This was carved into a door frame in Balboa Park in San Diego. I toyed with the idea of doing one of my ‘come up with a caption for this picture’ posts… but I assume you would all have just done some variation of the same thing that popped into my dirty mind… involving an evil snake behind that apple…
Here we are on day two of the recent visit by our English cousins… We went to Balboa Park. I have never bothered to find out why there is a statute of El Cid there…
That was the last view of many a foot soldier… just before a warhorse dashed out his brain with a giant hoof…
And that was the last view of many a fly… just before his dinner was served… seriously… did you need to put the ‘donut ring’ there? I mean, the veins are a nice touch of realism… but the anus is just overkill…
Some of you will no doubt recall that I visited Balboa Park not too long ago… yes, I posted pictures from the museums… and all those spectacular flowers from the botanical gardens.
Cousin Lynne wanted to see the botanical gardens and the flowers…
So, of course, this was the one day of the week that it was closed…
But don’t panic!
We walked around the park, and we did other stuff later.
That is the saddest palm tree ever.
And there were lots of outside flowers for our visitors to see…
Because this is San Diego.
Here they are… the very last pictures of the first day with our relatives visiting from England… and our exploration of Old Town in San Diego…
We have all learned a thing or two about the history of the region, and the Mexican heritage that is such a big part of it all… and about the beautiful folk art associated with dia de los muertos… the day of the dead…
So of course I had to take some pictures with the ‘day of the dead’ photo-op thing… There is my cousin, Lynne, and her boyfriend, Malcolm. I apologize for the fact that the one corner is in shadow, but I had no control over that.
There is a certain poignancy to that painting on the bench in Old Town…
There I am, with cousin Dot!
The fancy dresses are awesome… but the mother and baby on the right… that is so moving…
And there are Dot and I… without the gender-switching confusion…
The colors… oh yeah…
There I am with my daughter’s boyfriend… the shadows over his eyes make him look sort of mysterious…
Well, that’s it… except for one last picture that I took at a stall that sold leather goods, for which Mexico is well known…
A skull… on a pistol holster… the artistic irony kills me… uh… so to speak…
It is so nice to know that the Mexican festival to honor and remember the dead is all-inclusive… and, that that inclusion extends to the afterlife.
I hope you have enjoyed these posts of Old Town in San Diego, and my first day hanging out with my English relatives…
I hope you learned a little about the history of Southern California…
And also a little about the Mexican heritage that is such a large part of that history.
Yes, I did a lot of walking in order to get all these pictures…
I wanted to capture the color and vibrancy of the local art…
And I tried to tie it all together with some amusing observations and stories.
But in the end, I really do this for me as much as for you…
Because when I do these posts, I get to relive the day.
And that was a great day! Okay, there is one more post coming about the first day my relatives were here, and then we move on to day two… and day three…
And for those of you who never bothered to Google what ‘dia de los muertos’ is all about, here is a brief explanation.
So, while we were gallivanting around Old Town with our English relatives, I was standing outside a toy store when they all went in to poke around, and I spotted this lovely couple through the window…
The thing is… and this is the thing that made me take these pictures… that it looked like a love scene from one of those old, classic movies… Like Rhett Butler holding Scarlet O’Hara, leaning her back for the kiss…
I went inside the toy store to take a photo from the other side… but that was just creepy…
But from outside, it was really rather tender and passionate… I mean, considering the fact that they were hand puppets… and it was a raccoon and an iguana… but… other than that…
Her scaly lizard mouth was saying no… but her little plastic eyes were saying yes… and something about wanting a hand stuck… well… never mind about that…
I apologize for sharing six pictures of this intimate scene with you, but I couldn’t decide which best captured the moment… I also apologize for once again disregarding my ‘family friendly blog’ rule…
There is my cousin Lynne and her boyfriend, Malcolm, getting silly with a covered wagon in Old Town, San Diego.
It is always fun to see things that you have begun to take for granted through the eyes of other people.
I have lived in the ‘wild’ West all my life…
But it is always good to be reminded that western culture has spread around the world. I don’t mean our fast food and retail malls… I mean our cowboy movies.
To me, the covered wagon was just a prop for Old Town… but to our English visitors, it was a reminder of real history.
Malcolm, cousin Lynne, and her mom, cousin Dot, had a great time that day… and so did I. And I guess so did whoever that guy photobombing them is.
We showed them some of the history of San Diego…
And I told you I wouldn’t waste the last of those three angel wing photos my daughter took…
We introduced them to authentic Mexican food… and music… and tequila… and this was all just the first day of their visit.
We are nearing the end of that first day… just a few more random posts about a few more random things… before we move on to day two.
Maybe you thought I had run out of pictures for this dia de los muertos thing…
But I tried to tell you… I walked a long way to get all these pictures…
I had fun doing it, and I thought you might enjoy them.
And the pure volume of the art is sort of interesting in and of itself, right? I mean, there you see tiles… ceramic tiles… so conceivably, you could tile your shower… or your entire house and garden… with dia de los muertos art…
You could decorate your Christmas tree with little skulls…
And then cover all your flat surfaces with little dia de los muertos knickknacks…
I mostly like the colors…
And the artistry…
But those are some nice oven mitts…
And you might as well go with the matching pot holders, right?
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Pouring My Art Out by Arthur H. Browne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Based on a work at https://pouringmyartout.wordpress.com/.
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Pouring My Art Out 