Stage Fright
“Aspiring Dancers” Studio Performance
Cary Ballet Conservatory, Cary, North Carolina 18 May 2019
Old Friends
“Desegregating Cary” – Oral History Presentation Page Walker Arts History Center
Cary, North Carolina 25 Oct 2011 Photographed for Cary Citizen
Cat’s Eyes
A Benefit for the Downtown Cary Kids Museum – Thursday, June 30, 2011
Photographed for Cary Citizen
Gare Montparnasse
This enclosed 56th floor is the last elevator stop of of Tour Montparnasse.
Climb some stairs to the 59th and your reward is a rooftop 360 view. Eye level with Tour Eiffel
Paris 28 Sept 2017
Sunday Story II
Shop Window, Rue Ferdinand Duval, Paris – 28Sept 2017
Hard right on the street from our vacation apt. bldg, was a Jewish shop. It was Marais, duh! Wish I’d made a photograph of the Scooby-Do Yarmulke advertised but I did make this. My goal on Sunday morning was pastries from the shop pictured below.
Bakery, Rue Ferdinand Duval & Rue des Rosiers, Paris – 28 Sept 2017
Rue Ferdinand Duval ends in a T here, crossed by Rue des Rosier. The buildings on all sides create a canyon. Just to the right of this door way is a marble plaque, one of far too many in Paris.
My poor translation to English is: “In Memory of the Principal, Staff, Teachers and Students of this School who were arrested in 1943 and 1944 by the Vichy Police and The Gestapo and deported and killed in Auschwitz because they were born Jewish.”
It was early and quiet. There was nothing to distinguish that street from 1943 or 1944. I closed my eyes, and opened them thinking, what if… It was the most chilling and frightening moment I’ve ever experienced. And I balanced that with knowing I’d been a Missile Control Supervisor on an American Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine. Boomers are always ready. Never again.
Train Station
Musée d’Orsay from Pont Royal – 28 Sept 2016
It’s last use before transformation to art museum was a railway station (Gare d’Orsay), receiving WWII POW’s. Go at opening on Wednesday morning and bypass the line with a Visite Pass. You’ll have time on the fifth floor to yourself. Exhibits are always changing. I felt like a teenager at the Cleveland Museum of Art, free to explore for days. And I did.
Sunday Story
I’m pretty sure I made photographs of the first event at the newly renovated Cary Arts Center. It was Sunday. A “Wet Paint” sign was taped to the stage riser and the Brussels Chamber Music Orchestra, jet lagged, were trying to figure out the space
The last time, I’m pretty sure I made photographs there was the Cary Ballet “Nutcracker”, 2021. In my usual place, next to the video guy, behind my tripod and just left of a pillar in the last row of the theater, I’d done my check and re-check of gear. A guy came up and plopped down in a seat near me and somehow, we started talking. As usual, I bragged on the Cary Ballet Company dancers. And told him how I “lost” some every year to ballet company contracts. He grinned and said , I know, I’m taking one with me.
We exchanged cards. His said “Nick Mullikin, Associate Artistic Director, Nashville Ballet”. And then I was telling him about “La Vie En Rose” and Marie Konrad and Paris and this heart breaking performance I’d found by Rhiannon Giddens. And he grinned again and explained about spending months on the road with Rhiannon, working on choreography for Spoleto. Where I lived in Charleston for the very first. It is, a very small world. And she is wonderful.
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