Travel Vibe

Tactile Cents Transforming Cultural Billings

Hi, my name is Pinky — writer and photographer.

This blog focuses on sensing a place, a people, a moment. Exploration pulls us into the magic of childhood.  It reveals the beauty and luck of being an alien on a living, breathing planet.

As global personas jostle with one another, it is up to us to continue distinguishing the nuances that make us one because our future depends on secure interdependence.

Beyond that cuddly comfort zone, the exploration begins, the aperture widens, and epiphanies connect.  

Cheers!

A reminder that a fresh palette lends itself to the authenticity of color and intent in stroke…

Philadelphia, PA, November 4th, 2008: The impromptu citizen urge to parade Obama’s victory along Broad Street  –  where the architectural awe of the country’s largest city hall drops back like an anchor dressed in Victorian splendor (courtesy of Scottish architect John McArthur, Jr).

Photograph and Image by author

January 20, 2009 – Washington D.C. – Inauguration Day

A splash of ‘tongue-and-cheek’ fashion for political, tabloid, and hard news junkies.  

Washington, DC: Fashion Flirts with Political Media as the Streets Celebrate Inauguration Day.

Election Night – Philadelphia, PA 

Exhales and Elation: Moments after Obama's Victory; Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA

I remember tuning into MSNBC in my living room… a few minutes before 11 p.m., and all indicators point to another long night.   During the last presidential election in 2004, I stayed up until 6 a.m. — futilely praying that Kerry could tow-the-line all the way to the White House — before giving into sleep as commentators continued grappling with words like “to close to call” or “electoral ballots.”

So sure, I step away for a moment… just one moment. In the den my husband and friend are having a chat and enjoying the Philadelphia skyline.  All of the sudden, I hear a nonchalant announcement that Barack Obama is our president-elect.  Immediately, the cameras cut to Obama Headquarters and the crowd at Grant Park in Chicago.   It’s really happening… Shock… complete disbelief… a breathless flood of collective, connected pride… We won! We illustrated to the pundits and talking-heads our desire to take active stewardship in our future.

Humanity, reason, truth, and empowerment:  Harvest it, and we welcome democratic participation.

Push us, and we welcome democratic participation.  But, it may not be pretty, as sampled during the 2006 midterm-elections.

Our country’s indispensable ideology — many times muddled in the championed capitalism of the “American Dream” — is our Constitutional allegiance to human rights.  Perhaps the last 8 years reminded Americans of what we could lose…  Politicians, take notice and raise the bar.  Our forefathers painstakingly provided the most just and malleable blueprint to-date so that our empire does not succumb to the pages of history as another swinging pendulum.  

We are beings of instinct.  If presented with talking points that try and spin split peas into pretty-green candied yams, we’ll either push them aside or spit them up.  Why?  Not because we are fearful of the awful taste.  We just don’t like being lied to…  

    Remember that old adage:  Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice and… uhhh… yeah that’s it!

The CLOCK STRIKES 11! Freedom Rings Steps from City Hall Philadelphia

And We Believe in Something, in Someone... Yes We Can!

photographs by author

Independence Mall, Philadelphia, PA; April 18, 2008; An observation and endorsement of “We the people…”

As the sun descends, I lay in the grass near Chestnut Street, the zenith of the long, downward-sloping expanse of Independence Mall. I can make out the prequel to a full moon under the blue sky; its depth washed out by the beach ball size, florescent flash emanating from the stage area several blocks ahead.

Meanwhile, families, students, and contented and forlorn locals of varied age and race continue converging on the green carpet separated by streets and walkways.

We wait for Barack Obama.

Imagine plays over the speakers: A performance from Live’s frontman Ed Kowalczyk. After a couple of solos, Will.I.Am, lead singer for the Black Eyed Peas, joins Kowalczyk in a rendition of Where is the Love.

As that anti-climatic moment wanes, we wait some more.

Pleasant enough, considering that Friday is enjoying its first warm spring day in Philly.

About an hour later, at 8:45 p.m., a cheer from the crowd, one of a string, but this one seems to linger. A microphone transmits Obama’s introduction. I start walking toward the stage and pass by the Liberty Bell.

Expectations are high after the speech he gave here last month, the one that now stands alongside the orations of Kennedy and M.L.K.

Absorbed by the encompassing bubble of bated hope and Obama’s words, I stop intermittently.

He speaks for 20-30 minutes.

He broaches a McCain presidency as more Bush policy, under new leadership. He addresses Clinton’s propensity to work within Washington’s fractured politics in contradiction to the new political stage he seeks to create. He cites our country’s economic, social, and military woes.

He does not say anything particularly brilliant. But it does not matter. His speech was earth shattering before he arrived.

Thirty-five thousand people, Obama’s largest audience to date, gathered on the land that birthed this country’s freedom for Friday night politics!

And in doing so, we expanded the footprint of our minds beyond our doorways.

We needn’t wait. But we did. And now our hopes and fears spill into 4 square blocks and trickle down the arteries.