Paral·lel, celebrity tributes in Raval, and a gritty garden

Today’s shots come from the free walls at Tres Xemeneies, near Avinguda Paral·lel, some random wanderings through the neighbouring Raval, and a new location (at least for me): the Jardins de Walter Benjamin, which are just near the Port, and mark the last frontier before the city gives way to Montjuic Park. As suggested in the title, the “gardens” themselves are nothing to marvel at, but the walls, which separate them from the playground of a local school, are the main attraction.

The Raval was full of tributes to famous faces, among them Debbie Harry, Kafka, Dennis Rodman, the late Prince, Jesus Christ (by artist sm172), and Football Club Barcelona’s favourite tax-dodging wunderkind, Neymar Jr.

As my geo-tagging feature on my camera app has become a bit unpredictable with the latest android update, my locations aren’t quite a precise as before. That said, a good wander round the Raval/Poble Sec area does a body good!

 

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Saving the world…

Of these two images, the rooster was the first. In the beginning, he stood silent, without the speech bubble, perhaps in deference to the anti-fascist message behind. Then someone added the message, I’m not sure if it was the original artist.
Around the same time, just around the corner near the Plaça Virreina, there appeared the second image of the young space soldier, dressed for a trans-living room intergalactic mission, complete with the phaser rifle.
Question is, who will end up saving the world, the humble rooster or the tinfoil trooper?

Melting coffee maker

It actually wasn’t until after I had got home and was reviewing this particular day’s photos that I realized that this was indeed one of those stove-top coffee makers. This type of coffee maker was something I only used for the first time when I arrived to Europe, my childhood memories of coffee are instead filled with the odor of sizzling bacon and decidedly weaker American-style coffee. The gentle gurgle of the drip coffee maker punctuated all of those early mornings spent at grandma’s house, shifting the sticky-powdered non-dairy creamer into whatever designs I could manage before a wet rag wiped away that morning’s artistic musings.
Despite all those memories, the stove-top coffee did eventually grow on me, save for the times when I placed the thing a little too far to one side and melted part of the plastic handle (one of the reasons I like the picture).
Sadly, neither the stove-top nor grandma’s drip coffee are part of my mornings these days; a Christmas gift a few years back rocketed me into the world of capsule coffees.

Take the money and run

One of the effects of the economic crisis is the number of cases of political corruption and pilfering that have come to light since the good times stopped rolling about 5 years ago. My theory on the whole thing is that when times were good, many people knew in the back of their minds that their leaders were stashing cash in every tax-free corner of the earth but as long as some of that trickled down, most were willing to give “la vista gorda”. As we say in English, to turn a blind eye. Now that the taps are running dry, we have an image like this one. But is this plump runner one of the upper castes taking the last of his cash out of the country and making a dash for greener pastures? Or is he one who turned a big fat blind eye, taking off with the last of his trickle-down before the real storm comes?

de los muertos

Walking past one of my favorite spots on the border between the Raval and Sant Antoni I found this skull posted almost high enough to be missed by the average pedestrian. It had actually been spotted by a group of tourists. I just hope the visitors realize that the Dia de los Muertos, along with the cheap sombreros sold on the Rambla are from the other side of the ocean.

Splotched, scarfed and strangled in black and white

The image of this young woman seems to be taken from above, but she’s just across the narrow street from me. I’ve backed up until I hit the wall behind me in order to be able to capture as much of her as possible. While I’ve never been a big fan of wearing scarves except for in only the very coldest of conditions (could be related to the same strangulation complex that makes me miserable in a turtleneck),she seems to wear it well. Even the splotch of brown paint which is spread across the bottom of her face seems to have its own strange appeal.

Cloud 10?

Looks like London finally escaped from the clouds…