GALA WITH GIANT HEART
Face the World nets $700K
LOVE SIXTY: What may be Vancouver’s longest-running fundraising event held in a family home reportedly passed the $17-million mark recently. That was the Face The World gala, that took in $80,000 at its 1990 debut running in Jacqui Cohen’s Point Grey Road residence. The latest version, held on the tent-covered tennis court of the Cohen family’s NW Marine Drive home, reportedly raised $700,000. That sum will benefit 60 organizations from A Loving Spoonful to the Zajac Ranch for Children. Amid the festivities, attendees learned that Face The World will henceforth harmonize with the Face of Today charity that Cohen’s daughter Kasondra Cohen-Herrendorf founded in 2007.
THE FLEET’S OUT: Maintaining a long run of sunny days luck, Royal Vancouver Yacht Club’s opening day ceremonies declared the cruising-and-racing season “under weigh” for local and international waters. Designated club members and anchored marker buoys directed RVYC’s sail and power fleets and a special group — navy, police, fire, lifeboat, visitors, etc. — to salute commodore John Robertson and wife Valerie Johnson aboard their Beneteau 423 sloop Bel Esprit. Yacht owners then came ashore for further jollity, although the everspiralling cost of real estate there might have tempted some to remain in what may now be more economical residences afloat.
RALLY ROUND: At the Brian Jessel BMW dealership recently, Diamond Rally founder Craig Stowe and director Nadia Iadisernia sent Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLarens and other ritzy cars on a legal-speed jaunt to Whistler. Each team raised funds for charities ranging from the Alzheimer Society of B.C. to Variety Club. Pausing en route, drivers sought to enhance their existing good fortune at Squamish’s Chances Casino. Less lucky, was Nick Rutledge, 14, who attended a rally-sponsored event at the Ferrari Maserati Vancouver dealership to benefit the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada. Nick, who has the soft-tissue cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, hopes the foundation will send him to swim from a warm beach. While admiring a Ferrari California roadster with event guest Angela Zhou, he mused on a longer-term wish: “To grow up and hopefully have something to do with cars, maybe as a mechanic.” More power to him. Literally.
THREE-PEDAL NIGHT: Another recent auto event launched the twin-turbo, 600-horsepower Aston Martin DB11, which can hit 322 km/ h and costs $330,000. Its screaming-me-me colour, golden saffron, contrasted with a discreetly silver-birch-hued DB5 alongside from the 1964 James Bond movie Goldfinger. Behind both, a glittering black model with brushed-gold wheels looked particularly elegant. Not a car, it was a $190,000 Fazioli F212 seven-foot grand piano on which, backed by bassist Ben Appenheimer, jazzer Max Zipursky played such automotive classics as Route 66 and the Beatles’ Drive My Car.
BOBBIE’S BEST: Five years have passed since Jennifer Randall Nelson recruited friends and colleagues to support the BabyGoRound boutique that provides “gently used” clothing and products to limited-resource families. Recently, she teamed with artist Bobbie Burgers, who donated paintings for auction and invited some 150 women to her North Vancouver studio. Close to half Baby GoRound’s $90,000 annual budget was raised. So were a few summer frocks when a floor-level fan had wearers unintentionally reprise Marilyn Monroe’s Seven Years Itch subway-grating scene. The more meaningful uplift will be to 400 added families the evening’s revenues assist.
TIGHT-LIPPED: Among the BabyGoRound event’s handful of men, the Giorgio Armani firm’s New York-based merchandising VP David Asher had other attendees eager to learn what fabrics and patterns he’d chosen at the previous week’s fair in Milan. The tight-lipped Asher may have given hints to city screenwriter and former Georgetown varsity pal Lisa Chang, whose husband Newton Thomas Sigel is cinematographer on the X-Men series.
TWENTY YEARS AGO: BC Lions quarterback-turned-coach Joe Paopao and former Leos quarterback Matt Dunigan shared stogies in the Century Grill, now Blue Water Café. They and then-team owner Nelson Skalbania powwowed regarding Dunigan’s possible return. In fact, Damon Allen arrived.
TAK AFF, EH: Writer-poet Robert Burns ended his 1786 The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer with: “Freedom and Whisky gang the gither / Tak aff your dram.” That ancient measure is oneeighth of a fluid ounce, although the Scottish “wee dram” can be considerably more. The latter generally pertained for those attending the Vancouver Writers Festival’s 14th annual A Dram Come True event at the Hycroft mansion. All present got their share of 40 international whiskies offered. Artistic director Hal Wake said that, as it did in 2008, the Oct. 18-23 festival likely will include authors whose works address an imminent U.S. presidential election. More locally, festival artistic associate Clea Young will launch her first short-story collection, Teardown.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Those remembering how Trudeau-family politicians amend expletives might suppose that, while brawling in the House of Commons, our prime minister urged NDP MP Tracey Ramsay to “get the fuddle-duddle out of the way.”