Labor Day weekend brought out the shindigs in Benton County, first with the Frisco Fest in Rogers, then Light Night at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

The old Frisco Railroad at its height ran from Missouri to Texas to Alabama, and its arrival more than 130 years ago literally put Rogers on the map as an agricultural and passenger hub. Rogers these days is a bit different, not quite the agricultural hub of yore but much bigger and more diverse. The Latino folk dancers were my priority Friday night, but fire dancers and LED hula-hoopers from North Little Rock’s Arkansas Circus Arts and other performers held their own.

Low light and long exposures give the chance to capture something kind of remarkable: a person or thing in its four dimensions, not to get too Slaughterhouse-Five about it. In other words, it’s a nifty way to see movement through space and time. Some things, like that LED hoop making the boxy pattern, can only be seen properly that way. Maybe that’s true of most things, really.

Anyway, I kept thinking about it the next evening at Crystal Bridges, where the annual Light Night seems to be an excuse to play music and make as many kinds of light and color as possible. More fire dancers did their thing in a red-light ring, and traffic filled the road to the event most of the evening. Mars put on its own light show as well, if you can spot it.

Thanks for looking!