Majka Demcack

Erin Dorfer

At what point does an aside become a tangent, a tangent a digression, a digression a meander, a meander a reamble, a reamble a circumlocution, a circumlocution an excursus and an excursus a cul-de-sac?

Dwight Garner – NYTimes

All the way to the bottom of this blog I will explain the significance of this almost unknown Vancouver punk composition. I have the record!

Waiting for the Drugs to Take Hold

That quote from today’s NY Times Sunday Book Review came to my mind.

When my granddaughter Rebecca (now 27) was 7 she and her sister Lauren would spend Saturdays with us in our Kerrisdale home. On one Saturday evening while having dinner I asked Rebecca what day of the week it was. She answered that it was Saturday. I showed her my thick copy of next day’s Sunday NY Times (to this day I get it on Saturday night). She was confused!

Today I went to a lovely baroque concert at St. Anselm’s Church on the way to UBC. The concert featured composers I had never heard of like J.J. Walther, Nicola Matteis, and Orlando Gibbons. Then harpsichordist Christina Hutten told us she was going to play a contemporary piece by a Canadian composer Grégoire Jeay.

When you have never heard of a composer and you hear something of theirs for the first time I categorize it as “new music”. 

What is New Music? 

To make me more aware of the importance of these St.Anselm’s concerts, when the trio played Dietrich Becker’s (en su casa lo conocen, my grandmother would quote this to me and it translates as “they know who he is at his home”) Sonata in A major I can attest it is one of the happiest compositions I have ever heard. It should be played for Christmas.

The playing of so much unknown music (unknown to me) immediately made me think of the Secret Vs and their inimitable composition Waiting for the Drugs to Take Hold. It is one of my favourite Vancouver compositions from the 80s.

Majka Demcack at St. Augustine's 26 October 2024

 Baroque for the Soul

Bach - Buxtehude & Infinity 

Ignatz's Scordatura at St. Anselm's with Marc Destrubé 

El Concierto Barroco at St. Anselm's 

An Intimate Concert at St. Anselm's Anglican Church

Before my Rosemary died on December 9 2020 we would go to just about any Early Music Vancouver concert at the Chan. We frequented the Orpheum and the Turning Point Ensemble’s concerts at the downtown campus of Simon Fraser University.

My choice has now changed. I want to go to smaller venues like Pyatt Hall and the Orpheum Annex. I would never return to anything in that huge white elephant that is the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Of late I have been following a young violinist (graduate of Julliard) called Majka Demcack. I went to a couple of her concerts. One at St. Agustine’s Church in Kitsilano was an extraordinary combination of baroque music with the concept of infinity.

This Saturday there will be a concert, with Demcack at the intimate St. Anselm’s Church on the way to UBC that begins at 3pm. Amazingly the suggested $20 ticket includes lovely food and drinks. On the harpsichord is my longtime friend Christina Hutten.

But best of all is to be in a small space and to recognize people from past concerts. Face to face combination in this 21^st century is a rarity.

It was at St.Anselm's that in 2023 and 2024 I was present at Marc Destrubé's performances of Bach's 6 suites for unaccompanied  violin. To witness this sort of concert is an extreme rarity and there are few performers who can play them.

A combination of dark rainy days, and constantly remembering the death of my Rosemary on 9 December 2020 have left me with little desire to do anything.  The loving and constant attention of my two cats, Niño and Niña have lessened the melancholy but not enough to stop my bed rotting and crossing the little walk to my oficina. 

Bed Rotting

But finally a while ago I decided I had to start.

When I sit for my supper at the dining room table this particular lithograph by John Snow stares at me. It is called Window and it features the Three Wise men in the manger.

I bought the lithograph for little money many years ago and it wasn’t until today that I found out that John Snow was a famous artist:

John Harold Thomas Snow, born in Vancouver (1911-2004) was renowned for his lithographs. A WWII veteran, he created 410 lithographs, earning the Alberta Order of Excellence. John Snow died peacefully on August 23, 2004 at the age of ninety-two, after several years of failing health. 

I went to a Roman Catholic boarding school, St. Edward’s in Austin from 1958 to 196. I received a fantastic education from my teachers who were Brothers of  the Congregation of Holy Cross (the same as in Indiana’s University of Notre Dame.

The man who taught us theology was my long-time friend (he even met my Rosemary before he died some years ago) Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C.

I will not reveal my very private religious views here. But it is sufficient to state that my knowledge of the Roman Catholic Doctrine is most detailed. It was Brother Edwin who told us that the second sacrament after the better known Baptism is Confirmation. It makes the person who receives it “a soldier of Christ”. Brother Edwin stressed that it had nothing to do with wielding swords but being able to explain one’s beliefs to curious strangers.

I have an Argentine relative who is an extreme-right-wing-Catholic. For him the world is made up of white heterosexual males and females, all Roman Catholics. His idea of a good politician (not important if the politician is a thief or a rapist) is one who does not condone abortion.

My relative knows enough not to discuss Roman Catholic Doctrine with me because I can talk circles around him.

Now what is the significance of the Epiphany (Tres Reyes or Three Wise Kings Day)? Catholic missals of the last century had a numerology dictation the importance of the feast days. We would all suspect that Christmas and Easter were important. The latter specifically if Christ had not risen His whole doctrine would have been a sham.

The Epiphany is as important. Why?

I have yet to meet a person who will tell you what I will write below. And remember that my religious views are personal and what I will state is an objective explanation as given to me by Brother Edwin.

In the Old Testament, God made a pact with the Israelites that if they obeyed the Ten Commandments and behaved they would ascend to paradisiacal heaven. The rest of mankind, not being Israelites would go to a place called limbo.

When the three wise men came to the manger (and were accepted) they represented that other humanity, the limbo humanity. They were now able to be part of the fold. Why?

Here is Brother Edwin’s clincher of an explanation. Gaspar, Balthazar en Melchior were that other humanity. They were “unclean” heathens.

What was unclean heather?  Why an uncircumcised one!

And that ushered in the New Testament.

And today I specially celebrate the feast day as I am suput (or supot) which is Tagalog for uncircumcised.

New Year’s Eve in Vancouver this 2024, was a letdown. Increasingly this city is becoming sterile. It has no flavour. I fell asleep at 12:05 after I heard about 5 puny firecrackers.

My idea of a wonderful New Year’s was the first I had with my Rosemary in Veracruz on December 31 1967.

I had met her about two weeks before, so I had taken her to show her off to my mother who was a school teacher (a one room school house in her house). Her students were the children of the engineers and employees of Alcan.

Rosemary immediately had a problem coping with the heat and humidity of Veracruz so she took many showers and sometimes she would yell to tell me that there were flying cockroaches in the bathroom.

Since we were not yet married my mother gave us separate rooms. I checked the doors. One squeaked so I oiled it. I believe that since our fist daughter was born 9 months later I can guess how it happened.

Both Rosemary and I noticed that in comparison to the 73250 ft altitude of Mexico City, sea level in Veracruz carried sound better. Sounds were louder. We would go to the lovely café La Parroquia which was in the Zócalo kitty corner with the main church. We would sit under the outside portales and marimba groups would play. With a little tip I could coax the players to sing a song on the spot that would contain the name of Rosemary and that she was a blonde.In the record scanned here, a record of my mother's that was recorded in 1940 it contains a honest and authentic La Bamba where each member of the group (they all have different voices) they all sing extemporaneously and make up the words as they sing.

La Bamba - Andrés Huesca

The old trams would pass by and the noise of their clanging added to the charms of the port city of Veracruz.

But it was on New Year’s Eve at the stroke of midnight that all the ships of the port, in unison would play their sirens.

These sounds are the sounds of a real New Year’s Eve, my first with that blonde called Rosemary.

Scanned 31 December 2024

 

My Manila-born grandmother, Dolores Reyes de Irureta Goyena, was born in the 19th century and was educated in Valencia, Spain. By some lucky quirk my Abuelita met my wife Rosemary in 1970 before she died.

My Abuelita  or Abue as I called her, was ahead of her time and she educated me as my mother was a busy teacher trying to make ends meet in Buenos Aires and then in Mexico City. Abuelita would not say, “Alex, don’t do that.” She would say, “Alex if you do this this is what is going to happen…”

Because of her Spanish education Rosemary and I adopted many of her customs. One of them was a 19^th century Spanish custom of eating 12 grapes in the 12 seconds when our mantel clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.

This year I have decided to keep the custom. But I will eat 24 grapes. The extra 12 are in memory of my Rosemary.

Rosemary and I would go shopping for nice grapes on the 31st. I bought grapes a few days ago and I thought they will do even if they are not of the perfection that would have delighted Rosemary.

Cynics would say that it was far easier to drink a glass of wine. In the scan here there are 24 grapes even if you cannot see them.