In the middle of downtown St. Louis, just a half-mile or so directly west of the Gateway Arch, sits City Garden. Completed in 2009, it is both a traditional horticultural garden with more than 100 species of flora, and a sculpture garden with all kinds of whimsical statues and works sprinkled throughout. When...
The last few years, I’ve been attending quite a few of Washington University’s basketball games. My dad’s a fan and has gone to almost every game for years; my brother goes to most. The coach is a member of their our church. And for the last three years, the son of my good friends...
Today is “Leap Day,” that day in which we celebrate the failure of the earth to adequately synchronize its rotation and revolution cycles. Because if this, it takes us just a little more than a five hours more than exactly 365 days to get around the sun. This schedule sloppiness means that we have...
Note: This statue has been moved. You can read a June 2016 update to this post here. Just downriver from Eads Bridge in St. Louis, on the St. Louis riverfront, is a statue called The Captains’ Return. It depicts the return of William Clark and Meriwether Lewis, along with their dog, Scout, from their...
It’s Shoulblog’s birthday! Two years ago today (OK, not exactly two years, but it was two Fat Tuesdays ago), this thing launched. This was the first post; you can judge for yourself if I’ve made any progress in that time. With the anniversary, the blog has a new look. I adopted a new WordPress...
Perhaps I’m still a little cranky about the state of music these days. (That always seems to happen after one of those Super Bowl halftime shows.) But as great as rock music can be, the extraordinary heights it can deliver us to, there are also plenty of “what were they thinking” moments. Here are...
From time to time, Shoulblog does a “Top Five” list. The list is just what it says: the top five of whatever. But the “top” part is, of course, subjective. For various reasons—about five of them, actually—these lists may not be the definitive, all-time superlatives. Therefore, I offer these caveats: 5) In a list...
The Grammy Awards are tonight. I may or may not be watching; it sort of depends if there’s anything else on. There have been some great Grammy shows in the past; the one in particular that stands out for me is 2003, the year after the Clash’s Joe Strummer died, and Bruce Springsteen, Elvis...
In the power and clarity of its prose, Shoulblog has been compared to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. “The writing in my blog is nowhere near as powerful or clear as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.” —John Shoulberg...
I’m almost to the point where I can say “just three miles” again. After an excellent running year in 2010, last year was an abject disappointment. I had a bout with bronchitis in the early spring, followed by back problems (herniated disc) that kept my mileage way down all summer. I went to physical...
