Jim Christy - October 1998

La memoria es individual. Nosotros estamos hechos, en buena parte, de nuestra memoria. Esa memoria está hecha, en buena parte, de olvido. Jorge Luís Borges

Memory is individual. We are made, in a large part by our memory. That memory is made, in a large part by our forgetting. Jorge Luís Borges.

When I look at the thousands of books in my Kits library and take into account the many that I threw away when we moved from Kerrisdale to Kitsilano I am most  aware that all those books (and so many I have forgotten what was in them) is what makes the man that I am now.

Now that I am about to become 83 I notice how from one day to the next I forget what I did with a photo file that I may have taken out for a scan the day before.

But Borges may be right that we must forget in order to remember. I wrote a blog about my friend and poet Peter Trower who died some years ago. In my authors file I not only found the file “Peter Trower” but another one called Trower, Pete & Christy, Jim. I had forgotten that I photographed the two friends for the Georgia Straight when both were living in Gibsons. In that file I found an 8x10 portrait of Christy partially under his car. I had completely forgotten I had ever taken it.

The print was and Ilford plastic coated photographic paper that we used in that last century because it could be rapidly dried with a blow drier to a glossy perfection. Before the advent of scanners, magazines and newspapers needed the glossy finishing to get a good black.

You will notice the yellowing which in time can degenerate even more.

I smiled when I saw the deterioration and equated it to my deteriorating memory. At the same time I asked myself how I could have possibly forgotten such a good portrait of a good friend. That it is a good portrait is my subjective opinion.