Artica always ends on Sunday night with the burning of the wooden effigy of Our Lady of Artica. Although I have hundreds of pictures from this weekend I have to cut to the big finale for the sheer drama of it. The structure is perhaps 10 meters high. It was a perfectly clear night and we wondered what the passengers in the planes flying overhead thought when they looked out the window.
Lots more of this ti come. Ya know, there's a lot going on in this town if you know where to look.
Seen in the Audience at Artica yesterday afternoon. Who says this is boring Midwestern fly-over country?
The big burn is tonight. Lots more to come.
Artica 2021, Brave New Harmony, starts today and continues through tomorrow night. https://articastl.com/artica-2021-brave-new-harmony It's STL's premier alternative arts festival. Performance, constructions, interactive whimsy and fun for kids begins at mid-day today. The traditional everyone's-invited parade is at 1:11 PM and the spectacular end comes after dark tomorrow when Our Lady of Artica, seen above, is put to the torch. It's tucked into a corner of the North Riverfront. Set your nav app for the William A. Kerr Foundation and you'll get there.
A week or so ago, the wonderful people I work with had a retirement luncheon for me. The core of us have been together for more than 30 years. One of the nice things they gave me was a substantial Amazon gift certificate. I told them that before the day was done it would be used to benefit a certain Japanese manufacturer of optical and electronic goods.
And so, a few days later, a Fujifilm 90mm f 2.8 prime lens arrived. It's something I coveted but wouldn't spend the money on myself. I had to take it out for a test drive, of course, so I went to the usual places in Forest Park. I'm very happy with the focus and clarity.
Okay, I may be going off the deep end here. While I edit this picture and write this post I've been watching a lectures, if you can call it that, on Zoom by my artistic hero, Laurie Anderson ( https://laurieanderson.com/). I won't try to describe the program. It's impossible. The photo is another from the performance of songbirdsongs with members of the St. Louis Symphony playing ocarinas to imitate owls. It made me think of Anderson's song Monkey's Paw, which contains the a line with the words in the caption. You can listen to it at https://youtu.be/4S8rtxPmHTA.
