Posted by seeninstl on Aug 12, 2008
My old friend Al Stanger, the St. Louis juggler and human calculator, brought me to the City Museum tonight, where Circus Day (a great organization that works to build character and expand community through teaching circus skills!) teamed up with the Galilee Circus (a Jewish/Arab youth circus) and the St. Louis Arches (this area’s youth circus) to perform as “The Galilee Arches.”
It was a great show where these kids showed amazing teamwork despite language barriers (most of the kids spoke only English or Arabic or Hebrew) and they did impressive variety arts: juggling, highwire stunts, balancing acts, acrobatics, unicycling, flying through the air.
You can see Circus Day’s shows at City Museum pretty regularly. It is a great cause, and since its just a few blocks from our apartment, we like to go frequently.
Posted by seeninstl on Aug 8, 2008
We stumbled into a huge convention at America’s Center today. It was of YTB, which stands for “Your Travel Business,” a MLM, or multi-level marketing outfit. 20,000 people from around the US and Canada are in St. Louis this weekend to get revved up about “moving money up their down chain.”
This picture is of one of the many concurrent seminars (sermons) teaching the YTP business owners (cult members) how to get their friends and family in their down chain. Brilliant tactics right out of your best Evangelical mission!
The BBB of Missouri has been grumbling about complaints to the Missouri Attorney General about this YTB “home business opportunity,” more than 40 complaints have come in this year alone. You’d think that you’d make money in this travel business by selling discount travel, but 80 percent of the company’s revenue in the first quarter of 2008 came from recruiting new members to pay the $450 start-up fee to own the business, and the $50 a month membership fee to continue. You get a cut of everyone else’s fees they pay if you recruit them. This last Monday, Jerry Brown, the California Attorney General, sued YTB and its founders for operating an illegal pyramid scheme. But the presentations pictured above were fun to watch — picture a business version of the prosperity gospel televangelist Creflo Dollar, only no talk of saving souls or God rewarding you with wealth, but just out and out teachings on how to make a buck off your friends and family.
We know how fired-up their adherents to this business-cult get: a couple nights ago we went to the casino (losing a little money for the first time EVER) and while standing in line, fully two different YTBers gave D.J. their business cards and invited us to get involved.
Posted by seeninstl on Aug 7, 2008
If only we could get them to do our windows.
Posted by seeninstl on Aug 6, 2008
We’re happy to report that the Downtown Cantina is beginning to be a hopping place in its new location, even on weekday evenings. It is a great little Mexican restaurant and bar, a block from our building. It is a drinkers’ bar, which we don’t mind, since it is fun to hear the loud drunken conversation during dinner (we have odd tastes).
They have great happy-hour specials and a fantastic lunch buffet that we have gone to a number of times. Stop by, and enjoy the best little Mexican restaurant downtown.
Posted by seeninstl on Jul 31, 2008
We finally sold our new car as a commitment to a carfree lifestyle, and while we can’t wait for the new Schucks to open up in the downstairs of our building, we decided we should go to the Schucks a couple miles away up Olive toward St. Louis University after D.J. got off work today.
We rode a bus, the same bus I will be taking every day to law school!
But we had no way of getting the groceries home, so we had to buy a personal shopping cart, which I had to put together outside of Schucks.
I was very proud to walk our groceries home from the bus-stop. Everyone will be living a carfree lifestyle eventually, as the cities become the place that the well-off financially live, and the urban poor are pushed to the suburbs.
Posted by seeninstl on Jul 30, 2008
We are skeptics of alt med, and my Master’s Thesis is on the topic. Isn’t it nice to know that it is alive and well in our neighborhood. At least Chiropractic isnt as bad as things like Healing Touch or candling, but it can still be very harmful and is untested according to medical science.
Posted by seeninstl on Jul 29, 2008
If you want some interesting and inexpensive American and Mediterranean food, check out Slay’s on Zaytoon. We have no idea what the name means, but they have friendly staff, and some really tasty food. And they stay open till 7 or 8pm, which is great for grabbing a light dinner.
Rose Martelli gave them a pretty good review in St. Louis Magazine, and I think they have taken the advice to heart. It is a great place to grab a bite.
Posted by seeninstl on Jul 26, 2008
D.J. has been in New York for almost two weeks, and I have been busy finishing up my masters thesis (in Science and the Public). So there haven’t been many posts lately. At some point, I expect I will be too busy to post much, and he may take over some.
Here is a picture tonight of fireworks that D.J. took from our living room in the Syndicate. Yes, we have a fireworks fetish. That is me lying on the back of the couch.
Posted by seeninstl on Jul 12, 2008
At the risk of making people think I have a fireworks fetish, I thought I would post one of the pictures we just took outside our window of tonight’s Live OFF the Levee firework display. It was pretty much the same drill as last night, but from a different vantage.
