Music and Sunshine on Delmar

                What do Maya Angelou,  Mary Engelbreit, and Harry Caray all have in common?  More on that later.

                On a clear sunny day, with a slight breeze, and just warm enough that you don’t need a jacket, you don’t stay inside reading, or knitting, or alphabetizing your novels after sorting them by genre.  I will admit to doing any or all of these on sunny days in the past, but, well, that was the past.

                Today, I was on a mission- a failed mission as it were, but if all of my failures were this enjoyable, I’d spend a lot more time seeing what would happen.  As you may recall, last week I mentioned driving through the Delmar Loop area.  Well, this week, I have a project going for which I need some art supplies.  So I headed over to Blick’s Art Supply on Delmar, fed two hours worth of quarters into the parking meter and went for a walk.

                On a beautiful day like today, Delmar bustles with people and energy.  There were street musicians busking between the shops, mostly younger guys with guitars, but one older guy played a trumpet whose clear notes floated up and down the street.  As I was passing him the first time, a man walking by tried to get his girlfriend to dance to the smooth jazz beat, but she was mortified that he wanted to dance in front of a street musician.  For myself, I was reminded of a trip I took to DC in the eighth grade, where our tour guide gave a dollar to a homeless man playing a plastic flute.  My guide said that he never gave money to the beggars, but he was happy to help out someone who made the day a little brighter.

                The shops themselves were an eclectic mix.  From a chic little resale shop called Re-Designz, that sells retro furniture and funky jewelry, to a fantastic jewelry shop called the Silver Lady, which is going to get a lot of business from me in the future.  I bought a cool silver ring there, and his selection of jewelry is diverse, affordable, and fabulous.  The proprietor loves to talk about the jewelry and the artists who made it.  I also found a wonderful independent bookstore called Subterranean Books.  I was expecting a used book store, but this is a vibrant and lively store with a unique collection of new books.  Subterranean Books is not the type of place that you go when you want to buy a book, it is the kind of store where you can find something new to read.

                Finally there are restaurants, most of which on days like today turn into sidewalk cafes.  You can’t walk more than 100 feet without having to navigate through a maze of tables and chairs, which even at 4pm in the afternoon were filled with people enjoying the sunshine with their nosh.

                In the end, between doing a little shopping, a little eating, and a lot of enjoying of the fresh air, I never did quite make it to Blick's Art Supply...

                So what do Maya Angelou, Mary Engelbreit, and Harry Caray have to do with this?  Up and down Delmar runs the St. Louis Walk of Fame honoring local celebrities.  All three scions of St. Louis have the distinction of being celebrated with their own star.

Blick's Art Supply:  http://www.dickblick.com/

Re-Deisgnz: http://www.re-designz.net/

The Silver Lady: http://www.thesilver-lady.com/

Subterranean Books: http://store.subbooks.com/