It's All About...

Found vs. PostSecret in Lexington

Really: I'm not here.

But I just saw this wonderful news and had to share: Found vs. PostSecret will be in Lexington on Nov. 14.

Davy Rothbart, founder of Found, and Frank Warren, creator of PostSecret, will be at ArtsPlace at 8 p.m. that night. Tickets are $20, or $65 for VIPs. (Those folks should arrive at 6:30 p.m. for a "special reception." They'll get front row seats and "PostSecret treasures." Hmmm....)

Best of all, it benefits the National Hopeline Network.

A week's worth of fun: Hutchinson's, Family Guy and great pumpkins.

Hey pals,

I'm away at a weeklong training seminar in the state originally known for lovers. So, I can't come play. But here are some things worth paying attention to this week...

Hutchinson's is closing its doors for good on Oct. 30. You can't save a business whose owners have decided to close, but I recommend you swing by for a phosphate or an ice cream soda before the deadline. Sit at the counter at the corner of North Broadway and West Short; they'll make it for you. Yum.

Also...

• Family Guy's 100th episode airs at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 4 on Fox. It's pretty self-explanatory. The title is Stewie Kills Lois.
• Plenty of new music will debut on Tuesday, like every week, but I want you to pay attention to this one in particular: Fraggle Rock: The Fraggle Rockin' Collection. OH YES.
• Watch the reruns of Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet. Death has struck the Whiskers clan again.
• Wristcutters: A Love Story is coming to the Kentucky Theatre. Sounds a little disturbing, but even more amazing.
• RE: Halloween. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown will be on at 8 p.m. Oct. 30 on ABC.
• Holly Golightly is at The Dame on Nov. 3! You heard her at the end of The White Stripes' Elephant. I saw her once in Dallas, and it was just the grooviest show. I left feeling great about the world. Please go see it.
• I know this is ahead of time, but the Kentucky Book Fair is Nov. 10. I'll be at the Herald-Leader booth when I'm not trolling the room for reading material. Swing by and say hello. I'd like to meet you.

Best bathrooms, best music, best food...

The Seal of Awesomeness returns this month with a very personal hunt: best bathrooms.

I needed a lot of help with this one; I'm no great judge of men's bathrooms. It's All About Bathroom Awesomeness Research Team member Jeff Bowen provided the guy's perspective. What we realized: we have very different values when it comes to restrooms. He was impressed by a lot of stalls. I was horrified by broken tampon machines. He cared less about decor. I wanted a bathroom where I could hang out.

Like the one pictured above at Third Street Stuff: it's probably the most colorful we encountered. Fight boring bathroom tile with paint!

Check out the other bathrooms we loved.

Otherwise, it's all about...

Reads: The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning will celebrate 15 years of writing workshops and community education from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Friday. Check it out at 251 W. Second St.

Stage: Kentucky Ballet Theatre presents Dracula at the Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short St. Shows are at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

• Hamlet! Actors Guild of Lexington continues its run this weekend at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.
• And for not-exactly-Hamlet, there's Kate Clinton! The comedian will be at UK's Singletary Center for the Arts at 7 p.m Saturday. Doors open at 5 p.m., silent auction at 5:30 p.m.

Music: Will Hoge is playing at The Dame Friday night, and he's all great and folky-poppy-soulful, but I'm so, so excited that he's playing with one of my favorite Detroit bands, The Hard Lessons. They're fantastic: they've got a look and sensibility from pop radio of the past, but a sound that's more gritty club of today.  ::sigh:: I just love them.

Food: Linda Blackford reviewed Le Bistro, but the news everybody seems to be talking about this week is the return of Furlongs. It's back at the cursed spots at 735 E. Main St. with its menu of Cajun and American fare.

• For the not-so-rocking crowd, the Lexington Philharmonic's second concert of the season starts at 8 p.m. Friday. They'll play Tchaikovsky's Suite From Sleeping Beauty, Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite and Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez with guitar soloist Pablo Villegas. The big draw, though, is guest conductor Kayoko Dan. She's the first candidate for the Lexington Philharmonic conductor position being vacated by George Zack after 30 years. Tonight is her night to impress.

Movies: New this week, we have Dan in Real Life, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Darjeeling Limited, Lars and the Real Girl and Saw IV.

Is KY the home of the high five?

A deep, important investigation in today's Herald-Leader was inspired by this shirt from WHY Louisville:

Could Kentucky be the home of the high five?

Alas, our investigation was inconclusive. We'll file it away with Chicken or the Egg and How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To the Tootsie Roll Center of a Tootsie Pop?

But this much we know is true: Kentucky seems to pop up a lot in the lore surrounding the high five. Last night, before he'd even read the story, a sports editor pointed out that the 1978 Lafayette boys basketball team was fond of it. Sports stars and musicians are all on record slapping each other five. We will never know who really invented it, but this idea that the University of Louisville basketball team popularized it is entirely possible.

That said, here's all the other stuff you need to know about high fiving:

• National High Five Day was April 19 this year.
  • National High Five Day has its own documentary. About 11:30 long.
• There are many varieties of the high five. And it really is a science.
• Feeling lonely and unappreciated? Here's a virtual high five.
• High five etiquette is actually kind of a big deal.

New H-L comics: creator interviews.

If you're a comics reader, you probably noticed a few little, you know, tweaks to the comics pages. Good-bye, Mary Worth. Sally Forth, I really liked you. Marmaduke, you are a bad dog. Cathy, glad the marriage is working; hope the baby comes by. Gals at Apartment 3-G? ::sigh:: You could've been all Grey's Anatomy, but no...it never worked for you.

So hello Baby Blues, Between Friends, Cul de Sac, F Minus, Mother Goose & Grimm, Mutts, Non Sequitur, Red and Rover and Speed Bump.

Behind the cut, you'll find interviews with the creators of some of our new comics.

Enjoy!

New H-L comics: F Minus

For the next few days, I'll be posting Q&As with the artists of several new comics debuting in the H-L on Monday. Some are quite new to syndication, including this one, F Minus...

Tony Carrillo was an art major, planing on seeing his name on gallery walls, but as a junior at Arizona State University, he set down the paint brushes and tried cartooning for his student paper.

The plan changed when his strip won a contest in 2004, the year he graduated; it earned him a development deal with a syndicate and his full-time job: creator and cartoonist of F Minus.

The cartoon was syndicated in April 2006; the Herald-Leader will begin running the daily panel on Monday. Carrillo still lives in Arizona and continues to rely on people-watching and overheard turns of phrase for inspiration.

His first book, F Minus, was released in September. In its first year of syndication, the comic was nominated for a National Cartoonist Society award for best newspaper panel.

“I met almost everyone on comics page. It was bizarre,” he says. “There are just legends walking around.”

 

Question: How has the comic developed since your earliest strips?
Answer: I think my artwork had gotten better. I'm getting faster at the drawing. The content and style hasn't changed. I knew what I wanted it to be like. You get away with a little more in college.

Good news!

Emmett is back!

After a daring late-night rescue -- note the time of this post -- he is passed out with his kibble-swollen, faucet-watered belly in the air. Megatron even gave him a little grooming, because that's what kitties do, I guess.

After he sleeps off the madness, he and I will have a little talk about not running away from people that love you. It's a very important lesson; it's time he learned.

Thanks for the help, everybody. I love Lexington.

Finding my missing cat.

Yes, this is a shameless misuse of this blog, but I have an emergency.

My cat is missing.

His name is Emmett. He's male, black, Persian and strictly an indoor kitty.

He's kind of incapable: tiny nostrils that don't smell well, big eyes that get really goopy without care, flat face that makes eating difficult, crooked claws that make for weak hunting. He drinks out of a fountain, for heaven's sake.

Loves to be petted, groomed and generally loved on, but he may well be shivering in the back of some garage right now.

Last seen Oct. 17 in the Mentelle neighborhood.

If you've seen him, or if you speak kitty and can ask my other one where he went, e-mail me.

He's usually a lot cuter, but this is the only photo I can find at the moment that doesn't turn him into a giant black blob.

Here he is, in happier times:

----

And, just so this post isn't 100 percent self-serving...

Go: Hutchinson Drug Company is closing after 81 years in business.
Even if you've never stopped in before, the little store in Victorian Square us a place worth remembering. Just try it.

Listen: Blind Corn Liquor Pickers at Al's Bar.
At 8 p.m. tonight, live music will have its debut at the bar at 6th and Limestone. (Indeed, it's under new ownership.) Go celebrate and enjoy!

In Dreams Awake: The Life of Bill Petrie

In Dreams Awake will have only one night at the Kentucky Theatre, but it is the collection of a lifetime of memories and friendships.

The documentary follows the life of William Joseph Petrie -- Bill to those who knew him -- a farmer, artist and activist from Grant County. The film collects dozens of stories from friends, original footage and photos of the artist and the tale of his short life.

One of the most engaging parts is a long overview of his paintings; they're bright and engaging and identifiably his. To hear the explanations of why people bought them and hang them proudly is fascinating; to learn the stories of when they were painted and what inspired them is educational.

The film will show at 7:45 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Kentucky, after a reception and live guitar performance. Tickets are available by calling (859) 231-6997. Watch for a story about it in Thursday's Free Time section.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. - Henry David Thoreau

Pumpkin pie...milkshake...ice cream...latte...cookie.

So yesterday was 80 degrees. So what? Sweet, sweet fall, you are here, and you smell like cinnamon. And apple cider. And best of all, pumpkin.

(Mutts will begin appearing in the H-L on Oct. 22!)

If you're not really into carving and cooking this big orange gourd, there are other ways to get the sensation.

On the non-negotiable list of low-effort pumpkin-styled foods you must try:

• The pumpkin pie milkshake at Tolly Ho, 395 South Limestone. It is exactly what it sounds like: a piece of pumpkin pie dropped into a cup with ice cream and blended to pureed, pumpkin-cream deliciousness.

• The pumpkin latte at Third Street Stuff, off the corner of Third and North Limestone. You can find this type of drink at virtually any coffee shop, but at Third Street you can go sit on the picnic tables on a chilly night, sip your pumpkin drink and people-watch. The conversation will make you glow.

• Graeter's Pumpkin Ice Cream. It's a seasonal flavor, so they'll have it at least through October, possibly through November, they told me at the Romany Road store. Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pumpkin in there somewhere. Yum.

• Pumpkin beer. We know how to celebrate the season.

On the list of deliciousness that requires work:

• The Pumpkintini!

• Baked pumpkin with mixed rice pilaf, which I made for dinner last week. Indeed, I will be eating dinner out of pumpkins as often as possible this season. By the way, that whole rumor of pumpkin shortages? It's only kind of true; local pumpkins are in short supply, but they're being trucked in from elsewhere to feed the Halloween demand.

• Behind the cut, you'll find my favorite cookie recipe of all time, low-fat, whole-wheat pumpkin spice cookies. The word cookie is used generously; it's like cake in a cookie portion.