breakfast we drove to Ravensburg for our last show. We were playing in a beautiful old farmhouse. There were over 70 people at the show and it was the best way to end the tour. Zach played a great set and then he and I had a fantastic time playing for everyone. We did two encores and hung out afterwards. We got to bed just before midnight and slept as much as we could before getting up at 3am to drive back to Frankfurt and catch our flights home. Thankfully, everything went smoothly. We drove through rain, snow and fog but managed to arrive on time at the right place with all of our luggage. This was another incredible tour. I’m so incredibly thankful to everyone who came out to the shows and to everyone who had a hand in making this tour possible. A special thank you to: Dan Fraser - my manager who helped organize all our travel arrangements and was always on call despite the crazy time difference, Nettwerk, CAA, Live Nation, Mojo Promotions, Mercury Wheels, Herman, Martin & Alex (and their sauna), Darius & Marion, Dave, Sarah, Arno, Monika, Timo & Sonja, Carmen, Gabi & Alex. And a very special thank you to my friend, Zachari Smith. Touring isn’t easy, but Zach is an absolute pro. He made a difficult job much easier and it was a pleasure to get to play with him, to hear him perform and to just hang out. He’s an amazing songwriter with a new album currently being released. Do yourself a favour and check it out on Spotify or Apple music! Thanks again, everyone. I’m back at home resting but I’m so excited for what’s to come. more soon, -joshua

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livingcorner · 3 years

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Switchback Travel | Best Outdoor Clothing Brands of 2021

The outdoor clothing market is vast, with everything from budget-focused brands to sustainability leaders and high-end backcountry specialists. With years of experience testing a wide range of hiking, backpacking, climbing, skiing, and everyday products, below is our team’s list of the most well-regarded outdoor apparel companies. For each brand, we’ve included a brief history and background, their most popular offerings, and what sets them apart from the competition. For more information and our top picks in each category, see our hiking gear, ski gear, and winter gear reviews.

Patagonia

Location: Ventura, California Popular products: Down Sweater, Torrentshell 3L, and Capilene What we like: Well-built, stylish, and functional designs with a strong focus on sustainability. What we don’t: Arc’teryx still leads the charge in technical mountain apparel.

You're reading: Switchback Travel | Best Outdoor Clothing Brands of 2021

Patagonia is a well-loved outdoor brand with a rich history in mountain exploration. Founded in 1973 by accomplished rock climber Yvon Chouinard, the company has positioned itself as a staple in the outdoor industry with a vast selection of outdoor apparel ranging from hardshells to baselayers, accessories, and much more. They excel at insulation in particular, with a comprehensive lineup of both technical and casual products, including the legendary Down Sweater (casual) and synthetic standouts like the Micro Puff and DAS Parka (technical).

Patagonia focuses a lot of its time and money on environmental and sustainability initiatives, including incorporating recycled materials and responsibly sourced down into their products, offering repair services (at select locations and via mail), and selling used gear through their Worn Wear program. Arc’teryx below is the irrefutable leader in technical mountain apparel, but Patagonia gear consistently crosses over nicely between daily and backcountry uses. You can expect to pay a bit more for the cachet and Patagonia logo, but the transparency and stewardship efforts do help justify the cost.

Arc’teryx

Location: North Vancouver, Canada Popular products: Atom LT, Beta AR, and Alpha SV What we like: Top-end quality, craftsmanship, and styling. What we don’t: Very pricey, and some might not like the trim fit.

Based out of British Columbia, Arc’teryx is an industry leader in technical mountain apparel and one of the most revered outerwear brands on the market. From baselayers to daypacks, hiking and approach shoes, insulation, climbing and skiing gear, and more, Arc’teryx products exude quality and top-end craftsmanship. Their greatest strength is their hardshell jacket collection, including long-standing models like the Beta AR and Alpha SV. You can expect to pay a serious premium for the brand name—the Beta AR and Alpha SV check in at $599 and $799, respectively—but we’ve consistently found that Arc’teryx gear is well-made, good-looking, and stands up exceptionally well to regular use and abuse.

In addition to the steep price tags, Arc’teryx offerings are often very technical and trim-fitting. One exception is the venerable Atom LT synthetic, which nicely balances performance and around-town appeal. However, the Atom still is pricey at $259 for the hoody version ($239 for the non-hooded jacket and $175 for the vest). In the end, casual outdoor-goers can save serious cash by buying from brands like Marmot, Columbia, or REI Co-op, but Arc’teryx remains the gold standard among hardcore adventurers and backcountry enthusiasts.

Marmot

Location: Rohnert Park, CA Popular products: PreCip Eco, Montreal, and Minimalist What we like: Excellent budget/mid-range offerings for the casual outdoor adventurer. What we don’t: A step down in quality and can’t match the expansive collections of the brands above.

For a step down in price and performance from the brands above, Marmot represents an excellent value for the casual outdoor adventurer. From winter jackets to rain gear and ski shells, we’ve consistently been impressed by Marmot’s balance of affordability and quality. They do offer a few notable, high-end performance pieces, including the Gore-Tex-equipped Spire hardshell ($435) and resort-ready Freerider Jacket ($485), but the budget/mid-range category is where they excel most.

Some of our long-time favorites within Marmot’s lineup are the PreCip (now the PreCip Eco) and Minimalist rain jackets and the Montreal Down Coat, all of which undercut the competition considerably and offer great all-around performance for light outdoor uses. Like Patagonia, Marmot also has made fairly substantial sustainability strides in recent years, including the use of recycled materials and PFC-free DWR coatings on many of their products (including some of their key best sellers like the aforementioned PreCip Eco). Backcountry experts looking for bombproof protection and a full suite of technical features should look elsewhere, but for hiking, summer backpacking, around-town use, and other casual pursuits, the value is hard to beat.

Columbia Sportswear

Location: Portland, Oregon Popular products: Bugaboo, Steens Mountain, and Watertight What we like: An impressively wide selection of affordable clothing and gear. What we don’t: Decidedly casual and not the best quality.

Founded in 1938 as a hat distributor, Columbia Sportswear has since grown to epitomize casual outdoor apparel. In particular, they’re a real standout in the budget realm, with extensive collections of clothing and footwear that undercut the competition considerably. Their Watertight II rain jacket is case in point: priced at $60 and often found online for less, you get a durable, 2-layer build that can handle moderate precipitation and short jaunts on the trail with relative ease.

That said, reduced prices almost always come with reduced quality and performance, and Columbia isn’t known for high-end materials or long-lasting designs. For example, the Watertight will soak through much faster than more premium shells, and breathability is a major step down with the cheap build and lack of pit zips. But a big selling point for many is value, and casual recreationalists who don’t need top-end waterproofing or technical features can save big without too many compromises (provided you don’t demand much of your gear). Finally, Columbia offers a dedicated collection of “big and tall” options for those with larger builds, which only adds to the widespread appeal.

The North Face

Location: Alameda, California Popular products: Denali, ThermoBall, and McMurdo What we like: Lifetime guarantee and some well-respected insulation collections. What we don’t: They excel at the casual and hardcore ends of the spectrum, but not really in between.

Read more: Painting Outdoor Wood Furniture Like a Pro!

We couldn’t get too far down this list without addressing The North Face, a storied mountain brand with a rich history in high-altitude exploration. Their bright orange and yellow tents are a common sight at high-elevation basecamps around the world, and they’ve accumulated a high-quality team of athletes including pro climbers Alex Honnold and Margo Hayes and dedicated mountaineers Jimmy Chin and Conrad Anker. In terms of outerwear, TNF’s Summit Series—ranging from the mountain-ready L5 Futurelight shell to the L6 Down Belay Parka—are undeniably premium pieces built for harsh conditions and demanding pursuits.

Impressively, The North Face also excels at the casual end of the spectrum, evidenced by their legendary and ubiquitous Denali fleece and around-town-friendly ThermoBall synthetic. The downside is they haven’t found a solid middle ground—their strong suits are either serious mountaineering or everyday pieces. Further, we often find that their jackets have boxy fits, and TNF’s core apparel lines are typically a step down in quality and overall attention to detail compared to Arc’teryx and Patagonia. But the brand’s lifetime guarantee against defects is one of the most generous policies on the market, and prices are often good for what you get.

REI Co-op

Location: Kent, Washington Popular products: 650 Down Jacket, Rainier, and Stormhenge What we like: Excellent balance of price and performance. What we don’t: Can’t match the fit and finish of brands like Arc’teryx and Patagonia.

REI Co-op is well-respected among outdoor lovers all over the country, and for good reason. With 165 stores across the U.S., excellent sales throughout the year, and a host of member benefits (including a yearly dividend, access to Garage Sales, and discounts on gear rentals and shop services), REI stands out as a community-focused brand with a strong commitment to the outdoors. In addition, REI is involved in a number of environmental and community initiatives, conservation efforts, and sustainability practices within its own line of outdoor apparel and gear.

REI committed to making their own clothing in 2014 and quickly assembled a well-rounded lineup that runs the gamut from hardshells to down jackets, winter parkas, and more. Today, the company uses premium materials from brands like PrimaLoft, Pertex, and Gore, with popular offerings like the Stormhenge down jacket and XeroDry and Stormbolt rain shells incorporating high-end fabrics at great prices. All in all, REI gear is surprisingly affordable for the level of performance you get, and we’ve consistently been struck by the overall value. You don’t get the same painstaking attention to detail or top-end fit and finish of brands like Arc’teryx, Fjällräven, or Patagonia, but you’re not paying for it either.

Outdoor Research

Location: Seattle, Washington Popular products: Helium, Ferrosi, and Transcendent What we like: Often great bang for your buck, and we love their in-house waterproofing. What we don’t: Fit isn’t as dialed as Arc’teryx or Patagonia.

Unlike the brands above, Seattle-based Outdoor Research (OR) is popular in one area of the country in particular: the Pacific Northwest. The company was founded by mountaineer Ron Gregg after a climbing partner experienced frostbite from a pair of poorly designed gaiters on Alaska’s Denali in 1980. Since then, the brand has expanded its focus considerably and covers activities ranging from hiking to skiing, with a particularly well-executed selection of shells and insulation (both down and synthetic).

We don’t often write home about in-house waterproofing technologies, but OR’s proprietary AscentShell membrane—found in designs like their Skyward II ski shell and Microgravity rain jacket—has proven to be impressively weather-worthy, mobile, and breathable (although a slight step down from more premium Gore-Tex in all-out protection). The fit isn’t always spot-on (see our reviews of the Hemispheres and Skyward II, for example), but OR gear consistently nails a great balance between price and performance. All in all, we consider it a nice middle ground between budget brands like Columbia and high-end specialists like Arc’teryx.

Kuhl

Location: Salt Lake City, Utah Popular products: Renegade and Arktik Down What we like: Great on-the-trail durability. What we don’t: Utilitarian styling can be polarizing.

Originally Alfwear, Kuhl’s story began in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, where the brand’s founders (including aforementioned and legendary mountaineer Conrad Anker) had a goal of creating functional skiing and mountaineering clothing and accessories. Now, almost 40 years later, the brand has evolved into a big-time player in the outdoor apparel world and especially in the lifestyle and hiking realms. From baselayers to down and winter jackets, Kuhl offers a nice selection of competitively priced options that will stand up to regular use and abuse.

In general, Kuhl products are known for their distinctive and often utilitarian styling. The Arktik Down Parka, for instance, has a burly shell, faux-fur hood, and paneling along the shoulders and elbows that stand out, especially in the darker colorways. But Kuhl excels in the durability department—we’ve been particularly happy with their hiking pant collections, including the popular Renegade—and the quality is excellent.

Rab

Location: Derbyshire, UK Popular products: Microlight Alpine and Neutrino Pro What we like: A nice array of high-quality, technical mountaineering and climbing pieces. What we don’t: Limited availability in the U.S.

Rab might not have the name recognition of many of the companies above, but this U.K.-based alpine specialist has a quality collection of weather-ready shells and down jackets that rival the performance of premium brands like Arc’teryx. Their Neutrino Pro, for example, is our favorite heavyweight down jacket for the cold this season due to its generous dose of high-quality down, weather-resistant and durable Pertex Quantum Pro shell, and reasonable $375 price point (many heavyweight competitors come in at least $50-$100 pricier, including Arc’teryx’s $575 Cerium SV).

Rab also makes a handful of premium Gore-Tex shells, including the fully featured Muztag GTX and ski-focused Khroma series. The two biggest downsides are cost and availability: Arc’teryx still is a slight step up in price, but Rab products are undeniably premium. Further, Rab gear can be difficult to track down in the States, although REI and Backcountry have both started carrying the brand. Two other European companies that stand out in the technical/high-end category are Norrøna and Mountain Equipment, although they have an even smaller presence in the U.S. market.

prAna

Location: Carlsbad, California Popular products: Stretch Zion, Halle, and Kanab What we like: Strong sustainability focus; wide array of colors and sizes. What we don’t: Not a high-performance brand.

In 1992, the founders of prAna set out to create sustainably made and stylish yoga and climbing apparel, and the brand has mostly stayed true to those roots. Today, prAna is an industry leader in eco-friendly practices, including the use of organic cotton, recycled wool, RDS-certified down, and bluesign-approved fabrics in their clothing. We also love that prAna often offers each piece in a wide array of colors and sizes—one editor landed on the brand years ago because they sold a 31-inch-waist pant, which is fairly uncommon in the industry.

One standout in prAna’s current lineup is their Stretch Zion pant (and women’s Halle), which snagged the top spot in our hiking pant round-up this year due to its excellent combination of comfort and performance. The classy colorways also make it a viable around-town and travel option, and we’ve found it doubles as a great climbing pant too. Those searching for technical, mountain-ready shells and insulation should look elsewhere, but prAna has excellent everyday appeal (especially in outdoorsy cities like Boulder, Bend, and Seattle). It’s worth noting that prAna was acquired in 2014 by outdoor giant Columbia Sportswear, but the quality and environmental ethos remain.

Fjällräven

Location: Örnsköldsvik, Sweden Popular products: Greenland and Vidda What we like: A growing lifestyle brand that makes durable and hardwearing products. What we don’t: Pricey, heavy, and sometimes overly technical looks.

Fjällräven started in 1960 as a backpack company, and the brand’s Kanken packs and bags remain a mainstay in their lineup to this day. However, the Swedish brand has grown significantly since its inception and is now equally lauded for its collection of upscale hiking apparel. From winter jackets to down parkas, hiking pants, and trekking tights, Fjällräven’s products are stylish, durable, and highly capable in mountain environments.

We can’t discuss Fjällräven without mentioning their signature and hardwearing G-1000 fabric, which they use throughout most of their lineup and consists of 65 percent polyester and 35 percent cotton. Cotton often gets a bad rap in the outdoor apparel world for its inability to wick moisture (which can lead to hypothermia when you work up a sweat), but we’ve found that Fjällräven’s blend is entirely functional, and you can apply their Greenland Wax for better water resistance. As with Kuhl above, some might find the looks a bit polarizing, but we personally like the unique fabrics and robust constructions.

L.L. Bean

Location: Freeport, Maine Popular products: Sweater Fleece and 850 Down Sweater What we like: Well-made clothing that nicely transitions from the outdoors to around town. What we don’t: Not widely available outside of the East Coast.

Like Outdoor Research above and Eddie Bauer below, L.L. Bean is prominent in one specific area of the country: the Northeast. The company was founded in the early 1900s in Freeport, Maine, and originally sold only a single product: their legendary duck boots, which remain a cornerstone in the lineup today and come in a wide variety of styles, colorways, and heights. However, they quickly evolved into a ubiquitous lifestyle brand that makes everything from down jackets to sweaters, fleeces, baselayers, flannel-lined jeans (a personal favorite), sleepwear, hiking boots, and much more.

L.L. Bean nicely toes the line between casual and performance, although most of their products are best-suited for activities like camping and hiking rather than technical backcountry pursuits (think cozy cabin trips, fall hikes, mild-weather snowshoeing, etc.). Availability is another downside for some, as their products are only sold in-store and through their website, with most of their retail locations focused on the East Coast. But it’s hard to knock the styling and all-around appeal, which is why you’re bound to see plenty of L.L. Bean gear on the trails and around town in places like Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

Read more: Outdoor Play | Play Encyclopedia

Black Diamond Equipment

Location: Salt Lake City, Utah Popular products: First Light, Mission, and StormLine What we like: A new but fairly impressive lineup of backcountry-ready shells and insulation. What we don’t: A narrower climbing/backcountry skiing focus than many of the brands above.

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard started another company in the late 1950s, this one dedicated to producing climbing hardware: Chouinard Equipment. A few decades later, the company filed for bankruptcy, and Black Diamond was born. The brand still focuses much of its efforts on climbing equipment—including their cornerstone Camalot series—but in 2013, they jumped into the outdoor apparel scene in a big way. Since then, the collection has grown considerably and consists of a fairly impressive lineup of quality shells and insulation, as well as baselayers and accessories like hats and gloves.

Much of Black Diamond’s apparel has a climbing/backcountry skiing focus, which makes sense given the brand’s background. That said, there are a few crossover pieces that work well for daily wear, including the StormLine Stretch rain shell. We also like their in-house BD.dry waterproofing membrane (used in the StormLine), which isn’t as bombproof as Gore-Tex but nicely balances protection, mobility, and breathability and keeps costs low (the StormLine comes in at $149). BD still has a ways to go in matching the long-standing and venerable reputations of brands like Rab and Arc’teryx, but their progress thus far has been promising.

Eddie Bauer

Location: Bellevue, Washington Popular products: MicroTherm and CirrusLite What we like: A storied mountain brand with over 100 years of experience in the industry. What we don’t: Popularity has waned over the years.

Like Outdoor Research, Eddie Bauer is a staple in the Pacific Northwest. Founded in 1920 as a tennis shop in the back of a local hunting and fishing outfitter, the company quickly evolved into a committed outdoor brand (founder Eddie Bauer patented the first quilted down jacket in 1936). Since then, the company has outfitted many defining expeditions across the world, including early summits of K2 and Mt. Everest throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Today, their lineup runs the gamut from hiking boots and accessories to insulated jackets, rainwear, winter parkas, and more.

Like The North Face, Eddie Bauer offers standout products at the technical end of the spectrum and has a fairly large casual following, but they aren’t very popular among the average outdoors-goer. That said, we’ve been impressed by their down products in particular, including the MicroTherm series that uses premium down (ranging from 800 to 1,000-fill) and incorporates performance features like stretchy side panels and underarm mesh for ventilation. All in all, Eddie Bauer seems to be making a push to widen their appeal, and we’re eager to continue following their progress.

Cotopaxi

Location: Salt Lake City, Utah Popular products: Fuego and Teca What we like: Retro styling and clear commitment to “doing good.” What we don’t: Not a true performance brand and some don’t love the bold looks.

Cotopaxi began manufacturing clothing in 2014, but founder Davis Smith had been dreaming up the socially minded outdoor brand for years. After spending much of his childhood living in impoverished regions of Central and South America, Smith committed to creating a brand centered around giving back, and Cotopaxi does a lot of that today. The company’s efforts range from sustainably sourcing materials to allocating 1 percent of annual revenue to their namesake foundation, which focuses on awarding grants to humanitarian organizations and other nonprofits. Cotopaxi is also a certified B Corp and climate neutral-certified, working to measure, offset, and reduce emissions and minimize their overall impact on the environment (for reference, their “Do Good” motto is featured on much of their clothing and accessories).

In addition to their ongoing efforts related to sustainability and social stewardship, Cotopaxi is known for their distinctive retro styling, with vibrant colorways and striped patterns that set them apart from the competition. Their Fuego down jacket and Teca windbreaker are two particularly popular offerings, with fun looks and quality materials that both perform well for casual outdoor use and look good around town. However, keep in mind that Cotopaxi isn’t a technical brand, and those looking for specialized gear for long and demanding mountain missions should instead check out companies like Arc’teryx, Mammut, or Rab. And some will find the aforementioned styling to be overly flashy, but that’s purely a matter of preference, and we personally like how much Cotopaxi’s designs stand out.

Montbell

Location: Osaka, Japan Popular products: Plasma 1000 and Versalite What we like: A leader in the ultralight insulation and rainwear markets. What we don’t: Lacking in everyday appeal.

Unlike the brands above, Japan-based Montbell appeals to one very niche area of the market: the ultralight (UL) crowd. A leader in the fast-and-light category, Montbell is known for their ultra-premium down products (including the 1,000-fill-power Plasma series) and ultra-thin shells (like the 10-denier Versalite rain jacket). The net result is remarkably low weights across the board, with the Plasma 1000 Down Jacket checking in at a scant 4.8 ounces and the Versalite at 6.4. Compared to the rest of the market, those numbers are nearly unmatched.

Unfortunately, cutting weight often comes with compromises, and the main sacrifice here is everyday appeal. In other words, these are targeted pieces that won’t hold up to regular wear, and the styling is decidedly technical (we recommend reserving them specifically for hardcore adventures when weight and packed size matter most). But if you’re a thru-hiker or committed alpinist looking to shave ounces, Montbell products are often priced surprisingly well given the level of performance.

Mountain Hardwear

Location: Richmond, California Popular products: Ghost Whisperer/2 and Stretchdown What we like: A growing collection of capable shells and snow gear. What we don’t: Innovation and quality were lacking for a bit, but they seem to be back on the rise.

Mountain Hardwear fell off the radar for some time, but they’ve made notable inroads of late in both quality and sustainability, and we think their current lineup shows a lot of promise. Most notably, the company stands out for their premium down products and growing fleet of Gore-Tex shells and snow gear. The latest Ghost Whisperer is a shining example: the original model helped define the ultralight down jacket category, and the latest “/2” carries the torch with a sub-9-ounce weight, excellent packability, healthy dose of high-quality down, and functional feature set. For serious outdoor adventurers committed to traveling fast and light, it remains a top pick year after year (and MH recently released an even lighter UL version).

On the hardshell front, the brand’s Exposure/2 collection—which ranges from the minimalist Paclite to the premium Gore-Tex Pro—nicely balances protection and weight, and their ski lineup also incorporates Gore’s proven membranes. Further, we appreciate the brand’s ever-growing focus on sustainability, highlighted by responsibly sourced down and recycled materials in many of their new and updated offerings. All in all, this brand is definitively on the rise, and we’re excited by their recent progress.

Where to Buy Outdoor Apparel

It’s incredibly easy to shop online in 2021, with a variety of gear retailers and manufacturers carrying most of the brands above. Backcountry excels in the outerwear market in particular, with a wide selection of brands and available colorways and sizes (as well as free standard shipping on orders over $50). REI Co-op is another great place to shop—both in store and online—and offers a number of benefits and discounts to members throughout the year. Additionally, many of the companies above have modern websites that allow you to access their full collections, including Patagonia, Arc’teryx, Outdoor Research, The North Face, and more (and as we mentioned, brands like Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean aren’t sold anywhere else). Finally, we always recommend supporting your local gear shop when possible, and it’s especially nice to try the items on in person to nail the fit. Back to Our Top Clothing Brands See Our Hiking Gear Reviews

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Outdoor

source https://livingcorner.com.au/switchback-travel-best-outdoor-clothing-brands-of-2021/

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laymancharters-blog · 4 years

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Charter A Bus To Celebrate 2020’s Arrival!

Winter is not a season, it's a celebration. It has such a warm feeling to it that everyone enjoys. During the coldest time of year, the best memories are made, and everyone shares a lot of laughter and love during it.

New Year's Eve is the most celebrated holiday on Earth & the eyes of the world sparkles with anticipation as the clock nears ‪midnight on December 31st. Charter a bus with Layman Transport to make your night worry-free and filled with fun. Let yourself be transported by our experienced drivers from the restaurant, to the NYE event and safely back to your house.

We have made a list of a few of your favorite cities where you can unite with your loved ones for the 2020 New Year’s countdown!

New York City

The wonderful city of Manhattan is well-known for making one million people gather all together & hold their breath until the famous Time Square Ball hits the ground ‪at midnight! Over a billion people around the world will watch the six-ton sphere drop on live television!

Detroit

If you have the chance to take a small trip, Layman recommends you to visit the beautiful city of Detroit & swing by the Big Bright Light Show in downtown Rochester. This city sparkles & shines as you will find every building completely covered in lights to make one giant rainbow. Admire the lights display through the large side windows with our Fully Loaded Motor Coach!

Montreal

Merry Montreal is back again this year with their outdoor dance party & be ready to have an extraordinary night. The New Year Eve Party will take place in the Montreal’s Old Port as usual. After watching the fireworks at midnight, rent a Minibus to drop you off at any bar or nightclub you want so you can keep dancing the night away with your friends!

Toronto

Celebrate the departing year at Nathan Phillips Square for Toronto's annual New Year Eve celebration! Watch the breathtaking pyrotechnical experience and cheer as the clock strike twelve! For all the cold fearing naysayers, take the fun to another level with the hottest party at the CN Tower. This will be a night to remember forever. Hire one of our Executive Sprinters to take you to this upscale event!

Quebec City

We got multiple options when it comes to small size groups for minibus rental needs. Charter our Van & make a trip to Quebec City to express your joy and hope for the year ahead at Place George-V while traditional music artists will throw quite a party at Place de l'Assemblée-Nationale. During your stay in this lovely city, don't forget to go the Village Vacances Valcartier winter resort with your littles ones to their kids playground!

Mountain Tremblant

Hop on our School Bus with all of your friends and spend the last day of 2019 at Foot of the mountain Tremblant! Put on your best fluorescent clothing and accessories for their Fluo New Year's Eve Party. For the occasion, the Place Saint-Bernard will be transformed into an outdoor fluorescent nightclub from 9:00 PM until 11:59 PM! Don't miss the fireworks at midnight!

Mark the arrival of the year 2020 in one of those fabulous cities, bring everybody along with you and be ready to have an amazing time!

Pick a city, send us the details of your itinerary and our team will be happy to assist you!

From all of us at Layman Transport, we would like to wish you Happy Holidays & a prosperous 2020 in hopes that you enjoy this season of festivities with your loved ones.

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gunboatbaylodge · 7 years

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Things to Do in Vancouver this Weekend: September 7, 2017

It’s a weekend of the arts as the Vancouver Fringe Festival has begun, bringing performance of all kinds on to Granville Island for 10 days of creative expression you can go watch and even participate in. There’s also an accordion festival, there’s the Facade Festival projecting all over the outside of the Art Gallery, concerts, a Persian calligraphy workshop, and two different sports that can be called “football” depending on where you’re from.

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing

Friday September 8

Vancouver Fringe Festival Where: Various locations, Granville Island What: A celebration of theatre for everyone, featuring more than 800 performances by over 90 artists. The Fringe employs an “everyone welcome” selection technique—the mainstage shows are literally drawn out of a hat, giving all artists a chance to participate. There are also unique site-specific theatre where artists stage their work in the nooks and crannies of Granville Island. Runs until: Sunday September 17, 2017

Accordion Noir Festival Where: Various locations What: Celebrating its tenth anniversary as Canada’s only festival of alternative accordion music, this year’s special anniversary edition of Accordion Noir presents a pantheon of international and local accordion talent, including the North American debuts of Finnish accordion shaman Antti Paalanen and all-female Russian ethno-rock quartet Iva Nova, the Canadian debut of Accordion DJ Lykaire from Louisiana, as well as the launch party for Geoff Berner’s latest album, Canadiana Grotesquica. Runs until: Sunday September 10, 2017

Facade Festival Where: Georgia Street façade of the Vancouver Art Gallery What: New and traditional media is used with projection mapping to create ephemeral artworks that respond to Vancouver’s vibrant city center and urban landscape through a plethora of styles and approaches. Artists involved: Diyan Achjadi, Fiona Ackerman, Scott Billings, Annie Briard, Shawn Hunt, James Nizam, Luke Ramsey, Evann Siebens, Ben Skinner, and Paul Wong. Runs until: Sunday September 10, 2017

Angels in America Where: Arts Club Theatre What: Witness the soaring conclusion to the acclaimed play that asks us what we do for those we love. Perestroika is a revolution against the politics and prejudice in the 1980s as the AIDS epidemic rages on, and the characters wrestle with their ideologies and an angel looking for an answer. In the centre of it all is Prior Walter, a man in a world of peril who chooses to live in his light. Runs until: Sunday October 8, 2017

Against Me!

Against Me! Where: The Vogue What: Punk that’s a bit pop with a generous dusting of emo.

BC Lions vs. Montreal Alouettes

BC Lions vs. Montreal Alouettes Where: BC Place Stadium What: It’s a football game, Canadian vs. Canadian – cheer for your fave coast.

Interrupting the Interface | David Wilson Where: Kimoto Gallery What: In building this body of work, Wilson scanned thousands of photographs on Instagram and selected the images he felt compelled to work with. Then it was a matter of copying, pasting, further filtering for his own painting references. Most of the selected images identified with water or fluidity, a pervasive theme throughout Wilson’s work. Runs until: Saturday September 30, 2017

The Getaway Escape Room Where: 4386 Main Street What: A free entertainment experience with a theme focused on escaping the trappings of tedious adulthood tasks, like doing chores, dealing with technology glitches and commuting. Teams of up to eight people have up to 45-minutes to search for clues and solve brain teasing puzzles to help them escape the room. Runs until: Tuesday September 12, 2017

Daniel O’Donnel

Daniel O’Donnell Where: The Orpheum What: According to a press release, this Irish singer made record-breaking chart history earlier this year by becoming the first recording artist in the history of the UK Artist Album Chart to have charted at least one new album every year since 1988, an unprecedented and unbroken 30-year span, surpassing everyone from Michael Jackson, the Rolling Stones, Madonna and U2.

Big Sugar | Image by Michael Maxxis

Big Sugar Where: Commodore Ballroom What: This cocky-rock reggae group that was big in the 90s with Turn the Lights On and Diggin’ a Hole continue to sell out shows across the continent.

Icons Vintage Market Where: 1024 Main Street What: Shop vintage and collectables to the tune of a live DJ and drink specials.

Aileen Bahmanipour: Technical Problem

Aileen Bahmanipour: Technical Problem Where: Grunt Gallery What: An exhibition of mixed media drawings by Vancouver-based, Iranian-born artist Aileen Bahmanipour that explores cyclical political power and cultural identity. Runs until: Saturday October 14, 2017

Seven Beauties: The Films Of Lina Wertmüller

Seven Beauties: The Films Of Lina Wertmüller Where: The Cinematheque What: Known for her bawdy, boisterous satirical forays into the minefields of sex, politics, and social class, Lina Wertmüller (b. 1928 in Rome) was an art-house sensation, and just about the world’s most prominent female director, in the 1970s. Her films, provocative, parodic, and often decidedly un-PC — or, at least, too savage in their irony and iconoclasm to fit easily into simple political boxes — were often highly contentious. Runs until: Monday September 25, 2017

Saturday September 9

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Persian Calligraphy Workshop

Persian Calligraphy Workshop Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology What: Master calligrapher Mojtaba Daneshi from Iran will lead an in-depth workshop on the historical background, materials and methods of Persian calligraphy. Mojtaba will demonstrate the traditional and experimental techniques he has developed over the years, including carving wet paint on canvas. Participants will complete a unique work on canvas to take home.

Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Real Salt Lake

Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Real Salt Lake Where: BC Place Stadium What:Watch and cheer for some soccer.

Fall For Local

Fall for Local Where: The Pipe Shop Building (Vancouver’s North Shore) What: A market by a community for established and emerging entrepreneurs interested in gaining brand exposure, sharing knowledge and collaborating with other creative entrepreneurs to promote the “circle economy” philosophy. Runs until: Sunday September 10, 2017

Slumber Here

Slumber Here Where: Granville Island What:A fully immersive, multi-sensory experience, in which audience members explore a dreamlike fairy world where they find themselves seduced by Oberon, assist the Mechanicals to fix their play, help Puck create mischief, and even interact with a real, live mini donkey. Inspired by Shakespeare’s most popular comedy, it offers an interactive narrative for audience members to explore, often by themselves, in order to discover hidden scenes, encounter performers one-on-one, imbibe custom-designed fairy elixirs and treats, and potentially change the outcome of the play. Runs until: Sunday September 17, 2017

GoGo Penguin

GoGo Penguin (show 1 of 2) Where: Frankie’s Jazz Club What: Hailing from Manchester in the UK, jazz meets electronica with influences from Brian Eno, John Cage, Massive Attack, and Aphex Twin.

The Quiz Show Returns

The Quiz Show Returns Where: The Fox Cabaret What: A spoof on segments from game shows past with all-original segments featuring local comedians as contestants doing their best to make audience members laugh – and win prizes, of course.

Benjamin Booker

Benjamin Booker Where: The Biltmore What: New Orleans-based guitarist, singer-songwriter and guitarist on tour to support his latest release “Witness”.

Performance: Object Without Shadow

Performance: Object Without Shadow Where: TBC What: Sikarnt Skoolisariyaporn re-enacts a ritual she practiced with her father’s Chinese-born family each September, the period when it is believed that ghosts are able to make a momentary reappearance from the afterlife. In this custom, paper replicas of desirable objects – such as jewelry, iPhones, computers and majong sets – are burned as offerings to ancestors.

Perturbator + Author and Punisher

Perturbator + Author and Punisher Where: The Rickshaw What: Dark synth wiz from Paris + a one-man industrial doom and drone metal machine from San Diego.

Luxury and Supercar Weekend Where: VanDusen Gardens What: Canada’s premier luxury lifestyle and automotive event celebrates its eighth year with latest Supercar designs, classic Concours collectibles, fall fashion, watches, jewelry, specialty foods, wines and premium spirits. Runs until: Sunday September 10, 2017

Sunday September 10

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Pop Up Roller Disco

Pop Up Roller Disco Where: Robson Square Skating Rink What: Classic roller rink vibes with big hair, short shorts, long socks, and all of the disco, funk, R&B and glam rock you can handle, brought to you by DJ K-Tel. Limited quad and in-line skate rentals will be available (first come, first served).

Thundercat

Thundercat Where: The Commodore Ballroom What: An American multi-genre bass guitarist, producer and singer from LA.

GoGo Penguin (show 2 of 2) Where: Frankie’s Jazz Club What: Hailing from Manchester in the UK, jazz meets electronica with influences from Brian Eno, John Cage, Massive Attack, and Aphex Twin.

Ongoing

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Accordion Noir Festival Where: Various lacations What: Celebrating its tenth anniversary as Canada’s only festival of alternative accordion music, this year’s special anniversary edition of Accordion Noir presents a pantheon of international and local accordion talent, including the North American debuts of Finnish accordion shaman Antti Paalanen and all-female Russian ethno-rock quartet Iva Nova, the Canadian debut of Accordion DJ Lykaire from Louisiana, as well as the launch party for Geoff Berner’s latest album, Canadiana Grotesquica. Runs until: Sunday September 10, 2017

Neither Wolf Nor Dog

Neither Wolf Nor Dog Where: VanCity Theatre What: Adapted from the acclaimed novel by Kent Nerburn, this funny and deeply moving film follows an author who gets sucked into the heart of contemporary Native American life in the sparse lands of the Dakotas by a 95-year-old Lakota elder. Runs until: Sunday September 10, 2017

The Teacher

The Teacher Where: VanCity Theatre What: Set in Bratislava during the final decade of Communism, it examines the abuse of power at a middle school. Zuzana Mauréry tears into the part of a lifetime as a terrifyingly passive-aggressive teacher, Mrs. Drazdechova, who happens to be a bigwig in the local Communist party. She shamelessly exploits pupils and parents alike in return for dispensing generous grades. Runs until: Sunday September 10, 2017

Panda International Night Market Where: Richmond, BC What: A diverse market in Richmond, with shopping, food, beverages, and a game zone. Runs until: Monday September 11, 2017

Aileen Bahmanipour: Technical Problem

Flora and Fauna: A Summer Art Show Where: The Fall Tattooing and Artist Studio What: An artistic summer celebration of all vibrant, colourful, living things. Runs until: Friday September 15, 2017

Oh, Canada – The True North Strong and Funny

Oh, Canada – The True North Strong and Funny Where: The Improv Centre on Granville Island What: Based on audience suggestions, the cast lampoon such Canadian ‘institutions’ as Heritage Minutes, the Mounties, winter, our hunky Prime Minister, hockey, and lumberjacks or other endless possibilities. As this is improv and the show is made up on the spot, no two shows are ever the same. Join us for some distinctively Canadian laughs. You’ll be nicer for it. Runs until: Saturday September 16, 2017

Slumber Here

Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival

Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival Where: Vanier Park What: What do you say to watching a live production of Much Ado About Nothing, The Winter’s Tale, The Merchant of Venice or The Two Gentlemen of Verona in a custom-built tent on the beach while sipping wine, beer, and munching on a picnic lunch themed to the play? Yes! Right? After 28 years, this festival has hit a stride of near perfection (and don’t even get us started on the amazing costumes.) Runs until: Saturday September 23, 2017

Jaad Kuujus: Meghann O’Brien

Jaad Kuujus: Meghann O’Brien Where: Bill Reid Gallery What: Meghann takes materials from the natural world and transforms them into pieces of high-level human expression. Working with traditional materials such as mountain goat wool and cedar bark has given her a deep connection to the supernatural world, a connection to her ancestors. She describes working with cedar bark as, “travelling back in time” or “touching the cosmos”. Her creations have a profound impact within contemporary Northwest Coast art and beyond. Runs until: September 2017

A Sublime Vernacular: The Landscape Paintings of Levine Flexhaug

A Sublime Vernacular: The Landscape Paintings of Levine Flexhaug Where: Contemporary Art Gallery What: The first overview of the extraordinary career of Levine Flexhaug (1918 – 1974), born in the Treelon area near Climax, Saskatchewan. It brings together approximately 450 of the artist’s paintings as well as several of his mural-sized works. An itinerant painter, he sold thousands of variations of essentially the same landscape painting in national parks, resorts, department stores and bars across western Canada from the late 1930s through the early 1960s. Runs until: Sunday September 24, 2017

Unbelievable

Unbelievable Where: The Museum of Vancouver What: This exhibition poses provocative questions about our perception of stories by assembling iconic artifacts, storied replicas, and contested objects for a mind-bending exploration of the role stories play in defining lives and communities – and what happens when we question the tales we’ve long relied upon. Unbelievable objects include the Thunderbird totem pole that appeared in controversial filmmaker Edward Curtis’ 1906 work In the Land of the Head Hunters; contemporary ‘totems’, each with contrasting stories about a point in time in Vancouver; and artifacts illustrating the complex narrative around Vancouver’s relationship with First Nations communities. Runs until: Sunday September 24, 2017

Uninterrupted

Uninterrupted Where: Under the Cambie Street Bridge What: After dusk, audiences will witness the extraordinary migration of wild Pacific salmon in a 30-minute cinematic spectacle that explores the connection between nature and our urban environments. Runs until: Sunday September 24, 2017

Be Polite

Be Polite Where: Contemporary Art Gallery What: Working closely with the Estate of Gordon Bennett and IMA Brisbane the exhibition will comprise a selection of rare works on paper including drawing, painting, watercolour, poetry, and essays from the early 1990s through to the early 2000s. Runs until: Sunday September 24, 2017

Sunday Art Market

Sunday Art Market Where: Jim Deva Plaza What: Local artists, vendors and makers, largely from Vancouver’s West End, along with musical and other live performances and artist-led workshops to drop into. Runs until: Sunday September 24, 2017

Seven Beauties: The Films Of Lina Wertmüller

Works by Anna Milton

Works by Anna Milton Where: VanDusen Gardens What: Anna has been exhibiting and selling her work internationally since her college years. She trained and worked as an art therapist for many years and is interested in symbols and metaphor that are present in visual art. Runs until: Wednesday September 27, 2017

Shipyards Night Marlet

Shipyards Night Market Where: Lonsdale, North Vancouver What: Food, art, music, entertainment, shopping, a beer garden, and you can bring your dog! Runs until: September 29, 2017

ZimCarvings Where: VanDusen Botanical Garden What: Patrick Sephani along with visiting artist Peter Kananji will be showcasing works from over 30 Zimbabwean stone sculptors on the beautiful garden grounds and carving stone sculptures on site. All works will be available for purchase. Runs until: Saturday September 30, 2017

Downtown Eastside Women’s Summer Fair Where: Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre What: Over twenty-five vendors and artisans from within the community, entertainment from local performers, an area for children to play, information booths about the different resources available in the community, and a wide variety of goods and services for purchase. Runs until: Saturday September 30, 2017 (Saturdays)

Claude Monet’s Secret Garden

Claude Monet’s Secret Garden Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: The most comprehensive exhibition of French painter Claude Monet’s work in Canada in two decades, Claude Monet’s Secret Garden will trace the career of this pivotal figure in Western art history. This exhibition will present thirty-eight paintings spanning the course of Monet’s long career from the unparalleled collection of the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. Runs until: Sunday October 1, 2017

Stephen Shore: The Giverny Portfolio

Stephen Shore: The Giverny Portfolio Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: Twenty-five photographs by contemporary American photographer Stephen Shore produced during several visits to Impressionist painter Claude Monet’s famous gardens at Giverny, France. Showing concurrently with the exhibition Claude Monet’s Secret Garden, Stephen Shore: The Giverny Portfolio offers a contemporary perspective on the tranquility originally captured in Monet’s iconic paintings. Runs until: Sunday October 1, 2017

Persistence

Persistence Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: Persistence draws together three recent contemporary installations to explore the surprising and creative ways that technologies, physical objects and natural processes endure and transform. Runs until: October 1, 2017

Elad Lassry

Elad Lassry Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: Investigating the nature of perception with a special focus on the photographic image within the digital era, the exhibition includes more than seventy works—films, photographs and sculpture—produced by Lassry over the last decade. Runs until: Sunday October 1, 2017

Mount Pleasant Farmers Market Where: Dude Chilling Park What: Amble over and pick up some afternoon picnic supplies, groceries for the week, and Sunday dinner fixings from 25+ farms and producers. Each week you’ll find a fresh selection of just-picked seasonal fruits & veggies, ethically-raised meats & sustainable seafood, artisanal bread & prepared foods, craft beer, wine, & spirits, handmade craft, and coffee & food trucks. Runs until: Sunday October 8, 2017

Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia

Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology What: Words and their physical manifestations are explored in this insightful exhibition, which will honour the special significance that written forms. Varied forms of expression associated with writing throughout Asia is shown over the span of different time periods: from Sumerian cuneiform inscriptions, Qu’ranic manuscripts, Southeast Asian palm leaf manuscripts and Chinese calligraphy from MOA’s Asian collection to graffiti art from Afghanistan and contemporary artworks using Japanese calligraphy, and Tibetan and Thai scripts. Runs until: Monday October 9, 2017

Richmond Night Market

Richmond Night Market Where: Richmond, BC What: There’s a dinosaur park! Anamatronic dinosaurs! Also – live performances, carnival games, over 200 retail stalls and over 500 food choices from around the world. Runs until: October 9, 2017

Onsite / Offsite Tsang Kin-Wah

Onsite / Offsite Tsang Kin-Wah Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: This large-scale composition transforms English texts to form intricate floral and animal patterns. The work draws from discriminatory language that appeared in newspapers and political campaigns in Vancouver during the 1887 anti-Chinese riots, the mid-1980s immigration influx from Hong Kong and most recently, the heated exchanges around the foreign buyers and the local housing market. Runs until: Sunday October 15, 2017

West End Farmers Market Where: 1100 Comox St What: Located in the heart of Vancouver’s busy West End, this laid-back Saturday market looks onto beautiful Nelson Park and adjacent community gardens. Each week, shop for the best in local, seasonal produce, artisanal bread & prepared foods, craft beer, wine, & spirits, ethically raised meat, eggs, & dairy, sustainable seafood, wild crafted product, and handmade craft. Hot food & coffee on-site as well. Runs until: Saturday October 21, 2017 (Saturdays)

Trout Lake Farmers Market Where: Trout Lake What: This is where you’ll find the vendors who have been doing it since the beginning; what started as 14 farmers ‘squatting’ at the Croatian Cultural Centre back in 1995 has grown into Vancouver’s most well-known and beloved market. Visitors come from near and far to sample artisan breads & preserves, stock up on free-range and organic eggs & meats, get the freshest, hard-to-find heirloom vegetables and taste the first Okanagan cherries and peaches of the season. Runs until: Saturday October 21, 2017 (Saturdays)

Kitsilano Farmers Market

Kitsilano Farmers Market Where: Kitsilano Community Centre parking lot What: A great selection of just-picked, seasonal fruits & vegetables, ethically raised and grass fed meat, eggs, & dairy, sustainable seafood, fresh baked bread & artisanal food, local beer, wine, & spirits, and beautiful, handmade craft. Kids and parents alike can enjoy entertainment by market musicians, a nearby playground and splash park, and coffee and food truck offerings each week. Runs until: Sunday October 22, 2017 (Sundays)

The Lost Fleet Exhibit Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum What: On December 7, 1941 the world was shocked when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, launching the United States into the war. This action also resulted in the confiscation of nearly 1,200 Japanese-Canadian owned fishing boats by Canadian officials on the British Columbia coast, which were eventually sold off to canneries and other non-Japanese fishermen. The Lost Fleet looks at the world of the Japanese-Canadian fishermen in BC and how deep-seated racism played a major role in the seizure, and sale, of Japanese-Canadian property and the internment of an entire people. Runs until: Winter 2017

Bill Reid Creative Journeys | Image via the Canadian Museum of History

Bill Reid Creative Journeys Where: The Bill Reid Gallery What: Celebrating the many creative journeys of acclaimed master goldsmith and sculptor Bill Reid (1920–1998), this exhibition provides a comprehensive introduction to his life and work. Runs until: Sunday December 10, 2017

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology What: MOA will showcase its Amazonian collections in a significant exploration of socially and environmentally-conscious notions intrinsic to indigenous South American cultures, which have recently become innovations in International Law. These are foundational to the notions of Rights of Nature, and they have been consolidating in the nine countries that share responsibilities over the Amazonian basin. Runs until: January 28, 2018

Emily Carr: Into the Forest

Emily Carr: Into the Forest Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: Far from feeling that the forests of the West Coast were a difficult subject matter, Carr exulted in the symphonies of greens and browns found in the natural world. With oil on paper as her primary medium, Carr was free to work outdoors in close proximity to the landscape. She went into the forest to paint and saw nature in ways unlike her fellow British Columbians, who perceived it as either untamed wilderness or a plentiful source of lumber. Runs until: March 4, 2018

Chief Dan George: Actor and Activist Where: North Vancouver Museum What: An exhibition exploring the life and legacy of Tsleil-Waututh Chief Dan George (1899- 1981) and his influence as an Indigenous rights advocate and his career as an actor. The exhibition was developed in close collaboration with the George family. Runs until: April 2018

In a Different Light

In a Different Light Where: Museum of Anthropology What: More than 110 historical Indigenous artworks and marks the return of many important works to British Columbia. These objects are amazing artistic achievements. Yet they also transcend the idea of ‘art’ or ‘artifact’. Through the voices of contemporary First Nations artists and community members, this exhibition reflects on the roles historical artworks have today. Featuring immersive storytelling and innovative design, it explores what we can learn from these works and how they relate to Indigenous peoples’ relationships to their lands. Runs until: Spring 2019

What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments below or tweet me directly at @lextacular

Inside Vancouver Blog

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airbnbfestivals · 5 years

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Short term rentals prohibited

Question for condo owners who have bylaws prohibiting short term rentals.I live in a condo complex in Montreal that currently houses several airbnb's that are in direct violation of our condo bylaws (rentals under 30 days are strictly prohibited). Last Wednesday an airbnb guest was running erratically around the property and during this time I was assaulted and my dog was repeatedly kicked by this guest. 911 was called and he was subsequently arrested. I found out the following morning he also caused significant damage to community property.The majority of guests are respectful of our home, however there has been an increasing amount of problems in common areas with people not respecting our property and violating the rules of conduct. The condo corporation has a system in place to fine condo owners as issues arise, however that does not solve the security problems that are now arising and I deserve the right to feel safe in my own home.Airbnb has repeatedly told me that they are a third party platform and hold no responsibility for the host\guest. That any issue I have is for local law enforcement. My condo management hands seems to be tied aside from inflicting harsh fines to the unit owners. I have offered to provide Airnb with a copy of our bylaws so that guest warnings at the very least (you may not have a place to stay when you arrive) can be applied to listings at my address.Since Airbnb appears to take the guest experience more seriously, I am now mobilizing a group on site to proactively disrupt any future airbnb check-ins by ensuring all lock boxes are routinely cut and security will be working to ID anyone unfamiliar to the building and without a resident escort, anyone attempting to access the building will be asked to leave and authories will be called if needed. Goal is to create so much negative clientfeed back for this location that Airbnb has no choice but to pay attention.If anyone has successfully been able to get Airnb out of their co-op, please share your wisdom! Get $20 off your first AirBnB stay.

#Short term rentals prohibited #vacation #family #place to stay #airbnb #hotel #holiday #gratitude

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itsfinancethings · 5 years

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Airbnb is taking more steps to crack down on parties and nuisance guests in the wake of a Halloween shooting at an Airbnb rental in a San Francisco suburb where five people were killed.

The company said Thursday it’s banning “open invite” parties at all of its accommodations. Those are parties open to anyone and advertised on social media, for example.

Airbnb says boutique hotels and professional event venues will be exempt from the new rule.

The San Francisco-based company is also banning large parties at apartment buildings and condos.

“This policy does not impact parties that are authorized by hosts and convened respectfully by guests,” the company said in a news release. “Instead, our goal with this new policy is to address the small number of guests who act irresponsibly and those rare hosts whose homes become persistent neighborhood nuisances.”

Airbnb says it’s in the process of identifying listings globally that may be violating the party house ban, including accommodations in Los Angeles, Miami Beach, London and Montreal. The company says it’s asking hosts to update their listings to comply with the ‘’open invite” ban.

Airbnb is also issuing new guest behavior rules. In early 2020, guests will get a warning for one instance of excessive noise, unauthorized guests, unauthorized parking, unauthorized smoking or excessive messiness reported by a host or a neighbor. Further violations will result in account suspension or removal.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced last month that changes would be coming after five people were killed at a Halloween party shooting in Orinda. The owner of the Airbnb rental didn’t authorize the party, which had more than 100 guests.

AirbnbWatch, a hotel-funded group that calls for stricter local home-sharing regulations, faulted Airbnb for responding only after the Orinda shooting. It also thinks the company’s efforts fall short.

The group said Airbnb should limit rentals to owner-occupied or primary residences. Hosts in those homes are invested in their communities and are more careful about which guests they accept, it said.

But Daniel Guttentag, an assistant professor in the department of hospitality and tourism management at the College of Charleston School of Business, said he thinks the new policies demonstrate Airbnb’s genuine intention to rid the platform of some of its most problematic activity. He thinks the rules could also help shield Airbnb from liability if a party goes awry.

“The challenge for Airbnb will be enforcing these rules, though, as its immense scale can make that difficult,” Guttentag said. Airbnb has more than 7 million listings worldwide.

Guttentag said it could also be hard for Airbnb to determine what is “too loud” and ensure that neighbors reporting a problem aren’t just trying to shut a rental down.

The company is under pressure to gain the trust of travelers, neighbors and lawmakers as it prepares for its planned initial public offering next year.

Airbnb also said Thursday it’s establishing a dedicated hotline for mayors and city officials who have questions about its policies.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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newstechreviews · 5 years