Mi El Aleph Galaxy
Saturday, December 20, 2025
Enumeración de Jorge Luís Borges en El Aleph
En la parte inferior del escalón, hacia la derecha, vi una pequeña
esfera tornasolada, de casi intolerable fulgor. Al principio la creí giratoria;
luego comprendí que ese movimiento era una ilusión producida por los
vertiginosos espectáculos que encerraba. El diámetro del Aleph sería de dos o
tres centímetros, pero el espacio cósmico estaba ahí, sin disminución de
tamaño. Cada cosa (la luna del espejo, digamos) era infinitas cosas, porque yo
claramente la veía desde todos los puntos del universo. Vi el populoso mar, vi
el alba y la tarde, vi las muchedumbres de América, vi una plateada telaraña en
el centro de una negra pirámide, vi un laberinto roto (era Londres), vi
interminables ojos inmediatos escrutándose en mí como en un espejo, vi todos
los espejos del planeta y ninguno me reflejó, vi en un traspatio de la calle
Soler las mismas baldosas que hace treinta años vi en el zaguán de una casa en
Fray Bentos, vi racimos, nieve, tabaco, vetas de metal, vapor de agua, vi
convexos desiertos ecuatoriales y cada uno de sus granos de arena, vi en
Iverness a una mujer que no olvidaré, vi la violenta cabellera, el altivo
cuerpo, vi un cáncer en el pecho, vi un círculo de tierra seca en una vereda,
donde antes hubo un árbol, vi una quinta de Adrogué, un ejemplar de la primera
versión inglesa de Plinio, la de Philemon Holland, vi a un tiempo cada letra de
cada página (de chico, yo solía maravillarme de que las letras de un volumen
cerrado no se mezclaran y perdieran en el decurso de la noche), vi la noche y
el día contemporáneo, vi un poniente en Querétaro que parecía reflejar el color
de una rosa de Bengala, vi mi dormitorio sin nadie, vi en un gabinete de
Alkmaar un globo terráqueo entre dos espejos que lo multiplicaban sin fin, vi
caballos de crin arremolinada, en una playa del Mar Caspio en el alba, vi la
delicada osatura de una mano, vi a los sobrevivientes de una batalla, enviando
tarjetas postales, vi en un escaparate de Mirzapur una baraja española, vi las
sombras oblicuas de unos helechos en el suelo de un invernáculo, vi tigres,
émbolos, bisontes, marejadas y ejércitos, vi todas las hormigas que hay en la
tierra, vi un astrolabio persa, vi en un cajón del escritorio (y la letra me
hizo temblar) cartas obscenas, increíbles, precisas, que Beatriz había dirigido
a Carlos Argentino, vi un adorado monumento en la Chacarita, vi la reliquia
atroz de lo que deliciosamente había sido Beatriz Viterbo, vi la circulación de
mi oscura sangre, vi el engranaje del amor y la modificación de la muerte, vi
el Aleph, desde todos los puntos, vi en el Aleph la tierra, y en la tierra otra
vez el Aleph y en el Aleph la tierra, vi mi cara y mis vísceras, vi tu cara, y
sentí vértigo y lloré, porque mis ojos habían visto ese objeto secreto y
conjetural, cuyo nombre usurpan los hombres, pero que ningún hombre ha mirado:
el inconcebible universo.
Como leo Borges casi todos los días, siempre vuelvo a su El Aleph. En
esa enumeración donde Borges (protagonista del cuento) mira por primera vez por
ese agujerito en la escalera de la casa de Carlos Argentino Daneri se me
ocurrió que el teléfono portátil de este siglo 21 es nuestra version de verlo
todo.
Euphorbia pulcherrima for Christmas
Friday, December 19, 2025
 | | Euphorbia pulcherrima 19 December 2025 |
The poinsettia's history
began with the Aztecs in Mexico, who used its red bracts for dye and its sap
for medicine, calling it cuetlaxochitl. Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first U.S.
Ambassador to Mexico, introduced it to America in the 1820s, giving it his name
and establishing the tradition of its association with Christmas when he sent
cuttings back to his South Carolina greenhouses. The Ecke family later
popularized it as a potted holiday plant in the 20th century through breeding
and marketing efforts, making it a global Christmas symbol. AI
Not known by people who
are not botanically inclined is the fact that the poinsettia is a euphorbia and
euphorbias all have a white and very caustic sap.
I particularly like the
Nahuatl (language of the Aztecs) name of cuetlaxochitl. Xochitl means flower and the prefix “that
withers”.
For me ever since Rosemary
died on 9 December 2020 I have lost my Christmas spirit. We always celebrated,
like in Latin America, Christmas Eve. I would make a roast beef and Rosemary her
very good Yorkshire Pudding. One of our guests for about 5 years before he died
was architect Abraham Rogatnick. To our Christmas tree ornaments he made
origami birds. I now have no heart to buy a tree and take out all those
ornaments with memories that go back to my childhood.
My good friend Tim Turner
(he has a twin brother Terry) sold our Kerrisdale home and help us buy our
Kitsilano duplex. Every year he brings me a large poinsettia. This year I
decided to scan it. As soon as I can meet with him I will give him a print of
this scan.
A Stiff Look at Requiescat in Pace
Thursday, December 18, 2025
 | | Glen McDonald - Vancouver City Coroner - 1980 |
Two Coroners - One Never Smiled Death came into my life in
1950 in Buenos Aires. I was 8 and my mother took me (on purpose) to an open
casket funeral next door. The young man had run into a train with his motor
scooter. His face was all in bandages. Not long after someone from across the
street won the lottery. I then concluded that only neighbours died or won
lotteries.  | | Larry Campbell - Vancouver City Coroner - 1981 |
In 1966 an uncle (not a
real one) Leo Mahdjubian called me at my office at the US Naval Advisory Group
(I was a conscript in the Argentine Navy seconded as a translator), and told
me, “Alexander your father kicked the bucket yesterday on the street. He was
taken to hospital by a police sergeant. You have to go to the police station to
sign some documents.” I did only to find out that someone else had signed the
documents. This is how I discovered an older half-brother. That evening the police
sergeant called me so we could meet for coffee. He handed me a large sum of
money that my father was saving so he could bribe a general and send me
back to my mother in Veracruz. That money paid for my father’s small funeral.
My second facing of death
was when still in the navy we knew of a military coup in the works. My sailor
companions and I met and we decide that if we were orders to shoot at army
conscripts we would disobey the order. Luckily this never happened.
In 1972 my mother died in
bed in the presence of Rosemary and me. I could not find a nearby doctor to
sign the document so we relied on a veterinarian.
It was in 1962 that
studying philosophy (this I did for two years) under Ramón Xirau in Mexico City
College in Mexico City that Xirau told us that Epicurus (a Pre-Socratic
philosopher) often told his followers that death, since it was not painful, it
was something not to be feared.
It was a few weeks mid-August
2002 that I went to visit my old friend Abraham Rogatnick in hospital. He was
86, had terminal cancer and died a few weeks later. We talked about death. He told
me he was not afraid. I read him Ambrose Bierce’s Parker Adderson Philospher
and his reaction was that should I point a gun at his forehead he could not
predict how he would react.
Abraham Rogatnick & Parker Adderson Philosopher
On June 9, 2025 my friend
photographer Alan Jacques texted me in the morning, “Alex, dying is untidy.
Thank you for being my friend.” That afternoon he died via MAID.
All the above is about the
fact that the most important photograph I have ever taken nobody will ever see.
My wife was lying dead on our bed and with my two daughters and granddaughters
we were in the living room waiting for the funeral people to show up. I had a
thought, “Alex, you are a photographer. You have to take that photograph.” And
so I went upstairs and there was my dead Rosemary with our female cat, Niña,
sleeping on her chest. I took the photograph. Six minutes before Rosemary died she asked, "Am I dying?" I was unable to reply.
I put all my family
photographs into an exterior drive and in my computer called “Family”. I have another called “All our cats”.
Yesterday I was scrolling through the many family photographs and suddenly
there was the Rosemary and cat photograph. This was only the second time I had
ever seen it. It has left me “impresionado”. I called my youngest daughter
Hilary. She told me, “Papi I would never want to look at that photograph.
By language English is in
luck that R.I.P. matched the Latin. That is not the case in Spanish were we
either write R.I.P. because it is Latin or we write or say, “Descanse en paz.”
I want to end this blog by
writing that a few weeks ago the new Vancouver Drug Czar, Larry Campbell paid
me a visit. In spite of his lovely suit with matching smile he confessed to me
that he was a tad melancholic. I did not want to ask him since years ago when
he faced many dead people as the Vancouver Coroner how that might affect his current
job. I had also photographed outgoing Coroner Gen MacDonald in 1980. He did not
smile in my photographs nor did I ask him to. I question the idea of wishing people who are dead to R.I.P. Every day with my cats on top of me I do just that on my comfortable bed.
I just wonder.
El Amarillo de Jorge Luís Borges
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
 | | Rosa 'Leander' - 17 December 2025 |
On an unusually sunny day
today I was keen to see what was happening in the garden. All the roses and
flowers of my perennials are gone. There was nothing but then I spotted the
yellow leaves of Rosa ‘Leander’.
My grandmother used tell me, “No hay más ciego que el que no quiere ver.”
This translates to, “There is nobody as
blind as one who does not want to see.”
Because I like to
associate this with that, I remembered that the last colour Jorge Luís Borges was
able to discern was yellow.
I went to Google and
placed Amarillo, Jorge Luís Borges. I was surprised to find that first up was
my blog. Here it is: Los Colores de Jorge Luís Borges
Una Chiripada Again
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Borda Garden I have never been much of
a street photographer as I believe that doing it in the city on lives in does
nothing for me in inspiration. I have to go to Paris, Mexico City, Venice,
Florence and Guanajuato,Mexico. It was sometime in the beginning of this
century that this idiot figure out that to have nostalgia for a place you must
be somewhere else.
Good street photography
involves the waiting for people to move where you want them (without telling
them). Henri Cartier-Bresson called it waiting for the decisive moment. In some
cases I would think that he was just lucky.
In my visit to Mexico City
and Cuernavaca, Morelos I took two photographs where the the results, good
ones, happened because of luck. I like that Mexican word chiripa. I wrote about
it in this blog. Mi Chiripada
The photograph at
Cuernavaca’s Borda Gardenm blurry because I used a LensBaby with my Fuji X-E1
digital camera is a good one because a woman appeared as a silhouette. She was
there when I pressed the shutter.
The photograph also in
Cuernavaca of the little sandal store I took with my phone. I took only one.
When I shot it the man in the motorcycle was there. His presence adds a human
one to a photograph that would have been empty of humanity.
The third photograph of
the owner of the store I also took with my Galaxy phone. I don’t think it is
exceptional except it works because we chatted before I took it. Connecting
with people sometimes brings luck, too.
|
