It is hard to know what to make of massive cemeteries with row after row of identical, machine-polished, brown headstones. Everything is so perfectly ordered: not so many people hanging about, not so many markers to distinguish one gravestone from another. We all have our traditions, but it is heartening to see

Eternal glory awaits the cream-faced loon who can sort these characters into their resident plays.     Can you match these Shakespearean characters to their plays? Benvolio Bianca Corporal Nym Dionyza Helicanus Iago Lady Capulet Lodovico Mistress Quickly Robert Shallow Thaisa Tybalt You scullion! You rampallian! Shakespeare has your answers at

If you are looking for a Very Vancouver summer evening… 1. Join your dog on a walk from the Planetarium to the Kits Beach walkway.   2. Find a sun-blessed bench where your pooch and your slightly lazier friend can take a rest, while you decide on which beach sport to try. Will you wait for a

Nothing takes the life and blood out of history than a few paragraphs in a textbook and a litany of dates, to be memorized by Thursday. We learn far more about war – and the urgency of peace – through the stories of soldiers, survivors and the splintered families left behind. The

“Art is not the application of a canon of beauty,” said Picasso, “but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman, we don’t start measuring her limbs. We love with our desires.” Picasso was a man with prodigious desires, a penetrating eye

If there is a list of cities with gorgeous street murals, San Francisco must be on it. The Mission District is particularly known for its rich collection of outdoor artwork reflecting history and struggle in the city itself, Mexico, Latin America and beyond. Diego Rivera, who painted three murals in the

If you have spent any time on Main Street, you have seen the House of Heads. The heads used to call a meeting and peer out on cue. It’s not clear what our feature head did wrong, but he has been locked outside in a TV guillotine box along with a toss of limbs and a jug

It is like a topsy-turvy 1950’s newsroom where all the reporters are kids and all the managing editors are encouraging and friendly. Here, at Queen Alexandra Elementary on East Broadway and Clarke, young writers are lined up at typewriters, mulling over the next sentence in their stories. A few minutes

Quick! Before we get into any details. If you are here in July and want to watch the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra play the live soundtrack to a big screen Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone  – that’s the Sorceror’s Stone to you, American friends – at the historic Orpheum Theatre, dash for tickets now.

Lisa Wolfin is a long-time Vancouverite, a graduate of Eric Hamber High School. Her creative road has included design awards at FIDM in Los Angeles, a two year apprenticeship at Christian Dior in Paris and her own Wear Wolfin clothing line for women. As a curator and lifelong painter, Wolfin became excited