Sunday, August 17, 2025

James Ellroy - Alexis Hotel - Seattle - November 1996

 "Call me Alex," I told him. "I will, if you call me dog."

 

 

As a little boy my father liked to read to me with both of us in bed. One of my favourites was when he would read or tell me stories about King Arthur and his Round Table. Since then, firmly in my mind, is the realization that King Arthur could never fail with his Sword Excalibur in hand.

In 1977 I was trying to get work as a photographer in Vancouver. I told Rosemary, “Good photographers walk around in Stanley Park with Hasselblads around their neck. I cannot afford to buy one.”

I decided on what was then a new-fangled camera called a Mamiya RB-67. I bought it from Adorama in New York. One of the features of this camera, which had a 6x7cm film back, is that you could turn the back for horizontal or vertical photographs.

I took it to Vancouver Magazine and showed it to the the art director Rick Staehling. He was floored by the size and weight of it. A week later he called me with an assignment and asked me to use my new camera. When I brought the results we both found out something that was astoundingly unusual. On a horizontal format the photograph fit exactly on a two-page spread. On a vertical it fit a full page bleed on a vertical page. From that point on I got a lot of work.

All these years the camera has been my Sword Excalibur. And this is particularly so because of the 140mm lens (equivalent to an 85mm in the 35mm format). The lens has a floating element that I can adjust so that my photographs are sharp from infinity to a macro close-up. Because in those days it was the kiss-of-death to fail an assignment I quickly bought a second lens and both were always in my camera bag.

There were two variations that I used when taking portraits. When they were business men I would shoot with my camera lower so that they would look more powerful. With anybody else I would shoot down.

Indeed, the equipment one has, can make it almost impossible to fail.

 

Rosa 'Winchester Cathedral' 17 August 2025

 

Everything that surrounds me in my little Kitsilano home reminds me of Rosemary. If it doesn’t, I find a way of connecting her. Today my sparse rose garden had one unusual bloom. It is the English Rose, Rosa ‘Winchester Cathedral’ which is a white rose. But sometimes, and most rarely it will feature a little reddish dot. The surprise to me defines my Rosemary. While I lived with her for 52 years, every day she would do something I could not predict and it would delight me.

Alfonsina Storni was a Swiss born Argentine poet who walked into the sea and drowned in 1938 a couple of days after she sent her last poem to a Buenos Aires newspaper telling them to advise that should her son call, she would be gone. Because we live in an Anglocentric corner of the world nobody seems to know anything about this terrific proto feminist poet.

On a trip to Buenos Aires a year after Rosemary died I made the mistake of staying in our usual hotel. I sat on a wing chair in front of the elevator almost hoping the door would open and she would walk out. I was reading a book of Storni's romantic poems and found myself falling in love with Rosemary all over again. 

 

 Tú Me Quieres Blanca - Alfonsina Storni (the poem in English below)

 

Tú me quieres alba,

Me quieres de espumas,

Me quieres de nácar.

Que sea azucena

Sobre todas, casta.

 

De perfume tenue.

Corola cerrada

Ni un rayo de luna

Filtrado me haya.

Ni una margarita

Se diga mi hermana.

 

Tú me quieres nívea,

Tú me quieres blanca,

Tú me quieres alba.

Tú que hubiste todas

Las copas a mano,

De frutos y mieles

Los labios morados.

Tú que en el banquete

Cubierto de pámpanos

Dejaste las carnes

Festejando a Baco.

Tú que en los jardines

Negros del Engaño

Vestido de rojo

Corriste al Estrago.

 

Tú que el esqueleto

Conservas intacto

No sé todavía

Por cuáles milagros,

Me pretendes blanca

(Dios te lo perdone),

Me pretendes casta

(Dios te lo perdone),

¡Me pretendes alba!

 

Huye hacia los bosques,

Vete a la montaña;

Límpiate la boca;

Vive en las cabañas;

Toca con las manos

La tierra mojada;

Alimenta el cuerpo

Con raíz amarga;

Bebe de las rocas;

Duerme sobre escarcha;

Renueva tejidos

Con salitre y agua;

Habla con los pájaros

Y lévate al alba.

Y cuando las carnes

Te sean tornadas,

Y cuando hayas puesto

En ellas el alma

Que por las alcobas

Se quedó enredada,

Entonces, buen hombre,

Preténdeme blanca,

Preténdeme nívea,

Preténdeme casta.