Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Into The Sun



I just finished reading Into The Sun, a recent novel by Deni Ellis Bechard, and let me tell you, this is one depressing novel. Before I figured this out, I had already read 100 pages and was damned if I was not going to finish it after putting in all that time.  The book centers around the ex-pat community in Kabul, Afghanistan, and I thought that it would be about life as a war correspondent, but it is much more involved the that. Throughout the book there are numerous flashbacks telling the story of each characters life up to that point, and without exception all of them had very traumatic childhoods.  The crux of the story is a car bombing that kills 3 of the main characters, and a journalist who wants to find out why they were targeted.  It is well written, and an interesting story, but still not my kind of thing.  Time to something to read with a few laughs.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

It Takes A Village



At least that is what the University of Denver is thinking these days.  I took a walk around the DU campus Sunday afternoon, where I took the photographs seen in the above collage.  As you can see, DU has a very pretty campus, but they are not happy with the look of the northeast part of it and the surrounding neighborhood.  They want to build a "village" there, which will provide an upscale "gateway" into the campus. I have been worried that they might have their sights set on my condo building - which sits on DU's northern boundary - as a possible hotel site.  However, I recently heard a rumor from my friend Mark that they want to build their centerpiece hotel on the site of a Conoco Gas Station and local bar called the Crimson and Gold, which have long been targets of DU's aesthetic criticism.  Nothing personal, but better them than me.  It's every man (and woman) for him or herself here in "The Village."

Monday, January 29, 2018

Sunday Afternoon In Washington Park



Even though it was late in the afternoon, there were still a lot of people in Denver's Washington Park Sunday, enjoying the sunny, 52 degree weather.  It will reach the upper 60s by Wednesday, before the temperatures drop and snow returns.  That is the way winter is in Colorado - very mild temperatures alternating with snow and cold.  This is much better than Chicago, where the temperatures drop like a rock, the clouds roll in,  and it stays gloomy for months at a time.  Personally, I would prefer it would never drop below 80 degrees, and with global warming, I may someday get my wish.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Dog Dance Afternoon



As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I attended Final Friday at the Denver Art Museum (the DAM) Friday night, and found no new art on display since my last visit. Therefore, I focused on the various lectures and performances being put on throughout the museum.  One of them was called "Dog Dance," performed by a Colorado dance group.  As I walked up the stairs and observed the dance in action (seen in the photograph above), I at first thought I had uncovered the scene of another mass shooting.  But no, this is fact the dance - people lying around on the floor and making very, very small moves at random moments.  Evidently this "dance" has been performed every third Friday for the past year and a half at a dance and "movement" studio in Boulder, Colorado, which is known far and wide as "25 square miles surrounded by reality."  And I must say, there were a fair number of people watching this performance.  I came back a few times during my museum visit to check on their progress, but nothing (to me) had changed, and yet the audience was still there.  I guess I am just not a New Age kind of guy.  If you think watching soccer is boring, try watching this for half an hour.

Saturday, January 27, 2018

The Final Friday Of January



Time flies when you are having fun.  Are we having fun yet? For those who don't realize it, yesterday was the final Friday of January, and February is lurking out there, ready to spring, offering such delights as Groundhog Day, Valentines's Day, and the start of baseball spring training.  Meanwhile, I attended the Denver Art Museum's first Final Friday event after it's annual two month hiatus.  I did visit the museum in the interim, however, and am sad to say that none of the exhibits have changed.  That is not to say they are not interesting and worth seeing, but I have already seen them, and want something new.  On the bright side, the long awaited art exhibit Degas: A Passion For Perfection will be opening February 11th. And so in the meantime, I focused last night on a few of the events and performances taking place, and reviewed the art in the galleries that are still open, such as the fish in the above photograph.  I was pondering whether this would look good on the couch over my living room, and also how the hell much the museum paid for it.  It turned out to be a short evening.  I must say, now that the North Building is closed for renovations, and the buffet table is gone, a lot of my artistic interest has dissipated.  Go figure.

Friday, January 26, 2018

My Mother's 102nd Birthday!



Today would have been my mother Mary's 102nd birthday if she were alive today, and therefore I thought it was very appropriate to feature a photograph of her posing in front of a birthday cake in the dining room of our home in the south side Brainerd neighborhood of Chicago.  And whose birthday was it?  Judging by the fact that the photograph was taken in the 1950s or early 60s and the small number of candles on the cake, I would say mine.  However, since my sister Susan's birthday was the day before mine, and my mother's birthday just a week later, we often celebrated our birthdays together, to my sister's chagrin.  Not only did she get  a baby brother instead of the baby sister she wanted, but she got her birthday taken away in the process.  What can I say?  Life is tough.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Can You Trump This?



My friend Stuart and I had dinner at the Old Chicago in beautiful downtown (I guess) Lakewood, Colorado last night, and spent most of the evening discussing the number one topic of conversation - the Trump presidency.  Let's face it - this guy has split the country, split friends and families, and made the White House into a reality TV show.  Needless to say, neither Stuart nor I have much use for this guy, but we both have family members who are very pro Trump, and can never discuss the topic without threatening a lifelong schism. What we need now is a complete ban on tweets.  Are you with me, people?

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

The Zoo - Part II



As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I went to the Denver Zoo Saturday afternoon to take photographs of the animals.  Near closing time, it was starting to get pretty damn cold, and as I walked past the lion compound, I saw all the lions let inside except one.  The door slammed and he was left out in the cold.  As I watched, he kept walking around in circles, banging against the door, to no use, as seen in the photo above.  As I was leaving, he was still out in the middle of the compound, lying in the grass, reconciled to his fate.  I'm not sure why he was singled out like that.  I assume it was a mistake - the zoo keepers probably didn't do a count once the lions were inside, which seems a bit careless, to say the least.  I mentioned this to a security guard as I left, but he didn't seem very concerned.  He had a "we know what we are doing" kind of attitude. I just hope they discovered him out there before the snow began early Sunday morning.  Now that would have been cold.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Free Day At The Denver Zoo



You can always tell when it is a free day at the Denver Zoo.  As you drive along 23rd Street from the west, there are huge lines of people, most pushing baby strollers, walking back toward where their cars are parked in City Park, since every space at the zoo's parking lot is taken.   Fortunately, last Saturday, I arrived pretty late, and found a parking space without too much trouble. There were still a lot of people there, however, and that made it damn hard to get good photographs.  Getting the photograph of the zebra in the above diptych wasn't so hard, but the tiger was a different story.  There is a viewing window at that compound, and the tiger was pacing in a large circle, passing the viewing glass every five minutes or so. But when you went to take a picture, the crowd would surge forward and block a decent shot.  In seconds, dozens of young children would appear at the base of the window, blocking any chance of a photograph. After a frustratingly long time, I finally moved to the back of the compound, and was able to get a long distance shot from there. Next time, I will definitely avoid free days.

Monday, January 22, 2018

A Sunday Snowstorm



Denver has gotten very little snow so far this year, and therefore whenever it does snow, the local news channels go crazy.  A winter storm warning was issued for the metropolitan area Saturday, with blowing and drifting snow predicted to start early Sunday morning and continue throughout the day.  I had to go to work yesterday morning, and I must say it was not all that bad.  We received 5 and a half inches of snow (more than we have received in over a year, by the way), but the streets were mostly clear, and I had no trouble coming or going.  However, last night the entire newscast was devoted to the storm.  Mountains out of molehills, I say.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Repairs Begin On The "Haunted House"



It isn't really haunted, but that's what some of the neighbors call it.  This is the house next to the local Denver bookstore where I work that was struck by a tree during a windstorm, which put a sizable hole in the roof and front wall.  And it has stayed that way for a year and a half.  About 6 months ago I saw a condemnation notice in the fence in front of it, and was sure it would be soon torn down.  That is why I was so surprised that a construction crew has finally started working on it.  They are filling in the outside wall and roof, but I have to wonder what the inside of the place is like after being open to the elements for so many months?  I would be afraid that if I moved in there, one night I might wake up and see god knows what kind of animal who has been living there for 2 years, staring at you with glowing red eyes.  Great - a new pet!

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Fire And Fury



The local Denver bookstore where I work finally received a large supply of Fire and Fury, the infamous new book about the Trump White House.  If we had the book a week ago, we could have sold every copy, but now that the "fury" seems to have died down, I have to wonder how many we will sell.  I couldn't help but notice that the Trump book is separated from Hillary Clinton's book What Happened by The Newcomers, a book about immigrants in the classroom. A funny coincidence, or some bookstore employee being clever?  Beats me.  In any case, I think I am going to skip Fire and Fury.  More and more I prefer fiction to reality.  Reality is always mostly depressing, while if you pick the right books, fiction always ends happily ever after.

Friday, January 19, 2018

Medicare Eligible At Last!


Yes- it's true.  Today I turn 65 years old and am now eligible for medicare.  And to help me make a good decision on this, I have bombarded by  various health care providers with roughly 100,000 advertisements on supplemental insurance policies.  That you for giving so much business to the struggling U.S Post Office, guys!  And in the photograph above, I am posing on my bicycle with my Grandmother Spillard, my mother Mary's mother.  I used to ride all over the South Side Chicago neighborhood of Brainerd on that bike.  I can't remember the manufacturer, only that it was before Treks were made.  We had to rough it back then.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Happy Birthday Susan!








Today is my sister Susan's birthday.  These days she does not celebrate her birthdays so much as try to forget about them, and prefers I use photographs such as the one on the left instead of more recent ones.  This particular photo was taken in Abilene, Texas when she was 2 years old. She and my mother Mary were visiting my father Nelson, who was in basis training with the army after being drafted at the tender age of 35.  Susan looks very angelic in this photograph, but don't let that fool you. She has been know to come at me with a kitchen knife if she sees I am trying to take her photograph.. Talk about being camera shy.  Nevertheless, have a Happy Birthday, Susan!

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

A Fort Collins Sunset



I took the above photograph of a sunset over Fort Collins from the Horsetooth exit Interstate 25.  I have a bad habit of taking photographs while I am driving on the freeway at 75 or 80 miles per hour, but I fortunately took this one while waiting for the light to turn green. I was driving up to Fort Collins almost every day after my brother-in-law had a serious operation and  spent 6 weeks in the hospital and a rehabilitation center.  Fortunately George is doing much better and even driving himself around Fort Collins these days. Way to go, George!

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Instead Of Fire and Fury, Ice, Snow, And Cold



There may be plenty of fire and fury back in Washington D.C., but in most of the rest of the country it has been mainly snow, ice, and cold.  Even Florida recently got so cold that iguanas have been falling out of the trees, paralyzed by the cold.  Denver has mostly escaped this onslaught of winter. Temperatures got up to 57 degrees Sunday afternoon, but Monday morning it was cold and sleeting, followed by snow.  A layer of sheer ice covered the roads, and many major highways were closed due the high volume of accidents. Monday night it got down to 4 below zero.  And by the way, I took the above photograph Monday morning.  It was on such a morning, just after I started working at the bookstore back in 2014, that I got off the bus and promptly fell down, my head cushioning my fall.  It wouldn't stop bleeding, and after I got to work, I was forced to go to the emergency room, despite my protests.  It did take 14 stitches to patch me up, but I think the high deducible insurance policy I had just signed up for hurt more.

Monday, January 15, 2018

Spring Training Begins In 4 Weeks!



Yes!  It's true!  Baseball returns in just one month, with pitchers and catchers reporting around February 14th, which is often celebrated by non-baseball fans as St.Valentines Day.  And in honor of this exciting news, I am featuring none other than the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the most famous Chicago White Sox players of all time - and one of the infamous "Black Sox" players of 1919 - standing in front of the Comiskey Park scoreboard.  I took the photograph of the scoreboard at Comiskey Park, in the south side Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, back in 1980.  However, I can't take credit for the photo of Shoeless Joe.  I'm not quite THAT old.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Cast Iron



I just finished Cast Iron, a new mystery novel by Peter May.  May wrote the bestselling Lewis Trilogy, which follows the adventures of a former police detective who decides to return to his boyhood home on the Isle of Lewis, in Scotland's Outer Hebrides.  I enjoyed all three books in that series and decided to give this one a try, too.  Cast Iron is also part of a series that features a Scottish forensic expert who lives in France and investigates cold cases.  When I first started reading the story, I wasn't sure I was going to like it.  The title character, Enzo Macleod, seemed to have a very messy personal life, although the title character in the Lewis Trilogy had a messy personal life too.  I decide to persevere, and it turned out the story was a very good read, very exciting, and had a happy ending.  Even Macleod's personal life seemed to straighten itself out.  I am definitely planning to read the other books in the series.  And possibly move to southwestern France.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

One Weird Goat



The above photograph is the first one I took after I walked into the livestock pen at the National Western Stock Show this past Tuesday night.  That goat seemed very happy to have his photograph taken, and gave me the full personality.  But what I want to know is, is this goat wearing dentures?  And is that allowable during the goat judging competition?  I'll do some research and let you know.

Friday, January 12, 2018

More On The National Western Stock Show





The National Western Stock Show is a very popular event here in Denver, especially with families.  Kids just love seeing all the animals on display, and the line to get into the petting zoo is always very long.  One of the most popular activities is to have a photograph of your children taken sitting on top of a Texas Longhorn, such as  the one in the photograph on the left.  And if the cage wasn't locked, I would have been happy to put the young kid seen in the photo on the longhorn's back, so he could have a truly unique western experience.



This particular Texas Longhorn has been appearing at the stock show for years now, and each time I attend I faithfully take a photograph.  After all these visits, you can tell by its friendly look that it instantly recognizes me. Good to see you again too, big fella.  The National Western runs through January 21st this year, and I strongly recommend attending the event if you can. However, if I were you, I would just stick with the grounds admission and skip the rodeo. One year I wound up getting a special deal that included free rodeo admission, and I attended my first - and hopefully last - rodeo.  It was interesting for the first 15 minutes or so, but it just dragged on and on after that.  I am pretty sure it lasted about 12 to 14 hours, enough rodeo for several lifetimes.  Of course, that is just my opinion.  My old University of Denver boss Ed had a much more positive view of the rodeo experience, which was that "once is interesting, twice is a mistake." So there you go.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

The National Western Stock Show - For Free!



I heard over the radio driving to work Tuesday morning that grounds admission at the National Western Western Stock Show was free that day. That evening I drove home to get my camera and got to the Denver Colosseum by about 7:15.  I immediately headed to the livestock area and took a number of photographs, and then headed up the stairs to the main floor. I still wanted to take photographs of the animals in the petting zoo, and so headed up to the third floor.  The petting zoo was closed, but all the animals were still there, resting up after a hard day of heavy petting.  I wanted to take a photograph of a llama - Alpaca? - but couldn't get it to look at me.  I moved a little closer, and wound up knocking down an entire row of plastic stanchions surrounding the pen. That got the llamas attention ( seen in the photograph above), as well as a few other animals, too.  Probably thought I was going to spring them.  Sorry about that, guys.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Active Minds



At the local Denver bookstore where I work, they sponsor a lecture on various topics by an organization called Active Minds twice a month.  Yesterday the talk was on South Korea, and in two weeks the subject will be Spain.  Since these talks take place on Tuesday afternoons, the majority of the audience consists of senior citizens, and usually every seat is filled.  And on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, the store is packed with people browsing the books, sitting and reading, visiting, and standing in line for coffee and food at the coffee bar.  It makes me realize what a valuable place independent bookstores are, and what a shame it would be if mega-giant Amazon puts most of them out of business.  It will all depend on the public.  Do they want to simply buy books at a cheaper price, or support an invaluable asset to their community?  In other words, get out there and support your local bookstore.  End of commercial.

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

The Best Cities For An Active Lifestyle



Still another top ten list has come out, naming the country's best cities for an active lifestyle.  Number one on the list is Chicago, which really seems to annoy the newscasters on the local television stations, since Denver came in 8th place.  They complained that Chicago was not a good city for an outdoor lifestyle, and that Denver has the mountains, a fabulous park system, including such gems as Washington Park, seen in the photograph on the left), legalized marijuana, yada, yada, yada.  Do people say yada yada yada anymore? In any case, we really have no idea who makes these lists up, and what criteria are used to rate the cities.  Personally, I think the local newscasters here in Denver need to deal with the fact that Chicago is a great city for an active lifestyle.

Coming from the South Side Brainerd neighborhood of Chicago, I really have a soft spot in my heart for the city, and I remember countless weekends biking or walking along the lakefront.  In fact, parks make up almost all of the Chicago's lakefront, and are crowded every weekend during the summer months.  I took the photograph on the right back when I was living in Chicago, looking toward Oak Street Beach. Chicago has Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Jackson Park, and even still another Washington Park, where my Grandmother Spillard used to make my Uncle Jack and Uncle Bill take their baby sister Mary (my mother) so she could play there.  And what about all those walks people take to get the neighborhood tavern?  In fact, now that I think about, I am convinced  that Chicago is (and always will be) the number one city for an active lifestyle.

Monday, January 8, 2018

More About Globeville






As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I drove up to the Globeville neighborhood Saturday afternoon to photograph Denver's only World War I monument. Globeville is a working class neighborhood, with a lot of industry, and although now mainly Hispanic, it was once a Polish neighborhood.  It is also close to the trendy RINO (River North) neighborhood, and is predicted to be the next big target for gentrification. When I was done taking photographs of the memorial, I noticed a church across the street that I thought was the one where I attended the funeral of Lucy, my friend Richard's wife.  That church was a Polish one, and upon closer examination this was not it.  However, I remembered that that church was right across the street from a barrier wall for Interstate 70.  Driving just a block south, I found it, as seen in the photograph on the left.

Richard and Lucy both worked at Denver International Airport, and wound up getting married after a brief courtship.  Richard and his mother Francis lived in a 3 bedroom apartment on Dayton Street in Denver, and Lucy moved in with them.  Francis (seen on the far left in the photograph on the right) was my brother-in-law George and his cousin Ana Silvia's aunt (Ana Silvia is standing next to Francis). Francis and Lucy never got along, which is neither here nor there, but made for a lot of drama.  Lucy (seen in the photograph on the far right, standing next to me) was eventually diagnosed with a brain tumor.  She slowly lost touch with reality, and eventually passed away.  Her funeral took place at the Polish church in the  photograph above.  It was a pretty touching ceremony.  Evidently Lucy and her family immigrated from Poland when she was a young girl, and the priest reminisced about when she was a child in the neighborhood.  Interstate 70, by the way, is being rebuilt along this stretch of highway, and many homes and businesses, and most certainly this church, will be torn down to accommodate it.  A very sad thing - another old, pleasant, working class neighborhood altered forever.




Sunday, January 7, 2018

The World War I Centennial



I happened to come across the book World War I Day by Day on my bookshelf recently, which I purchased in 2014, the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.  It is filled with photographs of the war and quite fascinating.  At the time there was some interest in that long ago war, but interest faded until 2016, the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, where Britain suffered 57,000 casualties in one day, with 19,000 killed, the greatest loss of life in a single day in British history.  There were a number solemn ceremonies in the UK, and after that interest in the war, at least here in the US, once again seemed to die.  Just for fun, I decided to look for a World War I memorial here in Denver, and found one in of all places Globeville, a Denver neighborhood with a lot of industry near the Denver Coliseum.  It is a modest affair, and honors Globeville residents who gave their lives in both World War I and World War II.  The United States did not enter World War I until May of 1918, and the war was over by November of that year, which might explain the lack of memorials for that war here in the US.  I don't imagine there will be much fanfare commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of the war here, either.


However, that war had a tremendous impact on Europe.  It almost bankrupted Great Britain, and eliminated an entire generation of young men.  It left Britain a nation of widows and spinsters, and it took many years for the country to recover.  This is probably why my Aunt Elsie, her sister Margaret, and their mother left Blackpool in England and immigrated to Cleveland right after that war.  My Uncle Bill (my mother Mary's brother) got a job with an insurance company as an adjuster, and was soon transferred to Cleveland from Chicago, where he met and married Elsie, seen in the photograph on the right with her mother.  I was probably taken in the early 1940s during a visit to Chicago.  I never met her mother myself, but my sister remembers her fondly.  When my parents and she would go to Cleveland for a visit and she would get in a scrape with her cousin July, she would run to Mrs. Blackburn and cry :"Grandma Blackbird, Grandma Blackbird, Judy is being mean to me again."  But I digress.  There is a Colorado WWI Centennial Commission, and a website, but the only thing it seems to feature here in Colorado is a photograph of the above memorial in Argo Park, honoring those Globeville soldiers.  However, there do seem to be a lot of events mentioned nationally. Check it out at http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/colorado-in-wwi-places/849:wwi-memorial-argo-park.html.

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Watching Liverpool Versus Everton With Mark



I watched Liverpool play Everton with my friend Mark (seen in the above photograph getting ready to dig into a pizza) last night.  It was the 3rd round of the FA Cup soccer tournament, and Liverpool won 2 to 1.  I was shocked to find that Mark does not own a Liverpool soccer jersey, and was forced to just wear the Liverpool colors (red) instead.  Are you truly a soccer fan, Mark?  In any case, Mark is all excited about his upcoming trip to the UK in April.  He plans to spend a week or so in Leeds, visiting with friends there.  Leeds is the UK's third largest city, and from what I read in Wikipedia is a pretty modern, non-touristy urban area.  Mark and I are very different types of travelers.  While Mark likes to go to one place and just hang out like a local, I tend to move to a different place every day, trying to see as many things as possible to create a high tourist site to dollar ratio.  You get to see a lot of things that way, but that kind of schedule tends to wear you down.  At my age it might even kill me, which is probably too high a price to pay to see the 100th church in Rome by the end of the day.  Probably.

Friday, January 5, 2018

Two Weeks To Go...





My sister Susan and I will celebrate our collective birthdays in just two weeks.  I will turn 65 (and be eligible for medicare, no less) on January 19th, and my sister will celebrate her birthday the day before, on January 18th.  I won't say how old Susan is, except to say she was 11 years old when I was born.  My parents (Nelson and Mary) and Susan celebrated her birthday at Art Houle's Rosewood Inn - a wonderful restaurant that resembled a log cabin - back in 1953 and then headed to St. Bernard's Hospital, where I was born early the next morning. The photograph on the left shows Susan and me not too long after that event.  My sister was hoping for a baby sister and was bitterly disappointed, and so I am looking pretty apprehensive in the photo, hoping she wasn't going to take me somewhere where there were no witnesses present.  She did forgive me for being born when I was 60 or so.  She never has forgiven me for taking her bedroom away from her when she went off to Knox College.  We are posing in the back yard of our house in the Brainerd neighborhood, on the South Side of Chicago, before the enclosed back porch was built, which is where Susan wound up sleeping when she came back from college.  Those are the breaks, Susan.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

The 2018 CTA Historical Calendar Is Here!



The CTA Historical Calendar is here at last.  It is one of my favorite calendars, and not just because it is free.  It is put out each year by the Chicago Transit Authority, featuring historic photographs of Chicago and it's streetcars, buses, and "L" trains.  You can download it and just keep it on your computer, print the calendar out, or even download individual photographs.  The photograph above, featuring Wrigley Field during the 1935 World Series against Detroit,  is this year's photograph for October.  And I imagine it is not a coincidence that they are featuring this photo during the month of October.  No doubt the editors are Cubs fans, hoping for a return to the World Series this year for the Cubs.  However, according to Chicago White Sox broadcaster Steve Stone, this will be the year the South Side Chicago White Sox win it all.  Perhaps it will be a subway series, the first since 1908, back when I was but a wee slip of a lad.  Be sure to download your CTA calendar at http://1recriutment.transitchicago.com/historicalcalendar/.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Denver Is Getting Warmer!



At least during the daytime, anyway. New Years Day was sunny all day long, with highs in the upper 20s to low 30s.  That might seem rather cool, but far warmer than the single digit temperatures the previous night. A lot of people were out in Washington Park, walking their dogs or just going around the park to get some exercise and fresh air.  The couple in the photograph above seem to be walking a small horse.  Is that legal in Denver?  In any case, the temperatures are expected to keep getting warmer throughout the week, reaching close to the 60s by the end of the week.  A much different situation to the east and southeast, however. In fact, temperatures in Denver might be higher than in Florida today.  The world turned upside down.

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

New Years Day At The DAM




Since I had the day off, I spent a few hours at the Denver Art Museum yesterday afternoon.  The place was fairly crowded, with people evidently deciding to spend New Years Day perusing the art.  The North Building of the museum is closed for remodeling, and so the museum has put together several exhibits featuring some of the best of it's own collections from that building.  Linking Asia showcases 150 pieces of art from over 20 countries and over a span of 2000 years, while Stampede, Animals in Art, displays many of the museums artwork that features animals if all kinds.


Another exhibit that I especially liked is called Ganesha, The Playful Protector, which features a number of works of art featuring this Hindu deity that has been worshiped since the 400s.  The photograph on the right shows a procession that takes place in Mumbai (aka Bombay) each year where a giant representation of Ganesha (known for its human arms and elephant head) is taken by the crowd to the Gulf of Arabia to be doused. Now that would be a sight to see, although I must say it looks a bit crowded from the photo.   Of course, Her Paris - Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism is still going on, but they want you to pay actual money to see that.  Call me a sexist pig, but I am saving up to buy three tickets to Degas - A Passion for Perfection, which starts at the museum next month.  You have to have priorities, after all.

Monday, January 1, 2018

Happy New Year!


I decided to go downtown to Denver's 16th Street Mall to watch the 9:00 o'clock fireworks show last night. I did this last year, too, and wound up standing next to a tall building surrounded by crowds so thick I couldn't see any fireworks whatsoever.  This year it was 10 degrees out (and predicted to be in single digits for the midnight show), and so the crowd was a lot thinner.  I got off the light rail train at 16th Street, sidestepped a pool of vomit, and walked past a homeless man wrapped in a blanket, sleeping on the sidewalk, in 10 degree weather no less.  Just another New Year's Eve, in other words.  I timed it so I would arrive just before the fireworks started, but by the time I finished taking photographs my fingers were so frozen I could not longer press the shutter button.  And the fireworks were just not that impressive - nothing compared to the 4th of July fireworks show at Coors Field.  It just proves that major league baseball teams have lots more money than cities these days.

After the fireworks show ended, I reveled down the 16th Street Mall past the hoards.  At each street corner large speakers were set up blasting out loud, horrible music - mostly rap.  Groups of young people gathered around each speaker jumping up and down to the beat or actually dancing.  I walked down to Union Station and just like last year, our public train station was closed for a private party.  I don't know why that bugs me so much, but it does.  I walked around the back of the station to the entrance to the underground bus concourse (heated, thank God), which leads to the light rail train home.  It was happily open - I guess they don't hold private parties on New Year's Eve in bus stations. In any case, I got to the platform and waited for the train.  Next to me was a couple with a little girl who were standing next to me during the fireworks show.  The little girl was screaming her head off, and the woman was assuring the child that the train was coming and she would soon be warm.  I suspect these were the grandparents, and I idly wondered where the mother - let alone the father - was.  And so I went home and ushered in the New Year watching the ball drop in Times Square on the television in my den, nice and warm, thank you very much. Happy New Year Everyone!