6 November 2026 – I don’t notice these things because of mathematics. I assign numbers later, to unite them in a passingly acceptable theme. Truth is… I notice them because I notice them. Because I’m walking down a street and down an alley, and my eyes tell my feet to stop. My feet stop, and I pay attention. Then, later, to amuse myself — and you — I give the resulting post a title.
As promised: Math
2 bikes + 4 bike racks flaunt shadows.
1 wall flaunts 2 hits of colour, door + vine.
1 tree flaunts even better colour. (So there.)
And… and…
1 alley flaunts 33 acres of beer.
I stand here a stupidly long time, “stupidly” long only because I don’t even like beer, and I am mesmerized. Shiny stacked cans! Deep dark doorway! Shiny barrels! Wooden barrel! All this in a grotty alley!
It is even sillier, even more wonderful, up close.
Smiley-face emojis on every can!
One last backward glance, with even more wooden casks thrown in…
and I take my besotted self off home.
Where, also as promised, the Two Backstories come into play.
Looking at that colourful vine + doorway, I notice white letters — pyrrha — on black in the companion panel. I look up “pyrrha.” I learn it is a local boutique jewelry factory & showroom, and I am not interested until I read the building is an example of a Heritage Revitalization Project. The oxymoronic potential of this phrase has me wary. Are any of you also old enough to remember how the American army “pacified” Vietnamese villages? By blasting them out of existence, was how. So I sniff this phrase suspiciously and read that, in exchange for retaining and restoring a 1909 single-family residence, the developer was allowed to build this 6-storey tower on the same site. Hmm, well. But also, hmm-well, it does provide artisan industrial space for local entrepreneurs.
I fiddle with some more online maps & citations, and discover my alley-entrancement is the unglamorous back side of 33 Acres Brewing Co., a Vancouver company which, on its street side, offers a bar and a tasting room and other delights. Those smiley faces on the cans? In addition to a long list of beers with dramatic names (33 Acres of Sunshine/Darkness/Euphoria/Nirvana… ), the brewery also offers the straightforward cheer of Fluffy Cloud.
I am now quite done with promoting ornaments I don’t buy and a liquid I don’t drink.
Still… Look at all the local factoids I have learned, just because, out there on the streets, my eyes made my feet stop.
