OH THE PEOPLE YOU'LL MEET

Articans can be fairly characterized as free spirits. That's a big part of what Artica is about. There were so many diverse and interesting people at the dinner and hang-out Thursday that it reminded me of a certain Dr. Seuss fable.   

By the way, his white pants were also tie dyed. But different.       

EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK

My friends Lohr Barkley and Carrie Goodson are the propelling force behind Artica. For the last several months they have hosted a creatives pot luck dinner on the last Thursday of the month at the old brick building they are renovating into their home. It was very pleasant last night, not so common at this time of year. Several people brought musical instruments. Celebrate summer. That can of PBR didn't hurt.

I have more good images if I can find time to edit them. I am shooting the Grand Center Theater Crawl tonight and tomorrow. Sunday is the Pride Parade, the don't miss photo op of the year. Then we get into the Fourth of July stuff, with the enormous Fair St. Louis downtown and a more manageable festival in Webster Groves, the suburb where we live. Sometimes I complain about lack of material. Soon I'll have enough to blow out my hard drive.

THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE

Sorry no post yesterday. Way too much work interfering with the finer things in life. But who remembers that old song? It sounds pretty corny today but it's a cultural artifact.

The performance of Circus Flora ended with a long performance by the trapeze artists. Some of the stunts seemed to border on the reckless but they pulled off each one with precision. This is a so-so picture of them. I wish I had, and had permission to use, a tripod. I wish I had brought my heavy f2.8 telephoto lens instead of my lighter f4. I wish I knew more about color correction in Photoshop. Still, there is a bit of the flavor here.

           

HEADS UP

More images from Circus Flora. A young man with what I assume is a deliberately wacky hairdo avoids a club on the nose. In the middle, a multi-talented woman entertains the crowd with an electric violin while entwined in cords high above the floor. Below, the same dancer-acrobats we saw yesterday strike a pose that reminds me of a scene from Bob Fosse's All That Jazz.                

UNDER THE BIG TOP

One of the nice things about The Lou is that we have our own permanent circus company, Circus Flora. It's been around for 33 years and has its own sophisticated big top tent in the Grand Center arts and education district. I had never been there but we took Ellie on Saturday.

What fun! It was a long show with many acts, all performing feats that you and I could never dream of doing. Plus a little comedy thrown in. More of this to come.