Twenty years ago pediatrician and cabaret favorite Ken Haller started a special fund for a yet-to-be-determined retirement passion. Although he has no plans to retire at the moment, when producer and entrepreneur Jim Dolan invited him to invest in a Central West End cabaret venue this past March, Haller basically said, “Take my money!” See…
Bear Season in St. Louis Begins Oct. 31: HiBearNation 25
Hundreds of rooms are booked at the host hotel, and guests from as far away as Australia are making their way to St. Louis for one of the world’s largest bear gatherings: HiBearNation 25. This will be the 25th year the Show Me Bears have put on this major event, and HiBearNation 25 Chairman D.…
DOORWAYS President and CEO Receives Spirit of Justice Award
Opal M. Jones, president and CEO of DOORWAYS, received one of the 2019 Spirit of Justice awards at the 2019 Spirit of Justice Celebration held Friday, October 4, at the St. Louis Club. Allison Price of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner nominated Jones for the award, explaining “Opal is a dynamic leader and a compassionate person.…
Welcome Flow: The Bee’s Knees Yoga Offers Accessible, Inclusive and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga in O’Fallon
Yoga has come a long way from its origins in centuries-ago India. No longer solely the purview of impossibly twisty young boys bound for the meditative life, it’s moved into something else, and that something — skinny cisgender white ladies in $90 pants, for instance — may not be an improvement. But one woman in…
Texas Swing: A Queer Travelers’ Guide to Austin, Texas
So you want to be queer and weird in Austin, Texas? The progressive blue bubble nestled on the eastern edge of Texas hill country has cultivated many reasons for queer travelers from all sides of the rainbow to visit. Much like our beloved river city, Austin is a vibrant intersection of roots and blues music,…
Rough & Tumble: Sitting Down With the St. Louis Crusaders
Rugby involves a lot of whoring. In fact, the whoring is one reason there’s such a brotherhood between players across the sport. As if that weren’t intriguing enough, they even have hookers on the field (for real!), and all of this goes on under the watchful eye of “the Sir.” OK, I may have inadvertently…
Venus in Furs: Inside a Man-Free BDSM Play Space with GutterGlitter’s Elizabeth Van Winkle
On a rain-threatening Wednesday night in August, the Crack Fox downtown has a few indicators that something unusual is happening inside. A hand-lettered sign bears the quote people posted in the ’70s supporting Angela Davis: “Sister, you are welcome in this house.” Another right by the door handle is less subtle: “No Men.” Inside, past…
Letter from the Editor: Chris Andoe
If you’ve been around the St. Louis scene a while, what I’m about to say might make you feel really old: Many LGBTQ twenty-somethings don’t know who Nancy Novak is. The five years she’s been in exile (or retirement) is a lifetime in the bar scene where Novak reigned. But for those of us who…
Nailing Down Nancy
As Nancy Novak Returns for a Final Farewell, One Writer Seeks to Understand her Polarizing Legacy Less than a week after I signed up to profile Nancy Novak, I realized it would be anything but reporting as usual. For starters, there’s absolutely no need to dig for dirt or persuade sources to talk. Even five…
Author & Professor Patrick Dilley to Present from Acclaimed New Book at Prime Timers This Saturday
Patrick Dilley, Professor of Higher Education and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, will be presenting from his newly published book at this month’s Prime Timers St. Louis organizational meeting, Saturday, August 10, 2019. Gay Liberation to Campus Assimilation: Early Non-Heterosexual Student Organizing at Midwestern Universities, was published in February by…