In the cloistered hush of an archive room, where light is meted out so as not to wound the paper, a witness from another world surfaces once more: a sheet written and signed by Hernán Cortés on February 20, 1527. Five centuries have passed since the ink was still wet; more than thirty years since it was wrenched from the collection safeguarded by Mexico’s National Archives and disappeared without a trace.

A few days ago, I published a review of an exhibition held in Cincinnati, where the banana—liberated from its role as a trivial fruit—rose as an object of symbolic power, invested with a political density far exceeding what its modest morphology might at first suggest.

There is always that day in October or November when we sense, with unnerving clarity, that a definitive seasonal shift is approaching. In South Florida, such a prelude might be dismissed as a joke; here, in the North, it must be taken a little more seriously.

Throughout my life, I have felt a peculiar pleasure whenever I’ve had the chance to witness a birth. These beginnings—first steps, embryonic shapes of future realities—emerge every minute, every second. They are part of the unending dynamic of existence in the physical realm. Most will go unnoticed, for only God can foresee the majestic tree that may rise from a given blade of grass.

I've known Leticia for so many years that I can’t quite find the thread of the memory. What I do remember—clearly—is that while she was studying design, I suddenly realized she would never be a designer. Because she was an artist, and because she couldn't, wouldn't, and had no interest in being or doing anything else. I can’t recall the first time I saw her work either. But what I do know is that her work has been orbiting my gaze for a very long time, as if it had always been there—lurking, silent, waiting for unsuspecting, gentle eyes.

When Harry Belafonte released his famous Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) in 1956, he did not intend to celebrate tropical joy or offer a festive anthem to liven up Caribbean cocktail parties in white suburban America. The song—based on a traditional Jamaican work chant sung by night-shift dock workers loading bananas while waiting for the tally man to count their labor at dawn—is, in truth, a weary prayer, a rhythmic lament. Its upbeat tone masks an exhausting, underpaid routine marked by waiting and invisibility.

Leyva is a Cuban artist whose life and work are deeply marked by persistence, reinvention, and resilience. What is truly singular is that, even through transformation, his voice remains intact.

God knows why I tend to read the BBC’s digital edition late at night. Perhaps because I enjoy — and at the same time, not entirely — its concise and direct style. It does, however, offer compelling articles on themes or events that larger media outlets often overlook. Georgina Rannard, for instance, published a captivating piece (in its English version) about the ancient practice of tattooing on the Siberian steppe.

A staggering percentage of its so‑called informative content is either false or, at best, inaccurate. Today I stumble upon a post about the alleged auction—at Christie’s—of an AI‑generated work. I read and save. The note focuses more on the controversy it sparked than on the sale itself, perhaps because uproar, confrontation, and intellectual skirmishes attract far more attention than the artworks themselves.

As my enthusiasm for Artificial Intelligence grows, so does the range of readings I pursue on its likely paths and its influence on human reasoning. It is a dense undertaking: every day the media returns to the subject, and those articles, as they pile up, age with unsettling speed. AI keeps redefining itself. Yet to stop speaking about it is unthinkable.

At barely twenty‑two, the dazzling Sofia was already under Paramount’s watchful eye. Its executives, captivated by her performances in Aida (1953) and The Gold of Naples (1953), saw in her the natural successor to the great European figures Hollywood had once embraced: Ingrid Bergman and Marlene Dietrich.

Yesterday—quite late in the day—I learned of the tragic passing of the artist Rewell Altunaga through a post by Jesús Hdez‑Güero, another Cuban creator based in Madrid. Hdez‑Güero shared the article CNN published just yesterday on its digital edition. The piece, written by Ray Sánchez—a Puerto Rican journalist who once reported from Havana for the network—notes that he would often come across Rewell on the streets of West Harlem, in northern Manhattan.

According to various sources, Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), directed by Peter Webber and starring Scarlett Johansson as Griet, offers a carefully crafted fictional account inspired by the iconic painting of the same name by Johannes Vermeer. Critics agree that the film successfully evokes the visual world of the Dutch master with notable sensitivity. Based on the novel by Tracy Chevalier, the story is set in 17th-century Delft and follows a young maid who becomes a quiet yet pivotal presence in the painter’s studio.

I believe it has something to do with age—the way we begin to reject an overwhelming percentage of the stimuli we receive each day. Visual, auditory, olfactory... perhaps only the tactile ones survive, and even then, just barely. Maybe it’s because, after fifty, we’re simply not touched as often as we once were.

Alone in the vastness of space, that is. And many of us, alas, in the cramped solitude of our own rooms. Perhaps that is why I tend to raise an eyebrow —the left one— whenever I come across posts whose authors claim to detect, in ancient structures, rock art, or oral legends, undeniable evidence of extraterrestrial encounters at the dawn of time.