Kumtuks in an Age of Untruths & the Connaught Bridge
Friday, April 17, 2026
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When I was
living in Mexico in the 60s and 70s there was a lovely boulevard in the Mexico
City neighbourhood of Churubusco called La Taxqueña. The local government
decided to change the name to Avenida Miguel Ángel de Quevedo. Most people
insisted on calling the avenue by its real name including the most important
taxi drivers.
Michael Stephen and Sam Sullivan
I will
associate the above with a lovely lunch I had (and distinguished guests) at the
Terminal City Club yesterday hosted by former mayor Sam Sullivan and his wife
Lynn Zanatta. Sullivan and a few important friends have started an organization
called Kumtuks (and Indigenous word that means wisdom/knowledge). Its purpose
it to find a middle road between extremes that argue as to who is right and or
saying the real truth. The plan is to make videos to promote the ideas in
social media and relevant media.
The speakers
were Michael Stephen, John Bonnett,Yuta Shimizu,Margareta Dogval,Geoff Russs
and Mark Milke. The first two caught my interest and in particular Michael
Stephen. He read from many books, quotes that Joseph Trutch, 1st Lieutenant
Governor of British Columbia, in office 5 July 1871 – 27 June 1876 was not the
villainous man we have been led to believe. It seems that all those bad things
happened after he was out of office and then dead. Stephen peaked my interest, as I live in Kits on 7th Avenue almost corner with what was formerly
called Trutch. I asked my neighbours about the name change. Because my
neighbour friends all live on 7th they all told me, “Alex we are lucky that
we live on 7th as the name change will affect the property documents
of all those who used to live on Trutch.
Yuta Shimizu will bring his expertise in the making of the videos
The second
speaker", John Bonnet is a teacher and instructor and his attempts to teach
truths are sometimes most unpopular. His motto from George Gershwin is “It
ain’t necessarily so.”
I spoke with
him and told him of my problems teaching at an American High School in Mexico
City in the early 70s. In one class, Ancient History, one day I told my class
that the Israelites since they had lived by force in Egypt for some years,
Herodotus had revealed that perhaps the Israelites had adopted the Egyptian
custom of circumcision. I then asked a Jewish student to stand up and to give
us a clinical definition of the term. On the next day I was summoned to the office
of the female principal who was a member of the right-wing organization
Daughters of the American Revolution. She told me that she had heard that I was
teaching sex in my Ancient History Class. I was told to stop and to no longer
include Herodotus in my course.
I will not
go here to all the stuff circulating in Canada and in our province that is
really not all that true. But I would like to add how it is that in Latin America
we deal with the “Columbus Problem”. Columbus Day South of the Río Bravo is
called El Día de la Raza. October 12 celebrates the fact that the intermarriage
between Spaniards and Indigenous Peoples produced a new race – the mestizos.
But now Columbus statues are being torn down.
Few know why
Frida Kahlo had a moustache. The Indigenous Peoples of Mexico don’t usually
have body hair except on their head and down there. Kahlo wanted to show off
that she had lots of Spanish blood. While in Mexico in the 50s and 60s I saw
women with lovely legs in fishnets. Their legs were unshaved. They were
boasting.
I wish Sam
Sullivan’s organization lots of luck in order for them to set the records
straight. In our age of extreme polarization this is a necessary task. For me the new Patullo Bridge will be the New Pattullo Bridge. This is because I am old fashioned. The Cambie Street Bridge for me will always be the Connaught Bridge.
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Wrinkled
Thursday, April 16, 2026
 | | Rosa ' Fru Dagmar Hastrup' 17 April 2026 |
 | Rosa ' Fru Dagmar Hastrup' 1 September 2 025 |
Rugose is an
adjective meaning wrinkled, creased, or covered in ridges, often used in
biology to describe surfaces like leaves, shells, or skin. It indicates a
rough, uneven texture, such as the leaves of a Rosa rugosa plant or the
exterior of certain corals. Its etymology is from the Latin adjective rūgōsus, meaning "wrinkled" or
"shrivelled". Wikipedia
My roses
will not bloom until June except for this one which blooms in very early May.
 | | Rosa sericea subsp. omeiensis f. pteracantha. |
Today I
looked at the rugose leaves of Rosa ‘ Fru Dagmar Hastrup’ and saw lots of
beauty. In my youth I would have never noticed. It was my Rosemary who taught
me to look at the small details of plants. She wore contact lenses and then had
her eyes fixed but she always got very close to her plants.
What all the
above means is that I cannot escape, nor do I want to, the ever present presence of my
Rosemary in my house and garden.
As I read of
all the problems in the world I live in, I thank her for making us move from
Mexico City with our daughters to Vancouver.
A Fiddling Surprise
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
 | | Rosemary Elizabeth Healey Waterhouse-Hayward - Mexico City 1969 |
When I don’t
have much to do (almost every day) I like to fiddle in my oficina with
negatives and my scanner. Today I went through files Family 1968-1975.That is
the period between my marrying Rosemary in Mexico City on February 8, 1968 until
we were about to leave for Vancouver.
I had never
ever printed these four b+w negatives. I suddenly had the idea of cutting them
from their strip and laying them on my scanner. I think that the results are a
refreshing change with my usual placement in my blogs of individual portraits
of Rosemary looking devastatingly beautiful.
As I go
through my files I have become aware that I shot a lot film of the family. I
have every birthday cake photo, etc. But these for me are special. I had never
ever printed them in my darkroom. To see them now is to see them with that
former excitement to go to my darkroom to find out what I had taken.
And as I
often repeat here this is a Borgesian first time. Looking at these four
exposures, Rosemary is looking at my camera, or not as I prepare to press the
shutter.
Blue or Purple?
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
 | | Rhododendron augustinii 'Marion MacDonnell' 14 April 2026 |
Looking out
of my bedroom window (second floor) I noticed that my Rhododendron
augustinii ‘Marion Macdonnell’ was in bloom. I cut some and scanned them. I was
then reminded of a problem related to ultra violet light.
This rhododendron is listed as being blue but it
really isn’t. My now gone friend Alleyne Cook bred a cultivar version named
after a mutual friend Marion MacDonnell who was famous for having first grown
in her greenhouse the elusive blue poppy Meconopsis betonicifolia. I wrote
about that here (below). Alleyne Cook
When I scanned the rhodo today I was not in the least
surprised that is scanned really blue and not its real purple colour. Why?
It has to do with the fact that when my scanner does
its job it “sees” the UV light that is reflected from the petals and makes them blue. What you
see here is the first scan and then my “fixing it” to the colour I saw with my eyes. When in school we were taught about Newton's colour theories, but we were not really told that we humans see the red side of Newton's spectrum and on the other side from green to blue to ultra violet we are not quite sure of what we see. This is why many people argue when they see turquoise if it is green or blue. This blog might be challenging to anyone who has gotten to here. But give it a try. Alexander Scriabin & Kodachrome plus colour temperature
1984 at Macleod's Books
Monday, April 13, 2026
 | | Don Stewart - 10 April 2026 |
 | | Don Stewart holding the edition in English of Rayuela - 12 November 2022 |
Macleod's Books - 455 West Pender Street - Vancouver BC - Phone 604-681-7654 Asahi Pentax S-3 - Arthurian & Borgesian In that
other century besides being a magazine photographer I was also paid well to
write for magazines and newspapers. Because my father was a journalist for the
Buenos Aires Herald in the 40s perhaps I have journalism in my blood.
Now with
journalism in Vancouver moribund I find that quite a few of my 6878 blogs could
pass as journalism. Every day alone with my two cats I find that I am compelled
to write my daily blog. Sometimes I write two.
Today I went
to The Lab to pick up a roll of b+w film that I took with my Sword Excalibur
(what I call it as I cannot fail when I use it) Asahi Pentax S-3. I purchased it
used in Mexico City in 1962. My subject, last Friday, was Don Stewart's Macleod’s Books. We have been friends for many years. He has helped me with my obsession
of collecting books written by Jorge Luís Borges in Spanish.
I asked
Stewart, point blank how many books he has not only in the main store but in
three others. His answer was, “I have over 100,000 titles, but many of them are
of different publishersm translations, and editions.” This might mean that the figure could be
somewhere around 250,000.
The next
question which was answered would have made an article in the Vancouver Sun or
an interview in our increasingly uncultured CBC.
“Don I want
to photograph you holding a book. What book will it be?” In less than five
seconds he responded, “1984.”
There is a
story I want to tell here. In 2008 my Rosemary and I were planning a trip to
Venice and Florence. I went to the main VPL to get books for our planning. One
was a beautifully illustrated one by Robert Louis Stevenson’s trip through
Italy. I told Rosemary that we could not
take it with us in our trip as it was much too valuable. I called Don Stewart.
He did not let me finish. “Alex I have two versions of it. I can sell you each
for $42.” I bought both and one of them, Pictures From Italy, And American Notes - 1879 Edition, has a spectacular photogravure of the
author.
I can attest
here that Don Stewart knows exactly where each of his books resides.
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