Looking Up, Headless

Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Merced, Antigua, Guatemala.

In Antigua, Kennedy and I always stay in Hotel Casa Santa Lucia #3, which overlooks the "wedding cake church," La Merced. (In this photo though, I am standing right at the front of the church, underlooking.)

I don't remember where in Antigua I found these headless figures. I'll have to look for them next trip. Meantime, I am adding labels to my posts, as I can now officially add a "headless" label, with two bonafide posts related.

The Writing Wall: Antigua, Lithuania, North Korea Set in Stone

Old wall, Antigua.

As opposed to much of what I've seen in Central America, the architecture in Antigua ranges mostly from old to very old. The walls are works of art. Kennedy and I are among the many who love wall photos generally. Kennedy has an old Dover book devoted entirely to wall photos, drawn on for more than one Thin Man gig poster. I can't find this book online, and I can't find it on our shelf of books-for-visual-inspiration either, leading me to the dread conclusion that I may have unaccountably shed it during one of the great purges. Hopefully a Thorough Search will turn it up in the Wrong Place.

One of the things I enjoy about the blog is the chain link affect, when folks share related/inspired items after a post, and when previously encountered tidbits nest nicely with a current musing. A friend brought up Polish artist Nicolas Grospierre's work after the Sonsonate post and my mention of Frédéric Chaubin. I hadn't been familiar previously, and I love his work—so happy for the introduction. In addition to many bittersweetly striking projects, such as featured below, Grospierre made a gift of a photo of a patinaed wall to a writer friend, to serve as inspiration. You can see The Writing Wall on his website, along with his reasoning for choosing the image.

Photo from the project Hydroklinika, Nicolas Grospierre.

Grospierre's description for the Hydroklinika project:

The balneological hospital of Druskinnikai in Lithuania, designed by A. and R. Silinskas was built in 1976-81. Having served for merely 20 years, it was shut down and destoyed in 2005, to be replaced by a (probably more) profitable water-amusement park. Hydroklinika is an attempt at documenting the hospital through a global, objective and systematic approach. Therefore, no part of the building, was neglected and all were photographed likewise.

Before I started putting up the pics from Central America, my dad shared a link to an Alan Taylor/In Focus piece in The Atlantic featuring fantastic photos of North Korea by David Guttenfelder.

Original caption: "A statue known as the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification, which symbolizes the hope for eventual reunification of the two Koreas, arches over a highway at the edge of Pyongyang, North Korea, seen on April 18, 2011. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)"

For me, this arch is another example of the architecture of hopeful aspiration that pops up all over the world—on one level all tingly-cool, regardless of the all-important technicalities that are the original purpose, message, inspiration.

In Antigua sacred/religious architecture stands out. (More pics next post.)

Cross, Antigua.

I like the little clump of vegetation growing on the right arm of the cross. At full size, you can make out the very delicate detail of the plant life, in a nice contrast to the very bold lines of the cross and its ball base. Clumps and patches of vegetation, often flowering, affix themselves to all the walls and stationary objects in Antigua. The color and contrast in this picture have not been touched; the sky is a typical, dramatic Antigua sky.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

I finally watched the trailer for the BBC documentary looking at our relationship with computers, and other mammals, titled for Richard Brautigan's poem "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace." My dad pointed me to it sometime back via Poetry's Harriet blog. The trailer transmits like a poem for me, a kind of video/film/poem amalgam I'd like to see (make?) more of.

Moth at bedtime, El Zonte, El Salvador

This is a bit fuzzy but if you look really closely the moth seems to have red-eye, which is funny. I took this pic about 4 years back, when we had the chance to stay with our friends in El Salvador for a glorious three week stretch. That night I was reading The Shape of Water, the first book in Andrea Camilleri's Salvo Montalbano series (I now have a "celebrity" crush on Luca Zingaretti's TV Salvo); I remember because the cover of the book appears in another, fuzzier photo of the moth. I wish I could have caught the sound of the ocean in the picture; reading in bed with the sound of the ocean washing around my consciousness is about as good as it gets.

Horse in a rainbow bridle, Chiltiupán, El Salvador

We've gone to the little mountain community Chiltiupán to walk around the steep streets, buy fresh cheese from townswomen carrying it wrapped in large leaves; we've also tagged along when our friends have had to take care of business there—trash collection, water bills, et cetera, as Chiltiupán is the municipal center in their region. Everybody stares at Kennedy, we think because of his height. It's friendly, with some very shy giggles and smiles from the children.