Classic "bird on the bat" logo
It’s going to be crazy (and lots of fun for baseball fans) in downtown St. Louis on July 14. That’s the day the 2009 All-Star Game will be played at Busch Stadium. There are a lot of banners and other baseball-related decorations going up downtown, and St. Louis will be ready for the national spotlight. It’s quite an honor for our team and our city to host this. I’ve linked the >official Web site of the St. Louis Cardinals< here for more information.
A story I’m linking here that is on >KSDK.com< today quotes Brian Hall, a spokesman for the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission, as saying that their Web site traffic is up 300,000 hits from this time last year when the economy was certainly better than it is now. (I’m having Web-site envy!)
Fredbird
I’ve already got a great seat to watch the game—it’s in my comfy chair at home. It will be interesting to see how the city looks on the national television coverage of this high-profile major national sports event, and if our Cardinals All-Star Team members can be a decisive factor in their National League team doing some damage to the American League team this year.
Pujols at bat
St. Louis Cardinals fans have voted to land Albert Pujols (Cardinals first baseman) and Yadier Molina (Cardinals catcher) on the team. The international make-up of baseball today will guarantee a broadcast audience larger than just in the USA. Baseball is followed closely in Puerto Ric0 (home of Yadier Molina), the island nations of Dominican Republic (home of Pujols and many major league players), Cuba and other Latin American countries.
It’s also played with fierce competitiveness by leagues in Asia including Japan and Taiwan. I worked with a sports reporter from China a few years ago, who was doing a story for a weekly soccer newspaper there on the US cities that hosted modern Olympics (Los Angeles, twice; Atlanta, once; St. Louis, once.) The reporter found the devotion of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball fans so interesting that she included a separate story. Leave a comment here me if you want a “pdf file” copy of it.
Go, National League!
Don’t miss one of the world’s greatest love stories: Opera Theater St. Louis 2009 Season (now underway)
May 29, 2009
Tickets start at just $25.
An evening at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is one of the most enjoyable events you will attend in any given year. It’s a chance to slow down, dress up, and see world-class musical arts. I see people from all walks of life at OTSL; lots of artists, writers, and such, but also just plain folk. If you think you don’t like opera, I bet you will change your mind after a night at OTSL. Hey, I’m not stuffy. I like opera AND Nine Inch Nails!
The company’s >Web site< says, “With three company premieres and one of the world’s greatest love stories, OTSL’s 2009 season is an enticing blend of repertoire. Join us for the unique pleasures of Opera Theatre: spring picnics, free opera previews and performances by some of the best singers in America!”
Indeed, some of the best singers in America. Our own >Christine Brewer< got her musical start there and made a return performance as Queen Elizabeth the First in Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana for OTSL’s 25th Anniversary Season in 2005. This American soprano was voted by the the BBC Music Magazine Critics as one of the >20 Greatest Sopranos of all time<, and only one of three currently performing.
This season’s OTSL performances:
Puccini’s La Boheme
Strauss’s Salome
Mozart’s Il Re Pastore
John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles
Again, from the OTSL Web site,
“Opera Theatre’s Pavilion is among the great St. Louis summer pleasures. Lawns, trees, and abundant flowers make a cool and colorful setting for picnics before performances. Savor not only the performance but the whole evening; come early, enjoy cocktails, dinner, and a FREE “opera preview” by a member of the music staff. And celebrate afterward! The fact that everyone in the audience can meet the artists informally after the opera is one of the hallmarks of Opera Theatre.”
Save up to 75% on selected items at Niche | Interior Design + Home Furnishings, during the Spring Sale Friday, May 29 through Saturday, June 6.
Niche carries Baker, Knoll, Gus*, Herman Miller & other classic modern lines, as well as boutique items you won’t see everywhere else in St. Louis home furniture and accessory shops.
Niche is at the corner of Broadway & Olive in downtown St. Louis. Validated parking, with purchase, at Olive & 4th parking garage.
If you stop in, please let the staff know you found out about the sale or saw the information here! Thanks!
BEIJING — The earthquake that killed 87,000 people in Sichuan Province in China a year ago this week was a devastating tragedy that, through all the rubble, offered a few rays of hope … photos and story at link below:
In Year After Quake, China Sealed an Opened Door
A mother sitting among the rubble in Beichuan county on Tuesday mourned the death of her daughter, Xiang Yazi, at left in photo, in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Editor’s note: I can’t even begin to imagine devastation and loss of this magnitude. Money and volunteer labor can help, but we can also help by acknowledging the sad anniversary of this loss by our good friends on the other side of this shrinking world.
The April 20, 2009, MondayMemo from the St. Louis Regional Commerce and Growth Association (RCGA) reported,
St. Louis In The National Spotlight On The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer: Gwen Ifill, Judy Woodruff, Spencer Michels and Paul Solman of The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer are here in St. Louis through the end of April to file national stories on how President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office have impacted our community. Producers of the highly respected news program chose the St. Louis region as the first of three spotlight regions for 2009, to explore issues relating to the economy, education, science and public media. The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer airs on KETC/Channel 9 Monday through Friday at 6 p.m.
RCGA has been working with KETC President & CEO Jack Galmiche and his team on research and data on these issues, as well as on prospective venues, story ideas and interview prospects. Over the next three weeks, Ifill, Woodruff, Michels, and Solman will attend forums and discussions throughout the bi-state region focusing on these varied topics. Their reports will be filed in “Spotlight City” segments that will air nationally on the NewsHour on Monday, April 27th and Tuesday, April 28th. The final event will be a Town Hall Meeting that will take place at Channel 9’s studio and will air during the NewsHour on Wednesday, April 29th.
A television crew from KETC is accompanying the NewsHour team during their stay in St. Louis and will produce five, 30-minute follow-up programs that will be broadcast locally. One will air at 7 p.m. after each broadcast of the NewsHour from April 27th to May 1st.
The schedule for NewsHour events was as follows:
- Friday, April 17 – At Lindenwood University , NewsHour business and economics correspondent Paul Solman interviewed The Newberry Group founder and CEO Brenda Newberry, Quilogy CEO Randy Schilling, St. Charles Community College President Dr. John McGuire, and David Ross, President of Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital, about economic and financial issues before an audience of business, civic and education professionals. This will be broadcast locally on Channel 9 on April 27th.
- Monday, April 20 – At Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville , Channel 9 senior producer Jim Kirchherr served as moderator of the Regional Energy Summit 2009. Immediately following, NewsHour producer and correspondent Spencer Michels moderated a panel on the economy to engage the region’s community leaders on financial issues. RCGA Board members Bruce Holland, President & CEO of Holland Construction Services, and Herman Seedorf III, Refinery Manager at ConocoPhillips Wood River Refinery, along with Leadership Council Executive Director Patrick McKeehan participated in the panels. This morning’s program was hosted by Southwestern Illinois College President Dr. Georgia Costello, and included both Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Congressman Jerry Costello. Portions of the event will be broadcast locally on Channel 9 on April 30th.
- Wednesday, April 22 – At the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center , NewsHour senior correspondent Judy Woodruff will explore the impact of plant science issues on the region and world, and the intersection of science with politics and public policy. Leaders of area scientific institutions will be on the panel; the audience will include members of the Missouri METS Coalition and the bio-technology community. This will be broadcast locally on Channel 9 on April 28th.
- Sunday, April 26 – Former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter and editor Dick Weil and his wife, Josephine, will host a gathering of KETC donors and St. Louis Beacon reporters. Remarks by NewsHour senior correspondent Gwen Ifill will highlight the event.
- Monday, April 27 – The importance of the revitalization of the St. Louis region’s central city and the region’s sustainability and vibrancy will be explored in a forum hosted by NewsHour senior correspondent Gwen Ifill. The location is not yet determined. The audience will include St. Louis business, civic and education leaders, including RCGA Vice President for Business Recruitment Jim Alexander. This will be broadcast locally on Channel 9 on April 30th.
- Monday, April 27 – Gwen Ifill will address KETC Legacy 9 members, longtime station members and board members at a luncheon at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
- Tuesday, April 28 – NewsHour senior correspondent Judy Woodruff will host a discussion at KETC that examines the concept of public media in the digital age. Guests include college students and professors from area universities.
- Tuesday, April 28 – KETC will host an hour-long Community Town Hall Meeting moderated by Gwen Ifill before an audience of 150 guests representing a cross section of area residents. A segment of the Town Hall Meeting will air on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer on Wednesday, April 29th. The Town Hall Meeting will be broadcast locally on Channel 9 at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 1st.
This photo is too beautiful to size it smaller. I’m really looking forward to the sights, sounds, good smells and tastes of this annual festival this weekend.
Ticket information is on the > Missouri Botanical Garden’s Web site <, which I’ve linked here.
I’m going to copy/paste the schedule of events, which doesn’t include the unofficial events of eating and socializing and enjoying the entire gardens.
Earth Day and Chinese Culture Days in the same weekend: An embarrassment of riches, as the saying goes.
Image courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden via the Web
Schedule of Events
Saturday–Sunday, April 25 & 26
| 11:00 a.m. | OPENING PARADE, Saturday Only
Spoehrer Plaza to Cohen Amphitheater |
| 11:15 a.m. | OPENING CEREMONY, Saturday Only
Cohen Amphitheater |
| 12:00 p.m. | New Shanghai Circus Cohen Amphitheater
Guided Tour of the Chinese Garden |
| 1:00 p.m. | Fashion and Cultural Show Shoenberg Theater
T’ai Ji Lesson Chinese Garden Guided Tour of the Chinese Garden |
| 2:00 p.m. | GRAND PARADE Climatron to Cohen Amphitheater
Guided Tour of the Chinese Garden |
| 2:30 p.m. | Traditional Arts Program Cohen Amphitheater
Cooking Demonstration Kemper Center for Home Gardening |
| 3:00 p.m. | T’ai Ji Lesson Chinese Garden
Guided Tour of the Chinese Garden |
| 4:00 p.m. | New Shanghai Circus Cohen Amphitheater
Guided Tour of the Chinese Garden |
| 4:30 p.m. | Fashion and Cultural Show Shoenberg Theater |
| All Day | Tea tasting and traditional Chinese music
Chinese Garden (Note: If it rains, some events will be moved indoors.) |
Please remember to visit the blogroll!
April 11, 2009
Bloggers
I add other blogs to it from time to time on topics of interest to my readers here. Those blogs also update their content. So don’t forget that in addition to what I hope is interesting content here for you, this site is also a gateway to other sites with related material. The blogroll is in the sidebar. Just click on any of the blogs with links you see (but please come back to mine again!!)
I would like to see comments posted if you visit. Let me know if there is some question I can answer for you!
You can answer a question for me: What’s on YOUR blogroll?
Image from Guy Burstein, who blogs for Microsoft
Here is a post especially for my seven readers in China from “圣路易斯中国人角落.”
天堂般的祝福您的健康，
在一切的好运
Please stop in to this site and read about St. Louis in the US Heartland and the interest of people here about China.
Please pass the word about this Web site in China, and please let me hear from you by comment on posts you see here, let me hear about your work, and school, and family, and friends, and city, and province and all things of interest to you that we can share respectfully here!
I have had readers on every continent, but the fewest (only two), sadly, in China, until yesterday, when I added five more! I’m very encouraged!
St. Louis at night
Here’s a post especially for you from St. Louis Chinese Corner!
It’s an update about ArtNetworking.com, headquartered in Shanghai. I have a post from a few months ago about it in English.
在这春暖花开之际，我们ArtNetworking首先祝福您身体健康，万事如意。同时我们也为您带去一些优秀而值得收藏的艺术佳作，让艺术融入您的生活，提高您的生活品质，度过这富有挑战性的2009年。
冷冷的冬日悄然远去，万物复苏，一片春意盎然。这就犹如陈华平的抽象油画，色彩明快、流畅而又五彩缤纷，让人感觉热烈却又依旧柔静。
然而繁忙的工作使您无法感受大自然的勃勃生机。曾在北京中央美院研修过，现居
住于香港的美籍华人艺术家韦绮芬女士的作品一定可以满足您的需求。她的现代中国画气势磅礴却又不失典雅，让您足不出户即能体会世界各地的自然美景。
如果您在生活或事业上遇到什么不如意，易经大师姚海程老师一定可以帮助您。他会以他在易经上的学识为您指点方向，给您带去平衡。
商务往来、走亲访友中难免需要互赠礼品，熊恩普老师的书法镶名联将是您最佳的选择。他以自身深厚的文化功底，将对方名字融于书法对联之中，不但使作品具有浓厚的
中国文化气息，更是提现了它的唯一性。
2008年的中国使世界为之瞩目，让人们更加了解中国的文化与艺术。我们年轻而又出色的80后女画家叶圣琴，将宗教与京剧以现代油画的表现技法进行了完美的诠释，开创了一个崭新的风格。
打开ArtNetworking的网页，您将欣赏到更多的艺术佳作，希望这些独特而又出色的艺术品能为您带来些许乐趣，让这缕缕清新的艺术之风环绕在您的生活与工作环境之中。
ArtNetworking.com Tel: 021 62758035 Email: art@artnetworking.com
Chinalyst & FeedBlitz are syndication services to which I subscribe. Both carry online publications on and from China in English, and I get an e-mail several times a week with a digest of new articles from both. You can subscribe to St. Louis Chinese Corner, this online publication, by e-mail by clicking on the FeedBlitz “chicklet” in the sidebar at the bottom right of any Chinese Corner page, and then setting up a free account on FeedBlitz.
tristamarie, author
Today I saw a link on one of the digests to a live report from one of the events at the Shanghai International Literacy Fest written by tristamarie. Here is a link to it for you. It’s things like this report that will give us “outsiders” to China some insight into the current thinking of the educated population there, who will, obviously, be the future leaders.
Highly literate Saint Louis woman!
I always like to draw parallels between the people and cultures of China and the USA, and one thing I can add here is that in December 2008 Imaginova’s LiveScience.com published a list of the Top 10 Most Literate Cities in the USA, and Saint Louis, Missouri, came in at a most respectable #9. The list is generated by Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University.
LiveScience.com wrote, “Once again, bookworms in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest have beaten out Yankee types to reach the very top of a researcher’s list of the most literate American cities … .”
While LiveScience.com calls the central USA the “Midwest,” I prefer the term, “Heartland,” but the point of the article and the pride in the recognition is not diminished for me with that slight difference of terminology.*
Here is a link to the list and online story.
*Editor’s note: My issue with the term “Midwest” is that it’s used to describe pretty much everything in the vast central landmass of the USA that’s not on the east coast, west coast or deep south. In addition, no two maps outlining the “Mid-West” include the same states. It’s a poorly distinguished area, and an undistinguished identification. States in the so-called “Midwest” often are dismissed as uninteresting by the media centers in New York and Los Angeles and seen as part of the “great fly-over,” implying that there’s nothing and nobody worth stopping in to visit here, between the east and west coats.
The so-called “Midwest” defined by the dozens of states lumped together in them this way misses the important point that the states and regions and people within those boundaries are as different from each other as the east coast is from the west coast.
The map here shows a “Central” region and a “Mountain” region, but as often as not a map will show both of those lumped into a vast “Midwest” region. Sometimes Texas is included in it, and sometimes it’s part of the “West” or “South West.” Obviously, whether Texas is included or not, all of the states in the Mountain and Central regions have tremendous variety in terms of ecosystems and local cultures.
If the majority of the USA is going to be lumped together as a single region, I prefer to hear it referred to as the HEARTLAND, which is not a mis-appropriated geographic designation, but rather is a description of the very genuine people who inhabit the area and their impressive cities, charming towns, lush countrysides and the hundreds of sub-cultures and traditions that exist within them. Actually, it’s quite interesting and beautiful in the Heartland.
PS According to the LiveScience.com Media Kit, Stephen Colbert is a fan.
Stephen Colbert
He writes, “When I’m driving home late at night folks, I like to read LiveScience.com on my laptop computer because I know I won’t fall asleep at the wheel if I’m enraged. Evidently, scientists have found that chimps are more evolved than humans.”
-Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report
[Stephen, "Wrist Strong," man.]
"I heart Stephen Colbert."
Registration deadline has been extended to Saturday, March 28, 2009, for Chinese language and culture summer camp in China.
March 14, 2009
Bridge at Imperial Garden, Forbidden City, Beijing (c. Mambo1935)
My St. Louis colleague, Ms. Jie Fan, department associate at the Confucius Institute at Webster University – St. Louis, has the following great information for us:
“We are currently taking applications for intensive Chinese language and culture summer camp in China. The program is called Chinese Bridge and is open to high school students. The only requirement is little or no Chinese background. Deadline is March 28th (2009). More information at http://www.webster.edu/confuciusinstitute/cbridge.shtml.”
PS — This beautiful photo is on Flickr.com, part of a photostream of spectacular photos of China by a member known as Mambo1935. If Mambo1935 sees my post, I hope s/he is pleased with its being featured here. If you would like to see more of Mambo1935’s photos here is a link.
