so, i'm catching up & posting pics that have piled up over the past 2 weeks... for starters, jazz with Alan Pasqua at LACMA, some fun art & pho at the best cheap place in Beverly Hills, and stumbling upon an amazing book at Skylight Books...
these are from belgian photographer Carl de Keyzer (more info on The Congo at his site)... it's astonishing to see the scale to which Belgians imposed a strict colonial system on a territory 80 times larger than Belgium. it's also terribly sad to see that whatever is left of Belgian architecture & infrastructure, no matter how decayed, is the only sign of civilization left in an area rich of so many resources but plagued by corruption & genocide... this is the place my mother grew up in & where my father later held most of his once lucrative business... then again, my mother was a colonial brat, and my father was a post colonial profiteer of sorts; Zaïre had the most prosperous black market in the world until Mobutu's fall & the end of the Cold War... most of the funds were frozen, seized or simply vanished in thin air, while the beautiful mid-century mansions of Lubumbashi are now in ruins... as hard as my relatives worked there, they eventually are somewhat responsible for the Congo's tragic demise... live & learn! speaking of my father, today is the anniversary of his passing. i talk to my father more today than when he was alive... funny how relationships can evolve!
...ok, it's time for 3 fun tunes:
