Sunday, June 21, 2026

My parents

 

In this vacuous 21st century that I call The Age of the Emoji, it is impossible to not notice that famous people die every day so we have put up their pictures in social media and just comment how wonderful they were. Then there is the wishing a happy birthday to people who are long dead.

Today is father’s day and nobody seems to acknowledge that it is also grandfather’s day. Pictures of fathers are placed in social media with perhaps the one comment on how they are missed.

My awareness of stuff related to my father began when I was a little boy in Buenos Aires and my mother would tell me, “Alex, you will never understand because you will never be a mother”. She died in 1972 and it was only after that I figured out I should have told her, “Mother you will never understand because you will never be a father.”

Few today will write what it is like to be a father. For me today I have to remember my Rosemary as she is the person who made me a father as she had our two daughters Alexandra and Hilary.

We left Mexico City in 1975 for Vancouver because Rosemary said that as things were at the time in Mexico it was not a good place for our children. Until I had a good income as a photographer in Vancouver by 1977/78 Rosemary used whatever money we had to take care of our daughters.

She told me we were going to live in Burnaby so that I could go to Vancouver to find work but (very important) we would be close enough to Coquitlam so Ale and Hilary could learn French. One day years later when Ale said, “Me and some guys…” Rosemary decided that Ale had to be put in a private school which ended up being York House. With some prodding on her part both our daughters went to university. Ale attended UBC and Hilary went to Simon Fraser.

Once we were grandparents Rosemary and I made sure our granddaughters had all the opportunities to improve their lives. We paid for dance, swimming and piano lessons. We took our granddaughters to Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay. We took them to the Main Branch of the Vancouver Public Library, at first in the children’s department. We did our best to inculcate them into reading.

I am afraid now that in this century when grandfather’s day is not acknowledged that as one I am now simply an old man who is obsolete, redundant, retired and inconsequential.

And yes today I remember my father George fondly and I remember all that he did to make me a better person. Best of all I thank him for inheriting me his ability to be a journalist. I write my blog and this one is blog 6942. He would be proud.

I must add that besides having a father I had a few others. These were the Brothers and Fathers of Holy Cross who gave me an outstanding education in my four years at St. Edward's High School in Austin, Texas.

My Bother Fathers Remembered

I will acknowledge that mentors can be both women and men. But few might not know who the original mentor was. When Ulises  went to fight in troy he hired a mentor calle Mentor to teach his son Telemachus.

Friday, June 19, 2026

Christopher Dafoe

 

Send-offs to old friends can be melancholic. Such is the case for a going away (to Winnipeg) event at the Sylvia Hotel today from 5 to 8 for Christopher Dafoe.

Christopher and I collaborated (me with photographs, he with interviews) of famous people for the Globe and Mail in Vancouver. Of all the many writers I ever worked with this man could sit in front of someone like film director Krzysztof Kieślowski and not say anything. The folks facing him would look at his calm face and simply open up with all sorts of intimate details.

Christopher was gracious enough to allow me to be present at these interviews, usually in Vancouver hotels so that I could get my large camera and lights ready and to observe the mannerisms of the person who would face my camera.

I met Christopher many years before when he worked for CITR Radio. I may be one of the few persons that remembers that he was a DJ at the stripper heaven Drake Hotel. He taught the ecdysiasts to appreciate local punk and pop bands. I saw some of my favourites like Cheri dance to Maurice and the Clichés.

When Christopher was asked by the Globe to move to Toronto he declined. He entered the University of British Columbia and became a highfalutin lawyer.

I will always be grateful to Chris as he has been the only person who appreciated my rose scans and bought one (yes!) from me.

I wish Christopher the best in his native city of Winnipeg.

An added humorous note. The picture you see here I made into a place mat. I have no idea if Christopher kept it.

Thursday, June 18, 2026

Top - Rosa 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' & Rosa 'Fantin Latour' 18 June 2026

 

The few who might read my blogs may be thinking, “When is this idiot going to stop scanning his roses and show us some of his erotic portraits of women?”

The fact is that at this time of the year my roses are in bloom and whenever I look at them I am almost sure they tell me, “Scan me now.”

I have written a few times about Julian Barnes’s latest book Departures(s) in which he does not explain why that s in in brackets. He writes about IAm or  Invonluntary Autobiographical Memory. When I looked at the smallish pink rose in the scan here, Rosa ‘Fantin Latour’ I was hit by the memory of where this rose was planted (by the fence on 45thAve) in our Kerrisdale home. Yes, the rose in my Kits garden may at least be 18 years old.

Julian Barnes & the Lemon Table

I wrote about the artist Latour in this blog (link below) and I connected him to a portrait I took of a wonderful woman called Caitlin Legault.

Henri Fantin Latour

The other rose, a much larger one, was one of Rosemary’s favourites as its name, ‘Princess Alexandra of Kent’ connects the rose to our older daughter (58) Alexandra.

Without me being able to stop the memory (IAM) I am barraged by remembrances that connect my roses to people or incidents of my past life.

More often these roses barrage me with thoughts of my Rosemary who first gently forced me to go to a meeting of the Vancouver Rose Society in 1991.

Rosemary said I had too many pink roses, but she did love the Princess.

And yes putting here scans of my roses is about as satisfying as my erotic photographs of women.

Saturday, June 13, 2026

Rosa 'Boscobel' 13 June 2026

Friday, June 12, 2026

Anastasia Milne

 

I believe that if you combine the technology of the 20th century with that of this one the opportunities for personal creativity explode particularly in photography.

The chaps of A J Phone Repair sold me a 27 inch wide Acer monitor. I had the pleasure to dumping my 22-year-old Dell CRT Monitor at Kent Street Recycling.

I was unaware what I could do with this monitor that as a bonus is properly calibrated. When I go to my files with my 22-year-old Photoshop 8 and click on Browse, I can then see all the photographs in the files. Because of this feature I have discovered photographs I had forgotten I had taken. In the photograph here (used my phone) of my Acer screen you can see the first of the almost 4000 plant scans I have taken since I began in 2001.

The photograph of Anastasia Milne here is one of two that I took with an extremely slow (25 ISO) and sharp Kodak Technical Pan in 120 format. It is the choice of camera that I used that makes this photograph even more unusual.  I used my 1951 6x9 inch-long negative Gevabox Camera. Both negatives are severely underexposed but my Epson scanner can do wonders.

I photographed Anastasia in the best room of the sleazy Marble Arch Hotel. She is the sister of a friend of mine called Carol. Anastasia did not say more that three or four words. She was an enigma.

But a a wonderful one. Her name reminds me of the Mexican writer Elena Garro who was about to write a short story about the fact that Anastasia survived the murder of her family in Russia and changed her name to Greta Garbo. Garro died before she was able to write it.

Thursday, June 11, 2026

Rosa 'Charles Darwin' 12 June 2026

 This English Rose is one that I bought this year. I could not help it when I saw its lovely yellow colour. My Rosemary was not fond of yellow roses, with the exception of the single tea rose that I put in our granddaughter's hair while she was wearing her sailor dress.

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

 

My relationship with my Abuelita (grandmother) was that plainly she educated me by giving me the advice that Sancho Panza imparted to Don Quijote. To that she added the refrains that she learned when she was educated as a little girl in Valencia. She was most modern as she never told me “Alex no hagas eso,” but “Alex if you do this these are going to be the consequences.”

Of boring people she told me that they were “la compañia del niño muerto,” or “the company of a dead child.”

Now with the death of my male cat Niño I find that I have to look at her advice under a different light.

Somehow Niño’s twin sister Niña knew something most human about what death is. Since Niño died she is inseparable from me. She is most affectionate and leads a life of routine even to staring at me around 8pm when she knows I will give her some treats before we might get in bed to read. She gives me a needed stability to my day.

And so my Niña is now the company of “el Niño muerto”.

Niña

I have a feeling that my Abue would smile at my adapting her advice to the circumstances.