SNIFF

You might think this sculpture at Laumeier was rather obvious - a well-ventilated cabin in the woods, open to every kind of olfactory experience. Those of us with a young person in the household hooked on the book and TV series A Series of Unfortunate Events (like me), might immediately think of the Lucky Smells Saw Mill. You would have to read the explanation, https://www.laumeiersculpturepark.org/tea-makipaa , to find out that it's about dogs. Yeah, I get it, but you would never guess on your own.

DOG ON A ROPE

Leonard Cohen sang about a bird on a wire but I've never seen a dog standing on a rope, as here at Circus Flora. Once again, a matter of superb balance that is beyond my understanding. I bet it took a lot of dog treats to train this behavior.                  

POODLE SKIRTS

That's what they used to call them back in the 50s, wasn't it? I guarantee you that pug nosed pooch in the wagon is no poodle. What people do with their dogs in these events.

I'll probably run pictures from the pet parade tomorrow and Saturday, lacking other material. But then silly season in St. Louis shifts into high gear with the Mardi Gras grand parade on Saturday. High times, indeed. Despite Ash Wednesday, silly season continues into March with our St. Patrick's day parades. (We have two. https://tinyurl.com/262hcrxr.) However, on March 17, Mrs. C and I expect to be enjoying s sumptuous dinner at a place in the forest in Costa Rica, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the night we met in a bar in St. Louis on St. Patrick's Day. There are sure to be images.            

AW...

St. Louis has developed something of a Mardi Gras industry. There is so much marketing and hype, so many different events, that it has the feel of a for-profit organization. The website says that the entity is Mardi Gras, Inc. with a local address. All I can find about it is that it was once an approved not-for-profit but lost the status for failure to file the necessary paperwork a few years in a row.

One of the events took place yesterday, the annual pet parade. It's sponsored by Purina, the pet food maker, which is based here. It is all about dogs, although I did see two small goats. I don't usually deal in cute but these three had so much crowd appeal I couldn't pass them up.

Oh, and there was that football game last night. We always go out to dinner at a restaurant that doesn't have a television.            

Proud Dogs

I'm not normally a dog photographer or a pet person in general. We have an indolent cat at home but that's it. (I showed Ellie the Monty Python Confuse A Cat sketch a couple  of days ago. I don't think she gets it yet.) However, when I'm on the street I'll take a picture of anything that crosses my path, including pups at the Pridefest Parade. This post is in honor of our colleague Jilly Bennett, dog photographer extraordinaire.      

Chihauhua With a Margarita

It seemed like everyone except aging photographers was imbibing at mid-day during the dog parade. (I had an excuse: my hands were full of equipment.) And while you're at it, why not put a tiny sombrero on your tiny dog and give it a sip of the essence of agave? Dogs just wanna have fun.

Our big Mardi Gras parade is today, the Saturday before the date itself. I'll go shoot it if we are not getting freezing rain. Of course this Wednesday is both Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day.  Might create a conflict for the more devout. We're planning a Valentine's dinner at a Cuban restaurant in Miami's Little Havana during a one-night stop before points beyond.        

Everyone's A Critic

Everyone and everything that walks by an art display becomes a reviewer in one way or another. You might measure the degree of interest by the amount of time spent before each work. 

As with many similar photos, this is on the Mississippi flood wall south of downtown. The display constantly changes and evolves.                  

Dogs and Drinks

A building overlooking the dog parade route on S. 9th Street. I wonder if it used to be some small local soft drink factory.  Looks like it has a beer (and occasionally dog) theme now but the purpose is not obvious from the outside. I could probably figure it out if I ever had the time.

So what could be better: a beer, a boy, a beagle and a smart phone.               

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

It will get even wilder at the main parade on Saturday although there will be fewer dogs.

I meant to get more of these pictures edited but Madeleine was over last night. Not that I mind, but she particularly likes my attention. This child has been strongly attracted to music since she was old enough to notice. My daughter and I were playing her YouTube clips of our favorite opera bits. She liked Papageno and Papagena's duet from The Magic Flute, Les Petits Soldats from Carmen, really liked The Ride of the Valkyries, but was transfixed by the Prisoners' Chorus from Fidelio. She watched the faces open up as they emerged into the light and, in her little squeaky voice, said "they're happy!" That's my girl.

NOTE TO FLICKR USERS: some of us upload our photos to Flickr and then link them to Blogger when we prepare a post. I've got thousands done that way. Yahoo, which owns Flickr, announced major cutbacks on Tuesday while they continue to try to figure out just what it is they do. Flickr will be cut back somehow but not eliminated. Until we find out what's going down, I'm uploading my photos directly to Blogger. Sure hope this doesn't cause my blog to lose several thousand linked images.

Bow WOW!

It's silly season in STL. No place in the US can hold a candle to New Orleans' Mardi Gras or Carnival but at least we come in a distant second. As I've stated in these pages before, St. Louis loves an excuse to drink in public.

The first major event is the Barkus dog parade, which was held on Sunday. People, many of them in costume, parade around the Soulard neighborhood with their pets, many of them in costume. Those poor dogs. This is just an introduction to the zillion pictures I took.  

Yesterday's picture was the very last marcher in the parade, someone dressed in a dinosaur suit. Go figure. But then the Grand Parade is this Saturday, one of the best local photo ops of the year. And a week from Thursday we get to our favorite tropical escape, seen here annually for years. We're looking at a torrent of material.            

For Jessie and Jilly

A post for my two favorite dog lovers: one whose heart melts for any three-legged pooch in the vicinity of Puget Sound; another who knows the quality and personality of any canine at a glance and was sometimes paid for the skill.

Jessie, I remember visiting some little town north of Seattle with you and Carolyn when you bought your dog a Superman cape. And Jilly, well, what can compare to this?

The dog in this photo may have borrowed the lion's mane from The Wizard of Oz.
                          

Dogs And Owners

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the weirdest of them all?

I must be poorly socialized or full of existential angst or just a snob or something. I would no sooner do something like this than watch an episode of Duck Dynasty.  Everybody here is just out having some fun with their dogs but while I'd shoot the event, I wouldn't walk in it. My shoes are cleaner that way. And besides, I don't have a dog.                                 

Don't know if it's the same in New Orleans, but the Mardi Gras colors here are purple, green and yellow. Seems a bit bilious, which I guess is appropriate for the occasion. The big gigantic crazy parade is this Saturday. There is an other parade next Tuesday night on the actual evening before Ash Wednesday. Never got out to shoot that one before but it starts right in front of our new office building so no excuses.                      

Barkus

It's time for the first event in St. Louis' run-up to Mardi Gras, The Barkus Dog Parade. (Barkus . . . Bacchus . . . get it?).  Fat Tuesday is a surprisingly big deal here. As I have noted before, St. Louis loves an excuse to drink in public during the daytime.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dogs and their owners turn out for the pooch promenade through the Soulard neighborhood. It was packed yesterday with relatively good weather. One group is sillier than the next. The little one above looks to be in an encounter with the Grim Kennel Master. Some people dye their dog's fur. Some put together little floats.

More to come.                   

Madeleine Monday

Floating on her mother's shoulder: La Serenissima.            

Ye Of Little Faith

It's hard to understand but most of us, particularly in this country, have seen it. The young man carrying the sign had a headset microphone and a loudspeaker in his hand. He paced the sidewalk around the little festival and tree lighting ceremony, spouting the usual rant. If you think of it as behavior, he wasn't getting a lot of positive reinforcement. Dr. Skinner would be puzzled.

The man in the knit hat was one of the event officials. As I passed by the two of them I heard the official shouting "I want you outta here now. We have a permit and it's just for us. Get off of this block!" Or words to that effect. The preacher ignored him but the official stayed stuck tight. The cops didn't come. Then it occurred to me: the organizers may have a permit for the plaza but the preacher was on the public sidewalk that surrounded it. In the end, it was kind of a freedom of speech in a public place issue. Good that we still have that.          

Madeleine Monday

Meanwhile, Killian, Madeleine's family dog, decides it's time for a sloppy kiss. Grandma tries to push the pooch away but the kid seems completely blasé.        

Gratuitous Cuteness: Animal Kingdom

There is a saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Similarly, when I'm low on material I can always go for cute. This time it's dogs and a cockatoo rather than children.

One of our CDP colleagues commented on the Flickr version of the second picture that "If he wanted to, the cockatoo could probably take his finger off. I once had a parrot clamp down on my finger, it was 40 years ago and I never forgot it. :-)"                     

Go Dog Go

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There was a very popular children's book we read to our kids called Go Dog Go. Simple, amusing stuff for the small ones. At Bark In The Park I found that someone had updated the theme: unconditional affirmation for pooches. It could go to their heads. The picture below made me wonder which couple was more beautiful.

Which?

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A couple of last woofs from the dog parade. I had a few more of the pet and owner portraits like those seen in recent days. Mrs. C asked why I didn't use the one above - it's her favorite of the set. So that goes up first. And besides, the color will get more attention on the portal.

On the other hand, I made some black and whites that were more somber. The image of a woman and her children below is poignant. They were just sitting on a little rise watching the parade. However, the children looked anxious, even frightened (cynophobia?). Note the little one's face and the way he clings to mom. Observe his brother's stare, with his hands firmly between his mother's. She herself seems a bit stunned. On the other hand, my wife thinks that the kids are just bored and cold, whimpering for mom to take them home. Okay, literary types, now write the back story.

More Portraits Of Dog Lovers

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What's closest to your heart? The answer was obvious for many people last Saturday. The man in the middle picture is apparently a well-known player for the Rams football team. Someone told me his name but I didn't recognize it. Not something I pay attention to. In any event, he was cuddling some fuzzy little - what? - in a pink blanket. (Jilly, help us out.) I heard him say he had no problem getting in touch with his feminine side. Just don't let the guys in the locker room hear about that.

Dogs - On The March!

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I was amused by the reaction of some of our French friends to yesterday's post. The tone was sort of: Un défilé de chien? Incroyable. Il n'est pas possible en France! Perhaps the the difference is that America lacks France's refined sense of irony.

Under the circumstances, I thought I'd show some pics of the parade itself. The bottom photo is First Daughter and blog team member Emily with granddog Killian.

Early Christmas Present

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The newest member of the family, Gizmo, who arrived recently at the home of my daughter and son-in-law, who hosted dinner yesterday. A couple of months ago, Brian found Emily's old. old, sweet-as-can-be cat lying in a sunbeam, unmoving (sniff!). However, they fell in love with this tiny thing at a shelter. It is fearless, affectionate and supremely calm. It lets the dog lick it. Gizmo seems to be a kitten with a lot of Buddha-nature.

Flying to New York this morning and then driving to see my family in New Jersey. Snow in the NY area could get in the way.