Sightseeing in the Mindfields
 


 


 

La Chingona: Frida Does Dallas, Part 2, October 2024

February 04, 2025  •  Leave a Comment
Kahlo painted this oil on canvas, Autorretrato en un Traje de Terciopelo/Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress, in 1926, when she was nineteen years old. I had been curious to see which aspects of Frida Kahlo would emerge in the DMA's show. Fascinating though even the least histrionic Kahlo biography may be, I have always been most interested in the a...
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La Chingona: Frida Does Dallas, Part 1, October 2024

January 26, 2025  •  Leave a Comment
Frida: Beyond the Myth/ Mas Alla del Mito went on exhibit at the Dalllas Museum of Art in August 2024. During her lifetime, the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo was best known as the idiosyncratic, perennially maltreated spouse of the muralist Diego Rivera. In the intervening decades, Kahlo has been resurrected as a feminist totem. Her fame has eclip...
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14. A Colorful Conclusion, 27 July 2024

January 15, 2025  •  Leave a Comment
The tour that we took usually ended in Nice, on the Côte d’Azur. Ours was changed to terminate in Toulouse in order to avoid the throngs in Nice for the Tour de France bicycle race. The substitution was fortuitous, as Toulouse had a wealth of unique attractions. One of these was the Bemberg Foundation. I credit HL with having done the research that...
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13. The Rose Pink City of Toulouse, 26 July 2024

January 06, 2025  •  Leave a Comment
After Arles, the tour continued by coach, as our director called the bus. Elodie’s French-accented vocabulary made the lumbering vehicle seem more glamorous, as it did everything else that she said. I realize that is a cliché; nonetheless, I allowed myself to be charmed. Toulouse had numerous fountains. Some, like this one, were topped with Cl...
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In the South of France, 12: Arles, in Sunshine and Starlight, 25 July 2024

December 26, 2024  •  Leave a Comment
Arles was the final port on our river cruise. South of Arles, The Rhône is not navigable, as it divides into several smaller rivers before reaching the Mediterranean Sea. Arles had been a major city for centuries by the time that it was incorporated into the Roman Empire as a provincial capital. It has never lost its importance, nor its charm. Its...
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In the South of France, 11: Bull Runners of the Camargue, 25 July 2024

December 19, 2024  •  Leave a Comment
Enamored of the white Camargue horses though I was, I was intrigued by the black bulls as well. They are close relatives of the aurochs, a prehistoric cattle breed that became extinct in the 17th Century. Like the horses, the wild bulls adapted to the Rhône delta’s marshlands. Today, almost all of the bulls belong to manadiers, that is, bull ranche...
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In the South of France, 10: From Arles into The Camargue, 25 July 2024

December 12, 2024  •  Leave a Comment
I might have missed one of the most extraordinary experiences of our trip because I was misled by the way that it was listed on the group’s itinerary. On our first morning after docking in Arles, we were scheduled to go to a bull ranch. I was less than enthusiastic about getting on a bus at 8:30 AM for a 40-minute ride into the countryside, just to...
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In the South of France, 9: An Abbreviated Exploration of Avignon, 24 July 2024

December 05, 2024  •  Leave a Comment
Avignon was one of the cities on our itinerary that interested me most. Originally, the ship was supposed to dock there for two nights. For some reason, the M/S Chanson lost its berth. I could extract no satisfactory explanation for that from anyone in the crew. On that Tuesday night, we had to dock north of Avignon at Chateauneuf du Pape, a villag...
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In the South of France, 8: In Viviers and the Bollene, 23 July 2024

November 26, 2024  •  Leave a Comment
There are tens of thousands of villages in France, and most of them have been inhabited for centuries. Many had been settlements since Roman and even prehistoric times. So you might think that the towns where medieval dwellings, churches and castles have been protected from demolition would be similar. Yet Tournon’s character differed greatly from...
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In the South of France, 7: The Chocolatiers of Tournon-sur-Rhône, 22 July 2024

November 18, 2024  •  Leave a Comment
Tournon was the first village on the Rhône where our ship docked. It was in the Ardeche department, or section, of the Auvergne region. After breakfast, our group met a local guide, Sophie, who made Tournon her home. She conducted us through the oldest quarter of the town, where Renaissance houses as well as medieval dwellings and shops had been pr...
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