MOM, THINKING OF YOU ON YOUR BIRTHDAY. THANKS FOR ALWAYS BEING MY GUIDE.

Beverly Burton Marcus November 30, 1931 - December 15, 2002

Today I was cleaning house and going through old photos and found my Mom's signature written for no particular reason on the inside flap of one of my photo envelopes that had pictures from the 1980's. Crazy huh, but stuff like this has happened before on special days relating to my Mom. In ways I can never predict, her presence will pop up.

IT WAS 39 YEARS AGO TODAY...

Click image to enlarge my birth announcement, scanned from my baby book. "Unbelievable?" my Mom wrote because my parents were married almost 15 years before they finally had me - their one and only child - my Mom was 38, my Dad 48! No IVF, no multiple births, just moi! I share a birthday with Elizabeth Taylor, Joanne Woodward, Chelsea Clinton, Ralph Nader, and writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Steinbeck. Happy Birthday fellow Pisceans!

MAMA'S ROSES

My Mom has been gone for nearly 6 years but her roses remain blooming in the front yard. Polaroid Time Zero film seemed like the perfect way to capture their muted quality.

"Mama's Roses" Polaroid photo by Lydia Marcus.
Photographed September 31, 2008 in Encino, CA.

MY TWO MOMS

I've got another summer sinus infection. Every time I'm sick and laying in bed feeling miserable I start missing my Mom. No matter how old you get, the thought of Mom coming in to bring you food and company and TLC is comforting. So in lieu of the fried matzo my Mom will never be able to make for me anymore, I comforted myself by digging into old Hi8 videotapes and watching some home movies from a lifetime ago. In the 5 and a half years since my Mom's passing, I think this is only the third time I've needed to watch videos again just to see her and hear her voice. It's a dicey thing to bring out the videos - usually seeing my Mom makes me feel good - but you just don't know is it going to make you too upset as well. I pulled out tapes from 1991 and 1992 - tapes that had my Mom and my second Mom, my Aunt Lisa, too. I think this is the first time I've seen any of these images since around the time frame they were first shot. It felt so good to see my Mom laughing and being her vivacious self. In the case of my Aunt's video, I had recorded her 75th birthday at her apartment in West Hollywood - virtually my second home. I was only 22 when I shot the video but for some reason I had the presence of mind to actually do a walk through the apartment documenting the rooms and the little knickknacks and photos on different tables. How wonderful it was to see all the details again. At one point I even captured my Aunt and Dad talking to each other in German (a very rare occurrence). So Mom and Aunt Lisa, today I think of you both strongly and am so glad to be able to see you again.

I just came across this photo of my Mom a couple weeks ago when I was looking through old photos. I just love it. She looks so beautiful and radiant and I love her smile.

A photo of me and my Aunt in her apartment I think around 1989. The look on my face says it all - how much I love her and how safe and loved I feel when I'm with her.

FAMILY VACATION CIRCA 1979

In August 1979 I went on a road trip with my Mom, Grandma Belle and her boyfriend Harry. We travelled all the way up North until we hit Canada. Our main stops along the way that I recall were San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver. Here's a Polaroid (One Step camera using Time Zero film) of three generations. The car was my Grandma's Chevy Monte Carlo (bright yellow with a black landau top). The Monte Carlo had just passed through the Chandelier Tree in Northern California. From Wikipedia: "Chandelier Tree is a 315 foot (96 metre) tall coast redwood tree in Leggett, California with a 6 foot (1.83m) wide by 9 foot (2.74m) high hole cut through its base to allow a car to drive through. The hole was carved in the 1930s."

To see more photos from this series, check out my flickr set FAMILY.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Last night I was trying to find a photo of my Mom cooking or "entertaining" to use in a future blog post. I have tons of digital photos going back to 2001 but my Mom passed away in 2002 so I don't have that many digital images of her. The majority of photos of her are un-scanned 126 and 35mm photos we took while I was growing up. And those are crammed in boxes in no particular order. There are a couple of my Mom's albums from the era that predates me that are tucked away in a cupboard in the living room. I haven't looked through those photos in YEARS. Maybe decades. But at least I remembered where they were stored. So late last night I dug into the cupboard and pulled out two albums. I was surprised to find on the first page of the second album the original invitations to my parent's wedding. I don't recall every seeing it before. When my Mom first passed away in December of 2002, my Dad and I still celebrated their wedding anniversary when it came round. I'd give him a card, we'd choose a special restaurant that we used to all go together as a family, and basically we'd think about my Mom. Then either last year or the year before, we didn't observe the day. I forgot, he didn't mention it, and time went on. I never was that great at remembering the actual anniversary date - I seem to recall it being either the end of June or end of July. But last night when I opened that album I looked at the wedding date and it was staring back at me - July 30, 1955 - literally a few hours away. Today I brought out the album to show my Dad the invitations and for some reason he thought the 30th was still to come, not today's date. When I told him it was today, he was surprised (and of course it's a bit emotional). I left him the album to peruse while I began scanning a few images I had pulled out for this blog. Deciding to get the album and go through it the night before their anniversary (without actually realizing the date) and stumbling onto the wedding invitation and photos from their honeymoon strikes me as another incident that goes beyond "coincidence." I've written about my Mom's touch before and this seems like another one of those times. Here are some photos of my parents from their early days and a few from the last year of my Mom's life. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad, today would have been your 53rd.

Dr. and Mrs. William Burton request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Beverly to Fred Marcus on Saturday, the thirtieth of July, Nineteen Hundred and fifty-five at seven o'clock in the evening.

Their wedding photo. My Mom was absolutely gorgeous.

The Point "Just Married"

Honeymoon, August 1955. My Mom's inscription jokes, Oakton "Manure" Manor. I think my Mom looks like a glamourous movie star here in her bathing suit. Esther Williams watch out!

My Dad the swimmer in his white speedos.

This is a screen grab from a home movie I had converted from 8mm to video. To my surprise, most of the home movies were in glorious color.

Another from the home movies

My Mom is wearing the same outfit here, so the photo is probably taken the same day as the home movie.

My Mom's caption reads: "could choke him, but I adore him." I think that pretty much sums up their entire marriage.

My Dad and Mom on her 70th birthday in 2001.

May 2002

The last mother's Day, 5.12.02, The Bistro Garden in Studio City. Believe it or not, the guy wearing sunglasses in the background between my Parents is David Cassidy! I guess he was out with his Mom too.

MOVIE STARS AND THEIR NAMESAKES

It's weird the random things that trigger stories. I was sitting at my computer with my Uncle Myles, helping him look at auction listings for movie lobby cards. Myles has a pretty big collection of lobby cards and movie posters from the 1930's and 1940's. I think he has every lobby card that Cary Grant ever appeared in. Myles doesn't have a computer or email - in fact he still types on a manual typewriter - so sometimes he comes over to my house to check out online auctions. After we were done looking at the lobby card listings, he wanted me to search for an image of Francis X. Bushman, a silent screen star who was in the original "Ben Hur." I've vaguely heard the name, but am not really familiar with the actor. One of the ebay listings had a photo of Francis with one of his children. The ebay seller had listed some biographical information and part of the info detailed his marriage to actress Beverly Bayne. So we're reading this info and Myles casually says to me, "Oh that's the actress your Mom was named for." What????? I had never heard this story before. My Mom always told me a lot of stories but somehow this story had never emerged. What makes this story even more significant to me is that I was also named for an actress, or rather a part played by one. My Mom had a few female names she tossed around before I was born. Even though there was no way to determine a baby's gender when I was born, my Mom just knew she was going to have a girl. Her top name choices were Madeline, Valerie, and Lydia (my Mom was in a bowling league with a Lydia and liked the name). I think Madeline was tossed out because my Mom didn't like the idea of me being nicknamed Mad or Maddie. Valerie was eliminated because with my Dad's Austrian/German accent, he would have pronounced it "Walerie." And my Mom thought (erroneously) that no one would take Lydia and shorten it into a nickname - all of you who call me "Lyd" can stop laughing now. But it wasn't until I was born and my Uncle Myles saw me in the hospital and saw my exotic eyes and looks that he told her that she just had to name me Lydia, inspired by my resemblance to exotic film star Merle Oberon who played the title role "Lydia" in a 1941 United Artists film.

Here's a lobby card from "Lydia" that my Uncle gave me a few years ago. I love the tagline, "If I can't have all there is of love...I don't want any." I pretty much agree!!! But this is the part that cracks me up, under "Lydia" it says - "A Free Woman" - I guess a pretty big statement for 1941.

So the movies have obviously had a big impact on my family's life. I always knew about my connection, but learning about my Mom's was really neat too. My Uncle Myles is really the last connection to my Mom's history and my Maternal side of the family. That's a good thing and also kind of scary too. He's in his mid 70's and won't be around forever. I wonder what other nuggets I can unearth in completely random ways.

Here's my Mom and Myles in a Polaroid Joycam shot.

HAPPY PRIDE!

This weekend is the 38th annual L.A. Pride. I was actually at the first one in 1970! I was just a baby, my parents and Uncle went somewhere to eat on Hollywood Blvd and L.A.'s first ever gay parade (dubbed Christopher Street West) was in full swing. The first pride I have memories of is 1986. My best friend Robert Pavlick (R.I.P.) drove us down to West Hollywood in his Peugeot (I think a 505). On Sunset, he was driving pretty wild as usual and going way too fast on the way to a red light when the car next to us crossed into our lane and cut us off and Robert slammed on the brakes and threw us into a complete 360 spin! We survived the drive and walked up and down Santa Monica Blvd watching the parade. Afterwards we went to the festival, then an open, free event. I remember they even had carnival rides (like the Scrambler). While everyone was dressed casual summer, I recall being way overdressed in my new wave finery - a nice dress shirt (brown and black - some sort of animal print) buttoned up to the chin, black culottes, and my funky mod styled black and white clubbing shoes.

A couple of days ago I received a copy of the book "When I Knew" by Robert Trachtenberg - a compilation of coming out (to others and to oneself) anecdotes. HBO sent me a copy and a screener of the documentary directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (from World of Wonder) based on the Trachtenberg's book. They're screening it in honor of Pride Month (actually I think their affiliate Cinemax is the one screening it). I haven't watched the film yet, but I did read the entire book on Thursday. I love the concept and it shows that most people's memories of their queerness goes back to early childhood with plenty of stories recalling ages 5-8. Many of the stories are funny, a few are sad, and some are downright poignant like this one:

1971, Abilene, Texas by Stephen Orr:
"My father was tossing a football with my brothers in the front yard. Seeing me sitting alone on the steps, my mother took my dad aside, "Dub," she said, calling my dad by his nickname, "I think Steve is feeling a little left out. Why don't you ask him if he'd like to play too?" So my dad walked over. "Wanna throw the football some?" he asked. "I'd really rather go pick flowes," I replied. And we did. My father, a former football coach, spent the rest of the afternoon picking flowers with me in a nearby field.

My only issue with the book is that within 120 pages, only about 10 stories are from women. Hopefully the documentary is a bit more balanced.

In honor of L.A. PRIDE weekend, here are some of my shots from a few of the last Pride events.






Everybody's favorite "Momma"

The grand dame - "Madame"






My Aunt Lisa always took me to this library when I was a kid.

West Hollywood "The Creative City"


Now that's one gay Pinto ;-)

AH THE SEVENTIES!

My Mom and Dad never throwing anything away has been both a curse and a blessing. For your viewing pleasure: the best of the 70's medicine cabinet. If you've got a burn, need fresh breath, or want to get rid of a tummy ache - the Marcus clan has got you covered!

Health Aids Polaroid photograph by Lydia Marcus. Shot June 5, 2008 in Encino, CA using a Polaroid SLR 680 SE and Polaroid 600 Film.

DIGGING INTO THE PAST

Been under the weather since Friday - I rarely get sick - but I caught a rather virulent bug that has really gotten me down. My Dad's immunity is even stronger than mine and even he caught the bug too (from me - sorry Dad). He sounds like a really ill frog - just hearing him talk hurts my ears. So with not much energy to spare, I've just been going through some old family photos. I found close to 50 Polaroids I either didn't remember ever seeing or barely remember. The shots are all from the 1970's, a combination of Time Zero Film shot with the family's One Step or peel apart film shot with the older Polaroid in the family, the Super Shooter Plus. They had been tossed in with a bunch of photos from the 1930's - 1950's so I didn't realize they were there. Finding that lot made me go search out other various Polaroids stashed in different places. I'm trying to group them all together and get them all scanned. Today I put together a little over a 100 images and actually organized them according to date (or approximate date). Thank God my Mom had actually put dates on a lot of them! I used to have a really good memory for when stuff happened but as I get older, that gift is going out the window (or just getting lost in 38 years of memories being stored in my brain). What really helped organize them is that each pack of Polaroid film (10 images) has the same number printed on the back. So sometimes a print had a date, sometimes it didn't, so if it didn't, I'd just look for the corresponding Polaroid number on the back of other shots and match them up. The photos span 1976 to 1983, the latter being probably the last year I used the One Step before moving full time to my 35mm Canon Sure Shot. Back in '83, I thought that my One Step was broken and stopped using it. About 23 years later, when I got back into Polaroid film in a big way, I took my One Step out of the closet, put a new film pack in, and it worked! I guess when I was 13 I didn't realize that the battery pack built into the film pack could go bad, instead I thought the camera was dead.

On a separate note, I ordered a couple of photography books from Amazon last week and the first one arrived today - "Suburbia" by Bill Owens. I was supposed to take a weekend seminar with Bill last year at the Julia Dean workshops but it got canceled (I think because not enough people signed up) - what a shame. My first exposure to Bill's work was at the Getty Center last year. I'll let you know more about the book after I get to dive into it.

Here's a random shot for today. I rarely crop anything, but I did crop this shot (brought the top and bottom in a little). I think it has more tension and better composition now. As I start to scan more and get more involved with Photoshop, I'm learning (or accepting) that it's okay to tweak stuff a little now and then. I think sometimes my eye sees a composition a certain way and the camera is limited in capturing what I see because of different factors. I think people can go kind of overboard with changing stuff - I mean if I shoot a landscape of a lake and the sky on a rainy, cloudy day, I don't intend to turn it into a "sunny" shot. But slight crops or color tweaks can really make or enhance a shot. Now with so many people shooting RAW, everything is being modified anyway.

VA parking lot photo by Lydia Marcus. Shot May 26. 2008 in Westwood, CA with a Sony T100.

MOM'S TOUCH

In 1981 I graduated from elementary school. Until this Sunday, I held onto one of my graduation gifts for 27 years. My Aunt Lisa and Uncle Fritz gave me $30 dollars cash in the form of three extremely fresh, crisp $10 dollar bills. I don't remember why I initially didn't spend the money, but basically all these years I've had the cash in the original envelope tucked away in a drawer for mostly sentimental reasons. My Uncle died in 1993 and my Aunt in 1995. Even though I inherited all of their possessions (in fact the desk I use was my Uncle's), there was something sweet about still having that cash. I guess one day I figured I'd spend it on something and imagine my they had bought it for me. Well that day came on Sunday, which happened to be Mother's Day. I found a used 1973 Yashica Electro 35 GSN rangefinder on Craigslist that was selling for exactly $30 dollars. The time seemed right to dig into that envelope. Mother's Day is of course a bit melancholy for me so the idea that in some way my Aunt (truly my second Mother) was buying me a camera made me feel good. The camera would also connect me to my Uncle who was a photographer in Los Angeles - he did children's portrait sittings in his late in life second career, after being a spice seller in Philadelphia. But something strange happened when I went to take the money out of the envelope, I discovered another folded up bill that I had no memory was ever in there. Without unfolding it, I could immediately see on the outside fold that it was a $2 dollar bill. My Mom had a thing for $2 dollar bills because they reminded her of her father. He had once given her a $2 bill and signed it to her and she always carried it with her in her wallet under her driver's license. As I unfolded the bill, I could see that it was one my Mom had inscribed to me, "with love from Mom 1983." There aren't too many moments in life that can give you pure elation but finding that $2 bill I had long forgotten about on Mother's Day when my Mom is no longer around on this earthly plane was an off the charts moment in time. After 27 years of saving that $30 dollar gift from my Aunt and Uncle, Mother's Day was the day that I "decided" to spend it. Coincidence, spirit guided, who knows. It's pretty phenomenal either way, and for me, a definite feeling of my Mom's touch.

The envelope from my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Fritz

The three $10 dollar bills. The guy who sold me the camera immediately commented when I handed him the money, "Wow these are crisp," and noted that they didn't look like the normal bills in circulation. I didn't tell him the story of their being tucked away for 27 years.

The $2 bill my Mom inscribed.


The $2 dollar bill my Grandfather gave to my Mom


The Yashica Electro 35 GSN rangefinder



I love that atomic symbol!


Yashica Electro 35 GSN rangefinder specs:
Produced 1973 Yashica Camera Co., Japan
Film type 135 (35mm)
Picture size 24mm x 36mm
Weight 24.6oz (697.4g) sans battery
Lens Color Yashinon DX 45mm 1:1.7-16
Filter size 55mm threaded, 57mm slip-on
Focal range 2.6' to infinity
Shutter Copal Elec
Shutter speeds B, 1/30, 30s-1/500 aperture priority (1/500 only w/out battery)
Viewfinder coupled rangefinder with auto parallax correction
Exposure meter lens mounted CdS, over/under lights in viewfinder
ASA 25-1000
Battery originally PX32 5.6 Mercury, will accept 6v 28A or 4LR44
Hotshoe
Self-timer
Battery check lamp
Fast-action wind lever