Jo’s Weblog

Terible traffic, and there’s the bright sun shining on your face, you are stuck in a car with no air conditioning, and you cant open the windows too much because you know by a fact that if you do, you are most likely going to get robbed or have a gun pointing right on your head waiting for you to get off the car.  You can’t wait to get home to have some lunch. while you are on the journey, you won’t be surprised that a couple of cars jump right in front of you, just to get ahead. You are thinking that maybe if you had tilted windows it wouldn’t be that bad, and you wouldn’t be a tag for someone to rob you. You are almost home, you can see the gass in the air and the pollution, which makes you even hotter just by seeing all the vapor and humidity around you. You buy some raspado, and chupi chupi from the “Buhoneros” (people who sell food, drinks and pirated merchandise on the highway when there’s traffic) Finally you get off the highway, which means you can go a little faster because there are less cars towards the area you are heading towards. You see the big sign CHACAO. Yes! you are almost there. You gain some speed in the car, forgetting about all the lumps, and bumps, and broken pieces of street that are on the road, which might eventually end up on giving you a flat tire. But today is not the day for the flat tire. Then a car next to you, bumps into your car, not too hard, but something someone you would get off for to have them pay the small damages. You see the other car and you know right away not to get off, these people are off to either take your car or take you, so just ignore the tap. keep on going. You pass right by Plaza Altamira, you can see all the homeless, and all the poor people, you know they hate you because even though you are not dressed up, or have the nicest car, they know you got more money than they do, just by the fact that you don’t get to join them in the metro (subway) you just try to ignore the situation, because thats all you can really do at the moment, you know some day some how, you’ll show them you are not as bad as they think you are. once you pass Don Bosco you know you made it home safe, unless ofcourse one of the guards at the doors is a fake one and has planned to take over some car, but no, not today either for this situation, since you are lucky you live in a really nice neighborhood and you got a cheap car which means, if anyone thinks about stealing from you or taking you, is not going to be you, why? because there are better cars to rob and people who show off more money than you do, so you know you are safe. Finally you are home, and you made it, with a car, and your life, its great, you eat some of the best food, done by the people who raised you, and who you trust more than anyone. you are home.

Walt Whitman’s crossing Brooklyn Ferry, is a very illustrative poem without him being too specific. Whitman gives serious details about his surroundings within nature and human relations. He makes the mood and has the reader see his perspective of things, he shows without telling; and without overwhelming the poem with too many details, he does it in a way in which the imagery and the symbolism are almost abstract to the reader but somehow understood. Whitman seems to feel this relationship with the masses by forming part of the popular masses, forming part of crowds. He seems to feel that at some point everyone has gone through that same exact experience in the ferry and felt and seen the same things, which makes his connection with the crowd in which he makes himself a part of.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_1971.646.18.jpg

This photograph was the one that most caught my attention. The expression that was captured on the old woman’s face, was this expression of tiredness, exhaustion, worries, humble and almost nostalgic.  While the man right by her side, in contrast to her, seems to be a very arrogant, a business man, someone who goes in life with out a care of anyone who surrounds him. Also the atmosphere in which the two figures were captured, makes the suggestion that they are in a public place, there doesn’t seem to be much of a relationship between the two characters, they might even be strangers. The lighting f the scene gives a great mood to the sensation of the image specially with the both very different facial expressions.

Since the main subject of the course is places, and we are focusing on cities, I decided I would talk about street art; which i believe it is a great way to see what the people inside these places feel, and react towards the place they live in. Street art is one of the best urban characteristics because it really shows the works of street artists, and it really embellishes the landscapes setting a mood for each corner. The artist that I chose is Cant 4 she’s been in the graffiti scene for several years from Toronto, Canada. Her work doesn’t really focus on graffiti itself but more on the imaging that she uses, she plays a lot with the subject, and different textures that the street walls have to offer, which gives her work a very expressive sensation.

Here is an image, a perfect example of how Cant 4 played with the surface of the walls, that look like tiles.

<a href=”http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i195/07JRigol/?action=view&current=cant42.jpg” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i195/07JRigol/cant42.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Photobucket”></a>

http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i195/07JRigol/?action=view&current=cant42.jpg

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i195/07JRigol/cant42.jpg

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