shifting vision

shifting vision,

morphing into dragonfly 

eyes and millefleurs

At the mall, having fun with the fun mirrors. Self-portrait multiplied twenty-four times.

Like Alice in Wonderland, growing from short to tall, surrounded by melting millefleurs.

Around the corner, another strange vision. Whose hands are those sticking out of a locker?

old man with a cane

old man with a cane

resting by the entrance to

permanent collections

Touring the Vivian Maier photography exhibit at the Des Moines Art Center, I fall into the Vivian mode, taking candid shots of people and places. Vivian shot a lot of photos of herself, the original selfies. Often she used reflections in windows and mirrors, or she included the shadow of herself taking in the photo. So I took a few myself. 

Shadow

PUSH

Bench

Finding Vivian Maier

Whose Streets?

Three Figures

Spiral Staircase

Gray Chair

Black Chair

White Windows

Window Shade

Exit

first snow, a cardinal poses

first snow, a cardinal poses

on white pillows in the goumi bush --

red on white on green

First Sunday in December, waking to a white world. Soft cotton balls falling straight down. A male cardinal perches among the still-green leaves of the goumi bush, white pillows on black limbs.

climbing slowly up

climbing slowly up 

an orange pumpkin, preying mantis

at season's end

Right outside the door to the Fairfield Civic Center, a preying mantis is slowly climbing the side of a pumpkin, part of harvest decorations in a pot of chrysanthemums. The brown coloration seems to peg the insect as male. Autumn is mating season and so far he has survived that, as well as near-freezing nighttime temperatures, but he will not survive the winter. He looks a bit bedraggled. His leathery outer wings are partially open, revealing the delicate hind wings, folded like a pleated underskirt. When I come back out, he's gone, maybe hiding among the fading flowers.

the age-old story

the age-old story

of love and loss, good and evil,

on the stage of life

Sondheim Theater is sold out for the Shanghai Acrobats, as it is every year. But this year the show is different, a dream journey, enacting the age-old story of love and loss, good and evil, like a Chinese Ramayana. It begins with a dreaming boy who jumps into the sea to follow a fairy phoenix. 

Touched by his courage she saves him and invites him to fly with her. The phoenix leads the dreaming boy to a palace of fantasy, with clowns, acrobats, teeterboards and juggling. I have a good view from the balcony nearest the stage. No flash allowed, which would disturb the acrobats, but my camera works pretty well with high ISO.

Aerial ballet in a ring, the call of love.

Three acrobats demonstrate strength and flexibility.

Pixies juggle "pearls" on their feet.

A series of men in red soar through the air. One jumps on a wide tightrope, does a flip and lands on the narrow strip, while the phoenix and her courtiers watch from the sidelines.

Two men jump on one end of a teeterboard, catapulting another man high above the stage to land on a trampoline held up by other men.

Another man on top of a mono-stilt is supported by long poles on the end of the teeterboard. The men at the other end wait for his signal, a sharp "Ha!" He flips from the teeterboard, landing the tip of his stilt in the middle of the trampoline.

The clown and the handmaiden draw some laughs with their pantomimed antics, but then he shows his agility by balancing on a rola rola and flipping four bowls onto a stack on top of his head.

Acrobatic juggling with straw hats.

The palace of fantasy is invaded by evil. From behind walls, the demon king appears with his troop of skeleton-masked warriors against a night sky. This is the Friday before Halloween, so the kids in the audience don't seem too disturbed by their garish costumes. The demon king, wearing a headdress with long red feathers, decides to kill the dreaming boy in order to seize and control the fairy phoenix. When the clown sacrifices himself to save the boy, I hear a gasp from the kids.

The evils lock the phoenix in a huge red jail and tear her feathers off. demon king sheds his robes and does a pas de deux with the Princess in the near darkness , ending with her standing on his shoulder on one foot en pointe. 

The phoenix flies into the fire that lights up the ruined palace of fantasy.

We are still in semi-darkness when the hoop divers begin, symbolizing the anger of fire. The acrobats in red headdresses progress from one hoop to a stack of three and then multiple stacks, leaping through from different directions.

The dreaming boy wakes up in a forest of fairy trees that are all shining. Floating in on top of long white cone skirts, mincing on tall stilts, they are spinning plates on the end of five long sticks held in each hand. Their wrists move ever so slightly as they raise the sticks in the air, then lower them forward so that some of the spinning plates are nearly vertical. Suddenly, their skirts light up. The audience claps at the return of the light, even though it is still night.

One last acrobatic feat. A man stacks chairs on top of each other, balancing on each, until he is almost to the top of the stage. One last chair, tilted, and he does a hand stand at the very top. I notice that there is a long sword attached to the second chair from the top, but he does not use it. Instead, when he descends, he hands it to the boy. 

The boy searches for the fairy phoenix and finds one of her white feathers. He "climbs a mountain" and places the feather on the peak.

Descending from his fruitless search, the boy lies on the ground, curled around the sword. A magician appears and practices his spells, imitating birds and other creatures, to the delight of the audience. Finally, he waves his hand over the boy, who arises, holding the sword. He fights the demon king and when the boy slays the evil one, the audience cheers. Good triumphs over evil once again!

Desperate, the boy climbs a mountain, searching for the fairy phoenix. She returns, reborn from the fire, and ascends to the embrace of the boy. Loud clapping and cheering. During the finale, when all the members appear in their costumes, even the demon king draws loud applause. After all, he played his role well. Without him, there would be no drama.

the haunted bookshop

the haunted bookshop

cat curled behind bars of shadow
in a patch of sunlight

It's almost Halloween. Costco has sold out of pumpkins, but New Pioneer Coop still has a nice selection, including white, green with yellow striped and warty pink ones. In the Haunted Bookshop, people are browsing for used books, new puzzles, games, toys. A short-hair gray cat is curled up on a padded rocking chair in a warm patch of sunlight striped by shadows. The Second Act consignment clothing store is packed with people shopping for costumes. A dyed blonde is looking at long blonde wigs, a boy swipes the air with a plastic sword, a girl holds up an Elsa dress. Everyone is wearing Hawkeye shirts for the game this Saturday afternoon. As we leave town we pass lines of cars and people walking toward the stadium, carrying coolers and blankets. The temperature gauge in the car registers 74 F. You'd never know it's late October. We drive back to Fairfield, sipping cold kombucha.

waiting for the wind

waiting for the wind

silk parachutes packed in a pod 

bearing brown seeds

On a walk around Bonnefield Lake, I come across a little patch of milkweed, two different varieties. One has long, slender dark brown pods shaped like green beans or small catalpa pods. Some of the pods have split in half, revealing tiny golden seeds attached to the silky floss. Empty, the pod pairs curve around each other like a dancing couple.

The other variety looks more like common milkweed, only the pods are much smaller. The large, flat brown seeds are still packed inside like fish scales attached to a white silk cone.

As I walk under a grove of tall white pines, copper needles rain down on my head and my shoes slip on the mat of slick fallen needles.

Here and there, little groups of mushrooms that look like biscuits are pushing up through the pine needles. The underside of these mushrooms looks like a mustard-colored sponge. Edible? Well, squirrels have been biting off hunks, but then squirrels will eat half of a highly toxic buckeye, so I leave the mushrooms to the squirrels.

black silk hanging down

black silk hanging down

an ear of dry field corn

ready for harvest

Harvest time in the monolithic fields of corn and soybeans in Iowa. The dry ears of field corn hang down, their silk tassels turned black, stalks red, husks bleached and brittle, leaves glowing like beaten gold in the late afternoon sun. There is a beauty here, though at the expense of the soil and water. So much better to grow organic, but farmers get locked into a way of doing things and it's hard to change.

canoe glides softly

canoe glides softly,

rippling the mare's tails reflected

in the placid lake

Good thing we took the canoe to our local lake instead of driving 4 hours to the Upper Iowa River or even 15 minutes to Cedar Creek. As soon as we stepped into the canoe, the long patch on the side started spurting water. The only way to get in some paddling was to take turns soloing, leaning to the left to keep the gray gorilla tape above water. John looks like he's paddling through mare's tails reflected in the water. Kevlar canoe needs some serious fiberglass repair!

The little gazebo by the lake sits amid a patch of buffalo grass turned orange in autumn.

Above, cirrus clouds morph into fantastic shapes -- fans, feathers, mare's tails. I love these clouds.