Browsing the archives for the Art category.
…just like they said it would, although it didn’t last for up to an hour, and didn’t make any impact on the ground.
And it was dark, so I was able only to take these few snapshots of them as they floated down in white flakes from the sky.
This is my first experience, and it wasn’t so spectacular. But it reminded me of a song by Jim Reeves though, titled Snowflakes.
You can listen to the song here
Yesterday, I discovered the American gold coin called the dollar. No, not the paper dollar bill, but a coin. I’ve been here for over three months and can’t believe that I never encountered the dollar coin in all this while. It is fascinating, especially for someone like me who has liked to pride himself as a relentless numismatist – a collector of coins.
I remember the first coin that ever fascinated me. It was the old 25kobo coin of Nigeria’s late 80s. Along with other coin denominations of 10k, 5k and 50k, the 25k coin had a very interesting significance for me perhaps because of the engraved symbols on it that looked like blisters on a black man’s hand. The coin was brown, made from brass, I think, and different from all the other coins that were made of silver. On it was the embossed image of the Kano groundnut pyramids of the 60s as well as groundnut seeds. On the coins, the pyramids looked just like little cones, but in larger pictures, they showed a concrete symbol of industry and hardwork with strong men moving huge sack produces of their all-year round labour. And although the images never really inspired me to pursue agriculture, there was always something very moving about staring at the image of the mammoth structure built from stacked sacks of annually harvested groundnut (peanut) from the land awaiting exportation to the corners of the globe. Those were the times of our great prosperity, when Nigeria was totally self-sufficient, just before oil was discovered in large quantity and everyone went around to sitting on their asses in government offices, waiting for their piece of the “national cake”. I never did ask exactly how the groundnut pyramids were eventually transported, or how many sacks/bags of groundnut made a pyramid, but looking at more than scores of man-made mammoth mounds of harvested food sitting around the northern deserts stamped in my mind an image that has refused to shake for over twenty years. And the 25kobo coin has always remained my favourite of all the coins made in Nigeria. Of course, today at home, no one spends the coins anymore even though there has never been any official pronunciation declaring them no longer fit for transaction. My University in Ibadan has remained the only place in the country where taxi drivers (and them alone) still collect coins in exchange for services. The twenty-five kobo bronze coins have by now been relegated to the dustbins of our profligate history.
The dollar coin that I saw has the image of James Monroe, the 5th president, on one side, and the statue of Liberty on the other. A quick search through Google has now shown me that there actually have been several issues of the currency bearing several different president’s images. I don’t know why the coin is not is much circulation, but I know for a fact that, unlike in my wasteful country, this coin is actually a legal tender acceptable by everyone and at every vending machine. I know this because when Tola put it in the machine yesterday, it gave me my Mountain Dew and returned the right amount of change. So what exactly is wrong with Nigeria? I mean, besides profligacy!
“The eyes believe themselves the ears believe other people.” – German proverb
“A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age he dies of being a man.” – Miguel de Unamuno
“I am an eyewitness to the ways in which people relate to themselves and to each other, and my work is a way of scooping and ladling that experience.” – Richard Neutra
“History is the study of lies, anyway, because no witness ever recalls events with total accuracy, not even eyewitnesses” – Nancy Pickard
Q: Were you present when your picture was taken? – A court joke
“Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.” – Aldous Huxley
“You never know how much a man can’t remember until he’s called a ‘witness'” – Will Rogers.
…for lack of a better title…
This set of pictures consists of shots from Carbondale, Chicago and St. Louis.
.
To YOU, yes YOU. Stop looking around!
You have been there all this while, so I am taking this time to thank you, yes you, because you have been reading this travelogue from the very beginning, and you because you joined in the middle and have stayed committed, and to you because you come in occasionally without leaving comments, but you leave with a smile, a giggle, a laugh or any other pleasant thought. You come in to rate the articles, invisibly, give them thumbs up, and then refer the articles to your friends to read. You, yes you even share my links on Facebook or retweet them on Twitter. Hmmm. What can I say but thanks? I thank you, and I appreciate your sometimes invisible but always reassuring presence. One day, I hope to list all the locations around the world where you have viewed this site from, and maybe also mention you all who have has left a comment at least once, or you who have talked to me behind the scenes, pointing me to a wrongly spelt word in a hurriedly-written post, just as an appreciation to your efforts and time. I am very grateful: friends, family, critics, and acquaintances.
Today in America, everyone of us will gather around dinner tables to devour family meals of the season set aside to thank the Lord for the harvest of the year. The anniversary began by the very first immigrants on the continent after their first harvest, and it has continued since. President Abraham Lincoln it was who decreed that it would take place on every last Thursday in November.
Back home, we have the Odún Ìkórè, which is a similar thanksgiving get-together of families and friends, but which usually takes place late in the harmattan/winter season, just around Christmas. I have attended a few of them in the Anglican church with my late paternal grandfather, and it was always nice: plenty food, palm wine, and a harvest barzar after the church service. I am also aware that back home today in Nigeria, there is the Moslem holiday to celebrate a different festival. I have a living grandfather for whom that is also day of joy and celebration with his immediate and extended family.
Here for me as a blogger ghoul in a stranger forest of a distant land, my harvest is both that of the success of this blog, the joy of the Fulbright programme and this travel experience, and the happiness it has brought me through the friends, fans and admirers that I have made though the medium. I thank you all, and wish you a very happy, and a very very pleasant celebration. As long as you’re there, I will be here, pleased in the warmth of your reading eyes.
-ktravula