Día de los Muertos
Looking at individual altars set up in doorways, on porches and even in yards, parks or other public places during the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico, I am struck by an unexpected realization. There is nothing spooky, macabre or sinister about this celebration. In fact, the opposite appears to be true. Viewing photographs of those now dead, seeing objects that are reminders of their lives on these altars and offering a little rum, tequila or some of their favorite foods there prompts memories of loved ones. This is a commemoration of lives gone before, a celebration of the continuous nature of life.
Unlike Halloween in the US where trick-or-treating while wearing scary costumes has become a contest to see who gets the most stuff and plays the meanest tricks, the Mexican celebration is a time for introspection.
Institutional Public Art I
When Alice and I traveled to the city of Vera Cruz, we found a beautiful sculpture in front of the PEMEX building, Torre de PEMEX, just off the Malecón de Puerto de Vera Cruz.
The scale is heroic and the work awesome. We liked it, but despite asking dozens of people who the artist is, no one could tell us.
A Dare?
http://thehistoryhacker.com/WP A tiny Inca Dove, Tortolita Colilarga, flew into the casita where I was writing today
He landed on an interior windowsill and we studied each other for a moment
I see this bird and his mate side-by-side in the jardin every day
I glanced outside and there she was—his companion—waiting on the stonewall
Goat
A story from my father.
Wimpy and Majette were improbable names for the two twelve-year-old boys. Wimpy was Stanley’s nickname. His buddies called him Wimpy because he was so crazy about hamburgers—just like the fat comic character, J. Wellington Wimpy, then appearing in the popular comic strip Popeye. Majette was Wimpy’s cousin and in the county where they lived, his name was not an unusual last name. Somehow, as often happened in their close rural northeastern North Carolina farm community, Majette’s last name had migrated to forename.