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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
This little guy is only about three or four centimetres tall. I’m not a Buddhist – this guy is more part of my décor than anything else – but it seems to me that when it comes to your Buddha, size really doesn’t count. (No disrespect intended, but some people clearly see this issue differently than I do, for instance whoever built the biggest Buddha in the world, and the people who plan to build an even bigger one.)
Anyway, this image is really here in honour of the Smilin’ Buddha, a legendary club once located at 109 East Hastings Street in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, now sadly gone. It was also a small Buddha, a tiny place that couldn’t hold more than about a hundred people, but its reputation was mighty.
Early in its history it had hosted Jimi Hendrix, amongst others, but by the early 1980s it had become the home to local punk bands. It was here, for instance, that I saw the infamous D.O.A., as well as Pointed Sticks. When the Smilin' Buddha finally gave up and closed its doors, the band 54-40 -- who had debuted there in 1980 -- bought its famous (and very beautiful) neon sign (manufactured by Walburn Neon, circa 1950), on which Buddha’s tummy “jiggled” as he laughed. In 1994, 54-40 released an album called Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret (the club’s full name) and took the sign on tour with them. At one time there was also a large wooden Buddha that sat outside as well… I wonder who got that?
These days the name Buddha is more associated with a gentler, groovier kind of music, purveyed at the Buddha Bar in Paris. Some delicious, multi-ethnic mixes come out of here, and the apparently never-ending stream of Buddha Bar albums somehow don’t suffer in quality as their numbers mount (I think they’re at seven double albums now), possibly because of the able hands of DJ David Visan.
So here’s to the Buddha, however he may be incarnated in our times: small and mass-produced like mine or huge and unique like the two in the links above, aggressively punk as at the Smilin' Buddha or groovily electronic as at the Buddha Bar.
I invite everyone out there to post their Buddha. Not the one you photographed in Tibet or Japan, but whatever personal Buddha is sitting on your shelf. I know a lot of you probably have one. Tell us about where he came from and why you like him. If people respond, I'll create a new theme so that we can see them all together. |
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