February 25, 2014

Here’s to Looking at You from the Middle East

Photo: Douglas Wills

Recently, I was perusing through hundreds of photos from our journey through the Middle East that took us from Egypt through Jordan to Syria and finally Turkey. I realized that we never shared how we felt during that epic journey.

I am guessing that you can see the emotions reflected in Lyra...

Photo: Douglas Wills

From day one, we were out of our element...constantly being watched.

Above, Lyra is in an restricted tomb under the Great Pyramids which is “off limits” to tourists. However, the guard took a look at us and with a little backsheesh we were in. We were definitely traveling off the beaten path.

Photo: Douglas Wills

After a bit of climbing we took a rest at the base of one of the Great Pyramids. By the way, Lyra is a great subject, but she is an even better photographer.

After the Great Pyramids, we took some time to relax at the El Fishawy Café (shisha bar) back in Cairo. In Cairo, we never got used to being on display. In Korea, we seldom felt like the outsiders that we seemed to be in Egypt, even though the roots of our own culture come from the Middle East. I thought we might feel a little more at home.


Photo: Stuart Freedman, Panos Pictures


Photo: Douglas Wills

Photo: Douglas Wills

During 2009, Cairo was a city that was on edge...Especially being baked by the mid-day sun during Ramadan...And I can not fathom being without food or water all day, covered from head to toe in a berka and baking in the desert sun.

It seemed like clock work, that squabbles broke out each day around 3:00 pm between cranky merchants and hungry housewives. I was cranky too in that heat! And I was watered and well fed.

Photo: Douglas Wills

Soon, we escaped the heat of Cairo and were on to Jordan (video). Where we found ourselves in Wadi Rum, which is simply spectacular! Wadi Rum gave rise to epic landscapes with warm blue skis that I struggle to find words to express. Maybe Lyra can...

Photo: Douglas Wills

On our way through Jordan, we also spent a night in Petra. Carved out of sandstone, the ruins of Petra are astonishingly beautiful and more ancient than I had imagined. The earliest inhabitants dating back to 7,000 BC.

Photo: Douglas Wills

After gliding through Jordan, crossing the Syrian border was a much more complicated than we expected. Even though we had all of our paper work and visas in order, it took over 4 hours of standing in line to pass the first checkpoint...and the line was short! That’s because nefarious individuals kept cutting in line and paying off the clerk to get past the check point. I started to get a little irritated since there where only a couple people front of us! We just waited and waited and waited and the line never moved, but somehow others got instant service.

Finally we got our entry stamp! Then once we got through the first check point, we had to drive to a second check point a few miles down the highway. There, we were promptly sent back to the first check point because one of our fellow travelers had gotten the wrong date stamp from the first clerk! We should have given the guy a donation like everyone else...Argh!

Photo: Douglas Wills

Eventually, we got everyone’s visas straightened out and we were on our way to Palmyra...

Photo: Douglas Wills

Palmyra is beautiful ancient Roman city trapped by the sands of time in a Syrian desert. You can almost hear the ghosts of this lost city as the desert winds whisper through the Roman arches and timeless Corinthian columns.





Photo: Douglas Wills

Even though Palmyra is deserted, thriving tourism supports a nearby community of local Syrians who sell lots of tasty dates to unsuspecting tourists who just can’t resist these brown desert delights!

Photo: Douglas Wills

Yes! Dates are definitely the happy fruit and in a land as harsh and violent as Syria, anything so sweet must be a welcomed comfort food.

Photo: Douglas Wills

After Palmyra, we were on to Damascus...quite a contrast to the ruins we had been touring along the way. Damascus is ancient, but just like most of Syria, it is very much alive!...what a delight.



Built upon layers and layers of history...Greek, Roman, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Modern, Medieval, Ancient, Etc. all sandwiched together, Damascus was a melting pot of humanity...maybe more like a boiling cauldron...depending on your perspective.

Photo: Douglas Wills

A beautifully dangerous place with a patchwork of people, culture and religion all competing for the city’s love and resources...that is Damascus.

Photo: Douglas Wills

Aleppo did not disappoint either. Like Damascus, Aleppo hides beauty behind the great walls of the old city. Something we never expected would exist while looking at the crumbling walls of Aleppo’s exterior.

Photo: Douglas Wills

BTW...The above hammer scene caused a huge traffic jam in the adjacent street as cars in all directions slammed on their brakes and men pulled out their cell phones to record the somewhat risqué, forging of Damascus steel. I should have put a stop to it, but couldn’t because I was too busy laughing at the ensuing commotion.

Photo: Douglas Wills

The people of Aleppo, just like the rest of Syria are truly an enigma of genius mixed with cunning and force that underscore the ability of humanity to thrive in the face of chaos. I wonder what would happen to Syrians if they ever got out of this environment...

hmmm...Steve Jobs’ biological father is from Homs, Syria.

Photo: Douglas Wills

As I mentioned, we were always being watched. Sometimes it was just the watchful eye of decal such as Bashar Al Assad on the back window of a pick-up truck.

If you like digging into enigmas, have a look at the Charlie Rose interview with Bashar Al Assad.  You definitely have to be cunning to survive in a land like as Syria.

Photo: Douglas Wills

If the tension in Syria happens to be too much, an alternative to dates (remember, the happy fruit) would be knocking back a few shots of Arak. Then everything will be just fine...

As we said our good-byes to Syria, we left the Arab culture behind and found ourselves being watched by a different set of eyes...the Turks.

Photo: Douglas Wills

Above: Jesus looked on from a previous era as he stands in the walls of the Hagia Sophia. Originally, a cathedral, Ottoman Muslims retrofitted this magnificent church into a mosque upon their invasion in 1453. It’s now a museum...

Photo: Douglas Wills

Being at the cross roads of civilization, Istanbul was even more layered with successive civilizations than Damascus, Aleppo or other cities we journeyed through.

Above, the head of Medusa stairs coldly into the distance while holding up a marble column in the great Basilica Cistern deep below the streets of Istanbul. There are two Medusa heads in the Basilica Cistern that were once part of an ancient Roman temple...once a god to the Greeks and Romans...now a slave holding up the Islamic streets above her.

Photo: Douglas Wills

It is those very layers of history, culture, religion and humanity packed together in a tangled beautiful mess that make Istanbul so wonderful. Just like the layers of history throughout the Middle East, it can never be untangled.

And why try untangle this mes? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Or maybe you have bad intentions and want to feed the hatred found between layers of cultures and civilizations...Well, that too will lead to darkness and while creating even more enemies.

Embrace the tangled mess of history and revel in its diversity. This will lead to even richer layers of civilization that the next generation can build on...

But I must say, the clashing of cultures makes for really great food...Just ask Anthony Bourdain!

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February 5, 2014

Creativity Never Fades

Photo: Lyra Jakabházy 

Lyra and I recently had a chance to visit our good friends Jane Gittings Robert and François Robert in Tucson, Arizona. They are true rock stars of design who never lose their passion for finding, creating and sharing that which is beautiful and moving. It is quite a contrast to go from people who communicate through words to people who communicate through their visual creations.

Jane and François communicate through their work:

Image: François Robert
From his series Stop the Violence, the bones speak for François.



Image: François Robert cover of his book Faces with Jean Robert
François loves to find the illusion of faces in everyday and not so everyday objects. You may be familiar with his book Faces that he created with his talented brother, Jean.

Images: Jane Gittings Robert Book 7, Man of the Century from her koobcube project
Jane’s koobcube project is a backwards book and design adventure. Jane reads a cube of books from her library, one at a time. After she finishes each book, Jane redesigns the book jacket and posts the original and redesigned cover. Jane redesigns the cover to challenge herself, but I would say it’s a graphic designer's version of a book review...only better. Inspiring!

Jane and François are a dynamic duo who collaborate together on many creative endeavors from commercial photography to children's books...such as “Find a Face” that you can find on Amazon.


So...our travels with Jane and François took us from Sabino Canyon to “The Boneyard” to Mt. Lemmon Observatory. It was a non-stop roller coaster of compelling image hunting and gathering.

Photo: Sabino Canyon, Jane Gittings Robert
Hiking through Sabino Canyon was breathtaking, but stay away from the cholla plants!

 Photo: Lyra Jakabházy
Ouch!!!

The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group of the US military, otherwise known as “The Boneyard”, was colossal!

Image: Google Earth 
These are just the a few of the aircraft...

Photo: Douglas Wills
...and François never misses a pretty face!

In addition to the thousands of dormant military aircraft inside “The Boneyard”, there was an extra visual treat...

Photo: Jane Gittings Robert
...The Boneyard Projects, conceived in 2010 by Eric Firestone and organized by curator Carlo McCormick, resurrects the forgotten airplanes from “The Boneyard” by turning them into three dimensional airplane canvasses...a compelling use of military assets.

But the fun didn't stop there...

Photo: Douglas Wills
As I was saying...our travels with Jane and François were an image hunting and gathering extravaganza...

Photo: Mt. Lemmon Observatory, Douglas Wills
One night, we ended up at the Mt. Lemmon Observatory. I got to see Jupiter with my own eyes and could actually see its gaseous surface and orbiting moons. Another first for me...quite cool!

Photo: Biosphere2, Lyra Jakabházy
Biosphere 2 was something else. However, the story behind it is too lengthy for this post. You can get that from Jane Poynter from her TED talk, who is also friends with Jane and François.

However, I think the real treat came at the end of our trip when we got to meet and chat with Irving Olson. He is a self-made man who created his fortune back in the day as a pioneer in electronics, despite describing himself as a simple “peddler”.

Photo: Lyra Jakabházy
You can look up Olson Electronics on your own, but suffice it to say Radio Shack and Best Buy copied Irving’s business model.

Image: 1968 Olson Electronics Catalog eBay
Irving will be the last person that I ever meet who was older than I am today when I was born. Get it? Irving just turned 100 years old! He actually retired before I was born. You do the math! You might guess he is in his 70’s if you met him, but that is not the point. Irving is not a man defined by his age, he is defined by his humanity, creativity and love for life.

Photo: Lyra Jakabházy
Since his retirement in the 1960’s, Irving has been traveling the world...150+ countries...and nurturing his creativity through his passion for photography. Of course, he and François hit it off immediately.

Photo: Lyra Jakabházy
François came bearing a few gifts, including his book Faces, which Irving loved and prompted him to show off his own latest guilty pleasure. Recently, Irving has been taking photos of people eating or rather “stuffing their faces.”...maybe a creative reaction to the increase in American obesity as seen through the lens of his camera.

I believe creativity and humor are linked. Irving’s innate sense of humor was boundless as he told all sorts of jokes and bantered with François. In my opinion, his playful nature fueled his creativity. When you play, you are not afraid to make mistakes. Irving did not seem to be afraid of making mistakes. 

Photo: Lyra Jakabházy
His “face stuffing” photos are both humorous and tell it like it is...but I’ll leave it to Irving to publish those later.

However, even more stunning are his water droplet images...

Photo: Irving Olson
In his kitchen, Irving has engineered a unique technique of photographing colored water droplets. Through hours and hours of trial and error, Irving comes up with stunning results.

Photo: Irving Olson
Irving never finished college, but he never finished learning either.

Photo: Irving Olson
He does lament that the people in his retirement community do not share most of his interests or passions. According to Irving, most do nothing at all and just fade away into a “cocktail of medications” that are too liberally prescribed to them.While not practical for everyone, Irving is medication free.

Photo: Lyra Jakabházy
Irving is definitely a man of action with many admirable qualities. His photography is just the tip of the iceberg.

Photo: Irving Olson

Photo: Irving Olson

Like many self-made people, Irving feels education numbs perfectly good people. He had enough of formal education after a couple semesters at the University of Akron, but he never had enough of learning. 

Another self-made creative comes to mind, Frank Lloyd Wright, who also ended up in Arizona, felt the same and was quoted: “Harvard takes perfectly good plums as students, and turns them into prunes.”

Irving is definitely not a prune.


FYI...The University of Akron awarded Irving an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters upon his 100th birthday...I believe a formal apology would have been better.

Photo: Lyra Jakabházy
So, hats off to Jane and François who are always finding compelling aesthetics and creative people. Because of their mission in life, we were able to meet such an extraordinary person and share in his love of life and revel with him in the beauty that surrounds us all.

Thank you, Jane and François. We left truly inspired.

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