Thomas Wolfe Was Right
Monday, August 18, 2014
I have a friend who
likes to use this expression when I talk to him, “Alex you are reiterating
yourself.” Indeed he is right and if anybody ever has the misguided desire to
prove my friend right by reading more than a couple of blogs herein, they will immediately
find out that herein there is nothing new under the sun.
At age 7 or 8 a wooden
crate with bricks for gas pedal, clutch and brake with a broom handle and some
wheel nailed as a steering wheel suddenly was not Fangio’s racer but a crate
with bricks for….
At age 16 to 20 I was
an avid fan of good bullfighting in Mexico
City. I went to both the bullfighting plazas of the
city and saw some of the best matadors of their time. I even witnesed Don Pedro
Domecq do his art on an elegant and prancing white horse. He was rejoneador.
Between 1977 until the
early 90s I was an avid admirer of the ecdysiast art. It was best put by fellow
admirer and friend, Les Wiseman here.
Then sometime in the
those 90s while being with a couple of journalists and three architects at Tony
Ricci’s establishment, the Marble Arch one of the architects said, “Let’s wait
for her to show her t… and then we can pack up and go home.” In some way the racing car became a crate and
the art of bullfighting became a disgrace to animals. I may have returned to
the Number 5 Orange a few times but my justifiable excuse is that I have gone
to visit with Ricci.
A couple of years ago
I was allowed to shoot backstage during some very good burlesque productions. I
found these even more unexciting and I could not abide by some of the women
playing cutesy. Only Monroe
could get away with that.
They say that women
are as old as they look and that men are old when they stop looking. If that is
correct, I am currently in my early 70s, there might be something wrong with me! But I could never return to a strip
bar. Perhaps, one of the reasons is that I knew most of those talented (they
could dance, then) women and the women I have seen since resemble dancing
androids.
The excitement that
Wiseman wrote about is firmly in my memory and while those times will never
come back I can reinforce them with glimpses at photographs I was privileged
and allowed to take.
The woman in this blog
had beautiful red hair and always wore a head band. She was tall and sinewy.
She was financing her university education with her exotic dancing. Almost always
when she danced in the evening her boyfriend was there (perhaps to safely see
her home). He was a balding blond man taller than she was and he reminded me of
Ichabod Crane.
The curious colour of
the scans (which I have left as is) is due to the film that I used. It was a
chromogenic Illford b+w film with a speed of 400 ISO. Chromogenic meant that
this was really b+w colour negative film that could be processed in Kodak C-41
chemistry and I did not have to bother processing at home. I had my lab at the
time do that.
Looking at these two
pictures, which I took at Gary Taylor's Bradley's on Howe Street brings back the thrill of the times and of feeling alive while
watching beautiful women slowly take their clothes of.
Best of all, at the time I had no guilt.
Perhaps it is because I never indulged in drugs and alcohol as I remember that the picture below, which I took during a car wash at the Drake Hotel is of the very same redhead.
Best of all, at the time I had no guilt.
Perhaps it is because I never indulged in drugs and alcohol as I remember that the picture below, which I took during a car wash at the Drake Hotel is of the very same redhead.
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| Civic Duty - Kodachrome 64 Aug 1981 |
