A Legacy Of Spies

I just finished reading John LeCarre's new novel A Legacy of Spies.  I recently saw an interview with him on 60 Minutes.  He seemed like a pretty interesting guy, and so decided to give the book a try.  I have read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but that has to have been over 40 years ago.  In any case, there is a lot more talk than action in this book, but I think that is the case with LeCarre's other stories, too.  The action centers around Peter Guillam, spy master George Smiley's first lieutenant, who is summoned back to England from retirement in France to answer for a spy operation that went bad back in the late 1950s.  And once again we meet familiar characters such as George Smiley, and Jim, the gruff school teacher and former spy who was the hero of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  It took me a while to finish the book, but I definitely liked it, and recommend it to anyone who liked LeCarre's other stories.

A Ferrari On The Streets Of Denver?

I was driving home after running an errand Saturday morning, and spotted a Ferrari 458 waiting to make a left turn at the corner of Colorado Boulevard and East Evans Avenue here in South Denver (as seen in the photograph above).  This particular model has a base retail price of $243,000, roughly what my condo would bring if I was crazy enough to sell it.  I am just amazed that someone would pay that kind of money for a car, and even more surprised that Denver actually has a Ferrari dealership.  Not that a Ferrari isn't the perfect choice for grocery store runs.  If you need a quart of milk, you need it quick, and what better way to get there fast than a Ferrari.  I couldn't help but notice that the car was heading in the direction of the University of Denver, which has a reputation for having a wealthy student body.  Could an undergrad be driving that car?  Which gives me an idea. Maybe I should print up bumper stickers that say "My Other Car is a Hyundai" to serve that market. Perhaps I could earn enough to buy my own Ferrari.

Commerce City - Going Upscale?

I understand that Commerce City, located just to the northeast of Denver, is becoming an upscale suburb. In fact, the prize in one of those "Dream House" raffles put on by a local charity ($100 a ticket) was a luxury house in - yes - Commerce City.  Commerce City is also the home of Dick's Sporting Goods Field, where the Colorado Rapids Soccer team plays.  But for me, the photograph above is what truly defines Commerce City - oil refineries, lots and lots of oil refineries.  During the daytime, pretty ugly - but at night, fairly colorful. However, not a place I would like to live in, or even hang out in, for that matter.  As Mark Twain once said about Texas, if I owned both Commerce City and hell, I would rent out Commerce City and live in hell.And yes - I do still plan to do a photo book called The Bridges of Commerce City.  It will undoubtedly be a bestseller.

A Memorial Day Weekend Art Festival

Denver's first art festival of the season took place this weekend at Conservatory Green in Denver's Northfield neighborhood, located on the site of the old Stapleton Airport.  It took a little less than half an hour to drive out there, which reminded me that it once took less than 30 minutes to get to the airport, instead of having to drive to the Kansas border, like we do now.  But I digress.  This festival used to take place in downtown Denver, but moved to this new location a few years ago, and I stopped attending.  However, since I saw in the newspaper that it is considered one of the top art festivals in the country, I decided to go this year.  And I must say, the art was pretty good, and there were lots of photography booths, like the one on the left, which displayed a lot of really nice photographs of Europe.

The festival seems to be much larger than it was when it was downtown. The park is an oval about three blocks long, and the booths were set up all around the perimeter road surrounding it, as well as in the park itself.  .This is the first time I have visited this neighborhood, and I must say it is very nice.  There are a lot of 3 story townhouses surrounding this park, and just to the north are some really large homes, including contemporary versions of the Charleston Single House, complete with full length verandas on the side.  It is a fairly new community, and the trees are just starting to grow, giving it a definite suburban feel.  Also, although nice, the townhouses and homes all look alike, adding to that suburb atmosphere.  I myself prefer downtown or old city neighborhoods with lots of trees.  Nevertheless, I did enjoy looking at the photography.  In the photo on the right the booth features photographs from the Sahara.  The photo on the top left of the booth features a man kissing his camel. Nice.

Also at the festival was Xavier Nuez, a photographer from Chicago who specializes in lighting up abandoned buildings in deteriorating neighborhoods in Chicago and Detroit, making for some spectacular photographs, as seen in the photograph on the left.  I first saw his photographs when the festival was downtown, and was very impressed.  In addition to selling his photographs, he holds workshops on his lighting techniques, and takes people into deteriorating Chicago neighborhoods to learn "light painting photography."  There was a $150 show special for one of these workshops, and I must say I was tempted.  Perhaps next year.  Be sure to check out Nuez's web site at http://www.nuez.com/.

Walking The Dogs

I spent part of Saturday afternoon walking the Tutu (in the photograph on the right) and Blackberry (on the left), my sister Susan and brother-in-law George's two dogs.  Both Susan and George are experiencing serious health issues, and are not able to walk more than short distances.  Therefore, I offered my services as a not quite professional dog walker, all for the usual price - nothing.  Dogs and cats are great companions, and I can see why so many people are devoted pet owners.  However, to me it is like having children - they are demanding, expensive, and you have to consider them if you want to travel.  And I do not envy pet owners having to take them out if they need to go outside at 3:00 A.M.  And so for me, walking them is fine, but I get to return them to Susan and George at the end of the walk.

Once Blackberry spotted a squirrel (a tree rat according to one of my bookstore co-workers), there was no getting her away that tree, as seen in the photograph on the right. And what would Blackberry have done if she had captured that squirrel?  Probably licked him to death.  It reminds me of that home security ad on television where two burglars walk into a house and are confronted by a fierce, growling dog.  It walks right up to them and drops it's ball, wanting to play.  Still another reason not to own dogs.

The Final Friday Of May

Last night after work I headed to the Denver Art Museum (the DAM) for their monthly Final Friday event.  I wasn't expecting much, since there is only one new show (Jeffrey Gibson - Like A Hammer), which features recent works by this Native American artist. It was not my kind of art, and so my fears were indeed realized. In the self portrait on the left, by the way, I am standing in front of of one of the museum's contemporary art works.  It is right at the entrance to the building, and is a popular sight to photograph.  I bet the curator really thought he would "clean up" with this piece, ho ho.

Since there was nothing new on display this month, most of the evening's events centered around workshops and various activities, including an art class teaching guests how to draw the various animal sculptures on display at the Stampede - Animals in Art exhibit, which has been on display for about 10 years now (or so it seems) and will be on view through May 19th, 2019.  Really?  It will be here for another year?  Give me a break.  It is not all that wonderful to begin with, and do you really think people will keep visiting the museum when all they will see is the same old sh*t.  But I digress. Still another event was an "Improv Workshop," seen in the photograph on the right.  I am not sure exactly what this has to do with art, and was not interested in finding out, and so decided to call it an evening. Perhaps next month, when a landscape photography exhibit opens, Final Friday will be a bit more interesting. One can always hope.

Remembering Elburn

In the late 1970s, my sister Susan and brother-in-law George bought a house in Elburn, Illinois, located about 10 miles west of the Chicago suburb of Geneva.  At that time the Chicago metropolitan area ended at Geneva, and west of that was all farmland.  The house they bought was very nice, and my mother Mary and father Nelson (seen posing in front of the place in the above photograph) drove up from Florida to to visit.  I distinctly remember my sister forbidding George to fry bacon in the kitchen, and George having to do it in the unheated utility room (and it was a pretty cool fall, too, I might add).  Susan would also vacuum up crumbs right under my father's feet while he was still eating, shouting to Susan to "get that damn thing out of here." Susan is no longer such a fanatic about cleaning, by the way.  Every morning, a rooster - owned by Vince, the next door neighbor - would start crowing at 4:00 A.M. sharp.  Still, my parents came back for the Christmas holiday (I think).  Just a few years later, I moved to Denver, and Susan and George soon followed, selling the Elburn house.  I hear that the area is fully developed now, and Elburn has become a suburb of Chicago.  Happy memories of a happy time.

Two Very Interesting Houses

This past week, I took photographs of two pretty interesting houses.  The one on the left is located two blocks south of the Denver Art Museum.  As far as I can tell, it is the only single family home on the block. Everything else is either a business, office building, apartment building, and last but not least, some really nice looking multistory townhouses.  Think single family brownstones in New York City - these are the Denver equivalent.  And I am sure they are reasonably priced, too.  At least for one percenters.  But I am not jealous - at least not much.

The other house I have featured on this blog in the past. When residential neighborhoods began to become too commercial back in the late 19th and early 20th century, homes would be sold to businessmen, who would put storefronts right in front of the house.  I imagine the owner of the shop would live upstairs, making going to work an easy trip.  There are a lot of examples of this on Colfax Avenue and Broadway here in Denver, but the house in the photograph on the left is a prime example.  The house itself is deserted these days, unless homeless people are squatting there. There are lots of broken and boarded up windows, too, and the place seems pretty run down.  Another piece of Denver history crumbling.

The Final Day Of Degas - Part II

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I went to see the Degas exhibit at the Denver Art Museum this past Sunday on the final day of the show.  What I really like about these exhibits at the DAM is how they try to include historic photographs or film footage to set the scene for the works you are seeing.  The photograph on the left is actually a photo of a 15 second loop of film taken of Edgar Degas during his afternoon walk.  The filmmaker asked Degas if he could film him, Degas refused, and so the filmmaker set up his camera along the street in Paris where Degas took his daily walk.  Pretty sneaky, and pretty smart - it captured an everyday scene, and forever preserved a glimpse of the famous artist.

In the photograph on the right is a mock-up of Degas attic studio in Paris.  Degas was a bit of a collector, and so the studio was filled with knickknacks he picked up in his travels, his paintings and sculptures in various stages of completion, and of course, his brushes, paints, and other tools of the trade.  There was also a tin bathtub where his nude models would pose.  The few visitors who were allowed up there found it very claustrophobic.  What I like best about the scene is the view of Paris outside the window.  How great is that?

At the end of the exhibit was the photograph on the left, showing Degas and his hangers-on in a bit of a whimsical mood.  Like I said before, these photographs record a bit of history, show us what these artists actually looked like, and give us a feel for what their world was like back in the late 19th and early 20th century. And as far as I'm concerned, Paris looked good back then and looks good now.  As Audrey Hepburn once said as the title character in the movie Sabrina: "Paris is always a good idea."

The Final Day Of Degas

I went to the Denver Art Museum (the DAM) to see Degas:  A Passion for Perfection this past Sunday, which was the final day of the exhibit.  It was crowded, but since groups were only allowed in in 15 minute intervals, it was still a comfortable atmosphere in which to see the paintings.  The exhibit started with his early work, mostly landscapes and portraits, and traced the progression of his art through his lifetime.

Basically, Degas was most interested in painting 3 subjects: ballerinas, horses, and bathing female nudes, and there were plenty of all three on display. Although Degas exhibited his work with the impressionists, he did not consider himself one.  He liked to experiment with a variety of styles, and constantly carried notebooks in which he would sketch ideas for new paintings.  The show was presented and organized in conjunction with the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, England, whose Degas collection is the largest in the United Kingdom.  The Denver Art Museum, by the way, was the only American venue for this exhibit, no doubt because the museum must have had incriminating photographs as a bargaining card.

What surprised me most about the exhibit was that taking photographs of the artwork was allowed.  Most of the time, if you try to take a photograph in one of these special exhibits, the staff swoops down on you and puts you in a holding cell in the basement for a couple of years.  Not this time - I was able to take as many photos as I wanted, which I did, since my sister Susan, who really wanted to see this show, could not attend, and so I wanted to take photographs of the more famous works to show her later on, such as the two in the diptych above.  Taking photographs without getting yelled at - what a concept!

More On Lower Downtown

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I went for a walk through lower downtown Denver last weekend.  The area where I started my walk is where Denver first began in 1858, and it still has a lot of the buildings from those early days (by which I mean the brick buildings that replaced the wooden structures after they all burned down).  There is even a former Wells Fargo Stage Coach Office at the corner of 15th and Market, which is now, of course, some New Age type of shop.  Bat Masterson once managed the Palace Theater and Gambling Hall just down the street at 15th and Blake, where there now stands a condo building called the Palace Lofts.   In the above collage on the upper left is Union Station, the middle of which was rebuilt after a fire in 1901, while the two sides were built in 1881.  The upper right photo shows the Abend Gallery, which used to be located near the bookstore where I work on Colfax, but has now gone upscale and moved to this new Lower Downtown location.  Nothing personal, but when it was on Colfax I never saw anything remotely interesting in there. Maybe they were catering to the Colfax Avenue crowd back then.  Big mistake. In the bottom right is the newly rebuilt train platform for both Amtrack and the local light rail trains, and on the bottom left is a bar called Society Sports and Spirits.  This is where a Denver institution called City Spirit Cafe, a restaurant and bar for an earlier generation of hipsters,  was once located, but it has recently been the home of a series of bars.  It is now a popular spot for hockey and basketball fans due to it's location not too far from the Pepsi Center (The Can).  I myself have never been there, since it is, after all, a hockey and basketball joint.  I'm not a snob, but...

Pickup At Union Station

I just finished reading Pickup at Union Station, another book in the "Murph the cab driver" series by Gary Reilly. Reilly wrote 11 books in this series, 8 of which have been published.  They are funny and lighthearted stories centering on the misadventures of Denver cab drive Brendan "Murph" Murphy.  Reilly passed away before any of these books were published, but his friends and relatives got together to start Running Meter Press to make sure they made it into print.  This time Murph picks up a passenger who dies in the backseat of his cab.  A few days later he finds out that this passenger was up to something shady, and the man's cohorts are beginning to show up with lots of questions.  Once again, I recommend both this book and all the others in the series.  I just hope they publish those final 3 stories soon.

The May Mutt Of The Month

The May Mutt of the Month is once again Tutu, my sister Susan and brother-in-law George's Yorkie.  Since I am in Fort Collins so often these days, it is an easy photograph to take, and personally, I think the above portrait of Tutu is pretty damn good.  I know I should be out there on the street, beating the bushes for moe varied dog portraits, and I will definitely start doing that - right after I retire.  Talk to me in 3 months.

Still More Vacation Nostalgia

Not long after World War II, my family and my Uncle Bill's family started vacationing together for two weeks in Ontario, Canada each August.  At first they stayed at a resort called Britannia, on the Lake of Bays. The photo on the left shows the families at Britannia around the early 1950s, before I was born.  In the back row (from left to right) are my Aunt Elsie, my Uncle Bill (my mother's brother), my mother Mary, and father Nelson.  In the front row are my cousins Linda and Judy, my sister Susan, and my Grandmother and Grandfather Spillard (my mother's parents). Susan and Judy, by the way, couldn't wait to get together on these trips to Britannia. Our family lived in Chicago, and my uncle's family in Cleveland, so it was the only time they got to see each other.  Then they fought with each other for two weeks.  Susan and Judy were the terror of the wait staff.  I think the waitresses drew straws to see who would have to serve them.

It was a beautiful resort, but eventually the prices got too high and the families began vacationing instead at Torpitt Lodge, which was located on Sparrow Lake and featured a nine hole golf course.  In the photograph on the right (from left to right) are my father Nelson, mother Mary, Aunt Elsie, and Uncle Bill, taken at Torpitt Lodge back in the early 1960s. My father and uncle played golf together on that course (in front of which the four of them are posing) for two weeks straight, and had a great time.  However, the cabin we stayed in was pretty rustic, and one year I came down with asthma from staying there, and had to be hospitalized in nearby Orillia, Ontario. I'm afraid that was the last time we saw Torpitt Lodge.  In any case, years later by Uncle Bill and Aunt Elsie retired to a condo complex in Stuart, Florida which featured a nine hole golf course, and my parents soon followed.  And once again my father and uncle were able to play golf to their hearts content, and not just for two weeks, either.  Good for them.

The Good Neighbors Meeting

Yesterday I attended the University of Denver's quarterly Good Neighbors Meeting, hosted by Allan Wilson, DU's Director of Real Estate and Auxiliaries.  I was hoping to get advance information on the university's new Campus Master Plan, which is set to be unveiled in a speech by the chancellor on May 30th. Unfortunately, the Board of Trustees has not yet approved the plan, and so Wilson could only speak in very general terms.  However, I was reassured to learn that the plan will cover land already owned by the university, and so I assume my condo building is now safe from a hostile takeover.  And from what I can gather, a variety of retail shops as well as a boutique hotel may one day be built directly across the street from me.  I will be able to just walk over and hobnob at the hotel bar with the the DU elite, perhaps even getting a chance to express my ideas directly to the chancellor herself, over drinks.  I'll bet they can't wait. Perhaps I can even negotiate a consultant's fee.  Let the good times roll.

Walking The Cherry Creek Trail

Saturday afternoon I went to the Denver Art Museum to buy a ticket to see to the Degas Exhibit this week, and then headed to Lower Downtown Denver to take a stroll along Cherry Creek.  It is both a bike path and a pedestrian trail, and winds through Denver to Confluence Park, where it empties into the Platte River. To the south is Speer Boulevard, and to the north condos and townhouses now line it's banks.  It was an overcast day, with rain threatening, but still was a nice walk.  At the end of the trail, at Confluence Park, is a brand new 35 story apartment building, appropriately named The Confluence, standing out prominently among the low rise buildings surrounding it.  I walked around the place, but could not find a sales office.  I suspect to rent there you have to call and make an appointment.  They also have a valet to park your car for you.  I checked online when I got home and a two bedroom two bath will set you back a minimum of $3,264 per month.  Darn - just a little bit out of my price range.  In any case, in the collage above - going clockwise from the upper left - is Cherry Creek, with the Acme Lofts in the background on the left, where I could have bought a one bedroom one bath for $79,000 back in 1987, and didn't;  next, one of the many old bridges that cross the creek.  The bottom right show the balcony of an older building which has a loft to die for (if people say that anymore).  I saw it back when Lower Downtown Denver had an annual loft tour, and it occupies an entire floor, with great views to the south an entire rooftop to hang out on.  Once again, just out of my price range.  Bottom left is Confluence Park, where Cherry Creek meets the Platte River. That massive high rise stands right behind where I took the photo.  Ah, to live the good life.  I guess I'll have to be happy with the OK life. And that's OK.

White Sox Update

I have been watching the Chicago White Sox games on a regular basis for the first time since 1980, thanks to the miracle of MLB.com.  And I am sad to report that as of today they have a 10 and 27 record and are in last place in the American League Central.  But as I recall, they were just as bad in 1980, when I took the above photograph of baseball announcer Harry Caray singing "Take me out to the Ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch (this was before he became the announcer for the Cubs and left the South Side faithful in tears). But on the bright side, Steve Stone, who was Harry Caray's color man with the Cubs, is now one of the White Sox announcers, and the South Side White Sox actually beat the North Side Chicago Cubs this past Sunday afternoon.  Plus, the White Sox are a mere 9 games out of first place.  Can the playoffs be far behind?  Holy Cow!

Hiking Tips For Spring

Now that spring is here, as a public service I am once again giving my hiking tips.  The main one being, if you see something like in the above photo on the trail, I would start backing up very slowly, unless of course it's cub is directly behind you.  Then, of course, you are truly screwed.  Dive off the trail into the woods immediately and run like crazy.  And then, of course, bears are not your only worry up in the mountains. When I first moved to Colorado back in 1981, moose did not exist in the state.  Then Colorado Parks and Wildlife decided to reintroduce the species into the state, and they have been wildly successful.  It is now very common for moose to wander the streets of Breckenridge, Frisco, and other mountain towns, and it turns out that moose are not exactly a friendly species.  If someone tries to pet them or take a "selfie," which just happened here this past week, they tend to attack.  Unfortunately, I do not have any photographs of a moose.  I have never seen one, but I think the time has come to head up to the mountains with my camera and snap some photos.  What could go wrong?

Today Is Mother's Day!

I almost forgot, and published a non-Mother's Day post for this Sunday before I remembered.  And so, belatedly, here is my Mother's Day Blog, featuring a photograph of my mother Mary where she was happiest, on the 9 hole golf course at her condo complex in Stuart, Florida.  She never played golf before she and my father Nelson moved there from Chicago in 1976, but she quickly took up the sport, and made more friends than anytime in her life.  My father passed away in 1974, but my mother continued to live in Stuart for almost 30 years. They were the happiest days of her life.  Good for her. Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Catching A Rockies Game With Mark

My friend Mark - who as regular blog readers know works at the library at the University of Denver - and I went to see the Colorado Rockies play the Milwaukee Brewers (the Brew Crew) at Coor's Field last night. After hamburgers at the Three Lions Pub (a soccer hangout, of course, given Mark's obsession with the sport) we drove downtown and wound up buying specially priced $20 seats on the first base side, as seen above (Mark is of course on the right, and the distinguished older gentleman on the left is me).  This was one long game - over 4 1/2 hours - and the Rockies gave up the lead in the bottom of the ninth inning, losing in the 10th by a score of 11 to 10.  Plus, a fine mist was falling, adding to the somber atmosphere.  The Rockies have a very respectable 21 and 18 record, but both times I have attended games they have looked really bad.  Perhaps I should offer to let the Rockies pay me not to attend, perhaps guaranteeing them a jinx free run at the playoffs.  Believe me, they have spent their money in worse ways.  In any case, while watching the game, I got Mark to attend the talk by Rebecca Chop, the University of Denver's Chancellor - scheduled for the end of the month - concerning the university's plans for the DU neighborhood.  Since I live directly across the street from DU, I have a very personal interest in this.  Mark has agreed to take copious notes, which will tell me whether to celebrate or break out the protest signs.  Thanks Mark!

Vacation Time Nostalgia...

Believe it or not, we are just two weeks away from Memorial Day Weekend, the unofficial start of summer, and - if they are lucky - the time when families begin to take their annual vacations. It makes me think back to when my parents moved to Stuart, Florida in 1976.  My sister Susan and I would go down to visit them once or twice a year, usually in the summer, and we would often take road trips to places like Key West, Sanibel Island, St. Augustine, and the historic cities of Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina.  My sister always reminisces about those trips to Savannah and Charleston, and what a pleasure it was to see those beautiful cities.  I took the above photo of my parents Nelson and Mary on the veranda of Boone Hall Plantation, just outside of Charleston, back in 1979.  It has been around since 1681, and is one of America's oldest working plantations, although I am pretty sure they no longer use slave labor, depending on how you define slave labor, of course.  In any case, we had some great trips back then, and I am truly grateful for the memories.

The Brewpub Scene

Colorado is obsessed with brewpubs, and in Denver there are new ones opening every day.  In some neighborhoods, such as the Upper Larimer neighborhood, there are brewpubs on almost every block, one of them being Our Mutual Friend, as seen in the photograph above.  I assume the place is some sort of Dickens hangout, considering the name is the same as one of Dickens' novels.   Of course, I have never been in there, so I could be wrong.  I once went to hipster hotspot The Thin Man on East 17th Street, thinking it had some connection with the William Powell / Myrna Loy detective movies of the 1930s, but instead found it inexplicably filled with Catholic iconography.  And hipsters, of course.  Go figure.

Baby's First Felony

I just finished an advanced reading copy of Baby's First Felony, John Straley's latest Cecil Younger mystery. And this latest book in the series is the first since Cold Water Burning, which was published in 2002 and hailed not only as the year's best mystery novel but the best novel of the year.  Did it really take him 16 years to think up a suitable sequel?  I was really looking forward to reading it, but sadly, it is nothing like his previous stories.  The book has no chapters - it is a continuous monologue from the main character, Ceil Younger, testifying about the events that led to his arrest and why he should be granted leniency.  I am not sure why Straley wrote it.  He was a criminal defense investigator for the Alaska Public Defender's Office for 30 years, so perhaps he wanted to show what his client's lives were like and what going through the criminal justice system entailed.  I myself do not read mysteries for a dose of hard reality, and so I was very disappointed in the book.  I say it is a skip, although I would indeed recommend the other, older books in the series.

Gubernatorial Politics In Colorado

This past Saturday at the Cinco de Mayo celebration at Civic Center Park in downtown Denver, Cary Kennedy - running in the Democratic Primary for governor - gave a campaign speech before the performance of a local Mexican band.  The current governor, John Hickenlooper, can not run again due to term limits, and so the office is up for grabs.  An by the way, most former governors go into private law practice when they leave office, but Hickenlooper was the owner of a brewpub, not a lawyer, before he became Mayor of Denver.  Will he go back to being a barkeep?  I'll let you know.  In any case, I was curious if Cary Kennedy was a member of The Kennedy family.  I Googled her and found out that she was born here in Colorado and has no connection to that clan, unlike Chris Kennedy, who recently ran in the Democratic primary for governor in Illinois, and who is the son of Robert F. Kennedy.  Which just goes to prove the old saying - you  can't tell the Kennedy's without a program.

Cinco De Mayo Weekend!

This past weekend Denver celebrated Cinco de Mayo at Civic Center Park.  It is - according to local media outlets - the largest Cinco de Mayo celebration in the country, and was  expected to draw 400,000 people over a three day period.  I drove down Saturday afternoon and walked around for an hour, and this only cemented my view about these local festivals.  Although there was certainly a lot of Latino food and various other types of Latino booths, this festival is very much interchangeable with the People's Fair here in June and the Taste of Colorado (the Festival of Mountain and Plain) over Labor Day Weekend.  I swear many of the merchants are even the same- they just take down the "se habla Espanol" signs when the next festival comes up.  And for Exhibit A I have the photograph above, which on the left shows the booths on either side of 14th street, with the state capital in the background.  Continue forward and turn left on Broadway, and you have all the food booths.  And what are they selling at the food booth in the photograph on the right?  Turkey legs, which they sell at each one of these festivals.  No doubt these are traditional Mexican turkey legs.  I am not saying these festivals are bad.  They are great for people watching, but if you have seen one, you have seen them all.

Derby Day!

Yesterday was the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby, and this year I watched the race with mys sister Susan up in Fort Collins.  Susan, like me, remembers as the Kentucky Derby as a big deal in our family, with my father Nelson cutting up the names of the horses from the newspaper, putting them in a hat, and then having everyone pick out several in hope they would win the pot.  Susan reminisced about how our Grandfather and Grandmother Spillard (our mother Mary's parents) used to take her to Arlington and Washington Parks in the Chicago area to see the horse races, and how our Grandmother Spillard was so good at picking horses that she had a bottom drawer filled with 20s.  Nice.  And by the way, Justify won the race, with Good Magic, my sister's pick, coming in second.  Hopefully she didn't have too much money bet on that horse.

The First Friday In May

Yesterday was the first Friday in May, and the First Friday Art Walk along Santa Fe Boulevard here in Denver was packed.  The side walks were crowded, and you had to move very slowly between galleries. Perhaps this was because I showed up later than usual, and the hipsters here really don't start partying before 8:00 or 9:00 P.M.  Also, this was the first truly warm night for First Friday since last fall, and I suspect art walks are a warm weather sport.  In any case, there was some pretty nice photography on display this time, along with the other usual weird stuff, and Metropolitan State University's Center for the Visual Arts was featuring it's annual show for this year's Bachelor of Fine Arts graduates, and so the energy level was pretty high.  Plus, that little girl who plays the guitar and sings on the street for tips was back (as seen in the upper right hand corner of the above collage).  Once again, I have to wonder if she gets to keep her tips, or her father just takes them to pay bills.  Also, is this not covered under child labor laws?  As I passed her heading for the light rail train to go home around 9:30, she was still playing away.  Somebody should look into that.

The Platte River Valley

When I first moved to Denver, the Platte River Valley was a sea of railroad tracks, dividing Lower Downtown Denver from the Lower Highlands neighborhood, which were connected by a series of viaducts. Today the viaducts are long gone, and the area  is solidly built up with apartments, condos, restaurants, bars, and shops.  And a very large Whole Foods just opened on the ground floor of a new high rise, a true sign of a neighborhood's arrival into status symbol land..  Basically, this development, along with the Ballpark neighborhood, and the Rino district, has resulted in a large population just adjacent to downtown Denver.  It guarantees that Denver will be a vibrant city for years to come.  Just bring your checkbook.

A Visit From Poky Little Puppy

We had a visit from Poky Little Puppy this past Tuesday morning during Children's Story Hour at the local Denver Bookstore where I work.  Evidently this is a beloved character in some of the Little Golden Books, although I have never heard of him before.  And by the way, I was not there to attend story hour.  My office is in the basement, and I was on my way back from the facilities when I saw the photo opportunity on the left.  The bookstore is in an old theater, and since it was built in the 1950s, the basement was actually built to double as a bomb shelter.  If the big one hits, the behind the scenes bookstore staff will all survive, assuming no one took a break to go upstairs and see what the weather was doing.  Now that would be bad timing.

Going Ape At The Zoo - Part II

As I mentioned in yesterday's Blog, this past Saturday was such a beautiful day that I decided to head to the Denver Zoo to take a few photos.  Since it was close to 80 degrees, most of the animals were outside enjoying the day, which always makes it easier to take photographs.  However, the baby gorilla, now entering the terrible twos (he was born in March of 2016), and seen in the photograph above , still seems to be confined to quarters.  I am not sure why they won't let him into the yard to explore the outside world.  I think the animal keepers at the Denver Zoo are overly protective.  If they don't watch out, that ape will develop psychological problems, and they will wind up paying a fortune in psychiatrists bills.

Going Ape At The Zoo

I spent this past Saturday afternoon at the Denver Zoo, and focused on photographing the primates, since the temperature was almost 80 degrees and many of them were out and about.  Of course, when I say out and about, I mean in their respective compounds.  I still l don't see why the zoo can't just let all the animals roam free in a large park-like setting, just like in the wild.  The zoo visitors could roam around just like they would if they were in the jungle.  If one of the animals decides to snack on a hyena, or possibly a Californian, the zoo could simply have one of their employees shoot it with a dart gun, and take it to a "time out" area for the rest of the day.  And no thanks necessary for the idea, Denver Zoo.