Buscando Borges

The infinite Aleph of Borges' 1949 story, "The Aleph," is "a small irridescent sphere of almost unbearable brightness" that contains all of universal space without changing its actual size. It is in the basement of Carlos Argentino's family house near the corner of Avenida Garay and Calle Tacuari. Is the house (and the Aleph) still there? The story suggests not. Zurno and Zungi, CA's neighbors were expanding their "enormous cafe" and were going to tear down CA's house in the late 1940's. Maybe, I think, I'll just stroll over there and see whether the building is still standing. What's more, CA's lawyer, Licenciado Zurni has an office at Tacuari near Avenida Caseros which "is one of proverbial sobriety." That is two blocks south of CA's important basement. It's not a long walk.

Ample discouragement of this adventure to Plaza Constitucion arises. Everyone tells me not to show up in that barrio unless I really want to be separated from my wallet. Or my head. A NY Times Article(5/14/06; sorry no link now) seems to confirm this. The author passes the corner shielded in a moving taxi and charitably describes the site as "anonymous." He doesn't stop to get out and look around. A predominantly gray photo on Flickr (sorry no link now) clinches the deal. There is nothing to look at. Walk canceled.

Instead I select a walk on the nearby eponymous street in Palermo Viejo. Number 2135 of the street formerly known as Serrano bears a simple plaque that the building was there JLB lived a century ago (1901-1914) as an infant. It is a two-story, brick home with a sharply pointed, arched entryway. Is the front entrance Romanesque? Norma? Does that have anything to do with JLB's later interest in North European lanuages and myths? I am no expert.

Today the building's first floor is occupied by a hair salon humorously dubbed "Maldito Frizz."I imagine that JLB might be surprised by this development. And by the nearby "Cybrborges" internet store. But maybe not.

These speculations are easily resolved by taking the 3 block walk to the zoo and observing JLB's beloved Tigres. When I arrive, the tiger is lying down. After a while she gets up to stroll the cage and observe the observers. Borges would have been delighted. I certainly was.

The Aleph

Just when I was losing touch with a glorious Springtime, the sounds of the red wing blackbirds, the chorus of bullfrogs, the sun, just when the world was inexorably collapsing into a single point of focus on Borges' Zahir, I lucked into the antidote, Borges' short story from the same collection, The Aleph. The Aleph is the antidote to the Zahir.

Beatriz Viterbo, who dies and whom Borges mourns, has a cousin, Carlos Argentino Daneri, whom Borges gets to know over time. Argentino is an awful, pretentious, pedantic, boring, self aggrandizing poet. His own criticism of his poetry is overwhelmingly self indulgent; his poetry, in a word, terrible. Eventually, Argentino explains to Borges that Argentino's neighbor is trying to take over his home to expand a cafe, but that this cannot be permitted to happen because it will prevent Daneri from finishing an exhausting, pedantic, pretentious poem he's working on. The poem plans on describing every place in the world in excruciating detail. At this time he's working on the part called "Australia."

And how is Argentino getting the information for this? From an Aleph, something in the basement of the house that allows one to see the entire universe from every point of view all at once. The Aleph, it seems, shows everything and everywhere. It's infinite. It is everything.

Told this, Borges is convinced that Daneri is crazy after all, but he decides to have a look. And, of course, he observes the Aleph, and it's true, he sees the entire universe all at once. But because he wants to get even with Daneri, even though he's stunned by what he sees, Borges denies seeing anything. He says that there was nothing there to see. This, of course, leads to the demolition of the house and the loss of the Aleph.

A postscript has Daneri winning an important poetry award anyway. And Borges's research reveals that the Aleph in Daneri's former basement wasn't the only one. In the Amr mosque in Cairo there is a stone pillar that contains the entire universe. This Aleph cannot be seen, it can only be heard.

The antidote to one-pointed concentration is everything everywhere all at once.