Photo Essay Archives – THE PAGE TURNS

September 4, 2024September 5, 2024

Gardens of Power

Florence’s Boboli Gardens, photo by kajmeister

They say all roads lead to Rome, or perhaps lead back to Rome in European history. All garden roads seem to lead back to Rome. Where did Italian gardens originate? Roman models. How about Hampton Court, the “other” estate of Henry VIII? English gardens came from Roman models. Palace of Versailles? French gardens copied the Italian ones. But even the Romans would have known about the earliest ones in Persia, like the garden where Cyrus the Great used trees and lawn to demonstrate his power.

In Florence on vacation, our first stop was Boboli Gardens aka the Medici gardens. This was the Renaissance garden of power, which made me think about garden styles and how different styles and different regimes have influenced those garden styles. This is mainly an excuse to show a few vacation photos, but still, who doesn’t like a lovely little garden?

July 5, 2023July 10, 2023

Summer Road Trip: Two Sides to the Mile-High City

The subject is Denver. I was in town for a writer’s conference this past week, and a panel of authors from Colorado talked about creating stories and characters about this region. The topic kept drifting to the contrasts in Denver, to the clash of cultures and histories. Like many cities in America, it seems to be under vigorous construction at the moment, but perhaps Denver has always been remaking itself.

This is a city not quite in the center of either the Lower 48 or the entire U.S., but it’s near those locations, which maybe makes it the perfect site for the meeting of two sides. Rural/Urban. Conservative/Progressive. West/East. Mountains and … Fewer Mountains. Hot/Snow. Pure Air/Inversion Smog Layer. Simple/Sophisticated.

Is it the proximity to the Continental Divide? Or does the Continental Divide go through a diverse Colorado, and split these things in two? Whichever is the case, it heightens the contrasts.

February 10, 2023June 6, 2024

Grandpa Didn’t Recognize Led Zeppelin Either

Chris Stapleton (45) admiring Stevie Wonder (72): 2023 Grammys (photo from Yahoo!Sports)

There was a lot of kvetching last week about the Grammys this year, on the Facebook and the Interwebs. As in, who are these people?

Our blogging friend Fandango wondered about it in his Wednesday question of the week. After wondering why so many people on the Grammys seem strange, his question was What’s your favorite music, but I decline to answer that, since my list is long, and I like individual songs rather than the style (though I will answer, at the end of the post). I’m still considering the other question: Who are these people?

I’ve seen my contemporaries, my sexagenarian friends, ask that question too, with a lot of grumpiness. And yet, I say to them, when you were a kid and watched Frank Sinatra or Perry Como sing year after year at the Grammys or the Oscars, didn’t you feel like they ought to shuffle aside for someone a little hipper?

Let’s keep the Grammys in perspective.