Post sunburn brunch

The Shaggs is the best musical you never heard of

Taken at Playwrights Horizons (Mainstage Theater)

Beach

Ok!

Holla @thebbac!

My first grill!

It's the @goodberger11 variety hour!

Jerome Robbins' diaries were awesomely bananas

Taken at New York Public Library - Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

Kerouac #swag

Taken at New York Public Library - Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

Malcolm X's briefcase! #findthefuture

Taken at New York Public Library - Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

Amazing way of thinking about a visit to a LIBRARY (Noah Wyle needs to be here) #findthefuture

Taken at New York Public Library - Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division

The Librarian: Quest for the Quests #findthefuture

Taken at New York Public Library - Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division

Don't whisper your story. Shout it. - Judy Rodin

Taken at Hill Field

River realness!

Taken at Mt Vernon Mansion

High fiving on the RIVER with @johnjackchuck @meredithtwhite @nathanhurst plus Nick and Sophie!

Taken at Potomac River

Passover stuff!

Heck yeah Jiffy Pop!

@meredithtwhite & @lolololori present the White girls, the ice cream factory and a tandem bike #liketimetravelbutdifferent

Taken at Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory

@halanscott sings Ke$ha

Taken at Metropolitan

2nd line

Taken at Coney Island Beach and Boardwalk

Bunk!

Taken at Best Buy

"This song goes out to all the ladies." @MeredithTWhite throws on some Beyonce

Taken at Sea Oats Motel

If only they canceled flights for good weather.

Taken at Sea Oats Motel

Took care of business, now off to the vacation spot of my ancestors

Taken at Gate C50

Untitled

What? @aaronbelz wasn't kidding when he said he'd send me his first book if I bought the second.

@meredithrwhite, your dream bike is lookin' goooooood! Come and get it!

Taken at Wine & Liquors

He is literally cracking a band out of an egg. #BAMF

Taken at Permanent Records

Finally. Shopping like they used to do.

Taken at Urban jungle

Green!

Taken at MTA - Myrtle Ave/Broadway J/M/Z

Rhodes Scholars - but can they croon?

I started this conversation - after watching Ambassador Rice (Rhodes scholar, INCREDIBLE superwoman athlete - exemplar of the Rhodes Scholarship Standards) on Charlie Rose -  and starting to get to thinking about the USA seeming to take for granted that sportsmen are leaders - exemplars of "using one's talents to the fullest" and musicians as, well not as implicitly leadershippy. To which I say, j'accuse! (mostly b/c I always want to say that and I can't ever find the perfect occasion - so we'll just pretend it fits) Paul McCartney, I'm sure, agrees with me.

He is, after all, my favorite Beatle.

The collaboration and the need to LITERALLY be in tune with your fellows, all of them (there's no offensive winds section and defensive horns section - not in a good orchestra anyway) - these are qualities we want in leaders. So Mr. Rhodes. You may have founded the De Beers diamond mining company (and a country) - but can you croon?!


I wanted to bring this up because a) I went to a high school that had a LOT of musician leaders and I'm a music leader myself (show choir counts) b) I believe in music as a training ground for once and future leaders.

As The Dashed One says - if you didn't blog it, it didn't happen. * I gotta process these thoughts that I've let be free for the past 2 years (!). Bear with me as I learn to value my own musings again. I'm humbled to silence by the great voices around me. But I turn into a sponge first - THEN a sprinkler when I'm thrown into a pond of geniuses - this happened in college, high school, and even learning to talk - I didn't even speak until I was 2, but, as the legend goes - my first word was OWL and many many sentences followed not far thereafter.

* For those of you playing along, it may appear that nothing has happened. There's an internet equation, we're going to call it life busy-ness inversely proportional to blog-business -- and if you can even that proportion out, you're a winner. You're on your way to becoming a Leader in the New School. Which is to say - I have been terrible at this. A lot been going on in the back-channel in my first year in NYC (coming up on my one year appartmentiversary - memories). I'll be kind and rewind a bit soon.

Untitled

Sent from my telephone.

@NYCTSubwayScoop any word on the JMZ? Lot of cold people waiting out here at the Marcy stop...?

Economist photo captions are really their best social object outside of the articles themselves. Gold in them thar hills.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Let's get interesting

Hi guys, it's me.

I've been a little busy and a little harried for the past month or so, but that's not to say I don't like you! I've really been thinking about what I want to do for this blog and how I want to use it to oh, I don't know, help me help myself and help whoever needs help.

Help help help.

I do not want this to be a business only blog, but i like smushing it into things - we all ahve a platform, right?

I have an amazing gig right now at the Majora Carter Group doing new media strategy and development. Words cannot express. I get to do branding work AND potentially small-city online organizing. DREAM. Also, CHALLENGE beyond measure b/c it is so dreamy.

I've been really looking within and without at ways to really set up this business online in a way that makes them seem as amazing as they are in real life! I tell you it is crazy - I've been working with them, and they're actually better offline than they *seem* like online (and they seem pretty typically great anyway, in that TED speaker kind of way). How many times is the opposite true -- i.e. either brands/businesses are LAME IRL but seem so great online...or, they seem great enough offline and online you discover they have a cringe-inducing personality.

MCG is exactly what you'd hope it would be - vulnerable, brazen, constantly learning and changing, vibrant, diverse, empowering, creative, sensitive, practical, real and unpretentious. Also, the curtains are really pretty. But these qualities aren't coming through online as much as I want it to (as much as they really should). Future clients must know! When there can be some real shysters who know how to slap together an ad-hoc branding campaign that makes them "seem" amazing, MCG is amazing and it's work is even more so. So, it will soon have an online presence worthy of the group's pioneering presence in the Main Street environmentalism movement (to coin a phrase)....if I have anything to do with it, and I do!

I've just been looking into how to really do it right. How to do right by MCG and by the communities that have no training in the community tools and organizing and facilitating and commerce-supporting platforms that are present on the interwebs. I think of this and my mind explodes with joy at the possibility of making real the online community and infrastructure - similar to what humidbeings and all those in that galaxy are up to....but everywhere! Not just in San Francisco and New York. In Elizabeth City, North Carolina. In Easton, PA! In Kansas City In ST LOUIS! (ps Alderman French is totally giving us all a head start there guys)!

And it's so overwhelming that I sortof want to sell myself as a mail order bride right now (the glamorous alternative would be to marry a prince who would discourage my pursuit of anything but expert needlepointing and glamorousness). But this is not the answer.

I've turned to friend of a friend (i.e. trust!) Armano, whose advice-storytelling goes down easy, and to Oliver Blanchard, who is absolutely terrifying and social media career existential crisis-inducing, but sortof in the way that the ropes course at 6th grade camp was terrifying...get through it and you're out of the awkward phase, and on to something more comfortable. He keeps it real and I can appreciate. I'm reacquainting with other trusteds.

All this browsing and research has helped me figure out where I'm going with MRVG for now - I want to show that awkward phase in between Social Media rookie to actual director-level quality non-charlatan real deal-type person. Aspirational! Also hard to find. You either get experts yelling at charlatans and telling them not to be so obnoxious...or you get charlatans yelling at everything that they ARE experts. It's a little bit looking glass.

I want to show (maybe you, maybe my grandkids down the line) those "lost" kind of years in between being young and free and being an established elder statesman. I'm fascintated by these years.

I am IN these years.

Its not quite a not-a-girl,-not-yet-a-woman-type scenario, but it's approaching that. I want to become better at social media. I want to do it for brands. I want to do it for CITIES. (even more difficult, i want/have to advocate for cities i no longer live in, nor am I close to them. oh the questions you'll ask that begin with HOW.) I want to have a career. I'm approaching all these personal platformy things.

Anyway, I'm here I'm real, I know some things about things, and I'm trying to learn more. I love using metaphors to tie the room together, but in the interest of your cheese factor-o-meter, let's just say that a river (maybe similar to that big one found in that big valley) runs through everything - and it's where the water gets dirty that things get interesting. So...let's get interesting.

South Bronx

Briefly checking in from work at The Majora Carter Group - the sun is shining and I'm near an industrialized riverfront! The Bronx and the STL - well there may be ties that bind (at least in my mind). So sure, things have been shaking up since I up and moved to New York (earlier than I thought I would be, but opportunity came knocking), and sure I'm feeling that lovely combination of energized and slightly freaked out...but the general vibe is one of the muses returning, to the Mississippi River Valley Girl and to just life in general.

More later. And this time I mean it.

My Great Aunt removed once or twice-ish was awesome

So on a whim I just started a little genealogy project on Flickr in honor of visiting the place where I'm pretty sure my grandparents fell in love.

And I found this. (Edna Purviance! I like her makeup, it's daring and bold.)

Hi, so yeah, that is Charlie Chaplin totally adorabling all over someone I'm related to.

This Just In: Greenbriar Estates is NOT South County (also it is on fire)

St. Louis remains St. Louis

Dispatches from my Mom

"Greenbriar Estates on fire. News says its in South County. The website is overloaded, not with people concerned about the house fire, but with irate calls screaming that, "This is NOT South County! " hysterical yes, but I must admit it is the first thing i thought of too!"

Twitter

You think twitter might save journalism b/c now no one bothers to blog anymore?

Clap your hands

Remember how stressed out you got during that scene in Peter Pan (I think) when all the fairies were dying?! And then Pete saunters in and is all "just clap your hands and say you believe in fairies!" and it was all cool again? Who would not want to be that guy!? What a bad ass. Or at least be someone who's a part of starting the chorus of hand clapping and believing in fairies hollerin'. Are you picking up this sophisticated metaphor?

When I think about the state of cities like St. Louis, I get all questiony! Ack! I have so many questions! No one can answer them. Seriously, I cannot find answers. So I will eventually have to answer them myself.

Do I know how?
**especially since I no longer live in St. Louis?**

Nope. But I'll figure something out.

David Letterman and Alicia Keys

Since I have still not decided upon divorcing my new media marketing/urban planning blog from my self-self blog, indulge me. Consider these windows into the inner-workings of the lori! They're like blog outtakes. AND now I will no longer make excuses for liking the stuff i like and reading the stuff i read and watching the stuff I watch. *

So, these are two couples (one both unlikely, odd and not-actually-a-couple-couple but still) that will make you love everything.

Ed & Ginny!
(obsessed with their sultry georgia wedding WHOA)


and Dave & Alicia
(Were you ever...lonely? hehe dave)



I would love to have a Kathy Griffin esque dinner with these people and ask them many questions about how they are so awesome.

*for more stuff i like, TUMBLR -- it's blowing up like, every day

conviction, table of everybody

I miss blogging, y'all.

Do you think it would be possible to create a site that effectively gives a city infrastructure where it does not have it? A sortof "if you build (online) it they will come" philosophy? Is Outsite.in already doing this? What of cities, small and large, who don't have Four Square or the locals who even care about exploring, but would like a bus system? Could you integrate some sortof CityApp with an Urban Planning firm on execution? (omg this would combine everything i ever loved ...well only if someone wrote a song about it, too) Could it be scalable to other smaller/less infrastructured cities (memphis, detroit, cincinnati)? And I'm not talking like, autocad model lets look at it an dream. Something alive! Something useful. Pre-reality stuff. Hm. I always look at online communications like a small town (i'm not the first, i believe I got the idea from gonzo mkting - lawd i felt like such a bad-ass reading that book on my marathon french speaking,teaching/self study extravaganza of 06-07...masters degree in school of hard-ish knocks and improrevising) so ...how to extrapolate that out...?

I have been wondering about this. I feel as though it may be my destiny to answer these questions. This of course fits in with my destiny that I've had to somewhat (impro)revise -- improrevise! That's a word made by me, for me -- that involves technology, cities, St. Louis and other fancier-schmancier cities. All of which I am embracing at once, though at times...remotely. (here's looking at you, St. Louis) In the meantime I am moving *back* to Brooklyn (yay!) to return to my fighting quaker (code for UPENN friends!) bretheren. Hey-o!

I feel presumptuous to talk of things like I'm anything but a dreamer, but as the magical and wonderful Ben Zander says, "one of characteristics of a leader that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the peaople he's leading to realize whatever he's dreaming... imagine if martin luther king* said 'I have a dream! ... of course I'm not sure they'll be up to it!"So I present you with some conviction, take it or leave it. It is genuine. We will see where it leads.


*not implying that I am as cool as MLK, & though such thoughts did not stop beyonce (upgradeU)...they will stop me...i am humbled!

I mad men'd myself!

It was awesome.


and my sister madmen'd herself!




I know, a little random. In other news, I'm feeling the need to switch to tumblr for this blog. I may sleep on it. Many things to update.

I took pictures on the way to work today! It felt kinda great, though I was for sure in a hurry.

On being a sponge

I can't quite get a handle on why I've been rolling my eyes so much lately. There's so much going on in this town, why don't I find that at all energizing?! I'm at least slowly learning new things (and learning of new things to be learned, possibly elsewhere) at work, too. More or less. I don't know. Compartmentalize, Lori. Maybe I need an attitude adjustment.

Ugh, what a terrible voiceover for this movie of my life. Cue record scratch sound.

Anyway, I was talking to my sister last night (during which she recited for me the first 5 chapters of these BRILLIANT Twilight series recaps --ladies, give this link to the man, or just plain friend, in your life who doesn't want to read all 6 billion fursploding sparkly vampire family angsty pages Twilight-- my sister's read all of the books, I got through the first one...though now that I know there is apparently werewolf TYPOGRAPHY, I might have to indulge) -- so anyway, I'm talking to the sister and she's all, you never take pictures anymore, and I'm like i know, its a crazy weird symptom, i have never not liked taking pictures. And she's like I still check your flickr every day in the hopes that it will once again become awesome.

Clunk. It's not just the internet feeds that have lost their pizzazz, either! arg!

I don't know what to do! I try. I will keep trying. There must be some sort of perspective I'm not peering from that's making me extra angsty and also extremely boring. I used to be a total sponge, soaking up my favorite weird parts of whatever with my notepad and camera, using it to fuel my work in business and community organizing and writing and dancing and art appreciating...but now - thud...clunkclunkclunk. I don't even have the energy to fake it till I make it here anymore.

So, confessional over. I will fake it. And I will make it. Altogether now.

I'm beginning a 12 week study-a-go-go for some standardized tests...if you've read this blog (which probably means we're friends), the gradutat work pursuit will feel like a natural progression. I hope I get to teach! I was once pretty great at studying, so we'll see how this pans out. It's nice to have goals! I'm also pretty stoked for the essays both on the test and on the applications (which I actually have to save up for, applying to schools costs hundreds of dollars...wtf) b/c dang.

In other news, I'm going to be learning Spanish - 3 for 1! (would you like to teach me?)- so I can go all Enrique Penelosa (roll call - Van Jones and Majora Carter) on you.

Study with me.

Life in Chicago

Well it's not like I have just been sitting around here, folks! And you know I'm working on some (outside-of-work-work) work projects (that I love!) when I take a study break to write here.

In a vague/vain attempt to fit in here or find a niche, I have:

• joined and then reluctantly un-joined a gospel choir (only b/c of scheduling! I will rejoin in a month, i love being a methodist - don't get creeped out, i could care less if you worship cheddar cheese squares every Sunday, I'm just saying. Methodists. It works for me. I still would kill to start an acapella quartet or duo...y'know in my free time)
• joined a Go-Go dancing group
• took up flamenco
• re-launched guitar lessons
• bangs
  
• lived in Lincoln Park for 3 weeks, Logan square for 5 months, and now will be in Andersonville (IT IS THE CUTEST) until the winds finally blow me out of this town
• been to like all the record stores ever and they're weird (and i haven't found one where they have turntables so you can listen to the records before you buy them WTF)
  
• While i lived in Logan Square, got to know the owner at Rosa's and he is great and a total bad-ass italian conga player
  
• soul night at The Hideout and Dannys = :/ (you really can tell folks who didn't grow up with the music, they dance completely wrong...personal opinion, and I'm allowed it)
• decided where/whats as far as graduate school goes...GRE and GMAT here i come
  
• I saw Rahm Emanuel in a coffee shop
• Met some Dap Kings (who bought ME a drink! hehe!) and one Shay J, and all i have to show for it is a pencil drawing of the Hollywood Bowl. In other words, all i have to show is amazing. All I have to remember is amazing-er.
  

Only thing left on my list here really is to figure out what the deal is with the Numero Group.

And I'm looking forward to Whuffaoke coming to town next Thursday! We will sing.

Chicago on the whole is not singing to me. But I'm trying to focus on listening, b/c maybe it's a song I've never heard, and it has to grow on me. The effort of really owning a city and all it has to offer may be too much to ask from me for this town. I sound so grouchy! I'm keeping an open mind, especially since the weather stays over 55 degrees most days now. That makes it easier. I really have had fun. Just not fun owed to Chicago being Chicago necessarily. Maybe that's a detriment of a Big Town, and neighborhoods that would rather be a part of Chicago than a part of themselves. THEORIES! I got'em.

To be fair to Chicago, I also got to spend some seriously magical QT with some friends of mine who come to town (as my grandma Nannie, who used to live more or less in Englewood for like 1 year in 1939 or something, says - "Oh Chicago ...it's really a better place to visit") ...from varied locales - St. Louis to DC to Brooklyn ....will you be NEXT to spend 7 hours drinking beer and dancing with/for me?

B/c that is **my** regional specialty and it is what we would do if you came to visit.

also, MAJORA CARTER, please recognize

DING DING!

This is amazing.

ben at his own grave

"this is probably pretty trippy for you, Ben"
- H. Alan Scott

My Trip To Philly

well, part of it.

Lori & Scott present: a Ben Franklin History Moment from lori white on Vimeo.

FYI

I saw that y'all were searching for some daptone blogspot situations - and while you can find really great updates on daptonerecords.com , there's also
http://naomisheltonandthegospelqueens.blogspot.com/
and http://sharonjonesandthedapkings.blogspot.com/

You get the format. Now go get some records!

St. Patrick's Day

i spend many many hours just kindof meandering and sometimes things get pretty. (pretty cold, but also pretty)

Taking myself seriously

I'm at the Atlas Cafe (best turkey sandwich i have EVER EATEN EVEReverever) attempting to work, but wanted to touch base briefly.

Still don't quite have internet connection at apartment (working on it).

I was taking a Twitter work hiatus today when I was struck be@benjaminreese's tweet

"Okay, so I was up all night working on concepts and proposals with @heynathan @crushlovely - sorry for being out of the loop. #buriedinwork"

and I'm not gonna lie (and I told him myself) I was JEALOUS.

Jealous in a nice, thought-provoking way, though (thanks, ben - a wake up call of shoulda had a v8 proportions!). Realizing that taking yourself seriously and actually making sh*t happen is not from without. as a wise man once said, the magic is in you.

Which of course means I have to take up my pal on that $1 bet to write a song or write a story (the song one's on ME and I will win this dollar).

Digressing. I *love* St. Louis and my mississippi river valley b/c being there, DOING there always felt so god damn purposeful. (Cementland dances a soft-shoe in my waking dreams) Sure, I live, working for a batch of former i-bankers, in a town that is more or less "complete" to me -- at least in terms of having a working eco-system (and a job market, touche ok? touCHE). I like that, but what I miss is that blank slate St. Louis had. That NOLA has. Memphis is having a startup weekend starting tomorrow. Ah! All I want is to get enough experience and money and whatever that X factor is that no one probably figures out ever except maybe Paul McCartney and return from this exile. arg!

On that note though, I return to my concepts, to my proposals, to blogging about neighborhoods and 2.whatevers, and the interviews! oh the interviews! unwilling to insidiously self-edit and apply ROI to my own frickin' life. To my LIFE! I could go on and I should and I will, but I'm returning briefly to the bread and butter, bringing home the bacon (2 for one last night at Jewel BTW) and frying it up in the pan. (and as my mom suggested, we'll take out that part about how that shows that you're really a man -- or maybe we'll leave it in. Or maybe the judester just made that up. Either ways, it all works, really.)

I can't help but think I may be stealing a little bit of magical inspiration-thunder from my pal Blythe, whose birthday is today and whose blog is private (boo), and who (in a wonderful festschrift-esque letter to me before I left for europe that was well, Pretty Much Amazing) once advised me to be my own doppelganger. I'm trying Blythe! Even in Chicago.

Magic feathers!

I *AM* able to briefly and slightly clandestinely keep my tumblr up to date. Check there for the baby seeds of this blog - follow me, heart me, I'm a pinball wizard and there is no twist. I really love my tumblr and will show it to my sons and daughters when they're 26. If you like this blog-extendo version, you'll like you some Lolololori tumblr. Just FYI!!!

Sister Synergy

Look where Meredith was last night!











We tend to use touring bands as a means of communication. So much better than postcards!

Reculturing

Online citizen journalists are on the front lines of reculturing forgotten cities like StL, Detroit, (Memphis, NoLa...you know I was going there) etc...so much in the same way we all became obsessed with the finer nuances of Never Gonna Give you Up....so can we come to realize that Rock and Roll was born in st. louis. Ike Turner AND Chuck Berry. !

Wherefore and whence cometh? Well, a lot of time on the bus. Also, a friend of mine wanted to have a St. Louis themed party and claimed (though he didn't really mean it, he was just being thought-provoking, I'm sure - bless him for living in Chicago and being a St. Louisan) that St. Louis didn't have commoditizable culture. I disagree, but it's time to think about it a little more, eh? And come up with some good ones, b/c they're there. In a real-life and online world of sharable objects, what does st. louis have to share? Isn't that what the web's about --- crystalizing experience into awesome little sharable  nuggets so we all feel that Vonnegutian solitary-beam-of-light humanity (that was so amazingly portrayed in the NEW STAR TREK-don't -get-me-started-it-was-awesome*)? 

*actually do get me started I could talk about it for hours

There are less interesteing sharable nuggets than rock and roll saw it's genesis because of your city's culture...("Chuck! It's your cousin, Marvin! Marvin Berry!")...and no culture's dead when there's someone with a blog (navel gaze! sorry) to give a crap.  Share that nugget.  Reculture our city, life's just one big theme party anyway.

Instrument Time

Christmas Instrument Time at The White House.

Gotta love that YouTube nostalgia.


I'm home in St. Louis for the weekend, and I've gotta catch the bus back to frosty Chicago "Just wait for the summer, there are SOOO many festivals" Illinois in a couple hours. It's annoying. The White Sisters and company will hopefully be returning to St. Louis for a few nights in June, so stay tuned.

Lovers and Fighters

St. Louisans!



I totally love the way Michael says New Orleans. :)

SaveDaptone.com

SaveDaptone.com

I made it. I did it. It worked. (mostly thanks to facebook...and the kindness of strangers with good taste - some combo!) It was so awesome to see that whole "the internet brings us closer to the better parts of community rather, not further" principle play out so beautifully and for such a good reason. Way to rally, everyone! 

Secret is out! 

Wanna know more? I'll tell ya. Soon.