Beach near Mandrem, Goa

These guys were so cool, looking completely bad-ass in their lifeguard kit that practically glowed in the late afternoon sun.  Could they match their surroundings any better!?  I'm sure they thought they had the best job in the world.

Form follows function -- all the tables and pillows/chairs arrayed in tiers facing west.

DIY tent house for the super handy

You may remember Al Moudira from last year --- the amazing hotel near the Valley of the Kings where nearly everything was crafted out of local materials or by local artisans (here and here).  Elsewhere is a bit like that...the kind of place that makes you want to find your own little plot of paradise somewhere -- mountains, beach, lake, backyard -- and build your own love shack.  Here are a few details to inspire you....

The tent has painted canvas walls that appear to be stretched on framing built with 2x4s.  The four walls butt up against a poured/painted concrete pad that has a 5" rim (that you can see on right of pic above) and that continues outside to make the "patio".  The tent top sits on the main column (three logs tied together) and is held in place with guylines.  I imagine some people could make the tent roof (here stiff canvas lined with printed cotton) but I suspect you can buy these somewhere too.  The bed has mosquito netting curtains that are attached with thin coated wire stretched between little eye hooks.

Curtain rods made from bamboo.  When "closed" they are weighted down against breezes by rod across bottom.  Lashed bamboos window "mullions".

Bamboo bathroom mirror with shower in background.  Shower is made of two floor to ceiling finished planks of roughhewn wood with a shower head and two small taps.

 Clay sconces similar to those at Al Moudira.

 Shower has a small, hot water on demand tank that is tucked in corner behind plank.  These are ubiquitous in India where showers seem to be the only fixture with hot water.

sink of rough hewn wood, matting, and stone.

A simple lounger -- nice touch are the 1x1" stiles set diamond-style on front and back.

Some more ideas here and here.

A weekend spent Elsewhere....

After a hot dusty week of work we headed to the beaches of north Goa for a little exploration and R&R.  We stayed at a magical (and hidden) little resort on a spit of land near the town of Mandrem.  (The clue is in the post title.)  The food was as amazing as the place and if I told you what it cost the extra airfare to get to India might start to seem like a bargain.

The hotel "lobby"

dining al fresco

Our little slice of heaven on Otter Creek

On the other side, over the dunes, the Arabian Sea

 Tomorrow, a walk up the beach.....

Evening walk, fishermen of Dona Paula

Putting the day's catch on ice.  In the morning the fisherwomen will carry the baskets of fish door to door selling fish to the locals.  It is mostly mackerel.

cricket on the beach

Velha "Old" Goa World Heritage Site

Velha Goa was founded in the 15th century and till the 17th century was one of the largest most cosmopolitan cities in the world, larger than London or Paris.  This Portuguese colonial city was also a beachhead for Catholicism in Asia.  St. Francis Xavier, one of the first Jesuits, arrived in 1542 and proceeded to agressively proselytize over much of Asia.  A year after he died in China his body was brought back to Goa where it now resides (next pic) in a silver casket in the Basilica of Bom Jesus.  You can see the shriveled body through the gold encircled windows.  Every few years the local archbishop brings him down to ground level for a while so the devoted, and curious, can get a closer look.

capiz shell shutters

some more nice wall painting that survived the whitewash

Where to start? Goa

It is very different and overwhelming.  My son and I are living in a dusty town that, maybe, sees a few non-Indian/white people come through for the seaside view each day.  Foreigners on extended stays in India must register with the government; for us, at the police station in nearby capital city, Panaji.  The registration office is piled so high with paper in/on every cupboard, corner, counter and desktop that it seems like a movie set (can this be real?).  Please fill out forms in triplicate and attach multiple copies of this, that, and the other.  To stay at a hotel for one night next weekend we will need to provide multiple copies of passport, visas, and 4 passport photos each to the hotel staff for government purposes.  India puts "red tape" into perspective....

Tomorrow...a world heritage site and the very famous person who is not buried in Goa.

Anjuna Beach, Goa, India

Ground zero for the trance music movement of the 90s....

Late morning coffee over the Arabian Sea

The path down to the beach.

View from Lilliputian Bar and Restaurant

beach cow hanging in the sun

The Corporate State

A friend sent me this youtube link that captures, more than anything else I've seen/read, what the Occupy Wall St movement is protesting against.  The bit about the Berlin wall is very interesting.

As any card-carrying Morris fan knows, in the 1880s our William was one of the founding members of the British socialist movement.  In the extract below from "How I Became a Socialist" Morris shares his views on the link between the welfare of the working class and the vitality of art.

"A last word or two. Perhaps some of our friends will say, what have we to do with these matters of history and art? We want by means of Social-Democracy to win a decent livelihood, we want in some sort to live, and that at once. Surely any one who professes to think that the question of art and cultivation must go before that of the knife and fork (and there are some who do propose that) does not understand what art means, or how that its roots must have a soil of a thriving and unanxious life. Yet it must be remembered that civilization has reduced the workman to such a skinny and pitiful existence, that he scarcely knows how to frame a desire for any life much better than that which he now endures perforce. It is the province of art to set the true ideal of a full and reasonable life before him, a life to which the perception and creation of beauty, the enjoyment of real pleasure that is, shall be felt to be as necessary to man as his daily bread, and that no man, and no set of men, can be deprived of this except by mere opposition, which should be resisted to the utmost."

You can read the entire essay here.

Quasicrystals Quite Unquadrate

(Image Eric Heller)

 

(Image J. W. Evans)

(image)

(Image Mark Grundland)

(Image Eric Weeks)

 

This week Dan Shechtman won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of quasicrystals, ordered but not periodic crystal mineral structures that lack traditional symmetry.  Many people have since noted that Islamic tiles exhibit similar ordering.  I took the last pic above at the Alhambra, built in the 14th century. 

Here's a funny quote from Shechtman's wikipedia page.  "(he) experienced several years of hostility toward his non-periodic interpretation (no less a figure than Linus Pauling said he was "talking nonsense" and "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.")"