CITY DAILY PHOTO MARCH THEME DAY - MIRRORS

Hall of mirrors, Union Station, St. Louis. I kept going around in circles. The family had no trouble finding their way through.         

RUSH LIMBAUGH'S GRAVE

 

Bellfontaine Cemetery is The Lou's answer to Père Lachaise and Montmartre, except for the discrimination. This is (or at least was) the Protestant cemetery. The rest can go elsewhere, s.v.p.  It is quite beautiful, though, and has few visitors.

Rush Hudson Limbaugh III, the vile right wing radio demagogue, died on February 17 in Palm Beach, Florida, and was buried here last Wednesday. He was from Cape Girardeau, a river town two hours south. He probably had family in this area. His cousin, Stephen, was a highly respected federal judge in STL. 

In any event, one of the staff helped me locate it, obviously freshly dug. No monument yet (I'll have to go back for that). I expected many visitors but I had the place to myself at 9 AM. Later, I saw a huge Cadillac Escalade with dual Trump Pence stickers in the back window at the site. And that was all.

This blog advertises the occasional rant but I just don't want the bile in my throat. It's deeply ironic, though, that Rush shares the same graveyard with Tennessee Williams and William S. Burroughs.             

HORS SERVICE

I'm not sure why I'm using this picture. I just like it. Sculptural, nice light. Out of service water fountain on the Arch grounds.   

TODAY'S CHALLENGE ASSIGNMENT: Rush Limbaugh, a name at least all Americans know, was buried Wednesday in St. Louis. He was from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, about two  hours drive south of here, and lived much of his recent life in Florida. He was interred here in Bellefontaine Cemetery, our swankiest necropolis. I'm sure I won't be the only person who wants a look but I'd like to get some images of the site. Hope it is accessible to the public.                     

WHO WANTS TO GO BACK TO THE GYM?

Not me, particularly. I mean, I've had a membership at the town's fitness center but it's always such drudgery and there's enough damage to my spine and dominant shoulder already. But walking is fine. I can walk all day, especially if it's in, say, New York or Paris.

But some people really want to get that tone back. I heard on the news yesterday that one-third of Israel is fully vaccinated and those people can go back to the gym with the proper health credential. They can probably only show off like this in the shower room, though.         

THURSDAY ARCH SERIES

Haven't had the local totem on for a while. This was taken last weekend when there was still snow on the ground, composed with certain photographic tricks, er, techniques.            

THAW

This picture was taken about noon yesterday at the top of Art Hill in Forest Park (called that because the art museum is, um, at the top of it). The body of water is known as the Grand Basin. The temperature was about 60 F / 15.5 C, way different from what I mentioned a week ago. You can see that there is still a thin veneer of ice except around the fountains. And they remained on during the coldest weather.            

HEAD SCRATCHER

 

The continuing puzzle about when we will get out of this and there will be something fresh to shoot. I depend to a great extent on public events for material and there ain't any. This figure from the complex Milles Fountain, https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobcrowe/albums/72157643171648954, could be scratching his head, but could be putting a conch shell to his ear, listening for signals the rest of us cannot hear.

I'd like a signal. There is no place in this benighted state for 70+, immunosupressed me to get a vaccination. Not that there are many better places.           

MADELEINE MONDAY

Ellie's first snowgirl. I provided technical advice but she did all the work herself. We didn't have any charcoal so she used Ritz crackers for the eyes, mouth and buttons (her idea). Some critters got the carrot nose pretty quickly but none of them touched the crackers. They know the difference between natural and processed food.  

And happy birthday to my grandson Atlas Henry Crowe in Michigan, who is two today. Big, strong and smart.       

DID SHE SAY YES?

This picture was taken from the top of the steps that lead down from the base of the Arch to the Mississippi. Carefully check the bottom horizontal layer of snow. Looks like a proposal to me. I hope it doesn't portend an icy relationship. Well, there is a saying: cold hands, warm heart.

Note that almost all the ice has disappeared from the river in a day or two. It's supposed to be a few degrees above freezing and rainy today so all of this will turn to slop. Can spring be far behind? (Hint: Yes, it can.)          

NOT QUITE FULLY FROZEN

Forest Part has a system of streams and lakes. In nice weather you  an rent a paddle boat and explore the branches. The waters are almost completely frozen over today, a rare event. Our year-round resident ducks have congregated by the one clear spot. Heaven knows what they find there.  

The temperature will rise a bit above freezing today and much higher over the coming days.The ice will soon be  gone.            

ICE IN THE MISSISSIPPI

The Mississippi was running clear until a few days ago. Now look at the difference. Of course, it's much colder not that much farther north but the system of locks and dams starts just upstream from here. The grade is so flat from here to the Gulf that there are no more to the south. Much of the ice may come from the Missouri River, which doesn't have locks anywhere close.

I've read that the Mississippi sometimes froze solid in the 19th Century. People and horses walked between Missouri and Illinois. Average winters are warmer now, of  course, but I think the locks and dams prevent the really cold northern stuff from reaching us.                   

WE DON'T GET A WHOLE LOT OF SNOW

So when we do, we have to make something of it. Forest Park, of course.        

COLD NIGHT

The view from my front porch late Monday evening. Much of the US got wapped Sunday night and Monday. We didn't come out too badly, all things considered.The light here is from a street light off to camera right and the slash is a tree branch. It was -6 F / -21 C when we got up Tuesday morning but the house is well sealed. This doesn't happen here often but it's not unknown.                              

LOOKS OMINOUS, PLUS BONUS SNAP

Something else unusual from the Climatron. Looks a little scary to me, like something poisonous or a creature that would bud and swell and sprawl until it had devoured everything in sight. The unfocused leaf on the right could be its henchman.

We got our first serious snow of the winter yesterday. The picture below was taken from my front porch at noon with a temperature of 3 F / -16 C. The snow continued all afternoon and into the evening. Other places had it worse. Texas was about completely shut down. It snowed in Houston, for heaven's sake. That's like asphalt melting from a heat wave in Fairbanks.

             

FALSE PALM

Things I know about plants: both Canada and the New York City Parks Department use the maple leaf as an emblem. There is a Monty Python sketch called "How to Recognize Different Types of Trees From Quite a Long Way Away." Gin comes from juniper berries. Evergreens are about the same color year round. I could live without asparagus. And a few other things.

One of my legal colleagues identified the plant in yesterday's post as fireweed (news to me) using a phone app called PlantSnap. I downloaded it and it's amazing, able to identify flora even from photographs. We will put it to use during our virtual walk around the Climatron. What makes this variety untrue it didn't say.                 

VALENTINE

Somewhere between red Valentine hearts and that Rolling Stones logo with the big curved red tongue, this salacious plant was found yesterday at the botanical garden. I have no idea what it is. I'm more interested in imagry than botany.

It's bitterly cold here by our standards. (Again, no jokes from residents of Frostbite Falls, etc.). There are only a handful of things to do indoors but a new opportunity came around. The Climatron at the botanical garden, that amazing, big, multi-climate geodesic dome, has been reopened on a limited basis. Mrs. C and I took a stroll through yesterday. Since my cupboard is otherwise bare, it looks like days of plants in this space. I promise it will be worth a look.                   

MIDWINTER

This is the typical look of midwinter around here. Dull skies, dull ground, rare snow. Cold but not terrible. This scene in the Japanese garden, however, is a lot more attractive than the usual humdrum urban/suburban landscape.

The oracles say that some of this is about to change, with bitter cold temperatures and a fair amount of snow Sunday and Monday. We'll see, as 45 liked to say.           

BEAUX ARTS

The back of a bench in the botanical garden near the home of Henry Shaw, its founder and benefactor. You try getting a wild bird to sit on your forefinger. But it's all pretty Belle Epoque decor, well suited to its surroundings. Might not feel so good on your back, though.                 

DUMPSTER DIVING

Getting to the point where I have to start digging around in the archives for something to post. This was found last summer in Forest Park. We came across three or four of them; it would be pretty hard to collect the whole set. It has a feelgood vibe but I don't do Twitter so I don't know what the hashtags are about.             

FUBAR

A shuttered nightclub in midtown with a shattered city flag. The name is an acronym that I think dates from World War II. The last three letters stand for "beyond any recognition."

I am so out of material. This is the coldest week of the winter here so far. Now, no comments from you people in Canada or Minnesota or Scandinavia or wherever. We're just sitting here in the middle of the country, neither north or south. By the weekend the forecast is for -8 F / -22 C. I get more and more cold intolerant as I grow older. Maybe I can hook up my camera to a periscope out of the top of my car.             

DUNGCHEN

We went back to the small. exquisite Pulitzer Arts Foundation on Saturday. It was the next-to-last day of the show about American artist, Terry Adkins, someone we had not known. The architecture of the place commands as much attention as the work on display.

These  horns closely resemble dungchen, massive horns used in Tibetan Buddhist practice. Adkins and his colleagues sometimes performed on them - it must have been quite an experience. There was to be a demonstration during the exhibition but it was canceled due to the pandemic.   

MADELEINE MONDAY

It's an old meme in this country that children set up a lemonade stand in front of their homes during the summer, trying to make a few pennies offering refreshment to passer-by. 

Not my granddaughter, who declares that she is going to be an artist when she grows up. She set up a stand in the dead of winter, selling her drawings, made to order, in front of our house. Ellie offered delivery to your car window, asking only $5. She later modified the sign to "$5 or less." She was surprisingly successful, in large part because Mrs. C called some of our neighbors who dote on her, giving them a heads up.

Quite the little entrepreneur. Our daughter, whose views are, shall we say, quite à gauche, raised an eyebrow.        

ADVENTURE

You have to be 48 inches / 122 cm tall to go out on the ropes and zip line course and our tyke just makes it. Children 12 and younger need an adult to accompany them. No surprise that Ellie made a beeline for the ticket counter. Mom wasn't so crazy about being a few meters in the air, harness or not. The kid would gladly have swung from the rafters.

She's been active lately and I have a few choices for a Madeleine Monday tomorrow.          

HE FLOATS THROUGH THE AIR WITH THE GREATEST OF EASE

Going through some other recent folders until I can get back out of the street.  Besides  the aquarium, Union Station has a ropes course/zip line/aerial challenge feature.It's scary but perfectly safe. People are suspended  in a strong harness, shown here, connected by a heavy cable to an overhead track. You couldn't fall if you tried. All comers are welcome, even if you are not as lithe as the daring young man on the flying trapeze.                                                

JUST FOR SHOW

This pic was taken on the same day as the last few posts, some distance north at the old river town of Grafton, Illinois. Long ago there was a booming boat building industry. Times and technology change. The big hit came from the Great Flood of 1993. We flew out of STL at the height of it and it looked like there was a sixth great lake around the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois rivers. 

Part of Grafton is along the riverside and part up the bluffs. The low lying parts were inundated while the section on the hills survived. The population went from something over 1,000 to 600. There is no need for a lighthouse on the river. The pushboats' GPS navigation systems are all that's needed. The lighthouse is just a symbol of return.