Packed and Ready to Go

Within an hour after this entry is published, Alejandro will be driving me to the airport for a trip back to Ohio.  The purpose of this trip is to do early voting at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland. I believe that this year's midterm election is one of the most important in U.S. history, certainly the most important in my lifetime.  This is our chance to put the brakes on the Orange Pendejo's insane agenda to destroy our country.

It will be a short trip, and Alejandro will not be accompanying me.  I will have a chance to see a few of my friends in the week that I am there, but unfortunately not all of them.  If any of you are reading this, my apologies for not having the time to schedule a get together with you.

Volcanoes in the Morning

This morning, while Alejandro was taking his sister to work, he sent me a voice message saying that you could see the volcanoes this morning.  So, I climbed up to the roof and took these photos...

Popocatépetl (Popo for short) was fuming as usual and wreathed in low-hanging clouds.  Can you make out the snow on top of the peak?

To the left of Popo is Iztaccíhuatl (Izta for short).

Not My Cup of Tea

A short while ago I wrote about the book "Rules of Civility" by Amor Towles.  I said that although I had enjoyed two of his other book, that one was not my favorite.  Some critics compared it to F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby", and I stated that I did not care much for "The Great Gatsby" either when I read it many years ago.

The next book that I picked from my bookshelf was another Fitzgerald novel, "Tender Is the Night", and it simply confirmed my opinion that he is not my cup of tea.

The novel portrays a wealthy couple Nicole and Dick Driver who are vacationing on the French Riviera.  Among the group of expatriates with whom they socialize is teenaged Rosemary Hoyt, and up and coming movie starlet who falls in love with Dick.  The characters mirror Fitzgerald, who was descending deeper into alcoholism, and his wife Zelda who was institutionalized after being diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Even Rosemary is based on a young movie star with whom Fitzgerald had an affair.

Frankly, I have to wonder if Fitzgerald was drunk when he wrote this novel.  I found his writing style difficult to follow, at times incomprehensible. There was passage after passage in which I had no idea what he was writing.  I was reading words, they were written in English, yet I was lost.  I soon grew weary of trying to decipher them.  After reading about one hundred pages, I finally said, "Enough!"  Life is too short to waste time on a book that I am not enjoying.

Many critics consider "Tender Is the Night" to be Fitzgerald's masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.  I'm sorry if that makes me an uncultured Philistine, but the book is going back on the shelf unfinished. 

A Bit of Political Humor

 I got a chuckle from this image which Alejandro found and sent to me...

Two Brothers

In my last post, I wrote about street murals that had been defaced by graffiti vandals.  I continued walking down Chapultepec Avenue, and I came to a junior high school called "Héroes de Chapultepec".  Along the sidewalk, on the wall surrounding the school, there were mural paintings.  Two of them, side by side, caught my attention.  They appeared to be very new, and thankfully had not been touched by vandals.  They honored two men, one a scientist, the other an artist, who shared the same last names... González Camarena.  (In the Spanish-speaking world people carry two last names.  The first one is the father's family name, and the second is the mother's family name.)  I wondered if these two men, who become famous in two very different professions, were related.  I did a bit of research later on Wikipedia, and, yes indeed, they were brothers.

Guillermo González Camarena was an electrical engineer who invented color television.  (Those of us who are old enough remember that for many years, all television broadcasts were in black and white!)  Although the technology has advanced from his invention, González Camarena's "field-sequential color television system" was used by CBS in its early color programming.  So, we can thank a Mexican scientist for color television.  Sadly, he died at the age of only 48 in a car crash.

Next to that mural is another which honors his brother Jorge.  He was a significant member of the Mexican muralist movement of the 20th century.  One of his early murals was considered immoral by some because it included male and female nude figures.  As a response Jorge promoted the use of nudes in artwork.  His work includes murals in the Palace of Fine Arts and the National Museum of Anthropology.  I will have to make point of looking for them the next time I am in those buildings.

I Hate Graffiti!

I have expressed a number of time how much I despise graffiti, and it seems as if is getting worse and worse.  What especially infuriates me is that these vandals are defacing so much of the lovely street art that graces the city.

One case in point are the murals at Juárez Market on Avenida Chapultepec.  The building was covered with murals... portraits of people that I assume are vendors at the market.  I walked by there a few days ago, and I was disappointed to see that the low-life vandals have been at work here.

They even somehow climbed to the upper level of the paintings to leave their mark.

The lower level has mostly been painted over; I assume to cover up the graffiti.  In several spots there are signs saying that the murals are going to be restored.

I'm glad to see that the market is taking action to restore the paintings.  I just hope that the punks with their damn cans of spray paint stay away... but I am not optimistic.

Still Life

The other exhibit at the San Carlos Museum was a display of still lifes ("Naturaleza muerta" in Spanish, or "Dead Nature").  However, while this exhibit included many traditional still lifes, it also pointed that many paintings contain objects, such as bouquets of flowers or table settings, that could stand alone as a still life.

For example this painting, "The Supper at Emmaus" by 17th century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán, the artist portrays the meal on the table.

"Still Life"

by Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez

19th century

"Miners"

by Antoine Carte

1922

"Portrait of a Boy"

unknown artist

19th century

"Window with a Flower Vase"

unknown artist

"Market Stall in the Parián Market"

unknown artist

1766

"The Mexican Family"

by José Agustín Arrieta

1851

"Squashes"

by David Alfaro Siqueiros

1946

"Cabbages"

by José Clemente Orozco

1944

"Still Life with Pitayas" (a tropical fruit)

by Carlos Orozco Romero

1962

"The Red Table"

by Olga Costa

1985

"Still Life with Watermelon"

by Roberto Montenegro

1965

"St. Paul with a Fringe of Flowers"

by Juan de Valdés Leal

17th century

"Zinnias in a Silver Vase"

by Germán Gedovius