Somebody once wrote in a song
"I've travelled every country
I've travelled in my mind
It seems we are on a journey,
A trip through space and time."
Ok so it's not Dylan but English wasn't their first language and I've always kind of liked it. Especially at times like this, confined to four walls ( missing Bloody Scotland!!) and yearning for the freedom of lockdown.
It's all a matter of perspective.
I went for a wander through the picture box file on my laptop and came up with this series of photographs. Between selecting them and uploading them to the blog, they appeared in reverse order.
I'm not going to tell you where it is, I think that will become evident very quickly, and if you don't recognise it, that might be because it wasn't your kind of town.
This was our last stop before we went off to live the high life and ate a baked potato.
I think at this point we had walked 17 miles around this beautiful city.
The main hall of the Natural History Museum. I like the way Terry Dactile on the left is photobombing.
Many of the stuffed exhibits had painted backgrounds. I had seen these before of course but there was something about the artist/designer of these that I found intriguing.
I think this might be up the road from me. Obviously simplified so the eye is attracted to the beasties. But how alluring is it? Right now, I could stick on my walking boots and climb into that picture.
Does Africa look like this?
The left hand side of the previous picture. It seems a busy corner, this part of Africa.
This was the walk to the museum.
It was bitter cold, with a wind that could cut glass.
But look at that sky.
The big city scape.
It looks like Bouchercon time of year.
We spent a long time watching something a bit weird.
The tops of these buildings were blowing hot air (or something) out into the atmosphere that turned into shaped clouds, empheral beings that drifted on the wind to fade and die.
Stunning colours.
"Sweet home, Chicago"
started with a song lyric so I may as well finish with one!
Caro Ramsay
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With phrasings like "a wind that could cut glass" and "ephemeral beings that drifted on the wind to fade and die" you're the City of Big Shoulder's modern day Carl Sandburg! Here's what the old guy had to say about the place at a very different time.
ReplyDeleteHog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
---Chicago, Carl Sandburg