After a few years of having attended concerts at the Orpheum Annex and at Pyatt Hall (both on Seymour between Nelson and Robson) I have realized that the future of arts performances in Vancouver is to be in smaller venues. Some Vancouver churches have known this, too and they have been offering a lovely array of concerts lately.

I ached again because there was nobody I could share my story idea. At one time I would have called Sean Rossiter to tell him about B-52. We would have discussed the features of the gigantic bomber and perhaps delved into our favourite Natalie Wood Films.

I had seen, very close one of those B-52s just about the time the film came out at Bergsrom Air Force Base in Austin.






The story idea I wanted to share was about the smaller arts venues and their architects. Rossiter was the best writer about architecture this city ever had. The reason is that he had several platforms – Malcolm Parry’s Vancouver Magazine (and Western Living during his tenure as Editor there), the Georgia Straight (when Charles Campbell was the editor) and the Vancouver Sun Saturday Magazine either under Max Wyman or David Beers. That is gone. My story idea is as good as dead.

The Orpheum Annex and Pyatt Hall besides having superb acoustics, can be configured (either stadium type of seating or with nightclub tables) to adapt to different sized musical groups and have all the latest so that new music groups can plug in all their electronics.

It is my feeling that places like the Queen Elizabeth Theatre (what do they host besides Ballet BC and the now reduced Vancouver Opera?) and the Playhouse (with the demise of the Playhouse Theatre Company) will lie fallow most of the year. 

It took some effort before a chap from Vancouver CivicTheatres told me who designed and built the Orpheum Annex. And I then found out, as I suspected that Pyatt Hall was also designed by the firm in question: bingham + hill architects. One of their principals, Mike Hill sent me the following fascinating information (Sean wouldn’t you lap this up with enthusiasm?):

Yes, we are very proud of this facility.

Project Architect was Doug Nelson.  I was Partner in Charge, but it was primarily Doug’s work.

BHA were Architects for entire project, including Orpheum Annex, Pyatt Hall and VSO School of Music, as well as the shell space/void constructed on the west side to permit future expansion of the Orpheum Stage.

Design team included Robert Hamilton with DWD for theatre design and Aerocoustics for acoustics.  Vancouver Civic Theatres were a major player in the design as well.

bingham + hill architects

201 1444 Alberni St.

Vancouver, BC, V6G 2Z4

Ph 604-688-8254

[email protected]

The Months have ends—the Years—a knot—

No Power can untie

To stretch a little further

A Skein of Misery—

The Earth lays back these tired lives

In her mysterious Drawers—

Too tenderly, that any doubt

An ultimate Repose—

The manner of the Children—

Who weary of the Day—

Themself—the noisy Plaything

They cannot put away—

Emily Dickinson


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I snapped 17 pictures (my use of 220 roll film gave me 20 exposures) and he looked dramatically sombre for all of them. 

It was then that I came up with the idea.  I told him, “For this next picture there must be no hint of even a smile.” I waited with my left hand on the cable release and he did the remarkable thing of laughing! And then right after that he brought up his reading glasses and hammed it up. I was so wonderfully shaken that I quit right there and did not fire that final 20^th exposure.

Addison Graves "Joe" Wilson, Sr. (born July 31, 1947) is U.S. Representative for South Carolina's 2nd congressional district, serving since 2001. The district stretches from the state capital, Columbia, to the Georgia-South Carolina border. He is a member of the Republican Party. He previously served in the South Carolina Senate from 1985 to 2001.

He is a member of the House Republican Policy Committee and is an Assistant Republican Whip.

In September 2009, Wilson received international attention when he interrupted a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama to the joint session of Congress by shouting "You lie!" The incident resulted in a formal rebuke by the House of Representatives.

Wilson was re-elected in 2010 by a comfortable 9 percent over his nearest challenger and when he ran unopposed in the 2012 general election he was re-elected with 96% of the vote. Wilson won re-election in 2014 with over 62% of the vote in a three-way race.

Wikipedia

That day signaled a point of apparent no return to a more polite times.

In the ancient Greek democracy, a yet to be called poll tax, enabled only citizens of city states to vote in elections. When Rome was a democracy (before Caesar) political life was based on the likes of patrician families (patricians) making most of the governing decisions for the common folk the plebs.

American founding fathers knew about this reality which was based in their eyes by the idea that only those with an education would be allowed to vote.

In our 21^st century as societies become slowly but surely classless, but with men (mostly men) in charge of making the decisions at the top, we have the results that on November 9^th shocked the United States and the rest of the world.

In Spanish a person with educación is not necessarily a person with an education. It refers more to the idea of a person having grace and manners. Perhaps we who speak Spanish associate manners as something one learns in good family and in a good school. My mother would often say in my presence, “Hay poca gente fina como nosotros.” This would translate as, “There are few people with grace and manners like us.”

It is dangerous to agree with such a statement in this 21^st century. It is dangerous to use the disparaging epithet of “farmer” to describe those who may have voted for Trump in the Midwest. It is dangerous, even, to describe the workers in the rust belt as blue-collar workers.

I remember how in the late 60s and early 70s the word ejecutivo was a classy adjective to describe airplanes, offices, hotels and even secretaries. In the society in my then Mexico City the great unwashed were patronized by the mostly white executives. Then business men (mostly men) were caught in dishonest schemes and followed the Latin American decline in not having respect for politicians. Executives were part of all that.

It is almost impossible for me to explain to my Buenos Aires family that my son-in-law is a Vancouver Trans-Link bus driver. They cannot conceive of this because they are still mired in a society with established classes. Argentine football players have risen up from the class called "cabecitas negras" (little black haired and black skinned men). Maradona was such a person and few in the higher strata of Argentine society ever liked him until he began to win by hook or by God’s crook.

So we in Canada almost live in a classless society. There are the people with homes in the city, farms in the interior and bus drivers, carpenters and plumbers are almost part of it. Outside of those classes we have the homeless and the Native Canadians in their reservations. We in Canada are not perfect. We are not so bad when compared with our neighbour to the South with their horrific black ghettos, crime and guns.

And yet going back to my mother’s idea of “gente fina” I like to think of presidents like Kennedy, and even both of the Bushes.They had style, a bit of class and the latter Bush as bad as he might have been he still had a sense of decency.

I am tortured by the idea of the concept of the Ivy League, of Brooks Brothers, of women in New York City attending openings at the Metropolitan Opera or of  people going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Are they educated and also educada?  Does this apply to folks who live in big cities (almost like Greek City States) only?  

I think of actors like Cary Grant, Katherine or Audrey Hepburn, Candice Bergen and compare them to what we have now. Do their replacements have that graciousness and class? Can we look up to them or do we just enjoy they marital breakups?

President Barack Obama and his wife oozed with grace, elegance and coolness. Perhaps Hillary Clinton might have grown in office to achieve some of that.

My only hope, from my vantage point of Vancouver BC,  is that President Donald Trump might just grow in the White House and get some of that “educación” late in his life at 70.

It is my only hope as the wives of world politicians and female politicians of the world at large will make sure their hands are ready to fight off any groping. He is after all “a pussy grabber.”

If my politically savvy mother were alive today she would tell me:

"Sursum corda." Lift up your heart.

When I taught photography and that seems now a long time ago, I used to tell my students that bringing a beautiful woman into a studio (or a man) and placing her close to a gray wall (with a high ceiling) was the beginning of almost sure failure. To then use a large easy to use softbox (a rare item these days), to have your camera on a big heavy tripod (with you in back of it and your subject in front of it) would almost always result in complete failure.

 I started Early – Took my Dog –

And visited the Sea –

The Mermaids in the Basement

Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor

Extended Hempen Hands –

Presuming Me to be a Mouse –

Aground – opon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide

Went past my simple Shoe –

And past my Apron – and my Belt

And past my Boddice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –

As wholly as a Dew

Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –

And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –

I felt His Silver Heel

Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes

Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –

No One He seemed to know –

And bowing – with a Mighty look –

At me – The Sea withdrew –

Emily Dickinson



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