I didn't even know the Paralympics existed until this winter -- and sadly, I think I'm not alone in that realization. It's fascinating that while the Paralympics are literally the second-largest international sports event next to the Olympics, the vast majority of us are completely unaware of their existence -- or, at the most, vaguely ambivalent. Those who are ambivalent are many of the same people who donned full-body Canada gear for the past few weeks, screamed for our country at bars every night, and came out into the streets en masse after the hockey game in an impromptu display of unbridled Canadian pride and nationalism.

Somehow, I doubt those people will come out in such awe-inspiring numbers when the Paralympics come to a close -- especially given the sadly lukewarm turnout for the torch ceremony this past week (Twitter updates stated that "it looked like the only people in attendance were family members and the occasional confused bystander.") The streets are back to being a sea of black coats without much representation of the Canada gear everyone was wearing a few weeks ago. Why the lack of support? Is one type of athlete more worthy of our attention than another? A friend told me that Canadians "just don't really care about disabled athletes in the same way as the superhuman ones." I beg to differ. My hypothesis is that a great deal of our Olympics-related nationalism (or, in the Paralympics' case, lack thereof) is directly related to the amount of media and corporate attention focused on the whole Games themselves.

Now, I don't want to turn the mainstream media into the sacrificial lamb here. While CTV still refuses, despite protests, to broadcast the Paralympics closing ceremonies live (ironic given their unabashed saturation of every possible airwave, billboard and commercial spot during last month's Olympics), I will give them credit for providing the largest amount of coverage ever given to the Paralympics by Canada. However, I really think we can do better -- and I also think that if the mainstream media gave Paralympic athletes more of a chance to share their (pretty amazing) stories, Canadians would readily give them the support they deserve. Is this a naive assumption? Let's look at some of the details.

I've been seeing some especially creative paste-ups around the city lately. To me, that's a very good sign. It signals a city that has an growing scene of young artists willing to get out there and slap their pieces on walls for the public to see -- whether those pieces are small, odd quotes or full-on works of art.

Dipped in homemade liquid adhesive made from vegetable starch and water and based on a craft fostered since ancient times, these lovingly-applied (and often immediately torn-down) paste-up pieces are notorious and important parts of the urban street art scene. Every city I've been to around the world has its own forms of paste-ups -- whether they are called "wheatpastes," "flyposts" or "poster bombs." Many are outwardly political and display controversial ideas, some are beautiful and whimsical, and almost all are applied and maintained by anonymous, faceless artists.

The whole idea of sharing one's artwork without intending to make a profit -- indeed, with the knowledge that by revealing that art, one risks getting arrested -- is a romantic concept. As an artist myself, I believe it also raises some important questions. Should the role of the artist be to please the public or to embody philosophical ideals? What is ultimately more satisfying -- to make money off one's work or to participate in subversive artistic movements?

Dichotomous concepts like these mirror similarly polarized legacies of some of the most well-loved (and hated) street artists of our generation, from the gorilla-faced (and feminist-minded) Guerrilla Girls to the anonymous Parisian student Princess Hijab to the famous Banksy to the timeless Posterchild. Philosophical debates aside, here are a few of Vancouver's most well known paste-ups.

One of the things I love about living in a city is the fact that, right when you are about to resign yourself to a general feeling of apathy because you think you've explored every nook and cranny to be explored, you inevitably stumble upon a neighbourhood you never even realized existed.

This weekend, while lying in a sunny grass field off Victoria and 38th, I realized that the whole area is a bit like that new guy in class with the James Dean-style haircut and worn leather jacket -- it's scruffy, edgy and a little off-beat, just enough to stand out from the crowd (ie, the south Granvilles and Cambies, yawn.) Also, although it has some of the same interests as me (good Mexican food, Vietnamese people, weird meat shops and locals) there's just something about it that remains elusive and intimidating.

Maybe its the baffling mishmash of ethnic foods or the way the street looks like it will continue infinitely into the horizon, kind of like Queen's street in Toronto when you get close to the Eastern European area. Perhaps it lies in the fact that I have never been invited to even one house party in the area. Or perhaps it's the faded brightness of street-side buildings and the lack of condominiums or height of any kind in the surrounding market-style vicinity. Either way, upper Victoria St. continues to leave me feeling somewhat bewildered as a non-Vancouver native.

However, it's the kind of bewilderment that I know is easily solved, at least when it comes to the elusive new guy in class, by going out for a few drinks to ease the situation up a bit. So, for the Victoria-Fraserview neighborhood, I decided to initiate the virtual equivalent of those drinks -- a bit of quality old-fashioned Wikipedia e-stalking to find out exactly what this Victoria neighbourhood is really all about.

There's something about haphazard street words and sign-defacing that really fascinates me. I feel like it reveals more about a city's character than its official signage, advertisements and well-cleaned parks. In Vancouver's case, these written street dialogues reveal a side of the city's residents that's cheeky, a bit angry, and pretty amusing.

Whether we're drawing mustaches on attractive models pictured in ads on bus stops, scrawling 'F$#@ THE POLICE' in alleyways, leaving the public with a well-thought out quote written on the wall, or spray-painting our graffiti tags because we're 18 and looking for trouble, us Vancouverites sure have a lot to say when we can say it anonymously.

I remember reading an Adbusters piece about Sao Paulo's radical move to completely ban outdoor advertising in its streets. The law was put in place by a conservative mayor based on his mandate to rid the city of "visual pollution," and involved the take-down of "over 15,000 billboards, 1,600 oversized signs and 1,300 metal ad panels" (see photos here). Adbusters described the city as a "battlefield strewn with blank marquees and partially torn-down frames." I couldn't help but wonder what our city would look like without our advertisements. Would blank billboards become covered in these types of hand-written words, street art and graffiti? Or would we have no compulsion left to leave our mark without ads and signs to provoke that creativity (and cheekiness)?

Click for more examples after the jump of what Vancouverites have to say.

This past weekend, I went to a last-minute dance party at the old Cobalt (which now has a new name, apparently, although no one seems to agree on what it is). The place looked pretty similar to how it used to back in its punk days, except for a few oddly-placed chandeliers. Also notable was a series of glowing Mac laptops manned by young DJ's in Oxfords blasting Chicago-style acid house instead the usual punk band. The hodge-podge setting and overall ambiance of the night reminded me of something that's very Vancouver -- the hotly contested and never-ending debate about the ultimate validity of our city's nightlife culture.

It's a heated debate between two camps of people, both with strong opinions and valiant champions. First, there's Camp One, a group of people who claim that Vancouver is a "no fun" city without any interesting music venues or culture to speak of. This camp's complaints are well-documented (in community newspapers, on films like the aptly-named "No Fun City" and in the citing of restrictive late-night city bylaws) and their voices are loud. They often proclaim that they plan to leave Vancouver for "greater" cities (usually Montreal or NYC).

Then there's Camp Two. This camp fondly remembers epic, pseudo-illegal "venues" like the Red Gate, Emergency Room, Plank Gallery, the Loft and No Tofu. For many, these places have never existed. However, for those who have been to their late-night $5 dance parties featuring ironic names like "Jack Your Body," the experience is totally refreshing; it's also specially-made for a generation raised on the Internet and captivated by things that are fresh and somewhat treasonous. These illicit prop-ups are the ever-evolving gems of our city, sprouting up indefinitely in alleyways, basements and warehouses, and consistently showcasing an emergent form of multimedia culture that is quintessentially Vancouver-based. Their collective product? A crazy, unique conglomeration of urban influences and art-house principles that has created an entirely new and subversive form of fun-making.

I have to say, it's weird to have everything back to normal in Vancouver. Walking to work downtown this morning, I was amazed at the feeling of unnatural stillness in the (dirty, garbage and confetti-filled) streets. I realized that I had gotten used to the chaos, the foreign tourists, and the excessive randomness that permeated downtown life for the past two weeks.

In the aftermath of yesterday's (unarguably epic) celebrations and revelry, with hundreds of thousands of ecstatic cityfolk from all sides of the Olympic debate together in the streets, in an urban explosion highly reminiscent of that of Chicago on the night of Obama's election, I think many of us Vancouverites, whether anti-Olympics protesters or pro-Olympics advocates, are now wondering one thing as we nurse our hangovers: what will the world really have to say about these Olympics? Most importantly, what is the world's opinion about Vancouver as a city through the Olympic lens?

As a Canadian who grew up in the U.S., during high school I was always struck by how few Americans actually knew Vancouver was a real city ("wait, are you talking about Vancouver, WA?") These Olympics were, for many, Vancouver's second "coming-out" party as a city, with Expo '86 being the first. Now, in 2010, the world has seen a Vancouver that is drastically different than the 1986 version. So, the question remains: what exactly has the world seen?

At least a part of the answer lies in the expressive and varied accounts of our city from the international press who have prowled through our streets during the Games, resulting in stories which gave us "a Gold in drinking," waxed poetic about our "summery smile" and called us an overall "odd choice." As Vancouver has been the "most heavily covered Winter Games in history," I find these international, journalist-based accounts of our city fascinating -- they truly reveal a new Vancouver that can only be seen through the eyes of an outsider. Here's a few of the most memorable journalistic gems.