Christmas On Wall Street?

Actually, this statue is in front of an investment company's headquarters, just across the street from my office building. The symbolic bull and bear, gaily decorated for the season, attack each other viciously. The statue seems to say that life is a zero-sum game, some win and some (most?) lose, and none of that goodwill-towards-men business. But it's worth a wreath and a red ribbon.

I just shake my head. The security guard in the lobby of our building told me she hates having to look at it all day. It upsets her.

My children, and probably me and my siblings many years ago, used the word below as a synonym for Christmas presents. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
                         

STL DPB On The Road: Leaving New York

.
Back home in St. Louis. I get such a charge every time I return to NYC but, frankly, I can see more of the world because we live in cheap STL. (We saw $1.23 per gallon gasoline on our way home from the airport on Monday.) And we certainly have plans to get out of here in 2009, including Kansas, like the woman below. There is a growing set of my recent NYC photos on Flickr here.

WHAT BUILDING IN THE TOP PICTURE IS IMPORTANT TO ME: about half way right of center, where the Lensbaby blur really kicks in, is an off-white building that looks like a step pyramid sitting on a cube. That's 120 Wall Street, where my father worked most of his career. He was in commodities, sugar, specifically.

TOMORROW: ring out the old. Also, time to get back to writing comments on your work.

From Wall Street to Market Street

.

Gordon Gecko would like this inflated device. A local bank had it at a community event downtown on Market Street, drawing attention to their booth. There's an obvious metaphor here for current financial news. It was big, alluring, full of fake money. If someone stuck a little pin into it as they passed by it would collapse. Gecko said, "Greed is good." Well, perhaps there is a limit.

WHAT'S ON FOR WEEKEND PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE LOU: two good things. On Saturday we have the Great Forest Park Balloon Race, which is quite a spectacle. I had a well-received post about it a year ago. On Sunday afternoon, the Cardinals baseball team has an open house at Busch Stadium for season ticket holders. We'll get to visit the dugouts and clubhouses, and maybe wander around on the field. Camera in hand, of course.

TOMORROW: it's panoramic.