Tuesday, February 07, 2006


About fourteen years ago I photographed this pedal Austin being restored at Fane's. This body shop was on the corner of Davie and Richards, across the street from Mac Parry's Vancouver Magazine. Fane's specialized in restoring Rolls Royces, Bentleys and Jaguars. Somehow this little car (many had been used in Stanley Park to train children in car safety) had been purchased by a collector who wanted it back in mint condition.

Pedal Austin

Monday, February 06, 2006


This is my Filipino/Basque grandfather Don Tirso de Irureta Goyena in his Willys-Overland with his Japanese chauffeur. I know this photo was taken in 1912 because my mother told me it was the first Willys-Overland in Manila. It was that year that John North Willys renamed his company from Willys Overland Division to the Willys-Overland Motor Company. My grandfather was a lawyer and a writer in Spanish. Because of his defense (in the end for naught) of the Spanish language facing an onslaught by American English he was made a member of the Real Academia Española.


Willys-Overland
Real Academia

Sunday, February 05, 2006


In my life I have met many beautiful women. But Tarren is the only beautiful woman that almost killed me. Some 23 or so years ago I was on board a Tyee Air De Havilland Beaver that was taking me back from shooting stills for a CBC show job up in Egmont. It was a glorious Sunday afternoon and the pilot circled Cold Harbour to land. The water was smooth. There wasn't a breeze to ripple it. He suddenly jerked the plane and for a few seconds I thought he had lost control. Tarren was standing on the end of a dock wearing tiny red hot pants. The pilot had noticed her and had forgotten what he was doing. I remember getting out of the plane and Tarren (she was taking a plane to Victoria) said in that sassy way of hers, "Hiya doin, Alex?"

Beaver

more Beaver

Today Sunday we have the first real day of sun after something like 32 days of rain. There is sun in my winter garden and I can almost see spring coming. That is not always the case as we get late February or March frosts that kill many of my rose canes. Still today is a happy day. What can I post that is happy? Many years ago Stephen Rogers was the energy minister for the SOCREDS. He recently lost (to Liberal Stephen Owen) as a Conservative running in Quilchena. Back then when I photographed Rogers for Harvey Southam's Equity Magazine there was no Photoshop. So I soldered a wire to the light bulb and then painted the connection with several coats of Varathane varnish. I plugged in the contraption and after showing Mr Rogers that I could hold the bulb without getting a shock he happily complied.

Saturday, February 04, 2006


The idea of a public library that you can enter and then exit with book in hand is a relatively modern phenomenon that came late to my country of birth, Argentina, and to Mexico where I lived for many years in the 50s and 60s. In both countries public libraries were places where you read books inside but you could not leave with them. My first experience of taking a book home happened around 1952, when I walked out of the Lincoln Library in Buenos Aires with a book of American civil war photographs. When this US Information Service Library (there were spooks who worked out of these libraries) was not being bombed or stoned by angry Argentine students it was a great place to discover the Hardy Boys and Tom Corbett- Space Cadet. At the Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City not only could I borrow books, but on Mondays I could listen to American jazz played with something called high fidelity that involved a device called a turntable. Gerry Hulse was our host and from him I found out about Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartets. Gerry Hulse moved on to writing travel stories for the LA Times (a good cover for a spook!). Thanks to the Americans I came to love libraries. I borrowed somewhere around 37 novels by Phillip K Dick from the North Burnaby Branch of public library in the 70s. I love Moshe Safdie's main branch of the Vancouver Public Library.

Library

Friday, February 03, 2006


This building was once known as the BC Electric. It then became the BC Hydro Building and now it is called the Electra. The architect was Ron Thom, on the right and the man who okayed everything was his boss Ned Pratt, on the left. I photographed Ron Thom only once, weeks before he died. When he posed for me I faced someone who seemed to be in despair. Many say he drank himself to death. Pratt, I photographed many times and he was a cheerful man who was all I thought architects should be. He was urbane and could talk about anything. He was interested in everything. Few in Vancouver have made the connection between his Dal Grauer Substation (on one side of the Electra) and Mondrian. The Dal Grauer Substation could be the only three dimensional Mondrian in existence.

architects

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Mildred Seaver is 92. She is from Needham Heights, Massachusets. She is a serious hosta hybridizer when she isn't spreading her infectious smile around. Most of her hosta cultivars begin with Sea. So we have Hosta 'Sea Octopus', Sea Monster, Sea Dream and many more. Every once in a while she goes against her naming grain and gives us such wonderful oddities like Hosta 'Spilt Milk'. As Mildred told me, "You find a plain hosta, you splatter it with cream and there you have Spilt Milk." Electric blue is her favourite colour. If I were younger I would marry Mildred.

hostas

Wednesday, February 01, 2006


At this time of the year I begin to think about my garden and spring. But most of all I think about my roses and I can remember their scent. This one has been around for some time. Pliny mentioned it as the rose that bloomed twice. After Rome fell, the rose was forgoten but brought back from the Holy Land by the crusaders. That may explain the damascena part of its name. The French may have invented advertising and false advertising, in particular. They named this rose Quatre Saisons. In fact she blooms once in the spring and then again in late fall. Even during the Middle Ages this rose was a sensation as most roses only flower once. Those that repeat (remontant is the word used) usually have been crossed with roses from China.


Vancouver Rose Society