Sunday, September 02, 2012




A few months ago played a dirty trick on a young friend. She did not respond to my emails. Finally I sent her a communication in which I purported to be my wife Rosemary informing her of my sudden death a few days before. She immediately sent a sensitive response. She then did something that I would have never predicted; she posted about my death on facebook. Fortunately her friends and mine were not linked in any way so there was no apparent fallout from the announcement of my premature death. No flowers were sent.

I have been forgiven and I will not play this trick again, for at least a while.



There are a few pictures that I have taken through the years that are iconic in nature like one I took of urbanologist  Jane Jacobs. Someone downloaded my image from my blog and coloured her big glasses with an orange mirror finish. I was not incensed and let it be. But sometimes my images appear in the most unlikely places.


I wrote a blog about Lillian Gish in which with the kind permission of my friend John Lekich I keyed in verbatim his interview with her in the late 80s. I illustrated Lekich’s guest blog with a photograph of my granddaughter Rebecca dressed and made up to look like Gish.

Every once in a while I check up on Lillian Gish Images on Google and I find Rebecca’s picture in the third or sixth page (depends on the week). There are even links to the photograph where people mention how beautiful Gish was not realizing that it is my granddaughter.

Rebecca, second row, second from right.

It is a strange world where you read about your death in facebook one month and then find out that a couple of months later that in 1940, two years before you were born you were taking beautiful pictures of a lovely blonde,  Karen Campbell who was not to be born for many years after. If you make the proper calculations I would have had to have been at least 20 back in 1940 so on August 31st, a couple of days ago I would have become 92 instead of my more youthful 70. It is a strange world indeed the world of the Web Wide Web.