Storm's Coming

From the top of the Arch looking back into the city. Downtown runs a bit wider left and right than this. You can see some of the baseball stadium at left center, now surrounded with construction of a new hotel, apartments and office space. The dark skies in the rear moved off to the north/right and never really hit the city center.

We are a medium size city with pluses and minuses.  See the tall building most of the way back, just right of center? It is vacant, and likely to remain so. It was built for a single tenant, AT&T, who moved the operations to Texas. Very hard to re-purpose. As you may have heard, we have Ferguson and all that it implies. On the other hand, we've got the biggest urban park in the US, Forest Park, a bit bigger than either Golden Gate or Central; a thriving arts scene, including a world top tier symphony, theater everywhere you turn and fabulous oddball events like last summer's Fringe and this weekend's indescribable Artica. We've got what may be the best zoo in America  (although San Diego has its partisans) and more interesting restaurants than I can count. There is severe, soulless suburban sprawl, but the old, inner suburbs and the city proper are vibrant.

I'm staying. I'll never retire to someplace else.        

Thursday Arch Series

Haven't had one of these in a while. It felt like I had exhausted the possibilities. Now there are new ones. This is the glass awning over the new entrance I've mentioned the last couple of days.

Had the steroid shot in my back yesterday morning. It takes a few days to kick in. Hope that's by the weekend because there are a couple of big events for me to shoot. First, our off-the-wall alternative arts festival, Artica, (photos from last year here), with its Sunday night Burning Man-ish conflagration of the wooden Our Lady of Artica. Then, on Saturday night, I promised I'd shoot the final evening of the annual three-day Compass Improv Festival. (Locals should go! It's a hoot!) Whew. And I'm on the road again next week (sans infection) to someplace that is, shall we say, picturesque.                     

Long Way Down

630 feet or 192 meters, to be exact. Taken from one of the narrow slit windows in the observation deck on top. Before the new work, the area in the center used to be open to the highway below (which wasn't the best idea in the first place). Now there is a continuous plaza from downtown into the Arch grounds. 

We saw some of the circle at bottom center in yesterday's post. It slopes downward as you get closer to the new entrance. There are a few inches of water in the middle where kids can splash. You can see the half-circle of glass awning also mentioned yesterday. The entrance to the visitors' center and the tram to the top is at the bottom center.        

New Way In

I've occasionally mentioned that there has been a large amount of work around and under the Arch for the last three years. Everything is done now. People used to enter underneath the legs; there was a puny museum between them. Now there is a fancy new entrance west of the monument, closer to the city itself. Outside is a circle depressed into the ground, lower as you approach the Arch. Half of the circle is covered by a glass awning. Inside, an arc of glass looks back to downtown. This lobby leads to a far larger and very well done museum.

Maybe we will have a look from above tomorrow.        

Madeleine Monday

Getting better bit by bit, except for the &^@(* back arthritis. Still not out that much but I needed a Monday picture. I chose Ellie in front of the house on a warm (too warm) autumn afternoon.      

Ellie wanted to ride to the top of the Arch on Sunday. Fun for her but not such a good idea for me. Still long lines waiting for the tram (which an employee described as a combination of an elevator, a tram and a ferris wheel-spot on) and a fair amount of walking.

The ground is strewn with crab apples from a tree beside our house.

Stir Crazy

Tired of laying around this house. Saturday was a step better - got out in the car twice for errands in the neighborhood without difficulty. Not sleeping so much and appetite better. It got to the point where I had to take a picture of something or I'd lose it. There is always a subject to photograph if your eyes are open. This is our front porch with Ellie's sidewalk chalk, a bubble wand and the jar she uses to catch fireflies.

On the other hand, my SI joint arthritis has flared up. I'll get a steroid shot Wednesday but you can't have them very often. I want one of those computerized exoskeletons I've been reading about.            

Hundertwasser In Paris, Plus. Where Have I Been?

The self-named Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser translates directly into English as "Peace-Realm Hundred-Water". The other names he chose for himself, Regentag and Dunkelbunt, translate to "Rainy day" and "Darkly multi-colored." He was born Friedrich Stowasser in Vienna in 1928. His work, the subject of the second show at L'Atlier des Lumieres, is very difficult to describe in a couple of sentences so see here or the link above if interested. 

These posts have been rare lately. In brief: I came down with a significant bladder infection shortly after we arrived in France (who knows how). Got weaker and lost my appetite. An English-speaking doctor in Arles did a brief exam, misdiagnosed it as a lung infection and prescribed a lesser antibiotic. By the time I got home I'd had a serious, untreated infection for two weeks and was in bad shape. I was hospitalized for a couple of days early this week.

The infection is gone with Cipro but I'm still very weak, sleeping a lot and having trouble eating. I went to work Wednesday. By mid-day I was so weak my staff had to drive me home. My doctor says it will just take time but I'm frustrated by the lack of progress. I'm a busy guy. There are a couple of interesting things to shoot in town this weekend and I don't know that I'll get out for them. Updates to follow.