Marc Destrubé - 24 January 2026

John 2:1-11

In the Wedding of Cana we find out that Jesus converts water into wine at the end of the feast when the wine had run out. Comments were made about serving the best for last.

On January 24^th I attended a home concert of La Modestine in which the first work by an unknown (to me) composer Dietrich Becker, Sonata and suite a 2 in D Major was so fabulous that I told myself it was not going to get any better. It is precisely because of my musical ignorance that while the rest of the program was excellent I will stick to my guns and insist that Becker was the best.

Because of my age (83) I am losing my interest and desire to go to dance, theatre, and  concerts, particularly in large venues like the Chan. But when I am invited by Marc Destrubé to attend one of the house concerts for either La Modestina (early baroque) or the Microcosmos Quartet (music of the 20^th and 21^st century) I go. And I am accompanied by my graphic designer friend Graham Walker.

There is something about listening to music right in front of you in an intimate place which includes food and drink and being able to meet new people.

The trio included a very tall younger man, Abraham Ross, I had never seen before who played the harpsichord.

It is almost impossible for me to understand how time has passed by. I first met Destrubé in 1991.

What I see when I bed rot

I was fascinated in 1962 when our philosophy professor, Ramón Xirau told us about the origin of the expression “water under the bridge’. Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus had stated that anything you saw on a river before it passed under the bridge was gone. The past was just that past.

Through these years in my constant reading of Borges, he writes that everything that happens, happens again. Not only that he insists that all our first times are always first times again.

From my bed I stare at Rosemary’s framed portrait. She stares back at me. I wrote about the portrait here.

A Borgesian First Time 

I took that photograph early 1969 and they were my first nude photographs. There is this sad look on her face. In my memory that sad stare is always there. That first awareness of that sad look (what was she thinking? Did she know something about her future to come?) when I look at the photograph, it seems to me that I am seeing her for the first time. The portrait is new. I took it seconds ago even though so many years have transpired.

That brings me back to Heraclitus. Suppose I see a floating shoe before the bridge. It then disappears under the bridge. What if I run ahead and wait for it to appear on the other side?

St. Augustine wrote that when you listen to music you hear that note in the past, then you hear a note in the present. But then you predict the next note in the future before it happens. Of course Augustine did not know about about Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal music.

I am comfortable with the Borges notion that every time I look at Rosemary’s portrait on my wall I am taking her photograph for the first time

Again.

 A Borgesian First Time

Rosemary’s portrait stares at me from my place in bed. When I turn off the lights I can imagine her gaze still there.

When we went to get Niño and Niña 7 years ago at the SPCA, Niña became her cat. Niña ignored me or ran away. Now with Rosemary dead five years Niña is constantly on me. She has transferred from Rosemary to me.

The presence of my two cats helps me keep sane. That presence, gives me a purpose in a life that has lost most of it. I believe that I will be more useful to my small family when I am dead. But it is Niño, who has lymphatic cancer of the intestines, and when he stares at me, I know what he is thinking. “Alex don’t die before we do. Who would take care of us if you did?”

While Niño communicates without talking, that does not stop me from talking to both cats. This I do all the time, particularly when I return home from shopping at Safeway.

I live alone but I talk a lot. In the car, without thinking, I find myself saying out loud, “Rosemary, the quiero,” or I simply repeat her name especially in Spanish, “Rosamaría.”

With my two cats next to me on the bed and with Rosemary in her framed portrait on the wall I feel that we are four in the room.

Magically, as I stare at her and she stares at me back I am back 57 years with my Asahi Pentax S-3 and Kodak Tri-X, taking her portrait. Why did she have that sad look? Did she know or even think then that one day we would not be together?

Cuando le decía a mi abuelita que yo estaba aburrido me daba dos consjos:

1. Chúpate el codo.

2. Cuando el diablo no tiene nada que hacer con el rabo espanta moscas.

As a little boy when I would tell my grandmother that I was bored she would give me a double advice:

1. Suck your elbow.

2. When the devil has nothing to do he swats flies with his tail.

Y eso es lo que pienso cuando en mi cama con mis dos gatos no hago nada.

And that is what I think of when when I lie on my bed with my two gats and do nothing.

En marzo del 2006 fotografié a un buen cantante de ópera llamado Brett Polegato. Se me ocurrío usar un fósforo y quemar los bordes de un negativo en blanco y negro. Me gustó el resultado pero nunca repetí la técnica.

In March 2006 I photographed Brett Polegato a fine opera singer and I had the idea of burning the edges of one of the black and white negatives with a match. While I liked the results I never used that technique again.

Como no tengo un rabo para espantar moscas se me ocurrió hoy usar la técnica Polegato con un negative de mi amiga, la modelo Hannah Parkhouse.

Because I have no tail to swat flies today I had the idea or using that Polegato technique on one of her negatives.

Estoy contento con los resultados.

I am happy with the results.

20 January 2026

Being a Jorge Luís Borges fan and a lover of the only-in-English term Borgesian I constantly experience what Borges often said that every first time is followed by repeated first times.

In my bedroom until today I had 8 framed pictures on the wall that featured my daughters and granddaughters. There were none of Rosemary. In the morning I went to pick up a framed photograph of Rosemary at Magnum Frames on Main and Marine Drive.

I put it on the wall. It is opposite me when I am on my bed. Rosemary stares at me with those sad eyes of hers. I took the photograph in the beginning of 1969. This means that the portrait is from 57 years ago. The print in the frame is not a darkroom print or an inkjet b+w print. It is an inkjet transparency mounted on silver carboard. It resembles a Daguerreotype.

She stares at me, and. I stare back. It seems like she is posing for me in our Calle Herodoto home in Mexico City. Borges was right. She is in my room and the eye contact is startling. It saddens me. But I would rather be sad if that means that she is posing for me for that Borgesian first time.

Again.