Joe

The Pulitzer Arts Foundation is one of the gems of St. Louis. It's not very big and a bit out of the way. It was founded by Joseph Pulitzer III, grandson of Joseph Pulitzer, the New York newspaper baron, and his wife, Emily.  He was for many years the publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Joe and Emily amassed one of the greatest collections of contemporary art in the U.S. The foundation is a center of research and a small, exquisite museum, designed in a very spare style by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

The Pulitzers were good friends of the sculptor Richard Serra. The courtyard of the Foundation contains his massive work Joe, dedicated to the patron's memory. It is a spiral of rust-red steel plate, concerned with space, scale and sky, holding delights around every bend. The last picture gives an overview.     

Madeleine Monday

At the Contemporary Art Museum during the Grand Centre block party.  There was a table covered with silly hats and a sign reading "Selfie Station." The background was, um, busy. Not going to be any selfies while grandpa and his camera are around. She doesn't know how to take selfies yet, thank heavens.

You may have heard the saying that the Queen of England reigns but does not rule. The first picture makes it clear that in Ellie's case it's just the opposite.        

Forbidden

Back in The Lou. This was found in The Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Your guess is as good as mine. Some people - lots of people - have no choice, though. Think about our southern border, about people drifting in the Mediterranean.

Part of out Grand Centre arts and entertainment district had something of a block party yesterday, mostly for kids, including the Contemporary Art Museum, Pulitzer Foundation and Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Gallery. It was unbearably hot on the street, up to 101 F/ 38 C, but the venues had technologically altered climates. More to come.       

Don't Sleep In The Subway, Darlin'

You have to be pretty old to remember that one. It came out just before I graduated from high school, when I rode the subway every day. It was good advice then and still is now. It may be a long ride back around if you miss your stop.

One of the things I like about my Fujifilm camera better than my big Canon DSLR is the flip-out LED screen. It makes it so much easier to take sneaky pictures in public if you don't have to put the big blob to your eye. 

Oh, and happy Bastille Day to our French friends.   

J'accuse

More street pix from Manhattan. Gotta find some new material but there's not much going on this weekend other than baseball games and some dinky Bastille Day celebration tomorrow. Maybe I'll go to a bar and take pictures of people watching the World Cup final on Sunday. Maybe I'll have to take pictures of St. Louis. That would be a little different.   

The Same Old Picture

I'm going back and forth between Theatre Crawl and NYC photos. This is the Nth iteration of the shot of Manhattan approaching La Guardia Airport. The air quality was pretty bad and this has been heavily edited in Photoshop. Still, when you back away from it you can get a sense of how small the island really is, although it seems infinite when you are walking through it.  

When Oprah Says Goodbye

Another production from the St. Louis Theatre Crawl. The company is called A Call To Conscience. The program says that

The play is focused on our aging LGBTQ population.It touches on the realities of aging, oppressive elder care facilities and the consequences of friendship betrayed and rediscovered, as well as the importance of forgiveness.

The woman in the top picture appears to be a long-time resident of a home for the elderly. She is assigned a new roommate, someone who appears to be of a higher economic station. They discover that they were close friends many years ago but the new arrival literally took away the first resident's lover, another woman. That person has died and now they are cast together. There is conflict and resolution between the two but not, as the first woman has a rigid routine, until Oprah says goodbye.