This year it seems a week can't go by without another major fire in the news. The crowd-sourced echo chamber that is twitter no doubt adds to that perception that fire is all around us, as with Tuesday's blaze in Kanata -- captured here in a tweetphoto of such intensity it looks like the iPhone that took it  is starting to melt --or last weekend's controversial blaze at a scrapyard on Sheffield Road, tweeted within minutes of breaking out. Of course when fire struck Merivale Road in February the news didn't need even need twitter to spread around quickly; CJOH losing its home of nearly four decades was instant headline news all by itself. Fire seems to be a perfect subject for the immediacy of social media and the aftermath of a blaze seems an especially popular subject for Ottawa photo-bloggers. Spacing Ottawa contributor Justin Van Leeuwen has the knack for being close the scene for the fires that seem to bedevil his West End district, and has recorded the destruction superbly in shots like this Chinatown panorama or the shattered windows of this dream home on St. Francis near Gladstone that recently caught on fire on the last day of construction. This pit of rubble is a burned-out convenience store not far from Bronson.

[vimeo width="600" height="450"]http://www.vimeo.com/7815938[/vimeo] Our friends at Dawghaus Studios were at the Cube last week to cover our launch and we are thrilled that they were; these guys are masters at capturing the energy in a room, and as you'll see there was plenty of that to go around. If you need to show someone what Spacing Ottawa is all about, this video is a great place to start!

I stood near the corner of Bank and Somerset one day, puzzled, as I watched a woman struggle to lock her bike to a fence that protected one of the newly planted ash trees, while a brand new bike rack stood vacant, less than 4 feet away, with no bike to call it’s own. This year I have watched with interest at the discovery and use of the new Bank Street bike racks and wondered how long it will take to for people to really make the connection. Public engagement with new community art is always a slow process. Last year the City of Ottawa put out a call to local artists to submit graphic drawings that would be used as templates for steel bicycle racks. This was part of the long overdue Bank Street North rehabilitation project between Laurier Avenue and the Queensway. It is one of many public art commissions the City currently has underway along central neighbourhood streets, such as Preston and Wellington.