Tuesday, March 07, 2006


When I go to concerts of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra I take my special Pentax roof prism binoculars so I can focus them on Karen Gerbrecht, the associate principal second violinist. She has red hair and most often breaks all kinds of symphony dress codes. There is something about her that makes me suspect she is from the 19th century and came to us on a visit in her time machine. I have had the pleasure of taking her picture three times. Here we were thinking about and anti violin pose. Sort of, how to pose with a violin in a way that hasn't been done before. This was Karen's idea. You might just notice that she tied her wrists with a strap.

VSO

Monday, March 06, 2006





I photographed Osmond Hudson Borradaile twice. In 1979 and in 1989. The second time around he told me he expected to live to be one hundred so he could receive a special letter of congratulations from the Queen. He was correct as when he died in March of 1999 he was 100. Tonight is Oscar night and I remembered that Bordie (as he was affectionately called by all who knew him) shared an Oscar with Georges Perinal for Four Feathers. In 1934 Borradaile had done the exterior shooting of The Scarlet Pimpernel Furthermore when I think of him I think of an obituary that Paul Theroux wrote for the New York Times when Graham Greene died. It was titled An Edwardian on the Concorde . Born in Winnipeg in 1898 Borradaile worked in the film industry from the silent era to well into his 60's. Not mentioned in any of his bios is that he was freelance cameraman in Vancouver in his late 70s. He worked with Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson and shot the aerial footage of Howard Hughes' 1930 Hell's Angels. It has yet to be determined who really directed the 1937 Elephant Boy. Was it Robert Flaherty, Zoltan or Alexander Korda? What is known is that Borradaile spotted a nine-year-old boy in the stables of the Maharajah of Mysore. This boy became Sabu. And of course Borradaile did all the exterior work in the Sudan for Alexander Korda's Technicolor 1939 The Four Feathers.

But what I remember best about Bordie are his exquisite and technically perfect 1930s photographs (taken with a Leica) of India and the story he told me on how he came to photograph Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Sellasie triumphantly entering a liberated Addis Ababa with Brigadier (Chindit) Wingate in 1941. Borradaile was shocked to see the state of the emperor's clothes. He told him he could not enter the city in that state. So Borradaile borrowed a uniform from Wingate. In the photograph here you can spot the picture of the proud Emperor in his brigadier's uniform.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

William F. Buckley

With my wife Rosemary in Victoria for a Perennial Study Weekend I indulged in reading while eating; not washing the dishes, and watching the DVD version of The Whistle Blower, a spy movie I had seen when it appeared in 1987. With the CIA and El Busho's shenanigans of our present times the issues raised in this movie(the distruction of individuals to protect the questionable morality of the powerful) with Michael Caine and John Gielgud, seem to be hot off the press. Michael Caine is one of my favourite actors, specially when he plays secret agents. The Canadian connection here is that Christopher Plummer turned down the role of Harry Palmer in the 1965 Ipcress File which subsequently Michale Caine made his own. After seeing the Whistle Blower I thought of two American conservative authors, William F. Buckley(above) and William Safire (left). Both wrote an excellent spy novel. In 1995 I talked about Sleeper Spy - A Novel of Deception with William Safire in a Seattle hotel room interview. While indulging in chocolate covered strawberries Mr. Safire told me all about the mysterious CIA head of counternintellingence, James Jesus Angleton. This novel was as good as William F. Buckley's 2000 novel Spytime - The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton. I must note that Mr. Buckley refused to pose for me at the piano bar of the Hotel Vancouver until I asked him to autograph my copy of his awful paperback novel, Saving the Queen.

William Safire

Harry Palmer
William Safire
Saving the Queen
the Orchid Man

Saturday, March 04, 2006



Sometime in 1963 I discovered Bach through my mother's Concertgebouw Orchestra recordings of his six Brandenburg Concertos. My mother, Filomena de Irureta Goyena de Hayward (left), played the piano beautifully but chose to teach physics and chemistry in high school, instead. She told me that she could live happily on a desert island with only the Brandenburg Concerti for company. I have had a soft spot for them ever since. In 1964 I heard the Swingle Singers scat through Contrapunctus IX, Fuga á 4 voci, alla Duodecima. I wore my Phillips record out.

So I went to a special concert of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra this Friday, March 3, at St James Anglican Church (Gore and Cordova)with great anticipation. Both the fugue and the No 4 Brandenburg in G Major were on the all Bach program. The acoustics of St James were like Meldon Salt flakes on a vine ripened tomato. The program began with five fugues including my fave. Colin Tilney (a distinguished diet version of Santa Claus)made me almost want to like the harpsichord in Bach's Concerto in E Major BMV 1053. The second movement Adagio for the Trio Sonata in E flat Major was exquisite. Just when I thought it was over it managed to repeat twice more. The players played with such fun that I was jealous that all I could do was listen. The finale Brandenburg was a contrapuntal contest between Marc Destrubé's virtuoso violin (above) and Stephen Creswell's viola. For just a moment I thought the viola was going to spontaneously catch fire, with no joke intended.

The concert repeats today Saturday and Sunday.
PBO Concert March 4 and 5

Friday, March 03, 2006


In 1844 Spanish poet José Zorrila y Moral (1817-1893) wrote Don Juan Tenorio. This play is very popular today, particulary in Mexico, where it has runs during, before and after el Dia de Los Muertos in November. The legend of the lothario Don Juan began in 1600s Spain. Mozart's opera Don Giovanni is probably the best known of all the versions about the ladies' man who goes to a burning hell in the end. So when I was assigned by the Georgia Straight to photograph Canadian baritone Brett Polegato, who plays Don Giovanni in the Vancouver Opera's production this Saturday, I knew I had to bring in the idea of fire. Publicist Emma Lancaster told me she had the costumes but no wig was available. In the end I think this was a good as the fun Brett Polegato made an excellent contemporary tenorio. After taking ten pictures I selected one of the better negatives and lit it with matches so that the edges melted. The negative warped so that it cracked in spots. I scanned the sorry mess in my Epson 1640 SU flatbed scanner.

Thursday, March 02, 2006



To this day I can remember being kissed by my father. I can even conjure his smell. It was a combination of a long forgotten aftershave of the 50s, the Player's Navy Cut tobacco he smoked and the Old Smuggler's whisky he drank. I don't allow too many men to kiss me or do I kiss them. But here are two men who caught me off guard. One twice and the other four times. And I will never forget.

When I photographed Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko(above) we found out we shared a language. I spoke my Argentine Spanish and he a fluent Cuban. We hit it off and he liked his pictures so much he kissed me, Russian style on each cheek in combination with a bear hug that almost collapsed my rib cage. But it was Mstislav Rostropovich (called the Human Cello by Yevtushenko in his novel Don't Die Before You're Dead)who really surprised me. After a concert at the Orpheum I went to his dressing room to give him some of the photos I had taken of him. In the presence of many people he called me, "Maestro," and then proceded to kiss me twice and then again!


From "Goodbye Our Red Flag"
.. . . I didn't take the Tsar's Winter Palace.
I didn't storm Hitler's Reichstag.
I am not what you call a "Commie."
But I caress the Red Flag
and cry.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Yevtushenko

Wednesday, March 01, 2006


In 1967 my very Argentine but very communist aunt, Sara Lopes Colodrero de Irureta Goyena gave me three parting gifts when I left Buenos Aires. I shoved off in an ELMA (Empresa Líneas Marítimas Argentinas) Victory Ship called the Rio Aguapey. She told me that on board a long voyage, stopping at many Brazilian ports, anything could happen. "You will need this sevillana (switchblade) and so that it will open swiftly I am giving you this little bottle of whale oil. Whale oil is the best. And finally you will have plenty of time to read. I am giving you my copy of Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén's (1902-1989) Sóngoro Cosongo." I lost touch with Tia Sarita and the whale oil is long gone. But I still have the sevillana and I often read Tú no sabe inglé which is one of my favourite poems. I never had to use the switchblade on board the Rio Aguapey. I wasn't to know until 2000 that she had been built in North Vancouver.

Nicolás Guillén