I Got Rhythm. Or Onions.

My heart continued to do the jitterbug most of Sunday. It's not as dangerous as it sounds but you'd rather the arrhythmia went away. They had me on an IV of some potion that slows and gradually smooths your heartbeat. Late last night, during my sleep, it went back to normal rhythm. Getting out of the hospital in the next couple of hours. I'll make that plane tomorrow morning.

The pictures are some of the stranger ones from Artica. Some people had baskets of perfect, fresh onions. Never got an explanation why. When most participants floated their little paper or wooden boats down the Mississippi, they threw onions into Big Muddy. Some man was eating one raw. They gave one to Ellie. I'm not getting the symbolism.       

Artica Once Again

Our rather wacky alternative art festival, Artica, is back this weekend. I shot a lot of it on Saturday. Bill Kranz of the black and day-glo troupe The Celestial Theater is always in attendance. The whole experience is hard to describe. More pictures to follow will help explain.

The weekend always ends with the immolation of Our Lady Of Artica, seen below, sort of Burning-Man-On-Mississippi. I'm usually there to shoot it (see here) but I'm back in the bleeping hospital again.  

I sort of worked my way to exhaustion yesterday. I shot at Artica the whole afternoon, walking rough terrain as my back arthritis got worse and worse. Just toughed it out with a few breaks. But then I promised someone I'd shoot an improv festival in the evening. More of the same. Came home exhausted, fell asleep with my clothes on, got up at 1 AM to undress and brush my teeth and I was in a fib, like last April - very rapid, irregular heartbeat. So back to the emergency room. The shocker gadget didn't get me back in normal rhythm this time so I was admitted. Been on an IV all day to slow the pulse and lower pressure. It's doing that but the beat is still irregular. (*&%&!

No other symptoms. They will probably let me go by Monday afternoon or evening. They better. I got a plane to catch Tuesday morning.

       

I Like This One Better

More apocalyptic. Of course, doom is not approaching. Maybe for our species but not this city, this week.

Plus, I'm out of current material. I'll get a ton of new stuff this weekend between Artica and the improv festival I'm shooting tonight. And then there's that prominent left coast city I'm going to next week. Stay tuned.

       

Storm's Coming

From the top of the Arch looking back into the city. Downtown runs a bit wider left ant right than this. You can see a some of the baseball stadium at left center, now surrounded with construction of a new hotel, apartments and office space. The dark skies in the rear moved off to the north/right and never really hit the city center.

We are a medium size city with pluses and minuses.  See the tall building most of the way back, just right of center? It is vacant, and likely to remain so. It was built for a single tenant, AT&T, who moved the operations to Texas. Very hard to re-purpose. As you may have heard, we have Ferguson and all that it implies. On the other hand, we've got the biggest urban park in the US, Forest Park, a bit bigger than either Golden Gate or Central; a thriving arts scene, including a world top tier symphony, theater everywhere you turn and fabulous oddball events like last summer's Fringe and this weekend's indescribable Artica. We've got what may be the best zoo in America  (although San Diego has its partisans) and more interesting restaurants than I can count. There is severe, soulless suburban sprawl, but the old, inner suburbs and the city proper are vibrant.

I'm staying. I'll never retire to someplace else.        

Thursday Arch Series

Haven't had one of these in a while. It felt like I had exhausted the possibilities. Now there are new ones. This is the glass awning over the new entrance I've mentioned the last couple of days.

Had the steroid shot in my back yesterday morning. It takes a few days to kick in. Hope that's by the weekend because there are a couple of big events for me to shoot. First, our off-the-wall alternative arts festival, Artica, (photos from last year here), with its Sunday night Burning Man-ish conflagration of the wooden Our Lady of Artica. Then, on Saturday night, I promised I'd shoot the final evening of the annual three-day Compass Improv Festival. (Locals should go! It's a hoot!) Whew. And I'm on the road again next week (sans infection) to someplace that is, shall we say, picturesque.