Sicily, India, Great Britain, Morocco, New York.
For those who’ve been following this developing thread, we’re now approaching the end of our previously published photo-story fragments. A few of the following will look familiar, most will not. And as we’ve already noted, these aren’t necessarily our most artistic shots—rather, they’re photos that tell a story, however curious or trivial. We started out shooting for 100, but then Glinda suggested we should at least manage a year’s worth. We’re still working on that. Meanwhile…
Favorite 61: Corleone, Sicily - Abandoned Farm.
We couldn’t let a trip to Sicily go by without a slog up the narrow central road to Corleone, the real-life Mafia hang-out and source for The Godfather movie trilogy. What we found was yet another southern Italian community bled of its younger generations through emigration, with a thin shell of ancient aristocracy left behind to placate the culture-hungry tourist. But there is no island or country in the world that abandons even its minor relics with such colorful elegance.
Favorite 57: Casablanca, Morocco - Beach Life.
Youth unemployment has been the scourge of the Arab world since we can remember. On Casablanca Beach, at the end of the main east-west Metro line, you’ll find hundreds of young men lolling about, taking cell phone shots of each other, and playing soccer on the wet sands.
Favorite 43: Dubrovnik, Croatia - One Tour Fits All.
Everything is for sale or rent in tourist enclaves like Dubrovnik. The stages of civic growth are predictable: First, they clean up some sleepy port. Second, they install a ship terminal. Third, they talk the major cruise lines into visiting. And fourth, they groan and protest at the scale of the invasion.
Favorite 58: New York - World Trade Center Memorial.
A yellow rose left by a bereft family for their son Christopher, who died on September 11, 2001. Nothing is more difficult than erecting a memorial that captures the monumental impact of an event without losing the granular human dimension of the tragedy. The memorial at the World Trade Center does better than most.
Favorite 46: Roma, Italy - Foro Romano - Opera at Sunset.
In any other city, this beautiful, young soprano would be dressed in hippie tie-dye, playing a banged-up guitar, and singing well-worn, mainly American folk songs to a handful of wandering tourists. Here, by a wrought-iron railing overlooking the ruins of the Roman Forum, an orchestra plays on a machine, as the elegantly-dressed music student recites arias from Verdi, Puccini, and Donizetti. She draws and holds a crowd of admirers, as the sun settles onto the horizon beyond the piles of ancient, shattered marble. It all seems to fit together.
Favorite 48: London, UK - Highgate Cemetery - Karl Marx - March 14, 1883.
Karl Marx loved his middle-class comforts, but money was never a serious priority. When he died in London, the epitome of the unwashed, intellectual exile, his devoted daughters buried him in a plain grave in this cemetery. After Vladimir Lenin turned him into the god of left-wing socialism, the Communist Party of Great Britain paid to move him to this much more impressive location. In life, Marx sported a larger head than most, but it’s still feels odd to find this massive, disembodied cranium sitting, perfectly expressionless, atop its marble pedestal. He should at least be shouting.
Favorite 41: Land’s End, Cornwall—Sunset.
For centuries, the flat-earthers of Great Britain decreed this the end of the world. It’s still celebrated as the southernmost/westernmost tip of the main British Isle. The distance from here to the northernmost point (John O’Groats in Scotland) is 603 miles by crow and 874 miles by car. The record by bicycle is 10 days, and on foot a little less than 2 months. This is the kind of challenge that could only excite the British—and us. We broke it up into two car trips and still never quite reached the other end (weather definitely not permitting).
Favorite 50: Colaba, Mumbai, India - Sassoon Docks.
Built in 1875 by the legendary Baghdadi-Jewish traders David Sassoon & Co., these commercial wet docks, the first in Bombay, were needed to handle the massive demand for Indian cotton that flowed from the disruptions to world markets caused by the American Civil War. Today, they serve the city as a primary commercial fishing dock and market, providing employment for more than 1,000 sailors and hawkers. We wandered through at dawn, when the fishermen were just waking up in their hammocks and street bedding.
Favorite 59: Douglas, Isle of Man - Chesterhouse Hotel.
There was a time when every English seafront from Margate to Scarborough to Blackpool sported a line of these brashly colored holiday hotels. English Breakfast followed by brisk walks along the Strand. An afternoon of reading on the beach, then Tea and Supper at the hotel, with a game of Bingo in the evening. Early to bed, then up the next morning to do the exact same thing. There was a pleasant, relaxed rhythm to vacation life that still survives in remote, throwback island communities like the Isle of Man.
Favorite 60: Munnar, Kerala, India - Tea Plantation.
We climbed the Western Ghats of southern India in search of the King and Queen of spices, Black Pepper and Cardamom, but found ourselves in an endless green sea of tea leaves. In a country so well known for its crowds, you can climb for hours through the open plantations here without stumbling into another soul.