Are you ready, Kids?

Been back in St. Louis for a total of three days now. It's been a bit of cleaning, a bit of catching up with mail and emails, a bit of getting organized for school, a bit of catching up with friends.

My second night back, we went out to hear Kim Massie sing down at Beale on Broadway, and it turns out a lot of people we knew were there already. It's a great scene. Outside, with one of the best singers in St. Louis belting out blues and R&B and whatever you'll pay her $15 to sing. A few beers, nice weather, lasts from 10-3am. That night, the audience also included some cast members from the Lion King, and a few ensemble members were coaxed into singing as well.

There's something cool and laid back and nice about listening to music like that, lit by the string of christmas lights and stage floods, with the Amtrak trains rumbling past in the background. It was a nice welcome back to the laid back expansiveness of St.Louis.

Yesterday, Saori and I drove out to Cahokia and walked around and up the mounds out there. It was miserably hot, and the drought which has plauged the midwest transformed the usually lush summer landscape into brown and brittle grass spears, unpleasant for rambling. It's a site which is more memory than artifact- in importance and scale, this was the largest settlement north of Aztec Mexico city. The center and city of a civilization of great complexity and scale, larger even than the US capital when it was first discovered. But there is no written language to describe it- no stone monuments, no stone pyramids, no massive idols. The massive earthworks is only a passing reference to the true monumental urbanity of the place, and its a pale second. What is there to see other than the earth mounds? The museum does a good job of trying to awaken the imagination and to give the appropriate contexts and information about the history and extent of the site. But this has to be the saddest and most neglected UNESCO World Heritage Site I've ever seen, and there's really not even that many in the US.