wouldn’t!! welcome, everyone– here it is, the morning after rina danced into our lives. it’s been a somewhat chaotic week, first finding that we were right in the sights of the hurricane, and then everyone in town frantically boarding up their houses and businesseswhen it became clear that really really REALLY it was coming this way. canned goods flew off grocery shelves, everyone trying to buy their booze before the “dry law” came into effect, it was quite dizzy for a fact!!the day before rina came– well, really it almost seemed like the day before the day before her, as at that time we were still expecting impact on thursday morning– and the air was sodden and still, nothing much happening and the ocean like a pewter plate spattered with the occasional raindrop. i walked the streets like a character in a parallel universe movie, nobody to be seen anywhere, last person alive and all that.any number of scenarios played through my head as i made my normal roamin through the gloamin morning walkabout. but it was still a cool and shivery feeling to stand in the gazebo on the zocalo– the plaza– and see nobody at all, except for the three policemen, sitting on a bench. “dintcha know that there was a curfew?” asked a couple of friends of mine, but it was really more of a suggestion from the authorities, and besides which– who could resist such a plum opportunity to shoot some interesting photos?feeling a little “on the beach”-ey only intensified the vision-like quality of the morning.but about then rina seemed to develop a run in her stocking– as a category 3 hurricane it had been pounding down towards us like a pack of malevolent clydesdales on PCP, but then there were sudden signs of weakening– first it was going to turn into a category 1 just before it arrived, and after it left it would turn into a simple tropical storm. i almost felt disappointed– ALMOST!! not only that, but– no surprise!! rina was running late. typical. thursday dawned gloomy and without much to speak of, weather-wise. no wind, no nuthin’. i took a turn through the barrio in the early afternoon just to stretch my legs at the delay– now rina was going to be a mere tropical storm by the time it got here, so no worries, mate!! the drizzle began to pick up though. i watched a couple of movies in the afternoon and the drizzle picked up and picked up and got steady and strong, raining like it came from a machine in your basic torrential manner. i heard we got six and a half inches of rain, which reminds me of a rude joke that i shall NOT share. during dinner there was a little snap of light and suddenly KA-BOOM!! and KEE-RASH!! the thunderboomers began, without prelude. my cats levitated, turned on their axes and disappeared, leaving tiny puffs of smoke behind, headed for their hideaways. the power went out once and then twice, and i turned off the final movie and went to bed.in the morning there wasn’t all that much destruction, some branches in the streets etc. the city has been working on the drainage, and with some results– not nearly as many flooded streets as there would have been in the past, although in some areas it looked a little deepish. people were picking up and bailing out and the mercado was opening for whoever needed some veggies or an avocado. now rina has not really left us, as it appears to be curling around like the tail of a scorpion to come back our way. i seriously doubt whether it will sting us this time though, she’s just a tropical depression now, but i didn’t see too many signs of depression in the streets this morning– nope, everyone was enjoying another day in our little tropical paradise.

in fact, most bodily fluids get massaged into or spewed upon a sculpture as it moves from block form to a finished state– i guess that i haven’t ever peed upon the sucker though, and as for…..– well, i have heard that pre-christ christians used to have orgies and then “baste” their idols with their precious bodily fluids. although this is an interesting image and notion, i haven’t done that either. yet.offseason has sortuv descended early upon the island, and so after my morning walkabout, where i have been shooting pictures, i end up in my sculpture studio. i’ve been getting mega-hours in there, concentrated and intense hours, and i have been doing some great carving, unfortunately it may well be wasted upon the viewing audience, as for the most part i have been churning away along the side of the “matrix” area– the part of the sculture that the lower form is embedded in. i have been moving a fair amount of stone, and making these sides a sortuv sculpture in themselves– causing it to undulate and slither like the reptile woman in the peep show at the carnival.it has a definite movement and flow. now, if i could only figure out what i am going to do with all these quarry holes– when they mine these blocks for sculpture, or even just for cutting into tiles, they first drill a row of holes in the stone before “snapping” it off along this line.in this photo you can perchance see five out of the six holes that formed this line. i guess i can fill them up, but they are going to show somewhat i am sure. my current thinking is to fill them, but to immerse the work in sand when it is finally shown, to a depth enough to cover them up for the most part. this area will be textured with a “frosting” tool or tools, which look somewhat similar to a meat tenderiser, either on the head of a hammer or on the end of a chisel, and it gives a coarse texture.as i say, the carving itself has been very good, and i have been going to town on it. here, underneath the head of the lower figure, is a piece whose design i used some gaudi-like notions on– i read an old british magazine a year or two ago that spoke of how he arrived at some of his organic designs. fascinating, it lodged in my brain somewhere and suddenly there it was spewing out, bubbling out, flowing out– the stone cut easily in there, something it doesn’t do everywhere along this bottom part. i think that the heat from the drill bits (even though they use a lubricant/cooler– looks a little like a wax to me, as some of it is still lodged inside those holes) has affected the crystaline structure in there in places, making the stone flaky and unpredictable– stone doesn’t have a “grain” similar to wood, but it does indeed have a way it likes to be cut, only it can change suddenly as you go from one spot to another. i went all the way around the piece, and am doing at least a partial second pass along the sides, refining and modulating, incorporating the ideas that i have evolved during this orbit.but the terror is growing in that little studio behind the blue iron gate at rancho rance-o– this piece is slowly edging its’ way towards completion. when i am finished doing the sides of the matrix area, there are a few little jobs remaining– some repair work, or i guess you could call it fixing up problems which have always been a part of this chunk of marble– a wild quarry hole, for one. but then, then, then it will be time to begin the actual finishing of the stone. this is frightening enough, as you can just imagine all that surface area i must sand– over and over again, with finer and finer grades of paper– i am going to lose almost all the skin on my fingers in doing this, not looking forward to it. but what the hell am i going to do when it is all over? by the time i finish with it, sometime next year i calculate, i shall have lived with it for about 20 years (i bought it and drug it home in january of 1992!!!)– more than a third of my life, if you want to be melodramatic, and my life will be changed when i put the last coat of wax on parts of the surface. mind you, i haven’t worked upon it for all that time– i have had other projects, many sculptures for instance, and my jewellery/drawings/paintings/all the rest of the shit i do, plus i damaged my back somewhat at one time, working on it, very painful and a lot of rehab to restore it to the state it is now (not fabu, but i can live with it), so i put it down for a while. when i was selling my house and moving down here there was a further hiatus– BUT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE, BEGGING AND GOADING ME, ALL THAT TIME!! what will i do when it is done. a tickle of fear creeps up my spine at times, thinking about it.but enough of my fears, i’m just being obsessive, as is my wont. one thing i have been doing of late is putting together another folder for my photobucket site– this one all about cozumel, and there are quite a few good images in there. i think you could access it by going to www.photobucket.com and looking up my files via my user name– ranceroo– try it out, won’t you? tired now, i didn’t expect to write this all in one session, but i guess i was ready to put cyberpen to cyberpaper and spew. will talk to you again in the not too distant future i hope

THESE ARE NOT ACTORS!! THEY ARE REAL PEOPLE!!

well, the long-anticipated and waited-for trip to isla mujeres has come and gone– i’ve been back for over a week now, and am just now finding a little time in which to write about the experience. but perhaps “experience” is not the right word, as i had taken trips out of holbox to see the whale sharks in the past, but i had heard that it was somewhat different. and i HAD tried last year to check it out– take a look at my old blog “awwww, ratzzz!!”– maybe not quite spelt that way, but you get the idea. still, isla mujeres had been a good time for me, and so i took heart and decided to check it out again.

and so i left cozumel, trailing a variety of people– the sharkbaiters as i call them, little buncha people out of iowa, my girlfriend lynda and several other odds and sods– the ferry to the mainland, then by bus to cancun, and taxi to the second ferry over to the island– a matter of about maybe 3 hours really, although it might seem a little longer coming back all tuckered out. much more convenient than holbox, although not quite the same “feel”– holbox laid back, a tetch dumpy and much more comfortable– isla mujeres a bunch more uptempo, a little higher scale dumpy in my opinion, but also interesting to walk the streets of. once again i stayed at the world-famous hotel d’gomar, as did all the other victims, assembled here for the “official crew shot”well, mayhap not quite WORLD famous….

beverages optional, repeatedly optional. some chips that had obviously lain in someone’s store window since the gettysburg address and assorted other munchies. everyone left alone for almost an hour until it was time to go looking for some dinner– “la lomita” or some such, i remembered it from the last visit, and the black bean soup as fine as ever, also the fish tacos and a couple of bottles of something cold. the service not exactly the ritz, nine people putting the waiter a little “in the weeds”, but plenty of laughter to make up for anything.

i was up early the next morning to test the coolth of the sand betwixt me toes, take a look around the island and relax, aided and abetted by one of the famed sharkbaiters (truth be told, THE bull goose looney sharkbaiter hisself!!), and then up on the roof of d’gomar’s pile to shoot the town while the sun began to leap up out of the blue ocean– the water so shallow it is quite teal for long distances, courtesy of all that bright sand.

8:00 a.m. and we arrived at the pier, shipshape and ready to rumble. the boat and boat captain i had anticipated not there, but rather another, captained by toro (bull), driven by cholas (this means “mestizo” or “half caste”, but i was informed that in the vernacular it referred to the size of his head, which was of grand proportion indeed, a true yucatecan head. as a sidebar though, my most enduring– not to mention endearing– memory of cholas was when he leaned over to rig a rope at the bow and blessed us all with a huge “plumber’s butt” of truly EPIC proportions!!), his son. two stroke motor though, and plenty of burned oil smell, but i was to find both of the crew to be quite adept and helpful and easy to get along with– they knew their stuff and i was impressed with how they handled things– the boat and all the snorkelling etc.

bang bang bang!! went the boat, a launch, as we revved it along, heading out to see the whale sharks– hard on the kidneys, and reminiscent of why i don’t much head out to dive on fast boats too much these days. a shorter trip than from holbox though, and toro kept telling me how much superior the clarity of the water was than coming out of holbox– i had a good memory of how cloudy and green that water could be, and was excited to see the whale sharks in their entirety (of course, i have been recently informed that the boats coming out of holbox go further, out of the gulf waters, and also enter into the clearer caribbean depths, don’t want to give the wrong impression here). it took a total of about an hour and twenty minutes to reach the site. and there they were, one or two at first, and some of us jumped into the water and pedalled around with the whale sharks. just small groups, twos and threes, to keep the stress from the sharks to a minimum– but the feel of being in the water with such magnificent animals immensely satisfying– they seem to be motoring along in a mellow manner, but one can only keep up with them for a couple of seconds before they slide on past, wagging their large-scale tails behind them. to see them in the clear water was like a magical opening into another dimension, hard to believe that you were actually there, having it happen up close and personal. i took as much advantage of my turns as possible (pain in the front of my ankles all week, i kicked so hard, making finning as a guide this last week somewhat of a trial– but worth every moment!!), we all did, finally wearing out and lolling back on the boat cushions as the boat turned round and made for port once again. we’d seen something in the range of 50-60 “wee beasties”.
sandwiches were served, basic whale shark launch lunch, but later there was some decent ceviche closer to land, even better when we spiced it up with some good habaneros picados.

unfortunately i had to return to cozumel that afternoon, some prior engagements, and as i mentioned earlier, the trip back seemingly considerably longer, but the weariness leavened considerably by being able to stop in at our fave east indian food place in cancun and chow down on something curry. however, the sharkbaiters stayed behind and went out again the next day, reporting an even better time– this time the motor was a 4 stroke and not so hard on the lungs or stomach.

and there you are– isla, your whale sharks left me agape, mouth wide open, wanting to go back for more– in time, in a little time……

or at least, there should be some organ music accompanying this little blog, as it is more of an inspirational thing that i am writing about today, and to be quite above board here i should also tip my do-rag in the general direction of firesign theater for the title above.it’s a nasty rainy morning on the island today, and i wasn’t exactly disappointed to find out that the port had been closed– i was already WET all over from getting rained upon when i dropped a regulator off for a tune-up and picked up my nitrox tanks from the fill place– HOME, JAMES!! was my thought, and i changed into warm dry duds when i got here. i wanted to work on some waxes, but every time i sat down in there i did just that– sit– and so i have let it go for the day, deciding to get some other stuff done.

this last week i went out to work for a friend of mine in town, who uses my help when things get a little busy, or she needs something special done. jorge (the other divemaster) and i were to go out and guide some people from a dive shop called, i think, saguaro divers out of arizona (as much as i have a great memory, names somehow escape me), along with another divemaster dude called flash, who had a smaller, but affiliated, group. nine peeps in our group, composed of 5 regular divers and 4 quadrapalegic divers. first, i must explain that i was as dumb as a stick here, i had always ASSUMED (and we all know what “assume” does, no? makes an ass of u and me!!) that the term quadrapalegic meant that the person had no use of all four limbs– however, i was soon to find out that in reality it refers to the point in the spine where the spinal cord was cut/damaged. all four divers had some use of their hands, and one was able to walk, although with a little care.

getting them all aboard and off the boat into the water, back into the boat and then dropping them at thier pier took a little learning, but one of the first things i found out about them was that there was not a whiner in the bunch– they were all pretty darn motivated and easy to deal with. each had his/her own handler, to help them with the actual act of diving, but two of them pretty much did their own diving with little or no assistance.i dove all week with these people, in conditions ranging from easy to downright dangerous, and they were all first class clients, full of sass and good cheer. now, i don’t want to homilise about this, but i was truly impressed with their vigor and courage, the way that they interacted with their handlers– who, i should mention, were perfectly splendid men and women in their own right– insert sounds of applause here– and the way that they all kept putting themselves out there, pushing the envelope as it were. i was humbled and impressed. i salute them from the heart!!

after the five days i was tuckered out and ready for some serious kicking back, but late in the afternoon i got a call from another dive shop– they had a sudden call for a night dive, and could i come and help them out PLEEEEEEZE? sigh. all right.

oog. 23 divers and 4 divemasters on one boat. i had six people and we jumped where we usually get out of the water, as the current was running backwards. they didn’t mention that it was also sortuv raging out there– ZZZZOOOOMMMM!! not much time for stopping, but we did find a lot of big crabbage, plenty of lobsters, a couple of octopus, some toadfish and, right at the end, a beautiful large squid. what formed a constant during the tank was the huge gi-normous school of silversides– small fish– that were everywhere– so many of them ran into me that at times it was like being peppered with buckshot!! beautiful and sparkley and moving like an ephemeral mood at times, shifting in and out of view, it formed a little optical illusion as background for the tank.

it was 10:30 by the time i was driving back home again, and i passed by palapitas, a local place on the beach, where i knew the saguaro cats were all having themselves a ball, but i was squoze dry by then, and i just waved as i passed on by– thanks for the memories, you peeps– hope to see you again!!

i have been trapped in a circular wordbooker problem, and had to call in the BIG GUN– ms jo lynn, who proceeded to make her magic and so hopefully this little bloggeroo will make it all the way to the facebook page.

BUT!! this means that my last REAL blog– as opposed to all those other ones that i wrote, explaining why the blog hadn’t shown up on the facebook page, which i have consigned to the deepest locker of davy jones (a tip o’ the do rag here to johnny depp), and which you shall be unable to read– hmmm, where was i again? oh yeah, i have a new blog that can be read now, on my website, so you’re gonna hafta punch a few buttons to see it, but well worth the effort if i remember it correctly– first, go to www.caribbeanrance.com, and then prop your feet up, haul a cold one outta the fridge, and read away on “#34– a thousand pardons, effendi”– let me know how the trip was!!

for it has been quite some time since i have blogged. busy i suppose, but also not the right energy that i like to have to compose one of these things. this would tend to suggest that today i DO have that specific energy, but for the life of me, i cannot tell– still and all, here i am, babbling on in my official “preamble”, heavy on the “amble”.

shot the above photo one morning walking along the maleco’n– the avenue running along the waterside– with a good friend of mine. i usually take a walkabout on the mornings when i am not going out to dive, but like all stupid humans i become a victim of habit, but this particular morning we walked at an earlier time than i usually do, and voila’!!– as those of perhaps a french persuasion might say– the good light and a great shot was found.

brujas– “witches” in spanish– is the name of these ubiquitous flowers that bloom in profusion at this time of the year, magically springing out from nowhere, lining walks and streets all over. it is a signal that the rainy season is here, but we have had precious little rain, past a couple of deluge-like days less than a week ago. the island is parched and thirsty, and i have been watering my tomato plants faithfully, hoping for a bounty– so far i have had about a half-dozen cherry-sized samples– good, but i want to have tomatos galore.

the brujas line my sidewalk towards the front yard, where i walk out, passing under the coconut palm tree in the yard, or maybe i should say i pass through the arch of the palm tree and its’ support, which has stood there since the hurricane– i don’t know if i should take it out or not, but it is like entering a different place when i go through it, so i leave it there.

and it IS a bittuva different world that i pass into, walking under that portico– it’s the entrance to my sculpture studio. lest those of you of romantic bent swoon, it is merely a cochera– carport– but it really is a separate reality i find in that space, so feel free to fantasize if you wish. hands– i have about six of them, eight including the ones on the end of my arms– i have been laboring over hands lately, hands in all sorts of forms, in many different poses. the one thing that they all convey is the sense that the substance they are embedded in is in some way being deformed by their influence– squeezed and compressed in some places, in others the “plastic” stone seems to stick to their surface, as if it might have some sort of a miraculous surface tension, the fingers ambling like water walkers on the surface of a pond. but this project i am undertaking, bringing the entire piece up to one consistent finish, is slowly driving me mad. THERE IS SO MUCH FREAKING SURFACE TO DO!! every time i move one line just a little bit, it affects others, like a stone in the abovementioned pond. slowly but slowly i continue to make progress– hey, i have even begun the process of repairing that wild quarry hole in the arm of the upper figure– it is now filled, and awaits a cap, which i am preparing.

i’ve been doing a buttload of diving of late too, with friends and clients and occasionally taking care of some other people’s clients– it went on for several months there, but it would seem i have a sudden “clear spot” here, nothing much happening.

if there is anything i have NOT been doing, it has been photographing my new big seahorse pendant design, to get it onto my website in an official manner. very dumb i know, but it never seems that i have the thought and the energy together at the same time. i shall try to get it together and do the work sometime this week, make some forward progress.

and spain– spain rides the blue horse of my dreams in the night– the mighty lapis skies of spain. trying to scrabble together some sheckels to take another trip come offseason. this year a little closer to the bone, the belt a little tighter, the shoestring a little more frayed. there will be less lucre this year, but it means turning up the “adventure dial” a tetch more. come, let’s toast spain!!happy dreams, y’all!!

who needs anemonies? yeah, not the sharpest nor the truest flying joke in my quiver, but it is somewhat apropos, as will become more obvious as you read along.

this last week my friend tony asked me to help him with a family coming down to dive– the alts– parents, julie and myron, and the boys, brian and wyatt, both of whom we were supposed to certify for diving.

normally, when we are asked to certify young people it brings on an reaction between us, something like your cat coughing up a hairball– and to continue the cat metaphor, taking care of young people is much like trying to herd felines– they have no interest in what you want to do with them, and the attention span of gnats, making for a lot of work and not much satisfaction, not to mention stress on the part of the parents. in other words, we were “somewhat apprehensive” when they were due out to the boat to meet us, and wondering just how bad it could get.

“SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!”– as gomer pyle used to say– they turned out to be excellent students, attentive and really striving to learn what we had to impart to them. they snapped quickly to the theory of what we had to say, and were calm and easy under the water. their skills they did as if they had been doing them all their life, and without fear or trepidation. in almost no time at all they were kneeling down on the deck and tony was pouring buckets of water over them (with a little communal spit to make the whole thing ring true), baptising them in the name of the sea god neptune and securing their certification– congrats, guys, and thanks muchly for your efforts.

that was nice, wasn’t it? BUT– FAST FORWARD NOW, into the future, their last dive. my good friends the sharkbaiters (one of their email names, easy handle to call them by) had left with us three rubber “hats”, if you can call them that– silly things that one needs to haul over the head and look silly with during a tank. julie, brian and wyatt all donned them for this historic last tank, after watching me use one of them on the first dive.

cedral wall, the tops of the reef, and very beautiful that day. we saw plenty of turtles and a couple of sharks, if my memory serves me properly, but the real story begins at the end of this reef, when we were sailing along, headed across to spend the end of the tank on the tippy tops of santa rosa wall. there are a huge bunch of groupers in there, and at times they even school up, you may see as many as perhaps twenty or more of them. but this story concerns the bull goose looney of the bunch– the big guy. now, someone has obviously feeding this behemoth the past year or so– i am not sure who it is, as it is not legal to do so in the park, but the attitude and habits of this fish make it quite certain that it is being fed by someone. anyhow, wyatt sees the grouper and sortuv does an imitation of going for a head butt with it– only the grouper doesn’t back off, no– he gets closer– and Closer– and CLOSER!! coming within maybe a half foot of wyatt’s face– by this time it is the young alt who is suddenly backpedalling– only the grouper keeps after him, and it suddenly becomes apparent that it is the hat that is what it is looking at– very hungrily, i might add!!– and not particularly concerned with what might come off with the hat. tony comes over and tries to shove it away, but it is quite INSISTENT!! but finally it does move a little ways away, and WHOOSH!! tony pulls the hat off, it had looked like an anemone i guess, and the color really made it look snackable. wyatt’s eyes were as big as dinnerplates, but we were all laughing so hard it was difficult to show him any sympathy– “with friends like us, who needs anemonies?”– indeed!!

thanks for such a good time, you alts!!

and gasped– it was so darn hard!! but i had to reach it, so i stuck one arm up between his legs and the other around his arm, stretching deeply, probing and poking with the tip of the rasp, slowly wearing down the doofus of stone until it wasn’t there any more– one more down, perhaps several thousand to go!!

as this sculpture slowly but slowly– but VERY SLOWLY– begins the slide towards the final finish line i am working much on the surfaces, truing them up and making one line lead into another, sortuv “casual-like”. people continue to gape at me when i inform them that this piece is still far from being totally done– i have been saying “a year, maybe a year and a half” for perhaps a couple of years now– not that i am in denial, far from it!! but looking at it from the outside, most of the major detailing is done, and so it looks pretty much finished to many. ain’t the case, kiddo!! so very much of this smaller stuff remains, and much of it in almost inaccessible areas as well. BUT!!– one thing i continue to see is that, with patience and sheer teeth-grinding periods of scraping and noodling and moving minute particles of stone away, it finally gets done. just this morning i finally managed to move the stone out of an area i had despaired of getting to about a year or so ago. true, my fingertips look like they have been chewed by puppies, but i got it!! this area was between the left calf of the upper figure and the right arm of the middle figure– there is a tight little tunnel in there, but i found a slightly different tangent when i approached it from the other side this morning, and so worked the rasps and files majorly, slowly piling up fine marble dust, sweeping it into a dustpan and storing it away, just in case i ever get a commission to do an actual “fresco”– one makes the finest layer of plaster, the intonaco, using marble dust.

but as usual i blather– i have been working on the surface treatment of the upper and middle figure of late, doing two of the three piercings in there that i spoke of in the last blog, truing up the right thigh and knee of the middle figure, the left leg of the upper figure kinduv on top of it, but a little removed, the “plastic substance” that forms the middle figure sticky and clinging to the upper figure, very diaphanous and almost transparent in places. the inner left thigh of the upper figure is also difficult to reach, and i have to hold myself in contorted postures (comical i am sure– if only there were someone there to photograph it!!), my nose almost in his buttcrack, to get the rasps totally extended, reaching for the final contours.

also hard at work in the jewellery studio, when i can shoehorn in the time. using the diamonds i just recently received, i went out and finished up my new design– the “stock version” of my seahorse/sea star earrings. i shot some truly crappy photos of them which i shall share with you here, only because i love you– oops, that slipped out!!anyways, here they are, such as they are. i must reshoot the photographs once again, using my big SLR, but one of the light units i use suddenly fell apart (down here in the tropics EVERYTHING ROTS and corrodes), a plastic collar disintegrated, and so i must fix that first. however, these will just have to do for the nonce, but forgive the quality.

i have also been working on several pairs of pearl earrings, but they are so darn fiendishly clever and simple (always the product of much hard thinking) that i am loath to post photos of them on my site, for fear of having the idea stolen– i guess that people are just gonna have to come down and visit me to see them– worth the trip, i would think!!

and for all of you who have hung in there with me, here is the “no shit!! fer sure!!” FINAL finished photo of “lily pads”, which i kept noodling with for seemingly ages, touching the lily flowers softly, but finally figuring out that the lily pads themselves had, in comparison, darkened with all the light i brought to the rest of the piece, and so i added a smattering of light to them and it was dundoed, as one of my friends is fond of saying– hope you like it as much as i!!

i truly had no idea that i was gonna write a blog today, but from what happened this morning i guess it was preordained!! when i went out to my sculpture studio this morning, toting along all my tools and such, i was presented with this little spectacle– moths balling!! even if i had not written a blog about “butterflies crying, la de dah…”, this would have been of interest. at first i was wondering if it was a mutation of a moth, sortuv a siamese moth, but using occam’s razor i realised that this was quite unlikely. i hurried inside to grab my camera and shot several views, this was the best of the bunch. one was dragging the other around after a while, i suppose the whole “sexual episode” was over, but as my good friend tony would have said– “the claspers were still stuck together”, and as much as claspers are a fish-related thing, i figure this one fits the bill as well. i thought that the ants were going to haul the pair away, but by the time i got out there once again the scene was quiet and empty. tell me– how could i NOT write a blog after all of that?< a>< good news, pearl fans-- the ones i ordered for my new custom-design seahorse/sea star pendant arrived friday last, and i did the work on the piece last sunday, and here it is-- ta daaaaah!! as large as those button pearls turned out to be, they do manage to balance out the sea star above, and i really think the piece will look absoluetly FABU around my friend lauralee's neck. stay tuned though, as with these pearls also arrived my new gold shipment (!!$$$OUCH$$$!!) and some diamonds for the stock version of this piece-- soon i will be finished the first official edition of this long-awaited piece and will be wanting to show it off. be there or be square.

ray walston (of “my favorite martian” fame) uttered this line, one i have toted along with me for many a year, and a few minutes ago i accessed just what movie it was. what i came up with was “convicts 4″, which didn’t sound exactly like what i had imagined it to be, but at 45+ years’ distance any view is bound to be a little maladjusted– just like me.

ANYHOW– back to the squirting pickle. living here in the mighty tropics can be sublime, but it can also be quite the pain in the ass. pickles, for instance– i like dill pickles, but they are hard to come by down here. the only good source is a store that handles the needs of some restaurants, but they sell them by the gallon jar, and it is a little expensive. SO– when i saw a different brand for perhaps half the cost i snapped it up– only the pickles themselves decidedly did NOT snap– nor crunch– nor squirt– properly. sigh. it has only increased my desire for good dill pickles……soon it will become uncontrollable.
but enough about ray walston, on with the show– even though i have been up to my butt in diving of late i have still had enough time in which to get some stuff done. i am back to painting away on my lily pads, and am closing in on the finish line. right now i am struggling to get the shadows that the lily flowers throw just right– i like the shade of green they give on the lily pads themselves, but when they shade the water instead the color is a little dark i think, it doesn’t quite integate with the rest. hmmm, must design a different color. the flowers are coming along just fine though, i am working through the progressions with enthusiasm.<

and as you can see, i was also able to bring the new seahorse/sea star pendant to a sortuv finish. the pearls you see will be gone, and as a matter of fact, at the moment these ones ARE gone-- but it won't be til next week that the new pearls i have chosen will arrive in town, via a friend. also diamonds and settings for my first official version of this piece, the stock model having but two diamond eyes instead of the 16 you can see here. actually, seeing it with all those diamonds isn't a bad view at all.

a couple more things here-- big thanks to my friends the sharkbaiters, who brought me down tons of brazil nuts. i have perfected my new recipe for a pesto, using the brazils in place of pine nuts, and hierbabuena (spearmint) in place of the sweet basil, and a matrix of mostly coconut cream and green thai curry in place of the oil-- damn tasty on toppa penne pasta!! i guess it has given me my dose of selenium for the next thousand or so years as well, i shine in the dark already.

last but not least-- plans are once again afoot, watson, for a proposed trip to see the whale sharks from isla mujeres come july-- i'm collecting names now, and checking who has been naughty and nice to grant space to--if you wish to read about this, you can go waay back to my blog 11-- "awww, ratzzz!!!" and see some pix and watch me weep my bitter tears, just like david lindley sings

to begin with, i must say that my last blog didn’t publish to facebook, so anyone wanting to keep current on this should go to my website– www.caribbeanrance.com — and check out “27– have you ever seen a butterfly cry?”. just like any serial, if you miss a segment you can find yourself in the weeds.

LOTS of diving of late, plenty of clients, and all good people– i feel so lucky at times, to be able to go out and do what i like and make a sortuv living at it– i am blessed indeed!! i did palancar caves the other day, and the light was so perfectly splendid that it didn’t matter if we saw any fish or not, the drama and spectacle of the wall, the coral head structures and the colors just blew us all away. we did manage to see plenty of stuff, don’t get me wrong– several beautiful turtles, groupers, drumfish, crabs, and even a big green moray eel out swimming around– but truly it was a matter of my stepping back and allowing the real star to dominate the stage, to take over– i bow to the majesty of palancar!!

this has not left a lot of time for me to work on my “other life”, though, and so i have been forced to find the time when i may– my rare days off have been times of much effort, and it has been good to me. i worked a couple of days on the painting i wrote about in my last blog (see– i toldja that you needed to read that one first!!), ending up with much more than i had realised– far from removing the reflections of the trees in the upper area, i have merely much reduced them, and now they work much better. this piece seems to be fast approaching the finish line– if i can only find the time to do it in. i shall have some time today, hopefully i will have the concentration in the same place.

these past couple of days off have been spent in casting and soldering together jewellery though. above you can see not-too-current photos of both sides of my new seahorse/sea star pendant. this is not going to be the stock version, but is rather a special order version for my friend lauralee, who lives in florida and likes her !!BLING!! just fine. all the holes in the piece above now have set diamonds soldered into them– 16 diamonds in all. it was quite a day of work, let me tell you!! but just when i figured i was going to finish the sucker– i was putting a pair of dangling pearls below the pendant– i realised i didn’t at all like the scale of these pearls– so i am going to have to order in some other ones and use them. i shall shoot some images of the piece as it now is, so that you can see what i mean, in my next blog.

i still have a turtle cast up, plus another large sea star pendant to replace the one bought by my good friend joey, but today i don’t much feel like getting dirty and filthy with polishing compound, so a-painting i shall go. sometime soon i must return to the sculpture as well, but short of cloning myself with one of calvin and hobbes’ transmogrifiers, there just isn’t enough rance to go around for the moment, and so i must practise my patience. ho hum– or would that more be like “hoon hom”– ent-like patience?

“no, but i’ve seen a moth ball!!”. i was going to begin this with something dramatic, like “phoenix risen from the ashes” or some such, but i shall leave stuff like that for peeps like tim robbins– instead, i was more thinking of taking something out of mothballs, and whadda ya know, this is the kind of intro that you are going to get this afternoon.

but more about the de-balling of said moths later. in 96 i did a small pen and inker, a simple piece really, just an idea– a sunset in a semi-abstract manner, which languished in my portfolio for quite some time, until recently, when it suddenly sold. i know the picture i have of it above is crappy, but it is the one i have. however, someone else also had her eye upon it, and so i volunteered to do a painted version of the piece, which i just finished up a couple of days ago.

this wasn’t as easy as i had anticipated– the pen and inker had a matrix of white paper– even when i made my super-densely bunched points there was always white along with the colors– and so my color progressions had to take this into account. a little hair-pulling occurred here, denuding more of my scalp, but i struggled through and got it down. in fact, the painted version was vastly superior to the ink one, it had a much better sense of space and motion to it, and it gave me an idea to at some time do a much larger version of it, employing some changes i was champing at the bit to do, but was unable, as i was more copying the original (but yep, i cheated a little and did some different things anyhow– ya gotta play god, doncha?)– i think i could make a pretty decent painting here, given the time and energy.

wedging this painting in between all my recent diving was a bittuva magician’s job in itself– diving several days straight and then trying to induce my nitrogen saturated brain to jump back into the groove on demand and create– i wasn’t always successful– there were days when it went very slowly, but i finally just got it centered in my brain and got jiggy wid it. i delivered the piece to the client last night and she was thrilled, making me a happy camper.

the diving has been very very good, and i have been lucky to have had a lot of great clients– thanks, y’all– you know who you are!! lots of green moray eels and turtles, as well as all the smaller creatures– banded coral shrimp, tiny crabs revealed when you lift the edges of sun anemonies, the nudibranchs, squat anemone shrimp, sun anemone shrimp looking like almost transparent skeletons– whew!! lots of small fish too– just yesterday i saw a perfect drumfish on san francisco reef– it still had a tetch of yellow on it, as it was just out of the early juvie stage, but the diaphanous streamers were still undulant, long and unnibbled by other fish. and of course, then there are the eagle rays, and they come at dramatic moments, magestic and stately and ever so graceful, they dip and wheel like elegant dancers.

jeez, but i am a blathering fool– let’s get back to those moths and stuff!! a couple or three years ago i began a series of paintings of lily pads– i say i began it, as it stalled after a certain amount of time, and this piece pictured above– the first in the “series”– sat moldering on my easel (well, what i was using as an easel at the time, anyhow) for months, i unable to put a single stroke onto it and annoyed as hell about the whole deal. i was thinking about what i wanted to do next, and my eye fell upon the edge of this piece– it was stuck behind some other pieces where i was sure not to see it, but for some reason it stuck out for me right then, i pulled it out and put it onto my new official easel, and i just knew what i had to do with it– i’m going to repaint the lighter water areas, and the shadows of the trees in the upper half of the painting– well, i am JUST GONNA GET RID OF THEM!! they have always bothered me anyhow, and besides– reality is overrated at times, better to go with what feels good. i guess that lots of mistakes have been made with that particular attitude before, i’ll just have to see if this is one of them– wish me luck please!!

and other sundry things– golly, for an offseason this has not been too bad for me!! i have been working a bunch on the boats of late. good for the pocketbook indeed, and a bonus– i truly love diving!! but this has meant i have had to shoehorn in a lot of other stuff– seahorses, for instance

in my last blog i spoke about the difficulties in making the waxes for my new design– the larger seahorse pieces– they are technical and picky things that often don’t come easily, and these ones have required quite a bit of concentration and energy. i got a big burst this morning and afternoon, and for all intents and purposes i finished them up.

there is still some details to be put into the pieces, but the waxes have become very fragile and i figure it will be much easier to do this work in the cast pieces– the tails are only somewhat detailed, for instance. however, i am happy with what i have and anticipate an excelent piece when completed. of course, this is assuming i do all the soldering work well too– there is a LOT of room for disaster here, and i shall needs be sharp when i get there.

now, my wedding– well, it really wasn’t MINE, but i thought about it as such. a friend of mine asked me to shoot a wedding she was organising for some of her clients, longtime friends, and she managed to talk me into it. i’d never shot a wedding before, but i have a lot of experience in portrait work and an eye for the shot, and at a couple months’ distance it sounded like an interesting project. of course, as the time got VERY CLOSE i began to fret and wonder what the hell was i thinking of, trying this??? something more to have anxiety about. i have never thought of myself as an adrenaline junkie, but now i begin to wonder– i may not jump motorbikes over long lines of cars nor tightrope across canyons, but this comes close– it’s life without a net, and failure is not acceptable.

the hotel was marvellous, and i was impressed over the two days i spent there with the service and acumen of the management and workers– they really put themselves out for this group. i met the bride and groom and they began introducing me to their friends and i began to shoot the first of maybe 500 images. i shot all day long, having to put on my “mr social” persona– really i am a somewhat private person who can, at times, open up and be garrulous, but it is not my normal self. of course, aboard the boats one must be outgoing and indeed somewhat of a character, so i can at times put it on like a dinner jacket– but to do it all day long was a stretch. luckily for me, all the guests and family and friends were very open and made me comfortable, as i tried to do so for them, lulling them into a false sense of security so that i could shoot their photos.

there was a fiesta dinner in the sand and palm trees along the beach, it is pictured above, and i shot portraits for the next day– everyone got themselves a personal photo for the wedding, and i think i did as good a job as was possible with the lighting and such. wish i could show some of them, many of them excellent, but they are really not my property as such– sorry.

the wedding itself was to be held in a gazebo overlooking the ocean, and the view was pretty great– we had the rehearsal and i was running around trying to figure out where to stand and how to shoot things and interesting angles. it took a little while, but the weather was wonderful and tropical and we all had a good time i think.

time compressed. wedding day. grey skies. occasional rain. low temperatures. i felt like it was still going to be a great day, as so often happens down here in cozumel, so i had faith, but others were looking pretty uncertain. not a lot of photos to be taken in this light, but i did my best, and even managed to sneak into the walk-in fridge with the baker to see his creation– i was first after their crew, and they were proud indeed– the biggest cake they had ever made at the hotel.

time was running short and suddenly it happened– just like on D-Day, there was a sudden break in the weather, and just like then we all hit the beaches with everything we had. it wasn’t fabu weather, but everyone was relieved and it seemed as if time had given us a real break. we made the most of it, and i thought that the ceremony was a fine one, full of the excitement and pomp and energy that is so often lacking in these events. i could tell that the bride and groom had a great time, even though the whole experience had been a little overwhelming.

of course, when it came to the reception, the rains came, and the dinner plans were thrown to the wnds. the hotel rose to perform yet another herculean task. they walled off half of their elegant restaurant, pulled all the food in from outside, and created a nice space for everyone to have fun and enjoy themselves, and damn if the filets weren’t excellent.

well, “never let an artist talk” is a fond saying of mine, and i have truly blathered on here, hope all my audience is still awake. so much for the large seahorses, so much for my big fat wedding– i’m out of here for the day and making my escape, there is a big fat gin and tonic waiting for me somewhere. til next time

we saw our protagonist, he was busy trying to breathe some zest into his painting, living on the knife edge between craft and art, and generally having to gird his mental loins to go beyond what had come before. in the end i got to a point where i thought it was pretty finished– and so, i let it lay fallow for a week or so, just so that i could find a little distance between me and it, so that i could begin “seeing it” once more. it seemed to work, too– suddenly i got an urge to do some small things, and it quickly exploded into three days of intense painting and thinking– and then, as they say in the movies, it was over.

i finally had the time a couple of days ago to pull out the lights and everything in order to reshoot the piece with my trusty digital SLR and a good lens, to take the wowing out of the image, and this is what it shows– “peach abrigo”– 2010, acrylic, 55″X27.5″– i hope that you like it as much as i do. more than a couple of days have passed since i finished, and as the process fades from my mind, i like it more and more, especially during the morning hours, the light enhanced by the light of the day.

i could now say “on with the next crisis”, as i am fond of intoning, but really the past few weeks of my life have been spent almost every day that the port has been open diving. there have been a fair few people in town this last bit, and with it comes the work. the diving has been good to excellent of late, and i have had the opportunity to go to the north once in a while to do “the eagle ray tank”. a couple of days ago we went there and saw a formation of a dozen eagle rays, out along the wall and slightly above us, their wings almost unmoving as they glide forward against the current. glorious and graceful dancers, they!! quite the show really,

magical and magnetic– we couldn’t take our eyes off them!! they finally passed by, and broke up into tinier formations of twos threes and fours, passing below us, and finally coming up and along the wall right alongside us, passing us and then circling around behind us– a truly dazzling display!!

in my few spare moments in which my brains still were inhabiting my body of late i have been working on several things– a tshirt design for a boat and also my newest piece of jewellery, the large seahorse. in the end i plan on working in a sea star along with this piece, and some pearls as well, but for now i will begin with the seahorse itself. a technical thing to cut, as i have to do it in two halves, to keep the weight down as much as possible. each half will need to be very similar, so that when i solder them together they don’t look like the dog’s breakfast. this will also enable me to make them into earrings. first i took the drawing you can see up above, and then i cut a “stencil” of it out of sheet silver (really the best material i had around– “spare no expense, give the cat another canary!!” as my mother was known to say), which i used to draw a form onto the wax itself.

you may be able to see the lines in the blue waxes shown above, as i slowly begin to carve them down into a “cookie cutter” shape, after which i shall further work them to give them a much more 3-D look– you’re going to have to wait to see that though, as i am still elbow deep in the process– and tomorrow i must go out and dive again, the eagle ray tank– will send you some eagle ray energy from there.

until then, happy new year, everyone– let’s hope it is a good one

what was it that i was last talking about before this long traverse to spain and morocco and burying a dear friend– mr spike– at sea? i remember now… the painting!! or, rather, at that time it was a mere sketch, messy pencil marks on a canvas that looked like mascara after a good weep– not that i know what that is like, and nothing wrong in a guy wearing mascara either. whatever, the painting. by the time i left to go tramping around spain it had already begun– as a matter of fact, i had made good progress upon it, at least in a structural sense– the framework was all there and steadily pushing back the grubby whiteness that seemed to cover the whole image.

just the complementary colors though, like looking through a kaleidoscope through the wrong end. when i got back from my vacation it took a little while to reformulate in my brain what i wanted to do, and things began slowly slowly slowly. the view of someone lacking good eyesight in early morning dimness, you had to squinch your eyes up just right to see anything. i began to call it “peach abrigo”, as it was an early morning view, and i wanted a lot of peach tones in the scene.

after a while it began to show out some form and balance, but that first stage of the piece seems to take so very long, and it is hard for me to see just what i want to do. things look flat and dull, and for good reason– the first stage of the piece is just the basic painting, the “canvas” upon which the rest of the piece is painted, but still i stuggled a bunch, trying to balance the colors without it looking too deliberate, working through a progression of tones and trying to think ahead, to where i would bring it next.

things began to accelerate, and i was moving through my progressions with some facility and confidence, and finally i was at the end of phase 1– the painting– even doing a little bittuv work on that pesky little boat in the foreground. now i had to get down to brass tacks and start phase 2– light and shadow.

work went swiftly, and i made a lot of progress, feeling almost invulnerable and in control. a false sense of security, really, given to me by the fact that i was on the easy part, sitting high above the gaping yawp at the wide end of the funnel. but as time went on the progressions became harder, the margin of error thinner, choosing the exact color more important– the funnel narrowed, and i began to get attacks of SPF– this has nothing to do with horribly sunburns though– it stands for “Sphincter Pucker Factor”, and at times the fear was so bad that, were i to break wind, it would sound like the notes issuing from the bell of maynard ferguson’s (king of the high “C”s) horn– dogs miles away would prick up their ears!! only slightly kidding.

everything, even the movement of my brushstokes, became magnified and overly important, and i had to push myself a times to do anything, afraid of messing it up. most of these moments turned out to be good though, making me think it through and mix the paints in my brain, getting exactly what i wanted out of it. i don’t claim to be a super technician at this, it is all done by some sort of sense of feel, walking the tightrope as it were, afraid of falling but going on nevertheless.

especially important for the aforementioned pesky little boat, which i agonised over at length, trying to figure out just how to make it look like it was in the shadow thrown by the trees unseen outside the right border of the painting, yet leaving the canvas shade atop it in sunlight. finally, a special mix of cobalt green, grey, transparent white and some gel and a healthy dose of loin girdling and it just went down– and i was finished up with phase two. tomorrow i begin with phase 3– special effects, the zing, or for those cinematic officiandos of vietnam celluloid– hope you get the referrence– “the weenie”. see you on the other side

“sissy– silly– fou fou– little rat dog”– i can remember meeting my diminutive chum and thinking perhaps words similar, although the actual verbiage escapes me at the moment. i have never been much of a fan for smaller dogs, thinking them mostly high-strung and noisy, barking more than is needful, always underfoot, always needing a lot of attention. knowing this it never occurred to me that i might form a lasting bond with spanky. first, that name seemed pretty wiffy to me, so right off the bat my first move was to call him “spike”– he seemed to understand my plight, and never held it against me. he was like that, very wise at some things, and a fountain of good energy.

so– time passed, and he began to work on me, slowly at first. when we’d go walking his pace was always a unique jaunt, head tipped back and very regal, prince-like, that tail coiled to the max. he would always have a smile upon his face, especially at the end of the walk, when it was time for a little treat, fixing you with his little eyes and willing you to pull something out good to eat.

sometimes lynda would go for a week at a buddhist retreat or some suchlike, and we would spend a lot of time together. at first he found it hard to accept me, but after a while we got to be such good pals– he would bark and get me to bring him out into my sculpture studio, laying patiently under a chair as long as i wanted to be out there. we got to be closer and closer, and he enjoyed my company at least a small fraction of what he experienced with lynda, for which i am eternally grateful.

we had some ups and downs over the years, small things really– he was a very stubborn guy at times, not wanting to take a good walk or whatever, but they were only tiny bumps in the road and not taken very seriously by either of us. we knew how to get along and not get in each others’ way.

this last year he had been having some problems, more and more it seemed, but he was a real trouper, never given to whining or such, and it always seemed like he rebounded quickly, always giving me his smile and good humor. but the past couple of months his breathing got pretty ragged, and then about a week or two ago he got some sort of an infection as well– no energy at all, a little listless and not wanting to do much of anything.

yesterday afternoon, while he laid in our arms, mr spike passed away. i know he is in a better place now, and it is selfish to cry as i am doing right now, but that is the way of humans i suppose.

but i can do something– today i am going to be painting on my new piece. i just finished doing the basic painting, and was going to begin the second phase this morning– light and shadows, but i feel like i am just going to concentrate on the light this time, in his memory– good luck buddy, i miss you so much already

the return trip to barcelona was like being sucked through a glass straw backwards– it was one of those looong days!! actually slept in a little, but got up to gratefully drink down a couple cups of strong coffee, then a short wander uphill towards the ancient keyhole gate, but first a stop for breakfast– more coffee and some excellent eggs, listening to nina simone sing “i want a little sugar in my bowl”, made me an instant fan!! but enough lollygagging, time to clamber into the car and go to gibraltar!!

every time i needed a little space and quiet in barcelona, this is where i would come– to this park, filled as it was with strollers, people with dogs, girls with guitars, singing very well, a bald slovak arguing with his wife, and then seeing him race off to put the collar on a dude on bike, accusing him of stealing their plane tickets and cash, really shaking the guy up. people sitting on the benches talking, eating, smoking (europe is still a haven of smokers, for good or ill), drinking from bottles and cups and discussing things at full volume– share your conversation!! truly a smorgasbord for me, as i love to watch people in all forms and styles– it fills me up and gives me some spark with my work for some reason, like i am the wand in a candy floss stand– only i ain’t sweet!! i saw jugglers and tricksters and romantics in the shade, ducks and swans in the sun, and ate it all with a spoon.

next morning i went back to the wondrous familia sagrada, once again early, and the gods were with me– the light was right, and the pond across the street pretty much deserted, like a huge water droplet upon which was reflected the temple.

sublime, and truly moving, but i was in for a true shock– my last time here i had missed the larger part of the experience– the interior. there is no way to accurately describe nor photograph the sense of huge space inside. there is construction going on, piles of material here and there, heavy machinery– but nothing registers except the space and the wondrous light to be found. there are colors of stained glass puddled on the floor and oozing from between pillars, transforming the workers, oblivious in heavenly hues as they discuss the next piece of masonry, or the shape of a corner. took the elevator up into one of the towers, getting a crow’s-eye view of the construction. unfortunately, the grafitti people had already made their marks in furtive places, so that the rest of humanity could know that stephan and muffie had been there first– must have been a religious experience, i suppose– immortality in barcelona. but for that it was absolutely tremendous, looking out over the smoky city, confronted with gaudi’s iconic stone and ceramic cones– it seems to me that the last, and largest, of these towers has yet to be built, my apologies if i am wrong, but there is space up there and materials galore.

exhausted and wrung out– i won’t even go into the museum and galleries and the like to be found here, just too much stuff to describe– i tottered into the cafe picasso and chowed down on a wonderful lunch of perfectly fried calamari on excellent bread. interestingly enough (or as some would say– “ironically enough”, even though in fact it is not ironic at all)– picasso actually hated both gaudi and his chapel, so someone either had no idea or was making a joke here.

another of gaudi’s works is the parc guell, much photographed and worth a walkabout or seven, above which was his residence. i say residence, as i have read that after a certain amount of time he rarely left the site of the familia sagrada, sleeping and eating there. he was run over by a vehicle and died in the hospital uncared-for, as his clothing made him look like a vagabond. the house is full of marvellous furniture and beautiful views, not all of whidh are to be seen in their original setting, but a reserved opulence is to be seen, as is his taste for modernist stylings.

but, back to barcelona, back to the fabulous markets– fresh feta cheeses, fresh bufalo parmesano, olives and oil that taste like one has always heard. the tomatoes alone are worth an essay!! prepared a couple of meals on this leg of the journey as well, the freshness of the ingredients making my work as easy as it was superfluous.

another night it was tapas, one of the staples here and all over spain– had eaten tapas in both granada and cadiz, but this night, being guided by the hosts, was a maximum effort. i tried so many that i have no recollection of any specific one, but all were marvellous, and when i go back i shall make a better inventory. also of great mention was a chocolate shop that was as much a feast for the eyes as it was for the palate.

sooner or later, reality was going to intrude though, and finally the last day came. time to go. i got up at 3:30 a.m. to catch the first flight, which corresponded to 8:30 the night before in cozumel, and by the time i put my head down on the pillow at home it was 10:30 at night– suffice it to say that it was a very long 26 hours.

hey, isn’t that the familia sagrada over on the middle left?

“didja know we’re riding on the marrakesh express…”– close, but as they say– no cigar!! it IS a train, though.

up verrry early, to sneak out of cadiz in darkness. the highway quiet and almost deserted, and escaping town marvellously easy– cadiz, expect to see me again sometime!! the run to tarifa, where the ferry is, easy as well, although i almost managed to have an accident in the parking lot.

the ferry is modern and pretty quick, but i have no access to the upper deck, as that requires some sort of a luxury ticket. we leave in early light and the coast is distant and grey, but finally tangiers becomes real through the windows. interesting and different– the architecture really hits one almost right away. they are making inroads towards becoming one with the rest of the world though, the taxi driver informed me on the way to the train station– “look at all the new subdivisions– come back in a little while and all this open space will be housing”. it is early, as morocco is on a different time zone– two hours before the time in spain, and that is a lucky thing, as the train leaves quite early in the morning.

the train station is vast and be-marbled, the floor a study in large stone tiles, and there are rooms for people to practise islam, with comfortable rugs– even the ferry had a tiny postage-stamp-sized one. the ticket to meknes (pronounced “meka-ness” by most i spoke to) is about 85 dirrham, or less than $10, although it takes several repetitions of the ticket vendor’s mumbled french for me to understand– he gives me a pitying look as well– sigh!!

but the train comes chuffing into the station on time– well, perhaps it didn’t actually chuff, as it looked as if they ran with electricity, power lines strung overtop of the rails– maybe the chuffing was in my brain. we left the train station quickly and on time as well, and i can attest that it DID go clickety-clack!! it was a fairly long run to meknes, but interesting. i saw plenty of what i think were salt operations, flooded areas where people scraped out banks of crystals with a tannish tinge. lots of herds of sheep as well, and donkeys with riders, horses or donkeys pulling wagons with automobile tires, big fields and areas of stone and small mountains, railroad workmen and rail parts here and there, rails stacked high, rail ties and forms for cement, bags of cement and workers with pails tossing it around, small stations where we stopped for a minute or five. trees and fields again, towns– the town itself seemingly spotless, but the areas on the verge full of plastic thrown away– bags and bottles, glass and pieces of small bush festooned like clotheslines with more bags. town architecture put together in such a different manner, a totally different flavor, and i blessed myself for being able to experience even so small a part of the country. towers and habitations, buildings and streets, all looking soft with the paint and materials used. hills came along and then we went up and slowly came down again. the ride was about 4-5 hours long and fairly comfortable.

received a recommendation from someone travelling along in the same car as to where to stay, and so got a ride from the owner into town– he was young, canadian-educated if i remember correctly, and quite the fast talker– nothing nefarious, he could just talk a blue streak!! was made comfortable, and given advice as to what to do and when. i had been thinking of visiting some local ruins– ancient roman stuff– in the late afternoon, but was councelled to go in the morning instead– well, for once i took the advice. so i sat and got comfortable and took a fine moroccan meal– the round bread loaf, and some salads and salsas, very tasty indeed, the actual meal one of cous cous. i liked it, but felt it to be only so so cous cous, was looking forward sometime in the far future (as this was just a short foray into unknown territory) to sitting down to a sumptuous meal somewhere. however, with the melon after the meal came the most heavenly grapes it has ever been my pleaure to feast upon– so good i ate even the ones that looked not so healthy.

after a little rest-up i took a tour of the medina (basically old town) with one of the family, and i found it to be somewhat run down in places, and charming in others. walls of a mere hundred or two hundred years’ age everywhere, and many older as well. got the full tour, with visits to the metalworkers and woodworkers, pottery etc– and of course, the cousin, the rug merchant. but many examples of great woodwork, tiles, plastering and painting to be seen in places, moments where someone really took some time and made something special.
i exited onto the an enormous square, bordered on one side by an old fort wall, complete with marvellous arched entranceways. the sqare was so vast that i could never get any shot that gave any indication of space at all, and it was full of people. there were some stall selling things and others were eateries– or perhaps coffee places would be more the correct term, places pretty much fully masculine, no women to be seen.

the people in the space of the square were varied though, and so were their amusements. i saw a huge group of people in a circle, and looking inside i discovered an elder gentleman, who was relating something– could have been poetry, or perhaps a story, my arabic is so nonexistent as to be useless– quite the typical tourist, i.

but next morning was going to be very busy, so i was soon to sleep. left early in the morning, ruins-bound. volubilis (which means “morning glory”) is situated up in the hills above meknes, about 40 minutes away in the ubiquitous mercedes taxi, and i took a tour with joe pesci– well, no, it wasn’t joe himself, but someone who looked just like him, and if you listened carefully, you could fool yourself into thinking it was him talking too. however, that was about as impressive as it got– he never really got too deep into his stuff, relating mostly things i already knew. as for me, i was cranky about the light– it was quite flat and featureless, and i was having major problems with taking my photos– what a whiney butthead i can be at times!! however, we continued on to the end, and i am sure that we were both happy to see the last of each other– and then i went and shot some decent, if not spectacular, photos.

to do this i had to use all my photographer’s knowledge and wiles, which included bribing the guard to shoo some people who had ensconsed themselves on the steps of a temple, as if it were a pic-a-nic area. a low trick, i admit, but…. well, i have no real excuse!!

well, this little blurb is running on and on, so i am going to give the quickie description of the rest of the day. it wasn’t particularly unpleasant, just more of an endurance race, as i went back to the train depot, waiting for the train that arrived late, and it was quite full going back, the weather warm and the air dense. i saw much the same thing on the way back, which is more a fault of too much travelling in too short a time, rather than there being nothing to see. now time was against me, as the two hour difference made things difficult, but i got back to tangiers early enough to catch a not too late ferry– BUT!!– it was from the other line, and so i had to wait an extra hour, and then this ferry sat yet another hour before leaving the dock. after midnight in spain when i got back, and no room at the inn (found out the next morning that there had been, big mistake!!), so i had to find other lodgings, in a comfortable if noisy place– whew!! was i tired!! but by the next morning i would once again be back in barcelona…..

there are precious few places in this world where i could honestly say that i would truly love to live– i spent time in santa fe in the 70s, a halcyon age there, before the blight of it being overrun by the modern carpetbagger. and of course, if summer lasted all year long in vancouver, i could be pursuaded to stay there. now of course, i live in cozumel in mexico, a place of superb light and excellent energy, fuelled by the interaction of island and ocean and sun– and the occasional hurricane. i love living here, and felt that way immediately when i first visited the place sometime in the last millennium. but cadiz– well, it is a splendid place, bursting at the seams with artistic light and artistic subject– i felt that same old familiar feeling.

cadiz is one of the oldest, if not THE oldest city in europe, and is situated at the end of a long peninsula of land, making it easy to defend i would suppose. my hotel was easy to find though, despite the crowded streets going every which way. after checking in i went to a small place next door and had a cuppa coffee and a glass of gaspacho– wonderful gaspacho!! and a super tasty salad. my room overlooked this little restaurant, and it would become a familiar haunt for my daily coffee consumption– the service was very friendly, but not particularly sharp, so often i would have to venture inside to get another cup, pay the bill, or ask the occasional question.

being on a peninsula, the city is afforded a lot of shoreline, and great morning light in which to shoot photos– i took advantage of it every day i spent there, tramping around all the narrow alley-like streets in search of something new. lots and lots of churches and cathedrals too, but many are so crowded that the shooting can be of a difficult nature. for instance, the cupolas seen above are difficult to see from the other side of the structure, but there was something quite magical about seeing them, sprouting like mushrooms in the early morning mists.

the facade is in a not so roomy square, and flanked by the iglesia de santiago on one side– hard to find good light to shoot it before the massive hordes descend, hun-like, upon the site. still, space being what it is in cadiz, this square is amongst the largest. it echoes a bunch if you get there early enough.

also remarkable was the open air market, which has just recently been rebuilt and opened, completely impressing me. it is modern, but still with a touch of old rome in it. so much to see, and everything looking its’ fresh and tasty best– colorfully aranged to show itself off to advantage– a true assault on the senses. i wanted to shoot some photos, but everything i saw could be seen in your basic book on photography, so what i got ended up on the cutting room floor.

so– i explored the town, i walked to the old fort– el castillo de santa catalina, which they are restoring. there was a newly wed couple in there under the gun of a short napoleonic photographer, seemingly lashing them with a mental whip to get what he wanted from them– they in turn would shoot daggers from their eyes at him on occasion. there were some huge rubber trees there closeby as well– enormous things, two of them covering a huge area with their leafy umbrellas. an old spa was on the shore as well, and a large expanse of beach with frolicsome people and sunbathers. i explored the musee cadiz, a marvellous old place, full of paintings and a great sculpture, “la gades”– “gades” being a more original spelling or pronunciation of the name of the city. not only beautiful, but the finish on the piece was evocative and inspirational.on the top floor of the museum was a room containing perhaps twenty old “sets” for marionette shows, and i am truly pissed at myself for not shooting any of them, they were so marvellous.

well, i have spoken of so many things i liked in cadiz, but i haven’t yet mentioned my favorite– the night sky. the color of this sky at night is hard to believe, and i dredged my mind for some adjective that wasn’t trite or overused, but i have to say i couldn’t find anything. “like finely crushed lapis lazuli” was about the best i could come up with, but i would sit and marvel over that sky time and time and time again, it was the most difficult thing i had to leave behind in cadiz when i drove out early one morning– next stop– morocco– will see you there!!