New Haven, 3/15/09
New Haven, 3/15/09Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Conversations
Hartford, 3/14/09The young lady in the fat suit was passing out fliers promoting a Japanese restaurant along the parade route.
New Haven, 3/15/09Sunday, April 19, 2009
At The Pub
New London, 3/17/09
New London, 3/17/09After the parade, the New London Firefighters Pipes performed in the pub. The sound was deafening.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Phones vs the Here and Now
New Haven, 3/15/09Why pay attention to the parade when you can talk to someone somewhere else on your cell phone?
New Haven, 3/15/09Thursday, April 16, 2009
Unions on Parade
Hartford, 1/14/09
Hartford, 3/14/09Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Around the Parade
Hartford, 3/14/09Posing for the newspaper photographer.
New Haven, 3/15/09On the sidelines.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Pictures and Drinks
New Haven, 3/15/09I was struck by the amount of picture-taking going on. Almost as strange as the way people were talking on their cell phones to someone else, not here, not at the parade. As though taking themselves away from their own uncontrolled experience (here at the parade) to the controlled experience of the phone call. But you have to admire a one-hand grip on a bottle of Guiness and a pint of Jamison's.
Hartford, 3/14/09Sunday, April 12, 2009
Party Time
New Haven, 3/15/09The architect may not have quite had this in mind for his half-wall detail in the limestone facade, but let's hope he has a sense of humor about it.
New Haven, 3/15/09Jello-Shots® seemed to be popular. I'm not sure what they are, and I don't want to know.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Take My Picture, II
New Haven, 3/15/09Everyone wanted their pictures taken by their friends, no matter what they were doing.
Have you ever heard of the legendary New England "Blue Laws"? The backwardness of these statutes has resulted in some important national changes like the Griswold v. Connecticut decision in which the Supreme Court told the states to butt out of people's personal lives in the matter of birth control. But you still can't buy a beer in a grocery store on Sunday in Connecticut. You also are absolutely forbidden to drink in public. At an art gallery opening, the Connecticut (or Massachusetts) gallery owner may be thrown into a panic because a patron strolls out onto the sidewalk to look back in at the main window display with a little plastic cup of wine in hand. If an officer of the law should see this offense, he is supposed to issue a citation that will shut the place down for a couple of weeks, though most are humane enough to find something else to do. Well, at the St. Patrick's Day parade, it's Katy Bar The Door. Repeatedly during three hours of mayhem, people accosted me, not for pointing my camera at them, but for not having a pint of Guiness in my hands along with the camera.
New Haven, 3/15/09Friday, April 10, 2009
How Many People Can Stand on Chapel Street?
New Haven, 3/15/09Quite a few. Really a lot of people. Only some of them go to Yale. But I don't know which.
New Haven, 3/15/09Thursday, April 9, 2009
Take My Picture
New Haven, 3/15/09Reveling is now incomplete unless you record it with your cell phone and send it on to the unfortunate few who couldn't make it to New Haven.
New Haven, 3/15/09A lot of the people at the parade actually looked Irish.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Crowds
New Haven, 3/15/09The reports are that New Haven had 300,000 visitors to enjoy the Irish celebration. New Haven is a really small city. Its famous university is large in reputation, but its population of students is tiny compared to the big universities of America's heartland. This many people on the sidewalks made for total gridlock.
New Haven, 3/15/09Tuesday, April 7, 2009
St. Patrick's Day
New Haven, 3/15/09Until a month ago, I'd never been to a St. Patrick's Day parade. That's not all that surprising since I'm not fond of crowds, much less parades, though I've often photographed parade-style demonstrations and in the past few years have looked closely at Memorial Day parades. But I noticed while doing other research that there were Paddy's Day events in my general area on the 14th (Hartford, the state capitol), the 15th (New Haven, home of patrician education) and the 17th (the actual proper date, at New London, center of the New England whaling industry, a couple centuries ago).
Last month I decided to see what might be going on at these parades. For a little while this blog will deal with some of what I saw those three days.
New Haven, 3/15/09
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