I HEAR THAT TRAIN A-COMMIN' IT'S COMMIN' ROUND THE BEND

As the massive Big Boy locomotive left St. Louis it made a stop Monday morning in the suburb of Kirkwood, a town big enough to have an Amtrak station. There was quite a crowd but I squeezed my way to the front, looking for a clear shot. The backlighting was terrible but this will do. 

As the train pulled to a stop right in front of me it let go a mighty blast of its whistle. Ow! The sound meter on my phone said it was 113 db but I bet the reading would have been higher if the phone hadn't been tucked into a holster. Half a minute of that can cause ear damage according to some web page I found (so it must be true). I haven't experienced the like since maybe the last Led Zeppelin concert I attended.         

BIG BOY

So here's the reason for the expedition. Back in the 1940s the Union Pacific Railroad built 25 gigantic locomotives called Big Boys. There are now several in museums and this one, Number 4014, in working order that occasionally go out on tour. It passed through St. Louis Sunday and Monday.

The thing is simply gigantic, too big to get all of it in this picture.  132 feet / 40 meters long and 1.2 million pounds / 544,310 kilograms! See https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/4014/. It spent Sunday parked on a major railway passage on the edge of downtown, inside a fenced enclosure. I would have had to wait an hour or more in heat and brilliant sun to get in, which is beyond me these days. I took this by reaching to the top of a high chain link fence, propping my camera on top, pointing it in the general direction and hoping for the best.

Big Boy made a brief stop in the suburbs yesterday on its way west and I got some better shots.               

RAILROADS

Moving on. I'm not particularly a railroad aficionado, other than having commuted to high school on the New York subway. I've loved trips on the TGV in France and the Shinkansen in Japan but the U.S. has nothing that compares. Of course, before the day of ubiquitous air travel it's how we got around. St. Louis' Union Station was one of the great junctions of the nation.

I went out yesterday trying to shoot a railroad event worth seeing but had limited success due to crowds and the heat. I'm going to make another attempt this morning and hope to have something to show tomorrow. This old passenger car parked behing Union Station will do for today.            

THE FRINGE CONTINUSE - SKY

A couple of things to say up front. First: I simply don't understand dance. I am physically graceless. I have no athletic ability and have iffy balance. Second: no matter how many Fringe performances I photograph, I will never, ever again see something like this.

The young woman who goes by Sky is independent and trying to make her way in the world personally and artistically. We know one another from a couple of past Fringe festivals. She loves to dance and creates her owe esthetic, using music, a bit of fabric and her own inner flow. 

Her performance at this year's festival had something different. She called it I'd Rather You See My Soul Than My Body. Toward the end, she spread a tarp on the floor. She took a big jar of creamy peanut butter, spread it out with a spoon, and - what's the right word? - undulated, writhed, coiled and uncoiled across it. The aroma of peanuts quickly spread throughout the tent. The bottom picture is one of the less provocative I took. I have no means to interpret it.               

THE FRINGE CONTINUES - DEENIE GETS SYNCHRONIZED

You may be wondering about the full title of the show, Get Wet With Deenie Nast. During the performance, Deenie talked about her mastery of synchronized swimming. There was a video illustrating the point, which unfortunately is not on Youtube. Deenie pointed out that this can get complicated with other bodies flailing about.. Her solution was to do it by herself and add digital effects. I wish I had a shot showing that part but this will do for now.                            

THE FRINGE CONTINUES - DEENIE'S GOLD LAMÉ SHORTS

At one point during Deenie Nast's show at the Fringe, she reminisced about a pair of gold lamé shorts she had worn in some well-known role (sorry that I don't remember the name). She still had them and, by God, she could still get into them! Well, it turned out to be a bit of work requiring the assistance of the whole team of male nurses. It may have been exhausting but it was successful in the end.                  

THE FRINGE CONTINUES - GET WET WITH TEENIE NAST!

I usually have a favorite show at the Fringe and this year it was no contest. My friend Audrey Simes, a gifted comic actress, has developed a character, Deenie Nast. Deenie is a former great star of Hollywood and the New York stage (possibly over the last century) who still loves her public and won't let go of her fans or her fondness for booze and pills. Check the video below for the backstory.

In Saturday's late night show, far past my usual bedtime, she staggered out of a wardrobe trunk and regaled the audience with stories and musical numbers. She's getting on in years, of course, and has a coterie of male nurses she recruited on Tinder to keep her propped up and supplied. The set has as many dangling pill bottles as corks on the brim of an Australian bushman's hat. This was fall out of your seat funny and we will see more of it, including the wet part..          

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THE FRINGE CONNTINUES - WHITE RABBIT/RED RABBIT

I'm skipping ahead to a show I really liked, White Rabbit/Red Rabbit. Perhaps you have seen it it. It was written ten years ago by the Iranian Playwright Nassim Soleimanpour and has been produced all around the world. https://www.nassimsoleimanpour.com/whiterabbitredrabbit  

But you probably haven't seen it and I won't be a spoiler. I'll just say that a script is handed in an envelope to an actor or actress who has never seen it. No rehearsals. The Fringe did it three times last weekend, each with a different performer, in this instance with the stunningly talented Jacquelyn Thompson. It involves life and death questions, audience participation, political freedoms and the reasons for writing. Might come back to this.  

THE FRINGE CONTINUSE - CON COLLEGE

Some of the shows at the St. Lou Fringe are curated. They appear by invitation. The rest are chosen by lottery. There is no censorship except for hate speech. You like some but not others. This is a show that turned me away because of violence, lots of violence. I can't stomach it. The plot seemed too contrived, too. So I will say nothing further and just publish some of the less intense photos of the principal characters as examples of theater photography.              

THE FRINGE CONTINUES - SMALL BOX WITH A REVOLVER

Small Box With A Revolver is an unsettling one act play about two strangers who awaken in a room, location unknown and no exit apparent. There is a small box containing a revolver and an ambiguous letter of instructions: you must shoot the other. But which is the other, and does it mean shoot to kill? 

Then the characters find a coin in the box. It seems to demand a flip, only to lead to the discovery that the coin is the same on both sides. But wait - the box has a flase bottom, under which is a second revolver. There is talk of obligations to the Superiors and the possibility of punishment. All of this is subject to intense discussion. It felt like Waiting For Godot comes to the community theater.

Hey, the next play is even gloomier but the whole festival doesn't stay like that.                 

THE FRINGE CONTINUES - THE PLAYWRIGHT AND THE PRODUCER

Late post today. I was up till almost 1 shooting the Saturday late night show. It was fall out of your chair funny but we will come to it later.

The second show I shot was called The Playwright and the Producer. An aspiring writer visits someone who produced his first play, demanding a workshop for his new work. The producer is indifferent, the writer turns desperate and then violent. A romantic triangle unfolding in the background complicates things. Strong stuff but rather too violent for my gentle personality.     

FRINGE KICKOFF

The 10th St. Lou Fringe Festival got started Thursday with a couple of productions. There are ten shows spread over four days, much fewer than normal, non-Covid years. Everyone is cautious and the performances have well-spaced seats in open-sided tents.

Things got started with violinist Amy Greenhaigh and St. Louis theater veteran Joe Hanrahan in My Violin My Voice. Hanrahan narrates a history of the instrument, describing how they are made, famous performers and stories involving the instrument. Greenhaigh's playing was exquisite. The show is repeated today, Saturday, at 4:30 and I strongly recommend it.                 

WORMHOLE

No pictures edited from the Fringe yet. Soon. The last few days' pictures around the Grand Basin in Forest Park have had the greensward of Art Hill in the background, so named because the art museum is at the top. (Duh.) Today we step inside. This woman looks willing to enter another dimension through Donald Judd's Untitled while a nifty Frank Stella "protractor" painting provides the warp drive.             

TRAFFIC

If paddle boarding isn't for you, the most common aquatic activity on the Grand Basin is paddle boating. Lots of people rent them when the weather is fine  and, as you can see, there can be a bit of a jam. Mrs. C and I took Ellie out on one earlier this summer. I don't think I'd done that since college and I want to tell you it is a lot of work. These things are not exactly streamlined and, as pilots on the Mississippi learned, the paddles are far less efficient than propellers.

The live performance weekend of the St. Lou Fringe starts tonight and I'll be shooting my first two shows. Locals, you owe it to yourself to check it out. https://www.stlouisfringe.com/. Performances continue through Sunday. As of next week, people will be able to view on demand last weekend's virtual performances.                 

LIGHT SHOW

There is a balustrade surrounding much of the Grand Basin in Forest Park. You can see a bit of it in Mondays post. It's just molded concrete but it creates an elegant feel. Hardly necessary for safety, since the water is so shallow but it looks good in late afternoon light.        

I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW IT'S DONE

I am not a graceful person. No athletic ability whatever and a shaky sense of balance, particularly with years of off-and-on spine problems. Geez, I need a railing to go up and down stairs and couldn't do a yoga pose on one foot to save my life.

Swimming isn't allowed in the Grand Basin in Forest Park but they have paddle boats, kayaks and paddle boards like these. It's a mystery to me how people stay upright and dry. I even have a friend in New Orleans who putts around the bayous on one while dodging the alligators. There aren't any alligators in St. Louis (check back in a few decades) but I'd rather walk the perimeter than float the center.            

SUMMERTIME, AND THE LIVING IS EASY

Back in the local jurisdiction, as one of our City Daily colleagues might say. The weather this weekend has been flat-out gorgeous for high summer in the heartland. Warm but not hot, modest humidity and gorgeous late afternoon light. This is along the Grand Basin in Forest Park, a legacy from the 1904 World's Fair. We used to be somebody, to paraphrase Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront.                  

THE FRINGE IS ON!

The St. Lou Fringe is back this weekend for its 10th season, https://www.stlouisfringe.com/. Our executive director, Matthew Kerns, has done an heroic job this year and last to keep the festival afloat. This weekend is all online. Next weekend is live in covered but open sided venues. 

This weekend's big hit so far is Andy's Super Fun Happy Magic Show, seen here in a screen shot. There are amazing feats, paranoid conspiracy theories, audience participation and a possible interruption by the FBI. How does he make his eyes do that? Who still uses a reel-to-reel tape deck? It's repeated today and you can watch it from anywhere in the world, considering it's at 1:30 PM / 13.30 US Central Summer Time. Tickets at https://www.stlouisfringe.com/virtual-stage.  

Next weekend is an entirely different live line-up. Locals can can check it out at https://www.stlouisfringe.com/live-stage. I'm the house photographer so you will see me around. Worth your time.

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - I'M RELATED TO ALL THESE PEOPLE, SORT OF

This is far from my usual kind of post but it has its charms (plus I still don't have new material). The reason for the trip to Kansas was the bi-annual get together of my wife's extended family. They are descended from Jürgen Kruse, who emigrated from Bremerhaven, Germany (where there is a superb museum of German emigration, https://www.dah-bremerhaven.de/en), and earned his U.S. citizenship by serving in the Union army during the Civil War. This is Mrs. C's branch; there are others. She is in there, as are my daughter and granddaughter.

Years from now, is someone looks at this family's records (if there is someone to look at them), my presence may be unnoticed. As the family photographer, I'm always on the other side of the lens.