The Agony of Living
A Journey trough life By Alvaro Romero Perez
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
A "Cristeros" war is looming over the USA!
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
In my home...
Monday, July 12, 2021
Julio Torri Cervi... in memoriam.
I read your article (here) about Julio Torri Cervi for the second time. The first time was several years ago.
Somehow his name came back to my memories and after doing a google search I found what you wrote about him. All in all, you’re right about him, but to me, he never struck me as someone who wanted to die in anonymity, but more or less like someone that wanted to go through history as the “Buddha of Tulancingo”.
He ran around claiming that he didn't want to use his uncle ‘s name to gain notoriety, but in the same breath he tried to portrait him as a pillar of the mexican intellectualism. We have to remember that Julio Torri’s (the uncle) literary production was rather squalid and his resume consisted mainly of his friendship with Vasconcelos.
I don't want to take anything away from Julio my friend, he was well educated, spoke several languages, artist, writer and a philosopher of sorts… but he was not humble, nor shy about his qualities or qualifications nor the things he wanted out of this life. I don’t want to say that he was a con man, but he came to Tulancingo selling ‘snake oil’ and we bought it! Instead of blowing up his cover and showing up what he really was... a pretender.
When we met he must have been in his early forties, but I thought he was something like seventy because that was the image he wanted to portray… ‘an old wise man sacrificing himself out of the glory of this world just to save poor Tulancingo from its ignorance’
When I heard that he became a clergy it didn't surprise me, it made total sense with the kind of persona he wanted to portray himself… A mystic ascetic holder of a secret knowledge. In reality, he was an atheist with little respect for organized religion and his contact with the church had the only purpose of securing a contract to paint the murals of the cathedral. I guess along the way he found that becoming a priest would secure his future at the age of retirement
.
I met Julio when I was sixteen years old. I was a student at the Preparatoria Numero 2 and he came to give a lecture. It must have been about literature, I think, because when he finished I approached him andI asked if he would be willing to read some of my poetry. He agreed but asked me if he could take my poems with him and we could talk later. I said yes and we agree to meet at the Colonial hotel later that week. I don't remember what poems I gave him, but I'm sure they weren't good at all. I remember that one of my poems was titled “Soneto” and he read it and said “this is a poem, but not a soneto” and proceed to explain to me what a soneto was.
From then on we met frequently and had long talks about philosophy and the meaning of life. I met his friend Otto and his girlfriend and for what i can infer now, I can tell that they either met through the dianetics or they introduced him to the dianetics (nowadays known as scientology) I always had the feeling that otto and his girlfriend were more interested in finding gold hiding in old houses using the dianetics methods. Meanwhile, Julio was painting and Otto would do the rounds through the art galleriesi n Mexico city.
One day my mother asked me to invite Julio out for dinner in our home We lived in El Paraiso, which, at the time, was just a rural town with no running water, sewer or electricity, the roads (we used to call the streets) were just a trail path through the nopal cacti and my house was just a shack or a hut . He
said yes and came over. My mother made some chicken and rabbit Mixiotes but they turned out to be too
spicy for Julio who had some heart problems at the time. Nevertheless, the dinner was a success and
my mother (an intellectual of sorts) had a great conversation about art and music with him. We had a
dog with a litter of puppies and he took one with him and name her Pascuala.
After that,against my mother's wishes (I was a minor at the time) I spent several weeks at his house in
“Cerro verde”. That was the time when he was starting his series of ‘Retablos’ and if you happen to see
one of them you'll see a puppy next to Santa Pascuala and her missing foot, that was the puppy we gave
him, He later gave her away because his lifestyle did not aloud him to take care of her.. He was making a
portrait of a woman who was the daughter of a factory owner in tulancingo, and a nopal cactus landscape
that was fascinating because it looked like it was photographed from above… I wish I had that one.
We continued to be friends. We have dinner often at the archidiocesis of Tulancingo because he was
lobbying the archbishop to aloud him to paint the cathedral murals.
At some point I was admitted in the school of Veterinary medicine at the Universidad Metropolitana and
soon after I moved to Mexico city. After that we saw each other less often but one day we had a very
agitated conversation about something. It must have been politics or something in between. He used to
dream of the old times when the intelectuals used to rub elbows with ‘la creme de la creme’, and I was a
a young dreamer os a better world with social justice and equality of wealth and rights.We argued and I
stormed out of the cafe very uneasy. Couple weeks after I read something he wrote in ‘El Sol de Hidalgo.
In that article he was talking about what we talked about that night. He didn't mention my name, but he
said that ‘someone who thinks that just because he is very good at playing chess, can have an opinion
about…’ I can't say with certainty, I just know it was me who he was talking about…
We never saw each other again. Life took me all the way to chicago and just recently, in the last year I
have some contact with some pieces of my past life in tulancingo. I know he is dead, I know many
people have no respect for him, but for bad or for good he left a mark in my life.
One day he saw something I wrote and told me “It reminds me of a poem by my uncle Julio Torri:
This is the poem by his uncle:
¡Circe, diosa venerable! He seguido puntualmente tus avisos. Mas no me hice amarrar al mástil
cuando divisamos la isla de las sirenas, porque iba resuelto a perderme. En medio del mar
silencioso estaba la pradera fatal. Parecía un cargamento de violetas errante por las aguas.
¡Circe, noble diosa de los hermosos cabellos! Mi destino es cruel. Como iba resuelto a
perderme, las sirenas no cantaron para mí!
I Don't remember what I wrote back then… But at this point, it doesn't matter anymore… Ironically, that
poem of his uncle has been the compass of my life.
Monday, February 3, 2020
Reapping the gifts of God from the giving hands of the devil!
- If he really exists
- If the holly book was really inspired by him
- If the prophets were not merely some schizophrenic individuals
- If the bible is more prove of an advanced ancient civilization than the creation
- All the contradictions in the bible’s stories
- Etc. Etc.
Thursday, January 30, 2020
give me your time
Sunday, January 26, 2020
snow
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Self care! A case for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Ocasio-Cortez is not the inventor or creator of the concept of self care. As Elaine Olen from the Washington post already explained here, self care has deep roots in the american culture, though in some other culture there is an old tradition of saunas and massages, such as the eastern European countries. The Russian Banya for example or the turkish Hamam where man went to relax and get massaged. In america (meaning the continent from Alaska to Chile) exist the 'Temascal' which is more or less an sauna for medicinal purposes.
Many time a trend may elude me just because the fact that I spend so little time on Facebook or Snapchat but I got a back and forth with my friend Julie Heinz when she posted a story on Facebook mentioning her need for a self care time, so, when I heard Ocasi-Cortez talking about it, I knew right away what she was talking about. After the conversation with Julie, a realized that the self care trend is mostly a liberal issue. conservatives do the same thing, but they call it many other ways. The concept of "self Care"is basically a liberal issue, and that is why conservative pundits reacted so quick to @Ocasio2018 comment.
Now, as I mentioned before, She is not the creator of the concept, but in this instance she has had a hold of the pennant and ran with it and that make her a leader in thet subject for the time been. She mentioned how bad she need a face mask with a couple cucumbers and a towel wrapped around her head. Probably that includes some exfoliation, manicure and eyebrows as well as a deep massage. Her diet is a plus! Back to the veggies and avoid dead animals as much as possible and the Yoga!
No, I am not been sarcastic about all of this. I truly believe that this is a basic human need and it should be included in the "Health Care for all"plan so people can have this things the same way that the can take an aspirin when they have a headache. So the yoga!
Yoga, in the ancient times was a way to meditate and every different position had a purpose in the practice of meditation. The yoga that we practice now days has evolved more into some kind of sport or a workout routine putting aside any mental or spiritual aspect of it. and that is way I am recommending miss Alexandria (or congresswoman elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @Ocasio2018) to include some kind of meditation in her schedule. Not just for this self care time but in her everyday schedule... she really deeds it!
She hasn't fight any round yet of this the 24 first rounds of her political career and she has thrown so many punches already! Meditating before the fight would give her the insight to have mental control when the fight starts and that way follow the advice of her corner.
And here I insert this (which for a an agnostic person could sound hypocritical)
Hebrews 12:11
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
A lesson on boxing now!
Everyone needs to know a little bit about boxing if you are planing in making a living of politics, and in your case you need to know whether what happened to you was a "sparring gone wrong" or true skills (click here for an example) . You KO a champion but you don't know if that was a lucky punch or your real skills.
Every boxer needs to master a technique based in their natural skills. For example, she needs to decide whether she is going to be a Swarmer, Out-Boxer or Slugger. . All of them can win you the championship but very rarely a boxer can be both. Once your trainer evaluate your skills then you can decide if you are going to a be: Julio Cesar Chavez, Floyd Mayweather or Mike Tyson.
When you responded to Alex Shapiro : "Foll: ::Just like catcalling, I don’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from men with bad intentions.And also like catcalling, for some reason they feel entitled to one." That answer was very intelligent and measured... all you needed a that point was to keep your mouth shut. But no, the response you got back from your crowd gave you a sugar rush and then you started answering a every cat caller out in the street. Which make me thing of something "DO NOT FOLLOW THE MAGA GUY STEPS" a) you don't have to take off running every time somebody says 'squirrel!'. b) tell your truth with out offending the other party and c) don't make enemies from inside your allies: I mean, you came after the election trowing punches right and left and demanded your own territory! it is ok... it's just too early. For somebody that has never fought a real fight you still need to come over and kiss couple rings, the protection of those old dogs would give you time and exposure to gain real experience and the fight for your territory. Look at the maga guy! made plenty of enemies very fast, a fool of himself and gain nothing in the process.
You think that Nancy is too old to leader? Take on meditation, meditate, get to know yourself and then comeback.