Saturday, November 15, 2008


About 15 years ago Rosemary had her heart set for obtaining a Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy'. This tree, commonly called the Eastern Redbud grows very well in Ontario. I likes an intense hot summer and a cold but dry winter. There were then few (and even now) specimens of the tree in BC and in Vancouver. They don't like our rainy winters and the short hot summers. We planted one anyway in a secluded area of our back garden. The tree fluorished and grew rapidly delighting us with the red/purple buds in spring before any leaves appeared. The tree is a wonder to behold in the summer when the reddish/green leaves shine when the sun acts as a backlight. The sight of the fallen leaves in the fall with their intense yellow and red further attached us to our tree. A severe windstorm three years ago tore down our white picket fence and several trees almost went down. One of them was a juniper that was leaning precariously in the direction of our living room. There was no way of propping it up with cables as the cables would have been on the street side. Our Cercis went to the ground and Rosemary was in tears. We called the folks at Bartlett Tree Service and they streightened the tree and secured it with a cable. We then hoped for the best. Three years later our Cercis is doing well and Rosemary smiles when she looks out of the window.

A week ago we were admiring our tall Ginkgo biloba . It leaves were a golden yellow. I told myself I need to photograph the tree. Alas! That evening there was a windstorm and the next day the tree was all but bare!



Today when Rosemary and I went to vote for the municipal elections I noticed a rose in bloom in the front garden. Considering the date and the wet weather is is most unusual to see a rose in bloom that is a multiple-petaled English Rose. But then its name 'Immortal Juno' might just be significant. Juno was Zeus's wife. Greek goddesses in spite of their human traits were indeed immortal.

After I scanned the cercis and the ginkgo leaves. After I scanned Immortal Juno I had the unusual pleasure of smelling spring in November. The intense myrrh scent nudged my brain's sensory perception. Could spring be just around the corner in fall?

Friday, November 14, 2008


In Spanish the saying is, "Nadie es profeta en su tierra." It seems to sound that much more final in Spanish that no one is a prophet in their own land.

As a photographer I always try to do my best. As a commercial photographer I don't perform in direct relationship to how much I get paid. I feel I must give my best. I show my photographs to my wife. I may be proud of a particular photograph and when she sees it she looks at some obscure corner and (finding some hair that is askew or a finger not in place or some wrinkle here or there) and usually says, "What's that?" I dismiss her criticism. I take the photograph to some competent art director who upon seeing the picture (notices what Rosemary noticed) says, "What's that?"

In the end (and I am convinced of this) you are only as good as you think you are. If you think you are good and you have been around the block you might just be almost right.

After 35 years in Vancouver I have seen many photographers come and go. Some were one or two month fashion wonders instantly superseded by the next two-month wonders. Few of them ever stayed. One of the best, Howard Fry, retired to Saltspring Island. There is James La Bounty, Hans Sipma, Roger Brooks, Doane Gregory, Raymond Lum and a couple more I may have forgotten. As for the new young ones I am sure time will tell.

There is one photographer who has remained and never given anything but her best. And she gives her best with a smile on her face. It is difficult to be a photographer in Vancouver and still be cheery. Rosamond Norbury is cheery and she is very good. And she is one of the few Vancouver photographers who manages to be commercial when it is necessary while not sacrificing her art side. Some of the serious stuff she does at Malaspina Printmakers on Granville Island is seriously good.

Every once in a while I run into Norbury. She is quick to smile. I smile back and I remember the best thing anybody ever said about my work, "Alex, thank you for not having ever taken a bad picture."

I do hope that after seeing this picture I took of her a few years ago she does not change her mind.

Thursday, November 13, 2008


On the early hours of June 6, 1944 (0007 minutes after the invasion of Normandy had started) Staff Sargeant James Wallwork (left), glider pilot, cast off his Horsa glider from the Halifax bomber that was towing him. At that instant, the invasion had really begun. There were 156,000 men prepared to go into France that day, by air and by sea, British, Canadian and American, organized into some 12,000 companies. D Company's 160 men under the commmand of Major John Howard in 6 gliders (Number 1 was Wallwork's) led the way. It was the only company attacking as a completely independent unit. When Wallwork cast off, D Company was alone.

At 0016 Wallwork's No 1 (Irene) landed (a controlled crash) very near the Bénouville Bridge (later renamed, most famously, the Pegasus) on the Caen Canal. The crash sent Wallwork and his co-pilot, Staff Sargeant Ainsworth out of the cockpit, through the perspex canopy and into the ground. Wallwork was the first allied soldier on occupied French soil.

This magnificent performance and that of the other 5 Horsa gliders was praised by Air Vice Marshal Leigh-Mallory, commanding the Allied air forces on D-Day, as the greatest feat of flying of World War II.


I remembered the above when Rosemary and I enjoyed a Vancouver East Cultural Centre double bill last night in one of its unofficial sites (in this case The Firehall Arts Centre) while the new Cultch is being finished. The double bill with its military theme, one specifically about the Normandy landings featured Julia Mackey in her play Jake's Gift directed by Dirk Van Stralen. One would have needed to be Charlie McCarthy to not have been affected by Mackey's performance as little French girl who tends the graves of Canadian soldiers who died in the Juno Beach (the Canadians) part of the Normandy invasion. Mackey also plays her grandmother and Jake. Jake is a crusty old veteran who finally makes it to France after 60 years with the purpose of looking for his elder brother's grave. Jake's Gift made me laugh and if had been a little bit less of a Charlie McCarthy I might have cried, too.

The folks at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre have taken an interesting (in my opinion) plunge in attempting to bring several art forms together under one roof. I go to dance, opera, symphony, baroque concerts and theatre. When I go to ballet I never see the crowd that attends modern dance. At the opera I rarely see the folks that cater to Vivaldi and Pandolfi. The scene is fractured.

But last night and until November 16, the double bill includes Jake's Gift and a collaboration by choreographer Jennifer Mascall and modern dancer Ron Stewart called WhaT,?. The latter is dance with the spoken word and video projections. Is it only dance? It is more.

In the past there have been attempts in Vancouver to add the spoken word to dance. In 1998 John Alleyne lauched his The Goldberg and received lots of criticism for the heavy burden of the narrative side of his ballet. I thought the work was beautiful and I did not care that the Ballet BC dancers could not project the voice of CBC radio announcers. If those same Ballet BC dancers tried to find work at the CBC today they would be rejected for not having speech impediments and or lisps. I don't mind when dancers talk.

Ron Stewart, an extremly fit and flexible redhead with a face that could make you lose all your clothes if you ever tried to play strip poker with him, danced four or five rolls. They featured himself and a man that was part his father and the partrooper father of choreographer Jennifer Mascall.

Having seen many Mascall productions I can ascertain here that they will test your mettle and you cannot sit back and relax. There is a lot of stuff thrown at you that is full of intelligence. Just as a José Saramago novel, you have to read one first for the rest to gradually become that much easier to understand, not that you need to understand modern dance at all to enjoy it. Watching Stewart dance is pleasure enough.



Julia Mackey's rapid fire transformation from one character to another with all the accompanying ticks was a tour de force to watch. In the case of Ron Stewart the long moments of silence as he takes his clothes off (a warning!) or puts them on was almost like watching a not so silent reverse strip. If Julia Mackey's tender story had serious moments the funny moments in Stewart's performance are a lot more serious and personal.

I had no new picture of Ron Stewart so I asked him to oblige me and come to my studio to pose for this blog. Since I am going with my granddaugther Rebecca to see the double bill tomorrow I wanted Stewart to bring the Scotish regalia he wears in parts of WhaT,! . The connection is that both Ron and my Rebecca are surnamed Stewart. I asked why the work is called What,? (that comma is part of the title). It seems that people when seeing this show would simply say, "What's..."

Just a few minutes before I sat down to write this I called James Wallwork at his home in Ladner. He is doing just fine and was wondering when he and his wife Genevieve could visit for tea. Wallwerk is 89. I told him how proud I was and how I remembered him last night when I was watching Jake's Gift and how I wanted to shout, "I know the man who was the first man to hit Normandy, head first through the windshield of his glider plane!"

Wednesday, November 12, 2008


A long time ago I was waiting to photograph Bob Hope at a film location on West Broadway (Don Ameche was also my subject that day) when I noticed that Hope granted journalists 15 and 20 minute interviews but invited my journalist friend John Lekich to have lunch with him in his trailer. I asked Lekich about this and he told me that actors and directors had to face media so often that they made value judgments based on experience and generally gave you about 1 minute to make your case. In that minute actor and directors decide if they will open up and grant you a good interview or not. In brief even if an actor may not be too swift, experience compensates. It helps them avoid uncomfortable situations or time wasting.

I use Lekich's argument to press my case that photographers, long considered to be stupid, and in spite of it all, we do perceive stuff simply because of experience.



In Argentina we all know that the next rank for a four-star general is Presidente de La Nación. That rank can be obtained through elections but most often it has happened with a "golpe de estado". In Mexico any Mexican will tell you that only stupid and dishonest people would become politicians, "Anybody smart enough, would know better." Few Harvard graduates make it as politicians in Mexico except (and who knows why?) the exceptions have been economists working for both the Argentine and Mexican governments.

In 1975 Rosemary pressed for us to leave Mexico and move to Vancouver. She thought that Canada would be the right place for our growing daughters. In most cases she was right. In fact Rosemary has been right about everything.

There is one particular incident that makes me glory at the fact that I live in Canada and that all is well here.

Some years ago I was working under contract for Canadian Pacific Limited. The PR man Morrie Zeitlin called me one day and said, "Alex, Premier Vander Zalm is entertaining a friend who is mayor of a small town in Holland. The man is interested in trains so we are giving the Premier access to our rail yard. Meet them in front of the CP Train Station and take some pictures during the tour." At that time Vander Zalm was at his least popular. There were headlines about him every day.



I waited. Then a Volvo stopped on the other side of the station and I saw the Premier in a smart black leather jacket get out with his friend. He put quarters into the parking meter (!) and crossed the street. He beamed at me with that smile and said, "Are you ready Alex?" There he was with no police escort. No Canadian equivalent of a secret service. There he was putting quarters in the parking meter. This is what Canadian democracy is all about. We are yet (touch wood) not ready to assassinate our politicians be they unpopular or not. Many years later I had the opportunity to talk plants (using botanical Greek and Latin) with Vander Zalm and I came to realize that he really was, behind that grin, not too bad. Like all humans he had his tragic flaw. But I could sense the humanity in him.

Sensing a humanity in people is something that I have come to feel when they face my camera and I face them. I have been reading about the shenanigans at City Hall with a small measure of distaste. The fact that I live in Canada does not mean that politicians should be any more honest than they were or are in Argentina or Mexico. I have come to accept that. But it still shocks me. Were I Editor-In-Chief of the Vancouver Sun (Patricia Graham) I would assign David Baines to investigate this affair. My feeling is that Baines would probably not want to soil his excellent reputation of impartiality and honesty by delving into politics. That is a shame.

In my years of taking pictures of politicians for magazines, for political parties and for politicians themselves I have kept my humanity feeler open and here are four that have rewarded me with a feeling that I can trust them and that they will do the best for their city, province or country.

The first one was for a short time the Provincial Leader of the New Democratic Party. He was Bob Skelly. He was a handsome man who wore exquisite shark skin suits and had eyes that reflected honesty and intelligence. Unfortunately I also sense a lack of fire. It was almost as if that lack of passion was caused by a sense of tragedy. I believe this is why Skelly lost in the end. I believe that had he won, that sad streak in the man would have somehow improved us all.

I first met Mike Harcourt when our City Conselors were called Aldermen. In all my many photographic contacts with him and until a most recent one of taking personal pictures for him I had that constant sense of humanity and honesty.

I get the same feelings from Provincial NDP leader Carole James. As a matter of fact when I photograph politicians I am thinking, "Would I buy a used car from him, from her?" I am sure that James would do well even at a used car lot.



The first time I photographed Dawn Black, right, (in the middle 90s) she lost her political bid for MP in her riding for the NDP. I felt a bit ashamed of myself as I thought I was on a lucky streak since so many of the politicians I had photographed had won. I considered that in some way I had contributed a little bit. Dawn Black finally did make it and this time around she won by a smal margin a bid to unseat her from New Westminster-Coquitlam. I do hope that my latest portraits of her may have helped to re-elect her.

We Canadians deserve (but don't always get) people like her and the other three here.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008


You lie awake in the middle of the night with a stressed-induced insomnia and you have a good idea. This happens to me frequently. Seconds after the idea creeps into my consciousness sleep overtakes me and the idea slips away. Sometimes I resist, I get up and write down the idea or if it has to do with a photograph I go to my files in the basement and pull the one remembered out of the cabinet. And so it happened tonight. Just in case the idea wasn't that original I looked it up in my blog search engine. Alas! I had written on the subject of yielding flesh here. With insomnia still with me I decided to stick with the idea even if it is a second time around.

Twenty four years later after I called up Joanne Dahl, left, (Why not, after all I am a photographer!) and asked her what was erotic I can still feel the shock of her unexpected answer, "Yielding flesh." Shortly after, I took some photographs of Lalita who would have made Alfred Eisenstaedt make a double take (Eisenstaedt discovered Sophia Loren) and tried to apply Dahl's idea on what was erotic. I came up with this shot and when I told her boss, Tony Ricci that I had photographed Lalita's feet and had taken pictures of her pressing on her arm with her fingers he looked at me in disbelief as if I had been trying to sell him the Brooklyn Bridge cheap.



Twenty four years later the shock of that unexpected answer from Dahl is still with me but much diminished. I don't think about the erotic all that much. Perhaps I don't need to ask. Could it be that I know the answer? Not likely. More likely the question does not have much relevance to my life and death is much more exciting.

For yet another take on yielding flesh read the latter part of this.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Death is a cure for all diseases.
Sir Thomas Browne, 1605-1682




Death has been in my mind in the last couple of weeks. First I read Julian Barnes's
nothing to be frightened of and last night I finished Reginald Hill's A Cure for All Diseases. The previous Hill novel also featuring Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel was called Death Comes for the Fat Man. I have a friend who is rapidly divesting himself of his posessions and wants to be able to die with as little as he came into this world 86 years ago - nothing.

I was shocked then to open my Vancouver Sun this morning and see Paul St. Pierre's essay A Voice from the Grave's Edge. It is a rant but I considered a few things before I would dismiss it. And of course I didn't dismiss it. I had met Paul St. Pierre in November 1993 when I photographed him for an article in the Globe & Mail. St. Pierre had come to my house for his portrait session. We talked about our fondness for Mexico and our admiration for the Mexican concept of death - they live with death and don't avoid it. So I photographed St. Pierre (above, left) with a Mexican pottery version of the Last Supper.

Paul St. Pierre is 86-years old and obviously somebody in the Vancouver Sun wrote the headline for his piece for some reason. I sent an email to Malcolm Parry to see if he could confirm one way or another St. Pierre's situation. Mac's answer was typical:

I took him at his word. Mac

I hope the folks at the Vancouver Sun will forgive me for putting here the whole essay. I know that if I link it the link will disappear after a few weeks or months. Here is Paul St. Pierre's essay. If we are not to forget that the man is 86 and that at one time we showed a large measure of respect to those older than we are, you just might understand that there is some good sense under the obvious rant. Bless him.



A voice from the grave's edge

Paul St. Pierre
Special to the Sun

Monday, November 10, 2008

As life's end nears, two unpaid debts remain to trouble me. One is to my mother, who is not here to be paid, and the other is to my native land, which provided me a good life.

This is a payment, at least a token payment, to my country.
Few will read all this and fewer will heed. When Dwight D. Eisenhower left office he warned the Americans about the sinister power of the military-industrial complex. Had he been heeded, millions of lives would have been saved or made better, but nobody paid much attention. He was just an old president pegging out. Why listen?
So why should you listen to an old man on the way out, who can only claim to have been a fair newspaperman, a so-so politician, a Western-only novelist and a man no better than average as a wing shot? That's all right. This is not written for a lot of people but for those who are, at this moment, few. If this message reaches only one in 10,000 readers it was worth it.

Listen, I speak to you in the head, peoples.
Our Canada is now very close to a condition in which everything that is not compulsory is forbidden. We have become prisoners of the state. Like modern jail prisoners, all our needs for balanced diet, climate-controlled shelter, approved and tested medication, mental health counselling, higher education, suitable entertainment, grief counselling and consensual safe sex are available free. The inmate lacks only freedom itself.
When I was young, Canadians were born almost free; now we are born in manacles of silk and gold.

To the recent generations, this is hyperbole. I understand that. I also understand that young people cannot be expected to miss freedom. How can you miss what you never had? But a few of the old may remember and a few of the young might feel the tug of curiosity. I hope so.
Scarcely a day passes when our rulers do not devise some new law or regulation having the force of law, complete with fines and prison penalties. No one knows how many there are. Even the rulers couldn't find the number when they tried a few years ago. Suffice to say there are enough that everyone is a criminal now.
Here and there a free voice rings out. The Law Reform Commission of Canada quoted, in its first report, the old Roman senator, Cato: "The more the laws, the more the criminals." Even half a century ago, the commission recognized that there were already so many laws that nobody could know more than a few of them and that whether or not you are hauled into court to answer for a crime is not so much a matter of justice but a bureaucratic decision as to whether it seems productive to prosecute.
Among recent decisions we have accepted:

1. Our Supreme Court, repeating George Orwell, ruled that although all Canadians are equal before the law, some are more equal than others.

2. Thought Police arrived. They invent the crime which they investigate, invent the trial procedures and invent the penalties. Careers and lives have been ruined. Many more will be. Who now remembers that extraordinary woman, Queen Elizabeth I, who said it was not the business of the state to "pry into men's souls."

3. In the past 20 years we began a changeover from the British system of justice, in which every man is innocent until proven guilty, to the continental European system, often called the Napoleonic Code, in which the state obliges the citizen to prove innocence of anything the state may choose to suspect. A sample: If you have $10,001 in your pocket our rulers may simply take it and you will never get it back unless and until you prove you obtained it in a way the rulers consider suitable. In 2001 we got a gun control law under which citizens can be obliged to give evidence not only against their own family but also against themselves. Nobody seemed to much care. In Britain an ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) may commit some pranksome juvenile to prison, even though old British Common Law could not. In the United States you can be put in a cage for five or six years and never allowed to see a lawyer or learn what the charge against you is.

4. By the beginning of this millennium the shape of things to come was clear for those many Canadians, almost all of us, indeed, whose ancestors fled the Old World seeking freedom. Arbitrary rule, Star Chamber courts, class distinction, the creation of a courtier class who have almost exclusive access to the ears of the rulers, and finally the deadly dreary cult of political correctness.

5. Already ordinary people have learned to watch their tongues. This piece would be far more open and more honest were it not for the fear that some Oldspeak or Badthink would prevent it ever being printed. We are all individuals but because of our very individualism, we have permitted tyranny. Individualism does not nourish quick or concerted actions. We individuals drifted lazily into tyranny, accepting the view that the common people can never behave decently unless controlled by carrots and whips. James Madison, a framer of the U.S. Constitution, foresaw it. Americans, he said, could be depended upon to reject a tyrant who came against them bloody sword in hand, but they might surrender freedoms, one by one, to people who assured them it was for their own good. That is exactly what happened, in the United States as in Canada. The Americans try to disguise their wretched state of submission to the rulers by hooting and shrieking the word freedom, tossing firecrackers around and, most recently -- the supreme irony -- calling unconstitutional and oppressive legislation The Patriot Act. An American must bullshit. His health demands it. If he cannot bullshit a foreigner he will bullshit himself, but he has to do it.

6. There is worse. Americans now have revived practices of the Spanish Inquisition and permit their police to torture suspects to obtain appropriate "confessions." Where Americans lead, Canadians usually follow. Statism and totalitarianism, which we spent so much blood and money to fight in the Second World War and the Cold War, rise everywhere. They will keep rising until the private, secret impulse to freedom among individual men and women becomes a working majority. It will. First this majority will be silent and almost invisible. Then, overnight it will seem, it will emerge as a tempest which will sweep most of what we know today into history's garbage can, both the good and the bad. Blood will run.

Is there nothing we can do?
Of course there is, otherwise why waste this space?

1. Put no faith in any major political party. The allegedly profound philosophic differences among big parties are either trivial or imaginary. By their very nature big parties, like big newspapers, cannot lead, they can only follow what they judge to be public taste.

2. Act within small groups. You may be effective as a member of your local school board or Gladiola Society. You are unlikely to have an even detectable impact on a big political party as a voter or on a big company as an employee.

3. Soon we shall be permitted to walk around in our Canada only by carrying internal passports, a more elaborate document than the driver's licence which at present serves for control of the proletariat. What can one do? There is an answer. When internal passports become law, do as terrorists and gangsters do -- obtain more than one workable identity.

4. Try to increase the readership of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four and Animal Farm, and J.B. Priestley's Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited. If it did not violate a basic principle, I would urge these books be compulsory reading in our schools. Those were the most prescient writers of the 20th century.

5. Never forget this: Any government may lie, cheat, murder and steal, for "the public good."

6. Remember Canada is small and remember also that a big world power can never be a true friend of a small power. Read Tito.

7. Although family is a diminishing force and may continue to fade, it remains the best social organism ever known to mankind. Sacrifice for it.

8. Without losing too much sleep, join the underground economy.

9. Fight for the Internet. It may be our last, best hope. Oppose, evade or sabotage every state attempt to control it, yes, even at the cost of permitting such obvious social evils as racial bigotry or child pornography. It is the common man's strongest available instrument and will be the target of sophisticated attacks by all rulers.

10. Support the Canadian Civil Liberties Union. Future generations will see it as a lonely champion of liberty during long, dark years. When it supports a cause that you find obnoxious, trivial or dangerous, increase your donation.

11. Above all, beware of priests, particularly those persuasive ones in the evangelist movement who claim they are not priests. And if you think allegiance to one true God will solve everything, look at Northern Ireland and the Middle East and think again. Seek a world in which religion, like sex, is completely free but practised only in private. You may find it necessary to speak with the many but you can think with the few.

12. Never despair. Keep the faith. Despite Big Brother's awesome and growing power, in the still, dark and secret places of the soul, ordinary men and women retain hopes, dreams and high ethics. Out of that fathomless, still pool of the soul, freedom will emerge again, some day.
Paul St. Pierre is a former Vancouver Sun columnist and member of Parliament who lives in Fort Langley and Mexico.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008


death

more death

even more death

and even more death

I didn't think it was my prerogative to point out that Brave New World was not written by J.B. Priestly. In letters to the editor, the next day in the Vancouver Sun, this was pointed out by a reader.

Sunday, November 09, 2008



Name: Sarina de Lange

Comments: Alex, I visited the library today and came across a photograph from your 1990 'Women in Tubs' show in Vancouver. Twenty years ago, I was one of the 'women'. I strongly regret that I missed the gallery opening of 'Women in Tubs' and having never seen the image you presented of me to Vancouver. Now, many years and three children later, I am curious to see myself from the vantage point of the viewer over my tub. If you have the stills or copies of your work from this period, is there any way I may see the image you chose of me?

Anticipating your response,
I thank you for your time,
Sarina.





Dear Sarina Catharine,

I have good news for you. Not only do I have the picture that originally appeared in the show but a copy (16x20) which was to be yours and can still be yours if we manage to find a way of getting it to you.

Twenty years ago I was afraid to show outright nudity so I was careful not to show any breasts in any of my pictures. There are some lovely ones of you which I never used. I used the same reasoning for all the rest of my subjects and I remember hearing someone at the show complain that I had not pulled back my camera enough to show "anything".

For some unknown reason I picked a picture of you (left) that shows you at your most whimsical and with your lovely smile. Perhaps I chose right even though I find the laughing one funny and in the second one your hand is more graceful. Photographers go through periods that are dark and then light. Periods when we print with high contrast and periods when we choose to use softer contrast. At the time I printed all the tub shots really dark. Yours was dark, too.

The paper I used was a terrible (hard to use) Kodak fiber based paper that I processed archivally. This means that your copy will be inherited by your grandchildren if you frame it properly.

I also remember at the time the paradox (since they were pictures taken in the water) that all my negatives had water stains that would not disappear with repeated washings. In the end I found out that the wetting agent (Edwal LFN) that I had used had gone through a chemical change and the very problem a wetting agent was supposed to remove, this particular one was adding to it. And your negative was one of the worst. I remember washing it and washing it!

I associate you with Chandler who worked with you at that excellent E-6 (Ektachrome) lab called Quad. I have not seen Chandler nor have I heard about him in a very long time. He used to appear at some of my shows. I always admired his sensitivity to art and his good taste.

From your phone I guess you live somewhere in Alberta. One of the tub women lives there and she is the one that perhaps you saw in the library in the back cover of the Reader's Digest. It would have been a picture of her with her baby son.

Tell me what would be the best way of getting the picture to you. Perhaps you have friends who are coming to Vancouver. I would reluctantly roll it into a tube.

Sincerely yours,

Alex