There Yours Truly was, minding mine own photo beeswax when suddenly I found myself Perfectly ensconced up in the bell tower of the Middling City's east side Saint Ann's Church on B'Way. And then later in Black Rock's Saint Francis Xavier on East Street, just a small stone's toss from where Creeley lived in his fire house and where KC had his photo studio on the ground floor.
Fabricated an idea and pitched it at Catherine Parker (who YT collaborated with several years ago on a grain elevator show) about doing an art show, collection of work on the doomed and architecturally magnificent churches in the city.
Saint Ann's is lush and Gothic and has a complex carved altar rimmed with little white lights (see illustrative image), much like the altar of the performance venue in the Shiney Apple where VisionFest happens.
It took Martin Ederer, the man who met us at the churches, keys in hand, several flips of several switches to light up the altar.
One of the most arresting things in St. Ann's is a carved pelican, in nest with three fledglings (see other image), Martin told us a symbol of selflessness as pelicans will make themselves bleed to feed their young if there is a shortage of food.
You do the metaphor.
So then gazing up at the pipe organ, 99.9% sold off in the 60s by a misguided priest, went up into the choir loft where YT picked up a paper from 1955, the sports section and we speculated it was a bored chorister on a Sunday catching up on hard news.
Then Martin asked if YT is afraid of heights.
Then I did one of my famed and classique hai-karate kicks to emphasize that the answer was a big, fearless, and thundering No.
He and I basically crawled up many rickety and uneven wooden stairs amid the limestone blocks which smelled so lush, like the rapids of the mighty Niagara.
Up in bell tower looked at the six bells, the largest of which weighs 3800 pounds. Wanted to hear the hour chime and was up there for 11 of them, watching the mechanism of the 150-year old clock do its thing. Then took a stroll around the clock tower, making images of the skyline from a nice alternative angle.
Onwards to Black Rock, where YT was getting led into the wrong church. A woman sweeping and her Hillary Duff-listening kid were taking me down an alleyway to a side door so I could make some images. There was a car just like Catherine's parked in front. Then Martin appeared and said only Wrong church. I thanked my helpers and moved along then to the right one where YT met a man who has worked there for 22 years as choirmaster and organist, there composing a very somber tune for their closing on the 26th of this month.
More to come–curios, doc of works by forgotten craftsmen, backroom flora.

Fearless Love.

A mere stone's throw from the Middling City in any direction and about a half hour drive leads to agrarian sights and sounds - bonus photo destinations, distractions, passing narratives.
Yesterday Kennedy and I made my second, his first, foray to that excellent garden joint in the suburbs and had to pass the backside of the Erie County Fairgrounds where Yours Truly spotted a black goat being groomed for, assumedly, his chance for the blue ribbon.
Speaking of blue ribbons and such Sparky and I bought some Mega Gazillions tix and never even checked the numbers.
At the garden spot picked up more perennials, as is my wont, including doppelganger coneflowers (piggy-backed flowers, very surreal) and some scrubby, intriguing alpine plants that have morphed over eons into tough little flora that can make it amongst the mountain winds, sun, and goats.

Sidebar: As I have been editing and making & doing since the earliest hours of this day I have been e-educating myself with both quick perusals of my favoured online periodicals (NYT, Paper, mediabistro) and Flashback Alternatives.
Flashback Alternatives, if You are of same sonic inclinations, is an aural treat that can be streamed on oso many levels via different players for so many differing situs, and it makes YT pleased that coming of age happened in the fine and odd-sounding 80s. They are now playing, for example, one of those lush Smiths tunes that when you hear it once again you want to just go out and dance, eschewing, of course, most of the attendant wardrobe.
Those were odd, sartorial times.
To say the least.
I am thinking specifically of the very complicated Z.Cavaricci khakis, pointed elf shoes from TO, gloves, assymetrical hair.

This past Friday YT was on the monitor/audience-facing side of karaoke things as Jana has some sort of report to report for the MCNews about such matters.
Her and I went to Garden Park something-something where YT was determined to sing the best works of Seger.
Which I did.
With aplomb, YT might Perfectly add.
Jana does a subtle v. of that Tracy Chapman number, Give Me One Reason. Which she saw fit to trot out at the next joint, King's Court.
Although it was not Seger, Simon's Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover (it also being on the S's page, dig) was performed by YT, dedicated to Jana of course.
At that Garden Place there was some background dancing, some round-the-tables dancing. At King's Court there was a smattering of dance, some frightening (this in finger-arching-in-air quotes) artichoke dip, and a plethora of donuts (YT does not touch deep-fried molecules), and R&B tunes.
Saturday included me and Sparky location scouting for some dance spots and landing in Jesse's El Diablo Muy Authentico Gin Mille where we could not dance on the checkerboard floor as a duet from Chicago did a complex act with keyboard, costumes, stuffed animals, shadow puppets, and false eyelashes.
It was kind of like something you could see at the fair, or in a talent show, or on the stage of the Pyramid in the Shiney Apple.

Shining, staged Love.