the metro | Lawmakers nationwide, including in the Show-Me State, are taking seriously the scourge of smartphones in schools. Three states already had enacted bans before Missouri got serious about the issue. As a parent, I’m with the majority on this one: Isn’t adolescence hard enough with an utterly absorbing portal to all the trouble in the world in your pocket? That’s a rhetorical question from Sarah Fenske, editor of Saint Louis Magazine and former editor of the late, lamented Riverfront Times. Missouri lawmakers have passed a bill that bans student cellphone use throughout the school day, including during breaks and lunch. The legislation, which is set to take effect in the 2025-26 school year, requires school districts to create policies enforcing the ban. How will this be accomplished, who knows? My two adult children had smartphones as students at Webster Groves High School. When this reporter was a salesman at Brooks Brothers in the early twenty-teens, he was amazed at how much co-workers who weren’t also Baby-Boomers paid more attention to the devices they had in their pockets than, say, folding sweaters or repackaging dress shirts. The store manager allowed this behavior, but he certainly didn’t approve. Today, I feel more like a hypocrite than simply an unreasonable, uncool, square dad. Whenever I leave my phone at home and reach for it in my shirt or back left pants pocket, I feel like I’m missing my right arm. Don’t you?

creve coeur
Writing workshops to help polish four separate skills, from sports writing to poetry, will be conducted over the summer at The J, the Jewish Community Center in Creve Coeur. And, as always, you don’t have to be even a little bit Jewish to enroll. Feel an urge to write, but don’t know how and where to start? On Tuesday, June 17, come learn how to make your sports writing a hit from a seasoned sports writer for our esteemed metro daily. At “Sports Storytelling with Ben Hochman,” 6:30 to 8 p.m. at The J, Hochman will teach budding journalists how to punch up their love of sports with the power of narrative. “Memoir Bootcamp,” June 23 and 24 from 5:30 to 7 p.m., will provide useful tidbits through writing exercises, prompts and group feedback to strengthen voice, provide structure and emotional depth to weave personal experiences into a compelling story. For four Tuesdays in July, the 1st to the 22nd, could-be war correspondents can immerse themselves in “Writing the Frontlines: Telling Stories of War,” from 6 to 7:30 p.m. This four-week workshop will provide a safe space to explore and express the unique experiences of military service, sacrifice and resilience through the power of writing. A discount is available for veterans. Tuesday, July 29, 5:30 to 7 p.m., “Echoes and Egos: A Persona Poetry Workshop,” is for writers with that unique gift, a poetic voice, to slip into borrowed voices, inhabit lives unseen and let language shape new identities. You’ll go where the self dissolves and the poem speaks through another. Visit stljewishbookfestival.org for tickets and more information.

u. city
Standing on the sidewalk right outside House of India was one of the most stylishly dressed models you ever could see. She was garbed entirely in recyclable materials, from a shower curtain festooned with multicolored ‘party’ cups cut in half and lined up to what appeared to be copper-colored aluminum food trays. At the other end of the sidewalk in front of Jilly’s Cupcake Bar was another wildly garbed model. Both were motionless. Headless. They were mannequins, contestants in the 16th annual Mannequins Project, in which this year the creations were again stationed in front of various restaurants and other businesses throughout our ‘Neighborhood to the World.’ Whatever the copper-colored aluminum doo-dads were manufactured for use originally, they made for trousers on House of India’s hopeful, who resembled C3PO, the sentient, bipedal robot from Star Wars, dressed in drag for a cocktail party. She was fashioned by metro artist Kayla Kemp for the annual display competition organized and produced by Figure 8 Designs. In 2023, Kemp’s creation for House of India won Audience Favorite. She had tattoos painted on her arms and neck! Suffice it to say, Kemp could apply for a side gig at Iron Age Tattoos on the Delmar Loop. Speaking of, the Loop was wild with gussied-up mannequins, which were to be judged June 8, after press time. For details, visit mannequinsproject.com.

notable neighbors
city foundry
His grandfather was owner of The Fabulous Fox Theatre when the legendary auditorium was showing movies. His father made him a list of the 100 best movies of all time, and he’s seen pretty much every one of them at least once. So, it should come as no surprise that Mark Bluestein is a cinephile—a movie nut. The lion’s share of his career is in film, as a projectionist and with Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores. One skill that’s rare nowadays, since movies are largely shown from digital sources, is working with 35mm film. “I was taught everything 35mm-related from a retired drill sergeant—it was brutal,” Bluestein recalls. “But being in a projection booth was my solace, as if I had worked in one all my life. I cut my teeth as the assistant projectionist at the Wehrenberg Northwest Plaza 9 Cinema.” Working with 35mm film was a key to Alamo Drafthouse at City Foundry hiring him a few years ago as programming and projection manager. He’s truly in his element there. And he selects films for niche audiences not only because of his personal preferences, but considers what will fill several theaters inside the Drafthouse. Success took a while, but among 40 locations, St. Louis, once dead last, is consistently in the chain’s top 10. Says Bluestein, “It was a crawl with the pandemic and then the writers’ strike, but we are ready to break out and really let the entirety of the StL know who we are, what we do, and why we do it the best!” Case in point: The Drafthouse will have the atmosphere and discreet charm of a ‘man cave’ on Father’s Day. First, you can drink beer while watching Conan the Barbarian or any offering in the theaters. There are Budweiser products on tap, of course, but plenty more domestic and international brews from which to choose: Behind the bar are 48 taps! Bluestein may like beer. But he’s in love with the movies, especially gangster flicks (he’s seen Al Pacino in Scarface at least 50 times), followed closely by horror and film noir. His favorite directors? Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, William Friedkin and Brian DePalma, not necessarily in that order. As programming manager, he takes great care to show movies, especially ones on the BigShow (premium large screen) for the most satisfying in-theater experience ever—regardless of what’s showing, whether it’s Jaws or another personal fave, The French Connection. And he knows when it’s time to screen an Elvis film: the week of Aug. 16, the anniversary of his tragic passing in 1977 at age 42. Bluestein reveres the King, and his son Morgan (‘Mo’) has caught the bug, starting a gig as an Elvis tribute artist before he was even a teenager. Dad proudly wears a tattoo of ‘TCB’ (Taking Care of Business) atop a lightning bolt. Bluestein has hosted a 50th-anniversary event to mark the debut of Jaws, and keeps what’s in store along those lines under wraps. “Jaws was the first movie Pop brought home from the electronics retailer he worked at in 1980,” he says. “The rest is a secret, but we are gonna have a lot of fun through the rest of the year.” For more to see, visit drafthouse.com.