One of the last stops on our tour of Powell Symphony Hall was a place I never thought about, the percussion storage room. This view is only a small part of it. Everything you can imagine that goes bang, thump or bing is in there. We were sternly told not to touch anything but couldn't I just flick a fingernail on one of those surfaces?
At the end of the Annie Malone parade last weekend, some participants hung out on the side streets, keeping the beat going and thumping it off the surrounding office buildings. This young man was with a group of percussionists and dancers in the courtyard of Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building. It is of great architectural significance, being one of the first couple of steel-framed skyscrapers in the world. (Eleven stories was a skyscraper in 1890.) These kids put on a great improv dance show for their own pleasure but I was fascinated by this young man's disengagement. I liked his crooked yellow bow tie and the way the light played off his face, too.
