Dust To Dust

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The junk the participants in The Color Run had to suck into their lungs was amazing. Where was the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Government Agency For Spectral Pollution (GASP) or the Institute For Chronic Kafkaesque Induction Of Purple Uvulas (ICKIPU)? All that colored powder had to coat the runners' bronchial passages. It covered my camera but was no big deal to clean off later. However, the participants should have been issued respirators with their white tee shirts.

Cosmetics

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Although both sexes were well represented, I think there was a clear majority of women at the Color Run. It's interesting to speculate why. Maybe some men were uncomfortable about being coated in colored powder. They should get in touch with their chromatic side.

Painted Ladies

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By the end of the Color Run your skin tone depended in how much you reveled in the bombardment of colored powder. These young ladies had no inhibitions about it. They were pressed up against a rail in front of a stage at the end of the course. Runners were being pressed onstage by the MC for a dance contest with separate male and female divisions. The audience apparently had strong opinions. 

The Color Run

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I still don't get it. 15,000 people showed up in downtown St. Louis early yesterday morning to run or walk 5 km while being pelted with bright-colored powdered pigment. The Color Run had no obvious tie-in with a charity, no major commercial sponsor. Was someone trying to work this up into a profit-making event? St. Louis was the first in a series of such runs in second and third tier cities, although there's one in New York City in a remote section of Brooklyn.

More about this in days to come. I may get to shoot another one of these but we will talk about that in due time. The video below has a big splotch of purple dye on the lens that I didn't notice until I downloaded it. Seems appropriate, though.

What a shooting day. Besides the Color Run there was an exhibition of "vintage" baseball under the Arch. The players wore old-fashioned uniforms, had an odd-sized ball and did not wear gloves while playing the field. Last night, the young lawyer who works for us part time got married in a spectacular venue in Forest Park. She will have a CD of photos when she returns from her honeymoon in British Columbia. On the way home from the reception I stopped at a pharmacy and got a splint for my right index finger.

The Emperor Of China

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According to Mel Brooks, "It's good to be the king." He was playing Louis XIV in a movie at the time.  No doubt the Emperor of China would agree.  All the luxuries the world has to offer, everybody sucking up to you, absolute power, even two nice young ladies to fan you when you're boiling under 20 kg of silk.

The bottom picture shows the whole scene, another overpowering display from the Lantern Festival. It occurs to me that it resembles those cheesy paintings on black velvet that you see in low-end gift shops across America.

Apsara

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Apsara are roughly the Buddhist equivalent of angels, although they are always female. (Which makes me stop and wonder: how can actual Christian-type angels have gender if they don't have bodies? I mean, if you don't have the correct mix of X and Y chromosomes - or if you don't have chromosomes at all - you can't be male or female. It's part of the definition.)

Anyway, Mrs. C and I were introduced to apsara in Thailand, where they figure prominently in religious decoration. We also got an eyeful of them at the absolutely hippest bar and restaurant we've ever been to, the Bed Supper Club in Bangkok. The cocktail waitresses pose as apsara, wearing diaphanous turquoise chiffon gowns. Order a glass of champagne and get an escort to heaven.

But back to business: the festival brochure said that this series of gates, trail markers or what you will represent apsara. They look spectacular at night but the bottom picture gives a better idea of the size and depth.

Nice Visuals, Obscure Meaning

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Another spectacular display at the Lantern Festival but I'm puzzled about what it's supposed to mean. Semioticians and deconstructionists, assemble immediately at a smoky cafe in the Left Bank and get to work.

We got a bridge or a rainbow (or both) rising over some trees and a whole bunch of cranes (I think). There's something like a mountain on the right that is either chewing gum and blowing a bubble or has the rising/setting sun/moon superglued to the peak. At the top, a woman stands on a little cloud with outstretched arms. A man and an ox approach her. He carries two baskets, one containing a small boy, the other a girl.

What's it supposed to mean? Fertility symbols? A Chinese version of Papageno and Papagena? Your opinions are welcome.