![A market in Feria, Costa Rica. [Photo by Tom Roberts]](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2008/03/tom_roberts_feria_500pix.jpg "A market in Feria, Costa Rica. [Photo by Tom Roberts]")
A market in Feria, Costa Rica. [Photo by Tom Roberts]
There’s more snow and ice here this morning. A stroll through a farmer’s market in the Tropic of Cancer would be a welcome respite. Thanks, Tom! Tell us more.
About the Flaneur
![Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
I walk through my blindness the way I wander down streets in Paris: unfettered and alive, alert to the raw material of the senses. I am a flaneur. Come along with me. Just don’t try to take my arm, unless I ask. What’s a flaneur? Read the first post, Return of the Flaneur to Galerie Vivienne. After that, try Foot Rage and the Blind Flaneur. Then stay tuned.Kiki: Man Ray’s Dada Muse
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s Le violin de Ingres (1924). See more from Imaging Paris.Lee Miller: Surrealist Muse
Lee Miller traced a meteoric trajectory from flapper fashionista to surrealist muse. She played the Statue in Jean Cocteau's first movie. Picasso painted her portrait. She apprenticed with Man Ray and later became a noted war photographer for British Vogue. Read more.Miss Tic: Paris Street Art
Poet and street artist Miss Tic isn't exactly a kid in a hoodie with a can of spray paint. Maybe she can still run like hell when the police show up, but can she sprint in high heels? Well-known in international avant-garde circles, her work is exhibited now at the Venice Biennale as well as the alleys of Paris. Read more. See Ethics of Love for a video montage of Miss Tic's provacative poetry. More Paris Street Art.
The Lake and the River
![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
I’ve canoed on Lake Superior for almost as many years as I’ve been losing eyesight. I return year after year like a migrating loon to learn the other side of a slow, uncertain process that we could call “going blind.” After 35 years with the lake as my teacher, I know what lies on the other side. I call it letting go of sight. Read Big Water. See more about the Great Lakes.
What is a village? A small place, yes, as wide as the world, layered with histories and stories, where you can walk wherever you want to go. My vision of that place is Yellow Springs 2.0.
Not This Pig
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in Not This Pig (2003).Blind Photographers
In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in New York, the social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it. Paul Strand probably didn’t give her much credit for making culture, either. Read more: Curiosity & The Blind Photographer [MiT5 2007] See more on blind photographers.BottomFeeder U.S.A.
![Grant Wood. Parson Weem’s’ Fable. 1939. Amon Carter Museum, Forth Worth.. Steven Biel describes the painting: “Parson Weems, imitating Charles Willson Peale’s pose in The Artist in His Museum (1822), opens a red velvet curtain on the legendary scene: Augustine Washington, elegant in crimson coat, white ruffle, tan breeches, silver-buckled pumps, and green tricornered hat, grasps in his right hand the slim trunk of the bent cherry tree. A row of cherries dangles from the perfectly rounded treetop, mirroring the very cherry-like fringe of the Parson’s curtain. Augustine’s outstretched left palm and furrowed brow signal a serious inquiry. His son George, boyish in stature and dress—coatless, with sky-blue breeches and petite buckled pumps—is manly in his expression. In fact, his white-wigged head is that of Gilbert Stuart’s portrait and the dollar bill. He points with his right hand to the hatchet in his left. Wood chips lie in the circle of soil at the base of the tree, its lower trunk smoothly incised and poised to split off. In the background, a well-dressed slave couple harvests the fruit of a second tree.” [Alt Text Source: Common-Place/ http://www.common-place.org/vol-06/no-04/biel/ ]](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2011/08/grant_wood_parson_weems_fable_200px.jpg "grant_wood_parson_weems_fable_200px")
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Hi Mark,
This feria (market) is every Saturday in the city, Heredia, which is about 10 miles from San Jose, the capital. This photo is one corner of a sprawling produce, fish and meat market embracing about two city blocks. One fruit and vegetable stand is equally enticing as another. More than 75% of the produce is grown within a fifteen mile radius of the market in some of richest volcanic soil in the world, similar to Hawaii’s, and the varying altitudes allow for a wide variety of produce, including some usually confined to more temperate regions. The little sodas (diners) around here serve incredible little meals with everything fresh. The central valley of Costa Rica is the macrobiotic dieter’s dream come true.
Mmm… sounds good. What is the local specialty for beans and rice?
The local specialty for beans and rice is “el casado.” Almost every restaurant and local soda serves its own version, usually comprised of one meat (fish, chicken or pork), black or red beans, rice, fried platanos (plantains), a salad with vinegar and some type of vegetable. The perfect drink with a casado is a “betido,” a smoothie made with a fresh tropical fruit milk and ice. Some of the exotic fruits here can`t be found anywhere in the continental U.S., like-guanabana, tamarindo and guayaba. Over the years, Kimberly and I have tried casados in restaurants throughout Costa Rica. The most exotic (and poetic) restaurant we’ve discovered is in the mountains near the small town Turrialba. The name of the restaurant is El Posado de la luna. The owner, who is about 90 years old has been in business since the 50′s. The restaurant serves a fresh, hot corn tortilla as large and thick as a Canadian pancake. It tastes like fresh sweet corn, and you dip it in sour cream.
I think you have a great page here… today was my first time coming here.. I just happened to find it doing a google search. anyway, good post.. I’ll be bookmarking this page for sure.
Hey! Would you mind if I share your blog with my twitter group? There’s a lot of folks that I think would really appreciate your content. Please let me know. Many thanks
Please do, Stefanie. Thanks!