I've been busy concentrating on my photography and hangin' out on Facebook, making enemies and regaling the masses with retail stories. So, in consolation, a tour of my Fisher-Price Little People castle:

www.flickr.com/photos/randoymwords/sets/72157626271921097/

If only I had a home with floor-to-ceiling decals!

 I'm in one of the old poured-concrete Sears monstrosities: ceilings that go up beyond the heating bills, criss-crossing rows of escalators, an uninterrupted vista of consumer goods.  There are exits onto various streets, but they are blocked off with wood panels and painted over. The frames of the doors are illustrated with metalwork and stained glass showing that they actually deposit one into different mythologies. I see one for Hollywood, 1910 and another for "ancient Egypt." There's a proper lady in a wheelchair going around and making sure that people are herded into the correct areas, consumers from floor-to-floor, workers to the departmental counters. Not being part of either group, I am free to poke about and find a way out. I'm in front of a pair of transparent doors flanked by security devices when an older man walks over. It's Thoth and he hands me some blank sheets of paper, telling me the right sequence of words that will open all the exits. The wheelchair lady comes over, but she no longer has any power over me.

 It's dark and grey and I'm in a round room. I've created a spiral pattern of old, powerful books. I stand in the middle and get ready to activate them. The building needs to be moved.

 I've been on old Disney rides, realizing that I get going into a trance while on them. I get off "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" felling that I've missed the whole point.

 I'm in an old house with a flood pouring through. I have to save some old Return of the Jedi sticker cards. I use various bits of furniture to get around. Relatives try to stop me, but I know their secrets; they turn away upon confrontation. I end up jumping from table to table in a school lunch room. There are aged rock stars at the tables, playing with ring tones. Marylin Manson is playing "The Beautiful People."

Riding in the school bus was always an awkward experience. The black kids had it down. Long mornings of being dragged across the city had taught them how far they could push the bus driver. They knew the best seats and who was worth sitting next to. I could only hope to share a seat with someone quiet, someone having a conversation with another row or across the aisle. It's hard enough trying to deal with being thrown into the air by the potholes and curbs without the additional shame of being unconversant with schoolyard gossip.

Of course there aren't any seat belts, those would cost money. The thrill of being in a seat not designed to offer support to a child's stature can not be surpassed by your average thrill ride. Of course, any time two guys were jostled together, the cries of "queer!" filled the air. The girls just giggled and whispered.

So much of childhood is spent staring out of windows. The obfuscating plastic schoolroom windows that taunted one with distorted sunbeams.  Car windows that you could crank down by hand to let in the city's smell of hot dogs and asphalt. Perhaps a upper-story bedroom window that offered views of neon signs and the tops of trees. But this time, the windows on a chartered field trip bus, presenting blocks of foreign neighborhoods just visible over the expressway's concrete walls.

It's a museum, this time, and for once I won't be part of the small group that gets left behind. I can't remember where the trip money came from, but I always remember the bitter grumblings over having to pay for a "public" education. And the embarrassment of a relative offering to give money to pay my way.

Museums are good. The exhibits behind cool panes of glass, branching off into alleys, some darker than others, but all offering refuge.  The main tributary of rowdy children can flow past, catcalls and running footsteps echoing off the statues and recreations.  There is just enough time to read the description of a woolly mammoth's skeleton before the teachers and chaperons wave their hands and channel the group forward.

At the end of the hall there is a cause for snickering. A naked ape man sits in his dioramic cave, lighting a fire. His wife holds a nursing baby up to her hairy breasts. They keep their domestic calm as children point and smear handprints over the glass. The adults are visibly embarrassed.

The field trip goes down a staircase in a wave of small steps and crashes on to an isolated gift shop.  Penniless, I can only stand back and watch the unfamiliar behavior. Tiny hands reaching into barrels for logo printed pencils and keychains causing rubber dinosaurs and plastic skulls to bounce onto the floor. Dollars being bandied about and exchanged as if they were everyday objects.

Outside, one of the chaperoning fathers is wrestling with the boys, testing their strength. This, also, is considered normal, this grunting and fighting. One of the teachers asks me if I want to go join them. I shake my head and climb onto the bus.

I stare out the window at the parked cars, lined up in multiplication tables, towards the office buildings.  I hear the sound of children's laughter mixing with the adults'.  I want to go back, in to the museum, and find a place where things can be quiet. But if I turn around, I'll only see the kids lining up for the teachers, behind glass.

I stayed up a bit last night watching the classic giant insect movie, Tarantula.  It's now mashed up in my head with my collage work with 1950's magazines and feminist film theory. So, here's yer spoiler warning and let's think about giant spiders...

Now, the movie gets set up as a TV murder mystery. Some guy in striped pajamas and lumpy skin runs out into the desert and does the "I'm dying...not dead yet...dying...dying....dead" watusi.  Cut to the nearest vestige of civilization. The small town sheriff hints that the local doctor should probably take a look at this elephant man they found who died while trying to swim in the desert.

Great Scott! This man died of an exceedingly rare thyroid disease! And it impossibly struck him down within a few days! But, wait! The dead man's colleague from mad scientist school says it's all right and overrules the doctor's wishes for an autopsy:(waves hand) "You don't need to see his thyroid gland...."

So: The male realm of small town politics (No, really, there aren't any women here...): Our "hero", Dr. Matt, and Sheriff Jack let the creepy man who never comes into town, Prof. Deemer, tell them what to do. Well, he IS a professor, so it's OK. Except Dr. Matt doesn't like being overruled on his home turf and goes into Perry Mason mode.

So, Deemer goes out to his converted plantation home in the middle of the desert and proceeds with his torturing of animals in the name of science. Apparently, they are testing to see how large they can make various small animals. Some rats, rabbits, a guinea pig...and a tarantula.  Yes, the solution to our future food problems lies in tarantula meat.

Well, Deemer has ANOTHER colleague who is in full elephant man crazy mode. This guy is all existential and decides that if HE had to die looking like Gary Shandling, so does everyone else. In the process, the lab is trashed and our tarantula makes his very slow getaway. Gary Shandling and all the giant rodents die. Deemer hides the body and probably dines on roast guinea pig for a week.

Meanwhile, in town, A WOMAN ARRIVES! After spending some time being ogled by the locals, she runs into Dr. Matt, who is still walking around town looking for clues and harassing the sheriff. He decides to use the arriving young lady as an excuse to wrangle his way to Deemer's mad scientist lab. She introduces herself as "Steve," apparently trying to fit right in with the guys. Or hoping to deflect this guy with the giant shoulder pads by hinting that she's a lesbian. Either way, he cleverly tries to win her over by expressing surprise that there are woman scientists now. Instead of Steve's pushing him out of the car, a giant Tarantula walks by and no one notices...

(Wait, if the critter isn't getting any more mad scientist cocktails, how is he growing? WITH THE POWER OF "STEVE'S" RAGE! Yes, I submit the they are somehow psychically linked. Instead of turning green and losing her clothing, when getting mad, she calls on the power of the tarantula!)

They go the lab and see what's on the slab. She insists again that it's "Steve" and not Stephanie, in hopes of warding off any attempts at lab assistant sexual harassment. Dr. Matt is given permission to play with the dead guy from the desert. It's all good.

Dr. Matt plays operation and is still befuddled and angry.  Much like Dr. Jack on lost (but without the alcohol), he is can't take on faith that someone has spontaneously developed a rare disease after working with dangerous radioactive chemicals. Meanwhile, Steve is helping to make bunnies too big for their cages and Prof. Deemer is having muscle problems. Wisely, he doesn't ask her for a rub.

Steve goes into town and Matt follows her around like a puppy and carries her packages for her. They sit in the hot sun for a while and she turns down a cigarette. He insists on driving her back out to the plantation. He smooth talks her into stopping at the local lover's lane, a giant pile of rocks baking in the sun that would be at home on a Star Trek planet. She relaxes a bit and gives in to her dark side, finally accepting a cigarette. Rocks fall down from the sky. Big ones.

Dr. Matt is very disturbed, whether from having his love making sidetracked or from the idea that HE COULD DIE ONE DAY! This incident bother him so much that he stares at the rocks for a bit, then comes back later to STARE AT THEM SOME MORE! A giant tarantula goes by, and once again, no one notices.

Back at the homestead, the prof is turning into a lumpy monster man. This makes him extremely cranky. After dropping off Steve, Matt stops at the rocks again on the way home to stare at them some more. The sheriff shows up and wants to brag about dead bodies again. This time, dead cows.

A local rancher has had his cattle stripped down to the bones. As he poetically puts it, "just like peeling a banana." Dr. Matt insults the rancher by asking him if "mountain lions could have done it" then stares lovingly at a pool of goo. Too much thinking about death in one day for Dr. Matt.

That night our Tarantula takes out Steve's anger at her crappy job by eating people left and right. And leaving behind giant pools of goo. The next morning, Dr. Matt, trying to face down his fear of accepting death, goes up to one of these pools and tastes some of it. He immediately asks for a thermos full. Having improved his feeling of manhood, he goes to visit Steve and the mad professor explains everything. Except the tarantula. Apparently, giant spiders are lost in the lab ALL THE TIME.

The intrepid Dr. Matt takes his thermos to a better adjusted scientist friend in the big city. He is informed that he has been getting high off tarantula venom and is shown spider stag films.

On top of being housekeeper and lab assistant, Steve now has to wet nurse Prof. Deemer. Outside she is calm but....The tarantula eats more people and knocks out the phone and electric lines. Dr. Matt calls out THE STATE POLICE. I guess the national guard is busy with giant ants in the city. Our tarantula heads towards the lab.

Having unconsciously summoned her familiar, Steve undresses in front of the window. The giant spider watches, but DOESN'T EAT HER. Instead, he trashes the house and strikes Vagina Dentata poses in the windows until he finds mutant Professor Deemer and eats him instead!

Dr. Matt arrives in his giant convertible and has the most successful time ever in his life of picking up a woman. They drive away, so of course Steve's giant friend follows her. They run into the State Police. State Police get eaten. "Dynamite will save the day!" They get together the town's stash of anti-commie dynamite. Dynamite fails.

Look! Up in the sky! It's....Clint Eastwood leading the U.S. air force! Yes! Mr. Eastwood leads his team in shooting missiles and dropping napalm, and otherwise making this area of the country unlivable for a hundred years. In the end, Clint Eastwood's style of quiet masculinity destroys the giant expression of suppressed female anger.  Anti-climax. The end.

So, I'm reading this article in Harper's about a new psychiatric institute that attempts to stop schizophrenia based on preliminary signs and patients discomfort with a changing perspective on reality.... the implications for standardizing reality aren't promising.

Here are some standard interview questions:

- Do you daydream a lot or find yourself preoccupied with stories, fantasies, or ideas?

- Do you think others ever say that your interests are unusual or that you are eccentric?

- Do familiar people or surroundings ever seem strange? Confusing? Unreal? Not a part of the living world? Alien? Inhuman?

- Have you ever felt that you might not actually exist? Do you ever think that the world might not exist?

Well, yes to all of that.... I don't think one gets locked up for answering yes to all these questions, but going through a test like this might lead one to become more uncomfortable with one's state of mind.  If you've searched out this institute because you're not comfortable with unconventional thoughts or religious experiences, I would think this just feeds into that paranoia and satisfies it. To be fair, the article implied that the "patients" were people who were worried because schizophrenia was in their family and these states were interfering with their school or work life, but perhaps it's our crazy insistence on a 9 to 5 world that makes one uncomfortable with what may be something as genetically natural as having blue eyes  or being gay. As President Obama had to point out to the Congress last year during the wrangling over economic stimulus, artists are an important part of our culture too, and need to be supported.  As then, this strikes me as putting everyone in an office box.

I read this:

"Another part of the exam assesses people's capacity for abstract thought.  They are asked to interpret proverbs, such as 'Don't count your chickens before they hatch,' and to describe the similarities between an apple and a banana....."

I immediately thought, "well, they both have skin and seeds...."

"...The correct response -- 'both are fruit'  --eludes some of the sicker patients, who instead home in on concrete characteristics.  The psychologist who administers the exam told me that one of the most common wrong answers is 'Both have skin.'"

Wow. So, here is a group supposedly dedicated to objective science, stating that it is wrong for people to make objective statements about things.  I would retort that stating 'both are fruit' is an abstract description based on certain facts, such as skin and seeds, that two people may not necessarily have in mind together for the word "fruit."  So, the preference for sanity would be for floating abstractions rather than basic observations about things.

Otherwise, most of the population would be insane if you asked them to describe the similarities between an apple and a tomato. After all, both are fruit, but popularly, tomatoes are thought of as vegetables. Which is the "saner" answer?

But apparently I'm becoming schizophrenic, so what do I know?

 Five modern authors that are too silly for me, reflected in the names of their characters:

Thomas Pynchon
- Benny Profane
- Stencil
- Mike Fallopian

William Gibson
- Wintermute
- Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool
- Molly Millions

Tom Robbins
-Larry Diamond
-King Max
-Sissy Hankshaw

Kurt Vonnegut
-Kilgore Trout
-Leon Trotsky Trout
-Montana Wildhack

Aldous Huxley
- everyone in Brave New World

 Across the wide world of the internets, people who have worked in the service industry for the last generation all have the same opinion:

Customers are getting worse.

We all have different answers for why the concept of "value" has gone out the window and changed to "temper tantrum for discount", but one can't deny that SOMETHING has changed.

As recently as the 1980's, I remember people patiently slogging through lines twenty shoppers deep at grocery stores and KMarts. People who didn't have handheld doodly devices. Now, customers regularly throw their stuff on the floor and stomp out if there are two people ahead of them in line.

Theories:

THE INTERNETS HAS KILLED US BRAINS.
Yes, people can acheive instant orgasmic purchasing power on Amazon, but this is still a relatively recent factor. I think the cause and effect runs the other way; Amazon became popular as part of the cultural shift to "faster for less money." The more powerful effect of internet shopping may be the loss of social shopping skills, or perhaps just an enforcement of American culture's need to keep everyone afraid of each other. "Divide and conquer" American politics is another subject, hower...

DOUBLE INCOME HOUSEHOLDS
I grew up in the 1970's shift to latch-key kids and mothers AND fathers working. There's been a lot of academic and pop-political blame gaming over this. It's the feminists fault for promoting the right of women to work. It's the mothers' fault for taking jobs and destroying the single-income economy. I declare Shenanigans on both sides. Which leads me to the related....

THE GREAT AMERICAN MYTH OF WORK BEING IT'S OWN REWARD
Dear feminists: No one WANTS to work your shitty jobs; the ability to work for equal crap wages at Walmart is NOT a revolution. Dear conservatives: No one WANTS to work your shitty jobs; they WANT enough money to eat and sleep regularly. I'm sorry Mr. and Mrs. America, we are NOT happy to serve you. We are FORCED to. Just like you are.

WALLY'S WORLD.
Ah, Walmart. With all the discussion about businesses that are "too big to fail", no one brings up the real monster under the financial bed. Walmart had been operating in the red for at least ten years before the recent market collapse. It's so fucking big that the banks don't dare cut off the stock purchasing loans that most retail companies have to show profits for. The kids that run the company don't care, because they live off of the stock dividends. The Chinese don't care, because ever since Sam Walton died, the company abolished it's "Buy American" preferences. The public doesn't care, well, maybe they do, but it's too late now...... Consumers bought into the advertised dream of service and goods for prices below cost, without thinking of the consequences. So.....

THE END OF THE CONCEPT OF "WORTH"
Honestly, for as little amount money possible, perhaps without spending anything, you get to roam around a heated/air conditioned store, listen to music, read books, play with toys, use the wifi connection and defecate in a private stall. Also, there are employees. Sure, it's a small afterthought to provide a uniformed staff to cater to your whims and clean up your waste matter, but the alternative would be to make decisions and move around the store on your own. So, why don't you realized that the reduction of staff everywhere is a response to your wanting to spend no money?

STUPIDITY.
See also, the well-aged metaphor of SHEEP.

From Blender magazine, 7/30/08, then-candidate John McCain's supposed top ten songs:
JOHN McCAIN
1. Dancing Queen ABBA
2. Blue Bayou Roy Orbison
3. Take a Chance On Me ABBA
4. If We Make It Through December Merle Haggard
5. As Time Goes By Dooley Wilson
6. Good Vibrations The Beach Boys
7. What A Wonderful World Louis Armstrong
8. I've Got You Under My Skin Frank Sinatra
9. Sweet Caroline Neil Diamond
10. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes The Platters

What is it about "Dancing Queen?"


For most of their career, ABBA created beautiful hit singles that packaged the sadness of separation and divorce in happy major keys and power cords:


In an overlapping music chart period, Fleetwood Mac also made a career of writing hit songs based on their dying relationships, but they usually operated in the traditional blues mode: minor-keys and wailing:


There's a sadness lurking in the back of "Dancing Queen."  Lyrically, it is a bacchanal celebration of Saturday Night Fever dreams.  A young woman is enjoying the power of her body, her ability to take home the man she wants.  In the recorded performance, however, the harmonious voices seem to imply that the one night stand will eventually end up here:


But not in a straight line.  Under analysis, it's an odd song to constantly appear on disco compilations.  Many things are entirely wrong for the genre.  Instead of the usual glossy string section, the boys have put in a country fiddle as a musical punctuation.  Benny's piano playing seems a pastiche of concerto styling, rather than the usual blues-derived 88 pounding. The song is in A major, rather than the usual minor key that the era's dance songs were in. And the beat! Everyone knows what a stereotypical disco beat is. Dolly Parton put out a crossover single with it (THERE'S the pounding piano):


and the Rolling Stones:


"Dancing Queen", with it's emphasis on snare and high hat, to my ears sounds more like this:


I'm not the only one that hears the melancholy behind the saccharine.  My favorite interpretation is probably Greg Dulli's intermission on his Twilight Singers DVD.  That not being available online, I'll close with the U2 version (Benny and Bjorn get their due!):

www.facebook.com/photo.php


So, I've been watching "Singin' In The Rain" on my upgraded system.  It looks and sounds beautiful of course, but having become familiar with it, one can't help but make certain observations....

The obvious one is how the movie, using the tactic of taking place within a nostalgic time frame, runs on certain male/female dichotomies.  I mean, it's a romantic love story at heart.  It will be about the bringing together of two apparent opposing selves, that's the motor that romantic comedies run on, but the story is amazingly harsh on the "Lina Lamont" character.  Hollywood had already released an amazing portrayal of the aggresive female as an emasculating force in All About Eve (1950, Singin' In the Rain came out in 1952), so, in comparison, this movie seeks to reaffirm the male status quo by tearing down the aggression career-driven woman.  Just think about how we consider Madonna, today, to be an inspiration for using her looks and talent to build up a media empire in a male-dominated society.  Then watch the ending of Singin' In The Rain.

The movie opens with a sequence that pokes fun of the female-driven celebrity consumer culture (and throws in a shrieking effeminate man, to boot).  This will later be reflected in a character development sequence which reveals the leading lady to actually be one of those consumers, herself.  The entire interview of course, is undermined by visual sequences which poke fun at the cliches being spouted.  They also reinforce something about our leading man, Don Lockwood:  He's not necessary very smart, nor is he necessarily in control of his life.  There are a series of random events which reinforce the Hollywood mythology of being in the right place at the right time as a means of career advancement.  Still, he's meant to be a nice guy, a bit of a lovable lug with a inseparable sidekick in Cosmo Brown (I leave that relationship up to the "gay studies" writers, I'm interesting in new wave feminist theory, today).  Lina, however, is portrayed as impolite, shrill and not very bright.  However, anyone can see that she's mastered the art of presentation and can charm anyone as long as she doesn't speak (the ideal of the silent woman, anyone?).

When we are introduced to our Eve Arden, Kathy Selden, Lockwood is running from a threatening female consumer mob.  He escapes through a series of stunts that lead to him landing in Kathy's car.  She, of course, immediately treats this as a rape, and calls over a policeman.  The symbol of authority recognises Don's control of the situation and waves them on.  However, he fails at an attempt at picking up this young woman as she uses words to puncture his movie star ego by denying his celebrity power, or the power of film as a cultural influence.  What should be a scene of the ravishing movie star getting his way turns into a temporary triumph for words over, well, silent movies. 

At the party, women are trying to sleep their way into a Hollywood career, much as in All About Eve, but it's portrayed here as a form of naiveté, rather than a form of sexual politics.  Of course it's at the party that Kathy's "real" role as a dancing girl selling her body (at least her legs) for art is revealed.  Later, Lina will be ridiculed for inplying that Selden is using Don Lockwood to advance her career, but we can see a bit of desperation in her here.  Hollywood is a hyper-competitive environment and one can't imagine a true innocent surviving, much less baring flesh to jump out of a cake.

Oh yes, the party is also the big reveal on how the old power structure of silent movies doesn't understand the threat of talking pictures.  It's always the threat of talking (which is what Lina is most noted for) over the ham-fisted macho themes in the silent movies.  Look at the next scene and the movies being filmed: a cannibal scene full of black-face actors, a sports story with cheerleaders, a cowboy film with a rescue in progress and, of course, the usual Lockwood/Lamont historic adventure.  And that's the real threat here:  The advent of a cultural shift to music, dancing and romance (and yes, wit) over the old storylines of winning the woman through physical display.  Oscar Wilde fighting it out with Ernest Hemingway.

It's interesting also, that all of the musical sequences are given to us in color.  We never see them in the context of an actual movie scene within the movie, until the end, where it is illustrating the lie of Lina's new image of a singer.  So, we get black and white as falsehood and the past, while the scenes in color are for revealing the behind-the-scenes process and the present.  This is an especially interesting example of cultural shift given that all the the songs on this movie come from older, black-and-whites.

Also, in comparison with the source movies, look at the "Beautiful Girl" sequence.  A male singer is pretty much selling the dream of consumerism, with all the women as mannequins and submitting to his dance moves.  This song is originally from a Bing Crosby movie in which he openly expresses disdain for the marketing process and openly enjoys being under the power of a sexually open woman (admittedly, she's from France, so that makes it a bit more allowable for her portrayal) while lying in bed.

www.youtube.com/watch

In many of the old Broadway Melody movies, the women are more like Lina Lamont than Kathy Selden.  Part of this is pre-code Hollywood allowances, but I think without the code we're seeing a different set of cultural signs.  One of the cultural missions of post-World War II America was to convince women to give up their careers to raise children.  This has to be tempered with the fact that most pop culture is consumed by women; female tastes drive the market place from Bing Crosby to Justin Bieber.  Of course, if women are the silly consumers portrayed in this movie, then the men are the producers, and this plot has to bring the two together.  So, Kathy starts moving up in the world when she lets the men run her career, while Lina descends as a character as she gets closer to her endgame of taking over the studio.  In the end, Lina is a public laughingstock while Kathy's career has been saved, literally behind the scenes, by the men in her life.  Would the public stand for such a movie now?

Not to take away from the triumph of the enjoyment of life embodied in Gene Kelly's performance.  I leave you, of course, with the main image from the movie, Don Lockwood, full of life and vitality, hanging on the lit and erect lamp post.  Jesus suffering on the cross transformed to the American god of play.  The stars sacrifice their lives for our enjoyment, living in the environment of perfume ads and women's wear:

www.youtube.com/watch

It's nice being able to sit out on the beach, enjoying both technology and privacy. If I walked out a block away from my apartment, I'd probably get mugged for my laptop. Or perhaps I read too much into the neighborhood police beat. I've gone out a few times at 4 AM and had no problems, while others get beaten for their iphones. Not that I have an iphone. Perhaps I still have the smell of poverty on me.

Times being what the are, and my choice of employment being what it is, I'm down to reduced hours again. But I've rediscovered the challenge of photography. Ten years ago, I had to worry about the price of film and development. Now I just need my beat-up digital camera, my equally beat-up laptop and an internet connection.

Yesterday I toted my camera and a bottle of water over to Calvary Cemetery, home of many dead Irish-Catholic Chicago mayors, gangsters and businessmen. It also has a large assortment of tombs with stained glass windows. With the intense summer sunlight, I got some interesting shots through layers of grimy glass, iron gates and spider webs:





Also, there is a memorial to the fallen brethren of the local typographical union. A moment of silence, all:



Don't forget to say hello to the geese. They stood the heat better than I did:



Thankfully the bathroom was open and I could drench myself with cold water and enjoy the refracted light:



Today Kim and I started off at the Evanston lighthouse. We didn't have any money, so we didn't get to take the tour, but I did get some good, phallic shots of the lighthouse:



For the last one, I snuck up the fire escape on the Evanston Art Center:



The Center itself is a thing of beauty, with lots of iron detailing:



They have exhibits and some sort of secret meetings inside. Probably satanic rituals are involved:



The highlight of my day was getting great shots of the overly photographed Baha'i House of Worship. It's made of a nice white stone that reflects the sunlight, holds shadows and is carved with astounding curves and scrollwork:



It frames the sky and is framed by everything around it. I could take photos of it all day:



Lying in the heat of the sun and shooting upward was especially rewarding today:



I still have a bus pass that's good until next month, so I need to decide what to try next...