Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
July 30, 2008
The plan is a simple one: At four locations around Lake George, construct four small pavilions where walkers can pause while circumnavigating along the shoreline. It turns out to be more complicated than expected. Constructing deep concrete pilings a few feet off shore requires building a temporary dike with sandbags, pump out the water where the pilings will be placed, then remove the dike. So far workers have been unable to build a leakproof dike. Unlike many river towns, St. Cloud is perched high above the Mississippi River, thus inexperienced in dike building. We are learning this week, however.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
July 29, 2008
A crane lifting a new air conditioning unit onto the Paramount Theater blocked traffic today.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
July 27, 2008
St. Cloud Riverbats and the Rochester Honkers at Joe Faber Field in St. Cloud. (don't ask)
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The artist and the barber
Since recently returning for daily coffee at the neighborhood Caribou, I often see Janelle working on drawings, usually alone, but one day she showed her work to Ric the barber, another regular. They moved to an outdoor table so that Ric could smoke while talking. Four years earlier at the same place, I had asked her about a pencil drawing of a young woman in a forest.
Girl in a forest, July 10, 2004
Since recently returning for daily coffee at the neighborhood Caribou, I often see Janelle working on drawings, usually alone, but one day she showed her work to Ric the barber, another regular. They moved to an outdoor table so that Ric could smoke while talking. Four years earlier at the same place, I had asked her about a pencil drawing of a young woman in a forest.
He addressed the Charles Ives question.
A middle-aged man in a polo shirt, walking shorts and sandals addressed a handful of coffee shop customers on why Charles Ives quit composing in 1916 at the height of his powers. He retrieved a New England Review from his shoulder bag and read this passage by Marc Estrin:
“Here is a visionary glimpse of what happened, what was happening, what was to happen. Here is the root of Ive’s silence, of the change from brashness to humility. For all the beauty of the vision, there is something here that calls for mourning, a sadness in the spectacle, an emptiness replacing the might-have-been. It was a siren song of Transcendentalism he heard.
“The ‘Concord’ current sucked him in and pulled him under.
“He was soon not heard from again.”
He stopped reading, murmured an apology and left.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Skalicky Plaza, St. Cloud State University
Entrance to the southeast corner of the university campus is marked by a pseudo classical piazza, a dwarfed, dumbed down variation of the colonnaded ellipse in front of the St. Peter’s in the Vatican.
Skalicky Plaza, St. Cloud State University
Skalicky Plaza, built in 2000, fronts a student parking lot while the piazza fronts a magnificent basilica, so it would be grossly unfair to compare their architectural achievements. What is apparent, however, is the absence of life and spirit in the local version, as if a coarsened translation of classical baroque could somehow bring grandeur to a working class university and its functionally organized, nondescript set of buildings. Its presence is more like a disconnected appendage.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
The world on the other side of the fence
I biked through the northside of St. Cloud, mostly working class homes, occasional apartment buildings, and a few mom and pop businesses. Took about 20 minutes to reach Joe Faber Field on the northeast edge of town, about where newer housing developments appear before Stearns County farmland begins in earnest. The Riverbats were playing the Battle Creek MI Bombers in a rare day game. With plenty of time before the first pitch, I biked around the ivy-clad cyclone fence which separates the playing field from the VA hospital's campus and golf course. It's where fireworks are detonated following Saturday night homegames and where homerun balls land. I found a locked gate which afforded a view unobstructed by ivy near right field where I played when a youngster in Dickinson ND. The Battle Creek right fielder greeted me, I told him I would back him up should he falter.
The world on the other side of the fence
On the left field side of the field is the visiting team's bull pen where Battlle Creek starting pitcher Matt Larkins with the unlikely number of 13 was warming up. His muscular build seems typical of baseball players in recent years, quite different that when I played, when diminutive players like myself were common. We also sang the words when the National Anthem was played before the first pitch, but today hardly anyone knows the words anymore. I have forgotten the middle parts.
The world on the other side of the fence
A dirt track around the outfield warns outfielders chasing a fly ball that they are approaching fence.
The world on the other side of the fence
I took an action picture of the Battle Creek centerfielder catching a fly ball. His number 23 was my number. When players hit a home run--two of them did it over the left fence--the ball disappeared from my view a split second after it left the bat, then after a strangely silent interlude reappeared as it landed softly in the thick grass of the No. 5 green where golfers pocketed them.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
July 5, 2008
Spitz walked in for a coffee, saw me and said come outside and see my first bike. Bought it new in 1975, a HD police, still have the cancelled $2,700 check on my wall. We had coffee, I took a few pictures for Mel in Ontario and then he headed out for the backroads of Stearns County.
Friday, July 4, 2008
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Dec. 28, 2007
In the waning years of WW II, we were living in Rockville Center, Long Island, I was about 12 and dad was dying of a brain tumor. Mom said NYC was no place for a widow to bring up a child, so she packed us up and we took a train to her childhood home in Detroit Lakes Minnesota. That's where she met and married this widower. He was a clothing salesman and outdoorsman.
Dec. 27, 2007
Hamburger at Petes Place