My Concours Rant
Saturday, September 06, 2014
Because I am a product
of another century I like to read bound books, newspapers made of it, listen to
music from a good sound system in my living room and watch DVD movies on a Sony
Trinitron that has yet to give up the ghost.
With my wife I read in
bed every morning the Vancouver
Sun and the NY Times. I don’t wear white gloves but I do indulge in breakfast.
My Rosemary and I alternate on who prepares it.
I read the Vancouver Sun because it
is the best city newspaper we have. Nobody would contest this. Vaughn Palmer
has helped me to figure out the teachers’ strike.
I read the NY Times
because I like the writing, I like its weekly book review magazine and the
NY Times Magazine is one of the best magazines anywhere.
In my forays into
social media I note that many link to articles in the NY Times. They must also
know something about quality.
In today’s (I am writing
this Friday night, September 5, 2014), I noted the full-page photograph on the
cover of the Driving Section. It announces a luxury supercar weekend. The
article is by one of the best free-lancers around. He is Alyn Edwards. In a
distant past I worked with him via instructions by our Vancouver Magazine
editor, Malcolm (then called Mac) Parry. Edwards who loves cars at the time had
a peculiar obsession in restoring and collecting Meteors, Thunderbirds and convertible
hard-top Fords of the mid to late 50s. I remember that Edwards, who lived in
Belcarra, had rented as many nearby garages as he could to manage
his collection.
With all the good
things to be written here (up there) I can now (down there) rant. I almost
never rant but this time I simply could not resist the temptation.
What led to this was
seeing a photograph of a well know Young Canadian singer/songwriter
photographed for an article about him in an advance on line version of
Saturday’s Vancouver
Sun. One of the most photogenic faces in Canada is rendered blah by a very
good photographer who must have been going through digital moments of
distraction. Had I been the photo editor (I was once) I would have sent him back.
The cover of Driving
featured the Concours chairman Nigel Matthews (so named) holding on to a lovely
model (not named). Behind them there are five beautiful and exotic cars. I was unable (and I am pretty good at this) to find the photograph on the digital Vancouver Sun. What you see here is a partial scan.
Some 15 years ago I
got into long arguments with my Argentine nephews and cousins in Buenos Aires. I had
pointed out to them that as a Canadian (I am a Canadian citizen) I was shocked
to see that in Argentina
they still advertized toothpaste by bikini clad babes. I asked them, “What to
these women have to do with dental hygiene?” My nephews and cousins snickered and then challenged
my manhood and told me, “You must be a puto.”
In this 21st
century we no longer (there are some stragglers here and there) see photographs
of buxom women leaning on Harleys or Corvettes. Many feminists would call that
exploitation. So would I.
I post plenty of women
not wearing much in my blogs. But I think I do it with respect and I try to
enhance a universal idea about the beauty of the human body. Since I am not a
puto (but I am most liberal about gay rights) I do not post lovely pictures of
men with little on. I am understandably not interested.
So I would like to
know how the Vancouver Sun can justify to publish a well taken, colourful,
sharp and nicely composed photograph of a man holding on to an unnamed woman?
