I had one additional parent in my youth. This was my Spanish
grandmother Lolita whom I called Abue.
She was the kind of grandmother that inspired me to attempt to
be the best grandfather I can be. I have prided myself in taking my older
granddaughter (when she was younger) to see the Justin Bieber documentary.
But
I know that I can never match the fact that in 1950 when I was 8 she took me to
downtown Buenos Aires to see all of the 15-part b+w Columbia serial Superman directed by Thomas Carr with
Kirk Alyn as Superman and Noel Neill as Lois Lane. All I can remember of this marathon is that
when we boarded the train in Retiro to go to my home in Coghlan I had a terrible
stomach ache.
My grandmother never ever told me “Don’t do this or don’t
do that.” If I happened to be playing with matches she would have told me, “Los niños
que juegan con fuego se mean en la
cama.” Which translates to “Boys who
play with fire piss in their beds.” My favourite when my friends and I
would be making too much noise was, “Los
niños hablan cuando las gallinas
mean. Pero como las gallinas no mean los niños…” Or
children talk when chickens piss. But since chickens don’t piss, children don’t
…”
She was forgiving in her Roman Catholic way. Of people
who made mistakes, said the wrong thing or mess up her dictum was, “La ignorancia es atrevida.” That is “Ignorance is daring.”
La ignorancia es atrevida is my only excuse for the
photograph here. I took it around 1977 and my experience with shooting nudes
was none at all. And yet I must point out that it is startling in its accidental
originality.