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Fatal Ascent

“…to honor the Maya ball game gods of the underworld, those to be sacrificed were often bound into symbolic ball shape and tumbled down stairs. Undoubtedly this practice wasn’t lost on Maya priests as they recognized this most magnificent method of spattering blood. So stairs were built on great scale, attached to grand limestone pyramids that reached the sky, increasingly higher and steeper – too steep to ascend and even more treacherous on the way down. The spectacle was perfected after centuries by any number of gruesome additions. Pumping hearts were ripped from chests, heads were indiscriminately lopped and all was hurled from atop one and two hundred-foot platforms in a flailing mass of awfulness.”

Summer Streets of New York

“Summer Streets” in New York offers an accommodating and friendly atmosphere for exercise and recreation. It also gives New Yorkers another venue upon which to knee-cap slower moving pedestrians, practice profanities and further employ an already perfected general anti-social persuasion. For me, I get the opportunity to go all those places along Park Avenue between Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge that would leave me bedridden and breathing through a tube on any normal Manhattan day. Of course there’s still plenty of speeding objects to dodge, albeit much less lethal. The curved tunnel through Grand Central Terminal is just one of those unique environments that is almost never appreciated on foot.

Behind Closed Doors

“…confirming hotel Casa Mexilio’s authenticity and regional importance, their web site states that Serapio Baqueiro Preve died here and President Lázaro Cárdenas used the residence to negotiate business. Hosting a President is a legitimate honor worthy of posting on any web site, however, having someone keel-over in one of your rooms is quite an odd claim-to-fame for a hotel – or any property for that matter. It always seems to work like this though, no matter who the deceased was. Even a local individual of marginal celebrity becomes immortalized when dying in a location even the slightest bit more interesting than a hospital room or at home. So, did Mr. Preve do some of the great things he’s so well known for on the property or did he simply come here to die? Since it’s not specified on the web, the latter is assumed. Could Mexilio be a former hospital? Possibly my room was once the great Serapio’s. That would be most impressive indeed.”

Table for One

When I wondered into the abandoned Rathskeller in the bowels of Louisville’s Seelbach Hotel I never truly knew what was in my presence. The only light came from the few Gothic wall sconces positioned about and wasn’t significant enough to make out more than vague shapes in the dark hall. Patiently waiting in the solitary space my surroundings were only revealed to me on the LCD of my camera one long 30 second exposure at a time. I was intrigued to discover this lone table and chair waiting in vain for the diner who would not come.

Pool Bar

The early morning calm before the storm of activity to arise by daybreak. The pool bar aboard the Navigator of the Seas, somewhere off the north coast of Cuba.