Errol’s Errors

Byron Black was a regular and very active member. His weekly television show, Images from Infinity, was the first artists’ television show in Vancouver and one of the first anywhere. An eccentric and idiosyncratic performer, a kind of one-man media band, Byron was also a consummate craftsman, skilled technician and a great friend to younger artists, whom he involved in his various projects. His obsession with Errol Flynn and the narcissistic “image bondage” (Michael Morris’ term) of an artist who succumbs to his own media image led to an annual series of events to mark the Vancouver death of this thoroughly decadent star in an apartment at 1410 Burnaby Street in 1959. Errol’s Errors took the form of a trial of Errol’s soul. The story had a moral for the likes of Mr. Peanut and Dr. Brute, who had created their own personaes. Byron now lives in Jakarta where he shares his house with five large monkeys.