more pictures

[lapsedmodernist]

Yesterday I went mountain-biking (that's right, hahahaha, me on a mountain bike) down the Pichincha Volcano and into the Cloud Forest. It was breathtakingly beautiful and I was concentrating very hard on not flying off the bike (I fell twice, and my final verdict is, I prefer horsies), and so the goal of not thinking about the election for a few hours was achieved. Here are some pictures, in order of descent:

This is at 4600 meters (or 15,000 feet) and it's fucking cold


Flora in the vicinity of the top

Flora at about 4000 meters

About halfway down the volcano, there are literally fields of these flowers

The Andes: a view

no, it's not The Shire, it's the Highlands

Approaching the Cloud Forest (yes, that white stuff is clouds)

I love the Cloud Forest because when I visit, I channel my 12-year-old fairy-tale-obsessed self, and really, doesn't it look enchanted? Like the trees in the distances are either covered by enchanted mist, or the whole forest is somewhere in the sky.




This next picture reminds me of a poem...In Russia this poem is known as Lermontov's translation of a Goethe poem, but I think it was actually a Heine poem. I don't think a good English translation exists, so I will post the Russian and the German version, and an English Verbatum (I don't know German so I am translating from Lermontov)...

In German:

Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam
Im hohen Norden auf kahler Höh'.
Ihn schläfert, mit wei&estet;er Decke
Umhüllen ihn Eis und Shnee.

Er träumt von eine Palme,
Die, fern im Morgenland,
Einsam und schweigend trauert
Auf brennender Felsenwand.

In Russian:

На севере диком стоит одиноко
на голой вершине сосна,
И дремлет, качаясь, и снегом сыпучим
Одета, как ризой, она.

И снится ей всё, что в пустыне далёкой,
в том крае, где солнца восход,
Одна и грустна на утёсе горючем
Прекрасная пальма растёт.

In English:

In the wild North a lonely
Pine tree stands on a naked peak
And swaying, it dreams, and the descending snow
Clothes it as if in a riza^*

And every time it dreams that in a faraway desert
In the lands where the sun rises
Alone and said, on a bitter cliff
A beautiful palm tree grows.


^*"Riza" is a metal covering, applied to icons toward the end of the 17th century. A partial covering of silver, gold, or cheaper metal, the riza covers the entire painting except faces, hands and feet

And finally, when I dragged my sore solf back to Quito I encountered this sheep. The sheep had a look and an attitude and it reminded me of the ornery anarchist sheep in Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase


And also for good measure:




Which Woman of Beauty Are You? Find out! By Nishi.

Comments

i heart the sheep

[alice-ayers.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the beautiful photos, I'm glad you're getting out there and doing so much.

Me, I got addicted to Murakami after an ex (dr_memory, the first poly one) made me read the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles (he also made me read early sci-fi-ish Jonathan Lethem, before I met Mr. Lethem in Brooklyn). I immediately devoured the rest of his books and am waiting for him to publish again already. The current Paris Review has an interview with him that's pretty interesting.

Re: i heart the sheep

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

My feeling on Murakami is that anyone who sets out to read his works should conclude with Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. I think that is his magnum opus, and, in a way, it is overdetermined to be his literary swan song. Murakami is obsessed with several themes (conscious/unconscious split, doppelgangers, the vanishing girl) and in Chronicles he really integrates them and works through all of them. Reading many of his novels after Chronicles feels like looking at watercolor sketches of a finished oil canvass, whereas if you read his works as stepping stones leading up to Chronicles, I think it's more satisfying. I think I spoiled him for myself by reading Chronicles too early on (it's the second book of his that I read).
Thanks for the interview link!
Have you read his Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World?

Also, on point, I can't remember if I already told you this, but shortly before I left my mother called me and asked if I had read Chronicles. I said, yes, and she said she had just finished it. I didn't even know she was reading it, so I asked what she thought. She said: "you know, on one hand, your read it and you think what a complex, brilliant work. On the other hand, you read it and you think, what a piece of Japanese schizophrenic hallucination."

I procured a poncho that I believe meets your specifications. It's not as trendily cut as the ones in Bazaar, but it's hand-made and I got it at an indigenous crafts market. It's very very very warm. Hope you will like.

Re: i heart the sheep

[remsaverem.livejournal.com]

hee hee. i love what your mother said about wind-up bird. i'm totally out of it at 6pm this election night... will you be online at all? i have some other news for you as well.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

isn't it pretty?

[spawnsong.livejournal.com]

you have a wonderful eye for the scenic. btw, if you ever happen to taste Emu or Lama, can you write about it? i'm serious.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

thank you.
okay, will do, I haven't tasted either yet, although I have eaten snails and tried one lonely grub.
Wanna buy me an ostrich burger in SF and I promise to write about it?

[spawnsong.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, I really wouldn't know where find an ostrich burger in SF, but i'm sure if we put our minds to it, we'd figure it out. Actually, i've already got a mind to take you to two of my favorite joints in SF...one is a North African place...it's an entire experience; first, the belly dancer, then you eat, imbibe plenty of Newcastle from the tap, followed by a hooka after the meal. you sit on cushions on the floor. it's on lower Haight, so it's a bit trendy, but it was a staple for me and my friends back in the day. the other place is called 'yellow submarine' and has, without question, the best hot sandwiches i have ever had...ever.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

Where do I see the fauna? I only see fauna in the first one (Homo sapiens) and the last one (Ovis aries).

Are you standing surrounded by ice on that first picture? That looks like it would be scary to ride down on a mountain bike. I have to agree that downhilling on mountain bikes is too much for me. I tried it and I too prefer my own feet.

Jungle Beauty: But of course.

Nice to see all the pictures. I promise to get around to posting some pictures in my photohosting area here on LJ sometime soon...

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

flora, damnit, flora! I have dyslexia with those two. Must correct immediately

Are you standing surrounded by ice on that first picture
more, like, snow and sleet. But yes, it was slippery. I have bruises up and down my legs today.

I promise to get around to posting some pictures in my photohosting area here on LJ sometime soon...
promises, promises... ;)

p.s.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Where do I see the fauna? I only see fauna in the first one (Homo sapiens) and the last one (Ovis aries).
nerd!

[tank-boy.livejournal.com]

very, very nice!! and I'm still in my office :/

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

yeah, but isn't your office in, like, Sweden or some other country we will all be wanting to immigrate to by Wednesday A.M.?

[watchamacallit.livejournal.com]

stunning pictures.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

thank you.

[fatangryroses.livejournal.com]

Oh than you for transporting me for a moment out of my office and dull day. How wonderful.

And thank you so much for the postcard. That was fantastic. I will have to get on your postcard list so I can feel a tad bit closer to the wonderful locales to which you go. When will you be back in NYC? How much longer will you be Quito?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you liked the postcard. I don't know exactly what a postcard list is, but to the extent that I have one, you are on it. Expect more in the future!
I won't be back in NYC until July at the earliest. I am not going to be in Quito for much longer either. In a couple of weeks I am going back to the US (but to SF), and then when I come back to Ecuador I am departing for the Upper Amazon (Jatun Sacha biostation at first, then several small communities in that vicinity).

[akozorez.livejournal.com]

Ah! I love it! The few at the bottom (before the pine tree) made me also think about Tarkovsky's ZONA in Stalker... same amalgamation of fogginess, nature, and mystery...

Did you know...?
Eto stihotvorenie "Na severe dikom stoit odinoko..." osobenno pervaya strochka vuzuvaet sredi mnogix rysskih ylubki i smeshki, osobenno esli posle pervoii strochki ostanovit'sya, vuderzhat' pauzy, i dal'she ne prodolzhat'...

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Hm, I wasn't thinking Zona, but I can see that...sort of I don't think of Zona as obsfuscated...more, like, in terms of the shades of a konservnaya banka reflected in still water.

I don't think I knew that about "Sosna," although I suppose I have heard the first line cited in specific context to make fun of someone acting all Byron-esque. Still, it's one of my favorite poems from childhood...except why were we told it was a Goethe translation, if it wasn's? Does that mean that "vihozhu odin ya na dorogu..." was't Goethe either?

Are you back in the City?

[maudm.livejournal.com]

wow, almost unbelievably beautiful . . .
and a great sheep :)

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I like the sheep, and am also a little afraid of it.

[stillwell.livejournal.com]

Wow, so gorgeous! (I mean of course jungle-beauty you AND the photos.) Thanks so much for sharing it all *

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

no, thank you :)

[seltix.livejournal.com]

i've *seen* that look before. but it wasn't from a sheep. it was from a goat. in ireland. cliffs of moher. he wanted my shoelaces. so did i. he actually hooked me with his horns, either trying to trip me or hold me in place as he began to chew on the laces. i eventually escaped, laces slightly tattered but intact. beware the ovine!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

he wanted my shoelaces. so did i.

In the village where my grandparents country house was there was only one telephone, it was a booth in the yard of the village manager, I guess. He had lots of goats and ducks in the yard. When you had a phone call from the city, you had to go into the phone booth (and I use the term "into" loosely since there was really no barrier between you and the outside world) and while you were screaming over a static-y connection the goats would surround you and melancholy chew on your clothes and the ducks would pinch you. Good times.