With Glorious Clouds Encompassed Round…

The title comes from a hymn/the otherwise ordinary street is in the Barrio Historico, looking toward the Tucson Mountains.

Door

Courthouse View

Old County Courthouse – its central courtyard – in the foreground, one of the City of Tucson office buildings on the right and the Unisource building on the left. A range of architectural styles spanning about 200 years. I wonder if it affects how we think, we who spend time in these cities, to have this kind of both architectural diversity and dissonance going on, like 3 different kinds of music playing at the same time.

Facade

This is the front door of the Arizona Historical Society Museum near the University of Arizona campus. What makes it notable is that the facade is from St. Augustine’s Cathedral, built in the mid 1800’s and ending its days ignominiously as a garage before being demolished.. This is the original central facade rescued from that building.

St. Augustine is one of Tucson’s patron saints. I will put up a photo of the newest version of St. Augustine’s Cathedral sometime soon.

Its Monday Morning!

This is for those cheerful people who actually like Monday mornings. The masks are from an exhibit of Mexican masks at the University of Arizona.  For information on the meaning and use of these masks see here.

Betty Boop Joins the Army?

I was walking by the Arizona Historical Society, near the University of Arizona campus,  and saw this figure in the open doorway.  So I took a bunch of pictures and only realized after the fact that I was looking in at someone’s wedding reception – in fact the bride shows up faintly in the backround of this photo.   I recognized the figure as Betty Boop, a 1930’s cartoon figure.  Why she’s dressed in combat fatigues is a mystery to me.  According to this Wikipedia article, “Betty Boop is noteworthy for being the first cartoon character to fully represent a sexual woman”.

Downtown Window

Some of the older buildings downtown that were built before air conditioning, have shaded verandahs, sometimes hidden behind decorative wrought iron screens like the one below. The verandahs built right up against the streets or sidewalks must have been in, their time, the site of much socializing and would have been a pleasant place to appreciate the coolness of summer nights after blistering hot days.  This particular building was once a hotel but is now owned by the Arizona Theater Company.
And by the way, I really like this photo from Aukland Daily Photo.