Showing posts with label flag. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flag. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

FLY THE FLAG

 

The flag of the City of St. Louis on the patio behind The Royale. It references the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, with a symbol and colors based on our French and Spanish heritage. Pretty good design.

It’s a travel day.    ðŸ‡ºðŸ‡¸  →   ðŸ‡®ðŸ‡ª 

Thursday, April 10, 2025

PUBLIC OPINION, PART 2

 

Anti-imperialism lives on in Webster Groves. This is the same house in my neighborhood seen here about a week ago flying the Ukraine and Canadian flags. There was a  change yesterday. Now the nearer one is the flag of Greenland. Recognize it? I wonder where the homeowner found one.                    

Sunday, March 19, 2023

IRONY, OR JUST DUMB?

Some of the crowd along Friday's St. Patrick's Day parade route. The colors are somewhat similar but do they realize they are waving an Italian, not an Irish flag?                  

Thursday, March 17, 2022

HALF OF ME

It's a tradition around here at big events to hang a big American flag from the ends of the fire department's longest cranes. There was one of those near the beginning of the parade route. I've never seen another kind of flag used, let alone that of another country. Here, near the end of the march, the Irish flag was on display. My heritage on my father's side is Irish, from County Clare in the west. We have visited the island several times and once spent a couple on nights in my great grandfather's farmhouse, then used as a simple tourist cottage. My mother's side is Polish. Never been there, have no known family there, but I love Chopin.           

Saturday, July 4, 2020

THE FOURTH OF JULY


Our national holiday in what may be a year of sweeping change. There is more hope for racial and economic justice, but it remains unfulfilled. The economy itself is battered by a disease that many of our leaders lack the courage or intelligence to control, while many of our people reject the medical science that can lead our way out of it. We have the opportunity but not the certainty of turning out of office a corrupt wannabe strongman who threatens our democracy. May July 4, 2021, be brighter.                 

Friday, April 3, 2020

YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD CITY DOWN


Quiet but not altogether empty on Washington Avenue. I've never seen the giant flag of the City of St. Louis hanging over the streets. It's a pretty good one with sharp graphics, references to the territory's French and Spanish heritage and the meeting of the waters, the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi.

I hear that the city police have blocked off several of the roads in the city parks to auto traffic and St. Louis County has closed its parks altogether due to blatant disregard of the distancing rules. May need to go check this out.         

Monday, December 2, 2019

HONKY TONK


I'm not a big fan of country music since I came from an alien culture. I grew up listening to Cousin Brucie on WABC AM in New York and my father's boss was on the board of the NY Philharmonic. When I came to St. Louis U. in the fall of 1967 there was different air to breathe. Didn't have enough money to fly home to (by then) New Jersey that first Thanksgiving so I got a ride with my roommate to his home in Nashville. His brother-in-law was the PR director for the Grand Ole Opry and got us in backstage to the Saturday night show at the Ryman Auditorium. There were so many sequins under the stage lights that I was blinded for days.

This bar gets its name because it is one block from the baseball stadium and there are seven possible games in the World Series. The device in the center is the flag of the City of St. Louis, which I think is pretty cool. It celebrates the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers here and our French heritage.          

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Patriots


People and objects at the Veterans Day parade, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Some readers will recall that Samuel Johnson, author of the first comprehensive dictionary of the English language, said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. I suppose there are different kinds of it.
     




Sunday, November 11, 2018

About To Start

 
Tomorrow is Veterans Day in the US. There was a ceremony yesterday at the newly-restored Soldiers Memorial downtown (more about which soon.) Then there was a big if sparsely attended parade. The fire department always hoists this huge flag for such events.

We had a fair sized investment firm here, A. G. Edwards, that got bought out by Wells Fargo a few years ago. They kept that business here. The company brings out its iconic stagecoach for parades. That's the central branch of the St. Louis Public Library in the background, also lovingly restored a few years ago.         


Thursday, August 27, 2015

Our Flag

St. Louis Flag

St. Louis has a pretty good city flag.  We used to have a lame one. This banner was adopted in 1964 and was designed by some professor at Yale.  According to the city ordinance adopting it:
The flag with a solid red background has two broad heraldic wavy bars, colored blue and white, extending from the left top and bottom corners toward left center where they join and continue as one to the center right edge. This symbolizes the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Over the point of confluence a round golden disk upon which is the fleur-de-lis of France (blue) calling attention to the French background of the early city and more particularly to St. Louis of France for whom the City is named. The golden disk represents the City and/or the Louisiana Purchase. (Heraldically, the disk is a "bezant" or Byzantine coin signifying, money or simply purchase.)
The flag's colors recall those of Spain (red and yellow or gold), Bourbon France (white and gold), Napoleonic and Republican France (blue, white and red), and the United States of America (red, white, and blue).
This mosaic version is on the outside wall of a bar called The Whiskey Ring at Cherokee and Ohio on the south side.                            
                

Monday, January 26, 2015

We Could Use Some

We Could Use Some

Found in a restaurant window downtown, the flag of the City of St. Louis with its fleur-de-lys turned into a peace sign. The actual flag looks like this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Flag_of_St._Louis%2C_Missouri.svg/500px-Flag_of_St._Louis%2C_Missouri.svg.png                

It represents the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi, our French founders and Spanish rule of the territory before that. (There's a bit of a story behind it.) But with the vibrations of Ferguson still stirring the area, the way it's affecting people and the impact it has had on the region's business, peace would be welcome.            

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Electric Flag

Electric Flag BW

Flag on the Purina building, seen through a power substation.

Back in the late 60s, when I was in college, there was a famous group called the Electric Flag, led by guitarist Mike Bloomfield, formerly of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. I went home during summer vacations at St. Louis University and caught some performances at the Fillmore East in NYC with high school friends. We saw the EF in June 1968. The second half of the program started very late. The kids started yelling and booing. Eventually Bill Graham came on stage. "Shut up!" he yelled back. "I've got bad news and good news. The bad news is that Mike Bloomfield is sick. He's not gonna make it." BBBOOOOO! "The good news is that we got someone good to play the set. You're gonna like it so sit down."

Another long delay. BBBOOOOO! Eventually, while the stage lights were down, someone with a guitar came onstage, back to the audience. He started playing a rhythm track. What's going on? Then he started playing wilder and wilder.

The stage lights went up and the guitarist turned around. It was Jimi Hendrix. The crowd, as you can imagine, went wild.

Down to the Big Easy today for a business meeting. First pix probably tomorrow.                 

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Hook, Ladder and Flag

.
As I've shown before, the St. Louis Fire Department goes to public events with two gigantic hook and ladder trucks and suspends an enormous flag from their cranes. This shot is from the St. Patrick's Day parade. I like it because almost all that shows of the flag is the swooping red and white stripes.

WHAT'S THE WORD?
1. Ahhhhh. I was exploring new dimensions in overwork this past week. It's over and next week isn't so bad. Might actually get some shooting in today. 2. Woo hoo! Three of my pictures were accepted for the next group show at the Soulard Art Market gallery. Never had my stuff in a gallery for sale before. They've all been on the blog: this one (top photo), this one and this one (top photo). 3. Oh oh! Mrs. C.'s mew hip replacement popped out of the socket last night. I'm actually writing this in a hospital ER (with free WiFi - how considerate). They just popped it back in and we'll be home in a while.


Saturday Morning Note:
our patient is fine. The doctors waited until the short-lasting anesthesia wore off and then sent us home. Thank heavens we're among the Americans who have health insurance.

TOMORROW:
to be determined but, as I said, I hope to shoot some new stuff today.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Thursday Arch Series (With Some Other Stuff)

When the wind blew, the flag in yesterday's post twisted around the cable holding it up. The flag was nearly translucent and my eye was caught by the weave of the red and white stripes with one another.

This photo looks east down Market Street. The Arch dominates everything in our city center. It is our friendly, elegant giant, standing by the great river, always ready to entertain us.

Unrelated product plug: this week's posts have been prepared on my new MacBook, the best computer I have ever used, period. My office and family have used Windows since way back when. I got my first Mac for my personal work almost two years ago. Switching from Windows to Mac reminds me of the old joke: "Why do you keep banging you head against the wall?" "Because it feels so good when I stop." My head doesn't hurt any more.

TOMORROW: The Agonizing Wait