Easter Island in the neighborhood

We have a neighbor who is an artist, a painter and sculpturer, who has been busy lately with commissions in environmental art installations.  Most of his projects are onsite somewhere else, in another state or city or public park, but since this spring, he's been busy erecting concrete forms in front of his house, and one by one, these concrete towers each with a rectangular window have sprung up along the street, sentry-like in formation.

I think the towers are pretty cool; they have become a conversation piece as passersby stop and ask what the heck is going on.  Admittedly, there is a fortress like quality to the towers, so that some folks have assumed that our neighbor has decided to defend himself against ... uh, the City's code enforcement officers?  Perhaps the enforcers of our local Law and Order have tried, but apparently there is nothing in the code that says you can't have concrete obelisks in front of your house.  So, there.

The mysterious obelisks are in fact, "view towers," designed to direct your view to certain vistas.  The towers were commissioned for a park project where they would be installed at key locations, and each of the windows will eventually house an eye piece that will be trained on an object in the distance.   Or, so it has been explained to us.

The towers have been on the street for a while awaiting transit visas, I imagine, to be issued by the proper authorities.  In the meantime, we couldn't resist, and one day, we placed some votives and oranges in the openings as an offering of sorts.  It was ignored for several days, and then, the voodoo curse was returned upon our front door, complete with bleached out skull and pentagram. yikes. 

More recently, while my neighbor appeared to be away, I went to check out the "directed views" through the windows -- and much like a photograph, I really enjoyed the different perspectives created by each framed view.

Spices from Egypt

It must be four, perhaps five years ago that my friend Paul went on a grand tour of Egypt with his family. He brought back for me a string of spices that he purchased at an open market; I imagine that the spices were all stacked up in aromatic pyramids and from there the vendor scooped a bit into each of these little packets for the tourists from the West.

I could never break open the spices because they were so beautiful in their packets, and the handwritten labels exotically accented in their idiomatic spelling that you can almost hear the vendor calling out the names: Rose Marry, seZam, Lora...

Of course, I wanted to preserve these spices as they were forever, but the writing is now starting to fade, and with the exception of the indigo, the spices don't appear as vibrant as they once were. So, before the black marker fades completely, and the plastic bags begin to crumble, I held a photographic preservation session with the spice packets.

The very top packet is filled with hibiscus flowers, the only packet that wasn't labeled.

And then followed by the Saffrons:

Indian Saffron powder

Egyptian Saffron powder

Indian Saffron flowers

Egyptian Saffron flowers

Cinnimon Powder

Cinnimon Stakes

InDigo

Indigo as a spice?  Not to be consumed, but used as a brightener for whites in the laundry, I am told.

SeZAM

Rose Marry

Lora

Black Cumin

Ginger

Organo

Chily

Anis