That's the way the cookie crumbles

The phrase "It is what it is" was famously used by Donald Trump regarding COVID-19 deaths in a 2020 interview with British journalist Jonathan Swan for Axios on HBO. The, at times, tense, direct questioning style of British journalists has often defined their interviews with Trump.

A week ago a family member of mine used the above expression when I signalled my frustration in not being able to solve a family problem. The use of that expression can accompany others that are much in fashion in this century:

1. Thank you for sharing.

2.  Thank you for reaching out.

3. Protocol

It is now virtually impossible to talk to anybody on the phone. The protocol is that you must first text.

The latest answer to a phone call is about a woman who says something like, “What is your name and the purpose of your call? You give out your name and add, “friend”. The woman then asks you to wait while she goes to inquire if the person is available. Up to now in countless attempts with friends I get, “The person is not available.”

This is supposed to be the age of communication. A local journalist works for a weekly periodical and told me (it took him two weeks to get back on my email to him) that he has over 185,000 emails of which 90% he has not opened. He says he is overwhelmed. The reason for the many emails is that many periodicals in this city do not have a receptionist or a phone.

In that past century if you did not like something you might send a letter to a newspaper’s editor. But you would think of having to write it and then go to the post office and buy a stamp so in the end the letter would not be written. Now with social media you can vent your angry and nasty feelings immediately.

Finally I do contribute to Facebook and Twitter with links to my blogs. I have written 6,854 of them and I believe that most of them have that important word “content”. People then “react” and or leave one of those horrible (in my mind) emojis. They could write, “Nice photograph”, or good blog or anything else. Is using an emoji a form of communication?

I would like to remind these people that the first ever photograph in a newspaper happened in 1874 in a now defunct NY City newspaper. Before that date photographs could not appear anywhere except on gallery walls or as expensive photogravures as the author picture in a 19^th century book. When the halftone process (many dots) was created a photograph of the Steinway Building in New York City appeared in that newspaper. What is important is that the photograph appeared in an article that had copy (words).

Now it is almost impossible to communicate  by talking or writing.

What’s next in this age of communication?

Rosemary - 1969 present in our bedroom

 

Some people have family albums. They are probably folks who were born in that last century. Family pictures are now stored in phones. Many are lost when they malfunction.

I have those family albums because I am from that last century and I was born in 1942. I also have the first photograph I took in 1958 with my new Pentacon-F SLR purchased for $100 when I was in school in Austin, Texas.

I took my mother’s double advice – A house is not a home until framed pictures are on the wall. – Pictures framed are pictures saved.

Part of my portrait style is that I never (almost) photograph anybody smiling. I believe that a serious face looking into my lens reveals a bit of her/his essence.

This framed portrait of my Rosemary I took in Mexico City in 1969. I had no lights. I used an Asahi Pentax S-3 I had bought used in Mexico City. It was the first nude photograph I ever took. The framed photograph is cropped so not bits show.

An unanswered question I never asked (why is it that when we become curious the person that can answer it is dead?) is why she had this delicate sad face? Was she seeing her death 51 years later?

I often cite Jorge Luís Borges and particularly in relation to this portrait. He wrote often that first times become repeated first times. When look at this portrait from my bed (when lights are out I can imagine it ) it seems like I have just taken that photograph. What might have I instructed her to do? At that time we had little time. Was she worried about money?

Whatever the unanswered questions never asked, my Rosemary is in our bedroom gazing at our two cats and me.

Only another portrait photographer might understand the above.

Left & bottom Helleborus 'Honeymoon' - Right - Helleborus 'Wedding Crasher' - 22 March 2026

In 2018 I went to New York City with my Rosemary. Our hotel was very close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We arrived when it opened. We were there to see the Michelangelo exhibit. After spending an hour there I asked Rosemary if she would be interested in seeing the David Hockney. We went to it. I then told her about the Rodin. We went to it. Expecting finally a “no” I asked her if she was interested in a exhibit of medieval armour. She went crazy taking photographs of the horse armour.

We left when the museum closed.

The next day it was the Frick, the Guggenheim and MOMA. I will never understand how dense I must have been to have been married (in 2018 it was 48 years) so long and never have known her keen interest in the arts.

Now five years after my Rosemary died today I found out my further dumb density of my brain. Rosemary’s hellebores were always “Rosemary’s hellebores”. Since her death I have come to love them with my scans of them and the obvious fact (I was dense about that) that hellebores are in bloom in February/March when nothing else is.

The scan here is of two hellebores that Rosemary planted together. Do you think that the names and the fact that they are close in the bed is an accident? Is it an example that my Rosemary had a keen sense of humour?

Yes. And the idiot I am.

P.S. Not being able to sleep tonight pass midnight 23 March 2026 I decided to go back to my scanner. You many note that the hellebores are wilting. I scanned them with a paper towel below. Why? On my origin scan the pink hellebore was blue. I was upset as I make sure my 22 year old CRT monitor is calibrated. I thought about it included the paper towel which is indeed white? Why is the pink hellebore blue? The flower reflects lots of UV in conjunction with the scanner light.

That's why! 

Samuel Frid and Joanne Tod's My Father, Bob and I

At the last years of the 20th century Charles Campbell, a former Editor of the Georgia Straight was working at the Vancouver Sun. He created a page called Rear Window especially for moi so that I could write and illustrate with my photographs stuff I had done in the past.

I had forgotten this one until I was rummaging through my files looking for something I could write about. Now that it is 2026 I feel completely out of place as the change I observe is not to my liking.

I received an email from a friend who is an editor for a weekly periodical on an obvious decline. I had sent him/her an email about 3 weeks ago. It was answered yesterday thusly: Sorry I didn’t get the chance to respond. I currently have 18, 458 emails in my inbox. Ninety % of them are unopened, partly because all of us are having trouble grinding things out with a skeleton staff.

Because the periodical does not have a phone or a receptionist communication is only through emails.

This particular Rear Window is dear to me (even though I had forgotten it) as the painting by Joanne Tod is a definite Christmas one with the delightfully confusing title. Is Bob the name of the little boy’s mother? The painting was also the favourite of my red-haired Mexican friend, Samuel Fridd who at the time had a gallery called the Threshold.

When I called the VAG and asked them If I could see this painting again they answered, “We are not going to put it up on the wall just for you.”

Sempervivum tectorum 20 March 2026

Hen and chicks (also known as hen-and-chickens, or hen-widdies in the southern United States) is a common name for a group of small succulent plants. They belong to the flowering plant family Crassulaceae, native to southern Europe and northern Africa. The plants grow close to the ground with leaves formed around each other in a rosette, and propagating by offsets. The "hen" is the main, or mother, plant, and the "chicks" are a flock of offspring,[1] which start as tiny buds on the main plant and soon sprout their own roots, taking up residence close to the mother plant.

Plants commonly referred to as "Hens and chicks" include ground-hugging species of Sempervivum (houseleeks) such as Sempervivum 'Pekinese', S. arachnoideum (cobweb houseleek), and S. tectorum (common houseleek), as well as members of the related genus Jovibarba. The name is also used for some species of Echeveria, Sedum and Bergenia although these plants differ significantly from Sempervivum and Jovibarba, and may require different cultivation and care. Wikipedia

Today in spite of the weather prediction it is a sunny day. I am not going in my bike. I may have a big excuse. My male cat Niño had his teeth cleaned Tuesday morning. They put him to sleep for this. So he has been barely able to walk. He refuses to eat or drink. I am taking him to the vet tomorrow for check-up. So I am cat sitting Niño mostly on my bed.

I did notice my pot of hens and chicks so I decided to scan one of the florets. The colours are happy colours. I can almost smile. Rosemary would have noticed them days before. She would approve of my scan.