Leaving Vancouver

This is a personal post I addressed to my friends via Facebook. It might not be of much interest to the general public, but I shall leave it here as a bit of biographical info.

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In my three years since having returned here, I’ve heard that endless complaint – “Vancouver people are so unfriendly!”

I never understood that particular whinge. Meeting friendly, generous, welcoming folks here has not been my problem. Sure, I’ve met my share of difficult personalities, but what place doesn’t have those? And just because we don’t “fit” with certain people doesn’t mean they aren’t friendly. Does everyone have to roll out the red carpet for each other?

I have lived in other cities around the world, and I can attest that it’s hard to find any metropolis where the population appears to be generally happy and affable. My philosophy has been: If you can find five or ten friends wherever you go, you’re set. You don’t need to be on supreme speaking terms with everyone you pass on the street.

But that brings me to my particular problem with Vancouver people, and it’s a good problem to have – I have too many friends. Make ten friends, you meet their friends, get close to one or two of those, then meet their friends, and on it goes exponentially. I had lots of good mates here before I left in 2007, and without trying very hard since my return in 2011, the number has grown considerably.

I think that’s how it’s been for most of my friends and acquaintances. Since there’s a limited number of people we have time to be close with, there are multiples more who we only see at parties and social events – acquaintances we know we could be best chums with, but it’s not feasible. Even so, for all of the “party pals” I know-but-don’t-know-well, I have this to say: You’re all a part of my community, and seeing you around has strengthened my sense of belonging.

And this is why it’s been so hard to leave Vancouver again. Many of you have heard me say, “If I don’t have a job by the end of the year, I’m heading back to Asia.” I said it in 2012, I said it in 2013, and again in 2014. If I were a careerist or more ambitious, it would have made sense to flee long ago. But what kept me here?

My friends.

The kindness and generosity of the people in my life have been my anchor. But the moment has come where it’s no longer practical to stay. Finances are one issue. I’m far from broke, but broke is what I’d like to avoid, so I’m using what cushion remains to resettle in a place where jobs are easier to come by. My state of mind is another issue. The avalanche of rejection from employers has battered my self-esteem to the point where it hurts to keep looking, and it hurts more to keep talking about it. A negative feedback loop develops – the less that goes right in my life, the less I have to share with my friends, and simple questions of concern like “How’s the job search” only open up a litany of complaints. The empathy and caring I’ve received in hard times has been heartening, but I also don’t want the need for sympathy to define who I am and become a permanent element in my friendships.

I don’t want to dwell on my difficulties finding work. It’s something no one can really understand unless one is currently in the same boat. Anyone who hasn’t had to look for a job in the past 10 or 15 years has no idea how Kafkaesque the job market has become. The last time I had to look for full-time work in Vancouver was 1999, and it was a buffet of decent jobs ready for the taking. Today, it’s not just the economy that’s reduced the options, but the attitudes of employers who are engaging in unethical (and sometimes illegal) tactics. There are other factors, too, but I don’t want to dwell on them – my observations on the job market are another subject altogether. The bottom line is, it’s time to move on.

I’ve had some promising leads from companies in Asia. When I enquire with employers in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, I get responses – something I don’t get in my home city. The advice is always along the lines of, “We always have openings. If you’re here, we’d be happy to consider you.” A logistics company in Singapore actually gave me a 30-minute phone interview in preparation for their next hiring intake. What’s clear is that if I’m located in a specific place, the offers are more likely to come.

My plan is to head to Singapore in early February. I will do the job-hunting circuit that I became familiar with on my previous ventures in that city. If a job doesn’t pan out in Singapore, I’ll backpack my way through other parts of Asia in search of sustenance.

Until then, I will be honest – getting ready to leave Vancouver is not making me happy. My previous escapade in Asia was meant to be an odyssey to build up life experience and new vocational skills, not a permanent relocation. Returning to Vancouver to settle for life was part of my plan. But now it turns out that living abroad might have to become a permanent part of my life.

View from room 2502, Denman Inn, 1975

This city is a place I feel undyingly attached to. When I was a child growing up in Toronto, my family made two visits here, both of which became etched in my soul. It was like a playground. The gondola up Grouse mountain, the hotel by the beach, feeding ducks in Stanley Park... I find it no coincidence that I ended up living west of Denman, within the view of room 2502 of the Denman Inn (now the Coast Plaza). The photo I took from the balcony in 1975 shows two of the buildings I’ve since lived in, the building where my dad lived for 20 years, and the park where his ashes are scattered. This is not some dead town I have been waiting to escape from. It’s a place I have cherished and felt rooted in for most of my life.

After those childhood vacations, I begged my parents to move the family here, little knowing that this was their plan. After we arrived, I never took it for granted. I lived in a house at the foot of Grouse Mountain, and my brother would take me hiking up the various trails leading from our back yard (years before the Grouse Grind had been developed). I walked to school through a trail in the woods. Deer, raccoons, and sometimes bears would wander through our gardens. Hang-gliders would soar over our roof, and I would zip down to Prospect Park on my 10-speed to watch them land. It was a dream life far removed from the flat, cookie-cutter streets of Scarborough.

Living in other countries, other cities, was something I longed to do for my own personal experience. I learned more about the world and myself than I would have through any formal education. It’s something I don’t regret. But if I had known that I couldn’t have returned home, I’m not sure I would have decided so lightly to leave when things got rough. The “fuck-it-I-can-always-go-home” attitude was miscalculated arrogance.

Despite how torturous the last three years have been for me, the time here has only bonded me stronger to this place, because I didn’t take any good moment for granted – I knew how quickly it might slip away one day.

A quick rundown of some of the things that have made me grateful to be back in Vancouver:

• Anthony & Donny’s wedding on Vancouver Island. A memorable sojourn in a location a bit out of the ordinary, giving so many of us a chance to connect on a little weekend holiday outside the city. It meant a lot to be included and share the milestone with you guys.

• Camping in Pemberton with a few old friends and many new ones on that first summer back.

• Houseboating for the first time, with friends new and old, seeing parts of BC’s lake country that I’ve never had the privilege to see before.

• Re-joining VGVA volleyball and discovering “Absolutely Badminton”, both at King George Secondary, not to mention all those post-game coffee chats at Blenz.

• Marching in my first (and second) Pride Parade with the volleyball crew at VGVA.

• Getting called back to work at CBC Radio. Unfortunately, the job was dismantling and archiving the beloved record library. Although it was tragic to see the heart of the local radio operation ripped out, I was grateful for the chance to return to my first workplace and reconnect with so many wonderful co-workers from my past.

• Learning to play mahjong with Daniel and his buddies. All those years in Taiwan, China and Singapore, yet I have to come back here to learn the joy of yelling “peng!”

• Summer hangouts with Jacyntha, a Canadian I met in Singapore. Our long conversations during your holidays back home were heartening as always. Those long chats on Ann Siang Hill just joyously flowed on over to the West End!

• All of the Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas meals, New Years parties, birthdays – I was included in so much, and will never forget.

• Finally, getting reacquainted with Wilfred. A chance meeting on a club patio in Singapore continued when we met again on a friend’s patio five years later here in Vancouver. How was I to know, when we were casually acquainted for an evening those years ago, that I would be attending your wedding and then your funeral in my home city. Your calm, sanguine spirit will live in a part of me forever. Your husband and the friends who flowed in from Singapore (and elsewhere) to say goodbye have reconnected me full circle back to that part of the world.

There are many wonderful places on this planet, and I will be perfectly fine wherever I land. But wherever I happen to settle, I will hold Vancouver and my friends here close in my heart.

Interstellar vs. 2001

“I’m not going to say 2001 is a great film just because you explained it to me. If it has to be explained – if the plot is some mystery that only certain people are allowed to get because they read some article about it – it’s simply not a good movie.”

That was the sentiment one friend expressed when debating the merits of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s a film that baffled audiences when it was released in 1968, and to this day it’s often dissed as some kind of esoteric, elitist “art film” that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

For those people, there’s a remake of 2001 that explains the whole plot. It’s called Interstellar. And it provides a good argument in favour of 2001’s lack of obvious narrative. I loved Interstellar, but it also reminded me that sometimes a director is wise to leave some things to an audience’s imagination.

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2001's monolith orbiting
Jupiter, and Interstellar's
wormhole near Saturn

'm being cheeky calling Interstellar a remake, but the parallels are obvious. An alien intelligence of mysterious origin places a “calling card” of sorts near a planet in the outer reaches of the solar system. In 2001 it was the monolith orbiting Jupiter; in Interstellar it’s a wormhole plonked near Saturn. A crew is dispatched by a secretive government to investigate. By the end of each film, a lone astronaut has been hauled into a special-effects laden “alternate dimension” which eventually leads him back home to save a doomed Earth from man-made catastrophe. In 2001, the astronaut was reborn in spirit form as the “star child” to avert a nuclear war (the nuclear bit explained only in the Arthur C. Clarke novel, written in tandem with the director’s screenplay). In Interstellar, it’s a whole other mind-bending phantasma that saves mankind from drought and plague. Both films are an ambitious blending of science-reality and imagination.

2001's orbiting space station

Director Stanley Kubrick intended 2001: A Space Odyssey to be cinema’s first serious science fiction film. Prior to 2001, all depictions of aliens and outer space were only found in cheesy B-movies – laughable exercises in bad taste with titles such as The Man From Planet X or The Brain from Planet Arous (and let’s not forget Plan 9 From Outer Space, the first movie to gain a “so-bad-it’s-good” following). 2001 was the first film to show an audience a faithful portrayal of moon landings and what it would be like to orbit the earth in space stations. Moonwalkers from the original Apollo missions to today’s “rock star” astronaut Chris Hadfield have called it the most realistic space sci-fi ever made. What’s most remarkable is that production of the film was completed before man ever stepped foot on the moon – which meant that 2001’s shot of the Earth from the moon’s surface was seen in theatres only a few months before the real thing was viewed and captured by humans. Both the film and the astronauts’ photos looked nearly the same.


At Clavius moon base in 2001

Kubrick didn’t intend for 2001 to be such a vague and ambiguous film. He and pioneering sci-fi novelist Arthur C. Clarke started off with a more literal story. Their collaboration was intended to result in Kubrick's film and Clarke's novel being released as complementary projects. But Kubrick altered the film significantly during production when certain elements didn’t translate well from page to screen. The original script for 2001 had narration to guide the audience through the action, but this was dropped when Kubrick found the voiceover trite and distracting. The film worked much better, he thought, left in the abstract. Those who love the film would agree.

So now we have Interstellar, which gives us an indication of what 2001 would have been like with every detail explained along the way. And, to be honest, I found myself thinking “huh?!” just as many times as I did the first time I saw 2001. Despite the near-three-hour running time, Interstellar is packed with enough ideas to fill another hour’s worth of movie. Which is funny, because 2001 has a nearly identical run time, but where plot exposition could have been crammed in, we got lengthy, introspective sequences devoid of dialogue (40 minutes of speech in the entire film) – and the experience is far richer for it.

And I’m not dumping on Interstellar at all. It’s a wondrous piece of cinema full of bold ideas and imagery like I’ve never seen in any film before. By its end, I felt completely displaced – mostly awed, partly disturbed – in a way the original audience of 2001 might have been in 1968. In that regard, writer-director Christopher Nolan achieved the ultimate success a director could hope for.

Interstellar’s strengths transcend its flaws. But those flaws are nonetheless distractions. One is its editing; I had trouble at times figuring who was doing what and why. And then there’s the attempt to cram too much explanation into the dialogue. I appreciated that Nolan wanted us to identify with what we were watching. Some of the exposition enhanced the fun of the movie – for instance, the descriptions of why a wormhole would appear as a three-dimensional sphere, or the various ways in which time moves slower when travelling around different types of phenomena in space. But there were many other details thrown at us with such haste that they only created further questions and gaps in logic. Which made me wonder why this approach would have made 2001 a better film. If we still don’t entirely get what we’re watching, then why not just let us revel in the mystery?

From the stargate sequence in 2001

This especially goes for the ending (which I can’t give away, because it’s byzantine and nonsensical). Let me say that the finale of Interstellar was one of the most rapturous, illusory, and enthralling  moments I’ve seen in a cinema. The final act of 2001 had a similar mind-blowing final reel. Nolan’s great achievement is in creating a spectacular view into new dimensions that rivals what Kubrick gave us in 2001’s “stargate” sequence – considered the foundation of special effects in the decades before CGI came about. (One of the reasons Nolan’s cinematic worlds look so inventive, whether in original works like Inception or the comic-book Batman movies, is that he shuns CGI whenever possible).

The only downfall to Nolan’s approach in Interstellar’s grandest sequence is that he employed a narrative device to explain what our astronaut was experiencing in the new dimension. Which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing had the explanation made sense. But when you’re travelling through new dimensions, how can any rationalization be comprehensible? In that regard, Kubrick did the right thing just letting us experience it. In both films we leave the theatre scratching our heads, but Nolan's attempt to translate the action felt silly at best, insulting at worst. Insulting, how? With Interstellar, we feel stupid for not getting all the science thrown at us. With 2001, we can blame the director, if we feel so inclined.

There were many other moments throughout the film where the details and descriptions took me out of the moment. I don’t have the benefit of being able to re-view the film and quote dialogue for specific examples, but, in general, I found that characters were verbalizing particulars and procedures that would have, in reality, been discussed and drilled into their heads during mission training or other appropriate moments. For instance – the fact that the onboard computer, TARS, was programmed with a sense of humour, or that he was programmed to be dishonest when it was warranted and wouldn’t hurt the mission; I don’t think the crew would be discovering this stuff during liftoff. It was just thrown in for the convenience of moving the story along.

Astronaut Bowman doing a little maintenance on HAL in 2001

You could say that this was artistic licence. Then again, Kubrick took artistic licence by not explaining at all that his onboard computer, HAL, sabotaged the mission because of a neurosis caused by being programmed to both be honest 100% of the time and yet lie about the mission’s purpose – a detail only available to those who read the novel. Some would say that unrealistically timed explanations in movie plots are more satisfying than drawing them out in realistic-but-lackluster scenes. It's easier to have Joe Explainer show up on the scene in the form of a detective or long-lost relative to utter, "It's a shame Bob killed his wife for the insurance money, because she had a terminal illness anyway, but he didn't know that, and now he has to spend the rest of his life in jail."

Others would say that Kubrick’s method compliments the audience’s intelligence by creating a sense of wonder and mystery. No human in 2001 understood why HAL took the actions he did, nor did anyone on-screen understand the monolith’s origin or meaning, nor did astronaut Dave Bowman comprehend his transformation in the stargate. To have the reason exposed by some contrived plot convention would have felt false.

I will be honest and admit that I didn’t like 2001 all that much on first viewing, though I was fortunate that my first experience seeing it was on the big screen during a revival in 1980. The fact that I was 12 years old probably contributed to my befuddlement (I grew up with the action and splashy effects of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind).  It wasn’t until the next year that something clicked. Channel flipping on TV, I caught the film at the beginning of the “moon” sequence and was entranced right to the end. I still didn’t entirely get it on a conscious level, but some deeper part of my mind was understanding something. I knew it was leading to that psychedelic fall through the alien stargate and into the surreal bedroom where Dave Bowman would die and be reborn. When the film finished, it was the same feeling I had at the end of Interstellar – stunned by the beauty, but wondering if I’d sleep that night.

Over the years, I came to understand 2001 by reading the novel and delving into all the articles, critiques, and books written about the film – and through countless discussions with fans and detractors, and realizing its influence on the sci-fi movies I grew up with.

The difference was this – after first viewing, I knew I’d want to see 2001 again, but Interstellar, despite its originality and splendor, doesn’t seem to demand a second go ‘round. 2001’s lack of dialogue made me fall in love with its images and ideas, whereas Interstellar’s barrage of verbosity and jam-packed plot will probably make for a tiresome exercise to sit through a second time. I want to see the film again, but I don’t want to hear it.

I’m sure many will disagree with that assessment for legitimate reasons. I know of many people who grew impatient with 2001’s pace (what I call quiet and meditative others call slow and frustrating), and I guess those folks would enjoy delving into Interstellar's dialogue a second or third time to try to grasp all the details.

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"I don't want to [give my own interpretation of the film] because I think that the power of the ending is based on the subconscious emotional reaction of the audience, which has a delayed effect. To be specific about it, certainly to be specific about what it's supposed to mean, spoils people's pleasure and denies them their own emotional reactions."

– Stanley Kubrick interviewed in Eye magazine

(Agel, The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Modern Library, pp. 248-49; date unavailable)

The monolith prepares astronaut Bowman for rebirth in 2001

Why politicians shouldn't sue each other

The headline made my heart sink: Robertson Sues LaPointe for defamation.

While living in Singapore, I made a mental note of large and small differences that set our cultures apart, for good and bad. During the infrequent times I had trouble coping, I looked forward to returning to Canada, where I was convinced certain practices just wouldn't happen. Once back home, though, I discovered that things weren't as ideal as I had thought. For instance, I was critical of Singapore's reliance on foreign workers for cheap labour, a policy that does not allow outsiders to feel any belonging to the country they are contributing to, and only makes locals feel resentful toward newcomers for undercutting their wages. I wrote a long blog post comparing the immigration policies of Canada and Singapore, highlighting how Canada recruited immigrants on much healthier terms. But alas, we have long had a "temporary foreign worker" program that I hadn’t been aware of until recent years, and it has been expanding rapidly. Now I witness a fomenting of the same resentment toward foreign workers in Canada.

Another example was Singapore's lack of democratic safeguards, which in Canada prevent ruling parties from intimidating voters or rigging the system in their own favour. And yet I came home to watch our ruling Conservative party employ disinformation campaigns to prevent opposition supporters from voting, while weakening and disparaging Elections Canada, and dismantling many of the public institutions that keep the citizenry educated and informed.

This morning I awoke to yet another reminder of how misguided I was in my criticisms of Singapore. In that city-state, the ruling party has frequently sued members of the opposition for merely expressing the banal opinions and criticisms that are standard in election campaigns in the West. A Singapore opposition leader was famously sued into bankruptcy and eventually jailed for repeated accusations of ruling-party corruption, and the country's history is rife with stories of citizens and politicians who have had their government use the courts to suppress their freedoms of speech and assembly. "That's not supposed to happen in functioning democracies," I would say to whomever tolerated my rants.

It's one of the unwritten tenets of an egalitarian system of government, and something that everyone who goes into politics learns to accept – to deal with slander in the court of public opinion. It's up to those running for public office to provide their own defence, with the electorate acting as jury and judge. Calling an innocent private citizen "corrupt" should certainly be cause for legal action, but for a politician to hide behind a lawyer and the protection of the law is bad political sportsmanship. Making rivals fearful of expressing legitimate viewpoints only stifles democracy at large.

If you think any given elected official is corrupt, you or any other citizen should have the freedom to run for office and make him or her defend that charge in the public arena.

And yet here we have our mayor, Gregor Robertson, launching legal action against his opponent, Kirk LaPointe, for calling him corrupt. It's the kind of thing I'd expect from the current crop of federal Conservatives, who seem to view democracy as a nuisance that threatens the indefinite power they believe they deserve (the number of times they have threatened to sue citizens and opponents is too rich to get into here).

The reason my heart sank at this particular headline is because these kinds of defamation suits are spreading across the political spectrum, to parties I would expect to stand up for democratic traditions. Earlier this year, the Liberal premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, launched a lawsuit against the province’s opposition leader and one of his backbenchers for suggesting she may have been “possibly” involved in a scandal of her government’s making. And now we have Vancouver’s left-leaning mayor, a former New Democratic member of the province’s legislature, suing his right-leaning rival for digging up that old chestnut – “he’s corrupt!” – which has long been an old trope in election campaigns (and one to which the public pays very little heed. I recall Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien winning two of his three majority terms with the "corrupt" label being flung at him from all corners).

It’s not that LaPointe’s accusation has merit. It doesn’t. His charge stems from a secret recording leaked from a union meeting, in which Robertson’s right-hand man on council promised that the city would not expand the contracting out of jobs at city hall. After he left the room, the union decided to make a substantial donation to Robertson’s party, Vision Vancouver. On the surface, that looks shady – trading political favours for donations. But (as pointed out by the Vancouver Courier’s Allen Garr) slowing the contracting out of services has been Vision’s policy since around 2007. And unions have been legally donating to political parties that favour their agendas for as long as unions and political parties have existed. So there’s nothing corrupt about a political party sticking to its public platform, and attracting donations from organizations and individuals who support that platform.

But if LaPointe stands by his charge, then it can be thrown right back his way. One case in point is the former vice president of the Non Partisan Association, the party LaPointe now leads. Rob Macdonald donated just a few dollars shy of $1,000,000 to his party in the 2011 election, which raises the question – was his vice-presidency of the NPA contingent upon the donation? And since Macdonald himself is and was at the time working as a property developer, was that not a conflict of interest for him to be both in a leadership position and a monetary contributor to the party that could, in turn, favour his property development applications?

It certainly stinks, but it’s legal, and there is enough “corruption” on both sides to call the playing field even. But here’s the thing: it’s Gregor Roberton’s responsibility to lay out the above arguments in public debates. Vancouver’s media can easily blow the cover of bullshit off LaPointe’s hackneyed accusation of corruption. Ultimately, however, it’s Robertson’s job to do that for himself. He had the chance at a mayoralty debate on October 26, but as Globe and Mail columnist Frances Bula noted on her blog, when Robertson was confronted about the union donation, “The mayor could have come up with a number of reasonable-sounding arguments and even a counter-attack... Instead, he flopped and floundered... He didn’t even seem to know that it’s been his own party’s longstanding policy not to add to what is already contracted out. He said there was no iron-clad commitment on that.”

Robertson had plenty of time to formulate a counterattack in time for the debate, because LaPointe made the same accusation in the press and on the NPA website five days earlier. But because he lost a debate he could have easily won, Robertson is now being bitter and petulant, using a defamation lawsuit as a “re-do,” to imply, “I was totally caught off guard by that dirty, personal smear, and now I’m doing the rightful thing.” In reality, it’s his way of trying to silence the topic by legal means (expect all those involved to say, “I cannot comment on a matter now before the courts”) simply because he is unable to silence the topic with facts and intellect.

The public should be disturbed when candidates use lawsuits to hush critics and, especially, rival candidates. Certainly, there should be exceptions. Personal defamation along the lines of drug use or spousal abuse should be responded to harshly. But when debating policy and a politician’s actions in office, there needs to be a wide berth to allow for opinion and criticism. The idea accepted in most Western countries is that speech relating to the performance of government is vital to a healthy democracy. Therefore, holding politicians to the same standards of defamation as private citizens only discourages such dialogue.

In the court of public opinion, political candidates should have the skills and fortitude to be their own defence lawyers. Resorting to the courts mid-election is a sign of weakness, not leadership. But I sense that we’re just going to see more of the “sue-me-sue-you blues” in politics, simply because it’s easy and effective. I remember a time when suing political rivals would have been appalling to the electorate, and would have been a sure vote-loser. Today, it seems to be more palatable, and as long as the public doesn’t scoff at the practice, we’ll see much more of it.

Singapore’s ruling party has held on to power for almost 50 years via judicial threats and intimidation, and I witnessed how the tentacles of that operation inflicted damaging forms of suspicion and paranoia on its citizens. I understand that the few examples I outlined does not put us on par with Singapore's abuse of the judiciary, but we could one day end up being no different if we continue to reward politicians who use the courts to fight their political opponents.

The Beatles & art school

Whether you thought the Beatles were a silly rock band for kids or a group of mature, adult songwriters might have depended on which country you grew up in.

That’s because Beatles albums, especially the early ones, were packaged and marketed in wildly different manners between England and America.

The Beatles’ album sleeves (the British ones) were historic in the way they presented pop music as a legitimate art form. And I’m not even going to mention the music itself. That would be a 10,000-word post in itself; countless others have written about their music in better ways than I ever could, so I will stick with the subject at hand.

Not enough people credit the Beatles as visual artists, and for that reason it was a shame that the American label, Capitol Records, dumbed down the band’s LP sleeves.

To really understand what made the Beatles so great, you have to consider that they had their origins in art school as much as music. They weren’t rebels with guitars – they were intellects who, before they were famous, were immersed in the world of the avant garde. Stuart Sutcliffe, the band’s original bassist, bonded with John Lennon over their love of painting. Sutcliffe was an accomplished artist (a better painter than a musician, the reason he left the band), and later became engaged to photographer Astrid Kirchherr, who captured the Beatles in numerous impressionistic photos, as well as influencing their haircuts and fashions. Then there was Kirchherr’s former boyfriend, Klaus Voormann, a bohemian artist with a classical upbringing, who became ensconced within the clique. Voormann was pitching offbeat album designs to Lennon and Sutcliffe even before the band had recorded a note.

By the time the Beatles released their first album, in 1963, there had already been an established tradition in jazz music to hire painters, designers, and photographers to create album covers that were works of art in and of themselves. In pop music, though, covers were simply products of a label’s marketing department. Record sleeves were designed to grab attention with loud photos and garish typesets.

The Beatles changed that.

As the group’s entire US catalogue has just been released on CD for the first time, there’s a legitimate concern that any commemoration of the American versions of the albums only blurs the artistry of the original UK albums – the only versions that the Beatles themselves crafted and authorized. Let’s look at the differences. (Click on any cover to view them in a gallery.)

Please Please Me: The Beatles’ first LP did not boast a particularly artful cover, being new to the business and not pushing their luck. Regardless, a theatre photographer was brought in to shoot this at the last minute, and despite the repulsive typeset and dayglo colours, the photo has a nice sense of perspective as the band looks down the stairwell of their label’s headquarters. In America, the small Vee-Jay label opted not to use the original cover, going instead for something more staid and uninspiring. A few years later, Vee-Jay re-released the collection with a cover that was more upbeat, but ultimately childish.

With The Beatles: The group's interest in visual arts prompted them to seek out Robert Freeman, a photographer renowned for his work with jazz musicians of the era. For this sleeve, the Beatles were after a cover that was artistic and visually striking. What they ended up with was progressive for its day. The label, Parlophone, initially rejected the cover on the grounds that the boys were not smiling, not to mention the lack of colour. The image went against the norms of pop-music marketing in 1963. But with this cover, the Beatles were making a bold statement – a statement that they were innovators, that pop music could be taken seriously.

At this point in time, the primary medium for rock 'n' roll was the 45 RPM single: one hit song with a throwaway tune on the B side. The Beatles were now telling audiences that when they bought a 14-song LP, they were not just getting a couple of hits plus some filler tracks, they were purchasing a work of art.

In America, though, the suits at Capitol Records were miffed by the lack of a happy, sellable cover, and tacked on blocky lettering complete with tacky colours and an exclamation mark. They also changed the name of the album from With the Beatles to Meet the Beatles! Capitol culled a few tracks and mixed in some singles so that they could create The Beatles' Second Album with the remainders.

The Capitol office in Canada also obliterated the subtlety (above). The 1963 collection was split into two albums, with the second volume, Twist and Shout, appearing with a slapdash cover created from a publicity photo and, apparently, a bottle of nail polish.

A Hard Day's Night: The UK sleeve was clever in its use of film-strip imagery, given that this was the accompanying LP for the movie of the same name. Worth noting that this was the first LP in pop-music history to be written entirely by the members of a band. Thirteen original songs: Side 1 comprising tunes from the film, with Side 2 featuring all-new, non-movie songs. In America, Side 2 was replaced by instrumental tracks, with the rest of the album and some scraps appearing on the ironically named Something New.

Beatles For Sale: Although the cover of the band’s fourth album has a zen-like beauty, some people mock this sleeve as the one with the miserable faces. Probably why Capitol opted to use publicity shots for this collection, which they again split into two records. Interesting how the Beatles had no problem presenting themselves maturely, while the marketers at Capitol clearly found that discomforting.

Help: Again with Capitol's aversion to empty space on an album cover. The blue-on-white made a nice, clean image, with the band forming semaphores to supposedly spell “Help” (though due to the semaphore for "Help" not being so graphically appealing, they tried several poses and ended up spelling NUJV). In America, the cover was cluttered up, and many songs were dropped in favour of the instrumental film score. Meanwhile, Capitol re-packaged a handful of early songs in a tacky sleeve for Early Beatles, once they acquired the rights from Vee-Jay.

Rubber Soul and Revolver: By 1965, the Beatles had enough clout to insist on their original covers being used in America. However, not enough clout to stop Capitol from altering the track list. An executive at Capitol decided that Rubber Soul should be a folk album, dropping four of the harder songs and adding two gentler ones left off Help, while Revolver had three songs pulled. Missing songs from the US versions of Help, Rubber Soul, and Revolver appeared in America on the blandly presented Yesterday And Today. (That compilation actually had a more interesting cover for its first day on the market before being pulled.) Rubber Soul's cover, with the faces slightly elongated and eyes darting into space, hints at a band somewhat dazed and mellowed (by pot, as it turns out), not an inappropriate visual for the more matured sound found inside the sleeve. Revolver is notable for having fulfilled Klaus Voormann's dream of designing a Beatles cover. What came to be known as psychedelic music was invented on Revolver, and this cover certainly heralded a new, surreal version of the Beatles.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: Rafts of articles have been written about this album and its cover since the record appeared in 1967, but the nutshell version: the most expensive album-cover shoot in the history of music, to accompany the most expensive album ever recorded to date. The band sought a cover that was inspired and special, to reflect the innovation put into the music itself. The sleeve was a bold work of art that became an emblem for that year's Summer of Love. But did Capitol really have to slap that ugly yellow STEREO banner across the top? Notice how that alteration forced the image to be cropped at the left side and bottom.

Magical Mystery Tour: This was the first instance of the American version of a Beatles album supplanting the official UK edition. In Britain, this soundtrack appeared as a six-song EP (pictured left), split between two 45-RPM records in one package. In America, a collection of singles was added to the package to create an 11-song LP. The cover, unfortunately, was turned into a hodge-podge.

The Beatles: The White Album, as it’s unofficially called. The first pop-music double album, 30 songs running the gamut of folk, ragtime, psychedelia, country, sound collage, and some invented genres (“Helter Skelter” may have been the first heavy metal song). The sleeve was as minimalistic as could be: the band’s name was simply embossed in the corner (as shown at the top of this post), and the only ink found on the cover was a tongue-in-cheek "limited edition" serial number stamped on the first few million copies (look for it in the top-left photo, in the corner of the sleeve). The original UK pressing featured openings at the top. In America, the more standard side openings were used.

Let It Be: This one I'm throwing into the mix for fun. Let It Be appeared in the UK and the US with the same sleeve, but since we're talking about Beatles LP covers, here's a bit of historical interest: Get Back was the intended title, using the cover seen on the left. The idea was that the band was going back to its roots, throwing away all the recording techniques they pioneered, to record an album live in the studio, straight to tape, as they did with their first album. Hence the design of the cover, emulating the first record but showing how the boys changed in the ensuing seven years. Unfortunately, the record didn't turn out as planned. After the work was abandoned for about a year, 1960s producer-wunderkid Phil Spector was commissioned to finish it off (without agreement from Paul). Spector, not surprisingly, used strings, orchestras, and other overdubs to put his own touch on the record. As the "live" concept no longer applied, the title and the original sleeve were abandoned, too. Let It Be was released after Abbey Road, and after the official break-up of the band, though the bulk of it had been recorded six months before.

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Abbey Road: There's no reason to include this cover in this particular article, as Abbey Road appeared the world over with the same cover. For the sake of being a completist, though, I must list it. The Beatles admitted that they knew this would be their last album, even if they never verbalized those thoughts at the time. The original plan was to title this album Everest, with the band flying to the Himalayas for a cover shot to match. Instead, having completed the arduous recording, and wanting to get the rest of their duties over with quickly, the band and their photographer marched outside the studio to complete this session in ten minutes.