The Tulsa Voice | Vol. 5 No. 14

BARRY FRIEDMAN INTERVIEWS BILL MAHER P8

TULSANS PROTEST FAMILY SEPARATION P12

J U LY 3 – 1 7 , 2 0 1 8

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VOL. 5 NO. 14

DOWNTOWN, THE DRILLERS CONTINUE A LEGACY OF PROFESSIONALISM — AND FUN | P26

paradise never sounded So Good.

Tickets On Sale Now

boy george & culture club and the b-52S july 12 Australia’s thunder from down under july 14 gabriel iglesias july 20 the oak ridge boys july 26 dr. ken jeong aug 11 vince gill aug 16 candlebox aug 25

Live Music

Friday & Saturday Nights Starting at 9PM in 5 o’Clock Somewhere Bar and at 10 PM in Margaritaville!

Visit margaritavilletulsa.com for a complete schedule.

81ST & RIVERSIDE 888-748-3731 RIVERSPIRITTULSA.COM

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July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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PIZZ A, HOUSE-BRE WED BEER, WINGS, 60 + T VS ELGIN & M.B. BR A DY

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

CONTENTS // 3

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July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

July 3 – 17, 2018 // Vol. 5, No. 14 ©2018. All rights reserved.

PUBLISHER Jim Langdon EDITOR Liz Blood ASSISTANT EDITOR Blayklee Buchanan DIGITAL EDITOR John Langdon CREATIVE DIRECTOR Madeline Crawford GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Georgia Brooks, Morgan Welch PHOTOGRAPHER Greg Bollinger

MORE THAN A MOVIE P22

BY ALICIA CHESSER

AD SALES MANAGER Josh Kampf

Circle Cinema celebrates 90 years of diversity and community

CONTRIBUTORS Alicia Chesser, Jake Cornwell, Charles Elmore, Barry Friedman, Ryan Gentzler, Eric Howerton, Jeff Huston, Fraser Kastner, Clay Jones, Adam Murphy, Mary Noble, Zack Reeves, Joseph Rushmore, Andrew Saliga, Damion Shade, John Tranchina, Brady Whisenhunt The Tulsa Voice’s distribution is audited annually by

RAINS MAY COME P26

BY JAKE CORNWELL

From ‘Black Sunday’ to Greenwood, the Tulsa Drillers have a storied past (and present)

Member of

The Tulsa Voice is published bi-monthly by

Circle Cinema | VALERIE GRANT

1603 S. Boulder Ave. Tulsa, OK 74119 P: 918.585.9924 F: 918.585.9926 PUBLISHER Jim Langdon PRESIDENT Juley Roffers VP COMMUNICATIONS Susie Miller CONTROLLER Mary McKisick DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR Amanda Hall RECEPTION Gloria Brooks

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD Send all letters, complaints, compliments & haikus to: voices@langdonpublishing.com FOLLOW US @THETULSAVOICE ON:

BARRY FRIEDMAN INTERVIEWS BILL MAHER P8

TULSANS PROTEST FAMILY SEPARATION P12

J U LY 3 – 1 7 , 2 0 1 8

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VOL. 5 NO. 14

NEWS & COMMENTARY 7 ON IMMIGRATION RHETORIC,

CONSIDER THE FACTS

B Y RYAN GENTZLER Undocumented Oklahomans contribute roughly $85 million annually in state, local taxes

8

BILL MAHER DOESN’T FEAR THE BOOS

FOOD & DRINK 14 SURA? SURELY!

B Y ERIC HOWERTON

TAC Gallery will exhibit Austin Navrkal sculptures in July

16 TWO SOMMS, 10 CANS

B Y ANDREW SALIGA

32 SHOW AND TELL

B Y ZACK REEVES

On political correctness, Roseanne, and Donald Trump’s reign

Cracking open the canned wine craze

TV & FILM

10 RETREATS AND RESOURCES 44 HOOP! THERE IT IS

BY FRASER KASTNER

Y CHARLES ELMORE B Grateful Day Foundation provides fellowship and help for Tulsa’s HIV/AIDS community

Team work makes the dream work in the light-hearted basketball comedy ‘Uncle Drew’

12 AGAINST SEPARATION AND DEPORTATION

BY JOSEPH RUSHMORE

44 AMERICAN IDLE

B Y JEFF HUSTON

MUSIC

30 GLAZED AND IMPROVED

B Y BRADY WHISENHUNT

Korean classics steal the show at this East Asian eatery

BY BARRY FRIEDMAN

Hundreds protest Tulsa County’s partnership with ICE

ARTS & CULTURE

A father and daughter use music to get out of their funk in ‘Hearts Beat Loud’

45 NETFLIX AND CHILL

B Y JEFF HUSTON

‘ Set It Up’ is the streaming giant’s bid for a rom-com resurrection

Tulsa FMAC launches the Tulsa Creativity Database

34 SEND IT!

B Y JOHN TRANCHINA Climb Tulsa heralds new era for area climbers

ETC. 6 EDITOR’SLETTER 9 CARTOONS 18 DININGLISTINGS 36 THEHAPS 43 MUSICLISTINGS 45 FULLCIRCLE 46 ASTROLOGY + SUDOKU 47 THEFUZZ + CROSSWORD

40 ULTRAVIOLET WONDERLAND

BY DAMION SHADE Discussing EDM in Oklahoma with two members of the Intergalactic Circus DOWNTOWN, THE DRILLERS CONTINUE A LEGACY OF PROFESSIONALISM — AND FUN | P26

ON THE COVER PHOTO BY ADAM MURPHY THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

42 ISLAND VIBES

B Y MARY NOBLE

Rush Fest returns CONTENTS // 5

editor’sletter

T

his is my last issue at the helm of The Tulsa Voice, so I’m going to reminisce a little. It has been an absolute honor, pleasure, and immersive education to work here.

When I moved to Tulsa in December 2015, I had no idea what I might do for work. Six weeks later, as fate would have it, I landed a job at The Tulsa Voice as assistant editor. Tulsa was as new to me as moving to Denver or Kansas City might have been.

January 2016 began my crash course in the city’s history, culture, detractors, fans, streets (I maintain it is not all a simple grid!), conspiracies, local journalism, and more. My first piece for TTV was about arts education funding, and

6 // NEWS & COMMENTARY

my most recent was an interview with a band I love, Calexico, before their show at Vanguard.

In between, I wrote a series of artist profiles, various interviews, a drinking column (lovingly titled “Down the Hatch,” after my late grandmother’s favorite phrase), a dispatch from Standing Rock, and—now—30 editor’s letters.

Joining the Voice’s staff also rekindled my long love affair with alternative newspapers. I grew up reading the Oklahoma Gazette, OKC’s alt paper. As a young adult, the Gazette affirmed my interests in local culture and commentary— and reassured me that there was a place outside of the regular daily for those with different interests, political leanings, and perspectives.

Here, I found that place again.

Over the last two-and-a-half years, I’ve met countless individuals who contribute to Tulsa’s vibrancy and who challenge the city to be better, which is also part of the Voice’s mission. Many of those individuals are regular contributors our paper. Thank you for your excellent work.

Last week’s shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis was a terrible reminder of the animosity and danger that journalists face in today’s social climate. I hope you’ll remember journalists aren’t your enemy—and that you’ll challenge that narrative when you hear it.

We’re here to accurately report on and engage with the community.

It’s something every journalist I

know is proud to do—and a responsibility that none take lightly.

It’s been my honor to work with journalists—and as one—here at the Voice. Thank you, readers and advertisers, for supporting us.

As the paper nears its fifth birthday (December 2018), I’m pleased to know incoming editor Jezy Gray, and recently-hired assistant editor Blayklee Buchanan, will carry TTV’s torch well. I can’t wait to pick up their issues and read! a

LIZ BLOOD EDITOR

July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

okpolicy

U

ON IMMIGRATION RHETORIC, CONSIDER THE FACTS Undocumented Oklahomans contribute roughly $85 million annually in state, local taxes

by RYAN GENTZLER THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

ndocumented Oklahomans are woven into the fabric of our communities in countless ways. There were about 95,000 undocumented immigrants living in Oklahoma in 2014, accounting for about one in every 30 workers in the state.

Many have lived here for decades as they raise U.S.-born children.

They tend to work in difficult, labor-intensive occupations in agriculture, construction, and textile industries—jobs that few legal residents will take.

By any fair estimate, undocumented Oklahomans contribute a great deal to our economy and state tax base, and they would contribute even more if allowed a path to legal status. Undocumented Oklahomans pay sales tax directly when they purchase goods and services, and they pay property taxes through owning a home or paying rent. Although they are not technically eligible to work, most do, and about 50 to 75 percent of undocumented immigrants pay personal income taxes through IRS-issued individual tax identification numbers or false Social Security numbers. Because they’re not eligible to earn the Earned Income Tax Credit, their effective tax rates are higher than citizens with the same income.

Currently, undocumented Oklahomans contribute about $85 million in state and local taxes per year.

Oklahoma is much better off when we unite to reject appeals that minimize the contributions of our neighbors. But as the race to replace Governor Mary Fallin heats up, dubious claims about undocumented immigration have appeared in candidates’ platforms. One ad for a gubernatorial candidate features the shocking claim that $623 million is spent on undocumented immigrants in Oklahoma each year. The number comes from a group called the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national organization that seeks to severely limit any kind of immigration to the United States.

The report behind this number has been thoroughly debunked.

The authors deliberately tip the scales in various ways: by using unreasonably high estimates of the undocumented population; including benefits to U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants while excluding the taxes those children pay when they start working; assuming inflated health care costs for undocumented immigrants; and undercounting immigrants’ sales tax contributions.

It’s not surprising that political candidates use shocking numbers to scare voters into supporting their campaign, but the facts almost always tell a much more complicated story. In this case, the numbers are artificially inflated in so many ways that it’s safe to reject them—and the fear and anger they are meant to stoke.

More comprehensive overviews find mixed evidence when attempting to calculate the costs and benefits of undocumented immigrants to state and local government budgets. Some studies have found that expenditures on services for undocumented immigrants slightly outpace their contributions through taxes, but there’s a clear fix for that: granting undocumented residents legal status to work and pay taxes. Undocumented immigrants’ state and local tax contributions would rise by nearly $20 million in Oklahoma if the federal government took that step.

Undocumented immigrants move to Oklahoma for the same reason that citizens do: to seek out opportunities to work and to raise a family. Their contributions to our economy are vast, and they would be even greater if given the chance to work with legal status.

At a time of so much political division, voters of all parties and political leanings should unite to demand constructive solutions to the problems our state faces, rather than fall for old tricks meant to divide us. a

Ryan Gentzler is a policy anal yst with Oklahoma Policy Institute (okpolicy.org).

NEWS & COMMENTARY // 7

viewsfrom theplains

“W

as I sober?” Bill Maher asked on the phone, when I reminded him we met at the “Titanic” Oscar party in 1998.

“I think.”

“What the hell were you doing there?” he asked.

“God knows.”

“I was dating a girl who wanted to go really badly,” he said. “So I finagled tickets.”

Bill Maher and I don’t know each other, but we’re comedians, and even though he plays in the majors and I’m in Triple A, there are connections.

Carrot Top, for instance.

“Oh, I just saw him in Vegas!

He’s such a great guy,” he said.

Bill Maher and Carrot Top are dear friends.

That’s perfect actually.

As for Maher’s relationship status with America? Well, it’s complicated.

Bill Maher doesn’t fear the boos ON POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, ROSEANNE, AND DONALD TRUMP’S REIGN

by BARRY FRIEDMAN

BARRY FRIEDMAN: C-Span’s Brian Lamb once asked Christopher Hitchens, “Do you do any of it for effect?” I’ll ask you the same.

BILL MAHER: Never enters my thinking.

FRIEDMAN: Seriously?

MAHER: Seriously. In fact, on Mondays, on my desk, there’s an inch-thick sheaf of printed-out reactions from the previous show and obviously some of it is not positive. Fox News will always find something to yell at me for, as very often will the liberals. I’m one of those few people who get it from both sides. But what’s so interesting is, you can’t predict.

Sometimes you think, “Oh this is definitely going to get them all charged up and … nothing.” But recently, I said I was hoping for a recession because it’s one of the few things that could undercut Trump’s popularity, and they went ape shit. I don’t even think that’s controversial. Recessions are survival. Trump isn’t.

8 // NEWS & COMMENTARY

Bill Maher | COURTESY

FRIEDMAN: Once, talking about casino guys—Wynn, Trump, Adelson from Venetian, Stupack from Vegas World—you said Trump was “the most normal guy in the room.” Still?

MAHER: I don’t know what I thought was normal, but it sounds like this was well before he got into politics. Don’t forget, he’s changed his party affiliation like five times. Even now I don’t think you can call him a Republican.

He took it over and reversed their positions … on the debt and free trade … the minute he got into office. So, I don’t know what he is, but he’s not the most normal person in any room.

FRIEDMAN: Do we survive this?

MAHER: The worst thing that happened in the country is when Donald Trump started to like the job. When he was first in the White House, he didn’t seem like he wanted to be there. He

bitched that the place (impersonates Trump) “is a dump.” And he can’t get laid as much as he used to. Certainly can’t meet Stormy Daniels at a golf tournament anymore. Now, he’s not going to go away until he decides to go away.

And that includes the 2020 election. He’s already said if he loses, “It’s rigged.” Fifty-two percent of Republicans believe the election can be cancelled—Fox will get it up to 80 percent—if it’s “politicized.” And his supporters will believe because it’s a cult. This is right from the playbook of all strongmen and dictators. He emulates them. Those are the people he wants to be friends with. We’re only a year and a half into this nightmare. We may look back and say, These were the good old days of Donald Trump.

FRIEDMAN: Does Democratic fecklessness bother you as much as Republican evil?

MAHER: No, of course not. Noth-

ing is as bad as what’s going on with Donald Trump and undermining the rule of law, the environment, and stacking the courts with Neanderthals, but I do think it is the place of any conscious liberal to be after his own team to do better. Because when you don’t control any branch of government, because when you’ve lost over the past 10 years thousands of seats in local legislatures, it behooves you to say, “Maybe we’re doing something wrong.” I did a show back in the ‘90s, called “Politically Incorrect,” and I tried to tell people this insane obsession with political correctness is the elevation of sensitivity over truth and is going to come back to haunt us. I never dreamed it would get as bad as it has. And I think we played a little game of chicken with the Trump people in 2016. Liberals said, “You cannot be so stupid as to vote for Donald Trump,” and they said, “First of all, don’t tell us how stupid we can be” and then said, “Yes, Donald Trump is crazy. We’ll give you that, but if you think Islam has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism, and you lose your shit when a white girl dresses up as Pocahontas on Halloween, and you have a severe liberal backlash when Matt Damon says something as innocuous as a pat on the ass is different than rape, well, then, you’re crazy, too. And we can’t trust your judgment.” When they interview his supporters, it’s always “We’re a year in. Do you like him?” “We’re 18 months in. Do you still like him?” Weather alert: They always still like him. I tell liberals there’s not a lot we can do, so next time, a little more about we’re going to bring your jobs back and a little less about we’re going to make you pee next to a guy in a dress.

FRIEDMAN: You’re coming to Oklahoma because of the comfort of the blue enclaves, yes?

MAHER: I do have more fun in the red states because of the extra bonding, and they know I didn’t write them off. But the other reason is in Tulsa, in the middle July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

of the country, you find the oldschool liberals, as opposed to what you might find in San Francisco, where they are going to be too politically correct. And I don’t want to fight with those people during a stand-up comedy special. In Tulsa, they’re going to be good liberals, but not the crazy ones.

FRIEDMAN: What about Colbert, Stewart, Noah and Samantha Bee? You’re not as beloved as they are.

That bother you?

MAHER: I try not to talk about others who do the similar type of thing, but I certainly wouldn’t object to your depiction. I do think everybody else, in essence, is very much afraid to ever say anything that would garner any sort of reaction from their liberal audience other than cheers. But maybe it’s time to look at your shit if you’re a liberal and decide it’s a little raggedy.

FRIEDMAN: You called religion a neurological disorder in America.

Is its power waning?

MAHER: Definitely. In my stand-up act, I used to save religious material until the end, I’d say to the audience, as they were walking out, “I just want you to know I saved this part till the last so you’ve already got your money’s worth.” That seems a planet far, far away.

FRIEDMAN: Lighting round. Ready?

MAHER: Go. FRIEDMAN: Julian Assange.

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

MAHER: Started out great and something happened along the way, so please don’t try to tell me he’s not in league with Russia.

And he’s also quite responsible for getting Trump elected, along with Facebook and feckless liberals and evil Republicans and the electoral college and Hillary being a bad candidate.

one of their mouths has to be judged partly with that in mind.

In the abstract, Americans pay lip service to mental health and how it should get more funding, is just like any other disease, but somehow when someone who has documented mental issues—all that theorizing goes out the window.

FRIEDMAN: Al Franken.

FRIEDMAN: What about Roseanne?

MAHER: Should still be in the Senate. It’s a good example of how the Democrats fight completely differently. No sane person would defend how Republicans stick to their guns with someone like Roy Moore and Donald Trump, for that matter, but Democrats’ vision seems to be, “Okay, my elbow touched a girl’s breast in the sixth grade. I resign.” What he did, I mean, in the picture—was a gag.

I wouldn’t say this about a lot of people, but I’ve known Al a long time and, of course, we don’t know what’s in people’s hearts, but I just don’t think he’s that guy. And I think it was a shame that one of the great Democratic champions was taken off the board.

MAHER: Well, I can’t defend her tweet because it was racist and wrong, but someone who has always said she had seven different personalities, I mean, how about “You did a bad thing, Roseanne, now how about we try to get you the help you need?”

FRIEDMAN: Richard Spencer.

MAHER: I’m against all Nazis, and I don’t care who knows it.

FRIEDMAN: Kanye West.

MAHER: Someone, like my friend Roseanne [Barr], who has legitimate mental problems. And everything that comes out of either

FRIEDMAN: Ann Coulter.

MAHER: What we have in common is we’re not afraid to get booed.

FRIEDMAN: Is it performance art with her?

MAHER: That’s the question I’ve always asked myself, and I can’t honestly tell you I know. She seems too smart to believe some of the things she says. Her recent statements about the kids at the border being child actors—I can’t believe she really thinks that. But let me say this about the Republicans: Roger Stone was on my show, General Flynn has been on my show. They’re easier to get on my show in front on an entire liberal audience than some liberal politicians. They’re also not afraid to get booed.

FRIEDMAN: [Christopher] Hitchens flipped off your audience.

MAHER: (Laughs) So have I. But that’s how you win politics in America. You stand your ground and don’t flinch. The Democrats always fear polls. Republicans look at polls and say, “We’ll change it. People think Mueller is a straight arrow—give us six months, we’ll turn him into a criminal.”

FRIEDMAN: Barack Obama.

MAHER: The Jackie Robinson of American politics, and like Robinson, Obama had to be perfect.

Branch Rickey told Robinson, “I’m going to bring you up to the majors, the whole world is going to be watching you, but you can’t ever take the bait.” And that’s what Obama did. He never took the bait. He bent over backwards to not scare them with his blackness and no matter what he did, they were going to make him this monster he never was. And when you think about what he did— from TPP to the Paris Accords to Obamacare—it’s like Trump’s only directive is, “Undo it all so we can pretend America never had a black president.”

“You have time for one more?”

I asked.

“I really don’t.”

I had one more name on the list: America.

But he had already answered a it.

NEWS & COMMENTARY // 9

community

J

eff Tarwater doesn’t remember the summer of 2012. He was very sick. He regularly lost consciousness. He fought with anyone who tried to get him to a doctor. But Jeff only knows this secondhand. Paul McClure, Jeff ’s partner of four years, said it was obvious that he needed help.

“I found him for the third or fourth time face down in the front yard,” McClure said. “He argued with me, would swing at me.”

McClure called one of Tarwater’s friends from beauty college.

When she arrived, they argued.

He swore at her, something very rare for him, but she and McClure managed to get him to the hospital.

“I don’t remember anything,” Tarwater said. “I don’t remember any of the last part of June, July, August, or September. I don’t remember swinging at him. That’s not me. That’s not who I am.”

The diagnosis came back: AIDS. “I was diagnosed in 2012. By 2013, I didn’t leave my house,” Tarwater said. “I stayed on the couch, basically.”

That all changed when a nurse at the OSU Medical Center told Jeff about a yearly retreat for people living with HIV/AIDS. “She says, ‘Hey! You need to go to this retreat, it’s through Grateful Day.’” Tarwater had never heard of the Grateful Day Foundation, but with a push from McClure, he decided to go. Things were rough at first.

“By the time dark hit, I was on the phone crying. I said, ‘Come get me. I can’t do this. I don’t know why I even tried.’ On the other end he says, ‘I love you with all my heart. And I’m not coming to get you. You’re better off where you’re at.’”

But Tarwater made it through the night, and by the end of the second day, he decided to stay for the whole retreat. By the end of the third, he knew he had to be a part of Grateful Day because of the acceptance and community he found.

10 // NEWS & COMMENTARY

Paul McClure, Jeff Tarwater-McClure, Chuck Courtney, Elroy Avery, and Scottie Archerbald | GREG BOLLINGER

Retreats and resources Grateful Day Foundation provides fellowship and help for Tulsa’s HIV/ AIDS community

by FRASER KASTNER Chuck Courtney, co-founder and president of Grateful Day, has been running the retreat for six years. He says fear and shame are common reactions to an AIDS or HIV diagnosis, which can keep people from seeking help.

“They think we’re still back in the days of going to the AIDS hospice to die,” Courtney said.

“We’re not there. People can go into the hospice with an AIDS diagnosis and come out in six months and be undetectable.”

(Undetectable means a viral load less than 30, a status that many HIV and AIDS patients achieve through medication and

careful attention to their health.)

The Grateful Day Foundation was founded to host the retreat in 2011, after the church that had previously hosted closed its doors. The Foundation has held the retreat annually since then, and participation has increased every year. They started with 18 attendees. This year they had 70. Next year they want 100.

Visitors enjoy typical campground activities like volleyball and kayaking. The retreat also offers informational talks, workshops for the HIV-negative partners of HIV-positive people, a chiropractor, and even spiritual support.

It isn’t all business, though; the retreat includes a movie screening, manicures, and even massages.

More importantly, the retreat offers a place for fellowship that is free of shame and judgement.

The retreat serves people from all around Oklahoma and several neighboring states.

The Foundation has also expanded in an effort to cover gaps in services provided by other nonprofits. The Foundation provides counseling for newly diagnosed patients, resource counseling, access to transportation, and education.

Education can be lifesaving for someone living with HIV or AIDS, Courtney said.

“Right now, we’re looking at people living much longer lives on antiretroviral drugs. Life expectancy is normal.”

Grateful Day also helps facilitate communication between nonprofits. “It used to be a lot of agencies didn’t really tell you about the other agencies,” Courtney said.

Nonprofits are indispensable to the Oklahoma HIV/AIDS community. State and municipal funding for this type of work is meager at best, even with almost 1500 cases of HIV/AIDS in Tulsa County alone. Proper education is also hard to come by in Oklahoma because of the laws restricting sex education.

“You can say, ‘This is HIV. It’s a sexually transmitted infection,’” Courtney said. “You can’t say, ‘If you stick a penis in your mouth, you might get HIV.’” But even with the challenges the foundation faces, Courtney sees a bright future and opportunity for growth. The five-year plan for the Foundation includes a fivestate retreat, a mentor program, and more collaboration between nonprofits.

And for Tarwater, now an active volunteer with the group, the Foundation was a lifesaver.

“It it hadn’t been for Grateful Day, I really believe that I would have committed suicide,” he said.

More information about Grateful Day Foundation can be found at gratefulday.org. a July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

WICKED IS FLYING BACK TO TULSA

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www.TraversMahanApparel.com South Lewis at 81st • The Plaza • 918-296-4100

Best Museum Thank you, Voice Readers!

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

NEWS & COMMENTARY // 11

gallery

AGAINST SEPARATION AND DEPORTATION Hundreds protest Tulsa County's partnership with ICE photos by JOSEPH RUSHMORE

H

undreds of people gathered Saturday morning, June 30, outside the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center—home to Tulsa County Jail—to protest detaining the 240-plus undocumented people currently held inside. The demonstration was one of more than 700 across the country protesting the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy. In addition, local protesters also objected to Tulsa County’s participation in 287(g), a partnership between local law enforcement and the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency that permits “designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions,” according to ICE’s website.

The Tulsa County Sheriff ’s Office received about $3.5 million from ICE in FY 2017, according to a Tulsa World article. The agreement ensures Tulsa County receives $69 per day per detainee. a

12 // NEWS & COMMENTARY

July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

NEWS & COMMENTARY // 13

citybites

Sura? Surely!

Korean classics steal the show at this East Asian eatery

by ERIC HOWERTON

N

amed for the extravagant meals served to monarchs during the Joseon Dynasty, Sura (6946 S. Lewis St.) is a family-operated eatery serving traditional Korean delicacies alongside a bevy of Japanese familiars.

Fortunately, Tulsans don’t have to prove royal lineage or spend a king’s ransom to experience the tender galbi (BBQ beef short ribs served with grilled vegetables atop a small clay stove; $18), the surfand-turf pork and squid ($14), or the kaleidoscopic seafood pancake ($10), a savory treat swimming with shrimp, squid, and sweet onions that makes all other pancakes look miniscule by comparison.

Confusingly, Korean food remains one of the more obscure Asian cuisines to make landfall stateside. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Indian have all had their heyday, but traditional Korean food has yet to receive the same fanfare. While an influx of Korean/Mexican taco trucks have been wooing diners in metropolitan America for the better part of the last decade, in much of the country traditional Korean food still remains a hidden gem.

But for what reason? Have long-standing political tensions prejudiced the American palate against the majesty of Korean cuisine? Has the reputation of cabbage kimchi—which is as delicious as it is pungent—wrongly impressed the notion that Korean food is overwhelmingly odoriferous? (I’ll mention that blue cheese, pickles, and sauerkraut are all—like kimchi—fermented products that are uniquely valued for their funky tastes and aromas.) Or is Korean food simply not ubiquitous enough for people to know it’s out there?

Whatever the case may be, Korean food is rich in protein and spice, playful with textures, and

14 // FOOD & DRINK

Spicy chicken bibimbap at Sura | GREG BOLLINGER

endlessly enjoyable. While Sura manager James Bae offers patrons a large selection of Japanese familiars such as nigiri, Americanized sushi rolls, and starters like shrimp tempura ($7), gyoza ($5), and edamame ($5), the Korean menu is where Sura separates itself from the growing pack of sushi bars barking for business.

Korean food is almost infinitely customizable, so if you regularly experience flavor fatigue halfway through your meal, a trip to Sura will cure you. “Banchan” collectively refers to any number of smaller plates that accompany rice-based dishes, like the galbi, beef bulgogi (thinly sliced Korean BBQ; $13), spicy chicken ($12) or spicy pork ($12). Banchan occupy a nebulous space between side dishes and condiments, and they can be eaten by themselves or used as toppings for an entree. So you might accent your first bite of sweet Korean BBQ with some kimchi, steamed broccoli, and square of tofu, while a few strands of ojingeo-chae-bokkeum (dried,

red-pepper squid) and sliced fish cake transport your next bite into unchartered territory. By putting some of the artistry of constructing flavor profiles back into the hands of the consumer, banchan help make your meal a more interactive and personal affair.

Any of the previously mentioned meats can be ordered as bibimbap. Bibimbap is a rice dish typically served in a stone bowl brimming with a picturesque arrangement of seasonal vegetables (fern, carrots, radish, zucchini, shitake mushrooms, Korean spinach, and bean sprouts) and topped with meat and a raw egg. The bowl is heated so much so that it continues cooking even after the dish has been dropped off, and a quick mix of the ingredients will scramble the egg. True fans of bibimbap know that the magic lies in the bottom layer of rice, which becomes browned and crunchy from the searing stoneware and offers a dynamic contrast to the soft rice and crispy vegetables.

Looking for sharable plates?

Sura abounds. The grilled eel ($18) is served with romaine lettuce leaves for wrapping and a doenjang sauce (a fermented soybean paste that is vaguely reminiscent of salted peanut butter). Eel is a sweet and subtle fish that, despite having enough oil to prevent it from drying out, is light, clean, and lacks the fishiness of similarly oily species like mackerel and herring. The grilled eel is perfect for passing around the table, and makes for a memorable appetizer or mid-meal addition.

The Korean sashimi rice bowl ($14) offers a mountainous pile of sushi-grade tuna, white tuna, and red snapper (or salmon, upon request), and was one of the two table favorites. The fresh fish sat atop a bed of rice and was flanked with red onions, shaved beets, shredded carrots, lettuce, cucumber, peeled apple, and dressed with a sweet red chili sauce. Even if you don’t order the sashimi rice bowl, request the sweet chili sauce. You won’t regret it. The other table favorite was the spicy seafood tofu soup ($11), which was silken and velvety. As is often the case, “spicy” is relative at Sura. If your tongue can handle standard Mexican fare, nothing at Sura will cause you distress.

And if you have room, don’t forget to ask about dessert. James informed our table that he’ll be revamping the dessert menu in the coming months, and if the sundae of red bean and melon ice creams and Korean mochi is any indication of what’s to come, this will only sweeten the pot and give you one more reason to seek out Sura. a

SURA 6946 S. Lewis Ave. Mon.–Thurs., 11 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

Fri.–Sat., 11 a.m.–10 p.m. suraok.com July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

MEET ME AT THE MAX! 4p – 6p HAPPY HOUR

FUNDAY: OPEN AT NOON It’s back!

FREE HURTS DONUTS CHAMPAGNE MIMOSA BAR LIVE EVENT BINGO @ 2pm

MONDAY: $1 COORS BANQUET ON TAP ALL DAY

MON – FRI $2 DOMESTICS & FREE GAME PLAY

NEW PIN BALL

TUESDAY: FREE GAME PLAY WEDNESDAY: TEAM TRIVIA NIGHT

QUESTIONABLE COMPANY @ 8pm

THURSDAY: DJ MOODY @ 9pm

FREE GAME PLAY FOR THE LADIES

FRIDAY: 7/6 • RETRO DJ 7/13 • SWEET BABY JAYSUS SATURDAY: 7/7 • DJ ROBBO 7/14 • DJAB NEVER A COVER/21 & UP FREE WIFI SKEE BALL & PIN BALL

THEMAXRETROPUB

7/2/18 •11:35 BLUE DOME1 DISTRICT 114 S AMELGIN

Ando _1-4Pg_Tulsa Voice_July3_2018_v4_press.pdf

The best of Tulsa: music, arts, dining, news, things to do, and more.

Come find out what ’s happening.

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

ALL STORES OPEN JULY 4th All Andoliniʼs and STG locations will be open July 4th. From shady patios with cold beer to all the gelato flavors your squad craves, make it the best Fourth ever.

FOOD & DRINK // 15

downthehatch

Two somms, 10 cans Cracking open the canned wine craze

by ANDREW SALIGA

I

t’s easy to conjure the mental image of the pretentious wine snob feverishly swirling the glass, then taking a sip with an outstretched pinky. Most of us don’t fall into that category, but we might snub our noses at the concept of canned wine. It’s as if every beverage from wine to coffee to cocktails must go through a cycle of birth and rebirth, with commoditization happening in between. But does commoditization mean deprecating compromise?

To properly vet canned wine, I enlisted the help of two of Tulsa’s Level II sommeliers, Jared Jordan and Lesley Nelson. To achieve their Level II Sommelier certification, Jordan and Nelson had to pass an extensive three-part exam, which included blind tasting, wine theory, and service elements.

Jordan has over 10 years of experience in food and beverage and is currently the general manager of The Summit Club.

Nelson has spent countless hours behind many of Tulsa’s most popular restaurants and bars, the latest being Amelia’s, where she is a bartender.

Over the course of two hours, they blind taste-tested 10 canned wines. Our overall goal was to answer two basic questions. First: Does canned wine taste different than bottled wine? And second: What’s your resulting overall opinion of canned wine?

Canned wine is about convenience from the cooler, not proper stemware and decanters. This convenience also tends to come at a slightly higher price, but it’s worth noting that a single can of wine is the equivalent of half a bottle or roughly two glasses.

To establish a baseline for comparison between canned and

16 // FOOD & DRINK

Canned wine | ANDREW SALIGA

bottled, Jordan and Nelson conducted a side-by-side tasting of The White Queen 2015 Chardonnay. This Sonoma Chardonnay was the second most expensive wine tasted (roughly $13 per can and $23 per bottle). For this test, they were informed that they were being served the same Chardonnay in both canned and bottled versions.

Immediately noticeable was the difference in color, likely due to the bottle being exposed to more light and oxygen, as opposed to the can, which is hermetically sealed. The somms also noticed differences in aroma and taste significant enough for one to assume they were two completely different wines. Both enjoyed the bottled

version and felt that the canned counterpart “lost its soul”—the appealing complexities and fruit nuances were absent.

The remaining nine cans for the tasting were selected as a general representation of whites, rosés, and reds, with two of them being slight curveballs for a little excitement. The selection included Porch Pounder Chardonnay ($6), Tangent Sauvignon Blanc ($7), Alloy Everyday Rosé ($8), Dark Horse Rosé ($5), Social Hibiscus Cucumber Sparkling Sake ($3), Underwood Pinot Noir ($6), Alloy Antipasto Sangiovese ($9), Sans Wine Co. Carbonic Carignan ($15) and Alloy Malvasia Gueuze ($8).

After tasting and discussing the lineup, it was easy to spot the over-

all trend. While no specific wine was terrible, they all contained a lingering chemical or metallic note, which Jordan and Nelson both conceded that the casual drinker was not likely to notice. It is also worth noting that those unwanted flavors were less noticeable in the whites, which contained more citrus-forward notes.

The two wines that got a definitive thumbs up were the Tangent Sauvignon Blanc and the Dark Horse Rosé. When it came to the reds, the Alloy Antipasto Sangiovese and Sans Wine Co. Carbonic Carignon were preferred, but their comparatively high price points make them difficult to recommend.

As for the overall winner, there is some debate as to whether it belonged in the tasting at all.

The Alloy Malvasia Gueuze is a collaboration between Alloy Wine Works and Tulsa-based brewery American Solera. It’s a blend of California Malvasia grapes and a gueuze (a spontaneously fermented beer that’s a blend of barrel-aged beers ranging from 1-3 years old).

This can was more akin to a traditional sour beer than any sort of wine with notes of funky citrus and delightfully tart notes that left both Jordan and Nelson wanting more. In fact, it’s the only one that didn’t make it into the customary spit bucket.

Overall, both Jordan and Nelson agree that canned wine has its place and that they’d both enjoy either of their top picks while on the lake or at an outdoor event without thinking twice. However, canned wines have a ways to go before they can directly match the quality found in their age-old bottled counterparts. a July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

Happy 90th birthday to our friends at

Circle Cinema!

BRANJAE MUSICIAN

RUSS KIRKPATRICK FILM CREW

SARAH SULLIVAN ARTIST

Branjae

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

FOOD & DRINK // 17

UTICA SQUARE

dininglistings

TERWILLEGER HEIGHTS Bill & Ruth’s Blue Rose Cafe Burn Co. Barbeque The Chalkboard Dalesandro’s DoubleShot Coffee Company Elwood’s Ron’s Hamburgers & Chili Kitchen 27

TULSA ARTS DISTRICT

Fat Guy’s Burger Bar Lefty’s on Greenwood Wanda J’s Next Generation

BLUE DOME Albert G’s Bar-B-Q Andolini’s Sliced Dilly Diner El Guapo’s Cantina Fassler Hall Hurts Donut James E. McNellie’s Public House Jinya Ramen Bar Joebot’s Coffee Joe Momma’s Juniper Restaurant Rose Rock Microcreamery Sabores Mexican Cuisine Yokozuna

DECO DISTRICT Atlas Grill Billy’s on the Square Boston Avenue Grille & Catering Deco Deli Elote Cafe & Catering Poke Bowl Love Roppongi Tavolo: an Italian Bistro The Vault

DOWNTOWN Baxter’s Interurban Grill The Boiler Room The Boulder Grill Cafe 320 Daily Grill East Village Bohemian Pizzeria Foolish Things Coffee Co. The Greens on Boulder Lassalle’s New Orleans Deli Lou’s Deli Made Market (in the DoubleTree

by Hilton) Mazzio’s Italian Eatery Naples Flatbread & Wine Bar 18 // FOOD & DRINK

Cirque Coffee Corner Cafe Freeway Cafe Ike’s Chili JJ’s Gourmet Burgers Papa Ganouj El Rancho Grande Soul City Gastropub & Music House

CHERRY STREET Andolini’s Pizzeria Cafe Cubana Chimi’s Mexican Food Coffee House on Cherry Street Crushed Red Hideaway Pizza Jason’s Deli Kilkenny’s Irish Pub & Eatery Lucky’s Restaurant Main Street Tavern Mary’s Italian Trattoria Mi Cocina Nola’s Creole & Cocktails Palace Cafe Panera Bread Phat Philly’s Prairie Fire Pie Roka Roosevelt’s SMOKE. On Cherry Street Tucci’s Cafe Italia

MIDTOWN Albert G’s Bar-B-Q Bamboo Thai Bistro

I-44/BA INTERCHANGE Bill & Ruth’s Billy Sims BBQ Binh-Le Vietnamese Boston Deli Grill & Market The Brothers Houligan Chopsticks D’Oro Pizza Desi Wok Fiesta Cozumel Cantina & Grill Gogi Gui Korean Grill Hideaway Pizza Himalayas Aroma of India Jumbo Burgers La Roma Pizza Margaret’s German Restaurant Mazzio’s Italian Eatery Monterey’s Little Mexico Nelson’s Buffeteria Pho Da Cao Rice Bowl Cafe RibCrib BBQ & Grill Savoy Restaurant Sezchuan Express Shawkat’s Mediterranean Grill Speedy Gonzalez The Spudder Steak Stuffers USA Ti Amo Italian Ristorante Tokyo Garden The Tropical Restaurant & Bar Uncle Bently’s Pub & Grill Viet Huong Villa Ravenna Yutaka Grill & Sushi Buffet

SOUTH TULSA

WOODLAND HILLS

Arizona Mexican Restaurant BBD II The Deuce Baja Jack’s Burrito Shack The Brook Restaurant & Bar Cajun Ed’s Hebert’s Specialty Meats Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe Cardigan’s Restaurant & Bar Charleston’s Restaurant El Guapo’s Cantina El Samborsito Eritrean & Ethiopian Cafe First Watch Flavors of Louisiana The French Hen Bistro & Wine Bar Gyros by Ali Hideaway Pizza India Palace La Flama Los Mariachis Mexican Grill Leena’s Mediterranean Grill Mahogany Prime Steakhouse McNellie’s South City Goodcents Deli Fresh Subs Napa Flats Wood-Fired Kitchen Naples Flatbread & Wine Bar Nordaggio’s Coffee OK Country Donut Shoppe Pita Place Redrock Canyon Grill Ron’s Hamburgers & Chili Siegi’s Sausage Factory Sura Korean Japanese Cuisine Sushi Hana Japanese Fusion Thai Village Cuisine Tres Amigos Mexican Grill & Cantina TWL Bistro White Lion Whole Foods Market Yokozuna Zio’s Italian Kitchen

Asahi Sushi Bar Billy Sims BBQ The Bistro at Seville Bluestone Steakhouse & Seafood Charlie’s Chicken Chuy’s Fat Daddy’s Pub & Grille Fat Guy’s Burger Bar Fish Daddy’s Grill House Fuji Sushi Bar Firehouse Subs Hungry Howie’s Pizza In the Raw on the Hill Jameson’s Pub Jason’s Deli Jay’s Original Hoagies Keo Asian Cuisine Kit’s Takee-Outee Lanna Thai Logan’s Roadhouse Louie’s Grill & Bar Mandarin Taste Manos Peruanas Marley’s Pizzeria Mekong River Restaurant Oliveto Italian Bistro Ri Le’s RibCrib BBQ & Grill Ridge Grill Ron’s Hamburgers & Chili Shogun Steak House of Japan Siegi’s Sausage Factory Sobahn Korean Cuisine & Sushi Wranglers Bar-B-Q Zio’s Italian Kitchen

WEST TULSA Arnold’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers Charlie’s Chicken Hideaway Pizza Jumpin J’s Linda-Mar Drive In Lot A Burger Monterey’s Little Mexico Ollie’s Station Restaurant Pachac Peruvian Food Ron’s Hamburgers & Chili Union Street Cafe

75

TU/KENDALL-WHITTIER 918 Coffee Big Al’s Healthy Foods Bill’s Jumbo Burgers Billy Ray’s Catfish & BBQ Brownie’s Hamburger Stand The Brothers Houligan Calaveras Mexican Grill Cancun International Restaurant Duffy’s Diner El Burrito El Rio Verde Freddie’s Hamburgers Fuel 66 Guang Zhou Dim Sum Jane’s Delicatessen Jim’s Coney Island & Never on Sunday Las Americas Lot A Burger Lone Wolf Banh Mi Mr. Taco Oklahoma Style Bar-B-Q Pie Hole Pizzeria Pollos Asados al Carbon RibCrib BBQ & Grill Rozay’s Wingz Tacos Don Francisco Tally’s Good Food Cafe Tortas Del Rey Ty’s Hamburgers Umberto’s Pizza

244 11TH ST

EAST TULSA Casa San Marcos Charlie’s Chicken Cielito Lindo Mexican Grill Doña Gloria’s Restaurant El Gallo Loco El 7 Marez El Refugio Azteca Super Taqueria Fiesta Del Mar Fu-Thai Sushi Bar Garibaldi’s The Gnarley Dawg Hatfield’s Burgers & BBQ Jay’s Coneys Knotty Pig BBQ, Burger & Chili House Korean Garden Leon’s Smoke Shack BBQ Lot A Burger Maria’s Mexican Grill Mariscos El Centenario Ron’s Hamburgers & Chili Señor Fajitas Seoul Bistro Shiloh’s Restaurant Shish Kabobs Stone Mill BBQ & Steakhouse Tacos San Pedro Taqueria la Cabana Tikka Kabab Timmy’s Diner Tortilleria De Puebla

75 21ST ST 51 31ST ST

41ST ST 244 44

75

SHERIDAN AVE

GREENWOOD

PEARL DISTRICT

Biga Billy Sims BBQ Bin 35 Bistro Blaze Pizza Blue Moon Bakery and Cafe The Brook Restaurant & Bar Brookside By Day Brookside Cookhouse by Reasor’s Brookside Diner Cafe Olé Charleston’s Restaurant Claud’s Hamburgers Cosmo Cafe & Bar Crow Creek Tavern Doc’s Wine and Food The Donut Hole Egg Roll Express Restaurant Elmer’s BBQ In the Raw Keo Asian Cuisine La Hacienda Lambrusco’Z To Go Mondo’s Ristorante Italiano Old School Bagel Cafe Oren Pei Wei Asian Diner Pure Food and Juice R Bar & Grill Señor Tequila Shades of Brown Sin Fronteras Super Wok Sushi Hana Torchy’s Tacos The Warehouse Bar & Grill Weber’s Superior Root Beer Whole Foods Market Zoës Kitchen

YALE AVE

Amelia’s Antoinette Baking Co. Bull in the Alley Caz’s Chowhouse Chimera Cafe Coney Island Dos Bandidos Gypsy Coffee House Hey Mambo The Hunt Club Laffa Medi-Eastern Restaurant & Bar Lone Wolf Banh Mi Mexicali Border Cafe PRHYME: Downtown Steakhouse Sisserou’s Caribbean Restaurant The Tavern

BROOKSIDE

Bangkok Thai Super Buffet Bodean Bravos Mexican Grill Bread & Butter Kitchen + Bakery Celebrity Restaurant El Tequila Felini’s Cookies & Deli Golden Gate Jamil’s JC’s Pizza Jimmy Hula’s Livi Lee’s Daylight Donuts Super Shop Mario’s NY Style Pizzeria My Thai Kitchen NYC Pizza P.J.’s Sandwich Shoppe Phill’s Diner The Run Trenchers Delicatessen

LEWIS AVE

Admiral Grill Bill & Ruth’s Christy’s Good Food Evelyn’s Freeway Cafe Golden Saddle BBQ Steakhouse Hank’s Hamburgers Harden’s Hamburgers Hero’s Subs & Burgers Las Tres Fronteras Leon’s Smoke Shack BBQ Los Primos Moonsky’s Cheesesteaks and Daylight Donuts The Restaurant at Gilcrease White River Fish Market

ONEOK Cafe Steakfinger House The Sushi Place Tabouli’s Ti Amo Ristorante Italiano Topeca Coffee Williams Center Cafe

PEORIA AVE

NORTH TULSA

Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse Goldie’s Patio Grill McGill’s Olive Garden P.F. Chang’s China Bistro Pepper’s Grill Polo Grill Queenie’s Plus Cafe and Bakery Stonehorse Cafe Wild Fork

51

JENKS Andolini’s Pizzeria Burn Co. BBQ Bramble Flying Tee George’s Pub Los Cabos Melting Pot Marble Slab Maryn’s Taphouse and Raw Bar

ROSE DISTRICT 71ST ST 169

91ST ST

Andolini’s Pizzeria Daylight Donuts Fiesta Mambo!

Franklin’s Pork & Barrel In The Raw Broken Arrow Main Street Tavern McHuston Booksellers & Irish Bistro Nouveau - Atelier de Chocolat Romeo’s Espresso Cafe The Rooftop Toast July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

Congratlations to on your 90 Anniversary! th

WE ARE PROUD… to be a neighbor of Circle Cinema and wish the historic Tulsa theater a Happy Anniversary!

THANK YOU, CIRCLE CINEMA… …for serving America’s finest gourmet popcorn created right here in Tulsa!

Visit Our Store At: 3215 South Harvard 918.779.4333 • premier-popcorn.com

DOWNTOWN 111 S Lewis • 918 582 2020 MIDTOWN 4920 S Harvard • 918 745 9662 SOUTH 8010 S. 101st E Ave • 918 252 7432

harreleyecare.com

Thanks for keeping it reel.

Congrats to Circle Cinema for 90 years of neighborly love.

HAPPY ANNIV ERSARY !

Thank you for 90 years of great entertainment. We are proud to be a neighbor in historic Kendall Whittier.

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THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

6 N. LEWIS d 918.584.2217 d ZIEGLERART.COM FOOD & DRINK // 19

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www.guthriegreen.com 20 // TULSA ARTS DISTRICT GUIDE

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WOODYGUTHRIECENTER.ORG July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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TheTulsaArtsDistrict.org THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

TULSA ARTS DISTRICT GUIDE // 21

CIRCLE CINEMA CELEBRATES 90 YEARS OF DIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY

BY ALICIA CHESSER Photo by Adam Murphy

22 // FEATURED

July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

E

scape. Entertainment. A place to learn, to be awestruck, to belong. For 90 years, Circle Cinema has been not just a landmark in the city but a bookmark in the lives of Tulsans who have made memories, decade after decade, just by walking through its doors.

It’s never been just about the movies.

“My first film here was ‘Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster,’” said David Kimball, Circle Cinema’s publicity manager. “This was my neighborhood theater growing up here back in the early 1970s.

Fifty cents and a coupon out of the paper and you were in heaven. It was the escape plan from home. You could run down here, run up and down the aisles, and just be a kid.”

Chuck Foxen, who programs films for the Circle, thinks the first thing he came to see here was “Wassup Rockers,” written and directed by Larry Clark. “I got here super early and sat down to wait in the lobby,” he said. “Circle co-founder Clark Wiens’ wife Michelle came right up and introduced herself, asked me how I’d heard about the place. Then they introduced the film and there was Larry Clark! I was just blown away. They care so much about everyone who walks in here.”

The theater is celebrating its 90th birthday July 7–15 with the first-ever Circle Cinema Film Festival, curated by theater staff as a walk through the decades of its presence and influence in Tulsa. From 1928’s “The Passion of Joan of Arc” to 2018’s “Diane,” starring Tulsan Mary Kay Place, the festival features a diverse lineup of documentaries, silent films, Hollywood features, Native and local films, and in-person appearances by some of Tulsa’s movie icons,

including Gary Busey, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Tim Blake Nelson. Eclectic and diverse, the festival points to the ongoing fulfillment of the Circle’s mission: “Community Consciousness Through Film.”

That mission is apparent everywhere at the theater today, from its promotional materials and events with local nonprofits to the smiles on patrons’ faces as they come up to the ticket counter. (As I sat talking with Co-Founder Clark Wiens and Circle Cinema Foundation Executive Director Stephanie LaFevers, my literal nextdoor neighbors walked in for a matinee.)

“The word ‘community’—we think every film is that,” Wiens said. “No matter what’s on offer on the telly, you’re sitting by yourself. No things that get changed in America are done by an individual. You have to have a catalyst.

Film can be that. It can bring the stimulation that comes from knowing others care as you do about something.”

For Wiens and the late Foundation co-founder George Kravis, that something was expanding hearts and minds. The two had the idea to open a nonprofit theater teaching tolerance, with the idea that films could educate at the same time as they entertained.

“We were going to do it in big public movie houses in off hours,” Wiens explained. “But George said, ‘What about Circle Cinema?’”

At the time, the theater was on the verge of being torn down.

“He suggested that it might be just as important to restore this building as to do what we were hoping to do with films. It’s come to pass.

As we celebrate our birthday it’s a good reason to acknowledge George’s foresight in saying ‘save the building’ and in so doing provide a

ADAM MURPHY THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

home for what we wished to do.”

In 2003, the newly formed Circle Cinema Foundation began to bring the space back to life.

It had sat vacant for nine years. Pigeons roosted in the damaged roof, LaFevers said. Homeless Tulsans were staying in the uninhabitable apartments and offices above the theater.

In the renovation effort, theater manager Greg Younger spotted an unusual curved emblem on the floor underneath some linoleum: A “C,” laid into the terrazzo floor just inside the original entrance. C for Circle? Or C for the architect, a man named Chilton?

“I thought it stood for Clark, of course,” Wiens said, laughing.

Whatever its meaning, the emblem was a link to the theater’s beginnings. In 1928, a Mr. Chilton constructed what was originally the Circle Theater across the street from Whittier Square, on the original Route 66. (Wiens speculated that the name Circle might have been a play on the “square” across the street.) It was the suburbs then, on the outskirts of downtown (where most Tulsans lived, worked, and went to school) LeFevers said.

“Like they want [downtown] to be now!”

Wiens interjected. “Pardon the expression: full circle.”

The restoration returned more than a building. It brought 75 years of history flooding back into the city’s bloodstream. On July 14, 1928, the Circle showed its second-ever movie: “The Gaucho,” starring Douglas Fairbanks. During the birthday festival, 90 years later almost to the day, you’ll be able to see it too, as maybe your grandma did when she was growing up in Kendall Whittier. Back then, it cost a dime to get a Coke and watch a movie or two. (Something like that. Stories might get a little embellished over the course of nine decades.)

“One of the best was when we did oral histories with people at the library across the street, and they all talked about getting their first kiss at the Circle in the balcony,” Wiens said.

“We don’t have the heart to tell people we never had a balcony,” LaFevers said.

From the beginning, the Circle was a community gathering space.

“We have pictures from the late 1930s and ‘40s that show the whole front of this area just lined with bicycles, starting here and going all the way down the street,” LaFevers said. “Something was going on that wasn’t just a regular movie. We have to speculate on what it was, but it looks like it was bringing people together, which is what we do now.”

The theater seated 515 people then—about the total number it seats today in four auditoriums, with significantly less constrictive chairs.

It was a time of massive growth for Tulsa, when the oil boom of the 1920s had settled into a steady stream of dollars flowing in all directions. Business and culture alike benefited from FEATURED // 23

90th Anniversary Events JULY 7 “Almost Famous” (2000). Intro by TTV film critic Jeff Huston, with post-screening panel with Jeff Huston, Charles Elmore, and music writer Becky Carman. 7 p.m., $10. Free sunglasses for the first 15 people in line.

JULY 8 “Grease” (1978 - 40th anniversary) with sing-along. 2 p.m., $10. Hosted by Tulsa Project Theater. Prop bags will be available for purchase.

“The Outsiders,” a reading of selected scenes from the screenplay, with The Outsiders House Museum. 4:30 p.m., free. A limited number of collector anniversary pins will be given away.

“An Evening With Tim Blake Nelson,” Q&A hosted by Tulsa World film critic Michael Smith. 6:30 p.m., VIP event, $35 general admission, $30 Circle Cinema members.

JULY 9 “Nanyehi,” award-winning short film & live musical performances from the stage version and post-film Q&A with filmmakers and actors. 7 p.m., $10 JULY 10 “Tulsa “(1949), starring Susan Hayward and Robert Preston. 7 p.m., special price, “$2 Tuesday for Tulsa.”

Introduced by Maggie Brown, curator of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum, who will provide archival photos of the 1949 premiere of this film in downtown Tulsa.

JULY 11 “Rock Stars: Pioneering Women in Petroleum Geology” and post-film Q&A with filmmakers including Vern Stefanic. 7 p.m., $10 JULY 12 “Mankiller” & “Ronnie Bodean,” presented by Native Crossroads with a Q&A. Felicia Olaya and Gina Olaya (Wilma Mankiller’s daughters) will be at the Q&A following the screening. Joshua B. Nelson from Native Crossroads will introduce and moderate the Q&A. 7:30 p.m., $10 JULY 13 KTUL-TV Good Day Tulsa live show from Circle Cinema with audience. 9–10 a.m., RSVP required to attend the show for Circle Cinema members. RSVP to david@circlecinema.com. Complimentary donuts provided

by QuikTrip.

“We Only Know So Much” (2017) and Q&A with actress Jeanne Tripplehorn. 7 p.m., VIP event, $35 General Admission, $30 Circle Cinema members. Moderated by Nancy Bizjack, editor of Intermission Magazine.

JULY 13 AND 14 “Deep Red” (1975). Presented by Circle Cinema’s Graveyard Shift. 10 p.m., $10.

JULY 14 “The Gaucho” (1928), silent film with live theatre organ accompaniment provided by Sooner State chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society. 11 a.m., free. Program will also include a behind-the-scenes short video of the organ loft behind the screen.

“Fathers of Football,” rough-cut screening and postfilm Q&A with filmmaker Bradley Beesley and players and coaches from Wagoner’s high school team. 2 p.m., $10 “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928), classic silent film with new orchestral score by Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory and Portishead’s Adrian Utley, introduced by Jenks High School instructor Clifton Raphael. 4:30 p.m., $10 “Diane” (2018) with post-film Q&A with actress Mary Kay Place. 7 p.m., VIP event, $35 General Admission, $30 Circle Cinema members. Q&A moderated by Teresa Miller, director emerita of the Center for Poets and Writers at OSU-Tulsa. Program will include Circle Cinema’s Oklahoma Walk of Fame medallion dedication for Mary Kay Place.

JULY 15 “I Want You” (1951), 35mm print and Q&A with Peggy Dow Helmerich. 2 p.m., VIP event, $35 General Admission, $30 Circle Cinema members. Pre-show 90th birthday cake with live music from the Route 66 Harmonica Club.

“The Buddy Holly Story” (1978 - 40th anniversary screening) with Gary Busey, Circle Cinema’s Walk of Fame dedication, and film intro. 6:30 p.m., VIP event, $35 General Admission, $30 Circle Cinema members.

24 // FEATURED

the billions: think Philbrook Museum (a gift from oilman Waite Phillips announced in 1938) or Tulsa Opera (founded 10 years later). The premiere of the oil field movie “Tulsa,” starring Susan Hayward, happened here in 1949, complete with a Tulsa Day and a downtown parade.

The Circle will show the film as part of a special “$2 ‘Tulsa’ Tuesday” during the birthday festival.

In the 1950s, new highway routes brought more travelers through on their way west. Tulsa became an oasis of neon, root beer, and, as LaFevers noted, the “refrigerated air” that made movie theaters such an appealing destination. In the ‘60s, the Circle was a first-run theater.

“At one time it got a Bond movie exclusive,” Wiens said. “‘Wait Until Dark’ premiered here.

They always had packages on weekends for kids.”

But toward the end of that decade, the Kendall Whittier neighborhood began to struggle as Interstate 244 cut through it, and the city began rezoning (read: uprooting) single-family homes.

The area declined as much of the population moved south and businesses closed in response.

Wiens called it “economic segregation.” The Circle declined as well. For a time, in the 1970s,

it showed soft-core porn. Around 1990, the theater shuttered.

“We’ve had a colorful history,” LaFevers said. “We used to not think that part of it was so good, but now we sort of embrace it. It’s part of the diversity of being a community theater.”

It’s the only one left. According to Wiens, 26 movie theaters existed in Tulsa in 1947. Now, only the Circle remains standing.

“That’s not true even of small communities,” Wiens said. “I can take you to Pryor and show you some. Here, they knocked most of them down for church parking lots.”

Church certainly counts as another place for folks to come together; however, the power of a socially-engaged, independent movie theater is like nothing else.

“It’s kind of like a place that you come to travel to a destination,” Foxen said. “For 90 years this place has been taking people five times a day to a different story, a different experience. The people programming films back then were doing the same thing we’re doing: trying to find stories to tell that are relevant to our community.”

“Netflix isn’t killing us,” he continued. “Us July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CIRCLE CINEMA AND OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

being on the ground here, knowing what people like, really keeps us going. The more opportunities there are digitally, the more the craving for this sort of thing grows. The more things keep trying to push us away from each other, the more people enjoy coming together for a shared experience.”

Today, the Circle is just as woven into the community as ever, and it has the focus and buoyant good spirits of an institution half its age. It has worked with 125 local nonprofits, inviting them to make public presentations to link mission-relevant films with the work they’re doing here. It has a great friend in Kendall Whittier Library across the street, with whom it works along with its donors to provide free summer movies to kids, just like in the ‘60s.

The Circle also supports local filmmakers, from showing and promoting their work to opening its doors in the early mornings so film crews can look at rough cuts. (Foxen recalled Marilyn Manson watching dailies in the theater when he was making “Let Me Make You a Martyr” here a couple of years ago.) People travel from Oklahoma City and Arkansas to see films THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

no other theater will show. Tourists still come seeking Route 66 history or a moment in front of the movie house that the opening scene of “The Outsiders” made famous. Even visiting movie stars have their picture taken with their name on the big marquee.

The neighborhood’s back, too, thanks in large part to the Circle, said Ed Sharrer, who directs the nonprofit Kendall Whittier Main Street.

“Without question, Kendall Whittier wouldn’t be thriving today if it weren’t for Circle Cinema,” Sharrer said. “Along with Ziegler Art & Frame and Tulsa Girls Art School, Circle Cinema formed the foundation of an emerging arts district that attracted creative people to set up shop in formerly vacant buildings. There are 28 new businesses within two blocks of the theater that have opened since 2013. The fact that people can take their grandchildren to the same theater they grew up attending is magical.”

The Circle’s 90th birthday film festival is a love note to Tulsa and a nod of awe and gratitude to its own miraculously longstanding place in the city’s life.

“A lot of stars are returning, too,” Wiens

said. “The cream of the crop from Tulsa are coming home, and we appreciate that.”

Among many delights on the agenda will be Peggy Dow Helmerich being able to see “I Want You,” her favorite of the Hollywood films she made, on the big screen for the first time, thanks to the new 35mm projector the Circle was able to buy with the help of a capital campaign last year.

“This is about bringing in people who tie to our history, to Tulsa’s history, to who our people are and how they come together,” Wiens said.

“We’re a museum of history, but we change our art once a week. That allows us to keep the diversity alive. People can find themselves here.”

This moment for the Circle is historic, but the real wonder of the festival is that it’s just a concentrated version of what the place has always done. These aren’t only films. They’re opportunities, five times a day, to sit with strangers and neighbors and take in the stories of those who may or may not be like us. To know more, feel more, and be together better. These are memories, time machines, a restless ribbon rolling through our lives. a FEATURED // 25

FROM ‘BLACK SUNDAY’ TO GREENWOOD, THE TULSA DRILLERS HAVE A STORIED PAST (AND PRESENT)

BY JAKE CORNWELL

O

n Sunday, April 3, 1977, the rains fell steadily all morning in Tulsa, just before the much-anticipated major league exhibition game featuring the Texas Rangers against the Houston Astros. By midday, the showers ceased and a standing-room-only crowd of some 5,000 people crammed into old Driller Park (formerly known as Oiler Park, at East 15th Street and South Sandusky Avenue) to watch major-league action in their minor-league town.

Overcast skies threatened the game. The smell of rain-soaked asphalt, concrete, and wood permeated the air.

By the second inning, a thunderstorm swept back into town. Rain and hail pelted the exposed seats closest to the field. Many spectators, who wanted to wait out the weather, sought shelter at the highest point in the grandstands. Several fans clustered together on the rightfield side of the upper walkway.

The sudden gathering of people in one condensed area proved too much for the 43-year-old wooden edifice. With a crack and a loud pop, a

26 // FEATURED

Cadillac-sized section of the rightfield walkway collapsed.

Tulsa baseball historian Wayne McCombs was at the game working the new electronic scoreboard.

As he kept counts of innings, balls, and strikes, he heard what he “thought was a heavy thunderclap.

[But] what had happened, part of the stands had given way.”

Men, women, and children plummeted 20 feet to the ground. Others were caught somewhere in between the top of the walkway and the gravel underneath, gripping and clawing, as they scampered to save themselves or their loved ones from falling.

Some lost their grip and fell on top of the debris and people below.

It was not the first time something like that had occurred in Tulsa’s sporting past. The damaged stadium echoed a previous event that had happened 64 years prior when the South Main ballpark (near present day Veterans Park at West 21st Street and South Boulder Avenue) buckled during another exhibition game that killed one man in 1913.

But in the ’77 collapse, no one died. From

jammed fingers and broken arms to injured necks and fractured vertebrae, some 17 or 18 spectators ranging from young children to the elderly were listed as those who needed medical attention. It was an ominous day in Tulsa baseball history. The Tulsa World and Tulsa Tribune reported several witnesses and victims comparing the carnage to popular 1970s disaster movies. But there was one other kind of casualty resulting from the event.

Wayne McCombs once lamented in his book “Let’s Goooooooooo Tulsa!” that “this was the day the stadium died.” Tulsa World sportswriter Barry Lewis later coined the traumatic event “Black Sunday.”

News of the stadium collapse spread across the country, threatening the newly-formed Tulsa Drillers. Ownership found themselves in a precarious situation. Not four months after purchasing a minor league baseball club down in Louisiana and transplanting them to Tulsa, owners Bill Rollings and “Hee Haw” host Roy Clark found themselves at a crossroads. Just days before the season opener, the section of bleachers resembled a pile of pickup sticks. The former Oilers baseball cathedral had

July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

TULSA COUNTY STADIUM | COURTESY

sang its last hymn. Years of exposure and neglect had rotted the ballpark to its core.

“The only thing holding that ballpark together was the paint,” Clark said. “This was my introduction to professional baseball!”

Amidst the fallout of injured folks proclaiming never to return to Driller Park, compounded by Tulsa County inspectors declaring the stands not fit for use, the County razed the park. After four decades of play, all that was left was a field and box seats.

The negative press could have ruined the nascent ballclub, but Rollings sought to make baseball in Tulsa successful. Temporary bleachers were erected behind the box and reserve seat sections and the Drillers were ready for play by Opening Day. Rollings said in an interview several years later about the ordeal, “I think I told everybody at that time that I wasn’t in it for the money, that Roy and I were in it to try to satisfy the city of Tulsa. We wanted to have [a place] where a family of four could come out to the ballpark, have a hot dog, have a Coke, and get in for twenty dollars. We were able to do that.”

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

After the collapse, Driller Park had an expiration date. The stands that seated an excess of 5,000 spectators were sacrificed to the gods of baseball past, and the makeshift accommodations dwindled seating down to 3,500. The “temporary” solution lasted well beyond the expected timeline. It took four years for a new stadium to materialize.

MOVING HOME PLATE

The ballfield that came to be known by several names over its 29 year existence (Sutton, Tulsa County, and Drillers Stadium) began when oilman Robert Sutton donated the initial funds to build the aluminum ballpark at the corner of East 15th Street and South Yale Avenue, adjacent to the old field.

Built in three sections (home plate, rightfield, and leftfield), Sutton Stadium opened for play in 1981, and the Drillers began gaining momentum, developing their fanbase, and building their brand.

After moving into the new facility, Rollings and Clark sold their club to the Texas Rangers. Then, the ballclub began to turn around, transitioning

from dwindling attendance to a more consistent turnout. When New Hampshire business executive Went Hubbard’s son Jeff played in the Rangers farm system, he looked for business opportunities in minor league baseball. According to Drillers General Manager Mike Melega, after doing his homework on minor league teams and their cities, Went Hubbard fell in love with Tulsa. He purchased the team in late 1986 and brought with him a vision for expansion, professionalism, and fun.

Not long after acquiring the Drillers, Hubbard doled out the money to connect the three stands, completing the stadium. The park eventually expanded seating to 11,999, which made for a jampacked house at the height of baseball in the late 1980s. Back then, Oklahoma State University and University of Oklahoma battled it out in Tulsa for bragging rights at bedlam baseball games. “[Hubbard] put sound business principle into play, put money into the club, [and] added staff,” Melega said. “We went from probably drawing 70,000–80,000 a year to drawing over 300,000 [annually] for a decade. Baseball was [Hubbard’s]

FEATURED // 27

KEITH WEISER | RICH CRIMI

MANTLE BROTHERS | RICH CRIMI

CHRISTIAN COLONEL | COURTESY

28 // FEATURED

passion, so he brought that passion to Tulsa … and really made the Drillers organization great starting in the mid-1980s.”

For nearly 30 years, the aluminum ballpark at 15th and Yale provided an ambiance that cannot be replicated. Nowhere but at Drillers Stadium could fans bring the thunder with their concussive stompstomp-CLAP! footwork to the tune of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” If the scoreboard read “Get LOUD!,” the stadium would erupt in a rumble that made conversation impossible.

The old playground earned its keep and is remembered for the games, the championships, Hank Blalock hitting for the cycle twice within three days, the promotions, the concerts, and for all of its quirks and idiosyncrasies. Drillers Stadium was where the now long-tenured front office “grew up.” Many of key Drillers personnel have been with the club predating the mid-1990s—a rarity in minor league sports administration.

Staffers like Mike Melega and Jason George purposefully transplanted to Tulsa from New York and Texas for its opportunity, but they stayed because they fell in love with city, the Drillers, and the Hubbard way of thinking. When Hubbard sold his majority share to Chuck Lamson (a former Drillers pitcher who worked his way up the executive ladder) in 2006, the New Jersey southpaw maintained that business-minded approach to baseball while looking for additional ways to enhance the Drillers brand. Within a few years of taking ownership, Lamson entered into talks with developers to build a new stadium. By the end of the decade, Tulsa baseball would once more silhouette against the downtown skyline.

Former Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor and Lamson spearheaded the vision to bring baseball back to downtown, which had been absent since the completion of the 1929 baseball season. What could have ended up in Jenks on the river, downtown developers brokered a deal that eventually landed the ballpark in the Greenwood District.

The architects and planners cut the seating capacity in half, which contributes to the intimacy of the park. A walk around the premises reveals a great vantage point from the cheap seats on the berm to the suites above the concourse. Many third-base-side fans say the skyline is the best backdrop in all of minor league baseball.

The stadium is not without its critics, though.

Many advocates and residents near Greenwood did not support the move to that location, which is right smack-dab in the middle of where the Tulsa Race Massacre took place in 1921. For many, that place is sacred ground where people suffered and died.

In fact, exactly one mile south is where hundreds of black Tulsans were imprisoned at McNulty Baseball Park. The event may be nearly a century old, but wounds and scars remain. Additionally, gentrification called “development” has steadily increased in the area for years, which many believe was accelerated by the presence of the new stadium.

The Drillers acknowledge that there are those who

staunchly oppose their presence, but they consciously strive to include all walks of life in the baseball environment. What is encouraging to see is the diversity at “The ‘OKE’” that has not been witnessed at this level heretofore. Strolling around the concourse on a summer night reveals faces of every background.

Baseball allows that. If ever a remedy existed to help get our country back into civil discourse, baseball could be that catalyst.

THE BASEBALL FAMILY

I spent many summer nights at the ballpark with Sylvester Nichols, the original second baseman for the Oklahoma Negro League T-Town Clowns. At the time, I was a heavily tattooed, 30-something white man and he was a 91-year-old African-American World War II veteran who lived through the hardships of segregation and the Great Depression. But we were united through Tulsa baseball. We ate together. We drove around Tulsa just hanging out. We were family. And after his death, the Nichols family brought me into their fold. This all happened because of baseball, the Tulsa Drillers, ONEOK Field, and the Drillers commitment to honor those ballplayers that were once stigmatized and disregarded for too long.

For nine years now, around every Juneteenth, the Drillers honor the Tulsa Negro Leagues and other African Americans who played at the professional level. During that time, the Drillers invite players, their families, and community members to ONEOK Field to pay homage to those teams and players that had previously been ignored. In 2011, the Drillers donned throwback T-Town Clowns jerseys and they now offer t-shirts with the old Clowns logo in the Black Gold Outfitters souvenir shop. Though most of the aggregate Tulsa T-Town Clown players have died, the Drillers continue to work with Mary Williams and the Color Me True workshops to bring players’ families on the field to introduce and honor them.

Tulsa Drillers baseball has had an indelible impact on the men who played the game at the various ballparks here, too. Former Drillers second baseman (1977) and major leaguer Billy Sample recalled how difficult on-field communication could be during the early Drillers days because of the car races at the fairgrounds—next door to Driller Park.

Sample remembered, “On Saturday nights, the racetrack behind the stadium would be full roar.” If a player yelled, “I got it, I got it,” a roaring VROOOOOMMMMM! would drown out their calling of the ball. Because of that, Sample said it was not uncommon to hear, “Sorry, man, I didn’t hear you call me off!”

Infielder Christian Colonel (2006-2007) spent his Drillers days playing at the 15th and Yale stadium.

“Tulsa was one of my favorite times!” Colonel said. “My favorite part of playing there was because of the fans. The fans’ support and interaction was unbelievable.”

Former Drillers pitcher Keith Weiser (2008-2011) played in two different Driller ballparks and considers that era to be the best time of his career.

July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

SCOTT RIORDAN IN A T-TOWN CLOWNS UNIFORM | RICH CRIMI

“I loved being a part of the transition from the old stadium to the new one downtown,” he said. “I feel like I got to see the city transform into something different. And now that I’m an entrepreneur, I appreciate what a modern baseball stadium can do for a city.”

After the 2014 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers became the Drillers parent club, which put Tulsa’s exposure on par with the Yankees’, Red Sox’s, Cubs’, and Cardinals’ minor league systems—Trenton Thunder, Portland Sea Dogs, Tennessee Smokies, and Springfield Cardinals, respectively. This provides both diehard and fair-weather fans the chance to see future stars of an internationally-recognized brand.

After former Drillers pitcher Caleb Ferguson earned his first big-league “W” for L.A. this year, his family joined him afterward to celebrate, one of them sporting a Tulsa Drillers shirt.

The owners, the front office, the players, the announcers, the reporters, the fans, the clubhouse attendants, the interns, the vendors, the floor sweepers, the maintenance engineers, the grounds crew, the sponsors—everyone contributes to the aura of the game. It transcends generations, gender, race and ethnicities, sexual orientation, disabilities, and everything in between. Rains come, stadiums move and THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

collapse and are rebuilt—but Tulsa baseball remains a part of our town’s identity.

I spoke to many people for this story—too many to name. The general consensus was that baseball is more than a sport of statistics or wins and losses; it’s bigger than boxscores, who makes it to the bigs, or who brings home a championship.

Tulsa baseball continues tradition, embraces the present, and looks to the future. It’s superfans like “The Admiral” who attends most home games (the guy belts out a mean rendition of the national anthem).

It’s Wayne McCombs, who painstakingly documented the history of professional baseball here, which preceded oil discovery and statehood. The game’s pacing allows for settling in to long conversations, but leaves room for kids and adults alike to snag a foul ball, get an autograph, or sometimes score a game-used broken bat. Tulsa baseball is having a beer and a dog with a loved one, enjoying each other’s company in comfortable silence among stadium sounds. Longtime baseball fan Andi Cox remembered the special summer nights that she spent with her grandfather at the ballpark: “I won’t ever forget being small and my papa ordering me the ice cream helmet and buying me the tiny bat. Every game.” a

RAINS COME, STADIUMS MOVE AND COLLAPSE AND ARE REBUILT—–BUT TULSA BASEBALL REMAINS A PART OF OUR TOWN’S IDENTITY. FEATURED // 29

artspot

Glazed and improved

TAC Gallery will exhibit Austin Navrkal sculptures in July

by BRADY WHISENHUNT

A

ustin Navrkal’s blue eyes flashed bright like flames as he explained his fascination with the science of kiln firing. The Tulsa-based sculptor’s recent work, a growing form universe made of giant loops of convolved ceramic, uses his understanding of kiln science to express in clay its unpredictability and complexity as a dynamic, visceral material.

Navrkal was a mechanical engineering senior at Oklahoma State University when he discovered his passion for clay. A material conventionally associated with pots, vessels, and bowls, Navrkal saw clay as a medium running over with untapped expressive potential. Taking the leap into the unknown by switching majors to studio art was an abrupt course change for him, but he quickly found his footing.

His recent sculptures range from tortuous, tubular shapes with colorful, textured surfaces that hang from a wall, to tall, floor-standing mixed media structures built from a communicating, carefully-fashioned pair of fused ceramic and wood. In each case, Navrkal used the firing process to tell an introspective, minimalist story through the textural nuances of clay.

Navrkal’s sculptures will be the focus of a new exhibition, “The Un(Expected),” which will open during the First Friday art crawl on July 6 at The TAC Gallery. The exhibition will contain 15 pieces drawn from three themed series and will be on display the entire month of July.

“I want to take clay to the next level,” Navrkal said, describing his aim to expand on the groundwork laid by some of his biggest influences. Inspired by the experimen-

30 // ARTS & CULTURE

“Good Company,” salt fired stoneware on wood, 43” X 15” X 6”, 2017 | AUSTIN NAVRKAL

tal, hand-built sculptures of Peter Voulkos, the visionary abstract forms of Jun Kaneko, and the progressive, outside-the-box methods of his ceramics professor and mentor Brandon Reese, Austin has been seeking to add to the field of ceramics since his first encounters with it in college.

Serendipitously for Navrkal, all the math and physics he’d already absorbed made him a whiz in the studio and a stronger artist. He recounted the first time

his classmates watched as he read glaze recipes and quickly calculated the required quantities of each ingredient.

“Everyone’s looking at me like I’m crazy,” Navrkal laughed.

“All art students think you’re not allowed to be good at math, and I’m like, ‘First of all, math is 90 percent of the game!’”

Already fluent in this forbidden language of numbers, Navrkal was able to unlock possibilities that allowed him to streamline and

accelerate his creative process.

The discovery was empowering and immensely encouraging.

“I was on top of the world,” he said, beaming.

Since then, the chemistry, math, and physics skills in his palette have enabled Austin to experiment and refine the sculpting processes that create the details of his art.

The shaping of an engineer into sculptor, and the unpredictability involved in such a transformation, are both examples of the sorts of subjects dealt with in “The (Un)Expected.” The three installments that comprise the exhibit (“Notches,” “Squiggles,” and “Company,” each show change through a different set of symbols.

“Notches” shows progression through textural nicks in the surface of bent loops of ceramic.

The smoother, twisting sets of loops in “Squiggles” represent the refinement of the human mind associated with age. “Company” centers on human relationships using the motif of a ceramic body and a wood base coupled tightly as one continuous shape.

“With my artwork, I want people to be able to look at my pieces and see the changes that the clay, and even the wood, have gone through,” he said.

“It’s a representation of my growth as a person, and I’d say it’s even a representation of how people grow in general,” Navrkal said.

He aims to extend the notion of his art as a symbol of his own individual growth to a broader statement about humanity.

“We need to keep developing.

We need to keep doing better. We can’t be stuck forever in the same realm.” a July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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O

klahoma State University-Tulsa is a comprehensive research institution that offers students the opportunity to earn a respected OSU degree in Tulsa. Since OSU-Tulsa was established in 1999, more than 30,000 students have taken courses in Tulsa and earned more than 18,000 OSU degrees.

OSU graduates are highly attractive to employers and make a valuable addition to the workforce. OSU was named a 2017 Best Value college by Kiplinger’s — marking the 14th time it has received this recognition.

OSU-Tulsa students work with faculty to provide community resources such as affordable counseling, parenting classes and family resiliency programs.

Students also have the opportunity to create new products and jobs through innovative research and partnerships with local industry leaders.

OSU-Tulsa offers junior-, senior- and graduate-level courses so that students may complete bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in a variety of programs.

Students may also pursue graduate certificates in several programs designed to assist with advanced employment opportunities. Students can earn a wellregarded degree from a Big 12 university in Tulsa, and graduates leave OSUTulsa with the same OSU degree students in Stillwater receive.

Year Founded ...................................................................................................1999 Undergraduate Enrollment ............................................................................1,696 Number of Undergraduate Degrees Offered .....................................................18 Graduate Enrollment .........................................................................................578 Number of Graduate Degrees Offered ...............................................................26 Student-Faculty Ratio ................................................................................ 16-to-1

AREAS OF ACADEMIC DISTINCTION Students can earn the nationally recognized OSU MBA degree at OSU-Tulsa.

The downtown campus also is home to the Center for Family Resilience, Helmerich Research Center and the Center for Poets and Writers at OSU-Tulsa.

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The Bachelor of University Studies is tailored to your unique talents and interests. And you’ll graduate with an OSU degree – the same one students in Stillwater receive.

Call 918-594-8355 or visit tulsa.okstate.edu/universitystudies for more information.

Downtown Tulsa THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

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tulsa.okstate.edu ARTS & CULTURE // 31

artspot

Show and tell

Tulsa FMAC launches the Tulsa Creativity Database

by ZACK REEVES

I

came to Tulsa a lot as a kid.

I grew up 50 miles northeast in Chelsea, an old farm town whose population has been fluctuating between 1,000 and 2,000 since statehood. As a small-town family, we didn’t travel much, so Tulsa was the capital of my world.

Large, loud, and packed with stuff I could buy, Tulsa was the go-to spot for shopping, movies, and hospitalizations.

One of the things I never connected to Tulsa, however, was art. You know, that monolithic a-word that everyone seems to agree exists, but no one can quite successfully define. My biggest experience of art in Tulsa growing up was seeing “Stomp!” at the PAC. One time, my family tried to go to Gilcrease but got lost, so we ate lunch in the back of the truck and drove home.

So it’s nice to see that, as the arts continue to evolve and push boundaries in the rest of the world, the city itself is keeping up.

I’m slowly discovering that not only has there always been plenty of good Tulsa art happening under my nose, but also the city is developing new ways of showing it off.

32 // ARTS & CULTURE

Case in point: the Tulsa Creativity Database, an online directory of all the creative activity that’s stirring in Tulsa’s belly. The searchable platform is run by Tulsa’s Office of Film, Music, Arts & Culture (FMAC), a division of the Chamber of Commerce, and it just soft-launched last month.

“No other city has this kind of database,” FMAC’s Director Abby Kurin said. “We’re the first city to have a database that encompasses creativity.”

Many cities have film and music databases, she said, but the Tulsa Creativity Database will be the first to contain entries for creative endeavors beyond those two categories.

“Our mission is to promote Tulsa as the creative hub of not only Oklahoma, but of our entire region,” Kurin said.

She showed me an excel spreadsheet with every single category the database wants to cover, and it’s massive. There were at least 200 categories, as well as categories within categories. Folk, Christian, funk, easy listening.

Ten different kinds of rock.

The database is live now, so artists, musicians, and creatives of

all types can register for free and get their name out there.

Kurin’s worked with countless musicians and gotten over 40 of them to South by Southwest, but even she says she doesn’t know fully know the depth and breadth of the Tulsa music scene.

“For me, I’m hopeful that these people that I’ve never heard of, who would probably blow me away, will be on this database. We want more genres, more people representing those genres. We have a lot of creativity here and this is a chance for it to all be seen in one place.”

“It helps us have an equal platform to stand on,” said Casii Stephan, singer-songwriter and keyboardist with The Midnight Sun. “I see it opening up doors for creatives that they might not have had before. It adds another avenue [to being discovered].”

Along with the creativity database, the project includes a film location database.

“I really can’t even put a number on how many locations we could get,” she said. “That’s what’s so exciting about it. The reality is that Tulsa is being developed. New hotels coming in, new

buildings being built. If there’s a chance that we can draw more productions to Tulsa, that could result in more people becoming passionately attached and wanting to invest in it.”

“This is another example of Tulsa showing the rest of the world that we have something new and important to offer,” said Weston Horn, singer for Weston Horn & The Hush. “As most of the world knows, trying to coordinate or organize musicians or creatives in general is a lot like herding cats. I think this database is important because it gives interested parties a great overview of all these artists.”

At the end of the day, this is about showing off as much creativity as possible, Kurin said.

“Who’s out there? We’re going to be able to look at this list, see where the holes are, and recruit for them.”

Oftentimes, the barrier to art is just knowing that it’s there.

Tulsa FMAC is working to bring a greater awareness to its many local iterations and practicioners.

Find out more at tulsafmac. com. a July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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MANDY GROSS, LISA HUNTER, ERIN HALL, K AYLEE BARNES - AMADEUS

OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL WORK FOUR WAYS TO DIE - DAVID BL AKELY

OUTSTANDING PROPERTIES LISA BERRY, DAVID BLAKELY & THE STARLITE LOUNGE - FOUR WAYS TO DIE

OUTSTANDING LIGHTING DESIGN JOHN CRUNCLETON III - THE CRUCIBLE

OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN MICHAEL RICE & LAURIE CARLSON - A STE ADY R AIN

OUTSTANDING MARKETING MR. BURNS - THE ATRE POPS

OUTSTANDING YOUTH PRODUCTION THE CRUCIBLE

- CL ARK YOUTH THE ATRE

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION SECOND RUNNER UP: A STEADY RAIN - AMERIC AN THE ATRE COMPANY

FRIST RUNNER UP: DISGRACED - THE ATRE POPS

WINNER: SEVEN GUITARS - THE ATRE NORTH

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

ARTS & CULTURE // 33

sportsreport

Send it!

Climb Tulsa heralds new era for area climbers

by JOHN TRANCHINA

I

t took a lot of work and persistence, but on June 15, the long-term vision of Jason Burks was finally realized when the new Climb Tulsa had its grand opening.

The new building near the corner of South Yale Avenue and East 31st Street is on par with the best climbing gyms in the country, featuring two floors of climbing walls, including bouldering (unattached, freehand climbing) and belaying (with ropes and harnesses) on walls as tall as 45 feet. There are also a number of specialized training areas, including a campus board, a digitized moon board, a peg wall, and even a tightrope area (soon to be completed).

It was all inspired by Burks’ travels around the United States.

Visiting other cities, he saw examples of what a climbing gym could be, and he wanted that in Tulsa.

“I’ll be in a lot of different large cities, and I’ll go to their climbing gyms and they’re like this,” Burks said. “And I’d think, ‘Man, I need this.’ Once you’ve gone down that road, you don’t want to go back.”

At that point, Burks had been a customer at the original site (which opened in 1997 and was located near Highway 169 and East 11th Street) for about two years, and as he formulated this grand plan, he decided to buy Climb Tulsa in late 2015.

After increasing its business over the first few months, he realized that not only was a new, bigger place desirable, but it was also necessary to sustain the growth.

“I had already started designing and looking for land, and it was somewhere in that next fall, of 2016, that I found this land right

34 // ARTS & CULTURE

A sloped bouldering wall at the new Climb Tulsa | GREG BOLLINGER

here,” Burks said. “A realtor friend of mine called me up and said, ‘Well, it’s zoned residential, but you could try.’ So I kind of took it from there. It was a heck of a process.”

That began a seemingly endless series of obstacles that had to be overcome, as Burks worked to change the zoning. He met individually and in groups with the residents of the surrounding neighborhood, trying to convince them to agree to let the city change the zoning laws so Climb Tulsa could build on the land.

It was a lengthy process, but eventually, Burks overcame the

hurdle. There were others, though, including inevitable construction issues. At some point, Burks realized his original design just wasn’t big enough, and in order to finance a larger place, he needed a business partner.

“What I wanted to do (initially) was probably about exactly half this size, which was way bigger than what we had (at the old facility) and still a pretty big gym,” Burks said. “But I’ve been in the biggest gyms in the U.S. many times, so it’s hard to step down from that. You see what you could have.”

Lee Sherman, who had just

retired and sold his company, Hahn Appliances, agreed to become Burks’ partner, and with the additional money he provided, the scale of the plan significantly increased.

Now that the move to the new place is finally complete, the response has been overwhelming, far exceeding their expectations.

Climb Tulsa has already set up weeklong Summer Camp sessions for kids, running through the rest of the summer. Unlimited adult memberships cost $70 a month. There are different classes offered for beginners, for intermediate climbers looking to step up a level of difficulty, and for more experienced climbers ready to transition to outside rock climbs, as well as individual coaching sessions available, and even regular yoga classes. (A climbing-only membership runs $55.)

“It’s this very unique activity that gives you something active that you enjoy. We have some really in-shape people in here, but they’re not meatheads in a gym.

They’re just a bunch of really cool people that love to climb,” Burks said. “It’s just an environment shift, because I had a membership at a gym, and nothing against them, but their culture is not my culture. My culture probably is to hang out with people that sit around and eat granola bars and talk about philosophy. So it’s a unique mix of people.”

“We have tons of outdoorsy people here, tons of athletes here, tons of people that are into the arts. For some reason, this sport has a wide variety of people that find interest in it, and the community is really what I think I love most about it.”

For more detailed info, visit climbtulsa.com. a July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

TELL US WHAT YOU’RE DOING So we can tell everyone else Send all your event and music listings to voices@langdonpublishing.com

And be ye KIND one to another, TENDERHEARTED, FORGIVING one another.

QUITTING TOBACCO ADDS UP

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ARE YOU CURRENTLY PAIN-FREE BUT WANT TO LEARN HOW TO REGULATE PAIN? A TU IRB-approved research study is being conducted at The University of Tulsa that uses biofeedback to teach participants to regulate responses to pain.

Participants must be healthy, currently pain-free, and able to attend 3 laboratory training sessions (3.5-4.5 hours/day). Behavioral and physiological reactions to painful stimuli will be assessed each day to test the efficacy of the training.

Up to $300 compensation will be provided for completing the study.

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918-631-2175 or 918-631-3565

City Year, an education-focused nonprofit organization in 28 cities across the US, is currently hiring AmeriCorps members for the 2018-2019 school year.

City Year AmeriCorps members serve full-time in high-need schools for 11 months to help students build social-emotional and academic skills.

SOME DAYS ARE

HARD, ALL DAYS WORTH IT. THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

If you know students, ages 17-25, who have the interest, passion and skills to help students reach their full potential, please share this opportunity.

APPLY TODAY

cityyear.org/Tulsa ARTS & CULTURE // 35

Circle Cinema Film Festival & 90th Anniversary Celebration Saturday, July 7 through Saturday, July 15 Circle Cinema, circlecinema.com Celebrate 90 years of Tulsa’s beloved movie house over a weeklong series of screenings, panels, and special guests.

See the full schedule of events on p. 24 or at circlecinema.com.

Highlights include: 7/7 “Almost Famous” followed by a film and music panel with TTV contributors Jeff Huston, Charles Elmore, and Becky Carman 7/8 An Evening with Tim Blake Nelson 7/13 “We Only Know So Much” followed by Q&A with Jeanne Tripplehorn 7/14 “The Gaucho” – The second film ever to screen at Circle in 1928, with pipe organ accompaniment “Diane” followed by Q&A with Mary Kay Place 7/15 “I Want You” followed by Q&A with Peggy Dow Helmerich “The Buddy Holly Story” with introduction by Gary Busey VALERIE GRANT

ART CRAWL

ON STAGE

Stroll the downtown galleries, see live performances, and peruse art markets at the monthly First Friday Art Crawl in The Tulsa Arts District. July 6, 6–9 p.m., thetulsaartsdistrict.org

In “Lizzie,” the trial of Lizzie Borden—who was the main suspect in the 1892 axe-murder of her parents—is set to a scorching rock score. July 13–15, 19–22, $20-$30, tulsapac.com

COMEDY

POETRY CONTEST

Comedian and political commentator Bill Maher is filming his new HBO comedy special at The Brady Theater this month. Read his interview with Barry Friedman pg. 8. July 7, 8:30 p.m., $45-$95, bradytheater.com

Ten spoken-word poets and 10 rappers will go head to head for cash prizes at Poets vs. Rappers 4.

July 14, 8 p.m., Living Arts, livingarts.org

MUSIC FESTIVAL

BENEFIT

The second annual Rush Fest will feature performances by Tea Rush, Branjae, Jerica Wortham, Faye Moffett, Casii Stephan, and more.

For more, see pg. 42. July 13, The Hunt Club, July 14, Agave, facebook.com/tearushmusic

In May, Tulsa Sound legend Jimmy “Junior” Markham lost his home to a fire. Save Jimmy will feature performances by Anne Bell, Don Nix, and Gary Busey with Paul Benjaman & The Tulsa AllStars. July 14, 7 p.m., $25-$50, cainsballroom.com

POP CULTURE

Tokyo In Tulsa, Oklahoma’s largest celebration of anime, manga, and Japanese pop culture, returns to Cox Business Center with the theme “Worlds Collide: Ninjas vs. Cowboys.” July 13–15, $50-$185, tokyointulsa.com 36 // ARTS & CULTURE

FOR UP-TO-DATE LISTINGS: THETULSAVOICE.COM/CALENDAR July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

ARTS & CULTURE // 37

Thousands of young Tulsans don’t get the medical and social services they need because they can’t find a ride. Sign up to give a ride and help us drive change.

BEST OF THE REST EVENTS Social Justice Story Hour // 7/8, Magic City Books, facebook.com/kjtolibrary

Six Pack of Punchlines w/ Keith Ray, Jeremiah Nation, Mia Mars, and more // 7/15, The Venue Shrine, facebook.com/ bazarentertainment

Woody Guthrie Folk Festival // 7/11–15, Okemah, woodyfest.com

Soundpony Comedy Hour w/ Aaron Naylor // 7/16, Soundpony, thesoundpony.com

Tokyo in Tulsa // 7/13-15, Cox Business Center, tokyointulsa.com

Open Mic Comedy // 7/16, The Fur Shop, facebook.com/ thefurshoptulsa

An Affair of the Heart // 7/1315, River Spirit Expo - Expo Square, heartoftulsa.com

Tulsa Drillers vs Midland RockHounds // 7/5, ONEOK Field, tulsadrillers.com

PERFORMING ARTS

Tulsa Drillers vs Midland RockHounds // 7/6, ONEOK Field, tulsadrillers.com

Seussical Jr. // 7/13-15, Tulsa PAC, tulsapac.com

ModusTulsa.org

WE’RE GIVING AWAY

FREE

STUFF!

Midwest Harp Festival Concerts // 7/16-21, Lorton Performance Hall, midwestharpfestival.org

John Roy // 7/5-7, Loony Bin, tulsa.loonybincomedy.com

JULY GIVE AWAY:

Explore the Tulsa dining scene with FOUR $50 gift certificates: George’s Pub – Jenks Prairie Brewpub – Downtown Wild Fork – Utica Square Prairie Fire Pie – Cherry Street REGISTER BY JULY 31 AT

Australia’s Thunder from Down Under // 7/14, River Spirit Casino - Paradise Cove, riverspirittulsa.com

COMEDY

AROUND TOWN DINING PACKAGE

38 // ARTS & CULTURE

TFA 2nd Saturday: Tulsa Arts District // 7/14, Meet at Chimera, tulsaarchitecture.org

Garden Bros Circus // 7/13, Expo Square Pavilion, gardenbroscircus.com

Learn more at

thetulsavoice.com

SPORTS

Dr Brian King, Ryan Green, T.J. Clark, Hilton Price // 7/5, The Starlite, thestarlite.net Bazar at Blackbird // 7/8, Blackbird On Pearl, facebook.com/ bazarentertainment Open Mic Comedy // 7/9, The Fur Shop, facebook.com/ thefurshoptulsa

Tulsa Drillers vs Frisco RoughRiders // 7/7, ONEOK Field, tulsadrillers.com Roughneck Roller Derby vs Leflore County Maidens of Mayhem // 7/7, Rhema Ninowski Rec Center, roughneckrollerderby.com Tulsa Drillers vs Frisco RoughRiders // 7/8, ONEOK Field, tulsadrillers.com Tulsa Drillers vs Frisco RoughRiders // 7/9, ONEOK Field, tulsadrillers.com Dodgebrawl // 7/14, BOK Center, tulsadodgebrawl.com Tulsa Drillers vs Arkansas Travelers // 7/15, ONEOK Field, tulsadrillers.com Tulsa Drillers vs Arkansas Travelers // 7/16, ONEOK Field, tulsadrillers.com Tulsa Drillers vs Arkansas Travelers // 7/17, ONEOK Field, tulsadrillers.com

Tony Tone // 7/11-14, Loony Bin, tulsa.loonybincomedy.com

FOR UP-TO-DATE LISTINGS: THETULSAVOICE.COM/CALENDAR July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

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ARTS & CULTURE // 39

musicnotes

Intergalactic Circus, 2017 | MATTHEW CREMER

Ultraviolet wonderland Discussing EDM in Oklahoma with two members of the Intergalactic Circus

by DAMION SHADE

D

riven by the decline of disco and the rise of modern techno, house, and trance music, the term EDM (electronic dance music) originated in the U.S. around 1985. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, a subculture of glitter-soaked, black-lit warehouse parties and raves seemed to appear overnight. Dance parties lasted until 4 or 5 a.m. and helped create an odd coalition of DJs, goths, suburban hipsters, and modern psychedelic hippies.

In the late 2000s, millennials repurposed this music and party culture to coalesce with the manic and 808-heavy styles of dubstep, psychedelic bass, breakbeat, and modern drum and bass. The glitter never left, but the parties got stranger. Festivals like the Nocturnal Wonderland and the Electric Forest feature completely immersive sensory experiences.

The modern EDM party is replete with diverse styles. You’ll see people of all genders in glowing silver onesies, jarringly 40 // MUSIC

sexy Pokemon costumes, and everything from Victorian- to scifi-infused images of steampunk.

Such oddities might be scarce in Oklahoma, but the EDM culture here is vibrant and growing.

Amanda Fortner and Jessy Shelton are members of the Agni Flow Arts collective and the Intergalactic Circus performance art showcase and dance party, which will be held July 19 at Whiskey 918.

DAMION SHADE: EDM and psychedelic bass music and the culture surrounding it aren’t really what people think of when they think of Oklahoma. Why do you think that’s changing?

AMANDA FORTNER: I feel like EDM is definitely making its way into Oklahoma. I think the vibe of the scene is changing. It’s getting a little less masculine and aggressive.

There’s less of a negative sexual space. It’s a little more fluid and

filled with community. It’s starting to become something more people can enjoy.

JESSY SHELTON: Everything moves central from the coasts. It’s started to gain popularity here over the last couple of years, and I would say it’s gotten popular here because of people going to festivals and then wanting to bring their experiences back with them. There are a lot of local shows now in OKC and Tulsa that have had a big presence in Tulsa. The first two years of Intergalactic Circus shows, we were completely sold out by 10 o’clock. We had a line, one-in one-out, at our first venue.

At the second venue, we were just maxed out and people weren’t leaving. So this year we’re trying to do the same thing with three times as much space. We’re just trying to take it to the next level.

SHADE: How did Intergalactic Circus begin?

FORTNER: I got into EDM and flow art when I was inspired by performers I saw at Electric Forest in 2014. It just lit a flame in me.

Later I saw fire dancers practicing on Riverside. There was already a fire spinning community in Tulsa.

So I started spinning fire and it all just kind of went crazy from there. At Electric Forest, I saw character performances like safari clowns and Victorian stilt walkers, these people with Shakespearean style clothing on stilts. Eventually, the name just kind of flew from the air and it was perfect. Intergalactic Circus just kind of rolled off the tongue. It started with the intention of inspiring individuals to do more with themselves in the performance-art realm. We want to encourage playfulness, mindfulness, and happiness through the art of movement. The first one was January 30, 2016. Originally we were going to throw this party and have all these different performers with everything in all blacklight and crazy lighting. Then we decidJuly 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

ed to give the event a visual theme.

We wanted to create, like, an ultraviolet wonderland or playground.

Performance art recess.

SHADE: For our readers who aren’t as familiar with the terminology, could you explain what a few things are? What’s a flow artist?

SHELTON: So a flow artist is somebody who uses props in dance like hula-hoops and poi and staffs and other things that you see people spin around more or less.

It’s typically associated with EDM, but it’s branched out into many different genres. The first time I saw flow art in person was probably the Gem and Jam festival in Tucson, Arizona. Every year Tucson has the largest gem and mineral show in the world. So I guess they decided to have a music festival as well. They sell crystals and art and host art installations, and there are people doing all types of dance and flow all over the place with a wide variety of music as well. Now there [are] Tulsa flow arts groups on Facebook.

Agni Flow Arts is the name of the group that Amanda came up with before Intergalactic Circus. That’s what she started her personal performance as, and she brought a few other performers on with her.

Agni is the goddess of fire (in the Vedic Hindu tradition).

ate that. More so than if you’re using a staff or poi where you would kind of be manipulating the prop more than your body. So those would be a little more advanced.

SHADE: Each Intergalactic Circus has a unique theme. What’s the theme of the July 19 event, and how is this event different?

FORTNER: This year’s theme is zodiac—kind of representing the astrological wheel. All of our 25 performers will be painted up as

their zodiac sign. I’ll be painted as a Cancer because that’s my sign.

We chose Whiskey 918 this time because that gave us the space we need and the ability to have a onering circus. When you enter the venue they kind of left it a blank slate in there. It doesn’t have a lot of honkytonk stuff anymore, so it’ll be easy to transform. There’s just this very large circular dance floor. All of our performers will be set up on that dance floor.

Our guests will be able to observe them from 360 degrees. There will

be a glow cave. There will be a space cave, and there will be absolutely incredible lighting. We’re going to have two massive projection screens going on with visualizers.

Our fire dancers will be off to the west door of the building. We’re hoping to leave people in awe of what they see. a

INTERGALACTIC CIRCUS: ZODIAC Thurs., July 19 Whiskey 918 | 514 E. 2nd St. 7:30 doors, 8:00 music | $20–$80 | 21+

SHADE: These aren’t the kinds of skills I’d imagine that most people could just jump into. Some of them seem a bit dangerous, like hanging from the ceiling on a piece of silk and spinning fire.

How did you practice and learn this stuff ?

SHELTON: Fire takes a lot of practice, for sure. You don’t start with fire. You start with practice props.

You can put tennis balls in socks and just spin those around till you get the hang of what it feels like.

You’re kind of working with kinetic energy and sacred geometry, but it is a little dangerous. I waited about a year to start with fire, and I started with a prop that’s more static. They’re called plum torches.

Basically they’re little pieces of metal that attach to your hand and then they have a wick that comes off of them. So you’re more just dancing and moving your body and then using the fire to accentuTHE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

MUSIC // 41

musicnotes

Tulsa’s independent and non-profit art-house theatre, showing independent, foreign, and documentary films.

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42 // MUSIC

Rush Fest night one performers: Deena B, Jerica Wortham, Jillian Marie, Tea Rush, Faye Moffett, Casii Stephan, Ma jeste Amore Pearson, Branjae, and Ali Shaw | GREG BOLLINGER

ISLAND VIBES Rush Fest returns

by MARY NOBLE AS WE USHER IN ANOTHER OKLAHOMA July with blistering heat and sleepy afternoons, many Tulsans are looking forward to the second annual Rush Fest, a two-day island themed music festival. Last year, the festival’s first, was a roaring success.

“It looked phenomenal and everybody was talking about it, everybody was going on and on about it,” said 105.3 KJMM DJ and Host Ali Shaw.

TaNesha Rushing, a.k.a. Tea Rush, hopes to duplicate the turnout of 2017 while providing attendees with a different vibe by changing up the venue and including a night of all female performances.

“It’s important for women to have a space to go and just be... that’s what we are working to cultivate on ladies’ night of Rush Fest 2018 and in the years to come,” Tea Rush said. She is a singer/songwriter and founder of the festival.

This year, Tea Rush has teamed up Shaw, the production director for 105.3 KJamz and host of The Weekend Rewind with Ali Shaw from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Shaw has been a longtime supporter of the Tulsa hip-hop community and frequently utilizes her platform to promote local talent.

“We all do it for each other, we are all trying to pick you up and push you up,” Shaw said.

Shaw has helped promote and expand Tea Rush’s mission.

“My hope for [Tea Rush] is that somebody sees her vision, because I think it’s a really great thing for the community and for the artists here. A lot of people that come here from out of town don’t feel the

love [in their hometown] that they get here in Tulsa. Whatever it is that she’s doing, I want to help her because I believe in her,” Shaw said. “I see her talent.”

The first night of the festival will be at The Hunt Club, featuring musical and spoken word performances from an all-female lineup including a special performance Majeste Pearson, daughter of Carlton Pearson.

“I think it’s important for us to support one another so that the community can see that we are real women with real talents, that are willing to come together to create beautiful experiences,” Rush said.

Also included in the lineup is Branjae, Jerica Wortham, Casii Stephan, Jillian Marie, Deena B, and Faye Moffett. There will also be tables set up with merchandise from local businesses such as CBD Pharm and Bedroom Kandi.

The second night of the festival will feature hip-hop and R&B, DJs, and dancing at Agave Mexican Grill (8221 E. 61st St.). More than 30 artists will perform. a

RUSH FEST July 13, 7 p.m., The Hunt Club 224 N. Main St., $10 July 14, 7 p.m., Agave Mexican Grill 8221 E. 61st St., $15; $25 for both nights Tickets at Retro Grill & Bar (800 N. Peoria Ave.), on the Rush Fest Night I and II Facebook event pages, or at the door (tickets prices increase by $5 after July 10) July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

musiclistings Tues // Jul 3 Blackbird on Pearl – The Pearl Jam Brady Theater – Bush – ($39.50-$42.50) Gypsy Coffee House – Open Mic Mercury Lounge – Wink Burcham Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Depot Jazz & Blues Jams The Colony – Singer Songwriter Night w/ Dan Martin The Colony – Deerpaw - Happy Hour Van Trease PACE – 4th on the 3rd – ($15) Yeti – Writers’ Night

Wed // Jul 4 Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Slidebar Los Cabos - BA – Usual Suspects Los Cabos - Jenks – Weston Horn, Squadlive, Laron Simpson Mercury Lounge – Jared Tyler & Seth Lee Jones River West Festival Park – Red Dirt Rangers, The Nightly Dues, Seven Feathers Riverwalk Stage – Brent Giddens Band Soundpony – Lyrical Smoke The Cellar Dweller – Grazz Trio The Colony – Tom Skinner’s Science Project Veterans Park – Corey Kent White, And Then There Were Two

Thurs / // Jul 5 Crow Creek Tavern – Stray Daisies Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Travis Kid, Zodiac Los Cabos - BA – Local Spin Trio Los Cabos - Jenks – Lost On Utica Mercury Lounge – Paul Benjaman River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – DJ Johnnie Bananas Soul City – The Begonias Soundpony – The Kru Presents: The Big Bang Bash The Colony – Jacob Tovar’s Country Roots The Colony – Chris Lee Becker - Happy Hour The Venue Shrine – *Layzie Bone & Lil Eazy E – ($20-$25) Utica Square – Starlight Concert Band

Fri // Jul 6 Blackbird On Pearl – *Sloppy Joe Fiasco, Hey Judy, Native Strange Dusty Dog Pub – Barry Seal Fassler Hall – Darku J Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Chris Hyde, Boogie Fever Los Cabos - BA – Zodiac Los Cabos - Jenks – The Aviators Mercury Lounge – Porter Union Mulligan’s Sports & Spirits – DJ MO Soul City – Susan Herndon Soul City – Scott Musick & Friends Soul City – Alaska & Madi – ($10) Soundpony – The Grits The Boxyard – Dancers’ Roof Top Party w/ Eclectic Disposition The Colony – *Brujoroots, David’s Bandana, Smoochie Wallus – ($5) The Colony – Kalyn Fay - Happy Hour The Hunt Club – Flabbergaster The Max Retropub – Retro DJ The Vanguard – God of Nothing, Fester, Obscure Sanity, Solid Ground – ($10) The Venue Shrine – *Shooter Jennings, Paul Benjaman Band – ($22.50-$25)

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

Sat // Jul 7 Blue Rose Cafe – Tyler Brant Greenwood Cultural Center – Black & White Party – ($15-$20) Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – 80’z Enuf Josey Records – *COMBSY, The Dull Drums Los Cabos - BA – The Agenda Los Cabos - Jenks – Denise Hoey & The Boulevard Mercury Lounge – Osage County w/ Thomas Trapp, Wink Burcham MixCo – Jazz Night w/ Stephanie Oliver Pit Stop – DJ MO River Spirit Casino - Paradise Cove – Pitbull – (SOLD OUT) She Theatre & Lounge – Darku J Soul City – Desi & Cody, Melissa Hembree, Giakob Beasley – ($10) Soundpony – Soul Night The Colony – The Grits The Hunt Club – *The Hunt Club’s 9-Year Anniversary w/ The 5th Element The Max Retropub – DJ Robbo The Vanguard – Triple SP, Alterblood, Gadgets Sons, Sapphire – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Let’s Zeppelin: A Tribute – ($10) Yeti – TFM, The Neighbor$, CLIFFD\VER, Carlton Hesston, Roots of Thoughtn

Sun // Jul 8 East Village Bohemian Pizza – Mike Cameron Collective Elwood’s – Miles Williams Hard Rock Casino - The Joint – Donny & Marie – ($69-$89) Los Cabos - BA – Caleb Fellenstein Los Cabos - Jenks – The Fabulous Two Man Band Mercury Lounge – Brandon Clark River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Brent Giddens Soul City – Bruner & Eicher Soul City – Gospel Brunch w/ Dustin Pittsley & Friends Soundpony – Road to Renewal w/ DJ Chicken Strip The Colony – Paul Benjaman’s Sunday Nite Thing The Vanguard – Vista, Chrim – ($10) Woody Guthrie Center – Spook Handy Workshop and Concert Yeti – Shut Up U Don’t Dance

Mon // Jul 9 Blackbird On Pearl – The Portal BOK Center – *Def Leppard, Journey – ($49.50$179.50) Central Center at Centennial Park – The OK Karaoke Chorale Hodges Bend – Mike Cameron Collective River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – The Marriotts Soundpony – *Memory Keepers, Ject, We Make Shapes The Colony – Seth Lee Jones The Colony – Ryan Browning - Happy Hour The Vanguard – Frail Body, Carvist, Hugg – ($10) Yeti – The Situation

Tues // Jul 10 Blackbird On Pearl – The Pearl Jam Guthrie Green – Starlight Concert Band - Route 66 Jane’s Delicatessen – David, Ken, and Special Guests Mercury Lounge – Wink Burcham River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Jacob Dement

Smitty’s 118 Tavern – Scott Ellison Band The Colony – Singer/Songwriter Night The Colony – Deerpaw - Happy Hour The Vanguard – Psuedo, NVM, Downward, Dark Values, The Beaten Daylights, Handsome Sinners – ($10) Woody Guthrie Center – *Annie Guthrie – ($20) Yeti – Writers’ Night

Wed // Jul 11 Cellar Dweller – Grazz Trio Crow Creek Tavern – Open Mic Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Doug Stone Los Cabos - BA – Rockwell Los Cabos - Jenks – Laron Simpson Mercury Lounge – Jared Tyler & Seth Lee Jones Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Shelby and Nathan Eicher Soul City – Don & Stephen White Soundpony – Police Academy 2, Zero for Conduct The Colony – Tom Skinner Science Project The Vanguard – Speaker, Crafter, Tell Lies, The Noise Estate – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Futurebirds, Parker Gispert – ($10.50-$15)

Thurs // Jul 12 Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Weston Horn, Stars Los Cabos - BA – The Hi-Fidelics Los Cabos - Jenks – C-Plus Mercury Lounge – Paul Benjaman River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – DJ Johnnie Bananas River Spirit Casino - Paradise Cove – *Boy George & Culture Club – ($55-$400) Sisserou’s – The Sarah Maud Trio Soul City – The Begonias Soundpony – S.M. Wolf The Colony – Jacob Tovar’s Country Roots The Colony – Chris Lee Becker - Happy Hour The Fur Shop – *Tulsa Funk Fest w/ Henna Roso, Dane Arnold & The Soup, TFM, Move Trio, and more The Hunt Club – Saganomics, Dachshund The Venue Shrine – *Kool Keith, Steph Simon, Mr. Burns, Shabaka – ($15-$20) Utica Square – Eldredge Jackson

Fri // Jul 13 Blackbird On Pearl – *Slasher Bash V w/ Psyonix, Labadie House, Dynamic Bastards, Pitter Splatter – ($2) Four Aces Tavern – Barry Seal Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Dante, Mayday By Midnight Los Cabos - BA – Speak Easy Los Cabos - Jenks – The Agenda Mercury Lounge – *American Shadows, Psychotic Reaction Mulligan’s Sports & Spirits – DJ MO Soul City – Susan Herndon Soul City – Scott Musick & Friends Soundpony – Afistaface The Colony – Beau Roberson Band The Colony – Kalyn Fay The Fur Shop – April Richardshon The Hunt Club – *Rush Fest The Max Retropub – Sweet Baby Jaysus The Starlite – ResurXtion 48 The Vanguard – Through Being Cool, Cliffdiver, My Heart & Liver Are the Best of Friends – ($10) Woody Guthrie Center – Johnny Irion – ($20-$23) Yeti – Cucumber Mike’s Happy Hour

Sat // Jul 14 Bad Ass Renee’s – Travis Bond and the Rebel Souls Blue Rose Cafe – Jawbone and Jolene Dead Armadillo Brewing – Dan Martin Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Barrett Lewis, Hook Los Cabos - BA – Jumpsuit Love Los Cabos - Jenks – Charlie Redd & The Full Flava Band Mercury Lounge – Chucky Waggs MixCo – Jazz Night w/ Stephanie Oliver Pit Stop – DJ MO Soul City – Stephen White Group – ($10) Soundpony – Pony Disco Club The Colony – Hosty – ($5) The Hunt Club – Tony Romanello and the Black Jackets The Max Retropub – DJ AB The Vanguard – Ryan McLaughlin, James Price – ($10)

Sun // Jul 15 East Village Bohemian Pizza – Mike Cameron Collective Los Cabos - BA – Zene Smith Los Cabos - Jenks – The Fabulous Two Man Band Mercury Lounge – Brandon Clark River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Brent Giddens Soul City – Bruner & Eicher Soul City – Gospel Brunch w/ Dustin Pittsley & Friends Soundpony – *Spiller, Acid Queen, Follow the Buzzards The Colony – Paul Benjaman’s Sunday Nite Thing The Vanguard – Scarlet View, Spook, Kompulsive Child, Awaiting Our Arrival – ($10) Yeti – Shut Up U Don’t Dance

Mon // Jul 16 Blackbird On Pearl – The Portal Central Center at Centennial Park – The OK Karaoke Chorale Hodges Bend – Mike Cameron Collective River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – The Marriotts The Colony – Seth Lee Jones The Colony – Ryan Browning - Happy Hour Yeti – The Situation

Tues // Jul 17 Blackbird On Pearl – The Pearl Jam Guthrie Green – Starlight Concert Band - At The Movies Jane’s Delicatessen – David, Ken, and Special Guests Mercury Lounge – Wink Burcham Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Depot Jazz and Blues Jams River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Jacob Dement The Colony – Singer/Songwriter Night The Colony – Deerpaw - Happy Hour The Vanguard – Lucia, Low Roads, Morose – ($10) Yeti – Writers’ Night

MUSIC // 43

onscreen

Kiersey Clemons and Nick Offerman in “Hearts Beat Loud” | COURTESY

AMERICAN IDLE

Kyrie Irving in “Uncle Drew” | COURTESY

Hoop! There it is TEAM WORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK IN THE LIGHT-HEARTED BASKETBALL COMEDY ‘UNCLE DREW’ WHILE THERE IS WHAT SOME WOULD describe as a plot to “Uncle Drew,” the new film directed by Charles Stone III comes off more like a series of extended ESPY awards skits. The athletes loosen up and make light of themselves while also showing off why they are worth millions in endorsements. And it should feel this way. After all, Boston Celtics point guard Kyrie Irving reprises the role of Uncle Drew, which originated as a series of commercials to hawk Pepsi-Max. It’s from this inauspicious beginning that “Uncle Drew” the movie can’t quite escape it’s soda-pop marketing conceit where corporate sponsors like Nike, Oberto pizza, and Pepsi are frequently name dropped.

It’s hard to tell if it’s sincere or just selfparody.

The film kicks off with a “30 for 30”-style mini documentary that tells the legend of Uncle Drew—a street ball legend who, along with his team, reaches the height of the game only to implode and all but vanish. It’s a clever framing device that couches this goofy movie filled with comically absurd moments in a place of reality. They call that verisimilitude.

Milton “Lil Rel” Howery plays Dax, a life-long fan of the game that dumped his life savings into coaching a team competing in the Rucker Classic street ball tournament—a tournament that not only carries a hefty cash prize, but also the re44 // FILM & TV

spect of every player who steps foot on the blacktop. His dreams are shattered when his star player, his girl, and his clothes are stolen by a childhood rival played with delicious douchebaggery by Nick Kroll.

Still wanting a shot at the Rucker, Dax finds himself face to face with the legend himself: Uncle Drew. He’s much older but no less capable of schooling the loudmouthed, disrespectful punks who confuse big-talk with actual skill.

It is a lot of fun watching athletes like Irving, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller and Shaq ham it up underneath all the prosthetics. Even WNBA star Lisa Leslie gets a deserving assist as the preacher’s wife with a little game of her own. And while there’s something irresistibly entertaining about dressing up as an old person, waxing nostalgic about R&B vs. hip-hop, and schooling the disrespectful youngins, there’s not enough Spirit Gum and latex to hide the flimsy attempt to draw out the film. The conflict surrounding Dax’s anxiety on whether this team of arthritic ballers will be ready to compete is tame, yet when it comes time, Uncle Drew and team put on a veritable clinic of street ball.

That’s when the real show begins. After all, that’s what we go to see. Watching these all-stars perform with virtuosity and verve is where the ad-agency derived idea of Uncle Drew comes alive. —CHARLES ELMORE

A father and daughter use music to get out of their funk in ‘Hearts Beat Loud’ WRITER/DIRECTOR BRETT HALEY IS A slice-of-life auteur. He crafts intimate portraits of average people at life-defining crossroads.

Two of his previous films, “The Hero” and “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” each deal with aging. Now, in “Hearts Beat Loud,” Haley sifts the musical charms and depth of “Once” and “Sing Street” through a father-daughter filter.

Nick Offerman (“Parks & Recreation”) plays Frank Fisher, a single dad who can’t afford to keep his Brooklyn vinyl record store afloat. His daughter Sam (newcomer Kiersey Clemons) is prepping to go to medical school while also falling for a new girlfriend (Sasha Lane, “American Honey”), and Frank’s landlord, Leslie (Toni Collette, “Hereditary”), keeps sending him mixed romantic signals.

As these life chapters appear to close, Frank and Sam create a new, unexpected bond when they write a song together. A really good song. But rather than following a predictable arc of grassroots success, “Hearts Beat Loud” uses their collaboration to explore relationship gaps and deep-seated uncertainties.

Frank wants them to start a band. Sam resists, rolling her eyes at the thought. Her disaffection, however, masks risk-averse insecurities rooted in fear created by her mother’s tragic death. Sam claims to be the responsible one, but it’s a cop-out.

They’re each burdened with their own angst—lived-in and cumulative, not tortured, overwrought, or forced. That all sounds pretty heavy, and no doubt these emotions are dealt with honestly, but “Hearts Beat Loud” is a film of unadulterated joy, the kind that rises as music taps

deep into the soul and liberates it.

Their journey isn’t marked by cheap sentiment; it’s cautious and delicate as father and daughter embark on tender new territory. “Hearts Beat Loud” is never cloying and loath to warm fuzzies, yet it delivers all the feels.

The leads shine in this actor’s showcase (another Haley staple). Offerman reveals fragile layers beneath his familiar, manly persona as Clemons guardedly represses a beaming charisma that yearns to break free. Their original songs, by Keegan DeWitt, are catchy, addictive indie pop tracks. When strangers are wowed by them, you buy it.

There’s an extended ad hoc concert that Frank and Sam perform during the film’s final act, but rather than being a lazy denouement that leans heavily on a hipster soundtrack, it’s a truly passionate crescendo—an organic fruition of the seeds that Haley has planted (and nurtured) along the way. It’s quite a payoff.

Sometimes the most relevant movies have nothing to do with the big issues of the day. They de-politicize topics that other films would soapbox (a mixed-race daughter and lesbian young love, in this case), speaking beyond the specifics of their characters and stories to tap into something universal.

You may not directly identify with the people you’re watching, or their circumstances, but you know exactly what they’re going through. In some form or another you’ve gone through it, too.

“Hearts Beat Loud” lives up to its title in the quietest of ways. In doing so, it makes our hearts beat, too, then burst, and finally soar. —JEFF HUSTON July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

A BRIEF RUNDOWN OF WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE CIRCLE CINEMA

OPENING JULY 6 WOMAN WALKS AHEAD Set in the 1880s, Jessica Chastain stars in this true story about the close relationship between Chief Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes) and portrait artist Catherine Weldon (Chastain). Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell co-stars.

Rated R.

Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell in “Set It Up” | COURTESY

NETFLIX AND CHILL ‘Set It Up’ is the streaming giant’s bid for a rom-com resurrection

IT’S BEEN A SAD MILLENNIUM FOR THE romantic comedy.

For nearly two decades, the rom-com has degraded to the raunch-com, suffering a steep slide into crass slapstick that’s devoid of wit, heart, or longing. The occasional Nancy Meyers charmer or underseen indie aside, the genre is a pale, pitiful imitation of the 1990s Golden Age that writer/ director Nora Ephron defined (“Sleepless In Seattle,” “You’ve Got Mail”).

Enter Netflix, which serves up “Set It Up,” a clever take on the classic meetcute. Zoey Deutch (“Why Him?”) and Glen Powell (“Hidden Figures”) play Harper and Charlie, two executive assistants who toil 24/7 for workaholic New York City corporate elites (Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs).

With non-existent personal lives, the duo conspires various matchmaking schemes for their bosses, hoping a romance between the two will finally give them some free time of their own.

Banter-filled comedy ensues, at times in meta levels (Harper and Charlie use rom-com tropes as part of their strategy), but even as they succeed with small victories, the inevitable becomes apparent: Maybe the bosses aren’t really the ones who should be together.

The initial stretch is little more than a glorified TV effort, more winking than sophisticated, but the cast has fun with the contrived mechanics. Then, as the leads start to loosen up and the script adds some interesting thematic nuances—like how the idea of manipulating relationships, even with good intentions, can backfire with unintended consequences—this plot machine creates interesting moral conflicts that raise the stakes.

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

Deutch and Powell aren’t going to make people forget Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks anytime soon, but the pair’s charms gradually evolve from playfully quirky to a tangible, tender chemistry.

Director Claire Scanlon (TV’s “The Office” and “The Last Man On Earth”) and Katie Silberman’s script follow Ephron’s well-established template, even as they add doses of risque blue humor, from occasional sexual sight gags to surprising C-word level coarse language. The crutch of intermittent raunch feels out of place in an otherwise decidedly old-fashioned tone.

Scanlon knows how to capture a sense of place, too (another Ephron skill), showcasing the NYC landscape while also orchestrating a sense of tight-knit community, like the camaraderie shared in the Yankee’s cheap seats. It all flows with romanticized whimsy.

Her use of Motown pop/R&B standards can’t be under-estimated, either—a key aesthetic that gives contemporary shenanigans an air of starry-eyed timelessness.

Laura Karpman’s plucky compositions also augment Scanlon’s homage to Ephron.

The ultimate test, though, is if the story effectively pulls at the heartstrings when it matters most. And it does, saving the best scripted sentiments for the moment of truth. Far better than mawkish greeting card platitudes, Harper and Charlie express humble, heartfelt confessions, the kind that helped make Hanks and Ryan icons.

It’s cute. It’s fluffy. It’s adorbs. “Set It Up” aspires to be the kind of rom-com we need again and, especially at the end (when it counts), it totally is. —JEFF HUSTON

SPECIAL EVENTS CIRCLE CINEMA 90TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION WEEK From July 7–15, Circle Cinema celebrates its 90th anniversary with a nine-day event filled with classics, silents, documentaries, actor and filmmaker discussions, receptions, and much more. For a schedule, see pg.

22. For more information, visit circlecinema.com.

DEEP RED (1975) Graveyard Shift presents a 4K digital restoration of the horror from “Suspiria” director Dario Argento about a psychic medium that feels compelled to solve the case of a grisly murder. Rated R. (10 p.m.

July 13–14) THE GAUCHO (1927) Second Saturday Silents presents this Douglas Fairbanks adventure. He stars as a selfish bandit who undergoes a spiritual transformation in a small town with a shrine of the Madonna. Bill Rowland accompanies on the Circle’s 1928 pipe organ. Tickets $5 adults, $2 16 and under. (11 a.m. July 14)

CIRCLE CINEMA FILM FESTIVAL & 90TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION KICK-OFF EVENT 7/7 @ 7PM

$10 tickets available at circlecinema.com

HOSTED BY: 1928

90 YEARS

2018

Special screening will include an introduction by Tulsa Voice film critic Jeff Huston and post-panel discussion with film writers Jeff Huston, Charles Elmore and music writer Becky Carman!

SPONSORED BY:

FILM & TV // 45

free will astrology

by ROB BREZSNY

CANCER

(JUNE 21-JULY 22):

An open letter to Cancerians from Rob Brezsny’s mother, Felice: I want you to know that I played a big role in helping my Cancerian son become the empathetic, creative, thoughtful, crazy character he is today. I nurtured his idiosyncrasies. I made him feel secure and well-loved. My care freed him to develop his unusual ideas and life. So as you read Rob’s horoscopes, remember that there’s part of me inside him. And that part of me is nurturing you just as I once nurtured him. I and he are giving you love for the quirky, distinctive person you actually are, not some fantasy version of you. I and he are helping you feel more secure and wellappreciated. Now I encourage you to cash in on all that support.

As Rob has told me, it’s time for you Cancerians to reach new heights in your drive to express your unique self.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The ghost orchid is a rare white wildflower that disappeared from the British countryside around 1986. The nation’s botanists declared it officially extinct in 2005. But four years later, a tenacious amateur located a specimen growing in the West Midlands area. The species wasn’t gone forever, after all. I foresee a comparable revival for you in the coming weeks, Leo. An interesting influence or sweet thing that you imagined to be permanently defunct may return to your life. Be alert!

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The ancient Greek poet Sappho described “a sweet-apple turning red high on the tip of the topmost branch.”

The apple pickers left it there, she suggested, but not because they missed seeing it. It was just too high. “They couldn’t reach it,” wrote Sappho. Let’s use this scenario as a handy metaphor for your current situation, Virgo. I am assigning you the task of doing whatever is necessary to fetch that glorious, seemingly unobtainable sweet-apple. It may not be easy.

You’ll probably need to summon extra ingenuity to reach it, as well as some as-yet unguessed form of help. (The Sappho translation is by Julia Dubnoff.)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Is there any prize more precious than knowing your calling? Can any other satisfaction compare with the joy of understanding why you’re here on earth?

In my view, it’s the supreme blessing: to have discovered the tasks that can ceaselessly educate and impassion you; to do the work or play that enables you to offer your best gifts; to be intimately engaged with an activity that consistently asks you to overcome your limitations and grow into a more complete version of yourself. For some people, their calling is a job: marine biologist, kindergarten teacher, advocate for the homeless. For others, it’s a hobby, like long-distance-running, bird-watching, or mountain-climbing. St. Therese of Lisieux said, “My calling is love!” Poet Marina Tsvetaeva said her calling was “To listen to my soul.” Do you know yours, Libra? Now is an excellent time to either discover yours or home in further on its precise nature.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Have you entertained any high-quality fantasies about faraway treasures lately? Have you delivered inquiring communiqués to any promising beauties who may ultimately offer you treats?

Have you made long-distance inquiries about speculative possibilities that could be inclined to travel in your direction from their frontier sanctuaries? Would you consider making some subtle change in yourself so that you’re no longer forcing the call of the wild to wait and wait and wait?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): If a down-toearth spiritual teacher advised you to go on a five-day meditation retreat in a sacred sanctuary, would you instead spend five days carousing with meth addicts in a cheap hotel? If a close friend confessed a secret she had concealed from everyone for years, would you unleash a nervous laugh and change the subject?

If you read a horoscope that told you now is a favorable time to cultivate massive amounts of reverence, devotion, respect, gratitude, innocence, and awe, would you quickly blank it out of your mind and check your Instagram and Twitter accounts on your phone?

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): A typical working couple devotes an average of four minutes per day to focused conversation with each other. And it’s common for a child and parent to

Place the numbers 1 through 9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once.

NOVICE

engage in meaningful communication for just 20 minutes per week. I bring these sad facts to your attention, Capricorn, because I want to make sure you don’t embody them in the coming weeks. If you hope to attract the best of life’s blessings, you will need to give extra time and energy to the fine art of communing with those you care about.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Allergies, irritants, stings, hypersensitivities: sometimes you can make these annoyances work in your behalf.

For example, my allergy to freshly-cut grass meant that when I was a teenager, I never had to waste my Saturday afternoons mowing the lawn in front of my family’s suburban home. And the weird itching that plagued me whenever I got into the vicinity of my first sister’s fiancé: If I had paid attention to it, I wouldn’t have lent him the $350 that he never repaid. So my advice, my itchy friend, is to be thankful for the twitch and the prickle and the pinch. In the coming days, they may offer you tips and clues that could prove valuable.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Are you somehow growing younger? Your stride seems bouncier and your voice sounds more buoyant. Your thoughts seem fresher and your eyes brighter.

I won’t be surprised if you buy yourself new toys or jump in mud puddles. What’s going on?

Here’s my guess: you’re no longer willing to sleepwalk your way through the most boring things about being an adult. You may also be ready to wean yourself from certain responsibilities unless you can render them pleasurable at least some of the time. I hope so. It’s time to bring more fun and games into your life.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Twentieth-century French novelist Marcel Proust described nineteenth-century novelist Gustave Flaubert as a *trottoire roulant*, or “rolling sidewalk”: plodding, toneless, droning. Meanwhile, critic Roger Shattuck compared Proust’s writing to an “electric generator” from which flows a “powerful current always ready to shock not only our morality but our very sense of humanity.” In the coming weeks, I encourage you to find a middle ground between Flaubert and Proust. See if you can be moderately exciting, gently provocative, and amiably enchanting. My analysis of the cosmic rhythms suggests that such an approach is likely to produce the best long-term results.

MASTER

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You remind me of Jack, the nine-year-old Taurus kid next door, who took up skateboarding on the huge trampoline his two moms put in their backyard. Like him, you seem eager to travel in two different modes at the same time. (And I’m glad to see you’re being safe; you’re not doing the equivalent of, say, having sex in a car or breakdancing on an escalator.) When Jack first began, he had difficulty in coordinating the bouncing with the rolling. But after a while he got good at it. I expect that you, too, will master your complex task.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): From the day you were born, you have been cultivating a knack for mixing and blending. Along the way, you have accomplished mergers that would have been impossible for a lot of other people. Some of your experiments in amalgamation are legendary. If my astrological assessments are accurate, the year 2019 will bring forth some of your all-time most marvelous combinations and unifications. I expect you are even now setting the stage for those future fusions; you are building the foundations that will make them natural and inevitable. What can you do in the coming weeks to further that preparation?

Is there an area of your life where your effects are different from your intentions? t h i s w e e k ’ s h o m e w o r k // T E S T I F Y AT F R E E W I L L A S T R O L O G Y. C O M .

46 // ETC.

July 3 – 17, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

THE FUZZ THE TULSA VOICE SPOTLIGHTS: TULSA SPCA

2910 Mohawk Blvd. | MON, TUES, THURS, FRI & SAT, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 918.428.7722

CONRAD can’t wait to play fetch with you! This silly guy will constantly have you laughing and smiling. He is about a year old and loves to be spoiled with toys. Conrad needs a family with active hobbies that he can participate in, but he is always down for some snuggles after he gets all of his energy out.

ACROSS 1 Anatomical bags or pouches 5 Public mover 8 “How ya’ doin’?”

11 Harp from the backseat 14 Names 18 Orchestra woodwind 19 Octopus’s release 20 Travel term 22 Beastly thing of stories 23 Seriously detailed one 26 Happy and appreciative 27 Discerning 28 In ___ of amazement (shocked) 29 It helps settle disputes 31 In ___ (toned) 32 Tubular covering 33 Abhorrence 34 ___ de mer (seasickness) 36 Knockout count 37 Cake maker’s moneymaker 38 U-turn from against 41 Prayer wheel user 44 Normandy event 46 Work the runway 50 Like some seats and tennis shorts 52 Get-up-and-go 54 Be a rival 55 Be a siren 56 “I’m sorry, but ...” in texts 58 Earth, in sci-fi 60 Stuffed dollar bills?

61 Earthly representation 62 Deli offering 64 Hayes and Newton 66 Class for numbers people

70 Set the retail price 72 Pretentious 73 Hindu mentor 77 Arm or leg 78 Cockpit array 81 It’s Big in California 82 Sounded, as a huge bell 83 High mountain 84 A presidential nickname 85 Swiftly get in front 87 Poughkeepsie college 91 Supportive words for pros?

94 “Goodness gracious!”

95 All the volumes as one 96 Places with docks 98 Fox sitcom with Charles Dutton 100 IRS form no.

102 Muzzles 105 Sources of infant tummy problems 108 Clearly not suitable 113 Lofty perch 114 Godzilla creator Tomoyuki 115 Idolizes 116 Chancel cross 117 Part of a sleep study 120 Green Gables girl 121 Bishop’s jurisdiction 122 Wind dir., sometimes 123 Words with “extra cost” 124 Pre-Easter egg handler 125 Indian address 126 Home with mud on the floor 127 “___ the land of the free ...”

128 Kind of sleeper or thinker

Bring out the tennis balls because PEPPER is an adorable, active guy who loves to play fetch. Pepper is a one-year-old Australian cattle dog mix. If you are an adopter looking for a running buddy, Pepper would be the perfect pal for you!

DOWN 1 Couches 2 Make embarrassed 3 ___ del Sol 4 Arrange, as a 29-Across 5 ___ one’s time 6 Prefix with brow 7 “To your health!”

8 Sonnet’s ending 9 Like dirt roads 10 Feign 11 Some Greek letters 12 There but invisible 13 Beginning 14 GIs’ identifiers 15 Hybrid fruits 16 Kind of goose 17 Bulrush 21 Mine rock 24 Dating celebs, e.g.

25 “___ as directed” 30 It’s volcanic in Sicily 32 Croat or Pole 33 Weekend warrior 35 Soap additive 38 U-turn from empty 39 Viking Ship Museum site 40 Melee on the field 42 Dangling award 43 It’s about a foot 45 “Great” one in Africa 47 Indoor climate syst.

48 Is a contributor 49 Rubber-stamping word 50 Cleaning cloth 51 Tow truck’s haul 53 Top-notch 57 Convenience stores 58 Jackson and Puente 59 Work ___ team 60 Some guitar foot pedals 62 Old photo color

63 Long March leader 65 Place to flounder 67 Chew on a farm?

68 Chopin offering 69 Banned NFL headwear 70 Actress Kunis 71 Sound blasters 74 Sheltered on your yacht 75 Potatoes go-with 76 Named by witnesses 77 Restroom, informally 79 Vast chasm 80 Actor ___ J. Cobb 82 Advanced degs.

86 Be flippant with 88 Frequent lane shifter (and extra theme) 89 Isn’t wrong?

90 Platters 92 Game stations 93 At the first opportunity 97 Make as good as new 99 Like bad soil 101 Ready to get dressed 102 Amati relative 103 Common literary device 104 Western director Sergio 106 White House nickname 107 Big star in a quick scene 109 Serious wanderer 110 Rocky ridge 111 Tubular pasta 112 Type of F-number 114 Personal quirk 115 Declare positively 118 Luau lunch, possibly 119 Number that’s its own square

Find the answers to this issue’s crossword puzzle at thetulsavoice.com/puzzle-solutions.

THE TULSA VOICE // July 3 – 17, 2018

The Tulsa SPCA has been helping animals in our area since 1913. The shelter never euthanizes for space and happily rescues animals from high-kill shelters. They also accept owner surrenders, rescues from cruelty investigations, hoarding, and puppy mill situations. Animals live on-site or with foster parents until they’re adopted. All SPCA animals are micro-chipped, vaccinated, spayed/neutered, and treated with preventatives.

Learn about volunteering, fostering, upcoming events, adoptions, and their low-cost vaccination clinic at tulsaspca.org.

DIL has been living at the Tulsa SPCA for a couple of months now, and we could not tell you why. It may be due to the fact that black cats often get overlooked by adopters. Dil is three months old and is an all-around wonderful companion pet. Dil loves snuggles, toys, and birdwatching out of the windows.

EZRA is a little, fluffy kitten ready for his forever family to come and find him.

Ezra is a three-month-old, domestic medium-hair kitten. His sweet face is sure to capture your heart, and he is always ready to snuggle up for an afternoon nap.

UNIVERSAL SUNDAY CROSSWORD QUICK CHANGE

By Timothy E. Parker

© 2018 Andrews McMeel Syndication

7/8 ETC. // 47

Pleas e re cycle this issue.