Rosa 'Louise Odier' & Hosta 'Whirlwind' 20 July 2024

 

It seems that since I cannot lay to rest my memories of Rosemary that I am then compelled to write about them.

I believe that one of the reasons our marriage went well had all to do with Rosemary’s concept that husband and wife had to have a common interest that went beyond jobs and children. In 1986 I was informed that we were going to buy a large house in a corner garden in Kerrisdale. She said she wanted a house with a garden. My interest in gardening was negligible.

When we moved, we were faced with a shady garden that had many trees. I did some research and I kept reading about hostas.

Houses were being torn down in our neighbourhood to make way for big houses with four-car garages. Rosemary was keen in salvaging(she liked to use the word liberate) plants from the gardens when the houses were going to be torn down. One day we went to a nearby house with our wheelbarrow and spades. She pointed at a large dark green plant and said, “Alex, that’s a hosta”.

She knew that in those years hostas were entry level for male engineers and doctors. Perhaps she thought for male photographers? She was right. She turned me into an avid gardener and years later I even had a monthly garden column for Western Living.

It was our garden that gave us that extra interest in life. Around 1991 she told me that we were going to a meeting of the Vancouver Rose Society. Until the day she died while she understood my liking of hostas and tolerated them, she became happy when I, too went crazy over roses.

Today, Saturday,  July 20 I keep thinking of two words as I drive around Vancouver (today I had ice-cream and lunch with Hilary, my youngest daughter in a place I frequented with Rosemary when we went to buy plants at a nursery called Mandeville). Those words are with/without. I think I did this with Rosemary. I am now doing this with Hilary but without Rosemary.

I wanted to somehow, in one scan, to bring the idea of our love for roses (and her tolerance for my hostas). I found this photograph in my files, a self-portrait of us in Arboledas, Mexico taken around 1973. I must note that Rosemary seems to have some severely plucked eyebrows and I have long hair.

When I took that photograph I had no idea of thinking ahead (who does?) that someday I would be writing this without Rosemary.

Una Historia de Amor

Cuando llevé a mi Rosemary a Veracruz para la navidad de1967para que conociera a mi mamá, hacía un calor típico húmedo tipico del puert. Rosemary no estaba acostumbrada y se tomabaa varios baños de regadera al día.

Porque aún no estábamos casados, mi mamá nos puso en cuartos separados. Pero eso no impidió nuestras aventuras nocturnas. Fue entonces cuando comenzamos una tradición que disfrutamos hasta el último verano del 2020.

Consistía en dormir sobre las sábanas sin ropa. Cualquiera que llegue hasta aquí se imaginará que dormíamos poco.

Hoy cuando apagué las luces, en las sábana sin cobija, con mis gatos a un lado, y yo sin ropa, me volví triste. Pensé en esos calores húmedos de Veracruz donde seguramente engendramos a nuestra primera hija Alejandra Isabel.

Tengo un amigo que cuando le digo en invierno, o en cualquiera otra estación del año, que no quiero hacer nada me explica que la razón es esa estación del año.

Ahora hago poco. Pero sé, que con mi Rosemary conmigo, haría mucho y especialmente en estas pocas noches calurosas de Vancouver.

Mocambo,Veracruz  - 23 de diciembre, 1967

Una Historia de Amor

El 15 de diciembre de 1967 vi a una mujer en CDMX salir de la escuela en donde yo enseñaba inglés a ejecutivos de compañías estadounidenses. La vi de espaldas. Tenía pelo lacio, largo y rubio. Lucía una minifalda y tenía unas piernas de locura. A casi fines de diciembre la llevé a que conociera a mi mamá en Veracruz. En Mocambo nos tomamos un autorretrato.

El 8 de febrero del 68 nos casó un juez en una oficina en el zócalo de Coyoacán. Rosemary tenía 23 años y yo 25. Ella había nacido en New Dublin, Ontario.

Estuvimos casados 52 años. Rosemary falleció el 9 de diciembre del 2020.

Por más que yo creía que la conocía a fondo, fueron muchos años después, que vi su nombre en unos de sus libros. Pagó 150 pesos por México: Pintura de Hoy –Luís Cardoza y Aragón – Fondo de Cultura Económica -1964. Lo había comprado antes que nos conociéramos. ¿Cómo iba yo a saber de su interés en el arte, y en especial, el de México?  Un año antes que muriese, fuimos a Nueva York. Entramos al Museo Metropolitan a las 10 de la mañana y salimos a las 5:30.

Para esas alturas creo que la conocía bastante bien.

Alexandra Elizabeth - Circa 1979

 

Hilary Anne - Circa 1979

I gave a successful PowerPoint presentation tonight at the Vancouver Rose Society monthly meeting. The subject was about scanning and taking photographs of roses. When I finished one of the members came up to me and said, “You really miss your wife.” That began my melancholy as I drove home.

When I got home, considering by over-a-week of preparation, I felt a sad.

I fed Niño and Niña and got into bed. Suddenly I felt melancholic, isolated and depressed. I looked around the room. I realized what was happening.

My bedroom has family portraits. All are unsmiling, staring-at-the-camera. I got up and went down the stairs. On the stairways, except for a couple, all the photographs are family portraits, all unsmiling and staring at the camera.

My realization is that only portrait photographers with a family might suffer from what hit me tonight.

As soon as photography was invented, by the end of the 1820s, photographers made the attempt of taking pictures of people (mostly children) when they were about to die. They thought they might get an image of the soul leaving the body. They, of course, failed.

In the bulk of my portraits, both my commercial and my family ones, I always place my camera at my subject’s eye level. Much has been said how taking photographs of a person, close in proximity to the camera and photographer, gives you a glimpse into a person’s soul or whatever makes that person be that person and not you.

That is further increased in intensity if your subject is a daughter, granddaughter or a wife (my case). You love them.

Looking at those portraits tonight made me think that I had looked into Alexandra and Hilary’s innermost being with my camera. There is a sadness in their non-smile and a sadness is added for me when I realize that I captured a moment in time that will not return.

I wonder if anybody else thinks about this as I did tonight.

Stephen Drake - 11 July 2024

Because of family obligations and a busy schedule preparing my PowerPoint presentation for tonight’s Vancouver Rose Society meeting at Van Dusen’s Floral Hall I have had time to digest the concert I attended this past Thursday at the Lido on East Broadway.

Since The Evens (a trio with the original founder of The Odds, Stephen Drake) were not going to be on until later in the evening I wanted to avoid the backup band. I arrived at 9:30, and to my delight, the backup band was The Furniture and the trio was a fast and furious punk band. Appropriately the drummer Johnny Wildkat was wearing a Ramones T-shirt.

When guitarist Stephen Drake stepped up with his trio, Bradley Ferguson on bass, and Ian Browne on drums, I was suddenly hit by the fact that I had first photographed Drake in 1978 when he was in the band Gary Cramer and the Works with his drummer brother Adam.

I know the story that before the Drakes and parents came to Vancouver in the mid-70s they had lived in Los Angeles and they visited a friend on a farm who happened to be Neil Young. It might have been then that Stephen decided he wanted to be guitarist.

I am no music critic but I can state that Gary Cramer and the Works was a folk/rock band during the very live punk scene in Vancouver. Is a good guitarist able to play fast and furious and at the same time play with incredible skill? Yes if it Stephen Drake. On the 26^th of this month at the Rickshaw both drakes will be playing with Art Bergmann. That confirms my suspicion that Stephen Drake can do anything he wants to.

Adam & Stephen Drake 11 July 2024

When I saw the song list (I squirrelled it away after the concert) I knew two astounding facts that few in the audience might have known. The tune Eat My Brain was originally a Gary Cramer and the Works tune. The lyrics were written by the now Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Bowering.

George Bowering

The second song of note was listed as Wendy Under the Stars. The original title could not get radio play when The Odds came out with it. Why? The original title (and in the lyrics on Thursday night) was I was Fucking Wendy Under the Stars the Night Elvis Presley Died.

I left the concert not reeking of tobacco and since I had nothing to drink I was cold sober. As I drove home I came to understand that this 81-year-old man has been blessed in knowing Adam and Stephen Drake.

A couple of years ago Stephen came to my house with a surprise. He brought me a CD he recorded in Gary Cramer’s living room on Galiano before Cramer died. It is a lovely CD (Stephen is an exceptional sound engineer) that has Neil Young moments.

I know why.

The Furniture

 The Evens