Cubists

I'd heard that Europeans were more laid back about cubity than we are here in The States, but I'll admit it - my first sight of cubists came as a bit of a shock. There they were, right out in public, letting their angles dangle. Well, you know me; I just had to get a picture. I'm posting this as a warning to those of you who might be planning a trip to Europe so you'll have more class than I had, and you won't stare and act like an ugly American should you encounter a Cube Beach.

The good stuff

Riding a bicycle to work on a breezy fall day

Someone else cooking breakfast

When a plan comes together

Yellow squash

Nothing but blue skies

Guitars in tune

Lost in let's remember

To dos, ta done - ta da!

Dizzy Gillespie

Thelonious Monk

El Langostino

Stayed up late celebrating with Jeremy Seghers and some of the finest people you'd ever want to meet at  Tower of Song: A tribute to Leonard Cohen, at Benoit Glazer's Timucua White House.  Rather than try to write anything that would take me out of that wonderful vibe, I thought I'd just chuck a Godzilla-sized lobster at you, and run.

The good stuff:

The Kerouac House

Timucua White House

West Orange Trail

903 Mills Market

Winter With The Writers

The Winter Park Institute

The Spanish Sugar Mill at Deleon Springs

The Morse Museum

Orlando Fringe

Orlando Shakespeare Theater

Ascension

Growing up, I remember Mom subscribed to The Bethel Series, a Bible-study that featured iconic paintings on glossy card stock. As the series progressed, Mom would add chapters, and I can remember looking forward to seeing those pictures. I don't remember the content of the lessons. I don't think I was even old enough to read. I think it was probably about the same time Mom was clipping phonics cartoons out of the Los Angeles Times -- black and white Monday through Saturday and color on Sunday -- and pasting them in a black binder she used to teach me to read.

I came upon this monument in a Barcelona cemetery and it reminded me of those pictures. Forgive my crude craftsmanship, but, with the help of a cloning brush, I separated statue from pedestal and added lens flare to create my own tribute to that childhood memory. 

The good stuff:

RAGBRAI

gray geese on black water

frozen fields

the aquatic percussion of irrigation pivots

terraced gardens

yard sales

ladybugs

antimacassars

stacking bookcases

grand openings

Busker

"What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?" -- such was the question posed by writer Gene Weingarten in his Pulitzer Prize winning story "Pearls Before Breakfast," documenting a stunt in which violin virtuoso Joshua Bell -- who regularly sells out concert halls at more than $100 a ticket -- dressed as a street musician and performed some of the world's most beautiful and complex violin concertos for 45 minutes, on a 300-year-old Stradivarius, and was virtually ignored, as a busker in a Washington, D.C., Metro station. You can listen to it here.  

L.A. Times reporter Steve Lopez found the Julliard-trained cellist Nathaniel Ayers playing a battered violin, for real, on Skid Row, and documented the brilliant musician's descent into schizophrenia in another award-winning series that became the basis for the movie "The Soloist."

Dick Van Dyke did a comic turn as a one-man band in Mary Poppins.

And then, there's this guy . . . click here.

Buskers play anything from buckets to, well, see for yourself . . .

The guy in the picture above was tucked back in a courtyard at the Cathedral of Barcelona.

If life has a soundtrack, buskers are a big part of it -- along with crickets, coquis, June bugs, and bull gators. I've been blessed to have seen some of the world's great cities, and heard some of the world's great street musicians firsthand. And, a good street musician is always worth a good tip - you've tipped for much less. So the next time you hear a busker knocking themselves out - particularly if they're really good at it. Break off a buck, or two, or ten. And consider yourself that much richer.

Oh ... and I've been listening to the Joshua Bell link as I wrote this ... OMG! Grab a cup of coffee and give yourself a treat.

The good stuff:

Crystal perfect moments
Sudden love
arboretums
The hanging gardens in the Land Pavilion at Epcot
Park Guell
Airboat Rides
eagle nests
Nutella crepes
curling up with a good book
playing a musical instrument

Tibidabo

Two years gone
The taste of wine-soaked orange
Barcelona rising
With the funicular passing of pull cords at my kitchen window

Steam from my coffee
Now the tuneful breath of a Catalan calliope
Whose song is picked up by a passing Scirocco
And carried cross the Cezzane landscape
To the Black Madonna on Montserrat
The Olympic village at Montjuic
And the Sagrada Familia in the valley below
Where it is echoed by a guitarist with nimble fingers
Playing in a Medieval church
A few blocks from the school
Where Picasso learned to paint

The persistent ticking
Of the clock in my library
Reminds me of Spanish fans
So expressive in the hands of old women
And you, sharing ice cream in the carousel shade
Watching sunlight, cinematic
Through the spokes of the Ferris wheel
With me, on the threshold of heaven
Timeless as tin toys

The good stuff:

herb gardens
water parks
Gaudi mosaics
old photographs
bicycle bells
turtles
Snopes.com
fresh snow
hot dog carts
art galleries