Brett Neely

…Latvia. I was recently there on vacation. It’s a fine awesome country that has some occasional endearing eccentricities. One of them being a strange obsession with television test patterns. I saw them everywhere, on t-shirts, shopping bags and this mural, though I’ve got no idea if it’s a homage to some brave television engineer patriot or simply public art by hipsters.

A mural of a TV test pattern, gracing one of Riga's minor parks. (Photo: Brett Neely)

Also awesome, the “museum” of dead Soviet aircraft at the Riga airport (air quotes because everything’s rusting and totally crazy, but they do have a former nuclear bomber and what looked like cruise missiles). Totally worth banging on the chain-link fence until the curator groggily stumbled out of his trailer, took my two euros and let me in.

A retired Mig-21 parked at Riga Airport, waiting to do single combat with a tricycle. (photo: Brett Neely)