Week 1 — anna nicanorova

picture from reading “The Glorious Adventure” by Richard Halliburton at the base camp of Cotopaxi the night before the summit

For the opening of 2020

Every January we grippingly look forward to the next 365 days. However, instead of self-obsessive motivation in the style of “new year, new you”, here is a line about dreams from one of my most favorite writers and a daring adventurer, Richard Halliburton (finished his book while climbing Cotopaxi )

“ We all have our dreams, Otherwise what a dark and stagnant world this would be. Most of us dream of getting rich many of us getting married and some of us getting unmarried. I’ve met people whose great dream it was to visit Jerusalem, or Carcassonne, or to look upon the seven hills of Rome. I’ll confess to a sentimental life-long dream of my own, - not the riches, or weddings, or Jrusalem, however, - something far less reasonable than that. I’ve dreamed of swimming the most dramatic river in the world - the Hellespont. Lord Byron once wrote that he would rather have swum the Hellespoint than written all his poetry. So would I! Somethimes, once in a long, long while, sentimental dreams come true. Mine did, and it was as colorful and satisfying as all my flights of fancy had imagined it would be.”

“The Glorious Adventure” by Richard Halliburton

In one of the white rooms of Museo Municipal de Arte Moderne in Cuenca, Ecuador hides a drawing by Israel Muñoz “Theoria de la estupefaction”. I thought the drawing was especially ironic in the light of being bombarded by materials “Decade in review” currently circulating on the internet, instagram and apps. Together with friends, we spend at least half hour analyzing the canvas and trying to recognize all of the references (still could not find van Gohs’ “Starry Night”, but spotted Dali’s elephants and Manet’s “Breakfast on the grass”). The drawing crudely highlights the impact the images have on shaping our reality.