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Necessity - or desperation - is the mother of invention. I am so out of material and ideas.

Amtrak In The Sun

 

A passenger train crosses over Broadway on its way to Chicago. It may be January but it looks like it might melt.

 

Thursday Arch Series

As always, looking for another point of view. This was taken from the old, lonely industrial area south of the Arch and the main highway bridge across the Mississippi.

No idea what the words on the wall on the right mean. And I guarantee you, I've been thinking about it.                         

The Safest Bar In St. Louis

Where to go when you need to drown your sorrows with complete security. In the US, a precinct is a local division of the police department. I don't know if this old building was once a police station but it could have been. Maybe cops hang out there when off duty. Can't say - I've never been in it. The logo resembles a St. Louis police department badge.

Jim Edmonds, the principal owner of the place, was a star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. He wore the number 15. Edmonds was so full of energy and enthusiasm that he was sometimes called Jimmy Baseball.                      

                    

Put On Your High Heel Sneakers

Anybody remember the old blues song, Put on your hi-heel sneakers and you wig hat on your head ? I guess this is where you go for equipment in our town. 

It's just down Olive Street from the location of yesterday's picture but I've never noticed it before. There were certainly customers coming in and out.  What could you find that suits your style?                        

We Could Use Some

Found in a restaurant window downtown, the flag of the City of St. Louis with its fleur-de-lys turned into a peace sign. The actual flag looks like this:

                

It represents the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi, our French founders and Spanish rule of the territory before that. (There's a bit of a story behind it.) But with the vibrations of Ferguson still stirring the area, the way it's affecting people and the impact it has had on the region's business, peace would be welcome.            

Rock Bottom

When the Hard Times Lounge goes out of business things are really bad. Nobody loves you when you're down and out. Found along Olive Street on the western edge of downtown.                                       

Princess

Madeleine is going to her first birthday party today. The daughter of a friend is turning three. All the little girls around here are way into the Disney movie Frozen and the strong princess look. That's going to be the theme. Here, Killian the dog and Ellie's toy sheep watch the dress rehearsal.

Make Or Break

A trio of break dancer/acrobats/comedians in the small amphitheater to the south of Jackson Square in NOLA. They had a huge crowd. That guy in the third picture puts U.S. Marine exercise drills to shame. Wonder if they have a team chiropractor.                                 

Viva La Liberta

Libertine Don Giovanni might have enjoyed Bourbon Street, New Orleans' center for people who want to seriously misbehave. The second picture is of a very dirty car. The message seems to be Hello Kitty, kiss my ass. The, um, person in the third picture was seen a few minutes later handing out flyers for a transvestite show. The bottom picture expresses an essential Louisiana attitude.

All of the N.O. pictures posted this week were shot last Sunday afternoon and evening. After a big dinner with my colleagues that night I got smacked with a nasty and sudden stomach bug. Gradually getting better but imagine, going to New Orleans and losing weight. Haven't gotten any comments written on my friends' blogs but I'll shape up now that I'm home.                    

Ho Hum, Another St. Louis Cathedral

I've been in three St. Louis Cathedrals. Back home, of course, Versailles and this one in New Orleans. Worth a visit if you are in town - it's right on Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter. There were a lot more tourists than the devout when we were there.                         

Birthplace Of Jazz

There are lots of street performers in New Orleans' French Quarter. Many of them are of a very high standard. This group was playing traditional Dixieland jazz in the street between St. Louis Cathedral (yes, they have one, too) and Jackson Square.                      

Coffee With Chicory

Hi y'all from Nawlins, Louisiana. I actually have work to do the next couple of days but Mrs. C and I walked and walked yesterday afternoon. I took somewhere between a lot and way too many pictures. Overwhelming, fabulous dinner at Galatoire's last night. Quick post, to bed, and up to work today.

This is the renowned (to the tourists, anyway) Cafe du Monde, where they serve beignets, puffy fried pastries coated in powdered sugar, with coffee flavored with chicory. It's a great local tradition, although I'll take my Italian roast, please.

Much more to come.
   

Electric Flag

Flag on the Purina building, seen through a power substation.

Back in the late 60s, when I was in college, there was a famous group called the Electric Flag, led by guitarist Mike Bloomfield, formerly of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. I went home during summer vacations at St. Louis University and caught some performances at the Fillmore East in NYC with high school friends. We saw the EF in June 1968. The second half of the program started very late. The kids started yelling and booing. Eventually Bill Graham came on stage. "Shut up!" he yelled back. "I've got bad news and good news. The bad news is that Mike Bloomfield is sick. He's not gonna make it." BBBOOOOO! "The good news is that we got someone good to play the set. You're gonna like it so sit down."

Another long delay. BBBOOOOO! Eventually, while the stage lights were down, someone with a guitar came onstage, back to the audience. He started playing a rhythm track. What's going on? Then he started playing wilder and wilder.

The stage lights went up and the guitarist turned around. It was Jimi Hendrix. The crowd, as you can imagine, went wild.

Down to the Big Easy today for a business meeting. First pix probably tomorrow.                 

It Doesn't Look Like Much, Does It?

confluence

[kon-floo-uh ns]
noun

1. a flowing together of two or more streams, rivers, or the like:

"the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers."

2. their place of junction:

"St. Louis is at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers."

You wouldn't think it to look at the picture but this is the most important river junction in North America, the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi in the northern part of our area. The Missouri and its swirling ice is in the foreground with the clear Mississippi behind. The view is a bit more dramatic in the old photo of the point of land between the two, taken on the spit in the center of the top picture:

Clearer still on a map. Lotta water,                     

Icecircles

The end of the Missouri River, just before it blends into the Mississippi. At this time of year it's full of ice disks. This happens mostly in North America and Scandinavia. Eddies in slow moving rivers spin the water. Equal temperature on all sides lets the water freeze in rough circles. They spin downstream into the fast-flowing, clear Mississippi.                

Thursday Arch Series

It's the time of the year when we start seeing ice in the Mississippi downtown. Actually, the ice all comes from the Missouri river. The confluence of the two giants is in the north of our metro area. The grade of the Mississippi is so flat from here to the Gulf of Mexico that there are no locks and dams for barge traffic. They start just north of the confluence and break up any ice. The Missouri doesn't have any for quite a way, allowing ice to form.

It's quite striking to see the swirling ice from the Missouri entering the clear-flowing Mississippi. We will come to that shortly. 

By the way, the clear channel on the left of the photo was made by a northbound barge.                         

Where I Work

After I left the pantless crew at Pi I walked back to my office building to get my car. Just a block away. Another International Style office tower, nicely rehabbed in recent years, convenient, reasonably priced. The owner is in the building and he's a really great guy. That's different.

I've been going to an office almost every day for 40 years. It may stop in two or three years. I wonder how it will feel.                   

Captain Morgan, I Presume?

So all the goofy sans-culottes climbed out of the subway downtown into the winter night air and headed into Pi, a sort of upscale pizza joint. I don't think they were expected but they were welcomed anyway, uniform of the day notwithstanding.

One of the participants was dressed up like Captain Morgan, without the pirate trousers, of course. It's the name of a popular brand of flavored rum. (Never tasted it. I'll have a Carneros pinot noir, thank you.) Pictures of the captain always show him standing in the same pose, with the left foot on the side of a rum barrel. Name your poison.                            

Just Another Commute

Ho, hum. Let's ride downtown on MetroLink again, only this time with bare legs in the middle of January. That'll wake you up better than a triple espresso.

Sponge Bob No Pants

Okay, that was just a hook. This is a bit of mid-winter madness done on transit systems in cities around the world. This is the third or fourth year in The Lou. People do have gym shorts or swim bottoms or whatever - there are certain city ordinances. They hop on the MetroLink train with, um, insufficient insulation for the time on year on their lower halves, much to the amazement or amusement of the other passengers. Some of them pretend that it's just an ordinary day, nothing special.

It ended up at a fancy pizzeria downtown, conveniently located a block from my office. More to come.                            

Cheapo

I suppose that the plunge in gasoline prices affects most of the world. Missouri has some of the lowest prices in the country. This is a low-tax, low-service state.  Actually, the price has popped back up a bit. When I filled up at this station the day before this picture was taken the price was $1.75 per gallon.

For our European readers, the price in this photo is about € 0.425 per litre. Damn few Caddilac Escalades on the Périphérique.                     

Cold Day, Empty Park 4

Tennis, anyone? The last of this series. Based on the week's visits I should go back to color. Desparately need new material.
           

Thursday Arch Series

So Mrs. C sends me a text in the late afternoon - look at the sunset colors! Well, um, since our firm moved a year ago my office is in a northeast corner. We used to get some rip-snorting sunset views from our old building, like this. No more. Well, just look to the south, she said. Really can't do even that from my windows, but I had the little Olympus and craned around the desk as far as I could.

This is what I found, with the orange light reflecting off the windows of an apartment building and the Arch itself.                                         

Cold Day, Empty Park 3

Nil - nil.                    

Cold Day, Empty Park 2

 

Still cold and empty in Forest Park, now at a golf course. I did these in color because of the zoyzia grass in its winter tan. This is a very thick variety, perfect for fairways and resistant to the heat of our summers. It turns a light golden brown at this time of year.

No one there. You can have any tee time you want. Coldest day in a year predicted for tomorrow, with a forecast high of 10F/-12C.