La Modestine - A Wedding Feast of a Concert
Saturday, January 24, 2026
 | | 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
24th 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 20th and 21st 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.
For The First Time Again
Friday, January 23, 2026
 | | 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.
The Four of Us
Thursday, January 22, 2026
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?
Espantando Moscas - Swatting Flies
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
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.
A Borgesian First Time
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
 | | 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.
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