Winter Colors the Andes
The Andean Cordillera is unusually colorful, and flaunts these colors in a bizarre sequence of daily changes which never cease to surprise. Practically no two days are alike.
I preferred to try to stay warm inside rather than travel up to the snow level and take pictures when the white blanket was really thick, causing tree branches to snap loudly underneath the unfamiliar weight.
However, the more distant mountains wore it well, someone must have held a mirror to them, for they weren't so weren't so quick to shake it off.
It's quite becoming, even when the smog rises up from the valley of Santiago.
Closer by, the moon also rises over Cerro Pochoco:
And the sun sets.
posted by Chileno @ 4:08 PM
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13 Comments:
I love the photos. I can't decide if your blog makes it easier or harder to wait for my visa. Keep up the good work!
Now look, i warned you about the pretty pictures. This is your last chance. From now on, only write about smog and racism please. However, as i mentioned before, photos of models in bikinis are acceptable, but only if you point out the whiteness of the girl's skin and say that if her skin was dark, the toronto police would beat her to a pulp and she'd never have got a job as a model. Thanks.
How far bloody north are you living now to have got snow outside your front door?? Canada?
Northeast Santiago. I've substituted humanity for clean air. That said, I'm a bit surprised you didn't pick up on the racially charged bent to this post. Do you need a fresher-upper on critical reading?
Ah...of course...how could i miss it...? The snow refers to the white upper-classes you're now living amongst and the "unusually colourful" Andes the rest of the population taunting them with cries of "chile is mestizo! chile is mestizo!"
It's been a while since i've read a piece so subtle-that's why i couldn't quite grasp the concept first time around.
Will
Everything about this entry is sublime. Always admire subersive threads like this. Suttle like a whisper but still screams. It's like a little secret between the savvy. For more effect, I would of posted a picture of the little girl with strawberry-blonde hair riding her pink bike.
Matt
Actually across the border, the Argentinean Barbies have that "canela skin tone" you are talking about. Like everything about them it's not naturally like that. It has been achieved artificially. ;) One of the paradoxes where they like dark skin but it can't be naturally dark skin. No wonder their skin turns leathery by the time they reach 30.
FL: I'm way too subtle for the cabbage-patch kid. Anyway, next question: who does the dog represent?
who does the dog represent?
See Pink Floyd, Animals: DOGS
Kept asking you why you still live in Santiago if you always complain, now I got it. You don't. It's a suburb, but it's far enough away that you are above the smog, and all that.
Ramsey
Will well I know you are, but some of your readers are not that suttle. They would of been to busy "ohiing" and "ahiing" at prepubescent Skipper than looking at the message within those pretty pictures.
The dog looks like one of those "Police Dogs". I know well-off people living in Santiago who (after installing a fierce alarm system) have more than one trained "Gaurd Dog". Such as a Dobermans, English Mastiff, German Sheppards, Pit Bull Terrier or, Rottweiler to deter and attack intruders.
Ramsey,
This question has been asked and it has been discussed already many times already. Perhaps I can elaborate and answer you question. Many of us who are in our 20's, grew up with parents who believed the liberal idealism of the counterculture movement of the late 60's and 70's. However we also were children growing up during the Reagan Era, the height of great conspicuous consumption. And the rise of the self-absorved Yuppies as well as their fall during the recession of the early 1990's. Might be the reason why some of us have empathy for the poor but yet choose to live in leefy suburds(away from it all the smog,traffic,& noise); Or in "hip hoods" with full of charming buildings near the center city that was once predominantly poor or working families. Due to escaleting rent/ home prices, and taxes along with the slew of luxury hi-rises mushrooming, those very same people we "feel for" have been pushed out of their neighborhood. In conclusion many of us are a product of our parent's "Social Consciousness", an optimisism for a better future for all human kind meshed with more self-interested persuits of our grandparents and previous generations. Riveting to see how things come full circle. A large chunks of today's teenagers do not show any interest in making a difference. They strike me as too busy with all the technology to care and are mostly apathetic.
Faithful Lurker,
You're right. I live in Austria, where one rarely sees poverty. The homeless people here have nice shoes and are insured through the government if they want. They also get more money than students. Politicians here often complain that the students do nothing, another justification for ending free education. Anyway, I live near the lake on the edge of the posh part of town, but not quite "above the smog" which we have very little of. I don't resent Will living in the mountains "above the smog" and away from the poverty and traffic. I envy him. I wish I had the mountains even closer, and also would like a house with a view.
>>>Dobermans, English Mastiff, German Sheppards, Pit Bull Terrier or, Rottweiler
FL: that perfectly describes the neighborhood. When looking for a place even further up in the mountains (never found it), each house had a distinct pedigree and since we were lost we knocked on someone's door and it happened to be the guy with the rrote-waylehrrs, a pair of them actually plus 9 ADORABLE Rottweiler cubs, got to hold one of them who hadn't even opened is eyes yet and had puppy snot pouring out of his nose and 4 cute little paws SOOOOOO CYOOOOOT! He offered us one of the cubs, but, sorry. No.
That said, Ramsey was close to unlocking the symbolism of the dog, but since I haven't listened to that album in a while and I'm too lazy to download it, the question remains unanswered:
who does the dog represent?
Well, I think the Dogs represent those that do the deeds of capitalism, the corporate businessmen. I won't go into detail. Check out the lyrics and even better, download the song. Here's a link to the lyrics. http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/dogs-animals-lyrics.html
Another option could be the dogs in Animal Farm (George Orwell) which Pink Floyd probably got the concept from for the Animals album.
In the book Animal Farm, the dogs are the cops, just like the German Shepard, as Faithful Lurker indicates. They could also be the KGB or CIA or any secret police which keep society in check.
Ramsey
Interesting...anybody else want to guess?
Jeez, where do you live, are you in Barnechea??? I would kill to have snow and clean air like that in Estacion Central where I live!
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