amusement at the zoo

The Cleveland Zoo is also in the entertainment business, and always has construction projects. Recently they have expanded the rhinoceros area. They did so, in part, by eliminating Monkey Island. There are less mammals in the zoo exhibits, and a big exhibit is done now in most years. The trouble is in America, there is enthusiasm in building new, and not maintaining. The wolf exhibit was new, and has deteriorated over the years.

Feeding time for the grizzlies has produce thrown at them. The red objects are watermelon, and a strawberry.

Eating lettuce.

Animal parks, zoos want an inflow of money. They have put on events, often after normal hours, to bring in more people, people=money. This is the fifth year for Asian [Chinese] lanterns. They are running out of ideas, There are lanterns shaped as plants, animals, buildings. The sun fades the fabric quickly. It still all looks good. I think each panda bears are highlighted. This one has a bamboo hat, which from a distance, can be a construction helmet.

Sunday night there was a little storm damage. A man in a lift rightens a butterfly.

From a distance, this jellyfish looks like a water tower. Cleveland had an artist paint one in blues.

      A well done foto prop. The roo looks good, there is a similar one with a gorilla.

In a few days, this corpse flower [Amorphophallus titanum] will be in its full, stinky, and short bloom. They have signs, and banners with much information. Can't tell, how many folk read any of it. They also have a docent there to answer questions (and protect it). Normally it is in their rain forest building. It has been moved outside near the rhinos, and in front of building that held monkeys. The plant is rare, and in 28 years, this will be its fifth bloom. The zoo has a live feed on you tube. They are prepared for a long queue of sniffers.

The bokeh (hexagonal blurs here) are sun rays, and glare which my camera lens had difficulty in focusing. I had other snaps without them, but i liked the effect.

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Postscriptum 9.20 pm 27 July: Since i posted this a few minutes ago, i see that the zoo has written that the bloom began at 5.30 pm, to-day. The zoo will open early to-morrow at 9 am.

missed the joust

 

The jousting list is across the side street, on the former grounds of St. Alexis Hospital. The Saturday event was advertised as the Knights on Broadway. The small fair was held at the Bohemian Hall in Cleveland.

John is wearing the livery of Henry Tudor. The red dragon of Wales, and a white greyhound. Unfortunately, i had to leave early. I am guessing they were re-enacting the time of the War of the Roses. They were from Waynesville in Warren County, and will be at the Ohio Renaissance Fair.

Czech athletics were encouraged, and the Sokols (falcons) had gyms. The first Sokols were in Prague in 1862, and spread through Slavonic Europe, and came to America.

Some royal court marionettes had a play. Here they hang loose before showtime.

Gunsmoke, or Smokey, is an Arabian.

Maggie is a Percheron cross. She is 23 and blind in one eye, but a very pleasant mare, She is affectionate with her handler. Maggie is wearing a jousting breast collar.

Gunsmoke likes his upper gum rubbed, not a difficult request.

Were you the tallest one in class?

Fly Me to the Moon

Now, to-day is the anniversary of the first moon landing. Heard it on the radidi-o, for we were without teevee that summer. We got a new silvertone in late September. St. Elias the Prophet's saint day is the 20th of July, he was taken to the heavens in a fiery chariot. Not suggesting they are related, but a fun co-incidence.

 

Legion

Exorcism of Legion. 6th century. Ravenna.

Luke's Gospel* tells us, Jesus met a man possessed [the Gerasene demoniac]. One of the demons did say, "Why dost thou meddle with me, Jesus, Son of the most High God? I pray thee, do not torment me".  "Then Jesus asked him, What is thy name? And he said, Legion; for there were many devils that had entered into him. And they entreated him not to bid them go back to the abyss".

"We are Legion", also reminds me of "We are Borg", now if "the abyss" is the realm of the underworld (Hell), or the the vastness of space...The largest unit in the Roman army was the legion. A legion was over 5,000 infantry, and a few hundred cavalry or auxiliaries. The Roman army would assimilate, by conquering, land and people. Rome, and Rome's army were greatly feared and hated.

There were a lot of devils, and they did not want separation, or banishment. They begged this not to happen, but it did; although a herd of swine were intermediaries.

Now, if we consider from the perspective of a devil there, or a drone on teevee; neither wants to be cast out, and separated from the whole. Now, the Star Trek universe had many scriptwriters. A problem in episodic shows is continuity, and agreement. One fellow has a character do this, the next fellow has him to something contrary. So, i have not examined the scripts, nor charted the arc of development or change about the Borg. The cyborg drone, Seven-of-Nine was captured from the Borg and was forcibly "assimilated" into the new crew, she was originally human before being taken by the Borg. Her collection of emotions were jarred, and she tried to keep them hidden from others. She was in emotional trauma. Some see her as an abductee by a cult, and then de-programmed, and forever shaken. She had wanted to return, being separated was a crisis.

Whatever Hell is, it is both torment and isolation (at least from God). The residents can be understood to be absent of satisfaction with the place. So, is Scripture telling us even devils are not happy to be in the abyss (Hell)? Still,"We are Legion", and "We are Borg" sound ominous. Legion met doom, and the Borg (at least in some scripts) were defeated.

In the Gospels, this casting out of demons was a miracle. The Gerasene demoniac was a witness in the Decapolis of Jesus' ministry. The Gospels are all different abbreviated portraits of the story of Jesus. Many episodes are described with sparse details, and exegesis can chose to linger selectively on some detail more than another.

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* Luke viii. 26-39; also Matthew viii. 28-34, and Mark v. 1-20.

2022 Miscellany #9

The business moved to another thoroughfare in Old Brooklyn from State Road. This sign remains, at least for awhile. The color has faded, and the other lettering has been painted out.

Also on State Road, Eileen Dorsey has painted some flowers on a brick wall. Last year, she did so on Broadview, all in Old Brooklyn Cleveland.

Mid-July has many blooms in the Italian Cultural Garden.

House has been vacant for some time. They left the piano behind.

lower level of Slovene Cultural Garden Cleveland

April 2016 "Steggie" came back with a new paint job. Maybe within a year, a dorsal fin behind the head came off. It is still off. They are building a huge addition to the museum, no room in the budget?

on St. Clair, Cleveland

Some parades are just like others

Wienermobile. 4th of July 2022. Bedford Ohio.

The last few years, i have taken the time to visit parades. The first parade i saw, really a procession, was a St. Anthony's parade. I was a small kid. A woman, two houses away, was at her son's house. She came from Italy, and as the parade passed by she took me and my sister along. We marched at the very end for a piece.

In high school, the marching band sometimes marched in the Cleveland's St. Patrick's parade. There were only two days they allowed kids to skip school, the Indians home opener, and St. Patrick's parade. One year they were in New York City's parade. For some of Cleveland it is notable.

For a time, Cleveland's Labor Day parade was revived. I remember being in one in Lakewood, and one near Cleveland Zoo. A couple of my nieces, and nephews rode on a flatbed truck. I watched one in Parma. The plan was to rotate the location each year around the county.

outside St. Peter's on St. Patrick's 2010

Lennon Thou Art Modell 

Apt comparison of bishop to football team owner, individuals (hated, and now dead) because they took away from Cleveland, that which was beloved by Cleveland.

Then Richard Lennon came to town, and i went to see the Patrick parade.  That parade is the largest parade in Ohio.  St. Peter's is at the beginning of the parade (Superior & East 18th).  A few others, and me, stood in front of St. Peter's.  Lennon, who was bishop, was going to extinguish St. Peter's.  So the next year, some people from protesting parishes marched behind St. Patrick West Park (which was also on Lennon's list). From 2011 onward, the Polish parishes have marched in the Patrick parade, with St. Casimir in the lead, Casimir's was another of Lennon's targets. Being in the parade allows the community to see you.

I have taken fotos of Independence Day parades at Parma (horrible parade, except for the high school bands), Lakewood, Kamm's Corners, Westlake, and University Heights [click]. This year, Bedford, and this [supra] was the chief attraction.

Who should be in every Independence Day Parade: people in costume as Uncle Sam, Lady Liberty, Lady Justice, and the Spirit of '76 band. Bedford had a copy of that iconic fife and drum corps. Also, unfortunately, Bedford's parade began with a very long procession (20 minutes?) of fire trucks, police cars, and politicians of at least four suburbs. The glorification of present government used the opportunity to hijack the parade.

Tow Mater of the Cars movie

some favorite characters of children

Guru Gobind Singh Sikh Society's building is very close to where the parade marches. Many parades have religious groups in the community march.

Part of being in a parade is the exposure to the greater community.

Other religious groups marched in the parade too. There was a group of Moslems who had banners showing loyalty to the United States. What was the pleasant about the Sikhs, is they gave out snacks and drinks; and unlike some Evangelical Protestants, they did not hand out paperwork.

 

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Similar scenes were carried out across the land. Independence Day fell on a Monday, this year, it was easier to schedule. I looked at the day's fotos i shot, and i was not going to post a foto essay, i thought the fotos were not that special or good, i might use one in a miscellany; but then...

 

As part of being in a parade is the exposure to the greater community, it is also the greater community's opportunity to have exposure to the community. Terribly, this happened in Highland Park Illinois' parade, while we were in Bedford Ohio. Some people are evilly, mentally compromised. One young trumpster [click] saw an opportunity to kill. The street, and sidewalks were a shooting gallery. 

 

The merchants and manufacturers of death are part owners of the Republican Party. That party joins in their celebration in and of the use of that which is sometimes called a "military styled assault weapon". This is a particularly American phenomenon. These enablers of mass murder demand everyone just to get on with things, anything other than the murders and the weapons that allow them to be done in a expeditious manner. Darren Bailey is the trumpster candidate for Illinois governor, his comment on the massacre was "...so let's pray for justice to prevail, and then let's move on and let's celebrate...".

 

There are fotos of the terrorist trumpster [click] available on the internet, although the press, media, and the search engines have not made them prominent and not shown to audiences.  The press does not bring up his politics. Republicans, and their allies, will say he is mentally incompetent, or use similar verbiage. That is self-evident, and redundant—he is a trumpster, from a family of trumpsters (his father was the recent losing trumpster candidate for mayor of Highland Park). The truth is two fold: the gun culture in America is an idolatry, and the Republican Party (especially in its trumpster form) is a clear, and present danger to both democracy, and the lives of Americans.

dogs and statues

Farnsworth the Whippet takes a wee drink at the egg table.

Karma walks by a recently planted birch forest at a new building project on West 25th.

Meso-American statue at Rockefeller Greenhouse Cleveland

statue Thai dancer for a restaurant