Night-blurring
Friday, 18 April 2025
I see an interesting muddiness in this night exposure…that doesn’t look like it’s nighttime.
Musings
Stumped no more
Friday, 7 March 2025
A non-self-driving robot came and de-stumped us…actually, it ground (sawed) up only one stump. We kept the others to hold the bank that they’re embedded in.
And thus we have the end of the wind-felled tree saga…except for creating a new version of the back garden now that it gets some sun. I emphasize: some.
Yawn
Friday, 7 February 2025
Above our washer-drier is a tube light. When I flipped it on while processing the dirty laundry we brought home with us, the bulb blew and fell onto the drier. I have yet to dig out the socket part that stayed in the tube.
It’s dangerous being home?
I managed to stay awake last night until shortly after 7:30pm…and woke up at approximately when we had been getting up in Spain. Errg. Already yawning now…. My body isn’t proficient at fielding time changes.
Cultural, day two
Thursday, 30 January 2025
When in Bilbao…and especially if it’s rainy…. This famous Frank Gehry-designed museum opened in October 1997, riverside where the port was, opening up this part of the city with a major international attraction. Alternatively, people come to see “Puppy” by Jeff Koons, a flowering-plant bedecked West Highland terrier behemoth.
We joined a HS group crowded under a meager overhang waiting for the museum to open. They were speaking French and English, perhaps from a posh school over in Bayonne…I didn’t ask.
It took just a moment to scan our phone-born tickets, and another moment for a brief uncurious security inspection of my purse, and in we were. Entry hall, empty and quiet, so different subsequently.
We went directly to the top/third floor, and our amazing first stop was to be closed in a room, just the two of us, with lights and reflections…guaranteed to make anyone smile. It’s called “Infinity Mirrored Room—A Wish for Human Happiness Calling from Beyond the Universe” (2020), by Yayoi Kusama. Her works are very diverse and include novels; she has done many Mirrored Rooms. The vibrancy of the space seems appropriate to someone who experienced hallucinations beginning at age 10.
The rooms and spaces elsewhere tend to be huge. Five pieces only are in this room, e.g., a Warhol multi-Marilyn to the right, and a Roy Lichtenstein on the far wall, with a Jeff Koons flower bouquet in the middle.
Making art with art…selfie of the two of us…and a different school group.
A whole wing held this Richard Serra eight-piece composition called “The Matter of Time” (1994–2005). My favorite section was the fifth one, called “Torqued Spiral (Right Left).”
The steel walls framed a passage that kept going and going. This was the view looking out from the dead end.
Much of the second floor was dedicated to the works of Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), a pioneer (almost everyone uses this word about her, so don’t call me a copycat) in abstract art. This is her “The Ten Largest” (1917), showing the four stages of human life: childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age/being elderly.
Her other pieces are smaller, sometimes much smaller. This is one of a series called “Tree of Knowledge” (1913–1915).
It was just too wet/windy to comfortably visit the many sculptures outdoors, so we glimpsed them through the windows.
Life outside the museum—endlessly eye-catching. Hopeful umbrella vendor and two museum patrons, already equipped.
Bridge view, by river.
Bridge view, with lift and moto.
Building detail—nuts and bolts of it, and the beams they join.
Cultural, day one
Wednesday, 29 January 2025
We stayed last night in the Baztán Valley, deep in the mountains. One of the routes of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela comes through here, so there were buildings here in the 10th C.
Later, residents historically went to the USA to work, returning with enough wealth that the buildings are relatively spiffy—and not just homes. This is the monastery that was across the street from the church in yesterday’s post—ornate and expensive, no?
One other cultural anthro detail about this valley and the general area, including into France, was that from at least the 13th C, a marginalized population lived in separate hamlets from the “regular” people, with stringent social restrictions imposed on them that varied by time and place. Interested? WikiP has entries in Eng, Fr, and Spn, under cagots for the first two and agotes in Spn.
We set off, happily on a faster road, with these limited access criteria. No knowledge of Basque needed to get the meaning.
I managed to get a shot of this building as we motored along, with no idea what it was. In general, we passed through areas with some abandoned, and many active factory zones, so I figured this was another. Turns out it had something to do with the electrical distribution system.
There was a ford here for cattle long ago, and a bridge by 1736. This is thought to be a 19th C re-build. Folklore has it this bridge was built by the Sorginak, Basque for witches, a term taken from that of the assistants of the Basque goddess Mari (she controls the weather and dispenses justice). The stories vary about how all this came about.
Here’s proof that we made it to the Atlantic (yucky picture over the guardrail, yet evidence). Today was windy, especially along the highway paralleling (but not adjacent to) the coast…we noticed wind socks at most gaps/bridges over rivers flowing north to the sea.
We scrapped a stop at a lighthouse: windy, and went on to another mountain point-of-interest. However, at elevation, it was blowing rain, so we didn’t walk around. I did see the door was open on this structure and thought: bathroom (rarely to be passed up).
I went in and discovered yes, toilets, but also it was a bunker for outdoor adventurers needing refuge from bad weather. The least noise echoes, but the bunker-like engineering seems safe.
We stopped in this mountain park, Urkiola, because I was interested in a land-counting/measuring system called by a specialist “a pre-decimal metric metrological system characterized by septenary units of measure as well as the material and immaterial instantiations of these units, including the way they were manipulated and integrated into social practice.” Septenary means seven is the key figure, especially simply seven, but also 49, etc.
The areas had an upright stone in the center, with a diameter measured around them; this system was in use into the 20th C. This satellite view figure shows four that academics have identified; I put stars where it looks to me like two more may be.
Leaving to descend back to the coastal highway, I was surprised to see Durango on the sign…Basque shepherds in Colorado, hence the name used there?—I hypothesize.
We had good views of this distinctive Rocky Mountain (not Colorado) on our descent. BTW, 30 km/h is 18.6 mph—slow is careful on tight hairpin turns.
Some of the highway was a toll road. Here’s a special elevated payment machine for semis (some from Eastern Europe). There’s a camera on the tall pole to the left.
For our three nights in Bilbao, we splurged on a wee apartment downtown. It’s fabulous to have the extra space—and a mini-kitchen!
We braved light rain to walk about the area. This is a theater—upstairs.
At street level, it’s this cavernous open space…well, the lower ceiling has thick pillars, each one different.
Evidence we’re in a city….
Another architecturally interesting building….
Proof we got some sunshine….
Night view from our abode….
Water management, more
Thursday, 16 January 2025
We got on the road before sunup, having quite an adventure trying to get the gas pump to accept our credit cards–no problems yet anywhere else. JCB finally used cash…and we zoomed off….
First stop was a ghost town amidst active agriculture high on a slope above the Río Grío, a tributary of the Jalón, which flows by Calatayud.
Almond parts: seed/nut, shell, then these: hulls…dessicating and rotting roadside next to an almond orchard.
We walked into the Castillo de Langa del Castillo, and found this central tower still standing; a sign indicated the excavated area in the foreground was a church.
The Castillo fortification has steep walls and only one entrance. Portions of five wall-towers remain. Notes indicate this was a large enclosure for the time. Note how sections of the fort are starting to hive off. Conservation is never-ending.
From one “corner” of the castillo, we could see the piscina municipal below. We’ve seen swimming pools in quite small towns, like this…suggesting there was a provincial or federal program supporting their construction.
Somewhat later, we zig-zagged through some complex geology/geomorphology along the Río Aguasvivas near Segura de los Baños.
We also encountered a road crew cleaning up after a rock slide. Yes, the car fit between the pile and the guardrail.
Here’s a look at the upstream side of a Roman dam south of Muniesa. See the curve helping the dam be strong against the weight of the water?
Later, we went toward Muniesa proper, and checked out the cemetery on the edge of town, established in 1903. Most people are planted in a many-rowed columbarium, and I was surprised how many continue to be deposited here. Many plaques note that they were placed by relatives, listed not by name but by relationship: sister, nephews/nieces, cousins. Interesting.
In town, we walked around Iglesia de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora. Doors were locked (we’ve yet to find an open church…although we haven’t been persistent, either.) Note their lovely Mudéjar tower.
We were so glad to leave the gloominess behind, as it turned out, at the same time as we reached open terrain and commercial agriculture.
Our next stop was a Roman villa in another flat agricultural area, on a low hill. Obv, it’s well-excavated, but not open today (s’okay). The dwelling has a porticoed peristyle layout, with under-floor heating (a hypocaust system). An attached building has two mills and five beam presses, for olive oil. The tanks that received the oil have an estimated combined capacity of >17,845 liters. That suggests the villa controlled a large field area, although their mills/presses could have processed the olives of neighbors, too.
Here’re the remains of a qanat/qanāt, which is an underground Arab (supra-Mediterranean) tunnel system for moving water in arid places. They dig gently sloping tunnels for the water to flow through, with periodic vertical shafts. This is an eroded vertical, with the horizontal visible at the bottom…holding water! I was pretty excited to see this, having read about qanat systems for years.
Near the qanat, we have the best room in the house! Dinner begins at 8:15, and breakfast at 9:30. We’re still adjusting to these mealtimes, which in the evening give me an opportunity to create my posts before we eat. And here you go, you seven gentle readers!
Footnote to yesterday
Saturday, 21 December 2024
Oh, and the new coffee maker is a Ninja! I can’t figure out how coffee-making fits with a mercenary warrior, but the device makes lovely coffee.
Building (a)symmetry
Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Speaking of perspective and lens gyrations (see yesterday), how to crop? Follow horizontals (as I did), or align to verticals? Or, be a renegade and do neither, resulting in crazy angles everywhere. Whew.