Photograph from The Monument View…
This is a tasty little number. It’s a screengrab of a daily timelapse, shot from the top of London’s recently re-opened Monument.3 years ago
The Monument View is an “ambient responsive outdoor installation” by Chris Meigh-Andrews, which shoots a continuous timelapse birds-eye view of the city. You can use the Explore button on the top right to search through a back-catalogue of the sequences. (via)
3 years agoFor the first time in history, more people live in cities than anywhere else, which means cities have to get smarter.
Smarter Cities: Ideas for Smart Growth (via IBMAdvertising)
New York Cityscape (via daveterry)
3 years agoand I sing:
I don’t like cities, but I like New York
Other places make me feel like a dork
Los Angeles is for people who sleep
Paris and London, baby you can keepBaby you can keep, Other cities always make me mad
Other places always make me sad
No other city ever made me glad
Except New YorkI love New York
I love New York
I love New York
On the importance of traditions
This year, once again, I celebrated Christmas far away from my family and friends, except this year, I guess, I am probably more mature, or just more used to this idea and accepted the fact by shutting down the feeling factory and letting it pass just as any other day. Down south in Colombia, my family had been working together for a couple of days to prepare the traditional “tamales” following my grandma’s recipe and sharing some quality family time together. My sister Camila, was sweet enough, to send me the pictures, and I started to think, how important it is to keep traditions.
When I was growing up, particularly, when I was a teenager and very rebel one, I used to think that it was such a waste of time to be doing that year after year. Years later, I am nostalgic and remembering those great times where three generations will seat down in one big table and take turns to prepare such a yummy dish. My grandmother, the team leader of this adventure, would be the one in charge of tasting and supervising that the corn dough, the plantain leaves, and the chick peas “guiso” were prepared correctly. The rest of us will be organized as a production line, in which some would clean the plantain leaves, others would prepare the corn dough, others would help chopping and preparing the “guiso”, and once that was ready, we would take turns to actually put together the “tamales”. Oh those good old times. Music playing in the background, my grandma asking questions and sharing stories and, my cousins and siblings, laughing at each other.
According to an online dictionary the definition of “tamal” is:
“Found in most of Central America as well as Mexico, tamales are a traditional Latin American dish made of cornmeal dough (called masa) filled with meats, cheeses, dried fruit, or sweet corn (my favorite). Tamales are wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves, steamed, and served hot. Though tamales can be found in high-class Central America restaurants, the best ones are sold by streetside vendors.”
It fails to mention that its also characteristic of Colombia and that our “tamal” is filled with pork, meat and chicken, 3 raisins to add some sweet flavor, 3 olives and a delicious onion, tomato and chick peas sauce. Hope I am not forgetting something. The tamales would be served as the main Christmas dish and we would prepare enough (150+) “tamales” to freeze and have some through out the coming months. I hope I will go soon to Colombia and there will still be some tamales left in for me.
:)
Feliz Navidad!
3 years ago