SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE

 

A final photo for 2025, one last from Garden Glow. It has been a tumultuous year in this country and I’m not particularly sanguine about the one to come. It’s some comfort, though, to remember how often predictions are wrong. Maybe, like Annie sang, the sun will come out tomorrow. Or maybe not, but I’ll keep observing.                  

NEXT YEAR IN . . .

 

The last day of 2024. I understand that at the end of the Passover seder it is a tradition for the assembled to wish each other “next year in Jerusalem!” I’ve heard Jewish friends use the phrase as a fond farewell. On New Year’s Eve in our house, the toast is “next year in Ireland!” With good health and fortune, that will happen to us. My father’s family is from County Clare in the west. We will be in Dublin on Easter, which could be interesting. 

And we hope to be in some other places next year. Should end up in Costa Rica at some point. We always seem to. Who knows where else? We’re retired. We have time.

So Happy New Year from St. Louis to our friends around the U.S. and the world.                       

A GOOD WAY TO END THE YEAR

Lots of symphony orchestras have special New Year's Eve programs to gin up some fun and extra revenue. Our St. Louis Symphony is one of them. Mrs. C and I haven't been out on this night in decades but this year the SLSO had two performances, one in the evening and a new one at 2 PM. Perfect for sleepyhead old folks.

Our beloved music director, Stéphane Denève, seen on the screen here, put on a program heavy on Gershwin, including the overture to Girl Crazy (all those hits - I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, But Not For Me), An American In Paris and Rhapsody In Blue, all bursting with energy. After intermission we heard Meet Me In St. Louis, the St. Louis Blues March and finally Auld Lang Syne. Damn hard to sing along through a mask.                 

RING OUT THE OLD

Goodbye to 2021, not one to go down in the list of favorites. And for 2022? Predicting the future is an uncertain business and those who try typically fail. Appropriately, the Arch is mostly hidden in fog. Our family will try to live as normally as possible, dodging spike proteins and autocrats.            

GOOD RIDDANCE TO 2020 FROM ST. LOUIS

The levee on the Illinois side of the Mississippi is a minimal barrier to more bad juju rolling into town in the new year. Note the detail on the train engine. 

May your new year be better. CDP theme day tomorrow.         

Ring Out The Old

Pictures from in and around Times Square, New York, where the big glowing ball will drop tonight to mark another click on the meter. Mrs. C and I are usually sound asleep by then. Tomorrow we can wonder about what the new year may bring us. Forecasts are just a matter of probabilities but I can't say I'm optimistic about the future of our species and planet.

I'll do picture or pictures of the year on Thursday, depending on how much self-restraint I can muster. The first choice has already been decided. It's the lead photo in a post from 2014. Free STL DPB print to anyone who can guess.                                 

Blues For 2011

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More entertainment from First Night, the very hot but oddly named Blues Inquisition (All right! Let's give it up for Torquemada on lead guitar!). They played contemporary work, Bo Diddly and a slow country-blues version of the Rolling Stones Satisfaction that kept everyone guessing until the lyrics began. The performance was given in the sanctuary of the grand Third Baptist Church, a place I have never had the opportunity to visit. The show gave new insights on the nature of the sacred and profane.

We got day-glo office buildings today on Downtown St. Louis 365.

First Night

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Like a number of other American cities, St. Louis has a First Night celebration, an all ages, alcohol-free New Year's Eve party with entertainment up and down the Grand Center arts and entertainment district. Mrs. C and I went early and caught some really good acts. Got some good shots, too, which should last me awhile. Except today is the annual New Year's Day water skiing in the Mississippi event, which is a photographer's don't miss. Anyway, this group of very young local acrobats who call themselves the St. Louis Arches played in the auditorium of the old grandiose Scottish Rite Masonic temple. Pretty cool all around.

And Happy New Year to all from STL.

Last Picture Of 2008

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My last usable shot of 2008. We were asleep by 10 o'clock on New Year's Eve, old poops that we have become. The night was perfectly clear and there was an intense crescent moon setting in the early evening. I had to go out in front of my house with my tripod and see what I could get. Well, there is a lot more technique to photographing the moon than I realized, as my results, followed by some on-line research, showed me. Still, this has a certain interest, sort of Hopper-ish, if not much portal appeal.

WHAT WE DID YESTERDAY: my wife and I had an nice New Years lunch together, followed by a visit to the St. Louis Art Museum to see the current show, Action - Abstraction. It's about Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and the American painters of that era. Brilliant stuff.

TOMORROW: my first picture of 2009.