Saturday reflections

I am not sure what building this was, but I think it was probably the old Governor's House or one of the other buildings in the Dowlat-Abad Gardens, in Yazd, Iran.

Travel Flashback: Urban poetry

Motorcycles parked on the street in downtown Tehran in 2015.

Many of my pictures from the city streets were taken from inside a moving car, so they're often a little blurry, but they capture the sense of the city the way I remember it.

Travel Flashback: Tehran reflections

Travel flashback: Tehran

Outside the wonderful Malek Library.

Travel flashback: Golestan Palace

Some pictures from 2015 of the Golestan Palace complex in Tehran.

I read this week that it's been damaged by bombs as part of the stupid and unforgivable war we've started, and I've been looking at old pictures and feeling grateful that I got to visit Iran back when it was still doable. I've been lucky enough to visit many wonderful places, and this is still one of the best trips I've ever taken.

Beautiful flashback

Here's another picture from Iran to start your weekend -- a beautiful squinch in Kerman.

Urban poetry

Picturesque junk in Yazd, Iran.

Saturday reflections

For sheer glee in creating over the top reflective surfaces, the Qajar dynasty in Iran had no equals.

This room is in the Narenjestan Palace in Shiraz.

Urban poetry

Furniture for sale in Shiraz, Iran.

While we're on the subject of lumasi

Versions of these are found in most of the ancient cultures of the Middle East -- here's a photo I never posted of the Gate of All Nations at Persepolis in Iran.

The damage here from millennia of exposure to the elements -- plus at least one angry army -- gives some weight to the British Museum's argument for keeping the Parthenon marbles. While actually walking through the ruins of Persepolis and seeing the stones in context was a once in a lifetime thrill, not that many of us get to go to Iran. And it's not likely that I'll ever go back.  But while I may never see the art of Persepolis again, I can take a bus uptown and see Assyrian art at the Metropolitan Museum any time I want.

When does protection become imperialism? Are they always the same thing?

It's complicated, obviously. Here's one more example: I knew that ancient Ninevah was somewhere in present-day Iraq, but I didn't realize until this last British Museum visit that it was on the outskirts of what is now Mosul.

Mosul was of course under the control of ISIS for much of the past several years. In addition to all the other havoc they created in the region, they destroyed all the statues of lumasi that had been left at the original site, as well as those in a local museum. So although I would have enjoyed visiting the ruins of Ninevah, the art would have been much safer outside of Iraq.

The Peacock Gate

This detail from the arch above the Peacock Gate reminds me of the squinches I saw in Iran.  I did know that the art and architecture in Iran are very similar to what you see across the Silk Road countries in Central Asia, rather than that of the Arab world. But I had thought of India as somehow separate from that tradition. You do see similarities though, in architecture, in decoration, even the textiles.

The sands of Araby

My apartment is even more chaotic than usual while I attempt to redo my packing list for the new itinerary (Water purifier? No. Sunscreen? Yes.)

It's the electronics that I'm probably going to get wrong this time. The number of adapters, converter plugs, cables and batteries that I have to bring along just to have a working camera, laptop and phone in four different countries is beyond ridiculous. I can be fairly confident that I'll pack everything on the list; I just have to manage to get everything I need on the list in the first place.

It will be fine. As long as I manage to remember my passport and credit cards and some clean underwear, I'll manage. In the meantime, here's a reminder of why I put myself through this: an image from the European Space Agency, showing a satellite view of the Arabian peninsula, where, if all goes according to plan, I'll be landing sometime late Thursday. That's the Persian Gulf on the left, and the Gulf of Oman on the right, and Abu Dhabi and Dubai are part of the tiny swath of habitation on the coast of the Persian Gulf as it curves up into the peninsula. The darker, mountainous region on the right is Oman, and the rest of the peninsula is Saudi Arabia. And the land north of the gulfs is Iran (Hi, Iran! Hope to see you again someday.) Such a beautiful planet, and there's so much still to see.

If I end up loving Abu Dhabi and points beyond half as much as I loved Iran, it will be more than worth the hassles of getting there.

Image credit: ESA

Year-end housekeeping, continued -- Iran

Watermelon rinds left out for the birds, after someone's picnic in the Shazdeh Gardens.

Below, a  Qajar-era painting from the Niyavaran Palace complex in Tehran.

Saturday reflections

This is the window of a store called Art of Persia in Portland. It was closed when I walked by, but these plates caught my eye. I didn't actually see ceramics like this in Iran, but those patterns, and the overlapping petal shapes like a flattened squinch, were immediately familiar. They caught my eye, and now that there's a tentative deal to lift the sanctions and I've been hoping things are going to get better for the many lovely people I met there, my heart.

I couldn't get clear shots of most of the patterns because of the reflections but it makes a pretty abstract.

Urban poetry

A row of motorcycles on a Tehran street. I love the way they look like giant planters with the greenery behind them.

Welcome to the working week

Boys scavenging in an empty lot in Mahan, Iran.

Hump day

The working week slipped right past me -- it's been an unusually busy one -- and now we're over the hump and sliding into the weekend. Yay.

Further proof, if any was needed, that a bored clerk in a shoe store is pretty much the same everywhere. This particular store was in the bazaar in Kerman.

More photos of Rayen

Geometries

One more place I didn't quite get around to -- Rayen, an old citadel in the desert near Kerman.

Parts of it are over 1000 years old, but it was still inhabited until about 150 years ago. (There was a much larger citadel at Bam, but it was destroyed in the massive earthquake of 2003.) Some of it is obviously reconstruction, but there are alleys between old mud brick walls that are hundreds of years old.

Urban poetry

An abstraction of scaffolding around the terra-cotta lump of a dome at the bazaar in Kerman.