A Day in the Souk: Photographs

A Weekend in Marrakech

Finally back in Toronto after a month away - a little bit of work and a lot of adventuring, beginning with my annual girls weekend. This year...Marrakech!

I arrived in the early evening, just in time to experience the chaotic and thrilling Djemaa El-Fna at night. Full of musicians and people dancing, we wandered around for a while sidestepping cobras and monkeys along the way. No photos of the cobras, unfortunately, because even a passing glance at them seemed to invite having one strung around your neck.

There were more tea stalls than I had ever seen in my life and we stopped at one for some friendly banter with two tea sellers who let me sample everything on their cart by passing me spoon after spoon of fig in various form. Then it was to bed in order to be fully rested for the monumental day ahead: an entire day bartering and bargaining in the souk.

Travel Planning

Waking up to this view when visiting the parents just never gets old. I flew out to the West Coast to have a visit upon their return from 2 months traveling through Chile/South Pacific/New Zealand/Australia/Far East. Lucky bastards.

But upon receiving feedback from my Ph.D supervisor on the 2 penultimate chapters of my thesis, I felt inspired to book my own travel adventure. I had been expecting the feedback to be "You need to re-write everything!" but rather it was "Minimal alteration needed!".

So between my previously arranged girls weekend in Marrakech and a conference I have to attend in the UK, I'm flying into Tirana and out of Santorini. 2 weeks in-between to make my way through Albanian blood feuds, Macedonian monasteries and Greek ouzo.

Pittsburgh iPhone Snaps

These basically sum up Pittsburgh.

Warhol's Silver Clouds

Well look at that - I'm writing on ye olde blog. I'm in Pittsburgh to present a paper on novel and film design at an academic conference.

I flew in this morning and had the day to wander around Pittsburgh, which really, doesn't take very long. I've never been to an industrial US city - and one that the recession has obviously hit pretty hard. Lots of boarded up shops and restaurants and near deserted streets.

But Pittsburgh is the birthplace of one Andy Warhol and subsequently houses the Andy Warhol Museum. I'm not a huge Warhol fan but was really impressed with the seven floor museum and its collection. I hadn't realized that Warhol was such an accomplished photographer and his commercial design work from the 1950s before he entered his own rather extended 15 minutes was cool.

But the best piece was Warhol's Silver Clouds - iPhone snap above. I stood in that room by myself for a really long time and was amazed that the clouds seemed to magically avoid me. I think I carry a strong energy field...or I am surrounded by evil.

A Day in the Life

Well, I'm seriously flattered that I have secret stalkers. I thought the only people who read this thing were my friends scattered around the world, and thus, it was a great way to keep in touch before the explosion of things like Facebook. (The blog also gets an incredible amount of traffic due to a couple of posts, so I keep it up for that.) You can always introduce yourself - email's to the right!

Life towards the end of 2008 was so busy that I didn't have time to update here. Then life slowed down wayyyy down and I now sit so mired in final PhD work here in Toronto that I even bore myself.

Momentile is geeky and self-indulgent. You could make out an average day from the photographs though: I like granola and fruit for breakfast, I'm working on the photography section of my thesis, I hang out with my neighbour's cat, I have dinner at the Four Seasons and I end the evening with a tea.

Also, I tend to favour restaurants with chalk board menus (breakfast & dinner), it has been snowing a helluva lot in Toronto, and chocolate is my salvation at the moment.

Momentile

It's been quiet around here. Other networking sites have captured my interest and people tend to know where I am and see my photographs through Facebook and Twitter and Flickr. But I have found another geeky, time wasting endeavor.

I'm chronicling my days with my iPhone camera on Momentile. Neat concept and takes less than 5 seconds to accomplish. With the PhD thesis in full throttle writing mode as I wrap it all up, that's about all I can handle. So now you can see a snapshot of my day, everyday. Fascinating to be sure.

Martin Creed, Work No. 850

Wandering through the Tate Britain recently after seeing the Francis Bacon exhibit, I was very nearly run over by someone sprinting through the gallery. About 30 seconds later, it happened again. It took me a moment to realize that I was actually standing smack in the middle of some art: Martin Creed's piece entitled Work No. 850.

Unbwogable!

When I was in Kenya a few weeks ago, Barack Obama was, rather predictably, front page news in the media. Tonight he did become completely unbwogable. Congratulations, Mr. President.

unbwogable
adj. unshakeable, unbeatable, unstoppable.
Subjects: English, Kenya

Etymological Note: English un– ‘not’ + Dholuo bwogo ‘to scare’ + English —able ‘capable.’ The word was popularized by the song “Who Can Bwogo Me?” also known as “Unbwogable,” from the Kenyan musical group Gidi Gid Maji Maji.

Out Of Africa

Arrived back in London at 5:30am after two weeks in East Africa. I shot bazoodles of photographs and didn't really look at them on the trip, choosing instead to just keep switching memory cards and storing everything. As I began sorting through them all this afternoon, this one jumped out as my favourite thus far.

Eyes Are Everywhere

I took an impromptu long weekend and flew to my folks' place on Vancouver Island for a couple of days. Since I was out west for such a short time, I purposely tried to keep my body clock on EST. At 5:45am, I was in the house checking my email when I felt like I was being watched. I turned on my laptop's isight camera, moved it two inches to the right and snapped a photo.

Cottaging

I spent last weekend up in classic Ontario cottage country. Brought up two books that I've been dying to read: De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage and Do Travel Writers Go To Hell? by Thomas Kohnstamm.

What did I do up there? Drink champagne, wine and Pimm's all day and flip through the pages of British Vogue.