Out With the Old...

Kirkwood Ave Graffiti

My teenagers are squeezing the last drops out of summer vacation. My daughter is spending the weekend at Holiday World with friends, hopefully riding a water slide as big as our neighborhood. After a few games of 9-ball at the IMU Back Alley, my son bailed to a friend's house. Tomorrow, he will be at the Mayhem Festival concert in Noblesville.

That leaves me alone in the IMU dining room. During the school year, this is one of the most packed places on campus. Right now, it's just me and the sharks (on TV). My wife is an IMU supervisor, so I'm actually loitering on the campus wifi until she is done for the night. (Hooray for multi-tasking.)

Nighthawks 8/3/11

I was tempted to change the name of this feature to "Twitter Tuesdays". However, I chose not to for two reasons. First, I don't want to be constrained to Tuesdays. If I cemented that deadline, every Tuesday would erupt with spontaneous drama (in order to make blogging a Herculean task). Second, the feature is about encountering new people, links, and ideas — the technology employed is simply a means to an end.

Free Furniture Art

Happy July 31st!

In college towns like Bloomington (home to Indiana University), where most apartments rent yearly from August to August, this is the day off-campus students move out at the last minute.

And leave their furniture.

Oversoul at Peoples Park

In the past two weeks, I have been fortunate to have a couple of father/son breakfasts on the town with my teenage son. I like to walk off the pounds go sightseeing after restaurant meals, so we walked a few laps around Kirkwood Avenue in Bloomington.

As soon as I stepped foot in Peoples Park, I saw the mural.

And exclaimed, "It's Alex Grey!"

My son was perplexed, so I had to share the story of my Alex Grey fascination.

Nighthawks 7/27/11

In yesterday's post, I mentioned finding local artists on Twitter. To highlight how useful Twitter is for expanding local social circles, I am starting a new feature called Nighthawks. On a regular basis (every week?), I will click on the Local Arts Tweets link in the sidebar of this blog and post screenshots of five current tweets I have explored. This is a fun way to meet new people and discover new arts events in your neighborhood.

Paul Smedberg Waldron Exhibit

Every week, I check local event calendars to find things to do. When I browsed the exhibit listing for The Waldron, Paul Smedberg's name jumped out at me.

I first encountered Paul's art many months ago when searching for local people to follow on Twitter. I was immediately fascinated by the combination of photography and computer graphics, the mixture of real and surreal.

The Wizard of Oz

I probably saved a lot of money by going to the final performance of The Wizard of Oz.

When I was a teenager, my younger sister watched The Wizard of Oz every day. She claims to not remember this, yet I can still recite most of the movie dialogue. The Youth Theatre did such a fantastic job with the acting, singing, dancing, costumes, and lighting... that I would have attended each show if my work schedule allowed for it. Bravo!