I Believe

I believe in snow
I believe in birth
And that
If I just let go
I would hit the earth

***

Natural Beauty

Edge-on spiral galaxy.


Tulip tree, Vancouver.


Voyager 1 (false colour) image of Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

Pamela The Gardener

If you're smart, you're smart, regardless of any formal education.

***

She had the most beautiful garden in the neighbourhood, easily besting the ghetto of Chinese yards choked by the weed-like tendrils of squash and melon. The little plot of her rental home often drew admirers and visitors in better days, but this became especially pronounced during the week before it all came to an end. A steady stream of fellow gardeners came by that final week with shovels and containers to take away whatever was proffered that caught their fancy.
She and her husband were in their sixties. I had no idea what they did for a living or if they were retired. Her husband did mention to me late one night in slightly accented English (we were looking at a star cluster through my telescope) that he had once studied navigational astronomy back in Israel. She spoke with a British lilt, wore glasses, and donned a bonnet whenever it was sunny. She looked, sounded, and acted like somebody with a formal education.

On the day before the bulldozer was scheduled to arrive, I lamented to her about the loss of her garden and her predicament—and for the first time asked what her name was. It was Pamela. Pamela, lover of flowers and trees, neighbour of ten years.

The new neighbour's yard is barren, home to neither leaf nor bee.

***

I took November 7th off to take my mother-in-law to Mount Saint Joseph Hospital to get her cataract removed. In the waiting room was a thin caucasian woman, probably in her late sixties, a splitting image of Pamela. Aha!, I thought to myself, a formally educated woman, no doubt a biology major. Fortuitously, I was able to confirm my hunch, for she effectively recounted her whole life story to the person sitting beside her. She and her husband live on Cortes Island. Her husband was the one in for a procedure. He was once a tenured professor and was called to the bar. She attended the University of Toronto and took some biochemistry. I raptly listened to her tale about her undergrad calculus course taught by Lister Sinclair. He was apparently a strange bird for whom the teaching post was merely a stepping stone to the CBC. For his lectures, he would scribble equations on the blackboard, without explanation, and then leave the classroom. But if somebody were to ask him about yesterday's concert, he would stop in his tracks, put down the chalk, and spend the rest of the hour talking about the arts. The class was so freaked out that nobody showed up to write the first term final exam. Sinclair made no mention of this absenteeism at the beginning of the second term.

***

I went by myself to Quiznos last week to take advantage of the about-to-expire "buy one get one free" sandwich deal. Behind me in the lineup were two guys in their late twenties, sharing the same coupon. This particular Quiznos caters to a mixed clientele—there were people in construction cheek by jowl with high-tech office workers—but for some reason, these two stood out in the crowd. I made a mental note that these guys looked well-read, educated, and had they had the chance, probably would've gone to the Deep South to protest segregation. On my way out, I caught a glimpse of them at their table. On it lay a copy of Scientific American, Richard Ford's The Sportswriter, and John Grisham's The Broker (two out of three ain't bad).

You know what? I'm getting pretty darn good at reading people solely based on dress and looks.

Good Morning Panwalla

Betty's been obsessed with mastering Kuku Paka, an Ismaili chicken curry dish. Ismaili cooking incorporates the flavours of Arabia with its northern Indian origins.

The definitive English-language Ismaili cookbook appears to be Volumes I and II of Noorbanu Nimji's A Spicy Touch. Betty recalls seeing both volumes many years ago at a discount book bin but picked up only the first volume. So the hunt was on for volume II to complete the set. Sadly, volume II is no longer available at Amazon. Zilcho at Chapters. And even AbeBooks and Alibris came up empty. Fortunately, Betty was told by a co-worker that a store by the rather amusing name of Good Morning Panwalla on Main Street carried the titles.

We got there first thing last Saturday morning, too early, it turns out. While waiting for the store to open, I snapped the shot of the blue-eyed redhead you see here. In the end, the store didn't have the book in stock. The owner said to come back next Saturday.

***

On the subject of India, I had lunch with the contemporary Bengaluru philosopher S. Sathyaprakash. The proper life, he posited, adheres to

Simple living and high thinking.

I've been thinking exactly along these lines for the past while. A spartan, uncluttered life leaves a small environmental footprint, and more importantly, affords (at least in theory) the time to enjoy and contemplate what we do have. In one sense, a quiet, modest, contemplative existence versus a loud, vain, exploitative one. To be or to have. To sweep or to vacuum.

Ironically, the few individuals I know who seem to live by these precepts I can only describe as Zen masters in distress.

***

BTW, here's a shot of Kuku Paka as served at the Samosa Garden restaurant.

Something To Brighten Up The Wet Weekend

We've been breaking daily rainfall records here in southwestern British Columbia, which pretty much spelled the end of the fall foliage photo-ops season. Here are two shots taken on the afternoon of October 22, 2006, before the rains, of a maple across the street from where I live. Had I an ultrawide angle lens, the first picture below would've been a spectacular fan of yellow and blue.



What would nature be without decay? Here are some rotting leaves lying on the street against the curb. An occupant of a nearby house said hello and asked if I was checking out my new camera. He was leaving for a fishing trip.


If one takes the time to dig a little deeper, even the mundane can take on a new life. I spent much of that afternoon collecting leaves. It turns out that there are no fewer than three types of maples lining the street—Sycamore Maples, Norways, and what I take to be Sugar Maples. This would explain the different colours and why certain trees shed their leaves earlier. It's taken me 12 years to realize this, far too long. My profound lack of knowledge about trees [I have to keep reminding myself that they too have DNA] prompted me yesterday to order this wonderful book, The Tree, by Colin Tudge.

Because I've been saving up for a digital SLR—right now it looks like the Pentax K10D—the book buying has calmed down significantly. However, I did drop by an A&B Sound store, a deserted one, I might add, to pick up a Neko Case DVD, and a Madeleine Peyroux CD. This disc, Officium, of ancient choral music (some dating back to before the 12th century), accompanied by a saxophone, has been spending some time in my CD players lately.

Halloween

Dramatis Personae 2006
Shaula, age 10, as Geisha Girl
Matthew, age 4, as The Pumpkin
Gavin & Betty as The Semi-Bored Parents

The kids' trick-or-treating began at my parents-in-law's house and soon fanned out to their immediate neighbours, followed by a short drive to Shaula's friend's (Courtney) place. After a half-dozen more homes, Matthew got into the groove of things and became pretty cocky, running and forging ahead of us to knock on the doors, tripping twice in the process. This is a far cry from his anaemic 'fraidy cat showing last year. A few more houses and it was off to Rosemary's, an ex-co-worker of Betty's. Then it was homeward bound.

Unlike the previous ten years—Hey, Winnie, quick, turn out the lamp, here come the kids!—our block was ablaze with porch lights. Maybe the forecast of good weather brought out the extra goodwill. Betty took the kids up and down both sides of the maple-strewn street to the sights and sounds of fireworks going off in the nearby park. Below is a picture of Shaula's final booty, before parental sifting. Matthew ended up with pretty much the same loot.

***

As for me, I never once went out trick-or-treating. Or had friends over for my birthday. Or had many friends for that matter. Since we're on the topic of a deprived childhood, allow me to tell you something about my Christmases. Aside from the traditional Chinese red envelopes stuffed with money (and evidently, very little thought), the crowning childhood memory of my Christmas presents is when I received a restaurant-style napkin dispenser and a package of Chinese sausages from my aunt Florence—but even that was short-lived: the items were mine in name only. The dispenser and preserved meat were actually intended for my mother, so even these were taken away.

As I got older, I spent Halloween night at the local McDonalds parking lot trying to blend in with the egg throwers and petty mischief-makers. Times altogether unfulfilling and filled with angst.

***

My workplace treated everybody to some Halloween goodies this afternoon. Incongruously, all they served were Chinese egg roll biscuits in no fewer than three flavours, and hundreds of bubble tea drinks in various flavours. I'm still trying to figure this one out...

End Of The Day Ramblings

Let me enumerate some of the going-ons at work today.

Dissed by somebody: 1
Compliments received: 3
Compliments paid: 0
People whose feelings I hurt: 1

All in all, a better than average day, but somewhat marred by the workload—as of this Tuesday I'm officially one of three developers working on a custom software project. I'm to spend 50% of my time on this and the other 50% on getting our core product out the door in a stable form. Unfortunately, I'm doing neither, mired as I am in service issues, documentation reviews, and high priority patches.

I'll have to pay some compliments tomorrow. Karma, you know.

***

Shaula recently passed both her swimming and skating classes. She's at level 8/10 and 6/8, respectively. Little Matthew was and still is in preschool skating level 3. Oh well, he won't be the youngest in his class this time round.

***

Here is an "unposed*" existing-light picture of some [Sugar Maple?] leaves at the local park. It's actually very difficult to make such a shot with an SLR without also capturing one's feet or tripod legs in the frame.



One solution is to use a tripod with a reversible centre column or an extension boom, but this requires lengthy setup and tear-down times, and the camera's viewfinder is likely going to end up at an awkward position.

But with my trusty little Canon A80, it was simply a matter of holding the camera out at arm's length and pointing the camera perpendicular to the ground, and then swinging the LCD panel out and then rotating it 90° to face me. The extended LCD panel also afforded very steady hands. I italicized perpendicular above to emphasize the shallow depth of field resulting from the low light level and necessarily wide open lens. The leaves had to be square-on to the camera sensor for everything to be in focus.

*I still feel guilty about my previous completely artificial—each leaf was placed by hand—photo, surely an affront to Nature. I have redeemed myself.

VanDusen Botanical Garden

As promised, here are the VanDusen Garden shots that pass my muster. Enjoy!

[Click on each image for a blowup.]

The obligatory flower shot. Handheld, autoflash. Unknown species.


Indian Bean Tree (Catalpa bignonioides) in front of a Red Maple.


Leaves of the Red Maple, Indian Bean, and (rimming the bottom) the Southern Magnolia, trees.


Giant Rhubarb, with Japanese Maples in the background.


Limb of a Goldenrain Tree.

VanDusen Botanical Garden: Outtakes

Here are some VanDusen Garden photos from last Saturday. While the family was at the mall, I spent the glorious afternoon wandering the Garden, map in hand, camera by my side. The gent at the entrance had marked on the map the areas displaying fall colours. So it was off to the gingkos and maples and the Autumn Colour Arboretum in the northern and eastern reaches.

These are outtakes, meaning that compositionally, they leave something to be desired. My hope is that despite their shortcomings, these pictures are yet able to convey the thrill I get each fall—at least when the sun's out.

Click on each image for a larger version.

Unknown plant with Red Maple in the background.


Indian Bean Tree


Unknown tree. It really is time for a DSLR. I'm spending far too much time trying to outsmart my Canon A80. This was taken in manual mode with flash, and, for the first time ever, at ISO 200.


Trunk's eye-view of a Japanese Maple.


More Japanese Maples in various states of undress.


Trillium. There are no spiders this late in the year, so I was fearless ducking under its canopy.


Gingko biloba, food of dinosaurs, yet to shed its leaves.


Upcoming are some fall colour photos I am happy with. Stay tuned...

Wulff-Dieter Heintz Is Dead

Life is good. I do not have MS, AIDS, sit in a wheelchair, or work in retail selling things I don't care about.

It's 7:15AM on a Friday, June 23rd. Betty's on her way to work, Shaula's at my parents waiting to be taken to school, and I've dropped Matthew off at Betty's parents and picked up a parcel containing Sissy Haas's just-released Double Stars For Small Telescopes.

I sit on a green leather couch, a tall latté to my right, the National Post on my lap, and there's good 50s jazz in the air (the music is always good at Starbucks).

I read that the chief economist at National Bank and other banks expect the Canadian dollar to be at par with the greenback by the end of 2007. I become engrossed by an article by embedded journalist Michael Fumento about the "band of brothers" stationed at Camp Corregidor in Iraq.

I also learn of the death of astronomer Wulff-Dieter Heintz from lung cancer, at age 76:

In 1978, Heintz published a book, Double Stars, that became a "standard in the field, covering the subject in its entire length and breadth..."

At 8:15 I drive over to the Burnaby Public Library, Metrotown, and sit on a wooden bench under a tree, facing the main garden. The light of the northerly summer solstice sun gives rise to an abnormally blue sky and casts long shadows on the green lawn. The doors open at 9:00. I spend the next few hours seated by the magazine reading area's thirty-foot tall wall of glass skimming the Vancouver Sun, and some back issues of Hi-Fi News, the whole room suffused with a soft southern light. I open the parcel and have a glance at the Sissy Haas book.

I leave the library with a hardcover copy of Generation Kill, $2 from the library's discard/sale shelf. It's a first hand account from American combatants of the war in Iraq .

Double Stars, and Double Stars; Iraq and Iraq. The connectedness of things, the quality of light, the time of year. All this and more, normally squelched by that horror known as work. One day off and I learn of poor Wulff-Dieter's death, read a first edition, and lunch at an authentic Middle Eastern restaurant. While I might not be in retail, or mix pretzel dough or fix bowling-pin machines for a living, the issue of work as the destroyer of dreams remains.

***

My ideal day of solitude:

Summer Vacation 2006: Wrap Up

At long last, the final installment about our summer vacation.

This is a 180° mosaic of Elephant Rock, to the left, and Seal Rock to the right. They're located between Lincoln City and Florence.


I'm on a jetty within the Oregon Dunes, just south of Florence.


A short clip of our scenic ride aboard the Sand Dunes Frontier bus/buggy. We were repeat customers, having taken the same ride seven years ago. The tour lasted 45 minutes. The driver was very informative—the sands actually originate from an ancient inland sea located in present day Montana, were transported to the ocean as river silt, and are being brought back to land by wave action.

Summer's Gone

Summer's gone come chill October days
We will stroll through russet trees
Through the fallen leaves of oak and sycamore
That carpet earth through harsh December freeze.

- from October To May, by Dave Cousins

The weather here in Vancouver this September and so far for October has been very pleasant—the skies are blue, the nights clear but cool, the days warm, and it's been drier than normal.

Yesterday was no exception. I went out to the local park late in the morning, Monday being Canadian Thanksgiving, about an hour ahead of Betty, Shaula and Matthew. I wanted to take in the sun and to photograph the leaf fall before the Vancouver rains come, and everything gets soggy and turns brown.

For me, the challenge and joy of photography is finding beauty in the commonplace, be it a dilapidated building, a window display, an old door. While the two images below are of intrinsically "beautiful" subjects, foliage, the context in which they were taken borders on the unsightly.

[Click on each image for a larger version.]

The following is a shot of one of two maples at the southeast corner of the park. The roar of traffic on Kingsway is just ten feet away, across a wire fence. On the opposite side of the street is a used-car dealer, a Fountain Tire shop, and a burger joint. A thin, strung out woman in a hooded jacket, hood up, face hidden, walks past me and exits the park. A guy and his girlfriend on the sidewalk are talking to strangers in a car that has just pulled up to the curb. Both women look like the prostitutes who frequent the area.



In hindsight, I'm lucky I didn't get jabbed by a used hypodermic needle while positioning the leaves for the picture below. And boy, do I feel stupid now for letting the kids form a huge pile of leaves to jump on.



If, for a moment I have fooled you into a forest, my job as a photographer is done.

Summer Vacation 2006: Superlatives, Highlights, and Digressions

Okay, this should be the penultimate entry detailing the family trip down to Oregon. Goes to show just how busy I've been.

Here are some superlatives and firsts:
1) The odometer rolled over to 66,666km on I-5, not far from Albany, Oregon.
2) We caught sight of the world's largest wooden building, the Tillamook Air Museum's blimp hangar.
3) We crossed the shortest river in the world, the D River, in Lincoln City.
4) I got a chance to use the car's cruise control feature—neato!—cruising, accelerating, and slowing down at the flick of a stick.
5) We ate at a McDonald's in Kelso, Washington, that offered super-sized kids' meals, the Mega Kid Meal. And people wonder why kids are so big these days...

To the girl who took my order of Chicken McNuggets and then had the gall to get peeved when I went back to the counter to ask for the accompanying dipping sauce: May the highlight of the rough life ahead of you be the night you scored with the backup quarterback, he in a drunken stupor.

6) Some of the restaurants down there include on the meal bill a suggested tip, e.g., 18% Gratuity --- $12.65.

Some highlights:
1) Barnes & Noble, Bellevue. Like Borders, quite a bit better than Canada's Chapters.
2) Borders, downtown Seattle. Excellent selection of CDs. The chain is a strong supporter of Jazz music.
3) The Elliott Bay Book Company. Now here's one independent bookseller with character—rickety wooden floors, brick walls, cedar shelves; and up to the challenge of the big chain stores—lots of quality inventory and book signings galore. I picked up the Taschen art book Men's Adventure Magazines and the E. L. Doctorow novel City Of God pictured below.



I didn't make it to Powell's in Portland. Here's a review of four "quirky" bookstores, including Elliott Bay. BTW, I have been to The Strand in Manhattan, and to the current Shakespeare & Company in Paris, which, to be honest, served only to underscore my ignorance of literature.

From the Too-Much-Information department:
Elliott Bay's rather rustic restrooms are in the basement, adjacent to the Café. At the cleanup stage of a number two, the hinge of the toilet seat I was sitting on failed and I nearly slid off sideways. So gents, you have been forewarned: check the seat first lest it happen to you.

An observation:
A whole different gene pool. Somebody from the studio audience of a Seattle television talk show, years ago, quipped that "Bellevue was as white as snow." I'd have to say that that's still true today. It was comforting to be back home in Vancouver among (and eye-to-eye with) the blacktops.

Oh The Ignominy!

I finally did it. In August I threw out all of my photographic film. I consigned the little canisters of Ilfords, Fujichromes, and yes, even venerable Kodachrome to the kitchen trash can. A high three-digit dollar investment down the tubes.

Part of the reason I gave the rolls the heave-ho was because I basically stopped taking "artistic" pictures from 1993 onward, so about half of the rolls had expiry dates from that period and have been lying fallow in the freezer since. In the interim, I've been cranking out the odd family portrait and special occasion shot using colour print film in Betty's point-and-shoot, and most recently, using my 4 megapixel Canon.

In this age of CCDs, cheap memory and printers, I really saw no point in exposing and developing possibly spoiled and colour-shifted film and then having to pay for the prints or slides. I even tried to give some of it away, but to no avail.

Adieu, little green and yellow boxes. The shutter has closed one last time. You will never again see the light of day, in my camera or anybody else's. I've captured your downfall in the above digital shot. Oh, the shame.

***

Note: Betty and I celebrated our anniversary last Saturday. I had a New York strip loin, and she a filet mignon. We married in 1993.

***

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

-Kodachrome by Paul Simon

***

The nature of conversation is that it's shapeless. If we knew exactly what was going to be said, we would be bored and wouldn't have the conversation.

-Paul Simon

The Green Hornet

I made it out to The Chan Centre two Fridays ago to catch the Vancouver Chamber Choir's season opener, Baroquefest, a celebration of the music of Handel and Bach. This time I sat in the orchestra section to check out the acoustics [good, as it turned out]. The audience reminded me of my astronomy club, that is to say, consisting predominantly of old folk. I was a relatively young buck.

I am a novice when it comes to the classics. I'm making up for lost time by putting out feelers—listening to XM Pops, XM Classics and Vox!, and attending live performances—to see what strikes my fancy. Since I've always been partial to Bach and Handel, Baroquefest seemed a sure bet. Well, quite frankly, I'm glad my unaffected take on the concert corroborates with Alexander Varty's negative comments from a generally favourable review in the September 28th issue of The Georgia Strait: "It added to very little...", "...nowhere in this concert was the audience challenged or enlightened..." Maybe I should give myself more credit for picking up on this.

Watching the harpsichordist soloing on the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 was eye-opening. She tore through what sounded like a million effete little notes, with the help of a fellow musician whose sole role was to flip the numerous pages of sheet music for her. Maybe it's because the instrument doesn't have the power and sustain of a piano, so that the only way to keep a listener's interest is to play lots very quickly.

What did impress me was the small stand of trees and plants just outside the lobby. It was a clear night so I exited through the main doors to check out the campus before heading back to the parking garage. What struck me was the quality and direction of the lighting playing on the ferns and cedars. It would be hard to capture on film. The first thing that came to mind was the cover of an old Gold Key Green Hornet comic handed down to my oldest brother from our uncle, which, thanks to the Internet, you see right here (issue #3). That's Bruce Lee as the Hornet's sidekick, Kato. I spent countless hours as a kid looking at that cover. Just one of those magical things that sticks with you.

And yeah, being under the sheets of bottom-lit, scented pine needles wasn't at all shabby. I just love it out there at UBC.

Baroque You, Man!

Some Books, and Flags (In progress)

In progress...

Summer Vacation 2006: A Beautiful View (Part 3)

Here are the views from our hotel rooms.

In Portland I had intended to take a picture of the outdoor swimming pool, which shared the same view of Interstate 205 with our room. However, two teenage girls were in the pool the first evening and I didn't want to risk spending the night on a hard mattress in a jail cell. I just plain forgot to follow up the next morning. But a traffic cam view should suffice.

Spectacular! I'm mildly dishevelled, having just completed a 25 minute run along the beach.


Florence, Oregon.


The Bellevue view.

***

Betty walked into the bedroom yesterday, saw that I had changed into my tee-shirt and shorts for our workout, and proceeded to greet me with a "Hello, Bozo the Clown."

The kids caught wind of the above exchange and became curious about Bozo—who he was, what he looked like. Perhaps I'm the odd man out here, but because I didn't have a single graven image of Bozo in my extensive collection of books (which, BTW, includes an obscure art book whose cover is probably the only full-frontal nudity image at Amazon.com), I was momentarily pedagogically stumped. Well, wikipedia came to the rescue with this entry. In a previous age, this sort of situation would've required a trip to the library or pooh-poohed with insubstantive information. Ain't the internet great, wavy orange sideburns and all?

Summer Vacation 2006: A Beautiful View (Part 2)

A "beautiful view" in French is une belle vue. Here are some shots of downtown Bellevue, WA.

Bellevue is one of the rare cases when "East" or "Eastside" means a good neighbourhood. Seattle looms from the west.


Lincoln Square. I'm not entirely clear if what's being erected is the tower to the left depicted here.


A good-looking anonymous tower. In my younger days, I would've walked up to it to investigate. But thrills are few and far between these days.


The brand-new Westin. A co-worker had a good stay there.


The two towers of the Hyatt Bellevue.


Looking west to Seattle. The shopping mall in the left foreground is Bellevue Square.

Summer Vacation 2006: A Beautiful View (Part 1)

This storefront is typical of those found in "downtown" Seaside, touristy, but the real deal.


Looking at the highrises in the next two shots, you'd think that Seaside was a large city. Actual resident population: 5,900.



Explorers Lewis and Clark ended their journey west at Seaside. Below is a monument marking the "End Of The Trail".


Two not-so-exciting shots of the beach at Cannon Beach. I'm in dire need of a new digital camera, possibly an SLR, that has a decent zoom ratio. The big rock below, known as Haystack Rock, is purportedly the fourth largest monolith in the world, third being the zit currently gracing my upper left thigh.


Unlike Seaside, Cannon Beach presents a very clean and pretty face. The main drag is lined by little shops with flower pots. Below is a small path wending away from the street.


US 101 as it is through the heart of Lincoln City.


I still chuckle each time I look at this shot.


The beach near our hotel in Lincoln City.


Sister-in-law relaxing on the morning of our departure to Florence.


US 101. Fatal if you're crazy—note the cars hugging the hillside.