176. PASSAGES. Vermont. Arthur Rubinstein once said that he preferred his native Poland to Monaco (where he spent time later in life) because in Poland the seasons are like a four part symphony, with each expressing itself fully before the next begins.
175. PASSAGES. Bennington, Vermont. Edward Hopper was fascinated with New England.
174. PASSAGES. New England. Highway 7, in the northeast corner of Massachusetts. The mountains are part of the Appalachians.
172. PASSAGES. Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Color is a language too.
171. PASSAGES. Valley Stream, Long Island. The remnants of Superstorm Sandy, which still haunts New Yorkers. This photo taken 56 days later: Christmas morning, 2012.
169. PASSAGES. Miami Beach. Hurricane Irma puts one in mind of the incredible sea and sky of this part of the world, its beauty and power.
168. Passages. Port Chester, New York. The Great Gatsby, possibly the greatest American example of literary style, is the story of a New York City commuter. A recent job had me on the train to Westchester County, which is no mere bedroom community. All of the people I met there told me that they went through a “city phase” wherein they spent all their spare time in NYC. But then they “got over it” it and now rarely visit. I saw a website with the title “18 things Only People From Westchester Understand.” A submarine sandwhich in Philly is a Hoagie, in NYC its a Hero, but in Westchester its a Wedge.
165. PASSAGES. Century City, Los Angeles. I misread the title of an article called The Color of Wealth in Los Angeles (discussing wealth by race), and thought it said The Color Wealth of Los Angeles. Not to denigrate a serious topic, but color is one of the riches of LA. Maybe its the nonstop sunshine, but even the gritty parts of LA seem light, bright and pastel, especially to an eye accustomed to the beautiful grime of New York city. Coastal communities often paint their buildings in bright colors–to be more visible to the returning boats I am told. One can’t forget the Latin American heritage of LA; it reminds me of Mexico, which to a Northerner comes off as an electric color culture.
164. PASSAGES. Georgetown, Washington DC. A historic neighborhood that predates the formation of DC. It reminds me of Charleston SC, but any place with a whiff of Confederate architecture reminds me of Charleston. Washington is on the dividing line between the Northeast and the Confederate South–two cultures that are polar opposites. With its restless political energy, with Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay just down the road, Washington is a city full of beautiful contradictions.
163. PASSAGES. Washington, DC. Being an inveterate traveler develops some unconventional measures of the world. For example, I have long believed that a good measure of a region’s wealth is the amount of electric light it can afford to waste on decoration. I have seen small towns in the developing world where a sole flourescant bulb in the village square after dark is the extent of it. One reads statistics about the USA being the world’s biggest economy, but statistics are abstract and unreal. Take a tour of the DC monuments at night to understand the wealth and resources of this country.
162. PASSAGES. Washington, DC. With its wide, breezy avenues and epic public buildings, DC puts one in mind of New Delhi. The National Mall brings back fond memories of the area around India Gate. DC also looks a little like Paris in places, possibly because the city planner for modern Washington was a Parisian who left art school to join the American Revolution, taking sides with the “rebelling colonials”.
153. PASSAGES. Singapore. A city state with a look all its own. The gloom was a result of something called the “2015 Southeast Asian Haze”. From Wikipedia: The 2015 Southeast Asian haze was an air pollution crisis affecting several countries in Southeast Asia. It was the latest occurrence of the Southeast Asian haze, a long-term issue that occurs during every dry season in the region. It is caused by forest fires resulting from illegal slash-and-burn practices, principally on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan.
151. PASSAGES. Charlotte, North Carolina. I doubt a picture says a thousand words, but a picture certainly can cause a thousand words. I read an article recently where the author argued that on the scale of safety versus liberty, the USA leans heavily toward liberty. In 1776 this country decided to step out of the mainstream of Occidental civilization and go it alone. As an immigrant from a British colony, I am only beginning to understand the place, but my affection for it grows despite the overheated rhetoric that images like the above provoke. “This country is hard on people” is a line from No Country for Old Men, another uncomfortable snapshot of America.
148. PASSAGES. Valley Stream, Long Island. Taken six weeks after Hurricane Sandy 25 miles from Manhattan. This quiet suburban street didn’t make the news because it was nothing compared to what happened in Gerritsen Beach or Breezy Point. New York is difficult enough without superstorms.
147. PASSAGES. Montreal. I have long believed that islands make the most interesting cultures. Something about isolation, and without the ability to sprawl island cultures tend to concentrate rather than dissipate. An analogy is Peter O’toole telling Charlie Rose that it is better to deepen rather than broaden for an actor to achieve more powerful effects. Quebec is an island of eight million Francophones in Anglo North America. It is both Europe and North America, yet something else completely. In the art of living it is certainly a step above.
146. PASSAGES. The Berkshires, Massachusetts. This wooded, mountainous region is revered by Northeasterners. Even the names around here have a Northeastern sound: the Taconic Mountains, the “marble valleys of the Hoosic River”, the Hudson Highlands, and all of it bordered by “Metacomet Ridge geology”. The Berkshire mountain ranges were formed 500 million years ago when Africa collided with North America. Imagine that.
144. PASSAGES. Saint Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Christopher Columbus “sighted” this island in 1493. The photo has an odd look, more like a studio setup with a fake background than an extemporanious landscape. Speaking of which, for some of the best studio-for-outdoors shots, take a look at Fellini’s La Dolce Vita for the scenes on (an entirely constructed) Via Veneto. The word iconic is thrown around a lot these days, but Anouk Aimee and Marcello Mastroianni in black and white at Cinecitta? Spettacolare.
143. PASSAGES. Quintana Roo, Mexico. Who says digital cameras can’t render like analog? Taken on a cheap DSLR with a plastic lens. The image would have lost something with better equipment. What did that Canadian Marshall Mcluhen say? The medium is the message?
142. PASSAGES. Bailiwick of Jersey, Channel Islands. Nothing located in the frigid and rainy English Channel could resemble the pacific climate of the Mediterranean, but some glimpses of Jersey put one in mind of Monaco. They are both famous European tax havens. Who’s counting, but the yachts are far bigger on the Cote d’Azur.
141. PASSAGES. Bailiwick of Jersey, Channel Islands. One of a group of islands off the coast of Normandy. Not quite English, not quite French, modern but with traces of old world European charm. It is one of the worlds “leading offshore financial centers”. Its climate is far more temperate than what you would expect in the English Channel.