52nd City: May 2007

Fast Times @ White Flags

Will be outta town for the opening, but I've been enjoying stopping through White Flags during their normal (albeit short) open hours on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Here's what up at WFP this weekend:

WHITE FLAG PROJECTS invites you to join us for the opening reception of our final exhibition of the season:

FAST TIMES AT WHITE FLAG PROJECTS

OPENS FROM 7-10 PM
THIS SATURDAY NIGHT JUNE 2

FEATURING:
Daniel Axe, Kevin Curry, Cameron Fuller, Trey Gossett, David Linneweh, Sarah Paulsen, and Brain Priest.

SELECTED BY:
Paul Ha, Director, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
Katrina Hallowell, Bearden Fellow, St. Louis Art Museum.
Olivia Lahs-Gonzales, Director and curator, Sheldon Galleries.
Erik Spehn, Artist.

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

WHITE FLAG PROJECTS
4568 MANCHESTER AVE
ST. LOUIS, MO 63110
www.whiteflagprojects.org

Zito's No More

Rumor has it that the former Zito’s (and current eyesore) at the corner of Columbia and Hampton may soon become Hillside Bistro and Market. The owners of Nick’s Pub have the financing and are looking into developing the location into a small restaurant that might also sell packaged wine and imported beer. They presented their plan to the Clifton Heights Neighborhood Association (CHNA) last night and it was met with overall optimism and enthusiasm—until Alderman Waterhouse informed residents of the moratorium on liquor licenses in the 24th ward. Apparently the moratorium was put in place in an effort to keep QuickTrip from moving into the space. So it seems things are somewhat up in the air and this point and we’ll all have to hang tight and write letters of support if we want to see it happen. Residents (including me) have been jonesing for a decent restaurant or coffee shop to go into that space. Other news of the area—Bartolino’s will be relocating to the new Drury Inn going in at Hampton and 44. Nice that a local restaurant is going in the space rather than a chain. No news yet on what will happen to Barolino’s old space.

Hamiett Bluiett at Ivory Perry Park

I believe it was in the winter of 2005 that I had my mind blown at Mad Art while watching Hamiett Bluiett play alto sax. I have the flyer still, but it's buried in my filing cabinet. Doesn't matter, because the sentiment is the same. I always have my eyes open for Bluiett gigs, so I was pleased as all get-out to see that he's opening the Ivory Perry Park Concert Series on June 24 (bear with me, this is a while off, but this is how excited I am about it). I know about three or four Canadians who would beat me about the head and shoulders if they knew that St. Louisians had the chance to grab a cooler and lawn chair and see this man play in the park, for free. If I knew any Europeans they would probably beat me about the head and shoulders too. The show starts at 6pm, and for those who aren't familiar with Ivory Perry Park, it's located at 800 Belt. They have some other swell concerts lined up, including a jazz interpretation of Porgy & Bess as a cap-off to a production of that show, a collaboration between Black Rep & Union Avenue Opera, in mid-summer. For all the details on the series, you can hop on over to Union Avenue Christian Church's website.

New AMP

I'll be honest here: I went to AMP in many different states of mind, with no small amount of people and I seldom had a bad time. If push came to shove, it was my... gulp, favorite bar in St. Louis, though please don't tell anyone this. Have only been to the new AMP, still at Manchester and Boyle - just on a different corner - and I've yet to make a reaonsable determination, despite the obvious "having problems with change" first impression.

Longtime FO52C (Friend of 52nd City) Rocky McCalla notes that the ol' Alternative Music Pub is celebrating its official debut in the very near future. Here's the missive:

------------

From Gritty to Pretty!

The new and improved AMP is going to be the hottest place to hang this summer.

Head down to AMP at 4200 Manchester in “The Grove” on Friday, June 1, 2007 from 5:00 PM to 3:00 AM to celebrate their GRAND OPENING at the new location! There will be fabulous flavored rum concoctions served up by Bacardi and scrumptious treats to nosh on. Don’t do rum? AMP still has a full bar and just added New Belgium draft beers: Fat Tire, Sunshine Wheat and Skinny Dip. DJ Blublood (of Velvet, Rue 13 and Creepy Crawl fame) will spin 80s favorites and then some. There will also be free give a ways!

Everyone’s favorite bar, AMP, moves across the street and gets an upgrade! Still in “The Grove”, AMP is a bright star in the Restoration St. Louis Project. The new space is bigger, brighter and better. AMP now has two bars, a game room, an expanded menu, and a secluded outdoor patio. With its modern design, hip paintings by local artists, its spankin’ new drink menu, and did we mention the private patio-- you’ll love it even more than the old space. Don’t worry--not everything has changed. AMP still plays the best alternative and underground music in Saint Louis, offers the finest drinks in the city and has the friendliest bartenders around.

Skate Battle - Who's In?

So DJ G-Wiz was kind enough to give Amanda Doyle and I invitations to the Midwest Skate Battle Championships, on Saturday, June 16 at Skate King, 2700 Kienlen, Pine Lawn. The event runs from the family-friendly time of 11 p.m. until 2 in the a.m., which says to me that a "boisterous affair" can be expected. G-Wiz and and his KDHX co-host DJ Needles will provide the soundtrack to the event, which will crown (or belt) male, female and couples champions. Though I have a previous engagement that evening, I am sorely, sorely tempted to bust up to Pine Lawn prior to close for this one.

Anyone?

Low Cost/No Cost Improv

It appears that a new improv night is kicking off at Lemmon's this week, with Bill Chott's Improv Trick students taking the lead in getting things moving. Here's some info from the Improv Trick's website:

Tuesday, May 29th at Lemmon’s (5800 Gravois Ave.) come on out for the “First Weekly Tuesday Night Improv Session” (after that it will just be called “The Tuesday Night Improv Session”). Sessions run from 7:00 until 10:00. Actors, game-facilitators, spectators, and interested parties are welcome.

Do you miss saying "Yes, and ..." in your every day life? Are you itching to shift left or perhaps shift right? Well, have I got something for you. Several members of Bill's intermediate class are attempting to put together a weekly practice of all things improvisational - short forms, long forms and of course improvised singing. Our long term goal is to perform, but right now we just need a place to practice all that we've learned and to flex our improvisation muscles.

The Legend of Bodybagman begins ... here

While at the Bottleworks last weekend, purchasing growlers, bumped into the unsinkable Tim Jordan, who makes me look like a lazy layabout. I have three or four irons in the fire - he has six or seven! And yet he always remains good-natured and bouyant. He reported that he'd just finished his first Bodybagman short. For those of you who don't know, Tim does some amazing performance art whilst encased in a body bag (he did one of these performances for one of our 52nd City Variety Shows at Bottleworks). Now, you can see Bodybag man on film. Extra kudos to Tim for topping off his press release with a bit of black humor:

"Your Type Productions LLC presents the premier of Bodybagman:The
Movie at Schlafly Bottleworks (7260 Southwest Ave, 63143 314-241-
BEER) 7pm every Monday in June. There will also be a special showing
Friday June 8th @ 7pm and 8pm. It will be shown in the Crown Room
located in the back of the restaurant. There will be no service in the
back bar, so you will have to get a drink from executive producer
Tim "Type" Jordan before you head back and witness the existential,
silent, black comedy. You will be amoung the first people in the world
to see the beginning of a cult phenomena born in St. Louis.
Bodybagman will not be able to appear at the premiers for he is in
litigation for future projects in LA, where he has fallen in love with
a necrophiliac nymphomaniac pornstar. Go figure..."

Fort Building on Cherokee

Via Barbara Cliffe... wait. I confess to originally typing a short, whimsical reflection on the Cherokee liquor ban to go along with this pass-along note, but it's too darned hot to finish it up. So, via Barbara Cliffe:

------------------------------------------------

Dear All,

On June 8th, from 6pm to 9pm, I'm going to be having an art show
called "Let's Build A Fort!" at the Beverly Gallery (3155 Cherokee
Street). It's going to be an interactive, activity-based show, with
viewers invited to participate in building forts out of sheets,
blankets, and pillows. All are encouraged to participate, as well as
bring additional bedding which will be donated to The Women's Safe
House after the exhibit closes.

The Women's Safe House is a shelter for battered women and their
dependent children; they also provide career counseling and guidance
to provide future opportunities for these women. All bedding donations
will go to The Women's Safe House. They specifically need full and
twin sheet sets, pillows, pillowcases, mattress covers, and crib
bedding.

Please feel free to invite your friends and families. Also, send this
invite along to anyone you think may be interested, the more the
merrier. It's going to be a very fun night for a great cause, and the
absolute nicest way to get rid of those extra sheets you never use
anymore.

-Barbara
For more information, you may contact me via email.
barbaracliffe @ gmail.com

Pods

Pods
Originally uploaded by AkitaSan.

Paging: ED BOXX, paging ED BOXX

Eagle-eyed local architecture watchers Claire Nowak-Boyd and Michael Allen flagged me down on Manchester this afternoon, our vehicles next to one another in Forest Park Southeast. Curbside, we chatted about a local graf writer who's come to our attention in a major way recently. Ed Boxx has been tagging a host of buildings on both sides of the Mississippi, with recent pieces going up in the 14th Street Mall, in the windows of a warehouse north of Laclede's Landing, on bridge underpasses on Route 3 in East St. Louis, on the top of the looming Spivey Building of the same city and, now, on the Roberts Orpheum Theatre, with his paints topping the terra cotta of that old structure.

We'd like to put the word out that the three of us would like to sit down and chat with the prolific Ed Boxx at the earliest opportunity. Allen noted that some of the work indicates a pretty sharp "cultural observer," so we'd assume that the grapevine might get word to him, esp. with some electronic requests. If Ed Boxx would meet with us, the first round is on us.

Drop a line, Ed Boxx, to: thomas at 52ndcity.com. Grazie.

Midnight Company: Shows & Wire Interview

Just returned from KDHX, where our guest this evening was Joe Hanrahan, a founder of the Midnight Company and writer of two short plays that will be produced in coming weeks. If you didn't have a chance to catch the show, these twin productions might be of interest to you, with a central City venue, affordable ticket prices and provocative themes.

Check the website hotlinked above, or listen to the interview here.

Byron Kerman on Apop

I'd been kicking around the idea of writing up a blip on Apop Records, only to find an e-mail this morning from Byron Kerman, which summed up pretty much everything I'd have to say about this wunnerful place. Here's Byron's e-mail:

---------------------------------------

Hey, I have a new favorite store in St. Louis, and I want to encourage y'all to check it out. It is called APOP RECORDS and as soon as I walked in I knew it was the sort of headquarters for all things cult that makes me drool. They have:

-obscure vinyl, CDs & cassettes--in fact, they have a lot of cassettes
-obscure VHS & DVD, especially horror
-'zines! Yes, despite the apparent superiority of the internet, 'zines are still alive & well--'zines on grindhouse movies, art, personal journals, angry youth, punk rock and so on
-bigger-budget magazines, also on fringe topics
-obscure books, including plenty on mind control, drugs, anarchy, crime,
Loompanics how-to titles on not necessarily legal subjects and all manner of
fringe stuff

In short, this is St. Louis' new clearinghouse for weirdness, specializing in a lot of stuff you would otherwise have to mail-order to get, at best.

Similar stores might include Quimby's in Chicago and the late Amok bookstore in L.A., if you're familiar--I love(d) those stores, too.

(And I sure do miss punk record/magazine store Tensionhead, also on Cherokee, which closed not so long ago, along with the late, lamented Whiz Bam Video, Twentieth Century Ephemera, All-Around Collectibles, Decades of Toys, Bijou Video, Comics Universe, Silver Screen poster shop and many other great shops in the area that are no longer.)

APOP is at: 2831 Cherokee between Grand & Jefferson

their web site:
http://www.apoprecords.com

Give them some of your cash so they will stick around for a long time.

And yes, if you are getting this e-mail because we're on the same list, I
realize it belongs in the "shameless commerce" division, and I'm sorry, but
too many wonderful stores such as those listed above closed too soon. Make a
special trip to this place, even if you live nowhere near it, and you'll see what I mean. People who love oddball culture need to know about this store.

Have fun,

-byron k.

Free Candy on Sunday, as in, Tomorrow

I just enjoyed a large sandwich and larger bit of malt with the co-host of Free Candy, Amanda Doyle. She and Tom Weber will be on the scene tomorrow, with the latest Free Candy, including visits from Paul Ha of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Patrick Horine of the Tower Grove Farmer's Market, Frontyard Features' Martin Casas and musical guest Bill Michalski.

This might be your first opportunity to step into Hartford Coffee Company, the FC venue, since the sale of the space last week. See why all of South City is a'twitter, or just enjoy the show, free of angst. Your call. All the same, see you there.

Goodbye to Kansas City

Our supporters at White Flag Projects note the departure of the most-recent exhibit, Truck, which is closing at WFP tomorrow. I needs to get me down to Manchester and Kingshighway. Perhaps you do, as well.

Details as follows:

LAST DAY FOR TRUCK: A KC/STL EXCHANGE EXHIBITION
SATURDAY MAY 19, 12-5 PM

WHITE FLAG PROJECTS
4568 MANCHESTER AVE. (JUST EAST OF KINGSHIGHWAY)

With the goal of opening an improved dialogue between the visual arts communities in Kansas City and St. Louis, White Flag Projects and Kansas City's Urban Culture Project are cooperating to organize TRUCK: A Kansas City/St. Louis Exchange Exhibition, a pair of exhibitions to be mounted in Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri. The artists chosen to represent each city in the other were arrived at through gallery visits, studio visits, and an open call to artists. The artists from St. Louis to be exhibited in Kansas City were selected by new media artist and Urban Culture Project Curatorial Advisory Boardmember Barry Anderson. The artists from Kansas City to be exhibited in St. Louis were selected by White Flag Projects Director Matthew Strauss. The exhibition of Kansas City artists in St. Louis will open April 14 at White Flag Projects, and the exhibition of St. Louis artists in Kansas City will open the following Friday, April 20 at Urban Culture Project's brand new 2500 square foot La Esquina exhibition space.

The artists selected to represent St. Louis are: Brandon Anschultz (painting), Sarah Colby & Kim Humphries (installation/ sculpture) , Cameron Fuller (installation), Jamie Kreher (photographs) , Ron Leax (sculpture), Megan & Murray McMillan (video), Daniel Raedeke (sculpture), Ernest Trova (prints/collage) and Ann Yeager (painting).

The artists selected to represent Kansas City are: Callyann Casteel (sculpture), Archie Scott Gobber (sculpture), Anne Pearce (watercolors) , DeAnna Skedel (sculpture/installa tion), Jesse Small (sculpture), Sean Ward (painting), and James Woodfill (sculpture/installa tion).

Dead bars: Jam City

Dead bars: Jam City
Originally uploaded by AkitaSan.

"Slinger" at Boots

Okay, the one St. Louis culinary phenomenon I've not tried yet is the slinger. The first time I passed through town, I visited Irv's Good Foods, which is no longer around (it is now extra parking space for the Botanical Garden). While I found Irv's charming, because the waitress was named Ernie and the short-order cook was Bert, and it was as old school as you could get, it probably wasn't the place to be when first laying eyes on a slinger. If I remember correctly, it was called "Nightmare in Chili" or something like that. Not that Utah has high culinary standards - there are restaurants out there that serve fried Spam sandwiches for cryin' out loud, and our verson of T-Ravs is green Jell-o - but I was a bit taken aback when a customer ordered one. It was like someone had cleaned out a garbage disposal and thrown it on a plate. Since then, I have realized that this was not the high water mark for this particular dish, but I've still had some trouble getting over my initial horror. It has been my mission to love everything about St. Louis, and I have only been able to love the Slinger in theory, not in practice.

But, it's with some delight that I read this press release from Boots, down on Cherokee; they're having a Slinger-themed art show focusing on St. Louis art and St. Louis artists. I guess the brain sandwich isn't as ubiquitous as it used to be, so that won't function as metaphor anymore ... it's gotta be the Slinger.

Details:

boots contemporary art space presents

Slinger

The Slinger as a cultural metaphor.

In this exhibition Boots attempts to explore, analyze,and question what
it means to be an artist, critic, and/or curator living and working in
St. Louis. Is there a St. Louis aesthetic?What are the issues our
artists are dealing with? What mediums are conveying our themes and
ideas? Is there a collective movement, or are we a group of individuals?

Featuring work by:
Brandon Anschultz, Robin Assner, Sarah Colby, Andrea
Green, Ryan Hess, Jamie Kreher, Jason Wednesday Miller
Pranschke, Bryan Reckamp, Tim Ridlen, Mike Schuh
stripper:pilot, Matthew Strauss, Brett Williams &
Paul Zografakis

Opening reception: featuring DJ Cobra Commander
Saturday, May 19th, 2007
6:30 - 10pm

On view Saturdays 10-5 and Sundays 12-5 until June 23.

Boots Contemporary Art Space www.bootsart.com
2307 Cherokee St., 314.772.BOOT

Barack Obama and the Man Who Carves Cranes

Compliments of frequent 52nd City contributor Chris King and his myspace page:

Barack Obama and The Man Who Carves Canes

By Chris King

When I climbed into Frank DiPiazza's vehicle, really cool music was spinning out of his stereo. Warbly pulses of melody played on the musical saw. Frank is cool, I thought. Not for the first time.

"Have you heard this, the 52nd City CD?" Frank asked. "'Sound'?"

Of course, I had heard "Sound." It's a homegrown, St. Louis thing. Good friends of mine run the operation at 52nd City. I had produced a track on the CD and received a contributor's copy of it. It's an ambitious journey in sound that goes everywhere, sometimes within a single track, and for some reason this musical saw piece – Track 11 on the CD, a collaboration between Derrick Mosley and Eric Hall situated deep within a suite of collaborations by Eric and friends – wasn't yet printed on my memory. But it certainly was an evocative and haunting piece of music. St. Louis is cool, I thought. Not for the first time.

"I've got a song on the CD," Frank said, jumping ahead to his track, "A Simple Song." Though it is an aching solo acoustic track, just Frank strumming a guitar and singing, he used a band name, Cold War, for the artist credit.

"That's funny," I said. "I started to write a review of this CD, just to send to my friends, one of my fake praise releases, but it was too self-absorbed. It's like I know every single person on this record, and that's all I could write about, how I know all these talented people and how lucky I am to know them. Before I gave up on finishing the piece, I actually wrote that there were probably even more friends on the CD, lurking under band names I didn't recognize. And there you are!"

Frank's song is raw and powerful. I asked him to turn it up.

I had known Frank since he was a very young man, an impetuous kid from New York who fronted a band called The Imps that my old friend and colleague Adam Long had produced. Adam has keen, picky ears and no taste whatsoever for rock music, but the year he produced The Imps he ran around giving a copy of their record to everybody he knew, he was so excited by it. I still have the record in my collection, and once in a blue moon I pull it out and still enjoy listening to it. It's one of those local records which, given the right push, shown the right outside interest, taken on the road for the right unexpected industry hand-off, maybe could have done something. Oh, well.

Now Frank was, among other things, a photojournalist, which explained what I was doing in his vehicle today. He had drawn the assignment to shoot pictures of a guy I had profiled for St. Louis Magazine. The subject of my story, David Goodwin, apparently had switched cell phones, leaving no forwarding phone number, so we were driving to his house in the States Streets neighborhood down by the river, hoping to catch him at home.

"So, how is the movie going?" Frank asked me, to keep the conversation rolling as we drove down to the river.

I explained that the movie, actually, was why I knew David Goodwin existed and that he carved these meticulous canes. The guy who had set out to shoot "Blind Cat Black" with me, who goes by the artist name Chizmo, dropped in on David one day when we were in his neighborhood scouting locations for the movie. David is the father of Chizmo's girlfriend. He lives in a spooky 18th century stone house on far south Minnesota, which we seized upon as the location for the hotel where our hero, played by Toyy Davis, turns a trick with The Dirty Old Man, played by Don Erickson. While we were shooting that scene at David's house, I saw all these hand-carved canes lying around. Given that he also needed a cane to walk, I figured there was a story in him. I was right. Now he magazine needed a picture to go with that story.

David was, in fact, home, though not for long. He had sold the old stone house nd was packing up to move away. But, today, he was still there and his canes were still there, and Frank set about photographing the carver and his canes in a way that would look evocative in a full-color mainstream magazine.

Frank first thought to use a battered and dirty U.S. flag as a backdrop for the hot, until I suggested it might offend some readers, since the flag had not been properly maintained, and some people get touchy about that. It was fitting that e had focussed on the flag for a minute, though. As Frank and David moved outside onto a balcony, to take advantage of the natural light and a neighbor's gritty brick wall, I went down to Frank's vehicle to sit in the quiet and wait for a call from a man who is running for president of the United States.

"Did Barack call yet?" Frank asked, when he returned to the vehicle after wrapping up the shoot.

"No," I said. "His press agent called to say he's running late."

I really was waiting for a call from Barack Obama. When I can, I do quirky features for St. Louis Magazine, to earn some spending money and to write about the interesting non-black people I know. I earn my living editing an African-American newspaper, The St. Louis American, and Congressman Wm. Lacy Clay's people had patched me together with Obama for an exclusive interview to preview his appearance in St. Louis the following day. I had been surprised to learn from Obama's press secretary that I was the senator's only St. Louis interview today, which in the competitive news business could be considered a big deal. It meant, for one day, at least, we would be ahead of the daily paper, the big radio stations and the local network news stations.

Obama finally did call, and he gave me ten minutes which I used to ask all of the questions you would expect from a black newspaper in St. Louis reporting on a black senator from Illinois running for U.S. president and coming to St. Louis to raise funds. His responses, also, were what you would expect if you know anything about the guy and his platform. I liked his answers enough that I found myself volunteering the information that he had earned my vote. Universal health care, early childhood education, energy efficiency and alternate fuels, a serious approach to climate change and let's get out of Iraq? Obama is cool, I thought. Not for the first time. Where do I sign up?

Frank pulled over and parked near our newspaper offices, so I could finish the interview before getting out of his vehicle. I had asked if Frank would take pictures of me on the phone with Obama, and indeed as the candidate talked about health disparities and the academic achievement gap, Frank was a flurry of activity, running around and shooting from all sides an unremarkable-looking person hunched around a cell phone, scribbling cryptic notes on a pad of paper, with "Sound" by 52nd City faintly playing along as the soundtrack.

Hobo Film at Hobo Bar

The Royale, a saloon known to attract a rotating cast of colorfully-named grifters and wandering train-hoppers is home to an event that clearly fits in with its itinerant, beareded clientele. "Who is Bozo Texino?" by Bill Daniel plays the patio of the venue on Wednesday, May 16.

Here's some info from the film's site:

Who is Bozo Texino?
by Bill Daniel
56 min. black and white, experimental/documentary

Who is Bozo Texino? chronicles the search for the source of a ubiquitous and mythic rail graffiti-- a simple sketch of a character with an infinity-shaped hat and the scrawled moniker, "Bozo Texino"-- a drawing seen on railcars for over 80 years. Daniel's gritty black and white film uncovers a secret society and it's underground universe of hobo and railworker graffiti, and includes interviews with legendary boxcar artists, Coaltrain, Herby, Colossus of Roads, and The Rambler. Shooting over a 16-year period, Daniel rode freights across the West carrying a Super-8 sound camera and a 16mm Bolex. During his quest he discovered the roots of a folkloric tradition that has gone mostly unnoticed for a century. Taking inspiration from Beat artists Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac, the film functions as both a sub-cultural documentary and a stylized fable on wanderlust and outsider identity.

Matt Fernandes' Blog Machine

My goodness. I've spent virtually the entire semester in one of my Webster U. classes dissecting the new media directions of the Post-Dispatch, and I've someone missed that Matt Fernandes has been blogging away on a pair of new endeavors, including one of particular interest. Thankfully, I ran into him at a South Kingshighway nightspot over the weekend and he was a good enough enough to tell me about Rock Candy, his new local music blog. There's also a Presidential Buzz blog, but I've got some time before that gets serious. Rock'n'roll news, I need to know now.

Will be reading.

SPJ Statement on U. News; Action Planned

In what's becoming a fascinating story to watch from the outside-looking-in, the St. Louis Society of Professional Journalists has weighed in with another statement on the Saint Louis University (near-)decision to change the charter of its student newspaper. An action is planned at SLU tomorrow morning around this topic, which is garnering considerable online and print media play in town.

Having read some comments in the comments sections of various blogs, I'm well aware that the "general public" is not coming in full-square against the SLU administration's stand. That's an odd, but somewhat predictable, thing, as St. Louisans do have a tendency to side with the power sources. The current edition of the U. News is rife with letters to the editor, many from current and former students, which add some necessary, passionate voices to the debate. You can read them at the Unewsonline.com.

Below is the latest statement from STL's SPJ:

Dear fellow journalists,

The Saint Louis University board of trustees will vote Saturday morning on whether to eliminate the existing charter for the University News, the student news at SLU. If approved, the university will then rewrite a new charter. After much public uproar, the administration now says it will solicit input from the newspaper staff, but it will only give them a week to provide opinions, according to Editor in Chief Diana L.Benanti. And the students still have no clear idea what the charter will actually look like once the administration acts.

Basically, the university is giving these students an ultimatum. Thus the students continue to defend their editorial independence and remain opposed to changing the charter for this 86-year-old publication.

Though not allowed to present their ideas to the board of trustees, the students are still hoping the board might be convinced to take no action on the charter. To sway the board, the students will pass out flyers and demonstrate at SLU's DuBourg Hall, 221 N. Grand Avenue, starting at 8:30 a.m. Saturday (May 5).

They're asking all other journalists worried about campus free speech to attend and participate.

Greg Cancelada
President, St. Louis Chapter of SPJ

Sound CD in the RFT

Christian Schaeffer of the Riverfront Times - whom I met in person for the first time at last night's excellent St. Vincent/John Vanderslice show at the Billiken Club - added some nice words about the Sound CD in this week's edition of the Riverfront Times. If interested in finding the cyber-version of the piece, it's located here:

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2007-05-02/music/homespun-various-artists/

nitpick

You know, it’s great that the PD covers the first Friday downtown gallery walks. The work Robin Lynch does to keep this thing going is tremendous. But for crying out loud—couldn’t the Post get a more current photo than that of two Gallery Urbis Orbis visitors from 2005? Urbis has been closed for well over a year. Maybe it is just me, but if you are covering a gallery walk, seems like you'd want a picture of gallery that is actually in business.

SLU's "U. News" in the News

Saint Louis University's student paper, the University News, is one that I often pick up at Hartford Coffee Company, as the paper's distributed not only on campus, but around town. Over the past semester, I've gotten to know a couple of the staffers on the U. News masthead and had the opportunity to host a one-hour workshop with them earlier this semester.

Right now, there are some serious concerns about the way the paper will be organized in coming terms. Just as the paper isn't exclusively found at the Frost Campus, the lessons of this situation extend beyond SLU (many) gates.

Rather than punching in some press alerts already posted elsewhere, in the spirit of blogs noting other blogs, I'll send you out to a couple sites that have already weighed in on the subject: Frank Absher has touched on this in his new Media Watch column at ArchCityChronicle.com; while Steve Patterson, a SLU gard student, has added more at UrbanReviewSTL.com.

Please read up and, if you feel the need, write a letter.

Happy May Day from 52nd City!

Greetings and salutations to workers, worldwide!