CAMPAIGN PROMISES

I PROMISED  some days ago to present photos from my garden from the last 37 months...

Here they are.... 

I am only interested in setting trends. During this journey I have made some friends or acquaintances who have taken the good and bad, separating the wheat from the thacht. 

You know who you are.

Thanks!

COLLECTION 100 IN CONTEXT

I HAVE  written on every aspect of horticulture/gardening, and issues that are or not related for the last 48 months, in Spanish and English.

I have decided to publish all the photos related to MY garden in context. That is concrete, metal and asphalt.  That is one you can see. Noise and smells are constant, irritating and distracting.

The year when the photos were taken will be mentioned once. From now on the gardens: North, South, East and West, will be expressed as NG, as in north garden and so forth.

I believe from the many blogs I visit there is no other garden is such a small space, less than 200 square meters, with so many botanically identified plants in  a surface that is mostly concrete.


The above is true for the Caribbean or any other region until I find out differently or anyjuan makes such claim.  Many of the photos stink.  I am just getting a little bit better in that regard.  However, allow me to remind you that I am not concerned about pretty pictures.

Honestly, I think that too many gardeners become infatuated with photography/the beauty of flowers and out of context elements of their installations that mean nothing out of context. That is why, as always unwilling to follow, just interested into setting, I have refrained from using flowers except when necessary as with the Guaicum officinale. 


Photographers are not to be trusted. My recent experience with Mr. Westmoreland, left no doubt regarding their interests and motivation.  These  are not related with the truth, reality or social issues, but merchandising their photos, nurseries, flowers or whatever.  Nothing wrong with that, just skipping or looking the other way.


There is not much else to add. My garden is one mile from the Atlantic in the north side. Salty breezes, heat, drought on mostly sand soil is the environmental context.

Climate averages...

Temperature 79.9-26.6 C, however, let the record show that being plastered with concrete/asphalt 90-32 C, are felt night and day for most of the year with the natural effect on flora and fauna. 

Rain. 51 inches or 1,250 millimeters yearly. 

If interested in the alphabetical botanical inventory:
caribbeanbotanicalreview/2010/11/botanical-inventory-circa-2002.html 

that is that..
apaga i vamonoh

EN EL VIEJO SAN JUAN

HACE mucho no escribo en el de Cervantes. No es por come mierda, sino por joder, por que puedo, aunque sea un
pidgin English. Ayer tuve una rara experiencia de esas of the third kind en un BAR en  mayuscula, con la musica mas hijaeputa que pueda encontrarse, claro si usted conoce de salsa/afrocubana.


Encima un bartender, Robert, vecino del lado opuesto de Santurce,  con un conocimiento abarcador del tema, una gentileza fuera de lo usual, al igual que su socio cuyo nombre no recuerdo bien, i un hijo de crianza de Pellin, llamado Andy.


Fueron tres horas intensas de tocar el bongo que me prestaron, charlas sobre un tema que es primordial junto a la horticultura, libar Medallas con Palo Viejo, observar la movida con los gringos turistas que frecuentan este espacio: EL ADOQUIN DEL PATIO, en el Viejo San Juan en la frontera con otro legendario vecindario, La Perla. 

Si le gusta la musica tropical, la que valia la pena, dese una visita. No se arrepentira...Algo muy positivo en tiempos de crisis financiera son sus precios.  Pero reitero la musica,  el espacio con techos de 15 pies hace de la experiencia algo fresco i diferente. La amplitud es vital.  Las fotos dan alguna idea de la atmosfera que se disfruta en el El Adoquin...

Por otro lado, hay otras fotos, resultado de lo que sera mi nueva rutina los miercoles, (El Viejo San Juan) que no van con esta anecdota, asi que si le gusto esto i desea ver el fin, una puertorriquenhada CLASICA, visite el blog con dicho nombre. 

Dario apaga la luh.

update

Volvi una semana despues, (ayer), a devolver un discompacto de David Pike i El Sexteto La Playa con aquel genio de Vitin Aviles que me habia prestado, i obsequiarle una recopilacion de  algunos miembros del Buena Vista Social Club, tres de los cuales han pasado a mejor vida.

Como no estaba, me fui.

Termine dandome una i uno en Wiso's Velillas Bar en la San Francisco, con mejores precios aun, pero unas mierdas de stools en metal super incomodos, algo que no ocurre en el primero.
La musica en Wiso's es del mismo genero pero no la calidad i buen gusto del Patio.

Es pertinente contar las aventura, experiencia en la 
Biblioteca Carnegie.


La chupatuerca administradora, al preguntarle porque el plafon de la misma estaba en tan bochornoso estado, contesta: "Por las inclemencias del tiempo''...no sin antes mirarme como preguntando kien carajos se creera este.


A la segunda pregunta de Antigonum el inquisidor, I no la van arreglar nunca?
Con gesto similar respondio: "El municipio, al alcalde, la va a cerrar para arreglarla".


Al salir observando la mierda de mantenimiento en las areas verdes le pregundo al guardia de seguridad el tiempo que lleva trabajando ahi, respondiendo que cinco anhos. El tiempo que la Biblioteca Carnegie, lleva jodida, dos administraciones. Anhadiendo que tenia comejen, que no habian chavos. 

Este jumirde servidor le indico que lo que no hay es cerebro, capacidad administrativa, imaginacion apuntando a la cien. Que el comejen se resuelve con una centaveria. 

Esto es lo mismo que ocurre en la Universdidad Sagrado Corazon, La Plantacion Luis Munhoz Marin, El Museo de Arte Moderno i estos lambestacas de turno, me falta el ATENEO PUERTORRIQUENHO, otra impresionante POCILGA,  pero mejor me voy.

apago i me voy.

A DAY BY THE PARK

 ONE of my earliest memories as a child was marked by one visit to the Luis Munhoz Rivera Park. ONE visit. It was enough to determine
what I was to become unconsciously 51  years later. A deep respect for nature and the aboriginal simple ways. 


My dad, a poor guy, not humble at all, auto repair man from the city, with a cigar maker, alcoholic father, demonstrated  that pride is useless unless you have some solid fundamental structure to support it. In his case reading. My dad was very unpleasant with the ignorant, not necessarily in the academic ways .  I do not mean only with those who could not read, but the whole spectrum.


My mother, a product from our extinct agricultural roots, taught me that fundamentals, being consequent with one actions, moral and religion beliefs is what really matter when judging one's character and complacent ways.


My dad's overcame my mother's silly, bland, complacent with this valley of tears lame, weak, view of life.  I  am ruthless, no pity or prisoners taken. In terms of nature, flora/fauna and/or environmental issues. 

I think that will do for now....

I would suggest to those Puercorican lovers of the rag flag, too often just posing, high fist, firebrand,  culture, language, food, music and scenery to be more consistent with their actions and writings.

There is not much left to be proud

off.  Your action/words are just that...water and salt.

UNIVERSIDAD SAGRADO CORAZON YOU ARE ALWAYS ON ME MIND

IT IS TIME FOR AN INTERVIEW

NO GUEST STARS 

JUST EDITOR AND SELF

 E:  Could you share your relation with this neighbor from hell?

AC:  It has been 36 months of noise, pollution and smell, 24/7, plus the organic waste on me roof that I have to clean with risk of me life.

E:  Have you informed the hierarchy in that over rated, expensive no heart, just muscle university, and what have been the result, if any? 

AC:  I have informed them at least seven times, without any result. This institution should pack and move out. It is too big for this community, imagine over 1,200 vehicles, staff, students, plus garbage, delivery trucks in a residential neighborhood. 

E:  Could we get on the road with the show now?

AC: Certainly, the public wants is your humble servant provides it.

END

The pictures at left represent all that is wrong with this Caribbean island. Art that is not, impunity at its best in a just for profit institution lead by dull administrators without any vision, respect for the rights, quality of life of the four cardinal points surrounding community.

Illegal and not invaders and USA, citizens. 

HOW BLIND, DUMB/DEAF AND MUTE
IS THE ADMINISTRATOR?  

I have sent this character paper letters, emails, and me blog links.  More than ONCE, I informed that these traffic jams thanks to the stupid narrow entrance and gates with room only for one car at a time, could be resolved with a sixth grade elementary school suggestion:
Main entrance to the premises by San Agustin street or Eduardo Conde street will be determined by parking permit ODD or EVEN numbers.  One does not need a phd as Mr. Ricci does, to figure this out, evidently, he is incapable of THINKING, to improve the situation.
But as your humble servant states, UNIVERSIDAD Sagrado Corazon is a little microcosm of ALL that is wrong with Puerto Rico, USA.

Expensive useless college diplomas, pollution, noise, overcrowding, lack of systematic maintenance to green areas, buildings and infrastructure, inflated salaries, too many employees, hiring of illegals for maintenance jobs and so on and so forth.

Lucky me.
All this inspiration next door. 

FROM SANTURCE A CAPETILLO UN PASO EH.

During my pilgrimage by bus towards concrete/asphalted Parque Donha Ines, I decided to take some photos in Capetillo, where I got off, walking the rest of the way.

One never get to see the crude reality in printed media or television, impressions that never get equal time anywhere. Not in the University of Puerto Rico, in the opposite side of this barrio, or among  air heads in environmental blindfolded utopias, Sierra Club comes to mind.

How can this Cueva de Ladrones claim to be such a paradise with fecal waters in poor wretched vicinities for the last seventy years of 'progress and development', moving like fresh water, ending their voyage in Laguna San Jose?  

Not all is lost. There is a community
edible garden in Capetillo. I thought of doing volunteer work, but as usual it is not possible.  I always encounter square/one track minds down my path, screw them, my war call. Here is a picture. You be the judge.

CERVECERIA CORONA EPILOGUE

T he story in the evening post does not end there.  But it was getting too long and I decided to end it here. I should not have easy access to the camera and downloading since there is so much to chronicle that it could be really overwhelming.

At any rate, many of the photos taken are of buildings abandoned or not, highways and such.  Some houses are really valuable, attractive or not to you, since in other cultures, architecture, all kinds of it tell the story of the people.

Down here, that patrimony is torn down, abandoned, or becoming a parking lot.

Here are some that I like or not, but worthy of merit.

MOST of the pictures are in the vicinity,
Parada 22, axed in two by the highway. It was the beginning of the end,  when the concrete asphalt epidemic began, during the sixties.

A boom lasting over four decades in a futile attempt to keep up with the disturbing, shocking amount of private vehicles asphyxiating the former isle of enchantment, now of concrete/asphalt. 

Now to put the pathetic reality in words.  The problem is of such magnitude, that any attempt to develop, to create, propose any solution will hit a wall.  How can you develop an economy of any kind if the only way to transport the goods is permanently stalled?  

Or in the best of situations...once you arrive, after driving in roads, highways, streets with moon like craters paved over,  there is no room to park.....

That is that....

MO

SAGRADO CORAZON UNIVERSITY INSTITUTIONAL HARRASMENT WITH IMPUNITY

I have denounced the abuses from the ADMINISTRATION of UNIVERSIDAD SAGRADO CORAZON, since we moved to our residence, 36 months ago,  next door to the illegal cafeteria on the premises to Mr. Ricci, dean,  and Mariano Rivera, the jester in charge of Buildings and Grounds.

My sources, a nice looking guachimana*, informs me that 1,200 vehicles are parked daily on this  overcrowded, academically overrated, ridiculously expensive, polluting air, soil, ground, with noise and visually university, neighbor from hell..

This is part ll of the SAGA. You could find the first part searching under Universidad Sagrado Corazon, in one of my blogs. TO BE CONTINUED.

1,200

THE ONLY URBAN GARDEN WORTHY ITS GRAIN OF SALT

SOME  individuals and institutions thought that I self promoted excessively, without merits.

I tell the scumbags I did not. This collection is above anything I have seen in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and beyond for one simple reason.

Most gardens are installed in open spaces, plenty of ground, not trapped in concrete.  Micro climates, temperature, salt breezes, heat and drought determines the success or failure of the whole or its parts...


I achieved what I had in mind...But is not over. Any garden worthy of merit, is always a work  in progress...Just like nature....

The blogs? Just one more way for this extremely humble chronicler to state his piece.

A NIGHT OUT: THE LAST/FIRST INTERVIEW

THE NEW AND OLD

INTERCONNECTING

 To
A todo arquitecto de maquetas

DANIEL VELEZ CLIMENTI

 spoke person:

GABRIEL BERRIZ

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT

GUEST STAR

gbcj:  I may have been an exotic, without invitation migrant, but what about that mussel on steroids in your footer picture?

ACajan:  Your lame career, polluting the isle with lame installations with too many palm trees, lawns and hedges does not give you permission to describe mistakenly anything on this landmark blog. You got that clear, yellow belly scumbag?

gb: Sure. Knowing your fair treatment of those like moi and the oposition, making a buck for a 'better future' and my family, it is not surprising..

ACajan:  Screw your better future, every one else and architects/landscaping mentally retarded ones, lacking the understanding of birth control.  You have never published anything, not even a calendar, I have.

On the other hand, this being  my blog is natural to demonstrate my potential to become an illustrated dictator with a few limitations.

gb: Whatever...


ACajan: That is the way I like it.  Landscape architects and the others STINK. Accomplices in the destruction of the puercorican scenery, lacking not only in depth notions of the vegetation installed, but of SCALE and PROPORTION in their designs, buildings. Mothersuckers, designing concrete moles blocking the view of the ocean for every juan. Those  living in hot water leaking concrete vertical match boxes and pedestrians alike. All of you suck.


gb:
Great. Is this your revenge for keeping you waiting for an interview 8 years ago, when you had some enthusiasm and hope in Puercorican people and exotics alike?


ACAJAN:
Ah,  foreign maggot do you remember?
No, it is not revenge. I do. It is poetic justice? BUahaha. Juat the suck is poetic justice ani jau?When you saw my resume and asked about my NY Botanical Garden credentials...following the interrogation  about my wife and her IRS job, your face changed colors, as in money laundering, tax evasion...Apparently a mode among some/most people in landscaping enterprises.... 


The clam like structure is one of the best icons in the history of Puerto Rico, USA. As cool, in my opinion, to those sails of Le  Corbusier down under. It is really a giant one result of those early experiments with radioactivity. The Manhattan Project, for example...That is how that icon of the prostitution/gambling industry that tourism really is, became to be known in 1958, when the hotel was inaugurated.

Now if you forgive me I am exhausted, but I will promise to finish in the future. Could you publish something, for free in the web?

From here to eternity.

Remember that only you can prevent forest fires or " To die blogging is to live forever"

Kofla Olivieri