Sometimes you need to twist your head if you want to give yourself a good scratch. Here is an egret at Black Hill Park in Montgomery County in Maryland.
This great blue heron is standing on ice while giving itself a scratch. It must feel good!
The twist in this egret’s neck seems a little unusual to me from this angle. It may have to do with the position of the wings.
Here is a bird among the twisted branches of one or more trees in winter.
The twisted branches of the trees can sure look like a mess from a distance in the woods in the early morning light. The sun has not quite hit the level of the trail in the following picture.
The turn in the trail appears at a distance in the following picture.
Category: Blues
What about St. Louis, MO?
There are probably many other cities like St. Louis that exist in middle America today, big cities that came into existence along the major waterways of country, along rivers like the Mississippi, Missouri, and the Ohio, cities that supported the industry, trade, and growth, of a nation that in those days was experiencing a grand optimism about its industrial future.
But times have changed in many ways, and the nature of many of these cities has also changed with these times. The very nature of the commerce that sustains these places has necessarily changed, and brought with it changes in the lives of the humans who occupy these spaces.
Many of these cities are still easily recognizable by their distinct downtown areas, with their humongous skyscrapers that now support, or attempt to support in some way or another, the new kinds of businesses that have inevitably replaced the old ones.
But the people who live in these cities have for the most part left. The office-goers scurry in from their comfortable suburbs in the mornings to earn their keep, and then depart just as quickly as they appeared, after work in the evening, leaving the cavernous spaces beneath the huge skyscrapers for the most part abandoned. There are very few people in the streets.
Move just a little bit away physically from the downtown areas and you may see another unfortunate impact of these changes. There are the poor and even abandoned neighborhoods – where the weeds may have taken over in some places, where the only people present, if any, are those living on the fringes. These are places that one could justifiably feel uncomfortable wandering into, but their stories, and the stories of the people who once lived there, are no less compelling than those of the more fortunate. These are the people and places that time has left behind.
Cities try to revive themselves, and thus does the city of St. Louis. I think these processes can succeed only if the entirety of the spaces that they occupy become more livable places, not necessarily when they become places where there is simply a lot of commerce going on, and not necessarily when they become the places that people tend to visit (but only the “safe” sections!) to get a temporary thrill of some kind or another every once in a while, only to abandon the place when night falls.
Entrance to a metro station
Downtown St. Louis from the Gateway Arch
Abandoned
After dark
Abandoned
Recovery?
Restaurant near the power plant along the river
A Freight train approaches the Gateway Arch
Restaurant on the fringes
A view from the Gateway Mall
Site of the BBQ festival
Bike trail along the river front
The MLK bridge across the Mississippi at dawn
The BBQ festival
Abandoned
At the BBQ festival
A Farewell To The King (7/18/2014)
I just heard that BB King passed away last night. I happened to go for his concert in Washington, DC, in July, 2014. This is what I wrote at that time…
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It was March 2014 when I first heard that the king was coming into town. Having been a fervent admirer of his works for a very long time, but not having seen him in person, I thought that I should make the effort to meet him at least this one time. Here was a man who had given so many years of his life to the cause, and it was time to pay homage.
On July 17th, 2014, on an unusually cool summer evening, my friend and I boarded a Metro train at Shady Grove station to head out to the capital city of Washington DC to see the king. I was looking forward to this, and in a moment of irrational optimism, I even picked up a pen from the kitchen counter before I left home – in the hope that I could get an autograph on the ticket that I had printed at home. But, at the same time, I also had this nagging concern at the back of my mind about the well-being of the king. After all he was 88 years old, and he was suffering from diabetes. He had looked his age in recent times, and when he addressed his subjects recently, it was always from from a lonely chair on which he sat with his friend Lucille. But, in spite of his age, the king had always brought a smile to my face.
That evening in Washington DC was a somewhat sad one. I was probably witnessing history in some way. It was not the B. B. King, the King of the Blues, the guitar god, that I had known, who was on stage. It was not the performance that I had been expecting. It was as if I was witnessing a passing, and it might have been the opportunity for B. B. King admirers in the DC area to pay their respects to the great man for the last time before he set sail into the sunset.
One might have suspected that all was not right when the program started with a long set by the warm-up band, and an extended intermission that lasted more than half an hour. Then the B. B. King Band came on and played a piece all by itself for about 10 minutes. B.B. King only appeared on the stage after all that was over. When the King shuffled on to the stage (with some difficulty and with the help of some other folks) the audience rose from their seats and applauded wildly in honor of the Man. There was a sense of anticipation in the air. But one began to suspect that things were not right during the first song that was played after he sat down. It was essentially an introduction to the members of the band. BB talked most of the time. Lucille, his guitar, sat on his lap with the strings untouched for the most part. In fact there was another lead guitarist featured in the band who was picking up the slack for BB. BB rambled along, talking to the audience in the front row most of the time. He appeared to be very distracted. The one or two occasions on which he actually played his guitar, it did not sound quite right, and perhaps BB also realized this and even stopped trying. The rest of the band played on respectfully, as well as they could. They were superb.
I think there were only four songs that BB “performed” during his set. One of the songs was a simple sing-along that he did with the audience. The song was “You are my Sunshine“. His mind seemed to wander during the song and I had some difficulty making out what he was saying. He did acknowledge that at his age he was just happy to be where he was at. He said he was enjoying his time with the audience. But too often he would wander off, again and again, and even try to start more conversations with people in the audience. He was slowly losing the rest of his audience as the performance went on.
But there were also those occasional spots of brilliance during the show. BB would summon all his focus and energies to deliver the chorus lines for The Thrill is Gone or Rock me Baby. As his voice rose with confidence, the superb horn section and the piano would also rise to meet the challenge, and there was this wonderful crescendo of beautiful sound that arose from the stage. He could certainly still hit the notes with power like the B.B. King of old. There were moments in time during the concert during which all my senses were heightened in anticipation of what could come next. But such instances where infrequent. And what could have been never happened that evening. BB could not sustain his energy.
As the evening went on the audience must have slowly realized what was happening on stage. Most people were content to let BB ramble along in his own way because of the respect they had for the Man. But there were also some who were impatient. BB must have realized what was going on, and I suspect that it was on a couple of these occasions that he actually made the effort to deliver a performance. But people also started leaving before the end of the concert.
As the band went into its encore at the end of the set, B. B. King was in his own world. He would not cooperate as the handlers came on stage to try to get him off. The encore went on and on as people crowded to the front to get a closer view of the Man and to take pictures. My friend and I departed as this scene continued to play out on the stage. It was getting late and it was time for us to take the Metro back to our quiet suburban lives.
During the evening I also heard the news that a commercial jet had just been shot out of the sky, and that Israel had started its ground offensive into the Gaza strip. It was a very sad evening indeed. The thrill is gone.
Splattered Brains 