Over the years, my City Daily Photo colleague Steffe has posted a series of beautiful photos of an ancient tree near where he lives outside of Stockholm. The Missouri Botanical Garden has a magnificent, tall specimen (I’m ashamed that I don’t know the species) that is lit in the same way year after year. It looks ghostly, not in tune with the season’s cheery theme. Again, I can’t imagine the work it took to put all those lights up so precisely.
Groups of illuminated trees at Garden Glow. My first association was that they were being consumed by a magical fire. Then I thought they were being attacked by a swarm of radioactive fireflies.
A new display at Garden Glow, a flock (is that the right word for butterflies?) moving through the darkness. The reason for the sort of pretentious title is that, for some of us here, everything sounds better in French.
Much of the attraction at Garden Glow is the swirling, brightly colored lights. There is something to be said, though, for simply pattern. I thought black and white might be the best way to express it.
Another set of lights at Garden Glow. This one throbs with constantly changing colors and patterns. But there is a different way to approach this subject that I will explore tomorrow.
Just after entering Garden Glow at the Missouri Botanical Garden, visitors are led past a curved line of lights toward the Climatron. It is a geodesic dome containing a complex system of landforms and ventilation that replicates four climate zones.
Every year at this time, the Missouri Botanical Garden lights up the place for the holidays. The technology gets more and more amazing. The view here is across what is a reflecting pool in the warm months, changing color and dancing to music. More to come.
Not in the sense of final, but rather shoe manufacturing. St. Louis once dominated shoe making in the US before it all went offshore. (And we had more big breweries than just Anheuser-Busch, as well as a second - terrible - major league baseball team. It was said that we were first in shoes, first in brews and last in the American League.) This building was the headquarters of the International Shoe Company and a shoe last is a mechanical form shaped like a human foot, used by shoemakers to create and repair shoes. BTW, obscure reference in the title: https://youtu.be/Metv95k5VrY?si=dtWWai1lv9lYEP--
A locally notorious signpost downtown near the nexus of several highways. Imagine being a visitor trying to find your way, approaching this at 30 mph / 50 kph. Good luck.
It may be hard to see depending on the size of your screen, but those are the words over the door of this old, wildly painted commercial building. (14th and Delmar for the locals.) The only other signage indicates storage space. Maybe there is an urban farm on top. If so, the roots seem to go deep.
We have a top-tier symphony orchestra but, this being St. Louis, it rarely sells out. That wasn’t so this weekend, when three performances of Messiah played to packed houses. Baroque master Nicholas Mc Geegan led with a reduced orchestra and chorus appropriate to the time of composition. The crowd went wild.
Most of the first floor of the Old Courthouse contains historical exhibits and it’s very well done. This room is about the building itself. I mentioned that it had been constructed in phases. This model shows the small original structure surrounded by a clear plastic model of what exists now.
Looking straight up in the rotunda of the Old Courthouse. I need to go back with a fish eye lens. I like the gradations of color and how it reminds me of a cross section of the Large Hadron Collider.
The statue of Dred and Harriet Scott I posted yesterday is outside the building we call the Old Courthouse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Courthouse_(St._Louis). It was built in stages during the 19th Century and became the seat of state and federal legal proceedings. It is now part of the National Park system and underwent a big restoration recently. The view is inside the rotunda from the first balcony, which is as far up as they let you go.
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Most Americans have heard of Dred Scott, although I’m afraid that many don’t know the story. Scott and his wife Harriet were enslaved people who had lived in St. Louis when Missouri was a slave state. Their owner moved them for some years to Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was not recognized. Upon their return here they sued for their freedom. It became known as the Dred Scott Case. Its long, complex process resulted in one of the most horrifying decisions in the history of our Supreme Court (although there are modern competitors). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott. This statue stands before the local courthouse where the litigation began. |
St. Louis Union Station is across the street from the fountain and sculptures seen yesterday. It was opened in 1894 and was at the time the largest railway station in the world. (We used to be somebody.) Passenger rail service is long gone. Much of it is now a fancy hotel. Out behind contains restaurants and amusements. We are grateful that it has been preserved.
It’s unusual in recent years for us to get snow this early, but when it happens I think I should do something with it. Igor Mitoraj’s Eros Bendato in Citygarden.
There is a magazine here called Out In STL, serving the LGBTQ+ community. They have an annual event called The Luminary Awards. My friend, Matthew Kerns, received major recognition and invited me and Mrs. C as his guests. Matt is president and artistic director of the St. Lou Fringe, seen in these pages every summer. (I’m the president of the board of directors and house photographer.) The event was by turns moving and a hoot. Here, some members of the local chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence help get things rolling.
More aftermath of last week’s fire. Brick can collapse when the support behind it burns away. Concrete stands. The small building in the foreground, although close to the collapsed structure, survived.
While we were away last week a five alarm fire broke out in an area of old, vacant warehouses south of the Arch. The fire and smoke ball was so big it showed up on weather radar. The district was to be part of a big redevelopment project, whose future is now uncertain. I went by yesterday to see what was visible in the snow.
Airports, especially big ones, are best avoided when it snows. Unfortunately, that can’t always be avoided when traveling for family events. This is what part of the departures board looked like on Saturday. The airline put us on a flight at mid-day Sunday, although there were still many cancellations. It got us home, if 2.5 hours late. At that point we didn’t care. It’s been snowing here all day on Monday as I write this.
Not a lot of furry, fuzzy things around our house except granddaughter Ellie’s huge mountain of stuffies. The one living exception is Gizmo, the family cat. We all wish we could be this serene.
Adventures in winter travel. As each flight from Chicago to St. Louis yesterday was canceled we were put on another, which was then canceled. Eventually all of them. Our flight from Flint, Michigan, to Chicago amazingly got through - seven hours late. It was still snowing at O’Hare when we got this far. Found a hotel and now booked on a noon flight Sunday. Success to be determined.
The grandchildren we don’t get to see often enough, Josie, above, and Audrey, below. We were out Christmas tree shopping.
We may or may not get home today. Chicago, where we change planes, is having a snowstorm. The airline canceled one of our flights already but booked us on another. Report to follow, possibly with photos of O’Hare chaos.
Tough winter travel day yesterday. Ice in the morning and mid-day in Chicago messed up everything at O’Hare. Skipping the details, we missed our connection but there was space on a late flight that got us into Flint, Michigan, about 11:30 PM. Too late to drive to our son’s city. Fortunately, the car rental desk stayed open for us and I found a hotel room near the airport. Flint was once a big auto manufacturing city. General Motors was founded here, but all that is gone. Tough times since.
It’s been right at six months since a tornado swept through parts of St. Louis. It cut across the northwest corner of Forest Park and moved into residential neighborhoods to the north, much of which contained old homes in lower income areas. Here in the park many damaged trees were cut to stumps at ground level. However, one huge tree was toppled and pulled up much of its root ball. Lots of it has not been cleared.
The view from one of the galleries toward the central hall of the St. Louis Art Museum’s central hall, as seen in Saturday’s post. This is one of five massive paintings that are part of the Anselm Kiefer show. The glittering highlights around the figure in the upper center and the words across the top are in gold leaf.
A carefully arranged grove of birch trees outside the entrance to the new wing of the St. Louis Art Museum.
Anselm Kiefer is a giant of contemporary German art. His first major U.S. museum show in 20 years is now at the St. Louis Art Museum. Five huge paintings flank the central hall, with many others in the galleries. He visited St. Louis a number of years ago and some of the work refers to the Mississippi or the Rhein. We’ve going to a walk-through with a docent today.
Granddaughter Ellie’s history class has been talking about ancient Egypt and she wanted to see the examples at the art museum. It was a dank, drizzly day so I stepped out the front door to see how le saint roi was faring. He was impassive.
A bend in a hall in the contemporary wing of the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City. The structure is full of eye-catching shapes, in both the art on display and the architecture itself. The stack on the right is the well-known style of Donald Judd. I didn’t make a note of the simple curve to the left. It’s purple and quite low on the wall, making it hard to interpret.
An iconic view of Kansas City, taken from the hill that contains the Liberty Monument and World War I museum. In the foreground is Union Station, which still gets a few trains but now contains other attractions. Downtown is behind. The four narrow towers at left center support the roof of the convention center.
We got back into Kansas City early Sunday afternoon and headed for the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Its gorgeous new wing slides like a white tentacle down a gentle hill from the old main building. The collection of contemporary art is remarkable and of course, there is a photography gallery.
West of Marysville (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marysville%2C_Kansas), where my wife went to high school, on our way to a 50th anniversary party for her brother and sister-in-law. It was held in the town of Bremen, population 50, where you can rent out the firehouse for events.
Kansas City has America’s major World War I memorial and museum. When I first heard of it I wasn’t that interested - more than a century ago, no connection to my family, etc. Turns out it’s fascinating and well worth a visit if you find yourself in this pleasant city. The sunlight on a cloudless autumn day complements the 1920s architecture.
