If you don't know what Etsy is, get on this bandwagon. It's a great site to buy and sell handmade goods, local designers are able to run their own online store and sell anything from silk-screened clothing to hand built furniture. The "We've Fallen for Etsy" Sale is the first ever Etsy sale featuring 26 local designers. These designers include devilmaywear, Cabin, Smeeta and more. Etsy sale organizer and local designer, Melanie Hull chose the designers by searching them online, "Etsy has a great feature on it where you can Shop local. If you look under the Shop Local for Vancouver BC you can find all your favourite designers there... Selecting a few people from each little category. I looked at what Etsy sellers had to sell and made sure to have something from many categories available to shoppers," Hull says.

There are many well known Canadian authors that use their fame to create television shows or robot hand to autograph books around the world without leaving her house... But then there are authors that simply strive for originality without any regard for glory. Sheila Heti maybe best known for writing the celebrated novel Ticknor and the acclaimed story collection The Middle Stories. Her work has been published in The Believer, The New Yorker, Geist, Esquire, Brick and more. But I believe she should be best recognized for created the "Trampoline Lecture Series".

The Trampoline Lecture series is something that makes us D.I.Y kids proud. The series was created by Heti and hosted by Misha Glouberman. These shows feature three lecturers speaking on subjects they're not experts on, in addition to readings and other activities. The New Yorker praised the series for "celebrating eccentricity and do-it-yourself inventiveness." Lecture topics range from wacky things like "Female poisoners of 18th century France", "Gossip is worse than pork" to less wacky subjects like "Hasidic speed dating" and "Not being naked". Okay... well they're all kinda wacky. Heti and Glouberman started the series in 2001 in Toronto and have sold out every show since.

When I received an invitation for the "To the Dogs" book launch, I found it fitting that a local book publisher that allows dogs in their office will put out a book about these lovable canines. Also it was about time there was a book that documented humanity's historical relationship with dogs. They were with us side by side, in times of hard fought war and in our homes as companions. The book features 150 full page photographs from William Wegman, Larry Towell and Eadweard Muybridg, from dog shows, circuses, dogfights and a dog hotel. Written by Peter Culley, a poet from Nanimo, BC. He discusses the international citizenry of canines and their connections to humans. Culley has published four books of poetry, including, most recently, The Climax Forest (Leech Books). Poems have also appeared in Boo, Credentes, Hole, Ink, Jag, West Coast Line, and Writing. He has published reviews and art criticism in the magazines Vanguard and Parachute.

Grunt gallery is one of twelve artist run centres in Vancouver, formed in 1984 and still going strong with the help of government funds and donations. Artists run centres dont try to earn revenue by selling overpriced artwork to brow clients, but are instead focused on bringing a community together. The Kitchen is one of the features of Grunt Gallery, where artists can come together and stir up new ideas. Everyone is welcome to walk in, sit down with a good cup of coffee, and take part. Grunt Gallerys Tea Party this weekend is an extended version of that idea. Grunt Gallery is also launching the book Access All Areas: Conversations on Engaged Arts.

As good as the show was, a late Thursday night out seals the deal on an artistically empty turkey weekend for Jonny. I missed the must-have-been-rigged Vancouver/Calgary game, so Saturday I must make amends and witness the revenge, and other than that it'll be a load of busywork and a trip home to Cowtown. So once again I call on you readers to hit the city, as there's the usual abundance of great art to experience. Here's a handful of things I wish I had time to do...

Typified by a calculated distance from its subject and an oblique, difficult beauty, of utmost importance to The Vancouver School, or at least the photorealism aspect of it, are the semiotics of the street; the secret meanings that unfold from a carefully composed snapshot. The imagery produced will inevitably be one of social critique vis a vis the seemingly banal built landscape. The subtle yet complex typology created are unassuming and vaguely cinematic. The large scale format often employed only magnifies the careful attention to detail, and sometimes absurd subject matter, leading the viewer to ask themelves, 'why am I looking at this'?

Local artist Andrew Salgado invited me out to his art opening at the Interurban Gallery, featuring the works of his series Boys' Night Out. Last night also happened to be Swarm 2008's focus on art galleries within Downtown and Gastown, and so after viewing his work and asking a few questions, we ventured around Gastown to view the talent this city has to offer.

Theatre

• I would have loved to offer some in-depth coverage of the 2008 Fringe Festival, which runs from September 3-14, but I'm just too busy these days. If anyone would like to see their own show review published here at BR, send 'em my way. Regardless, get out there and support some of the best and ballsiest local talent in Vancouver. There's some highlights from the Straight and some previews at VancouverPlays to get you started. This city has an exciting theatre scene that shouldn't be taken for granted...

OK that's a cheap shot. They've had some really good shows there in the past 2 years. The Herzog show, Pictorialism, the Tree show, Roy Arden and Monet to Dali. Although you have to wonder what else we could've curated if the director of the VAG wasn't in a huge rift with the National Gallery...

Now there is talk about moving the gallery to a fancy new building on the False Creek waterfront. Are they going to raise the rates again to pay for the move? Why do they need to build a brand new building? What about the Post Office? What is the old building going to be used for, other than selling pot?

It's been a while now since I've profiled any local visual arts or music happenings. It's not that there's been a dearth of great ways to spend an aesthetically enriching Vancouver weekend; it's just that by the time I've finally narrowed down what's worth doing, I hardly have the energy to write a blog post about it. With that in mind, I thought I'd highlight a couple of random events happening this weekend that may be worth your time. I already wrote about some cool Saturday stuff in today's Brew, but here's a few things on the radar and worth highlighting for Friday night.

People have been swapping music illicitly for a long time, but with the rise of the internet the methods and scope of that sharing have changed completely. The most popular means of trading copyrighted material has been the emergent peer to peer technologies (all seemingly kneeling at the altar of bit torrent). Recent changes in copyright laws, combined with high-profile lawsuits (including last fall's shutdown of the world's most popular peer-to-peer network, Oink), have not only threatened the way fans consume their art, but have temporarily brought even more attention to and interest in downloading music illegally.

While this turnaround in music distribution has had an invariable effect on the artist, it's also profoundly changed the way us fanatics listen to our music (the death of real rock appreciation? the end of a true musical community?) With all this in mind, Cornershop Projects has brought together Ear to Ear at the Or Gallery, on display this weekend only: "a community-based, ad hoc archive of contemporary popular music and music ephemera." The show brings together visual, audio, and printed materials including 29 specially commissioned mix CDs which'll be given out over the weekend. There's also a conversation today at 5:00 (with lots of guests) and a closing night party on Sunday. More after the jump...

We arrived at the party around 9, when the line-up was still tolerable. Later, it began to stretch all the way down Homer Hornby Street, and getting in took a while. Once inside, we were given schedules of what shows were on at what time. There was plenty to cover, and there was a ton that I ended up missing over the course of the night. Duran's photos (slide show after the break) alone were full of surprises - I didn't catch a lot of the performances because I spent the first part of my night trying to get all the people I was with in one location. Tip #1: go with one or two friends. If you go with a group, don't count on staying together. You'll end up wasting a lot of time and cell phone minutes.