CHINESE LANTERN FESTIVAL & ARETHA FRANKLIN
The Chinese Lantern Festival, which had an extraordinary long-run engagement in Toronto, will be staged for four months in 2012 at the Missouri Botanical Garden, said Emerson Electric senior vice-president of administration Bob Cox. The event, to be underwritten with Emerson's largesse, is the largest lantern festival to take place outside of Asia; its offerings include lanterns, reflecting animals, dinosaurs, and architectural wonders. Vendors will sell traditional Chinese fare. Acrobatic shows, merchandise, and movies are part of the lineup. "It will allow our community to learn more about the Chinese culture," said Cox, who was at Saturday night's Wings of Hope auction-dinner to benefit arts and therapy for children at BJC. Held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, the event was co-chaired by Lisa Boyce, wife of Peabody Energy's Greg Boyce, andLelia Farr (pictured above), spouse of Emerson chief executive officer David Farr. "I've increased the [Emerson's] market cap 10-fold," said Greg, "and hope it will do the same within the next 10 years." Word also flashed that singer/songwriter/pianist Aretha Franklin is poised to ink a contract for an engagement at Peabody Opera House. The evening's finest example of sartorial non-conformity was supplied by models festooned as fiberglass butterflies. Bill Koman—yesteryear linebacker with the St. Louis Cardinals football team, who was joined by his wife, Joan—gave a heads-up on his current situation: "I still hit everyone each day, and I could play tomorrow."
AROUND TOWN
On the 84th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's historic flight, Sally Bixby Defty checked in. She reminded us that her uncle, Harold McMillan Bixby, a banker who raised funds for "Lucky Lindy," named the Spirit of St. Louis and was sent to China in the early 1930s to develop air routes there. Defty, a retired city editor (the first woman to hold that position) at the Post-Dispatch, explained, "There was no civilian aviation in China for Pan American. He brought his entire family there, and they lived in Shanghai until the Japanese invasion sent them to Manila." Sally's grandfather, William K. Bixby, gave the building that bears his name to Washington University.
Beginning June 13, KTRS 550 AM's The Showgram with J.C. Corcoran and Trish Gazall will air from noon to 3 p.m. Corcoran and Gazall are joined each week by Eric Mink, the former Post-Dispatch and New York Daily News media critic who now teaches at Webster University; comedian Joe Marlotti; and market vet and musician Smash. Incidentally, J.C.'s website, jcontheline.com, continues to grow with a new feature called "Speaking Sexually."
Last Friday night at a union hall on the near south side, faithful Democrats attended the St. Louis City Democratic Central Committee Trivia Night and Auction fundraiser. Political operative and radio rabble-rouser Michael Kelley served as emcee, and St. Louis County power brokers slipped in on the action. Tongues are still wagging about Cong. Russ Carnahan's lifeline, which was auctioned for a whopping $400 and Sen. Claire McCaskill's bid scored $200. The evening's belly-buster was an autographed football donated by Gov. Jay Nixon with an opening bid of less than $20 by former state Rep. Fred Kratky, Nixon's cousin. The bids then teetered between 50 to 70 cents more until an anonymous person won the football for a mere $20. One Dem joked, "If the governor had shown more balls—like two—the auction price would've been higher."
