Kathmandu- Durbar Square

Not gonna lie- I'm pretty proud of this shot.  Especially considering I took it without a tripod.  Steady hands, ya'll.  Let me surgery you.

Anyway.  Once a great temple complex, Durbar Square in Kathmandu has become a hectic evening market frequented by tourists, locals, and cows.  The cows, incidentally, did not seem so happy or healthy.  Lie down-stand up-poop-take a step-lie down.  There's a mental image to go with this e-tangible one- they complement each other, no?

Still Pretty Damn Kinetic, Still Pretty Damn Kensington

Maybe you did fool the Philadelphia, rag the Rochester, josh the Joliet.  But you never did the Kensington kid.  You?  Never!  Did the Kensignton kid?*

Come with me, if you will, back into my time machine to the year 2010 where we are still a blissful year from Judgement Day and enjoying some kinetic sculpture ("sculpture").

I have to assume these guys totally envisioned how it would look to drag "Real Healthcare Reform" and "Single Payer Insurance" through the muck (of partisan politics? of powerful lobbyists?  of OMFG SOCIALIST!! scaremongering?)- its just too apt.  Although their analogy kinda falls apart when the guy labelled "insurance company" tries to help.

And how is that coulrophobia coming along?

*Big ups to anyone who gets this reference (no google, dammit!).  Boyfriend is excluded because ostensibly he pays attention to what I read.

Kinetic in Kensington

Photos from the Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby, which was last weekend.  Wait, you say, I was at the derby and/or in the vicinity of Philadelphia last Saturday and the weather was ridiculously awesome with nary a hint of cloud, let alone drizzle- there must be shenanigans happening here!  You'd be right.  I could not attend this year's iteration, so I humbly substitute these never-before-seen-because-I'm-lazy shots from the 2010 edition.  Paste on some blue sky, and I'm pretty sure no one would know the difference...there is a lot of beer floating around at that event.

Gilded Age

Swayambhunath, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Freude trinken alle Wesen: A five-year debt paid!

Today I saw the Chapter Eleven Players (or, the Philadelphia Orchestra) play Beethoven's Ninth.

(That's right its another mountain picture.  The very one from my banner, no less, and in a post that's not even about mountains.  But I think you can see the connection, definitely in my mind, but also objectively, between mountains, Beethoven, and the Ninth.)

It is difficult for me to convey exactly how much I love this piece of music.  Its approaching Clockwork-Alex levels of visceral response, but that brings in...uh, understatement of the century...unpleasant connotations that I don't want.  Anyway.  In discussions of classical music, my Dad is often getting after me for ranking Beethoven above Bach in the tally of the Grand Three.  And I grant him his argument- Bach, as does Mozart, makes exceptional music; beautiful, memorable, and skilled-beyond-par.  But there is something about Beethoven that just socks me right in the gut (in a good way, of course)- his music is evocative, from the inspirational power of the symphonies to the wistful piano sonatas (the second movement of the Pathetique gets me every. time.), Beethoven plows into my neurons and knocks their socks off.

And the Ninth pretty much exemplifies the whole range- I've got goosebumps from the first murmurings of those strings in the first movement and a stupid grin plastered on my face from the first hint of the Ode to Joy theme in the fourth.  Its interesting (string recitatives?  second movement scherzo? dissonant instrumental rejection of prior themes?), its memorable, it has an explicit enlightenment, humanist message (brotherly love, doncha know) and its just...happy.  Joyful, even. 

But back to that "debt" thing from the header.  You see, I tried to see this once before.  Well, technically I did see it, but it wasn't the experience I hoped for.  Five years ago, the PhilOrch played this at the Mann Center, our outdoor grass-seating amphitheater, and it was going to be the perfect first viewing of the Ninth live- romantic picnic, fireworks, summer air, a view of the city.  Just perfect.  But boyfriend dawdled after his training ride and failed to meet me there before the gates closed.  I sat through the whole performance and the fireworks, alone with a picnic, lonely and fuming, surrounded by happy couples and families.  Boyfriend lurked somewhere outside the fence.  Ever since, boyfriend has owed me the Ninth.  We even debated driving up to NYC.  But this year our poor, sad, broke orchestra put it in their season and it was just as incredible as I hoped it would be.  Boyfriend- your debt is officially paid.

The Bleakest Park in the World

Nothing says come play in me like crumbling cement umbrellas, numerous trash piles (some still burning!) being picked over by crows, stray dogs, not a single child or recreationing human, and copious large-particulate smog.  Oh, and just off-screen is a metal slide with a large, jagged gash down the middle and a rough, rough dump-out of a landing.  Boyfriend went down it.  No tetanus or blood, but he did get really dirty which is a bigger problem than you think in a city without trustworthy water.

I always feel like a need to include a disclaimer in posts like this to aver that I'm not "judging" a country like Nepal for not having the resources for municipal upkeep, but its not like American (or European) cities have anything like pristine infrastructure.  Its flashy and politically beneficial to build it, but maintaining it?  Shit, that's for pinko commies. 

Crater Lake...so close, yet so far.

This image infuriates me.  I feel like it is so close to being really compelling, but there is something off compositionally.  Have made many assaults on it in photoshop, trying to punch up this area or that, or alter the exposure, the contrast, the saturation, etc but to no avail.  It just ends up losing the dreamy, ethereal quality of the raw image without gaining any *pop*.  So I give up- I send this thing out into the world in its untouched state, good but not great.

As far as the scene itself- man, it was beautiful.  This mist was just tumbling down off the southwest rim and the lake itself was a frigid, steely blue and everything had a thick coating of hoarfrost that sparkled in the sun...even the snowshoeing couldn't detract. 

Joy.

Mani stone and an unnamed peak in Dole, Nepal.  This was the first day (our sixth on the trail, 11th in the country) that the lingering monsoon lifted enough for me to actually see mountains.  I woke up around just before 5am, saw not-clouds, and busted right out of bed with my camera and down jacket.  And it was beautiful.

Fortuitous Fuck-up

Sometimes the photos that don't come out as you planned or aren't as technically proficient turn out better than originally envisioned.  Take this- I was trying to shoot the junk boats (I believe this one was departing for a river tour) in Hong Kong at night.  I was going for a standard long-exposure, but forgot to take the flash off, so I ended up with this surrealish double-expsoure.  Pleasingly evocative of the lights, colors, and movement of the Hong Kong harbor and would be hard to reproduce.

Random Pretty Sunset

Just cause it's pretty.

In Philly, taken from my roof.

Can you Digs it?

Today is my brother's birfday!  Huzzah!

My present to him is this reminder of a wonderful day and his (and my) favorite mountain-

From our campsite on our first night on the Timberline Trail, the 43-mileish circumnavigation of Mt. Hood.  This is right near Mudd Fork River, looking up at the west face at sunset.  This was a great day- beautiful trails, easy river fords (don't think my feet even got wet!), 16 miles covered, happy times. 

Partway down the Elliot Glacier moraine, which the previous year had been plowed by a major landslide, looking up at the north face.  Here is a reminder of a less happy day...I popped my thermarest in a blowdown, there were some moderately frightening (and frigid) glacial river crossings, I got some bonkers heal blisters, and towards the end of the day we were confronted with this washout between us and the campsite.  Now, on the near side there was a rope to facilitate the descent of the steep and unstable moraine wall, mostly sand and ash dotted here and there with large boulders that were far from solidly buried.  So the descent was no prob.  But instead of assuming that there would also be a rope on the far side (I honestly don't think it even occurred to us...not our best moment), we decided to scramble up.  It was very much a two-steps-up, one-and-a-half-steps-back, one-wrong-step-and-you-fall-thirty-feet-into-the-river kind of thing, plus the unseating of the aforementioned boulders and a constant geysering of ash and dust directly into lungs.  Kinda rough for the end of a long day backpacking.  I think it was around 8pm when we finally made it to the camp (which, it turned out, was still about a mile away and did not have water).  Not the happiest of days, but y'know, adventure!  Sibling bonding!  General epicness!

Anyway, happy birthday bro!  I can't wait until our next mountainy adventure (much soonness!).

It's a mystery!

 

Blogger was mysteriously down for the count yesterday, but that's okay cause I was out having funs last night anyway.  Here is another mystery- what makes holes (with doors!) in the sandstone of the California desert?  This is about halfway between Death Valley and Las Vegas, and there were similar domicile-looking holes in all of the other rock outcroppings within about a half mile radius.  It is not and never was (at least not on anything but a geologic time scale) a hospitable place to live.  There was no signage, nothing on our detailed "places of cultural and geographic interest"-oriented map, nothing at all for miles around.  When did people live here?  Why did people live here?  It's a mystery!

You can't beat this view...

Waking up to this renders illness, altitude, drafty plywood box, and the soon-to-be-viewed yelling, naked British man almost irrelevant as far as inner bliss is concerned.

From my sleeping bag in Gokyo, Nepal.

Great Mosque- Xi'an

The ceiling of a pavilion in the Great Mosque of Xi'an.  I found it interesting how unified these decorative motifs were throughout China.  The same style, the same symbols, the same rich red-green-blue-gold color palette- on every mosque, temple, and imperial palace.  Now, much of this might have been done or enhanced in recent years in fits of nationalism, but the carvings here are certainly old.

Limited Liability Country

Warning: unusually high word content.  This picture takes some elaboration to be interesting.


In my travels, I have noticed some countries take a much more lax attitude toward personal safety and organizational/corporate liability than Ol' Uptight Amurrica the Litigious.  Probably the best example of this is Russia, where things like traffic laws and regulations about what you can do while drunk seem to be considered unbearably sissy. 

But Nepal had its moments too, and I mean that in a manner distinct from totally understandable resource limitations.  Take the Kathmandu zoo.  This picture is emblematic- the best way to feed a rhino, by all accounts a dangerous, aggressive, territorial, and unpredictable animal, is obviously to just stick a guy with a bucket in his habitat, one half-assed rhino-charge away.  Obviously.

But wait, you say, maybe that rhino was entirely predictable.  Maybe it had been there for decades and had never shown the slightest bit of aggression.  Maybe it was best friends with that bucket-wielder and they had lunch together every day.  Maybe it was a paraplegic and was hiding in the water because it was embarrassed about its condition, okay?  Back off, you insensitive jerk! 

And I will back off; I will grant you the paraplegic rhino.  But lets just say the "enclosures" here don't really enclose much.  A dozen kinds of springy antelope or deer-like species?  How about a ground level paddock with a fence about five feet high?  Wolves, bears, cougars, and all manner of predator-types?  How about some cages with bars easily hand-with apart?  Boyfriend, would you like to stick your hand in the Himalayan bear's cage and try to pet it?  Of course you would!  Little bite-size children, shall you do the same?  Why not?

You might take from the tone of the paragraphs that I condemn these policies and animal-retention designs, but you would be wrong.  Amused, yes.  But I rather like the responsibility for one's safety in this situation being on one's own shoulders.  Its up to me to assess the likelihood of that bear going berserk and biting my hand off.  Empowerment!

(Pixellated) Flowers for my Mum

Yes, it is a virtual bouquet, but on the plus side a) no flowers were harmed in the making of this Mother's Day gift, and b) didn't have to propagate the hallmarky consumery grossness of this most sacred day.  I took this picture in Suzhou garden, on a day that was actually rather strife-filled and unhappy for me.  But it was my Mom (and, I guess, boyfriend) that cheered me back up and let me enjoy and remember all the aspects of the day (and there were many) that weren't unpleasant and strife-filled.  My mother is simply a good person- compassionate, empathetic, giving, and supportive.  All qualities I hope to have should I pass on these genes to another generation.  Yep, I said it- I want to be like my Mum.

I love you Mom!  Happy Mother's Day.

Fearful Puppetry

Those are some bleak marionettes, non?

Beautiful Symmetry

The cavern known as “the Crystal Palace of the Dragon King” in Reed Flute Cave of Guilin, China. This small corner of the enormous cavern (once used as an air raid shelter in WWII) is lit to mimic the limestone karsts dotting the city above.  I'm actually surprised by how clearly this shot came out, given that I was crouching on the floor and being jostled by the herd of tourists.

The Primrose Path

In the Yosemite backcountry.

If wishes were fishes...

We'd all be out of luck, as my childhood friend liked to say during her ichthyophobic stage.  No reason to fear these guys though (apart from the fact that they are actually stone and so not fish at all barring a Gargoyles-type situation).  No, these are decidedly Good Fish (...two fish, bad fish, blue fish)- the two golden fishes of Buddhist symbology.  One of the eight auspicious symbols, they represent fearlessness in the face of the Ocean of Human Suffering (Samsara, or the continuous cycle of life).  Also freedom, movement, fertility, abundance, and the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.  Busy fishies!

Taken at Swayambhunath temple complex, Kathmandu, Nepal.

PIFAbulous

More shots from the show.

La Compagnie Transe Express

PIFA- Which I believe stands for, "Paris In Filladelphia? Arrrgh!" or something like that*, closed yesterday with a fantabulous performance by La Compagnie Transe Express- acrobatics and music on a mobile-like contraption, suspended by crane over a packed (packed) Broad St.

This was a fiendishly difficult event to photograph.  Apart from the standards (night, distance), there was constant motion and a tendency for all of the compositional elements to spread waaaaay far out (the structure bloomed outwards, such that the musicians were all on points of an eight-point star) so that a) there was a lot less light to go round and b) they just didn't combine in compelling ways very often.

So you will just have to take my word for it that this was a really spectacular, unique show.  Actually, you should take this youtube video's word for it, because as cool as the apparatus, the acrobatics, and even the location was, it was the music that made it.  Ethereal, whimsical and ever so French.


*In reality it is, as you might guess, the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.  First annual, perhaps?  All I know is that is intended to celebrate the creative explosion of early 20th century Paris, specifically the 100 year anniversary of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (and its accompanying riot).