Skif International Runway Pics

Check out St. Louis-based Skif International's latest designs at Saint Louis Fashion Week, Fall 2008.

"With more than 15 years in the knit biz, Nina Ganci and company specialize in dressing men, women and children in unique, avant-garde sweaters. Probably best known for outfitting Keanu Reeves and Samuel L. Jackson in The Matrix movies, their one-of-a-kind pieces are created in the Spielberg Furniture building located in St. Louis’ The Hill. Ever-evolving, Skif clothing is consistently classic and comfortable, yet cutting-edge and unpredictable."
-from www.saintlouisfashionweek.com

New CultureSurfer.com videos for the week of Oct. 13, 2008

FASHION

Karlie Kloss, supermodel-Interview with Karlie at the Spring 2008 St. Louis Fashion Week
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1243698182/bclid1838521739/bctid1854842626

Macy's Runway Show-at the Spring 2008 St. Louis Fashion Week
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1243698182/bclid1838521739/bctid1851168941

MUSIC
Rumba De Azul-flamenco guitar with Lliam Christy & Los Flamencos at Sol Lounge in St. Louis.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1244719052/bclid1256260578/bctid1854859055

Sevdah Music-Part 1 at the 5^th Annual St. Louis Bosnian & Herzegovian Festival
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1256280098/bclid1847307898/bctid1851181920

CYCLING
Team Dogfish Interview at the St. Louis Gateway Cup
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1213893947/bclid1764764644/bctid1851181926

Chad Hartley, rider with Jittery Joe’s Cycling at the St. Louis Gateway Cup
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1213893947/bclid1764764644/bctid1854842330

Pursuing the Peloton-from the Bissell Team car with the “Dan cam” at the 2^nd annual Tour of Missouri
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1213893947/bclid1815835776/bctid1851181940

New CultureSurfer videos for September 6, 2008

Cycling:
Christian Vande Velde (team Garmin-Chipotle), overall of the 2nd annual Tour of Missouri pro cycling race, takes the yellow jersey for Stage 6. Christian is near and dear to the hearts of Missouri cyclists because he is from nearby Lemont, Il & is not only a very talented cyclist but also a good guy. Christian cycled for the US team at last summer’s Beijing Olympics.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1213893947/bclid1815835776/bctid1840617447

Christian Vande Velde (team Garmin-Chipotle) talks at the press conference after Stage 6 of the 2nd annual Tour of Missouri in St. Charles, Missouri.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1213893947/bclid1815835776/bctid1838510592

Dogfish Apparell owner, John Merli
My interview with John Merli, owner of Dogfish Apparell, home to Dogfish racing as well. John (also known as Old Man Merli) is a former racer & now his son, John Jr., races, as well as John’s daughter-in-law. This is a very cool, very green family business. Check out what John says about making t-shirts from recycled soda bottles and bamboo:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1213893947/bclid1815835776/bctid1840617461

Indie Music:
Check out the very young & very adorable Never Shout Never from Rolla, Missouri at the 2nd annual PlaySTL indie music festival.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1256280098/bclid1825726867/bctid1840617434

Fashion:
Lori Coulter hails from St. Louis & is proof that yes, we do actually have a thriving fashion industry here. Here is her swimsuit show from last Spring’s Saint Louis Fashion Week at Lumiere Casino:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1243698182/bclid1838521739/bctid1840617440

My interview with Lori Coulture, designer of made to fit (like a glove!) swimwear. She rocks for figuring out a way (using a computer that scans your body in 12 seconds) women can stop struggling to find a swimming suit that actually looks good on them!
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1243698182/bclid1838521739/bctid1838472028

Technorati Profile

New CultureSurfer videos for September 22-29, 2008

Why so many bike videos? The 2008 cyclng season is winding down, so this is when things heat up cycling-wise in St. Louis. We do plan to film some cyclocross soon, though, until it gets too cold to hold onto the camera-lol.

For you bike geeks out there, check out some of the approximately 15 videos we shot at the St. Louis Gateway Cup at the end of August. This is one of the top cycling races (4 day-long event) in the midwest, featuring some of St. Louis's coolest neighborhoods (including my crib, the U. City Loop).





The ladies of Team Revolution are so cool & are truly revolutionaries. As far as I know, they are the only women's pro (also amateur) team in St. Louis. Women's cycling is not getting the attention it deserves.




More for bike geeks... the 2nd annual Tour of Missouri pro cycling race, one of the 3 top cycling races in the US.



And lastly for the beloved bike geeks out there, our buddy & CultureSurfer photographer Dan Elavsky (this guy did an internship with a Sports Illustrated photographer!), got to ride along with Team Bissell. Dan did a great job alternating between 2 still cameras & our video camera to capture the following footage from the "Dan Cam."



Can you believe I am still uploading fashion videos from the Spring? I'm rushing to get the final ones online because the next St. Louis Fashion Week starts October 6th & we'll be there filming again.



Check out these 2 videos of traditional Indian dance that we filmed at the South Asian Heritage Fair in St. Louis. In case you're wondering Meghanna, in the purple, is only 8 or 9 years old.


For Indie music lovers, we filmed a little at the 2nd annual PlaySTL Fest. Check out Otter Petter's (Love that name!) "Rest of the World."


Finally, my friend Stan Chisolm, an extremely talented artist (onlu 22!!), a student at the Chicago Art Institute and native of St. Louis, brought some art and some of the artists he knows from Chicago for this fun opening.

YouTube Break Out Artist David Sides

Watch David's videos

I hate to risk overuse of the word "phenomenon", but that's what David is. There are incredible numbers of extremely talented musicians on YouTube, but their videos aren't receiving millions of views like David's. These musicians have music videos that have been professionally produced, and they will never see such high numbers. So what is it about this guy?

David has somehow tapped into something we want, something we need. It hit me the minute I watched his video "Apologize." I almost cried. And I had the same response the second time I watched the video. David plays with incredible emotion that would be palpable to just about anyone. Apparently, millions of us need something to help us express some of the passion, sadness,longing,love that you feel when you hear him play.

It's mesmerizing to watch him play in person. Most of the time, his eyes are closed and he throws his entire essence into his playing. He is in another world. And he's only 23. And relatively untrained. He holds a degree in musicology, but he began to teach himself how to play when he was 10 & has received very little formal training.

So far, David's fame is pretty much restricted to YouTube. But I can't imagine it will remain so for much longer.

Watch David's interview & music video on CultureSurfer.com.

Super-cool, hip-hop, rock star David.


Sensitive, sweet, intense David.

St. Louis Fashion Week, Spring 2008

St. Louis Fashion Week videos

Here are two pics that Jeff took of me with 2 of the 10 or so designers that I interviewed. Fashion shows remind me of political campaigns from the standpoint of frenetic energy, so the still camera pretty much went by the wayside as we tried to just get the interviews filmed so we could get home and go to bed. On Thursdsay night, there were THIRTEEN designers, so the show ran from 9-1 in the morning. Jeff filmed the entire night (he deserves a medal for that) & I took notes on each and every designer during the show & then promptly forgot just about everything I had just seen.

Rochelle Rodriguez, a designer out of LA who designs very feminine, flowing dresses for women who actually have curves.
A video of Rochelle's designs and her interview are on CultureSurfer.com on the Fashion Page under PROJECT DESIGN.
Rochelle's site: http://www.rochellerodriguez.com/



LA designer Shay Wilson, creator of Kinetix Clothing (known for very cool graphic t-shirts). He's hot (used to be a model), hip (told me the term "urban" is out and "street" is in-lol),creative and WAY outside the box, very sweet, and the son of a minister (or preacher, can't remember the correct term). He is not Asian (Yes, I asked).
Shay's site: http://www.kxclothing.com/


Saint Louis Fashion Week site:
http://www.saintlouisfashionweek.com/

Buy A .tv Domain and Support the Island of Tuvalu

CultureSurfer.com is hosted by GoDaddy. I am basically happy with their service, other than having to deal with their not so user-friendly web site & having to look at Danica Patrick's photo day in and day out every time I log in to check my CultureSurfer e-mail. Their customer support boys are very nice & really do try to help.

So I called yesterday because we realized we'd better add CultureSurfer.tv to the other domains we now own to prevent squatters---sorry, I meant "domain resellers"--from snatching it and causing problems for us. But I was surprised when customer support boy rattled off the total for my purchase. I asked why it was so expensive. And he told me that Tuvalu OWNS the .tv domain. He jokingly said I could at least take solace in the fact that I was supporting a third-world country. Read on...

tv
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

.tv is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the island nation of Tuvalu. Except for reserved names like .com.tv, .net.tv, .org.tv and others, any person in the world can register a .tv domain for a fee. In 2000, Tuvalu negotiated a contract leasing its Internet domain name ".tv" for $50 million in royalties over a 12-year period.[1] (READ FURTHER ABOUT HOW THIS FELL THROUGH, SO WHO IS GETTING THE CASH NOW???) The Tuvalu government receives a quarterly payment of US$1 million for use of the top-level domain. The domain name is popular, and thus economically valuable, because it is an abbreviation of the word 'television' (other similar ccTLDs are .fm, .am, .cd, and .dj). The domain is currently operated by dotTV, a VeriSign company. The Tuvalu government owns twenty percent of the company.
For a brief period after its creation, all domain names with the letters "AOL" in sequence even with completely random characters before and/or after it were blocked from being registered to prevent misidentification with AOL.

On December 14, 2006, VeriSign announced an alliance with Demand Media, run by ex-MySpace chairman Richard Rosenblatt to market the .tv Top Level Domain Name (TLD) as the preferred web address for rich media content.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tv

Tuvalu (IPA: [t:u:'valu]), formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Samoa and Fiji...

Tuvalu is a constitutional monarchy and Commonwealth Realm, with Queen Elizabeth II recognised as Queen of Tuvalu....

Tuvalu has almost no natural resources, and its main form of income consists of foreign aid...In 1998, Tuvalu began deriving revenue from use of its area code for "900" lines and from the sale of its ".tv" Internet domain name. In 2000, Tuvalu negotiated a contract leasing its Internet domain name ".tv" for $50 million in royalties. However, the Canadian entrepreneur who negotiated the deal, Jason Chapnik, was unable to raise the $50 million in the contracted time period, and the contract eventually fell into other hands...
The island population has more than doubled since 1980 and was estimated to reach 11,810 in July 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu

Want to know more about the Tuvalu Islands? (Notice it's a .com, not a .tv. )
http://www.tuvaluislands.com/