Blog retirement

I've decided to retire this blog. I don't really have the time or interest to keep it up... Any content of value has been transferred over to my personal blog. Feel free to follow me there.

Leaning Tower of Dallas

A wee bit of drama in Dallas, Texas this
week after a less-than-textbook demolition 

The locals are having a blast...

Here's my favourite story:

"As the infamous wrecking ball continues to tap away at the Leaning Tower of Dallas, Jerrel Sustaita is there to paint its progress. Since last week, the Dallas artist has stood before his easel outside the slanting building, painting acrylic impressions of the scene... When the tower finally falls, Sustaita will move on to another project, but he said he hopes his miniature art exhibition will find its way into a museum gallery. Although he’ll be printing copies of the paintings for sale, he said he wants the original pieces to remain together as a testament to the historic Leaning Tower of Dallas. “I’m not really interested in a situation where people buy it and take it off the wall,” he said. “I’d like it to stay up for a little while just for people to reminisce.”..." [read the full story on dmagazine].

Not your best demolition company ad...

Review: Rooftops of Tehran

Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fantastic
I loved this book. I chose to read this book in light of recent news and politics, hoping it would give me more insight into Iran and the Iranian people. It did not disappoint. The hopes and dreams of Iran's youth, set against the context of the country's norms and traditions, provided a rich picture. The characters were very real to me. The tiny details of the neighbourhood, the cooling hose in the heat, the imaginings under the stars, took me right there. Richly written. Great narration. 5 stars.

View all my reviews

Review: Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dark history in the white city.
After a false start a year ago, when I couldn't get into this book, I picked it up again. I had just come across "Bloodstains" by Jeff Mudgett, the great grandson of the "devil" in this book, and thought I should read this first (I recommend reading them in this order; it gave good context for Mudgett's revelations).
Overall, this was a pretty good book, but tying together two largely unrelated storylines isn't easy to do. While both were joined by the time and place of the Chicago World's Fair, flipping from a mass murderer's arrival in the city to the architects planning the site couldn't help but feel disjointed.
In the end, the stories were joined in the grizzly nightmares and calamities during the fair. It was disturbing to learn that the disappearing women barely registered with authorities and the "devil" carried on under their noses.
It is a dark history, but interesting nonetheless.

Read my review of Bloodstains
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Opera Garnier learnings

I have been a fan of the Opera Garnier since I stumbled upon it early into my month in Paris in 2009. I was already blown away by the building when I looked up and first set eyes on Chagall's remarkable ceiling. I gushed at the time, and have since acquired a tremendous print of the ceiling (yet to be framed) and a book or two.

Yet, despite learning that construction began in the 1860's, I never really thought about how that Chagall got there.

Then, this morning, reading an old copy of a Sunday NY Times left over from a vacation (I buy a copy and read it front to back over a week, and unfinished sections set aside... one of which just surfaced), I had a major ah ha moment:

"Among the theater's most famous fixtures are the chandelier and the painted ceiling that surrounds it ~ originally by Jules Eugène Lenepveu, then replaced in 1964 with a new sprawling work by Marc Chagall depicting scenes from operas by Mozart, Wagner and more."
Behind the Curtain at the Paris Opera, New York Times, September 8, 2019

Of course!!!!