The Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis is using art to engage history and contextualize the present. chief curator Wassan Al-Khudhairi joined St. Louis on the Air with artists Stephanie Syjuco and Bethany Collins to discuss the CAM’s fall exhibitions.
In January 2018, the Impossible Burger first arrived in the St. Louis market. The meat-free patty was just like the real thing – it even bled. It became an immediate sensation. But it was soon snapped up by Burger King for its “Impossible Whopper.” After a hugely successful rollout right here in St. Louis, its popularity made the Impossible patties too popular for many locals to obtain. But they still had plenty of options. Some have experimented on their own to create tasty meat-free concoctions. Others are turning to more local alternatives. In this episode, Sarah Fenske talks with Todd Boyman, CEO of Hungry Planet, and with Chris Bertke, executive chef of the newly opened vegan-focused restaurant Utah Station. The segment includes comments from other food and restaurant industry professionals as well.
The Midwest is tops in field corn production, but it does not stand out when it comes to national production of sweet corn. But for many in the Midwest, nothing says summer quite like a fresh hot ear of sweet corn — plain, buttered or salted.
The latest episode of Politically Speaking takes stock of how political and community leaders are responding to St. Louis children getting killed in an outbreak of gun violence this summer.
St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum, Julie O’Donoghue, Rachel Lippmann, Chad Davis and Andrea Henderson look into how city and state leaders are feeling the pressure to act — especially when it comes to implementing more stringent gun laws.
The legacy of George B. Vashon. The history of the St. Louis Browns. The special moments that took place at the Top of the Tower. A handful of local authors and historians revisited all of this and more during last week’s STL Storytelling Live event at the Missouri Athletic Club in downtown St. Louis. This episode features highlights from the evening, with stories running the gamut from the humorous, to the surprising, to the hopeful. The storytellers include Bill Clevlen, Carol Shepley, Amanda Doyle, Ed Wheatley, Calvin Riley and Cameron Collins.
The Rep's new artistic director, Hana Sharif, is the first black woman to hold that job at a member of the League of Resident Theatres. That is the nation’s largest professional regional theater organization. She is part of a wave of women taking artistic control of theaters in the past few years.
Enter the pathway, turn; you think you're headed right to center but - ho! you're on the outskirts of everything. Keep walking. In a Labyrinth, you can only (eventually) reach Center, then go steadily back to where you began.
This kind of walking meditation is centuries old. Central Reform Congregation, active in the heart of St. Louis MO, is building a new pathway along these same lines, as artist and longtime CRC member Robert Fishbone leads a meditative labyrinth installation, part of the "Fitness Course for the Soul" on the grounds of CRC.
Joining Fishbone in this Earthworms conversation is Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, from The Shalom Center in Philadelphia, who will visit CRC September 20-22 to speak about Faith and the Climate Crisis, and join STL youth for the Climate Strike on Sept 20 at City Hall.
For the CRC labyrinth, Fishbone and CRC friends chose a "Jericho" design, representing the 7 walls around the ancient biblical city. CRC members and guests will construct this new feature of their urban sacred grounds on Sunday September 8, 1-4 pm; the public is welcome to join in the "honorable silence" of this meditative project, at the corner of Waterman and Kingshighway in St. Louis' Central West End.
Once installed on the grounds of CRC, the labyrinth will be accessible to serve as anyone's contemplative path.
Music: Balkan Twirl, performed live at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and the Carolbeth Trio
THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms green-savvy audio engineer
Host Sarah Fenske talks to CommUNITY Arts Festival founder Paige Walden-Johnson and Rain Stippec, the dancer who was shot eight times in the back two years ago. They discussed Stippec’s journey to recovery and how the arts festival has grown to be an asset to the city by addressing gun violence.
All the world’s a stage, Shakespeare instructed us in his beloved romantic comedy “As You Like It.” And in its new production of that very show, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis plans to put that to the test in both the streets of Pagedale, Missouri, and the farmland of Calhoun County, Illinois. Its remix of the classic play, titled “Love at the River’s Edge,” transports audience members across the Mississippi River to examine the urban and rural divide. In this episode, host Sarah Fenske discusses the new production, which kicks off September 13 as part of the Shakespeare in the Streets initiative, with executive producer Tom Ridgely and director Kathryn Bentley.
Veteran Erica Camp began adopting chickens that have been discarded from factory farms as a way of addressing her PTSD. She started an organization, Second Hen'd, focused on helping others adopt post-productive chickens. This summer, she started bringing her hens to a school for autistic children, to educate the kids about chickens.
Host Sarah Fenske explores the religious obligation of Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage, and what it all entails. Joining the program were St. Louisans Shahab Mushtaq and Faiza Mushtaq. The husband and wife duo were among the millions of Muslims who traveled more than 7,000 miles to attend Hajj this year. Also joining the conversation was Faizan Syed, executive director of Missouri’s Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR.)
"We Live Here," the podcast that St. Louis Public Radio launched in the wake of the Ferguson uprising, is entering its fifth season this fall – with new voices at its helm. Co-hosts Ashley Winters and Jia Lian Yang, as well as associate producer Lauren Brown, are preparing to release a series of new episodes in the coming weeks. In this episode of "St. Louis on the Air" they join Sarah Fenske to discuss where "We Live Here" is headed and how they’re hoping to engage with listeners near and far.
In this segment, host Sarah Fenske talks with St. Louis Public Radio reporter Sarah Fentem about her reporting into the experience of Medicaid eligible families across the state who say they’ve been arriving at doctors’ appointments to learn their children have been unwittingly dropped from the program.
Missouri resident Fidencio Fifield-Perez will premiere a new visual fiber design exhibit based on his time as a member of the DACA program. In his work, the artist from Oaxaca, Mexico, focuses on his experience as an immigrant.
Lamar Johnson has been in prison for 24 years. A St. Louis jury found him guilty of murder in 1995 – and he’s been serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole ever since. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner now says prosecutors in her office engaged in serious misconduct. Saying her Conviction Integrity Unit has found new evidence that Johnson is actually innocent, she sought a new trial. St. Louis Circuit Judge Elizabeth Hogan denied that request. She says Gardner’s motion came “approximately 24 years” past the deadline. Tricia Bushnell, director of the Midwest Innocence Project, isn’t buying it.
Fentanyl has become an international scourge. It’s been blamed for a spike in drug overdose deaths in Missouri as well as around the world. It’s both contaminated many recreational drugs and become a substitute for heroin in many American cities. And yet the Chinese factory responsible for manufacturing most of its precursors has received funding and lucrative tax breaks from the Chinese government. Through years of research, St. Louis journalist Ben Westhoff has become one of the foremost experts into the international fentanyl trade. In this episode, he discusses his new book, “Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic.” Westhoff talks about how his investigation followed the drug from its manufacture in China to the streets of St. Louis – and the terrible impact that synthetic, laboratory-made drugs are having on communities around the world.
More than 120,000 people, most of them children, have been dropped from Missouri's Medicaid rolls since the beginning of 2018. They've been dropped by the state or did not re-enroll. State officials say fewer people are using the program because they don't need it. But many families say they have unfairly and unwittingly lost coverage.
As a St. Louis-based designer, burlesque performer, artist and more, Maxi Glamour’s personal and professional brand is a multifaceted one. But one particular title does stand out, and that’s Glamour’s drag performer identity as the “Demon Queen of Polka and Baklava.” That persona comes to life in a new way in the new season of the “Boulet Brothers’ Dragula” reality TV series, which features Glamour. The first episode premiered on Amazon Prime Video on Tuesday, and in this episode of the talk show, host Sarah Fenske talks with Glamour about their experience on “Dragula” as well as other topics. Glamour, who identifies as queer and non-binary, is believed to be the first drag performer from St. Louis to appear on a major televised drag competition. They became a fan of the show long before being cast in it.
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the weed killer Roundup, is manufactured by Monsanto-Bayer. Depending on who you talk to, it’s either a safe, highly effective herbicide, or, it’s a dangerous substance linked to cancer cases from use by farmers and landscapers. In this interview, Sarah Fenske talks with journalist Carey Gillam, who is coming to St. Louis to talk about her investigations into the topic of agrochemical safety and corporate interests.
Tiny plant-eating insects known as treehoppers serenade each other during mating using vibrational songs. They can change depending on the temperature of the environment, which means climate change might disrupt treehopper mating in the future. SLU researchers have found that although the songs changed, female treehoppers still responded to them.
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