Dear Reader (2025-10-07 – posted simultaneously to FB)
First of all, my exhibition Building Blocks is now (as of October 6) on display at cSPACE Marda Loop. If you are in the vicinity of Calgary, I hope you have an opportunity to see it. If you would like, I am happy to meet you there, and we can talk “Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax; Of cabbages and kings.”
Secondly, now that Building Blocks is up, you and I can return to Algeria. In this post and the next one or two posts you and I will wander streets in Algiers, catching glimpses of things that caught my interest.
Once upon a time a there was a British farce that ran for over 16 years in London’s West End called No Sex Please Were British. I never saw the play and the critics panned it. The title though still makes me smile. A revival of the show could be called No Sex Please We’re Algerian. Coming from a hyper-sexualized culture, it is startling to visit a country where there are practically no signs of sexuality. Today’s first photo has a rare exception.
On a short street off the main road back to the hotel from an Algiers’ metro, there are a couple of antique shops. In the window of one, was a bad piece of art-deco era sculpture. A barely clad buxom woman is riding a dolphin. Another element of the photo is my reflection. After a lunch one day, my fellow travelers were a couple of minutes or so behind me. So, I had propped myself up against a wall looking for an image. One of my fellow travelers is a vital, well read, well traveled, and well-informed woman about 10 years my senior. She took one look at me and said you’re a flaneur – a label I’ll happily embrace. Oddly enough, I didn’t see anyone else in Algeria wearing an Aussie Bushman’s hat.
Aside: The metro was opened in 2011. Both the metro and the stations are immaculate. The metro itself is air-conditioned, which is reviving after a few of hours of wandering in the hot sun.
Notes on Other Photos
~ 02 – At the ferry dock, a car ferry arrives from the other side of the Mediterranean.
~ 04, 05, 11, 12 – Evaluating the French presence in Algeria is a complicated task. On the plus side, there is the French contribution to architecture, especially in Algiers.
~ 06 – The hat and the phone gave me access.
~ 11 – Peering up between umbrellas after lunch waiting for tea.
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Cheers, Sean
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1-I love window reflection photos. This one is particularly interesting, with the woman on the left and man on the right, divided by the vertical silver thingie. Plus all the stuff in the shop. Then there is the street scene behind you. I am reminded a bit of some of Vivian Maier’s work.
2- An intriguing sculpture. With the nearly hidden door I like to speculate there is a little motor inside, and an operator can drive it around chasing children of an age to enjoy it.
4- The only thing I knew about the French presence in Algeria comes from mostly forgotten bad movies about the French Foreign Legion, and the side plot in The Day of the Jackal. The book, not the movie or TV show.
6-There is something about wearing a hat. I have the fuzzy winter hat that you’ve seen, but the summer hat I quite like has all but disintegrated, and I haven’t found another that I like as well.
9-I have found harbours to be rich sources of photo opportunities.
11-I’ve come back to this one several times. There’s something about that diagonal black space at the top of the image, and the bottom tent framework that give added interest to the railings and vertical striped sheets or drapes.
Thank you for the Vivian Maier connection.