Time once again for my usual roundup of my published work from the past month. I’m still working part-time at Stir, so as usual there’s a lot from there, but a few other things as well. Actually, there’s not as much from Stir as usual, because a lot of my hours have been devoted to creating content for the annual Fall Arts Guide, a 100-page print magazine that hits the streets of Vancouver in a few weeks. Let’s go!
Vancouver Youth Choir takes it outside for Music on Main’s Summer Pop-Up Concerts series
(Stir, August 4, 2026)
YOUNG PEOPLE WANT to have their voices heard. That’s true in a general sense, but also specifically in a musical one, which goes a long way toward explaining the phenomenal growth of the Vancouver Youth Choir. In fact, the ensemble, which artistic director Carrie Tennant founded in 2013, has had to cap its membership at 730 singers across 16 ensembles at eight levels.
In a telephone interview, Tennant tells Stir that the high level of demand for spots in the choir doesn’t surprise her.
“It’s really hard for young people to find authentic places of connection in their lives right now, that are human to human, and not either through a screen or removed in some way,” she says. “And so, there’s a real hunger for group singing, especially at the level of artistry and heart that these kids have. They’re so passionate about it. It’s not just an after-school activity for them. It’s an art form, and they take the community and inclusivity just as seriously as they take the Monteverdi or the Decemberists…”
Be(ing) Moss closes the Vines Art Festival with a meditation on humanity’s place in the natural world
(Stir, August 6, 2026)
THE IDEA THAT everything has a spirit is a theory at the core of a number of belief systems, including Japan’s animistic Shinto religion, Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, and Indigenous and shamanic views of the world.
It’s also the concept at the heart of Be(ing) Moss, a work that the duo of Soya and Chantal will be presenting at Trout Lake as part of the final day of the Vines Art Festival. The interactive performance draws on contact-improvisation dance and earth-based art.
When Stir speaks to the cocreators a couple of weeks before the Vines finale, Soya and Chantal are still working on the piece’s details—but they are very much in agreement when it comes to the underlying themes. Be(ing) Moss is about, well, being moss.
Noting that the work is “a kind of ancestral experience ritual”, Soya acknowledges that, from an audience perspective, it won’t look like much, at first…
At Purple Brand Jeans’ Vancouver Headquarters, Form Follows Function
(MONTECRISTO, August 10, 2026; keen-eyed readers will notice that I mentioned this in my last roundup, when it was only available in print)
It would be difficult to think of something that more perfectly embodies the notion of form following function than a pair of jeans.
Rob Lo is well aware that his fashion label Purple Brand, which he co-founded with Luke Cosby, isn’t reinventing the wheel. Purple Brand makes jeans, T-shirts, hoodies, and other “basics,” but it makes them to an exacting standard that elevates them into the luxury category. As the Vancouver-founded label’s loyal customer base has grown, so has the scale of its operation, which now includes an office and flagship store in New York City and another retail location in Houston, Texas.
The key to Purple Brand’s success is its ability to turn functionality into a fine art. According to Lo, that’s a trait the label shares with Scott & Scott Architects, the husband-and-wife team he contracted to turn a nondescript warehouse building in Mount Pleasant into the denim company’s Vancouver operations studio.
“What we do is take an existing product and make it better,” Lo says…
The Polygon Gallery goes online with new digital exhibition platform, Parallelogram
(Stir, August 18, 2026)
One thing Parallelogram is most definitely not designed to do is resemble the unrelenting and stultifying engagement of platforms such as Instagram or TikTok.
“I’m not on social media myself because I find that infinite scroll actually really daunting,” Ramsey says. “I read all these reports of these dopamine hits and how addictive it is, but I have the complete opposite reaction to an infinite scroll. It shuts me down and makes me run in the opposite direction. And so as someone working on this, I had no desire to replicate that whatsoever.”
By not overwhelming the viewer with a bottomless well of content, Parallelogram ensures that each work has equal opportunity to be seen and given due consideration. Ramsey points to Vivek Shraya’s short video “Bodyrebuilding” as a case in point.
Inspired by the type of photography found in vintage physique magazines, Shraya uses the piece to delve into both her experiences as a trans woman and her connection with her body as someone who lives with chronic pain…
East Van Schools Improv Project is about much more than funny business
(Stir, August 25, 2026)
SURVIVING HIGH SCHOOL is a lot like doing improvisational comedy, when you think about it. Rather than beat that analogy into the ground, let’s just say that it’s one that probably isn’t lost on Jessica Gutteridge, managing director of the Improv Centre.
Gutteridge and her comedic colleagues have made the link between funny business and secondary education more concrete through the East Van Schools Improv Project. That program sees pairs of performers from the Improv Centre’s rotating ensemble lead 90-minute after-school classes for students at participating schools.
“For a 10-week period, the teachers will come every week, work with the group of students in the cohort on teaching them everything they need to know about improv performance, playing games with them, working on stage presence, working on collaboration and cooperation, and ultimately working toward presenting a showcase of their performances at our theatre on Granville Island,” Gutteridge tells Stir…
Do You Love It?
In my last roundup, I mentioned that I had officially launched my new music blog, Do You Love It?, on Substack on July 16. As noted at the time, I’m quite excited about this new venture, and I hope you will be too. What I hope most of all, though, is that you will subscribe. Currently, all the content is available for everyone, but in the near future I will be posting some exclusive subscriber-only content.
Here’s what I posted in August. It was an Interpol-heavy month, because the band released its lates album on August 28. I decided to dive into my archives and revisit all my old interviews with various members.
Interpol Friday, part 1: 2004
In which I revisit my first interview with frontman Paul Banks
I asked ChatGPT to write a bio for my band. The results were a hilarious disaster
An object lesson in the folly of relying on AI to do your work for you
Interpol Friday, part 2: 2008
In which I get Carlos D on the phone and demand that he tell me what he’s wearing
Photos: Pleasant Day Fest
Various stages on Main Street in Vancouver on August 8, 2026
From the Archives: Julie Doiron (2004)
Because it’s August 10, that’s why
Interpol Friday, part 3: 2011
Leading up to the August 28 release of the new Interpol album, This Mirror Weights a Ton, I am revisiting all of my past interviews with the band
Interpol Friday, part 4: 2014 & 2019
Revisiting my two interviews with drummer Sam Fogarino
From the Archives: Strand of Oaks (2014)
Timothy Showalter on wearing his awkward teenage years as a badge of courage
My First Listen: Interpol, This Mirror Weighs a Ton
A track-by-track reaction to the new album
John Lucas 
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