Time patrol: Land of the Maya

The pyramid of the Magician. Uxmal. c.1882. Désiré Charnay expedition. Charnay was a French explorer who documented a number of abandoned Maya cities in the peninsula of Yucatan, Mexico, in the second half of the 19th century. See the pyramid then: a heap of stones and earth, invaded by vegetation. The very same pyramid of…

An afternoon walk, New York

“From the faraway, nearby”. Georgia O’Keefe, 1937. Met. Born in 1887, she was fifty when she started experimenting with those paintings. I didn’t realize she’d lived until she was almost a hundred, she died in 1986. Sadly, she lost most of her eyesight in the 70’s which must be a curse for an artist. She…

Street. Art. Here. And. There.

“Don’t make my brown eyes blue”. Sopó, Colombia. 2021. (c)ourtesy my wife. Looking for the Little Prince. Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2022. (c)ourtesy Gini. The Brontë sisters. Bogotá, Colombia. “Somewhere under the rainbow….”. San Francisco, 2016. “I feel a little pale today”. Paris. Artist: Poulain. Catherine Poulain is a French artist. I will look her work…

A mid-day walk, London

This past summer, after the Jubilee, the Queen was everywhere in London. Even street artists paid homage. London, July 2022. Where does one start in London? Big ben? Westminster? 1649? When Cromwell declared England a Commonwealth and Free state? Later annexing Ireland and Scotland with a single Parliament in Westminster? The Underground’s a good start.…

The sand jar

He lived in a small flat, in a small town, in a small rainy country, a country so small it did not even reach the sea. He had a small job, in a small insurance office. Every day, at precisely eight in the morning, he arrived at the office. He always carried an umbrella: it…

A morning walk, Brussels

The heat in Paris last summer was unbearable. I figured Brussels would be cooler. I grabbed the train to the Gare du Midi. The Southern Station. (Above at the Gare du Midi: Tintin in America, second Tintin album) I had a drink at a local friendly bar. Try the new shot. Only 5 Euros. “Feck…

Day of the Dead

“Frères humains qui après nous vivez, Human bretheren who after us shall live, “N‘ayez les cœurs contre nous endurcis, Have your hearts against us not hardened, “Car, si pitié de nous pauvres avez, For if mercy on us you have, “Dieu en aura plus tôt de vous Merci… God will sooner on you have Mercy……

A morning walk, Paris

Little G. helping an old Lady tag the wall. Paris, 2022 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1900-1944. The author of Vol de nuit (Night flight), Terre des hommes (Wind, sand and stars), The Little prince, and others, was born in Lyon in 1900. With his friends Mermoz, Guillaumet et al, he opened the world to air travel.…

The Valley

Let me tell you about a place, unique, so unique, a place where Man was born, where rivers hide under the earth, their path only marked by the rows of acacias that run on the ground, a place lost between the clouds, so white, so white, and the sky, so blue, so blue, that you…

Here and there street art

“Life is but a walking shadow.”.. (Bogotá, Colombia, 2014) Free Ukraine first 🇺🇦 . (San Francisco, 2016) “Trust in me, just in meShut your eyes and trust in meYou can sleep safe and soundKnowing I am around.” (Kaa the snake in Kipling’s Jungle Book). Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2022, (c) Gini. Corto Maltese. (See Hugo Pratt).…