Y la Noche Olorosa Como Un Mate Curado - Borges
Wednesday, November 04, 2026
El mate de la bienvenida
De mi papá
que murió en 1966 tengo poco. Tengo su bandera argentina grande que habrá
comprado en los principios de los 30, su mate y su biblia de King James. Tengo
un retrato de él tomado cuando tenía 1 o 2 años en 1902.  | | George Waterhouse Hayward - 1902 |
Of my father, who died in 1966, I have few of his
possessions. I have a large
Argentine flag and his mate which he may have had beginning in the 30s. I have
his King James Bible and a precious little portrait of him when he was 1or 2 in
1902.
 | | Linda Lorenzo |
Tengo 84
años y estoy abrumado por las memorias de mi pasado. Muchas de esas memorias son lindas pero
melancólicas nostalgias.
I am now 86
years old and I am overwhelmed by the memories of my past. Many of these are pleasant, but melancholic
nostalgias.
Hoy decidí
escribir mi nostalgia sobre esa costumbre tan argentina que es tomar el mate.
Today I decided to write of my nostalgia for the Argentine
custom that involves lots of ceremony and that is the mate and how to drink it. En castellano nunca hay problema en diferenciar la palabra mate para el receptáculo con la acción de tomar un mate o la yerba que es también la yerba mate. Hay muchas
lindas expresiones relacionadas con la de tomar mate. Está la última que toma
un visitante antes de irse – el mate del estribo. La palabra correcta para
preparar un mate es cebar y el que lo hace es el cebador. En una reunión el
mate se pasa en el sentido de las manecillas del reloj. Para invitar a un amigo a tomar un mate se dice, "Vení a mi casa y mateamos." In our Argentine Spanish (castellano) we never have a problem in differentiating the gourd, el mate with the drink, the mate, There are many lovely expressions related to drinking mate. The
last mate you serve to a visitor translates to – the one you drink before you put your feet on the stirrups of your
horse. To prepare a mate is to cebar
and the person who does it is the cebador
or cebadora. When you pass it around
in a gathering of friends it has to be done clockwise. To invite a friend to share a mate we ask, "Let's matear."
El primer
mate, muy amargo y caliente, se llama el mate del boludo. El cebador de alguna
manera tiene que tomarlo y escupirlo. Los hombres muy hombres nunca le pondrían
azúcar. No es mala educación hacer ruido al chupar lo que queda al final. Al
devolver el mate al cebador, hay que hacerlo con la mano derecha.
The first mate is very hot and bitterly strong. The cebador
must drink it and spit it out. If not this mate if offered to anybody is called
– el mate del boludo – or the mate of
the idiot. It is perfectly acceptable to make a noise when you slurp the last
of it. You return the empty mate with your left hand.
Cuando los
jesuitas llegaron a lo que ahora es el Paraguay en 1607 se asombraron como los
nativos trabajaban sin parar todo el día. Tomaban un líquido verdoso. Al ver
esto los jesuitas promovieron el mate por todas las regiones y esa es la razón
de cómo llegó el mate a la Argentina.
When the Jesuits arrived in 1607 to what today is Paraguay
they were amazed how the Indigenous people worked without stopping all day. They
drank a greenish kind of tea. And it is for that reason that the Jesuits
promoted mate so that today we Argentines drink it.
El nombre
botánico del mate es Ilex paraguariensis.
Muy interante es que esta planta está en la misma familia del arbusto con
frutos colorados que se usa pare decorar en la Navidad en los Estados Unidos y
el Canada – Ilex aquifolium.
Mate’s botanical name is Ilex
paraguariensis. It is interesting that it is in the same family as our
Chrismas holly – Ilex aquifolium.
Los argentinos
se ofenden cuando les digo que la revolución del mate sucedió en el Uruguay.
Sabemos que el agua para el mate nunca debe hervir. Los uruguayos inventaron un
termo y un lindo estuche de cuero para guardar la yerba (y el azúcar). Ya para
los años 70 uno podía ver parejas tomando mate en los parques sin tener el
problema de calentar una pava. En México una pava es una cafetera aún cuando se usa para calentar agua para el té. El cuello de una pava se asemeja al cuello de la pava que comemos cuando nos cansamos del pollo.  | | Mi amigo el artista Juan Manuel Sánchez y su pava |
Argentines are reluctant to accept that the revolution to
drink mate outside one’s home began when they invented a kit, nicely done in
leather, that had a thermos (mate water must never reach a boil) room for the yerba (weed in Spanish and the correct
way of calling the mate) and even sugar. After that one could see young couples
drinking mate in parks. I have visions of old men drinking mate on sidewalks
with a nearby kettle and kerosene stove.In Mexico the Argentine kettle is called a cafetera even if it is used to make tea. The Argentine kettle, a pava is named after the turkey and the resemblance to its neck.
Todos
sabemos que si usamos agua hirviente el mate se llama mate lavado.
We Argentines know that if boiling water is poured into the
mate it will spoil it and it is calle a mate
lavado.
Durante mis
dos años como conscripto en la Marina de Guerra Argentina desayunábamos mate
cocido. La preparación consistía en hervir leche con yerba y azúcar casi toda
la noche. La tomábamos con un pan llamado galleta.
During my two years as a conscript of the Argentine Navy in
1966/67 we drank mate cocido. Early in the morning milk with yerba was boiled
with sugar for hours. It was served with a bread called galleta.
Rara vez
tomo mate solo. Mi nieta Rebecca (que ahora no me da bola poque tiene 29 años)
era la única que tomaba mate conmigo. Ahora preparo mi versión del mate cocido
usando una prensa (French Press). En el microondas caliento leche. A veces
ofrezco mi mate cocido a mis invitados.
 | | Rebecca with Pancho - 2016 |
I rarely drink mate from the gourd because this is a social
endeavour. My granddaughter Rebecca now 27 was the only person I could share a
mate. She does not visit my anymore. So I now prepare my version of mate cocido
with a French Press. I heat milk on the side in my microwave. Some of my
visitors drink it and perhaps are too polite to tell me they don’t like it.
¡Como
conocí a Julio Cortázar en 1950 porque era amigo de mi papa, solo uso la yerba
Cruz de Malta que era su favorita. A dos cuadras de mi casa aquí en Vancouver
en el barrio de Kitsilano la venden!
Because I met Julio Cortázar in 1950 as he was a friend of
my father’s, I drink only Cruz de Malta yerba which was his favourite. Here in
my Kitsilano in Vancouver I can buy it two blocks away. There is a lovely quote by Jorge Luís Borges - y la noche
olorosa como un mate curado - versos catorce It has to do with breaking in a new mate. Some folks use brandy or other alcohols. I have no idea how my father cured his.
On Women
Tuesday, November 03, 2026
 | | Cheri |
Inspired by Susan Sontag
The Essence of a Woman I married my
Rosemary in Mexico City on 8 February 1968. On my whim I asked her to pose nude
for me in 1969. I was a tad conservative so I shot her from the waist up. That
photograph, framed, stares at me from the wall opposite my bed. She stares
because I had my camera at eye level. Most of my portraits are like that.
In 1973 we
drove in our Beetle from Mexico City to San Francisco. I decided I would go
alone to see the film Deep Throat. Whatever I might have thought of the film was
destroyed by two men in front of me loudly munching on popcorn.
When we
moved to Vancouver in 1975, I could not get much work as a photographer. By 1977
I was spending lazy days at Wreck Beach. Rosemary kept telling me I was wasting
my time. It was there were I took my first full nudes. I will even show my
first ever of a woman called April. I used b+w Kodak Infrared film.
 | | April Wreck Beach |
By the late
70s and 80s I was taking pictures of most of our city’s exotic dancers
(ecdysiasts is the word I like). I do not think I ever demeaned any of them and
perhaps because of that I was so trusted that I was one of the few men that was
ever allowed to take photographs in their dressing rooms.
People often
ask me how this affected my Rosemary. My only answer is that I never touched
any of them.
Photographing
people (men or women) nude is like artists drawing in studio nude sessions. It
prepares you to know how a body moves. This helps when you photograph them with
clothes on either in fashion or in portraiture. My Rosemary taught me to note
and to photograph hands properly.
As I moved on
to magazine work I did les of this nude stuff except that I was obsessed with
displaying eroticism. I asked many of my subjects to define it. A model for me
was photographer Helmut Newton.
Little by
little the influence of my feminist wife made me retreat from that erotic idea
and I went into unclothed portraiture.
As I moved into the 21s century my photographs became less erotic and
more elegant.
After my
Rosemary died on 9 December 2020, I became less interested in women and today I
can assert that the only woman I am interested is my dead Rosemary. I do not
miss the sex. I miss the quiet moments in bed when we held each other or
walking around the block holding hands.
All the
above changed even more when last year I read Susan Sontag’s posthumous book
(written in 1975) On Women. She writes that old men have character and old
women are ugly. She does not agree with that. I thank the gods above that my
non-plus-ultra favourite actress, Grace Kelly died young enough that there are
no photographs (you will gag when you see what she looks like now) of her
that will ever appear in deprecatory postings in social media.
In the early 80s the exotic dancers of Vancouver formed a sort of union and they held all kind of activities to raise money. One of them were the exotic car washes. I wrote a blog about it (well no writing) and here it is below. I am now looking at them and wondering how I would have tackled those photographs in this century.
Auto Lavado - Car Wash
Una Chiripa
Monday, November 02, 2026
 | John Kay
(born Joachim Fritz Krauledat, 12 April 1944) is a German-born Canadian rock
singer, songwriter, and guitarist known as the frontman of Steppenwolf. |
Chiripa –
Chiripada
The above
words are Mexican lingo for luck and luck out. In the early 80s I was doing my
best to stand out with my portraits as competition in Vancouver was fierce. What I had going
for me is that I worked with writer Les Wiseman who had a rock column in Vancouver Magazine called In One Ear. I have always thought that
good music critics have to be snobs. When I started with Wiseman he told me, “Alex
if you don’t like Lou Reed you will not be able to work with me. If you do not
like the heavy metal band Motorhead, forget it.”
One method I
used to compete was to use a portable studio light with a device called a
softbox. To add to this, in my photograph here of John Kay, I took with Kodak
Technical Pan Film (discontinued in 2005) which was the sharpest and finest
grain film ever made. It had sensitivity to red so it rendered skin luminous.
I shot 10
photographs. I showed the contact sheet to Vancouver Magazine art director Rick
Staehling and he picked this one.
Somehow I
believe I must have lucked out with this portrait of John Kay. It is inmediate
and in-your-face.
Este retrato es una de chiripa.
The First Shall Be Last
Sunday, November 01, 2026
 | | Rosa sericea ssp. omeiensis f. pteracantha - 1 November 2026 |
"The
first shall be last and the last shall be first" is a prominent biblical
teaching spoken by Jesus Christ in the New Testament (found in Matthew 19:30,
Matthew 20:16, and Luke 13:30).
My extremely
rare Rosa sericea ssp. omeiensis f.
pteracantha is the first rose in my garden to bloom. This year it bloomed
on May 1 well ahead of the rest of my roses. Today I noticed that it had one
bloom and further down the stalk a bud. This would suggest that today’s
flower may not be the last one.
It was not until sometime in 1991 that my Rosemary
pushed me to go to a meeting of the Vancouver Rose Society that I learned (it
took a while) to become a rosarian. This is not a secret sect with funny
handshakes. The term applies to a lover of roses.
Not only did Rosemary urge me (not so gently) into
gardening but she also taught me to use the proper botanical names. This rose’s
proper botanical name is a mouthful.
And now when I see any of my roses in the garden I
finally equate that my Rosemary is also my Rosamaría. How was I to know that
when I first met her on 15 December, 1967 in Mexico City that her name would
connect me with that Peruvian saint, Santa Rosa de Lima, whose feast day in
Argentina was celebrated on August 30th and traditionally it came
with a fierce storm that sometimes cancelled my garden celebration of my birthday
on August 31.
Anybody who might notice details should know that
botanical names are always italicized except when they have a hybrid name which
is contained between single quotes such as Rosa
‘Emily Carr’.
Expect Delays - Be Prepared to Stop
Friday, October 30, 2026
 | | Ned Pratt |
In that
other century I photographed most of Vancouver’s architects. One I particularly
liked and we became friends. Ned Prat’s firm that he inherited previously, designed
and built our Cenotaph and the Burrard Street Bridge. Anyone who has crossed
that bridge recently must know that it needs to have the rust removed and be
repainted.
This city is
one Pratt would no longer understand or recognize. He would see hundreds of
city workers tearing up streets all over and surrounded by ubiquitous orange
cones and with signs (our city mantra) saying – expect delays – construction & be prepared to stop.
My smart
wife Rosemary (New Dublin, Onario) took us away from Mexico City to Vancouver
in 1975. When I drive now (Rosemary died
6 years ago) I sometimes not only communicate with her in my mind but I
find myself saying, “Rosemary you would not recognize and love the city you
brought us to."
Tomorrow I
am going to the Woodward Instructional Resources Centre at UBC at 7:15 to
listen to a lecture by Dr. Wade Davis on Canada and being Canadian. I decided
today to find out where the centre was so I drove to UBC. Tenth Ave is blocked
for about 10 blocks so I went by 16th. When I arrived at the mall I
put my destination on my car navigation device. It did not recognize the place
I wanted to go. My phone did work but… I drove for 45 minutes as streets were blocked
or were dead-ends. I asked at least 20 people if they knew where the centre
was. Nobody knew. When I finally found it I discovered that I could not get there in
my car but had to use some impossible roundabout route. The amount of
construction at UBC exceeds any in our city.
I have three
questions. How many city and university workers are on the payrolls? Do all of these constructions have to be done
at the same time? Why are so many avenues going East/West constantly blocked? A
terrible example is Broadway.
How Pants
Thursday, October 29, 2026
How Pants –
Anne Carson
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
trousers,
too
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
all kinds of
pants went by
yet the
birches linger
Portrait Photography is Doomed
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
 | | Rebecca |
My first
photograph in 1959 was of a classmate in my Austin, Texas boarding school. As a
boy around 8 I could draw likenesses well. I specialized in comic books that
had cowboys like Gene Autrey and or film posters with Randolph Scott.
In Mexico
City, after I met my Rosemary in 1967 and moved to a little house in 1970 I
began to photograph wealthy Mexican families in their homes with my 35mm Asahi
Pentax S-3. I would then process the film and print the pictures in my
bathroom. Because I was competing with portrait studios I was most popular. I
was making good money. In 1975 Rosemary saw no future for our two little girls
so we moved in our VW Beetle to Vancouver. By the late 70s I was a successful
portrait photographer for magazines and newspapers. When we would travel abroad
and especially Mexico City and Buenos Aires I found myself doing what I never
did in Vancouver. This was to shoot street photographs.
I ask myself
rhetorically, “Am I a one trick pony?”
In this 2026
with magazines and newspapers moribund the portrait photographer is as obsolete
as the journalist, the publicist and the graphic designer. There may be a few
photographers somehow making ends meet in weddings.
The cell
phone has become in this century the equivalent of the 19th century Colt
.45 Peacemaker in the US. It has levelled the playing field.
My
photographer friends show me very sharp and colourful photographs they take in
our city streets. If these photographers all mixed their pictures and put them
on a table I would not know who took which one. This is because unless you were
Cartier-Bresson, Vivien Meiers, William Eggleston, Fred Herzog,Mary Ellen Mark
and even Dennis Hopper it is impossible (my opinion) to have an identifiable
personal style if you shoot street
photographs in Vancouver.
I refuse to criticize
their photographs while at the same time I am aware that this one trick pony is doing
something that is doomed to disappear in an age where face to face
communication is fading.
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