Arthur Bryant's

Thursday, Josh and I left St. Louis around 4pm on our way to Kansas City for a night of Margaritas, friends and fun! We met up with Bailey and her son, Jake, Sara and her fiance Jeff, Marcus and Jason Boone (who unfortunately was in town for a funeral). The drinks were salty and sour, but the chips, salsa, guacamole and tacos were de-lish!

Following dinner and drinks, Jason, Marcus, Josh and I went over to the Peanut for a few beers before calling it a night.


Jason and I at the Peanut - "Cheerleader face!"

Friday morning Josh and I woke up bright and early to continue driving on to Council Bluffs, Iowa, for Rosey and Jeremy's wedding; but that's a whole other post!

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon...Josh and I stopped at Arthur Bryant's for our usual Kansas City lunch. Everytime we're in KC, we stop at Arthur Bryant's before heading back to St. Louis.


Josh just before stuffing himself silly!

While we're eating, Josh says, "Look who's outside." I turn around to have a look (mind you, at any given time there is a line of people out the door waiting to order some bbq). I'm expecting to see Danny, Jason or the Palans, but instead I see the spikey-blonde-do of who else but Richard Blais! Richard was one of my favorite chefs on Bravo's Top Chef (Season 4).

I'm not the usual celebrity groupie type, but I did ask him for a photo after a bit of coaxing by Josh. Richard was extremely humble and quite appreciative of our compliments. What a stud!


Richard Blais and I at Arthur Bryant's on Brooklyn.

Trivia Gone Wild at the St. Louis Zoo

This past Saturday, Josh and I were privileged to attend the annual Trivia Gone Wild charity event at the St. Louis Zoo. The zoo has been one of PGAV's loyal clients for many years, and we have been patron's of their trivia night benefit for a little while too.

This year's theme, "Go Ape in Vegas," prompted many clever costumes. Christina, dressed as a slot machine, took my vote for best outift!


Christina and Jeremy (newly engaged)

The questions were less "trivia" and more "How many hours are volunteered per year at the St. Louis Zoo?" - I mean, who knows this? Regardless, people had fun; maybe too much fun.


Angela and Josh


The apes are Emily and Angela.


Steve with the nugget ring.


Rosey goin' after that cash!


Kartono and Angela

Lame-ier Sculpture Park

This past Saturday after breakfast with the Hicks', we decided to drive over to Laumeier Sculpture Park for an afternoon of bird watching. I kid. I kid. It had probably been a good 12 years since I had last been there, and Josh guessed it had been roughly 15 years since he had last visited the park.

I don't know if I was young and dumb or if I had actually like the "art" when I was a teen...but wow! I couldn't believe how uninspiring that junk felt when we revisited the park this past weekend!

My poor parents have some crap-sculpture in their garden that I (quote un-quote) designed 2nd year that is reminiscent of the lifeless hunks of metal these alleged artist have welded together and presumably called "art". However there was one piece that struck me as beautiful, and that was Joseph Havel's "Twins" (as seen behind Josh in the photo below).

I probably thought this particular sculpture was interesting because, in a sense, it reminds me of the "Cow Chair" by Niels van Eijk.



My least favorite work of "art" was the "Eye" by Tony Tasset. What am I saying!? I'd be hard pressed to pick my least favorite! Now, I understand this collection is of a more modern ilk, but what ever happened to the intricacies in the craftsmanship of Gian Lorenzo Bernini or Michelangelo?! I mean, I would have been delighted if there had been a Noguchi in the park; too bad there wasn't.

Regardless, we had a wonderful time walking around discussing different modern day art philosophies...or maybe we had just enjoyed the weather and each others company.

Chim Chim Cher-ee!!!

I gotta say - I am super excited right now!

For the past two months (at least) I have been anxiously awaiting the pre-sale of tickets for the Broadway production of "Mary Poppins" at The Fabulous Fox. Yesterday I finally received the e-mail announcing the pre-sale, which was to begin this morning at 10am. I set a reminder on my outlook calendar and you'd better believe I got on there promptly at 10:00 this morning with Josh's credit card number.

We now have two of the best seats in the house for the first Saturday evening performance!



I'm usually not that into musicals, but I can still remember the words to "A Spoon Full of Sugar", "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", "Chim Chim Cher-ee" and "Let's Go Fly a Kite", so I'me extremely excited to check out this Broadway Musical!

Now I just have to wait patiently for the actual show which isn't until August 15!

Antique Furniture Cart Rant

A couple of years back, I saw a photo of this old cart which was used in an upholstery shop and thought it would make a beautiful coffee table. If my memory serves me correctly, it was constructed out of stainless steel and cast iron. So, after our house fire last year (and the subsequent destruction of my coffee table that I designed and built fourth year) I thought, "How great would it be to have one of those carts!?"


(Pre house fire coffee table.)

It took me months and months of constantly researching online, but alas! I found one! Well, it wasn't like the metal one I had seen but it did have the cast iron wheels and instead was constructed of wood. I found it at Wood Stock Supply, Inc. out of South Dakota, where I had seen an advertisement for their excess inventory, to included their antique lumber carts. I didn't waste any time. I immediately ordered two! One of which we are using as a coffee table, and the other of which I plan to hang on the wall above the stairwell.


(Not the greatest photo in the world, but you get the idea.)

Interestingly, just last month I received a catalog from Pottery Barn with this shitteous interpretation of a "salvaged dolly". The resemblance is almost offensive, but hey, I guess you have to get your inspiration from somewhere!


(Wheel Coffee Table by Pottery Barn, $699.00.)

More disturbing than the similarities is how this table sells for seven hundred dollars! Seriously? I bought two antique carts and had them shipped from South Dakota for under three hundred!

So if that wasn't bad enough, last week I received an e-mail from a friend of mine who lives in Kansas City inquiring about my coffee table. As I was responding to her, letting her know who to contact if she wanted one, my "new mail notification" pops up with an e-mail from her with the following link: Furniture Factory Cart. I checked it out and I noticed two things right away.

One - this cart is EXACTLY like the one in my living room.
Two - this cart has a price tag of $910!!!



The amazing thing about this is that Restoration Hardware is selling ANTIQUE carts that have been "restored by a Northern California craftsman". Oh! Now I understand why I would pay 9 times it's value! Don't get me wrong...by no means do I think I'm the first person in history to want to use a lumber cart as an occasional table, but I just find it funny that after a good hundred years, all of the sudden this style is being perceived as "trendy".

Well, it's getting late, so I'll wrap things up. Hats off to Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn for raking their customers over the coals. In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy the carts I bought from Wood Stock Supply, Inc. and hope that interested parties will look to them for their purchase as a means of saving money and supporting ma and pa shops!

Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future

I met a couple of friends at Kaldi's Coffeehouse this past Saturday morning before heading over to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum to check out their current exhibit of Eero Saarinen. At Kaldi's I ordered a soy mocha no whip - pretty standard; pretty tasty, and Brian ordered a quiche, hoping it would be a small serving but ending up with a plate full of potatoes, quiche and salad!

After consuming an adequate amount of caffeine, we left the coffee house and made our way over to Wash. U. I had not yet been to "The Milly" (which was designed by Fumihiko Maki, for all you design-heads out there) so the purpose of my trip was twofold.

The building itself was..................nice.
Actually, I quite liked it.

Even against the rain laden sky, the stark exterior felt somehow inviting. I'm a take-it or leave-it kind of modernist but for some reason, with this particular structure, I was on-board. I'm sure many architects and designers would disagree with me, but I kinda liked the innocent nakedness of the museum against the collegiate Gothic structures of the background.

As for the actual exhibit itself which we were there to see, it could have been designed a lot better. Oh well, who cares; the content more than made up for the poorly arranged, arbitrary layout of the space.

Eero was a total stud. Period.



The exhibit, Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future had letters written to and from Eero, paintings of Eero as a little boy, sketches on trace, furniture that he had designed and tons of photographs.

I am such a visual person...I look at the captions written about the different pieces, but get bored after reading about 6 words. On the contrary, I could stare at a chair or a floor plan for hours.

Unfortunately the small gallery showcasing Eero's drawings for the St. Louis Arch was closed for maintenance. And still a bigger disappointment was how we were about 2 weeks too late to see "On the Riverfront: St. Louis and the Gateway Arch" at Steinberg Hall (just across from The Milly). I had really wanted to see this show, as my great great uncle, Louis La Beaume, had been a juror for the competition entries of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. He had also submitted a proposal, and I was hoping to see what his thoughts were for the "arch" grounds.

Anywho, Saarinen's work was quite inspirational to me as a student and it felt good to be in the presence of his masterpieces. I sometimes forget how passionate I am about design, and I often wish that I had more opportunities and/or time to really sit down and put the pencil to the trace. My mind is chock-full of ideas that I am keeping locked-up in captivity and I think it's about time to unleash the beast, dang-it!

NAM

Not VietNAM...North American Martyrs. My grade school and my family's parish.

Facebook can be a funny thing. For instance, yesterday I received two new friend requests; one was from a valid friend, the other...well, I'm not gonna go there. But I think it's nice to reconnect with old friends and Facebook does make it convenient to keep up with everything that's going on now.

Last night, something told me to look up North American Marytrs on Facebook. I don't know why, but boy am I glad I did! Within seconds I had found a NAM group with discussion boards and photos and was pummeled with memories!

I instantly recognized the names of many alumni, and literally went into hysterics when I saw this picture in the photo album:



Yeah, that's a storm drain. And I spent the better half of my childhood in, on and around it! It looks exactly as I remember it, with the exception of the statue of the Virgin Mary which used to sit proudly on the back of it.

Fun times. Haha!