Canary Island Flight . . .

I had to go all the way to the Canary Island of Tenerife to take this photo in early 1994. There was construction going on all over the coast near where we stayed on the western end of Tenerife ; I suppose these toilets were stacked up waiting to go into the bathrooms of yet another tourist hotel. Does this photo say anything about my views on the world ? Better let the psychologists answer that one. There is a poem that goes with this, that I wrote on the first night in the hotel near where these toilets were waiting to start serving their destined purpose.
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Also, I'd just like to say, I recntly had the great pleasure of stumbling by serendipitous chance on a sublime blog with the magical title Dreams, Delirium, and Mind Talk, written by the enchanting Nevine Sultan, who I am starting to believe is descended from ancient Egyptian royalty, for it would be easy, extremely easy, to try to describe her spell-binding writing in poetry and prose as nothing short of divinely inspired, in an entirely mystical sense. I encourage you, click on the link to her blog, see what you think. I was hooked from the first few phrases. Today she published a piece called "freefalling", and if you give it a read, you will see why I pulled out the below piece as a counter point. (the poem I mean, not the photo...)
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....Canary Flight
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Homer Stern was sitting
At the white table
Which stretched away before him
Like an arctic waste
An empty ashtray miles away
On the wind swept horizon
Eleven floors up
In a concrete tower
No ivory nor ebony
Only iron girders cloaked
In irony
A prison playing at paradise
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The water purification plant
In the washed out ravine
Behind the hotel
Is scrambling shit
For all it’s worth
Churning like a Santa Fe freight
Climbing the long grade
Up toward Donner pass
Homer doubts that sleep
Will be forthcoming
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The motor driven blades
Plowing through the fecal matter
Sound like a flock of C-130’s
Bearing down on a jump zone
And Homer steps to the window
Looks down at the tennis court
Eleven floors below in the darkness
The white lines faintly gleaming
Beckoning like a helicopter pad
To a tired pilot
He imagines the descent
The jolt of landing
Bright light followed by no light
Preceeded by a few vicious seconds
Of total awareness
While falling, flailing, falling
Senses screaming
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In the morning the entire west side
Of the hotel would be on their balconies
Looking down on the carnage
Dried ketchup spray
The local west-side story
For a day two
Homer restrains himself
Despite the shit grinding din
Of late night sewage treatment
More or less akin
To late night TV
He doesn’t want to cast a pall
On so many people’s
Vacation here in paradise
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Canary Cables and Coffee . . .

Another couple of scenes from the Canary Island of Tenerife in 1994. These cable spools had remained unmoved for so long people were using them as billboards for circus posters. . .

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Vivian, this is another one that is going to need your bicycle pump to put some air in the tires before those coffees can be delivered. . . hope no one was expecting the coffee to still be hot by the time it gets to you in this old wreck. . .

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Canary Car Disposal. . .

Having spent a week on the Canary Island of Tenerife in 1994, I can attest with these photos that at that time they had a little bit of a problem with wrecked car disposal. Every time I turned around there was another car cadaver in view, many were badly mangled. I had to wonder what was causing so many wrecks on such a small island ? Was it due to tourists partying too heavily before heading back to their hotels ? Was it local people drinking too heavily to forget about all the tourists ? I can only hope the island has been cleared up a little since I was there. May have to go back one of these days to do a check up visit. . . could use a little sun. . .

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Canary Landscapes . . .

On a trip to Tenerife in the Canary Islands back in 1994, we were often amazed at the beautiful landscapes there were all over the island with few exceptions. . . this was one of the exceptions. An appliance dump in the middle of a stretch of barren but stunning volcanic hills, washing machines, bathtubs, toilet seats, water heaters, you name it, they had it. . .

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Canary Dream House. . .

Located in the Canary Islands, this ocean view condominium is another property which I consider as having incredible potential, and it comes replete with circus posters, adding to the exquisite charm of the location, not to mention volcanic lava flow fields in lieu of troublesome grass yards to have to mow. . . who wants to make me an offer ?
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Canary Cats. . .

And having posted the Canary canine just below, I would be accused of being biased if I didn't quickly add the Canary cats, also photographed on Tenerife Island in 1994 . . . what drives me to take photos like this ? ? ? Guess I've just done it so much it's become almost second nature ; and you know what they say about trying to teach an old dog new tricks. . .
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Canary Beetle . . .

Why someone felt compelled to hoist this old VW Beetle up on top of a shipping container parked in the pumice fields and cold lava flow covered with cactus in that corner of the Canary Island of Tenerife was but one of many mysteries encountered on those mysterious and beautiful islands. And it had a see-through interior . . .
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Canary Dream House . . .

I don't know about you
But there are plenty of times
When I would love to just head for the hills
Abandon my car
Never to hold a filling station pump handle again
Abandon the washing machine and TV
The credit card the bank account the mortgage
And all the other junk of modern life
Take the girls and head for the hills
And try to start over
Try to start fresh
Start again
Learn how to drink water from cactus
And to grow what we need to eat
And to live in a house like this one
A dream house. . .
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(photo taken in 1994 on island of Tenerife)
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Worse For Wear . . .

The Canary Islands are beautiful place, but as with many islands, making large pieces of scrap metal junk disappear is not always as easy as it is on the mainland. That difficulty may tend to contribute to a "laisser faire" attitude, if not even a "laisser pourrir sur place" approach, which is to say, just do nothing and let it rot or rust away in situ. I noticed on Haiti and Guadeloupe that wrecked cars also tended to stay where they came to rest after whatever accident happened. But this one on the island of Tenerife, at the foot of a steep slope with a road at the top was particularly grim. I didn't try to see if skeleton hands were still gripping the steering wheel. . .

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This image could also be an analogy for the international banking system. Looking a little the worse for wear. And a pox on that particular brand of thieving vultures, who seem to have a predilection for purchasing homes on islands. . . like the gentleman who helped bankrupt Lehman Brothers, precipitating the meltdown. And unlike this sorry car, we may not have hit bottom yet.

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I Brake For Junkyards !

Don't ask me what this was all about. . . I have no clue. Why this woman's face was adorning the beat up old hulk of a car with all the glass busted out of the windows which I found in my wanderings on the island of Tenerife in 1994 is a mystery to me. But you may have started to realize by now, I love little mysteries like this that allow one to fully comprehend (or "grok" as Heinlein put it) just how deep the depths of unplumbed experience on this planet may be. . . there are wonders waiting to be discovered around any corner, just over the next hill, or in that junkyard you just drove by, but didn't stop at. . . well, call me what you will, but I stop at junkyards !
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High On A Volcano. . .

In 1994 my wife and I spent a week on Tenerife and La Gomera in the Canary Islands to recharge the batteries and change the scenery. One day we drove up (way up, about 9000 feet in altitude from the beachfront hotel we were staying in) to the area around the volcano, still active, name El Tiede which crowns the western end of the island of Tenerife. We left the car by the road and hiked up the pumice fields until we got to the base of the last fairly steep part that went up to the summit. Given the time of day we didn't go any higher, but already there were beautiful views in all directions. . .

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I don't mean to be morbid or anything, but way up high on the slopes of that volcano, we came across the hindquarter of some once bushy tailed canine creature that had come to rest there. God only knows how it got so high on a mountain like that, I remember imagining that some large bird of prey had carried it up there. And in all those vast spaces of lava flows and pumice fields, how we managed to stumble on these remains shall remain one of life's little mysteries.

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