61revised.com

Does anyone know the purpose served by these yellow posts erected around the city of Saint Louis?  You’ve probably noticed these 5 foot high pieces of infrastructure posted around street corners throughout the city, as I have.  And yet despite my research into it over the last year, I have yet to discover the purpose of these urban posts in any literature online or off.

Do they serve some sort of emergency warning infrastructure, or do they stand as a legacy to an early fire department system the community developed?  Although I am not sure the answer is on Wikipedia, WikiLou, or anywhere on the internet, I’m sure the purpose served has got to be interesting.  And if you know, I’m sure our readers would be interested.

(I have many more photos of these posts around town if anyone else is interested in this local phenomenon)

Only one week ago MidwestBlogs.com and STLProBloggers.com were active in organizing bloggers and their efforts to promote and control their intellectual property.  But in an e-mail sent out last evening, it turns out their own organization is about to become a relic of Saint Louis’ social blogging network and lose their own intellectual property.  According to Liz -

Goodbye so soon? Yep. Unfortunately Midwest Blogs and STLProBloggers.com
will be going dark within 24 hours of this email. The personal commitment
required to maintain and further the goal of the site proved to be just
too much for us to really do it justice at this time. So we have decided
to end this venture and thank you for all of your support in this
short-lived project. Your membership and contributions were greatly
appreciated.

A blogger meetup is still scheduled for Sat., April 19 at Atomic Cowboy.

Farewell old/new friends. We hardly knew ye…

We’re not sure how this slipped under our radar, but if you’re a member of Digg you’ve probably already given the proverbial thumbs up to the upcoming Diggnation taping in Saint Louis this week.  This live taping of the Revision3 show, which will take place this Wednesday February 20th at Moulin (in Lafayette Square), has stirred up controversy among those youngsters under 21 years who will cannot attend the venue.  Although that shouldn’t be much of a surprise considering the last episode of Diggnation was recorded amidst an Edward 40 Hands session, it seems drinks will be provided for those able to attend this local tapping of the nationally podcast/broadcast/interwebnetz phenomenom.

And while I must admit my personal ignorance to the Digg world, I couldn’t be more excited for this show, which has achieved success from some of TechTV’s finest alumni.  For those who weren’t there when Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht graced our broadcast televisions (or for those who rather wouldn’t be a TWIT), these savers of the computer screen have come to save the attention deficit of a town riddled by the internet!  It’s difficult to describe their site, which caters to the internet generation with original broadcast-quality shows with shows that cater to culture available only over the internet, only to say that they’ll be bringing their culture to our own bastion of eccentricity we call St. Louis.  Here’s hoping we’ll see you there.

Keep up to date with events around Saint Louis as they are updated by subscribing to the Highway 61 (revised) calendar.  It will e-mail you a daily agenda of the latest events, including those we nearly didn’t have time to write about (like this one).

With apologies to Antonio French*: 

Super Tuesday- Barack Obama and John McCain win Missouri and Illinois primaries.  Wayne Root wins Missouri Libertarain primary, and Cynthia McKinney wins Illinois Green Party primary.

Fat Tuesday- Mardi Gras parade canceled due to inclement weather.  Ash Wednesday imminent.

Watch Party- Missouri, Webster Groves, and The Royale featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.  George W Bush still President.

Keep down with politics (or at least parties) on Highway 61 (Revised)*

Sunday remains a day of the week that peple take to civic matters, and civic content becomes prevelant of Sunday morning talk shows, expanded commentary and analysis in our newspapers, and for some in their places of worship.  No matter how use your civicly minded time, we thought we’d pass along this useful map our friends at the Wash U Peace Coalition (who you might remember from a student protest demonstration we mentioned previously). 

It might be of limited use based on your political affiliation, but whether you support the organizations visually organized here at least you’ll know where they are.   This easily bookmarkable collection of varied activism organziations and elected representative’s offices is an impressive use of Google maps for all your Sunday morning civics over a cup of coffee.

Music fans: Bang your…hammers!  Friends of the Mullanphy Emigrant Home will be hosting a benefit concert this Friday August 17th @ the Tin Ceiling on Cherokee and Compton.  For a donation of only $7 to this historic landmark in desperate need of repair you can check out country/bluegrass flavors of The Monads, Red-Headed Strangers, and the Bearded Babies (of “Cherokee shuffle” fame).

And even if you can’t make the concert, we encourage you to learn more about this building, and maybe even make a donation.  You can learn more about the Emigrant House on their website, and keep up to date on the restoration effort via Ecology of Absence blog.  Thanks to Michael Allen and What’s New in Old North blog for the tips.

We know that it’s not the heat (it’s the humidity), but there are certain limits to these things.  Then our favorite forecasters extended the excessive-heat warning for the St. Louis area.  Even the evening brings no relief to the day’s harsh rays - I measured nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit at 1am this morning.

By now you’ve probably run through any of the heat beating activities we suggested earlier, so we thought we’d suggest a couple more activities to keep you cool in every sense of the terms.  As for another post related to the weather, we’re pretty sure even Ben Abell couldn’t rule it out.

• We know Ted Drew’s has bills to pay, but dairy products can make you sick in the heat.  And although the downtown sno-cone stand is only open on Tuesdays, Sauce Magazine has the hookup on all the hydrating shaved-ice products for the lactose-itinerant this summer.
• If you must spend time outside, make sure it’s reveling in the abundant, tasty resource that gives this city life whilst making our hot air unbearable - water.  Public pools are packed, but we hear they’re staying open a little later to help you cool off.  And don’t feel guilty taking advantage of your friend with pool access - they acquired access to become popular on days like these.
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We love sharing some of our favorite links with you so much we couldn’t wait for it earlier this week.  But while these links would have to wait, let that not detract from great work from some of our favorite local blogs.  For those of you taking a lazy sunday, here’s some links with your coffee when you wake up in the late afternoon.

• Seems like everyone is playing blog games these days.  PubDef.net challenged us fill in the caption between Mayors Bloomberg and Slay, and Dividing by Zero keeps giving us a monday mystery mix/podcast that keeps us guessing the tracklisting.
• Imagine St. Louis without the Arch.  BrickCity helps us visualize this idea, which raises more questions about how we use public space.  As they say, “if your town doesn’t have one, it sucks to be you”.
• KDHX finally redesigned their website, but they could use your help.
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Found in the newspaper vending stand in Terminal A of Lambert Airport.  First comment to indentify the problem illustrated above wins a PhotoHunt contest at a bar of your choosing.  All apologies to the Riverfront Times magazine.

My name in Matthew Hurst, and I’m a blogaholic.  Just because I’ve been on vacation this week doesn’t mean I haven’t been kept reading local news online.  And although I wasn’t really able to take Dodgeball for a test drive this week, here’s my digest of what I would have been up to if i were in town.

• It must be something in the water, but St. Louis residents are making allegiances.  While Brick City lists things that won’t happen in town, our departing friends @ 15thWardSTL.org list 50 things they won’t miss about St. Louis.
• We’re sure you’ve heard about The Circuit by now, we were just waiting for LoFiSTL’s go ahead (cause you know, we’re discreet like that).  For those of you who haven’t read about it already, think of it as a St. Louis centric social network, ‘cept one that integrates a lot of the things you do online already. And with the backing of TiRC.  We got the point right away, and we hope you do too.
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