NUVO:Indy's Alternative Voice - June 6, 2012

THIS WEEK JUNE 06 - 13, 2012

coverstory

VOL. 23 ISSUE 12 ISSUE #1156

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IN THE MIND TRUST WE TRUST? When The Mind Trust, a local nonprofit incubator of educational leadership and innovation, released its “Creating Opportunity Schools” report in December 2011, it outlined in great detail its core position that IPS “is broken — with catastrophic results for students” and would take radical restructuring to achieve needed and lasting change.

B Y R E B E C C A T OW NS E ND

news

12

ENERGIZING INDIANA

A free program called Energizing Indiana has emerged out of the Statehouse to potentially reach more than two million Indiana residents, businesses, schools and nonprofit organizations.

BY ANTHONY OROZCO

arts

23

LEARNING TO POINT AND SHOOT

Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Veuillard, opening at the Indianapolis Museum of Art Friday, brings together photographs by seven of artists who made extensive use of the first user-friendly camera, released in 1888.

BY SCOTT SHOGER

arts

Now Open

24

PAUL GOES APE

in this issue 19 45 14 30 47 06 08 05 28 32 12 44

A&E CLASSIFIEDS COVER STORY FOOD FREE WILL ASTROLOGY HAMMER HOPPE LETTERS MOVIES MUSIC NEWS WEIRD NEWS

The first thing you probably need to know about Eagle Creek Park’s Go Ape rope course is that it is just as awesome as it seems, if not more so. The course is comprised of ropes hanging 40 feet in the air, a series of obstacles, and — as the course’s climax — five separate ziplines overhanging ravines.

BY PAUL F. P. POGUE

music

32

GOLIATHON AT IMAF

Southsiders Goliathon, a rock and roll quintet with a penchant for massive hooks and kaleidoscopic flourishes, are releasing their sophomore full-length, Pretend It’s Not Happening, in August. But first, they’ll play at IMAF this Saturday.

BY WADE COGGESHALL

nuvo.net /ARTICLES

This week in film by NUVO Editors Michael Strauss transfers to Oberlin

by Tom Aldridge Speed Freak by Kate Shoup Eloisa & Abelard, Indy Performance Project, Stacey Kent Damien Jurado at Russian Recording Lazy Hawk Prom Anniversary Show Girl, in Transit by Ashley Kimmel Bicycle Diaries of a Big Girl by Katelyn Coyne

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Go Ape course by Paul F. P. Pogue Scenes from First Friday by Stacy Kagiwada Major Lazer at the Vogue Lee Scratch Perry at the Vogue Hip-hop house party Ben Sollee at Radio Radio

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LETTERS and local produce as often as possible. I recommend both the duck breast and venison (in season). Fabulous! And the schnitzel I tasted was delicious both times I ordered it.

They stock good cider (yippee for me!) and the beer is great (yippee for him!) Go there!

You’ll enjoy the food as well as th e brew.

— Brenda Sinclair Sutton

Half-century cycling SUBMITTED PHOTO

This untitled 1890 painting by T.C. Steele was discovered beneath another Steele painting in April.

Hidden in plain sight

Regarding the article “Hidden in Plain Sight” by Rita Kohn about Indiana’s T.C. Steele (May 28-June 1).

First, the painting of Steele’s first wife and son, dated 1887, was probably painted in the Vermont hills at the ancestral home of Indianapolis’s Fletcher family.

The Steele family spent the late summer and fall there. Secondly, the covered up painting was most likely painted at North Vernon, Jennings County, in 1890. Steele reportedly was painting at the Hermitage in Brookville and in Jennings County at this time.

I believe the key to the location of the “new” landscape is the “Italian” tower in the far background. Also, other landscapes painted at Vernon and North Vernon at this time have a striking similarity of palette and feeling. Check out photographs of the Jennings County Courthouse, with its Victorian Italianate tower. With the death of his beloved Libbie at only 49 years, this painting of mother and son had a much more sentimental value to Steele than another one of his landscapes. For some reason that we may never know, Steele must have needed to reframe this portrait of his dearest Libbie. Of course, these are only conjectures on my part.

— Joe Wood

Duck at the Swan

We go to the Black Swan all the time because the husband is a craft beer fanatic (“Black Swan Brewpub: Good beer, iffy food,” Neil Charles, April 25). Yes, the decor is a bit drab in the restaurant area, but the pub area where we usually sit is charming.

I’m a good cook and a bit of a foodie, and I couldn’t disagree with this reviewer more about the cuisine. We’ve enjoyed every meal we’ve eaten there. The chef uses seasonal

I bet you’ll be surprised at how easily miles go by when you find fun ways to grow further into cycling (“Half-century challenge,” Katelyn Coyne, June 1). Variety is a big part, and leather-palm gloves help cushion the hands when you’re out for extended periods.

Once you start turning it into work, measuring numbers and doing math, it can become a different game, one I have yet to find use for in any of life’s pursuits. Your attitude about “joyriding” says to me you need no coaching about what really matters.

— Scot.mckim

On nonprofits

Thank you for your comments regarding my article on how the metrics used to measure the success of non-profit organizations should be different from the metrics used for the for-profit world (“Steve Libman has a point on nonprofits,” David Hoppe, June 4).

One point of clarification. The Center received two grants from the city during my tenure: a $2M grant in 2010 and then another $2M in 2011. For the 2012 season we had been in discussions but no formal proposal to the council had been made by me. It’s also very important to note that I approached the council members through a position of trust and transparency; I was always honest about our circumstances.

Rather than a sense of “entitlement” I believe we established a wonderful partnership with a majority of the Carmel City Council. The council understood that the voters of Carmel wanted the Center to be one of the finest performance venues in the nation and that by supporting the center; they were also supporting the economy, which benefits everyone, including citizens of Indianapolis. In the end, a perfect example of how a government and the arts can work together was established. No arts organization is entitled to any support — it needs to earn the support.

— Steve Libman

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HAMMER No smoking, no bumming

Meditations on Indy’s legal state

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BY STEVE HAMMER SHAMMER@NUVO.NET

ans of unnecessary and pointless laws, of which there are quite a few in the city’s print and broadcast media, were exuberant this weekend as the smoking ban in public places went into effect.

Never mind that the ban is largely symbolic; these self-appointed pundits couldn’t stop patting themselves on the back.

One would have thought, from reading their posts, that every gathering place in the city was full of chain-smokers and that dozens of cases of cancer were prevented this weekend alone. Others proudly noted that Indianapolis has joined the list of cities that are stampeding to make more and more things illegal.

As the architect of meaningless laws, the city government stepped up its game and showed everyone that they, in fact, Really Mean Business by bolting warning signs onto streetlight posts downtown.

In official, menacing-looking lettering, the signs note that “City Ordinance Sec. 407-102 FORBIDS APPROACHING PEOPLE FOR MONEY.” Then, in parentheses, just in case someone feels like testing the city’s resolve, “($2,500 FINE).”

In other words, don’t beg for cash unless you’re confident of getting more than $2,500 from the person you are (now illegally) approaching for money.

But wait, there’s more. The sign isn’t done threatening you yet. “City Ordinance 987106 FORBIDS ‘UNLICENSED’ TRANSIENT MERCHANT ACTIVITY ($200 FINE).” The use of quotation marks here is confusing.

The sign ends with advice to the good people of the city: “IF YOU ARE APPROACHED FOR EITHER - PLEASE REPORT IT. CALL IMPD AT 327-3811.” If you see something, say something.

The sign says nothing about being approached for cigarettes, which actually happens more than being solicited for money in the area around Monument Circle. And the people who sit by the downtown CVS stores with signs saying “HOMELESS GOD BLESS” ask for both.

Either the law means nothing or people can’t read, because I was asked for money and cigarettes literally dozens of times while walking downtown last week, just as I have every weekday for the past five years. And the illicit reefer market doesn’t seem to have slowed down yet either.

I’m confused. We can’t smoke in public, we can’t ask a stranger for bus fare, but we

can ask for cigarettes. And what about the brown boxes perched around downtown asking for donations for the homeless? Are they now illegal too?

Or are they really Hunger Games-like challenges to test the lock-picking skills of our city’s homeless? If so, I applaud the idea.

Meanwhile, if we’re in the business of stamping out everything that might offend or make uncomfortable any citizen or visitor to our city, let’s pass some laws against offensive and irritating noises.

If you live, as we do, adjacent to a major street in the city, then your walls shake every few minutes due to some idiot’s subwoofers pounding out hip-hop music at top volume. The music itself can hardly be heard, but the pounding of the bass is enough to knock pictures off our walls.

Wait, there is a law against this, kind of.

Ordinance 225, Section 18, Article 1 of the Indianapolis City Code, as passed on Dec. 11, 1995, expressly outlaws this sort of thing.

It’s against the law to “make, continue or cause to be made or continued any loud, unnecessary or unusual noise, or any noise which either annoys, disturbs, injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health and peace or safety of others within the city.”

Sounds good to me.

Then it outlines 19 different ways one can do this, including car radios. (And if you have a circus calliope, don’t even try it, Krusty. You’re covered too, in Sec. 18-2.)

And, in fact, a skilled prosecutor could argue that these extra-loud cars could qualify as “non-commercial sound trucks” under the ordinance, which means they’re breaking two laws when they keep us awake at night.

To boot, the noise being produced from these cars is illegal if it’s “profane, lewd, indecent, slanderous, subversive or unlawful,” which not only knocks out Lil Wayne but also Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

I’m usually against using brute police force to quash formerly legal activity, but if we’re going to outlaw smoking, begging and even so-called “pest birds” downtown (there’s a sign for them too, although it’s not translated into Sparrow or Pigeon), then let’s get at the people who disturb my peace regularly.

We can’t keep people from buying stockpiles of dangerous weapons or from cooking crystal meth in their houses or even guarantee fair elections in America, but we’re now supposed to stop smoking, make sure everyone is wearing seatbelts and keep others from using freedom of speech to ask if they can bum a dime.

The only thing protecting us all is that the police presence downtown, except near the cafeteria at the Chase Tower at lunchtime, is almost nonexistent, so nobody’s going to be enforcing these laws anyway unless they occur near the salad bar at Urban Market.

Good thing we have no other problems to worry about than smokers and homeless people; otherwise the city would really be screwed.

“I’m usually against using brute police force to quash formerly legal activity, but …”

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HOPPE Steve Libman has a point

Nonprofits are different

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BY DAVID HOPPE DHOPPE@NUVO.NET

’ve got to hand it to Steve Libman.

Libman, you may recall, is the former head of Carmel’s Center For the Performing Arts, the centerpiece of which, the Palladium, looks like it was teleported here from the set of My Fair Lady.

Libman lost his job in Carmel last July.

Why, exactly, seems a subject of some dispute. Whatever the reason, the guy demonstrated a sense of entitlement rare among local arts administrators.

In April 2010, before the Center was even open, Libman asked Carmel’s City Council for $2 million for “one-time costs necessary to open the center.” This was in addition to the approximately $150 million the good burghers of Carmel were already shelling out for this cultural shrine. As I pointed out at the time, the $2 million Libman wanted for walking around money was more than the entire public arts budget for the City of Indianapolis.

The Carmel council gave Libman the dough. But when he went back to the well last summer it was a different story. At that time, it was reported Libman wanted as much as $4 million from the city council — a number he later claimed was “speculative.” Eyebrows, however, were raised, jaws dropped. Libman handed in his resignation shortly thereafter.

Many people in Libman’s position would have hightailed it out of town. Libman, though, has stuck around. He started a performing arts consulting business and, according to his website, was recently hired to help plan a performing arts center in Bermuda.

Last week, Libman published an op-ed piece in the Indianapolis Star, “Arts organizations don’t fit mold of forprofit businesses.”

Given his history here, you could be excused for seeing this column as an exercise in selfjustification. But it also turns out that Libman has some trenchant things to say about how we manage our nonprofit enterprises.

Libman begins by observing that performing arts organizations in Central Indiana are never able to live on the revenue generated by ticket sales. They must rely on public and private contributions in order to survive. This not only defines what is meant by the term, “nonprofit,” it points to why it is misleading to think that we can run such organizations as if they were businesses.

Libman writes that he thinks the Great Recession of 2008 caused the boards of directors of many arts organizations to focus on “return on investment” as

a benchmark for measuring success.

Although I think it is demonstrable that this way of thinking dates back at least to the boom years of the 1990s, when corporatism and market-think were all the rage, Libman is right on the larger issue that nonprofit culture has been effectively subsumed by the very value system it was intended to counterbalance.

“Return on investment is an appropriate measurement for the performing arts,” writes Libman, “but it happens outside the organizations’ balance sheets.”

Libman argues that applying business metrics to nonprofit organizations prompts us to ask the wrong questions about why and how creative enterprises work. Rather than wanting to know whether or not the arts are breaking even, we should be trying to determine the acceptable amount of financial support necessary to help arts organizations efficiently deliver a return on investment that consists of “communities reached, students served, lives transformed, inspiration shared and stories told.”

Many nonprofits suffer from a kind of cultural dissonance that starts at the top, with the composition of their boards. Board members who are recruited because of their business prowess may actually see nonprofit values as obstacles to be overcome.

Here, Libman is bracingly frank: “Trustees of nonprofit arts organizations who do not subscribe to [these values] should consider resigning and apply their talents to generating more profit for the companies that employ them. And arts organizations need to do a much better job of vetting potential trustees to avoid electing individuals who do not comprehend the nonprofit model.”

Libman might just as well be talking about the current wave of politicians whose claim to office is based on their wanting to run government as if it were a business. In this model, a forest is only worth preserving so long as its timber can be logged. The value of nature itself plays little or no part in the equation.

These are the same folks who will demand to know why certain types of performance should be exempt from the vicissitudes of the marketplace. If they don’t go to the symphony or enjoy modern dance, they don’t see why their tax dollars should be spent in these venues. They might say the same thing about public schools if they don’t have kids, libraries if they don’t read books, and welfare if they’ve got theirs.

What these folks refuse to accept is that communities are complex organisms, made up of interrelated and overlapping parts. This can be aggravating at times. The various elements don’t always fit and some are weaker than others. Sometimes they don’t even speak the same language. It’s tempting to want to simplify this situation, reduce everything to a common formula — a business model, if you will. It’s not until the trees are gone that you realize you’ve lost a forest. I’m glad Steve Libman pointed this out.

Many nonprofits suffer from a kind of cultural dissonance that starts at the top.

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WTTS Tapping Tour Bring together great music and great beer. Come out to the following locations for a chance to sample local brews and pick up a copy of the WTTS Spring New Music Sampler CD. - Big Woods Brewery in Nashville on May 18 - Fountain Square Brewery on June 1 - RAM in Fishers on June 9 - RAM Downtown on June 14 - Power House Brewery in Columbus on June 15 For more information stop by www.wttsfm.com

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GADFLY

by Wayne Bertsch

HAIKU NEWS

by Jim Poyser

Hosni Mubarak only given life sentence — were Egyptians gypped?

John Edwards trial should be a reality television show it’s hard to hide a pregnant mistress ‘specially in third trimester George Bush returns to White House to unveil portrait of a decider will history be kind to Bush? Will there be a future to eye from? salmonella traced to ‘ronically named Mount Healthy Hatcheries “disgruntled” is not the appropriate word for a mass murderer Republicans hold fast on protecting the rich from socialism at some point can we stop calling China’s Guangcheng a “blind” activist?

400 parts per million carbon milestone hails sure Apocalypse

GOT ME ALL TWITTERED!

Follow @jimpoyser on Twitter for more Haiku News.

THUMBSUP THUMBSDOWN IPS TURF WARS

The Indianapolis Public Schools Board of School Commissioners voted this week to appeal a May decision by the State Board of Education to restrict funds to the district. The decision would give $13.9 million to two special management teams that will oversee four failing IPS schools beginning in July. IPS Superintendent Eugene G. White said the teams would be getting more than $5 million too much based on per-pupil funding because old numbers were used to calculate the allotment given to the teams for their turnaround efforts. According to White, the Sept. 2011 enrollment numbers being used in the calculation show enrollment at the turnaround schools at 3,810, where as today’s enrollment is 2,138. In Indiana, school funding is based on average enrollment on one certain day in Sept.

IPS BUDGET CUTS

Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent, Eugene G. White proposed substantial budget cuts in May in reaction to a reduction of state funding for the 2012-2013 school year. White’s plan would cut $27 million from spending across the district in order to fulfill the school system’s financial responsibilities. “IPS has pledged to keep cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, and this budget proposal does that,” White said. Although the cuts include layoffs, White said programs like art and physical education will be left unchanged. Property tax caps and the takeover of four schools are expected to affect the amount of support IPS receives from the state. The plan’s $27 million adds to the $120 million already cut from the IPS general fund budget over the past five years.

NORTH CENTRAL CHEATING SCANDAL

A teacher at North Central High School in Indianapolis is at the center of a cheating scandal first reported by WTHR in May. According to WTHR, the teacher recorded questions and answers from ISTEP’s Biology End of Course Assessment by looking over the shoulders of students taking the test. The teacher then distributed the information to fellow teachers to help in preparing students for the test. Indiana Department of Education Chief Assessment Officer Wes Bruce told WTHR last month, “on each page of the [ECA] test it says ‘do not reproduce or discuss the contents of this test.’”

A central Indiana teacher told WTHR there is tremendous pressure to cheat on standardized tests because of the impact the test results can have on teacher’s evaluations and pay.

THOUGHT BITE

By Andy Jacobs Jr. In the1950s it was Communist Smearsmith Birchers. From Birchers to Birthers, the more things change, the more they remain the same with the nutty Right.

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news Energizing Indiana

Statewide initiative supports energy conservation

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BY A N T H O N Y O R O Z C O E DI T O RS @N U V O . N E T

free program called Energizing Indiana has emerged out of the Statehouse to potentially reach more than two million Indiana residents, businesses, schools and nonprofit organizations.

The program provides rebates, information, and installations designed to save money and combat energy waste.

“Several years ago, the (Indiana) Utility Regulatory Commission decided that they wanted to see a more consistent approach to energy efficiency programs,” Bob Nuss, executive director of Energizing Indiana, says. “So they created an initiative with the five large utility companies and the Indiana Municipal Power Agency.”

The Indiana Municipal Power Agency is a nonprofit utility organization that allows over 50 cities in the state to potluck their resources to provide low-cost energy.

They, in conjunction with the legislature’s demand-side Management Coordination Committee, set out to assemble a team to tackle statewide utility waste.

In the fall of 2011, Bob Nuss and GoodCents, a demand-side utility solutions company, were selected to bring the Energizing Indiana team together for a Jan. 2 launch.

“Our goal is to reach 48,000 homes by the end of the year,” Nuss says. “We are doing well and we have our work cut out for us, but I do not doubt that we will achieve that number by the end of the year.”

Energy heavyweights Duke Energy, Indiana Michigan Power, Indiana Municipal Power Agency, Indianapolis Power & Light Company, NIPSCO and Vectren have combined forces to provide a gamut of energy conservation programs that reach nearly all corners of the state through Energizing Indiana.

Using customer dollars, the companies are giving back to their patrons on an immense scale. Participating energy companies have had conservation programs included in customers’ bills, and now those customers have an opportunity to reap those benefits.

At a time when comparable energysaving initiatives can be found in virtually all 50 states, Energizing Indiana stands out for its accessibility to the majority of Hoosiers.

“Nearly all the electric utility companies in Indiana are participating,” Nuss says. “So, approximately 80 percent of utilities customers in the state are on

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utilities that are participating in the program that covers all customer classes.”

Five cost-free programs

Energizing Indiana provides five costfree programs to residential and business customers.

One program entails a commercial and industrial rebate incentive that rewards businesses that have invested in efficient heating, cooling, lighting, and major appliances. To date, Energizing Indiana has worked with more than 300 Indiana businesses, providing rebate incentives for energy efficient appliances, heating, cooling, and lighting.

A second program involves children.

Over 45,000 fifth-grade and sixth-grade children all over the state have already taken Indiana-approved science curriculum that teaches students how to spot and stop waste. The students are given compact florescent light bulbs, faucet aerators, and low-flow showerheads.

Energizing Indiana will conduct audits of nearly 375 schools over the next two years, examining each institution’s energy use in depth, and providing guidance on boosting efficiency.

The remaining three programs assess utility usage in homes, streamlining residential energy consumption and home weatherization efforts.

Energizing Indiana is searching for community organizations to take part in the program, according to Jessica Nuss, one of seven community outreach coordinators. [Editor’s note: Jessica Nuss is also the daughter of Bob Nuss, the program’s executive director.]

“Nonprofits are always a great way to touch your community,” says Jessica Nuss.

“They do so much and they are trying to stretch their money as much as they can.

So the best way to reach people is through their churches and neighborhood groups.”

Energizing Indiana’s community outreach enrolled 1,000 homes in April alone —– and that number is climbing.

Jessica Nuss and her colleagues have worked with Indianapolisbased Canterbury Neighborhood Association, the Mary Rigg Neighborhood Center, and the Southeast community services, among others.

PHOTOS BY MARK LEE

Top: Bishop Carl J. Mimms III and his wife, Diane, at The Freedom Tabernacle of Praise; right, Elice Stowers in her home.

“What they did was extraordinary because it basically gave us a fundraiser with no overhead, which helped our church financially.”

Energizing Indiana donates $25 to nonprofits for each person who participates in the program.

“It’s a great bonus for neighborhood groups, community groups and churches especially,” Nuss says.

The amount of funds the nonprofit organization earns grows along with the demand.

“Our first check was $50, because we signed up only two people when we began,” Mimms said. “Our second check is $675, and it’s going to keep increasing because we are constantly getting people to sign up for the service.”

Energizing Indiana has allotted the potential for each organization to receive $25,000.

This “soft cap” will be reviewed on a caseby-case basis, Jessica Nuss explains.

The Freedom Tabernacle of Praise is comprised of people living on fixed incomes, according to Mimms, and he says his congregation feels that they are able to give more to the church by participating in the free energysaving initiative.

“I would advise everyone to become a part of this program,” says Elice Stowers, a 56-year-old, stay-at-home mother and wife who has been with The Freedom Tabernacle for four years.

Stowers signed up for the free service when an Energizing Indiana representative spoke at the church. Beyond giving her nine efficient florescent light bulbs and replacing her faucet heads, Energizing Indiana gave her an insight into which appliances were driving up her energy bill.

“It was informative. Had [the Energizing Indiana representative] not come in, I wouldn’t have known about the refrigerator,”

A statewide initiative is making a splash in the ocean of energy conservation efforts.

Cash for nonprofits

Bishop Carl J. Mimms III, 48, who has served at The Freedom Tabernacle of Praise for the past nine years, learned of Energizing Indiana at a monthly interdenominational Minister Alliance meeting.

Of Mimms’ 135-person congregation, 100 have now utilized Energizing Indiana’s services.

“This program is unlike any other,” Mimms says. “It’s a program that really helps people, and I like helping people and that appealed to me.

news // 06.06.12-06.13.12 // NUVO // 100% RECYCLED PAPER

Stowers says. The Energizing Indiana evaluation attributed nearly 45 percent of her utility bill to her older-model refrigerator. “Then to note what was needed around our house; I’m an older lady, I would have never got up on a ladder and looked into the attic to see that we needed more insulation.”

If her family qualifies, Stowers may also be able to take advantage of the Income Qualified Weatherization program Energizing Indiana provides.

After participating in the residential program Stowers told friends, family, and strangers about the benefits program and how it revealed the potential to save money and energy.

“It opens our eyes to energy, too,” Stowers says. “We’re becoming aware that we’re wasting a lot of energy and it isn’t going to last forever. We need to try to conserve this planet.”

As summer progresses, Energizing Indiana aims to increase the number of Hoosiers engaged in energy conservation.

“People should know this is a tremendous opportunity,” Mimms says. “This program can be very effective for Indiana. Our church is ecstatic because it helps us move forward with not just fund-raising, but evangelism. We can evangelize and help people at the same time.”

For more information on Energizing Indiana, call 1-800-446-7750 or visit energizingindiana.com.

I

ndy has beat bad raps before. It transformed its image from a dirty, backwater, Rust Belt Gotham to a city with a future, with culture, with vision. Citizens are cleaning the sewage from the rivers; they’re recycling and biking more.

The narrative loses its urban renaissance thread, however, when it turns to Indianapolis Public Schools. The schools, according to one common local line of opinion, are broken. Indiana’s employers fret over the state’s anemic pipeline of passionate and capable math and science students. And IPS, with six of its schools deemed “failing” by the Indiana Department of Education is held up by leaders as a glaring example of what Hoosiers do not want their educational system to be.

When The Mind Trust, a local nonprofit incubator of educational leadership and innovation, released its “Creating Opportunity Schools” report in December 2011, it outlined in great detail its core position that IPS “is broken — with catastrophic results for students” and would take radical restructuring to achieve needed and lasting change.

“We’ve taken a piecemeal approach to reform to public education for decades,” David Harris, The Mind Trust’s chief executive and founder, said in an April interview.

“If we’re going to get the kind of results we want and believe are possible, we need to do a variety of things at the same time — we can’t just fix reading in middle school or preschool. We need a comprehensive set of reforms that need to happen together that support and strengthen each other.”

The nature of the radical reforms proposed are, in some ways, too radical and, in others,

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not radical enough for local critics of The Mind Trust and its “Opportunity Schools” plan.

“The more I look and read about what’s going on, I feel the past 30 years of educational research has been ignored,” said Alex Sage, a “concerned community member.”

He and his father, Michael Sage, a local psychotherapist, attended a recent Innovate Indy summit that engaged a group interested in strengthening local education.

Sage is among a group of people interested in education who find many aspects of The Mind Trust plan they agree with, yet are frustrated by the sense that standardized test scores will remain the way success for students — and even teachers and schools — is defined. The group has other concerns, as well. They felt it imperative that Indy embrace a deeper discussion of the implications of the plan. They agreed to join in an informal roundtable discussion at NUVO to provide their assessments of Indianapolis’ educational landscape in relation to the framework set up by The Mind Trust.

This group included Sage; John Harris Loflin of the Southeast Education Task Force and the Black & Latino Policy Institute, who is an IPS grad and retired IPS teacher; Master Artist Tony Artis, who is a teaching artist specializing in African percussion and African history through percussion; and IPS grad Carole Craig, who joined the Greater Indianapolis NAACP following her 2005 retirement from IPS after performing the duties of teacher, counselor, dean, principal and central office staffer.

Inspired by the passion for quality local education demonstrated by the group that visited NUVO in March, and prodded further by David Harris’ desire to drive discussion that leads to action on reform of IPS,

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NUVO News committed to providing a platform for further public discussion by posting a rotating forum of local perspectives from within IPS and Indiana education overall at NUVO.net/news. Find new “Perspectives in Education” postings each Thursday by noon, beginning June 14. [Direct submissions to rtownsend@nuvo.net.]

After speaking to Harris and the roundtable, the mantle fell upon NUVO news to actually read the 155-page, well-footnoted “Opportunity Schools” report. With this substantial but stimulating homework complete, the task turned to collecting more feedback from local education leaders, students and a dramatic, unforgettable interaction with an impassioned parent.

This sets the table for an introduction to the ongoing dialogue about the educational reform in Indianapolis.

This discussion has economic, public safety and quality-of-life implications for people of all ages and classes in Indy — this is about the future.

Defining a “broken” IPS Before offering its solutions, The Mind Trust’s “Opportunity Schools” report details its position that IPS is broken.

Chapter One’s subheads offer a simple outline: “Too few students meet state standards.” Evidence offered includes this stat: “Only 45 percent of IPS students across all tested grades met basic state standards in both math and English … in 2011 on Indiana’s ISTEP+ compared to 72 percent of students statewide and 65 percent in Marion County.” And, the report noted, “Gaps widen in higher grades.”

“Too few students graduate from high school.” Evidence offered: “A 2009 report from America’s Promise Alliance, a national advocacy and research organization headed by retired General Colin Powell, showed IPS had the lowest graduation rate among central city school districts in the nation’s largest 50 cities.”

“Few failing schools improve.” Evidence, as distilled by Harris: “95 (Indiana) schools were at risk of being taken over in 2005. By 2011, only seven remained on the list. Six of the seven were in IPS.” “Failure to meet the needs of parents and families.” Evidence offered: “As the number of students enrolled in IPS has declined, the proportion of disadvantaged students in IPS has increased.” Free lunch accounts up to 81 percent in 2011 from 77 percent in 2002. Racial and ethic minority population equals 77 percent, up from 63 percent a decade earlier. Limited English proficiency at 11 percent in ‘11, from 6 percent in ‘02. “Given the strong influence of poverty on student academic achievement, these changes have increased the challenge of improving student outcomes in IPS,” the report read, promising a plan to cultivate schools capable of erasing the achievement gap associated with inner city schools where high levels of poverty and greater racial diversity exist.

“Failure to focus resources effectively.”

Evidence offered: “Per-pupil spending in IPS has grown 61 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1988. … IPS has almost four times as many administrators per 1,000 students than the average in other districts in Marion County, and it has nearly twice as many as the average district in the state.”

The report noted an IPS plan to trim its

1945 – IPS focuses on serving returning veterans in addition to school children.

PHOTO BY REBECCA TOWNSEND

David Harris, founder and chief executive of The Mind Trust, (left) joined Delana Ivey, president of Parent Power, and newly appointed Deputy Mayor of Education Jason Kloth along with several other leading voices on local education at an April panel hosted by the Meridian Kessler Neighborhood Association.

administrative load. Current estimates peg that number of planned cuts at about 15.

Radical transition, radical enough?

Enabling successful schools (according to standards set between the school and the district, probably including but not limited to test scores) to have greater autonomy over core elements such as hiring, curriculum and financial resources will help improve Indy’s educational outlook, the report suggested.

“The conditions we outline — namely school level autonomy — will attract the caliber of talent needed to transform schools,” Harris said. “We do not think autonomy is a good in and of itself. If a team of poor school leaders got autonomy the results would not be good.”

The plan suggests that greater authority and financial resources would enable schools to possibly pay teachers more among other things, which would help stem the exodus of younger teachers to better-paying jobs in the suburbs.

It identified $188 million that could be siphoned away from the IPS central office and directed to what it calls “Opportunity Schools” —an estimated $12,000 per year upon completion of a six-to-eight-year transition period, up from $6,000 today. Public charters receive about $7,000 now, but do not receive the additional support provided to districts for transportation and special education. Earlier in the transition period, the report figured “Opportunity Schools” could see about $9,000 per student.

“Failing schools” would be replaced with “Opportunity Schools,” which are conceived as “excellent schools” with autonomy from IPS central office to hire and fire, develop curriculum and manage their budgets. They can be traditional IPS schools, public charter schools or magnet schools, they just have to prove their ability to demonstrate student achievement.

Once the transition is complete, the plan envisions 100 percent of IPS students in

Opportunity Schools.

The plan frees more money for schools, in a nutshell, by decentralizing many central office functions and shifting the responsibility for those functions to individual schools.

Schools may choose to contract with IPS for the services or turn to the private sector or another solution. The plan details which funds, restricted and unrestricted both, could be shifted to achieve its plan. It also calls for a full audit of current IPS finances.

In addition to sending more money to the schools, $14 million per year is shifted from the central office to fund prekindergarten for all IPS 4-year olds.

Teacher empowerment is also a core theme of the report, which calls for school incubator and talent development funds of up to $10 million during the transition — “an unprecedented investment nationally” —to help national and local firms underwrite the start-up plans of new “Opportunity School” models and bolster local leadership development capable of creating and maintaining “Opportunity Schools.” Most of that money (about $7.5 million in transition and $2 million afterward) would fund IPSdistributed grants of $250,000 to $750,000 for “carefully selected teams to plan and open new schools within IPS.” The “key premise is to attract top-notch teachers,” the report said.

Perhaps its most controversial elements involve the potential for increased public funding of charter schools, all of which hold nonprofit status, but some of which are operated by for-profit management franchises, and a proposal to transfer authority over the IPS district from an elected school board to a board appointed by the city’s mayor and city-county council.

The plan also suggests that, to accomplish swift and deep reform akin to The Mind Trust’s outlined plan, the Indiana General Assembly might want to consider passing a law that enables the state to take over “failing” districts much like it now has the authority to replace the leadership at “failing” schools.

“We are not big and we’re not coming in to take over anything,” Harris said of The

1954 – Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision finds segregated schools unconstitutional.

1954 – IPS serves 53,352 students in 87 elementary and junior high schools and eight high schools.

By 1967, 82,853 students enrolled in 113 schools, a 55 percent increase.

1965 – Passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, (ESEA), enables additional federal compensation to offset lagging performance effect associated with higher poverty levels.

1967 – 60 separate governing entities including schools boards and townships exist within Marion County.

1968 – IPS hits enrollment high of more than 108,000 students.

1969 – UniGov or Consolidated First-Class Cities and Counties Act is established with the goal of streamlining services and reducing bureaucracy.

1969/1970 – COP-E (Community of People) Academy on the Eastside is founded as what NUVO roundtable members recalled as Indy’s “first public school of choice.”

1970 – IPS review counts more than 30 ESEAfunded initiatives under the Act’s Title I and III. 1971 – Judge Hugh Dillin’s decision that Indy’s school were segregated. A busing order follows.

1975 – Congress passes “Education for All Handicapped Children Act” enables federal funding of special education. It now includes early intervention provisions to provide preschoolers with learning support. Critics charge that special education enables a new form of segregation and link the dualtrack system to a “school-to-prison pipeline,” which discards students unable to conform to the system.

1983 – President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education publishes “A Nation at Risk,” which calls for greater accountability and reforms and stands as a precursor to the No Child Left Behind Act in its position that greater accountability and success must be achieved within U.S. schools if citizens are not to be disenfranchised by the ever-growing competitiveness posed by an ever-more globalized and computerized economy. Critics charge this approach places an inappropriate focus on test scores.

1990 “Individuals with Disabilities Education Act” (IDEA) passes, expanding and renaming policies established in ‘75 under “Education for All Handicapped Children.”

1991 – Indy’s “Parents in Touch” effort attempts to foster greater involvement and accountability on parents’ parts. Another initiative: Community Leaders Allied for Superior Schools.

1993 – The Indianapolis Adult Literacy Program identifies “the real tragedy” within local schools: “No one is accountable. Teachers, administrators, parents and students must be more responsible for achieving quality in our schools.”

1995 – Indiana state law enacted to limit teachers’ collective bargaining rights.

1995 – Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith proposes “mini districts” to reduce bureaucracy in the educational system. It does not gain traction amid push back from stakeholders.

2001 – Indiana’s state Charter School Law signed

by Gov. Frank O’Bannon on May 1 and Mayor Bart Peterson becomes first mayor in nation with direct charting authority. Peterson hires David Harris, who works for five years as Charter Schools Director.

2002 – First year of charters in Indianapolis. 551 students enroll. By fall of 2011, 2,000 students on charter waiting lists. Four schools launched in 2002 in Indianapolis, three sponsored by the mayor and one by Ball State.

2004 – Individuals with Disabilities Act established.

2004 – Knowledge is Power Program establishes Indianapolis College Preparatory School.

2004 – A law requiring cultural competency in teaching is passed, which requires educators to integrate culturally relevant material and teaching styles in recognition of the cultural orientation of local students.

2006 - The mayor’s Charter School Initiative wins a Harvard Innovations in American Government award.

2006 – David Harris establishes The Mind Trust.

Peterson serves as board chair, other luminaries on the 13-member board include Cummins Foundation Chief Executive Jean Blackwell; Mark Miles; chief executive of Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, Ann Murtlow, former chief at Indianapolis Power & Light; and broadcast journalism legend Jane Pauley.

2010-2011 – Just over 33,000 students remain, down nearly 70 percent from the ‘60s high. “In 2011, nearly 300 additional students left the district, raising serious concerns about the longterm financial sustainability of IPS,” the report said.

2011 – Enrollment in Indy’s public charters increased to more than 9,000, about 5,000 of them moved from IPS. 2011-2012 school year – IPS has 48 magnet schools in 19 IPS schools with 12,448 seats available and 1,064 students on magnet waiting lists. The city now has 27 charter schools in Indianapolis, 23 sponsored by the mayor’s office and four sponsored by Ball State. Some are run by for-profit entities, others by non-profit.

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PHOTO BY REBECCA TOWNSEND

Nuvo’s informal education roundtable members, from the left, Carole Craig, a retired IPS staffer, currently with the Greater Indianapolis NAACP; John Harris Loflin, a retired IPS teacher with the Southeast Education Task Force and the Black & Latino Policy Insitute; Master Artist Anthony Artis; and “concerned citizen” Alex Sage.

Mind Trust, noting it is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which forbids lobbying.

Mostly the plan builds on work the nonprofit has already been doing to develop what Harris said is the nation’s first incubator for educational entrepreneurs and to invest in programs that bring more teachers and educational leaders to Indianapolis.

The Mind Trust has raised $27 million, mostly through donations from charitable foundations plus $2 million for charter incubation from the city and, Harris noted, “two earmarks supported by Sen. Lugar and both congresspeople Carson” to support its work since 2006. He noted its Venture Fund is responsible for bringing five of “the best established entrepreneurial organizations” to Indy: Teach for America; The New Teacher Project, College Summit, Diploma Plus and Stand for Children.

The trust’s Education Entrepreneur Fellowship has granted seven project grants of about $250,000 each to help people design, build and launch new local educational ventures, inspiring proposals from more than 48 states and 31 countries, Harris said. These projects include efforts to offer greater educational support to foster children, bolster summer education offerings and increase teacher retention. The nonprofit also launched a charter school incubator last year to foster the development of high-end programs, aiming to seed “some of the nation’s best charter schools in Indianapolis.”

Moving forward, The Mind Trust will take the $18 million it raised through its “Grow What Works” campaign to support its Venture Fund entities and the fellowship initiatives that are demonstrating the greatest impact in the city.

“One of the things that’s really surprised us (after publishing the “Opportunity Schools” report) is the number of people who feel we are some company coming in to take over IPS,” Harris said. “We are not a company, we’re a nonprofit, and we are not big and we’re not coming in to take over anything.

“These are our ideas of what we think could be best way to drive the district forward. A lot of people came to the conclusion that putting forward a plan like this could spark the debate that we need as a

16

community to really drive things forward.”

Critics counter that if success continues to be defined by students’ ability to take standardized tests, true educational advancement — for all students — is impossible. In short, they argue that the plan accomplishes massive changes in the school system’s structure, but fails to change its heart.

Constructive criticism Distilling critics’ fears to the common denominator, one finds an overarching concern that the current discussion about IPS reform will center on shifting control of money and power without genuine awareness of what techniques could best shape IPS students into life-long learners capable of achieving success on a broader plane than that defined by standardized test scores.

Part of the issue is about money, of course.

“It’s basically a business plan for putting together a school system based on charters,” Sage said.

Indeed, visitors to the website of Public Impact, the North Carolina-based “education policy and management consulting firm” that The Mind Trust hired to prepare the report, will see similar language to that employed in the “Opportunity Schools” report. A featured section on national education policy reform promotes “building an opportunity culture” and “extending the reach of excellent teachers,” familiar themes to readers of The Mind Trust’s report.

Still, David Harris is adamant that, while the plan is supportive of charter expansion, it affords local teachers and innovators equal opportunity to propose and establish Opportunity Schools whether they opt for charter, magnet or traditional district-style organization.

While critics worry about how money relates to school reform and the entities attracted to participating, they also highlight concerns about democracy and diversity.

“They never talk about what is a great school or what are we trying to do here in America anyway,” the NAACP’s Craig said during the roundtable.

Alex Sage: “What is the purpose of public education?”

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Carole Craig: “That’s not dealt with here.”

Earlier, Loflin said that after witnessing protests about the privatization of schools in the U.K. and hearing of them in South America, he was “automatically distrustful” when The Mind Trust plan came out.

John Harris Loflin: “It seemed like (The Mind Trust plan) was a way of establishing a beachhead for people to come in and make a lot of money — and really not a lot to do with children, per se, because of what it was proposing in regard to charters coming in and taking over if public schools weren’t able to make the grade according to test scores.

“Bottom line, I think the issue is: What are schools for? What does it mean to be educated? What does democracy require of schools? And the realization, at least from my point of view, that testing is political concept, it’s not educational concept. Normalcy — the social-political construct concerning the state of being “normal” with respect to the body, intelligence, race, or gender — is a eugenics concept, like special ed. I think special ed is nothing but a political concept.

Anthony Artis: “The high-stakes testing, it’s got teachers … the students stressed out. It’s culturally biased.”

John Harris Loflin: “The whole idea of this school reform is based on testing. … If you look at the history of standardized tests all the way back to the ‘20s, and all these tests that reinforce normalcy … it’s based on eugenics. It’s reinforcing European, white, middle-class epistemologies. In fact, if I were black, and I did well in school, it could be construed that I’m actually supporting a system that discredits my AfricanAmerican epistemologies — our way or knowing, our way of determining what the truth is, our idea of the nature of things. … It’s not the cultural capital of the status quo, which we here all have acquired.”

Carole Craig: “That’s why cultural competency is so important; knowledge of the culture, its history, if you’re teaching in a culture that’s not reflective of your own.

That law that went into place at 2004 and no one’s monitoring it … .

“What’s been lost is the creativity and critical thinking. I came through all-black schools, K-12, all the staff, the teachers were black. We were taught not only high performance academically, we were taught critical thinking.

Now children aren’t taught that because of the narrow focus on standardized testing.

“We’re wondering why our community is so silent. Well, it’s worked … now the community has no voice, and they take on the victim.”

Anthony Artis: “You’ve wiped out creativity because arts programs are the first to be cut. Now we’ve got STEM: science, technology English and math. As artists, we say, ‘Make it STEAM — put the arts in — you need that creative thinking.’”

Carole Craig: “I saw things go down while I was in the system. … Arts relegated to every other week, home ec and industrial education, went out … .”

Alex Sage: “… in spite of research saying that those programs improve outcomes.”

The group also voiced concerns about the proposal for mayoral control.

Carole Craig: “(Mayoral control) truly disempowers the urban whereas the other districts would have a voice in their elected boards. You’re reducing power in the urban core by taking their voice away, which is you’re taking their vote away.”

If township schools kept elected boards while IPS moved to mayoral control, that would crystallize the sense of inequality,

Traditional public schools: Established in neighborhoods throughout a school district based on the populations of the neighborhoods served. Students traditionally attend the schools closest to their homes, but now families can apply to schools outside of their home districts, though the districts have the freedom to accept the applications or not. Many IPS families, for instance, choose North Central High School.

Magnet schools: An offshoot of traditional public schools, a magnet can be situated within a traditional school or in its own building. It specializes in a certain type of education, such as the career technology magnet at Arsenal High School, the Crispus Attucks Medical magnet High School or the Broad Ripple magnet High School Arts and Humanities. Students with a particular interest in a magnet’s subject matter can apply for admission. IPS magnet schools have waiting lists. And, unlike other IPS schools, magnet schools may use selective admissions.

Public charter schools: These schools receive authorization from a state-approved charter authority, in Indianapolis this means the mayor’s office or Ball State University, to operate schools outside of the purview of the local school district, though they are still held to the non-religious, non-sectarian standards as other public schools. Their purpose is to offer different learning styles and to offer students a greater range of choices. They must maintain open enrollment. Local examples of charter schools are EdPower’s Tindley Charter Network, the Knowledge is Power Program’s KIPP Indy and the Project School. For-profit companies operate some charter networks, though the law requires charter holders to be nonprofit; most are run by nonprofits. In Indianapolis, charter schools now receive about $7,000 per student in taxpayer dollars. Charter schools’ financial records, as they relate to taxpayer money paid to the entity, are all subject to the same public disclosure requirements as other types of public schools.

Private schools: These schools are free to employ admissions requirements, charge tuition and operate their schools without direct federal or state oversight.

All schools, including private and charter schools, are required to follow federal non-discrimination and equal-access laws. Private schools that take advantage of the new voucher law, which allows taxpayer funds to subsidize private education, will be ranked on the state’s A-F accountability system.

roundtable members said.

In response to these concerns, David Harris responded that, while he is open to different ideas about governance, that evidence suggests that districts under mayoral control perform better and are more accountable to voters by giving them a single line at the voting booth by which to express displeasure over educational issues.

“In this city, there are 63 elected school board members across 11 school districts,” he said. “Does anyone think that’s an accountable system? This is not picking on IPS. It’s not something that’s punitive, it’s about saying ‘This is a positive vision.’”

He added that the plan called for local advisory committees made up of neighborhood leaders to help encourage and monitor the school.

Regarding concerns about testing, he added, “They should love this plan, frankly, because the schools would have the ability to design their accountability systems, flexibly. [We can’t change the state requirements] but you could say as a school we’ll judge you on a variety of metrics and report that to the community so that (it) can evaluate whether a school is successful.”

Still, he added, “We do as a state have state standards, things we believe it’s important that kids should understand at different levels. And now there’s big discussion about common national standards.

We think there’s a lot of value in having common national standards so we can really compare states. Are they perfect? I’m sure they’re not.”

Harris also offered his observation that “when you go to schools that have excellent test scores, they’re not teaching to the test.”

Finally, he added, “When people say we’re trying to privatize education, I really don’t understand that. They are all public schools. We’re just saying other people can be involved than just the people in the central office.”

Segregation via special ed/zero-tolerance Any productive discussion of educational transformation must address the ways in which schools keep kids off the books, so to speak, who don’t fit the mold of a successful student as defined by school authorities.

Roundtable members had plenty to say on this subject, much of it boiled down to concern that data is not readily available on alternative schools or disciplinary programs.

John Harris Loflin: “ I have a degree in alternative education. IPS instituted 21 alternative programs in 2005. They are hidden. You can’t even find data. We don’t know if these are places to hide certain students who will bring IPS test score averages down, graduation rates down, attendance rates down. … These schools lie in the underbelly of the system. …”

Alex Sage: “… that doesn’t get talked about.”

Anthony Artis: “Then there’s the question of the school to prison pipeline … and how corporations are setting that up.”

Alex Sage: “That’s ACLU’s platform for the year is the ‘school-to-prison’ pipe-line.”

Anthony Artis: “My son had a heck of time at Arsenal Technical. He got in trouble at school and they put him in an alternative program — like a dumping ground for the undesirables. That really turned him around (for the worse). It was like sending him to prison.”

Community concern over how alterna-

tive education tracks and special education classes relate to “the school-to-prison pipeline” is not limited to roundtable members.

Separately and independently from the NUVO education roundtable, local parent Brenda Williams contacted the news desk to report her long-term distress with the structure of the state’s special-education system.

After making an appointment, Williams visited the newsroom with a suitcase in tow containing binder upon binder detailing how several schools throughout Indiana, from New Albany to Pike Township, kept trying to steer her hard-of-hearing son into psychological testing and special education instead of providing the extra reading tutoring he needed. The more she pushed against and questioned the system, the more various school districts demonstrated retaliatory behaviors, she said.

She laid out a paper trail of strong evidence culminating in discovery that a local school district forged her permission to administer psychological testing. Just a few days later, she said, her 11-year-old son was taken from her custody. He was placed for four days in the local juvenile corrections facility, accused of raping a girl on the school bus, despite the alledged act somehow escaping the attention of the bus driver and a bus monitor. The case never went to court. But, she said, the experiences her son endured scarred him forever.

The detailed story of her son, who is now grown and living in another state, must be saved for a different day, but the myriad questions that even the synopsis raises about accountability over federal special education and disability services funds is important to keep front and center during the current reform conversation.

“I do believe there are human rights violations that are going on,” Williams said.

“People know about it.”

Among her several pounds of paperwork, Williams fishes out a column by RiShawn Biddle in the March 30, 2007, edition of The Indianapolis Star, entitled “Putting males into the education ghetto.”

It outlined several statistics across several townships suggesting that males, especially black males, were being labeled as emotionally disturbed and learning disabled at rates far greater than their proportionate population would suggest.

“Black and White males made up just 45 percent of Indianapolis Public School’s overall enrollment in the 2005 school year, yet they account for 58 percent of students diagnosed as mentally retarded, 80 percent of the students diagnosed as mentally disturbed and 64 percent of the students diagnosed with a “specific learning disability,” one section read.

A comment posted at the column’s end continues to haunt Williams to this day and it underscores some of the roundtable’s most salient concerns.

“Uncovering the underlying motives and deconstructing educational rationale, economics and social/educational politics of human intelligence perpetuated by our very public schools would be too much,” a portion of the comment read. “The topic is too dangerous, too political, and its roots are too deep in the history of our country, state and Indianapolis Public Schools.

You can’t face the truth because if it were known, the house of cards that legitimizes local public education would collapse … and we can’t have that … even if it means we have to sacrifice our youth on the alter of special education.”

PHOTO BY REBECCA TOWNSEND

Parent Brenda Williams fears that not enough attention is paid to special education programs within schools. Her own horror story is well-documented in the pile of binders she kept to track the experiences of her hard-of-hearing son.

Williams said she has encountered other families in similar predicaments, people who suffered retaliation for filing state and federal complaints against schools.

“If this has happened to me, how many other parents has it happened to?”

Williams asked. “I was trying to petition parents to say ‘let’s challenge the system’ and it’s very hard to crack here in Indiana.

People are very complacent.”

for students with disabilities, the report also noted that “once most schools have become Opportunity Schools, IPS may continue to operate a small number of schools and provide special education on those campuses.”

It concluded that IPS must continually monitor “qualitative and quantitative data to prove students with disabilities are achieving and that schools are complying with federal, state and local education regulations.

Backing a cooperative approach Establishing community standards The “Opportunity Schools” plan does address some aspects of special education.

It recognizes the significant challenges that now exist in special education and also highlights an area that the proposed redesigned district will still be dependent on the IPS central office.

“The gap between disabled and nondisabled students in IPS was larger than the district’s achievement gap between poor and more affluent students and the gap between black and white students,” the report noted.

IPS serves students with disabilities through a Single School Corporation, while most of the rest of the state handles such services through cooperative efforts.

“Statewide, SSC students are identified with more severe disabilities, are more likely to be placed in self-contained settings, and have higher dropout rates and lower graduation rates than students educated in non-SSC districts,” the report said.

Even as it advocated more inclusiveness

“We think all kids — no matter what their backgrounds, no matter how economically challenged, no matter what their family circumstances — all kids can excel if given the right support and conditions,” Harris said. “That needs to be the goal we strive for every day. And when we see less than half the kids are graduating without a waiver (and) the district is almost doubled the number of waivers issued in the last few years, less than half the kids are proficient on the state standardized exams … we need to do much better than we are doing.

“We think there are ways the district can be redesigned that can produce substantially better results. But we’re very interested in sparking a conversation … we’re hopeful that, if we have robust conversation, what emerges from that will be an even better plan than what we produced.

“That is not to say we don’t believe strongly in our plan.”

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go&do

For comprehensive event listings, go to nuvo.net/calendar

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Indy Pride, circa 2010

IndyPride parade and festival Indy Pride is a year-round organization to be sure; for instance, the Bag Ladies have their day just before Halloween, and the Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival, now operated under the auspices of Indy Pride, is scheduled for early November. But Circle City IN Pride, the week-long celebration of Indy’s LGBT community, remains the organization’s cornerstone event, culminating with Saturday’s parade and festival.

Even if you’re holding a copy of NUVO fresh off the press, a few days of IN Pride have already expired, but plenty remains on the schedule.

Wednesday from 5:30-7 p.m. is an open house for the Chris Gonzalez Library and Archives, a 7,000-plus title collection including books, photos, film, art and periodicals which was recently relocated to the lower level of the Health Foundation of Greater Indianapolis (429 E. Vermont St., also home to the offices of Indy Pride Inc.) Check out back issues of the city’s first gay papers — The Mirror and The New Works News — while you’re there; both started publishing around the time of the first local Pride event, a behind closed doors dinner at the Old Essex Hotel held in 1981.

Thursday is a time for Girl Pride — a party strong enough for a man, but made for a woman. Doors open at 8 p.m. at Talbott Street, with a motley crew of drag kings hitting the stage first, followed by Show Me Burlesque.

Headlining is Madison, Wis.-born hiphop duo God-Des and She (as seen on The L Word), with DJ Redbone is on the decks all night; tickets are $8 through brownpapertickets.com and $10 at the door. But there’s competition Thursday night: A few blocks over, the Bag Ladies (NUVO Cultural Vision

onnuvo.net

Award winners, natch) will be on the Greg’s dance floor (or circling the bar) for a dress rehearsal for Saturday’s parade; a $5 suggested donation and performer tips will benefit Indy Pride.

On Friday, we rest, for Saturday is both the Cadillac Barbie IN Pride Parade (line up at 8:30 a.m.; step off at 10 a.m.), which runs from the corner of Mass Ave and College Avenue to St. Clair Avenue in front of the Indianapolis Public Library; and the Circle City IN Pride Festival, running from 11:30 a.m.-7 p.m. on the American Legion Mall and Veterans Memorial Plaza. Look for over 100 “units” in the parade (meaning walking groups, vehicles groups, floats and decorated vehicles); float sponsors/designers include corporate interests (Absolut Vodka, Cummins, Walgreens), community groups (Bag Ladies, IUPUI Advocates for Sexual Equality) and gay-friendly businesses (Talbott Street, Zonie’s Closet, Greg’s/English Ivy’s). Jordan Windle, who at age 12 became the youngest diver to qualify for the USA Diving Olympic Trials, is the parade’s grand marshal; both athlete and author, he and his father, Jerry Windle, cowrote a children’s book concerning how Jerry came to adopt the thenorphaned Jordan from Cambodia.

The festival has two, count em, two headliners this year: buxom R&B diva Deborah Cox, followed by muscled, closely-shaven hip-hop goofball Cazwell. Cox has a string of R&B singles to her name, not to mention plenty of musical theater muscle; she recently starred in Aida, and later this year will play Josephine Baker in a new Broadway musical. Cazwell scored his first million-view YouTube video with “I Seen Beyonce at the Burger King,” a green-screen wonder that’s dumb and neon in all the right ways, and paints Beyonce as a moocher who eats entirely too much in one sitting. Other hits have followed, including “Ice Cream Truck,” a lighthearted study in phallocentrism.

Those two headliners won’t hit the stage until the end of the afternoon; both stages are packed all afternoon before then, with the IndyMojo Stage hosting a full menu of DJs, including Rudy Kizer and Action Jackson, and the main stage featuring everything from the Indianapolis Men’s Chorus to a Girls Rock! Indy band, No Direction.

And, of course, there will be vendors aplenty, with space to spread out on the American Legion Mall; stop by NUVO’s booth if you’re so inclined, or check out the over 240 other vendors while milling about with a crowd that numbered 70,000 attendees last year.

/ ARTICLES

This week in film by NUVO Editors Michael Strauss transfers to Oberlin by Tom Aldridge

STARTS 07 THURSDAY

Stacey Kent @ The Cabaret at the Columbia Club It’s something of a cosmopolitan fairy tale: Girl heads to Europe to escape her parents and brush up on her German; saxophone-playing boy meets girl in London and encourages her to pursue jazz; girl and boy become music students, end up marrying and spend the rest of their days making music together. There’s even a dark twist to all the lightness, like in the best fairy tales: Girl suffers from occasional comas, struck down by a rare virus affecting her brain, but boy helps pull her out of it every time. Such is, as you may have guessed, the story of Stacey Kent, the New York-born, Londonbased jazz singer. Jim Tomlinson is the boy in the story; he writes for Kent and plays sax in her band, serving as her “chef, driver, best friend and husband,” according to Kent.

Let’s add another literary figure to this story: Kazuo Ishiguro, who has written lyrics and liner notes for Kent, notably a four-song suite from her 2009 Blue Note album Breakfast on the Morning Tram. In a 2009 New York Times review, Stephen Holden noted that Kent

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The cosmopolitan Stacey Kent.

resembles a “young, hardy latter-day variation of a Jean Rhys character in romantic flux,” possessing a “tart, two-tiered voice: sultry, with curlicues of vibrato when she coos, knife-edged when the volume is raised.”

June 7 and 8 at 8 p.m. @ 121 Monument Circle, Ste. 516; sold out June 7, $35-$55 (with $12 minimum) June 8; thecabaret.org

STARTS 08 FRIDAY

EclecticPond’s Eloisa & Abelard @ Irvington Lodge You’ve likely heard told of Heloise and Abelard and their love that dared not speak its name: Heloise got pregnant

by Abelard, then secretly married him; her uncle, who believed Abelard had abandoned her, had him attacked and castrated; then the two went to their respective cloisters, from which they began corresponding with each other.

Those letters survived the ages, telling of a passionate, doomed love affair.

EclecticPond promises a different take on the story in their final production of the season, working from a script by Michael Meeuwis which, according to promo materials, portrays the lovers as “merely pawns in a game of the gods. ” June 8-9, 15-16, 22-23; Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 7:30 and 10 p.m. @ 5515 E. Washington St.; $12 adult, $8 students; eclecticpond.org

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Indy Performance Project coordinator Michael Burke

STARTS 08 FRIDAY

The Indy Performance Project @ IndyFringe Theatre The mission: Using a list of required performance elements, create a 10-15 minute live performance, to be premiered at IndyFringe Theatre. You have five days. That’s what those participating in The Indy Performance Project, a co-production of IndyFringe and PaperStrangers, are up against. After the show audience members will vote for the show they believe made the best use of the assigned performance elements.

June 8-9, 15-16 at 8 p.m. @ 719 E. St. Clair St.; $20; paperstrangers.org

Speed Freak by Kate Shoup Reviews: Eloisa & Abelard, Indy Performance Project, Stacey Kent

/ GALLERIES

Go Ape course by Paul F. P. Pogue Scenes from First Friday by Stacy Kagiwada

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GO&DO

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Crimson Tate’s lineup at last year’s INDIEana Handicraft Exchange.

09

SATURDAY

INDIEana Handicraft Exchange @ Harrison Center for the Arts FREE

If the near-Northside is the center of all things handmade on Saturday, the Harrison Center for the Arts is the bull’s-eye, hosting both the Independent Music & Art Festival (see pg. 32) and the INDIEana Handicraft Exchange, a craft fair for the Etsy genera-

tion, celebrating (to quote event materials) “local, alternative economies” and “modern handmade goods.” In practice, that means the 100-plus vendors will offer wares ranging from iconic poster art (Ronlewhorn) to T-shirts brimming with hometown pride (hayes & taylor); from off-kilter, rough-hewn wood furniture (Holler Design) to robot drawings that could’ve come straight out of study hall (JimBot); and from pillows, purses and other stuff with birds on them (Bean Blossom) to body and bath products that mind their beeswax (bonnie). Plus, there’ll be plenty of popcorn (Just Pop In) and beer (Sun King).

Noon-8 p.m. @ 1505 N. Delaware St.; free; indieanahandicraftexchange.com

STARTS 09 SATURDAY

FREE

Eagle Creek Folk Music Festival Those looking for a laid-back alternative to the crowded madness of IndyPride and the art fair scene might head to Eagle Creek Park, which is hosting two days worth of hot mountain dulcimer action, not to mention some of the nastiest hurdy gurdy-ing this side of Hungary. Workshops at the Eagle Creek Folk Music Festival offer a chance to either try out or brush up on a variety of folk instruments, including autoharp, penny whistle, mountain and hammered dulcimer, mandolin and banjo.

And performances run every half-hour from noon, with Punkin Holler Boys headlining Saturday night.

June 9, noon-7 p.m.; June 10, noon-5 p.m. @ the Eagle Creek Park marina; free (with park admission); indianafolkmusic.org

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GO&DO STARTS 09 SATURDAY

FREE

Talbot Street Art Fair

And just a block or so down from the upstarts at Harrison Center, the Talbot Street Art Fair holds sway over several blocks in the region of Herron High School, featuring 270 juried artists and craftspersons from throughout the country. It’s always free; it’s open rain or shine; and proceeds from artist’s applications go toward next year’s fair, as well as grants and scholarships. Free bike parking is available on Herron High’s front lawn.

June 9, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; June 10, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; starting from 16th Street and Talbott Street; free; talbotstreet.org

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TUESDAY

Jabberwocky: Block by Block @ IndyFringe Basile Theatre

FREE

Keep Indianapolis Beautiful will celebrate the adoption of the 500th block in its Adopt-A-Block program with an edition of Jabberwocky devoted to stories about what it means to be an adopter. Expect tales of cleaning up litter, sweeping streets, planting flowers and trees — and getting involved in one’s community in a very focused way. As is always the case with Jabberwocky, attendees are invited to share their stories during the open mic part of the night.

5:30-7 p.m. @ 719 E. St. Clair St., free, kibi.org/events

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Ukulele master Jake Shimabukuro.

12

TUESDAY

Jake Shimabukuro @ Japan-America Society of Indiana Gala OK, so it’ll cost you $100 to see Jake Shimabukuro on Tuesday at the Indiana Roof Ballroom. But it’s for a good cause — the Japan-America Society of Indiana, which scored quite the headliner — and

dinner, etc., is included. And that guy plays the ukulele like nobody’s business, with the kind of virtuosity that sets him apart from the current crop of cutesy singer-songwriters who might just as well be playing guitar. His repertoire encompasses jazz, blues, rock, bluegrass and classical, not to mention a few songs of his native Hawaii.

6:30 p.m. @ Indiana Roof Ballroom, 140 W. Washington St.; $100 (register at japanindiana.org or by calling 635-0123) 100% RECYCLED PAPER // NUVO // 06.06.12-06.13.12 // go&do

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GO&DO Michael Cavanaugh Billy Joel and beyond at the ISO

BY RITA KOHN RKOHN@NUVO.NET It was 2008. Michael Cavanaugh, who had come to national prominence as a Billy Joel interpreter, playing piano and taking lead vocals in hundreds of performances of the Broadway-born jukebox musical, Movin’ Out, was at a crossroads. But the thrill of that experience was gone, and Cavanaugh was wondering about his next job.

“I was concerned from the beginning about type-casting,” Cavanaugh said, calling from his Las Vegas home a few weeks ahead of his Indianapolis run. “Would I be able to find another role on Broadway? What would I do if there weren’t another opportunity?”

Here’s where the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra enters the story, represented by Jack Everly, principal Pops conductor, and Ty Johnson, senior director, Pops programs and presentations.

“I had worked at American Ballet Theatre and have a long friendship with Twyla, so I

22

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Michael Cavanaugh

was quite intrigued,” recalled Everly during a phone interview.

He and Johnson attended a performance of Movin’ Out, enjoying Joel’s song cycle “eloquently told through dance,” but there was something more.

“We realized Cavanaugh is a masterful interpreter of Billy Joel,” Everly said. “We have a legacy at ISO for creating new programs exclusively for our Pops audiences

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and our desired aim for ‘up close and personal’ defines who Michael innately is. He knows how to embrace an audience so they can embrace him.”

The timing was right when Everly and Johnson started talking with Cavanaugh’s agent about a Joel show with orchestration.

“After three and a half years and 1,200 shows I was drained,” said Cavanaugh. “I wasn’t interested in the money making, I wanted flexibility. I was asked to consider a role in the Million Dollar Quartet, but I realized I had to be honest with myself, be honest with where I shine. Even though I love traditional Broadway musicals, I had to know what I could do honestly. I sold my house in New Jersey and bought a house in Las Vegas.”

He listened to Johnson and Everly, admitting, “I was green, not knowing what was involved. It was scary thinking about working with arrangers and an additional 65 people, besides a 4-piece band.”

Cavanaugh came to Indianapolis to prepare the 2008 premiere. Ultimately, the gutsy choice became an amazingly successful touring opportunity.

“Even before we opened, Pittsburgh Symphony signed us up,” he said. “I credit Jack Everly for that.”

For the ISO Pops collaboration Cavanaugh said he “took a lot of what I learned at the piano bar where everything is spontaneous. It taught me how to connect with an audience.”

Everly and Cavanaugh together choose the song list.

“I then take each wonderful, successful original and enlarge and enhance it, integrating Michael and his fabulous band into the fabric of the orchestrations with ISO players,” Everly explained. “My desire is for everyone to forget everything but what is happening during those two hours we are together and to go home with a joyous spirit.”

This weekend’s program, Rock Singers and Songwriters, is a little different from previous collaborations between the Cavanaugh and the ISO. This time around Cavanaugh will leave keyboard duties to Jamie Hosner and perform songs on acoustic guitar, standing front and center before the audience.

“I will tell stories about what the songs of Paul Simon, James Taylor, Neil Diamond, John Mellencamp and others from the 1970s and ‘80s mean to me,” Cavanaugh said of the show.

MICHAEL CAVANAUGH: ROCK SINGERS & SONGWRITERS June 8, 11 a.m. and 8 p.m.; June 9, 8 p.m. @ Hilbert Circle Theatre

June 10, 7:30 p.m. @ The Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts

A&E FEATURE

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Henri Evenepoel, “self portrait in three-way mirror,” 1898, (2011 print).

After Kodak

Snapshot explores relationship between painting and photography

BY SCOTT SHOGER SSHOGER@NUVO.NET In the history of photography, there is B.K. and A.K. Before Kodak was an era when photography was the domain of professionals, or at least those who could deal with the tripod, plates, emulsions and other chemicals involved in a timeconsuming, labor-intensive process. The After Kodak period begins circa 1888, when a point-and-shoot camera became widely available to those with even modest resources. As Kodak put in its first userfriendly instruction manual: “You press the button, we do the rest.”

Professional painters and printmakers were not immune to the lure of the Kodak; many used it in the same way we use an iPhone, capturing scenes of city life, family gatherings and buxom babes in boudoirs.

Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Veuillard, which opens at the Indianapolis Museum of Art Friday, brings together photographs by seven of those artists, all of whom are best known for their work in other media.

A collaboration between curators at the IMA, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam

and The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. — and based on an idea originated by independent curator Elizabeth Easton — Snapshot offers an exceedingly rare glimpse at the role which photography played in each artist’s work.

When I caught up on Friday with Ellen Lee, the IMA’s Wood-Pulliam senior curator and the museum’s point person on the show, she was on a rush inspired by both Mountain Dew and adrenaline. Paintings were arriving from Washington, D.C., via courier, and other last-minute adjustments were taking place. Our wide-ranging conversation began on a general note, as she recalled when she was asked in 2007 to be involved with the project.

“I thought the idea of being able to compare their paintings with their photographs would be revelatory,” Lee said. “They never exhibited these photographs during their lifetimes. I don’t think they were hiding anything; they just considered them personal. They used them and they had an influence on their art, but I don’t think they considered them works of art.”

Lee could only give me a glimpse of the exhibition, but it was enough to impress.

The front wall of the gallery, the first thing viewers see when they turn the corner, is a wall-size blow-up of a self-portrait by the Belgian painter and photographer Henri Evenepoel, who is likely unfamiliar to American audiences, largely because of his early death at age 27. In the photo (seen above), Evenepoel is seen holding the Kodak camera — a small, leathercovered box without an eyesight — at chest level, looking into a three-way mirror with

intense, curious expression of scientist.

Like other photos in the show, the self-portrait seems ahead of its time, uncentered and perspectival in a way that wouldn’t become popular until the arrival of cubism and other experiments in fragmentation.

The Evenepoel photo emphasizes that the exhibition is, in part, made up of candid shots; I joked with Lee that a terrible title for the show could’ve been Candid Camera. Moving beyond that front wall, the first gallery sets up the dramatis personae for the exhibition, while highlighting the themes that their photography shares — namely, according to Lee, “the attraction of the modern city,” the nude and the everyday role played by pointand-shoot photography.

Snapshot includes work by four members of a progressive Parisian group known as Nabis (or “prophet”) — Édouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Félix Vallotton and Maurice Denis — who encouraged each other in their experiments in the new medium. Three other artists unaffiliated with the group — Parisian designer Henri Rivière, Dutch artist George Brietner and Evenepoel — were included in the show because they engaged with photography in a similar way.

While none of the artists in the show intended to exhibit their photography, Lee maintains it remains of more than historical significance. “The interesting thing about this is that these artists were professionals as painters or printmakers, but they were sort of amateurs when it came to photography. But of course they were artists, so I would maintain that you get some

really interesting photographs that are more interesting than the average guy’s.”

Most of the artists in Snapshot were interested in the camera as a means, rather than an end. “The majority of these artists were not interested in the technical part of it, in terms of how the camera works or developing prints. As one of the essayists in the catalogue points out, they were more interested in the photograph after they’d made it, so that as artists they could transfer that to their paintings or prints. It wasn’t so much about creating something technically; it was about having another visual source. They thought, this is a great toy, a great tool and I’m going to work with what it tells me. That’s what artists are always about.”

Still, some artists were interested in new technologies, notably Rivière, a favorite of Lee’s about whom she contributed an essay to the exhibition’s catalogue. A printmaker who taught himself to create Japanese-style woodblocks, Rivière started his career in a nightclub, Chat Noir, where he edited a journal and designed shadow plays.

Rivière’s series of photos of the Eiffel Tower, taken before its construction was completed, fills the final gallery in the exhibition. “It was such a neat thing that he got to go up the Eiffel Tower; I called it the best photo op in Paris, and it all goes back to the Chat Noir. Gustave Eiffel was a friend of the guy who ran the cabaret. Eiffel knew the tower was controversial, so he had what was a press preview, basically. They were told they could climb the tower with him. Rivière says in his memoir that we were told to travel at our own risk and to ‘beware of falling bolts.’ There’s another proof that it had to have been an easy to carry camera.”

Lee classifies Rivière’s photos of the tower under two categories: those with “amazingly modern angles” and those of the workmen still hacking away at the tower. They’ll be exhibited alongside a series of prints of the Eiffel Tower that Riviere made years later called Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower, in a playful nod toward Hokusai’s series of prints of Mount Fuji. Rivière borrows from his photos for several of the prints in the series, sometimes exactly matching the composition of a given photo.

“These photographs have such a startling modernity to them; to me, they look so abstract that they could’ve been taken in the 40s by Rodchenko or Moholy-Nagy,” said Lee of Rivière’s work. “They had the most modern sense, so I though it was kind of fun to end the show with those.”

SNAPSHOT Thursday, June 7, with a free discussion at 6 p.m. @ The Toby ADDITIONAL INFO:

Reception and preview featuring Snapshot’s curators and a 7-9 p.m. ($25 for members, $35 for non-members). The exhibition runs from June 8 to Sept. 2, 2012; tickets are $12 adult, $6 children 12 and younger and free for IMA members.

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A slice of the Go Ape course.

Paul of the Jungle

Swinging through the trees at Eagle Creek

BY P AUL F . P . POGUE P P O G UE@ N UVO.NET 5:00 PM

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a&e reviews // 06.06.12-06.13.12 // NUVO // 100% RECYCLED PAPER

The first thing you probably need to know about Eagle Creek Park’s Go Ape rope course is that it is just as awesome as it seems, if not more so.

The second thing is no matter how hard you try, the safety equipment won’t let you land in that neat three-point, down-on-oneknee pose that is all the rage among action choreographers these days.

Go Ape, which has rope courses elsewhere in the country, seems to have been designed by someone who looked at something like the Super Bowl zipline and thought, “I can TOTALLY top that.” This is one of the more frankly insane yet fantastic attractions in the city, and highly recommended for the $55 fee.

The course is comprised of ropes hanging 40 feet in the air, a series of obstacles, and — as the course’s climax — five separate ziplines over ravines. It’s a maniacal workout and an adrenaline rush that makes you feel like a superhero, or at least a B-movie action hero.

Managing director Dan D’Agostino calls it a “treetop adventure course.” Bridges, swinging logs, trapeze-style planks, a tunnel, some rope webbing that’s absolutely punishing on your arms to haul your way across — if it can be done with ropes in the air, it’s probably here.

It starts with 30 minutes of training with the safety gear, and after that you’re pretty much on your own.

The first course, a few feet off the ground, seems so easy; even the Tarzan rope doesn’t feel completely insane. It gets a little different when you’re trying to swing across a chasm that seems roughly the width of the gap of Khazad-Dum in The Lord of the Rings.

That said, the whole business really is quite safe. The triply redundant safety gear takes some getting used to, but after the first few obstacles, the feeling is that of a gentle

embrace tugging you up slightly and reminding you you’re not entirely alone in this. About the only times I ever really felt the rush of fear was when leaping off those 300-foot ziplines across a ravine — or jumping into an abyss in a momentary freefall before the Tarzan rope caught me to propel me across the chasm.

D’Agostino says they pretty much leave the pacing and approach up to you, and they’re not kidding. After the initial training session, I barely saw any Go Ape staff for two hours — just a few people patrolling on the ground.

(Though I hasten to add you’re given a safety whistle to call for help if needed.)

“We call it challenge-by-choice,” D’Agostino says. “At the difficult aspects, there will also be an easier option, a less adventurous route. If you want to stay up there for three hours and take pictures of birds, we’re happy with that as well. It’s not really an adventure if someone’s telling you how to do it. You can go through the course whatever way you like as long as you’re following the safety rules.”

And indeed, the branching options are something to take seriously, even such counterintuitive signs as “Difficult to the left, extreme to the right.” The difference between the two is likely the difference between coming out exhausted yet exhilarated — or already planning to soak in Epsom salt afterward.

If nothing else, it’s all worth it for the spectacular view of Eagle Creek you get from the top of the final zipline. The view gives a real sense of accomplishment after hours of clambering around trees and learning the exact extent to which you do or do not have vertigo. “Eagle Creek is a beautiful park, and we’re excited about getting people up into the trees to see it in a different way,” D’Agostino says of the vantage points.

He adds they built the course in an environmentally sustainable manner, with independent arborists inspecting the trees every year.

“We want to leave the park in a better environmental stance than when we got there, even if we don’t leave for 50 years,” he says.

“We’re looking forward to getting embedded in the Indianapolis community.”

Go Ape costs $55 for adults and $35 for children 10 and up, who must be accompanied by adults. Participants must be at least 4 feet, 7 inches tall with a maximum weight of 285 pounds. For more information: goape.com

A&E REVIEWS

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Min Kim Park, Finding a Pose, from The Natural World

VISUAL ART TABITHA SOREN AND MIN KIM PARK: THE NATURAL WORLD INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, THROUGH JULY 21 e Former MTV news reporter Tabitha Soren’s photographs collected in the series Running portray people in motion against a variety of landscapes, including urban and rural settings, in daylight and at night. In one, a blur of a man runs through an upscale, residential area of a West Coast city. You see him from above, and you wonder what propels him forward; maybe the city’s not as benign as it appears. In another, a woman runs toward the camera through an isolated patch of desert while looking backward; what, or who, is she afraid of? A paradox of photography, as in painting, is that a still image can create the illusion of movement. And because human emotion is not usually static, there’s kinetic energy not just in the limbs but in the charged facial expressions of the subjects captured by Soren’s camera.

The show’s video installation by Purdue professor Min Kim Park, which shows nude Caucasian women of various ages in motion against a white backdrop, also seems paradoxical. That is, the work’s title, “Finding a Pose,” suggests that the female subjects might eventually find a pose with which they feel comfortable. However, the writhing and squirming motions of the women in the eye of the camera make me wonder if such an endpoint is really possible.

— DAN GROSSMAN

DAN COOPER: SEASONS GALLERY 924, THROUGH JUNE 29 w What does it mean to be a regionalist painter nowadays? Certainly, it means acknowledging the local landscape — in this case the Hoosier landscape — in your work. Of course, there are a lot of painters out there painting lakes, covered bridges, bovine cud-chewers, etc; to the extent that they look to the past for inspiration, rather than the present, they traffic in nostalgia. Dan Cooper is not one of them. He’s interested in painting the Hoosier landscape in a contemporary way; thus, you’ll see highway overpasses in his paintings, in addition to farms and fields.

His paintings also incorporate contemporary ideas about astrophysics and string theory. Take “Doppler,” for example, where you see one half of a rural landscape swallowed up by a circular swath of blank canvas approximating the shape of a radar wave. And, in the acrylic on canvas “Slice of Time,” which portrays a line of trees in white paint on a background of white paint (varying slightly in tone), he shows what our world might look like to an alien visitor from another dimension, passing through on an expedited intergalactic schedule. Cooper doesn’t restrict himself to canvas and paint; he’s facile with photography (on display in “The Little Pitcher Has Grown Up”) as well as videography. Check out “Seasons,” a video he made featuring footage of the Indiana landscape, in conjunction with poetry

by Bovary Taritas and music by Justin Lahr.

— DAN GROSSMAN

JUSTIN VINING EARTH HOUSE, THROUGH JUNE 26 r In Justin Vining’s painting, “Don’t Park on the Curb,” the rhythmic swirl of a cloud — half gray, half white — sits in the center of the painting, a simplified form of a farmhouse perched on one end of the cloud, a city skyline on the other.

Vining, who went to school to become a lawyer and wound up painting instead, painted this scene over pages of legal text used as a canvas.

The rural setting of this painting is also somewhat autobiographical. His family’s farm, located in northern Indiana, was auctioned off during his senior year in high school. So there’s pathos mixed with the whimsy here. The only splashes of color in the composition are the blue door and the blue water droplets — or tears — dripping from the drooping tall buildings. The gray in the cloudscape approximates hills, and the white approximates a road. Similar motifs pop up throughout much of Vining’s current work: lonely houses on windswept hills, distant cityscapes, dripping clouds substituting for landmasses. You might see a little Grant Wood here, a little Tim Burton there, but nothing really feels arbitrary or derivative. Vining is well down the road to developing a style all his own.

— DAN GROSSMAN

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A&E REVIEWS through water in a glass stands out as one of the most striking images. There are heavy, visible brushstrokes throughout, and the texture is built up in the petals of the flowers.

Certain attributes set these paintings apart from most still lifes. Not only are fewer items depicted in each painting than is customary, but some unusual objects pop up frequently (candles, knives), while other common still life subject matter (fruit, notably) is absent. The spacing between the objects is often considerable, and the cropping of the image sometimes cuts off the objects. It’s impossible to shake the sense that these are extremely odd images; it’s a mildly ominous, murky series, with plenty of off notes — a lit candle in a glass of water, an odd knife in the fray — playing dissonantly against flowers and other more conventional elements.

And while the paintings are well-executed and succeed in differentiating themselves from other still lifes, they fail to distinguish themselves in terms of execution and imagery.

— CHARLES FOX

MUSIC SUBMITTED PHOTO

From Martin Kuntz’s The Fun Machine Died MARTIN KUNTZ: THE FUN MACHINE DIED PRIMARY GALLERY, THROUGH JUNE 22 e In the artist statement for The Fun Machine Died, Martin Kuntz posits that we are so overrun with imagery that most images have lost all meaning.

So in order to reassign meaning, he’s devoted his work to exploring “how images affect the subconscious regarding issues ranging from gender roles and masculinity, to violence, wealth, and death.” And these efforts, which draw on a wide swath of imagery from American popular culture, are largely successful. Pieces that reference scrambled cable television do so with a surprisingly bold implementation of color and a more sparse dispersal of digital squares than might be expected, leading to rich compositions. Kuntz’s art shares sensibilities, attitudes and reference points with Bjorn Copeland, Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol. His painterly skill is extremely strong in most areas, but if he could perfect a photorealistic touch, his paintings would be greatly improved. Overall, this is a group of paintings that succeeds in presenting a view of American culture that is simultaneously bright, dark, beautiful, ugly, horrifying and ultimately meaningful.

— CHARLES FOX

STEVE MANNHEIMER: FLOWERS AND KNIVES WUG LAKU’S STUDIO AND GARAGE, THROUGH JUNE 30 r

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Former Indianapolis Star art critic and current IUPUI professor Steve Mannheimer is back on the scene this month with his first exhibition in recent memory, consisting of five studies and nine titled paintings, all oil on paper, all undated, only one framed. Despite the exhibition’s title, only two knives appear, although there are four candles.

Most of the paintings do, indeed, include flowers, whose greens, oranges and reds cut through the impressionistic haze of the paintings. The interrupted reflection of stems and flowers as seen

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ISO CLASSICAL SERIES PROGRAM NO. 20 HILBERT CIRCLE THEATRE, JUNE 1 AND 2 e What a way to end a season: a sold-out Circle Theatre both Friday and Saturday, Hoosier worldclass violinist Joshua Bell intoning a concerto repertoire favorite, followed by a symphonic repertoire favorite, all conducted by ISO music director Krzysztof Urbanski. Penderecki’s Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima (1960), which opened the program, is characterized as a “sonoristic” piece; i.e. a work primarily defined by its exploration of sound qualities (such as tone color or timbre).

Written at the height of mid-20th century’s fling into avant-gardism, it calls for 52 strings from violins to double basses, making all the sounds of which such instruments are capable. Since the earliest notated Gregorian chants of the first millennium, this is the first style which lacks melody, harmony and rhythm, but it does offer sustained timbres and a wide dynamic range. Our audience gave its eight minutes or so a hearty applause.

Joshua Bell then appeared for the Brahms Violin Concerto in D, Op. 77 (1879). Bell, Urbanski and his players formed a remarkably cohesive group in one of the better Op. 77s I’ve heard, with Bell’s virtuosic and expressive work finding room for subtle nuance. In some of his fastest passage work, Bell occasionally glides past any articulation, but without compromising his interpretive prowess.

Following the break came another mighty work, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat, Op. 55 (“Eroica”). While our music director achieved a thorough conception of the “Eroica,” its execution revealed occasional raggedness creeping into the rapid, triple-meter string figurations in the third movement (Scherzo). However, the triplehorn work in the “trio” section was beautifully executed. For more review details visit nuvo.net.

— TOM ALDRIDGE

A&E REVIEWS

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Intimate Opera members enjoying delicious ice cream while performing Weill’s Street Scene.

OPERA ON DEMAND: AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE INTIMATE OPERA AT INDYFRINGE THEATRE, JUNE 1 AND 2 e It takes a lot of work to mount an opera, so it pays to play it safe. But a ragtag bunch of opera lovers like Intimate Opera can afford to take a few more chances, to stage what audience members ask to see, to try out new approaches. Thus, we have Opera on Demand, a program informed by the results of audience questionnaires that showed that we, the people of Indianapolis, want to see modern opera, in English, presented on a scene-by-scene basis. The four operas presented in excerpted form last weekend at IndyFringe were Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium (1946), about a charlatan who may be possessed or mad or both; Kurt Weill’s Street Scene (1947), a collection of vignettes about New Yorkers of varying temperaments and ethnicities; Mark Adamo’s Little Women (1998), a slightly mawkish distillation of the Alcott novel; and Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land (1954), which came toward the end of a populist, pastoral trend in American art.

I’ll leave the nitty-gritty of operatic criticism to the professional adjudicators; suffice to say that some singers had stronger, more confident voices than others, notably Meagan Searles-Todd, who excelled in the program’s first half, and company co-founder Amy Hayes, who gave herself a tearful deathbed scene in Little Women. More important, to my mind, was the program as a whole, which successfully gave a taste of all four operas, leaving at least one viewer hungry for the whole meal. Opera on Demand certainly met Intimate Opera’s goal to serve both audience and performers — both by giving trained opera singers a chance to work in a town with few such opportunities, and giving audiences a chance to hear operas that aren’t as often performed outside of major metropolitan areas with talent and money to burn.

And the audience was indeed enthusiastic (it was a packed room), laughing at jokes, clapping enthusiastically for the best arias of the

bunch. So effectively were the operas spliced and taped together that the seams didn’t really show when moving from aria to aria or act to act; enough of the story remained to figure out what was going on, and the choicest musical bits were preserved.

By the way, I’ll certainly count myself among those who want to hear more modern opera in English (or other languages will work as well), so it’s a pleasure to hear a favorite like Weill, who’s not exactly an obscure taste, but doesn’t get much play locally. The Indianapolis Opera has never produced Weill, for instance, though Menotti was a regular in the Indy Opera’s early years — he was a popular taste in the ‘50s and ‘60s, especially on television, though he’s a bit creaky now. Neither have Adamo or Copland been produced by the Indy Opera, which is a bit surprising, considering the popularity and accessibility of Little Women and the entrenchment of Copland in the canon.

But back to the Intimate Opera to voice a couple minor quibbles. While Amanda Hopson’s taped piano accompaniment served its purpose in a utilitarian way, a live accompanist (or even a small pit orchestra) might’ve helped singers to negotiate more complex passages — not to mention that live music tends to be more engaging than anything on tape. And — how to put this? — I feel like the Intimate Opera is striking a bit too remedial a tone; not that the company is dumbing down the music, but between the kind of lame title for the show and a pre-show warning by a director that just because The Medium happens to be a little dark, it doesn’t mean that the rest of the night won’t be light and fun, one wonders if things are pitched too much toward the complete neophyte, who isn’t, after all, likely to drop by the show in the first place (unless she happens to be a family member, and then she’ll have to be supportive no matter what).

— SCOTT SHOGER

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MOVIES Peace, Love and Misunderstanding t So your husband just asked for a divorce.

What do you do? You take your teenage son and daughter and head for Woodstock, N.Y., to visit your mother, who you cut out of your life 20 years ago because she sold pot at your wedding. Why do you go there instead of visiting a sympathetic friend?

Because this is a movie premise and you are required to tussle with your hippie momma for around 90 minutes.

The set-up for Peace, Love and Misunderstanding made me scratch my head, but with a cast including Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener, Elizabeth Olsen, Chace Crawford, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyle MacLachlan (for about four minutes) and Marissa O’Donnell, there was ample reason to hope for the best.

So what did I get? A feel-good movie painting Woodstock as an idyllic artist colony where the spirit of the counterculture never went away. Every story arc is predictable. The screenplay jumps from one festive occasion to another (these people have more parties than the staff of The Office), no matter how much credulity is strained.

But director Bruce Beresford’s film satisfies as cinematic comfort food because

the warmth seems genuine and the cast does a fine job inhabiting their characters.

Fonda is at her best as Grace, a vintage hippie, anti-war activist, New Age mystic, sage philosopher, sexually liberated feminist and established marijuana merchant. I rolled my eyes at Grace initially — too much, too much — until I realized what I was watching was not intended as a portrait of a natural individual.

Grace is considered a larger-than-life figure by her friends and neighbors in Woodstock. She is a self-created construct — taking bits and pieces from various aspects of the counter-culture to cast herself as super-hippie. The real Grace is in there, but what we see is Grace as her own best artistic creation.

Catherine Keener spent the early days of her film career playing brittle, exceptionally articulate, short-fused characters before establishing herself in a wider variety of roles. As Grace’s daughter Diane, she returns to early-career form, tempered with the vulnerability that came later, and proves herself more than able to effectively squabble with Mom while negotiating the romantic overtures of a charming local artist/ craftsman (Morgan).

The various plot threads in Peace, Love and Misunderstanding are familiar and the outcomes well-telegraphed.

Comfort food movies are like that. Heck, most movies are like that. Regardless, I enjoyed my time in Woodstock with Grace, Diane and all the affable stereotypes. Thank you, cast, for seasoning the meatloaf and mashed potatoes so nicely.

— ED JOHNSON-OTT

FILM CLIPS BEL AMI u

Costume drama set in 1890s Paris, about Georges Duroy (Robert Pattinson), who grew up in poverty and is determined above all else to secure a moneyed life. The movie is great looking, too bad Pattinson is unable to add any color to his single-minded character (his skin is as colorless as his performance, by the way — this man needs a tanning bed nearly as much as an acting coach). Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci and Kristen Scott Thomas co-star. If you’re a Pattinson fan tempted to see the film because he bares his bottom, let me assure you that his fanny appears only briefly and has no special attributes. 102 minutes. — Ed Johnson-Ott

REAR WINDOW

Like the best of Hitchcock’s films of the ‘50s and ‘60s, Rear Window is hardy enough to withstand just about any analysis. Keen on focusing on the film’s voyeurism? Well, it’s right on the surface; much of the film takes the point of view of a photographer, who, confined to a wheelchair while he recuperates from a broken leg, wiles away the hours watching his apartment building’s courtyard from his window. His nurse puts it bluntly: “We’ve become a race of Peeping Toms.” Or if you’re into the auteur theory, you might focus on the treatment of that photographer (Jimmy Stewart) as one of Hitchcock’s innocents imperiled, who, a bit too much the curious cat, puts himself in danger by putting together the puzzle pieces of a murder he impotently views from his perch. June 8, 9:30 p.m. @ Indianapolis Museum of Art; $10 public, $6 member; 112 minutes.

GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING

Sit with the 80-year-old Gerhard Richter as, squeegee in hand, he works on two largescale abstract paintings. Listen in as he makes curmudgeonly pronouncements: “Painting is a secretive business”;“Each painting is an assertion that tolerates no company”;“You have to distrust your parents and see through them.” See Richter’s past work via archival footage from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Get a sense of why he’s still at it with his final words of the film: “Man, is this fun.” June 10, 2 p.m. @ Indianapolis Museum of Art; $5 public, $3 member; 97 minutes.

Alas, you’ll have to head out to Plainfield to see the Danny Boyle-directed stage NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE: production of Frankenstein, which could’ve been but wasn’t picked up by theaters

FRANKENSTEIN within our distribution area that subscribe to the NCM Cinema Network (the

satellite service which airs the Met Opera and other simulcasts). Still, it’s worth the drive; Nick Dear’s play, which was premiered last year by London’s National Theatre, picked up a slew of UK theater awards and was called a “taut, thrilling play runs with hardly a moment for breath” by The Times (London). June 6 and 7, 7 p.m. @ Metropolis Rave 18, Plainfield; $15.

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FOOD How not to do it

Michael’s Southshore underachieves

BY N E I L CHA R LE S N CH A RL E S @N U V O . N E T You know you’re looking at a systemically underachieving eatery when the server barely bats an eyelid when you tell her the food is inedible, and almost instantaneously clears the table and comps your entrees.

In Geist, where appearances are everything, it might be a good idea for a restaurant manager to dust off the grimy exposed wooden surfaces with a spot of Pledge from time to time, give the tables and place mats a thorough clean, and replace the carpet every couple of years. Because lots of dirt makes a restaurant look bad, and crumbs of food wedged between the table and the wall don’t bode well.

As for the food, Michael’s emphasizes using fresh ingredients, but none of the sources are listed, and our sticky and grubby menu didn’t appear to be especially seasonal. A pair of duck spring rolls ($9.95) tasted old, almost as if they had been assembled well ahead of time and then frozen. The duck had no flavor,

and in my experience, it’s a bird with a lot of flavor. Perhaps confiting the duck and preparing the other ingredients separately would enhance the quality of this dish. Instead, it’s just mush.

Similarly, the crab cakes for $11.95 tasted old and fishy, with a floppy texture, almost like tinned crab. If this was fresh, then the chef should be chastised for food abuse because it’s a shameful waste of ingredients.

Our main courses remained largely untouched. Of the ten entrees on the menu, five are served with broccoli florets, so you’d better like broccoli. My braised short ribs ($21.95) were woefully undercooked. This isn’t a cut of meat you just throw in boiling water for a few minutes. This needs long slow cooking. The texture was reminiscent of an accordion: the connective tissue stretched out when I tried to cut it. It smelled of an abattoir. And oddly enough, the cabernet reduction sauce made no reference back to the cooking liquid, causing me to wonder exactly how this dish was prepared. Served with mashed potatoes the texture and flavor of wallpaper paste, this dish was the sort of thing that your instructor holds up in cooking school as an example of how not to do it. And the garnish: two discs of raw turnip, two of raw carrot and some cubes of uncooked root vegetable. Seriously.

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PHOTO BY MARK LEE

Evening descends on Michael’s Southshore

My wife’s entrée was actually worse: a pecan-crusted walleye filet with broccoli florets and smashed potatoes. Now this is walleye season, but this didn’t seem like fresh walleye to me; regardless, it was haplessly overdone, the crust so deeply fried that is was almost burnt, the texture sticky like stewed porridge.

The soups (French onion and smoked chicken chowder) were, however, about fifty percent correct, so it wasn’t a total bust. I would only recommend the drive if your car happens to break down outside.

Michael’s Southshore 11705 Fox Road, Geist 723-3808

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BEER BUZZ

BY RITA KOHN

ON THE ROAD

Under fair weather, Crown Brewing hosted their third splendid Craft Beer Festival at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Crown Point on May 26.

The event also featured a dazzling vintage car show and other amenities for picnicking and playtime in the surrounding park. In addition to brews from across Indiana we tasted Chicago area specialties, including amazingly fine profiles from two Orland Park, Ill., brewmasters: Joachim Kekoum at Harrison’s Brewing Co. and Iain Wilson at Rock Bottom. Wilson, who preceded Liz Laughlin at Rock Bottom College Park, reminisced about his Indianapolis sojourn.

THE DAILY BUZZ JUNE 6-10

Home games for Dubois County Bombers @ League Stadium, Huntingburg, Ind. The Bombers are part of the 14-team Prospect League, one of the elite wooden-bat summer collegiate leagues.

The team’s 1894 stadium — which was a filming site for A League of Their Own and Soul of the Game — features New Albanian Brewing Company craft brews, including a commemorative Bomber Blonde, all on draft from the beer trailer parked down the third base line.

JUNE 7

“The Wrath of Kahns Beerocracy” @ Kahn’s, 2342 W. 86th St., 6-8 p.m. Must RSVP to 317-228-9463; no walk-ins.

Beer Club tasting featuring Triton @ Fox and Hound, 14490 Lowes Way, Carmel, 4-6 p.m.

JUNE 8

Monthly Friday Night Club meeting @ Great Fermentations, 5127 E. 65th St., 5 p.m.

New Albanian’s Bomber Blonde, available down the third base line at League Stadium in Huntingburg.

JUNE 9

2nd Annual Bloomington Craft Beer Festival @ Woolery Stone Mill, 2200 W. Tapp Rd.; VIP ($50), 3 p.m-7 p.m.; general admission ($35), 4-7 p.m; $10 designated drivers. Proceeds benefit American Red Cross of Monroe County. Tickets at brewersofindianaguild.com.

Tapping of Barefoot Wit and featuring 92.3 WTTS Spring Music Sampler @ The Ram, Fishers, 2 p.m.

Tap ‘n’ Run 4K race @ Broad Ripple Avenue and Compton Street. Features four chug stations, where competitors drink 4 ounces of beer; finishers leave with a medal, T-shirt and full beer.

Register at tapnrun.com If you have an item for Beer Buzz, send an email to beerbuzz@nuvo.net. Deadline for Beer Buzz is Thursday noon before the Wednesday of publication.

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music Goliathon to play IMAF

Band to release second full-length

T

BY W A D E CO G G E S H A L L M U S I C@N UV O . N E T

he studio on Ryan Koch’s Southside property looks like a horse barn on the outside, because that’s what it used to be.

Over several years Koch, a local musician and producer, has painstakingly poured his earnings into building up the facility. Fellow Southsiders Goliathon, a rock and roll quintet with a penchant for massive hooks and kaleidoscopic flourishes, recorded their demo here a few years ago. Following the release of their full-length debut, Without Further Ado, in 2010, they’re back at Koch’s studio — known as the Arkbarn — hard at work on the follow-up. Titled Pretend It’s Not Happening, Goliathon will have a record release show for it Aug. 31 at Radio Radio. Before then they’re playing this Saturday as part of the Independent Music + Art Festival at the Harrison Center.

Over servings of Negra Modelo and Sun King Wee Mac one recent evening in the studio’s lounge, band members discussed what brought them back to the Arkbarn. They admit to having shopped around before deciding to return here. Aside from the studio’s continual upgrades, it helped that Koch was so insistent on bringing Goliathon back.

“It’s nicer recording with a friend versus someone with a big studio who doesn’t give a shit about you,” said drummer Matthew Fields. “The people we’ve been choosing genuinely want to work with us.”

Up to now all the instruments have been recorded. Chris Probasco’s vocals have been delayed because he’s had strep throat. Today he’s taking shots of apple cider vinegar as a remedy.

“It’s as bad as whiskey, but it fixes you,” said Probasco.

Without Further Ado earned Goliathon comparisons to acts like Led Zeppelin, as well as a place in the local metal community. While getting an opening slot for The Sword is appreciated, the band wants to be acknowledged as more than just a bludgeoning force. Words like “melodic,” “mature” and “dynamic” are used to describe the new material.

“We’re starting to cut back and craft more,” Probasco said. “We still have sixand seven-minute songs, but they’re more accessible. Doesn’t matter to me what genre we get lumped into now. I just want you to like it.”

“It all fits together, but I feel like they change enough to keep you interested,” added bassist Colby Holmes.

onnuvo.net 32

PHOTO BY PHILLIP HILL

Goliathon

If there’s one aspect to Goliathon that makes them stand out from their hardhitting peers, it’s their use of varied instrumentation. Amidst all the crushing riffs, Probasco isn’t afraid to break out a saxophone solo, something he’s been playing since he joined the school band in fifth grade. Holmes adds organ accents when the mood calls for it.

“Nothing’s off-limits,” said guitarist Derek Kendall. “We’re all allowed to come up with whatever off-the-wall ideas we can.”

That philosophy is working. Koch cues up some of Goliathon’s new tracks in his wood-paneled control room. One starts with funhouse keys, circular guitars and a stalking rhythm section, only to slow and sound voodoo-y before losing its collective mind. Another, set to open the album, has myriad movements. Prickly guitars explode into a cacophony of rebellious rock before adding organ swells and a shuffling rhythm.

Yet another is prevailing, dramatic rock that leaves room for bluesy and acoustic touches. There’s even a country-inspired stomp with slide guitar that inspires guitarist Christian Wren to clap his hands.

“One of the things we value is writing songs we like,” he said. “If other people like them too, that’s a bonus.”

The members of Goliathon have eclectic enough tastes that it could easily impede songwriting. So far that hasn’t really been the case. They attribute that to the fact they’ve all known each other since elementary school. Holmes and Wren met the first day of second grade. Kendall and Probasco grew up in the same neighborhood. Most

/SLIDESHOWS

Major Lazer at the Vogue Lee Scratch Perry at the Vogue

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Hip-hop house party Ben Sollee at Radio Radio

of them were in a band together during high school. After that fizzled, some of them continued to hang out and jam.

Others gradually joined the fold that would become Goliathon.

Probasco said they’ve all been in bands where they had to search for specific musicians to complete the lineup.

“With this, we all kind of came together, but it was never really planned to become what it has,” he said. “It’s evolved into what it is now. I think that sets us apart from a lot of bands. We weren’t auditioning. We were just jamming and it worked.”

Holmes said another key to their progress is writing together.

“Every other band I’ve played in there was always one guy writing the songs and everyone else added their parts,” he said.

“In this band someone comes up with a riff then jams with a few others and it kind of starts to change.”

Goliathon have taken some lumps though. A self-booked East Coast tour served more as a rite of passage than a money-making venture. Shows were pretty hit and miss. The Philadelphia date was canceled because the other scheduled band didn’t show up. Goliathon made up for that by visiting the Rocky Balboa statue and having a race up the steps. All told, over 11 nights on the road they had a place to stay for four of them.

“When you have five members and a shit-ton of gear, you need hospitality,” Probasco said.

Adds Wren, “We learned how to sleep in the most awkward positions.”

/REVIEWS

Damien Jurado at Russian Recording Lazy Hawk Prom Anniversary Show

No new tours are currently planned, but in the short term, Goliathon intends on playing locally once a month and hitting the road on weekends. Holmes believes the pieces are there for them to make a living at this.

“The biggest challenge is getting the chance,” he said.

The band hopes Pretend It’s Not Happening gives them just that.

“I put them in the genre that’s coming out now,” said Koch, comparing Goliathon to acts like Cage the Elephant, Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures.

Categorization, though, isn’t the goal.

“I don’t care where we fall as long as we keep progressing,” Probasco said.

INDEPENDENT MUSIC + ART FESTIVAL

The Harrison Center, 1505 N. Delaware St. Saturday, June 9 Noon, all-ages, free Noon-12:35 p.m. The Goodnight Fields 12:40-1:15 p.m. Luke Austin Daugherty and ILL Holiday 1:20-1:55 p.m. Shelby County Sinners 2-2:35 p.m. Rusty Redenbacher 2:40-3:15 p.m. Lord of the Yum-Yum 3:20-3:55 p.m. Bashiri Asad 4-4:35 p.m. Five Year Mission 4:40-5:15 p.m. Hero Jr. 5:20-5:55 p.m. The Native Sun 6-6:35 p.m. Cabin 6:40-7:15 p.m. Goliathon 7:20-8 p.m. Ranger

Danzig at the Egyptian Room A Place to Bury Strangers, ‘Worship’ The Melvins, ‘ Freak Puke’ Souldies at the Melody Inn

A CULTURAL MANIFESTO WITH KYLE LONG Kyle Long’s music, which features off-the-radar rhythms from around the world, has brought an international flavor to the local dance music scene.

Burmese Superstar May Sweet With a rapidly growing population estimated to be over 8,000, Indianapolis is home to one of the largest Burmese communities in the United States. As the size of Indy’s Burmese population increases, so does its cultural footprint in the city. This was quite evident last Saturday at Garfield Park when the Indianapolis Chin Community — roughly 80 percent of Indy’s Burmese residents are from Chin state in western Myanmar — hosted Spring Concert 2012, featuring Burmese pop superstar May Sweet.

At age 50, May Sweet is a pop icon in Myanmar. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, the singer dominated the Burmese music charts with her Western-style pop hits. Sweet left Myanmar in the late ‘90s, relocating to Delaware with her BurmeseAmerican husband. Since moving to the United States, Sweet has performed extensively for expatriate Burmese communities around the world.

For her performance in Indy, Sweet led a group of local Burmese hard rock musicians, featuring the twin guitar attack of Ceu Pi and Maa Rem. It was interesting to hear Sweet’s sugary pop vocals clashing with the duo’s crunchy metal riffs.The show culminated with a devastatingly heavy, fuzzed-out Burmese language version of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.” Sweet’s psych-drenched cover was not only the highlight of the show, it was also the best version of Young’s classic I’ve ever heard.

I spoke with Sweet after the concert as she discussed her musical roots and the future of Myanmar.

NUVO: Your mother Myint Myint Khin was a famous singer during the ‘50s. Was she a big influence on you?

MAY SWEET: Yes, but my dad was a great influence for me too. He wanted me to learn the traditional Burmese classical music. So when I was 8 years old, I started learning to play the Burmese harp and I also began learning to sing the traditional Burmese classical songs. So, my dad started me out on the path to music.

Yes, my mother was a famous singer in Burma. She was also an actress and she won many Burmese Academy Awards. When I was 14 years old, I started singing pop songs.

When I started my career, I was known for being the daughter of Myint Myint Khin.

That helped me to become a famous singer.

People were interested in me at first because my mother was so famous.

NUVO: Unfortunately, I don’t speak Burmese. Can you tell me what your songs are about lyrically?

SWEET: Actually, most of the songs in my country are love songs. When I was part of

PHOTO BY ARTUR SILVA

May Sweet

the Burmese music industry, there were a lot of restrictions. There was censorship and all the lyrics and music had to be reviewed by a board of government censors. If your album was censored by the board, it was not allowed to be released and there was nothing you could do about it. So everyone was composing love songs and family songs to avoid being censored.

But that is starting to change; we are moving into a new period for Burmese music.

NUVO: As an artist, did you find those limitations frustrating?

SWEET: Yes, but I was so young at that time I didn’t really understand what was going on.

But now I realize what was happening, that we were restricted from exploring different cultural or political themes in our music.

I’ve lived in the United States for over 10 years now. But, whenever I go back to my country I continue to pursue my music career. I play a lot of concerts and the people there still love my singing. Lately I’ve been thinking that when I go back I want to try to do some different things with my music. Not political music, but music exploring our culture, incorporating traditional Burmese instruments.

NUVO: Most of the Indianapolis Burmese community arrived here as refugees. They were excited for your concert as it gives them an opportunity to connect with the culture of their homeland. That must be very fulfilling for you to provide that.

SWEET: I was surprised by the size of the Indianapolis Burmese community. They told me there were 8,000 Burmese people living here. That’s a lot; I was shocked. But yes, I’m very happy to be here and perform for the people.

NUVO: Finally, what are your thoughts on the future of Myanmar?

SWEET: It’s opening up. It takes time to change, but it will get there one day. My hope is that the country continues to grow, open up and make improvements in health care and education. That is very important.

Special thanks to Johnny Kap for facilitating this interview.

Kyle Long creates a custom podcast for each column. See this week’s online at NUVO.net.

100% RECYCLED PAPER // NUVO // 06.06.12-06.13.12 // music

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The Kemps

The Kemps call it quits Garage rockers gone

BY G RA N T CA T TO N M U S I C@N U V O . N E T Indy-based garage rockers The Kemps have officially disbanded after a two-year run in which they rose to prominence as leaders of the newest generation of young, innovative, independent rock bands coming out of Fountain Square.

According to bassist and co-founder Tyler Bowman, the three-man group consisting of guitarist/vocalist Jared Birden and drummer Geoff Albertson, decided to call it quits late last month after a turbulent six months that saw at least one major lineup change and the theft of the master copy of their freshly recorded EP in mid-March.

In an email interview, Bowman said the breakup was prompted by a call from Albertson, who had decided to leave the band. As the only two remaining members, Bowman and Birden, who had already kept the group together through a major overhaul last fall, agreed they’d had a great run but that it was best to move on to other projects.

“We felt like we had effortlessly accomplished [the] things any local band can hope to,” wrote Bowman, who also noted that he respected Albertson’s decision to leave and that there were no hard feelings between any members of the band. “[Geoff] is an amazing drummer and whoever snags him up should feel very lucky to have him,” he wrote.

The Kemps enjoyed a blisteringly fast rise over the past two years to become one of the most talked-about rock bands in the city and the unofficial poster child

for the resurgence of the Fountain Square underground rock scene. Formed in the spring of 2010, the original Kemps lineup consisted of Birden, Bowman (then on drums), guitarist Andy Rittenhouse, and bassist Nick Snyder.

The band quickly cut a selfreleased EP and soon after joined with GloryHole Records where they recorded a split 7-inch with garage rock counterparts Vacation Club, as well as a 7-inch EP Familiaresco.

Through the summer and fall of 2011, it seemed The Kemps were one of the hottest bands in the city; they were playing everywhere, and everyone was talking about them.

However, shortly after they played Broad Ripple Music Fest last fall, things began to unravel. Bowman switched from drums, where he had never really felt at home, to bass. Rittenhouse and Snyder left the group, and Albertson was brought on to play drums.

After sort of dropping off the map over the winter, it seemed like The Kemps were back in action in March, playing sets at the Melody Inn and the White Rabbit, at which they unleashed an electrifying set of tight new songs they were recording for a new album. However, in mid-March, their home studio was broken into and they lost the master copy of the album as well as some of their equipment.

Bowman said he and Birden originally thought about going forward and re-recording the album, in spite of the dissolution of the band; however, they will instead split the songs up between their own independent projects/bands.

Bowman’s project is called Dope, Menace and Birden’s is Teenage Strange. Bowman said they hope to release a split 7-inch soon. “[Jared and I] work well together and complement each other in a way where things just effortlessly fall into place,” wrote Bowman.

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music // 06.06.12-06.13.12 // NUVO // 100% RECYCLED PAPER

Color, movement, magic Barbara Randall stuns

BY JEF F R EED M USIC@ N UVO.NET Barbara Randall may just be the best female vocalist in Indy you haven’t heard yet — though that is likely to change soon.

A seasoned professional with a vocal range nearly as broad as her repertoire. Randall is finally getting around in the local club scene. This includes The Grand, located in the 5300 block of Massachusetts Avenue, where I caught her on a cool Tuesday evening a couple weeks ago.

Deluged by daylight through large bare windows, distracted by flat-screen TVs, and besotted by electric beer signs, the low-ceilinged, casual setting of The Grand seemed an inauspicious setting for great jazz; yet a lively chanteuse with waist-length braids and her band of first rate musicians — Greg Artry, drums; Jon Block, upright bass, and Craig Hicks, piano, (named The Element) — were tearin’ it up.

Clientele is sparse but enthusiasm is rife at this early hour, and the first tune, a medium glide titled “I Thought About You,” ends to rapt applause. The band can swing, the girl can sing and these folks appreciate it.

On Ellington’s “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me,” played at a brighter clip, Randall tastefully toys with the melody, moving effortlessly from chest to headvoice, making the song her own. The band gives her ample space.

The singer is obviously enjoying herself.

Her quick, infectious smile, calm delivery, and habit of walking the room, wireless mic in hand, puts her listeners at ease and draws them in.

“I don’t get nervous, except at auditions,” she said. “Whenever I hear music, I have to sing. That’s just what I do. I sing.”

One could say that’s her “element.”

As she nears me, head tilted back, eyes gazing either at the ceiling or to some distant audience, she sings “You’re my thrill …,” and I want to believe her.

The trio, which has performed with Randall for nearly four years, is a well-tuned engine. Artry’s tasty, nothin’-but-the-groove drumming rotates the crankshaft, Block’s warm yet percussive bass and Hicks’s solid 10-finger voicings and right hand sprinkles make it purr. Randall, of course, provides color, movement, and magic.

Born in Oklahoma City, Randall moved with her family to Indianapolis at age 4.

By the time she attended Shortridge High School in the early 1970s, she was fronting a girl band that covered popular Motown hits.

“We were going to be the next Supremes,” she joked.

A favorite uncle introduced her to jazz.

“He would tease me because I was doing the doo-wop stuff. ‘Ok,’ he said, ‘Let me show you what real music sounds like.’

And I took to it; I really liked it,” she said.

Her career and her life changed radi-

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Barbara Randall

cally when she sat in with a local band at a church social. She did well enough that the band, Merging Traffic of funk and jazzfusion fame, hired her — she was 16. From there it gets complicated — the gist being that she quit high school, married one of the band members and went on the road, winding up in Detroit soon after. Although the band eventually broke up, as did her marriage, she continued to perform steadily in the Motor City, while raising her three children from the marriage.

In 2005, her children grown, Randall moved back to Indy to be with family and to care for an ailing aunt. Since then she’s gradually worked her way into the Indy nightclub scene, playing steadily with her own band and several others, including Al Finnell’s Indy Jazzmen.

But her music career went on hiatus last August when a semi-truck pulled into her lane and hit her car head-on at 34th and Meridian. Her injuries — a concussion, broken wrists and fingers, cut tendons, and crushed knees — kept her in the hospital five months. Though she’s now back to performing full time, she says, “I’m only about 70 percent.”

Back at The Grand, the tables, lined up as in a classroom, are beginning to fill, the seated patrons staring at Randall as if she were their teacher and this were a night class on music appreciation. She blithely goes into “Exactly Like You,” a song on few singers’ lists, talk-singing her way through the lyrics, ala Dinah Washington. At times, her voice projects that bright velvety edge of Nancy Wilson. As I try to put my finger on who else she sounds like, the band switches gears, and Randall abruptly channels Gladys Knight for an emotional rendering of the Pips’ “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.” The class applauds loudly; yes, the girl can sing.

PHOTO BY D.L. ANDERSON

Bowerbirds

Clearing the way

Bowerbirds on new album, cabins

BY T A YL O R P E TE R S M U S I C@N U V O . N E T Indie folk group Bowerbirds is, at its core, the project of couple Phillip Moore and Beth Tacular. In the time since their 2009 release, Upper Air, the band and the couple have been through an awful lot.

Moore and Tacular ended their romantic relationship — they’ve since reconciled — and Tacular was hospitalized in the face of a serious illness. On the less dramatic side, they also built a cabin in the woods of North Carolina. This year they’ve returned with their most varied and sonically lush album yet, The Clearing. We spoke with Moore about everything from songwriting and playing live to Paul Simon and Graceland’s infallibility.

NUVO: The new album definitely has a wider sonic palette; was that a result of any conscious change of approach?

PHILLIP MOORE: At first we tried to work with a sparer sound. We said, “It’s just going to be nylon string guitar and accordion.” Then Mark [Paulson] joined just to play the bass drum, later we added the violin. For The Clearing, we added even more, just because, first and foremost, the fun part of the creative process for us was not limiting ourselves as much as we might have before.

NUVO: Since the album is much more lush, has that led you to change how you play live at all?

MOORE: We have been changing our live approach constantly; we’ve got a cast of people depending on what kind of rooms we’re playing. On the first leg for The Clearing, we took out a five-piece band, which was really exciting. Now we’re stripping it back a little bit, going with the trio and re-arranging some songs. We’re try-

ing to experiment with more keyboards and synths. We want to change it up, give people something new to think about each time they see us.

NUVO: How does the song-writing collaboration between you and Beth usually work?

MOORE: I like to write alone at first, but then we always do a lot of the paring down to find what’s good about the song together. I tend to be a little long winded in my writing, and Beth is really good at finding what’s good about a song. O n this album, we also worked on songs together from the start as well, and then I helped her the other way, too.

NUVO: The percussion in your songs tends to be a bit more groove-based than other folk music often is, for example in “Now We Hurry On.” What sorts of influences lead you to that approach?

MOORE: I think there’s definitely an influence, I wouldn’t say it comes from one place in particular, but I’ve always really liked Graceland, for instance. Looking back on it, the production is kind of cheese ball, but the actual musicians and the songs are amazing. That was maybe my introduction to that world [of African music]. I’ve also been a huge fan of jazz for along time. Also, our drummer is just a jazz drummer, so he can do things I could never do. He’ll say, “Let’s do a bolero beat here,” and I’ll be like, “Sure, bolero, that sounds great.”

NUVO: Do you see any analogies between your work on the cabin and your process of writing music?

MOORE: I feel like they’re both part of this creative life that Beth and I have envisioned for ourselves. One is definitely an extension of the other, but I’m not sure which way it goes. We’ve always appreciated a bit more of a DIY approach to things. We just enjoy the idea of growing something from nothing, and in that way I think the cabin and the music make perfect sense together.

BOWERBIRDS WITH BASIA BULAT

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Punch Brothers

Wednesday COUNTRY PUNCH BROTHERS

Palladium at Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Center Green, Carmel 7:30, prices vary, all-ages

I’ll let Noam Pikelny of the Punch Brothers tell you what he thinks his band’s sound is: “People who don’t know much about bluegrass music call us a bluegrass band and people who really are steeped in bluegrass music refuse to call us a bluegrass band.

Some people who are extreme preservationists are offended when others label us a bluegrass band. I feel like bluegrass is a label that can be very wide-ranging. I think that if people are using the term as an umbrella to describe a whole movement that includes an instrumentation with banjo, and includes a bunch of highly-varied bands. I personally enjoy when people consider us a bluegrass band — not because I think we are playing a faithful version of what Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs created in the ‘40s — that’s not what we’re trying to do. But the spirit in which we’re creating music, I would hope and imagine it is the same as what those guys were feeling when they created the music”

Saturday DANCE BOLLYWOOD BHANGRA Jazz Kitchen, 5377 N. College Ave. 10 p.m., $10, 21+

Thursday PUNK FLOGGING MOLLY

Sunday

The veteran seven-piece Celtic punk band is celebrating its 15th anniversary as well as the 10th anniversary of its sophomore album, Drunken Lullabies, the first album by the band to go gold. The band’s most recent LP, 2011’s Speed Of Darkness, chronicles the experiences of those hit hardest by the financial crisis. Opening act, The Devil Makes Three, filters roots music through a punk sensibility. The drummer-less trio’s music is a blend of ragtime, folk, blues, country, and rockabilly. The music of headliner Flogging Molly blends traditional Irish folk music with punk in songs that give voice to the hardscrabble existence of the downtrodden.

— ANDREW CROWLEY

Friday COUNTRY MIRANDA LAMBERT

Klipsch Music Center, 12880 E. 146th St.

music // 06.06.12-06.13.12 // NUVO // 100% RECYCLED PAPER

Country music superstar, Miranda Lambert brings her On Fire tour to the Klipsch Music Center. Lambert’s four studio albums have consistently met with critical acclaim as well as commercial success. Her 2011 album, For The Road, went gold and has an aggregate score of 83 on Metacritic. 2011 was a busy year for Lambert. In addition to her fourth studio album, Lambert also released Hell On Heels, the debut album of her country supergroup, Pistol Annies, to critical acclaim.

Lambert’s brassy music shows the influence of predecessors Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. Opening up for Lambert are Nashville Star winner Chris Young and Nashville veteran Jerrod Niemann. — ANDREW CROWLEY

Our world music columnist Kyle Long is writing about Burmese music this week, but you can see him spin much more than that at this week’s Bollywood Bhangra. Facilitated by Long and his partner in cultural crime, Artur Silva (frequently seen as a photo contributor around these parts), Bollywood Bhangras include lots of great tunes, lots of gyrating bodies and, at this edition’s location, lots of great food.

Egyptian Room at Old National Centre, 502 N. New Jersey St. 7:30 p.m., $35, all-ages

38

7:30 p.m. $39.25 – $62.85, all-ages

COUNTRY GLEN CAMPBELL

Murat Theatre at Old National Centre, 502 N. New Jersey St. 7:30 p.m., $32.25 - $82.75

Country singer and former session musician, Glen Campbell has embarked on his final tour, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s last year. Campbell played Indianapolis last June with Jimmy Webb, the man responsible for such classics as “Gentle On My Mind,” “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” and “Wichita Lineman.” Campbell released his final studio album, Ghost on the Canvas last August.

Campbell has had quite the career, initially starting as a member of the Wrecking Crew, Campbell was touring guitarist for The Beach Boys and played guitar on the seminal Pet Sounds album. Opening act, Victoria Ghost, is comprised of Campbell’s daughters Ashley and Shannon. The two, along with brother Cal, are part of Campbell’s backing band, Instant People. — ANDREW CROWLEY

SOUNDCHECK

Bankers Life Fieldhouse

Lucas Oil Stadium Interstate 70

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Santigold

255 W Morris St

Art-pop indie darling Santi White, aka Santigold, makes her first stop in Indy at The Egyptian Room in the Old National Centre.

Santigold is on the road with her latest, Master of My Make Believe, her follow-up to her self-titled debut, released way back in 2008. In that time she’s gone from Santogold to Santigold and participated in some killer collaborations. Master, much like her debut, is an art-rock collage of rock riffs, dub beats and clatter, signature production work by Diplo, and guest shots from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner and Karen O., the latter of whom sings on the rollicking electro-jam “Go.” — MANNY CASILLAS

ROCK ROGER WATERS

Bankers Life Fieldhouse, 125 S. Pennsylvania St. 8:00 p.m., $68.85 - $220.25

Roger Waters will play Pink Floyd’s 1979 concept album, The Wall, in its entirety, in an extremely theatrical production, complete with puppets and the construction of a wall onstage. While some might point out the irony of Waters playing an album inspired by the alienation of stadium touring in stadiums

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and arenas, the focus has shifted from psychological to socio-political. Waters is a pacifist and the anti-war message of the original album and the subsequent film adaptation are brought into sharper focus. This should be an excellent evening for reliving the classic rock phase you went through in high school.

S West St

POP SANTIGOLD

— ANDREW CROWLEY

Tuesday COUNTRY WILLIE NELSON

Murat Theatre at Old National Centre, 502 N. New Jersey St. 7:30 p.m., $35 - $89.75, all-ages

The Red Headed Stranger himself returns to Indianapolis. The perennially touring Nelson recently released a new studio album, Heroes, featuring Nelson covering classic country songs and originals he co-wrote with his son, Lukas Nelson. It also features a cover of Coldplay’s “The Scientist.” Nelson’s lengthy and eclectic career has give him plenty of material to draw upon, so expect to hear classics like “Whiskey River,” “On The Road Again,” and “Crazy” as well as deeper album cuts.

Nelson tours so much, it’s easy to take him for granted and his voice still sounds great, despite Nelson pushing 80 years old. See one of the most gifted singer-songwriters while you still can. — ANDREW CROWLEY

by Wayne Bertsch

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NEWS OF THE WEIRD

Divorce threshold lowered

Plus, photos in the men’s room All U.S. states have forms of no-fault divorce, but not England, which requires that couples prove adultery or abandonment or “unreasonable behavior,” which leads to sometimes-epic weirdness, according to an April New York Times dispatch from London. For instance, one woman’s petition blamed her husband’s insistence that she speak and dress only in Klingon. Other examples of “unreasonable behavior” (gathered by the Times of London): a husband objecting to the “malicious” preparation of his most hated dish (tuna casserole), a spouse’s non-communication for the last 15 years (except by leaving Post-it Notes), a spouse’s too-rapid TV channel-changing, a husband’s distorting the fit of his wife’s best outfits by frequently wearing them, and one’s insistence that a pet tarantula reside in a glass case beside the marital bed.

Compelling Explanations

• Lame: (1) Madison County, Ind., council member David McCartney admitted to the Herald Bulletin newspaper in March that he had exchanged “sexually explicit” emails with a female official in another county but would not resign. In fact, he said, he had engaged in the exchanges not for hanky-panky but in order to “expose corruption.” He has not elaborated. (2) Chris Windham, 27, was charged with improperly photographing a 57-year-old man in a men’s room in Trinity, Texas, in March after Windham, using a stall, allegedly snapped a cellphone photo of the man standing at the adjacent urinal. Windham explained that typically he braces himself with one hand on the floor while he wipes himself, and this time the hand on the floor was holding his cellphone.

• Maureen Raymond, 49, said her roadside DUI test administered in January was unfair. According to records cited

by Scripps Media, she told a deputy in Port St. Lucie, Fla., that she couldn’t walk a straight line “with her big boobies,” which she said makes “balancing” difficult. The deputy reported that Raymond helpfully offered to show him the evidence but that he stopped her.

Things People Believe

• She is not the typical gullible victim.

Ms. Priti Mahalanobis is a college-educated mother of two who ran a franchised restaurant in Avalon Park, Fla., near Orlando, but when her health, her brother’s marriage and her business experienced problems, she bought a $20 psychic reading from “Mrs. Starr” (also known as Peaches Stevens). The Orlando Sentinel reported in January that, over the next seven months, Mahalanobis lost about $135,000 in cash, jewelry and gift cards to Mrs.

44

Starr. Astonishingly, neither Mahalanobis’ health nor her restaurant business noticeably improved! Among the remedies that Mahalanobis accepted: buying seven tabernacles ($19,000 each) to “vanquish (her family’s) negativity” and putting $100 bills and a piece of paper with her relatives’ names written on it under her mattress along with a grapefruit (which, as everyone knows, attracts and then isolates the evil).

Things Leaders Believe

• Though recently elected Councillor Simon Parkes told the Scarborough Evening News in March that his work on the Whitby (England) Town Council would not be affected, he has famously (in a YouTube video) reported lifelong “horrific” invasive encounters with extra-terrestrials, including many visits from a 9-foot-tall, green “mother”-like being who sends him “messages” through his eyes, down his optic nerve to his brain.

• Arni Johnsen, a member of Iceland’s Parliament, survived a serious 2010 automobile crash -- a stroke of good fortune he has since attributed to a family of elves (three generations, in fact, according to an “elf specialist”) who live in a boulder near the crash site. Iceland’s Morgunbladid newspaper reported that Johnsen recently had the 30-ton boulder relocated to his own property, which he said affords the elves a better view than at their previous home. (Another elf “authority” told reporters, however, that relocating the family was bound to bring Johnsen bad luck.)

Ironies

• A three-truck crash on Interstate 40 in Albuquerque, N.M., in May destroyed one truck and sent two people to the hospital with minor injuries. One tractor-trailer carrying a load of charcoal and charcoal lighter fluid crashed into the rear of a tractor-trailer carrying frozen meat. The lighter fluid facilitated a huge fireball/barbecue.

• Only in Muncie: (1) In April, Christina Reber, 43, was charged with assault after she entered the home of her “on-again, off-again” boyfriend in Muncie, Ind., punched him in the head numerous times and squeezed his scrotum until he finally pried her fingers loose. He was taken to Muncie’s Indiana University Health Ball Memorial Hospital. (2) Muncie college student Bakhtiyor Khafizov, 21, was arrested in April for allegedly attacking a former girlfriend in her campus dorm room. The woman said she escaped only by kicking him in the groin. The students attend Ball State University.

Obsession

• Felix Velazquez’s meticulous attention to detail could have served him well in legitimate endeavors, but was unfortunately displayed in a recent attempt to stalk an ex-girlfriend in Broward County, Fla. He had already been to prison for a 2008 stalking when he allegedly devised a fake double kidnapping -- of her and him -- so that he could “rescue” her and win back her affections. According to prosecutors, he created 23 pages of maps, photos and, reported the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, an “encyclopedic amount of detail about (the woman’s) routine, her appearance, friends and driving routes

news of the weird // 06.06.12-06.13.12 // NUVO // 100% RECYCLED PAPER

to work” and thought he had convinced a former cellmate to do the abduction.

However, as frequently happens, the cellmate got queasy and told police, who devised their own elaborate ruse to sting Velazquez. He is awaiting trial.

The Litigious Society

• The family of a 13-year-old girl filed a lawsuit in Queensland, Australia, in April after their daughter, in a physical education tennis class at an upscale private school in Mudgeeraba, was hit in the eye by a bad shot from a fellow 13-year-old.

The injury came as the girls were “smashing” balls back to each other from the baseline during a lesson. (Brisbane’s CourierMail newspaper reported that several schools in Queensland state have banned such “dangerous” schoolyard activities as “cartwheels” and “red rover.”)

• Henry Wolf filed a lawsuit in April in San Francisco against BMW, claiming that the Corbin-Pacific seat on its 1993 motorcycle formed such a “ridge” that Wolf developed painful priapism that has plagued him since he made a four-hour ride in May 2010. (Although the actual length of each priapic episode was not disclosed in the lawsuit’s initial filing.)

Creme de la Weird

• Fetishists on Parade: (1) Gary Paterson, 36, was sentenced to community service and psychotherapy after being convicted of trying to lick clean the shoes of four boys (Glenrothes, Scotland,

January). (2) Robert Van Wagner, 33, was arrested after three girls (ages 12 and 13) told police he asked them to put on socks he gave them and to run around a field so he could watch. (Port St. Lucie, Fla., April) (3) Tetsuya Ichikawa, 50, was arrested after approaching a 25-year-old woman from behind in a restaurant and licking her hair (Shizuoka, Japan, April).

Least Competent Terrorists

• (1) A bomb accidentally exploded on a bus in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in May, killing a man who police suspect was on his way to blow up something else. He was the only person killed, but two suspected associates with him (carrying assault rifles and ammunition) were injured. (2) In April, Mohammad Ashan, described by U.S. officials as a “mid-level Taliban commander” in Paktika province, Afghanistan, walked up to a police checkpoint with a wanted poster of himself (offering a $100 cash reward) and turned himself in -- for the money. Ashan was arrested following a biometric scan to verify his identity. “Yes, yes, that’s me,” he reportedly said. “Can I get my award now?”

Thanks This Week to Don Schullian, Chris James, Gale Walters, Scott Huber, Jakob Derksen, Jim Colucci, Pete Randall, Steve Dunn, and Mike Mendenhall, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

©2012 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@ earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.

TO ADVERTISE: Phone: (317) 808-4609 E-mail: acassel@nuvo.net Mail: Classifieds 3951 N. Meridian St., Suite 200 Indianapolis, Indiana 46208

PAYMENT, & ADVERTISING DEADLINE All ads are prepaid in full by Monday at 5 P.M. Nuvo gladly accepts Cash, Money Order, & All Major Credit Cards.

POLICIES: Advertiser warrants that all goods or services advertised in NUVO are permissible under applicable local, state and federal la ws. Advertisers and hired advertising agencies are liable for all content (including text, representation and illustration) of advertisements and are res ponsible, without limitation, for any and all claims made thereof against NUVO, its officers or employees. Classified ad space is limited and granted on a first come, first served basis. To qualify for an adjustment, any error must be reported within 15 days of publication date. Credit for errors is limited to first insertion.

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TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Diamonds are symbols of elegant beauty, which is why they’re often used in jewelry. But 80 percent of the world’s diamonds have a more utilitarian function. Because they’re so hard and have such high thermal conductivity, they are used extensively as cutting, grinding, and polishing tools, and have several other industrial applications. Now let’s apply this 20/80 proportion to you, Taurus. Of your FINANCIAL SERVICES talents and abilities, no more than 20 percent need be on display. The rest is consumed in the diligent DROWNING IN DEBT? detail work that goes on in the background -- the Ask us how we can help.

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): If your destiny has gotten tweaked by bias or injustice, it’s a good time to rebel. If you are being manipulated by people who care for you -- even if it’s allegedly for your own good -- you now have the insight and power necessary to wriggle free of the bind.

If you have been confused by the mixed messages you’re getting from your own unconscious mind, you should get to the bottom of the inner contradiction.

And if you have been wavering in your commitment to your oaths, you’d better be intensely honest with yourself about why that’s happening.

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GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The pain you will feel in the coming week will be in direct proportion to the love you suppress and withhold. So if you let your love flow as freely as a mountain spring in a rainstorm, you may not have to deal with any pain at all. What’s that you say? You claim that being strategic about how you express your affection gives you strength and protection? Maybe that’s true on other occasions, but it’s not applicable now. “Unconditional” and “uninhibited” are your words of power.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): What actions best embody the virtue of courage?

Fighting on the battlefield as a soldier?

Speaking out against corruption and injustice?

Climbing a treacherous peak or riding a raft through rough river water? Certainly all those qualify. But French architect Fernand Pouillon had another perspective. He said, “Courage lies in being oneself, in showing complete independence, in loving what one loves, in discovering the deep roots of one’s feelings.” That’s exactly the nature of the bravery you are best able to draw on right now, Cancerian. So please do draw on it in abundance.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In his book The Four Insights, author Alberto Villoldo tells LAWN CARE the following story: “A traveler comes ROGER’S STUMP GRINDING, LLC across two stonecutters. He asks the first, ‘What are Insured, Free Estimates, BUSH you doing?’ and receives the reply, ‘Squaring the REMOVAL! stone.’ He then walks over to the second stonecutKyle: 317-503-9413 ter and asks, ‘What are you doing?’ and receives the reply, ‘I am building a cathedral.’ In other words, both men are performing the same task, but one of them is aware that he has the choice to be part of a greater dream.” By my astrological reckoning, Leo, it’s quite important for you to be like that second stonecutter in the months ahead. I suggest you start now to ensure that outcome.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Harpo Marx was part of the famous Marx Brothers comedy team that made 13 movies. He was known as the silent one. While in his character’s persona, he never spoke, but only communicated through pantomime and by whistling, blowing a horn, or playing the harp. In real life, he could talk just fine. He traced the origin of his shtick to an early theatrical performance he had done.

A review of the show said that he “performed beautiful pantomime which was ruined whenever he spoke.” So in other words, Harpo’s successful career was shaped in part by the inspiration he drew from a critic. I invite you to make a similar move, Virgo: Capitalize on some negative feedback or odd mirroring you’ve received.

rassing truths they compel you to acknowledge? Or are you a vivacious lover of life who welcomes the way cosmic jokes expand your mind and help you lose your excessive self-importance and show you possible solutions you haven’t previously imagined?

I hope you’re in the latter category, because sometime in the near future, fate has arranged for you to be in the vicinity of a divine comedy routine. I’m not kidding when I tell you that the harder and more frequently you laugh, the more you’ll learn.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In addition to being an accomplished astrophysicist and philosopher, Arthur Eddington (18821944) possessed mad math skills. Legend has it that he was one of only three people on the planet who actually comprehended Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. That’s a small level of appreciation for such an important set of ideas, isn’t it? On the other hand, most people I know would be happy if there were as many as three humans in the world who truly understood them. In accordance with the astrological omens, I suggest you make that one of your projects in the next 12 months: to do whatever you can to ensure there are at least three people who have a detailed comprehension of and appreciation for who you really are.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Yesterday the sun was shining at the same time it was raining, and my mind turned to you. Today I felt a surge of tenderness for a friend who has been making me angry, and again I thought of you. Tomorrow maybe I will sing sad songs when I’m cheerful, and go for a long walk when I’m feeling profoundly lazy. Those events, too, would remind me of you. Why? Because you’ve been experimenting with the magic of contradictions lately. You’ve been mixing and matching with abandon, going up and down at the same time, and exploring the pleasures of changing your mind. I’m even tempted to speculate that you’ve been increasing your ability to abide with paradox. Keep up the good work. I’m sure it’s a bi t weird at times, but it’ll ultimately make you even smarter than you already are.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Be on the alert for valuable mistakes you could capitalize on. Keep scanning the peripheries for evidence that seems out of place; it might be useful. Do you see what I’m driving at, Capricorn?

Accidental revelations could spark good ideas.

Garbled communication might show you the way to desirable detours. Chance meetings might initiate conversations that will last a long time. Are you catching my drift? Follow any lead that seems witchy or itchy. Be ready to muscle your way in through doors that are suddenly open just a crack.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): An article in the Weekly World News reported on tourists who toast marshmallows while sitting on the rims of active volcanoes. As fun as this practice might be, however, it can expose those who do it to molten lava, suffocating ash, and showers of burning rocks. So I wouldn’t recommend it to you, Aquarius. But I do encourage you to try some equally boisterous but less hazardous adventures. The coming months will be prime time for you to get highly imaginative in your approach to exploration, amusement, and pushing beyond your previous limits. Why not get started now?

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): According to my reading of the astrological omens, you would be smart to get yourself a new fertility symbol. Not because I think you should encourage or seek out a literal pregnancy. Rather, I’d like to see you cultivate a more aggressively playful relationship with your creativity -- energize it on deep unconscious levels so it will spill out into your daily routine and tincture everything you do. If you suspect my proposal has some merit, be on the lookout for a talisman, totem, or toy that fecundates your imagination.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): What is your relationship with cosmic jokes, Libra? Do you feel offended by the secrets they spill and the ignorance they expose and the slightly embarHomework: Upon waking up for the next seven mornings, sing a song that fills you with feisty hope. To report results, go to RealAstrology.com and click on “Email Rob.”

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