[Click on the photograph to enlarge it and commentary about a painting for our times]
I couldn't resist a snapshot of Sandro Botticielli's The Calumny of Appelles in the Uffizi. It is a painting for our time. On the right side of the painting sits King Midas on his thrown. He is painted with jackass ears. Two women flank him. One is Ignorance and the other is Suspicion. Midas' outstretched hand points to Slander.
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Cemeteries are for the living. And Paris cemeteries are for photographers. My favorite is Père Lachaise, a 110-acre park located in the 20th arrondissement. Its rolling terrain is filled with 70,000 burial plots, holding the famous and not-so-famous.
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Let me riff for a moment as a photographer. To photograph the Eiffel Tower or not to, that is the question. I have moved 180 degrees on that issue.
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The church that is one block south of Trump Tower is offering sermons on the Apocalypse during the United Nations General Assembly week. Seems appropriate, given that Trump is residence at Trump Tower.
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Some odds and ends from last weekend's trip to New York City. "Odds and ends, odds and ends.
Lost time is not found again" Bob Dylan
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Suddenly, out of nowhere, I see former KISS co-founder, Gene Simmons, strutting down the street dressed in black and wearing model studded boots. All that security is not for him, but that doesn't stop him from enjoying the stage as he struts his celebrity. New York's finest are enjoying the spectacle, as Simmons poses for photos with dozens of cops.
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I am in a modern hotel room on the 23rd floor (top) of the Nhow Hotel that occupies one of the three buildings comprising the Rem Koolhass' Rotterdam complex. We overlook the Erasmus bridge in this thoroughly modern city. The bridge, designed by Ben van Berkel, was completed in 1996. Known as the "Swan," it is a cable-style bridge, with an asymmetric blue pylon anchoring the cables. A tram line runs down the center of the bridge, with automobile and bicycle traffic also supported.
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With that as the backdrop, I arrived at U.A.W. Local 72 headquarters at 9:30AM today for the kickoff rally for steelworker Randy Bryce's congressional campaign to unseat Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Earlier this week in an interview with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, Bryce claimed that Ryan has been missing from his district for over 600 days.
