I suspect we can all relate to the feeling Gwendal Castellan had while at work in a windowless office a few years ago: a longing for something new, a change of pace, maybe a jolt to break free from a rut you may be slipping into. For some a weekend in Tofino will do the trick. Not Castellan. His plan? Build a bicycle and ride it from the very tip of South America up to the Canadian Arctic.

Quitting his job, he began to put his plan in motion. He built a tandem bike that can be altered on the road to ride as a single. He consulted maps and planned routes. He put the call out to find a riding partner or two. Then he got hit by a car. A minor setback turned positive; Castellan was not seriously injured, but used his settlement to purchase a camera and the final piece to document the journey fell into place.

The resulting film - Long Road North, directed by Castellan and Ian Hinkle - had it's world premier at the Doxa Film Fest and sold out both screenings. The filmmakers are putting on one more screening this Tuesday, June 24th at the Ridge Theatre as a fundraiser for the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition. Ticket info and an interview with Castellan after the jump...

Ask any cyclist who commutes to work and they'll tell you the ride is often the best part of their day. Think about it. A great wakeup in the morning, fresh air, exercise, you can even have a coffee while you ride (the seawall that is). Coming home from work, you get that great buffer that takes you from work mode back to real life. Ah, the sweet life on two wheels. I've been doing it for eight years now and even on those damp morns, everything is still alright a few minutes into the ride.

The Lower Mainland's second annual Bike to Work Week begins this Monday, May 26. Organized by the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition (VACC), the point is to get more bums onto bike seats, and they have the goods to get you sorted. From "rush hour" commuter stations (check this handy map) to afternoon BBQs, bike-a-day giveaways and themed rides about town, both new and experienced cyclists will find more fun and support than imagined.

It's a simple step with complex repercussions. Do it for any number of reasons: eliminating carbon emissions, combating high gas prices, fine tuning your health and fitness, relieving stress, or, my fave, the sheer fun of cycling our city's greenways and bike routes.

A perennial Vancouver favourite, Hot One Inch Action once again takes over Gallery Gachet this Saturday, May 24 at 8pm sharp. Here's your chance to hob knob with the hottest art audience in town and watch panic stricken attendees breathlessly search out that elusive button that has everyone talking. Or just kick back and ride the wave of hundreds of people all mingling, bumping and talking to each other in this unique, one-night-only world.

Conceived by Jim Hoehnle and Chris Bentzen in 2004, this is the fifth, and possibly final year, for Hot One Inch Action in it's present state. A simple idea to get 50 artists to design the artwork for 50 different buttons, sold at the show for five bucks a bag - you take what you get and trade up the rest in a scene that, at times, resembles a stock market's closing hour. This year has an added bonus: they are raffling off all five years of hot action for a total of 250 unique buttons up for grabs. As they say: "Don't think you need that many buttons? Wait until you're in the heat of the moment." That's what it's all about.

While the marriage of art and protest was on the minds of the creators at the beginning, the event has become so popular they sell out of buttons within a few hours and find the thing takes on a life of it's own soon after doors open. It's become a template for social interaction, merging the high with the low brow. Redefining a familiar scene into something outside the bubble. Oh yeah, and it's a total blast as well. Keep reading for an interview with one of the creators...

Now in it's ninth year, Vancouver's premiere experimental arts festival Signal + Noise is back at VIVO Media Arts Centre, starting this Thursday night. The three-day festival aims to generate discourse and facilitate creative exchange in response to a theme - this year's being "Media Intercourse". Of course, another goal is simply to entertain, get you thinking and show off some of the outstanding alternative-media artists in our city and from afar.

We have written about this festival a few times before, and not without good reason. These truly are the sights and sounds from out there, the art that percolates underground like the tidal flats of False Creek. Like those flats, every now and then a rising tide will dampen the earth and flood the basements, giving light to a new level of artistry - visually, sonically, even texturally. Now we can add erotic and sensual leanings to this list.

Do you remember that scene in Anchorman where Ron Burgundy reveals his secret talent as a ripping jazz flutist? And you thought to yourself, it can't get more cool than that, right? That was some fine fluting, but I'm sorry. Burgundy's performance will have nothing on Chicago's Nicole Mitchell when she joins Vancouver's NOW Orchestra at Vancouver East Cultural Centre this Friday, April 11 for an evening of performance entitled Through the Eyes of a Child.

Mitchell, known as one of the world's top jazz flutists, flourishes in the windy city's fertile jazz and improv scenes. Vancouver is no slouch in that department either. The NOW Orchestra is a veritable who's who of local improv talent recently gaining kudos from a couple of big times: the Lisbon Jazz Festival & New York's Village Voice who said the "free ensemble are provincial enough to feel the need to keep the anarchy intact, even when their guest breaks out." Hopefully not by stomping tables while jamming, but who knows.

With the changing of the seasons and the saving of daylight comes the inevitable look ahead to summer plans. Camping, hiking and of course, music festivals. There have already been a number of big announcements made. But perhaps the biggest of all - in our little neck of the woods - is today's announcement of the inaugural Pemberton Festival, July 25-27, 2008. Anyone who has travelled up to the Mount Currie area knows the setting is sublime. In fact, it may just be too much for those used to 'festivals' on racetracks, parking lots or wind-blown prairie pastures.

It's billed as Canada's first European-style festival put together by the behemoth Live Nation and the lineup is...unusual. Tom Petty, Coldplay and Nine Inch Nails headline. The Hip, Jay-Z and Flaming Lips are also up there. So is Crystal Method, Junkie XL and Sam Roberts. And you have your Black Mountain, Vampire Weekend, Fiery Furnaces, Interpol, and MGMT among others for the indie rock crowd. It's almost like there could be a partition between stages with independent, mini-festivals going on at the same time. Have a look at the lineup yourself. A bit of a catch-all, isn't it?