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essays | places


Morocco

twisting your feet and senses

 

Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   blue dusk

  

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   Morocco, I want to complement your parents on your name. They got it just right. If they had made it Moroccoco, the extra jab of melody would have been too sugary and fairytalish. Had they stopped at Moro, it would have been too harsh and bristly. The number of syllables also corresponds to the right color temperature – between canary yellow and royal blue. If I may say so, even though we just met, your name suits you, your name looks like you, Morocco.

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a glimpse

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passages   ORCHESTRATED CHAOS | Twisting your feet and senses and grasp until you’re mad with hues and scents and dichotomies, the medina of Fes is an orchestrated chaos, underneath, if you read chaos. You shouldn’t though.
 

Homeless man in Fes, Morocco

 
lines   INVISIBILITY BLANKET | As long as nobody cares or dares to look, and with everybody distracted by the beauty all around, your invisibility blanket works like black magic.


 

shadows on a wall in the medina of Fes, Morocco


Fes / Morocco · 2016   the missing lamp

 


 

all over Africa, Latin America, and Asia the same self-sufficient technique
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Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   backpack

 

 

 

 

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places / stories

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Fes / Attack on Your Senses

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Fes / Morocco · 2016   door gate



 


Fes / Morocco · 2016   shoe huddle



 

Armed with people and flavors and fluctuations, the medina of Fes was an attack on your senses and if you didn’t look away, smell away, listen away fast enough, the whole thing would go off in your brain. Scatterbrain by scatterworld. But if you had any sense of responsibility for your life whatsoever, you would cherry bomb right into that savory mess without covering your eyes or mouth or nose, or even just an inch of your skin. You had to be as naked as the medina itself to legitimize this illicit love.



 

a donkey in the medina of Fes in Morocco


Fes / Morocco · 2016   the only vehicle allowed in the medina



 

My shared room had an en suite bath-something that was more closet than room. It had no door, and the curtain might as well have been a miniskirt. The day I left, I found out that there was a proper bathroom right outside. Spacious and clearly waiting for someone.


 

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Fes / Morocco · 2016   wisdom on legs



 


Fes / Morocco · 2016   keyhole



 

The sun came down on these tanneries like it was making a house visit to fry these animal hides personally until they were leather. The byproduct: a pungent stench that had you wondering if you were inhaling death itself, which I guess is accurate.


 

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Chefchaouen / Ode to Blue, Hash, and Understanding Breakfast

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Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   just blue



 

Chefchaouen, a name, a poem, a one-word ode to blue.



 

a cat on blue stairs in Chefchaouen, Morocco


Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   cat corner



 

blue stairs in Chefchaouen, Morocco


Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   swollen stairs



 

a dog on blue stairs in Chefchaouen, Morocco


Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   dog domain



 

blue alley in Chefchaouen, Morocco


Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   feeling blurry



 

Moroccan morals seemed tight and strangly, but hash was in the air everywhere in Chef. Young people, old people, especially old people, everybody making clouds. Maybe that’s why they understood breakfast. Mint and sugar bleeding into my tea glass, muddying the water with an addictive flavor that sets the stage: sliced tomato faces with olive eyes, a love affair between cheese and bread and egg. The time you spend nibbling your way through that breakfast rainbow, between detours and desire lines, correlates beautifully, down to the second, with the time one can afford for breakfast if not committed to worry.



 

people in a blue alley in Chefchaouen, Morocco


Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   alley lady



 

textiles in Chefchaouen, Morocco


Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   textile gateway



 

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Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   blue blender




 


Chefchaouen / Morocco · 2016   paint box




 

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elsewhere

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