Now see these:
Now see these:
Now see these:
Now see these:
Now see these:
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, Minneapolis: Growl section prepares to march
Milwaukee Avenue, Minneapolis
Ye nymphs of rosy lips and radiant eyes,
Whom Pleasure keeps too busy to be wise,
Whom Joys with soft varieties invite,
By day the frolic, and the dance by night,
Who frown with vanity, who smile with art,
And ask the latest fashion of the heart,
What care, what rules your heedless charms shall save,
Each nymph your rival, and each youth your slave?Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes
“Play Days” by Harriet Frishmuth, Como Park Conservatory, St. Paul.
BB guns at Cub Scout camp.
06.14.08
I’ve never been a shooter; though I grew up in an Army family, guns weren’t a part of my childhood, and shooting never interested me much (I think it was this “The Rifleman” episode, caught on the same Boston TV station that broadcast the ’50s monster movies that scarred my psyche, that quashed my interest). Jack and Peter are engineers–they construct complex Lego-Lincoln Log-block structures that can fill a room and consume hours of concentration–and they’ve never shown much interest in guns, either. But when we had the chance to try BB guns at Cub Scout camp, we decided to take the opportunity. And they seem to have enjoyed it, though the guns were a little big for them and I think they hit the target a combined half-dozen times.
06.13.08
Scouting’s contributions to world cuisine are many: omelette-in-a-bag, Dutch oven dump cake, tin-can bread, and, of course, foil dinners: meat and veggies and flavoring (traditionally Lipton Onion Soup mix and/or Tabasco sauce) wrapped in foil and put on the coals. Our innovations for this particular meal were a cabbage leaf bed to help hold in the moisture, and pre-cooked meatballs to reduce the cooking time (Cub Scouts get hungry after a day of canoing and archery and compass work).
06.8.08
One of the modern houses along the West River Road, quite a contrast to the bungalows that prevail deeper into the Longfellow neighborhood.
Now see these:
1912 Graflex pinhole.
Now see these:
1912 Graflex pinhole.
Welcome back, incidence! Though I was just starting to really appreciate those shoes…
06.3.08
I never knew the earth had so much gold—
The fields run over with it, and this hill
Hoary and old,
Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill.“Feuerzauber” by Louis Untermeyer
Now see these:
Now see these:
Minnehaha Creek, below the falls.
Now see these:
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;The Bridge by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Foot bridge at Minnehaha Falls; 1912 Graflex 4×5 pinhole.
Here on the table near the window is a vase of peonies
and next to it black binoculars and a money clip,
exactly the kind of thing we now prefer,
objects that sit quietly on a line in lower case,themselves and nothing more, a wheelbarrow,
an empty mailbox, a razor blade resting in a glass ashtray.The Death of Allegory by Billy Collins
No doubt you would expect a different wheelbarrow poem …
05.24.08
I finally got my 1912 Graflex working, sort of; the shutter blades aren’t lining up on small apertures, so I’ve slapped a cardboard pinhole on in place of the lens for now. With my first few sheets, I greatly overestimated the pinhole’s ability to collect light; by slowing down even more–this shed sat still for me for a minute and a half on a very sunny morning–I managed to coax enough light into the bellows for some hazy images to form.
Not seen in this picture is the lady who walked up to the shed, opened the door, and went inside. She was incredulous when I told her she could walk in front of the camera without risk of appearing on the film, but when I told her that it would be another minute before I closed the shutter she harumphed grumpily and marched across the garden. I was hoping that she’d leave some interesting, blurry trace, but alas, she was moving faster than the slow light I was gathering.
Now see these:
Spring is on its way…
Now see these:
I’m on autopilot for the next 7 days, while we make our summer trip to Maine. We’ll be swimming in our favorite streams, steaming up Mount Washington, and dipping our toes in the Atlantic Ocean.
And so I’ll be featuring pictures from the other coast for the week–here are some palm trees I spied on one of my early morning walks (an alien sight to one accustomed to Minnesota springs).
On Milwaukee Avenue’s car-free boulevard.
A Milwaukee Avenue porch.
Milwaukee Avenue is a hidden treasure of South Minneapolis: two blocks of tidy houses built for railroad workers at the turn of the 20th century, with their ample front porches facing a park-like pedestrian path. It’s a peaceful and playful place, a respite within sight of busy Franklin Avenue and a step back in time.
Some other pictures from around the Internet:
Something I’ll miss about the end of school is the excuse to wander through Dowling Community Garden in the morning. Of course, I’ll probably wander through anyway just to see the change of seasons in this little parcel of urban nature.
Some pictures to consider today:
For the last week, the boys have been singing Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out”; I’m assuming they learned it from some of the older kids at Minneapolis Kids. They’re not quite clear on the words, but insert “stinky” whenever they’re stumped.
They like school, though, so they make a lot of exceptions when pushed on the song–the song is about the OTHER teachers, not Mrs. Kujat, or Mrs. Marshall, or Ann at Minneapolis Kids, or …
Pictured are the boys with their grandmother at the “Goodies with Grandparents” morning at school this spring.
The Heart of the Beast May Day Parade and Festival takes place today, Sunday, May 6, at 1:30 PM; if you’re in the Minneapolis area, get yourself down to Bloomington Avenue between Lake Street and Powderhorn Park for the event that really kicks off Spring in this little corner of the world.
05.5.07
The Heart of the Beast May Day Parade and Festival takes place this Sunday, May 6, at 1:30 PM; if you’re in the Minneapolis area, get yourself down to Bloomington Avenue between Lake Street and Powderhorn Park for the event that really kicks off Spring in this little corner of the world.
05.4.07
Spring has sprung at Dowling Community Garden.
The Heart of the Beast May Day Parade and Festival takes place this Sunday, May 6, at 1:30 PM; if you’re in the Minneapolis area, get yourself down to Bloomington Avenue between Lake Street and Powderhorn Park for the event that really kicks off Spring in this little corner of the world.
Mother Earth Gardens, our favorite local garden shop.
The Heart of the Beast May Day Parade and Festival takes place this Sunday, May 6, at 1:30 PM; if you’re in the Minneapolis area, get yourself down to Bloomington Avenue between Lake Street and Powderhorn Park for the event that really kicks off Spring in this little corner of the world.
05.2.07
Mother Earth Gardens, our favorite local garden shop.
As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.
John Milton, Areopagitica
The ALA’s annual Banned Books Week commences today. 2005’s list of books challenged in public libraries and schools contains many of the old stand-bys for raising hackles–”The Catcher in the Rye”, “The Chocolate War”, “Forever”–for the usual old stand-by reasons–sex, language, “anti-family content” (whatever that is, it’s what got the “Captain Underpants” series in trouble…). And books aren’t just challenged with polite written requests to have a book removed; folks continue to set fire to books, as if destroying the physical manifestation of an idea could destroy the idea itself.
Much as I love books, though, I’m confident that the ideas they carry are stronger than their pages. Books are powerful things, and readers are tough, toughened by facing challenging ideas head-on rather than tossing the uncomfortable and the intemperate into bonfires.
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
John Milton, Areopagitica
In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle……and from this bush in the door-yard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig, with its flower, I break.
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, Walt Whitman
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
Lake Isle of Innisfree, William Butler Yeats
Another from the Heart of the Beast puppet theater’s May Day parade at Powderhorn Park.
Another from the Heart of the Beast puppet theater’s May Day parade: dragon boat reflections in Powderhorn Lake.
Another from the Heart of the Beast puppet theater’s May Day parade: banners in Powderhorn Park.
Another from the Heart of the Beast puppet theater’s May Day parade. These are the boats used in the post-parade ceremonies.
Another from the Heart of the Beast puppet theater’s May Day parade. These fellows and their whimsical trumpets looked like they should be leading a parade from a Dr. Seuss story.
We’re back from Chicago, and I’ve got some film to develop. We were stuck behind an accident on westbound I-90 for two hours–a semi apparently hit a bridge abutment, sending its boxed contents across two lanes of highway–and didn’t get home until almost midnight, so I’m running on strong coffee today.
Here’s a shot from the Heart of the Beast puppet theater’s May Day parade–it was a beautiful day (alternately warm and chilly, a real Minnesota spring) and a fun outing for the Sawyer Nomad’s first spin with color film.
This fantasy goes on for an eternity. A lucid interval, and a great expenditure of effort, permit you to look at the clock. The eternity turns out to have been only a minute.
Charles Baudelaire, Artificial Paradises
The fruit tree blossoms again, this time stacking the “mirage” lens on top of the close-up lens on top of the crosshatch filter–surprised anything came through…
Fruit tree blossoms outside the Riverview Cafe.
05.9.06
This was my contribution to Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day; I used my Brownie Hawkeye, lens popped out and replaced with a tinfoil pinhole. It was a grim, gray, cloudy day, not exactly ideal for pinhole pictures, but I was glad to do my small part for the project.
More of the alley tulips.
But I’ll push myself up through the dirt
And shake my petals free
I’m resolved to being born
And so resigned to bravery
Dar Williams, Spring Street
These tulips grow against my neighbor’s garage in our alley–that’s determination.
The Heart of the Beast puppet theater’s 33rd annual May Day parade is today, down Bloomington Ave. South to Powderhorn Park, starting at 1PM. The crowds are thick for this event, even when the weather is foul (last year there was sleet…), so get there early to stake out your spot to see the whimsical, magical, fascinating larger-than-life puppets that roll through the streets of Minneapolis.
These appeared on the patio in front of my place of employment a couple weeks ago; I think they’re temporary housing for flowers that will be moved into the now-largely-bare circle of dirt in the drive.
The Heart of the Beast puppet theater’s 33rd annual May Day parade is tomorrow, down Bloomington Ave. South to Powderhorn Park, starting at 1PM. The crowds are thick for this event, even when the weather is foul (last year there was sleet…), so get there early to stake out your spot to see the whimsical, magical, fascinating larger-than-life puppets that roll through the streets of Minneapolis.
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