Travel
GUIDEPOST will take yo far and wide through TRAVEL.
A Second Opinion: August Lulls and Summer Reading »
Sitting under the shade of the trees in the pleasant summer weather, I find watching the squirrels and bluejays getting a drink and a bath in the birdbath sometimes just as fascinating as reading about Meditation, but still I am learning something new and improving my attitude in this locked-down world. If anything we have been given time to spend doing things at home we don’t normally do—Like READ!
SPAIN: THE KING WHO LEFT THE PALACE AND WALKED OUT ON THE QUEEN »
THE royal letter, from king to king: “A year ago, I spoke to you of my wish and desire to withdraw from institutional functions. Now, guided by the conviction to provide the best service to the Spaniards, their institutions, and to you as King, I am informing you of my well-considered decision to leave Spain at this point.” But what about the wife?
Turning Ashes into Activism: SoHo Reclaims its Artistic Tradition »
With museums, galleries and all other forms of live entertainment unavailable, the remarkable SoHo Social Impact and Art to Heart were an act of creativity that brought a breath of (masked) fresh air. SoHo once again belonged to the artists, who transformed raw plywood boards into an astonishing open-air art gallery, healing the psyche of the shattered neighborhood and lifted the human spirit.
Messages of BLM and Hope Smashed by Opportunists and Greed »
The two SoHo plywood mural art projects, SoHo Social Impact and Art to Heart, were a creative response to the vandalism and loss of property that occurred in that NYC downtown neighborhood in early June. However, those murals, with messages of hope, healing, beauty and Black Lives Matter, have themselves been looted. Transcendent and transient. . .
THE PICAREQUE SPANISH & THE PANDEMIC FACE MASK »
The Spanish is nothing if not picaresque. It’s there in the underpinnings of his national icons. However, the latest survey by the Sociological Research Center shows that not only do most Spaniards believe the measures adopted by the government to contain the corona pandemic were necessary; now that the lockdown has been lifted, they want the authorities to impose stricter controls, including a re-imposition of confinement, where needed. A near-perfect
unanimity of deeds and sentiments, and quite a departure from what one would normally expect from the highly individualistic picaros.
FINDING DON QUIXOTE »
I had given up finding my favorite Street Performer Don Quixote. I was afraid he had gone the way of the many other performers, not to be found again. But to my surprise, on one of my last days in Madrid I rounded the corner and there he was. Tall, handsome, and lance in hand, waiting for people to take his picture. I have always loved finding him.
BUSKERS BOWL ‘EM OVER IN SPAIN! »
Face masks and vertical social distancing, and other amazing feats!
Lost Martha Graham Work in Paeon to the Spanish Civil War »
The collaboration by the New York-based Martha Graham Dance Company, the Los Angeles-based Wild Up chamber music collective and The Soraya Nazarin Center for the Performing Arts has produced a digital dance inspired by archival remnants of Martha Graham’s Immediate Tragedy, a solo she created in 1937 in response to the Spanish Civil War. Drawing on the common experience of today’s global pandemic, the 22 artists creating the project are collaborating from locations across the U.S. and Europe using a variety of technologies to coordinate movement, music and digital design. The new digital Immediate Tragedy premiered online Friday, June 19 on The Soraya Facebook page, and Saturday, June 20 at the Martha Matinee on the Graham Company’s YouTube Channel.
BASTILLE DAY FROM THE AMERICAN VIEW POINT: IT’S ALL IN THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE’S KEY »
Bastille Day, July 14, marks the day at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. Soon after, the French people gave the Marquis de Lafayette, who had helped the United States gain independence from Great Britain, the key to the Bastille as a gesture of good faith, entrusting him to protect France’s newly won liberties. Lafayette, a good friend of George Washington, sent Washington the key in 1790 on behalf of the French people, to solidify the two countries’ friendship.
YOU SHOULD BE RUNNING THE BULLS NOW, BUT YOU CAN’T! »
Monday, the 6th of July 2020. If this were any ordinary year, the plaza of Pamplona would have been packed to the rafters with excited Spaniards and foreign tourists who couldn’t wait to celebrate the chupinazo and kick off the sanfermines. But this is no ordinary year. It is one of the five times when Pamplona’s festival of running the bulls has been cancelled in its long history.
