Mexico ... Plaza de las Tres Culturas OR the remains of the pyramids and temples of the ancient Aztec city of Tlatelolco

Unfortunately, invaders, conquerors and occupiers besides being murderers are also looters and destroyers and the Spanish conquistadors committed all these atrocities..on steroids.

The Spaniards destroyed the larger temples or pyramids of  this ancient city of Tlatelolco so they could use the stones from them to build the church that you see in the background of the first pic above.

Tlatelolco is called the Place of Three Cultures because what's visible to the naked eye as soon as you set sight on the place is ...  the Aztec culture of almost 800 years ago via what's left of their pyramids which formed a part of their ancient city, and right behind the ruins is seen the Santiago de Tlatelolco Catholic Church, built by the Spaniards with stolen Aztec materials and then you see the buildings of  modern Mexico lining the streets behind the church.

We strolled down those streets and walked into the grounds of some of the many housing complexes and they looked a lot like some we have here in Canada.


Archeologists are finding more artifacts and tombs in the grounds of this  ancient city and parts of the site are under tents (see last pic) where the digging for past history continues. 


If you want to learn more, go
here and here.
 

Mexico ... Mexicans' Fascination with the Day of the Dead ...

  
known to most of us Christians as  All Souls Day.

Although, we were in Mexico in February and the Day of the Dead was celebrated months before that, the skeletal figures dressed up in fine red gowns and set up in various public arenas were prominently in view.  Check out pics from my camera below.

In a local market in the middle of Mexico City, with a myriad of tiny little lanes cramped with shops selling every kind of merchandise your heart desires, imagine our surprise when we came across what you see in the second pic below. 

What I liked most about Mexico is the fact that it's a Catholic country and the evidence of it is everywhere.
Missing "prominently" were waddling black tents.  So lovely!! Unlike Toronto. *sigh*

A short while before coming upon this place, we had heard the chiming of bells like the call for The Angelus and saw a Catholic priest with his acolyte, both chanting prayers while walking along the same little corridor with what looked like some kind of offering. We tried to follow the two to satisfy our curiosity as to what was going on but lost them in the maze of shops and the throng of people.  Were they there to lay an offering at the altar of the skeleton or at the altar of Jesus ... we wish we had seen.

If you want to learn more about the custom of the Day of the Dead, go here and here.

Mexico .... Expensive chocolates and cheap street food

We were lucky to be in Mexico City during the weekend a Chocolate Festival and Chocolates and Eggs exhibition was being held in the city centre.
 
Below some pics of the chocolates and buyers milling around the offers.  The chocolates on sale inside the hall were, IMO,  not cheap,  but there were several dozen stalls outside the main halls where vendors and buyers made themselves pretty happy.

Street food, especially in Mexico City, is unbelievably  cheap. We snacked on corn tacos, tortas and quesadillas every chance we got. These all come  filled with meat - mainly pork or chicken +  with powerfully spicy green or red chili sauces.. Although, we had packed some strips of Imodium, none of us had need for them. 

Below some pics from my camera. They include one art display titled "Jaque Mate" which I thought was a nice play on words.  Also included is a pic of the door of an upscale choc shop. Notice the gold lances shaped like cocoa beans. We bought a bag of chocs from the shop and before we reached the hotel, they were all gone.

 

I'm back !

Did I miss anything?!!   hahahhahahaha

The young Know-it-all (KIA)  from my family, my generous travelling companion remarked that the "muslim thing seems to be following" me wherever I go .... even continents away from places where they make life for infidels a living misery. One just cannot escape these fucking  bastards.   When travelling abroad,  I tend to cling tightly to American brand transit establishments because those inside speak my language and  usually carry at least one of the US news channels no matter which corner of the world they are located in. For the first 11 days of our trip we were in places that carried FoxNews so I was up to the hilt with all the news that that channel which is largely owned by Arabs thought fit to feed us.  Filtered news on Fox was better than watching the CNN (which was also available)  clowns in drag.

The rest of the trip, we were in establishments that carried channels like Bloomberg, France24, CNBC and BBC News and again the "muslim thing" propped up in the form of a documentary about Shariah courts in UK on BBC's Panorama and several segments of muslim mania news on France24.

I have a prediction to make here.  Although to date none of the Canadian channels have made inroads abroad,  the one that will be the first to do so will  be SUN News.  Wanna bet ?

Globetrotting ....

until late this  month.
Please visit the links on list to your right.  All excellent, all very informative.

Osoyoos .... enchantment awaits !

After watching Ezra Levant's interview with the extremely successful Indian Chief Clarence Louie of Osoyoos, I was struck with intense curiosity to read up on the chief and on Osoyoos.  I love success stories.

More than two years ago I had posted some gorgeous pics of "spotted" lakes, many of which are found in Osoyoos, but had forgotten about them soon after until Ezra's episode with the Osoyoos chief.

So, where exactly is Osoyoos? At the gateway to the Okanagan and Similkameen Valley lies Canada's only desert, and the delightful lakeside town of Osoyoos.  Go to the junction of Highway 97 and Highway 3 at the southern tip of the Okanagan Valley - Osoyoos is 2 kilometres away from the Canada - U.S. border, and shares Osoyoos Lake with Washington State.  The Unity Rider statue at the entrance to Osoyoos symbolizes the essence of this community - Coming Together.  In face, the name Osoyoos derives from an Okanagan First Nations word that describes "the narrows" or the coming together of two lakes.

What kind of stuff do the    numerous resorts offer?

I found the above at this Osoyoos blogger's site.

Ready, Set, GO .... six mysterious places to visit in Canada

Ryan LaFlamme writing at what I presume is an advertising blog for FordMotors,  gives a list of  mysterious places to visit in Canada... really worth reading.  He's listed six "secret" places.   I didn't know of even one on the list.

 ....Canada’s Wonderland might be a blast,   and the Alberta Badlands are rich in history, but if you’re in search of some real adventure, look no further! We’ve got a list of kooky, unexplained mystery spots from across our great country. Program these places into your MyFord Touch navigation system, and let your inner investigator out to play.  Let’s get going.........

Gay spotting in Washington DC's parks, streets, trains, everywhere

So much more to cover from Kia and moi's trip to Virginia.  I was sorting through our hundreds of pics today and remembered  the "he's gay, he's not" game we played while walking around  DC.

Kia has a thing for checking out the butts of guys she thinks are attractive up front.  When any good-looking, well-dressed guy passed by us (and the men in Washington DC dress up like they are advertising for suits), Kia would invariably turn around to check out his butt.  I got tired of telling her that most of the well-dressed, good looking guys were gays and it was a lost cause to give them the glad eye.  But, Kia, like I said gets her name from thinking she "Knows It All"  challenges moi for proof about things that perceptive women like me know right off and don't give a damn about  proof or evidence.

Washington DC is filled to the brim with gay guys.  If you don't believe me, go visit the place and don't forget to take a jaunt to the Adam Logan neighbourhood and vicinity ... especially after dark.  It's practically a continuous gay parade there.  So much so that there are huge advertisements at the bus-stops in that neighbourhood  which warns gays about HIV-related excess belly fat and entices them to try a  new medication to reduce belly fat ...lipodystrophy.  If nothing else, those ads will get the  Washington DC gays to  intensify their jogging and exercise routine and keep their bodies trim and firm.  If that fails, they can always opt for the new treatment as advertised.  

This is our new reality, dear readers.

However, many positive things to say about the gay men we saw.  They definitely know how to look after themselves and have great taste in clothes and accessories.  They always looked cool and  neat. Nothing slovenly about them.  Think Anderson Cooper or Don Lemon  of CNN.   The gays in Washington DC are cut from the same cloth...good looking, savvy, smart alecs.  

On the other hand, gay women are a curse, PERIOD.   Didn't see a single lesbian couple that looked like they had at least one mirror between them.  ugh !!

Robert Roselle ... Ceramics Sculptor

The building that houses the Torpedo Factory Art Center   in Alexandria, VA. was actually a torpedo making factory. After WWII the factory was bought  by the City of Alexandria and converted to a gallery space for local artists.   This three level building has more than 70 studios housing approximately 170 artists.  You are not only able to see their works you can spy them working on others too. The place is full of artists  working on their paintings, sculptures, jewellery making, glasswork .... you name the kind of art you have a penchant for, and you are likely to find at least an artist or two working in  exactly that medium within the walls of the Torpedo Factory.







Kia and myself, although we spent most of our  vacation in Washington D.C. itself, we did find the time to stay a couple of days in Alexandria and other spots in Virginia.  There are lots of interesting places to see in Virginia ... one thing we missed doing was visiting the Luray Caverns in the Shenandoah Valley.  There we would have seen the best artist of them all, Nature.








The Torpedo Factory artists not only display their art and work in the studios right there in front of you, many of them are also open to interviews  and will answer whatever  questions you may have about their art and the pieces they have for sale and display.

Some of the artists here stand out for the uniqueness of their work.  Kia has a keen eye for exceptionalism and by all accords, according to her,  Robert Roselle's technique is unique, outer worldly and beautiful.  She had a conversation with the sculptor himself and got him to pose with some of his works (see pic 1).  She also bought  a small ceramic artwork from the artist, something that didn't punch a hole in  her budget (See pic 2).

Robert Roselle works with coils of stoneware and ceramic clay to create his works of wonder.  At first glance most of  his pieces look like just decorative pottery or free standing vases.  On closer inspection you will see a hole or two to peek through.  And that's when the wonder begins.  Inside the insipid looking vases you will find amazing fantasy worlds.  Some have people standing inside looking into peepholes just like you are doing.  Some have figures looking into a sky full of twinkling stars.  Peeping into each of his pieces was like seeing different worlds.




Roselle told Kia that he is influenced by Greek and African art.  I believe he has never given an exhibition in Washington DC, which is a shame as the artistic world at large  has missed discovering him.  However, he has been invited to impart his  unique technique in China  India, New Zealand and South Korea and has travelled to those places and others teaching this marvellous technique to other artists.

Inaugural Gowns of the First Ladies

During our recent jaunt to Washington DC, we visited the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and  the section most popular with the female visitors was the hall devoted to the First Ladies' Collection of inaugural gowns and accessories.

Besides the inaugural gowns, the hall displays the china, tableware and the different kind of dinnerware that the First Ladies designed or chose,  to make their lives in the White House that much more special.  My travelling companion Kia is a slave to fashion and  clothes, so I had to play nice and dredge up enough interest in the inaugural gowns, jewellery, shoes, gloves, hair-pins, bows, scarfs, hats and the whatnot on display but the dinnerware display was to me far more interesting.

Michelle Obama's inaugural dress  had center space, in a glass cabinet of  it's own.  I guess it will join the others in the lineup if  Ann Romney becomes the new occupant of  the White House.  You can tell from the gown's length  that Michelle Obama  is really tall....  I think she towers over  the other First Ladies by several inches. Most of the other gowns looked like they were worn by women of small stature.  The only other gown that was almost long enough to judge the height of the person, was that of  Eleanor Roosevelt   (see pic of pink gown )  The tiniest frame and height, according to me, would be of Nancy Reagan.

The  gown that stood out  from all those on display, IMO,  was that of Laura Bush. (see pic of red dress )  

The   china and tableware on display   is something else altogether.  How nice it must be to enjoy this special perk of being at the top?!!  The First Ladies get to design their own dinnerware  and select the number of place settings they desire.

Again, like the best gown on display, and again in my opinion only (Kia differed entirely) Laura Bush's taste in clothes, accessories as well as china and tableware were the very best.

Does the First Family get to keep a part of  the china for themselves when they exit the White House?  According to  this,  sadly they cannot. That is a crying shame. Why can't they take away at least a 12-seating setting?

However,  all is not lost.  While they and their guests are enjoying the designer dinnerware,   the media has a field day  talking about the cost, the intentions, blah, blah, blah..

Frederic Edwin Church .... Dreamy Landscapes

The works of one of the very best of American painters, are to be found on the 2nd level of the American Art Museum in Washington, DC.

The generous country of the United States of America has free admission to almost every museum, gallery and monument.  Not like how  France, Italy, Canada and others milk visitors and citizens alike for stepping inside their  museums. Canada's museums are sadly wanting but yet one has to pay hefty sums to walk inside them. What a shame.

Isn't it strange that the governments of  these same countries  who put a toll on their citizens to get a bit of  education in the Arts are at the same time of  the opinion that large amounts of funds should be directed to the supposedly "third world" countries for the education of the masses there while their own citizens can remain blissfully dumb?

Another thing worth noting while I am at it, is this:  I did not see a single piece in any of the museums and galleries that we visited in Washington, DC and the vicinity of it,  that did not have a description of the item and the original owner it was obtained from and whether it was a donation or not.  Not like the museums in the United Kingdom, France and Italy.  All three have robbed blind the countries they used to occupy and the treasures they display in their museums are treasures they have plundered from India, Egypt, Damascus, Greece, Nepal, China, Tibet and several other countries where the invaders and their explorers took advantage of the native population to deprive them of their artwork and thus part of their heritage.

The French have even carted two huge pillars weighing probably several tonnes each  from one of the Middle East countries they were in control of  ... and these two pillars are now standing in their main museum in Paris.  Shame.

Now back to Frederic Church.

Church was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1826 and died in New York in 1900.  His visit to Ecuador gave birth to some of his most amazing paintings of almost outer worldly landscapes with the most meticulous touch to details.

In 1868,  he and his wife travelled to the Middle East and covered the modern day Syria, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and surrounding areas.  Their travels to the Muslim regions seem to have been for only three months but the Churches were so impressed by what they saw in the Middle East they designed their own home in Hudson, NewYork  based on the architecture of a house they had seen in Damascus. 

You will want to gaze at some of his paintings and wonder how many years and how many millions of times his brush must have touched the canvas until he was fully satisfied that he had not forgotten anything that his eyes had seen.

I kept musing aloud to Kia on how if I was stinking rich I would have loved to have one of Church's painting in my bedroom and would look at it before dozing off to sleep and hope to dream that I was floating aloft in one of his landscapes.

The reproductions of his works are many and are sold from the low 100s to the high 500s.  The posters and prints are sold from anywhere between $5 - 25.

 More here   on the painter and pics of many of his works.

Read more  about the New England Scenery painting.

Lalla Essaydi .... Makes the right statement via her work but gives a false explanation for it

We caught Lalla Essaydi exhibition at the National Museum of African Art  in Washington DC.  Essaydi's  a Moroccan-born photographer living in New York and is making an impact with her amazingly beautiful art  which depicts Muslim women living under Shariah or Islam.

No matter how many different explanations Essaydi gives for  her work which has a patina of Arabic text scrawled all over it, her unique work speaks  for itself and conveys a story  that is  far from what Essaydi the cowardly but talented painter wants us to believe is the inspiration that spawned the works.  The written word from the  false book known as the koran, written by madmen, is the tool for keeping  Muslim women locked up in cages ....  and to anyone with a clear eye, that is what Essaydi has shown by the patina of Arabic calligraphy on each and every painting. It's the written word ...it's the Arabic calligraphy. In some paintings the text look like prison walls with tiny openings just like the tiny openings for the eyes for women wearing burkhas.   Every painting where a woman is portrayed is painted to look like she is  imprisoned behind a wall of Arabic lettering.

I put my perception of her paintings to my travelling companion Kia for her reaction and she agreed with me that  Essaydi is the kind of  person who ddn't want to create any waves by speaking out against the Muslim mentality that imprisons women from birth to death and maybe even beyond.  That's two against your false explanation, Ms Essaydi.  Grow a straighter spine, girl... keeping your feet in two boats will tear you apart sooner than you think.



The supposedly "feminist" artist says this about her work:  "In my art, I wish to present myself through multiple lenses -- as artist, as Moroccan, as Saudi, as traditionalist, as Liberal, as Muslim. In short, I invite the viewer to resist stereotypes.”

And, this;

The traditions of Islam exist within spatial boundaries. The presence of men defines public space, the streets, the meeting places. Women are confined to private spaces, the architecture of the homes. In these photographs, I am constraining women within space, confining them to their "proper" place, a place bounded by walls and controlled by men. Their confinement is a decorative one. The women, then, become literal with this visual confinement, I recall literal confinements. The house in the photographs is a large, unoccupied house belonging to my extended family. When a young woman disobeyed, stepped outside the permissible space, she was sent to this house. Accompanied by servants, but spoken to by no one, she would spend a month alone. In this silence, women can only be confined visions of femininity. In photographing women inscribed with henna, I emphasize their decorative role, but subvert the silence of confinement. These women "speak" visually to the house and to each other, creating a space that is both hierarchical and fluid. Furthermore, the calligraphic writing, a sacred Islamic art form, inaccessible to women, constitutes an act of rebellion.

Applying such writing in henna, a form of adornment considered "women’s work," further underscores the subversiveness of the act. In this way, the calligraphy in the images is one of a number of visual signs that carry a double meaning. As an artist now living in the West, I have become aware of another space, besides the house of my girlhood, an interior space, one of "converging territories." I will always carry that house within me, but my current life has added other dimensions. There is the very different space I inhabit in the West, a space of independence and mobility. It is from there that I can return to the landscape of my childhood in Morocco, and consider these spaces with detachment and new understanding. When I look at these spaces now, I see two cultures that have shaped me and that are distorted when looked at through the "Orientalist" lens of the West. Thus the text in these images is partly autobiographical. In it, I speak of my thoughts and experiences directly, both as a woman caught somewhere between past and present, as well as between "East" and "West," and also as an artist, exploring the language in which to "speak" from this uncertain space.

And, then comes this:

“My message would be: Arab women  are not so much oppressed as the Western World thinks. We are women incredibly engaged in our lives, to have a better life,”

Talk about a split personality !!!   Let's hope her work is bought by many more of those Arab millionaires who are presumably her biggest clients.  She knows how to sell her artwork by not displeasing anyone.  Money, money, money .... makes the world go round.

Fuck you TSA and Homeland Security and damn you to hell

On my return home to Toronto from my jaunt to the USA,  I found that there was no lock on  my wheelie.  At first I thought that I must have forgotten to lock it and probably left the little tiny lock back in the hotel room.  But, on unzipping the bag, lo and behold, my lock was amongst my dirty laundry (in fact the entire bag was mostly full of dirty, smelly clothes)  and the lock was cut, which I noticed in the next flitting moment.

It's amazing how many different thoughts go through your mind in just one tiny moment.  I went from "stupid me, not only did I not lock the wheelie, I dropped the lock in it, idiot"    "huh ... how did the lock snap like that?"   "what the fuck...did someone break into my wheelie"  "fuck it ... did someone steal something?"  "what, what?"

And, then among all the mess of catalogs, brochures, books, dirty clothes,  complimentary toiletries, tea and coffee sachets from the hotels, my Starbucks plastic coffee mug, a half consumed vodka bottle and my sandals,  I find a note from the TSA.

Dear folks,  this is what the world has come to.... and all because of muslims.  I find it's unnatural not to hate the whole lot of them for the mess they have made of the entire world.  I don't care that statistics show that only a small percentage are the rotten apples ... but have you forgotten what  one rotten apple can do to a sackful of   "maybe okay" ones?

The fucking brain-dead TSA morons at Virginia's Dulles International Airport broke the lock on my little wheelie because they saw something that looked suspicious.  I am presuming that it was the partly consumed vodka bottle or maybe the toiletries I had stuffed in the coffee mug to save space.

So.... because of muslims and their murdering ways, ordinary citizens of the world cannot even carry a bottle of water which is more than 200 ml in their handbag and if they carry  a bottle of liquid which looks like it is more than 200 ml in their checked baggage, then chances are your privacy is gonna be invaded  because a TSA pervert will break the lock on your suitcase and will go through your underwear ... dirty or not.

The world has changed, and not for the better.  Furthermore, brace yourselves .... it's going to get much worse.

Ousmane Sow ... From malleable stuff to works of greatness

Back from a  trip to galleries, museums, monuments and whatnot littering the landscape of  Washington DC and vicinity.  Didn't concern myself with politics at all and surprisingly didn't miss the internet nor the news....not even by one teeny-weeny bit.     I made myself think and behave like the 75% of the world's population who does not give a damn about the antics of the politicians or the trickery of the political parties or listen, read or know anything about the ongoing state of  the world.  It was so liberating.

My companion was a Know-It-All from my family, whom I will name Kia for the purposes of this post and others to follow.

We were lucky to catch the exhibition of Ousmane Sow's  sculptures at one of the Smithsonian houses of  treasures.  The Smithsonian has organized an "African Mosaic"  which is a  crowd puller ... amazing and  truly wonderful works from  Sow and countless  other African artists.  We also got to watch a short documentary on Ousmane Sow.  The  Senegalese sculptor  divides his time between Paris and Senegal and most of his works are created in Senegal.   He has truly  taken the contemporary art scene by the throat and is making  people sit  up and take notice.

His 7-foot sculpture of Toussaint Louverture  (didn't know who he was until I saw the sculpture)  who was born into bondage in Haiti but rose to become the leader of the revolution that freed the slaves and made them into self-governing citizens of Haiti ... is something really awesome.  More awesome than all the works is how the sculptor sculpts and the materials he uses.  Ousmane Sow uses any kind of  material he can find ... straw, jute, fibre, etc.  and mixes it with rebar metals to a malleable gooey paste and uses his fingers to sculpt and mold figures of man and animal with this never before applied  medium.



I have to  go through the notes I made to help me recall most of what we saw, touched and read about.  I have to also check our cameras to see if  we captured any pics of Sow's work.  Maybe, I will update this post at a later date with more.

Right now, just wanted to let my usual visitors know that I am alive and well.  Thanks for the concern, it's appreciated