I drive by this place occasionally and it has always seemed mysterious. Plain facade of a building on the edge of the Soulard neighborhood, near the huge Anheuser-Busch brewery. So I looked up the website, https://www.sbacstl.org/, and it is stranger than I thought. Not my hangout.
A gate in the flood wall along the Mississippi, part of the graffiti-permitted Paint Louis section. The river lies just beyond the trees. I've never seen this gate closed, but then I wouldn't drive by if the water was that high.
Yeah, we have some passenger rail service in this country. I wish we had a lot more, like Europe or Japan. We have good memories of being whisked from Avignon to Paris on the TGV, or Tokyo to Kyoto on the Shinkansen. Our town has service to Kansas City and Chicago. It takes a little longer than driving but is so much more comfortable. Looking forward to October when we go from Prague to Vienna to Budapest by train.
When Powell Symphony Hall reopened almost a year ago, we found an ultra-modern new building surrounding two sides of the old one. It adds a lot of space for the public, but also adequate dressing rooms for the musicians, especially the women, who now make up half of the players. They have a comfortable lounge. There are proper executive offices, a music library, instrument storage and a large public education room. Lots of the inside views are pretty good, too.
Down and out philosophy in my favorite post-industrial ruins near the Arch and the Mississippi. Doesn't leave any room for reassessment, growth, the unforeseen or bad choices. For your Philosophy 101 exam, discuss and critique.
