Wednesday, August 22, 2007
And Now, # 109 - See You Labor Day!
Tonight I continue my summer vacation for another week or two, with no posts while I'm gone. Do check Thomas' blog however, for lovely Mexico shots this and next week. I'm taking a tour of Eastern Europe, this will be my 109th foreign trip, my 40th foreign vacation, and my 29th trip to Europe. If I complete the trip, and am not called home for work reasons, this would be my first visit to Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.I'm going with GAP/Intrepid, who planned my Peru/Macchu Picchu climb in late 2002 and my Thailand/Cambodia trip in early 2003... They do a great job of keeping it real and reasonably priced - their trips culturally insightful, ecologically correct, and, just plain fun!
While I'm gone, I can be reached via blackberry (my work e-mail). Enjoy the twilight of summer...
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Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Mexican Moments
I'm off on Vacation Part 2 tomorrow but please check Thomas' blog regularly for his wonderful and inspired photos of our Mexican trip.
Here are some of my own:
Mexico wouldn't be Mexico without the spicy, arresting aroma of street food...
from Lagunilla or Jamaica, one of those there markets - the model of a modern major Mexican mannequin..
Warehouse building on a moody day, near the weekly goth-punk market (more on that later)
Sanborn's department store, in the beautiful Casa de los Azulejos (House of Tiles), is a lovely spot not just for lunch...
...but to check out a mural by Siqueiros...
This modest luncheonette in Tepoztlan is brought to you by...
our low-wattage Tepoztlan room had a lovely view of the mountains, not seen here. That's Thomas on the cot - we watched Vanilla Sky that night, sometime will talk more about that remake of the equally marvelous Spanish indie classic Abre Tus Ojos (Open Your Eyes).....
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Monday, August 20, 2007
Signs of Mexico
Ghostly shot of the Amberes/Reforma corner, gateway to Mexico's rollicking Zona Rosa, home to gay establishments of all stripes, rock clubs, chain restaurants, and post-club hot dogs served by street vendors...
I am Telcel, hear me roar! Carlos Slim isn't taking his 75% share of Mexico's cel phone market for granted...
In sun-baked Taxco, on a mountain slope southwest of Mexico, public works on the thin streets. Your Taxco dollars at work... It says 'together we'll get results - pardon the inconvenience.'
No throwing garbage in the street! At the risk of a P$374 fine (about $32) or 12 hours in jail. Doesn't seem to be working as a deterrent, as far as I can see....
Flofi come home! P$100,000 reward (about US$9,000)
Alto! means Stop! Blue is the new Red?
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Sunday, August 19, 2007
I'm Back
What a wonderful vacation in Mexico. Things don't get much better, alas... : -) Before I fall into deep sleep, photos of the groovy penthouse which was ours for four days, courtesy of a gay-run guest house in La Condesa, an up-and-coming Mexico City neighborhood...
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Friday, August 10, 2007
Out Hanging Out
I'm on vacation in Mexico with my pal Thomas until Sunday August 19, and will take a break from blogging as well. My life is very digital, so I like to keep my vacations analog! See you the 19th. : - ) I leave you with this aerial of sprawling, cosmopolitan Mexico City, which will be our base:
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Thursday, August 09, 2007
108
Tomorrow I leave for vacation in Mexico! Here come the stats: It's my 26th trip to Mexico (and my first time for a real vacation, by far the most times to any country (Brazil's in 2nd place at 22 trips). That makes for 60 trips to Latin America, 39 foreign vacation trips, and 108 foreign trips overall! But who's counting? : -)
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Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Heavy Rain + NYC Transit = Havoc
It started bad at 5am when torrential rain overload my bedroom A/C unit. It got worse. Our subways get seriously disrupted if enough rains pours through those street vents. Yes, NYC's transit system infrastructure remains antiquated despite the modernist trappings such as Metrocards and sporadic digital clocks. I gave up at 42nd Street, and walked five long avenue blocks east and ten short street blocks north, arriving at work sweaty, soaked, and late. At left, an artistic rendition of NYC rain.
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007
The Glasses Wear The Kid
Scrambling here to get things done before vacation. Last night Mom and I watched "Valentin," a delicious Argentine bonbon of a film about the precocious but precarious existence of a nine-year-old and his grandmother in the 1960s. Or rather, Mom watched it twice and I watched it 1.3 times. I fell asleep the first time, and Mom liked it sufficiently - and had enough questions - to watch it again when I woke up...
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Monday, August 06, 2007
My Short-Lived Acting Career
My Mom's in town for two weeks! Last night we celebrated her arrival with a feast in Chinatown. Earlier in the day, I watched the 1940 film version of the Thornton Wilder play "Our Town," a slice (dissection?) of American small town life circa 1910, with an omniscient and incisive narrator/guide. The film held special interest for me since it was my one and only brush with acting, since, as a 10th grader, I played a newspaper boy with 6 lines in East Meadow High School's staging of the play. I remember so many rehearsals that the sharp dialogue was coming out of my ears. The play's message - that life is very short and unpredictable, and hard to appreciate in the moment - was not lost on me then, but at age 15 death was an intellectual concept, an idea, and life's shortness didn't begin to sink in until decades later... The film, by the way, is among William Holden's earliest appearances, as a late teenage boy. The movie poster pictured here tries to 'spice up' the elegeaic and allegorical film with the inane tag line "their love affair was the talk of the town." Misleading, misleading - the movie is the antithesis of scandal and conflict - it's about life's slow lessons and small details...
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Sunday, August 05, 2007
Great Quote :
(on the Nuremberg trials:)
"That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason." - Justice Robert Jackson, opening statement, 1946
"Nuremberg was the place where America's moral authority in the second half of the 20th century was born." - Sen. Christopher Dodd
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(on the Nuremberg trials:)
"That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason." - Justice Robert Jackson, opening statement, 1946
"Nuremberg was the place where America's moral authority in the second half of the 20th century was born." - Sen. Christopher Dodd
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Pride and Joy
I love my huge Mac desktop, though this blurry photo can't begin to convey its pitch-perfect graphics and clarity...
I use the Windows computer as an ongoing slide show, often shuffling through picture from our great National Parks.
Where it's at: My Mac is showing a classic Beck video on YouTube
Why, I'm not any cop at all! I'm Dorothy Gale. From Kansas.
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Saturday, August 04, 2007
Invisi- Not!
I sure got plenty of photos in my 36 hour Mexico City junket a few weeks back. Here, the poor maid gets an unexpected audience when I return to my room in mid-day to finish up a report...
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Friday, August 03, 2007
Jen Erik
Objects from my Mexico City hotel room a few weeks back. Objects. How Jen Erik can you get?
Coffeepot in a Blanket:
Funky Digital Dot Clock
Milk Is A Natural
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Thursday, August 02, 2007
Sideways
Here I am goofing around with my camera in my Mexico City hotel room. There's away to turn these right side up, but I've been too lazy, thus far, to seek it out...
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