Keep St. Louis Freaky

There are some parts of our metropolitan area that are godawful boring. Soulless, seemingly endless suburban subdivisions. Shopping plazas off the city streets, housing the same numb franchises. Walmarts that spread to the horizon. Makes me think of Frank Zappa's Hungry Freaks. 

But it's not all like that. We are fortunate to have a strong undercurrent of weirdness, more visible in the city proper. This bit is a tiny, wacky park at the entrance to the riverfront trail that starts north of the Arch. It was designed by the late Bob Cassilly, founder of our very, very strange - and delightful - City Museum. Work on the site seems to have stopped after Cassilly's death but it still radiates the spirit of an artist who refused to be defined.

So much to shoot in the coming days. There are two St. Patrick's Day parades this weekend. The city's is on Saturday and it's huge. There is a smaller one, less flashy but somehow more sincere, that is always on March 17. Since that's Sunday this year I get to shoot it. It's run by an organization that calls itself The Ancient Order Of Hibernians in a neighborhood with the picturesque name of Dogtown.  Then there's a quick business trip to New Orleans on Tuesday - work in the morning but the afternoon and evening free to shoot. Whew.