Welcome to St. Lunacy!
The RFT's newest column explores St. Louis' good, bad, ugly, silly and thoroughly cuckoobird.
It's patterned after the classic RFT column, Unreal. But when we suggested reviving that name, our lawyer threatened to leave town. "You might as well just call it Fake News!" she stewed.
For the record, (most) everything you'll read here in St. Lunacy is true. But naming it was the most difficult part. How to convey the absurdity of daily existence in this wacky place? We settled on St. Lunacy, but after reviewing our staff members' other suggestions for column names, you can tell us if we screwed up.
Food-related suggestions: T-Ravs, The Big Cheesy, Processed Cheese, Provel Nation, Zesty Pizza Loaf
Suggestions that can't be spelled without the STL: Side HuSTLes; WEEKLY HUstlE, VaSTLy, CaSTLe Doctrine, STL RuSTLer
Saucy sobriquet suggestions: Area Hoosier, Louiligan, Chim Richards, Rivertrash
Arch-related suggestions: Arch Spotter, Left of the Mississippi, SEarchLIGHT, THE SEarchER
One hard-to-classify column name idea came from our just-departed staff writer Danny Wicentowski. Is it a coincidence that, almost immediately after emailing this suggestion to the staff, he filled a cardboard box with his things and saw himself the door?
"I suggest 'Chouteau,'" he wrote. "I imagine a persona writing from the perspective of its namesake: 'After founding St. Louis in 1764, Auguste Chouteau fell into a temporal rift on the banks of the Mississippi. Emerging centuries later from the secret subterranean vaults beneath the Arch, the French fur trader materializes into a modern St. Louis – aghast."
Hard pass, but we love you Danny. It's been an amazing nine years! Good luck at your new job at St. Louis Public Radio.
