#St. Louis Local News

[no27-chilis-honda]

fell down a rabbit hole today bc I woke up remembering I was in high school in 2018-2019’s nhl season and I have remembered that:

Robert Thomas in his rookie season on the blues at 19 years old was living with Keith “Big Walt” Tkachuk

Thommer and the blues had the last place to Stanley cup champion season that same year

both of the lesser tkachuk brothers (they have all made the joke that he’s the favorite son we can make this bit) were in the nhl by then, Brady was like. First or second season.

which means that year Taryn was the last other kid in the house, and she was destroying *my* (but also all other) school’s field hockey team(s) (they were state champs in 2018 I’m pretty sure)

the brothers returned home like directly after their season ended.

Sitcom ass house in St. Louis county

[we-re-always-alright]

so I accidentally watched like 5 episodes of Chicago PD while in Florida (while killing time) and so I was like ‘oh I like SVU, maybe this won’t be bad, seems like a good cop becoming corrupt story’ and nope. Nope. cannot do it. every other episode you’ve got two teams of 10 people each shooting up a city block with AKs on a typical Tuesday at noon for one drug dealer. they walk out dressed like they’re about to invade Kuwait as average detectives. based on this show, the city is always one bad afternoon from turning into mad max. and the writing is just bad for a procedural. like I live here. there are not gang shootouts in river north next to some of the most expensive restaurants in the city/country. the Michelin reviewers were not dodging bullets like it’s the matrix. not to mention these cops stop traffic violations all the time……..unrealistic.

[piratewithvigor]

Sometimes love is what happens between a middle aged dad (Canadian) and his pet trio of DJs from a Missouri radio station that he plays for a minimum of 6 hours every single day

[future-crab]

People in the US: find a protest for Rafah

I found out about my local protest too late to attend (I don't have a car and I live in an area with zero public transportation) so I thought I'd share this list of protests so that other people might be able to go to their's!

[ID:

February 12, 2024

AUSTIN, TEXAS | 5PM 1100 Congress

CHICAGO, IL | 4:30 PM Federal Plaza 230 Dearborn Ave

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON | 6 PM University of Washington Station

MANHATTAN, NY | 4 PM Union Square

SAINT LOUIS, MO | 2:30 PM @ Kirkwood Park 111 So. Geyser Rd.

February 13, 2024

SAN DIEGO, CA | 4:30 PM Federal Plaza

SAN FRANCISCO, CA | 5:30 PM Federal Building

ATLANTA, GA | 7 PM Israeli consulate

PHILADELPHIA, PA | 5:30 PM 1400 JFK Blvd

PITTSBURGH, PA | 5 PM 4100 Forbes Ave

HOUSTON, TX | 4 PM Houston City Hall

February 14, 2024

PHOENIX, AZ | 4 PM NE Corner of 7th St & McDowell Rd

WASHINGTON, DC | 2 PM Dupont Circle

February 15, 2024

AUSTIN, TX | 10 AM Austin City Hall, 301 2nd St

February 16, 2024

EAU CLAIRE, WI | 5 PM Corner of Hwy 93 and Golf Rd (Outside Hardee’s)

February 18, 2024

NEW ORLEANS, LA | 11:30 AM ARMSTRONG PARK

February 19, 2024

CHICAGO, IL | 11 AM Chicago History Museum, Children’s Fountain

February 25, 2024

SAINT PAUL, MN | 1 PM 1176 N Mississippi River Blvd, St. Paul, MN.

End ID.]

[camisoledadparis]

Richmond "Jimmie" Barthe (1909-1989) was an African-American sculptor and a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s. That he was also a gay man who expressed his orientation in his work is most likely why he fell into obscurity by the 1940s.

Much of his art depicted African-American men in sensual poses, often nude. Today, his work seems not that confrontational, but in a basically racist, sexually nervous America of the middle of the last century, it is remarkable that his work received the acclaim that it did.

Barthe was born to Creole parents in Bay St. Louis, Miss., and his art brought him out of poverty. A beautiful, bright boy, he was already winning awards for his drawings by the age of 12. Inspired by the neoclassical art he saw in the homes of the wealthy folks he worked for as a houseboy in New Orleans, he developed a lifelong interest in Greek and Roman mythology.

Funded by his local church, he attended school at the Art Institute of Chicago and began to have adult affairs with men who sometimes became patrons. He also had a brief affair with author and actor Richard Bruce Nugent, who was a cast member in Dubose Heyward's play Porgy.

In 1930 he relocated to New York and attended A'Leila Walker's "Dark Tower" gatherings, known as a venue where black and white men and women, often gay, mingled. The photographer and writer Carl Van Vechten was deeply involved with the black community of New York in the '30s and was an ardent supporter of Barthe's work. His reputation grew and his work was included in a 1935 exhibit of African-American art at the Museum of Modern Art.

He had success and fame. He even had a female patron who set up a trust for him that gave him the freedom to work without financial worries. But he was still an outsider in many ways. He was not a part of the white art world, and his uncompromising homosexuality kept him distanced somewhat from other artists of the Harlem Renaissance. His love life was a series of short affairs that never developed further.

Constantly searching for community, he moved to Jamaica only to find himself even more estranged from others. He fell into deep depression and mental illness. Commissions came sporadically, and he met them with varied results, teetering on the edge financially and emotionally.

In 1975 he moved to Pasadena, Calif., and a year later curators at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art included his work in "Two Centuries of Black American Art." The attention to his work, the growing respect of a younger audience to artists of the Harlem Renaissance, and the support of his friends brought Barthe stability once again. He lived out his later years as a treasured part of the art community, dying in Pasadena March 6, 1989.

(The Advocate)

[theineffablesociety]

"Perhaps one day we could... I don't know. Go for a picnic." ~Aziraphale, 1967

The Ineffable Society Synchronous Picnics!

Crowley and Aziraphale may not have had their picnic yet but we can show them how it's done:

TIS is inviting all Good Omens fans to join us on Saturday May 10th wherever you may be!

This is the day that the book was originally published in 1990, and the day of the bombing of St Dunstan-in-the-East, the church which inspired the one in the Blitz scene. St Dunstan later became a public gardens in the 1970s. 👀

How to have your own TIS Picnic:

* Minimum of one person, you!

* Minimum of one tasty treat, preferably eaten or drank outdoors

* On Saturday May 10, 2025 at any time of day

Will it be you and your angel/demon having a picnic on a tartan blanket at a park? Or will you invite several of your friends to your house? Will you enjoy some cosplay? Will you theme your beverages, meal, snacks, and dessert with Good Omens themes?

Or will you invite any local fans to join you at a more organized event?

There are people starting to plan picnic meetups over on our Discord server. I will link that below. You're welcome to post about yours in there as well but it is not mandatory, especially if you are planning something more intimate. Just by having a little picnic on May 10, you too have become part of The Ineffable Society's celebration!

DISCORD LINK

https://discord.gg/JQzyWnBf

Current Planned and open to the fandom picnics include:

1:30pm - 7pm at Historic Smithville Park in Central New Jersey (pavilion secured!)

TIME TBD. Tower Grove Park in St Louis, Missouri with visit to Botanical Garden to follow.

11:00am at Caffe Vita KEXP in Seattle, Washington (by the Space Needle for lunch!)

TIME TBD. Rochester, New York in Highland Park for the Lilac Festival [Note: This is upstate NY]

Current Plans-In-Progress and open to the fandom picnics include:

Plans for: TIME & LOCATION TBD. Hell, Michigan. Yes. Hell. Michigan.

Plans for: TIME & LOCATION TBD. Austin, Texas

Plans for: TIME & LOCATION TBD. London UK

Plans for: TIME & LOCATION TBD. Chicago, Illinois. Planning for "northwest suburbs of Chicago"

Plans for: TIME & LOCATION TBD. Washington DC area

Current Areas Seeking Plans open to the fandom picnics include:

Seeking Plans in: Atlanta, Georgia

Seeking Plans in: Oklahoma (Oklahoma City or Tulsa)

Seeking Plans in: Arkansas

Seeking Plans in: Tennessee

Seeking Plans in: Tampere, Finland

That last group? We have at least one person in who is interested meeting other Good Omens fans for a picnic, and one could easily be organized if there's interest.

We shall add more to this list as people organize!

If you enjoy a picnic on May 10: We would love to hear about it! Share us your deeds of the day with some pictures using any of these tags #GO For A Picnic, #Good Omens Picnic, or #The Ineffable Society Picnic.

[inkwelldesires]

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙻𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚎

“𝚈𝚘𝚞’𝚛𝚎 𝚔𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖.”

“𝚂𝚘 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞, 𝙰𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚁𝚎𝚒𝚍—”

“Y𝚘𝚞 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚊 𝚝𝚒𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚘 𝚒𝚝.”

─────────────────

✨𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚛✨

𝙿𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚛 𝚁𝚎𝚒𝚍 𝚡 𝙵𝚎𝚖!𝚄𝚗𝚜𝚞𝚋

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝟷𝟾+ (𝙼𝙳𝙽𝙸)

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: ~𝟾.𝟽𝚔

𝙲𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚐𝚘𝚛𝚢: 𝙲𝚛𝚒𝚖𝚎/𝙼𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚢 | 𝙿𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛 | 𝚂𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝙱𝚞𝚛𝚗 𝚁𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 | 𝚂𝚖𝚞𝚝

𝚂𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢:

𝙸𝚝 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊 𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚗 𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚙 𝚘𝚏 𝚙𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛—𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊 𝚗𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊 𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚝𝚌𝚑 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚖𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚎. 𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚜. 𝙰𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚙𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚜 𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚛, 𝚜𝚘 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛, 𝚋𝚕𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚌𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗… 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚊 𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.

─────────────────

Part One: The Map of Patterns

Quantico, 9:03 AM — BAU Briefing Room

The overhead projector clicked on, casting a grainy map across the room in hues of cold gray. Colored pins dotted the state of Missouri—five cities, twelve victims, and a trail that stretched like a noose tightening around a central point.

“St. Louis,” Emily said, tapping her pen to the red circle on the map. “That’s where the last body dropped.”

Spencer sat forward, fingers laced together, elbows pressed into the table. His brow furrowed beneath the soft fall of his hair. His mind had already connected the victims: ages 18 to 32, mixed gender, all former addicts either in recovery or reportedly clean for months before their deaths. OD on paper—clean kills in practice.

“The tox screens are too clean,” Spencer said. “The levels are inconsistent with street overdose patterns. These were tailored—controlled dosages with pharmaceutical precision.”

JJ flipped through the case files. “The dealers aren’t talking, but word on the street says there’s a new player in town. Someone operating under the radar. A woman. They call her ’The Chemist.’”

Spencer’s eyes flicked up. “Creative.”

“Deadly,” Rossi corrected, voice gravelly. “Whoever she is, she’s cleaning up competition by baiting users back into relapse and watching them drop. She’s building dependency, cutting off supply chains, and tightening control. That’s not just business. That’s strategy.”

“I’ve been compiling the geographic data from the crime scenes,” Spencer added, pulling a page of printed coordinates and statistical models from his folder. “If you consider the timing of the overdoses in relation to transit points and supply routes, it suggests a deliberate triangulation. She’s anchoring her network in St. Louis, but the epicenter seems to fluctuate based on activity—like a moving pulse.”

Hotch nodded. “Pack your bags. Wheels up in an hour. We’ll coordinate with the local field office, but keep in mind—whoever this woman is, she’s organized, intelligent, and methodical. We don’t profile drug lords the same way we profile serial killers. But this case? It’s starting to feel like both.”

—

St. Louis, 4:47 PM — The Next Day

The bookstore was old, tucked between a laundromat and a boarded-up cafe on a narrow street that still smelled like rain. It wasn’t on any map. He’d found it by accident—chasing a lead in a medical journal referenced in one of the victims’ histories.

The bell above the door jingled as Spencer stepped inside. A small black cat darted across the hardwood floor. The scent of paper, dust, and something faintly sweet curled through the air like incense.

There were only three people in the entire place—an elderly man asleep behind the register, a teenage girl in combat boots reading Dune, and a woman near the back, crouched in front of the pharmacology section, her fingers ghosting over spines with practiced ease.

He moved toward the shelf quietly. The book he needed—Neurochemical Dependency and Psychoactive Metabolites—was nestled high, too high. He reached for it.

So did she.

Their hands nearly touched.

“Sorry,” she said, pulling her hand back first. Her voice was smooth and unbothered, but an edge of amusement was tucked inside it.

Spencer cleared his throat. “No, it’s—uh—go ahead. I just—this is the only place in the area that carries a first edition.”

Her brows lifted slightly. “You’re looking for that book?”

“Yes.” He hesitated, then offered, “Are you… also interested in neurochemical dependencies?”

A flash of something behind her eyes. Not surprise. Something sharper. “I have a thing for altered states,” she said. “Psychologically speaking.”

Spencer’s brain stumbled.

I should walk away. But I can’t. She’s disarming. In that rare, slow-burn way, that doesn’t quite hit until you realize you’re already leaning in.

“I’m with a research team,” he said quickly. “Studying trends in urban addiction patterns. Your understanding seems… advanced.”

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing just a fraction. “And you seem too well-dressed for field research.”

“I, um… travel light.”

She smiled. “You’re not local.”

“Neither are you.”

That hung in the air.

He should have noticed the warning bells in his gut. The slight twitch in her fingers, like someone used to pulling triggers without flinching. But instead, all he saw was clarity behind her gaze. The kind of clarity you only get when you know people better than they know themselves.

“I’m Spencer,” he said because he couldn’t help it.

She didn’t give her name. Just arched a brow and said, “You can have the book, Spencer. But if you want help understanding it…” She paused, reaching into her coat pocket and producing a card. “Call me. Sometimes, it’s easier to see the whole picture when you’re not too close to it.”

He stared at the card as she walked away. There was no name. Just a number. And a symbol.

A chemical structure.

Spencer swallowed.

Why didn’t I ask her name?

Why didn’t she give it?

—

St. Louis Field Office — 9:36 AM

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, and the coffee in Spencer’s cup had long since gone cold. Maps were pinned to cork boards. Timelines stretched across walls. But Spencer wasn’t looking at any of them.

He was staring at the card.

No name. Just a ten-digit number and a chemical structure he’d memorized in three seconds flat.

Benzoylecgonine.

The primary metabolite of cocaine.

Of course she didn’t leave a name. Of course she left that.

“What’s got you so deep in thought, pretty boy?”

Morgan dropped into the seat beside him, coffee in hand, looking far too awake for someone who’d slept less than four hours.

“Nothing. Just…” Spencer flipped the card over, blank side up. “Analyzing.”

Morgan smirked. “You always are.”

Spencer felt his cheeks flush. He quickly busied himself with his tablet.

Across the room, Garcia’s voice filtered in over speakerphone. “Okay, my loves—so get this. Four of the twelve victims had bank accounts tied to the same shell company. And guess what? That company owns the lease to a whole block of buildings in South City—including an abandoned church, a bar, and—you’ll like this, Reid—a bookstore.”

Spencer’s head snapped up. “Which one?”

She rattled off the address. It was the same bookstore. His heart stuttered.

Hotch turned from the evidence board. “Reid, you know it?”

“I… might’ve stopped in there yesterday.” His voice was too casual. Too careful. “They carry niche medical texts. I was hoping to find one referenced in the victim’s file.”

“Alone?” JJ asked, raising a brow.

He nodded. “Didn’t seem relevant at the time.”

Morgan studied him with that annoyingly perceptive gaze. “You find anything besides a book?”

Yes. A ghost with brown eyes who reads chemical pathways like poetry.

“No,” Spencer said tightly. “Just… a lead.”

—

That Night — Hotel Room, 11:14 PM

He stared at the card again, then at his phone.

This was a mistake.

He knew that.

But mistakes don’t come wrapped in curiosity like this. Mistakes don’t leave you wondering if you were the one being profiled in a conversation that felt like seduction disguised as science.

He dialed the number before he could talk himself out of it.

Three rings.

Then her voice.

“I was starting to think you’d never call.”

He froze. “You expected me to?”

“I profiled you, remember?”

Spencer sat on the edge of the bed, voice low. “Then you already know this is a professional call.”

“Of course.” She sounded amused. “Strictly business. Tell me, Agent Reid… how close are you to figuring out who I am?”

His throat went dry. “I didn’t tell you I’m an agent.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Silence stretched between them like a drawn wire.

Then she said softly, “You’re not the only one who studies patterns. I just use mine for different reasons.”

He should’ve hung up. Every part of him screamed it.

But instead, he said, “We’re building a profile. High intelligence. Scientific precision. Deep understanding of dependency, both psychological and chemical. The unsub manipulates her clients like a puppeteer. No chaos. Just… control.”

“I like that,” she said. “Control.”

Spencer’s fingers dug into the bedspread. “Why are you talking to me?”

“You wanted answers. Maybe I wanted something too.”

He couldn’t breathe. “Which is?”

“Insight.” She paused. “You see people for what they are, not what they pretend to be. I find that fascinating.”

He stood, walking to the window, the lights of the city sprawling beneath him like static.

“I don’t know who you are,” he whispered. “But I know you’re dangerous.”

Her voice was velvet. “And yet you still called.”

Click.

The line went dead.

—

The Next Morning — St. Louis Field Office, 7:12 AM

Spencer arrived before anyone else.

He was halfway through mapping the cross-referenced building ownerships when Emily stepped in, holding a bagel and eyeing him like a hawk.

“You’re here early.”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Mm.” She leaned over, reading his scribbled notes. “You ever think maybe you’re a little too good at connecting dots?”

“Sometimes I wish I wasn’t,” he said honestly.

Because the dots were leading him straight back to her.

Part Two: Fault Lines

[fairy-gothparent]

hi! i run a shop called Hearth Kvlt, with a focus on uplifting queer and leftist pagans - and i just launched my last shop update of the year!

featured in this update are

✨️ pre-orders for my zine, Dreaming of the Trancestors - exploring gender nonconformity and queerness in pre-Christian northwestern Europe

✨️ pre-orders for t-shirts and hoodies in sizes S-4X across several designs (10% from each sale will be donated to Metro Trans Umbrella Group, a local nonprofit org dedicated to empowering queer, trans, and gender nonconforming people in the St. Louis area)

✨️ restocking hand-dipped incense, plus introducing a new scent

as always, thank you all for your support - hope something strikes your fancy!

[whencyclopedia]

Mark Twain

Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), an American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist. He was the voice of his generation and one of the most celebrated authors of the late 19th century, writing some of America's best-known and most memorable works of literature: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Through these and other works, he had a profound effect on the development of writing in America, influencing numerous authors of the 20th century, such as Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). With a career that spanned over four decades, Twain shaped the world's view of America. His rich sense of humor was evident in both his novels and lectures, but Twain's biographer Albert Bigelow Paine believed that he was more than a humorist; he was a philosopher, a prophet, and a humanitarian.

Early Career

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, on 30 November 1835. His father, John Marshall Clemens, was educated as a lawyer but chose instead to become a merchant, albeit not a very successful one. In 1839, when Twain was four, his father moved the family to Hannibal, Missouri, a small town along the Mississippi River. In Hannibal, John Marshall returned to the practice of the law, eventually being elected justice of the peace. When he died in 1847, leaving the family in debt, Twain was forced to quit school; he was not quite twelve. Twain, like his older brother Orion before him, was apprenticed to a local printer. When Orion bought a small newspaper, the Hannibal Journal, Twain joined him as a typesetter. The newspaper was operated out of the family's basement. On the days when Orion was absent from the paper, Twain would write small parodies about local characters and conditions, and circulation increased.

In 1853, at the age of 18, Twain left home, working as an itinerant printer in St. Louis, New York, and Philadelphia. By the time he returned from the East, Orion had moved the family to Keokuk, Iowa. Twain would remain in Keokuk with Orion until 1857 when he decided to go to Brazil and the Amazon River. He began the long journey at Cincinnati, working as a printer, until spring. Aboard the Paul Jones, headed to New Orleans, he met a riverboat pilot named Horace Bixby, and after a lengthy conversation, decided to forego the Amazon and become a riverboat pilot. 18 months later, he was considered one the best and most careful on the Mississippi, but, with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the Confederates blockaded the river, stopping all river traffic.

Following a short two-week stint in the Confederate Army, Twain traveled west by stagecoach, hoping to become rich in the silver mines of Nevada. Orion, who had a federal appointment in the Nevada Territory as secretary to the governor, went with him. But with little success as either a miner or prospector, Twain used his free time to contribute short articles to the Territorial Enterprise, a Virginia City, Nevada newspaper owned by John Goodman. It was there that he began to use the name Mark Twain, a river term for two fathoms of water. His new name and humorous articles made him famous along the Pacific Slope. Recognizing his talent, Goodman offered Twain the job as editor of the Enterprise at 25 dollars a week. After two years in Virginia City, he moved to San Francisco where he worked for the Morning Call while contributing to the Golden Era and The Californian.

Continue reading...

[cera-writes]

Heyo saw you were taking requests for Gambit and I'm deathly starved for content of our favorite cajun could I request something really fluffy maybe Remy taking us to the french quarter and going to cafe du monde for beignets and taking touristy pics in front of the st Louis just light hearted fun 😊 anyway love your writing and hope you keep it up!

I love this idea! I literally went to New Orleans again over the weekend and it's fresh off my memory so this was a fun idea to write <3 Pairing: Remy LeBeau x Reader Prompt: Remy shows reader a fun, cute time in the French Quarter.

A walk Around the Quarter

The air hung thick with the scent of chicory coffee and powdered sugar, drawing Remy LeBeau and you deeper into the bustling heart of the French Quarter. The vibrant hues of Creole cottages and wrought iron balconies blurred past as Remy, ever the charming guide, navigated the labyrinthine streets with practiced ease. Each corner turned revealed a new treasure: a hidden courtyard overflowing with blooming jasmine, a street musician coaxing soulful melodies from a weathered saxophone, the tantalizing aroma of Cajun spices wafting from an open doorway.

"Welcome, cher," Remy announced with a flourish as you both emerged into the sun-drenched plaza fronting the iconic St. Louis Cathedral. "The crown jewel of New Orleans, and the perfect backdrop for our first touristy snapshot."

He winked and produced a camera seemingly from thin air, capturing your smiles against the majestic facade. Then, with a playful tug, he led you towards your ultimate destination.

"Prepare yourself," Remy warned with a grin. "For a taste of pure, unadulterated bliss."

Cafe du Monde, a bastion of beignet-fueled delight, awaited. The air thrummed with the lively chatter of patrons and the rhythmic clatter of trays laden with the irresistible pastries. Remy secured a coveted table, its marble top already dusted with a generous layer of powdered sugar. A street performer, drawn by your laughter, serenaded you both with a jaunty tune on his accordion, adding a touch of whimsy to the already enchanting atmosphere.

"Three beignets, s'il vous plait," Remy requested with a practiced charm that had the waitress returning in record time.

The beignets arrived, a trio of golden-brown pillows, their airy centers promising a symphony of flavor. Remy, a connoisseur of the finer things, demonstrated the proper technique: a delicate pinch, a generous dip in the accompanying mound of powdered sugar, and a bite that elicited a satisfied sigh.

"C'est magnifique, non?" he asked, his eyes twinkling with delight.

The afternoon unfolded in a leisurely haze of powdered sugar and laughter. You strolled through Jackson Square, admiring the vibrant works of local artists, and paused to listen to the soulful melodies of a street musician. Remy, ever the entertainer, even tried his hand at juggling, much to the amusement of onlookers. A horse-drawn carriage clopped past, its passengers waving merrily, and Remy couldn't resist doffing his hat with a flourish.

As the sun began to set, casting a warm glow over the Quarter, Remy and you found yourselves back at the St. Louis Cathedral. The plaza was bathed in a soft, ethereal light, creating a scene of undeniable romance. The street lamps flickered to life, casting dancing shadows on the ancient walls, and the distant sound of jazz music drifted on the breeze.

"One last photo, cher?" Remy asked, his voice a low murmur.

He captured the moment, your silhouettes framed against the cathedral's illuminated spires.

"But the night is still young," Remy said with a wink. "Care to hear some real New Orleans music?"

He led you down a dimly lit alley, the sound of a saxophone growing louder with each step. You emerged into a smoky jazz club, the air pulsating with the rhythm of the music. Remy took your hand and led you to the dance floor, where you twirled and swayed to the infectious beat. The music wrapped around you, a tapestry of notes and emotions, and you lost yourself in the moment, in Remy's eyes, in the magic of the night.

As the final notes faded, Remy pulled you close. "Merci," he whispered, his voice husky with emotion. "For sharin' dis perfect day with Remy."

The French Quarter, with its vibrant tapestry of sights, sounds, and flavors, had woven its magic. And at its heart, amidst the beignets, laughter, and the rhythm of the jazz, a connection had blossomed, leaving a trail of unforgettable memories in its wake.

[sparkbirdmusic]

if anyone has amazing vegan food recommendations (especially local specialties or oddities), unmissable birding/wildlife/nature locations, and fun/weird/iconic things to do in any of these places (or directly in between them), please let me know! you can also let me know anonymously, if you're worried about your suggestion implying your personal location

4.8 - Buffalo, NY 4.9 - Brattleboro, VT 4.10 - Boston, MA 4.11 - NYC (home, so I don't need suggestions for here) 4.12 - Philadelphia, PA 4.13 - Washington, DC 4.14 - Chapel Hill, NC 4.15 - Atlanta, GA (off) 4.16 - Atlanta, GA 4.17 - New Orleans, LA (off) 4.18 - Houston, TX 4.19 - San Antonio, TX 4.20 - Socorro, TX (off) 4.21 - Phoenix, AZ (off) 4.22 - Phoenix, AZ 4.23 - Los Angeles, CA 4.24 - Berkeley, CA 4.25 - Eugene, OR (off) 4.26 - Portland, OR 4.27 - Seattle, WA 4.28 - Boise, ID (off) 4.29 - Salt Lake City, UT 4.30 - Denver, CO (off) 5.1 - Denver, CO 5.2 - Kansas City, KS 5.3 - St. Louis, MO 5.4 - Cedar Falls, IA (off) 5.5 - Minneapolis, MN 5.6 - Chicago, IL (off) 5.7 - Chicago, IL 5.8 - Detroit, MI 5.9 - Columbus, OH 5.10 - Pittsburgh, PA

[mostlysignssomeportents]

You can’t shop your way out of a monopoly

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

If you're running a business, you can either invest at being good at your business, or good at Google SEO. Choose the former and your customers will love you – but they won't be able to find you, thanks to the people who choose the latter. And if you're going to invest in top-notch SEO, why bother investing in quality at all?

For more than a decade, Google has promised that it would do something about "lead gens" – services that spoof Google into thinking that they are local businesses, pushing down legit firms on both regular search and Google Maps (these downranked businesses invested in quality, not SEO, remember). Search for a roofer, a plumber, an electrician, or a locksmith (especially a locksmith), and most or all of the results will be lead-gens. They'll take your call, pretend to be a local business, and then call up some half-qualified bozo to come out and charge you four times the going rate for substandard work:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/fake-online-locksmiths-may-be-out-to-pick-your-pocket-too.html

Some of them just take your money and they "go back to the shop for a tool" and never return:

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/when-a-fake-business-used-a-real-st-louis-address-things-got-weird-32087998

Google has been promising to fix this since the late aughts, and to be fair, it's a little better. There was once a time when a map of Manhattan showed more locksmiths than taxis:

https://blumenthals.com/blog/2009/02/18/google-maps-proves-more-locksmiths-in-nyc-than-cabs/

But GMaps is trapped in the enshittification squeeze. On the one hand, the company wants to provide a good and reliable map. On the other hand, the company makes money selling "ads" that are actually payola, where a business can pay to get to the top of the listings or get displayed on the map itself. Zoom out of Google's map of central London and the highlighted landmarks are a hilarious mix of "organic" and paid listings: the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, the Barbican, the London Eye…and a random oral and maxillofacial clinic in the financial district:

https://twitter.com/dylanbeattie/status/1764711667663831455

Hell of a job "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful," Big G. Doubtless the average Londoner finds the presence of this clinic super helpful in orienting themselves relative to the map on their phone screens, and it's a real service to tourists hoping to hit all the major landmarks.

It's not just Maps users who'd noticed the rampant enshittification. Even the original design team is so horrified they're moved to speak out about the moral injury they experience seeing the product they worked so hard on turned into a giant pile of shit:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Now, when it comes to locksmiths, I'm lucky. My neighborhood in Burbank includes the wonderful Golden State Lock and Safe, which has been in business since 1942:

https://www.goldenstatelock.com/

But you wouldn't know it from searching GMaps for a locksmith near me. That search turns up a long list of scams:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/locksmith/@34.1750451,-118.369948,14z/data=!3m1!4b1?entry=ttu

It also turns up plenty of Keyme machines – these are private-equity backed, self-serve key-cutting machines placed in grocery stores. Despite Keyme calling itself a "locksmith," it's just a badly secured, overcaptilized, enshittification-bound system for collecting and retaining shapefiles for the keys to millions of homes, cross-referenced with billing information that will make it easy for the eventual hackers to mass-produce keys for all those poor suckers' houses.

(Hilariously, Keyme claims to be an "AI" company):

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200114005194/en/KeyMe-Raises-35-Million-to-Further-Its-Mission-of-Building-the-Premier-Locksmith-Services-Company-in-the-Nation

But despite the fact that you can literally see the Golden State storefront from Google Streetview, Google Maps claims to have no knowledge of it. Instead, Streetview labels Golden State "Keyme" – and displays a preview showing a locksmith using a tool to break into a jeep (I'd dearly love to know how the gadget next to the Slurpee machine at the 7-Eleven will drive itself to your jeep and unlock the door for you when you lose your keys):

https://www.google.com/maps/place/KeyMe+Locksmiths/@34.1752624,-118.3487531,3a,75y,350.19h,90.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssHrtqjqvgFir3NBauMy13Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x80c2959cd65dbb1b:0x4b3744cf87492a71!2sBurbank+Blvd+%26+N+Hollywood+Way,+Burbank,+CA+91505!3b1!8m2!3d34.1750025!4d-118.3493484!16s%2Fg%2F11f37_3lq8!3m5!1s0x80c2951cedbf4d39:0xe8ff9fd5872e66e9!8m2!3d34.1755176!4d-118.349!16s%2Fg%2F11mw7nr4fx?entry=ttu

It's pretty clear to me what's going on here. Keyme has hired some SEO creeps and/or paid off Google, flooding the zone with listings for its machines. Meanwhile, Golden State, being merely good at locksmithing, has lost the SEO wars. Perhaps Golden State could shift some of its emphasis from being good at locksmithing in order to get better at SEO, but this is a race that will always be won by the firm that puts the most into SEO, which will always be the firm that puts the least into quality.

Whenever I write about this stuff, people inevitably ask me which search engine they should use, if not Google?

And there's the rub.

Google used predatory pricing and anticompetitive mergers to acquire a 90% search market-share. The company spends more than $26b/year buying default position in every place where you might possibly encounter a new search engine. This created the "kill zone" – the VC's term of art for businesses that no one will invest in, because Google makes sure that no one will ever find out it exists:

https://www.theverge.com/23802382/search-engine-google-neeva-android

That's why the only serious competitor to Google is Bing, another Big Tech company (Bing is also the primary source of results on Duckduckgo, which is why DDG sometimes makes exceptions for Microsoft's privacy-invading tracking):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo#Controversies

Google tells us that the quid-pro-quo of search monopolization is search excellence. The hundreds of billions it makes every year through monopoly control gives it the resources it needs to fight spammers and maintain search result quality. Anyone who's paid attention recently knows that this is bullshit: Google search quality is in free-fall, across all its products:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

But Google doesn't seem to think it has a problem. Rather than devoting all its available resources to fighting botshit, spam and scams, the company set $80 billion dollars alight last year with a stock buyback that was swiftly followed with 12,000 layoffs, followed by multiple subsequent rounds of layoffs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

The scams that slip through Google's cracks are sometimes nefarious, but just as often they're decidedly amateurish, the kind of thing that Google could fix by throwing money at the problem, say, to validate that new ads for confirmed Google merchants come from the merchant's registered email addresses and go to the merchant's registered website:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Search is a capital intensive business, and there are real returns to scale, as the UK Competition and Market Authority's excellent 2020 study describes:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fe4957c8fa8f56aeff87c12/Appendix_I_-_search_quality_v.3_WEB_.pdf

But Google doesn't seem to think that its search needs that $80 billion to fight the spamwars. That's the thing about monopolists, they get complacent. As Lily Tomlin's "Ernestine the AT&T operator" used to say, "We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company."

That's why I'm so excited about the DOJ Antitrust Division monopolization case against Google. Trusting one company to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," was a failure:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-google-monopolizing-digital-advertising-technologies

I understand why people want to know which search engine they should use instead of Google, and I get why, "There aren't any good search engines" is such an unsatisfactory answer. I understand why each fresh round of printer-company fuckery prompts people to ask "which printer should I get?" and I understand why "There are only six major printer companies and they're all suffering from end-stage enshittification" isn't what anyone wants to hear.

We want to be able to vote with our wallets, because it's so much faster and more convenient than voting with our ballots. But the vote-with-your-wallet election is rigged for the people with the thickest wallets. Try as hard as you'd like, you just can't shop your way out of a monopoly – that's like trying to recycle your way out of the climate emergency. Systemic problems need systemic solutions – not individual ones.

That's why the new antitrust matters so much. The answer to monopolies is to break up companies, block and unwind mergers, ban deceptive and unfair conduct. "Caveat emptor" is the scammer's motto. You shouldn't have to be an expert on lead gen scams to hire a locksmith without getting ripped off.

There are good products and services out there. Earlier this year, we decided to install a (non-networked) programmable pushbutton lock. I asked Deviant Ollam – whom I know from Defcon's Lockpicking Village – for a recommendation and he suggested the Schlage FE595:

https://www.schlage.com/en/home/products/FE595PLYFFFFLA.html

I liked it so much I bought another one for my office door. Eric from Golden State Lock and Safe installed it while I wrote this blog-post. It's great. I recommend both of 'em – 10/10, would do business again.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#vapor-locksmith

Image: alicia rae (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kehole_Red.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

--

Budhiargomiko (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wasteland.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[terribleinfluence-tour]

North America Timezones to UK BST Timezone Guide

This is just a quick guide to show start times in of Terrible Influence Shows while Dan and Phil are in North America converted to the time it will be in the UK.

I will at the end of this link to a world clock website too for your own conversions because the sheer amount of timezones I would need to cover is too many for one post!

This goes off the assumption that these shows start at 8pm local time and the M&G starts at 5pm (like the european leg did, if this changes or i worked it out wrong i will update this post)

This conversion will be BST until October 27th and after that it will become GMT which is an hour behind BST.

Dates and Times under the cut

Seattle 6* & 7 Oct - Portland 8 Oct - Vancouver 9 Oct - Oakland 11 Oct - Phoenix 13 Oct - San Diego 17 Oct - LA 18 Oct:

M&G - 1am BST

Show - 4am BST

*This M&G will likely start earlier

Salt Lake City 20 Oct - Denver 21 Oct:

M&G - 12am BST

Show - 3am BST

Kansas City 23 Oct - Grand Prairie Oct 24 - Austin 25 Oct:

M&G - 11pm BST

Show - 2am BST

St. Louis 27 Oct:

M&G - 10pm GMT

Show - 1am GMT

Detroit 28 Oct - Akron 29 Oct - Indianapolis 30 Oct:

M&G - 9pm GMT

Show - 12am GMT

Milwaukee 1 Nov - Minneapolis 2 Nov - Chicago 3 Nov:

M&G - 10pm GMT

Show - 1am GMT

Toronto 5 Nov - Philadelphia 8 Nov - New York 10 Nov - Tysons 11 & 12 Nov - Atlanta 14 Nov - Tampa 16 Nov - Orlando 17 Nov - Fort Lauderdale 18 Nov - Durham 20 Nov:

M&G - 9pm GMT

Show - 12am GMT

Nashville 21 Nov:

M&G - 10pm GMT

Show - 1am GMT

Boston 24 Nov - Reading 25 Nov - Red Bank 26 Nov:

M&G - 9pm GMT

Show - 12am GMT

World Clock:

[sirfrogsworth]

It was 1991. I was 10. And the other white kids at my Catholic elementary school started getting into rap. And I always thought if I did what my bullies did, they would bully me less. So I got a cassette tape of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch and the new "Hammer" album. He dropped the "MC" part of his name because he wanted to be taken more seriously as an artist and too many sketch comedy shows had made fun of parachute pants by that point.

So he was just Hammer.

Apparently I screwed up because they only liked the white rappers. Because they were all a bunch of little proto-racists. But that pretty much limited you to Marky Mark and Vanilla Ice. But I liked the way MC Hammer danced so I picked that out at the music shop.

Other things I tried to get on the good side of my bullies...

I learned how to play hockey (which I ended up really liking).

I had my parents get me a White Sox Starter hat. It had to be from that brand though. And despite being in St. Louis, it had to be the White Sox. For some reason it was cooler to root for a non-local team at the time. I guess that was the extent of edgy counterculture for 10 year olds.

I got shoes that had little air pumps in the tongue. You'd press a little basketball and it would inflate the top of your shoe.

Oh, and you had to get this Adidas jacket.

This was fun because it came in a bunch of colors but I got black just to be safe.

The Adidas jacket was my last attempt to get on the good side of my bullies. One of them took apart an ink pen and dropped it in my hood. I spent all day with it just jostling around and spreading ink everywhere. When I came home at night my mom noticed the entire hood was stained with ink. I cried my eyes out and she tried her best to clean it. And I think I got mad at her when she couldn't. I asked her to buy me a new jacket but I'm pretty sure they couldn't really afford to buy me that one to begin with. She assured me you couldn't even tell and no one would notice if I never used the hood. But the bully who did it knew and pointed it out the next day. And they all made fun of me for my ruined jacket.

I think it finally dawned on my tiny squishy brain that I would never appease these jerks no matter what I did. No matter how much I tried to fit in. And that's when I had the discussion with my parents to switch schools. They told me the only other option was public school. They worried there would be a lot more kids able to bully me. Because I was a weird kid and said weird things. But I wanted to try it. Plus, it probably saved them a bunch of money in tuition. My bullies all told me I was going to get stabbed because of the Black kids. But, in reality, it was the best decision I ever made.

It took me a little while to adjust. I had been so traumatized at my previous school that I had trouble controlling my emotions. So I would cry at the drop of a hat. And one of my teachers got upset with me because I'd cry if I got a bad grade or if I forgot my homework. One time my dog actually ate my homework and she didn't believe me and I cried, so my parents had to write a note for me.

But eventually I learned I was not actually a big weirdo as my bullies had said. I was funny. And I made people laugh. And they liked laughing. And it turns out, if you entertain people, they don't want to make fun of you anymore.

What was I talking about?

HAMMER!

Yes, that was my first CD.

And I liked 1 song on it.

Because Hammer got too serious and I wanted parachute pants.

[homeofhousechickens]

Yesterday, I went exploring abandoned fort ruins by this radioactive creek on a trail that is pretty popular.

This creek is infamous because of Mallinckrodt nuclear waste contamination. Mallinckrodt basically made a deal with the federal government to have exclusive rights to produce weapons-grade uranium. When the nuclear waste from the project was less profitable, then they thought it would be they dumped and transported the waste out on uncovered trucks to local landfill sites and left barrels along the creekside. The factory producing the uranium ended up contaminating the creek and the groundwater due to their actions.

There were no animals around when i was there, and the water smelled strongly like metal. It was weird because even in winter places like this usually have quite a few birds like at least some squirrels or sparrows, but there were none. I'm sure it's different during the other seasons but for an uncomfortably warm day it was very eerie.

Anyway the government has been cleaning the creek for decades but refuses to share how radioactive it is.

There are a few schools that are close to this creek and kids and residents who live near it have higher cancer rates.

Still, despite the evidence that this creek is dangerously radioactive from multiple different testing companies and the cancer statistics, our officials still deem this creek "safe." The company was never really punished for the dumping and mishandling of radioactive materials either in fact they company denies ever handling uranium despite the proof.

In my opinion, it's wild to me that people still swim in this creek during the summer, especially after I have gotten close enough to smell it.

Sources

Kite, A. (2024, February 21). Records reveal 75 years of government downplaying, ignoring risks of St. Louis radioactive waste. Missouri Independent. https://missouriindependent.com/2023/07/12/st-louis-radioactive-waste-records/

‘This is a moral failure.’ A Missouri community says leftover radioactive waste is making them sick. (2024, December 20). PBS News. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/after-decades-of-nuclear-waste-exposure-this-missouri-community-wants-action

“I was heartbroken”: Radioactive waste found at Jana Elementary School outside St. Louis. (2022, October 19). CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/radioactive-waste-found-jana-elementary-school-outside-st-louis/

[petervintonjr]

"As black America approaches the 21st century, our capacity or our failure to build a solid bridge . . . of works will determine whether millions of young blacks already with us or yet unborn will cross over into the new century, or fall into the abyss."

Another name you almost certainly didn't know: M. (Moses) Carl Holman, civil rights activist, writer, and poet. Born in 1919 St. Louis, Holman showed an early gift for writing, and at the age of 19 won a scriptwriting award from a popular syndicated radio program. He graduated magna cum laude from Lincoln University and went on to acquire Master's degrees from the University of Chicago and from Yale. While at Yale he published his first collection of poems, and began regularly writing articles for various newspapers and magazines on income inequity, urban poverty, literacy, and other issues important to Black Americans. In 1962 he taught English at Clark College in Atlanta, giving him a front-row seat to key events in the earliest days of the civil rights movement. As some of his students participated in sit-ins and the Freedom Rides, he found himself appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, of which he eventually became deputy director in 1966.

In 1968 Ebony magazine named Holman as one of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans. That same year Holman published what is probably his best-known work: The Baptizin', a play which won first prize in the National Community Theater Festival. In addition to multiple collections of poems, Holman also published a definitive overview of the civil rights movement in the U.S., from 1965 to 1975.

Perhaps most significantly, in 1971 Holman was named Vice President of the National Urban Coalition. This organization had re-formed in 1967 in the wake of the so-called "long, hot summer" of racial strife and injustices. During this time Holman's singular talent for delivering quiet and polite, but still powerful, speeches came to the fore and he jumpstarted a great many local housing, education, job training, and economic development programs aimed at disadvantaged Black and Hispanic communities.

In his later years Holman forcefully addressed the issue of "dual literacy" for Black children --emphasizing that such students not only needed to be well-versed not only in the fundamentals such as reading, writing, and public speaking; but also in math, science, and technology. His 1988 obituary notes that Holman "had an uncanny ability to form a coalition out of the most diverse elements, and it was often said that the key to his ability to do this was the fact that he never appeared to have an agenda for himself."

(Teachers: Need some resources to engage your students this Black History Month? I'll send you a pile of these trading cards, no cost, no obligation. Just give me a mailing address and let me know how many students in your class. No strings attached, no censorship, no secret-relaying-of-names to Abbott or DeSantis or HuckaSanders.)