I love you, Bob Cassilly

(stltoday.com) The new roof the City Museum, set to open in late July.
STLtoday: "High (and not so) Dry", on Cassilly's plans for the City Museum and Cementland

"The Ferris wheel is part of the City Museum's so-called rooftop attraction, the latest creation from City Museum founder/artist/madman Bob Cassilly. Poised to open this month, the roof will feature fountains, ramps and bridges, a cafe, a circus big top and three slides, including a 10-story ride to the bottom of the museum.
Cassilly has big dreams for the space — acrobats swinging from a trapeze underneath the one-time dome of the St. Louis Planetarium, families lounging under the shade of B-52 parachutes, kids splashing in the fountain fashioned from a carved elephant's trunk."

"I don't talk about money. That would be vulgar," he said."

"Cassilly has floated vague ideas for the site for years, but was forced to reveal his plans a month ago after St. Louis and the village of Riverview ordered Cassilly to stop work on the property. The site straddles both cities, but to no one's surprise, Cassilly never obtained permits from either."

""His story was always all of the work was being done in the city and then he'd tell the city all of the work was being done in Riverview. Finally we had to put our foot down. Let's just say working with him has been quite an experience.""

"St. Louis' most imaginative recycler, Cassilly built the rooftop attraction with slate from a St. Louis roofing company, bricks picked from the rubble of Cementland, mirrored blocks from Barnes-Jewish Hospital, steel panels from Boeing, benches from St. Louis Community College at Forest Park and old Cypress tanning barrels."

Gosh, I love him. It seems like the only way to get things done in this backward town is to do them and ask permission later. I hope Bob Cassilly runs for Mayor.


Bob Cassilly's Cementland in the New York Times: "One Part Cement, Two Parts Whimsy, One Odd Park"

"“In St. Louis, no one has the confidence in their creativity and intelligence” to make projects like the museum or Cementland work, said Tim Tucker, a developer who worked with Mr. Cassilly in the 1990s. “Lots of people conceive things, but very few can implement them as well as Bob.”"

"Pointing south, he rhapsodized about how downtown St. Louis would look from Cementland: “In the afternoon, when the sun shines on the city, you get this nice reflection. You don’t see all the trash and stuff. It’s the best view of the city.”"

"Mr. Tucker, the developer, was not encouraging when Mr. Cassilly told him of plans to buy a 750,000-square-foot complex for 69 cents a square foot. “If you’d given anyone half a million dollars in 1993, the last place to spend it was in St. Louis,” Mr. Tucker said.
Nevertheless, the Cassillys bought the complex, including the International Shoe Building, offices and a 10-story warehouse with a severe, boxy exterior that Mr. Cassilly described as “something Joseph Stalin would have designed.” He and a crew set about renovation, punching holes in walls and floors and transforming the site into the St. Louis City Museum."

"While the process has been slow, and Mr. Cassilly received a ticket for dumping with an expired permit in 2000, nature’s constancy will eventually be contrasted with man-made decay, as grass covers the dirt, Mr. Cassilly’s collection of obsolete machines grind and whir to no end and the core of the factory is flooded, allowing visitors to ride boats in and out of the buildings."

"The goal, he said, is similar to that of the City Museum: to create an unmistakable place “where people can come and do things they’re not supposed to.”"

View a slideshow of the progress of Cementland here.

Ira Glass

I previously wrote a post on how I had a brain crush on Ira Glass, host of NPR's This American Life. I love him, he's awesome, whatever.

He came to Mizzou during my last year, and I was really sad that I missed him. He's coming to the Pageant in St. Louis. I have no idea what his live show will be like, but I bought a ticket for myself anyways. I'm talking to every Ira lover I know and trying to get them to go with me.

His show (I think) is benefiting Prison Performing Arts, which is a program in some eastern Missouri prisons where the prisoners put on plays. You'd be better off just listening to the This American Life program on it:

'Act V'

Place to hit up this summer: The Rotten Apple

Man, it's good to be back in the STL.  Here's a place I'm looking forward to going to, even though it's an hour away in Grafton, IL.  They have cajun food, St. Louis Framboise (Belgian raspberry beer) on tap, and specialize in hard ciders.  Love.  

Here's a sweet Sauce Magazine article on The Rotten Apple.

Here's how to get there (google maps)

Creepy New Town

"Crap, honey, I forgot which house was ours again"

So there's this development in St. Charles, MO, a large suburb of St. Louis called New Town. A few of my friends live in Hazelwood and Florissant, which are quite close by.

"However, the family envisioned more … they wanted to build a way of life – neighborhoods complete with fabulous on-site amenities that families could use, enjoy and make a part of their daily routine."

"And in 2004, Greg Whittaker, president of Whittaker Homes, decided to take this sense of community one step further with New Town at St. Charles. This traditional town is designed to accommodate a wide range of homes and businesses alike. New Town combines old with new, ultimately creating a town reminiscent of the past where children can ride their bikes to the general store and residents can walk to the local coffee shop. At New Town, the garages are in the back, streets are conducive to walking and biking, and people can live, work and play within the comfort of their own neighborhood."

So, basically, instead of trusting a community to build itself organically, New Town is a development that takes all that relationship-building into its own hands. Pre-fab life, pre-fab neighborhood. Creepy.

take a look at the houses (here)

Travel to St. Louis!

This is for my friends Jeff and Patrick, who (hopefully) will be returning the favor and coming to visit the Gateway to the West soon. Since St. Louis is pretty spread out and favors the over-21 set, our options are limited, yet exciting. I'm going to give as comprehensive of a list (St. Louisans please add on) as I can for them for them to choose from when they come to visit:

The Obvious:
- the Arch (w/ ride to the top)
- Cardinals game (schedule)
- Ted Drewes Frozen Custard (menu)
- The City Museum (crucial)
- Westminster Christian Academy

Neighborhoods:
- the Hill (Italian neighborhood) (restaurants)
- East St. Louis (guided tour)
- North County (guided tour)
- The Loop (shopping/bars)
- Central West End (shopping/bars)
- Laclede's Landing (mostly bars, some restaurants - kind of seedy)
- South Grand (shopping/restaurants)
- Downtown walkabout
- the Fox/Moolah theater area (SLU)?

Restaurants not by anything else:
- Carl's Drive-In (not actually a drive-in, just a tiny diner kind of like Town Topic in KC) (City of Manchester)
- Crown Candy (for the milkshakes) (Old North St. Louis)

Forest Park:
- St. Louis Art Museum (free)
- STL Zoo (free)
- general running around (map)

Places I've never been:
- St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum

Other necessities:
- riding on the Metrolink
-

(all images - STL Style)

"I'm going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come": brief review of Kansas City and Lawrence, KS

emmy, patrick, and I in front of the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum

So, being lame, I went to Kansas City for my last spring break of my college career. I had the lowest expectations possible for any city on planet earth. I have been raised in St. Louis, and so have been raised with the lowest of views of Kansas City. They are smaller than us (metro area: 1.9 million vs. our 2.8 million), have a crappier airport than us, do not have Forest Park, do not have the Cardinals, do not have the City Museum, do not have our history (Gateway of the West, Lewis and Clark, etc.), and generally suffer from an inferiority complex that is pitiful.

However (and this pains me greatly to say this), after this spring break I think Kansas City is better than St. Louis. While St. Louis has very cool parts of town, they are all 20-minutes away from each other. St. Louis is very fragmented, each county harboring a suspicion of all the other counties. Never will I give up on St. Louis, but KC's downtown and midtown are in far better states than St. Louis' right now. Their Power and Light District that is being built looks super-cool, they have more gay people, more art events, more hipster kids (how I love those hipster kids), and as sad as their Royals are they still love them, which is cute.

It is almost as if the ego of St. Louis is standing in its own way. As I'm looking forward to moving to the great city on May 18th (maybe for good), I am trying to figure out exactly what St. Louis' problem(s) is/are.

One problem is the stubbornness/corruption of the city politicians. They don't like change. (as can be seen in this article about the Metrolink).

Another problem I want to find out more about is how the city is split up, tax-wise. Somehow, the tax money from the counties does not reach downtown. Why? This adds to the cultural/geographical/psychological fragmentation of the city. We are a house divided and we don't let our kids go downtown.

----

Also, another blow to my city-love ego came when I found out that Lawrence (home of the hated Kansas University) has an Urban Outfitters downtown and is generally cooler than Columbia. Go ahead and stab me in the heart.

Anime Conference of St. Louis

Practically the only character I recognized, Princess Peach in all his glory.

My friends Shannnon (as Cloud from Final Fantasy on the left) and Shaun (Zak from something, on the right)

No idea - help, Patrick?

the lobby of the hotel, shock.

So I went to the Anime conference in St. Louis this past weekend for a bit, to see my friends Shannon and Shaun, who were in town for it. It was stunning. Subcultures fascinate me, especially high-school ones. Every high school I've been involved with or been around has had a group of Anime-enthusiasts, and I want to learn more about it. Here's what I learned from this weekend:

- the sense of community at these things is huge, people yell out the name of the character you cosplayed as and hug you.
- 'Anime' is kind of an umbrella term that includes Star Wars, gaming of all types (there was a Guitar Hero battle room), 'goth' culture, and everything Japanese.
- Shannon told me that the age demographic for Anime conventions has shifted dramatically down in the last decade, from people in their 30s and up to now mostly high school.
- This subculture is mostly caucasian.

Something Else I'll Miss From College: Passive-Aggressive White Boards

Actually, come to think of it, I'll still have roommates once I move back to STL (woo, Sharon and Allie!) - So, hopefully we'll have a white board to blame each other with.

St. Louis has a Fashion Week?

(stl-style.com)

Yeah, well, I guess we do, kind of. It was in the Metro section of the Post-Dispatch this morning. What?

St. Louis Fashion Week (website)

Some events will be held at the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis, which looks really legit. I'm excited about going there when I move back.

But most of the events are at the garish new Lumiere Place Casino down on the riverfront, a little north of the arch.

Oh well, at least it's something.

And, according to this blog, Kimora Lee Simmons (Baby Phat) will be headlining our fashion week. Oh gosh.

For some real St. Louis fashion, see STL-style.com Tshirts, they're wonderful (here).

Phyllis!

THE OFFICE IS BACK APRIL 10TH!!

So Phyllis from 'the Office' is from St. Louis and St. Louis Magazine had her do a playlist (here). It's really cute. Here is is:

Here I Go Again, White Snake	Phyllis Lapin Vance's top 5 picks
Home, Michael Ball
It's Raining Men, The Weather Girls
Sex Bomb, Tom Jones
I've Got You Under My Skin
Kiss, Tom Jones	Phyllis Smith's top 5 picks
Anything Goes, Cole Porter
Love Me Like You Dance, Creed Bratton
Shine, COV - Church With a Vision CD
Someone To Watch Over Me, Michael Ball

Place to go when I move back to St. Louis: Treasure Aisles

Treasure Aisles Antique Mall is in Maplewood (like 15-20 min. away from me) and is the place to shop, apparently. Here's an article ("Hunting Treasure") from my beloved St. Louis Magazine about a now-painter who paid his Wash U. tuition by finding "undervalued" goods there.

"So what do the locals love? “What’s called in the trade ‘brown furniture’—1920s reproduction, pseudo-Sheraton or Hepplewhite or Georgian, nice wood but factory-made, the proportions a little off,” he says promptly. Shame curls my entrails. I love brown furniture.

“That and crazy folk-art stuff,” he adds."

The Man's tryin to shut me down

Apparently Hasbro and Mattel, the creators of Scrabble, are angry at the Facebook application, Scrabulous, saying that it's infringing on their intellectual property. Which it is. But, come on. Hasbro, please just cut a deal with the two Indian guys from Calcutta who created the app and keep Scrabulous up. Honestly, it probably accounts for 50% of the times I log onto Facebook.

Here's an article on Salon.com about it: "Hasbro, Mattel fight Facebook scrabbler Scrabulous"

Speaking of fbook, I received a friend request from the assistant pastor of my church in St. Louis, Chesterfield Pres. He led a sunday School class on it yesterday. I like my church.

St. Louis Magazine article "Original Gangster" about St. Louis hairstylist Donnal Chung:

"What he doesn’t say is that if you don’t trust him or respect his artistry, he’ll either announce that the karma’s not right and refuse to cut your hair or forge ahead, testing you. He’s not afraid of what you’ll think—and if he senses that your fear is going to get in the way of what he thinks best, watch out. ...

"Men in this society, Donnal continues, “take medicine, spray, anything to hold onto their hair as long as they can. So my job sometimes is charge them $100 for haircut and buy them razor and tell the wife to help them shave their head. It’s not about $100, it’s about who has guts to tell you to shave your head.”...

“I realize I don’t have to be in New York to be a great artist. St. Louis people just don’t know the art. So I have a heavy-duty job here. I won’t say Midwesterners are stupid, but they are used to letting somebody decide for them—and then telling that person what to do! It’s not the people’s fault. Artists try to earn the money easy to please the people. The designer gets paid to do the job but doesn’t do it; the client pays the designer to do the job but doesn’t let him do it. And if I address this problem, I am the number-one Hair Nazi!...

“Midwest women have a tremendous problem: They love to copy people,” he adds. “Very dangerous. Because that is the first failure for the confidence. St. Louis people do not like to taste differences, they do not like challenges a lot, because they are very comfortable. The reality, the environment, doesn’t pressure them. It’s very family-oriented—so very easy to lose who they are.

“I have a very hard time to make people trust me here,” he adds. The old craze for highlights, for example: “A highlight is all bleach. Bleach is not a color. A lot of white-skinned clients have a different tone of white skin. But Midwesterners don’t accept any kind of tone because their eyes only understand one color: bleach!”

“My job,” he says abruptly, “is very mean. First time people walk in the door, I’m watching. Personality, background, job, earrings, watch, material of the hair, height, body shape, the way they talk, the attitude—if the nails perfect, the shoes shining, they sit very straight, you know who they are. They cannot lie to you, because if they didn’t like something they would not wear it. So I hate myself sometimes, because I have to have very strong judgment. But the judgment comes from who they are.”

And who is he? “I love that I have a very confident attitude all the time,” he confides. “I was born in a country where no matter how intelligent you are, you are just a little piece of grass in the yard.” And his greatest weakness? “I would love to find out my greatest weakness,” he says—sincerely. He’s silent for a moment. “I never ever in my life have been loved,” he says. “Only my grandma. If I can live all over again, I’d rather have love than anything.”

"Original Gangster" - St. Louis Magazine By Jeannette Cooperman

Comfort Food, STL style

Gosh, I love St. Louis magazine. If any of you St. Louisans are wondering what you're getting for Christmas, that's it.

Here's their great Nigella Lawson-esque review of comfort food restaurants in the St. Louis area. Wonderful.

As soon as Claire gets back from Tanzania (July4!) I'm taking her to all of the ones listed for Mac'n'Cheese.

Dang It

St. Louis just installed a couple video cameras to catch people running red lights, and one of them is right by the Loop - at Delmar and Skinker. Well, I was one of their first victims. Now, I wasn't running a red light, technically. I was just turning right on red and apparently didn't make a complete stop. They offer picture and video evidence on their website, and I can't get the video to load, but here are the photos. The fine is $100. Suck. I'm the red car, so you know.




This is the second ticket I've received this week. The first was on South Grand outside Dunaway Books (which, by the way, is not worth checking out - the website is way too generous) for not being inside the marked spot on the street. Gah. I don't want to drive any more.

My Dad is incredibly sweet and constantly defends me. He brought up the point that we could contest the ticket on the grounds that I was trying to get away from the shadester on the street at 12:30am. We'll see.

St. Louis Magazine

Every day since I can remember, I have driven by a Behavioral Health center that is connected to St. John's Mercy Hospital on the way to my house. I have always wondered about the building - what goes on, what it looks like inside, etc. Well, a couple days ago I finally got my chance. A friend of my mom's had a schizophrenic episode and was admitted. While she played her harp for her, I was reading/avoiding reading 'The Brothers Karamazov' and reading St. Louis Magazine instead. It's awesome. I had super-low expectations for it. I've never been a huge fan of the Riverfront Times, and the Post-Dispatch is near unreadable.

St. Louis Magazine is interesting, and makes St. Louis seem more respectable as a city. I'm thinking about getting a subscription.

On their website I saw an article about an interview they had with the guy who used to be CEO of the Metro here in town. I think it provides an interesting insight into exactly what is wrong with St. Louis and what is stunting its growth. Check it out (here).

"So what’s wrong with us? There are two kinds of cities in America. New York, Chicago, Boston—their infrastructure was in place long before the auto became dominant. When suburbanization came, they developed commuter railroads on top of rail systems. The Detroits and St. Louises got rid of their streetcars—and with that came the weakening of the urban core, as it started to depopulate."

Traffic

It took me three hours to get back to Columbia from St. Louis after Thanksgiving Break tonight. It usually takes about 1 hour and 25 minutes. Traffic sucks.

This is an example of good advertising. They gave a link to morail.org, which gives further links to alternative modes of transportation. It would be great if Amtrak stopped in Columbia (the closest stop is Jeff City - 37 min. away). A ticket costs about $16-20. Not bad. The train takes a little longer than I do speeding - 2 hours vs. 1.5

World's Fair

Remember the World's Fair? Well, if you're from St. Louis you will, because it is constantly referenced as the glory moment in St. Louis history. It's the setting for Meet Me in St. Louis, it's how we got most of Forest Park, and is overall the best moment in St. Louis' life (besides Mark McGuire, of course, forgive me).

Yesterday I was thinking about all this and was wondering - Do they still have World's Fairs? And if they do, what does one do there? Lovely Wikipedia told me the answers to these questions:

1. Yes they still do, every 5 years, and the next one is in Shanghai, China in 2010
2. From what I can tell, most World's Fairs are about the city and what it is doing to improve technology, the economy, and life for its citizens and for the world. Pretty sweet.


Shanghai for May-October 2010, anyone?

Regina for an Hour is Worth...

Claire, Twinkle-Toes, Cassie, and I drove up to St. Louis (eeee!) last night to see Regina Spektor at the Pageant. We had dinner at Blueberry Hill that went a little long, so we missed the opening band (Only Son?) but from what we heard they weren't all that great anyway.

So, Regina's a little bit of a diva (in a hipster anti-folk type of way, of course) and ONLY PLAYED FOR AN HOUR! Yes, that was one of the most awe-inspiring jaw-dropping musical hours I've ever had, but still. Come on, Regina.

She seemed a little high in a way that is appropriate for musicians, and Claire and I breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized what city she was in. "St. Louis is beautiful. You guys are beautiful."

Doors opened at 7, Only Son was done by 8:30 and Regina went on at 9:20 and the concert was over (including the weird encore ritual, why do they do it?) at 10:30. Lame.

By far the best part of the show was when Regina and this other guy (I forget his name) got up and did an a cappella/beat box version of 'Hotel Song' (here's a video of them doing it from another show). My jaw dropped. Her voice is AMAZING.

I Miss St. Louis