St. Louis News Blog

You have a weekend, then a short week, and before you know it, you'll be in line outside the electronics store at 4 a.m. waiting to get flat-screen TV at deep, deeeep discount.

So please, enjoy this final weekend before holiday madness descends on all of us. Here are ten options for weekend fun for $10 or less, which is about the only thing these events have in common, besides their St. Louis location.

Looking for local music? Peep our weekend concert calendar.

Credit: Dale Chihuly

​Dale Chihuly at the Duane Reed Gallery (Opens Friday)
While nature is settling in for a long winter's nap, Dale Chihuly's glass pieces -- best known in St. Louis for being on display at the Missouri Botanical Garden are as lively as ever -- and they're within the warm confines of the Duane Reed Gallery (4729 McPherson Avenue; www.duanereedgallery.com or 314-361-4100) beginning Friday, November 20. Opening with a free public reception from 5 to 8 p.m., this exhibition of Chihuly's latest work features the stunning winter-whiteness of Palazzo Ducale Tower, a writhing, elegant form that will tower over gallerygoers, shimmering and shining all throughout the winter -- well, almost. The show remains on view Tuesday through Saturday until Saturday, January 30. Alison Sieloff has more details for your right here.

Ugh. Monday has reared its ugly head once more. And sadly, it looks to be a soaking wet week. (Again.)

Hopefully our weekend coverage will brighten your day a bit. Here's the recap.

Old School Tattoo Expo

Photo: Jason Stoff

This tattoo needs more... Cowbell! See more photos from the Old School Tattoo Expo.

​Over the weekend, Lyle Tuttle's Old School Tattoo Expo again got underway in St. Louis, and for the second year it was held at the Holiday Inn Select downtown. We have 58 photos from the tattooing bonanza. Even our photographer couldn't resist, getting his first tattoo.

Unreal has, we must admit, kind of a soft spot for Elvis movies. We like to revel in their badness. But Everything is Terrible is in a whole 'nother league. As students at Ohio University, this group of friends got in the habit of watching bad video. Really, really bad video. Like, ten times worse than Elvis movies video.

When graduation scattered them across the country, they started a blog so they could continue to share their most prized crap with one another. (Motto: "If everything is terrible, then nothing is.") Things snowballed, as they do, but instead of writing a book, the group created a movie and a stage show, which they are bringing to Antarctica (5226 Gravois Avenue) tomorrow night.

everythingisterrible.com

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This morning, Unreal called up Commander Gilgamesh, one of the group's original members, currently based in Chicago, to find out more.

Unreal: So what can we poor, unsuspecting St. Louisans expect tomorrow night?

Commander Gilgamesh: We don't even know until we do it, but I can promise surprises, special guests, surprises and giant aliens with long arms and furry heads. And we definitely have the movie. That never falls apart.

Always a man of few words, the delightfully deadpan and surprisingly philosophical Steven Wright has in the last few years shied from acting to focus on his live show, his music, and his painting. Not out-there enough? The master of the absurd one-liner and quirky uncle of alt-comedy's next big transition may be to - gulp! - Los Angeles. It's been a little more than a year since the comic was last interviewed here on Daily RFT. Wright will do his stand-up act on November 14 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis

​It's been a couple years since the release of 2006 DVD When the Leaves Blow Away and 2007 CD I Still Have a Pony. Are you actively working towards a new album or a new special?

No, I'm just writing stuff. I don't have an album or a DVD I'm working on. I mean, I'm always working on material. I do have a project that's that I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in LA for in the fall. Most of my friends live here and the business is here and I need to be around my friends more, so I'm lookin' at some places to rent, kinda, for like several months. But just focusing on live stuff.

Are you thinking of officially becoming bi-coastal? Boston was always directly correlated as being Steven Wright's hometown. But are you saying this is something that might change?

Maybe for a little while, yeah. I won't leave Boston permanently, though. But I spent some time out here this past spring and I went back East for the summer and I've gotta come back in the next couple weeks. I've got something in the next three weeks.

Photo: Egan O'Keefe

See more photos here.

​Here's a slideshow of photos from The Other Woman's corset show, held on Sunday at Cheap Trx on South Grand.

"The Other Woman" is corset-maker and seamstress Dorothy Jones. Jones got her start as a theatrical patternmaker in New York. She learned how to make corsets while she was living in San Francisco. "I was always a dancer," she says, "but after I had my second child when I was 40, my belly hung out. In a fit of self-loathing, I bought a girdle, but it kept rolling down."

Since then, she has corseted burlesque dancers and circus acrobats, bridesmaids and fetishists.

Photo: Egan O'Keefe

See more photos here.

​"These are serious body modifications," she says of her corsets. "They're not the like the little Frederick's of Hollywood things. People are intimidated. They think it's going to hurt. They think it's going to be creepy."

You could go out this weekend and spend a wad of cash drinking like a sailor. Or, you might find yourself online or at the mall, and end up charging a ridiculous-looking thermal coat to your Visa.

But why put yourself in the poorhouse (or the poky) when all the following events are just $10 or less?

P.S. We've got plenty of music choices this weekend, too.

Image Via

See Bob Run premieres Friday.

​See Bob Run at the ArtSpace at Crestwood Court (Opens Friday)
See Bob Run, a one-woman show by Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor, is a darkly weird combination of unreliable narrator and undeniable horror. Soundstage Productions presents this psychological drama at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday (November 6 through 8) at the Marble Stage Theater in the ArtSpace at Crestwood Court (Watson and Sappington roads, Crestwood.) Tickets are $10. Paul Friswold has more details about See Bob Run here.

​The Missouri Arts Council yesterday announced its 2010 arts award winners.

The only St. Louis organization and/or artist to make this year's list was Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

The full list of winners by category:
Arts Education: Dr. Robert Gifford, Cape Girardeau
Arts Organization: Opera Theatre of St. Louis, St. Louis
Creative Community: The City of Lee's Summit, Lee's Summit
Individual Artist: Jim Leedy, Lake Lotawana
Leadership in the Arts: Marie Nau Hunter, Columbia
Philanthropy: Joseph L. Gray, St. Joseph

The awards will officially be presented in a ceremony at 2 p.m. on February 10, 2010 at the Capitol Rotunda in Jefferson City.
 

www.screendaily.com

​ The first local press screening of the Jason Reitman/George Clooney film Up In the Air -- perhaps the most eagerly anticipated movie in St. Louis since that flick about the World's Fair -- happened this morning at the Tivoli in the Delmar Loop.

While we've been asked by the PR company to withhold any reviews or features until the theatrical release in December, it can't hurt to share a few first impressions with you, loyal Daily RFT readers.

And for anyone lucky (or sneaky) enough to snag tickets to the sold-out screening on November 14 at the St. Louis International Film Festival, here's a little taste of what you can expect.

​The Eero Saarinen exhibit "Shaping the Future" on display earlier this year at Wash. U's Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum is now headed to New York.

While St. Louisan like to lay claim to Saarinen for his design of the iconic Gateway Arch, New Yorkers also consider the Finnish architect their own for his creation of the swirling TWA terminal (image below) at JFK Airport.

If you missed the Saarinen exhibit in St. Louis and plan to be in the Big Apple this fall and/or winter, make it a point to check out the exhibit. It runs November 10 through January 31 at the Museum of the City of New York.
  

www.cocastl.org

Stephanie Riven

​The Arts and Education Council yesterday announced the recipients of its annual arts awards. 

Good morning, St. Louis! Here's a recap of our weekend coverage: two concert reviews for your reading pleasure and a slide show of the models at Saint Louis Fashion Week.

Photo: Jon Gitchoff

Lucinda Williams did her roots rock thing on Saturday night at the Pageant. See more photos from Saturday night's show.

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Here's your guide to having fun this weekend on a budget. Looking for live music? Check out our weekend concert calendar.

Where the Wild Things Are opens Friday. Read J. Hoberman's review.

​Where the Wild Things Are at various theaters (Friday)
While J. Hoberman questioned some of director Spike Jonze's methods in this adaptation of the 400-word children's classic, the buzz about this film is inarguable. It opens Friday at various theaters here and across the country. Read Hoberman's full review before you go see Wild Things.

Paint by Numbers at Mad Art Gallery (Friday)
The Saint Louis City Open Studio & Gallery (314-865-0060 or www.scosag.org) hosts a fundraising event where everyone who wants to be an artist is an artist if only just for the night. Paint by Numbers is held at the Mad Art Gallery (2727 South 12th Street) -- it sounds artsy already! -- and throughout the evening attendees get to take up brushes and contribute colors to the largest paint-by-numbers mural in the state. $3-$5. Alison Sieloff has more details here.

An e-mail arrived in my inbox late yesterday from Tsila Schwartz, whose husband Howard Schwartz is a fixture in the graduate writing program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

​A little while back former RFT writer Wm. Stage dropped off a copy of his new "memoirish" book, Fool for Life. Like so many other things that land on my desk, it soon established residency -- which is to say that it, and the nice note Stage attached to it, were quickly obscured by many of those aforementioned so many other things.

Cinema St. Louis on Wednesday announced the line-up for the St. Louis International Film Festival (tickets go on sale today), and lo and behold, one of the featured films tells a tall tale about a legendary albino farm out near Springfield.

www.cinemastlouis.org

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Yes, an albino farm. The property on the outskirts of Springfield, a.k.a. the Springlawn Farm, was cultivated in the late nineteenth century by a prominent farming family whose admirable animal husbandry drew visitors from far and away. As generations passed, the property apparently deteriorated.

Legends have it that the property either a) ended up in the hands of two old sisters who were looked after by a crazy albino caretaker or b) ended up inhabited by an all-albino family. Legend also has it that whacked-out medical experiments on albinos were conducted in an underground "hospital" at the house.

Awesome, right?

Good morning, St. Louis! What a weekend. Los Angeles absolutely owned both our Blues and Cardinals on Saturday night, and the Rams were easily defeated (again) on Sunday. But there were plenty of opportunities to get one's mind off the sports losses this past weekend. Here's a recap of our coverage of the weekend's winners.

They Might Be Giants at the Pageant

Photo: Jon Gitchoff

John Linnell and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants on Friday night at the Pageant. The group played its entire 1990 album, Flood. See more photos here

​Fans of long-running indie band They Might Be Giants (remember their set at Mardi Gras 2008?) flocked to the Pageant on Friday to hear the band cover their 1990 record, Flood, in its entirety. We have a full review and set list as well as a slide show of photos from the show.

Some weekends there are more options than others when it comes to finding something fun to do on a budget. This is one of 'em.

Soulard Oktoberfest (Friday-Sunday)

Look at the size of those mugs! Soulard Oktoberfest runs through Sunday and costs $5 admission.

​Despite controversy over the amount of littering, noise, and public urination -- one festival will remain in Soulard for at least another year. (No, we're not talking about Mardi Gras.) Soulard Oktoberfest gets going this this weekend in Soulard's Farmers' Market. This year they're charging a cover for the party ($5), but it's still a hell'uva a lot of fun for little cost. Alison Sieloff has all the details here. Check out photos from last year.

The results are in and Dance St. Louis has taken home the 2009 Mid-America Emmy Award for best commercial campaign.

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The performing arts company won the honor for its advertisements juxtaposing dancers with St. Louis professional athletes the likes of Rick Ankiel, Erik Johnson and Chris Draft.

Check out all the advertisements here, or continue on to see why Blues defenseman Erik Johnson might want to invest in an acting lesson or two.

They were Orange, and they were golden.

​Wonder of the World, the final show of the Orange Girls' 2009 season, wraps up this weekend. It may also be the final show the Orange Girls ever produce. Still, while reviewers are calling the production the company's "swan song," founders Brooke Edwards, Michelle Hand and Meghan Maguire prefer the term "hiatus" to describe what they view as an open-ended work stoppage.

And no, it's not because of financial trouble or an inability to work together. The hiatus is due to something that has never before intruded upon an Orange Girls venture: Real life.

A still for Up in the Air features Goerge Clooney at Lambert Field.

​[Editor's note: As many RFT readers know, for many years Randall Roberts was a fixture at this paper, first as a freelancer, later as music editor and then as a staff writer, before he packed up his quill pen and ink bottle and hied to the left coast, where he now music-edits our sister paper LA Weekly.

Well, you can take the boy out of St. Louis, but you can't take St. Louis out of the boy. So it was that Randy found himself at a screening of Up in the Air earlier this week, and just had to check in with us folks back home...]

It all makes a transplanted Angeleno a little homesick. Tuesday night at International Creative Management's screening room in Century City, director Jason Reitman introduced his new film, Up in the Air, to a small group of interested parties. Much of the film, which stars George Clooney, was shot in St. Louis, even scenes that purport to be Chicago and northern Wisconsin -- even though the movie's story only lands in St. Louis for maybe ten minutes.

​Highlights, without giving any plot points away?

​After 61 years on the airwaves, a last-ditch effort to save Classic 99.1 (KFUO-FM) was all for naught. Yesterday the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod announced the sale of the classical music station to Christian music broadcaster Joy FM.

The church owns the rights to KFUO and began quietly negotiating the sale of the station earlier this year to Joy FM.

A group of donors to the listener-supported KFUO attempted their own effort to purchase the station and keep classical music on the St. Louis radio dial, but the group couldn't come up with as much money as offered by Joy FM.

One of the reasons for that could be that the church refused to provide the donor group a copy of the term sheet for the 100,000 watt station.

Brendan Ryan reacts to news that he's a finalist.

​The St. Louis-based American Mustache Institute has just released the finalists for its annual Robert Goulet Memorial Award, honoring the man (or woman) who's done the most this year to promote and uphold the mustache as a lifestyle/fashion statement.

Among the eighteen nominees are Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Airways pilot Sully Sullenberger and this mayor from Murray City, Utah.

Other nominees are Bill Geist, Landry Jones, J-Stache, Holcombe Twins, Whitney Matheson, Clay Zavada, John Chattman, Tom Noyes, Robert Mohr, Terry Walthall, John Yeutter, Michael Allen, David Axelrod and U.S. Army officers Meetze, Kerekes, Mayer, Daoust.

Voting for the competition (cast yours here) ends October 20, with the winner announced at this year's 'Stache Bash featuring mustachioed rock 'n souler John Oates.

You could say it was the Best week of 2009, and there's plenty to do this weekend for less than $10. Here it is, your affordable weekend preview. Looking for concerts this weekend? There's plenty of them posted in our weekend concert calendar.

​Muny Show 4.0 at Star Clipper (Friday)
If you're itching to release your inner kindergartener's creative spirit, might I suggest the Munny doll -- the mini vinyl doll from kidrobot is a blank slate that can be drawn on, painted, molded and sculpted. For some major inspiration on how to get started, head to Star Clipper for the St. Louis Munny Show 4.0. Munny Show 4.0 opens with a free public reception at 7 p.m. at Star Clipper (6392 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-725-9110 or www.starclipper.com.) More details here! - Courtney Schilling

Dark Horse Comics

​Matt Kindt, the RFT's Best Local Comic Book Artist of 2008, has just published 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man, his first graphic novel since 2007's sublimely brilliant Super Spy. To celebrate, Subterranean Books in the Delmar Loop is hosting a book release party from 7 to 10 pm tonight.

The store will display every page of the book on its walls, gallery-style, and, of course, sell copies of the book, both the conventionally-sized hardcover edition of 3 Story and six-panel mini-comics concerning the Giant Man, which come rolled up in stainless steel capsules small enough for swallowing, if you consider yourself a super spy and are into that sort of thing.

3 Story is -- guess what? -- three stories about Craig Pressgang, the eponymous giant man and CIA spook, told by three women who love him. Early reviewers consider it a worthy successor to Super Spy. Click here for a preview.

Photo by Nicholas Phillips

Walter Bargen, Missouri's first Poet Laureate

​In January 2008, Walter Bargen of Ashland, Missouri was tapped to be the state's first Poet Laureate. With his term winding down, he recently took a moment to discuss the experience with the Daily RFT.     

Daily RFT: Your two-year tenure is almost up. What's it been like?

Walter Bargen: I'm surprised at all the interest, and it hasn't really let up the way I thought it would. It's a little stressful and exhausting.

How so? What does the state expect from its official bard?

I've been really fortunate [in that] I've been left to my own devices. The position has been a work in progress in a lot of ways. Originally, there were certain minimum requirements. It was six public appearances a year, then write a poem for the state of Missouri. But they backed off of [the poem requirement]. They were concerned about writer's block, and they didn't want to encourage doggerel.
 
But I think in the first month I satisfied the requirement of six public appearances. This September and October, I'm probably averaging 10 events a month.  By the time I'm done, I will have made easily over 100 appearances, and dozens of interviews.

Is it a paid position?

​Author Salman Rushdie is to become the 42nd recipient on the Saint Louis University Literary Award at a book signing and reception next month.

Rushdie, is the best-selling author of ten novels including Midnight's Children (Booker Prize, 1981), The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet and three non-fiction works. Though he is perhaps best known for the Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini calling for Rushdie's death following the publication of his novel Satanic Verses in the late 1980s. (And for being briefly married to our favorite Hardee's pitchwoman Padma Lakshmi.)

Rushdie will receive the 2009 Saint Louis Literary Award on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 5:30 pm in the Wool Auditorium in SLU's Busch Student Center, 20 N. Grand. Blvd. The program is free and open to the public.

A reception and dinner will be held at 7:00 pm in the Coronado Ballroom, 3701 Lindell Blvd. Reservations are required for the dinner.

More details after the jump.

At the current rate, the co-owners of Cranky Yellow, an art gallery/concert venue/clothing shop on Cherokee Street, will become the Mark Zuckerbergs of the art world.

Donald Bryant

​True story. I used to work for a St. Louis publication that each year came out with a supplement profiling the "Wealthiest St. Louisans." 

Mike Birbiglia will do his stand-up act at 8 p.m. Thursday, September 24 at the Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard. Tickets are $27.50. For more information, call The Pageant at 314-726-6161.

​Storytelling stand-up Mike Birbiglia's got a tale from every town: "St. Louis is very special; it's where I met my wife. Fellow comic Greg Warren, who lives in St. Louis, was doing a gig for the college wrestling championship, performing for all the coaches. My wife at the time worked for a sports TV network that was covering it. I was hanging around with him and he introduced me to Jenny at this hotel he was staying at, and I was like, "You have to convince her to come out." We were there for St. Patrick's Day, so to come out drinking for St. Patrick's day. He did, so much so that when she came out, she thought she was on a date with him. He kept kind of disappearing, and eventually she realized she was on a date with me. And then last year we got married at City Hall." Fresh from his extended off-Broadway debut and heading out on a nationwide comedy tour, the Letterman and Bob & Tom fave is ready to both look ahead and leave no embarrassing memory untold.

The last time I interviewed you was a year ago, after your one-man Sleepwalk With Me shows at the Montreal Comedy Festival. It's been a big, creatively fulfilling year for you, I imagine.

Yeah, it's been a wild year! There's been much going on.

Your run of Sleepwalk With Me finished up two months ago. What are your feelings now that it's done?

I have very fond -- I don't know if I've ever used the word "fond" for anything -- but it has really opened me up emotionally. I'm using words like "fond." So I have fond feelings about it. I went into this territory that I was afraid of and intimidated by, which is New York theater, and I came out feeling really happy. So I'm thrilled about that. And I'm working on a book right now for Simon and Schuster called Sleepwalk with Me and Other Stories. I'm working on a screenplay adaptation of Sleepwalk with Me. If anything I'm overwhelmed by getting ready for the tour, writing these things. But I feel very good about it.

Love this headline in today's Post-Dispatch: "Trucks carrying giant arms, legs head through St. Louis."

www.sewardjohnson.com

J. Seward Johnson works in bronze.

The header refers to a very large sculpture that's, uh, headed -- via two flat-bed trucks -- to Chesterfield today.

"The Awakening," by the American sculptor J. Seward Johnson, will be installed in the 'burb with help from Chesterfield Arts, according to the AP story.

"This story is worthless without photos," notes commenter "Lord Dreadlow."

Um, yeah.

But Daily RFT found one. And by the way, it's giant arms, legs and a head that commuters may see coming through the region today...