Surfing at Long Beach

There is much standing around while surfing. Or so it appears.

Is this wave right? Or should I wait for the next one?

Kind of like finding the right parking space. Should I drive around a bit more? Oh damn. I should have taken the one back there.

For the little time spent riding the wave, much more is spent waiting. And waiting. It seems to be worth it.

Photos by Jim Murray. Copyright 2013.

Remembering 9/11 ~ the other one

September 11th is a day to remember. It was the day the US overthrew a democratically elected government in Chile in 1973.
























Salvador Allende had led a ramshackle group of leftist parties to victory three years earlier in 1970. There was no dispute about the election, it was fair in every way. The rich landowners and business people were less than enthusiastic. Nor was the White House of Richard Nixon.




The US led a vicious campaign of disinformation against Allende from the day of his election, pouring millions of dollars into the effort. Ultimately the CIA and the Chilean military conspired to conduct a coup against the Chilean presidency. Allende was killed and over the next few weeks and months and years, thousands more were killed or disappeared. The junta lasted seventeen years.

We should never forget what happened on September 11th.  

Copyright 2013 by Jim Murray.

A recent movie from Chile highlights some of that horror
and the victory of Chilean democracy all those years later. 
Read my post about the film: No here.

More Touch Wood at VanDusen Gardens

Visitors and giant brushes. The Touch Wood exhibit, now in final days, is an inviting collection, and as summer gives way to autumn the views are constantly changing.

























The Last of the Giants, by Steve Paterson and Janice Wood depicts the industry that originally built this province and created many fortunes, including that of the namesake for VanDusen Gardens. The installation is made of steel, rebar, steel mesh, stucco and moss.

Photos by Jim Murray. Copyright 2013.

Walking Figures by Magdalena Abakanowicz

They are tall, headless and foreboding. They appear to be wandering aimlessly. Sinister perhaps.

Identically cast, they were later given individual surface treatments to create subtle identities.

The artist, Magdalena Abakanowicz, was born to a noble landowner family in Poland. When she was nine Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Poland. Her family endured the war living on the outskirts of Warsaw.





After the war and resulting Soviet occupation, the family moved to small city near Gdańsk, in northern Poland. Under Soviet control, the Polish government adopted Socialist realism as the only acceptable art form which could be pursued by artists. Originally conceived by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, Socialist realism in nature, had to be 'national in form' and 'socialist in content'.














The artist's years at university, 1950 through 1954, coincided with some of the harshest assaults made on art by the Soviet leadership. Abakanowicz recalled: "I liked to draw, seeking the form by placing lines, one next to the other. The professor would come with an eraser in his hand and rub out every unnecessary line on my drawing, leaving a thin, dry contour. I hated him for it."










Abakanowicz's Walking Figures appear at the Broadway-City Hall Canada Line Station, and they all look rather Soviet-like to me.

Photos by Jim Murray. Copyright 2013.

Tofino's Crab Dock

The Government Crab Dock at the inlet appears differently with the changes in the tide and the weather.  The gulls are always present, and sometimes an eagle.

And dogs in kayaks and herons in trees.

Photos by Jim Murray. Copyright 2013.