Thankfully, Indonesian band Navicula’s nickname “the green grunge gentlemen” refers only to their environmental nature and not to a type of radioactive dirt. They are one of Indonesia’s most successful rock bands, having just returned home to their island of Bali after touring the U.S. and Australia. Their name “Navicula” refers to a type of […]
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Mourning Has Broken
Back in the 1960s, many Greek widows, like these two in the northern Pindus mountains, still chose to dress in black for the rest of their lives after the death of their husbands. Nowadays the mourning period tends to be somewhat shorter, although traditionally not less than 40 days.
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NEW MOON – Nov. 24-30, 2014
(March 21 to April 19) The New Moon in Sagittarius turns on your innate desire for conquest. There are no limits, you sail in the same wind that sustained the Columbus caravelle toward the discovery of the new continent. You are launched into the new with a confidence and enthusiasm that you have not felt […]
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Promenade Des Francais
Time to share a little vintage family portrait. This was my daughter Cécile’s first trip outside of her native Franche-Comté; here she’s with my wife and my father, walking along the Promenade des Anglais on Nice’s Bay of Angels. In the background you can catch a glimpse of the world-famous Hotel Negresco.
After Latin America and Europe, the Middle East and Africa want to bury their dictatorships. But it is an arduous and often twisted process of political revolution.
MILAN — The International Highrise Award enjoys great prestige because, unlike other similar competitions, it is granted neither for a building’s height nor form. Instead, the prize — bestowed by the German Architecture Museum, the city of Frankfurt and Deka Bank — honors criteria such as sustainability and innovation. And this year’s winner, Milan’s Bosco […]
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Worldcrunch’s Weekend Staff Playlist #1
It’s Friday! Time to celebrate like Ricky Martin, who just got a wax figure of himself at Las Vegas’ Madame Tussauds. Can you tell which one is real? On another note, Worldcrunch’s staff comes from many different places so our music tastes are just as wide-ranging. So we’ve decided to create weekly and extremely varied […]
VIGEVANO — For one traffic warden in this northern Italian city, “a structure with a circular base, 30 centimeters in diameter and 30 centimeters in height, with an attached tray containing water” was illegally occupying public land. For the bar owner who put it there, it was just a doggy water bowl left as courtesy […]
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Iranian Cleric v. Jewish Marlboro Man
TEHRAN — One of this country’s most prominent conservative clerics has chided Iranians for an array of modern “vices,” including divorce and choosing to marry later, which he said could draw God’s wrath on Iran. In his Friday sermon in the capital, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati also singled out Marlboro cigarettes that he said were imported […]
Early on August 8, 1969, London police held up the traffic on Abbey Road for 10 minutes so the Scottish photographer Iain Macmillan could shoot the cover for the Beatles’ album that shares its name with the street. He took six photos of the Fab Four crossing the zebra stripes, one of which would later […]
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Illegal Crossing
Niagara Falls are far from being the most impressive waterfalls we’ve seen, but it comes with a couple of neat features. The Whirlpool Aero Car for example, which traverses the river above the Niagara whirlpool downstream of the falls. It’s also one of the few times we crossed a border without having our passports stamped: […]
BUENOS AIRES — The right to protection from arbitrary detention, known as Habeas Corpus, is one of humanity’s greatest achievements, the fruit of England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688. Now, a group of animal-rights activists in Argentina is demanding its application for an orangutan, which they say is being “illegally deprived of its liberty” inside the […]
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Desert Martians
I knew Wadi Rum in southern Jordan, had been used as a filming location: Much of Lawrence of Arabia was shot there in 1962, which made sense since the British officer himself passed through the region in the early 20th century. What I didn’t know was that since then, several science fiction movies were filmed […]
Photo: Kickstarter One in five American teens suffers from a slight hearing loss and one in 20 from a more severe loss, in what are respectively 30% and 77% increases compared to 20 years ago, according to a study by the American Medical Association. The cause of this increase is believed to be the mass […]
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Ask A Ghost
Legend has it that if you stand at the front gate of Dunguaire Castle and ask a question, you’ll have an answer by the end of the day. I don’t know who’s doing the answering, but I’d be more curious to hear from the ghosts of W.B. Yeats and George Bernard Shaw, the two Irish […]
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Central Safari
If you click on “show story map” at the top of this page, you’ll have a global view of the slides published so far, and begin to get an idea of how widely my wife and I traveled. Still, you may notice some gaps on the map — and Zimbabwe was the closest we got […]
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South Africa May Legalize Rhino Horn Trade
South Africa is facing its seventh consecutive yearly increase in rhino poaching and an unusual proposal for tacking the issue has come to light: legalizing the rhino horn trade. A rhino’s horn is made of keratin — the same material in our hair and nails — and is highly valuable in Asia, purportedly for its […]
When Grandmaster Flash wrote “The Message” and The Notorious B.I.G. turned out “Juicy,” it was not just a way to share a glimpse of everyday life in New York’s toughest neighborhoods, but also escape it. “It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin” under” Grandmaster Flash raps, urging himself […]
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Stairs And Saris
These students’ colorful saris contrasted nicely with the white marble of Ranakpur’s Jain temple, dedicated to Adinatha, the founder of Jainism.
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Napoleon Complex
From the Place d’Austerlitz, the statue of Napoleon watches over Ajaccio, the town in which he was born. Some may see a resemblance with Prague’s Stalin Monument, but the statue of the French emperor is significantly smaller — adding to the myth that Napoleon was short in stature when in fact he was 5 feet […]
Thomas Sankara, the Marxist icon of the 1980s, was killed in a coup by now ousted Burkina Faso leader Compaore. Today’s youth movement is still inspired by the African revolutionary.
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My Grandson’s Treasure Hunts
However neatly and methodically organized my 20,000 slides may be, in more than 60 years of travels I am bound to draw some blanks here and there. So whenever I can’t remember where I snapped this windmill or that mosque, my grandson puts his Internet detective hat on and helps me track it down. In […]
A dozen baboons escaped Sunday from Benghazi’s zoo and roamed around the city amid deadly clashes between the army and anti-government militias that have killed more than 300 people in the past three weeks. All but two were returned to their enclosures by Tuesday — but not before they baffled residents and posed for pictures […]
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Sweet Past
At the end of the 19th century, Saint-Leu’s Stella Matutina sugarcane factory employed some 250 Indian, Cafre and Malagasy workers. It closed its doors in 1978 and has now been turned into a museum. The loading platforms are still functional — a token of the French island’s once flourishing sugar economy.
“Our sovereign king is ill, let’s pray for him, tragedy eventually comes knocking on the door of the unknown,” Burkinabe rapper Smarty says in his track “Le Chapeau du Chef” (“The boss’s hat”), which was released back in 2012. The song, which now sounds almost like a prophetic warning to Burkina Faso’s recently ousted President […]
I’ve already told you about the “women-carrying-things-on-their-heads” recurring theme in my slides. There is no country where I have snapped more such shots than Portugal, including this one near the mysterious Our Lady of Fatima destination for Catholic pilgrims.
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The One That Seldom Rests
Meet Zeldenrust, “the one that seldom rests.” This smock mill is one of the hundreds of its kind in the Netherlands’ northwestern Friesland region.
What’s the difference between pop singer/general nuisance Justin Bieber, and Sexion D’Assaut, a French rap group from the Paris region? According to Google Translate: none. There’s a perfectly rational explanation behind the mix-up: Google Translate is a participatory platform, where users can suggest alternate translations just by clicking on the “Improve this translation” button. The […]
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Iran’s Last Siberian Crane Flies Alone
TEHRAN — What was described as the “last remaining” member of a flock of cranes that has flown to Iran from Siberia every winter was recently spotted on Iran’s northern Caspian shore, confirming environmental officials’ fears that the pack is virutally extinct. This was said to be the seventh year it had flown 4,000 kilometers […]
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Home Sweet Home
The beautiful region of Lake Toba, in Indonesia’s North Sumatra, is home to the Batak people, composed of a number of ethnic groups with distinct languages, customs and architecture. The Batak houses rank among the most memorable I’ve had the chance to photograph (this list includes the tongkonan in nearby Sulawesi, Zulu kraals in South […]
A rather bluesy version of “I’m Waiting for the Man” will be featured on the upcoming 45th anniversary reissue of the Velvet Underground “s third and self-titled album, released in 1969. The remastered edition is set to be released on Nov. 24 on Polydor. According to Pitchfork, this “super deluxe” version of “The Velvet Undergorund” […]
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Luxury Car Rentals Booming In Tehran
TEHRAN — Sanctions or not, there are some very rich people in Iran — often engaged in business deals that benefit somebody linked to state power. Like anywhere else, the wealthy need to find ways to spend their money, and figure out how to get there. Renting luxury cars like a Porsche has become one […]
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Veiled Discussion
I remember discussing the topic of veiled women with a local in the souk of Fes, where I took this picture 40 years ago. He said wearing a full niqab was considered “surprising” in Morocco.
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A Case For Animal Welfare In Egypt
Walking down a Cairo street with an adopted stray dog can elicit a range of reactions, from surprise to rebuke. Their skittish behavior and curled-up tails make them easily distinguishable from the more preferred purebred pets, says Mada Masr. If these animals, commonly known as baladi dogs, are not rescued, they are at risk of […]
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Whatever Floats Their Boat
Of all the boats I’ve ever seen, to me the bamboo rafts on the Li River seem the most hazardous.
Have you ever wondered if someone, somewhere in the world, once went through their playlist and selected the exact same song at the exact same moment you did? If you and a complete stranger, for a few minutes, shared a musical communion without knowing it? Spotify’s first “Artist in Residence” Kyle McDonald has. To answer […]
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International Delicacies
I’m not exactly an adventurous eater, but I did taste that alligator pie in Lafayette, Louisiana, during a big jazz festival. It tasted like veal. I also nibbled on a fried scorpion in China — tasteless — and, together with 12 fellow travelers in South Africa, ate a gigantic omelette made with a single ostrich […]
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Global Charts #8
It’s Friday AND it’s Halloween! Time to check out what the world has been listening to between spooky playlists this week. Worldcrunch Pick: King Horror, “Loch Ness Monster” France: David Guetta feat. Sam Martin, “Dangerous” Mexico: Calvin Harris feat. John Newman, “Blame” Uganda: Korede Bello, “Cold Outside” Lebanon: Marwan Khoury, “Law” Vietnam: Taylor Swift, “Shake […]
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Holiday Traffic Jam
In the near vicinity of the Pont d’Arc natural bridge in Ardèche, southern France, is the Chauvet Cave, which features some of the earliest prehistoric paintings in the world. Not as fun as kayaking on a crowded river, I guess?