Dream pop duo Azure Ray — composed of Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor — employ graceful harmonies, patient folksy song structures, and touches of electronic production to create otherworldly songs that balance tranquility and intensity.
The pair met at the age of 15 while attending the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham. Together, they fronted a band called Little Red Rocket, which released two CDs, Who Did You Pay (1997) and It’s in the Sound (2000), with the band breaking up shortly after the release of the latter album.
Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor decided to head out to Athens, Georgia, striking out to find a career, forming Azure Ray soon after arrival in their new home.
“My boyfriend had just died and we had written all of these songs that were helping us cope with everything. We had a night where all of our friends and family got together. We played those songs, which later would turn into the songs on our first Azure Ray record, which we released shortly thereafter,” says Taylor.
Their self-titled début album is a quiet, gentle set of lovely and soul-searching songs that incorporate elements of folk, pop, and light electronica.
Following the unexpected death of Taylor’s boyfriend, the two musicians used songwriting as a method of coping with their grief. The intensity of that loss informed the mournful tone of the group’s earliest work in 2001, and would carry through in their sound to some degree from that point on.
The song Sleep was later featured in the 2006 Academy Award-nominated movie The Devil Wears Prada, featuring Anne Hathaway. In February 2015, Taylor Swift included Sleep on a six-song “breakup playlist” made for a fan via her official Tumblr account.
Camilo Arturo Leslie in Pitchforkhad this to say about the début album …
Their album cover is simple: just an old, sepia-toned photograph of a little girl. She looks like my grandmother as a child. Nostalgia and melancholy rub off the liner notes and stain your fingertips. The little girl clutches her palms to her ears and wears an inscrutable expression that vacillates from pouty to fearful to verge-of-tears, depending on what mental angle you hold it at.
Azure Ray’s indie music aesthetic is built on pretty, easy-on-the-tympanum pop acoustic guitar strumming. No fuzz, no indigestible chords, just polished production and evocative arrangements. Lap steel guitar, cello, violin, church bells, piano, brass, and tape loops make appearances on these 11 tracks.
The draw of their music is, of course, the duo’s vocals, Azure Ray’s gentle trills offering a haunting balance between the ethereal and corporeal, as well as an understated, yet distinct feminine strength, not unlike the early music of Linda Ronstadt.
Indie label-ghetto obscurity has kept Azure Ray from attaining massive popularity.
But an indie-ghetto habitué such as yourself shouldn’t have any trouble digging up a copy of Azure Ray’s début CD, or maybe a vinyl copy.
Red Cat Records on Main Street, or Zulu Records on West 4th Avenue, if they don’t have it in stock, could certainly order it for you.
Beautiful, expertly crafted pop songs keep a room in your heart’s hotel (under an assumed name, naturally).
You could also listen to Azure Ray on Spotify, or Apple or Amazon Music, or purchase their music from either of the two latter providers of digital music.
In the mosaic of Vancouver’s civic infrastructure, the elected, independentPark Board stands as a cornerstone of citizen well-being, pivotal in shaping the city’s social fabric, environmental sustainability and recreational opportunities.
Established in 1888, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation holds a unique position among municipal bodies, directly accountable to the citizens it serves. With its mandate focused solely on parks, recreation, community amenities, and preservation of the natural environment, the Park Board represents an essential conduit between Vancouver’s diverse populace and its natural and urban spaces.
First and foremost, the Park Board serves as a guardian of Vancouver’s green lungs, stewarding its vast network of parks, gardens, and natural areas.
From the iconic Stanley Park to neighbourhood playgrounds, these green spaces provide invaluable ecological benefits, serving as habitats for wildlife, mitigating urban heat island effects, and fostering biodiversity.
Moreover, they offer vital havens for residents seeking respite from the hustle and bustle of city life, promoting mental health and well-being.
Park Board serves to preserve and enhance these green oases, ensuring our city remains a livable community where nature and urbanity coalesce harmoniously.
Equally significant is the Park Board’s commitment to fostering inclusive and accessible recreational opportunities for all residents.
Through its diverse array of programmes, facilities, and events, Park Board actively promotes physical activity, social cohesion, and cultural exchange.
Whether it’s swimming pools, community centres, or sports fields, these amenities serve as vital hubs for community engagement and empowerment. Moreover, initiatives such as free access programmes for low-income families and barrier-free facilities ensure that socioeconomic disparities do not hinder citizens’ access to recreational pursuits. By championing equity and inclusivity, the Park Board plays a pivotal role in strengthening the social fabric of Vancouver’s neighbourhoods.
In addition, Vancouver’s Park Board serves as a nexus for environmental advocacy and sustainability initiatives, spearheading efforts to mitigate climate change and protect natural ecosystems.
Through tree planting initiatives, shoreline restoration projects, and sustainable landscaping practices, Park Board endeavours to enhance the resilience of Vancouver’s urban environment. The Park Board’s leadership in promoting active transportation, such as cycling and walking paths, not only reduces carbon emissions but also fosters healthier and more livable neighbourhoods.
By embracing innovative solutions and community partnerships, Park Board exemplifies Vancouver’s commitment to being a global leader in urban sustainability.
Moreover, the Park Board’s independence from municipal governmentensures it can prioritize the needs and interests of citizens without undue political influence.
Elected by Vancouverites, Park Board Commissioners are accountable solely to the electorate, allowing them to make decisions based on evidence, community input, and long-term vision rather than short-term political expediency.
This autonomy is fundamental in safeguarding the integrity and effectiveness of the Park Board’s operations, ensuring that it remains a trusted steward of public resources and a champion of citizen well-being.
The Park Board serves as a forum for civic engagement and participatory democracy, providing citizens with a platform to voice their concerns, aspirations, and ideas for the city’s parks and recreational amenities.
Through public consultations, advisory committees, and community engagement initiatives, it fosters a culture of collaboration and co-creation, where residents are actively involved in shaping the future of their neighbourhoods. This bottom-up approach not only enhances the legitimacy of Park Board decisions but also fosters a sense of ownership and pride among Vancouverites in their public spaces.
Vancouver’s elected, independentPark Board is an indispensable institution that serves to enrich the lives of citizens living in every neighbourhood across our city, while strengthening the social, environmental, and cultural fabric of Vancouver.
Through its stewardship of parks and green spaces, promotion of inclusive recreation, advocacy for sustainability, and commitment to participatory democracy, Vancouver’s much cherished, invaluable, independentBoard of Parks & Recreation embodies the values of livability, equity, and environmental stewardship.
As the city continues to evolve and grow, the Park Board’s role in shaping a more vibrant, resilient, and equitable Vancouver remains as vital as ever.
Note. The preceding text was generated in the ChatGPT AI chatbot, in response to the question, “Why is the elected, independent Vancouver Park Board essential to the citizens of Vancouver, British Columbia?” What you read above is ChatGPT’s response. If artificial intelligence can determine the value of Vancouver Park Board, why is it the human intelligence of the members of Vancouver City Council — without mandate to abolish our elected Park Board — cannot?
Vancouver’s West End in the 1960s, a comfortable family neighbourhood next to Stanley Park
In the 1960s, when Vancouver was still very much a village rather than the thriving metropolis we know it to be today, in those near soporific, pre-movement times, rare was the occasion when the citizens of our fine city got up on their hind legs to protest the status quo or what seemed like the inevitable, as wealthy old men of circumstance wrought change unchallenged, untrammelled by reflection.
Tom ‘Not So Terrific’ Campbell, controversial Vancouver Mayor, in office from 1966 to 1972
Such was the case in 1971, when Vancouver Mayor Tom Campbell and his Non-Partisan Association Council cohorts decided that the time had come to develop the Coal Harbour site at the entrance to Stanley Park, cherished green space of long duration, but not much longer if Mr. Campbell — and the provincial government, led by 17-years-in-power Socred Premier W.A.C. Bennett — had their way.
The Coal Harbour site, owned by Harbour Park Developments, a politically connected local group with strong ties to the Non-Partisan Association, developer Tom Campbell — who in 1966 ran for Mayor as an independent, and won — and the Socred government, first unveiled their development plans in 1965.
The Four Seasons Hotel chain came forward in 1965 with a $40-million development plan on the Coal Harbour waterfront. The initial plan would house 3,000 people in three 30-storey buildings, including a 13-storey hotel and townhouses.
Over time, the development plan was expanded into an unheard of at the time $55-million massive multi-tower plan, with 15 apartment towers, ranging from 15 to 31 storeys set to be constructed on the then green space, a veritable high-rise forest along the Georgia Street causeway entrance to Stanley Park.
As you might well expect, the massive tower development plan for the 14-acre Coal Harbour waterfront site turned into a contentious issue that lasted for years and years, causing increasing numbers of people to rise up in adversarial opposition. The public wanted the site preserved as green space. Developers, Tom Campbell, the Non-Partisan Association, and the Social Credit government had other ideas.
Each week, for years, the community rose up in high dudgeon.
After all, the West End at the time was a single family dwelling neighbourhood, the tallest structure in Vancouver was the Marine Building on Burrard Street.
In 1966, each weekend for the first couple of months, a rag tag group of community activists — who came to include a young storefront lawyer, Mike Harcourt, and Darlene Marzari, an employee of the City — protested on the deserted site. Over time, their numbers grew to five hundred, and then a thousand, rising up in protest and stark and strident opposition to development plans for the cherished green space.
Vancouver City Councillor and then Mayor, Art Phillips; Councillors Walter Hardwick and Harry Rankin
In 1968, a reform-minded Art Phillips and his friend, Walter Hardwick — an Urban Planning professor at UBC, and a community leader whose work would come to shape the city and Metro Vancouver region — ran for Vancouver City Council under the banner of a civic party they had created, The Electors’ Action Movement (TEAM), securing two seats on City Council, joining a young lawyer by the name of Harry Rankin, who had been elected to Council in 1966, sitting in sole opposition to the developer-friendly Non-Partisan Association City Council of the day.
Throughout their campaign for office in 1968, both Art Phillips and Dr. Hardwick stated their clear opposition to the Harbour Parks Development / Four Seasons plan for the green space at the entrance to Stanley Park, standing with the community, and with Vancouver City Councillor Harry Rankin. Would community opposition to the Coal Harbour development plan, in ever increasing numbers, carry the day?
Only the continued opposition of Vancouver citizens could and would tell the tale.
A model of the Harbour Park Developments proposal for the entrance to Stanley Park. The $55-million development would have constructed 15 high-rise towers. Photo: Selwyn Pullan / PostMedia
By the early spring of 1971, hundreds of community activists gathered each weekend on the Coal Harbour site at the entrance to Stanley Park, in protest.
June 7, 1971. All Seasons Park after squatters reclaimed the site. Photo credit: Vancouver Sun
On May 29th, 1971, seventy community activists (hippies they were called by the press) took matters into their own hands, ripping down a fence surrounding the site, storming onto the Coal Harbour waterfront site to plant maple trees, setting up a camp of tents and ramshackle huts, the protest squat sustaining for a year, each subsequent weekend joined by hundreds and hundreds of concerned, mostly young, Vancouver citizens, at what was now called All Seasons Park.
September 23, 1971. An A-frame squatter’s shack in All Seasons Park. Photo: Ross Kenward / PostMedia
In early 1972, bowing to public pressure, a combative Tom Campbell announced there would be a plebiscite on the Four Seasons development, but that only property owners could vote.
This was roundly denounced at a public meeting on June 21, when urban planner Setty Pendakur dubbed the project “the biggest abortion in the history of development in Canada.” Pendakur said the development would create traffic chaos at the entrance to Stanley Park, that Council was confusing people with its plebiscite.
Property owners voted to reject the Four Seasons proposal by 51%. Then the federal government stepped in. On February 10, 1972, Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s government killed the proposal by withholding the transfer of a crucial water lot.
1972. Alderman Harry Rankin talking to activists at All Seasons Park. Photo: Gord Croucher / PostMedia
With a new Mayor and majority progressive T.E.A.M. (The Electors’ Action Movement) Council voted into office in 1972 by a public eager for change, led by Mayor Art Phillips, with Walter Hardwick, Darlene Marzari, Mike Harcourt and Setty Pendakur securing seats on, perhaps, Vancouver’s most progressive Council ever, in November 1973, the City of Vancouver bought the entire site for $6.4 million.
The green space at the entrance to Stanley Park is now known as Devonian Harbour Park, but for some of us, it will always be All Seasons Park.
Some historical source material for this article provided by Vancouver Sun reporter John Mackie.
There is a correlation to be drawn between the movement leading to the defeat years ago of the Harbour Park Development project at the entrance to Stanley Park — championed by the City Council of the day — and the movement opposition of, now, 200 informed citizens (and more) who gathered at City Hall two weeks ago, and again this past Monday evening to state their opposition to the initiative of the Ken Sim-led ABC Vancouver City Council to eliminate Vancouver’s cherished, 135-year-old, independent and elected Board of Parks and Recreation.
Movements start off small, with generally only a few of our better informed citizens coming to the fore to state their opposition.
As time passes, more of our citizens become informed, inform themselves, taking the power to change for the better into their own hands, to rise up for the better, to work in common cause with friends and neighbours who share their concern to, in time, elect a more democratically-minded local government committed to the livability of our beloved city.
On Monday evening, February 12th, 2024, approximately 100 citizens tried-and-true, almost to a person strong advocates for the preservation of Vancouver’s cherished 135-year-old independent, elected Vancouver Park Board met together.
Why do we say almost to a person?
Because at meeting’s outset, a group of “concerned citizens” were present, who did their best to hijack the meeting, to push their agenda that take our present Park Board to task for failing to “save the trees in Stanley Park.” A righteous cause, for sure (or, perhaps not) but not the reason why the 100, or so, people meeting in the Hillcrest Community Centre gym on Monday evening had gathered together in common cause, which is to say: save Vancouver’s much cherished and beloved 135-year-old independent, elected Board of Parks and Recreation.
The video above pretty much presents the highlights of Monday night’s phenomenally moving meetingof a sterling group of Vancouver’s finest, most activist citizens, persons possessed of uncommon wit and intelligence, heart and conscience, committed to a social democracy that champions the community, the hope of our present and our future, folks who could just as easily stayed at home, but instead gathered in common cause to work together to preserve our elected Park Board.
Terri Clark, in charge of Park Board communications from 1973-2008, was present, as was Erin Shum, a past Park Board Commissioner (and one of our very favourites), in the city, traveling from her home in the Okanagan, and Jerry Fast, the President of the Kitsilano Community Centre — to whom we owe a thousand apologies — as well as former Killarney Community Centre President Ainslee Kwan (another one of our very favourites), and someone who we’ve been asked not to write about — cuz she’s in the employ of the City, and no one, we mean no one (except maybe a dastardly few in the administration and employ of Mayor Ken Sim … hey, it’s politics, and the current folks at City Hall, like many folks in past civic administrations, play hard ball) wants to see this fine woman of character, intelligence and passion for our city have her employment with the City jeopardized.
Of course, Scott Jensen — current Vice-Chair of Park Board — was present.
One wonders if Mr. Jensen ever thought for a moment — when a couple of years back, then ABC Vancouver candidate for Mayor Ken Sim asked him to run for Vancouver Park Board on his party’s slate — whether a couple of years on he’d find himself in the midst of a trying political maelstrom that rather than lead to an enhanced quality of life instead has changed his focus, such that too much of his energy is being directed away from his family, his satisfying career of contribution as an educator, and his very important work as a Park Board Commissioner.
Still, as a nascent #SaveOurParkBoard movement begins to burgeon, how can one not take heart that we are together a small but sturdy group of activists working collectively in common cause, part of a salutary movement for the ages in our little burgh by the sea, destined to be recorded in the history books as a grassroots democratic movement the likes of which we’ve not seen in Vancouver in decades.
Fills one with hope for a better, more democratic and more community-minded city.
