Mysterious Witch…

Mysterious? What are you talking about?

Background:

I enjoy exploring the details of landscape and gardens. 

Hamamelis mollis = witch hazel is now in bloom everywhere in the colder areas of the northern hemisphere.

Yesterday I was walking outdoors and discovered this Hamamelis mollis hybrid in glorious winter flower. I checked for a scent and enjoyed a light but gently intoxicating fragrance. Hamamelis? Common name = witch hazel.

Why witch and why hazel? Answers online and in books inconclusive and vague. Not a hazel and nothing to do with witches. 

And the fragrance, nobody in the home-grown-health, medical or perfume communities could define or replicate that witch hazel scent. Check it yourself.

So where do I turn? 

I, a novelist, have created a protagonist in my image—obsessed with landscape, gardens and plants. In my novel, Tangier Gardens, the protagonist, CJ, explores in Morocco the landscape of northwest Africa as well as the gardens and plants of Tangier. 

You can sample his story for free @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

Before the snowdrops…

Snowdrops? You mean snow flakes? No, I mean Galanthus nivalis, snowdrops, the earlist bulb flowers of spring.

Galanthus nivalis–snowdrops

Promises…

Before the snowdrops–the hazelnut promise.

At the same time of the year when we hope for hazelnuts, CJ in Tangier Gardens was enjoying the tangerines, the clementines, his rare relief. Read some of Tangier Gardens for free @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

Yearning for spring are we?
Tangerines and more.

Xmas lingers…

Christmas doesn’t.

Xmas tree labyrinth–don’t they know it’s February!

I knew a guy once who couldn’t figure out the difference between Christian months and Islamic months–and he damn near lost his life. I wrote a novel about it: Tangier Gardens, try it then buy it @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

Magische… dreaming… white Christmas

Tired of…

…politics and socio-cultural tripe?

Take a break at home!

Buy my book, Tangier Gardens, a thrilling travel and landscape adventure!

Great gift–massive sale–only $0.99!! 

Last minute Christmas shopping for you and all your friends into travel and landscape!

At Smashwords–now https://bit.ly/3SIAfma

North Africa… 25 yrs ago

A curious geography, historically active with pirates, djinns and easy paths to drug use…

A strange place for an American college student to do his term abroad design study.

But Christopher Janus was fascinated with the Med, its sun, beaches and the Moroccan pedestrian towns and markets. CJ chose Tangier.

Read his flash fiction stories Thunderstruck, Steganophonic Streetlife and Cthulu 2000. Share his strange experiences in his series of 40 flash fiction stories entitled, Curious Tales.

Sample them for FREE at: https://amzn.to/41v2DNv

Landscape and CJ

20,000 feet or on the ground…

Where are the plants?
Where are the plants?

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 Amazonhttps://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

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