Juan Brufal

William F. Buckley

The circles in a cut tree are called growth rings or annual rings. They are concentric circles that form as a tree grows.

Wikipedia

When I look at the thousands of books in spread around my Kitsilano home, I know I have read all of them even though there are some I don’t remember reading.

I believe like those growth rings in trees, those books, and my life experiences are in me and make me the person I am right now.

But I have to add to the above as I believe that those growth rings in me do not stop.

 Few people I know have good things to say about social media. I differ as I know I am getting an art, literary and musical education from them. How is that?

My participation in both Facebook and Twitter/X and until recently in Medium is limited in posting the links to my blogs which includes a photograph. I rarely comment anywhere and I never post either my political or religious views.

But (and important but) because I sometimes write in Spanish and my blogs may have cultural content the Facebook algorithm shows me art that I have never seen before. It introduces me to composers and writers (some that I know). I can say that in the last few months I have been exposed to at least 100 vanGoghs!

With Twitter/X it is almost the same story. I get to read in Spanish both sides of the political views in Mexico and in my native Argentina. I get links to quotes and poems by Borges, Cortázar and other Latin American writers.

I can truthfully assert that my culture is increasing at my age of 82.

The lovely cat painting here is by a contemporary Argentine artist Juan Brufal. I was dazzled by this painting as I have two orange cats.

And in Twitter today there was a link to a TV interview that William F.Buckley had with Jorge Luís Borges. Knowing of its existence I immediately found it in a better link. I would have never known of the existence of this wonderful interview had I not seen it in my Twitter/X feed.

While the knowledge content in my brain is almost full it would seem there is room for more.

William F. Buckley interviews Jorge Luís Borges  ( don't believe the Hoover Institute will sue me for copyright infringement!)

ESMA - the Door

 The Banality of Evil - ESMA

El Día Nacional de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia es el día en el que se conmemora en Argentina a las víctimas de la última dictadura militar, autodenominada «Proceso de Reorganización Nacional», que usurpó el gobierno del Estado nacional argentino entre el 24 de marzo de 1976 y el 10 de diciembre de 1983.

I have written about the subject of all those disappeared during the military regime in my Argentina that began on today’s date today in 1976. The present government is attempting to vindicate the actions of that military government saying that the people they disappeared were terrorists. That children disappeared and childless generals adopted the babies of women about to be disappeared is supposed to be forgotten. It is not and today massive protests were organized.

For me since I was a conscript in the Argentine Navy until almost the end of 1967 I met young officers who to me were just fine human beings. How was I to know what they would do 9 years later? I believe that all of us have inside us the possibility of doing unspeakable acts.

To this day I remember when I saw that door (people that entered it never left alive) at the Escuela de la Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA), I felt a chill in my body.

I used to routinely go to deliver documents to that school of mechanics. It was a beautiful place on a beautiful street.

23 March 2025

 

I constantly tell people, “I am a product of the 20th century.”

When I was 8 or younger in Buenos Aires our milk and ice were brought daily by a man on a horse-drawn cart which in an Argentine peculiarity had car tires.

1. A man came to our home once a month to clean and clear our sewage system.

2. In 1951(I was 9) we had the first refrigerator in our block. My mother had obtained it from a friend from the American Embassy who was leaving town. It was then than I had my first taste of lime flavoured Jell-O.

3. It was around that time that my mother (in my presence) told our live-in housekeeper to buy something called “catsup” at the corner store.

4. We did not have a telephone or TV until we moved to Mexico City in 1953.

I have always admired the writers Paul Theroux and Graham Greene. Theroux wrote an essay on Greene called “An Edwardian on the Concorde”. I am certainly not an Edwardian but I have been on just about every airplane since the DC-3 to the Comet 4-C, the rare Convair 880 and even a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk when I was told to translate into Spanish the operating and maintenance manual when I was in the Argentine Navy. I have flown in a De Havilland Beaver many times.

What all the above means is that I am happily adopting many of the improvements to our life from this 21^st century. I shoot film but also digital. I use a scanner and the latest Epson V700 inkjet printer.

I cannot explain exactly why but of late I have been getting these intense dreams. Because I am 82 I have to get up at least three times to attempt to do something that is quite difficult. While waiting for action I think about those dreams before they disappear into some ethos. Last night’s dream was that I was going to write a blog about one of the most significant inventions of this century (even the end of the last one perhaps?) which is the heated toilet seat. It is a fabulous invention.