COLD AND CUDDLY

 

While walking out of the Festival of Nations to our car, we came across this man with his pet monitor lizard. I didn't get the name but I think he said he'd had the reptile for 20 years. The hot day seemed to keep it awake.                          

JUMP

 

Still at the Festival of Nations, a West African dance and rhythm group called Spirit of Angela. So full of energy and lucky to have the shutter speed high enough to catch the dancers in the air.                       

HOW CROWDED WAS IT?

 

About this crowded, and there were people still streaming in. It's great that St. Louis has so many festivals and public activities, but the turnout is often so great that an old duffer with a bad back like me has trouble coping, especially when it's hot. Which it always is anymore.

I went to Paint Louis yesterday for a while and got some pix but didn't last very long. I'll go back today for a drive-by, since the painting event will be done, to see what's on the wall. Also went by the neighborhood where the bicycle races were but there was nowhere to park.                

YEAH, RIGHT

 

Corn dogs are a staple of American carnivals and state fairs. (I've only been to one state fair but it was Texas so it was a hoot.) This comestible is a hot dog pierced by a stick, rolled in mozzarella cheese, coated in corn meal and deep fried. I guarantee you there are no corn dogs in Korea, unless Kim Jong Il arranged for clandestine imports to serve his delicate palate. Patrons of the Festival of Nations didn't care.                    

MEXICANOS EN ST. LOUIS

 

That's simply how this group bills itself, or at least how they were listed on the program. Like most places in the U.S., they have plenty of countrymen here. I like the complex rhythms.

There is a lot going on here over our Labor Day long weekend. (There is some irony that we have one.) Daytime high temps are still hovering around 38 C / 100 F, maybe a bit lower by Monday. I'm not going to attempt the colorful Japanese Festival at the Botanical Garden since it is crushingly crowded. There are pro bicycle races, always great to shoot, but will they go forward in the heat? And we have Paint Louis, according to Guinness the longest graffiti wall in the world. Should get some of that.                      

FOR GANESHA

  

We didn't see a lot of performers at the Festival of Nations because we didn't stay that long (too crowded, too hot). This performer is identified on the program only as Prasanna Kasthuri but he has a website, https://prasannakasthuri.com/. The DJ-MC described him as a virtuoso of Northern Indian classical dance. He told the audience that this was about or dedicated to the god Ganesha.                

SEEN AT THE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

 

Or elected official, or otherwise. Your choice.                  

TONGUE OF FLAME

 

That's what this one at the HYBYCOZO exhibit at the botanical garden makes be think of. The title of the piece is Point of View. Looks more like a sacred flame.

Something new and interesting to photograph today.                      

CITY DAILY PHOTO SEPTEMBER THEME - TRAVEL

 

Travel does good things to you. It makes you understand that your life and place are unique but not special. I think this is my very best picture, Mt. Everest, taken from base camp of the Tibetan side. Most climbers start in Nepal, but there is a rough road here from the north making access easier. I had bad altitude sickness. The overlook is at about 5,200 meters, 17,000 feet. Two people from our group had to pull me up the last little hill, but I wasn't going to miss the shot. Our guide said it was almost never this clear.                        

VANISHING POINT

 

A last image (for now) from the HYBOCOZO exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The caption is the name of this piece. The building on the left is the mausoleum of Henry Shaw, the 19th Century philanthropist who founded the place.

Tomorrow is City Daily Photo's monthly theme day, on the subject of travel. I'll be posting what I think is the best photo of my career.                 

OPTICS

Close-up of one of the faces of a work in the HYBYCOZO exhibit called Rhombi. It's easier to perceive from farther away but think of the central hexagon as an approximate cube with the nearest corner in the lower right, sitting in a recessed space that fits it.                           

STL DPB ON THE FARM - GREEN MACHINE

 

More heavy equipment on the Kruse family farm, and once again, I do not know what it's for. The green and yellow color scheme says that it is made by John Deere, and it looks good in the late afternoon light. 

The St. Louis Fringe Festival starts tonight and runs through Sunday. I have 22 shows on my calendar to shoot, and that's not nearly all of them. We'll be seeing lots of theatrical photography for a while.                 

TESSELATION

 

That's the title of this piece at the HYBYCOZO exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The dictionary built into my Mac defines the word as   an arrangement of shapes closely fitted together, especially of polygons in a repeated pattern without gaps or overlapping. It sits in front of the Climatron, a geodesic dome with such sophisticated air systems that it contains four different climate zones.              

RIPPLES OF LIGHT

 

That's the title of this trio of objects in the botanical garden's reflecting pool at the HYBYCOZO exhibit. Can't wait to see it in the evening, lit from within, dancing across the water and lily pads.                    

BALANCE

I'm going to wander around the HYBYCOZO exhibit at the botanical garden for a bit. It's interesting and the garden is always worth a visit. This one is called Balance and it must have taken a fair amount of math to work out. All of the works have lights within them. The garden is open in the evening on weekends and we plan to go back for another look.                      

HYBYCOZO

 

Change of scene to another St. Louis institution. The gorgeous Missouri Botanical Garden often has outdoor exhibits of special sculpture or lighted seasonal displays. Through this summer and into next month there has been a show called Patterns In Nature - The Art of HYBYCOZO, https://www.hybycozo.com/. Its website doesn't explain the name. We waited for a cooler day to check it out. This piece at the entrance is called Escher. I can sort of see the step figures but not the up-down-left-right warping of the Dutch artist.                            

TWO-FER

 

A last image from Roman Art In the Time of Trajan at the St. Louis Art Museum. This is a creative view of busts of Trajan and Empress Pompeia Plotina, herself much respected.                         

CUT-OUT

 

One of the unusually good things about the Roman Art In the Time of Trajan show at the St. Louis Art Museum was the design of the galleries. It's usually not something you notice.                    

THE BIG GUY

 

The star of the show at the St. Louis Art Museum, Emperor Trajan himself (perhaps idealized). Spanish-born and widely popular, he brought the Roman Empire to its largest geographic extent and ruled from 98 to 117 CE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan                     

ANCIENT SPLENDOR

 

The St. Louis Art Museum recently ended a show called Ancient Splendor - Roman Art In The Time of Trajan.Mrs. C and I made it just in time. It was beautifully displayed, and the degree of elegance and craft was striking.                     

NOW THAT'S ENTHUSIASM

 

An expensive car seen outside of one of the main venues of the St. Lou Fringe.                      

LAST FROM THE ST. LOU FRINGE - MONKEY IN A COCONUT

My memory of the details of show after show fades with time, so I'll let the players' own description suffice here: 

Abby Bentley’s Monkey in a Coconut is a musical comedy solo show about the true story of a second-grade student, a coconut implanted with a monkey embryo, and a search for the truth. The show grapples with big questions: “Can I trust authority?” “Is evolution real?” “Will this coconut hatch?”

Time to get back out on the streets of The Lou. 

 

AT THE ST. LOU FRINGE - WINDING DOWN

Not much more to go, since I shot barely 20 of 40 shows. These are two of the last from Sunday. First, Henchmen, about executioners, literally headsmen, in Tudor-ish England. The man on the left in the second picture looks the role to me but the one on the right seems more like he is wearing traditional Italian priest's garb (think Father Guido Sarducci on SNL, https://youtu.be/lWBhsiBMOIo?si=xhgNPkbXp29mEMam). I can't remember what the woman was about. Toward the end, the man in black tells the man in white that it is his turn to be executed. No reason was given that I could tell.

Then we have Improvsburg, done by two women from a small city in Indiana. Hey, it's got its own improv company! Improv often leans into audience participation and the group was sadly small on a Sunday morning. However, St. Louis' peripatetic theater critic, Tina Farmer, volunteered and got the job done. 

 

AT THE ST. LOU FRINGE - MAGIC SYNAPSES WITH JAMES HIGHGROUND

When I spoke to James Highground before the show, he said he would describe himself (at least in this presentation) as mentalist rather than a magician. Not sure what that means. The act involved manipulation of numbers, words, images and sensory perception. I have shot a lot of magic shows at The Fringe over the years and I have yet to capture how any of them do it.

                          

AT THE ST. LOU FRINGE - KING JOHN

Powerful stuff. Matthew Windham presents a solo condensed version of Shakespeare's King John. It's one of his least produced plays, but seeing this makes you wonder why. Windham cleverly switches roles with the simplest of props - white and black chess kings for the contestants to the English throne; a pawn for the ordinary people caught in between; and ornate fan for Lady Constance; and a small teddy bear for Prince Arthur, who threatens John's claim to the  throne. Abuse of power comes as no surprise.

           

           

AT THE ST, LOU FRINGE - DEAR EVAN HANSEN

Dear Evan Hansen is  a musical that ran on Broadway for almost six years. I won't summarize the story here; you can find out at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Evan_Hansen . It was performed by a group of top-of-the line local theater kids. The production, acting and singing was terrific. I didn't like the show itself at all (and I may be seriously in the minority about this). I thought the plot was, well, awkward, and the music completely forgettable. - and where did the title character get that awful wig? By contrast, we saw a professional production of Guys And Dolls a couple of days ago, and the brilliance of the music blew me away. Each to their own taste.

 

                    

AT THE ST. LOU FRINGE - THE DOCTOR SHOW

Something different. Jared Schwartz is a real licensed physician. He finds it convenient to wear two stethoscopes over his lab coat, over his scrubs. The premise is a game show hosted by St. Louis Magazine executive editor Sarah Fenske. Odd medical questions were projected on the back wall. Dr. Schwartz would comment on them and state whether, in his opinion, the premise was true or false. A panel of two comics and Fringe executive director Matthew Kerns discussed the matter and voted on whether the doctor was right or wrong. The question on the wall behind the first photo shows the tone.

AT THE ST. LOU FRINGE - THE CONFLUENCERS

For us, the confluence refers to the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. I assume that the name of this very funny comedy group is a play on the modern horde of online influencers. The premise was that a wire over the stage held cards numbered 1 to 20. Each corresponded to a mini skit. The audience was given a slip of paper with the numbers and a short title. People called out a numbers while the group attempted to perform all 20 in an hour.

These are four examples. First, a sacrilegious version of the central Catholic ceremony, using Oreos and milk for the sacrament. Next, the very flamboyant professional wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage leading a meditation session. Third, a variation on charades where a game contestant places wet spaghetti on a board, while the others try to guess the subject. Last, two sisters billed as international classical music stars go onstage with cheap plastic recorders and play Hot Cross Buns.