The Magic of the Cities.

Zen promotes the rediscovery of the obvious, which is so often lost in its familiarity and simplicity. It sees the miraculous in the common and magic in our everyday surroundings. When we are not rushed, and our minds are unclouded by conceptualizations, a veil will sometimes drop, introducing the viewer to a world unseen since childhood. ~ John Greer

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Place Charles de Gaulle

Arc de Triomphe
Place Charles de Gaulle
The Tomb of The Unknown Soldier 


The Arc de Triomphe is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It is located on the right bank of the Seine River. It forms the backdrop for an impressive urban ensemble in Paris. The monument surmounts the hill of Chaillot at the center of a pentagon-shaped configuration of radiating avenues. It was commissioned in 1806 after the victory at Austerlitz by Emperor Napoleon at the peak of his fortunes. Laying the foundations alone took two years, and in 1810 when Napoleon entered Paris from the west with his bride Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria, he had a wooden mock-up of the completed arch constructed. The architect Jean Chalgrin died in 1811, and the work was taken over by Jean-Nicolas Huyot. During the Bourbon Restoration, construction was halted and it would not be completed until the reign of King Louis-Philippe, in 1833–36 when the architects on site were Goust, then Huyot, under the direction of Héricart de Thury. Napoleon's body passed under it on 15 December 1840 on its way to its second and final resting place at the Invalides.[6] The body of Victor Hugo was exposed under the Arch during the night of the 22 May 1885, prior to burial in the Panthéon

Beneath the Arc is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from the First World War. Interred here on Armistice Day 1920, it has the first eternal flame lit in Western and Eastern Europe since the Vestal Virgins' fire was extinguished in the year 394. It burns in memory of the dead who were never identified (now in both World Wars). The French model inspired the United Kingdom's tomb of The Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey. A ceremony is held there every 11 November on the anniversary of the armistice signed between France and Germany in 1918. It was originally decided on 12 November 1919 to bury the unknown soldier's remains in the Panthéon, but a public letter-writing campaign led to the decision to bury him beneath the Arc de Triomphe. The coffin was put in the chapel on the first floor of the Arc on 10 November 1920, and put in its final resting place on 28 January 1921. The slab on top carries the inscription ICI REPOSE UN SOLDAT FRANÇAIS MORT POUR LA PATRIE 1914–1918 ("Here lies a French soldier who died for the fatherland 1914–1918"). [Wiki]


Jose Saramago - 16 Nov 1922-18 June 2010.
Carlos Monsivais - 4 May 1938-19 June 2010.
(Splendid minds of XX-XXI centuries and both leftists.)

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New York, Washington, Paris, Vienna, Eisenstadt, Venice, Firenze and Rome series try to continue in Sketches of Cities. (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all.

Friday, June 18, 2010

City of Light / La Ciudad Luz

La Nouvelle Generation
Place de la Concorde
Out of Comedie Francaise (Place du Palais Royal)
Parisian Sky Game (View from Sacré-Coeur)
Back in Mexico City after two weeks in some incredible places of Europe, and if you don't mind I'll post some scenes of its immense beauty, people and streets. Just a search for light and movement. Hope you like it and thought that home is where your heart is.
  
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New York, Washington, Paris, Vienna, Eisenstadt, Venice, Firenze and Rome series try to continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Mexico Paris

Faune Dansant (Dancing Faun) by E.L. Lequesne. Jardin du Luxembourg
Fountain in Mexico City (previous post)
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While I´m away, collecting new impressions from Europe, my site will be updated over the next two weeks with sketches from previous posts. Stay tuned. It will be worth it.

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Past and Present / Presente y Pasado

Revolcadero, Acapulco
Entrance to Louvre
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While I´m away, collecting new impressions from Europe, my site will be updated over the next two weeks with sketches from previous posts. Stay tuned. It will be worth it.

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Paris On The Run


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While I´m away, collecting new impressions from Europe, my site will be updated over the next two weeks with sketches from previous posts. Stay tuned. It will be worth it.

New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Evening Freeway

Viaducto M. Aleman

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While I´m away, collecting new impressions from Europe, my site will be updated over the next two weeks with sketches from previous posts. 
Stay tuned. It will be worth it.


New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Sunday Walk

“Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”

Albert Camus
[Progressive House Music by Vincent Pellerin]

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Steps into the light

La Casa del Torno / The House of The Winch


Cuernavaca is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Morelos.  Established at the archeological site of Gualupita I by the Olmecs, "the mother culture" of Mesoamerica, approximately 3200 years ago. It is also a municipality located about 85 km (53 mi) south of Mexico City on the D-95 freeway.

The city was nicknamed the "City of Eternal Spring" by Alexander von Humboldt in the 19th century. It has long been a favorite escape for Mexico City and foreign visitors because of this warm, stable climate and abundant vegetation. Aztec emperors had summer residences there, and even today many famous people as well as Mexico City residents maintain homes there. Cuernavaca is also host to a large foreign resident population, including large numbers of students who come to study the Spanish language.

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (Tonight: Columbus Circle)

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Street Cross

Street offering to a death people.

Cross

Something is left
Over the warmest distances

On all the roads
there was blood from my feathers
As I tried to gather them
I saw that there were many

It is not Christ who went by
As slowly as the hours of the East

My cross did not burden my back
Nor does it fly above the roofs

THERE WERE RED SPECKS IN THE MEADOWS

My wingless cross was on my chest
And has never wished to close its eyes

A bird burns in the setting sun
The things we have forgotten

Gazing lifewards
I have seen my cigarette
smoking in the warmest distances.

From:
ARCTIC POEMS
VICENTE HUIDOBRO
Translation by Ian Barnett



Cruz
Algo se ha quedado
Sobre las más tibias lejanías

En todas las rutas
había sangre de mis plumas
Al querer recogerlas
he visto que eran muchas

No es el Cristo que ha pasado
Lento como las horas del Oriente

Mi cruz no cargó mis espaldas
Ni vuela sobre los techos

EN LA CAMPIÑA HABÍA PUNTOS ROJOS

Mi cruz sin alas iba en mi pecho
Y no ha querido nunca cerrar los ojos

Un pájaro se quema en el ocaso
Cuántas cosas hemos olvidado

Mirando hacia la vida
He visto mi cigarro
que humea en las más tibias lejanías.

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

El Camino

The Path
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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Serpents Fountain

Fuente de las Viboras
Serpents Fountain (four serpents) by Architect Leonides Guadarrama 1964.
Chapultepec 2d Section Mexico City

To The Aztecs Quetzalcoatl was, as his name indicates, a feathered serpent, a flying reptile (much like a dragon), who was a boundary maker (and transgressor) between earth and sky. He was also a creator deity having contributed essentially to the creation of Mankind. He also had anthropomorphic forms, for example in his aspects as Ehecatl the wind god. Among the Aztecs the name Quetzalcoatl was also a priestly title, as the most two important priests of the Aztec Templo_Mayor  were called "Quetzalcoatl Tlamacazqui". In the Aztec ritual calendar, different deities were associated with the cycle of year names: Quetzalcoatl was tied to the year Ce Acatl (One Reed), which correlates to the year 1519.

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Sunset Walk

Isla Mujeres
Women Island beach, (in the background Cancun)

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 Tonight: 72nd Street Station. NYC

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Chapultepec Lake



Location of the Chapultepec Lake production of Swan Lake, a ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales as well as an ancient German legend. It tells the story of Princess Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger. Although it is presented in many different versions, most Ballet companies base their stagings both choreographically and musically on the Swan Lake 1895 of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov.

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. (Tonight: Views from Brooklyn with a taste of Dvořák.)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Searching


Ver. 2

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SELF   by Prem Rawat
IN THIS LIFE you are a solitary traveler. And if you don’t understand the nature of the journey, you will get lost, because life is the only journey that, by default, cannot go in a circle.
The agent that doesn’t allow you to go around in a circle is called time. Even if today you do exactly the same thing that you did yesterday, it won’t be yesterday. It’ll be today. And if you plan to do tomorrow exactly what you did today, it still won’t be today; it will be tomorrow. You can’t go around in circles. So where are you headed? Where is this journey of life taking you?

THE RIVER OF LIFE
There are three major events that happen: One is birth. One is existence. And you know the third one, right? Everybody knows the certainty of that one.
The river of life begins with a drop, and it stops when it merges into the ocean. I am not talking about the first drop or about the merging. I am talking about the flow. In this journey of life, you’re flowing.
I am talking about the solitary journey of a human being. This is just about you and the breath that comes into you and fulfills you. I’m talking about the kindness that you have been given that you do not see as a miracle.
It is so unfortunate that you do not see your existence as a miracle until it is too late. Bad habit. Bad idea. You can change that. You can do something about it — start to witness it.
Here is the most normal thing that happens. The most incredible normal thing. It does not even take an effort. Breath comes into you. And it fills you. With what? It fills you with life. You live. You exist. You can think, you can see, you can admire. You can touch, feel, analyze, laugh, cry. You can be a dad, a mom, a brother, a sister; you can be whatever you are. Courtesy of life. Incredible miracle. Unbelievable. And it comes and it goes. Can you feel it? Can you capture its essence — as a moment? Can you be fulfilled by it? The answer is yes.


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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. (Tonight: Soho Garden)
(At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Property

Parcela

Property: Something that is owned; A piece of real estate, such as a parcel of land; 
The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing ...
I wonder if anyone could gave a good life to his family with this kind of property.
No credits from banks
No government support
Low prices
and so on...

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities.  (Today: Atlas. Rockefeller Center)
 (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Gleam in someone's lake

Chapultepec Lake
A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing.”

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”

“An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.”

“Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.”

“A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he’s clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.”

“There’s no emptiness in the life of a warrior. Everything is filled to the brim. Everything is filled to the brim, and everything is equal.”

“All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between the average person and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this and stays alert, deliberately waiting, so that when this cubic centimeter of chance pops out, it is picked up.”

“The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.”

“For a warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesn’t use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.”

“My laughter … is real, but it is also controlled folly because it is useless; it changes nothing and yet I still choose to do it. … I am happy because I choose to look at things that make me happy…”

“The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.”

“The world is a mystery. This, what you’re looking at, is not all there is to it. There is much more to the world, so much more, in fact, that it is endless. So when you’re trying to figure it out, all you’re really doing is trying to make the world familiar. You and I are right here, in the world that you call real, simply because we both know it.” 
Carlos Castaneda

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Hailstorm






Hard hailstorm arriving yesterday in afternoon at the city by west side hills.

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Flor de Mayo / Mother's Day

From previous posts
Cosmic Mother
Friday Sunbath
Neoliberalism
Rebozo
Hopeless
Atrium
Flor de Agosto
Misty
Flor de Mayo / May Flower


An ounce  of mother is worth a ton of priest.
Spanish Proverb.

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Brand New Day


Caribbean Sea



Father and Daughgter
Rothko attack!
Ocho Tulum

Ocho Tulum

Have a great weekend!

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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Call


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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities.  (Today: St Patrick's Cathedral)

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Flor



Invisible Lady
"When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky." – Buddha
 
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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities.   (Today: Musicians in Central Park)

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Rainy Day

MiniBiker in Red
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New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities. 
 (At Least Once A Week)

Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.