fall is here

before the leaves completely fall to the ground, my wife and i took the dog to the park to try and capture some of the color. unfortunately, we didn't have the good camera with us (don't ask), so these were all taken with the phone camera. not bad, if i do say so myself.

anyway, it was good walk. i hope there are still a few leaves to see this weekend. we've had heavy rain all week, so there's a chance we lost a lot of leaves. megan's been hoping to get some more pictures of the ginkgoes.

i love fall, but it is always bittersweet. i am excited by the color of the leaves and the coolness in the air. but i know it will be over soon. the prettier that the leaves get, the closer they are to falling--bringing bare trees, and a cold, long winter.

soulard farmers market

a few weeks ago megan's brother and his girlfriend came to visit us in stl. being good st. louisans we showed one the city's treasures: the soulard farmer's market.

now is prime season for just about anything, so megan brought the camera along and snapped some excellent pictures. though i love the fresh produce, my staples are the cheap all-beef hotdogs and beer you can purchase onsite.

the people are pretty awesome, too. most cruise the peddler's nooks, looking for the coming week's produce, but a i think more than a few just come to drink bloody marys on saturday morning and walk around. i understand that the market has become a become a kind of tourist attraction, but luckily it's not too annoying. i've had some of my best saturday mornings there.

george clooney is a real person

[this post was supposed to go out last week. my abysmal blogging habits continue to disappoint even my expectations. so, one week later, here it is]

my half-hearted belief that modern film actors don't exist except as ones and zeroes on gigantic hard drives in studio back lots died on monday evening. up the block from our house, we caught george clooney and crew filming a scene for up in the air. when i say "caught," i mean we stood with a group of about 50 people and watched a movie being made across the street. i'm 95% positive that the tanish grayish head i saw driving a red chrysler was his. 

he and accompanying actress pulled into the front of the cheshire parking lot a few times and then production moved inside. while the cheshire's "fox and hound" bar is my favorite location to drink beer and pretend to be in england or a cheeky fake england, i was a little surprised they wanted to film there. it got even weirder when we realized the production crew had put wisconsin plates on all the cars. wtf?!

when you see a shabby, kitsch, tudor style motel in the movie and assume by the cars' plates you're in wisconsin, remember that it's actually missouri and my mission will have been accomplished.

snow, part iii

at this point, i'm about as tired of images of the snow and my dog as you are. but i'm a man of little imagination and easily revert to homeostasis. so more of the same it is.

i know six inches might be next to nothing to most people in the midwest. to a southerner, there's little difference between six inches and four feet. i might as well be living in alaska now. in fact, this is the first time that i've had residence in a place where the snow fully covered the blades of grass, so you can imagine what a big deal this is. i hope you enjoy the pictures.

snow day, part ii

i guess i spoke too soon concerning snow in stl. we got a lot yesterday and are supposed to get more tonight. 

from google's weather application:

Tonight
Snow in the evening...then snow and chance of sleet after midnight. Snow and sleet accumulation of 2 to 4 inches. Near steady temperature around 18. Northeast wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation 90 percent.

snow and then sleet. sounds fun.

the dog just stared out the window at it coming down. for half a second i wondered what she could be thinking about her first snow. probably something like, "what...the...hell just happened?" at least, if i was a dog who only knew eating and walkng down my street to the park, that's what i would think.

it's colder than it looks

current temperature: 3.

high today: 9.

whaaaaaat. did i move to st. petersburg? russia, not florida. it doesn't look that bad, but it is...

there's not much else to post. mainly me complaining. yes, i grew up in the south. yes, single digits frighten me. this is called "_____ cold" (fill in your expletive). that is all.

how to waste $50

i got back in town last night to discover that the show i've been obsessing over the past month (to be my first proper concert since i got here) was about to begin in an hour and was sold out. i didn't think girl talk was playing until next thursday. fool that i am didn't think it necessary to buy tickets beforehand or double-check his dates.

as soon as i got off the train, megan met me to try and scalp tickets. we spent an hour in the cold, haggling with scalpers and generally being angry at every 16 year old boy dressed like a woman and every girl dressed like a 12 yr. old. finally we were able to get two tickets, one from a nice and intoxicated kid going to school at loyola in chicago (sorry, em, he doesn't know your brother). the other came from a guy who's other ticket for his wife was a phony (foreshadowing). for the both of them we paid about $50, which was only $20 more than face value.

when we went through the line to get in, it turned out that my ticket (from the intoxicated loyolan) had already been scanned. the kid went through, then came back out and sold us his ticket. i don't know if it was out of malevolence or drunkenness, but anger and frustration are not adequate words.

we sat in the lobby for about 15 minutes just stalling, hoping the ticket checker would have a heart and let us in. there was nothing he could do. either megan went to the show by herself (not an appealing proposition, espeically in light of one of the better conversation we'd had outside the venue earlier with a particularly wise 19 yr. old: "i had sex with a girl at the last show! the enitre crowd saw my ass." amazing. i'm sure that's how she would describe it as well), or neither of us went. we gave up and went home.

i guess the most disappointing thing about the whole evening was that by the time we got home, i wasn't that depressed. maybe i'm trying to be coyly jaded or just getting older, but sitting outside the theater last night seeing those kids didn't make me want to experience that crazy concert at all. i should've known before going to a concert like girl talk, but i guess i just ignored that quiet, prideful and judgmental voice in the back of my head until last night.

i still love going to shows. and i even truly appreciate the semi-counter culture that the indie music scene can be. i've just gotten very choosy about live music and what was once unique is now mainstream. there are still plenty of original artists (girl talk is one of them) and there are plenty of listeners who will enjoy them as art and not as consumption (maybe girl talk is intended to be more of the latter?). but i guess all things change, including my love for live music and what used to be considered independent. this sounds pretty trite and stuffy, i know, but there it is. in spite of everything, here's to hope for art...

all hallows eve

halloween is different here. growing up, i used to a little fanfare on the front lawn, similar to the image at right. a jack-o-lantern, maybe a ghost. the weird families might have a witches' cauldron on the porch.

here, the house at the right is the minority. these families are butchering bodies on the front lawn in the name of all hallows cheer, see below.



seriously, those are heads on stakes! maybe they hate trick or treaters so much that they've placed the embalmed, severed heads of last year's victims in the front yard to ward off any newcomers--richard the lionheart style.














because everyone needs a good graveyard at their stoop...and a weird einstein mask on their lion statue.















whoa there! giant spiders!?

if those things lay eggs...















a ghoul's ball! this one is pretty awesome, except that the ghosts look like little klan members 'dancing' in front of someone's house--yikes.














this one is actually not that amazing. but usually that orange thing is a giant pumpkin. it drives franny crazy. the skeleton coming out of the ground doesn't make her happy either. she stares at it pensively when we walk by.











this freak show is the masterpiece. i couldn't capture it all in one shot and even multiples don't do it justice. see the video below. yes, that is theme music you hear in the background. people live here.













do you think they call their house "haunted valley?" i hope so.

party like its 1517

on friday, several of us st. louisians went to concordia seminary's oktoberfest bash. it was my first oktoberfest, sectarian or non, and i was not disappointed. most of us watched the covenant v. concordia soccer match that evening (a note of seminary soccer: given the opportunity they will take the fall just like regular soccer players). so by the time we made it to the celebration, the crowd had thinned. luckily, there was plenty of beer still on tap and we managed to scrounge together some of the remaining bratwurst and sauerkraut. we had a great time.

not only was the food and beer free, but it was brewed by schlafly of st. louis. these guys know what they're doing when it comes to beer. i had a few pints of their excellent oktoberfest and pale ale.

the seminary rocked the block in style. in the quad they had a legitimate polka band in leeder hosen. by the time we got there, most of the groupies had moved on, but the band played on as if it was a full house. they were still playing when we left.

st. louis finally feels like fall: a cool evening with good beer and friends.





that's right, the band played on.

on the front lines: the vp debate

on my afternoon bike ride yesterday, before i busted a brand new tire (REI, i'm coming for you), i was assaulted by a mass of people carrying signs, shouting, and using car horns like madmen. i'm pretty monotonous in my bike route day after day. the only thing that changes is the direction in which i start my trek through forest park. usually the only people i see are young, college-aged girls with youngish college-aged guys in tow, doing their "exercises." though sometimes i do see the middle aged man running or biking in spandex--a sight not to be missed.

well, yesterday i thought the door had been left open at the local asylum. people were shouting and generally carrying on like fools. and then it hit me, vp debate.

well, why did the freaks have to interrupt my beautiful biking afternoon (further put on hold by a flat tire)?

as i made my way further down skinker and deeper into the crowds, it was clear that the obama side had a distinct upper hand in representation. and i really mean upper hand. there were tons of them. sadly for mccain, i only saw two groups of supporters for him: an old woman waving a little flag in front of her house and a small group of students who were sheepishly trying work their way past the army of obama supporters, like four workers crossing the picket lines.

for disclosure purposes i should probably tell you now that i'll be voting for mccain. i know, i know, lecture me. i'm not going to defend myself here. but in spite of that, it was pretty cool to see all the obama supporters out there. they clearly came from a wide range of backgrounds. not only were they loudly and adamantly obstructing the bike lanes, but they were pretty excited to do it. i had a fun time watching them.

i shot a couple videos on my phone, so they're a bit scrappy.







iupat had a ton of union members on site, proudly chanting for obama.



you can barely hear them, but at the beginning they are shouting, "yes we can." then they start, "o...bama, o...bama."



my wife and i went down the street to watch the debate in par--which is actually just a poorly named bar. i would have loved to see it in person, but the small number of seats that were not claimed by either party or reserved for the press were raffled off to students--spoiled brats.

the debate seemed to go well for both sides. vp debates have always seemed pretty dubious to me. just another chance for either side to hit home whatever their candidate is harping on and less about the vp contenders themselves. it's not really a debate so much as two sides talking past each other, just stating campaign promises.

but for the gop, i guess there was a bit more at stake-- it's pretty bad if an interview with catie couric makes you look dumb. so in that sense, the gop got more out it. one big, "hey, our candidate's not a moron" party.

but the dems did alright as well. no big gaffes for joe, who i thought would have never received the vp tap after one particularly big mistep early on in the primary.

anyway, enough pseudo political hash. word from the front line: watching a nationally televised debate in your city is about like watching a nationally televised debate anywhere, except for the party before and after.

balloon glow

a couple weeks ago, stl had a balloon race. the night before, the ballooners got the party started with a good old fashioned balloon. they filled up their hot air receptacles and synchronized their torches to a horn that went off every ten minutes. it was petty amazing and also provide some good fodder for the camera (and yet another excuse for a tripod).



anyway, enjoy the show. i've been traveling quite a bit over the last few weeks, so hopefully (regrettably for some) i'll be able to get back on top of the blog world. and by "on top" i mean continue to post about things that only concern me.

road rage

on sunday, we visited a church in webster grove, about 15 minutes away. the service itself was great and we enjoyed a nice lunch with the members afterward. as we left the neighborhood, we heard tires screech and i slammed the breaks as a ford escort with racing stripe flew down the street we were about to turn on.

we were in a pretty quiet neighborhood, without much of shoulder and no sidewalks, so it was kind of scary to see car go flying by right in front of us. my wife decided she should let the chump know how frustrated she by honking the horn. that's when everything became really fun.

naturally, psycho hit his breaks, flipped the escort around and started barreling towards us. not wanting to instigate a high speed chase, i had no choice but to sit, listen to the sound of squealing tires and a red lined engine and await my fate. when he got right in front of us, he, shirtless with bright orange hair, leaned out of his car and shouted, "if you wanna do something, do it!"

then, he raced off in the opposite direction. of course, we were all more than a little rattled and drove slowly home. we passed him once, at a gas station up the street. he eyed us suspiciously as we drove passed. i wonder if he even recognized us. i kept an eye in the rear view mirror the entire ride home, all sorts of disasters playing out in my head.

i've experienced crazy drivers before, but this opened up a entirely new chapter to me. welcome to st. louis!

showtime at the hi-pointe

the past two weekends, i walked down the block to dogtown's local theater, the hi-pointe. the single screen theater has been around since the 20's, under various owners. apparently, they typically show a mixture of indie and big-name flicks. the past two i've seen have both been blockbusters: the dark knight and tropic thunder. more on those later.

i'm pretty excited about being able to regularly stroll down the street to catch a flick. though i was spoiled with the "riveria" in knoxville, the place more than makes up for its lack of option with class. if you can handle the steep steps to the men's bathroom (ADA standards noticeably absent), you are rewarded with urinals that have been voted the best in st. louis by the river front times. yes, they have the generous full length models.

its pretty amazing to watch a movie in a place where people having doing the same for the past 80 years. i'm excited about experiencing many other st. louis gems, but this has been my first.

also, you gotta love a place that let's you know what you're getting into on the marquee.

ok, now onto the movies. if you aren't a nerd, you probably shouldn't read on. i'm not planning on editing to much of this and it will get pretty dorky. also, while i don't give any secret plot points away, i will discuss the movie in detail.

the dark knight:
i went into this movie with very high expectations. i was a big fan of batman begins because it restored the story of batman to something above an overblown music video. but it also was just a good film. batman has always been melodramatic and overwrought, but in a way that still told a good story.

the dark knight may be one of the few sequels that actually exceeded my expectations. as before the tone of the film was excellent. realistic enough to draw you in, but with enough comic book high-paced action to keep things moving.

the acting was excellent. heath ledger literally disappeared into his role. you find yourself watching the movie just for him. as a whole, his scenes stand out as my favorite.

the plot really takes it up a notch from the first. whereas batman begins strayed into hero movie formula on occasion, the dark knight dug in like a good crime drama. at times it was difficult to keep up with the plot--which was good. it's nice to have multiple layers to sift through. it picks up with what batman started in the first film, which is one of the themes of this one. we see batman dealing with what he has created choosing to fight as a vigilante. the fake batmen were a smart addition. the opening scene is excellent--it sets up the plot while introducing us to the joker's sense of style.

the writers really let themselves go with the joker. i think this is where the film truly succeeds. they allow his character to run free, which brings out the complexities of the story that make batman so great, like the relationship between batman and the joker. does the existence of batman make the joker's appearance inevitable? (though i haven't read it, apparently this is the theme that the killing joke by alan moore explores, next on my list of graphic novels to read)

will and i were discussing this when he was in town and i have to give credit to him for bring it up. but it is through the joker that the movie also explores philosophical questions. the first comes from the pressure that citizens, policemen, etc. put on batman to turn himself in. the joker has decided that if batman turns himself in, he'll stop killing more people. out of fear, everyone then places the onus on batman stop more murders. if only he would reveal himself, the joker will stop. what we are willing to sacrifice to have what we want right now? ultimately, the joker changes his mind and decides that life is better with batman around.

the other occurred when the joker rigged the two boats to explode. the boat with the regular citizens votes to blow up the other boat, containing criminals. if one boat does not blow up the other before midnight they are both destroyed. they know it would be wrong to incinerate the other boat, but by taking a vote they try to pass off responsibility to the majority. i thought this was an interesting point about potential weaknesses of democracy, majority rule, and reliance on opinion polls. that's me reading into it.

i love any film that rises above its genre. the dark knight transcends the common super hero movie. but then again, i'm a pretty huge nerd.

tropic thunder:
this movie is pretty funny. nothing special, it pretty much meets expectations. there's nothing like hollywood making fun of itself. unfortunately, its blazing saddles attempt to mock racism seems more like lip service--it takes shots at african-americans, asians, and mentally retarded people alike, but it's generally a funny movie. however, if you find yourself in the wrong circle, you may have to defend your decision to see the film.

move in

for the first post of my newly revamped blog, i'm letting the pictures do the talking. my hope is to keep this thing updated regularly.

here we go.