There was Captain USN Onofrio Salvia who in Buenos Aires in the middle 60s taught me that rebellion at my age and in the Argentine Navy was silly and fruitless. “Become and educated man and then attempt to change those institutions (he meant military ones like the ones he represented) you abhor.”

It was Raúl Guerrero Montemayor in Mexico City who gave me a job and and the beginnings of a profession when I thought I had nowhere to go. It was Raúl who helped me meet and woo my Rosemary.

All of my surrogates are now dead except for Juan Manuel Sánchez who like the fluttering moth has asked his doctors (in a rare moment of lucidity) in his Buenos Aires hospital bed to pull the plug.

I brought down from my piano room one of the last works of art that Sánchez ever finished. It was on April 24 of this year, in Buenos Aires that I placed in his hands a piece of cardboard that had a silver finish on one side. He looked at me quizzically. “What am I to do with this?” I told him he had to draw me one of his women. One of his women that he was working towards that eventual solution that would make the final work (one he will never achieve now) that of the Essence of Woman, as in a Platonic Essence. He intimated to me once that he was going to resolve woman to a dot or a line on a canvas.

He understood. He then asked me on what surface he was to draw. I only said, “da Vinci.” He knew exactly what I was talking about, Ginevrade' Benci [obverse] c. 1474/1478. The painting hangs in the middle of a room at the National Gallery in Washington. It has two sides.

He handed me the work which he did in my presence on April 26 (I cannot understand why he may have thought that we were in another century because of the 916). I had it framed in Vancouver and because it has a picture on each side the nicely framed piece (Magnum Frames) I lean against the wall on a bookshelf.

I grieve already of a life that is reaching that asymptote that always with we humans does reach its axis before infinity.

Perhaps at that more than infinitesimal point between one side and the other my last surrogate father will prepare me for my own.

But as every day, week, month and year advance I feel like very much like my old deceased friend Abraham Rogatnick who used to tell me, “I am glad I am not long for this world.” I feel like yelling out that Old Canadian Parlimentary “Hear, hear!” to my daed friend.

After seeing today’s American Presidential Debate I remembered that I am a product of the 1950’s age of Walter Cronkite when I knew beyond the shadow of the doubt that in spite of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity most of the time 2+2=4.

In the last few weeks I have dealt only for a short while with our city’s downsizing industry that is the newspaper and the magazine.

I must point out that I started in that business in 1977 so I do have some experience as a magazine/newspaper/photographer/writer.

My tragedy is that I worked under the best editors and art directors in an atmosphere of trust, professionalism and ethics. In short it was a time of real journalism.

Only last year a couple of actresses (I am old fashioned) that I had to photograph for a magazine for an article about them told me I had to pay them if I expected to have them pose by a car that was in Tsawwassen. In the few assignments that I get these days my subjects want to see the pictures (even though they see some of the results on the back of my digital camera) that will be used and want a final okay.

Early in the game I was told my editors and art directors not to show the manuscript (invariably couriered, faxed or e-mailed to me before my shoots) to my subjects nor to hint in any way of the content.

With next to no exceptions my subjects treated me courteously, thanked me and generally in some way communicated later by phone that they liked my photograph.

Sometime in the early part of this century interviews began to happen on the phone. We called them phoners. Here is an example of one:

“I was talking to Clint Eastwood from his kitchen and I could hear his poodle barking…” That’s a phoner. In those days journalists would label their interview as a phoner somewhere in the beginning parts of their articles. In later years they did the same for email interviews.

Most of that is gone and because it has been gone so long the unwary readers cannot be expected to know any better and they don’t .

At first I became quite excited about Vancouver’s on line publication The Tyee. But I could not abide by the nasty and vitriolic comments that people made. And the made those coments much like in the joke of why does a dog lick its …? – because it and they can and could. Now thanks to social media the vitriol used comes in geometric proportion. Because they can.

The best of the editors I worked for was Malcom Parry who was the editor of Vancouver Magazine , of  Western Living and later of an Eastern publication called Vista.

This man who nurtured my then lacking photographic talents in the late 70s could be nasty to some people but never was with me except for once. I brought some pictures he did not like and he told me, “Alex you are making the motions an no more. Go back and re-shoot this and bring me good pictures.” And then he threw a loupe at me. And he was right.

Another time I had taken a portrait of a politician and a week before the magazine was to come out I told him that the politician’s publicist wanted to use the photograph. His answer was short (and correct). You can give them the picture once the magazine is on the newsstand.

Every once in a while he would find a Vancouver Sun writer to write about the state of journalism (in that paper and the Vancouver Province). More often than not the writer was Rick Ouston.

Now in this century there is no active Rick Ouston and Parry is out of the game. Another fine editor Charles Campbell left by the time the eventual decline of his publication and that of any publication when the publisher begins to monkey with the editorial content.

Fortunately I am not long for this world. That is comforting.

It was the first time I ever saw Gosling and the first film for me with the most interesting approach of its Danish director. Plus the music kept me on edge and it contrasted with Gosling’s cool demeanour (perhaps a brand new version of Steve McQueen and the film a contemporary one of Peter Yates 1968 Bullitt) I mention the music composed by Cliff Martinez as it reminded me of the fact that for Bullitt my Argentine countryman Lalo Schifrin was nominated for an Oscar for his score.

Drive is extremely violent but both Lauren and I decided that Gosling’s cool but troubled demeanour as a flawed hero bent on revenge somehow softened the terrible violence that Lauren called high tech. And the female lead, Carey Mulligan plays such and innocent sweetie that it softened the blows of the multiple cutting and piercing devices used to terminate many bad guys and one not so bad guy. A scene in an elevator in slow motion where Gosling gives the only kiss of the film to Mulligan while we know that the third person a suited man with a gun is out to kill them both for me is one of the finest and most memorable scenes from any film.

La Modestine was formed in 2016 by four renowned musicians who discovered that playing together was one of their great joys. La Modestine's repertoire focuses on music of the baroque for one or two violins, viola da gamba and basso continuo.

Lauren and I arrived early and we were greeted by one of the most  beautiful women I have ever known (even though she plays the viola and no longer has blue/green hair) Genevieve MacKay. We sat down on the front row, a mere five feet from where the musicians would sit (the two violinists stood for Johan Viierdanck ( 1605-1646, “en su casa lo conocen”) Sonata a 2 violini soli.

Linda Melsted - Violinist - La Modestine

As soon as the four began to play it was patently evident that they loved playing together and that we were in for a marvellous evening. Lauren asked me about Mackie's viola da gamba. After many years of getting this from Mackie, "No, Alejandro you have it all wrong," I was able to explain that the instrument with its flat back and frets is related to the lute and guitar an not to the cello. I had her notice that the instrument had seven strings but that other violas de gamba have six. Up front we were able listen to every note of it.

By the second work, Dietrich Buxtehude’s (his only flaw and very important for 17^th century organists was that his daughter was not beautiful) Sonata #2 in a minor Bux 272, for violin, viola da gamba and continuo both of us were tapping our feet on the first movemen an Allegro Chaconne. Because it only had Destrubé on the violin it meant that Linda Melsted sat next to me (a very big thrill!).

Michael Jarvis - Harspichordist - La Modestine with Rebeccaand lauren Stewart. Paul Luchkow behind with Teddy.

The second half (after fine wine and cheese) started with Michael Jarvis playing solo harpsichord. He played Henry Purcell’s Suite in D minor Z 668. I have to point out that for many years I considered the harpsichord (an instrument I could hardly ever hear in a baroque orchestra) an ineffectual instrument. Pacific Baroque Orchestra Artistic Director AlexanderWeimann, who is very good at it and explained that a continuo player (the bass line in a baroque group or orchestra) has to improvise like a jazz player. And Michael Jarvis’s playing with a aplomb, grace and a smile on his face have all but changed my mind on the negative qualities of the harpsichord. One day I will ask Déstrube to do the same for the accordion.

Marc Destrubé - Violinist - La Modestine

After the concert in which unlike in other venues of music we were able to mingle with the musicians we left to eat Szechuan Chilli restaurant at a nearby restaurant. It was a downer as my Szechuan Chilli Dried Meat was cloyingly sweet. With a good sense of humour Lauren suggested we walk our neighbourhood area of West Broadway and look at the menus.

I took Lauren to her new home in Burnaby and I drove back home feeling pretty happy after a very nice day.

Perhaps like Gosling’s character in Drive I should purchase a pair of black driving gloves.

It was only about a year ago that in a CNN newscast from an American aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean that I noticed the impossible-to-confuse EA-6 Prowler. What this meant is that an airplane that came into production in the earlier incarnation of the A-6 Intruder was in operation 53 years later. The airplane with renewed avionics was still an effective radar blocker.

A few weeks ago I was telling my friend composer John Oliver that I could no longer listen to any new version (either live or recorded) of Bach’s Concerto for 2 Violins in D minor, BWV 1043. Oliver said something close to this, “Alex you are done with it.”

Part of the issue is that at age 74 all my fave Gerry Mulligan records and CDs are firmly ensconced in my memory. I don’t need to listen to them. They are in me, part of me. Only the visit of a friend who might not know of the wonders of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto or of Gerry Mulligan playing My Funny Valentine would lead me to play the music on my stereo.

I thought of all this when I read two reviews, on in my NY Times and the other on The Atlantic this week of The Holy Body Tattoo’s performance of monumental (originally labeled in lower case by Dana Gingras and Noam Gagnon at the Howard Gillman Opera House part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival.

The NY Times said, not a glowing review, of the performance which was an original 2005 work:

“it’s a good looking production.

Yet “monumental” was first staged, without the live music, in 2005 – when Blackberry was king, the iPhone was still a rumor, and the economic crash was three years off.  The way we work [ monumental is about working in an office in the that year and the loneliness and depersonalization of it], and worry about work, has changed since then; if anything, we’re more disconnected now, more aware of the ephemerality of employment. But with its army of miserable whit-collar drone, “monumental” feels stuck in the past.”

The Atlantic review was kinder. But it all made me think and think about that out-of context A-6 Intruder of 1963 and of the very title of the NY Times review – Setting a Squadron of Joyless Worker Drones to Music. Of drones even bees have been left behind by the new applications of drones to kill from afar electronically.

It all made me think that I would be reluctant to attend a performance of Giselle or Swan Lake. Yes, John Oliver would be right, “I have done them.”

When I saw monumental in Vancouver back in 2005 I was deeply affected by it and I recognized it as a wake-up call for the society of the time. Perhaps like the NY Times says, times are now worse therefore monumental is passé. And yet I believe that particularly in dance or in art, (imagine the uproar in Paris of the first exhibitions of the Impressionists!) does that diminish those Impressionists today in comparison with modern 21^st century art? I don’t think so.

In some way the expiration date of monumental is the very explanation of its cutting edge of the time and its subsequent influence on dance in our present time.

Long after The Holy Body Tattoo split up I followed the sinewy and tight Noam Gagnon (his company is called Vision Impure). I look forward to his next presentation (perhaps a modification of the one I saw before) at the Vancouver Dance Centre, October 20-22 Vision Impure.

Noam Gagnon & wonderous Polaroids 
A Friday ritual of dance sushi & miso
The unhappy princess