One of Chihuly's repeated themes is brightly colored spheres in and around a small boat. This one is located in the Japanese garden area. It raises questions. Is it simply a static display or is going somewhere? What is the nature of the cargo? Why have some spheres spilled out? As with so much of art, these questions are up to the viewer.
Our botanical garden has a large geodesic dome called the Climatron. Ingenious interior landscaping and air systems divide the area into four climactic zones. This group is called, I think, Ikebana, after Japanese flower art. It looks to me like it's in a lush tropical garden in, say, Hawaii.
Installations by the glass artist, Dale Chihuly, are ever-popular in this country. A big display opened recently in our botanical garden. There are nineteen pieces, large and small, indoors and out. This one is called Summer Sun. The garden is open some evenings and it was packed last night. More to come.
More weirdness at the City Museum. Beneath the bubble tower on the roof of the building seen yesterday, a fiberglass elephant rears at the sky. There are also some small hippos nearby, wallowing in artificial turf. Just because.
Still on the roof of the City Museum. Note the spiral staircase up the center of this unusual tower and the red signal light on the top. Helicopters occasionally buzz through the area. Note also the school bus on the left. The front half is hanging off the the corner of the building - well-secured but a little scary.
The City Museum has some water features. You can see a tank on the upper right, part of an odd-ball aquarium (almost everything in the City Museum is odd-ball). I don't know if this water tank and huge chain are left over from the building's original use as a shoe factory and warehouse. St. Louis was the shoe-making capital of America before it all went offshore.
Some of the railings in the City Museum are made of old industrial rollers, the type of thing that might carry boxes down hill. The building used to be a shoe factory and warehouse so I assume they came with the property.
Another view from the roof of the city museum. Only one of the buildings seen here is less than 50 years old. It's the one with the blue-green glass, the St. Louis University School of Law. The design of the cornice in the foreground is interesting. It is a unique design and could not be easily seen from the street.
When it's open during the warmer months, my granddaughter Ellie heads straight for the roof of the City Museum. There are tubes and tunnels, as seen yesterday, and a small, antique Ferris wheel. Not much diameter but the structure gives a boost in height over our downtown buildings.
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The kid and I went to the City Museum on Saturday, which has innumerable things for children to climb through, over and under. She obviously enjoyed it.
On a side street in Paris returning from dinner, low light, no explanation available.
Does anyone else remember that Monty Python line? There were times over the past week when I would have endorsed such legislation. At crowded attractions, like here at the Palace of Versailles, not only are you crushed by bodies but now lots of the people hold their arms, hands and phones in the air, further blocking the view. This is but a small example. Sure, people have the right to take phone pictures and, sure, I've done it myself, but, on a mass scale, it makes the experience even more unpleasant. And that's my occasional rant.
Six days on the road and I'm gonna make it home tonight.
We're beat. My SI joints are howling like King Looie's hunting hounds. My balance on stairs needs a gyroscope. My leg and back muscles are as wobbly as quelqu'un qui a bu trop de vin. If you look closely, you may be able to see the double-pupiled eyeballs. I can relate to that. We admit it. We're too damn old for this on-your feet-all-day travel.
We went to Versailles yesterday, which often felt like a human cattle car but with thousands of mobile phones taking bad pictures of things you could see better in the souvenir book. We fly through Philadelphia today and I'm concerned about the connecting time so we may or may not make it home tonight.
L'Atlier des Lumieres - The Workshop of Lights - is our sleeper favorite in Paris. Some brilliant people converted an old iron foundry into a spectacular multimedia space of light and music. It was uncrowded on a Monday morning. Projections of the work of a chosen artist slide and roll and blend around the walls and floor, appearing and disappearing as if at the wave of a wand, perfectly synchronized with clever, unpredictable music. The main show now is Marc Chagall in Paris and New York. It blows you away and we visit every time we're in town.
Tech note: this was shot at ISO 12800 on a 40 MP Fujifilm X-T5. Needless to say, the original was very noisy. The new Denoise AI feature in ACR works fabulously and is much faster than Topaz AI.
Or almost every person who visits the upper floor of the Musee d'Orsay. The place started out as a railway station and has a clock tower. I've taken and posted versions of this image on other visits there.
Louvre Madness Part ... So, yeah, we went there yesterday because that's one of the things everybody does here, even us after many visits to the city. It's exhausting. It's finally hit us that after decades of travel, now that we are well into our 70s, we are just not up to urban forced marches any more. Despite having bought five day Metro passes, I'm running up a serious Uber bill. Doesn't do a bit of good for street photography.
It may be just because we are older, but Paris seems more difficult. Worse traffic because of laws giving right of way to pedestrians, bicycles and scooters (not that it's a bad idea). More trash. But I'd rather be here than back home.
We went to the Pantheon yesterday, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panth%C3%A9on, the temple to the memory of those who France considers its most important citizens, and found the cenotaph of Josephine Baker, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker. Born in St. Louis, she was a singer, dancer and actress of extraordinary talent. She left the U.S. for France because of racism and became a huge star and a French citizen. She played a significant role for the resistance in World War II, receiving many civilian and military honors. She has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame but this monument is more moving.
And in case you've been wondering, we have been eating well.
This afternoon: Louvre Madness.
Toto and Kevin McCarthy, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.
Peace out and good vibes at the People's Joy Parade. When this post goes up we should be about 4.5 hours out of Paris.
At least that's what it looks like to me, considering that I have no context for interpretation. Participants at the People's Joy Parade dress as their imagination directs them. I, for example, dress as this old, slightly stooped guy in dark colors to avoid attention. It usually works.
It's travel time. Paris tomorrow afternoon.
Well, I guess nothing rhymes with that, but it was still wonderful to see. A dad with two daughters, the younger maybe 6, the older perhaps 11, all on unicycles rolling with the People's Joy Parade. Having that kind of sense of balance is something beyond my imagination.
It's the first weekend of May and time for a uniquely St. Louis event, the People's Joy Parade. It was founded I don't know how many years ago by local artist Sarah Paulsen. Every strange person who wants to march, roll or ride is welcome, and they seem to get a little stranger every year. This group, seen in the staging area, calls itself the Psychedelic Society of St. Louis. More to come.
Still in the Bevo neighborhood. The Bosnian Chamber of Commerce is going strong. Caffe Milano is down and out. Times and neighborhoods change.
The graphical effect of apartment mailboxes on a building on Gravois Avenue, the main drag through the Bevo neighborhood. I like the rhythm and color. The boxes are obviously not secure and I wouldn't want any checks sent there.
Not all of the Bevo neighborhood has benefited from the Bosnian revival. I assume this is a closed and boarded-up bar. The choice of color is unusual. The graffiti is weird too. I think the white lettering spells out GATOR and the light black letters PRESSURE. Strange enough, but OATMEAL?
During the horrors of the Balkan war in the early to mid 90s, about 40,000 Bosnian refugees were resettled in St. Louis. The city proper, with its declining population, welcomes immigrants, who provide vibrancy and economic growth.
Most of them came to the area around the Bevo Mill, seen on Sunday. The area, now often called Little Bosnia, was in decline but now is full of new businesses, restaurants and, importantly, homeowners. The neighborhood has rebounded. The structure seen here is a replica of The Sebilj in Sarajevo, a kiosk-shaped fountain. There was no water running last weekend but it marks the ongoing cultural ties. Interesting discussion at https://www.wikiwand.com/en/History_of_Bosnian_Americans_in_St._Louis .
We have a good art museum for a city our size that seemed like an obvious choice for today. But lots of cities have an unusual collection that's worth a visit. This is one of ours. It's debatable whether a national blues museum belongs in the Mississippi delta, Memphis or Chicago but somebody took the initiative here. The displays are very well done and there is a performance space where you can hear the genuine stuff.
