January 07, 2010
Guadalajaaaaara
With a few hours to kill in Guadalajara, I found there a few of my favorite things, as Julie Andrews would put it:
A magnificent bandstand (I love bandstands and gazebos) made by the Fonderies d'Art do Val d'Osne, the famous parisian foundry! It was installed there in 1910 at the time of the commemorations of the centenary of Mexico's independence (100 years ago precisely) and caused many people to complain that it was indencent (because of the naked ladies). It is an awkward sight in the middle of modern and colonial architecture.
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A homage to Palomo in a gallery I randomly walked into - one of the cartoonists I most cherish ever since childhood days and who I had almost forgotten about since putting my copy of his book "The fourth Reich" in storage. A chilean, he draws some mean political critique, courtesy of Pinochet and of his host country Mexico where he fled to.
- the writing on the wall says "Down with the Dictatorship" and he says "I think...."
- next he spots the political police thugs coming his way and he says "Although...er...actually...er"
- he walks away thinking "I play the fool...."
- last square, "therefore I am/exist".
Sensible advice for anybody living in a dictatorship, I suppose.
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In the cathedral, an effigy of Saint John Nepomuk who I met for the first time in Prague and who is one of my favorite saints and not that easy to spot. Patron saint of silence and bridges, another two of my favorite things.
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January 06, 2010
Mexicania
My Christmas anthropological expedition to the depths of Mexico was a success since I spent time...
- surrounded by people shooting guns in the air as a way of commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ;
- digging old papers belonging to R.'s family and finding out his grandfather was, among many other things, a secret agent in charge of finding the murderer of a famous politician;
- hearing about ghost stories, corpses of zapatistas thrown down wells and hidden treasures;
- visiting pre-columbian and purepecha indian sites;
- trying fruits, vegetables and cooked foods I had never laid eyes on before; I didn't refuse anything I was given to eat so R.'s family was enthusiastic about food shopping and cooking for me. T. would bring me some concoction in a plastic cup and say "Hey, try this" and I would gulp it down without even asking what it was and invariably ending up saying "Delicious!". When uncle J. offered to cook us lunch and asked my mother in law what didn't I eat, she answered "Claudia will eat anything!". I guess she could have phrased it more elegantly;
(Anyway, the love of food always brings people together)
- freezing in the mornings and evenings and getting sunburnt during the day;
- hearing T.'s stories about the drug cartels that plague Michoácan and how the army, tipped by a jogger(!), found a stash of guns in an old abandoned house outside town;
- checking out A.'s fighting cocks. Alas, I didn't get to watch a cock fight. They say they put blades on their spurs to make it more exciting. And it's legal, believe it or not.
- listening to mariachi music until ears start to bleed.
I have much less respect for the magical realism writers. With so many oddities available, they were just writing what they saw.
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Zapateria=Shoestore. Not sure it's a pun or it's just because it is on Zapata Street. Either way.
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Fighting cocks. Notice how the crest/comb of the rooster on the right has been cut off to avoid its opponents grabbing it.
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Pre-columbian ruins of Tingambato, very similar architecturally to Tenochlitan, complete with ball field (not in picture).
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C: Why on earth are there dogs on every roof?
R (non-chalantly as if it were the most natural thing in the world): They keep them there because they don't have backyards.
Extremely annoying. You can't go down a street without being startled by barking coming from the sky. I have a flickr set of Roof Dogs of Mexico.
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No Claudia Expedition is complete without a trip to the local cemetery. The local celebrity is, not surprisingly, the founder of a famous mariachi band.
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Pragmatic people.
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Tarascan/purepecha signs on public offices in the indian villages (this one's Inchán, I believe)
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Freshly made corn tortillas are the best thing in the world. Free if you order 4 or 5 of them, 10 pesos (50p) for one kilogram. You have to try very hard to go hungry in this place.
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Purepecha indian ladies and their colorful skirts.
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In Nuevos Morelos, people dress as old men or witches and take advantage of the speed bumps to beg for money. It's kinda scary.
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My new favorite food. Uchepos. Tamales (corn paste steamed inside corn husks) made of sweet corn, a bit of sugar and served with sour cream.
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July 12, 2009
There must be a name for those perception errors in which we incur when, after finding out about something previously unknown, that same something seems to pop out everywhere afterward.
I had never seen people surfing on a river before the last two weeks (in Munich, in the English garden and it did indeed look like a lot of fun) and suddenly the NYT Travel section has a piece about it and how it all started in Germany and there seem to be more and more "standing waves" surfing in land locked places.
Likewise, just a couple of weeks ago I was strolling the streets of Trieste and admiring the antique bookshop previously owned by Umberto Saba. I had even compiled a little personal cultural guide to the city and had it printed on lulu.com - very nerdy I know - which included some of Saba's poetry among the literature references. And now I find the TLS has a piece on him and on his upcoming book, the first translation into english of his work.
*****
Great finds:
Two Maigret novels in a bouquiniste in Uzés, Provence for 1 euro each. "Maigret hésite" and "Maigret et l'homme tout seul". This last one with a lame denouement but I have to admit I read them mostly for the food. Somebody needs to compile a book with the menus of food and drink Maigret goes through each adventure. My favorite bits are when Maigret gets caught up in work and calls home to say he's not coming to dinner. He invariable asks his wife what was she cooking and invariably gets sad he'll miss that meal.
"Dans son esprit, tandis qu'il dégustait l'andouillete juteuse et croustillante, accompagnée de pommes frites qui ne sentaient pas le graillon..."
"Ils en étaient au dessert. Ils avaient bu, avec les rougets grillés, un Pouilly fumé dont le parfum flottait encore autour d'eux."
"Trieste: Un'identitá di frontiera" by Angelo Ara and Claudio Magris from the nice bookshop at Castelo Miramare. My favourite type of non-fiction literature. What makes a regional or national character, the culture of a place and its people dissected preferably by a self-obsessed native. Or two.
Vies Imaginaires, Marcel Schwob. Bought at the excellent bookshop Goulard in Aix. I own a portuguese translation but it's somewhere in my storage boxes and there's nothing like the real thing.
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The New Yorker has been disappointing lately. Hardly find anything I want to read these days. Too much Malcolm Gladwell type pop sociology based on anecdotes; too much profiling of romance writers and other celebrities of dubious interest and movie reviews I don't care for. The tipping point - aha, a pun - was Gladwell's review of Chris Anderson's Free. I was led to believe that book was a pointless exercise in platitudes and in which the author didn't even bother to reference his sources properly transcribing chunks of wikipedia articles and all. If that's New Yorker worthy...
But not all is lost. My Lapham Quarterly arrived. And it's the most wonderful thing ever. Add to it the TLS and either the LRB or NYRB and I'll be damned if I renew my New Yorker subscription.
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July 28, 2008
Baden Baden and Strasbourg
Baden-Baden is a relaxing and quiet little town with one of the most beautiful little parks in the world: the Lichtentaler Allee with a paved waterway running beside it and many species of superb trees randomly scattered on the immaculate green lawn.
The casino where Dostoievsky lost his shirt is very low key and doesn't feel like a casino at all, a perfect image of teutonic restraint in face of Fate and Luck.
The baths are reason enough for a trip there. Friedrichbad is the one where you go through 15 stages, from saunas, soap massages, wet saunas, jacuzzis, warm water pools, cold water pools...and at the end you feel clean as you've never been. On Sundays both men and women are admitted - it's a textile free place, or else, you're naked as a baby - and we had fun spotting a japanese gentleman who seemed to be lost all the time and never seemed to stop more than 2 minutes at each station after checking out all the women in sight. Caracalla's ground floor is for families; pools at different temperatures, saunas, waterfalls and everyone wearing swimsuits. Now, the real fun is upstairs where there is a bridge to the mountain right beside it where there are log cabins with dry saunas inside and cold water showers for the brave. And it's all nude. It's like being back in San Francisco. Avoid evenings and nights because the towel clutching freaks show up. The type of people who don't understand it's a faux-pas to not be totally naked in a nudist place while staring at others.
Strasbourg was an unplanned visit. France was just around the corner and that's the place to go in search of a fine meal. The Cathedral is one of the most monumental buildings I've seen, stretching dramatically into the sky. The town is beautiful and lively, full of quaint streets and medieval looking buildings.
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February 19, 2008
Gibraltar Airport Runway
Finally made the plane into Paris,
Honey mooning down by the Seine.
Peter Brown called to say,
"You can make it O.K.,
You can get married in Gibraltar, near Spain".
--The ballad of John and Yoko
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November 27, 2007
Random notes from a trip to Mexico City
Museo Nacional de Antropologia
Figurine from Isla de Jaina, Campeche, 600-800 d.c.
According to the Lacandón creation myth, the Gods were born from flowers.
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Self-Portrait from the author's papers at Princeton University
"There was once a lightning bolt that hit twice on the same spot; yet, he found that the first hit had caused damage enough, that he was no longer necessary, and he became severely depressed."
Augusto Monterroso
*****
"And, finally, the guide showed Palinuro a special section from the museum of what might have been and for which a number of experts and computers had calculated all eventualities and possible internal and external factors, including hereditary and environmental, somatic and psychic, nutritional and climatological elements that might have affected the bodies of numerous historical figures had they lived another ten years, thirty years, fifty and, on the basis of these results, created a series of wax figures giving the idea of the likely physical aspect of these individuals. And Palinuro saw that Jesus was a man of ninety years of age, stone death and with a sizeable nose and stomach. And he saw that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was sixty years old, bald and with wrinkled hands. And he saw Marilyn Monroe, who had passed the half century mark and was immensely fat as a result of a glandular malfunction. And he saw Popeye on a wheelchair and Tarzan who had gone blind and Batman who had turned into an old pederast."
---Fernando del Paso, "Palinuro de Mexico"
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Quesadilla de Huitlachoche
"Huitlacoche is the fungal, culinary delicacy Ustilago maydis that grows on ears of corn. Inhabitants of Mexico and indigenous people from the Southwestern United States enjoy this rich, smoky ingredient in foods like tamales, soups, quesadillas, appetizers, and ice cream. While farmers treat huitlacoche as an infectious affliction that ruins corn crops, it has a long history in the cuisine of Aztecs, Hopi, and Zuni.
The word huitlacoche, pronounced whee-tla-KO-cheh, comes from two words in Nahuatl, the language of ancient Aztecs occupying the area that became Mexico. "Huitlatl" means excrement and "coche" means raven. Europeans have tried to rename what they consider a grotesque word to popularize the unusual fungus by calling it Mexican Truffle, Aztec Caviar, or Maize Mushroom. Yet huitlacoche remains a regional specialty because it is best fresh, but has also been canned or frozen for export." --from Wise Geek
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Leon Trotsky's Dictating Machine
Trotsky's house, Coyocan, Mexico City
"By about 1910, the Thomas A. Edison Company (the name of the firm that made dictation equipment changed several times over the years) and the Columbia Phonograph Company split the U.S. market. About this time they began promoting their brand names; Columbia began to advertise its Dictaphone, while Edison countered with the Ediphone. "Dictaphone" would become the generic term for dictation equipment, to the chagrin of the Edison interests." -- from recording-history.org
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November 08, 2007
Look! No fog!
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November 07, 2007
The Premier Tequila Bar on Earth
Margarita - Pueblo Viejo Tequila Añejo
"Tommy's, at present, carries 18 Extra Añejo Tequilas. No one else can say this." -- Tequila 101
(Tommy's Mexican Restaurant on Geary Boulevard)
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October 31, 2007
The Life Aquatic
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October 30, 2007
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October 29, 2007
Valencia Street, San Francisco CA
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October 02, 2007
I am obviously a cat person
So first, your memory I'll jog,
And say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG.
Now Dogs pretend they like to fight;
They often bark, more seldom bite;
But yet a Dog is, on the whole,
What you would call a simple soul.
Of course I'm not including Pekes,
And such fantastic canine freaks.
The usual Dog about the Town
Is much inclined to play the clown,
And far from showing too much pride
Is frequently undignified.
He's very easily taken in -
Just chuck him underneath the chin
Or slap his back or shake his paw,
And he will gambol and guffaw.
He's such an easy-going lout,
He'll answer any hail or shout.
Again I must remind you that
A Dog's a Dog - A CAT'S A CAT.
T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
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Much to Neska's credit, she does have some cat like traits which make our co-habitation bearable. By the way, why should anyone name that butch, oversized dog "Neska" - "girl" in basque - is a mystery to me. Even more puzzling is why the two other people in this house insist on calling the Great Pyrenees-white-fluff-ball-monster "poochie".
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October 01, 2007
The Adventures of Claudia in America
This blogger went to the big book sale in San Francisco and all she got was this because she is a narcissist who can't resist it when she sees her own name in print. This completely messes my project of writing "The Book of Claudia" to be added to the bible or to start a new religion, though.
It was a great buy. I'm sure it's not what the author intended but has made me roll on the floor laughing.
"It had been a beautiful night and she loved him more than ever in the morning. 'If it weren't real love', David told her, 'if it were only physical, it wouldn't be that way.'
Claudia, who was eighteen and who did not know very much about love, had the greatest respect for her husband's superior knowledge of sex. Not that he'd ever led a wild life, or run around, but he'd read a great many books on the subject and knew as much as a doctor."
Of course. There's nothing sexier than a gynecologist.
I also "found" and bought the fabulous Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats illustrated by Edward Gorey for 1 dollar and finally got the complete poems of Cavafy, among other cheap finds.
Big. Like everything else here.
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August 15, 2007
Weekend in Dublin
Somehow found myself on a non-tourist mood so ended up doing whatever I would do at home and ignored most monuments - ended up at the Yeats manuscripts exhibition at the National Library by chance. If nothing else, Dublin has some good breakfast and brunch places. The magic words being "...served all day". Heaven.
The Mermaid Cafe on Dame Street
A classic: Bewley's on Grafton Street.
Saw "A Streetcar car named Desire" for the first time on a theater at the Irish Film Institute. Had forgotten the young Brando was a God. The middle aged Brando was fond of butter and the old Brando was a capo di tutti capi.
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August 10, 2007
Warwick Road, London
British raunchy humor or unintended pun by non native speaker?
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The opening song is Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Adolf Loos singing "Form follows function", like "Fugue for Tinhorns" begins Guys and Dolls. It finishes and who enters but Alma Mahler herself, in a frock Jennifer Lopez would wave off as skimpy. With Alma is her composer husband, Gustav. "Let's go, gloom puss", she says, "move it."
"Just one more strudel", the fragile tunesmith replies. "I need the blood-sugar high to keep me from sinking into my quotidian preoccupation with mortality." -- Woody Allen, Mere Anarchy (his first new humor collection in over 25 years, as they announce)
Ah, good stuff.
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August 07, 2007
Small Grand Tour
Went on an art fair marathon this last weekend visitng Kassel and Munster for Documenta 12 and the Sculpture Projects, respectively.
Not very impressed by either, I must say. Documenta was an amalgam of stuff with no curatorial guidelines that I could identify and the sculptures were nothing memorable to me. Anyway, always fun to find out on a friday night that my cell phone stopped working, my flight was late, the man at the rent a car insisted that 70% of europeans speak German so why would English be the lingua franca taking him 30 minutes to give me the car keys, the hotel I booked on a quaint town near a forest was closed at 1 am and no one would come to the door, that I had no map of Kassel so randomly drove around looking for an hotel, found a laptop case (with a laptop inside) in the middle of an empty street and finally found a shitty hotel that turned out to have one of the best buffet breakfasts I've ever had. I love breakfast.
The funniest thing was this Gonzalo Diaz piece entitled "Eclipse". You'd go into a drak room and a circle of light was projected on the wall, over a silver square. When I came in, about 4 people were looking at it from near the door. I obviously stood there. Nothing happened and they left. Another row of people came in and out. And then I thought "What eclipse? There will only be an eclipse if I walk in front of the damned light." So I did. And found that something was written on the square and hurriedly summoned all the germans behind me - looking at me in disapproval for my obvious lack of respect for the work of art - to come and read it. Apparently it says something like "You have arrived to the core of Germany because you are reading the word art in your own shadow". And then people started taking turns to do the same I did. I complained to the guard outside that there should be some instructions but now that I think of it... nah!
Someone told me that there was a great sound piece at the Munster Sculpture projects under the bridge over the Aa. I went there. Waited for it to start. It was a woman singing. Meh.
HIghlight of the weekend: The Museum for sepulchral culture in Kassel. Beautiful museum with a great collection of tombstones, coffins and funeral props in general. Also houses a beautiful collection of prints and drawings on the theme of death. If you're into that sort of thing. Which I am. It was founded by the Study group for cemeteries and memorials. How do I join this thing???
More pics of the trip here.
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August 03, 2007
Dobrý Deň
Had a great time in Prague but not necessarily because of the city itself. There are hordes of tourists everywhere, British stag & hen parties that invariably go wrong and it's basically all a big Kafka amusement park. And people who never read a line by the man flock to where he lived, where he studied, where he pooped and where he fucked since these are, of course, landmarks of touristic interest. "I often hear Kafka described as a Czech writer, but he wrote solely in German and considered himself a German writer" says Kundera. The irony of it all.
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What I've learned: the Americans are loud, the French are arrogant, the Estonians are lazy, the Dutch are cheap and the Portuguese like to stereotype.
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The Dutch: Portuguese is just bad Spanish.
The Portuguese: Dutch is just bad German.
Ah, the joy of making friends through mutual insult.
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Somehow, found myself driving a Ford on a Czech highway on the way to a town that is today practically owned by wealthy Russians, with a Belarusian sitting by my side, a Kazakh, a Kyrgyz and a Dutch on the back seat while Johnny Cash sang on the radio. Carlsbad (or Karlovy Vary) is one of the prettiest towns I've ever visited. If it weren't for the Escada and Chanel shops I could almost say it had frozen in time.
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The Philosophical Hall.
Highlight: the beautiful libraries of the Strahov Monastery and the remnants of an 18th century Wunderkammer that are housed there.
A dodo.
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August 02, 2007
Hay on Wye
I managed to not buy a single book even though I spent a few days in the Welsh book town. I found that most bookshops hadn't much to offer other than editions of old books on gymnastics and MS-DOS. There was a good children's bookshop where I almost bought a "Famous Five" first edition. Then I realized 55 pounds was too much money for a book I wasn't going to read and that I craved out of childhood nostalgia. As an exception to the rule, the Poetry bookshop was excellent - again, I almost bought Cavafy's Poems but then realized there were three different editions on the shelf, each translated by a different person into English and they were strikingly different. On one of the prefaces, Auden commented on the difficulty of translating him, and hence the different versions, but also how Cavafy's poems were immediately recognizable since they don't depend on language but on their themes and imagery. Nonetheless, I couldn't decide on which to buy and left.
Also took some long walks to Clyro where the Baskerville Hall is. Even saw a grave at the village cemetery for people who perished during WWI where there was a reference to a Captain Baskerville. Supposedly Conan Doyle stayed here visiting the family and drew inspiration from local lore about a hound that haunted the moors.
Highlight: the B&B where I stayed had some books for guests to read and that' where I ran into Alan Bennett's Untold Stories. His fun and witty diaries kept me company through days of hard rain. Almost had to swim back to London...except that I can't swim.
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July 13, 2007
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July 10, 2007
Zizek
I had never seen Zizek in my life until last sunday. He was giving a lecture at the Ethical Society as a sort of commemoration organized by the Freud Society on the centennial of the publishing of "The sexual enlightenment of children".
I'm glad he said it himself during the lecture because I'd be too polite to mention this. Or maybe not. He said someone asked him to be that person's analyst and his reply was "Look at me! I'm a nervous person! I'm crazy!" and the person agreed and gave up. He is insane. But, or precisely because of that, strangely stimulating. He was a nervous wreck all through the lecture, scratching his eyes, ears and nose compulsively and read from a typed sheet all the way through with the occasional stop to illustrate a point. He has a funny eastern european accent that, conjugated with the enthusiasm with which he delivers his speech and matching and vehement wave of the right hand, makes you think you're at a retro communist rally.
But he is fascinating in the way he shoots theories at you like a machine gun, drawing examples from the most sophisticated of philosophers to quirky pieces of news. I'm not completely sure everything makes sense, it was such an intense experience that I'm still digesting it.
In one hour he managed to talk about: Freud (obviously), the Masturbathon, the myth of Dapnhe and Chloe, Shakespeare's All's well that ends well, Lacan, Hegel, genetically modified beans that don't cause gas, Kant, David Lynch's Blue Velvet, The Da Vinci code, Chinese translations, the Bible and the Catholic Church, Claude Lévi-Strauss and the north-american tribe that thought all dreams had sexual meanings except the dreams about sex themselves, Antigone, advertisements for sun screens, the myth in communist countries that everyone believed the secret information officers were the inventors and propagators of jokes about the government and a lot more I can't recall right away. All this to arrive, through a very tortuous journey, to a thesis - there were some collateral ones along the way - in which he states adults need sexual education even more than children because they know the mechanics but lack the knowledge that each of us must have his/her own personal fantasy on which to focus on while having sex.
Best quote of the night, while answering a question: "I have written about this on one of my books, can't remember which, there's so many of them."
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July 09, 2007
Celebrity Spotting (kind of)
Went to the Art Car Boot Fair on Sunday. A strange fair on Brick Lane in which artists sell weird items - Tim Noble & Sue Webster were selling signed toilet paper rolls -for symbolic prices. Among others, I spotted Gavin Turk presumably haggling over prices of his signed car boots and Bob+Roberta Smith painting letters on wood.
Gavin Turk is the fellow that got himself thrown out of art school because he submitted one single piece for his graduation show which was a metal plaque to hang on the wall saying "Gavin Turk studied here". Bob+Roberta Smith is in fact a man and not a pair. He paints signs and banners and launched an amnesty on bad art in 2002.
I got myself an Ian Monroe sticker but when I got home I realized the bastard - who is very nice and chatty, by the way - had signed it in the back and I wanted to stick it to my laptop. So now I am the proud owner of an unsigned piece by Ian Monroe and also of a star shaped bit of paper - signed.
Other than the general craziness and drunkenness going around the funniest stand/car was the one where you could shoot a spinning diamond skull and win prizes if you hit the big diamond on the forehead. There was also a fake diamond covered skull for sale for 1000 pounds. And a Kunst Clown. And people selling puzzle pieces by the ounce. Very weird and strangely frivolous.
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July 07, 2007
Seen at the counter of Skoob books. You can tell when someone starts a second-hand book business out of love: this very persuasive anti-impulse-shopping quote is inconveniently located by the cash register. I almost returned "Breakfast at Tiffany's" to its shelf when I read this.
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July 02, 2007
Several works from the National Gallery are hanging in the streets of London - it's the Grand Tour initiative and it's hoping to lure more visitors into the museum.
Holbein's Ambassadors is particularly fun since this public display makes it easier to see the anamorphic skull. It isn't easy to come this close to a painting in a museum.
I'm just sorry no one has defaced any of them. Artistcallt speaking, of course. Where are the Banksys, the Duchamps? Why hasn't any one stamped an HP logo stencil on it? Tss.
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July 01, 2007
This first got my attention.
Entering a little shop crammed with retro toys, I realized that was in fact a toy museum. A maze of little rooms in an old buiding holding spooky looking old porcelain dolls, antique toy soldiers, vintage robots, scruffy looking teddy bears and all sorts of victorian doll houses. Scary. Perfect setting for a horror movie, if you ask me. I should have never watched the Chucky movies. Can't stand the sight of a fuzzy channel on TV since Poltergeist either.
Pollock's Toy Museum on Scala Street, London
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June 30, 2007
Random
The share of space taken by books devoted to gardening in London's chain bookshops is equivalent to that of self-help books in the US.
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Out of nowhere, while walking in Soho it dawned on me that Elias Canetti's chess playing dwarf in "Auto da Fé" must be a reference to the Mechanical Turk! Duh!
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The Gay Pride Parade in London was an oxymoron. Blame it on the weather or on the bomb scare, this was the dullest gay parade I've ever seen.
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Strange country this is. They had running bets on the color of the hat the Queen would wear to Ascot.
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Saw the cutest personal ad on a free London newspaper the other day but unfortunately threw it away, as one does with these ecological crimes disguised as information. It ran something like "Mature man seeks Rubenesque lady for wine, theatre and love." Hell, weren't I taken and more of the Modiglianesque build, I'd answer that :)
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Amused by Pakistan's claim that making Rushdie a knight "breaches a United Nations resolution aimed at calming tensions between different religions". Obviously, the maintenance of a fatwa calling for the writer's execution is perfectly compliant.
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So glad I got to read Nabokov's Lolita precisely when I was almost giving up on finding an engaging novel. Can't forget: the classics!. Got a cheap copy at Judd books. Such a beautiful, rythmic and sensual writing. Along with "A hundred years of solitude" this is one of my favorite ouvertures of all times:
"Lolita. Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."
Perfect alliteration.
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Nerd. Orange. Tote Bag. Perfect.
Good title too, considering the crappy London street map I carry.
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June 29, 2007
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June 24, 2007
Keep Clear
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June 20, 2007
London
I moved to London temporarily where I'll be busy busy busy drowning in paintings, sculptures and written assignments.
The view:
*****
Made it to the White Cube gallery today and saw "For the love of God", the latest Damien Hirst. I loved his work when I first got to know it but by now it just seems too much mainstream/marketing stunt to me. He's no longer an enfant terrible but he insists on being outrageous. And however I try to cooly dismiss him, he keeps surprising me. Yes, it's just a skull covered in diamonds, big deal...but the fact is that it's really exciting. A group of people is let in a dark room where you can't see anything but the skull in a glass case, cleverly lit. We were allowed 2 minutes inside and we were advised to circle it. It was like a religious ceremony, 8 adults walking around a skull that shined with all the colors of the rainbow, like a tribe performing a ritual dance around a totem pole. Everyone was gaping for is a truly beautiful, strangely seductive piece. And the whole dark mystery setup just adds glamour to the bloody thing. Argh, 4 days I've been here, mostly surrounded by Americans, and still I have used the expressions "Bloody hell", "That's rubbish" and "Loo" way too many times.
(also saw Richard Hamilton himself at another gallery, an old man wearing a long white beard and levi's jeans chatting with an employee)
*****
So much to blog about, so little time.
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March 24, 2007
Madrilidades
No sera la no dimensión del presente la que hace posible la vida, como la no dimensión del punto hace posible la geometría?
No vi el viento vi moverse las nubes.
No vi el tiempo vi caerse las hojas.
-- Escritos, Eduardo Chillida (exhibition at the Biblioteca Nacional)
"Pasó seis horas examinando las cosas, tratando de encontrar una diferencia con el aspecto que tuvieron el día anterior, pendiente de descubrir en ellas algún cambio que revelara el transcurso del tiempo.(...) El viernes, antes que se levantar nadie, volvió a vigilar la aparencia de la naturaleza, hasta que no tuvo la menor duda de que seguía siendo lunes." -- Cien años de soledad, Gabriel Garcia Márquez (got a new copy at the Paseo del Prado book fair)
****
Amused by the odd cataloging at La Casa del Libro. No self-help section so the next good thing seems to be philosophy.
****
Overheard at the Real Jardín Botánico in Madrid: "Un bonsai es um árbolito chiquitito".
****
Lazying in the sun at El Retiro park.
****
"Tenemos otros usos propios, al cristal le llamamos también luna. Así pueden enamorar sin querer a una española, cuando en un taxi le pregunte si quiere que le baje la luna" -- Marcos Martos Carrera, president of the Peruvian Academy of Language about the specificities of the peruvian spanish (a propos of the IV Congresso de La Lengua in Cartagena de las Indias, Colombia)
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February 23, 2007
Notes to self
“As a matter of fact, he almost never takes the liberty of being himself unless someone builds up his confidence and leaves him alone in an empty room,” Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in a 1957 essay, “The Venetian Pariah.” For Sartre, Tintoretto is an avatar of existential anguish, who was both behind his time—as the last native-born master on a scene ruled by a cosmopolitan élite—and ahead of it, as the ideal artist for a rising bourgeoisie that was too intimidated by the pomp of the ducal republic to recognize itself in his demotic trashings of aristocratic decorum. Intellectuals of the era, while in awe of Tintoretto’s gifts, scolded him for being too fast, careless, and insolent; when Vasari credited him with “the most extraordinary brain that the art of painting has ever produced,” it wasn’t meant as unalloyed praise. (Vasari also called him the medium’s “worst madcap.”) --- PETER SCHJELDAHL in the New Yorker
Go see the Tintoretto exhibition at the Prado and the Portraiture in the age of Picasso at the Thyssen. Go, go, go to Madrid.
*****
Go visit Venice despite your long standing prejudice against a city that can only stink with that much canals. The biennale starts in June.
*****
Graffiti on a wall, an ejaculation, spatters of bird droppings and chewing gum flattened on the pavement, inarticulate curses - "every body has prombles woste then mine" reads one hopeless message they found scrawled on the street and incorporated in a picture. Gilbert & George's London is more than a backdrop. It teems with life and dirt, shock, surprise, boredom and beauty. Their retrospective is as relentless, cumulative and varied as anyone could ask for. You exit winded - you've seen too much. Like the city itself, the show is uneven and sprawling, and goes from dark to garish, sexy to monstrous. Their best and worst are here - and which is which, one keeps on asking, and what do we mean by best and worst? Good filthy or bad filthy, raving mad or just raving? Are they brave or are they bores? They provoke ambivalence. The contrariness and contradictions are essential to their art, and to our responses to it. --- Adrian Searle on The Guardian
Go visit the Gilbert & George exhibition at Tate Modern. It ends in May! Go, go, go to London.
*****
"Hay is a tiny market town in the Brecon Beacons National Park, It has 1500 people and 41 bookshops."
Go to Hay-on-Wye! Someday.
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January 03, 2007
2007
A foggy yet sunny first day of the year in San Francisco.
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December 19, 2006
Buddhist temple in Hong Kong.
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December 15, 2006
Macau
The bottle next to this one was Portuguese wine. Very odd.
*****
I had just read an article on the New Yorker about how the Las Vegas millionaire Steve Wynn had poked an elbow (and ruined) a 139 million dollar Picasso - Le rêve pictured above - he owned.
Wynn opened a luxurious casino in Macau. While walking around the obssessive looking gamblers, I said to R. I had no idea how did the roulette thing worked. Just to show me the mechanics of the thing, he bets on my birthdate. The roulette spins and the ball falls on 7 - I was born on Oct 7th! We collect our money and leave immediately; oh the joy of taking money from the I-have-so-much-money-I-can-dig-a-hole-on-my-own-Picasso Steve Wynn!
*****
Macau has the feeling of a ghost town or something out of a twilight zone episode. There are signs written in Portuguese everywhere but I couldn't see any portuguese people neither meet anyone who spoke the language.
A pharmacy and Portuguese custard pies, a traditional pastry. Apparently it's a Macau specialty too.
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December 11, 2006
Before & After #4 (the last of the series)
Macau, Largo do Senado, 1930's and today
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December 10, 2006
Before & After #3
Macau, Post Office Building, 1930's and today
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December 05, 2006
Before & After #2
*****
My maternal grandfather was stationed in Macau in the 1930's as an infantry soldier. The army duties weren't heavy since he was also one very good wing back at soccer and played for the Macau Army Football team. The childhood memories I treasure the most are the quiet afternoons when he would tell me stories of Macau, of football matches and of the goals he scored, the Chinese ladies he dated, how he found impossible to eat with chopsticks and when he'd show me the scar on his leg, the imprint of a boot stud a Hong Kong player left on him during a ball dispute.
So, my first visit to Macau felt like a revisit.
*****
Macau, Camões Garden and Grotto, 1930's and today.
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December 03, 2006
Before & After #1
Macau, border with mainland China (Portas do Cerco), 1930's and today.
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November 16, 2006
Ding a ling a ling
Going over half of the world to:
- kill many saudades (a literal translation; give me a break, I'm portuguese);
- revisit a place where I've spent my early childhood dreams.
- attend a wedding - the main excuse.
I'd say it's mainly an anthropological expedition.
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September 20, 2006
Peristil
Peristil at Diocletian's Palace, Split, Croacia
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September 18, 2006
Metaposting
I was resisting temptation....
On the hydrofoil from Split to Hvar - after attempting to translate a sign in croatian, dictionary in hand:
The American: So, is "HIJK" the croatian for row?
The Portuguese:...no, it's H-I-J-K for identifying the seats.....
(laughter)
The American: Oh no! You're going to blog this aren't you?
The Portuguese: Maybe not.
The American: I can foresee the post on your blog: the american said... and then the portuguese said...
If it's any excuse, croatians do use a lot of silent j's in words :D
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September 06, 2006
My hotel in Zagreb featured a quirky decoration: pillows, bed covers and curtains all had an interesting pattern of faces of famous/genial people in arts & science.
I particularly like the set on this pillow:
Clockwise: Matisse, Einstein, Stravinski, Manu Chao. Yes. Manu Chao. Croatian humor?
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September 05, 2006
Hadn't studied enough croatian grammar and already was getting suspicious about the large number of streets that seemed to be named after women. Until I saw this.
Zagreb, Croatia
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September 01, 2006
Hrvatska
Hvar, Croatia
+++++
Beautiful and - now- peaceful country. Didn't find a place to eat where I can truly say I had a great meal, though. The Croatian people I met were not even slightly customer-oriented and I got the "Oh no, here comes a tourist" facial expression in almost every bar/cafe/restaurant I went to.
Rent-a-Car in Split:
C: There's a road map in the car, right?
Employee: Road Map? There's only one road from here to Dubrovnik! What do you need a map for? The sea will be on your right all the way down there, you can't miss it.
C:....
At a bar:
After finally getting the attention of the waitress behind the counter - who was writing something that seemed to be as lengthy as War and Peace :
- A beer and a bottle of water, please.
- We don't have bottled water.
And promptly gets back to her unfisnished masterpiece oblivious of my existence.
-....can I have a glass of tap water then?
(pause)
- Ok (shrugging shoulders)
And I could swear she rolled her eyes as I got back to the terrace.
Very strange, considering 40% of their GDP comes from tourism.
+++++
Dubrovnik, Croatia
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August 17, 2006
Mare Hadriaticum
"A bleak wind blew from the Adriatic among those mighty tombs. In a hotel bedroom, designed for a warmer season, I wrote long letters to Sebastian."
--Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
********
Not Venice, no Charles Ryder around but a warm season to go on a break to indulge on (even more) selfishness, ignoring bombings on foreign lands & ex-nazi nobel prize winners & earthly worries in general.
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August 14, 2006
The Heart of the Mission
"El Corazón de la Missión is part mobile public art project, part site-specific performance, part tourist attraction and all serious fun. Guillermo Gómez-Peña —the renowned writer, border activist, performance provocateur, reverse anthropologist, and NPR commentator — has scripted and narrated this 80-minute tour to take you deep into the heart of the Mission, the place he has called home for almost 15 years. From Dolores Park to Clarion Alley and the 24th Street Corridor, ride shotgun with Gómez-Peña as he honors the Mission’s ghosts, from fallen labor leaders of the 1930s to testosterone-driven low-riders of the 1980s, and celebrates the ever-evolving social, cultural and political sensibilities of his favorite neighborhood in San Francisco."
****
R. got us tickets for a Mission tour organized by Galeria de la Raza - an awful name, I know, but apparently "raza" doesn't have a nazi connotation for latin americans. I didn't realize it was performance art until, shortly before hopping on the bus, a woman dressed in what I imagine to be a mexican hooker outfit tried to sell me vaginal enhancing cream while Gómez-Peña read a subversive statement that I couldn't follow since the woman was by then offering me a threesome and it was hard to concentrate on politics at that point.
We got on a pink and green bus with a mexican kitsch designed dashboard, were offered tequilla shots while Gómez-Peña's assistant sat on the participants laps and threw her skirts over their heads.
All this was accompanied by the pre-recorded narration of the tour by Gómez-Peña and the presence of the man himself. A discourse on immigration, american imperialism and the cultural mix of the city with a touch of sarcastic humour that made it an interesting experience.
Never heard the Mission being called "Chilli-con Valley" before but it is a very funny pun.
---
At one point the artist's assistant asks "Are there any Americans here?" and a choir of voices go "Yeah!". She goes on "What do you feel at the sight of the American flag?". The responses varied from "Shame", "Disgust" to "Anger". If it sounds strange to you, bear in mind that San Francisco is known to republicans as "that leftist enclave". She grabs her skirt, pulls it up and shows her american flag panties in a sexually meaningful pose: "What do you feel now???"
---
We stopped by at Clarion Alley - a street known for its beautiful murals and drug peddlers - and Gómez-Penã and his assistant tried to convince everyone that going down the alley naked would be a true and faithful experience to the culture of the Mission. Two couples almost promptly volunteered. While they undressed in the middle of the street I looked behind me and just across from us there was a police station.
Naked Man: "Come on, come naked with us...."
Me: "Well, I would but the police is just right there, isn't this dangerous?"
Naked Man: "This is San Francisco!"
Me: ...
Naked couple #1, the Assistant, Naked Couple#2 and Gómez-Peña.
Of course, by the end of Clarion Alley there was a group of people, immigrants and prostitutes among them, gaping in amazement at the sight.
-----
After going to an art gallery - where the same couple got naked again for no apparent reason other than "This is San Francisco" which prompted the artist showing there to get naked himself and run around the gallery - , we stopped by at a "true immigrant's bar" where some latino men sitting at the bar or playing pool, not looking that hospitable, suddenly stopped to see why was a weird group of turists invading their space.
Me: So, are you guys going to get naked again here?
man previously naked : Nah, not here.
woman previously naked: I don't know...they've got pool tables....
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August 12, 2006
Old city, New Delhi - India
16th & Bryant, San Francisco - USA
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August 04, 2006
American Gothic
Art Institute of Chicago
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August 03, 2006
Hot
Temperatures soared in Chicago, the public, digital artsy fountains at the Millenium Park were invaded by kids in bathing suits trying to escape the heat.
Mandatory tourist photo of the bean:
North Milwaukee Avenue is a great place to wonder around or have a hearty american breakfast at the Bongo Room ; bought the first volume to the wonderfully entertaining Deptford Trilogy at Myopic Books; mouth watering dinner at Butter (I can still recall the taste of that salmon dissolving in my mouth).
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July 20, 2006
Chic-a-go-go-go
+++++
Off to the windy city. I'll be back in a couple of weeks.
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May 10, 2006
Favourite name for....
...a video store
...an optics store
...a costume shop
....a pizza place
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May 05, 2006
Globalization is...
...a can of Portuguese sardines bought at Lucca, an Italian grocery shop in the latino Mission district of the American city of San Francisco.
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May 03, 2006
Walked my feet off around SF; great murals in the Mission....
and spotted some cute sidewalk aphorisms on Valencia Street.
------
When in Rome be a Roman. Walden is a constant reference I had been missing and so I bought a copy:
American #1: Oh no! You're reading Walden?
American #2: Yuck! Thoreau is such a lousy writer...
American #1: Boring!
Portuguese: You guys had to read it in school, didn't you?
And so it seems that this mandatory readings in school have the same post-traumatic effect around the world and across cultures.
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On May 1st there were huge demonstrations around the USA against the Bush Administration immigration policies which propose to criminalise illegal immigrants. In San Francisco the immigrants protesting were mainly Latinos; as a consequence of the "A day without immigrants" initiative, most of the shops and restaurants closed.
(in the middle of the protesters screaming "Sí se puede"):
Portuguese: This is great! Political activism in the USA! It's a rare sight!
American: Cut it out, you silly European snob!
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After a great meal - including chocolate soufflé, crêpes and strawberry rhubarb crumble overdose - at Range:
A: You know how burping in some cultures is a sign of satisfaction? Well, I am anticipating the pleasure of burping this meal!
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Bliss: Lying on a hot tub, having a funny New Yorker article about low cost airways read out loud to me.
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Fridge magnets at Happy Trails:
"Marriage? I can't mate under captivity!"
"A clean house is a sign of a wasted life."
------
Listening to Fernando & Greg ranting about how would "A day without the gay" be on KNGY.
Their sports show tagline is "If they're playing with balls, I'm all over it!"
------
Too much fun!
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March 03, 2006
The Hotel Chelsea
A resident, taking the dog for a walk
I've been meaning to visit the Hotel Chelsea ever since I read Sarah Vowell's Take the Cannolli. Funny, clever woman:
"Then he saw Warhol's film The Chelsea Girls, a split-screen, three and a half hour bore/smut fest, which shows things like Ondine shooting speed and Nico in tears. Its poster, a nude woman-as-hotel in which the Chelsea's entrance is situated at her vagina, was like some exotic travel brochure to Lance Loud. To him, it was his dream destination: 'Some people want to go to Valhala. Some people want to go to El Dorado or Shangri-La. When I was a teenager I wanted to end up at the Chelsea Hotel. With or without a needle on my arm and lipstick on my face.' He arrived at the hotel as the companion of a psychotic drug addict. Who says dreams can't come true?"
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The lobby
I arrived late. The few steps I had to take from the subway station to the hotel, along with the long flights and airplane food, must have made me look somewhere in between hoplessly cold and dead beat tired. As I walk to the reception desk, I see two middle aged men there listening to Aerosmith's "Walk this way" which was playing on a radio and following the rythm by ways of a very discreet headbanging.
They finally notice me and say "Hey! You've made it!". Which is nice, considering they had never seen me before :-)
+-+-+
Going up and down the stairs, it's fun to take a look at the semi-closed doors of the residents who, by the scent in the air, must have been reading Baudelaire. There's a praying altar in front of a canvas; there's art everywhere, even in the most hidden doors in badly lit corridors. There's a door where scraps of paper containing the words "Every story is the truth" are glued to.
+-+-+
"At least I end up facing 23rd street: Dylan Thomas got stuck in a dark room at the back on his final trip and everybody knows what happened to him." - Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli
So did I. Room 823 with a view to the roofs of the buildings across the street.
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Here's a great site on the Hotel's architcture and history.
The official website: Hotel Chelsea - a rest stop for rare individuals.
Also: the Hotel Chelsea Blog - Living with Legends.
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March 02, 2006
NY, NY
The Melancholy of Departure by de Chirico, MoMA
+-+-+
It was coooooold. And windy. That kind of wind that bites your cheeks and leaves them numb.
Central Park
+-+-+
Notes for a personal DSM-V (RD version):
- a pessimist is someone who has a backup plan for survival all lined out in case a severe crisis hits the world economy.
- someone who worries about terrorist attacks is just plain paranoid.
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Staying at the Hotel Chelsea - (in)famous for being the place where Sid Vicious stabbed his girlfriend to death - was an interesting experience. Will have to blog more about that.
Funny related woody-allenesque-line on meeting M:
"You're staying at the Chelsea? When I had my first solo show my brother wanted me to stay there and commit suicide."
+-+-+
Great new acquisitions at St.Mark's Bookshop.
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My mouth's watering for more fresh water eel nigiri at the Blue Ribbon.
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And now I know that SoHo is the New York version of The Mission.
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January 18, 2006
Random Silliness
I know this post will sound xenophobic but it's not (I can almost see R. rolling his eyes and saying "Oh no, there she goes again!"). Actually, I am a xenophile :-). Americans come up with these cute, silly, distinctive ideas that I find particularly amusing. If you knew me personally you'd know I like the country, I just hate their foreign policy and that medieval insistence on maintaining the death penalty. Oh, and when they call themselves "America" forgetting there are other countries in the same continent(s). The European Community is picking up a similar habit. You just have to take a look at their URL (http://europa.eu.int) to see that they too over a whole continent themselves. But I digress.
********
Somewhere around Los Angeles
No need to comment on this one.
********
This fascinates me. I'm just sorry I couldn't take a pic of the section of the highway that was "adopted" by the Santa Barbara Masonic Lodge.
"Adopt A Highway Maintenance Corporation (AHMC) provides an opportunity for your company or organization to be recognized for sponsoring a section of highway. We do all the work and you get all the recognition!"
Obviously, this could lead us into a lengthy dissertation about the contrasting role of the state in the USA and in most European countries and to a critical evaluation of the choices made in American public expenditure....but this is not that kind of blog.
********
Power tools! Yeah!
San Francisco
********
Love Happened (in Monterey)
"A vanity plate (US), prestige plate, personalised registration (UK) or personalised plate (Australia) is a special type of number plate (license plate in America), on an automobile or other vehicle. The owner of the vehicle will have paid extra money to have his or her own choice of numbers or letters, usually forming a recognisable phrase, slogan, or initialism on their plate. Sales of vanity plates are often a significant source of revenue for North American provincial and state licencing agencies." - from the wikipedia which seems to be still a good source for information despite the use of "America" in the definition.
(didn't know they had them in the UK; never noticed it)
********
Every time I fly to the USA on an American airline there's always this magazine in the airplane seat pocket. I have to mention Hammacher Schlemmer and thank this store for so many good laughs during take off.
Double Decker Pet Stroller
Barzebo - A Gazebo with a Bar.
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January 11, 2006
HuggerMugger
Found a board game I adored at the nudist hot springs resort: HuggerMugger.
++++
"He put on his splatterdashes and sauntered over to the haberdashery. He got into a snit on hearing the woman with the flaxen hair stating that there should be gallows on their bailiwick."
++++
"The Skeleton Key or Key of Knowledge represents the Definition category. The player will be given a word with its correct spelling and a choice of 3 definitions. He must then choose which of the choices (a, b, or c) is correct."
"What's a bosk? A- ..., B-.... or C - A thicket?
"What's a thicket?"
"You're right, it's a thicket."
"No, no, I was asking what a thicket is."
"Oh, I thought that was your answer."
"No."
"..."
"So?"
"So what?"
"What's a thicket?"
"It's a bosk."
"I know that now! But what's a bosk?"
"It's a thicket!"
+++++
Hugger Mugger - the habit, practice, or policy of keeping secrets: clandestineness, clandestinity, concealment, covertness.
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January 09, 2006
Showing some skin
There's a hidden treasure somewhere in a valley in California. A hot springs resort in the middle of a forest, cute little wooden cabins, a creek. Naked people. Lovely setting, laid-back environment, great hot tubs where to stay for hours, reading a book, looking outside at the rain falling. And naked people. Lazy, fat cats sleeping on the lobby's couches, a game room filled with board games and gossip magazines. Have I mentioned naked people?
(and no cameras allowed, yet...)
+++++
I have never been able to go to nudist beaches in Portugal. I'm always imagining I'll run into my boss when I least expect it. And he's not naked or else that would even things out. But 9.000 km seems like distance enough to forget about my self-inflicted trauma.
And there I was, in a nudist hot springs resort. And it was cold. And everything is on the open air, the tubs, the changing room, the swimming pool.
At first I thought there would be no way I'd go around naked in that weather. Than I gathered courage, undressed in the changing room and headed to the lovely claw foot bathtub with hot flowing water. The private tubs are inside these cute, little rooms where you can leave the door open, look at the sky and the trees, hearing the creek run by. An interesting book - a good company - and it's heaven.
The water is so warm that feels great to step out in the rain and feel the cold drops of water on your skin. Then you run to the dry sauna (I can't breath in the wet sauna) under the rain. After some minutes of pure heat, the cold water pool awaits for you. Not for me, since I tried climbing down the pool steps until the freezing water hit my thighs and then I just ran back to get my towel. And then head off to the very hot redwood communal tub.
A doubt persists until today. Do nipple piercings get hot in the sauna? If so, don't they burn your skin when you walk and they dangle?
++++
This place must have been originally a hippy camping or something. Now it has grown into the New Age style. People here are sweet, laid-back, easy smiling and talkative. And all are reading books entitled "The Call of the Sacred Mountain", "The Mysteries of Crop Circles", "The Power of Intention" and the like (I heard a woman sigh "Oh my Goddess" in the sauna).
Except for one, none of the cabins has a kitchen. So, there's a communal kitchen. You get your own bin to store the food. As I was choosing what to make for dinner, I peaked at the other guest's bins and they all had organic stuff, soy milk, tofu...
Nonetheless, they all seemed to be gourmet chefs and prepared the most amazing meals, complete with appetizers and decorated plates. Which could make you a bit self-conscious about bringing canned sardines.
++++
I'm at the cabin (the one with a kitchen). It's the morning and I'm making breakfast. I'm always so hungry in the morning, eagerly anticipating the taste of maple syrup and buttermilk pancakes. As I'm drooling over the frying pan, someone knocks on the door.
"Sorry you guys, but you have to evacuate; the river's flooded and CalTrans is saying they're closing the road any moment."
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January 04, 2006
Survivor
There's nothing like starting the year in the middle of a natural disaster. More exactly in the middle of the California floods. Even more exactly, trapped in a motel in Ukiah zapping between a Twilight Zone Marathon on Sci-Fi, "The Blues Brothers" on Comedy Central and VH1's "I love the 70's". Water everywhere, roads closed. And I thought this kind of thing only happened on Hollywood movies.
++++
So much to blog about, so lilttle time:
Los Angeles. Hollywood. Plates of Gargantuan proportions on a breakfast place where the waiter kept calling me sweetie.
(The triple threat - perfect for anyone carrying gallbladder stones, isn't it?)
The place is called the Saddle Ranch on Sunset Boulevard. A texan inspired restaurant (mechanical bull included) with an outdoor patio. Sitting outdoors, I was puzzled by how every tour van would slow down while passing in front. It turns out that it used to be the Thunder Roadhouse Cafe, opened by "Easy Riders" Dennis Hopper & Peter Fonda. And that makes it a tourist sight, obviously.
++++
Big Sur and how I didn't get to visit the Henry Miller Library because of three clocks set to three different time zones, none of which was the proper one;
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My very first stay on a nudist hot springs resort north of San Francisco (yes, it was cold, it's winter down there too). Before being evacuated to
++++
Of course it is. Apparently, Christmas is the perfect time to get a new vibrator in San Francisco.
++++
Dinner in bed at the Supper Club in SF and meeting a woman who has been a standup comedian, a professional scrabble player, a sitcom writer (including some episodes for Sex and the City) and is now a "Namer". She names stuff. Like products or companies.
++++
Too much time waiting for a connecting flight in Amsterdam. Hopped on a train and made the mandatory visit to the red light district. It's becoming a tradition for me to be offered coke by sleazy men and invited in by hookers from behind their windows.
Irene accepts major credit cards and publicizes her specialty buy hanging a bullwhip on her window.
+++++
VH1's "I love the 70's" showing a bit of an episode of a sitcom I had never watched:
Obese Kid character: "Don't make fun of me! Being fat runs in the family!"
Skinny Kid character: "No one runs in your family."
+++++
And much, much more.
Posted by claudia Permalink
November 16, 2005
Britishness
Random memories from last weekend's trip to London to attend my very first anglican christening.
++-++
Lunch at Upton House just before the christening. Looking at the map of the gardens, I see that number 8 is a "Ha-Ha". Neither the Brit nor the American knew what this was and there was no time to check it out...so the Portuguese had to google it up.
"A haha or ha-ha was a variety of sunken border used in formal European gardens and parks of the 18th and 19th centuries. They typically consisted of a garden wall set in a trench or dry moat, with the top of the wall at the garden's ground level. This would prevent cattle or unexpected guests from entering the garden without disrupting the sightlines." from the Wikipedia
(stolen from wordsmith)
"You will hurt yourself, Miss Bertram," she cried, "you will certainly hurt yourself against those spikes - you will tear your gown - you will be in danger of slipping into the ha-ha." - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
Obviously, the first question that comes to mind is how is a "ha-ha" related to Pope's aesthetic principles...:-)
++--++
Paper poppies pinned to jackets - it was remembrance day.
++---++
Having fun with britishisms: Got to go to the loo and take off my knickers or Got to go to the bathroom and take off my panties?
++----++
Always a nice topic of conversation:
"Oh, you're Portuguese? I once was in Portugal on holidays and had my appendix removed there."
And after someone said that the same story had been told to a spaniard:
"Well, it's all Iberia, isn't it?"
(actually, Spain has taken over the word Iberia; no Portuguese actually thinks of him/herself as an inhabitant of Iberia)
++----++
Ruth running away once the Vicar said that she would be cleansed of all sin by baptism. Ruth crying and screaming before being taken to the stoup by her godmother and staying put, completely stunned, once the freezing holy water hit her head.
Such a great church in the middle of nowhere. Well, not nowhere but somewhere in Burton Dassett, Warwickshire.
++----++
Feeling back in India while having dinner at the Red Fort.
++----++
Mandatory visit to Tate Modern. Big Rousseau Jungle paintings exhibition.
"He couldn't paint, could he? These are awful."
" What do you mean? Apollinaire praised him!"
" Well, Apollinaire was a big joker, wasn't he?"
++----++
Drooling over books by Foucault and Barthes at the Tate Bookshop.
"You really like theory don't you?"
++----++
Perfect: Sex & Books. What a great idea ;-)
(Charing Cross Road)
++----++
Jan (the proud American grandfather named after the polish politician and pianist Jan Paderewsky) convincing me how the Portuguese used Chinese maps copied by a Venetian to go on their seafaring explorations. (note to self: got to buy 1421)
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October 14, 2005
Paseo & Tapeo
"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land." - G. K. Chesterton
I'll be back (can't write this without hearing Schwarzenegger saying it in my head; damn it!).
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September 21, 2005
The Pirate Shop
There's a Pirate Shop on Valencia St., San francisco. No, really. They sell eye patches, fake glass eyes, pirate hats, pirate shirts. Books.
There's also a lard bucket.
Of course they also hold writing workshops and promote young unknown authors but that's not the fun part :-)
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September 20, 2005
Ripley's Believe it or Not!
As a kid, I was a big fan of the "Ripley's Believe it or not!" TV Show hosted by Jack Palance.
So I HAD to go to the "Ripley's Believe it or not!" museum in San Francisco. There isn't much to see there apart from some photos of odd people and other curiosities.
But I do like the idea of Ripley roaming around the world looking for the odd and the unthinkable. A quest for strangeness, for anything or anyone that is different or unimaginable. Isn't that what travelling is all about, after all?
(the life size kaleidoscope)
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September 15, 2005
City Lights
City Lights Bookstore is dangerous. I wasn't past the first set of shelves and already felt like buying all the books I'd seen :-)
"Founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin, City Lights is one of the few truly great independent bookstores in the United States, a place where booklovers from across the country and around the world come to browse, read, and just soak in the ambiance of alternative culture's only "Literary Landmark."
I went there with Ricardo and he got me interested in Murakami, Sebald, Mexican Wrestling (he bought a great book filled with the kitschiest photos ever) and Osman Lins. It was the favourite authors exchange moment of the holidays :-)
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September 13, 2005
Alamo Square, San Francisco
While most tourists are taking photos of this:
Right on their back there is an odd shoe garden:
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September 06, 2005
The longest path
Golden Gate park, San Francisco
Tourist: Look. That building looks like the DeYoung Museum.
SF resident: Oh no! Not again! We've been walking around in circles! I was sure we were going West!
Tourist: I've got a compass.
(and I did have a detailed Golden Gate Park map but I didn't notice it until the next day :-)
-+-+-+-+
I hate stereotypes but I do stereotype a lot for the sake of a joke (and only among friends). I did that a lot in SF (mostly about American people) and made a very nasty (and unusually loud it was too) remark about the so-american profession of "bag boy" in a supermarket.
A practical example.
At a restaurant, by the end of the meal:
Waiter: Would you like an espresso or american coffee?
The European: An espresso, please.
The American: American Coffee.
The European: You know that the Monty Python joke about american beer* could be easily applied to american coffee too?
-+-+-+-
As a kind of punishment for my behavior here's some American stereotyping of Europeans:
- All Europeans drink a lot of espressos;
- All Europeans wear denim jackets;
- All Europeans smoke;
- All European women don't shave their armpits;
- All Europeans think they're superior to Americans.
-+-+-+-
* The joke:
Bruce #1 (Eric Idle): I find you American's beer like making love in a canoe.
Bruce #3 (Michael Palin): Why's that, Bruce?
Bruce #1: 'Cause it's fucking close to water!
-An aside in the Bruce sketch from Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl
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Look
(near Chinatown)
The advantage of having a local San Franciscan showing you around town is that you feel relaxed enough not to keep looking up the city's map, right?
Unless the San Franciscan, at least once a day, suddenly stops walking, looks around and asks: "Where are we?".
I was hoping it to be a philosophical doubt and that it would be followed by "Who are we?" and "What is the meaning of life?" or "Why didn't I shave this morning?" :-)
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September 02, 2005
Vitia Carnalia
This is more of a gourmandise memoir post than anything else.
Here's what I want to remember:
This is the kind of gastronomical delight that makes me look like a slightly more discrete Sally at the diner. I just close my eyes and sigh with pleasure. Gluttony or Lust? I think I'll take both ;-)
*****
Bix
56 Gold St
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 433-6300
*****
"In love, as in gluttony, pleasure is a matter of the utmost precision." - Italo Calvino
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Fake B&W
It looks like a B&W photo but it was actually a very gray day at Stinson Beach, San Francisco.
What I've learned about how to cope with San Francisco weather: Layers of clothing.
It can be freezing in the morning;
then the sun comes out: you remove a layer;
the wind stops: you remove another layer;
the fog crawls in: you put on a layer;
the wind starts blowing: you put on the last layer and pray it doesn't get any colder.
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September 01, 2005
Steep
The common San Francisco tourist pic: it feels like the cars are going to flip over anytime.
(and the reason why my leg muscles are a lot stronger than before)
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August 31, 2005
The Triton
I missed a connecting flight on my way to San Francisco which means I arrived a lot later than expected. I was so tired of all those hours of flying and waiting; all I wanted was a shower and a bed. I got much more than that.
As I walk into the hotel room, I couldn't stop laughing. This must be the quirkiest hotel decoration ever. There was this huge king-size bed with what looked vaguely like a zebra-patterned headboard by a dark red wall. With a sun shaped mirror. I'm just sorry it didn't have a mirrored ceiling.
So, I'm in a good mood now but I still need a shower. And I found the cutest shower curtain waiting for me:
I'm "so clean" now, "naked and happy" and go directly to the cupboard to see if there are any snacks. Not only they provide lots of snacks but also bright yellow rubber duckies (the baseball duck is sitting on my shelf right now). A little plastic case with the label "Intimacy Kit". A yoga meditation CD. Some mints. Chocolates.
The staff is great. The guy that checked me in would say every time: "Have a good night Meeezzz Diazzz!"
And they have wine tasting parties every day at 5pm.
(and the next time I'm in San Francisco I'll be asking for a special discount for all this free publicity ;-))))
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End of August
August Street, San Francisco
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August 29, 2005
Random San Francisco Travel Notes
*****
A beggar in the street holding a sign: "Testing for human kindness".
*****
*****
A dutch guard at Schiphol Airport passport control, not reading my itinerary correctly:
- You're going on holidays to Detroit??
- No, San Francisco is the final destination...
- Ufff. That would have been suspicious.
*****
*****
At a winery in Napa Valley:
- What kind of food would you eat with this wine?
- I'd personally have a Big Mac but that's probably not what you're asking.
*****
"I know this great restaurant in the Mission."
"There's this great bookshop in the Mission."
"There are great coffee shops in the Mission."
"The best bars are in the Mission."
(and yes, I give up, the Mission is my favourite neighbourhood too :-)
*****
*****
San Franciscan: "Everyone around here knows what Madeira wine is! Look." (to the bartender) "You know what is Madeira wine, don't you?"
Bartender: "Sure. It's that Spanish wine, right?"
*****
(serendipity)
*****
(in case you're wondering: yes, I've enjoyed my holidays very, very much.)
*****
Things learned & new or renewed interests:
- Mexican Wrestling;
- Haruki Murakami;
- Hiking;
- Pirates;
- Edgar Arceneaux;
- Good Vibrations;
- A very cool internet radio station (downtempo, lounge, chill out): SOMAFM;
- & much, much more coming up on the next posts.
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August 12, 2005
Holidays (again)
I won't be wearing flowers in my hair but I sure hope to find some gentle people there.
*****
"Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection." - Lawrence Durrell
*****
I was taking a look at my site counter, more specifically at the search terms that have lead visitors to my blog. Lots of them are about sex. Duh.
A message for a visitor from Japan who is persistently googling for "I had sex with Claudia": I'm pretty sure that's not me. Give it up.
A word of caution to another one looking for "photos of me and claudia having sex": I sincerely hope that's not me. You'd be in great trouble.
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July 06, 2005
Where the money goes
I've been wondering where the money I donated last year to this particular institution (Assistência Médica Internacional) went to. Now I know.
AMI Portugal at Yoff, Senegal.
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June 28, 2005
Photos of Senegal
The B&W Senegal holidays photoalbum is here.
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June 23, 2005
Assorted bits of senegalese wit and humor
Entering a touristry handicraft fair:
"Appelez les gendarmes! Voici les sans-papiers!"
"Bonjours les émigrants temporaires!"
"My name is Ousmane, like the boulevard in Paris."
Mamhadou, watching me put some sun cream on:
"Is that for you to get a tan? Can I have a bit?"
...and I naïvely and hesitantly pass him the bottle (as his skin is dark as the night)...
"Ah! Nevermind! I forgot I am black already; as for you, you really need it if you want to get this color!"
And bursts out laughing.
"Senegal is a peaceful country: we don't have neither diamonds or oil, so the americans leave us alone."
"In France you have the TGV and we have also a TGV: Train à Grande Vibration."
"Un homme africain entre dans un tunnel. Quelle est sa nationalité? I-voi-rien."
"Our currency is the Franc CFA: Catastrophe Financière Africaine."
"My party is the FLAG: Front de Libération des Alcoholiques de Gauche."
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June 21, 2005
Les stylos
Senegalese children don't ask tourists for money or candy: they ask for pens. Had I known this before, I had taken a whole suitcase of them with me...
I gave the only pen I had with me to Ousmane who kindly signed my notebook before running happily away with his new "stylo", proudly showing it to all his friends in the Dakar suburb.
I hope he grows up to be very famous. I'll sell the signed notebook on eBay then :-)
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June 20, 2005
Back from Africa
Back from Senegal, home of people who are obsessed with jogging and sports; some new flavours have been tasted, some new odours have been smelled, some new wisdom has been acquired.
That was time enough to know a bit about the country, to read on politics & love (no, not on the same book) and to gather somewhat dispersed thoughts. And to turn into a slightly darker shade of pale, inevitably.
A whole CF card has been formatted by "accident" but some photos have survived...
First time ever: I've been offered the professional sexual services of a handsome senegalese young man right in the middle of the street. After a "Pardon?" as I couldn't believe my ears, a polite "Non, merci." followed. The final reply which made me realize how naïve I can sometimes be: "You DO know that european women prefer senegalese men?". Very close to us, a scandinavian looking woman - old enough to be his mother, I guess - was embracing a rather athletic bare chested local.
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June 09, 2005
Sénégal
I'll be back in a week or so...I'm visiting what I expect to be a very interesting country seeing that its first president was a poet, philosopher, a great patron of the arts and a champion of African culture.
Apparently he also had a sense of humor:
|
"Cher frère blanc, Quand je suis né, j'étais noir, Quand j'ai grandi, j'étais noir, Quand je suis au soleil, je suis noir, Quand je suis malade, je suis noir, Quand je mourrai, je serai noir. Tandis que toi, homme blanc, Quand tu es né, tu étais rose, Quand tu as grandi, tu étais blanc, Quand tu vas au soleil, tu es rouge, Quand tu as froid, tu es bleu, Quand tu as peur, tu es vert, Quand tu es malade, tu es jaune, Quand tu mourras, tu seras gris. Alors, de nous deux, Qui est l'homme de couleur ?" Poème à mon frère blanc..., Léopold Senghor |
"Dear white brother, When I was born, I was black, When I grew up, I was black, When I am in the sun, I am black, When I am sick, I am black, When I die, I will be black. Whereas you, white man, When you were born, you were pink, When you grew up, you were white, When you are in the sun, you are red, When you are cold, you are blue, When you are afraid, you are green, When you are sick, you are yellow, When you die, you will be grey. So, of the two of us, Who is the colored man?" Poem For My White Brother..., Léopold Senghor |
I'm sure I'll be the living proof of the truthfulness of the above poem as I turn from pale white to light brown (carefuly avoiding the red tonality with huge amounts of sun screen) under the African sun.
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April 27, 2005
The order of surnames
Up
I got a free upgrade to Business class on my flight from Madrid to Lima. A very fortunate event considering it's a 12 hour flight and I am terribly scared of the coach class syndrome. And then, as I was thinking I couldn't be that lucky twice, I got another free upgrade on the way back from Buenos Aires.
Down
My flight from Lima to Santiago de Chile was cancelled and I had to stay there an extra night at LANChile expense. It wasn't that much of a downside since I loved Lima and didn't mind having some more extra time there.
All the people on my 7pm flight were transferred to the 6am flight; we all checked in the evening before and got picked up at 3am to have another try...
At the LANChile counter where I was supposed to pick my boarding pass since I had already checked in the evening before (and all of this in spanish, since her english wasn't that good):
LANCHile lady: Your passport please.
I hand over my passport, she looks at it, inserts my name on the computer. And then she starts pressing different keys, moves her head up and down, looking for my name on the screen, clearly not finding it.
LANCHile lady: Why did you miss the flight?
Me: I didn't miss the flight; it was cancelled.
LANCHile lady: Oh.
And goes on banging furiously on the keys.
LANCHile lady: Ok. The flight was cancelled but if it hadn't you would probably have lost it, right?
Me: No! I checked in three hours in advance yesterday!
LANChile lady: I don't have your name on the passengers list.
Me: That's impossible.
LANChile Lady: Where's your boarding pass, then?
Me: For God's sake! I have already told you that your colleague kept all the boarding passes of the passengers on the cancelled flight and we were supposed to pick them up today!!!
She goes away and comes back with a man:
LANChile man: So, you arrived late and missed your flight yesterday?
Me: NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! I checked in at 4pm!!! The damned flight was cancelled! Where's your supervisor?!
LANChile man: Sorry, but there's no one here at this hour. Where's your boarding pass then?
Me (holding my self not to hit him in the face): Look, I've already told your colleague what happened to my boarding pass; it must be with all the other boarding passes. Just look for it, I don't care if you can't find it on the computer!
The lady had a big pile of boarding passes on her hands and was going through it again and again, looking for mine. And obviously not finding it. She goes through them again, stops looking very puzzled, looks at my passport, again at the boarding pass, again looks at the passport and says:
LANChile Lady: How weird!! They checked you in using your last name!
Me (sarcastically): No way!!! Give me that!
And I went away cursing all those spanish conquistadores who landed on South America centuries ago and had to bring silly traditions like using a totally different surname order from the rest of the civilized world.
Whereas in most parts of the world, the last name is usually the father's family name:
"In Spain and countries of Hispanic culture (former Spanish colonies), each person has two family names (although in some situations only the first is used): the first is the first (paternal) family name of the father; the second is the first family name of the mother."
Which means she was looking for my first surname - my mother's - (Claudia Lobato) on the list instead of my last surname - my father's - (Claudia Dias).
I was asking for it, having two given names and three family names.
Not happy with altering the order of surnames, the mother's name is usually ignored. For instance:
Miguel de Cervantes was actually called Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
Francisco de Goya was actually called Francisco de Goya Y Lucientes.
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April 26, 2005
Cultural Awareness 101 and elementary manners
Useful tips while travelling in Argentina, learned the hard way:
- When asked if you'd like to have dinner and watch tango never reply: "I couldn't possibly endure two hours of tango!"
- Never smile back at macho immigration officers who give you back your passport with a lusty grin and a wink while saying "you can go through"
- Don't block the other tourist's view of Evita Peron's resting place while trying to take a photo of a much more beautiful mausoleum just across from hers
- Don't ask for "only a caprese salad" at a grill restaurant where everyone is eating steaks of gargantuan proportions; argentines are very proud of their meat, no pun intended
- NEVER ask a cabby, whose car's dashboard is covered with River Plate stickers, to take you to La Bombonera - the Boca Junior's Football Stadium (and eternal rival)
Maradona wine is the sort of classy souvenir one can buy at "Todo Boca", a Boca Juniors souvenir shop just across the street from the stadium
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April 15, 2005
Mi Buenos Aires querido
Apart from being ridiculously cheap these days - even though I hope the argentine economy is recovering - Buenos Aires is that kind of city that has a flare to it which I personally can't see on the photos I took. Maybe except for these pics of bookworm paradise: El Ateneo - the most beautiful bookshop in the world. I'm not a big fan of big bookshops (I prefer the cozy little ones selling rare and non-mainstream books) but this one I must admit is a reader's paradise. It is housed on an antique theater on Santa Fe Avenue.
I also got to know the work of a lot of argentine painters previously unkonwn to me... Xul Solar being the most astonishing revelation of all.
And Palermo Viejo is a place I could easily live in...
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April 14, 2005
The Rainbow
It could seem like Cuzco (in Peru) is a gay friendly town seeing that their rainbow flag is all over the place...
Until you walk into on of the many small shops selling school books and these very educational posters:
The poster reads:
"Nuestra Sexualidad - Dios creó al hombre e a la mujer con una conducta sexual bien definida"
"Our sexuality - God created men and women as having a well defined sexual conduct"
The rainbow flag isn't celebrating diversity but it is rather the traditional flag associated with the Inca empire.
Of course, probably the same people who wrote the poster noticed the similarity between the flags:
"Gay Pride" Rainbow Flag Unwelcome in Peru
LIMA, Aug. 31 - The days may be numbered for the rainbow flags that fly in the mountain breezes of Cuzco, Peru's tourism mecca and ancient capital of the Inca Empire.
Cuzco Mayor Carlos Valencia and members of the City Council want it scrapped. Valencia s concern is not with the rainbow itself, but with a similar rainbow flag used to symbolize gay pride.
"Cuzco's emblem has been usurped by the gay community. We have called together a commission of intellectuals and noteworthy citizens to debate the issue and help design a new flag," Valencia said.
The rainbow had deep meaning for the Incas, whose empire extended from the Peruvian Andes south to Argentina and north to Panama until the early 16th century. The famed Coricancha Temple in Cuzco has a room honoring the god of rainbows. Some historians argue that rainbow was actually the banner of the empire.
Valencia's second-in-command, Councilman Gustavo Infantas, said the city urgently needs to change the flag or run the risk of becoming known as a "gay city." "We need to avoid the moral deterioration of Cuzco's society," Infantas said when comparing the two flags.
Infantas says there are also economic reasons for changing the flag, because heterosexuals may think that stores and restaurants flying the rainbow flag only cater to homosexuals. The mayor says he has wanted to change the flag since New Year's Day, when he watched a group of tourists parade around cuichi the Quechua name for Cuzco's seven-stripe flag thinking it was the gay banner.
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April 11, 2005
Peru Photos
The photo album is here!
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April 06, 2005
Favourite
Favourite photo from the whole trip...
Baby carried on mother's back, peeping out! Pisaq, Peru
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April 05, 2005
Back to Work
These have been some great vacations. It seems I've been away for ages - it's always a good sign when I forget passwords and phone numbers after some time away from work!
In short:
Peru is a wonderful country, very friendly people, great sights (as can be seen above).
Chile. I don't understand the fuss about chilean wine - portuguese red wine is one of our best kept "secrets" mainly due to the lack of producers and distributors marketing skills. Well, two words about Chile: Pablo Neruda. I visited two of his houses which are now museums and I might dare say that thankfully he turned out to be a poet and not an interior decorator :-))))
Argentina: only visited Buenos Aires where I could have stayed many more months and wouldn't be bored for a second...
Lots of stuff to post about on the next days!
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March 18, 2005
South American Way
Here I am, heading for the fulfillment of a few dreams.
#1 A childhood dream: visiting Machu Picchu (I loved to watch the animation series "Les mystérieuses cités d'or").
#2 A teenage dream: visiting Chile free of Pinochet (I even had a pi-NO-chet badge).
#3 A more grown up dream: visiting the Argentina of Cortázar and Borges.
"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." - Saint Augustine
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February 24, 2005
Looking down
Hotel, Madrid
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February 18, 2005
Black and White
While I was in Madrid last weekend there was a huge fire at the highest skyscraper in town, the Windsor Tower, in the financial district that started on Saturday night.
The building was still fuming on Sunday afternoon and there was a terrible traffic jam at Castellana because the police didn't allow any cars to go by. The Windsor Tower was completely burned down, making the Picasso Tower look whiter and brighter.
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September 06, 2004
Shopping in India
Rule #1 Every price is negotiable.
Rule #2 Bargaining is mandatory.
There is no such thing as simply going inside a shop, buying an item and leaving. Every acquisition is painfully long and demands skills that I obviously lacked but during these weeks in India I had excellent training.
Favourite lines:
"You are such a beautiful lady, you need a beautiful saree!"
"My daughter! Can I call you my daughter? Look at the quality of the weaving on this carpet!"
"God gives me the opportunity to give you a 30% discount!"
"With this pashmina shawl you'll look like Miss India!"
"You want a 25% discount?!?! Look at this! It's so cheap for you! You come from Europe!"
"Don't walk here at night; it's not safe to go any further than my shop."
"You have such a sweet face and this colour looks so good on you; I'll give you a 5% discount"
"This is for your mother? I have a mother too and because I have a soft heart, I'll give you a 10% discount"
Fun ads and signs in India. Another Photoalbum here.
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August 25, 2004
Swastikas
The first few days I would always get a chill down my spine whenever I saw a swastika. I knew that the nazis had "borrowed" the swastika from India but still... there is probably no better example of the power of a symbol.
After a while I got used to it and there's no way anyone can associate the original swastika with evil after seeing drawings of it made out of petals or of salted appetizers.
The swastika is actually a good luck sign. It can be used as a talisman. I saw brand new cars with swastika badges on their radiator grills, on temples, on commercial ads...
It comes from the sanskrit expression su-asti which means (very loosely translated, I suppose) "let good things happen". The inner line represent rays of light or the four cardinal directions. The clockwise direction indicates the rythm of time. The outer lines represent the four possibilities of afterlife: plants, animals, divine or demonic. Some say that the nazi swastika was oriented counter-clokwise and that in India it is not considered evil but inauspicious.
More information about swastikas here.
And here's my first attempt of a web photoalbum. Thanks to Adobe Photoshop Elements, of course :-)
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