Log Of Attempted Files

[Ivo Welch]

dear nginx experts --- If I use an alias in my location, then
$realpath shows in my log file what file was actually served up.
Great.

How can I show in the access log file what file(s) nginx tried?  I do
not want the full rewrite engine in the debug log --- it contains way
too many things I do not understand and way too few things I do [or,
equivalently, I am just much too clueless].  I would ideally want just
to see something like

/var/www/html/index.html not found
/var/www/html/index.htm not found
/var/www/html/index-debian.htm OK

Short of this, what is the $variable name for the last file for the
log format in nginx?  pointer(s) appreciated.