Sparkling sprinkles of light dance in the bars of the Romantic Zone.  The gaiety of colour, light and people highlight a community living unshackled by codes and codified laws.  The sun sets and the day turns into unfettered celebration.  Naguib Mahfouz in The Nobel Prize winning novel, The Beggar, observes that “Samson fell asleep before he could destroy the temple.”  The celebration of rest, night and patience emerges in the chords of music.  Mahfouz continues, “The era of art has ended, and the art of our age is simply diversion, the only art possible in an age of science.”  Considering the lines were penned in 1988 they speak amazingly clearly in our troubled times.

The rear-view of the bell-tower on the cathedral Senora Guadaloupe marks the bay as blessed and a blessing. The patterned clouds and tiles unify the creation.  A shackled gift.

The corridors of power and tranquility are demarked with flowers and crèches.  A serenity inaccessible.  No graffiti, no fingerprints, no future.

The classic statue of scholarly pursuit hints at academic freedom as the god or road of change.  Embedded in these images are the struggles of four hundred years.  Embedded in these images are the struggles of four thousand years.  When the struggle ended, when Samson fell asleep, change came cutting in.