Friends of Borges

[The upper image is of a picture repesenting Virgile and Dante in Hell, by ]

'The Others'

This collection of books, DVDs and art objects is named in homage to the film Les Autres, born from the friendship between Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares with the philosopher and cinema director Hugo Santiago. This creative trio of friends also created 'Invasion', a film on which, I believe, Godart's 'Alphaville' - with its final tribute to Borges - was inspired.
[photo: Hugo Santiango with Jorge Luis Borges and two actors in the film setting of 'Les Autres']

[Click on the screens to watch 'Milonga de Manuel Flores, a fragment from the film 'Invasion' and the trailer of 'Alphaville']

Yûkoku: The Rite of Love and Death
by Yukio Mishima

'The Midnight Tryst & Other Short Stories'
by Christian Dawson

A moonlit castle in a remote part of fourteenth century Cornwall provides a beguiling setting for a secret love tryst where passion, selfishness and betrayal are all too familiar. But things are far from what they seem. Then, there’s an elderly lady who idolises her husband and the lifestyle they both lead, a self-assured lawyer who believes he has successfully buried a past that would otherwise come back to haunt him, a British agent desperate to escape the abhorrent treatment dealt by the hands of his captors, a business owner weaving a web of deceit, a young estate agent who believes he has finally overcome his bad luck, and the disappearance of a timid schoolboy that’s hard to fathom. The Midnight Tryst and Other Short Stories presents a series of mystifying and enchanting vignettes that transform reality into dark worlds of supposition and make-believe, guaranteed to keep you guessing – incorrectly – until the final pages.

You can purchase 'The Midnight Tryst & Other Short Stories' in Amazon to enjoy it today.

About author:
Christian Dawson is a professional London-based pianist, accompanist, teacher; and a novel writer.

He has completed a Master of Music in Performance degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, having studied with Eugene Asti and Paul Roberts. Prior to this, he completed a Master of Music in Solo Performance degree at the Royal Northern College of Music, where he was the recipient of the Humphrey Dayas Piano Prize (2012) and The Clifton Helliwell Memorial Award (2013). In 2011, Christian was awarded a Bachelor of Music degree with 1st Class Honours from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

His previous professors include Mikhail Kazakevich, Helen Yorke and Douglas Finch. He has also participated in many masterclasses and received coaching and one-to-one tuition from eminent artists including Graham Johnson, Julius Drake, Iain Burnside, Nelson Goerner, Steven Osbourne, Piers Lane, Noriko Ogawa and Stephen Hough.

Concert highlights have seen Christian perform at the Oxford Lieder Festival (2011), the North West New Music Festival (2012), the Reflections of Debussy Festival at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (2012), the Machynlleth Festival (2013), and The City of London Festival (2014), as well as the Manchester Welsh Society (2013), St. John's Smith Square, London (2014), and SJE Arts, Oxford (2015). Christian has also performed in the presence of HRH Princess Anne, HRH Prince Michael of Kent, HRH the Duke of Gloucester and Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence.

In addition to solo and vocal duo performances, Christian has performed regularly and lectured for the Divas & Scholars Opera Interpretations and Perspectives Study Day Series that take place at Cadogan Hall and Markham Square, London.

Christian is very much in demand as a piano teacher. His extensive teaching practice comprises of students who have gained considerable success in both ABRSM examinations and competitions, as well as achieving very high standards on the performance platform.

'Rendez vous à Palerme'
by Win Wenders

'Compulsion'
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Performed by Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell, Bradford Dillman, Diane Varsi, E.G. Marshall...

'The Devil's Disciple'
by George Bernard Shaw
Performed by Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier

'Total Eclipse'
the relationship of Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud

Socratic Citizenship: Plato's Apology
a lecture from Open Yale University

The lecture begins with an explanation of why Plato's Apology is the best introductory text to the study of political philosophy. The focus remains on the Apology as a symbol for the violation of free expression, with Socrates justifying his way of life as a philosopher and defending the utility of philosophy for political life.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction: Plato, Apology
09:31 - Chapter 2. Political Context of the Dialogue
19:19 - Chapter 3. Accusations Leveled Against Socrates
27:51 - Chapter 4. Clouds: Debunking Socrates' New Model of Citizenship
33:31 - Chapter 5. The Famous Socratic "Turn"; Socrates' Second Sailing

Read here The Apology of Socrates by Plato

Woody Talks:

Not only does Woody Allen profess not to care one whit about his legacy as a filmmaker; he’s also fashioned some choice Woodyisms on the topic. Here’s one: “I’m a firm believer that when you’re dead, naming a street after you doesn’t help your metabolism.” Here’s another: “Rather than live on in the hearts and minds of my fellow man, I’d prefer to live on in my apartment.”
Point taken, maestro. This is the Woody we’ve come to know well: the godless, affectless, clarinet-tootling, awards-ceremony-shunning workaholic who will give neither himself nor his audience the satisfaction of sitting back and taking pleasure in his achievements. (The working title of his most acclaimed film, “Annie Hall,” was “Anhedonia,” meaning the inability to experience pleasure.)
Would it be churlish, though, to suggest that Allen is being a tad disingenuous? For if he really were indifferent to his legacy, then why would he sanction the publication of a hefty book called “Conversations With Woody Allen,” and why would he have sat for hours and hours of new interviews with Eric Lax, the man who wrote a quasi-authorized biography of him 16 years ago?

This is a legacy-burnishing project, plain and simple. Allen is a big Orson Welles fan — he tells Lax he considers “Citizen Kane” the greatest American film ever made — and “Conversations With Woody Allen” is essentially the Woodman’s chance to do his version of “This Is Orson Welles,” a magnificent book (published in 1992) that collected years of talk between the orotund “Kane” auteur and his interlocutor-protégé, Peter Bogdanovich. Lax is well positioned to play the Bogdanovich role: he first met Allen in 1971, when he interviewed the then fledgling director for an abortive New York Times Magazine profile, and has since spent a significant chunk of his adulthood in Allen’s company, sometimes on set, sometimes in the intimacy of his subject’s screening room or apartment.

“Conversations” reveals, happily, an Allen who’s game to range freely over his oeuvre. We learn that his favorites of his own films are “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” “Match Point” and “Husbands and Wives” (the last one a bit of a surprise), with “Stardust Memories” and “Zelig” ranking a notch below. Sometimes Allen’s assessments are bracingly contrarian. He expresses bafflement over the high regard in which “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan” continue to be held (“People really latched on to ‘Manhattan’ in a way that I thought was irrational,” he says) and makes a strong case for “Manhattan Murder Mystery,” his underappreciated 1993 reunion picture with Diane Keaton. In other moments, no less fascinating, he borders on the delusional. He can’t fathom, for example, how “Hollywood Ending,” a patchy, forgettable effort from 2002, “was not thought of as a first-rate, extraordinary comedy.” ...read the article by David Kamp - a contributing editor for Vanity Fair - in The New York Times Sunday Book Review
[Click on the screens to enjoy the Woody Allen interviewed by Dick Cavett the 20th October 1971]

Epifanía Uveda de Robledo, cariñosamente llamada "Fanny", la nodriza del "niño" Georgie

En la foto: Fanny con Borges a comienzos del 80, publicada en el libro "El señor Borges" de Epifanía Uveda de Robledo y Alejandro Vaccaro.
Obituaria: 10 junio 2006 A veinte años de la muerte de Jorge Luis Borges fallece en Buenos Aires Epifanía Uveda de Robledo, cariñosamente llamada "Fanny" (como la querida abuela paterna Fanny Haslam de Borges) quien compartió, durante cuatro décadas, la vida de la pareja formada por Doña Leonor Acevedo viuda de Borges y su hijo Georgie, cuidando de ambos cada día.
Foto reproducida del libro de investigación "Borges la posesión póstuma" de Juan Gasparini, recientemente publicado en francés con el título "La dépouille de Borges" = Entre los dictadores Stroessner y Franco el cónsul paraguayo, un argentino mafioso de nombre Gramont Berres (purga prisión en Suiza) a quien la señorita Kodama compró su falso matrimonio con Borges cuando él se moría en Ginebra.

Cuando Borges se moría de cáncer, aislado en Ginebra, la señorita María Kodama (quién volvería a la Argentina enriquecida con la herencia comercial de su obra), puso en la calle a Fanny, pero no contenta con ese acto de crueldad hacia una asistenta en edad de merecer jubilación, la nueva señorita heredera absoluta de la millonaria obra Borges comenzó contra la anciana criada una costosa y odiosa persecución por medio de sus muchos abogados. La señorita Kodama le debe además a Fanny el haber tenido la fortuna de acompañar a Borges en sus viajes por el mundo, desde la muerte de su Madre en 1975, porque fue Fanny que la propuso cuando otras personas no pudieron acompañar a Borges debido a su situación familiar, edad o compromisos profesionales. "La judicialización es una técnica elaborada que tiene como fin callar a quienes opinan en disidencia mediante el temor" dice con acierto, por una vez, Vaccaro el coleccionista y biográfo de Georgie. Manifiesta la señorita K otra de sus muchas diferencias con Borges cuando elige para servir sus planes siniestros personajes que Borges repudiaba explicitamente: peronistas, nacionalistas y/o mafiosos como áquel cónsul paraguayo, ahora en prisión, que le vendió, durante la dictadura de Stroessner, su falso certificado de matrimonio con Borges, cuando éste, acostumbrado por su Madre y por su hermana Norah a ser dócil y sumiso - hasta el masoquismo - con el sexo fuerte (como él mismo reconocía), estaba a pocas horas de su muerte, debilitado por la terrible enfermedad. Además cuenta la señorita Kodama con el apoyo personal del sonriente señorito Zapatero, quien por méritos propios pasará a la Historia Universal de la Infamia como promotor del leyes anticonstitucionales en favor de su idolatrado sexo fuerte (de ahí que se lo llame por el apellido de su madre Zapatero y no de su padre Rodríguez) o del social-nazionalismo en España o por haber resucitado milagrosamente la banda terrorista de ETA, cuando se encontraba derrotada. Desde entonces, es decir desde el año 2004, la señorita Kodama, siguiendo el estilo manipulador de "Emma Zunz", ha venido a espiar la sede de nuestra fundación en Valldemossa y ha tejido una nueva intriga contra los Amigos de Borges, amparándose en el "inocente" nepotismo de su admirador Zapatero, esta vez con el último alcalde de la dictadura franquista que aún conserva el poder en esa retrógrada localidad de Mallorca. Como se puede apreciar, no por nada se autoproclamó la señorita Kodama, sobre la tumba de Borges, la "reina de los lobos", ya que la verdadera Ulrica del cuento se llamaba von Külhmann.

El célebre periodista argentino don Antonio Carrizo (ver foto) recuerda la importancia de Fani en la vida cotidiana de Borges en un sobrio epitafio publicado en diario La Nación esta semana: "+ UBEDA, Epifanía , q.e.p.d., falleció el 10-June-2006. - Mientras la literatura armaba sus juegos en la calle Maipú, ella tenía la casa en orden. Gracias Fani. Antonio Carrizo." Epitafio que los Amigos de Borges suscribimos.

"Señor Borges, Monsieur Proust"
del renombrado escritor Tomás Eloy Martínez

En merecido homenaje a "Fanny" recomendamos la lectura del excelente ensayo. Pulse aquí para leer el texto.