It's All About...

My last day at work.

This is my column from Weekender today. It's all true. -- Jamie G.

It's all about...

Not knowing what to say.

Why? Because I’ll move to Atlanta in March for a job at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I’ll leave behind all these wonderful friends and co-workers and continue this ruse that I’m a Midwesterner on an extended vacation in the South.

This is my last column here. It’s All About, the blog, will live online for a while, until it shifts over into that techno-purgatory where old, neglected Web sites dwell. It’s tough to leave with many reasons to stay, so many things left unfinished.

What’s going to happen to The Dame, Buster’s, our music scene, our nightlife?

When will the Kentucky National Guard unit I embedded with in Iraq make it home?

Will I even recognize this place when I swing through on the 12-hour trek back to my parents’ homes in Michigan?

I think so. I hope so.

In three years, I’ve met more thoughtful and engaging talkers, artists, haters, lovers, underdogs, egos, sweethearts, activists, geeks, fanatics and pals than I ever expected. You can find all those on the walk between Rupp Arena and the Kentucky Theatre if you’re willing to make eye contact and smile. As I’m leaving, I have a few wishes for you:

• That you won’t believe it when people say there’s nothing here to do. You live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. There’s plenty to do. We built LexGo.com just to track it all. And whenever there’s an empty space or a free moment, some creative type here takes it into his or her own hands and fills it. Smile and make eye contact with those people, in particular.
• That the University of Kentucky will have a hugely successful and inspiring basketball season — the stuff of triumphant TV movies and serious local pride. It’s one of the few things here that would give almost everybody a moment, if not a year, of joy, and I want that for you.
• That Kentucky will continue its strange brand of pop-culture dominance, whether it’s through George Clooney at the Oscars, David and Mary Conley on The Amazing Race or the never-ending supply of youngsters on the Jeopardy Teen Tournament. Just be careful about the reality shows — we’re easy prey, but we’re also smarter than that.
• That a few menus in town will always, always, always include black-bottom banana pie, doughy pretzels the size of my hand, vegetarian burgers (even at dive bars!) and Ale-8-One served in a green glass bottle.
• That you will stay scrappy and romantic about whatever causes, scenes and ideas you believe in. This is your city, and inside it is your neighborhood, your block, your home. Turn them into places you want them to be, not the places you think they should be, or the places they were when you showed up.

I recently spent time with a Transylvania University class trying to focus some community-building attention on the North Limestone neighborhood. Last week, a writer from Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine area talked to the class about loving her neighborhood when nobody else did, and how powerful it was to start writing there. To her surprise, people wanted to hear what she had to say. She wished the students all the best, along with any of the other hangers-on who had gathered around the back area at Al’s Bar to listen. “I want the best for you because you’re sitting here listening to me,” Melissa Mosby said. “It is so important to be listened to.”

That’s what I wish for Lexington: You’ll listen to each other, your history and your ideas for the future. Listen to what’s going on around you. I’m honored that you listened to me, even when I didn’t know what to say. I adored making it my job to listen to you. When I’m back in town, I hope you’ll smile, make eye contact and wave, because I’m quite sure now that’s what we’re all about.

Rappelling and other antics in UK's library?

This is so not safe. But 24,000 YouTube hits later, I wonder if it's a fad? And here I thought the library was for geeking out and making out.

Or how about this one: someone put boomboxes on the ledges at UK's library?


I miss college sometimes.

Art + Public

David Stephenson/Herald-Leader
Vegetariat was part of Horsemania, a public art project in Lexington. It's just one type of public art, though -- we can build something permanent, temporary, big, small -- anything.

Public art: it's definition is broad, but it's something like the stuff out there in open view that makes you think, let's you know where you are and let's you know what this place is all about. It's for looking, playing, touching, listening, wondering and creating.

There's a lot of interest in bulking up the public art we've got around Lexington, and this year's Lafayette Seminar is opening up the discussion, and offering more time for discussion. This week's lecture features Bill Fontana, a sound sculptor from San Francisco.

The evening discussions are free and open to the public. The day-after response and discussions are open, but limited to 40 people. You must pre-register the Tuesday before for the Thursday discussions; lunch is provided by the Gaines Center.

Click beneath the cut for a list of events.

Girl Scout Cookies

Oh, heavens. The Girl Scout cookies are here.

Mark Cornelison/Herald-Leader

This photo, shot last week at a warehouse on Nandino Way, tells you just how many peanut-butter-chocolate-striped-butter-cookie calories are floating around this area.

One word: yum.

Now, our local Girl Scout Council sells cookies from Virginia-based ABC Bakers, which  gives us Caramel deLites, Peanut Butter Patties and Thanks-A-Lot. Louisville-based Little Brownie Bakers -- the cookies I sold as a wee scout -- are the Samoas and Tagalongs.

Little Brownie also is the maker of my new favorite cookie: the All About! I like to think this cookie and I  have some kind of cosmic connection.

Plus, as Cheryl Truman says, banana pudding is half the reason to live in the South. They have a recipe here for All About banana pudding.

The regular ordering period is over. I was conveniently out of the country while it was going on, which kept me from being too much of a glutton. But the cookie booth phase of sales started last week, and if you know a Girl Scout, she can probably track down a box or eight for you. Check out GirlScoutCookies.org to search for local sales.

Cheer: Once!
Rich Copley is so right when he said in his Oscar blog that I was likely doing a happy dance for Once. The little movie that could won an Academy Award last night. I was almost brought to tears by the thank-yous from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. (What? They were earnest.) You can watch the speeches here.

Kentucky Music Hall of Fame inductions

Pablo Alcala/Herald-Leader & Kentucky.com

Live from the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony...

    While much of Kentucky hid from the slick roads and freezing rain, women in high heels and men in black ties headed into Lexington for the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
    The inductees were country crossover artist Crystal Gayle, singer and TV star Florence Henderson, jazz and soul musician Les McCann, writer and producer Norro Wilson and country singer Dwight Yoakam.
    McCann and Henderson didn’t attend the ceremony, but Gayle was to perform with her sisters Loretta Lynn and Peggy Sue, Billy Bob Thorton recorded a video for Yoakam and George Jones prepared his congratulations for Wilson. A tribute to saxophonist Boots Randolph, a 2004 inductee who died in 2007, started the show.
    Lexington Center’s Bluegrass Ballroom was filled with black tuxes, crushed velvet dresses and sparkling, shining shoes soaked by water and salt.
    “We had a few calls from people saying they couldn’t come, and a few calls from folks asking if they could get tickets,” said Robert Lawson, the Hall of Fame’s director.
    Eight hundred people had tickets for the event, scraped their cars and held up their hems to use their tickets, which cost $125 to $200.
    Inside the ballroom, Dwight Yoakam soundchecked with musicians, singing to a crowd of servers in black uniforms while they scattered salt and pepper shakers on white-clothed tables with red rose centerpieces.
    He swaggered out of the ballroom in scuffed white boots, tight blue jeans, a heavy trench coat and signature cowboy hat and into a lobby just starting to fill with guests.
    They waved for him to stop for photos. As he started to walk away, Mount Vernon Mayor Clarice Kirby jumped over and wrapped her arm around his back saying, “Please, just one.”
    “I didn’t care if I had to beg,” Kirby said.. “I didn’t even tell him I was the mayor.”
    There was little star-gazing as crowds arrived, but the inductees' dinner tables were swarmed by media and camera-toting fans who hovered over their sequins and salads.
    “Isn’t she cute?” a woman whispered, waving for Gayle and Lynn to lean into each other.
    Country artist John Michael Montgomery, wearing head-to-toe black, said he jumped at the chance to introduce Yoakam, but attends the ceremony to see his Kentucky cohorts get some attention.
    “We’ve had tons of talent come out of this state,” he said. “I gotta brag a little bit about that.”

Click below for a list of past Hall of Fame inductees...

Kentuckians on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

ABC

A two-hour episode of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired Sunday helped out a Louisville family, plus the entire University of Louisville marching band.

Patrick Hughes, who is blind and uses a wheelchair, plays trumpet in U of L's marching band. The house rebuilt by scads of volunteers and the EMHE crew was more accessible for him and a better fit for his family. (At the end of the episode, we heard that the family's mortgaged was paid off, and then some, too, which is particularly impressive.)

The crew also rebuilt the marching band's practice field, creating a level, green field and a adding new lights. Fancy.

ABC

Lexington artist Jessie Dunahoo was featured on the episode in segments that told how the 75-year old man, who is blind, deaf and can't speak, creates artwork based on touch. Here's a Herald-Leader article written in 2000 about the artist. He works out of the arts studio Latitude in Lexington, which saw its name splashed across the television when it aired.

Missed it? Watch the full episode here.

 

Lolcats in ur gud buk, creatin da urfs.

Oh hai.

Rather than speak in kitteh pidgin for an entire post, let me just say that I have not stopped laughing since late last week, when my delightful coworkers pointed out the Lolcat Bible, and now all my giggle muscles hurt.

From Genesis 1: "An Ceiling Cat gotted all teh waterz in ur base, An Ceiling Cat hadz dry placez cuz kittehs DO NOT WANT get wet.10 An Ceiling Cat called no waterz urth and waters oshun. Iz good."

Oh heavens. Laughing again.

But let's back up, just in case.

These are Lolcats. This is an explanation of Lolcats. This is a bizarre collision of blog wonder, wherein PostSecret and Lolcats combine to form the recently defunct LOLsecretz.

IT'S FUNNY.

Maybe you have to be a cat person?

kthxbai.

The Vagina Monologues

Valentine’s Day always brings conversation hearts, chocolate hearts, lifted hearts and broken hearts. Then Eve Ensler showed up, and Valentine’s Day became synonymous with another part of human anatomy.

Her play The Vagina Monologues will be performed all over the country in the days and week surrounding Valentine’s Day. Even the script rattles off some of the places where they're mad for the show -- and what they call it there: Pussycat in Great Neck, pooki in Westchester, mimi in Miami, split knish in Philadelphia, shmende in the Bronx.

Whatever word you prefer in Central Kentucky, there are plenty of chances to use it. There are several performances and events going on in Kentucky -- you can find all of them listed at events.vday.org, or check out the local performances under the cut.

Real food in tv, blogs and books.

I like real food -- the items along the edges of the grocery store, the stuff my great-great grandma might've had in her pantry, the dishes with ingredients I recognize and pronounce with ease.

I like bad-for-me things, too -- say, just about anything in the cookie aisle.

But it's easier to enjoy the real, the local, the nature's candy kinda foods now that it's gaining a following.

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma , will be on Kentucky Authors Forum on KET. The forum was taped at University of Louisville on Jan. 11, but you can watch it again at 10 a.m. and noon Feb. 17 on KETKY, the new Kentucky-focused digital station or 10 a.m. and noon March 23 on KETKY.

I like his take on things, the very simple and clear advice gracing the cover of his latest, In Defense of Food: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (Also, I'd like to point out that I'm 40th in line to borrow the book from the Lexington Public Library. Apparently other people like it, too.)

Similarly, I'm smitten by the New York Times new Bitten blog, by cookbook author and Minimalist columnist Mark Bittman. In cooking and baking, I am daunted enough by long ingredient lists and many-step processes to give up and flip to another page. Happy to eat the complicated creations of others, but in my own kitchen, it needs to be simple, clear and preferably healthy.

The man posted a recipe for winter squash in coconut milk, for heaven's sake. ::groan::

It's 12:08 p.m. Lunch time for me. I swear, just making this post is like walking past a bakery on an empty stomach...

The Ice House and the chill on the local scene.

Mark Cornelison/Herald-Leader

This news was buried deep inside the City/Region section of the Herald-Leader today, but The Ice House is closing because of zoning and safety problems. The homemade venue that welcomed all-ages audiences to see local acts and touring bands isn't zoned for public gatherings of more than 50 people. A good show could easily draw more than that.

Ross Compton, pictured above, was the guy behind the venue in many ways. He said in the story that he'll work with the city and owners to try to make it work. Hopefully, it will.

This is one more example of a problem I've seen since moving to Lexington three years ago, a problem that surely existed many years before that: where can all-ages audiences go to enjoy itself here?

The Dame is a local entertainment institution that generally caters only to people ages 21 and older. But high school students, many college students and young people from Central and Eastern Kentucky who make Lexington their main source for entertainment are in a bind.

Venues like The Ice House and once upon a time Mecca and Underlying Themes (remember seeing shows there?) were solutions that came from the community. They were organized and run by local people who saw a need for arts and entertainment for a wider audience and filled it.

City and code enforcement officials understandably have to follow the rules for safety and zoning; if a fire broke out or the roof collapsed, we'd all be horrified and asking how we let this happen. The Ice House was run well, but any spot that holds a lot of people needs some basic safety features like lit exits and doors that open out. Zoning, of course is the bigger on-paper issue, but exemptions are often granted. No telling

The Ice House was a well-known secret. A look at the posters around town or a click on a local band's MySpace page or a listen to a WRFL announcement would tell you all about it. As Compton said in today's story, the shut-down was inevitable.

Angela Baldridge/Herald-Leader

Inevitable, but still a blow to entertainment and arts in the community. The Ice House is a good space that manages to boost local arts and expand our views with out-of-town music and creativity, too. It's exactly the kind of space we need, something that's not The Dame, not Rupp Arena, not Singletary Center and not a house party.

So where's the happy medium between grassroots community problem-solving and necessary safety and zoning regulations?  Does it require a city or arts organization official to act as go-between, someone to guide local ideamakers through the awkward parts of city codes? Does it mean financial breaks to encourage small venues for broader audiences to open close to downtown?

Lexington has a lot of interested parties -- even Vice Mayor Jim Gray lauded venues like The Ice House in today's story -- but nobody really leading the way. We keep chasing this change, this idea of a city we want to be, but it's hard to make any gains when we can't find a way to support creativity, community, arts and engagement.

If you've got an idea, I'd like to see it. Leave a comment here, or write a letter to our editor. Call your Urban County Council member, or look for the tall guy wearing a hoodie at any show in town -- that'd be Ross. Tell whoever you feel most comfortable talking with, but don't keep it to yourself, or inevitably, people trying the hardest will give up completely.