The Eclipse

 

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Fringe programming for the following special report:

The weather forecast was dicey: partly cloudy, a chance of showers. Some friends who have a country house between St. Clair and Sullivan hosted a big viewing party. It was an ideal location. Clouds started to pass by before the eclipse began, creating anxiety. Then it cleared, leaving nearly perfect conditions. The experience was mystical.

The pink-purple spots at about 1 and 4 o'clock in the first photo are Bailey beads, sunlight refracted around mountains and valleys at the moon's edge. The color shows the presence of helium when run through a spectrograph and proved the existence of that element in the sun.

We heard that you could use a kitchen colander like a multi-eyed pinhole camera. It works.

 

On The Exhale

Elizabeth Ann Townsend was the sensation of the 2016 Fringe in her one-woman play, Count Time. She is back this year in On The Exhale, playing the role of the mother of a second grader murdered in a Sandy Hook-type massacre. In her grief, she is drawn to the awful weapon that killed her son and actually buys one. The semi-automatic weapon, which has a fierce recoil, is best fired on the exhale. She comes to suspect that when it comes to gun violence, we're all part of the problem. Powerful stuff.              

Snow White

I took pictures at four shows yesterday plus the outdoor family day activities and kinda went overboard. The big event was ERA Theatre's Snow White, which was quite a spin on the Disney and Brothers Grimm versions. Snow White herself dresses in passionate red. There is an evil stepsister who doesn't have a good bone in her body and a bubble-blowing prince charming. Oh, and seven very tall dwarves. And a gigantic fruit salad. And a plot twist at the end.

It was a visual candy store. So many more good shots I could edit. But it's back to work at the festival for me shortly.        

Friday Night At The Fringe

First night of shows at the St. Lou Fringe Festival. I have so much to edit. I'm going to try to post one photo from each show ASAP and then go back for other good ones when  time permits.

Top: Matthew Marcum in a one man show that explores the artistic technique of Jackson Pollock through a collage of personal quotes, extended vocal techniques and pulsating music. Film clips of Pollock painting were shown on the wall behind him. It blew me away.

Center: a one act musical comedy called Liberals vs Zombies vs Conservatives. The stereotypes are easy to spot. In the end, both sides unite in the face of global apocalypse. Make you think of any other situation?

Bottom: Brittanie Gunn performs a very unusual monologue called Hot For TREX. She portrays a writer of what is called dino-erotica, with novels including Hung Like A Dinosaur, The Flirtatious Period and Getting Dino-Sore. (I'll leave the rest to your imagination.) She tracks down people who have written blistering online reviews of her work and tears into them without mercy.  

Five shows to shoot today plus an outdoor family day. Oy.          

Pigeon in a bad place

.

This is the first time (fortunately!) I've ever seen a pigeon on the shopping carts just outside our town's Shufersal supermarket.
It was standing on the slot where you put in your 5-shekel coin deposit.
The poor bird looked like it could not fly, as if its tail was too short or something not quite right.
Poor thing. . .
.
(Linking to Camera Critters.)
.