We have not seen local character Susan Stone and The Dance of Life in some time. I once wrote a little essay about him/her (you pick). Stone showed up at the Hispanic Festival. The attitude seemed more antagonistic than in the past. Perhaps some day a reporter will discover her back story.
Still inching my way forward through The Lou's September and October events. I've gotten to the Clayton Art Fair, one of our two big outdoor exhibitions, held three weeks ago. Clayton is an inner suburb, seat of St. Louis County and, in a way, a second, sanitized downtown. The work on display there tends to be of a high level of craft and lacking in originality.
The best photos are in the details. Susan Stone was there, of course (she's always there, everywhere). The still life in the second picture was just sitting on a table in front of me. I made no attempt to arrange it but I suspect someone else did.
Oops. After a walk through the St. Louis Art Fair yesterday afternoon, Mrs. C and I went out to a big dinner with daughter Emily and Madeleine. Came home, downloaded the memory card and fell asleep over my laptop. So up and back to work.
Still at the Festival of Nations. The ubiquitous Susan Stone was there. We had a profile of her earlier this year. I don't know if anyone actually understands what she's up to. You might prefer a pic of Madeleine from last night.
This is Susan Stone, or perhaps David Stone, (I'm just going to use the female pronoun.) She has been around for years. You see her at public events where there is live music like the Pagan Picnic. She is a fixture at Earth Day. Stone performs a lumbering, uninhibited improvisation she calls The Dance of Life.
I've photographed her many times before but never did a post about her. My guess was that she had some serious disability and I didn't want to seem to make fun of her. However, I had a chat with the Pagan Picnic house photographer about her. It turns out her story is complicated.
There are thousands of videos on YouTube by and about her. She has a website. It is unclear whether she is a transvestite or transgendered. Someone wanted to make a documentary about her but it looks like the project never got going. She told the videographer a story about a life of great suffering. No way to tell if any of it is true. She has had some serious run-ins with the law, and not about her lifestyle.
So I present this simply as reportage, one of the many quirks of life in our very mid-American city. One thing is for sure: we have experiences like this almost exclusively in the city proper. If you are in the nether suburbs, going from big house to shopping mall to salon to soccer field, you will not encounter these parts of St. Louis life.
