Rewards
I am pretty close to mailing the first of the Kickstarter rewards. So for those of you who backed the project at the $10.00 level, watch your mailbox. These are the first prints I have made of this work, and I am thrilled to finally see them on paper. Each print is signed and so the process is a bit slow; tonight I will start addressing the envelopes. You might notice the beautiful Yard-O-Led pencil in the bottom of the photo. It was a gift from my great friend John Wilson and it is the perfect writing instrument for signing the prints. It makes me so happy to be using it.
Pia and Flying Angel Seafarers Club
I spent a fantastic couple of hours with Pia Massie walking around the completely non-touristy parts of Vancouver. We started in Gastown and went to the area that is mostly inhabited by addicts and street people. She really knows her way around and it was fascinating. Her latest work is a documentary about Canadians of Japanese descent who were forcibly moved from the area just after Pearl Harbor. Everything was taken from them and they and have never returned as a community. There are still remnants of their lives if you know where to look, as in the name underneath a doormat at the entrance to this building.
We ended up at the Flying Angel Seafarers Club, which is as close as one can get to the port without encountering pretty heavy security. Unless you knew it was here, you might never find it. An amazingly beautiful building and since there was a sign on the front that said open, we went in. A volunteer named Frank gave us the grand tour and we learned a ton. Here is a link. I was especially taken by this book which is in a glass case at the front of the building.
Here is a description of its purpose.
Very touching. / We fly home tomorrow. Thanks Pia for the tour. It was great fun.
John Wilson
Peter and I drove from Stratford upon Avon down to High Wycombe today for another of his interviews with football clubs (Wycombe Wanderers). John had a free day so he rode along with us and helped a ton with directions. The weather has cleared out and the rest of the week looks to be lovely. / I took this shot at the far end of the car park at the Oxford Services on the M40, which is a regular stop anytime we head in this direction. It reminds me of a shot I took of John on the Isle of Sheppey some 20 years ago. We’ve both aged since then, although to look at us you would hardly notice.
Pieper and Sarah
Every weekday morning Pieper walks his daughter Sarah to the subway for her trip to school. He then heads uptown to his office to begin his work day. / It was great to stay with him and Merrill and to see them interact with Aidan and Sarah. They are a great family.
GoPro
Cris dropped me off in Harrisburg where my good pal Peter Carroll picked me up on Friday morning. We drove down to DC to spend some time with his family. On our way we stopped in Dillsburg, PA at a great diner for a bite to eat. Peter and I have travelled together so many times, and it is always fun. He got this little GoPro video camera recently and has been goofing around with it. It also takes amazing stills.
Over the years we have taken so many goofy pictures of each other. Here’s another one. We didn’t try any of the cakes in the case, but I was sorely tempted.
Tommy
Sometimes I get a bit blocked up when I think about writing on this blog. Since the suitcases project has garnered so much attention, and with all the new subscribers, I sometimes feel a bit self-conscious. It is something I fight against, but in the last week I have been suffering from a bit of “Karma Congestion” as my friend Alex would call it. The easiest way for me to get back into it is to post something that makes me really happy.
When I was shooting the UMASS Fenway game last week, I was surprised and really glad to see my son Peter’s great friend Tommy. He and Pete have known each other since middle school and he is one of the nicest people around. This picture says just about all you need to know about him. Such a treat to run into him in such an unexpected place.
Fox and Herald
I am back home, and will post some UK images over the next few days. It is a bit odd to put up photos after I have returned; I usually have internet connections as I travel. For various reasons on this trip I wasn’t able to get online very much, and when I did, WordPress didn’t seem to want to take the uploaded photos. / John and I were walking back from the pub late one night and this fox was just wandering around the street. It walked into a front garden and the resident cat wasn’t very happy about his visit. John says he sees foxes all the time in the neighborhood and that they are not bothered much by people.
This sweet little Triumph Herald was parked just down the road from where I saw the fox. It has a really nice set of Minilite wheels and some kind of custom exhaust. I always liked these cars. My parent’s friend Polly Seeley had one in Meadville and I distinctly remember her driving up to our house on Cullum Street with the top down.
John Wilson
I’m in the UK for a few days helping my friend John Wilson do some work on his house in Chiswick. We don’t get to see each other often enough, but when we do it is always a treat. We met when we were both living in Berlin in the 1980’s and became close immediately. I have always been fascinated by his personal history. He was born in Trinidad, went to boarding school in Barbados, moved to the UK when he was 16, and has lived and worked all over the world. His family had been in the Caribbean for generations, and his father’s father was the Postmaster General of Grenada. (Charles Livingstone Wilson) Today we were in his studio and he wanted to show me a suitcase that contained some family items. (Suitcases seem to be a theme for me lately.) The name tag above is sewn on to the tennis shorts that he wore while at the Lodge School in Barbados.
The Pan American tag was on the inside of the case. It was full of family items and lots of folders, including reports to his mother and father about his progress at school.
I really like looking at old documents. There is something about the typefaces and writing in ink from a fountain pen that appeals to me.
Above is his housemaster’s comment (turquoise ink). And he still is quite the gentleman.
The comment above from the headmaster is a true reflection of the times. This is from his last term at school. / I am constantly reminded of how amazing all of my close friends are, and am so lucky to be a part of their lives.
REM
I was walking the dog today and thinking about REM for some reason. They announced a couple of weeks ago that they were calling it quits. It brought to mind having seen them very early in their career on several occasions. This gig was on 17 October, 1983 at a place called Drumlins somewhere just East of Syracuse. I think it used to be some kind of country club and I believe had a connection to Syracuse University. It was weird because the band was very late in starting and no one was sure what was going on. At some point someone came on stage and announced that Michael Stipe had injured his eye doing something with a contact lens. Mitch Easter’s band had opened up, and when REM finally made it onstage Michael was wearing an eyepatch.
It was a great set though. The band had tons of energy and seemed really tight. And lots of Rickenbackers!
Mitch Easter played with them the whole time as I remember it. At one point Michael asked the crowd if anyone knew what a drumlin was. (I actually knew because my girlfriend Ren seemed to know stuff like that and we had talked about it on the way up. I was too shy to speak up though.) After the show Pete Buck came out and talked to the crowd and was very nice. I saw them again in London at Dingwalls a couple of weeks later. I was chatting with Peter when Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzie walked by and Pete was totally star-struck. It is funny how things turned out, as REM became so huge and Lynott died so young. A very cool memory though.
Tom Schack
In a way, this isn’t really fair. Tom is always smiling, and this doesn’t really represent who he seems to be. But I really like this picture. / I spent part of yesterday morning photographing his band Outer Stylie and it was loads of fun. Really nice guys.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
4 comments