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NEWS 4 EDUCATION Classen SAS and

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E D U C AT I O N

Classen School of Advanced Studies will expand into two campuses; Northeast Academy will house the high school. | Photo Alexa Ace

Comet city

Oklahoma City Public Schools’ Pathway to Greatness plan is expanding Classen School of Advanced Studies to the Northeast Academy building. By Miguel Rios

Principals Scot McAdoo and Chris Thomas are working together to help merge Classen School of Advanced Studies with Northeast Academy (NEA), but some feel it will not be equitable. The merge is part of Pathway to Greatness, a plan to improve equity and efficiency at Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS). The current Classen building, 1901 N. Ellison Ave., will serve fifth- through eighth-grade students, while the NEA building, 3100 N. Kelley Ave., will serve ninth- through 12thgrade students. “We’re excited about the opportunity for our school to expand,” said McAdoo, who has been serving as the Classen principal and will lead the new NEA. “That’s going to provide extra opportunities for our students. We’ve always kind of been limited by enrollment in this building, and now moving to two campuses allows us those extra opportunities.”

Two campuses

Thomas, the Andrew Johnson Elementary School principal who is transitioning to Classen SAS Middle School, said he is excited to join the school. Despite living in the same neighborhood, he said he never really understood the full grasp of its academics. “As I see those nuts and bolts, my admiration for the program just increases, and my excitement level increases by being a part of that,” he said. “I’ve been kind of playing around with #CometCity because I feel like the school and our ‘one vision, two campuses’ kind of encompasses the whole metro area. I mean, we are going to be a comet city; 4

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this is a magnet for the city.” According to OKCPS superintendent Sean McDaniel, NEA will adopt the Classen curriculum, comet mascot and colors, effectively starting a new chapter in the building’s historic eight decades. “[Northeast Academy] will officially become Classen SAS High School, and their curriculum, colors and mascot will follow,” McDaniel wrote in an email to Oklahoma Gazette. “That said, OKCPS will honor our commitment to current Northeast students by exploring options that will allow them to continue with their health sciences, ROTC and MetroTech programs that currently exist. We also look forward to working closely with Northeast families and alumni to honor the legacy and traditions of Northeast High School during this transition.” McAdoo said he is excited to welcome more students into the Classen family. “We’ve connected with the Northeast staff and students to make sure that they feel welcomed into what is kind of a challenging situation; it must be for them. We’re going to go into their building and they are going to come into our program, so that kind of creates a unique opportunity,” McAdoo said. “With that said, we’ve already developed some relationships between our student leadership group and their student leadership group.” District 5 board of education member Ruth Veales, who represents NEA, said students seem excited but parents and alumni feel like they have not been heard. “The parents have been in communication with the alumni, and they have

concerns as far as the naming of the school. They feel that there have been promises for conversation regarding having that discussion. … They are not opposed to the merger, but it is just the name and they’re concerned about the history of their school and the autonomy of students that went there before,” she said. “They feel that they have not been included in the conversation.” She said the history of NEA, which was established in 1936 and played a big role in integrating OKCPS, is important and wishes the school had received the support it deserved. “As I have even described it, ‘We’re going to come into your house and completely wipe out all of your members of your house.’ That too brings concerns because we identify with our history,” Veales said. “If you have the support system necessary, you have greater chances to have the success. The history of [NEA] is that they have had that greatness when they had the support that was necessary for them, but because of the lack thereof, we’re in the position that we are now.” Ward 7 councilwoman Nikki Nice, an NEA alumna and city council representative for the surrounding communities, said collaboration between the two schools is nothing new. “Classen students would participate in extracurricular activities with us,” she said. “It wasn’t uncommon for us to interact with Classen students at the time. However, now, when we’re looking at just a complete name change — erasing the name of Northeast to make it Classen — I don’t think that’s something that helps to celebrate the history or the memory of the many things that have been accomplished at Northeast and under the Viking name and under the relationship that had already previously been established between the two schools.” Nice said the concerns over the history, name and mascot are not just from parents and alumni but also from students. “Those ideals are things that [students] take to heart and they take to mind when it comes to making decisions, so it’s not just a parent situation,” she said. “I think that’s where the disconnect is for anyone with the school board to say that because when you have people who have been in the Oklahoma City Public Schools, you get it; you understand why your school name is the way it is, you understand why your community is surrounded by that particular school and what it stands for. … Where is the equity when it comes to the community students to be a part of this process when it comes to Northeast? “No one wants anything negative to happen when it comes to students because education is first. As long as education is successful, it’s going to be a very positive impact, but if you do not have young people that live across the street that are able to attend the school

that sits in their backyard — that is a very negative impact on any community.”

One vision

NEA has a variety of college preparatory programs and career academies in health sciences and engineering, but come August, the school will adopt Classen’s international baccalaureate diploma program and visual and performing arts program. “The district is accommodating the closing of that building by allowing Northeast students at that magnet school to attend Classen,” said McAdoo. “Those students completed an application to attend that Northeast biomedical/engineering academy, and this is their next opportunity.” McAdoo, who once served as NEA principal, said they will hold Northeast students to the same high standards as Classen students. “I’m not talking about some distant reality. I served in the building, and I really connected with a lot of those kids,” he said. “They are not responsible for what has happened to Northeast over the past five or six years. … But I do know this: Classen’s program has a legacy of being one of the top schools, certainly in the state and even nationally. And when those kids come over, we have high expectations, a high level of rigor in our instructional programs. … That will extend our Northeast students who, in many cases, applied here and got accepted years ago and decided to go to Northeast because of their location and transportation.”

from left Chris Thomas will lead Classen SAS Middle School while Scot McAdoo will lead the high school. | Photo Miguel Rios

Nice hopes NEA’s long history is never forgotten. She also acknowledged various alumni who went on to have prosperous careers. “To hear that there are some that are part of the school board that say another name and not Northeast looks better on a resume for students is very disappointing to hear,” she said. “I’m a proud alum of Northeast High School, and I know many others are proud alums; and we proudly display that on resumes and talk about it wherever we go because it is a fabric of who we are.”

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Child care

State and city officials reaffirmed April as Child Abuse Prevention Month, and local organizations are working to increase awareness. By Miguel Rios

April has been Child Abuse Prevention Month since the ’80s, but state and city leaders are making it a point to support the designation. Mayor David Holt and Gov. Kevin Stitt each issued proclamations about child abuse prevention recently. “Because of all the attention that’s been given to this, not just nationwide but statewide, more people who develop policy at city, state, local level, they’re starting to understand that they have a role too,” said Cindy Allen, Parent Promise external relations director. “Public policy has a role in helping raise resilient kids.” Parent Promise is a nonprofit organization working to prevent neglect and abuse of Oklahoma children through voluntary “home-based family support programs” for new and expecting parents and families with children up to 12 years old. With a network of hospitals, faith-based groups and community partners, referrals to and from Parent Promise help hundreds of families a year. Executive director Sherry Fair often advocates for better funding at the state Capitol. “Right now, the health department is only able to allocate $2 million to about nine providers,” she said. “At one point in time, they were able to allocate $6 million to about 24 providers that served all 77 counties. And I know that we can’t just sit down this year and go back up to that, but I want them to understand that if we can just allocate money to the health department a little bit more … maybe these numbers on the back end, such as being No. 1 in incarcerated women in the world, will start going down.” Allen and Fair estimate Parent Promise has helped approximately a

thousand families since 2010; they cross-reference their client names with Department of Human Services (DHS) to determine their level of success based on substantiated cases of abuse and neglect and have found a 95 percent success rate. “We really work on the front end in prevention in order to save money on the back end,” Fair said. “To become a top 10 state like Gov. Stitt wants to, it’s a real important investment to make on the front end.”

Oklahoma efforts

Parent Promise, which serves as the state chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America, addresses adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which are negative experiences that happen to a child before they turn 18. An ACEs score is determined by 10 questions; “yes” answers to any question constitute a point, with 10 being highest and worst score. Oklahoma’s average ACEs score is 4. Children with high ACEs scores tend to have more issues at school, have more aggressive tendencies, engage in risky behavior, have trouble sleeping, deal with mental illness or depression and are at higher risks of things like strokes and heart disease. “We don’t outright give the test, but because we’re in the home on a regular basis and we formed this relationshipbased service … our parent educators will start to see that, ‘Oh, there’s an ACE and here’s an ACE,’” Fair said. “If you can give a child a positive beginning, they’ll have a much more positive trajectory in life.” When teachers, principals or any adult with authority learns about ACEs, they begin to think of the children differently. What might have caused one

Businesses around the state, like Oklahoma County Juvenile Center, are planting pinwheel gardens, the official symbol of Prevent Child Abuse America. | Photo Alexa Ace

to simply ask, “What’s wrong?” now makes them think about what is going on in that child’s life. “District Attorney David Prater has talked several times before, and he said that when he started understanding the ACEs, it really made him look at the people that he was prosecuting much differently,” Fair said. “He would see those fathers standing there and realize, ‘What was going on in their lives that they’re now here before me and I’m about ready to send them to jail?’” Oklahoma State Department of Health’s (OSDH) 2019-2023 plan for preventing child abuse and neglect lists infrastructure, resources, community involvement and knowledge strategies to tackle the issue. “Child maltreatment is a frequent occurrence and has been on the rise in Oklahoma in recent years,” the report reads. “The number of Oklahoma children confirmed to be victims of abuse and neglect in [state fiscal year] 2017 was more than double that of confirmed victims in SFY 2010, increasing from 7,248 to 15,289.” According to Oklahoma DHS’ 2018 annual report, there were almost 16,000 confirmed victims of child abuse, neglect or both. The OSDH plan identifies lead organizations — Parent Promise, Systems of Care, Head Start, local schools, community organizations, university research programs and faith-based groups — that help alleviate the problem. Another organization targeting the issue is Child Abuse Response and Evaluation (CARE) Center, which mainly focuses on healing after abuse or neglect but also offers prevention education. “We are serving thousands of kids a year, and total, our overall 2018 impact, we served almost 12,000 families and children,” CARE CEO Stacy McNeiland said. “We’re dealing with the worst of worst cases of abuse; this is the most

severe situation in Oklahoma County. … We receive referrals from children within the 24- to 48-hour time period; it’s a real critical time period after significant abuse happens. We’re working in the investigative, research collection stage as well as that healing component to serving children and their families.” CARE Center, which will be expanding soon, is made up of investigators, service workers, assistant district attorneys and medical, counseling and family advocacy personnel. According to its website, it’s Oklahoma County’s only child advocacy center dedicated to helping children heal after abuse. However, it also focuses on advocacy and educational services to help identify and prevent neglect and abuse. “There’s not a lot of areas where you can walk up to a building and say, ‘Hey, what education classes are there?’ or, ‘I’m worried about my child and her internet usage. Do you have a class for that?’ and be able to look at something and get immediate assistance and help on that,” McNeiland said. Local leaders will promote child abuse prevention throughout the month with various activities. Exchange clubs of OKC will present the annual display of flags on the state Capitol; government officials will have a press conference and ceremony 8:30 a.m. April 23, and flags will be displayed through April 29. “Every positive outcome we say we want in the state of Oklahoma begins with raising healthy and resilient kids; it’s just that simple,” Allen said. “When you look at the outcomes that we are unfortunately known for, those begin with children at a very young age not getting the care that they needed.” “That’s why you want the state and municipalities to really look at funding projects like this,” Fair said.

left Sherry Fair, Parent Promise executive director, emphasizes that it is everybody’s responsibility all year long to help prevent child abuse. below Cindy Allen, external relations director, said providing children with great childhoods sets them on a positive trajectory in life. | Photos Miguel Rios

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Getting clean

Oklahoma’s $270 million settlement with Purdue Pharmaceuticals is a step toward fighting the state’s opioid epidemic. By Nikita Lewchuk

Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the company currently paying dues for the severity and scale of the current nationwide opioid epidemic, recently settled a lawsuit with the state of Oklahoma. The terms of the settlement include Purdue’s payment of $270 million to be used for research on addiction, particularly concerning opioids. This case is the first of its kind but not the last: In Ohio, there are almost two dozen companies facing over a thousand collective charges relating to opioid deaths. Oklahoma’s settlement raises questions about the future of pharmaceutical companies and the role they will play in the aftermath of this epidemic. The $270 million price tag for the state of Oklahoma is only the beginning. This case represents a small fraction of the impact the company has had on the country as a whole. Oklahoma currently stands at 10.2 deaths per 100,000 people, but addiction and fatality rates vary across the nation. The opioid epidemic has hit the Appalachian region particularly hard. West Virginia is among the most severely affected states in the nation; the opioid-related death rate is 49.6 deaths per 100,000 people — over three times the national average of 14.6. If Purdue and other companies are expected to pay comparable settlements to other states, it might well render them insolvent. The Sackler family that owns Purdue has an estimated net worth of roughly $13 billion and has made billions of dollars off the opioid crisis, but even that might not be enough to satisfy the more than 1,500 local and state governments that currently have lawsuits filed against Purdue. Just days after the lawsuit was settled, major

news outlets were already circulating claims that Purdue was considering filing for bankruptcy. Then there is the hidden reality of the opioid epidemic: Even if it were possible to rein in Big Pharma companies like Purdue, synthetic opioids are only part of the problem. Since 2012, the rate of opioid prescription in Oklahoma has decreased by 30 percent, from 127 prescriptions per 100 people, to 101.5 in 2017. In contrast, death rates from heroin and synthetic opioids have risen since 2012. Heroin is often cheaper and more accessible than prescription opioids. According to a 2009 study by National Institute on Drug Abuse, 86 percent of young urban drug injectors reported using opioids before trying heroin. Limiting prescriptions will not address those who transition from prescription opioids to heroin to satisfy their needs. The science of addiction has seen several breakthroughs in the past decade. The view of addiction as a disease rather than a choice has been steadily gaining ground, and rehabilitation centers are gradually beginning to treat patients with a medical focus rather than a moral one. In response, governments at state and federal levels have instituted programs to combat both facets of the problem. In 2016 and 2017, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded close to $13 million to 30 states, including Oklahoma, to track and report overdose data through a program called Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance. This is one part of a five-point plan put forth by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2017. Along with gaining a better understanding of the crisis through surveillance, the DHH’s

| Photo bigstock.com

other four priorities are improving access to treatment services, increasing availability of overdose-reversing drugs, funding research on pain and addiction and developing a healthier approach to pain management.

Limiting prescriptions will not address those who transition from prescription opioids to heroin to satisfy their needs. In many places, Oklahoma is seeing significant improvement. There were 444 deaths involving prescription opioids in 2012, and 251 such deaths in 2017. Part of this is due to overdose reversal medications such as naloxone, which comes in three different forms: a syringe that can be administered by medical staff, a selfadministered syringe like those used to treat allergies and a nasal spray. Oklahoma has placed particular emphasis on ensuring people have access to these drugs; Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association received a donation from multiple state agencies in February allowing it to equip sheriffs in all 77 counties with naloxone. Oklahoma also recently instituted a program allowing people age 19 and younger access to naloxone in nasal spray form free of charge if they or someone they know is at risk. State attorney general Mike Hunter, who brought the lawsuit against Purdue, made the opioid crisis a major point during his campaign and quickly moved to establish a statewide commission con-

cerning opioids. Authored by state Rep. Chris Kannady, R-Oklahoma City, and Senator Roger Thompson, R-Okemah, House Bill 2368 that would establish Oklahoma Commission on Opioid Abuse, passed the House by a vote of 25-2 in February. The bill is now in the Senate and has been passed by the appropriations and health and human services committees. While needles and syringes are also classified as drug paraphernalia in other states, most have exceptions that permit needle exchange programs specifically. Needle exchanges are often classified as “harm reduction programs.” However, Oklahoma is one of only 11 states to have no sterile syringe exchange programs (SSPs). In fact, under Oklahoma law, needles and syringes are classified as “drug paraphernalia” and regulated as such, so SSPs are not legal in Oklahoma. In an effort to reduce the spread of blood-borne diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, most states have SSPs that offer clean needles in exchange for dirty ones. Not only do these programs decrease the amount of needle sharing in these areas, it also decreases the number of dirty needles on the streets, as injection drug users are motivated to find and collect dirty needles to exchange. The regional disparity in number and legality of exchange programs is staggering. Both Kansas and Texas have provisions in their laws outlawing SSPs, and of the 11 states without such programs, only Idaho and the Dakotas are located outside the southern Midwest. In contrast, New Mexico has the highest SSP-to-population ratio in the country. With a population of just over 2 million, New Mexico has 32 SSPs — a number second only to California’s 43 with a population of almost 40 million. New Mexico’s harm reduction program is run by its state department of health and includes SSPs, naloxone distribution and classes on how to administer it. The opioid epidemic is a complicated phenomenon decades in the making. The response will have to be equally as thorough and multifaceted. The $270 million is one aspect of this recovery process, and while Oklahoma has a lot to be proud of in how it has handled policy and litigation, it still has a long way to go before the work is done. Nikita Lewchuk is a senior at Harding Charter Preparatory High School. He is currently a reporting intern at Oklahoma Gazette. | Photo provided

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Poo lagoon

According to no less an authority than urbandictionary.com user The Mad Shitter, an “upper decker” is “the act of defecating in the upper tank of the toilet” so that “when the next poor unsuspecting person flushes the toilet they get a bowl of [excrement].” The town of Carlton Landing has been pulling a large-scale variation on this baseball-themed party prank, dumping millions of gallons of untreated water from its sewage lagoons into Lake Eufaula, according to a report released last month by news website The Frontier. According to the report, “Carlton Landing had been warned for years about problems with storm water flowing into its sewage system that caused its lagoons to rapidly fill, unlined lagoons and torn liners in lagoons that allowed water to seep from the system, and ‘bypasses’ or discharges from the lagoon system.” After repeated warnings about insufficiencies in the lagoon system, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality issued a consent order to Carlton Landing’s water district last year. The order required the district to make improvements to the system’s lagoon liners — which were either missing or damaged, allowing the stored wastewater to seep into the ground — and to submit plans for a new treatment facility capable of adequately storing and treating the wastewater created by the residents of Carlton Landing’s approximately 260 homes. The terms of the order, according to The Frontier, were agreed upon in February 2018, but before they were scheduled to go into effect less than two months later, “the Carlton Landing Rural Water District intentionally pumped approximately 3 million gallons of water out of its sewage lagoons and into Lake Eufaula” not far from where “the Longtown community’s Pittsburg County Rural Water District #1 draws drinking water.” Among the district’s customers is Carlton Landing’s own water district. Whoops! That’s like upper decker-ing the office water cooler then forgetting about it and having a glass.

Open arms

In a series of events that once again prove that pretty much every national conversation can be tied back to Oklahoma, it was revealed last week that the tiny Porter Consolidated School district is at least partly responsible for that brief few weeks when it looked like the federal government might spend money to arm its teachers. This should be filed under the “Wait. That actually makes sense” tab here at the Chicken-Fried News office because the Porter School Consolidated District, which includes an elementary school and combined middle and high school in Porter— a town of less than a thousand people in Wagoner County — does allow school staff to be armed. Last August, national news outlets reported that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was considering a plan to use federal money for school districts to spend on guns as a safety measure following mass school shootings in Houston and Florida. A Freedom of Information request by multiple non-governmental organizations revealed that the request for funding firearms training came from three schools in Texas and Porter Superintendent Charles McMahan, according to The Oklahoman. “We have implemented an armed staff policy at my school and was wondering if there is any money or grants

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that could help with our training,” McMahan wrote in the email, according to The Oklahoman. Oklahoma is one of more than 20 states in the country that allows teachers to have concealed weapons, though it is up to local school districts. McMahan told The Oklahoman that staff is required to go through extensive training — more than law enforcement — if they are going to pack heat in the classroom. McMahan said he’d spent more than $4,000 of his own money on training and ammunition for a security measure that he said is important, especially for rural communities where first responders take longer to reach in time of an emergency. McMahan might be onto something for getting necessary school funding.

Since the Legislature missed the April 1 deadline for proper education funding (again), perhaps if they labeled boxes of books with “guns” instead, they would have a chance to be fully funded.

Boys clubbing

A state representative’s first week of the legislative session was bogged down by sexism. In the sea of white affluent men that is the Oklahoma Capitol, Chicken-Fried News is disappointed but not terribly surprised. State Rep. Kelly Albright ran a successful campaign and beat her Republican opponent by about 5 percent of the vote, but men on both sides of the aisle diminish her presence as a lawmaker with their actions. Albright took to her personal Facebook page in February to vent about the series of microaggressions she faced in just one week. She recently sat down with KFOR to discuss diversity at the capitol further. Most of the actions boil down to male colleagues being surprised that she is even a representative. And before you ask why our politicians are not caught up on who their fellow members of the Legislature are … well, we are not actually sure, but they could probably mansplain it to all of us and somehow blame

Albright in the process. Our guess is they simply do not care. Other actions include male colleagues giving unsolicited advice and even taking credit for a bill Albright authored. Some might wonder what the big deal is with giving her advice, and it is really very simple: She did not ask for it. While she might look young and (gasp) be a woman, Albright is an adult who knows what she is doing, and – based on what running a campaign is like – she is probably willing to ask for help when she needs it. The representative even almost got escorted off the floor while preparing to present a citation. A sergeant approached her and asked if she was a legislative assistant because as we know in the year of our lord 2019, women are only around to assist the men. Yeah, no. Albright said it best on Facebook: “My fellow female colleagues and I did not come here to be pretty adornments in the landscape of white men. We did not come here to be undermined and underestimated. We came here to be a beacon for the marginalized, to demand an audience for a perspective that has been sorely missing in that building.”

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COV E R

THE HIGH CULTURE

Canna culture

Oklahoma City celebrates its first legal 420. By Matt Dinger

Oklahoma City is preparing for its first 420 after the passage of State Question 788. And how. Cox Convention Center hosts CannaCon April 18-19, with several events — including Chronic Palooza — on the day itself. For years, 420 has been synonymous with cannabis culture, with 4:20 p.m. being the designated time for many a smoking session, and the biggest celebration itself occurring April 20.

CannaCon is absolutely a business-to-business cannabis show. Nick Smart But where did this tradition originate? The legend goes that five high school students at San Rafael High School in Marin County, California, coined the term. The boys, who called themselves The Waldos, would meet at a statue of Louis Pasteur located near the entrance of the school’s parking lot. Already cannabis enthusiasts, they heard about a nearby pot patch and met after class and after-school activities at 4:20 p.m. to go on a treasure hunt, according to a story published in the December 1988 edition of High Times magazine. Over the years, The Waldos kept using the phrase, which eventually transferred into the fan culture of The Grateful Dead and, eventually, across the world. The tradition has long been carried in Oklahoma, but this will be the first year of a legal medical program. The first of two CannaCons to be held in Oklahoma City this year precedes the smokers’ holiday. While vendor space sold out a month before the event, tickets are still available. CannaCon is a business-to-business conference featuring 225 vendors and dozens of seminars over two days. Tickets are $40-$70 for entry to the expo or $100-$150 for entry and access to the seminars. “We have to be clear about one thing,” said Nick Smart, CannaCon CEO. “This show isn’t great for the general public. That’s not what CannaCon is for. CannaCon is absolutely a business-to-business cannabis show. We have maybe 10 percent of our exhibitors that will even sell directly to the public, and so I would say that the Chief Peace is one of the featured performers at Chronic Palooza. | Photo provided

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biggest reason to go as a patient is because Oklahoma is the very first show that we’ve actually really signed up growers and store owners to be exhibitors at the show. I know that consumers do come to our show, and there’s a huge reason for a home grower to come to our show, because you’re never going to find the kind of lights that you can find for your tent. You’re never going to be able to find the kind of genetics. If you want seeds, there is no way you’re going to have a chance to buy better seeds than in two days at CannaCon, and that’s the truth. We have 20 seed vendors, dude. That alone should get every single person in Oklahoma who has any interest in cannabis to fucking come down there and buy a pack of seeds. Go get a light. Go get a tent. Go do it. Go to a couple of our growing seminars; learn how to do some home growing so you can grow your own medicine so that you don’t have to spend an incredible

amount of money. ... Because I don’t feel like you shouldn’t have to spend money on cannabis that you don’t grow yourself in a 4x4 tent, and we’re going to teach you how to do that to where you can feel comfortable doing it at your home, where you don’t have to feel like you need to be a rocket scientist to do this. If you don’t know a lot about something that you really do want to know a lot about, there’s more information in those two days than you’re going to find in a year of the internet because you actually get to talk to people that are in the industry that get to give you information on what they might need.” But hooking cannabis business owners up with national brands and industry leaders is the primary purpose of CannaCon. “You can do it the hard way,” he said. “Use antiquated technology and antiquated ideas and it’ll take you 10 years to get where the West Coast is. Or you can spend the money and do it the right way the first time and our vendors will teach you how to do that or seminars will teach you how to do that and you’re not going to have to wait that 10 years. It’s still gonna take a year or so to get consistent product and to get consistent testing and to get consistent marketing, but that’s really what CannaCon is going

to bring. ... It’s like a high-tech, 21stcentury way to grow a plant, and you have information at your fingertips because that’s the world that we live in. You don’t have to be this guy that has 100 years of experience to grow really good pot. But, see, that’s just like the tip of the iceberg with cannabis. What we’re also going to bring a lot of our industrial hemp and CBD and things that have nothing to do with the plant. You still need a lot of other things like really good accountants, like really good lawyers, like really good software, really good marketing companies. And so you’re going to see all that too.” CannaCon returns to Oklahoma City in September. “We’re coming right back to the Cox Center in Oklahoma City. We have to. We have 70 people on a waiting list right now of vendors that couldn’t get into the show because we’ve been sold out for a month,” Smart said. “It’s been surprising, and a lot of things don’t surprise us in this industry anymore. This is our 14th show. We’ve been doing it for over six years. And we’ve seen a lot, but nothing like what Oklahoma’s doing. I think when all the dust settles, it could definitely be the most profitable medical state in the country. And then once you guys decide to legalize everything, then we’ll see where the chips fall. We love everyone from Oklahoma. Everyone that we’ve talked to has been incredible. Every vendor that is from Oklahoma has been awesome. Every person that we’ve sold a ticket to that’s called has been nothing but great. I really can’t say that we could be received better than we have been in Oklahoma.” But all work and no play makes for a dull 420, and that’s where Lucky’s Grow Supply and Chronic Palooza comes in.

Spring Sesh

Lucky’s Grow Supply, 7507 Broadway Extension, hosts its first 4/20 Spring Sesh 10 a.m.-7 p.m. April 20. Since Lucky’s does not sell seeds, plants or flower, it can allow consumption on premises and will have its 710 Bus outside. “710 is ‘oil’ backwards, and so we’re basically turning it into a dab bus,” owner

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John Degerness said. “It’s packed with booths from a restaurant. It’s sitting outside our store all the time. That’s our place people go just to get high.” There will be aerial burlesque performances and glass-blowing demonstrations as well as local DJs and the OklaHomeGrown art show and live art. A free cookout with Schwab & Co. begins around 11 a.m. and ends in the late afternoon. “I’m flying somebody down, a buddy of mine that’s a chef up in Seattle, to do the cookout,” Degerness said. The sauces will be infused with THC. Several vendors from CannaCon will be on-site, and there will be hourly giveaways throughout the day. At 4:20 p.m., Lucky’s will give away a full tent setup. When the event ends, there is an after-party at Kat’s Tavern, 901 NW 64th St., which Degerness said has a patient-friendly patio.

Chronic Palooza

Chronic Palooza is noon-10 p.m. April 20 at State Fair Park, 3001 General Pershing Blvd. In addition to two buildings with vendors, there will also be continuous outdoor performances by dozens of entertainers. Attendance is free with registration. The lineup includes Ngaio Bealum from Netflix’s Cooking on High, and Moore native Chief Peace is driving in from Los Angeles to perform. Other featured musicians and comedians include Felina & The Feels, The New Tribe, MEMG, Maralen Pennyfeather, L Smooth, Wub Wub, Tig Blues, Mike Cloud, Be Low, Deezy, Ice Black, Pineapple Stro, Redzone, Down Periscope, Yak Let It Bang Ent, Last Sayso, Troy Allen Band, Analgestic, Gage Mainus, Lenny Vanhorn, Jenny Godwin, Justin Keithley, Niccolo Birkitt and Angel Superstud. “Being a native-born, raised person from here in Oklahoma getting into the industry and also having some other businesses that I’ve launched in the marijuana industry, I was like, ‘You continued on page 14

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know what? I want to do something that’s more patient-driven, that’s more community-driven, that’s not about big business,’” organizer Carri Lawrence said. “There’s tons of people that are doing these business-to-business events that are focusing on the big corporations or the bigger companies, but there’s not a lot of people that were focusing mainly on the patients and the community and stuff like that, so I just kind of decided to go for it. So I launched it and started marketing it and got on with the State Fair and got them to approve us to come out there.” Originally, Lawrence set out to have vendors and a patient drive in one building, but the event has quickly expanded. “I wanted to do the largest patient drive in the state because everybody was doing great patient drive and clinics, but they’re able to do so much in a day and it seems like a lot of people can’t make it out for whatever reason or just various different things. So I was like, ‘Well, I want to have multiple doctors.’ So we’ve got over 15 doctors set up to go, and so we plan on having

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the largest patient drive in the state. But actually, we went up and we’re looking at the Guinness Book of World Records, and I don’t think anyone’s trying to do this, so we’re actually trying to make a Guinness Book world record to have the largest patient drive for medical marijuana,” she said. “At first, the Fair was only going to allow us to have [people] 18 and older, and then I guess they had a change of decision on that and they opened it up where it could be for the children as well, as long as they are accompanied by adults. So now it’s open to the entire community. Then I’ve also added some doctors who are pediatric to the lineup so we can help get the children their medical recommendations also.” The fee for regular patients will be $100, with discounted recommendations for veterans at $80. “It’s gotten so big and growing so well that we actually added the Modern Living building as well. So now we’re at 40-45,000 square feet of vendor space. And then we went ahead and added all the live bands outside, so I’ve got a lineup of over 20 artists performing,” Lawrence said.

Ngaio Bealum

Oklahoma City has a special guest the

CannaCon 2019 in Seattle | Photo provided

week of April 20. Comedian and cannabis activist Ngaio Bealum will be in the city for four days. Bealum will be attending but not performing at CannaCon and visiting as many of the city’s dispensaries as he can fit into his schedule, and then he will make a special appearance at Chronic Palooza. Bealum has been involved in a hybrid career of cannabis activism and comedy since the 1990s. In addition to being a regular on Netflix’s Cooking on High that debuted in summer 2018, he also just returned from the International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin. He will attend the festival’s 4:20 p.m. patient appreciation award presentation and present a patient award and then perform a brief set. “Like an appetizer set,” Bealum said. “It’s a teaser set.” The evening of April 20, he headlines 4/20 with Ngaio Bealum: A Night of Cannabis Culture Appreciation at The Paramount Room. The event comes on the heels of the April 9 release of Bealum’s new comedy album, Weedier & Sexier, on 800 Pound Gorilla Records. “I’ll do a fair amount of material from that, but I just recorded that album, so I feel like I should do some new material because people can listen to that one on the record,” Bealum said. “It’s a mix. My shows are, like, Grateful Dead-style. I just start talking and it goes how it goes.” Comedians Lenny Vanhorn and Angel Hamilton will be opening, and Sativa Prophets also performs. Tickets are $20-$25.

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Eating green

Any medical cannabis business that is selling edible products will be required to have a food license as of April 26. By Matt Dinger

Starting later this month, all cannabis businesses selling food products will be required to hold food licenses. The license was required under existing state law and had nothing to do with the current legislative session or special regulations upon the cannabis industry. The deadline is April 26, according to Oklahoma State Department of Health. Dispensaries that carry edibles are required to acquire a license even if they are not being processed or packaged on-site. The state department released a full list of products that require a food license to sell. They are flavored tinctures or oils placed in the mouth or in other food, assorted types of baked goods, candies or chewing gum, infused honey and infused bottled water as well as “other prepackaged food products,” according to a news release. “It was brought up back when the Food Safety Standards Board had their initial meetings and agreed that the laws that applied currently to food products would apply to the edibles and other things that were taken orally,” said Tony Sellars, health department spokesman. “Right now, as 18

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Sam Hill Sr. of Cannabis Aid regularly attends public policy meetings for medical cannabis and expected the health department requirement that goes into effect later this month. | Photo Alexa Ace

food inspectors, our sanitarians are going out and making contact with these new businesses and kind of explaining to them what they need and kind of guiding them on what needs to be in place. Those are just kind of courtesy visits right now. There’s a lot of brand-new businesses, so we’re trying to avoid a backlog of plan review. We only have so many people available to review the plans and to process the applications, so we want to encourage them to get all that done now so they’re in compliance as of April 26.” In addition to the $425 initial food license fee, business owners will also be required to pay a $425 plan review application fee. Annual renewal fees for the food license will be $335. Local county health departments will assist with licensing. “It’s not an intentional, punitive continued on page 20

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continued from page 18

deal with the cannabis industry. Everyone has to do it,” said Bud Scott, executive director of Oklahoma Cannabis Industry Association. “What they’re saying in these rules was, ‘Hey, just like anyone else handling food, you have to comply with these things.’ So it came as a surprise to many licensees in the industry because they didn’t thoroughly read the rules. And that’s kind of a common occurrence, but everyone thought that the health department was targeting the cannabis industry. Fact is, if you’ve got a convenience store and you’re selling food, if you have a restaurant and you’re selling food, if you have a food truck selling pre-packaged food, you have to comply with these same basic standards. Now, are they right? That’s a different story. Are they burdensome? That’s a different story. “The bigger problem here, though, is not what everyone’s freaking out about. The bigger problem is what is defined as food. And so at our Food Safety Standards Board meetings … we had a fairly robust discussion on what is food. And it was very clearly stated that sublingual drops, pills, vapes, none of that is food. Now, the Oklahoma Administrative Code definition of food is about as vague as it gets. It says any

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product for human consumption. Well, good lord, that’s everything. I guarantee you, if we do not address and specifically define that, then we’re going to have some county health department that’s going to say, ‘You’re not selling edibles, but you’re selling tinctures, and that tincture is put in your mouth, so it’s a food product.’ Or you’re going to have a processor that’s not making edibles, but they’re making tinctures and they’re going to say, ‘You have to have a food manufacturer permit.’ And that’s inappropriate. It’s overreach. It’s too much.

We want to encourage them to get all that done now so they’re in compliance as of April 26. Tony Sellars “I’ve represented clients in the food industry for years, and dealing with the health department is not always fun. So what we have asked for is some consistent definitions and requirements because what we’ve experienced in the past is that county health departments are the ones that are responsible for doing enforcement and inspections.

And if you’re in Rogers County versus Roger Mills County, the inspectors may have very different interpretations of the rules. And their requirements may be very different. And we’ve experienced this drastically with restaurants, with farmers markets. I get it, that they’re upset. But this is not something that business doesn’t face every day. And if you plan accordingly, you would have been prepared.” Sam Hill Sr., an owner of Cannabis Aid, said that he regularly attends meetings at the health department. Nothing came as a surprise to him during the meeting on this particular subject. “Regulations are expected. Period,” Hill said. “That’s just the nature of the beast with any industry, especially when you’re talking about a product someone’s going to consume. Government’s gonna regulate. Period. You’re talking about your food, your water, the air — it’s all governmentregulated. As soon as it goes into your body, the government’s going to have its say, for whatever reason. So that was to be expected. Now on the fairness, I would say fairness is all perspective for one. So to me, from my perspective, it has been fair because it has the barriers to entry haven’t been burdensome like you have seen in other markets. Because it was talking about rules and regulations, I’m always going to go and stand

on the message of think about small business whenever you make changes, especially now that the market is already open. You already have people that put their life savings and investments and their families’ futures in this market. And so anytime you add rules, anytime you add regulation, it adds additional costs to the business owners. So I’m proud to say and I’ve said this too, that I was proud that Oklahoma has been so friendly so far and that so many people in minority families and communities have been able to get this opportunity too. So make sure you’re thinking about it from that perspective when doing rules and regulations. How much will this affect the small business owner, not just the market as a whole?” Melissa Miller, communications manager at Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA), said it is just a simple matter of what a business is selling. “You’re treated the same as any other applicable business. Food licensing is for people who sell or produce food items, and so if you fall in that category, you’re not exempt from that,” she said. “We understand that everyone is learning, it’s new, and we’re trying to remind people of those types of things.” Visit ok.gov/health.

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OSO on Paseo delivers on its promise of high-end tacos that will please meat and veggie eaters. By Jacob Threadgill

OSO on Paseo 603 NW 28th St. | osopaseo.com | 405-309-8226 WHAT WORKS: The veggie tacos are so good that they compete with their meat counterparts. WHAT NEEDS WORK: The breading on the fish tacos can separate. TIP: Check out half-priced cocktails at 2-5 p.m. midweek happy hour.

Every time I drive past the new Paseo Arts District development that is Pueblo at Paseo, the white New Mexicoinspired complex that is the neighborhood’s first construction in decades, I can’t help but notice the a crowd inside OSO on Paseo, 603 NW 28th St. In the development that also includes two other good restaurants: Scratch Kitchen & Cocktails and Buttermilk, OSO always seems the busiest. The designer taco and Baja tiki concept is the brainchild of Picasso Cafe’s Shaun Fiaccone, Humankind Hospitality culinary director Ryan Parrott and chef de cuisine Chris McKenna. “Things have gone really well since we opened. Honestly, we’re a lot busier than I anticipated,” Fiaccone said. “I don’t want to say I’m cynical, but you know, I’d rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed, so I set the bar pretty low. We have been busy, and that’s kind of created some of its own challenges just in terms of scaling up so rapidly, finding enough space, staffing, managing the number of people in the building that are required to produce at those volumes and so forth, but those are definitely good problems.” In keeping with the omnivore ethos of Picasso Cafe, OSO provides almost as many vegetarian tacos as its meat counterparts, and the only enchiladas on the menu are vegan. It has to be a nice oasis for vegans who do not have to ask if their black beans are cooked with animal byproducts or worry that rice is cooked in chicken stock, like at a lot of Mexican restaurants. I am sure that is contributing to its popularity; there is also the fact the food on its menu is well thought-out and executed. I have tried most of the tacos on its menu, and as much as I like its meat options, its vegetarian choices are the ones I often think about the most. “[Having vegetarian options] is also central to our mission for what we’ve done at Picasso for almost 10 years now,” Fiaccone said of why they’re so well executed. “A lot of people are more focused on a plant-based diet or are more conscientious about how much meat they’re eating.” Fiaccone said he was surprised by

the amount of nopales (cactus) tacos they are selling. “I’m the kind of guy that likes to order the weirdest thing on the menu just because, but it kind of goes to show the awareness level of people while dining these days that they know what nopales are and are willing to try and reorder them,” Fiaccone said.

Taco talk

My personal favorite vegetarian taco on the menu is the sweet potato, kale and black bean variety, but I am also quite partial to the cauliflower picadillo with tomato, green olive, golden raisins and radish — so much so that I tried to make my own version at home, but to quote Principal Skinner coming close to madness trying to recreate fish stew he was served in a Vietnamese internment camp, I “just can’t get the spices right.” OSO’s most popular tacos are the brisket burnt ends, which feature a Dr Pepper barbecue sauce and are topped with radish, pepitas and a fried pickle spear. Its second most popular is the Baja fish taco with beer-battered cod, jalapeño tartar sauce, cilantro-lime slaw and pickled onion.

Things have gone really well since we opened. Honestly, we’re a lot busier than I anticipated.

favorite bites included the pineapple. I also got a second crack at the taco salad, which has changed since opening. W hat was once served in a taco shell bowl now comes in an oversized taco shell that is different and fun. I like that it’s served with a housemade Catalina dressing, which was my favorite as a kid, but I had honestly forgotten about it because restaurants always want to give you a vinaigrette or spicy ranch. My wife ordered the dressing on the side and didn’t even need it, she said, because the ground beef was so well seasoned. I’ve tried it with the chicken before, and its marinade was on point as well. OSO offers more than just tacos; its Left Coast Burrito takes the Southern California tradition of putting fries in a burrito and uses tater tots. Fiaconne said a few of the items on the menu that he felt are underappreciated include a spicy vegan green soup, and its only dessert of churros with melted chocolate and soft-serve ice cream. “The sopa verde is by far one of the best things on the menu if you like spicy stuff. I probably eat that for breakfast five days per week,” Fiaconne said. “I don’t

Taco salad with ground beef at OSO on Paseo | Photo Jacob Threadgill

think the churros sell as well for as good as they are. People are usually so full after they finish Mexican food that they overlook dessert.” Its cocktail program is unique enough that Fiaconne has trademarked the phrase “Baja tiki.” The tequila and rum drinks are on the expensive side ($9-$13) only because they’re served with fresh fruit and distinct containers, but OSO offers a half-price happy hour daily 2-5 p.m. Humankind Hospitality’s newest restaurant, Frida Southwest, which has been in the works for five years, is finally scheduled to open the third week of June. Yes, OSO’s tacos ($4-$5) are more expensive than your neighborhood taco truck, but it’s also executing them very well and doing its best to deliver organic and sustainably raised and farmed products. Visit osopaseo.com.

Baja fish, al pastor and brisket burnt end tacos at OSO on Paseo | Photo Jacob Threadgill

Shaun Fiaccone I tried each on a recent lunch visit, and I need to give special recognition to the service. I arrived at peak lunch hour and sat on the patio because the inside was full. Not only did our server make a concerted effort to take care of us, but the food arrived quickly. The brisket burnt end taco was quite fun, especially with the pickle spear that provides a nice crunch and extra bit of vinegary acidity to contrast with the sweet barbecue sauce. I thought the Baja fish taco was very well executed. It’s deservedly one of the top sellers on the menu, but I am not as big of a beerbattered fish fan as some other folks. I like a cornmeal crust with less breading. The fish tacos from the Taco Nation bus are the best I have had outside of Southern California, but OSO’s version is very good too. The al pastor is not a classic spit-fired preparation, so it doesn’t have crunch bites, but it has good achiote chili flavor, and my

OSO’s tiki drinks are served in special tiki glasses garnished with fresh fruit. | Photo Alexa Ace

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F E AT U R E

EAT & DRINK

Deuce debut

Whiskey Biscuit Bar & Grill offers all-day breakfast with a flair of Southern and Asian touches. By Jacob Threadgill

After surviving three hurricanes and leaving the U.S. Virgin Islands with only the clothes on their backs, opening a restaurant and bar in what is perceived as a difficult location seemed like nothing to Mark and Jennifer Richards. The couple opened Whiskey Biscuit Bar & Grill, 322 NE Second St., in February in a Deep Deuce space that has been a revolving door of restaurants in recent years, including Parks Bar & Grill and Urban Roots. “I think people were afraid of this [location] because it had been so many things before,” Mark Richards said. “Whenever you take over a place that’s been so many things before, everybody’s assuming that you’re going to fail, and I don’t buy that.” He and Jennifer operated a successful restaurant and tour guide company on the island of St. Croix until the region was battered by three hurricanes in 2017. “Two weeks before the hurricane, we were signing a lease to open another restaurant in Puerto Rico, and then all hell broke lose,” Richards said. “I think we were in shock because you don’t even have basic things like socks and T-shirts because everything molded since it was so humid. Irma came first, and we weren’t too bad in St. Croix, but it destroyed St. John and St. Thomas and everyone evacuated. There was not a boat left in St. John. Then Jose came and we had torrential rains for three days; it just wouldn’t go away. Then not a week later, Maria came, and boom, it was a double-eye category five that hit us.” Left homeless, the couple came to Oklahoma City to visit their daughter and new grandchild and eventually put down roots in the city, renting an apartment in Deep Deuce. They had to ask their daughter

for bedding because they left St. Croix with only a few items in a suitcase and their three dogs. They flew back and forth to St. Croix over the next seven months to try and eventually sell what was left of their house and business, Richards said, and there still wasn’t power on most of the island. “Our island was smaller, so you didn’t hear a lot about us,” Richards said. “We were hit just as bad [as Puerto Rico], but our population was smaller.” The couple bought a home near the Plaza District and a spent a year with their daughter and granddaughter, relaxing after a traumatic year. The itch to get back into the restaurant business never went away.

Two weeks before the hurricane, we were signing a lease to open another restaurant in Puerto Rico, and then all hell broke lose. Mark Richards Richards wanted to do a breakfast concept that would build on his roots in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Houston, Texas, and after looking at a few locations around the city, he got a call from the landlord at their current Deep Deuce home about the future Whiskey Biscuit location, which they thought was off the market. They worked out an agreement, but he had to rethink his idea of calling the restaurant Biscuits and Gravy. “This is a working community, so early breakfast wasn’t an option; there’s no one here [in the morning],” he said. “Let’s do a bar with breakfast all day. No other bar

does breakfast like that. How do we let people know that we do biscuits, but we’re also a bar? So we call it Biscuit for breakfast and Whiskey for the bar.” Whiskey Biscuit opens 11 a.m. Wednesday-Friday and 10 a.m. on weekends with a menu built around biscuits, waffles and sandwiches that show Southern influence but also a little Asian flair, like Cajun shrimp tempura or an Inferno Smash Burger with ghost pepper cheese, fried wonton and sweet Thai sauce. “You can’t come in here if you just want salt and pepper because you won’t like us,” Richards said. “We season everything.” Breakfast includes classic sausage gravy with biscuits that have the option of adding fried crawfish, cinnamon raisin biscuit rolls and ham and Swiss biscuit sliders. Weekends bring breakfast specials like bananas foster waffles as well as bloody marys and mimosas. The menu expands after 5 p.m. with entrees like grilled mahi mahi, black pepper tuna and a grilled pork chop topped with bacon. It offers a range of beers on tap, highend to medium whiskey like double-oaks Woodford Reserve and Oak and Eden to Bushmills, Red Bush, Bulleit rye and Old Forester, all of which can be added to coffee drinks, including a Nitty Gritty, which blends coffee, peanut butter, chocolate and ice cream. Whiskey Biscuit is working with local coffee roaster EÔTÉ to make its own special blend of coffee. Richards is cognizant of the fact the location has been a variety of businesses over the years and is hosting multiple events to increase patronage. He said it has benefitted from customers that used to go to now-closed Urban Johnnie and Slaughter’s Hall. “We want Deep Deuce to be like Automobile Alley because things have come and gone,” Richards said. “You need several businesses to pull together. You’ve got Stag, Deep Deuce Grill, The Wedge [Pizzeria], and now us.” Every Saturday, Jennifer Richards

Avocado egg rolls at Whiskey Biscuit | Photo Alexa Ace

Whiskey Biscuit’s patio hosts live jazz on the weekend. | Photo provided

hosts an art and wine class in Whiskey Biscuit’s Prohibition Room. It hosts live jazz music on the patio on the weekends and a popular disco bingo on Thursday during which attendees in ’70s-era attire get 15 percent off their bill. He also wants to start a Deep Deuce dog parade, building from the success they had with one in St. Croix. “Everyone in St. Croix told us our business wasn’t going to take off, and we were No. 5 on TripAdvisor,” he said. “It was a drug-infested alley that we threw all the bums out, repainted and brought back to life. I like those challenges because you’re off the beaten path.” Visit whiskeybiscuitokc.com.

The Inferno Smash Burger at Whiskey Biscuit includes bacon, smoked ghost pepper cheese, fried wonton, grilled onion, avocado and sweet Thai sauce. | Photo Alexa Ace

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GAZEDIBLES

EAT & DRINK

Menu additions

Just when you think you have got some of your favorite restaurants figured out, they go and change or add some things. We are highlighting some of our favorite new fulltime additions to menus across the metro area. By Jacob Threadgill with photos provided

Upper Crust Wood Fired Pizza

5860 N. Classen Blvd. ucpizza.com | 405-842-7743

Upper Crust recently added three new pizzas to its menu full-time: the Kickin’ Chicken with mozzarella, chicken and red onion; the Isla with capocollo, caramelized onion, roasted pineapple and balsamic glaze; and the Abe Froman with mozzarella, pepperoni, prosciutto, pulled pork, spicy sausage, red onion and mushrooms. Also be on the lookout for its spaghetti pie, which is just as it sounds and routinely appears on the weekly specials at each of its three locations.

The Pritchard

Krave Teriyaki

This 16th Street Plaza District favorite keeps its menu rotating under the guidance of executive chef Shelby Sieg. It has recently expanded its hours to include morning service, which only gives you more time to try Sieg’s take on classic tabbouleh but replaces bulgar with quinoa. It is tossed with lemon, aleppo chile vinaigrette and topped with charred cauliflower, blistered tomatoes, English cucumbers, roasted red peppers and Bulgarian feta. The feta can be removed for a vegan dish that is light and refreshing.

Krave Teriyaki was co-founded by a Seattle expat who missed the teriyaki restaurants ubiquitous in the Pacific Northwest. It delivers excellent sauces with its variety of chicken but also has interesting stir-fry dishes like the new yaki udon that mixes the white udon noodles with a special soy-based sauce, protein of your choice and vegetables and is topped with katsuobushi, which are dried and smoked bonito fish flakes.

1749 NW 16th St. pritchardokc.com | 405-601-4067

10740 S. May Ave., Suite 117 facebook.com/eatkraveteriyaki 405-242-2209

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WEDNESDAY BURGER NIGHT $10 Burger & Beer Happy Hour

3-7pm Wed -Sun Deep Deuce 322 NE 2nd Street 405.673.7944

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The Winston

110 W. Main St., Norman thewinston.com | 405-561-7616

The minds behind Charlestonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and many other restaurants in the city have another hit on their hands in Norman with the opening of The Winston downtown. It has added spiralized vegetable pasta for those looking for a lighter take on pasta that uses uniquely cut sweet potatoes and zucchini and marinara and pairs it with grilled chicken.

Lemongrass Asian Bistro 809 SW 119th St. 405-378-7887

Consulting chef Vuong Nguyen added a few new items to this south side pan-Asian staple that maintain its light and fresh ethos but also incorporate his French training. There are new items like soy sesame chicken wings, green scallion crab Rangoon, and yellowtail with ponzu and lemon. Salmon is perfectly seared with brown rice, tomatoes and green beans and topped with miso butter.

Buttermilk

605 NW 28th St., Suite A buttermilkokc.com | 405-605-6660

In honor of its one-year anniversary in March, Buttermilk added a host of new menu items for its massive biscuits with two new menu sections including brunch plates and sweets. The plates include a migas biscuit, brunch bowl, buttermilk debris with sausage gravy and another with red-eye gravy. The largest might be the chicken and biscuits, which tops the biscuit with fried chicken, crispy leeks and maple syrup.

The Drake Seafood & Oysterette

519 NW 23rd St., Suite 111 thedrakeokc.com | 405-605-3399

Your favorite Uptown 23rd seafood restaurant is flexing its turf muscles with the addition of a classic double cheeseburger and a skirt steak from 44 Farms in Texas. It has also added three signature cocktails that are just $5 during happy hour. Kung Pao calamari takes the classic appetizer up a notch with a sauce that is a little bit sweet and a little bit spicy.

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3/27/2019 12:53:58 PM

ART

ARTS & CULTURE

Persistent women

Red Earth and Science Museum Oklahoma feature artwork from Native American women artists in a new exhibit. By Jeremy Martin

Karin Walkingstick has been making art for as long as she can remember, but she was only able to begin making it a career in her 40s, after she reclaimed a precious resource. “Time,” Walkingstick said. “I had my son pretty young, when I was 20, and work, you know, I got him through. A friend of ours had heard about a pottery class with Jane Osti — she’s a Cherokee National Treasure. And we took the class as a group and had a lot of fun, and I was hooked from that first class. I really liked Jane, and I really liked the clay, and I had never worked with clay before. … I didn’t know there was an outlet for Native American art. I didn’t know about the art shows.” Walkingstick, also a member of the Cherokee Nation whose previous art experience as an adult largely consisted of quilting projects and painting logos on children’s desks, won first place in the Emerging Artist category and the online people’s choice award at Cherokee Heritage Center’s 2014 Trail of Tears Art Show. A selection of her pottery, along with works by five other female artists, is included in She Persisted, an exhibition curated by Red Earth Art Center on display through May 28 at Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place. With the instruction and encouragement of Osti, who was recognized as a Cherokee National Treasure for her contributions to the culture and its preservation, Walkingstick began to create her own pottery. “I just saw it as kind of a challenge,” Walkingstick said. “Jane would teach me some techniques, and then I would go home and practice those and, you know, ‘What else can I make?’ So I just started making different things to see if I could, and that’s the way it was for the first three years. Next thing I know, I turn around and I’ve made all these

different things. ... Of course winning those awards at that show lit a fire under me; you know, ‘Hey this is pretty neat. What’s next?’ So I kept signing up to do the smaller shows around here, and then six more months under your belt, you can learn quite a lot. When you’re hungry to learn, you learn quite a bit in that period of time.”

Glass therapy

Lauretta Newby-Coker teaches art to kindergarten through high school students in a Norman public school. A class project suggested by another teacher inspired her to begin creating stainedglass mosaics from found glass. “I thought, ‘Hey, I think I can just cut my own glass,’ and so that’s what I started doing,” Newby-Coker said. “I go down by railroad tracks or old, old buildings, or they’ve knocked a building down and you just look around on the ground and you’re going to find a lot of broken old glass, really thick, and it will usually have a patina to it from the sun. … Then up in Colorado … we go camping way, way up high in the mountains where they had the mining towns, and so now it’s just kind of like ruins up there. … There’s glass everywhere, so I gather me up a little bit of it.” She has her family members help her gather glass, but the glass she uses is old and weather-worn with no sharp edges. Newby-Coker said her best works reflect her Choctaw heritage. Her favorite piece in She Persisted is not a glass mosaic, but a painting of a mother and child titled “Paying Attention to the Details.” “There’s such a feeling between them, you can just tell,” she said. Newby-Coker said the title She Persisted reminds her of the time she spent creating a large mosaic for the Choctaw Nation. “When I started,” Newby-Coker said, “my husband was alive, and then, in the process of the three months that it took me to do it, he passed away. And I am very, very thankful I had something that I love to do that I think helped get me along. … So help me, when you start doing some art, you start to forget about every problem you have, and you’re just into your art. So you’re stepping away from it all, and it’s wonderful.”

Teaching talent

Carol Armstrong teaches painting at Firehouse Art Center in Norman. She said instructing students in different styles and mediums keeps her own artwork fresh and exciting. “Painting is problem solving, and I am constantly challenged to figure ideas out for myself and with my students,” Armstrong wrote in an email interview. “My students challenge me to be a better painter. I have always said, ‘If you want to learn how to do something well, teach.’ It is very healthy and beneficial for myself and for my students to have this shared experience. ... I am always being exposed to new ideas because of my students, so I continue to grow and change.” Armstrong said her DelawareCherokee heritage informs the tone and subject matter of her artwork. “The Native Americans are a gentle people,” Armstrong wrote. “They are kind and family-orientated. In my paintings, I want to show the Native American culture, the beauty of the people and their connection with the earth and universe.”

“Paying Attention to the Details” by Lauretta Newby-Coker | Image provided

Generational knowledge

The title She Persisted makes Walkingstick think of Osti’s mentor Anna Belle Mitchell, who also began her art career in her 40s and is credited with reviving the tradition of Cherokee pottery in the 1960s and ’70s. “When she started it, she really didn’t know what she was doing,” Walkingstick said. “She was kind of making it up as she went. ... Her husband had asked her to make him a pipe, and that was her first goal was trying to do that. ... I didn’t know her, but that’s how I did it too, was just experimenting. And so she did that and did very well with it…. The potters I know who are Cherokee, we kind of look at ourselves this way, as Anna starting at the top, and then Jane after her or your whoever you learn from. … I learned from Jane, Jane learned from Anna Belle, so I feel like a third-generation Oklahoma potter. That’s what I have in front of me as an example, Anna Belle. She persisted, and Jane did too. And I don’t think I’ve ever had a job for over a year. I get bored with stuff, and this is probably the thing I’ve done the longest, pottery. And it’s five and a half years now, so I’ve persisted, too.” The exhibit also features works by Renee Hoover, Anita Caldwell Jackson and Diana Beach-Stamper. Admission to the museum is free-$15.95. Visit sciencemuseumok.org.

“The Prince” by Carol Armstrong | Image provided

“Always Speak the Truth” by Lauretta Newby-Coker | Image provided

She Persisted Through May 28 Science Museum Oklahoma 2020 Remington Place

A “squash pot” Karin Walkingstick fired by burning dried pine leaves | Photo provided

redearth.org | 405-427-5228 Free-$15.95

O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | A P R I L 1 0 , 2 0 1 9

An evening of chamber music APRIL 16 AT 7:30 PM SAINT PAUL’S CATHEDRAL

SAINT PAUL’S CATHEDRAL IS LOCATED IN DOWNTOWN OKC AT ROBINSON AND 7TH ST. TICKETS FOR SALE AT THE DOOR, $20 ADULTS, STUDENTS & ACTIVE MILITARY FREE WITH IDENTIFICATION.

Brunch is the most important meal of the day, and it’s not just for Sundays anymore. Get the goods on the best brunch destinations in OKC in this special issue just in time to plan for Easter, Mother’s Day and beyond.

Publishes APril 17 DeADlines APril 10 Call 405.528.6000 or email advertising@okgazette.com to book your space today

A P R I L 1 0 , 2 0 1 9 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M

ARTS & CULTURE

Palm Sunday &

Easter Holy Week Services Guide

Christ the King

T H E AT E R

Catholic Church

Triple crown

Oklahoma City Ballet pushes boundaries with Visionaries: A Triple Bill. By Jeremy Martin

A 19th-century lithograph and an ancient theory about bodily fluids inspired two of the three works included in Oklahoma City Ballet’s latest triple bill. The third has never been performed publicly. Running April 19-20 in Civic Center Music Hall’s Thelma Gaylord Performing Arts Theatre, Visionaries: A Triple Bill features Robert Joffrey’s Pas de Déesses (Dance of the Goddesses), George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments and a new work by Barcelona-based choreographer Cayetano Soto Ramirez. OKC Ballet performs Pas de Déesses and The Four Temperaments for the first time in the company’s history, and Soto Ramirez’s work was specifically choreographed with the ballet’s dancers in mind. Inspired by an 1846 lithograph of four famous dancers, Joffrey’s Pas de Déesses is a tribute to Romantic period ballet. Choreographed in 1954, the ballet is intended to invoke not only the era but the characteristic movements of the lithograph’s subjects: Lucile Grahn, Marie Taglioni, Fanny Cerrito and Arthur SaintLeon. OKC Ballet’s production features staging by Charthel Arthur Estner, managing director of The Gerald Arpino Foundation (honoring Gerald Arpino and Robert Joffrey), who cast the roles with their historical counterparts in mind. “From the start, she chooses dancers that kind of naturally embody the stylistic qualities of those dancers, and then from there, they’re also coached to kind of embody how those dancers moved,” said OKC Ballet artistic director Robert Mills. Attempting to recreate the specific personal styles of dancers from previous centuries is not a typical way to stage a ballet, Mills said. “If we do Swan Lake, everyone can look at a history book and see the dancers that originated those roles over 100 years ago,” he said, “but the goal is not to try to

Dancers Sarah Jane Stropes left and Dave Naquin perform in Oklahoma City Ballet’s Visionaries: A Triple Bill. | Photo Shevaun Williams / provided

dance like them. You’re going to bring your own interpretation.” Though Joffrey, who founded Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet, is a significant figure in American ballet, Mills said Pas de Déesses, which also features Oklahoma City Philharmonic’s Peggy Payne playing the score live on piano, will be the first of the choreographer’s works OKC Ballet has performed. Mills said he wanted to include Joffrey in the 2018-2019 season in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of his death. Joffrey’s unconventional approach to choreography for Pas de Déesses helps preserve part of ballet’s history in living memory. “Honestly, Robert Joffrey has contributed to keeping the idea of those dancers alive,” Mills said. “This ballet has forced us in 2019 to revisit how those dancers moved. For my company, it’s valuable. … When our dancers are doing these kinds of works, it’s infusing their artistry and they move forward through our company with a richer experience that they can bring to other things.” The Four Temperaments premiered eight years earlier than Pas de Déesses, but Balanchine’s revolutionary neoclassical ballet pointed to the future, not the past. Placing Temperaments after Déesses on the program provides an “interesting juxtaposition,” Mills said, highlighting how different Balanchine’s work is from what came before it. “You’re going to see a ballet from a choreographer that essentially changed the look, made it streamlined, made it modern, made it accessible,” Mills said. “George Balanchine essentially changed ballet forever … really took it and modernized it. He made it angular; he made

8005 Dorset Drive (1 block north of Wilshire halfway between Penn & May) https://ckokc.org

Palm Sunday

April 13th at 5 pm April 14 at 8 am, 10 am, 12:15 pm Seder Meal: April 13th at 6:30pm th

visit https://ckokc.org/seder for tickets

Holy Thursday

Mass of the Lord’s Supper April 18th at 7 pm

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament follows Mass until 12 Midnight

Good Friday

Veneration of the Cross and Holy Communion

April 19th at 3 pm & 7 pm

Holy Saturday Easter Vigil Mass April 20th at 8 pm

Easter Sunday Masses April 21st at 8 am, 10 am & 12:15 pm

O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | A P R I L 1 0 , 2 0 1 9

ARTS & CULTURE continued from page 29

T H E AT E R

it more about movement, as opposed to making poses. … This work, along with his Agon and various other works that he did, were sensations when they were first performed because they were just so completely different than anything anyone had ever seen. I believe it still stands the test of time; I still feel like it’s really an incredible work to see. It has a lot of really beautiful moments and exciting, engaging moments, and I’m excited for our audience here to see it.”

Bile and breakthroughs

Preservation Oklahoma is proud to advocate for the places where Oklahoma history lives. Oklahoma City is full of rich history with iconic structures that are worth saving.

RJ Edwards House

First Christian Church

Fire Station #10

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Mills noted that The Four Temperaments is also tied to Oklahoma history because Balanchine originally choreographed a role in the ballet for Maria Tallchief, a world-renowned Osage dancer born in Fairfax. The ballet, created with composer Paul Hindemith, draws inspiration from the ancient medical theory that people’s temperaments are determined by the quantities of blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm in their bodies — thought to correspond to sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic characteristics, respectively. If that all sounds confusing (or disgusting), Mills said Balanchine and Hindemith used the theory as a “point of departure” from which to create a work of expressionistic music and dance that ultimately has little to do with blood and bile. “As an audience member, you’re not meant to really extract that, exactly,” Mills said. “Through the program notes, you kind of know that that’s where they derived their ideas from, but in essence, it’s like watching an abstract painting. Underneath there somewhere, if you look close enough, there might be that point of departure, whether it’s flowers in a vase or a bowl of apples, and it’s just cubist, just impressionist, however that works. Dance is the same.” Closing the bill, Soto Ramirez’s new ballet will make its world premiere in Oklahoma City. The visiting choreographer, Mills said, “is really pushing the envelope and the boundaries on an international scale.” “I picked him up from the airport two weeks ago,” Mills said. “He flew in from Munich, where he had a ballet that was premiering. Prior to that, he was premiering a ballet in Toulouse, France. He is all over the world creating new work. We are the first classical ballet company to bring him to the United States … and I did that because, number one, I need our community to understand that ballet is not only about staging these warhorse ballets from the Visionaries features Robert Joffrey’s Pas de Déesses, George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments and a new work by Barcelonabased choreographer Cayetano Soto Ramirez. | Photo Shevaun Williams / provided

1840s and before, and that it is an art form that can use music of current times, ideas of current times and be conceptualized by people today. … Cayetano’s work is extremely futuristic and very forwardthinking, and I think it’s going to knock people’s socks off.” Like many groundbreaking artworks, Soto Ramirez’s work is hard to describe due to lack of precedent, Mills said, but his work, like Balanchine’s, points the way forward. “He’s taking the ideas of modern dance, fusing that into classical ballet, taking ideas of neoclassical ballets and fusing that into classical ballet,” Mills said. “It’s also his choice of music. He’s choosing people that are alive; most likely he’s choosing compositions that are new, that have been composed in recent times. Where I think he’s really incredibly imaginative is in how it all comes together on the stage through costuming, through scenic and lighting design. Let’s put it this way: It couldn’t be further from a tiara, a tutu and misty, romantic lighting. This is very visceral; it’s very stark. It’s futuristic and modern, and that’s what I like because ballet is going to have to address how it evolves to continue to be an accessible art form going into the 21st century.” Tickets are $15-$65. Visit okcballet. org.

Visionaries: A Triple Bill April 19-20 Thelma Gaylord Performing Arts Theatre Civic Center Music Hall 201 N. Walker Ave. okcballet.org | 405-848-8637 $15-$65

T H E AT E R

‘Mostly Mozart’

Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble’s newest performance features four songs composed by Mozart. By Jeremy Martin

Deciding to build a concert program with the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is easy enough; determining which of the composer’s hundreds of compositions to play is not. “Mozart is, without question, one of the biggest names in music, classical music or otherwise,” said Chad Burrow, clarinetist and co-artistic director of Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble. “He’s one of the few composers that pretty much anybody knows. … So having an entire program devoted to his music is kind of an easy sell. It’s great music, and everybody will enjoy it.” The ensemble performs Mozart: From Salzburg to Vienna 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, 127 NW Seventh St. Burrow said the title for the concert references “the two cities that, basically, Mozart’s life encompassed … the two home bases he had as a young man and then as a mature composer.” Mozart began composing as a child but died in 1791 at the age of 35. “In the very, very short life he had,” Burrow said, “he composed, you know, some 800 works. There are fragments in there as well, but over 800 works of some sort, and these range from threeplus-hour operas to eight-minute, twominute shorter works. The output of what he did and the way he wrote — the description of him writing everything in his head and then just simply writing it on paper like he’s taking dictation. Those kinds of descriptions, although biographical, I think shed some sort of light onto the incredible ability and talent he had that is pretty much unprecedented in the history of music. There are certainly other great composers and other composers who had a certain facility, but I’m not aware of any that had the ability to write with such ease and accuracy and creativity. And what are the characteristics of his music? Beautiful harmony, incredible melody — there’s just no question when you hear the musical lines and the melodies from Mozart that he’s an utterly unique composer.” While devoting an entire evening to the 18th-century Austrian composer might be a no-brainer, Burrow said the sheer volume of Mozart’s work meant myriad possibilities to consider before finalizing a program. “I haven’t sat and counted his number of chamber works, but there are probably well over 100 pieces we could have chosen,” Burrow said. Of the more than 94 million possible combinations Brightmusic could have chosen for a four-song concert, Tuesday’s program features Mozart’s String Duo

No. 1 in G Major, K. 423 (for violin and viola); Quartet for Clarinet & Strings, K. 378/317d (for violin, viola, cello and clarinet); Quintet for Clarinet & Strings in B-flat Major, K. Anh. 91 (for two violins, viola, cello and clarinet); and Serenade in G Major, K. 525 (for violins, viola, cello and double bass). K. 525 — which has commonly appeared as a signifier of class and refinement in TV shows and films such as Alien, Batman and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective — is also called “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” (German for “a little night music”).

There’s just no question ... that he’s an utterly unique composer. Chad Burrow “The four pieces are very different,” Burrow said. “Essentially, we took what is arguably the most recognizable work of Mozart’s, the ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,’ and built a program around that with pieces that are less well-known. There’s also the duet for viola and violin; that piece is known among string players but probably not a regular piece that the people in our audience would be familiar with. And the two works for clarinet, I’m going to guess, will be the first time many people will have heard these pieces. One of them is actually an arrangement that dates from just after the time of Mozart. It was a very common practice to arrange the works of these great composers, particularly by publishers that were looking to sell copies of their music, and it was a way for them to make money to come up with arrangements of different composers’ work. For example, this quartet for clarinet and three strings; this particular arrangement is one of three that we could have chosen. And I think it’s a particularly good Mozart: From Salzburg to Vienna features “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” possibly the composer’s best-known work. | Photo Bigstock.com

one. And as this was a common practice, it highlights not only the music of Mozart, but we get to see, in a sense, what composers and arrangers were doing with his music from the period within the decade of his death.” In Mozart’s catalogue, the letter “K” represents musicologist Ludwig von Köchel, who arranged the composer’s work chronologically in 1862. The “Anh.” designation for Quintet for Clarinet & Strings in B-flat Major, K. Anh. 91 is an abbreviation for “anhang,” the German word for “attachment,” indicating the work is actually an addendum to the catalog. In this case, the quintet was incomplete at the time of Mozart’s death and finished in the 20th century by another composer. “Mozart wrote about 90 to 93 measures and never completed it,” Burrow said. “It exists in Mozart’s hand as a fragment and was later completed by musicologist Robert Levin, who’s familiar with his work and went back and said, ‘OK, this is how Mozart started it,’ and he essentially finishes it in the style of Mozart. So that’s an unusual piece. … It’s only partially Mozart. So I suppose, in a sense, you could call this concert, really, ‘mostly Mozart.’” Burrow said if he were considering the piece on its own, without a historical context, he would not suspect it had more than one composer. “To be p er fec t ly honest, it’s incredibly well done,” Burrow said. “[Levin] is essentially mimicking Mozart’s style to such an extent that, in fact, within the form that he chooses to use, he ends up repeating much of what

Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble performs Mozart: From Salzburg to Vienna 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Saint Paul’s Cathedral. | Photo Michael Anderson / Performing Arts Photography / provided

Mozart has already written. To put it very simply, no, you actually can’t tell. If you were to hand this to me, if I had no idea what I was playing, and you told me it’s Mozart, it’s believable it’s Mozart.” Digging deeper into music history to highlight the work of lesser-known composers is valuable, Burrow said, and something Brightmusic often does, but continuing to perform and appreciate masterpieces by music’s best-loved maestros is also important. “Can you play a whole season without ever playing a work of Mozart? Of course you can,” Burrow said, “and you’d still have great music. From time to time, to focus on one of the giants, whether it’s Beethoven or Bach or Brahms or Mozart, it’s, I think, certainly worthy, and ultimately, you’re programming music that your audience will enjoy. There’s something extraordinary about this music, and it still deserves and needs to be heard. … This music needs to be played and kept alive.” Tickets are $20. Visit brightmusic. org.

Mozart: From Salzburg to Vienna 7:30 p.m. Tuesday St. Paul’s Cathedral 127 NW Seventh St. brightmusic.org $20

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CALENDAR are events recommended by Oklahoma Gazette editorial staff members For full calendar listings, go to okgazette.com.

BOOKS Brunching with Books a book club meeting every other week, with reading selections chosen by group preference, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays. Buttermilk Paseo, 605 NW 28th St., 405-605-6660, buttermilkokc.com. SAT English Queens Book Club discuss fiction and nonfiction books about England’s queens; this months selections are Autumn Throne by Elizabeth Chadwick, She-Wolves by Helen Castor and Queens of the Conquest by Alison Weir, 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. April 15. Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, 405-842-2900, fullcirclebooks.com. MON Second Sunday Poetry hear the works of a variety of local poets, 2 p.m. second Sunday of every month. The Depot, 200 S. Jones Ave., Norman, 405307-9320, pasnorman.org. SUN Storybook Project authors create children’s stories based on illustrations created by Breadcrumbs Ink, through April 28. The Paseo Plunge, 3010 Paseo St., 405-315-6224, paseoplunge.org. FRI-SUN What Lies Between Us activist Ayanna Najuma leads a discussion of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister, 6:30 p.m. April 16. Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, 405-842-2900, fullcirclebooks.com. TUE

FILM The Bikes of Wrath inspired by John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath, a group of Australian cyclists attempts to travel from Oklahoma to California in this documentary, 2 p.m. April 14. Rodeo Cinema, 2221 Exchange Ave., 405-235-3456. SUN The Wind (2018, USA, Emma Tammi) a woman is driven insane by isolation on the Western frontier in the late 1800s in this supernatural horror film, through April 11. Rodeo Cinema, 2221 Exchange Ave., 405-235-3456. FRI-THU

HAPPENINGS ARTini a cocktail competition and fundraiser for Allied Arts with live entertainment and food from local restaurants; space-inspired attire encouraged, 7-11 p.m. April 12. Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place, 405-602-6664, sciencemuseumok.org. FRI Autism Awareness Day learn more about autism at this resource fair for family members, friends, service providers and individuals with autism, 8 a.m.-noon April 10. Oklahoma State Capitol, 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., 405-521-3356, ok.gov. WED Career Fair interview for part- and full-time positions in a variety of industries, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. April 17. Metro Technology Center, 1900 Springlake Drive, 405-844-8324, metrotech.edu. WED Criminal Justice Reform Legislative Postcard Writing Party learn about current efforts to improve the justice system and write letters to legislators, 6-8 p.m. April 11. Nappy Roots, 3705 Springlake Drive, 405-896-0203, facebook.com/pg/ nappyrootsbooks. THU Life Imagined: The Art and Science of Automata see examples of mechanical proto-robots from 1850 to the modern day, through Sept. 29. Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place, 405-602-6664, sciencemuseumok.org. SUN-WED Missing Persons Day law enforcement and families of missing persons are invited to attend this informational event where Oklahoma attorney general Mike Hunter is scheduled to speak, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. April 13. University of Central Oklahoma Forensic Science Institute, 100 N. University Drive, Edmond. SAT Oklahoma Observer Newsmakers Series editor Arnold Hamilton leads a discussion on various topics, 6 p.m. April 11. Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, 405-842-2900, fullcirclebooks.com. THU Oklahoma to California meteorologist Bob Rabin will discuss the complex ways humans, ocean, atmosphere, and land are all connected at this Earth Day event, 7-8:30 p.m. April 11. Norman Cultural Connection, 1017 Elm Ave., Norman, 405-201-9991. THU Saving Our Sons a community discussion about the present and future for young black men, 6-7:30 p.m. April 16. Nappy Roots, 3705 Springlake Drive, 405896-0203, facebook.com/pg/nappyrootsbooks. TUE Sister Bingo an evening of bingo benefiting Free Mom Hugs and hosted by Sister Mary Fallin-From Grace and Renee Hilton, 8-10 p.m. April 12. Apothecary 39, 2125 NW 39th St., 405-605-4100. FRI Soft Skills and Work Attire an interview clinic offering advice for job hunters, 9 a.m.-10:30 a.m. April 16. Pioneer Library System, 225 N Webster Ave., Norman, 405-701-2600, pioneerlibrarysystem.org/ norman. TUE

The Squidling Brothers Circus Sideshow If you love the spectacle of a circus but would rather skip the inherent animal cruelty, check out this Philadelphia-based traveling sideshow, which despite its name features human performers such as Jelly Boy the Clown, the Rev. MacKenzie Moltov and Matterz Squidling. You’ll get to see sword swallowing, fire eating and other don’t-try-this-at-home insanity, but in a context where you can be reasonably sure the performers actually want to be there. Come one, come all 8 p.m.-midnight Wednesday at The Flea, 733 NW Fourth St. Admission is free. Call 405-601-7256 or visit facebook.com/divebarokc. WEDNESDAY Photo Norman Blake / provided

Sustainable Energy Transitions a lecture presented by Scott Tinker, director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas, 1:30 p.m. April 15. Meinders School of Business, NW 27th St. and McKinley Avenue, 405-208-5351, okcu.edu. MON Wednesday @ Will Rogers Gardens author and blogger Dee Nash will deliver a lecture titled Enchanting April: How to Get the Most from your Oklahoma Garden in Spring, 6 p.m. April 10. Will Rogers Garden Center, 3400 NW 36th St., 405-9430827, okc.gov. WED Western Heritage Awards Kevin Costner, Michael Martin Murphey and more will be honored at this two-day celebration of significant contributions to Western culture, 11 a.m. April 12-13. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org. FRI-SAT

Early Explorers toddlers and preschoolers can participate in fun scientific activities they can repeat later at home, 10-11 a.m. Thursdays. Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place, 405-602-6664, sciencemuseumok.org. THU

Contemporary Dance Oklahoma, a program of modern dance featuring the choreography of Merce Cunningham, through April 14. Elsie C. Brackett Theatre, 563 Elm Ave., Norman, 405-325-4101, theatre. ou.edu. FRI-SUN

Easter Bunny photos children have the chance to meet the holiday mascot and have their picture taken, through April 20. Penn Square Mall, 1901 Northwest Expressway, 405-841-2696, simon.com/ mall/penn-square-mall. SAT

Cosi Fan Tutte the University of Central Oklahoma School of Music will perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s romantic and comedic opera, April 12-14. Mitchell Hall Theatre, 100 N. University Drive, Edmond, 405-974-2000, uco.edu. FRI-SUN

Linda Harkey book signing the author will host a story time and autograph copies of her children’s book The Remarkable Story of Willie the Crow: A Hickory Doc’s Tale, 11 a.m.-noon April 13. Best of Books, 1313 E. Danforth Road, Edmond, 405-3409202, bestofbooksok.com. SAT

Death Tax a wealthy elderly woman suspects her nurse of conspiring with her daughter to drive her to an early grave in this play by Lucas Hnath, through April 20. Carpenter Square Theatre, 806 W. Main St., 405-232-6500, carpentersquare.com. FRI-SAT

OKC Drag Queen Story Hour children and their families are invited to a story and craft time lead by Ms. Shantel and followed by a dance party, 4 p.m. second Saturday of every month. Sunnyside Diner, 916 NW Sixth St., 405.778.8861. SAT Reading Wednesdays a weekly story time with hands-on activities, goody bags and reading-themed photo ops, 9:30-10:30 a.m. Wednesdays. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. WED Revenge of the Plants! All About Carnivorous Plants children ages 8-11 can learn about meat-eating plants and make a Venus flytrapinspired craft, 6-7 p.m. April 17. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. WED

PERFORMING ARTS 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche the members of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein respond to a breakfast-time communist threat in 1956 in this satirical play by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, through May 11. The Boom, 2218 NW 39th St., 405601-7200, theboomokc.com. FRI-SAT Beehive: The ’60s Musical a revue featuring live performances of classic hits including “My Boyfriend’s Back,” “Be My Baby,” “Son of a Preacher Man,” “Me and Bobby McGee” and more, April 12-May 4. The Pollard Theatre, 120 W. Harrison Ave., Guthrie, 405-282-2800, thepollard.org. FRI-SAT Blue Sunday a monthly blues tribute show hosted by Powerhouse Blues Project, 6-8 p.m. the second Sunday of every month. Friends Restaurant & Club, 3705 W. Memorial Road, 405-751-4057, friendsbarokc.com. SUN Bright Star a musical story of love lost and found in the 1920s and ’40s, with a script and bluegrassinspired soundtrack written by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, through April 28. Lyric at the Plaza, 1725 NW 16th St., 405-524-9312, lyrictheatreokc.com.

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Into the Woods a cast of theatre students will perform the fairytale-inspired musical by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim, April 12-14. Kismet Arts Studio & Theatre, 12201 N. Western Ave., 405367-7225, kismetartsokc.com. FRI-SUN King Lear a monarch divides his kingdom among his daughters with tragic results in William Shakespeare’s classic play, through April 14. Rose State College, 6420 SE 15th St., 405-733-7673, rose.edu. FRI-SUN

Poetic City Slam a slam poetry battle with a live DJ and brunch options, 1 p.m. April 14. Ice Event Center & Grill, 1148 NE 36th St., 405-208-4240, iceeventcentergrill. eat24hour.com. SUN The Trailer-Hood Hootenanny join Rayna Over and friends for a night of comedy, music and drag performances, 10 p.m.-1 a.m. the second Friday of every month. Frankie’s, 2807 NW 36th St., 405-6022030, facebook.com/frankiesokc. FRI Virginia Campbell’s 36th Annual Piano Series violinist Nathaniel Parke and accompanist by Jennifer Song are scheduled to perform, 2:30 p.m. April 14. All Souls Episcopal Church, 6400 N. Pennsylvania Ave., 405-842-1461, allsoulsokc.com. SUN

ACTIVE Botanical Balance an all-levels yoga class in a natural environment; bring your own mat and water, 5:45 p.m. Tuesdays and 8 a.m. Saturdays. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. SAT

WED-SUN

Monday Night Group Ride meet up for a weekly 25-30 minute bicycle ride at about 18 miles per hour through east Oklahoma City, 6 p.m. Mondays. The Bike Lab OKC, 2200 W. Hefner Road, 405-603-7655. MON

Celebration, Unity and Community a concert benefitting the Norman Women’s Resource Center and featuring music composed by University of Oklahoma’s oboe studio, 8 p.m. April 11. Sharp Concert Hall, 500 W. Boyd St., Norman, 405-325-4101, music.ou.edu. THU

Twisted Coyote Brew Crew a weekly 3-mile group run for all ability levels with a beer tasting to follow; bring your own safety lights, 6 p.m. Mondays. Twisted Spike Brewing Co., 1 NW 10th St., 405-3013467, twistedspike.com. MON

FOOD Crawfish & Buds a brunch event hosted by OKC Black Eats and featuring a menu prepared by Chef Dwayne Johnson, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. April 13. Brielle’s Bistro, 9205 NE 23rd St., 405-259-8473. SAT One Eighty try dishes inspired by favorite childhood foods and created by local chefs at this fundraiser benefitting Pivot youth services, 6-10 p.m. April 12. OKC Farmers Market, 311 S. Klein Ave., 4054860701. FRI Rosé and Cheese learn to pair the popular wine with artisanal and farmstead cheese, 6:45 p.m. April 13. Forward Foods-Norman, 2001 W. Main St., Norman, 405-321-1007, forwardfoods.com. SAT Sprouting Chefs: Berry Pizzelles learn how to make traditional Italian waffle cookies with fruit topping, at this hands-on workshop led by Toni Washington of Edmond Mobile Meals, 10-11:30 a.m. April 13. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. SAT Uptown Uncorked sample food and beverages from local restaurants, breweries and wineries at this fundraiser for Uptown 23rd District Association, 7-10 p.m. April 11. Tower Theatre, 425 NW 23rd St., 405708-6937, towertheatreokc.com. THU

YOUTH Academic Enrichment Reading Clinic children in grades 1-12 can receive free tutoring and homework help in reading, math and history and learn about nonviolent conflict resolution and successbuilding habits at this weekly clinic, 11 a.m. Saturdays through April 27. Nappy Roots, 3705 Springlake Drive, 405-896-0203, facebook.com/pg/nappyrootsbooks. SAT

Basic Brewing 101 Considering the dire need for improving science education in the USA, this class is to be commended for teaching adults about a chemistry project they can do at home. Learn to use a Brewer’s Best kit to create a minimash brew and marvel as yeast converts sugar from steeping starch into carbon monoxide and alcohol in a process known as “fermentation.” Once this fascinating concoction is completed, do not just pour it down the drain. We have heard tell you can actually drink it, though we certainly have not tried this ourselves. Get brewing 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday at The Brew Shop, 2916 N. Pennsylvania Ave. Admission is free, but an RSVP is required. Call 405-528-5193 or visit thebrewshopokc.com. SATURDAY Photo bigstock.com

Electric Pizza enjoy free pizza and hear electronic compositions from graduate students Jonathon Edwards, Breck McGough and Santiago Ramones, 7:30-9:30 p.m. April 10. UCO Jazz Lab, 100 E. Fifth St., Edmond, 405-359-7989, ucojazzlab.com. WED

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Child’s Play an exhibition of sculptural works created by Norman-based artist Brett McDanel, through April 28. Paseo Studio Six, 3021 Paseo St., 405-5280174, thepaseo.org. WED-SUN Design Senior Show an exhibition of graphic design, illustration and interior design work created by senior students in the University of Central Oklahoma’s Department of Design, 5-8 p.m. April 11. CHK/Central Boathouse, 732 S. Riversport Drive, 405-552-4040, boathousedistrict.org. THU Kathleen Morris, Larry Hefner and Diana Smith an exhibition featuring Morris and Hefner’s abstract expressionist paintings and Smith’s sculptures, through April 30. JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N. Walker Ave., 405-528-6336, jrbartgallery.com. MON-TUE

Textile Tuesdays: Easter Make and Take create your own Easter bunny at this workshop hosted by Mod Quad Collective, 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. April 16. Artspace at Untitled, 1 NE Third St., 405-8159995, 1ne3.org. TUE This Land, From Prairie to Desert an exhibition of watercolor and mixed-media works by Deborah Burian, through April 28. Contemporary Art Gallery, 2928 Paseo St., 405-601-7474, contemporaryartgalleryokc.com. FRI-SUN Visceral Tendencies an exhibition of works by artist-in-residence Morgan Robinson, through May 8. Oklahoma City University School of Visual Arts, 1601 NW 26th St., 405-208-5226, okcu.edu/artsci/departments/visualart. WED

The Love of Color an exhibition of paintings by Oklahoma City artist Nancy Junkin, through April 28. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405445-7080, myriadgardens.com. THU-SUN

Canterbury Voices: Carmina Burana In celebration of its 50th anniversary season, Canterbury Voices chorus is performing one of its most popular concerts, German composer Carl Orff’s cantata based on selections from the medieval poetry collection Carmina Burana. Even if you’ve never heard of the work, you’ve most likely heard its “O Fortuna,” the epic Latin choir piece that’s appeared in countless TV shows and movies as shorthand for, “This is totally epic.” The concert is 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Thelma Gaylord Performing Arts Theatre at Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave. Tickets are $15-$62. Visit okcciviccenter.com. SATURDAY Photo Joy Neel, Tapestry Photographs / provided

VISUAL ARTS Against the Grain an exhibition of artful furniture created from salvaged and reclaimed wood by Zach True Hammack, through April 28. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. THU-SUN Ancient. Massive. Wild – The Bison Exhibit view paintings, photographs, and sculptures celebrating the bison’s importance in the history

of the American West, through May 12. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405-478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum. org. SAT-SUN Beach Scapes an exhibition of photographer Simon Hurst’s photos taken along the beaches of the Florida panhandle, through May 16. American Choral Directors Association, 545 Couch Drive, 405-2328161, acda.org. THU

Mo Faux an exhibition of ceramics created by artists specializing in the trompe l’oeil method, in which pieces appear to be made from different materials such as styrofoam or rusted metal, through April 25. Melton Gallery, 100 N. University Drive, Edmond, 405-525-3603, uco.edu. MON-THU Navajo Weaving Sale and Silent Auction an exhibition of more than 100 contemporary and antique weavings including pieces from Grey Hills, Ganado, Burnham and Shiprock, April 12-13. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405-478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org.

FRI-SAT

Recycled Papermaking Workshop learn how to make your own one-of-a-kind paper from reused materials at this workshop led by Emma Difani, 1-4 p.m. April 13. Artspace at Untitled, 1 NE Third St., 405-815-9995, 1ne3.org. SAT Testimony: The Life and Work of David Friedman an exhibition of portraits, landscapes and more by the artist and Holocaust survivor, Through May 26. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave., Norman, 405-325-3272, ou.edu/fjjma. THU-SUN

Submissions must be received by Oklahoma Gazette no later than noon on Wednesday seven days before the desired publication date. Late submissions will not be included in the listings. Submissions run as space allows, although we strive to make the listings as inclusive as possible. Fax your listings to 528-4600 or e-mail them to listings@okgazette.com. Sorry, but phone submissions cannot be accepted.

For OKG live music

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June 3-7

June 10-14 June 17-21 June 23-28 July 7-13

July 15-19 July 15-19 July 15-19 July 22-26

Summer Dance Workshop

Ages 8+

Summer Dance Repertory

Ages 13+

Summer Drama Workshop I

Ages 7-18

Rock Camp I

Ages 12-18

THE Music Camp

Ages 14-18

Rock Camp II

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Summer Art Camp

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Summer Jazz Camp

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Dance & Down Syndrome Music Theatre Camp Summer Drama Workshop II

Ages 13+ Ages 7-18

Enroll Now! Register by April 30 for early-bird discount! ocae.uco.edu • 405.974.3754 • ocae@uco.edu

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EVENT

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Lift off

Princess brings its multimedia feminist album Out There to 21c Museum Hotel. By Jeremy Martin

Like many cinematic science fiction epics, Princess’ animated album-length music video Out There begins with sustained synthesizers and explanatory text. “Proclaiming Earth to be a misogynistic dystopia,” the introductory titles read, “the art-pop super duo Princess prepares a rocket ship to find a better world. As only two white men could.” Princess is scheduled to perform Out There while screening the accompanying film 7 p.m. Monday at 21c Museum Hotel, 900 W. Main St. A collaboration between Michael O’Neill (The Ladybug Transistor, MEN) and Alexis Gideon (a multimedia artist known for animated video operas), Out There is the follow-up to the duo’s self-titled 2005 debut, but Princess’ latest project is more than a record. “We call it a sci-fi feminist rock opera,” O’Neill said. “Genre conformity has never been our specialty. … It’s a video-art piece; it’s a musical album.” Following a March 1 premiere at Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum, Princess is touring with the film as a performance art piece before determining whether to release the music — ornately layered, trip-hop-inspired indierock also featuring synth-rockers TEEN — as a standalone album. The songs, pieced together track by track via email, began to take shape in 2016 as a reason for O’Neill and Gideon to reunite Princess while living in separate states, but the duo began to see a clearer purpose for the project after the presidential election. The “seed of the idea” for Out There became firmly planted after O’Neill and Gideon went to the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., following the inauguration. “[We decided] this should be a piece about women and about misogyny and about what we as men are supposed to be doing or how we’re supposed to be participating in that movement,” O’Neill said. “The lyrics were sort of in process at that point. I think that some of them were already written, and it was kind of revealing itself as we listened back, what the subconscious narrative kind of was. More lyrics came after we decided to make a piece explicitly about this. Some of it was sort of organically coming out with the subtext of oppression or misogyny.” Though the themes became more solidified after the Women’s March, O’Neill said the duo have been thinking about women’s rights and the damaging impact of misogyny for several years. “Feminism and the notion of toxic masculinity aren’t something that only Princess performs the music for Out There live while screening the album-length music video 7 p.m. Monday at 21c Museum Hotel. | Photo provided

dawned on us while making this piece,” O’Neill said. “As we’ve grown up and become men, it’s just something that I feel I’ve always paid attention to.” His time in MEN with multimedia artist and former Le Tigre member JD Samson (who makes a guest appearance on Out There’s anthemic “Rise Up”) gave O’Neill additional perspective. “That really informed my feminism,” he said, “because that work was very political, and I feel like I learned a lot about myself and about this topic by collaborating with women. It’s sort of been a lifelong journey of understanding the kind of man that I want to be.” Still, the idea of creating an artwork about feminism was somewhat daunting for the two men. “It is tricky, and it sometimes feels scary,” O’Neill said. “You don’t want to say the wrong thing or you don’t want to come across like, ‘Look at me. I’ve got all the answers as a man talking about women’s issues.’ But at the same time, I don’t want to be afraid of it, either, because it’s important that men take up just as much urgency around this issue as women do, especially since men are inherently more in positions of control in our society. If we are in those positions, we should use that to be feminist and to make sure that we’re doing the right thing and we’re saying the right thing by women.”

Getting There

Recording the music for Out There, O’Neill estimated, took about a year, and creating the film, which largely consists of still photographs of the duo animated using stop-motion techniques — with additional artwork representing the “Divine Feminine” created by visual artist Jennifer Meridian — took another. The project might have taken much longer if not for Gideon’s animation experience, which allowed him to fix

mistakes during the editing process. “It takes a long time to sort of move your arm 16 different times just to raise your arm or whatever,” O’Neill said. “The first time you’re trying to do a walk cycle, we call it — just to get an animation of you walking across the street — you’ve got to learn, ‘OK, this foot goes here. This foot goes here,’ but after doing it so many times, you just kind of get quicker at it.”

I learned a lot about myself and about this topic by collaborating with women. Michael O’Neill The film element — which features Princess performing a final show on Earth before blasting off on literal crotch rockets, escaping from a smartphonepowered prison, fist-fighting in outer space and other, more difficult to describe actions — is necessary to explaining Out There’s storyline, O’Neill said. “The lyrics have an abstractness to them, so the visual element really helps drive home a narrative,” he said. Out There is a story about two men attempting to find a refuge from Earth’s misogyny in the cosmos, but O’Neill said that women are ultimately the ones who need space. “I think that we have to make space

Princess (Alexis Gideon left and Michael O’Neill) in a scene from its “sci-fi feminist rock opera” Out There | Photo provided

for women in places where we take up more space,” O’Neill said. “We need to listen to women more, especially in areas where a woman’s voice should be the priority. … I definitely don’t want to come across and say, ‘We need to say more,’ because that’s not the motivation here. However, I think … if the urge to say something in support of women comes to us — and in this case it came to Princess in this artistic way — that we didn’t want to feel like we shouldn’t or we can’t because when people think of feminism, I think they think primarily about women who are feminists, and we need to understand that feminism is something that needs to come as much from everybody. It’s about equality.” The film’s handmade-looking sci-fi elements represent not large-scale white knight heroics, but the small individual and collective efforts that can help shape the world around us. “It’s important to realize how this plays out in our own lives, even in miniscule ways, at home or at work or whatever,” O’Neill said. “It’s not just about grand gestures of, ‘How do we solve this crisis of misogyny?’ It’s about, ‘How do we treat the women in our lives, whether that’s family or friends or colleagues or people on the street, people that you meet at a store or wherever it may be, just the women that you interact with every day? How do we make space for them? How do we treat them? How do they feel around us, and why? How can we, as men, support women better?’” Admission is free. Visit 21cmuseumhotels.com/oklahomacity.

Princess 7 p.m. Monday 21c Museum Hotel 900 W. Main St. 21cmuseumhotels.com | 405-982-6900 Free

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MUSIC

Vinyl celebration Area record stores celebrate Record Store Day in different ways. By Jacob Threadgill

The celebration of April’s Record Store Day has mirrored the resurgence of the vinyl record sales over the last decade. As vinyl now accounts for more than a third of all physical music sales, its highest percentage since 1988 according to information from Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), April 13th’s Record Store Day is slated to be its biggest since its 2007 inception, with more than 500 special releases. Streaming and digital music sales make up the bulk of the music industry’s $9.8 billion in retail value, with $7.4 billion of that figure coming from streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify’s premium tier. But vinyl, once left for dead in the early 2000s, has made a dramatic comeback. According to RIAA data, new vinyl sales were about 2 million units in 2007 but topped 16 million in 2017. That number increased another 8 percent, rising to $419 million last year, as revenue from compact disc (CD) sales plummeted from $1.15 billion in 2017 to $698 million last year. In celebration of Record Store Day (RSD), metro area record stores are participating by entertaining lines of guests and selling RSD’s special releases, while another — Trolley Stop Record Shop — is hosting a party with live music and food.

Guestroom Records 125 E. Main St., Norman 405-701-5974 3701 N. Western Ave. 405-601-3859 guestroomrecords.com Many of RSD’s special releases are issued in limited quantities — many less than 3,000 total copies across the country — so getting the most-wanted titles can be competitive. Guestroom Records owner Justin Sowers said Guestroom Records in Oklahoma City | Photo Alexa Ace

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people routinely camp out overnight at the Norman location. “The earliest anyone has shown up is at 8:30 on Friday morning [the day before RSD],” Sowers said. “It’s pretty competitive for the first 15-20 positions, but then after that, you can show up during daylight hours.” Guestroom opens an hour early, at 10 a.m., and lets five people in at a time for two-minute intervals, “so that it’s not a stampede,” Sowers said. As the number of RSD releases has grown over the years, Sowers said that Guestroom tries to be more selective in what it orders by listening to customers to gauge what they should get extra copies of. In the early years, Sowers said Guestroom would at least try to order one of every release, but it has chosen to be more selective on smaller releases. “We didn’t order everything, but most things,” Sowers said. He said RSD’s most-wanted releases include an original test pressing of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, a picture disc of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, a mono version of Pink Floyd’s A Saucerful of Secrets, a double LP from Prince, His Majesty’s Pop Life: The Purple Mix Club, two Grateful Dead live performances and Death Grips’ Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber Megamix). “I’m personally excited about the Skip Spence three-LP release (AndOarAgain),” Sowers said. “I don’t know how many other people will pay $80 for it, but if I only buy one thing, it’s going to be that. I’m a huge fan and he only put out one record, so three LPs worth of material is a gift.” Sowers said Guestroom will release 1,000 fresh used records and have a storewide sale and is looking forward to a regular RSD after last year’s festivities that included a collaboration with Dogfish Head Brewery and The Flaming Lips, which released a 7-inch inspired by the brewery’s pale ale, and the re-issue of Oklahoma soul band

Messengers Incorporated on Guestroom’s record label. “The chaos was barely controlled,” Sowers said of last year’s festivities that included appearances by Lips members Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd and surviving members of Messengers Incorporated. “This year, we said, ‘Let’s not worry too much about the craziness and just worry about having the best records out there.’”

3 Dachshunds 2508 W. Edmond Road, Edmond facebook.com/3dachshundsrecords 405-340-0933 Owner Jack Ware opened his record store in an Edmond shopping center four and a half years ago, and Ware said his business has increased every year. “As my business has increased over the years, I’ve become more familiar with artists I didn’t know much about,” Ware said. “It’s a constant re-evaluation of what I have or what I can sell. Every day, I’m asked about a group I’ve never heard of before. There are thousands of them out there.” For RSD, 3 Dachshunds will have plenty of special releases, many ordered after talking to customers. The store will offer 10 percent off used vinyl, 25 percent on 45s and 30 percent on country records. “It’s always our best day of the year,” Ware said of RSD. “It’s like a second Christmas because when people come in to buy Record Store Day releases, they always buy other new items as well as vintage.”

Trolley Stop Record Shop is located in the old Penn Theater. | Photo Alexa Ace

Ware said he usually gets a line of customers that goes at least 12 to 15 deep. “I don’t care if I have 100 people outside; when I open the door, it’s open for everyone,” Ware said.

Trolley Stop Record Shop 1212 N. Pennsylvania Ave. 405-208-8833 While Trolley Stop doesn’t order RSD special releases, it will honor the day by hosting live music and food at its location in the old Penn Theater. “We just make it a party, which is what it is,” owner John Dunning said. “It’s Record Store Day for record stores. We get those special releases on trade, and we do have [previous year’s RSD releases]. We’ve got plenty.” Trolley Stop will open 10 a.m. Saturday and have music on its stage by 11 a.m. Dunning said that drummer John Barbata of The Turtles; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and Jefferson Airplane / Starship will be at the store to sign copies of his memoir. Trolley Stop has recently expanded its space to allow for music bins to be rolled into the auxiliary space and provide for larger live music performances in the future. Oklahoma City’s Black Powder Charlies and Omahabased Pole Cat are among the performers during RSD.

3 Dachshunds in Edmond offers special releases as well as a sale on used vinyl on Record Store Day. | Photo Alexa Ace

LIVE MUSIC SUNDAY, APR. 14

These are events recommended by Oklahoma Gazette editorial staff members. For full calendar listings, go to okgazette.com.

Celtic Jam, Full Circle Bookstore. FOLK In the Whale, Blue Note Lounge. ROCK Lorna Shore/Enterprise Earth/Aberrant Construct, 89th Street-OKC. METAL

WEDNESDAY, APR. 10

Mandolin Orange, Tower Theatre. FOLK

Haunt/Hell Fire, Blue Note Lounge. METAL

MONDAY, APR. 15

Jazz Is Phish, Tower Theatre. JAZZ Kyle Dillingham & Horseshoe Road, Church of the Servant. FOLK/COUNTRY The Lone Bellow, The Blue Door. ACOUSTIC Skull Fist/Star Kill, 89th Street-OKC. METAL

THURSDAY, APR. 11 Entheos/Wolf King/Lucid Awakening, 89th StreetOKC. METAL Hot House Band, Othello’s Italian Restaurant. JAZZ The Jauntee/Rousey, The Deli. ROCK JL Jones, Eatery & Cocktail Office @ The Union.

Henna Roso Henna Roso is fighting hunger with tasty grooves. For the Tulsa funk-jazz-fusion band/nonprofit, every concert is a food drive. “People are going to come out, drink and dance anyways; they might as well have something they can contribute to help people in need,” bassist Taylor Graham told Tulsa Voice in 2016 following a concert that reportedly raised 2,166 meals and 1,090 pounds of food for Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma. For this OKC show, local keyboardist Jeremy Thomas is sitting in on keys. (Help others) eat to the beat 8 p.m. Thursday at Saints Pub, 1715 NW 16th St. Admission is free with the donation of 10 nonperishable food items or $10 without. Call 405-602-6308 or visit saintspubokc.com. THURSDAY Photo Emily Steward / provided

Howling Giant/Rainbows Are Free, 89th Street-OKC. ROCK

Jason Hunt, Sean Cumming’s Irish Restaurant. FOLK

TUESDAY, APR. 16 Kyle Reid, Scratch Kitchen & Cocktails. SINGER/

SONGWRITER

Red Sun Rising/Goodbye June, 89th Street-OKC. ROCK

WEDNESDAY, APR. 17 The Wailers, Tower Theatre. REGGAE

ACOUSTIC

FRIDAY, APR. 12

Honest Men/Bad Jokes/Adam Ragsdale, The Root. ROCK

Brett James/David Hodges/Marcus Hummon, Tower Theatre. SINGER/SONGWRITER

Alan Jackson, Chesapeake Energy Arena. COUNTRY

Kyle Rainer, Remington Park. COUNTRY

Jamie Bramble, Full Circle Bookstore. ACOUSTIC

Caleb Brown/Erik Oftedahl/Chase Kerby, Plaza District. SINGER/SONGWRITER

Mad Honey/Gloom Cruise/Brooding, Opolis. ROCK

Kyle Rainer, Remington Park. COUNTRY

Combichrist/Silver Snakes, 89th Street-OKC. ELECTRONIC

Dr. Pants/Magic Munchbox/Dire Gnome, 51st Street Speakeasy. ROCK Gladys Knight, WinStar World Casino. R&B

Ravens Three, Full Circle Bookstore. ACOUSTIC Reverend Horton Heat, Tower Theatre. ROCK Whiskey Dick/Duane Mark, Lost Highway. ROCK

SATURDAY, APR. 13

The Lost End/Carly Gwin & the Sin, Opolis. ROCK

Shut It Down 2, Biltmore Hotel. HIP-HOP Sign of Lies/Halo on Fire/5 Dollar Thrill, Oklahoma City Limits. ROCK

Live music submissions must be received by Oklahoma Gazette no later than noon on Wednesday seven days before the desired publication date. Late submissions will not be included in the listings. Submissions run as space allows, although we strive to make the listings as inclusive as possible. Fax your listings to 528-4600 or e-mail to listings@okgazette.com. Sorry, but phone submissions cannot be accepted.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY Homework: What other sign would you want to be if you could take a vacation from your actual sign? Why? Write Freewillastrology.com. ARIES (March 21-April 19)

The Qing Dynasty controlled China from the midseventeenth century to the early twentieth century. It was the fifth biggest empire in world history. But eventually it faded, as all mighty regimes do. Revolution came in 1911, forcing the last emperor to abdicate and giving birth to the Republic of China. I’m inclined to think of your life in 2019 as having some similarities to that transition. It’s the end of one era and the beginning of another; a changing of the guard and a passing of the torch. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to be very active in deciding and visualizing the empire you want next.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

I hope that sometime soon you’ll acquire a new source of support or inspiration. Now is a phase of your astrological cycle when you’re likely to attract influences that are in alignment with your deep values. This addition might be a person or animal. It could be a vibrant symbol or useful tool. It may even be a fantasy character or departed ancestor that will stimulate vitality you haven’t been able to summon on your own. Be on the lookout for this enhancement.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

Poet David Hinton analyzed the Chinese word for “poetry.” Its etymological meaning is “words spoken at the fertility altar.” Let’s make that your theme, even if you don’t write or read poetry. I suspect the coming weeks will be a favorable time to take a vow or utter a solemn intention in front of a homemade fertility altar. The oath you speak might express a desire to boost your use of your physical vitality: your lust for life, your adoration of the natural world, or your power to produce new human life. Or your vow to foster your fertility could be more metaphorical and symbolic in nature: the imaginative intimacy you will explore or the creativity you’ll express in future works of art or the generous effects you want to have on the world.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Christopher Robin Milne was the son of author A. A. Milne, who wrote the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. He said there are two ways to navigate through life. Either you “take a bearing on something in the future and steer towards it, or take a bearing on something in the past and steer away from it.” So in his view, “There are those who look ahead and pull and those who look behind and push.” I’m hoping that in the coming weeks and months, you will make a delighted commitment to the first option: taking a bearing on something in the future and steering towards it. I think that approach will inspire you toward the most interesting success.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)

The national animal of Finland is the brown bear. The national insect is the ladybug and the national instrument is a stringed instrument known as the kantele. As for the national author, it’s Aleksis Kivi, who produced just one novel that took him ten years to write. He also published a short collection of odes and a few plays, adding up to a grand total of less than 800 pages of work. I think that the efforts you make in the coming weeks could have a disproportionately large impact, as well, Leo. What you lack in quantity will be irrelevant compared to the sheer quality you generate.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

I follow the blogger Evanescent Voyager because she makes me cry with sad joy and exultant poignance on a regular basis. One of her other fans wrote her a love note I could have written myself. It said, “Your emotional brilliance and thoughtful passion break me into pieces and then weave me back together with more coherence than I had before reading you. I revere your alchemical talent for undoing me so you can heal me; for lowering my defenses so I can be open to your riches; for demolishing my habitual trance so you can awaken my sleeping genius.” I believe that in the coming weeks, life itself will offer to perform these same services for you, Virgo. I urge you to accept!

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

“Love is no assignment for cowards.” That’s a quote

attributed to the ancient Roman poet Ovid. What did he mean? Was he foreshadowing the wisdom of pop singer Pat Benatar, who in 1983 told us, “Love is a battlefield”? Was Ovid implying that to succeed in the amorous arts we must be heroic warriors prepared to overcome fears and risk psychological dangers? Probably. But I will also point out that it takes as much courage to create fun, interesting togetherness as it does to wrestle with the problems that togetherness brings. You need just as much bravura and panache to explore the sweet mysteries of intimacy as you do to explore the achy mysteries of intimacy. Keep these thoughts in mind as you marshal your audacity to deepen and expand your best relationships in the coming weeks.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

The literal meaning of the French term jolie-laide is “pretty and ugly.” Bloggers at wordsnquotes.com define it as follows: “It’s a fascinating quirkiness that’s irresistible, like a face you want to keep looking at even if you can’t decide whether it is beautiful or not.” Jolie-laide overlaps with the Japanese term wabi-sabi, which describes a person or thing that is lovely because of its imperfection and incompleteness. I bring these facts to your attention because I think you have extraordinary potential to be a master embodier of both jolie-laide and wabi-sabi in the coming weeks.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

As Czech playwright Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) matured, he became a political dissident who opposed the Soviet Union’s authoritarian grip on his country. Eventually he was a key player in the Velvet Revolution that banished Communism. When Czechoslovakia emerged as a new democracy, its people elected him president. Havel later thanked Lou Reed and the band the Velvet Underground for fully awakening his liberationist leadership. He said their unruly music stoked his longing to establish a culture where total creative freedom was possible. I mention this, Sagittarius, because now is a favorable time to identify the music or art or films or literature that might fuel your emancipation in the coming months.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Capricorn author J. R. R. Tolkien toiled on his masterpiece The Lord of the Rings for twelve years. Once he finished, it wasn’t published for more than five years. So seventeen years passed between the time he launched his precious project and the time when it reached an audience. I don’t think you will need that much patience in shepherding your own venture to full expression, Capricorn. But I hope you’ll summon as much faith in yourself as Tolkien had to rouse in himself. To do so will bring out the best in you!

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Released in 1998, The Prince of Egypt is an animated film that tells the story of the Hebrew prophet Moses. In the climactic event, the hero uses magic to part the waters of the Red Sea, allowing his people to run across the sea floor and escape the army that’s chasing them. To make that seven-minute scene, 28 professional animators labored for 318,000 hours. In the coming months, you could create your own version of that marvel, Aquarius. But you’ll need a team to help you, and that team is not yet ready to go. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to get it ready, though.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)

Piscean businessman Steve Jobs testified that taking LSD was “one of the two or three most important things” he ever did in his life. It opened his mind in ways he felt were crucial to his development. What are the three most important things you’ve ever done, Pisces? I invite you to revisit at least one of them, and see if you can take it to the next step of its power to inspire you. What if it has even more to offer you in your efforts to become the person you want to be?

Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes /daily text message horoscopes. The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700. O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | A P R I L 1 0 , 2 0 1 9

PUZZLES NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE CROSSWORD PUZZLE HELP! | 0414 By Peter A. Collins Puzzles edited by Will Shortz

ACROSS

1 It might end up in a sack 9 E neighbor 15 Nada 20 Robots 21 “Not exactly, but close …” 22 Filmmaker Coen 23 Checkout devices 24 Tired tale 26 Seriously annoy 27 Roll out, as a flag 29 Stuff in a muffin, say? 30 Neighbor of Oklahoma 31 Exciting, in modern lingo 32 Rock, maybe 36 Danson’s Cheers role 38 End of some hybrid dog breed names 39 NYC dance company 40 Hounds 42 Tidbits for aardvarks 43 Bearded beast 44 They go with potatoes in soup 46 Sting operator 49 Regarding 51 Vitamin stat 52 Hosts, in brief 55 Italian cheese 59 Peel place 61 Out at a library, say 63 “Yeah, why not” 64 Cyrus who sang the 2013 No. 1 hit “Wrecking Ball” 66 Once did 67 States, informally 68 Be prone 69 Radiated 70 Leafy salad ingredient 72 Didn’t delay 74 Inexperienced 75 Fool 76 Something frequently found in pink lipstick 77 Pupil’s location 78 Stabilizes with a heavy load 81 Lump in the throat 82 Geologic period 83 Get upset over 84 Lincoln-to-Madison dir. 85 Sunrise direction, in Stuttgart 87 River in a 1914 battle 90 Skim 92 Not a science, but ____ 94 & 95 What often seems to disappear in a dryer 98 N.C. military installation 102 ____ Trois Mousquetaires 103 Big do 104 Appealed to a higher authority? 107 Religious time in spring 109 Critical message that’s a hint to the six longest entries in this puzzle 110 Circular components? 111 Cave dweller 113 Caruso and Pavarotti 114 It makes for a boring job 115 1973 Beach Boys song 119 Three Stooges insult 123 Sal of Rebel Without a Cause 124 Course of action 125 Stretched tight 126 Caribbean game fish

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33 Cab alternative 34 Common Market org. 35 Starting point in logic 37 Swimmers’ assignments 41 Slippery vendor 45 The Wildcats of the NCAA 47 Jason with the 2008 hit “I’m Yours” 48 Poet Lowell 50 Store window sign 52 Dress seller 53 Take root 54 Sweet summer treat 56 1978 Dire Straits hit 57 The Ram 58 Doesn’t just want 60 Word said in passing? 62 Headed up 64 Morning Joe airer 65 Rumor starter 71 Timecard abbr. 72 Prized pitcher 73 Please too much 75 “Unto us ____ is given” 79 Like a string bean 80 Blood-typing letters 86 Word with bay or family 88 Course registrant 89 Cars that disappeared during the Depression 91 “Don’t know yet,” on a schedule 92 Prefix with industry

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