Another playful exploration of the architectural aspects of the magnificent Harpa Concert Hall of Reykjavik

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To tell an empathetic story with characters that barely move sounds nearly impossible, right? Yet five students manage to do exactly that in Forever, building an entire emotional and comedic world around a group of garden gnomes whose rigid ceramic faces and bodies somehow carry more determination, will, pride, and stubborn heroism than many human protagonists.

Directed by Théo Djekou, Pierre Ferrari, Cyrine Jouini, Pauline Philippart and Anissa Terrier from École des Nouvelles Images, this six-minute short transforms the quiet backyard life of kitschy statuettes into a full-blown cinematic adventure. Here, the simple act of losing golf balls over a garden fence becomes an existential threat to a fragile society that refuses to accept its destiny as merely decorative. The premise is wonderfully absurd but treated with complete sincerity, as if the fate of these small figures truly hinged on defending their territory against an invisible, unreachable enemy.

With each gnome defined through posture, staging, and timing, their typically static forms become a surprisingly expressive cast. Their rigidity is both the joke and the charm, as their quest for revenge gradually evolves into something closer to a miniature epic. What unfolds is essentially a silent comedy driven by determination and an abundance of cultural references, where the language of Hollywood blockbusters is affectionately exaggerated and distilled into compact visual sketches – without ever feeling obvious or overplayed.

Dramatic framing, heightened tension, excellent sound design, and heroic poses elevate the gnomes’ struggle into something that feels both ridiculous and oddly sincere: a parody rooted in affection, with a singular goal – to defeat their ominous enemy. This antagonist remains unseen; we witness only the consequences of their actions. The true culprits – the humans behind it all, whose careless golfing disrupts the gnomes’ world – remain just out of sight.

The gnomes prepare for confrontation, organizing themselves as if facing an invading army. And yet, the only visible adversary they encounter is something far less sinister: a dog wandering through the battlefield, blissfully unaware of the war unfolding beneath its paws. It’s a small but perfect choice. The dog is neither evil nor malicious – it’s simply behaving like a dog – and by leaving it exactly as it is, the film preserves the innocence of its world while gently reminding us that the epic struggles we imagine are often invisible to everyone else.

Forever is a playful tribute to the blockbusters of our youth and a testament to the power of animation. In a world obsessed with constant motion, these characters stand victorious without shifting a muscle, telling – through the humblest of figures – a story about courage, rivalry, and heroic determination. It’s absurd, yet strikingly precise, proving that with enough imagination, even the quietest objects in a garden can carry the weight of an epic.

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In the coming weeks, I will be exploring Egypt, so here's a taste from last year's trip.

The post Throwback Thursday – 32 appeared first on Dutch goes the Photo!.

Stay with me, and by extension, with Sister!, a short film that I’ve come to adore, but which I recognize could be a hard sell for loyal S/W viewers. Not because of its lack of quality, of course, but because its sensibility is different in many ways from our typical featured short.

The story of a woman who pops in unexpectedly on her unsuspecting Brooklyn-based “sibling” (their moms supposedly share a sperm donor), Sister! is a fun, transgressive, and over-the-top queer comedy written by its stars, up-and-coming talents Julia Wendt and Tessa Belle, and is an unapologetic showcase for the duo’s comedic stylings.

So far so good, but, and perhaps I am projecting here, I was fairly resistant to the film early in my initial viewing. Partly, I recognize we’re chauvinistic towards directors, and this is, resolutely, a writer/performer film. We’ve sat through enough LA actor-driven web series to be trepidatious of this. Directed by John Onieal, notable as the creator of Grindr’s first scripted show, his direction is quite deft, but, between the film’s limited locations and the rapid pace of its joke delivery, the short presents more like a single-camera sitcom than an auteurist work. Onieal’s contributions are necessary but subtle, managing the reservoir of written comedy in a collaborative process that “involved a lot of riffing with each other, comedians, and department heads so to ensure that what we were making resonated,” and making sure the camera platformed the strengths of his stars.

Fortunately, Wendt and Belle deliver star turns. Part of the roughness of the early going is that Wendt is left to establish the initial tone by playing off of a deadpan Asha Ward, but the transfemme Wendt’s line delivery is very affected and can come off as stilted. However, like a stray note brought into harmony, Belle’s entrance into the film soon snaps the dynamic into place, and their chemistry is dynamic.

It’s also relentless. The pair’s comedy style, which is progressive, but playfully mocks the excesses and contradictions of Gen-Z wokeness in subject, is basically all-joke, all-the-time in practice. It’s frankly remarkable—the film has almost no standard exposition, no calm, sincere moments, it’s pretty much 13-minutes straight of jokes.

Naturally, your mileage may vary on the effectiveness of these—comedy is hard! But a ton of them land for me, and the great thing about a high-joke tempo is that if one falls flat, another is right on its heels. The production showed up to the shoot with a huge list of ALT jokes and planned for extensive space to improvise on set, so the team had a huge surplus of material in the edit to pick what was hitting the best, and it shows.

Even if the effectiveness of the comedy is questionable for you, I argue that it is deserving of admiration. Comedy is criminally underrepresented in shorts, and especially this sort of comedy, which is not ironic, surreal, or absurdist, but focused on jokes. Wendt and Belle blasting jokes to set up a joke which delivers a joke punchline is the closest I’ve seen to a short reaching something like classic 30 Rock, which I perceive as a gold standard. That the film also has heart is almost a miracle. In the midst of their bludgeoning, escalatingly hysterical final act, the film’s producer, Jeremy Truong, challenged the production to “find moments of emotional truth,” and while the “sisters’” ultimate catharsis and bonding is telegraphed, it genuinely lands.

A feature at last year’s Tribeca Festival, we’re pleased to present the online premiere of Sister! Take advantage of this opportunity to watch a very funny short, which we expect to be a launchpad for this impressive team, especially Wendt and Belle. 

The journey may be lengthy, but it's rewarded with a fantastic Chinese meal in Egypt at China Red restaurant.

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There is something about the locker – or changing – room that consistently proves fertile ground for storytelling. Perhaps it is a space defined by vulnerability, both physical and psychological, where social dynamics are heightened and identities are negotiated. In Ce qui appartient à César (English title: Changing Rooms), the César-nominated short by Violette Gitton, this environment becomes both a site where toxic masculinity festers and a space in which its young protagonist begins to process his emotions and mature.

Changing Rooms immediately immerses the viewer in its world, opening within the charged atmosphere of a fencing class. Our first clear encounter with 12-year-old César, the film’s lead character, sees him strutting towards the camera wearing only trousers and a chest protector designed for female fencers. As one of the boys is encouraged to “strip off,” César introduces the so-called “dick-o-meter,” a ruler used to measure the body part referenced in the device’s name, signalling early on the film’s engagement with performative masculinity and peer pressure.

Billie Blain (L) and Marius Plard stars as siblings in Changing Rooms

While this burgeoning toxic masculinity dominates the film’s opening moments and helps establish César’s social environment, Gitton soon shifts tone. A more vulnerable version of the boy is soon revealed as he addresses a video camera, marking a pivotal transition. From this point – particularly following the disclosure of his sister’s assault – the film develops into a layered exploration of adolescence, responsibility, and emotional confusion.

Gitton has stated that she hoped the film would interrogate “the way boys are confronted with violence and expectations about masculinity,” and this intention is clearly reflected in her narrative approach. By presenting the story through César’s perspective, she avoids depicting the assault itself, instead focusing on the internal turmoil of a young boy grappling with how to respond. This choice not only lends the film a distinctive perspective but arguably results in a more resonant and considered portrayal than a more direct representation might have achieved.

“I could see that something intense and confusing was happening inside him”

As is often the case with stories of this nature, the film is, unfortunately, rooted in personal experience. “I was sexually assaulted when I was 14, and I was struck by the reaction of my younger brother,” Gitton explains. “I could see that something intense and confusing was happening inside him.” Reflecting on later conversations, she notes that he described it as “strange” to grow up as a boy while also recognising that “men (like he was) could also represent a threat.”

Despite this traumatic event behind the film’s conception, Changing Rooms ultimately adopts a constructive and forward-looking perspective. Gitton emphasises that her intention was not to recreate the trauma itself, but to tell a story “that could feel useful for today’s younger generations,” adding that she wanted to “create something that young people could recognize themselves in, without simplifying their emotions or their contradictions.” An intention that’s especially significant in the context of adolescence, offering a nuanced reflection on the complex and often conflicting emotions young people must navigate as they grow.

What facts about your state’s history should be strongly told?

When a man has a country in which he was born… it becomes sacred to his heart, and it is hard to leave it.” (Seminole talks excerpt –1817-1842)

Our 2026 springtime roadtrip began in Tallahassee, the capitol city of the “Sunshine State.” This would be the first time that we actually spent more than one day in Tallahassee. So Ruth and I decided to visit Florida State University for a brief look around that would not take that much effort after our long drive yesterday. As it turned out, we found out at the visitor center that most of the campus would be shut down due to spring break with students gone and traffic minimal. That included the closure of their renowned Museum of Fine Arts, which I was most looking forward to see. So with plan B  in mind, we instead walked around the football stadium followed by a brief visit to the Student Union.

But what struck me most on this eerily quiet morning visit was the obvious presence of the Seminole Indian symbol everywhere I looked. These observations led me to  recall flashbacks to my former time as a history teacher when I briefly taught a few pages of textbook reference about the Seminole wars that took place in Florida during the early 19th century. For the facts noted then was that this was a tragic time in American History, which ultimately resulted in mass relocation of Native American tribes from Florida  along the “Trail of Tears” route to what is now as the state of Oklahoma. 

So as I resume my curious explorations of America as a road tripper again, I remind myself how such travels have a way of changing how history feels. For upon further reflection about this FSU visit,  I realize that the ubiquitous Seminole Indian imagery along banners , paintings, and statues I saw then  felt much deeper than an enthusiastic school spirit at the time. For these symbols stood for an unconquered people who’s loving spirit for their sacred land lives on today.

Anticipating another visit to the Grand Egyptian Museum, excited to see the difference of a year in its development.

The post A Saturday Shortcut appeared first on Dutch goes the Photo!.

Today we marvel at the sailing felucca on the Nile, experiencing a rich blend of history and serenity

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What places you go to help you slow down and relax?

“Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.” (Deborah Day)

Whenever I cross over the Lake Pontchartrain causeway into greater New Orleans,  I have entered what is so called the “Big Easy.” For this cosmopolitan city has acquired a reputation for its free flowing fun atmosphere of music, food, and constant motion indulgence takings place around Bourbon Street and nearby areas downtown. On previous visits,  I particularly enjoyed live music played along Frenchman Street, which although a little less crowded still can be a quite a raucous occasion. I also seem to have been drawn to that those energizing walks  along the Mississippi River shoreline  or hopping on a historic street car to gaze at old oak tree lined  streets enveloping  19th century antebellum homes  in the Garden District.

But on this particular vacation, I took a different point of view about how to replace New Orleans with a comparably fun experience on a smaller scale. Thus  we discovered quaint Mandeville and Albita Springs  along the northwest coast of Lake Pontchartrain as suitable replacement stopovers pictures  for two days on our  road trip. In particular, I took notice of the presence of live music being played Saturday night featuring several bands of interest from a variety of musical styles. I mean why put up with the New Orleans crowds on Saturday night when top notch entertainment like Tuba Skinny would take place a couple miles from our hotel at the intimate setting of Albita Springs Town Hall? As we’d have plenty of “time to kill “ in the morning and afternoon before the concert, we’d  also explore  the relatively pristine shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain at Fountainbleu State Park. Just water, sky and open space to slow down seemed the right formula at the time.

So travel for me I realize is not always about going to the places that I’ve heard the most about. No I didn’t indulge in New Orleans fun as I normally do. But in opting for the north shore Lake Pontchartrain vicinity to explore instead, I realized that this alternatively quieter version of “Big Easy” logically was the best choice at the time. 

In March 2020, during the first month of COVID-19 lockdowns, Greece’s SOS Line 15900 – a national service supporting those affected by gender-based violence – recorded 325 calls, a 370% increase from the 69 calls received in the same month the previous year. Confronted by this sharp rise in violence in her home country, Greek writer-director Markela Kontaratou turned to filmmaking as a means of processing and expressing her response. The result is Scorched Earth, a London Film School graduation project that went on to screen at the Locarno Film Festival.

“The film was conceived as a Neo-Noir/Giallo that subverts the trope of a male voyeur”

Drawing on the visual and tonal traditions of Neo-Noir and Giallo, Scorched Earth is set in a sun-drenched Greek seaside town. It follows Stela, who returns home to focus on her studies, only to find herself increasingly disturbed by the presence of her abusive neighbour. As his violence towards his partner escalates, Stela becomes entangled in a possible crime, prompting her to take action seek out the truth.

Kontaratou’s intention with Scorched Earth is not only to foreground the ongoing realities of gender-based violence, but also to interrogate the ways in which such incidents are often mediated and sensationalised. As she suggests, the film critiques how violence is transformed into a “serialized, grotesque sensation” within media culture. To explore this, she turns to genre, incorporating elements of horror and thriller in order to “create a world that reflects the way in which femininities are treated in real life and in film.”

“Artificial was also our choice of purple moonlight, creating a surreal, mysterious atmosphere, connecting to the character of Vicky who also wears purple”, director Kontaratou discussing the production

With regards to production, the film adopts a distinctive aesthetic. Shot on 16mm, with a pronounced purple hue in its night sequences, Scorched Earth embraces a stylised visual language that introduces a layer of artificiality to an otherwise grounded subject. For Kontaratou, this is a deliberate strategy: “I tried to portray the female experience of the male gaze by putting the audience in the place of being conscious that they are watching something constructed.” Techniques such as “dirty” point-of-view shots, zooms, and expressive camera movements work to unsettle the viewer, continually suggesting the presence of something hidden within the frame.

The result is a deliberately voyeuristic experience, in which both the protagonist and the audience occupy a position of uneasy spectatorship. Kontaratou acknowledges that the film resists narrative closure, offering more questions than answers. As she explains, the intention is for viewers to recognise that these narrative decisions were “plot points rather than plot holes,” inviting reflection rather than resolution. The core takeaway from Scorched Earth is a persistent and troubling question: “why we are all so often silent onlookers when faced with situations of gendered violence?”

How would you best handle a long lasting term crisis in your life?

“…Now, gentle flags that flutter on the graves

Recall the pain in blood where armies fell

And multitudes of tombstones line the hills

As somber spirits cast a ghostly spell”…

(Barry Middleton – impressions of Vicksburg battle)

As I set foot in Vicksburg on this road trip, I came across the above quote. Reading these words , it was easy to picture Vicksburg as a place that has seemed to stand still since since its iconic Civil War battle in 1863. Know then I imagined that Vicksburg’s setting straddling high cliffs above the Mississippi River was not the right place for a quick war resolution as time became the ultimate weapon itself. For what happened here was endurance under pressure as both Union and Confederate soldier losses mounted for over forty seven days.

So that’s what makes Vicksburg feel uncomfortably relevant today. So many conflicts nowadays don’t resolve. They linger, expand and settle into something prolonged where the question is no longer who wins quickly but rather how long can it go on? Consider, for example, the difficult terrain that the Vicksburg siege conflict was fought on. How much has war changed since then? Like a chess game, the advancing militia seeks to take advantage of strategic place positioning of troops in order to overwhelm the enemy. But that doesn’t always work so well for as in chess a stalemate often occurs when there’s no clear winner or loser in this battle . Meanwhile innocent people caught behind the scenes can only watch the bombs fall on their precious land.

So  Vicksburg’s bloody long history should not be underestimated. Inciting war in the Middle East now may seem to be a glamorous choice on the surface for ego driven power holders. But is it worth risking prolonged crisis which might threaten to erupt into a worldwide crisis?  We must learn to work out our problems peacefully together to sustain the ultimate survival of our human species. Perhaps  my travels might help in some way to accomplish that task. 

Margarethe 89 was a bolt out of the blue during the 2023 festival season. Its mature spy-thriller plot line and grounded, historical realism felt like a novel pairing for a stylish, adult-focused animation, making the film an instant splash at spots like Director’s Fortnight, Annecy, and Curtas Vila do Conde. Animation is often pigeon-holed as a medium for the fantastic—a way to represent the unreal via strange worlds and creatures or represent interiority through dreams and visions, but Margarethe 89 instead utilizes the control inherent in animation to recreate for viewers the stifling surveillance state of the East German Stasi, to wonderfully paranoid and claustrophobic effect.

Directed by Lucas Malbrun, based on a script co-written with his frequent collaborator, Marie Larrivé, the filmmaker was born in Munich in 1990, and grew up in a reunited Germany where “strange revelations about this vanished country were omnipresent.” Inspired by the regime’s tactic of “Zersetzung” or “dissolution,” he sought to transpose the story of Gretchen from Goethe’s Faust to a new context. In an interview with Vimeo Staff Picks for the short’s online premiere, he notes that, “Gretchen’s love for Faust is based on a misunderstanding: he comes across as a young and righteous man, but is in fact an old man in pact with the devil…exploring the figure of the manipulative male, himself under the influence of third party…was compelling to me.”

Heinrich is that manipulative male, but Malbrun sees him as a victim of the regime, too. The film intriguingly begins on a surreal note with a parade where, instead of figures from pop culture – Snoopy, or Mickey, and the like – Heinrich witnesses a giant floating bust of Karl Marx. Malbrun is emphasizing the totalizing nature of ideology and how indoctrination begins very young. The film’s visual look reinforces this concept of arrested development, deploying bright colors in the images, added to the film by the use of normal, school-standard felt-tip pens.

Revolution is currently in the air in our media, as the best TV show of recent memory served as an epic chronicle of a nascent resistance movement, while the recently crowned Best Picture winner is about what we build once revolutionary fires burn out. The tragedy of Margarethe 89 is a nice complement to this moment, and shows how animation can be a strength within mainstream genres and storytelling modes. I’ve often noted that period pieces, despite their popularity in features and television, are tough for short films to execute. Margarethe 89, which evokes the popular German series Deutschland 83 via its title, feeds audience appetites for this sort of mainstream genre, with the level of sophistication and style they are accustomed to. It’s another big swing for the French production company, Eddy, which, via pieces like this, Larrivé and Malbrun’s prior film Noir-Soleil, or 2018 S/W selection, Le Mans 1955, is leading the way in showing how animation can tackle genres associated with live-action in sober, but artistically progressive fashion.

As children, our parents can feel like the centre of our world – figures of stability and/or authority who are easily placed on a pedestal. Inevitably, however, there comes a moment when that perception begins to shift, and we start to recognise them as flawed, complex individuals, no less uncertain than we are. It is this quiet but profound transition that Dovydas Drakšas captures with sensitivity and restraint in his London Film School short, Praeis (It’ll Pass) – a film that had its World Premiere in the La Cinef section of Cannes in 2025.

A film focused on perception – how we see ourselves, how we interpret others, and how we are, in turn, perceived – Praeis unfolds with a contemplative rhythm, anchored by two finely judged performances. Ieva Kaniušaitė plays Ada, a daughter beginning to reassess both her father and her place in the world, while Šarūnas Puidokas brings a quiet vulnerability to the role of her father. At 27-minutes long, the film sits at the longer end of the short film spectrum, yet its duration feels justified, largely due to the emotional authenticity these performances sustain throughout.

Šarūnas Puidokas stars as a cigarette smuggler and father at a crossroads in his life.

This extended runtime affords the film the space to observe rather than follow its character, allowing the audience to gradually become immersed in their emotional terrain. While strained parent–child relationships are a familiar narrative framework, Drakšas approaches the material with a notable degree of empathy and nuance. Rather than privileging one perspective over the other, he presents both father and daughter as fully realized individuals, each navigating their own limitations, expectations, and emotional blind spots. The result is a relationship that feels lived-in and recognizably human, avoiding the reductive tendencies that often accompany such stories.

From a programming perspective, articulating precisely what distinguishes a film can sometimes prove elusive. While Praeis may not immediately announce itself through high-concept storytelling or formal experimentation, there is a quiet assurance in Drakšas’ direction that suggests a filmmaker with a clear and confident voice. This quality – subtle, but pervasive – manifests in the film’s pacing, its performances, and its willingness to sit with emotional ambiguity. It is, perhaps, less about what the film does, and more about how assuredly it does it.

When Ryan Coogler’s Sinners introduces a klansman and a vampire in the same frame, the audience is left with a choice: cower in terror or snicker at the absurdity. I chose the latter. Click for my take from a writer's POV!

Grief is a strange thing. It can lie dormant for years, settling beneath the surface, only to rise again when you least expect it. A sound, a place, a smell – and suddenly it spills over, pulling you back into something you thought you had long since made peace with. We’re told that time softens the sharp edges of heartache, that memories become easier to carry, but more often than not they simply shift and distort, changing shape as they move through us. And it’s within that fluid, unpredictable space that Telsche finds its flow.

Directed by Sophie Colfer and Ala Nunu (Ahead), Telsche is a conceptual short that conveys the strange, lingering ache of loss and nostalgia in a way that hits close to home, even though its storytelling is abstract rather than literal. In just eight-minutes it makes this weight of memory feel tangible without spelling it out, and the animation is a thing of beauty: shapes and colours change and shimmer, sometimes solid, sometimes fluid, so that a single blue can feel like water one moment and a yawning void the next. Every design choice feels carefully considered, and everything comes together to make the story feel both personal and universal. It’s easy to see why this beautifully rendered meditation on grief has already made waves at Annecy, Anima and more.

“We felt that the clean 2D digital style worked best to emphasise the bleak contrasts of this world” – Colfer & Nunu discussing their aesthetic

Telsche follows a young girl chasing a memory of her mother. The story is minimal and dreamlike, loosely charting her journey as she notices a stone carved with her mother’s face at home, rushes outside to the salt flats, and sees her vanish into a blue void. Determined to follow, she dives into dark, twisting tunnels underground, uncovering a hidden world that brings her closer to a reunion. 

The story is actually rooted in Colfer’s own memories. After moving back to Hong Kong, where she was born and grew up, she was reunited with the vast sea of her youth and the memories of her family, especially her mother, a Japanese diver, and her father, an English sailor. “One of her earliest memories with her mother was of watching pearl divers in Japan”, the directors shared with S/W.“They would dip and descend in their white uniforms, without tanks of air, and collect pearls from the depths. These concepts of memory and forgetting therefore permeate the entire film, reflected visually in the contrast between light and dark and in the choice of still, wide shots, wherein the subjects are barely visible, on the verge of being seen but as of yet unremembered.” 

But the film doesn’t rely on distance alone. It counterbalances these expansive compositions with close-ups that pull us into Telsche’s interior world, creating a push and pull between detachment and intimacy. While the wide shots place her within an overwhelming expanse, emphasising her smallness and isolation, the tighter framing invites us to linger with her, to feel the weight of what she carries. 

“Our collaboration took (and continues to take) place across a distance spanning thousands of kilometres and an eight-hour time difference” – the directorial duo discuss working together

Pulling back, beyond these compositional choices, there’s something to be said about the sheer level of craft on display here. What makes Telsche so striking is just how much care and precision sits behind its apparent simplicity. This is anything but effortless. Every scene carries the weight of countless hours of animating frame by frame, of trial and error and a good helping of raw talent, and you can feel it in the way the animation moves and breathes. The limited colour palette, rather than restricting the film, does the opposite. It forces a kind of creative discipline that pays off, pushing the animators to find depth, contrast and atmosphere in every scene. Shapes and colours become more than stylistic choices too – they act as storytelling tools in their own right, continually reshaping the space around the character. Paired with the eerie, echoing sound design, which seems to stretch and bend the space even further, the result is deeply immersive. It’s a film that understands exactly how to use its tools, and never wastes a single one.

And when it ends, Telsche doesn’t so much conclude as drift – leaving behind an impression rather than an answer. Like grief, it resists being pinned down, instead settling somewhere deeper, where feeling outlasts understanding.

How do you view the American Indian experience from past to present?

“Certain things capture your eye but pursue only that which captures your heart. “ (Choctaw Indian proverb)

The way I see it, it’s one side to read about the American Indian  experience throughout history by way of textbook facts about the various tribes existing in America. But it’s another matter to see up close the real Native American experience through through real life artifacts and other visual evidence of their actual living conditions from the past to now.  Simply put, as a past history teacher, my students memorized dates and event facts about Native Americans for mandatory testing purposes,  but in doing so they did not feel the real emotional story about the triumphs and tragedies of these people. Take for example the historic time in the early 19th century when the Choctaw were one of several civilized tribes to be forcibly removed by the U.S federal government from  their ancestral homeland in the southeastern lands of early America. In retrospect, why didn’t I adapt my curriculum to help students make personal connections to the hardships Indians faced in journeying thousands of miles on foot along the  famed “Trail of Tears” route to what would later become  the state of Oklahoma?

Take the Choctaw Indian nation in particular then as a teachable playback for this blog. For on our visit to the modernistic Choctaw Cultural Center in Durant, Oklahoma on day seven of our road trip, I of course took  academic interest in key historic events  concerning this Choctaw spanning several centuries of broken treaties, forced homeland movements and legal attempts to disband the Choctaw’s politically and socially as a united  nation. Yet it was quite revealing that I also found a distinct emotional connection to colorfully  designed artwork, symbolic emblems and banners along with some powerfully expressive  human and animal figures representative of Choctaw culture. See examples of these images in my photo set below.

Looking more to the present, it’s clear to me that the Choctaw nation recovered from those tragedies by reestablishing full territory rights and now remain strong and resilient as a fully functioning and united self government for its living residents today. Thus let history be retold in our education system with the positive Choctaw experience in mind to inspire more respect for our  Native American tribes. 

What’s your favorite road “off the beaten track?”

“Look for chances to take the less-traveled roads. There are no wrong turns.” — Susan Magsam

There are many fascinating towns scattered along the vanishing highway known as Route 66 in the American West. On day nine of our road trip, it was therefore an easy decision to choose Tucumcari, New Mexico, for a two-day stopover.

At first glance, there isn’t much to do in this quiet, almost ghost-town setting. Yet at the same time, Tucumcari feels very much alive—as if I’ve stepped into an authentic 1950s movie set. It’s a version of small-town America shaped by the years following World War II, where hometown diners, classic cars, and family-run motels still define the landscape.

So as I slowly cruised through town, several discoveries stood out. Eye-catching murals stretched across building walls, telling vivid stories of Route 66’s past and its rugged Western surroundings. A gigantic welcome sculpture commanded attention at the edge of town. There was also the full-size teepee at Tee Pee Curios, a giant sombrero jutting out from La Cita Restaurant, and an old Texaco station that felt frozen in time.

Even more striking were the vintage cars—an Edsel, a Buick, and a Chevy coupe—parked outside aging motels, as if waiting for travelers from another era to return and drive them around town.

I do wonder how long Tucumcari can preserve this time-warp atmosphere. But if you’re a cross-country traveler who appreciates places “off the beaten path”, this “Mother Road” town offers something rare—a breath of fresh, unhurried life far removed from the rise-and-grind routines back home.