Eat Culture Baby

What Coffee Cups Mean to Me

2006-04-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

Bowl of Roses

2006-03-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

The drive Part II

2006-03-05T10:56:00.000-08:00

Nashville's attempt at Winter

2006-02-24T13:44:00.000-08:00

Fun with angles

2006-02-12T19:29:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple shots I took around the house trying to create as much depth of field as I could.

Hopefully, next weekend, I should have some totally sweet pictures I took this weekend using extreme closeups of a snowy garden bed. It almost seemed like Winter this weekend. The freaky thing, is that at this point it feels like this might be the closest we see to Winter for a long time unless we migrate North.

Between Knoxville and Nashville

2006-02-06T15:58:00.000-08:00

Here are some picture I took while on the highway between Knoxville and Nashville.

Been a while...

2006-01-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

Since its been so long since I've been here, I think I'm also going to start posting regular photography here as well. Check back soon for pretty and odd pictures.

A Period of Transition

2005-11-10T14:32:00.000-08:00

In the picture on the right, you see what the bulk of the landscape between Zagreb and Zadar looks like. After a horrendously irritating three hour effort to rent a car large enough for four people and four people's luggage, we ultimately settled on hiring a cab for the three hour drive. We drove across the Croatian countryside in an incredibly swanky van.

Leaving Zagreb, the land is low, full of rustic villages and dense, low grown trees. Tall forests like we have here in the states are very rare, and for the most part the topography more closely resembled desert mountain foothills with scrub grass and fields of glacier boulders and shattered rocks.

The road quickly becomes windy and rising however, and pretty quickly mountains abound, impressive rocky peaks, not those pansy rolling hills we get in the Eastern United States. The type of mountains armies died trying to cross.

Once in the mountains, the road enters a series of long tunnels, some several miles long that cut underneath the most obtrusive mountain spurs. The tunnels are really neat, filled with an eerie hum and a perpetual wind from enormous fans mounted to the cieling. Green lights line the walls, almost like our green stop lights, but of a slightly different hue.

Once you get through the mountains, it is a short, winding decline to the coast. The roads get so twisty that a proper sense of direction is nearly impossible, arching around as much as 270 degrees in some places. On the left is a picture of the average stretch of coast.

You can't see too well, but the architecture in this part of the country becomes classically mediterranean with white stucco walls and red tile roofs. Everything there is made of stone and even the newer buildings look like they're about a hundred years old.

Also, in the picture you can see how blue the water is there because the mediterannean bays are shallow and quite unpolluted. In some places you can see something like a hundred feet down - at least it looks that way. From the spot in the picture, it is just a short drive to the port city of Zadar which acted as our home base for the next couple of days, and pictures are coming soon.

Another contribution to the Art World

2005-10-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

Below is another link to my latest contribution to the artistic progress of the human race. Thematically similar to my first piece, yes, but I'm sensing a series here.

http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?ioujii6b68o

And here is part two of the saga:

http://artpad.art.com/?ioujzo12ttrc

a little different

2005-10-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Though this page is currently dedicated to an exploration of my trip to Croatia this summer, as the title suggests there is a larger purpose to all of this: To shove culture down everyone's throats. As such, I noticed a link to Art.com on Texas Embrace - through which you can view a fine artistic creation by Michael Allen, but I felt it necessary to include my own. Therefore:

http://artpad.art.com/?ioiw7h6zosw

Zagreb Cultural District

2005-09-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

The picture above is one of the best shots I got of the park that rings the cultural district of the south downtown. This shot is on the Eastern side. If you can tell from the scale of the cars on the left side of the shot, you can get a bit of a sense that this strip of flowers is between fifteen and twenty feet wide. On the right, you can see a picture of Zagreb's largest museum, which we did not get a chance to go into since we only spent two full days in the city before going to Zadar.

The park you see runs around circles the south downtown in a horseshoe shape like so: _. Along the southern edge there is Croatia's largest National Park/wildlife sanctuary, full of walking paths and home to all sorts of animals. Unfortunately, I did not get pictures of said animals, and if I had they would have looked much like most of the animals indigenous to North America. Although I did take a few pictures of local non-human life, they tend to resemble the Croatian slug pictured on Fish Head Alchemy because most of the unique animals/insects I saw were of the stinging and biting variety and it did not seem to be the wisest of choices to get close enough to take a good picture.

The picture to the bottom left is of what I believe to be one of the government building. I particularly like the lamp post you see on the right side of the picture, and it is the type of lamp post you see althroughout the Zagreb downtown. Another thing you might notice from the picture on the left is how blue most of the sky is over Croatia, something you'll see again and again when we get to pictures that are in either smaller cities or on the countryside.

Also, for the envirnomentalist in you, you might want to check out the differences of the skies between the government building picture and the picture of the park. The picture of the government building is taken facing North towards the hilly shopping and cafe area of the downtown where our hotel was while the flower picture was taken facing south towards the industrial district. Gotta love the white sky of man, boy howdy.

A Fire-side Chat in Zagreb

2005-09-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

Aside from the beautiful cathedrals and the quaint, narrow streets of Northern Zagreb, there is a major road that divides the hilly North end of the city from the flat, grid-planned south end. After we went to the cathedral of Zagreb, had lunch, and did a little shopping, we ventured to this south side.

On the bottom right you see one of the first major streets which is named, curiously enough, F. Roosevelt Ave. The yellow bulding you see is one rather typical of this section of the down town as will be apparent in later pictures. The trees on the right and left side of the picture are also trees in the enormous square of park that surrounds the downtown. To see a picture taken of this park, see the first entry - the long building that spans the entire horizontal of that one picture- that is at the far south end of the southern downtown - right before you get intro the industrialized sections of town marked by that Easteran Block architecture we've been reading so much about in the books.

One of the more intriguing aspects of southern downtown, an aspect of which I do not have pictures but wherefrom came several of the disposal cameras used to take these pictures, is the underground mall. There is an enormous underground complex complete with bars, restaurants, outlets, and even movie theaters and arcades, all of it entirely underground. It felt like going into a subway except that you had to pay to use the toilets and instead of signs that took you to the next landing, you simply found signs that took you to deeper levels of mall stores, confusingly twisting corridors, and a growing sense of claustrophobia that stems from the fact that you might not be used to spending so much time in the realm of the moles.

But Alas- I would post further pictures right now, yet for some reason Blogger is not allowing me to include further photos in this post. I will assure you though, they would have been quite lovely. And of course they will be included on this page with the aide of a better connection during the week. Until then, vaya con patos.

Born in Arizona, moved to Babylona- no Croatia

2005-09-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

I had pictures of the interior meant to show the fancy scroll work of the alter, the scope of the vaulted cielings, the enormous stained glass windows, and the numerous and massively gorgeous paintings that covered the walls, but alas, disposal cameras lack the strength of flash in order to properly capture such scope, regardless of how well lit the church seemed to be. What you see on the left is a picture from the interior of the Zagreb cathedral. Isn't there a disturbing resemblence between the gold plated mask of the founding Bishop on the left and the masks unearthed in Egyptian tombs?

However, the camera did pick up some of the lovely detail of the gold work, as well as the donation alter in front of the mask. The principle is this: you slip 5 kuna (about 1 american dollar) into a slot in the little table and you say a prayer to the Bishop. If you look closely at the silver placard - and I do think it's real silver, you'll notice an inscription. If you were to blow this up large enough to read it, you still wouldn't be able to read it if you don't read cyrillic (sp?). As a result I can't actually tell you what the Bishop's name was, but I gather he was pretty important. Especially since they have a life-size model dummy of his body laid out in a glass case as you see on the bottom right.

I could be mistake, but I think he's made of wax. I toyed with the notion that the pastiness of the skin was a result of him being a vampire, placed there to be contained by the crosses and holy water for the protection of others and himself, but the donation alter throws that theory all out of whack. However, one thing you can see in the picture that I wish came out a little better is the elaborate metal relief sculpture that forms the bottom part of the display. It depicted a beautifully rendered scene of the Bishop leading a congregation, with a bunch of crosses and a really tall hat on his head. Not as tall as the pope's hat, mind you, but a solid eight inches nonetheless.

There you have it folks. A lifesize wax sculpture hermetically sealed in glass. Really though, I must say, the interior of that church was quite striking and impressive.

Come back soon for the next installation of pictures.

Cathedral in Zagreb Part II

2005-09-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

This shot shows the exterior of te great cathedral in Zagreb. As you all can see, it is undergoing an extensive process of renovation, but the right hand spire is quite finished. I think it'd be sweet to be one of the dudes working on the top of the scaffolding. Sweet view.

That aside however, this is one of the oldest formal cathedrals in Europe. When I say cathedral, I refer to the cathedral style of building with the flying buttresses and the archways (I'll be posting some other style of church architecture later). The project of building this cathedral was a multi-generational project, spanning something like 80 years. This cathedral is likely one of the main reasons that Zagreb exists.

Of course, this was before real construction equipment, but the time commitment allowed for more than just the structural construction; it allowed that attention to detail that you simply don't see in any modern architecture anymore. This project took such an investment that people worked their entire lives on it and never saw its completion. Some of those same people raised their children to be able to complete specific aspects of its construction, design, or detailing. People literally gave their lives to its completion. No matter what the says about faith, there is something to be respected about this as a work of art.

The Cathedral in Zagreb - Part I

2005-09-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus from entries on this blog, I have finally settled at a computer with a mind to type up the new one. During our adventures through the city of Zagreb, one thing we had to stop and see was the beautiful churches and cathedrals. Zagreb is home to some of the most spectacular churches I have ever seen with intricately designed architecture, elaborately etched gildwork all around the alters, and some magnificent paintings dating back centuries.

On a covered bend of one of the narrowed streets we found a beautiful shrine built to the Virgin Mary where old women in black robes (not nun habits) sold candles for people light when they said their prayers.

The picture you see on the right is the rampart and North wall of a castle that was converted into the housing of the Bishops and clergy and an enormous open courtyard for the great cathedral. The wall surrounds the cathedral on three sides, with turrets like the one you see here on each corner. The south wall is coated in ivy vines and small brick apartments were annexed to the wall bit by bit as the city grew and the demands for clergy increased.

And...unfortunately I have run out of time. I must get to class, but I will finished this post over the weekend so everyone can see some pretty pretty pictures. You vain, hollow monsters.

2005-08-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the delay. I lack the money to develop my film. But that shall soon be remedied, and you shall all pay! Wa ha ha.

The Streets of Zagreb

2005-08-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

Most of my stay in Zagreb was spent wandering up and down the streets of the downtown. The thing I love the most about Zagreb was how pedestrian friendly the entire place was. No one drove cars anywhere downtown unless they were police officers or a taxi driver. The few straggling cars puttering around were totally at the mercy of the pedestrian traffic, creeping along at a few miles an hour. The picture in the upper right connects two of the larger streets lined by shops and cafes. The really cool thing about the small streets is that all the ivy, stonework, and stairs are fairly typical. The main streets are similarly paved, but they tend not to have as many steps, and they are lined with cafes where we sat and drank Ozuijsko (a really good beer brewed in Zagreb - it's competitor is Karlovachko) and cappucinos roughly once per hour. The primary means of entertainment in Zagreb appears to be sitting at cafes all day or spray painting graffiti all over everything at night. the graffitti is visible in both the narrow streets shots. The predominantly orange streets on the left is right by the twenty four hour bakery where my mom and I bought numerous rolls stuffed with various things such as cheese, jelly, chocolate, apple, and hot dogs. That street empties out at the spot on the bottom right. What you don't see on the bottom right is that just a little behind me was the pizzeria where we ate the most psychotically enormous pizza I have ever seen in my life. That pizza put New York pizzas to shame in terms of size, running in somewhere around thirty inches across. That's the one neat thing about buying pizza in Croatia - even if you order pizza for one they bring you a pizza almost as far across as a Papa John's large pizza. The final picture, the picture of the statue in the market on the bottom left is the market that contains all of the local crafts, crafts that intermingle insididiously with souveniers. And man, talk about high pressure sales tactics. The dudes who run the stand literally try to shove things into your hands, saying "and you'll buy this too." One guy actually seemed to be trying to slip a belt through our companion Doug's belt loops. However, that being said, I found lots of neat stuff in that market, and any trip needs its souvenier shopping stops, and that one turned out to be quite productive.
That's all for today. Tune in next time for shots of the incredible cathedral that is one of the big tourist draws of Zagreb. Its hundreds of years old and hundreds of feet tall, the kind of building people started working on when they were young and died before it was completed.

The Cafe Outside Hotel Dubrovnik

2005-08-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

Our first Croatian stop was in Zagreb, where we stayed at the outstanding Hotel Dubrovnik. Outside the hotel, there was this rocking little cafe with purple umbrellas in the street where I sat every day I stayed at the hotel to drink cappucinos after failing to successfully describe an American cup of coffee. To the side of the hotel, this homeless alcoholic sat all day with his acoustic guitar and a brown bagged bottle singing American songs. The most interesting part was that he had an excellent voice, but either his accent was too thick or he didn't know the words well enough, but he just could not pronounce the lyrics to the songs. I feel kind of bad, because I always meant to give the fella some change, but every time someone gave him change, he would buy a bottle of something or other and slam it down in front of everybody. The smaller picture is a picture of my mother at the cafe on the last day we stayed at the hotel. The waiter thought we were cazy because we ordered three cappucinos apiece.

Welcome!!! + !!!

2005-08-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

So. It's come to this. I've been forced to create a blog with a little intelligence to it. Damn you intelligence, my old nemisis. So...this blog will contain pictures, commentary, and descriptions of various endeavors of mine, starting with my journey to Croatia. When I run out of things to say about Croatia, I will either look up more things about Croatia or write about some place or something else. You will have no say over what this stuff might be, so don't you dare try to force your dogma on this page. Wa ha ha ha. Ahem.