My Way or the Skyway

The other day i took a walk on my break at work. I did my usual loop. It never fails, each time i walk this loop, there is always something new and interesting happening. Just the fact that it's sunny and beautiful outside can make the everyday seem extraordinary. These pics were all taken with the Toy Camera app.



See how busy it is? I think this particular day there was a day game at the stadium. I swear i didn't take this with a fish lens (wide angle lens). Minneapolis is just curvy that way.



This is the same street seen through the other side of the skyway. The lovely Twins stadium just in view there.



This part always fascinates me. I don't even have to take a picture to see how this looks like i'm peering into a fishbowl. I'm 90% sure i have this same shot in earlier posts, but with a normal camera and no filters applied.

Herrrmmmm... this was rather a short, technical, uninspirational post. That means my mind was a complete blank when i walked my walk which means my walk served it's purpose well.

On a side note... the Lumber Exchange building flooded. :0( It's still standing and operating but, you can imagine, water and old building...

City Hall - Mpls. Style IV

I know i said the walls on all four sides were open, but i guess i lied. As we continued to wander this lobby, i noticed the stained glass windows. OF COURSE you can't have an old building without stained glass windows! ^-^





Did i mention that there was a huge marble sculpture in the middle of the lobby? I didn't? Well, there is! These two pictures are taken with the same phone, but illustrates the filters the Toy Camera applies. Alligator gonna get you!!




Once again, i'm completely fascinated with the open windows and staircases.



Last but not least... there was this dark little corner with a light... Hmmmm.... where oh where does this go? I thought it was a little mini-rotunda. Nope! It's another funny round corner in a hall. And guess what?

It leads to the adult detention center. yay.

City Hall - Mpls. Style III

As we were wandering through City Hall we went through what i thought was a little hallway. It ended up being more of a circular corner of the hallway. There were these beautiful windows with no glass. Just the annoying curtain with the annoying light that shone through. It is your typical sash and cord window with a beautiful wood frame and ornate handles.

I couldn't resist taking a detail shot of the window. I was hard to get just the right part of the window because there was a light shining through the curtain. No matter which angle i tried, the light was there.

When we rounded the corner, this is exactly what i saw to my right. I was completely surprised to see all of this. I had no idea!! I just assumed Minnesota didn't have buildings like this with marble like this in it. I always assumed that the older states like Boston had this kind of stuff.

I was so fascinated with this angle. The second thing that came to my mind was, Escher. The stairs completely remind me of Escher's work. You can definitely see the "open" staircases from this angle. They appear to have no support. Marble and iron(?) staircases.

This is the moment where looking straight up just doesn't work. Instead, i flipped my phone over to take this shot. Hence the crookedness of it. This is the ceiling of the City Hall! Notice that the windows leading up to the ceiling are all open. All four sides are like this. I was very impressed. I could have stayed all day in this lobby and just looked and looked and looked. I probably would have been climbing the stairs all over the place like a little kid.

*the spacing is driving me NUTS on these pages. i can't fix it so that there is a space between the pictures and the paragraphs. Gah!

City Hall - Mpls. Style II

I have no idea why i'm surprised that the inside of City Hall is designed as it is. The banister in the previous post connects to the railing shown above. I'm assuming this is all bronze? The stairs are marble.



Speaking of stairs, as we walked up one flight of stairs, above us is the next set of stairs. It's rather weird and Escher-like to see stairs that look unsupported.



I thought this sign was pretty clear. Odd numbers to the left, even to the right. Depending on how you look at it i guess :).




Here is another detail of the railing.

As we were walking down these mysterious halls we came across a little cafe. Across from it there were old restaurant advertisements around Minneapolis. Below the advertisements was this huge coffee pot that was used to serve coffee back-in-the-day. The brew strength seems pretty clear to me...

City Hall - Mpls style

Another skyway adventure was had. This time we went to the Government Center and then ended up in City Hall across the street. I discovered the sub level of the Government Center one day when i had to get my license tabs renewed. After going down two flights of single-wide escalators there is a long hallway that ends in what appears to be a waterfall. I discovered later that this waterfall is actually the result of a never-ending fountain above ground.

My original intent was to go through a gallery displaying artwork from the epilepsy foundation. Unfortunately i waited too long. My friend was telling me that her husband told her that he used to sit in a tunnel between the government center and city hall and collected ballots. So, we decided to look for the tunnel. Lo and behold, we found it. As soon as we the doors shut, we felt like we were in a soundproof room. It was eerily quiet. As we walked to the other end of the tunnel i looked up and saw the statue of Hubert H. Humphrey. We had just walked underneat the light rail tracks...



At some point, i looked up to see the ceiling shown above.



We were now in City Hall and this is what i saw. Kind of funny how the place was painted as i didn't feel like it would be the correct colors for the era the building was built. I like how there was a globe to show floor one. On the second floor there were two globes. We didn't make it up to third to confirm what the globes would look like.

Here is a hallway. Again, not the color scheme i expected.

I thought this was interesting. The banister on the stairwell has amazing detail. I'm surprised it's not worn down from people touching it. Stayed tuned for more pictures. I was completely blown away that all of this existed and i never knew it. It was great fun.

May Day Parade Part II

More puppets from the Return scene. I believe these puppets are pregnant skeletons. Pregnant with life; representing life and death dancing together. You should really go here to find out how it all breaks down. :)

This is from the fourth and final scene, Roar!. The rooster calls everyone to roar with energy and liveliness.

Then there's the snail. My friend was telling me that the snail represents the end of the scenes. I think the snail is also supposed to represent the universe, so i guess this makes sense that at the end of the day, we are a minute part of the universe.

After the snails, the Join-In Section of the parade starts. This is where anyone can participate and represent their causes or to just plain dress up and have fun. We didn't stick around too much longer after that. There is a festival at Powderhorn park that everyone was heading to and that's where we went too. I think i have a few pics of that too...

Anyone can sit on a curb and watch a parade. The vast majority of parades involve high school bands, companies tossing loads of candy into the street that causes more disruption than fun, propaganda shoved in your face, and pretty much chaos on crack.

What sticks out in my mind about this parade... it was a calm chaos. Loads of people on the curbs cheering on the participants in the parade. The parade went by and we watched. We didn't have to dodge kids stampeding to get a candy, we didn't have to sit on our hands so that we didn't accidentally grab a flyer that would just be garbage anyways... we just sat, and watched. How simple and easy and enjoyable.

May Day Parade

Of course it took me till July to get the May Day pictures up. No idea why it took me this long. Ah well, imperfection at it's finest. A friend of mine said, "let's go to the May Day Parade" more or less. Now that Olivia is 2 i figured she would get a kick out of it. She would actually have the attention span to watch it instead of wanting to eat the dirt off the ground.

The May Day Parade took place in S.Mpls specifically on Bloomington Ave where the street is blocked off for the day i believe. It is put on by In the Heart of the Beast (HOBT) which is a puppet and mask theater company. To find out more about HOBT (you really should it's very interesting) go here.

This was our first May Day parade and my friend was explaining that the parade was actually a story that has four scenes. This year it was Uproar! If i had been thinking i would have made sure to get a picture from each scene, but i missed out on the first one. You can go here to find the full Uproar! story.



I saw this guy walk by in the parade. I loved his umbrella. I just loved his whole costume actually. He reminded me of the old school "hobo" statues my grandparents' friend used to collect. Hmmm... yeah i know. Extremely random memory.



This is the begining of the 2nd scene Breathe!. The people breathe and actually become breath and dance. These were my favorite puppets.



I loved the wind chimes the Breathe puppets carried. There's something about them... kind of mystical. If i didn't have neighbors so close, i would have windchimes all around my deck. No lie.

This is from the Return scene. "The return to wisdom and ancestors." This owl came towards us. I loved how this puppet was designed. I thought Olivia would freak out but she just stared and stared. The owl reached out a hand to Olivia and Olivia touched her hand (with my help). It wasn't often that the puppets came to the curb so i thought that was a neat moment.

I have more pictures that i'll put up. To find the history of the parade, go here. It's interesting.