Thursday, September 23, 2010

drawings of the mississippi river valley




Vestiges of my former blogger profile/bio:
I like to talk to you about the hijinks I get up to here in Yankeetown, StL, cities, social media and the e-dreams of building a tech mega region in my 3 favorite cities...St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans (Nashville can come, too). I like to dream of a futuristic St. Louis that's kept an eye on its past. I think all cities should forward backward think like that. Does that make sense? I don't know.

I'm still interested in this stuff, BTW.
drawings of the mississippi river valley
Originally uploaded by lolololori

In other news, the blog looks newer now. It's exciting!
Mod podge 4 ever.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Danny Ocean

Will I bike to my job interview tomorrow?*

Only the skirt I pick out to wear tomorrow knows.

*I probably shouldn't it will be so hot. But then how nice would it be to bike *away* from a job interview?

In other news, the extended family of 2nd cousins is growing and all the White women (clarification: me, my mom and my sister -- White is our last name, ok?!) are way excited in the gooey gossipy glory of it all. I'm pretty sure I'm going to name this one, as is the "tradition."

I return to St. Louis over labor day. That is also exciting. Take me to the river! Drop me in the water!

I'll have been a new yorker for one year on september 11th, 2010 (...) - and it doesn't feel labored. So it's good.

Good friends abound for NYC job hunt 2.0 - it sortof feels like I'm the Danny Ocean in the Ocean's 11 of job hunts. Which is a good feeling. But sometimes Al Pacino (andy garcia?) is just so scary! I need you now, Don Cheadle! It's definitely a caper.

While my days are my own, and I'm not doing the job search thing or working with freelance clients (I'm for HIRE!), I will definitely be going to see the Colbert Report.

Aw, I miss you guys.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

TEMPLATIN'

I was looking at new templates (sidenote: gosh it feels great to be typing in the box again...when's Google gonna update blogger again? open links in new window please?) and I realized that hey, mine's alright, I just gotta skew a bit more towards the intersection of technology/new media and government/civic institutions/public policy -- and not so much the intersection of technology/new media and government/civic institutions/public policy OF ST LOUIS.

Or maybe not! Anyway. Captains log and all that.

In other news, I met Prince Harry last Friday.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

What to tell your friend of a friend's family to do in St. Louis?

You guys! It was hard!

How did I do? Family of 4 with 2 kids around 10 years old. INTENSE!

***

Hi again, Lauren! Here's the last of my tips! This month sure enough flew by! It's a lot of info, and let me know if you need any specifics on places.

If you're doing the St. Louis Downtown thing, Cardinals Game + Arch Visit is good. The Budweiser plant is alright, its a little boring though. There's a better brewery with MUCH better beer (well bud light is great, too) -- but that brewery is in one of the boroughs of St. Louis that's about a 20 minute drive from downtown. It's the Schlafly Brewery, but you can go to the Schlafly tap room to try the best local micro-brews...if you're staying downtown you can walk there. Here's my dream 4 days in st. louis. (I usually end up doing most of these things when I visit, too) - I probably get a little wordy, but hope it's more helpful than overwhelming to you!

Top 4 must do:
City museum
Forest park (and allllll that's there!)
The Royale
Cherokee Street

DREAM ITINERARY:

FRIDAY - settle in hotel (I'm assuming its downtown, and I'm assuming you'll get in around the evening time). If you feel like ice cream, hop in the car and go to Crown Candy kitchen (I'm recommending the Fireman's special, so delicous) and be sure to visit the cafe next door if it's open.

But you'll probably want to walk around near your hotel!! Washington ave is the primary business strip, Flamingo Lanes is a bowling alley, might be interesting....anyway, take a walk down there and then to the city garden, its a brand new public garden that just completed about a year ago. Its fun for kids to run around in. Then walk down to Laclede's Landing (its down by the riverfront) just to look at the only remaining cobblestone part of downtown St. Louis - it gets to be a pretty big nightlife scene so after dark, expect it to get a little bit of a party-vibe. Walk down the arch grounds, look at the river. Its awesome! Picture time, etc... have dinner at either the Broadway Oyster bar (on broadway by the white castle) or at BBs Jazz Blues ans Soups.
If you feel like it, take the car further south to eat in Soulard, the french neighborhood - I'd suggest Mcgurks - they've got live irish music every night and a lovely garden.

If you get in on Friday during the daytime - head straight to the City Museum! it's the "recycle museum" you've heard so much about. It's THE place to go if you want to make your kids (and yourself) tired. So you might want to save it for Saturday or sunday.

I'd also reccomend downtown - the Schlafly Tap room is a very cool place, and it serves our local microbrews if you're into the beers! The building was also featured in the lovely movie Escape From New York...though the block's gone through a bit of rehab there since it was scouted as the set of a post-apocalyptic new york! ;)

SATURDAY - Wake up early early early and head to the arch? Or maybe that's a better bet to head to the Arch on Monday. This morning might be a better time to go to Soulard - there's the Soulard Market (just go south on broadway, you can walk - pretty far ...like 15 minutes - or drive) Maybe you're going to the baseball game today? Then go visit the Budweiser Brewery - the tour's not all that exciting at all, but the grounds are really pretty. In the afternoon, I'd recommend a visit to the Central west end, then Forest Park and then the University City Loop. You can drive from downton to the Central West End, forest park and walk around. There's shopping and generally just a city neighborhood to look at, grab lunch. In the Central west end there's some st. Louis style pizza to be had at Cecil WHitaker's pizza (its my preffered St. Louis style pizza shop - get the supreme with bacon, so good). If you like perfume, go to Cassie's, its on euclid.

Forest Park has a lot going on, especially for kiddies. There's the Zoo (free!) or the Art Museum (free! be absolutely sure you see the reservoir in front of the art museum, its a total photo op) and a planetarium (free!) which has a bridge over the highway to the St. Louis Science center, which is also free (!). You can visit the Muny Opera Grounds (its a huge outdoor theatre, BIG tradition in town) and rent bikes and ride them all around Forest Park. The park is bordered by big ol stately homes the likes of Meet Me in St. Louis, so that's fun to look at. There's also the Missouri Natural History Museum in forest park - it's pretty cool...its got some Charles Lindbergh stuff and all that if museums strike your fancy. On one end of the park is the Central west end, and on the other Washington University. I'd suggest driving to the middle of forest park (the muny parking lot is really near where you can rent bikes) and once you're through with Forest park, head in your car down lindel to Skinker and head to Delmar for the University City/Delmar Loop. There's fun shopping and hamburgers and a record store etc...be sure to check out the St. Louis Walk of Fame! A good little urban strip to walk around. Blueberry Hill is a burger place where Chuck Berry (yes, chuck berry - he's from st. louis!) performs one Wednesday a month.

SUNDAY - I would make this a South Side day - you could also switch this with Saturday. South side is where St. Louis locals hang out but there's PLENTY for tourists type stuff - it just doesn't get all that much press (untill now!) It's got some great neighborhoods! You have to go to the south side, it's the best. You can go early to the Missouri botanical gardens, and go to brunch at the Royale (its a bar/restaurant that a friend of mine owns and it's VERY st. louisy and the folks are very friendly and will give you tips if you need'em).
After you've met the folks at the Royale, head to Morganford Mini business strip. (its off of arsenal, a street which borders Tower Grove Park, another park...not a lot going on, but there are some funny pavillions b/c it was supposed to be structured originally as a British walking park-apparently Brits like pavilions) On Morganford is good vintage shopping (super cheap super quality!) - the Vintage Haberdashery and TFA are must sees for shopping. If you want st. louis syle pizza, there's an IMOs pizza on Morganford. Its made with special cheese that's only made in St. Louis! I'd get the supreme. From morganford, head to Grand South Grand - it's basically a city business strip for about 5 blocks, but I like walking around on it. Lot's of Vietnamese folks and some bosnian restaurants in this area. Pho Grand is good as is the City Diner (get the toasted ravioli!). Also there are donut shops everywhere. Go in one if you see one! Also if you like italian food, the south side is home to The Hill, our italian neighborhood at the top of a hill.

Another must visit section of town is CHerokee street. There's a LOT more walkability going on here. I'd drive to cherokee and Jefferson (I'd recommend visiting around lunchtime), park down by the old dairy store - head to mississippi mud coffeeshop, walk to the Purple Cow for some crazy antiques (say hi to grouchy jim), Cherry Bomb vintage for some really good vintage shopping, then cross over to visit Foam, new coffe/food shop. Go further west on Cherokee to the Mexican business area of the street, I recommend the quesadillas at La Vallesanas or the fish at El Bronco, and go down a bit further to the Firecracker Press for some really great prints of St. Louis -- from forest park, to just lovely graphic prints of town. Plus, its in a section of the street that's basically printers row - the folks here use actual printing presses so it might be fun for the kids to see. Near there are some other vintage stores. It's definitely the artsy part of town, so there's all the spoils of that! If you're looking for good st. louis clothing, hop back in the car and drive further east on Cherokee to STL-Style's storefront at 3155 Cherokee St.. Its a tshirt company owned by a couple brothers and they make good tshirts.

This might also be a good day to head to the Schlafly Brewery in Maplewood and take a tour, its about a 20 minute drive down highway 44.

You should also visit Ted Drewes Frozen Custard (I HIGHLY recommend getting a raspberry, chocolate shell and pecan sundae) on your SOuth Side day, its an ice cream joint on the Old Route 66 - now Chippewa.

MONDAY - The Arch? Ride up in there look around! Pick some ideas from above! Enjoy yourself!

For local whatever happenings, the Riverfront Times http://riverfrontimtes.com is your friend. It's free and you can pick it up anywhere.

Don't be shy about asking me questions etc...!!

Now for trivia:
Here's famous people from st. louis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_St._Louis
And here's some local specialties you should try!
http://stlplaces.com/stl_foods/

You definitely shouldn't leave without trying toasted ravioli - its also a really good kids food.
I would suggest looking up these places and others on http://yelp.com - it will give you hours they're open etc...addresses and alllll that!

Have fun! Eat! Be a little quirky! It's the st. louis way!
This was a fun walk down memory lane for me.

All the best,
Lori


Below there's some notes I took on places I like before I tried to make them make a little sense - might have more details!


FAVORITE PLACES:
Downtown:
- Cardinals Stadium
- Schlafly Tap Room (good food, local beers)
- The City Museum (that's the "recycle museum" -- go early on a saturday....you'll easily want to stay for 4+hours. And you can't beat the views or the ferris wheel on the roof!!! I love this place, I've gone with my 3 year old baby cousins and I've gone to parties at night with my friends and its always so magical and very quintessential St. Louis funky, don't miss it)
- the Rooftop is open on the weekend! There's a ferris wheel, its so cool!
---- they also do a nighttime thing where you can run around the place with a flashlight - http://www.riverfronttimes.com/events/city-museum-by-flashlight-914547/ in case you're looking for something to do with the kids at night
- Crown Candy Kitchen (my mom's best friend used to date the owner....take a cab up a little bit to visit or drive there, get the Fireman's Special...its in the middle of a neighborhood on the up and up, i like to go and look at the development...friend of mine just opened up the neighborhing coffee shop -- but the kids will LOVE THE CANDY. As a kid who visited this place when I was around 9, i loved it.)
- Broadway Oyster Bar, Beales, Bb's -- take the kids for an afternoon of blues/zydeco/hippie/r&b music, depending on the day. Its just south of the baseball stadium. St. Louis is a live music town, so you gotta sample some of that local flavor.
- Soulard is our french neighborhood...this is about a 10 minute walk south of the baseball stadium. St. Louis was a french king! Its about a 15 minute walk south of the baseball stadium, 5 minute cab ride, since we haven't quite worked it out so its the most friendly walk in the world.
- The Soulard Market happens on Saturdays and its got that crazy market vibe that should keep the kids entertained, plus you can imagine what it's like during mardi gras, where st. louis has the 2nd largest celebration in the US.
( also if you love irish music, you MUST go to mcgurks - live irish music 7 nights a week, usually played by actual irishfolks - and they have great food in the daytime)

Southside:
- The Royale - i always go here first to find out what's up. I know the owner, Steven Smith. Everyone's very friendly there, and dont' be shy about mentioning that you know Lori White (me!) or The White Sisters! Especially if you see Steve. If you're good, you might even get a tour of the town in his Cadillac. But especially be sure to ask the folks around and working there about what's going on in town, they're always in the know and happy to share.
- Botanical Gardens - it's gorgeous and if it's nice outside it's great to run around in. For the kids, visit the greenhouse with all sorts of rainforest stuff, the shrubbery maze and feed teh fish in the aj
- Tower Grove Park
- Cherokee Street - antiques
- Little Bosnia - this is in the Bevo Mill neighborhood, an old German Neighborhood that now has the 2nd largest population of Bosnians...2nd to Bosnia! How crazy is that?

Forest Park, Central West End and The Loop
:
- The Hill
- Dogtown
Central west end:
Forest Park:
-Blueberry Hill
- Wash U
- zoo
- science center

WildCard
- Schlafly Brewery


***


whew.

Monday, April 12, 2010

The Phantom Tollbooth

It's the perfect book.

Miss White Went to Washington

Just got back from DC for a visit to my sister and a round of visits for work. It was nice! We frolicked around and found a field to flip in (very important) and I have discovered that though I can still do a backbend from standing up, I can no longer do a left handed one armed cartwheel!

So I gotta get on that.

Also just got back from Florida - I returned with a tan (YES) and with my guitar (yay!). Have to sing/play a song for my cousin's wedding in June. Good luck to me. In the meantime, a friend of a friend of a friend etc.... is going to St. Louis in about a week and I HAVE to get on the ball giving them recommendations! It's an epic task in my brain b/c I want to craft for them the PERFECT weekend in vacation for a family from new york with 2 kids. I'll do it (also, they'll have a car, so that's a big bonus!) I might make them go to Cahokia to watch the sunset over the arch b/c that is such a WOW moment and you like feel the earth and it's totally clear why Cahokia was such a happenin' place b/c its just so magical.

Off to find a place for my guitar and its stand. Really really glad that music is back.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

March!

Well friends, I went to this conference/networking/pow wow thing this weekend (it was lovely and overwhelming in that freshman year of college way) and I kept telling more people to blog. And here I stand with my 2009 blog really lacking in luster and all that.

So I hope you're ok with me just talking about myself while I figure out the rest. Got a new apartment in Greenpoint and I couldn't be happier with the neighborhood. I wish it were closer/in the Bronx, but the weekend party commute where I am is just so lovely. I walk everywhere, and according to my sister, everyone in my neighborhood looks like my mom's best friend from college. It's a polish neighborhood, and mom's BFF(FC) was from a giant polish family, and whenever I mention that to say, the old ladies I buy mirrors from on craigslist, they approve. ANYWAY.

I moved a chest of drawers 3 and a half blocks a couple nights ago. ON foot. It took an hour and a half. I then tried to move it up the stairs - and I would be writing this next to my new chest of drawers if a) stairs had no corners or b) i posessed superhuman strength. I got up to the bend in the stairs (by, of course, rolling the chest head over heels, NATURALLY) and it got stuck in the corner and i had to pretend my back was made of steel trying to get it at a nice angle and well...the giant chest of drawers nearly pushed me down the stairs one too many times so I was like screw that I don't want my gravestone to read "she died for a lovely piece of free furniture on the street". Rolled it back down the stairs and there it sits. Not gonna lie, i was pretty mad at every strong dude I know for not walking me home on that random evening, and I was super mad at everyone in a car for not being my friend. I'm almost over it, but whenever I see dudes on my street I'm mad at them for not having befriended me to the point of rushing out to help me when they would've seen me carrying a GIANT CHEST OF DRAWERS DOWN THE STREET at 1 in the morning.

I have huge bruises on my hip bones b/c that's where I was trying to make myself a human lever. It's all very interesting.

UPDATE: my friend/hero helped me move it up the stairs! it was AWESOME I LOVE MY CHEST OF DRAWERS AND MY FRIEND.

In other news, a friend's record label's main artist is coming out with an album in April and I've been charged with amping up the online pre-sales. Hm! It's like the coolest and hardest challenge ever. Just thinking of how to get more pre-sales to their online store (especially for music) makes me freak out and think i don't know anything about the internet. But I do. Right? PLUS, their label is basically responsible for you liking vinyl again. So there's plenty to work with.

In st. louis news, Joe's is staying open, going private? Whatever it takes dude. REGULATIONS GAH. We need more not less of crazy artists obsessed with robots and vintage signage and lord knows. Gossip with Grouchy Jim at the Purple Cow seems to have failed me -- could've sworn i visited over thanksgiving! What up with not giving the White ladies the info!? Anyway, the RFT writes about it. Looks like the washU kids had better get themselves an STL friend if they wanna swarm the place. Or maybe more people could be allowed to open similar venues, and then the swarms would thin out! WHAT A CONCEPT, gah.

Anyway, this is pretty good news.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

exceptions to rules

My mind just imploded a little. Just sharing this email (heads up friends of mine from boston, new york or the east coast, we might have to reconsider, I guess) I just got back from responding to a craigslist apartment ad:

Hi Lori, you sound like a fun person to be around at a bar or a party, but we are from the East Coast here, Boston and New York. We can’t really do the open friendly mid western thing considering our more grumpy, pessimistic temperaments. Don’t take any offense, because we don’t want anyone from California either. The Wire was probably the best TV series ever made next to Sopranos. Good luck, you might want to tone down some of the excitement in your self description.




Saturday, January 09, 2010

to be my sunshine after the rain

My father's family farm house burned down to the ground early Wednesday morning.

CUE BOYZ II MEN


(the live version on Aresenio Hall ain't bad either - and it captures the CLASSIC boyz II men fashion! And there are random children dressed as gangsters that show up to snap along)
p.s. did you know this is a motown song that originally appeared in the movie Cooley High???!

&



There is everything right and something timeless about Mariah's hair in this particular era, just so you know. If my hair looks like this, you know it's a good day for me. You also *might* want to check out the original video and see Mariah's PERFECT 1998 outfit. Also, her voice.

Back to the farm (pictures of which I won't show you b/c i can't even look at'em) :

I remember chasing kittens, picking pecans, and trying to pick out honeysuckle stamen (it's hard) and riding my bike to the river by the Co-op past the levee to look at driftwood and find fossils (with grandma and Meredith behind me in the CHEVY BLAZER) and eating apples from the tree out back, watching the first sunset I ever remember ever in the arms of my grandpa looking out over fields of soybeans that had been in the family for I guess a hundred years or so. EMOTIONS.

Pouring one out for my homie (homestead) - DORENA.

Step away from the Curtain!


I am currently living in a totally pleasant sublet in my favorite/preferred neighborhood of Greenpoint-Near-Franklin, however my room is behind a curtain.

I am the Wizard of Oz.


me and my roommate, just relaxin'

Give me a call if you need courage, a brain or a heart or whatever!


Forces of the internet

Hi! I live in Brooklyn.

So Miss Roz is blogging (and let us all congratulate her for getting selected to go to something at some Doctorly Iowa Writers Workshop conference thing for her doctor poems - which I really like so you should read them) -- and I just saw that other poet friend's got a poem up in the Washington Post (the newspaper of the town where my kid sister - who may be my biggest internet fan and student - lives...about a 5 minute walk from where MARVIN GAYE went to high school) --- what does it all mean?

I think it means the forces of the internet are beckoning me back to the blog. Hello, world! and hello words. Clackety clack.

I tried to constrain this a bit to being "about" something -- but until I figure out what that something is, I'm just gonna tell you 3 folks who read this how I'm doing and what I've been doing.

I'm also keeping a daily one page PAPER journal that I got for Christmas - I try to write one sentence at least in it every day (so far I've been writing in it with a pen that MY FAVORITE BAPTIST CHURCH gave me ). Oh the discipline. Come to think of it i need to write about yesterday.

Lijit Search

MRV Girl
Creative Commons .
Go crazy, people - but be kind. :)