52nd City

Saturday Mix

Mix? A different option than the ACC's "Stew," but is it better? We continue to fool with the concept, yes. But so many odds/ends to report that we've got to sum 'em up in a neat, little compendium. Here we go.

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Perhaps it's a matter of not reading the right blogs, but I hadn't seen anything on this around town: Lucas Hudson is the new editor of the Vital Voice. Ran into the former ACC editor last night and he confirmed the news, which coincides with the publication's retooling of editorial content in early 2008.

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Ordinarily, the Observable Readings are held the first Thursday of the month at the Schlafly Bottleworks, but in January, they're staggered by a week. Here's the announcement of the next event, compliments of series curator Aaron Belz:

Thursday, January 10, 8-10 PM
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Observable Readings Presents
Poets Dana Goodyear and Aliki Barnstone

Dana Goodyear is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Honey and Junk (Norton, 2005), of which Publishers Weekly writes: “All the poems are short and well-calibrated … her poems perfectly reproduce the claustrophobic atmosphere of love among the ruins of plenty." Goodyear, a native St. Louisan, now lives in Los Angeles.

Aliki Barnstone's most recent books are The Collected Poems of C.P. Cavafy: A New Translation (W.W. Norton, 2006), Blue Earth (Iris Press, 2004), Wild With It (Sheep Meadow Press 2002), and Changing Rapture: Emily Dickinson's Poetic Development (University Press of New England, 2007). A new book of poems, Pique, is forthcoming with Sheep Meadow. She is Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Now in its fifth season, Observable Readings was recently named BEST READING SERIES 2007 by the Riverfront Times. It is supported by grants from Missouri Arts Council and Regional Arts Commission.

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This might be the longest link I've ever come across, but it'll yield interesting results. Reader Patrick Landewe's, expat and lighthouse keeper, was kind enough to send along word of a site that allows you to zoom in-and-out of an 1875 map of St. Louis, by neighborhood. Interesting stuff:

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/addItemLink.pl?tourl=/gmd/gmd416m/g4164m/g4164sm/gpm00001/gpm00001.html&style=gmd&itemLink=r?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g4164sm+gpm00001))