Skating With Santa

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Every December Steinberg Ice Rink in Forest Park sets aside a couple of Saturdays for a Skating With Santa event. I seem to get around to photographing it about every other year.

The same charming gentleman plays the role year after year, and he's good at it. For one thing, he can ice skate. (I can't ice skate, or ski, or snowboard, or even hit a %^$@^ golf ball, for that matter.) He's been on the blog before. The creepy thing is that his name is John Crowe, my father's name. My father may have known how to ice skate but I never saw him do it. Never wore red velvet and ermine to his job in New York's Financial District, either. If someone did that today, they might end up in the New York Times' fashion section.

Santa On Skates

Problem: what can you shoot for your blog when there's been a cold drizzle for a week and the city looks like the outside of a haggis? I look through the weekly "What's On" section of our Thursday newspaper for ideas. There it was, in small print at the bottom of a column: Steinberg Skating Rink, Saturday 1 to 3 PM - Skating with Santa. Bingo. Photographer's treasure.

Santa saw me taking pictures and came over to the rail to pose with this beautiful little girl. I got chatting with her mother and Santa himself. They asked for my card (every photographer needs a couple of sets of Moo Cards, great mini-cards with an assortment of your pictures on one side). When he saw my card, Santa told me his last name was the same as mine - a not unheard of Irish surname but not very common (think of an Australian actor). I asked him his first name. Exactly the same as my father's. Creeped me out. But then I went to a great Hanukkah party last night. It brought me back around.

TOMORROW: Steel Jaws Of Destruction

I Didn't Know They Were Acquainted

Santa and Ms. Missouri seem to be on very friendly terms. If I were an old guy with snow-white hair I'd find this exciting. Actually, I'm not that far off but I dress better than Santa.

The whole Ms. America/Ms. Missouri (formerly Miss) thing is pretty awful. I remember watching Miss America as a kid and thinking it embodied unattainable elegance. There was an evening in a cousin's living room in Ireland when the whole family, young and old, watched the local equivalent, the Rose of Tralee Pageant, with rapt attention. But really. It's such an out-of-it vision of women and their place in society. Makes me think of Frank Zappa's Suzy Creamcheese.        

Do You Believe In Santa Claus?

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There was an interesting and diverse crowd on the ice at Steinberg Rink last weekend. The young woman in the top picture proclaims that she still believes in Santa. And why not? He was right there, skating with everybody else. Maybe she shouldn't be so confident, for reasons we shall discuss in tomorrow's post.

WHAT I'M FINALLY USING: Photoshop CS4. I've had the new version on my computer for two or three months but I've been intimidated about using it - there are some important changes. However, I got the excellent, concise book, Adobe Photoshop CS4: Up To Speed by Ben Willmore, which is only about what's changed since CS3. Very, very useful. Lots of good new features in CS4. Wow, is the sharpening better!

TOMORROW: We accuse Santa!

My Strange Family

Weird Crowe family tradition: this ornament has hung over the Christmas dinner table for 40 years, first at my father's house and now my sister's. Someone spins and spins the string, then lets go. When the ornament stops turning, whoever Santa faces will have bad luck in the new year. Everyone calls him Evil Santa. Did I say we go through a lot of wine in this family?

Below, quality family time - a niece, spouse and brother sucked into their iPhones.

Every family has ups and downs but this one has had less than its share of bad luck. I am the oldest of four siblings. We are all still alive. We are all still on our first marriages. Everyone graduated from college, and there is a Ph.D., an M.B.A. and a J.D. sprinkled around the group. We all still like each other and make an effort to get together a couple of times a year. We turned out okay.

Skating With Santa 2008

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Little did I know before I started a city daily photo blog, but every year around this time kids can go skating with Santa at Steinberg Ice Rink in Forest Park. I went for the first time last year and got some good shots - see them here. The weather was milder and it was much more crowded this time but I still got a few good ones. What's weird is that when Santa and I got chatting last year we found we had the same last name; his first and last name is the same as my father. He remembered me, calling out, "Hi, Mr. Crowe!" and I replied, "Hi, John!"

My wife and I scour the newspaper for community events I can shoot. So much more going on in this town than I realized.

TOMORROW: all of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names.

Madeleine Monday: At Element, Powell Symphony Hall And Meeting Santa

Yes, it's time for my favorite moppet, out for a whirl this weekend. Top, the guest of honor with mom Emily at Element Friday night. (She's always the guest of honor.) Middle, her first visit to Powell Symphony Hall with daddy Brian (that's grandpa's girl - I didn't get to Carnegie Hall until I was, I think, 12 or 13) for this weekend's performance by Circus Flora with the St. Louis Symphony. Bottom, first face-to-face encounter with Santa at a church Christmas pageant. Getting pretty worn out by that point. Second and third pictures by Emily, iPhone and Canon 5D Mark II, respectively.

The child does not lack for stimulation.                          

Elves, Maybe

The people at Santarchy were encouraged to dress in something Santa-ish. I didn't have a costume so I wore a red shirt, sweater and jacket. Lohr gave me a Santa hat. Fortunately, no one took my picture (that I know of).

You could be an elf. Santa has elves, right? I'm sure that was the man's intention. The woman's costume was perhaps an interpretation.

Taken at Yaquis restaurant and bar on Cherokee Streer. Big windows facing east, good in the afternoon.  

'Twas The Night After Christmas

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What? You weren't good all year? It's not just that Santa won't leave goodies. After a brief rest from his delivery duties, there's a story that Santa makes a second round, wielding a purple pick axe in retribution to the bad.

Well, nah, I just made that up. This is something from Artica. Santa here and a companion in a florescent-colored mask were reciting and acting out a long 1916 Dadaist poem, The First Celestial Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher by Tristan Tzara. It was pretty bleeping bizarre. I think I'll work in a bit more of this.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

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There is an annual skating with Santa event at venerable Steinberg Rink in Forest Park.  We'll get jolly St. Nick himself in here shortly, along with his eerie connection to me. For today, we will look at small girls learning to skate and having a good time at it.

Significant news in our family last night. We learned that our first grandchild is expected in late summer. I'll be 63, so about time. Grace, that proposed trip to Australia in August is right out.
 

Fox & Friends

I didn't see anyone dressed like this in the frigid Mississippi after I arrived but I suspect the event began before the advertised hour of noon. There was a picture in the Post-Dispatch yesterday taken from the back of someone water skiing in a Santa suit. I didn't see it. But was it this man? The suit doesn't look soaking wet.

A couple of the TV stations always show up with reporters and camera operators. You can see them milling around below. (New Year's is usually a slow news day.) The local Fox outlet got an interview with the person who would have played Santa in Frozen if Santa had appeared in Frozen. No Fox in this household. We watch MSNBC.   

BTW, that skin color and tone is a nice example of what the Fuji X-T2 can do. My 5DM3 would have put too much magenta in the face and coat.   

Transition From Costa Rica To St. Louis

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A quick post from the Miami airport on the way home. This gentleman was in harm's way in the street during the horse parade in Santa Cruz. There were hardly any Americans around the town. The only U.S. sports gear I saw was this, one Boston Red Sox hat and my Cardinals cap. For my home town readers, this was a David Eckstein shirt. How long was he with the Cards, two years? I suppose being World Series MVP was worth his visit.

Sincere apologies to my CDP for the lack of comments this week. We've been touring our booties off. We normally return from a vacation more tired than when we left. That's the way we like it. Carpe diem. Back to normal later today in frozen STL.

Since we just returned from the warmth of Costa Rica, Downtown St. Louis 365 has something from last year's sunny Hispanic Festival.

Thursday Arch Series (Christmas Edition)

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Merry Christmas From St. Louis

Here we are, near the end of another year. Santa advises us to "wine a bit - you'll feel better," a concept endorsed by some of our CDPB colleagues (you know who you are). I must have been a good boy all year, 'cause look what was under my tree! (Below. left.) Well, actually we don't have a tree - haven't had one since the kids moved out. That's not important to us. We have each other.

I am grateful that my wife and I and our two children are all together today; that we are all healthy; that we all have jobs; that the mortgage or rent is all up to date and that there's enough left over for a couple of bottles of that stuff Santa is pushing. We don't need no stinkin' tree.

WHAT HAPPENED ON OUR QUEST FOR AN OPEN RESTAURANT LAST NIGHT: our favorite Vietnamese restaurant was closed, too. There is a stretch of South Grand Avenue with a regular United Nations of ethnic restaurants. We ended up at Mangia Italiano, happy as can be. They were busy! Two of the five lawyers in my office are Jewish so I asked their advice earlier in the day. Get Chinese carry-out and go to a movie, they both told me. Now there's a Christmas tradition.

TOMORROW: winter whirl.

There is a new Arch photo today on GATEWAY.
It's kinda cheesy but you might like it.
Oh, and a story! Everybody loves a story.

Tracking Santa's Progress

Despite the idiotic partial government shutdown, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, will continue to track Santa's progress from the North Pole across the nation. Not sure, but this image could have been from last year's mapping system or this year's Garden Glow display at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Temporarily Tamarindo: Adventure!

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What a day. I took something over 1,100 snaps. Three-quarters are junk but there are some gems in there. We took a boat ride up the Palo Seco estuary, enjoying the mangrove swamp environment and looking for wildlife. We went ashore at one point, searching for howler monkeys. viz., the chap above.

There is a big regional festival this weekend in the town of Santa Cruz, an indeterminate distance east of here over some muy malo roads. This is cattle country, Central American division, and there were close to 700 cowboys and girls in the horse parade. The horse traffic jam was as bad as going into New York through the Lincoln Tunnel on Monday morning. even if there was no toll. This rider took pity on his horse and offered to share his cerveza with it.

Returning after dark, there was a serious traffic accident on the dirt road back to Tamarindo. In the US the police would have moved it to the side and let traffic pass slowly. Here, la policia completely blocked the road. In the best of my weak Spanish I asked an officer how long the delay might be. Una hora, mas o menos. I got that. I asked if hay una otra ruta a Tamarindo. The policeman consulted with a colleague. Es muy complicado, he told me. Check.

Then a taxi driver carrying some Americans back to Tamarindo offered to let me follow him through the back roads around the blockage. Well, that would be great, but, um, you aren't taking us to the banditos headquarters, are you? No, he was just being helpful. We have a GPS with a Costa Rica map and, at one point, we were in a completely black, uncharted zone. But here we are, back at the condo, after one of the best meals we've had in a long time at Carolina's. More about that tomorrow, I hope.

It's 1 AM as I finish this. Downtown St. Louis 365 will go up when I regain consciousness.

Love On Ice

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Look at the expression on the young man in the top photo, looking at the camera looking at him. Do you think he enjoys teaching?

The bottom couple look like models. Lessons have been learned here but more are still to come. Hard to see in this version but she has quite a rock on her left hand.   

SLAM

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SLAM is a bit of a hard acronym for the St. Louis Art Museum, more suited to professional wrestling than aesthetics. Still, it's a really good regional museum and it had some happy news this week. A major expansion of the museum was put on hold 13 months ago because of the financial crisis. The Board just decided to go forward with the project, all financing in place. At a time when almost no American art museums can afford to grow, SLAM is adding 30% to its exhibition space and a 300 car underground garage. Yay for us.

THE PICTURE THAT GOT AWAY: I was sitting in the lobby of a suburban office building, talking to a client, waiting to start his Social Security disability hearing (that's what I do). There was an odd metalic sound coming from outside. As it got closer it hit me - jingle bells! A man came in wearing full Santa Claus regalia. As someone else engaged him in a brief conversation I whipped out my point-n-shoot and took a couple of quick shots. They were awful - the ISO was set to 3200. The Santa impersonator said he was there for an appointment with his psychiatrist in the same building. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the appointment.

Thursday Arch Series

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I took this picture right after U "R" Us and I finished shooting the new blog header. (By the way, he's put up some hilarious posts about Santa Kong in Chicago, which he describes as "Chicago's oldest and most heralded Whiskey Santa Rampage.") I gotta tell ya, this is one cool monument to live around. With our terrible suburban sprawl, I bet a great part of the populace hasn't seen it in person for ages. Mostly just on TV or the logo of about every third local business (including our firm's web site, but at least that's my photo).

Weekend Project: I'm going to try to resurrect Gateway, my all-Arch photo blog that has been dormant for almost four months. I was trying to shoot new material for it and this weekly feature and I just don't have time. But, since that blog is only there to glorify the big wicket, there is no reason I can't post Arch pix shown here in the past or anything else in my archives. I'll make a note if I get it done.

Santa Stands Accused!

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These two children appear to be fingering Santa as the culprit, but why? Is he guilty of wage and hour violations in the elves' sweatshop? Shipping huge amounts of loot internationally without the necessary customs licenses? Failure to record a flight plan with the Federal Aviation Administration? I couldn't tell from this distance but just look at his guilty expression. Later, I saw him flashing gang signs with this bro from the hood, pictured below. Something fishy was going on.

WHAT I'M READING: Salman Rushdie's most recent novel, The Enchantress of Florence. Rushdie plays the English language like Horowitz played the piano. The book is riveting (to old Strangetastes, anyway). It is coming out in paperback in the US in early January if you want to save a buck or two.

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series and also a new Arch photo on Gateway.

Christmas Day In The Lou

This is the ghost of Christmas present. Chilly and damp. Fog, thicker and thicker as you approach the river. Not approved by Charles Dickens, Santa Claus or Macy's. But, hey, it's home and we're together.

Top to bottom: Forest Park, Maryland Plaza, Citygarden.