Navigation - Origin Unknown
Sunday, September 07, 2014
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| Lauren Stewart in front of Robert Studer's sculpture, September 3, 2014 |
Last Wednesday I was told
to take care of my younger granddaughter Lauren, 12, for the afternoon.
I remember as a boy
being taken by train to the cavernous Retiro train station with my father and
hopping on a subte (the Buenos Aires
underground) to take us to Plaza Lavalle where all the movie theatres were.
There was something special in traveling with my father (who as a journalist
for the Buenos Aires Herald was hip on our city’s activities and machinations)
to the downtown core. These trips laced
with the smell of my father’s jacket of tobacco and Old Smuggler Whiskey and the
smell of rusted brake linings and urine in the underground have left an
indelible wave of nostalgia in a corner of my soul.
In a way I attempted
to do something like that with my Lauren.
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| Robert Studer & Page 1993 |
We drove to town and
because of my municipal license plate I parked in back alley between what used
to be the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library and Duthie’s main store.
This back alley is between Burrard and Hornby (I often confuse this street with
the other Hs, Homer and Howe). From that back alley if you look up you can see
the Hotel Vancouver with architect Henry Hawthorne’s swimming pool addition. In
the opposite direction, years ago, there was a Murchie’s where I would begin to
read my Duthie Books purchases.
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With so much of that downtown core that was important to me I knew that I could find relevant stuff to show Lauren. We walked past the hotel and crossed West Georgia to where The Georgia Medical Dental Building used to be. We entered the building’s lobby and I plunked Lauren facing the wall. She immediately told me, “That looks very much like the sculpture you have in the dining room.” She was right and I told her a bit about Robert Studer and how he had this marvelous project of inventing and building sculptures with glass and found metal. He made what looked like long lost apparatus of a long lost civilization. The sculpture (which interacts with bystanders) is called Navigation - Origin Unknown.
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| Lauren & Alan Storey's pendulum |
We crossed Hornby and
entered the Hong Kong Bank. I showed her the pendulum which somehow she had
never seen. I asked her, “Do I have a pendulum in my house?” She answered,
“There is a pendulum in your mantle clock in the den.”
We talked to the
security guard who told us that the pendulum was powered by an electric motor
and that in quiet moments of the day one might hear a whoosh as the pendulum
swings.
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| Alan Storey |
We talked about the fountain across the street in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. I informed the guard and Lauren that in mentioning this fountain to architect Arthur Erickson he would invariably lose his cool and say, “Fu..” Lauren agreed that the fountain was uncommonly ugly.
We then took a picture
by Douglas Coupland’s chewing gum head. Some day when Lauren is older I will
tell her how Coupland once assisted me in a photo shoot as a stylist.
We entered the gallery
and Lauren told me that she had been in the Gallery Café only once before. I
mentioned that her sister Rebecca used to love going to it as, “They have
better music here than at Starbucks.” As they were playing the inevitable
Vivaldi Lauren said, “Rebecca is right you would never hear violins at
Starbucks.”
After our cinnamon
buns we walked down Robson. Lauren remembered that my studio had been on the second
floor of the Farmer’s Building (now gone) on the corner of Granville and
Robson.
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| Arthur Erickson at 1983 opening of Vancouver Art Gallery |
I had lied to Lauren
(who had believed me) that we were going to Jap-A-Dog to eat a hot dog with sea
weed. We both hate them. As we walked past Lauren indicated that we had walked
past. It was then that I told her that the Vancouver Public Library was our
real destination. Lauren loves that library as much as I do.
In something that is
beginning to worry me Lauren only picked movie DVDs and no books. I am going to
have to find some way of breaking this habit.
We left the library
and at the door I asked the Russian security man (we have talked often) if Roy was well.
Roy was a scruffy old man (he looked old 25 or
more years ago when I first met him at the Railway Club). Roy was an obsessively avid reader of
esoteric books. We often exchanged our book picks from across the table. In
later years (the last 7 or so) he was a regular patron of one of the tables in
front of the Blenz inside the atrium of the Vancouver Public Library. He would
have a pile of books and a copy of the Globe & Mail. I would ask him what
he was reading and we had longish chats. I introduced him to both my
granddaughters. At a later stage Roy
began to look like a homeless man. The last time I talked to him four months
ago he told me he had survived a cancer scare and he was doing well.
Roy was a scruffy old man (he looked old 25 or
more years ago when I first met him at the Railway Club). Roy was an obsessively avid reader of
esoteric books. We often exchanged our book picks from across the table. In
later years (the last 7 or so) he was a regular patron of one of the tables in
front of the Blenz inside the atrium of the Vancouver Public Library. He would
have a pile of books and a copy of the Globe & Mail. I would ask him what
he was reading and we had longish chats. I introduced him to both my
granddaughters. At a later stage Roy
began to look like a homeless man. The last time I talked to him four months
ago he told me he had survived a cancer scare and he was doing well.
The Russian told me
that Roy had
passed away a month ago. He was only 65.
Perhaps some day Lauren will feel an indelible wave of nostalgia in a corner of her soul when she passes by these places in the city where she was born..
Perhaps some day Lauren will feel an indelible wave of nostalgia in a corner of her soul when she passes by these places in the city where she was born..
