The Disconnect

This is an odd post, and not simply because it's short.  I just wanted to post a picture that I snapped in Zanzibar.  It's a painting that was hanging on the wall in Livingston's, which, as I've oft opined, is one of my favorite bars in the world.  It's new since our visit in March 2016.  Every time we stopped in Livingston's which, well, was every night, I found myself staring at it, and not simply, entirely, for prurient reasons.  It just seemed to exemplify a real disconnect between the tourist (I guess you could say colonial) experience in Zanzibar today and that of a fairly conservative Muslim population, which, in other ways, made it a perfect representation of the often jarring clash of worlds in that fascinating little corner of the world.  The fact that the bar is located in a building associated with Doctor Livingston somehow made it all the better.

Truthfully, if I had some disposable income, and a more graceful way of getting it back, I would have tried to buy it.  It would have made a tremendous artifact for my Aesthetic Expressions class or for our Colonialism class - and would have looked good hanging in my office in the meantime.