STL on the Air 📻

“When I get in front of my audience,” Kim Massie once told St. Louis Public Radio’s Nick Garcia, “I don't care if I’m playing for free or if I’m playing for a million bucks. I’m going to give you the same show, because that could very well be my last show, and you’re only as good as your last performance. … So I give it my all, every time I sing.”

In the wake of stubbornly inaccurate mainstream coverage of protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Charles Klotzer launched what is now known as the Gateway Journalism Review. The first issue appeared in September 1970, and the now-quarterly publication is still going strong — even as its contemporaries have long since ceased operations.

This week, a pair of women from the Mehlville area of south St. Louis County got married just outside St. Louis City Hall. They were part of a much larger movement of pop-up weddings there within the past week — all designed to highlight concerns within the LGBTQ community related to the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra returns to Powell Hall this week. Seven months after the coronavirus pandemic shut down events, the symphony kicks off a shortened season of “chamber orchestra concerts." Music director Stephane Deneve previews the season and its highlights.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis has some big news today: an acclaimed new playwright in residence. She’s a Golden Globe award winner and a two time Emmy nominee. And thanks to a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, she’ll be working in St. Louis for the next three years.

Tinus Le Roux, CEO of FanCam, and Sara Baker, policy director for the ACLU of Missouri discuss artificial intelligence’s potential for both good and evil. The issues they raise are currently getting a fuller airing at Prepare 2020, virtual month-long conference by Prepare.ai.

National politics might dominate the news right now, but Washington University professor Betsy Sinclair says there is a resurgence of political life at the local level — and technology can help with that. She co-founded Magnify Your Voice, a civic engagement app meant to help residents work together to tackle a project in their neighborhood.

H.W. Brands’ new book “The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and the Struggle for American Freedom” explores the run-up to slavery's abolition -- and choice to confront its "great evil" via politics or violence -- through the lives of two men: John Brown and Abraham Lincoln.

Whether it’s 20 tips for 20-somethings or 30 movers and shakers under the age of 30, there’s always a new list aimed at young professionals doing big things. And that makes sense — early adulthood, after all, is typically focused on forging a career path. But maybe there should also be some different lists. Say, 70 first-time novelists over the age of 70, or 80 up-and-coming small business owners in their 80s. St. Louisan Lynn Hamilton believes it's never too late to try something new.

A masked violinist has been making music while strolling the streets of Alton. There are rumors that she's a ghost from the Mississippi River and that she hasn’t been seen since the 1918 influenza. She calls herself the Fiddle Assassin, and says her only enemy is the coronavirus.

Carolyn Mueller, a local author and zookeeper at the St. Louis Zoo, has explored the trails of Forest Park for more than a decade. And with locals practicing social distancing as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, some of the spots Mueller highlights in her new book, “Forest Park: A Walk Through History,” are particularly timely.

As a scholar who works with human remains, Anne Austin had long looked closely at bones. Her training is in osteology and Egyptology, and for many years she worked to expand the world’s knowledge about the health, medicine and disease of past civilizations. But in 2016, her focus suddenly turned from bones to ancient skin — and body art.

Theater returns to a St. Louis stage this month — and for the first time since the region shut down in March, it’ll be indoors and with an in-person audience. Midnight Company's mounting of Eric Bogosian’s “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll” comes with the ArtSafe seal of approval, and a host of safety precautions.

Tom Zoellner’s new book, “The National Road: Dispatches From a Changing America," is a journey into the uneasy soul of the nation: What unites us, what divides us and what lies in the middle of the cities of the coasts.

Angie Schmitt’s new book, “Right of Way: Race, Class and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths,” examines why more American pedestrians are dying, who makes up these deaths and what simple yet concrete things we could do to save people like them. She discusses her book on St. Louis on the Air, and we hear from a victim's sister and a local transportation policy planner, too.

New places continue to open in the St. Louis region — often with extensive safety protocols. And they’re offering new items for local food lovers and ways for patrons to get their favorite dishes. Sauce Magazine features 10 new restaurants to check out for this month’s Hit List.

Missouri has lost seven rural hospitals since 2014. It’s a trend seen in areas across the country, and it’s a topic explored extensively in the new podcast “Where It Hurts.”

Crestwood Elementary School physical education teacher Darrion Cockrell hasn’t just overhauled his school’s fitness program. His creative virtual education videos have also caught the attention of influencers such as Chance the Rapper and Ellen DeGeneres. Now, Cockrell has been awarded the distinction of Missouri Teacher of the Year.

In the summer of 2018, St. Charles resident Cindy Fricke got some really bad news following her annual mammogram: She had breast cancer. The diagnosis put her on a long, two-year path involving chemotherapy, radiation and a partial mastectomy. Now she is cancer free, and as she continues to receive care through SSM Health, her outlook is full of gratitude and optimism, even amid a pandemic.

NPR's new podcast "No Compromise" dives deep into the most uncompromising corner of the gun debate — it follows groups like the Missouri Firearms Coalition that feel the NRA is too soft on gun rights. Podcast co-host Chris Haxel of KCUR shares what they uncovered in their investigation.