Open Letter to the Honourable David Eby, Premier of British Columbia
Monday, March 18, 2024
| My Lillooet daughter Alexandra now 55 posing by the Royal Hudson
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A Respectful Open Letter to The Honourable David Eby,
M.L.A.,Premier of the Province of British Columbia
Dear Sir,
In my past I lived in two large metropolitan areas, Buenos
Aires & Mexico City. In both cases politicians spent a lot of effort in
fixing the problems of their large cities, sometimes at the expense of the
provinces or states of their countries.
I believe that here in Vancouver we are so concerned on the
events of what is called The Lower Mainland that the interior of our large
province is ignored.
Since my arrival with my two daughters and Canadian wife
to Vancouver in 1975 I was always a freelance photographer. For almost 30 years
I worked for Canadian Pacific Limited and gained experience on their railway
system. Because of the efficient railway system built by the English in
Argentina I have some knowledge of what could be done in BC. For many years I
photographed all the heads of the Federal and Provincial NDP. I vote NDP.
Nini Baird (now 90 and working on projects with BC Tel)
quite a few years ago started The Outreach Program of Emily Carr (now defunct)
which had artist/ teachers (I was one of them) go into the interior of BC to
impart artistic culture. I went to small towns and in many wonderful cases my
classes consisted of Indigenous peoples who were eager to learn photography.
Baird said that folks in the interior paid taxes for culture but got none of
it.
Nini Baird's Baby & The Densification of Vancouver Through The Population Depletion Of BC's Interior
I have a daughter, now 55 who just retired as a teacher in
Lillooet. If I want to visit her or if she wants to visit me you need a car.
When she goes to Kamloops to see specialists, without her car she is stuck.
Lillooet has a lovely but empty train station. It is my
belief that from West Vancouver to Squamish there are places where short ½ km
double tracking could be built so a train going in one direction would wait for
the other to go past. I am old enough to have gone to Lillooet in a Budd car
train. Lillooet has a lovely but empty train station. Pemberton's is a café.
With the demise of Greyhound and little train activity in
the interior of BC Nini Baird wrote some years ago why Vancouver was getting so many “immigrants”
from the interior. A carbon tax and an
increase in gasoline prices puts a burden on the people who live in our
province’s interior.
In 1530 Basque/Spanish priest Vasco de Quiroga arrived to
what is now Mexico. He settled in the now State of Michoacán. It seems that on
his way from Spain he read Thomas More’s Utopia. In Michoacán he taught the
Indigenous communities of each town to make something. To this day Paracho ‘s
guitars are famous as is the copper ware of Santa Clara del Cobre.
When I was repatriated after my service in the Argentine Navy
in 1967 I was placed in a Victory Ship (an improvement of Henry Kaiser’s
Liberty Ships) to my mother’s home in Mexico. It was only a few years ago that
I found out that my Río Aguapey had been built at the Burrard Shipyards. | My Río Aguapey built at the Burrard Shipyards
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Except for fruit and wine in the Okanagan, nothing is made
in the interior of our province. Some
years ago enterprising students of mine at Emily Carr began to design furniture
made of Parallam.
Considering that Lillooet’s motto is “Guaranteed Rugged”
they could manufacture camping equipment or boots.
What can you buy in Prince George that is made there?
If you graduate from high school in Lillooet what can be
your future?
I have this list that I ask my friends. Few know the answers
and I tell them that it is not their fault but that of the institutions
concerned:
1. Who heads the VAG?
2. Head of the Maritime Museum (and when was the last time
you went there?)
3. Director of the Museum of Anthropology.
4. Head of Ballet BC.
5. Head of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
6. Who directs the Vancouver Opera?
7. What is MOV and where is it?
8. Name the good art gallery inside UBC.
9. What is the Turning Point Ensemble and where does it
perform?
10. When was the last time you went to a performance at the
Telus Theatre at the Chan Centre?
If writer Sean Rossiter were alive he would write in a
magazine or newspaper that no longer exists that the Queen E and the Vancouver Playhouse
are white elephants and that the Annex and Pyatt Hall are the future of performance
here. Tax dollars are wasted keeping the Queen E and the Vancouver Playhouse in working order.
The only institution that does not need to sell advertising
and that could promote culture in our city and province is CBC Radio. There
is no will there to do anything about it.
George Laverock, former head of classical music at the CBC
told me that Studio One has the best sound of any studio in all of Canada. This
studio (designed by Paul Merrick) is rented out to people that make videos.
And lastly sir, we have in Vancouver people in their 80s
with their marbles intact that live now in anonymity.
1. George Bowering – the first Parliamentary Poet Laureate
2. George McWhirter – the first Vancouver Poet Laureate. 3. Nini Baird
4. Not that old at all, one of our finest poets Susan
Musgrave, is she remembered?
Yes, communication to our interior and culture should be of
your concern. Sincerely yours, Alex Waterhouse-Hayward
Bach - Buxtehude & Infinity
Sunday, March 17, 2024
| St. Augustine's Catholic Church - 16 March 2024
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1705. It’s autumn in northern Germany. A young composer sets
out from the city of Arnstadt to make the gruelling journey on foot to Lübeck,
almost 400 km to the north. His reason? To hear some music by a
68-year-old organist who is nearing the end of his career. But this
isn’t just any organist, and the steadfast walker isn’t just any young composer.
Those of us who are enamoured with baroque music know the
story of Bach’s walk in 1705 to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude play the organ. We do know
(this is important) that he did get to the town and did hear the
composer/organist he so admired. Why is this important?
At last night’s combination of fine baroque music, that did include
Bach and Buxtehude, UBC mathematics professor, Doctor Fok-Shuen Leung (Oxford, no less!) gave
and interesting talk on the subject of infinity. Judging by two young men who
questioned Leung after the concert talk, I believe that the proceedings might
have lasted as long as a hyperbola reaching the x-axis at infinity. | Dr. Fok-Shuen Leung
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Leung told us about a hotel with an infinity of rooms. A
person shows up and wants to rent a room. He is told that the hotel is full.
The solution found, is to move the occupant of Room 1 to Room 2 and so on so
that the new guest occupies Room 1. From an infinity of rooms Leung arrived at the third part of his talk on the that entity that is infinitely perfect. Appropriately, inside a Roman Catholic church, that had to be God.
My thoughts on those full hotel rooms, have to do with Bach and Buxtehude. Once
Bach arrived at the church(?), he has to make one step forward to enter and so
on. Like the old Zeno paradox of the hare and the tortoise, do they ever catch up? Leung uses the logical conclusion that
somehow they do. By Leung’s logic we know then that Bach did listen to
Buxtehude play the organ.
The group that played the music of the night, including
Schmeltzer (his fame never quite made him catch up to Bach, as un-Zeno like, he
died before Bach was born) was a stellar ensemble of young luminaries.
The masons that built the medieval cathedrals, with their
secret handshakes, in this 21st century have been replaced by these
musicians whose ability to read music and perform it escapes most of us.
While I have always been a fan and veteran of baroque
performance I had never heard Bach’s Goldberg Variations with more instruments
than a harpsichord or piano. The arrangement played last night was a pleasant surprise.
Soprano Brittany St. Clair was marvellous in her diction of
German and organist/harpsichordist Connor Page must have a great future coming
to him. He will quickly catch up to Vancouver’s best as he is no tortoise.
Violinist Majka Demcak, as young as she is, graduated from
Julliard. Imagine that! Violinist Rebecca Ruthven (she of the loveliest smile)
played with lots of enthusiasm reading the music from what looked like an iPad.
My best kudos, I am leaving for stand-up bassist Jesse Lu. In my 81 years I had only heard one
bassist (Ron Carter) play Bach’s Cello Suites. Imagine being present for a
second time and listening to Lu play purely from memory!
I am not sure if Fok-Shuen Leung would agree with my dictum that
coincidence is more often than not. Last October in Mexico City I spotted a
lovely image of La Virgen de Guadalupe in a downtown parking lot wall. What are
the chances that I would find a similar one on, altar right, at a Kitsilano church
called St. Augustine?
| At St. Augustine's
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| Mexico City - October 2023
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My Rosemary's Two Faces
Saturday, March 16, 2024
| Camellia x williamsii 'Donation'& Primula vulgaris 'Pink Ice' 18 March 2024
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While I have scanned these flowers today 18 March 2024 I am placing this blog back to the 16th to fill some holes.
| My Rosemary's two faces
| Going into my small Kitsilano deck garden at this time is
like meeting up with my Rosemary. I can imagine her smiling and telling me, “Look,
Camellia ‘Donation’ is in bloom.’ Or she would have said when I write this, “Alex
what a nice primula you bought at Lougheed Garden Works.”
The garden is returning to the company of a woman I loved
for 52 years and nothing now can make me not think of her when I wake up, when
I go to sleep, when I dream and during the day. Every object in our little
house connects to her. And most of all, Niño and Niña, who are extra loving and
attentive to me.
These cats showed me something that I did not realize
until after Rosemary died. When a cat wants affection this means that the cat
is affectionate. How was I ever to know that to want it is to give it?
Rosemary was coolly standoffish with me but she had her ways
to show her affection and love. She would make sure I had extra tubes of
toothpaste, razors and shaving cream. When I smoked my pipe she put breath
mints on my night table. And she always made herself up and dressed to
perfection knowing that would please me.
It is funny how these plants almost have her face and
presence. I will put them in the ground tomorrow ( March 19 as it is supposed to be the last day of sun) knowing exactly where.
Rosemary taught me that.
Arthur Erickson - My Rosemary & Felix Candela's Hypars
Friday, March 15, 2024
With friends and with social media I keep my political and
religious beliefs to myself. I don’t understand protest art. Some years ago I
went to an opening at the Museum of Anthropology of Indigenous artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. In his
presentation he told us that one of the principal objectives of art was to make
us smile. I was astounded by his honest lack of hocus pocus. Michael Nichol Yahgulanaas
I rarely take photographs that are ugly or show ugliness.
I am illustrating this blog with what might seem an odd
combination of people, my Rosemary and Arthur Erickson.
While I will place this blog to fill a hole on15 March I am
writing it at 12:30 tonight 19 March.
When I turned off my lights and my cats got close I did what
I do every night which is to think that Rosemary is “not here” and she once
was.
Both she and I knew that we would never see each other again
after our deaths. If there will be any relief in me not thinking or grieving of
her loss it will only happen when I am dead.
I believe (me) that while I do not fear death I fear the
impossibility of not being able to think about not thinking, about not feeling
to feel, about not seeing to see. To think of nonexistence is perhaps against
our genes.
At the same time I understand that while I am alive my
thoughts and memories of Rosemary make her somehow to be alive in my presence
by the very absent presence of her not being by my side when I turn off the
light.
All that made me think of Arthur Erickson. I photographed
him so many times that we became friends. At a function hosted by Diane Farris
at a second location of her gallery (much smaller and down the block) I noticed
that Erickson was sitting alone at a table. It seemed that nobody wanted to sit
with a man that had Alzheimer’s. I sat down and said, “Arthur it seems to me
that your architecture had some inspiration from the Spanish/Mexican architect Felix
Candela. He smiled and we talked for close to an hour. We discussed Candela’s
pioneer work in the hyperbolic paraboloid structures called hypars that featured curved roofs that
were thin but strong. We discussed that because of the calculus and and a
varying slope, straight lines could produce curves. Felix Candela
For as long as I am alive and thinking I will never forget
that intelligent conversation I had with the man. Tonight, just like Rosemary
was alive because of my thoughts of him. I can remember his radio voice, his
perfect diction and that smile of his.
Yes, Erickson and Rosemary are with me tonight.
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