Fourth Of July - Glory, Lincoln & Goosebumps
Saturday, July 04, 2015
 |
| Private Edwin Francis Jamieson - 2nd Louisiana Regiment - died in the 7-Day Peninsular Campaign March-July 1862 |
Time and again I have written here of how in my youth I
became interested and then almost obsessed on anything related to the US Civil
War. I wrote that it began at the Lincoln Library in Buenos Aires. I opened a
book of American Heritage and saw for the first time the photographs of
soldiers and generals and of dead in battle. The photographs of the soldiers,
in stark and sharp b+w, staring at me from the page did not look different from
the men and young men walking in the outside Calle Florida.
With all the uproar in the US on the terrible massacre or
innocents in the Charleston, South Carolina church I wanted to show my
granddaughter Lauren, 13 a bit of the reality as I see it and some knowledge of
what led to that terrible civil war. In Lauren’s house they do not have cable
TV nor do they get daily newspapers. As far as I know Lauren has little
knowledge of world events and her geography is spotty.
On July 1 we saw the beginning of Glory the film about the heroic 54 th Massachusetts Regiment,
all blacks. The film the first really good film by Matthew Broderick was a
preview of a man who has become one of the best American stage actors.
The film was too intense for us to see in one sitting so we
postponed the ending to today, July 4.
After the film I showed Lauren, Rosemary and Hilary one of
my prized books about the US Civil War My Brother’s Face – Portraits of the
Civil War In Photographs, Diaries and Letters by Charles Phillips and Alan
Axelrod with Foreword by Brian C. Pohanka.
I believe that Lauren may have understood my idea of the
starkness of these portraits that were taken before 1865.
After the film I lured them into the living room and popped
the Copland Lincoln Portrait. The work in question is over 15 minutes long and
Copland’s style of music always elicits from my Rosemary a, “I find this
disturbing.” When Charleston Heston began to declaim Lincoln’s words there were
not able to identify the man. But when I did Hilary immediately commented how
Heston had been a right-wing guns kind of guy.
 |
| Ulysses Simpson Grant |
I explained that even though I was not an American the
Lincoln Portrait always gives me goose bumps.
I have written here how my feelings of belonging to one
country or another are mixed with the confusion of memories of having lived in
Buenos Aires, Texas and Mexico. Now in Vancouver with the recent and inexorable
influx of immigrants I find that I am an alien in the city that represents the
place where I was made into a Canadian.
I have always felt very Argentine and very American.
Strangely I have never associated in belonging to Mexico a place where I was
reared into manhood. I wrote here about feeling Texan. Of late with all the shenanigans
of red-neck Texans I feel less so and perhaps more American is the better
bargain.
Even today the images of the US Civil war beckon me and then
penetrate my heart. It is impossible not to look at Alexander Gardner’s
portrait of Lincoln on the CD cover without being sucked in to the humanity of
the man.
To make this brief and final: this non-American spent a
perfect 4th of July in the company of loved ones and I hope that
someday they too, will understand the power of the portrait.
Death - Decay - But No Whiff Of It
Friday, July 03, 2015
 |
| Rosa 'Charles de Mills' - July 3 2015 |
It was around December of 1964 and I was a new conscript
recruit in the Argentine Navy. I had no rank and by the serial number that was
assigned to me fellow sailors with slightly older numbers out-ranked me. Thus I
was dispatched to a capilla ardiente
funeral (open casket) in the Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires. I was there to
stand guard by the body of some Argentine Navy non-commissioned officer. I had
pulled the short straw, the only one!
December temperatures can go over 40 Celsius in what is the
height of the Argentine summer. I stood in attention for 6 hours surrounded by
the smell of decaying gladioli and other flowers. If you have an average sense
of smell (mine us unusually good) the smell of flowers in a cemetery can never
hide the smell of putrefaction inherent to all such mortuaries.
For years I have equated the human body to that of a
refrigerator. The food inside a refrigerator will begin to smell soon after the
electricity goes or the life of the compressor. Electricity is to that
refrigerator what the spark of life is to a human being.
 |
| Rosa 'Charles de Mills' - July 3 2015 |
The gladioli at Chacarita have few exceptions. One would
be lavender and the other some of my roses. Some roses retain their fragrance
long after the blossom has withered.
Of this the Flemish and the Dutch knew something in the
17th century and earlier. Painters of the time would add in a corner
to their still lifes, a decaying blossom of a rose or a tulip. Sometimes they
would include a human skull as a reminder of the ever presence of death.
In the last couple of years while I have still scanned
the best roses and other flowers of my garden when they are at a peak I have
learned to appreciate how some roses, particularly the Gallicas, keep their
shape but turn usually into darker colours. Many are still fragrant.
 |
| Rosa 'Charles de Mills'- July 3 2015 |
The rose that to me is the best long after it has reached
that perfection of shape, colour and fragrance is Rosa ‘Charles de Mills’. Because it is a Gallica it only blooms
once. It is virtually thorn less. Another great feature is that it grows many
runners. After a year if I divide them out from the parent plant they produce
very active and fast growing copies.
In the death of the flowers the leaves are nice and
green. Unlike we who are of a higher order in the scheme of life I must point
out that Charles de Mills has us beat. We live and die. Charles de Mills,
lives, goes dormant and lives again. With its runners if it is in the right
place I will survive for years and never with any whiff of decay.
 |
| Rosa 'Charles de Mills' - June 7 2013 |
As The Cat
Thursday, July 02, 2015
As the cat – William Carlos Williams
As the cat
climbed over
the top of
the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot
carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
Canada Day - A Bittersweet Kind Of Day
Wednesday, July 01, 2015
Today,
Canada Day was a bittersweet kind of day. Lauren, 13 and her mother Hilary came
over in the latter part of the afternoon for my barbecued chicken wings, turmeric
rice with grilled red peppers, Hungarian style cucumber salad and my very
strong and very popular (with the family) iced tea from scratch. For dessert we
had mangoes and watermelon. The film we saw was Glory with Matthew Broderick,
Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman.
It was a bittersweet
kind of day because Hilary’s sister, Rebecca, 17 simply does not visit us
anymore. It was a day at the beach for her.
 |
| Papi & Casi-Casi - Photograph Lauren Stewart |
It was a
bittersweet kind of day because Lauren was 13 last Saturday. When I tested the
birthday present idea of a makeup kit I was bombarded by stiff resistance from
my daughter Hilary who said, “This is my second and last child. I want to keep
her for a bit longer as a young girl. She will eventually want makeup, a
cellphone and the rest of the stuff that teenagers want. Let’s keep her as she
is for a while longer.
It was a
bittersweet kind of day because Lauren’s disruptive sister Rebecca is making
Lauren grow up fast. I can see it behind her eyes and I can sense it in her
long moments of silence and her reticence to contribute to conversations.
It was a
bittersweet kind of day as I watered the garden and deadheaded my roses
wondering (perhaps even knowing now) that this is our last summer in our
Athlone garden. The promise of money in the bank, with the freedom to go
wherever desire, prompts us is but a bittersweet if slightly pleasant thought.
It was a
bittersweet kind of day that was less so when my Lauren snapped my picture with
Rosemary’s Casi-Casi (alas! I closed my eyes!). She used a Fuji Instax Mini 90.
In the middle
of the night a few days before her birthday last Saturday I had the idea of
this camera as the perfect gift. I had seen this unusual camera at Leo’s and
Jeff Gin had kindly explained how it worked. He has repeatedly done the same with my Fuji X-E1 which he sold me at Leo's.
In this
day and age of digital cameras a squarish little camera (not quite so little)
that uses Fuji (spit it out) instant film is a startling anachronism. More so
when if you look in the back there is not little screen to see what you have
just taken. The camera will shoot 10 exposures (one 10-exposure roll costs
$13.00) in a little credit card sized format with a white border on which you
can write whatever you want. The camera has a flash, a macro setting, a bulb (long
exposure) capability, two shutter releases (one for vertical shooting the other
for horizontal) and it has a few more important features like a self-timer so
Lauren can include herself and her friends in photographs.
 |
| Clematis florida 'Sieboldii'- Photograph Lauren Stewart |
As I saw
it, and only Jeff Gin understood it, here is a camera that gives you something
you can hold, give away, throw away if you want to or put it in an album. But
most important it is not going to be buried in some hard drive to never be seen
again.
Perhaps the lowly shoebox will come back in fashion.
I am
giving Lauren advice (little advice) as she needs it. I have told her to avoid
hard contrast situations. Judging from her picture of Rosemary’s Clematis florida ‘Sieboldii’ I believe
she is getting the message. I am now going to have to introduce her to the
Impressionists.
The
evening is nice and hot. I like to be in bed on the sheets with nothing on. It
is luxurious. It reminds me of nights when Rosemary and I would drive from a
chilly Mexico City in our Beetle to arrive late at night (usually a Friday
after our teaching jobs) to my mother’s house in tropical Veracruz. While there
is no smell of humidity and sea air wafting through our bedroom window the
fragrance of our roses will do just fine.
Now how
to diminish that bittersweet kind of day? I could start by seeing how quietly happy Lauren is with her new "Polaroid" camera.
Eres, Bajo La Luna, Esa Pantera
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
A Un
Gato – Jorge Luís Borges
No son
más silenciosos los espejos
ni más
furtiva el alba aventurera;
eres,
bajo la luna, esa pantera
que nos
es dado divisar de lejos.
Por obra
indescifrable de un decreto
divino,
te buscamos vanamente;
más
remoto que el Ganges y el poniente,
tuya es
la soledad, tuyo el secreto.
Tu lomo
condesciende a la morosa
caricia
de mi mano. Has admitido,
desde
esa eternidad que ya es olvido,
el amor
de la mano recelosa.
En otro
tiempo estás. Eres el dueño
de un
ámbito cerrado como un sueño.
To A Cat
Mirrors are not more silent
nor the creeping dawn more secretive;
in the moonlight, you are that panther
we catch sight of from afar.
By the inexplicable workings of a divine law,
we look for you in vain;
More remote, even, than the Ganges or the setting sun,
yours is the solitude, yours the secret.
Your haunch allows the lingering
caress of my hand. You have accepted,
since that long forgotten past,
the love of the distrustful hand.
You belong to another time. You are lord
of a place bounded like a dream.
|
On July 1 we saw the beginning of Glory the film about the heroic 54th Massachusetts Regiment,
all blacks. The film the first really good film by Matthew Broderick was a
preview of a man who has become one of the best American stage actors. 
