kirkwood | Nikki Glaser, a Kirkwood Pioneer, is now a true pioneer in the global sense: She is the first woman to host the Golden Globes solo, and critics far and wide gave her monologue and in-betweeners thumbs-up, all but assuring her a return gig at the awards, or perhaps the pick of the litter. Maybe the Academy Awards? But Glaser would have been remiss to not mention that her take was less than what stand-up comedian Jo Koy pulled down last year for his performance, which was unevenly rated. So, who says any glass ceilings of the world have yet to be shattered? Maybe they have at some businesses, like in the StL at Edward Jones, but not in Hollywood. Glaser took obvious pleasure in ribbing the entertainment industry’s glitterati, such as Timothy Chalamet, impossibly youthful star of a well-received Bob Dylan biopic, to wit: “You have the most gorgeous eyelashes—on your upper lip!” But her best comment came at the close of her monologue. Her closing joke didn’t hit as hard as she’d hoped, so she went off-script. “Before we start handing out awards, I do want to remind you if you lose tonight, please just keep in mind that the point of making art is not to win an award,” Glaser began, closing with this zinger: “The point of making art is to start a tequila brand so popular that you never have to make art again.” Glaser was as cool as the other side of the pillow. Her boundless creativity made me think of the wonderfully snarky comment that Elvis Costello credits to the late Martin Mull: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” What’s next for this hometown heroine? Certainly, a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame in the Delmar Loop, one would hope!


ladue
Conspiracy theories still circle around the JFK assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. There’s still talk among theorists of multiple gunmen and the “grassy knoll,” when exhaustive research and post-mortems hold that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman. But there had been a much earlier plot against John F. Kennedy on Dec. 11, 1960—when he was president-elect. Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Brad Meltzer will appear at 7 p.m. on Jan. 18 at the Clark Family Branch of our county library to discuss and sign his latest book, The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Assassinate Kennedy—and Why It Failed. From the co-writer of The New York Times bestsellers of The Nazi Conspiracy and The Lincoln Conspiracy comes a little-known true story about the first assassination attempt on JFK, right before his inauguration. (Meltzer’s co-author is Josh Mensch, who is not scheduled to appear.) Kennedy, our 35th president, is often ranked among Americans’ most well-liked. Yet what most of us don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite. Meltzer has written more than 10 other bestselling thrillers, as well as the Ordinary People Change the World series of historical biographies for children. He also hosts the History Channel TV shows Brad Meltzer’s Decoded and Brad Meltzer’s Lost History, which he used to help find the missing 9/11 flag that New York City firefighters had raised at Ground Zero. Visit slcl.org.

the metro
I just heard from my good friend Blair, who’d decamped to Delray Beach, Florida, before our so-called “snow event” of 2025. Many in the media have referred to the well-predicted winter storm as “Snowmageddon ’25,” but Blair, who was out last week walking a friend’s Shih Tzu through the dewy, sprinkler-infused lawns of exclusive neighborhoods, had only to worry about wiping the dog’s paws before they went back inside. He doesn’t recall a winter storm ever having a name (although a storm earlier in January in the American southwest was named Anya). “It was surreal,” says Blair, that the blizzard (if that’s what a TV meteorologist would call it) bore his name. Blair remembered being idled in Dogtown in February 1982 when the “Blizzard of ’82” dumped 20 inches on the metro, paralyzing the bi-state area. My parents, who lived in Edwardsville at the time, were undeterred. After asking their elderly next-door neighbor Dot what she needed, they roped a kid’s sled behind them and returned with supplies—a fifth of bourbon for her and several gallons of Gallo wine for themselves. The StL is a unique north-south weathervane for the Midwest: On Jan. 5, north of Interstate 70, as much as 14 inches of snow fell. South of I-44, 4 to 6 inches were mixed with sleet and freezing rain. Friends who have residences in U. City and Portageville, Missouri—in the southeastern section of our state referred to as the bootheel—vamoosed from here the day before Blair (the storm). They only got rain. Blair (my friend), who flew to Florida on New Year’s Day, is scheduled to return home Jan. 19. The previous officially named winter storm, in December, was Zeus. I think I’ve only known a dog so named.

notable neighbor
grand center
Although Peg Weathers has spent decades working as a high-level exec for metro organizations from SLU to Kirkwood-Des Peres Chamber of Commerce and in Washington, D.C. in the 1990s as a point person for U.S. Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña, she is anything but a wonk, policy or otherwise. Public affairs and economic development have been her stock in trade for more than 30 years. As president and CEO of Grand Center Arts District since 2023, Weathers is dedicated to ensuring that the 12 square blocks of Midtown—from Lindell north to Delmar, and Vandeventer east to Compton—stay vibrant and safe and continue to grow and flourish. Sixty arts organizations call the district home, from the under-renovation Powell Music Hall to our Fabulous Fox, as do many others that are smaller, yet no less important, such as the Grandel Theatre and The Center, where Story Stitchers Arts Collective is based. But she’s been here before, as executive VP during the tenure of Vince Schoemehl, the former mayor, who headed up the organization from 2001 until his retirement in 2015. Weathers was instrumental in getting the area established as a Community Improvement District (CID) as well as starting the process of securing a TIF (Tax Increment Financing) package with multiple owners, which was unusual at the time. “Vince referred to the district as a driver of the city’s economic engine,” says Weathers. That was certainly evident in 2022, when the district generated
$136 million in economic impact to the metro. She emphasizes that the Grand Center Arts District is not in competition with other metro entertainment areas, so the Delmar Loop, to cite just one example, is safe from being elbowed out by the burgeoning arts district just a few miles east. Rather, TV is the challenge. “We’re competing with the couch—with Netflix and Hulu, etc.,” she points out. “The work we do is akin to Forest Park Forever.” That is, the park’s marketing arm takes great pains not to promote one world-class attraction over another, but the park itself as a destination. The same principle applies at Grand Center: An expanded Powell Hall will make quite a splash throughout the metro when it reopens this September, according to projections, as Jack C. Taylor Music Center. But Weathers and her team want to make sure that smaller groups, such as Jazz St. Louis, are each perceived as satisfying pieces of the same scrumptious pie. All ships rise with the tide, the saying goes. To wit: Every organization in the district, as well as visitors, will benefit from a $7 million to $10 million street-lighting project slated for completion over the summer. About 280 old-school streetlights will be replaced with some 350 new ones equipped with cost-effective LED lamps. Finally, answers to questions you might have wanted us to ask: A native St. Louisan, Weathers graduated from Bishop DuBourg Catholic High School in south St. Louis. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Mizzou, also earning her master’s in radio, TV and film in Columbia. Want more? Visit grandcenterinc.org.