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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
The One World Film Festival is one of the the greatest (free!) annual events in Lexington. For 10 years, it has brought a string of (free!) independent films to downtown theaters. The points of the volunteer-run festival is for us to learn and discuss ideas through art, storytelling and entertainment.
The festival kicks of this weekend with Feb. 10 showings of Please Vote for Me, the first of 13 (free!) films.
There's no catch, no agenda-spewing, no "sign your soul and politics away on our petition, and please, enjoy the show." Just show up and watch, and if you're moved to stay after and discuss, they'll welcome it. If not, hey, see you next time, maybe?
Let's review: a good indie movie -- some have appeared on PBS, on the Oscar noms list, at dozens of film festivals; out-of-the-norm education; meeting your neighbors.
And free.
Click the link below for more info about each film.
For as badly as this town needs an entertainment calendar, I don't think anybody needs it more than I do right now. I'll be back from Iraq in eight days. My plane will land at Bluegrass Airport, I will pick up my bags and try to remember how to drive a car. Pay with a credit card. Sleep eight hours a night. Hold a conversation without an Arabic-speaking intermediary. Walk home from friends' houses without being escorted by a man with an AK-47.
I'm maybe not so well-prepped for a good night out.
Lucky me, I knew all about the H-L's fancy-pants new entertainment Web site, LexGo.com, back when it was nameless and URL-less. We had deep, probing discussions about whether it was offensive to use orange as the background color in a Kentucky blue town. We panicked once about whether the hapless squatter sitting on LexGo.com would really let it go.
Now here it is, debuting noonish today, just liked we planned, more or less.
And just in time.
See, I still do a double take when someone here makes a crack about a pregnant Jamie Lynn. (Because I am so, so very not.) I have no idea who is playing at The Dame, I don't know what's on the seasonal menu at Alfalfa and it's been months since I watched a movie that wasn't on a $2 pirated DVD sold on any given corner in Baghdad.
It's all there, along with my in-the-know blogging pals Rich, Harriett and Walter. And Review Revue, our compendium of what's good and bad. When I get away from War Story and back to It's All About, you should come visit me there, too.
My favorite part of it is that everybody gets to play along. You can add reviews, input your own calendar items and...basically, help me. I don't know what's going on anymore.
Tell me what I missed other than, of course, you.
One is a Web site of secrets sent anonymously to a non-judgmental guy from Maryland.
The other is a Web site of found items, sometimes secret in a 4 YOUR EYES ONLY!!!! way, sent to a non-judgmental guy from Michigan.
But when the creators of PostSecret and Found come together at ArtsPlace tonight, it will be an exhibition of humanity and a competition of pure pride and ego. (For more info about the event, which is almost sold out, click here. It starts at 8 p.m. at ArtsPlace, 161 N. Mill St. Tickets are $20 for general admission, $65 for VIPs. Call (212) 868-4444 or go to www.smarttix.com.)
Frank Warren, the secret collector, and Davy Rothbart, the keeper of lost items, are traveling the United States to show off their collections and raise money for the National Hopeline Network, a suicide-prevention hotline. Expect arm-wrestling and audience rivalry from the sites that seem cut from the same creative, Web-community cloth.
At an appearance at the University of Kentucky last week, PostSecret's Warren said Found was an inspiration for his site, which asks people to send decorated postcards sharing their secrets. No matter how sad, scary or silly, he says, "they're safe with me. I'm the PostSecret guy."
"Sometimes we think we're keeping a secret, but it's really keeping us," Warren told the crowd. He says that sharing a secret can create added burdens in the short term. It can create problems. Before he shared his own secret -- expect him to do that tonight -- he thought he'd be reliving it if he revealed it.
It just didn't happen.
But the people with the best secrets are those who say they have none. (Women, he says, have the very best.) "The children the world almost breaks become the most likely to change it," he says. "All of us have a secret that could break your heart."
Still, the secret he sees most often are confessions of peeing in the shower.
Rothbart's Found project relies on people sharing notes, photos and objects they've found; the secrets they reveal are open to interpretation.
"When you read these notes, it sparks your imagination. Two people can look at the same found note and come away with completely different stories," Rothbart said. "It's a fragment of a story. It helps reveal our shared humanity."
So who wins in this battle of common culture? Look behind the cut to decide.
Continue reading "Found vs. Post Secret in Lexington tonight!" »
Happy weekend!
Here's the to-do:
Movies: New this week are Fred Claus, King of California, Lions for Lambs and P2. Did you notice our fancy new five-star rating system?
Music: Strings are big this weekend, with the Reel World String Band celebrating its 30th anniversary on Saturday and Flying Fingers! concert with Andrew Leonard, Pat Kirtley and Endless Road Strings at Singletary Center tonight.
Books: Let me just say it one more time -- Kentucky Book Fair, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday, Frankfort Convention Center. I'll be rocking the H-L booth at 11 a.m., and perusing the fair for many hours after. Come visit. (Did you go to JB last night? Did you see the massive crowd there for Music of Coal? Wasn't that fabulous?)
Eat: Clinton H. Comley reviewed Natasha's this week -- sounds like he dug the goulash, the hummus and the gypsy dancers. In other news, Sharon Thompson reports that a new Cosi opened in Victorian Square and YES, the Farmers Market is still open! Eat, and enjoy!
I imagine you're all tired out since last night's fabulous PostSecret event at University of Kentucky, but if you can possibly stand any more stimulation and discussion, swing by Joseph-Beth at 7 p.m. tonight for our Herald Readers event.
We're featuring a CD-book, Music of Coal, produced by Jack Wright. Nick Stump and the Reel World String Band will perform.
Here's an NPR story about the CD, a collection of audio clips and Kentuckian's own memories of growing up in coal country.
If you're in the mood for more Kentucky books, check out the Kentucky Book Fair from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Frankfort Convention CEnter, 405 Mero St. Some of our state’s biggest names, like Wendell Berry and Bobbie Ann Mason, will be there. Look for Drew Curtis, creator of Fark.com and author of It’s Not News, It’s Fark; state poet laureate Jane Gentry Vance, who wrote A Year in Kentucky and Portrait of the Artist as a White Pig; artist and Centre College professor Stephen Rolfe Powell, the subject of Stephen Rolfe Powell: Glassmaker.
And of course, swing by the Herald-Leader table and say hello.
