st. charles – Some call it the greatest show on dirt. Actually, at the time when the Battlegrounds Mud Run Obsticle Course is held in May, some of it is engineered to be the messiest 5 miles around. So why are we telling you this four months in advance? It’s time to make that New Year’s resolution to morph from that fantasy figure into a dream come true. So, this is what’s up, you bunch of slugs! Oh, my, do drill sergeants make you cringe? Sorry. Well how about … you lethargic layabouts! Formal training for the May 21 runs (of 5K and 5 miles) starts at KoR Komplex, an indoor facility in St. Charles, on March 12 and 19. You might opt to stick it out for the next several weeks leading up to May. But you have to be somewhat impervious, or at least a fan of boot camp, and be willing to part with $25 for each session or $150 for eight weeks. Learn to face the real world, which includes clambering uphill on a rope grid laid out on dirt … or mud, as the case may be. The competition will be held at the Battlegrounds out in Wright City, which sounds like great fun for few but the most extreme athletes, so if you imagine yourself as a candidate for the U.S. Navy SEALs, this should be nothing more than a mud pie. There are as many as 30 military-style obstacles over each course. Expect to get your hands, and most every other part of your body, dirty. Muddy, that is. Ewww! I mean, kewl!
st. louis city – Just like being Catholic is a minor consideration for a person participating in Mardi Gras foolishness in these parts, pets participating in the Soulard parade of costumed animals don’t necessarily need to be of the dog denomination. But one participating pooch from a previous year was adorned in little more than a placard that read: ‘I love cats. They taste like chicken.’ So let that be a warning to anyone thinking of parading a feline through the StL’s own French Quarter on Jan. 31, although maybe one in a million cats wouldn’t seem to mind. (Yes, I am a dog owner trying to socialize The Dude with Edna, my fiancee’s cat.) The event is sponsored by Purina’s brand of pet treats, Beggin’ Strips, which taste like … oh, doggone it … I don’t know and my dog won’t tell me, although I did try a Milk-Bone when I was a kid (about 60 years ago, that is. Couldn’t tell you whether I swallowed it or spit it out). There’ve been estimates of 80,000 people participating, and something like 8,000 pets. Pot-bellied pigs have walked in previous parades, so one owner had to get the Scarlett and Rhett costumes dry-cleaned prior to putting them on his pair of porkers. The parades have netted nearly 20 grand for the Open Door Animal Sanctuary, a no-kill shelter in House Springs, Mo., and are the worthy organization’s biggest yearly fundraiser. Let’s hope, for humans’ sake, that this year’s parade (the 23rd annual) falls on a day that is unseasonably warm, not cold enough to freeze the jingle bells off a reindeer. The parade starts at 1 p.m., and on-site registration opens at 10 a.m. at 12th Avenue and Allen St. Got a dachshund? Enter yours in the Wiener Dog Derby! Anyhow, after a route of a few blocks this way then that, the parade proper winds up at Eighth and Lafayette. Tell your participant that he or she will need to make two lefts and a right. Woof. Music and other folderol are slated for 2 p.m., and there are lots of spots for people to grab a bite or drink. Plus, plenty of places for dogs to sniff or whatever.
sunset hills – Laumeier Sculpture Park, you don’t look a day over, well, 40. The unique county park, home to dozens of iconic outdoor works, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Today there is a brand-new indoor exhibition and performance space, and the park is marking its fourth decade with a ‘Where Did They Go?’ search for photos. It’s also building a collection of memories from those who are fond of the site, a sprawling former estate in Sunset Hills that features works in concrete, steel, wood and earth strategically (well, aesthetically) situated throughout the grounds. While some were intended by the artists to be ephemeral, others just didn’t weather as well as they hoped. Part of the park’s wonder and mystery derives from discovering a new artwork, or rediscovering an older one, via a walk in the woods. Or, a frolic through the fields. But conservators here face different challenges than they do at, say, Saint Louis Art Museum. Inside artworks, some hundreds of years old, degrade from light, moisture and temperature changes, no matter how carefully controlled. But at Laumeier, even art designed for the outdoors can’t be expected to last more than a few decades, unless it’s bronze. There, all the abuse Mother Nature can muster is thrown at it year-round: freezing and thawing, rust, hail, withering sunlight; maybe, eventually, tectonic shift. Concrete cracks. Wood rots. Many artworks have had to be removed due to material changes that compromised the artist’s intentions. One might remember Ursula von Rydingsvard’s elegiac, somber series of open, wooden chambers nestled in the woods and wonder why they were removed. After a site visit in May 2011, the artist agreed the artwork was deteriorating faster than she expected, and Laumeier decommissioned it at her request. This type of removal is unusual for indoor museums, but de rigueur for outdoor sculpture parks. A recent work, from 2012, was fashioned from discarded furniture and crates as well as twigs, branches and earth from nearby, and in a whimsical touch installed in one of those dumpsters you see out front of a building that’s being rehabbed. ‘High Rise’ by Oliver Bishop-Jones was commissioned for an exhibition titled Camp Out: Finding Home in an Unstable World. Naturally, birds, insects and small mammals made their homes in it. After two years, the park decommissioned it; the work itself had become unstable. It might have been quite a sight were the piece to have been set afire like a Viking ship. But that would be thinking like the rare millennial who’s neither eco- nor critter-conscious. To that demo we say 40’s not just over the hill; Laumeier’s all that and into the woods quite a ways.
university city – Those in the metro who think of U. City only for its charming, vintage neighborhoods—and the (now) 24/7 entertainment and dining district in the 
Delmar Loop—are giving it short shrift. There are universities there too, you know. But there’s also a stretch of Olive Boulevard in the northwest part of town known for its ethnic, largely pan-Asian, restaurants: Chinese (15!), Vietnamese (3), Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese. But it wouldn’t be unfair to call this part of the community Chinatown. U. City itself, in its ROARS newsletter, refers to the neighborhood as the International District. There a newspaper in Chinese, SCANews, is published for those more comfortable with their native language. And here also is where the Lunar New Year is celebrated as vigorously as is Cinco de Mayo throughout the metro. Or it has been at least since 2015: The second annual Lunar New Year Festival is slated for Feb. 19 and 20. (In a kind of preview, at least for lovers of the frosty brew, Urban Chestnut and other local breweries will host a lunar beer tasting 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 12 at the Create Space incubator, 6323 Delmar Blvd. Hey … if breweries can create a chocolate stout or pumpkin-spice lager, count on them for a suitable Lunar New Year beer. It’s at least fun to try and say five times, fast, without your tongue tangling into ‘Near Year’!) Lunar New Year festivities are sponsored by the U. City Chamber and Create Space to bring the wider metro together to celebrate the holiday’s spirit of cultural awareness and appreciation of Asian culture via food, art and performance. Many restaurants will prepare a traditional 10-course banquet on Friday, Feb. 19. At 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 20, you will see dragons in a parade along 81st St. between Brittany Woods Middle School and the Mandarin House Banquet Center (8004 Olive Blvd.) A night market (4-8 p.m.) features vendors, artisans, art activities and performances by the Washington U. Lunar New Year Dancers, as well as both the modern and traditional Chinese schools in the Lou. Speaking of Lou (well, LuLu), the evening will wind up at LuLu Seafood with a midnight moonlight ball and after-party. So, as a salute to brews, can you say Tsingtao? Have a very happy Year of the Monkey (which officially starts Feb. 8)!
Pictured: Sunset Hills
