Stem

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 Stem on the ground

 

 

 A witch's hand 

lay on the ground

 

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Lamp

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Lamp

 

 

 

 

 

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Shadow of a bookcase, dado rail

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Shadow of a bookcase, dado rail

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Canasvieiras, snuffling dog

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Canasvieiras,snuffling dog

 

 

 

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Canasvieiras, clouds, lines

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Canasvieiras, clouds, lines

 

 

 

 

 

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A crack, Rua das Sereias, Canasvieiras, a closer view

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A crack, R. das Sereias, Canasvieiras, a closer view

 

 

 This is a closer view of the wall on a previous posting. Isn't it a perfect crack?

 

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A wall with a crack, Rua das Sereias, Canasvieiras

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A wall with a crack, R. das Sereias, Canasvieiras

 

 

 

 

This is one of my favourite places. I love to stand here.

 

 I think it's not just one of my favourite places in my neighbourhood, or in Santa Catarina, but in the entire world.

 

I like to think about what lies behind the wall. I like how nature is overcoming the wall which now has a crack. I like the angle of the corner and the slight slope of the road. I love the sad feeling it all gives.

 

These things make me feel incredibly good.

 

 

 

 

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Part of my arm, a shirt sleeve, and my table

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 Part of my arm, a shirt sleeve, and my table with a piece of paper

 

 

 

 

 

 You will agree that the bunching of my sleeve here has almost an effect like the swags in a Baroque painting. 

 

My arm itself is rather peculiar, perhaps penile, even to me, and I am not sure how I feel about it.

 

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Lost hexagonal paving slab, Canasvieiras; corners; demarcations of areas of land

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Lost hexagonal paving slab, Canasvieiras

 

 

 

This is the same wall as featuring the ladder. I wonder who put this slab here?

 I am very fond of the corners of buildings especially when showing the same colour of wall with the light hitting one side more than the other so you can see a contrast.

 I will definitely seek out more such motifs. 

 I also like wasteland: building lots cleared but never constructed upon, abandoned parking areas, paving dilapidating. 

I very much like these areas to be enclosed, distinct. 

 Merely the fact of enclosure dramatically alters how we perceive a place. Enclosure declares ownership, privacy, usage, safety, danger, that access is limited or directed to specific uses or persons or species. 

Enclosure can be strongly physical, such as a high wall, or more modestly by light fencing. Or it can be even more lightly demarcated by a change of use, such as is seen between fields. And it can be demarcated symbolically, with occasional signs  as in London postal areas, or simply a thing that is known, like the territorial zones established by children in playgrounds.

 

 

 

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Canasvieiras,wall, a sort of ladder,

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Canasvieiras,wall, a sort of ladder,

 

 

It might not really be a ladder: It might be part of an ironing board or some kind of stand. 

What is certain, however, is that it is being used by pixies to get over the grey wall. 

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Trunk, part of a washing line post, wall, house

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 Trunk, part of a washing line post, wall, house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These items have been here for several weeks now. 

 

The resemblance of the trunk to an animal carcass is obvious and awful.

 It's so obvious, indeed, that it surprises me that there isn't a local campaign to have the trunk removed. 

 

 

 

 

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A white piece of paper on the ground, folded slightly

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A white piece of paper on the ground, folded slightly

 

 

 

 

I now regret not inspecting this piece of paper which might have had some important or interesting things on it. 

 

Now it is raining heavily and the paper is surely destroyed.

 

 

 

 

 

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Dog, house, lion, dog

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Dog, house, lion, dog, Canasvieiras

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Home, Canasvieiras

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Home, Canasvieiras

 

 

 

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Canasvieiras,roots, wall

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Canasvieiras, roots, wall

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Rua das Sereias, large stone

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R. das Sereias, large stone

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The moon on the road

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the moon on the road

 

 

 

 

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The avenue I walked down

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 The avenue I walked down

 avenue 

 

I came on Sunday. 

I wasn't feeling too well. I had a sad feeling, I felt pointless too. The bad part of Sunday, the mooching around, the irritation, the boredom. 

I had a thought about how thirty years ago I had the same feeling. You might think that one's emotional life would develop over time, so that such negative states no longer affect one. But it seems to me part of the essential misery of life that one never really escapes the treadmill, even after learning that one is within it.

 

 A twig representing how I felt

 

I had passed this avenue on the fast road, an exquisite road with endless, tall dreamlike Scots pine, rising with such heavenly aspiration anyone would feel enchanted there. When I passed this entrance, I always thought, " oh you must stop there one day." I must have had that thought over three hundred times.

And so, I went there with the Lumix camera, a lovely black metal thing that fits snugly in the hand. 

From this entrance you follow a track through woodland, and then, you meet a fenced parking area and a kiosk with sign with bold acronyms, telling you that it pertains to a work-based social organisation of some sort. 

Then, over a sandy path you reach a fine narrow beach and the Atlantic.

 I felt, when I met these facilities somewhat like a trespasser, a bit uneasy. The mood in Brazil has become less laid back lately, even in touristy areas. There`s a sense of suspicion that I feel wasn't present when I came here 16 years ago, and this affects people's behaviours in these areas- you don`t have the sort of ready conversations that you used to- I`m sure I`m not imagining that. Though I must say that the only person I met, a woman with two small children, smiled and said hello in a pleasant way, a way that made me feel all right.

Oh how strange that my sentiments might be moved by such an easy thing as a lady`s smile? What is the point of thinking at all, when ones feelings jump and rise or fall with the predictability of a pin ball on a warped board?

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This is a shell I found lying on the sand-

The shell in my hand

I'm not going to show a picture of the ocean. Imagine it yourself.

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As I drove off, I heard the Velvet Underground song ¬Ocean¬.

I can find two versions of the song, one on an early Lou Reed Album and the other on a posthumous released Velvet Underground compilation called VU. The Velvet Underground version is earlier and more surreal. The song that I heard in my head was the Reed`s solo take and is also intense and troubled. But it is more coherent, with scenes of drowning and desperation, of castles and towers and warlocks - rather Shakesperean. Whether the lyrics have directed meanings or are meant as imagistic poetry is not clear from the commentaries I have found, but I suspect the former. 

 However, it is argued by David Caune on Quora that Malcolm is a reference to the son of Henry Melville, author of Moby Dick. Malcolm`s suicide, a result it is argued, was the result of violent abuse from his father. Lou Reed was subjected to Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy, an attempt by his parents to control his homosexual tendencies, and Caune sees in the song a refence to the trauma that this treatment caused him, which he parallels with that of Melville's son.

Castles glowing at night, towers above outfright

Warlocks decapitating

Malcolm he lives on hate, Serve your brain on a plate

Feasts on your mouth for dinner

The song ends-

Here comes the waves

 

 

Following Caune, these waves might then be waves of ECT therapy. And you hear the music rise into a crescendo, loud and more pain filled, a music which seems to not just describe but glamourise destruction. 

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There was something self-pitying and just plain crappy about how I handled the day.

 But it's just like that sometimes.

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My walk to the sea, around 10 am, Tuesday 25 October, 2022: part 4 / 4

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 My walk to the sea, part 4/4

 

 

 14.

 

A piece of abandoned green plastic, most likely a fragment torn from a bin bag.

 

 

15.

 

A concave stone shrine harbouring a wooden Jesus, crucified, three benches 

Seeing Jesus here so close to the beach strikes me as anachronistic. I tend to think of the beach as a bit pagan, really.

16.

 

Sea with drinks seller's trolley and two people seated under a sunshade.

17.

 

The sea, sand, some clouds.

 

 

  I often walk to the sea but I rarely spend much time there. I find that when I`m at the sea I feel aimless. In fact, don't really find the environment enjoyable. It is bleak, and I perceive futility in this sort of leisure space which I feel is best suited to persons seeking recovery from illnesses, or caring for small children. 

Actually, I`d go further- the expanse of sea fills me with dread. And the views don`t offer much for conversation, either. They just...are.

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This was the end of my walk.

 When I got back, I felt quite good, happy in a mild way. The good feeling lasted all day, despite some bad news about a traffic fine and my driving license, which will probably be suspended for three months.

I will do a set documenting the return journey one day. But I am not sure when. But, to leave you on a cliffhanger, I don`t usually return the same way I go...

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My walk to the sea, around 10 am, Tuesday 25 October, 2022: part 3 / 4

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My walk to the sea, part 3/4: bollards and/or vases

 

I reach the commercial street that runs parallel to the sea. Here, the atmosphere is livelier, with shops selling items for tourists as well as restaurants, clothing shops and local services. My attention was drawn by these vases, which I find a little bizarre. I think what is odd about them is how much care has been taken to make and maintain them, yet how incongruous their constituent elements are.

They are so very purposefully constructed yet so unnecessary. They do make an interesting contrast to the abandoned items seen in previous photos. Do they, perhaps, have an erotic significance?

 

 

 11.

 

Three flower pots balanced on Corinthian orders.

 

 These stand, six in total, flanking a parking area serving a dental surgery, among other services. There is also a lady rummaging in a bag. There are many women in Canasvieiras. Perhaps women like Canasvieiras more than men? Or perhaps the men go away somewhere during the day, to work, and only come back late at night after dark, arriving unseen?

12.

 

Another photo of the same. You see many weird things like this in Canasvieiras. I'm not sure why.

13.

 

A plant in a tub with a mosaic collar. Also, a lorry and a shop entrance

 

 

 

 

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