It's time to dip into the archives for a shot I took this summer. Yes, this is still downtown Knoxville. Yes, we have a kudzu-draped forest in the midst of downtown. I liked the mystery and perspective and especially the little hint of menace in this alley between empty buildings on Jackson Avenue. Even Indiana Jones would get lost in that tangle.
Here's another angle to the landmark Patrick Sullivan's building that I've showed you a few months ago in the Old City. The parapet wall is so high and narrow here, it looks like the building's been smooshed by a trash compacter.
Maybe I have cake on the brain, but I always do a double-take when I drive by MagPies new space on Central Avenue. I love their sign. Those life-sized bird ornaments look like they might take flight at any minute. And their motto, "All Butter All the Time", well, I've adopted it as one of my life aspirations. Because life is always better when there's cake.
First, you make a nice, solid rectangle for the base layer. Then you put another rectangle on top of it to give some symmetry and heft. Some cylinders across the top would look interesting, even if they're really part of the White Lily flour mill. Decorate the outside with some frippery like palladian windows, a loggia, and some wrought iron. Fill it with the usual concoction: a series of nightclubs or restaurants. There now. You've just made an architectural Old City layer cake.
Today is Mardi Gras - Fat Tuesday - and to continue to let the good times roll, I'm sharing some more shots of Knoxville's Mardi Growl parade from Saturday. Remember to wear your feather boas, darlings.
If you're gonna strut, don't forget your beads.
King Louie is the shih tzu that ruled the world - his costume won first place, but I only caught a fleeting glimpse of his royal canine majesty.
And we get one last wave from the end of the parade. Now it's time for some beignets.
Actually, it's really Rudy, one of the twenty-two canine stars who played Marley in the film Marley and Me - he's the one who destroyed the snowman in the movie. Oh, Rudy.
These photos were shot as the parade began in the Old City. I found that when you sit curb-side at doggie eye-level, you get a lot of dogs coming over to say "hi."
The Medical Arts Building that I showed you on Tuesday is another Depression-era building that sits across the street from the downtown post office. Built in 1932, it's a weird mix of Gothic and Art Deco with a facade of shiny tan terra cotta tiles. It was supposed to be 13 storeys tall, but only got to 10 because, as I mentioned, there was a Great Depression going on.
Hodges Library at the University of Tennessee makes a very good Escher-esque photo. It's built like a huge ziggurat; look at all those cubes of knowledge. Architecturally rewarding as it is, the inside is quite challenging for students who are looking for materials in the zig-zagging stacks. The library provides maps to find its buried treasures.
Light and shadow create a design within a design on a window of the downtown post office building.
This is one of the stylized marble eagles on the downtown post office and court house building. It's an Art Deco delight, built in 1934 during the Great Depression from Tennessee pink marble.
Don't know why I like this - the Medical Arts building is kind of shiny, there's that bare tree branch to anchor me to terra firma. Maybe it's the angle of the traffic lights - they look like they're swinging in a stiff breeze, but they're not really.
Yesterday I showed you the long arm of the Torchbearer on the University of Tennessee campus at the entrance to Circle Park. Designed in 1931 by Theodore Andrew Beck, this statue was the contest winner that captured the "spirit of University youth and its ideal of service."
Oh my. Who or what do you think this is? Elvis singing karaoke in Hades perhaps?
No, really, they're not. They are images of a couple of snowballs. And if Monsieur Magritte was still around, he'd tell you that himself.
And now for a little twist on yesterday's macro: I can see the sun rise through the prism of frost on the window of my truck.
OK, I'm back to the macro work again: here's something from last week's cold spell - frost crystals on the window of my truck made a good subject. Oh how I sacrifice my creature comforts for CDP.
I don't know what a Carbofrax is; maybe it's the company that made this brick. I just liked the way the light and shadow played on the bricks and moss.
Freedom from fear is a towering need that every human is entitled to have. I was thinking about that as I looked up at this granite tower at the Worlds Fair Park. It's part of the new East Tennessee Veterans Memorial near the interactive fountain.
The Fort Sanders neighborhood, with its proximity to the University of Tennessee, has become a densely populated student enclave. But with that has come crime that preys on people who are perhaps less experienced with life.
The weather's supposed to warm up this weekend, so I can go and do this again. "This" would be walking and taking photos of my fellow walkers. No, I'm not in a penal colony, don't let the barbed wire fool you. I'm at Lakeshore Park on the 2 mile trail - look, only 1.5 more miles to go! A small golf driving range is on the other side of the barbed wire fence, to which I can infer that golf must be a dangerous sport.
The sun had already slid below the horizon at Fort Loudon Lake way out in the western reaches of Knox County, but threw back a bit of color to remind us of its presence.
This park bench doesn't look very hospitable. Maybe it's new and the concrete footers are still curing. Or maybe it's a sign from the Universe that this is no time for sitting down.
It may be 28 degrees Fahrenheit (that's -2 degrees for all you Celsius folks) for my morning walk in the park, but the air is so crisp, and the colors are so sharp and clean that a bit of shivery cold won't hurt me. Plus, the bare trees give me a better view of traffic on the river.
I love how all the simple shapes of the BB&T tower and parking garage merge to form a kind of abstract image.
This mockingbird perched by the railroad tracks at Worlds Fair Park looks like a young'un. And none to amused to see me either.
I see three kinds of passages here: the passage of water through copper pipes, a passage in Underground Knoxville, and the passage of time that buried these once-above ground sidewalks and storefronts.
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