Gosh I Love Saint Louis. We took a bit of a gamble tonight and hit up an open mic at a brand new (to us) venue called Foam. I liked the look of their website (though in truth, mayhaps it just looked familiar – it has that worn 40’s / 50’s era look that’s the aesthetic of so much of Fallout 3, a video game that I’ve been playing the HELL out of ever since Rowan gave it to me for my birthday) and I liked the sound of the other acts that frequent the place. And sure enough, upon walking in, everything from the posters on the walls to the types of drinks (nice liquors and coffees), to the worn down surfaces of the exposed bricks spoke to us as this being OUR kind of place!
Unfortunately, the open mic itself looked like a total loss. There were perhaps four people in the place not counting the staff and the hosts and we were well into the signup time that the person I’d chatted with on the phone had told me about…
… and then THAT changed. Within about 15 minutes the place filled to standing-room-only, the promised 20+ performers signed up on the list and the night got rolling. There were a couple of real stand out performers that were really Lovely, and then we got up and tore the roof off. We did what we’d come to do: advertised our shows, got caffeinated and made friends. We did more than we’d hoped and sold CDs, ran out of postcards, and met someone who got us guest-listed to the City Museum. The world was awfully sunshiney for 10pm in Saint Louis. Add to that meeting up with Susan Schneider – probably our steadiest and longest-term road-won friend and it was a good night indeed.
No visit to Saint Louis would be complete without a photograph of the Saint Louis Arch. It’s one of the most singular monuments in all of America – powerful and modern and ever-changing. Today it almost appears concrete (which is what I’d thought it was until we visited Saint Louis for the first time so many years ago). Thursday, Kristen and Susan and I made it out to the Saint Louis Science Center for an injection of further Arch knowledge. This one is built from Legos. This one’s made of cardboard and has a Spiderman sitting on top of it.
Add even MORE to that: the Star Trek show we’d missed in Louisville, KY has just set up shop here in Saint Louis and we just stumbled across coupons for a couple of bucks off admission – the world is truly looking up!
One of the first things that greets you at the Saint Louis Science Ceter is a gigantic (Life-size) Tyrannosaurus Rex . He’s animatronic and angry and loud as Hell. I’m not surprised to see some children who won’t approach the monster…. The interior of the Saint Louis Science Center seems less dense than the Baltimore Science Center. There’s a lot of interactive exhibits, but as an adult you quickly become self-conscious of the small seats and big type. Chatting with one of the employees it seems that we’re sort of in-between a lot of the exhibits, but it still just seems like there’s a lot of walking without a lot of payoff. Even the complex machine (above) the fills the main foyer is cool… but not cool enough. It’s just balls in tubes.
Of course, this is the REAL reason we’ve gcome to the Saint Louis Science Center: the Star Trek Exhibit! A lot of the props were replicas, which was a little disappointing, but most of the costumes and models were original and you can almost smell the Montalban on the Khan costume! Okay – this is the official photograph of Kristen and I on the bridge of the TNG Enterprise. Apparently there are two of these Star Trek exhibits traveling around and it’s just our dumb luck that we landed the one that’s more TNG than ToS – I’d have LOVED to get this picture with me in Kirk’s chair… but I still couldn’t resist plunking down the money for the official pic and they gave it to us packaged in a funny little souvenir cardboard frame…. frankly the picture is crappy and low-res and probably not even archival, but when you’re surrendering to the geek, you surrender all the way.
1 thought on “February 22nd, 2012.”
How well I remember this tour stop! So much fun!