Thursday, September 25, 2025

Joseph Bonaparte - Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' bottom - middle- Rosa 'Buttercup' and top - Rosa 'Mary Magdalene - 25 September 2025

 

When I saw these fine roses blooming today I equated it with something my grandmother Dolores Reyes de Irureta Goyena often told me. It had to do with the remarkable memory of Spaniards. While my abuelita was born in Manila she was educated in Spain.

She would tell me how some people could be rude and that they would leave a party without saying goodbye. The expression was “despedirse a la francesa” or “to say goodbye French style”. The saying had all to do with the fact that in August 20 1815 Joseph Bonaparte (Napoleon’s older brother who was the king of Spain) left Madrid in a hurry when he noted that Wellington was close by and had defeated the French Army at Vitoria. Joseph left on August 20 1815 and by 1816 he settled in Bordentown, New Jersey.

My 3 English Roses are gently saying goodbye and would never disappear just like that. They might have buds in a few days that may not open. But they are gentle.

Because we humans are so, because of our ability to associate, I like to connect Joseph Bonaparte going to New Jersey with Mozart’s librettist starting grocery store in New York City.

Lorenzo Da Ponte left for the U.S. in 1805. He boarded an American packet boat, the Columbia, at Gravesend, England, on April 7th of that year. He emigrated with his family to escape creditors and establish Italian culture in America, eventually teaching at Columbia College and promoting Italian arts. But he first had that grocery store.

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Michael Dibdin - 1990

 

In February of 2019, almost a year before my Rosemary died we went to Venice and Florence. When we got to Venice, on one evening we went to a bar. The man behind the bar (I could see it in his face) looked at me and must have thought, “Another ignorant American”. We sat down and I said, “Un café corretto”. I then pointed at Grappa Nacionale and told him I wanted it with it. The man smiled and I was not able to pay for the coffee as as it was free!

Why?

I had the luck to read all the books by British author Michael Dibdin, whom I photographed at least three times. His police procedurals, set in modern Italy, featured a melancholic Venetian called Aurelio Zen who solved crimes that were mostly about corruption and few involved blood. Aurelio Zen’s favourite drink was the café corretto. When he would wake up with a hangover he would go to a bar and ask for a café corretto with no coffee.

Dibdin and P.D. James were contemporaries, one as good as the other. Knowing both served me well.

It was at the Holiday Inn on Hastings called Harbouside where I had the luck to take portraits of James. She asked me to go to a window and asked me, “What’s that?” Because writer Sean Rossiter and I were friends (he was alive then) I told her, "That is a de Havilland Beaver, a made in Canada float plane that opened up the interior of this province." I then added, "Flying in one is as fabulous as going on a Venetian gondola."

I did not tell her that Rossiter and I one afternoon were sitting watching strippers at a local joint called the Marble Arch. I told Rossiter, “Beavers!” He laughed so I had to correct him, “I mean de Havilland Beavers”. The idea caught on. We collaborated on a story for the Georgia Straight (a cover it was) and then Rossiter wrote a book on the Beaver.

Last minute addendum: 

One of my fave Vancouver restaurants is La Piazza Dario in the Italian Cultural Centre on Slocan. Why? The food is good, the music is not loud, the staff is excellent AND they  make a fabulous café correto. Important is that they keep a bottle of grappa warm.When it is poured into the strong coffee, the coffee remains hot. Taking the cue from evangelist St. Luke, I drink my caffé corretto in remembrance of Michael Dibdin. Crossing the Firsts Narrows bridge if I hear a Beaver I think of PD James.

Crawford Kilian - 1987+

 

Often I write here that Vancouver has a poor memory for its past and in particular in the theme of culture, music and writers.

Most in this city may know that William Gibson, who wrote many acclaimed science fiction novels, lives in Vancouver. There is another such a novelist that I had the luck to photograph for Western Living who wrote science fiction that he transported into an ancient Roman situation. Wikipedia says this fine man is alive. He is a year older than I am. Besides his medium format slides I have part of the article he wrote for Western Living and a page of something I wrote for which I have no memory as to why I wrote it for what publication. I did read most of his output.

The important subject to consider is that we must remember these writers who contributed to our city. How can we bring them back?  

In the part of his essay below he mentions Robert Heinlein with the nice inclusion of " one of the elders of our tribe". I started reading science fiction in the late 50s and there is one book  by Heinlein with a title that is in my mind as I drive in my present Vancouver - I am "A Stranger in a Strange Land".  

 

Rosa 'Sweet Juliet' 24 September 2024

 

To the Nightingale – Jorge Luís Borges

 On what secret night in England

Or by the incalculable constant Rhine,

Lost among all the nights of my nights,

Carried to my unknowing ear

Your voice, burdened with mythology,

Nightingale of Virgil, of the Persians?

 

Perhaps I never heard you, yet my life

I bound to your life, inseparably.

A wandering spirit is your symbol

In a book of enigmas. El Marino

Named you the siren of the woods

And you sing through Juliet’s night

And in the intricate Latin pages

And from the pine-trees of that other,

Nightingale of Germany and Judea,

Heine, mocking, burning, mourning.

 

Keats heard you for all, everywhere.

There’s not one of the bright names

The people of the earth have given you

That does not yearn to match your music,

Nightingale of shadows. The Muslim

Dreamed you drunk with ecstasy

His breast trans-pierced by the thorn

Of the sung rose that you redden

With your last blood. Assiduously

I plot these lines in twilight emptiness,

Nightingale of the shores and seas,

Who in exaltation, memory and fable

Burn with love and die melodiously.

 

I have no compunction in cutting this lovely bouquet of the English Rose, Rosa ‘Sweet Juliet’ as I have nobody to share it with. As I scanned it I reverted to my usual Rosemary melancholy. This rose grew very tall (it is still tall) in our Kerrisdale garden. It was shade tolerant and grew by the fence on the boulevard. It has a sweet scent and if my Rosemary were here I am sure she would smell it and smile.

Everybody says it to me, “Alex you have your memories.” But these memories are constant even in my dreams. I don’t want to tell myself this life is over for me. Sweet Juliet will be waiting for me on June 2026. And I have to not only feed my cats but I have to take my daily walk with Niño.

Y  la poesía de Borges en castellano:

A un Ruiseñor

¿En qué noche secreta de Inglaterra

O del constante Rhin incalculable,

Perdida entre las noches de mis noches,

A mi ignorante oído habrá llegado

Tu voz cargada de mitologías,

Ruiseñor de Virgilio y de los persas?

Quizá nunca te oí, pero a mi vida

Se une tu vida, inseparablemente.

Un espíritu errante fue tu símbolo

En un libro de enigmas. El Marino

Te apodaba sirena de los bosques

Y cantas en la noche de Julieta

Y en la intrincada página latina

Y desde los pinares de aquel otro

Ruiseñor de Judea y Alemania,

Heine del burlón, el encendido, el triste.

Keats te oyó para todos, para siempre.

No habrá uno solo entre los claros nombres

Que los pueblos te dan sobre la tierra

Que no quiera ser digno de tu música,

Ruiseñor de la sombra. El agareno

Te soñó arrebatado por el éxtasis

El pecho traspasado por la espina

De la cantada rosa que enrojeces

Con tu sangre final. Asiduamente

Urdo en la hueca tarde este ejercicio,

Ruiseñor de la arena y de los mares,

Que en la memoria, exaltación y fábula,

Ardes de amor y mueres melodioso

 

Taraxicum officinale - 24 September 2025

 

All families must have a secret language. Ours did and has. Some of the language involved mispronouncing words. Our youngest daughter used to say coleváccion instead of calefacción for home heating. My Rosemary mispronounced words on purpose. I remembered her con-few-zed today when I saw this lonely dandelion growing on my lane. Does it not know it’s fall? I had to smile and scan it for this blog.

There were other words that we used in our continuous approach to using two languages in what we called Spanglish. Our first Vancouver cat we named Gaticuchi. Cuchi is an endearing word in Mexican Spanish. Because my Rosemary had a handsome (donde la espalda pierde su nombre my grandmother would say or where your back loses its name) I often called her Coluchi. Sometimes it was Mamuchi. Because my Rosemary became a grandmother my daughters and granddaughters adopted the shortened Abi instead of abuelita. Somehow I escaped the grandfather epithet as I am still Papi and sometimes Papuchi. Our daughters were Alejandruchi and Hilaruchi.

My two cats, Niño and Niña I baby talk in Spanish. He is Niño Muchi and she is Niña Muchi. Sometimes I call Niño when I want him to come home Muchi-Muchi, or Puchi.

Not all the puchis are nice. In Mexico when you don't like some food you say, "¡Fuchi!"