"Water Is…" in Banyen Books & Sound, Vancouver

When I lived in Vancouver—raising my family, consulting for the environment and teaching limnology—I often visited my favourite bookstore in town: Banyen Books & Sound on 4^th Avenue in Kitsilano. It was a bookstore like no other, I thought. Spacious with comfortable chairs to read, the bookstore became a destination and an experience in discovery for me.

In fact, since opening in 1970 Banyen Books has become Canada’s most comprehensive metaphysical bookstore, offering a broad spectrum of resources from humanity’s spiritual, healing, and earth wisdom traditions. Here is how they put it:

Banyen is an oasis, a crossroads, a meeting place... for East and West, the "old ways" and current discoveries and syntheses. Our beat is the "Perennial Philosophy" as well as our evolving learning edges and best practices in a wide variety of fields, from acupuncture to Zen, from childbirth and business to the Hermetic Mysteries, from the compost pile to the celestial spheres. We're "in the philosophy business," on "a street in the philosophy district" (as an old cartoon wagged). We welcome and celebrate the love of wisdom, be it in art, science, lifecraft, healing, visioning, religion, psychology, eco-design, gardening... Our service is to offer life-giving nourishment for the body (resilient, vital), the mind (trained, open), and the soul (resonant, connected, in-formed). Think of us as your open source bookstore for the "University of Life".

I had long harboured romantic notions of one day seeing my own book on one of their shelves. I must have sent a compelling message to the universe, because in Autumn of 2018, this incredible bookstore agreed to carry “Water Is…”

"Water Is..." now sits joyfully flanked by Wallace J. Nichols "Blue Mind" and William Mark's "Holy Order of Water" and Masaru Emoto's books on water and crystals.

When I mentioned about my book being at Banyens Books, my son Kevin visited the bookstore and soon found "Water Is..." among a variety of other "savoury books"; he admitted a need for strength not to walk out of the bookstore with an armload of books. This has been my experience too.

Anne, one of the directors of Pixl Press, visited the bookstore with her friend Jackie from out of town. After browsing the bookstore, they walked across the street to Aphrodites Pies and enjoyed their signature organic peach pie.

Banyen Books & Sound:
3608 West 4th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
604-732-7912
HOURS:
Mon-Fri: 10am-9pm
Sat: 10am-8pm
Sun: 11am-7pm


 Nina Munteanu is an ecologist, limnologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.

Vancouver Coffee Marathon—Four Coffee Shops in Four Hours

First Hour: Nusa Coffee and Kopi Luwak

I started my coffee marathon at Nusa Coffee, on 4^th Avenue in Kitsilano. Nusa means “islands” and, indeed, Marcus, one of the partners, told me that most of their coffee comes from Indonesia, an archipelago of over 17,000 islands stretching an expanse the length of Canada. 

Nusa features coffee from beans grown in the Ngada region of Flores, the Toraja Highlands of central Sulawesi, the Kintamani Highlands of Bali and the Gayo Highlands in Sumatra Gayo.

But I’d come for kopi luwak—otherwise known as cat poop coffee—made from coffee beans that have been digested by a small Indonesian cat called an Asian Palm Civet (Paradosorus hermaphroditus)—a small viverrid native to South and Southeast Asia. They help maintain tropical forest ecosystems through seed dispersal as they feed on pulpy fruits such as mango, rambutan and coffee.  

Why was I doing this? Well, since I’d heard about it, I just had to try it out for myself. According to The Vancouver Coffee Snob the civets feast on ripe coffee cherries, which start to digest and ferment in their stomachs. The enzymes allegedly remove the acidic tastes from the coffee, imparting new flavours. The cat then poops what’s left and farmers collect the poop, clean them, process and roast the beans. Civet coffee beans are harder and more brittle because they have been modified by the digestive juices of the civet.

Kopi Luwak at Nusa Coffee

Because of the new trend for Kopi Luwak, civets are being increasingly captured from the wild and fed coffee beans to mass-produce this blend. Many of the captured civets are housed and treated unethically. The impact of all these captures on the wild population and consequent ecosystems they live in, is not yet known. The lesson here is: do your research to ensure that the product you’re buying has been ethically collected from wild Civet poop. Nusa Coffee is one of them.

Marcus let me smell the beans before grinding them. The aroma was deep, pleasant and nutty. That carried into the coffee pour over (which is more gentle than using an espresso machine). Then it came to tasting it: I found it unpretentious, earthy with subtle tones that lingered in the back of the throat. As I breathed in the kopi luwak, I thought of the jungle where the civet lives…and poos. Nusa Coffee is also unpretentious; a cozy café with wood benches and tables and no overbearing music. 

Second Hour: Platform 7

Platform 7 Coffee

My second stop was Platform 7, on Broadway and Vine, where I stopped for lunch. Located in an old house next to a character-book store (a great combination for a writer!), Platform 7 is a creative take on a bustling “Victorian London train station in East Vancouver and a Belle-Époque Parisienne train station in Kits.” 

The café offers a large variety of coffees from their espresso bar, cold bar and brew bar. I enjoyed friendly service and pleasant jazz-fusion music as I ate lunch, a deliciously grilled turkey with cranberry sandwich.

Third Hour: Federal Store

The Federal Store

I continued east across town along Broadway into Mount Pleasant and walked south along Quebec Street toward 10^th Avenue, where the Federal Store greeted me on the corner. Surrounded with cheerful flowers on all sides and a vegetable garden in the back, the café-grocer beckons me inside. I enter and feel like I’ve entered an alternative past: an integration of '50s trompe-l'oeil 3-D checker floor, plants, and homemade baking in the display with the avant-garde chic of wood and white. 

I ordered an Earl Grey tea (for a change from coffee) and sat outside, where I enjoyed the loose tea as birds sang around me and bees buzzed among the flowers.

Mia Stainsby of the Vancouver Sun writes, “One block away, Main Street hyperventilates and cars exhale carbon monoxide. But here at Federal Store, it’s quiet and I’m caught in a time warp. The vintage room stirs up romantic notions of simpler times.”

Fourth Hour: Le Marché St. George

Le Marche St. George

It grew hot as the day progressed, but I kept cool under the thick canopy of maples, chestnuts and ash trees as I proceeded southeast to my next destination. Once I’d topped the hill, I turned east on 28^th and as I neared my next destination, I realized that I’d saved the best for last.

When I caught sight of Le Marché St. George, tucked behind several large poplar trees on the residential corner of 28^th and St. George, I had to smile like a pilgrim finding a rest stop. Edith Piaff’s sultry voice sang through the open door of the large old house as cyclists and locals sat outside, drinking coffee and discussing their day. I entered the café-general store, walls high with diverse produce. It was no ordinary general store. This was the kind of place—I recalled my son telling me earlier—where you could buy your next Christmas gift. A cornucopia of interesting flotsam beckoned: from Woodlot candles and Maison Orphée mustard to black cyprus flake sea salt, flat breads, gourmet honey and pasta.

Inside Le Marche St. George

I ordered a flat white, which turned into a cappuccino. The barista—let’s call him Etienne—apologized and was ready to start over but I accepted the drink with a smile; I’d noted that he’d really made a European cappuccino, which is essentially a flat white (a cappuccino with no dry foam). I took the coffee and sat outside under the shade of a poplar tree and opened my book, “Barkskins” by Annie Proulx. 

Beside me, two young Asian men were discussing an article they’d read about how men get into and out of a bathtub. I realized I’d read the same line several times when one confided to the other that he thought he had sleep apnea and was slowly dying from oxygen deprivation over nights of not quite sleeping. 

All in a summer's day, I thought, and closed the book and my eyes, then put my feet up on the planter and smiled the smile of pure contentment.. 

Nina Munteanu Interviewed by Joseph Planta of The Commentary

I was recently interviewed by Joseph Planta of "The Commentary" in Vancouver about my new book Water Is...

Here's how he started the interview:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca. 

We bathe in water, we drink it, we probably live around it or close to it, it flushes our toilets—we do so much with it, and it’s such an important aspect of our lives, but we waste it, we take it for granted, and we certainly don’t think about it as my next guest does. She has pondered water in an interesting, fascinating way. The title of the book is Water Is… and its author Nina Munteanu joins me now. She has spent a career as a limnologist and ecologist, and has conducted research, published papers and consulted in the environment, so she’s immersed well enough in water to tell us about how we should think about it. And the way she goes about it in this book is awfully good, in that she looks at water spiritually, artistically, and mythologically as well. Nina Munteanu is an award-winning novelist and short story writer as well, and currently teaches writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College. The website for more is at www.themeaningofwater.com. The book is published by Pixl Press. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, in Toronto today, Nina Munteanu; Ms. Munteanu, good morning...

Our conversation flowed and surged like a living river, covering a range of topics--like the book itself--from ecology and quantum physics, to water's anomalous properties (like the Mpemba effect), water wars, spiritual connections and childhood memories. And what we as Canadians can and are doing.

Astute, intelligent and wonderfully inquisitive, Joseph helped create a memorable experience for me and, I'm sure, for listening audiences. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.


Here's my Interview with Joseph.

Joseph Planta

Author David Berner said it well: "Joseph Planta is quite simply one of the best interviewers working today, and he has been for quite a few years now. Far-ranging and ubiquitous in his tastes, he is always deeply researched and versed in the world of the person at the other end of the microphone."

I couldn't agree more.









Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s recent book is the bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” (Mincione Edizioni, Rome). Her latest “Water Is…” is currently an Amazon Bestseller and NY Times ‘year in reading’ choice of Margaret Atwood.

Embracing Your Future: the EBM...

Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress above all masters, are laboring in vain—Leonardo daVinci

You pause at the front door of the eco-house that you and your partner designed in Vancouver’s Point Grey and pull up the collar of your jacket. The air is fresh with the promise of snow and you smile with thoughts of spring skiing at Whistler.

You glance at the time display on your Smart Glasses. You’ve decided to forego the WaveGate and walk to the café; you have plenty of time to walk through the hilly forested streets, with a view of English Bay. You want to check out the refurbished solar-house on Locarno Crescent that your company helped design. Based on a living model of Biomimicry, the house is the latest iteration of your company’s “symbiosis” model of 100% sustainability, in which people live in a cooperative and synergistic partnership with their environment. The house is an intelligent organic facility with self-cleaning floors and walls; heated, fuelled and lit by organisms in a commensal relationship. Everything works on a natural cycle of harmonious renewal and natural evolution. You smile, rather self-pleased. It has taken you a few years to convince the city council to accept this new model in community design. Now, it’s happening everywhere.

It’s April 12, 2074. A special day. And a special year. The year of the wooden horse in the Chinese calendar. Also called the green horse, it’s associated with spring, growth and vitality.  The horse symbolizes nobility, class, speed and perseverance. Horse energy is pure unbridled spirit. Playful, wild and independent, the horse has a refined instinct that flows through action and movement. Together, these symbols promise both chaos and great opportunity. And transformation.

The year of the wooden horse only occurs every sixty years. And sixty years ago today your mom turned sixty. You release a boyish grin at what you intend to do in celebration. On that day, sixty years ago, she celebrated her sixtieth birthday with the release of Natural Selection, her collection of speculative short stories about human evolution, AI, genetic manipulation, transhumanism, and the human-‘machine’ interface. She also celebrated the local printing of Metaverse, the third book of her space detective trilogy, The Splintered Universe. It was the second book to be printed by Toronto Public Library’s newly acquired Espresso Book Machine; one of only two EBMs in Toronto at the time.

A smile slants across your face as you remember what libraries and bookstores used to look like then. Both were struggling with a changing paradigm of reading, writing and publishing. Many of the older folk feared that books—print books, particularly—were going extinct as more exciting channels of communication like videos, interactive games and instant social networking took over. Of course, that didn’t happen. “Story” and “storytelling” were simply evolving and the paradigm shift simply embraced a new model that incorporated more diverse expression. You remember conversations with your mom about Chapters-Indigo, whose face changed from a bookstore to a gift store and tchotchke filled more and more of the storefront. As large bookstores struggled to dominate, the EBM—like its lithe mammal cousins in the Cenozoic Era—created a new niche for itself: the book ATM.

The size of a Smart Car, the EBM could fit nicely in a stylish café, housing and dispensing—Tardis-style—many more books than its diminutive size. In 2014, the EBM carried over eight million titles, including commercial books and out-of print gems. That number has tripled as virtually every publisher has embraced the Book ATM model to sell books.  

You inhale the tantalizing aroma of freshly ground and brewed coffee before you reach Zardoz Café. The retro-style café is a converted Edwardian-style house with high arched windows and a living roof overlooked by tall sycamore trees. You climb the stairs and enter the café. Its 2020’s style interior that your company helped design is decorated in earthy tones, avant-garde art, a forest of dracaenas and ferns and a stepped creek, complete with goldfish and crayfish. A shiny brass Elektra Belle Epoque espresso maker sits at the bar, dispensing the finest fair trade coffee.

Your sweeping gaze notes several people at the small round tables, enjoying good coffee and conversation; your special guest hasn’t arrived yet. You spot the WaveGate at the back, resembling an old English police box. Next to it sits the EBM.  Eager to do your deed before your guest arrives, you sidle to the coffee bar and catch Grace’s eye. She smiles; you’re a regular. You touch her wrist with your watch and the data passes onto her embedded interface. She taps her hand to process the book order—she insists that you not pay—then she makes your double-shot espresso—the old-fashioned way.  As she grinds and taps and runs the machine, you and she chat about skiing this spring. Just as Grace hands you a perfect crema-topped espresso, the WaveGate shimmers briefly and then its doors open like an accordian.

Your mom emerges from the “tardis”, smartly dressed in an early-century blazer and skirt, and grinning like an urchin. She resembles the seventeenth Doctor a bit, you decide—the first female Doctor Who, finally! Somehow—you don’t know how she does it—her old-fashioned style manages to embrace “retro-cool”. She’s arrived from Switzerland, where she is house and cat-sitting for good friends in Gruyeres. From there she still commutes—Tardis-style—as sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto, where she maintains a tiny book-festooned office.

Kevin Klassen

“Kevy!” she squeals like a girl, obviously happy to see you. You don’t cringe; you’ve grown accustomed to the ripples of interest your mom’s unalloyed enthusiasm usually creates.

“Happy birthday, Mom!” You seize her in a hug. “I’m glad you made it to Vancouver for your 120^th birthday.” Traveling the WaveGate suits her, you consider.

“I like the tardis better than you, I think,” she says, smiling sideways at you with knowing. She’s right; you prefer the old-fashioned way of traveling, without having to reconfigure your molecules from one place to another. In fact, you prefer the old-fashioned way of doing a lot of things, you decide with an inner smile.

“I have a surprise for you, Mom,” you say with a knowing grin. Your mom likes surprises. Her eyes light up and she beams at you. You glance at Grace with a conspiratorial look. She takes the cue and starts the EBM.

“Over here,” you say, steering your mom toward the EBM, already humming like an old tomcat getting its chin scratched. Your mom bends down to watch the pages spew out of the paper holder and stack neatly in a tray, then get snatched by robotic fingers as a colour cover is created then laid below, ready to envelope the book interior. After the gluing and binding, the robots trim the book on three sides then summarily send it sliding out a chute on the side.

Your mom has guessed what the book is; but she still squeals with glee when she sees it. It’s Metaverse, of course; the book she first had printed on the EBM in Toronto’s Public Library sixty years ago on her birthday.

Nina Munteanu proud with Metaverse just printed on EBM

“I just thought you’d like another book,” you say with a laugh. Like she needs another book. But this one’s special; it’s sixty years old today. Just like she was, sixty years ago—today. You pull out your PAL and point at your mom, as she seizes the perfectly bound book. “Let me take your picture!”

She poses with the book, looking like a kid with candy. You check the image and laugh. “There it is. You don’t look a year over sixty!” You grin at your 120-year old mother.

“And you don’t look a day over twenty-three!” she teases back. 

You give her a slanted smile. You’re eighty-three. 

Lisa Naccarato & Nina Munteanu in 2014

Beaming, she goes on, “I remember doing this exact thing sixty years ago in Toronto! Those same feelings of overwhelming gratitude and wonder are still there,” she confides. “I remember telling the CBC reporter who covered the EBM launch that it felt like a birthing.” She throws me a crooked grin. “Only the labour was on the computer instead of in the hospital!”

Visibly pleased and touched, she snatches me in a bear hug.

“This is the best present a mom could get from her son. Thanks for remembering. It’s been an incredible ride and it’s all been worth it.”

“Join me for a coffee; then I have a house to show you…” you say, smiling with pride.

The Espresso Book Machine

The EBM at the Toronto Reference Library

Many bookstores, libraries, and universities around the world are hosting the Espresso Book Machine® (EBM) by On Demand Books LLC (and associated with Lightning-Ingram). The EBM makes millions of titles available via the EspressNet® software and produces quality paperbacks in minutes at point of sale. The EBM is not a print-on-demand solution, but a powerful new digital-to-print channel that eliminates lost sales due to out-of-stock inventory or the hassle of returns.

Advantages:

• Readers: millions of books, multiple languages, made on demand for you.
• Bookstores, Libraries and other Retailers: sell (or lend) more titles without the extra inventory; capture the growing self-publishing market.
• Publishers: the EBM offers an additional sales channel and greater visibility to a publisher’s titles. It also avoids out-of-stocks and eliminates returns.
• Authors: earn additional income otherwise lost through the used-book market.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist and internationally published novelist of science fiction and fantasy. In addition to eight published novels, Nina has written award-nominated short stories, articles and non-fiction books, which have been translated into several languages throughout the world. She currently teaches writing at The University of Toronto and George Brown College.

Prepare Yourself: “Shocking Weather Has Just Begun”…

That was the clever headline the Vancouver Sun chose for its front page Monday, July 27th final edition after a spectacular lightning storm held our attention practically all night and almost stole the show at the annual summer Vancouver fireworks. I don’t normally read the newspaper (shocking?), preferring to let the REAL news percolate to my attention via alternate, often more reliable and objective means. But the headline picture of a lightning strike that spanned the entire horizon of Vancouver’s night sky caught my attention and took me back to last Saturday.
According to Vancouver Sun’s Rebecca Tebrake, Environment Canada recorded over 1,000 lightning strikes last Saturday in British Columbia’s lower mainland. The storm failed to prevent Vancouver’s summer fireworks show from happening, though. In fact, the storm enhanced the show according to some who participated.

Garbage Just Isn’t What it Used to Be…

When I was fourteen years old, I wrote a letter to a local orange juice company in Montreal, Quebec, where I lived at the time. In the most erudite language I could muster, I informed them of the benefits to the environment of recycling; then I rather imperiously let them know that I would not buy their product again unless they embarked on a recycling program similar to one that other progressive Montreal companies had adopted—recycling was pretty scarce then and handled only by a few intrepid visionary companies. I surprisingly got an answer, requesting a face-to-face meeting to discuss possibilities. I went to the meeting, but when the manager saw me, he was obviously taken aback; I was just a teenager with a big mouth and a fast pen! Nothing happened. I was devastated. But ten years later, I saw the birth of a city-wide recycling program that mandated curb-side recycling with full support by the city. It just took time…like everything…

So, let’s fast track to the present…

Write On, Vancouver

I'm heading to the Romance Writers of America Greater Vancouver Chapter Conference, "Write On, Vancouver" this weekend (May 4-5, 2007) at the Inn at New Westminster (Quay, that is). Head on over if you're a reader (and writer) of Romance. Nancy Kress, accomplished SF and mystery writer, who has written many a piece on how to write (particularly in Writer's Digest Magazine) will be the principal speaker there. Some of the topics she'll cover include that daunting first page and plotting. Editors and agents will be attending too. Meet some local Romance writers, pick up their latest books and get them signed (:-) and meet other avid readers and writers in training. Get tips, network, or just have a great time. It starts at 5 pm on Friday and ends with a gala dinner at 6 pm on Saturday. Hope to see you there.