Shotgun 2 Iguana on the freeway around Cuernavaca, Mexico. Second in a series of shotgun art I took in January. The horse whisperer. The hands hold corn, the staple of many Precolumbian cultures… A Chinelo dancer profile. (See previous post) The dance of the jaguars is another popular traditional dance. ‘Musing’. Another good example of…
We have ‘been’ to Borobudur in Indonesia in a previous post. Built around 800AD, it is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. Originally home to 500 Buddha statues. It also features close to 1500 bas-reliefs as above, representing scenes of every day life and the life of Buddha. This dragon-like head is a water…
Previously: we’ve analysed two antagonistic attitudes, 1. ‘For me to be right, you have to be wrong’ and 2. ‘For me to succeed, you have to fail’. We now look at a third antagonistic attitude: Part 3. ‘For me to live, you have to die.‘ That is a third variant. It works as the ultimate…
Part 2. For me to succeed, you have to fail. For one’s success to depend on the other’s failure is a variant of ‘for me to be right you have to be wrong’. (See Part 1.) It is often classified as a zero-sum conception. In games theory, a zero-sum game means that whatever one gains,…
Part 1. ‘For me to be right, you have to be wrong.’ A few years ago, long before the current mess, a blogger friend of mine told me we had entered an era of antagonistic attitudes. By that she meant that most people now only considered their own -exclusive- position, and refused to even entertain…
When a country obtains great power, it becomes like the sea: all streams run downward into it. The more powerful it grows, the greater the need for humility. Humility means trusting the Tao, thus never needing to be defensive. A great nation is like a great man: When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.…
1945. Bal populaire. Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) was one of the greatest French photographers. From simple folks to “celebs” of their time, Doisneau’s photographs are a documentary on a France long gone. 1945. This little girl grabbed the Ricard paper hat the lady above was wearing. Whatever they were celebrating, all were included, from grandmas to…
My father was born in Saint-Malo in Brittany, a city of privateers and pirates. His grandmother, my great-grandmother had a house in Saint-Servan, a suburb of Saint-Malo. The city installed electricity in 1925. My father once told me he remembered when his grandmother reluctantly switched from gas lighting to electricity. Shutters count as doors, right?…
Sugar cane harvest. I took all those, riding shotgun on a freeway past the small town of Cuernavaca, Morelos, Hernán Cortez’s last city of residence in Mexico. Jaguar dance mask. The dance of the jaguars is a very old traditional dance of the region. Sugar cane harvest again. Not a crop of the region, it…
The great Cacique (Chief) Patoruzú. Buenos Aires. Patoruzú was a millionaire Indian chief comics character created by Dante Quinterno in 1928. He was a very positive character and a symbol of Argentina. Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) dancing Tango with Mona Maris (1903-1991). Gardel was the incarnation of Tango and another very strong symbol of Argentina. The…
Equinoxio 