Culture | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Culture’ category

“Science is an integral part of culture. It’s not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It’s one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition.” – S.J. Gould.

Vancouver: summer cricket at Stanley Park

Above/featured: Grouse Mountain looms over a cricket match at Upper Brockton, with the bowler delivering from the mountain end to the pavilion end.

It’s not typical 21st-century sport in North America, but it is Canada’s first summer sport. Many of cricket’s practitioners in Vancouver’s picturesque Stanley Park have roots from India and Pakistan; among them the shouts of “shabash” are heard often during play.

In childhood, I was enamored with baseball. With its similar origins, I discovered cricket with time spent in Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas, and South Africa. The natural connection is the former British Empire. I began with T20, the shortest format of the game; with curiosity and time, my hunger encompassed the 50-over one-day format (ODI). It’s my start with the short white-ball format that I’ve developed an appreciation for the long format of the game with red-ball Test cricket.

But is the cricket ground at Vancouver’s Stanley Park “the most beautiful cricket ground in the world”? (With Table Mountain as the backdrop, some might proclaim Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town, South Africa as the most beautiful/scenic.)

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Vienna Hietzing Cemetery: F.Grillparzer, G.Klimt, K.Moser, O.Wagner

Previously, I provided short biographies for artist Gustav Klimt, artist and designer Koloman Moser, and architect Otto Wagner, and why they are important figures to the arts and culture scene in early 20th-century Vienna. These three figures are buried in Hietzing Cemetery in the 13th district of Hietzing at the city’s western periphery.

Located to the southwest of the former imperial summer residence Schönbrunner Schlosspark, Hietzing Cemetery is modest in size with an area of over 10 hectares (25 acres) and containing over 11-thousand graves. With the present site inaugurated in 1787, the cemetery has seen several expansion phases and survived damage from the Second World War.

I highlight the final resting places for Alban Berg, the Fröhlich sisters, Franz Grillparzer, Hans Hollein, Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Strauss women, and Otto Wagner.

Friedhof Hietzing, Hietzing Cemetery, Friedhoefe Wien, Hietzing, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Oesterreich, fotoeins.com

2018 was the 100th anniversary of the deaths of Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), Koloman Moser (1868–1918), and Otto Wagner (1841–1918). Photo, 16 May 2018.

13. Bezirk, Hietzing, Friedhof Hietzing, Hietzing Cemetery, Friedhoefe Wien, Hietzing, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Oesterreich, fotoeins.com

Inside the front entrance – 15 May 2022.

Visitors to the cemetery can look northwest to see the glowing golden dome of Otto Wagner’s Steinhof Church at a distance of 4 km (2.5 mi). Photo, 16 May 2018.

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Seattle’s 1st Starbucks, 1971–1976

Above/featured: Exhibition “Edible City: A Delicious Journey” at MOHAI – Seattle, 8 Jan 2017 (6D1).

What: 1st Starbucks, in the Rhode Island building at the corner of Virginia & Western.
Where: A restaurant now, but no historical plaque or sign.
Why: 1st location between 1971 to 1976, as historical exercise.

Many write about and refer to the “original Starbucks” location in downtown Seattle. If they’re referring to the present location in Pike Place, that Starbucks outlet while the world’s oldest is not the first or original location.

So, what happened to Starbucks’ very first shop from 1971 to 1976?

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Seattle: living black history in the C.D.

Oh Seattle: how is your black history defined?

With the city’s proximity to Vancouver, my time in or any understanding of Seattle was incomplete without an examination of the city’s non-white communities. I had questions about the black community and in particular why the city remains racially segregated. People of color, including black people, were once forbidden from buying houses in specific neighbourhoods because of their skin colour. The Central District (CD) thrived as a black community in the 2nd-half of the 20th-century, but now, citizens struggle with gentrification, displacement, and economic racism. There’s much more I need to ask and learn, but for now, I describe below a selection of landmarks highlighting contributions by and the historical impact of the black community to city and nation.

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NHL Black Hockey History Tour, black hockey, black hockey history, Jimi Hendrix Park, Northwest African American Museum, Seattle, Washington, USA, fotoeins.com

Black hockey history, NHL mobile museum in Seattle (2018)

When a city receives an expansion team, that immediately drives anticipation for a new pro sports presence and interest for an expected intraregional rivalry. It’s a perfect time for the professional sports league to come into town and speak to the city’s audience.

The new NHL Seattle Kraken ice hockey team will begin play in the 2021-2022 season, and regional bragging rights will begin immediately with an immediate regional rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks, not unlike the decades-old soccer rivalry between the Seattle Sounders and the Vancouver Whitecaps (which I first witnessed in the 1970s in the old original NASL).

But the following questions remain timely: For whom is ice hockey? What is the relationship between the sport and people of colour? What is the history of black people in professional hockey? I hope the following sheds a little bit of light on black hockey history.

NHL Black Hockey History Mobile Museum

In early 2020, a travelling museum exhibition highlighted how black Canadians, black Americans, and their respective communities have made important contributions to the winter sport of ice hockey at both amateur and professional levels.⁣ Presented in conjunction with the American Legacy Network, the NHL Black Hockey History mobile museum made its way throughout North America, stopping in 14 cities: Washington, DC; Detroit, MI; St. Louis, MO; Pittsburgh, PA; Ottawa, ON; Toronto, ON; Newark, NJ; Nashville, TN; Anaheim, CA; Los Angeles, CA; San Jose, CA; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; and Tempe, AZ.

In a continuation of activities associated with Black History Month, Kim Davis, NHL executive vice president, wrote about what Black History Month meant to her, and what players of colour past and present have meant to the game of hockey (28 Feb 2020).

The mobile museum dropped anchor for its 4-day visit in Seattle in early March, with the first stop at Jimi Hendrix Park next to the city’s Northwest African American Museum.

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