Aja & Statically Moving Towards Death
Monday, May 30, 2016
I have often repeated my idea that what makes us human is
our ability to associate disparate ideas, things, scents, visions.
In my many years (since 1976) of working as a magazine photographer in
Vancouver for Vancouver publications, Canadian publications and publications
around the world I associated mainly with five writers who each had a
specialty. Christopher Dafoe wrote about the arts for the Globe & Mail. Les
Wiseman mainly wrote about rock’n roll for Vancouver Magazine (and others,too
like TV Guide). There was Sean Rossiter who specialized in architecture, and
city hall politics. There is John Lekich who specialized (and specializes) in
writing about film and style. And there was Mark Budgen with whom I traveled to
Peru, Argentina and Uruguay on magazine assignments.
Two of the above are dead. I can no longer call Rossiter to
discuss our mutual interest in airplanes. I cannot call Budgen to discuss
esoteric subjects. When there is an interesting legal problem in the news I
call Christopher Dafoe who is now a lawyer. When there is something about
popular music in the news I might write or call Wiseman who might do the same
with me. I often call Lekich when I have seen a good (and usually old) film. I
consider myself lucky with this two out of three.
And yet I have this vacuum in my head of missing those
conversations on aviation or on esoteric stuff and almost unknown books.
In today’s blog I want to associate a beautiful woman who
was called Aja (pronounced asia) who was the friend of my first hairdresser in
Vancouver, Richard Bond whom I met at Wreck Beach. It was there that I took
some of my first nudes and Aja was my willing subject.
Years later, I forget the circumstances I was taking her
picture in Mark Budgen’s tub. In fact the photographs I took of Aja in Budgen’s
tub propelled me to do a show not much later on women in tubs.
Because of my recent obsession in reading my Jorge Luís
Borges collection for an umpteenth time I have this Borgesian thought that as the people I
associate my ideas and everything else with die, move away, disappear or I lose them
in their Samsungs my resulting and most obvious sense of isolation for Borges would mean that with no back and forth the static
results point towards death..
