Dealer scores hat trick with Linden, MP and a Cadillac
Former Canucks captain and Andrew Saxton on hand for Dueck’s launch of the highly touted ATS luxury sports sedan
CADDY PACK: Dueck auto dealer Moray Keith had his head-light-bright smile on high beam Thursday, when former Canucks captain Trevor Linden and North Vancouver Conservative MP Andrew Saxton joined the launch of Cadillac’s ATS model in the Southeast Marine Drive showroom.
The compact, rear- wheel- drive sports- luxury sedan has been warmly reviewed. Canadian auto scribes, reporting as a bloc, even rated it marginally ahead of BMW’s 3 series.
Plaudits for the new car notwithstanding, some attendees ogled Reggie Jackson’s extended- length 1950 Cadillac 60 Series Special standing alongside, its original black paint possibly weighing as much as some latterday subcompacts. Even with daughter Courtney, the Aritzia marketing operations manager, beside Keith on the front bench seat, there’d have been more than enough room for wife Pam, who had just received a Queen’s Jubilee Medal for her years of volunteering with many charities. No disrespect to Her Majesty, but a replica of that medal might look nice in the grille of Pam’s current Caddy CTS sedan.
• PREGNANT PAUSING: If you were to manage an event where 200 or so folk toss back vintages from 25 Californian winemakers, you’d sample some of the best yourself, right? Not so in the case of Jennifer Petersen. She’s the Arts Umbrella organization’s special- events director, who has a second child due Feb. 4. That sidelined her from taking even a sip when AU’s annual Taste of Sonoma wingding filled the Sutton Place hotel ballroom Wednesday.
But don’t we all have a deputy who can do the guzzling for us? Wrong again, Elmo. Petersen’s sidekick, Carie Helm, is due herself in May. What’s more, the two went through exactly the same routine three years ago. Although the tasting’s attendees knew pretty well what to expect there, Petersen said it’ll be “a surprise” for her in the delivery room.
• VOICES FULL OF MONEY: The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation held its 13th- annual Rockin’ For Research gala in the Hyatt Regency Hotel recently, and hauled in a record $ 1.2 million, according to regional manager Chris Lowe. JDRF board member Mary Jane Devine chaired the Great Gatsby- themed event, which meant a certain number of women in flapper- style dresses and men in striped suits, although no F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda impersonators making blotto spectacles of themselves.
• DANCING SHOES: When Salvatore Ferragamo’s resort collection debuted at the chain’s RobsonatHornby boutique Thursday, some likely recalled what folks said of Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire in many RKO movies: “She did everything Fred did, except backwards and wearing heels.”
One of our own eminent hoofers, former National Ballet principal Chan Hon Goh, wore Ferragamo’s velvettrimmed lace Tokera pumps, $ 1,390, to the do. They complemented a handembroidered skirt and top, $ 14,000 on special order, that complemented the event’s Russian- princess- theme and would be just the ticket for a Bolshoi opening. Chan said she couldn’t dance in those near- five- inch heels. But she’s eager to see New York City Ballet stars Tiler Peck and Gonzalo Garcia perform in conventional footwear when the Goh Ballet Company she heads and a full orchestra stage Nutcracker at the Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts Dec. 19 to 23.
• STILL ZOOMING: It was 1966 when Moses Znaimer sat in a beatnikstyle, Georgia- off- Denman coffee bar, bedazzling a listener with his plans for the still- somewhat- nascent television industry. He then accomplished much of what he’d mapped out and moved on. Wednesday, with all the enthusiasm but not the near- Afro coif of earlier days, Znaimer stood in the 41st- off- Oak Jewish Community Centre’s packed Norman Rothstein Theatre. That’s where a ratherless-skeptical audience, including local and national politicians, heard of his current great plans. Many of them have been realized, not least in the formation of CARP, an organization that seemingly prefers that acronym to its full name: the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. In fact, folk need only be aged 45 to join 300,000 other members in 55 Canadian chapters and receive ninetimesyearly Zoomer magazine. That title echoes the term Znaimer coined for those who have the heath, aptitude and wherewithal to do what younger family raisers often can’t. The glossy periodical portrays a consumer’s and traveller’s paradise. For 29 editions, it has featured “cartoon and jokes editor” Znaimer’s two- page The Zoomer Philosophy, which echoes Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s like- named oracularities, although with an understandably less carnal complexion.
• FOR THEE I SING: Minstrel galleries are rare nowadays. But there was the upstairs equivalent of one in Wild Rice restaurant this week, when Barb Snelgrove fronted AIDS Vancouver’s We Care Red Ribbon Campaign gala. The minstrels, jazz singer Jaclyn Guillou, guitarist David Blake, and bassist James Meged may play together again on Guillou’s next album.
There’s another CD potentially in the works that would be made as a fundraising vehicle for sick children’s charities and treatment centres. Father- manager Brian Guillou — brianguilou@ yahoo. ca — has funding details.
• DOWN PARRYSCOPE: With rabbits doing what they do best at Richmond Auto Mall, Volkswagen, which ceased selling cars of that name in 2010, should perhaps reintroduce the Fox model.