Umbrellas and gumboots were the order of the day at Sunday’s Word on the Street Book and Magazine Festival. Festival organizers were hit by a double whammy this year: the gloomy weather undoubtedly reduced the number of participants (and who could blame them? Rain and printed matter have never mingled all that well); combine this with Vancouver’s civic strike (now in its 11th week) which prevented Word on the Street from making use of any part of the VPL plaza (striking CUPE members and their supporters used the opportunity to present their side of the labour dispute, with information tables and posters offering the “Word on the Strike”).

It was difficult to resist the urge to rescue all those bargain books and freshly-printed magazines from the elements. My haul this year was relatively modest: the Fall issue (#66) of Geist magazine, fresh off the presses; and another of those wonderful Poetry in Transit bus “cards” to decorate my office.