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It's Sunday December the 18 around 5:31PM and

A Night With Some Beautiful Losers

What do you get when you put more hipster cool people in one spot, drop some delicious funky grooves on the turntables, and invite some artists from around North America to launch a book celebrating the magical street culture of the 1990’s that launched such icons as Spike Jonze? The Beautiful Losers book launch that’s what.

One of the editor’s of the book, Christian Strike signed books with a graffiti-felt-marking flair and looked like he probably didn’t have an un-cool bone in his body. But what do you talk about when the music is so loud and everyone is still ridiculously in their jackets and toques? The best few trinkets of art, were by Barry McGee – who had a small bounty of really insane work on what looked like micky sized booze bottles. (I’m not sure if the photo here is the same piece, but you get the point.) This kind of style reminds me of the less pure and less wild style that Winery Blasted Church has tried to pull off with their identity.

Clearly I shouldn’t have been at this show - my street cred is at about 12%, maybe lower. The Silk Haus location didn’t offer much as compared to the installation and galleries that the work was used to, and there really wasn’t all that much work. Although, and this was pretty cool. They did paint the entire side of the building white earlier this and let some artists go at, but that needed some lighting. And when we tried to take pictures our camera decided to say, “hey bud, it’s way to cold for this dude.” (I’m not talking to you anymore camera.)

Back to the Silk Haus – it was like looking at art in an old meat locker. It was colder than outside, and I never complain about the temperature when it’s too cold. If you’ve ever almost died in a snowmobiling accident on the frozen Hudson Bay you tend to learn to love the cold. Anyway. The place wasn’t what I was expecting, but maybe that is the point. I expected something that when I walked in, I would think, “we’re not at Keefer and Columbia anymore Dorothy.” On the other hand the makeshift bar served almost frozen Stellas from a very cute and pleasant female bartender. And for something so based in the street culture, the kind of show/party seemed like the exact right thing to do.