Category Archives: Forest Park

Lowenhaupts’ Japanese Prints

Posted on by
1

On Saturday, after I was finished sledding down Art Hill, I went into the Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM), the museum for which the hill is named.  The SLAMmer as it is affectionately also known is undergoing a major expansion effort that is not due to be completed until 2012. Many of the galleries have been emptied, to protect the art from vibration and dust. A few, small, but still interesting exhibits remain though and one of them is the feature of this post. Glimpsing History through Art: Selections from the Charles and Rosalyn Lowenhaupt Collection of Japanese Prints is its title.  Accompanying this post are pictures of a few of the dozen displayed pieces.  Most of the works are triptychs. The gallery’s display represents less than 1% of the collection.

The Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) provided new subject matter for Japanese woodblock artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Woodblock artists who had watched demand for their work decline due to the availability of newer visual mediums such as lithography and photography found a way to entice customers with inexpensive yet colorful prints.

At the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912), political power was stripped from the military ruler (shogun) and restored to the emperor, who set Japan on an ambitious path toward modernity. Having modeled its army and navy on the West, Japan took on an increasingly imperialistic agenda as it emerged victorious in the wars against China and Russia. Color woodblock prints depicting scenes of the wars were mostly produced in Tokyo. Astonishingly, many were designed, printed and issued only days after actual military events occurred. At one level they served to disseminate news of the wars to interested members of the Japanese public on the home front, but they were also propaganda tools designed to elicit support for the wars.

Since 1988, Charles and Rosalyn Lowenhaupt of Saint Louis have collected Japanese art, focusing on prints of the two wars. Starting in 2004, they presented several prints from their collection to the Saint Louis Art Museum. In September 2010, the Lowenhaupts donated an additional 1,357 works (including 1,296 prints) to the Museum. This generous gift makes the Museum a premier center for the study of art produced during this pivotal period in Japan’s modern history.

In other news, sister-in-law Kathy has moved her here blog to WordPress.  All of the best blogs use wordpress.com.  Plus, Kathy has her own URL too,

Frozen Toes

Posted on by
6

This will be a short post.  Anne and I stayed up late on New Years, 1:30 AM.  After writing the First Night post, there didn’t seem to be too much left to say, but we did manage to get back out on our bikes on New Years Day.  The ride was cold, frozen toes cold.  We got 11 miles on 1.1.11.  How’s that for a lot of ones?  On the way back, we slid into a local sports bar for some Big Ten football.  Unfortunately, neither Michigan nor Michigan State did very well in their bowl games.  Well, at least we got a start on our 2011 biking mileage goals.

1000 Miles!

Posted on by
5

Temperatures soared into the mid-fifties on Thursday, so even though it was damp and dreary Anne and I knew that this was the day.  If Anne was going to make her annual cycling mileage goal of one-thousand miles, it was going to be that day.  We launched from the house and headed to the Park.  We did a turn around the bike path, including the new section, which is now open.  The dual-path system may be finished, but it is not done yet.  Men were still working on landscaping, plus the old pathway has not yet been reopened, so much for a November completion date.  After once around, we exited stage east on Clayton Avenue and headed over to Tower Grove Park.  On the way back home, we stopped off at the Gardens and had a late lunch at the restaurant there.  Afterwards, we visited the Christmas exhibit, Gardenland Express, picture trains, lots of poinsettias, small children and grandparents too.  I didn’t last long there.  We sailed home with a strong tailwind and got 23 miles.

Wednesday night we met friends from my work for dinner at Pi.  Pi is that pizzeria that Mr. Obama liked so much that he chose this Saint Louis rendition of Chicago style pizza for his inaugural ball.  I can still hear the echoing wails from that little town in northern Illinois.  Two colleagues and their spouses, Don & Erin and Dan & Mary joined Anne and I there.  So what do three engineers discuss at a place called Pi?  What else but quiz each other on how many digits of the number Pi can be recited from memory?  I topped out at seven, which only gives me about a 32-bit precision.  Later, I saw a waitress with 20+ digits on the front of her t-shirt.  Baby, where were you when I needed you!

Le Domestique

Posted on by
5

A domestique is a bicycle racer who works for the benefit of his team and not themselves.  So, what do domestiques do?  For the most part, they ride in front of the team leaders and cut the leader’s wind resistance.  Experts say that “drafting” like this can save a third of the leader’s strength.  In addition to drafting duties, a domestique will also fetch food and water for the team.  The French word, domestique translates as “servant”.

Anne and I rode in the Park on Tuesday and got 15 miles.  Anne only needs another 23 miles to meet her annual cycling mileage goal of a thousand miles.  I’ll be her domestique and work to keep those cold December winds off of her, so that she can make her goal.

In other domestic news, Anne knitted the above pictured cap for our house gnome, on Christmas Day.  Under the rubric of making lemonade out of lemons, Anne took Dave’s news that he cannot find the beautiful argyle cap that she made for him surprisingly well, maybe too well.  She later remarked, “Well, at least this creates another knitting opportunity.”

Speaking of Christmas Day, we had a double disaster in the kitchen that day.  Our two oldest and most venerated cutting boards fell to the floor and then split in two.  Anne and Dan went to the hardware store the next day and purchased two clamps and wood glue that specifically says that it is for glueing cutting boards.  The picture above shows the first board drying in the clamps, while the second one patiently waits its turn.

Weekend Update

Posted on by
1

Saturday night, Anne and I went to Joe’s Christmas party.  Joe, a co-worker of mine, has been holding this party for about a dozen years.  We went for the first time last year.  What makes Joe’s Christmas party special is that it is a Christmas cookie party.  Anne brought a batch of cookies that she made to share, as did many of the other guests.  The chocolate-cherry mice were easily the biggest hit in this department.  The food artist used the stem of the chocolate dipped maraschino cherries for the tails and almond slices as their ears.  They looked too good to eat, well almost.  At the party, fixings were provided to make and decorate your own cookies.  Anne and I both made a plate of cookies.  The winner is this department was Chris, also from work, with his cookie Christmas tree.  I just couldn’t get him to straightenout his star.  Chris is a great man and a good friend and I won’t let him down this week.

Joe and his wife are rightly proud of all of their children, but they should be especially proud of their eldest daughter.  She is currently a PhD. candidate in genetics at Harvard.  We’ve been joking at work for years that we need to clone Joe, because he is the only one in the company that can do what he does.  Finally, there appears to be a path forward.

I rode by myself on Saturday, but on Sunday, Anne I rode together.  We only did ten miles in the Park, but in these cold and dark December days this counts for much more.  Simply getting out on your bike is a major challenge.  Heck, just putting on all those clothes is hard enough.  The picture below of Anne was taken on the return run, at Wydown and Big Bend.  The cold weather had managed to bring some color to her cheeks.  Anne is my best friend forever.  Who else would put up with biking with me in such crappy weather?

Danny and Annie flew in from the left coast on Sunday night.  Before they took off from LAX, he had posted to Facebook that he was looking forward to enjoying Red Hot Riplets and Schlafly beer.  For the edification of you out-of-towners, Red Hot Riplets are hot barbecue flavored ridged potato chips.  As the bag says they are made with real Saint Louis style hot sauce.  Personally, I find them to be too spicy, but each to their own.

Annie’s folks picked them up at the airport and we all dined together at the Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood.  Since last year’s Belgium-fucation of Anheuser-Busch by InBev, Schlafly’s has almost overtaken A-B as the hometown favorite.  Pretty good for a brewery that still has not managed to meet the impossibly high standards of the City of Saint Louis for beer brewing.

I’m back in the saddle again …

Posted on by
2

I’m back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly gypsum weed
Back in the saddle again

I got back in the saddle again on Saturday and rode 15 miles in the Park.  I haven’t bicycled since before Thanksgiving, almost four weeks.  First there was the trip to Michigan, then there was the cold weather and work, don’t forget about work.  I got plenty more excuses if you need to hear them.  No?  Anyway, when ever I get back on the bike after having been off of it for a while, it feels a little odd.  Yesterday was no different.

In addition to riding, I also took a few pictures.  I lucked out and was able to get close enough to the Belted Kingfisher to get a pretty good shot of it.  They are usually a very skittish bird and I have found that normally it is impossible to approach them.  On the other hand, with their penetrating rattle call, they are also pretty easy to track.  I actually recorded the following audio off of the iBird iPhone App.  It had better audio quality than the real thing.

Saturday was the first time that it made it above freezing in about a week.  I expected to see more cyclists than I did.  I barely made my sanity quotient of six other cyclists.  I can’t remember how I arrived at the number six as a sign of sanity, but fewer than six is a sign of mental instability and the fewer and fewer that I see indicate increasing levels of mental disorder, until I ‘ve become a crazed cyclist, a cycle-path.  Fortunately, Kaldis’ teammate, Dr. Mad. pushed my quota over the top as my number six rider.  Some may question the efficacy of relying upon a mad doctor to make ones sanity quotient.  Maybe I need to make an adjustment or better yet ask Bill to make it for me?

Bicycling on a Sunday Afternoon

Posted on by
4

On Sunday, Anne and I went bicycling together for the first time in a long time.  About a month ago, Anne and I were on our longest bike ride since the MS-150.  On this ride Anne’s knee started to hurt, so I ended up riding home alone, getting the car, picking her up and then sagging her home.  After another bad start, in which she had to turnaround almost immediately after leaving the house, she called her doctor.  He prescribed a course of naproxen (Aleve).  After completing this course plus a month of rest, she felt ready to try bicycling again.

When we set off on Sunday, the temperature was in the low fifties, the sun was shining and there was a fair breeze out of the southwest.  It was perfect weather for Anne to model her brand new orange bicycling wind shell.  We launched together from the house and rode down to the Park.  Anne rode somewhat gingerly, but also pain-free.  At one point, we became separated, and then met up again, parted yet again, met one more time and then eventually found our separate ways home.  We both got 15 miles.

Skaters were out on Steinberg Rink on Sunday.  These are the first skaters that I have seen there so far this season.  Earlier in the week, when the highs were in the mid-seventies, I saw no skaters on the rink.  I wasn’t even sure that on those days that the ice was entirely solid.  The rink was not too crowded, but still there were a good number of skaters out on the ice.

The last stretch of the dual-path biking/walking trail that rings the Park looks to be progressing well.  This shouldn’t be all that surprising considering the long stretch of great outdoor construction weather that we have enjoyed here in Saint Louis.  It is suppose to be completed by the end of November.  Starting at the ice rink and ending at the new Hampton underpass, this new section of the path will do something that the rest of the dual path system has never attempted.  It will separate the two paths.  The footpath will follow the original path’s course.  Starting from the ice rink, this new section of the bike path will swing east of Jefferson Lake, then climb the hill to the Science Center, it then runs between the south side of Aviation Field and the highway, along the highway side of the parks department’s greenhouses and rejoins the footpath at Hampton.  Preliminary measurements indicate that the new outer loop trail will be a little bit longer than the current one.