Simply Sinatra

In recent years, I think the St. Louis Symphony has been making a real effort to branch out from its classical music roots in order to attract new patrons to their fine venue.  For this event at least, it worked.

T and I went to see Simply Sinatra.  It was exactly what you would have expected, and that was exactly what I wanted.  Vegas singer Steve Lippia came in and performed a revue of - you guessed it - Sinatra's work.

Here's the thing about me: I'm not much for jazz.  I don't really like it, because it makes my brain hurt.  But Sinatra wasn't jazz, he was a vocalist.  Did he have a whole lot of music backing him up sometimes?  Sure.  But he had a melody, and he could carry a tune.  That's the kind of "jazz" that I like.

Lippia, while not 'Ol Blue Eyes himself, did a pretty good job of it. We heard classics like "Come Fly With Me" and "Luck Be a Lady," and some lesser-known pieces too.  And of course, an encore of "New York, New York."  He interspersed his songs with some of the history of Sinatra as a musician, and the packed house - myself included - had a great time.

Aside: T and I were commenting on the demographics of the symphony musicians during the breaks, and specifically noticed one older African-American woman who probably started playing the violin before she was even allowed to go see a show someplace like Powell Hall.  That same day, this article (albeit with a focus on gender rather than race) appeared in the local paper.  Still, interesting.

What I'm Reading Now -- Thunderstruck

Erik Larson is probably best known as the author of The Devil in the White City, which I read a number of years ago.  It was back before law school, which was an entirely different lifetime!

Thunderstruck, his next book, follows a similar format - that is, it follows two different players until the point where their lives and work intersect.  In Devil, it was the architect who designed the buildings for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and a serial killer who was living on the south side of town.  In Thunderstruck, the two men are Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless radio transmission, and Dr. Hawley Crippen, the murderer.

How to they collide?  We shall see.

What I Watched -- Tim's Vermeer

For T's birthday last month, we headed to Plaza Frontenac to see Tim's Vermeer.  It tells the tale of curious entrepreneur Tim Jenison, and his completely unambitious attempt to recreate a Vermeer's The Music Lesson.

Vermeer's luminous paintings have been a mystery to art historians for the 350 years since the artist's death.  Imaging techniques of other artists' works reveal sketches of the final work on the canvas under the paint.  Vermeer's paintings, at least his later ones (the famous ones), don't have those sketches.  So the question was this: how did he get that perfect perspective, not to mention those wonderful colors, without doing a little bit of sketchwork first?

Tim had an idea.  It involved a not-very-complicated setup of lenses and mirrors, and he was sure he was right.  He set about the task of recreating a Vermeer as a way to prove himself right.

That alone would be hard enough (as you eventually learn), but first he also had to recreate Vermeer's studio as depicted in The Music Lesson.  He rented warehouse space, framed windows, built 400-year-old musical instruments, fashioned mannequins, and so on.  Then the real work began.

Tim is funny, a bit irreverent, and quite an interesting character.  He makes for a good subject.  If you have any interest in art history, in Vermeer specifically, or just a curiosity about curious people, I think you'll enjoy it.

The Book Thief -- Take 2

Apologies, this will be another short post.

I finished The Book Thief a while back, and I loved it.  I started it a long time ago, but then got busy for a while, and finally got back to it when I got caught up on all my podcasts.  Props to Mr. Zusak for writing in a way that I was reminded of who the characters were, rather than having to go back and start over.

This book tells the tale of several years in the life of Liesel Meminger, and I don't think it's too much to say that they're not entirely happy.  (We are talking about the Nazis and the Holocaust, after all.)  But what Liesel is is resilient, and that makes for a story worth reading.  I don't want to say too much more for fear of spoiling it.

Bottom line: somehow this often incredibly sad tale winds up being pretty uplifting.

Goal #14

Goal #14: uh, yeah.

I need to refocus.  That is all.

Recap of goal #13: Mom and E are both squared away for now!  Neither of them have actually relocated quite yet, but their storage lockers are ready to go when that day comes.

A Lesson from Jerry Seinfeld

I was too young to appreciate much of the humor in Seinfeld.  But this, I love.



Here's the thing, people.  Unless you are on your way to the gym or from the gym, sweatpants are never appropriate attire in public.  (You might be able to get away with a quick stop for gas or at the grocery store on your way home, but that's it.  If you're stopping at the mall, take a change of clothes.)

And I really don't give a hoot if your "sweatpants" are $4,000 "leather joggers" from Gucci.  They're sweatpants.

For Heaven's sake, don't ever, under any circumstances, wear sweatpants to the symphony, any type of theater event, any concert where the average age of the fans is over 16, out to dinner, or to breakfast, bunch, or lunch for that matter.

Those of us who respect ourselves and proper decorum appreciate it.

What I Watched -- Marie Antoinette

I saw Marie Antoinette back when it was in theaters, and I didn't really like it much then. So why did I want to watch it again?

I'll tell you why: it's a visual treat.  That's all I wanted.

Bottom line: don't expect much; your eyes might die of a sugar overdose.

Kansas City, Day 2

I got up a bit earlier on Sunday than on Saturday, and headed down to the kitchen to chat with our proprietors before breakfast.  They were simply lovely, as was our meal!  This time our starting course was Greek yogurt with homemade granola, honey, and apples, followed by lemon ricotta waffles with bacon, or "rashers" as Peter would say.  And OJ.  And coffee.

We got the car loaded up and headed out a bit earlier than planned, so we killed some time at the Barnes & Noble store (for me) and Moosejaw (for Letter J) before heading over to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to see what was in store.  And we found lots: Egyptian art (including a mummy!), Greek and Roman frescoes and sculptures, Cubist art, and a quick run through a couple of Impressionist galleries.  We headed to the contemporary wing only because I wanted to see the photography exhibit.  I don't know why I'm into photography exhibits, but I am.  I like them.

On the whole, it's a good museum.  I'm partial to our own SLAM, but Kansas City has done okay for itself.

Before leaving town, we had a late lunch at Gram & Dun, which came highly recommended from a couple of sources.  I had the short rib grilled cheese, which was quite good, but the winner was the monkey bread.  We were there just in time to catch the end of brunch, and the monkey bread was delightful!

And then, the drive home.

Kansas City, Day 1 (Plus a Bonus Dinner on Day 0)

Due to this year's late spring, I had a free weekend that I didn't expect.  I had planned to go climbing, but it was still too cold.

Instead, Letter J and I decided to go to Kansas City.  He was humoring me since I had never spent any appreciable time there.  I had been through it on the way to somewhere else, and I once went to a conference at an airport hotel, but was kept so busy all weekend that I never went anywhere except out to the hotel parking lot.

We headed off after work on Friday, and got to the our B&B around 9:00.  We stayed at the Jefferson House, which was a gem!  The proprietors were around the corner at dinner with the other guests when we arrived, so we waited on the porch while they ventured home.  It's on the west side of the interstate, and has a lovely view of the city from its perch on a hill.

Once we dropped our bags, we headed off around the corner ourselves, to dinner at novel (yes, that's with a lowercase "n").  I started off with a delicious concoction called a Ruffled Feather: rye, smoked cumin, and ginger.  So surprisingly tasty and wonderful.  My appetizer was a Fuji apple soup with seaweed and miso.  I could have done without the seaweed, which is normally my biggest complaint about sushi as well; I'm fine with the raw fish, it's the seaweed that gives me pause.  For a main, I ordered the pig's head ravioli (no longer on the menu).  It was quite delicious, and I'm always up for trying something new.  This was perfect, because it came topped with crispy pig's ears!  They are in little strips and taste mostly like bacon, but they're pretty tough to chew.  The ravioli was delicious, but was a bit overshadowed by the novelty of the ears.  (Did I blog about the pig's tails I had a The Libertine a couple of months back?)  Letter J had the roasted chicken with radishes, scallions, and egg yolk.  He shared a bite, and it was good, but I prefer pork to chicken 9 times out of 10.  We split two desserts: the flourless chocolate cake with bourbon caramel sauce, peanuts, and a fancy housemade whipped cream, and the coconut panna cotta with pineapple and gingersnaps.  I think it's fair to say that we both liked the chocolate better.

Saturday began with a stunning breakfast of copious amounts of coffee, fresh oj, fruit with candied almonds, our proprietor's French grandmother's scrambled eggs, spinach and roasted tomatoes with balsamic, rustic toast (from the baker around the corner, more to follow), and potato hash with corn, bacon, and scallions.  This last bit was delightful.

After stuffing ourselves with all that food, we did what good, red-blooded Americans do and went out looking for more food!  We had to check out the bakery from whence the bread came.  It's called Fervere, and it was less than a block from our dinner spot of the night before, and we each bought two loaves to bring home.  I ended up with a beer bread (their weekly special) and a dried fruit bread.  From there, we headed to the City Market, the big downtown farmers' market.  It was neat to see, but we didn't have anywhere to keep any perishables, so we left empty-handed.  But if you find yourself in KC, it is a good place to go for beignets, fresh produce, and Indian spices.  Across the way was a Chinese grocery  which we stopped in just for kicks.  You can find very, um, foreign things in a Chinese grocery store.

Once we were sufficiently weirded out at the grocery, we headed south to the Liberty Memorial and World War I Museum.  Here's something we learned: go to the museum first, then to the memorial.  We did it in the opposite order, and thankfully the elevator operator at the memorial was kind enough to let us up to the top without tickets, but only after we promised that we really were planning to go to the museum.

 The views from below

The view from the top

We did indeed to to the museum, as promised, and it is amazing.  It is not a huge building, but it is packed absolutely full of stuff.  I overheard someone saying that the museum in KC has the largest collection of WWI memorabilia outside of the Imperial War Museum in London.

The museum is arranged in a circle.  You start out watching a video about the run-up to the war.  Then the first half of the circle is the war prior to American involvement.  There is so much to see!

Declarations of war

 Bavarian 15cm heavy field Howitzer

Standard issue infantry rifles of various armies

A month-by-month timeline lines the wall

I probably spent more than two hours getting through the first half of the museum.  (Fun fact: according to Lord Charles Beresford, for every artillery fuse manufactured in England, the British government paid one shilling to the German company Krupp Armaments, which held the patent.)

There's another video describing how America got involved in the war, and the remainder of the museum focuses on our involvement.  While U.S. involvement was certainly pivotal, I frankly don't find it all that interesting, so I probably spent about 45 minutes on that side of the building.

Anyway, awesome.  (There are also two little additional buildings up near the Liberty Memorial.  Worth a peek, especially if you like maps.)

But I spent so much time there that we were starving by the time we got out.  We headed waaay north to the Cinder Block Brewery to try out some of their delicious brews.  We shared a flight to figure out which beers we wanted, and I opted for the porter -- an unusual choice for me.  We had some pretty unsatisfying food from the food truck outside, but it was enough to make us sleepy enough to need a nap . . . which for me lasted until 9:00 p.m.

Oops.  That pretty much shot any dinner plans, so we found a Mexican dive named Ponak's, grabbed a bite, and called it a night.

Iron Fork

Just over a week ago, T and I attended a food extravaganza called Iron Fork.  It's a gathering of about 40 local restaurants in one place.  You pay an entrance fee, then get to wander from booth to booth tasting whatever delicious bites they brought to share.

So, a couple of things.  First, the event was held at Union Station.  When I was a kid, there was a lot of stuff at Union Station.  Now it's mostly just sad.  The place feels so empty, and the shops that are there are mostly touristy kitsch -- the kind of junk you could get at an airport.  The one saving grace is (was) that The Fudgery is still there -- the two guys working the marble slab were singing when T and I walked through the door, just like I remember as a kid.  (I say "was" because the St. Louis Business Journal just announced that the Fudgery would be moving to Ballpark Village this summer.  Probably a good thing for the shop, but a terrible thing for Union Station.)  And it's such a cool building; it's a shame it doesn't get used and appreciated the way Union Stations do in bigger cities.

Second, Iron Fork was crowded.  It was hard to move around in the room, you had to stand in sometimes long lines for food.  Now, is it great that all those people were actually at Union Station?  You bet.  And was it okay that you had to stand in line because it gave you a chance to digest your food?  Certainly.  But would it have been nice to maybe have a place to sit down, so you could actually enjoy your snacks?  Yes.  Is it difficult juggling a plate or two, some forks, a drink, a wallet, etc., when you have no place to put anything down?  Uh huh.  Did I drop a few things over the course of the evening.  I did indeed.  Just a fork or two -- thankfully not any food.  But spreading it out a bit more, and adding some more spots to take a breather, would have been nice.

Third, and speaking of juggling all that food, I probably only tried half the restaurants there, and I left not a bit hungry.  The event lasted about 3 hours I think, and I was there for 2.  I certainly could have used that extra hour, but honestly I don't know how much more I would have wanted to eat.  It would have been nice to have a bit more time to enjoy the event though, rather than running from booth to booth like a crazy person because there just wasn't enough time.  Plus, adding a couple of extra hours would thin the crowd out a bit.

Having said those things, I think T and I both had a lot of fun.  I finally got to try a few restaurants that I've been wanting to get to, like Mission Taco and Nathalie's, and I got to enjoy them right alongside some old favorites like Bogart's and Kakao.  It was money well spent.