Burn.Question

I move with a relentless force that radiates while staring out the window at clouds, Cooper's hawks, the limestone cornice, and terra cotta rosettes.

I asked: What is your experience with or how would you define freedom?
You looked back with cautiously expressionless eyes.

This is where I engage movement and it articulates and defines me. This is where I achieve validity with constant motion, constant, and it's my only understanding of being free. It's an abstraction that I glimpse when moving, the abstract movement of contrasts, the gentle rub of resistance that is hot and comforting.

You are extensive like light or gravity, a massive incontrovertible force. Substantial. Fluid. Moving.

Freedom is just more capitalism.


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Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow.
- T.S. Eliot


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The site:

View from the window:

What's left of Mo State Hospital retains some fascinating details: limestone columns, limestone dentil molding, capitals with melting eagles, rotunda roof (painted, that's not copper patina), massive terra cotta rosettes. The original arched windows are missing. They've been replaced and a concrete lentil rests above each window. Arched windows still remain in the rotunda roof.

I estimate the superb limestone capitals on the front of the building to be 5 feet in height.

Behind the Brick

Brick awaiting repointing on my back porch after being raked. Behind the fine mortar finish was a variety of small rocks which had me wondering about the mechanics of hand selection in 1912.

Fist size

My neighbor holding a piece of hail after the storm. More massive chunks can be seen in the background on the lawns.

Two white guys

Click on the title above for a hilarious story.

My neighbor/friend/contractor being supervised by another white guy:

Gary told me a couple of days ago the world was ending Saturday which made me wonder why both of us were working.
We're cooking up a Rapture Party since I'm taking the pup with me.

Adnan Kadir

Read a book by Sissela Bok called: Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life

Whoops

No, not there either

The Kingshighway Viaduct and Skate Park

I read (click on the title) that the demo of the KHW viaduct is starting soon and wanted to revisit the area below the deck. I had the willies driving down the rumble strewn road along the east side but was enchanted to encounter a large group of friendly men and their underground DIY skate park complete with freestanding ramps and a recently created 'pool'.

I also had a great chat with the author of http://we-are-the-city.blogspot.com/

It was baffling to discover a dumpster under the bridge.
I called my 10th ward alderman Joe Vollmer. He said he's supportive of them being there -hence the dumpster - and wants to work with them to develop skate parks in our ward.

Reinforced piers:






Missing parapet:


In the middle of the photo there's a small figure, one of a group of boys who'd discovered the LRA board up had been removed:

Cracks in the piers






Entrance to the viaduct from South Kingshighway

Downspout encased in concrete:

I'm back.

I was working.
I worked every single day last year while attending to volunteer business and didn't have much time for brick spotting. I smacked down a lot of debt, did some work on my building, and didn't go on vacation.

My business took me on some long drives on wide highways. I still won't call them interstates. I marveled at expanses of sky while traveling on highway 44. I avoid 40 because it's disorienting. The remodel with its extensive sound barriers is like driving through a courtyard.

Here's a building I encountered on Morgan Ford. The green bricks are spooky and the finish is stucco-ish. Check out the green patina on the original copper gutter and how it matches the green bricks. The original downspout matches and I'm betting that was deliberate.



Gorgeous palette:

Welcome

Happy Holidays

I happily found a red and green motif.

Arts and Crafts Homes - Maplewood

For a tour of exceptional columns and the stucco finishes of local Arts and Crafts influenced buildings start your tour at Lyndover and Roseland Terrance.







Second floor recessed porch:

Check out the buff color half circle brick wall on the left side of the porch.

Ghetto on Ghetto?

But wait, I was thinking as I skimmed the article (click on the title), Christo already did that. I mean, the man invented the medium.

I started a mild burn...Historic BRICK house but OK, in a depressed area where hey, no worries over a further drop in value. FYI: Depressed area doesn't always mean black folk live there or that they wear gold chains which looks more like a 80s Versace scarf print than wrapped rapper.
Please.

Here's some tedious rhetoric from the artist statement:

...The house, wrapped in gold chains, will flaunt itself to locals, while simultaneously finding itself bound and gagged by its own design.

I'm gagging.

How rude

Never mind that Morgan Ford is once again a thriving business district just resolve your tuckpointing issue with white vinyl siding over historic brick.
Congratulations dimwits, you've just won the hoosier rehabbing Award of the Year!

STL Brick Rustling in the NY Times

Click on the subject line and thanks, Jeanne.

Morgan Ford In Motion Festival! Sept 25th

Save the date and come out to the Morgan Ford In Motion Festival Saturday, September 25 · 12:00pm - 9:00pm

I'm sharing a booth with my lovely friend Bruk Longbottom of Rodeo Revival fame and the founder of Maid Rite.

A fraction of what I'll be selling can be seen by clicking on the title or cut and paste:
http://christian-herman.blogspot.com/ which includes felts, knits, crochet, and handmade jewelry.

Here's a list of the Bands:
12:00 - 12:45: The Ten Cent Looseys
1:15 - 2:00: Bullet Pop
2:30 - 3:15: One More Round: A Tribute to Johnny Cash
3:45 - 4:30: Last Nights Vice
5:00 - 6:30: Steve Ewing
7:00 - 8:30: Jon Bonham &Friends

This is a FAMILY FRIENDLY EVENT: FUN, FRIENDS and FESTIVITIES are planned for the Morgan Ford in Motion Music &Street Festival on Saturday, September 25th. Bring your family for a full day of great bands, booths and incredible food on Morgan Ford.

What's Wrong with this Picture?

As a kid I loved What's Wrong with this Picture? it would display two images that were close but didn't match and the objective was to locate the differences.

Location: The Hill.
Of course.

I went looking for Riley

And only found these outstanding 'bark' bricks

On this building at Miami and Morgan Ford: