The Brooklyn Museum headless pigeon and his co-hort Hawk 44-A

Was happily startled by this scene the other day walking behind the Brooklyn Museum on the way home.  Distracted by museum detritus in a giant dumpster I looked up and was about 15 ft from this sort of “urban” National Geographic scene.  Was fascinating.  The hawk was pulling the feathers off the neck area of the bird before eating and feathers slowly drifted across the street and into the air.  The head was about 30ft away.  Cars would drive by getting with-in 6 ft and she held her ground.  Thinking of using the tags on her left leg to see if I can identify it thru the tagging system (is there an App for that?) but feel free to yourself and let me know if you get any info on this bad-ass Brooklyn bird.

 

Opera Hispanica at El Museo del Barrio, May 2011

Photos of the rehearsal, performance and post-reception at El Museo del Barrio of Opera Hispanica’s first performance.  All photos by Joshua Kristal©2011

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Museum of the Inquisition in Lima

Starting in 1570 the Spanish church used torture to punish different heretics here in Lima. And a startling high percentage of the people they tortured turned out to be Jews.  That info changed my attitude while photographing these pathetic recreations.  It was  yet another reminder of the tough times jews have had in the last 4000 years.  Didn’t expect to find that here in South America. Luckily, the amount of people who were victims of this psychopathic religious behavior only numbered in the thousands.  The museum is in the original churches torture and courts building which later became the Peruvian congress building.   The tiles pictured are original and date back to the 1700′s.  The skull and cross-bones is 300 year old graffiti that comes from the wall of a cell in the basement.

What do u know! A form of WaterBoarding, the torture technique the Bush administration used during their “War on Terror”.   Did our religious zealots learn it from these religious zealots?

300 year old tile work in the courtyard of the church’s torture building.  Startling the idea that they could mix so easily the crafts of human cruelty and art so seamlessly.

The skulls image below is from the catacombs of the Monastery of San Francisco.  70,000 people where buried there.

Some amazing tile work from the church.