Cool Idea o' the Day: dArt St. Louis

Somebody recently rounded up 100 St. Louisans. Made them fling a dart at a map of the city. Gave them a month to travel to that spot and snap a photograph. Posted the photographs online at dartstlouis.com.

(The Daily RFT got wind of this from Michael Allen's Ecology of Absence blog).


First of all: That's a genuinely cool idea.

Secondly: Some of the resulting shots of St. Louis (to my untrained eyes) were so gorgeous and haunting they made me involuntarily mutter the Lord's name.

See for yourself this urban wreck; this mother and baby; this super-typical-city-bar scene; these kids on the street. I could go on.

Lastly: what's intriguing is the website barely explains how this all came to be. You can see that Schlafly and Ferguson & Katzman sponsored it, but they don't shove any commercial pitch into your face (which is appreciated, since such shoving happens, oh, a bajillion times a day).

So, to the organizers: I give you, not a dart, but a nice St. Louis-style laurel. Meaning it'll be made entirely of provel.