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ABOVE
Via Colori. Music
stage after dark.
Via
Colori by luminaria
We stopped back to walk the streets and pick up some ice cream
at the Jeni's
stand. We shared a cup of wildberry & lavender, salty caramel,
dark cocoa and cinnamon.
Giselle
BalletMet
at the Ohio Theater. We weren't late; it only seemed like it
(to me).
From
the program's History of Giselle:
Giselle
was conceived by French author Theophile Gautier to honor
dancer Carlotta Grisi, with whom he was in love.
The
entire second act takes place at night in a forest haunted by
the "vengeful, ghostly Wilis, jilted maidens who died before
their wedding night." The Wilis "emerge at night and
force any man who enters their domain to dance to his death."
Putting
aside the somewhat odd form of murder (imagine homicide by dancing
(there must be a more clinical way to describe that) on a coroner's
report), the lead character, Giselle, becomes a Wili but saves
the man who jilted her from homicide by dancing because of the
powerful bond of love she has for him.
Is
this really the sort of story you would write for a woman you
love?
Of
course the history goes on to say that Grisi's dances in the
ballet were choreographed by her common law husband, so perhaps
those relationships were just a lot more complicated than the
historians had space to explicate.
BalletMet
has a new director of marketing and communications this year,
and Amy was very pleased to see that copy editing of the program
was greatly improved. Last year's lack of editing had been very
distracting.
ABOVE
Via Colori. One
artist's creation.
Via
Colori
Started off with rain and thunder all Saturday morning, but
it had tapered off by 10.30 when we picked up our chalk and
attempted to get started.
My
location was described as "over yonder," or more precisely
as area 1, square 5. The areas, however, were not numbered.
And there were no squares drawn on the pavement in the general
vicinity of what I had interpreted "yonder" to be.
Getting
to the park was challenging itself, this year. And I tried it
twice Saturday morning. OSU's football league opener drew trraffic
off I-670 at the same exit, and by the time I reeturned from
a brief jaunt home to look through a computer case (the alleged
mouse must have escaped before I got home), a wedding (BELOW)
had claimed a lane of traffic right at Neil and Goodale, at
the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
By
then, however, the squares had appeared and the pavement was
perfect for laying down a base of chalk with the damp lingering
on just enough to smooth the color over the asphalt.
The
rain did not return and I got in a good day's work before rushing
home at 6.30 to shower and change for
the ballet.
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At the Berry Bolt Building. Reception
for Via Colori participants.
Mi
Mexico
The suburban version, complete with considerable wait. Plus
they seemed to have borrowed El Vacquero's menu (including the
numbers given to different dishes -- which go up to 200 or so).
Oddly enough.
S
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AND BELOW Shooting
for Fast Fifty. Lamborghini
courtesy Nelson Auto
Group. It can be yours for a mere $187,000.
Choir
rehearsal
Six basses and six tenors -- an excellent turnout.
Bexley
afterwards.
Donatos
dinner
While trying to get Amy's laptop up on the wireless network.
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ABOVE
Verbena with bee. Back
garden.
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ABOVE
Home. More
black & white imagery from the front room.
From
the web | Klum
photography
Have been reading Monster
of God, David Quammen's "meditation on hubris
and its perils, framed as a report on some fearsome and astonishing
creatures" [Jon Krakauer].
The
present investigation is of panthera leo persica, the
Asian lion, which remains only in the Gir forest of India. The
fewer than 500 lions live in close quarters with the Maldhari
people, whose "ness" compounds made of tree branches
are their limited protection for huts, people and livestock.
I
enjoy seeing with my eyes as well as with my mind, so here are
some pictures, as close as I can get to seeing actual Maldharis,
from the Gir forest and surrounds.
Maldharis
| Gir
forest
Correction
The Sunday dessert was Amish apple cinnamon cake with butter
sauce.
We regret the error.
Link
Flipping
frenzy | Dispatch
Wealthy investors profit from run-down houses
| Link
This
much is clear: The Stillwater Asset Backed Fund since February
2004 has loaned more than $30 million, financing the buying
and reselling of more than 500 vacant houses in Ohio, 390
of them in Columbus, county auditor and recorder records show.
Sellers
significantly marked up the price for their properties. Stillwater
representatives recruited buyers, at least some of whom say
they never saw the houses, and paid them $300 to $1,000 to
sign for the Stillwater loans on assurances that the houses
would be fixed up and resold before any payments came due.
But
these ‘‘straw buyers," many of them young
apartment dwellers with low or moderate incomes, have been
saddled with houses, unpaid tax bills and city citations for
unsafe conditions at houses for which they don’t even
have keys.
The
houses remained empty.
And
the hedge fund and mortgage brokers collected fees on each
transaction.
Stillwater
officials, including the firm’s managing partners, Richard
Rudy and Jack Doueck, did not return numerous telephone messages
and e-mails seeking comment.
The
property at 1047 E. Sycamore St. is typical.
‘‘I’ve
become numb to it after all these years," said neighbor
Ritchy Smith, an accountant who in 1992 bought and fixed up
his brick house with a porch swing, expecting a neighborhood
revival. Instead, it’s gone downhill, scarred by ever
more empty and dilapidated houses.
‘‘Isn’t
it sad?"
On
the Near East Side, Freda Wyche lives two doors down from
a Lilley Avenue house with a rotting second story that sags
over the front porch. She raised three daughters on this once-pleasant
street.
Now young men skulk in and out of the abandoned duplex at
odd hours.
‘‘It’s
horrible," she said. ‘‘I think they use it
as a drug house."
It
also was financed by Stillwater.
I'm
still trying to figure out where the money is actually coming
from in these transactions.
S
E P T E M B E R 1 9 , 2 0 0 5
ABOVE
Cannas front for the NavStar sculpture. From
Saturday at the Franklin Park Conservatory.
The
most exciting ever ...
Estate Planning Guide went to press. It was only exciting in
that it occupied so little of my concern.
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Front staircase. Prints
of Columbus After Dark in background.
Dinner
in Bexley
Ham and potatos, and Amy brought the Amish apple cinnamon cake
with butter sauce [Corrected from original
post] from the recipe from Erica.
Write
your word upon my heart| John
Parker III, Lloyd Larson
Sang the choir.
Sermon on the demolition of fairness evidenced in the parable
of the landowner who paid the usual daily wage to all he hired
to work in the vineyards -- some had worked all day, some half,
and some merely an hour.
>
SEPTEMBER
03
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