ruin porn tourism

one of the few signs of decay i've seen in denmark

i love a good ruin...falling down buildings in decay are so picturesque and evocative. some of my most powerful imaginings have been at ruins...whether it's standing on the plains at troy and almost being able to catch the sounds of battle on the wind or walking along the paved streets of ephesus at midday and imagining john the baptist and paul (misogynist tho' he was) treading there before me or whether it's the old house down on the creek where my father spent his early childhood. ruins evoke memory and emotions and are haunting somehow. and even more haunting if the pictures of them are without people - making the building or place seem that much more abandoned. there is a lot of emotion in such photos of decay.

what does it take for there to be decayed buildings in a landscape? time, for one. the ancient ruins dotting turkey, greece and the balkans, with the odd column sticking up in a field here and there, are just part of the landscape - the history of the place, as the sands of time pass relentlessly over it. on the prairies, it's a sign of the consolidation of all those small family farms into big corporate farms. and there's simply not enough people out there to be living on all of those little homesteads anymore, so some of them fall into picturesque ruin as they bake in the summer sun and are exposed to harsh winters.

somewhere near stickney, south dakota

i miss a good ruin in my daily life. denmark is too prosperous, too middle class, too neat, and perhaps simply too small to allow ruins to stand. one of my favorite exceptions is the old windmill above. but i wonder how long it will be allowed to stand in decay. it's probably violating some or other municipal ordinance in all of its shabby glory.

i feel like i'm hearing an awful lot about detroit lately. it seems it's become the archetype of an american city in decline. famous photographers take haunting peopleless photographs of its once grand buildings in ruin. and those photos are extremely moving. when i see them, it makes me want to go to detroit as a ruin porn tourist.  i recently saw some photos of an abandoned complex near berlin that made me feel the same way. but what are the implications of such voyeuristic practice? being a visitor to a contemporary ruin seems much more somehow violating than visiting ephesus or pergamon or the acropolis. it's so much closer and more raw. many of the buildings in detroit were still in use up to the early 90s, so the wound is quite fresh in a way. and is making a photographic essay of those once glorious buildings, empty of people, doing detroit a disservice?  the new republic thinks so. and so do the people who made this documentary.

what do you think?

5 places i love - #2 stobi

i could have called this week "my favorite ruins," since it's quickly becoming all about ruins. and i actually wrote a little bit about stobi before. but since it's one of the places i love, i simply must write about it again. 

it's an old roman town, first mentioned in writing in 197 BC, that's located in central macedonia, and while once it was just off the via egnatia, now it's just off the big north-south highway leading from central europe through serbia and macedonia, down to thessaloniki. 

when i first visited back in '97, there was no visitor's center, just a shack where there might or might not be an attendant that you should pay your 20 dinars to in order to go in. it's not fenced off and you can wander at will among the baths, basilica, necropolis, aqueducts, pillars and on over to the amphitheatre. when we returned last summer, there was a visitor's center, thanks to a USAID project a couple of years ago. they sold a few gift items and cold cokes and snacks and were very kind and friendly.

we have a habit of visiting ruins during the heat of the day. it tends to be a good way to have it to yourself, as all of the others have the good sense to seek shade during midday. for me, it's the best way to feel the winds of time blowing over you. it's somehow just best if those winds are heated to 40 degrees.  

stobi is blissfully undiscovered. when we were there last summer, we shared it only with a handful of workmen who were setting up the amphitheatre for a concert later that week. i think it's wonderful that they actually use the amphitheatre as a venue for such things. how fantastic to listen to music in such a setting, although we didn't get the chance, as we had to meet our plane home from istanbul and we were still far from there at that point.

there are a number of mosaics at stobi, the best one is this one in what they call a baptistry. but there are others and you can get very close to them and even walk on the mosaic floor of one that must have been a church. i've often thought that these beautiful animal and plant images would be great to reproduce in my own garden or on a table for the garden. i haven't done it yet, but i will eventually.

one of my favorite bits is this example of greek graffiti that you can find on the steps in the amphitheatre. i suppose it's someone's name, but i absolutely adore the thought of some young man (because in my head it must have been a young man) sitting there, etching into the stone. now that's some seriously enduring graffiti.

it's a marvelous place. totally off the beaten path. i like it much better than the more systematically excavated heraclea lycenstis in bitola, macedonia. it's so abandoned and yet so persistently enduring. if you're very quiet, the murmurs of the life that walked the streets and paths are still there on the wind. husband and i once roughly sketched out a screenplay that takes place there. it's a place that provokes the imagination. what more can one really ask?

the last "bottom of the barrel" (including uncharacteristic capital letters)

From the Bottom of the Barrel - 26/11.2014 

Gulp. Deep breath. These are some very big shoes to fill. My dad bought the Platte Enterprise in 1965 and he’s written a weekly column in this very space for nearly 50 years. I’ve done the odd guest piece over the years, but this is the first one where I really feel I have to fill his shoes. Because those shoes are so sadly empty now. 

We lost my dad just after midnight on November 22, just a few weeks shy of his 81st birthday (it would have been December 7). I live in Denmark and I was entirely too far away when the news of his hospitalization came through. It took me way too long to get to McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls from my home in Denmark. I missed a lot. Friends and family came out of the woodwork and gathered at his bedside. And although I wasn’t here for all of the visits, we are so grateful for this - for your stories, for your laughter, and yes, for your tears. Because my dad, Ralph Nachtigal, meant a great deal to all of us. It was awe-inspiring to see how much he meant to so many.

Ralph wasn’t an easy person or a simple person - he could be hard on you (my rule growing up was “win or don’t come home”), he assessed the blame, his humor could be ironic and a bit harsh, he was unafraid of discussing politics and he had a competitive streak (and he would have hated how long this sentence is getting). He was an avid gambler and could place bets on everything from football to his next putt.  But, he was also probably the funniest person I ever knew. He could laugh about anything and make any situation, including being picked up by an FBI agent and taken for a little drive and a chat around Platte Lake, into a humorous anecdote, even while he admitted that he was completely crapping his pants at the time. He was ornery, but he had a heart of gold and I know he helped many more people than I even know, in ways of which I was never aware, through the years. 

He studied agricultural journalism at South Dakota State. While waiting for his assignment for Associated Press, the Enterprise came up for sale and he bought it, sealing his future in the little town where he had grown up. He’d been out to see the world in the Navy (coming close to, but not really that involved in the Korean War). He once hitchhiked from San Diego to Platte and those adventures were apparently enough for him, so after stints as a sports reporter at the Watertown Public Opinion and the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, he settled down again back home. 

He and Mom and their friends made a yearly winter pilgrimage to Las Vegas (that was, in retrospect, pretty dumb of them to leave their teenagers home alone, each with an empty house (hello, party for the last episode of M*A*S*H!)) that seemed to satisfy his wanderlust. He was content to do his part to make the small community where he grew up grow and thrive - and he wasn’t afraid to get involved, as a state legislator, chairman of the school board and then the later of the hospital board. He knew that if you want a little town to thrive, you have to get involved. 

He was a lifelong Democrat (one of about 12 in South Dakota, at last estimate). He always said that he hoped that one day he would have enough money to become a Republican. Alas, that didn’t happen. He served two terms in the South Dakota State Legislature (1976-79) and during that time, tacked an amendment onto a particularly absurd bill to make the fence post the state tree, to further underline the absurdity of the bill. It failed and the Black Hills Blue Spruce is still our state tree, but he made his point with humor. That was definitely a trademark. 

When I studied in Russia in 1994, he and Norm Huizenga came for a visit. We took the 13-hour train ride out to Kazan and back and explored Moscow and he met all of my friends. We stayed with a grand elderly lady fittingly called “Aunt Kate” in Moscow and we drank a bit too much vodka on a couple of occasions and generally had an awesome time in post-Soviet Russia. I heard him say, for the first time (and last) in my life, “get out there and buy something!” at a middle-of-the-night stop where workers from a crystal factory sold their wares somewhere between Moscow and Kazan.

I went on a Fulbright to Macedonia in 1997 and Dad and Monica came there for a visit as well. We toured ancient ruins in Macedonia and hung out in Greek tavernas eating octopus and drinking ouzo and the most fabulous cold Nescafé frappés. We laughed and laughed together amidst the ruins of ancient Thessaloniki. And although I don’t think he ever said so, at least not to me, I know he was proud of me and that Fulbright.

He and Monica had a couple of trips as well. When they left Macedonia, they explored the pubs of Vienna. And a year and a half ago, when they came to see us in Denmark, they went home via London, the beaches of Normandy and Paris. Monica even made him go to a Pink Martini concert at Royal Albert Hall in London. Pretty cool for a 79-year-old. And he was the kind of person who always had a song lyric for any occasion, so taking him to Pink Martini concert wasn’t really that far off.

Now we may never know what really happened with the Ole Horn Incident (it got him kicked off as Editor of the Collegian) or that time his legislative roommates got caught temporarily appropriating saddles from a tack store late at night (he swore his innocence in both until the bitter end and probably he even was innocent). But, I do know this, it was a privilege to have him for a father. He showed me that there was a world out there and that I should go explore it. He raised me to be confident and unafraid, but to remember my roots. I am privileged to have had him for a father and I hope that you all feel privileged to have called him a friend. He will be missed. Sorely missed.

I know there are many other stories to tell and that Dad’s friends in the Platte area meant the world to him, and we heard many of them on Monday evening at the Lake Platte Golf Club. A big thank you to everyone who came and told their stories! I know that you all will miss him as much as we do. There is a big, gaping hole in our hearts right now that no one else can ever fill. Ralph Nachtigal was really something - larger than life, full of life, truly one-of-a-kind. This little corner of the world is forever changed by his having been in it. 

———————

As Dad wanted his body to be donated to the University of South Dakota Medical School, there will be a memorial service in lieu of a funeral at 3 p.m. on Saturday, November 29 at the Platte Community Building. We ask that instead of flowers, you make a donation to the Platte Health Center Avera in his name.*

*originally i suggested that folks contribute to the Ready for Hillary campaign, but since there are only a handful of Democrats in SD, i changed that. tho' it does make me chuckle to think of all those R(h)INOS (Republicans In Name Only) contributing to Hillary....

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 1

we had a family road trip in the southern united states this summer. we visited 6 states none of us had ever been in before - tennessee, alabama, mississippi, louisiana, florida and south carolina.  the others hadn't been in georgia before, but i had. and technically, i flew through miami in 1988, but that doesn't really count as being in the state. this time, we visited beaches and the state capital, so it must count. i expected to have heavy exposure to trumpanzees, but we didn't actually speak to a single one. that surprised me quite a bit, but then i saw this piece in the nytimes - it seems we followed that blue route through the south, perhaps guided by some subliminal survival instinct. or maybe we just didn't really talk to enough people along the gulf coast. but we also ran into a surprising amount who vocally volunteered their embarrassment at the mangled apricot hellbeast.

a quick list of impressions/lessons/thoughts:

~ two weeks was just the right amount of time, even tho' we did have our occasional flagging moments. at the end, i was both longing to go home and wishing we still had a few more days and that's exactly how it should be.

~ cheesecake for lunch is awesome in the moment, but come late afternoon, proves not to be such a good idea.

~ way-finding and map-reading were the biggest challenges, even in this day and age of ubiquitous gps. we didn't have a phone plan where we could roam, so we were constantly looking for wifi to help us do our route planning. in the morning, we would plan our route in google maps while on wifi and then the gps does actually follow where you are, but if you deviate from the route you planned while on wifi, the google maps app doesn't handle it well. also, husband was horrible at being the navigator if i was driving, which is weird, because he spent 18 years in the military and is otherwise good at maps. everyone stayed happier if i did the map-reading and husband did the driving. tho' even then there were a couple of kerfluffles. lesson was that maybe we should just know where we are in a general sorta way. and we did buy a big atlas of the united states. it helped out on the highways and byways, but not as much within cities.

~ several of the best things we found were quite random -  a cooling creek/waterfall (mardis mill falls) on a hot alabama day, windsor ruins off the natchez trace, which we found by talking to an older couple at another point of interest along the way, and the space museum just over the louisiana-mississippi border on the way towards biloxi.

~ we actually stuck to our budget and we didn't really deny ourselves much to do so.

~ since we were five more or less adults, we needed two hotel rooms, so we were looking for rooms on the budget end, since we were mostly looking for a good night's sleep and not a place to hang out. plus, we wanted to save our money for great coffee, fun experiences and shopping in goodwill! after a few days of disappointment in the mid-range ($65-$80/night) hotels, we looked to airbnb, and we felt much, much happier. there, we found quirky places with personality, a bit more luxury and charming hardwood floors, still in our price range. if you haven't tried it, i'd be very grateful if you used this link when you do.

~ you should stay off the interstates and get onto smaller highways and byways. we did some of this, but undoubtedly not enough. when you do hit the small highways and byways, make sure you have a full tank of gas, as gas stations can be surprisingly few and far between. we stopped at one in a small town in mississippi where it was clear we were the only white people who had passed through in a long time. that made for some amusing conversations while we waited to use the bathroom.

~ shopping at goodwill is awesome and our child is a wizard at finding the best stuff there, no matter the location. probably the best one we visited (and we tried to visit as many as we could) was the first one, south of atlanta. maybe our eyes were freshest, but i think it also had the best selection. i got an awesome t-shirt that says, "sorry i'm late, i didn't want to come." that makes me laugh.

~ there seems to be a disturbing trend in the states - one of which i was previously only peripherally aware - from barbara ehrenreichs' amazing nickle and dimed book, but never imagined i would actually encounter (which sounds more arrogant than i mean it to). when we were staying at the lower-priced hotels, it seemed like many of the other patrons were folks who seemed to be living with what they euphemistically call housing insecurity. it appeared that the hotels were full of people who probably had work, but not enough money for the deposit on an apartment, so they were forced to live on a weekly or even day-to-day basis in these hotels. i was waiting to ask for a wifi sign-in and i witnessed two young women paying their rent, peeling the fee off a roll of one dollar bills (perhaps from waitressing tips). initially, they gave the clerk, who was behind thick bullet-proof glass, since it was nearly dark, less and he said, "no, it's $63." the second girl reached down her cleavage and got a roll of her own bills out and peeled off the remainder, saying, "there goes my fun money," and rolling her eyes. i felt a little bit shocked. others stood in their doorways, smoking or chatting on the phone, obviously very at home in the hotel. it made me aware of a stark reality in my home country. and also acutely aware of my own privilege.

and on that note, i'll sign off for now. more about the trip, with actual photos, tomorrow. i'm still sorting through all of them.

there comes a time...

in all of my work-at-home weeks, i always reach a point when i think, "today, i shall bathe and get dressed and go forth among people. i shall put these sweatpants and this t-shirt that i've been wearing day and night for the past 3-4 days into the laundry basket and put on real clothing--like tights and a cheery dress. i shall behave like a human being today." it helps if the sun comes out. because cloudy, windy, rainy days only promote my hermit-like tendencies.

and then i was reminded of a place that could well be termed hermit heaven. it's called meteora and it's in greece. it's inland in north central greece, in a strange moonlike landscape, where these porous, harsh, rocky hills suddenly stick up out of the flat plain.

in this strange and rather mysterious place, monks built countless monasteries, high on the peaks.

eight-ten of them are still in operation and open to the public (if you like to climb), but there are many ruins around on outcroppings that look like they must have been impossible to reach. they are, to my imagination, impossibly romantic in their isolation.

there are countless more little caves hollowed out in the hillsides, where individual hermit monks went to be on their own. undoubtedly wearing the same thing for days on end and muttering to themselves and resenting intrusions, much as i do around here.

although i'm not fond of heights, i'm attracted to the idea of being somewhere where the only way to get there would be a ladder like this...

because you could see whoever was coming quite a long ways off.  and the sheer difficulty of it would put most intruders off.

i've been there twice, but feel its allure pulling me back, probably due the amount of time i spend alone, but also because it's a wonderful and mysterious place. maybe that's where we should go this summer.

but first, i should probably get dressed.

let's get lost: constanta

wanderlust is hitting me hard. i find my thoughts turning to all manner of european backwaters. devoid of tourists. filled with enigmatic ruins. crumbling decay all around, but treasures tucked in here and there where you least expect them.

charming buildings. rickety balconies. charmingly chipping paint. rugs hung out to air. tangled power lines. old cars hanging together with tape and a prayer.

tucked away in the courtyards, lively restaurants filled with music, balkan wine, laughing people, the smell of grilled meat. but on the streets, empty parks with unlabeled displays of ancient grandeur.

a mix of modern and old. left up to the beholder to assign meaning. on display yet seemingly abandoned in the middle of it all.

that's where i long to go and imagine my own stories.

*  *  *

these photos were taken in constanta, romania in june 2006.

5 places i love - #5 ephesus

yes, turkey again. i'm in longing mode for turkey. it's brought on by having stayed home this summer and by the tickets i bought for october. 

ephesus is the ruin of all ruins. in my opinion, it's better than the acropolis in athens, tho' what's cool about that is it that it's in the center of a bustling city. ephesus can be quite over-run with tourists, but if you go during the heat of the day, which we always do, the crowds thin out pretty well.

these pix are from our visit 3 years ago, so sabin's pretty little in them. i remember we were trying to potty train her on that trip. she must have been three and a half. she remembers the trip well tho', and is also looking forward to going back.

here, sabin and i are walking along paths once trod upon by john and paul of biblical fame (and probably the beatles were here too at some point). there is even a legend that john brought jesus' mother mary to ephesus. paul wrote that little epistle to the ephesians while he lived here for three years. although i'm not religious, these biblical figures were real, historical people who lived and breathed in this place and i love thinking about that as i walk the stone paths. 

ephesus is very well-preserved, there are temples and an amphitheatre, arches, columns and even a rather large group toilet that's quite amusing. 

i absolutely adore this picture of little sabin, sitting below a statue of sophia, the divine wisdom. one of my favorite moments of the whole vacation that year. sabin's twin sister, who was stillborn, was named sophia, so it's that much more meaningful to me, the notion of the divine wisdom looking down on sabin.  this one is blown up and framed on the wall in our hallway.

ephesus is definitely worth the trip and i've already made a reservation to stay here, at a fantastic chill-out place nearby, where we stayed three years ago as well. we'll be there mid-october if you want to come and hang out.

longing

i feel a strange sense of melancholic longing...for a ruin. one of my favorites is stobi, in central macedonia. there is just something about walking among the ancient columns and crumbling walls during the heat of the day, with the hot wind blowing across my face. the wind brings with it a sense of the timelessness...how those rocks and columns have stood and will continue to stand long after i leave.

when i'm in a place like that, where it's quite deserted and one has it to oneself, i feel that if i listen carefully enough, i can hear the whispers of those who lived there. the echo of their footsteps and of their voices. the bustle of the activities of their lives. filling their jars at the communal fountain, praying in the temples, bathing in the baths. all of the flurry of activity that must have been a roman town in the first and second centuries. i feel all of that whispering there in the timeless winds and the relentless sun.

i feel the same about ruins in turkey...troy, pergamon, alexander troas, the athena temple perched high on a hillside overlooking the aegean, ephesus...i hear the whispers of those who were there and can very nearly feel their robes brush against me as they make their way past, i hear the roar of the crowd in the amphitheatre, i feel the wisdom of sophia gazing down on me. i long for that feeling right now...to feel connected to the past and a part of something larger and more enduring....

stoned. in a good way.

a few weeks ago, trinsch of the lovely, carefree hairstyle fame (which i am too uncoordinated to duplicate, by the way, tho' i tried), had a corner view: the beach post which had some really beautiful stones in it. there was a picture of them lying in their natural state in the sand and then in a beautiful little stack. i asked her to upload that little stack to flickr so i could favorite it, because you know i have a totally minor and not at all requiring meds or excess baggage fees thing about stones. happily, she obliged and i was content.

and then, today, a little envelope arrived in my mailbox.

fabulous handwriting! cool stone with a hole in it! could it get any better? why yes, it could!

inside the pretty little bag were those very stones trinsch gathered on the beach in israel! how awesome is that? but wait, it gets even better.

that little white stone at the bottom (at 5:30) is a little piece of marble. trinsch says that it's from the historical site of caesarea--the ruins of a roman city--2000 years old. italian marble, washed and rounded and smoothed in the sea for hundreds of years, washes up on the beaches in israel, near the historical site. but my very favorite one is the little round grey one right beside it (at 7:30)--it's smooth and perfect.

trinsch's beautiful picture of them in their natural habitat

from trinsch's picture, i imagined that the stones were larger (tho' husband made fun of me for that, asking how large i imagined the bits of sand were), but i am madly in love with them and not the least bit disappointed that they are small--they're absolutely perfect! than you so much, trinsch, for making my monday! in fact, i'm sure it will actually make my whole week! 

today, trinsch has a lovely post featuring a typecase from her childhood where she displays stones and shells found on beaches around the world. you should go have a look at it, it will make your monday less weird, i promise.

turnabout is fairplay

well, it was bound to happen, after all those interviews, someone was going to want to interview me. bill, who you may remember as that guy from the minimum security lockup somewhere in the pacific northwest, sent me some questions. i have to confess that i was down to number 9 and when i pasted in the blok poem, i accidentally erased everything above it, losing more than a week of work and what were likely my best, most articulate words ever, thanks to an ill-timed blogger save. after lying down to make the minor heart attack pass, i managed to reconstruct it. naturally, i had to add a few pictures...but here's what i had to say:

* * *

Julie, I enjoyed participating in your Q and A experiment and I'm fascinated by your blog bravery to do an open request for interviews.  I don’t recall seeing it done before. So, a bit of turn about seems fair - here are 10 questions which I hope will enhance the blog portrait of who you are.

1. By birth you are a child of the American Prairie and, as an adult, you have lived many other places. Was there a moment when you understood the uniqueness of your heritage and what it means to have roots in the history of that region?

i think i spent a lot of years running away from being from a little town on the prairie. tho' i think i can honestly say i was never a redneck, i definitely know one when i see one from having dated grown up with them. the little town was very conservative and very religious (12 churches in a town of 1300) and i definitely fled that...first to southern california and then to the liberal environs of a big ten school.

i was fortunate to be raised by a liberal father - he always says he hopes that one day he has enough money to be a republican, but until then, he simply can't afford it - and a mother who showed me there was a world outside (by hauling me and my horse in a multi-state region every summer). i am very grateful for that, as that foundation definitely made me a person able to make her life in an small european country miles from the little town on the prairie.

i think that growing up on the prairie gave me an actual physical need for space around me. when you grow up there, in that flat landscape, with waving grasses as far as the eye can see to the horizon, you have an innate sense of space built in. i find that when i don't feel that space around me, i begin to feel cramped and tense.

i think i first became aware of what the source of the tension was in my first year in denmark. i was feeling out-of-sorts and generally uncomfortable and chalking it up to generally dreary weather, darkness and the coldness of the unwelcoming natives around me. then, i worked for a weekend in st. petersburg and i was walking down one of the wide streets of that beautiful city when i realized that all of that tension i had felt had melted away. and it hit me that i could palpably feel the vastness of russia around me and that i felt like i could breathe again. and it clicked for me in that moment that it was because i grew up on the wide-open prairie.

i think part of why we've moved to the countryside is because i'm drawn to that sense of space, but generally, i think my very being feels how small denmark is. there are only two places that feel physically as vast to me as the prairie where i grew up and that's russia and when i was out sailing on an LNG carrier. the sea, when it's calm, has that same vastness from you to the horizon that the prairie has. and i think that's the part that settled into my being from my roots on the prairies.

me at the foot of the divine sophia at ephesus (now sans fuzzes - thanks bill)

2. How do you see yourself? As a leader, follower, joiner, individualist, thinker, nurturer, experimenter, fighter, pacifist or whatever else one can be labeled?

any and all of those things at any given moment. but probably less of a leader, more of a follower, a bit too eager a joiner, a hesitant individualist, not much of a nurturer, a careful experimenter and too often a more of a fighter than i would like to think. but i can definitely say that i'm a thinker and have often been accused of over-thinking. blogging actually lends itself very well to that - i can't count the times i've started off with "i've been thinking about...." but i think (see, there is is again) the one of those things no one would call me is a pacifist. that's not to say that i am in favor of war, as i don't think i mean pacifist in that sense. i'm just not very passive. i'm too impatient for that. i guess i'd like labels like worldly, smart and funny. those i could live with.

gratuitous shot of our wegner Y chairs

3. Hypothetical question. You walk into a cafe and immediately notice people waving to you. On one side of the room sits Søren Kierkegaard, Simone de Beauvoir and Fyodor Dostoyevsky and they’re gesturing for you to join them. Simultaneously, on the other side of the room, Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen and Børge Mogensen are also inviting you to sit with them. Where do you go and why?

my initial reaction is to say søren, simone and fyodor, if only because i wonder what the three of them are doing together, but only if we sit in wegner's Y chairs or arne's egg, as they lend themselves beautifully to good conversation. but on second thought, i think kierkegaard's angst, de beauvoir's militant feminism and dostoevsky's religiousness would probably end up irritating the hell out of me (not to mention that i'm not sure they could stand one another), so let's go with wegner, jacobsen and mogensen, but we'll hope that poul henningsen and piet hein drop by as well.

here's a little sample of why we'd like to hang out with piet:

CONSOLATION GROOK

Losing one glove

is certainly painful,

but nothing

compared to the pain,

of losing one,

throwing away the other,

and finding

the first one again.

4. You’ve stated your interest in different crafts - paper, cloth, weaving and such. Additionally, you have a well written blog that's both intelligent and personal. I understand the time restraints involved but have you considered taking the next steps and moving from craftsperson to artist?

"don't mention the war...i think i mentioned it once, but got away with it...." -- basil fawlty

seriously, i think about this all. the. time. i even scribble down business plans and such. but it's plain and simple fear that holds me back. i'm afraid not to know how much my paycheck will be every month (you also, by my stage, have achieved such a ridiculous monthly salary that you are loathe to give it up)  i'm afraid to turn something that's fun into something i have to do. and those fears paralyze me. one of the reasons we moved to the countryside was to simplify and try to prepare our life for me taking that step, so perhaps i'll get there yet.

interesting fashion choices at legoland

5. From your photographs it's easy to see you have a keen eye but there's also some reserve or conservatism. Your photos rarely include people, especially people looking towards the camera (other than family and friends). Why is that and do you think composed object shots are good enough?

ever since i moved to denmark more than a decade ago, i have had to face again and again that i am more conservative than i'd like to think i am with my liberal arts education and liberal father (he once tacked on an amendment to a bill to make the fence post the state tree of south dakota - it was a tongue-in-cheek attempt to point out the absurdity of the bill in the first place, but seriously, no republican would have that kind of sense of humor). so my not taking photos of people is partially this conservatism, but it's also got more to do with shyness than you might imagine. especially of taking photos of people in public. as far as my family goes, every time i try to make them sit for a photo, we all end up frustrated and the photos are artificial. i'd much rather catch them from the side or in an unguarded moment than do actual portraits of them. i think the good portraits i have taken were all ones i just caught and not ones we posed.

edit: i realized i didn't answer the last part about composed object shots (i blame losing my original text. *sigh*). i will say that i've learned a great deal from doing my composed object shots. i've learned about light and shadow and how you often only notice things when you get them onto the computer. i've also learned about how you can achieve a rather different feel through processing that wasn't there originally and completely change the shot. plus, the rocks sit still and don't argue with me. but i will agree that part of the stagnation with my photography that i'm feeling at the moment is undoubtedly because you can only go so far with composed objects and then no farther. i think it's why i've been drawn to landscapes of late (which is also because we have a lake)...they give me something new but still without the people. i'm going to have to ponder a bit more about why i don't like taking people shots, i'm not quite to the bottom of that yet, all i know is that i've never liked it. i even had a friend back in macedonia who used to walk up to old ladies and ask them if she could photograph them all the time and it just totally made me cringe with embarrassment, tho' i admit she got some great shots.

6. Here’s another hypothetical question. You're dead and there’s a memorial stone (large beach pebble?) commemorating your life. On that stone is a button and anyone can walk up to it and push it. When the button is pushed, music is heard. What music do you choose to be heard?

the song that came immediately to mind is sheryl crow's all i wanna do. i'm not sure if that's deep or pathetic. the second song is madonna's express yourself. i'm a 90s girl, what can i say? i wish it was deeper or even more musical than that, but there you have it.

7. It’s summer and you’ve decided to take a hike. At the trail head there are two choices: One is a walk through a valley with lush meadows filled with flowers and birds. The other one winds under a forest canopy with occasional streams, small waterfalls and ultimately reaches tree line and there's mountains with scenic views? Which path do you take?

i'll go with the meadows. again, i think it's the prairie heritage. i think mountains are beautiful, but i don't have a need for them like i do wide-open spaces. denmark has nice forests to go for a walk in and i do love to try to find mushrooms and i enjoy the forest, but meadows, with the rustle of grass in the breeze, they just calm me. tho' i have also learned to love a harsh beach - not the kind where you laze about in the sun, but the kind where you need your rubber boots, a scarf and a warm jacket and you can't hear yourself talk because the waves are pounding on the shore with such force and the wind is really blowing. those can clear my head and calm me too (but that wasn't really part of the question, was it?)

8. Judging from your blog(s) you never sleep. With job, family and new property and house, how do you juggle what you do? Do you devote a particular amount of time to each of your endeavors? Or is it more spontaneous?

totally spontaneous. and i'm a night owl. i stay up too late every night, tho' by thursday i'm usually really tired and i go to sleep at a reasonable time that one night a week. i watch very little t.v. and if i do watch t.v., i'm always attempting to knit or stitch or paint feathers on stones while i do it. i also never put away the laundry and husband does the dishes. and the ironing (except the tea towels, i iron the tea towels). it's the beauty of being married to a dane - the males of the species are completely domesticated. that's part of why he's a keeper.

9. What great or memorable past experience would you like to re-experience?

two things come to mind, one is a train ride in the balkans in the summer of 1997. the temperature was perfect, the wind coming in through the windows of the train was perfect. i was wearing my favorite dress. the landscape outside the train featured ruins and farms where they were still using horse-drawn implements. i don't think i ever felt more alive before or since that night. i would love to experience that again.

and the other isn't really something i've experienced myself unless you believe in reincarnation. i've mentioned before that i'd like to have lived in 1913 - to have experienced the creativity and change that was in the air, especially in russia, in that era.  to hang out with the symbolists, the intense creativity of those involved in the ballets russes, the dramas, the salons, the whole aura of that milieu just appeal so much. even in denmark, at that time, asta nielsen was becoming the world's first film star with her abyss. it was such a dynamic, sweeping time. i would love to have been part of it. somehow blok's the stranger (neznakomka), tho' it was written a bit before 1913, captures it for me.

 The Stranger

The restaurants on hot spring evenings

Lie under a dense and savage air.

Foul drafts and hoots from dunken revelers

Contaminate the thoroughfare.

Above the dusty lanes of suburbia

Above the tedium of bungalows

A pretzel sign begilds a bakery

And children screech fortissimo.

And every evening beyond the barriers

Gentlemen of practiced wit and charm

Go strolling beside the drainage ditches --

A tilted derby and a lady at the arm.

The squeak of oarlocks comes over the lake water

A woman's shriek assaults the ear

While above, in the sky, inured to everything,

The moon looks on with a mindless leer.

And every evening my one companion

Sits here, reflected in my glass.

Like me, he has drunk of bitter mysteries.

Like me, he is broken, dulled, downcast.

The sleepy lackeys stand beside tables

Waiting for the night to pass

And tipplers with the eyes of rabbits

Cry out: "In vino veritas!"

And every evening (or am I imagining?)

Exactly at the appointed time

A girl's slim figure, silk raimented,

Glides past the window's mist and grime.

And slowly passing throught the revelers,

Unaccompanied, always alone,

Exuding mists and secret fragrances,

She sits at the table that is her own.

Something ancient, something legendary

Surrounds her presence in the room,

Her narrow hand, her silk, her bracelets,

Her hat, the rings, the ostrich plume.

Entranced by her presence, near and enigmatic,

I gaze through the dark of her lowered veil

And I behold an enchanted shoreline

And enchanted distances, far and pale.

I am made a guardian of the higher mysteries,

Someone's sun is entrusted to my control.

Tart wine has pierced the last convolution

of my labyrinthine soul.

And now the drooping plumes of ostriches

Asway in my brain droop slowly lower

And two eyes, limpid, blue, and fathomless

Are blooming on a distant shore.

Inside my soul a treasure is buried.

The key is mine and only mine.

How right you are, you drunken monster!

I know: the truth is in the wine.

-alexander blok

10. I said there would be no food questions, I lied. Can a guy get a really good Mexican burrito in Denmark?

you most definitely cannot. way, way, way too far from mexico. and there's a totally insufficient influx of mexican immigrants. and the danes don't realize it's just wrong to put creme fraiche in the guacamole.

* * *

thank you, bill, for these questions. since you sent them, i've been pondering that interaction between kierkegaard and dostoevsky and trying to figure out why i never take pictures of people. so you made me think and that's really the best thing one can ask. do be sure to visit bill's blog - just a moment of miscellany, he'll undoubtedly make you think too. 

photo a day

on january 1, i decided to formalize my photo-a-day pledge that i pretty much embarked upon since buying my D60 in may 2008, and started the blog camp 365 project on flickr. here we are, not even a month in and i really love what the project is doing for me. in addition to learning a whole lot from the other group members and delighting in their pictures and their feedback, it's given me back a good measure of my photo mojo.

it's gotten me to take a harder look at processing my photos and helped me solidify what i like to do and what i don't. cropping and minor adjustments (like the antique feel i gave these photos) are ok with me, but i still much prefer straight out of the camera (SOOC). i'd rather try to compose the shot as i'm taking it, tho' sometimes, there are things you don't notice until you download the picture onto your computer, so sometimes you just have to crop. i'm finding myself thinking a whole lot more about photography in general. i'm rereading susan sontag's wonderful on photography with new eyes (and perhaps a new brain) that i didn't have when i read it in grad school. in fact, i'm going to build my photo-a-day in february around notions from the book. imagine that, me, planning ahead!

i think it's also significantly eased the pain of this dark time of year. because in looking for that daily photo opportunity, i've found out that the light isn't really as bad as i thought. i've been much more mindful of the qualities the light has and i'm much more aware of how rapidly it's changing at the moment. i've come to appreciate that the winter light can really be great for those SOOC shots i love if i use it at the right time of day. and if i want that yellow tone to my photos, i just use the artificial light in my yellow-walled kitchen after the daylight is gone. it's forced me to do a whole lot more experimenting with the settings on my camera and i've learned a great deal about how to get the shots i want, using the light at hand (since i continue to loathe flash).

but probably the best side effect is the one i'd hoped for the most. and that's noticing the world around me. on a snowy day, i wander through the house, camera in hand, thinking about what i can take a picture of today. yesterday, it was these brass ottoman "pencil cases." they're on a shelf in the dining room and i'd pretty much stopped seeing them. but yesterday, i looked at them. really looked at them. and thought about them and the experience of buying them. how husband and i played good cop-bad cop with the antiques dealer and husband played his bad cop part so well i began to believe myself that he was against my buying them (he wasn't, it was just an oscar-worthy performance). just snapping a few photos, i was transported back to that hot day in bergama, and the ruins we wandered before wandering the street of antique shops, our dinner at a sidewalk restaurant where a man actually tied his goat to a tree before going in to eat. i also appreciated for a moment the little tableau i'd set up with them, arranging them near some beautiful old books with art deco jackets from the teens of the last century and an old tin for turkish-macedonian tobacco that i found in a flea market. there must be value in taking a moment to notice and appreciate your own surroundings.

it's not too late to join the group, you can start your photo-a-day project anytime you want, so do come and join us. when you request the invite, please let us know you arrived there via one of the group member's blogs, as we are trying to keep it to the circle of those we know via our blogs, so it remains a manageable number of photos to keep up with and comment on.

egyptian adventure - part 2

i've been to egypt three times. the stories this week are from the first time i was there, when i wasn't yet cynical and suspicious and was much more open to egypt's charms. i'm not sure what happened, but on the second trip, i definitely didn't succumb to the charms of egypt, even leaving a few days early, disgusted with how far today's egyptians seem from the greatness of the pharaohs. on the third trip, i was also happy to leave as quickly as i had arrived, which was when i jumped off the stairs on the outside of an LNG carrier traveling at 11 knots through the suez canal onto a small and fragile-looking boat that the agent struggled to maneuver and hold into position up to the ship. but that's another story for another day. back to the first carefree adventures in egypt...

awaking every morning in cairo to the sights and sounds of the traffic quickly gives you the desire to escape to somewhere quiet and leave it all behind. the pyramids at saqqara were just the ticket. they are step pyramids, built for king dzoser and are older than the great pyramids at nearby giza. we started our day at the giza pyramids, being wholly unable to stay away, so strong was their allure.

circulating around the paths near sphinx are countless locals offering rides in a horse-drawn carriage. we chatted with one of these gentlemen and he agreed to take us via horse & carriage down to saqqara. it turned out to be quite a long journey, as it's a good 18km, but this gave us a chance to get to know mansur, our driver and george, his horse.

we rattled along a gravel road beside the nile, gaining insight into the lives of the people who live along her banks. children playing in the water, women washing clothes, the lush greenery of small holdings where people grew food for themselves and a bit for sale in the markets. you definitely got a strong sense of the importance of the nile to life in the region, as well as the suspicion that it hadn't changed all that much over the millennia. there were a lot of horses and donkeys and hand implements in use on the small farms along the way.

eventually, we rolled into saqqara, quite a lot of sweat on george's flanks. we were very nearly the only ones there, which was wonderful. no tour buses, just us, the hot desert wind, the nooks and crannies of the pyramids and temples and quite literally the sands of time. oh, and quite a lot of stray dogs, some with puppies. and a big group of camel ride guys, waiting to pounce. we fended them off rather quickly and later saw them having quite an entertaining argument amongst themselves. at least it was entertaining to us, since we didn't know arabic and had no idea what they were arguing about. that's always the way, isn't it? we have this notion that important conversations are happening in languages we don't understand, whereas in reality they were probably arguing over whether ahmed's camel was better than mohammed's.

we spent several hours wandering the pyramid complex. it's obvious that archaeological digs have gone on there, but none were in progress when we were there. just very deep holes in the ground here and there that you had to watch out for because they often weren't fenced off. if i'd read murakami in those days, i'd have found it a fantastic place to experience the feeling of being down a well.

we had to laugh a few times as we came across random egyptians hanging out in the shade of the complex, as they put out their hand and demanded baksheesh (tips) though they provided us no services. i took to asking them for some as well, which was so disarming to them that they often laughed and then we had the standard egyptian conversation, "welcome to egypt, where you come from?"

i spent quite some time with my journal in a little heiroglyph-covered, half excavated temple, where i imagined that prayers to the various exotic egyptian gods were once offered--experiencing one of those moments of perfect clarity after which this blog is named. when i have one of those, it is imprinted on my memory in all of its glorious textures. i can still remember the quality of the warm air i breathed into my lungs as i sat there and took in what i can only describe as a spiritual experience. my friend had wandered off and i was alone in the little grotto. it was fantastic, having the place pretty much to ourselves. but we know i have a thing about that with ruins.

eventually, it was time to head back for the relative civilization of giza. mansur and george had waited for us. and on the journey back, he invited us to his home for the "ramadan breakfast," as he called it--or the meal after sunset where the faithful break their fast. we'd gotten to know him quite well...he'd told us about his children (he claimed to want his daughter to have an education as well as his sons), his wife and her mother who lived with them in their house in giza. we were eager to see how people lived, so we agreed.

my friend was very worried about contracting the dreaded pharaoh's revenge and had insisted up 'til then that we eat only at mcdonald's, a habit which was driving me a little crazy by then, so i was quite happy that he agreed.

mansur's house was on a crowded little side street that as we drove there, it occurred to me that we'd never find our way back to the main road near the pyramids by ourselves. he showed us in, where his wife looked pretty surprised that he had brought two strangers home for dinner, but she took it in stride and they made room for us on the floor around a huge, low tray that served as a dinner table. they managed to locate a couple of spoons for us so we didn't have to eat with our hands out of the communal bowls like the rest of the family. dinner wasn't quite ready and we made ourselves comfortable while mansur put george away in the floor below, together with his camel. yes, the first floor was the stable.

although it was twelve years ago, i remember clearly the blue walls and that although we ate sitting on pillows on the floor around an enormous tray laden with food--goat meat, a spinach-like dish, some creamy yogurt and a sort of tabbuleh salad--in the room above was a very ornate, elaborate, gold-painted dining room table and chairs. 

once we were upstairs, that's when my friend got his buyer's remorse over the perfumed oils he had bought and he actually left them there, tucked under some furniture in the room we were in. i've often wondered what the family thought when they ran across that little box. 

it was well after dark and we were a bit worried about how we would get back to an area we knew and starting to get the feeling that mansur was going to suddenly demand a lot of money for the dinner, which had been offered  seemingly with an open heart, but that didn't really happen. he found a friend with a car and he drove us back our hotel. i don't entirely recall, but i think we paid a total of about $25 for the entire day. a price well worth it for the experience. i mean how else was i going to get the opportunity to pick gristly goat meat off of the bones in an egyptian home?

5 places i love - #1 the northwest coast of turkey

having just bought tickets to istanbul last week on KLMs fab air sale, i am looking very much forward to going there in october. we'll rent a car in istanbul and head almost immediately down our favorite route over the dardanelles past the graves of gallipoli and the remains of ancient troy and winding down the northwest coast to eventually end up near ephesus. but we will definitely stop here along the way:

on the winding road between troy and on down to the bay of edremit the fields are full of ruins. an ancient column here, a crumbling wall there, an arch or two and the evidence of an aqueduct. it's all that remains of alexander troas, a city founded in 310 BC by one of the alexander the great's generals. to drive down the winding roads, encountering this evidence of antiquity left to crumble is a powerful experience. it's magical to imagine living there and farming that land, uncovering a marble column with your tractor now and again. one hot summer day a few years ago, we bought a sweet watermelon and ate it here in the shadow of the arch above. it was most definitely a moment of perfect clarity.

then we drove on to behramkale--site of assos. this is what remains of a great temple to athena built in 530 BC. it sits high on a cliff, overlooking the aegean. the island you can see out in the background is lesbos, which belongs to greece. it is a marvelous spot. if you listen closely to the wind that eternally blows across this place, you can very nearly catch the murmur of the wisdom of aristotle, who lived here for several years.

st. paul also passed through these parts and as you walk among the columns and gaze upon the marvelous view, you feel the weight of history. you have a strong sense of how temporary we are here on this earth. the columns overlooking the aegean have stood for 2500 years and will continue to stand long after we are gone. i love to think of the scenes they have witnessed and to lean my head against them and see if they will whisper some of their stories to me.

i really cannot wait to return in october.

monday musings

i could tell a tale of a greedy and righteous troglodyte (is there anything worse?), but i don't want my monday ruined in that way. suffice it to say that i need to find another way to deal with this person. fantasies of gunning it when i see him crossing the street are becoming slightly too vivid in my mind at this point, so i'd best not spend much time behind the wheel today.

~ * ~

as you can see from my new banner, we had a good weekend at our riding club horse show.

~ * ~

isn't it sad that a person who never gives others room to do what they have promised, but stands over them and checks up on them incessantly will never find out if they can be trusted to do what they say they will? and ironic that they say they'll stop doing that as soon as people prove they will do as they promised. and pathetic that they can't see the logic.

but i promised not to dwell on the troglodyte anymore today. 

~ * ~

they promise rain all week. so a typical danish autumn is upon us. it makes my thoughts turn to candles and baskets of yarn. i've even lined up a knitting teacher, so this year, i'm going to get serious about actually using some of that yarn. tho' molly did just just singe off some of her whiskers jumping up on the shelf by my desk, so candles can be dangerous.

~ * ~

on friday at school, sabin and her friend (who are in the sixth grade) were on their way to class and some tough little fourth graders, in what is a rather confusingly-explained incident, threw a chair at them. they were apparently bitter over some altercations last year when they were in fifth and third grade respectively, tho' that part of the story is also a bit unclear. the chair hit sabin's hand and it has become steadily more swollen and sore over the weekend and we're going to have the doctor have a look at it today. i did say she had to explain to the doctor herself that she was beaten up by a fourth grader.

i asked her how she responded and she said that they went and let a teacher know it had happened. so in essence, they told on the little shits. some part of me wishes she'd thrown the chair back at them or at least grabbed them by the scruff of their necks and roughed them up a bit. but on the other hand, i'm also charmed by her utter faith in the authority figures at her school. we'll see what happens next.

~ * ~

i wonder if my parents ever received a communication with my sixth grade teacher that was signed, "hugs," mrs. b. looking back at the battle-axe of a soul-scarring sixth grade teacher i had, i'm thinking not.

i do remember that my dad once stamped one of my papers with a little "horse shit" stamp we had in the drawer at home and asked my second grade teacher whether she shouldn't be slightly more encouraging than that to small children. she practically died of mortification while my dad laughed. i thought it was pretty funny too. probably not entirely fair of dad what with him being on the schoolboard and all. poor mrs. luze.

~ * ~

i sent my absentee ballot today. and yes, i voted for the good guys.

~ * ~

i just reread the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society by mary ann shaffer and annie barrows. i gave it only 3 stars on goodreads the first time around and i actually wonder why. i was utterly delighted by it this time and feel a bit sad to be finished with it. i'm already missing those friends within the covers of the book. i do think you need to a read a book at the right time. i could vaguely remember reading it before, but i obviously didn't absorb it in the same way (that often happens, i think it's a product of the speed at which i read) as i did this time. i'll have to go in and update that rating.

here are a few gems:

"men are more interesting in books than they are in real life."

"reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books."

"i think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time."

~ * ~

and on that note, i'll wish you all a happy monday.

this makes me happy...

thinking about what makes me happy (for the next time when i'm feeling down and want to remember). these are not necessarily in order.

1. lots and lots of art supplies
2. watching sabin dig into the art supplies with her whole being
3. husband's drive to get household projects done
4. having something to look forward to...can be anything from a new job (this week!) to dinner guests to my writing house in the garden to our building project being finished, the mailman's arrival
5. having airline tickets in my possession (i currently have 2 sets, so i'm doubly happy)
6. ruins
7. shades of blue and green
8. my beautiful, colorful yarn
9. good chick music (sheryl crow, alanis morissette, regina spektor, feist...)
10. my iPod(s)
11. cooking some really fabulous food
12. my new juicer
13. a fragrant, hot, steaming, bubble bath, surrounded by candles and in which i sip a glass of wine and read a good book
14. clean sheets
15. the laundry being done on sunday night
16. the red retro smeg refrigerator i'm getting soon
17. henry kloss radios (even better if they dock an iPod)
18. bouquets of flowers from my own garden
19. sitting out in the circle in the garden on a sunny day with the sunday paper and a big pot of tea and breakfast on a colorful tray
20. laughing over a good story

this feels like a good exercise. to think about the positive. it's so easy sometimes to think about the negatives in life. to get bogged down in some petty little things. but really, there are plenty of great things on which i can better spend my energy. so, i think i will.