Saturday, January 27, 2007


I remember exactly what I was doing on the afternoon of September 26, 1960. I was shooting pool in the Junior/Senior rec room at St. Ed's High School in Austin, Texas. The four or five of us in the room were part of the 70 million who were watching Senator John F. Kennedy debate Vice President Richard Nixon. Since our school was a Catholic boarding school we were all proud of the senator and thought Nixon looked terrible. This he did as he waved away efforts to put Max Factor's pancake on his face. The UV light generated by the hot lights of the TV studio made his skin look sickly in pallor.

In my senior year (spring 1961) at the school I was caught reading under a tree and the photo appeared in the annual.



The funny thing is that I remember the date as it was one day after the week of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. It was a very hot Texas spring day, April 20. We had Cuban boys boarding in the school and when we saw Walter Cronkite on TV and found out all was lost we felt ashamed and did not know how to explain to them how our hero had failed.

Sometime in 1977 I took this photograph of the man who ran a pool hall on Fraser Street. He had been at it for over 50 years and was known by all who shot pool. I do not remember his name but I keep his portrait as a link to my youth and that pool hall so long ago in Austin, Texas.

Friday, January 26, 2007



I have heard several live performances of Francesco Geminiani's La Folia but the best I will ever hear I heard yesterday.

Richard Berry wrote the rock’n’roll song Louie Louie in 1955. It is a standard in rock and pop since hundreds of versions have been recorded by many artists. My fave is one recorded live by Johnny Thunders. The song is written in the style of a Jamaican ballad; and it is the first-person story of a Jamaican sailor returning to the island to see his girl. He brags of his “fine girl” to the Louie of the title who is, perhaps a bartender.

Ignorance is terrible, but fortunately one has until death’s door to try to make up for it. I had never heard of La Folia. I had heard of Italian composer Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) in the late 50s during the Archiv record renaissance that made baroque music known. It was some 7 or 8 years ago that Ballet BC performed a beautiful number to recorded music of Francesco Geminiani’s (1687 -1762) Concerto Grosso No. 12 in D minor, ‘La Folia’ which was an arrangement of his former teacher's (Corelli), Variations in D minor, ‘La Follia’ (Op. 5, No. 12). I would not know why Corelli's Follia is written with two ls while Geminiani's is written with only one. But there is one reason (for me) why Geminiani's Folia is more fun than his teacher's. Geminiani did not ignore the virtuoso possibilities of the viola and in his variations it shares the bill with the violin and the cello.

It was my friend and baroque music enthusiast Graham Walker who clued me in to Corelli's La Follia and his pupil's even more popular variations. Graham suggested I purchase Trio Sonerie (Monica Huggett, Mitzie Meyerson, Sarah Cunningham) with Nigel North Corelli Volin Sonatas Op. 5 (which includes La Follia. It is easily one of my favourite CDs. Since then I have heard many versions named as folias and some that are not (but instantly recognizable as such) like Faronell's Division on a Ground in David Douglas, Paul O'Dette and Andrew Lawrence-Kings, Apollo's Banquet CD. And once I discovered the web site on all things Folia, I further found out that at least 150 composers have written variations over the last 330 years.

According to my Real Academia dictionary folía is a word of French origin that means mad. It is further defined as a dance typical of the Canary Islands but also an extrmely noisy Porutuguese dance that involved many people. This is partially confirmed by the Folia website and I quote:

The name "Folia" is of Iberian origin and refers to a fertility dance in three-four time originating in the late 15th century. The first time the name emerges is in a text by the Portuguese dramatist Gil Vicente entitled "Auto de Sibilla Cassandra". In music Folia meant, at least till the 1670's, a very quickpaced and tumultuous dance, in which the dancers carried men dressed as women upon their shoulders. They were literally driven mad by the noise and the stirring rhythm.



This week I had to take rehearsal photographs of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, which included Geminiani's La Folia. Once I had finished I had a spur of the moment idea. I got as close to Laura Kramer's cello (right) taking advantage that a baroque cello has no spike so I could safely lay down on my back. While the orchestra laughed (privately they must have thought the earlier morning rehearsal of La Folia had perhaps deranged me slightly!) the PBO's musical director and virtuoso violinist, Marc Destrubé (above, left) gave me the nod to remain. I was almost under Valerie Weeks's harpsichord. For too long I have ignored it's all too subtle sound. From where I was, for the first time, I really appreciated it. It seemed to be in my head while my left ear caught the vibrations of Nan Mackie's violon and my right, Kramer's cello.

When Geminiani's La Folia ended I heard sounds coming out of Kramer's cello almost as if the instrument, all on its own, was producing further variations on the variations. What delicious madness!



For those who might be in Victoria over the weekend here is your chance to listen to the PBO play Geminiani's La Folia (and many other worthy composers), and soprano Nancy Argenta, January 26, 27 and 28. Folia and Nancy Argenta

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Arriving home a couple of days ago as I was about to open my front door when I was almost overcome by an extremely sweet and powerful fragrance. Yes, days are finally getting longer and spring is around the corner. It takes the only bush in my garden that blooms right now to remind me of this. That's Sarcococca ruscifolia the plain Jane of the garden in some gardens, but not in mine. By mid January I have almost forgotten the short and dark days of November. The Christmas lights of December helped a bit. The fallen picket fence and the many leaning or damaged trees in my garden, including a large and shaped juniper that that had to be cut down, remind me that my garden is as human as I am and age takes its toll. Yet that powerful fragrance at my front door, the perfume of Sarcococca ruscifolia jars me into realizing that there will be some renewal of tissue in the spring and that all is not decay and death. But there is some death (so Rosemary says) in the tiny flowers (smaller than my pinky's nail) of the Sweet Boxwood (also Sweet Box Wood or Vanilla Bush). In Spanish we say, "El que pega primero, pega dos veces," or he who hits first, hits twice. In the mid January garden most plants are dormant but Sarcococca ruscifolia is in full bloom and will remain so until the end of February. It simply has no competition from any other flowers in the garden. Not only is this a noble plant because of its flower's punch but the red berries of summer are shiny and black and persist even now. I cut two branches for last night's scan and then left them in the kitchen. Rosemary said, "Alex it smells like a funeral parlour." I told her that the plant also had the name of Vanilla Plant. She agreed. I left the kitchen and came back and the fragrance now reminded me of honey. Until I find someone who can explain how Sarcococca blooms do it, I will have to only marvel at the plant's uncommonly volatile perfume. Volatility is usually porportional to temperature. The warmer the day the more a fragrance will spread. Or at least this is what I thought. I wonder how in very low temperatures such a tiny flower's fragrance can spread. Could it be that this Asian plant is a garden's kind equivalent to the spreading capabilities of polonium 210?

Wednesday, January 24, 2007





In May 1985 Equity Magazine editor Harvey Southam looked at me and smiled. He then said, "Alex get your gear we are going to visit Turton in Burnaby. I quickly found out the reason for his smile as soon as we entered the cavernous wearhouse building. It was a world I had never seen or supected that it would exist in our very own Burnaby. It was light bulb factory. Ted Turton was a Vancouver businessman who often appeared in the pages of the Vancouver Sun during the years that the Vancouver Stock Exchange was in existence. How could it be that a man used to making money by transfering numbers on papers from here to there, was suddenly manufacturing hard goods? Perhaps I was too stupid or I was simply not curious to ask Southam, nor alas, did I ever read the article my photographs, seen here, illustrated. I could cite the circumstances that were the direct result of the photograph with Turton and his two principals in my photograph.



The Mamiya RB-67 Pro-S was on a very high Hi-Boy tripod which had always been notorious for its instability. I came crashing down and my camera and its parts went in every direction on the very hard concrete floor. I was able to put it together again to take this picture. Having to get expensive "body work" on my camera the next day is my only excuse for not asking more info from Southam on Turton. Whenever I mentioned the name, he would only smile with that infectuous smile I remember he had.

Since this was the pre Photoshop era, my light bulb trick used before here consisted in soldering a wire to the bulb and then dipping it into Varathane varnish so my subject could hold it without getting electrocuted. But to give the effect of levitating the bulb I had soldered a blackcoat hanger wire on the bottom part of the bulb. I had previously used this trick to have BC Lions's players levitate footballs.



I look back at this picture with the nostalgia of thinking that perhaps businessmen were more interesting and quirky then. I also despair in the knowledge that in Vancouver we manufacture next to nothing, any kind of stuff that occupies physical space.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007


The last time I saw Howard Houston was in 1961. Both of us were wearing mortar boards as we were graduating from St Edward’s High School in Austin, Texas. I really had not known him very well for the first four years that I was a boarder at the Catholic school. Howard was day student. I was keenly jealous of his literary wit and his ability to write essays with almost no effort. I was jealous on how he could make the class laugh with his intelligent, intellectual and sophisticated humour. Meanwhile I had to fight back my own shyness and having no girlfriends because I did not know how to dance. I was a real geek. Knowing how to dance in sock hops was the only way we could meet girls. We could only go to town for a limited time on weekends. The girls from the Catholic school across the city, St Mary’s Academy, were bussed to our sock hops. They needed chaperoning as the only women we saw on campus was the one female cook who served us Korean War issue powdered eggs for breakfast.

Brother Edwin -St Ed's
Brother Edwin and the Easter Bunny
St. Ed's & Friendship
Brother Stanley and the circular slide rule
St Edward's High School Alumni Association Web Site

After our graduation Howard visited me at my home in Mexico City and we got to know each other better. He had been interested in my Pentacon single lens reflex back at St Ed's so he brought a much improved Miranda reflex camera. I was jealous! He took these pictures in Mexico from my apartment window facing Avenida Insurgentes Sur. Howard was fascinated with the mishmash of cars in Mexico City.


In particular he was delighted/horrified by the Plymouth Kingsway. This was a cheaped down Dodge that had a Dodge front end but the curvy fins of a Plymouth.



A few years back I found Howard through a web based St Edward’s reunion page. We have been happily communicating since. Howard lives in a very small community not too near Austin and his house is by a lake. I am happy to report that Howard’s wit has not changed in the least and that I am still jealous. For over a year he kept telling me how he had worked for the US Government. Only after some pressing on my side did he reveal that his government job was piloting a Boeing KC-135 tanker and that he and his crew re-fueled Phantom jets over Vietnam. I recently wrote to Howard for an explanation as to why he likes to live in isolation. Here is his delightful reply:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


In the movie Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, the opening scene happens at the start of a great international air race at an air park in England. The scene opens with Lord Whatsisname riding onto the field in his Rolls Royce with his male secretary. Lord Whatsisname says something like "You know Cyril; these international events would be quite all right if it were not for all the foreigners."

While I tend to agree with His Lordship on that, my real feeling is that "You know Alex, these public events like the opera, concerts, etc., would be quite all right if it were not for all the people."

I like people as individuals and in small groups. I literally cannot stand crowds. With an individual or a small group, you can sidle away from poor personal hygiene, ill mannered children, deadly boors, and people who want to convert you to their beliefs on whatever subject you care to name. However, in a crowd such people are, like pustules on the skin of a victim of smallpox, spread evenly throughout the mass thereby making it almost impossible to escape them. I, too, like the activities you mention, but would much prefer them after the local Legion Commander had ordered decimation; or several decimations. I think I was born to be an absolute monarch with private plays and concerts for a few select friends.

Other people like to press the flesh, so to speak, and big cities. I have no problem with that and, in fact, encourage it as those who like crowds will only find the crowds in the big cities and they have to go there to join the crowds thereby keeping the crowds where they belong, in the big city rather than out here with me.

We had 36 hours of continuous light sleet and freezing rain last week. It was the usual comedy of Texans trying to drive on ice as if it were no different than asphalt. The City of Austin was literally closed down for two full days. No mail delivery even.

Guest blogging! You have moved on into a fairly rarified atmosphere now. The internet and contraception for women. Vast and unpredictable changes are in the wind. Hillary is running for president. If she wins, those boys in the Middle East had better look out. Females protecting their children are considerably more dangerous than the male of the species. Also, she won't be too impressed with the colors available in hijabs.

Howard

Monday, January 22, 2007




When London Calling came out in 1980 I remember driving back from Vancouver, Washington with my friend Les Wiseman. We passed through Seattle in the evening through the extra speedy inside freeway. As we sped in my Fiat X-19 the lights of the city flashed by in a blur as we listened to The Clash. I discovered then a new exciting genre of music that I call music-to-listen-to-while-driving- fast-through-a-city-at-night-or-on-a-long-bridge ( in a laid back Italian position, arms straight holding the steering wheel, with the seat as far back as possible).

For the music to be part of this genre it has to have an inexorable sense of purpose, an unfliching beat and, of course, it has to be heard extremely loud. I think Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 2, in the super fast Pablo Casals version, would qualify as would (pure conjecture of mine) Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 22, The Philosopher if it were performed on music overdrive. I cannot think of any 19th century music that fits the bill but in the 20th century, Maurice Ravel's Bolero would do me fine as would any composition by Philip Glass. In jazz, Paul Desmond's Take Five performed by the Dave Brubeck Quartet would shorten any trip. Perhaps its odd and disquieting (and obsessive) 5/4 time signature helps.

I thought of all the above as I had one heck of great time last night listening to composer/musician Colin MacDonald (above, left) and his Pocket Orchestra playing his music and that of three other contemporary composers. At least two, including Michael Nyman's Prospero's Magic had a bit of that Glass obsession and I was frustratingly trying not to "air" drive an exotic Italian car through Seattle at night. There were several reasons why the experience was pleasant. Besides Colin MacDonald on soprano saxophone, my friends, violinist Paul Luchkow (above, right) and cellist Laura Kramer (below, left) were part of the pocket orchestra.



I was accompanied by Graham Walker, my eldest daughter Ale (who brought snacks) and Paul's wife, violist Glenys Webster. Our new friend, visiting German Philipp Krieg, also raved about our evening.

MacDonald's Skillful Means was excellent bridge-crossing-material made all the better by an enthusiastic alto saxophonist, David Branter who, after my playing friends, was easily my favourite in the orchestra. Sitting next to MacDonald's soprano sax and with bass trombonist Brad Muirhead ( it looked like a normal trombone as the bell seemed small but it all had to do with the fact that Muirhead was one big man) behind, this was a solid brass and woodwind section that had a cool trumpet player in Geeta Das, who played in the later compositions. Her serious face contrasted sharply with Branter and the smiling Daniel Tones on percussion.

MacDonald's Reaching for Immortality , while having players performing in what this amateur reviewer would state was out of phase (Paul Luchkow told me it was fun to not have to play normal ensemble playing) had a very pleasant romantic streak.

But it was the last composition of the evening, Macdonald's The 5-Chambered Heart that was the high point of the evening for me. It had a 5/4 beat that was much too complex for me to figure out. It was a miracle that the orchestra could keep up with each other after I was told how little time they had to rehearse. The piece ended nice and slowly as my Maserati and I reached our destination.

It would not be fair for me not to mention that this Pocket Orchestra had Ya-Wen Vivienne Wang on the piano, Cori Somers on violin, Jared Burrows on bass guitar and Stefan Hintersteiniger on cello. The latter could take some smiling lessons from Laura Kramer who does it so well, besides playing a damn good cello.



For me the only bittersweet part of the evening was sensing the ghost of my departed lefty friend Ben Metcalf who will always haunt the small and intimate Western Front where this entertaining concert was held.

Sunday, January 21, 2007



In the late 70s and early 80s Holly Suicide, who looked like an overly made-up street urchin haunted the punk concerts of the Smiling Buddha on Hastings Street. She sometimes taunted the huge egg-shaped Igor the bouncer. As scary as I had first thought it all was, one could safely walk the streets then. My friend Les and I would walk to the Balmoral Hotel for its "cleaner" bathrooms and cheaper beer. I don't know what it was that Les might have said or done but he was actually ejected from the Balmoral one night.

When I drive North on West Georgia I sometimes look up to the old building on the north-east side, right on the corner with Bute.



It is astounding that this relatively attractive old building with trapezoidal bay windows has not come tumbling down to make way for The Newton west coast adult living condominium.

It was there that in the late 80s I photographed Holly Suicide's alter ego, Daniela Ciccone. I had that uncommon pleasure of looking out from the inside of those lovely bay windows.