Happy Halloween, y'all!

*wink*



Lest we forget who really personifies folksy charm at it's most awesome.*

(* correct answer: Dolly Parton! Duh.)

What I'm REALLY concerned about

"Okay, people. I have a lot on my mind right now: the election, the economy, how to most effectively encourage my hair to be thick and bouncy, etc etc."

Preach.

Who's the most battlegroundy of them all?

MISSOURI. Thanks for the mention never, PRESS. The gotcha media didn't GET that! Makes my eyes roll. Election stress has been getting to me a bit. It is a silent stressor. It can strike at anytime!


My friends responses?



and



And these responses did NOT come from ONE side of the aisle. It's a new era people! One where those with all variations of political beliefs can send their stressed out friends uplifting and funny internet creations.

God bless America.
Seriously.

Loosen up St. Louis! Cooper Moore is comparing you to swedes.

The cooper-moore show (c/o of The Josh Weinstein) last night at Joe's Cafe (!) was equal parts awesome and overly-grave-seriousness. Though the audience took itself for rather serious intellectual-types (we got compared to BRITISH PEOPLE...and SWEDES! And not for good reasons -- like universal healthcare...oh snap!) and there was nooooo drinking (though excuse me for just a minute while I stand up for the "i drink but it doesn't make me lame, loud, or impolite" faction)...things got slightly lively/hopeful/wonderful towards the end.

Still the literal/figurative sobriety was just not fitting. I get it, audience. You're serious. You're smart. You read. You listen. Your work is done now. Have some (non-neighbor resentment fueling) fun! I believe. Part of what I really liked about prior visits to the place was the people you'd meet (easily). I have faith that exuberance will return.

So, C-M was bebop-tastic and sortof awesomely insane, and to be honest, I got a little he-vaguely-reminds-me-of-my-dad-if-my-dad-were-from-a-crazy-parallel-beatnik-universe vibe there.

Those who were there will remember his lil' story about lightening striking his childhood home and melting fire onto the walls...I, too, have seen lightening inside a farmhouse (it went through the light fixture and into the beans!), though not to such dramatic effect. Me and C-M are kindred spirits (sorta)! The mark of a good storyteller, wouldn't you think?

Anyway, I get excited when folks sing acapella gospel (it's a thing), so I attempted to catch the closing number -- this to some slight dramatic effect.



Fast forward to the end to briefly see me getting pulled into the "action."

(most likely due to a personal vow to always join in to songs at complete and full volume when prompted - thus I am transformed in to "that girl" once again! woo! Jumping up and down! Let's do this! I'm so happy, happy to be alive!)

Proprietor, Bill C., mentioned that he considered making his establishment a church, b/c one) it used to BE a church, and 2) dancing would then be legal (dancing's not legal, you ask? There's a weird cabaret law -- i think, I don't know for sure *note to self to find a link* -- that makes it hard to get a license if you allow dancing. WTF, i know. I don't get it either. At least not enough to get why the law/ordinance still exists).

If dancing is illegal (Footloose, anyone?), I am guilty as charged.

I don't really know HOW it came to be that I was informed that this event was a'happening (such things are possible), but I'm glad I was. It was cool.

How great is this?

Cajuns for Obama!
(I can't decide what I like more: the theme of the video or the fact that they're speaking french)



ht humidhaney

Best dancers in the UNIVERSE

In case anyone thinks I'm being sarcastic, and I don't know HOW you could - I am not. I am dead friggin' serious.

La Nostalgie! c/o jason mraz

This video reminds me of how exited I am that Agnes, head of the family (ok, she shared duties with her awesome husband phillipe) that I stayed with for a bit while living in france -- is coming to town!

I totally hooked her up with a friend (who happens to be married to my former high school history teacher - we're all friends now b/c I am an actual satisfactual Grown Person...haha, ok) who is a french teacher in town, and she's in town to do a lil' exchange! Lyon and St. Louis are sister cities, I'll have you know, and that relationship is the reason I ended up there in the first place (back in the day when i was like 15), and therefore slightly the reason I ended up there in the second place from sept 06-may 07.

As Jason strolls about singing, you can see the the way modern archtecture and the super old cafes and crazy weird place pompidou are absorbed by the people. Modern architecture ain't all bad as long as it served a purpose (even if that purpose is to be gaped at and called ugly -- its bringing people together! Ugly buildings create community?) France. le sigh!

I'm embarassed to admit it, but while i was there I would *occasionally* act slightly blase' and disillusioned (mostly to counteract all those Carrie Bradshaw'esque notions about a chanel store being somehow a microcosm of all french people and their country, wtf, i was proving a point about authentic rick steves'esque travel) about France and Lyon, mostly b/c:
- I lived in a somewhat interesting neighborhood (with AMAZING baguettes at the marche for next to nothing)
- on a giant and unbikable hill
- that was far from the city center (but man I got good at buses)
- and had some slightly kooky (good kooky and bad kooky) students.

...but nearly 2 years removed, as i look for bizzare pastis and Get27 mouthwash-flavored liquor at Randalls and dream of sipping it in my favorite cafe where the wierd old lyonaise dialect-speaking dudes in old-school hats hang out with a black lab after playing boules and I can get all the weird green color drinks I want ... my heart is a'longing for some France!


For anyone who's interested in perusing, I kept a weblog of this and that advnture over here at Fleur de Lori (get it?). :)

pumpkins and brit

Lots of discussions going on in the (St. Louis) White House about the postive cumulative economic aftermat of Britney Spears Comeback + Pumpkin + Barack Obama.





It's giving us alternative energy to use gchat, that's for sure.

OMG?! Britney is BACK!??! (i hope!)

Britney is alternative energy!

I am getting verklempt. Seriously.



(oh my that's a rather risque holdscreen there, youtube
UPDATE: oh good, they fixed it)


The economy could run on her.
Everything is going to be fine!

I told you all she was good with a pumpkin

yes, WE carve this time!

mom knocked this out yesterday ...





Many thanks to the South Side for Obama tshirts for making it easy for us!

UPDATE: we submitted our photos to Yes We Carve (and you should, too).

Slipped right through my fingers

St. Louis - A to Z - Tonight! Eli "Paperboy" Reed vs. the Pink Spiders

OH Lord I am crying a million tears that I missed Eli "Paperboy" Reed!!!! At off broadway !!??!!?!

Listen to the man sing in a laundromat, and perhaps empathize with my sorrow.

(sporting, of course, my second favorite retro sidepart)

Whyyyyyyyyyy. First I miss the Dap Kings at The Duck Room, and now... shame. I am seriously so mad.

A lesson to me that I must be more vigilant in noticing when my top 5 favorite artists go to one of my top 3 music venues. May it be a lesson to you. Don't be like me! It's painful.

Did anyone reading this go? I apologize for the whining.

Guess which one's related to me

hahahahaha

Change Your Pumpkin, Change Your World

Oh my.


Yes We Carve

Number one, what an adorable haircut. Number two, Yes We Carve is genius!

We have been WAITING so impatiently at my house to start our presidential carvings. We're probably going to make it out of this.

I like it b/c he looks happy.

My mother is quite the champ with the pumpkins and has kept it up through the years. You may remember The Beatles pumpkin.



Will post once our barack 'o lantern goes up. :)

Also, if you want one but don't wanna carve it...let me know. We could certainly work somethin' out.

So this is exciting....

... for me at least!

I don't usually talk explicitly about my work (I work as a new media coordinator at Moosylvania Marketing) -- though if you've happened by here once or twice you've probably caught wind that I like to write about new media and it's place in my world...and I'm sure it doesn't take much brain stretching to guess that my world somewhat revolves around St. Louis.

Which is why I'm excited to tell you that the start-up I've been working on for quite a number of months now -- MealChime.com ---



---- got a mention in Joe Bonwich's "Off the Menu" blog!

Here's a quote:

"Rolling out today is something called Mealchime.com, basically a restaurant search site but one with built-in couponing. So say you’re looking for a place to have lunch — you type in your zip code, qualify if desired by the type of food you want, tell it how far you’re willing to drive and add a price range. What comes back is both a list of potential restaurants and a set of freebies, reduced prices and coupons applicable to restaurants in the specified area."

Joe gets it. Hello, you can get 10% off lunch at Revival on mealchime. You can get others deals.... but let's return to Revival. Have you HAD the Derby Pie there? Hello? It is amazing.

Read the rest of Joe's "off the menu" blogpost about MealChime here.

I've been following a pretty fair amount of St. Louis food blogs while working (hungrily) on the site, and his is definitely on my top 5 that aggregate all the food goings on about town (with gut check and sauce mag's gossip page up there, too).

If you're into restaurant ups and downs, or just like to find new places and goad others into taking you (not that I do that, oh no. oh wait. )...or if you just like finding new reasons to back up your thesis that there's a friggin' ton of things going on in st. louis (not that i have a thesis like that...oh wait. I do.)...look no further than those blogs above! If you're trying to figure out a place to eat based on price or type of food ...try mealchime and let me know how it works for ya.

MealChime.com is due to be blogging soon, (we're on twitter, though!) but in the meantime -- if you see anything you think should change, be fixed, whatever on the site -- you know where to find me! In the comments here, on twitter, e-mail (lori.e.white at gmail), wherever! Be brutal.

If you've read this blog like, once, you can imagine just how exciting and fulfilling it is for me to be working on a web project in St. Louis -- and I would love feedback from you, my (5) readers.

:)

Yesssssssss!!!

Could it be? Is it true? I mean, I love st. louis donuts, I will remain true (hello, cheese flip) -- but oh the coffee.
Dunkin' Donuts to open 12 stores in St. Louis - St. Louis Business Journal

Wait, noooooooooooooo!

Well, it's a start. Gotta show some love for starts.

HEARTLAND

Leave it to the Dutch to think outside the box. Thanks to the new blogs over at St. Louis Mag (specifically Stefene's post) - just found out about a little dutch art show all about the heartland...that giant vein around the mississippi. The cats down at boots are involved, bless their heart(land).



HEARTLAND - programme:
"While not an official region, what Mark Twain once called the ‘body of the nation’ encompasses for us the area roughly in the middle of the United States, linked by the symbolic Mississippi River. Ranging from New Orleans in the south, up to Minneapolis in the West and Detroit in the East, this cultural melting pot has brewed much of the country’s social, religious and racial activism. The presence of the Mississippi River has dominated its his- tory being the carrier of different moments of migration, industrialization and struggle."

Don't tell me you don't agree! Seriously, don't tell me.

hope you don't mind

I've been neglecting the original content side of this blog's life for a bit...(I blame my tumbleblog and it's super-simple ways).

I'm ramping up to post everything I would've tumbled and post everything I would've thought or scribbled on a napkin, or IM'd my sister or overdiscussed with my other gchat cronies.

I don't know how exactly, b/c I do love me some tumblin', but it's time.
Hope you're ready.

In other news, I'm crocheting a cheeseburger dress for my pal Audra, and it is going to be amazing.

Man decorates basement with $10 worth of Sharpie

Way to go, man.

10 Creative Advertising Ideas from Students

Oh man! These are cool!