Travels with My Camera

Pictures of Oaxaca

2012-01-30T20:43:00.000-05:00

Zapata and marijuana leaves

Did I mention Steve likes park benches?

Paulina Salas teaches me Spanish. She tries to get me to use past and future tenses. I'll work on that, but I'm ducking the subjunctive.

Funeral parlor with classic Mexican dog out front.

Little kid and Benito Jaurez in Lllano Park.

One of the complicated patterns of stone in Mitla, the Zapotec/Mixtec archaeological site outside of Oaxaca.

Fence made of cactus in Mitla.

The mighty big tree at Tule. It's dwarfing that big church.

Bright flowers, bright walls everywhere.

Bought these in the market for 15 pesos. About $1.20

Cool fruit. Anyone know what it is?

Maiz Virgin of Guadalupe car.

Steve and rabbit. Great street art everywhere.

Torta men at the Llano Park. They're there every Friday. So am I.

We walked up into the hills today.

Pictures of Oaxaca

2012-01-22T22:25:00.002-05:00

Paseo time on Alcalá

Brass band in the zócalo. Lotta brass bands around.

Wiry person observes the paseo.

Cactus in courtyard of a restaurant, held straight with burlap and guy wires.

Dusk doesn't last long, but while it does, magic.

Steve likes oatmeal wherever we go. This is our little apartment for a couple of weeks.

Steve likes park benches wherever we go, too.

If that tree really wants to escape the schoolyard, I don't think the fence will hold it. Yes, there are Volkswagen beetles all over the place.

They light up the trees in the zócalo.

The Throwback Hotel

2012-01-22T21:22:00.001-05:00

We stayed a few days at the out-of-place-and-time Hotel Victoria--anachronistic because it had a grand 1950s Miami feel like nowhere else in Oaxaca, and placed on the side of a hill above town, had wide views of the Oaxaca valley and the mountains beyond. (Most rooms I've seen in Mexico open onto courtyards.) With signs of wear (some peeling paint, a rattling van that made round trips to the Centro), the hotel has an unpretentious feel, and with a big sparkly pool, it provided a nice mid-century interlude.

My favorite bit of mid-century architecture was the massive spiral staircase.

La Isla Encantada

2012-01-21T21:42:00.001-05:00

Thrilling opera broadcast in a grand setting, Teatro Macedonio Alcala, in Oaxaca.

On the ornate stage, the screen showed the tiers of balconies at the Met in New York.

Met in Mexico

2012-01-21T09:55:00.002-05:00

Going to our first live broadcast of the New York Metropolitan Opera today--El Met at the Oaxaca Teatro.

It's The Enchanted Island, a mash-up of Shakespeare's Tempest and Midsummer's Night Dream and Vivaldi and Handel and 3 + hours.

Oaxaca, Mexico

2012-01-21T00:43:00.118-05:00

On our first day in Oaxaca, we were startled to see hundreds of these near-life-size clay sculptures standing and reclining on a public street.

They are part of an exhibit, "2,501 Migrants" by sculptor Alejandro Santiago.

Santiago's hometown, Teococuilco, in La Sierra Norte, lost half its small population in recent years to migration to the U.S.

These figures represent those people who left.

Police and schoolkids lounge around the figures every day. The kids are not visiting the exhibition, they're hanging out regardless of what hunk of clay is watching.

The exhibition will eventually come to Central Park in New York.

Mexico October 2007

2007-10-17T16:40:00.000-04:00

Tonalá, a crafts' manufacturing center and market town near the Guadalajara airport.

I've posted the rest of the Mexico pictures on my website at http://arnow.org/Mexico/index.html

Downtown New Orleans

2006-03-02T03:40:00.000-05:00

The top of a bank building in Mardi Gras colors

Click on any picture to see it full size.

Hyatt Hotel on the left with many broken windows. The sign says, "We are With You New Orleans. Laissez les bons temps roulez encore."
On the right is the Superdome.

Costume your troubles

2006-03-02T02:51:00.000-05:00

People on the street wear costumes along the parade route on Mardi Gras. This year, lots of people dressed as ruined refrigerators. And FEMA idiots. Two women had wig form heads attached to their bottoms and signs saying they were FEMA with their heads up their asses. Here are some of the other people on the streets waiting for the Rex parade on Mardi Gras.

"Mr. Mayor, the devil made me do it."

"Bushie, YOU did a helluva job!"

"Free refrigerator. Sir Stinks a Lot"

"Screw Fallujah. Save New Orleans"

Garbage Bra-Gade

70324 ever

Mardi Gras fabulous

2006-03-02T02:35:00.000-05:00

Thoth Parade, bead throwers and catchers

Just some people walking down the street

Willy Wonka and the Oompa Loompas on St. Charles before the Rex parade.

Actor Josh Hartnett threw beads from a float.

Rex Parade on Tuesday

Some more people just walking down the street

A 20-foot-tall Ignatius Reilly from the Confederacy of Dunces is holding a hot dog. He was in the Rex Parade.

Hold up your hands during a parade and you can get as many beads as you ever could want.

Help Help

2006-02-27T22:33:00.000-05:00

In and around the Fauborg-Marigny neighborhood just downriver from the French Quarter. Click on a picture to see it enlarged.

Some of the many roofers.
Blue tarp roofs everywhere.

The sign in the window says, "Hold the Corps Accountable" (that's the Army Corps of Engineers)

What Katrina did

2006-02-26T20:15:00.000-05:00

Today a middle-aged man shoved a big rolling bin full of supplies into the elevator. We assumed he was going to set up a party area by a parade route, but he said, no, he was leaving New Orleans and never coming back. He lost his house, his boat, half his business, and he's moving to Charlotte, N.C. "I'm getting the hell out of Dodge right now."

Friday, a manager of the Cotton Exchange Hotel downtown, a young black man, talked to us when we took refuge from the rain under the awning. He said he's a native of the city. He and his wife and kids evacuated to Milwaukee for the storm. He didn't like it much. Too many rules. The example he gave was that he got two tickets for not wearing seat belts. He couldn't believe how happy he was to come back to work. But he has to live in Baton Rouge, an hour away, because his home is gone and the rents are so high.

A waitress at the Cafe duMonde, who was Asian and spoke with an Asian/deep South accent, said she lived across the river and had 11 people including 7 adults living in her house because relatives had become homeless during the storm. She has one of the blue roofs--a plastic tarp--they're everywhere.

The manager A Gallery for Fine Photography, a beautiful store full of historic photos, said the gallery and his apartment, both in the French Quarter, did not get flooded. He evacuated to Tampa just hours ahead of the hurricane. It took 27 hours to get there (I think he said it should have been about a 10 hour drive). The towns they drove through were flattened a few hours after they went through. When he got back to New Orleans three weeks later, he was amazed that his electricity was back on and he was thrilled to have air conditioning in the 100 degree heat. But mold had already eaten completely through one of his valuable photos hanging on the wall. The smell everywhere was just terrible. The discarded refrigerators drew flies and smelled so bad that people would throw up just walking by. No one picked up the discarded stinking appliances for a long time.

Saturday night, a quiet block from the very raucous, beer-soaked, bead-paved Bourbon Street, a young man stood against a wall with a big wooden cross leaning on his shoulder--one of the street preachers taking a break. He was talking on a cell phone. We overheard: "I tried to call you earlier. I'm out with the cross now."

Laissez les bon temps roulez.

Uptown New Orleans Sunday afternoon

2006-02-26T19:00:00.000-05:00

Click on any picture to see it enlarged.

This is a picture of a couple of fellows on their way to the Thoth parade.

Magazine Street Uptown. The woman on the steps says it is her brother's house, and it only had a little roof damage.

Dubloon man

2006-02-26T02:37:00.000-05:00

The Quarter Saturday

2006-02-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

Blue roofs

2006-02-25T13:30:00.000-05:00

There are blue tarp roofs all over town.

Don't Miss New Orleans

2006-02-25T05:00:00.000-05:00

We're in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Visiting an old friend in time of trouble. Here's how she's doing at least from our perspective of a few hours as tourists.

The cat's on a balcony in the Quarter decorated with Mardi Gras garlands.

Post-hurricane t-shirts are sold amongst the usual New Orleans souvenirs. Miriam models hers.

Bourbon Street is still filled with dancing, bead-flinging and drinking.

There were three parades. D'etat used their floats to comment on recent events.

These guys' banner says FEMA on one side and DEMA on the other: Dictators Emergency Management Agency.

This is the Adjuster float

The "Who Dropped It?" Float.

Pat
My website, Pat Arnow's Poltical and Personal, arnow.org
Or e-mail me at arnowp@gmail.com

Hermes parade

2006-02-25T02:13:00.000-05:00