(Photo by and Property of Francisco Bravo Cabrera/All Rights Reserved)
Dialogue No. 3, “The Sea”
-I’ve seen a man walk on the water and a fish survive on dry land… -Perhaps you’ve seen too much… -Can one see too much? -One can drown in one’s own eyes my friend…
-I’ve seen tears turn to stone and bodies turn to salt… -You’ve seen such things? -Yes, and more…
-I saw Prophets queuing on the unemployment line and angels sleeping on cots in tenements… -Sometimes it’s not what we see but what we’re shown…
-I’ve never been shown anything my friend, I seek and I find… -Maybe you are just looking in the wrong places?
-The right places are all occupied… -Yes, but do they belong there?
-Men love freedom, power, wealth, to be important, to be known and to know… -Vanity. It’s all existentialism, which stimulates the boring life of the intellectual class that love to quote famous writers.
-Just pat yourself on the back, right? -That’s about it…
-And what of the man who walked on water? -I saw him too catching a bus on 103rd street heading downtown…
-And I saw Lot’s wife shake off the salt and head for the beach… -And the Prophet? -Saw him shave his beard, pierce his nose and ears and is now living in New Orleans…
-Will we talk again? -No…
-What happened to the sea? -It’s been replaced with concrete…
C.2024, Francisco Bravo Cabrera – 12 AUG 2024 – Izmir, Turkey
NOTA BENE
Poetically the sea has been used…always…as a metaphor for life. When a life is covered with concrete it means that it is quite dead and quite buried… Just something to think about. You come to your own conclusions reference this dialogue.
This was the first book which incorporated the characters that Anne Hillerman’s father, Tony Hillerman developed back (1970) when he wrote his first novel of the Navajo Nation Police, «The Blessing Way.»
Okay, I am not a book reviewer, so be patient with me. I bought «Spiderwoman’s Daughter» at the Miami International Airport…in 2014…while I waited for a flight to New York, en route to Istanbul. I began reading it on the plane and continued reading it after I made my connection, JFK to Istanbul. Once I got to my summer Turkish destination, on the southern Mediterranean coast, I must have read a few chapters. But sailing and the beach were too engaging, and I left the book.
Fast forward to 2024. I was looking through the things I had left here and I found the book. It was still marked at the place where I had left it ten years ago. Funny how all those other years that I had come here I had not even thought of looking for it. But I am glad this summer i did. And I just finished reading it, and I loved it. Plus it got me back to one of my old favourite pastimes, reading. I’ve already started on her second novel «Rock With Wings» which I had not realised I had purchased and was in my e-book library.
Tony Hillerman’s books focused on two principal characters, and many others that appeared, re-appeared, or disappeared according to the needs of the plot. The books were all mysteries that took place on the area of the Navajo Nation and the surrounding US states, like New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. His descriptions of that area were incredible to me and I would imagine them as I had never been to the US Southwest. The main characters were Lieutenant Leaphorn (The Legendary Lieutenant) and a few books later, Jim Chee, both officers of the Navajo Nation Tribal Police.
(Tony Hillerman/Photo Writer’s Digest)
Tony Hillerman, who was born in Oklahoma (1925), sadly passed away in 2008. He was a prolific author…New York Times bestseller always…with a phenomenal ability to create believable, and memorable characters. From 1970 to 2006, he wrote 18 novels about the detective work, lives, loves and hardships of Jim Chee and Lt. Leaphorn. And towards the end he added a new protagonist, Bernadette Manuelito, also a police officer of the Navajo Nation.
I had read all his books. I was totally hooked on these characters and the descriptions of the life and geography of that mysterious region that I had only seen in the old cowboy movies. Then when he passed away I thought it was all over. But it wasn’t.
(Anne Hillerman/photo HarperCollins Publishers)
Thankfully his daughter, Anne, also a fabulous writer…New York Times bestseller…continued the saga of these incredible characters her father had developed. «Spiderwoman’s Daughter«, her first book, is a sort of like a bridge from her father’s books to her own. She goes back to many of the mysteries solved in his novels and shows us another part of the plot. But she has developed Officer Bernadette Manuelito (Bernie) to perfection.
Needless to say, I am thrilled with her series of Jim Chee/Bernie/Leaphorn books. If you like adventure stories with incredibly well developed characters that confront mysteries and difficulties like «real» people, and not like characters in a video game (or modern movies), then you will love the series.
And happily, I can tell you that I will be busy, very busy reading, Here is my reading list for the rest of the year as these are the books that Ms. Hillerman has written since 2013. I hope she writes many, many more…
2013 Spider Woman’s Daughter ISBN 978-0-06-227048-1. 2015 Rock With Wings ISBN 978-0-06-227051-1. 2017 Song of the Lion ISBN 978-0-06-239190-2. 2018 Cave of Bones ISBN 978-0-06-239192-6. 2019 The Tale Teller ISBN 978-0-06-239195-7. 2021 Stargazer ISBN 978-0-06-290833-9. 2022 The Sacred Bridge ISBN 978-0-06-290836-0. 2023 The Way of the Bear ISBN 978-0-06-290839-1. 2024 Lost Birds ISBN 978-0-06-334478-5.
So, sorry if this was not a proper book review, it’s my version of one and you know as an Expressionist painter, I paint what I see inside, as a book reviewer I do the same.
One of my favourite directors, if not my favourite one, Stanley Kubrick’s movies have always touched a part of my soul. Somehow they have reached in and taught my eternal soul something new and left images well engraved in my mind. With Full Metal Jacket, one of the movies that I can really relate to in many ways, it was the closing scene…
There are some truly surreal things that happen in the middle and the aftermath of a battle. Soldiers disengage from the hyper alertness of the fight and you never know what can come out of their mouths. Maybe even something like the Mickey Mouse Club song…
(«Autorretrato 17» de Francisco Bravo Cabrera/Derechos Reservados – «Self-Portrait 17» by Francisco Bravo Cabrera/All Rights Reserved)
Fue en Miami en el 2017 y me dediqué a pintar el blanco y negro todo el año y ahora os muestro algunos de los dibujos que resultaron de tal esfuerzo. Ya muchos se han vendido (contactar «By Guloshka» representante, guloshka404@gmail.com) pero quedan…
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It was in Miami, 2017, and I dedicated myself to painting black and white all year, and now I show you some of the drawings that resulted from such effort. Many of them have already been sold (contact «By Guloshka» representative, guloshka404@gmail.com), but there are still many available…
(JaZzArt/Francisco Bravo Cabrera/Derechos Reservados/All Rights Reserved)
(«The Non-Conformist»/Francisco Bravo Cabrera/All Rights Reserved)
-And what of those who live in the dark, the dirty, the neglected part of town where crime is rampant, gangsters rule and life is cheap?
-And of those who live a life of nothingness?
-And those who have paid their debt to society but continue to be punished, ostracised, marginalised, forgotten?
-And those who have never had the chance or opportunity to learn the teachings of Jesus? Of Buddha? Of Moses? Or even of their own mothers and fathers?
-What of those who fancy the best things in life and take them from those who have honestly acquired them?
-What of those who work from dawn till late at night and still cannot make it to the end of the month?
-Shouldn’t there be a way to reach them?
-No…
-No?
-Did you reach them ever?
I’ve never tried…
C.2024 – Francisco Bravo Cabrera – 10 AUG 2024 – Izmir, Turkey
JaZzArt en València 