Time Inc.

Masters of Sex, Series Based on Masters and Johnson, Releases First Trailer (VIDEO)

Almost exactly one year ago, Showtime ordered a full twelve-episode season of Masters of Sex, a drama based on the lives and work of Washington University researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson in the '50s, '60s and '70s. The network has just released the show's first teaser trailer, pun ... More >>

How M. Night Shyamalan Became Just Another Director

Is Killer Mike Is the Best Rapper Alive in 2013?

Editor: Tef Poe is an artist from St. Louis city. Through powerful imagery and complicated honesty, he has earned a reputation as one of the best rappers telling the story of St. Louis, which is about much more than one place. Poe has been featured in music publications such as XXL and Urb Magazine. ... More >>

The Ten Best Musical Happenings of 2012: Humble Edition

Editor's Note: The end of 2012 is upon us, so we thought we'd put a cap on things by sharing some of our personal favorite shows, albums, events and general shenanigans. Join us as we indulge in some navel-gazing! I am not the most active of local scenesters. I am not up on many of the year's crit ... More >>

Jonathan Franzen's Dramatic Adventures in Webster Groves Real Estate: The Play!

A new play based on Jonathan Franzen's essay "House For Sale" opens this Saturday, October 13, at The Duke on 42nd Street, a theater in New York. Actually, it's just previews; the "post-opening" is October 25. (But where is the actual opening?) The essay concerns Franzen's return to Webster Groves ... More >>

Carrie M. Becker: 2012 Riverfront Times MasterMind Award Winner

St. Louis-Based American Patriot Beer Makes Its Local Debut

Lifelong St. Louisan John Beal's favorite beer growing up was Budweiser. "I always wanted the Budweiser car to win," he says. When its parent company Anheuser-Busch was purchased by Belgian brewing behemoths InBev in 2008, the career roofer was "bothered" by the takeover, and decided to take matters ... More >>

Edward Jones Dome Makes Time's List of "Worst Stadiums in the World"

Time magazine's Keeping Score blog compiled a list of the worst stadiums in the world, and in a development that's sure to please the Rams, the Edward Jones Dome came in at number seven.

Great Moments in Mexican-American Restaurant History: Casa Gallardo

In the Galleries - Spirit and History CLOSES March 4 at the St. Louis University Museum of Art

Is the U.S. Constitution Too Old for its Own Good?

Question: What do the following provisions have in common? Women's rights; Right to work; Right to education; Presumption of innocence; Right to unionize or strike. Answer: None of them is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. Could it be the case that the original legal document of our country is g ... More >>

Local Artist Wonders, What If Barbie Were Secretly a Hoarder?

If you've seen St. Louis artist Carrie M. Becker's recent collection "Barbie Trashes Her Dream House" -- and odds are that you have, since the photos have gone viral over the past few days, appearing in, among many other places, Jezebel, the Huffington Post and Time.com -- you may wonder if there's ... More >>

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Pearl Jam

Jon GitchoffEddie Vedder with Pearl Jam at the Scottrade Center last year.​2011 is a year of reflection for generation Xers. It's been twenty years since Nirvana released Nevermind and Eddie Vedder moved to Seattle to front Mookie Blaylock, the band that would become Pearl Jam. Rock journali ... More >>

Scares in Jeff City That Aren't About Politics

Boo!​Something ghostly may be happening in our state capital...and it has nothing to do with the budget.The decommissioned Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City is offering tours of its gruesome cells and and execution chamber. Those seem scary enough, but if that doesn't shiver your timbe ... More >>

SXSW Day 2: Toro Y Moi, The Civil Wars, The Baseball Project, Bob Geldof, Vandaveer, Abigail Washburn, Charles Bradley, Ron Sexsmith and Surfer Blood, Thursday, March 17

Dana PlonkaThe Civil Wars​12:24 In the South By vortex, all news - or at least news not related to Jack White pop-up performances, Cee-Lo Green cancellations, Kanye gossip and R.E.M. show rumors - gets obliterated. Japan's nuclear nightmare is no exception. Glancing at an RSS reader under 75 d ... More >>

Repudiated upon its 1961 release by the tough-talking clergyman who inspired it, The Hoodlum Priest remains as obscure and intriguing as ever

War of Words: Refudiate v. Austere, Which One is Word of the Year?

image via​It's that time of year again, the season where you can take two steps without stumbling over a year-end list, a this of the year or a that of the year. Merriam-Webster announced today that "austerity" is the dictionary publishing house's word of the year for 2010. This, a ... More >>

Jonathan Franzen Comes to Town, Gets Adulation and a Marriage Proposal

No photos were allowed while Franzen was reading (Kris Kleindienst threatened violence), but imagine, if you will, him standing behind this podium in a dark gray checked shirt and jeans.​All hail the Mighty Franzen, who finally returned to his hometown last night, just days after his anointmen ... More >>

Praise the Lord! Concordia Publishing's Hymnal Outsells Freedom

image viaNever underestimate the selling power of a Good Book.​Perhaps Daily RFT's new favorite Tweeter, the world-domination-seeking Emperor Franzen, should take a page from Benton Park's Concordia Publishing House. Since it launched its Hymnal in Every Home campaign four years ago, Concordia ... More >>

Once Again, Franzen Offends Powerful Literary Women

Jonathan Franzen's new book, Freedom, isn't out until Tuesday, but he's already pissed off some pretty prominent women in literary circles. This time, however, it's not Oprah. And he hasn't really done much besides exist and be the recipient of a rave review in the New York Times from another powerf ... More >>

From Mark Twain to Jonathan Franzen, St. Louis has been home to a surprising number of great writers

Franzen Love-Fest Continues

Blow out your candles, Jon.​Today marks the 51st birthday of Jonathan Franzen, the novelist formerly of Webster Groves (although he has not really lived there since he left for college -- in the East of course) and now the author of the much-lauded new novel Freedom. Early reviews in such prom ... More >>

Jonathan Franzen's Face Graces Cover of Time

​Webster Grovians, prepare yourselves! Tomorrow the newest edition of Time magazine hits newsstands, featuring, on its cover, the tortured visage of native son Jonathan Franzen beside the headline "Great American Novelist". Franzen is the first living writer to grace the magazine's cover since ... More >>

Wash. U. Prof Joins Obama and Lady Gaga on Time's Most Influential List

Image sourceA Time artist's rendering of Michael Sherraden.​Although, according to various stupid media-generated lists, St. Louisans/Missourians are ugly and stressed and spend too much time sitting in traffic and have few job prospects, we now have one thing to be proud of. Or, rather, one p ... More >>

Cheap Trick: No Back-Up Plan, Just Hard Work and Loud Guitars

In this week's RFT, I interviewed Rick Nielsen, Robin Zander and Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick during the influential band's first appearance at South By Southwest in Austin. Read the feature here and check out the outtakes from the interview below. Dana PlonkaRick Nielsen​ Roy Kasten: Before ... More >>

Update: Wash. U. Student to Appear on Jeopardy! This Afternoon

courtesy of Jeopardy! Wash. U. junior Nick Yozamp is competing on Jeopardy! this afternoon.​Updated February 10: After overcoming a $5,200 deficit in Monday's game, Yozamp advanced to the Jeopardy! College Championship finals, airing tomorrow, February 11, and Friday, February 12, at 3:30 p ... More >>

Former RFT Music Editor Jordan Harper Gets First Writing Credit Tonight on "The Mentalist"

The Mentalist, not Jordan Harper​Jordan Harper left Riverfront Times a few years back for New York City where his now wife was attending graduate school. Our former music editor (read some of his writings here) has now transplanted once more. This time he's in Los Angeles where he's landed a writi ... More >>

St. Louis' 2009 Newsmakers: Mayor Slay Buries the Lede

mayorslay.comThe mayor doesn't suggest you cast a vote for him. ​Now that 2010 is afoot, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay wants your take on the biggest news-makers of 2009, a la Time magazine's "Person of the Year". In his weekly poll released today, Slay asks you to pick from his pre-fab list of las ... More >>

Holiday Sneer: Do unscrupulous websites and fire-protection districts mess with our happiness quotient?

Don't Let It Bring You Down, But Missouri Is Actually a Pretty Miserable State

flickr.com/photos/blazin glory ​We have an enduring preoccupation with happiness. It's an American art form.  Pollsters are constantly probing our psyches, measuring our mood swings, tracking our current level of contentment. Interestingly, though hardly surprising -- as T ... More >>

Madison County Man Arrested For Re-Enacting Old Yeller

Film still from The Everett Collection via Time.com​Imagine your dog is old. Really old. We're talking 100 dog years old.Now-- after a decade of playing fetch, belly scratching, begging for table scraps, and pissing on the carpet--- the dog is sick. It can't walk, can't see, can't hardly even eat ... More >>

Best Magazine Cover of '08 Drawn by Ex-St. Louisan, Picked by Another Ex-St. Louisan

Illustrator and former St. Louis resident Bob Staake has created the top magazine cover of 2008, according to Time magazine, for the post-election Obama moonrise designed for the New Yorker.According to the Time, Staake's work is tops because:Why is the cover great? It doesn't do a victory dance. Ra ... More >>

Blake House: Executive producer Paul Blake hasn't learned from the Muny's history. Nor, sadly, is he capable of repeating it.

You Kill Me

Following Untraceable's lame-brained argument, we're all to blame for this massively dumb movie.

Same Olde

Is Act Inc. up to a Load of Mischief?

Hot Numbers

Time for that tuneful question: What are the best Broadway musicals of all time?

The Mad Blogger

Byron Crawford takes no prisoners. Don't screw with him.

Too Good to Be True

The True/False Film Festival is the cream of the documentary crop

Like a What?

We check out some "important" songs, mourn ODB and read some, um, crap

Ultimate Rock Fantasy

Forget the office-football draft, dude. Here's a far cooler way to waste your time and your employer's money.

What a Difference a Gay Makes

Jade Esteban Estrada tells the tales you won't find in textbooks

The Battle of the Paddle

Loot dreams, pre-teen stars, Russian immigrants and (cough) very old men have the St. Louis table-tennis scene popping off

Life in the Dead Zone

University of Virginia Professor Julie Bargmann describes her vision for postindustrial landscapes in a lecture at Washington University

Best Alternative-Music Club

Centro Sociale

The Works of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention

St. Louis Art Museum

HELLO, OUT THERE

Will someone from the Reform Party please report to the office?

SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT

Christian rock combines the Lord's message with the devil's beat. Sometimes the result is exhilaration. Sometimes it's god-awful confusion.

Short Cut

Playing With a Full Deck

An appreciation of the artistry of Ricky Jay

News Real