"If only he could see us now"

On January 5th I posted on a Kingsgate Mall pop-up shop. Included amongst its paintings and postcards were the decorative contents of the former Horseshoe restaurant on Renfrew Street. Yesterday I noticed the pop-up was filled with B.C. government promotional posters (like the 1978 Captain Cook Bicentennial above).

One of the sales people -- an older burly man in pilling black sweats -- wandered over to ask why I was taking pictures. "Because it's getting harder to believe posters like this once existed," I told him.

It was then that he told me about the current inventory. "Everything here belonged to a local design company. From reference materials," he said pointing to a 1969 copy of the Saturday Evening Post -- "to that poster you just took a picture of," which, as it turned out, was a company product.

"Did you know anyone who worked for the company?" I asked.

"Of course I do," he replied -- "I was a partner!"

Pop-Up

A pop-up at Kingsgate Mall. Hard to make sense of it. An out-sized styrofoam human skull at the door; a free-standing restaurant menu behind it; against the walls are tables covered in posters, postcards, pictures, picture books -- many of them from the early 1960s. Props from a movie shoot?

I gather up a bunch of postcards ("6 for $1"), including some of the photos. One of the photos (date stamped "JAN. 59") is of a forty-something woman who looks a lot like my mother's Auntie Kippy.

"I think this is my mother's Auntie Kippy," I tell the old man sitting by the cashbox.

"Did she work at the Horseshoe?" he barks.

"No, she worked at a doctor's office."

"Then it's not your mother's aunt."

Holy Hum

As mentioned in a previous post, tonight was to be my reading night at the Kingsgate Mall, part of artist Casey Wei's Western Front residency, Kingsgate Mall Happenings.

Unfortunately Casey's program was cancelled last week by mall management. Not because of Holy Hum's considered performance, but because of a staged situation that had actors abusing mall staff, where "everything ends inside the VIP space."

Radio Shack

For as long as I could remember, Kingsgate Mall had a Radio Shack. Then, in 2005, I noticed the Radio Shack was gone, and its place, The Source by Circuit City.

I asked one of the Source by Circuit City staff where the Radio Shack went, and she replied, "It's complicated."

I shrugged, as if to say, Tell me more, but we were interrupted by a customer.

Radio Shack has a fascinating history, and a fairly accurate Wiki entry. For the story of how Radio Shack suddenly became The Source by Circuit City, scroll down to "International Operations/ Canada/ pre-2005."