Flower spy

Never has so much danger been afoot in The Twin Cities where I live and roam.

Lawless police run rampant, attacking, bullying, and killing people.

Looters ransack stores, smash windows, and burn down buildings.

The most deadly new disease in decades, maybe a century, stalks the city, everywhere, traveling on the mere breath of our fellow human beings, killing thousands of people and sickening so many more.

But there is nothing more threatening, more terrifying, more savage and menacing than...


THE FLOWER SPY!!!!


"Hey. What's that you're doing there?"

"Oh, sorry. I was just taking a picture of your flowers." The flower spy answers. 
He is squatting on the sidewalk. His alarmingly fancy looking camera is pointed down and into the flowers on the boulevard strip. Dangerously absorbed in minute details, in holding the big lens steady, in the flow of sunlight, he doesn't see them coming.

"I thought you were photographing my lawn." They say suspiciously.

"No. Your flowers. They are very pretty." He responds.

They grant him that, reluctantly. Though they think, maybe, it would be better if the flower spy were photographing their lawn. At least it would make sense. The lawn is the measure of the yard, the flowers are just...

peculiar.


Odd. Divergent. Transgressive. 


Oh, he is the flower spy.

Lock your doors.

Hide your cats.

Dig up your bulbs.

SOD EVERYTHING!

That's it. Yes! Only lawns can stop him. 

Perfect, perfect lawns. Only lawns can stop him!



He is everywhere.

The virus

"Language is a virus"

-Laurie Anderson

Doesn't this one look like it's going to be a deep essay? 


Anything could happen, but probably not that.


When I started to wear a mask the first thing that amazed me was how hard it was to breathe in it. After all, there I was wearing a mask to try and stop the spread of a horrible communicable disease that (mostly) kills by making it hard to breathe. What irony. What a terrifying way to die. What an insidious virus. So more and more I put on a mask and

It took my breath away.

I'm not here to talk about the efficaciousness of masks.

Oh, sorry, I said "I'm not here to talk about the efficaciousness of masks."

Wait, come closer. "I'm not here to talk about the efficaciousness of masks!"

Wait, let me slip off this mask so you can hear me. ""I'm not here to talk about the efficaciousness of masks."



Great. And now we both have the virus.

But not that virus, fortunately, so wear your mask!

"What virus then?" You ask.

Language.



What, do you think language doesn't spread and kill?

Exactly. All viruses are killers given suitable conditions. Watch:



"One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear."

-The President, two days before the first of more than a hundred thousand American deaths (at press time).




But it's true. One day language will disappear. And he may have been actually referring to language. 

I mean, he doesn't seem to like it.

It's a virus.

And every virus is a killer.



Actually, I know of one, and only one virus in all the great wide world that does not kill.





Love.





Alas that it is a reluctant spreader.

Another graffiti tour

These pictures are from a train that has been left for some weeks now to sit on the tracks just this side of the Mississippi River in St. Paul. Because my photography is uneven, with each visit to the train I come away with some pictures that work, and some that don't. So I keep going back for more, because there is a wealth of wonderful graffiti out there and I only get it little by little.



And I won't say so a ton more than that: More pictures, less words today.

I do want to say though that as much as I admire some of these amazing individual pieces:

I also really love the weathering, the feel of the tracks, and the way it all interacts with the train and the elements.





Here's the train:

And here's what some of the bridges and barricades of the area are like:

The used cans add up!

And the work on the metal walls nicely backdrop the train itself:

But most of my favorite things are the fresher graffiti work on the side of railroad cars. Here are a bunch of them, usually wider shots followed by details, if I have both, generally without comment:

This one is one of my favorites on the train with its unusual approach, but I kept bringing home blurry pictures of it because I am not the best photographer. Finally I got a couple of decent shots of it:

More, the first I might have shown before, but these are better shots of it now. The background is just fabulous!:

I love the purple airbrush sort of effect:

Then:

And lastly here are some pictures of mainly details from the metal bridges and barricades:

And that about does it.



If one looks through my ouvre here on clerkmanifesto one would see I am not terribly prone to modesty, but here I actually feel it: All credit to the artists responsible for all this, and very little to me.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Withdrawal

Did you know that what I have called Crocuses are really Snow Glories?

I was informed so here in my comments.

So I went back and changed all of history.



Let us then pretend it was always Snow Glories.

Snow Glories, Snow Glories, Snow Glories. Glory-of-the-Snow.

   
The sun came out today. And finally, in the slow roll out of our spring here, the Snow Glories, having a banner year, were joined by a few other flowers. Each day I think I am done with the Snow Glories. I have told you enough about them. And every day I see them and I think:

I would not like you to experience withdrawal!

Or me either.

So what if I could ease you off with just one more Snow Glory:

Okay, two more (maybe three?) Snow Glories:

We will never forget you Snow Glories! Not least now that we know your name.

Okay.

I feel better. A little.

Do you feel better?

Are you ready?

I can try.

Then, to the future!

Snow Glories! The photo essay

Having written the acclaimed "Snow Glory Trilogy" I thought maybe I'd said everything I needed to about Snow Glories. I was even thinking maybe I could instead say something about daffodils. I even remembered that clerkmanifesto is not a flower blog and I could write about something else entirely!

So I went for my morning walk. As I do during the Pandemic phase of this blog I even brought my little camera. But I didn't take any pictures. I thought "It's nice just walking around not taking pictures or even wanting to. I guess I'm all through with the picture taking phase of the pandemic."

And then I saw a Snow Glory.

Uh oh.





What, you may wonder, is a Snow Glory?



I have a picture. I just took it:

So now that you have seen a picture you are maybe thinking "So?"

And before I accept your challenge I'd even kind of like to agree with you.

"Agree with me! What?" You respond wildly. "You can't agree with me! This is the INTERNET!"

I can too agree with you! I... 

Oh. You got me.

Anyway, in some ways this first crocus picture is deceptive. If I'm walking around my neighborhoods and it's Snow Glory season, here is a more fair representation of what Snow Glories look like when I first realize that the Snow Glory game is afoot:

Even this might be misrepresentative. What about this:

Yeah. That's better. 

It's still the very start of Spring. Everything is scrabby and raw. Autumn's dead leaves have reappeared from hibernation under a bunch of thawing and freezing snow. Some tough old grass is out there turning green. And mostly there's a lot of dirt everywhere.

But someone has gotten in the early spirit of things. What's that blush of blue? That haze of color fuzzing about in the patches of muted green?

SNOW GLORIES!

And so, hah!

I accept your challenge!



"What challenge?" You ask.

Don't argue okay? No arguing on the Internet.


So now we'll take a closer look:

And closer:

And closer:

Whoa. Too close! Too close! Back up one, okay?

That's a lot of flowers! 

What is a person supposed to do with that many flowers?

I don't know. 




Go close again, okay?

Hmm. They face down, don't they. And they're really... blue. Sorry, I didn't mean to get so technical.

Hmmm. I see.





All right. And back up one more time?

Another?

"Are there any bees?"

No.


"Are there butterflies? It looks like there would be butterflies."

Nope. We don't even have sunshine. Seriously. We don't even have sunshine yet!







That's a lot of flowers!


That's a lot of flowers.