Rosa 'St.Swithun' left - top & bottom Rosa 'Sweet Juliet' - right Rosa 'Sombreul' 4 October 2024

Rosa 'Thomas a Becket' left - right  Rosa 'Mrs. Oakley Fisher' - top  Rosa 'Queen of Sweden' - 5 October 2024

Los muertos, a falta de un lugar más confortable, se quedan en la cabeza de los seres queridos" javier Marías

The quote above by the now gone Spanish writer translates as: The dead with a lack of a more comfortable place, remain in the head of their loved ones.

Today  October 5, 2024 I had 3 roses in bloom. In a few days that will be the end of my roses until next year. Because it was my Rosemary who dragged me to a meeting of the Vancouver Rose Society in the late 80s I will always associate roses with her.

When we lived in Mexico I was more aware that in Spanish she was Rosamaría. It seemed that her connection with roses was more direct.

As fall turns into winter my daily regimen of feed my cats breakfast, writing a blog and scanning the plants from my Kits garden will be, sadly, reduced to the first two.

In Spanish there is a word that is equivalent to listless. The word is desganado. It literally means “without the will to do anything”. This is my situation these days. Going down the stairs in the morning to feed Niño and Niña I am confronted with my framed portraits of Rosemary, our two daughters and granddaughters. I cannot escape the presence of Rosemary.

Some of my friends suggest I move to another little house. I believe that my little Kits house will serve someone in my family well once I am gone.

“Once I am gone” is a constant thought with me. As my days become days when nobody calls or visits I have this nagging suspicion that I am waiting – waiting for what?  It is obvious that oblivion beckons as there are few distractions to prevent me from thinking that thought.

Yesterday and today I scanned the roses in my garden.  For some years I keep thinking of St. Luke’s (King James Bible version) “Do this in remembrance of me”. Scanning the roses, invariably somehow means that Rosemary is close.

Come winter, with the roses gone, her presence will be in the portraits on the wall. I sometimes say, “Rosemary!” in the presence of my two cats. They stare at me. Do they Remember?

For many years I thought that a sentient being was a human who walked on two feet. I have now realized that it is the ability to think and feel that is in the definition. I am convinced that my two cats are sentient beings.

There is some level of comfort that I share my grief with Niño and Niña.

Aconitum carmichaelli 'Arendsii' & Rosa 'Sombreul' 5 October 2024

 

My mother often told me, “Hay pocas gentes finas y con educación como nosotros.”  That translates to, “There are few people with education and good taste like us,”

Educación in Spanish not only includes education but also good taste and manners.

My mother and my Rosemary got along splendidly as my mother understood that Rosemary had exquisite good taste. This good taste of hers translated into a lovely snobbishness when she selected plants for our garden. Her favourite colours were white and blue. It was only later at my urging that she began to appreciate yellow, orange and red

Today October 5 I noticed that Rosa ‘Sombreul’ and Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’ were in bloom. I knew I had to scan both. I am filling gaping holes in my blog so this one I will put in to yesterday.

It seems that my grief for my Rosemary is somewhat ameliorated a tad when I scan her plants in her memory. When the scanning season ends in a few weeks I will have to find other distractions to keep me going.

Lauren Elizabeth Stewart - 2009

I have lived most of my life in that past 20th century. Now that I am 82, I feel I can take advantage not only of what that past century gave, but I can also take advantage of the offerings of this one.

As an example I place my daily blog links into Facebook and Twitter. Facebook provides me with one special service. Every day they send me 9 or more past blogs with that day’s date. Today I will be shown a few from October 8s from the past.

Because I have now written 6239 blogs (including this one) it is impossible for me to remember them all. A few days ago I was shown this blog:

My scary girls weren’t scared

In it I was suddenly amazed by a portrait of Lauren posing by a fern in our Athlone Street home in Kerrisdale in 2009.

It was simple for me to find the negative. I looked in my family files for the year of 2009 and found an envelope marked as Rebecca and Lauren by fern.

I believe that in this century the concept of a contact sheet of b+w or colour negatives is gone. As a magazine photographer I learned to look at my contact sheet and find “the one”. Art directors also had that talent. In many cases these art directors and I would agree on the best shot.

Somehow when I took this photograph of Lauren, there are at least 15 but 4 in a strip that are all similar. I picked the last one.

Sometimes my best portrait was that last one. I have no idea why, except that with film I never wanted to waste film, so I would shoot the whole roll. I may have put special emphasis on that last shot.

As the portrait photographer that I am, these are the thoughts that came to me when I noticed this picture. Rosemary was alive and somewhere in the house. Perhaps she was in the garden or in the kitchen. Because I also took portraits of Rebecca in the same location was she still there watching me and even giving me some pointers? Unlike the photographs that I have taken in the past of people that are now dead I can look at this one and think, “She was alive then and very alive now at age 22.”

And my final thought is that when I discovered this portrait I would have immediately shown it to Rosemary. That is something that I cannot do. And I grieve.

Gail Johnson - 2002

 

Because I have spent most of my life in that last century, I feel awfully lucky at all the pleasant experiences I had. Many of them were because I was a magazine photographer in Vancouver when journalism was alive and well.

I had a particular liking to working with the arts weekly that was  the Georgia Straight. I dealt with two wonderful women, Gail Johnson and Janet Smith. Janet Smith was the arts editor, so she assigned me to photograph many people who ended up on the paper’s covers. Gail Johnson wrote about dance. I became a good dance photographer thanks to her.

I remember the first time I saw Johnson. She was standing by her desk wearing jeans and her hands were gracefully on her side. I thought she was magnificent. She looked fresh and new.

It was sometime around 2002, that for reasons that I have forgotten, I ended up in a suit and tie and Johnson in an elegant dress having drinks at the Hotel Vancouver bar. From there we went to a Ballet BC performance.

At that bar I felt like a million dollars sitting with a beautiful woman discussing our views on dance. There was nothing more than that. It was good, clean fun.

Now in this century if I were to try to repeat that I would be seen as a dirty old man. As my grandmother often told me, “Piensa mal y acertarás,” which translates to “Think the worst and you will be right.”

Gail Johnson and Janet Smith run Vancouver’s on line culture magazine called Stir. I wish them luck while thinking that it would be nice to get a call from them in relation to the arts.

I am (still) a photographer.

Rosa 'Sweet Juliet' top left and bottom right - top right Rosa 'Westerland' & below left Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 30 September 2024

In his introduction to Camera Lucida – Reflections on Photography, Roland Barthes writes:

One day, quite some time ago, I happened on a photograph of Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jerome, taken in 1852. And I realized then, with an amazement I have not been able to lessen since: “I am looking into the eyes that looked at the Emperor.” Sometimes I would mention this amazement, but since no one seemed to share it, nor even understand it (life consists of these little touches of solitude), I forgot about it. My interest in Photography took a more cultural turn.         

My interest in the Bonapartes has always been in Napoleon’s older brother Joseph.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon made Joseph King of Naples (1806–1808), and then King of Spain (1808–1813). After the fall of Napoleon, Joseph styled himself Comte de Survilliers and emigrated to the United States, where he settled near Bordentown, New Jersey, on an estate overlooking the Delaware River not far from Philadelphia.

Spaniards have a long lasting memory of Joseph. They say that as soon as Joseph was aware that Lord Wellington was on his way, he left in a hurry without saying goodbye.

To this day “despedirse a la francesa” (to leave without saying goodbye French style) many in Spanish speaking countries will quote it.

All the above is to justify my placing here today’s scan of three lovely roses, which in spite of being fall, have bloomed and to me they are saying goodbye until next year.

Few if anybody I know is aware that Joseph Bonaparte finished his days in New Jersey.

Mountain View Cemetery - 29 September 2024

Randy Rampage 31 December 2015

The Red Shawl: very mysterious classy item.like some neat,funky historical piece. I’d wear it for fuckin' sure !!!!

On December 3, 2015 Randy Rampage posed wearing my mother’s Mexican red shawl. His comment about wearing it (above) is short and sweet.

Today 29 September, 2024 I attended the sixth anniversary of his death (August 14, 2018) at Mountain View Cemetery. The memorial has always been arranged by his paramour Susanne Tabata. 

As life progresses attendance is reduced every year. Perhaps, as I believe, people are simply dying.

Going to this memorial makes me feel useful as I shoot (a tradition it seems) the group photograph. I bungled it this year by not sitting quickly enough after I pressed the self-timer.

I had the terrific luck of sitting next to my hero Art Bergmann who was given  Randy’s 12-string guitar to play. He sang, low key but I was able to hear nicely.

Art Bergmann

Before I left Susanne pointed in the direction of Jade Kent and told me, “Isn’t she a classical beauty?” I agreed and happily Jade posed for me when I was setting up my camera for the group shot.

Jade