Henry Shaw Would Boggle, Or, Not The Rouen Cathedral

Locals sometimes refer to the Missouri Botanical Garden as Shaw's Garden, after its founder, Henry Shaw. He also donated the land that became Tower Grove Park. The building in these pictures is his home in the middle of what is now the garden.

Shaw could never have conceived of what we saw at his home Saturday night. The Flora Borealis show included spectacular video and laser projections on his house, ever changing and quite unreal. I have no idea how it was done. It made me think of a 21st Century version of Claude Monet's series of paintings of the Rouen (a word that is very hard for English speakers to pronounce correctly) Cathedral. The same building over and over, with each image at a different time of day or weather. Monet used his eyes and a brush. Today we use algorithms.  

The St. Louis Fringe Festival starts tonight. Be there or be square.    

Flora Borealis

There has been a sound/light/laser show going on at the botanical garden all summer. We finally got around to visiting. The name, Flora Borealis, is a bit of a bad pun. There was voiceover throughout, mostly on the theme of be nice to plants, but hardly anyone was paying attention. Everyone was ooh-ing and ah-ing over the spectacular laser effects. It was going on even inside the Climatron. I have no idea how it's done, more about which tomorrow.