Coming to a village near you–SOON
Disrespect for public and private property.
Tell me what it is without saying it.
I hide from it by writing fiction, Tangier Gardens: https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv
Urban Virus
Category Archives: travel
Landscape and CJ
20,000 feet or on the ground…
In Tangier Gardens, CJ learns about landscapes, gardens and plants. Landscapes are mysterious because they harbor weirdness as he learned from Bree and he sensed from his West Africa experiences.
In Yenbo Palms, CJ once again gets wind of unusual things in the landscape, this time in the deserts of Arabia.
These stories are not for, or about tourists. They are about the expatriate who never dreamt of leaving home. They are about a person who is, like most of us, inspired by the beautiful and endlessly varied landscape.
He loved landscape so much he studied it in college and earned a degree in landscape architecture. But what he learned in school didn’t prepare him for the expatriate landscapes that perplexed him. Arcane landscapes? Could there be such a thing?
CJ chases nature, its landscape and plants to their existential roots. He describes his interactions with cultures, landscapes, gardens and plants of the world—where the unexpected and downright strange become daily facts of life.
Tangier Gardens, buy it now on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv
Dichotomy?
CJ studied fine arts for his first two years at college. In music, literature and painting he found an enigmatic similarity. Many composers, authors and painters were inspired by nature, either the outdoors or human nature. That was clear.
It was, however, the dichotomy of the critics that confused him.
The critics’ perplexing dichotomy pitted human social nature vs the natural world, nature without humans. He wondered why the dichotomy? Were not humans part of the nature in which we all lived? Even though humans were at the top of the food chain we were still part of the chain. How can behavior, intelligence or spirit separate humans from the nature all around us?
And why have so many sought to make that ‘false’ distinction?
CJ’s own battles with this dichotomy got serious when, after deciding to major in landscape architecture, he went to North Africa, for his term abroad design study.
There he met a couple esoteric horticulturists, one Russian and the other British. They had built and were guardians of an arcane garden, the Oval Garden, behind their Hibiscus House. There they tried to educate CJ–solve his enigmatic fine arts, landscape and garden concerns.
Nature and Landscape?
Nature and landscape… CJ asked himself what was the difference? Nature ? Is it larger than landscape? He finally decided that landscape was limited by his eyesight. And nature was larger–conceptually, almost everything on this planet. That was his starting point.
But how to understand how the nature of human culture and nature at large fit together? That was always on his mind during his Moroccan adventures.
CJ? The protagonist writing his autobiography in Tangier Gardens, arcane literary fiction adventure. Buy it on Amazon via this link: https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv
Dancing Clouds?
LAST DAY OF SALE!!!
Take a walk in Tangier Gardens.
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Forget Science, Forget Gaia
No photographic excellence here.
Clouds, forests, mountains and sky–do clouds dance? Gracefully?
Now, tell me what you see…
I see inspiration. I was inspired to write. Fictional autobiographies by Christopher Janus. Arcane adventures in nature. Read the first, Tangier Gardens. On sale now for a short time.
Take a walk in Tangier Gardens.
Only 99cents at Smashwords this link: https://bit.ly/3SIAfma
Taos, New Mexico
Listen to Christopher Janus’ own words: “In New Mexico the picturesque landscape captured me… but I felt there was something more… I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“At university, I dug into the fine arts and landscape architecture. I read JB Jackson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, FL Olmsted, Ian McHarg and others, seeking the deeper content of the landscape. Some people today write that sense of place and landscape are similar—they are… nebulous, ambiguous, enigmatic, impenetrable… need I say more?
“A strange thing happened. The more I researched, the harder I looked, the foggier became my results. Then I did my term abroad design study in northwest Africa, Morocco.”
And then what happened?
Take a walk in Tangier Gardens and find out. Arcane adventures on the way.
EXCELLENT VALUE! On sale now-75% off.
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Garden Secrets
Travel Morocco with CJ.
Experience the powerful landscape roots that nourish culture in people.
Walk the Oval Garden paths with him.
Discover sensual garden secrets.
Learn age-old techniques to unlock the hidden mysteries of Mediterranean plants.
Take a walk in Tangier Gardens.
EXCELLENT VALUE! On sale now-75% off.
Only 99cents at Smashwords this link: https://bit.ly/3SIAfma
Don’t know MOROCCO?
Watch this one minute video.
Don’t turn your back!
Love landscape? Don’t turn your back.
He was confused and in Morocco.
His last hope was a garden.
Young American coming of age thought he was on a Med holiday; but found himself surrounded by an aggressive landscape haunted by the worst of nightmares–Joseph Conrad’s African and TE Lawrence’s Arabian.
Ebook on sale-75% off.
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Ayisha Qandisha and other djinns
An American university student, majoring in landscape architecture, has one more design class to complete for graduation—a term abroad and he has chosen Morocco.
Using the beautifully tiled, colored and patterned public water fountains in the medinas, he plans to count people—a simple ‘turn-up-every-day-and-count’ metric exercise.
He thought it would be simple; but it wasn’t.
Ayisha Qandisha and other djinns from North Africa and West Africa are determined to get a piece of the Western fresh meat.
The whole story is in Tangier Gardens.
Ebook on sale now-75% off.
Only 99cents at Smashwords this link: https://bit.ly/3SIAfma