St. Louis: 100 Boots Poetry

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri. April 2018.

Through an El Paso writer, I learned about the 100 Boots Poetry Series at St. Louis' Pulitzer Arts Foundation. The intel hit me just in time to attend the final event in this year's series.

Layli Long Soldier, 100 Boots Poetry Series, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri. April 2018.

The final event highlighted poets Layli Long Soldier and Douglas Kearney, authors of Whereas and Buck Studies respectively.

Douglas Kearney, 100 Boots Poetry Series, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri. April 2018.

I'll return to the poets, but first some remarks on the Pulitzer Arts Foundation interior design.

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri. April 2018.

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri. April 2018.

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri. April 2018.

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri. April 2018.

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri. April 2018.

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri. April 2018.

Clean, industrial. Hard, but softened by colors. Strong, but giving way to the art it holds.

My notes on Ms. Long Soldier

Soft speaking, nighttime-soothing voice, unhurried pace.

"My belief is not a legend." Referencing how Native beliefs about how we all came about are as legitimate - as real - as Biblical (and other) beliefs about how we all came about.

A student asked her once what to write about, and she replied: "Whatever is or was missing in one's life - and start there."


My notes on Mr. Kearney

Smooth voice
Sings a song poem like drum beats
Many voices like changing radio stations frequently
I think of Tourette's Syndrome, his sounds, voices, movements


I've discovered that, as with songs, I often hear the sounds of poetry, but not so much the words. This was the case with Ms. Long Soldier and Mr. Kearney.

This is neither a reflection on the poets nor on me as a listener.


To meet two writers new to me, to hear their words from their mouths, and to enter into the space of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation building .... I am one lucky goose. 

Mexico: Juarez: Third Date

Municipal Palace, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

On the Friday after New Year's Day, Juarez going in and coming out was much speedier than pre-holidays.

Municipal Palace, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

The sun shined, but a brisk breeze blew. I wore my black hoodie jacket and gloves, but I wished I'd brought my wide black-and-gray winter scarf. 

Municipal Palace, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

On this visit, I covered some of the territory I've walked before. The photos above are of the Municipal Palace, the front exterior and the interior courtyard. On my first two visits to the city, the horses in front used to be on Calle 16 de Septiembre, near the Abrazo Monument. 

Statue of Vicente Guerrero on Calle Francisco Villa, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

Each time I go into Juarez, I try to explore new territory. So far, I've only entered the city by walking over the bridge on El Paso Street, but there are three other ways to Juarez from the El Paso metro area.

House-and-tree at 175 Amado Nervo Street, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

At 175 Amado Nervo Street is this unlikely marriage between an elderly house and tree. One wonders which is supporting the other? I think it must be a mutual partnership.

House-and-tree at 175 Amado Nervo Street, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

From Amado Nervo, I turned left onto Calle Miguel Ahumada. There's something about the lucha libre that charms me.

Lucha libre poster, Calle Miguel Ahumada, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

On Calle Miguel Ahumado, a number of motels intrigued me. Their upstairs flats with wrought-ironed balconies seemed a distant cousin of a New Orleans esthetic. Which is, of course, a derivative of its ancestral settlers' own designs from back home in Spain, the Canary Islands, the Caribbean, coastal Africa ... .

Calle Miguel Ahumada, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

Calle Miguel Ahumada, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

I captured a Juarense sidewalk tourist trap for my collection:

Tourist trap, Calle Miguel Ahumada, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

When I came across a pocket park, I took a sharp right onto Nicolas Bravo.

An apartment perched on the top of a corner building waved at me with her tattered black veil.

The music, sidewalk menu, and a red parking meter added flavor to the moment.

Juarez has a fascinating highway system that seems to live under the city. On my second visit to Juarez, in the Plaza de Armas, I heard a rapid whistling-rumbling noise. I looked all around me to catch where the sound came from. I asked a nearby man what it was, maybe a train? He said, no, and pointed to a raised cement platform with a grille over it. It was a highway.

The highway beneath Plaza de Armas, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

I stepped on top of the platform and peered through the grille. Well, hot damn, cars charging through on a two-lane highway tunnel below. Here's the video:

I'm trying to visualize how this all hangs together in Juarez.

As I ambled up Calle Santos Degollado (I think), a sorbet-and-white wall, shedding its skin, a-peeling:

Calle Santos Degollado, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

Unfortunately, an inebriated fellow chose that moment to try and shake me down for some change, and I pushed on without striving for a better shot. Maybe another day.

From this approach to the park that I think is called La Gran Plaza, I enjoyed a happy view of the lucha libre mural I'd seen on my first visit.

Murals on Calle Ignacio Mariscal, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

Two minutely different takes on the same scene. Just can't decide which I like better. 

Murals on Calle Ignacio Mariscal, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

It looked so grand against the backdrop of that dramatic sky.



Related posts

• Juarez: First Date: Introduction
• Juarez: First Date: Going and Coming
• Juarez: First Date: The Kentucky Club
• Juarez: First Date: Horses
• Juarez: Three Quarters
• El Paso Sister: Juarez: The Name of the City
• Juarez: Second Date

Toronto: Architecture

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Source: Yoldasin.

 
Toronto comes in for some ribbing about its architecture.

The Royal Ontario Museum, for example. It's as if the historic mother building were harboring a neonatal alien in its belly, and suddenly said alien yowwen burst forth, ravenous, ripping open its host.

Then there's the preposterous pencil and eraser construct for the Sharp Centre for Design. Literal art.

Sharp Centre for Design, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Credit: CNN.

When I think of the buildings in downtown Toronto, troops of tall, blue, glassine structures come to mind, interspersed with sandy-colored block buildings.

I also think about new buildings that have sprung up, which interrupt the light that their older neighbors used to enjoy. "Shadowing" is not a new problem for Toronto. On one day, Sandy left her Toronto apartment for a far-away island; upon her return a couple of years later, a brand-new neighbor had shouldered itself in - a tall condo building that darkened her balcony.

Overall, however, I don't know that Toronto is any less lackluster than most other cities. And to tell you the truth, I'm still kind of impressed there is a statue of a businessman, dressed in a business suit, in one of Toronto's pocket parks. It's a real departure from the usual public statue fodder, such as warriors, whether modern or historic.

Toronto: Luminato 2016

Toronto skyline from Luminato 2016 venue, Hearn Generating Station. June 2016.

I dig the title of this Toronto art festival: Luminato. Luminaria. Illumination. Lumens. Luminous. Lou Reed.

The Luminato Arts Festival - a multi-arts-media event - is a creative apology and amends for Toronto's architectural blandfield.

Luminato 2016, Hearn Generating Station. June 2016.

I'm also a fan of derelict, decaying structures, and that's where Luminato takes place.

Luminato 2016, Hearn Generating Station. June 2016.

Luminato 2016, Hearn Generating Station. June 2016.

That's Sandy walking up ahead of me.

This exhibit mesmerized me:

Still does. And listen to the sounds within the exhibit and in the vast air space of the relic structure. 

I'll finish with a gigantic disco ball.

Luminato.

Toronto: Architecture: Shadows and Light

Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016.

I find Toronto's tall, generic, blue, modern buildings dull, dull, dull. But interplays of shadows and light somehow make things better.

Old City Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016.

Old City Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016.

Heheheh, I like the incongruity of the Dairy King truck in front of the staid Old City Hall. 

Antigua, Guatemala: The Scourge of Pee

I learned something in Antigua that was gobsmacking.

Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

Men's habit of peeing on the exterior building walls in Antigua is damaging the buildings. Antigua is a UNESCO World Heritage Center, so this is serious business.

It's not just in Antigua. Consider Germany's Ulm Minister, the church with the tallest tower in the world. "Persistent peeing is damaging the historic structure."

Peeing on the limestone walls of the 250-year-old Alamo in Texas is a serious crime because of the damage it does to the historic structure.

In Berlin, the city created a force of "urine police" to protect historic buildings. "Human urine is so abrasive and corrosive that, over time, it acts like a sandblaster," said a scientist.

It's also a problem in Chester, England, which sits atop Roman ruins.

And in Plymouth, England, for a 250-year old synagogue.

There is apparently a Facebook page that has photos of men caught in the act of peeing on walls in Antigua. It's a shaming page. I haven't been able to track it down.

Lafayette: John M. Shaw U.S. Federal Court House

John M. Shaw U.S. Federal Court House, Lafayette, Louisiana

The federal court house in Lafayette is a stunner.

John M. Shaw U.S. Federal Court House, Lafayette, Louisiana

Especially when you're not expecting it when you walk to your car behind the temporary library at night and see it gleaming from the darkness on the other side of a pocket park, with its resident homeless settled in on their benches, and a lone security guard standing watch on the steps.

John M. Shaw U.S. Federal Court House, Lafayette, Louisiana

The people who designed and approved this construction had a vision.

John M. Shaw U.S. Federal Court House, Lafayette, Louisiana

What does the security guard think about all night?  

Lafayette Neighborhoods: College Park

College Park neighborhood, Lafayette, Louisiana

Lafayette has many pocket neighborhoods cached off of its main arteries. Quiet, shaded, established. Often with graceful live oaks, giant elephant ears, flowering shrubs. Pretty mixes of architecture.

College Park neighborhood, Lafayette, Louisiana

College Park Addition


The College Park Addition neighborhood is more or less comprised of the "president streets," at least as these streets are bordered in a square by: West Pinhook, Taft, St. Mary's Boulevard, and University Avenue. The president-street names within this square are Taft, Coolidge, Harding, Wilson, and Hoover. There's also McKinley, but that runs smack through the University of Louisiana campus, so I'm not counting that.

College Park neighborhood, Lafayette, Louisiana

I did include the two art museums that fall within the bounds. 

Hilliard Art Museum, College Park neighborhood, Lafayette, Louisiana

Here's a slide show:

Artesia, New Mexico: Sidewalk Rolling

Architecture, good, in Artesia, New Mexico. Hotel Artesia.

Blew through Artesia twice while in New Mexico.

In-town attention grabbers

• Large public sculptures that depict local history,
• Architectural head turners (for good and bad), and
• Proliferation of flame-topped oil wells in the rural surroundings

Artesia, New Mexico

The first day I went through, I didn't have time to stop, but I was so taken with the public sculptures, and later learned that they tell a story of the area's history and they make for a nice walking tour.

The second time I went through, I did have time, and I parked downtown with the intent to explore. Holy gee, it was hot on this Saturday afternoon! And damned if most of the stores weren't closed! Talk about rolling up the sidewalks.

Artesia, New Mexico

The heat and lack of open businesses pushed me back into my car and on my way west toward home.

Alas, even City of Dust has nothing on Artesia. 

New Mexico: Architecture 4: The Appalling

What is it they say? I don't know much about art, but .... I know what I [don't] like.

I've noticed that communities in New Mexico have been enamored with these stone buttresses that jut out from the core. I've seen a number of public schools with this bit. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But even when it works, it's like the PT Cruiser - the first three times I saw one, I thought, oh, cute! but then I was done with them.

In Cloudcroft, it kind of works. To be fair, the building looks prettier in person than in the photo below. 

The high school in Bloomfield, New Mexico. My God, when I first drove past the building, I didn't know if it was a fancy factory? Office building? Oh, what'd you say - a high school? Strangely, I can find very few photos of the school.  Unlike the Cloudcroft situation, the photo below makes the school look better than it does in person. 

Bloomfield High School. Credit: Greer-Stafford. 

And then there's the Public Safety Complex in Artesia. Again, difficult to find photos, partly because the complex is so large. If you were to take parts of the complex, it would be fine, but the overall project is a manic jumble of different styles and media.

Artesia Public Safety Complex. Credit: whjarch

But even though I find the busyness and clunkiness of the above designs not to my taste, none hold a candle to my yardstick of horrible design, that which is a white box for warehousing humans, found in my own hometown of Jefferson City, Missouri:

Howerton Building, Jefferson City, Missouri

No, it is not a prison per se. It is a place of employment for people responsible for improving the quality of lives of others. You can imagine how this environment supports them in this task.

So now with that perspective, I can embrace the jumble of the above New Mexico designs with a little more warmth.