The Ghosts of Past Trails

The monster within puts itself between one and the path lying ahead,

while the ghosts of past trails follow one into their own cage.

The gates are up yet the fates of paramours travelling on parallel tracks are inadvertently juxtaposed;

until finally, the creepers consume the architecture of a once-vibrant memory.

These nonsense images came from a first attempt at developing film on my own. Their exposures were also of a very experimental nature, I do not usually make double exposures. The results, while unpredictable, were quite pleasant. A mayor contributor was without doubt, the lovely Brownie Flash III I used in the making of these photographs, much to the likes of this device.

The Roll of the Ball

Old Game

So, what's with the ball? There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of sports and games that are played with balls (and by balls I mean rolling sphere-like bodies like the one shown in the picture) which evolve from a wide variety of unrelated cultural backgrounds. How many man-hours have been spent globally in watching all kinds and sizes of balls just rolling around? The oldest known ballgame is allegedly de Ulama, a version of the Mesoamerican ballgame (of death) whose roots extended back to at least the 2nd millennium BC. And there must have been quite lot of rolling long before that. That makes me wonder, is it just the simplicity of the most beautifully perfect shape in nature, that adapts to every gaming purpose and environment? Or is there something hard-wired into our genes that makes it impossible to take our minds off the roll of the ball? Just like a kitten to a yarn hank.

Landlord's Gaze

Land tenure has ever been a problem in Mexico. Fewer than 11,000 haciendas controlled 57 percent of the national territory at the beginning of the 20th century, which became one of triggering situations for the 1910 Mexican Revolution. After the civil war, a mayor reform was introduced, and remained in force until 1992. However it has visibly failed to create a proper distribution of land, only succeeded in making it very complicated. Today, with greater demand an less availability for every natural resource you may think of, most of the usable land is employed in inefficient, medieval, extensive farming (if at all employed).

More on the subject:

• Structure and history of land tenure in Mexico;
  http://www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/(httpEnvelopes)/EA3B6CB789BAE118C12573AD00534184?OpenDocument
• Mexico-Land Tenure Agriculture:
  http://www.mongabay.com/history/mexico/mexico-land_tenure_agriculture.html
• Land Tenure and the Ejido Program in Mexico:
  http://www.applet-magic.com/ejido.htm

The Mayans weren't wrong

View from the Temple of Kukulkan

The Mayans didn't predict the end on the world. They had great astronomers and mathematicians and in fact they had other calendars and numbers that can count for a couple more years ahead of December the 21st, 2012 (this, according to multiple sources-one of many here). Anyway, I think enough has been said about this. This is a picture from the stairs of the Temple of Kukulkan, the mayor pyramid in Chichén Itzá. It was taken a while ago before it became one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, and one could climb to the top of the stairs (which by the way were pretty scary).