Chindōgu (珍道具) is the Japanese art of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets that seem like an ideal solution to a particular problem, but are in fact useless.

Wikipedia

As a person born in the past century, going to the movies represents something that I have lost in this one. I have a friend, John Lekich who would agree on this. We are both romantics when we talk about the old movies of our youth.Would anybody know about Beau Geste?

It was with a special glee that Lekich either suggested or was assigned by Georgia Straight Editor Charles Campbell in 1996 to do an essay on one of Vancouver’s last independent cinemas, the Hollywood on West Broadway and Balaclava (around the corner from where I live on 7^th and Trutch).

The story that Lekich wrote was about 80 year-old David Fairleigh who for many years opened the door to several generations of movie goers.

For the photograph to illustrate the story, Lekich suggested an image that would parallel that quintessential film about going to the movies, the 1988 Italian film directed and written by Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso. 

Now in this month of October 2017 I can sadly report that while the Hollywood is still standing it has only been used by the folks that make the series iZombie.

Talking to one of the crew I told her that there were plans to convert the theatre to a church. She answered back with a big smile, “That would even be better for us!”

The last film I saw at the Hollywood was the Wizard of Oz with my Rosemary and two very young-at-the-time granddaughters Rebecca and Lauren.

For me the experience was odious. From the moment we opened the door I was hit by the noise of the computer games and pinball machines on the left and the smell of greasy food. On our right there were automatic vending machines and one lonely person selling tickets with a long line of people my age who did not want to deal with a machine.

We entered our cinema (was it unit 17 or unit 18?) 20 minutes before screen time. We were lambasted by very loud ads featuring a young idiot telling us to play some game as we could win fantastic packaged pop-corn that came in all kinds of flavours. When the film was supposed to start we again saw 20 more minutes of trailers and more ads.

If I ever go again to any of these Cineplexes (the VIP moniker meant that you could wait in a darkened lounge and perhaps skip all the ads) I will bring my Radio Shack sound meter. I am convinced that the trailers and part of the feature film exceed 120 decibels. Going to this sort of movie house is experiencing a movie that is devoid or romance. 

 David Fairleigh please come back from wherever you are and save us.

Enjoy the show! Enjoy the show! 

The piano as a musical instrument has been in my mind as of late. Thinking about it I realized I have quite a few photographs of people by pianos either pianists or simply sitting by one.

My first introduction to the piano came at age 8 when my parents took me to the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires for a concert featuring Arthur Rubinstein.

My mother did not own a piano but my grandmother did. We would often go in Tram 35 to my Abuelita’s flat and my mother would first accompany my her (she was a coloratura soprano) and my Uncle Tony who was a fine tenor. They would sing American musical songs. Then my mother would play (she read very well) Chopin and in particular I have a fond memory of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. 

Jane Coop at Cecil Green, UBC My inspiration for the Corey Hamm portrait

My mother did not have access to a piano until she began to teach at the ALCOA Aluminio School in Veracruz, Mexico in the late 50s. The few students who attended the school did so at my mother’s home so a piano was bought. When I visited her she would play at my request the US Marine Corps Hymn.

In the late 60s she bought an upright piano a black Bechstein. When she moved to live with us (Rosemary, Alexandra and Hilary) we were having money problems so she sold the piano. I was heartbroken at her decision. I have never forgotten her sacrifice.

Filomena de Irureta Goyena (my mother) at the piano sometime in the late 30s in Manila

Around 1998 our neighbour across the street on Athlone Street (she was in her 80s) told us that she was looking for a home for her Chickering baby grand. Her grandmother had given it to her when she was a little girl. She offered it to us for $500. I was easily transported from her living room to ours.

Shortly after we obtained the Chickering I decided to give a summer party featuring alto saxophonist Gavin Walker and pianist Eric Vaughn. It was a beautifully warm summer evening and I remember sitting at the front entrance smoking a Montecristo accompanied by Malcolm Parry.

My eldest daughter Ale who plays the classical guitar can handle a piano nicely and she likes to play with my youngest granddaughter, Lauren, 15, music for four hands.

Because of my mother’s sacrifice in selling her piano and my deep guilt, a year and a half ago we had the piano restored by Mike Storey and soon it will be tuned. The piano sits in what we call the piano room. We have old lawyer’s stacking bookcases and my vermillion upholstered psychiatric couch (the piano bench is also upholstered in the same material which also matches the brand new red piano felts.

Olena with Curtis Daily's baroque bass in our piano room

Some reading this (and this is long) might notice some photographs that have harpsichords.

For many years I was not impressed by the instrument. In large baroque orchestras I could never hear it. Solo harpsichord playing left me cold.

All that changed when Alexander Weimann landed in Vancouver to be the Artistic Director of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra. He explained how in many instances nothing he played as a continuo performer for a baroque orchestra was written and he had to improvise. With the connection between the harpsichord and my love for jazz my ears suddenly opened to the charms of the instrument.

Finally on taking photographs of pianists. This is really a cliché. I discovered that all has been done before and the one exception was the Stravinsky portrait by Arnold Newman. I ripped off the idea for a Globe&Mail article on Vancouver artist Rodney Graham.

Rodney Graham

Igor Stravinsky - Arnold Newman

Alexander Weimann preparing for Handel's Water Music

Michael Jarvis and his square Chickering with Paul Luchkow, Rebecca Stewart and Lauren Stewart

Craig Tomlinson harpsichord maker

Deuphine Lauver in our piano room

Bertrand Cuiller and Benjamin Perrot of La Reveuse with Matthew White centre

Jacques Ogg

Dave Brubeck - Photograph Richard Avedon

John Elliot Gardiner at the CBC

Michael Jarvis

Bramwell Tovey & Alexander Weimann

Alexander Weimann & Reginald Mobley

Alexander Weimann & Bramwell Tovey

Nicole Scriabin (grand niece to Alexander Scriabin) at our Chickering

Alexander Weimann

Laura Vanek - Novo Ensemble

Lauri Stallings & Owen Underhill at piano

Alexander Weimann

Corey Hamm & Nicole Li

Rosemary Waterhouse-Hayward at the Chickering

Jamie Parker & Edmond Kilpatrick

Kathryn Petersen still plays on keyboards but has switched to the accordion noir

Illustration by Graham Walker

Peggy Lee, Jane Hays, François Houle  & Marc Destrubé - Quartet for the End of Time

Rebecca Stewart at the Chickering

Milton Glasser pianist and dentist (he is the one who said, " I have been tickling the ivories for years.") with my daughter Ale in Mexico City in the early 70s

Mr. & Mrs Tomlinson,  Marc Destrubé, Byron Schenkman & Natalie Mackie