Geometry
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
I wrote this blog originally on April 18 2018. This Meta
social media says it breaks their "Community Standards" and flags it.
A roundabout way is to eliminate the original URL signature. This will do and I
will post it without a photograph to show
On Wednesday, February 10 2017 I wrote the blog below. I
keep remembering congruence as Rosemary has been helping our Lauren (about to be
16) with her math and geometry homework. Congruence has been the subject for
some days.
I wrote this blog originally on April 18 2018. This Meta social media
says it breaks their "Community Standards" and flags it. A roundabout
way is to eliminate the original URL signature. This will do and I will
post it without a photograph to show.
It was quite a few years ago that Helen posed for me and because of
her almost silent patience I was able to experiment with all kinds of techniques
and directions.
I used these pinhole photographs for another blog,
this one
and the Medium version
here.
As I write this I feel a frustration of not
wanting to admit that my best days (as in these photographs) are behind me. I
want to do more and I believe I may have the capability. What I need are
subjects with patience and trust like Helen. Where could I find them?
Congruence
Wednesday, February 01, 2017
At St. Edward’s High School in Austin, Texas in the late 50s, I had a Plane Geometry teacher
called Brother Gregory. He was soft spoken and almost always had a smile on his
face. I learned geometry from this kindly man and to this day I cannot forget
his explanation of the words congruence and congruent. In our classroom and
homework assignments we were to fit one triangle into another and if this
happened without overlap you had congruence.
In my career as a photographer I might have been cubbyholed
as a portrait photographer even though I took my versions of landscapes and
architectural photographs. At the same time I can assert that I did a lot of
experimentation as I never wanted to do one style to the point that I would
have been making the motions of taking the photographs. It always had to be and
must be to this day a challenge.
Perhaps when Helen Yagi and I met and I persuaded her to pose
for me I found a perfect congruence of ideas, style and experimentation. In the
case of the photographs here I used a pinhole body cap on my Mamiya RB-67 Pro
SD instead of a lens. I remember that the exposures were constant flashing of
my studio flash on full power for one minute and 35 seconds. Because the
exposures were so long Helen could move a bit without affecting the sharpness
which was not all that sharp to begin with.
Throughout this time of taking photographs, every once in
a while I find that Gregorian congruence. Who knows someone like Helen might
give me a call this year. I will be ready.
Lots of Oompahs at the Painted Ship on Sunday
Monday, April 28, 2025
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| Terminal City Brass Band a the Painted Ship - 27 April 2025 |
The Terminal City Brass Band features Michael Coury on
trumpet, Tim Sars on sax, Brian Harding on trombone, Marc Lindy on tuba, and
Liam MacDonald on percussion, plus everyone on vocals.
The sousaphone (/ˈsuːzəfoʊn/
SOO-zə-fohn) is a brass
musical instrument in the tuba family. Created around 1893 by J. W. Pepper at
the direction of American bandleader John Philip Sousa (after whom the
instrument was then named), it was designed to be easier to play than the
concert tuba while standing or marching, as well as to carry the sound of the
instrument above the heads of the band. Like the tuba, sound is produced by
moving air past the lips, causing them to vibrate or "buzz" into a
large cupped mouthpeace. Wikepedia
This past Sunday I was invited by my friend Neil Wedman to
accompany him to the Painted Ship - 2884 W Broadway, Vancouver. It is a
smallish restaurant bar that features a band every Sunday. This Sunday and on the last month of every month the band is The Terminal City Brass
Band, beginning at 4PM. Wedman’s friend Brian Harding plays in it
and I met Harding years ago when he performed with the Jazzmanian Devils.
It was most pleasant to sit with Wedman at the bar and
listen to the band play one of my favourite Duke Ellington compositions,
Caravan.
While there I ran into friend Ona Grauer with her mother and
daughter.
Ona Grauer
But there was another friend there with his partner. It was
Mark Haney who happens to be a
remarkable classical (etc) stand-up bass player who for many years was the
composer in residence at the Mountain View Cemetery (yes!). He would organize
avant-garde concerts there in the acoustically privileged theatre usually used
for funeral gatherings. It seems that when the city of Vancouver first learned
about this it quickly ended Haney’s tenure.
Haney was the creator of something called Isolation
Commissions which ocurred during the Covid years. Haney would obtain donations and then he would commission local
musicians to compose and play in what became 80 wonderful videos. My favourite
involved trombonist Jeremy Berkman playing
his instrument in an underground parking lot.
Jeremy Berkman - Isolation Commission & 81
All about Mark Haney's Isolation Commissions
It is unbelievable that it had to be Wedman who would inform
me of lovely music being played only two blocks from my Kits house. I will return next Sunday.
And that Haney’s wonderfully peculiar position at the Mountain View Cemetery, is no more
says something about how city hall DOES not promote culture. We need a Pierre
Polievre type of polictian not to defund the CBC but to defund city hall full
on politicians who seem to do nothing.
But for me the most exciting feature of the Painted Ship concert by the Terminal City Brass Band was to listen to those loud oompahs on Mark Lindy's tuba. When I see him again on another Sunday I will have him explain if his tuba is also a bass horn and a sousaphone.
Anybody who might question the decided unfocus of my photographs should be aware that I use a device called a Lensbaby on my Fuji X-E1 digital camera. My days of shooting for newspapers and magazines are long gone. I can now do as I please.
Marc Lindy informed me about the instrument he used:
In the photo below you will see the horn I played yesterday in the lower
right. It’s a King model 1240 made in Cleveland (north of Tennessee) in
1924. It has a “recording” bell which faces forward (handy for the
early methods for making recordings - pointing the sound straight ahead.
Good on stage for pointing the sound at the audience, especially if
there is a low ceiling. The bell is “fixed” - not removable. Later the
bells were removable for easier transport and so a “raincatcher” bell
(points straight up) could be used if desired.
In the bottom left
is the “Carl Fischer - American Model - New York” helicon made in 1911.
A forerunner to the Sousaphone which also wraps around the player so
that you’re wearing the horn. Most people think the Sousaphone are
defined by a forward facing bell, which is what is seen most commonly
over the past 75 years, however the Sousaphones that were used in
Sousa’s band were mainly (or exclusively based on photos) raincatcher
bells.
In the center of the photo is a “tornister” or backpack tuba, from a Austro-Hungarian design for travel tubas.
In
the background are two upright tubas, German (Mirafone/Miraphone) on
the left and a Swiss (Hirsbrunner - same family making them since the
beginning of the 19th century).
A Visit to a Garden Nursery With Rosemary Spiritually in Tow
Sunday, April 27, 2025
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| Hydrangea macrophylla 'Eclipse' & Hosta 'First Frost' - 27 April 2025 |
In spring, especially on weekends, Rosemary would invariably
suggest to me, “Alex, let’s go to Lougheed (Lougheed GardenWorks) and see what
we can find.”
Because my Rosemary was a snob and had this special talent
for discovering perennials that would become popular two years hence It was fun
shopping with her.
I miss these joint trips to nurseries lots. A couple of
weeks ago I decided to go to Lougheed. I saw a fabulous plant but I could not
buy it. This is a new “old man” talent I have just discovered. I had not
brought my wallet. Since my wallet has my driver’s licence that can be costly was
I to be stopped by a policeman.
What I found at another Gardenworks on Easter Sunday
The plant I had spotted was such a Rosemary plant that I
returned the next day to buy it.
What was the plant? It is called Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Eclipse’.
In our Kerrisdale garden we had 27 different and many
species hydrangeas. We had only two mopheads as Rosemary thought they were
“ordinary”.
Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Eclipse’ is a mophead but Rosemary
would have spotted it anyway and we would have bought it. Why? This hydrangea has
an unusual leaf colour. I will do, later in the season, what Rosemary would
have done. She would have removed the blooms.
Methinks that Rosemary taught me well.
