Oaxaca Street Art I: 40 taxis

44 aves

mosquero cardenal

capulinero gris

tórtola colilgara

paloma aliblanca

paloma doméstica

gorrión doméstico

garza nívea

zanate mayor

fringílido mexicano

zorzal dorsirrufo

zorzal petirrojo

zorzal negro

cuitlacoche piquicurvo

zopilote negro

saltapared barranquero

salapared continental gorjicafé

pato de collar

luis grande

semillero collarejo

rascador oaxaqueño

rascador ojirojo (hybrid)

rascador collarejo

rascador hibrido

carpintero collarejo

saltapalos pechiblanco

carcara común

picaflor vientre-canelo

colibrí-serrano gorjiazul

fandanguero morado

junco ojilumbre

lanio americano

pavito aliblanco

paro mexicano

chipe rojo

aguililla colirroja

chara pechigris

chara azuleja

chara copetona

colibrí orejiblanco

mosquero barranqueño

cenzonte norteño

sastrecillo

garrapatero piquiliso

dominico dorsioscuro

Ayotzinapa
y el abrazo ausente

Cauca, we hardly knew ye

 

After he introduced us to the plants;

after hiking us up to the mirador, where he told about the macaws of the river valley, how they mate for life, and glide up and down the canyon each day, like an emerald river in the air, and about the serial widow who consolidated mine- and slaveholdings across the region through the 16^th century;

after a delicate explanation of what was once a spindle in the hands of the indigenous maiden in bas relief on the plaza de Chinquinquirá in Santa Fe, and had become something else at the hand of some merry vandals, determined to rewrite the story with a rasp file;

after leading us over on this hundred-year-old suspension bridge; and introducing us to its polymath engineer, “amigo de Edison;”

Gonzalo looked back with us across the rio Cauca and laid out how this was the zero point for the impending reservoir slated for damming over the next couple years. Largest hydroelectric project in the history of Colombia, hundreds of families displaced, and, of course, an entire greenwashing booster campaign, big international hotels promised to go in at the Puente de Occidente, and a “zona ecologica” along the 50-mile banks, where they say a million trees will be planted. Like funeral flowers lined up along both sides of the body.

Also: Hydropower will be generated for export.
To the US. By transoceanic cable. No fooling.

detalles:

Environmental Justice Atlas: Hidroituango

2014 overviews from Colombia Support Network, el Espectador, & Colombia Reports

Rios Vivos movement

Antioquia

From what I've seen, the thing to do here, in leading into any discussion of Colombia, is to open with great big gestures toward magical realism. Whether it’s Anthony Bourdain, or Narcos, or even Colombia’s own Ministry of Tourism, so often, Colombia = magical realism : CO : MR: co : mr : co : mr … (bulletproof generals, yellow butterflies, feral hippos, and so on).

Though these can sometimes be tiresome, reductive, and silly, it’s probably necessary on some level. And it’s a lot more desirable, I think, than other go-to distortions, like Colombia=cocaine for yanqui nostrils, Colombia=guerillas & paramilitaries, etc. It can also make for a delightful pastime on long bus rides, imagining yourself a writer for a middlebrow travel magazine:

Passing slow traffic along precarious highways through Andean cloud forests has its roots in magical realism. Mary full of grace, we truckers and mechanics ask your protection.

Men with tattoo guns, ink kits, and iphones coming to a neighborhood near you are today’s main purveyors of magical realism. Por que te quiero, te pinto.

In the imposition of the four gospels on the New World lies the absolute origin of magical realism. And our Lord did juggle the bread.

A desire to reckon the heartbreaking beauty of life and being with the absurdities and horrors of the violence these entail… (OK, maybe that one does have something to do with magical realism).

Sausages, having absorbed all the green-spectrum particles and waves of the Cordillera Central, now infuse our bodily humours with magical realism.

Alright. I know, that’s enough.

Actually, aside from coming up with fake hooks for the alumni magazine, we were there on other errands too.

More photos here and here.

aves de Colombia (March 25-April 5)

great kiskadee

yellow warbler

cattle egret

snowy egret

green heron

barefaced ibis

clay colored thrush

great thrush

crested oropendola

colombian chachalaca

white-collared swift

yellow-headed caracara

bicolored wren

black crested jay

green jay

ruddy ground dove

rock pigeon

eared dove

black vulture

turkey vulture

palm tanager

blue-gray tanager

bay-headed tanager

flame-rumped tanager

lemon-rumped tanager

crimson-backed tanager

apical flycatcher

vermillion flycatcher

eastern kingbird

tropical kingbird

variegated flycatcher

riverside tyrant

smooth-billed ani

white-capped dipper

saffron finch

bat falcon

crimson-crested woodpecker

red-crowned woodpecker

southern lapwing

scarlet-fronted parakeet

thick-billed euphonia

bananaquit

black-and-white seedeater

late-throated whitestart

rufus-collared sparrow

emerald toucanet

rufous motmot

blue-and-white swallow

grosbeaks are back

aguas

2015 tailings: a year-end offering for data miners

...ranked more or less in order:

• Beloved, Toni Morrison (again)

• Running After Antelope, Scott Carrier

• Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

• Child of God, Cormac McCarthy

• House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday

• Rabbit Boss, Thomas Sanchez

• The Columbian Exchange, Alfred Crosby

• Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

• The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler

• Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

• My Year of Meats, Ruth Ozeki

• The Iliad, Homer

• The Snows of Kilimanjaro & Other Stories, Ernest Hemingway

• Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut

• Notes from Underground, Fydor Dostoyevsky

• The Metamorphosis & Other Stories, Franz Kafka

apples for: precocious candidacies, edible maps, & things that might (have) be(en)

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We might all be excused for losing track of the seasons lately. Between El Niño, climate chaos, ‘tis the season for savings jingles, and election campaigns that begin 500+ days out, you may be looking to lay a hand on some good, ripe (& throwable) fruit. If so, the Falling Fruit Project is a good place to start.

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This is a crowdsourced global map of neighborhood fruit trees, gardens, mushroom patches, dumpsters, and other local edibles. They list over 1,000 different species in multiple languages (plus Linnaean nomenclature), from apples (malus domestica) to zulu figs (ficus lutea).

Here’s my neighborhood, where we’ve been looking for the nearest peaches, putting some apples and plums on the map, and carefully leaving others off.

This has all resulted in us bringing home boxes and boxes of apples, mostly from around our own block, drying them into chips, sealing jars of applesauce, pressing them into cider, and baking loads of pies.

Through a lot of this, I’ve been sort of haunted by two songs. One is my friend George singing Patty Griffin’s “Making Pies,” ten years ago on the deck of a yurt in Pigeon Hollow.

The other is Joe Hill’s “Pie in the Sky,” alternatively known as “The Preacher and the Slave.” Here are a couple very good versions.

Earlier this year we went to a Labor Day commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of Joe Hill’s execution by firing squad in Sugarhouse. There were folk singers shouting from an outdoor stage, food trucks with fusion noodle bowls and fancy mac & cheese, AFLCIO info booths, plenty of overalls and anarchist t-shirts, dogs and frisbees. Saltgrass Printmakers and Ken Sanders Books were also there. It rained off and on.

-->After making the rounds, eating, and a couple games of hide-and-seek with the kids, we picked up a little reprint of an old IWW songbook from 1923. Since then, Ash has really taken an interest in these old Wobblies songs, and she pulls the booklet down off the shelf a couple times a week to study the words and try to figure the tunes. Finn sings along and “The Preacher and the Slave” has moved into his top requests at bedtime.

so 2008

related: pompions past