Parks


disneyland of woke, revisited 2

    Here is the second installment from a recent visit to Inhotim, in the interior of Minas Gerais.  (For the first installment, kindly go here.) Interestingly, when I asked if most of the hoards of youth who serve as guides and guards are from the local town of Brumadinho, […]


disneyland of woke, revisited 1

Sadly, one of the greatest Contemporary Art collections of Latin America, Inhotim in Minas Gerais, continues to slide into DEI and wokism.  On a cloudy December day I visited most of the new exhibits installed since my last visit – which were nearly universal in dwelling on victimology.  (The one […]


the northeast’s ceará

Ceará is a state full of surprises, not all pleasant. From the bone dry caatinga (or semi-desert) interior to the altitude swamp of Ubajara’s high perch to the fleshpots of the coastal capital, Fortaleza (greatly expanded by the Yanks during WWII), the state marvels. My first encounters, after the trials […]


the 7 lost cities of piauí?

One of Brazil’s remotest national parks, Seven Cities, is an archaeological and geological wonder, named after the mythological Lost Seven Cities.  Founded in 1961, it is located in the northeast’s Piauí state, and occupies an arid middleground between the Brazilian cerrado (or dry savanna) and caatinga, or semi-desert, which is […]


disneyland of art, take 6

Inhotim, a major gem in both Brazil and the contemporary art world, is slipping into woke muck. The few galleries with rotating exhibitions were, during a recent visit, all dedicated to victimology. A recent visit in São Paulo to the Pinacoteca, a museum specializing in Brazilian art, also evidenced the […]


nomads of the sands

The staging point for the majestic Sheets of Maranhão Nat’l Park is the tiny, dune-invaded town of Barreirinhas, itself an enigmatic gem. If the most rewarding and accessible parts of Brazil are at the end of long dirt roads, that dissuade most drivers from visiting, this also holds true for […]


the brazilian sahara

Brazil is full of surprises, beyond the memes of beach, jungle, and soccer. One of the country’s greater natural wonders (among many) is the Sheets of Maranhão, in the far northern state of the same name. The national park encompasses one of the world’s rarest and most perplexing ecosystems. The […]


disneyland of art, take 3

Inhotim, a major contemporary art complex in the midst of extensive botanic gardens, is less than an hour from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais. It is It is both far larger than the 500-acre Storm King Art Center in New York’s Hudson Valley, and much more tropically exuberant, […]


disneyland of art, takes 1-2

Inhotim, a major contemporary art complex in the midst of extensive botanic gardens, is less than an hour from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais. Here are shots previously unpublished, from 2013-2015 when taking photographs was not yet encouraged in the galleries.  Inhotim is a wonder to behold, alone […]


cataclysmic faith in tocantins

“As we approached Natividade, Tocantins’ oldest and most enigmatic town dating back to 1734, a strange translucent whiteness hovered overhead as if a wide, diffuse light was gathering above. […] Although Natividade is the only historically preserved colonial backwater in the state, it is so unassuming, so far off the […]