ROSIE

 

I hope I got this straight. One of the nice things about being the Fringe’s photographer is that is that I get to see so many and such a variety of theatrical productions. A downside is that I often pay more attention to gathering images than to the performance itself. If I’m correct, Lili Sheley plays Rosie, the precocious daughter of one of the factory workers. Her mother has died from cancer and her father struggles to support them. She is so smart that she has made a working model of a Model T (I think) engine, without much positive reinforcement. She goes on to play a sad part later in the story.             

THE FRINGE IS BACK

The St. Lou Fringe Festival is beginning its 13th run. Almost 40 shows will run over six days next week. The festival is open to all and uncensored. Many of the shows are chosen by lottery.

Things got going with a new, full-length musical, Big Machine by Fly North Theatricals. The complex story centers on the development of lead additives to gasoline (really) with its poisonous consequences, workers’ rights, capitalism and communism, loneliness, romance and a precocious child. The show will be repeated several times over coming days.                

THE BLUES

The St. Louis Blues Festival takes place tonight and tomorrow. I hope to go by and get some images of the musicians. This is from a few years ago, someone playing a blues harp, a harmonica put to special use. I’m shooting the first show of the St. Louis Fringe Festival tonight.           

STL DPB CAN’T GET OFF THE FARM

 

Because, well, I’m scrounging for material. However, how would you like to end most of your days looking at this? It might be hard to see at this resolution, but I like the row of telephone poles vanishing toward the horizon.

Lots of stuff coming up. There is a free blues festival at the Arch this weekend, and the St. Louis Fringe Festival (I’m the photographer) is about to start.                

STL DPB ON THE FARM - DUSTY ROADS

 

These often-graded gravel thoroughfares in rural Kansas are called county roads. That’s who maintains them and keeps them (mostly) free of washboard ridges. This one runs precisely east-west in front of the family farm. You can see the dust kicked up by an approaching vehicle. Not hard to drive on it this weather, but I have scary memories of an ice storm on Thanksgiving weekend.