Todd Pitock | The Common

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A Painter Brought to Life

March 6, 2013 Dispatches

In Telč, a town about two hours from Prague in the Czech Highlands, rain beat down like a parade of drums. Zdenka Noskova, the woman I had come to see, arrived at my hotel in the main square to take me to a memorial she had created.
At 37, Zdenka had a demure manner. She wore her auburn hair short, and dressed in a long skirt. She worked in a print shop, though the lasting imprint she’d made had been a walking trail, and later, a memorial she’d created to the memory of a Jewish painter who died in the Holocaust.

Sahara Syndrome

July 18, 2012 Dispatches

By TODD PITOCK

Entering the Sahara, the rock and hard-packed sand is so flat and immense you can see the Earth’s curve. It’s an optical illusion, really, the mind providing an explanation in the face of such an expanse, the way it interprets the glassy reflections in the near distance as water. On very hot days, the sun bleaches the sky and sand, whiting out all points of reference. It can be literally mind-blowing, inducing Sahara Syndrome, a temporary anxiety disorder that can push you to the fringes of insanity.