Category: history
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Skopje: From Brutalism to Balkan Identity
Immediately upon entering Skopje, its charm and beauty cannot be denied. Situated in the heart of the Jakupica Range and constructed at the base of the 1000-foot Mount Vodno with its looming 200-foot iron cross on the summit, the city offers a combination of cultural tradition, history and modern architecture, and makes for a unique…
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Journeying Through Memories of Illinois Route 3: Eads Bridge
Part 8 of personal reflections and historic explorations of the Grafton to Cairo length of llinois Route 3 by writer and poet Richard Stimac. I like to walk the Eads Bridge. I never park on the St. Louis side, in Laclede’s Landing, the slowly crumbling clump of less than a dozen 19th century buildings that once were the…
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No Country for These Old Men
Exploring an origin story of R&B and soul music in Nashville, and how local DJs and the media helped drive it to a national audience. Music historians will argue over the exact origins of the music industry in Nashville, although any stance depends on the genre under debate, and how far back one is willing…
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Journeying Through Memories of Illinois Route 3: Brooklyn
Part 7 of personal reflections and historic explorations of the Grafton to Cairo length of Illinois Route 3 by writer and poet Richard Stimac. I’ve been to a strip club twice, both associated with my military service. A friend of mine and his older brother were both army veterans. When I enlisted, they decided on a pre-shipping-off-to-basic-training trip…
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Journeying Through Memories of Illinois Route 3: Granite City
Part 6 of personal reflections and historic explorations of the Grafton to Cairo length of Illinois Route 3 by writer and poet Richard Stimac. I was once a zombie. A local indie production company filmed a horror movie in my hometown of Granite City, a Rust Belt steel town with more than enough on-location sets for any post-apocalyptic…
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From a Whisper to a Scream: The Tempests, Allen Toussaint and Hurricane Katrina
Joining the dots between a North Carolina soul band and New Orleans music legend Allen Toussaint. For Roger Branch, sound engineer and founder of the sixties R&B band The Tempests, New Orleans had an attractive pull for studio engineering and production work. Like most musicians in the South, there was a deep affinity for the…
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Journeying Through Memories of Illinois Route 3: Scouting on Wood River
Part 4 of personal reflections and historic explorations of the Grafton to Cairo length of Illinois Route 3 by writer and poet Richard Stimac. My Boy Scout troop used to camp at the mouth of the Cahokia Creek Diversion Channel. We didn’t choose the location for the name but because it was where the Lewis…
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Santa Cruz de Tenerife—Exploring a City of Contrasts
Intersected by the dormant volcano of Mount Teide, Tenerife is a story of two halves. While the sunworshipper pilgrimage tends to head south for the beaches and pretty much guaranteed dry, warm weather, tropical Tenerife lies to the north, often offering lush vegetation, plantations and palms. OK, it’s slightly cooler here. And more humid. That’s…
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Journeying Through Memories of Illinois Route 3: Clark Bridge and Alton Political History
Part 3 of personal reflections and historic explorations of the Grafton to Cairo length of Illinois Route 3 by writer and poet Richard Stimac. In my childhood, my mom took me to Dr. Rose, an eye doctor who had his own office in Alton. The trip was an adventure. I was born and raised in…
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The Babu, the British and the Cartoonist: Visual Satire in Colonial Bengal
Protest art takes its shape in various forms, emerging as creative elements that challenge and criticise the injustice powerplay in society. Political cartoons and caricatures have long had a dual purpose: to critique political figures and to entertain the masses. Whether it was the Roman satirical drawings, James Gillray’s political cartoons or Benjamin Franklin’s 1754…
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Journeying Through Memories of Illinois Route 3: Exploring Pere Marquette State Park
Part 1 of personal reflections and historic explorations of the Grafton to Cairo length of Illinois Route 3 by writer and poet Richard Stimac. When I was young, my parents would take me to the 8,000-plus acres of Pere Marquette State Park, just north of Alton, Illinois. We’d drive up Illinois Route 3 from where…
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The Lynchings of Schley County
Being an avid collector of old civil rights material, I’d already amassed a pile of these NAACP membership cards. I guess what drew my attention to this particular one that appeared on eBay was the date—coinciding with the passing of the 1963 Civil Rights Act. Like most who buy on that platform I tend to…
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Malta: Exploring Manoel Island and Valletta
Malta has been on everyone’s hit list, and not just that of tourists – centuries of invasions and colonisation are confirmation of that. There’s a theory that Greeks gave the island its name—Malta is close to their word Melite meaning honey-sweet, affirming the centuries-long association with production of varieties such as ghasel tas-saghtar, the wild…