Book a Week-20: “Sankofa”, Chibundu Onuzo

May 13, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

After her mother dies, Anna searches through her mother’s belongings and discovers a hidden diary written by the African father she never knew and about whom her white mother, who never married, told her nearly nothing. She travels to Scotland to have the diary authenticated by an expert, researches, and discovers her father had to return to Africa, became a revolutionary, and then president (or dictator, depending on the source) of a small African nation. She also learns that he is still alive.

Leaving behind a daughter and white husband from whom she is separated, Anna decides to travel to Africa to find her father. Treated unequally as a biracial child in England, in Africa she is seen as “obroni”, white. Thus, the book addresses issues of racial identity, family acceptance (she does find her father) and belonging, and tells a tale of the adventures of a middle-aged woman in search of self.

Baja Trip-7: Tres Mujeres Winery

May 10, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Originally started by three women–see the name, this woman is the only one of the three left as owner. She said she has been doing this for 20 years. The vineyards keep healthy without the use of toxic herbicides or pesticides. She says the breezes from the ocean help with keeping the vines healthy. She also has olive trees and gardens and a small restaurant–outside. The vegetables, flowers, etc. used in the restaurant are grown there. Below is the salad we had for lunch.

Lunch under the trees.

Wine tasting underground. What you notice when you drink all natural wines is that at the bottom of the bottle there is usually a residue.

The path in and out of the tasting room.

Buildings and fences made of local stone and flowers everywhere.

Stones, some quite large, show up everywhere in this part of Valle de Guadalupe. Some buildings, restaurants, other wineries, houses are build around the rocks with rocks as part of the architecture. I took the following photos from Tres Mujeres.

A lot of Valle de Guadalupe reminded me of parts of New Mexico and also the rocky hills around Temecula, California.

Not only are there over 100 vineyards in this valley but also endless olive groves. Locally pressed olive oil can also be purchased at many of the wineries. The other specialty is cheese. We stopped at one shop, the Cremeria Los Globos where they specialized in many cheeses filled with chipotle, black pepper, you name it. Honey is also produced locally and for sale at many wineries. For the most part, everything is all natural.

Baja Trip-6: The Art of Beliz Iristay

May 7, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

The first place we visited after breakfast was the art gallery/studio and home of Beliz Iristay. Although she does other things, her main medium is ceramics. I had first seen her art on display at the Riverside Museum back in December and posted some of that art in a previous blog. Originally from Turkey, she is married to a Mexican artist. The two met while both were teaching in Istanbul. She has lived also in the US and her artwork has been displayed in many places in the US. She and her husband live in the Valle de Guadelupe near Ensenada, Mexico.

Here are a few of the pieces I photographed in her gallery in Mexico.

Following is work that was on display at the Riverside, CA Art Museum until last week. The first tells a bit about her and why she produces the type of art she creates. At her studio she repeatedly emphasized that she sees herself as creating feminist art that makes statements about the plight of women throughout the world. At her studio she was creating some large pieces for a new commissioned display that supports what she sees as her feminist goals.

She frequently uses traditional adobe bricks from Mexico made locally where she lives and then transforms them into various works of art often combining the Mexican and the Turkish cultures.

Baja Trip-5: Wandering Around Ensenada

May 3, 2023May 3, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

First, we went to the fish market where I saw fish I could not even begin to identify. Then we strolled along the wharf.

This mural portrays the matriarchs of the northern Baja area. each from a different indigenous tribe who lived there before others arrived.

Cruise ships dock here several times a week.

Built when alcohol and gambling were illegal in the United States, this was once a famous casino where the rich and famous came to gamble and drink. Now it belongs to the city and is used for weddings, retirement parties, etc.

Back in the 30s, the water came up to the edge of the casino property so people could come in their luxury yachts, dock, and walk right inside.

The original bar still exists and is well stocked. Here we heard the story of the invention of the margarita. Many claim to have invented it in various places in Mexico. It seems to trace back to a bartender who moved from place to place and brought the drink with him. Who knows?

Baja Trip-3

April 29, 2023April 29, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

After visiting the winery in the previous trip post, we headed to another winery, Las Nubes (The Clouds), for more tasting and lunch. We did not visit the cellars here but the lunch view was spectacular as were the sandwiches. Like many other buildings at other wineries, a lot of the building material is local stone.

Taken from below the winery and restaurant area. Then off we went to winery three for the day, Clos de Tres Cantos. This winery is created with a philosophy dedicated to making natural wine, caring for Earth, and blending into nature. They also have deliberately grown varietals that can best withstand climate change. All the buildings are made from local materials and designed by a local architect.

A wall made from wine bottles.

A shrine to the Virgen de Guadalupe with wine aging to the side.

A natural roof of soil and flowers.

From here we drove through the countryside to La Laja restaurant for dinner. It is located way out in the country where they grow what they serve except for the fish which is locally caught in Ensenada area. It is rated as one of the top 50 restaurants in Latin America. We experienced a six course meal including two desserts, one of which was a slice of mango steeped in mescal.

Baja Trip-1

April 25, 2023April 25, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

Day one we drove across border to Tijuana where we visited the incredible La Caja Art Gallery. We viewed a variety of art works, drank delicious Mexican chocolate, and had a sensory experience blind-folded.

A close up of the previous painting. It consists of not only layers of paint but also carving into the surface.

Food for thought.

A different artist for the above and the following.

This one was painted directly onto the wall.

Later we experienced lunch at Caesar’s where supposedly (this is contested by some other places in Mexico) the original Caesar Salad was created.

One Book a Week-9: “Flights”, Olga Tokarczuk

February 27, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

How to describe this unusual novel? Here’s a possible list:

-No over all plot.

-Several stories about individuals scattered throughout, e.g. read about a person and event, then many pages later back to that person and the consequences of the event(s).

-Short philosophical musings/vignettes interspersed here and there. One reviewer counted 116.

-One common theme relates to the title, Flights, in that in most of the “stories” people are traveling or have traveled on quests for “meaning” or escape from a cumbersome reality.

I learned the following from reading this book:

-Per his request Chopin’s heart was taken from his body. His body was buried in Paris but his sister secretly transported his heart in a jar of special preservation liquid back to Poland, the land of his birth.

-A Dutch anatomist discovered the Achilles tendon after dissecting his own amputated leg.

-Plastination is the method used in anatomy to preserve bodies and body parts. Several characters in the book make their living or are obsessed with this process.

This is not a book for those who prefer relaxing reading or for the “faint of heart”.

Note: The author won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2018. This book won the Mann Booker for translated literature from all over earth in 2018. I plan to read another of her books–have now read two of them–but since the other one in English is 1000 pages long rather guess it might take more than a week for me to read it. This is actually the 11th book I have read to date in 2023 but did not start blogging about them so two are missing in the blog posts,

The First Time I Saw the Nile

January 30, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Riding hours through emerald mountains

to Bahir Dar.

We drove up a steep road,

monkeys begging near the roadside.

Car parked, we climbed a steep hill.

There she was

The NILE

a silver ribbon far below

grassy fields

two white robed people

walked, hippos barely visible.

The NILE

I cried,

a life’s longing fulfilled.

The NILE

Flowing from Lake Tana,

she lay below me,

the legendary river,

ancient people, ancient stories,

builder of civilizations,

of life.

The NILE.

Road Trip Up Mt. Baldy

August 29, 2022 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

At 10,065 feet Mt. Baldy rises above the San Gabriel Valley, home to nearly 1.5 million of which I am one. The highest mountain in Los Angeles County, every day she looms in the distance quite visible from my front yard. For months last winter, she remained snow capped, sometimes with snow half way down the mountain.

People seemed shocked when they discovered I had not yet driven up the mountain. Yesterday, as I was driving up Monte Vista, I decided it’s time and continued past Baseline where Monte Vista becomes Padua. At the traffic light, I turned right onto Mount Baldy Road. Up I went. You know it’s going to get steep when signs telling slow traffic to turn off ahead show up regularly.

I pulled off about half way up and took these two photos.

A bit farther up, signs appear saying they will tow your car if parked in the way of snow plows. It is about the same time that super sharp switchbacks start. I have driven all over the mountain West and this road has some of the most extreme switchbacks I’ve ever experienced. I kept thinking, “This would not be much fun in the snow.” Keep going and the road ends at a parking lot of the ski resort so they must do a good job keeping the road clear in winter. I stopped off and on to take photos. Up this high there are ponderosa pines and fir trees.

A lot of trees like the one on the left grow everywhere. Not sure what kind of evergreen they are.

I drove as far as cars can go, to the ski resort parking lot, adjacent to the ski lift which goes to a restaurant farther up the mountain. I’ll try that another day.

After all this driving, I decided to stop at a restaurant by the side of the road in Mt. Baldy Village. I wanted to eat on the patio but no eating outside yesterday–yellow jackets.

Near where I parked, I took a few photos of the community church and the village.

The Huntington–Gardens, Part One

February 16, 2022 / Juliana Lightle / 2 Comments

Where have I been? Entertaining my son whom I had not seen in more than two years. One of the things he wanted to do was visit The Huntington in Pasadena after seeing some photos I took on a visit in January. Unless you get there as soon as they open and stay all day, it is impossible to see everything in one day. I have been there four times and only seen the gardens. The library and art gallery await for another time. Here are the photos from the first excursion with my son, Erik.