Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Annals of transportation (1)... the elevators of Valparaiso

The town of Valparaiso is split up between the port-side quarters and the uphill town. In the time of horse drawn carriages, the steep slopes were difficult to master. After 1883, a number of elevators were built to transport people and goods uphill
Motorized transport made the elevators all but obsolete. About a dozen are left, but although they are part of the UNESCO monument of the old town of Valparaiso, not all of them are in working order
Whereas some are tourist attractions and frequently used, others are in quarters where people in the streets warn you not to go
Rusty corrugated iron houses where the elevator and graffiti are the only spots of colour
Hill-side entrance
The lady will take your coins and charge the slit to operate the turnstyle
A view not unlike a ship - operator in his navigating bridge
How long still?

Monday, December 15, 2008

Self portrait

Can anybody give a better description of himself?
Self-portrait of Pablo Neruda in his house in Valparaiso, Chile:

"(..) I, for my part, think, I have a hard nose, minimal eyes, few hair on my head, an increasing belly, long legs, wide soles, yellow complexion, generous of love, bad in calculations, confused in words, tender in the hands, slow in walking, inoxydable in my heart, fascinated by stars, waves, earthquakes, admiring beetles, walker in the sands, lump with institutions, eternal chileno, friend of my friends, deaf for my enemies, involved with birds, mal-educated at home, timid in society, brave in solidarity, regretting without object, horrible administrator, sailor on a tongue, healer with ink, quiet with animals, happy in thunderclouds, researcher in markets, obscure in libraries, melancholic in the mountains, infatigable in the forests, slow in responding, happening after years, vulgar during the whole year, splendid with my notebook, monumental with my apetite, a tiger when sleeping, quiet in my joy, inspector of the night skies, invisible worker, untidy, persistent, courageous out of need, coward without regret, sleepy out of passion, passionate for women, active for suffering, poet out of malediction, and stupid enough to tell"

I would subscribe to that....
Pablo, disculpe a mi la traduccion insufficiente eternalmente....

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Life in the city

Signs of hope....Valparaiso, Chile, 2008

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Mecca is a two way street

Cadance festival in The Hague: a performance created by Eric Kraiel for this impressive building
"A performance about the crossroads that contemporary Durch society has come to" (The festival programma booklet")

Street fight-dance at the location of an to be demolished industrial site (see also nov. 16th. 2007 and nov. 3rd. 2008)

www.cadance.nl

Monday, November 3, 2008

stairs (3)

The staircase of the building of Ernst & Young in the Hague

built by Oud ("de Stijl") in 1938-1946 as headquarters of BIM/Shell




And one of the staircases of the KPN building in Binckhorst The Hague (see also post 17.11.2007 and 9.11.2008)

My expert friend Hans knows who built it:

Het oudste gebouw werd begonnen door rijksbouwmeester D.E.C. Knuttel
en afgemaakt door zijn bureau-architecten: Th. Teeuwisse en S.F.
Franc.

Het iets naar achterliggende gebouw is van de hand van J. Crouwel.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Reminders of the great days of railroading.... (2)

The "Ferrocarril Palma Soller", Isla der Mallorca, Spain

The journey begins in the port of Soller. A tramline using the original railcars and open coaches travels along the beach

In the town of Soller, the tram meets the train to Palma de Mallorca

In a shed, a tram railcar waits for further use

Night travel in the first class of the train railcar

Arrival in Palma de Mallorca

Waiting for the next day: teak railcars from 1929

Monday, September 29, 2008

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Annals of the dead.... (3)

The Hague Jewish cemetery...


when Mr. Heijman Edersheim died on 19.4.1943. At that time most of the jews in The Hague had to hide somewhere. The inscription on the tombstone says, that Mr. Edersheim's body is burried in another place. In the wall visible at the far end was a little port. Dead jews were brought in secretly at night and burried close to the wall. Officially they didi not exist...


Saturday, September 6, 2008

Annals of justice? .... (3)

The open air jail at Kelso station, California

Waiting for a train.... behind bars
The thing was found on somebodies private property and gloriously restored to its original location, albeit not function

www.nps.gov/moja

Annals of justice.... (2)

Alcatraz Island, San Francisco
Home of some very famous inhabitants (Al Capone being the most famous), it actually might have been a place of justice

Only three people might have been able to actually escape from the place... officially it was announced they had drowned while swimming to the mainland with the help of floats made from raincoats. But their bodies were never found.....

Even so it is full of tourists, it is still an impressing place worthwhile visiting

A non-renovated cell block and a typical cell...

A bed, a shelf, a sink, a toilet, a little table, a radio built into the wall.... but there was also a library, inmates knitted, painted.... and made plans

the kitchen and canteen, the most dangerous place...

what a lot of irony in one little word.... altogether there were 14 escape attempts in 30 years, but only one man made it to the other side and was found clinging to rocks totally exhausted

ironically, after it had closed, alcatraz was occupied by native americans as a kind of protest against their discrimination

www.nps.gov/alcatraz/

High school musical revisited....

Normal....? Justine, Central Valley, California
Shoshone, California.... 4 children?
Amboy, California ...... abandoned

Desert's new use...

Tourists having a picknick in front of the deserted US post office, Kelso station

Boring desert ..... RV owner setting his satellite dish in a RV park at Shoshone, CA

Annals of the dead (2): Lonesome grave

Leaving more questions than giving answers....
The sign says:
Lorenza McKellips Larkin
died in infancy 1874 4 years old

Living in the desert (2)

The desert conserves well. People come and leave ..... everything behind they had brought. And it seems to stay forever