A video break from the bad mansards

The Kevin Bacon Movie Club from Kevin Bacon

I rarely have any video. Here is some. The guy in this video is my prom date from 1989. Not Kevin bacon. The other guy.

Fave mansard, beer and what I'm doing this weekend

This mansard on the Anehuser Busch (ok- fine - inBev- whatever) campus is one of my favorites. The mansard roof and widow's walk almost appear decorative. It works for me. Love this building.

Speaking of beer, the school picnic is tomorrow and the question for me is what to put in my cooler. The years where I pack nothing I'm stuck in a line for a half-tapped keg full of warm foam. The years when I plan and pack a cooler, there are troughs of decent beer everywhere. Or maybe I mix it up and bring vodka and lemonade.

Another busy weekend: dance recital, niece's graduation, birthday party, hockey, 2 soccer games and a sorority ladies brunch. My challenge will be to have a picture of a really bad mansard by the end of the weekend. ETA: I am also packing SVDP pantry baskets on Sunday and I hope John can take the kids to the Budrovich Meet the Machines event on Saturday.

Cornerstones

I love cornerstones on churches. I HATE when the original organizers' identities are sandblasted away like at this church, Trinity Baptist on Sidney. This botched attempt at covering up the name of the original church looks a little like White-Out.

My message to the current churches is this: look, church people, you may own the building now but you cannot change who laid the cornerstone.

This church looks like it used to be a German church- maybe Lutheran or maybe German Evangelical (some of which are now Evangelical Lutheran and others are part of the UCC. I know about this because the guy who built this house was German Evangelical "Evangelische Kirche" in German).

If you are keeping track, I am collecting pictures of cornerstones, bad mansards and Lustrons.

Straight outta Compton- 3

Compton Avenue, north side of 44 behind SLU Medical School. Am I the only one who sings NWA's Straight outta Compton anytime I drive on Compton?

Weird house- looks like a nondescript 1880's building with a mansard smashed on the front. Plus new construction in the next door neighbor house. The whole scene is an architectural mismatch.

Below is the NWA video. It too is mismatched. Ice Cube and Dre talking of pimps, hoes and grabbing AK-47's of the shelf. HA!. Dre is now a successful producer and Cube starred in Friday, Barbershop and Are we there yet? (a badmarsard family favorite).

Bad Mansard v. Alabama twister

Here's what's left of a bad mansard apartment? Office building? John's second cousin Jessica H. took these photos in her town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. John has a large extended family in Alabama and fortunately they are all ok.

Having grown up in St. Louis, I am quite used to tornado sirens. Seems like they go off all the time now, perhaps due to tornadic (is that a word?) in adjacent counties.

Sometimes I am a bit nonchalant about getting down to the basement when the sirens start howling, and then talking. They do that now- talk- like the teacher in Charlie Brown. Scenes like this and our own Good Friday Tornado and the Tornado of 1896 are a reminder to me that I should get myself into the basement.

Our first house in Lafayette Square didn't have a 3rd floor. Its 3rd floor was ripped off in the 1896 tornado. The roof and then bricks were peeled from the masonry home and went flying, likely into windows and people. That brick cyclone must have been horrifying and terribly dangerous.

Lesson- get in the damn basement.